Tips to Shake Up Your Next Zoom Meeting

laptop with zoom meeting on the screen and coffee cup beside it

We are coming up on the 1-year anniversary of the pandemic which launched our way of working today, the ubiquitous video/zoom meetings. If you’re like me, I’m bored with the zoom meetings I attend. Use these tips to shake up your next zoom meeting. Have a background contest. Use the virtual background video option in…

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Top 5 Strategies to Empower Your Team

6 coworkers hands in center stacked

Top-down style of leadership is not an effective way of leading people. The mistake many leaders make, whether consciously or not, is to believe that they need to “command” or “shape” their team members. Which can lead to resistance, and, more importantly, unhappy team members. Fortunately, there’s a powerful way of thinking that can help…

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Corporate America Is at a Crossroads

Country Dirt Road Intersection

Which side of history is your company going to be on? Flexibility or rigid structure? As leaders, we have ample evidence that remote working is achievable on a large scale over the last year. With COVID-19 forcing us all to shelter in place, that left no alternative but to work from home. That, for the…

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How Coronavirus Is Humanizing Corporate America

Father working on bed with laptop and daughter on his back

Since coronavirus hit and started our adapting to working from home, it has had a very unusual side effect. It has humanized corporate America. When we were all going into the office, we would leave our personal life at home, for the most part, and put on our professional life and go to work. Put…

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Leading Through Pandemic Exhaustion

COVID-19

Your employees are exhausted. You are exhausted. It is not just COVID-19 that is making everyone exhausted. Everyone appears to be on or near the edge. The consistent increase in daily stress is unrelenting this year. The 2020 election, no matter which side you are on, adds to the stress. Social unrest adds to the…

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Do You Have Direct Reports? You Lead Teams

Woman at Whiteboard in a team meeting

All leaders, managers, anyone that has someone that reports to them, leads teams which in turn creates team leaders. I say that as a way to reframe how leaders think of themselves. When you think of yourself as a team leader this allows for a completely different lens to view your direct reports. Yes, they…

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Strategies for Managing Up

African American woman and Caucasian women sitting across from each other at an office desk

Managing up sometimes gets a bad rap. You’re not in elementary school anymore where you might have been made fun of, called a “suck up” or the “Teacher’s Pet.” This is a critical skill set in the corporate world and important to your career and job satisfaction. Whether you have the best manager in the…

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Summer Brain – How to Shake It Off

Sunset on the Beach

Unofficially, when we pass the Labor Day holiday, summer is in the rear-view mirror and fall is ahead. During these COVID-19 times, the workload seems to only get bigger and the days longer. Yet, our attitude shifts a little during summer. We are outdoors more enjoying the weather, vacations/stay-vacations happen, if you have kids, they’re…

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Ready to Get Promoted? Tips to Help

Man In Suit Extending Hand Out

Ready to get promoted? You have decided you want a promotion and are ready for a change and more responsibly. How do you go about getting promoted? Some questions to ask yourself first. Do you think you want to manage people? Are you more of a contributor and don’t want to manage people? Really think…

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