The Courage to Be Curious
Leaders being asked to do more with less resources sometimes default to a “just get it done” attitude when tackling daily tasks. As a leadership tool, the willingness to evoke curiosity in these times often falls to the sidelines in one-on-one dialogues and team...
Benefits of Behavioral Logic Trees
While reading Phi Kappa Phi’s patterns themed Winter 2015 Forum, I thought about patterns of my own life. Specifically, I thought about how I develop patterns around my neophobia (neophobia, is the aversion, fear [phobia] of the unfamiliar, new [neo]). It is...
Do Governments Need Economic Development?
There are some who argue government has no business getting involved with economic development. They believe economic development is not a government function. Conversely, there are others who maintain economic development is the primary function of any American...
5 Reasons Why the Public Sector Needs Marketing
Marketing + public sector = success does not seem like a common equation. Marketing is the actions (sales, public relations, pricing, packaging and distribution) taken to place your product or service with a customer. It is synonymous with the private sector and...
You Have Chosen Your Current Income
What if you were told you are earning today exactly the amount you have chosen to earn, no more and no less; that you are where you are financially because you have chosen to be right there. Would you agree with that? Most would adamantly disagree. But the fact...
Women’s Leadership: Challenging Our Social Norms
Women are equally qualified for leadership positions as their male counterparts, however, less of us continue to fill political and corporate leadership positions. Most Americans find women indistinguishable from men on key leadership traits such as the capacity for...
Of Bridges and Connections
Life can often be described as a set of imperfect parts that occasionally come together in a perfect opportunity. In many cases, those opportunities are natural, uninfluenced and easily acted upon for all involved as a way to bring together two or more otherwise...
Information Governance Insights: The Exceptions
It is a constant in life that, no matter how perfect, there is always an exception to every rule. This is true in your Information Governance program as well.We spent a lot of time last year discussing how to build an effective program that can manage information...
Employee Retention: 5 Tips
Employee retention is critical to every business – including “high turnover” industries like childcare, automotive, retail, and more. Research shows that replacing an employee can cost up to 20 percent of the position’s annual salary. The focus of employee retention...
Government Leadership Needs More Women
Back in 1981, just 13 percent of chief administrative officers in government were women. Since then, that number hasn’t budged. It’s staggering to see what little progress has occurred in advancing the roles of women in government. Even with what appears to be a big...
Don’t Fear YouTube!
YouTube can be a very frightening place. Whether you’re a YouTuber user or you’re setting up a channel, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can end up down some deep rabbit holes. Started 10 years ago to share videos online, YouTube is now the realm of the...
Police Officers: Networking into a Second Career
Cops have the best networks. The bond between police officers is strong and builds a unique community of trust. Think about it. All those life and death situations that police come across, the stress, the many challenges and yes, the danger. It all works to bring them...
Bringing Storytime to the Boardroom and the Classroom
Think back to the last great presentation that you watched. How did the speaker begin? Did he or she start by jumping right into the details or did they launch into a narrative, setting the stage for what was to come? As presenters, in our jobs, community involvement,...
Social Science Celebrated
Why are the arts celebrated? Why are STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs heavily supported? Why are efforts to advance professions successful? Why DON’T we equally celebrate, support, and have success advancing non-arts humanities and social...
Information Governance: Communication & Training Plans
It’s not SOP if nobody knows about it We’ve been talking for months about how to build an Information Governance program for your organization. You’ve got a steering committee in place, the records identified, retention established, repository ready and you are ready...
Who Are “YOU” When You Do What You Do?
Do people – employees, peers, bosses, customers, everyone – feel valued when they interact with you? Do they feel listened to – and heard? Do they feel you make every effort to address their needs – or explain what you can do for them? In our “get it done,” fast-paced...
A Positive Article About Dying!
I appreciate my demise is a regular theme of my writing. But maybe it is important that I prompt contemplation of this huge, inevitable event that most of us spend our lives trying to ignore. And perhaps a more useful outcome of my reflections is that they were not...
Unleashing the Potential of Women Entrepreneurs
Recent studies have shown that women are half as likely than men to start a business. While this is a gender equality issue, it is also an economic one. We compose over 50 percent of the U.S. population, have earned 60 percent of undergraduate degrees, 60 percent of...