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Ordinary People Taking Action
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The Power of Your Story.5/2/2018 I had another interesting conversation this week, this time with a (newish) friend. Hearing about my work history, she commented that I seem to always leave my “dream job”. Listening to how she perceived my career path, I can understand why my friend might make that interpretation. In reality, she was far off the mark.
There is a quote from Steve Jobs: "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” This quote rings true for me.
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Soft Skills are like Software.4/26/2018 When I coach people, I often stress the importance of ‘soft skills’, which I define as empathy, communication, resilience, leadership, stress management, collaboration, teamwork and self-confidence. I believe there is a difference between soft skills and emotional intelligence. I know some use the terms interchangeably, but that is for another post.
Unfortunately, these qualities tend to be grossly undervalued in the workplace relative to ‘hard skills’ such as technical ability. On a more positive note, however, I’m seeing evidence of an overall uptick in awareness about soft skills.
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The Wrong Conversation4/25/2018 I’ll start by saying this. I believe we are having the wrong conversation about millennials. I promise to explain why, but you’ll need some context first. So let’s back up several years.
Approximately 10 years ago, I found myself in an interesting professional niche. I was a little older than 30 and found myself easily connecting with senior-level leads at large organizations, such as Microsoft. Around that same time, I found myself easily relating to recent college graduates who were new to the professional world – the mid-20-somethings. It didn’t take long before this dynamic led me to take on the role of “coach”, bridging the communication gap between millennials and the executive team. Consistently, what I’d hear from the executive team, primarily 50-something men at the time, was that the millennials were “hard to manage,” “entitled,” “self-absorbed,” “uncommitted,” and a long list of additional not-so-flattering words.
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Be who you are.4/18/2018 Just shy of two business days in, I can already say that it’s been an interesting week. As I write this it is only Tuesday afternoon.
As I have expressed in previous posts, I am someone who truly views feedback as a gift. That hasn’t changed. But right now, the daily feedback, whether asked for or spontaneously given, feels overwhelming. It’s as though I have reached the limit of my ability to accept the gifts being offered. What have I been told? For starters, I have been told that I care too much about others and I need to put myself and my needs first. It’s a message I’ve now heard from five people in two days. That is a confusing message to hear because for more than fifteen years, I have been told that putting the needs of others first is the way to approach business, to lead a team.
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Vanish4/16/2018 Early this week, my 14-year-old son and his girlfriend broke up, after six months of dating. It’s one of those normal milestones parents know their kids will go through. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to predict how hurtful that first breakup will be. In my son’s case, I was surprised and happy that not only was it a very drama-free breakup, but the relationship ended with the two of them still friends. That rarely happens in 8th grade, and I’m proud of both kids for their maturity.
Interestingly, within five minutes of the breakup, my son removed all mention of his now-ex-girlfriend from his social media accounts. He cleared his entire picture feed; she did too. Then he went through his phone and started deleting every picture of the two of them together. Before he was finished, I stopped him with a request.
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Gratitude4/5/2018 It was years ago, and my email signature said “With gratitude” before my name. I received the feedback that it was not professional and that it should say “Thank you. Kind regards. Sincerely… I needed to use a more professional phase.” The person providing me with this feedback was senior to me, so I listened and changed my signature to “Thank you.” It felt generic, but I decided it wasn’t a fight worth fighting.
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The Freedom to Fail4/4/2018 Guest Post By: Jenna Powers, HR Director at Amazon
I am sitting in the café on the second floor of Amazon’s Doppler building, craning my neck, looking for a vantage point where the Seattle sun isn’t glaring so badly against my tablet screen and I can read what I’m typing. My phone is alive next to me, resting on the weather page for Cary, North Carolina. It is 77 degrees in Cary today, but the forecast for Saturday is 43 degrees and snow. I’m running a 100 mile race in Cary on Saturday. Absent lightning or some other real, physical danger to runners, races don’t get canceled. Not even for 43 degrees and snow. But maybe you’re still on the part about running 100 miles. Yes, this is a thing. Yes, I will run and walk for approximately 24 straight hours. No, I won’t sleep in the middle of it. Yes, I will stop and use the bathroom. Yes, I will eat real food, but on my feet while moving. No, I’m not happy about the weather forecast.
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My first job.4/2/2018 That first paying job. It’s exciting and scary, and so often, it begins to shape our attitudes around work. As a sophomore in high school, I took my first job as a stockperson for Nordstrom. I remember it clearly. My job was to clean out the dressing rooms, hang or fold all the clothes, and restock the items on the sales floor. My department, referred to as “Brass Plum”, sold clothing for teenage girls. It placed no limits on the number of items brought into the dressing room, a policy our customers seemed acutely aware of. It was not uncommon for me to face twenty, thirty or more clothing items, crumpled on the dressing room floor. “Oh, just leave them, someone else will put them away,” I’d hear the girls giggle. They were right, someone else would. And that someone else was me.
I worked hard in this job. I quickly realized that stocking dressing rooms was not for me, so I wanted nothing more than to prove that I could be a cashier, and then a salesperson. I wanted to advance so badly for two reasons. One, it would provide more customer interaction. Two, it was a way to contribute more to a company I loved working for. I felt that I truly mattered. As my new employee orientation made clear, people within Nordstrom cared deeply about the employees – at all levels. My onboarding taught me the following:
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Scarcity vs Abundance3/29/2018 For the past week and a half, I’ve taken a little detour from my usual schedule to invest in some training. I was recertified with Insights Discovery last week and I am attending The Leadership Circle certification this week. As a facilitator myself, now acting as a participant, I am reminded again how hard it is to sit and listen to anyone talk for hours. Even the very best facilitators start to sound like they are speaking gibberish after a while. On the flip side, my head is like a popcorn maker full of kernels that’s going to explode with popcorn, I mean knowledge, at any moment.
One of the topics popping around in my head is how we go about problem solving. Specifically, whether we look at problems from a place of scarcity – playing not to lose – or from a place of abundance – playing to win together. According to Gallup, 70% of work culture is created by leadership – their actions, behaviors and tendencies. In my career, I have worked with leaders who operate from a place of scarcity, as well as those who operate from a place of abundance. I almost always prefer abundance.
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Guest Post By: Jenna Powers
Director, HR at Amazon What would you do if you knew you would fail? You read that right. What would you do if you knew you would fail? This past weekend was the 22nd running of the Barkley Marathons, a 100 mile race in northeastern Tennessee that likely first reached those outside the ultra running world with the documentaries Where Dreams Go to Die and The Race That Eats Its Young. I won’t detail all the race quirks in this post (you can read more about it here); the most important thing to know is that this race is hard. Far more difficult than a standard 100 mile race, of which there are dozens in the US and globally every year. In 22 years, the Barkley has been completed just 18 times. Given the number of entrants each year (a process which is tightly controlled; the race is extremely difficult to get into), that means there is a 2.5% finishing rate. That means some years there are no finishers. 2018 was one of those years. |