Planners’ Picks — July 21, 2026
We’re focusing on team development and growth this week — find several resources in that category! We’ll also break through to higher levels, see more opportunities, and embrace performance reviews. Enjoy!
:: Image of the Week
:: CSN’s Book of the Week Recommendation
Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results
What if the real obstacle isn’t your effort, your discipline, or your circumstances, but what you believe is possible?
Behind every endeavor are beliefs that shape outcomes. Most people never question those beliefs, even when they hold them back. Beyond Belief by bestselling author Nir Eyal (Indistractable, Hooked) reveals one counterintuitive truth: these beliefs aren’t facts. They’re tools. Understand how they work, and you can set them aside when they are unhelpful and replace them with better ones to change what’s possible for you.
Backed by the latest neuroscience and psychology research, Eyal shows you how your hidden assumptions filter what you see, what you attempt, and what you achieve, and gives you a clear, practical method to change them. Learn how to:
- See what others miss – Beliefs filter your perception. Shift them, and options that were invisible come into view.
- Stay grounded under pressure – Change how you respond to uncertainty so steadiness becomes your default, not something you force.
- Break costly patterns – Improve your health, relationships, and career by removing interference – not adding more effort.
- Expand what you think you’re capable of – Your limits aren’t fixed. They’re learned. And what’s learned can be relearned.
Once you understand how belief really works, you can stop fighting yourself — and start building change that lasts.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” – Anne Dillard
:: Confidence
Stop Talking Yourself Out of Opportunities You’ve Earned
What really drives your executive presence, career decisions, and ability to influence the people around you? It’s your beliefs.
In this episode, Author Melody Wilding talks with Nir Eyal, a globally recognized authority on behavior change and human potential, about his new, New York Times bestselling book: Beyond Belief.
You’ll Discover:
• How positive thinking and manifestation can make you less likely to achieve your goals – here’s why
• How to “engineer” your own luck and draw promotions, plum projects, and more TO you
• One question Nir asks himself that stops a limiting belief in its tracks
:: Performance Reviews
4 ways leaders can stop dreading performance reviews
Annual performance reviews aren’t broken; their design is flawed, writes Nicole Johnston. Here’s what to do instead.
The annual review fails for one fundamental reason: it’s trying to do too much in one shot. It’s asked to evaluate past performance, chart future growth and sometimes deliver compensation news, all in the same conversation. That’s not a review. That’s a pressure cooker.
Harvard Business School Professor Katherine Coffman nails it: “When a review is something that only happens once a year, it can feel very consequential and anxiety-inducing, but if it’s happening on a more regular basis, it makes the stakes for any one of these conversations feel a bit lower.”
Lower stakes. More honest conversations. Actual growth. That’s the goal.
“You must be willing to let go of the last action and pour yourself fully into the next action.” – James Clear
:: Work Culture & Team Development
Another View
Old Happy: “I have to get it right on my own.”
New Happy: “The only way to get it right is if we do it together.”
No one sees the world the way that you do. It’s one of your gifts. You have unique wisdom, unique ideas, and a unique understanding of the world.
At the same time, any one individual perspective is inevitably and perpetually limited. There is so much we cannot see, know, and understand; these individual limitations — accumulated over time into ideas, ideologies and institutions — can lead to to division, violence, and suffering.
https://www.thenewhappy.com/blog/newsletter-take-another-view
The Office Amenity That Actually Improves Teamwork
Research on more than 6,000 knowledge workers suggests that the most effective teams are defined less by office perks or work arrangements than by their ability to protect focused work. High-performing teams deliberately reduce interruptions through focus blocks, meeting-free periods, and systems that minimize constant messaging and check-ins. Rather than emphasizing constant interaction, the best workplaces recognize that collaboration depends on giving people the time and conditions to think deeply, solve problems independently, and contribute better ideas to the group.
The Real Reason Managers Don’t Delegate
In a business environment changing faster than ever, leadership capacity has become a competitive advantage. The organizations that thrive are the ones that create enough space for leaders to think, learn, adapt, innovate, and act before the market demands it.
Delegation is no longer just a management tactic. It’s a growth strategy.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-reason-managers-dont-delegate-alyson-van-hooser-csp-jhtrc
Want a More Engaged Workforce? Make Room for Fun
It’s hard to measure a company’s soft values when the primary focus of leadership is revenue growth and profitability, but I would challenge that thought process and suggest that the underlying culture of a company and the way that it most effectively tackles the bottom line is by having a strong focus on its people.
Leadership not only has to encourage fun, it also needs to take part in fun at work. Being professional, and also being able to step back and have fun with each other, goes a long way to developing trust and helping people feel more bonded to each other and the company.
https://ceoworld.biz/2026/07/08/want-a-more-engaged-workforce-make-room-for-fun
“To plant a garden is to believe in Tomorrow.” -Audrey Hepburn
Co-Create Team Guidelines
Many leaders know the importance of team guidelines, but simply hand them to the team. They miss that the interpersonal dynamics that emerge as the team creates guidelines are often more important than the guidelines themselves.
A starting point for how to create team guidelines is what did not work well on a previous team. Aim to create no more than 8 guidelines and remember that disagreement is the sign of a healthy team.
Susan Gerke showed us how to do this step-by-step in our chat about How to Create Team Guidelines (episode 192).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQZiyGTnSG4
:: Self-Leadership Development
The Wound Success Can’t Heal
See this article from Sonia McDonald on feeling like she’s not enough, despite being highly successful.
You can build a successful business. Write books. Speak on stages. Lead teams. Raise children. Overcome challenges that would break many people. And still carry a wound from childhood — a wound that whispers, quietly, in the moments between the applause: “Why wasn’t I enough?”
Psychologist Dr. Kristin Neff, the world’s leading researcher on self-compassion, found that high achievers are often the least compassionate toward themselves — driven by an inner critic shaped in childhood by environments where love felt conditional.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wound-success-cant-heal-sonia-mcdonald-thqte
Why you should consider the source of criticism
Instead of giving all feedback or critiques equal weight, author and former CEO Brendan Keegan suggests developing a “source filter” by asking yourself if you would hire that person to fix a problem or seek out their advice. If not, don’t focus on their input. Instead, create a trusted circle of three to five people who have experience and a track record of good judgment to bounce your ideas off of, Keegan writes.
:: Trust, Psychological Safety & Belonging
Loneliness at the Top: When You Don’t Feel Like You Belong or Feel Psychologically Safe as an Introverted Leader
No one warns you that leadership can get lonelier the more senior you become.
It’s often assumed that once a leader gets to senior and executive levels, they’ve got everything about themselves sorted. And whilst externally, they may appear to have it all together –– after all they’ve navigated the barriers and challenges and made it to the top –– the reality is, the more senior you become, the more challenging it can be psychologically.
This is particularly so when you don’t fit the dominant norm of what leadership is in your organisation. If you don’t feel like you belong or feel psychologically safe, this can affect how you think about yourself and how you show up.
“You can be authentic and hardworking and still struggle to find your footing if you’re in the wrong environment. Think about your placement as much as your performance. Plant yourself where you can thrive.” – Unknown
:: Upcoming Events
The Missing Step In Your Goal Planning
What if the biggest obstacle to achieving your goals isn’t the goals themselves, but the process behind them?
In this upcoming webinar, global executive, TEDx speaker, and author Jobert E. Abueva will explore how structured team reflection can uncover valuable insights, strengthen strategic planning, and lead to more meaningful goals.
Based on insights from his forthcoming book, The Janus Plan: A No-Resolutions Path to Begin Your Year with Intention, this session will expand on Jobert’s six-step framework at the heart of the book and show you exactly how to apply it as a team development and goal alignment tool.
During this engaging session, you’ll discover how to:
- Uncover the lessons your team needs before setting new goals
- Understand why most goals fail to gain traction, and how to avoid it
- Utilize a simple framework and facilitation tools for your next planning cycle
The Janus Plan framework is designed to meet teams exactly where they are. I hope you’ll join us!
Date: Thursday, July 23, 2026
Time: 11:00 am-12:00 pm CDT
Register here: https://weavinginfluence.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AtTU0XqtRb263KZ8dvLVgw#/registration
The Power of Connection: Creating Lasting Friendships in an Increasingly Lonely World
Join the Middleton Library in a virtual conversation with bestselling author Dr. Marisa Franco, one of the world’s leading experts in human connection. Her book, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make–And Keep–Friends, explores the science of different attachment styles and how they impact our relationships–often in ways we don’t realize!
How do we make and keep friends in an era of distraction, burnout, and chaos, especially in a society that often prizes romantic love at the expense of other relationships? In Platonic, Dr. Marisa G. Franco unpacks the latest, often counterintuitive findings about the bonds between us—for example, why your friends aren’t texting you back (it’s not because they hate you!), and the myth of “friendships happening organically” (making friends, like cultivating any relationship, requires effort!). As Dr. Franco explains, to make and keep friends, you must understand your attachment style—secure, anxious, or avoidant: it is the key to unlocking what’s working (and what’s failing) in your friendships.
Making new friends and deepening longstanding relationships is possible at any age—in fact, it’s essential. The good news: there are specific, research-based ways to improve the number and quality of your connections using the insights of attachment theory and the latest scientific research on friendship. Platonic provides a clear and actionable blueprint for forging strong, lasting connections with others—and for becoming our happiest, most fulfilled selves in the process.
Register today to learn more about how to harness the science of human connection to create cultures of belonging.
Date: Tuesday, July 28th 2026
Time: 1:00 – 2:00 PM CDT
Register here: https://libraryc.org/midlibrary/178126?uMarketingSource=_LSC_ME_06_2
Supervisor of Student Employees Certificate Program
Supervising students can be a rewarding, although challenging, proposition. The Office of Student Financial Aid Employer Resources provides support to supervisors of students, helping guide students on their journey to personal and professional success.
The new Student Supervisor Certificate Program is now accepting applications through August 10. The program is designed for professional staff who directly supervise student employees. The program consists of eight required classes, focused on High Impact Practices, the Dimensions of Wellness, recruitment and onboarding, technology, and much more!
https://studentjobs.wisc.edu/student-supervisor-certificate/