A bi-weekly roundup of putting your strong foot into your mouth June 28 - July 11 Misplaced Strength Whenever you do any kind of personality test with a team - CliftonStrengths, DiSC, Enneagram, etc.- you suddenly "know" your colleagues in a new way. That knowledge is powerful and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Armed with that data, it's hard to not adapt and change your behavior, whether you mean to or not. While personality inventories can foster understanding and better...
15 days ago • 4 min read
A bi-weekly roundup of ways to make your recurring leadership meeting more epic June 14 - June 27 Ride or Die: The Four Horsemen of Agencies The strength of an agency lies in four key areas: Sales, Account Management, Operations, and Leadership. Each one is a powerful force, a "horseman" that can either lead you to victory or trample you in the dust. Since it's the Summer of Strengths at Learn to Scale, we've hopped on the horseback for each core function and explored how each role's...
29 days ago • 2 min read
A bi-weekly roundup of good fortune May 31 - June 13 The Formula to Luck Involves Saying Yes Through sheer luck, I got connected to Jeff Gibbard, a multidisciplinary kindred soul that also works with entrepreneurs, agencies, and humans who want to grow and learn. I was so dazzled by his personality that I immediately thought, "This guy is TL;DR material." I invited Jeff to provide the feature for this TL;DR since he appreciated the irony of exploring luck on a historically unlucky day and...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
A bi-weekly roundup of neurochemical learning cocktails May 17 - May 30 This Brain Juice Is Worth The Squeeze, Twice What do you know about the neurochemical, acetycholine? If you forgot your Behavioral Neuroscience notebook at home, here's the refresher: acetycholine (ACh) is a chemical released in the brain to help neurons wire together. Research indicates that it helps with alertness, focus, binding certain synapses together, and suppressing other synapses from binding. It's Brain Gorilla...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
A bi-weekly roundup of summertime strength May 3 - May 16 The Summer of Strengths Has Begun If you read the last TL;DR, you know that the Workforce Development Fund Express Grant program has suspended the $20K grant program until the next budget cycle. For those of you who have been in the Learn to Scale orbit for a while, you may be aware that we provide grant-funded training. The lion's share of our customers used the Express Grant to fully fund our $9K Strengths program. You heard that...
2 months ago • 4 min read
A bi-weekly roundup of birthday-related giveaways April 19- May 2 Birthday Gifts Are For Giving Last year on my birthday, I invited people to meet 1-1 with me to talk about business stuff. The conversations with the people who took that offer were scintillating. Kate, I'm looking at you 😍 This year, instead of "business stuff," I invite you to celebrate my birthday by taking some time with me to talk about anything. I got into my career because I enjoy helping people learn, sharing what I...
3 months ago • 3 min read
A bi-weekly roundup of team culture weather reports April 5 - April 18 The Forecast Is Conflict Springtime in Boston is a mess- you need snow boots, an umbrella, and sunglasses by your front door because the weather is so unexpected. One day it's sunny and 65 degrees, the next day it snows. It's also the season when it starts raining new hires. January-March is typically a good season for hiring: budgets are approved, new goals have been set, backfill roles are approved, recruiters are...
3 months ago • 9 min read
A bi-weekly roundup of rage against the LinkedIn machine March 22 - April 4 A Neverending Mostly Disappointing Buffet 431 days ago, I installed an app blocker on my phone called ScreenZen. It's a free app that is designed to add friction between the meatball that is my brain and the vibrating supercomputer designed by companies with more money than God: I installed this app because- in a rare moment of clarity- I realized that Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit was not really enriching my life,...
4 months ago • 5 min read
A bi-weekly roundup of low-risk hiring strategies March 8 - March 21 Growing Bit By Bit Starting, running, and growing a business has no user manual, but if there was one, there would probably be a whole set of chapters around hiring. First off, identifying that you need to hire someone at ALL is a tough nut to crack. You're essentially gambling that the money and time you invest in finding the right person, bringing them up to speed, and trusting them to do quality work for you is going to...
4 months ago • 5 min read