When we were brought in, Water for People was in the midst of many changes. They had new leadership and the organization had been going through tremendous growth, hiring many new staff members. They were preparing to host their Annual Reflection retreat for the second year, and they were rolling out a new 5 year strategic plan. One of the changes that the new CEO brought to Water For People was implementing a Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The BSC is a tool that sets organizationa

The recipients are listed below, with a brief writeup of what they were selected for. Recipients will be recognized at the Fort Collins High School Spring Assembly, where they will be presented with their awards. Global Award – Suzanne Miller, Do a Liz Thing Suzanne Miller suffered an un-imaginable loss when her daughter, Liz, passed away in 2008. She turned her grief into inspiration to honor Liz’s legacy. Liz was a vibrant, beautiful young woman with a big smile, booming la

To gather Misfit Entrepreneur’s stories I asked Co-Creators to answer 6 reflection questions…they’re real good and they’re a secret!  But I’m going to share the Q&A of the first question each Misfit Entrepreneur submitted.  I want to know, based on their answers to the first question, which stories you are most intrigued to learn more about? So here you go, meet Jerry, Sheila, Kimball, Creg, Jackie, Donovan, Nathalie, Ritika & Ron!  Tell us, which 3 stories you would like to

By: Ariana Friedlander and Molly McCowan Collaborating on a creative endeavor is like playing in a jazz band: everyone needs to have a shared understanding of the boundaries in order to allow for improvisation while still sounding like a cohesive unit. This balance between boundaries and creativity is at the heart of good jazz, and it’s also essential for co-creational efforts. All too often, leaders of co-creational projects fail to set ground rules because they’re afraid to

I recently led a workshop at the Larimer County Workforce Center called, Love Millennials, Hate Millennials: We All Just Need to Get Along! In it we did an activity from, Conversational Intelligence, called “Double Clicking,” where we discussed what it means to get along. While the notion of getting along is elementary, the reality is that we all have a different understanding of what it means to do it. These 7 tips for getting along better with Millennials, Gen Xers and Boom

If it wasn’t for my husband’s love of sports, I would not have had a clue about the NBA finals this last week. But, he’s fanatic when it comes to watching a good game, and sometimes I’ll enjoy them with him. That was the case this past Sunday when we viewed the NBA final game between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs. Now mind you, my knowledge of basketball is very limited. I played for one season in 7th grade, and my coach was dismayed that I would close my eyes when

We had two ½ day retreats scheduled. The purpose: strategic planning for a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). Suffice it to say, 8 hours wasn’t going to cut it. But even if we scheduled 8 days for these discussions, we still would not have made much progress; not with the facilitator that was running the show, not without discussing the elephant in the room. by Leo Cullum She was a nice enough lady, with over 30 years of experience facilitating, yet her approach felt quite mech

There are many different definitions and perceptions of what makes someone a leader and what leadership is.  One all-too-common misconception is that a leader must possess a position of authority.  Frequently, people will identify presidents or CEO’s as leaders because of this misconception.  But, authority does not always equal leadership and exercising one’s leadership does not always equal authority. Anyone can be a leader, regardless of your position or station in life!