Susan Scott's Blog, page 43

3 Tips for Deeper Conversations in Your Team Meetings

If you’re a connected leader, chances are you meet with your team weekly or bi-weekly to touch base and talk shop. While the details of the meeting will vary from leader to leader, the goal is usually the same: share ideas, innovate, and strategize.

However, when speaking with our clients, it’s common to hear that hosting meaningful meetings can be tough. Typically the conversations stay surface level.

Below are three tips you can apply to make the conversations within your group meetings more robust and deliberate while still having fun along the way.

Tip #1: Not All Agendas Are Created Equal

While there might be some logistical details that need to be covered in your meetings, they shouldn’t be put to the group in the same way as an idea that needs real creative thought around it. In our Team program, we use an idea prep form that breaks out what the issue is, why it’s significant, the ideal outcome and what help is wanted from the group. No matter what model you use, make sure to ask questions and share information in a way that gets the creative juices flowing so people look at the topic with the most knowledge possible. Speak to the heart of the issue quickly to leave more time for conversation.

Tip #2: What Else?

If you’re running the meeting then your purpose is to facilitate the conversation. This means that you should probe for understanding and provoke the learning of others by asking – what else? On any given topic a good rule of thumb is to ask what else at least three times. Every time you ask, you go deeper.

Tip #3: Leave Room For Everyone

I’m an extrovert and an external processor, so I talk a lot in meetings. Chances are you have people on your team like me. However, we should not be the only ones that get our voices heard. As the leader of this meeting, you should leave space for others who don’t speak up as often to share their opinions by asking them directly for their perspectives. If this is not common in your culture, it’s a good idea to call out that you aren’t picking on these quieter team members, and in fact, you’re asking because you really want to hear their perspective and value their opinions.

So, how do you go deeper in your group conversations?

A version of this blog was originally published October 30th, 2013 on the Fierce Leadership Blog.

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Celebrate Your All-Stars

It is common for organizations and teams to lean on their all-stars to take them to new levels. That is to be expected. However, we often see that in organizations, the all-stars burn out the quickest. They are also the ones most poached, and they leave for bigger opportunities.

We understand that, because the all-stars are the employees you want to replicate. The all-stars are the ones that will always do the extra work. They take on that one extra project. They do one more client engagement. They go above and beyond.

It is important to recognize the value all-stars bring to your team and organization. I once worked with a vendor at Microsoft who was famous for burning out his top talent. He would just keep piling on more projects, more engagements, more talks, while leaving other team members who needed more help and development room to have work-life balance. It never took long for the all-stars to catch on, and eventually, another organization would whisk them away. It was common for the all-star to say: That was a great experience, and now I need more balance and control over what I work on.

I know for a fact that he wished more employees would stay and grow in different ways and bigger capacities, and yet, the conversations didn’t happen.

So I ask: How do you treat your all-stars? Do they feel they have the balance they desire? Do they have time to reflect and grow the way they want to? Are you having the conversation?

This week’s tip is to celebrate the all-stars on your team. To get started, who shows up every day with a stellar attitude? Who always chips in when others are slammed? Who brings new and inventive ideas to the table? Those are the people you want to recognize.

Here are some ideas:

Ask what specific recognition they would most appreciate. Don’t assume that they want the verbal announcement. They may want some extra cash or the support to take some time off.Take them out to lunch. Pause and take time to talk about how they are doing as individuals. Although work will most likely be discussed, try to turn the focus on more personal goals and ask more about how they are.Give positive feedback. Take the time to give impactful feedback to the individual. Many people will give more superficial feedback like you are doing great or you rocked that project. Create more value by giving specific examples and share how they have personally and organizationally made a difference.

Who are you celebrating this week? And how?

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Friday Resource: 10 Ways to Start 2017 Off Right

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published by Inc.com and shares ten practical New Year’s resolutions that you can actually accomplish in 2017. 

It can be very tempting to start the New Year off with grandiose plans that include overly ambitious resolutions. The reason that most people cannot fulfill their New Year resolutions is simply because they set the bar too high. It is always a great idea to get healthy and save money, but be practical. Start with a 10K instead of diving right into that marathon you want to run.

Per Rhett Power, Inc., try to improve your 2017 by setting resolutions and goals that can be accomplished and add real value to your life. A few of these modest resolutions include:

Reconnect. Try to call up someone you have been missing and would like to catch up with. It doesn’t have to be an all-day extravaganza. Simply letting the person know you are thinking of them can go a long way.Go somewhere alone. The New Year is a great time to reflect on all facets of your life. With 2016 in the rear view it is important to make time to relax and reflect. Try going for a long walk or dinner and see if you feel recharged.Free up digital space. Create a truly fresh start by going through your phone, computer and email and purging everything that is no longer needed. You’ll be amazed by how organized and efficient you feel.

To see Power’s other seven practical resolutions, read the full article.

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How to Replace Fear with Achievement in 2017

“Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.” -W. Clement Stone

Fear is a common barrier that exists between where you are and where you want to be.

We all experience fear to some degree. It doesn’t always manifest as sweaty palms or heart palpitations, either. Sometimes the presence of fear is subtle and sneaky, finding its way into areas of your life where it often goes unnoticed.

If you’ve come up with a list of New Year’s resolutions that you want to bring to fruition but one or many of them seem intimidating (which is often the case when it comes to conversations or confrontation), it may be beneficial to turn towards the barrier rather than try to ignore or bypass it. Doing so can help propel you forward toward your goals with greater force, whereas unacknowledged fear can feel like strong winds pushing against you as you try to move forward.

The presence of fear isn’t an issue in itself. In fact, you can continue to operate regardless of fear. But without investigating more closely, fear can begin to function outside of your awareness by showing up as inhibitions that prevent you from experiencing what could be.

Fear is worthy of a closer look because it plays a causal role in the life you are automatically leading versus the life you’d like to be intentionally creating.

Psychology Today details how surface-level fears boil down to five main core fears that we all share:

1. Extinction (death)
2. Mutilation (dismemberment)
3. Loss of Autonomy (loss of freedom or control)
4. Separation (rejection, abandonment)
5. Ego-death (loss of identity)

One effective approach to exposing a fear is to visualize how things would be different in the best-case scenario. Envision what your environment, your relationships, and your professional achievements would look like in full bloom.

Then, ask yourself:

What conversations have you been avoiding with colleagues? What personal perspectives or concerns are you harboring that have yet to be expressed?

What have you been telling yourself and others that you’d like to do but have yet to take on?

What’s something you’d like to see become reality but have “practical” reasons as to why you can’t follow through?

If you can answer the what aspect of these questions, fear is likely present.

So what’s the cure, the antidote, the alternative? It’s simple: taking action.

It may sound like a daunting task to confront fear, but the objective is not to get rid of fear altogether. Instead, it’s to become aware of it and take inspired action in opposition to it. And fortunately, baby steps suffice—you may not have that difficult conversation right off the bat, but you can begin planning and preparing for the eventual confrontation.

And taking action isn’t just a Pollyanna “you can do it” type of platitude—it’s backed by neuroscientific research. A New York Times article on rewriting traumatic memories explains how positive exposure to a feared scenario can lessen fear related to that scenario over time.

If you still feel reluctant to act regarding your resolutions, dig a little deeper: if nothing changes, what are the implications? What do you feel when you consider these possible outcomes? The answer may help you pinpoint the core fear and provide the fuel you need to take action.

Be fierce and combat fear by taking an inspired action today, whether it be big or small, towards what you want to achieve in 2017.

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Make Your Conversation Resolution

Congratulations for arriving to the new year! You are in this exact place as a result of all of your conversations in 2016. Yes all of them. The successful and the failed ones. The clean and the messy ones. The ones with tears and the ones with laughs. The ones you had to redo.

Each conversation brought you one step closer to this very moment, these exact results.

So I ask: When you look back, are you happy with the results this past year? What relationships are the most fulfilling? What achievements are you most proud of? What do you wish you would have approached differently? Who deserved more of your time?

When we take it seriously that we are navigating our lives one conversation at a time, it makes it less daunting to take on change because we know our job is to just show up, present and awake, for the conversations that need and want to take place.

This week’s tip is to make a conversations resolution for 2017. Think about the conversations you want and need to have for the coming year and write them down. Think about how you want to show up in those conversations.

To get your mind jogging:

• Who needs an apology?
• Who deserves your praise?
• Who do you need to talk with to discuss what and where you want to go in 2017?
• What relationships need your attention?
• How will you show up in the conversations?

Write your resolution down, and put it in a place you often look. Or add it as a reminder on your phone, so that you get a daily reinforcement at the same time every day.

What is your conversation resolution?

 

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Susan’s Note for the End of Year

Fierce. At first, the name evokes the straightening of spines and deep breaths taken as we walk towards danger. Perhaps it sounds like the yowl of a bobcat, smells like fear, inspires anxiety. And then a piece within our internal kaleidoscope shifts, and we see that a fierce conversation is one in which we come out from behind ourselves, into our conversations, and make them real. So when someone asks if I’m suggesting that all of our conversations should be fierce, the answer is YES! Why be real on Mondays and false on Tuesdays? Why share thoughts or concerns with family and withhold them at work?

But it isn’t easy, being real.

I love this passage from Martin Marten, by Brian Doyle.

It turns out that having a conversation with someone you like and respect is harder as you go deeper, isn’t that so? Conversations are easy on the surface, where there’s just chafing and chatter and burble and comment and opinion and observation and mere witticism or power play, but the more you talk about real things, the harder it gets, for any number of reasons. For one thing, we are not such good listeners as we think we are, and for another, everyone in the end is more than a little afraid of saying bluntly and clearly what they really think and feel – partly because we are nervous about how it will be received and partly because once you say something true and deep and real, it’s been said; it’s out of your heart and out of your mouth and loose in the world, and you cannot take it back and lock it up secret again, which is, to be honest, terrifying…. The wrong words will make someone huddle back inside himself nor is silence an option for silence will itself be a comment reeking of shock or disapproval. And again replies must be crafted in such a manner that someone continues to think aloud; in so many ways, this is what friends are for – to allow you to speak freely, to speak yourself towards some clarity of heart, to think aloud and thrash toward being able to say what it is you feel, for the chasm between what you feel and what you can articulate is vast and wide. And this is not even to mention how very often what we say has nothing whatsoever to do with what we truly feel.”

Of course, our intention going into our conversations is key. How we enter our conversations is how we emerge from them. When we enter a conversation anxious or combative or determined not to say much or intending to make someone wrong, the conversation will be over before it’s begun and the relationship will deteriorate. When we enter a conversation curious, attentive, engaged, awake, willing to be influenced, it could be one of the best conversations we’ve ever had, even if the person with whom we’re talking is not someone we have particularly liked or respected in the past. We end the conversation with a deeper understanding and a desire for more conversations like this.

You know you’re having a fierce conversation when . . .

you are speaking in your real voiceyou are speaking to the heart of the matteryou are really asking and really listeningyou are generating heatyou are enriching a relationshipyou overhear yourself saying things you didn’t know you knewyou don’t take notes, yet you remember every wordyou take yourself and your companion personally, seriouslyyou leave the conversation satisfied, awake, fully alive, and eager for moreyou are different when the conversation was over

The key is to show up—fully. You may be among people who don’t support you. You may be among people who, loving or unloving, are simply not equipped to support the ambition of engaging in fierce conversations. This is not an unusual experience. The courage to show up is both simple and daunting. Once you show up, people can see you. They can judge and criticize and gossip. Some safety and comfort are lost when an ambition or strongly felt emotion is expressed. Perhaps, if you have become impatient with the false identity you have created for yourself, life is inviting you into much larger worlds than you have imagined.

What’s at the heart of fierce conversations is connection, at a deep level, with those who are important to your success and happiness, and with those you have judged, perhaps wrongly, and also with those who need our help. On Christmas Eve, I always watch Alistair Sim’s portrayal of Scrooge in the first and, in my view, best version of A Christmas Carol. When his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, dragging a ponderous chain, pays Scrooge a terrifying visit, warning Scrooge that his life is misdirected, a trembling Scrooge insists that Marley was a good man of business. At this the ghost wails –

“Business! Mankind was my business, their common welfare was my business.”

In the U.S. our common welfare was mislaid during the political primaries of this past year, when candidates from both parties left voters confused, frustrated, disgusted, frightened, and angry. And globally, an “us vs. them” mentality has created a wider divide than ever before. It seems to me that Pablo Casals had it right. “The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border.”

This video gives me hope.

We should be with one another like this. Forget about persuading others to your view. Saying something louder doesn’t make it true. What is called for now is quiet integrity.

Sometimes, all we need to say, as Inspector Gamache suggests in Louise Penny’s novels:

I don’t know.
I need help.
I was wrong.
I’m sorry.

My hope is that you will ratchet up your level of “fierceness” in 2017 because if you want things to change, as I do, then it is you who must change them. Don’t wait for someone else to begin or for others to make it “safe.” You go first. Sit beside someone you care for and even more importantly, sit beside someone you don’t care for and begin.

With fierce affection,

Susan Scott

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Fierce 2017 Workplace Predictions

It’s that time again. Each year, top leaders within organizations are forced to address issues that take place both internally with the world as a whole. 2016 was no exception. From political climate shifts to new industry disruptors, change is continuing to be the new “normal” in the workplace.

When we look into 2017, we see:

Diversity and inclusion initiatives and programs will be expanded: Whatever your political views entail, there is no denying the great divide that has taken over much of our country due to this year’s presidential election. This confluence of beliefs can create issues in the workplace if individual workers feel marginalized, unsupported, or even fearful.  Taking control of this conversation is key for organizations to not only maintain the well-being of their employees, but to ensure that their workplace is one of acceptance across the board. Fierce anticipates that in the coming year there will be a heightened focus on diversity and inclusion programs both within, and in addition to, existing training curriculum.Change leadership will be incorporated into all levels of the company:  In the fast-paced world we live in today, change is inevitable – from structural shifts to leadership changes to industry disruption. These can be significant transformations or several small adjustments over time. Historically, organizations have created change management teams or individuals in charge of getting a company or team through these efforts, yet data shows that 70% of change initiatives fail. In 2017, Fierce predicts a fundamental transference of expertise from a singular team to a critical skill for every leader within an organization to master.The role of conversations will gain emphasis in performance management: The once-a-year review is gone for good, however many employees, millennials in particular, are looking for more action-based feedback from their employers, on an as-needed basis. In addition to the uptick in data-driven reviews, Fierce predicts that in 2017 more organizations will focus on the competency of conversations – from coaching to feedback to confrontation. The goal is to empower individuals to obtain their goals through initiating conversations to ensure they receive what they need, when they need it.

Read our other predictions here.

 

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Celebrate Your Team

We are in the 2016 home stretch. Now is a fantastic time to rally your team together and celebrate this year’s successes. As a leader, when you think about this year’s accomplishments, you probably go straight to the major business outcomes, from excellent talent acquisition to product launches to client retention. Those all should definitely be celebrated. And here I am encouraging you to go deeper on the individual level with your team members. Understand what they like celebrating and give them the attention they deserve.

Here are three exercises to explore. Choose one or do all. Perhaps let each of your team members choose their own activity. The main point is to focus, learn, and celebrate.

Reflect in a month-to-month format. Have your team member list their major accomplishments in each month of 2016. Encourage them to look back on calendars, emails, and notes. Oftentimes we are moving so fast that we do not take time to acknowledge a new skill acquired or a big win. Give them some time to do this activity on their own. Then, in your next one-on-one, review their month-by-month. It is great to focus on successes and the “highs”. Ask why those stand out. This is a great way to learn about each of your team members in a new way. And at the end of the conversation ask: This time next year, what would you like a few of your successes to be in 2017?Create a strategy with each team member. At Fierce, every employee after six months fills out a growth plan. In this growth plan, we focus on four core areas: alignment with company values, current role growth, career growth, and professional development plans. Focus on those four areas with each of your team members. In each of these sections, dig deeper by asking why . Learning your team member’s why is critical for building a strong connection to everything that you do with them. Help the team member map out goals and next steps for those four areas.Do the 3+1 Focus. This is a very simple exercise to create focus. At the beginning of each quarter, I ask each team member to bring 3 development areas that they want to focus on in the next three months. This is a great way to keep it simple and check in on these throughout the quarter. I also ask them to bring 1 development area for me to focus on to best support them. The goal is to answer the questions: As your leader, what is the one area that I can focus on that would make all of the difference to you this quarter? In other words, what can I shift to make me the best possible leader for you? It is critical in this exercise to listen very intently, and then you MUST act. That is why I suggest only one area, because it will accumulate with the number of direct reports you have.

So, which activity are you going to try? Do you have other suggestions?

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Friday Resource: Tips for Networking at Holiday Parties

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published by Forbes.com and discusses how you can leverage the annual holiday office party to network like a pro.

There is a lot more to gain from the annual office holiday party than a few pounds from booze and hors d’oeuvres. Chiefly, career advancement. The annual holiday party is a great opportunity to rub elbows with colleagues outside of your normal circle, allowing for great networking opportunities within your company and your colleagues’ networks.

Per Alison Doyle, The Balance, there are some simple rules to follow if you are to make the most of these networking opportunities. The first rule, never say no to a holiday party. Chances are your company will require you to attend, but don’t be so quick to turn down an invite to join a friend’s or partner’s. You never know what connections you will establish. Secondly, bring something you can take notes on to remember some of the good conversation you had, and any potential follow-up you can do in the future.

The most important thing to remember is be natural, and be yourself. It is important to be consistent, inside and outside of the office.

Read the full article.

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Connect on a Deeper Level

The holidays tend to bring people together. However, being physically together can be a very different experience than truly connecting.

For instance, how many times have you had coffee with someone and he or she is paying attention to technology? How many times have you been at an event and someone looks right past you to see who else is in the room? How about the times when a family member asks you how everything is, and you give the safe, small answer?

These are all missed opportunities to connect. And the impact on your relationships is probably greater than you think.

Take the longest study of human development, the ongoing Grant Study, which is a decades-long project that began following the lives of Harvard University men selected in 1938 – among them President John F. Kennedy and former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee – and tracked every aspect of their lives. What was uncovered was very simple and profound: those satisfied in their relationships were happier, healthier and usually lived longer.

The good news about these results is that we are in control of having healthy and happy relationships. We choose who and how we focus our attention. We choose to stay surface or go deep.

In the spirit of this time of year, this week’s tip is to intentionally connect with someone you care about. This means challenging your tendencies. Here are a few ways to create a deeper connection:

Put your technology away and focus on the present conversation.Go further with your questions than the usual “How’s it going?”When you ask a question, really listen to the response.

Who do you want to connect with this week?

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