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.

The Social Status of Busyness

April 2, 2023May 10, 2023

Recently in a coaching conversation, the individual said she had 12 million things to do and had to die or quit her job to focus on her well-being. I paused. I then asked the individual how her words landed for her. There was silence, then she said she would not talk to a friend that way. Since coaching is centered on the client, I asked how open she is about exploring the language and action that would support how she uses her time.

I believe all we are and aspire to be as individuals are inextricably tied to our well-being – physical, emotional, relational, occupational, and spiritual. How we perceive agency over our well-being influences our actions in moving toward the desired direction. When time becomes a currency, and we feel we don’t have enough of it, we function from a scarcity mindset (time-poor). Putting off today what we think we might have time in the future to take care of. I wonder when we will offer ourselves the gift of time to take care of this “one precious life.” In the U.S., busyness has become a social status that rivals wealth. Often when you ask someone, “how are you doing?“ a reply might be that they’re “so busy,” because it has become a badge of honor indicating their self-importance. If we are compensated solely based on output, it can send a mixed message, with the price being our personal well-being.

Going Above and Beyond

Organizations with a “squeeze ‘em” approach to driving productivity can inadvertently demoralize their employees. When employees feel that they must go above and beyond constantly to maintain their position, they have a weaker understanding of their job description and might feel diminished, powerless, and tapped out. There is a diminishment of their status, agency, and autonomy in bringing meaning to their work. While overproducing can be a lucrative, competitive advantage for organizations, the cost to the employees might be burnout, mental health distress, and physical illnesses and injuries. Job creep, the incremental and gradual increase in work responsibilities, results in an overload on employees that can lead to exhaustion, lowered well-being, and decreased productivity.

I Exist Because I’m Busy

When I explored my relationship to time – I will admit there was a satisfaction in being busy – it bolstered my sense of importance and worth and signaled to the team that I was a critical contributor. When I stopped to ask myself how I wanted to use the precious time granted each day, I explored how being busy has become a form of distraction. Life is filled with a million and one different things to do, and since there are only 24 hours in a day, how will you choose to use that time? Most of us are operating from a place of time poverty, where we permit leisure time to be discretionary. When we pour disproportionate energy and time into being impressive at work, and/or prioritizing the demands of friends and family, our inner voice gets muted. The overachiever voices overlooks our values and how we’re spending our time. How we spend our time is more important than the quantity of time we spend on something. Since many of us cannot walk away from a demanding position, recrafting how work and time are utilized is one strategy to explore.

Craft More, Hustle Less

Organizations with an inclusive well-being mindset listen and invest in their employees. They encourage employees to pursue job crafting that aligns behaviors with motivations and needs. The result is more energy and empowerment that can shift toward their responsibilities. The adage, “if you want something done, give it to a busy person,” might be a misnomer when considering the time limitation. Leaders have an opportunity to job craft to motivate employees to perform at a high level while giving them space to care for themselves when curating a social contract of engagement at work:

Share our intent at the beginning.
Express our desired outcomes (needs/wants).
Invite feedback when behaviors are misalignment with intent.
Set the stage (a reciprocal roof) for a mutual process.
Abide by (change) the Social Contract as the relationship evolves.

Then, the employee has the opportunity to reflect on how they would like to engage with their day, making intentional quality time feel valued. Here are a few strategies to consider:

Time block: set aside a specific amount of uninterrupted time during the day.
Manage time: ensure meetings have a clear agenda and schedule breaks throughout the day.
Minimize distractions: specify parameters for checking social media and responding to email messages.
Unplug and embrace idleness: sit still, gaze out a window, and daydream.

An Individual’s well-being is not achieved alone. We will never be self-sufficient or independent, nothing living is. We are mutual contributors and beneficiaries in this ecosystem. So, consider which practices, habits, rituals, and understanding will inform your relationship with yourself and time and the value it will bring to your well-being. How would you like to engage in your life – professionally and personally – while contributing to the world? To quote Thelonious Monk, are you “off time yet perfectly on time”.

I was looking for a light read and picked up “Inciting Joy.” I was immediately captivated by Ross Gay’s second essay, “Through My Tears I Saw (Death: The Second Incitement)” and how he shares his teenage concept of his Dad. “I became thoroughly unenthralled with my old man, annoyed and embarrassed by his arrogance, his bluster … now I recognize his full-of-sxxxxxxs in my own…” There is an intimacy and honesty not often heard and experienced in a world that is about branding the best versions of ourselves (publicly).

The essays in this book are deeply personal and reflective, speaking of relationships with self and others, death and dying (“when you are ninety-four you are dying more clearly than … say, twenty-four”), losses (“we were edging toward the world without this person we loved”), grief (“grief is the metabolization of change”), deprivilege (“the withholding from some of the means of life”), blessings, and the joys in between the sorrows.

The garden serves as a vehicle in which Ross shares his perspectives of life, “a healthy garden is an entangled system of truly countless mutual contributors and beneficiaries, on which the gardener is but one.” Not a light read, this gave my heart much to consider, and I delighted in each essay’s journey as Ross planted the seed of what is to bloom in each essay. “When that one thing changed, everything changed.”

National Poetry Month

In honor of National Poetry Month, sharing this poem by Sarla Estruch. Sarala is a British writer, poet, and researcher. Her poetry explores the long legacy of colonization, intergenerational trauma, grief, and disconnection. At the same time, balanced with the power of love and connection.

Blue Mountain

We had passed halfway point.
Every muscle in my body was singing,
brimming with lactic acid. We’d been arguing,
arguing as we climbed, about the best way
to climb a mountain, though I’d never climbed
a mountain before and you’d topped the summit
countless times. I wanted to enjoy the walk:
the winding path fringed with unfurling ferns
and bamboo stalks, gold and tall. You said:
To get to the top, you’ve got to look up.
Kept leading us off the path to the short cuts
Through the underbrush over rocks and red soil.
Impossible to gain stable footing, we kept on
Moving, the forward motion propelling us
A step ahead of stumbling. It started to rain.
You took my hand. The air thickened
with the scent of parched earth being pummeled
by water, particles of dust darting up, resisting
their muddy fate and already I was drenched,
had never been so wet; I’d never been so close
to the clouds with the rain coming down
and kept on going. At the summit we stood,
hearts swollen with victory and relief, though
thick grey mist had stolen the famous view
of the north and south coasts of the island.
Later, in the guesthouse in the valley,
you tell me of the Taino and Maroons who
escaped slavery by fleeing to the Blue and
John Crow mountains; it was here, in unmapped
land colonists dared not enter, that they gathered,
grew strength, and planned their resistance.

A Human-Centric Approach

March 2, 2023May 10, 2023

Work is a vital part of life, shaping our sense of purpose and well-being. More than 160 million people are part of the U.S. workforce, spending one-third, if not more, of their day working as knowledge employees. The pressures of hustle culture, where busyness is a source of pride, trap many in the delusion of relentless productivity. However, we are seeing, the impact of toxic productivity on overall well-being.

Workload pressures, the economic climate, and the challenges [aftermath] of the pandemic, employees [individuals] are emotionally stretched. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), nearly 3 in 5 employees reported negative impacts of work-related stress in the wake of the pandemic. With the burnout crisis experienced by employees, organizations will benefit from holistic well-being strategies supporting their workforce while curating an inclusive culture where people feel they belong.

Shaping the work culture

Leaders who visibly commit to the well-being, and who can have quality conversations with their workforce to address the factors contributing to this crisis will ensure engagement.

According to the U. S. Surgeon Report, “regardless of their position, when employees feel appreciated, recognized, and engaged, their sense of value and meaning increases, as well as their capacity to manage stress.” Building good relationships and strong organizations requires listening, deeply listening with empathy. Understanding work from the perspective of the people doing the work can reveal what is broken and how it impacts them.

Managers hold a powerful role in shaping the work culture and employees’ well-being. Listening to their direct report to recognize the ways they engage with their work, the constraints faced, and factors that effects how the work is completed will allow the manager and the employee to co-create signposts for success. This collaborative approach empowers inclusive teams’ participation to build and determine how work is accomplished, fostering connections and moderating feelings of being overwhelmed.

When employees feel supported

Effective support starts when there is an understanding of what is needed across the enterprise, cultivating a purpose-driven workplace. Employee feedback can provide important insights and context, deepening the C-suite’s understanding and aligning the enterprise’s purpose with colleagues. Connecting the company’s purpose to environmental, social, and the goals of the enterprise can be a valuable way to support the organization’s talent.

Taking a human-centric approach invites leaders to fully evaluate this complexity of knowledge work. Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General, encourages organizations to examine workload and adequacy of resources to meet those demands (such as staffing, and coverage), reduce long working hours, and eliminate policies and productivity metrics that cause harm (such as limiting employee breaks).

Time for creativity

A key to creativity is “the ha-ha stage”, which is only possible when there is an incubation phase that enriches the process. In the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast Podcast: Breaking Free of the Cult of Productivity, Madeleine Dore noted that for knowledge employees there needs to be time to slow down. Rest is not a reward. To show up powerful again the next day, our brain needs to recharge to retain more information.

Intentionally looking out for biases that promote organizational design, work arrangements, and technologies where employees are constantly on further support time for renewal. Leaders are encouraged to job craft, where employees proactively shape the ways in which they contribute to the organization in a meaningful, rewarding, and consistent way that utilizes their strengths.

Purpose and belonging

When well-being policies and ways of working support all employees, it is a winning proposition. Listening and investing in employees, shows it’s okay for them to look after their well-being, whether it means being off-line during personal and family time or collaborating with leadership on how work will be executed. Simon Blake advised that companies “adopt a comprehensive, whole organization approach which recognizes that well-being and performance fuel one another.” An organization’s productivity and the meaning employees derive from their work do not need to conflict with each other.

When humans are centered at work, caring community of purpose and belonging is promoted. “The most important asset in any organization is its people. By choosing to center their voices, we can ensure everyone has a platform to thrive.” – Vivek H. Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General. Does this mean that thriving might be an element of striving?

Book A Discovery Session

A discovery session is largely influenced by a kaizen process, which is a philosophy based on the concept to change for the better through small modifications creating improvements. The session is centered on learning about one another including 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 is it 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.

“Dread Poetry & Freedom Linton Kwesi Johnson & The Unfinished Revolution” offers an expansive exploration of Jamaican poets grappling with the legacy of slavery and colonialism in the post-independence period. It also probes the influence of the “cast of outcasts” on creative expression.

Austin writes, “Johnson’s poetry has served to expose the mask that shields society’s inequalities while emphasizing black and working-class self-activity in the struggle for social change.” Johnson’s poetry draws on his heritage, written in the Jamaican vernacular accompanied by dub (reggae) music.

A comprehensive review of the influences that shaped Johnson’s poetry, a blend of storytelling, history, and the political climate post-independence. This is a rich account of the intellectuals, politicians and poets who influenced the Dread Poetry movement centering Johnson’s contributions to the movement. Johnson is only the second living poet to have been published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. I am looking forward to diving into that book next in the next couple of months.