M. Sutton

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

Has an employee ever told you that they don’t respect or trust you? Yes No View Results  Loading ... If you’ve ever been in the unfortunate position where a key employee hit ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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   ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.  ...

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) ...

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 ...

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 ...

If you’re an experienced leader in an organization, I bet you have at least one story about engaging an external consultant and not getting exactly what you’d hoped for. In all likelihood, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Regina is the kind of leader who you don’t see coming. She’s the leader of my church ladies fellowship group. Get this: I don’t actually attend her church. Nope. Not at all. ...

Context: I’m part of a meetup group whose purpose is to get people who don’t normally hike to try getting out into the great outdoors. Because of our mission, our activities are ...

Professionally-speaking, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was to terminate someone. Although that experience took place quite some time ago, I remember it as if it were yesterday. ...