Leadership & Mindset
6 justifications holding back your self-improvement
[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“1944”] Image by Quinn Dombrowski used under Creative Commons License [/caption] Anytime we try to undertake change that is uncomfortable, our psyche tries to find "reasonable" justifications why we shouldn't do it. Some call these loopholes, some call them excuses and some call them false justifications. Regardless of what you call them, they are real. The purpose of creating this list is just to create awareness about them so you can catch yourself using them the next time.
Rebuilding broken Employee Engagement
[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Image by GDS-Productions used under Creative Commons License [/caption] Employee Engagement was incredibly popular in most mid to large organizations, then the recession hit and organizational survival become the modus operandi. It's not that employee engagement isn't important but rather less important than ensuring the survival of the company. With business and employee confidence back on the rise and the economy stabilizing, it's no wonder that HR departments and the organizational leadership are now trying to dial back into employee engagement (we are seeing employee engagement discussed at fireside chats during conferences, written about again in management magazines and discussed in HR oriented online forums.
Every project manager should be performing a pre-mortem
[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“2500”] Image by StockMonkeys.com [/caption] As a business leader, I have participated in and managed hundreds of post-mortem reviews for projects and deals. It is a sound strategy to identify the elements that failed or that could be optimized/ “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana But what if you could gain all of the benefits of this activity before the initiative fails thus potentially saving it? A pre-mortem (or premortem) basically is a role playing game where participants assume the project has already failed and then determine why it failed and how failure could have been prevented.
Don't take meeting minutes ever again
Taking minutes in a meeting is often necessary so you have a written trace of what was discussed but it is a tedious task that pulls your attention away from the live discussion. Why not just take a snapshot of the whiteboard and use that as the written notes? This is a typical snapshot of a well lit whiteboard using an iPhone 5s. <img src="https://ekiledjian2.micro.blog/uploads/2025/7d70934a1c.jpg" alt=""> It is still better than taking notes but now there is a free service that will clean up your whiteboard image and email it back to you as a PDF
Quote about Thinking
"Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts." - Soren Kierkegaard
Quote about peace and joy
"Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity." Thich Nhat Hanh
Buddha Quote
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." - Buddha
Make the world a better place
<img src="https://ekiledjian2.micro.blog/uploads/2025/2a913aecb5.jpg" alt=""> be the reason the world is a better place today - Edward Kiledjian
Quote about limitations
I don't know what my limitations are until I reach them. I look for the challenge. - Joseph Fiennes