Above is the advice the palm outside my office window provided when I pondered how people could find time to do good at work during these demanding times. Hope it helps!
Category: All Posts
Purposeful Palm series: Gain meaning through gratitude
I spend a lot of time gazing out my office window at a palm tree wondering how to ignite a sense of purpose in whatever work team I’m trying to help. It turns out the tall palm often has surprisingly helpful, simple and broadly applicable…
A truly productive business response to racial injustice: Conversing with Fred Keeton
Because I advise brands on social purpose, many business leaders have asked me how their companies can meaningfully respond to the racial injustice that afflicts U.S. society. To best answer this question, I’ve enlisted one of the country’s leading experts on corporate diversity, equity and…
How to turn our idle team into a post-pandemic powerhouse
Is there a productive assignment we can give our work-at-home team members who don’t have enough to do? I believe there is. And it happens to also serve the world. For many managers, COVID-19 is an opportunity to invite idle or semi-idle employees to develop…
Something in our midst is more contagious than COVID-19
To help people turn COVID-19 “sadness into song,” as his website put it, a music composer gave away $20 downloads in March. This action inspired a musician in Massachusetts who benefitted from a $20 freebie to establish a collaborative music website “to promote peace, understanding, healing and happiness.”…
From small talk to significant talk
I climb into Kevin’s Lyft vehicle. It has holes in the seat and reeks of day-old tuna fish. “How is it possible that he has a perfect five-star rating?” I wonder. After a few minutes of chit chat, Kevin asks if I know anybody with…
Top CSR academic study of 2019
What happens when your company shares information on its corporate social responsibility (CSR) with potential hires? I’m glad you asked! Daniel Hedblom and John List from the University of Chicago and Brent Hickman from Washington University in St. Louis have a stunning evidence-based answer. In…
How to de-stress in five friendly minutes
I’m on stage in Atlanta facing 350 awards-banquet attendees. I start my keynote by asking participants to assess how anxious they are on a scale of one to ten, with one being “not at all” and ten being “extremely.” Then I ask them to do…
Job purposing makes you a better leader
I spent nine hours crafting a metrics plan for a job-purposing project. The client responded that it was so “random and disjointed” that it gave her a headache. I typically think, if not say, something like “the heck with you” to criticism like this. (Were…
So sorry for your inversion
I arrived home from college one summer to find newspaper strewn between my parents’ teak furniture. Atop each sheet was a different hunk of greasy machinery. My sixteen-year-old brother, Alfredo, had bought and disassembled a derelict Volkswagen beetle with the intent of transforming it into…
