Blog

Bring Your Human to Work (Part 2)
Last week, we learned the first five approaches to making the workplace more human shared in the book Bring your Human to Work: 10 Surefire Ways to Design a Workplace That’s Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World by Erica Keswin. Did you...

Bring Your Human to Work (Part 1)
Erica Keswin’s book, Bring your Human to Work: 10 Surefire Ways to Design a Workplace That’s Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World, has some great advice for those of us involved in creating Great Places to Work. She writes that...

Success Formula-WBT
Is there a winning formula to success? Successful companies share one common trait: they invest time, money and energy executing strategic plans to insure they will continue to flourish. Let’s simplify it. Do you have the three elements of WBT in place? Stop. What is...

Take Me Away
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place came from with new eyes and extra colors.” —Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky Summertime. The season that brings us longer days and more leisure time. And, ahh, sweet VaCays. The weeks...

Happy 4th of July!
Happy 4th of July from Transform, Inc.!

Let’s Count Our Blessings Instead of Sheep
Here’s an astounding fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s annual American Time Use Survey (ATUS) some 100M Americans are still looking for a consistent, good night’s sleep. [1] Do you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night lately? In clinical...

More Silence. Less Noise.
The Italians have a concept for piddling around known as “La Dolce Far Niente,” which means the sweetness of doing nothing. The Finnish Tourist Board developed a campaign to promote Finland as a destination – to entice tourist to visit and experience the natural...

Now or Later?
90 days. According to recent research[1] on workforce trends that’s the average number days your organization has before a new hire makes a decision – to stay (or leave) a new job. Other onboarding points of view say it happens much sooner – during the first days of a...

Tips to Build a Strategic Partnership
Companies decide to form strategic business partnerships for many reasons. Collaboration is useful. It offers the ability to develop existing resources and find new ways to thrive in the marketplace. Strategic partnerships can keep you in the driver seat and expand...

6 Everyday Exercises to Practice Resilience
Most of us know one. That person-colleague, business partner, or leader—who continues to emerge stronger and wiser after being “knocked down” by life. If you aren’t a naturally resilient person, don’t fear. It turns out, resilience can be practiced and perfected. It’s...

Summer Reading Suggestions from the Transform Team
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice By Bill Browder Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom By Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius Soul of America:...

So You Wanna Be in a Rock Band …
If you had to write a job description for an "Aspiring Rock-n-roll Band Member," could you? For most of us mere mortals, it's kind of easy to fall under the spell of magical thinking that the lifestyle of being a fulltime rocker would be the ultimate dream job. The...

The #1 Way to Stay Motivated
For years, I have taught that if you really want to keep yourself motivated, it is important to understand the difference between “have to, should and must” and “want to.” Since we were born, we have been programmed with what we “should do” to be accepted, what we...

Meet Our Furry Teammates
We’d love to introduce you to four vital members of the “behind the scenes” team here at Transform: Lucky, Louie, Ceci and Lambeau. Individually and collectively they add a lot of value and contribute immensely to our culture. Who knows, maybe you’ve heard one of our...

Come on, Let’s Dance!
“If you learn to use it right, the adversity, it will buy you a ticket to a place you couldn't have gone any other way.” * –Tony Bennett, Men's Head Basketball Coach at the University of Virginia Surprise upsets happen, on an off the courts and playing fields, in...

Even With Hindsight Would You Do It Again?
Each of us has the potential to see patterns. Call it what you like - the ability to connect the dots, informed intelligence or wisdom - possessing an ability to ask questions, uncover truth and see patterns creates real advantages for some and can lead to...

For Personal Growth, Better Relationships, and Professional Success
The Holistic Enneagram An Online Class with our friend and uber respected colleague, Peter O'Hanrahan Peter is a core faculty member of The Narrative Enneagram. He has worked with the Enneagram for 35 years, and teaches in the US, Europe, China, South Africa and...

What makes a leader “great”?
“Greatness is that quality that is impossible to define with scientific precision but almost equally impossible to mistake once you see it. … It oozes out of great-souled people in rare but commonplace fashion and in that way draws everything in its orbit into the...

“Can I ask you something?”
Sometimes feedback feels more like a _________ than a _________. When’s the last time one of your team members asked you for some direct feedback? The answer to that question is probably as good as any to take a random “pulse check” of culture at your organization. In...

Leadership Lessons Learned On-the-Job
In 2017 and 2018 I was President of my church’s Council, the governing body of the organization. Within days of being installed as President, our minister announced that she was leaving, and instantly I was catapulted into a leadership role I was not expecting....

This is what putting it all together looks like!
Mary Anne recently was onsite at Ispiri in Minnesota to work with their Sr. Leadership and Production team. In preparation, Jason put down his vision for company communications so everyone would be starting from the same place. Mary Anne was impressed by how he fit...

The Nature of Spring Cleaning
All around us there are small hints and signs of spring’s imminent arrival*. Perhaps it is nature’s way, to present us with a polite and gentle nudge, that helps us remember there is potential and possibility to renew and grow every day. Regardless of how the message...

Decisions, Decisions.
Chances are, you’ve already made 50+ decisions from the time you’ve started your day to this moment — when you are reading your weekly email/post from us. There is no shortage of things to make decisions about. We make hundreds, sometimes thousands, of choices in our...

Driving Growth in 2019: A Roadmap for the Year Ahead
Top executives are bullish on 2019, but don’t know why An excerpt from AXIOS. Top executives say American companies will continue to grow in 2019, but expect the things that drive growth will slow, a new UBS survey of top corporate officers at 500 companies...

Let’s Agree to Fail Faster
“Success and failure are both greatly overrated, but failure gives you a whole lot more to talk about.” —Hildegard Knef Most people agree there’s no simple, one-dimensional way to define “success” in business or life. Achieving success is even more mysterious to some...

A business storm’s a’brewin. Is your business weatherproof?
Business has been good for many for a while now, and I love it. We’ve been enjoying good times. YAY! Even though we may be on the verge of a harsher business environment if the level of uncertainty continues to amp up, we are still optimistic since the seas appear...

How My Inner “No” Brought About New Beginnings
As 2018 ended, I reflected on my year and summed up my year as a “temper tantrum.” You see, as a self-professed Enneagram Nine, my modus operandi for too many years has been to “go along to get along,” a description so rightly stated by Dr. David Daniels. But 2018...

Plan for Growth
If your team’s plan for growth doesn’t include a clear call for action, that deeply resonates with them, it’s likely to signal a need for you to hit “pause,” tune in, listen more, then turn these conversations into action items. That is, if you are willing to...

Traction + Momentum = Growth.
‘Tis the season of “begin again.” The first few weeks after the new year, conversations abound on the topic of goal setting — specifically, making resolutions. Personally, and professionally, annual goal setting can be an empowering activity. Pausing to reflect,...

Where Will 2019 Take You?
Did you write your story about 2018? Today is the beginning of the New Year, so today we encourage you to write your story looking back from December 31, 2019. Let’s envision this New Year with the end in mind! Here are some questions to help you write your story...