Planners’ Picks — June 16, 2026
We once again saw the winds of change in the Madison area last week, with storms reshaping the landscape around us. With a tree uprooted, what new thing can you plant in its place?
Let’s build trust, make work more meaningful, and squash our inner critic this week with our helpful resources from CSN planners and our connections.
:: Image of the Week
There’s a voice in your head that’s been writing your story for years. Sometimes it’s encouraging. Often it isn’t.
Sometimes it tells you who you are with such confidence that you stop wondering whether it’s true. You accept it without question.
Here’s what I want you to know: that voice is a narrator, not a witness. And narrators are known for their storytelling… not accuracy.
https://melissahughes.rocks/so/aaPvgBSQE?languageTag=en&cid=9d357a21-8c12-4875-9aae-89d0deaed78c
:: Creativity
The 12-Minute Method
The 12-Minute Method is for you if you know what it’s like to be stuck in creative hell. It’s for you if you have seen great ideas pass you by and you want to draw a line in the sand. It’s for you if you want to stop making excuses and start doing work that matters. It’s for you if you want to stop wasting time and start having time on your side. It’s for you if you want to stop wasting your potential and start fulfilling it.
Check out Robbie Swale’s idea on getting out of a rut here: https://www.robbieswale.com/about-the-12-minute-method
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso
:: Trust, Psychological Safety & Belonging
The Trust in All of Us
Korn Ferry CEO Gary Burnison explains what it takes for a leader to gain the trust of employees.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“You know… I’m telling the truth.”
“You do believe me… right?”
We hear versions of these phrases all the time.
Or… “Trust me.” If ever two words have the opposite effect of their intended meaning, it’s these.
Yet, what’s interesting is that none of these statements are really about trust alone. They’re about something deeper.
After all, trust rarely appears out of nowhere. It’s an accumulation of experiences. Authenticity creates transparency. Transparency fosters honesty. Honesty, consistently demonstrated, builds trust. And when trust becomes strong enough, it evolves into something even more powerful: belief.
Every organization and team today requires capability and performance. Without them, it’s a non-starter. Yet the real catalyst is people trusting and believing in each other—and in something bigger than each of them and all of them.
https://www.kornferry.com/insights/special-edition/the-trust-in-all-of-us-2
:: Curiosity
How Can We Make Work Feel and Be More Meaningful?
In this conversation, career coach and author Brooke Erol explores the changing nature of work, fulfillment, and identity in an era shaped by burnout, layoffs, and artificial intelligence. Drawing from her own experience at IBM, she reflects on realizing early in her career that many people were “chasing the weekend” rather than finding meaning in their work. That realization eventually led her to write More Than a Paycheck, a guide designed to help individuals develop greater self-awareness and agency in their careers.
Brooke argues that self-awareness is foundational to meaningful work, yet modern life leaves little room for reflection. She encourages people to intentionally create time to examine what energizes them, what no longer serves them, and which limiting beliefs may be shaping their choices. Throughout the discussion, she emphasizes that traditional career formulas—go to college, get a corporate job, retire happily—are no longer reliable in today’s unstable job market.
The conversation also examines the disruptive impact of AI, especially on younger workers and recent graduates, while highlighting the growing value of trade and skilled labor careers. Brooke encourages people to remain adaptable, continuously learn new skills, and consider side projects or entrepreneurial paths alongside traditional employment.
The discussion closes with reflections on retirement, purpose, and identity. Brooke and Jeff agree that fulfillment comes not from stopping work entirely, but from continuing to contribute, learn, connect, and pursue activities that make life meaningful.
https://www.queticocoaching.com/blog/416-how-can-we-make-work-feel-and-be-more-meaningful
Check out Erol’s book at https://a.co/d/09FRDPyc
“You aren’t wealthy until you have something money can’t buy.” – Garth Brooks
:: Mental Health and Self-Care
How to Position Mental Health as a Strategic Workforce Priority
Burnout as a performance signal: Learn how silent burnout and presenteeism show up in productivity, retention, and engagement data, and why they must be treated as business-critical indicators rather than isolated wellbeing issues.
Leave trends as early warning signs: Understand what rising mental health leave reveals about organizational pressure, workforce design, and gaps in early intervention.
Proactive vs reactive support models: See where traditional EAP-led approaches fall short and how leading organizations are shifting towards continuous, preventative mental health support.
Linking well-being to business outcomes: Discover how to connect mental health investment to measurable impact across performance, retention, and workforce stability, strengthening its position as a strategic priority.
Watch this replay of a recent HR Leaders event on how to address mental health in the workforce.
“I read once that the true mark of a pro — at anything — is that he understands, loves, and is good at even the drudgery of his profession.” – Paul Halmos
Tips for Living a Happier Life
A conversation between Katy Milkman and UCLA Marketing Professor and happiness expert Cassie Holmes
Katy: “I’ve just wrapped up a semester of teaching Wharton MBAs about decision-making, and every year in my final lecture, I spend a little time on the science of happiness. Because really, what’s the point of making good decisions if not to produce happiness? I suspect you might appreciate a few science-based tips on this topic, too, so I dug back into the Choiceology archive to pull a conversation with UCLA Professor Cassie Holmes, whose research shows that focusing more on time and less on money is a surprisingly powerful path to a happier life. I hope you’ll enjoy it!”
https://katymilkman.substack.com/p/tips-for-living-a-happier-life?r=3c3hz
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” – Henry David Thoreau
Permission to be Human
This is your permission slip to live, to laugh, to love, to cry, and to hurt. I hereby permit you to be silly, fun, foolish, lost, messy, but most importantly, be yourself. Even if you don’t know who that is or where to find her/him, let this life be a journey back to the soul you’ve always known, but perhaps buried by the experiences that shaped the false you.
The true you was never a getting to. It was always a remembrance. Remembering your light, your perfection, your wholeness. Remembering that it was always meant to be easy, even when you clung to the hard and wore it like a badge of honor.
At any point of your choosing, you could let it go, invite in the ease that’s been waiting and wrap yourself in its softness.
Your edges can be beautiful too, but don’t sharpen them so much that you cut out all the good you deserve around you. So often the last exhale reveals how obvious it was, how obviously loved, held, and divine you always were, but you can claim that knowing now, in this breath.
In this moment in time, with all its ups and downs. You don’t have to get to where you’re going to be who you want to be or to live the life you’ve always wanted; no, my dear, you can simply sign the permission slip and let the field trip begin.
Listen to the latest Meditate on This episode on Conscious Conversations and discover why sometimes the most healing thing we can do is remember that we’re human.
https://youtu.be/dI5QkhOw5V8?si=HEooXcTR8aIw9Fva
:: Kindness in Leadership
The Case for Kindness to Make Our World a Better Place
In this episode, Marcel sits down with filmmaker Steven Sawalich to discuss his award-winning documentary, Case for Kindness, now streaming on Prime. Together, they explore the science behind kindness and its role in building trust and healing relationships in today’s polarized world. Featuring stories and insights from voices like Ben Affleck, Garth Brooks, and Daryl Davis, this conversation offers a hopeful and practical reminder that intentional kindness can transform both individuals and communities.
:: CSN’s Book of the Week Recommendation
Supercommunicators
Supercommunicators is packed with stories of people talking to one another and yet somehow not really hearing one another. It’s also filled with research about how to ensure that communication actually happens.
Come inside a jury room as one juror leads a starkly divided room to consensus. Join a young CIA officer as he recruits a reluctant foreign agent. And sit with an accomplished surgeon as he tries, and fails, to convince yet another cancer patient to opt for the less risky course of treatment. In Supercommunicators, Charles Duhigg blends deep research and his trademark storytelling skills to show how we can all learn to identify and leverage the hidden layers that lurk beneath every conversation.
Communication is a superpower and the best communicators understand that whenever we speak, we’re actually participating in one of three conversations: practical (What’s this really about?), emotional (How do we feel?), and social (Who are we?). If you don’t know what kind of conversation you’re having, you’re unlikely to connect.
Supercommunicators know the importance of recognizing—and then matching—each kind of conversation, and how to hear the complex emotions, subtle negotiations, and deeply held beliefs that color so much of what we say and how we listen. Our experiences, our values, our emotional lives—and how we see ourselves, and others—shape every discussion, from who will pick up the kids to how we want to be treated at work. In this book, you will learn why some people are able to make themselves heard, and to hear others, so clearly.
With his storytelling that takes us from the writers’ room of The Big Bang Theory to the couches of leading marriage counselors, Duhigg shows readers how to recognize these three conversations—and teaches us the tips and skills we need to navigate them more successfully.
In the end, he delivers a simple but powerful lesson: With the right tools, we can connect with anyone.
See the transcript from an interview with Duhigg and David Epstein here: https://davidepstein.substack.com/p/how-to-be-a-supercommunicator
:: Productivity and Innovation
Tackle the Hardest Parts of a Project First
If you wanted to get a monkey to sit on top of a ten-foot pedestal to recite Shakespeare, where would you begin? In most companies, the answer is obvious: you build the pedestal first. Why? Because building a pedestal is easy. It’s measurable. You can show your boss a photo of a finished pedestal. You can put a big green checkmark on your dashboard and talk about “early momentum.” Pedestal, done.
But as Astro Teller, the CEO of Alphabet X’s Moonshot Lab, points out with this famous analogy, you shouldn’t build the pedestal first. That’s a trap. You can build pedestals all day—the best pedestals—but what good is that if you find out three years and $10 million later that the monkey simply cannot learn to talk, putting the chance that monkeys will recite Shakespeare at just right around 0.0%.
We often tackle the most achievable parts of a challenge first because we want to show progress, we need to justify our budgets and prove we are productive. But this is another classic Tin Man behavior.
Read this anti-pattern from The Octopus Organization, a book CSN is currently featuring in our summer book club.
https://link.hbr.org/view/654a7671fe5aeb7c2e87714b6a1c4cfa6bcbb52e14e04862/57d898d3
“It’s not my job to tell myself no. The world will offer plenty of obstacles. I don’t need to add to them. My mind is my friend. I am my own biggest believer.” – James Clear
:: Developing Confidence
How Do You Overcome Your Fears and Doubts?
For nearly 20 years, Rachel has helped leaders and organizations elevate engagement, accelerate growth, and unleash purpose and possibilities by activating curiosity, character, and confidence in their people. As a trained facilitator and professional keynote speaker with a background in workplace culture, health, and human behavior, Rachel brings a unique perspective and set of skills to catalyze both introspective insight and meaningful connection that lead to lasting transformation.
Recognized by Smart Meetings as a Best of the Stage Speaker in 2023, Forbes as a Next1000 honoree, Workforce Magazine as a 40 Under 40 Game Changer, and the #1 Health Promotion Professional in the U.S. by the Wellness Council of America, Rachel is a change agent whose refreshing perspective has helped her stand out as a leader in her field. Rachel is the Founder of UNMUTED, a speaking and training company whose mission is to activate the power of curiosity to ignite personal and professional clarity, so people move forward with greater purpose, passion, confidence, and courage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQpSgRf5ToE
“It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle
Lower the Cost of Failure
There’s an adage that most of us ignore in our organizations: “The first rule of holes is, when you’re in one, stop digging.”
In most organizational models, born from manufacturing and assembly lines, stopping is a sign of weakness, sometimes a literal halting of progress. We are conditioned to treat failure as toxic—something to be contained, hidden, or blamed on someone else. We operate on the assumption that a “right” answer always exists and that a leader’s job is to find it, preferably on the first try. This is classic Tin Man behavior.
See this post from The Octopus Organization on allowing people to fail forward.
https://link.hbr.org/view/654a7671fe5aeb7c2e87714b6a26d8feafc67e08175f6f38/c7242182
:: Upcoming Events
Managing Up with Emotional Intelligence With Melody Wilding
Nobody teaches you how to handle the weird stuff at work. The boss who keeps changing direction. The difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding. The feeling that you’re doing everything right but not getting the recognition.
Most workplace challenges aren’t black-and-white. They’re messy. They’re nuanced. They are oh-so-uncomfortably human. That’s why I’m excited to sit down with Melody Wilding this week.
Melody is a human behavior expert who helps professionals communicate with confidence, navigate difficult dynamics, and build influence without sacrificing authenticity.
We’re diving into things like:
-How to communicate your value at work without sounding self-promotional
-How to handle a boss with so many ideas that it’s impossible to stay focused
-How to repair trust after conflict without making things awkward
One tip from Melody that immediately stuck with me: When you need to say “yes” to a request you don’t want to become a pattern, explicitly label it as an exception. Something like: “I’m happy to help this time, but I won’t be able to do this regularly.”
Clear. Kind. No resentment required.
I’m also fascinated by how Melody is using AI prompts to help people role-play difficult conversations before they happen. Think of it as a low-stakes practice round for the conversations that matter most.
If you’ve ever struggled with a micromanager, unclear expectations, office politics, or feeling overlooked, this is the conversation to join.
What’s the hardest workplace conversation you’ve ever had to navigate? Would you handle it differently today?
Join us live or catch the replay wherever you listen to Coffee With Kim.
Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2026
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm
LinkedIn Live event (or you can watch a replay later) https://www.linkedin.com/events/7468296897448001537/
Webinar teaches managers about multigenerational talent
LifeMatters and the Employee Assistance Office are offering a free virtual webinar, Generational Diversity for Managers, on Tuesday, June 23, noon‒1 p.m. For the first time in history, there are four different generations in the workplace. Managers and other UW–Madison employees will learn how to value the new ideas and embrace the change that each new generation brings.
Topics will include:
- Breaking down generational stereotypes
- Strengthening work relationships
- Expanding your management style
- Engaging valued employees
This webinar is offered at no cost to all UW-Madison employees. Register online to receive the Zoom link.
Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Time: Noon-1 p.m. via Zoom
https://www.myworkday.com/wisconsin/email-universal/inst/17815$1719/rel-task/2997$10951.htmld
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. Today we’re holding session one, but you can still register for the remaining stand-alone sessions and get in on learning with your peers!
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) (Registration is CLOSED)
- PART 2 — Increasing Ownership (July 9: 1:00-2:00 pm)
- PART 3 — Inciting Curiosity (July 23: 1:00-2:00 pm)
Join one or two remaining 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