September always seems to be the time when I experience a big desire to get organized. Or as my dear departed Dad would say, to pull yourself together. I don’t know if it is the store shelves lined with back-to-school organizers, the deciduous trees shedding leaves they no longer need, or just the passing of the lazy, hazy days of summer, but I always feel a tug.

The onset of fall is also the time when I get eager to check in on where my anchor is set. A dear friend and mentor, Amy Burford, first told me about “checking my anchor” when I was struggling with some resistance in my business.

Over the past six months, I’ve been working with a delightful nonprofit board of directors. The board came to me because they knew they had several challenges after years of smooth sailing, and they could not quite identify a pathway through those challenges. Read on for the story behind each, from their missing strategic plan to their concerns about succession.

What do you think when you overhear laughter in your workplace? Are you eager to join in? Do you get the sense a team must be making great progress? Or do you wonder if people are having too much fun to be productive? Maybe you feel left out? Or are you curious who is the target of a harsh joke today?

According to the theory of Conscious Leadership put forth in The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success, humor in an organization is a key indicator of a healthy culture in that organization — but what some see as humor can be hurtful to others. Read on to learn why sarcasm isn’t funny.

When I’m facilitating strategic planning sessions, I frequently experience the same level of irritation. When I’m coaching or working with someone whose first language is not English, I strive to be aware of the phrases I’m using. And no matter who the audience is, I want to be very aware of phrases that have negative origins or may be triggering.

Here are just some of my pet peeves (a phrase originating in 1919) and why they just don’t fit in business (or any) communication where you strive to inspire, motivate, build community, connection, and clarity (and avoid litigation)…

I was invited by a client to walk with her as she processed feelings of great disappointment. Through out our conversation she was able to turn this experience around from “I was a fool to get excited” to “This experience helps me better understand where I want to go next with my work. I am grateful.” But the bigger and even more valuable lesson was that she gets to choose the pathway she walks when things turn out differently than she hoped.

Being clear with people about boundaries and what is needed (both personally and at work) is empowering them to be successful. Evidence shows hinting, and hoping people take hints, is highly ineffective. With hinting you actually take away the opportunity for others to show up effectively, while disempowering yourself by increasing your opportunity for anger and resentment.

According to researchers, venting actually continues or recreates the same activity in our brain as anger does. The act of venting sustains that anger-based activity for longer periods of time. In other words, whatever yucky feelings you are experiencing (anger, disappointment, sadness) would have disappeared sooner had you not gone into venting mode.

Regardless of your play personality, when you are designing trainings or meetings or even teambuilding events, include opportunities for all the play styles. Not only will you have more engagement, you’ll also have participants who are more focused, innovative, connected and creative.