Like most gardeners, I welcome the arrival of spring as an opportunity to review how my plants did last season, as well as to plan the work that will need to be done in the upcoming weeks. While inspecting my rose garden, I came upon one plant which I remembered had struggled to grow last summer and which made fewer blooms than the other roses, despite the fact that all of the roses had received the same amount of feeding and care.

In comparing this plant’s location to the other roses, I could see that it was starting to get crowded in because of the rapid growth of a nearby flowering bush. Given this and its poor performance last year, I decided that it would be best to move the rose to a new location where it could regain its strength to grow and flower. Of course, this wasn’t an easy decision since any such disruption to a plant’s growing cycle could possibly kill it. And yet, given how poorly it had fared last summer, I figured that the move, though risky, was still the best option to help get this rose back in shape.

In dealing with this problem of how to help this rose regain its ability to contribute beautiful blooms and foliage to my rose garden, I noticed that there were some interesting similarities between this situation and the steps employers can take to help struggling employees get back onto firmer ground. Click here to continue reading »”How to Help Struggling Employees Find Their Space”

There are certain moments I look forward to at this time of the year as indicators that Spring has indeed arrived and we can safely put away the snow shovels and take off the snow tires. Things like tulips rising from the ground, opening their petals to welcome the return of the neighbourhood’s pollinators. Or opening the windows to allow the sweet smells of lilac and apple blossom to drift into our home.

There’s also the return of the various bird populations, migrating back home from their winter sojourn to once again fill the air with the sounds of bird song. The most well-known example of migrating birds has to be the Canada geese, flying in their distinctive V-shape formation across the sky. While their appearance does serve as another reminder of the change in seasons, an examination of this behaviour can also reveal some useful lessons about leadership and the value of collaboration. Click here to continue reading »”Migrating Geese – A Lesson in Leadership and Collaboration”

One of the themes I’ve been writing about on my blog is the importance of focusing on our strengths, of nurturing those innate abilities/talents people bring to our teams or companies to benefit both our businesses as well as our employees. This got me to thinking about the relationship between what our strengths are and what we define as our passions; of how those strengths not only allow us to succeed but end up defining that internal drive we all have to pursue a specific goal or objective.

To help demonstrate this connection between our strengths and passion, here are three stories of individual pursuits in the field of sports, business and the arts.

Jon Montgomery – Gold Medallist, 2010 Vancouver Olympics

As with most people, Jon Montgomery had big dreams growing up, of what he’d like to do with his life. And one of those dreams was being able to represent Canada at the Olympic Games, and especially winning a medal for his country. So, he figured his best bet to making that dream a reality would be to take up playing hockey and working at landing a spot on the national team. However, he would soon learn that Click here to continue reading »”Finding Our Passion Through Our Strengths”

When we look at the various examples of effective and successful leaders, one of the traits we see that they share in common is exhibiting a strong sense of confidence. Now by confidence, I’m not referring to pushy, aggressive, or self-serving behaviour. Rather, I’m pointing to those leaders who create this air of calm reassurance about them, who are clearly happy with their lives and are comfortable with who they are; those who we often refer to as being “natural born leaders”.

Ironically, confidence is not something you’re born with, it’s something you develop from inside. And confidence is certainly not linked exclusively to positions of authority, but is something that everyone can nurture and develop in themselves. But how exactly do we foster this feeling of confidence, especially in those moments where we feel it starting to wane? To answer this, let’s look at the common traits found among those who exude a sense of confidence: Click here to continue reading »”Confidence – A Habit Worth Building”