Around our house, nothing signals the end of summer more than helping our kids prepare for their return to the daily school routine. The arrival of the end of summer also means that companies are now returning to full strength with most of their employees having finished their vacation time away from work.

While taking a vacation break can provide us with the benefit of recharging ourselves and allowing us to clear our focus, there can be some feelings of ambivalence surrounding those first few days back on the job over what we may find awaiting us upon our return. This is especially true for employees who return to work after a prolonged absence from taking a maternity, paternity or sick leave.

Of course, returning to work after a prolonged absence can provide its own share of challenges to employees, issues which may not be obvious to the organization’s leadership or their fellow team members. Indeed, unlike employees returning from a holiday break, these employees have to contend with concerns over unexpected additions to their workloads or changes made to their role within the organization while they were away. Such issues can have a dramatic impact not only on their productivity, but also on their ability to ease back into their role as a member of your team.

With this in mind, here are three steps leaders can take to help their employees with the transition of returning back to work after a prolonged break. Click here to continue reading »”Helping Employees Regain Their Productivity After A Prolonged Absence”

As with most kids on summer break, my girls have been spending part of their days taking swimming lessons to help advance their skills in this particular sport. While attending one of their lessons, I noticed something that was reminiscent of what many companies go through when managing the growth of their organization.

For one of their lessons, my daughter’s swim teacher asked the students in her class to swim the length of the pool and then toss a ball into the basketball net. One by one, the kids took their turn swimming across the pool and attempting to varying degrees of success in getting the ball into the net.

When it was my daughter’s turn, she swam toward the basketball net and stopped to one side to take her shot. On her first try, she bounced the ball off the rim of the net. In her next shot, she tried to throw the ball with more force, which ended up sending the ball past the net and over to the other side. Although she tried and missed another two times to get that ball into the net, she never once showed any sign of wavering in trying to succeed, even though she was clearly having no luck with this exercise.

After her class, I applauded her for being so determined to get that ball in the net, but I also had a question for her – why didn’t she just swim to the front of the net where she could have had an easier time shooting the ball? As soon as I asked her this, she gave me this sheepish smile, now realizing how she had made the task harder for herself simply because of where she chose to take the shot.

Watching her single-minded focus in performing this task reminded me of how many organizations and their leaders can also Click here to continue reading »”Learning From Your Mistakes – 4 Steps To Turn Failure Into Success”

Passion.

It’s something that you hear a lot about these days as one of the keys to success, if not personal fulfilment. Many articles have been written lately on how to harness or foster that passion, including my own piece on how our passions spring forth from our inner strengths. Where we run into problems, though, is when we create this expectation that passion can sustain our drive over the long run. To illustrate what I mean by this, let me share with you how I view my role in parenting.

When I talk to others about my life as a parent, it’s clear that this is a role I love doing. And yet, I doubt anyone would say that this is something that I’m passionate about. As I’m sure other parents can relate to, there are days where I would love to have a moment’s peace; a break from trying to figure out who did what to who and why. But even in those moments, I still enjoy being a parent because I love it.

And while it’s easy to assume that this love of parenting is merely an extension of my love for my children, the truth is the reason why I love this role – a job that for many of us will be the hardest one we take on in our lives – is because of the sense of purpose it gives to my life. That’s why even in those moments where being a parent presents those personal challenges, my drive to succeed in being a good parent never wavers because I value the purpose it brings to my life.

And that’s what we need to understand about our business and the work we do; that if we think the key to being happy with our jobs, with our work is Click here to continue reading »”How to Transform Passion into Purpose”