Joy at Work Thinking
Written by Roxanne Brown
Imagine this: You love your work. You love being absorbed by it. You feel your life’s purpose reflected in the work you do and you can see the impact it’s having. Your family and friends are proud of you and the work you do. They can see why it’s important, why it drive...
Written by Roxanne Brown
If you think change will be hard, it will be. We’ve seen it over and over again. If you believe your people can’t handle change or don’t like change then you are pretty much guaranteeing that it won’t go well. If you believe that your people can handle change and just n...
Written by Roxanne Brown
The first time we created Joy at Work on a team (a huge group of 250 people located all over the country), everyone asked us how we did it…
Was it more…
• Team lunches?
• Ice cream socials?
• Scavenger hunts?
• Roleplay simulations?
• Game competitions?
• Office spa days?
• Jug...
Written by Roxanne Brown
Are you an early adopter at work? Changing to something new while the folks around you haven’t changed yet takes courage.
Are you an influencer at work? Changing influences people around you to change too.
Are you slow to adopt changes at work? If you’ve been burned in th...
Written by Roxanne Brown
It’s not usually WHAT you want to change that upsets people, it’s HOW they feel they (and others) are treated in the process that is most upsetting. The best you can do is be intentional about how you want it to feel and decide what must be true for that to happen. Then...
Written by Roxanne Brown
As a leader, you do things all the time that no one will ever know you did. No one will ever know how you struggled over the decisions, the work, the sacrifice you made or the arrows you took. It’s impossible for others to know. They aren’t you and they don’t sit where ...
Written by Roxanne Brown
Last week I came across an HBR article with the title: Gen-X is More Creative than Gen-Y, According to Harvard.
Being a Gen-Xer, naturally, it caught my attention. I didn’t post it anywhere because the article seemed pretty light-weight and the comparison definitely di...
Written by Roxanne Brown
Before change can happen the leader must change first. This seems pretty straightforward but applying it can be challenging!
When change is introduced, people notice how the leader is modeling the change they want to see in others – or not.
If you think you’re fine, it’s ...
Written by Roxanne Brown
As a leader, sometimes you need to be a calming force for your people when change is happening. Sometimes you need to inspire and motivate but sometimes being a calming force is what people need.
This applies to the Change Professional too. Leaders and Change Professiona...
Written by Roxanne Brown
As a leader you learn things about yourself you may not like. It’s part of the deal and it’s also incredibly personal. This is one of the many reasons why leadership is hard on the leader. You can be misinterpreted and mischaracterized in a moment. That’s also part of t...
Written by Roxanne Brown
As a leader, your words and actions have a big influence on how others experience the change you introduce. Even so, your people can decide how well they adapt and how they experience the change.
It’s a partnership.
Your job is to tune in to how people are impacted. You...
Written by Roxanne Brown
I'm struck by the more frequent, genuine kindness in language and actions today, especially at work. Checking on others. Showing real concern. Smiling wider at seeing someone appear on a video call. Space given on those calls to listen to what others are going through. ...
