Helene Lerner's Blog, page 139

Career Coach: Welcome to October!

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Hello! I'm Alan Allard, and I'll be your career coach for the month of October. This month will be all about you, but before we get started, you might want to know a few things about me as well. 

For the past eight years, I have worked as a consultant, executive coach, speaker, trainer and life coach. My current work deals with helping companies, teams, and individuals thrive in challenging times by improving performance and building resilience. I have a master’s and a doctorate in counseling and I spent 12 years working in private practice as a psychotherapist. I also wrote a book called Seven Secrets to Happiness!, which can be purchased here. On a personal note, I am married to my high school sweetheart and we have two incredible daughters (as well as two equally incredible sons-in-law).

Over the next few weeks, we'll be taking a look at what you can do to increase your success, fulfillment and happiness—both in your career and in your overall life. Please let me know in the comments if if there are any specific topics you'd like me to address. Thanks, and I look forward to another great month!

-Alan Allard, Career Coach

Get a Taste of Bittersweet Change

I recently met a terrific woman at a networking dinner, Rose Fass, CEO of fassforward Consulting Group. Here are some of Rose's insights on change:

Lead change. If you don’t lead change, it will lead you. Transformation and growth can’t occur in a company without it. So don’t wait, initiate it.

Define change. Ask 1,000 people what their definition of “transformation” is and you’ll get 1,000 different answers. Focus on what transformation means to your company. Analyze how you are going to take action to transition from your existing form.

Understand your leadership type. There are visionary leaders who create and inspire new directions. There are also stabilizing leaders who ensure consistency after transformation. But those capable of leading change are a different kind of rare leader. Play to your specific leadership strengths.

Avoid chocolate conversations. Those are incomplete conversations that fail to incorporate the worldviews, standards and concerns of others. Chocolate conversations are also guaranteed to be misinterpreted or misunderstood. Great leaders communicate clearly. Pay attention to message discipline.

Be relevant. Change and innovate before your competition. Are your products relevant? Are you relevant? Someone out there is looking to make you irrelevant. Are you going to let them?

Expect change to be bittersweet. Change is never easy. But it is always necessary if you expect to grow.

To learn more, read Rose's book, The Chocolate Conversation: Lead Bittersweet Change, Transform Your Business, Bibliomotion, books + media, 2013

 

How to Help People Reach Their Dreams

Women who choose to be mentors can make a huge difference for another person. It does take a significant commitment with respect to time and energy, which are resources often in short supply. The successful professionals who typically make the best mentors usually lead busy lives, so you might wonder why we do it.

I had an inspiring mentoring relationship with a woman who is a member of the Professional Women’s Group at Dress for Success in Mercer County, NJ. The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. 

Carmen is a single mother raising three kids in a very violent section of Trenton where there have been many gun battles that resulted in deaths. One such battle on her street came close to killing her oldest son. As part of her leadership development process as a client in Dress for Success, she took on a community action project. She chose to rally a coalition of people in her local area who were dedicated to taking action to address the underlying causes of the violence. Carmen brought together educators, religious leaders, politicians and counselors along with young boys and girls in the community to watch an inspiring film and speak to a vision for a safer life in Trenton.

To accomplish this, Carmen had to build up her confidence to achieve her vision, to stretch herself to create the plan, influence others to join her and recruit volunteers to assist in event planning and execution.  My mentoring assisted her in writing and submitting her proposal and plans to Dress for Success Worldwide for approval. After a very successful event, I worked with her to provide full documentation of what she did, as well as what she accomplished and learned from the experience.

While your reasons to take time to mentor others might be a desire to make a difference, as was the case for me, there are plenty of other reasons to add mentoring to an already packed schedule. For instance:

Developing employees with potential to move into management roles


Passing along knowledge about office politics and/or how to be successful


Training a successor


Strengthening what you already know by learning when teaching


Reinforcing company culture


Helping those you mentor see their own strengths

It is truly amazing how receiving support can change the course of someone’s career. For Carmen, after this project, she saw an opportunity to take on greater responsibilities in her organization. With her greater confidence, she put herself up for a higher position and was given the job - increasing her responsibilities as she demonstrated she was ready to take on more.

-Andrea Zintz, Career Coach

What Stops You from Realizing Your Dreams?

Here's one of our favorite moments from Living Courageously: The Spirit of Women. Francine Ward, author and life coach, talks to a group of women about what gets in the way of realizing our dreams. Let this discussion encourage you to move forward, wherever you're at.

Why You Need Courage to Reach Your Goals Part 5

In my four previous blogs on this topic, I discussed five courage activators from the book Lead from the Middle by Merom and Yochee Klein, along with the story of Melissa in her new position at a pharmaceutical company. She had ambitious goals to improve a product launch and faced some difficult obstacles. I illustrated how she used the first four courage activators (purpose, will, risk and rigor) to overcome them. In this blog, I will discuss leading with candor, the final activator. This is about asking the tough questions and providing straight and direct communication.

Melissa faced powerful pushback from her key stakeholders when she suggested there were some flaws in the product launch over which she took leadership in her new job.

To lead with candor means showing reluctant stakeholders and partners that you “get it” and understand why they are nervous.

Step 1: Talk straight. When something unexpected happens, conventional wisdom tells leaders to respond by saying, “No comment” until the dust has settled. While this is safe, it does little to ease the fears of those involved. An honest answer of “I don’t know,” with direct eye contact, empathy and sincerity, is an example of leading with candor.

Step 2: Listen for the truth. Leading with candor is the courage to speak and hear the truth. Ask questions to bring out concerns, fears, and resistance. Answer them with empathy. Verify opinions by asking for evidence. The ability to separate the story from what has actually happened – assumptions from facts – is essential.

Step 3: Speak with integrity. Let your values and conscience be your guides here. Be sure that your behavior lines up with your goals.  People are quick to point out when a leader’s talk is not congruent with her walk.

Melissa was mindful of candor when she visited with stakeholders and team members and that allowed her to address their concerns about changing the product launch plan.

-Andrea Zintz, Career Coach

How to Wise Up to Bad Advice

How do you know if the advice you’ve been given is reliable? The answer might not be what you think. Here are three surprising factors you need to take into account when deciding whether to follow someone’s advice.

Be irrational. When someone gives you advice, it can sound convincing when it makes logical sense. But the supposedly rational decision isn’t always the best. Weigh the pro’s and con’s – but if you’re still feeling conflicted, listen to your intuition, regardless of what anyone else tells you.

Be wary of overly confident answers. If you ask a friend or coworker for advice and they hem and haw, it’s anything but reassuring. But an unquestioningly confident response may be a red flag. A person who immediately responds in a tone that says they couldn’t possibly be wrong – is probably wrong. Deeply held biases and assumptions can lead to unfounded self-assuredness. The soundest advice often comes from those who ask you questions and take their time in offering thoughtful feedback.

Do you really want expert advice? If you’re asking for input about moving from point A to point B in your career, someone who has been there and done that is likely an excellent resource. But if you need help with something that falls into more of a gray area – like how to deal with office politics, for example – experts may not be the best advisors. In this case, go to the person who knows about office dynamics – it may not be someone on the front lines.

-Sarah Cooke

New Research Puts a Spin on Innovation

Last night I was at the launch of new research findings from the Center for Talent Innovation spearheaded by Sylvia Ann Hewlett.

I am so impressed by the cutting edge research undertaken from the Center. They put "language" to what many of us know, but can now describe in concrete terms.Sylvia and her team talked about the difference between inherent diversity and acquired diversity.  It is not enough to have diverse teams--these teams can acquire added dimensions that make the difference and allow innovation to flourish.  Acquired diversity consists of cultural fluency, generational savvy, gender smarts, social media skills, cross-functional knowledge, global mindset, military experience, language skills.

There was a panel of diversity leaders who gave concrete examples of what is working and why.

                                    
                          Left to right: Moderator Rehema Ellis (NBC News), Lisa Garcia Quiroz (Time Warner),
                                                        Melmuth Ludwig (Siemens), Anne Erni (Bloomberg)
                                              

I left inspired.  Keep up the good work!

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrities, Food and an Important Cause

Here's the video we've promised you about A Second Helping of Life, a tasting event where New York women chefs came together to benefit SHARE, an organization that supports people with breast and ovarian cancer. You might recognize some of the celebrity sous chefs! Take a look!

Video Editor - Dominique Guerra

Why You Need Courage to Reach Your Goals Part 4

In my previous blogs on this topic, I discussed five courage activators from the book Lead from the Middle (purpose, will, risk, rigor and candor), along with the example of Melissa. She had ambitious goals to improve a product launch and faced some difficult obstacles. 

In this blog, I will focus on how to lead with rigor. This is about inventing better solutions, advancing continuous improvements and taking action on them.

Melissa was getting some serious pushback on her proposal to mitigate risks with her product launch.  Leading with rigor means getting to key issues and creating solutions. It also means testing these solutions for successful execution. She needed those around her to be aligned on how to deliver with excellence.

Step 1: Reach out and coordinate with related partners.

She determined the stakeholders and got the right people involved to improve the product launch plan.

Step 2: Develop best practices and make them stick.

She anticipated the concerns about the launch and was prepared with a viable plan and a strong business case. She didn’t go with shortcuts and would ask questions of those who pushed back. When necessary, she reminded others of the company values and asked them how the approach upheld the kind of reputation that would lead to a successful launch.

Step 3: Plan proactively to minimize risks.

Melissa worked with her team to anticipate issues, identify potential pitfalls and build robust risk mitigation plans.

In my next and final blog on courage, I will discuss leading with candor.

-Andrea Zintz, Career Coach

Unexpected Opportunities to Meet New Friends

Every challenge we encounter and every person we meet can provide insights for us if we are open to receiving them. A so-called chance meeting can offer us a new perspective about something that may be troubling us. For example, one woman I met now looks at events in this way. Several years ago, she was involved in a painful divorce and isolated herself as a result. Her friends urged her to go to social gatherings to meet new people, especially men. After much prodding, she ventured out to a party. As she tells it:

The crowd was not very interesting and I was about to leave. As I was walking out the door, I was introduced to an author. Even though our introduction was brief, I was struck by her warmth. We agreed to meet for lunch the next day.

When we met, I found myself sharing intimate details I had never told anyone before. Talking to my new friend was easy because she was compassionate and seemed to understand my pain. She told me she had undergone a traumatic divorce several years before. I felt reassured by her story because she was optimistic about her life, not permanently traumatized by the breakup. And if this could happen for her, it could happen for me too.

Support is all around you. You need only open up to accept it. Think of people who have helped you gain important insights about yourself. How did you meet them?

Excerpt from In Her Power: Reclaiming Your Authentic Self