Thoughts. Reflections. Intentions.

At some point in our lives, each of us will experience something that prompts us to take stock of our current situation. At that niggling in the back of your brain, you might start to ask yourself: Am I engaged in my work? Or simply going through the motions? Do I feel fulfilled by my routine? Or discouraged by the drudgery? Do I have a positive outlook for the future? Or dread for what lies ahead? If you lean right in your response to any of these questions, it may be a sign that it’s time to make a change. Read more.

Amid the “Great Resignation,” you’ve probably heard (and maybe said) that we’re all confounded. It seems employers don’t know why employees are leaving. And if you listen to feedback from the millions of people who have exited the workforce, things become even more perplexing. As it turns out, even employees don’t know why they’re leaving. A recent article from McKinsey explored the phenomenon in a new way, not for the sake of myth-busting but rather to apply a different lens to the way we’ve been thinking about it. The authors likened employees’ feelings to the feelings of soldiers returning home Read more.

In November 2021, a record number of people in the U.S. made a major change: According to the Labor Department, 4.5 million (about 3% of the workforce) quit their jobs. That’s nearly 1 million more than were resigning from their roles pre-pandemic. There’s a lot of speculation about what’s at the root of the “Great Resignation.” In our view, it stems from two big things people are grappling with at work: a sense of being stuck and a lack of fulfillment. Time and again, we hear from the professionals we work with that they feel like they’re spinning their wheels. Read more.

I can’t keep up. We hear this from the leaders we work with every day. Organizations are feeling the pressure to fill open roles, to make more widgets, to increase shipments—and more and more often, they’re leaning into technology to help them handle the volume. Technology and artificial intelligence have been creeping into the workforce for years, in ways and at a pace that’s sometimes alarming. At the end of 2020, it was estimated machines performed 30% of all tasks, with humans doing the rest of the work. And that balance was expected to shift to 50/50 by 2025 [1]. Read more.

When it comes to work, the U.S. is facing a crisis. It’s been referred to as “the great resignation.” It’s traced to a “demographic drought.” It’s predicted to be a “sansdemic.” No matter the term you use, the root cause you speculate, or the outlook you see for the future, this phenomenon is real. The post-pandemic labor market looks grim, with a severe shortage of talent to fill open roles. Millions of people have voluntarily left the workforce, and millions of jobs have gone unfilled. The triggers range from boomers approaching retirement to millennials shaping new work ideals to even Read more.

Every time I pass a car in a parking lot and see a dog sitting in the driver’s seat, it makes me smile. Sometimes said dog seems impatient or unnerved. They bark, jump, try to stick their head out of the crack in the window. Other times, said dog is calm, maybe even content. They sit straight up, look ahead, and almost seem to be smiling. I can’t help but think that dog is enjoying being in the driver’s seat (instead of in the back seat) for once! The last time I saw a dog in a car, it occurred Read more.

“A transition always starts with an ending. To become something else, you have to stop being what you are now; to start doing things a new way, you have to end the way you are doing them now; and to develop a new attitude or outlook, you have to let go of the old.”  – William Bridges Time and time again, we hear the professionals we work with say they feel stuck. And the statistics show it, too. According to a study by Forbes, more than half of U.S. workers are unsatisfied in their jobs. And that was before the Read more.

As a career coach, I am always listening for how someone is making sense of their current situation. This is just part of how I work. However, when working with clients who have experienced a job loss, my listening almost automatically becomes informed by a model I hold near and dear: Bridges Transitions Model. William Bridges (1933–2013) was a preeminent authority on change and transition who transformed the way people think about change. As an author, speaker and consultant, his pioneering research provided a methodology to guide organizations and individuals during significant transitions that accompany a major change. His work Read more.