Leadership, Culture
Matthew Harrington
Putting Values Into Action: The Cornerstone of ...

When teaching or coaching emerging leaders, one topic I push hard on is values. Values refer to the fundamental beliefs and guiding principles that define what an individual, organization, or community stands for. These principles act as a moral and operational compass, influencing behavior, decision-making, and culture.  They are part of the magic three: mission, vision and values.

Putting Values Into Action: The Cornerstone of Leadership
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

Leadership

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XPollination (Ep. 20) - Millennials and Talent Development

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XPollination (Ep. 20) - Millennials and Talent Development

Today we have special guest Bruce Tulgan, bestselling author of It's Okay to Be the Boss, Not Everyone Gets a Trophy and his most recent book, Bridging the Soft Skills Gap, joining us for our 20th episode. Bruce is internationally recognized as the leading expert on young people in the workplace and one of the leading experts on leadership and management. Bruce has worked with tens of thousands of leaders and managers in hundreds of organizations ranging from Aetna to Wal-Mart; from the Army to the YMCA.  Bruce was named by Management Today as one of the few contemporary figures to stand out as a “management guru.” Bruce also lectures at the Yale Graduate School of Management and writes articles for many different associations including TRAINING magazine and the Huffington Post.  Before founding his company, RainmakerThinking in 1993, Bruce practiced law at the Wall Street firm of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn.

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Millennials with Matt Episode 5: Why Millennials Are Vital To Your Workplace!

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Millennials with Matt Episode 5: Why Millennials Are Vital To Your Workplace!

Generational specialist Matt Harrington discusses key reasons why the Millennial generation (1980-2001) are necessary and vital to our current workplace including the ability to handle a VUCA world, demanding a more nimble and agile organization and their ability to be social sharers of your company.

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XPollination (Ep. 19) - Millennial Grit and Resilience

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XPollination (Ep. 19) - Millennial Grit and Resilience

As a dynamic consultant, coach, and educator, Sarah Scala has over 15 years of experience in supporting organization development, leadership, and change management for diverse organizations. She is passionate about creating solutions that strengthen interpersonal skills and support change with individuals, teams, and organizations.

We met when Sarah was giving a presentation on “Sustaining Success through Mindfulness, Optimism, Resilience and Grit.”  I was especially interested around the topic of resilience and grit and how Millennials fit into the equation.  Do we have resilience and grit as a generation?  Most older generations would argue that these core elements are lacking in this generation?  Can we build grit and resilience? 

So we invited Sarah onto the show to discuss with us a bit more about resilience, grit and success.  

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Millennials with Matt Episode 4: Becoming an 'Adaptive Coach' Through Situational Leadership

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Millennials with Matt Episode 4: Becoming an 'Adaptive Coach' Through Situational Leadership

What does it take as a manager to start to create a healthy and vibrant relationship with your younger workers?  Generational expert Matt Harrington talks about becoming the 'Adaptive Coach' and utilizing Blanchard's Situational Leadership model to understand how every employee evolves.

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XPollination (Ep. 18) - Special Guest Dan Schawbel LIVE from the #VTSHRM15 Conference

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XPollination (Ep. 18) - Special Guest Dan Schawbel LIVE from the #VTSHRM15 Conference

XPollination was asked by the conference committee at #VTSHRM15 to do an exclusive interview with nationally-renowned Millennial speaker, Dan Schawbel. Dan Schawbel is the Founder of WorkplaceTrends.com, a research and advisory membership service for forward-thinking HR professionals, as well as the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. Dan is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press) and the #1 international bestselling book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future

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XPollination (Ep. 17) - Millennial Women

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XPollination (Ep. 17) - Millennial Women

XPollination was live from the 15th Annual SHRM Vermont State Conference for this special edition of the podcast.  This year the conference is titled, HRevolution: Change Tomorrow Today.  What better way to talk about changing tomorrow today then to discuss the young, game-changing professionals themselves, the Millennials.  I’ll be presenting at this conference shortly after the podcast at 3pm, but I also noticed another group of individuals presenting on Millennials with a unique twist – and this obviously peaked my interest!  The two women I have joining me for XPollination are Jessica Sabick of Vermont Energy Investment Corp. and Lindsey Lathrop-Ryan of Change the Story VT, and both have just finished their presentation on Attracting and Retaining Millennial Women to Your Company. We'll take a deeper dive into their presentation and the topic of Millennial women.

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Millennials with Matt Episode 3: Growing Millennials' Careers With a Leadership Lattice

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Millennials with Matt Episode 3: Growing Millennials' Careers With a Leadership Lattice

A leadership lattice, unlike a leadership ladder, looks to expand a young professional's leadership capability by using a cross-section of many leadership opportunities both in and outside of work. Millennial expert Matt Harrington talks about how a good coach or manager is constantly building a leadership lattice with their Millennial workers to provide maximum retention and growth potential.

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Millennials with Matt Episode 1: What Makes a Generation a Generation

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Millennials with Matt Episode 1: What Makes a Generation a Generation

In this episode generations expert Matt Harrington takes a look at what makes a generation an actual generation.  When we talk generations in the workplace or in our personal life we often look at the age or the two points in time the group of people were born into.  Instead we should be looking at what took place during that generation, especially in their formative years, that now defines their outlook on the world and the way they think others should act.  There are also other tips and tactics in the episode discussed when talking about generations.  Enjoy!