The Consigliera Papers Podcast

I’m supposed to be on a plane tonight. But I’m flying Alaska, and they had a plane lose a big piece of the fuselage last week. As they were flying. They made an emergency landing in Portland. No one was physically injured. Groundings and inspections and a cascading array of flight cancellations ensued. Just after checking into my flight last night, I got the notification that my flight was cancell...

This is not about resolutions, or intentions, or plans for the New Year. Because, please, I’ve seen a million of those. This is about attention. Are we paying attention to what works for us? An exercise I’ve used with my executive coaching clients who like end of year wrap ups is to ask what went well. What did you do in the past year that was interesting, engaging, reinvigorating? What brought yo...

“Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?” This is a frequent question in recovery circles, usually delivered with a sage nod, as if to say we all know the answer is that you’d rather be happy. I’d rather be right. I’d rather be right because I do believe there is often a right and a wrong, and the right is important. To do the right thing matters in relationships, at work, in our...

We just got back from a long weekend in Denver visiting family. Altitude sickness is a thing. We went for a hike – actually it was more like a scenic walk – and I felt this pressure in my chest, like I couldn’t get enough air. I was a bit dizzy and queasy and I thought, oh, this is altitude sickness. I’m a sea level girl and now I am actually a mile high. We cut short the walk, looked out briefly...

We like catchy names, diagnostic sounding appellations, new phrases that parse old behaviors or narratives. It’ll get a click or a share or a link, the coins of the social media realm. For the lucky coiners, they may get an article that includes a number – “Five Problems in an Insecurely Attached Team,” “Eight ways to tell if your partner is a narcissist.” Remember that old Ramones lyric “I want t...

I was a difficult teenager. My mother would tell me to treat her with more respect. I would respond that she should do something that I respected. That still resonates for me. Respect me because society says so, because the title I have dictates respect has never been a very compelling rationale for me. Who has authority at work and why? How much respect are we required to give to leaders because...

Conjugating, moving from a consideration about what’s best for me to what is best for us, is very countercultural. And positive. Because that “us” can grow. From centering the partnership to centering the family, or team, to centering the community. So much of the content I see about work focuses on the “me”. Self-improvement, life hacks, assessments to better understand me and how I tick. I'm not...

People who grow up in families and cultures rooted in shame and shaming bring that mentality to work. Often, they don’t even know they are doing it.  bell hooks said “Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis.” If, as hooks states, shaming is one of the “deepest tools” of capitalism...

This past week Matthew Perry died at 54. This New York Times article said “It seems to have been hard for Perry. “I wanted to be famous so badly,” he told  The New York Times in 2002 . “You want the attention, you want the bucks, and you want the best seat in the restaurant. I didn’t think what the repercussions would be.” I pay attention to celebrities with problems with drugs and alcohol because...

We all fail. Sometimes we make a mistake. Sometimes we lose a competition we thought we could win. Sometimes we fall short of expectations we had for ourselves, a situation or a relationship. Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. How do you come back from a setback? Get full access to Fierce Grace at speirolo.substack.com/subscribe

My friend is a mental health specialist who works in schools. She is frequently up on a stage doing trainings for educators. She’s my age, sixty-one. Often, she is introduced as a “legend.” She’s had school administrators fawn over her “contributions to the community” over “so many years.” “They act like I’m some Cosmic Granny,” she said to me. She is great at what she does. But when she was in he...

You don’t have to weigh in on everything. It’s ok to have an opinion and keep it to yourself. It is a good idea to consider and listen and learn, especially about topics where you have no personal experience, no learning, no research or study. Get full access to Fierce Grace at speirolo.substack.com/subscribe

I frequently ask my clients these two questions. Is this a solvable problem? Is it solvable by you? Two simple questions, but I ask them often because we sometimes miss that step.   Why do we try to solve problems that aren’t ours to solve?   Get full access to Fierce Grace at speirolo.substack.com/subscribe

I sent off my manuscript to the publisher last Friday for my book on intentional decision making which will be published next spring. I’m thinking about aftermaths, right after a thing is completed. A book. A birth. A pitch. It’s often a time when I get sick, when my body says, ok, we’ve hung on this long without rest, but it stops here. Now you will rest. We will make you rest. Bring on the phleg...

I’m finishing my book, so I’m going to do a rerun of something I wrote a couple of years ago that still seems valid. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for any grandkid content. Uppy This is the phrase my granddaughter uses when she is afraid. Ruby is 19 months old and doesn’t like loud noises. When the garbage truck rattles by, she runs over to me and says, with some urgency, “Uppy!” Get full access to F...

Since I’m furiously finishing my book manuscript, which is due this month, I didn’t have time to write a substack. So, I’m going to share a portion of the book, which is about intentional decision making about work and career. It will be available next spring, and you’ll hear more about it as it gets closer. Let’s think about a kind of work history that isn’t the history of the jobs you’ve had or...

Pissed off people can wreck organizations. And yet more and more people are pissed off. I call them the professionally aggrieved. You’ve seen them on social media, across the political spectrum. They misinterpret, inflate, conflate, attack, defend. High dudgeon is their default mode. The social media outrage discourse also happens at work. Typing venom into Slack isn’t that far removed from doing...

We should all have work cohorts. Gatherings of people who do a similar job or who are in the same season of life. Not to network, not to sell each other anything. Just to be in community. To rest in a place where we don’t have to sell or seem smart or be anything other than just another person in the group. Get full access to Fierce Grace at speirolo.substack.com/subscribe

A few years ago, back when I was still on Facebook, I saw a second-tier celebrity post a picture of herself with the caption “This is sixty.” She posted it on her sixtieth birthday. She was standing in side view, so you could see her flat stomach, thin, fit body, and perky breasts. Apparently if you’re going to tout being sixty, you’d best look like a conventionally-attractive-as-considered-by-mal...

People die. And some of the people they leave behind, some of the people grieving the loss of loved ones, have to go to work. Suggestions and experience of how to deal with grief at work, your own or that of a co-worker. Get full access to Fierce Grace at speirolo.substack.com/subscribe

The importance of a retro When I was coming up, we called them postmortems. Some people call them retros or sunsets. Whatever you call them, it is a review of a project that takes an honest look at what went well and what did not. A review of a project is not like a review of a person. It’s important for two reasons. One, by gathering a group and focusing on what went well, you both reinforce that...

When is a distress flag a problem? LIsten for more! First, let’s understand what your automatic reaction is. If someone on your team raises a distress flag, what do you do? I’m talking about your first reaction, the knee jerk, automatic one. Generally, I see people fall into three categories: fixer, avoider or neutral. Get full access to Fierce Grace at speirolo.substack.com/subscribe

One of the things I liked about working in ad agencies was summer Fridays. In the days before remote work was an option for most of us, we had summer Fridays. Most agencies would close early on Friday afternoons in the summer in Seattle. Given that we have so much rain for so much of the time, Seattleites are really into their summers. It stays light late, up to 10pm and is generally not too hot....

First, figure out what kind of coaching you want. There are generally three kinds of coaching. 1.     Remedial coaching. A top performer has some gaps in either skillset or awareness, and it’s impacting their ability to work effectively. This could be an effective sales leader with a bad temper, or a skilled creative director who doesn’t work well with women. It is often short term; 3-6 months. Us...

Competence and the sense of our own skills can be a fantastic corrective for worry or insecurity. Finding and owning our own ta das can be a grounding restorative. When you feel bad about an aspect of your work, go do something you’re really good at, and you’ll feel better. That’s it, that’s the competence cure. Get full access to Fierce Grace at speirolo.substack.com/subscribe