Sarah Ratekin

Whenever “new normal” shows up, can it please include comfortable business attire? For probably at least two hundred years but certainly, for as long as I’ve been an adult, the clothes people have worn to work have not been what we’d call “comfortable”. Look, if to be “professional” you need a girdle (or shapewear of ANY sort, really), a reflexologist (or podiatrist) on speed dial, or a bottle of wine to recover once you kick off your beautiful-and-tortuous shoes, there’s something seriously wrong. There’s a whole industry around adapting to these absurd expectations.... Continue Reading

(Artist credit: KC Green) You know the drill. You’re in the weekly staff meeting and the well-meaning manager who read the article in HBR about gratitude starts the meeting off with “What’s one word that describes your state of mind?” and everybody dutifully goes through the call-and-response of throwing something upbeat or positive into the word cloud. “Family” “Support” “Opportunity” “Hopeful”… The list goes on and on, and if your life is filled with something really heavy and uncomfortable, you get that bad feeling... Continue Reading

I recently had the pleasure of engaging in a conversation about “Leading by Listening.” The need for better, stronger, more effective, less damaging communication (of which listening skills are a key component) has been pretty popular over the last several years, and there are a lot of interesting perspectives on the “best practices” on how we, as leaders and as people engage in communication. And there’s no question that we have a communication crisis in our world. I believe a bigger contributing factor to the communication gap is that there is an (almost) insurmountable chasm between... Continue Reading

I’m a big believer in the power of Results And Relationships. The data tells us that by seeing worthwhile results of the work we’re doing and developing and nurturing strong relationships with the people around us, we’re priming ourselves for success. Today I got to experience both, and it was glorious. I had the opportunity to participate in an Evergreen Leadership Circle organized by Kris. Our “Circle” of twelve accomplished professionals (including Kris) spent the morning taking a good, hard look at our own behaviours and collaborating on ways we can “Simplify to Focus.” The epidemic... Continue Reading

My dad (that “Chief Crankiness Officer” I referenced a few days ago) and I have been talking a lot recently about this happiness business. Not because he wants me to stop pursuing my passion. He’s actually delighted that my siblings and I have all found ways to nurture our souls in professional and personal endeavours that are incredibly rewarding. He’s just wired to “dig deep” when thinking about things. He kicked off the conversation by saying, “I’m kinda starting to think that the happiness thing starts to falter when we rely too much on what I call “peak experiences”... Continue Reading

Almost every company has a list of core values. Some of them blazon them on their communications, some have them embossed into the walls of their headquarters, and some, well, some put them on paper, but struggle to actually embody those values. The challenge with “Core Values” is that a lot of the time, they’re very lofty, and very nebulous, concepts. I mean, what does “INTEGRITY” actually mean? How about “EXCELLENCE”? I do workshops for people focused on identifying core values, and I see these mentioned frequently in both professional and personal settings, but when asked to explain... Continue Reading

Ed wasn’t usually the “quiet one” on our team, but ever since his wife passed, we had seen a marked downturn in not only his demeanor but his performance, as well. Our supervisor wasn’t sure how to manage the situation. Unwilling to write him up for poor performance, and equally unwilling to crack open the emotional (and possibly legal) can of worms by trying to get involved. It wasn’t long before the performance on the team as a whole was suffering, and that led to a variety of additional frustration, resentment, and general “yuckiness” that nobody could figure their way through. Grief... Continue Reading

Would you walk into a job interview bemoaning the traffic and the huge to-do list hovering over your head? Would you tell your kids to start the 1st day of school in a grumpy mood? Do you LIKE being around people who complain all the time? I know I’m a positivity activist, but for the love of all that’s good, we need to have a serious conversation about how we can stop this weekly ritual of “Blame It On Monday!” Just like every week, when things went a little haywire this morning, people were quick to jump on the Anti-Monday bandwagon. Computer issues? “HAPPY MONDAY!”... Continue Reading

(originally posted on Elanco.com blog) Stressed? You’re not alone. The Global Organization for Stress reports that 6 in 10 workers in major global economies are reporting increased workplace stress, costing our shared economies billions of dollars in lost productivity, increased health care costs, absenteeism, and a host of other negative outcomes caused by workplace stress. Not all stress is bad. If you took a psychology class (or maybe like me you’re a radical positivity activist who revels in this kind of research), you may recall that a certain level of stress is actually necessary for... Continue Reading

(originally published on LinkedIn 29-July-2019) There’s an old expression, “It takes two to tango”. My spouse and I actually took tango lessons for about a year before our wedding. I’m not going to lie – our instructor probably quit after having us as students. You see, we’re both very strong leaders (and fairly stubborn people), and it was radically difficult for either of us to give up what we see as “control”, and so our initial sloppy, grudging attempts at “following” looked more like somebody trying to drag a limp noodle across... Continue Reading