Kick off the year by recognizing early wins and keeping morale moving. January in Canada has its own energy — subzero mornings, grey skies, and the collective realization that winter isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. For many teams, especially in the North, this is when motivation dips. Not because the work is hard (it always is), but because the runway to spring feels long. One thing that makes a surprising difference? Celebrating early wins. Even modest ones. A project tha

Extract the value from what you survived, solved, and improved. The last few years forced leaders to deal with tariffs, supply volatility, workforce turnover, margin pressure, and nonstop operational change. Much of it is here to stay — it’s our new normal. The question isn’t whether we prefer it, but what we do with the experience we gained. Teams improve through adversity, not convenience. They got faster, more cross-functional, more resourceful, better at prioritizing, and

Turn last year’s wins and misses into this year’s motivation. Reflection is only valuable if we carry the learning forward. As leaders, our role isn’t to archive what worked and what didn’t — it’s to convert those insights into clarity and direction now. In a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment, teams look for certainty wherever they can get it. Certainty doesn’t mean predicting the future. It means giving people context, priorities, and a sense of

Start the year with straight talk about performance, learning, and reality. The start of a new year always invites reflection — and as leaders, we’re pretty good at pointing out what didn’t work. We conduct root-cause analysis, build corrective plans, and talk about how to avoid repeating mistakes. That part is familiar. What we often skip is the deliberate celebration of the things that went right. The projects that landed. The teams that adapted. The customers we kept. The

We worked with Ralph (Nexus Coaching Professionals) as a leadership and communication coach while I was developing my right-hand staff member into a more senior role with greater delegation and decision-making responsibility. Ralph quickly identified the communication barriers between us and gave us a practical way to communicate with fewer assumptions and more clarity. Ralph has a calm, structured coaching style. He is an excellent listener, never rushed our sessions, and he

“I had the privilege of working with Ralph during a transformative period in my career. At the time, I was navigating significant organizational and role-related changes in circumstances that required not only new strategies but also a heightened level of self-awareness and leadership presence. Ralph proved to be an invaluable partner throughout this process. His patient, collaborative approach, combined with thoughtful inquiry, accountability, and the ability to challenge wi