Planners’ Picks — June 2, 2026
June? Really???
OK, now that we have that out of our system, let’s replace it with some calm and connection, better emails, easier habits, and some genuine awe of your surroundings.
:: Image of the Week
:: CSN’s Book of the Week Recommendation
The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World
When stress, pressure or difficult relationships take over, it’s easy to react on autopilot – to snap, shut down or say what we don’t mean. We feel overwhelmed, disconnected, or stuck in patterns that don’t help us.
But even in the hardest moments, there is always a choice – and learning to use that choice changes everything.
In The Power to Choose, coach and author Robbie Swale offers a practical, compassionate guide to shifting from automatic reaction to conscious, intentional response. Drawing on psychology, coaching and real stories, he shows how small shifts in awareness can transform how we handle stress, navigate conflict, communicate in difficult moments, and stay calm and connected even when life feels complex.
You’ll discover how to:
- catch yourself before reacting so you can choose how to respond
- find steadiness and calm when everything feels overwhelming
- meet difficult conversations with curiosity instead of defensiveness
- reconnect with people instead of shutting down or withdrawing
- stay anchored under pressure, even when life gets complex
- create the inner space that lets you choose how you show up
Grounded, honest and immediately usable, The Power to Choose helps you reclaim agency in the moments that matter most – at home, at work and in the relationships that shape your life. It is a guide to finding calm and connection in a complex world.
“Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” – Virginia Woolf
:: Coaching
From Manager to MC: The identity shift leaders need now
To quote fellow C-suite consultant Mahan Tavakoli, “Many leaders aren’t even taking a six-week course or picking up a book. We’ve reached a point where time scarcity is used as a valid excuse for intellectual stagnation. We often promote people based on technical expertise and then expect them to lead by osmosis.”
In short, the current reality is that there’s a belief in a lack of time for leadership development, yet leaders are expected to have difficult conversations about performance, hold people accountable and execute seamlessly.
What leaders and organizations alike fail to account for: the time saved by avoiding development is repaid with interest in rework, course correction, finger-pointing, terminations and the replacement of talent.
When organizations invest in learning, exposure is mistaken for mastery. Leaders attend a half-day training, complete an online course and even earn a “certificate.” Then they move on, believing they have a skill, when what they actually have is awareness. Unfortunately, in the world of leadership, we haven’t connected the dots that competency takes time and practice.
No dancer takes one six-week class and says, “I’ve got it,” but leaders do this all the time. The reality is that learning to lead takes time and practice.
- You don’t get better at difficult conversations by watching a video.
- You don’t build clarity by hoping people “just get it.”
- You don’t develop conflict capacity by reading about it.
Awareness isn’t capability, and knowledge isn’t execution.
:: Communication
How to Write Better Emails at Work
AI might help get some things down on the page, but it’s still up to us to make sure our message lands. No place is harder to do that than the email inbox, where everybody skims.
Jeff Su has 7 minutes on how to do better. If you already use an AI tool, his 8 tips may contain one of the prompts you use to revise the messages you are already sending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XctnF7C74s
“When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity.” – Linda Neiman
How radically candid is your communication?
Kim Scott provides several resources from her books Radical Candor and Radical Respect on this website, including a quiz to see how radically candid your communication is. Check it out!
CSN covered both of these books back in 2024 – see our website for links to our book club resources too!
:: LinkedIn Learning
Navigating Emotionally Charged Conversations at Work
Workplace conversations can bring up all kinds of emotions and unspoken dynamics between colleagues. This course is designed to help you master the psychological side of communication, so you can stay centered, present, and collaborative—even when tensions run high at work. Join clinical psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt as she shows how to regulate your emotions, listen with empathy, and create psychological safety in your everyday professional conversations. Along the way, discover what to do when things get heated, how to repair and rebuild trust afterward, and how to turn conflict into deeper, lasting connection. Upon completing this course, you’ll be prepared to identify and address the emotional triggers and psychological dynamics that make workplace conversations feel high stakes.
This course includes AI-powered Role Play. Role Play allows you to practice what you’ve learned in interactive simulations of real-world conversations.
Learning objectives
- Demonstrate strategies for regulating emotions, listening with empathy, and communicating with psychological safety in mind.
- Apply tools for deescalating heated moments and keeping conversations constructive.
- Evaluate and reflect on conversations to repair trust, strengthen relationships, and build long-term emotional fitness at work.
:: Developing Better Habits
How Self-Awareness Makes Every Habit Easier
Even though we live in a culture where social media gives anyone and everyone a platform to broadcast their inner lives, people today are astonishingly un-self-aware. Though 95% of people believe they are self-aware, only about 12% actually are. And the people who think they are the most self-aware are often the least.
You’d think, given my professional focus and personal interests, that I would fall into that 12% of self-aware people. But in some areas of my life, I’m not. For example, I think of myself as a healthy eater. But when I wear a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), which gives me clear data on how my body responds to sleep, stress, and food, I behave differently than when I’m not wearing one.
It’s not that I don’t know that a blackberry cream scone is going to shoot my blood sugar out of range; I do. But if I’m not wearing a CGM, I don’t think about it. I keep that truth conveniently outside of my awareness. If I am wearing a CGM, however, I know I won’t be able to avoid the alarm signaling that my blood sugar is too high, and, therefore, I won’t be able to avoid the truth. I will be aware of what is going on within me, and that awareness will motivate me to skip the scone—rather than avoid the truth.
For all our self-focus, it can be genuinely hard to keep reality in our range of vision. But when we do, we’re much more likely to follow through with our habits for health and happiness.
“Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.” – Charles Reade
:: Mental Health and Self-Care
Water the Garden (and other wisdom from Kate Bowler)
A few summers ago, Author Priya Parker met Kate Bowler in Myrtle Beach to speak to a room of pastors who had just pulled their congregations through a pandemic, political fracture, and collective exhaustion. During their conversation, they kept circling the same question: where do we find grit and resilience and joy and humor and silliness with others as the medicine for the hardest things in life?
They recently hopped on a Substack Live to talk about and mark the release of her new book, JOYFUL, ANYWAY. Bowler is a professor at Duke University, a historian of American religion, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and the host of the podcast Everything Happens. After being diagnosed with stage four cancer at age 35, her work took on even more urgency as she took on questions of pain, mortality, hope, and meaning while maintaining an unusual sense of humor about being human.
See a portion of their conversation, and six takeaways Kate offers us on being Joyful, Anyway.
Watch Wowsabout by Jim Henson to Discover Awe
Greater Good Science Center for Jim Henson’s Wowsabout: Bringing Awe to Life. What a gift to go on a wowsabout with Roxy and Ronald together!
If you missed the live event or wish to watch it again, you can watch a recording of our panel discussion. We’d love your help spreading the word! Please leave us a comment, save it, or share it with someone in your life who could use a little more awe.
You can watch the full Wowsabout! episode here: https://pbskids.org/videos/watch/wowsabout/2720626
We’ve also gathered some resources on the show and the science of awe for you to explore:
Jim Henson Family Hub: A virtual community celebrating, supporting and connecting all kinds of families
The Billion-to-One Miracle of Wowsabout: A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show from Halle Stanford’s Substack
Go For an Awe Walk: A downloadable, one-page guide for having an everyday experience full of wow and wonder
“Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly.” — E.B. White’s Timeless Letter to Someone Who Lost Faith
:: Productivity and Innovation
Champion Ruthless Prioritization
Raise your hand if you’ve ever sat through a quarterly planning meeting and left with a set of “top priorities” that was longer than your grocery list. The baseline state of modern work seems to be holding onto a dozen “critical” projects at once—while trying to keep every plate spinning and everyone happy.
For centuries, the word “priority” was singular, signifying the first thing. Saying “priorities” would have been as illogical as saying “eight livestocks.” The plural arrived with industrial-era management, and boy, have we pluralized it since! The two of us once worked with an international fashion retailer whose transformation program included 400 priorities! Not a typo.
When we ask audiences during keynotes who among them has fewer than five priorities, nearly no hands go up, but there are usually audible chortles.
See this article from HBR on a topic from the new book The Octopus Organization. CSN will be exploring this book in detail this summer!
https://link.hbr.org/view/654a7671fe5aeb7c2e87714b69fca8f6e4dc1e215411d82a/aef2b542
How Adam Grant uses data and intuition to make life decisions
Most of us assume data-driven people make data-driven decisions. Not quite. Adam Grant has built a career helping others think more clearly — but when it comes to his own career, the most important calls he’s made didn’t have clear data behind them. So how did he decide? In this first episode of WorkLife with Molly Graham, Adam joins Molly to talk about how he actually navigates uncertainty — the four questions he asks before committing to any big project, what he calls “deliberate then dive”, and how he measures success when the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCAT7UtOQg4&list=PLAWu34VO7OtJTX1ycOMYsMbkhslhWv-OE&index=4
“It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small; And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all.” – Elsa from ‘Frozen’
:: Self-Leadership Development
The 7 Critical Leadership Skills You Can’t Automate With AI
The fundamental misunderstanding executives make is thinking AI can do the leading for them. It can’t.
AI can process information faster than any human. It can spot patterns, generate options, and surface insights. But AI doesn’t understand the weight of a decision on your people. It doesn’t know when someone needs reassurance versus accountability. It can’t read the room when resistance is building or when your best talent is about to walk out the door.
Algorithms can help sort through information, but they still need someone paying attention. When leaders don’t slow down and question the output, small mistakes can spread fast and show up in the numbers.
- Google’s Gemini AI generated historically inaccurate images in 2024, forcing the company to pause the entire feature and scramble to repair brand damage.
- Air Canada was legally ordered to pay damages after its AI chatbot gave incorrect bereavement fare information to a grieving customer.
- McDonald’s abandoned its IBM-powered AI drive-thru system after it repeatedly misunderstood orders, adding bacon to ice cream and racking up 260 chicken nuggets in a single frustrated customer’s order.
These failures share a common thread. Leaders trusted the algorithm without stepping back to apply their own judgment. They assumed the AI was accurate without checking its limits. In doing so, they allowed technology to drive decisions that still required human wisdom.
https://www.eleaderexperience.com/post/the-7-critical-leadership-skills-you-can-t-automate-with-ai
:: Work Culture & Team Development
The Power of Small: How Little Things Make a Big Difference
Think about the last time something small made a big difference: a word of encouragement, a small idea, a two-minute lesson that stuck. This season on I Love Learning, we’re diving into The Power of Small. Host Dr. Gina Anderson will unpack stories of how learning doesn’t have to be big to be powerful because sometimes, it’s the smallest spark that ignites the biggest change.
Have you ever wondered what people are really looking for… at work?
Not just a paycheck. Not just a position. But a place where they feel respected. Heard. Valued.
In this episode of I Love Learning, Brad Hackett shares a powerful reminder that leadership is never just about numbers.
It’s about people. From recruiting and retaining truck drivers… To building cultures rooted in trust and kindness… Brad reminds us that the smallest actions can shape someone’s entire experience.
Listening. Following through. Treating people with dignity. Because people may forget policies and processes… But they never forget how you made them feel. True leadership isn’t about filling seats or checking boxes. It’s about creating environments where people feel supported enough to grow. Where relationships matter. Where trust is earned. And where kindness is not seen as weakness… But as one of the greatest strengths a leader can have.
Check out this podcast with Gina and Brad Hackett of Jet Express.
https://lumabrighterlearning.com/the-power-of-small-tip-21/
The mindset shift that ended my Sunday-night dread
Sunday evening. I’m staring at my to-do list for the week ahead, and that familiar weight settles into my chest. There’s the newsletter draft I need to finish. The client presentation to revise. Three strategy documents waiting for review. Dozens of unread emails.
My first thought: “I’m already behind.”
My second thought: “Have I ever truly felt on top of things?”
That question took me by surprise. A lot of these tasks are things I chose. There’s work I care about, client deliveries I find meaningful, and working with colleagues I care about. Not to mention side projects, such as writing articles like this. These are all, in theory, things I like. So why does it feel like I’m drowning in obligation?
Author Oliver Burkeman, who wrote the bestseller Four Thousand Weeks, might say it’s because of my belief that it’s ever possible to get on top of things in the first place.
“There will always be too much to do,” Burkeman told Big Think.
https://bigthink.com/work-wise/the-mindset-shift-that-ended-my-sunday-night-dread
:: Upcoming Events
CSN’s Summer Book Club: The Octopus Organization
Three sessions. Three big ideas. One smarter way to lead.
This summer, the Campus Supervisors Network is exploring The Octopus Organization, a book that reimagines how teams create clarity, build ownership, and strengthen accountability in a rapidly changing workplace.
We’ll break the book into three one‑hour sessions, each focused on one of its three core parts and 36 antipatterns:
- PART 1 — Creating Clarity (June 16: 1:00-2:00 pm)
- PART 2 — Increasing Ownership (July 9: 1:00-2:00 pm)
- PART 3 — Inciting Curiosity (July 23: 1:00-2:00 pm)
Join one, two, or all three sessions — whatever fits your summer schedule. We are sharing instructions to access the book through the UW–Madison Libraries, so no purchase is required.
This is a great chance to connect with colleagues and sharpen your leadership practice in a low‑pressure, high‑impact format.
Next steps will be communicated to all registrants before each session.
Register here: https://go.wisc.edu/t565w7
Access The Octopus Organization at UW-Library: Steps to download “The Octopus Organization” from EBSCO
The book’s introduction: The Octopus Organization Introduction
Wired for Success LIVE Webinar with Dr. Melissa Hughes
Somewhere along the way, most of us bought into the same unspoken rule about success: If what you’re doing isn’t working, push harder. Pedal faster. Do more.
Neuroscience says that strategy isn’t just ineffective, it’s cognitively expensive. Every “push harder” pulls from a single, finite pool of neural energy that also fuels your focus, your decision-making, your emotional regulation, and your creativity. The harder you push in one place, the less you have everywhere else. You don’t get more capacity. You get more depletion dressed up as productivity.
This is why high performers so often hit the same wall: the strategy that got them here quietly stops working, and the only tool they’ve been taught is to apply more of the thing that’s already failing. The brain doesn’t reward harder. It rewards aligned, fueled, and rested.
When your state is regulated, your systems reduce friction, your habits carry the load that motivation can’t, and your identity holds steady under pressure; success stops feeling fragile. It stops requiring a perfect week, a great night’s sleep, and an iron will to function. It just… works. Even on ordinary days. Even on hard ones.
That’s a design upgrade. The brain you already have is wired for sustainable performance. Most of us were just never shown how to work with it rather than against it.
The Science of Success: Why legends visualize
Dr. Melissa Hughes is hosting a 60-minute live webinar on the neuroscience of sustainable performance. This is for anyone tired of pushing harder and ready to design smarter. We’ll walk through the four-layer framework that makes success stable instead of exhausting, and you’ll leave with tools you can use the same day.
It’s live, and it’s free. No pressure either way, but if you’ve been running on fumes lately, this is the conversation worth showing up for.
Two Dates to Choose From (same content):
Date: June 4, 2026
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 pm CST
Date: June 16, 2026
Time: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm CST
Location: Zoom link provided after you register (replay recording will also be available)