Leadership
Matthew Harrington
Election Reflection: When Does a Vision Become ...

Reflecting on the recent election, the Harris campaign's lack of a clear and compelling vision became evident in contrast to Trump’s well-communicated stance, making it challenging for voters to see her future for America. Drawing from the change formula, a successful campaign requires acknowledging dissatisfaction, defining a visionary goal, and setting clear steps toward achieving it—elements that were more apparent in Obama’s 2008 campaign, where “hope and change” aligned with voters' aspirations and activated widespread engagement. Ultimately, the Harris campaign's struggles highlight the need for leaders to craft a vision that resonates powerfully and unites people around a shared purpose, as fear alone can often overshadow hope if it lacks sufficient clarity and preparation.

Election Reflection: When Does a Vision Become Lost—or Was It Never Realized in the First Place?
Leadership
Matthew Harrington
Lincoln’s Leadership: A Blueprint for Resilient ...

As Election Day 2024 nears, reflecting on Abraham Lincoln’s legacy offers valuable insights into adaptive leadership, resilience, and unity. Known for his humility, conviction, and strategic flexibility, Lincoln showed how true leaders use disruptions to inspire lasting change. This election, we can look to Lincoln’s example of courage and empathy, guiding us to face challenges boldly and strive for a united future.

Lincoln’s Leadership: A Blueprint for Resilient Leadership Beyond Election Day
People, Leadership
Matthew Harrington
Navigating Conflict in the Workplace: The ...

Conflict at work is inevitable, but with the right tools, it can become an opportunity for growth. In this post we explore how leaders can guide teams through conflict by understanding how the brain processes emotions through the downstairs, middle room, and upstairs functions of the brain.

Navigating Conflict in the Workplace: The Downstairs, Middle Room and Upstairs of Resolution
Culture, People
Matthew Harrington
Belief-Behavior Conversations In Action: How ...

Belief-behavior conversations, as we discussed in our e-book: Revitalize and Retain Staff, aim to address the root causes behind actions, rather than merely correcting surface-level behavior. Pixar’s leadership used this approach to facilitate open, meaningful dialogues, helping the team uncover the underlying beliefs fueling their actions. Once these beliefs were identified, leaders guided team members toward reframing them, creating lasting behavioral change.

Belief-Behavior Conversations In Action: How Pixar Transformed Team Dynamics and Communication
People, Leadership, Culture
Matthew Harrington
Leadership Growth Lattice in Action: How ...

Discover how LinkedIn transformed employee growth and retention with the Leadership Growth Lattice, a modern alternative to traditional career ladders. By encouraging skill development, cross-functional teamwork, mentorship, volunteerism, and alignment with personal life goals, LinkedIn fostered a culture of continuous learning and flexibility. This holistic approach empowered employees, reduced turnover, and fueled innovation, positioning LinkedIn as a top employer in the competitive tech industry.

Leadership Growth Lattice in Action: How LinkedIn Embraced Holistic Employee Development to Drive Retention and Innovation

Millennials! Stop Playing The ‘Jump to Conclusions Mat’ In Your Relationships!

Millennials! Stop Playing The ‘Jump to Conclusions Mat’ In Your Relationships!

Do you remember in the movie Office Space when Tom talks about his great ‘million dollar’ idea called the “Jump To Conclusions Mat?”  According to Tom, “It would be this mat that you would put on the floor and would have different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.”

Not a great idea, like his friends pointed out in the movie, but it also isn’t a great idea for us to jump to conclusions in real life as well.  When we jump to conclusions in conflict we are putting “2 plus 2 together to make 5” which is never good math and leads to mistrust, communication issues and deeper conflict. 

New Survey Indicates Millennials in Leadership Roles Directly Tied to Organization's Overall Success

New research from DDI and The Conference Board, titled The Global Leadership Forecast (GLF) 2014 | 2015, Ready-Now Leaders: Meeting Tomorrow’s Business Challenges, directly connects the percentage of Millennials in leadership roles with impacting overall business success.

Millennial Conflict: Texting Our Way to Resolution

Millennial Conflict: Texting Our Way to Resolution

In a world where we are often encouraged to speak face-to-face to people, that style may be too much of an “in your face” method for Millennials.  Are we evolving into a society that can solve some of its conflicts through texting? We, as a society, may have to swallow a tough pill: the landscape of all things in human behavior and development is changing because of technology and we may have to adapt to that.

X-Pollination Podcast: Special Guest Michael Harrington on Young Leadership in Government

X-Pollination Podcast: Special Guest Michael Harrington on Young Leadership in Government

Michael Harrington, at age 32 has been both the Director of Student Affairs as Paul Smith's College in NY and currently is the Economic Development Director for the Town of Bennington in Vermont and was recently recognized as one of Vermont's Top 40 Young Professionals.  We will sit down with Michael to discuss key principles and leadership tips that he has learned over his career that propelled him to his current status.

Anonymity Apps: Therapeutic or Destructive (part 2)

Anonymity Apps: Therapeutic or Destructive (part 2)

What do you think?   Are the more secretive apps therapeutic or another self aggrandizing platform for our generation to embrace, or worse, could they become the next platform for bullies and suicides as we talked about last week? Do these apps free us to share emotion and thoughts that would otherwise be suppressed and potentially harmful or do they allow us to retract even more from reality and the boundaries of society to build a world of fantastical secrecy without consequence?

The Secret & Whisper Apps: A Private, Cathartic Process for Millennials or a Narcissistic, Bullying App?

The Secret & Whisper Apps: A Private, Cathartic Process for Millennials or a Narcissistic, Bullying App?

The Secret app and the Whisper app allow users to send messages anonymously and receive replies. Users post messages which are displayed as text superimposed over an image, similar to greeting cards. Secret differs from Whisper and other anonymous sharing apps such as PostSecret and Yik Yak in that it is intended for sharing primarily with friends, making it more interesting and addictive for people reading the secret, anonymous updates because of the closeness of the real relationship.

The Anonymous Trend
Obviously, this is different from what we currently consider social media in the sense that it doesn’t seem too openly social but rather private and behind closed doors (or screens).  These types of apps are all part of a growing trend towards anonymous and quasi-anonymous sharing, which is meant as a certain slap in the face to Facebook and other social media that push to encourage real name use throughout the Internet. 

10 Tips To Becoming the Value-Added, Indispensable Millennial Employee

When we train on the new workforce generation one of the most common themes that emerges is how can a Millennial worker become more value-added in a short amount of time.  In addition to this theme usually the next sub-theme is ‘…make it practical, real life examples, attainable differences.’  With those two thoughts in mind we’ve put together a list of what we have heard, seen, and believe are ways that a new Millennial worker can become indispensable:

1. Have a “Show Up, On Time, Ready To Go” Philosophy.  Number one on the list and quite possibly the most important (because all the others need to have this underlying mindset) is the ‘show up’ mantra.  This means being on time, being present; attuned, prepared and ready to go in mind, body, and attitude.

2. Review a meeting agenda ahead of time and find places to add insightful value. Write out questions related to the topic. For example, “How would we respond to the problem if we expanded/reduced our approach?” “How might the customer see this situation from his/her perspective?” “How does this information/update affect our timeline or goal?”

MILLENNIAL: How To Get My Boss To Notice Me For A Promotion & Other Audacious Ideas

A study of S&P 500 companies over 20 years (1988-2007) shows that those companies that exclusively promote CEOs from within outperform companies that recruit CEOs from outside the company. An argument could be made that most internal promotions, CEO or otherwise, have great potential to add value to companies moving forward in the future. Sure, every now and then a company likes to find that maverick on the outside to shake things up – but I’d be willing to bet there is little use for shaking these days and more focus on sustainability. So if the focus is to stabilize and to grow conservatively by promoting from within, how do we position you to look your best, be at the top of every employer’s wish list and build a personal brand that exudes high potential?

Why "Connector” Millennial Employees Need "Adaptive” Managers In Order To Survive

Every generation experiences what is known as “shared sense-making.”  It is the process in which individuals within a generation jointly interpret their environment and create collective narratives from which they derive meaning.  This process, through the lens of being in the same generation, moves individual perceptions and feelings to a state of “group knowledge.”  We, as a generation, have some general beliefs about the world and all those other “misguided” generations.  A current example of this is how managers are experiencing millennials in the workplace.  “There is a coherent, if not unified, voice about what millennials are like and constant favorable comparison of themselves to the millennials,” state the authors of Managing the Millennials.  

 

GENERATIONS IN THE WORKPLACE: The Manager to Millennial Challenge – Key Initiatives to Start a Healthy, Productive Workplace Relationship

This past week I had the opportunity to be a guest speaker at the Northern New England Center for Financial Training’s annual banquet.  While sitting at the table waiting to give a 20 minute talk on social learning through new social technologies, I asked the guests at the table how the influx of new workers (mainly millennials) was turning out for them.  Some were excited about the talent and passion the young generation brought to their businesses, some had struggles and challenges, but could see the light at the end of the tunnel, while others were just exasperated by the attitude and demand of the young professionals.  It was a good litmus test on where we are in the millennial influx.