by Mary | Jul 18, 2016 | Coaching Advice, People Skills
There have been a number of projects where I observed a client not following industry best practices. It was weird. The client company had many smart employees, so for them not to follow best practices, to not do what was obvious, seemed strange. Why not do what every other company does?
I learned the hard way that stating the obvious, asking why they didn’t follow best practices, was never well received. Sometimes my suggestion would be interpreted as a snide remark about their work, or worse, perceived as a personal attack, accusing someone of not understanding their field.
Over time, I realized that there were 3 main reasons why stating the obvious directly to my client was a faux pas.
- It was embarrassing for my client to admit the real reason why best practices weren’t being leveraged. I learned that many of these businesses had either a business/resource or political reason. For either situation, if I was too direct in my communications, the client tried to mask the real reason why best practices weren’t being followed. Who wants to admit that they don’t have the funding to do something properly? Or that a VP doesn’t like the best practice for some silly reason? By directly suggesting that they implement a best practice, I was calling them out on a “failure.” In a way, I was demanding them to explain themselves and share their dirty little secrets. And no one likes to admit to secrets.
- I implied that the client is inept. Telling someone the obvious could imply that you don’t believe he knows what the best practices are. In a way, you are indirectly criticizing that person’s job performance. This could lead to that person thinking you don’t trust him or her to do their job, or worse, you believe that he isn’t qualified. Although that may not be true, perception is reality, so what the client perceived as true, was true. I could do nothing to change his mind. I decided it would be better not to set that message in someone’s head.
- I was perceived as one who searched for problems. Stating the obvious and pointing out weaknesses or defects was often interpreted as a way for me to get business. I may have been right, but I was seen as a troublemaker, looking for problems to fix. And the client didn’t want to hear about one more problem on their side anyway.
So how did I change my communication approach so I could do the work I needed to do? (more…)
by Dana Theus | Jul 15, 2016 | Change Management, Coaching Advice, Insights & Inspiration
Everyone wants to change. The airwaves are full of tempting enticements to cause change in our bodies, our minds and our relationships, but the real process of change is so much more organic and subtle than a pill or piece of exercise equipment can deliver.
When I was a little kid I was afraid of a lot of things. But for two summers when I was about 7-8 my parents sent me to sleep-away camp and I learned a valuable lesson: my Stretch Zone was an ok place to be. I did things I wouldn’t have done before. I survived home sickness. I made new friends. I found some beauty in the world I hadn’t known existed. I learned how to ride a donkey.
We all want a map, some instructions, maybe a blueprint for how to change when we buy that bright new shiny widget. I don’t now about you, but I have a pile of books (i.e., maps) and a bag for Good Will (i.e., formerly shiny objects) ready to give away at this point. But I think I need to send myself back to Summer Camp instead of buying another bright shiny widget.
Why was sleep-away camp more effective than the books and the widgets? What’s going on when real, sustainable, change is in the works? (more…)
by Dana Theus | Jul 13, 2016 | Communicating With Confidence, InPower Women Blog
As a rule, women are good communicators. Yet many women are told that their communications patterns are holding them back when it comes to workplace success. What’s going on here?
For starters, the above observation is full of generalizations. “All women” aren’t “good” at stuff any more than “all men” are “bad” at stuff. Everyone’s individual strengths and challenges are much more important than any generalized trend, however certain patterns are universal enough to warrant some examination. The pattern I want to take aim at today is one that I used to fall victim to myself, and it’s an example of how a woman’s strengths can become weaknesses through no fault of their own. Thankfully, there are also some pretty simple communication tips that will help you overcome this double-bind if you struggle with this common pattern.
An undervalued strength many women bring to the workplace is their ability to see consequences in the future very clearly. Women are able to predict cause and effect—particularly when it requires understanding human reactions to things—and conduct an intuitive risk assessment very quickly. This means that they’re really good at poking holes in plans and strategies to identify the plan’s weaknesses.
I bet you can see how this strength gets turned into a weakness very quickly:
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by Dana Theus | Jul 6, 2016 | Career Development, Coaching Advice
Every job has it’s turning point, that time when you’re not learning as much as fast; or you’re losing interest; or starting to figure out what you really want to put your career energy into… even though you’re not quite ready to declare the job you’re in “ready to go.”
It’s this “itchy point” that marks what should become the beginning of your proactive passive job search, where you’re not actively looking, but you’re proactively exploring what’s next for your career and opening yourself to opportunities that may happen across your path.
Susan has been in her job for just over six years when a trip to a conference woke her up to the fact that she was more interested in the sessions on future trends in her industry than best practices. She was hungering for something new and future-oriented instead of doing more of the same better than last year. At the conference she began to explore her new interest in the future: was it boredom with her job or interest in exploring what she could do with the skills and experience she’d gained that called her forward? Turns out it was a little of both.
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by Dana Theus | Jul 4, 2016 | Coaching Advice, Insights & Inspiration
Yes, many organizations and governments are oppressive and need to be voted and fought against. But true freedom of choice is a state of mind.
How can you tell? In any community, regardless of circumstance, you can find people who bear the burden of the rules around them differently. There are those who rail against limitations by putting limitations on others. Those who squander the freedoms they have by lamenting the freedoms they don’t. And some who simply give up.
A glass-half-empty person can die of thirst.”
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by Dana Theus | Jun 29, 2016 | Career Development, Coaching Advice
If you’re “happily enough employed”, can you really be in a job search? Yes! In the career development world we call this a “passive job search” and it’s been shown that people who are happy where they are usually get the best job offers to go somewhere else and they’ll be even happier! To the recruiter community, currently employed job seekers who are willing to look at alternative career options are called “passive job seekers” and they are prizes to be won. Why? Because it’s assumed that someone who already has a job they like won’t come with the baggage of sour grapes or questionable skills that may accompany those actively looking.
Is the assumption that if you’re actively looking there may be something wrong with you fair? No. But think of it like this: when you’re engaging in a passive job search, you’re playing a little hard to get, so if they want you they have to try a bit harder. The benefits? Better opportunities, higher salary, greater benefits.
Jonathan was three years into his first management job at a biotech company, leading a small delivery team, when he was contacted on LinkedIn about a position at an even bigger company. He liked where he was but recognized that the promotion opportunities were pretty slim. The new company had a bigger organization, more labs and specialties to help him refine his skills, work on more market-facing projects and move up the ladder. They offered him $12,000 more a year than he was currently making and a moving allowance to relocate to a city closer to his wife’s parents. He was sad to leave his current position, but recognized that opening up a slot for one of the promising employees on his team was a win-win. Jonathan played the game right and got the benefit.
What did Jonathan do to be proactive in his passive job search?
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by Liz | Jun 27, 2016 | InPower Women Blog, Women in Leadership, Working Moms
Summer is a special time that you deserve to take advantage of. You’ve worked so hard over the past year, survived the holidays and maybe even some big birthdays. Now is a time to celebrate all of your achievements with a little rest and relaxation. It’s summer time. Get out there and really enjoy it.
The kids go to summer camp, why can’t you? Here’s how a working mom can make the most of her summer. (more…)
by Dana Theus | Jun 15, 2016 | Coaching Advice, Corporate Culture, Emotional Intelligence at Work, People Skills
What does it mean to be IN power when you’re working for yourself? The answer to that question, I believe, is meaningful for all of us – even those with bosses who climb the corporate ladder, live in cubes or on airplanes, slogging away on either side of the glass ceiling (which is there for some men as well).
Many, not all, of the lessons I’ve learned about personal power came because I’ve been on my own for the last 10 years, flying without a corporate net. But in my executive coaching work, I’ve come to realize that if I were in a corporate position now, I’d need these skills more than ever. Why? Because getting ahead inside an organization’s culture requires that we become personally strong enough to separate ourselves from it. This allows us the freedom to lead and shape it actively and consciously. The higher up you are the more responsibility you have for shaping the culture in service of your business goals, so the the higher up you are, the more important it is to be able to separate yourself. (more…)
by Andria | Jun 8, 2016 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery
Fear will stop you dead in your tracks or make you run like hell. It’s supposed to do that. When you come face to face with a life threatening moment, like a fire in your house or a wild animal in your path, your fight or flight reaction kicks in; thank heavens for that. That’s what fear is designed for – to keep us alive in those situations.
But there is another type of fear that will stop us dead in our tracks or make us run like hell that contains no life threatening components, other than the ones we create in our mind. This type of fear is self-created and is what I’ve heard described as False Evidence Appearing Real (F-E-A-R). I wish I could remember whom I heard that from and give that person credit but I can’t so suffice it to say, I didn’t come up with it but I love it so am sharing it with you. This is made-up, self-created, irrational fear. It’s exactly what the acronym says: False Evidence Appearing Real. They are fears that come from the “what ifs” and stories we create in our head; stories that become real, in our mind. What if my business fails? What if I never recover? What if I lose my job? What if I don’t get the promotion? What if the stock market crashes again and I lose my life savings? I’m afraid of failing, of losing, of succeeding… I’m afraid of what other people will think if I quit my job or don’t get the promotion. And on and on it goes. Those are the fears I’m referring to; the ones that pull you out of the present moment because you’re so focused on what might (or more likely, what might not) happen in the future. These are future focused fears. It’s like planning for a headache or a disaster that never happens. This is the fear we need to face and overcome because it’s what holds us back, keeps us stuck, prevents us from making much needed changes in our lives, or makes us run like hell from an awesome but scary opportunity. (more…)
by Silkarmour | Jun 6, 2016 | Communicating With Confidence, InPower Women Blog
With more women joining the workforce than ever before, it would be easy to assume that a promotion to a role of power and influence would boost our confidence. Sadly, the voice of doubt that used to hold us back as students or in entry-level roles is now sinking it’s claws into our career potential and making us feel like we’re not worthy. This dynamic has become so common that it has a name: the Imposter Syndrome.
The Widespread Phenomenon
Named by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, the persistent feeling that you are a fraud hasn’t changed much over the last 40 years–except for the fact that women in positions of power and influence are more susceptible than ever. Sheryl Sandberg, best-selling author and COO of Facebook, is a key example. In her book, Lean In, Sandberg publicly highlighted the speech she heard at her Harvard graduation, ‘Feeling Like a Fraud’ as her moment of realization. Listening to the speech she realized that throughout her education, she felt that she had ‘fooled’ everyone into thinking she was as capable as she is. $1.7billion of personal net worth later, it’s baffling to imagine how this could happen; but this is the reality that 70% of professional women live with.
The Issue of Gender
The gender divide we experience as children is arguably the main source of these feelings. According to Valerie Young, author of The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, the lessons of being bold and exuding confidence we get as children are seemingly exclusively for boys. Girls are taught to translate self-publicity as an unattractive quality, to remain humble. Evidently, this hasn’t gotten us very far and instead, set women on a path of grappling with perfectionism and the “disease to please” while ignoring the real value of their accomplishments. In being taught differently form a young age, our own ability to build confidence within ourselves is drastically reduced. On average we hear the phrases “no” and, “you cannot do that” around 148,000 times before we turn 18; a point in our lives in which society wants us to have figured out our identity, career path, relationship with our bodies and be able to defend ourselves in the social paradigm that is the world of work. Not only is it overwhelming and unrealistic but it’s also the product of condition that we are unconsciously fed.
How Do We Overcome It?
So how do we defeat the beast? A saying that summarizes it all was penned by Professor Stajkovic of the University of Wisconsin; “If you believe, you achieve, if you doubt, you’ll go without”. Like any issue, work or personal acceptance of a problem is the real first step to recovery. Safety in numbers is an old saying but we’d be lying to ourselves in thinking that we feel better dealing with problems alone, not to mention the fact that sometimes faking it (for a little while at least) works! Telling someone we have an issue, however small it is, appeals to our basic human instinct. We feel better knowing we are not alone, and telling someone is the first step to tackling it.
Owning our own successes is another way to reclaim confidence. Being humble is one thing (and will do us a great deal during our career ascension) but denying our input or even sole effort into achieving a certain goal completely undermines the effort we have put in to get where we are. Again, the root of the issue here is that women are taught not to flaunt their achievements whilst men will proudly explain what they have done, according to psychologist Natasha Murashev. In succeeding, a man will confidently publicize his achievements and in turn, “will feel like he deserved the same promotion through his own intelligence and hard work”. Women often have to discover other strategies to talk about success without feeling like they’re “bragging.”
Interestingly, becoming a mentor to someone is another frequented way to overcome the Imposter Syndrome. When we’re semi-responsible or in affiliation with someone, more often than not, we have a reflexive response to be confident and believe in what we are saying. The ‘auto-pilot’ mode that turns on when we are considered as a role of authority by someone at a junior level instantly appeals to the information we have retained throughout our career so far – you’re surprised by how much you do know when someone else asks you.
Dress to Cultivate Confidence
Along the road to shattering self-doubt, one thing is guaranteed; we all feel better when we are dressed well at work. The power of a sharply-tailored suit, a sleek pencil-dress or the particular item of clothing that makes you feel amazing can lift your self-esteem and enable you to feed off the elevated sense of respect others give you because you exude confidence. In the same way that a capsule wardrobe saves time in dressing for work, a confidence wardrobe gives you the shot of empowerment you need for the days you are feeling down. Consciously dressing to cultivate confidence has the same affect that a uniform of office clothes does in preparing you for a day at work; through psychological association. By building a selective wardrobe of items that you know elevates your confidence and brings out the best version of yourself, every item can contribute to improving your mood and give you that extra boost when facing the dragon of self-doubt.
Plus, they don’t call them killer heels for nothing.
Interested in taking these concepts deeper? Check out our free coaching resources!” and make free coaching resources!
Guide to Women in Leadership
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
