People

What is psychological safety?

by Kate Dames on Dec 22, 2023, 10:24 AM

Safety is the foundational prerequisite to any high performing team. When there is adequate psychological safety in the workplace employee wellness with increase and as a result turnover will reduce. Also, creativity and innovation will drastically increase and with that, the overall productivity and potentially profitability will increase. Most importantly, though, is that you will attract and retain talent. Few workplaces manage to understand what it means to provide psychological safety, though. This post aims to provide a 'dummies guide' to providing psychological safety.
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Happy workplaces are social

by Kate Dames on Sep 21, 2023, 12:05 PM

Happy workplaces are social places where people connect with each other. To get your team to socialize, never force a social event on them. Rather provide the tools to enable them, and reward the desired behaviour as pointed out in this article.
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What might teal leadership look like?

by Kate Dames on May 25, 2023, 3:26 PM

Organizations operating from a mainly teal paradigm have a flat hierarchy with self-managing teams. Self-managed, autonomous teams don’t, however, mean no more leaders. In fact, it requires leadership even more than ever before. Just in a different way. It requires teal leadership.
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How to connect digitally

by Kate Dames on Jun 13, 2021, 9:32 AM

Remote work result in zoom fatigue when you don't invest in relationships. This post delves into practical ways to connect digital and strengthen relationships when you are not in the same physical location. Because together is always better.
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10 Ways to have fun while in lock down

by Kate Dames on Apr 3, 2020, 2:15 PM

Being locked down with nowhere to go can be challenging. Here's some easy things you can do to brighten up your day.
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Why you should co-locate, not isolate

by Kate Dames on Mar 20, 2020, 2:19 PM

Remote work is an advanced practice for responsible and mature teams. It can be challenging for teams not ready for remote work. This post outlines some of the risks of remote work and a few guidelines to get more out of your remote work.
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The rules of play

by Kate Dames on Feb 17, 2020, 2:48 PM

Play is one of the most powerful tools available for us to learn. This post outlines five fundamental rules of play and how to build a strong foundation that can turn anything into play.
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The A-B-C’s of Team Alignment

by Kate Dames on Jan 20, 2020, 12:12 PM

One of the biggest causes of not delivering is when the team is not aligned. But it's not complicated, it's as simple as ABC. This post explores the three most crucial (and simple) things that need to be in place for teams to be aligned in the workplace.
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A new paradigm in leadership

by Kate Dames on Oct 27, 2019, 11:54 AM

A new paradigm in leadership is needed. It requires personal leadership development for everyone in the organization, not only a select few. Leadership needs to become a less scarce resource in the age of information. Just like access to cars, education and books became more accessible resources during the industrial age.
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Talking about the elephant in the room

by Kate Dames on Jul 7, 2019, 2:27 PM

Having a difficult conversation is hard. Not talking about things though make it bigger, yet unresolvable. By talking about the elephant you give an opportunity to build trust and more functional habits within an organization.
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How to Build Trust

by Kate Dames on May 13, 2019, 9:39 AM

Trust is a barometer. It’s not a milestone that you can reach and keep forever, just like an oven’s thermostat constantly clicks on and off to maintain its heat. You need to actively work at maintaining trust, adding more trust-worthy actions than compromising trust.
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How to grow an agile mind

by Kate Dames on Mar 6, 2019, 9:45 AM

Agility is the ability to quickly adapt and change direction at speed. It requires the ability to learn and apply learned knowledge. Here's a few guidelines on how to grow an agile mind.
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The impact of fear on productivity

by Kate Dames on Feb 28, 2019, 12:57 PM

The impact of fear on productivity is a silent killer. It kills motivation, creativity, and productivity. To create a productive environment, drive out fear by making information accessible, being explicit about expectations and listen without judgment.
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What's your leadership style?

by Kate Dames on Jan 28, 2019, 1:36 PM

Today, more than ever before, we need to make leadership more accessible. No longer can companies afford to spend their most expensive resources managing other resources, ultimately slowing down the productivity of the entire organization. To stay ahead of the competition, you need to create more leaders.
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Unpacking Psychological Safety

by Kate Dames on Dec 19, 2018, 12:20 PM

High performance teams are teams who trust each other. Teams who feel safe. Safe to admit when they don’t know the answers. Safe to ask for what they need. But how do you create psychological safety in the workplace?
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How to stumble on happiness

by Kate Dames on Nov 29, 2018, 12:40 PM

Most people view unhappiness as an unwelcome guest. They don’t realise that the only difference between unhappiness and happiness is the wrapping hiding the gift inside. In order to stumble on happiness, you need to be willing to feel the unhappiness.
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Honest about Authenticity

by Kate Dames on Nov 3, 2018, 12:48 PM

Authenticity is about being true to who you are. Most people, however, don’t feel safe to express when they’re unhappy. They try to avoid conflict as much as possible. But when you avoid speaking your truth, you end up alone and miserable.
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A Hacker’s Guide To Changing (Dysfunctional) Systems

by Kate Dames on Aug 26, 2018, 8:21 AM

There is a difference between dysfunctional and broken. Broken means something doesn’t work at all. Dysfunctional means it works, but not for the good of all the parties involved and definitely not in a sustainable manner.
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How To Add Fun To Your Boring Day

by Kate Dames on Apr 24, 2018, 10:18 AM

Society is designed to remove fun from your life. Fun is something only allowed by children. If you're an adult, you should be serious and responsible. But what if that's not true? Here's a few easy ways to add fun to your boring day.
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Sinking Ship? Listen Out For This One Word

by Kate Dames on Dec 17, 2017, 1:37 PM

The Titanic sunk not because there wasn't early warning signs. It sunk because no-one bothered to look at the issue and respond to it. Organizations sink when they are too busy to take the time to take a step back and be honest about the reality of where they are.
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How To Make Diversity Work For You

by Kate Dames on Dec 1, 2017, 1:50 PM

Skin color, facial features, age and nationality says something about you, that is undeniable. But it is what goes on in your mind that really sheds light on the capacity for embracing diversity.
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Emotional Intelligence 101

by Kate Dames on Jul 25, 2017, 9:54 AM

In order to be happy, you have to be willing to feel and validate the pain that blocks you from your joy. Emotional intelligence is a process of self-discovery and ultimately self-mastery.
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0xCOFFEE anyone?

by Kate Dames on Jul 11, 2017, 10:44 AM

What goes on in the mind of a hacker? What motivates someone to attempt to push the boundaries? A recap of a recent hacker lean coffee to get into the minds of hackers.
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What Makes a Team More Likely to Succeed at Agile?

by Kate Dames on Jun 2, 2017, 8:22 AM

Most teams don't succeed the way they invisioned when they embark on an agile transformation journey. But what if you can make the movement towards agility an inside job?
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The Achilles heel of communication

by Kate Dames on May 28, 2017, 8:27 AM

Have you ever refrained from saying what you truly think of a solution or a behavior, just to keep the peace? Have you ever talked around a subject to avoid any criticism from your peers? Have you ever tried to hide information, intentionally leaving it out in a fear of hurting someone else’s feelings, or possibly scared of being punished? That’s our Achilles heel. Feedback.
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How to tell if a company is really agile

by Kate Dames on Apr 28, 2017, 11:11 AM

Culture is the driving force of the behaviors of an organization. Healthy culture, happy people, quality products. Dysfunctional culture, unhappy people, error-filled products. How do you evaluate a culture?
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Together is better

by Kate Dames on Mar 2, 2017, 7:41 AM

Like the human body consists of different limbs, organs and parts, each with a separate, unique function, so too an agile team needs to know each other in the team and understand the function in order to support each other, lead by a combination of heart and mind. The heart guiding the where, with the mind guiding the how.
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The Collaboration Effect

by Kate Dames on Feb 2, 2017, 7:57 AM

The authors of the agile manifesto realized that face-to-face communication is the most effective, and efficient, way of communication. But collaboration takes more than just communication.Action without collaboration is potentially as harmful as collaboration without action.
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How to Implement an Agile Mindset

by Kate Dames on Oct 19, 2016, 6:35 AM

Like any profession, you get bad people, average people, and a hand full of really good people. The problem often comes that when you embark on an agile transformation that you don’t know what really good looks like.
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What does an agile mind look like?

by Kate Dames on Aug 9, 2016, 8:53 AM

It’s relatively easy to do agile. It is about following the guides and learning the technical skills involved in delivering agile. It’s much harder, however, to be agile. Being agile, requires mastering the values and soft skills such as responsibility, trust, focus and discipline which will guide your actions and your decisions. An agile mind has mastered both the technical skills and the soft skills required to enable you to respond to changing needs from your environment and customer.
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What does a meaningful leader look like?

by Kate Dames on Jul 18, 2016, 9:37 AM

A meaningful leader, whether it is the head of a big organization or the head of a household, is someone who lives in integrity, leading by example and inspiring, not demanding. A meaningful leader listens to the needs of his people and reacts thoughtfully, after careful consideration.
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Ask This One Question To Keep Your Employees Happy

by Kate Dames on Jul 5, 2016, 9:20 AM

A meaningful leader’s main role is to fulfil the needs of the people that follow him, and to keep them on the road towards the higher vision of the organization. And you won’t know if you don’t ask.
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3 Keys to more meaningful work

by Kate Dames on Jul 3, 2016, 9:15 AM

We spend the majority of our day at work, yet I can literally count the number of people that love what they do and feel it is meaningful on my one hand.
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Do you live your passion?

by Kate Dames on Jun 23, 2016, 9:02 AM

A select few people are lucky enough to be born knowing what they want to be when they grow up. However a large percentage of the population doesn’t have a clue what their passion is, mostly ending up in a frustrating and unfulfilling career that their parents or society probably wanted them to be in rather than it being their choice. In order to find your passion and enable you to make career choices more aligned with your personal vision, start noticing what people thank you for, what you can’t stop doing and what frustrates you most.
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