Erin Rocchio: Executive and Team Coach

Thrive. Lead. Impact.

How Can Time Management Help You To Manage Stress At Work?

Remember college? You would get an assignment for a 3,000-word paper due in two weeks, and, without fail, you would say to yourself, “I am going to start TODAY.” But, ‘today’ would happen, and something more exciting would come up. A week would roll by, and pretty soon, you are sitting with a paper deadline in 24 hours thinking, “I should have scheduled my time better.” Many of us still experience this in one way or another throughout our careers, and that is where time management can come in handy.

What Is Time Management?

We are all well aware of the common thoughts on time management. Whether you work on time blocking your schedule to accomplish all that you can in the day or abide by the time management matrix, all of us have learned the tips and tricks to be productive. What few resources fail to mention, though, is that there are deeper drives to time management as a whole.

The scheduling of our day occurs at the behavioral or external level, which is important but certainly not the root of why you can’t seem to get tasks done. There are deeper drives at play. Beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and values motivate our behavior—as they should. So, how do you align your actions and structures with your thoughts, core values, and deep commitments?

1 | Focus On What Is Important

Your schedule should not just be a reflection of tasks that drop a dime into your bank account every few minutes. Instead, it should reflect what is important to you. There is a popular process creatd by Stephen Covey that puts tasks and commitments into 4 quadrants of time management: Urgent + Important, Not Urgent + Important, Urgent + Not Important, Not Urgent + Not Important. This works well, but it is not all that you need to have successful and holistic time management values. Instead, this can be step 1 of 6 needed for wholeness in time management. We would urge you as you work through this, though, to not just only think through your workday, think through personal tasks as well, and allow your schedule to reflect you as a whole person.

2 | Prioritize Your Day

Now that you have your most important (and least important) duties laid out in front of you, it is time to prioritize. This is separate from the quadrants because something could be urgent + important, and easily delegated. You know the saying, “You have the same amount of hours in a day as [insert accomplished person’s name].” And it is true. But that sentiment doesn’t cover the fact that whoever you thought of would more than likely delegate one or many tasks a day. Everything from getting ready in the morning, picking out clothes, accounting, and the like can be delegated for some of the world’s most successful people. While we all don’t have that privilege, we can consider what is a priority for ourselves: jumping on a client call, going to your toddler’s baseball game, launching that new project you’ve been working on for months, etc., and then move down the list from there. 

3 | Align Your Core Values

We could write a whole book on values, but we don’t want to get too deep into that here. Values aren’t just something you have painted onto your office wall and think of passively. They should ease their way into the fiber of everything you do. Just as your personality comes to light in every one of your interactions, your values should be clear even in time management. As you think through how your time is being used up each day, ask yourself it is aligning with the values you hold true? If the answer is no, it might be time to drop the task or delegate to someone who would find alignment. 

4 | Keep Your Overall Vision In Mind

In this context, vision is synonymous with goals. But, vision encapsulates not just the endpoint where you can check off a box and say “done,” but how do your tasks feed into your overall vision for you.

Imagine you are just starting your business, and your vision is to someday expand your one-person accounting firm to an office full of accountants, investors, and financial representatives. Something like a marketing task might not align with the image you have for yourself, but without being able to delegate in this phase, it is good—if not helpful—to think of your overall vision. “If I work hard on marketing now, some day I can fulfill the dream of owning a full-service financial firm.”

Aligning tasks with your vision is an excellent way to restructure your feelings about some things that simply have to get done but don’t necessarily feed your fire. 

5 | Leave Time For Renewal

Often overlooked in time management is renewal. For those of us who were or are athletes, we know how essential rest is to ultimate performance. Working out every single day may seem like it would set you on the fast-track to ultimate strength and agility, but, on the contrary, your muscles are actually building and repairing on your rest days. So, the rest is where your power comes from.

Similarly, when you schedule a time for rest and renewal in your workday, you will be a stronger executive or team member when you return. There are science-backed ways to rest at the beginning, middle, and end of your day. The thing is, you must be intentional about it. Scheduling out a 20-minute walk when you typically experience your mid-day slump or being intentional about your sleep will not only make you feel better, it will also ensure that the time you spend on tasks is meant with the vibrancy and energy you so wonderfully have within you. 

6 | Practice Essentialism

All of these steps may feel like an arduous task in itself, but they are leading us to a fundamental process: essentialism. What is essential today in your life? By going through these five previous steps, you are more equipped to say “no” when an un-essential task raises its hand and “yes” when something essential comes up by aligning your day with your values, vision, etc—which is one of the main benefits of time management in this form.

Yeses and nos start to become more comfortable. Think about how good it would feel to be able to confidently say, “No, I do not want to take on this project because it does not align with my overall vision.” It can happen with practice. What you do not do in a day is just as important as what you do. If you are putting more effort into the things that don’t get you any results in your work and personal life than the things that do, it is time to reevaluate. As you work on effective time management, we hope that you view it as not just management of work time, but your time as a whole. That you use positive stress to fuel you and avoid negative stress.

Renewing your spirit, prioritizing things that are important to you, and avoiding burnout. As always, I am here to help you in whatever you may need.

What Is Positive Stress In The Workplace?

Imagine yourself at work. You’ve just given a presentation or received an annual performance review. It didn’t go well. In fact, there is so much cortisol pumping through your body that you feel like you can’t breathe. You take a few deep breaths to calm down and remind yourself that you are not your job, that your job does not define you. 

That sense of distress lingers for a few hours, a few days, maybe even a few weeks. But eventually, there’s a chance that you’re going to have a moment in which something clicks. That sense of stress and panic all of the sudden becomes something useful. You decide that instead of being upset at yourself over your performance, you’re going to use that energy to turn a failure into a challenge for future success. 

This is the transition from negative stress to positive stress, and it will become useful in your professional life. So what is positive stress? How does this work? Let’s dig into it. 

First Things First: What Is Stress?

One of the most important aspects of—well, being alive—is maintaining your cool as a world of chaos unfolds around you. Getting cut off in traffic, an accidental coffee spill, a fight with a partner, or subtle disagreement with a coworker—you name it—our daily lives really come down to managing stress. It is our brain’s duty to try to keep our bodies in some semblance of homeostasis in which it can calmly and effectively get you through each and every day. 

When we’re thrown too far out of homeostasis, our performance suffers. We miss details, we have trouble focusing, and our relationships with others can be impeded. The term “stress,” which occurs when we deviate from homeostasis, was added to the medical lexicon and expanded upon by Hans Selye in the mid-late 20th century to two distinctive types of stress: positive and negative. These are also known as “eustress” and “distress.”

Eustress (Positive Stress) vs Distress (Negative Stress)

The easiest way to parse these two types of stress responses are:

  • Eustress = challenge
  • Distress = threat

The difference between a threat and a challenge is that one is bad for the body and the other actually quite good in small amounts. When we face distress for too long—we call this “chronic stress”—that is where our performance suffers. We face low energy, headaches, insomnia, a weakened immune system, and more. 

Eustress, or “positive stress,” on the other hand, actually leads to a stress response that is positive, constructive, and healthy. It typically results in a positive outcome. Positive stress examples include taking charge during a meeting or trying something new at the gym. While we still feel a racing heart and a surge of hormones as we start talking or exercising, by the end of the day the stressor has been mitigated and we come out feeling better—proud of accomplishing a challenge we set out for ourselves.

Positive Stress and Your Team

So up until this point, we’ve focused on the self as it relates to positive stress (“I”) in the workplace and beyond. But what about positive stress for a whole team of people (“We”)? 

We experience eustress when we choose goals and activities that get us excited and hopeful. The key to having an entire team of inspired people is to frame their challenges to be positive and optimistic. 

You’re a leader in your environment and it’s so important to use words of encouragement to show your peers that you are on their team, that you want to see them succeed. When we feel supported by those who surround us, it’s much easier for us to slip into the “challenge” mindset rather than the “threat” mindset that can be brought on by being criticized in a negative way instead of a constructive one. It is your job to guide people toward taking on the challenges of the tasks that cause the most negative stress and turning them into an opportunity. Cultivating an environment that makes people feel safe to try new things and push to succeed is vital to shifting stressors at work from negative to positive.

Once your team (“We”) sees your shift in attitude, their performance will improve, which is where an entire company can see a positive shift. As you focus on projects massive and minuscule, your system as a whole (“It”) will see an evolution that trends toward collaboration, synergy, and progress. One of the most incredible aspects of positive stress and developing that comfortable, encouraging environment is how very contagious it can be to the whole. 

Mindset Matters: Turning Negative Stress to Positive

How we approach stress and the ways in which we shift our framework of thinking can be incorporated into our lives if we give it an honest effort. 

A few ways of practicing that shift include:

  • Considering your resources. When faced with a problem, you have to dig into your arsenal of tools knowing that you can use them to set out on your goal.
  • Looking at the bright side. Failing in your presentation means you have an opportunity for proving to yourself and to your coworkers that you can learn and improve.
  • Don’t forget how amazing you are. Play to your strengths and remind yourself of them whenever you need a mood boost. 
  • Have a “jar half full” mindset. Try not to give the part of your brain that’s telling you the sky is falling any attention. 

This isn’t always realistic, so don’t feel bad if you and your team face a stressor that you can’t just turn into a positive. Those feelings are still valid and important, so do your best to feel them quickly, collectively address them, and move forward. 

When it comes to positive stress in the workplace, be careful—don’t turn your office into a game of creating eustress. Not everything has to be a challenge, and our societal obsession with “the grind” can cloud our thinking when it comes to improvement. There is something to be said for appreciating a comfort zone but getting outside of it when you and your team need to. Think about eustress like the eject button in James Bond’s Aston Martin. Try to maneuver a situation calmly and carefully before you push the exit button and get to grinding. 

Going Forward

Find a moment to sit down, take stock of this advice, and consider how you can use positive stress for yourself (“I”) and your team (“We”) to establish a welcoming, exciting, progressive environment (“It”). And if you need a little backup in getting those ideas to a place where your team can utilize them, I’m here to serve as a gentle push moving you forward.

Work and Stress: How Do They Correlate?

As humans, we spend almost 30% of our lives working, equivalent to about 25-30 years. Add the additional 36 years we spend sleeping, and you’ve got little time for much else. It’s no wonder why work-related stress is prevalent in so many of us. Work and stress correlate. They have no chance not to. Today we want to talk about that correlation as it relates to an individual (“I”), a team (“We”),  and work systems (“It”) to give you a better understanding of work-related stress.

What Is Stress?

You may be thinking, “I don’t need to read about what stress is—I live with it!” but it is essential to dive into the science behind stress because stress isn’t all bad. Stress is an integral part of being alive. It is what tells us, “This situation doesn’t feel right, and I need to leave.” or, “The deadline is tomorrow!? Time to pull a few extra hours.” This fight or flight feeling dates all of the way back to our ancestors when they needed to decide if they should fight an animal or dangerous situation or flee from it.

The problem exists when we can’t get rid of this feeling—when we feel stress in day-to-day situations. Chronic stress can create many issues, from low energy, insomnia, jaw-clenching, aches and pains, difficulty paying attention, poor judgment, forgetfulness, and more. When this stress is being caused by work, it is time to look at the sources and see how we can combat them.

Causes of Stress At Work

According to The American Institute of Stress, the leading causes of work stress are workload (at a whopping 46%), personnel issues (28%), juggling work and personal lives (20%), and the lack of job security (6%).

Some unnecessary stress at work can be thwarted by simply thinking ahead. We outlined how to navigate through a political season on our blog. Thinking through situations like these can help employees feel included and help keep some personnel issues at bay. Helping us thwart stress within the system of the workplace (“It”), which can trickle down.

With that in mind, knowing the workplace stressors that most employees feel on an individual level (“I”) can help you in working with your team to think ahead. Stress about job security sometimes comes down to your employees simply not receiving any feedback on their work. They may be working day-in and day-out to meet goals and deadlines and doing a wonderful job at it. However, if you do not have a feedback protocol in place, you could be missing an easy way to make sure that your team feels heard. A solution for this is to have an open dialogue with your team. Give them clear benchmarks and award good behavior. A simple “Great job.” could be the difference between your team feeling secure at their job—and thus, keeping stress within your “We” (team) at a healthier level.

Your employees also want to feel a level of control over their work outcomes. As leaders, we can sometimes want to see something done our way and only our way. But, an employee is hired to help solve a problem within the workplace. Allow them a level of freedom to get the job done and even provide new solutions to problems that could make your workflow stronger than before (“It”). Allow your employees to make suggestions and be open with you about how their job could be enhanced, and then take the suggestions seriously. You might not always want to take on an employee’s recommendation, but seriously considering what they say will make them feel heard and could save you money in the long run.

The Cost Of Work-Related Stress

For those who think in numbers or wonder how stress impacts our businesses’ bottom line, we wanted to lay out some numbers for you. According to the same article by The American Institute of Stress, job stress is expensive. In the U.S. alone, it is estimated to cost 300 billion dollars annually. Not just from workers’ compensation and less productivity either. Accidents, absentees, employee turnover, less productivity, and medical, legal, and insurance costs are outlined. So, it makes sense not only for our teams that we care so deeply about but also from a business perspective to be proactive about stress reduction and the overall positive work culture.

How To Recover From Work-Related Stress

The good news in all of this is that stress doesn’t have to lead to that 300 billion dollar price tag or for your whole team to feel a level of burnout. You can work proactively to encourage self-care and build a happy and resilient team.

We all can see burnout creeping in. Whether you feel it as a leader (“I”), you start to see your team showing some symptoms (“We”), or you start to see stress cracks in your systems (“It”). This is when it is time to take action. On an individual level, you can give your employees resources to work on their stress-levels. Fitness and mindfulness apps, time for reflection or rest, and healthy foods in the breakroom can help. For each of us, coping with stress may look a little different, but by providing the resources someone might need, you can help them get through the moments we all experience. 

Another thing to help is to think proactively. If there is something big coming up like a deadline, annual sale, a shift in the marketplace, or a shift in your team, it is essential to sit down with your HR professional and think of proactive ways to maintain your healthy workplace. Though we can’t always be proactive, it is best to get ahead of any arising issues than fight them when they are already festering. This can help keep stress within your team (“We”), and within your systems (“It”) at bay.

Wholeness At Work

This all may sound a little daunting, so having a coach or consultant come in to give some outside perspective is one great way to help. Erin has almost 15 years of experience helping leaders and teams work through burnout. Through her passion for the scientific reasons burnout persists and how to combat it, she has also created a self-guided coaching program that you can do with your entire team called Wholeness At Work. This program is meant to help you get straight to the source of your burnout and find lasting ways to the feeling of wholeness.

As you move through your professional career as a leader or an integral team member, you will feel stress. By knowing what it is and its causes, you can equip yourself with the knowledge to make you a stronger and happier colleague for your entire career. So, let’s take a moment to imagine your lasting happiness and success and celebrate it. To your future!

Politics In The Workplace: How to Navigate This Voting Season

Going into an election year can be difficult for leaders and teams with varying opinions and strong personal belief-systems. But, there are ways to navigate the voting season successfully with your team. Many leaders do not know how to talk politics at work in a respectful and safe way, but it can be done. Here are some tips for how to navigate your workspace this voting season and beyond.

Have A Plan

In research by Illinois Technology Association, their team found that out of their members, 31% were unsure whether or not they should talk about the upcoming election, and 79% said they had no policy at all for talking about politics at work. With much of our lives spent with the people we work with, it is unrealistic to think that there will be absolutely no political talk in the workplace, especially during such tumultuous election cycles. The thing you need to have prepared as a leader is a plan with your HR department or your team to handle such discussions. How can you support healthy and respectful conversations of politics in the workplace and also show respect for those who may be uncomfortable with the conversations all together? It is a big task, but your team can come prepared for each election season.

Give Your Team Time To Vote

Election day is challenging for much of the nation. Not only are emotions boiling over from a heavy campaign, but some people are also afraid that if they take time off to vote, they will lose money on their paycheck. That’s why creating some peace-of-mind for your employees by giving them time to vote is an incredible perk. In 2016, only 60% of our eligible voters even cast ballots. It makes sense, though. Many people struggle to make ends meet, using their entire paychecks to put their kids through school and keep their lights on—this makes it incredibly hard to find a few minutes in the day to drop off a ballot or wait in a long line. Companies like Bark and Chosen Foods have joined the Time To Vote Movement, a non-partisan campaign that ensures employees a schedule that will allow them to cast their ballot and have a say in the upcoming election. Giving yourself and your employees the chance to have their voices heard is one way to make lasting change in our Nation.

Allow For Political Diversity

When the word diversity comes up, we often think of ethnic, gender, or cultural differences, which are all incredibly important. However, we tend to forget to be mindful of diversity of thoughts and beliefs. The truth is, humans are drawn to other people who think like them. In business, this can be detrimental because it means that we tend to interact only with people who think like us, have similar experiences or backgrounds, and we miss out on new perspectives that a diverse group of people bring to the table. We can’t support or empathize with others, let alone lead effectively, if we don’t understand and appreciate their unique points of view. So, as you hire, consider all forms that diversity might support your organization’s success. Work hard to foster a business culture that encourages respectful dialogue, understanding over judgment, and dignity for all. Most of all, focus on the shared values you hold as a team and use those values to ground, stabilize, and align your team on what’s most important. This is how we will evolve as a society and create healthy change.

Be Prepared For Any Outcome

The day after the election, when votes are still being counted and there is some tension in the air, it is essential to be prepared. We know at this point that tensions will be high. This election feels very personal. No matter your political affiliation, your employee’s mental health and well-being should be a top priority. The leadership and HR preparedness we spoke about above will need to be in overdrive post-election. Keeping your workplace respectful, fun, and maintaining the company culture you’ve worked so hard to achieve can be done with careful planning and candid, safe discussions with your team. 

“My dear friends: Your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union.”

— Former Rep. John Lewis (1940-2020)

A trustworthy, respectful, and healthy workplace marked by diverse views, even political ones, is a sure recipe to make real, impactful change in our world. If you need help navigating this election season, please reach out.

How Psychological Safety Impacts Burnout

Over the years, I’ve spent a significant amount of time working with teams. Some who have come a tremendously long way, and some who are just starting out on the path. No doubt, we all live and work in teams of some sort. And, we all have opinions about them!

Here’s a new distinction I want to share with you: psychological safety on teams and its impact on individual burnout.

You may have seen this remarkable study from Google last year, that exposed the results of their two-year long study on high-performing teams. They discovered that what matters most to high-performing teams is psychological safety – a belief that you are safe to speak your mind, make mistakes, and you won’t be punished. In other words, can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?

Psychological safety is not the same as trust.

Trust is believing someone has your back, that they’re competent enough to do so, and that their future actions will align with your best interests. Trust is still vital for teams because it lowers the amount of energy you have to spend monitoring your behavior. It’s the ease that comes when you know you’re on the same side, so to speak.

Here’s what’s fascinating about this idea of psychological safety, though:

For teams with low psychological safety, speaking up feels incredibly risky. Often, folks have direct experience getting burned when they do, even if they believe they are doing the right thing. Some are punished or fired for going against the tide, causing a tremendous amount of fear.

Even for those who don’t witness these incidents directly, the stories spread quickly, and soon you’ve got an entire organizational culture of fear, self-protection, and survival.

Working (or living) in an environment of heightened fear activates all kinds of survival responses physiologically. Our fight-or-flight system gets triggered, our brain becomes flooded with stress hormones, and our awareness narrows dramatically. We are no longer able to access much beyond surviving this moment. Our experience, talents, gifts, presence all diminish and can feel very far away.

Prolonged states of fight-or-flight (or chronic power stress) wreak havoc on our bodies, minds, and emotional wellbeing. Enter stage left: leadership burnout.

If you and many of your team members are frighteningly close to burning out (or live in a continued state of high stress), check in with yourself about the environment you’re fostering on the team.

Are individuals safe to speak what’s on their minds without repercussion, or are you inadvertently breeding a culture of fear and stress?

If you’re worried that psychological safety may be at risk for you/your team, try this:

Find an objective, trusted ally who will tell you the truth. Ask them if others are afraid to speak up, share honestly, present bold ideas, even fail around you. Listen with an open mind, even if it’s hard to hear.

If the answer is “yes,” it’s time to self-reflect. Look back on your default behaviors that may send a subtle (or explicit) message that people have to be careful around here. Any recent time of acute pressure or stress? How did you engage with your team then?

Revisit your core values and business strategy. Who are you committed to being as a leader? What kind of team culture does the business depend on for its success?

Last, own it. Open up to your team, be vulnerable about your experience, your values, and your own lack of awareness around psychological safety on the team. Apologize for what they’ve been going through. Ask for forgiveness. Create a shared plan for making the team culture better and live up to your promises.

Leadership burnout is preventable… once we become aware of its source(es). Don’t let yourself, team leader, be one of them.

To your thriving,
Erin

PS. If you are struggling with any of the above and want to chat confidentially, let’s set up a brief call. I’ve seen all stages and levels of health on teams. I don’t judge. I am on your side and believe in transformation. And, I promise I’ll tell you the truth (even when no one else will).

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How To Build Resilient Teams In a High Stress World

I hope you have had or will have some time away this summer to grant yourself the gift of renewal. Some mental downtime, emotional nourishment, physical recovery, and spiritual salve.

Not only do we crave it, we deeply need it, as human beings and as leaders.

In this increasingly VUCA world of ours, the complexities and pressures of our interconnected, always-on ways of working are stacking up the stressors on leaders everywhere. This is the reality now and one that will only accelerate.

I grew up with an illusion about what it meant to be “resilient.” As an athlete, being resilient meant being tough under stress, enduring pain, never complaining about it, and charging through.

It meant hiding my needs, especially the subtler emotional and spiritual ones, even when they were screaming in my ear. It meant disconnecting and cutting off – from myself.

So, if it’s not this, then what is resilience really? Resilience is the capacity of an individual (or system) to effectively manage the cycle of performance and recovery.

Catch that? Recovery, or renewal, is essential to our ability to navigate challenges, learn from complexity, and respond to stress wisely. Without renewal, we are automatic triggers walking around on two legs, our stress through the roof and our effect on others pretty icky. Eventually, we implode or explode, burning ourselves or others out.

Luckily, there are many ways to support yourself and your team – ensuring that everyone is handling stress in the healthiest way possible. Here are a few of the ways I personally work with leaders to ensure they have healthy, resilient teams:

  • Individual coaching, assessment, and insight around your patterns of performance and recovery (instruments on: burnout, personality, 360, and heart rate variability)
  • Team training on best practice and candid dialogue about personal/organizational factors affecting resilience; piloting new behaviors together and finding what actually works for you
  • Organizational exploration around those best practices to cascade across the culture, from leadership to the front line

For me, finding a tangible and affordable opportunity to create real resilience for the leaders (and people) I care about is the fulfillment of my values and mission to end suffering at work. So, I hope you’ll join me for this vital exploration into what it really takes to sustain great performance and be resilient in leadership today.

Send me a message and we can start exploring what support structure would be best for you and your team.

To your thriving,

Erin

PS. Research continues to show us all the ways renewal keeps us at our best, especially as leaders. Boyatzis and McKee have made the brilliant link between a leader’s renewal and her ability to consistently demonstrate emotional intelligence (EQ). If you’re looking for a deep dive on why renewal matters to leaders, this is one of my go-to reads.

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2016: The Year of Big Emotions & Big Change

‘Tis the season for reflecting, on the year that’s been and the one that’s to come. 2016 has been a full and thrilling one for me personally (Hello, pregnancy!) and deeply challenging for so many of us all (Goodbye, icon after icon… sad face.).

Here are the biggest areas where I’ve seen business leaders struggle and thrive this year. May you find insight and hope in others’ journeys and take heart. We’re in this together.

  • Life Change – Navigating huge personal transitions and leading big business change.
  • Emotional Management – Managing strong emotions when they are intensely passionate about their vision/organization/project.
  • Team Leadership – Supporting growing teams while honoring personal needs for renewal, growth and sustainability.
  • Personal Well-being –Repair broken relationships with their own well being in a comprehensive, meaningful way. This theme underpinned the rest of these challenges.

Life Change

This year, my clients have recovered from cancer, moved parents into assisted living homes, faced new challenges raising special needs children, moved across the globe, lost spouses, and ended marriages. For each person, it’s taken all they had to withstand the pressures and intensity of these life transformations.

Unfortunately, their organizations demanded an equal, sometimes greater, intensity toward their contributions as leaders. These same individuals led multi-million dollar strategic investments and actively groomed the next generation of high-potential talent. They cared for their teammates and stood strong in the face of leadership vacuums. They managed global teams creating breakthrough innovations that will change the planet. Literally.

And they do this all on the same tank of fuel.

Sadly, these brave folks have been hammered by two storms: the one inside their own bodies/hearts/minds and the one inside their organization. With the exception of a notable few, they didn’t get much sympathy or support. Sometimes, their work colleagues didn’t even know what was going on, other than noticing the extra bags under their eyes and slower-than-normal response times.

My clients struggled to hold it all together – as we all do when we’re battling personal change and business change at the same time. I wonder, is this our new norm?

Emotional Management

Many of these talented leaders also spearheaded some vital and exciting new initiatives for their companies that they care deeply about. When they faced resistance and challenge, their frustration often leaked out in the form of defensiveness, irritation, or edginess, despite their best efforts to hide it under a mask of professional restraint. (These are the same folks dealing with loss, grief, trauma, recovery, and tectonic change.)

One can only hold so many big emotions at any given time. Passion takes up just as much weight as anger. So, what happens when someone pushes us too far? How do leaders hold it all, communicating genuinely and professionally at the same time? Even the best of us need occasional help learning to navigate these strong feelings, especially in the workplace.

Team Leadership:

In 2016, my clients were challenged by the capacity of the team beneath them. In order for the leaders themselves to grow, their teams would have to grow – as individuals and as a collective. Comprehensive team development, coaching, and mentoring, as well as managing personnel transitions can take exorbitant effort and focus.

Notice: does team leadership take up 80% of your headspace or calendar? Should it? Find the right allocation of time and energy for a focus on team growth: this will produce a strategic differential for you. For some of you, that may mean reducing the noise a dysfunctional team is demanding by making some hard decisions or critical investments. For others, that may mean significantly upping your focus on your people – thoughtful investments here provide serious ROI for your leadership down the road.

Personal Well-being:

As you take the next couple of weeks to reflect, take stock, and recharge, here is a framework from my partners at Yoke Consultancy that can support your thinking. To use it, score your level of satisfaction in each well-being category from 1-10. Add up your total score in the center circle.

From here, prioritize the category that you believe will make the biggest difference for you next year – be sure to factor in your personal values, leadership vision, and work/life goals.  Designing your work and life around the principles that matter most to you, the things that sustain and renew you, and the ideals you hold most dear, will set you up for the ultimate win: sustained performance and fulfillment.

When you’re ready to help make sense of it all, I would love to help you find your path (or stay true to it). Happy traveling, sojourners!

Model: © 2016 Yoke Consultancy Limited.

Power and Women and Work

There is this thing. The majority of the women I coach say this thing is a problem. Yet we’d all rather not talk about it. I even have clients who have become engrossed in legal battles centered on it. It can be devastatingly painful and can interfere with our work: it’s real and important. And, like any societal ill, we are made better when we address it.

The “it” or thing I’m referring to here is the aftermath of an excruciating loss or fracture of relationship with another woman in the context of work we love.

Here’s my story: I joined my firm when it was quite small. One of the early employees was a woman my age and for whom I was a peer. I worked hard to win her over. She didn’t like me at first, given I was the boss’s kid and all. I proved how trustworthy I was, how collaborative, how fair. I made concessions to make her feel good. I proved my niceness. And it worked for a while.

We became close friends. Yet there was always an underlying competition. Slow exclusions, distancing, confusion, unspoken and spoken upset. The more time passed, the worse the comparisons became. God, it was hard.

There was always a subtle (or not so subtle) sense of imbalance. The foundation of the relationship was a power struggle, a dynamic that dictated I had to vigilantly put myself down around her or actively lift her esteem up. On work projects, she began disagreeing with my suggestions out of impulse, struggling to reorient the power. I grew distant. Neither of us understood what was happening. And I’m positive I messed up a million times. I did the best I could and I know I failed her.

I have since learned a theory called “Power Dead Even,” by Drs. Pat Heim and Susan Murphy, as outlined in their book, In The Company Of Women. It explains the entire rise and fall of this fated friendship.

Essentially, the theory argues that every female relationship is contingent on the perceived power of each woman – if the power is not felt to be even (or made even) right away, your best friend can become your worst saboteur. [envoke_twitter_link]Female relationships only work when the power is perceived to be dead even.[/envoke_twitter_link]

In rare cases, the perceived power gap can be too large, where no amount of “evening out” is possible and the relationship will not work. This hinges on the second component of the theory – self-esteem. The self-esteem of each woman has to be reasonably healthy for these partnerships to have a chance.

Recently, I coached a first-time executive navigating a highly sensitive, personal, and power-driven relationship in her organization. My client’s good friend brought her into the company and initially they worked wonderfully well together as peer colleagues. Then, my client was promoted to be the other woman’s boss. (Gasp.) Immediately, the other woman felt threatened, angry, and upset. In this case, there was a legitimate tipping of the power scales based on level of authority. What’s more, each woman was working through her own issues related to self-esteem (as we all are, right?).

Given this dynamic, one that included a legitimate power gap, the ideal choice would have been for my client and her friend to adjust to the complexities of this new reality by:

  • seeking to understand how they could maintain a healthy relationship, at the office and at home;
  • building self-awareness, reflection, and empathy for the other;
  • communicating openly about their emotions, hopes and intentions; and
  • creating new norms for their relationship in both contexts.

In boss/subordinate relationships at work, managing Power Dead Even can be tricky given the very real power differential. I have found that those require additional attention, as you seek to build the relationship (trust) and performance expectations (clarity). Communication and transparency here are everything, as are numerous other skills I’ll save for a future blog.

Another colleague of mine is brilliant at navigating female relationships at work. Her secret? Appreciation and honor. She is constantly attentive to showing respect and appreciation for other women – visibly and explicitly – so that they know she is on their side, and she means it. In other words, she actively gives power away (or empowers others) in service of a longer-term vision, based on her core value of partnership.

When we look through the frame of Power Dead Even, we become conscious of those we align with and how we set up female relationships for success, especially in the workplace. It tells us we must come in with a “power offering” of sorts – a compliment, a smile, a vulnerability – so that other women know we are not a threat, and that we’re putting connectedness above competition.

When we’re no longer a threat, we can create the most fulfilling, expansive experiences. But we have to be mindful of ourselves, aware of how others perceive us, and intentional about how we engage with others to put the relationship above the task. This is really difficult to get right, but we can certainly commit to trying.

Coach Questions:

To understand this dynamic in your female relationships, recall when you last felt really secure and happy with a friend or work colleague.

  • What made the relationship so fantastic for you?

Now, what was that one relationship that still tears at your heart? (C’mon, we all have one.)

  • What happened?
  • Does Power Dead Even illuminate anything for you about what could have been at play?

Next, think about the female relationships at home and at work that really matter to you – the ones who matter to your success, but with whom you may not have cracked the code.

  • What can you do now to even out the power dynamic so that the relationship goes more smoothly?
  • What can you do to improve your own self-esteem or sense of empowerment?
  • What tokens of power can you “give away” to her so as to even out the scale?

The Ladder: How We Get (Un)Stuck

A tool that I have found very powerful in helping unlock some of my client’s thinking, especially when they feel stuck in a negative mindset, is called the Ladder of Inference. It is a model created by Chris Argyris out of Harvard Business School and  it maps out our thought process from inception to action.

Here’s how it works:

  • Each one of us starts with data, all the information that could possibly exist.
  • From there, each brain filters out of necessity to function. There’s just too much information to digest. Our individual filters may be based on family, culture, values, etc.
  • Then, we add meaning: I like this/don’t, this is good/bad, he’s right/wrong, this is safe/unsafe, etc.
  • Next, we add assumptions about why that meaning is as such. We leap from data to inference about the intent behind someone’s actions, for example.
  • We quickly form conclusions about things always/never being that way.
  • We then develop fixed beliefs about people, events, places, ourselves, life, etc. that this is how things are.
  • Finally, we act based on those beliefs, which are at the top of the ladder, not from the actual data, which is at the bottom.

Most of the time, our travel “up the ladder” happens in the blink of an eye, unconsciously, and out of self-protection. [envoke_twitter_link]In order to have thriving personal and work relationships, we must be aware of – then take responsibility for – our path up the ladder of inference![/envoke_twitter_link]

Here’s an example:

  • Data: In first week of work, I was on conference call with a new teammate. She went straight into the business topic at hand.
  • Meaning: She doesn’t like me. She would have asked about how I’m doing, feeling, etc., if she did. Oh no!
  • Assumptions: I must be doing something wrong. She must be unfriendly.
  • Conclusions: I should avoid this colleague whenever possible. Never tackle a project with her because that clearly won’t work. We just won’t get along.
  • Beliefs: She is not a nice person in general. How could anyone like her?
  • Actions: I create distance, avoid sharing personal information, am closed off. I probably came across as a jerk!
  • TRUTH: She was stressed about missing a client deadline and wanted to do a really good job representing our team. It had nothing to do with me at all! And to think, I made all that up (went up the ladder) in the blink of an eye.

If you’d like to try this out for a minute, think of a recent time when you felt anxious, upset or ticked off. Write out your path:

  • What happened objectively, with no judgement?
  • What did you make that mean?
  • What assumptions did you attach to that meaning (or intention did you assign)?
  • What beliefs were confirmed or created?
  • Then, how did you act as a result of that?

Please share something you’ve learned about your thought patterns in the comments. I love learning from you, too!

Strategic Alignment: Decoded

Did you know that you don’t have to be friends with (or even like) your team members to create a high-performing team? I certainly didn’t. Through my work with executive team clients at FMG Leading, I have learned what makes – and doesn’t – a healthy, effective leadership team, one that produces a great company culture and great financial results.

My biggest lesson:

Executive teams have to be both clear and aligned on who you are, where you’re going, and how you’re going to win for your organization to thrive.

This is strategic alignment – the extent to which all leaders share a consistent perspective about, and commitment to the organization’s stated mission and vision, its goals, and its strategies for achieving success.1

In search of a perfect strategy, I often see executive teams stall, fail to choose a direction, and resent each other in the process. Or, they will feign alignment for the sake of avoiding difficult conversations (and choices). I call this “spinning out,” and it is what you’d expect: messy, frustrating, and disengaging.

Luckily, there is another way to build strategy and team simultaneously.

First, focus. Developing a focused strategic plan that enables you to win in your market is critical. [envoke_twitter_link]Quick tip: if your strategy doesn’t cause you to say “no” to something (even something you love doing), it’s not clear enough.[/envoke_twitter_link] Lack of focus will kill your company’s ability to scale, especially in the early days.

A major trap my clients fall into is the desire to do all the things, all right now. Or, the leaders are siloed, only interested in their own success metrics. When asked what the strategic priorities are, the COO says, “Profit margin!” the CFO says “EBITDA!” and the Sales leader says, “New client acquisition!” Or, their strategic priority list covers 10-20 items, with three sub-bullets each.

Really, they’re ALL priorities??

When I ask them if they think they are aligned as an executive team, they tell me, “Yes, of course.” Ha!

A great example of brilliant focus is the premium motorcycle company, Harley Davidson. In 2009, they successfully navigated the global recession and an aging customer base by adopting a single differentiation strategy. ONE. As of their 2014 Annual Review, Harley topped $6B in revenues for the first time since 2006, with a net income jump of 15% year over year. For Harley, their disciplined approach to strategic focus not only worked, it fueled transformative performance in a very challenging economic environment.

You can believe Harley’s executive team struggled to stay true to their focus over the years that followed their declaration in 2009. It’s not easy but it’s worth it, as they proved.

Second, discover your brilliance. Once you have focus, then you’ll need to know your distinctive capabilities. Learn where you have inherent talents and collective genius. Many executive teams I work with fail to recognize the unique strengths of individuals, their team, and certainly the business as a whole. In pursuit of bright and shiny new targets, they can lose sight of what made them great in the first place (and what makes them great now). Knowing your organization’s unique capabilities is key to leveraging the areas in which you’re already winning, then building from there.

Third, collect enough of the right data. This involves both internal and external evaluation mechanisms that let you know how you’re delivering on your strategy, such as net promoter scores, product quality measures, industry analyses, and even measures of employee engagement and leadership performance.

How will you select the right data? Someone (anyone!) needs to have fresh market intelligence that makes its way to the top and throughout the minds of all key decision makers. Constantly scanning your environment for trends, gaps, and risks enables you to quickly match/align your current offerings (or new ones), as well as talent and structures, with those smart opportunities.

You need both lines of sight (internal pulse checks and market intelligence) for a strategy to win. Specifically, all members of the executive team need access to those inputs and mature dialogue skills to ensure you are on the same page about what the future looks like. That’s another place I’ve seen leadership teams fall down. One or a handful of executives see the big picture, while others are caught in the details of day-to-day fire fighting – and they can’t connect all the dots.

A strategy that keeps the wheels on the tracks is good, but it won’t have you thrive unless all data points are shared and understood by all members of the leadership team.

Fourth, everyone needs a clearly defined role. If you can’t answer the question, “How are you working to grow the business in support of our strategy?” your role is not clear enough. If someone on your team can’t answer that question, it is not because they are incompetent or a poor fit. More likely, you’ve neglected to help them clarify precisely the scope of their role. At some point, it is not about personality or smarts or commitment. Structures like clear role definitions really, really matter.

Finally, all of your organization’s leaders (beyond the executive team) need to know what success means EXACTLY. Specific metrics – and only a handful so they’re memorable – will enable you to meet all of your goals, not come in half-effective across the board.

Promise less; clarify more. Do less; achieve more. And, focus, focus, focus.

If you know your executive team is misaligned about what’s most critical to your business…

If you think your leaders are aligned on a strategy but are compliant, not committed…

If you are afraid to admit that you don’t actually know what your strategy is besides to “stay alive”…

Let my team help. We’ve seen it, we’ve lived it, and we know it. Let us help you get clear on where you are, where you want/need to go, and how you’ll get there (by when and with whom). You’ll sleep better at night, I promise.

If you aren’t clear how your Executive Team stacks up, here is The Checklist for Strategic Alignment1:

  • We have a formal strategic plan that enables us to “win.”
  • The executive team is aligned with and committed to the strategy.
  • All leaders understand the organization’s strategy and their role in executing it.
  • All leaders understand their most critical priorities.
  • Organizational goals, initiatives, budgets, and operating plans are aligned with the strategy.
  • We have the right metrics in place to measure performance in relation to our strategy.

Resources:

  1. FMG Leading, Human Capital Index.

Erin Rocchio

Wholeness at Work