Stage Manager to Retreat Planner (Part 1)
When you hear the word retreat, what comes to mind? For me, retreat means: bonding, connecting, team building, goal setting, reflection, fun for all, and taking steps forward. Looking at that list of words and planning my first retreat sounded scary. Do I know my team enough to make sure the retreat is fun, helps […]
Big Magic: Ways to Make Creativity Part of Every Day Life
A book report on Peter Rabbit… Peter Rabbit is this stupid book, About this stupid rabbit who steals Vegetables from other peoples’ gardens. (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17) Hmm. 83 to go. While reading the above, some of you may have read that and ended up confused. For those of you that think that was a creative start to this […]
3 Signs Your Team Culture is Rotten
The team had nicknamed their boss “Lunch Box” so they could talk trash about him in the company chat room without him noticing. As if that’s not sad enough, what’s even sadder is that Lunch Box didn’t even know his team had nicknamed him Lunch Box. Sometimes he’d jump in on the conversations, thinking they […]
How Effective is Your Virtual Team? Take the Test!
I have attended video meetings while in the basement of Grand Central, on a train, walking down the street, in a car, and in a coffee shop. We live in a world where we can be at work without actually being there, and it’s awesome. Sometimes, members of your team are only “virtual” because they […]
[Video] Emotional and Cultural Intelligence for Your Team – The Swift Kickin’ It Show
You’ve probably heard of emotional intelligence. But what about cultural intelligence? Do you have it? Does your team? If you ever interact with humans, you should probably level up on these skills. This episode of the Swift Kickin’ It Show is for team leaders who wonder about how to encourage higher emotional and cultural intelligence […]
5 Tips to Navigate Through A Personal Technology Crisis at Work
My generation gets a bad reputation for a lot of things! We get called out for not being politically engaged, wanting more “me time” and less work time, laziness, and bouncing from job to job more frequently than a small child changes their favorite color. But we do have some positive qualities as well. We […]
[Video] Working On Your Team Vs. In Your Team – The Swift Kickin’ It Show
“Unfortunately, I don’t like to have fun!” Except we do, and it’s evident in this energetic episode of SKTV. You’ll have to watch the episode to understand why Melissa said this at all. This episode of the Swift Kickin’ It Show is for leaders who feel it’s time to step back from the day-to-day work […]
Asking TO Help Instead of Only Asking FOR Help (and Why It Matters)
Recently, a friend told me a story about the unexpected joy she received one day while she was out running errands. She wanted to stay anonymous, so we will call her Charity. One afternoon at work, Charity left the office to take care of some shopping for work. It was a lovely day, and she […]
3 Ways My MFA Makes Me a Better Team Member
Lights, camera, action! As an actor, these are words that I am very familiar with. “Capsule”, “CRM”, and “cold calls,” however, are words that scared me a few months ago. I recently graduated from Columbia University with my MFA in acting. Right before graduation, I secured an agent and manager, as well as a full […]
3 Steps For Leaders To Recover Gracefully From Mistakes
I live and die by my work calendar, so I was annoyed that one of my team members had missed her one-on-one meeting with me. It is so easy to keep track of appointments, meetings and deadlines using a sharepoint calendar, so there is no excuse to miss something like this. Not only did this […]