Leadership Insights
Think You Don’t Have a Budget for Learning Programs? Sustainably Linked Loans May Be the Key.
Working closely with mining and resource companies for the past 20 years, Refinery has seen the ebbs and flows of global market demand for our clients’ products and how these movements have affected their budgets for learning and development. It’s no secret that even...
Caution: Sharp (Change) Curve Ahead
Leadership in times of change.
Leadership in Technology; Is it Safe to be Innovative in Your Organization?
At its core, the technology industry revolves around organizations that focus on research, development, innovation and production of products and services that create new and unique value to their clients. Technology-based organizations are uniquely at the forefront...
The Link Between Psychological Safety and Physical Safety in Mining
Mining jobs--especially roles that are in site operations--are frequently cited as having some of the highest physical risk profiles of any job. Despite the constantly evolving precautions that are put in place to protect the physical safety of miners, an...
Safety in Mining Part 1- Susan we have a problem
“Susan, we have a problem at our Lost Wolf Mine Site*. Despite the fact that we implemented an intensive safety program last year, we continue to see a rise in critical safety incidents and fatalities. Can you help us?” This request was not one that we commonly...
Learning the Recipe of Refinery’s Secret Sauce
When Rhonda Gorman first joined the Refinery team in February 2019 in a business development role, she wasn’t sure if she had made the right decision or not. Of course, she knew of Refinery, but like many others that she now comes in contact with on a daily basis, she...
Banking and Leadership
I’m pretty proud of the fact that I spent a good majority of my formative career years in the banking industry. Fortunately, I had some great leaders to guide me through the sometimes treacherous political waters of “big bank” hierarchies. Over the years, I worked in...
Questions for a New World of Leadership
Last March, as we contemplated the need to adapt our in-person programs to virtual programs, we knew it was not as simple as just taking the same content and activities and delivering them via an online platform such as Zoom. After all, Refinery is best known for our...
Refinery Leadership – Does Your D and I Program Rumble Your Soul?
Many organizations today have Diversity and Inclusion programs because “it is the right thing to do”. These programs however rarely seem to be at the forefront in the day to day operations. Afterall, managers have the “real work” of ensuring the productivity and...
Food and Leadership Part 2: Making Lemons into Lemon…Bars
“Muster the courage to stir things up, and be stirred up, in the service of learning. Inspirational tales, theories, and tools alone don’t develop leaders. They protect them from the unsettling experience of leading.”--Gianpiero Petriglieri, MD In my first post...
Podcast Interview on “She’s Talking Back”: Being More Open and Authentic with Your Team with Susan Eick
Susan Eick thought she knew just about everything that she needed to be a successful CEO. However, even after working for more than 25 years in Corporate America and Canada, she found out that she was wrong. It wasn’t until she learned how to be real with her team,...
Problem Solving and Decision Making: Introducing the Cynefin Framework
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges for many business leaders that they may not have seen before. In addition to having to adapt to new government regulations about how their companies can operate, they may be working with a remote workforce for the first...
Food and Leadership P1: What are you doing to provide sustenance to your team?
Events of the past few weeks have humbled me. What I thought I was prepared for as a leader—what I trained for, what I learned doing my MBA—was pretty much thrown out the window. Even things that I learned and held close as my personal foundations of leadership,...
Effective Leadership During Times of Uncertainty
Over the past few weeks, change has occurred rapidly and drastically. As a leader, engagement with your teams might be one of the few things our employees can depend on to guide them through their days. Now more than ever, we must remember the fundamentals of...
Executive Burnout Part 1: The Truck That Finally Hit Me
This video that I recorded to support my upcoming blog about executive burnout was filmed one day before I got hit by a truck. What’s ironic about that, you ask? Let me take you back to earlier this year—the end of June 2019. I was on a call with my coach,...
The Year of Not Quite Living: Part Three: Fumbling Toward the Light
I was not even at the half-way point of one of the worst years of my life. Already, I had lost my job, had to move my family back to Colorado, attempt, then fail, then attempt again to find a job, get pregnant, then lose the pregnancy, try to maintain a state of...
How connected are you really?
What does being connected mean to you? Dictionary.com defines connected as: • united, joined, or linked. • having a connection. • joined together in sequence; linked coherently: connected ideas. • Related by family ties. • Having social or professional relationships,...
The Year of Not Quite Living—Part Two: One Step Up, Three Stumbles Down
Losing my job after moving my young family to another state was hard. Not having another job prospect once I returned home was harder. Finding out I was pregnant with my third child was beyond ridiculous on the stress meter. It wasn’t like I had planned this. No,...
What leadership looks like in times of turmoil
In the wake of the tragedy that took place on March 15th in Christchurch New Zealand, I shared something powerful and hopeful with my LinkedIn community: the picture of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, accompanied by a comment on her display of empathy and inspiring...
Can we create work environments that are truly inclusive?
Well, now here I am about a month after my daughter’s first birthday. And I get it. I really didn’t understand how motherhood would change me until it happened. I had heard about sleepless nights, postpartum blues, overwhelming love, undeniable guilt, and everything...
The Year of Not Quite Living—Part One: Falling into the Pit
“Today is my one-year anniversary with Central Bank". But, rather than getting an annual review, I got fired. Well, asked to resign, actually. How that differs from being fired, I don’t know. Perhaps tellers and personal bankers get fired, and Senior Vice Presidents...
Feedback and Meaningful Conversations Are Everything During the Talent Process
If your organization is embarking on a talent management initiative of any size or scope with an objective of ensuring a robust pipeline of high potential leaders, one of the most critical questions to ask is: Are we an organization which understands how to, and is...
Shedding the Corporate Armour—Part Three: Outgrowing Your Suit of Steel
Okay, let me set the record straight here. Despite my experiences of being blatantly (and sometimes subversively) mistreated, overlooked, harassed and otherwise not treated as an equal to my male counterparts at work over the years, I am over being angry. Anger does...
Knowing How Isn’t Always Enough
Last November, I took a break and spent a (well deserved if I do say so) vacation in Jamaica. While there, my wife and I went for a dive on one of the reefs off the coast of Negril. Despite being a proficient diver, having dove for many years in Central America,...
Know the Theory, Know the Real World, KNOW YOURSELF
Stencilled on the wall of The Refinery’s head office in Vancouver, BC, are some of the team’s shared values. “Know the theory, know the real world, know yourself,” is, in my opinion, a great foundation for success in the field of leadership development. The latter...
Shedding the Corporate Armour—Part Two: Casting the Armour
In my previous article, I examined the ways in which I used my business clothing—suits and other androgynous and stiff business attire—to gain access to a fairly male-dominated, conservative work world. I fondly remembered by the bright green suit that I had purchased...
Shedding the Corporate Armour—Part One
It was May of 1985. I had just finished my last final exam during my third year of undergrad, and had heard back from my internship coordinator that I was scheduled for my first interview for a professional internship at the Marine Bank Corporation in Milwaukee,...
Sometimes You Just Need to Get Punched
I love this excerpt from a recent New York Times interview with Amy Schumer where she was asked: “What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?” Whether you like her comedy or not, her reference to The Professional pulls out an inherent truth in how she...
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