Your Career: The Best Advice Career Experts Ever Received…They Make their Living Giving other People Career Advice, but what were the Words of Wisdom that Helped them?

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Career coaches spend their days doling out advice to help people get ahead. But what advice did they get that helped them along the way?

First Sun Success Series

We asked five successful career coaches what was the best career advice they ever received. Here, the words of wisdom that’s stuck with them through the years.

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH GREAT PEOPLE

Roughly 15 years ago, Jeff Wolf, author of Seven Disciplines of a Leader, and founder and president, Wolf Management Consultants in Chicago, had just come out of corporate America. During a conversation about business and leadership, his father-in-law, a consultant, told him, “Make sure you surround yourself with great people.” Wolf was in the process of building his team, which now totals 55, and thought about how much better has CEO life had been when he was surrounded by top talent.

He says that being careful in selecting his team members “helped the company weather the recession.” Not only were they able to come up with solutions and look for opportunities that contributed to the business. In addition, their skills and expertise were so strong that they helped Wolf’s management consulting firm land business even when companies were sharply pulling back their spending on outside consulting services, he says.

STRETCH BEYOND YOUR COMFORT ZONE

While working at the University of Washington, Robin Ryan was considering a career in speaking and teaching when she met a fellow speaker who told her she needed a book. Ryan had never thought about writing a book. “Grammar is not my forte,” she says.

But she took a class on writing a book proposal and began to research the process of writing a book. She sent out 24 proposals to various publishing houses and sold her book, 60 Seconds And You’re Hired, based on an interviewing class she taught. In 2016, the book’s sixth edition will be released, and she’s gone on to write several other books. She’s been featured in many national publications and has been a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, NBC News and many others and has a thriving career coaching practice. But none of that would have happened if she hadn’t have taken on a challenge that wasn’t a natural fit for her and for which she had to work hard to achieve, she says.

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DO WHAT YOU LOVE—EVEN IF IT’S UNCOMFORTABLE

Former Marine Courtney Lynch was working at a large law firm when she had the opportunity to go off on her own and start a leadership development company. But who ditches a cushy law gig in pursuit of something so amorphous without any promises? Lynch turned to her financial advisor for a reality check.

“She told me she could put me in a lot of different investment products, but in the end, she couldn’t sell me an investment better than investing in myself,” she says.

The advisor also said that Lynch couldn’t save her way to security, but that her talent was her true safety net and that she would be wise to follow it. Lynch made the leap and her book, Leading From the Front: No-Excuse Leadership Tactics For Women, was published by McGraw-Hill. It became a best-seller, and as founding partner of Fairfax, Virginia-based LeadStar, she consults with companies like Merrill Lynch, ESPN and Google to help develop leaders within organizations. She uses her personal example to illustrate to her clients what’s possible.

WORK HARD AND SMART

When Lorenzo G. Flores was just starting out as a psychiatric social worker, one of his bosses took him aside and gave him a few words of wisdom: there’s no substitute for hard work, but you also need to know the politics of the organization. In an age where “work smarter not harder” is the mantra, he says his mentor’s advice was a more pragmatic approach. Working hard is important, especially when you’re first starting out. However, you need to know where hard work is valued so your efforts are generating results that are important to those in charge, he says.

“It comes down to that 80/20 rule. Where do put your emphasis? What do you do best? What seem to be the boss’s priorities? All of that is critical to repositioning yourself for career advancement,” he says.

Flores worked his way up to a department director position using this philosophy. He now owns a Fresno, California coaching practice, which helps individuals and companies develop career advancement tactics, using a book and board game he self-published based on the concept.

SHOW YOUR WORK—AND YOUR WORTH

Nicole Williams, founder of New York City-based career consulting firm Works, took to heart the old writing chestnut, “Show, don’t tell.” She sees it as the notion of focusing on outcomes and demonstrating your value rather than just talking about it.

“If you spend a lot of time talking, it’s a sure sign to your managers and clients that you’re uncertain,” she says.

Instead, put your effort in and deliver results, she says. Be a problem-solver, focus on solutions, and make an impact. This approach has helped her build her firm to include corporate and college consulting and working with brands. Her commitment to results has even attracted private investment from business development lab Loeb Enterprises. She also uses this mantra as a litmus test to determine how serious people are when they ask for her help, requesting that they send her a summary of how they’d like her assistance.

“If you can’t send me a one-pager, within a reasonable amount of time, which is a week, you know, I kind of just cross you off the list of potentials, because you just haven’t responded,” she says.

 

Fastcompany.com |  March 26, 2015 | 

Gwen Moran writes about business, money and assorted other topics for leading publications and web sites.

Strategy:10 Reasons you Should Wake Up Earlier — & How to Do It..Don’t make Drastic Changes. Start Slowly, by Waking just 15-30 Minutes Earlier than Usual.

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“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” — Ben Franklin, famously

“Put no trust in the benefits to accrue from early rising, as set forth by the infatuated Franklin …” — Mark Twain

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Let the sun in to get started on the right foot.

Let the sun in to get started on the right foot.

Recently, reader Rob asked me about my habit of waking at 4:30 a.m. each day, and asked me to write about the health benefits of rising early, which I thought was an excellent question.

Unfortunately, there are none, that I know of.  However, there are a ton of other great benefits.

Now, let me first say that if you are a night owl, and that works for you, I think that’s great. There’s no reason to change, especially if you’re happy with it. But for me, switching from being a night owl to an early riser (and yes, it is possible) has been a godsend. It has helped me in so many ways that I’d never go back. Here are just a few:

1. Greet the day.

I love being able to get up, and greet a wonderful new day. I suggest creating a morning ritual that includes saying thanks for your blessings.

I’m inspired by the Dalai Lama, who said, ” Everyday, think as you wake up, ‘today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.’ ”

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2. Amazing start.

I used to start my day by jumping out of bed, late as usual, and rushing to get myself and the kids ready, and rushing to drop them to school and come in to work late. I would walk into work, looking rumpled and barely awake, grumpy and behind everyone else. Not a great start to your day.

Now, I have a renewing morning ritual, I’ve gotten so much done before 8 a.m., my kids are early and so am I, and by the time everyone else gets in to work, I’ve already gotten a head start. There is no better way to start off your day than to wake early, in my experience.

3. Quietude.

No kids yelling, no babies crying, no soccer balls, no cars, no television noise. The early morning hours are so peaceful, so quiet. It’s my favorite time of day. I truly enjoy that time of peace, that time to myself, when I can think, when I can read, when I can breathe.

4. Sunrise.

People who wake late miss one of the greatest feats of nature, repeated in full stereovision each and every day — the rise of the sun. I love how the day slowly gets brighter, when the midnight blue turns to lighter blue, when the brilliant colors start to seep into the sky, when nature is painted in incredible colors.

I like doing my early morning run during this time, and I look up at the sky as I run and say to the world, “What a glorious day!” Really. I really do that. Corny, I know.

5. Breakfast.

Rise early and you actually have time for breakfast. I’m told it’s one of the most important meals of the day. Without breakfast, your body is running on fumes until you are so hungry at lunchtime that you eat whatever unhealthy thing you can find — the fattier and sugarier, the betterier.

But eat breakfast, and you are sated until later. Plus, eating breakfast while reading my book and drinking my coffee in the quiet of the morning is eminently more enjoyable than scarfing something down on the way to work, or at your desk.

6. Exercise.

There are other times to exercise besides the early morning, of course, but I’ve found that while exercising right after work is also very enjoyable, it’s also liable to be canceled because of other things that come up. Morning exercise is virtually never canceled.

7. Productivity.

Mornings, for me at least, are the most productive time of day. I like to do some writing in the morning, when there are no distractions, before I check my email or blog stats.

I get so much more done by starting on my work in the morning. Then, when evening rolls around, I have no work that I need to do, and I can spend it with family.

8. Goal time.

Got goals? Well, you should. And there’s no better time to review them and plan for them and do your goal tasks than first thing. You should have one goal that you want to accomplish this week.

And every morning, you should decide what one thing you can do today to move yourself further towards that goal. And then, if possible, do that first thing in the morning.

9. Commute.

No one likes rush-hour traffic, except for Big Oil. Commute early, and the traffic is much lighter, and you get to work faster, and thus save yourself more time. Or better yet, commute by bike. (Or even better yet, work from home.)

10. Appointments.

It’s much easier to make those early appointments on time if you get up early. Showing up late for those appointments is a bad signal to the person you’re meeting. Showing up early will impress them. Plus, you get time to prepare.

How to Become an Early Riser

  • Don’t make drastic changes. Start slowly, by waking just 15-30 minutes earlier than usual. Get used to this for a few days. Then cut back another 15 minutes. Do this gradually until you get to your goal time.
  • Allow yourself to sleep earlier. You might be used to staying up late, perhaps watching TV or surfing the internet. But if you continue this habit, while trying to get up earlier, sooner or later one is going to give. And if it is the early rising that gives, then you will crash and sleep late and have to start over. I suggest going to bed earlier, even if you don’t think you’ll sleep, and read while in bed. If you’re really tired, you just might fall asleep much sooner than you think.
  • Put your alarm clock far from you bed. If it’s right next to your bed, you’ll shut it off or hit snooze. Never hit snooze. If it’s far from your bed, you have to get up out of bed to shut it off. By then, you’re up. Now you just have to stay up.
  • Go out of the bedroom as soon as you shut off the alarm. Don’t allow yourself to rationalize going back to bed. Just force yourself to go out of the room. My habit is to stumble into the bathroom and go pee. By the time I’ve done that, and flushed the toilet and washed my hands and looked at my ugly mug in the mirror, I’m awake enough to face the day.
  • Do not rationalize. If you allow your brain to talk you out of getting up early, you’ll never do it. Don’t make getting back in bed an option.
  • Have a good reason. Set something to do early in the morning that’s important. This reason will motivate you to get up. I like to write in the morning, so that’s my reason.
  • Make waking up early a reward. Yes, it might seem at first that you’re forcing yourself to do something hard, but if you make it pleasurable, soon you will look forward to waking up early. A good reward is to make a hot cup of coffee or tea and read a book. Other rewards might be a tasty treat for breakfast (smoothies! yum!) or watching the sunrise, or meditating. Find something that’s pleasurable for you, and allow yourself to do it as part of your morning routine.
  • Take advantage of all that extra time. Don’t wake up an hour or two early just to read your blogs, unless that’s a major goal of yours. Don’t wake up early and waste that extra time. Get a jump start on your day! I like to use that time to get a head start on preparing my kids’ lunches, on planning for the rest of the day (when I set my MITs), on exercising or meditating, and on reading. By the time 6:30 a.m. rolls around, I’ve done more than many people do the entire day.

 

Businessinsider.com | March 25, 2015 | LEO BABAUTA, ZEN HABITS

http://zenhabits.net/10-benefits-of-rising-early-and-how-to-do-it/#ixzz3VQxGpL2f

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Your Career: Company seeking Manufacturing Engineer, Charlotte, NC… Cold-Forming Tooling

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Description of Position:

 

 

 Manufacturing Engineer, Cold-Forming Tooling

 

Our client, a F500 manufacturing company, seeks an experienced cold-forming manufacturing engineer for their North Carolina facility.  If you are a mechanical engineer and have experience with machines manufactured by companies like Formax, Nakashimata, or Carlo Salvi, this may be the opportunity for you.  This is a division of a household-name brand manufacturer that is growing rapidly both organically and through acquisition.  Great growth opportunity in a new sector of the business.

 

Salary:   to $95K (DOE), plus significant benefits package

 

Industry:    Industrial / Manufacturing

 

Location:     Charlotte, NC.  Preference given to local candidates

 

Key Responsibilities:

 

Evaluate design and application of cold forming tooling to develop new fasteners on commercial cold heading machines Validate new products and tools for smooth transfer to manufacturing, utilizing Six Sigma principles.

Perform FEA analysis (DEFORM) to shorten product development design cycle.

Must demonstrate experience carrying project from design through prototyping and startup manufacturing

 

Position Requirements: ​

 

Four-year degree in mechanical engineering Minimum 5-10 years’ experience in designing cold forming tooling.

Proficient in 2D, CAD mechanical design at minimum; 3D prefer Knowledge of cold forming aluminum, steel, & stainless steel wire preferred Good understanding of secondary processes required to finish product: heat treatment, annealing, thread rolling, finishing, plating Basic understanding of metallurgy Experience with aerospace materials a plus Strong team and oral/written communication skills

 

To apply: Cut and paste the following link or go to our website, www.schegggroup.com and click on Search:

http://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH08/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=SCHEGG&cws=1&rid=278

 

Strategy: 3 Lies We Tell Ourselves When We Say ‘Yes’ To Work We Hate…Research also Shows that Earning $75 000/year is the Threshold Above Which your Day-to-Day Happiness No Longer Increases with More Money

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Last week, I had an interesting conversation with the owner of a growing marketing firm. The talk turned to problem clients and the owner expressed a hope that one day he’d get to a point where his business would be stable enough that he could turn down work that seemed like it was going to be more trouble than it was worth. He just didn’t feel like he had the luxury of making that choice yet. He was in a place many entrepreneurs, freelancers and job seekers find ourselves in at some point in our careers — saying yes because we feel we can’t say no.

Clock Man

If you’ve ever been in that bind, you likely tried to rationalize your doomed decision with one of the following lies:

1- “I might not get another chance.”

While it’s true that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, if the bird you have in your hands is a turkey, it’s better to take a pass. Saying yes to ill-fitting opportunities because you feel like something better might not come along is a decision born of insecurity and superstition, as if by passing on something that isn’t a good fit you’re thumbing your nose at the universe and daring it to punish your hubris by denying you future opportunities. When you stop to think about that assumption for a minute, it begins to sounds kind of absurd.

Instead, try flipping this thinking around. It’s selfish to accept an opportunity that you’re ambivalent about  because you’re taking that possibility away from someone who’d be a much better and more enthusiastic fit. A colleague of mine uses similar logic when hiring. He wants his team members to be focused on work they absolutely love doing because he feels that’s the best way to encourage productivity and keep morale high. If there’s something they aren’t crazy about (copywriting, event planning, analytics), he’d rather hire another person who does love that kind of work to take on those tasks than have his direct reports splitting their focus between projects they love and work they only do because they have to.

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2- “This will open the door to other opportunities.”

This argument is the slightly more upscale cousin of the one struggling young writers are served up by those who want to them to create content for “exposure” only and it’s just as flawed. How likely is the client from hell to recommend you for other assignments? How motivated will you be to put in the kind of effort you can leverage into bigger and better things if your workplace is a toxic nightmare? And while it’s possible that taking on work you dislike will lead to other opportunities, it’s more than likely they will be similar to what you already hate. Congratulations, you’ve built yourself a pipeline of leads that are exactly what you were trying to escape from in the first place.

3- “It’s good money.”

There’s a distinct difference between taking on unpleasant work out offinancial necessity and letting dollar signs be the deciding factor on which opportunities you elect to pursue. Think of students who choose a major based on earning potential or convince themselves that the path to a secure future runs straight through an MBA program or law school (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). For all the flak they catch, Millennials are on to something here when it comes to the idea you can buy your way to happiness (or out of unhappiness) with a fat paycheck.

A 2014 Intelligence Group survey found that almost two-thirds of Millennials would prefer to make $40 000/year at a job they loved than earn $100 000/year at one that bored them. Research also shows that earning $75 000/year is the threshold above which your day-to-day happiness no longer increases with more money.

When you find your will to resist a less-than-stellar gig being swayed by the promised payday, ask yourself what you’ll have to trade to cash in. A lucrative contract seems less appealing when it means putting in 65-hour weeks, being at a client’s (or boss’s) beck and call 24/7 and seeing your quality of life decline even as you’re doing the work you convinced yourself would allow you to improve it. Funny how that plays out.

 

Forbes.com | March 23, 2015 | 

J. Maureen HendersonJ. Maureen Henderson Contributor

 

Leadership: If You Act Like A Leader You Will Think Like A Leader…Leaders Ought to Seek out New Knowledge, Experiences & Networks in Order to Both Grow as a Leader & Act as a Better, more Effective Type of Leader

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The move from individual contributor to first-time ‘leader of people’ is one of the most daunting career moves for many employees. It doesn’t matter what line of business you’re in either. When you’re asked to lead — when you’re given your first opportunity to become a leader of people — it can feel like the first time you put on ice skates. For me at least, my first time skating was a wee bit of an experiment, wobbly ankles and all.

actlikealeader_thinklikealeader_

Think of the sales account representative with seven years of experience who won the competition and is now leading the team she was a part of last month. What about the communications prime for a business unit who has now become “Communications Manager” for five different parts of the organization, leading eight communications employees in total. Then there is the accountant who, after a stellar 12-year career of over-performing on his individual objectives, takes the plunge and earns the chance to lead a team of accountants at a different company. He’s never led people before, but at 35 years of age, he’s ready to tackle hearts and minds, in addition to cells and spreadsheets.

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When you’ve been presented the opportunity to lead people for the first time, it’s best for you, your new team, your organization and your career that you have some sort of guide to assist your preparations. I used to do a lot of orienteering in the woods and forests of Ontario. Without a map and a compass, there’s no way I would have made my way through the various obstacles and terrains that were in my way. It’s hard to cheat in orienteering, but it’s even harder to complete your mission if you’re devoid of a map and compass.

This brings me to a solution for those new leaders (and long-standing leaders, for that matter) looking for a map and a compass in the quest to become an above-average leader. That map and compass comes in the form of Herminia Ibarra’s wonderful new book, Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader. (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015)

Herminia is the Paris-based Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning at INSEAD, one of the world’s leading and very popular graduate business schools. Her book lays down a foundation for leaders to consider in their quest to become more effective at leadership itself.

At the core of the book — and Herminia’s vast research, conducted with hundreds of executive education students from all parts of the globe — is a concept she calls “Outsight“.

As Herminia writes in the opening chapter of the book:

“The only way to think like a leader is to first act: to plunge yourself into new projects and activities, interact with very different kinds of people, and experiment with unfamiliar ways of getting things done. In times of transition and uncertainty, thinking and introspection should follow action and experimentation – not vice versa.”

Bottom line? The Outsight principle is about action.

In order to become as effective a leader as possible, we needn’t rely on the ubiquitous number of self-reflection assessments and surveys available to us. Ibarra suggests introspection and self-analysis can only take us so far. On the contrary, leaders ought to seek out new knowledge, experiences and networks in order to both grow as a leader and act as a better, more effective type of leader.

If the Outsight principle is about action, Ibarra crystallizes the theory with an extremely useful model that any type of leader can utilize. After finishing the book, I immediately thought organizations of any size could utilize the book (and the Outsight principle) as a basis for their new-leader management development programs. It could easily become a handy action-based job aid that ensures new leaders are taking the right steps in their first few months in their new role of leading people. That’s why I opened this post with the anecdote of people becoming leaders for the first time.

That stated, it’s clearly not a book solely intended for new leaders. On the contrary, it’s written for any level of leadership.

The Outsights model is broken down into three key actions for a leader to redefine:

  • Redefine Your Job
  • Redefine Your Network
  • Redefine Your Self

First off, I wholeheartedly concur with Ibarra. There are far too many operational time wasters that encompass a leader’s role. Leaders become bogged down by the minutia, in addition to endless emails and meetings. I see it every day in my line of work.

Her suggestion? Allocate more time to doing things that leaders DON’T do best. (That’s right, what they don’t do best.) Because leaders get good at certain aspects of their job — or through honing their skills over time — it becomes that much easier to do the things leaders are good at instead of learning new skills, and spending more time on those aspects where they might improve upon. In the first pillar to the Outsights model, Ibarra recommends that in order to ‘Redefine Your Job‘ leaders should:

  • bridge across diverse people and groups – ‘outsight’ comes from a range of outsiders where a leader can then develop differing points of view to see the big picture of opportunity.
  • envision new possibilities – developing and articulating what she calls “an aspiration”.
  • engage people in the change process – encapsulated by the formula “the idea + the process + you = success in leading the change”
  • embody the change – using Margaret Thatcher as an example, leaders need to utilize their charisma to help get things done.

To help actualize the redefinition of a job, Ibarra recommends leaders make their job a platform. The platform can be inculcated by actions such as getting involved in projects outside your area, participating in extra-curricular activities and creating slack in one’s schedule.

The second key pillar to the Outsights model is to ‘Redefine Your Network’. Of the three components to the model, I personally like this the best. Any position I’ve ever held — any article, post or book I’ve ever written — has come as a result of my network. I even wrote something entitled, ‘My Net Work Is My Net Worth‘ about five years ago. If a leader believes she is ‘acting’ like a leader while holed up in a Fort Knox-like office, afraid to mingle with the masses inside or outside the organization, it’s the epitome of passive and ineffective leadership, in my opinion. To me, that’s not leadership … it’s cowardship.

Professor Ibarra emphatically decrees:

“Effective leaders create and use networks to tap new ideas, connect to people in different worlds, and access people for radically different perspectives.”

She encourages leaders to network outside the organization, often an untapped source not only of contacts and people but of potential innovations and creative solutions to business problems. She is very correct in asserting leaders need operational, personal and strategic networks, to get things done but also to develop and ‘act’ like better leaders.

I had the chance to meet Herminia for the first time face-to-face last year at the Drucker Forum conference in Vienna where we both were speakers. Our relationship started a couple of years ago with a simple email. It grew to Twitter and (arguably) a mutual admiration for each other’s writing, research and thoughts on leadership. We’re not best friends, but we’re both interested in one another enough to keep abreast of each other’s work, exchanging thoughts, books, and so on. While many academics can talk a good game, Professor Ibarra definitely ‘practices what she preaches’ when it comes to redefining your network. For that, I am thankful, and I’m certain many, many more in her network are as well.

Throughout the book, Herminia takes pot-shots at the passing cars of various and overly hyped leadership theories written by what I refer to as “pop culture leadership authors”. She’s too professional to ‘name names’, but I smiled each time I came across one as I too believe there are far too many theories, models and books published by authors whose purpose is to create a cottage industry of self-assessments – for additional purchase, of course. In the third and final component to the Outsights model — “Redefine Your Self” – Ibarra states:

“You can buy many books on how to be more authentic at work and can sign up for countless courses on how to be a more authentic leader. Clearly, many of us are finding it problematic to just be ourselves.”

I must admit, I giggled out loud when I read those lines.

But authenticity is the crux of the third pillar to the Outsights model. In Ibarra’s case, however, she wants leaders to escape the ‘authenticity trap’ by playing around with new behaviours to create a new sense of self, one that is acting without positive illusions or the crutch that has enveloped many leaders – to be authentic for the sake of popular argument.

Ibarra wants leaders to play around with their identity. For example, instead of relegating yourself to continually being in the performance mode (presenting yourself in a favourable light – think ‘managing up’) try to use a playful learning model, “one that allows you to reconcile your natural yearning for authenticity in how you work and lead with an equally powerful motivator; growing and, most of all, learning about and extending the possibilities for yourself.”

She also suggests — within the Redefine Your Self pillar — to steal like an artist (observe others and take what you can to improve your self) and not to stick to the story. In other words, try different versions and edit, edit, edit.

In summary, at 190 pages, Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader is an excellent, insightful and thoughtful book for leaders of any tenure to consider as they seek out new ways to redefine (and arguably refine) their leadership abilities. The Outsights model is simple to understand, yet the book itself offers all kinds of practical tips and exercises throughout. The stories are superb.

My only constructive criticism has more to do with flow, and in particular the Afterword and Conclusion chapter. Herminia rekindles a fabulously personal story about her time at INSEAD when she shifted from an individual contributor academic role, to one where she began leading people (other academics) at her school. It’s incredibly poignant, detailing what she had to mentally (and physically) go through as she transitioned from a role where she focused solely on writing, teaching and researching to one that had much more to do with the multi-faceted nuances and actions of leading people.

I mentioned earlier that academics are often branded as not having any ‘real world’ experience, cherry-picking their knowledge from on-site stints, focus groups, studies, and so on. Herminia IS walking the talk of her research, and I would much rather have preferred to see that personal anecdote at the beginning of the book to establish herself with even greater credibility.

All in all, I highly recommend the book.

It’s both a map and a compass for people at all levels aspiring to become more effective — and action oriented — leaders. Don’t take my word for it, read Chapter One for free!

__________

Dan Pontefract is the author of FLAT ARMY: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization and is Chief Envisioner at TELUS Transformation Office. He’s finished writing his next book — DUAL PURPOSE — which will publish in the Fall, 2015.

 

Forbes.com | February 24, 2015 | Dan Pontefract

 

Leadership: How Do You Create a Culture of Service?… We Strongly Encourage Employees to Volunteer in Their Communities

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In December, Points of Light and Bloomberg LPreleased the 2014 Civic 50—a list of the most community-minded companies in the country. The Civic 50 sets the standard for corporate citizenship, honoring companies that are effectively giving their time, talent and resources to improve lives in the communities where they do business.

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This is part two of a five-part series that examines the trends and highlights released in Points of Light’s report, The Civic 50: A Roadmap for Corporate Community Engagement. In this piece, I worked with Yvonne Siu Turner of Points of Light to find out from Margot Copeland, Chair and CEO of KeyBank Foundation, what inspires her to lead the company’s corporate citizenship efforts, and how KeyBank has created a culture of service.

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Q: A culture of service depends on policies, incentives and systems to support and sustain corporate community engagement efforts. Tell us about KeyBank’s policies and incentives.

A: Our culture of community engagement is longstanding. KeyBank is more than 160 years old and KeyBank Foundation is 45 years old this year. Throughout the decades, we’ve implemented a number of policies that we regard today as simply part of our culture. For example, we strongly encourage employees to volunteer in their communities. On Neighbors Make the Difference Day, our annual day of volunteerism supported by paid time off, our goal is to have half of our 14,000 employees to volunteer across the country, from Alaska to Maine. We achieved this last year, with 50 percent of our workforce participating in 900 projects. Super Refund Saturday is another important day of service for us, where we provide free tax preparation for hardworking local residents trying to make ends meet.

Apart from these days of service, we encourage employees to continue volunteering throughout the year. We currently have more than 600 volunteers who teach our free financial education curriculum to the public, helping people better understand saving, spending, We encourage employees to volunteer on nonprofit boards and take an active role in matching employees with interested nonprofits, in partnership with an organization called Business Volunteers Unlimited: Center for Nonprofit Excellence. Board placement is led at the corporate level by the KeyBank Foundation and supported at the market level by Key’s market executives.

I myself am honored to serve as a trustee of Kent State University, the Thomas White Foundation, Kenneth Scott Foundation, University Hospitals Health System and the Delta Foundation in Washington, DC. To show support of employees’ board service, we provide annual $500 Community Leadership Grants to each organization (up to four per employee) that includes one of our employees on its board.

Our matching gift program allows an employee to make a gift, use the receipt as proof and then request a matching amount from KeyBank, which is sent directly to the organization. Through this Matching Gift Program, employees have a say in how and where we give. In 2014, we contributed nearly $4 million through employee gifts, matching corporate contributions and United Way fundraising.

Q: Peter Drucker once said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” How important are policies and incentives to creating a culture of service at KeyBank?

A: Business strategies grounded in solid, long-standing values are always superior to strategies that are merely opportunistic or that view customers as mere “transactions.” Setting the tone at the top is extremely important. From the CEO down, we expect and foster a culture of service, as well as a commitment to diversity and inclusion, among our 14,000 employees. The “shadow of the leader” is a very real concept at Key, and our leaders are heavily involved in their communities. We purposefully hire, promote and retain those who are invested in building thriving communities, and select questions we ask potential leaders during interviews revolve around the importance of community service. At any given time, there are dozens of service and volunteer initiatives throughout the bank.

We intentionally established a structure that supports our values when we launched a Corporate Responsibility department in 2012. Created by our CEO Beth Mooney and led by Executive Vice President Bruce Murphy, the department includes the bank’s philanthropy, volunteerism, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and Community Reinvestment Act initiatives.

The Corporate Responsibility department influences all segments of the bank. It provides both expert leadership and direct guidance on how best to invest in our people and the planet and how we can achieve profits responsibly. The department aligns the conduct of the entire bank in a way that produces an industry standard for responsible banking. In the end, we see a competitive advantage in the marketplace because we are a responsible business partner.
Q: How did you choose which policies and incentives were the right fit for KeyBank?

A: All of our policies support our purpose of “helping our clients and communities thrive.” Let me give you an example of a recent policy that directly supports our value of diversity: Valuing diversity and fostering an environment of inclusion are among Key’s highest strategic priorities. We believe that diverse individuals bring with them unique backgrounds, experiences and ideas, which make KeyBank stronger. The lenses of diversity and inclusion are considered when we recruit talented employees, invest in our communities, engage in grant-making, volunteer, develop vendor partnerships and reach out to customers.

Two years ago, the Foundation carefully looked at specific practices of certain nonprofits that directly opposed Key’s values and policies related to inclusion. In June 2013, the KeyBank Foundation Board adopted a non-discrimination policy, stating that, “KeyBank Foundation shall not make any grants, whether through its employee matching gift program or otherwise, to charitable organizations that discriminate against individuals on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, gender identity, disability, or sexual orientation.” This decision demonstrates our continuing corporate commitment to advancing the concept of inclusion.

Q: Did you struggle with any policy or incentive at first?

A: Recently, we have been challenged with aggregating and quantifying the good work our 14,000 employees are doing. We know we are helping clients and communities thrive, and celebrating this is important to us, but it has been difficult to track. That’s why, at the end of last year, we decided to use new software that will allow our employees to share with us their good works and allow us to reward their volunteerism. We’re proud of our employees, and we want them to know just how much they are valued. We look forward to the full deployment of this system in 2015 and to sharing how the incentive program has been received.

Q: What inspired you to pursue a career in corporate citizenship and what inspires you in the day-to-day of your job?

A: To pinpoint an event, day, or time is difficult, so I must attribute my life approach to my upbringing. Throughout my entire career, I have been inspired to volunteerism and community service. It’s a part of the very way I live and operate. You could ask others who know me and they would say I’m a relationship person – people are extremely important to me. I know that building connections are the way to create change.

Long before I came to Key, I had a track record in community affairs and was a champion of civic vitality, which is part of the reason I was offered the job. To me, affecting change is about going directly to where the need is greatest and serving there. When you care deeply and are deeply connected, you can put the right policies and people in place with greater speed and efficiency. To see transformation happen – in individual lives, as well as institutions – is exciting to me and constantly keeps me inspired.

Forbes.com | March 23, 2015 | Cause Integration

Strategy: How To Ace Your Performance Review…Frame the Discussion Yourself, Casting your Boss in the Role of Gentle Coach & Mentor Rather than Disciplinarian

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Back in 2008, Samuel Culbert, a UCLA professor and management consultant, published an op-ed inThe Wall Street Journal titled, “Get Rid of the Performance Review!” The piece got a huge response from readers, and Culbert went on to write a book with the same title, which came out in 2010.

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The performance review “destroys morale, kills teamwork and hurts the bottom line,” Culbert wrote in the Journal. “A one-side-accountable, boss-administered review is little more than a dysfunctional pretense.” A Ph.D. in clinical psychology, Culbert hates performance reviews, if anything, even more today. “It’s all b******t anyway,” he says.

Despite Culbert’s protests, the performance review remains a fact of life for workers at most big companies. What is the best way to survive this annual ritual and come out on top? Culbert’s advice: be calculating, and remember that subjective forces are at play. “Don’t get emotional,” he says.

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Paul Falcone, a human resources executive in Los Angeles and author of 2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews and The Performance Appraisal Tool Kit, has more concrete advice to offer.

First, Falcone says, you must take the initiative. Do your own self-examination in advance, he suggests. Some companies ask their employees to fill out self-review forms. If yours doesn’t, put yourself through the paces anyway. “Otherwise it’s like being a turkey on Thanksgiving,” Falcone says. “You put your head down on the block and wait for your boss to lower the ax.”

He recommends starting the process two months before your review. Write a memo detailing your achievements. What have you done to increase revenues, to decrease expenses, to save time, to reinvent your department in light of the company’s changing needs? Make sure you track the entire year since your last review. “Bosses don’t remember what you did 11 months ago,” Falcone points out.

Additionally, Falcone recommends you spell out what support you need from your boss. Also, detail your goals for the next year. What sort of measurable outcomes are you shooting for? This will help you in your review a year from now.

In your self-review, and in the performance review itself, speak plainly. “Talk English, for Pete’s sake,” Falcone says. Do not say anything like, “We leveraged strategic resources.” Speak in specifics, not generalities.

If you can, Falcone advises, frame the discussion yourself, casting your boss in the role of gentle coach and mentor rather than disciplinarian. “A lot of people go into the review asking, ‘How did I do, boss?’” he observes. “If you do it right, you’ve done the boss’ job for her, with respect and humility.”

What if the boss levels some unexpected criticism? Handle it calmly and openly, Falcone recommends. Apologize, but try not to take it personally. He suggests saying something that includes the wordperception, as in, “If your perception is that I’m not doing this as well as you expected, then I take responsibility for that, and I’m sorry.” He calls such a response “business maturity.”

Own up to mistakes when you make them, he advises. Then thank your boss for the feedback.

This is an update of a story that ran previously.

 

Forbes.com | March 23, 2015 | Susan Adams 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/03/23/how-to-ace-your-performance-review-5

Strategy: 8 Ways To Get Work Done Faster…Polled a Group of More than 1,600 leaders, 81% Felt They are Often Expected to Move Faster & Do More

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John Maynard Keyes, a famous economist in the 1930’s, predicted that his grandchildren would have a three-hour workday. Sadly, it did not happen–In fact, we now have the reverse! Organizations are looking for ways to do more with less, the population is aging, and the pace of work is increasing.

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When Zenger Folkman polled a group of more than 1,600 leaders, 81% felt they are often expected to move faster and do more. In the chart below you can see the perceived number of “hurry up” messages executives receive every year. A Harvard Business Review study found that in the 1970’s executives received about 1,000 messages per year. If you contrast that with the 30,000 messages executives received in the 2010’s, you can see the expectations emerging through more than 120 messages per workday. Clearly there is a great need for speed in today’s workplace.

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 8.24.43 AM

As organizations look at competition and shorting deadlines there is a great need for increased speed. In our survey we asked respondents the impact of increased speed. When we looked at the data we examined the differences by position (e.g., Top, Senior, Middle and Supervisors).

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Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 8.25.05 AM
While the majority of each group realized the value of increased speed, Top Management saw the need more clearly with 79% agreeing with the statement.

Assessing Your Speed
We created a self-assessment to evaluate an individual’s pace. We have found that the assessment provides a valid estimate of an individual’s pace. The self-assessment results are positively correlated with the feedback from others on pace (.50 Pearson Correlation) and with an activity assessment (.51 Pearson Correlation). From the data that we have gathered we are understanding that the pace individuals keep tends to increase with age. The graph below shows gender differences by age and it is evident that while females start their work life with a faster pace males tend to overtake them in their 40’s. Note that as people age the pace tends to slow down.

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 8.25.44 AM

Breaking the pace assessment results out by position revels that top management tend to have the fastest pace scoring at the 60th percentile and individual contributors a much slower pace scoring at the 40thpercentile.

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 8.26.29 AM

 

To get a better sense of your individual pace click here and take the self-assessment. The Pace Assessment measures a leader’s ability to spot problems or trends early, to respond to problems quickly, and to swiftly make needed changes. From this assessment I learned some very interesting things about the power of speed:

  • Leaders in the top speed quartile were rated as much more effective leaders.
  • Leaders in the top speed quartile had direct reports who were more engaged.
  • Leadership who exhibit the combination of doing things and doing things right rank in the 96% percentile for being extraordinary leaders.

How do I increase my pace without becoming frantic?

Now that I’ve established the important of speed I want to be clear: I am not encouraging you to run around your office and make people uncomfortable. One of my greatest findings as a behavioral statistician was the use of companion competencies. When bosses tell employees to improve, they will typically seek linear ways to become better. For example, to improve your interpersonal skills you may try to talk more, read a book on the subject, or attend a class. But I have found that every competency is statistically correlated with companion competencies that help to improve people in a “non-linear” way. By looking at the leaders who are in the 90th percentile of effectiveness I’m able to examine the behaviors that got them there. To increase speed, I have found eight companion behaviors that will help individuals improve their ability to anticipate problems, address issues, and move forward quickly. Here they are:

  1. Be Innovative. The old system may not be the most efficient. Take the time to see if the answer involves developing something new.
  2. Be strategic. Understanding the vision and strategy are not just key components to doing things fast, but doing them right.
  3. Be courageous. Leaders who are fast don’t waste time worrying or mulling over choices. There make decisions quickly and stand by them.
  4. Be focused on stretch goals. Stretch goals push people to accomplish more than they thought they could.
  5. Be a powerful communicator. People can move faster when they are absolutely clear about their instructions.
  6. Be externally focused. This perspective increases speed because leaders become aware of competition, recognize other organizations are creating competitive advantage, and see how their products and services compare.
  7. Be diligent. Leaders who are fast take initiative and get the job done.
  8. Be smart. Having deep expertise make everything move faster! If you know how to do the job it is much easier to get it done.

These non-linear behaviors are the keys to building strengths. The good news is that you don’t have to be good at all of these to increase your pace. In fact, you only need to be good at one or two of these abilities to get better. Ask yourself which companion behavior, if done well, would help me be the most successful in my current job? Which behavior do I have the most passion to grow?

To see where you currently stand, take our Pace Assessment and then make a plan to increase your own working speed.

Forbes.com | March 23, 2015 | Joseph Folkman

 

Strategy: 8 Common Smartphone Mistakes You’re Making At Work.. Upper & Mid-Level Managers say that “UnTimely & Inappropriate Use of Cellphones” is the #1 Etiquette Breach of Their Employees

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It used to be that poor workplace etiquette was about taking someone else’s food from the office refrigerator or dressing too sloppily on casual Fridays. Now that everyone has a smartphone glued to their hands, there are all kinds of new ways to trip up.

(Photo credit: Meet the media Guru)

(Photo credit: Meet the media Guru)

In fact, upper and mid-level managers say that “untimely and inappropriate use of cellphones” is the number one etiquette breach of their employees, according to a recent survey by Kessler International.

“It seems like the workplace has changed significantly in the past 30 years and not for the better,” said Susan Peterson, Kessler’s chief operating officer, in a press release.

Here are a few ways you might be missing the mark when it comes to smartphone use, according to Rachel Wagner, founder and president of Rachel Wagner Etiquette and Protocol in Bixby, OK:

You check your phone during client meetings. If you’re in a face-to-face conversation, you should never take a non-urgent call or text—so put your phone away and leave it alone. The exception: You work in an emergency field. “Maybe you’re an on-call physician, or you work for the national security advisor,” Wagner says. “But the important thing there is that you let the person know ahead of time that you’re expecting an urgent call.”

Pete Czech found this out the hard way, when he put his phone on his desk during a pitch meeting. Two minutes into the meeting, he received a text message about an urgent matter. “I picked up the phone, took a look, and put it right back down,” says Czech, founder of the New Possibilities Group, a boutique digital agency in New Jersey. “The person we were pitching got up and left. He was clearly a bit old school, but it did teach us a lesson. From now on, we ask, going into all meetings, if it is okay to even have our phones out.”

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You have your phone out when someone is in your office. “It sends a message to the other person that the cell phone is a symbol of something that’s more important than the person across the desk, whether it’s a co-worker, guest or client,” Wagner says. “You don’t want to give that impression.” Stash your phone in your purse or briefcase, or even in a drawer when people drop by.

You are on your phone at networking events. You are there to talk to other people, not to check your social media feed. “Some people aren’t confident being in those situations, so they tend to get on their phones,” Wagner says. “If a call comes through, just let it go. Keep 100 percent focus on the person you’re talking with at the time.”

You’re checking email during a business meeting. It apparently bears repeating—if you’re looking at your phone, you’re not giving your full attention to whomever is speaking, and it’s rude. “What some of my clients are doing is at the beginning of a meeting they’ll say, ‘This is going to be a 30-minute meeting, so we would appreciate everyone putting phones away until the end,’” Wagner says. Just put your phone down. You won’t die.

You have your phone on the table during a business meal. It’s probably habit—you sit down at a table at a restaurant and put your phone next to your plate. But if you’re eating with clients or higher-ups and you aren’t expecting a call indicating that your spouse is in labor, put your phone away. “A lot of times younger workers have been raised in this generation where your phone is an extension of your arm,” Wagner says. “I have to remind them that your phone is not part of the place setting.”

You’re still yelling into your phone. “People talking too loudly is one of the biggest pet peeves,” Wagner says. “People forget that these cell phones have very sophisticated, powerful little microphones.” In other words, you don’t have to scream. Just talk like a normal human being.
You take very personal calls in your cubicle. It’s one thing to take a phone call from your spouse about your dinner reservation that night. It’s another to take a call in which you’re going to get emotional, argue with someone, or discuss very private information. Plus, you’re probably yelling about it. (See previous point.) “Find a private place where you can take the call, like a conference room or the community kitchen if it’s empty,” Wagner says. And by the way, “the restroom stall is not a private place.”

You’re using Maroon 5’s “Animals” as your ringtone. Yes, this still happens. And your coworkers hate you. “I try to remind people to keep it professional,” Wagner says. “Have a professional sounding ring tone, which is usually a ring sound.” While you’re at it, just turn your ringer off. Leave your phone on vibrate or silent in the office to avoid making the people around you listen to every text message you receive.

– Follow Kate Ashford on Twitter.

 

Forbes.com | March 23, 2015 | Kate Ashford 

Leadership: 5 Timeless Leadership Roles To Help Navigate Change…If There’s One Thing that’s Constant Today (actually everyday), it’s Change.

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If there’s one thing that’s constant today (and everyday, for that matter), it’s change. Whether it’s people or organizations, change is the one thing both can rely on that will emerge when it’s least expected—or desired.

Image credit: Scott Maxwell on Flickr

While the business landscape is in a perpetual state of flux—and always will be—the challenges that leaders face when working through change are timeless principles that remain the same. The need to envision, create, sustain and adapt are imperative to a company’s success, albeit at different stages along its lifecycle.

Here are five leadership roles leaders should expect when facing inevitable change:

Leaders are growth mindsetters. In Carol Dweck’s groundbreaking bookMindset: The New Psychology Of Success she highlights the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset. Namely, people with a fixed mindset believe that talent and motivation are innate and therefore non-developable, whereas those with a growth mindset believe success is earned through practice and hard work. Imperative to leadership effectiveness is inculcating the growth mindset not only for oneself but for others, too, as an organization is only as strong as the leaders who define it.

One way leaders can do this is by praising failure (different from encouraging it). When employees see effort as the means by which results are attained and failure as an acceptable temporary byproduct of that effort, they’re more willing to try and fail rather than not try at all.

 

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Leaders lead with energy. Founding a company is no easy feat. It takes hard work, persistence, a growth mindset and, most of all, the energy to keep going. Energy presents itself physically, mentally and emotionally, expressed through non-verbals such as facial expressions, vigor with which you answer questions (or don’t) and voice pitch.Leaders are switched “on” everyday in this startup mode and as a result, literally breathe life into the company. They must, for if they don’t then their newly minted startup just becomes another new business gone awry.

Leaders as creators. Significant to an organizational leader’s effectiveness is the environment that he or she creates that enthuses others to think or act out of newly inspired values. In other words, leaders determine the direction and success of a company based on the culture they instill today, and they do so in three ways:

  1. Only hiring like-minded employees
  2. “Raising” employees according to the belief system of the organization
  3. Individual expression (i.e. behavior) that role models the way for others to espouse

How a leader shows up is everything. The positive or negative thinking and emotions, the words a leader chooses to use (or avoids) all contribute to not only a leader’s professional effectiveness, but also that of others. If a leader constantly micromanages then instilling trust becomes an organizational challenge; if a leader supports a democratic leadership style all the time then decision-making becomes impaired. There’s no right way to do everything. Rather, different situations necessitate different tools.

Leaders as growth catalyzers. At some point—hopefully, many points—companies must grow, not just in size but in the process and systems that keep the name brand competitive. This is a significant gap that pervades many organizations, as leaders face three challenges here. First, it’s easy for leaders to become emotionally attached to the culture they’ve (ideally) created. Thus they fear that as the company scales, the culture will have an inverse reaction; essentially, that they’ll lose the uniqueness that serves as a talent scout.

Second, to compensate for the unknown associated with scaling, they instill process after process in hopes of creating certainty. More affectionately, it’s a “CYA” methodology, or the equivalent of what I heard in the Navy when it came to tying knots (“If you don’t know knots, tie lots!”).

Third, leaders don’t know how to scale so they procrastinate, and in doing so, they lose their competitive advantage.

To stay competitive in today’s fast-paced world, leaders must continually adapt to a changing landscape, and that means internalizing change within the culture and serving as catalyzers for perpetual growth.

Leaders as adaptability agents. The term “change agent” connotes a complete shift from what one once knew to something else new entirely. However, when you really think about it, do organizations really change? Or, do leaders tend to adapt the inner linings of their organization through re-structuring or re-strategizing to answer the competitive calling? Organizations don’t change, they adapt.  They exploit the gaps in their current system and fill them by building upon the strengths they need. They must, otherwise they won’t survive.

A leader’s role varies at different stages in the game. If you’re cognizant of what to forget, what to adopt and what to adapt as the next phase approaches, you’re already ahead of the game.

Jeff is an executive coach, speaker at the HarryWalker Agency, and a board member of  the SEAL Future Fund. Follow his daily blog at www.adaptabilitycoach.com

Forbes.com | March 22, 2015 | Jeff Boss

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