Merry Christmas! I’ll be celebrating with my family on Long Island and then it’s off for a spontaneous trip to Dublin for New Year’s Eve. (Be careful when reading travel specials online, you can convince yourself that irrational trips make sense!) You are undoubtedly busy at this time of year with work and home, so…

As leaders, we spend much of our time focused on fixing others’ shortcomings: annual evaluations, coaching sessions, disciplinary actions, simply walking around our organizations. The focus tends to be on what an individual needs to do better, and rarely on what they can do well. Most individuals posses a skill or an ability with which they are…

One of the most eye opening moments of my career as an administrator was when a nursing assistant said to me, “Denise, all you do is see the negative.” Me? The positive, happy-go-lucky one who loved to ask people how their kids were, and genuinely cared about the answer? Who stopped to answer call lights…

Last week I had an interesting conversation about a holiday party that an organization had planned for their staff. A happy topic right? But the person I was speaking with was frustrated that many of the non-supervisory staff members were not attending. She wondered if it was a reflection on employee morale. Lots of effort was put…

Lack of innovation plagues most healthcare organizations. Many leaders believe that the people they serve have no choice but to access the services their organization provides. They will come in their time of need, whether they like it or not, because they have to…so why change? But that mentality seems to be changing. More and more, I hear people talking about…

There’s a war coming. You can’t really turn on the TV or go into a bookstore without seeing some mention of the pending zombie apocalypse—they’ve already invaded our popular culture, so it seems like only a matter of time before they actually start showing up and snacking on people, right? But it’s worse than that. …

Last week, in my desire to get organized, I created a calendar of blog topics for the entire year. According to my trusty dusty calendar (mostly dusty because I haven’t used it), this blog’s topic was going to be all about one of the most frequent questions that people ask me. “How do I get…

“You make it seem so easy…” That was the opening to a comment someone wrote on one of my recent blogs talking about person-centered care. I loved that the person shared that because it made me think…maybe I do make it sound too easy. But you probably know from first-hand experience that true change is…

This year I have the privilege of serving as a coach for the first LeadingAge CT Leadership Academy, a year-long program that inspires leadership development. Last week was our first session, during which we reflected upon and drew a depiction of the values that guide each of us at work, and in every day life. Creativity does…