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Leadership topic - Joy

While like Happiness it is difficult to describe, the impact on people’s lives and creativity are worth appreciating…

Like Lightning Bugs in the South, Joy is something that we chase around during our lives, constantly just out of reach for many. When we do grab a hold, what exactly is it, and how do we look for easier ways to manage it for us, and our teams?

Can you engage with Joy?

Can you engage with Joy?

Apr 5, 2021 | , ,

I have spent more than a year avoiding writing about one of the most expressed emotions I have seen escalate daily… and I am not going to engage now.  I have always been more of an optimistic person, and people who know me get tired of me saying 2 phrases.  Both are aspirational, and convey a real sense that I really do want to bring to every conversation.  They are a direct antidote to that other thing that has been circulating and now has taken on a fever pitch in all areas of life… but there I go again.  Let’s spend the week on better things – let’s talk about Joy!

Joy management

Joy management

Apr 6, 2021 | , ,

Mistakes are the Joy of management,  You read that right, and by the end of this, I hope to help you see that is true. We like to think that we are there to ensure things are done “right” and “perfectly” but if you read these enough, you know that mistakes are what has made both my life more interesting, and also the music I love the most.  Today’s track is a perfect example of this, going through multiple mistakes to come one of the most important and iconic U2 songs.

partners with Joy

partners with Joy

Apr 7, 2021 | , ,

As we discussed with Happiness a few weeks back, Joy can be a fleeting commodity. It often arrives when you may or not be even looking for it, but appears with a smile, a laugh, a look.  You may not know what has caused it, but the endorphin rush in your brain confirms it is real..and wants to recreate it again.  For the last few years, all I knew was that something that I used to have, and had misplaced along the way, not in a dramatic way, more like how you lose your keys.  You know there – somewhere – and you slowly retrace your steps to where you can remember last having them…

Joy observation

Joy observation

Apr 8, 2021 | , ,

It is a convenient coincidence that the “empower” words come in the order they are in.  Yes, it is easier to make the acronym work, but these “middle” words tie together particularly well.  That became clear a year or so back when I was talking with a partner who observed that I had lost my Joy.  At first, I was a little taken aback, but as we talked through the assessment, she was right

wonder of Joy

wonder of Joy

Apr 9, 2021 | , ,

I am in a season of 35 one-shot coaching conversations with MBA students who had been taped in a simulation that they were set up to fail in… and no wonder, most did.  Told they only have 15 minutes to convince the COO and CTO to take action, they soon realized there was nothing that would please them… because they had not taken time to ask them what they wanted. Some of the students even dreaded coming to our calls thinking that they were going to learn “what they did wrong”.  And of course, that is not at all what happens…

executing Joy

executing Joy

Apr 10, 2021 | , ,

Joy has been complex for the last year, and if you think about it, for a long time.  We have been marinating in people either pointing at others who are keeping them from their Joy, or even more dangerous, how could I possibly be Joyful when I am so downtrodden.  The transference of our own ability to manage… ourselves … to others has been spectacularly executed.  It may be why watching the recent NCAA championship was so fun – it was watching some amazing players who have navigated all of the crap this year and now are at the peak of their Joy…

Joy renewal

Joy renewal

Apr 11, 2021 | , ,

As I stepped into rediscovering Joy, it is not a surprise it is related to creating things.  Raised in a family of tinkerers, I was always in the process of either building something or helping someone build something.  The wonder of imagining something that hadn’t existed before was something that was second nature with my Dad, having built things even in his youth out of scraps around his house.

engaging The Fall…

engaging The Fall…

Sep 2, 2022 | , ,

I rarely run across a song and a group that I have never heard. And not bragging… just when you make it your business to notice and know music, it is a shock. Recently people have given me the tagline “… and his encyclopedic knowledge of music” It is why I love listening to Sirius XM Deep tracks… and Wikipedia 😉 Between them, I can still occasionally reward my brain with something that it has to process for the first time… and, wonder is something that only gets better when you use it… often…