Lumen Impact Group
Lumen Impact Group

Blog

When the Word “Feedback” Makes You Squirm: Tips and Tricks for Making the Giving of Feedback Accessible.

Leaders – what comes to mind when you hear the word “feedback?” Does it give you flashbacks to uncomfortable performance reviews, remind you of conversations you need to have but are trying to avoid, or bring to mind elements of your team performance that need a bit of a boost? The word “feedback” can strike […]

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Who Needs Professional Coaching? 

By Lisa Diaz and Dr. Laura Groth Welcome to a fresh new calendar year! At Lumen we believe one of the most powerful tools in each of our toolbox is looking forward – designing the vision of the work and life you want and then taking specific, actionable steps to make it real. If you […]

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Practicing What we Preach: A Case for In-Person Retreats 

By: Cori Egan, Junior Partner  You have heard nightmare stories of work retreats: failed trust falls; emotionally charged coal walks (any Office fans out there?); catastrophic personality clashes. Fortunately, at Lumen Impact Group, these problems have never been a part of our annual retreats, which take place in-person in the Fall each year. But, despite […]

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What’s in a Name? Why Meaningful Change Centers on Impact

By Lisa Diaz, Lumen Impact Group, Founder  It was 2009, and I had been on the board of a school in the community where I live for a number of years. My boys attended the school, and things were going well. The school was, for the most part, achieving good results, but there was something […]

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Accessible, not Cringy, Self-Care

By: Dr. Laura Groth, Senior Partner Sometimes when I share that my company includes “self-care” as an official corporate value, the response is almost a cringe. At first, the idea feels a little too soft, a little too gooey, a little too warm and fuzzy and unicorns and sunshine to hang out with other corporate […]

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When the Load is Heavy and Hill is High: How to Use an Effective Change Process to Not Go It Alone 

By Lisa Diaz, Lumen Impact Group, Founder  Imagine I present you with two options:   Option 1: Drag a full wagon of rocks up a steep hill on your own.  Option 2: Same wagon full of rocks and same hill, but this time, you get a team of people to push from behind as you climb […]

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How to Listen to Your Teachers: Tips and Thoughts for School Leaders Who Want to Lean into Feedback 

By Lisa Diaz, Lumen Impact Group  97% of teachers “wish decision-makers would listen to teachers’ opinions and perspectives,” according to a recent poll of more than 1200 pre-k-12 teachers (Listen to Your Teacher!). Teachers are telling us loud and clear that in this time of unprecedented teacher shortages, they have feedback to give, and they […]

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What If There IS an “I” In Team? The Necessity of Diverse Styles in Teamwork

By: Cori Egan I was involved in sports when I was young, which means that, at a young age, the idea of a group of people working toward a collective goal was a big part of my life.  The teams I was on and the work that I put into them allowed me the opportunity […]

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A gate of locks, a universal symbol for commitment. Or Loyalty?

Commitment over Loyalty (And Why We Think There’s A Difference)

By: Stephanie VanDyk  It is impossible to make an impact without commitment. And yet, our culture seems to have a bit of an aversion to the idea of commitment. This is likely because of its similarity to the concept of loyalty, which is often associated with words like “blind” or “false.” Decades ago, it was […]

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A woman sits at a desk, practicing meditation to help reset her mind.

How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Transform Your Workplace

By: Laura Groth Mindfulness and capitalism may not sound like a classic pairing. I am here to tell you that they actually go together like peanut butter and jelly. My personal mindfulness journey began with a deep dive in silent meditation retreats. I actually got involved in them right before the COVID lockdown. To those […]

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A pop up book of a dinosaur, illustrating how resilience allows us to pop back up.

3 Ways Pop-Up Books Can Teach You Resilience

Lisa Diaz is the owner and founder of Lumen Impact Group. She will be kicking off this blog series, which will highlight the organizational values at Lumen. To learn more about our organizational values, click here. Do you remember the children’s pop-up books that you used to play with? Maybe you still enjoy them with […]

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Gave Up on Your New Year’s Resolution? This Is for You.

Like many teams and individuals around the world, you may have started this year off setting big goals. We certainly did! 2021 was an incredible year for us at Lumen Impact Group with our team growing from two employees to five (more on that later). As last year was wrapping up, we knew we were […]

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Testimonials

"“They don’t tell you what you want to hear. They tell you what you need to hear. That makes a huge difference. We needed to understand our weaknesses in order to make the organization work right, and I was overwhelmed by how they really got it and they helped us to get it too. They were able to do it in a way that really made me want to understand the goals we needed to focus on. I believe Lumen was absolutely the best we could have found.”"
Barbara Sellinger
Cresthaven Academy
"“I’ve been in nonprofits for 30+ years and have used the services of many consultants, but I have never been so comfortable with their commitment to helping us. It was as if the Lumen team shared our need to have a successful outcome and they were committed to the notion that they would indeed bring value to what we were doing.“ "
Caroline Novak
Alabama School Readiness Alliance
"“The Lumen team did a really good job sharing the hard truths with us. Their findings were different from what we were expecting, but they used the information to push us farther than we originally planned. They were candid and didn’t hide anything from us. We’re now on the path to developing products that are very different from what we’ve done before but are hopefully much more useful for the people we serve.” "
Drew Jacobs
National Alliance of Public Charter Schools
"“The management of a federal CSP grant is a really niche area that requires a tremendous depth of expertise and technical know-how. You need to have a microscopic attention to detail when it comes to compliance and reporting timeliness. The Lumen team is excellent at all of the above." "
Tyler Barnett
New Schools for Alabama
"“In my coaching, we make really strong, specific plans for next steps and then we follow up on them in our next conversation. We try to keep those next steps really manageable. When I’m busy, I can’t layer a ton of personal growth on top of my other responsibilities, so we make plans for growth that are baked into the work I’m already doing. That has been really helpful for me.” "
Kristen Forbriger
City Fund