What makes for a healthy, “anti-fragile” (adaptable, responsive) organization today?   These slides from my recent presentation to the Michigan Management Labor Association’s (MMLA) presentation on Wellness –A Healthy Engagement: Organizational and Personal Fitness provide insights on tools to help.  Wellness –A Healthy Engagement: Organizational and Personal Fitness from Deb Nystrom “The best way to predict [...]

Join me and my Coach Café Ann Arbor colleagues to learn about how coaching can support your success through one of our coaching demonstrations or workshops during International Coaching Week, May 20-26, 2013. Of all clients who have engaged a coach, 99% report satisfaction with the coaching experience, 70% report improved work performance, 80% report [...]

Tensions among senior staff in universities seem to be making the news on a regular basis. Examples include leader strife at Rutgers (blame), Penn State (cascade failure to deal with a crime) and University of Virginia (abrupt leadership goings and comings.) Last year Forbes described the University of Virginia‘s Board of Visitors vote to unanimously reinstate [...]

Are you experiencing prolonged harassment?  It may be that you may have just encountered a bully, and for women, it can be similar to experiencing an adult “mean girl.” As the number of women in the workforce and in leadership has increased, stress in leadership roles has naturally affected women, as it does men,  in [...]

If you’re trying to be miserable, it’s important you don’t have any goals. No school goals, personal goals, family goals. Your only objective each day should be to inhale and exhale for 16 hours before you go to bed again. Don’t read anything informative, don’t listen to anything useful, don’t do anything productive. If you [...]

Terry “TJ” Wisner interviewed me about how to select a good coach for your needs. I cover the 3-C model of coaching and offer 10 questions useful for deciding who would be great in helping you achieve solid results through selecting a coach for your needs. –Deb

Leadership, what is it? Does it really exist, or is it really just another form of management, one that refrains from using implied power, as Peter Drucker has described it? This interview of Seth Godin features managing vs. leading, specifically leading change. Seth is a well-known speaker and social media author who writes about building community, [...]

Slate Magazine has taken on the often quoted gender bias in math and science and has offered more nuanced, evidence based perspective. It’s the chicken and egg dilemma. It is why many programs out there about girls and women in science are needed. It is why drug addicts learn best from other, fully recovered, successfully clean ex-drug addicts. The power of the peer group is huge.

People are usually a lower order value in many organizations, number seven (7) according to consultant Peter Block in his earlier writings.  In some rarified companies, the people rank is quite a bit higher, such as with SouthWest airlines, owing to its success in fractious airline industry. via flickr.com . Note:  This post was updated [...]

I regularly manage sending out hundreds of posts in the Reveln mini-blog world, but the mother-ship blog presents a special challenge of desert and flood. I’ve shared my seven break-through learning steps that the holiday crush brought to light. Maybe it will help you in taking stock of what’s important.