Connect Before You Disconnect And Other Pre-2023 Advice

For a lot of folks, today is the last day you’ll have your entire team together virtually or in the office before 2023.

My top tip from today’s newsletter: make sure to personally connect with folks before you all disconnect for the holidays.

We Learned All The Wrong Lessons From Group Projects

We learned all the wrong lessons from those high school group projects. In my most recent LinkedIn article, I share three lessons I’ve learned about managing group projects as a coach, mentor, and leader instead of being a busybody and martyr.?

Must Listen: WVXU’s Cincinnati Edition

The best thing I listened to all week: WVXU 91.7 FM ’s Cincinnati Edition about two legendary Cincinnatians.

Our community recently lost two titans: Dr. O’dell Owens and writer Kathy Y. Wilson. Both segments are stellar. For writers, I definitely recommend the interview about what made Kathy’s writing so special. It inspired me to be more descriptive and curious in my writing this week.

From Space to Village: NASA Studies Climate Change

We usually think about NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration studying the planets, dwarf planets and exoplanets in our solar system and beyond – but we don’t always think about the work of studying Earth as a planet. Frankly, Earth is probably the most important planet NASA can and should be studying.

That’s why the latest launch called SWOT — Surface Water and Ocean Topography is important. Congrats to the NASA team, including Karen St. Germain , director of NASA's Earth Science Division.

Read more from CBS's Bill Harwood:

Connect Before You Disconnect: And Then Really Disconnect

Take some time today to personally touch base with your teammates, direct reports, and the people you engage with all the time to touch base before the holidays. I’m especially thinking about those people maybe you were in the trenches with this year — maybe they bailed you out of a tough spot at the last minute, or maybe the stress of a project hurt your relationship. Learn the lessons from Ebeneezer Scrooge, whom I lovingly portrayed in my sixth-grade class’s dramatic retelling of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in (gulp) 1990: there’s no time like the present to be thankful, gracious, and appreciative.

And then for real, if you have time off to disconnect during this time of year: for your sake and your team’s sake, do it. Read what my friend Kate Van Waes had to say about that. (Also subscribe to her newsletter!)

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