We’re ending April on a high note: Showcase 2025 is now in the books, where innovation and process improvement initiatives were displayed by dozens of groups on campus. We saw lots of possibilities there; how do we unlock the power? Also, let’s explore uniting and leveraging strengths, and being a kick-ass boss.
:: Image of the Week
:: Work Culture & Team Development
How to See Possibilities: Unlocking the Power of Possibility Thinking
Have you ever met someone who seems to turn every obstacle into an opportunity? Someone who dreams big, takes action, and sees possibilities where others see roadblocks? That’s the power of possibility thinking—the ability to look beyond limitations and imagine what could be instead of what is.
Possibility thinkers aren’t just dreamers—they are doers. They believe solutions exist, even when they’re not obvious. They take setbacks as lessons, not failures. They ask, “What if?” instead of saying, “It won’t work.” So how do you become a possibility thinker? How do you train your mind to see opportunities instead of obstacles? See this short post from leadership coach Allison Michels.
“Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see the greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself.”
~Edmund Lee
World Happiness Report: Work Wellbeing Playbook
We can do better to set up environments that help cultivate happiness for our teams. How? This is an incredible playbook for the workplace to put kindness into action. This report is filled with sections on everything from achievement to energy, inclusion to purpose, and stress and trust.
Thank you World Wellbeing Movement for this FREE remarkable resource.
Cunningham, S., Fleming, W., Regier, C., Kaats, M., & De Neve, J. (2024). Work Wellbeing Playbook: A Systematic Review of Evidence-Based Interventions to Improve Employee Wellbeing. World Wellbeing Movement.
Access: https://lnkd.in/gG9ahbVY
Uniting Strengths: The Power of a Purpose-Driven Team
A team is not simply a gathering of people working side by side; it’s a unique, dynamic force, something far greater than a collection of individuals in close proximity. A true team is a powerful, purpose-driven unit built on shared commitment, where each member is seen, heard, and valued for their individual strengths. Think about that for a moment, how incredible it is to be part of a team where you’re celebrated not in spite of your differences, but because of them. This isn’t just a workspace; it’s a thriving ecosystem, energized by the distinct personalities and perspectives each person brings to the table.
When you become part of a team that’s truly united, there’s a tangible emotional uplift. We all want to feel that our contributions matter, that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves. In the right team, there’s a sense of mutual trust, a foundation of support that empowers us to take risks and push past our comfort zones. Knowing that your team has your back builds a resilience that goes far beyond individual effort; it fuels collective ambition and perseverance. The result? Success isn’t just a goal; it’s an achievable, shared journey.
Read on at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uniting-strengths-power-purpose-driven-team-smart-nut-0gige/
:: Mental Health and Self-Care
How To Defeat Anger: 4 Secrets From The Ancients
Anger’s greatest trick is making you think you’re standing up for yourself, that you’re finally taking control. It tells you that your outburst is justified, that your righteous fury is not only warranted but essential. It whispers in your ear: “You’re not being unreasonable. You’re being assertive.”
But you’re not. You’re a grown person screaming at a parking meter. You look like a constipated gorilla trying to pass a watermelon. People are crossing the street to avoid you.
And let’s not forget the most ridiculous part: anger is completely self-destructive. It’s basically the universe’s way of handing you a rubber mallet and saying, “Here, keep hitting yourself with this. It’ll totally fix everything.”
It’s silly. And we all reach a point where we know it’s silly. You’ve stared in the mirror and thought, “Why do I always look like I’m auditioning for a role in a Scorsese film?”
So what do we do about it? Who has the answers? Enter Seneca, the Roman philosophy expert.
https://bakadesuyo.com/2024/09/anger-2/
“I want to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” — Aldous Huxley
:: CSN’s Book of the Week Recommendation
Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss
In Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss, the author offers a revolutionary perspective, advocating for a radical shift toward love and humanity. Drawing on personal experiences, case studies, and compelling research, he reveals how leaders can transform organizations by embracing genuine care for their employees.
Marcel Schwantes explains the five principles of effective leadership: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness. It offers a practical guide to leading teams with actionable love and care so people, businesses, and organizations flourish. This book is for anyone seeking to create a thriving, motivated team and become a truly kick-ass boss in today’s chaotic world.
“I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.” – DR. MAYA ANGELOU
:: LinkedIn Learning
Leveraging Your Strengths (and your team’s too!)
Leveraging and growing your own strengths can help you fulfill your greatest potential. In this course, leadership and development strategist Halelly Azulay coaches you on how to find and maximize your strengths to become an indispensable, high-value player. Gain techniques for identifying your core strengths, tips for avoiding common blind spots related to your strengths, and four different approaches to getting unstuck in a strengthless job. Learn how to articulate your strengths to your team and start playing to your strengths immediately.
Learning objectives
- Define your top strengths using reliable tools such as the VIA Character Strengths Survey or the CliftonStrengths assessment.
- Identify ways in which you are currently utilizing your strengths in your work environment and activities.
- Develop a plan to amplify the use of your strengths at work, considering both existing and new opportunities within your role or organization.
- Implement strategies to neutralize weaknesses without neglecting them, focusing energy primarily on strength development.
- Engage in regular self-reflection and progress tracking to ensure continuous improvement and adjustment of strategies for leveraging strengths.
- Seek feedback from colleagues, managers, and mentors to gain additional perspectives on your strengths and how they can be effectively applied.
- Cultivate a growth mindset to view your strengths as dynamic attributes that can be developed further through intentional effort.
- Facilitate open conversations with your manager about your strengths, proposing specific, actionable ways to leverage them more in your current role.
- Explore the possibility of shifting your role or creating special projects that align more closely with your strengths.
- Encourage a strengths-based approach within your team or organization to foster a culture of development and mutual support.
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/leveraging-your-strengths/work-from-your-strengths?u=56745513
:: Productivity and Innovation
Prioritizing What’s Most Essential with Greg McKeown
So many authors want to create a movement with their work. Greg McKeown actually did with his runaway bestseller, Essentialism. Greg has spent the decade since that book published helping people, leaders and organizations get transformative results through his essentialism philosophy. In Greg’s third appearance on the Elevate podcast with Robert Glazer, they dug deep into the three principles of essentialism: prioritize the essential, eliminate the non-essential, and make the essential effortless. Greg’s wisdom will help you simplify your life and dedicate yourself to what matters most.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/prioritizing-whats-most-essential-greg-mckeown-robert-glazer-wixbe
“People are always trying to add more stuff to life. Reduce it to simpler, pure moments.” — Jerry Seinfeld
:: Kindness in Leadership
The Economy of Kindness
What does kindness mean to you? Is it letting the person with two items in line at the grocery store go in front of you, or allowing another driver to merge in traffic? Is it helping someone reach something on a top shelf, or picking up something they dropped? Is it raking leaves or shoveling snow for a neighbor? Is it something you do for a friend or a stranger, or both?
Speaker, author, and kindness catalyst, Linda M. Cohen defines kindness with great care. Its components, she writes include being compassionate, empathetic, respectful, generous, and considerate. In her newest book, The Economy of Kindness, she takes the concept of kindness further — to focus on how kindness affects the people and the culture in the workplace.
https://speakwellbeing.com/the-economy-of-kindness/
:: Communication
Three Tips to Improve Your Listening Skills
You might think, “How hard is it to listen?”
Well, it turns out adults are pretty bad at listening. While most adults think they are good listeners, research suggests many are actually poor listeners, often retaining only about half of what others say, and are more focused on their own responses than truly listening. What’s worse, as we get older and more experienced, it actually gets harder to listen.
The bad news is that there’s a massive disconnect between the confidence in our listening and our actual abilities to listen. In short, we are worse at listening than we realize. The other problem is that not many people know that there are two kinds of listening.
Read this whole article on the two kinds of listening, along with three ways to start listening better, from Andrea Clough.
https://mailchi.mp/a06ad07fa027/how-to-listen-better?e=a768a545ff
“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought and attended to my answer.” – Henry David Thoreau
:: Take Five*
*Note: CSN occasionally adds “Take Five” articles to take you off the beaten path. Articles are about local or regional areas of interest, but not necessarily focused on leadership development. The intent is for you to take a break from being a leader and relax for a moment!
A Behind-The-Scenes Look at UW’s Campus Mail Coordinator
Letters and packages appear at university mailboxes every weekday, but the process behind how mail moves through campus can be a mystery. He’s no magician, but, at times, the work of FP&M Shipping and Mail Coordinator Dan Schroeder can look like magic. Read this recent Inside FP&M article to see how the packages and envelopes you leave at the front desk of your office get to their destinations across 175 stops on campus.
Note: CSN uses these services for several of our events throughout the year!
https://inside.fpm.wisc.edu/2025/03/whats-your-job-campus-mail-room-coordination-with-dan-schroeder/