01Feb/18

Brainstorming Magic

February 1, 2018BlogBrainstorming, skills, Team buildingVictoria

Brainstorming Basics

Pick a topic
Set a time limit (3-5 minutes)
Throw out suggestions – no critiquing allowed
Decide which suggestions work best

Easy – right? WRONG! The key to successful brainstorming is getting people to suspend judgement but is easier said than done. Why? Because it is our nature to weigh and judge things, especially in a team setting. But you can do it, and when it works, it’s powerful.

The Exercise

For the past five semesters I have volunteered as a Leadership Coach for the Braven Career Accelerator at San Jose State University. One of the skills we teach them is effective brainstorming and during one class, I was coaching how it worked. The group was tasked with reinventing the resume and it was hard going at first. Not only did I have to discourage judgement, I had to spark creativity. It finally dawned on me that I had to get them to stop thinking of the resume as a piece of paper. I crossed out the word “resume” on the whiteboard and replaced it with “this incredible cool thing that you need to invent”. It was a mouthful, but I continued to use the phrase all evening.

Eventually, they caught on when one student came up with the idea of pop-up greeting card like the ones they make for birthdays. At that moment, something incredible happened. The floodgates opened, the atmosphere lightened, there was a lot of laughter and they were having fun. The ideas came pouring out fast and furious and I got to sit back and watch the magic. At one point, someone suggested a pillowcase. One student chimed in “so you can sleep on it” and the room erupted in laughter. When the semester ended, I met with my students one last time and they presented me with this.

Want to practice magic in your workplace? Check out our services here.

28Sep/17

Why is My Watch Telling Me to Breathe?

September 28, 2017BlogVictoria

Purple comment bubbles painted on sidewalk with instructions to breathe. Top one reads "inhale" and cuts into bottom one which reads "exhale".

kathleenport / Pixabay

Breathe, if we didn’t do it we would die but about every hour or so, my smartwatch sends me a reminder. I stop whatever I’m doing and concentrate on my breath for one full minute. While closing my eyes, I make sure my breath matches the pulses on my wrist that tells me to breath in (or is it breathe out? The correct sequence always escapes me). Somewhere in mid-breath, I start thinking “how weird is that? Am I’m so busy that I can’t consciously breathe without a reminder?”. Breathe. How did we get to the point that we need a device (even one as cool as a smart watch) to remind us to take a breath ?

We do it because we’re stressed. Think about it. We tell people to breathe to calm down. Women in labor focus on breathing to refocus from the pain. We even hold classes to teach them how to do it. We tell people to breathe when they’re angry, hurt or in pain. The idea is that breathing helps bring us into the present. I can recall times saying “Don’t forget to breathe” to someone as they faced the crisis of the week.

We concentrate on our breathing because it brings us into the present. It clears our minds of all the “coulda, shoulda, wouldas” that need our attention. It lets us concentrate on the “what is”. The here. The now. But it is only a beginning. Breathing alone does not bring us into the present. Breathing is not mindfulness, but it is the road that can lead us there.

Here’s the thing. My resting heart rate is 56 beats per minute (according to my smart watch). Do I need to remember to breathe? I don’t. Instead, I need to remember what’s important. It’s not about my breath, it’s about my priorities. What is important is what is happening right in front of me – every single minute of every single day. So, I intend to turn the tables. Starting today I’m turning off the smartwatch alert that tells me to breathe. Instead, I’m going to set a different alert. Now when it goes off it will say “be present”. I’m betting my breathing will take care of itself.

To start practicing mindfulness click here

01Mar/17

Empathy at Work – Why you need it

March 1, 2017BlogVictoria

EMPATHY

A lot of my clients’ first sessions start with them saying “I don’t need any of that touchy-feely stuff, I just want to get the work done”. Well, empathy definitely falls into the often-disdained area of soft skills, but let me tell you why it’s important.

What it is:

According to Webster, empathy is: “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this.”

OK, that’s a mouthful but you can’t get more touchy-feely than that. To simplify – empathy is seeing things through the other person’s lens. To be empathetic you must understand and experience their feelings. Who wants to make time for that? I suggest you do should you want to be successful. We do not work or live in a vacuum (even in the age of COVID19). As humans, things happen that affect our performance. Good things, bad things, weird things. If you are not able to understand what your employee is experiencing, how can you gauge how to get the best out of them?

For example, suppose you manage the local Animal Shelter. Suffice it to say that most of the staff have a huge attachment to animals in general and especially to their own pets. One of your call takers comes to work after having lost a beloved pet, If you’re not empathetic to their feelings, you may only see them as an employee and probably expect them to deal with their emotions on their own time.

If, on the other hand, you understand what they may be experiencing, you adjust to the situation. You realize that they may be faced with working with partons who have deceased animals and assign other duties for the day.

Empathy is the ability to understand how emotions affect someone.

What it is not:

Don’t misunderstand, empathy does not mean accepting poor performance and bad attitudes simply because someone is out of sorts. As the manager, it is still your responsibility to “get the work done”. You have a right (and a duty) to call people on their performance and to take measures to make sure it is up to your standards. Maybe that employee that just lost a pet needs a different set of duties for the day. If that’s not possible, maybe they don’t need to be at work at all. But it doesn’t mean they can be short-tempered to others or not perform the job. That’s where you must do your job and decide what’s best for the organization. The ability to empathize can help you decide on the correct course of action.

More importantly, empathy is not sympathy. Empathy asks you to understand what the other person is feeling, not to take them as your own. It is the difference between helping someone out of a hole vs. being in the hole with them. As a manager, your job is to help them out of the hole, not get stuck in it with them.

How to Become an Empathetic Manager

So how does a manager go about developing empathy? Become aware. Take the time to develop quality relationships with your people and you will begin to see and hear what they need from you. At the same time, don’t be afraid to ask. They will tell you. When they do, believe them and do your best to give them what they need. In addition to becoming more aware of your staff, work hard at understanding yourself. Do a basic gut check to see if you’re helping someone out of the hole or if you’re standing beside them. Adjust accordingly.

To learn how to bring empathy to your workplace, check out our services here.