Ordinary sucks

You know it, they know it, ordinary sucks. And you shouldn’t have to put up with it where you work. We help companies and nonprofits leverage their organizational culture to turn ordinary employees into high performers. We believe that everyone is happier, healthier and more engaged when they knock it out of the park every single day. So we give you and your team the tools you need to shift your culture yourselves. Then you get something more powerful than buy-in from your employees. You get ownership.

“Ken’s energetic and honest approach has gained him the respect of an entire organization. The early iterations of SHIFT made a series of challenging conversations easy due to his sincerity, curiosity and willingness to learn about our organization.

“Our project is the better for his leadership.”

—Beth Gignac, City of Calgary

Recent Articles and Videos

Video Blogs

Recent Blog Posts

80 – AI Is Here for F***ing Good, with Israel Peck

December 5th, 2023|Categories: Uncategorized|

Israel Peck is an entrepreneur, speaker, and consultant. About 7 years ago, his life took a big turn during a night out in San Francisco, when he had his first encounter with an AI company. It captivated him and he was hooked.  Now Israel runs a tech startup called Cratic, focused on AI and team culture. He has found an exciting link between AI and therapeutic techniques to help people and teams talk and communicate better. This improves businesses and lives through cool uses of machine learning. Israel talks about a hopeful future — and a World where we all have machine learning tools helping us think and work and live our best lives. 

78 – It’s Not an F***ing 30 Minute Conversation

November 7th, 2023|Categories: Uncategorized|

In this episode I need to F***ing talk to Kerry-Ann Powell. Kerry-Ann Powell has varied experience of over 20 years as a Washington, DC attorney, lobbyist, and fundraiser. After raising $120 million to build the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial she launched her strategic business and consulting firm, Trafalgar Strategies. 

77 – Gary Simonds (It’s Not F***ing Brain Surgery. Oh, wait! It IS!)

October 24th, 2023|Categories: Uncategorized|

The author Margaret Atwood use to roll her eyes when doctors told they wanted to be an author when they retired - as if it was that easy. Well, here comes Gary Simonds, an actual brain surgeon-turned-author. Gary has cared for tens of thousands of critically ill patients AND he has written three non-fiction books on burnout and wellness and writes blog posts for Psychology Today Online. In the realm of fiction, he has recently published a medical/psychological thriller with a paranormal twist entitled, Death's Pale Flag.

Coming Events

Read Nicer Book Club

Wednesday, January 20th, 2021 |  4:00pm – 5:30pm

Partnered with MeetUp group, ‘Calgary Business Success Network’ of over 1300 members, Work Nicer hosts a monthly book club meeting for an opportunity to discuss the chosen business book and explore it’s concepts, ideas, theories, and just to overall re-connect over conversation.

The next meeting will be held at Red Mile in Boardroom 9 &3/4. The book for discussion is “I Need To F%^$ing Talk To You!” by Work Nicer member Ken Cameron and Russell Stratton, which provides a practical and easy-to-use guide to prepare and successfully navigate a ‘difficult’ workplace conversations.

Even if you have not read the book or cannot complete by the next session, you can absolutely still join the conversation! It’s an opportunity to learn from others, share ideas and meet new people!

I Need To F***ing Talk To You

The Art Of Navigating Difficult Workplace Conversations.

Date TBC

Let’s get one thing straight off the top  “I need to f@#%ing talk to you”, is a bad way to start any conversation, let alone one with a co-worker.

So why is this commonly happening in the workplace? Usually, it’s because some issue has been festering for weeks or months. Too many managers approach a conversation in which they must challenge difficult behaviour with a lot of trepidation. The result is we aren’t direct, we beat around the bush, or we ignore and let unproductive behaviour go unchallenged until we can’t take it anymore and we just f@#%ing lose it.

“Sometimes conversations suck, but you need to have them, and this book lays out how. Russell and Ken have put together and road-tested simple, up-front, and thoughtful approaches to awkward and difficult workplace conversations.”
Andrew Phung, CBC’s Kim’s Convenience

Zoom Zoom! – from “Adaptive Technology” to “Creative Solution”

FacX online (formerly Facilitation Exchange)
Wednesday, October 21st 6:00 MST 
 

In the wake of the pandemic, our flip chart stands and facilitator tool kits are in the cupboard collecting dust. As facilitators, we don’t go out much any more.  Instead, many of us struggle to do our craft over an online platform like Zoom. In this session, we will think about the way we think about using on-line platforms. We will see what we can harness from each other that helps us move from “adaptive” mode to “creative” mode.  

Ken Cameron of Corporate Culture Shift is one facilitator practitioner among us actively exploring creative solutions. He will lead our session of idea sharing and discovery using some of the tools in his new, on-line tool kit.  He’ll be accompanied by Philip Cox of PlanNET who is still trying to adapt, but asking questions.   

Meet some of our amazing clients

Do you prefer to learn on your own?

Start right now by ordering your copy of our new book, I Need to F***ing Talk to You: The Art of Managing Difficult Conversations. It outlines all the techniques we use in our I Need to F***ing Talk To You workshops so you can tackle the ordinary immediately.

$25 | Available now on Amazon