Kimberly Wiefling

Not even close! Don’t take my word for it. I’m educated as a scientist, and I do everything I can to make fact-based decisions based on data, so here’s some data for ya . . . According to the 2011 Catalyst Census:Fortune 500 Women Board Directors, Executive Officers and Top Earners and prior Catalyst Censuses, women have made no [...]

In my timezone I’ve got just a bit over one more day to go in 2011. Personally I always welcome the end of one year and the beginning of the next. It feels like a fresh start to me. It’s been a great year in many ways, but now that I have worked with people [...]

Here’s another personal musing promoted by what I’ve come to call the “alcoholidays”. This time of year my mind wanders to gratitude. I’m grateful for the incredibly talented colleagues who have made this year’s relentless stream of work border on enjoyable. And I’m thankful for friends who have made life’s normal burdens lighter through their [...]

This time of year in the US many people, including me and my family, celebrate Christmas. It’s the most important holiday for us, and it’s a time of year when people seem more tuned in to the connections among all human beings. It seems to me that people are a wee bit nicer to each [...]

This is the final post in my series exploring post-quake Japan. While I’ve enjoyed many aspects of working with Japanese companies in recent years, one issue that’s been a frequent cause of consternation is what I perceive to be their relatively slow pace of change. OK, to be perfectly honest I’m not impressed with the [...]

Here’s another article in this series where I squeeze meaning out of seemingly purposeless tragedy. When I landed in Tokyo 2 weeks ago – my first trip here since the quake – I wondered what signs of the recent disaster might be evident. As the bus made its way from the airport into town I [...]

In my continuing quest to make meaning out of tragedy, here’s another in the series. It’s amazing to me how selfless some people can be when tragedy strikes. Several days following the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear nightmare in Japan I realized that I’d totally forgotten my brother’s birthday. My whole family is spread all over the US – [...]

In my quest to make sense of the recent tragedy in Japan I’m writing about my experiences from Tokyo, where I’ve been working for the past 2 weeks. When my phone rang in California at 4 AM on March 11 I knew it couldn’t be good news. My dad was calling from 3 time zones [...]

Stage 4 – Communication and appreciation are essential ingredients in your family’s excellent adventure. Keep the communication flowing. Conversation creates reality, and is also a terrific way to clear out the cobwebs. What’s rewarded is repeated, so make sure you reinforce what’s working lest it disappear. You’re on your way to achieving your family’s dreams [...]

Stage 3 – Plans are great fun, but without action it’s just a waste of a bunch of postnotes. Take a small step forward each day in the direction of your goals and you’ll certainly be farther along than the family that just spends time perfecting their plan. Here are a few strategies that will [...]

Stage 2 – A dream is just a dream until it’s written down, then it’s a plan! If you’ve done the exercises faithfully so far, by now you should have a pretty clear idea of your family’s fabulous future. Now it’s time to create a plan that will more than double your chances of achieving your [...]

Continuing our exploration into envisioning your family’s fabulous future . . . Step 3. WHAT MATTERS? According to a blizzard of studies, and my own observations of human beings over the past 50 years, the #1 that reason people don’t achieve their goals is that they don’t have goals. One reason? Fear of failure drives [...]

Stage 1 – Planning is the first step in creating your successful family. One extremely effective way to do this planning is to ask powerful questions. These are questions designed to expand thinking and enrich discussions. Don’t look for easy answers – it’s the dialogue they spark that is valuable. And don’t rush through these [...]

A recipe alone doesn’t make cookies, but it’s a start. And great chefs don’t need a recipe book, but someone with the discipline to follow a recipe can cook like a great chef with discipline and a little practice. And the same is true for the recipe for family success. What is this common sense [...]

We are Family. Sure, but if you’re like most families, you use what I call the “random chaos” approach to life. In a splendid demonstration of hope triumphing over experience, two people embark on what could be a decades long adventure. They get married, have kids, survive raising ‘em, maybe buy a house to contain [...]

Scrappy Project Management Mindset Series – Part 4 of 4. If you’re going to lead projects to success you’ve gotta have a powerful mindset that supports you. This week I’ll share some mindset medicine that will keep you scrappy. – Kimberly My favorite story of total commitment is that of Sir Ernest Shakleton, who led [...]

Scrappy Project Management Mindset Series – Part 3 of 4. If you’re going to lead projects to success you’ve gotta have a powerful mindset that supports you. This week I’ll share some mindset medicine that will keep you scrappy. – Kimberly Don’t think for a minute that just because I’m a possibility thinker, with an [...]

Scrappy Project Management Mindset Series – Part 2 of 4. If you’re going to lead projects to success you’ve gotta have a powerful mindset that supports you. This week I’ll share some mindset medicine that will keep you scrappy. – Kimberly Being both a human being and a project manager poses some interesting challenges. To me, [...]

Scrappy Project Management Mindset Series – Part 1 of 4. If you’re going to lead projects to success you’ve gotta have a powerful mindset that supports you. This week I’ll share some mindset medicine that will keep you scrappy. – Kimberly I’m proud to say I’m a self-declared possibility thinker, a menace to mediocrity on [...]

Originally published on CareerShorts.com where Kimberly has been invited to contribute blogs periodically on global leadership and project management. Did you know that there are 192 countries recognized by the United Nations and a total of 233 listed on Wikipedia?  You may not even have heard of the smallest ones, some of which have less [...]

For years I’ve been using a rubber chicken in my consulting work to burn into people’s consciousness the concepts of personal accountability and a belief in an internal locus of control. Holding the chicken at shoulder height, I release it and ask why the chicken fell to the floor. Victims blame gravity. (Some people even blame [...]