This genre of book is not common on my shelf, the motivational / inspirational mass market type. I was given a few books after a recent career shift and am approaching them with a mindset of how I can develop better leadership skills. Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead (2019) was one. In the notes below, I draw out some reminders to create a safe, supportive and appreciative work environment. For universities and capacity building, a reminder that edutainment has appeals (of high student / participant scores – they enjoyed the fun) but may not be effective learning approaches. Learning and transformation take work. Notes:

“Google’s five-year study on highly productive teams, Project Aristotle, found that psychological safety – team members feeling safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other – was ‘ far and away the most important of the five dynamics that set successful teams apart'”. (p. 36)

 “Globoforce worked with Cisco to use recognition to boost an employee engagement by 5 percent, and with Intuit to achieve and sustain a double-digit increase in employee engagement over a large employee base that spans six countries. Hershey’s recognition approach helped increase employee satisfaction by 11 percent. And for LinkedIn retention rates are nearly 10 percentage points higher for new hires who are recognized four or more times.” (p. 84)

“Unfortunately, the trend in many organizations is to design learning to be as easy as possible… The reality is that to be effective, learning needs to be effortfull. That’s not to say that anything that makes learning easier is counterproductive – or that all unpleasant learning is effective. The key here is desirable difficulty. The same way you feel a muscle “burn” when it’s being strengthened, the brain needs to feel some discomfort when it’s learning. Your mind might hurt for a while, but that’s a good thing.” (p. 170)