Dispelling Myths of Authenticity (Authenticity series 4/4)

In this final installment of our authenticity series, we confront prevalent misconceptions that often color our understanding of authenticity. Let’s unravel the truth behind these myths.

Myth #1 – Authetncity means never changing your personality

A misunderstanding with being authentic is thinking that we must always be true to ourselves and display that version.  But, which true self is that?  Walt Whitman said, “Do I contract myself?  Very well then, I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”  To be authentically human is to exercise all our mini-selves, it does not mean resisting the evolution that occurs with personal growth.

New managers struggle when they define authenticity in strict terms.  When asked to make changes they may feel it is a stretch from their natural personality, and they equate that with inauthentic.  For example, a humble manager who values others’ ideas is told by their boss to be more assertive and sell their concept more aggressively.  That can feel fake.  Going against our natural inclinations can make us feel like impostors, so we tend to latch on to authenticity as an excuse for sticking with what’s familiar.  But as we advance in our careers, demands and expectations change, and we need to expand and develop new muscles and add more tools.   By viewing ourselves as works-in-progress and evolving our professional identities through trial and error, we can create a personal style that feels right to us and suits our organizations’ changing needs.  If we adhere too much to what we think and feel, it may counter what the situation demands, and we deprive ourselves of tremendous growth.  The aspects that are most challenging for us can teach us the most about leading effectively.  In an interview with Adam Grant, Indra Nooyi, Former CEO of PepsiCo shared advice that while you maintain your authenticity, do not expect others to accept 100% of who you are.  She talked about being the only female on executive calls, and all the men would talk about sports she did not follow.  The one sport she did follow, Cricket, nobody else was interested.  She decided to flex her authenticity and learn about other sports and get involved with sports talk with her coworkers before the meetings. She found that these efforts went a long way to building rapport and doing better business. Being able to bend to have stronger connections was quite valuable to her.

Myth #2: Authenticity gives you a free pass to behave however you want

Being authentic does not justify hurtful or self-centered and irresponsible behavior.  Some chronically uncivil people or those with disagreeable personalities like to say they are just being their authentic selves.  For example, you may yell at a teammate because you view yourself as prone to anger, but you do not have the right to unload your feelings on others whenever you want and in the way you want.  Family and friends may be able to handle that and will be there for us after sharing our short tantrums and emotional speedbumps.  You may be somebody who curses a lot and will want that same right in the workplace to express your authenticity.  But, we can be both authentic and respectful or agreeable to create harmony in the workplace.  Authentic leadership is about mastering the skill of being a shapeshifter.  Somebody can change styles depending on what the situation demands, without straying from core values and goals or relinquishing their genuineness.  It is not about the person who expresses themselves regardless of the impact they may have on others.  You must be mindful and emotionally aware of how your energy is radiating and how others are experiencing you.  

Myth #3: Authenticity means behaving the same way in every situation

We have a kaleidoscope of personalities and may activate specific personas under different conditions.  For example, when we are in performance mode, we present our most polished selves, showcasing our leadership prowess.  In learning mode, we experiment and accept failure as part of our growth journey. Authenticity can manifest differently in these varied contexts, and that’s perfectly normal.  Shakespeare’s famous words: “All the world’s a stage …and one man in his time plays many parts,” captures this reality.  Adapting your behavior to fit the situation does not make you fake or insincere; it demonstrates versatility.   Common sense says that we do not reveal every side of ourselves in every situation, but understand the context we are in and the style we can adapt because we have versatility.  You do not show up the same way in the board room when you give a briefing as you do with your family at a dinner party or the gym with your friends.  We have many facets, and while we are adapting to others, we are still always staying true to our values which is what authenticity is all about.

How do we know when you’re being inauthentic?  It happens when your actions diverge from your professed beliefs and values.  Like chameleons, leaders can adjust to better serve their teams while staying true to their authentic identities.

Quote of the day: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."  - Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) (alternatively attributed to Sir Mark Young and/or Bernard Baruch)

Q: How do you adapt your style to fit the context you are in but are still authentic?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to explore what authentic leadership means to them and develop their style, contact me to explore this topic further.

Which myths do you want to dispel?

Grow Your Authentic Leadership (Authenticity series 3/4)

In the preceding blogs of this series, we explored authenticity and its characteristics.   This article will focus on ways we can be more authentic. 

Leadership is a canvas for self-expression, and attempting to replicate someone else’s style will likely lead to failure. Employees seek guidance from leaders who invest time in crafting their unique approach, those who are honest and unwavering in their message.  Fyodor Dostoyevsky wisely noted, “To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”  People yearn to be led by individuals who share an honest message deeply rooted in personal conviction, not borrowed words that lack a genuine connection.

Here are some practical steps you can take to cultivate greater authenticity:

1. Know your values.  Many of our woes come from not knowing ourselves, our abilities, fragilities, and virtues.  We walk through life as strangers to ourselves, and that can cause distress in our authenticity and leadership.  What are the top 3-5 beliefs that are important to you?  Some may not know the answer- is it love, money, status, or relationships?  We cannot align our behaviors with our values if we do not know them.  Knowing our values helps us make better decisions.  For example, if we value career goals, when we become a parent, we will know that we will want to make room for work because we will deliver our best selves to all that we do.  Sharing our values is sharing our truth.  Authenticity is intrinsically linked to your values and core beliefs, even if your behavior adapts to changing circumstances.

2. Know your purpose and align it with the organization.  Knowing what you are meant to do in this world is vital for fulfillment, so if we are working for an organization that does not represent who we are and what we stand for, it can be stifling.  But, when we can align any part of our purpose to the organizations, we can live more genuinely by being ourselves and having our values shine through in all places. 

3. Express yourself as a trait, not a role.  Often, we equate our identity with our job titles; if we do marketing for a living, that is how we portray ourselves, but it does not capture all we are.  Maybe we are a learner and conveyors of ideas so there are a lot of roles we could have, like a facilitator for people to mutually explore profoundly impactful ideas, or a professional speaker, or a teacher, or a team leader, or simply an optimist.  Authenticity is the expression of traits you have that can be flexed in different places rather than confined to specific roles.

4. Connect to your past.  Authenticity can find its roots in your origins.  Leaders who maintain a connection between their past experiences and their current selves are more often effective in building and maintaining relationships because they are not worried about hiding aspects of themselves.  Authentic leaders remain focused on where they are going but never lose sight of where they have come from.  Reflect on how your past has shaped you, and identify the common threads that have woven through your life.

5. Build a foundation of self-knowledge.  We can learn about ourselves in many ways, but the best approach is to solicit honest feedback—perhaps a 360-degree review—from coworkers and follow it up with coaching so we learn more about ourselves and how other people see us, and then we can see if the two views are compatible.  Combining personal and professional histories can unveil common themes from our upbringing and work experiences that have shaped our authenticity.   Spend time in introspection, understand your preferences, and explore how they have evolved over time. This self-knowledge serves as a strong foundation for authentic leadership.

Authenticity in leadership is a potent force for engendering trust and nurturing meaningful relationships. To further enhance your authenticity, delve deep into your purpose and values, self-reflect, and express yourself through inherent straight rather than predefined roles.

Quote of the day: “Know yourself, and you will win all battles.” -Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher

Q: How can we become a more authentic leader?  Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series 4/4 will focus on dispelling myths of authenticity.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to explore what authentic leadership means to them and develop their style, contact me to explore this topic further.

Which components would you include?

Characteristics of an Authentic Leader (Authenticity Series 2/4 )

In the previous blog, we delved into the concept of authenticity and its benefits in leadership.   This article will explore the key characteristics of being an authentic leader.

Here are a few traits of authentic leaders:

1. Vulnerability.  Authentic leaders are unafraid to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences honestly. They willingly expose themselves to emotional challenges but do so without compromising their credibility.   For example, as a leader, you do not want to say to your team, “I want to do this job, but it’s scary, and I don’t know how.”  That candor can backfire, and you can lose trust with people who want and need a confident leader.  Instead, you can say, “I may not have all the answers, but I want to enlist your support as we move forward together.  That approach creates team cohesion and invites the active participation of others.

2. Integrity. This is when your words are consistent with your deeds; otherwise, followers will never accept you as authentic.  Great leaders embody their beliefs and live them unfailingly.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson puts it, “what you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying.” Words are superficial and prove who you want to be, while actions show who you are.

3. Be transparent and truthful.  As Dostoyevsky wisely observed, “Above all do not lie to yourself, the man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie, comes to a point where he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, so loses respect for himself and others.  And having no respect, he seizes to live.” People are more trusting when transparency and congruency of who you are on the inside are the same as how you portray yourself to the world; there is no secrecy or mystery.  When you operate with dishonesty, it can have a detrimental impact.  Nietzsche’s mentor, Ludwig Feuerbach said, “I would rather be a devil in alliance with the truth than an angel in alliance with falsehood.” Speaking truthfully allows for a more stress-free existence.

4. Self-awareness.  Authenticity begins with self-awareness: knowing who you are—your values, emotions, and competencies, as well as how others perceive them, are better equipped for success.  A study at the Center for Creative Leadership found that self-awareness is the primary quality that distinguishes successful leaders.  Moreover, research shows companies that employ professionals who exhibit high levels of self-awareness tend to perform better financially.  By looking inward and engaging in self-assessment, we can gain a deeper understanding of our emotions, beliefs, and strengths and improve our perception of those held by others. Regular reflection practice is important, whether through meditation, prayer, mindfulness, thinking, writing, or taking long walks to clear one’s head.  This allows us to step back from the whirlwind and set aside the preoccupation with task lists so the urgent does not take precedence over the important aspects of our lives.   Also, we can ensure alignment with our values and a deeper understanding of how we live our lives and engage with the world around us.  The more we know ourselves, the more authentic we can be.

5. Discipline.  Being an authentic leader requires more than just building self-awareness—we need to put it into practice, which requires discipline.  Making it a point to get feedback on our behaviors and being intentional about what we want to practice will help us.

6. Confidence and humility.  Having self-confidence and being comfortable in our skin are essential.  Knowing where we come from and who we are, and knowing how to use our backgrounds to build rapport with others. There is humility in connecting with all people.  Albert Einstein once said, “I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbageman or the university president.”  That statement reflects Einstein’s comfort with himself and his ability to be consistent in his various interactions.

7. Mission-driven & inspirational.  Knowing your deeply held crucibles and true north will help you stay on track so you can lead yourself authentically.  Similarly, a deep and abiding commitment to a company mission is integral to authentic leadership and business success.  According to a recent survey by EY and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, 89% of executives said a sense of collective purpose drives employee engagement, and 84% said it leads to tremendous success in transformational efforts.  Some companies discover their mission early and others stumble upon it, but embracing a purpose will help with authenticity because it keeps you focused.  When you help your followers believe the mission is worthy, they will fight for you. 

6. Commitment to self-improvement.  To become more effective at motivating and guiding others, authentic leaders need to first focus on bettering themselves.  “Authentic leaders begin with the will and commitment within to work on themselves,” says Harvard Professor Nancy Koehn.  Abraham Maslow endorses the concept of individuals striving for self-actualization, which is becoming more complete by pursuing personal growth and peak experiences and realizing their potential. 

7. Balancing your internal understanding with your external feedback.  Leaders go on an inner journey of understanding who they are and what they believe and then matching that with their actions.  They also go on an outer trip, realizing that those actions have implications and will invite feedback from others.

We need a combination of listening to others’ opinions and having a strong enough understanding of who we are and what we want to be the final arbiters.  In Robert Keagan’s stages of adult development, self-authoring is about defining who we are, instead of listening to others’ descriptions of us.  We can distinguish the opinions of others from our thoughts and have an internal guide.  The next level of advancement is self-transforming - where your sense of self is not tied to a particular identity or role but is constantly created through exploration.  It is similar to the Buddhist concept of the evolving self.  In the words of E.E. Cummings “to be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the greatest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”  When you do not trust a leader it’s because there’s a gap between what they espouse and what they do.

Authentic Leadership means different things to different people.  While there are some common denominators, it is more about showing up in a way that lives your values and makes a positive difference in the lives of others.

Quotes of the day: “You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act.” - Jordan Peterson

“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you. - Dr. Seuss

Q: What characteristics do you think are most important for developing your authenticity as a leader?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series 3/4 will focus on how to be an authentic leader. 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to explore what authentic leadership means to them and develop their style, contact me to explore this topic further.

Just What Does Authenticity Mean? (Authenticity series 1/4)

“Be yourself” is a piece of advice we have all encountered at some point in our lives.  But what exactly does it mean to be authentic, and why is it revered as the gold standard for leadership and navigating life successfully?

The term “authentic” traditionally referred to original works of art instead of copies.  It is about adhering to your true self and being transparent about who you are across all aspects of your life.  A core aspect of you shows up whether at work, with family, in your relationship, or among strangers.  There is something liberating about that consistent expression.  To be authentic is to be the author of your life, to write your story, and to direct your actions rather than feeling compelled to conform to others’ expectations or seek acceptance.

Good leadership requires authenticity

In Authentic Leadership, Author Bill George defined the concept as “understanding your purpose, practicing solid values, leading with your heart, establishing connected relationships, and demonstrating self-discipline.”  In essence, it involves neither projecting a fabricated corporate persona nor emulating the leadership styles of others.  It is being true to your origins, finding your unique path, and evolving into the person you are destined to become.

The Rewards of Authenticity:

In his book Tribe, Sebastian Junger shares the self-determination theory, which holds that humans need three elements to be content: competence in their pursuits, connection with others, and authenticity in their lives.  Introducing authenticity to the workplace is part of the whole person movement, integrating our internal and external selves.  Instead of concealing our values and experiences, we openly share them. Our values and experiences are not hidden but shared.   Otherwise, we risk donning a mask that exhausts us as we struggle to maintain the facade.   The bedrock of authenticity is being seen by others, enabling them to understand your beliefs and intentions.

Authentic leadership also bestows potent benefits upon others. When we are real, we create an environment that encourages authenticity in others.  Research by Vanessa Buote, as cited in the Harvard Business Review, suggests that most employees believe authenticity in the workplace fosters better relationships with colleagues, higher levels of trust, greater productivity, and a more positive work atmosphere.  Furthermore, a study in the Leadership & Organization Development Journal reveals that “employees' perception of authentic leadership serves as the strongest predictor of job satisfaction and can have a positive impact on work-related attitudes and happiness.”

The costs of being inauthentic: 

When we are inauthentic by concealing ourselves from others, the burden of making countless micro-decisisons to bury certain aspects of our identity becomes exhausting.  What we repress ultimately gets expressed; otherwise, we start to lose our way and act in contradictory terms.  Over time, we become strangers to ourselves, transforming into the very mask we originally intended to don temporarily.  When we limit ourselves and fail to bring our full version to work, we lose people’s trust, and our relationships weaken.  It could be challenging to shape the workplace with our vision when we are not forthcoming with it.  Moreover, relying excessively on external validation distorts our self-perception,  as Epictetus astutely noted, “personal merit can’t be derived from an external source.” We need to reconnect with our inner compass.

Authenticity is when we can engage the best and truest part of ourselves and be bold enough to show that side to others.  We can create great relationships at work and better lead our teams to more success.

Quote of the day: “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” -Joseph Campbell

Q: How do you define authenticity? When are you most authentic, and when do you find it most challenging? What does it feel like to be inauthentic? Comment and share with us; we’d love to hear your perspective!

[The next blog in this series 2/4 will focus on the characteristics of an authentic leader]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to explore what authentic leadership means to them and develop their style, contact me to explore this topic further.

Here Is What You Can Do When Your Boundaries Are Violated (Boundary Setting series 3/3 )

When we set boundaries, we can better utilize our time.  Unfortunately, there will always be people who test our boundaries, intentionally or accidentally but when they do, we must be ready to respond.

Anticipate the boundary being tested. 

People are human; they may forget your needs or remember and still ask for things anyway.  The onus is on you to restate the boundary and stick to your preference.  You do not need to make their personal emergency a license to steal your time and energy.  One of my clients used to say yes to her colleagues’ requests, even on weekends.  When she transitioned jobs, she knew with a fresh start, she wanted to be clear about her non-work hours and show up differently.  So when her colleagues would send emails on weekends, she would never respond.  She believed that they would be annoyed or offended, but she found that they respected her more, especially after she said she dedicates her weekends to quality family time.  She rarely receives weekend emails now, and when she gets the occasional one, she does not respond.  You cannot blame others for trying to test your boundary, but you can take ownership of keeping yourself accountable and maintaining your boundaries. 

To manage your work capacity, if you know you can only do 10 work items, be prepared for what you will say when an 11th item gets added to your plate.  If you are visiting a family member who is not the nicest to you yet you know they are going to guilt you into spending additional hours with them, get clear on the right amount of hours for you, and if it is 2, let them know in advance that you will be leaving after a couple of hours and be ready with an enforcement mechanism in case you are tested.  Good boundary-setting is all about informing others effectively and being able to stick to your original plan.

Beware of known boundary predators & have approaches to deal with them.

Boundary predators are people who rely on power, authority, or relationships to get what they want, at the expense of your boundaries.  We may have all had bosses who say, “Yes, take vacation!” then call you the morning you’re leaving to ask you to put together “just a few quick bullets” for their upcoming board meeting.  To reduce the seeming intensity of it, they may add, “it’s nothing formal – don’t spend a lot of time on it” (even though it is not even your job!).  Or the client who finishes a consulting package with you and then says, “I had an emergency yesterday – I know we’re done with our package, but I had three quick questions I hoped you could answer.  Just an email is fine!”  Even though they frame the request like this, you know this could be a 2-3 hour investment.  

Here are a couple of ways to deal with boundary predators:

1. Get a clear, concrete agreement up front on terms and boundaries.  They will not always “remember,” but you can reinforce the boundary when you have an objective way to remind them.  For example, when somebody is trying to engage in scope creep, that is, you have agreed to 10 hours, but they keep trying to add more, you can say, “Our agreement covers 10 hours of work, and here is how I defined that, this request would add another 2-3 hours, shall we update the agreement?”  Then they can weigh their options and decide.

2. Ask questions.  Sometimes boundary “predators” act the way they do because they have poor personal boundaries.  Asking questions helps you to diagnose possible broken systems.  For example, your boss is about to go on vacation, and their boss dumped something last minute on their plate, they do not know how to say no so they kick the can to you.   You can ask questions such as, “tell me more about their expectations and time investments and your concerns with this waiting until after your scheduled vacation?” That may give your boss a chance to go back to their leader for further clarity or to realize the project can wait.

3. Bargain.  When you feel like it is hard to say no, you can aim to compromise.  Referring to the example above, when your boss requests a few bullets, you can respond and say, “I’m glad I make it look effortless, but bullets will take too long.  Let’s jump on a 10-minute call to discuss it and then I’ll leave for vacation.”  Or for the example referring to the client that asks a few last-minute questions, you can say, “These are fantastic questions! I can answer #1 (or here is a short answer to #1), but we need to start a new package for the rest.  Shall I go ahead and send the agreement?”  Again, they can decide the best way to proceed.

It is helpful to think in advance about three boundary violations that might be the hardest for you to stick to and then prepare a short script on how you would respond to those requests, so you do not have to be pressed at the moment, especially if you have lower energy and willpower.   For example, if you know that your boss is going to ask you to stay late for a project, you can say, “I have a family commitment for this evening, but excited to tackle this first thing in the morning.”  If a peer asks you to help by attending a meeting and offering your input but it cuts into your personal time, you can say, “I have a prior commitment, but is there anything I can share with you now briefly to offer help, I’d be happy to?”  Keep the statements brief.   You should also prepare a script for when a boundary gets violated.  You can meet with the person to clarify expectations and reshare your work and non-work hours.   For example, if your peer asks you to do work after your work hours and complains when it is not done, you can respond by saying, “I just wanted to let you know that my availability is from 9-5, I’m happy to tackle this work during my work hours, thanks for your patience.”  Continue to reiterate your message and keep your behavior consistent, so others know what to expect and can adjust.

It is common for your boundaries to be tested and in that case, be prepared with how you want to uphold your commitment to yourself so you can maintain your balance and energy levels.

Quote of the day: “If you’re a giver, remember to learn your limits because the takers don’t have any.” -Henry Ford

Q: How do you respond to your boundaries being tested?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create winning personal energy management systems for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

Maintaining Your Boundaries Is Necessary

How To Set Boundaries For Greater Energy (Boundary Setting series 2/3)

In the last article, we discussed the benefits and challenges of setting boundaries.  This article will focus on the different types of boundaries and effective ways to develop them. 

Here are some common types of boundaries we may have:

1. Physical boundaries.  Let others know how we prefer to operate in our physical environment. This boundary can include your needs for personal space and physical requirements like breaks or rest.  The pandemic has blurred these boundary lines for people for the first time.  Especially if you are working from home, you may not have different areas in your homes for various purposes – your desk is where you do most of your work, but your table by the window is where you do creative thinking, writing, and ideating.  If your physical space is blurred, such as working on your bed, it may interfere with your concentration and quality of sleep because your brain starts associating bed with work. It can be restorative to have a separation.  If you are at the office, what is your norm when people can enter your private office?  Do you put a sign on your closed door, meaning you are in deep work mode?  Maybe you leave your door closed with no sign telling them they can enter if it is important.  Or when you leave it ajar, it means anybody can enter.  Constructing the proper mental and emotional atmosphere can help manage your mind for optimal success.

2. Emotional boundaries.  It relates to honoring and respecting feelings and energy.  It can include how much emotional energy you can take in and how much sharing you limit with specific people.  For example, if somebody aims to have a difficult conversation with you and springs it on, you can respond by saying, you would like to have the conversation when you can be most present.  Their eagerness does not mean that it has to prompt your readiness.

3. Time boundaries.  This is about understanding and protecting your priorities by setting aside enough time for the many areas of your life without ongoing over-commitment.  For example, if you get invited to a work event but know you cannot make it, you can simply communicate your existing commitment and inability to make it.

4. Intellectual boundaries.  It is respectfully considering the thoughts, ideas, and experiences of yourself and others.  Healthy intellectual boundaries also mean deciding on the timing for discussion. If somebody is pushing an unproductive conversation, you can find ways to say that you can respect you have different opinions, and have the desire to move on.  If they press, you can say, let’s circle back when we have more data and schedule another time for this discussion.

5. Material boundaries.  This is about establishing expectations for how your possessions will be shared and treated.  Being clear about what you will and will not share, and how you expect your items and materials to be treated by others.  If you allow your teammate to use your office for the days you are not there and discover stains on the desk, and it is a bit messy, you can share this information with your coworker to bring it to their attention, share your preference, and give them a chance to adjust.  If they persist, you can say, “I cannot allow you to use my office anymore.  I know this is something we discussed in the past, but as you know, I value it being clean, and the last couple of times, it has been out of order, which means it’s additional work for me.”  Communicating politely and firmly is the best way to go.

Here are some effective ways to think about setting boundaries:

1. Identify your key priorities.  What do you want most out of life personally and professionally to be at your best?  When you name those things that are so vital to you, your boundaries will become clear because you can protect that time, but if you do not know what you want, then anything will do, and when somebody asks you to do something, you will say yes without a clear and ready alternative. 

2. Invest in your routine.  I like what Donnie Ecker, a highly respected and accomplished MLB Coach says about this topic. He talks about having a morning routine that is just for him.  He wakes up and spends time on the things that matter; one is personal growth, so he spends 30 minutes every morning reading, eating healthy, exercising, and doing the other things he needs to feel great.  Then when he goes to work, he shifts gears and makes it more about others, so he does not mind engaging in conversations prompted by others about the weather or hunting, topics that mean so much to them but little-to-nothing to him, so he will engage them for a few minutes because he already fulfilled himself this morning and feels energetically ready to give to others.

2. Label hard and soft boundaries. 

Hard boundaries are non-negotiables, things you know you are unwilling to compromise no matter the circumstances.  Because of their importance, they should be implemented as soon as possible and communicated clearly.  For example, if you know you have your daughter’s soccer games on Friday afternoons, and that is when you spend quality time with her, any meetings or work events that you are invited to will not happen on a Friday.  Instead of waiting for that time to be claimed by another, you can mark your calendar as unavailable so nobody can schedule over it.  If you never release that time and broadcast to others your priority, you send a message that it is a clear non-negotiable, whatever may arise.  One communication script can look like this, “I am offline every Friday after 3 pm. I’ve committed to attending my daughter’s soccer game at that time.  I will respond Monday morning.” As Brene Brown says, being clear is kind.

Soft boundaries (or wishes and nice-to-haves) are ones that you may be willing to compromise on depending on the situation.  They are like flexible goals, you have a direction in mind, but you can be more relaxed about the means to achieve the goals.  Maybe you aim to leave the office at 5:00 pm so you can work out, but you are also involved in an important project that you think can lead to your promotion.  Because exercise and this project are both important, you will make a call depending on the situation and day.  You have an intention but are flexible.  While your default is a no, you can also set criteria on when you would justify an exception, perhaps when it is a short-term situation, it impacts the bottom line, or a strategic client relationship.   Similar to hard boundaries, it is always helpful to communicate your soft boundary.  One script can look like this “I’m hoping to log off earlier in the evening. Starting next week, I’ll sign off at 7 pm most days. I have more flexibility on Tuesdays, but for urgent needs after 7 pm, call my cell phone.”

3. Identify work and playtime.  What are your work hours?  Is it 9-5 and if so, what do you do to signify that transition?  Do you have a shutdown routine and a standing appointment to help you shift, maybe you have to pick up your child from practice or you have to walk the dog.  If you work from home, perhaps you change your clothes to invite more relaxation, something noticeable to shift the energy and mark the end of work.

3A. View your breaks as productive time.  Many people measure their productivity based on emails sent, meetings attended, and documents and decks created, but taking breaks contributes directly to your efficiency and productivity because it can be fertile ground for your ideas.  Setting a boundary so you can invest in your wellbeing will make you better. 

Here are the different types of breaks to consider:

·      Daily.  Making sure you are taking your lunch and separating from your desk and possibly going for a walk.  It sounds simple, but many people cannot switch off, so they work through their lunch, neglecting their mental and physical health.  They also deny themselves the opportunity to step away from their work to spur greater creativity and insights that they can bring to their projects.

·      Weekly/monthly.  Making sure you take longer breaks, an afternoon or day off here and there contributes to your engagement levels.  Do you utilize your weekends properly and fully to disconnect and do something completely different or do you use them to work and catch up on emails?  Are you being intentional about learning and investing in your development or are you doing mindless activities that will keep your skills stagnant?  Are you engrossed in energy-creating activities like applying your strengths to a project that will help restore you or energy-draining activities such as doing only things others want?  You have to be mindful of the work that will charge your battery so you have excess to lend to others when necessary.  How you use your time makes a difference, especially on Monday morning and the rest of the week. 

·      Biannually.  Making sure you are taking vacation 1-2x a year for longer restoration is helpful.  You should know how long you can go without an extended break, and be sure to schedule it.  Although many companies have unlimited vacation time, people do not take it.  Americans leave almost 30% of their vacation time on the table.  For some, it is an inability to pull themselves away from their work, but setting aside that time to disconnect for longer can level up your abilities in many ways because you can finally have the space to think more expansively.

4. Communicate your boundaries to others.  Once you are clear on your boundaries, you should not just assume and expect that people can read your mind and give you what you want, that your boss will not email you after 5 pm, or that your teammate will not ask you to do something that sacrifices your time.   Instead, we have to communicate clearly so others know.  Where people go wrong is never having the conversation and assuming that the other person should get it.   But we do not have the same values, pursuits, and tolerance levels as others.  Their threshold for working time may be much higher than yours, and they may not even be aware they are impinging on your time.  One way to communicate your boundaries is to set an away message on your email, such as out of office (ooo) until tomorrow at 9:00am so people know what to expect.  If your company is globally dispersed, you can also put your time zone in your signature so people will know when you are online.

5. Experiment, reflect, and make adjustments as you go.  It is good to experiment and try many things to see what your ideal boundaries are.  And then, you can reflect on them and ask yourself questions to see if your boundaries need to be adjusted.  Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself:

·      Did I feel more productive and energic at work by shutting off at 5 and being able to go to the gym? 

·      Am I feeling more refreshed when I get home for my partner and kids and giving my best energy, not my reserves? 

·      What positive and negative outcomes have come from the new boundary I have set?

·      What do I need to change or adjust to stay on track and address any negative aspects resulting from my boundary-setting?

·      How do I feel now versus at the beginning of this boundary experiment?

6. Embed boundaries into systems and processes.  Leslie Perlow, Assistant Professor of Business at the University of Michigan conducted a study for a group of software engineers at a Fortune 500 company and tested a quiet time policy where there would be no interruptions three mornings a week before noon and found that the average engineer’s productivity spiked 47%.  When the company made it their official policy, the productivity rate jumped even higher to 65%.  When you treat your uninterrupted time as treasures to guard, your energy levels increase because your work and attention become fragmented, which chips away at your excellence. 

You can always resort to your old ways, but usually, people discover old mindsets no longer serve them for their current needs.  It is important to check in with yourself and make adjustments as you go.  You can see them as a continuum that can slide right or left depending on the situation.  When you step back, reflect, and evaluate your desires, you may discover that boundaries do not limit you; instead, they give you the space to create the life you want to live.

When we set boundaries, we give ourselves power and permission to work and live the way we want and not the way others prefer.  We keep our power when we are firm and clear on our decisions so there is no room for others to come in and temp us from going off track. 

Quote of the day: “No says, ‘This is who I am; this is what I value; this is what I will and will not do; this is how I will choose to act.”  - Judith Sills, Psychotherapist and Media psychologist

Q: How do you set boundaries firmly and caringly?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on ways boundaries can get tested and what to do when they are  

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to set and reinforce boundaries, contact me to explore this topic further.

The importance of boundary-setting

The Importance Of Boundaries For Your Energy Wellness (Boundary Setting series 1/3)

A big part of managing your energy is being able to set boundaries.   Author Joe Sanok defines boundaries as limits we identify for ourselves (and others) and apply through action or communication.  A boundary could be how we want our partners and peers to communicate with us, when we want our bosses to contact us, or when we prefer to work versus rest.  It is essential for our wellbeing, yet we often do not do it because it is not a typical skill we are ever taught in our formal education or in our upbringing.  Conversations on boundary setting are also something companies overlook, and yet it has a significant cost on their employees’ wellbeing and productivity. 

The benefits of boundary setting are numerous:

1. Maintain your wellbeing and energy.  Author Nedra Glover Tawwab said, “The root of all self-care is setting boundaries.”  Indeed, it begins with defining what we need to feel happy, healthy, and secure, and working to protect those parts as they can boost our wellbeing and allow us to be at our best at work and home.  Without boundaries, we can feel like our resources are being overextended and, as a result, feel stressed and burned out because we move to the beat of others, rather than our rhythm.

2. Maintains your self-respect.  Keeping your boundaries means you respect yourself.  Breaking it shows that your commitment to yourself is not as important.  One of my clients used to take walks outside every lunchtime for 30 minutes for his mental and physical fitness.  When his colleague started asking to meet during that time slot, he stopped his walking routine and initially did not realize the toll it was taking on him.  He conversed with his peer to select a different time of the day, and when it was fine with him, my client was relieved that he could return to walking and feeling good.  If time passes and his teammate keeps trying to schedule a meeting during that time, it would be up to my client to reiterate the message.  You get in life what you allow, tolerate, and reinforce.  If you tolerate disrespect, lateness, being underpaid, or being overworked, you will invite more of it because it sends a message to the other person that it is ok unless they hear otherwise.  When you set a boundary, you teach people how you want to be treated.  Life will organize around the standard you set. 

3. Can maintain good relationships.  While some believe a boundary can cause separation, it can have the opposite effect and strengthen relationships.  In Robert Frost’s 1914 poem Mending Wall, he writes his famous line, “good fences make good neighbors.”  It is a poem about two neighbors coming together to mend the wall that separates their two properties.  The fence keeps the peace with the neighbors, allows each to be free in their space, and knows that the dividing line will limit any grey zones or ambiguity.  They do not have to expend energy worrying about which crops or land belongs to whom because the line makes that clear. 

4. Protects you from emotional and physical harm from others.  Boundaries protect you from takers or needy people who may not have limits on their requests for your time.  Helping others is essential and feels amazing, and at the same time, you want to ensure that help is not taken for granted and viewed as an invitation to request unlimited assistance.  In Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life, rule #3 is about making friends with people who want the best for you.  He explains how it can be hard to distinguish between somebody who wants help or just exploiting your help.  If somebody is going through a tough time and in a proverbial pit, if you reach your hand down, will they grab it to get on solid ground, thrive and appreciate your help, or will they grasp your arm and pull you down with them, wasting your support and being in a position where you both have to climb out of the pit.  Creating boundaries on what you will and will not accept will protect you and strengthen all your relationships.

5. Maintains your engagement.  Boundaries clarify responsibilities and expectations.  Both employers and employees need to identify, set, and maintain them to keep people engaged, enhance creativity and strategic thinking, and deliver strong performance.  When our time is intruded upon, it can cause us internal chaos and stress, contribute to lost productivity and poor performance and even cause people to quit because they feel they are not set up for success. 

6. Simplify decision-making.  Boundaries help you make decisions in line with your values, purpose, and vision because when you say no to one thing it is because you are saying yes to the things you deeply care about.   It helps you not to invest time in things that do not fill you up.

While clear boundary setting offers many benefits, it is not always easy to set them. In fact, for some of us, it can be some of the hardest type of work we do. Here are some challenges:

1. They may view it as selfish.  Some people are nervous about setting boundaries because they think they are being mean or selfish, that they are just thinking of themselves and not others.  But a way to address any guilt is to reframe the experience because self-care is not the same as selfishness.  Investing in yourself will allow you to maximize others even more.  Also, whether you set a boundary or not, you cannot control what other people think, they may judge you regardless of your actions, so in that case, it is always better to opt on the side of taking care of your needs so you can better take care of others more efficiently.

2. They may have people-pleasing tendencies.  Some people like to give to others because they feel it makes them worthy.  They find it hard to say no to people because they want to make others happy, and be liked.  They equate saying no as disappointing the other rather than viewing it as having nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with knowing their capacity.  Some of these tendencies can be deep-rooted and traced back to insecurities developed in childhood or the way they were taught love by their parents, which is when they are doing things that their parents like (getting good grades and being a good kid), that’s when they got praise and affection rather than being loved for who they are.

3. There may be perceived power imbalances.  Establishing boundaries with those who may have more power than you such as senior colleagues or your boss is tough.  You may feel like it is part of your job to say yes.  That’s understandable, but there are ways to communicate an accurate picture of the situation respectfully for more informed decisions to be made.  You can check out my blog series on managing up for more on this topic.

4. They fear receiving a negative response.  Maybe they have been chewed out before when they tried to establish boundaries and are worried the same will happen.  Or, the stakes are too high, they can face retaliation, and they know it can ruin the relationship and they are not ready to go there so they avoid the situation altogether or comply rather than set a boundary.   Sometimes we lack the energy to have another conversation, so we just go with the flow and ignore our needs because we think it is easier, and that might be true in the short-term, but in the long-term it will have more calamus consequences, and lead to resentment and an unhealthy relationship.

Boundaries are necessary for our physical wellness needs. They increase your self-respect, and relationships with others, and maintain your engagement.  While it can be challenging to set them, it’s a muscle that grows easier the more it is exercised.

Quote of the day: “The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.” – Tara Brach

Q: Who do you know that has a firm boundary in place and what do you respect about it?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on how to set boundaries.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to set and reinforce boundaries, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you create your boundaries?

Nurture Your Emotional and Spiritual Worlds For Greater Energy (energy management series 5/5 )

Another big part of energy management is routinely nurturing our emotional and spiritual worlds.  As much as we wake up in the morning to think about making our coffee and what to wear based on the weather, we need to apply the same intentionality to those domains.

Here are some ideas to consider to invest in emotional and spiritual wellbeing to maintain high energy levels.

1. Having a spiritual practice.  The way we may give daily attention to our bodies to take care of it by exercising, we can do things to nurture our souls.  Some people have a prayer ritual where they recite something meaningful in the morning or evening or read a few pages from their scriptures.  This is a way to keep them centered, grounded, and connected to something beyond themselves.  You do not have to be religious to have a spiritual practice, for others, it could be reciting a poem, listening to inspiring song lyrics, or going for a daily walk where you spend time on the bigger picture – why are you here and what are you meant to do.  How are you contributing to something beyond yourself?  Find that practice that uplifts your soul.

2. Having a meditation practice.  Taking time to focus on breathing, understand your triggers, nurture peace, engage your wisdom, and cultivate your sense of wonder can fill you with more energy.  Many of us are unaware of how much in overdrive we can exist, so taking those moments to purify our minds, get rid of mental baggage, and induce calm can contribute to saving our best energy and wellness.  In fact, Google developed a program Search Inside Yourself (SIY) led by Chade-Meng Tan, an early engineer who gathered a team of leading experts in mindfulness techniques, neuroscience, and leadership.  The aim of SIY was to help people develop the skills of mindfulness, empathy, compassion, and overall emotional intelligence to create the conditions for individual and collective thriving.  At one point, they had hundreds of people on the waiting list due to its popularity because people experienced numerous energetic benefits.

3. Connecting with others generally and deeply.  Emotional health requires us to link up with others on a basic level.  Something happens when we are engaged in good conversation, whether it be family, friends, coworkers, bosses, or strangers.  Without having regular connections with others, we can feel lonely, which can negatively impact our health; smoking up to 6 packs of cigarettes a day can be the equivalent.  Connecting with our pets and being able to hug and show affection can enhance our lives and make us feel less lonely.

Even though some of us may have a lot of people around us to interact with, they still need to be quality connections.  How many of us come home feeling exhausted at work and have low energy, so we engage in transactional conversations, we zone out and drift from our loved ones because we are not intentional about putting good energy into maintaining a connection.  Worst yet, we do not ask interesting questions because we assume we know their responses.  Deep connections are about sharing our hopes, dreams, and possibilities with others and feeling fully heard.  Having somebody that you can share your strengths, desires, and goals is essential.  You know when you have a deep connection with somebody, are really excited to see them, and leave the interaction feeling even better.  A lot of research shows that when you have a best friend at work, your happiness and work engagement improve.  The quality of your relationships and conversations makes a difference in your standard of living, so when you take the time to connect deeply, it strengthens your energy.  Take that time to grab coffee or lunch and go outside during your break to connect with others.

4. Having a professional support system.  This is essential for maintaining your health and energic levels. Share your thoughts and feelings and processing events with others when necessary can be life-changing.  It is why many people find value in therapists so they can have a deeper understanding of their tendencies and triggers.  Or, why people work with professional coaches so they can share things they may not share with anybody else and have somebody wholly dedicated to their agenda, in ways that differ from what a friend can do.  It is a trusted partner that can challenge our perspectives, illuminate our blind spots in service of our growth and development, and work intentionally about removing blocks and making progress on our goals, which keeps us energetically happy.

5. Have mentors and role models that you look up to.  Connecting with mentors in or out of your industry who have your back, take an interest in your career development, push your growth, and root for your success.  It is also deeply satisfying to identify role models that you look up to or set an example for you to emulate.  Knowing what you value and admire in them can guide you to move through life with excitement.

6. Express your creativity.  How do you exercise your creativity?  What projects do you do which allow you to express yourself in interesting ways?  When you can build, write, design, and craft something, it makes you feel accomplished and increases your self-worth and energy levels. 

7. Play and laughter.  How do you laugh, enjoy, play, get excited about something, and go after novel and positive experiences, all essential for your heart, energy levels, and a life well lived?  When you schedule play in your to-do list, you are energized for the rest of the day because knowing you will do something fun later engenders a good feeling early in the day and helps you radiate positive emotions.  Maybe you have movie night to look forward to with your family or you can coordinate with a friend to watch at the same time for joint enjoyment or you know you get to play sports later in the day.  And when you find those activities that fill you up and put a smile on your face, your best energy will be transferred to many other spots in your life.

8. Create an environment of positivity.  Reading good books, watching good movies, being around positive people, and having possibility conversations can change your mood and fill you with energy.  Also being thoughtful about spreading that positivity and kindness engenders more of those good feelings.  Spending your time smiling will nourish your soul.

9 Volunteer.  Many of us have a fundamental yearning to matter and contribute and knowing you are making a difference in somebody else’s life is a great way to do that.  What are the causes you most care about?  How do you volunteer your time, resources, and connections for the betterment of others?  What are the ways you multiply others’ best efforts?  Helping others can fill you with joy and happiness.

Your spiritual and emotional health matters in sustaining your energy levels.  What you choose to do to invest in it intentionally will pay dividends for years to come.

Quote of the day: “The mind divides the world into a million pieces.  The heart makes it whole.”  Author Stephen Levine

Q: How do you like to satisfy your emotional and spiritual needs?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in the next series 1/3 will focus on the benefits of boundaries for better energy management.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create winning personal energy management systems for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

What kind of spiritual practices do you have?

Mind Practices That Will Energize (energy management series 4/5 )

Being in touch with the practices you can do to maintain a healthy mindset and manage your energy will be personal to each person.  If you do not know where to start, you may want to experiment with many different experiences and see which ones work best. 

Here are some practices to test to foster a healthy mindset and maintain high energy levels:

1. Prioritize.  Greg McKeown, Author of Essentialism says, “You can do anything but not everything.”  What are your top 3 priorities right now, and for how long?  When you have too many priorities, it is a paradox of choice, and you can easily get overwhelmed by what you have to do and not know where to start.  Similarly, if you do not know your priorities, you will continue to expend energy on discovery rather than execution.  Those who are laser-focused on 3 priorities can harness their best energy to move the needle, see progress, and feel good about their actions, and that sequence becomes a reinforcing cycle. 

2. Plan.  When you plan your day, you can ensure your time is spent well rather than mindlessly moving.  There are ways you can work better and smarter.  For example, many people find creating a “tomorrow list” helpful.  The night before, you list the first 3 things you will do in the morning and allocate time to each item.  Even if you do not finish the task, you know you have put in the desired 30 mins. or so on each item, which will help you feel better.  Also, you will start your day with intention and not just waste time figuring out what to do.  The idea is to do more energy management over time management.

In planning your day building in margin or white space is vital, so you are not back-to-back and have no time for those deliberate moments.  These gaps or pauses help us avoid careless mistakes, such as hitting “reply all” when we want to send a direct message to the sender.    White space also helps with transitions from one task to another, and to allow for any potential emergencies or delays that might arise.  These margins restore our energy, they are like gas for our car that will enable us to go the distance, they help us think ahead so we are not running out of stamps when we have to mail a letter. When you have that buffer time, you can regenerate and recharge.  Without this, we live a life of perpetual time famine and rob ourselves of more meaningful and excellent work.  For a deeper dive into planning and prioritizing, you can check out my series on this topic.

3. Give gratitude.  It is powerful to keep a gratitude journal to capture those aspects you are happy about, however small, such as sleeping late, playing with your pet, working on your hobby, and going for long walks.  These activities have the effect of spreading more positivity and contributing to more productivity. Small habits of 2-minute praises or sending emails letting others know they did a great job can make somebody else feel great and be an energy-affirming experience for you.

4. Practice reflection.  What space do you take to look back to consolidate the learnings, and be intentional about going forward differently and better?  How do you like to pause from the mayhem, rise above the day-to-day and see more of the macro trends of your life to see if it is going in your preferred direction?  Planning, setting goals, reviewing them, understanding what worked and what did not, and deducing patterns is an energy-building experience because you can derive meaning from your activities and not have a Groundhog Day feeling where the days blur into each other with no interesting or unique moments.  When you aim to identify your best practices for pausing daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly, it can make a positive difference in your life.  

5. Create time for mind wandering.  David Rock from the NeuroLeadership Institute talks about the benefits of mind-wandering.  It is time for insights or creative breakthroughs, moments to process the past, anticipate the future, and make connections between experiences.  But mind-wandering can only happen when our brain is at rest and not goal-focused.  Not all downtime activities are conducive to mind-wandering, such as anything goal-focused or that involves multitasking like binge-watching Netflix, listening to a podcast while cooking, social media scrolling, driving while listening to music, and walking with your child, since your attention is also focused on keeping your child safe.  Examples of activities favorable to mind-wandering could be anything NOT goal-focused and only involves one task.  Taking a shower/bubble bath, walking in nature (and not listening to anything), staring at the window, doing the dishes, and doodling. The activities where you are not trying to solve anything can help your mind find the signal among the noise.   The ideal amount of time is 15 minutes a day.  The activities will differ for each person, so it is helpful to identify your preference.   

6. Allocate time for inspiration.  What do you do to stay creative and vitalized in life?  How do you like to think, wonder, and fuel your curiosity?  Are you reading in your field so you know the latest research and trends?  Because our jobs are complex, it can keep us task-focused but when we dedicate time to building our creative capacities, we can be more energized and happier and perform at higher levels with less stress.  What are your favorite ways to wonder, imagine, and get more curious?   You may be intentional about building your curiosity and create 5 questions and ask 1-2 at your next event.  Just writing them down builds that muscle.  Maybe on your next bike ride in the mountains, you spend time in the zone where you visualize, dream, and imagine your best self.  How do you nurture your passions and connect them to your creativity in your personal and professional life?

7. Time for flow states.  Flow, coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is an experience that contributes to a happy and fulfilling life.  It is achieved when we fully immerse ourselves in an activity where the challenge level is just beyond our abilities.  We temporarily lose our sense of self and time.  Athletes have this feeling when playing sports and in the zone.  People may find flow states when cooking, running, gardening, or any activity that has seized their attention entirely and are fully present.  Organizational psychologist Adam Grant mentions one of the best predictors of happiness is having many flow moments.  So it is important to view work as stretching your skills and heightening your resolve rather than exhausting you. 

8. Carve out time for introspection and inner work.  This is some of the most important work we can do as a human and is a great form of self-care.  So many people spend their energy on “outer work” where they generate value outside themselves (going to meetings, analyzing data, taking care of customers, presenting, and partnering with others to complete projects).  If you want to be centered, less frazzled by change and ambiguity, and more in tune with your values, doing inner work is helpful.  This is mindful, conscious effort that we put into organizing and designing our lives.  It is the work dedicated to raising your awareness and organizing your mind to be healthy.  Marcus Aurelius said, “Tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of your mind.”  When you better understand your mind, you can move towards a more fulfilled and energized life.  Looking inward to explore who we are, and who we want to be, and defining the contribution we want to make to the world is priceless.  Create the time to think about the big rocks and long-term planning, otherwise, you bounce from one pebble to another, staying small and missing the bigger and more critical mark. 

9. Time for learning, growth, and mastery.  It is a fundamental need to feel like we are getting better at those things that matter to us.  When we intentionally set goals and achieve them, we feel better. Progress, whether a significant accomplishment or a small win, fuels our daily motivation.

10. Mindfulness practice.  Mindfulness is about paying attention on purpose and being present.   It is easier said than done, considering that, on average, people are checking email, plugged in constantly, and switching tasks every 10 minutes.  This time confetti takes meaningful moments, shreds them into useless pieces and is the enemy of excellence.  How do you take time throughout the day to take deep breaths, get grounded, and put things into perspective?  Mindfulness supports positive development because when we can empty our minds, and get curious about labeling the things that are triggering us and how we want to handle them, that can be a profoundly healing experience.  Also, expanding our perspective can give us a more flexible sense of self.  Stephen Covey says, if you want to be able to produce, you have to focus on the capacity to produce, and protect that intentional time.

11. Take breaks.  Many people believe that they have to go a million miles per hour and be productive all the time to be the best, but it is during those off periods when you are filling your battery and can go the distance.  Research shows that once you get to 50-55 hours of work per week, you do not get any more productive.  And to maintain the most intense focus is usually around up to 2 hours, after that, our performance drops, and we get less return on our effort.  Taking a short break helps recharge our energy levels, and then we can pivot back to intensity. It is the “go slow to go fast” concept, like going for a bike ride on tires that are half filled will make you work so much harder than if you just chose to stop briefly to fill your tires and then can peddle more easily and work smarter.

When we convince ourselves that there is no limit to how much we push ourselves, we operate sub-optimally.  In the 1960s, Derek Clayton, worked harder than most as a marathon runner.  He would run 160 miles per week, eventually leading to an injury.  So, in 1967 when he started preparing for the Olympics, he took a month off to recover, he planned to run it as a preparation for the next race.  After an entire month of no training, he broke his previous record by 8 minutes and became the first person to achieve a sub 2 hours and 10 minutes, which would stand for 12 years.  Recovering energy is as important as expending it, and top performers know how to fill up on the proper fuel so they can go the distance and they also know how to sprint where they go intense briefly and then rest because that speed cannot be sustained.  The muscles need time to rebuild.

The story highlights the importance of rest and recovery.  For athletes, it is a clear sign to take a break when their body is aching.  But for knowledge workers, when we are feeling emotional or psychological harm (lethargy, anxiety, or depression), it is a sign to recover.  These signals can be more subtle and easier to discount so we power through tough times when our mind and heart are pleading to take a break.   Painful emotions are the body’s natural warning system, and when we disregard them, we put ourselves in peril.  The most creative artists and scientists who are productive are only working 4 to 6 hours a day, they do other things like go on long walks, fish, and play instruments.  Where does your recovery time show up in your calendar?  How do you listen to music, spend time with friends, enjoy quiet meals, and take walks to restore?  Hard work also takes an enormous toll on your life, especially at the expense of other activities.

Take various recharge breaks.  Rest is when you are not depleting energy; recharge is when you are actively filling your tank.  It is important to know yourself and uncover what recharges you.  This will vary, if you are an extravert, socializing or having conversations in a group with others can recharge.  As an introvert, that can be depleting, rather a recharge for you might be a one-on-one experience.  You want to discover those activities that ignite you. Quilting, working with your hands, gardening, organizing, making art, painting, or anything that makes you feel alive.  And if you do not know, it is ok, you can go on a quest for discovery.  Take a month and commit to having as many conversations as possible to learn about what works for others.  You can also take your time to try several things to see what works for you.

It is important to take different types of breaks that will energize:

·      The 15 min. break scattered throughout your day to boost your energy. 

·      The mid-level recovery break, which is about having great sleep, and taking one day off a week which can make some people even more productive. 

·      Macro level recovery break is about taking vacations that span a week to a month off a year.  Relaxing is the best thing we can do because we get our best ideas when we create space.  JP Morgan said I could do a year’s work in 9 months but not 12.

Having various breaks does not mean we cannot cope with difficult and intense periods when required.

In an interview, Lynn Manuel Miranda talks about how the best idea he had to make Hamilton occurred when he was on vacation, in a pool floating with a margarita.  It was the moment when his brain could completely unplug from the day-to-day concerns so he could let his mind drift.  Daydreaming is fertile ground for spurring creativity.

Get clear on who you want to be on vacation and what emails you will answer, if any.  For some, they want to completely disconnect and be on a beach.  Others who are not wired that way, may find that spending 10% of their vacation working adds fulfillment to their life and enhances the vacation experience rather than fully relaxing 100%.  This is especially true for entrepreneurs who are in love with their work.   You should not just do what works for another but understand what works for you and be mindful not to do any stressful work because it would negate your recharge time. 

12. Identify your downtown desires.  Some people need help figuring out their leisure time.  They take time off, feel weird or uneasy and then settle back into something more comfortable and familiar like work, spreadsheets, and emails.  High achievers are attracted to work because their identity and sense of self-worth come from what they can produce.  It can be measurable and provide a sense of progress, rewards, and accolades.  They can go in the opposite direction and do something utterly mindless like binging Netflix. 

We have a primal need for recreation and fun.  Hobbies and activities make us more interesting and creative.  They can build our confidence and contribute to breakthroughs. What pastimes did you have as a kid?  How do you still do them or return to them?  Also picking up a new hobby puts you in a beginner mindset and helps to cultivate your empathy because you may have been an expert in your field for so long and now you know what it is like to be at the beginning. 

13. Develop effective coping mechanisms.  Stress is unavoidable, so the goal for wellbeing is not necessarily to live in a state of perpetual calm because that is not realistic nor what this modern world delivers, especially to high achievers.  Instead, the key is to move from adversity and stress to safety, calm and back as seamlessly as possible.  A little bit of stress can be good for us, it is just when we are stuck in that stress for prolonged periods that does it do us harm such as increasing our hypertension and blood pressure.  We have a finite amount of intellectual and emotional resources, and stress takes up a big part of that bandwidth so reducing our time there can be incredibly valuable.

To deal with stress, you can develop 60-90 second resets to course correct stress.  They can range from a reminder to think about what you are grateful for, taking three conscious deep breaths, standing up and stretching, looking at a picture of your family, hugging your pet, reading some of your favorite quotes, or listening to an inspiring piece of music.  You want to do anything to interrupt the cycle.

It is great when companies can get involved to support this process.  As part of onboarding at Thrive Global, Arianna Huffington’s company, people are invited to build their reset activity.  And then before a meeting, somebody spins the wheel, and picks one to practice.  It is a great way for people to get exposure to different kinds of resets they can do and helps build community.  You get glimpses into people’s lives and what is important to them, music they love, movies they watch, pictures of their children, etc.  It is a good way to course correct and build social connections.  We want to be clear on how to move from that fight/flight state to a place of peace, strength, and wisdom, and having your preferred reset could be a great way to do that.

14. Create emergency plans.  List your top concerns that could cause you stress.  For example, maybe you are worried that your laptop might crash unexpectedly, can you create redundancy by having a backup laptop (an expensive option) or keeping your data in the cloud to access it and not disrupt your work easily.   Perhaps you know you have a big presentation coming up and it always makes you feel better to review how it went after so you might want to call a friend in advance to let them know you would love to chat after your presentation.  If you ever feel depleted or burned out, it is good to create a plan to deal with it way in advance while you are not in the moment, then it is just about following the steps.  For example, one plan can be, taking the day off, going for a massage, and doing something you enjoy like watching a movie, playing pickleball, or taking a trip somewhere.

15. Use a wellness wheel for consistency.  Wellness is the state of being in good health.  In advance, you can add your favorite wellness activities (shoot for at least 10), and then have a regularly scheduled time for those wellness activities.  This is helpful because you do not have to think about what you want to do at the moment, you just spin the wheel and go for it.  And if you are driven by adventure and excitement, the randomness can add another dimension.

Underinvesting in our mental and physical practices damages our chances for leading the most impactful life.  Many remedies can help, especially during the times when we are feeling most stuck or in a struggle.  Establishing routines in advance of when you need them will be your lifesaver.

QUOTES OF THE DAY: “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another -William James

There are many terrible things in my life, and most of them never happened.” -Michel de Montaigne

Q: How do you learn about what you like to do to keep yourself mentally strong?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

 The next blog in this series 5/5 will focus on the emotional and spiritual realms for maximizing energy

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create effective personal energy management systems for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

Practices and routines for greater energy

Optimize Your Energy By Cultivating A Healthy Mind (energy management series 3/5 )

An important part of maintaining our energy is cultivating a healthy mindset.  When we look at our beliefs and promote the ones that serve us and discount the ones that do not, we show up more energetically.

Here are some things to consider: 

1.  Cultivate conscious leadership.  In the book 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, Jim Dethmer explains two kinds of leaders, those who operate above the line (from a place of love) or those who work below the line (from a place of fear).  If you are above the line, you have a mindset of curiosity and learning, and believe that you have the power to choose the life you want to create.  If you function from below the line, you are more interested in being right than learning, mainly see yourself as a victim, and believe life is happening to you; you are choiceless.  You think your happiness lies in external circumstances (situations and other people determining your happiness) rather than assuming you can design your path.

The first step to cultivating conscious leadership is self-awareness; at any given time identifying where you are in the moment without judgment or shame or trying to avoid being below the line because as Dethmer notes, 95% of all leaders spend 98% in that space.  It is more important to recognize that you are there and think about how you want to make a productive shift.  Spending time below the line is a life-draining and disempowering experience because you wonder why bad things always happen to you, and then it becomes a perpetuating cycle because bad things continue to happen.  This is compared to being above the line, where you are empowered and living life from a point of choice.  Your most important moments are now and your next steps because that is what you can influence.

2. Reframe your experience.  Epictetus said,  “it is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”  Reframing is when you have a different take on a situation.  For example, if you are assigned a task from your boss that you do not want to do, you can agree and feel resentful or you can reframe it by thinking, maybe this person needs assistance, and I have a great opportunity to help and advance my skillset in the process.  This is not about discounting reality but about generating additional interpretations which will make you better for it.  In the Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haight said the reframe is key to happiness because it can give you a sense of well-being in minutes when you transform negative into positive thoughts.

3. Avoid rumination.  This term means to chew continuously and is how cows digest their food.  They chew, swallow, regurgitate it back up, chew again, swallow, and repeat.  For a human, it is when you constantly replay an unhelpful track in your mind, obsess over an event, and stress out with each replay.  For example, you and your colleague worked on a presentation, and your peer presented using “I” and not “we” language to give the illusion that they did all the work without your assistance, and you quickly get upset.  You could believe they did it purposely, tried to marginalize you, and instantly feel stressed, angry, and disappointed.  You leave work, head to the gym, and continue thinking about it.  You go home and tell your partner and share how unfair it was.  Each time you mention it, you prolong the negative feelings, and the next day at a team meeting, you erupt, and it devolves into an unproductive blame game.  Rumination is a killer to a healthy mindset and the thief of joy; it puts you in a sour mood, keeps you up at night, disrupts your ability to recover and recharge, impairs your executive functioning, and increases your chances of cardiovascular disease.  Similarly, co-rumination, where you get with a friend and take them through your loop while they are fueling you with the same negative energy may feel like a bonding experience in the moment, but it is unproductive because it stirs up tension in your mind and body.  It reinforces the perception that the world is an upsetting and difficult place with no power to change circumstances.  When you ruminate, it is like picking at a scab over and over again, it simply will not heal until you stop.

Here are some of the most effective ways I’ve found to address rumination:

A. Opt for reflection.  Reflection is more about gaining insight and understanding, rumination is about stewing in negative thoughts.  You can think about what the learning is and what you want to do about it.  You may conclude that a lesson you have from working with your coworker: the next time you ask them in advance how they plan to represent the work that gives you both credit.  You can take the initiative and offer to present it or divide the work where your coworker presents their parts, and you present your parts.  Reflection is powerful and productive because there is a way forward, it does not keep you stuck in your thinking, it keeps you expansive.

B. Create an action step.  You can frame the challenge as a problem to solve.  Identify what you are upset about and how you want to tackle it.  You may want to work backwards, think about what the outcome is and visualize that.  Then think about what you can do now and the most direct route to get there.  Returning to the example of your coworker taking all the credit, your desired outcome may be for you to share the impact of their actions on you and how it would be great for two things to happen.  You email them to set up a time to discuss how the experience impacted you and share your peace.  You can say, next time, you will be the one presenting or ask them to talk to your boss and set the record straight.  They can send a thank you email to the boss appreciating the positive feedback and how they worked equally hard and were crucial to success even though you did not present.  This is a more productive option than stewing and telling the person off.  When you supply an action step, think of one thing you can do (gain insight, adopt a new perspective, or have a conversation), then you can start to shift and feel better about the situation. 

C. Time box the worry.  If you cannot pivot to rest, repair, and recovery because you are still ruminating, you can schedule 15 mins. late in your day or in your work week to worry.  It is a brain hack because once you have scheduled time, it is easier for your brain to let go or dismiss it if it knows it will get taken care of at some point.   

4. Challenge thoughts and assumptions that are not serving you.  In The Work, Byron Katie explains how she suffers when she believes her thoughts so she employs a 4-step process to question her assumptions and promote the belief that there is joy in her all the time.  She asks:

1. Is the thought true?

2. Can I absolutely know it’s true?

3. What happens when I believe the thought?

4. Who would I be without that thought?  

Once she goes through these questions, she does the work to turn around the thought.  Sometimes, it is about letting go of something to make room for something else.  For example, if your boss emailed you and said you did not speak up in that meeting, you may think your boss is out to get you.  You may ask the second question but realize you cannot be 100% certain, and know that when you believe this, it completely demotivates you.  Without that thought, you would be somebody capable of addressing this situation productively.  After going through this process, you remain calm and set up a meeting to learn and discuss with your boss the context of that email.  You may learn another explanation, that your boss likes when you speak up because you add more value and can increase your visibility.  Believing that your boss has no faith in you versus your boss thinking you are not living up to your leadership potential makes a difference in your performance.  Breakthroughs happen when we challenge our assumptions because we have limiting beliefs we do not realize, they keep us playing small and in a box.  In the workplace, it is easy to spot some of these beliefs when teammates say, “that’s not how we do it here,” or “we tried that once, and it does not work in this industry.”  Also when people speak in absolutes and use words and phrases like “I should feel this way,” “I have to do this,” “I must win,” These are signals that people are putting themselves in a box.  Believing that you do not have a choice is one of the most common limiting beliefs; we hold ourselves back and operate with diminished energy when we do not confront these unhelpful ideas. 

To break this habit, make a list of your limiting beliefs and start to alter your language.  Instead of saying, “I have to do this,” you can say, “I get to do this,” and instead of saying, “why is this happening to me,” you can choose, “ this is happening for me because…”.  Who would you be and how would you act if you operated from this messaging?

5. Cultivate an “active and rest” and “strive and detach” mindset.  Including both active and rest energy are essential, it is like inhaling and exhaling.  Descartes savored his rest time, sleeping late, and sitting by a fireplace, reflecting, and writing until late afternoon.  Many struggle with balancing being a high performer, having big dreams, and working with their ambitions while also achieving success and being happy, and cultivating a sense of inner peace.   A great lesson on this comes from a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of Mandalas (intricate designer circles made from colored sand.)  The term is Sanskrit, which means a container/circle of essence.  The Buddhist Monks work hard to create something masterful; they start by sketching a circle outline and then meticulously drop individual grains of sand to create a panoply of colors.  It is a process that can take hours and days.  When completed, they engage in a ritualist process of dismantling the Mandala.  They sweep up the sand and let it go into the ocean, symbolizing the transitory nature.  It is the concept of striving for something great and then being able to detach and let go; and allow the universe to do what it does because when you hold on so tightly to one thing, you cause yourself stress. 

6. Practice the Dichotomy of Control.  In life, there are always things in and out of your control and when you can categorize items in their proper place, you can free yourself from unnecessary heartburn.  The idea is to release energy around the things you cannot control like determining outcomes, and directing your energy on the things you can control such as your preparation and intentions.  For example, if you are giving a Ted talk, you can control what you write and how much you prepare to get ready for the moment, but you cannot control the audience’s reaction or how many views it will receive.  Save your energy for things that will move the needle, and be comfortable with the idea that whatever happens to things outside your control, it is ok; it is all part of the human experience.

7. Cultivate a strong identity beyond work.  Sometimes our struggles occur when we overidentify with one thing.  We may attach our entire self-worth to work, and then when we are experiencing stress at work, our world feels small and in disarray.  When we can foster a strong identity outside of work and have multiple sources of joy, it makes us more successful.  It is ok if work goes south because we have our salsa dance lessons, cooking classes, painting,  and other hobbies that satisfy us because we operate from our strengths.  We also have our loved ones that add energy to our lives.  We can better get through challenging times and transitions when we have many things in our lives to add small moments of bliss.

8. Cultivate authenticity.  When you are who you are in all realms of your life it preserves great energy.  In contrast, it takes a toll when you are happy and humorous at home and show up to work serious and strict.  Embrace who you are, if you are somebody who asks a lot of questions, do not entirely censor yourself.  If you know you are an introvert who gets easily overwhelmed at networking events, take some extended breaks so you can conserve energy and find ways to recharge.

For many of us, having a healthy and robust mindset does not just happen.  It takes intentionality and practice to promote excellent habits that will help us be at our best. 

Quote of the day: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Victor E. Frankl

Q: What are your routines for cultivating a healthy mindset?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 4/5 will focus on mind practices that will energize you.    

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create effective personal energy management systems for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

Which practices keep your mind strong?

For More Energy, Invest In Your Body (energy management series 2/5)

A crucial part of maintaining your energy is taking care of your physicality.  Simply, there is a mind-body connection, when you are in good shape, you feel great, and it takes intentionality and discipline to establish practices for maintaining your physical health.  How do you maximize your physical wellness first so you are able to contribute more effectively and easily?

Here are some components to consider:

1. Eating healthy.  Some people may not be aware of the types of foods they put into their bodies and the specific impacts on their energy levels.  Do you know which foods weigh you down and make you lethargic and which foods help you feel good and alert?  If you are unsure, you can work with a nutritionist to discover ways to eat healthy and maintain a balanced diet to be at the top of your game.  Simple changes like making sure you drink enough water throughout the day and a glass before a meal so you feel full quicker can alter how you show up.

2. Exercising regularly.  Having a regular exercise routine will keep your energy levels high and maintain your longevity.  The University of Vermont found that just 20 minutes of exercise can boost someone’s mood up to 12 hours.  You can do many things to promote movement and get your heart rate up.  

2A Gym routine.  Having a strength-building practice or taking classes can give you a great workout, introduce you to many kinds of exercises that help with cross-bodying training, and provide possible seeds for a new hobby to flourish.  It has the added benefit of being a social experience and can be incredibly motivating when you find the accountability to exercise together.

2B. Walking.  Walking is a great and simple exercise that keeps you active and sharp.  Many excellent leaders knew and incorporated the copious benefits into their daily routines. Thomas Jefferson talked about how walking helped with clearing his mind and being the object of his relaxation.  Similarly, Ernest Hemingway mentioned walking as a way to develop his best thoughts.  Because the nervous system only has a certain amount of bandwidth, walking is a great way to calm it down, even for 10 minutes.  A recent study shows that walking for 1 hour daily reduces the risk of major depression.  Doing it in nature is especially helpful because it reduces stress while increasing the ability to be more creative and have playful thoughts.  Attention Restoration Theory (ATR) “suggests that mental fatigue and concentration can be improved by time spent in or looking at nature.”  ART proposes that exposure to natural environments encourages more effortless brain function, thereby allowing it to recover and replenish its directed attention capacity.  Because you are in an environment with lower cognitive abilities, you slow down your brain, retrain it, use different parts, create more connections, and have better reflections.

2C. Practicing Yoga.  This exercise yields some of the best mental and physical benefits, such as relieving stress and tension, improving focus, managing difficult emotions, and unlocking creativity.  Physically, by practicing various poses, it builds strength, flexibility, and balance.  There is also the mental component of paying attention to what is happening in your mind when you are holding a challenging pose for too long.  With each position, your mind will react and it is good practice to choose how you want to work with that reaction.  It is about this beautiful balance of knowing when to strive with the right amount of struggle to be at your best and when to be at peace with where you are at any given moment.

3. Sleeping restoratively.  Having excellent quality sleep is one of the most significant differences you can make in your energy levels and performing at your best.  It is essential for your cognitive performance because when you sleep, you consolidate and retain all new information and learnings from the day, connect disparate pieces of information, and unleash creative problem-solving.  The toxins accumulated throughout the day get cleaned when you can rest.  This process is essential to keep your brain healthy and reduce Alzheimer’s.  Many people disrupt their sleep by having their phones next to them.  There are many things you can do to have better quality sleep.  For more on this topic, you can read my sleep series. 

3A Napping.  Napping for a short time can boost your mood and productivity and give you mental clarity, increasing your productivity.  Many people may feel like they do not have time for a nap in their day, but if 15-20 minutes can mean a supercharged next 2+ hours, it could be worth it to slow down to go faster.

4. Breathing deeply.  It is a great way to calm your nervous system and restore energy.  There are methods of breathing that can nourish your brain.  In Breath, James Nestor argues how we breathe matters and that there is a right and wrong way to do it. The right way to breathe can boost blood pressure, athletic performance, and balance our nervous system.  Nasal breathing (or inhaling and exhaling through your nose) is more proper and efficient than mouth breathing, which can be harmful because it causes the body to lose 40% more water.  Your breathing pace also matters; slow and deep are essential.  He mentions how 5.5 breaths per minute are optimal.  The most critical element is ensuring you take your time exhaling to get the stale air out of your system.  Many people like the Box Breathing method, where you inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4, and repeat.  Many Navy Seals use it to stay calm and focused during intense situations.  Buddhist monks use proper breathing techniques to lengthen their lives and reach higher levels of consciousness.

5. Partaking in regular self-care body rituals.  There are various things we can do to prioritize ourselves and take care of our body for a shift in energy and mood.  Going for a massage can be a relaxing feeling that calms our nerves, reduces stress, and restores our body, especially after any intense strain on it, such as prolonged exercise.  It creates peace and calm and sets us up for what’s next.  Taking the time to get a haircut, or going for a manicure or pedicure for our hands and feet can keep our bodies looking and feeling great.  Bubble baths with candles and music, saunas, and hot tubs can offer unique relaxing experiences. 

Taking time to care for your body matters.  It will contribute to your mental fortitude and keep you moving through life with higher energy levels.

Quote of the day: “No [persons] have the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training.  It is a shame for a person to grow old without seeing their beauty and strength for which their body is capable.” -Socrates

Q:  What is your favorite form of movement, and how does it impact your life? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 3/5 will focus on cultivating a healthy mind for greater energy. 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create effective personal energy management systems for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you take care of your body?

How Do You Optimize Your Energy? (energy management series 1/5 )

When are you at your best, where you are doing excellent work and showing up for others because you have a full tank of the right type of energy or fuel to get work done?  Many people drift through life unaware of their energy levels or how to harness them to thrive.  Yet, energy management and being intentional about keeping your levels high are keys to long-term effectiveness.  In The Power of Full Engagement, Tony Schwartz argues that it is more important than time, money, or any other kind of management.  

Here are some helpful ways to effectively manage your energy:

1. Get clear on the fundamentals.  Have you defined your purpose, values, vision, strengths, and goals?  These categories will set the framework for all other things to follow and will be an energy multiplier when you spend time on activities aligned with these pillars.

1A. Purpose & Legacy.  Purpose is your reason for waking up in the morning; it’s aspirational and has a movement orientation.  If money was no question, it is the thing you would do because you are intrinsically driven by it.  Too many people get caught up in the day-to-day that they become disconnected from what makes life truly worth living.  Spending too much time on work not aligned with their purpose can be a depleting experience. Tuning into yourself and what you deeply care about will keep your tank full.  One framework to capture your purpose is Ikagi, or in Japanese, the reason for being.  It involves 4 components:

·      What you are good at

·      What you enjoy

·      What the world needs

·      What you can get paid for

When you discover things that fit into these four quadrants, it can be an energy-building experience.

Another approach to thinking about your purpose is to think about your legacy.  What do you want to be known for 100 years from now?  Apple Executive Angela Ahrendts had a great answer, she said “somebody who uplifted others as a wife, mom, and leader.”  There is so much power in service.  Ralph Waldo Emerson notes, “To know that one life has breathed easier because we have lived…that is to have succeeded.”  Making others’ lives easier is a good guidepost for a satisfying life.   Once you are clear on your legacy, you can arrange your day to be in alignment and experience fulfillment as you live your purpose, even if you do not get to witness the impact.  A line from the play Hamilton captures this nicely: “What is a legacy except planting flowers in a garden that you never get to see.” 

1B. Values.  These are your motivators in life, the elements that you find most important and that drive you.  For example, if you value learning, you will spend so much time on that activity because it is something you care about and enjoy.  If you value adventure, the more you explore, the more energy you will have.  It also helps with decision-making because when you make choices in accordance with your values, it brings you greater happiness and peace.  Living your values is a great way to build energy and not expend it on trivial aspects.  

1C. Vision.  Do you have a vision for your life?  Where do you want to be 1, 3, or 5 years from now?  It is fine if you may still need to figure out all the details, but when you know where you are generally trying to go, it is an energy-building experience because you are taking meaningful steps in the direction that matters to you.  A common regret of leaders is that they wish they were not always so overwhelmed by the present that they spent more time thinking about the future. Take time to sketch where you want to go.

1D. Strengths.  Are you clear on what your talents are and how you deliver value?  When you operate from a place of strength, you can do your best work and produce more joy and vitality.  A Gallup study reveals people who use their strengths daily are 3x more likely to report having an excellent quality of life, 6x more likely to be engaged at work, 8% more productive, and 15% less likely to quit their jobs.  You will be drained when working from weaknesses and on tasks that are not enjoyable or even frustrating.

1E. Goals. What do you want to accomplish in the short and long term so you are living your purpose and moving closer to your vision?  How often do you set goals and make your activities align?  I sometimes conduct a goal audit with my clients who are depleted and do not know why.  When we list all the committees, task forces, or special projects they are a part of; they realize that they are spending more time on urgent than important tasks.  Their life is filled with energy-sucking activities.  Having clear goals will allow you to be more strategic about how you spend your time.  Decision-making becomes easier if requests on your time are not in accordance with your goals; you simply say no to preserve your energy.

2. Defining and measuring success.  A big part of managing your energy is taking time to define what success means to you.  Many people may not be conscious of it; they may be using a definition they received from their parents or society.  Is it having a lot of money, climbing the career ladder to land a fancy title at a big organization?  Is it about fame, power, recognition, and luxury? If this is the case, what’s the cost? If it means working 18-hour days and not seeing your family, would you still label that successful?  For others, maybe your definition of success is about running your own business, having a family, living a high-quality life, and doing work you love. Maybe it is about traveling the world and allowing places, people, and ideas to fuel your creativity. Only you know.

Whatever it is, you want to be clear on the underlining motive.  You want to be VP by 40, maybe that comes from your desire to achieve and feel validated where you finally believe you can be worthy.  It is common for many of us to have been shown love by how much we have accomplished so we move through life as an adult with that same script acquired when young.  Or, maybe your motive is about delivering more value.  It is helpful to tease apart your hidden motives and find the source because if you pursue the goal for the wrong reason or somebody else’s, you may end up lacking meaning and purpose, which can be an energy-depleting experience.  You will feel more fulfilled if your goal is more about service and impact. I had one client who had a lucrative finance career but lacked something.  When they got more in touch with their true intentions, they went into teaching and service and became much happier.

My first definition of success came from my parents who taught me to get an education and have a safe job with a pension; they prioritized security above all else.  Combining their penchant for job security and my love of learning, I saw teaching as the perfect first profession.  As I started getting more in touch with my entrepreneurial energy and considering starting my own leadership coaching and facilitation business, I battled challenging scripts loaded in me when I was young, I thought maybe I was crazy to give up something so predictable for a possible wild card.  My family at the time thought I was foolish, and that I should be content with teaching because I have a job for life, especially during global uncertainties.  Bucking pressure, I leaped and having had my own business for several years, I could not be happier and more alive.  I get to combine my values of learning, impact, service, growth, creativity, and entrepreneurship and spend my waking moments helping others achieve their potential and accelerating their learning and leadership excellence.  I dedicate so much time to the intersection of developing myself and others, and it is exhilarating.  I had to relinquish that definition of success for one that was more in alignment with who I was.  Wayne Dwyer said, “Don’t die with your music still in you.”  If I never took this risk, I would have been living an incomplete existence because I would not have that conduit to express and share my gifts.  When you speak your desires that are true to your soul, you get to live authentically, powerfully, and fully.

Once you have established your definition, you want to measure it.  I measure success by how many people’s lives I positively change and the energy-building interactions I have, and I get feedback through verbal and written validations, which signal that I’m on the track I want to be.  I also measure it by pursuing excellence and flourishing, meaning and satisfaction, striving and peace, and purpose and contribution.  When I am clear on those metrics, I can focus on playing my game and not getting distracted by comparing myself to others and their goals or what they do in their games.  

In 5 Regrets of the Dying, Bonnie Ware, a Palliative Care Nurse transformed her life by learning about the regrets of the people she cared for.  For many, they wish they had the courage to live their lives and not the ones others wanted for them.  Specifically, they had not worked so hard, had the courage to express feelings, stay in touch with friends, and let themselves be happier.  While some say comparison can be the thief of joy because you can make yourself miserable by desiring what others have, it does not have to be that way.  If you have an abundant mindset, you can be happy for others and appreciate your pursuits.  You can use comparison as a tool for learning and motivation and find joy in avoiding stagnation.

3. Establish work-life flow.  You can design your work life based on the fundamentals above and your definition of success.  Whether you call it work-life balance, work-life integration, or work-life flow, it is vital to think about the major categories in your life, such as family, career, health, finances, and play, and map it out to see how they would fit together, which will allow you to make better choices based on what you care about and how you want to spend your time.  Purpose becomes more essential when we contextualize it with the other aspects of our lives because there is usually this critical mix of dreams and duties.  And the goal does not have to be to achieve balance which is hard because it means all aspects have to be equal; it is about rhythm, flow, fulfillment, and being intentional about your choices.  Without this, you fall into default mode, where you are moving along but not being deliberate, and it is depleting.  Once you have identified those vital aspects, you can organize your time based on how much you want to spend on each category to feel vitalized.  What is the proper allocation to feel like you are winning at work and succeeding in life?  We feel incomplete when we can have significant accomplishments at work, come home and feel like we are not the family person we want to be because our significant other and kids tell us that we are never home.   Or when we are not exercising and eating well or doing the things that restore us because we are singly focused on work.

4. Setting morning and evening routines.  Athletes, musicians, and performers usually have a routine that sets the conditions for their best performance.  They may make sure they drink enough water, have a clear focus, and visualize what they want to do.  Similarly, we can have morning and evening practices that maintain our daily physical and mental energy.  What does your morning routine look like, and does it set you up on a high note to embrace your day?  Does it include waking up from 8+ hours of sleep, a healthy breakfast, time sustaining your soul through reading, listening to something positive, meditating, planning your day, connecting with loved ones, and other things contributing to charging your battery?  Similarly, how is your evening routine - do you spend time with loved ones, plan for the next day, do breathing exercises, listen to something inspiring, meaningfully connect with loved ones, read in bed, and be sure to get your 8 hours of restorative sleep?  How you start and end the day makes a big difference to your energy because it provides a solid foundation to go the distance and better deal with stress.  Too many people treat life like a sprint and aim to survive rather than having consistent habits that continually restore you.

5. Match your energy levels with the appropriate activity.  Being effective is not about doing more but being strategic in working and harnessing your best energy.  In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Daniel Pink talks about the time of the day having a significant impact on our performance.  Most of us have a peak, troth, and recovery cycle, where we have the highest energy in the morning, dip in the afternoon, and then, experience a second wind.  If this applies to you, you should do your most demanding and best thinking during your peaks, such as writing and designing programs; your shallow activities, such as administrative tasks like sending emails during your troth; and having meetings and socializing during your recovery time.  You want to match your biological makeup to your work for maximum results.

Everybody is different, we just want to be in tune with how we are through the day because it matters in the quality of our thinking and decisions.  So, reading books about the importance of being a part of the 5:00 am club, where you wake up early to get all your work done may be damaging to you if you are not a morning person.  Research shows that most car accidents occur from 2 pm-4 when people are tired, and energy is low.  Judges are more likely to grant parole in the morning when their thinking is fresh, but as the day goes on, they are less likely to do it because it requires more consideration, they are fatigued so they choose a default option of no parole.  How we structure our day based on our energy will impact our performance and mindset throughout the day.

With intentionality, you can optimize your energy and live your desired life.  It all starts with taking the time to do the introspective work, being honest about your current reality, get clear on who you are and what you want to be doing that fills, and not empties your soul.

Quote of the day: “A person doesn’t need brilliance or genius, all they need is energy.” – Author Albert Greenfield

Q: What are your most energizing practices?  How do they map to your purpose? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 2/5 will focus on investing in the body as a gateway to more energy.  

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create effective personal energy management systems for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

Manager your personal energy for great success

Mentors and Sponsors- What’s the difference? (Support Series 2/2)

When you are seeking assistance, it is helpful to know where to turn.  The last blog covered the difference between therapists and coaches as excellent systems of support.  This one will jump into mentorship and sponsorship as tremendous resources to bolster your career growth.

Mentorship

Mentorship is a relationship where the focus is on supporting the growth and development of the mentee.  They are excellent resources because they are usually seasoned leaders with industry knowledge who can guide less experienced people to help them raise their potential by achieving career goals and success.     

Mentors support mentees through formal or informal discussions about building skills, qualities, and confidence for career advancement.  Since they have “been there, done that,” they could show you the ropes and provide information that can offer shortcuts so you can avoid mistakes and pitfalls they have experienced along their career journey. They can discuss strategically with you how to best position yourself for a promotion. If you are about to have a conversation with a skip level, a mentor can share vital intel if they have it; for example, this person likes information in bullet points rather than paragraphs, and if you send an email with an agenda and include these two topics, that will help you stand out. The best mentors provide those practical tips to set you up for success and do not just speak conceptionally. Mentors usually act as trustworthy confidants fluent in reading between the lines of corporate emails and complex management and can share the “unwritten rules” for advancement in their organization because they understand the challenges you are facing.  Every cadence is different, but usually, mentors volunteer their time to do monthly check-ins. 

A mentor can share potential contacts with you to bypass gatekeepers, they can also connect you with other potential mentors since helping your career usually takes multiple guides.  We tend to make the erroneous assumption that just because a mentor has a fancy title that they have wisdom in every area, but similar to investing, we get the most benefit when we diversify.  Having multiple mentors can help because each person has different values, ambitions, insights, connections, and industry specialties.  

It might seem as though the benefits of mentoring are a one-way street, but when done right, it is an equally rich partnership.  While the mentee gains insights and experience in their field, the mentor can take pride in their protégé’s successes, help to develop another and learn from their mentees.  The best relationships are authentic ones, so be aware of downplaying potential issues because you are trying to impress your mentor.  Also, if your organization provides you with a mentor, it is ok not to click off the bat because the best relationships take time to cultivate. And the truth is, organizations may not always get their matches right, and that’s ok; there should be options to get rematched for the best possible fit. To read more on this topic of creating excellent mentorship relationships, check out my 3-part blog series.

Sponsorship

A sponsorship is similar to mentorship, but in some cases, it can be more effective in advancing your career.  A sponsor is someone in a position of power who uses their influence to endorse and advocate on your behalf by communicating with other high-status leaders in the company.  A sponsor could be your boss, your skip level, or anyone who is in a position to influence others and who knows you well enough to use their power and political capital for your benefit.

While there can be overlaps and some can play dual parts, a simple difference between mentors and sponsors is that mentors talk with you to help level up your skill and give advice, whereas sponsors talk about you to help you move up and get your next position.  Sylvia Ann Hewlett, CEO of the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) says, “If you want to advance your career, having a mentor isn’t enough anymore, if you aspire to climb higher in this modern and competitive climate, you’ll need a sponsor as well.”  CTI has tracked the sponsor effect since 2010 in four U.S. and global studies and the results show that sponsorship, not mentorship, is how power is transferred in the workplace.

What do sponsors do and how to get one?

A sponsor can share successful strategies with their sponsee relating to staying on top of new, required skills for your desired position and new opportunities.  Then, they inform you of these requirements and prospects to help prepare you for a title change. They are invested in their protégé’s career success and will use their influence and networks to connect them to high-profile assignments, people, pay increases, and promotions.  Every organization has mission-critical work associated with revenue generation or contact with key clients and partners; they are the plum assignments that people vie for. Sponsors can advocate for you to get these strategic projects. The truth is, many important decisions about your career - compensation, promotion, and new assignments happen in a room that you are not in. Sponsors can carry your papers and use their currency on your behalf.

To get a sponsor, you first want to identify who they are and intentionally create quality moments. Carla Harris, Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley said you can study the organization for a few weeks and note the people who have a seat at the decision-making table. And if you cannot figure that out, ask someone. Aim to build relationships with 1-2 people, and one way to do that is to have frequent touchpoints. Harris talked about how she would find ways to interact with them; she would come in at 7:15 am and be sure to say good morning, have a conversation in the elevator, and bring occasional coffee. Any good relationship starts with those light touch points and develops further. Then when your name comes up, it can be as simple as that person saying, “I like that person; they are good,” or “how about that person sets up the client meeting?” And if there is no other data about you in the room, that comment will travel far because it implants a positive first impression among the other senior leaders.

If you can collaborate with the sponsor, doing great work often formalizes the relationship. You want to impress them so they can take on the risk of advocating for you.  According to Joann M. Eisenhart, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Northwestern Mutual, “Sponsorship is earned.”  This differs from some organizations where mentors are assigned; sponsors cannot be compelled to spend their political capital on you. Only when a person knows your work, trusts you, and can attest to your character will they likely be an advocate for you.  Most people will not risk their reputation for anything less.  They may ask you to work on aspects of your career development before they are willing to go to bat for you.

If you already have a mentor and continue to build trust and authentically nurture the relationship, it can take on sponsorship characteristics.

And if you do not have any of those opportunities for collaboration with mentors and sponsors, find ways to stand out. If you are at a company town hall, get involved. Alison Wood Brooks, Harvard Business School Professor said, if you ask thoughtful questions, you come across smart and likable. You don’t need to have the answers, but good questions can set somebody else up for success. You can make the extra effort to attend events where you know leaders will be and interact with them; as Stephen Hawking once said, “Showing up is half the battle.”

How do Sponsors decide to take on Sponsees?

To determine if you will take on a sponsee, you can give them mini-projects to see how they do.  You can connect the sponsee with somebody else and see how they handle the interaction. For example, if you know your sponsee wants to move from a client-facing role in 3 years to a strategic facing Senior Director role, you can link them with the Head of Strategy and if they run with that connection, grab takeaways, and integrate into the next steps, you know your work will be put to good use. 

Some sponsors can be nervous because they might think sponsoring the wrong person can ruin their reputation. Carla Harris said, “if that is your fear, you are not sponsoring enough people.” When it is done right, developing and retaining talent by enriching more junior workers is a crucial part of their job, and the best way to grow your power is to give it away. In any given year, you can sponsor two or three people, but can mentor more than that.

What is the Sponsee’s Role?

Similar to a mentorship, good sponsorship is a two-way street.  While a sponsor sticks their neck out for you and gives advocacy, it is good for you to show your reliability to them, live up to your potential, and deliver on your promises.  Keep your sponsor in the loop with your successes and aim to exceed their expectations.  Also, you can make your sponsor’s job easier to advocate for you by providing them with talking points so they can best represent your accomplishments.

As you think about breaking through your feeling of being stuck or eager to climb to new heights in your life and your career, you tend to go farther and faster when you go with others.  While mentors and sponsors can offer assistance, they each have specialties.   Mentors volunteer their time to provide wisdom and guidance and sometimes skill-building.  Sponsors talk about you highly when you are not in the room to rise in your career.  No rule says you only need one of these supports, if you have access to it, you can enlist as many people as you need.

Q: Who do you go to when you need help rising in your career?  Comment and share your ideas.  We would love to hear!

Quotes of the day: “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” -Winston Churchill

“No one has ever become poor by giving.” -Anne Frank

As a Leadership and Executive Coach, I partner with others to help create powerful relationships to advance in your career, contact me to learn more.

Which supports do you use for your career growth?

Therapists and Coaches: What’s the difference? (Support Series 1/2)

Navigating life is not without its challenges.  There are times when we need help to accelerate our progress.  Former President Barack Obama reminds us, “Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.  I do that every day.  Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength.  It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new.”  If you feel stuck in some part of your life or just navigating a tricky situation, partnering with an ally could be just the thing that helps you breakthrough.

This series will explore four common sources of life and career assistance and the differences between each.  The first blog will cover support offered by therapists and coaches, and the second will review mentors and sponsors.   While they all have commonalities in helping you go after something you want in life, each has its particular focus, which may relate to what you need at the time.

Therapy

As a coach, I am often asked about the difference between coaching and therapy and while I am not a therapist, in putting together this information, I have conducted research and spoken to various therapists to learn more. Here is my coach's perspective.

While there are many different kinds of therapists and specialties, I’ll focus on a general description. A therapist, or trained mental health professional, must have a license to treat mental health and focus on emotional healing.  They can lead you out of a type of dysfunction that is getting in your way of operating soundly on a day-to-day basis.  Most people go to a therapist because of a presenting problem, such as a panic attack or crushing anxiety that makes them less effective on the job and in their lives.

We all have a past, and sometimes previous unaddressed emotional issues and key experiences have framed who we are today.  Therapists can help examine your history and seek to undo unhelpful thoughts or process trauma so you can move forward.  You may discover that you had an interaction with a teacher early on that made you feel ashamed, and even though it has been decades, you play that record in your mind like it just happened and haven’t shared that struggle with anybody else.  Carl Jung said that secrets are psychic poison; we can better heal by processing repressed experiences.  Therapists explore any family links that may have had a more significant impact on you that you never gave credit to, but it sits in your subconscious and settles as nerves in your body.  Maybe your parents told you that you were never good enough, or not as good as your sibling, and it is connected to the lack of confidence you are now exhibiting, which prevents you from going after a promotion.  Maybe you only received love from your family when you were achieving something, so you have some self-limiting behavior of burying your head in work to produce results rather than collaborating with your teammates because you find the former to be a more valuable method to prove your worth to your boss, it’s your conditioning from when you were young.  A therapist can help you navigate those emotions and illuminate the present better to move forward. 

The goal of therapy is to release any places where you are blocked to be happier, more settled, and at peace.  At its core, it works on the psychological problems from its source and does healing work, sometimes spanning an extended period.  Tiffany Louise, Social Worker and Professional Coach says, “People generally seek therapy because they are feeling blocked, experiencing maladaptive emotional and behavioral health symptoms, and are otherwise not functioning optimally in their lives.”  This trauma can cause people not to follow through with agreements or assignments and be resistant and stay stuck.  Therapists can help you develop coping mechanisms so you do not get derailed in your day by the incessant ups and downs that can create imbalance.

There are also times when we are experiencing complex life events and are overwhelmed and have a crushing worry that consumes us, so we need to talk about it to process and heal.  In a comment to the Huffington Post, David Spiegel, Associate Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University said "We're social creatures, fundamentally, so talking to people can be a real source of support, and therapy can be an interpersonal laboratory. It's a way of working with cognition, emotion, and interpersonal relationships in a way that helps you manage your emotions and learn to see it from a different perspective."  In other words, you do not have to go through a huge life transition or trauma to benefit from therapy.  Talking with a professional allows you to get a sense of how you appear to other people, helps you get feedback on whatever you're feeling, and offers insight into how those emotions are affecting your everyday life. 

When should you seek a therapist?

You can work with a therapist when you want to gain emotional healing from your upbringing, past trauma, or need assistance with an overwhelming situation. When there are consistent interruptions to your functioning, maybe you feel chronic anxiety or stressed-induced pains, have trouble sleeping, experience changes in appetite, or feel depressed, you can get support.  In general, humans are not meant to keep things inside, and therapy can help us in all sorts of ways and can be whatever we want it to be.

Coaching

Coaching is a creative alliance designed to help people move forward in their personal and professional lives and be the best.  A coach helps you define what you want to achieve, strategize how to get there, and support you as you take action to achieve extraordinary and sustainable results.

Coaching helps you clarify who you are, who you want to be, and dedicate time to inner work and reflection.  As a Leadership Development and Executive Coach, I have helped clients define their purpose and rediscover their passions to have great fulfillment and meaning.  Some of my clients feel like they have a lot to be grateful for, yet something is still missing; they need that extra processing with a trained coach who can help them piece the puzzle together.  I’ve helped clients create a vision for their lives, so they know that when they take steps, they are meaningful ones because they are in the direction of their worthy goals.  Together, we explore their values or enduring beliefs that guide all their decisions and set goals aligning with their purpose, vision, and values.  When life feels complex, knowing these crucial elements can serve as a steady and reassuring guide, steering us through the mayhem.

Coaches work with people who feel like their lives are on autopilot and they want to challenge themselves or break out of their comfort zones and stretch to play bigger.  They want to tap their inner motivation for a major goal, such as being promoted to senior leadership.  A coach offers tremendous accountability for others to get what they want out of life.  Just recently, I was working with a senior leader who aimed to be a Vice President. When I asked her what she needed to do to get ready for that position, she was grateful for the question because she never thought about it methodically so she made a list and created a roadmap. Asking her about what her leadership needed to see from her expanded her viewpoint beyond her perspective and created even more nuance to her plan. Coaching is about helping others discover their dreams and uncover the motivation to go after them deliberately.

If you feel confused about the next chapter in your life (i.e., struggling with career decisions, major life choices) and would like guidance on what would best serve you, coaches can help.  If your thoughts represent puzzle pieces, coaches help to take them out of your mind and place them on the table so you can see the map to explore the territory better.  Coaching is not about focusing on what’s wrong, but on what’s possible so you can get more out of your life and live from a point of choice and fulfillment.

As an Executive Coach, I work with others to improve their mindset and skillset to accelerate their career and have a bigger leadership impact.  Common topics I’ve covered with leaders include communication (how to speak with executive presence, how to give and receive meaningful feedback, how to advocate for yourself and negotiate effectively, how to have courageous conversations, how to listen to understand and not reply), how to delegate for results, run meetings, prioritize, plan, organize, have work-life flow, make better decisions, be a strategic thinker, among others   I’ve also helped leaders run high-performing teams by creating agreements, defining mission, vision, and values, putting in place systems and processes for peak performance and having productive conflict.  I help leaders discover their philosophy and principles that will guide their actions, know their strengths, and plan to address their weaknesses or find workarounds. I also do a lot of work around career coaching by helping clients do the work to get clear on what they want in their next role; I help them create their leadership branding and their narrative so they can speak about themselves profoundly. Sure, we cover tactical aspects like updating their resume and LinkedIn, but I assist them in being strategic about their outreach so they know whom they want to contact to connect with and what they want to say to maximize their time in a win-win fashion so it is an energy-building experience.

Through coaching, I help clients be better learners, raise their self-awareness, and potentially have mindset shifts to upgrade their human operating system.  We explore blocks such as nasty messages from their inner critics that keep them from their best life or limiting beliefs and derailing habits that do not serve them, so we replace them with productive alternatives.  A coach helps you remove unnecessary obstacles and barriers that you have created for yourself to move forward.  We work on improving your confidence and self-esteem and overcoming feelings of self-doubt by revisiting old scripts and updating them.  Similar to the sport of curling, we are clearing the path so the client can direct their stone where it needs to be, although the difference is that he client does the work.  A coach helps clients discover their blind spots because it is hard to see the spinach in our teeth and it is nice when a trusted advocate kindly draws our attention to something that would be helpful to know.  When emotions are strong, we need someone else to see how we think. Neuroscientists call these disruptors.  We need people to interrupt our thinking patterns to prompt us to stop and to look at them differently, somebody to help us revisit and expand our stories.  Big shifts can happen when somebody else reflects your beliefs to you to see how they serve you and what you want to do about them.

How does the coach operate?

Many sessions begin with a goal or topic to explore and end with action steps and accountability, but it all depends on the client’s needs.  It usually includes asking empowering questions to connect people to their passion and purpose, raising awareness of their inner blocks, challenging their thinking, and discovering new viewpoints and possibilities.  As a certified leadership coach and thought partner, I’m trained to listen and reflect deeply, always asking more of them than they ask of themselves. I reflect to them what I hear but slightly shifted language.  I hold space for others to process what they really think and feel because we do not often create reflection time for ourselves. They have a container to utter unformed thoughts to a coach dedicated to helping them make discoveries to fuel their growth. I also use a lot of frameworks so clients can have set models to work from.

When should you seek a coach:

If you need a skilled thought partner to help you advance on your personal and professional short and long-term goals and you want to be held accountable for projects that you are pursuing, a coach can help.  If you are eager to rise in your career and navigate all the pieces involved in the process, a coach can help.

Therapy and coaching are two ways that can help support your growth for greater understanding.  While therapy tends to focus more on the past and working out previous experiences, coaches dip into the past but are mainly interested in how it informs the present and uses that information to guide them to their destination.  With that being said, many therapists are coach-like, they see clients as naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, and they work on goals to deepen the learning and forward the action.  There are also many coaches who are not afraid to explore the client’s full context, including how the past has influenced their current outlook and actions and how they may want to address the wounds.  While the brain is a marvelous complicated mess, and sometimes the lines can be blurred, we need different things at different times.

Q: Who do you go to when you need help?  How do you see working with either a therapist or a coach supporting your goals?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

Quote of the day: “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.  Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakes.” -Carl Jung, psychiatrist.

[The next blog in this series 2/2 will focus on two other supports – mentors and sponsors]

As a Leadership and Executive Coach, I partner with others to help you achieve your goals, contact me to learn more.

Who do you turn to for support?

The Future of Work is Hybrid ( Remote Series 11/11)

While some companies have opted for a full remote experience, others are still figuring it out and thinking through a hybrid setup.  Since covid has blown up the traditional work model, it has allowed companies to think about a more improved format that will allow people to rearrange their lives and work preferences for greater fulfillment and productivity. 

One complexity that companies are dealing with is how much time people should be in the office.  In a linked interview, David Rock from the NeuroLeadership Institute mentioned how split worker preferences are:

·      1/3 of people love to be in the office because they are most productive and happier and do not have distractions or a lack of structure, which they can experience at home.  It is also energizing for extroverts to be around people who get their energy from all the interactions. 

·      1/3 of people prefer to be at home, especially caretakers, who tend to be mostly women, and some racial groups who talked about experiencing greater comfort working from home. They can organize their schedule that supports their parental and lifestyle preferences.  It is also less depleting for introverts who can get quickly drained by being around people constantly.

·      1/3 of people are happy to mix it up, go into the office part of the time to be around people and collaborate, and stay home part of the time for deep work and more flexibility.

Executives are also split on this topic, which some believe is more emotionally charged than layoffs.  Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, Reed Hastings of Netflix, and David Solomon of Goldman Sachs are just some Fortune 500 CEOs who have loudly demanded their employees return to the worksite.  They view physical attendance as paramount, especially given their real estate investment.  Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, David Ek of Spotify, Parag Agrawal of Twitter, Jack Dorsey of Square, and Mark Benioff of Salesforce have endorsed more of a work-from-anywhere policy.  And some trust their teams to make the best decisions.  Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy told employees, “instead of specifying that people work a baseline of three days a week in the office, we're going to leave this decision up to individual teams."  Sundar Pichai of Google said, "I think people and teams are going to figure this out.”  They take more of a local approach empowering teams to do what makes the most sense for accomplishing business objectives and satisfying individual preferences.

The Future Of Work Is A Hybrid Setup

A  McKinsey article highlight’s that many organizations will be seeking to combine the benefits of remote and onsite working, but many currently lack a strategy for the future of work.  The key is figuring out the right model that will work for your culture, having a definite strategy and not trying to be all things to everyone.  When you define your culture, and tell others who you are and what it means to work here, people can make informed decisions that best suit their needs.

Companies are in this rare moment to reimagine how work can be done better.  Before determining your hybrid strategy, here are some points you may want to consider:

1. Define the kind of company and culture you want to have.  People are still thinking about the right way to do hybrid and there is no one correct answer as it depends on the needs of the people and the company.  How is your organization being regenerative, where it invests in its people so that every year, they get even better, rather than exploitative, where they try to extract as much as they can from people as they drive toward profits.

2. Set your goals linked to the business outcomes and then give flexibility.  Once you know the company’s purpose and business outcomes, you can be flexible in achieving those ends.  Rather than return to the old ways of doing things or bad habits that were not working, it is a real opportunity to explore what will be best for your team and company in this current period.  Granting employees the flexibility they yearn, will allow the company to benefit from higher productivity, engagement, and loyalty.  People benefit because they can organize their life according to what is important to them.  At GitLab, they optimize for results rather than activities or the number of hours worked

3. Survey your people and co-create.  What do your employees want?  How are you using their voices to restructure the workday and week?  How much flexibility do they have in deciding how they work, when, where, and who they work with?  Where do their preferences and interests come into play?  You can give an anonymous survey to truly understand their predilections, and then you can use that data to balance it with the organization’s needs.  How can they be set up for success, do their job well, and simultaneously make sure the business is serving the stakeholders and customers?  Once you know this, you can collectively create the best policy for the work and your people.  This decision should not be made by one person or just the executive team in an office, and then it gets imposed onto others, there has to be an account for the diverse perspectives and a collaboration to determine the best course of action.  You can run an innovation tournament and crowd-source the best ideas.  They can submit various models to meet the conditions of promoting worker benefits, attracting top talent, and meeting the needs of the business and its many stakeholders.

4. View the office as a tool to advance teamwork.  This will help you be more intentional about your in-person time.  One of the keys to making this a success is to think about batching or arranging time together to maximize the team’s advantage in the office as face-to-face coordination helps. 

In an interview with Adam Grant, CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella said, “stop thinking about remote work like a switch but instead a dial to turn up or down on synchronous and asynchronous work depending on the type of team you have and the kinds of projects you are doing.  If your project is more like a relay race, you need more time together like an assembly line with multiple people are involved or a media shop where one draft needs to be handled by many people…a writer, editor, and designer.  The person passing the baton needs to be in sync with the person receiving it.   When excellence depends on repeatedly passing the ball, you want to spend several days in the week together and coordinate your time.”

5. Designate Anchor & Deep Work Days.  Some companies choose 2 or 3 days a week for anchor days.  If you are going to the office, it is nice to spend time on intense collaboration and innovation.  When people know they are coming in for ideation or creative work or working on a specific task or problem together where they are whiteboarding and solutioning, it can deepen cohesion and engender great feelings as people can feel good creating and connecting. It is also a buzzing energy to align around a goal.   They can be used for important internal meetings, 2–3-year strategy planning work, or with key customers to give them facetime to build more trust rapidly.  Finally, an opportunity to have lunch, connect, and foster great culture and build community.  If an entire team has few dependencies, they can even decide to meet at WeWorks on the same day to work in community.  When people are co-located, there is magic and spontaneity in the informal interactions where people of different expertise and experience exchange ideas for great creativity.  Those casual collisions drive learning and innovation and can brighten people’s days and make them feel more connected.

The key is to devise a plan that will work for most.  If you allow everybody to pick individually and are on different schedules from their immediate and cross-functional teams, you miss the benefits of hybrid.  It is not as productive to come into the office and do things they can easily do from home such as staring at a screen all day when they would have been more productive at home.  The people who have a 2-hour commute and are forced to come in to do independent work that they could have done better at home will become resultful.   

Another format I’ve seen is when managers set a number such as 30% of your time per month in the office, or designate certain weeks out of the month, such as the 1st and 3rd.   Or, some managers select a day for drop-in office hours or the HR Team encourages all employees to do their onboarding in the office for the first two weeks.   You can use the rhythm that works for you, but the idea is to have some frequency with each other.  It is also essential to make the experience compelling, so people want to come in, for example, if leadership makes themselves more accessible, that could incentivize people to come in.

5. Designate quiet time.  For the non-anchor days, you can select part of the time for deep work and reflection.  In these interruption-free zones where there are no meetings, you have protected time to put your head down and complete your analytical and critical work, so you are not working after hours.  It is also an intentional space to step back from the screen and do more creative and focused work.  Research suggests that limiting meetings to the afternoons can give people time to get stuff done in the morning, progress on their tasks, and be more likely to focus on the afternoon meetings because they’re not multitasking.

Make asynchronous communication hours clear.  When people are working remotely, what are the general times they should be logged on, this will allow them to arrange their time freely to best serve them, and have better work-life harmony.  The asynchronous times would be the meeting free times.   At Warner Media, they have No Meetings Friday, you can communicate via slack, but no calendar invites will come through that day.   Being clear about the different kinds of time helps people avoid the triple peak where they are active in the morning, during the day, and in the evening, which will lead to burnout.  There should not be the expectation of being accessible on weekends and late nights.  And if you are the type who likes to work on nights and send emails, be clear that you do not expect a response.  If you are a senior leader and send many messages before the weekend, it’s a good way to destroy somebody’s off time.  You can establish the norm or expectation that you do not need a response in your email signature by writing something like this: I value working flexibly. I’m sending this message at a time that best suits me, but I don’t expect that you will read, respond to, or act on it outside of your regular working hours.”

6. Declare time off.  Having synchronized holidays is a nice feeling because people will not be returning to a pile of work when nobody else is working.  Having that time off for rejuvenation is so vital to the health of the employees.  At Salesforce, they have wellness days, time for you to journal and sense make, do yoga, meditate, or do other things, which provides another opportunity for replenishment.

7. Be intentional about your off-site, whether quarterly, biyearly, or yearly.  Whatever format you choose, it is nice to have off-sites, getting away from the office with a focus on bonding, relationship-building, connecting, and doing great, focused work that will advance the business and ensure alignment.

8. Give people a choice and define flexibility.  Flexibility is the number one request that employees make, but it’s too narrowly focused on remote and hybrid work.  It’s not enough to discuss where we should work, we need a broader conversation about what flexibility means.   Some would say it is the freedom to choose their place of work, their purpose, the people they work with, and their priorities.  This helps contribute to a regenerative organization because people are motivated by many different things, and if some want to spend time with their family, they should be able to.

·      Place– Outside the 2-3 anchor days where people have to be in the office to achieve objectives better, you can offer options for people to decide if they want to work from home or go to the office.  People with young kids or with long commutes may choose the former, while those who prefer to have a space outside their home for work or get to flex their extroverted nature might choose the latter.

·      People – Wherever possible, it is helpful for people to choose the team they want to be on and the people they get to collaborate with to do their best work because it is in service of the business.

·      Purpose & Priorities – Where possible, it is helpful for people to have autonomy in their work - freedom to explore new ideas and work on projects they want to work on.  Allow them to take healthy risks as long as the company is not jeopardized.  When the business is at risk, they should reach out to make a collective decision and not make that alone.

Undergirding the freedom option, that flexibility is not blindly granted but earned.  If you present as a reliable and credible coworker, a good communicator, and meet all their deadlines and outcomes, of course, you should have these privileges.  But if it is apparent that work is slipping through the cracks and there is a negative strain on the team because critical projects cannot move forward, then the freedom option needs to be considered because it is freedom in service of hitting outcomes and personal and team happiness, but not at the expense of objectives.

However you decide to build your hybrid culture, you can always run an experiment and try something for a quarter or two to gather data, work out the kinks, include your people’s voices, and see what works best and what adjustments need to be made. These complex problems cannot be solved by anyone but must include a team working together.

Quote of the day: “We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently, whether they are at their desk or in their kitchen.  Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will.” — Richard Branson

Q:  What is your strategy for hybrid work? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

What’s your hybrid strategy?

What Is Your Virtual Onboarding Strategy? (Remote Series 10/11)

Many companies struggle to bring people into their organization so they feel welcomed, are quickly integrated into the work, connected to their teammates, and set up to contribute immediately.  Virtual working has added another level of complexity to that long-standing challenge but, with intention, it can be a great experience.

According to a recent study by Gallup, “only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job of onboarding new employees.”  The traditional in-person experience can usually be described as a firehose where they give you a ton of information they want you to know including the company history, the logistics of navigating the office space, computer setup, and necessary paperwork to complete.  For big companies, the HR representative conducting the process can be routine since they have likely done it numerous times so the novelty has worn off.  But for the person starting the new job, it is a one-time experience and a chance to make their company introduction special.

The goal of a good onboarding is to help newcomers get settled and have the confidence to jump in as quickly as possible.  Here are some things you can do to have a memorable virtual onboarding experience:

Phase 1: Pre-day 1

1A. Strong welcome upon acceptance.  Once the candidate accepts the offer, you want to send the candidate a grand welcome.  Some companies would receive a general welcome video from the CEO about the purpose and vision and the role they can contribute.  As the manager, you should send a welcome email or have a call mentioning how excited you are for the person to join your ranks.  You can even have a teammate or two send a message so they feel included from the beginning.  If a company offers no outreach from the acceptance to the first day, that’s a red flag as they may deemphasize the relationship piece.

1B. Paperwork & Checklist.  Every job has the necessary paperwork to complete, but instead of wasting time on day one finishing it, you should send it in advance electronically so you can hit the ground running on day one and not be bogged down with this tedious work that can be handled on your time.  It is also nice to have a checklist of everything you need to do to be fully onboarded so you can track your progress along the way.  GitHub has a massive checklist for the new employees and the things managers and the company need to complete with estimated deadlines.

1C. Introductions.  It would be great for the new hire to send a 1 min. video or a paragraph introducing themselves with their picture, some information about them, and some questions to get to know more about them, such as how they spend their weekends, some of their favorite things to do, or a top value.  There can even be a dedicated slack channel for intros to connect with people more easily and find common interests.

Phase 2: Intense Initial Period. 

Executive Consultant Amanda Davis talks about onboarding happening in an initial intensive phase, maybe every day for the first week, and then a slower, more sporadic phase because onboarding is an ongoing process and not a one-time event.  In this initial intense period, here are some aspects to consider:

2A. Receive Company Overview.   Day one should be special and aim to excite and delight.  It should include a macro overview of the company’s culture, philosophy, and customer impact stories.  It should answer why the company exists and the good work meant to be done.  The captured feeling should be energizing and motivating and make the person proud to be part of something great and important. 

2B. Get Briefed on Role Overview.   While you have learned about the role during the interview, this information can be even more specific, which will help you succeed at your job.  You should be briefed on the critical work to be done, a picture of what great looks like, and key processes and practices that will help you thrive.  

2C. Have a buddy or guide.  This is somebody on your team who can answer questions about the company or day-to-day necessities for you to do your work.  The buddy can be somebody there for a while to impart institutional knowledge faster or a recent hire who can navigate the onboarding process more quickly since they just went through it.  Upon hire, it would be nice for the buddy to reach out to connect, share what they love about the company, and make it easy for the person to contact them for anything.   

2D. Create a cross-functional cohort.  If it is a larger organization, you will have clusters of people coming in frequently.  You can make sure they are put into a cohort and there are opportunities to connect so they can know more people outside of the team and know others are going through the same experience as you.

2E.  Receive a 1-page network map from your manager.  It is vital to set up a strategic meeting with your manager where they will provide a matrix of the organization so you can have a better understanding of the inner workings and information flow.  The manager should also provide a list of key internal people to connect with, stakeholders and business partners.  It should have their top priorities and needs, the best way to communicate with them, and anything else you find helpful on that page.  Once you walk through the grid and describe the connections, you will want to broker an introduction with some key people to grant credibility early on.  There is a big difference between an employee pursuing a push method, where they seek to make contact with their coworkers over a pull method, where you, as manager, make the connection and find ways to pull them into work quickly.  Companies who opted for this pull over push system were 8x more likely to be successful versus lower performing organizations because they created the conditions where the new hire got connected to key relationships quicker, had access to information and expertise, and had an opportunity to get pulled into work and contribute immediately, which led to a shorter cycle of productivity.

2F. Meet & greets.  Once you have that list, you should set up appointments and begin your listening and relationship-building tour.  The quality and effectiveness of your internal relationships will separate successful and productive employees from unproductive ones.  When relationships are developed early on, the speed of work increases, and you can feel more included and empowered to contribute early on.  It can also lead to career success because you can develop a network of trusted experts.  You can also meet people that will help you get on bigger and more visible assignments. 

Be sure to make the most of meet-and-greets by asking some strategic questions.  You can set the frame by saying, “I would love to start with introductions and then learn about your key priorities, major pain points, and the work that excites you.”  You can also generate enthusiasm for working together by asking about their ways of working and how you can best support them and their success.  Good opportunity to tell others what you do and build your brand from the beginning.  You want to think about mutual value exchanges and not just create a one-way relationship.  As you leave the meeting, you can ask who else they think it would be helpful for me to connect with so you can extend the conversation with other strategic partners.

Phase 3:Ongoing supports

3A. 1 Month Connect.  Having gone through a month of work, there are likely many more questions that have come up so having a cohort of new hires connect for relationship building, continued excitement, and doing a deeper dive to answer questions to learn even more about the company so they can contribute more robustly to the organization.  The goal is to continue to educate and build excitement, so the new employees see themselves as direct contributors.  It is also a two-way street because hearing some of their perceptions can offer great value to the team leaders about the company and onboarding processes.  The managers do a great job spreading the learnings and aim to repeat them.  You can have exercises where people have to share their understanding of their role’s purpose aligned with the company’s purpose; these stories can build valuable connections.  These meetings can continue monthly for the first quarter.

3B.  Connecting to a mentor.  If the organization has a formal mentor program, it would be great for the person to be connected to a seasoned leader who can serve as a mentor to advance their career development to build that long-term investment.  This can happen bi-yearly or quarterly depending on the bandwidth and can increase in frequency over time.  Still, it is soothing knowing they have a dedicated mentor to help them succeed in their career.

Some companies treat onboarding as a routine one-day event.  However, the most successful companies treat the onboarding experience as memorable and put in the necessary support along the journey before they even start during their intensive period, and in an ongoing sustainable fashion.  When you intend to make the experience valuable, you will open the doors for workers to contribute more easily.

Quote of the day: “I truly believe that onboarding is an art. Each new employee brings with them a potential to achieve and succeed. To lose the energy of a new hire through poor onboarding is an opportunity lost.” -Sarah Wetzel, Director of Human Resources at Engage:BDR

Q:  What are the best tips you can share about onboarding effectively? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 11/11 will focus on hybrid work being the future.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

What’s your onboarding experience?

How Do You Personally Thrive While Working Remotely (Remote Series 9/11)

For some remote workers, their experience can include isolation and loneliness from their work community and overwhelm at home.  It almost seems like you are working more than ever and cannot figure out why others are finding ways to manage and even thrive. There are things you can do differently and better to make the remote experience work for you.

Here are some tips for thriving at home while working remotely:

1. Build buffer time between meetings.  You may want to end your meeting anytime from 5 -15 mins. before the top of the hour so you can have a moment to grab water, stretch, get up, and move around.  At the office, we had those natural buffer times built in as we walked from one location to another.  Going straight into another meeting can be disorienting.  Take a few minutes to close the work from the previous meeting and be intentional about the next meeting.   You may want to keep a notepad near your desk to capture all the action items.

2. Build in transition and reflection time.  We had natural transitions during our commute where we could be alone with our thoughts. It was a prime opportunity at the beginning of the day to think about what we wanted to get from the day or how we wanted to contribute to the upcoming meeting or at the end of the day where we can process the many disparate thoughts to sense make and reflect on how the day went.  That precious time served as excellent learning time as people could listen to a podcast or book or have time for entertainment where they can escape to another world with a great piece of fiction.  If you and your family are working from the same spot and your alone time has shrunk, how are you building in transition time, especially for an introvert who needs that time to recharge?  Where are you creating the white space in your day to process?  Other than longer showers, some people find building in 15 min. walks to be a saving grace.

3. Build in connection time.  Similarly, extroverts may have enjoyed those times in the office when they got to linger around after a meeting and chat with their friends.  As external processes, that vital time to share your thoughts and hear others so you can better make sense of topics was crucial.  Who do you do that with now?  Do you have a designated buddy you can call to recreate that time after a meeting to debrief and satisfy one of your work needs?  If you are using your family as your sounding board, but they also appreciate their alone time, they may feel exhausted from your sharing.  

4. Set boundaries.  It is essential to set boundaries at work and at home.  One of my clients realized he and his wife had opposite styles, she was an introvert who needed alone time, and he was an extrovert who needed extra connect time.  While working from home for the first time, they sat down to discuss what was not working.  The wife noticed she used to have her coffee alone to think through her to-do list for the day but now that her husband was home, he would want to use that time to chat.  So they talked about a better way to organize their time going forward to get both of their needs met and designate the right time for processing and the right time for connecting so they can be at their best and be even better prepared to contribute at work and to their relationship.

Thriving at home while working remotely takes the intention to rearrange your day to practice your values and fit in time for non-negotiables such as family, exercise, healthy eating, and solitude for learning and reflection.  Otherwise, it can be easy to default to unhealthy habits of overworking and neglecting other essential needs naturally built into the routine of going to the office.

Quote of the day: “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”— Anne Lamott

Q:  What practices help you be at your best when working remotely? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 10/11 will focus on onboarding virtually.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

Thriving while working remotely

How To Get Noticed Remotely? (Remote series 8/11)

One of the biggest challenges with remote work is reduced visibility.  You may not get the same level of preferred interaction if you do not go into the office regularly.  However, you can still do many things to advance your career and stand out as a great teammate.

Here are some tips to get noticed remotely:

1. Show engagement & visibility.  Think about how you can show that you are invested in the team’s purpose and results, the company’s success, and each other.  One way to show engagement is to participate often in the group’s collective wisdom but not dominate.  When your cameras are on, and you offer verbal comments with those in the room and written ones in the chat, it shows your presence.  You can be sure to ask questions to show you are listening and even volunteer for additional projects if you have the bandwidth.  You can contribute to offline communication and post in Q and A forums, offer assistance, and share best practices.  You can send congratulatory notes to acknowledge other people’s wins and be specific with your feedback other than just saying good job.  Share what you have learned so that others may use that information to advance their work. 

2.  Be proactive.  Do not just sit back and follow, step up and lead.  You can raise potential challenges that you see on the horizon and offer possible solutions to show that you are being strategic and thinking long-term.  Connect your work and that of the teams to the impact of the business, and keep in mind other cross-functional teams and dependents when sharing your initiatives, as it shows you as a thoughtful contributor.  Be sure to procure a buddy who is in the room and can translate some of the nuances in the meeting.  You can message each other during and after the meeting to ensure you have the essential pieces down.  Be sure to make the most of your one-on-ones and seek out mentors as a prime opportunity to gain more visibility.

3. Create a friction-free experience.  It can be easy to create unnecessary thrash in remote settings, and be the person who keeps things simple and easy.  When sending emails, do not invite many back-and-forth interactions, rather, include the fewest steps possible.  For example, if you want to request a meeting with your boss, do not keep it vague and say, I’d like to meet, and then you have to wait for them to ask about the topic and available times, and then you provide times and there all these extra emails when once could have sufficed.  Instead, you can request to meet, state the topic, and offer several times that may work and if not, they can suggest 2-3 times during these available windows for the following week. They can confirm a time, and you can be all set.  If you are looking for your boss to provide answers, instead of making it open-ended by asking what they think is the solution which can demand a lot of work, you can offer three avenues that you were thinking about and ask which one of these, if any, would they want to go forward with?

4. Build relationships.  Since many organizations are matrixed where your work depends on the work of many others, it can be helpful to spend time intentionally building relationships and collecting goodwill.  This is one of the most important things you can do to succeed in your career, yet it is never urgent for people.  Your connections should not be transactional but more about building authentic connections.  You can share information on your careers and roles and even think about how best you like to work with each other. Knowing more details about their work can help you better work together.

5. Be a good team member.  Take part in team activities to get to know people outside their roles.  Be a builder and acknowledger of others’ ideas, take time to recognize, praise, and elevate them, and do not diminish, embarrass, or engage in any cringe-worthy behaviors.  Respond to emails timely and follow up on requests, so people are not wondering if you got their messages.  Do not engage in gossip; when you have a challenge with a person, assume positive intent and always go to the person to explore what’s going on. It would help if you did not involve your manager unless it calls for an escalation because the two of you have gone back and forth a few times and cannot seem to settle the differences.  If you do escalate it, do not send a private message to your boss to give your side, instead, you can tell the person, I think it is best if we bring this issue to the boss, and then you can send an email including the other person and your boss so no covert activities are occurring which can breed further distrust.

Working remotely does not mean you have to be invisible or reduce your value in any way. You can do many things to stand out and be a contributing force, it just may require a little more intentionality and planning.

Quote of the day:  “Not finance, not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and rare.” – Patrick Lencioni

Q:  What are you doing to stand out remotely? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 9 /11 will focus on how to personally thrive while working remotely

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

Get noticed Remotely

The Secret To Making Virtual Meetings Successful (Remote Series 7/11)

Why do some virtual team meetings feel like a waste of time while others feel essential and productive?  When leading a team, it is crucial to be mindful of your meeting design to increase the chances that the meeting is a good use of everyone’s time. 

Here are some steps to include that distinguish the most valuable virtual meetings from the rest:

1. Plan.  Decide if a meeting is necessary.  Most things do not require meetings – if you are giving information or have made a decision that does not involve others’ input — an email will do.  But some things require human interaction and collaborative thinking, like problem-solving or addressing conflict not fully explored.  If we need to take time to let creative solutions emerge, a meeting may be required. Adam Grant said that meetings should be for learning, doing, bonding, or deciding.

2. Determine Meeting Duration & Number.  No rule says meetings need to be 30 mins. or 1 hour.  Good meeting hygiene is to make meetings 15, 25, or 50 minutes because the shorter time will allow you to be more intentional about using your time wisely.  Having that buffer before the next meeting can help replenish energy.  It is also good to set the number of meetings suitable for the team, defining a healthy range for the week will allow people to plan time to do their best work.

3. Connect.  Each meeting should have connection time dedicated to them.  You can begin with a check-in question, such as what is something you have done this week that got you excited.  If you could play any Olympic sport and be the best, which would it be?  The goal is to get to know each other besides their role because people who know each other and can find commonalities usually work better together.

4. Clarify norms around meetings.  What are the expectations around participation?  Do you have a video camera rule where you want cameras on most of the time (say 90%) because it helps create a connection?  What are the guidelines around when cameras are off?  Do you want to grant professionalism to people and trust that when they have their cameras off, it is because of a good reason?  Should they drop a note in the chat about why their cameras are off, such as they have not had a chance to eat and will turn it on after, or kids are in the background since they stayed home from school, so it is a bit noisier than usual.  When cameras are off, how do you show you are still present?  For the presenter, it can be hard to stare at a bunch of black zoom boxes and wonder if people are present or even paying attention.  What is the behavior that you want to give and get?  When you ask questions, do you expect to hear from everybody by adding their views in the chat?  If you suspect people are disengaged because their camera is always off, and when you call on them, they do not respond or do not add to the chat, what is the process for addressing your observation? There are so many ways to do meetings well, and it starts with clarifying your expectations and inviting them to offer what would work best.  Once you have an agreed system, any deviation should be discussed until you are on the same page and making the most of your time together.

5. Prep in advance.  What are the 1-2 big questions you want to be answered in the meeting?  What should people read, prepare, and be ready to contribute?   Amazon has a narrative culture where at the beginning of the meeting, all people will read a document together for a few minutes and make comments and be ready to discuss ideas.  This allows for the discussion to be much richer and meetings more efficient because people are caught up to speed faster.

6. Create an inclusive environment.  There are things you can do to hear all voices.  First, telling them their point of view matters so that when they weigh in, the best decisions can be made.  Before the meeting, send any relevant info, an agenda, and questions in advance so you can give time for the introverts to think through problems/challenges.    How do you ensure turn-taking is happening effectively and that some dominant voices are not crowding out the introverted voices?  You can utilize the chat for more inclusivity and encourage people to put hashtags before their contribution to organize their ideas.  Adam Grant offers these helpful hashtags to organize comments:

·      #Question – you want to ask a question

·      #Debate – you want to challenge what was said or share a different perspective

·      #Aha - which indicates a new learning

·      #On Fire - means the floor is yours because you have something burning and timely to share. 

This helps to keep the flow and momentum of the conversation because it is related as opposed to going in order, and comments are not directly related.  Remote work benefits us because it gives us this second communication channel.

7. Save time by starting with the agreement.  If a meeting needs a critical decision, you can invite team members to send their responses in advance so you can review them and find the places of agreement.  Then, during the meeting, instead of reviewing everything, you can dial into the point of disagreement by saying, I know we are all on the same page with deciding this project is a go and like A, B, and C elements, let’s talk about element D since there were many different perspectives.  The ideal outcome would be deciding on the next step to advance this project.  After that preamble, you can begin a rich discussion for a decision to occur and save a lot of time in the process.

8. Encourage disagreements.   Productive disagreements can lead to the most innovative ideas, but sometimes they do not just naturally happen, so you can introduce some process to induce it.  Here are a few things you can do:

·      You can tell people you want to hear their disagreements and give them the space to offer any.

·      After people raise an idea, you can ask if anyone can think of an alternative perspective.

·      You can assign a devil’s advocate role to address any weaknesses of the idea.

·      When somebody says I think we should do X, you can acknowledge their contribution and challenge them to brainstorm to come up with several different other ideas.  When you get in the habit of saying, “great, what else is there,” you don’t get anchored to the first ideas leading to quality and innovation.  

·      You can focus the disagreements on the task or process and reinforce the idea that it is not personal and is in service of pursuing the best ideas.

9. Amplify others’ voices.  You can set the stage and let people know in the beginning that you will call on all people, starting with those you have not heard from so you can be sure to get diverse perspectives and so it is not a surprise when you call on them.  If somebody is not speaking up, you can call on them or send a private chat and preface your question with, “I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic, what would you like to share?  Also, as a facilitator, be mindful of those who are trying to talk but may be a little slow to get in, you can give them an opening by saying, “Danielle, it seems as if you want to share, I would love to hear from you.”

10. Give space for the introverts to share.  Create time for people to write down their ideas privately before they verbally share or add to the chat channel to have that necessary processing time.

11. Facilitate turn-taking.   Making sure people get their turn goes a long way to feeling validated and included.  You can have people raise their hands so cue forms and each person can speak in order.  When somebody speaks, you can have them call on others. When you get questions, you can allow others to answer before you do, so it is not just a ping-pong effect going from one participant to you and then another participant to you, rather it is more of a network approach where they are answering each other’s questions, and you are in the background.  Watch out for interrupters, and be sure to jump in to prevent that behavior and allow people to finish their thoughts

12. Give praise.  Reach out to at least one team member after the meeting to recognize them for sharing their different view during the conversation.  When you reward the behavior you are trying to encourage, you will invite more of the same and create a great team meeting culture.

13. Reflect.  Watch a recorded video of a team meeting and pay attention to who is talking, who is talked over, who is listened to, and who is ignored.  You can see what the team is noticing and put any necessary changes in place to make meetings more inclusive.

Many people will tell you that meetings can be the worst part of their day and week, but when they are done right, they can be an energizing experience.  Designing the right processes can help create effective meetings that are inclusive, innovative, and foster the best ideas.

Quote of the day:  “Meetings should be like salt - a spice sprinkled carefully to enhance a dish, not poured recklessly over every forkful.  Too much salt destroys a dish. Too many meetings destroy morale and motivation.” – Author Jason Fried 

“When leaders know how to lead great meetings, there’s less time wasted and less frustration.  We have more energy to do the work that matters, realize our full potential, and do great things. – Entrepreneur Justin Rosenstein

Q:  What are your best remote meeting practices?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 8/11 will focus on getting noticed remotely.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further. 

How do you run inclusive remote meetings?

Optimize Your Remote 1:1s (Remote Series 6/11)

It is common for people to feel a lack of support from their managers while working remotely if the right systems are not implemented.  When you are intentional about organizing your 1:1s, you can ensure your direct reports are getting the most out of the sessions by feeling connected and supported to be set up for success.

Here are some helpful components to include in your remote 1:1s:

1. Connect.  Spend some time connecting first before jumping into the work.  Asking about non-related work such as how their weekend went, inquiring about their family, or asking about any exciting things they have been up to lately will build invaluable rapport. 

2 Work Update & Supports.  You can have your Directs briefly report on the work (what’s going well that they are proud of and what challenges they could use your support in).  There can be space for what they tried, what they failed at, and what they are learning.  There are various supports you can offer, whether it is answering their questions, providing documentation, and informing them of how the big picture of what they are doing fits into your projects and the larger company initiatives. You can also give them access to others by making introductions with your peers, providing any tech equipment to do their job more easily, or any other necessary assistance.  As a manager, when you ask, “is there anything I can do to support you this week,” it sends a resounding message that you care.  If you have limited capacity or have one area of strength that you are particularly good at that you want to leverage, you can specify your support. For example, “I have an extra 30 minutes this week, is there anything I can do to support you on this project with this part of the deck or anybody I can connect you with to facilitate the work?”  

3. Skill progression.  It is always nice to call out skills and capabilities that they are developing and how they fit into their career goals.  Feedback on how they are doing can motivate and lead to greater engagement.  

4. Solicit Feedback.  This is important to optimize the working relationship.  A common question that leaders can ask: "Is there anything you want me to start doing or stop doing to make things more effective?" One remote manager Rodolphe Dutel found that when he asked his remote employees what he could do to make their lives easier, he learned a lot of helpful answers ranging from more face time, mentoring, and written instructions instead of verbal ones, so there is more clarity.  Little changes like moving a weekly meeting by one hour so the Direct Report can pick up his kids at school or scheduling time to have a quick sync before a big meeting to reduce nerves and stress, or having office hours for a brief check-in to provide help to get unstuck can all make a big difference.

5. Solicit ideas.  It is instrumental in creating space for your team to share their voice and be heard.  You can ask what ideas they have to improve the team or company.  They have a unique vantage point, and tapping into that wisdom will help you do your job better and serve your team more productively. It can also increase engagement because they can feel included and know their input matters.

6. Invite them to create the agenda.  Including the direct reports in crafting the 1:1s is essential.  You can have them talk about a structure that would work for them, possibly borrowing from some of the components above or creating new aspects.  The experience and buy-in will be significantly enhanced when they can include the factors that will meet their needs.

The key to effective 1:1s while working remotely is to be intentional about creating a great experience and not make the time transactional or routine.  Neither side should show up with no plan because you would miss a prime opportunity to connect, grow together, and produce great work.

Quote of the day: “90 minutes of your time can enhance the quality of your subordinate’s work for two weeks or 80+ hours.” – Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel.

Q:  How do you maximize your 1:1s to be an energizing experience? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 7/11 will focus on making virtual meetings successful.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you have great 1:1s?