Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the eighty-fifth issue of CEE News! .
This year, I had the opportunity to work with two major clients to help them refresh their strategic goals. One organization chose the old school method of having business unit and operational leaders gather in person at a multi-day retreat to share their first pass plans with one another, then refine those plans over the next two months and lock in their goals for the next fiscal year along with OPEX and CAPEX budgets. The other organization (which, ironically, is a department of an Ivy League school) chose to refresh their strategic plans iteratively over a five-month period. They wanted to involve more stakeholders in the planning process, which would ideally result in shared accountability for delivering on the goals.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the eighty-fourth issue of CEE News! .
6.5 years ago, when a San Diego-based client asked for our help to codify their core values, I immediately reached out to WD-40 CEO Garry Ridge. I was first charmed by Garry when I heard him speak at a leadership conference. His Australian accent, the catch in his voice when sharing a story about balancing the weight of leading a publicly-traded company while making time to be a good soon to his aging mother, the self-deprecating humor, made Garry one of the most approachable speakers I’d heard. And when I emailed Garry to ask if he would be willing to host my client for a “culture field trip” to WD-40, his response was an unqualified yes.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the eighty-third issue of CEE News! .
This summer, I’ve had the privilege of working with teams from Ivy League Schools to government contractors to startups spawned from UC Berkeley labs. I’ve partnered with a 31-year old CEO/Founder to discuss how to build a leadership team, I’ve facilitated training for high-potential employees and senior leaders interested in mentorship, and I’ve worked with teams to refresh their 3-5 year strategic plans.
Regardless of what I’m asked to help with, leaders from organizations of all types and sizes are searching for answers to improving communication, getting better traction through aligned goals, and managing change. Throughout these meetings, there are usually one or two “a-ha” statements that serve as a catalyst for moving from what is to what is possible. Here are ten such quotes that have resonated with my clients, that may inspire you as well:
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the eighty-second issue of CEE News! .
In the wake of last week’s deadliest school mass shooting in Texas’ history, which happened nine days after one person was killed and five were wounded while attending church in Laguna Hills, CA, one day after ten people were gunned down as a Buffalo supermarket, you may have missed that last week marked the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.
The last days of May, when the calendar signals the promise of long summer days ahead, will now also be marked as a season of violence, tears, and mourning in America. Fifteen years after the massacre at Virginia Tech, 10 years after the Sandy Hook rampage, four years after the carnage in Parkland, we have yet to see serious bipartisan efforts at gun reform.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the eighty-first issue of CEE News! .
“There is a big disconnect between what science knows and what business does.” So claimed Daniel Pink in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. One of the three elements of true motivation, Pink found, is the deeply human need to learn.
Typically, workplace learning takes place in multi-hour or multi-day group training settings. The minute we complete the training, our chances of retaining what we learned begins to drop. Ten days after the training, our retention falls to 60%. By Day 20, it falls to 25%. By Day 40, our chances of remembering the training drops to just 10%. That’s an incredibly inefficient and expensive way to learn.
So, how do you actually find the time for learning and retention when faced with the urgency of work? The answer, according to the Journal of Applied Psychology and Harvard Business Review researchers alike, is microlearning.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the eightieth issue of CEE News! .
One of the most important principles that my team believes in is taking our own medicine. Before we ask a client to take an assessment, we take it first. If we launch a training program, we are the first to sign up. We feel that we can’t genuinely ask someone to experience something that we’re introducing unless we’ve experienced it ourselves. I just completed Level 1 of our DEI Executive Certificate training program, and I couldn’t be more proud. We developed the program as a hybrid online microlearning platform, plus live weekly group facilitated sessions. This enables participants to break down the complexities of DEI into consumable, engaging bits and build confidence to support each other in our learning journeys. Here are just a few nuggets that I’ve learned so far.
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