by Dana Theus | Nov 29, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice, Dear Dana (Workplace Advice)
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly 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! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana,
I have been on a number of interviews and they all seem to go well. I have a number of great conversations, brainstorm with the crew, meet with execs for at least an hour at a time, brainstorm with them, and consider the interview a success. However, I haven’t had a job offer.
I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. In one case, the hiring manager referred me to a different group, which I wasn’t totally qualified to meet with. Some additional background info: I have a lot of experience in my field (+15 years) as well as management experience. I have some solid accomplishments and awards for what I contributed to different organizations. They are great success stories! The metrics all contributed to the bottom line. So you know, I have been applying for individual contributor positions. Is the problem that I should be applying for manager positions? Or higher? Am I applying for the wrong job level?
Management Material in Miami(?)
Dear Management Material:
When you find yourself in a situation where you’re getting lots of interest but no job offers, it means something is out of alignment in your job search. Without knowing more about your specific situation I can’t tell you what it is, but check out this list of possibilities and see if one of them rings true for you.
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- Maybe you’re looking for the wrong cultural fit. For example, maybe you think you fit in a hard-driving organization but your heart wants a more laid-back atmosphere. Culture fit is one of the main reasons people who are qualified don’t get the offer.
- You’re up against more competition than you were earlier in your career. As you pointed out, you have a lot of experience, and probably a good salary, which may be pricing you out of the individual contributor positions you’re targeting. The higher you go, and older you get, the more expensive you are, and with some exceptions for highly technical and unique positions, your options in the individual contributor category get smaller with age, salary and experience. Be careful about applying for a higher management position if you don’t have much management experience behind you, though. Be thoughtful about how you communicate why you’re looking for management opportunities at this point in your career.
- Maybe you’re looking for the wrong position. Are you clear on what you want? And why? When you’re crystal clear on what your dream job looks like, and why you’re a great fit for it, you and the recruiters will weed you out of the interview process earlier for jobs that are a poor fit. This increases your chances of success in the interviews you do get and saves everyone the effort of interviewing you for opportunities that just aren’t quite right for you.
- Maybe you’re not putting your strongest accomplishments out front. It’s easy to talk about what we do, and harder to focus on the results of our work. But these accomplishments are what the hiring manager cares about most. Create a list of your strongest accomplishments and make sure they’re in your resume, LinkedIn profile. Learn to tell good stories about them in your interview!
Be sure to go back to the places that didn’t give you the offers and ask them for candid feedback. Don’t just go to the recruiter, but if you can reach out to anyone you interviewed with – or others in the company who might be able to learn more on your behalf – you’ll get different perspectives. Be clear that you’re asking for your own self-understanding. You should learn something from those discussions about what you can do next time around.
Job Search Tip: Be Picky. – Click To Tweet
Don’t get discouraged, though. Getting the right job for you right now is always going to take time and be a process. You’re looking for the perfect next step in your career, so be choosey and learn about yourself in the process. That way when you find the perfect fit, you—and they—will know it immediately.
Dana Theus
Executive Coach
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by Dana Theus | Nov 28, 2023 | Emotional Intelligence at Work, People Skills
Miscommunication happens. The very nature of human communication dictates that the meaning I have inside me will become distorted by the time it makes it out of my mouth, through your ears and into your brain. But what happens when our brains seem wired very differently or our technical understanding of the situation varies by a lot? Are we destined to knock heads every time we try to collaborate? Are the communication skills we need to bridge varying levels of technical knowledge that much harder to master? What is the key to effective communication?
Since my entire career has found me translating between disciplines (i.e., political-to-technical, legal-to-engineering, marketing-to-engineering, and now human-to-workplace and human-to-self—I’ve really spent a lot of time examining this question and practicing (and teaching!) different strategies to sidestep the miscommunication chasms that seem to open up between people from different disciplines.
Meaning lives inside us. Words are poor proxies.
Maybe you’re familiar with these deep divides that too-often come out of nowhere, especially when talking about technical subjects. You’re in a meeting to discuss the requirements for a new software system and suddenly the engineers on the other side of the table hear you say, “it needs to be easier to use,” and say to you, “so we don’t understand what you want.” You want to scream at them, “This system eats up hours of my day hunting around for how to make it do what I want it to do and I just want it to work like the app on my phone! How can you not understand this? Don’t you use phone apps? Don’t you get what ‘ease of use’ is all about?” But you smile, swallow your frustration and try to explain it again and again and again, while they take notes and look confused. All of you feel like you’re in a Dilbert cartoon.
Or maybe you’re meeting with a project team who wants to give you all the reasons you can’t have what you want when you want it, and you just want someone to try to help you figure out how close you can get to what you want and give you a date you can work with. After 45 minutes of talking around the issues you finally break down and say, “Why can’t you just give me a decision I can make to move the date in by 30 days, like I asked you at the beginning of this meeting? We can cut back on what we’re trying to do to make the date but you have to give me the alternatives I can choose between!” They look at you blankly and tell you again why the dates can’t change.
Or maybe you’re a scientist trying to plan an event with colleagues and the planner you’re working with keeps editing the registration page to remove the three most important words in the event description—the big words only other scientists in your field will understand but which will tell them exactly why they must attend. You say for the third time, “Yes, I know a lot of people don’t understand that this is a mineral compound but for the people who do understand it’s important. Please put it back in the description, and I’d like it if we could include it in the subtitle too.” The event planner shakes her head and puts it back in telling you she’s not responsible for a low turnout.
Why is effective communication so hard on technical subjects?
People in technical fields are trained and rewarded for a “seeing is believing” mindset. Unfortunately for them, the meaning inside us—and the transfer of meaning between us—is by its very nature unseeable.
Sure, sometimes you run into a checkout clerk at the grocery who makes you crazy too, but not at the same frequency as those people on the other side of a technical communications divide. What gives? Why are the same communication skills that work in the shopping mall completely useless in some workplace conversations when the stakes are so much higher? Here are the three primary reasons it’s easy to miscommunicate about technical subjects and when working with technical or non-technical people.
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- Technical knowledge is abstract. Human beings have begun to understand complex realities in science, technology, manufacturing, logistics and other fields at such detailed levels that our brains must more deeply explore abstract realities–the dynamics and cause-effect relationships that frame facts differently than “face value.” As our speciality knowledge deepens we become more comfortable with these abstractions in order to plumb even deeper depths of our specialty. What’s the difference between “remote systems” and “the cloud”? To many people, not much! But to those who understand how networking has evolved software over the last few decades they understand that cloud-based architectures make things possible that the designers of remote systems never dreamed of.
- Words aren’t meaning. Even in the grocery store our words are just shorthand for the meaning our minds make of things, but as we explore deeper abstract concepts in our specialty fields our words become very tiny shorthand for very big ideas. This shorthand saves us a lot of energy when talking to others who know the code, but to anyone else we’re practically speaking another language. Knowing that you’re speaking in jargon and code is a key step to communicating across a technical language divide, but it’s usually not enough to do it well because the code exists for a reason. Explaining it in “plain English” (or your language’s equivalent) is really hard or the code wouldn’t exist in the first place!
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- Meaning matters but it’s hard to “see.” For good reasons, most technical fields value validation and proof of reliability. After all if you’re going to put human beings in machines that drive at high speeds or run huge and lots of financial transactions over thousands of miles of tiny wires filled with light, you need to know the thing you’re building will work 99.999% of the time. So people in technical fields are trained and rewarded for a “seeing is believing” mindset. Unfortunately for them, the meaning inside us—and the transfer of meaning between us—by its very nature is unseeable. People—even technical people–are full of fuzzy reality and no matter how much we want it to be true, we’re not just squishy machines.
Technical people and technical fields require clarity about abstractions inside us and outside us that simply isn’t there most of the time. Are we doomed to scream at each other in our minds (and sometimes out loud too!)? I don’t think so. After a couple of decades of this work, I’ve come to believe that all humans—even technically trained ones—are in the end humans. Everyone has the ability to “see the unseeable” when they look for it and learn to listen for it. I’ve also come to understand that anyone who wants to appreciate the way technical people and businesses work can become in effective communication with them, even about squishy things.
Effective communication skills aren’t rocket science, and even the rocket scientists need them to find the moon—or Mars!
Check out the InPower coaching Leadership Development Program for powerful virtual coaching resources that can help you master communications, conflict management and much more!
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What got you here won’t get you ahead. Stop working twice as hard for too little recognition.
by Dana Theus | Nov 25, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice, Communicating With Confidence, Featured
One thing I love most about the InPower Community and other forums where I take part as an expert is answering people’s questions. One of the most popular topics on people’s minds is how to prepare for a performance review, followed closely by queries about how to prepare for a job interview. Since these topics are so popular, I thought I’d summarize my key advice in this adapted Q&A. I also added a bonus tip on how to spot bias in the hiring process. Hope you find these tips helpful!
Preparing for a Performance Review
Q: How do I prepare for a performance review coming up? I expect that I will receive positive and constructive feedback from my boss. How should I filter the constructive or negative feedback?
A: First, know that by preparing yourself for “constructive” feedback in your performance review, you’re doing the right thing. Some managers are good at helping us see our opportunities to improve and others are not. You make it easier on yourself by getting ready for it either way. There are a few things you can do to help yourself prepare and have a constructive conversation. The first is, do your own evaluation of yourself! Be sure to identify what you believe are your major accomplishments to date, your lessons learned and specific areas you want to work on and develop. If you open the conversation with these things, you’ll give your boss the opportunity to validate what you already know and to help you expand your view of yourself at the same time. They may see accomplishments you didn’t! They may help you see strengths you hadn’t seen! They will probably also give you some insights into other ways you can grow…
Second, give yourself permission not to respond to anything specific in the evaluation discussion. Take notes and postpone your reaction to everything, especially the negative, until you’ve thought and absorb what you heard. You want to do this for two reasons, (1) you don’t want to become (or sound) defensive, and more importantly, (2) the best way for you to grow from this information is for you to consider it and decide consciously how you feel about it. Your boss’s opinion, after all, is only an opinion. It’s an important opinion. It’s an important perspective you should give weight to, but you may decide how much you agree with it and how you want to use it in guiding your own growth and development. Give yourself the gift of sleeping on it and making that decision before responding. But DO decide how you feel about it. DO decide how you will use this information to grow. And DO circle back with your boss after you’ve fully taken it in. Share with them your goals (in your own words) and what you plan to do about it. Ask for support if you need it.
Third, expect specific issues that will be hard for you receive negative feedback on. Imagine that you get negative feedback and feel triggered. How can you deal with that trigger ahead of time? What’s the worst that can happen if this comes up? What’s the best? What could it teach you? Visualize it ahead of time and keep asking yourself “”what would I do next?”” to step through how you’d handle it appropriately. It won’t happen the way you imagine it, but by going through this process, you can defuse the situations you’re most likely to mishandle. (It’s like figuring out in advance where the most combustible material is in the forest and clearing it out before bringing in the firecrackers… to use a poor analogy.) Learning to manage and defuse your triggers is a good skill to develop for all kinds of reasons and relationships and feedback sessions are a great place to start! Here are some resources that might help you:
Preparing for a Job Interview
Q: What are tips or best practices to prepare for an interview?
A: Congratulations for getting an interview! Interviews are always worth doing, even when you’re not sure you want the job (though don’t lead people on if you know you don’t).
The best way to prep for a job is to make sure you have the best understanding possible for the job requirements of the position you’re interested in. You’ll get this information from the recruiter who helps you set up the appointment and/or the hiring manager if you can get to them. Maybe you know others at the company who can fill you in on organizational changes that might be relevant too. List out the top 3-5 job requirements (e.g., collect customer requirements) and then write out your relevant experience and accomplishments next to each requirement. Armed with this list you can practice speaking your accomplishments out loud so when the opportunity comes up in the interview, you’re ready.
Just as you do in preparing for a performance review, you’ll also want to be very fluent talking about your most relevant previous career accomplishments. Though many of my clients find this topic daunting at the outset, once they go through the simple steps to outline their achievements, it gives them a greater sense of confidence in the job search.
Finally, pre-prepare a list of questions you have about the job, the company and the opportunity. The interview is your best chance to learn more that will help you make a smart decision. I wrote two blog posts about Interviewing for a job you don’t want and How to interview for a job and negotiate your job offer that provide additional information on interview preparations.
How Can You Spot Bias in the Hiring Process?
Q: How can you spot bias in hiring?
A: It’s important to recognize that there is always bias in interviews because all humans have internalized a wide variety of biases. This does not mean that interviewers or the process is sexist, racist or otherwise unfairly discriminating against you. In fact, bias can benefit you sometimes, too. If you’re not familiar with unconscious bias, it’s worth learning more and learning how to identify and mitigate your own biases. Check out this short video on the subject.
Unfortunately, unless discrimination is obvious during your interview process, you usually won’t be able to see any actual bias in hiring. This is because the impact of unfair bias occurs “on the back end” when interviewers compare notes and make hiring decisions. This means that for internal hires you might be more able to get relevant information that would tell you that bias might is a factor. But for external interviews, unless you know someone with good information about how the hiring process internally, you will never truly know.
That said, here are a few indicators of a less-biased process. If the interview process you’re experiencing doesn’t have these factors in place, you are right to believe there may be bias involved:
- you meet with multiple individuals over the course of your interview process
- you are told there is no single decision-maker
- you participate in panel interviews
- they tell you they have a blind resume review process (where names and genders are removed from the resumes)
- you meet others on your team and see that there is extensive diversity of gender, race and personality type
What should you do if these factors are not in place? How can you interview to mitigate the impact of bias? It’s tough and there’s technically little you can do unless you experience outright discrimination (in which case, talk to an employment attorney before you complain formally). However, you can ask about the company and/or teams’ commitment to diversity, which will tell them you care about this and stimulate their own desires to be unbiased and fair. You can also talk about your own accomplishments through the lens of how you personally added diversity to a team and helped the team deliver greater success. In other words, try to turn your own interests in diversity and working alongside people who manage their biases to your advantage. If these conversations make them uncomfortable or defensive, it may not be a team you want to work with, anyway.
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by Guest Author | Nov 23, 2023 | Career Development
Ever feel stuck between self-sacrifice and being a selfish b&%ch in the office? Too many women know what this no-win situation feels like. We really like how Leslie reframes this choice around “self-fullness.” Don’t get stuck, choose selfully! – InPower Editors
“Even though my efforts helped that project succeed, I’m not comfortable tooting my own horn.”
“It’s really hard for me to leave the office on time when I know my staff is still there slaving away.”
“I just can’t seem to take a day out for myself.”
Women leaders say that kind of stuff to me all the time. And when I ask them why these actions are so difficult, their answer is usually some version of “Because I don’t want to be (or appear) selfish.”
Navigating the whole selfish/selfless thing is hard for grit and grace leaders alike. For you gracesters, much of your value system is tied up with supporting others. Thus, many of you would sooner give away the store than put yourself first.
But it’s no picnic for you grit leaders either – just for different reasons. Even those of you who are comfortable advocating for yourself may hold back, out of fear of being branded as bitchy or aggressive.
If you are a woman in a position of power, then you know that the pressure to be seen as ANYTHING but selfish can be pretty intense. As a result, it may seem easier to err on the side of selflessness, because it seems like the less risky of the two options.
But actually, there are tremendous risks in that choice as well. Your views go unheard; your accomplishments stay hidden; your visibility diminishes. You may burn out because you don’t say no. Your influence and impact may wane. And that’s not just a loss for you, it’s a loss for all of us.
So is this really your only choice: selflessness or selfishness, martyrdom or bitchiness? Nope.
There’s a third option, which I call self-fullness. Self-fullness originates from that quiet but unshakable sense of yourself… a sense of your own validity (if not perfection) and a connection to the values you hold most sacred. No one can give those to you and no one can take them away. So they are the seat and source of your truest power. From a full self, you can stand from your own dignity without pushing others’ to the side. You can lean in without running over.
Self-fullness originates from that quiet but unshakable sense of yourself… a sense of your own validity (if not perfection) and a connection to the values you hold most sacred.
Self-fullness is the ability to take action from one’s core. It’s knowing our minds, our hearts, our values and our bodies. It’s knowing what matters and what doesn’t, what we’re capable of doing well and not, and what our team is capable of doing well…and not. Self-fullness is a realistic and full self-understanding, and that is the root of skillful action.
So what does that actually look like? Actually, self-fullness is not revealed by the action itself, but by the intent and spirit with which it’s carried out.
Here’s an example. I had a boss, Danielle, who took a walk at lunch every single day. Without fail. If Danielle had been rooted in selfishness, her walk would have communicated, “Screw you guys. I need ‘me’ time,” and we probably wouldn’t have appreciated it. If she were rooted in selflessness, she’d probably have given it up at our first urging. While we might have liked her for that, chances are we would have respected her a bit less.
But we could just tell that Danielle’s walk was self-fully motivated. A mid-day walk always returned her to ‘center:’ it restored her energy, perspective and sense of balance. Without her ever having to say so, we knew that that time to herself benefitted us as much as it did her. We respected and appreciated her for it.
The same action – taken from three different relationships to self. Each sending a very different leadership message and having a very different impact.
Danielle’s self-fullness had impacts far beyond herself. She was known as a formidable and trustworthy negotiator in any setting. She did not abandon her point of view when it made someone else uncomfortable. But neither did she go on the attack. Because she was clear about her values and principles, she knew where to stand and where to flex. She was nobody’s doormat and nobody’s witch.
Danielle also cultivated self-fullness in her staff. Danielle pulled me into her office. She sat me down and said, “Leslie, I’m concerned about your performance. I don’t see you staring into space enough. If you’re not staring into space, you’re not being as creative as we need you to be. So please stop doing so much, and stare out the window more.”
What about you?
Where do you tend to lean – toward self-sacrifice or selfishness?
What do you gain and lose from that default stance?
Think of a time when you felt really “self-full”. What was different about your internal experience, your outward actions and the external result?
What made your self-fullness possible? Where were you rooted? What was important?
How can you cultivate greater self-fullness in your life and your leadership?
Originally on: Leadershift Consulting
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What got you here won’t get you ahead. Stop working twice as hard for too little recognition.
by Dana Theus | Nov 22, 2023 | Coaching Advice, Work-Life Blend
There are many ways to become overwhelmed in this world, and finding work-life balance and greater success are two of them. Dana shows us a mind trick to managing our energy and reducing our sense of overwhelm. – InPower Editors
It’s summer! Which for many of us means juggling work and various forms of fun (i.e., family, vacations, weekend trips etc.) Work-life balance? Ha! Summer is one of those times when I begin to feel – for myself and my clients – that “success” often comes with a personal price tag. I’m not talking about the price the greedy people pay in the movies. I’m talking about the slow stretch of trying to do and be more on a larger stage in your career when you also want to build stronger and deeper relationships and experiences in your life.
Sometimes if financial wealth is part of your total success you can “buy your way out” of certain types of stress, but frankly that can create new kinds of stress (money takes energy to manage!). And you can’t buy your way out of everything you want to do, like taking a true vacation, where you actually put email away. Most of what you want to do requires that you DO it!
When you’re in the middle of feeling this stretch, it can feel like success has a diminishing point of return; the more you succeed, the less you like your life. Ultimately something has to give.
This is what made me go into business for myself. I had achieved most of the success I wanted, good job, great house lovely family… and I wasn’t enjoying any of it enough, or giving my family the attention it deserved. So I changed the rules.
That strategy worked for a while, but again, when I started having success with my own business, I felt the stretch again! This time I didn’t change the rules; I changed myself. I found new tools and let go of old beliefs that were making it impossible to do it all the way I wanted.
“Holding space” for something is an energy overhead cost, even when I’m not focused on it in real-time! via @DanaTheus” – Click to Tweet
One of the biggest beliefs I had to shift was about my personal scope of competence in any given moment. I had reached the limits of multi-tasking effectiveness and – more importantly – discovered that while I’m “holding space” for something, it’s taking energy away from many other things – even when I’m not focused on it! This was like “energy overhead cost” that had little return.
What does “holding space” mean and why was it costing me energy? I found that when I had a big presentation coming up, even while I was cooking dinner or having a meeting about a totally difference subject, part of my mind was “holding space” for the presentation. It was reserving some energy that I’d need to prepare and give the presentation. It was thinking about what I would say. It was working on it even when I was consciously focused on other things. And as more and more of these projects piled up, I became more and more exhausted and found it harder and harder to be present with what was in front of me.
That’s when I discovered the InPower Boundaries tool, which is a simple mindfulness process to stop holding space for stuff and focus. It increased my personal productivity and enjoyment of my life immensely. I can still find myself holding space for too many things at once, but InPower Boundaries help me remain focused even during when that happens.
Lesson learned: Work takes effort. Success takes energy. via @DanaTheus” – Click to Tweet
Here’s the secret to success I’ve learned. Work takes effort. Success takes energy.
And energy requires a different kind of management than effort. You don’t have to reach the point of diminishing returns if you learn to manage your energy well.
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by Dana Theus | Nov 21, 2023 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery
Is a secret to personal power sitting right under your nose? It was mine. I grew up a negative, cynical kid, and it wasn’t until relative adulthood that I discovered the ability for simple joy to help me find my power in otherwise powerless situations – mostly, but not only, on the job.
Turns out I’m not crazy or stupid (the remnants of that old cynic talking). Research into the power of positive thinking is thrusting happiness into the business and leadership press. It turns out that positive thinking leads to success more than success leads to positive attitudes. The U.K. is even launching a national Happiness Index this year to measure the national well being.
What goes around comes around
I like to dig beneath the data, because when we understand the dynamics producing the information, we gain power over how to bring it intentionally into our lives.
People respond to those around them. This is how we have power to affect others emotionally – and to be affected. This is where the power of joy comes from. To understand how this dynamic affects the business climate, we don’t have to look any farther than the stock market, which fluctuates our portfolios based on some impossible-to-predict-or-measure emotional confidence factor (we don’t fully understand it but we measure it in the Consumer Confidence Index).
Using the market dynamic as an example, it follows that when you inject an attitude of joy and optimism into the group around you, you provide others the opportunity to be infected with your positive outlook and thus infect even more people. This ability to infect and affect others works for good and bad – especially as it impacts those below you in the pecking order. So the question is, what do you want to be coming back at you from those you infect?
Choose wisely.
More Joy
But there’s more to the positive attitude power than even that. The feeling of joy is a clue that you’re doing something – surrounded by something – “onto something” – that lights up your soul. If you treat it like a clue and follow the clues, your joy will lead you to places that bring you even more joy. This is true in our careers as much as it is in our personal lives. If we really let it lead us, it takes us straight to our purpose in life, and in our purpose, we discover power we didn’t know we had that can fuel and support us as we take on the tough work required to change the world.
Of course we are all programmed with lots of “reasons” to ignore the joy clues littering our lives, or otherwise diminish them, to the point where many of us don’t even notice the little energy blip of joy that lights up sometimes when we do things that would bring us joy if we just paid attention.
If you’re on a personal power journey, however, I suggest that you begin to pay attention to those joy blips. Anytime you are faced with a choice on where to put your energy – open this email or that? – go the long way or the short way? – tackle this project or that? – follow the more joyful choice and see what it has to teach you about yourself and what powers you up. Think of it like a life-sized version of Angry Birds. You’re always working to make your next flail at the pigs more effective (i.e., your daily, Sisyphean life) but if you can snag one of those little golden eggs, you get some extra points that pay off in other ways.
Use the power of joy. Always snag the joy in every activity you can and over time your joy-score is higher. You’re more positively infecting those around you and – according to those who measure such things – you’re increasing your chances of success. You have nothing to lose except your cynicism and everything to gain. What are you waiting for?
Updated: Originally posted 2016
by Guest Author | Nov 19, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice, People Skills, Personal Branding
Please welcome special guest blogger, Heidi Lorenzen, President of Marketing Moksha, who’s turning her extreme marketing knowledge to helping us think about how to use social media to shape your personal brand.
“Social business” is a buzz-phrase increasingly used today to describe the transformed way business is being conducted in our global, connected, transparent, always-on, and “flat” world we live in. Adding “social” in front of “business” accentuates the important distinction between the command-and-control, hierarchical way business was conducted in recent decades, and the new normal of “open” business conduct being propelled by social and mobile technologies.
At the end of the day, though, when you peel back the layers of technology, networks and buzzwords fueling business today, the underlying premise of “social” business is the very essence of business itself: connecting people to exchange value. It’s just that now it’s on steroids.
Similarly, managing your career in this environment is still about building credibility, finding and seizing opportunities, and making sure your value is meaningful and your impact visible. The essence of WHAT you do to build your career hasn’t changed much, but HOW you do it has. Professionals can access the amplifying “steroids” of social media and networks to progress their career, too, but even the most socially-savvy people are overlooking some of the fundamentals – whether they are looking to climb the ladder in their current organization or find a new role elsewhere.
So if the essence of career management hasn’t changed, what has, and why do you need to pay attention to it? In short: it’s the same “global, connected, transparent, always-on and ‘flat’ world” mentioned above. As INSEAD professor and author of What’s Your Personal Social Media Strategy?, Soumitra Dutta, says, “Status is more democratic now. Expertise can be noticed more easily.”
In other words, we face the double-edged sword of being increasingly visible on the one hand (whether we want to be or not), and having a harder time making our value stand out, on the other.
Visibility
The interconnectedness of professionals on the web and social networks means anyone can find you online. And whatever they find online becomes your personal image or “brand.” Even if they find very little – no photos, no bio, no opinions – that will be your brand, and not a very career-enhancing one.
So it behooves you to consciously and proactively manage your online brand. Google yourself to see what you find, and then clarify what you want to be known for to achieve your personal and professional goals. For example, If you’re a software engineer and want to be promoted to management, you may consider associating yourself with things like Agile methodologies and other engineering leadership best practices. If you are an accountant in the steel industry, but want to move into consumer goods, you will want to associate yourself with topics like customer experience and brands. If you’re an out-of-work “baby boomer” HR executive, you will want to display savviness in new technologies and social networks for talent recruitment and management.
The more you write about or comment on a certain topic area, the more you will be affiliated with it. It’s much easier to become a perceived subject matter expert than in the past, so don’t forfeit that professional competitive advantage.
Visibility goes the other way, too. It means you can more easily access experts, mentors, and potential employers in your field. A junior marketer I know has successfully interacted directly with a world-renowned man considered to be the rock star of modern-day marketing, for advice. The ability to reach out to people directly is very powerful, yet few are taking full advantage of it to enhance their careers – or worse, they handle it poorly.
The transparency and visibility of the web means that everything you say or do matters. It can be impressive or it can be stupid. But in either case, it’s forever.
Value
Titles, years of experience, and a checklist of accomplishments on your resume are no longer enough to move a career along. Just as people now expect to get value from brands, not just be sold to (think American Express’s OPEN Forum targeted at small business owners), people also want to see the credibility individuals have earned in their space, not just be told about their accomplishments. These people are your “audiences”: your boss and their boss(es), your colleagues, your team, potential employers, recruiters, experts in your field, and more. And you need to continually deliver value to them on purpose.
Value as an employee can be communicated by the content that you create and share online. You can keep a blog, you can post tweets, and you can contribute meaningfully to the comments sections of articles and blogs you read online.
Value can also be communicated by what you share. Enjoy the halo effect of posting a great article on LinkedIn, or retweeting a thought leader, or posting great competitive information on your company intranet.
And today, just the very fact that you are socially active and digitally savvy shows value. Although it may not seem fair, employers increasingly factor in social competency with your overall competency. This is because “social” is a way of doing business. A social mindset – one that knows how to tap into the power and wisdom of “the crowd” – is as important a skill set as basic communication skills. You may be the best Drupal coder or business analyst or corporate counsel, but if you are not perceived as being able to improve your effectiveness by leveraging internal and external social networks, collaboration tools, crowdsourcing sites, and the like, you will be passed over for that promotion or new job by someone who can.
Your value is also enhanced by your network, or “following” or “tribe.” Since Day One people have been judged by the company they keep. Being active socially also gives you a lot of opportunity to learn from others and meet key players. Your network also becomes the amplifier of the great content you are putting out, giving you more credibility.
Be cautious but not intimidated
Plenty of social horror stories abound: the job applicant whose offer was rescinded when the employer found unprofessional commentary on Facebook or the law suit that erupted by an innocently and naively-made comment by an employee. Unfortunately, it’s these stories that tend to hold people back from integrating social practices into their career management strategy, but avoiding these professional blunders are common sense. First of all, don’t do or say online what you wouldn’t do or say at an industry event or company cocktail party. And secondly, be aware of any social media policies your company has.
The most important step you can take today for your professional growth and personal brand is to get in the game, and commit to leveraging social means, media and networks to advance your career.
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 | Nov 17, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice, InPower Women Blog, Personal Branding
Want to go places in your career? A lot of people will give you advice about your personal brand identity when you tell them you’re looking for new opportunities. In our socially visible culture, personal branding is that elusive skill that requires us to present ourselves authentically, visibly and powerfully. And yet, what is it really? Does it have to express the “true you?” Is it really worth the trouble to figure it out, much less put it out there? Where do you start, anyway? Can you just update your LinkedIn and be done with it?
In my executive coaching work I often advise people on how to align their personal brand identity with their higher level career goals. When you’re looking for specific opportunities, or looking to attract the people who will open the right doors for you, paying attention to how you show up online and offline is absolutely worth your effort. In short, when you craft your personal brand identity, you’re being intentional about building your reputation. And your reputation is what opens doors. Here are the kinds of things you can do proactively to show the world who you are with clarity and impact:
- update your LinkedIn with a clear picture of the “true you” in a professional context (i.e., who you are, what you’ve accomplished and where you’re going)
- network strategically to tell this same story to people who can help you
- target some big accomplishments in the direction of your future and achieve them
- repeat
Yes, as you can tell, this isn’t a short term fix. And even if it was, you’re always growing and changing so crafting your personal brand identity is really a matter of letting the story you tell about yourself keep up with who you are becoming. The people who have strong personal brands, the people who other influential people know about and talk about–inside companies and inside industries–do good work and make sure other people know about it, throughout their career. Over time they become good at telling their story and updating their personal brand becomes just who they are and what they do. Given how big this task can seem from the specific moment in time when you decide, “Yes! I’m doing it!” I understand why this can seem daunting.
Getting Started with Personal Branding
Here is where I see people go in circles when they launch into shaping their personal brand identity with intention. Maybe you’re stuck here too. As one client put it, “Crafting my personal brand identity feels like trying to push myself back into a toothpaste tube.”
It’s not comfortable. Even if you like yourself, have accomplished a lot and don’t mind talking about it (three non-trivial hurdles for many of us), putting all that into words on LinkedIn and networking talking points can feel like you’re trivializing all the great stuff that comes along with the “true you.” All of a sudden all that great energy you have for your career withers down into a statement like. “Hi, I’m a project manager.” Somehow putting yourself into words you think makes sense to other people feels like it takes all the bursting potential that is you and boils you down to something generic.
And if there’s one thing a personal brand identity is not, it’s generic.
Personal Branding: Like trying to stick yourself back in a tube of toothpaste? – Click to Tweet
Hopefully you’re looking at that toothpaste tube and saying, “Nope! That’s not me! I refuse to be generic. I refuse to stuff myself into words that don’t feel like me just so other people get it.” If this is you, then you’re in the right headspace to build a really powerful personal brand.
But if you’re like most of us, being in the right headspace isn’t enough; you don’t know where to start. So start by understanding that while the expression of your personal brand identity does need to make sense to others to help build your reputation, your “true you” starts with you.
You don’t craft yourself into what other people want, you craft yourself into who you are and then you express yourself so other people can see you.
Personal Branding: Start with who you are. – Click to Tweet
And then. Bang. There you are facing that other daunting question. Who am I?
The core question of humanity. The existential puzzle each person carries uniquely inside them. Gah! How did we get here? You just wanted a new LinkedIn title!
Never fear. You don’t have to fall down the abyss into navel-gazing and eternal journaling. I have good news for you. There are simple ways you can latch onto solid, motivating and powerful answers to the “Who am I?” question, and turn them into interesting and meaningful personal brand statements and stories.
3 Steps to Refresh Your Personal Brand Identity Authentically
Step 1: Characterize Yourself and Find Your Story
This is the fresh place to start. Start with a teeny bit of journaling. Answer these questions for yourself in ways that tap into your motivations and excitement:
- What are my strengths?
- What are my values?
- What’s my “perfect career opportunity” – the one that will bring out my greatest potential and the one I’m on the look-out for right now?
- What 1-2 stories can I tell to best demonstrate what I’ve accomplished, how I did it in my own unique way and what my next chapter is all about?
If these questions seem hard to answer, consider taking an InPower shortcut.
These are your core messages. Spend some time crafting your stories. They bring all of the goodness of you into clear relief for others to see. Spend time making your experiences into stories you love to tell. Make sure they have a beginning (i.e., problem), middle (i.e., your solution) and end (i.e., happy ending). Make sure you’re a character in your own story and key into common character themes others quickly recognize (e.g., Are you the hero? the explorer? the creator?)
How do you know when you’ve got it right? Easy. You LOVE your stories.
Every time you think of them you light up. Why? Because they tap into what you most enjoy about yourself. Your truest gifts. They demonstrate what you can do by showing how you use your unique talents and skills to accomplish things that mean the most to you.
What’s not to like?
If you’re not sure what a personal brand identity story might look like, take this free and fun workplace personality assessment for clues.
Step 2: Recraft Your LinkedIn Summary With Your Story
Yes, you could run straight out into networking with these exciting stories, and you will!
But take the time first to craft a tight, 2000 character summary statement for LinkedIn. I promise the act of crafting it in writing will help you hone your stories. You’ll make word choices and in these choices, you’ll get closer to the core energy you feel when you think about these amazing stories that you’re proud of and which show the world what you can do.
Feel free to try on some of the stories in informal networking. See how they land. That will help you hone them too. But bring what you learn back to your LinkedIn.
Yes, make sure your keywords are in your summary, but don’t let the keywords drive your writing. If your keywords appear in the text, those tricksy computers will find them, AND humans reading your summary will catch a strong sense for what makes you special and why they want to reach out to you. Keywords are how you connect your amazing story to the generic labels others are looking for. But the keywords are not YOU. They are not your story.
Step 3: Network Strategically
Now that you’ve got your story down pat… Now that when people look you up on LinkedIn they’ll find the YOU you love to be… Now… you can get intentional about making sure the people in your network who can help you, know the story of who you are NOW. Before you reach out, they know a story about who you were the last time you talked to them. But they don’t know this new you. This new, motivated and excited-for-the future version of who the true you is today.
So tell them.
Create a short list of people who are in a position to open doors, advocate for you, hire you, help you by ____________. Set your intention to find authentic and natural ways to reach out to them, run into them or meet them so you can share your new personal brand identity with them. Think about how you’ll tell your story to them in ways that will matter to them. How can being who you are help them be who they are? Sound abstract? Here are some easy, tangible ways to network strategically by putting your personal brand story out front:
- Find an article they would like and send it to them with a short intro that tells the most relevant part of your story. (e.g., I recently wrapped up a project that accomplished ______ and overcame ______, and found this article about related strategies that made me think of you. Happy to share what I learned. Free for coffee?)
- Attend an event that will put you in front of one person you want to meet. Look for others there who would add a similar potential benefit to your network (and you to theirs).
- Identify something others can help you with (e.g., advice, an introduction, a recommendation). Reach out to the people who can help you. Give them an update (including your story!) Ask them for help they can give, and then offer them help you can give.
Most importantly, don’t get stuck on any particular interaction. Don’t get down on people who don’t call you back. Get up with people who do! Your network will deliver in ways you can’t anticipate.
I know this can seem like a lot, and it is certainly something you have to focus on, but I also think that you’ll find it refreshing and exciting when you tap into your unique story and way of putting yourself in your story as the main character.
Worklife Reset for an Energized, Authentic Personal Brand
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There you have it! The 1-2-3 of personal brand identity! Good luck and, importantly, have fun!
Updated November 2023
by Guest Author | Nov 16, 2023 | Career Development, Change Management, Entrepreneurship
We humans tell ourselves a lot of stories. Don’t let the stories confuse you about what matters to your success. Mary gives us a great perspective on why when you read about women not making it in Corporate America, you should not believe this has anything to do with your own chance for success in being entrepreneurs. Thanks for the reminder, Mary! – InPower Editors
Our beliefs shape our reality. They can help us succeed or they can limit what we achieve.
I believe that women have some limiting beliefs about what they can achieve based on old thinking about business. Every day, new ways to finance, market, and operate a company are emerging. The traditional beliefs for how a company should operate aren’t serving us well in the new knowledge-based, information economy; we need to explore new methods. And these traditional beliefs are quickly converting into myths. By adjusting how we perceive reality, just by looking at a few different facts, we can see how the world is very different than we originally thought.
Below are five myths that I will explore in the series:
- Myth #1: We need to change corporate America to advance women’s leadership
- Myth #2: Women have a hard time finding startup funding
- Myth #3: Women need to change industry ratios
- Myth #4: Women need to change to lead
- Myth #5: Do you have a small business or are you real entrepreneurs?
Myth #1: We need to change corporate America to advance women’s leadership
Myth-buster: Startups and entrepreneurs are already doing this – and more.
Every corporation I have worked with has the same fierce competitor – the startup. They have disruptive products, marketing methods, and operation styles. They cause corporations massive pain.
And experts agree:
The startup model, combined with a low cost of entry, makes them a formidable threat. With inexpensive data center infrastructure, freelance communities and ecosystems to provide support and office space, startups can move fast to disrupt an established industry.
How Corporations Can Remain Competitive with the Help of Startups, The Rivalfox Competitor Intelligence Blog
Some corporations want to leverage startup operations so they can transition into the new knowledge-based economy focused on making customers happy. But not all are that way.
Startups have been doing more than creating disruptive products; they have been revolutionizing work life, mainly through necessity with limited budgets and the need to make revenue:
- Lean planning: they plan ahead as far as is needed to make revenue and be competitive, and in turn are agile enough to respond to market changes
- Marketing: starting with guerilla marketing. Social media and content marketing have emerged as the new tools – they are free, educate the customer, and create attention to lure marketshare away from large corporations.
- Agile methodologies: prioritize what’s important for the customer right now to get a product out the door (and make money).
- Financial models: from customer payment options to raising capital, there are a number of emerging methods that are proving successful.
This list could continue with work-life balance, coworking, and beyond. The irony is that all of these “best practices” from startups are appearing in corporate operations. One could say that startups are innovating the future of work and customer interactions.
And women are actively participating in these pioneer efforts:
- Women are founding businesses at 1.5x the national average
- Women-owned firms account for 30% of all enterprises
Keep in mind, over 50% of all workers work in a small business (why they fuel they American economy).
Why do women start businesses and become entrepreneurs?
Many women view corporations today as being fundamentally flawed and limiting in their value structures. The Guardian Life Index, an initiative to understand America’s small business owners, cites “office politics” as a driving factor for women leaving Corporate America to start businesses.
With the cost of starting a business at an all-time low, women are saying “no thank you” to spending years climbing and clawing their way up the corporate ladder, dealing with corporate politics, and working long days without feeling the overall fulfillment they crave.
—Natalie MacNeil, Entrepreneurship Is The New Women’s Movement, Forbes
Our perception of work is quickly changing.
We no longer work for just a paycheck or title; we care about the quality of our contributions and the audience who will receive it. This is in line with Drucker’s prediction about the knowledge-based organization.
…[corporations of the future are] far more likely to resemble organizations that neither the practicing manager nor the management scholar pays much attention to today: the hospital, the university, the symphony orchestra. For like them, the typical business will be knowledge-based, an organization composed largely of specialists who direct and discipline their own performance through organized feedback from colleagues, customers, and headquarters.
–Peter F. Drucker, The Coming of the New Organization, Harvard Business Review
All organizations are now knowledge-based.
And like the symphony performers who care about performance quality and the audience’s experience, employees care about the product created and how users like it. Work is no longer about who is doing what, when, where, with who’s budget (the corporate view); it’s about what is being produced and if it makes money.
Corporations can’t catch up fast enough – and they won’t. Changing a corporation is similar to turning a cruise ship to the left – it takes planning and time.
A startup is a clean slate where any new process and approach can be tried and tested. There isn’t an existing structure to change; there aren’t teams who need to be coaxed into accepting a new vision. And if a process doesn’t work, gather your team and discuss how to change it.
If startup “best practices” inspire corporate change, wouldn’t it follow that if there are more women entrepreneurs leading startups and this becomes a “best practice,” that corporations would participate in this trend? And wouldn’t it follow that there would be more leadership opportunities for women because everyone else does it?
Women need to do more than sit at the table; they need get their own table and make their dreams happen – even if it is a table for one.
Only by leaving a corporate structure can women experiment to find new viable work structures, increase leadership opportunities and expand knowledge. Disruption is key to progress, and startups excel at this. The trend has started – women are founding businesses at 1.5x the national average; now we just need to make this mainstream.
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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Guide to Women in Leadership
Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel in higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
by Dana Theus | Nov 15, 2023 | Corporate Culture, Mentoring
Mentorship is an important part of any leadership development program. But should you formalize something that is often most powerful in its informal state? Having participated in and supported many different styles of mentorship program over the course of my career I believe the answer is often ‘yes,’ but beware that as often as mentorship programs are helpful, creating stronger leaders, stronger corporate culture and greater employee engagement, they can just as easily be a waste of an organization’s time and resources.
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com
Understanding Mentorship Programs
Mentorship programs, such as corporate mentoring programs and formal mentoring programs within professional associations, are structured relationships within organizations that facilitate knowledge transfer and guidance between experienced and less experienced individuals. These programs offer invaluable opportunities for:
- Personal and professional development
- Fostering high retention and engagement rates
- Strengthening corporate cultures
- Enabling knowledge sharing between organizational leaders and less experienced employees
- Passing on industry experience and perspective
When designed and implemented effectively, both mentors and mentees often report that they are more productive thanks to their mentoring experience.
The Role of Mentors
Mentors play a crucial role in providing advice, support, and guidance to mentees (i.e., protégé), helping them reach their goals and maximize their potential. Pairing mentees with the right mentors is absolutely vital for a successful mentoring process. Mentors leverage their inspiring background, impressive skills, and invaluable expertise to improve the mentee’s experience in the workplace and industry. They share their knowledge and experiences, providing valuable guidance and advice to their mentees, who in turn can learn and grow from their mentor’s expertise.
When Mentors take their role seriously, they also act as positive role models, helping mentees navigate the challenges of the workplace, building strong careers and providing valuable insights into the organization’s or industry’s culture and professional networks. By fostering a strong mentoring relationship, mentors can empower their mentees to achieve their career goals and contribute positively to the organization’s success.
An often overlooked aspect of mentoring is the opportunity to help mentors become better leaders. Mentoring gives them opportunities to
- Practice their listening and coaching skills
- Learn more about parts of the organization they rarely spend time in
- Gain new perspectives on employee and customer insights
- Gain more experience leading with an inclusive focus
The Role of Mentees
Mentees are equally important in mentoring relationships, actively seeking guidance, feedback, and support from their mentors. They open themselves up to learning and growth opportunities, taking ownership of their own development. Mentees can reap the rewards of mentorship by acquiring knowledge and skills, expanding their professional network, and boosting their confidence.
To maximize their mentorship experience, mentees should embrace learning and growth opportunities, take ownership of their development, and actively participate in the mentorship relationship. This proactive approach is important to making the mentorship relationship success, but it is also an opportunity to practice leadership skills such as assertiveness and executive communication.
Mentoring gives mentees the opportunity to:
- Gain important insight into how to navigate corporate and industry culture
- Access experienced perspectives on their career potential and development
- Explore ideas and approaches to advancement they can’t receive from their supervisor
- Learn about leadership through personal role models
Types of Mentorship Programs
There are various types of mentorship programs, each with its unique structure and objectives. In this blog post, we will explore three main types: Traditional 1-on-1 Mentoring, Group Mentoring, and Reverse Mentoring.
Each of these program formats offers unique opportunities for growth and development, catering to different organizational needs and goals.
Traditional 1-on-1 Mentoring
Traditional 1-on-1 mentoring is an incredibly powerful tool for individual growth and development, fostering strong one-on-one relationships between a mentor and mentee. This type of mentorship program often pairs a more experienced or senior employee with a junior employee, providing them with personalized guidance and support to help them achieve their career goals and develop new skills.
One-to-one mentoring programs can:
- Empower junior employees by providing them with informal job training and a sense of ownership
- Help develop leadership skills
- Foster a strong sense of belonging within the organization or industry
- Lead to higher employee engagement and satisfaction
- Gain exposure to senior leadership
Group Mentoring
Group mentoring offers the opportunity to:
- Learn and grow together
- Collaboratively solve any issues that arise
- Foster a supportive environment and corporate culture
- Build strong internal networks
- Share experiences and learn from each other
In this type of mentoring program, one or more mentors guide a group of mentors. Mentors can be the same throughout the program, or can change so that over time the mentees gain exposure to a large number of senior leaders. Group mentoring can be particularly advantageous for organizations looking to launch a mentoring program without investing too much time and energy in managing a large number of individual relationships.
Group mentoring can provide mentees with an opportunity to:
- Engage in meaningful conversations and activities with a mentor
- Center discussions around a specific topic that is beneficial to them
- Create a sense of belonging and camaraderie among the group members
- Foster a more engaged and productive workforce.
Reverse Mentoring
Reverse mentoring is an effective way to facilitate knowledge transfer between generations. In this type of mentoring, a less experienced individual mentors a more experienced individual, often to gain fresh perspectives or learn about new technologies. This innovative approach to mentoring can provide unique insights and perspectives, helping the more experienced individual stay current with emerging trends and technologies, while empowering the less experienced mentor to contribute their ideas and expertise to the organization.
Some inspiring examples of reverse mentoring include an older employee being paired with a younger hire to gain insight into social media marketing or a senior executive being paired with an entry-level employee to gain a better understanding of the company’s day-to-day operations. Reverse mentoring offers a unique opportunity for both mentors and mentees to learn from each other and grow within the organization.
Implementing a Mentorship Program
Creating a successful mentorship program involves setting clear goals, selecting the right participants, and establishing a matching process. To many program leaders’ surprise it also involves a fair amount of followup with participants throughout the duration of the program.
Setting Program Goals
Clearly defining the purpose of a mentorship program is essential to ensure its success and maximize its impact. Setting achievable and measurable goals for the program helps guide its direction and provides a clear benchmark for evaluating its effectiveness over time. These goals should be documented and shared with all program participants, ensuring that everyone is in the program for the right reasons. For example, many mentees hope a mentor will help them get a new job, but most mentors and mentorship program leaders do not include job hunting in their program goals. It’s important everyone understands what the program hopes to achieve, and what it doesn’t.
To measure the success of the program, it’s important to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with the program’s objectives. These KPIs can help track progress and ensure that the program remains relevant and beneficial for all participants. Regular checkpoints can be set up to monitor achievements and successes, while also providing support and resources to mentors and mentees throughout the mentorship journey.
Selecting Mentors and Mentees
Selecting the right mentors and mentors is crucial for creating productive and beneficial relationships within the mentorship program. When selecting participants, it’s essential to consider specific criteria that align with the objectives of the mentorship program, such as:
- Demonstrated enthusiasm
- Specific technical skills
- Leadership or communication skills
- Shared professional outlook
- Commitment to offer their time
In addition to selecting the right participants, it’s also important to create an atmosphere of enthusiasm and excitement around the mentorship program. Some strategies to consider include:
- Hosting launch, networking and closing events to introduce the program and engage ongoing interest
- Providing informational materials that highlight the benefits of mentorship and how to participate in the program and how to contact program leaders and other participants
- Encouraging potential mentors and mentees to participate through targeted outreach and communication
By implementing these strategies, you can help ensure a successful and engaging mentorship program.
Matching Process
Establishing a matching process is an essential step in implementing a successful mentorship program. A well-designed matching process ensures that mentors and mentees are paired effectively, leading to successful mentorship relationships that align with the program’s goals and objectives. There are two main types of matching available in a mentorship program: self-matching and admin-matching.
To ensure successful mentor matching, it’s important to consider how you want to match people or if you want them to match themselves. Creating comprehensive profiles for all participants, including their skills, interests, and goals, can help facilitate the matching process.
Here are the primary pros and cons of each mentor/mentee matching approach:
- Self-matching:
- PROS: greater participant satisfaction, somewhat less admin burden
- CONS: greater opportunity for participant bias to inform choices
- Admin-matching:
- PROS: more consistency in program participation
- CONS: greater admin burden
Regardless of the approach you use it’s important to have all participants include their goals for the program, and highlighted career achievements, in their applications to facilitate matching.
Followup and Check Ins
Many program leaders are surprised to learn how many participants, both mentors and mentees, can become distracted from their participation in the program, leading people to stop meeting and communicating. In addition, many participants will come across problems engaging their partners and need a program leader to intervene.
In addition to schedule regular events throughout the duration of the program, it’s important for program leaders to engage in proactive outreach to both mentors and mentees. This is a good opportunity to encourage their ongoing participation in the program and also to do informal pulse checks on how well program communication and support is performing.
Measuring the Success of Mentorship Programs
Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and gathering feedback are essential for evaluating the success of a mentorship program. In this section, we will discuss the importance of measuring the success of mentorship programs and the tools and methods that can be used to do so.
Measuring the success of a mentorship program is important to ensure that the program is achieving its goals.
Tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs can be a great tool to assess the effectiveness of a mentorship program and ensure it is meeting organizational objectives. However, tracking progress consistently can be challenging, as employees may be motivated to protect their goals and privacy. Some specific KPIs for mentorship programs may include:
- Match rate
- Participant growth
- Program health and sentiment
- Engagement metrics
- Progress metrics
- Participant engagement
- Participant satisfaction
- Employee/Member Retention rates
- Employee/Member Promotion rates
- Employee/Member Performance ratings
- Supervisor input and observations
By monitoring KPIs like these, organizations can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their mentorship program and make data-driven decisions to improve and optimize the program. Regularly reviewing KPIs and adjusting the program as needed can help ensure its continued success and alignment with organizational goals.
Gathering Feedback
Regular feedback, fathered formally and informally, from mentors and mentees is essential for identifying areas for improvement and optimizing the mentorship program. Feedback can help pinpoint areas for improvement, gauge the effectiveness of the program, and offer guidance on how to maximize the program’s success.
Organizations can gather formal feedback through various methods, such as:
- Surveys
- Interviews
- Focus groups
By analyzing the feedback and making necessary adjustments, organizations can continuously improve their mentorship program, ensuring its ongoing success and maximizing the benefits for all participants.
The Benefits of Mentorship Programs
Mentorship programs offer numerous benefits, including personal and professional growth, improved employee retention and engagement, and promoting diversity and inclusion within organizations through employee resource groups.
Personal and Professional Growth
Personal and professional growth are essential for developing new skills, increasing knowledge, and enhancing overall performance in your personal and professional lives. Mentorship programs create a great opportunity for mentors and mentees to share their expertise, knowledge, and skills, leading to meaningful personal and professional growth for both parties.
By participating in a mentorship program, individuals can acquire new skills, expand their professional network, and boost their confidence. This growth can lead to accelerated and more sustainable growth, improved work and relationship outcomes, and a more fulfilling, joyous, and higher quality of life.
Employee Retention and Engagement
Mentorship programs can improve employee retention and engagement by fostering a supportive and collaborative work environment. Research has shown that employees who participate in mentorship programs are more likely to feel satisfied with their jobs, with 9 out of 10 workers with a mentor reporting feeling satisfied and more than half rating themselves as “very satisfied”.
By providing opportunities for personal and professional growth, mentorship programs can help employees feel more engaged and committed to their organization’s success. This increased engagement can result in higher job satisfaction, lower turnover rates, and a more productive and dedicated workforce.
Promoting Diversity and Inclusion
Mentorship programs can help promote diversity and inclusion within organizations by:
- Connecting individuals from different backgrounds and experiences
- Fostering a welcoming environment that enables employees to express themselves fully
- Contributing to a more diverse and inclusive workplace culture
In addition to promoting diversity and inclusion, mentorship programs can also help underrepresented employees access resources and opportunities for career advancement. By providing support and guidance to employees from diverse backgrounds, mentorship programs can help break down barriers and create a more inclusive and equitable workplace for all.
To ensure a mentorship program achieves its goal of promoting diversity and inclusion it’s important for mentors to be prepared to work with mentees who have different life experiences than they do. Giving senior leaders essential awareness of their own unconscious bias can be an important way mentorship programs contribute to building a strong corporate culture in addition to growing the next generation of leaders.
Check out this complete listing of all InPower Coaching mentoring articles.
NOTE: This post was written with the help of an artificial intelligence research assistant. Comments? Please share.
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