Algebra and Articulating Decision-Making

How well do you remember middle school or high school math? Was it something you enjoyed? Something you found challenging? Maybe both? A surprising joy for me in recent weeks has been sitting with my eighth grade son as he works on algebra. His work is all done online, so sitting alongside him helps himContinue reading “Algebra and Articulating Decision-Making”

Counteracting Unreliable Work Memories

Your memory is unreliable. Shocker, I know. Life is full, and increasingly full of sensory overwhelm, so it’s not surprising at all that we sometimes forget things – details, things we needed to do, or something somebody told us. Our brains can’t retain every piece of information, and we need to constantly filter out piecesContinue reading “Counteracting Unreliable Work Memories”

You are Not Your Emails (and Neither is Anyone Else)

What forms of communication do you use most often at work? Email, phone, text? Or maybe one of the multitude of team messaging platforms that have proliferated in the last five years? Whatever you use, do you ever find yourself struggling to articulate your message in the way you want to? Do you spend aContinue reading “You are Not Your Emails (and Neither is Anyone Else)”

Workplace Empathy in the New Academic Year

How does the beginning of a new academic year affect you? Even if you don’t have children or work in academia yourself, it might be impacting you more than you realize. If you have children of any age – or if you are a student or an educator yourself – the beginning of a newContinue reading “Workplace Empathy in the New Academic Year”

“The Pommel Horse Guy” and Multiple Intelligences

Are you someone who watches the Olympics religiously, someone who couldn’t care less, or are you somewhere in the middle? Wherever you fall, how can the Olympics help us to learn something about ourselves, and the teams we manage? How might they tie into Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences? If you watched the USContinue reading ““The Pommel Horse Guy” and Multiple Intelligences”

Keep the Questions Coming: To Inception and Beyond

How do you feel when you have the leeway and support to pursue your own idea? What if the action steps you’re taking are the same, but the idea and the steps were dictated to you by your manager? If the action steps are the same, what feels so different about the two situations? IfContinue reading “Keep the Questions Coming: To Inception and Beyond”

How is Your Team Like a Fireworks Display?

In honor of this week’s Independence Day celebrations in the United States and in Canada, we are revisiting this article, originally posted in 2021: If you live in the United States or Canada, you’ll have the chance to see fireworks at some point this week – in person or on a broadcast. If you’re anythingContinue reading “How is Your Team Like a Fireworks Display?”

Watch Yourself on Video – It’s Painful! And Super Helpful!

How often do you hear a recording of your voice and think “That doesn’t sound like me!”? Or see a video of yourself and just cringe and turn it off? Perhaps you even remember the first time you heard your voice on a recording and realized that your voice sounds different to other people thanContinue reading “Watch Yourself on Video – It’s Painful! And Super Helpful!”

Remembering Barbara Jackson, 1944-2024

My mom, Barbara Jackson, died last week after living with Motor Neurone Disease / ALS. How long she lived with it is somewhat unclear, as is sadly the case with many people with this disease; she was diagnosed only nine months ago, but many symptoms overlap with other conditions and she displayed some of thoseContinue reading “Remembering Barbara Jackson, 1944-2024”

Happy Pride Month! – and the Iceberg of Invisible Identities

In the United States and in many other parts of the world, this week marks the beginning of LGBTQ+ Pride Month. The first Pride March was held on June 28, 1970, to mark the one-year anniversary of the six-day Stonewall Uprising of 1969, a turning point in queer history. As such, it’s important to rememberContinue reading “Happy Pride Month! – and the Iceberg of Invisible Identities”