Janklin

10/26/2026

🌟 I believe in us.

In British Columbia, over the weekend, a sweeping Conservative majority government won the provincial vote. And there are many reasons I worry for the next few years, more than I have before. Conservative candidates and leaders touted their values. And before you say "Oh, Andrea, not all leaders. There's just a few fringe folks", I will respond by saying that is exactly what was said of Trump the first and the second election. There is a growing movement and when people say things, believe them. Words matter.

Here are just a few:

🕳️ BC Conservative candidate Mike Hicks for Juan de Fuca-Malahat stated that First Nations need to be "conquered".

🕳️ Current BC Conservative Party Premier Designate Leader Lorne Doerkeson stated that his top priority would be to "repeal the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA)". Yes, NDP Leader David Eby wanted to amend DRIPA, which was also wrong. But to repeal it is another level.

🕳️ Lorne Doerkson campaigned heavily on promises to "repeal SOGI" from the public education system, saying it's "confusing" and causing "bullying".

🕳️ All 37 sitting BC Conservative MLAs voted in favor of a first reading for the Human Rights Code Repeal Act, a private member's bill introduced by Independent MLA Tara Armstrong that sought to abolish the province's Human Rights Tribunal and Commissioner.

And there is more.

I've reached out to friends who I knew this government would affect greatly. Some are scared. Some are extremely sad. Some are angry. And some, at a loss of words.

If I'm honest, I don't believe in governments to protect us or do defend us. Indigenous people, communities of colour and equity deserving groups have long had to work hard for any right, any freedom and any opportunity they have today. It wasn't the government that gave them that right. It was them. It was years of hard work, of advocacy, of truth telling, of of lived experiences, and sacrificing their own bodies.

I believe in us. I believe in the advocacy, the joy and the creativity that we have to come together and be the change that we want to see. I believe in us, the dreamers, the empaths, the teachers and the never-give-up folks who will work hard for something that they may never see in their lifetime. My ancestors did that and so must I - so must we.

I believe in us. Because each other is really all we have.

I wanted change too - but not at the expense of other people's rights, dignities and freedoms. And I will work like hell to make sure love has the final say. ❤️‍🩹 Because it will. And that's not the work of government. That's the work of us.

10/22/2026

🌟 I am thrilled to invite you to join me as I present my keynote message on the invisible force that causes visible friction. A force so powerful, it can either strengthen the intelligence of our team or weaken our ability to have project success. A topic that still challenges me in my work everyday and a practice that I am passionate about. 🌟

"The Momentum Effect is an immersive one-day experience that brings together project professionals from across North America to learn from inspiring speakers, exchange ideas with peers, connect with industry leaders, and leave with practical insights that can be put to work immediately.

Designed by PMI chapters for PMI chapter members, this high-energy event combines thought-provoking keynotes, interactive sessions, executive perspectives, and meaningful networking into a day that will leave you informed, inspired, and connected. Whether youre looking to sharpen your leadership skills, discover new ways of working, broaden your business perspective, or simply recharge your professional momentum, this is the event that will help move you—and your projects—forward."

📅 Tuesday, October 27th 9am (EST) - 5pm (EST)
ℹ️ Attend online
📍 Hosted by ProjectBites: https://projectbites.com
🔗 Registration Here: https://www.airmeet.com/e/ee972d30-73f6-11f1-9322-5798046accbe. PMI and Non-PMI Rates

If you can't attend the whole day, your ticket purchase guarantees you access to the whole day after the event is over.

🤗 I have a few free guest passes, so please message me if you'd like to attend the event!

Thank you ProjectBites for this wonderful opportunity! I'm excited to witness an amazing day of thought leadership and expertise!!

10/16/2026

🤔 How does a 65-year-old man who graciously stops at a crosswalk for a small family become the hateful commentator on a social media post?

😔 How does a friendly conversation about caring for others turn into an argument about socialism?

😕 How is it that ideas that were accepted by family five years ago have all of a sudden become the chasm that keeps us silent and apart?

The answer is found in that dusty old invisible briefcase we carry. 💼 We never asked for its shape or even its presence. But it is the first place our hand goes.

And if we’re honest, someone else is deciding what is inside.

The algorithm. A tiny but mighty invisible pocket found in the sets of beliefs, ideas, values and inherited stories we carry. We all have been trained to pull out of this pocket but it's harming us, preventing us from having the relationships and conversations I believe we can have. Limiting us to think that connection with people we don't know is only about screaming at them.

♥️ I invite you to explore the pocket, understand it's presence and realize there is more to you and to other people than what the pocket feeds you.

We all deserve better than what the algorithm is giving us 😊

👉 Read here, on my website: https://www.janklin.ca/articles/the-pocket-we-didnt-ask-for.

You can also subscribe to my LinkedIn newsletter "The Invisible Briefcase": a monthly newsletter helping you unpack the hidden beliefs quietly costing you organizational growth and global relationships: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7445559455171371008

🤩 Currently taking facilitation and speaking engagements: https://www.janklin.ca/connect

10/06/2026

🤗 I am thrilled and honoured to be co-leading a Continuing Studies session at the University of Victoria this November 19th with Char Wong-Richardson on Creating Sustainable, Safe, and People-Centred Allyship. A three hour session with myself and my dear friend who are both growing in our allyship journeys daily.

This is a practical, people-centred workshop designed to help you move beyond surface-level allyship, from performative gestures toward grounded, relational and sustained action. Rooted in trauma-informed facilitation, real-world scenario practice, and Indigenous-informed learning principles, this course builds your confidence and skills to notice harm, interrupt bias, and repair trust without making it about yourself.

The session is designed to be trauma-aware and accessible, with grounding exercises, reflective activities, and guided practice built into the flow. Participants leave with a practical toolkit of language, scripts, and frameworks ready for immediate use.

It's an affordable course at only $50 per person and can be enjoyed through the comfort of your own pyjamas at home.

🗓️ When: Thursday, November 19th, 2026
🕰️ Time: 10am to 1pm
📌 Where: Virtually, wherever you feel comfortable
💸 Cost: $50
👉 Register: https://continuingstudies.uvic.ca/humanities-social-sciences-and-law/courses/creating-sustainable-safe-and-people-centred-allyship

We can't wait to journey with you in this important work 🤗

This is a practical, people-centred workshop designed to help you move beyond surface-level allyship—from performative gestures toward grounded, relational

09/24/2026

✨An incredible day with some great people. Thankful to the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business and University of Victoria for this opportunity to share how our relationships with power shape how we view leadership ✨. I LOVE this topic and I love to invite everyone into the room to experience the beautiful diversity of themselves and ultimately others.

Meeting people from all over the island and BC and one Albertan makes for an exceptional way to spend the day 🤗🥰Saw some familiar faces and made new connections. Thankful for such a great day! Excited for next year!

09/09/2026

🤗 Friends, I am beyond excited and thankful to be speaking at this year's Training and Development Conference led by the University of Victoria with the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business. An incredible line up of leaders and practitioners who care deeply about people and the organizations we find ourselves in. As an alumni of the Gustavson School of Business, I can tell you that this day's speakers are truly a gift. 🎁

I'll be sharing something that I've had to wrestle and get messy with in my own journey as a leader and as a person who loves people and culture: 💪 power dynamics. This is one of the biggest invisible cultural components we carry with us that shape how we lead, how we listen and how we perceive leaders. I haven't been perfect at leadership and I've certainly felt the impact of misunderstanding those who held authority over me. So our session is not only deeply personal but deeply honest, with encouragement to propel us forward into navigating friction with curiosity and compassion. 😊

🤗 I'd love to see you there! Spaces are limited so reserve your spot today: https://www.uvic.ca/gustavson/executive/events/training-and-development/index.php

This one-day event is designed for human resource professionals, learning leads and training coordinators in Victoria, BC.

09/03/2026

👉 PSA: The Relational Leadership Lab is cancelled . . . and that's okay 😊

Have you ever been so excited about something that you just impulsively go out and do it? I've been known to do that. After a boyfriend breakup, I cut my hair really short. After I got a new contract, I bought a lottery ticket. After my son expressed interest in an Etchosketch, I went out and bought him one.

That's the kind of person I am. 😁

Was I impulsive with the Relational Leadership Lab? No.

But the timing of my delivery was. And that's okay.

I am slowing down. Pacing and finding a rhythm that opens up for more collaborations and perhaps better opportunities to support leaders. Do I still believe in what I'm doing and am I proud of myself?

🥰 100 percent. I have no regrets. 🤗

I'm not going anywhere but I am pausing my own in-person workshops for now.

Be encouraged when the timing seems off . . . perhaps it's 🕰️ Father Time's way of allowing more beautiful things to shine forward. ✨

Subscribe to my Invisible Briefcase series 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7445559455171371008 and be sure to connect with me here.

🤗 My thanks to everyone who championed this course to their networks and believed in the work that I bring. I'm honoured to have such wonderful champions in my life. 🥰

08/25/2026

🤔 Someone asked me "Why, Andrea? Why this lab about relational leadership?" Because culture is the first to be ignored in the workplace and the last to recover from when the harm, friction or conflict happens.

I've seen the ways many of us, as leaders, push past the pulse of a person just to finish the task of the project. I've seen people be punished for how they simply showed up, understood the task or heard our requests. I've been misunderstood, both as a leader and as someone who's been led, and sometimes, the damage lingers long after we clock off.

So why Relational Leadership Lab? Because we have the ability to stop ignoring and start remembering that the cultures we embody are shaping how we lead, how we listen, how we expect our teams to work.

🪞 The biggest relationship we forget is the one with ourselves and this lab is an invitation to look at the sets, values and habits that we bring into the workplace everyday so that we begin to not only understand others, but ourselves.

Join me. Spaces are still available.

And if you can't, please share this with someone you think might want to explore leadership in a new way. It would mean the world to me if you did. 🥰

💼 Leadership doesn't get more human when we ignore what makes us human. It gets more human when we finally look. 👓

💼 Register Today: https://www.janklin.ca/relational-leader-lab
🗓️ Saturday, September 12th from 9am to 5pm
💸 Cost: $100 for General Admission; $75 for Students + Seniors
📌 Sunset Labs 400 Herald St, Victoria, BC V8W 3N8, In-Person

08/14/2026

🦐 Jumbo Shrimp.
🍭 Bittersweet.
🌎 Cultural Neutrality?

I've heard this phrase used more and more within project management spaces, HR conversations and leadership circles. "We need to have cultural neutrality in our project and our organization." And while it sounds good, even perhaps 'safe', it actually is doing more damage to us than we realize.

I invite you to read my most recent article where I unpack what 'cultural neutrality' really means and why there is no escaping a person's culture, no matter how hard you try. Within the Project Management world, many processes and protocols are largely Western, not neutral. Aspects like:

💼 Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs (self-actualization was actually grounded in Blackfoot Culture, ya'll he never credited them either)
💼 Units of Accountability (KPIs, individual goal setting, etc.)
💼 Agile/Scrum (self-organizing, flat power structure)
💼 Risk Management (change control boards, risk registers)
💼 Feedback Culture (direct, critique of leadership)
💼 Time Orientation (monochronic, linear, Gantt charts)
And so much more!!

Like with any invisible briefcase, when left unopened, the problems, conflict and friction that arises is never understood and never resolved. Slapping "cultural neutrality" just keeps the cycle happening, blinding us from seeing others as they are and as we show up as leaders.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!! You can read it here on my website 👉 https://www.janklin.ca/articles/cultural-neutrality-the-jumbo-shrimp-of-leadership or you can subscribe to my Invisible Briefcase Series where every month (ish . . .I try) I post a new article related to culture, leadership and the unhidden parts that shape us. Subscribe on LinkedIn Subscribe on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7445559455171371008

Also join me on September 12th for my inagural Relational Leadership Lab where we'll explore culture and leadership in fun and new ways. Not a workshop and not a training, but an experimental leadership playground to support you in your leadership journey!!! Register here 👉: https://www.janklin.ca/relational-leader-lab
See you all soon 🤗

07/06/2026

💼 "Limited by its design, my briefcase was filled with a lot of information that said very little about a person’s story, let alone their humanity."

There is a culture of disgust in our society, and it rests between the papers of privilege in our invisible briefcase.

The term for this disgust toward the unhoused or low income is called “aporophobia.” Aporophobia refers to the hatred, disgust, or rejection of people experiencing poverty. The hostility is directed at a person’s financial status, what they lack, what they don’t have or haven’t ‘earned’.

In North America, aporophobia is part of our culture. And this view of the unhoused or low income is drowning in dehumanization. City architecture now reflects this aversion to the unhoused. Coined as “hostile architecture”, physical elements and urban policies are installed to intentionally deter people from resting, sleeping or hanging out. What does this look like? Segmented benches with armrests placed intermittently. Spikes or studs aligning window ledges, sidewalk grates or alcoves so that people cannot rest or shield themselves from the wind. The idea? Put the unwanted out of sight. Culture of disgust.

♥️ We are capable of so much more. We have the resources, the money, the infrastructures to care - we simply choose not to.

Sometimes the hardest culture to be critical of is our own but we have to start there if we are to understand others.

👍 If you haven't already, please subscribe to my newsletter: Subscribe on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7445559455171371008
Or explore my website with other thought leadership on culture: https://www.janklin.ca/articles

💼 For this week, how will you position your briefcase? Will it be closed and left unexamined? Or will it be opened and seen for what it really holds?

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✨ Join me on September 12 in beautiful downtown Victoria for a one day Relational Project Management Course. We'll explore how cultural intelligence, neurodiverse awareness and trauma-informed approaches can actually create relational, inclusive and sustainable leadership. Registration is now open: https://www.janklin.ca/relational-pm-lab-sept-12 or email me [email protected]. ✨