danpontefract

No one can deny that Canada is at a fork in the road. The country’s most crucial general election is set to take place on April 28. I am Canadian, and proudly so. I have spent a career championing leadership that blends empathy, evidence, purpose, and a touch of moral duty. Over the years, I’ve assisted organizations, penned books, and advised leaders about the cultural influence of ethical…

Every now and then—instead of interviewing a rock star of leadership and organizational culture legend—I will rant into the microphone of my podcast, Leadership NOW, and get something off my chest. After listening to the past few weeks to folks who have endured another “annual performance review” cycle, I decided to turn on the microphone and share my thoughts. Have you recently (or ever) been…

I'm pretty stoked. I'm no Olympian, but I just won a Gold Medal! #WorkLifeBloom 🏅🌸

To my delighted surprise (proving that maybe it’s not just my coffee game that’s strong), my latest book, Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes, has won the Gold Medal in the Leadership category at the Axiom Business Book Awards. This unexpected honour is more than just an award—it’s a reminder that rethinking the way we integrate our work and life is starting to take shape. In…

It's not about work-life balance or employee engagement anymore. We need to update our thinking.

One crisp Vancouver morning prior to the pandemic, I found solace in a café, my thoughts oscillating between work and the world outside. An artist beside me was engrossed in shaping a bonsai tree. Our chat, which began with a simple nod of appreciation, soon transformed into the philosophy of growth within constraints. This interaction was one of the catalysts for coming up with the Work-Life…

The first public review of my next book, Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes, has now been released. I’d say it’s pretty good! My thanks to Diane Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review, for the following book review of Work-Life Bloom: Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes is a study in career moves, nurturing talent, and moving from individual to group…

In a world where honesty is often proclaimed as a core value in our organizations, the reality in many workplaces is quite different. Trust has turned to rust. In my Global Work-Life Assessment that I conducted with nearly 10,000 people from 11 different countries—aligned to my upcoming book Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes—a US-based Baby Boomer director in the education…

I am the first to admit that I can get tear up over a song. Play a few of them back-to-back and there is the chance for a river to form. The Work-Life Bloom July Playlist is dedicated to our emotions, slowing down, and to reflecting on our lives. From Gord Downie’s homage to his late grandmother in Toronto #4 with The Tragically Hip, or Regina Spektor’s haunting cover of “Real Love,” John…

As a prepubescent child and young teen, I would often lock myself away in the “sun room” of our modest home, plug in my dad’s RCA Victor Wired White Black Headphones, and escape to the sounds of The Beatles. When no one was home, I’d ditch the headphones and play the music as loud as I could. Or at least until I got a knock at the door from Mr. Filepetto, our tomato-growing yet irascible…

My next book, Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes, has just finished the structural/substantive editing phase. That’s a fancy way of saying the book is done, but it’s full of grammatical errors. Hello, copy-editing phase! As I continue to experiment with ChatGPT-4 in my spare cycles, I thought I’d feed Ole Chatty the entire manuscript, teaching it the book and accompanying…

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, and that rock had no internet or mobile phone service, and for some reason, you were trapped under said rock without friends or family to keep you informed of world events, you have likely heard of ChatGPT. Just in case you have been under that rock, what is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI, designed to respond to text-based queries…

In my continued attempts to become an Apple Music DJ like my fellow Canadian, the mighty George (Strombo) Stroumboulopoulos, I figured my upcoming book needed a curated series of music playlists. Here is Volume I of the Work-Life Bloom Music Playlist.

Actually, maybe these should be called the “Work-Life Boom” playlists. In my continued attempts to become an Apple Music DJ / host like my fellow Canadian, the mighty George (Strombo) Stroumboulopoulos, I figured my upcoming book needed a curated series of music playlists. Like wine to meals or SPF 50 lotion to my very British skin, these book-music pairings are my attempts to create some…

The reality is a lot of people work more than 40 hours per week at given times of the year. As a result, leaders can help prevent burnout by adding two key leadership tasks to their action list. #leadership #burnout #prevention #leaders

Because an increasing number of people are experiencing burnout, leaders of need to pay much closer attention to the amount of effort that their members put in. The long-term effects of working more than 40 hours per week are not sustainable. But those in positions of authority are keenly aware of the fact that it does happen. The solution to the problem can be found in two ways: effort troughs…

Do you live your life with the concept that you should have "no regrets"? Maybe you shouldn't. Author Dan Pink gave me the background.

Do you live your life with the concept that you should have “no regrets“? If such is the case, you might want to reconsider your approach. It’s possible that it’s affecting the quality of your decisions as well as your overall life satisfaction. My lengthy conversation with best-selling author Daniel H. Pink highlighted many of my own blind spots when it came to the concept of regret. In his…

What if our definition of leadership has always been incorrect? And, if it is truly incorrect, what harm does it cause to those aspiring to leadership positions? “Leaders are part of a huge stumbling block to change,” said Dr. Maja Korica. “This idea of charismatic leadership is entirely irrelevant to me.” Korica is an Associate Professor of Management and Organization at Warwick Business…

No surprise, really, but its pretty hard for people to bloom in work or in life when a toxic workplace exists. #worklifebloom

Sometimes I get questions about how to deal with a toxic workplace and the harm it can cause to individuals and groups. Whether it’s open hostility or something more covert, like a lack of trust or psychological safety, a toxic workplace is where harmful behaviour is allowed to persist. The damage caused by toxic environments is often severe and long-lasting. In this column, I’ll delve into the…

As a 20+ year thinker and leader in the people and culture space, I am deeply concerned about the ongoing struggle for work-life balance in the modern workplace. Employees are finding it increasingly difficult to find a healthy equilibrium in their lives due to the constant demands of the office and the expectations of their families, among other personal obligations. It is a crisis that needs to…

Very happy to announce that my "Lead. Care. Win." leadership development course is now 70% off. 16 hours of goodness. Start 2023 with this amazing offer. Read for details. #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #leadingteams

Good news to start off 2023. Now, you can get 70% off the full Lead. Care. Win. leadership development program. $249 has now been reduced to only $79. That’s a deal! Read below for details. Price Drop to $79 for the Lead. Care. Win. Leadership Development Course! There are over 16 hours of content for you to access in this leadership development program.What do you get?✅ Full & unlimited…