By: Chris L. Johnson
Last week I led a mindfulness session for a group of colleagues working in the India-based office of a Chicago business. Their suffering was palpable, even from 8000 miles away.
Healthcare and governmental infrastructures in India are rapidly crumbling under COVID’s devastating weight. They spoke of being uncertain how they’ll move ahead. They’re frightened, too. Despite mounting anxiety and moments of depression, to a person, the most difficult thing they had to deal with was feeling disconnected from their own families and loved ones.
I just want it to stop. Yet we don’t have enough resources…
By: Shareen Luze
When I stepped into my new role three years ago, I spent a lot of those first months observing and listening. From those observations, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what I needed to do, so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
I was feeling pretty good about myself and the impact I could have in my new role when an encounter with a female colleague stopped me right in my tracks.
A new mom who had returned from maternity leave not six months prior — this employee was in my…
By: Ilene Rosenthal
Meet today’s CEO, Chris. Even though referrals convert best for her business, she couldn’t rely on them exclusively to get the growth she needed.
This was not for lack of effort. Chris had done the groundwork to set her business up for success. Her company had great tech, superb service, accolades from her customers, a high NPS. But, there wasn’t enough volume in her referral pipeline to get the lift she expected.
Still, year after year, she moved more resources into sales, refined the process, and aligned her messaging.
By: Tamara Fields
As tough as the pandemic, the Texas winter storm, and the last twelve months have been, they have also shed light on extraordinary acts of leadership.
I am proud of the Austin Chamber quickly mobilizing robust survival resources to help local companies. Water supplies and other support that Texas businesses readily offered to employees when the icy weather struck were nothing short of lifesaving for many — I count my family and me among them. These are reminders that my fellow Austinites have big hearts and rise to the occasion during times of need.
But, this is…
By: Judy Gielniak
Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce. -Vivian Komori
Resilience. It’s the key factor to get us back on our feet after experiencing one of life’s losses or letdowns. It helps us succeed when circumstances aren’t in our favor. It allows us to “keep the faith” and carry on despite setbacks.
What happens when you’re resilient? You gain motivation to overcome roadblocks and find ways to persevere and succeed no matter what. The fact is that we all fail at times in life. We are all…
By: Michaela Dragalin Young
When my law firm announced we would be working remotely more than a year ago, I, like so many of you, did not know what to expect. When my children’s daycare announced it would be closing, I really did not know what to expect. Suddenly, my husband and I found ourselves both working from home with an almost three-year-old boy and six-month-old girl. Oh, and I had just found out I was pregnant with our third child.
As a lawyer at one of the largest law firms in the world and my husband a recruiter (they’re…
By: Shannon Huffman Polson
As one of the first women to fly Apaches in the US Army, my years in uniform leading teams and flying around the world, from Bosnia to Korea, taught me above all the importance of taking care of people.
My first battalion commander, later to be MG John Macdonald, gave me the words to articulate that value. As he and my father pinned the silver bars of a 1st Lieutenant on my shoulders, he said:
The only good use of increased power is the increased responsibility to take care of your people.
I took the lesson…
By: Randi Levin
Looking to be fearless?
With so much unknown in our lives, it is understandable that you would seek a faster, more streamlined way to navigate this. Yet, honestly, not having fear is actually more of a negative in your life than being a bit scared!
You need a sprinkle of fear to create an edge, to navigate and measure growth, to reach and respond. Fear is what keeps things spicy. The relationship that you have with your trigger points is what you want to shift, not necessarily the fears themselves. …
By: Jamie Martin
It’s a question we were all asked as a kid:
What do you want to be when you grow up?
You probably had a really good idea back then. You said you were going to be: a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, a firefighter, a police officer, a mom…
And if you were anything like me, you still can’t stop asking yourself:
What do I want to be when I grow up?
You hold onto the idea that the question should have one single, clear answer. And when someone asks what you do, you should be able…
By: Michelle M. Campbell
We have all at one time been a bad mentee. Allow me to repeat: At sometime in our career we have all been a bad mentee.
Over my career I’ve been a mentor and a mentee. By being in both roles, I’ve been able to have differing vantage points on the roles, responsibilities, and best practices. In my role as a mentor, I have observed that mentorship is often viewed as a one-way pouring of knowledge from the mentor into the mentee.
I do not agree with this viewpoint, but even if it were so, there…
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