I still have the email. It's been years since a highly placed corporate boss, who had the reputation and approach that things were never quite good enough, sent it to me. He was long on critique and revisions; short on acknowledgement and appreciation. Anyone else reading his message would deem it ordinary. No flowery words, no glowing adjectives, no verbose flattery or deliberate feel-good rhetoric. It was written i...

Social media and a 24/7 news-frenzy fuel distrust no matter one's political leanings. From governmental leaks to behind closed door healthcare dismantling, we live in times of intrigue, spin, rumor, jockeying, and miscommunication; some deliberate, some not. And all of that being accelerated and highlighted via technology. No wonder trust in government nears historic lows. While most of us don't work in such poli...

During The Great Recession, thanks to frequent-flyer points and a vacation club exchange, we spent a week in Hawaii for the cost of a rental car and food. While a fun and relaxing vacation, it was strange to be at an ocean-front Maui resort during peak tourist season, without the tourists. Several restaurants on this forty-acre property were even closed. The bellman who showed us around told us he'd been working at t...

I tried time management, increased efficiency, being more productive, working more hours plus weekends-and-nights during a first-act career that took me from a minimum wage employee, through various management roles, to a Vice President of a multibillion dollar company. At the same time I was a wife, mom, and sometimes elder care giver, seeking to have 'balance' in my 'real life' while trying to squeeze in time to work on a...

The 40 hour workweek is a myth for the majority of people who work full-time for two reasons. First, sometimes we have to work more, and second, sometimes we want to. When I’m writing a book or working on a new project, I rarely notice the hours. I’m focused, engaged, and challenged. I’m working early, I’m working late, and I’m grabbing every minute I can. But when I have to do something I&rsqu...

“He who cannot dance will say: the drum is bad.” Too many people I’ve encountered use a philosophy akin to this African proverb to navigate their work. It’s easier to blame the drum or the boss, the co-worker or the company. Easier to criticize the workload, the training or lack of it, the pay or one’s upbringing. And easier to fault anything and everyone rather than their own actions, choices,...

An excerpt from my new book, It's Not About Time. WHAT DO YOU WANT? Do you want to halt the busyness commandeering your life? Replace overwhelmed with control and balance? Or maybe you'd like to have more time with the people and endeavors that matter to you? Perhaps you'd like to explore, discover, and embrace life's wonders? Or, write that book, coach your child's soccer team, volunteer in the commu...

When faced with catching a fly ball, Lucy missed again. "The past got in my eyes," she told Charlie Brown, "I thought I had it, but suddenly I remembered all the others I'd missed."I've known hundreds of workplace Lucys. People who let their past get in the way of their future; who self-determine what they're going to do, can do, or might be able to do by what they didn't do, haven't done, or even failed at. They stay align...

In the late 17th-century, Lord Chesterfield, an English writer and politician, wrote to his son, "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well." Over three hundred years later, we still heed this advice from the fourth Earl of Chesterfield. Yet, doing something well doesn't mean doing it perfectly. The 21st-century workplace requires more than doing something well.Today's adage should be: "Whatever is worth doing, is...

It was his perception that caused the outburst. "Why aren't there any managers in these sessions? Why aren't they required to attend, too?" he challenged.Hired to provide workshops on building trust in a workplace lacking it, I answered his question to the extent I could during that first session, "It's my understanding that everyone is attending," I offered. "But let me find out for sure and get back to you."Confirming at...