Becky Robinson's Blog, page 44

We Need It Yesterday!

We’re throwing it back! This week we’re showcasing a guest post from Jack Quarles about the theme from his latest book, Expensive Sentences , which launched on January 30, 2017.

“We need it yesterday!” is an Expensive Sentence.

There’s a time for urgency, but inflated urgency can cause you to pay too much, select the wrong vendor, or choose the wrong solution. It can also be a lazy way to justify a half-baked decision. So how do you handle this Expensive Sentence and make sure your team’s decisions are fully-baked?

Pause & Think

To be a stickler, you probably didn’t really need it yesterday — because, as it turns out, you didn’t have it yesterday and you’re still here. Here are a few ways to move from the absolute language of need/don’t need to a discussion about optimal value:

“Are there specific dates that we are working backwards from?”

“Yes, we want to do this soon. To help the team focus, let’s prepare an estimate on the cost of each week we delay.”

“Let’s ballpark the cost and risk of taking another four weeks to scope this out more and talk to several vendors… how does that compare to possibly saving another 5-10% on the project?”

Speed almost always carries a premium. If you absolutely, positively have to have it there tomorrow, you can do it for a price. It is sometimes worth the price. Take a few minutes with the team at a whiteboard to talk through these questions and write down answers:

What is the actual cost of delay? Get specific, and when you don’t know an exact value assign a dollar range.
How much delay are we really talking about?

Addicted to Urgency?

Some companies and some leaders build a culture of over-urgency, and that greatly impairs expense management. Consider how your company makes decisions, and the aftermath. Be honest:

Have you hired several people too fast and then discovered they really weren’t the right fit?
Have you often scrambled to meet a client request that ended up being bad business for you?

If this is a pattern, it’s likely you also buy hastily — and as someone first noted in the early days of the English language: “haste makes waste.”

The urgency card is over-played. A modest measure of analysis and patience will almost always save you money and clarify what you need to buy.

Sometimes if you are patient enough… you may not need to buy anything.

Partnership Across the Miles

A few years ago, I decided to run my first marathon. I had eased into the idea of running races with a few 5Ks, a 10K, and a half-marathon. So when my friend Tara suggested we run the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth, TX, I decided it was time. Tara is a triathlete and a personal trainer, so I was excited to have her as a training partner.

There was one challenge . . . Tara lives in Texas. I live in Northern Virginia.

Luckily, technology allows the world to be much more connected than it has ever been in the past. Tara and I set up regular check-ins throughout the week. On Saturdays we’d text each other to say how long our long run would be. After we finished, we’d check back in to let each other know how it had gone. These check-ins were often the only reason I got myself out on the trail. The accountability helps when it’s 20 degrees out and you have a 16-mile training run planned!

Tara was my resource and support any time I had a question about running, strength training, foam rolling, and nutrition. She shared articles, videos, and tips. She listened when I needed to vent. In return, I encouraged her, kept her accountable, and gave her recommendations on podcasts and books to listen to on long runs. We were partners, even though we weren’t physically together while we trained.

Partnership at Weaving Influence is much the same.

A large part of the Weaving Influence team works remotely from all around the U.S. We even have international team members! Most of our clients are also spread out geographically.

Yet we all have the same goals. We want our clients to succeed. We want our team to succeed. We want to support each other.

The remote environment offers some challenges, but the basics of partnership remain the same. Here are 3 things to keep in mind while building and maintaining a partnership remotely.

Use technology to your advantage.

Technology offers literally hundreds of ways to stay connected. Email, text, phone calls, social media, video chat, Google Docs, Basecamp, etc., etc., etc.! Decide early on which technologies will work best for you and use them.

Establish regular check-ins.

The Weaving Influence team holds regular video “stand-up” team meetings. We have internal calls and video chats about projects. We check-in with and update our clients weekly or monthly. This communication is essential, particularly since we’re not all in the same room every day. These check-ins hold each other accountable but also serve to motivate, to encourage collaboration, and to keep lines of communication open.

Remember the goal.

Ultimately, the aim of any partnership is to achieve a shared goal. For Tara and I, our goal was to finish the marathon without injury. For Weaving Influence, it is to see our clients and teammates succeed. It can be easy when you’re not physically together to forget that everyone is moving towards the same goal. I’ve always been impressed by how well the #WITeam supports each other and our clients to see each other succeed.

In a surprise twist — the Cowtown Marathon was actually snowed-out that year. Tara and I had a great weekend in Fort Worth and ran the half-marathon instead. We then each ran the marathon on our own back home. I ran 26.2 miles on the W&OD Trail and she ran on a treadmill. And we checked in before, during, and after our “races.” Goal achieved.

What other tips would you add to help build partnerships remotely?

 

The Anatomy of a Butt Kick

We’re throwing it back! This week we’re showcasing a guest post from Bill Treasurer about the theme from his latest book,  A Leadership Kick in the Ass , which launched on January 16, 2017.

All butt kicks, butt kickers, and butt kick recipients are unique. That said, hiney-smacking events also share a few common elements. Let’s deconstruct how a leadership kick in the ass typically works.

Four stages of every kick:

Comfortable oblivion: Prior to getting kicked, you are blind to your own behavior. Life is going swimmingly and you are blithely unaware of the impending insult. Oftentimes you are full of confidence. You can quickly marshal the facts that support the value you’re adding to the organization you serve. You view yourself as competent, aware, and deserving.
Startling sting: Ouch, that hurts! Butt kicks assault our comfort, and thus are painful events. As a rule, the more oblivious you are prior to the kick, the more painful the kick will feel. Most commonly, kicks provoke emotions of fear, anger, rejection, or depression. These emotions often result in defensiveness and self- righteousness—“How dare they kick my ass this way!”
Change choice: After the sting starts to subside, you are left with a choice. Broadly defined, your choice comes down to accept or reject. We’ll explore this stage in more depth in a moment, because it’s the most critical stage in the butt kick process.
Humility or arrogance: Depending on the decision you make in stage three, stage four will result in either deeper arrogance or genuine humility. If you double down on your conviction that your kick was an undeserved injustice, you’ll fortify your sense of righteousness. If you take the lumps the kick brings and make changes based on the information that it provides you, you’ll exit the butt kick event with a view of yourself that is more grounded, sober, and humble.

“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the pants may be the best thing in the world for you.”   — Walt Disney

Coming to grips with and, hopefully, overcoming the butt kick is one of the hardest things you can do as a professional. But, as the saying goes—what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Right?

Embarrassment and humiliation cut deep, and no one escapes these funky feelings. Growth is painful. Consequently, a butt kick is nearly always a painful event initially. The end result, though, is that good and rewarding things can grow out of that pain. That growth is contingent upon acceptance.

Five tips to help you choose acceptance:

Answer the holy question. Here are the four most important words in the English language: what do you want?
Be courageous. Initially, your butt kick will make you feel raw and vulnerable. It takes courage to allow yourself to feel these feelings. Courage is not found in comfort. Be courageous by embracing the discomfort your butt kick causes.
Control what you can. Much about a butt kick is beyond our control. We don’t get to choose, for example, the timing of the kick, who kicks us, and how hard the kick is. But how we respond to the butt kick is entirely within our control. Acceptance is easier when you have some semblance, however small, of control.
Reduce judgment, increase honesty. When your butt kick comes, don’t waste time obsessing about all the ways you’ve let yourself down. Instead, get out a piece of paper and list all the ways you may have contributed to the kick. Be rigorously honest. Identify the lessons you’ll carry forward to prevent similar kicks in the future.
Let go. Nearly all of life’s greatest lessons come down to these two words! Only by releasing your tight grip on how you wanted things to be can you fully accept things as they are. Let go of the condition that existed before the kick, so you can grab hold of the better leader you can be after the butt kick lessons take root.

It takes a very self-aware and courageous leader to say “I was wrong” or “I messed up” or “It was my fault.” Yet saying these powerful words often endears a leader to those being led. There is something completely disarming, and even attractive, about a leader who admits when he or she is wrong. Something profoundly important is revealed and communicated when a leader admits a mistake: his or her humanness.

Nothing stunts leadership growth as much as closed-mindedness. When your ability for self-reflection is shut down, personal accountability is next to impossible.

Partnership: It’s About the “With”

We covered for each other when our breaks took longer than the commercials. We ensured we pronounced names correctly. We brainstormed and experimented with ideas of how to improve our show. And we kept each other awake—and sane—while working the midnight shift.

The “we” is my first on-air co-anchor and me. In our first jobs out of college, we cut our teeth and paid our dues side-by-side in the news industry. We weren’t competitors, climbing over one another to get to the next big market. We were partners.

Fast forward a few years, and I’m solo anchoring with producers who tell me they don’t care if something goes wrong because it’s not their “face on the screen.”

What was the difference between these two working relationships? A common goal.

My co-anchor and I both wanted our show to do well. That couldn’t happen if we rooted against one another.

The producer didn’t care about the performance of our show. It was just a job to him. His goal was to get out of the station door and back to his personal life as quick as he could.

Since the news industry, I’ve worked in several different capacities within communications, and I have found time and again that the secret to a successful partnership lies in sharing a common goal—and a few other things.

Partnership is one of the core values of Weaving Influence, and I’ve been thinking more about what it means to be a good partner to those on the #WITeam and our clients.

I believe a solid partnership can be refined to four key elements—and I’m happy that all four are strongly rooted in the culture at Weaving Influence.

Shared goal

Having a common purpose is the backbone of every partnership. Without it, actions will not be aligned and efforts wasted. Weaving Influence team members are passionate about the work they do and the work they promote.

We hold the success of our clients and their works close to our hearts. Thus, we start working relationships with a strategy to outline where and how to focus our efforts.

Balance of power

Bitterness and resentment breed when there is an imbalance of power—and that destroys any working relationship. A partnership where someone thinks the other isn’t pulling their weight, or thinks they are too good to pull their own weight, is one bound to fail.

Successful collaboration features those willing to help others in any way they can, using all their strengths and resources. People within the #WITeam are always willing to jump in and help, and try new things.

Strong communication

A relationship without sound communication isn’t a relationship at all. That’s why regular updates to our clients in project manager reports and Google Drive spreadsheets are of an utmost priority. This helps clients keep track of our efforts, and also sheds light on any areas of tension or misunderstanding, so that we may keep on track to reach our shared goals.

Support

It never ceases to amaze me the professional and personal support I receive from #WITeam members. If I need guidance or assistance with a task, several people are always happy to help. If I need to adjust a meeting time to fit the needs of my family, people say it is no problem.

They/we do the same for our clients. Just like my former co-anchor, they are ready and willing to do whatever is necessary for all of us to succeed and achieve our goals.

A partnership is not about working for or against someone, it is about working “with” someone. This is something I learned throughout my career, and something I’m happy to see time and again at Weaving Influence.

Serve with Goodness

We’re throwing it back! This week we’re showcasing a guest post from Chip Bell about the theme from his latest book, Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service That Sparkles, which launched on February 14th.

Archeologists excavating the pyramids discovered an unexpected treasure–wheat seeds that dated back to around 2,500 BC. As in the tradition of antiquity, the seeds were there for the dead Pharaoh to eat if he got hungry. The find would enable scientists to determine what variety of wheat was in use in the ancient world and could be invaluable for launching new strains of wheat. Out of curiosity, the scientists planted the 4,500-year-old wheat seeds in fertile soil and an amazing thing happened. They grew!

The seed story has always amazed me. How could seeds that ancient still grow? Then a friend pointed out that the moral of the story might not be in the seeds but rather in the fertile soil. “Every living thing on the planet,” he advised me, “has the capacity to do remarkable things if placed in fertile soil.’’ Innovative service starts with the assumption of the goodness of customers. And such a belief can ignite a self-fulfilling prophecy. Customers treated with goodness assume the behavior and attitude of goodness.

The assumption of goodness is manifested as sincere respect. When I was a kid, I used to accompany my grandfather to town in his pickup truck to buy a few bags of feed for his cows. To and from the feed store, we talked about “stuff” like two old friends, not like an elder and a kid talking. And he always introduced me as Mr. Chip to the people he encountered. If the sales person at the feed store asked him how many bags he wanted loaded, he would point toward me and declare, “Mr. Chip can tell you.” As a 10-year-old, I felt very grown up. It is that same type of declaration, respect, and affirmation that provides fertile soil for growing a customer relationship.

How would an assumption of goodness have changed the outcome in that famous scene from Pretty Woman, when Vivian Ward was treated with arrogance and disdain? What if you purpled every encounter? Purpling is a granddaughter version of knighting someone. When a granddaughter waves her magic wand and pronounces: “I have purpled you,” the recipient of that privilege is forever a prince or princess.

What if serving became purpling? We would see wholeness blossom and relationships grow. It would be the fertile soil for valuing and trust.

6 Ways Your “Ideas” to Solve a Problem Backfire

We’re throwing it back! This week we’re showcasing a guest post from Nat Greene about the theme from his latest book, Stop Guessing: The 9 Great Behaviors of Great Problem Solvers , which launched on April 3rd.

People love coming up with ideas. When there’s a problem, everyone jumps to the fore with ideas about how to fix it. It’s very exhilarating and feels great to have all the energy and collaboration in the room.

But coming up with “ideas” is a form of guessing at a solution. Brainstorming is group guessing. “Hypotheses” are — you guessed it — guesses. When we’re guessing at solutions, it means we don’t really understand what’s going on with the problem. It may help us solve easier problems that have only a few possible root causes, but it will simply fail to solve hard ones in complex systems that have hundreds or thousands of potential root causes. Worse, guessing often just makes things worse.

We guess because it’s a natural brain function. In our prehistoric days, we faced problems such as, “what tool should I use to prevent this sabre-toothed tiger from separating me from my larynx?” We didn’t have the cognitive capacity or the time to thoroughly investigate a problem and understand why it got there in the first place. Guessing is also rewarded all of our lives: in school, we’re asked to raise our hands with an answer. Even when we’re wrong, the teacher praises us: “Good guess!” And in work, it’s the same thing: when there’s a problem, people want actions now. They want ideas. They don’t want you telling them, “I’m going to go study this for a while.” But no matter how ingrained, guessing simply won’t solve the hardest, most valuable, and most important problems.

If you and your team really want to solve a hard problem, get rid of the guesswork — because guessing has negative consequences:

1. Guessing leads to complex solutions.

When you guess at a problem, it’s because you don’t really understand what’s going on behind it. If you knew, you wouldn’t need to guess. And when you don’t really understand what’s going on, you’re not going to be able to solve the root cause of the problem. This means your “solution” is a work-around that is tedious or expensive. Perhaps you set up a new training program, install expensive monitoring equipment, or replace a system entirely. When you guess, you develop a far more complex solution than if you had found the root cause.

2. Guessing is a waste of time.

Spending hours testing different guesses is expensive. I was at a factory where a machine broke down, halting production. A mechanic spent eight hours “troubleshooting,” changing half a dozen parts until he finally found the broken one. “First I changed out this part, but that didn’t fix it, then this other part, but that didn’t work…” and so on. If he’d investigated the root cause, he could have gotten production back online faster. His approach assumed that six parts of one machine were equally likely to fail at the same time, which is highly unlikely. He didn’t problem-solve, he solution-guessed.

3. Guessing can create new problems.

Hard problems might have hundreds or thousands of potential causes, and often, the actual root cause is obscure or hidden. As you try out guesses, you’re very unlikely to mistakenly trip across the root cause. And as you might know, adding new bolt-ons to a business process or physical asset is going to create brand new problems. Integration will run into headaches, new physical additions will hiccup. You’ll need to solve all of these new problems, and you’ve actually taken a step back.

4. Guessing is a huge distraction for a team.

Tasked with solving a problem, teams often mistakenly launch into a brainstorming session. Brainstorming has its place where creativity is required, but solving hard problems is not one of them. Dressed up in an elaborate “process” for prioritizing guesses, such as a fishbone diagram, it’s still just group-guessing — adding further complications, like groupthink and politics, that drive managers nuts. And people tend to get attached to their ideas, dig in, and play power games, so the guess tested first is the one made by the most powerful person in the room. If the team brainstorms dozens of “possible root causes,” all must be tested. One diplomatic solution: get it out of everyone’s system by writing all the guesses down. It’s fun to play “who guessed right” after the fact. But you haven’t wasted endless time and resources belaboring through the hit-and-miss.

5. Guessing doesn’t teach you anything.

Even if a guess eventually works, you’ve spent lots of time on guesses that didn’t, and you probably won’t have any deeper understanding of the problem than you did in the first place. Be aware that any time you “come up with” many possible causes to check, you are guessing. If someone gives you a list of 10 “potential” root causes, they don’t know what’s happening. If your team comes up with 200 potential root causes, no one does. That’s far too many ideas to explore before you run out of time, resources, and energy, and you still won’t know what’s happening. Worse: when a team doesn’t understand a problem or the system behind it, odds are the true root cause isn’t even on that list.

6 – Guessing has side effects.

Say you got lucky: you guessed a solution and implemented it effectively. Unfortunately, this rare victory has some bad side effects. First, you’ve reinforced the habit and fooled yourself into thinking it’s a good strategy and will work again, making it harder to break in the future. Whether or not guessing works, it’s easy, and we find comfort in that. Second, you haven’t developed any deeper understanding of the problem. Instead of spending time building knowledge (since future problems will inevitably pop up), you’ve spent your time guessing and checking. Next time it happens, you’re back to square one. Third, you’re not becoming a better problem-solver. You rob yourself and your team of critical skill development. When you get to truly hard problems, you’ll need all the skills you can get. If you don’t practice using the right behaviors and methods to solve moderate problems, you’ll never master them. You’re going to get shellacked when you try to tackle the hard problems.

I’ve worked with bright talent, fresh out of universities like MIT and Cornell, brilliant young people with technical degrees and a deep scientific foundation. They’ve synthesized complex chemicals and built robots, but facing their first hard practical problem, they all resort to guessing first. It’s a natural compulsion, even for them. They’re trained to solve problems, so realize quickly that guessing inhibits their progress. Once they set guesswork aside, they’re tackling hard problems with panache.

Remember, your brain is going to guess. When it happens, recognize it for what it is — a primitive survival instinct. Then, stop guessing — and get to work.

What strengths do you bring to the table that help your team get past guessing? Find out with this online quiz!

How to Influence Without a Title

We all recognize and understand the clout that comes with a job title like “Manager,” “Director,” or “CEO.” When people with those titles walk into a room, they exude power and influence. People flock to them, wanting affirmation that they’re doing a good job, and confirmation that they can take the next step forward. So how does one get to be in a position like that? Or better yet, how does one yield that kind of influence without the position title?

The possibilities are endless, but here are a few that are 100% guaranteed to bring you more influence within your team.

Build Relationships

Just because you’re working a steady job doesn’t mean it’s time to quit networking. Continue building relationships with people outside your company, but also with those in your company. Learn about your co-workers: What makes them tick? What are their strengths? Their weaknesses? What are their pet-peeves? What’s their Enneagram or Myers Briggs or StrengthsFinder result? Figure out how to be the best possible co-worker and you will gain so much respect and influence in their eyes.

Encourage Others

It is unbelievable to me how much of an impact people can make with just a few encouraging words, and how little people actually do it. How often do you think to yourself, “Wow, she’s really good at that. I’m so thankful she’s on my team!”? Tell her! It will brighten the day of anyone you talk to and it will take you one step further in the building of your relationships, and people will naturally want to be around you more. And the encouragement doesn’t just have to be horizontal . . . in fact, I encourage you (ha!) to encourage those below and above you, as well. Thank the custodian for continuously working so hard to keep your building clean, and let your boss know how thankful you are to get to work under his/her leadership. Everyone needs to be encouraged.

Never Say No

When you’re asked to do something, what’s your reason for saying “no”? Is it because you don’t have enough time? That’s completely legitimate. Is it because you don’t know how? LEARN. Google it, YouTube it, ask someone else to teach you. This doesn’t mean lying and pretending like you already know how to do it–it means saying, “I don’t know the answer, but I’ll figure it out.” The more you figure things out this way, the more people will come to you as the resident expert in things other people don’t know. My husband is the prime example of this. When he first got hired at his current organization, he worked as the project manager of the creative team for 2 years. His job was to make sure projects remained on the correct timeline, and he did a great job at that. When people would come to him needing help on graphic design stuff, instead of saying “no” because it wasn’t his area of expertise, he said “yes” and figured it out. Same with video-editing, writing, copy-editing, etc. Soon he became the go-to guy when people needed something done quickly and the resident experts didn’t have the time.

Do What You Say You’ll Do

This one doesn’t need much, if any, explanation. Doing what you say you’re going to do brings with it so much influence because you become known as someone others can trust. I worked with someone once who so often failed to do what she said she would do, and our working relationship became toxic because I stopped trusting her and she grew to resent that. If you know you won’t have time to do something, don’t agree to do it in the first place. If you say you’ll do it, make sure you do it.

Grow Where You Are

If you want people to recognize you as an influential presence in your organization, make sure you are constantly learning and growing in your current job. Become the very best at what you do. Make it impossible to be fired because no one can do what you can do. When you become the expert at your job, people will see you as hardworking and trustworthy, and their respect for you will skyrocket–meaning your influence will too.

Have a “Same Team” Mindset

A little healthy competition never hurt anyone, but remember that at the end of the day, you’re all on the same team. If your co-worker doesn’t win, your team won’t win. Celebrate the success of those around you instead of wishing it had been you instead. When you see someone struggling, jump in and help them paddle to shore, instead of letting them sink so you look better.

Become a master of growth, learning, integrity, encouragement, and team-oneness, and you’ll become a master of influence in your organization.

 

 

Three Blocks To Compassion And How To Overcome Them

We’re throwing it back! This week we’re showcasing a guest post from Monica Worline about the theme from her latest book with Jane E. Dutton, Awakening Compassion At Work , which launched on February 17.

The science behind compassion demonstrates that this crucial aspect of human existence is more than a feeling or an emotion—it’s a complex, four-part human experience. It consists of noticing suffering and interpreting it in ways that dispose us to feel and act to alleviate another person’s pain. Researchers who study compassion have focused on these interpretations—what they call “appraisals” of suffering—and found three that are critical to either blocking or unlocking compassion in our work lives.

Appraisals are tricky to see, because we make them at lightning speed. Our brains jump to these interpretations so fast that the process may be invisible to us. Recall a moment when you thought to yourself about someone else: “You made this mess; now you have to suffer the consequences!” That’s an appraisal; an interpretation of someone else as worthy of blame.

Are They Responsible for Their Suffering?

When we construe someone as blameworthy, we block our compassion. Research demonstrates that we feel less empathy and concern when we determine that someone is responsible for his or her own suffering. Think of the last time someone made a mistake at work and you had to deal with it. Did you immediately say to yourself, “Oh, I bet Nancy was doing her best and this was just an oversight?” Or did you say to yourself, “Oh, I had a feeling Nancy wasn’t well trained! Now we’re all going to pay for her incompetence!” If you fall into the latter interpretation, you’re not alone. Most of us have to train ourselves to make different appraisals to overcome this block. With practice, we can learn to jump to the former conclusion—the one that tells us Nancy is good and capable and this was just an oversight.

Do They Deserve Your Concern?

A second block to compassion comes when we jump to the conclusion that someone doesn’t deserve our concern. Often these interpretations are swayed by stereotypes or stigmas. For instance, recall a time when you passed someone who seemed homeless or impoverished on the street. Did you say to yourself, “If he’d just get a job, he wouldn’t have to be begging on the street!”? Overcoming this block involves retraining our minds and hearts to remember that we are all susceptible to suffering. To unblock compassion, we can say to ourselves something such as: “There, but for grace and circumstances, go I. We’re all in this life together.” We all suffer. We all deserve compassion. Reminding ourselves of this unblocks our capacity to care.

How Can You Respond?

Finally, a third block to compassion involves how we understand our own ability to respond. When someone who is suffering really needs help or support, we can feel overwhelmed. If we jump to the quick conclusion that we don’t have the resources or the time or the energy to respond, we stop compassion in its tracks. Remember the last time you said to yourself, “I just can’t handle this right now!” It probably wasn’t that long ago! Overcoming this block requires that we retrain our minds to pause, slow down when we feel overwhelmed, and remind ourselves that even a small gesture is enough. Compassion is sometimes easier than we think. We don’t have to solve the problem—in fact, often we can’t solve the issue that is creating suffering. But we can smile and offer a hug. We can write a card. We can offer to deliver a meal on the weekend or make some other compassion move. And all of these small moves make a big difference to someone in pain.

Many factors play into our automatic interpretations of suffering—including work experience, training, organizational culture, heritage, national culture, family traditions, position in the organization, and the implicit biases that we develop simply by internalizing stereotypes. And we all carry around internalized cultural assumptions about suffering that can block compassion.

Recognizing them, challenging them in ourselves, and becoming more aware of how to change them in our own minds and hearts is key to overcoming them and awakening compassion at work .

Growing Your Career as a Stay at Home Mom

Stay-at-home mom and career woman are not two titles that are traditionally put together. However, in today’s increasingly digital and flexible world, more and more women (myself included) can stay home with their young ones while advancing their careers at the same time.

No, I am not saying you can “have it all”—staying home with your kids in and of itself is a full-time job. And it’s basically not possible to have two full-time jobs. Yet, despite what feels like an endless hustle to keep the house from falling apart and praying that the baby will keep napping while conducting cross-continental video conferences, I feel so grateful that I live in a time where I can really grow my career —not just scoot by with a side income—through part-time work from wherever I may be, as long as I have a laptop and reliable internet connection.

Over the past year and a half, I have learned a thing or two about how to maximize my professional growth while fulfilling my lifelong dream of staying home with my child when she is small.

Use Non-Work Time for Continued Education

For the most part, I stick to a schedule of when I work and don’t (though times always come up where I need to quickly distract my daughter while responding to an urgent email, this schedule generally works for me). When I am not working, I like to listen to podcasts related to my industry or other industries I am interested in learning about. There are thousands of podcasts on all kinds of topics—which are great to listen to when preparing dinner, playing legos, folding laundry, pushing the stroller, or any other activities around the house. Listening to podcasts on a regular basis keeps me thinking about my work and ways to grow, and gets me excited to get back to work at my next opportunity.

Ask for Opportunities to Do Something Different

If you are as blessed as I am to have a job or freelancing situation that affords you the flexibility to stay home with your kids, you most likely have gotten stuck in the all-too-common rut that work-from-home employees or contract workers can fall into: task-based work. It is much easier to get involved with new initiatives when you can collaborate in person with other employees and company leadership. Sometimes when you are tired and cranky, checking tasks off a list seems much more comfortable than potentially getting stuck with a new initiative you don’t have experience tackling. Resist that comfort! Sometimes the lack of direction that virtual employees face due to time-zone or other constraints can be a breeding ground for tremendous creativity and growth. Of course, you should always make sure that you have the liberty to take some risks in your work, but in general, you will be surprised how much the self-starter attitude is appreciated, even outside the office.

Know How to Step Back

Having your work/home/personal life all wrapped up into one location—your house—can be, to say the least, overwhelming. Since my daughter was born, I have had to change my definition of “organized” or “scheduled” quite a bit. One thing that really helps me to differentiate between “work” and “not work” time is my family’s weekly observance of the Sabbath on Friday night to Saturday night. During this time, we don’t use phones, computers, cars, etc., don’t cook (we do the cooking beforehand), don’t work; and we spend our time having big meals with family and friends, going for walks, reading, sleeping in (okay I don’t do this so much now with a toddler, but I will eventually!), and just hanging out together. Having this dedicated time makes such an enormous difference in my attitude and capabilities the rest of the week—it’s absolutely the most peaceful and rejuvenating time, and I know that my work would suffer immensely without it. Even if you don’t plan to take a whole day off from life’s hustles and bustles like I do, I highly recommend having designated no work/screen/phone time on a regular basis.

Yes, my life is chaotic at times, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything! I truly believe that the opportunity to exercise my brain and grow my experience and nurture my talents makes me a better, more confident mom.

It’s often a juggling act in this house, but one well worth it!

Embraced By The Wind

We’re throwing it back! This week we’re showcasing a guest post from Art Barter about the theme from his latest book, Farmer Able . We also worked with him on The Servant Leadership Journal , which launched on March 4.

The pigs are running the farm. So begins the story of Farmer Able. Everyone on his farm—people and animals alike—are downright downtrodden by him. He’s overbearing and compulsively obsessed with profits and productivity. He’s a typical top-down, power-based manager, forever tallying production numbers in his well-worn ledgers.

But the more he pushes the hoofs and horns and humans, the more they dig in their heels. That is, until one day, when he hears a mysterious wind that whispers: “It’s not all about me.”

Can he turn things around and begin attending to the needs of those on his farm, thus improving their attitudes and productivity?

EMBRACED BY THE WIND

The farmer attempted to reassure himself and remain buoyant. But he knew that any tender shoot of change is always the most vulnerable, so he was worried this new plan might just wilt away. The good farmer grew anxious.

He plopped down in his office chair one evening and found himself compulsively wanting to pencil in those declining numbers—as if that would change things!

Unimagined by the farmer, these quivers in his heart actually made their way out to the wind. For if the wind is anything, it is keenly aware of a human heart’s fluttering. The knothole was a two-way corridor. Out went the farmer’s fears, and within only a few breaths, in came the swirling wind. It whistled through the knothole with new wind words, starting with: Believe . . .

The farmer was, or at least had tried to be, on board with this high-minded idea. But “shame” rattled his keys again, as Farmer Able realized he was actually faltering in the “believe” category.

The wind gathered itself and finished its refrain: Believe what you believe.

At first this was a puzzler. To Farmer Able, it seemed a bit redundant, as in, “Of course I believe what I believe; otherwise I wouldn’t believe it.” But then he chewed on the deeper meaning.

What do I believe . . . really?

As he pondered this, he looked over on the wall. He had hung a few framed photographs. There was his wife and daughter, Patience and Sunny, of course. In the center of this grouping was one of those aerial shots of his farm. His family farm had come down to him from his father’s mother’s father. It wasn’t just land and lapboard buildings. No, it was . . . well . . . him. He “believed” in all it stood for.

It suddenly dawned on him. He was terrified of losing it. If he lost the farm, he wouldn’t just lose a home and the security that came with it. No, he’d lose himself altogether. He would be a loser. A failure.

Just then he wondered: Had he believed only in what he feared? Had fear been driving him all these years? Is this why he was so rough on himself and everything around him? He had to make sure, come heck or high water, that the farm wouldn’t go under—that he wouldn’t go under.

As these questions wafted through his head, the wind gusted again. Farmer Able heard the little singsong in the knothole. He was reminded that the creak of the wind had irritated him before. But now he found himself actually yearning for it.

He sprang from his chair and flung open the old granary window. Whoosh! came the wind. He shut his eyes and threw back his head, letting it rush over him like a cavalcade. Ahh, the vitality of the spring breeze as it brought up the newness of the freshly planted fields was like music to his ears.

Farmer Able looked back as he stood there in the breeze: What’s there to fear? I’m a unique person in the world. I have something to offer. I’m embraced by the wind itself. And because of that sense of belonging to something beyond myself, I can inspire others with their own self-worth. Yes, that is what I believe.

That evening, the wind carried away his shadows. In this new light, Farmer Able saw one thing he clearly had to do. He looked over at the photographs of Patience and Sunny. He had always justified his bad behavior, thinking, I’m doing all this for them. But that dusky excuse just had to go. He knew he had to set things right.