How not belonging teaches inclusion
I’m what they call a 3rd culture kid. I belong to the 17.7% of Canadians who had one or two parents born outside of Canada and grew up learning to bridge different cultures, languages, and worldviews. Let me share with you a few stats about immigrants in Canada and a...
Increase your leadership attraction: Your backstory
Did you know that leadership attraction and marketing are related? You couldn’t control how your story started, but you can write a few good pages in there ― Mustafa Saifuddin As I was reading Russell’s most recent book called Dotcom Secrets, something really jumped...
“If it ain’t broke” – Workplace lessons for the entitled
Here’s a workplace attitude comparison I think you will find interesting... You might remember when social media evangelist Jill Rowley’s employment termination at Oracle made the headlines. Rowley was portrayed as a talented creative whose free spirit did not fit the...
Andrew’s story: Finding work in chemical manufacturing
Let me tell you about how I first met Andrew Zheng... I was a speaker at the Chinese Students and Scholars Association gala (CSSA) and met Andrew during the networking portion of the evening. He impressed me by explaining how he landed a job in his industry right...
What is the difference between culture, personality, wellness, and performance issues?
Let me tell you a story... An employment counsellor told me about a client - an immigrant who had come to Canada as a refugee - who quit and immediately walked away from a very good job on a Friday. The client said he was offended by the three month review he had just...
How Sandra cracked the code on “Canadian Experience”
"A career is a journey with stops along the way, not a destination." It’s a classic line that newcomers hear when trying to find work in Canada: “We are looking for someone with ‘Canadian experience.’” And while this isn’t necessarily an invalid point,...
How to be a better you: Changing your habits with “If/when…then”
Have you felt frustrated with yourself for not being able to change habits? Maybe you’ve heard yourself saying, “Just this one chocolate bar,” or, “Tomorrow I’ll get serious about this,” when you are trying to make a lifestyle or workplace change. When struggling to...
How to make yourself irresistible in a job interview – part four: 5 gestures to create success
You know what they say about body language... The way we position ourselves as we share a message comprises the bulk of the communication that gets through to the audience. Estimates range anywhere from 55% to 90% (and the debate among communication experts will...
How to make yourself irresistible in a job interview – part three: 4 (More) strategies that help people know, like, and trust you
The job interview... It’s that ominous space that separates your accepted job application and the job offer. And it doesn’t depend - at least not entirely - on your technical skill. In the end, whether or not you land the job offer you’re hoping for depends on how...
5 (Commonplace) Bad Meeting Presentation Mistakes & What You Can Learn From Them
For many of us, just the mention of the word “meeting” makes us roll our eyes and groan. We’ve all had the misfortune of sitting through yet another bad presentation and have cursed the heavens for losing an hour (or longer) of our lives to boredom and frustration....
How to make yourself irresistible in a job interview – part two: 4 Strategies that help people know, like, and trust you
Make no mistake... You can show you have all the technical skill in the world, but if the interviewer doesn’t leave that meeting feeling they know you, like you, and can trust you, there’s a good chance you’ll miss your opportunity. In part one of this series “How to...
How to make yourself irresistible in a job interview – part one: The 3 crucial ways to prepare
Ever wonder how some people have the uncanny ability to get people to know, like, and trust them within just minutes of meeting? Academics call it the “KLT” factor and it measures how much a person feels they “Know, Like, and Trust” you. Notice that KLT rests entirely...
Bringing out the talents of your team: Survey and you shall receive
I recently did a communication training for an organization whose leadership spent two hours beforehand explaining to me that their employees were "all under-performing, irresponsible and unresponsive." I didn’t believe them then, and I believed them even less when I...
How to get strategic and START putting out fires in your business or team
Do you spend most of your time at work dealing with emergencies?... Does your business day revolve around putting out fire after fire, and are you constantly working to respond to client needs (or demands) because you are worried that you will lose your customer to a...
3 Typical workplace communication problems you can actually do something about
Workplace communication is a two-way street. It involves people listening to each other and responding, where ideas are shared and then collaboratively built out over time. So, when workplace interactions evolve from poor communication, it is no surprise that a...
Stop spending 80% of your time on one bad egg
Ever notice how there are those "bad eggs" on your team who, like vacuums, seem to suck not only your energy, but everyone's energy? Learning to deal with the "bad eggs" on our teams can feel like a trap. [bctt tweet="It's easy to think that with just a little more...
Live your work life as if you could die tomorrow
Recently I have been reminded of the importance of death... When we think about our own death and what might be our legacy after we have left this world, it can have a big impact on how we live daily. It has a lot of weight on how we treat people at work, in our...
The quick guide to increasing cultural comfort in the workplace
Increasingly organizations are looking to hire for "fit." They've become more conscious of the culture that they are trying to create within their company and look for people who have the "right" attitudes, energy, and predilections to meld well with what is already...
Cross cultural negotiation – part three: Personality traits that lead to cultural behaviour change
Turns out that your personality traits impact how effectively you can navigate cultural difference. Learn how “The Big Five,” “The Asian Personality at Work Index,” and how individualism and collectivism impact your ability to negotiate.
Cross cultural negotiation – part two: Using influence
Learn the 6 universal principles of influence you can start using today to improve your negotiations and your relationships.
The spirit of work: How courtesy, respect and thoughtfulness create the foundation for all other work success
Recipes for success at work are printed everywhere…articles, textbooks, templates, and checklists. Ready for a different approach? Find how Marie’s 3 key values can ignite your team and enable you to light the way for others.
Cross cultural negotiation – part one: Using power strategies
If you are working with human beings at all you will find yourself negotiating. Two definitions of the word negotiate that I like are "to obtain or bring about by discussion" and "to find a way over or through a difficult path or obstacle." Put those together and...
Ndumiso’s Swaziland to Canada story: Advancing in the telecommunications workplace
If you took our Canadian Workplace certificate course, you might remember an engaging interview video with Ndumiso. In the video he explained his creative way of finding work in his chosen field of telecommunications. After moving to Canada from Swaziland, Ndumiso...
Turning Twitter into a giant job board
Not one who needs to use a lot of words in a day? You probably find that Twitter is a favourite social media space and it turns out that many employers feel the same way. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are posted by employers using a mere 140 characters everyday, and...
Gerard Keledjian: An immigrant success story
About four years ago I migrated to Canada from Dubai, UAE, bringing with me over 15 years of experience and the dream of starting an exciting, new chapter in my life. However, like most new immigrants, I struggled to find my footing. In my search for solutions, I made...
Courageous conversations you wish you’d had
Have you ever found yourself wishing you would have had a conversation that could have made a difference for you and for the other person? Maybe you wish you had told that wonderful colleague you appreciated her but were afraid it might be taken the wrong way or “go...
To stop the talent drain, develop your own leadership
Your leadership actions are predictors of your organization’s success. If you are in any kind of a management position right now, sit down with a pen and paper and take five minutes to write down your answer to this question: Why would anyone want to follow me? If you...
On fasting, culture and family
You may or may not know that I am a Baha’i. One thing that Baha’is do as part of their spiritual practice is to participate in a month of fasting every March from the 1st to the 19th, then celebrate the Baha’i New Year on the first day of the spring equinox. So what...
Is it true that some people can’t be motivated?
Unpacking Motivation Ever found yourself asking this question? It's one that I am often asked, usually by someone who is frustrated with an employee who seems to have a lot of motivation issues, and usually when the asker has already decided that the answer to the...
Foreign credential recognition in Alberta: A few explanations and resources
One of the most common settlement difficulties faced by newcomers in Canada is credential recognition. Because countries differ in educational standards, what might have been a Bachelor of Engineering in one country may be considered a two-year equivalency in...
3 critical supervisory leadership tools for this century and the next!
Supervisory leadership promotion: do you have the tools? To promote someone to a supervisory level, the most common approach is to choose someone who is good at the job and has been both responsible and loyal to the company. Very little thought goes into...
Build Powerful Engaged Teams
Outstanding teamwork doesn’t just happen. The core competency of management is to truly appreciate your staff and make the team more powerful than individual workers to produce business goals. Training is not enough. You can develop the individual until the cows come...
Is online learning for you? Let’s find out
Online learning isn’t for every professional. It might work for you, let's find out. For me, I have been taking and creating online courses for several years now, and it occurred to me that I should look at the characteristics of successful online learners to see if...
Getting through to your boss
Have you experienced any of these issues with your boss? Your boss tells you to do something that is completely the opposite, or in contradiction to what he/she told you to do earlier Your boss forgets what he/she asks, and repeats things you already know, or doesn’t...
How to use your voice more effectively: 4 Critical strategies
To get a job or start a business you probably spend a lot of time perfecting your resume, personal description of strengths, your handshake and your pitch. You likely had a professional head shot taken for your website, or put effort into creating one that would make...
The need to be right versus the need to know
In his book How to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie writes that one of the biggest obstacles to living a happy life is allowing the need to be right to take over the need to know. Most of us will defend our beliefs to the death, even when all evidence...
“Why don’t they do things my way?” Practical strategies to deal with the emotions of cultural clash
The non-neutrality of culture Culture is not neutral. When any group of people starts spending time in the same place, over time they develop norms of behaviour. Some of those norms are helpful, healthy, creative and show interesting ways to see the world, take...
“Give them support and cut them loose!” Practical strategies to unleash the power of your team
This week we partnered with our friends at TINYpulse to bring you a webinar that showed managers how to see the significance of diversity, how to better understand culture and how it shows up in the workplace, and we outlined some strategies to build inclusion in your...
Building and recovering team trust: A basic framework for managers
Trust: difficult to build, easily broken, requires maintenance! Trust between people comes from three different dimensions: Ability – Both people need to believe that the other person can do the job or task Integrity – This is built from a history of past actions,...
Workforce plagues: Understanding and dealing with social dominance and narcissistic personalities at work
Around the world we are seeing rises in two diametrically opposed attitudes: on the one hand collaboration and integration across difference, and on the other, entitlement, social dominance and narcissism. If your workplace has individuals exhibiting social dominance...
“We’re going to have to let you go” – Words the indispensable NEVER have to hear
In 2015, Gartner, an IT research and consulting firm, estimated that one third of all jobs will be replaced by software, robots, and smart machines by 2025 [1]. The World Economic Forum is predicting a “Fourth Industrial Revolution” to take place between 2015 and...
5 Disastrously common meeting presentation mistakes & what you can learn from them
For many of us, just the mention of the word “meeting” makes us roll our eyes and groan. We’ve all had the misfortune of sitting through yet another bad presentation and have cursed the heavens for losing an hour (or longer) of our lives to boredom and frustration....
Want more confidence? Try these steps!
Have you ever found yourself watching someone else participate easily in a conversation with a stranger and wondered, “How did he/she do that?” Or perhaps you watched a presenter put forth a series of ideas with brilliant logic, a great sense of humour, or...
7 Barriers to communication and a lesson from YouTube
Barriers to communication can be removed! Ask employees in any workplace what the company’s biggest internal problem is and the majority will say without hesitation, “communication,” (insert eye rolling and groans here). Why is it that although we are social...
Why you can’t afford to have poor communication in your business or organization
We start with a story... There was a young man driving his car home on the expressway one evening, when he heard a loud bang and felt his left rear tire blow out. He pulled the car over on the shoulder of the expressway, got out, and saw that he had a flat tire. Even...
Reflections on high school reunions and cultural awareness
I had a crazy moment of cultural awareness/flashback/shock at my 40th high school reunion event a couple of weekends ago. Like many people I know, if you are still in touch with even a couple of people from your high school days 10 years afterwards, you are in the...
“What? Are you trying to teach me something?” The link between organizational learning and polar bears
Let me tell you a tale of two species… I was at a conference recently and one of the participants shared this story with me. “So, I went to the CEO and I said, ‘We have to start learning to stay current in today’s economy.’ The CEO said, ‘Ya, why? I’m making money so...
Virtual introductions: The “why” and “how”
When you are anxiously looking for work or trying to find a client, where do your thoughts go? After reading this post, hopefully they will zero in on one tiny, often overlooked but immensely powerful practice: the virtual introduction. The four categories of people I...
The power of a true vacation, and why you should harness it
“You can’t do a good job if a job is all you do.” - Artifact Uprising “A vacation is over when you begin to yearn for your work.” - Morris Fishbein I have a confession to make. Since I started my business 10 years ago I have only taken one vacation – ONE vacation, ONE...
Virtual networking part one: Using LinkedIn to find work and build your professional network
"The opposite of networking is not-working." - Anonymous Did you know that often managers and recruiters are looking at your social media profiles BEFORE they look at your resume? The truth is that your network is what will continuously feed you work – regardless of...
