Leadership and Learning

Many of us are knowledge workers – trading, creating, and building ideas and concepts for a living. We are paid to think for a living – yet fill our calendars and days with tasks and meetings, leaving little time for learning. If we are honest, we spend more time looking at financials and project plans than coaching our staff on their development. If we are brutally honest, we spend even less time on our own development. John F Kennedy said “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. So let’s lead a new path and Make Learning a Part of Your Daily Routine through questioning, connecting, and unlearning.”

Questioning. Improv troupes use “yes and” questions to open up new ideas and possibilities in impromptu situations. Practice phrases like “How might we?” and “What would happen if” open our minds to new ideas and create space for others to share new approaches. Question your current processes and practices, and ask the team to experiment with new ideas. Experiments are designed to help us learn – whether they work out or not. Celebrate learning from successes and failures equally and you will expand possibilities for yourself and your team.

Connecting. “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” – Dr. Wayne Dyer. Collaboration is more important than ever in our new way of working. It might sound counterintuitive, but a good place to start connecting is with those you find challenging. Enter into the discussion wondering what you could learn from their point of view. Meet with someone with a different life experience than yours (race, age, gender, etc.) that has experienced the world differently than you, and open your eyes to new perspectives. Create connection sessions with your team to share skills, learnings, articles, and/or process improvement ideas. Creating a space for everyone to learn and share builds knowledge and personal connections.

Unlearning. As leaders we often rely on our tried and true toolkit to solve problems. Asking yourself “How could I” can help move you from a routine rut to a new approach. Commit to unlearning two habits that are holding you back this month. Tell your boss and trusted peer that you are trying a new approach and ask for feedback. Our unlearning can also create new space for the team. For example. try not being the first to speak in a meeting, or asking for three new ideas in a team meeting before sharing your thoughts. This can bring forward new approaches and ideas for you and the whole team.

The Harvard Business School article Make Learning A Part of Your Daily Routine has a list of tested tips to help us with new ways of working. It’s time to acknowledge we are knowledge workers, and our primary value is the ideas we bring, not the emails we send. Learning can be incorporated into our everyday work through questioning, connecting, and unlearning. Let’s lead the way to a new way of leadership and learning together.

Forget Mentoring: Build a Board of Directors

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You are the CEO of You – in charge of your life and your priorities. Like all CEOs, you want to
build a board of directors to give you valuable insights and advice to help you achieve your
goals. A strong board allows you to diversify and expand your network and will surround you
with a team committed to your success.

Who Should Be on My Board?
You want to be intentional about who sits on your board of directors. This is different than
friends or confidants. They play an important role in supporting you as fans. Your board of
directors should be carefully selected based on the skillsets they have and their ability to help
you achieve your goals. Be intentional about having diversity in your board- you want people
with different experiences, backgrounds, and opinions to help guide you. Your board can and
should have people at multiple levels of the organization. Someone with the skills you need
may less senior than you, a peer, or a leader. I recommend filling most of the seats internally-
that allows you to have internal advocates to speak up for you when you are not in the room.
But there is also value in having at least one seat held by someone with complete objectivity
outside of your organization who will bring a different perspective forward.

What are the Seats I Need on My Board?
The LinkedIn Learning training What a secret circle of mentors can do for you (linkedin.com) recommends the following roles. I think they are best positioned not as mentors but as key seats on your board of directors:

Compass Holder: Someone who helps you set your direction. Someone you can learn from the path they have paved.

Yoda: Someone who can help you with your blind spots. Someone with skills and strengths that compliment yours.

Co Pilot: Someone you can learn with collaboratively. A thought partner to bounce ideas off.

Connector: Someone who is well connected and can help you expand your network.

Optimizer: Someone to help you with your work life balance. Someone that can help you with prioritizing.

Challenger: Someone who will ask you hard questions and push you to be better.

How Do I Create My Board?

Start with a list of names. Who are the first people that come to mind when you read the list of key seats for your board? What is it you want them to help you with? The clearer you are the more helpful they can be. For example, if you are looking for someone to help you with work life balance, define what that mean to you. What will success look like? What have you tried and what have you learned?

Reach out to the individual and ask if you can meet with them. Tell them you’ve noticed their strength in work life balance and ask if they would be willing to help you with your goal. There is no rule about how frequently you should meet. What’s more important is agreeing to a schedule of check ins to drive your accountability and connection.

You should also talk about the best way to communicate with each other between meetings Are texts ok? Do they prefer emails sent to them at work or at home? Do they like calls during their drive time or hate it? Again, no rules here- just aligning on what works for each of you.

Remember, you are the CEO of You. No one is more invested in your success than you. Finding a board of directors willing to share their superpowers will help you power your goals and your success.

Being Intentional

It’s the start of a new year. We always intend to set intentions. We mean to manifest our destiny. Yet the day to day sweeps away our focus. We’ve all read the statistics on how quickly new year resolutions fade. But what if 2022 could be a different? There are lot of ways to set goals and intentions. It’s less about the tool or the process. It’s all about time and truth. My plan for 2022 is to focus on a wheel, how I want to feel, and committing to seal the deal.

Start Your Roll with a Wheel: The Wheel of Intention is a visual that helps you think about each segment of your life independently. You can find a variety of templates online – find the one that speaks to you. I broke my wheel into Self Care, Career, Travel, Family, Friends, and Community. There are no right or wrong areas of focus. Under each of the areas of focus, answer the following questions:

What is currently working well in this area of my life?
What would I like more of/to improve?
What would l like less of/to eliminate?
A year from now, what will have I done?

Find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted an allow yourself time for honest reflection and write down everything that comes in your head.

Fuel Momentum with Feeling: Once you’ve identified your areas of focus and goals, ask yourself, How will I feel when I am living this life? Write down as many words as you can for each segment of your wheel. My words included strong, grateful, refueled, balanced, and joy. Again, there are no right answers. Write from your heart not your head and let every word onto the page.

Commit Seal the Deal: After about an hour of reflection I have a nice wheel, complete with reflections and aspirations. But I’m not done- I’ve just started. I went back through the list of words that I had listed and noted that fulfillment was a theme. I thought about what fulfillment means to me and landed on building habits that lead to joy. Boom. This year I will commit to prioritizing and fueling fulfillment. This means looking at my home and work calendar and if it’s not a hell yes, saying no. It means being fully present with my team and my family. It means scheduling my priorities not squeezing them in. And it means doing this for a full year.

It’s easy to make a resolution on January 1^st. The secret is making sure you’ve focused on something close to your heart. A wheel of intention can get you started with the “what.” Tapping into feelings can help you connect to “why,” and reflection can give you a path to “how.” Let’s roll into 2022 with strong intentions. Who’s with me?

Constant Culture During Consistent Change

2021 has created rapid changes in our workplaces and our workforce. The pace of change has often left leaders feeling like they are in the rapids of consistent change while trying to steer a consistent culture. In Peter Vail’s book, Managing as Performance Art, he uses white water rafting as an analogy to talk about the challenge of navigating uncertainty and business turbulence. As HR professionals, this is a huge opportunity for us to help leaders create a realistic course, create a clear vision, and create strong rowers so we can reach our business goals.

Creating a Realistic Course

Vail says “Most managers are taught to think of themselves as paddling their canoes on calm, still lakes…(They think) disruptions will be temporary, and when things settle back down, they’ll be back in the calm, still lake. But, as the author explains, we never get out of the rapids — continuous change IS the course. Knowing this, leaders need to plan realistically. This means understanding when the team needs to pull off and regroup. It means ensuring the team has the right tools and supplies. It also means using the company values to help guide the team and make important decisions about when to stay the course and when to abort mission.

Creating a Clear Vision. The position the leader takes makes a big difference. In a raft, the leader sits in the back so they can give direction, motivate, and get everyone rowing together. This seat also allows the leader to see the horizon and plan ahead. To do this successfully, the leader must trust the team to focus on the immediate changes, so they can drive consistency in the way the team interacts and pivot based on their feedback.

Creating a strong team. Rafts can’t go far without everyone working together. It’s important that everyone gives equal effort or the boat can flip without notice. One person can steer the entire boat off course. Leaders need to ensure the right people are in the boat, and that they are sitting in the right seats to leverage everyone’s strengths. They also need to immediately address and perhaps remove people that impact the team rhythm and/or don’t align with the values. Giving real time feedback and coaching is essential to keep the team on course.

Minnesota Gopher coach PJ Fleck uses the phrase “Row the Boat” to create a never give up team culture. Our teams need the same passion and discipline to create a consistent culture during constant change. We need to create a realistic course, create a clear vision, and create teams to end 2021 strong and be ready for the white waters of 2022.

12 Months of Leadership Lessons

March 17th, 2020. The day the world changed as my company, and many others, suddenly became a fully remote workforce. A year later we are emerging with new experiences, losses and lessons, and new wisdom. Here are my Top 12 Leadership Lessons from the last 12 months.

12. Let Others Paint Their Own Picture. Sending my son to college in the pandemic was tough. I focused on what was missing instead of what was possible and had to reframe. As a mom and leader, my job is to create a blank canvas without my perceptions coloring it.

11. Remote Work Works. Why did it take a pandemic for us to trust people to be accountable and responsible enough to work remotely? For years, we in HR insisted we need a program, a form, and a process to manage how people work. Turns out all we need is good communication, clear expectations, and flexibility. Imagine that.

10. “We Are In The Same Storm But Not The Same Boat.” This was one of the most powerful quotes and poems of the last year (full text here). The pandemic illuminated inequity in society, healthcare, and our workplaces. We are far from the shore of the promised land. As leaders we must continue this journey and use our privledge to part the waters for others.

9. Make Mental Health a Priority for yourself and your team. We don’t know what others are covering, experiencing, or mourning. As a leader we need to create safe spaces filled with empathy. We need to build our vulnerability muscle to be a strong team.

8. Really Invite Authentic Selves To Work. This year we have Zoomed in closer to each others’ families, pets, and homes than ever before. We have been forced to bring more of ourselves to work. As leaders, our job is to invite and embrace our whole team as whole people.

7. Constrained Innovation is Breathtaking. Watching our scientists, restaurants, and healthcare workers reimagine working models has been inspiring. We need to give our team airtime for their new ideas and innovations.

6. There is Power in The Pause. The shutdown opened up the opportunity for new routines. Taking time to read, journal, and move our bodies is time well spent. Create the time for your team to build pause into their day – and allow yourself the same grace.

5. We Can Make A Nice Bake. The Great British Bake Off encouraged us to create and try things we never prioritized before. While the sourdough and cakes were delicious, the real lesson is taking time to tap into our creativity and letting our inner star baker out.

4. Learn to Reckon With the Rumble. In politics and at work we don’t all have the views or vantage point. As Brene Brown says, “The reckoning is how we walk into our story; the rumble is where we own it. The goal of the rumble is to get honest about the stories we’re making up about our struggles, to revisit, challenge, and reality-check these narratives.”

3. Why Hoard When We Can Help? Hoarding toilet paper, information, or power makes you an ass. As leaders we should reward and recognize collaboration and make knowledge sharing an expectation.

2. Words Matter. The words of a leader incite action. Use them to incite learning not violence.

Connectivity Is Powerful. It has been hard not to see or hug family, friends, and teammates. But we can be connected even if we are not together. As leaders our job is to build the team not the “stuff.” Taking time to connect personally and professionally is what powers performance and engagement.

Twelve months ago, the pandemics we’re facing changed us and the way we work. The losses are many and the heartbreak is overwhelming. We have had to learn new ways of interacting and had the opportunity for many leadership lessons. These are twelve of my leadership lessons from the last twelve months. I look forward to hearing and learning from yours.

Hi I’m Flexadaptmilling. How are you?

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Every year new words are added to our lexicon- either formally added to the dictionary or adapted as part of our slang. I am searching for the word that describes the state we are currently in. Something that combines our new flexibility requirements given the corona virus. The adaptability demanded in the light of our social justice uprising. The treadmill reality of 22 weeks of working from home. So in the spirt of Frindle (a children’s book by Andrew Clements where they invent the word Frindle) I introduce to you the concept Flexadaptmilling with its good, its challenges, and its lessons.

Flexibility: Bend and break. There have been some pretty amazing changes to our workplaces that without the corona virus wouldn’t have happened- or at least wouldn’t have happened at this pace. Suddenly every job can work from home. No one needs a flexible job arrangement to allow them to pick up kids, bring meals to parents, or to create a personal swing shift working schedule. I have had 3x the number of homemade dinners with my family than we’d have in normal times. Bending our assumptions has been healthy for our culture. But it also has it’s challenges. Zoom is a great tool. But it limits your ability to read the room and really see people, which impacts our discussions and can deter some voices. There are days when my steps are in the 100s – a far cry from 10,000 steps as I spend hours sitting in front of my computer in my small office. As an intense iterator it is hard virtually white board without glitches or delays. My takeaway is bend my thinking and take breaks for my body. Without a commute I have no excuse not to get up early and workout. Taking a Zoom call outside is a good idea. Blocking off a lunch hour to have no meetings and change my scenery is good for my mental health.

Adaptability: Thinking and rethinking. I am invigorated and sometimes exhausted by the new level of energy and interest in racial justice and DEI at work these days. The fire has been burning for years but now we have community, leadership, and student interest in taking action. I am inspired by my son and his friends and their social activism. I am proud of my organization for our commitment to health equity and equity for associates. I am thrilled that instead of asking (begging) to integrate DEI into leadership curriculum as I’ve had to do in the past I now have complete support and a heightened expectation for delivery. Opening our minds and hearts can only make us stronger. It is also tiring. There is a wave of white guilt motivating action at a pace and speed that may not be sustainable. There is a pent up demand that is overflowing from associates. We want to work quickly, ensure sustainability, and be inclusive which, like the program management triangle, can be hard to balance. My take away is to use what I know and seek what I don’t. The “I” in DEI is for inclusion – we need the commitment and collaboration from every function to examine, question, and rethink our systems and structures. No one person or plan can undo hundreds of years of systemic racism. Tried and true tools like aligning to the organizational strategy, creating clear execution plans and timelines, and measuring progress are critical in this work. The “D” and “E” mean we must check assumptions, push against biases, and ensure we don’t settle for tried and true decisions but instead engage and reflect our full community.

Treadmilling: New ways of moving. As we prepare to go back to another semester of distance learning, continue our prolonged work from home, and manage social distancing there are time when our days feel like a rinse and repeat. What’s been exciting to see how technology really can personalize learning. I’m inspired by my educator friends and how they are shaping their craft in this new world. I have loved pop up Zoom calls with friends and family from across the world that never happened before. Then there are times when our social limits are tiring. As an extreme extrovert it does not fill my bucket to be home 100% of the time. I have a sophomore and college freshman who both want to be safe, be social, and be active in their sports. At my worst I pout over feeling like Bill Murray in Ground Hogs Day. My takeaway is control the controllables and enjoy the ride. @Janice Payton told me having children would be the best IDP I ever had. She was right. Our current environment is my new IDP. I have to remember I can only control what I can. Instead of resisting or fretting, do what I can and let go of the rest. Setting daily goals both personally and professionally has been a big help to see that it may be a different ride at a different pace but there can still be progress.

I love the term “Corona coaster” to describe the ups and downs of our current reality. In discussions with friends we were struggling to describe both the emotions and actions we are taking everyday. It’s not just being flexible. It’s being flexible while we adapt our systems, structures, and thinking. It’s feeling like we’re on a treadmill and not making motion but then looking down and being impressed with our miles. My description of this concept is Flexadaptmilling and I am working on embracing its good, its challenges, and its lessons.

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HR- Let’s Own and Use Our Privilege

white-privilege1

We are all collectively mourning, reflecting, and contemplating how to respond to the heartless murder of George Floyd and the heartbreaking damages to cities like my beautiful Twin Cities. Many organizations are turning to HR to create recommendations and action plans. A tall order given the years of systemic racism in our country. Challenging to do during a pandemic. And an impossible task if our function doesn’t recognize our privilege. It’s time for HR to own our privilege and use our privilege to make real change.

The Privilege Institute defines privilege as unearned benefits that accrue to particular groups based on their location within a social hierarchy. Privileges are often invisible to those who have them and are based on power. So HR peeps let’s be honest. Our place in our organization’s social hierarchy gives us unique access to data, to creating policies, to employment decisions, and to organizational decisions. We didn’t earn this- it is a privilege of our role. We have or are perceived to have the power to influence who is hired, promoted, or terminated. So yes we have a role of privilege. We are also compensated by, what W. E. B. Du Bois called in his book Black Reconstruction in America, additional , unearned “psychological wages.” In Du Bois’ book he talks about white laborers who received these psychological wages including “public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks… (which) had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them.” I am not white but I am in HR, and I am given deference and access to all corners of our organization. Our leaders who “police” our organizations know the role of influence I have which effects how I am personally treated. I don’t have to work as hard as others to earn that access and as a result I start with greater political capital to invest.

Once we are conscious of our privilege it is our responsibility to use it for good. Brandon Sheffield of the San Francisco Weekly outlines steps we can take to use privilege for good. Here are few important actions we in HR need to take.

Listen and Trust. Ask people what they need. What do they see in our practices that is missing? What needs to be done differently? Be open to new ideas and let go of assumptions of what we have to do. It’s easy to feel like you already know what the issues and solutions are. Trust that our associates have valuable wisdom to make our organization stronger.
Words Matter. It’s (LONG since) time to put away the HR speak. Use real words and emotions. A man was murdered. Systemic racism allowed that to happen. Find authentic words and credible speakers– even if that’s not those at the top. Be vulnerable and empathic. Let this be the start of an ongoing dialogue about race and inclusion, not just a guilt-assuaging memo.
Accept When You are Wrong and Learn From it. We make mistakes. We have good ideas that sometime have unintended consequences. Own it publicly.
Use Your Voice. In HR we hear lots of things. We are also in lots of meetings where we need to bring the voice of others. In our recent executive talent review meeting I questioned when we used the word “unconfident” to describe a woman. It might be true or it might be an unconscious bias about style… let’s cause the debate.
Be the Change. Systems and structures work doesn’t sound sexy, but it is the backbone of our function and needs to be strong. Take the time to inventory the work, including but not limited to hiring practices, hiring sources, compensation equity, promotion and turnover rates for diverse and non-diverse talent. Then create action plans and accountability to address gaps.

I believe it is a privilege to be in HR. I love the work I do. I am passionate about advancing people and the business to achieve our Mission. I also recognize my role confers unearned privilege upon me and it is my responsibility, now more than ever, to own my privilege and use my privilege to make real change.

COV19 Tips: Be Caring, Observant, and Vulnerable

situational-leadership

This has been a crazy week. I think everyone’s work and home life has been infected with COV 19 planning and discussions. This is when it is hardest to be a leader – when things are unsettled, uncertain, and constantly shifting. It is also when our teams need us most. We need to balance business continuity, customer delivery, and employee needs on a daily if not hourly basis. In times like this I always go back to one of my favorite change mantras: move your energy out of what you can’t control and focus on what you can control and influence. And while this week has been long, hard, and frustrating there is still a lot we can control. Here are 19 tips to help us focus on being Caring, Observant, and Vulnerable to help your team navigate the COV crisis.

Be Infectious with CARE through:

(1) Your words. Your words have a megaphone in times of stress. So what you say and how you say it matters a lot. It’s ok to be stressed -it’s not ok to take it out on your team.

(2) Your flexibility. With school and daycare options in flux for families, how can you be flexible with work hours, deadlines, and/or assignments? Working from home does mean working -and people will work harder and more effectively if you help them with options.

(3) Your kindness. The wise words of Maya Angelou were never more true than at times like this: “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” Let people know that you care about them as people not just associates.

(4) Your trust. Your team may all be working offsite, even offline. How will you manage their productivity? By assuming they are all doing the right thing and treating them as such. Giving and showing trust pays dividends and builds loyalty.

(5) Your time. The most strategic leaders spend 80% their time on and with people. Now that people can’t grab you in the hallway for a quick question or drop in to show you their project, can you have online office hours? Can you extend your 1:1s to allow time for those extra questions and high touch time?

(6) Your selfcare. We all know the airplane tip put on your own oxygen mask first. This is hard stuff. Be sure you are getting the sleep, exercise, nutrition and balance you need to be there to support your team.

OBSERVE the Health of Your Team By:

Listening. We all handle stress differently. You can hear what’s on their minds by what your team asks. You can learn more by asking them follow up questions. You can help lighten the worry burden just by listening.

Checking non verbals. It’s a lot harder to pick up on non verbals online. Yet if you tune in you can observe the pauses, the eyebrow raises, the wide eyes. Again stop and check in – help them to articulate those non verbals into words and recommendations.

Seeing Waste. One of the few upsides of this current climate is we have to be focused. What are we not going to do — and is there are reason we ever did it? What can you delegate or delete to help you be focused on that’s really important?

Doubling Recognition. Who on your team is stepping up without being asked? Who took the step of learning a new technology tool to make a remote meeting smoother? Every day you are out of the office, make sure the team know you see their actions and appreciate them.

Being Openminded. Most associates today want more flexibility. What can you learn from a required work from home that could become how we work? What meetings/projects worked when you delegated them? Allow this to be a pilot for you and your team to reimagine how you work effectively together.

Checking Attitudes. COV19 is dangerous if you have cancer- and I mean a cancer on the team. What you permit you promote, so don’t permit negativity or a lack of engagement.

Let COV19 Make You VULERABLE to

Honesty. Things are changing at in every sphere quickly, and often in an uncoordinated way. Being honest about what you know now and hope to know soon is healthy for you and your team.

Fear. What happens if we lose a customer account? What if our suppliers can’t meet our deadlines? These are reasonable fears- and sharing them with your team allows them to help you think of new ideas and responses.

Imperfection. It is unlikely everything will go smoothly over the next few weeks. Embrace it. Talk about it with your team. Show that you can pivot, learn, and ask for their help in doing so.

Failing. A ball will drop. It’s just going to happen with this much change. So name it when it happens. Own it. Talk about what you learned and ask what the team would recommend you do differently next time.

New Perspectives. Challenge yourself to use fresh eyes in this new way of working to ask what’s going well? What needs more focus? Where should you spend more of your attention? Invite feedback from customers, stakeholders and teams to help widen your perspective.

Development. What one thing can you commit to learning while you are working at home. Is it being more focused in 1:1s? Is it being present during meetings? Is it taking 15 minutes a day to read/listen to a new blog/Ted Talk/audiobook?

Your shadow. How you show up now matters. A lot. Leverage your strengthens to cast light on the team. Reflect on your blind spots and focus on them. Challenge yourself on your development areas and ask the team to help hold you accountable.

COV19 is a respiratory illness. To combat the mental and emotional challenges your business are facing you need to breathe deeply. We need our teams to feel closely connected during social distancing. And we cant afford to quarantine leadership. Let’s all double down on caring, observing, and vulnerability as antibodies we want to spread regularly.

Setting Goals for your 2020 Vision

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It’s January 27th , so according to the New York Post article, most New Year’s resolutions died two weeks ago. That’s right. Strava, a social media network for athletes, analyzed 31.5 million online resolutions, and January 12th is the date when most resolutions drop off. This same article states that just 8% of people achieve the goals they set at the beginning of the year. Given these gloomy statistics, how can you ensure a clear vision for your team in 2020? The key, according to Forbes magazine’s article, Does Your Goal Setting Have 2020 Vision, is focusing on inspiration. This year try a new process to goal setting. Instead of a full day offsite on goal cascades, look for passion, see what matters, and observe what gives you energy.

To Do vs. Can’t Wait to Do: Too often, goal setting is a left-brained exercise. It is the list of items we’ve already committed to on our to do list, that we roll up into elegant phrases on a PowerPoint. But just like a resolution, what is the shelf life of the work I have to do vs. tapping into how I can impact our overall strategy? For example, at Blue Cross Blue Shield, our mission is to Inspire Change, Transform Care, and Improve Health for the people we serve. Instead of a functional focus on our to do list, what if you asked your team if we were to be recognized on stage for helping to move the mission forward this year, what would we hear? Who would be there? What would they say? By building a vision of success as the starting point, you shift the discussion and thinking beyond block and tackle tasks and tap into what motivates and inspires your team. Once you have a shared aspiration, you can shift to a discussion around what you should do more of or less of in order to achieve this aspiration. That helps us identify areas of focus and actions for the upcoming year.
More Meaning than Meetings: A great concept in the Forbes article is, we don’t become creative because we’re inspired; we become inspired when we tap into new, intrinsically interesting and valuable things. At some point your team will have to leave that safe haven you created in your goal setting session and enter back into the daily world of work. But this year you want to help them work differently. Challenge your team to have at least 10% of their time “On the work” instead of spending all their time “in the work.” This means allowing space and time to stay focused on the stage you’ve created and keeping your creativity fueled by reading articles, attending classes, meeting with others,
and/or making room for interesting and valuable things in your workday. Allowing space in our busy day to keep our eye on the horizon is key to keeping our goals alive.

Making vs Taking Energy: It requires energy to fuel our vision, and tapping into our passion creates energy instead of sapping energy. For example , we can all be committed to the goal of putting the customer first, and we can achieve it by leveraging the team’s various skills and passions. Let Mary redesign the website and have Bill populate it with data. Chris would be best at collecting customer data and Sue most interested in finding themes. The more we can leverage our collective strengths the more passion and creativity we will get in our results. When people do have tasks/projects that aren’t aligned to their passion, ask them to bring that vision to the work. For example, I don’t love merit planning. But I am passionate about equity and investing in talent. So making this more about the people than the numbers helps give me energy to pursue this task and brings a different perspective to this project.

Project plans and tracking tools have their time and place. As we know, a goal without a plan is only a dream. But dreams can die under the weight of process and practicality. The key in 2020 is for you to create an inspirational vision to meet with your team and look for passion, see what matters, and observe what give you energy.

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The Gift of Presence

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It is definitely the most wonderful time of the year- and arguably twice the fun at our house with two holidays and two kids birthdays in the span of 16 days. Our home is alight with Christmas and Hanukkah decorations. I have three school and work gatherings with friends this week, and like many of you, I will be taking time off to spend time with friends and family. As I was listening to some holiday music this weekend, I realized there were some good coaching tips embedded in Christmas carols. Here are my takeaways from Do You Hear What I Hear, The Little Drummer Boy, and Silent Night which sparked my commitment to give the gift of presence throughout the year.

What do you hear? The very essence of coaching is to shift from a place of telling to the place of listening. We know this is the right thing to do, but we also know that it is so much faster to just tell someone the answer or to do it ourselves. But if we give the gift of being present, we can step back and see that the only way to grow our team is to empower them, and that our role as a coach is to ask insightful questions to guide their self discovery. Presence also asks us to assume positive intent. What is it that this employee heard, saw, or knows that led them to make that decision? By remaining curious we build trust with others and gain a more well rounded view of a situation. Allowing the time to pause and ask questions is a gift with lasting impact.

Bring Your Gifts. When we are present, we are not judging, just observing. We notice what people bring and can do, and we invite them to be their authentic selves. Too often we fall into the thinking trap that we need fine gifts that are fit for this meeting/leader/training/ (aka King) so only people who meet our definition of “fine” are invited. What if instead of assuming we know what is needed, we asked our audience what they wanted? If we embrace diversity and stay curious think about what possibilities might unfold. Unwrapping everyone’s unique gifts leads to new discoveries and strengthens teams.

Celebrate the Silence. Finding white space in our minds and in our schedules is one of the hardest things to do. But learning to silence our minds so we can think, not just do, is an amazing gift. As leaders, we should spend more of our time on how to improve, advance, and align the work than being heads down doing the work. The recent post on the Seven Top Leadership Skills for 2020 includes skills such as humility, 360 thinking, being reflective, inspiring, and intellectual versatility. Each of these skills can only happen when we calm our mind, and focus on the important but not urgent work of leadership. This also means taking care of ourselves so we can bring our best selves to work. Prioritizing sleep, exercise, and eating habits should be more that a resolution – it is a gift to bring to ourselves and our team in the new year.

Janice Maeditere said, “Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts.” Wise words that we can reflect on all year. When we open our hearts and minds we can give the gift of presence. We can do this by asking questions, staying curious, and creating space for thinking. So give yourself permission to be more present in 2020 – it is a gift that will keep on giving.

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