Involving Your Heart in Leadership

February is traditionally the month of the heart – there’s Valentine’s Day, and it’s Heart Health Month. As leaders, though, if we want to effectively engage our employees and our teams, we need to be considering our hearts all of the time.

When faced with a decision, do you rely on your head or your heart? Many would argue that decisions – especially business decisions – are best when made as the result of carefully reviewing facts, weighing the options, and then making the most logical choice. In other words, go with your head and forgo your heart. Leaders make many decisions throughout the day. And a number of them – if you want to be a truly effective leader – need to involve your heart.

No matter what the poster on the wall might say, it’s YOUR actions and reactions as a leader that establish the true culture of an organization. Your employees look to you as a model for how they treat one another, how loyal they are to their team and the organization, and how they behave in general. Showing some heart in your behaviors, in your conversations, and in your approach to decision-making will go a long way to ensuring that there is heart in your company culture.

Here's an example. You may tend toward being direct and purposeful. Say what you need to say and move on. But remember, words are powerful. They convey information and they also inflict feelings. As Maya Angelou said, “people will forget what you said…but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  You can still be direct and purposeful, but how about wrapping those words in a blanket of gentleness and kindness? Think about how that might affect the outcome.

When you are in a difficult conversation, take a deep breath, count to 5, and imagine yourself in the other person’s shoes. How might this impact your conversation?

As leaders, we’re busy. We move through the day from meetings to issues to decisions with little time to reflect, or to tap into that inner voice that helps us align our actions, intentions, and values: our heart. I recommend that, going forward, you do this brief exercise before going into an important meeting or difficult conversation.

Spend a few quiet moments to get grounded. Feel your connectedness to the earth – imagine the trees, rivers, mountains and oceans that make up this beautiful planet; feel the ground beneath you.

Imagine your audience. What do they need to hear from you? How do they need to hear it? What can you say, or how can you say it in a way that conveys positivity and optimism? See yourself as the conduit between your audience and what they need from the meeting or conversation.

Connect with your inner self. Listen to your heart to understand what you need to do to connect with your audience.

Set an intention for the meeting, such as to be direct but open, tough but gentle, logical but empathetic, or simply to have clarity and openness. Let your connectedness guide your approach and your message.

Get out of your head and into your heart. Be receptive to new ways of showing up.

And as you make decisions throughout the day, give your heart a voice in the process.

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.” – Carl Jung

Lead on,

Rebecca

Selling L & D Solutions: Start with a Needs Analysis

One of the things I often hear from learning and development professionals who are new to consulting is the challenge they have around “selling.” Like most people who go out on their own, they’re experts at (and inspired by) what they do, but they soon realize that there are other aspects of the business they need to attend to – the administrative, the financial, the marketing, and, of course, the selling.

My suggestion is to not think about it as “selling.” Instead, think about it as helping a client achieve goals, overcome challenges, and fulfill needs. It’s about asking good questions (needs analysis), communicating effectively, building relationships, and mapping learning solutions to performance needs – all the things learning and development professionals do on a daily basis.

But how do you get started? It helps to have structure. Step one is, of course, to identify an opportunity. Consider this scenario. You’re at a networking event and are introduced by a former colleague to the VP of Engineering at a large hi-tech company. After exchanging backgrounds and pleasantries, you ask what her current biggest challenge is. She shares that one of her project teams is struggling to meet deadlines for deliverables. There have been two instances so far on a current project where mistakes were identified too late, causing delays in the timeline, and additional cost. As the conversation continues, you learn that team members seem to operate independently, each focused on their part of the project, with little team synergy or communication along the way.

Learning and development opportunities generally fall into two categories. One is where the client just knows that development is a good thing and they have the budget to do it. They don’t necessarily have a problem, but they want to invest in a team development activity that’s more meaningful than bowling or a ropes course. The second category is where they know they have an issue, but they’re not sure of the cause or how to fix it.   

You’ve gleaned from your conversation at the networking event that the engineering project team falls into the second category. Through several follow up emails the next week, you manage to set up an initial meeting. The next step is to prepare for the meeting. What do you need to know before you go? What questions will you ask once you’re there?

Obviously, you want to know as much as possible about the organization and the individuals who will be in the meeting. Are you meeting with a decision maker or is this initial meeting at a different level? What is your goal for the meeting? What does your agenda need to be to get there?

Remember that this meeting is all about the client, not about sharing your menu of solutions. Prepare questions that will help you understand their goals, challenges and needs, as well as:

• The business goal that is not being met
• The impact of it not being met
• Skills and behaviors that are “mission critical” to the business, or impact all employees
• Performance deficiencies within these skills and behaviors that have the greatest negative impact
• Expected or desired performance levels

As you think about your goal for the meeting, include what you want the client to do after the meeting – Introduce you to the next level up? Schedule a next meeting? Connect you to others in the organization?

Making the time to thoroughly prepare your questions, agenda, and goal for the meeting will increase the likelihood of a positive outcome.

Lead on,

Rebecca

Are You the New Manager? Assess Before You Act!

Starting a new job can be stressful at any level, but when you become the new manager of an existing team it can be especially so. Let’s face it, you are there because either a) the previous manager failed (which means the team may be angry, frustrated or disengaged) or b) the previous well-liked manager moved on (which means the team may be hurting and resistant to change).
 

Your leadership has certain expectations about the results they want from you, and your natural instinct is to want to quickly establish yourself by making some tangible improvements. 

STOP. LOOK. LISTEN.

Before you start making the changes that you envisioned or were requested of you, take some time to understand your team and how things work now so that you can determine the best way forward. Here are some tips.

Learn about your team and let them learn about you. Have a one-on-one with each team member. Find out what’s working from their perspective, and what’s not. How do they describe their role on the team? What are their ideas for improvement? What are their expectations from you? Have a team meeting to share about who you are, your leadership style, and your expectations; open the floor for questions and concerns. Listen.

Understand the company culture. No doubt you asked about it in your interview. But give yourself some time to observe it firsthand. Read internal communications, attend a variety of meetings, talk to other managers. Look and listen.

Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the team, processes, and environment. What is the basis for any “issues” you have been chartered to fix? Are people in the right roles based on their strengths and desires? Are the team goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely)? What additional resources are needed? What needs to be addressed first? What can wait? Look and listen.

Communicate regularly. Change is difficult. But if people understand the “why” of change, and “how” it will make things better in addition to the “what” will change, they are more likely to try to adapt versus outright resist. Recognize and celebrate successful results. Share lessons learned when things don’t go so well. 

Stop. Look. Listen. 

Now, go!

Lead on,

Rebecca