Archives for Performance
Innovation Gets Better With Age: Why is This So Hard To Believe?
Does a 65-year-old have significantly more innovation potential than a 25-year-old? My Generation X daughter, who sometimes must teach me a new tech shortcut twice (okay, maybe four times) would answer boldly and quickly, “No way.” Older is slower. So how could her mother possibly be better at new thinking and fresh ideas than, say, […]
Working Harder and Harder to Achieve Less and Less. How Ya Doin’ With That?
Driving home from a recent business dinner, I struggled to figure out just how my three smiling dinner companions processed the current business environment with such remarks as “turning the corner,” “looking better than ever,” “full of promise,” and, (the corker), “my best year ever.” All three highly educated, high achieving business owners seemed out […]
Companies That Pair Time Out and Innovation Run to the Bank
Is the idea of a sabbatical program at your company a “squishy” one? Is there no perception that time out from a career boosts performance, career longevity and innovation? Time to express your impatience with stodgy thinking and tell stories of how time off CAN result in extraordinary bottom line results. From squishy idea to […]
Name Your Sacrifices for Work Bliss
Stephen Sondheim, the “the master lyricist of our generation” 80 years old and would forgo love to write lyrics. How does a genius think? How does he approach work? As a prolific, high-achieving performer, does he ever want to stop working? Does he have a life? All the answers are in Sondheim’s new book (the first […]
When Love for Your Career is Dying
Often the best outcome of the sabbatical experience is returning to your job uplifted, energized and recommitted. At the core of this payoff is re-discovering true passion. For it is passion that fuels creativity and energy, propelling us forward with a sense of purpose and self-identity. Admitting we have lost passion for our work isn’t […]
Five Easy Steps to Wreck Your Life
Wrecking one’s life isn’t all that difficult. Coaching sessions with top-notch executives – talented, smart and good at what they do - reveal an extraordinary gift for giving momentum to the wrecking ball of life. But once in a while, a leader has a come-to-Jesus meeting … with himself or herself (and perhaps a coach) to […]
New Study Shows Over-the-Top Benefits and ROI for Career Sabbaticals
Let’s confirm what we already know. Most people, at some point, would like to take time out from work. Of course, there are real and serious questions to consider: Is a sabbatical a smart career move? Can a sabbatical make me more committed to my career? To my company? Will I be transformed by the […]
Four Sabbatical Lessons from Stefan Sagmeister
A good amount of attention has been paid to Stefan Sagmeister – on the social media sites, including the TED community – for his inspiring (although not unique, as we on this site know) year-long sabbaticals that he takes every seven years. The famous designer has taken two year-long sabbaticals. The first was in 2001 […]
The Thrill of Getting Un-Stuck - I'm Feelin' It
One of the best post-sabbatical outcomes for me, personally and professionally, was a significant improvement (think C+ to A+) in my ability to make quick decisions. Although learning how to push a little boat through the water for six months never made my daughter and me great sailors, we changed in other ways. That sailing […]
Frightening, Tough Times Eh? Knock Off Early and Often
Is emotional uncertainty spreading about your workplace? Well, yeah. In her article, How Do They Feel? author Agatha Gilmore says employees in these troubling economic times are stressed, angry, and overwhelmed (no news here.) But here’s a new one: we’re also afraid. We have no control; the future is unknown. And since our visuals are […]
TEAM: Winner Out of "Eight" Words to Describe Sabbatical
The guy in the red hat is Marcus Lynn, and I like the way his mind works. His posts - whether a simple passage of scripture, a challenge for your faith, the pop vs. soda map, or thoughts on leadership - well, this guy has something to say. His musings (“What Kind of Music does […]
WWOOFING It: Cheap Sabbatical Alternative to Shopping at Whole Foods
While some want their sabbaticals to be about extreme physical challenges like an Ironman Triathalon or solo circumnavigation, other people just want to get a wee more fit. We’re not interested in testing our body’s endurance, nor do we relish having our hearts jump out of our chests from fear (like when the wind starts […]
Can I Take on that Extra Work? (and step up my career!)
Bud Bilanich, “The Common Sense Guy”, in his blog, “Vacation Time is a Great Time to Establish Yourself,” presents your co-worker’s vacation as THE opportunity of a professional lifetime for YOU – who will not be on vacation. Simply by volunteering to take on some of his work, you’ll be growing your skills – and […]
Sabbaticals Pay Off Before You Even Leave
As business sabbaticals garner more interest and experience steady growth, the benefits touted are largely on the back end – after the individual returns. Almost uniformly, employees return to their jobs feeling renewed, committed, more engaged and provides plenty of cross-training opportunities for the employees who pick up the slack. The freedom to explore life […]
What You Learned Today is Your Future
With the Allegheny Mountains in summer glory, the Tau Kappa Epsilon class of ’58 gathered at Penn State University last week. I attended with my husband with expectations of a bad chicken dinner in the company of people called TKE’s with whom I don’t have much in common. I was, after all, tuning in to […]
Find Your Inner Follower
If you want to improve as a leader, make sure you do some following. I learn more about excellent leadership - what it looks like, how it feels and pays off - as a board member of a non-profit, volunteer at beach clean-up and in a wetsuit. Books about leadership, content loaded and inspiring, pale […]
Let Them Work in Their Pajamas!
If your manager still thinks compressed work weeks, working from home, sabbatical programs and arranging your work around your life is a bunch of softy bull, ask her or him how much more misinformation forms their leadership credo. Researchers Grzywacz and Casey at Wake Forest concluded clear and definite bottom-line benefits associated with just such […]
Wanna Be Better? Choose Simon.
We all have an oh-I-am-so-above-that side. So many of you will be appalled at this confession: I watch American Idol. Faithfully. My husband just poked his head in my office, looked at me then at the TV. (It’s Wednesday, folks, America has voted. Someone is going to get ELIMINATED.) He pathetically shrugs his shoulders. Potentially […]
Time and Your Soul
Ten years before Oprah found Eckhard Tolle and started extolling virtures of “the present moment” via 10 Monday night classes full of way too much SKYPING (you can down load them here,) Jacob Needleman moved many of us to examine just what the hell we were doing with the time in our lives and our […]