My Circus, My Monkeys

In 2017, Alicia and I founded Strengths University to help supervisors feel more confident, empowered, and less stressed. Alicia joins me on today's episode to talk about what we wish we would have known about supervising before we started Strengths University and really researching how to be an effective supervisor. 

Please enjoy this replay of episode 111 while the host, Anne Brackett, recovers from a recent car accident. Eve...

If you’ve ever had conflicts on your team, encountered problems you need to solve, or need to accomplish the right things to help you students succeed, you'll want to listen to this short episode. We'll dig into one of the Guiding Principles of using CliftonStrengths, Differences Are an Advantage. This principle is key to getting the best outcomes for yourself, your team, and your students. 

If you're ready to invest ...

One of the great things about using a Strengths-based approach, is leaning into the unique differences each one of us offers. In this episode, we dive further into that idea by honoring the neurodiversity of those who might be on your team, including perhaps you. Join me as I speak with Dr. Carolyn O'Laughlin about how to better support neurodiversity in the workplace.

If you're ready to invest in your team, check out our ...

For many of us in Higher Ed, this semester has risen to the level of traumatic. Now we are used to dealing with trauma to a certain extent, but today I want to tackle a new topic for us - complex trauma. And to do this I’ve invited my sister, Laura Jarvis Brackett, a trauma focused therapist, back to discuss what complex trauma is and how it might be impacting you, your team members, and even your students. Now this is a longer epi...

Are you and your team getting the results you want? I know you're busy almost every day. But does that busyness actually get you where you need to be? If you're not getting the result you want, your autopilot programs might need some fine tuning. In this episode, we talk about the function of autopilot programs from the perspective of an actual pilot. You are on autopilot 95-99% of the day. If you don't know what you...

Do some of these stressors sound familiar? Are you tired of not getting what you need from your supervisor? Are you frustrated that your team isn’t doing things the right way? Are you and your team rushing from meeting to meeting without time to think? And finally, do you and your team simply have too much to do on a regular basis? In this episode, I’m revisiting my interview last fall with Karen Smolarek, Director of TRIO Student ...

Have you found it challenging to develop your younger employees into the leaders of tomorrow? In this episode, we answer a question from a listener that begins with, “Dear Anne, I am feeling like it is hard to build up the next cycle of leaders in my department.” And ends with “What types of things can I focus on to truly adjust the culture?” So we discuss not only how to grow leaders, but also how to truly adjust your culture so t...

Whether it's midterms, the end of the semester, or prepping for the beginning of the semester, when things ramp up, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and wonder exactly how you're going to get everything done. In this episode, we'll dive into four ways you can better manage these stressful times, so you can not only get the most done, but also the most important things done.

If you're ready to invest in your tea...

Did you start having folks do Strengths on campus, but then things just kind of stalled? We often get asked, "How do you actually implement CliftonStrengths on campus?" Whether you already started this process and it fizzled out or you're considering using it with your team or on your campus, in this episode we cover three very do-able ways you can integrate Strengths on your campus.

Want more information on how to im...

If you're a supervisor, you want to be successful - both for yourself and your team. But since most supervisors don't get the training they need, where do you start? In this episode, we cover the three S's you need to be a successful supervisor - Strengths, Supervisor Skills, and (Effective) Systems. We'll cover why these three S's are so important and how to get started if you want to be more successful in...

The new administration certainly started off with a bang. This left many of us scrambling to understand what changes might impact us, our team, and our students. In times of uncertainty, it’s all too easy to get sidetracked by worry. Unfortunately, worry doesn’t make anything better and zaps our energy. That means you’ll have less energy to push back or forward. In this episode, we talk about how making sure your nervous system sta...

No matter which way you voted, the new administration poses challenges to the Higher Ed field, especially those working in DEI. Many of us are concerned for ourselves, our team, and our students. In today's episode, Dr. LaShawnda Fields,  Scholar of Equitable Experiences in Higher Education and teacher of social work practice, joins us to discuss her thoughts on the election and even more importantly, what we can focus on as w...

Happy New Year! It's 2025. We wrapped up 2024 talking about how small shifts in thinking and behavior can significantly change the trajectory of your life. If you wanted 2024 to turn out differently than it did, you probably had a list of things you meant to do to upgrade how you showed up as a supervisor and in your life that you never quite did. In this episode, we talk about getting into action around those changes we KNOW ...

As the end of the semester and year approaches, it's natural to think about all the things you have and haven't done. There's probably a few things that you wanted to change about yourself or your work, but you never quite got there. Thinking about having to add them to next year's to-do list can feel discouraging. In today's episode, we talk about how just making small shifts now can create big change in y...

If you work in Higher Education, you're most likely concerned about what the election results mean for you, your institution, and your students. In this episode, we talk about ways to better process all these emotions, understand how we got here, and plan for the future amidst uncertainty.

Link to article, Election Grief Is Real. Here’s How to Cope
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/election-grief-is-real-...

Supervisors frequently encounter similar challenges. When those problems pop-up, it can be easy to focus on the situation. When that happens, you spend loads of time and energy dealing with recurring problems. But when you dig deeper and find the root cause, you can change the systems that are creating the problem. In this episode, we break down three common supervisor challenges to discover what's most likely causing those ch...

If you want to be a better supervisor, you probably think you need to focus on information related to how to manage your team, right? While you do need to know what effective supervisors do, that's only part of the solution. Who you are now impacts the type of supervisor you are now. If you want to upgrade how you supervise, you also need to upgrade your identity. In this episode, we discuss why so many topics we cover may not...

We’ve discussed in many episodes just how important self-care and stress management are to you as a person and a supervisor. Today, we have a guest, Morgan Starr-Riestis, who has a degree in neuroscience, is a licensed therapist, and had developed her own system to fill the gaps that current mental health practices miss when it comes to healing and growth. In this episode, Morgan goes into more depth about how important it is to ke...

It can be challenging to give yourself permission and space to invest in yourself. But you cannot effectively supervise your team, if you don’t have what you need. In today’s episode of My Circus, My Monkeys, I interview Karen Smolarek, Director of TRIO Student Support Services at University of Wisconsin – River Falls and incoming President of the Educational Opportunity Association (EOA). Karen has gone through our Supervisor Stre...