Stepping into the Realm of Possibilities

June 12, 2024June 7, 2024

The level of employee engagement hinges on their sense of fulfillment in their contributions to the organization, their colleagues, and their own growth. This is equally influenced by the organization’s demonstrated behaviors and actions.

Saying they have created a culture of care where employees can be themselves and contribute fully isn’t enough for an organization. Their actions throughout the company must consistently reflect this value.
How employees choose to engage will depend on their need to feel fully realized in their contributions to the organization, their colleagues, and themselves.

As well as the organization’s demonstrated behaviors and actions.

I have had the good fortune to collaborate with fabulous leaders professionally. Leaders that honed their leadership, intrapersonal, and people skills, in a manner that enabled their direct reports to contribute meaningfully.

Engaging fully!

Company culture: a balance of what you say and do

And there were those leaders, through their behavior (from micromanagement and bullying to sexist and racist tropes), that resulted in my stepping back in how to choose to engage.

Resulting in a self-protective mechanism of armoring and then camouflaging.

You may be thinking that I might have been overly sensitive. And I could have been. Yet, the environment did not feel trustworthy.

For me, at the heart of employee engagement is choice—saying yes to an organizational value because it aligns with one’s personal values.

This belief holds that choice exhibits one’s personal power in an ecosystem that has cultivated multiple pathways to engage.

Engagement is about meaningful interactions and curating a mutually beneficial partnership.

My experiences with these ineffective leaders helped me define the kind of leadership and work environment that fosters my ability to contribute my full potential; bringing my best self to work.

There are safe enough environments to experiment with novel ideas, stepping into the realm of possibilities. People riff off each other in a supportive, cross-functional, collaborative manner, using time and space to create.

Do you feel that you’re engaged meaningfully in your work life?

There is no universal formula for engaging employees. Given the workforce’s global nature and diverse needs, some behaviors can help amplify engagement across an enterprise.

You’re cordially invited to The Engagement Factor, an interactive virtual event that offers approaches to cultivating engagement across your organization.

I have greatly enjoyed serving on a Board with Anu Gupta at BE MORE with Anu (BMA). I have seen first-hand his passion for providing individuals and organizations with ancient wisdom, blending it with modern science, to bridge understanding and strengthen compassion across differences.

Anu brings mindfulness-based and science-backed DEIB, antiracism, and wellness training to organizations of all sizes to build more equitable and inclusive workplaces and beloved communities.

His BMA Organizational Coaching Program is a unique opportunity to collaborate directly to drive tangible behavior change, understanding, and compassion.

Registration is open!

I invite you to check it out: BMA Organizational Coaches | BE MORE With Anu — BE MORE with Anu.

When Good Enough, is Good Enough

March 13, 2024March 13, 2024

For most, we want to be the best and do our best. And, we hold that expectation with pride.

I like to say that my high expectations [which are subjective] of myself allow me to produce the best outcomes.

Even as a play in my mind what it means to be the best — to want the best — there is tension between the desire and the realities of day-to-day life that will allow this desire to come to fruition.

There is a cost to being the best, or at least striving towards a future self, which is ever-changing. We see this with Olympic athletes who achieve … death-defining feats … becoming the fastest person on the planet, Usain Bolt, only to have that record bested by another athlete, Noah Lyles.

Subjectively and societally, being the best can be viewed as a constant movement toward maximization.

Like the high performer at your organization. Which could be you!

Sometimes, we just have to choose to be good enough.

Rarely do we see the complete picture of what it would take to be the best; to perform at one’s maximum.

In a culture where excellence takes center stage, good enough is usually not good enough.

And that starts with understanding the goals and capacity of the ‘it’ we are moving towards.

What is it that you wish to achieve?

Answering this question calls for introspection — identifying the value and purpose contributing to the goals — and the strategies that will enable you to obtain the established completion point.

Once a choice is made, there is a need to gather information to inform its achievement. The trick is to seek reputable sources, given the plethora of conflicting information on the World Wide Web and conflicting practices.

There is plenty of information out there that signals what the best looks like.

So, filtering our extraneous information calls for a consciousness of our values, while limiting input. Not everything we desire requires our attention; therefore, we need to be intentional about where we place our attention.

Learning to be selective in exercising our choices supports our well-being.

Discernment and critical thinking are called for when assessing the information that will inform our choice.

Making a decent enough decision will be facilitated by examining the options and being clear about what matters and how much they matter.

Always keeping in mind that mistakes may be corrected and decisions can be reversed; perfectionism is not required.

Good enough is the knowledge that we are not seeking perfection. It honors the emotional and intellectual capital it took to achieve what was achieved, be it a stretched project at work or a personal milestone.

To be sufficiently good involves consistent discipline with the satisfaction of a task well done. It was not perfectly done, not done to our maximum capacity, yet done with confidence that it was adequate.

An element of good enough is accepting our efforts are a work in progress.

While we have an eye on the task and doing a ‘good job,’ we also hold expectations with ease, and we can let the work go at a designated completion point.

For some, good enough is at 80%. For others, it is 95% of the desired outcome.

Understanding that these benchmarks are a construct of the mind — a nimble roadmap — to respond appropriately to unpredictable conditions is a good strategy.

It is highly unlikely we will be able to anticipate with 100% accuracy how a choice will make us feel.

Good enough takes into consideration:

The long work hours of research (data collecting and analysis) in making the decision.
Wading through the increasing list of options and the cognitive toll associated with not making a mistake.
Anxiety due to constantly navigating towards the best.
Time away from loved ones.
Less leisure and downtime to be creative and play.

Acceptable in standard requires, on some level, humility, patience, discipline, and a balanced perspective. It is not about perfectionism or maximizing what we’re doing. It is subjective and based on a future feeling that we hope will come to fruition, yet we cannot guarantee it.

In a culture where the focus is on excellence, good enough is usually the best we can do.

What principles will guide your choices to be good enough?

HBR’s 10 Must Reads publications are an excellent way to gain perspective on a business theme — be it On Change Management, published in 2011.

It is safe to say that most of us in the world of work might have experienced an organizational change initiative, whether mass layoffs, mergers, restructuring, technical adaptations, or new performance standards.

Beer and Nohria state in “Cracking the Code of Change,” about 70% of all change initiatives fail because they exert a heavy toll on both the talent and the finances of the organization.

With the high failure rate of change initiatives, what can we learn?

Transformation takes time and demands leaders to emulate and personify the core values of the organization.

Leaders who model the new change, while providing coaching and support for their talent, have greater success in their change initiative. They understand their talents and their competing commitments — a sense of loss for what is known, having insufficient input into the process, or not having a forum to express concerns.

The case studies presented show commitment to change is uneven. And, understanding the complex behaviors of those engaged in the change is an improvisational art of walking the talk, listening, learning, and applying the appropriate strategy for the situation. And so much more.

Managing change initiatives is tough. Those who are being asked to change must recognize what needs to be done, and must also want to do it.

Leaders have a great responsibility to guide the vision of the change, while encouraging an environment of learning how to learn.

These articles are pre-COVID, and it would be intriguing to read how the pandemic has impacted the ways in which organizations approach their change initiatives now.

Uncertainty is Inescapable

June 7, 2023June 7, 2023

Cultivating a resilient organization

Work and life are not mutually exclusive. Most of us spend one third or more of our days at work and derive deep meaning from engaging purposefully in our profession. Our resilience responses are personal and are shaped by our unique history, personality, and personal and societal context. Resiliency is born of work, community, and family environments that are safe enough to ensure our needs are met.

Given that workplace plays a critical role for many, organizations that value an inclusive well-being culture will nurture resiliency at both the individual and system levels and will ground themselves in a human-centric approach that recognizes how deeply the individual and system are connected. Such environments debunk the belief that employees’ resiliency is dependent solely on their personal character and resolve and seek to understand how the work environment supports or undermines their resiliency.

A Resilient Leader is Not Enough

As interconnected beings, we exhibit self-determination and have varying capacities to actualize emotional well-being within our many social systems. Sheer will alone is insufficient to achieve human resilience. Resilience is communal.

When faced with uncertainty, bold leaders may overestimate their leadership capabilities and are then unable to adjust their interpersonal approach to fit the context.

Leaders who demonstrate care for their teams’ welfare while simultaneously tending to their own well-being, cultivate resilience responses by emphasizing integrity and psychological safety.

Much has been written about psychological safety, and it is as much a skill as it is an imperative: being vigilant about one’s bias, nurturing deep humility and empathy, creating space to acknowledge sidesteps, and being curious and willing to expand our perspective. In an atmosphere of psychological safety, an organization cherishes open, honest dialogues, respects the needs of diverse team members, and asks contributors what they need to be successful in their role and how leaders can support their growth. Leaders in these organizations encourage team members to lead initiatives, participate in decision-making, and to remain connected to both their own and the organization’s values.

This resiliency is a team effort, and is further strengthened by contributors’ input and support, which, in turn, foster inclusive governance structures that ensure representation and participation in the decision-making processes to create a more just, resilient organizational approach wherein policies reflect contributors’ everyday experiences and emotional conditions. This is a tall order, yet it is possible when an organization adopts a systemic approach that focuses on the environment and the people within it.

Setting The Tone

When employees work in an organization whose values and purpose feed into their own, they thrive and are excited to contribute to the organization’s collective well-being.

How, then, during uncertain times, do we balance being valued contributors while taking care of our well-being?

Cultivating a resilient organization is neither easy nor simple, and the factors that contribute to promoting organizational resilience are unique to that organization’s composition. Yet, the CEO or senior-most executive plays a critical role. They set the tone and model behaviors that support or undermine resiliency. Chamorro-Premuzic and Lusk write about “The Dark Side of Resilience” and share a cautionary tale about bold leaders who are unaware of their limitations and who compromise organizational resiliency when driven by self-enhancement.

“Personal resilience and organizational resilience
are cut for the same cloth, and
diversity of perspective and backgrounds
is ‘paramount.’”
—Hilrud Werner

There is therefore a difference between demanding that everyone is resilient and cultivating an environment where everyone feels they have the ability to move toward their level of resiliency.

Simran Jeet Singh offers three steps for leaders to adopt to promote their organization’s resiliency:

Develop a clear understanding of what true resilience is and what it isn’t. Bring awareness to biases and how these impact the way you interpret or misinterpret individuals’ capacities for resilience.
Consider how shared challenges impact people differently. Meet people where they are, as opposed to where you believe them to be. Avoid assuming that people from marginalized backgrounds will have higher levels of resilience.
Don’t use perceived, individual resilience to deflect real, systemic problems. The issue may be flawed systems breaking down, rather than individual resilience factors.

When our resilience lens contains the experiences and needs of diverse team members, it allows for a wider perspective and a better appreciation of others’ experiences, needs, and expressions of resiliency. It is therefore easy to be resilient in an environment that fosters resiliency. If “diversity of perspective and backgrounds is paramount” for both individual and organizational resilience, which of these steps will you embrace?

Uncertainty is inescapable

Our unique history, personality, personal and societal context, and the systems in which we function—such as our workplace—shapes how we weather uncertainties. Organizations that ensure that their professionals feel supported through times of uncertainty demonstrate care and foster an inclusive governance structure that contributes to cultural cohesion.

A resilient organization is based on the resiliency of its employees, who are its greatest asset. A well employee makes for a well organization and a well society. We have a substantial opportunity to curate inclusive well-being strategies that amplify employees’ resilience. Imagine what we can cultivate if we provide employees opportunities to identify, engage, and take on behaviors to live their best life.

Book A Discovery Session

A discovery session is largely influenced by a kaizen process, a philosophy based on the concept that change for the better is fostered through small modifications that create improvements. The session is centered on learning about one another, including your values, goals, and processes.

The discussion will help determine our chemistry match and how collaborating will add value for you. There will be an opportunity to understand your needs and what is top of mind for you, especially what it is that you wish to improve upon. This is an opportunity for us to co-create a win-win partnership.

Some discovery session questions are:

What is your biggest challenge as it relates to ______?
How are you feeling about this challenge?
What about solving the challenge is most important to you?
How will you benefit from finding a solution to this challenge?

To schedule your no-obligation appointment, email novelette@betacoachingconsulting.com or visit our calendar to book an available time.

Power is a social and psychological phenomenon, a state of mind. Julie Diamond defines it “as our capacity to impact and influence or environment.” Power is neither good nor bad; rather, it is a generative and creative energy. When used well, power can be an act of self-love as well as a necessary precondition for personal growth.

Power: A User’s Guide takes the reader through three sections and is structured like a technical manual. Section 1 centers on the Principles and Perils of Power; Section 2 is called Getting Started: Finding Your Powerprint; and Section 3 offers Guidelines for Power.

An individual’s motives determine how they use power. Diamond notes that “high rank diminishes empathy,” impeding the ability to take on another’s perspective. This is an insidious shadow side to power, attributed to its misuse and abuse.

Power has many sources: Social Power, which extracts its validity from people; Personal Power, which is self- sourced and is the only power that can transfer from context to context; and Positional Power, which we use to be effective in our positional roles.

“Each context has a different set of values, determined by the constellation of people, customs, issues, and dynamics present.” The Power and Context section is particularly intriguing and considers that meeting a person where they are is critical, and it has the capacity to affirm personal power.

Find a quiet spot and complete the PowerPrint form to see what it reveals about your relationship to power.