The enormous breadth of human emotional and social competencies contains areas of challenge for everyone. Which skills you find toughest depends in part on your personality but also on the experience and practice you’ve built up over your life. This section contains a growing library of “how-to” guides that we publish once every two weeks. When things get rough, we hope you’ll find something useful here.

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One trick to maintaining a resilient team

In Self by A. Geoffrey Crane

Team members can be surprisingly resilient and often continue to perform even under extreme duress. If they sense their leader feels hopeless about a particular objective, however, they may start to question why they are putting so much effort into …

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Three nasty traps for project professionals

In Change by A. Geoffrey Crane

Recently, folks have been asking me what I’ve been up to at school and what kinds of things I’m researching. My main interests will always revolve around both emotional intelligence and project management and how the two fit together. Recently, …

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“Steal” From Athletes for Better Presentations

In Self by A. Geoffrey Crane

Athletes are under intense pressure to perform during highly competitive conditions. Armed only with their bodies and minds during an event, they understand the importance of “focus” very well. To achieve this, many athletes use a process called “mental preparation” …

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Life Hack to Retake Control of Your Day

In Stress by A. Geoffrey Crane

Flexibility is a critical component of emotional intelligence. Too much change too fast, however, can be destabilizing. Those familiar with the mile-a-minute pace of today’s projects know this fact all too well. This may seem paradoxical, but one way to …

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Winning Over Stubborn Stakeholders

In Others by A. Geoffrey Crane

Sooner or later, every project manager or business analyst must contend with a raft of stakeholders who don’t see eye to eye. Perhaps your steering committee has consensus on your project objectives but there’s still one really ornery but influential …

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Welcome to Adaptimist

In Coping, News, Sticky by A. Geoffrey Crane

Hi there, and welcome to the blog for Adaptimist Insights. I’m your host – you can call me Geoff. Once upon a time I was a project manager. I was a pretty good one, too – I worked for the …

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Projects are complex. Are you looking after yourself?

In Stress by A. Geoffrey Crane

Project professionals are used to stress. Some even wear the demands of their job as a badge of honour. But work environments are becoming increasingly complex as elaborate programs force project resources to do more with less. Further, many companies …