The notions of perception, visibility, and influence are the keys not only to better performance for your organization but they’ll also help you advance your career to the next level.
Today’s post is by Joel Garfinkle, one of our thoughtLEADERS instructors.
How often have you looked at a situation in the company and thought of a better way to do it? Or felt that change was needed… but didn’t know how to make it happen? Sometimes we feel frustrated that we aren’t in a position or job title that has the power to make those changes.
But there are some techniques and methods designed to turn you into a strong influence in your company regardless of your title or position. Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level introduces the value of Perception, Visibility and Influence.
When you understand how to use perception, visibility and influence – the PVI model – you can lead from where you are right now. Those around you recognize your value. They respect your opinion and you have the skills to influence decisions and changes.
Start with Yourself
Sometimes advancing in leadership means changing cultural patterns and beliefs. You may have been taught to “not push yourself forward,” or “don’t ever volunteer for something.” You’ll need to push aside these well-meaning teachings in order to gain an unexpectedly powerful way of taking leadership.
The first step in perception is to examine how you see yourself. It’s not uncommon for people who want to be leaders to feel insecure – feel like a fraud. Here’s the secret. You’re likely better than you think.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/20220117-Paper-Boats.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-01-17 08:00:102022-01-17 05:28:06How You Can Lead with Influence
Our teams are under tremendous pressure. That pressure creates stress which diminishes performance. You can build a more resilient team through some simple leadership behaviors.
Let’s imagine that you are in a unique position. Your team has the talent it needs. Your organization has a strategy that continues to work with a plan that will adapt to your competitor’s actions. You have enough cash to handle the changes in your markets. Your team is ready to work hard and the energy in your offices has never been better. There’s only one question left to answer: is your team built to last?
The problem with our global economy, political uncertainty, and reactive media is that too many of us are living at our edges. We work hard. Our kids’ schedules make us look like our schedules are calm. We play a lot. We travel constantly. We are on our phones frenetically. This means that our brains are always paying attention to something—until they can’t.
In the hot seats of Humvees looking for IEDs or the turrets of tanks, our service men and women rotate out every half hour to 90 minutes. Most of us can only concentrate for 40 minutes at a time, but we expect our teams to start early with staff meetings, handle conference calls on international schedules, and respond to emails at all hours. Our brains are not built for the constant stimulation.
So how do we stay focused and mentally healthy when our expectations of ourselves and our teams to produce keep us under constant pressure?
Give people freedom
Your ideal schedule may not match the people on your team. In a study where students were given control over their time, they reported higher happiness, more role clarity, and less overload. How much would happy teammates who knew their job and felt like they could handle it be worth to your organization?
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/20220103-Team-Laughing.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-01-03 08:00:562022-01-03 01:41:49Is Your Team Built to Last?
In 1938, MIT student Claude Shannon solved one of the most complex problems of circuit design. Working on an early analog computer, he realized that an idea from an undergraduate philosophy course could solve the problem. Applying Boolean Algebra he laid the foundation of all electronic digital computers. As he put it: “It just happened that no one else was familiar with both fields at the same time”.
You may think that this was one of those lucky coincidences that change the world but almost never happen. You are wrong. In his book Seeing What Others Don’t, Gary Klein studied 120 of the most important inventions and discoveries in history: 82% of them emerged when people from different disciplines started to talk to each other and exchanged ideas.
Follow some simple rules and you may see what others don’t as well.
Start talking to strangers
At the beginning of the 20th century Vienna was a hotbed for new ideas. At the centre of this explosion of thoughts was the Wiener Kreis (Vienna circle), an interdisciplinary group of philosophers and scientists that met fortnightly.
While brilliant minds like Karl Popper, Ludwig von Wittgenstein, or Albert Einstein might have flourished as individuals, the gatherings are not to be underestimated. Eccentricities, disagreements, and rivalries marked these salons, but the insights had a profound impact on computing, astrophysics, cosmology, theory of science and philosophy. Even the godfather of management, Peter Drucker, benefitted from such “Abendgesellschaften” (evening gatherings) in his parent’s home in Vienna.
One obvious conclusion is to set up regular dinners with eccentrics. But a new set of online tools also facilitates the “meeting with strangers”. Harvard Professor Karim Lakhani studied hundreds crowdsourcing contests where companies post unsolvable problems and invite people to submit solutions. “The provision of a winning solution was positively related to increasing distance between the solver’s field of technical expertise and the focal field of the problem,” he explains. When tricky problems cannot be solved by the specialists, people with other backgrounds looking through other lenses and using other heuristics may find the solution. Talk to those people more often and you will start to seeing things differently.
Don’t trust the experts
Managing disruptions is difficult. A recent BCG-study found that 35% of the surveyed companies view digital technologies as disruptive to their business models and only 1/3 of all companies steer successfully through disruption.
One of the hardest things is to see what is coming. Incumbents get it wrong most of the time.
Specialists are the main culprits. Philipp E. Tetlock studied the accuracy of over 80,000 forecasts of political and economic experts. When they were convinced that something was fully or almost impossible, that future event occurred 15 percent of the time. When they were absolutely sure about a future event, it didn’t occur in more than a quarter of cases. When given a set of three future scenarios, experts were less accurate than someone randomly picking from these scenarios.
Experts often look at a problem through the lens of a single grand idea and “squeeze complex problems into the preferred cause-effect templates”. Instead of listening to specialized experts, tap into the collective wisdom of crowds.
In his book The Wisdom of Crowds James Surowiecki demonstrates that crowds beat experts if there is sufficient cognitive diversity, status and rank play no role, decentralized knowledge can be accessed, and if knowledge is aggregated efficiently.
There are many ways to achieve this. Surround yourself with people from different backgrounds, , talk to front-line employees and use tools like social networks, wikis, or strategy jams to give everyone a voice. The UK bank Barclays, for instance, invited 30,000 employees via a two-day online strategy jam, to bring them into a strategy conversation, along with senior leaders. The outcome was one of the UK’s most popular fintech products.
Try walking a mile in your enemy’s shoes
As we have limited information processing capabilities, managers rely on simplified mental models to make sense of the world. These frameworks or explanations of how a business works influence how we process information and how we decide. Mental models can become rigid. So rigid that they inhibit change!
Take Polaroid’s downfall for example. In 1992 it was very well positioned to become a big player in digital photography. Patents, brand, even a prototype, everything was lined up. The only problem was the old business model. Polaroid’s managers loved the Razor and Blade model. When they saw the digital camera, they didn’t see its potential. There was no film. How can you make money without film? They could not overcome their mental model. 40 other brands were available, when Polaroid finally introduced a digital camera in 1996.
In military, war games are used to make decision-makers more vigilant, to broaden their range of alternatives, to spot early signals of change and recalibrate their mental frameworks accordingly, allowing for greater adaptation and nimbleness. Engage your managers in a similar exercise. Let them imagine a fictional competitor who develops a business model that totally disrupts your industry. What would such a business model be? Where are your vulnerabilities? This gives you totally new perspectives.
Seeing disruption as a threat rather than an opportunity has another benefit. Fear is a powerful motivator. Exercises like these have borne fruit for dozens of companies, such as BASF, Linde, and Lufthansa. These firms are now better prepared for disruption or have adopted entirely new business models.
Use analogies
Oliver Gassmann from Sankt Gallen University has studied more than 300 business model innovations. One of his most intriguing findings: 90% of them were mere new combinations of existing patterns, copied from other industries. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Just open up. Use analogies and ask yourself for example: What would Apple do in my industry?
Responding to disruption is not easy, but an open mindset increases the odds of success.
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Stress is part of our everyday lives. We can either control it or let it control us. The difference between those two situations is how we manage our “alarm” and our reactions to the daily stressors we face.
As the global head of sales hit the stage, he cracked. He looked out at the audience of colleagues and saw nothing but failure in his people. All his brain could focus on was their missed opportunities, laziness, and a collective bad year. Without thinking he said, “You are simply the worst team I have every worked with.”
For more than fifteen minutes he continued ranting before transitioning into an update of the quarter’s results. No one stopped him. When the CEO assessed the damage after the meeting, he fired his sales chief. At the exit interview, the head of sales didn’t even realize he had done something wrong. I wish it weren’t, but this is a true story.
When stress hijacks your brain, we get stuck on the short loop. The alarm, the tiny region called the amygdala which keeps us alert and out of danger, can misfire after exposure to too much stress. You lead. You manage. You innovate. You solve people problems. You save the day. To say you are exposed to stress is like saying London or Seattle get some rain.
Some days, you crash. Other days, your people call you a grumpy bear. Occasionally, after months of deadlines, events, and emergencies you melt down. Hopefully we don’t melt down on stage or in front of our teams, but it happens and we are not, in fact, crazy when we do.
The answer to stress at work is not actually as complicated as it might seem. While our brains still have some of the same regions as the dinosaurs, we also have evolved to the level of mental capacity where we can intentionally change the way we manage complex and complicated stimuli.
Stress is actually not a bad thing. When treated as a sign that something needs our attention, it can be monitored the way we measure marketing leads or key performance indicators. It can keep us sharp and teach us what we really care about. But to most of us, it feels bad. We avoid stress. We ignore stress. That’s when it bites us.
The first step is to making friends with your “alarm” is to recognize that we are always experiencing some level of stress. When you are sleeping, your alarm is still on. That’s why you wake up before your clock rings. When you get excited and feel jazzed, that’s still stress; it’s just pleasurable stress. When you stop suddenly, avoiding a biker you almost hit with your car, that’s your alarm keeping you out of trouble.
Second, separate the areas of your life where you feel stressed and those where you feel relaxed. To truly make stress valuable, we have to differentiate when it is running the show rather than our clear thinking determining how we behave. A simple exercise to do this is to measure your stress level during transitions of your day. Ten is the highest stress you ever feel, like when your child is hurt or you get rear ended. One is what it feels like to wake up from a good nap. You can’t have no stress because then you would be dead. Keep a simple list of the time and your stress level in the notes section of your phone. You will observe where and when you feel stress and that awareness is priceless.
Finally, with an acceptance that stress is a good thing and a record of stress in our lives, we can start to plan our days based on what we care about most. At work, to prevent melt downs, you have to have casual time to reflect or get to know colleagues. You have to have breaks in between meetings. If everything is pressure, eventually your brain will let you know it needs a break. Developing a rhythm at work where stress is always valuable takes time and perhaps a change of mindset, but I promise it is the core of what makes great work possible.
A quick concluding story to make the point. Three years ago I was traveling around the country speaking and coaching. I worked every day. I logged 40,000 miles a year on my car. I started measuring my stress and planning the amount of stress I would take on each day, and I am now 40 pounds lighter. I work harder than ever, but in a way that takes care of my brain and body as I do. We can all learn to make friends with stress; and, we are all capable of new levels of health and happiness at work.
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The caller ID stated “Mike.” The phone was on the fourth ring. I held it in front of me, watching the screen, mouth dry, sitting at my desk, thinking, “Here it goes again. He’s going to speak Chinese and I won’t understand.”
Creative Food, the vegetable-processing company I had started in China the year before, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Every project I initiated had failed. All the foreign experts I had hired had left. My operations were in such bad shape that my own customers, who included big fast-food chains like KFC and Pizza Hut asked my new recruits why they had come aboard a ship that was sure to sink. On that day, once I finally answered the phone, I had to ask Mike to repeat himself several times. Read more
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Making your organization a well-oil machine, that operates faster and more efficiently, is something every business has been after for years. Here’s how to do it.
Today’s post is by Maureen Metcalf, a principle here at thoughtLEADERS.
Many organizations feel the need to be thinner, faster, stronger, more adaptable, more profitable, etc. The right toolset to get them to that outcome may not be intuitive or singular. Building organizational agility is a solid approach to help organizations develop the capacity to perpetually evolve. It enables them to accelerate their ability to sense and adapt to the volume, complexity and rate of change organizations face in the current environment. We believe business agility is comprised of four main elements: strategist leadership, nimble culture, lean principles and agile methods.
The Challenge
Change is accelerating across all sectors of organizational life largely driven by technology, geopolitical changes and strong academic research. This accelerating change in disparate sectors comes together to drive organizations to develop the capacity to perpetually evolve, often quickly, to set trends or respond to forces that are changing the market. While this volume and pace of change seem daunting, the most successful organizations are addressing it by developing organizational agility.
According to a January 2018 article in McKinsey Quarterly, “The urgency imperative places a premium on agility: it enables the shift to emergent strategy, while unleashing your people so they can reshape your business in real time. It’s also a powerful means of minimizing confusion and complexity in our world of rapid-fire digital communications where everyone can talk with everyone else — and will, gumming up the works if you don’t have a sensible set of operating norms in place. Agility is also the ideal way to integrate the power of machine-made decisions, which are going to become increasingly important to your fundamental decision system.”
Collaboration is difficult, especially when the people involved have different interests, perspectives, and positions. A method called transformative facilitation can make it easier.
The most straightforward way to get something done is just to do it, or to get other people to do it in the way you think it should be done. You can do this by forcing people gently or harshly, making use of your authority, brilliance, money, or other inducements. This way of getting things done often works, and in many contexts, it’s the default.
In many other situations, however, using force doesn’t and cannot work because getting something done requires other people to come along, and they aren’t willing to. So, an alternative approach is collaborating: a group of people getting things done by working together, with every person freely contributing what they think should be done.
The problem? Collaboration isn’t straightforward. It’s usually difficult—especially when the people involved have different interests, perspectives, and positions.
I’ve spent the past 30 years facilitating collaboration among diverse groups of people within and across organizations, including among people who don’t agree with or like or trust one another, but who nevertheless are trying to get things done by acting together because they can’t do so by acting separately.
What I’ve learned from this experience is that such collaboration is possible and can be highly creative and productive, but it requires an unconventional approach.
Start by finding a facilitator
A facilitator is someone who helps a group work together to effect change. This role can be played by a leader, executive, manager, consultant, coach, organizer, mediator, stakeholder, or friend; you can play this role, or someone else or several people can.
The word group is both a singular and plural noun, and a facilitator’s task is to help both the singular group as a whole and the plural members of the group. This is the core tension underlying all facilitation.
Some facilitators deal with this tension by focusing primarily on the first part of this task: helping the group as a whole address the problematic situation that has motivated their collaboration, often using an authoritative, top-down, “vertical” approach.
Other facilitators focus primarily on the second part: helping the individual members of the group address the diverse aspects of the situation that they find problematic. Top-down, vertical messaging gives way to openly shared ideas and opinions, a more “horizontal” approach.
These two approaches, the vertical and the horizontal, are the most common and conventional approaches to facilitation. Both have their proponents and methodologies. The upsides of vertical facilitation are coordination and cohesion, but the downsides are rigidity and domination. The upsides of horizontal facilitation are autonomy and variety, yet the downsides are fragmentation and gridlock. Both approaches can help a group collaborate to create change, but both also have limits and risks.
The solution? Choose both
The approach to facilitation that I’ve found to be most effective doesn’t choose between the vertical or the horizontal; it chooses both. This method, called transformative facilitation, produces progress by employing the vertical and the horizontal alternatively, the same way breathing doesn’t choose between inhaling and exhaling but doing both in succession.
More specifically, the facilitator explains, guides, and models five pairs of alternating moves:
Advocating and inquiring. Often, both the participants and the facilitator start off a collaboration with the confident vertical perspective: “We have the right answer. Let’s get everyone in line.” Each person thinks, “If only the others would agree with me, then the group would be able to move forward together quickly and easily.”
But when the group takes this position too far or for too long and starts to get stuck in rigid certainty, the facilitator needs to help participants move toward horizontal plurality. When participants are pounding the table, certain that they have the right answer, the facilitator can encourage them to add “In my opinion” to the beginning of each sentence, and if that’s insufficient, to try “In my humble opinion.”
These playful modifications open the door to inquiry and discussion. Then, when the participants take this horizontal “We each have our own answer” too far and for too long and start to get stuck in cacophony and indecision, the facilitator helps them move toward the clarity and decisiveness of vertical unity.
Concluding and advancing. Typically, both participants and the facilitator start with the vertical belief, “We need to agree.” Yet when a group gets stuck in this demand for a conclusion, the facilitator needs to help them keep moving. One of my most important learnings as a facilitator has been that, to move forward together, agreement isn’t required as often or on as many matters as most people think.
Then, when participants start to get stuck in the unfocused horizontal “We each just need to keep moving,” the facilitator needs to help people pause to work out what they can agree to focus on.
Mapping and discovering. Many participants and facilitators start off a collaboration with an assured vertical perspective: “We know the way.” But when they start to get stubbornly stuck, the facilitator needs to help participants experiment, test their understandings, and discover new options.
Later, when the participants start to get stuck in the horizontal “We’ll each just find our way as we go,” the facilitator can help them map out a common way forward.
Directing and accompanying. When participants and the facilitator start a collaboration thinking, “Our leaders will decide,” they may get stuck in ineffective, vertical bossiness. When this happens, the facilitator needs to help all participants take responsibility for their own actions.
Then, when the participants start to get stuck in the misaligned, horizontal “We each need to decide for ourselves,” the facilitator should help them align their actions.
Standing outside a problematic situation and standing inside it. In most cases, participants and the facilitator start a collaboration chanting the vertical mantra, “We must fix this.” But when they take this position too far or for too long and get stuck in cold remoteness, the facilitator needs to help participants consider how they are part of the problem and therefore have the leverage to be part of the solution.
Later, when the participants start to get stuck in the self-centered and myopic horizontal “We must each put our own house in order,” the facilitator can help them stand outside the situation to get a clear, nonpartisan, and neutral perspective on what’s happening.
Through this process of alternating between the plural and singular, a group can make progress. They can collaborate to get things done in spite of—and also because of—their diversity and differences. This approach isn’t straightforward, but it works.
ADAM KAHANE is director of Reos Partners, an organization that helps people move forward together on their most important and intractable issues. He has worked in more than 50 countries with teams of leaders from business, government, and civil society, and his methods have been praised by Nobel Peace Prize–winners Nelson Mandela and Juan Manuel Santos. He is the author of five books, including his newest release, Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together. Learn more at adamkahane.com.
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Years ago, Charles Darwin noted that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.”
Regardless of your current career situation, change is always challenging you to adapt…to stay coachable.
Staying Coachable is the key to your growth and development.
And the truth is that everyone starts out coachable – it’s what allows us to reach the growth and plateaus and positions and views that we now enjoy…
But occasionally we become complacent.
And complacency is poisonous to your personal development.
The trouble is that we don’t always recognize our own complacency.
And so here, in a brief excerpt from the book, is part of the story and a few of the take-aways that Staying Coachable offers readers… Read more
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There’s no doubt about it, organizational change can be frightening. Yet – change is constant and it is imperative that organizations continue to evolve in order to meet the complex challenges of a modern world. But people don’t always adjust well to change, so it should come as no surprise that it is difficult for most to think about change in the workplace. Before we grab ahold of this new existence, new reporting pathways, and new organizational structures, we must first understand what this change means at the human level.
Change impacts people at the most intimate level. We are all born with genetic need for consistency and constancy. Predictability and autonomy matter as well. The human workforce like to know they have some control over events unfolding before them. It provides a sense of comfort. Sadly, as senior leaders drive change in the organization, they often forget that organizations are made up not of boxes and lines, but of people with hopes, dreams, and fears.
In order to safely and effectively execute change in our organizations, our planning has to go beyond office space, IT support, plexiglass walls, and mask requirements. We need to begin by assessing the readiness of our workforce. Our workers are not positioned, emotionally or otherwise, for rapid and unpredictable change in their work environments. And just because we as leaders recognize the need for change, it does not mitigate the real fears present in those we lead. Leaders must take this into consideration when planning for the new workplace. In order to ensure success, consider the following steps:
Begin with empathetic listening. People need to feel like they are heard and understood and everyone’s experiences with change brings its own unique pain. Simple acknowledgment and understanding on the part of bosses is not enough. Leaders need to show empathy through patient and active listening. Accommodate their needs and allow for conversation that meets the specific needs of each of our team members.
Work to establish trust. Trust matters during time of change. Now, more than ever, it is important to nurture trusting relationships that exist and build those that don’t. Our workforce has been exposed to a wide array of disparate views on politics, the coronavirus, and most other topics for the last many years. They need and deserve the comfort of trust and they look to the leadership of our organizations for guidance and consistency. Be that beacon.
Recognize stress. Having people return to work will increase a stress level that is already off the charts. Over 75% of Americans report being stressed and change makes this even worse. When employees are under stress, productivity, work performance, and engagement levels decrease. It is incumbent upon our leadership to provide outlets for stress relief and options for employees to seek assistance in dealing with this extraordinary anxiety.
Don’t be afraid to show love. Real relationships allow us to get in touch with the human being that works for us, recognize their needs, concerns, and become one with them. This requires love. Not romantic love, that puppy love. Rather, the love we feel for another human being who we respect and admire. Show your team the love you have for them, and authentically acknowledge their fears.
Laugh a little. Employees want and deserve joy. This is why it is so crucial that we tap into laughter and humor in the workplace. Even in the most difficult of times, a little humor will allow us to share similar experiences, lighten the mood, and build bonds across the organization. Leaders who laugh or more approachable, seen as more confident, and are more respected.
Most employees, when nurtured properly, are excited to help create a new future and they are better equipped to do so than ever before. Think about it, our teams are by now skilled in the virtual aspects of their job and they had already mastered the in-person components prior to the pandemic. Why not give them the chance to combine both? But before we do, let’s give them a chance to be human. Let’s give them a chance to share their fears and their concerns. And then, let’s treat them to some kindness, compassion, and little patience. Create a safe and joyful space where they want to be, not where they have to be. The result is guaranteed to be a better motivated and more engaged workforce that embraces change.
Zina Sutch has been leading development and diversity programs for the Federal government for 20 years, and currently serves in the Senior Executive Service. Patrick Malone spent 23 years in the Navy and served as an officer in the Medical Service Corps. Zina is a faculty member and Patrick is director of the Key Executive Leadership Program at American University. Their new book is Leading with Love and Laughter: Letting Go and Getting Real at Work (BK Publishers, Inc., May 25, 2021). Learn more at sutchmalone.com.
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From navigating new methods of closing deals, to landing get that next promotion, to understanding new norms of leadership, authenticity is the key to success.
I was once approached by an executive assistant by the name of Viola (real name withheld for anonymity) who was in attendance at one of our 5-day Authenticity Code™ programs. She confided in me, and with tears in her eyes, that she didn’t know why she was not being promoted. She stated that she had watched many peers get jobs that she would have loved to get, but she never got selected when she did land an interview. When I heard about her struggle, my heart sank. Viola was a black woman in her thirties, and she felt stuck at her current level. I asked her what her dream job would be, and she passionately said that she wanted to be a VP of this Fortune 50 company, which at the time, only had 300 VP’s out of about 160,000 employees.
Viola started on the path to finding her authentic self, which can be done by cracking open the Authenticity Code – which is your presence + your audience + your presentation = your success. Viola defined her authentic brand statement, looked at what authentic presence qualities she needed to grow in – including confidence. She got at the core of what was blocking her which was she didn’t believe in herself. In the program, she put together an exceptional presentation that she used to influence critical senior leaders in the company. Her idea ended up saving the company millions of dollars. And I am ecstatic to say that today just seven years after she took our program, Viola has mastered the art and science of success because she achieved her authentic brand and is a VP in that same Fortune 50 company. She was promoted up five levels, from executive assistant to VP in seven years which is faster than anyone else I know in that company.
Authenticity is the key to getting your dream job, closing a big sale, feeling more fulfilled, and getting to yes in any presentation or communication. Authenticity is your most powerful way of adding value by expressing your unique gifts and talents to your chosen audience. Think about it- do you buy from or want to work with someone who is inauthentic and has no leadership presence?
According to the Center for Talent Innovation, leadership presence counts for at least 26% of whether you get selected for a job or promotion. This is also true for whether you make a big sale or another positive business impact. That percentage can be substantial in terms of professional and personal growth, something I have seen firsthand.
COVID-19 has had an immeasurable impact on the business world. Company hiring practices have changed, as have workplace culture and leadership norms. Companies face hiring shortages. With companies forced to reevaluate how they approach their day-to-day business, individuals have also been forced to adapt. From navigating new methods of closing deals to determining how to get that next promotion to understanding new methods of leadership, many have found the need to acclimate to the changing world. This has been called the Great Reassessment.
The question is, how do individuals and businesses make a change once they have reassessed? What is the secret to realizing your true potential and achieving your goals in the post-pandemic world? From my experience, authenticity is the key to professional and personal success. So how does one become more authentic, and what is necessary to improve those skills?
There are three key elements on which to focus. First, your presence, such as warmth, sincerity, confidence, integrity, trustworthiness, and even your body language will help you better communicate your message. Connecting with your own authentic brand statement is critical in improving your authentic presence. This is a statement that expresses what you want out of your career and what is your greatest professional/leadership gift to give no matter what job you hold.
Second, understanding your audience and tailoring your message to that audience will greatly improve your presentation skills. Before you go into a big meeting or start writing a big presentation, ask yourself 4 simple questions: 1) What is most important to my audience? 2) What details do they need? 3) What hooks them to listen? and 4) What are they willing to compromise (e.g., cost, schedule, quality). It is an authentic choice to be in front of an audience, so you want to do everything you can to help give your audience what they need.
Third, is your presentation itself. There is a simple formula for presentation success: 1) Attention Getting Opening, 2) Executive Summary, 3) Agenda with Clear Body Message, and 4) Finish Strong.
Over my more than two-decade-long career, I have seen thousands of clients like Viola who work on their authentic presence and presentation skills, get promoted, land their dream job, and feel considerably more fulfilled. Crack the authenticity code by developing ‘Your Presence + Your Audience + Your Presentation = Your Success’. Focusing on these factors is the secret to improving your professional and leadership development.
Dr. Sharon Lamm-Hartman is the Founder and CEO of Inside Out Learning, Inc. (IOL), an award‐winning global leadership, team and organization development consulting business. In addition to running IOL, with a doctorate in Leadership Development from Columbia University, and a Masters from Cornell University, Dr. Sharon is a global executive and presentation skills coach, leadership and organization development consultant, speaker, writer, educator, wife and mom. Dr. Sharon has worked with tens of thousands of CEOs, executives, educators, professionals, and entrepreneurs worldwide. She has been an Adjunct Faculty Member at Columbia University and the Center for Creative Leadership. Her new book, The Authenticity Code™: The Art and Science of Success and Why You Can’t Fake It to Make It is available for preorder at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and was named a top business book to read this fall by Texas CEO Magazine.
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Organizational trauma comes in many forms but impacts organizations in predictable, destructive ways. Here’s how to tell if trauma is harming your workplace.
My understanding of organizational trauma was born of firsthand experience. In 2009, a horrific workplace shooting occurred at the hospital where I served as CEO. Three people died at the hands of a disgruntled employee. Even after the initial terror wore off, repercussions from the event sowed long-lasting uncertainty, fear, distrust, and division throughout the organization. From feelings of shame to diagnoses of PTSD to employee departures, the collective damage went deep.
Why am I telling you this? Because there’s a good chance that, at some point, your organization may experience trauma. It’s true that (thankfully) most won’t experience this type of extremely violent “shock and awe” crisis. But there are many types of disruptive events and systemic issues that can sow distrust, erode morale, and severely impact an organization’s ability to function.
I’m not talking about routine workplace stress which, even when intense, is temporary and manageable. Trauma is different. It takes away our feeling of control, warps our worldview, leaves us feeling helpless and vulnerable, and sends us tumbling into survival mode. Obviously, trauma leaves its mark on individuals. But it’s also deeply destructive to organizations.
Mass layoffs, sexual harassment, natural disasters, the death of a coworker, workplace accidents, a leader’s embezzlement, racism, and discrimination are all examples of organizational trauma I’ve encountered. And, of course, there’s the collective trauma we’ve all experienced over the past year and half, brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whatever the source of the trauma, it’s all destructive. And if unaddressed, it will cause your organization’s structures, systems, values, and people to suffer. That’s why it’s vital to know what causes trauma and recognize how it manifests. Let’s take a closer look at what you can expect to see if your organization is traumatized.
First, people create their own narratives. Humans naturally want to make sense of upsetting and unexpected events, and I’ve found that there can be nearly as many points of view, personal experiences, and relationship dynamics as there are employees.
As all of these narratives are shared, rumor and speculation can cause secondary blame to spread. People want to know why the traumatic event happened. Could it have been foreseen or prevented? Why weren’t leaders prepared? You may find that victims are blamed, or that leaders are vilified for not preventing “witch hunts.” Strong and sometimes conflicting opinions abound.
Employees who are closer to a traumatic event than others (perhaps they witnessed it or worked closely with the perpetrator) are especially likely to struggle with feelings of guilt. They may blame themselves for not recognizing warning signs or feel that they should have prevented the event from occurring. Some might feel guilty that they survived or remained employed, while others did not.
It’s no surprise that in such an emotionally charged and uncertain environment, communication can be haphazard and inadequate. Traumatized leaders might struggle to be transparent while maintaining confidentiality, which chips away at equally traumatized employees’ trust and confidence. And until a “new normal” is established, it may not even be clear who is making decisions or how they will be reached.
Before long, polarization occurs. You may quickly see people dividing into two or more opposing groups. We’ve all seen what happens in well-publicized sexual harassment cases: one faction might support the victim while another might believe that the alleged perpetrator was falsely accused. The same thing can happen inside a traumatized organization.
As time passes, people begin to worry that they or their organization will be defined by the event, scandal, or circumstance that caused the trauma. This is especially true when there’s media coverage or widespread knowledge of the incident. Rising feelings of shame that “such a thing could happen here” can eclipse former pride in working for the organization and shake employees’ confidence that the organization is trustworthy.
I’ve found that when trauma isn’t addressed, it eventually becomes almost taboo. It can feel painful and even unsafe to speak frankly about what happened. But just because people aren’t talking about trauma doesn’t mean they aren’t still struggling. The shame, blame, division, guilt, and misunderstandings I’ve already mentioned are often festering just beneath the surface, where they silently corrode trust, morale, culture, and more.
Without intervention, trauma can cripple or even destroy a company. But organizational trauma doesn’t have to be a death sentence for your business. Over and over, I’ve seen how transformative it can be to seek help. (And the sooner leaders take action to break the chain of repercussions set in motion by trauma, the better.)
Here’s the good news: While the field of organizational trauma is fairly new, it’s becoming more widely understood every day. And resources—including Trauma to Triumph, a book I coauthored with Mark Goulston, MD—are increasingly easier to access.
You can establish processes to help both individuals and the organization as a whole successfully weather trauma. Even better, you can get prepared before a traumatic event strikes. When leaders learn how to destigmatize trauma, communicate effectively, and make decisions thoughtfully, it’s possible to successfully reunify and recover. In fact, a stronger culture, greater transparency, higher performance, and the ability to more effectively handle future disruption are often achieved on the other side of organizational trauma.
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Over the past two decades, the practice of gathering employee feedback on the performance of their managers has grown. And why not? Subordinates have the most knowledge about their manager’s performance, and they are the ones most affected by their behavior. Leading organizational scientists argue that the ratings of managers provided by employees are the most valid. Indeed, research shows that subordinate ratings of a manager’s performance correlate with ratings provided by the manager’s own boss.
So, as a manager, what does it take to achieve great performance reviews from your employees? I asked a representative and systematically selected sample of 10,000 workers in the United States to rate the overall performance of their manager. I also asked these employees to rate their managers on the eight attributes of the employee-centric manager (or ECM), which are: (1) show support and understanding; (2) provide recognition; (3) treat employees with dignity and respect; (4) communicate clear performance expectations; (5) reward performance contributions with fair compensation and development opportunities; (6) demonstrate skill in decision-making and problem-solving; (7) be fair and just; and (8) be honest and trustworthy.
I learned that 67% of a manager’s overall performance rating is explained by their ratings on the attributes that define the employee-centric manager. This means that how employees rate their manager on these eight attributes determines two-thirds of their overall effectiveness rating. There is still another 33% of a manager’s rating that is accounted for by other factors, but the implication is clear: if you rate highly on the ECM attributes, you will also rate highly on overall performance. The reverse is also true – if you rate poorly on the ECM attributes, you will also rate poorly on overall performance.
Let’s dig a little deeper. Which of the eight attributes are most impactful? Statistical regression analysis reveals that these three attributes most influence employees’ views of their manager’s overall performance:
LISTEN: As in, “My manager is an effective listener.”
MAKE GOOD DECISIONS: As in, “My manager displays competence in making day-to-day work decisions.”
RECOGNIZE: As in, “My manager provides me with praise or recognition for doing good work.”
So, what do employees really want when it comes to listening (a subset of the support and understanding attribute)? They want their manager to be available and accessible. They want them to listen to their concerns with the energy and attention needed to genuinely identify with where they are coming from. They want their manager to follow through on concerns brought to their attention and seek employee input on important decisions affecting their work or how to solve a work-related problem. And they want their manager to get to know them – sufficiently well so that they understand their current capabilities, training and development needs, and goals, including their career goals.
This example of effective listening comes from an employee in the healthcare industry.
“I brought a problem to my manager’s attention, and she let me explain what I think would work best moving forward. She understood that I was the one out there doing the job, and I would have the best understanding of the situation. She got back to me quickly and trusted me to make the decision.”
When it comes to making good decisions, what do employees really want? They want their manager to make decisions in a timely way and not drag their feet. They want their manager to make decisions based on a rational, data-based approach. They want their manager to involve them in decision-making and problem-solving. They also want their manager to think through the implications of their decisions so that the team doesn’t end up dealing with blow-back. And finally, they want their manager to be flexible and learn from experience.
Here is an example of a manager being skilled in problem-solving and decision-making from the experience of a financial services employee.
“My manager had to clean up a project that a former employee had messed up before leaving the company, and it was very stressful; she needed our help. She was very helpful in trying to get us all to understand what the project was and what it needed to look like in the end. She didn’t rush or get us overwhelmed. This made me see she is a great leader and that I can count on her to help me remain calm in stressful situations.”
Finally, when it comes to recognition, what do employees really want from their manager? They want an honest and sincere “thank you” for working hard, staying late, busting through obstacles, or going the extra mile to get the job done. They want real-time recognition when their performance is worthy of praise – employees want to receive it in the here-and-now. They also want recognition that fits them, their style, and their personality. And they want recognition that is specific to the behavior or performance under consideration; this helps employees understand how the boss defines good performance.
An employee in the retail sales industry provides this example of a boss effective at providing recognition.
“My manager hired me at the seasonal time, and not everyone hired then gets to stay on and become a regular employee. But she watched me, gave me pointers, and did my reviews. She’s so great and has helped me in all kinds of situations; she saw the determination in me to strive to just keep going. She nominated me as employee of the month in front of everyone.”
Becoming an A+ Manager is relatively straightforward: think seriously about how you like to be treated by your manager and consistently do the same toward your employees. Be especially good at listening, making good decisions, and recognizing worthy performance.
DR. JACK WILEY has more than 30 years of experience studying what employees most want and what organizational design factors best promote employee engagement, performance confidence and business success. He is the president & CEO of Jack Wiley Consulting, LLC, and Employee Centricity LLC. In addition to his business ventures, he’s the chief scientific officer at Engage2Excel. He is the author of The Employee Centric Manager and RESPECT: Delivering Results by Giving Employees What They Really Want. In 2014, Dr. Wiley was awarded the prestigious Professional Practice award by the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, a lifetime achievement award for outstanding contributions to the practice of industrial-organizational psychology. In addition to being elected to Fellow status in SIOP, he is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.
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