Are you hearing that your team doesn't feel appreciated? Even though you feel like you put effort into saying thank you, they are always hungry for more. Do employee engagement surveys indicate dissatisfaction? Even though there are all kinds of employee recognition programs in place. For acknowledgment to really stick, it must be grounded in a concrete experience or activity.

I was recently asked how a leader could get quiet team members to speak up more in meetings. The truth is, change doesn’t begin with the quiet team members, but with you.

The secret to encouraging engagement and participation rests with you and your skillfulness in 5 specific areas.

When you are able to ask great questions, people become motivated, connected and empowered by the sharing of their ideas and knowledge. When your staff comes to you needing help, instead of simply providing answers, I have 7 questions you can ask which will foster critical thinking and proactive problem solving.

When your amygdala senses that any of those things are risk, it activates the most primitive parts of your brain to react with fight or flight. Even when the most evolved and empowering next step would be to seek understanding. If you want to not suck at difficult communication, the solution is to develop a practice that allows you to manage yourself and become adept at hacking the primitive reaction.

Why unanswerable questions are so challenging for managers of people and businesses, and the solution for answering those questions.

One of the most pressing challenges that I am hearing about involves employees being resistant to necessary changes. Especially from employees who are not normally resistant. Let's talk about how you can speak your truth about staff’s disruptive behavior with empathy, compassion, with a focus on the good of the whole.

Holding space is one of the most important skills for managers who want to develop the skillfulness of their staff. It is nuanced, requires practice, and also requires a significant level of self-awareness.

Giving employees an opportunity to have their voice heard, especially when the dialogue is challenging, is critically important for retention. When employees feel heard, building a culture of trust is easier.

When employees feel they have no voice, they are more likely to say nothing, then resign or miss work. Both of these consequences have significant costs in terms of dollars, time and success.

There’s a popular theory that success requires individuals to become experts in a specific niche. The truth is that with the complexity of the challenges facing organizations and the advancement of artificial intelligence and automation, the way to stay relevant and valuable is to be a curious learner and develop knowledge in a range of topics.

To successfully manage people, you must actually know some really great questions. When you are able to ask great questions, people become motivated and empowered by sharing their ideas and knowledge. Here are 7 ways you can activate problem solving in others right now.

I learned a saying several years ago that prepared me for this journey. The introduction to the saying for me was Byron Katie, however I’m sure it has been attributed to many places. It goes like this:

There are three kinds of business in the world - my business, your business, and the Universe’s business. Whenever I’m anywhere other than in my business, I’m in the wrong place.

If your management role exhausts you due to people who don’t think proactively or won’t take risks, who come to you repeatedly with the same questions or who stall out at the same roadblocks over and over again, then you might want to add coaching to your manager’s toolbox.

Semi-annual performance reviews are too few and far between for our fast-paced world. Listen in to learn how coaching will help you increase accountability, skillfulness, and proactive problem-solving within your team.