Planners’ Picks
A collection of resources from CSN planning committee members worth mentioning
As we move into Spring, let’s spring into action with some motivating quotes and articles about kindness, creativity, and effective communication.
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If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will. – Greg McKeown, author of the books Essentialism and Effortless.
||| Resources on Work Culture & Team Development |||
Organizational Mindset is a Powerful Thing
Just as individuals have a particular mindset that either nurtures growth or inhibits it, so do organizations. Find out how an organization’s mindset has everything to do with employee engagement, company culture, and, ultimately, success.
Belonging is a fundamental human need. We all want to be accepted as a member of a family, group, team, community, organization, and more. To gain that acceptance, people subconsciously display the qualities believed to be valued by the other members in the group.
https://info.melissahughes.rocks/neuronugget/organizational-mindset-is-a-powerful-thing
“Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want.” – Ken Poirot
Set the Conditions for Anyone on Your Team to Be Creative
One of the most damaging myths about creativity is that there is a specific “creative personality” that some people have and others don’t. Yet in decades of creativity research, no such trait has ever been identified. The truth is that anybody can be creative, given the right opportunities and context. One of the things that creativity researchers have consistently found is that expertise is essential for producing top-notch creative work — you need to be an expert in a specific field to understand what the important problems are and what would constitute an important new solution. To help employees gain expertise, offer coaching, and encourage employees to work on weak areas. Be sure they have the right technologies, and give them plenty of time to explore new ideas. Far too often, we think of creativity as an initial, brilliant spark followed by a straightforward period of execution, but that’s not true in the least. Creativity is an iterative process.
https://hbr.org/2018/12/set-the-conditions-for-anyone-on-your-team-to-be-creative
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” — Henry Ford
||| Resources on Communication |||
How to Improve Your Communication by Leaps and Bounds
Do you know the most common communication mistakes leaders make? What practical steps can you take right now to be a more effective communicator? What is the most common mistake we make when using email? Check out this article to find out 3 steps to improve your communication.
https://www.skipprichard.com/how-to-improve-your-communication-by-leaps-and-bounds/
“We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them.” — Albert Einstein
Do This (Or Something Better)
In the realm of modern leadership practices and principles it has become very en vogue to claim that one’s role as a leader is to “hire great people and get out of the way”. Certainly hiring great people and not actively creating barriers for them are easy to agree with, however there is in fact more to proper stewardship of creative professionals in their evolving careers. Much more.
Suggestion: provide a starting point, a “sane default” for a given problem, and clarify that if the individual (or team) finds fault with the approach, that they are free to choose another approach. “Do this, or something better” arrives as our new leadership mantra.
https://thriveglobal.com/stories/do-this-or-something-better
||| Resources on Gratitude and Appreciation |||
Podcast on Gratitude Journaling with Chester Elton and Dr. John Demartini
Leading with Gratitude w/ Chester Elton – Why I have written a Gratitude Journal for the last 37 years w/ Dr. John Demartini. This is a great conversation on keeping a record of what you are grateful for to reference in times of need and feeling down. Dr. John Demartini has over 30 volumes of journals to look back on and teaches lessons in gratitude all over the world. Listen in on their conversation.
https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:6874769710907449344/
“There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.” —Mister Rogers
‘Thank you’ matters more than you might think
Managers: How do you get your people to stick around?
All the discussion about why people are quitting these days has spawned plenty of concrete suggestions for employers. Flexibility, meaning, a healthy culture, clear opportunities for career progression, and, as ever, decent pay and humane scheduling have all been flagged as important for retention by experts. But a new study underlines the power of one of the simplest factors of all: gratitude.
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/great-resignation-employee-retention-gratitude.html
Feel Better with Kindness – with Dr. Kelli Harding
Dr. Kelli Harding discusses how kindness and connection can help us live healthier and happier lives. This was recorded at an Action for Happiness live event on March 10th, 2022 hosted by Dr. Mark Williamson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_diHRy4xlE
||| Resources on Self-Leadership Development |||
To Develop Leadership Skills, Practice in a Low-Risk Environment
Most leadership trainings are about teaching ideas, sharing best practices, and increasing knowledge. But successful people rarely become better leaders because they know more. They become better leaders because they follow through on what they know. That follow-through requires “emotional courage” — willingness to feel the feelings that come when we take risks and break old patterns. That courage is essential in managing people effectively to build bridges, raise and address hard issues, and handle opposition. How do you get emotional courage? You don’t learn it by listening to a lecture. Even role plays don’t quite do the trick because the feelings aren’t there. The best way is to practice in situations where the perceived risk is much higher than the actual risk.
https://hbr.org/2019/04/to-develop-leadership-skills-practice-in-a-low-risk-environment
“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” — Colin R. Davis
4 Leadership Practices That Make Employees Want To Stay
Organizations need leaders who care and give workers a sense of purpose, inspiration, and motivation to perform. Creating this type of environment does not mean that employees will never quit their jobs, but if they choose to leave, it is because they have a great career opportunity.
||| Showcase Recap |||
Were you able to make it to this year’s Showcase event? If not, their website has all of the posters that were on display, as well as other resources from their keynote and breakout sessions. Check it out today!