Leadership

Last weekend I attended a meditation retreat, which was uneventful.  A lot of sitting on a bumpy meditation mat.  But it was a much-welcomed opportunity to slow down and reconnect with myself, particularly as I’ve been running hard the past few months.  I soldered on and struggled through several hours of sitting meditation, walking meditation and lecture on the four aspects on mindfulness.  I left thinking it was somewhat useful but probably not the most effective use of my time. A few days after the retreat, I was down in the dumps.  Thursday of last week I walked around in a sad fog, it was almost as if a large heavy cloud had descended upon my head and was raining down on me wherever I went.  I thought it was particularly odd considering nothing had really happened to cause it.  Or so I thought. Then I remembered what my friend Michelle had said when I mentioned I’d be going to the retreat – “Wow, a meditation retreat.  It will be interesting to notice what comes up for you in the week or so after.  These things are so powerful!” Were the two things connected I wondered?  Indeed they were.  And then a realization hit me like a ton of bricks.  The immense amount of change I’m currently going through but hadn’t thought to acknowledge or show myself any tenderness or compassion for.  Change is an interesting thing.  It can often creep up on a person, where we don’t even recognize we’re experiencing it.  I’ve seen this many times with my clients.  They solider on bravely and stoically, through job changes – maybe a career transition or a layoff, changes in living arrangements, changes in relationship status.  There is no escape from the universal human change curve There is a way that humans tend to experience change, and it’s called the change curve.  It often looks something like this: This model was developed in the 1960’s by Elizabeth Kubler Ross and if you look closely enough, you’ll notice that it tends to follow the grieving process.  This model underscores the journey of change every human goes on, whether we consciously realize it or not.  And when you think about this, it makes perfect sense. Change means the death of something old and the birth of something new.  And it will be stressful and chaotic,  even if the change was a wanted change, which in my situation it was. My husband decided to take a sabbatical and spend some much-needed time determining whether he wanted to make it permanent and retire early or go back to work.  He’ll still not sure.  And I’ve been super supportive considering he traveled a lot for his job and was away over half of the time we’ve been together.  The first six months were great.  A joyous time for us to have fun together and do all sorts of things that had been put on the back burner for years.  And then the reality of the […]

I was thinking about the journey of learning the other day, as I’m getting ready to start another course on leadership for a cadre of participants.  It’s an unusual course, as it allows a lot more time for unconventional mindfulness practices and self-reflection.  And I was thinking of what I would say to kick it off, as getting participants to buy-in to such unorthodox methods isn’t always an easy sell. Give me the formula In our fast-paced world we’re used to impatience, and we need the answers, and we needed them yesterday.  We want to be handed the content, the checklist, the model, or technique and then we want to know exactly how to apply it.  We have a “people problem” and we need it solved.  “Tell me what to say.  Tell me what to do.  This is a difficult person.  I need to know the exact words to say to get them to do what I want.”  But the interesting thing is life just doesn’t work that way.  Unfortunately, there’s not a model or a checklist for every possible thing that could happen and often in these types of situations we need to look within first and ask ourselves a few questions… Learning and growth is often messy Real growth and learning is often messy and can require us to lean into things that are frankly just uncomfortable.  I often mention this to potential coaching clients.  The path to growth is not an easy one, and it’s not linear.  Some days you might feel like you’ve taken two steps forward, and some days it might be a step back. Development is a messy, messy business. This reminds me of a situation many years ago when I went on sabbatical.  I talk about this in my book.  I was strung out, burnt out, and even more than that, disillusioned with life and the direction I was headed.  I was stuck in a job I never wanted and didn’t like, and I had ticked all the proverbial boxes and yet was miserably unfulfilled.  Learning and growth comes to those willing to stay open I went on sabbatical because I figured I needed some time out (which I did) and figured I’d distract myself with yoga teacher training.  In the end, the teaching of yoga was probably the least important thing I learned.  Don’t get me wrong, it was helpful.  But I learned something far greater than that, and something quite unexpected.  I started the long and arduous journey of practicing compassion for myself.  The long and arduous ride of stepping into my real power, because that’s what happens when you can accept every aspect of yourself.  And what a ride it’s been.  When I returned from my sabbatical, I sat down with my beloved boss Timothy, a boss who recognized the importance of self-discovery and gave me the space to start the journey for myself.  It took me forever to work up the courage to ask him for permission to go, […]

Recently I was helping facilitate a program on coaching for leaders, and on day 1 we spent quite a bit on time on the subject of listening.  You may wonder why, considering it’s something we do every day and most of us think we’re more than competent when it comes to this skill. Think again. “This is hard!” “I keep wanting to butt in and offer my thoughts or advice.”  I so appreciated the honesty and vulnerability from the participants.  The bottom line is that most of us are average at best when it comes to this skill.  And the problem is if you’re a leader looking to inspire and motivate your team to greatness, average just won’t cut it. This reminds me of a story from many years ago.  I was speaking with someone who was known in the organization I was working for at the time to be a great leader.  A fantastic reputation, the kind of person people sought out to join their team.  So I asked this individual, what’s your secret.  I was expecting something magnanimous, something I’d never thought of before. Some simple but not easy advice on listening The response caught me by surprise.  “I give whatever or whomever is in front of me 100% of my attention.” I was underwhelmed to say the least.  But they were really on to something.  Because the reality of how we show up is often quite different.  Let’s take the following scenario:  Someone pokes their head in your office – “Do you have a minute?”  They ask. “Sure!” you say, wanting to sound interested and helpful.  You’re the boss that cares.  You’re approachable.  People like you. They walk in and your eyes are still on the email you were in the middle of writing.  Your thoughts are still halfway consumed by it.  You’re unaware you’re doing this.  You’re halfway listening to what they’re expressing.  You’re nodding your head in agreement, eager to get back to your draft.  They leave and you carry on, you barely notice the interaction and later you forget all about it until they awkwardly remind you of what you’d agreed to in that moment.  Listening isn’t an innate thing we can take for granted.  It’s a skill.  And just like any skill there is a methodology to it and we must practice it. The levels of Listening Level 1 – Halfway listening.  In the previous example the manager I mentioned was listening at the equivalent of level 1.  They’re halfway there, they’re caught up in their head in something else.  They really didn’t have the time for the interaction but instead of setting a boundary and asking the person to please come back later, they acquiesce.  The result is they’re not present, they’re not tuned in, and the person on the receiving end of the conversation knows it.  The employee with the question leaves disengaged and slightly annoyed.  People know when they’re not being listened to.  Another version of level 1 is what […]

This week I was teaching a class on life and time management, where I spent time talking with participants about the difference between time management and priority management. The difference between time management and priority management The reason for making this distinction boils down to some famous words of advice: “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”                                                                                     —Stephen R. Covey Schedule your priorities We often jump straight into scheduling the things on our plate, without even determining whether we SHOULD be working on them in the first place.  One of the best ways to ensure you’re clear on what your priorities are is to periodically check in with your line manager and simply ask.  This may seem obvious, but just because something is common sense doesn’t mean its common practice!  Research has found that managers and their direct reports often: Manage up – take the lead to align with your supervisor Amazing, right?  But the bottom line is we live in a fast-paced environment, where priorities are constantly in flux.  You’ve got to do the necessary work to constantly manage up, otherwise you may inadvertently be creating problems for yourself. So here’s a little homework assignment to do: Chances are you may be surprised what you find out! Once you’re clear on what your priorities are, the Ivy Lee Method for scheduling is a quick and easy way to schedule them. The Ivy Lee Method on How to Schedule Coaching questions for thought: Shelley Pernot is a leadership and career coach who is passionate about helping her clients discover their strengths and talents and find a career that utilizes them.  Reach out to me here for a free consultation to learn more about the coaching process and how it may benefit you! I’ve recently been featured in Feedspot’s top 50 career coaching blogs.  Check out what other career coaching experts have to say here! 

What is psychological safety? The topic of Psychological safety has been getting a lot of airtime recently.  One definition of this term is the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.  And as a leader, you’re responsible for cultivating it and fostering a healthy level of it in your team.  It’s not about just being nice There’s one frame that often gets in the way on this front.  Quite often, when leaders think about psychological safety, they assume it’s just about being nice to your team members, and they worry about sacrificing high performance for the sake of tiptoeing around each other and not having the hard conversations that need to be had.  But the point is you don’t have to trade high performance in your organization for psychological safety.  You can actually have both. I often find it helpful to start this discussion by looking at 4 different situations that often arise in team environments: So which of these 4 zones is your team currently operating in?  Be honest!  Over my time in business I’ve worked in a version of every one of these zones.  But you don’t get to the Learning and High Performance zone by accident.  As a leader, you’ve got to work to create it.  So what can you do as a leader to increase psychological safety and performance? Consider some of these options, adapted from the work of Amy Edmonson, Harvard psychological safety guru: Coaching questions for thought: Shelley Pernot is a leadership and career coach who is passionate about helping her clients discover their strengths and talents and find a career that utilizes them.  Reach out to me here for a free consultation to learn more about the coaching process and how it may benefit you! I’ve recently been featured in Feedspot’s top 50 career coaching blogs.  Check out what other career coaching experts have to say here! 

A tribute to culture shock and why it never pays to make too many assumptions, because ASSume makes a ‘you know what’ out of u and me… For this weeks blog I’m doing something a little different as a tribute to Thanksgiving, and sharing a funny, creative piece I wrote a number of years back about living in the UK. My first Thanksgiving there I attempted to cook a massive turkey in an ill-equipped British kitchen. When I read the piece the other day, it reminded me that culture shock is indeed very real, and how our assumptions can often get the better of us. A perfect theme for a leadership blog, as we often jump up the “ladder of inference” to our detriment. I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I enjoyed writing it! The Most Difficult Task The most difficult task I’ve ever taken on, despite scaling the misty summit of Kilimanjaro and even ascending the higher passes of Everest, was cooking a Thanksgiving turkey in a tiny, ill-equipped English kitchen. To be fair, it was a rather large turkey. Much larger than I’d anticipated when I placed the order. Still relatively new to the UK, my mental kilo to pound conversion math was frankly a bit shoddy.    My first Thanksgiving in England was a bust. I’d been living in the UK only a couple of weeks, and having no friends, my English boyfriend Gareth took pity on me and hastily invited his mate Paul over to our little flat in Surbiton, a suburb of London. Paul brought his girlfriend Nikki, a tall, anorexic-looking woman with razor sharp features and a wry, forced smile. The feast was held in the living room, which had been rearranged to create some resemblance of a dining area. We dined over bland, half cooked Brussel sprouts, as Gareth insisted that I salted food too much, and a couple of anemic Cornish game hens. I learned that day, turkey just wasn’t “done” in the UK. If you really were, as they say, “mad keen” to have it, you went down to the butcher shop and placed an order many weeks in advance.  Luckily there was plenty of booze, which Gareth and I didn’t hesitate to indulge in. Paul joined us in the liberations as Gareth and I proceeded to tell the drunken and somewhat inappropriate love story of our first meeting on a crowed Grecian beach while Paul appeared interested and Nikki pretended to be, as she pushed her food around on her plate and took polite sips of prosecco. A few hours later, we bade them adieu, and I was rather proud of my first makeshift British dinner party. I asked Gareth to call them again for another meetup, but he never heard back. This year was going to be different But this year was going to be different. To start off with, I had real friends. Not just people I vaguely knew from the office or Gareth’s friends who […]