By: Erin Bair, Director, Training & Organization Development, Cascade Employers Association

Perhaps your direct report’s performance has not been meeting your expectations or is engaging in behavior that you find troubling. Maybe that’s the case, but it’s not your direct report. It’s your peer or your boss. Difficult conversations (a.k.a. conflict) is often the most disliked part of management – whether we’re managing up, down, or sideways.

The good news is that with tools and practice difficult conversations get easier over time. We might never look forward to them, but we will see how valuable they are to building lasting, meaningful relationships at work. We’ll be taking a look at three areas: timing a difficult conversation, prepping for a difficult conversation, and the essential elements of the conversation itself.… Read the rest

By: Courtney Feider, Executive Coach, Behavioral Facilitator, and the Author of “I Heart Creativity”

Creative professionals used to be a specific category of worker in the knowledge economy, confined to their own imaginative roles and asked to do whatever upper management requested—no more, no less. Today, things are a little different. Creativity is becoming more valuable across entire organizations, especially at the top. In a 2014 Adobe study, 82% of companies reported a strong connection between creativity and the bottom line. Yet 61% said they didn’t see their own organizations as terribly creative.

If that points to a creativity gap, it exists nowhere more clearly than at the C-suite. Here are four of the most underappreciated reasons why truly creative leaders are now more likely than ever to have the competitive edge.… Read the rest