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Posts by Root

PART 3: Unconscious Bias Efforts: Education Infused with Empathy
For organizations to create the connections that mitigate unconscious bias, focus on empathy. Here are three actions to take.
Creating a Company of Businesspeople Makes Good Sense for Every Utility
How can organizations build and maintain trust with customers and communities? It's time to turn your employees into businesspeople.
Prone to Bias? Stop, Drop, and Roll!
Eradicating the impact of bias from the workplace isn't easy. The first step is resetting our unconscious bias goals and setting achievable measures of success.
I’m Biased. So What? Why Unconscious Bias Training Doesn’t Work
Unconscious bias training doesn't work. Here are three reasons bias trainings often fail and what we propose doing differently.
Build Resilience with Change Leaders
Building change resilience across your business is achievable. Try using "empathy 2.0" to tune in to what matters most to your people during the change at hand.
The Way We Lead Change Needs to Change
To build resiliency and lift the fog of change fatigue that is our reality in 2021, we must think differently about how we lead change. Consider these three tips.
TIME OUT TO CELEBRATE: THE SECRET TO AN ENGAGED TEAM IN 2021
How can leaders create engagment despite the tidal wave of chaos casued by the pandemic? Celebrate your teams any chance you get.
10 Tips for Putting on a Kick-Butt Virtual Event
Planning a virtual event? Check out these 10 tips to ensure that your organization's online interactions are as impactful as face-to-face ones.
Building COVID-19 Vaccine Advocacy for Healthcare Organizations from the Inside-Out
Health care providers will receive potentially lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines in the coming weeks. The biggest obstacle sn’t access to freezer space or distribution – it's convincing caregivers and then the public to get the vaccine. Here are three critical ingredients to getting authentic buy-in from within your organization.
6 Tips to Ensure Your Virtual Event Beats Your In Person One
The goal of a virtual event is to create a directed experience that you can control, people can unify around, and everyone will remember.
Affected More Than Infected: The Importance of Financial Literacy in the COVID-19 Era
To help health systems shift from crisis response to financial and operational recovery, leaders must engage people in the organization's financial story and encourage accountability for how their efforts affect financial performance.
Tips on How to Propel Successful Change
Few people welcome change. In fact, most of us fear it. But there are ways to set your organization up for success. Change isn't easy. But it is possible. Are you ready to learn how to make your change stick?
Your People Are Running on Empty but Too Afraid to Tell You
Do you know the truth about how your people are feeling right now? We'll fill you in. They're hurting, stressed, and exhausted, but don’t feel safe enough to tell us. It's time to figure out how to connect with your people and we have insights to help.
Stop Medical Distancing and Solve the Patient Experience Challenge
Improve patient experience by first identifying points of patient frustration, and then targeting areas on the patient journey that need intervention.
The Changing World of Retail and Hospitality
The world isn’t going to stop changing so what is your retail or hospitality business doing to pivot and adjust strategy to meet customers where they are?
Leading People During Uncertain Times: A Focus on Clarity, Connection, and Conversation
During change people want and need three things: clarity, connection, and conversation and messaging needs to address each of these elements.
Crisis Reveals Managers’ “Superpowers”
When smart and agile leaders lead with vulnerability and heart, they change our relationship with work forever. If the current crisis leads us to a more engaged workforce, that would constitute one positive outcome.
Intimacy: It’s Not Just for the Bedroom Anymore
COVID-19 has created a radical sales shift from exchanging pleasantries to creating intimacy. Developing deeper client relationships is transformational.
Managing “Why, What, How?” During Rapid Change
During large-scale change, being nimble is key. You must be know your Why, but be prepared to adjust your what and how as new challenges arise. Let your purpose, your why, guide you and your people to achieve long-term success in the end.
Finding Balance in a COVID-19 World
Be agile, flexible, and ready to change course at a moment’s notice. Don’t wait around for someone else to save you. Control your own destiny!
Four business agility behaviors for your team to embrace now
We can only be nimble when we have the right culture and agree on the behaviors that make it work. There are four primary behaviors that drive agility.
Take Control of Change Using Four Critical Elements
Changing our behaviors to flatten the curve is a major societal change, but we go through the same phases when faced with change in our work. When your team is facing change – big or small – there are four elements to creating lasting change to consider and plan for.
Leading Through a Crisis
In this episode, we’re tackling the very current topic of leading during a crisis. We want to share insight on what health care leaders – and leaders in all industries – should be doing to help guide their people during this unprecedented and very worrisome time.
9 Steps to Get Your People into Training
Training your people can be difficult because it is often seen as boring and not helpful. Here are 9 ways to train and motivate your people successfully.
Protect, Prioritize, and Pivot: Being Agile in the Current Pandemic
Prior to COVID-19, the broader talent community was already migrating toward blended programs of in-person, virtual, and digital modalities. The current situation has put a spotlight on the need to rethink how organizations come together to develop their capabilities and skills.
Changes Aren’t Permanent – But Change Is
There has been a lot of great content put out about how to lead and engage your people and your organization in times like these. However, I haven’t come across much that is targeted at the individual. Yes, leaders need guidance, but as an individual I want advice on how best to navigate these difficult waters too.
The New Normal: Working from Home (WFH)
Working from home, or “WFH” as it is now often called, is becoming increasingly common in the modern workplace. To help those who find working from home challenging, here are some tips for staying motivated and being efficient.
Stay Out of the Dark: Embracing Virtual Discovery Methods in Our New Social-Distancing World
Thriving through change, rather than just surviving, requires (virtually) capturing t¬he voice of your employees and customers. These insights are valuable for your strategic decisions, and their engagement is critical to coming out of the present situation stronger than ever.
Enriching the Employee Experience: 7 Guiding Principles to Creating Healthy Teams
When it comes to healthcare, the patient experience is always paramount. But the employee experience must be core to the organization’s strategy and culture.
Sustaining Change is Hard
My role, leading our CX team, gave me insight into how easy it is to initiate organizational change and how hard it is to sustain real change.
How Being a CrossFit Athlete Made Me a Better Professional
I had chosen to view this challenge as a threat rather than an opportunity. Of course I hadn’t seen progress; I had been operating with a “fixed mindset.”
20 Years Later, I’m Still a Beginner
How are you being intentional about learning? What routines or practices can you share to help others succeed at the skill of learning?
Talent Solutions: Should I Buy or Should I Build? Maybe Both.
Tips to help talent leaders to find a talent development solution (buy or build) that best fits the needs of their people and business.
Are Your Values Words on a Wall, or Do They Walk Down the Hall?
Values, purpose and mission should align to the work an organization does—and all the decisions made along the wayThe Common Element in Graduations – Quite Simply, the Human Connection
This graduation season, I attended five graduation ceremonies. The volume is a bit uncommon for me, and the diversity of the students was even more unusual.If a Record-Setting Jeopardy! Winner Learns from Children’s Picture Books, Can You, Too?
Another ringing endorsement that visualization promotes retention came from the most recent Jeopardy! Champ. Contestant James HolzhauerWork-Life Balance: Language Matters But Won’t Solve the Issue
I recently read an article in Fast Company about burying the term “work-life balance” and embracing “work-life fulfillment” instead. I don’t disagree.How Being a New Parent Changed My View on Change at Work
I always thought I was good with change – I adapt easily and I’ve thrived in a job where every day looks different. Turns out, I’m terrible at change.Chief Joy Officer?
This excerpt from Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear is written to help leaders bring a renewed sense of joy
Happy Anniversary to Me: How I Made the Decision to Change My Career
January marks my one-year anniversary with Root Inc. As I reflect on the day I received the call to lead the Food & Hospitality practice, I remember
Culture Insights from a Certified Great Place to Work: Contributing to the Community
Do your people feel good about the ways your organization contributes to the community? Today, giving to the community is a vibrant part of our culture.
Culture Insights from a Certified Great Place to Work: Approachability
Does everyone in your organization have the opportunity to get recognition? I really value this particular question on the Great Place to Work surveyCulture Insights from a Certified Great Place to Work
In your culture, are managers approachable and easy to talk to? This question highlights the importance of leadership approachability in workplace culture.Why You Need to Embrace Conflict at Work
My days often consist of a visit to a client’s office. A strategy meeting is underway and the room is filled with fervor and possibility.
Root Workshops: Let’s Put a Ring on It
Learn how to create workshops that make make sure everyone walks away a little bit smarter and it can be as easy as cake.
Talent Management Winds of Change
The topic of Talent Management is a broad, but extremely critical one that can mean a lot of different things to different people
Headed for an Identity Crisis? Align 5 Key Elements for Culture Success
5 key elements for culture success that help you build a culture that attract customers, engage employees, and create purposeful and connected organization.
What Learning & Development and Twitter’s Shrimp Fried Rice Saga Have in Common
A story comprised of bite sized snippets enthralled Twitter one day. Learn how we can apply these lessons to learning design and make training successful.
Why most New Year’s Resolutions are already Toast
Creating an engaging, positive experience that leaves room for failure instead of focusing on a goal creates meaningful change that lasts.
It’s Time to Identify and Maximize Successes at Work
Instead of focusing on what isn't working, find out what is and replicate it across the organization to maximize successes at work.
Employees are Your Most Important Customers – Do These Three Things Now
It's time to start treating your employees as the most important customer, otherwise they cannot deliver the proper experience to your paying customers.
It’s Time To Build A Bridge
If you want everyone to act like an owner and understand how the impact the bottom line it's time to create a bridge that leads to better communication.
A Letter from the Trenches: If I Were You, How Would I Engage Me?
People know the best way to engage themselves with their work. Here is one person's letter to their boss on how they want to be engaged at work.
Building a Customer First Culture: Three Things You Must Do
Creating a customer-first culture that everyone in the organization can embrace and live makes all the difference in how your brand is perceived.
6 Things High-Performing Managers Do Right
Learn the hiring, training, employee engagement, and customer experience secrets that organizations use to create high performing managers.
200,000 Deaths a Year. Is It Time for a New Approach to Patient Safety?
Dave Willis sits down with John Byrnes, MD and gets answers about preventable medical errors and about a new approach to patient safety.
Diversity and Inclusion at Work: Do Your Employees Bring their Whole Selves Each Day?
Diversity and inclusion at work enables people to show up as their whole and authentic selves which allows them to bring 100% of their value everyday.
They’re All Watching You To See How YOU Handle The Change!
How you handle change says a lot. To propel change successfully in your organization remember to focus on these important three key areas.
Are You Still Boring Your Employees with Training? 9 Ways to Change All That
Any curriculum you expose your company to should be highly engaging and motivating. Here are 9 steps to achieve this goal.
How a 160-Year-Old Company Deployed Strategy in a Unique Way
By engaging all employees in a discovery-based interactive experience, you can deploy your new strategy in an effective and sustainable way.
The Waiting is the Hardest Part
It's time for healthcare organizations to stop accepting long wait times as just part of the process, because waiting is the hardest part.
How Well Do You Showcase Diversity and Inclusion in Your Marketing Materials?
Here are three questions to ask to achieve diversity and inclusion in your marketing to ensure all of your customers are welcome into your company.
Managers: Supercharge Your Relationships with the Drive-By Conversation
Managers can learn a lot by having drive-by conversations with their team members. Here are 4 questions to help super charge drive-by conversations.
Three Ways Great Managers Inspire Their Teams
New managers are full of passion to hit the ground running, but sometimes their teams are not. Here are three ways for managers to inspire their teams.
How to Engage People in Your Company Culture
Engaging people in your company culture takes more than ping pong and a stocked snack room. A compelling organizational purpose is key to your culture.
Why I Love Being the Early Bird
When you are the early bird, the world is a different place. Learn how waking up at 4am can have a dramatic benefit on your day.
What Your Managers are Missing: Two Steps to Breakthrough Results
When managers understand their role in the business, they help the individual contributor understand theirs which creates breakthrough results.
3 Ways to Coach Your Managers to Success
Do you coach your managers? This may seem like an odd question, but people are promoted all the time and never given proper skills to become great managers.
How to Create Change at Work that Lasts
Everyone want to create positive change, especially at work. Here are 3 barriers to overcome or avoid to create change at work.
How to Help Employees Change in the Workplace
Change is hard and sometimes you have to help employees change. Use these three tips to help make the next big change in the workplace a success.
How to Harness the Benefits of Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace
Diversity and inclusion is powerful for innovation and problem solving in businesses. Learn how to make D&I work in your organization in 4 easy steps.
Make Your Meetings Matter with Four Simple & Easy Tricks
It's time to make your meetings matter. Learn why most meetings end up being a waste of time, and 4 ways to make them engaging and meaningful.
The Surprising Disruption that Fuels Patient Experience
Creating a patient experience that sticks is only possible when the leadership is aligned, managers are well trained and everyone is prepared for disruption.
Leadership Lessons from the Basketball Court
Coaches are some of the first leaders we have (after our parents). Learn 3 leadership lessons from Lute Olson that he discovered while coaching at Arizona.