Five Ways to Support a Partner in Professional Trouble
It happens from time to time. Your partner comes home from work defeated. A project went off the rails, they failed to hit their annual target, or were fired after making a big mistake that cost their organization big bucks. In situations like these, being empathetic...
Where We Work Should Be Beautiful
When I was in Italy as a member of Vancity’s Co-operative Study Tour we visited a worker co-op called Kilowatt and I fell in love with the space and its people. The organization focuses on consulting, communication and education that serves social innovation, the...
What I Learned about Resilience from the Crushing Defeat of my Team
Its World Cup time and this year there will be plenty of teams whose hopes and dreams will fall by the wayside in the coming month. Meanwhile, back at home, I recently returned from a soccer tournament in Alert Bay, BC. We’ve written about June Sports before. It is a...
10 Ways to Add Value Like Italians
For the last two weeks I’ve been exploring the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy with my colleagues from Vancity. Our home base was Bologna, the region’s capital, which is the epicenter of the co-operative movement and in possession of Europe’s oldest university....
Seven Co-operative Reflections from Bologna, Italy
For two weeks I am participating in the Emilia-Romagna Co-operative Study Tour, which is a Vancity program designed to enhance knowledge about the co-operative movement and inspire connections between each other, our work and co-operative leadership. The Italian...
Four Career Lessons from Training Day
Starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in their prime, Training Day tells the story of a corrupt cop Alonzo (Washington) who takes his new recruit Jake Hoyt (Hawke) on a hell of a ride for his first day working narcotics in Los Angeles. The film is just awesome....
Five Ways to be a Human Being at Work
Work puts too much emphasis on process, transactions, technology, outcomes, outputs, and the bottom line. Even though we work with people we really like and respect, we often treat our colleagues differently on the job than we do our friends. Somewhere along the way...
Five professional lessons from Fargo the Series
Netflix’s TV series Fargo tells the tale of a series of awful murders in and around Bemidji, Minnesota. After a fateful encounter with a ruthless hitman, local pushover Lester Nygaard finds himself drawn into a double life of murder and deception. As Lester goes down...
12 Things that Make Co-operative Leaders Different
Co-operatives are democratic, highly adaptable and very resilient. In my opinion, the world needs more co-opetition from its leaders – when we compete to make society better then we’re all winning. Leading as a member of a co-operative requires different thoughts and...
Five Simple Recovery Tactics for Your Wellness Plan
It’s mental health week. If you’re like me, you definitely need more hours in the day, probably use the word “busy” to answer the “how’s it going?” small-talk-question, and there’s a strong possibility that you feel overwhelmed. All leaders need self-care. When people...
Four Leadership Lessons from our Reconciliation Journey
As a member of Vancity’s leadership development program I am on a journey to become a better leader. Engaging in deep self-reflection, peer-mentoring and self-directed learning with the intention of creating new habits that help me to be more present, focused and...
Five ways to take your interview performance to the next level
Over the past few years, I’ve had the good fortune of interviewing some outstanding candidates. Whether I’m interviewing for junior or senior roles, the consistent success factors remain the same. Here are five ways to take your interview performance to the next...
Five Energizer Activities for Introverts
I share an office with an awesome colleague named Kristin who is an introverted human being. That means that she gets most of her energy from internal feelings as opposed to external sources of stimulation. At times, “energizer” or “icebreaker” activities leave her...