by Guest Author | Jan 4, 2024 | Career Development, InPower Women Blog, Leadership
Many times the voice in our head holds us back. So it is quite often the voice in our head that needs to give us permission to move forward. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, Elizabeth’s advice will give you permission to do this more often! – InPower Editors
Don’t stand in the way of your own success. Give yourself permission to succeed in exactly the ways you want. – Click to Tweet
What if the only thing holding you back from experiencing the life and building the business of your dreams is yourself?
In general, women tend to struggle with more of a “confidence gap“ than men. Learning to have an ownership mindset and understanding how to communicate in an effective, factual way can help you feel confident and empowered at work. But when you own your own business, the only person to manage up to is yourself. Sometimes that can pose the most difficult challenge because you can only advance to a level that your mind perceives is possible. Once you expand your view of what you perceive as possible, you need to give yourself permission to believe that these possibilities exist for you.
As a woman business owner for over eight years, I’ve seen for myself and others that we need to give ourselves permission in these three key areas to move forward.
Permission to Be You
Being a woman in business puts you in a delicate situation. In my experience, you need to work very hard to give yourself permission to act and build your business in manner that’s congruent with who you are as a person. Don’t typecast yourself. I have an enormous amount of respect for many women business owners who focus on only serving women, who share their personal lives extensively — baby photos and all — and talk about things like channeling your inner goddess. But frankly, that’s just not me. My business serves both men and women. I keep my private relationships private. And I don’t focus on “feminine energy.”
On the other hand, I’m far from the stereotypical hard-driving, high-growth, VC-funded tech entrepreneur who lives by analytics and sleeps in the office. I own a primarily service-based business, focus on a sustainable lifestyle and believe that emotions — both my own and those of my audience — play a critical role in how effective my business is.
Give yourself permission not to fit a mold of what a “female entrepreneur” should or shouldn’t be, and allow your brand to grow accordingly. Unapologetically be yourself, and you will have the greatest capacity to thrive as an entrepreneur.
Permission to Pivot
Just because a direction was right for you or your business in the past doesn’t mean that you need to keep doing the same thing now. It’s natural to evolve and change over time and for your business to do so based on changing market demands, personal growth and emerging opportunities.
If you don’t like your business’s direction, shift it. You’re the boss. You don’t need to wait for someone to give you permission to serve a new market, develop a new product or service or reinvent your company entirely.
I lean into the risk when I’m considering a new direction. While in this phase, I continue to work with my existing clients but shift my business development focus to acquiring clients for the new potential product or service. If I can and I like how the process develops, I build up that new part of my business and either keep the other parts at a maintenance level or let them naturally drop off. By taking this approach, I can explore new areas of growth without a huge financial risk if an endeavor doesn’t end up as I expected.
Give yourself permission to explore the viability of your ideas. Remain open to pursuing them if you receive great results. Let them go if you don’t.
Permission to Be Happy
As an entrepreneur, if you’re not happy, something is wrong. You have the primary responsibility to redirect the course of your business. Sometimes that looks like making space in your schedule for essential wellness activities such as sleep, exercise and relaxation. Other times, it looks like a complete overhaul of the way that your business operates.
Just because you built something, someone wants you to do something, or you can make money doing something, doesn’t mean that you can or should move forward. Every business goes through some stressful seasons. But if you begin to dread or resent your company on a regular basis, it’s time to figure out what needs to change and shift. Also if you really, really love what you’ve created and it’s working, you don’t need to change what you’re doing just because others perceive something else as “successful.” For example, I love living in the Midwest. Although I appreciate my network on the coasts, I don’t have a desire to move to these epicenters because that would have a negative impact on my health and happiness.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you want to build a high-growth, fast-track business in Silicon Valley, go for it! Just because you’ll find a larger number of men at the table doesn’t mean that you’re in the wrong place. You should do what allows you to fulfill your potential. Find the people, places and business opportunities that not only produce a dopamine rush of initial excitement but also end up leaving you satisfied and fulfilled at the end of the day.
Consider this permission granted to be YOU; with a business as big or small, as local or as international, as focused or as diverse as you want. No one but you can define the scope of what’s possible and no one but you can dare to believe that you can make it there.
The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.
Originally posted on The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC)
About author: Elizabeth Grace Saunders is the founder and CEO of Real Life E®, a time coaching and training company, and the author of “The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment: How to Achieve More Success With Less Stress.”
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by Andria | Jan 2, 2024 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery
I’m a list maker. There’s something very gratifying for me to be able to cross things off my “list”. They’re done. Finished. It feels good and satisfying. I’m sure those of you who are list-makers can relate. But what about the task list that never ends? The one that just keeps getting bigger and becomes overwhelming? Do you have one of those? Tackling the never ending to do list can be quite a feat – even for someone like me who gets so much satisfaction from “getting things done”.
How do you successfully get through that never-ending task list? Is it even possible?
Many of my clients are high achieving, high performing women who have not one but many never-ending ‘to-do’ lists. Sometimes these lists can become overwhelming, to the point where they are avoided, and then become an even bigger source of stress for my clients. What I typically hear them say is “If I can just get through this pile of things to do, then I’d feel better” or “If I can just plow through this list, then my mind would rest and I’d feel at peace”, or “When this to-do list is complete, I’ll take a day off”. What they often discover is that approaching the list from that perspective usually doesn’t work because the to-do list never ends. We know this is true. Busyness never ends. There will always be “things to do” on top of the things we already have to do. Waiting for the to-do list to be complete to feel better or feel at peace or take the day off turns into a never-ending waiting game. What my clients also discover is that dealing with your to-do list or feelings of overwhelm or excessive busyness from the opposite approach is what helps tackle the tasks on the list successfully – even those that seem to never end.
What the opposite approach means is to first, stop and take a breath
Allow yourself space to rest and feel at peace before tackling the list. Take the day off first and then work on the big pile of things on your desk. When you feel overwhelmed to the point of avoiding what you have to “do”, it’s a big sign that you need a break. But those signs are typically ignored – we think we need to push ourselves and plow through the list and THEN we’ll feel at ease. When you push through from the place of overwhelm and exhaustion, you don’t get much done. Why? Because you’re tired. You need a break. You need to allow yourself the space to recharge and restore yourself. Doing this not only makes the task list look less ominous but also helps you actually be productive when you’re working on it.
Giving yourself the time to be at peace, to take a break and feel rested allows you to have more energy and be a 100 times more productive than if you just “plowed through”. I know the tendency is to plow through the never-ending to-dos. It’s my tendency too but it almost never works. I encourage you to do the opposite. The next time you feel overwhelmed by your task list and find yourself saying things like “I’ll schedule the day off when I finish this project” or “Once I get though all this I’ll feel better”, do the opposite. Step away from the list. Take the day off. Go for a 20-minute walk outside and breathe in the fresh air. Recharge yourself, bring yourself peace, and then tackle the to-do list. Just try it and see what happens.
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by Andria | Dec 30, 2023 | Career Development, People Skills
One of the first leadership and management lessons most of us learn is how to delegate – and battle that old “control” instinct. Why is it first? Because leaders don’t scale unless they delegate well and you have to scale if you’re going to have a big impact. Andria has some great advice for managing the control demons in today’s post. – InPower Editors
One of the great opportunities of leadership is the delegation of tasks to others, which not only frees up your time to be more strategic but also develops those employees to whom you’ve delegated. Although it is a great opportunity for all leaders, I think it can be especially challenging for women. Truth be told, we like to be in control… Both in and outside of our leadership roles, we like to get things done and done our way. However, as we grow in leadership positions and take on more and more responsibility, we must let go of this control and learn how to delegate, not only for our success but also for the growth and success of those who work for us.
One of the great opportunities of leadership is the delegation of tasks to others, which not only frees up your time to be more strategic but also develops those employees to whom you’ve delegated.
Delegating means letting go of a fair amount of, if not all of, the control associated with the way tasks are completed. I find this to be a struggle for many of the leaders I coach as well as for me! As the owner of my business, I find that letting go of tasks and delegating to others can be quite a challenge at times. What if they don’t do it right? What if they don’t get it done on time? What if they upset the clients? If I let them, these “what if’s” can go on forever. I have tortured myself through many of them.
Three key ways to ease these concerns about delegating
These not only work well for me but for many other leaders too.
- You want a high degree of confidence in the people you delegate to; therefore, be diligent in the selection of those who work for and with you.
- You want a consistent number of updates and status checks can help ease some concern about delegated tasks. Personally, I need more updates and status checks early in the relationship. Once I get to know the individuals and their work ethic, and our relationship develops, the amount of check-ins decrease. You may find you always want the same amount of status updates regardless of how mature the relationship is; the key is to implement what works for you to increase your comfort level with delegating.
- It helps to alter “what if” comments from negative to positive. So, instead of thinking, “what if they don’t do it right?” think, “what if they do it better than I ever could?” Or, “what if this works out better than I thought?” That mindset shift helps you expect the best as opposed to expecting things to go wrong. Does this mean things never go wrong? Of course not, but it sets up an environment that is more expectant of success than if you kept thinking of all the possible ways things could go wrong.
The main idea is to focus on ways you can be comfortable delegating to those on your team. Develop the necessary relationships with team members so your degree of comfort is constantly increasing; therefore enabling the amount of delegation and “letting go of control” to increase. And, while you are relinquishing your control to others, you’re also shifting you mindset to look for and anticipate the best results.
Although this is not always easy for leaders, learning how to delegate and let go of control is necessary and highly beneficial for all. It not only enables you, as a leader, to focus on more strategic issues but it motivates the workforce to take on more responsibility and fosters more employee development.
What else do you do (or could you do) to foster more delegation on your team?
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Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
by Paula | Dec 29, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice, People Skills
Burnout is a work-related process of chronic stress and disengagement and has been called the occupational hazard of the 21st century. The formula for job burnout is simple: too many job demands, too few job resources, and not enough recovery or time to re-charge your batteries. Burnout impacts just about every type of industry and has been shown to effect quality of care and customer service, job satisfaction, attrition and turnover, and in healthcare, patient satisfaction.
Good leadership, whether in the form of an inspiring manager, getting regular feedback, or simply knowing that your leader has your back, can help prevent burnout. According to a new study, we now know that the opposite is also true. Bad leaders aren’t just toxic to an organization — they drive burnout and decrease job satisfaction.
As part of a regular survey process Mayo Clinic uses to foster a cohesive organization, 2,813 physicians and scientists provided a detailed evaluation of the leadership qualities of their direct supervisor. The respondents were asked to numerically rate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the following statements about their immediate supervisor:
** Holds career development conversations with me
** Inspires me to do my best
** Empowers me to do my job
** Is interested in my opinion
** Encourages employees to suggest ideas for improvement
** Treats me with respect and dignity
** Provides helpful feedback and coaching on my performance
** Recognizes me for a job well done
** Keeps me informed about changes taking place at Mayo Clinic
** Encourages me to develop my talents and skills
** I would recommend working for (name of immediate supervisor)
** Overall, how satisfied are you with (name of immediate supervisor)
What the study found was that for each 1-point increase in composite leadership score, there was a commensurate 3.3% decrease in likelihood of burnout and a 9.0% increase in the likelihood of job satisfaction. Think about how that translates into bottom line dollars — less attrition and turnover, higher patient/client satisfaction scores, and a reduced instance of errors.
I personally think that companies across industries should implement the same type of survey system so that managers can be held accountable and get the coaching they need to change bad practices.
It always surprises me how long an organization will tolerate a bad manager, because based on this list, being a good manager shouldn’t be that hard. Bad managers drive burnout and dissatisfaction which not only impacts the bottom line, but also the engagement and well-being levels of the people the organization relies on to grow the business.
Leaders need to be educated about the impact burnout has in an organization. With the right training and coaching, ineffective managers can build the five dimensions of effective leadership cited in the study: inform, engage, inspire, develop, and recognize.
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by Dana Theus | Dec 28, 2023 | Change Management, Diversity, Emotional Intelligence at Work
As I’ve begun to explore the interpersonal dynamics of workplace discrimination more closely, I have gone back to update my own understanding of workforce diversity data and what it tells us about the the demographic makeup of the modern workforce. I have been disappointed to find that the racial and gender statistics of leadership don’t look much better than they did 10 years ago, when I first began this work. However, it’s interesting to me that even though the numbers haven’t changed significantly, the discussion about diversity in the workforce has evolved pretty significantly.
Perhaps the discussion has shifted because we have invented new ways to measure bias, or because we are discovering more granular ways to define distinctions between groups, or because more people are unwilling to tolerate, and keep open secrets about, discrimination.
It’s probably all of these factors put together. As a result, the definition of diversity has expanded so that today there are almost as many forms of diversity as there are people, when you include the many combinations of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual preference, religion, age and thinking/personality style that any one person can embody.
Now that everyone (including the formerly thought-to-be majority classes) can be segmented into a distinct minority group capable of being biased against, then “workforce diversity” has evolved beyond being a workplace issue, affecting a few distinct groups, and has truly become a social justice and human rights issue that impacts everyone.
Changes in the definitions and discussions around workforce diversity
We see any problem through the lens we look through, which is why the skin color and gender expression our eyes show us when we look at each other became the original framework for the homogeny vs. diversity issue in society and in the workplace. Racial and gender demographics have historically formed the bedrock of our workforce diversity discussions, and the policies that they produced have tended to address these same demographics, i.e., how many people of color and women do we have in leadership and in our employee base? (more…)
by Dana Theus | Dec 26, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice, Dear Dana (Workplace Advice)
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our regular column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! Today’s topic is career planning! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana: You wrote a post about how white collar workers are losing jobs to AI-enhanced software. I’ve heard alot about factory jobs going away to robots but not jobs on Wall Street. I’m a systems tester for a small custom software firm but I wear a lot of hats, including documentation and web programming. Since I read your post I’ve started reading more about how testing is being automated with higher-end systems. My boss seems totally oblivious. I showed him a couple of articles and he shrugged and said he’s seen it before and I should just keep my head down and do my job (in so many words.) I’ve been thinking of leaving this company anyway and now I definitely don’t feel like they are going to be at the leading edge of the changes happening in my industry. There aren’t a lot of tech jobs in my area though and I don’t really want to move. Got any advice? — Stuck (way) outside of Sacramento
Dear Stuck,
Thanks for writing in with your inquiry. I don’t think you’re alone in sensing big changes coming that might overwhelm your company, and you with it. I’ve watched this space for a while and I’m truly amazed at the speed at which tech changes are starting to ripple through all industry sectors, including tech itself!
It sounds to me like you have three distinct issues you’re grappling with:
- Deciding to stay with your current employer
- Deciding to focus on systems testing or stay a generalist in IT/software development
- Deciding to optimize for your geography or your career
Let me address each of these issues individually, as I think they raise different questions worth considering.
1. Should you stay with your current employer?
Traditionally, employees assume their employers know what they’re doing and will be around for a while. We tend to focus a lot on how we’re treated to decide whether we want to leave or not. And we should pay attention to whether our employer values us! But this isn’t the only reason to stay or leave a company.
Disruption (digital and otherwise) is not only becoming common, it seems to be speeding up. The time frames between major economic disruptions is collapsing. Think of the time spans businesses have had in which to adjust between the following revolutions: agricultural, industrial, internet, mobile, genetic, artificial intelligence. The last four on that list have occurred in fewer than two decades, in my children’s lifetime.
Though the era we’re in always seems most volatile, businesses in every market regularly go bust and are always affected by economic and global trends. Even if a company doesn’t go out of business, every organization is subject to dramatic change without much warning to the employees and even a lot of the managers. Many employees find this hard to believe, but company owners and boards tend to hold these kinds of difficult decisions very close, in part to keep anxiety at a minimum until they can decide what to do, until it’s too late for employees to prepare and the resultant decisions too-often blindside us.
I once worked as a Vice President for a startup that got a ton of funding. Then one day the executives were called into the conference room by our CEO and told that our funding was in the form of stock options, which had just tanked, thanks to the 9/11 bombings and we had to let 40% of our workforce go in the next nine days. To say that we were shocked would be an understatement, and it was the beginning of a very dark time for the company, which stayed afloat, but only by trimming even more in the ensuing years and changing its business model completely (I was long gone). I have a client now that’s at the top of its industry and really forward thinking. They just merged with another industry leader in their space and had a big lay off. They’re now starting to hire again as they see how the organizations are merging. I even have a client who was blindsided by a layoff from a government job she thought was for life.
You should always be preparing yourself for the job you want to have 2-3 years from now.
In other words, you just never know how secure your employment is and you can’t assume your company will take care of you in a volatile market. It’s best to always be prepared for your next move to some extent. Given that the average job tenure is under five years anyway, this means that you should always be preparing for the job you expect to have 2-3 years from now.
My advice to you is to start reading up on the industry your company operates in to stay aware of trends. How will digital disruption affect your company or your customers? Is the industry growing or shrinking? How conversant in these trends are your managers? The owner? Do they seem to have plans to address them? If you seem more on top of things than your managers, that’s a bad sign. You can also ask more about the company’s financial health. Is it growing consistently? Are the contracts long-term? Are salaries regularly increasing? Are they making investments that will grow the company? If the answers to these questions are all “yes” then that’s a good sign, but if they’re all “no,” dig deeper.
The final line of questioning to pursue with respect to your employer is whether you can see yourself being happy in a job there for the next few years. Even if you don’t feel like you have to start a job search right now, it’s a good idea to explore your own work-life vision and regularly engage in career planning so you know what you need your job to be adding to your life in the years ahead. Every job comes with some headaches, but as soon as it fails to give you the things most important to you — experience, fun, good co-workers, interesting problems to solve, financial security, feelings of accomplishment — it’s time to consider your next move. This is a very personal decision, and too many of us wait until something goes horribly wrong to plan our next steps. Don’t wait! Learn to read the signs that it’s time to go early so you can make a smooth transition on your own terms. Your boss’ disinterest in AI might be one of those early signs. Dig deeper and see if you can find more — or not!
2. Should you specialize?
You say you wear a lot of hats, and in small companies this is pretty typical, and not necessarily a bad thing. I have had many generalist jobs that I enjoyed because no two days were ever the same. However, it’s pretty tough to turn a generalist job into a long-term career strategy if your goals include increasing income or higher levels of leadership. For these things, it’s a good idea to spend a chunk of your career specializing in an area that you enjoy and has the potential to grow in importance in the job market. Once you excel in such a specialty and begin to rise to higher levels of leadership you can begin to generalize more in a management and leadership capacity. You didn’t mention your age, but this can be a factor for many people, too. It’s common to be a generalist in your 20’s and again in your mid 40’s and onwards, but many people find that their 30’s is a great time to get to know a particular field very well.
Career misery is harder to climb out of than career boredom.
While it’s good to research which job categories have the most growth and opportunity in the future, I wouldn’t stop there. Too many people choose a job category because it looks good on paper, but if it doesn’t feel good to you, don’t do it. If you’re going to specialize, you need to enjoy it or you’ll burn out and hit career crisis that can threaten other things in your life. Making a career change is very possible – and becoming more common – but it’s not easy especially if you’re miserable when you do it. Misery is harder to climb out of than boredom. The bottom line is that working is hard work so you want to do something that keeps you engaged and interested. Of the hats you wear, which one interests you the most long-term when you think about specializing in it?
As for your area of systems and software testing, I would think that career field will continue to be mission-critical for a lot of tech firms, but as with many job categories, the work itself may change. As automation and artificial-intelligence become more prominent aspects of technology platforms many programmers and systems developers will have to migrate just as the factory workers did to become “bot technicians” and team leaders who can manage teams made up of both humans and technology systems. It’s pointless to try to out-tech the machines so those who survive and thrive will become experts at changing and adapting to an increasingly automated workplace.
Should #leaders manage differently when they have bots on their team? <– Click To Tweet
When a bot can produce a team’s dashboard and highlight areas for focus before the team meeting more effectively than any of the team’s humans, the bot will effectively become a team member. More and more, managers and leaders in every industry and job category will need to manage teams made up of humans and machines and guide them through rapid change. The ones who are proficient in change leadership and human dynamics will excel because they keep the humans focused and efficient alongside machines that don’t get distracted by office politics and interpersonal conflict. So even as you brush up on your tech skills to learn to play with bots, don’t forget to invest in your soft skills too!
3. Should you optimize for your geography or your career?
You mention that you don’t want to move but find your area isn’t a tech hotbed. I don’t really have any specific advice for you here except to recommend you research jobs nearby, far away and in cyberspace (virtual) equally so you have a good understanding of your options. It’s always an eye-opener to discover options you didn’t realize existed (nearby or elsewhere) and it’s much easier to make a hard decision when you’re looking at information instead of when you’re relying on untested assumptions. I also recommend doing this research comprehensively, meaning that you should research your interests and options along many dimensions, geography being only one. There’s also your career interests, work-life-family needs, lifestyle and financial requirements, your personal strengths and growth desires and what companies in different industries and geographies have to offer you.
Be sure to include close family members in the discussion appropriately. I had one client who was surprised to find that his wife actually wanted to relocate when he’s been assuming she didn’t. The conversation about his job opportunities opened up a whole new line of discussion for their marriage and prompted her to consider a career change, too. Of course, you need to balance your needs against the needs of others, and that’s a very personal decision but it’s much easier if you’ve discussed the issues with those others first.
If you’re considering quitting a full time job to work virtually on contract, be sure to research the pros and cons of this. When you go contract, you’re taking on a different kind of risk, and different costs, than when you’re employed and you need to plan appropriately. I recommend that you moonlight a bit in the gig world before you quit to go full time.
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by Jennifer Miller | Dec 23, 2023 | Emotional Intelligence at Work, Employee Engagement, Innovation
As a business leader, you want to stay on top of the latest trends in employee development and retention. The rapidly evolving human capital management (“HCM”) field is full of innovation and change, and there are some great ideas out there you can adapt to your own team’s development. But since it can be time-consuming to wade through the many blog posts, trade journals and YouTube videos dedicated to the topic, much less attend a conference, I’m going to make it easy for you.
In my role as a freelance writer covering all matters of people in the workplace, I have access to the foremost thinkers on the topic of HCM. These are the researchers, consultants, and analysts that work alongside leaders like you to learn how to bring out the best in people and create engaging, thriving workplace environments.
Here’s a round-up of recent trends in the HCM space, according my latest interviews with noted experts in the field.
Harness technology to create a more human workplace
Counter-intuitive as it may seem, technology can play a role in bringing humanity back to the workplace. Workplace futurist Jeanne Meister studies emerging trends that affect the modern office. Meister, who is the founder of the HR Advisory firm Future Workplace reports that we need to think of technology as augmenting our jobs rather than replacing us. She uses the example of “artificial intelligence” (AI), which is being touted as the next emerging tech trend to impact the way we work. To help us frame the way we view AI at work, Meister advocates for a language shift. “Instead of ‘AI’, let’s call it ‘IA’—‘intelligence augmentation’,” suggests Meister. This reversal of the letters puts the “human” back into the equation because it acknowledges that people are still part of the decision-making process, even if technology plays an ever-increasing role. “Our job [as leaders] is to look at how technology is enhancing job roles and plan for what new skills and new jobs will be created because of it,” says Meister.
Make Compassion a leadership competency
I’ve seen a noted uptick in usage of the word “compassion” in my business reading. The book Awakening Compassion at Work by Monica Worline and Jane Dutton released earlier this year is a good example. According to a survey of more than 35,000 leaders conducted by consulting firm Potential Project, 91% said that compassion is very important for leadership and 80% would like to enhance their compassion, but do not know how. “Compassion is clearly a hugely ignored skill in leadership training, and that’s why we are now focusing on it as one of three core leadership qualities,” says Rasmus Hougaard, Potential Project’s Managing Director. (The other two are mindfulness and selflessness.) Some companies are even putting compassion front and center with their job titles. For example, Cory Custer of the Seattle-based wealth management firm Brighton Jones recently left his role as Director of Learning and Development to take a newly created role of Director of Compassion. “The change was part of a broader initiative to establish compassion as one of our core values and then ensure that we have someone who is dedicated on helping the organization put compassion into action,” Custer told me in an email. “What we want—and likely every business leader wants—is for our employees, our clients, and everyone we come into contact with, to be happy. We think compassion is the surest way to do that,” writes Custer.
Personalize learning and development
The workforce continues to expect interfaces at work that mirror their technology experiences at home. This expectation plays out in the learning and development field in the way that employees gain access to their learning. Gone are the days when “training” is dictated primarily by either one’s manager or the training department. Instead, employees will drive their own learning, by accessing what learning and development analyst Josh Bersin calls, learning “channels” or “playlists.” Bersin heads up Deloitte’s “Bersin by Deloitte” HCM advisory business unit. On Bersin’s personal blog, he observes that the training and development function will be a hybrid of playlists curated by employees, which will “become dynamic, user-generated programs, available alongside formally developed programs built by L&D or other professionals.” I talked earlier this summer with Bersin, and he told me that most L&D professionals are “jazzed” by these developments. “Learning professionals are highly educated and are typically very excited by the advancements in technology,” noted Bersin. The challenge, he adds, is sorting through the rapidly-changing offerings by vendors to determine what will align best with their companies’ current LMS systems.
Leverage design thinking in human systems development
Design thinking—a problem-solving methodology that focuses on creating solutions centered around the needs of a “user” or customer—is making headway in the HR and L&D worlds. Design thinking goes beyond simply thinking of “what do our employees want,” to “how can we design an overall experience that best meets employee and business needs?” From recruiting, to onboarding, to off-ramping employees, all facets of the employee life cycle are open for design tweaking. Tamra Chandler, founder of the consulting group Peoplefirm, has built design thinking into one of her company’s core offerings, which is a five-step methodology designed to help companies reboot their performance management process. Step two in the process is what Chandler calls, the “Sketch” phase, where ideas are “sketched in” before any firm decisions are made. “This is the part of the process where we get clear on the company’s design principles. We can ask ourselves, ‘Are we making the right choices to support the design we have in mind?’” This focus on the overall design of an HR system or practice provides a framework for decision-making.
DIY Team Creation
Employees expect to create their own destinies at work. This desire is starting to emerge in the way in which decisions play out in the creation of teams. Cecile Alper-Leroux is vice president of human capital management innovation for Ultimate Software. She cites research commissioned by her company that revealed two-thirds of employees want a say in creating their own work teams. There’s even a move afoot in which entire teams are kept intact and moved around the organization to capitalize on groups that work well together. “We have seen some organizations say, ‘Why not move intact teams?’ We know how important it is to trust your colleagues, so why break up the team if it’s not broken?” says Alper-Leroux. Start up firm Elevator is tapping into this trend by offering a platform for people to assemble their “dream team” online and then apply as a group to companies that have openings for projects.
As these five emerging HCM trends illustrate, new models in talent management and employee engagement have departed from traditional forms of employee development approaches. This means that there’s a new frontier in developing people—one that will require leaders to exercise their creativity and personal power. Are you ready to lead in this new world?
Women Healing Our Broken Relationships with Power
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by Dana Theus | Dec 21, 2023 | Emotional Intelligence at Work, Insights & Inspiration
How do you plan to lighten your soul in the new year? Do you look forward to a new year with anticipation and hope? Or is it more like dread? My clients often tell me that even if they’re excited about the challenges on the horizon in the coming year, they’re overwhelmed with what’s currently on their plate.
This kind of “accomplishments clutter” isn’t so different from the actual jumble of old stuff currently cluttering up your closet. And just like your closet, when you clean up your thoughts about all you’ve accomplished, experience gratitude for it and then let it go, your soul lightens and you immediately gain more energy for what lies ahead. When it comes to starting off the new year properly, this is the key missing element and the reason so many New Year’s resolutions come to nothing. Want to give your New Year’s hopes and dreams a little boost? Start by putting this year’s stuff to bed so you have a clean slate to start anew when the calendar flips to January.
Before you jump into planning for the upcoming year, give some thought to how the last 12 months have shaped up for you–and shaped you! Your New Year planning always goes better when you start from a clean slate, but it’s surprising how seldom we take the time to clean the slate! Yet, this is exactly the step that will lighten your soul!
Here is a very simple formula you can use to help you clean the slate for the year ahead. I started doing this about 15 years ago and now I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s a key part of my New Year’s celebrations.
FIRST: Look Back And Give Yourself Credit
Take the time to remember what went right! There’s nothing more challenging than starting from a negative all-the-stuff-that-didn’t-happen viewpoint. So start by identifying the things that went well and give yourself credit for having helped create them.
SECOND: Learn From Your Success
When things go right it’s important to try to understand why. Even when it seems like it was “just luck” there are usually patterns you can learn from. Become a student of good luck, best practices and accomplishment and you’ll find yourself achieving more in the future.
THIRD: Preserve Important Things Still To Be Done
After analyzing success, look at what’s left and pull out the things that are still important and should continue to be on your plate as you move forward. Try to choose the fewest number of things to take forward with you.
FOURTH: Lighten Your Soul and Let Go Of Stuff That No Longer Matters
This step may be the secret to cleaning your slate. Take the time to look at all the things that didn’t get accomplished, that aren’t important enough to keep on your plate moving forward and Let.Them.Go.
This process will help you anytime you need to start fresh, but it’s especially important to do at the beginning of a new year. You can do it separately for work and for life, or combine the list into the work-life blend that you live. There’s no wrong way to do it, just do it!
Are you intrigued by the idea of “clearing the decks” to help you achieve more in the upcoming year? I created a Year in Review Workbook that digs more deeply into the practice of starting the new year off with a clean slate. It’s available when your join InPower’s Coaching Community, which offers unlimited access to events, career transition guidance, leadership development lessons and online discussion boards. In the community we’ll also be exploring this theme more in the months ahead, so why don’t you join us and lighten your soul with a little boost of fresh energy!
Women Healing Our Broken Relationships with Power
Check out InPower Women – rewriting the historical narrative on women and power.
Together we’re reconnecting to our own power–today!
by Mary | Dec 20, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice
By: Mary Schaefer
What do you do when you’re really ticked off
A client asked me for coaching to help deal with having difficult conversations a colleague. The colleague made false accusations, talked about him behind his back and micromanaged. Overall he made him look bad. We talked over several ways to deal with the situation.
My client knew some of the options he considered were vengeful and accusatory. They would just escalate the tension. He knew he needed to “get his head in the right place” before initiating any discussion. I call this “psyching yourself up for the interaction.”
Get your mindset right
You can then approach, listen and interact with the other person from a place of curiosity. You take responsibility for your interpretations, rather than accusing and blaming.
Just how do you psyche yourself up to be there? Wouldn’t you just be fooling yourself? What if they ARE out to get you? That’s an understandable response.
Your conclusions about the situation may be right on target. You can’t know for sure until you talk to the person about it and have the difficult conversations. But you certainly can’t approach them while you are seething, if you want a chance at a positive result.
They may never admit their intentions. And, approaching the situation in a non-accusatory way will more likely salvage the relationship.
You my not care to salvage the relationship. But you will have spoken your truth in a way that is respectful — even if you believe the other person doesn’t deserve it.
Seven key points for psyching yourself up for difficult conversations
As difficult as these questions may be to answer, take some time to think about your responses. These questions aren’t intended to get you to back off.
There’s no need to be a doormat. Take responsibility for what’s yours. but nothing more. You want to get to a place where you can compassionately express your concerns. You want to be open to the other person’s side of it. Ask yourself:
- What do I like about the other person? Does the individual have any redeeming qualities that I can admit? The person may be picky. Can passion for attention-to-detail add to our collaborative efforts?
- In what ways might this person be right about this situation? Is there something I don’t want to admit I’m responsible for? Maybe I should have communicated sooner. And even if I don’t think so, would it be that difficult to communicate more often or in more detail?
- Is there more than one explanation for the other person’s behavior? For instance, he or she may be threatened by my expertise or knowledge. This is not an excuse but an explanation. This may help diffuse the intensity of your anger, feeling of betrayal, etc.
- What assumptions am I making? Do I know for sure that anyone talked about me behind my back?
- Where might I be wrong? I’ve been building this story without checking on facts and motivations.
- What do I value about the relationship? This person is not going away. We’re going to be working together for the length of this project. We need each other’s unique expertise.
- What is my goal? What do I have control over? I know. The only thing I have control over is what I do with this. I need to be clear on my intention for the discussion, and my own standards for myself.
Now, you’re all ready, right? Don’t expect to do this perfectly. Even a little effort can make a difference.
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
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by Dana Theus | Dec 19, 2023 | Gender Research, InPower Women Blog, The Woman Effect, Women in Leadership
On December 3, 2012 I had the honor of speaking to a group of powerful women in Washington DC at a TEDx event, TEDxMassAveWomen. I’m very excited because I’ve long wanted to distill down what InPower Women’s about, into a simple but powerful video, and this gave me that chance (video below). Since so much of what we do here is research-based, however, there’s no way I can include all the appropriate research references in my talk, so I’ve decided to post them here, with a short synopsis of the argument of my talk. Also, posting it here means I didn’t have to turn my talk into a blathering of statistics and the information is still available!
Invite Dana to speak at your next event.
The Stories of The Tragic Queen and the Underdog Princess
In my research and conversations with women and other women’s advocates, I’ve struggled with whether the feminist narrative is ready to accept a new heroine as its main character. I named this new heroine the Underdog Princess, and if last summer’s blockbuster movies are to be believed, she wields a bow and arrow with great skill. I would like to suggest that she be considered as a replacement for the Tragic Queen we’ve known and loved for so long. Let me tell you their stories to bring you into this conversation.
The Story of the Tragic Queen starts out quite promising…
- Before high school, she’s just as ambitious as the boys and just as smart, including at math! But by her teens she’s begun to succumb to the stories of her older brothers and sisters, teachers and parents, and she doesn’t act as smart, tells herself she’s not very good at math and she becomes less likely to seek recognition for her achievements.
- When she grows up, and enters the work world where her prospects become dimmer:
- She hits a very real glass ceiling once she moves into a director level.
- This isn’t all her fault, of course. The culture is measurably stacked against the Tragic Queen. When she takes on managerial and leadership roles she encounters a real double-bind, no -win situation:
- Unfortunately, at least once a week she’s sexually assaulted (twice a week if she’s a global citizen) .
- She succumbs to another barrier of exhaustion and impossible dreams.
In the end, the Tragic Queen concludes that she can’t have it all after all, and accepts her lot in life, with a tinge of resentment and sadness.
The Story of the Underdog Princess also starts out quite promising…
- She earns over 58% of the baccalaureate degrees, since 2010, over half the masters and PhD’s in the United States.
- She manages to get past barriers that stopped the queen and makes it into very high leadership positions in our society about 15% of the time, on average.
- The Underdog Princess excels for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that our Underdog Princess is very capable and the people around her know it. Even though she’s subject to cultural stereotypes that lead both men and women to view male characteristics as leader’s characteristics,
- She doesn’t just demonstrate her success in big companies either,
- If she jumps ship to start her own business, she’ll be joining fastest growing segment of small businesses, women-owned businesses. Often she’s quite content underearning her male entrepreneurial counterparts because she’s “having it all” and balancing work and family by working on her own.
- If she’s running a startup, her company is 4% more likely to be successful, to go public or be sold for a profit.
- When she makes it into the top leadership tier, with other women at a ratio of about 3-in-10 (30%) – she and the other women she’s working with have an exponentially positive effect – well beyond the percentage of their participation. In these situations she is part of what I call The Woman Effect (also knows as the 30% solution). While this finding doesn’t show causation, the correlation is so consistently found – across sector, geography and research organization – that we know there is some magic that happens when leadership cultures include 30%+ female members.
- If she’s on the board of a Fortune 500 with other women comprising at least 30% of her colleagues, her presence correlates to 84% higher return on sales, 60% return on invested capital and 46% higher return on equity with companies with no women on their boards.
- Her company is more socially responsible and focused on sustainability practices, both for the company itself and for the community in general.
- If she’s running a philanthropic organization, it’s more accountable and strategic in it’s donations.
- She doesn’t have to be American to ignite The Woman Effect either. If she’s an active member of a village in a developing economy, a lucky woman who received education and healthcare growing up, her involvement in the local economy and culture correlates to a quadrupling of productivity – resulting in healthier and wealthier communities.
- The Underdog Princess also has a different relationship with the men in her life and is often happier as a result.
- She renegotiates household roles and responsibilities with her partner, being more likely to have one of the increased number of flexible-job fathers, who – according to the 2010 Census – take primary responsibility for toddlers about 30% of the time now.
- 40% of the time, she out-earns her husband.
In the end, The Underdog Princess is more likely to have it all by redefining “it all”.
Why we can’t really choose…
These statistics don’t really tell us whether we’re ready for the Underdog Princess to take on heroine status yet, because they aren’t really describing two different women, they’re telling conflicting stories about all women. The conflicting data is all “true” but makes it harder to tell the true story of the modern woman.
In real life,
- The Tragic Queen runs more socially responsible and successful businesses and the Underdog Princess confronts the no-win leadership stereotype in herself and her colleagues.
- They both encounter the glass ceiling in their culture and in themselves.
- They both deal with too-frequent sexual assault.
- They both struggle to have all of what they believe is important in their lives.
To the best of my ability to tell, the primary difference between the Tragic Queen and the Underdog Princess in real life is in what they choose to believe to be true for themselves, in their own lives. Their personal choices to believe they are powerful gives them power in the world or holds them tragically powerless.
So it’s appropriate I’m not ready to end this story and decide who the new heroine is, because it’s not my story, it’s yours.
It’s Up To You
Since how this story progresses is really up to you, I’d like to give you one last data point to help you live the story of the modern woman most powerfully.
In 2010 a group of MIT and Carnegie Mellon researchers randomly selected about 700 men and women from the ages of 18-60. They put them in random groups and gave them various problems to solve. They were hoping to find out what made groups of people smarter. Would a group of high IQ types out think some lower IQ types? Would cohesive teams or motivated teams out smart the rest? The answer surprised them. The primary factor that predicted a group’s intelligence was how many women were on that team. They concluded that women naturally brought more social sensitivity to the group interaction. This social sensitivity ensured that a greater diversity of ideas got out on the table, more people were heard, more brains participated more problems got solved. This is the secret sauce of The Woman Effect and this study shows it’s not just women on corporate boards who can ignite it, it shows up wherever women show up.
So the women’s ability to make their groups smarter wasn’t because they were smarter or more capable or tried harder – it was because they were there.
Here’s what I like most about this research.
- There were some Underdog Princesses, but the statistics say there were more Tragic Queens.
- All the women in this study were just like us, struggling with glass ceilings, cultural stereotypes and self-doubting voices telling them they’re not enough and not valuable. All these women are struggling to “have it all” just like you and me.
- These flawed, regular women were able to make THE difference, just by showing up and participating.
What was true for them is true for you.
One of the biggest differences you can make isn’t one that can be learned, or earned or given. It’s in your bones and blood, wild and wonderful hormones and your double XX chromosome. You can’t not be it, and even if YOU don’t value it (which you should!), this research says that when you show up and participate, the world gets better anyway.
The only thing you can do to ensure you DON’T ignite The Woman Effect is to hide this gift inside you. If you DON’T show up – or you DON’T participate – if you don’t get a seat at the table or don’t speak up – then more problems don’t get solved and the world isn’t as good as it can be.
On behalf of a world that wants to get better, I have one request.
Please let all the other stories go. Don’t worry if you’re the Tragic Queen or the Underdog Princess. Let those stories go too, and as much of the self-doubt as you can – just let them go. Those stories not nearly as important as you are.
My request to you is that you stop hiding, show up and participate.
That’s the hidden key to your power.
Because when you come out of hiding, show up and participate, no matter what you bring with you and what statistics your living your life into…. you and I – and our children and all the people we want to “have it all” with… we will all be living in a better world.
Whatever you’re waiting for isn’t as important to the future of our world than you are. Stop hiding. Come out. Participate.
What ARE you waiting for?
Join Our Women’s Mastermind
Join our professional community of women to reconnect to your personal and professional source of power. Check out our upcoming mastermind events:
Mar 19 – Is the era of “good leadership” over?
Apr 16 – Psychological Safety and Gendered Competition
May 16 – TBD by the group
