The previous Lesson Found highlighted how being empathetic is a fundamental tool of leadership. How to do that is today’s Lesson Found.
A client asked my advice about an “always” productive team member who lately was barely producing. His company has been 100% virtual since March but the client only recently started to notice the problem. The client tried talking to the employee but the situation was not changing. (more…)
Could the “problem with millennials” be burnout? Why CEOs and owners should care is a Lesson Found.
In a her 2019 article, Anne Helen Petersen identifies Millennials as the “Burnout Generation” due to the circumstances of their coming of age. Petersen, a Millennial herself, makes her case in great detail (more…)
When you get into your car on frigid winter mornings, the warmth of your breath fogs the windshield. That fogged windshield offers us a Lesson Found on the current business environment.
A few months after she bought it, I was driving my mother’s new car. I was distressed because I couldn’t clearly see out of the windshield. Everything seemed foggy. Then I turned in the direction of the rising sun and couldn’t see anything. (more…)
I’ve recently found myself in discussions with CEOs and Owners about the difference between being a “leader” versus a “manager”. And that is the subject of today’s Lessons Found.
According to Merriam-Websters, to “lead” is to “guide on a way especially by going in advance; to direct on a course or a direction.” This is in contrast to the definition of “manage”: “to handle or direct with a degree of skill such as to exercise supervisory direction of; to make and keep compliant.” Considering both at their extremes, leadership takes a broad, future-focused (more…)
Did you know the inspiration for the N95 Mask was a molded bra cup? That is where today’s Lessons Found start.
Sara Little Turnbull was an unlikely candidate to become one of the nation’s top industrial designers. With a flair for interior design, Sara Little (her preferred professional name) was an editor at House Beautiful magazine before forming her own company in 1958. At about the same time, she wrote an article, “Forgetting The Little Woman”, in which she took major manufacturers to task for ignoring end users when designing products. And the corporate giants of the time took notice. That is how she found herself in front of 3M’s all male executive team (more…)
Two weeks ago, I pointed to the perils of taking listening for granted. But what happens if there is a generational schism in how we communicate? That is where this Business Lesson Found begins.
When used in an email, what does an ellipsis, “…”, mean? How you answer reveals your age. Boomers and Gen Xers use ellipses at a sentence’s end to indicate their thoughts trailing off. Millennials interpret ellipses differently. As one millennial put it, “the dot-dot-dot is the height of passive aggressiveness.” (more…)