Written by Roxanne Brown

Originally published 6/20/17.

Dear CM,

When I first met you my life at work was in turmoil. At the office, people who were standing just feet apart wouldn’t acknowledge each other. It was as if they didn’t know how so they filtered each other out....

Written by Roxanne Brown

You can use fear to make people change. It is a legitimate change strategy, especially in an immediate danger situation. But what happens is people freeze in place and only do what you tell them to do. They keep their heads down and keep to themselves. From time to...

Written by Roxanne Brown

No matter what change you're making, even if people don't like it, there's a way to make it happen that creates joy, which we see as a combination of...trust, integrity, belonging, cohesion, participation, commitment, accountability, adaptability, growth and...

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...

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...

Written by Roxanne Brown

Have you ever felt joy in your work even though you’re doing something that’s hard, maybe even painful? That’s a consistent theme out of our Joy Research.

An initial conclusion:

Joy at Work is…

Often work that is hard and takes a lot out of...

Written by Roxanne Brown

Leaders often want more change than their team can handle. That’s because they have a vision they want to see come to life. They can see it! They also know it cannot happen without their people. They regularly wrestle with patience, openness to how change...

Written by Roxanne Brown

When someone leaves the company, it’s not just about that person. It’s about that person and all of the people that are impacted by their departure.

Even if the person’s departure is a relief, it’s still a loss. Even if a person’s...

Written by Roxanne Brown

When we ask people to describe the best team they’ve ever led or been part of, they usually say things like:

• We had each other’s back
• We had a hard goal to overcome and we were clear on the destination
• It was hard but we all focused
...

Written by Ed Cook

Trust shows up frequently as a corporate value, a desirable commodity.  It is inscribed on our money  (“In God We Trust”) and in our nation’s official motto.  But for something that is valued so highly, organizations struggle to explain what...

Written by Roxanne Brown

When you’re leading change, how do you know you’re getting anywhere? How do you measure progress?

Measuring change progress does not need to be exact. It only needs to be directionally correct to lead to useful and actionable insights. The best place to...

Written by Roxanne Brown

Change can grow joy. An executive we spoke with recently referred to change as the destroyer of joy. It’s such a fascinating statement when you consider some of the phrases we use in business:

• Disruptive innovation
• Failing fast
• Digital transformation

These...