ReImagine Work Blog Posts

How Are You Creating Your Own Environment of Support?

September 6, 2011
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You might remember from last week how I found “grace in my coffee shop” when I was concerned about a writing project submission.  Today I found support at a “fork in the road” with a few poets sprinkled in for good measure (a sentence I never expected to write in this lifetime).
I’ve been working on [...]

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Grace Appeared at the Coffee Shop Today

August 31, 2011
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I’ve spent the last several days on my piece of a writing project I’m working on with colleagues.  The baristas at my favorite coffee shop have been observing me pacing, being very focused and intense.  Eventually they asked me what was going on.
I described how I was working really hard to make this piece worthwhile, [...]

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Treating People at Work Humanly – part 57 (She Just Won’t Get Off the Subject…)

August 23, 2011
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Yes, I said “humanly,” not humanely.  Humane treatment to me means the minimum standard, such as providing breaks, water and bathrooms.
No, I’m challenging you to take it a step further and go beyond biological needs, to higher-level human needs, such as the need to be seen, to know somebody has your back, to know there [...]

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Managers: Get Your Employees to Answer Their Own Questions

August 16, 2011
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Do you ever have people come to you at work, and want to work through a decision they already made?  Just to be clear, it’s a done deal.  They already acted on it.  But they want your take.
For one thing, it puts you between a rock and a hard place.  What if you see lots [...]

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Human Capital. How Inspir…zzzzzzz

August 9, 2011
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We as managers often use the term, “Human Capital,” without a second thought.
A financial term, I understand the need for it and yet it puts us in a potentially harmful mindset, objectifying those who are employed to get work done —also known as human beings.
Not only can objectifying be harmful from a human dignity standpoint, [...]

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The Truth Will Set You Free (But First it Might P*ss You Off)

August 2, 2011
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You might be familiar with this, when suggesting to your peer leaders that, as a collective, you should  acknowledge the truth of a difficult message, what you hear is: “We don’t want to be negative.”  As if employees won’t notice this is bad news…
If it’s employees’ emotional reactions you are trying to minimize, I’ve got to [...]

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Leaders: What Severus Snape Can Teach You About Your Employees

July 26, 2011
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[Spoiler Alert!!!  Caution, this post refers to secrets revealed in the last book and movie of the Harry Potter series.]
Given the final installment of Harry Potter (HP) is out on film, you might have noticed all these posts about what we can learn from HP about anything from leadership to personal finance to travel.
But, having [...]

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What We Can Learn about Leadership from Celeb Fashion Choices – Part 2

July 19, 2011
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What can we learn, you might ask?  If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.  Otherwise, check below for more choices  celebrities make that connect us to some do’s and don’ts relevant to leadership.

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6. Play with options, but in the end, don’t abandon your own common sense.
Don’t find yourself making a decision, presentation [...]

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What We Can Learn about Leadership from Celebrity Fashion Choices – Part 1

July 12, 2011
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One of my friends said my blog posts are most interesting to her when I mention clothes (see “She Had Me At, ‘I Got Rid of All My Business Suits“), so I took that as a challenge and came up with a connection between fashion and leadership.
Making use of some of the best-known style choices [...]

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What Farm Kids Know About Leadership

July 5, 2011
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I grew up on a farm.  Yep, that’s me at the left, at 5-years old, working with my father.  Notice the stripe-on-stripe outfit.  I dressed myself that day.  And that’s not the only thing I did that day…
Farm kids learn responsibility early.
I would say I “added value” as early as age 5.  I knew this [...]

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She Had Me at “I Got Rid of All My Business Suits”

June 28, 2011
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or “What are  you willing to let go of, to make room for a new life?”
One of my closest friends recently changed jobs.  Changed employers. It’s a clothing company with a target market of say, 14-25 year-olds.
It’s a big part of their corporate culture for employees to wear company-brand clothing, no matter what your age, [...]

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At Work: Do You Hear What I Hear?

June 21, 2011
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Yesterday I brought some office supplies to a group I work with.
About 10 minutes later, I was about 10 feet away when Sloane said to Bethany, “Mary brought us some tape.”
Bethany asked, “Mary brought us some cake?”
I heard, “Mary looks likes she’s lost weight!”
Bethany and I were both sorely disappointed when we found out we [...]

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