I gave a presentation last week on how to stay organized at work, and right at the start I told the audience to brace themselves. Because here's the thing. If I'm up there talking about how to be organized, you might assume one of two things. Either I'm wildly, terrifyingly organized, or I'm a total imposter standing behind a podium pretending I know what I'm doing. Spoiler alert. It's option C. I'm not perfect, and I totally own it. And I told that audience exactly what I'm

Right now I'm in the middle of something big. I'm sitting down with every team across the organization and rebuilding our expectations from scratch. Not just one team. Every single one. Each work group. Each small team. Each large team. Then I'll keep going, group by group, until we've worked our way up to the full organization. That's a lot of conversations. And I'm doing them on purpose. After 20+ years in HR, I've learned something I keep coming back to. The words you en

“I don’t know what you’re doing, so you must not be doing anything.” That’s what a coworker from another department said to me. Not in a joking tone. Not as a question. As a statement. The logic was apparently this: if they couldn’t see me working, I must not be working at all. I was shocked. And honestly, I was hurt.

Here's where I am sitting today as I write this. Graduation is May 9th. I'm not walking. There won't be a ceremony for me, no cap, no stage, no speeches. And yet, somewhere in my brain, I've decided I am not allowed to celebrate until after May 9th. Why? I don't have a good answer. The work is done. The degree is earned. But there's some invisible permission slip I'm waiting for. Some "official" moment I think has to happen before I am allowed to mark this.

Change is hard. Some people love change. Some people resist it. But honestly? Whether you welcome it or dread it, change is still a challenge. Picture this. You're at work, somewhere you've been for a long time (in my case, 20+ years). You know the systems. You know the people. You know how to get things done. Then someone new walks in with fresh ideas, a different perspective, and a totally different way of thinking. Suddenly, the way you've always done things is up for de

There is a phrase that has been rattling around in my head lately: perfectionism is the enemy of done. That is not permission to do sloppy work. It is not an argument for carelessness or cutting corners. It is a recognition that at a certain point, the extra hours we pour into something rarely return anything meaningfully better than what we already had. The energy we spend chasing perfect is energy we are not spending on the next thing, the next person, the next project tha

A few weeks ago I read Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter, and I have not stopped thinking about it since. Easter spent years researching why our brains default to wanting more, no matter how much we already have. What he found is both unsettling and completely liberating once you understand it. Here is the short version: your brain evolved in a world where resources were genuinely scarce. Food, shelter, safety, warmth. Getting more of those things meant survival. So your brai

Here's my honest take, and yes, I know some people will call me a Pollyanna for saying it: I think the vast majority of people are reasonable. Most people, when given accurate information and treated with respect, can understand what is and isn't possible. They can handle a "no" if it's explained well. They can work with timelines, constraints, and the reality of limited resources. I have spent over 20 years working in public sector HR, mostly in local government and public