Three Career Lessons from Rogue One
Rogue One is a dynamic and exciting new Star Wars story that has broken box office records. Star Wars: The Last Jedi will hit theatres in December 2017. Packed into this great film are plenty of professional lessons for both the characters, the Rebellion and of course...
Five Professional Lessons from a Negative Customer Experience
For my family, 2016 ended with a less-than-pleasant travel experience with BC Ferries to my family home in Merville on Vancouver Island. We encountered poor customer service a lot and, as we consider the service that we deliver in our work every day, there is a lot...
12 Ways to Positively Disrupt Your Workplace
Whether you work somewhere with nine or 9,000 employees, we’ve all been frustrated by organizations experiencing the malaise of average. When people stay in the same role or team for too long, get too comfortable with “the way things are”, or resist what is possible...
STAND Foundation: Building Student Potential
The Potentiality inspires and educates changemakers who are passionate about building community. One of the ways we do this is by featuring organizations (businesses, social enterprises, schools, and non-profits) that are doing cool things to build community. This...
7 Tips for Adapting to Travel Disaster
On the morning of July 6, 2013, I was waiting with my redheaded partner, Theo, in the Vancouver International Airport US Departures terminal, preparing to board a United Airlines flight to San Francisco. We were on our way to California to kick off our two week...
How to be Creative: Ideation, Risk and Play
The Potentiality’s Cartoonist in Residence, Phil Skipper, has an interesting take on creativity. Here is how Phil captured our personal and collective definitions of creativity: “Creativity means artistry. Poetry, web design, math, bicycle repair, public speaking....
How to Make Awesome Introductions
Being introduced to people is one of the best ways to become part of a community. As a career practitioner, I’m in the business of making hundreds of human connections every year and this article will explore how to make awesome introductions. Over the years I’ve made...
Four ways to keep a team motivated during summer
As a leader, you may have noticed that as the temperature has increased over summer, the motivation of your team has decreased. The reality is that between the Pina Coladas, the vacation plans and the neighbourhood barbeques, summer can be a distracting time for...
The Awesome Awards: How Recognition Realizes Community Potential
The Opener | Recognizing Peoples’ Awesomeness The Potentiality inspires and educates changemakers who are passionate about building community and enhancing well-being. We research and present stories, tools and ideas that help communities realize their potential. One...
Learn Why Generalists are the New Specialists
My colleague and I were talking the other day about how she is not the master of one particular skill. Essentially, she felt that she was a Gill-of-all-trades rather than a master or expert. This got me thinking a lot about how today’s job market, especially as it...
How to Entrepreneur Your Career
This article will provide you with three straightforward strategies for how to entrepreneur your career. Last week I had the pleasure of attending the public thesis defense of my colleague, Robyn. The presentation was awesome and she is now a Master. A key component...
Let’s Stop “Killing It” and be More Creative
Describing how we kill stuff like exams, exercise routines, and/or big meals, reflects a shortcoming of creativity in North America (where such phrases are used most often). The casual language and colloquialisms with which we speak and write say a lot about our...
How to Write Emails that Inspire Action
Email is the preferred communication tool in the world of work. Emails provides a digital footprint – a threaded record – of ideas, requests, stories, and all the rest of it. Unfortunately, most of us really, really suck at writing them and we're also not great at...