David Dye's Blog, page 50

How to Get Beneath the Surface to Support Your Team (Video)

Get beneath the surface to better support your team.

“It seems like things are going well on the surface, but I’m concerned about what’s going on underneath? How can I find out what’s going on below?”

I get this question a lot. Leaders are concerned that they might not know what their team is really feeling and thinking.

Here are some ideas for going deeper, with some fun footage from under the see in Bonaire on this special edition of Asking For a Friend, underwater edition.

1:00 Bring your team together in person if at all possible

Integrating some in-person opportunities (sharing a meal, talking casually) adds magic and depth to collaboration. It’s much easier to get beneath the surface when you’re more relaxed.

1:54 Ask courageous questions to get beneath the surface conversation

Examples:

What’s one thing that’s sabotaging your productivity right now?What’s one area that you are really concerned about our team functioning?What is one idea that would help you feel more comfortable bringing us more ideas?

Here is a list of courageous questions that will help you get beneath the surface a bit faster.

2:27 Consider mixing up your one-on-ones

Have a deep connection at a human level, not just creating clarity and seeing what people need.

Additional Resources for Getting Beneath the Surface Conversation with Your TEam

Team Conflict: How to Surface and Discuss Simmering Issues

Psychological Safety: Why People Don’t Speak Up at Work

Remote One-on-Ones: What Employees are Yearning For Most

Your turn:  What ideas do you have for going deeper.

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Leaders Coaching Leaders: One Secret to Sustainable Leadership Development

As organizations flatten and people continue to work remotely, it will take more than an executive sponsor to ensure your leadership development sticks. You need leaders at every level engaged with your training as leader coaches to facilitate application and learning.

The Power of Leaders as Coaches

If your Sales SVP thinks your leadership development program is a distraction, your sales managers will show up late and multi-task.

But what if that same sales SVP showed up as an active coach in the process? Imagine they were to kick off the training with a powerful story, then stay and engage with the team? After the training, what if they check for understanding to ensure their team understands the new techniques and why they matter? What if they celebrate when they see the behaviors in action?

We bet you’d give that leadership development program a high probability of igniting real culture change.

Now, imagine if you had leaders at every level doing that with their teams.

How to Create a More Sustainable Leadership Development Program

When you involve leaders as coaches, your leaders have a structured way to go back and role model what they’ve learned. And, they have an easy way to cultivate those competencies in their teams. Leaders coach, and reinforce, the skills they’re learning. They facilitate practical conversations about how the team can take performance to the next level.

Wait, What? Who Has Time for That?

You might be thinking, “It’s hard enough to get my managers to attend a leadership development program. Now you want them to be leadership coaches too? That all seems a bit much.”

We get it. No one has time for meetings that don’t impact learning outcomes and business results. And, we’ve seen busy leaders embrace their role as coaches because they are high-ROI engagements that achieve multiple business outcomes.

First, managers practice skills that directly apply to their daily leadership: asking great questions; drawing reluctant team members into the conversation; listening without bias; reflecting on what they’ve heard; running a great meeting.

Second, these leadership coaching conversations focus on real business priorities and outcomes. They’re practical. They make work smoother, improve team dynamics, and increase productivity.

Your leadership development ROI compounds significantly as managers coach what they learn. If you have ten managers attend a leadership program supplemented by a leader coaching program, you trained them and everyone on their teams.

Your training for ten just turned into impact for one hundred.

Two Approaches to Help Leaders Engage as Coaches

Here are two leaders-as-coaches models you can use to create sustainability in your leadership development programs.

Challenger Groups: Senior Leaders as Cross-Functional Leader Coaches

We love to incorporate leaders as coaches in our long-term leadership programs through what we call challenger groups.

Challenger groups leverage senior-level leaders to mentor and support participants, helping them apply what they’ve learned.

One or two senior managers who have taken (or are taking) the course lead a challenger group of 7-10 participants to discuss what everyone is learning and applying from the formal, instructor-led training.

Conversations focus on applications to their day-to-day work. Ideally, these participants come from different regions, departments, or areas of the business.

We support the challenger group leader coaches through mastermind sessions and an easy-to-follow facilitation guide. These informal sessions help create psychological safety for the team and build your leaders’ confidence in facilitating these sessions.

Challenger groups create sustained culture change in four ways.

First, there’s no better way to reinforce a skill than to teach it.Second, challenger-group participants learn from one another about how the leadership techniques work in different contexts.Third, participants see senior leaders modeling tools and using what they learned.Finally, everyone develops a network of trusted strategic peer relationships.Team Accelerator Programs: Video-Based Guided Learning for Managers to Accelerate Culture

In this team accelerator model, managers actively guide their teams through a co-learning and application process.

In this model, the managers take an hour each month with their team to watch a short video, learn a new concept or skill, then use a provided discussion guide to help their team apply the concept to their work.

The team ends each meeting by creating a mutual behavioral commitment based on the topic. By the end of the program, they have a robust, co-created team agreement.

Between sessions, the manager and team members watch for opportunities to celebrate when they follow through on their commitments and call each other back to their agreement when they don’t fulfill it.

For example, some of our clients use a 7-10 month team accelerator program to supplement our instructor-led leadership development program.

Topics include aligning on key priorities and behaviors, holding accountability conversations, taking appropriate risks, developing deeper connections, and helping the team share their ideas.

As leaders facilitate conversations on these topics with their teams, everyone develops the skills (not just the manager).

As in the challenger group model, your managers continue to hone their own leadership and facilitation skills while they work as leadership coaches.

And, your teams learn practical skills to become more productive team members and prepare them for continued responsibility and leadership. Your teams work on practical, tactical ways to improve their performance, while managers become more accountable for the leadership skills they learned.

Join us at ATD in Orlando to Learn More About Leadership Development Programs that Stick

If you want to ensure your leadership development program creates real culture change, help leaders become culture accelerators. If you’re interested in learning more, or have best practices of your own to share, we hope you will join us at ATD in Orlando on May 18th at 10:30 EST where we’ll be leading a highly interactive program and sharing a high-ROI case study.

Related Articles:

Virtual Leadership Training: 10 Questions to Ask Before Launching a Leadership Development Program

9 Questions to Help Your Team Solve Problems on Their Own

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Seeing Around Corners: How to Know What’s Coming Next (Video)

Practical Approaches for Seeing Around Corners:
A Conversation with Rita McGrath

On, this edition of Asking For a Friend, I talk with Rita McGrath, author of Seeing Around Corners. We discuss, “How to think strategically when you don’t know what’s coming next.”

“Snow Melts From the Edges”

Andy Grove, former I CEO and author of Only the Paranoid Survive observed that “When spring comes, snow melts first at the periphery because that is where it is most exposed.”  I love that image.  That’s why it’s so critical to listen carefully to the people closest to the edges: particularly your frontline employees and your customers.

This conversation about seeing around corners made me think of our early live-online, spaced learning over time leadership development programs.

The idea for what would become one of our signature programs came from the edges, a prospective customer at the time. Michelle Braden (you can watch her on Asking For a Friend here), said:

“I’ve read your books, and I want to work with you guys, but my teams are all over the world.  Can you design a program where I don’t have to fly you to Bulgaria, Ireland, Asia, and Las Vegas? Ideally, I’d love to have them working in mixed International cohorts.

We designed a 6 month, highly interactive live-online program, with mixed cohorts. Which included a micro-learning, learning lab, action learning, and application/reinforcement sessions in-between.

The program was highly successful and we learned a lot about the technology and techniques to maximize engagement and sustained learning. We’re so grateful because right around the corner, was a global pandemic.

Michelle’s ability to help us see around corners positioned us to quickly pivot our in-person programs to live online. And to give our customers and prospects the confidence that we could do that well.

More from Michelle Braden on Leadership Development

What are Your Best Practices for Seeing Around Corners?

In this interview, Rita shares some great examples of companies thriving because they got good at seeing around corners. And shares examples of what happens when they don’t.

I’m curious, what are your best practices for seeing around corners?

The post Seeing Around Corners: How to Know What’s Coming Next (Video) appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Leading from the Jumpseat with Peter Docker

Do you believe you’re capable of accomplishing extraordinary things? How about your team?  In this episode, Peter Docker, author of Leading from the Jumpseat, talks about leadership that lifts people up and gives them the space they need so that, when the time is right, they can take the lead.

In business and in life, handing over the reins to others is inevitable. Everyone will eventually leave their team, retire from being the CEO, or see their kids leave home and lead their own lives. Leading from the Jumpseat enables us to embrace this inevitability and is a metaphor for how we can choose to lead. It’s about the journey we take so we can hand over control to others, who are then equipped to continue forward. Jumpseat Leadership is a way of interacting with people that will enhance performance in any given situation – during normal business, times of crisis, and life in general. Becoming a Jumpseat Leader takes practice and Peter gives you a practical guide to handing over control.

 

Leading from the Jumpseat

12:24
What is leading from the jump seat?

16:50
The opportunity to lead from the jump seat is the opportunity to embrace the inevitable.

19:07
What is the difference between taking a position and a stand?

21:25
This simple distinction really helps us in leading because if we can identify what our stands are, they will guide us during times of uncertainty in crisis because a stand comes from those things that are deeply important to us, those non-negotiables.

31:10
How do you encourage leaders to confront fear?

34:09
Courage cannot exist without fear. So this is not about sweeping fear under the carpet. It’s about seeing fear as a warning flag.

48:14
Next time someone brings a complaint in whatever form, ask questions to find the underlying commitment because behind every complaint is a commitment.

 

Connect with PeterInstagramLinkedInTwitterWebsiteGet the book

 

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How to Be a Better Project Manager (or just run better projects)

Don’t let these common project management mistakes
derail your influence.

Every week we talk with deeply committed, human-centered project managers frustrated with their lack of influence. They yearn to be a better project manager, but something’s not quite clicking.

They care deeply. They’re working really hard and way too long. They’re tenacious and scrappy, paying attention to every detail. And yet, somehow they don’t have the influence they need to make a bigger impact.

If you’re looking to be a better project manager, or to help grow the project leaders on your team, consider if you’re falling into any of these traps—these common mistakes that project managers make.

Avoid These Five Common Mistakes Project Managers Make

Let’s start with the big one: unbridled tenacity.

1. Showing Up With Unbridled Tenacity

You can’t be a great project manager without a bit of well-organized tenacity. After all, your job is to ensure this project succeeds. Tenacity is a powerful leadership skill.

And, when taken too far, tenacity will diminish your influence and tank your credibility.

We’ve seen too many project managers’ careers stall because they pushed too hard for their deliverables, without considering the bigger strategic priorities. The best project managers have mastered the art of strategic tenacity. They know exactly when to turn up the burners and sound the alarms—and when to back off the gas.

To be a better project manager, ask yourself: How can I ensure this project succeeds AND be supportive and respectful of people’s competing priorities?

2. Hiding Behind Your Sponsor

Your credibility is directly correlated to YOUR influence.  YES, keep your project sponsor informed and engaged. Listen deeply and get all the advice you can. Ask them to come to your project kickoff and advocate for what you need at the senior level. AND never forget that the minute you have to start dropping names to get work done, your credibility suffers (see also “How Your Great Boss Might Be Hurting Your Career).”

To be a better project manager ask yourself: What relationships must I nurture to build more trust and influence?

Before you escalate, as yourself, “How can I dig deeper to understand the pushback I’m getting? How can I build deeper cross-functional peer relationships at my level?

3. Dodging the Obvious Questions (with a well-articulated, concise answer)

Has this ever happened to you? You’re leading a project and you’re all over the details  You’ve got pivot tables for your pivot tables.

There isn’t a question you can’t answer—given enough time and access to the right spreadsheet. But here’s where we see so many hard-working, well-meaning project managers get into trouble. They get lost in the data and find it hard to articulate answers to the obvious questions.

Are we on track?What support do you need?What could potentially derail our timeline?How does this compare to our performance last year?Who else could benefit from what you are building?How does this tie into our merger integration work?

Be sure you’re prepared to answer the big picture questions in any hallway conversation that may arise.

To be a better project manager ask yourself: Is this project on schedule? Do we need anything? Is this project still relevant given (insert the big strategic change that just happened here_______)?

4. Spinning the Truth

“Well, he talks a good game,” is one of the phrases most likely to come before the word “but.” Yes, you’ve got to be able to tell a great story—just be sure that it’s true. One of the best ways to gain credibility as a PM is to be a highly-articulate truth-teller.

To be a better project manager, ask yourself: Am I able to clearly articulate the true story, including vulnerabilities and mistakes?

5. Avoiding Tough Conversations

If the project were easy, you wouldn’t need a project manager. The best project managers know how to hold accountability conversations early and often. If this is tough for you, try our I.N.S.P.I.R.E. model that we shared in PM Network Magazine.

To be a better project manager, ask yourself: Am I willing and able to put the needs of the project ahead of my own discomfort? Do I have the skills to hold people accountable in a way that strengthens both results and preserves the relationship?

If any of these five mistakes sound familiar, we encourage you to take a moment and try one new approach as you continue your journey to becoming an even better project manager.

Additional Resources to Help You Be a Better Project Manager

Leadership Skills: 6 Competencies You Can’t Lead Without

Resourcefulness Matters: How to Teach Your Team to Be More Resourceful

The Biggest Mistakes Even the Best Project Managers Make

Your turn. What would you add? What’s your best advice to help someone become a better project manager?

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Building Corporate Soul with Ralf Specht

Have you checked the Soul Index? One of the most pressing questions for corporate leaders today is how do I build and sustain a human-centric performance culture? At a time when 10,000 baby boomers retire every day, 79% of employees quit their jobs because they don’t feel appreciated at their workplace, and 69% of millennials see a lack of potential for leadership development in their companies, Building Corporate Soul sets out to transform the performance and value of organizations―and to make soulless companies a thing of the past.

In this episode, Ralf Specht shares his unique framework, The Soul System™, that aligns value-creating employee behaviors with corporate strategy through shared understanding and shared purpose and how every leader, no matter the industry, can ignite (or re-ignite) the corporate soul in their firm. Based on the latest research and real-life cases, this actionable framework shows how to build a culture at the workplace that is both human centric and success driven.

 

Building Corporate Soul

08:25
shared purpose means finding out the clarity about why you’re here, why the company is here, and sharing it is critical in two ways.

09:12
Shared understanding is about the vision, the mission, the values, and, something that often gets overlooked, the spirit.

14:42
Is human centered leadership the right thing to do, is it a business case, or both?

17:12
If I take all these studies and put them next to each other and blend them into a statistic, that puts the weight on employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and CEO approval. Then marry that with business success and brand success and let’s see what happens.

29:36
The guiding principles in terms of leadership for successful corporations like LinkedIn, Southwest, Lego, and Hilton.

36:56
You’re building culture either way, so it’s which builder are you and which culture are you building?

37:52
Powering culture and success with the soul system.

38:43
How to promote the right people and manage the announcement in a way that you link the qualification that is culturally aligned to the soul of the organization to the heart skills of that person so that everybody will recognize why.

46:22
How do you structure every different aspect of organization life and all the systems to support corporate soul?

47:12
What are some specific examples of soulful behavior or leadership that stood out for you while working with top corporations?

 

Connect with Ralf

LinkedIn

Website

Get the Book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Employee Retention: Retain an Employee Who Has One Foot Out the Door (Video)

Employee retention happens at every phase of the employee experience.

You have a highly valued employee who you sense is looking for a new opportunity. You’d hate to lose them, but you know people are leaving jobs during this “Great Resignation.”  How do you get them to consider the “Great Return” or even better, not leaving in the first place?

Today on Asking for a Friend, I speak with employee retention expert, Beverly Kaye, author of Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em, Getting Good People to Stay.

Some of Bev’s Best Bets for Retaining Employees1:07 What do you do if you have a good employee who you feel has one foot out the door?

1:21 Allow for an elegant exit because there is potential for a return. People are “boomeranging” back to jobs they left.

2:37 If they are intent on leaving, talk to them about their job equity: social, influence, skill, and finances to make sure they understand what they are leaving.

4:52 How do you handle the concern that people are leaving because they are less connected when working remotely?

Free Resource for Employee Retention

Bev has written a free resource Staying Connected While Working Apart. Click here for your copy.

Your turn: What ideas do you have for retaining a valued employee?

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Mentoring Conversations: How to Be Remarkably Helpful with Limited Time

Even a few focused minutes
can lead to a great mentoring conversation.

If you’ve ever had a great mentor, you know the power of honest and meaningful mentoring conversations.

It’s amazing what can happen when a mentor asks you courageous questions that make you think differently or help you to reframe problems. A great mentoring conversation can be just what you need to view yourself, your capabilities, or your career in new ways.

A good mentoring conversation leaves you feeling uplifted, refreshed, appropriately challenged, and maybe even the good kind of confused.

In an ideal world, you’d have time on your calendar each week for sustained mentoring relationships. And you’d have a mentor yourself. But those relationships take time—time you probably don’t have right now.

But what if you could still make a meaningful contribution one focused mentoring conversation at a time?

The Fifteen Minute Mentoring Conversation that Changed My Game

I was a Verizon HR Director in my early thirties when Ray, who was an SVP of Customer Service, approached me casually after a merger integration planning meeting we had both attended.

We had been working together on this project for several months, so he had gotten more than a passing glance at my leadership style. But he was not my boss. Nor was he my mentor. He certainly wasn’t obliged to dig into an impromptu mentoring conversation.

“Karin, what are you going to do next in your career?”

Without skipping a beat, I responded,

“I’m hoping to be VP of HR here soon.” After all, I know where I was on the succession planning grid (as the HR director, those grids were locked in my desk, along with the designated “next steps” for all “hi-potential” candidates, so I was familiar and comfortable with the plan).

Also, without missing a beat, Ray responded. “Yeah, that could make sense … I suppose.”

And then he just kept quiet.

Note: “I suppose …” followed by quiet silence is quite the informal mentoring conversations ninja move.

The kind of quiet that makes you look up and say, “What?”

“It’s just that if you move into an HR VP role now, you’re pretty much committing to be in human resources for the rest of your career.

BUT, if you make a lateral move to lead a large team, you open all kinds of possibilities for your career.

PLUS, I’d much rather work with an HR VP with some tried and true field experience under their belt. Go carry a bag (meaning take up a sales leadership role) or lead one of our large call centers.”

“Wait what? Who would put me in charge of a five hundred person call center with no call center experience?”

Ray continued, “Well, I would. But don’t take my word for it. Why don’t you ask my VPs?

Go tell them I asked you to get a few minutes on their calendars and see if they would put you in a call center director opening if it came up.

See if THEY think your HR skills are transferable.”

So, I did.

I spoke with all four Vice Presidents of Customer Service. Three out of four said they’d put me in a call center leadership role in a heartbeat. One said, “Nope, I think you should stay in HR.”

The other three were ready to give me a chance.

Six months later, a call center opening came up, and Maureen, one of Ray’s VPs put me in charge.

That fifteen-minute impromptu mentoring conversation completely opened my mind to what my career could become.

Once I realized I loved leading large teams, the new challenges kept coming.

I moved from customer service to sales (turns out, I like to “carry a bag,” to marketing, to transforming our strategic partnership channel, my favorite role of all, working with 10,000 human beings in our BPO call center partners in seven different companies).

And, if it hadn’t been for that mentoring conversation, there’s no way I would have the depth and breadth of experience to write the books or grow leaders across so many disciplines or lead a human-centered leadership training firm.

The most impactful mentoring conversations need not be all that long, or part of a long-term mentoring relationship, to change the game.

What impact could you make with a few 15-to-30-minute mentoring conversations?

Here are a few ways to get started.

Notice a behavior that’s really making an impact, and tell them why it matters.Invite them to share their best practice at your next staff meeting.Ask them to bring you their best idea about how to improve a process, policy, or customer experience.Have them complete our developmental discussion planner, and come prepared to talk about what they might like to do next.Invite them to consider what brings them joy in their work.Use the “Nine What’s” Coaching Process to help them solve a problem on their own.Ask about their MIT (Most Important Thing) and the biggest roadblocks they are facing.Invite them to shadow you in a meeting or event.Talk about their strategic career network (this tool can help) and encourage them to invest more deeply in a relationship or two (in addition to you.)

Of course, a sustained series of mentoring conversations is even better as you build trust and connection over time. But don’t let limited time hold you back from contributing what you can and making an impact.

I’m so grateful for Ray and his fifteen minutes of transformation. To whom could you offer that gift?

Your turn. Your best thoughts for better mentoring conversations?

What would you add? What are some great topics for short mentoring conversations?

See Also:

How to Be a Better Mentee (includes video)

6 Secrets to a Successful Mentoring Program

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Connectable with Ryan Jenkins

Have you experienced a desire for connection, or feelings of loneliness, over the past few years? Feelings of loneliness among employees are on the rise with 72% of global workers suffering from it. This sense of isolation is contributing to a real and growing mental health problem that affects both individuals and organizations.

In this episode, Ryan Jenkins author of Connectable shows how tackling the issue of worker loneliness head-on can transform an isolated workforce into one that’s happier, more engaged, and more productive. Ryan sheds light on what’s causing today’s loneliness, the role inclusion plays in solving it, and how you can decrease loneliness and increase belonging, engagement, and performance with employees at every level―including yourself.

 

Connectable

07:06
Destigmatizing loneliness because it’s a universal human condition. We experience it all the time and it’s not shameful. It’s in fact useful. It’s our subtle cue that we need to seek and forge and nurture our connections.

10:59
Loneliness is not the absence of people. It’s the absence of connection.

11:26
How do we strengthen connection? That could be a connection with oneself that could be a connection with colleagues, with the work itself, to the organization, or the culture.

11:56
Belonging is not our most urgent need, it is one of humanity’s most significant needs.

14:30
If we can’t create a greater sense of belonging, then, workers are less likely to be engaged at work. They’re five times more likely to miss work, due to stress or illness. And they think about leaving their employer twice as often.

20:57
Well-being is boosted even if we have a small connection.

32:15
One of our core needs is to link with others. What is the LINK four-step framework that keeps us connectable?

36:00
We don’t have to talk openly about loneliness, but there are subtle things that we can do that can spark more genuine connections.

40:35
the definitive answer to a long and healthy life according to the longest study of adult development ever conducted is quality relationships.

43:41
We’re all in this loneliness journey together because we all experience it. Subtle behavior changes are all it takes for us to start drawing each other closer to one another.

48:32
We can connect with other human beings regardless of role, position status, and it’s necessary for our health and the health of our organizations and teams to be connectable.

 

Connect with RyanWebsiteLinkedInYouTubePodcastTwitter: @ryanandstevenInstagram: @ryanandstevenTikTok: @ryanandsteven

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How Do I Help My Team Handle Burnout at Work? (Video)

One of the most frequent questions we get (often whispered after everyone else has left the physical or virtual room, is “how do I help my team handle burnout at work?” Closely followed by an even more quiet whisper, “And what if I’m the one feeling burned out?”

That’s why I was so excited to talk with Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic on my #askingforafriend show to talk about burnout at work, why it happens, and how to address it from an organizational, team, and personal perspective.

What Causes Burnout at Work?

Jennifer shares 6 main causes of burnout at work

Excessive workloadPerceived lack of controlLack of recognitionPoor relationshipsLack of fairnessValues mismatch2:15 Jennifer, what has been a source of strength and inspiration for you over these last couple of years?

Dialing back the activity and slowing down has been very healthy.

3:30 Burnout issues need to be fixed on a systemic level, team level, and individual level.4:00 Acknowledging the Systemic Issues Contributing to BurnoutBurnout is sometimes defined as Institutional stress left unmanaged.You cannot fix burnout with self-care alone.Because the root causes of burnout are institutional, we need to attack the problems much earlier on (“upstream”), looking at societal issues such as leave policies in order to fix challenges. This may mean changing policies to cover non-traditional needs (i.e. parental leave not just for births or bereavement leave for losses beyond the immediate family) and designing policies to meet people where they are at.12:44 The war for talent affecting burnout.It’s very challenging to encourage people to take breaks when there is so much work because of turnover.This may not be the time to have rapid growth acceleration goals or stretch goals.Decrease workload by increments.Reduce inefficiencies.Train more strategically to streamline and save time.Encourage lots of communication between team members and leadership.15:13 Ideas for frontline leaders to use with their teams to fight burnoutWe are still acting like we were when the emergency started. There has been a large increase in meetings, chats, and emails.Change the expectations of who should be at meetings, how long they need to stay in the meeting and make meetings more actionable.Determine what communications are really needed.

Not being invited to a meeting isn’t a slight – it’s a gift.

19:30 The good intentions that are backfiring.Ask your team before deciding on certain policies or benefits:“How much do you want to be in the office?”“Do you enjoy the holiday parties or not?”“Is yoga with the boss comfortable?”“Are virtual happy hours really beneficial or is it one more thing to do?”Also, be careful not to be tone-deaf (i.e. fitness challenges when there are people less physically able to participate.)Remember that a committee planning wellness/culture initiatives are not just for deciding – it should be about asking.

Frequent, consistent, active listening is key.

24:21 Helping yourself with burnout issues.Burnout was first defined as “caregiver syndrome.”Highly engaged workers care so much and therefore can be extremely stressed.If you feel like you are no longer getting joy out of your work or are feeling disassociated or cynical, that may be a sign of burnout.Overworking people can devalue their passion, which can negatively affect the community and economy as a whole (particularly if their role involves direct service to the community as in healthcare, teaching, etc. and we lose the ability to meet community needs because of a lack of workers.)27:20 How to talk with your manager about burnout.

67% of people surveyed felt like they could not talk about mental health at work. It’s starting to change. If you don’t feel safe talking about it, see if there are more anonymous means (i.e. telehealth options) by which you can take care of yourself, or decide how long you want to work at that company.

29:10 What are effective ways to meet people where they are while also meeting company policies?The social contract with our workplaces is changing, but it’s still a transactional relationship that needs to be mutually beneficial.Asking what people need is key. Talk to employees about your role and consider yourself a mental health conduit, even if not a mental health professional.Overcommunicate about the tools and options available.Spend time with the HR team (who often feel siloed) to learn about options/policies. Give them data that will help them craft healthy policies.31:43 One last piece of advice

There’s no right way to feel right now. We are in a bit of a healing phase while dealing with uncertainty. It’s time to give ourselves more grace and compassion. Acknowledge that we can’t do it all. Instead, cheer yourself on for making it through another day. Also, give that grace and compassion to others.

Your turn.  What suggestions do you have for fighting burnout at work in yourself or in your team?

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