Writing
I write about work culture, people-centered business, leadership, and how technology impacts us and our culture. I publish primarily on LinkedIn and through my newsletter, the Nan-Cave. I am also available for guest writing.
Books
Work Like A Boss
Interactive Project Management
Articles
If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say - Say It Anyway
We all went so wrong with the saying: “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Or the general advice to “not rock the boat.”
The truth is, sometimes we have to say things that may not feel so nice. And, at other times, rocking the boat is exactly what needs to be done. Especially at work. So how do we do it? Here’s the one thing you need.
Taking ownership of the next normal
We have felt depressed and over-eaten or over-walked our dogs. But we are a long way away from fully adjusted because there is still a lot of uncertainty.
We’re in an in-between phase, and yet, we have the power to start purposefully shaping the next normal right now.
Technology doesn’t control you, you control technology
Are you addicted to your technology? Are you constantly battling the urge to check your phone, send a text, monitor Twitter, check in on Facebook? Is your whole family dealing with the stress of a constant media stream? Do you panic when you don’t have reliable wifi?
I don’t need an MBA, I took improv
I was a theater major in college. This won’t surprise some people, and might mystify others (what does that have to do with technology?!). Over the years, I performed in musicals, dramas, and comedies. I slowly learned how to hold an audience and keep people engaged. And I don’t regret a minute of it.
In Order See the Bright Side - You Have to Choose It
It’s hard to stay focused on work. It’s hard to be positive. It’s hard to be a catalyst or a change-maker. It’s hard to stay in it.
Life is hard. I find myself talking to people over and over and over again about just how hard it is. And we are inundated with messages, news stories, and realities that make things even harder. When we think about how broken the world feels and how overwhelming current events feel, we are fooling ourselves if we don’t expect these feelings to come to work with us and everyone else.
Go To Work Like an 11 Year Old
Resilience has been on my mind lately, after spending a summer watching my child respond — day in and day out — to new situations. His summer was filled with a collection of day camps where he learned new things like zip-lining, archery, and how to make suits of armor out of old cardboard boxes.
So You Wanna Be Comfortable In Your Skin
We all go through different phases of maturation. How we grow and evolve shapes how we view the world and how we function within it. And the things we discover about ourselves along the way help us work, collaborate, and lead better.
Newsletters
Are You Actually Encouraging Accountability?
More than a few memories of my mother are deeply embedded in my psyche. I've written about what a badass she was and what she taught me about work ethic and how to treat people fairly and respectfully. But she also inadvertently taught me a lesson that I think is quite common for many of us, one that doesn't do us much good in the world. Especially in the work world.
How to design work that works
I get both my inspiration and my validation from my seat at Clockwork, my conversations in board meetings, what I hear in my networking associations, and what the people who hire me to speak tell me about their workplaces. I have access to so many teams and leaders–I feel really lucky that so many are honest and trust me to support them. I want to share the lessons and observations with everyone: Human-centered culture, intrapreneurship, and accountability from all people. The future is all about co-creating ‘work.’
We’re All Just Figuring Things Out
During a recent workshop on fear and how it shows up at work, I asked the audience what they were afraid of. A young woman, cautiously raised her hand. As I approached her, she said quietly, "I can't believe I'm going to admit this here." And then she proceeded to tell the room, "I'm afraid of getting fired." She went on to describe the incredible anxiety she deals with around this fear.
Only a minute later another person raised their hand from the middle of the room. Turns out it was a CEO, her CEO.
How Are You Spending Your Time?
I’ve noticed that more than ever, I’m seeing the same stories over and over in my feeds. I’m sure you see the same ones, too, and they seem to be reminding us of everything that’s wrong right now. The constant beating of the drum does not seem to be helping us right now. The resounding messages about our exhaustion, fatigue, loneliness, isolation, confusion, and frustration seem to be making all of those things worse.
The other day, my spouse posed a question to me that got me thinking a little differently. She asked, “Are you spending your time on the useful side of life or the useless side of life?”
Goodbyes and What Really Matters
Last week, I was at a friend’s house saying goodbye. He was laying in his bed, we were having a conversation like any other conversation we’ve had before, only he is dying. It was like what every conversation with a dear friend can be: intimate, funny, and eye-opening.
Hello, Shame. And Now... Goodbye, Shame.
Last Thursday, one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me happened: I went to an event and I enjoyed it. The event celebrated the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Hall of Fame inductees—and I was one of them. I was super honored and grateful that they recognized the work I’ve put into Clockwork and the tech industry.
You might be thinking, “Of course you enjoyed the event, you got an award!” Well, yes...and, because I also had some internal crap going on. See, throughout that entire celebratory night, I was working really hard to suppress a shame spiral that had started earlier that very afternoon.
Strengthening Your Help Muscle
Do people enjoy helping others? Are there benefits to helping? And under what conditions are people most likely to help? The answer is complicated. It turns out, people do like to help others and, in fact, helping makes us happier. Yet, we often freeze or look the other way when we see people who need help, and our tendency to do this increases when we’re in a group and no one else is helping either. This is referred to as diffusion of responsibility, a psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to take action when in a large group. So, people need a nudge to act on their instinct to help, especially when other people are around. Like at work.
Who Are You Now?
I don’t know if it’s just me, but for the last decade, and especially since COVID emerged, things feel like they are moving faster now: business, current events, climate disasters, technology. It’s constant evolution, and there is a danger in getting stuck in the mentality that after that next thing, it will all just go back to “normal.” Which makes me wonder, what is “normal” anymore? And who are we now?
Does Work Play an Outsized Role in How We Think About Ourselves?
I’m not going to make a big statement about Capitalism, but I do think that the conversations around “the new work” or how we can reimagine work, are focused on location so much right now. Are workplaces back to the office? Hybrid? Remote forever? All of this misses a deeper shift that I feel is happening: we don’t want work to be the central force in our lives.
Be Here Now
I think humans have a weird idea about happiness. We think happiness is some far-off destination. It's that job with that title and that salary that I'll get to someday, it's that lake home that I'm going to retire in later in life, or it's that car I've always wanted but don’t have yet.
But we never think it’s right now. It’s never this moment.
Juggling, and Dropping, Balls
Hi! It’s been a while. In fact, it’s been more than two months. And for those few months, my life felt like a very disorganized juggling game. Each day, I’d get up and I’d throw a few balls into the air—sometimes one or two balls would get tossed in by someone else—and for that day I’d do all I could to keep them all going. Of course, I had to get creative at times, as we all have. Pick up my son at school? Okay! Be on a conference call at about the same time? Okay! (Kid, be quiet.) But some days, I dropped some balls.
Will We Take Time To Reimagine Work?
I wrote an impromptu thread the other day on Twitter, sharing that I believed—and hoped—work wouldn’t go back to the way it was before the pandemic. I started off noting some things I don’t miss now that we’re working from home all the time. Some of my points were a little flippant, like having to rush across town to make back-to-back meetings. Some were more deeply personal, like having to dress appropriately “feminine” and “professional” to be taken seriously at a board meeting. Believe it or not, I can have a good idea whether I’m wearing a t-shirt or a button-down.
Finding grace when things get hard
As we move into the new school year, into another season, into the next phase of this global pandemic, let’s show ourselves and each other a little grace. Grace means you take accountability for the issues you’re facing at work or school and commit to being part of the fix. It’s easy to assume every other driver is an idiot, and they are deliberately cutting you off on your neighborhood streets. Grace means you assume they didn’t see you, and you simply thank your lucky stars that everything worked out.
Right now, more than ever, we must step outside of ourselves and extend grace to other humans. Who knows - maybe grace is healing.
Love at work?
We’re all going through a lot right now, and recently someone said to me that as we fight these emotional, taxing, and at times revolutionary battles, we have the opportunity to not just lead, but to lead with love.
That really resonated with me. We live in such a culture of judgment. We judge ourselves and others so harshly that we have to be reminded—probably daily—to lead with love.
Finding time and space for all of it
As I sit down to write this newsletter, it feels awkward. It’s uncomfortable to be thinking about business (though not necessarily ‘business as usual’) after the last few weeks in which we saw an intense response to horrible murders of Black people, along with community and political action to begin the long journey toward change. I don’t know that I will get this transition right, but I also know that anti-racism work should and can coexist with other parts of our life, especially work.
Reimagining resiliency
There is a lot coming at us right now and you can almost feel the emotions and tension around us. Some of us are busy and some are not busy; some are scared, anxious, or angry; and some of us are feeling all of those things. No matter how the pandemic has impacted us—and there are many, many ways it is taking a toll—we have all been touched by it. Resiliency is so important right now and the constant newness of this entire experience is challenging us to think of it like we never have before.