Our research on the most common blindspots and signs of employee disengagement. “What’s the hardest part about being a leader?” A few years ago, the Washington Post interviewed Peter Thiel, cofounder and former CEO of PayPal, and asked him this question to distill his greatest leadership weakness. This was his response: “As CEO, you’re somehow… Read the full article...

Trust me, it surprised me too. But this is not one of the questions to ask employees about morale. “How can I help you?” You’d think this would be a great question to ask your employees. Surely, I’ve asked this question, as a CEO myself, to my own team countless of times. Turns out, I’m wrong. The… Read the full article...

Here are six ways to get employees talking about what they really feel (and not what they think you want to hear) “I can handle the truth. I’m pretty tough, Claire.” My CEO at the time told me this during our one-on-one about five or so years ago. The year was ending, and he wanted to know what the… Read the full article...

Consider using this one word in your next one-on-one meeting A few years ago, a CEO told me how she was struggling to get honest feedback from her board. No one seemed willing to be critical or give her pointers on things she could improve. After every board meeting, she would turn to them and… Read the full article...

One small way we try to show we care as a company and value genuine leadership. Lately, I’ve been getting asked more frequently: “Claire, do you illustrate your own blog posts?” The answer is, “Yes.” To date, I’ve written hundreds pieces on our blog. With the exception of a few (where I’ve used a photograph… Read the full article...

Everyone says, “It’s great working here.” But is it really? Here are the questions to ask to assess if a company has a positive work culture. “How do you know if a company’s culture is good?” Last week, a friend who’s looking for a new job asked me this. She’d been doing a few interviews, and… Read the full article...

You can’t expect people to give you honest feedback if you’re not open with them first. You’re at a swimming pool. The water looks nice. It’s not quite a warm enough day But it’s almost summer so why not jump in? You want others to join you in the pool. (It’s more fun that way!)… Read the full article...

It’s time to break our addiction to metrics — starting with employee engagement metrics. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” I think this statement is bullshit. While I have utmost respect for Peter Drucker, whom I believe the quote is attributed to, I take issue with this statement’s over-the-top, rampant usage in the business world.… Read the full article...

When folks are quiet at work, that doesn’t mean they have don’t have effective employee feedback to share. I’m an introvert. Most people don’t believe me when I tell them this (I do a lot of public speaking for an introvert 😳), but I am an introvert through-and-through. When I need to recharge, I seek alone… Read the full article...

How this one tiny word reveals a lot when it comes to employee dissatisfaction. Listen closely for the word “fine.” It’s never the whole story. Growing up, my family and I moved around quite a bit. From Georgia to Washington to Ohio to Minnesota People assumed we were a military family because of how often we… Read the full article...

I’m sharing three years-worth of findings, based on data from 15,000+ employees in 25 countries through Canopy, on the best questions to ask employees for feedback. When’s the last time you had a one-on-one meeting or performance review with an employee and you learned something completely new? Don’t think too hard 🙂 If you’re like… Read the full article...

I hate the word, “empowerment”. It’s often inhibits us from becoming a good leader. I hate the word “empowerment.” I never think I should “empower” anyone — especially our team, here at Canopy. It’s often a leadership mistake, in my mind. Why? The definition of the word “empower” is: to give power to (someone); to make (someone)… Read the full article...

The importance of company vision (and how to figure out yours) Earlier this year, I was asked to advise an entrepreneurship class over at the Northwestern Law School here in Chicago. Students pitched business ideas to a panel of mentors, including myself. We were then asked to give feedback on these ideas. The first team of… Read the full article...

Yes, it can feel draining and counterproductive, but here’s why arguing and dealing with team conflict can be good things “Did I hire the wrong person?” I remember thinking that right after I’d gotten into a heated argument with one of our team members here at Canopy. This was back in 2014. We’d recently hired this… Read the full article...

Keep this one thing in mind when you’re given negative feedback in the workplace. What happens when someone tells you something you don’t want to hear? Hearing something negative about yourself is a hard thing to swallow. Especially when you disagree with it. I’ll never forget when this happened to me most vividly about four… Read the full article...

We’re in here! ❤️ I’m a big fan of Glossier. This beauty company’s mission is to democratize beauty, per the words of their founder + CEO Emily Weiss. I’ve always loved that ethos not to mention their products 🙂 I wear their Haloscope highligher every day, in fact. So I was thrilled to learn that their CTO… Read the full article...

  “Nice” can be a dangerous thing when it comes to developing company culture. Does your company suffer from a culture of “nice”? A culture of “nice” exists when people do not openly disagree with one another. Employees politely bite their tongues when they have a dissenting viewpoint. No one dares brings up a contentious topic… Read the full article...

Giving upward feedback is one of the toughest things to do as an employee. Here are some guidelines for giving feedback to your manager or CEO. When I was an employee, I felt stuck. I had some ideas about how I thought the company could be better but I had no clue how to give feedback… Read the full article...

Lately, I’ve been out on the road speaking quite a bit. From Stockholm to Austin to Denver to Boston, I’ve been honored to share our techniques around how you can avoid being the last to know in your company. And, it’s been fun to pull back the curtain on how we run Canopy (formerly Know… Read the full article...

If they say you learn from your biggest leadership mistakes, this one takes the cake. We made a huge mistake. We’d built a new feature in Canopy a while back. During that process, we’d accidentally written a bit of code that caused private responses to be revealed to new employees in a company. This means that… Read the full article...

Why anonymous employee feedback is counterproductive and should be avoided in the workplace. I recently realized that I’m in the minority of this opinion, so I wanted to write about it. Why don’t I believe in anonymous feedback? It’s because the whole point of feedback is to do something about it. If you don’t know… Read the full article...

Based our research, these are the essential employee engagement questions for managers that we’ve found to be most effective. Getting good feedback starts with asking a good question. Ask a good question and you’ll discover that there’s a part of the business you’re neglecting, or an issue you weren’t aware of. A specific, thoughtful question… Read the full article...

How to get employee feedback in the workplace all starts with how you ask for it. When someone invites you to an event or a party, you typically don’t automatically decide to go. You probably weigh a couple factors. Was it the host who invited you, or a friend of a friend? Did they put a… Read the full article...

As a CEO, business executive or manager, you can be caught in a bubble. Here’s how to break through and get the employee feedback you need. “Have you ever been the last to know something in your company?” As the CEO of Canopy, an employee communication software tool, I’ve asked this question to dozens of business… Read the full article...

What I wrote back in 2013 to remind myself of what matters as we develop Know Your Team‘s own organizational culture. Yesterday was one of those days when I doubted myself a little bit more than usual. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen many more times again, I’m sure. When I started to feel that… Read the full article...

Don’t inadvertently become a bad boss. When you’re the boss, there’s one important thing you need to remember: you’re the boss. This means that, whether you like it or not, there’s an inherent power dynamic in every interaction you have with your employees. You’re the person your employee is least willing to go to about a… Read the full article...

When welcoming a new coworker, keep this in mind. On the first day of one of the first jobs I ever had coming out of college, a mentor of mine pulled me aside, and said to me “Claire, take a look around the company. Take in everything you see and hear, what you think could be… Read the full article...

The importance of onboarding a new employee well cannot be overstated. Here’s how to do it well. Do you remember the last time you started a new job? I do. I was intimidated. Everyone in the company already knew each other and “how things work around here” except me. I was reminded of this when I spoke… Read the full article...

Three things to remember when you handle criticism in the workplace. I recently finished reading a book called, The Four Agreements. The title is a bit hokey. But the content is spot-on. The book talks about the importance of creating personal freedom. One of these four agreements to create personal freedom is: “Don’t take things… Read the full article...

The challenges of running a business are felt by all of us as business owners. Trust me. Last month, I met with several CEOs. One of them was on the brink of shutting down his business. His company was having serious cash flow problems. A $30,000/month office lease was pushing his business closer and closer to… Read the full article...