Planners’ Picks — March 17, 2026
On St. Patty’s Day, we shouldn’t rely only on luck to lead our teams — let’s instead focus on communication and curiosity resources to enlighten and grow.
:: Image of the Week
:: CSN’s Book of the Week Recommendation
Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit
It’s time to reimagine the essentials of courageous leadership.
Over the past six years, the Dare to Lead global community of coaches and facilitators has taken more than 150,000 leaders in forty-five countries through our Dare to Lead courage-building work. In this new book, I share the lessons from these experiences, my personal reflections, poetry that captures the complexity of this moment in time, and wisdom from other leadership thinkers. My hope is that this book can serve as a playbook for everyone, from senior leaders developing and executing complex strategies to GenZers entering and navigating turbulent work environments.
In the midst of deep uncertainty and the overwhelm of experiencing bluster, hubris, and even cruelty being framed as an increasingly acceptable form of leading, this book is about actionable and tactical insights that make explicit the mindsets and skill sets we need to reclaim our focus and power growth while leading from a place of connection, discipline, and accountability.
https://brenebrown.com/book/strong-ground
Note: The Servant Leadership Community of Practice has been covering sections of this book and will meet again this Friday, March 20th, to focus on the pause between stimulus and response. If you’re interested, go to https://slcop.sites.wisc.edu/calendar-of-events/ for a meeting link and pre-readings to this session.
:: Curiosity
Trust Your Curiosity
Author Joe Lalley recently released Question to Learn, a great guidebook to promote curiosity in the workplace. Check out this podcast with him and Dawn Ledet as they explore his ideas on trusting your curiosity.
In this episode, they explore:
• How curiosity builds self-trust when clarity feels out of reach
• Navigating self-doubt inside corporate environments
• What it means to question the status quo
• Practical ways leaders can use curiosity to create meaningful change
Whether you’re considering a bold move, questioning how you’ve been operating, or simply sensing there’s a more aligned way to lead and work, this episode offers grounded insight and permission to trust the questions you’re already asking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqYBiOZvYgo
“Things are not getting worse. They are getting uncovered.” – Adrienne Maree Brown
How Curiosity Can Help You Change Opinions and Win Arguments
Instead of arguing to change someone’s mind, former FBI undercover and counterintelligence agent LaRae Quy suggests leading with curiosity and asking deep questions:
“Much of the FBI Academy training focused on immersing new agents, like myself, in controlled exercises where failure was expected. Our responses to these failures helped develop the mental skills necessary to recover when facing the unknown. During these exercises, we often lost critical resources that we relied on to succeed or reach our goals.
I learned to develop skills that would help me navigate through change and chaos. Leaders need these same skills because they face similar real-world challenges — the failure of established procedures or the emergence of innovative competitors that require leaders to be flexible and strategic.
Often, this requires re-examining long-held opinions about how to do business and interact with people. Mental agility isn’t just about being quick-minded — it’s about being able to pivot and stay resilient; in other words, to learn continuously about our environment. The best way to know more about our environment is to be curious.
Curiosity is crucial for changing opinions because it promotes open-minded exploration and reduces defensiveness. When we’re curious, we’re more willing to ask questions, seek new information and listen actively instead of judging or dismissing.
We live in a time where disagreements can feel like a battle for moral high ground. Curiosity is a vital tool that transforms a challenge from a threat into an opportunity for learning and growth. Curiosity allows us to adapt our behavior and change our strategy based on new feedback. It also helps us to make sound strategic decisions quickly in rapidly changing conditions.”
See LaRae’s three tips on communicating effectively using curiosity here: https://www.smartbrief.com/original/how-curiosity-can-help-you-change-opinions-and-win-arguments
:: Self-Leadership Development
Is Your Leadership Style Too Nice?
Many leaders mistake being “nice” for being effective, avoiding hard conversations and decisions in ways that ultimately undermine organizational performance. The authors argue that being “good” instead requires clear accountability, candid feedback, disciplined decisions about roles and retention, and sustained strategic focus. Organizations that engage in these activities see stronger engagement, growth, and lasting impact.
“No is a dynamic that you’ve got to master before you can ever master yes.” – Chris Voss
A Smarter Way to Develop Frontline Managers
The Kevin Eikenberry Group had a webinar recently on how frontline leadership face bigger roles. More pressure. More change.
And most are promoted with little prep and mixed support. That’s not a people problem. It’s a system problem.
This webinar is for leaders who want better results from their frontline managers—without blowing up budgets or rebuilding everything from scratch.
In this hour, Kevin shares what he’s learned from decades of helping organizations support new leaders. Work that also shaped the Bud to Boss approach that many teams use today.
You’ll learn:
- Why traditional new-leader programs keep falling short
- Creating a shared leadership foundation without overloading managers.
- Supporting leaders at the moment they need it, not months later
- Giving L&D teams flexible content they can scale without starting from scratch
- This webinar isn’t about theory. It’s about practical systems that help new leaders succeed faster.
:: Mental Health and Self-Care
Thrive Outside at UW-Madison
UHS Mental Health Services is excited to announce the launch of a new website, Thrive Outside! This new webpage showcases several nature spots for students to explore, offers creative ideas for activities, and provides practical tips for incorporating nature into their daily life. This initiative will continue to expand in the future, and printed materials will eventually be made available.
What will you do first? I’ll meet you there!
https://www.uhs.wisc.edu/mental-health/outreach-services/thrive-outside/
“Time is what we want most but what we use worst.” – William Penn
Are We Getting Self-Care Wrong?
Before you think about your answer, let me clarify: I’m specifically asking what self-care is—not how do you take care of yourself? It’s amazing that an entire industry has built up around self-care—but from what I have seen, few ever try to define self-care. So what’s your answer?
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/are_we_getting_self_care_wrong
:: Communication
10 Communication Norms That Will Transform Your Team’s Productivity
Most team communication problems aren’t actually communication problems. They’re culture problems. And culture flows from the top.
When leaders respond to Slack messages at 10 PM, their team learns that 10 PM responses are expected. When leaders schedule a meeting to share information that could have been a document, their team learns that meetings are the default. When leaders use “urgent” for everything, their team learns that urgency is meaningless.
The norms your team operates by aren’t written in any handbook. They’re modeled every single day by the people at the top. Which means if you want to change how your team communicates, it starts with you.
So here’s the million $ question: Are the communication patterns on your team the ones you’d actually design if you were starting from scratch?
:: Work Culture & Team Development
How might we make this work with the resources we have?
Caroline Brookfield has a short but sweet video on promoting curiosity within teams, and a couple of suggestions on ways to push past the limiting answers someone might get when asking about changing something in their process.
You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for. – Napoleon Hill
S-Curves and the Most Important Trait for Success
When people imagine growth, the typical expectation is a more-or-less linear line towards proficiency or excellence. If you subscribe to the 10,000 hours theory of expertise, this would mean that every 1 hour increment of practice represents 0.01% attainment of the skill level required to be an expert. Following this logic, after 8,000 hours, you would be 80% of the way to expert status.
https://medium.com/@BillNBing/s-curves-and-the-most-important-trait-for-success-de660c58ab93
:: Upcoming Events
Servant Leadership Monthly Meeting
The Servant Leadership Community of Practice has been covering sections of Strong Ground by Brené Brown in 2026, and will meet again on Friday, March 20, to focus on the pause between stimulus and response.
Together as a community, we’ll explore:
- What is the OPPOSITE of “negative capability?”
- When caring for ourselves as leaders, what should we “let in,” and what should we “leave out?”
- How can we create a “space” between stimulus and our response?
- How can we use the practice of mindfulness in our role as a leader?
- What IS mindfulness and what ISN’T mindfulness?
- How can we use the concept of “negative capability” to be courageous leaders?
If you’re interested, go to https://slcop.sites.wisc.edu/calendar-of-events/ for a meeting link and pre-readings to this session.
Date: March 20, 2026
Time: 8:30-10:00 am CST
Location: Zoom Link (see SL calendar of events for the link)
Beyond the Timeline: The People in Projects with Nancy Kujak-Ford
Managing projects often means balancing deadlines, deliverables, and resources—but truly successful projects go beyond the basics. This session explores how human dynamics shape project outcomes and introduces T.R.U.S.T. (transparency, reliability, understanding, support, and timeliness) as a practical framework for building stronger team connections. You’ll learn how to establish trust quickly, align perspectives, and make relationship-building a daily practice. We’ll also cover what to do when trust is missing and how to rebuild it. You’ll leave with actionable strategies to make your projects more people-focused, resilient, and successful.
Presented by Nancy Kujak-Ford, a CSN Planner and director of strategy and impact @ the College of Letters and Science
Date: Thursday, April 9, 2026
Time: 10:00-11:00 am
Location: Online via registration link
https://strategicconsulting.wisc.edu/in-scope-managing-projects-at-uw-madison/