A Recipe for Little Changes – Organizational and Personal

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Five steps to change the way things will be done – in the office and at home – by reducing resistance from others and including their best ideas.

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The Hard Work of Making Good Requests: Part I

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Help people give you what you really want by making complete requests that use all 6 “journalist questions”.

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Want Something? Get Specific.

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Wishing is a waste of time. Invest some brainpower in getting clear about what matters.

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Give Your Goals a Little “Infrastructure” for Success

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You can make a resolution to reach a goal – just include a communication plan to support your successful change.

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Big Change, Part III: Em-Powerment

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Matthew, the CEO of the company that is closing a regional office and laying off 11 staff members, talked with the HR manager. Her name was Emmeline, and everyone called her Em. She is tall, smart, and lovely, and she knows her business. When I told her I wished she had been at the first […]

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Big Change, Part II: Expanding the Executive Team

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Four weary senior executives came home from their 2-day “huddle” with a decision to close a regional office and eliminate 11 jobs in their company – the only solution they could find to solve the problems identified by a recent financial audit. The decision to decision to “outsource” the company’s marketing and communications responsibilities was […]

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Big Change, Part I: Conversations for Possibility

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A client organization has received a daunting financial audit: they’re losing money and must act quickly to save the company. I met with Matthew, the CEO, to discuss the way forward. He said, “My top 3 executives and I went into a 2-day “huddle” to review the audit report and talk about what we should […]

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Agreements for Change

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Last night was the final class on “Leadership and Implementing Change”, and graduate students reported the most valuable things they learned. Their #1 tip – Make agreements, track agreements, and follow up on agreements. Each student had done a semester-long project to define and implement a change in their workplace, applying the latest class lessons […]

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Productive Communication: Your Best Goal-Getting Tool

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I just looked up “management communication” to see how it is described in the world today. I’m a woman with an undergrad degree in Psychology, and two grad degrees in Engineering, and I admit to being horrified. The American Management Association has a communication training on “Getting Results Without Authority”, subtitled “How do you influence […]

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