I gave up email July 1, 2022. If you’re playing along, you know this. It’s been so positively freeing it’s hard to describe. You can see my autoresponder here: sue@sayyess.com if you’re interested. I’m sharing this as I’ve received texts and calls, social media shout outs and personal appreciation for having done this. I’ve been bolstered on and am grateful…
Travel is still challenging these days. If you’ve been going East, you can feel every word of that statement. And yet, travel is improving daily to the point of feeling how it was pre-pandemic. Fingers crossed; the winter is coming! When I know I’m on the road, no matter the length of the trip, because I’ve flown a decent amount,…
Questions are a leader’s most powerful tool. When you lead well, you learn to ask more than tell. There’s a distinction between teaching and leading. For the team, they can become blurred when the leader blurs those lines. Teaching means showing, telling, correcting, learning, and generating. Leading is involved, but the outcome is clear: transition competencies and accountability. For many…
It’s amazing to witness someone emerging into their greatness….and it’s even better when they are related to you. Seeing people embrace beautiful, powerful aspects of themselves that shine through your eyes, previously invisible through their eyes is a gift. As I watch the metamorphosis of my adult children, I’m appreciative of who they are. Perfectly wonderful in their own ways,…
I was learning with Dr. David Cooperrider, the man credited with creating Appreciative Inquiry. It was a rich experience drenched in goodness. I mean, when it’s called appreciative inquiry, what else would it be? Consider flipping your script, asking only forwarding questions, redirecting your language to be positive, appreciative, generative, and abundant. It’s not about denial, fluff or what some…
“The task of leadership is to create alignment of strengths to make a systems’ weaknesses irrelevant.” – Peter Drucker When you think about it, no system is perfect. In fact, all are flawed. Yet, when you think about leadership, alignment is the sum of all talents, thoughts, ambitions, insights, beliefs, and behaviors. Your company can only go as fast and…
We can take so much for granted, at least I can. I was with a group recently and two questions were posed from the authors of the book The Business of Race (Gina Greenlee and Margaret H. Greenberg): What is the relevance of race in your business? How do you identify? What’s interesting is that as I sat in lengthy…
Letting go gracefully is an art. It’s not easy to “end” a relationship, a career, or anything else you’ve done long enough to call it habitual. As I work with teams and evaluate my own experience, when something you’ve been committed to is ending as you know it, your feelings compete with your thoughts resulting in complexity. How can you…
When I go to a new restaurant, I have a favorite question I ask of the server which almost always lends to an incredible experience – with the food and the service. After some dialogue and rapport building with the server, I’ll ask them what their favorite menu items are. If they’re aligned with my preferences, I’ll ask them “if…
There are two paths leaders can take. One is a mile wide and an inch deep or an inch wide and a mile deep. Doing a little bit of a lot of things can be exciting, offering a variety of opportunities, like sampling from the buffet table of what could be possible. This approach can be instrumental in learning what…