Wow, what an amazing experience I had at the recent Work Human Conference last week! It is true… We are not the only ‘crazies‘ at Whirling Chief out there trying to champion humanity back into the workplace. 🙂 The Work Human Conference, sponsored by Globoforce is a growing community with a powerful mission: to galvanize more leaders worldwide to harness the transformative power of people for the next generation of Human Resources. Together, we want to recognize and celebrate breakthrough organizations building and rebuilding human-centric workplaces, where employees achieve their fullest potential, in turn leading organizations to reach their fullest potential….

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Values. I think by now many of us realize values play a key role in creating and maintaining fulfilment and satisfaction in our experiences. Although motivation, values and emotions have been studied by philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists for decades now; there’s still some confusion around what a value is/not… and how to define it… As a result, we find many leadership values are not making their way into people’s hearts and many organizational values await sitting hang up on some wall not supporting the culture an organization may aspire to create. A ‘value’ is a concept that describes the beliefs of an…

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In a recent collaboration, BCG and WEF have imagined various scenarios for what the future of work may look like by the year 2030. Unsurprisingly, in their report, Eight Futures of Work, the need for re-skilling – meaning an organizations’ need to provide venues to today’s workers so they can develop the skills and capabilities needed for the future workplace – is highlighted several times. It is true. In the future: we will learn on the go, our learning experience will be customized, our learning content will be curated to maximize outcome, we will be expected to switch in between…

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“I wouldn’t call it lying… I didn’t tell the whole truth because I cared. I knew it’d hurt (the person)” said the manager, “my intentions were good.” Sound familiar?  We all do it. We lie with the intention of benefiting others. There is even a name for it in organizational psychology, we call it “pro-social lying.” We face our peers, friends, loved ones, look them in the eye, and we tell them what we know to be partially true. Despite our  intentions, it is important to remember our actions cause an effect. There is an outcome to our intention. It may be…

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I just spent five weeks on the road, visiting five different cities across America, EU and Asia, spending majority of my time in NYC and Istanbul, two cities that literally do NOT sleep. We tend to think of sleep as a time when the mind and body shut down. 1 out of 3 colleagues I speak to argue having a lesser need for being ‘inactive’; and yet, struggle to find the WHYs behind certain patterns (i.e. not being able to lose weight, not remembering things, breathe shortage, etc.). It is time we acknowledge sleep is actually an active period in…

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Many organizations are flawed about the concept of digital transformation. Many understand they need to consider leveraging technology and data; few truly understand the WHY behind such effort. As a result, we are seeing quiet a bit of adoption for the sake of adoption; change for the sake of change – time to be aware! MGI reports 72% of companies leveraging chat tools are doing it because “others do it”. Adopting new generation of social tools because you want to help people connect and/or provide them with a flexible work environment is a good reason, doing it for the sake…

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We all do it. Hide behind the truth. Majority of us report regularly ‘faking’ a good attitude and consciously acting to display ‘appropriate’ emotions at work. And it is not just about being tired or frustrated in a day, we hide our preferences, thoughts, our likes, dislikes, etc. The unfortunate consequence is that we completely ‘drain’ ourselves of our productive, life giving energies. For years I made the excuse that as the designated HR partner, I needed to be ‘not so close’ to a single client as to keep neutrality; where as I had no issue playing soccer with a group…

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Well-functioning organizations – organizations that thrive – from families to communities to businesses to countries generally share two common traits: vitality and learning. Vitality is the sense of being alive, passionate, and excited. It is often seeded in a specific core purpose and is fuelled by authentic leadership. Learning is about embracing growth that comes from gaining new knowledge and skills. Learning is seeded in connection and is fuelled by conscious investment. For us, at Whirling Chief, building thriving organizations that create value and differentiation through their people orientation is the most unifying, satisfying and inspiring purpose. When we are successful…

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Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. Most of the things that are interesting to us or innovative in our lives is a result of creativity. What makes us different from our species – our language, values, artistic expression, ability to empathise, and engage with technologies – is the result of individual ingenuity that is recognized, rewarded, and transmitted through learning. When we’re creative, we feel we are living more fully. The number one attribute CEOs look for in their incoming workforce (according to an IBM survey of more than 1,500 CEOs across 33 industries and 60 countries)…

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Last week, I got a call from an old friend of mine. We studied together at the University, but I hadn’t heard from him since then. He told me that he has been working in the financial sector for over 10 years now, then shared with me many of the significant professional achievements and awesome position titles he had achieved. Two weeks ago, he and his team were recognized as one of the top 5 teams in the global organization for their business results. He admitted that, after the initial euphoria had worn off, he found himself feeling strangely disappointed….

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