It’s time for another installment of the Leadership Development Carnival! Thanks to Weaving Influence and the Lead Change for organizing some great posts from some remarkable leadership writers. Oh, and yes, they were kind enough to include one of mine as well!
If you’re new to blog Carnivals, these represent a collection of posts from a variety of writers, organized by major themes and presented for your professional and inspirational pleasure.
Change is a constant in life, and even the most steadfast leaders will eventually face the question of when it’s time to step down or pass the baton to someone else. This dilemma often comes with a myriad of emotions and uncertainties. Recently, a conversation with a friend of mine sparked this profound question: How do you know when it’s time to go as a leader?
It can be tempting to avoid a courageous conversation at work. After all, it takes energy to initiate it, and you can’t predict exactly how it will go. Practical questions to inspire you to have it anyway.
Yesterday, I went to a local coffee shop that offered dozens of flavored and other fancy boutique coffees, some from the far reaches of the world. If you wanted one of those the shopkeeper would personally make it for you. But I wanted “regular” coffee. He told me regular coffee is self-serve and pointed to the “pots over there”. WHAT? Should the service you receive be determined by the product you purchase?
In the world of leadership, two skills stand out as particularly vital yet challenging to master: effectively managing workplace conflict and communicating in a way that resonates. These skills have become even more crucial in today’s fast-paced and interconnected business landscape. In a recent episode of the “Leading Through Crisis” podcast, I engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with host Celine Williams. We dug deep into the nuances of conflict management and communication strategies within workplace dynamics.
In order to grow, you have to override your protective brain to create more empowering stories to live by. Use these six steps to change your life by changing your mind.
Our society has standards of acceptable behavior. But the rules of decency are meaningless if they aren’t reinforced daily. Wrongs committed by enough people become the norm.
A recent CFO survey shows that although inflation concerns have decreased some, it continues to rank as a high concern for business owners – as it should. The trick is to ensure that your business outpaces inflation with profit and growth so that you keep building value.
Let’s start with the obvious: if you don’t have the trust of the people you’re leading, you will fail as a leader. Given these trust realities, it’s head-scratching that some leaders still make leadership all about themselves and not the people they’re privileged to lead. You can’t afford to be a leader who can’t be trusted.
When a change effort goes awry, the change management model is often pinpointed as the problem. The next most blamed element? The people who “resisted” the change. While we’re fairly good at designing processes to bring people into change, we’re not very good at preparing people to participate in these processes, and thus we end up right back where we started, encountering resistance.
A 2023 Global Workplace Insights survey by Unispace (Returning for Good) lays out how difficult it is for companies to retain, attract and develop talent and to build a healthy work culture in these times. Keeping talented, engaged employees is a huge opportunity for companies around the globe today.
The daily image we present is often quite different from the person we really are. If every mirror also reflected our fears, anxieties, and self-doubts would we behave differently?
Our current business environment is so intense that leaders today are forgetting they are ……human and this trend really concerns me.
When leaders lose touch with their own humanity, they often misconstrue failure or a mistake as a setback rather than recognizing it as a key part of their leadership journey. In this article, Sara shares her commentary on how three authors hit the mark when it comes to embracing our mistakes, unapologetically changing our minds, and modeling what it means to learn from failure.
In the post, Why a pink flamingo is an essential leadership tool, Lisa Kohn from The Thoughtful Leaders™ Blog shares that there are many essential leadership skills, and bringing a sense of lightness to the teams and organizations (and families) we lead is certainly one of them.
I found unexpected insights watching the Barbie movie on ‘Kengagement’ and the power of upskilling. Discover how this unlikely source sheds light on fostering engagement and staying ahead through skill enhancement.
I first wrote about jerk bosses 20 years ago after reading multiple exit interviews from employees who had recently left their jobs. I then followed up with them and asked, “What did you NOT say in that exit interview?” The most frequent answer? “My boss was a jerk.”
The Oppenheimer movie left out one interesting detail that contributed to the success of the Manhattan Project, writes Michael Stallard. That detail is a best practice that leaders in all industries can use to engage and motivate their teams.
A couple of years ago, we worked with a client who was having difficulty filling positions. They were using all the right avenues to get the word out to potential candidates, but the pipeline was not working. After surveying several candidates, we discovered the issue was with their extensive application process.
Effective problem-solving is a critical skill for any successful leader. However, all too often, teams rush to find solutions without taking the necessary time to define the problem clearly. By overlooking this crucial step, teams may only address the symptoms of the problem, leading to ineffective or short-term solutions. Successful team leaders look beyond symptoms and define problems clearly before seeking solutions.
A healthy organization is one that can align, execute, and renew rapidly. That’s the needed outcome from your strategy, plus the bets on or off and the mechanisms to bring them to life. If you’re at the core of your organization’s strategy work, take the above as a cautionary tale. Forewarned is forearmed.
Our SVP & Head of Client Service, Jason Greenspan, details a methodology that transforms leaders and employees from skeptical bystanders to inspired catalysts of your organization’s new strategy, vision, and path forward.
Does your organization contribute to a healthy future? Do you prepare your organization for change? Explore the options that Jason Hickel offers for the future.
Only 1 of 5 employees are Thriving. The remainder are Quiet Quitting or Loud Quitting. As a leader, learn how to pay more attention to their emotional needs so that they can be psychologically present in their roles. Learn how to improve engagement.
Research also indicates that performance and productivity actually increase when bullies are eliminated. You can start today by creating a no bully rule in your organization.
Over a decade ago, when I began writing about women in leadership and gender bias, I was very hopeful. Up to that point I had, what I thought, was a good experience working in mixed gender workplaces. I felt welcome and generally appreciated as a female leader. When I opted off the leadership ladder to pursue work as a consultant and, later, executive coach, I saw it as an act of personal and career agency.
I read the new-at-the-time research on the benefits of women in leadership as empowering and enlightening. I was sure we’d turned a corner. I was sure that women, as well as their unique and success-enhancing leadership styles would be more and more welcome into the higher ranks of power.
Today, I am less hopeful, but more determined.
While not representative of all gender bias issues, the data below are some of the most current. These points are highlights taken from our most recent, biannual update on the InPower Women Guide to Women in Leadership. For a complete review of the data and how to think about it, plus over 150 source links, regular data updates and perspectives, download the entire report here.
The numbers on gender representation in leadership aren’t moving fast enough
For a complete list of our data tracking on women in leadership, check out The Facts.
We’re looking more closely, and learning more as a result, about the gender bias problem
Research shows that men get more specific, actionable feedback than women do.
Black employees who engage in self-promotion (key advice often offered by mentors) are rated less favorably on job performance and organizational fit, highlighting the double bind that people of color (especially women of color) face when navigating their career.
Ever had someone express surprise that you’re in charge? It’s called “role incredulity” and it happens (irritatingly) more than we’d hope.
Research shows that women are 41% more likely to experience toxic workplace culture than men.
Here’s what does work to reduce bias: Hiring women into senior leadership positions, which mitigates stereotypes and even evolves the vocabulary used to talk about leadership within an organization.
For a complete list of sources we track on gender bias, check out Gender Bias.
Women and men are both part of the solution, and the problem
Even female-dominated workplaces show gender bias. The mere presence of lots of females in the workplace does not change the organizational structures and systems that benefit men more than women.
As pernicious and stubborn as these gender bias issues appear to be, there are things we as individuals and companies can do. For a start we can all reprogram the tropes we use to advise, mentor and coach women with, to find more INpowering and gender neutral mindsets.
What are you doing to counteract your own gender bias? (I guarantee you have some!)
Mentoring is often thought of to help younger employees develop by passing on the wisdom of more experienced leaders. And it is! But that model ignores all the wisdom that many people have to give those of us who sit in leadership positions.
And there is a lot that early career employees have to teach us. Getting the information and insight flow moving “up” the age/experience ladder and an organization is called reverse mentoring. It offers a fresh perspective on mentoring that flips the traditional dynamic, empowering younger employees to share their expertise and perspectives with senior colleagues and bridging generational gaps in the workplace. The purpose of reverse mentoring is not only to facilitate the acquisition of new skills by senior colleagues, but also to cultivate a connection with the younger generation.
These are some of the tangible benefits of reverse mentoring, but I personally think the single biggest benefit is to help experienced leaders maintain fresh perspectives, challenge themselves to learn new things, stay humble and refine their coaching skills. When they do this, mentors become more effective leaders, and they also contribute to building a subtle sense of confidence in their mentees.
The origins of reverse mentoring
The origins of reverse mentoring can be traced back to the 1990s when Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, introduced a formal reverse mentoring program. The initial objective of this program was to help senior executives gain knowledge about the internet and adapt to new technologies by connecting them with younger mentors. While Welch focused on technology skills development, he also created a new mentoring format that has gained widespread recognition and adoption in organizations across various industries.
Reverse mentoring has become an increasingly popular way for organizations to bridge the generational gap in a number of areas beyond technology, making reverse mentoring important in today’s diverse workforce. By establishing a reverse mentoring relationship, multiple age groups can benefit from shared knowledge and experiences.
Reverse vs traditional mentoring
Traditional mentoring involves senior staff guiding junior employees on their career paths and skill development. Mentors often help their mentees in focus areas such as:
Deciding on career objectives
Identifying technical skills to develop
Learning how to navigate office politics and interpersonal dynamics
Practicing how to advocate for themselves and take appropriate credit for their work
Understanding different stakeholders’ motivations and roles to play in the work
Finding resources to help them overcome challenges they face in the workplace
Gaining context and perspective on business models and dynamics underlying their work
Reverse mentoring flips this dynamic, allowing junior employees to share their expertise and perspectives with senior staff. This unique mentoring relationship emphasizes reciprocal respect and two-way learning, providing junior individuals with the opportunity to hone their leadership abilities and share their knowledge with more senior personnel. Mentors often help their mentees in focus areas such as:
How new technologies affect customers and employees
Changing values, motivations and trends that affect customers and employees
How front line and early career employees view the company (and it’s products/services)
How different socio-economic, racial, demographic and other groups view the company (and it’s products/services)
How company policies affect employees’ day-to-day work and lives
Reverse mentoring has been shown to help senior managers improve diversity and inclusion, bridge generational gaps, and increase digital capabilities.
The Inclusion Advantages of Implementing a Reverse Mentoring Program
Anyone can engage in reverse mentoring simply by engaging with people in different generations or demographic groups. On a company scale, when programmatically supported, reverse mentoring offers many more systemic and scalable benefits, such as:
Enhancing retention of millennials, women and racially diverse employees
Fostering diversity acceptance in the culture
Creating greater sensitivity about the impact of various company policies on different demographic groups
Promoting generational inclusivity is only one type of reverse mentoring opportunity available to senior management, which is often a homogeneous demographic group in most organizations. Reverse mentoring can be enhanced by structuring programs that intentionally pair different age groups and demographic groups. This can give senior white leaders greater access to the lived experience of employees of different genders and racial groups.
When senior employees connect and collaborate with those unlike them on a one-to-one level, they often gain insights into how other groups experience everything from the commute to work to a company policy on work-at-home options.
Enhancing diversity and inclusion
Reverse mentoring across demographic boundaries can significantly improve diversity and inclusion within the company culture by providing underrepresented employees with opportunities to share their perspectives and experiences with senior staff. When senior employees become exposed to perspectives and experiences outside their own life, their appreciation and understanding of employee challenges can expand.
For example, one senior executive, upon learning the cost of commuting to the suburbs for city-dwelling employees, became an advocate for public transportation reimbursement and company shuttle programs. Another became more sensitive to some of the vocabulary the executive team members used, such as the use of the term “non-American” to refer to products sourced globally, and the way it made international employees feel unwelcome. The executives made an intentional shift to refer to “global” products, which built a feeling of inclusivity–and commitment to international markets–which had not existed before.
Bridging the generational, gender and racial divides
Reverse mentoring helps bridge generational, gender and racial divides by fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing between employees of these groups. Perhaps even more importantly, it can help build greater respect between people in these different categories.
Examples of pairings to help bridge these kinds of divides include:
Older women with younger men (and vice versa)
Black women with white women
Asian employees with black employees
Hispanic employee with black employees
Leaders from higher socio-economic categories with employees in lower socio-economic categories
The kinds of one-to-one relationships that can be built this way improve the individual’s personal understanding of what different groups experience, and when engaged systemically also contributes to the overall success and adaptability of the organization.
Designing an Effective Reverse Mentoring Program
To get these kinds of benefits from a reverse mentoring program, it is important to design the program with clear objectives, participant recruitment, and ongoing monitoring of success. With such intentional design, organizations are more likely to build reverse mentoring programs that effectively support the development of both mentors and mentees, while also aligning with company goals.
Setting clear objectives
Establishing clear objectives for a reverse mentoring program is essential to ensure that it is in line with company goals and focuses on particular areas of development. Some objectives for a reverse mentoring program may include:
Assisting senior employees in developing new perspectives and refining coaching and mentoring skills
Exchanging specific skills and knowledge with younger colleagues
Stimulating new viewpoints on how to achieve corporate objectives
Recognizing biases and learning to counter them
Promoting engagement
Enhancing established leadership practices
Recruiting and matching participants
Even if part of your goal in creating a reverse mentoring program is to improve diverse relationships, it’s important that the participants receive specific, personal benefit from the program as well. Recruiting and matching participants based on their career needs and business expertise is a crucial aspect of designing a successful reverse mentoring program. Organizations can identify suitable mentors and mentees through internal company communication channels and match them using a process that considers their:
Career and business objectives
Expectations
Skills and abilities
Preferences
To promote the program and encourage participation, organizations can utilize internal company communication channels such as emails, newsletters, and intranet sites. When pairing mentors and mentees, it is important to consider the mentor’s skill set and the mentee’s desired improvement areas, as well as any shared personality traits and interests.
Monitoring and evaluating success
Monitoring and evaluating the success of a reverse mentoring program, like any mentoring program, is essential to ensure its effectiveness and optimize it for future use. By tracking progress, gathering feedback, and measuring outcomes against set objectives, organizations can gain valuable insights into the overall success of their program. Key performance indicators that can be used to monitor and evaluate success include:
Satisfaction scores for the program and the company (including inclusion scores)
Engagement activity
Learning and development targets
Retention rate
By closely monitoring these indicators, organizations can continually refine their reverse mentoring program to better address the needs of both mentors and mentees.
Overcoming Challenges in Reverse Mentoring
Implementing a reverse mentoring program is not without its challenges, such as resistance from senior employees, concerns about time commitment, and ensuring the program remains relevant to participants.
Resistance from senior employees
Resistance from senior employees can be a significant challenge in implementing reverse mentoring programs. To overcome this resistance, organizations can highlight the benefits of reverse mentoring and demonstrate how junior colleagues can fill knowledge gaps and provide valuable perspectives on current technologies, trends, and best practices. This kind of information is generally important, but it’s often critical to personally recruit individual leaders by learning their personal motivations and appealing to them.
It’s also important for senior leaders to hear from their peers, who have participated and benefited from the programs. Sharing success stories helps mentors and mentees believe their time commitments will be rewarded. By emphasizing the value of reverse mentoring and fostering a culture of open-mindedness and mutual respect, organizations can effectively address resistance and encourage senior staff to embrace the learning opportunities presented by reverse mentoring.
Time commitment concerns
Ensuring time commitment for a reverse mentoring program can be challenging, as senior employees often have tight schedules and may be hesitant to allocate time for mentorship relationships. To address time commitment concerns, organizations should outline a clear schedule for the program and emphasize its benefits for both mentors and mentees. Providing training that helps participants set expectations around time commitments can also be very helpful. Usually when the mentors and mentees jointly agree on time commitment, concerns about this factor reduce.
Relevance to participants
As in any recruitment program, it’s important to ensure that the program provides real benefits to all participants. In particular, many mentoring programs fall victim to a belief that mentors only need to feel the “joy of giving back” to want to stay engaged in the program. While this motivation is strong and can work for a certain period of time, it’s rarely enough to make up for the extra time and energy commitments required when things get busy and stressful.
In additional to personal recruitment efforts mentioned above, where the program leaders take the time to help program participants find their personal connections to the program, there are other things that can be done to help everyone find meaning in the reverse mentoring efforts:
Providing structured introductions/training
Providing personal feedback and support opportunities
Offering reminders and accountability check ins
Celebrating successes
Recognizing participation and achievements made through the program
In addition, organizations can tailor the program to address the specific needs and interests of different departments and groups within the organization, focusing on areas such as skill development, knowledge sharing, and addressing biases.
By continually refining the program based on feedback from participants, organizations can ensure that their reverse mentoring program remains beneficial and engaging for all involved.
Reverse mentoring is a powerful tool for fostering collaboration, bridging generational divides, and promoting diversity and inclusion within organizations. By designing effective reverse mentoring programs and engaging people individually, organizations can unlock the full potential of reverse mentoring and create a more inclusive, innovative, and competitive work environment.
NOTE: This post was written with the help of an artificial intelligence research assistant. Comments? Please share.
I am on vacation. Right now. It’s great sitting on the beach each day with the kiddos digging hole after hole. But sometimes while gazing out at the ocean I begin to worry about things in my life. I don’t want to spend my vacation worrying about anything. I want to spend my vacation enjoying myself, playing with the kids, and relaxing! This is the dilemma of working moms everywhere.
Your summer vacation is a time to release your fears. You take a break from the daily grind, leave your house, and walk away from worries.
Changing gears is challenging. With downtime comes time to think. You kick back to relax and not think about anything but then you may start worrying about paying the bills or start to feel unease about the project you left behind.
Working moms, worrying can feel like a job and you need a break from that, too. Depending on the type of fear you have here’s five tips on how to release yourself from your fears so you can take the vacation you deserve.
What are your personal goals? Did you set any at the beginning of year? If not, it’s never too late to set a few goals that excite you. If you did set goals, how’s your progress? To avoid worrying or negativity focus on what you have accomplished. What is within your control that you can start working on when you get back from vacation?
In Arianna Huffington’s latest book, The Sleep Revolution she talks about dreams incubators. Your dreams are a glimpse at your destiny. If your fears are about your future try this:
Place pen and paper by your bed. Ask your guidance in what ever is worrying you. You can write down this question then keep thinking about it while taking slow deep breaths. They key to remember your dream when you wake up is laying still when you wake up. Then slowly move to your pen and paper. If you begin to forget lay still again. It may take a few nights practice to get a clear message.
Learn How To Play Again Through Your kids
All you do is work because you’re an adult! That’s what we excel at! Well, kiddos excel at playing. Instead of sitting with fearful thoughts, get up and start digging for buried treasure with your kids. Get moving to move your focus away from your fearful thoughts.
Do Something Kid-like Without The Kids
Adult coloring books are popular for a reason! Grab one and some colored pencils and admire your creativity. Grab a fiction book and get lost in someone else’s story instead of your own. Play a competitive game of cards with your significant other and enjoy the win. You are on vacation, do something fun!
Be Still
Yes, so far I’ve been suggesting to move your body and do things that are fun to get your mind off things. On the other hand though, sometimes we just need to stop in our tracks and be still. If this means that fear comes into our thoughts you can practice meditation. Do you know how to meditate? If not, check out the InPower personal meditation coaching for different ways to meditate depending on what challenges you’re facing.
Face The Fear And Then Move On
View your fear from the perspective that it is a False Expectation Appearing (to be) Real (F.E.A.R.). This perspective is great for when you are facing a fear that is blocking you. Like when you are getting in your own way. When you recognize the fear as this acronym write down the fear such as, “I’m worried about my work project.” Then put it in this context: “When I get back from vacation I’m going to work my hardest on the project by working on a, b, and c. Then I’ll take it from there”. This taking of a negative fear and turning it into an actionable truth is something that you can follow through on after vacation.
Fear can ruin a good time. When you work on your emotional intelligence and recognize that what you’re experiencing is fear – that is half the battle! To help you work out your fears, come on over to the working moms forum and chat about how you are releasing your fears this summer. It’s the best vacation when you can be fully present and leave your fears behind.
If worry and fear are too-constant a companions, you may be dealing with triggers beneath the fear. Learn to detrigger your negative emotions and let your fears go.
Worklife Reset for an Energized, Authentic Personal Brand
Workbook & Toolkit
Feeling like you need to hit the reset button on your job, career or business?
This uplifting 8-step process will help you find meaning, motivation and momentum in your career and work
It’s not often a fresh new voice enters the women’s inpowerment movement, but today we have one. Meet Rob Sterling, male homemaker, feminist, and advocate for women’s and men’s rights to make careers out of what makes them happy. Rob believes that powerful women need powerful men working alongside them at home and at work and as our newest InPower Blogger, he will be sharing his journey with us. Please welcome Rob to the InPower Women family! – InPower Editors
What’s a Male Feminist?
Whenever I meet someone new, I always dread being asked the inevitable, inescapable question, “… so what do you do? “. That question makes me cringe with anxiety as I somehow summon the courage to answer truthfully with, “I am a professional homemaker”. Suddenly, an uncomfortable silence halts the conversation and seems to linger for an eternity, as I wait in total fear of rejection or even ridicule for their reaction to my chosen profession.
One can never predict who will accept you or who will reject you for being a male homemaker until the very moment their “what do you do” question is answered. Unfortunately, people either seem to welcome the concept of a male homemaker or they find it offensive. Such unpredictable and diverse reactions make me feel wary, even vulnerable, in unfamiliar social settings until I sense that I am accepted or at least tolerated.
It has taken me years to get to the point where I can finally admit that I love being a homemaker. I believe that being a homemaker is one of the most important jobs in the world, and yet it is still considered a woman’s domain by society overall. Even in the year 2023, most men are fearful of disclosing in public that they are homemakers, or male nannies or even househusbands. In general, men are terrified of being thought of as weak, passive or gay so they learn to hide their giving, caring and paternal side. This sentiment has been hammered into our minds since childhood. As a result, we feel wholly inadequate if we don’t adhere to the old fashioned, patriarchal and ideal image of manhood. I feel I have to spend my life acting a role that society expects me to play, simply because I am a white male.
Men have made some social progress – at least in numbers. Today there are over three million, full-time, male homemakers in the United States and growing. Men are just now starting to enter into traditional female professions like nursing, office secretaries and airline flight attendants. However, we have a long, long way to go towards full equality. It sounds almost comical for a white male to desire and long for equality; but in truth, many men like me are as much prisoners of the patriarchal culture as women.
Unfortunately, there is no place to turn to for reassurance when you are a male homemaker. There are no support groups or organizations where men can participate in meeting like-minded men and exchange ideas, experiences and feel like a member of a close-knit community. Instead, male homemakers today are isolated at home and from each other in a society that discourages men from pursuing careers in the home. In fact, the male homemaker movement has never gotten off the ground as there are just too few of us in numbers. So we suffer silently on the sidelines and helplessly wait for society to evolve.
Why Men’s Equality Matters
My only hope for men’s equality is the women’s movement for equality. This may sound ironic, but I feel the two goals are intertwined. Today, career women only make 75 cents on the dollar as their male counterparts with the same education and experience. Modern society is still culturally biased against women who choose to pursue both advanced degrees and a professional career, by misleading them to believe that they can either pursue a career or a family but not both simultaneously like millions of career men. The concept of a househusband does not even enter a professional woman’s mind as a possible solution to her career-versus-family dilemma. I wish women would realize that guys like me exist who would love to support their wife’s career dreams and aspirations from the home.
Despite cultural oppression, our sisters are bravely and defiantly leading the charge for equality, and I am thrilled at their rate of progress. I support strong female role models like Hilary Clinton who fight hard for equal consideration for women in leadership positions. For not until we finally have a female president in the white house will society also truly accept me for being a professional male homemaker. That is why my heroes are Terry O’Neil (President of NOW), Gloria Steinam, and the everyday woman who strives to reach her full potential whether that is raising a child at home or being a CEO running a company.
I consider myself a male pro-Feminist and I have a dream too. I feel that my cause is the same as the feminist cause, and the greater human cause. When women gain their equality, I am hoping that society will also embrace men who choose to pursue homemaking careers. I want to live without fear of revealing my profession in public. I want to be appreciated for my role as a homemaker just like women are finally being recognized for their immense value as career professionals. Wouldn’t this be the perfect society if we were all just accepted for who we are and what we enjoy doing as a career? On that day, I will walk without anxiety and insecurity of my social environment.
FREE PDF 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.
One person this week is annoyed at me and the other isn’t, despite on-time delivery to both. The difference? Expectation I set with them.
“Set expectations intentionally. That way you always get better results.” – Click to Tweet
How can two people have such different experiences of the same performance? It’s all in whether that performance was what they were expecting, better or worse. The actual result sometimes matters little.
Some people are just going to expect too much no matter what. But every time I find that other’s expectations are too high, I can identify at least one thing I did to help set them up there.
So next time I don’t do that one thing! The key is in being able to pause and reflect and give myself an opportunity to notice my own actions and patterns of behavior, so I can change them going forward.
How about you? Can you become a master of expectation setting? Give it a try. See what happens.
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At InPower Coaching, we look for workplace trends that impact both the individual and the organization. The InPower team has covered the story of the “fluid career” for individuals, and in this post, we explore the flip side of that workplace trend: what business leaders need to know about “workplace fluidity.”– InPower Editors
It’s a familiar refrain in the workplace: just wait a minute and something is bound to change. And although many leaders agree their organizations need to take a page from the Agile Movement to address the onslaught of change, many of those same leaders are stuck in a mindset that keeps them tethered to outdated views of employee retention and workplace culture. To illustrate, Ultimate Software, a leading provider of human capital management (HCM) solutions in the cloud, recently commissioned Forrester Consulting for an October 2016 study on an emerging trend in organizational life: the fluidity of the workforce. The fluid workforce, like the fluid career, encourages us to think about how to manage our employees with more flexibility, not just to meet their personal needs, but to also meet the needs of our rapidly changing businesses.
“We were observing, through conversations with our customers, as well as media coverage, that something was happening in the world regarding the way people identify themselves in relation to their employment,” says Cecile Alper-Leroux, Vice President of HCM Innovation at Ultimate Software. Where someone works is much less relevant to employees’ identities, reports Alper-Leroux. For many employees, fitting into a pre-existing structure, be it an organizational chart or a job description, is too confining. She sees this rejection of a “job” as a source of affiliation as part of a larger societal trend in which people resist being categorized, citing examples like fluid gender or ethnic identity.
Fluid Workplaces: Shift Your Leadership Mindset – Click To Tweet
When you overlay these societal trends onto the workplace environment, interesting insights occur. Just as employees seek out fluidity in their lives outside of work, they want more fluidity at work as well. “When we began to explore the idea of ‘job fluidity’, we realized organizational structures simply don’t keep up with the pace of change and innovation requirements that they face today,” observes Alper-Leroux.
Today, many workers have adopted a “gig economy” career path; even those who work inside an organization desire the fluidity and flexibility that independent contractors have typically enjoyed. Employees today don’t align their identities with their employers as closely as they once did. Instead, they see their identities as separate from their employers’ and want job assignments that stretch them. Similarly, many people seek success off the career “ladder”, preferring a career track that takes them around the “jungle gym” instead, stringing together work experiences based on variety and interest. All of this leads to a workforce that expects a more dynamic work arrangement than in decades past.
But not all employees have completely bought into this “freelance” mindset. InPower Coaching founder Dana Theus, in writing about the “fluid career,” observes that many employees are stuck with “old stories we tell ourselves about how long we ‘should’ be in a job,” which leads to a feeling of limited career development options when there are no promotions available within their current employment situation. When individuals shift their mindset and see the benefits of embracing a more fluid career (which may be marked by a variety of traditional jobs interspersed with “gigs”), they will also see the employee-employer relationship in a new light. This can lead to a feeling of more personal empowerment over one’s career.
As Theus points out, it can take a while for the reality of a situation to catch up with a person’s perception of it. Just as employees are reluctant to proactively embrace a more fluid career, organizational leaders often fall into the same outdated mindsets of what it means to have a “job.” Case in point: Alper-Leroux cites research from the Forrester study that nearly 90% of the 200 HR and business leaders surveyed acknowledged that the workforce is becoming more fluid, but fewer than half have specific plans in place to address workplace fluidity.
Leaders need to wake up to the reality of the fluid workforce and learn to use it to their advantage. As Cy Wakemen, author of Reality-Based Leadership said in her presentation at the WorkHuman conference, “the circumstances in which you find yourself aren’t why you can’t succeed . . . your circumstances are the reality in which you must succeed.” And this is where the “employee retention” conversation within organizational walls needs to shift: from “getting people to stay” to “helping them be their best selves for as long as they’re here.”
The reality of the modern workforce is that people won’t stay at your organization as long as they used to, so the notion of “retaining” them has to change as well. It might not be a reality you’re happy about, but as Wakeman points out, it’s the reality you’ve been dealt.
Shifting your leadership mindset on employee retention can help you respond to today’s fluid workforce. Here are three suggestions to help do so:
Are you operating with an “abundance” or “scarcity” mindset? Not sure? Examine your decision-making. If you’re saying, “We can’t afford to lose her to another department” as your justification for denying a project to a valued team member, you’re seeing the situation as “scarce.” Think instead about the valuable skills your team member will gain– and how that plum assignment may actually encourage her to stay with your company longer, even if it’s not within your department.
When hiring, look for talent, not tenure. If you’ve found the “perfect” fit in a job candidate, but hesitate to make the offer because you think he’ll pursue new opportunities within a couple of years, hire him anyway. The value he adds for those two years will far outweigh hiring a less-qualified candidate. Yes, it’s a pain to go through the hiring process again, but that’s the reality of today’s work environment.
Make peace with fluidity. Although difficult, when you accept that many employees won’t stay for much more than 2-3 years, you can recalibrate your expectations. Look at positions that are already outliving their usefulness and need to change and evolve. For example, if you’ve already reorganized the marketing department to factor in new digital positions over the last ten years, can you accept and advertise that these jobs will continue to shift and change as the market and technology they focus on changes? Can you hire people for jobs that are expected to evolve with them?
If some of these ideas feel uncomfortable, then you know you’re on the right track. Learning to shoot the workforce rapids will take some practice, but it can be done. Learn to step up to managing the discomforts of change by learning to let go of your triggers and manage your personal productivity more intuitively. Your business, and your life, will be the better for it.
Updated: Original post June 2017
You made it! Now what? Multiply your impact and not your stress.
Climbing the corporate ladder is a competitive affair—just as competitive as football, basketball, swimming, or whatever your favorite sport may be. Just like in the world of sport, the key to winning is to make the most of your opportunities and to avoid mistakes.
That’s why the cardinal sin of letting others claim the credit for your hard work is extremely damaging. Not only does it represent a missed opportunity to improve your prospects at the next big promotion or advancement, but in most cases it also gives the individual you are competing with an unfair boost.
In a recent blog entry, we discussed the importance of tactfully yet clearly taking credit for the work you have done. Today we are going to focus on a related topic: how to respond when others claim the credit for your hard work.
As always, there is a balancing act that must be maintained. Your “competitors” are also your co-workers and in many cases your friends, so it is important that you don’t jeopardize these important relationships. On the other hand, you can’t be so concerned about maintaining relationships that you let others walk all over you and leave you behind while they advance their career. (Useful link: Tactfully Confronting Conflict)
1) Calmly confront your co-worker and share your frustration
It is important that you speak to the offending co-worker about the situation. However, don’t do so until you have your emotions under control and are able to have a calm conversation. Explain that you worked hard on the project and that you don’t appreciate his/her attempt to take the credit. State that you are glad to collaborate with them, but firmly explain that if the situation repeats itself you will be forced to speak to HR or to your boss. (TIP: Begin this conversation with an open mind. It’s possible that your co-worker made an honest mistake and didn’t intend to steal credit for your work. If this is the case, urge them to do whatever is necessary to ensure that you are properly credited.)
2) Don’t share more information than necessary
Be proactive when it comes to protecting your work. When you’re discussing an idea with your boss or with a co-worker, for instance, don’t spill everything. Keep some of your thoughts, data, or work to yourself so that if the individual does try to take credit, you’ll be able to prove your involvement by revealing additional details and information.
3) Leave a paper trail and spread the word
Documenting your work, particularly when you know that you’re working on something that others would like to claim credit for, is perhaps the most effective way to eliminate this problem. Include dates and time spent working on a project, as well as specific details of what you’ve accomplished. Thorough documentation will serve as deterrence for co-workers that may be considering claiming your work as their own—and in the event of a dispute, it will serve as important evidence. It’s also a good idea to keep your boss up to date—by sending a short written update as you complete milestones, or even by sending a casual “FYI” email just to keep him or her posted. You can also mention your progress in casual conversation around the water cooler. If problems continue, you may have no choice but to explicitly discuss matters with your superior. However, keep in mind that your boss will have a dramatically different perspective on the situation than you will. His/her primary concern is team performance—not ensuring that each employee is treated “fairly” at all times. So while you present your concern, explain the negative impact that it is having on your own job performance. Explain that having your co-worker steal ideas is making it difficult for them to be effectively implemented. Give your boss a compelling reason to take action—otherwise you risk looking childish and immature. (Useful link: How to Deal with Difficult People at Work)
In today’s competitive corporate environment, it’s all too common to see individuals attempting to claim credit for the work and ideas generated by others. If you experience this reality, keep in mind that you must take action. If a co-worker has reason to believe that he or she can get away with claiming the credit that you deserve, it will happen over and over. Take action and put a stop to this behavior. The four steps we’ve covered today will help, but feel free to get in touch with us if you’d like to learn more!
Dr. Tanvi Gautam, the managing Partner of Global People Tree aims to inspire a new generation of women leaders through her writing and podcasts. She is also an academic, a storyteller and a mother – all on a single day ! Dr. Tanvi is on the board of the Asian Region Training and development organization, and was recognized as women HR leaders to follow by the Business Manager magazine. She also a sought after speaker at national and international conferences. She blogs at www.wowfactor.asia and loves to share ideas on twitter @tanvi_gautam When it comes to women and leadership she asks: If not now, then when. If not you, then who?
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Every single one of my coaching clients face challenges with executive communications in one form or another. The most common contexts in which these issues come up include these two dimensions of personal branding and executive presence:
Communicating in an executive fashion to be seen as a potential executive (i.e., ready for a promotion)
Communicating with executive colleagues to earn credibility and influence decisions in senior leadership conversations
But what does good executive communication really look like in action? Most of the time, it starts with the bottom line.
What is Executive Communications?
Executive Communications Stems from Executive Thinking. There’s a reason the frontal lobe of the brain is called the home of the brain’s “executive function.” Executive mental functions such as communications, analysis and decision-making fundamentally relies on our brain’s ability to prioritize and sift through huge amounts of data and information served up by the rest of our brain in order to produce an outcome. These outcomes look like decisions, requests and actions.
Similarly, acting as a sort of “frontal lobe of the organization”, executives in companies lead most effectively and efficiently when they are focused on the outcomes (i.e., decisions, requests and actions), not the sifting and prioritizing necessary to inform the outcome. This is why most executives usually like to start with the end state of an analysis or recommendation and work backwards until they understand what they need to know to move to the outcome. In a perfect world, the executive trusts those who produce the information so much that they spend little time reanalyzing data and get right to the outcome.
If you’ve ever found an executive impatient with sorting through the details, it’s because they want to spend their time on outcomes.
Why is Executive Communications Difficult?
Of course, getting a recommendation ready for decision making never starts with the outcome. It starts with a clear understanding of the problem and moves linearly through gathering information, analyzing/running scenarios and – finally – a conclusion that produces the bottom line recommended outcome. Too many times, those tasked with the non-executive tasks of developing the recommendation stumble at the end and struggle to get to a bottom line where the executive outcome can be more easily decided. There are many reasons this final step, the step the executive cares most about, is difficult at the end of the analysis, because the analyzers:
exhaust themselves doing the work and run out of time or brain cells when it comes time to boil it down to a bottom line
get so lost in the weeds that they lose the perspective necessary (if they ever had it) to see the bottom line that can drive the outcome
inexperienced with achieving outcomes (i.e., decisions, requests and actions), their recommendation doesn’t provide the necessary rigor or information necessary for an executive to drive the outcome
How to Start with the Bottom Line When Communicating with Executives
So what should you do if you’re determined to avoid these challenges and become a good executive communicator? Here are three steps you can take to switch up your analysis and recommendation style to deliver the bottom line effectively in an executive manner:
1. Be very clear at the outset on the executive perspective of the problem AND the type of outcome your analysis should support
Do you know the cost of the problem and the potential return of a solution?
Do you know what decisions can and cannot be driven by your work?
2. Do your analysis in the traditional linear order
Think through the problem, data, analysis, scenarios, potential outcomes, solution/recommendation)
Come to your recommendation by telling your story in a linear fashion, to yourself and then others who will help you with a “dry run”
3. Develop an executive communication package: put your linear story above into an Appendix and deliver a short (5-10 slide) presentation structured to start with the bottom line
your description of the problem
your recommendation
the top 3 reasons you’re making this recommendation and then
the Appendix.
When you deliver executive communications as number three outlines above, you give the executive listener the essential information she needs to either move directly to the outcome or take you back into your Appendix to discuss the specific pieces most important to her before moving to the outcome. Even if you have to retrace every step in discussion, which is less likely with this approach, your initial overview will usually lead to a more efficient executive interaction and a greater probability of an outcome.
You may note that the above approach feels at some level inherently inefficient, requiring you to prepare up front more carefully and do the analysis twice — once forward in the thinking and once backward in the communicating. If you’re only looking at efficiency through the lens of time spent, than this approach is less efficient than simply doing the analysis and sharing it. And once you go through the “inefficient process” of analyzing it forward and communicating it backwards, you’ll be able to quickly and efficiently represent the most important aspects of your ideas in any format, powerpoint, narrative memos, elevator conversations and more.
However, I can guarantee you that in the last step, (number three – leading with your high level recommended outcome and putting the details at the back of your presentation) you will do the executive synthesis that is at the heart of high quality executive communications. And the executives you’re communicating with will appreciate your effort. They’ll see that you’re capable of joining them in the frontal lobe of the organization. If you’re not there already, they may just ask you to join them.
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Reframing Change Management: Change management models often fail to account for the internal change needed within individuals for successful implementation.
Creating the Right Conditions: Successful change management requires preparing, including, and empowering people to participate actively in the change process.
Safety and Emotional Intelligence: Creating a safe environment where people can manage their emotions is crucial for successful change management, requiring both personal and organizational efforts in emotional intelligence development.
Previously I wrote an article on this blog called Reframing Change Management Theory as an Act of Creation, which summarizes how I’ve come to apply a change management model in my capacity as a coach and leadership consultant. Having helped people and organizations through change all my working life, I’ve come to see the holes in many of the current paradigms. There’s actually nothing wrong with the existing change management models as they are. They work fine if the conditions among and within the human beings using them are right. The problem is that these conditions, which require emotional intelligence, are so rarely right.
And many of these change models take an ‘outside-in’ approach to change. People come in from the outside to decide what needs to be changed and ‘do change to’ the people inside the system. This outside perspective can be very valuable, but it often fails to recognize the power, and necessity, for people to change on the inside in order for change to stick. Achieving this change from the inside out is an art, not a science.
A New Change Management Model
Most change management models work well, when conditions are right. The problem is that conditions are so rarely right.– @DanaTheus <==CLICK TO TWEET
When a change effort goes awry, the change management model is often pinpointed as the problem. The next most blamed element? The people who “resisted” the change. As I discussed in my previous article, it’s my experience that when people are invited into change, rather than having it thrust upon them, they are more apt to accept it and, when the conditions are right, embrace and support it. Most “resistance” they offer is often simply a request to be more involved.
Most serious change efforts these days do try to invite people into the change process to some degree. They get feedback up front, hold charrettes and other creative thinking sessions to involve people and try to communicate to all affected throughout–and at the end–of the process. Agile development processes can also be effective in bringing people into a change process fluidly, on an as-needed basis. However, in my experience, while we’re fairly good at designing processes to bring people into change, we’re not very good at preparing people to participate in these processes, and thus we end up right back where we started, encountering resistance.
Preparing People: Creating the “Right” Conditions for Change
Creating the right conditions for change to take hold means being aware of, and investing in, a process that prepares, includes and empowers people to participate in change at the same time we’re planning to create, test and launch systems and systemic agents of change (e.g., new software systems, new organizational structures and new things designed to replace old things of any kind.) After decades of increasing rates of change we’re pretty good at developing change models that are linear and take us from start (i.e., the As Is beginning state) to finish (i.e., the To Be end state). A lot of these processes look like this InPower Coaching Change Model:
However, preparing people to participate in change requires that we understand how people engage in change successfully. Unlike a fair amount of “common sense” change wisdom, I don’t believe that people always experience change as loss, meaning they have to “grieve” the old thing in order to move on and accept the new thing.
Do you miss your rotary phone? Me either. So why do we say “people hate change”? <– @DanaTheus —CLICK TO TWEET
I do believe that people go through an outside-in-inside-out process of change, however, that enables them to internalize the change being asked of them, make sense of it in their personal context and then participate in it in the way that works for them. How they make it work for themselves is a very personal process, reflecting their worldview, life experience and intentions. In general, it follows the following process for each person.
If you’re an organization or a team leader, what’s the appropriate way to guide people through this very personal process using some kind of cookie cutter change management model? I mean, your goal is to create revenue and business impact, right? Not run therapy groups. The answer looks different in every situation, but it doesn’t require therapy groups. It does, however, involve grooming your managers with the emotional intelligence skills so they can create one key component required to help people navigate the process above: Safety.
Let’s start talking about “change acceptance” and “change empowerment” instead of “change resistance” – @DanaTheus <== CLICK TO TWEET
Safety is the Key to Change Management
It’s true that change is uncomfortable and that people don’t like discomfort. That’s not the same as saying “people don’t like change.” What they don’t like is the discomfort.
Q: So how do we help them become comfortable with change?
A: We learn how to make it okay for them to be uncomfortable as they work through their discomfort and find their way back to comfort (see circle cycle above).
What’s happening during this critical process? What does a safe environment for change and disruption enable? During this adjustment process people are doing the following, at a minimum, and often unconsciously.
Understanding the new things being asked of them
Figuring out what will change in their own, personal, sphere at a detail level
Deciding how they feel about the change, including how they feel about the process of change/how they’re treated
Dealing with those feelings
Analyzing alternative behaviors and ways of being in the changed world
Deciding how they feel about this, and dealing with those feelings
Imagining their new logistics and orienting to this
Deciding how they feel about this, and dealing with those feelings
Envisioning a new definition of personal success for themselves (and their team if they’re a leader)
Deciding how they feel about this, and dealing with those feelings
Doing the work to detail what they must do to comply in the changed world (for many, this is significant as it can include revising all their current processes)
Deciding how they feel about this, and dealing with those feelings
Doing the work and running into unforeseen challenges
Deciding how they feel about this, and dealing with those feelings
Addressing the unforeseen challenges
Deciding how they feel about this, and dealing with those feelings
Moving into a “new normal”
Deciding how they feel about this, and dealing with those feelings
Deciding to stick with the new normal or move on
Deciding how they feel about this, and dealing with those feelings
See the pattern? At every step in people’s adjustment to the new order, they will have new feelings, and those feelings must be managed. Actually, using the word “deciding” is probably incorrect. If they’re emotionally intelligent they can notice their feelings and adjust and manage them. Those without emotional intelligence, and who are managed by non emotionally intelligent leaders, rarely even investigate their feelings to decide how to respond. Instead they simply react to them. As a result, many of their feelings won’t be well understood, much less well-expressed.
Normally, these off-the-top feelings and expressions just get blurted out into the space between people, causing unexpected, unconscious and unforeseen feelings in others. When all these feelings start setting off triggers, things can get ugly.
It’s true that change is uncomfortable and that people don’t like discomfort. That’s not the same as saying “people don’t like change.” What they don’t like is the discomfort. – @DanaTheus <=Click to Tweet
Creating safety, to allow these very natural human feelings to exist and be processed without kicking up a dust storm of triggered interactions that simply cascade through the organization, is key but seldom accomplished. Giving people the skills to manage these feelings (including their triggers) is step one, and for that to work there must be a minimal level of safety in the organization so people don’t experience the kind of shame and blame that will shut them down, drive them to resistance and threaten the entire project. How do you create safety? Ah, that is more an art than a science, however, I can boil it down to these basic recommendations, which is what I work with my clients individually and organizationally to achieve.
Personally:
Learn to detrigger so that you can remain emotionally calm when offering or receiving resistance to change
Become skilled at exploring resistance with active listening in yourself and others to understand the positive contributions it brings to the process of change
Organizationally:
Ensure your leaders have higher levels of these emotional intelligence skills and are trained in how to seek and use resistance in developing better change outcomes
Build basic emotional intelligence skills and vocabulary into the broader team culture: Self-Awareness, Emotional Regulation, Interpersonal Communication and Conflict Management
Equip executives and senior leaders with how to see and manage the culture to become change resilient and welcoming (which means they must personally learn these lessons so they can model them for others. Want to know why so many change efforts fail? Yup. This.)
Change Management is a Journey
The most successful change management programs work to embed change resilience and related skills into their cultures, and culture shift is a journey. It doesn’t have to take a long time, but it does take time and focus on the part of leaders throughout the organization.
This process is easier when the larger change processes embrace the need for safety, emotional intelligence and employee inclusion and empowerment. To help leaders reframe their preconceptions about Change Management and think about change in ways that allow for safety and space for personal change, I’ve created a White Paper to go deeper than a blog post can really do, which introduced the InPower Change Management Model.
Download a copy of the white paper Creating Space for Change: An InPower Approach to Change Management.
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