Disrupt And L.e.a.d.

This week's episode is a real treat for me. My friend and colleague, Celeste Herron, interviewed me on my podcast! We discussed neurodiversity and the ways that the workplaces of today can better nourish all the ways that we are human.  Fundamentally, cultivating the inclusive workspace is about knowing about and removing the barriers to full contribution for all team members. Because, let's face it, if your team members are performing in spite of the barriers, you are wasting money. Cultivating this workspace where human thriving isn't an exception starts with being curious about this question: What aspects of your work culture, workflow, systems, processes .. block team members people from showing up and contributing fully? More often than not, the most significant answers to this question dial down to difficulty tolerating differences. In our conversation, Celeste and I discuss this struggle using neurodistinctiveness as an example. We look at how our history contributed to this issue and how the work

Mia and I pulled back the curtains and looked at the innards of her team onboarding and staff supports practices. Since Mia is in a beautiful growth phase in her business, she's been expanding her team and is actively thinking through the most effective ways to connect her team members to Copy-Haus' unique approach to copywriting, while energizing their connection to the company and to each other. In a fast growing business, this has not been easy. You will hear us talk about figuring out what new staff need, your unique way of offering that and about integrating community connection rituals into the workflow to build a strong sense of TEAM. Onboarding is really about cultivating connection and shared responsibility for the work and for each other, to maximize productivity while everyone thrives. In other words, feel good and like you belong WHILE getting the job done. If you think you'll be hiring a new team member in the next 2 - 3 months, this might be the time to audit your onboarding processes. I'm doing

Studies say as much as 70% of new hired don’t think theirs companies onboarding processes helped them get up to speed in their new role. AND more than 50% of managers find their company’s onboarding processes to be burdensome and overwhelming. No wonder we have so many values breakdowns in our teams. What’s going wrong?? In this short episode, I discuss some ways to reframe the Onboarding experience so that it’s a win win all round, and some essential ingredients of effective Onboarding that helps your team recreate itself to include the new members, while strengthening a healthy team culture and infusing team values. If you are about to start recruiting for your team, this is the time to do an audit of your current Onboarding strategy so you can leverage what’s working and get rid of time wasting processes that frustrate new hires and overwhelm managers. Visit FaithClarke.com to talk about an Onboarding Strategy audit.

Jane Rosenzweig and I had a beautiful, vulnerable, courageous conversation about her experiences as a white DEI practitioner, wrestling with helping majority white organizations integrate their DEI values into the daily behaviors of all associates. Jane has spent her career developing corporate DEI strategies anchored in social justice foundations. Through her 20+ years experience in this industry, Jane formulated a support and racial literacy program for white leaders and corporate stakeholders loosely framed 'make better white people'. This program grew out of her own experiences as a practitioner, noticing that white associates in corporations needed a different type of education and accountability than their BIPOC counterparts and these differences must be identified within the DEI implementation plan. Listen as we talk through a specific intervention that Jane participated in and what she leaned as a result. If you want to your values infused into every aspect of your team’s work, let’s have a virtual co

In this episode I talk about one of the 3 C’s that help me figure out the best intervention strategy for teams. I gave an overview of the 3 C’s in episode #6 and then about Communication in episode #8. CRAFT is an artist’s analogy for the team’s WORK. Craft has 3 components and I talk about them with a triangle in mind so you can visualize the 2 foundations to the team behaviors that you want. As you you listen, think about the analogy that makes the most sense for you, and, if you want to personalize this for your team, schedule a virtual team chat and coffee at FaithClarke.com

Why did we have that meeting??? I’ve heard that complaint from BOTH team leaders and team members. It’s tempting to think that meetings are the problem and that they should be avoided at all costs. But avoiding them would be a mistake. Team meetings are synergistic powerhouses, when we get them right. So if your meetings feel like a drag, fix them. This episode has 3 suggestions for more productive meetings, including tips summarized from earlier interviews with Celine Williams (episode #7) and Nikki McKnight (episode #15). Enjoy and let’s not have any more meetings that could have been emails!

Grab a notebook and get ready! Nikki McKnight and I have a fast paced, totally authentic conversation about what businesses need to do to build spaces that make it easy for people to contribute. Nikki shares strategies and practices that help the culture to become more explicit and meetings more productive. She's a systems and processes guru and has so much insight into the little practices that makes everything work better. And we got real, since the cobbler's kids might not have the best shoes. So we talked about how much the medicine (or support) we give others is the very thing we have to protect in our own businesses.  About Nikki: Nikki McKnight has over a decade of experience working with companies to improve processes, drive communication and performance, and build a rockstar team. She’s worked with multi-billion dollar retailers, million dollar entrepreneurs, and startup boutiques looking to start off on the right foot. Nikki loves working with the artistic, creative, and spiritual personalities beca

I'm sooo excited to share this conversation with Karlee!  She represents the beginning of everything since I met her in the early days of being trained by autism to be present and settled, even when life was crazy. She was teaching yoga and I was learning to care for myself and build my home support team. Fast forward 12+ years and we are talking about the beautiful integration of business, holistic nourishment, leadership and boundaries. I had fun on Karlee's Messy and Magnificent podcast (go check it out!) and needed to have more so here we are!  Listen as Karlee and I talk about how her leadership and her team has needed to change as her business matured. Karlee talks about how stressful it was to NEED her business to meet her all her needs and affirm her value as a person, and how that impacted growing her team and finding the right people for her mission. She realized that she can't be the emotional support person for her team members and is now figuring out how to support her team as whole people while

Marissa and I had a blast talking about the unique ways that our differences show up in the work place and on teams. From rocking and hand flapping to introversion and hating cold calls, we explore the various ways leaders can support ALL members of the team and help find the middle ground, where we understand each other and work together synergistically. We also talked about the upcoming Spring: Changing the Face of Business conference, an online event committed to true connection, collaboration and community with a uniquely diverse collection of business owners. I've hardly ever seen such a diverse speaker line-up as Marissa has put together! About Marissa: Marissa Loewen is a Transformational Business Coach, Community Catalyst and Creative Entrepreneur. Marissa works with business owners, political leaders and radical changemakers to create the rules in order to create thriving, resilient, prosperous businesses that fuel the business owner. In addition to a signature system for creating profit and ease in

Cultivating inclusivity on your team will positively affect every aspect of your team's life and effectiveness. Inclusion alone will massively increase your team's engagement, and this will have a ripple effect within the team, the organization and outward to the wider community. Yet, this state within a team may not be easy easy to create and sustain. This episode reviews the basics of successful inclusion and suggests 3 simple (though not necessarily easy) ways to improve inclusion in your team and organization. The slides for this episode and a checklist of team experiences that can help you assess the health and development of your team are available at PeakPerformingTeam.com

Anuradha did not spare any punches in this episode! We started off our conversation with a reflection on our humanity, and the wisdom that comes when we honor that humanity. Then Anuradha went straight into the core message: Equity and Inclusion is impossible within capitalist and colonialist systems. As much as we try, our organizations produce the results that their founding systems were based on, unless they are radically reengineered. "Indoctrination from capitalism and colonialism has made us cookie cutter", Anuradha says, and we are missing so much of the richness and innovation that humans can contribute to many of these spaces. Listen as we discuss Anuradha's experiences with racism and disability, inclusion, accessibility and some possible solutions to cultivating spaces that overcome these issues. Connect with Anuradha and register for the upcoming session of Sowing Post-capitalist Seeds, an experiential journey into the practice and praxis of creating post-colonial communities. Mention the podcast

It’s been a doozy of a year! In this episode, I share my yearly birthday reflection ritual with you! The big questions for me when things feel hard are 1) what motivated me? 2) What’s the thing I want to change in the world? I share my thoughts on the revolution I’m championing and my why (my kids) and some ways you can share in the revolution if you want. And if you are a social impact business leader who is committed to fully delivering in your brand values by eliminating the practices in your organization that may have come from other values that aren’t what you hold any more, and that your organization’s real values are reflected in every team member’s hearts and feet, let’s talk. I can help. Happy birthday to meeeee!! Visit FaithClarke.com or PeakPerformingTeam.com to be in touch.

Cultivating inclusivity on your team will positively affect every aspect of your team's life and effectiveness. Inclusion alone will massively increase your team's engagement, and this will have a ripple effect within the team, the organization and outward to the wider community. Yet, this state within a team may not be easy easy to create and sustain. This episode explains what inclusion is and discusses the negative impact of not including YOUR OWN differences. We cannot include differences in others that we reject in ourselves. 

Communication is the life blood of every team. The tasks don't fit together to meet your team's goals without it. This quick episode shares 3 isses that may be slowing the communication flow in your team. Which one resonates the most for you? Get a detailed checklist to help you figure out exactly what you need to do to help your team become even more effective, engaged and efficient at PeakPerformingTeam.com

Beautiful time connecting primarily as humans.Céline and I talked about the wide range of business and community structures that we clearly not built for humans. Céline is a leadership and culture design maverick that truly helps businesses unearth THEIR way, that works for them. Céline is relentlessly authentic and leads a diverse team of people who have the freedom to show up in their own way, and who approach things with curiosity. But her team wasn’t always this way. We reflected on the idea that we are often leading people through growth that we are also doing, and the importance of having self-coaching tools that help us notice, become more curious and challenge our assumptions. We talk about what a team is and the primary way we can differentiate team members from other people who support us. We thought about our businesses as a playground, and our need to define boundaries as well as creating a space where humans can thrive. Communication is the life blood of this playground, and Celine closes with he

I call it the 3 C's. Craft.Communication. Capacity. They help me focus on the fastest way for a team to get relief from some of the tiny fumbles, squabbles and exhaustion that results. If you know that things on your team are just a little off, the first step is to know where the problem is. Is it the team's craft, communication or capacity? Of course, they all affect each other, but picking a starting point that will cascade improvement and relief into the other areas is key!

The only thing that we know for sure is that things will change. In this final episode of this miniseries, I discuss Murphy's law and some strategies and resources for helping your team continue to practice effective teamwork, allowing your business to grow in stable ways, even when everything feels crazy. If you’ve already listened to the episodes and are ready to practically apply this in your team, go to FaithClarke.com to do the Team Performance Audit. It will help you know exactly what your team needs to work on next to become more efficient, effective and engaged.  Your business will only be able to survive these disruptive times if your teams consistently adapt and perform. Your business depends on this.

High performing teams often run out of steam and find it difficult to keep meeting deadlines, especially during hectic and stressful periods in the business. In these chaotic times, employee well-being is more important and ever. In this episode, I talk about some of the causes of team burnout and a 4 step practice that will help protect your team from burnout while helping them maintain their performance. If you’ve already listened to the episodes and are ready to practically apply this in your team, go to FaithClarke.com and schedule a Team Performance Audit. It will help you know exactly what your team needs to work on next to build this team superpower. Your business will only be able to survive these disruptive times if your teams consistently adapt and perform.

Have you ever hired the perfect person for your team and seen them struggle to be as productive as they were on other teams? In this episode, I talk about  the problems with how team tasks are usually broken down and  how job descriptions may be blocking team productivity I share an inclusive strategy for creating the team's tasks and workflow that maximizes experiences and skills. If you’ve already listened to the episodes and are ready to practically apply this in your team, go to FaithClarke.com and scheduled a free Team Performance Audit. It will help you know exactly what your team needs to work on next to build this team superpower. Your business will only be able to survive these disruptive times if your teams consistently adapt and perform.

Now that you've heard the fundamentals of building an effective business team in episode 1, this episode will focus on a simple process for helping the right team member become a team player! This transition is not automatic, but the right ingredients in your onboarding strategy and your team meetings will set the stage for every team member to be productive and efficient. If you are ready to cultivate this energy and adaptability in your team, go to FaithClarke.com to do the Team Performance Audit. It will help you know exactly what your team needs to work on next to build this team superpower.