Halloween is around the corner and I’m already starting to gear myself up for various kinds of holiday stress over the next two months. There’s always a lot of ups and downs with family coming into town, more social activities to host and attend and the pressure of wrapping things at work up for...
Dana Theus
When I Don’t Know What I Want, I Suck
For months I’ve been contemplating this big blog post about the importance on setting intentions for guiding your career development and life (without having to rely on coaches and other expensive experts.) After all, I wandered in the wilderness for decades before I got a clue, continually saying...
Research Says: Women Negotiate Salary When They Know Salary Negotiations Are Expected
Study: Do Women Negotiate Salary? (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2012, Liebbrandt & List) Finding: Women become more aggressive in negotiating wages when the advertisement explicitly states that wages are negotiable; this erases and even reverses the gender differences. InPower...
Dear Dana Workplace Advice: Dealing with the Midnight Email Queen
Welcome to our new Friday Column to give you workplace advice and coaching, “Dear Dana”! Every Friday I’ll be answering your letters outlining the challenges you have dealing with difficult bosses, challenging colleagues and other tough situations at work. Please write in and tell me about a...
Want to Attract Talent? Be Talent!
Someone recently asked me for my secret to making a good hire and attracting talented employees. I had to admit that I’ve never considered myself particularly skilled at hiring, even though I’ve made some stellar hires - if I do say so myself - so I had to dig deep for some executive coaching...
Research Summary: Women in the Workplace (McKinsey, Lean In)
Study:Women in the Workplace (McKinsey & Lean In, 2016) Finding: Women face an uneven playing field in the workplace. Women get less access to the people and opportunities that advance careers and are disadvantaged in many of their daily interactions. (Also see 2011 Report: Unlocking the Full...
Why Is Leading Innovation So Hard?
Innovation so often happens in the unplanned places. This is something of a conundrum for many leaders whose manufacturing B-School heritage tells them that everything should be planned out, documented and accounted for. Innovation – like its sister creativity – cannot be planned, budgeted, shoved into a “retreat” or predicted. It happens in the shower and in the in-between spaces of life and work.
Leading innovation is difficult because you have to risk looking like a fool. But when the great leader looks beneath the surface of the failures innovative playtime produces, they often discover that in those failures are seeds of success. Sometimes it’s a specific idea that results, sometimes it’s just reenergized employees, which can pay back in employee creativity, retention and improved customer service.
Innovation is a personal skill too. Here are three things you can do to create space for innovation in your life.
The Leadership Effect
What if everyone woke up one day and decided to lead from inside their power? We all can. All you have to do is set your intention. And do it.
Watch this great video more for inspiration on your journey.
Why The Woman Effect? Men are Helping Us
As you may know by now, I’ve been on a research quest to understand why The Woman Effect is helping organizations and economies succeed when there is significant presence of women in leadership. My fourth (and final for now) finding turned out to be a happy surprise. In our search for leadership...
Work-Life Paradox: Conscious, But Not Happy
Over the past few months I’ve been hearing from clients and friends who struggle with a vague sense of dissatisfaction in their lives and careers. In most cases it’s not too tough to ferret out the source of work-life dissatisfaction; we scan our lives and find that we’re happy in life, but we...