M. Sutton
Why Do We Do this Work?
Culture & Leadership
Why We Do this Work - Supporting Organizational Culture Development Did you know that when people have bad days at work, their families usually absorb the emotional impact? Moreover, studies show that ...
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The Leaders’ Needs Matter, Too
Good Weekends
This blog post is a companion post for, "Your First Job Is To Make Them Feel Safe". I was glad that things went well for them, but I didn’t get what I ...
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Your First Job is to Make Them Feel Safe
Good Weekends | 2 Comments
I hope you’re planning a good weekend…This past weekend, I went hiking twice. If you’ve never bested a mountain, you don’t know joy! --------------------------------------------------------------- On Saturday, I took an older couple from ...
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I Can’t Believe They Said That!
Culture & Leadership
Has an employee ever told you that they don’t respect or trust you? Yes No View Results Loading ... If you’ve ever been hit you with such a hard to hear declaration, ...
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16 Perspectives on Conflict Management
Conflict & Leadership
Whether on or off the clock, every leadership challenge has conflict baked into it. Yet, very few people readily walk toward conflict because it often makes people feel trapped. Moreover, data shows ...
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Get Better Results from Your Consultants
Conflict & Leadership
Have you ever completed an engagement with a consultant and thought, "I got what I paid for, but I didn't get what I wanted. How do I get better results from a ...
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Do They Trust You?
Compliance
Harassment training is pointless if this isn’t in place first. When I conduct harassment prevention training, two things almost always happen. First, we spend a lot of time talking about the difference ...
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No More Basic Diversity Training
Culture & Leadership
If you know me well, you know I have a love/hate relationship with diversity training. I love what it is supposed to do. I generally hate how it's done. I also hate ...
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Addressing Harassment and Conflict is Empowering
Conflict & Leadership
Dealing with conflict is part of the reality of being on a team. So is harassment. But do we consider how leaders could make managing these issues an organizational strength? This is ...
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7 Steps for Incorporating Culture Change into HR Processes, No Matter When the Change Occurs
Culture & Leadership
Often, organizations want to change certain aspects of their cultures, and the need for change is often precipitated by fear of some sort, i.e., potential liability, loss of sales, declining employee morale ...
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Remote, Flexible, and Hyrbrid are NOT are NOT the same
Culture & Leadership
Is your organization remote, flexible, or hybrid? If you've gotta be at your desk from 9am - 5pm, whether at home or in the office, then, your job may be remote, but ...
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You are the Expert! What do you believe are the fundamentals of leadership?
Culture & Leadership
How often do you meditate on what you believe are the fundamentals of leadership (i.e., without these qualities, a person cannot be effective as a leader)? Yes, we can read all of ...
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A Leader’s Impact Beyond the Office
Culture & Leadership
When I heard about Dr. Antoinette Bonnie Candia-Bailey’s suicide and bullying, my heart sank. I took a long pause because I could, in fact, imagine some of what she must’ve experienced. Experiences ...
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The Employee Who Isn’t Thriving
Conflict & Leadership
If you can keep plants alive, you're probably good at understanding ppl and figuring out the conditions under which they thrive. Conversely, if you kill plants, you might want to ask if ...
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Employee Survey Skeptics Might Have a Point
Culture & Leadership
What's your main reason for distrusting employee survey data? The recommendations arising out of the data are so impractical, costly, or unfeasible that they can’t support be supported without more, better, or ...
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Are You Out Of Sync With Your Team?
Culture & Leadership
Are You Out Of Sync With Your Team? Your business is constantly evolving and being in values-based alignment will position you to meet the growing needs and expectations of your employees, partnerships, ...
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It’s Time
Culture & Leadership
Leaders, It's Time.... Recently, I had a conversation with the executive director of a nonprofit that took an interesting turn. We went from talking about dealing with conflict to “how long do ...
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Are You Afraid To Practice?
Culture & Leadership
In everything that we do in life, we know repetition helps us get better (regardless of your position on the nuances on the 10,000 hours rule. If you don’t know what I’m ...
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Do You Trust Blindly, SMARTly, or Not At All?
Books
The authors push you to reconcile your assumptions about the trustworthiness of people with the idea that your trust default position significantly impacts your relationships: essentially, your own biases and predispositions affect ...
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You Don’t Have to Fall
Good Weekends
Often, I lament that people don’t have hobbies and passions anymore. It seems that everything has turned into a vehicle to make money, become some sort of influencer, or strengthens one’s career. ...
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Camp Club Getaway: Adult Summer Camp!
Good Weekends
I hope you had a good weekend! Over Labor Day Weekend, I stepped into a version of myself that I’ve always admired: I attended adult summer camp at Camp Club Getaway in ...
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Leadership is Risky
Good Weekends | 2 Comments
I hope you had a good weekend - I did. This past weekend, I set out for a bike ride on Saturday morning. If you live in the northeast, you know we ...
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Teamwork OFF the Clock
Culture & Leadership
The majority of time, I do my outdoorsy stuff alone because I can be a bit self-centered: I want to go when I want to go, stay as long as I want, ...
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My Juneteenth was May 10th
Culture & Leadership | 3 Comments
One of the things that I never share with people who aren’t family (and I don’t share this with all of them) is that it bothers me that my family has always ...
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Make Conflict (Management) An Everyday Thing
Conflict & Leadership
Most people hate dealing with conflict! It’s uncomfortable, takes time, and frankly, it’s often low on the priority list. Seriously, each of us can think of other things we’d much rather do ...
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So, You Think Your Boss is Retaliating Against You
Conflict & Leadership
Other person: I think my boss may be retaliating against me. Me: ↓↓↓↓....................... (Yes, I said all of this!) Is this problem really retaliation? To begin, you should be careful about the ...
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5 Checklists to Get Your People Aligned for the New Year
Culture & Leadership
Take the beginning of the year to set the tone about what matters to you and your team! If you take all five steps, you’ll even set aside time for check-in throughout ...
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Identities WITH Benefits
Culture & Leadership
If you don’t celebrate Christmas or want to participate in gift exchanges, what is it like for you at work from Thanksgiving until the New Year? If you celebrate Christmas and its ...
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In the Grip of Chronic Stress
Conflict & Leadership
Three Things to Know about People and Stress that will Help EVERYBODY at Work People behave differently when they are operating under stress. Their best bet for working through stress comes from ...
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Influencer: Conflict Management Series (3 of 4)
Conflict & Leadership
Have you ever seen a leader at a stand off with their team about something that the leader asked or told them to do, but the team has refused to do? Rarely ...
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Reasons better than, “It’s the Law” to do Anti-Harassment Training
Compliance
If you only provide anti-harassment training because it satisfies risk management or compliance obligations, it’s time to shift your perspective! If you see it as a “check the box” thing, you’ll convey ...
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Books and Podcasts for Leaders
Culture & Leadership
Did you know that studies tell us leaders exceed their goals when their colleagues and direct reports describe them as having great emotional intelligence or good people skills? Data also tell us ...
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Yes, Sexual Orientation is Protected
Compliance
This past summer, the SCOTUS issued a decision that impacts how employers treat sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace. The decision addressed three legal cases all at once, and they ...
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Announcing “They”
Culture & Leadership
Why? Because necessity is the mother of adoption, and while debate about the word may seem new, singular they has been on an “inexorable forward march...” Time Magazine, January 17, 2020 ...
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I’M DONE! …Giving Up on an Employee
Compliance
Which employee are you most likely to give up on first? _______________________________________________________________ Employee 1: Can’t Do: Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities You have an employee on your team who has great energy and ...
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Are you a Coach, Supervisor, or Deadbeat Parent?
Culture & Leadership
Think about most of the leaders that you've worked with....would you say that you've worked with more As, Bs, or Cs? a) coaches (They help you figure out what's in your way ...
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When The Leader Won’t Lead
Conflict & Leadership
Note: our blog posts are written to be inclusive of gender-nonconforming and non-binary people; thus, you will see the pronoun “they” in many places where you would traditionally see he or she. ...
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Paternalism is a Fail in Employment, Including During Covid
Compliance
What does it mean to be a fair leader? What does it mean to be an empathetic one? Consider this situation. You are conducting interviews and one of the applicants is ...
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Because of COVID “I don’t feel safe” (Part 2 of 2)
Culture & Leadership
Key “Compliance” Employee Return to Work Issues. Click for resources on each of these. FYI, these rules apply to public, private, and nonprofit employers. 1. An employee says, I don’t feel safe ...
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Lead Them Back To Work (Part 1 of 2)
Culture & Leadership
Your team, maybe your entire organization, just took a major hit, but you need to get them back on track. You know they are skittish,justifiably so. You also know that you have ...
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Crucial Accountability: Conflict Management Series 2 of 4
Conflict & Leadership
This review of Crucial Accountability is the second of four extended reviews covering the Vital Smarts books, which also include Crucial Conversations, Influencer, and Change Anything. This focus of book is to ...
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Is it culture or “just checking the box”?
Culture & Leadership
How does your team know the difference between a true organizational value and things that “management and HR” require simply because they want to look better just in case the organization is ...
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Silence is NOT Golden
Culture & Leadership
Note: this message was originally designed to be a video, but due to circumstances beyond our control, it's now presented as text. It matters that YOU (you personally, not your your ...
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Don’t schedule the meeting until you can answer this question: 3 Tips Remote Employee Engagement
Culture & Leadership
Don’t schedule the meeting, virtual or in-person, until you can answer this question: “What do I want people to think, feel and do after the meeting?” Studies tell us that leaders think ...
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Rapid Fire Change and Self Care for Leaders
Culture & Leadership
Self Care for People Like You - Who Run Teams or Work Solo and Need to Pivot to Survive and Thrive Rapid sudden change is to leaders what a sudden heart ...
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I had an “IN OFFICE” team last week; Now, it’s REMOTE!
Culture & Leadership
What a Difference a Day Made. 24 little hours. Can we say that again! Who would have thought that we would be in a situation where, nearly overnight, a group of more ...
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Leader-Managers in a Crisis
Culture & Leadership
A crisis could almost be defined as any problem that we don’t have ready answers for that is going to have a significant impact no matter how we respond. It is the ...
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This is How the Fight Started…And Why It Keeps Going
Culture & Leadership
Want to see a fight at work? Easy! Just add one of these. Want to see a civil war at work? Add more than one. Perceptions of unfairness, including perceptions of favoritism. ...
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What’s Your Next Move? Your Team Plays Anticipatory Chess
Culture & Leadership
What do you think these 10 statements and questions represent? 1) Formal discipline and public acknowledgements: how often you give either and as a regular of what types of triggers? 2) ...
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Crucial Conversations and Emotional Intelligence
Conflict & Leadership
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said. Peter Drucker Some years ago, I wanted to create some videos. After a lot of hunting, I found a great videographer ...
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What Went Wrong?
Culture & Leadership
Wells Fargo managers interviewed women and people of color for already-filled jobs to make it look like they were trying to boost diversity, Joe Bruno says. A Dollar Tree in Indiana is ...
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You’re The Expert On Your Work Experiences!
Culture & Leadership
What do you really believe about the workplace? More specifically, what do you believe is the purpose of work, the role that work plays in our lives, and what makes for a ...
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Does Your Team Have a Holiday Wish List?
Culture & Leadership
I talk to employees to nearly everyday. Interestingly, it often seems like employees are unhappy, some sort of complaint, or a wish for a more perfect workplace. Broadly, the frustrations are as ...
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Please Be Advised: December 2019 Compliance News
Compliance
New Jersey Salary Ban: January 1st! On January 1st, 2020, New Jersey’s Diane B. Allen Equal Pay Act law goes into effect. Essentially, the new law prohibits an employer from an applicant ...
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Can I enforce a dress code at the holiday party?
Compliance
People think all work bets are off when they are not on the clock or at their desks. Whether for good or bad; they are wrong. Anything that connects an employee to ...
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The Holiday Work Slowdown
Culture & Leadership
Can you really get meaningful productivity out of employees in November and December? While it may seem counter-intuitive, the November - Mid January holiday season is an excellent time to get work ...
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Uh oh! My Manager Received a Harassment Complaint
Compliance
One of your managers receives a harassment complaint. Do they know what to do? While harassment complaints are never welcomed, they should be anticipated by your organization’s policies. Not only should your ...
Read More The MBTI, Teams, and EI
Culture & Leadership
The Myers Briggs Type Indicator, also known as the MBTI, is probably one of the most well-known personal assessment tools available. Whether someone completed the assessment while in college many years ago ...
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APPOV: Disengagement Begins with Small Things
Conflict & Leadership
Each week, I volunteer to count money for an organization. Since I have been doing it, it seems like there is a complaint every week about mistakes. The person who relays the ...
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The Consultant’s Dilemma
Culture & Leadership
One of my greatest stressors as a consultant is ending the project. Sometimes, I stress more than others, but I always stress and it’s about the same thing: will this project die ...
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