Learning Center

It’s been about four months since workplaces first started navigating the uncharted waters of the Covid-19 pandemic. We are now entering a new phase of challenges which includes bringing back some employees who have been working remotely. This change will to be difficult for some employees so this is a good opportunity to review what is helpful to say (and ...

Workplaces are entering uncharted waters as they try to figure out how to protect both the health of their employees and their businesses in response to a looming worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Company responses thus far have include halting non-essential business travel, cancelling professional conferences, having more employees work from home, forming task forces, dusting off emergency response plans, ordering increasingly ...

I have just reviewed a very compelling new research report which concludes that companies who “embrace best practices for employing and supporting more persons with disabilities in their workforce have outperformed their peers.” The study, presented in a report from Accenture in partnership with Disability : In and the American Association of People with Disabilities, found that companies that championed ...

Bad bosses are an unwelcome, but all too common, feature of the American workplace. Work environments have an abundance of stressors, but having a bad boss may be the worst. Consider the fact that approximately 50% of American workers have left their jobs in order to get away from a bad boss. Furthermore, according to Gallup’s 2017 State of the ...

During a February presentation at the Harvard School of Public Health Angus Deaton, the Nobel Prize-winning economist spoke about the rise in preventable deaths by suicide, alcoholism and addiction calling them “deaths of despair.” Public Health researchers around the world have started to recognize that loneliness plays a significant role in these deaths of despair and, as a result, loneliness ...

Is your company prepared for a potential increase in the reporting of harassment due to the social momentum and heightened awareness generated by the #MeToo empowerment movement? There has never been a better time to review your organization’s training strategy in this critical area. You only have to look at the Wynn Corporations losing 18% of its value following sexual ...

We tend to focus on resolving conflicts and not on what happens much farther upstream.  Forget about resolving conflict, what about those of us who have a hard time facing conflict at all, and when we are forced to, feel furious and awful. For many of us, due to a complex mix of upbringing, temperament, and experiences, disagreeing with someone ...

The United States won 121 medals out of a possible 306 at the 2016 Rio Olympics which just concluded in Brazil. You probably are not aware that Denmark defeated the United States 2-0 in Women’s Badminton (doubles) at the Rio Olympics. More importantly, you may not know how we compare to Denmark in the area of workplace happiness. Let’s start ...

The Department of Labor (DOL) is preparing to introduce new rules governing overtime pay this summer. The new regulations, which represent an historical reversal of a 50 year old trend, are very good news for salaried employees making between $23,600 and $50,440 per year. You probably didn’t know that fifty years ago overtime pay was the norm for salaried employees, ...

I can’t cite a source for the widely circulated statistic that “ten percent of conflicts are caused by a difference of opinion and 90% are caused by tone of voice” but my EAP consulting work supplies a steady stream of examples demonstrating the primacy of emotional tone in business communications. Whether a difference of opinion ends up leading to a ...

We spend a high percentage of our waking hours interacting with our work colleagues. Conventional wisdom has it that coworkers don’t have to like each other; they just need to do their jobs. According to some very interesting research coming out of Carnegie-Mellon and M.I.T. (not exactly epicenters of the “touchy-feely” school of business management) conventional wisdom, once again, turns ...

Usually when we speak and think about tolerance and compassion for those with Asperger’s Disorder, it is in the context of children at school.  Educators and parents emphasize the many strengths of these individuals and request kindness and understanding from their classmates.   However, these efforts, and sometimes our own eagerness to model compassion, frequently dissipate when we enter the workplace ...

A recent article in the New York Times detailing the arduous demands Amazon places on its employees has put a spotlight on the subject of working long hours. The authors contend that Amazon, an amazingly successful company well on its way to become the world’s first trillion dollar retailer, is conducting a Darwinian experiment in “how far it can push ...

One of the most valuable classes I took as an undergraduate college student was a debate class. The professor took the time to uncover beliefs that we felt strongly about.  He then surprised us by having us debate the opposite position.  We were forced to develop and deliver a compelling argument that went exactly counter to what we felt strongly ...

Many organizations try to boost employee productivity by using traditional analytic approaches which focus on strategic planning, goal setting and process efficiency measures. These methods reflect the belief that better systems, planning and processes lead to better employee performance. Other organizations emphasize improving employee benefits, perks, compensation, and schedules as a means to increase productivity. This approach reflects the belief ...

What happens when you have a winning product and/or business strategy but your managers have poor people skills? Lost opportunity is what happens. Failure to capitalize is what happens. Your business loses is what happens. Even the best business strategies do not implement themselves. They require communication, coordination, alignment, and efficiency. In other words, they require leaders with strong people ...

A new research study from Stanford University and the Harvard Business School has named workplace stress as a contributor to at least 120,000 deaths a year and up to $190 billion in health care costs. 120,000 mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and coworkers who die prematurely, in part, due to work environments that are allowed to remain toxic. ...

In our culture, which extols the merits of authenticity and transparency in everything from TED talks about leadership to advertisements for our food, it may seem a bit contrarian to make a case for the virtues of faking it. But I’d like to try.   Suppose you are the manager of a busy gift store at the height of the ...

We are forgetful creatures. I’m not referring to the “senior moment” variety of forgetfulness. I’m talking about the habitual forgetting that takes place in the midst of everyday life challenges and stresses, when we “forget” to make those choices that we know will keep our bodies, spirits and relationships healthy. We forget that change can only happen today and not ...

Meetings are important. For better or worse, most organizational decisions are still made in groups. Meetings are a ubiquitous element of organizational life even as teams are now often geographically dispersed and collaborating online as well as in person. A productive meeting energizes, coordinates and galvanizes a team. Dysfunctional meetings, on the other hand, lead not only to bad decisions, ...

Work environments have an abundance of stressors, but having a boss who behaves badly may be the worst. The experience of being treated unfairly or rudely is always unpleasant, but when it comes at the hands of someone who has significant power over your income and career it can be devastating. The problem is often compounded by the well-meaning, but ...

        I am thankful for a family that loves me even though I am so reliably imperfect. I am thankful for a profession which allows me to share meaningful moments in the lives of others. I am thankful for the hopeful and excited smile I receive from my granddaughter each time she greets me. I am thankful ...

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) provide organizations and their employees an array of  counseling and supportive services to address the negative effects of workplace stress. This is an extremely important mission, and EAPs are uniquely positioned to deliver on it, but I think we should be doing even more. We should be going beyond simply repairing the damage caused by organizational ...

Some days it feels that way. You’re a manager with an ever lengthening task list and rapidly approaching deadlines and you worry that your blood pressure and stress level may be reaching new heights. Then one of your employees, let’s call him Ted, walks in the office and asks: “Have you got a minute to talk?” Freeze frame. You are ...

According to a recent survey of senior executives the success rate for major change initiatives is only 54%. Why do so many organizational change initiatives fail? Organizations are certainly aware that their success depends on the ability to change and adapt to rapidly evolving conditions effecting markets, customers, suppliers and competitors. They assign their top management talent, often reinforced with ...

The current Market Basket saga features product and customer shortages but there certainly is no lack of compelling story lines and business lessons here. The intricate melodrama of the Demoulas’ family feud, the emergence of a rank and file army supporting a fired CEO and the suspense concerning how and when all the complicated elements will be resolved have captured, ...

It was about an hour before I was supposed to “run” my first therapy group. The clients, ranging in age from 20 to 60, were in various stages of recovery from heroin addiction. I was 26 years old, had never run a group by myself, and was suddenly feeling a little panicky about the assignment. Among them, the group members ...

Today is my birthday. My mother enjoys telling me that I stood at the gate of our backyard inspecting the presents from guests to my second birthday party. She has pictures to prove it. Along with conveying my apologies for all past episodes of rampant birthday greed, I would like to share a few birthday wishes today.   I wish ...

There is nothing better than an impending disaster to clarify the distinction between the essential and the trivial. When total annihilation is on the horizon no one is wasting any time worrying about whether it’s going to rain this weekend. The standard formula for disaster movies builds upon the stark choices offered by the threat of total calamity. In response ...

I met Steve Mellor in the mid-1980’s when he was a young HR professional and I was a green EAP consultant. We bonded immediately as allies and comrades learning to make a place for ourselves in the corporate world. Along the way, we also took time to compare notes on the joys and challenges of being husbands and dads. Later ...

Let’s begin with the iconic image of Tom Hanks as the exasperated coach of a woman’s baseball team in the movie A League of Their Own, declaring “There’s no crying in baseball!” This image resonates for so many men because, let’s be honest here, some of us are flummoxed by tears and uncertain about how to respond to a person ...

Organizations are on a quest to identify the essential elements of employee engagement. They dream of building cultures and work environments that will capture every last ounce of employee discretionary effort. They want employees who arrive at work every day with all the optimism, ambition and enthusiasm that they brought on their first day believing that happy people create more ...

Joan Venocchi wrote an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe last week about the curious case of Kelly Greenberg, the embattled head coach of the Boston University woman’s basketball team. It seems that her players just can’t agree on the question of whether she is a bully. Ms. Greenberg has been accused of driving four players to quit this year’s ...

“A skilled [feedback] giver is great, but mostly our lives are populated by everyone else, folks who aren’t so skilled, have their own issues, or are too busy to really give us the time we need. If you’re going to take charge of your own learning you’ve got to get good at learning from these people too. A skillful and ...

Of all the complicated personal problems that employees bring to the workplace, none is more difficult for organizations to manage than drug and alcohol issues. Employee drug and alcohol problems pose uniquely troublesome challenges because the risks they pose to safety, health and quality are often obscured by employee deception and denial. Employees who are missing work or making errors ...

The year was 1971, my first as a school psychologist in Michigan’s Willow Run School District. On April 3, the eve of the third anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the Willow Run School Board met to consider its options for honoring the life and work of Dr. King.   Dr. R. Wiley Brownlee, the high school principal, ...

I am concerned about the escalating lack of civility that surrounds us in our everyday life. Incivility at work has many different forms. We see everything from the gossiping coworker to the intimidating bully. Then there are the supervisors who take credit for your work but never give credit and the managers who are dismissive and rude and will not ...

One of my best management experiences was coaching my son’s Little League baseball team. I may not be able to remember the name of the movie with what’s-his-name in it that I saw last week but I can tell you the name of each kid on the team and what position they played. That group played hard and had a ...

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” More than ninety heads of state, and tens of thousands of South Africans, met in a Soweto soccer stadium today to celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela. What accounts for the deep reverence we ...

“Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.” Franz Peter Schubert Today’s post is the third in a series. Part 1 explained how I won the Listserve lottery and earned the prize of polling 25,000 strangers about their feelings about work. Part 2 looked at some of the answers I received ...

I am thankful for a family that loves me even though I am so reliably imperfect. I am thankful for a profession which allows me to share meaningful moments in the lives of my clients. I am thankful for the hopeful and excited smile I receive from my granddaughter each time she greets me. I am thankful for public libraries ...

Organizations face daunting challenges when it comes to effectively managing employees whose personal problems begin to interfere with their work performance. Just ask the city of Toronto. The headlines concerning Rob Ford, Toronto’s embattled mayor, have progressed from sensational to almost unprintable in just a matter of days. We have been deluged by a steady media stream of Mr. Ford’s ...

Of the 21.5 million veterans in the United States, 9.1 million are currently in the workforce. According to government estimates, one million service members will be leaving active duty over the next five years. Last year on Veterans Day I posted a piece on the special value and skills veterans bring to civilian work. I would like to observe this ...

“If management stopped demotivating their employees then they wouldn’t have to worry so much about motivating them.” W. Edwards Deming If you read my blog post last week you know that I was the winner of The Listserve email lottery and as a result had the opportunity to ask 5 questions to a diverse group of 25,000 strangers. This week ...

What would you want to say if you had the chance to send an email to 25,000 strangers dispersed across planet earth? That’s the question that faced me last week and I had 48 hours to decide what to do with this opportunity. The Listserve is an email lottery. One person every day has a chance to broadcast a message ...

Workplaces with high levels of employee stress and anger are increasing their risk for many negative business outcomes including: Employee fatigue, concentration difficulties and diminished problem-solving abilities Diminished quality, productivity and customer service Under reporting of critical business issues (in order to avoid blame) Poor teamwork and coordination among individuals who are resentful and feel that they have been treated ...

Meetings are the place where an organization can access the collective knowledge of its members to make the best possible tactical and strategic decisions. Meetings are the place where organizations can work out conflicts, coordinate individual efforts and get everyone on the same page.   Meetings are an inevitable, necessary and ubiquitous element of organizational life. To my knowledge, no ...

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Washington civil rights march and Dr. Martin Luther King’s iconic “I have a dream speech.” I have listened to that speech countless times and it never fails to inspire me. David Brooks wrote a wonderful tribute in the New York Times yesterday analyzing the leadership approach of Dr. King where “the idea was ...

A few years ago one of our client companies merged with their biggest competitor and they asked us to facilitate some preliminary meetings with the other management group which, until the merger, had been their rivals. There was much anxiety in both management groups about how to merge the two very different, adversarial and extremely competitive cultures. Andrew, a senior ...

Mindfulness 2.0? In case you haven’t noticed the meditation practice of mindfulness has rapidly been gaining popularity. Once the purview of meditation halls and Eastern religious practice, mindfulness training is now a component in many successful corporate environments. This renaissance of mindfulness, informed by research in neurophysiology, organizational leadership, education and technology, has created an exciting intersection which can be ...

Did you hear the story about the fellow who was walking through the Broadway theater district in New York and was accosted by a frantic stage manager? The stage manager told him that he needed to find a replacement for an actor that had suddenly come down with a case of laryngitis. The curtain was going up in 10 minutes ...

When conflict becomes mean spirited and starts including personal attacks, group morale can quickly move to the dark side, the bane of every manager.  Recently I was asked to help two employees resolve a conflict that was having a negative impact on everyone around them.  Routine tasks were still getting done but the tension in the group cast a long ...

The idea of employee burnout been in circulation since the 1970s and continues to be relevant in contemporary discussions of job stress and the employee experience of work. The original burnout metaphor refers to the smothering of a fire or the extinguishing of a candle by depriving it of the resources (oxygen) it needs to burn brightly. By extension, the ...

You know them. They are the management equivalent of helicopter parents (without the personal commitment and attachment). They hover over the work of their employees and they insist on inspecting and controlling the smallest details of a project. They are irritated by employee initiative and insist on being consulted on all decisions, even those well within the scope of the ...

When an employee reports being sickened at work by toxic fumes leaking into their work area, most organizations will carefully and expeditiously investigate the matter. We expect them to seek out the origin of the fumes and engineer a solution that protects employees from illness and the organization from liability. It would be short sighted and foolish, not to mention ...

We are increasingly awash in information. The remote gives us faster access to the information on television and Google gives us instantaneous access to the expanding universe of internet based information. Our phones, email and social media give us continuous and real time updates on our friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues. We are buyers and sellers in an information economy. ...

When it comes to balancing work and personal life managers have a double challenge. They not only have to figure out how to make work and home trade offs for their own well-being, they are also charged with the responsibility to be fair and responsive to their employees who are trying to manage the same challenges. Employees routinely talk their ...

A group of employees witnessed a fellow worker fall to his death. He slipped and fell while working on a catwalk high above the production floor. The HR manager who made the initial call for support to the EAP said that some workers were crying openly while others were leaving the plant to go home. The plant manager, who had ...

            This week’s blog, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, has been published on the WBUR Cognoscenti website. ...

Of the 21.5 million veterans in the United States, 9.1 million are currently in the workforce. Ninety thousand troops will be looking for their place in the workforce in the next two years as they return (many after multiple tours) from Afghanistan. A million service members will be leaving active duty over the next 5 years according to government estimates. ...

One of the best things about social media is that it gives us daily access to the wonderful world of serendipity. Here I am scrolling through my Facebook feed of baby pictures, spam, political and social appeals, and miscellaneous artifacts of friends and family when I see a post from a friend linking to a Ted Talk by Dr. Brene ...

I am completely amazed that there has not been more debate surrounding the emergence of the so-called “free” EAP that is being offered as a throw in by some carriers as a way to attract business to their more profitable insurance products. Let’s start by calling this “free” EAP by its real name which is “pretend” EAP. “Pretend” EAPs offer ...