Erin Rocchio: Executive and Team Coach

Thrive. Lead. Impact.

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.

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