Erin’s Blog
Asking again and again to make sure you’re headed in the right direction
This week’s tale is inspired by the roosters in Puerto Rico where we were on vacay a few weeks ago. I’ve got a thing about roosters. It’s not a good thing. My time in the Peace Corps in Panamá taught me many valuable lessons, one of which was that children’s books...
What Do YOU Think Should Happen? Letting Your Team Decide Their Fate
It was the same scene every morning he was supposed to work. Rolling in 20-30 minutes late. Frustrating the team. Getting me stressed wondering if he was going to show. Running in with apologies and it-won’t-happen-agains and other empty nonsense. He’d been...
Curious Question Round One: Your Control vs. Their Control
Happy Thursday! Today we’re shaking things up a bit in the newsletter world. I’ve taken to asking the teams I work with to write down a curious question at the end of our time together. This idea was inspired by Chad Littlefield, a master of connnection himself. ...
Cash Cages and Connection with your Team
Erin, can I see you in my office? The tone and look implied an impromptu bonus would not be the topic du jour. “We’ve talked and we’ve decided that you are going to go work in the accounting department for a few months. You’ll be up in the cash cage counting the...
International Women’s Day 2023: can we retire the boob jokes?
Wait. Time out. Hold up. Did he just say what I think he said? I looked around the room to gauge the reaction of other people to confirm my suspicion. You could feel the cringe spread throughout the ballroom. You could feel the oxygen being sucked out of the...
Your role or my role? Where do you find yourself on the awareness scale?
“Was it my approach? Is there something I could have said differently? “I knew they were going to respond that way. It’s how they think. They always react like that.” One conversation. Two different responses. Two different ends of the awareness spectrum. There’s...
Lifting the weight takes time.
“Never give the problem a year and the solution a week.” The author Jon Acuff posted this pithy comment about someone who had gone to the gym for a few weeks and hadn’t lost all of the weight they were hoping to lose…which, as it would turn out, took them years to...
It’s all Energy
I headed to yoga last Friday morning. I’ve got a few favorite teachers at my yoga studio, and a few favorite phrases from each of them. Begin again. Stay on your mat. Those are from my Slow Flow teachers. Then there’s the Mixed Flow teacher who is known to fully...
Feedback to Forget
“Can you help me not be an asshole?” 😳 The workshop had ended. It was late. Brandon was in a shouting-whisper discussion with his supervisor. You know that tone people take when they are trying to keep things quiet but are fired up and that energy comes through?...
Who is it for?
What’s your “Why?” Perhaps Simon Sinek’s concept and book, Start with Why are familiar to you. You’ve got his concept to thank if you’ve been to a conference recently and inevitably heard the speaker deviate from their regularly scheduled talk to show a picture of...
