Life is Work

This week we explore hierarchies: their purpose, their goals, their flaws, and some alternatives that promote shared power and equity for all. We also touch on pay transparency, pay gaps, and pay equity.

This week we explore the sentiment "we're a family here"/"our office is one big family." While well-meaning, this phrase is problematic and we chat about better ways to communicate your work culture to your employees.

This week we explore vulnerability, including why its hard, and why it has a big payoff, including fostering safety, emotional connection, and humanity. We also explore how this work connects to the current world's Black Lives Matter movement and its related protests.

We explore 3 frameworks - audio/visual/kinesthic, Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and Enneagram - and how to use them to better understand your learning and communication styles, as well as those around you. We chat about how to use these to be more inclusive and remember that we are complex human beings.

This week we propose and explore a new way of conducting workplace evaluations, one that more accurately celebrates our humanity. We chat a little about the current pitfalls of evaluations and how to "stair step" the new model into your current culture.

This week we explore how to effectively provide feedback in a way that promotes humanity and connection, while meeting the needs of all involved. A few examples of how, and how NOT, to provide feedback are also demonstrated.

This week we explore introversion and extroversion, and how we can use these skills to better navigate our environments, communicate with each other, and empower ourselves.

This week we discuss the role of neutral facilitator and how it helps to move work forward through tools of reflection, charting, and holding space for emotional labor.

This week we discuss how to communicate with compassion, especially in times of conflict and tension.

Quarantine is making us a little squirrel-y, but we still manage to discuss our topic of managing up: including analyzing and navigating power dynamics, understanding and clarifying roles, and maneuvering various environments and work styles.