Today is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. Something that everyone can do to contribute to Canada's reconciliation journey is learning about Indigenous history, culture, and land. Continuing our reconciliation journey also means connecting in community (I live on Vancouver Island on the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən (lekwungen) People), especially today. Learning about Truth and Reconciliation is hard work.

Values describe the culture you want. Rituals reveal the culture you have. Strategy says “we will innovate responsibly.” Culture is what happens when someone proposes an unfamiliar, yet creative, idea in a meeting. Strategy says, “we are one enterprise!” Culture is what connects – or frazzles and fragments – recently merged teams so that they share information, give feedback, resolve tensions, and serve clients with the same behaviours and consistent practices even if they in different markets and geographies.

Coaching unlocks potential. From my perspective, all leaders should have a coaching philosophy because coaching is one of the best ways to cultivate self-awareness, unleash empathy, and foster personal accountability for taking action. Whether I am coaching my kids' soccer and basketball teams or empowering a colleague to solve a problem, bringing a coach approach to my worklife is also a strategy that leaders can use to create more leaders (or at least more awesome tiny humans).

Learning in the flow. Back to school. Change that's changing. Futureproof our kids. - A haiku about how going back to school has probably never felt so different (everything costs so much, I'm kinda lonely, and there's a lot of anger), irrelevant (AI will do all these tasks so why bother), and weirdly full of potential (kids will shape the future and they have the best tools in the history of everything to co-create solutions to really, really big problems).

Prompt writing is the craft of asking AI powerful questions through critical thinking, analytical reasoning, human judgment, and plain language. It is becoming a core workplace capability and I think prompt writing has the potential to become an art form: compressed authorship in which a few deliberate sentences summon, constrain, and shape a much larger text. Beautiful. Literary theory supplies concepts and methods for interpreting what texts, such as…

Whether you’re a software developer or an Artificial Intelligence (AI) vibe coder, you are probably familiar with reward hacking. Reward hacking happens when an AI model earns high scores or positive feedback by exploiting loopholes, shortcuts, or poorly designed rules while achieving the outcome asked of it. Reward hacking seeks to maximize the metric but misses the point it was meant to achieve.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the most popular movie of all time. Some people think it slaps harder than The Odyssey (for the record, I need to rewatch each film before deciding). A positive focus of t...

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the most popular movie of all time. Some people think it slaps harder than The Odyssey (for the record, I need to rewatch each film before deciding). A positive focus of the film is the vulnerable and emotionally connective friendship between Spider-Man and the Punisher. I think their relationship is an awesome example of new masculinity.

Plainly put, Spider-Man leads with a unique formula of leadership of kindness, humour humility, smarts, passion, and responsibility. And here are three leadership lessons that you can take away from Spider-Man. No, this not a "new idea" and "a few people" have "already written about this" in "2010" - this being said, my lessons get to the punchline quicker and better. And the artwork (see below) that I chose to adorn this post is both adorable and (probably) concerning.

Play is the process. Learning what we don't know ... yet. Trying is training. - A haiku about how adults and communities - neighbourhoods, organizations, companies - need to play together for the sake of play; like, Cas Holman would say that playing itself is the outcome. When we fear playing (or trying) because we might get it wrong or look silly, adults suppress the essential problem-solving and connective capabilities enabled through play. Unstructured adult play reduces stress while building cognitive flexibility, developing resilience, and expanding our imaginative range. Because play is the process.

Learning in the flow of work begins with a simple premise: people do not always have time to step away from work, life, or school to learn in formal ways. Learning in the flow of work enables clarity,...

Learning in the flow of work begins with a simple premise: people do not always have time to step away from work, life, or school to learn in formal ways. Learning in the flow of work enables clarity, personalized content, reflection, peer learning, and blended learning as practical ways to make learning easier and more useful in real time. In 2018, …

The FIFA World Cup concludes this week. It feels like Canada’s Men’s National Soccer Team has been out of the tournament for months. Even though we lost badly to Morocco, the experience was rewarding because results do not always tell the whole story. I saw something fantastic emerging on the pitch: a team learning to play without fear. Playing without fear is easy to admire and hard to practice.

I spent most of the last 10 days in the wilderness of Vancouver Island. Where there is no WIFI. (No – or very limited – cell service, either). The no WIFI constraint engendered two noticeable changes in the adults. First, it was easy to embrace disconnection from technology, like checking work email or weighing in on a spicy, World-Cup-related group chat.

Canada is flawed. And we need more Canada. Kindness keeps us warm. *A Happy Canada Day Haiku from a proud citizen who embraces the paradox of Canada being an awesome work in progress.

Simone Sinek wrote a pretty good book about the infinite game, which explains how "winning" in work and life is different than winning at a board game or a sport or a spelling contest. When winning is...

Simone Sinek wrote a pretty good book about the infinite game, which explains how "winning" in work and life is different than winning at a board game or a sport or a spelling contest. When winning isn't zero sum - you don't have to lose for me to win - we play to perpetuate and improve the game, not to win it.

If you want to trigger me, answer “things are really busy” when I ask what is new and interesting at work or what problems you are solving today. Busyness is not the same as productivity. Full calenda...

If you want to trigger me, answer “things are really busy” when I ask what is new and interesting at work or what problems you are solving today. Busyness is not the same as productivity. Full calendars, constant messages, and visible hustle can create the impression of progress while distracting from the work that creates value. For communities, organizations, and individuals alike, the real challenge is not to…

Count what counts, wisely. Counting. Data. Insights. Vibes. Vibes are data, too. - A vibes haiku because, in the absence of quantitative data and analytical reasoning, a lot of the decisions we make are vibes-based; and that's okay.

What if I told you that laughing at yourself might be the most underrated leadership skill nobody teaches in business school or the campus career centre? Let me paint you a picture. You're in a team m...

What if I told you that laughing at yourself might be the most underrated leadership skill nobody teaches in business school or the campus career centre? Let me paint you a picture. You're in a team meeting. Someone makes a gentle joke at your expense — maybe about how your "big picture thinking" still needs details, or your very strong opinions about the correct way to load a dishwasher.

The way things get done. Work rituals, policies. Seeking cohesion. - A culture haiku that highlights how culture isn't just "the way things get done around here", but also how the employee and/or community experience is shaped with strategy and operations (policies, processes, choices we make about technology, all shape culture).

A highlight reel is a curated collection of your most meaningful moments. Accomplishments, breakthroughs, praise, uncanny achievements, talents-on-display, and concrete examples or stories of the impact you make should all be on your highlight reel. Your highlight reel could be a formal collection of accomplishments (I have a few really nice emails flagged in my inbox, a video farewell from my former colleagues at Vancity, an old VHS of my appearance on…

Nostalgia is good for grounding us in values and shared stories. Research by University of Southampton psychologist Constantine Sedikides, Joost Leunissen, and Tim Wildschut shows that nostalgia bolsters social connectedness, strengthens optimism, and helps us weather disruption with a sense of who we are. Used well, it's a bridge between identity and change. Historians have long understood the myriad and complex power of nostalgia, especially for organizations.

Forgiveness is the highest form of love because it is the only force powerful enough to rebuild what violence, division, and resentment destroy. Communities cannot be safe, healthy, connected, or self...

Forgiveness is the highest form of love because it is the only force powerful enough to rebuild what violence, division, and resentment destroy. Communities cannot be safe, healthy, connected, or self‑actualized without it — and the evidence is overwhelming. Forgiveness is not sentimental. It is structural. It is policy. It is a collective decision to choose humanity over vengeance. Across workplaces, fractured nation states, and the Internet, forgiveness…

So I didn't set out to raise a Renaissance person. But here we are. Watching my oldest son last week — pitching terrariums he'd co-created with friends at a the Kidovate Youth Entrepreneurship Experie...

So I didn't set out to raise a Renaissance person. But here we are. Watching my oldest son last week — pitching terrariums he'd co-created with friends at a the Kidovate Youth Entrepreneurship Experience, anchoring our defence and making clutch plays in a basketball tournament, then stepping up his trombone game at his school's Night of Music — I realized something quietly remarkable was unfolding.

Years ago, one of my mentors, Brian, told me about a powerful professional persona called “The Respected Rebel”. A respected rebel thrives as a benevolent disruptor and innovator while honouring the chain of command. To be one means pioneering bold, yet simple, solutions that other people aren’t thinking of or are too timid to try. And it means telling the boss that she’s wrong.

Bounce. Arc. Swish. Courage. Practice begins. Perfect sound. We need more of 'em. - A haiku about balls; from the perfect answer in a game of Cards Against Humanity: Family Edition to sports to the courage the world needs. It takes balls.

Many historians think April Fools Day kicked off in the 16th century when calendars changed and folks got mixed up about the New Year. Those who stuck with the old process allegedly became targets of pranks, jokes, and all sorts of shenanigans. But nobody really knows how or why the world's longest running joke got started. April Fools’ Day also reminds us that humour is like glue and WIFI in our lives - it keeps us connected.

Landscapes, people, food. Beautiful everywhere. Living west coast vibes. - A West Coast Vibes haiku that mostly captures that feeling when five families convene in Tofino and have the very best time together.

I recently meditated on Seth Godin's article about kinds of 'enough'. There is enough of pretty much everything on our planet, but its not equitably distributed. And many of us don't need anything else to have enough, but our wants have transmogrified into pretend needs so that we can keep up with the culture. Suffice to say we have enough.

Giving workers a meaningful stake in their organization builds accountability, loyalty, and shared purpose. When employees are also owners, decision-making aligns more naturally with long-term sustain...

Giving workers a meaningful stake in their organization builds accountability, loyalty, and shared purpose. When employees are also owners, decision-making aligns more naturally with long-term sustainability than short-term profit extraction, resulting in more cooperative organizations and more equitable distribution of wealth in our communities. Worker Cooperatives: Employees collectively own and democratically govern the enterprise, sharing profits and electing leadership (e.g., Mondragon Corporation).

Beyond our control. Know yourself to know the world. It's just as it is. - A haiku about Pema Chodron's enlightened completeness of "just as it is"; so much of what happens to us is just what it is (and beyond our control), so putting our experiences in the right perspective and choosing how we respond is the work. Because we can't control the past (it's happened and it's gone).

Tension drives growth and it also fuels frustration. While tension often gets a bad rap, the right kind of tension is hugely beneficial for building new skills, expanding trust, and collective problem solving. If we believe that our best relationships in work and life generate friction, then it makes sense that tension isn’t just good, it’s also necessary for human development.

Great leaders – the ones who can really get the best out of people – understand the importance of working with folks holistically. It’s essential to treat people as human beings, not just employees, because human beings get pushed on the subway, dumped by a jerk, surprised by a best friend, and have their poetry published. Nancy Rothard’s recent HBR…

Leadership courage is the ability to do the right thing even when it's hard—which, let's be honest, is basically always. If leadership were easy, we'd just let algorithms handle it. For example. Let's say we know a director who notices her colleague consistently dismissing ideas from junior team members. During a meeting, The Director we know interrupts the pattern: "I'd like to hear Jamal finish his point." Awkward silence ensues.

Earlier this year I took part in two different learning experiences. The first was some pretty standard classroom training that introduced Agile Methodology to employees at Vancity. The second was not...

Overseeing upskilling, leadership development, and career growth at a learning organization has eliminated a very specific occupational hazard of mine: involuntary eye-twitching during budget season. It still happens every time I hear or read the phrase “learning is discretionary spending”, usually written apologetically or shrugged matter-o-factly in an industry webinar as my peers share stories of their training budgets being cut by 40 percent to facilitate five-figure savings that fund half a role and/or pay for another productivity tool that nobody will know how to use.

Performance reviews and year end conversations are ramping up around the world, which makes a lot of us uneasy because the experience can be clunky (HR systems aren’t slick like apps), emotional (money and personal identity are on the line!), and one-sided (managers rarely ask more and tell less). Here’s how to have better year end conversations.

Slop season is here. Lies. Tricks. Misinformation. Read through the chaos. - A haiku about critical thinking, investing in reading real paper books, and building a paradox mindset (being able to hold competing or mismatched views simultaneously) can help us navigate a world with a broken, unshared reality.

These days, our attention spans are about as fragile as a house of cards in a windstorm. Between geopolitical chaos, group chats blowing up with memes and hot takes, your kid’s soccer, basketball, and...

These days, our attention spans are about as fragile as a house of cards in a windstorm. Between geopolitical chaos, group chats blowing up with memes and hot takes, your kid’s soccer, basketball, and underwater basket weaving classes (okay, maybe not that last one…yet), the Zoom- and Teamsification of work, and the ever-present pull of social media, we’re all trying to do too much.

The science of goal setting is both clear and nebulous. Most of us fail or quit our goals by February of the year we set ‘em; however, when we seek to become someone different by establishing regular ...

The science of goal setting is both clear and nebulous. Most of us fail or quit our goals by February of the year we set ‘em; however, when we seek to become someone different by establishing regular habits, receiving support from others, and keeping things super simple. Here's how three simple changes made an impact for me in 2025. Deleted social media…

If I’m being honest, there isn’t much to celebrate on the West Coast of Canada these days. The pandemic/endemic is here, restrictions are being implemented, and lockdowns are looming. I feel for everyone who is enthusiastically looking forward to social connections over the holidays and now finds themselves performing face palm and shrug emojis as we find new ways to adapt.