Should I Get a Coach?

The timing has never been better for self-reflection, professional development and a little guidance through the uncharted times still ahead.

The last eighteen months were a test for all leaders, and many pulled it off well. But as companies reset and introduce hybrid work models, few leaders have the toolkit or the skill set to manage this way. And very few realize that the expectations of their leadership have reset as well.

Through company surveys and individual assessments, we’re seeing the trends and gaps emerge from the pandemic work styles. Efficiency came through, but so did a drop in impact and alignment with culture and overall inspiration from leaders. Many leaders are surprised to see that employees aren’t as attached to their teams or as aligned to their strategies. Many got too focused on the day-to-day detail and lost some momentum and focus on connecting the bigger picture for their teams.

The shortage of talent doesn’t help because while you may not talk to every employee every day, someone does. Through LinkedIn, social media and online ads, there are constant offers and opportunities put in front of employees to entice them to look around.

A recent survey by Pew Foundation showed that while 65% of employees were happy in their roles, up to 80% said they would consider another opportunity. It’s testing the waters. And it’s all a part of the reset we’re in now and will continue to be in for months to come. Most leaders are trying to juggle all of it.

So yes, the timing has never been better to engage with a coach.

Finding the right coach is an important part of the decision to hire one. As coaching has increased by more than 20% in the last year, there is some confusion about who to hire for what. When we start an engagement, we always ask if the leader had prior experience with a coach. And when they have worked with another coach, we ask them to rate the experience. The collective response is average, and that’s disappointing. It’s a signal that the leader didn’t get what they needed or didn’t take the time to leverage the engagement. A coaching experience should be one of the most valuable tools a leader gets, and that’s why it’s important to understand what you’re asking the coach to deliver.

The term “executive coach” has become a generic one and covers a lot of coaches who do very different things.  Some executive coaches are generalists, and they combine their experience with coaching certification that gives them a process for covering a broad range of topics.  The best ones have tailored their approach and can tell you how they plan to lead you through an engagement. Many coaches are aligned to companies, and they work with teams of leaders in support of business strategy more so than individual skills.

There are coaches who support sales, marketing, technology, finance and just about any function within a company. All are leveraging their experience to help you accelerate yours.

Communication coaching is distinctly different. Working on someone’s brand and influence within a company takes more than experience. An executive coach who has had experience leading a company and galvanizing employees can’t give you that skill. They can only give you that advice. And that may be what leads to disappointing results from an engagement.

To improve communication impact, you need someone who has experience AND expertise. You need more than advice. You need skills coaching and support to develop new habits and intentional choices that change the way you approach communication. It takes true expertise to work on body, voice and connection. And it takes proven tools to help you simplify your approach.

So, choose a coach wisely and determine if you’re looking for advice or skill development. Ask about both the experience of the coach and the deeper expertise in the area that you want to improve. Once you’ve found a coach with the right expertise and chemistry for you, you can get much more than an average experience.

In the year ahead, coaching can help you:

• Consider your brand and how well you’re gaining visibility amidst company momentum and endless opportunity.
• Evaluate your impact as a communicator and support your adjustment to a different way of leading a hybrid team.
• Leverage the lifespan of a project by adding a compelling storyline and key soundbites that make the direction memorable and sustainable over a period of time.
• Lead a young team to a high-performing team with expanded responsibilities and broader scope.

This year, it will be the difference in leaders who can shift from competent communicators to compelling ones.

It’s already an unprecedented year, and the expectations of leaders will continue to reset. You should take advantage of every opportunity offered to step up and speak out. And we’d like to help you succeed at it.

Call us when you need us!

Managing a Hybrid Workforce: Resetting Offices, Employees & Expectations

We’ve reached it … the other side of work from home. And as companies begin to layout new plans, a variety of options are emerging. Some workers are already back in the office every day, some will continue in a work-from-home format, and many will shift to a blended schedule that includes time in the office and time at home.

And with all of these transitions, managers will have to reset expectations.

Here’s why.

Work from home was all over the board…for good reason. Managers pulled together WFH employees and found a way of working together that was different and effective. In many instances because there wasn’t a good alternative. Because many people weren’t in the office, they weren’t aware of how different some of the choices were among managers, across teams and from company to company. We’ve heard it all, from teams that get together every morning to groups that haven’t really met as a team for more than a year. And we’ve seen it all, from employees who got no support to set a home office environment to those equipped with the lighting and camera requirements to emulate a true office setting.

That’s why the reset will be different. While managers tried ways to keep teams connected and involved with each other, the overall takeaway is that the company culture struggles when people don’t have a place and a community that brings them together. Not every day, but most days, so that individuals don’t lose the power of teamwork. And companies know that the employee experience needs to feel consistent and connected across all teams. They also know that they can manage impressions much better in a work environment.

Impressions never really went away. We noticed when someone wasn’t really dressed for work; we noticed when someone seemed distracted, and we noticed when technology failed. We saw it all, but since we were all in it together, we tried harder to focus on what we heard vs. what we saw.

And that’s where the shift begins.

Once a few people went back, the expectations came back as well. It doesn’t really matter where you are when you talk to a manager or a customer, but how you show up for that discussion does.  And if someone has given you their attention, the expectation is that you will do the same.

Can you deliver a presentation with poor lighting? Sure, but the impact drops by more than 50% when people can’t see your face. Can you meet with a client from your bedroom? Sure, but it isn’t where they are anymore and they notice the difference. In fact, more than 80% say they’re distracted by it. And can you demonstrate product capabilities if your internet freezes? Sure, but more than 75% of viewers place some of that responsibility on you. They assume you weren’t prepared and didn’t check to be sure you could deliver the presentation well from your location.

The bottom line is that people working in offices now have a home-court advantage. The office environment makes it much easier to show up well. And when some people show up better than others, impressions can lead to assumptions that are hard to overcome.

Right now, and for the next few months, managers will have to reset expectations of what participation, intention and focus look like in different settings.

As employees adjust to blended schedules or hybrid settings, managers will need to redefine what work from home really means. Is it about a relaxed schedule and flexible hours? Is it a decrease in hours and more time to manage family and personal time? Or is it simply a different location with the same expectations as in-office expectations?

In short order, we will feel the shift from “we’ll make it work” to “why aren’t you doing what I’m doing” comparisons. Clarity on expectations will be key. If people are held accountable to the same expectations, then companies will need to provide the right tools to help employees improve their home work environment. And if you haven’t done so, it will take training to help a virtual employee think about intention and impressions in an “out of the office” setting.

Over the last year, we’ve trained thousands of people to leverage virtual tools and show up with meaningful intention. And while it was a survival tool for many, it has shifted to a differentiator in impressions of people, products and companies.

The gaps and comparisons will only continue as we begin to mix the format and experiences between office settings and virtual settings. It doesn’t have to be a handicap; it can be a great choice as long as it comes with guidelines and expectations. We can help you do it as you focus not just on where people will work but how they drive influence and impact in any setting.

Want some help defining expectations and managing a hybrid workforce? Schedule a call with us and we’ll share our insights and tools to help you reset your team.

“I Need Resources” is the Wrong Message!

As companies reset for a new chapter in 2021, there has been a lot of reflecting on how companies and teams made it through the uncertainty and disruption of 2020. One way was to reallocate resources or reduce teams. It drove efficiencies quickly, and it saved money. At the time, it was a difficult, but smart, step.

And now, managers tell us that what they saw as a temporary situation seems to be the new and expected normal on their teams. They’re stuck in the “do more with less” direction, and it’s causing burnout as employees continue to manage their roles and a part of someone else’s. Managers feel an urgency to reset and pull their teams out of the overload. And they’re headed into executive-level conversations with this message: “If we want to complete our project on time, I need five resources to do X”, “If we add 10 employees back to the team, we can do X.” It follows our message format, but it falls short of approval by most leaders.

Here’s why.

It’s the most common request leaders hear in companies. “I need more people.” It was the most common request before 2020 took place. So, you can imagine what it must be like now as more teams are short-staffed. If every manager added a headcount, the company would be right back to the pre-2020 bottom line. And leaders aren’t interested in backing up. They believe a lot was learned from 2020 and efficiencies – doing more with less – resonates as a positive outcome.

But the managers’ predicament is not an excuse; it’s a real challenge and a real threat to the retention of talent. Managers need to have these conversations, but they need to shift the storyline from “I can’t do it without people” to “we have choices to make about how we accomplish this”. It means shifting the storyline to focus on a business decision and outcome rather than the challenges they’re feeling to deliver against it.

The starting point is messaging that focuses on choices and actions that lead to outcomes. Take people and headcount out of the equation. It seems like odd guidance, but it makes a big difference. When managers look at initiatives, they think from the desired outcome backward and map out how to get the work completed. They map a single path to completion, and they quickly see the need for resources to complete tasks.

When leaders look at initiatives, they consider multiple paths to lead to the outcome. They rarely see it as a single path. So, when a manager comes to them and says: “If we want to deliver X on time, we need five additional people on the team.”, leaders ask questions like: “What other options did you consider?” And when managers don’t have that context, leaders get frustrated that multiple options weren’t considered.

The best way to lead these conversations is to learn to think more from the leaders’ perspective. If you have a project in front of you that doesn’t seem doable without adding resources, pull back and think about all the options/paths you have to get there.

Assume you’re down four people and have been since last year. You have been given a tight timetable to deliver product Z, and it’s the same timetable you delivered against with those four people you no longer have. You know you can’t do it without the full team in place. That’s fair; it’s how you delivered products prior to 2020. But before you head down the single path with a message that says, “I need resources,” think a little broader.

You could:

• Partner with another team by prioritizing product Z over a product from another team on a similar timetable.
• Outsource some of the product steps to avoid adding FTEs and instead add specific help to specific steps.
• Push out the delivery date based on a new timeline that seems feasible to the team you have in place.

When a leader is presented with options like this, they look at the situation differently. They hear 1) change the approach 2) double efforts on critical steps or 3) change the timetable. They see that you’re thinking through options to get to an outcome instead of bringing challenges you have with a single path. It aligns more with the types of decisions they’re used to making, and it’s the most effective way to help them consider compromise.

The second point for the communicator to consider is setting context. In our workshops, we call it “Framing the Situation,” and we provide a methodology to help a communicator align a leader to the topic of choices that have been made to date. Instead of jumping to “How are we going to do this,” a good communicator will reset what’s already happened to date. This helps a leader see that they have already made some of the decisions that have led to the current topic.

A manager who is down four resources might begin a storyline like this:

“Last year, with uncertainty in front of us, we reduced the team by four people. And we asked the remaining six to work tirelessly to get product Y into the market in six months. They did that, and we have seen the product perform well by delivering expected revenue and good customer reviews. So, it was a success last year out of working differently on the team.

“But it came with compromise. In order to get product Y to market on the timetable, we skipped two critical points. We reduced testing, and we eliminated some of our protocols for integration. You may remember this conversation and debate last May. We made the decision to skip steps at the time, because we felt product Y so closely aligned to product X that launched the previous year. We seemed aligned with customer response and felt the break with protocols would have limited risks. In this one case, we were right.

“This year, product Z doesn’t align in the same way and following the modified steps would create bigger compromise and increased risks. As a product team, you have asked us to reset the “best practices” and protocols of development that you put in place three years ago. And when we do that, it will create some different choices to consider for product Z.”

This context aligns the leader to the topic and the broader reset they’ve put in place across the organization. They have agreed to the best practices and protocols for product Z before hearing the choices they need to make. And as you probably noticed, it calls out steps they value and a process that they put into place. So, it’s easier for the leader to consider options when they’re trying to avoid product compromise and risks.

The idea of adding back resources hasn’t come up. But it may be brought up by the leader. Because as they think through the options above, they may ask: “What if we didn’t change the approach or the timetable and instead of relying on contract resources, we added people back to your team?” When it’s set in the broader picture, it now looks like the least disruptive solution rather than the only way you can figure out how to solve a challenge.

Learning to lead conversations from a leader’s perspective is something we’ve been helping managers do for more than three decades. If you’re preparing for a tough conversation, we can help you develop the storyline that leads to the desired outcome.

So, whether you’d like to schedule a coaching session to focus on a specific conversation or book a group workshop to learn the fundamentals, we hope you’ll call us when you need us.

Disrupted: Chapter 19 – “Corporate Priorities – Insights from Talent Acquisition”

Hear more about the Talent Acquisition Perspective on our podcast! • Click here to order Disrupted!

Read Chapter 1 – Disrupted!

Read Chapter 3 – Corporate Disruption – Insights from Talent Development

Talent acquisition is often a team whose responsibilities are a little vague to most employees. Once you join a company, you may not pay much attention to what they’re doing. After all, they’re in charge of hiring people and you’ve already been hired. But there’s a little more to their function. Talent acquisition supports a company’s strategy by ensuring they have the right people in the right roles at the right time. And this means that the fast-paced shifts within a company put an acquisition or recruitment team under pressure to find the talent they need.

Here’s how they define their focus:

• Acquiring high-quality candidates who offer skills needed for current roles
• Building a diverse talent pool to meet current and future business needs
• Assessing current in-house skills to determine future skills and roles needed
• Identifying talented employees within the company to groom for promotion

So, talent acquisition has a view of both external and internal talent. And they have the most comprehensive view of the two groups to compare.

When we shared talent-development insights in Chapter 3, you heard urgency in how the development leaders think about developing internal talent. And that urgency only increases for talent-acquisition teams. The talent-acquisition survey participants define top challenges as competition for top talent and a shortage of qualified talent. Both perspectives illustrate the rapid pace of change and the choices companies are making in order to deliver on it.

As we mentioned with talent development, it takes time to teach employees new skills and, in a competitive marketplace with product rushes and aggressive deadlines, it’s not always a viable solution to retrain an entire function of a business or invest in an internal candidate.

That’s why the top reason for selecting external candidates rather than internal ones is the need for a new skill or expertise (65%). And it just makes you wonder, was the skill truly missing within the company or was the skill just not promoted as part of an internal brand? Sometimes, there’s no question that a new skill or expertise is being added. But there are many times that skills were just not recognized. And here’s how we know.

When we asked talent acquisition what most people can’t do well in an interview, they say it’s the ability to illustrate accomplishments.

“Some of the best candidates we interview in terms of relative experience, education, and skill set are not always the best at being able to tell their story. And this can be a real impediment when you’re trying to convince me to hire you! The one skill that I recommend candidates develop to help them land a job or launch a career is to become an exceptional storyteller. Specifically, a teller of your own story.”

We couldn’t ask for a better proof point for the importance of a career story! Your accomplishments and experiences are like a doorjamb for a job position. They are what will get you the first-round interview, but no matter how much of a rock star your resume says you are, the way you communicate your accomplishments and tell your story is what gets you to the next round.

And if you agree with the trends and insights that we’re sharing, then disruption will continue whether you put it into play or your company does. You’re going to be a candidate multiple times. You’ll go through more interviews – and meet more talent-acquisition people – than you ever thought you would.

And that’s why we hope our latest book, Disrupted!, will help you understand the current career landscape and prepare to shift your disruption to a reset opportunity.  Your first step is to order a copy and see how we solve for the talent insights we’ve shared over the last two weeks. Or better yet, join in the conversation by signing up for April’s book club and LinkedIn conversation about the resets ahead and how to succeed in all of them.

Call us when you need us.

Read an excerpt from Chapter 1 here.

Read an excerpt from Chapter 3 here.

Disrupted: Chapter 3 – “Corporate Disruption – Insights from Talent Development”

Hear more about the Talent Development Perspective on our podcast! • Click here to order Disrupted!

Read Chapter 1 – Disrupted!

Read Chapter 19 – Corporate Priorities – Insights from Talent Acquisition

In our world of communication coaching, we talk to a lot of talent development and talent management leaders. One conversation with a new client was particularly revealing. We were designing a coaching program for some of the company’s future leaders, and she shared the difficulty of finding and retaining top talent for the company.

“I know that when I onboard a great resource, I only have them for about two years. While it’d be great to build out a series of development steps for a young leader, it doesn’t make sense when I know half of them won’t be here by the end of it. So, my perspective has shifted to, ‘what will you contribute while you’re here and what can I do to make you more effective for the company?’”

That’s a real dilemma for a talent leader and you can see from her quote that, even with the best of intentions, she can’t make a development plan work for everybody. Talent strategies have pivoted from a concentrated, long-term strategy of developing leaders over time, to addressing business needs and standing up new leaders quickly.

We’ve seen the shift and heard the dilemma anecdotally. But as we began thinking through disruption, we wanted to quantify the corporate perspective more formally. Through a comprehensive survey and follow-up interviews with nearly three hundred talent development and talent acquisition leaders, we found our assumptions matched their insights (see Appendix for full results).

Talent leaders are being stretched to anticipate skills, not just solve for gaps. And company priorities and strategies are shifting at a rate that’s hard to stay ahead of. In fact, 47% of our survey respondents said that one of their biggest challenges is that their company’s current talent capabilities do not align with the company’s future needs. That’s a pretty sizable gap! It means that talent teams are looking at either retraining or rehiring nearly half of their workforce. And even with the best of intentions, retraining half a workforce just isn’t feasible as a long-term strategy. It’s expensive, it slows down a company’s operations, and, perhaps most importantly in today’s market, it takes too much time.

So, if talent is at such a premium in companies, then where are talent leaders investing their time, energy, and funds? Well, they’re investing in two places with very different approaches: first-level managers and emerging leaders (seasoned directors/VPs and above).

Skilled front-line managers are needed to help an organization achieve its goals. Whether you’re in sales, marketing, engineering, finance, operations, etc., the first-line manager has a lot of visibility to both employees and customers, and they need to have a specific set of skills to manage the expectations of the brand and of the consumer. Training and support for this group is primarily focused on “hard skills” and whatever technical or specialist skill sets are needed to drive the immediate projects and strategies of a business. While there’s a lot of churn at this level of an organization, it still remains a priority for talent teams, so much so that this group was rated the highest training priority across our survey.

The second priority for talent teams are their emerging leaders (Senior Director/VP and up). Interestingly, this group requires the complete opposite training approach. Instead of delivering outcomes of a brand for a customer, future leaders become the expectations of the brand. And often, that means a lot more visibility in high-stakes environments. So, training for this group is focused on “soft skills” and whatever communication and leadership traits a talent team can help a rising leader develop quickly.

And as you’ve probably noticed, there are a lot of roles that this approach leaves out. If you don’t fall into one of those two camps, you’re not alone. And if your own development goals fall outside the scope of what the business needs, there’s a good chance you won’t wind up on a talent team’s radar.

Here’s why:

82% of talent development priorities are based on company goals, identified skill gaps for specific tasks, and job roles and functions. And only 8% of talent development programs, initiatives, and events are based on employee feedback and development interests. Talent development leaders told us that employees ask for leadership development, communication, and technical skill development through internal surveys and performance reviews. Yet those desires aren’t always in line with their companies’ priorities and development investments.

So, you can see how many employees fall between the cracks by missing training within their function area or not fitting the profile of the talent strategy in a given year. In addition, talent development leaders say that employees have unrealistic expectations and some blind spots about career advancement. These insights summed up our hypothesis, which is that in today’s corporate environment, you need to take ownership for your own development and career advancement.

And when you take ownership, you’ll find that resets can be opportunities if you know how to interview and illustrate your experiences well.

Next week, we’ll share the insights from talent acquisition leaders who clearly define what the interview is all about and why most people miss the mark.
More to come…

Read an excerpt from Chapter 1 here.

Disrupted: Chapter 1 – “Disrupted!”

Hear more about the book on our podcast! • Click here to order Disrupted!

Read Chapter 3 – Corporate Disruption – Insights from Talent Development

Read Chapter 19 – Corporate Priorities – Insights from Talent Acquisition

Today is not going to be a good day. You were up half the night worrying. You hardly hear the audiobook you put on in the car to steady your nerves, and as you walk from the parking deck to your office, the cup of coffee in your hand is shaking.

You make it through the front door and past the main lobby. On the way to your desk, you pass your colleagues. Some of them look well-rested as they debate last night’s game and swap weekend plans, but others look like you feel. They seem to share your nervous energy, and you get a few knowing half-smiles of camaraderie as you open your email and hope you’re wrong.

It’s no surprise that half the office seems on edge. Your company was just acquired and, on Monday, your leadership team said the dreaded word that you haven’t been able to stop thinking about: “reorganization,” commonly referred to as “reorg.”

By Wednesday, your manager, Marissa, announced that she was leaving, and last night your new manager, Dan, unexpectedly put some time on your calendar for nine a.m. today. You worked closely with Marissa for nearly two years, but now Dan has taken over Marissa’s team as well as two other teams. You worked on a project with Dan about a year ago, but he’s from a different department and most of the work was done remotely. You doubt he really remembers you.

When the clock strikes nine, you walk down to Dan’s new office where he is sitting with an HR business partner. He asks you to take a seat and shut the door.

Dan sighs, and you know instantly that you were right.

“Thank you for your work here the last two years,” he says. “But the company is moving in a different direction and we don’t have a need for your role right now.”

The rest of the conversation is awkward and brief, and then you thank Dan for telling you in person as you head back to your desk to pack up your things and wait for a follow-up email from HR.

As you take the long walk from the lobby back to your car, everything starts sinking in. You wonder what you did wrong, how you didn’t see this coming months ago, and worst of all, you worry about what comes next.

Last Friday your world was completely different. You had a plan, you felt secure, but now…you’ve been disrupted!

Disruption happens to everyone at some point in their careers, and, for many of us, it will happen many times over. Whether you’re a new recruit or a twenty-year veteran, a seasoned C-Suite leader or a recent college grad, you can and will be disrupted. Favorite managers leave, companies are bought and sold, and boards decide their companies need a new face at the helm. Whether or not you’ve lived this story firsthand yet, the inevitable truth is that at some point in your career you will be disrupted.

In fact, you may even disrupt yourself! We actively seek new roles, go back to school, move our families, or chase dreams. And while that kind of disruption is self-inflicted, it, too, can create lasting impressions that may linger outside of our best intentions.

We take disruption personally. Whether it’s a long walk from a desk to a parking lot with our things in a cardboard box or a cross-country move, there’s vulnerability that comes with disruption. Even when we’re in the driver’s seat, we often still feel lost, confused, and a little scared. Yet some people seem to thrive in disruption! Our societal lexicon is full of underdogs who turned failures into successes and went from disrupted dreamers to kings and queens of the hill. So, how do they do it?

Until recently, the old model for promotions and success within a company had not changed much since the 1950s. You put in your time with a company and the company would slowly bring you along in your professional development, investing in you and moving you along at an established pace to develop new skills and to prepare you for a senior leadership position. But that old and patient model has changed. Companies move at incredible speeds and, as the demand for more specialized and technical skills increases, talent leaders can no longer wait for someone to develop a skill over time. They need the skill right away. This is why many companies have shifted to a hiring model of “What do we need today?” and “Who can adjust easily to whatever we need tomorrow?”

That’s a very different mindset for developing and acquiring talent, and it’s a shift that not many employees realize has occurred. Even self-labeled “job-hoppers,” who only plan to stay with a company for a year or two, still have expectations that a company will help develop them and advance their career in some way. And while many organizations say they do this, the reality is that most employees do not hit the internal development radar until they meet a specific criterion. That’s why, when disruption suddenly hits us, we often feel confused.

• “I didn’t know they were looking for that skill set…”
• “I assumed they would teach me any new skills I needed…”
• “I would have learned how to do that if they’d let me know…”

But, as I mentioned earlier, some people thrive in disruption. Or at least, they seem to. So, what’s their secret? Those who thrive in disruption understand how to do two things that will improve their ability to navigate disruption and reset their careers: they know how to position their brands and they know how to tell their own stories.

Excerpt Ends

In our latest book, we discuss both and share insights about expectations from hundreds of talent leaders.  There’s more to come ….stay tuned!

The Virtual Manager

While 2020 wasn’t the year any of us expected, 2021 shows great potential to deliver on many anticipated resets. And we’re ready! Ready to move beyond the pandemic, ready to reset company goals, and ready to feel energized for the year ahead.

Companies are talking to employees, industry experts and business partners to get a sense of what those resets will be. One that is generating a lot of discussion is the work from home setting. Early survey results show more than 90% of employees like this new setting for work…and they want to reset on where they work and how they work. While some companies may continue to work fully virtually, most will reset a new normal that isn’t fully back to where we were in 2019 and won’t fully continue as we are today.

But what will continue is a new role: the virtual manager.

When teams began working from home, we coached managers as boundaries around their role became very blurred and unstructured. Overnight, they were managing around and through personal dynamics.  And they had to learn how to track work dynamics, personal dynamics and emotional distress over a virtual platform.

We wrote about the big shifts (It’s Getting Personal , March 2020). And we quickly saw that most managers were hesitant with them, some managers were tentative about them, and by the end of the year, all managers adjusted to them.

Managers were coached quickly to lead with empathy and understanding in 2020. Now, the expectations of a manager have reset again in 2021, and managers are still learning to manage virtual Productivity, virtual Connectivity and virtual Collaborability.

Here’s why:

Productivity

While managers still have empathy for dynamics surrounding a work from home setting, there has been a reset on expectations. Many employees worked very consistently through the pandemic; others were more sporadic. The result is managers who are trying to figure out how to allow for flexibility while adding more structure and pressure to deadlines and deliverables.

It means they have to be focused on how they set expectations and clear in how they communicate those expectations. And they will have to balance the pressure that one person’s flexibility puts on another person’s deadline. They will manage some people who come in the office and others who remain at home. They will feel more pressure on their own schedule as they try to adjust to everyone else’s.

We’re helping managers with meeting agendas, difficult conversations and a more structured plan for updates. Everyone is still learning.

Connectivity

Managers worked hard throughout 2020 to connect with virtual employees. It almost doubled the amount of time it takes on their calendars. Most say they never really tracked the hallway chats or drive-by conversations in the office. But they’ve learned to track touchpoints now so that they can balance how often they check in and who they’re checking in with.

The frequency of meetings and checkpoints added some efficiency, but it also diluted some connectivity.  It’s hard to force connection at 10am on Tuesday if your employee is distracted or a little less open at that time. Most managers have tried virtual social time. Some ideas work, and some don’t. There are multiple learnings and adjustments around what employees enjoy and what feels forced.

And for managers, some of this felt critical as companies wanted to stay in touch through uncertainty.  But productivity and expectations are no longer uncertain. 2021 has been reset. So, what will be enough and what will be too much connection? It will be a blended approach in 2021. And most managers hope that some of the in-person and easier 1:1 connection will return.

We’re helping managers manage their time and their priorities. We’re helping them facilitate an open and candid conversation virtually. But everyone is still learning.

Collaborability

This may be the weakest link for the virtual manager. In addition to keeping individuals connected and productive, a good manager takes responsibility for getting the whole team to high productivity. And every manager says it’s harder to do. They can run efficient meetings and report outs, but they miss the group’s ability to really collaborate together. They need the spontaneous thoughts that come when team members talk often and huddle informally around the more complex opportunities.

There are lots of tools, but teams haven’t settled in easily with many of them. In many cases, the challenge is time. To make virtual work productive, managers and employees became very focused on efficiency. And while you can set aside 30 minutes to get a team up to speed, you can’t force out of the box thinking into a short meeting. When you try to replicate a longer whiteboard session, you hit Zoom fatigue with participants.

We’re helping managers’ rethink the format that they can’t replicate. We’re leveraging ways to create small discussions in large groups and prework before brain work.

And…everyone is still learning.

It’s a dynamic and evolving skill, and our coaching is evolving right with it. We see commonalities in challenges and different approaches to good practices. And once companies commit to their virtual work strategy, we’ll know how expanded a future manager’s skills need to be. For now, we’ve created a format that combines real-time coaching with small group discussion. Our Virtual Manager coaching circles run for six weeks and support real-time issues with tangible tools and solutions. It allows a manager to learn fast from shared group experiences. It drives discussion, camaraderie….and a little fun!

If you’d like a little support during the 2021 resets, reserve your spot in your Virtual Manager cohort here.

And as always, we’re here when you need us!

Wrap it Up!

From all of us to all of you… a joyful and restful Holiday.

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!

SW&A Team

Meetings Going Nowhere

Has it really been eight months since we shifted to a different way of working?  Somehow…it has!   In fact, it’s been long enough that email tags have shifted from “working from home” to “back at work,” “in and out of the office” and “still at home.”

We’ve talked to people through the different iterations of virtual work, and some interesting trends have emerged around how people work and communicate with each other.

In March, the early response we heard was: “This really works!” “This is great.” “We got this.” “We’re much more effective than we thought we would be.”

At the time, we assumed virtual work was going well because people knew the work they needed to do.  Big initiatives were already in place for 2020.  Most people were in a phase of execution, and once home, they focused on the things they had to do.

Fast forward six months, and the insights have shifted significantly.  Now we hear:

• “This is really hard to do.”
• “It’s impossible to get the input you need.”
• “I feel like I’m missing direction.”
• “I’m so sick of working alone.”

People hear about others going back to work and seem envious. They say they want to go back to the office.  I think they really want to go back to working with each other. Because one consistent theme we’re heard all along is: virtual communication is harder.

People say:

• “There’s just no response when you lead a meeting.”
• “I can’t get people to participate.”
• “It takes twice as long to get a decision.”
• “I’m always misunderstood.”

And it’s why we’ve dubbed this a trend: meetings going nowhere.

Virtual meetings aren’t as effective as they need to be.  In fact, they seem a little chaotic when you ask people what’s going wrong.

• “There are too many people talking.”
• “Agendas aren’t clear.”
• “No one seems sure what the point of the meeting is.”
• “There are too many people in the meeting.”
• “No one seems to be in charge.”

A virtual meeting is different than an in-person meeting.  It can be run effectively, but it takes a lot more work to get it organized.  And even though it’s been eight months, few people have built a skill set for leading virtual meetings well. They’re relying on skills they’ve used for years, and from a listener’s perspective, they don’t translate well.

Here’s the root cause: while the “work from home” setting made everything about communication feel more impromptu and casual, it’s actually the opposite. An effective virtual meeting requires more structure to keep a group focused and on task. The discussion itself may be informal, but it takes work to get a group involved.

Here are a few of the differences that we’re helping managers and leaders consider.

BRAINSTORMING SESSIONS:

This is the hardest format to transfer to a virtual setting.  Hard to believe, because most people love these meetings! They start with a few concepts and quickly build to some great ideas.  It’s the strength of an in-person discussion, and it works because people are 100% focused on being in the room, and they build off of energy and enthusiasm of others. People are very visible, and they work hard to contribute. In fact, they feel a little pressure to show up well.

Virtually, it’s much harder to build on ideas and attach to someone else’s energy. Instead, we tend to stay wedded to our own thought and we just reinforce it when we have an opportunity to speak. And reflection time is dead time in a virtual meeting. If you tell a group to take 10 minutes to write down their thoughts, they’re more likely to take ten minutes and get a snack.

A virtual discussion has to have guardrails and direction to be productive. A virtual group does better with choices of concepts and focused work on supporting a recommendation for a choice versus trying to come up with the broader concepts.

We learned this ourselves as we transitioned to virtual workshops. We gave groups one of  our standard exercises and quickly saw they did very little with it. When we modified the scope of the exercise to making a choice between options, they were able to collaborate better. They needed defined roles and specific instructions of what to do. Their input was very good, but they got there differently.

The same may be true of your discussion sessions.

PREWORK AND ASSIGNMENTS: 

Do more of this for virtual meetings. Everyone seems exhausted and overworked, but people miss connection. And it will simplify your discussion if you have people work together prior to the meeting instead of in the meeting.

Plan ahead and assign partners to discuss prework together. It’s a benefit from both perspectives. This makes the large meeting discussion easier on the leader because you have reduced the input by half. And, it ensures everyone feels heard because they shared perspective with a partner prior to the larger meeting.

TEMPLATES & AGENDAS: 

It’s the routine meetings that people dislike the most. The feedback is lack of structure, lack of direction and just no real takeaways. If you’re leading standing meetings, you owe it to a group to improve the takeaways.

Meetings have become more transactional in a virtual setting, but people still want to feel as if their attendance mattered.  It takes more formality and structure to help it run well.

Our rule of thumb is cover less. Simplicity over complexity. These virtual meetings are a hybrid of conference calls and in-person meetings. There’s still a lot of clunkiness in how we experience each other online. So, keep it simple.

Agree on a flow of an agenda and stick to it in every meeting. A consistent structure makes it easier to follow a meeting and easier to hear what’s being said. Agree on how to participate. It’s like learning a new game. Give everybody the rules, and they’ll get a little better each time you hold a meeting.

CAMERAS ON:

Companies may have sent the wrong message about the video early on. It was with the best of intentions because they knew that people were dealing with a lot in their homes. But the camera is a signal of focus. It says, “I’m here and focused on this conversation.”

No camera or darkness around someone’s name, says the person isn’t fully there.

And it changes the very essence of communication: Connection. No matter what your role is in a meeting, turn the video on and be fully there as a communicator.

We aren’t as chaotic as we were eight months ago. We’re working differently and we’ve learned a lot from our experiences. If your company is headed into another six months or more of virtual meetings, then learning to lead a meeting that’s going somewhere will be an important skill in 2021.

If you’d like a little help resetting your annual planning session or your team’s routine  meetings, we can help you transition to an effective virtual model.

Call us when you need us.

Bringing Impact through Compelling Communication

Original post: Sally Williamson & Associates is the proud recipient of Top Leadership Development Training/Coaching Provider 2020

A leader or a manager may be highly qualified and skilled in his chosen field, but his abilities become irrelevant without competent communication skills. At Sally Williamson & Associates (SW&A), Sally Williamson and her team help rising leaders at all levels strengthen communication influence and impact across their organization. The company undertakes training programs and executive presence coaching, to teach the fundamentals and finer nuances of effective communication, and create better leaders.

In an interview with CIO Application, Sally Williamson, President and founder of SW&A shares her insights on effective communication, and how  their training programs  and coaching can improve communication strategies. As a leading resource for improving the impact of spoken communications, Williamson has been coaching leaders for more than thirty years. Her team specializes in executive coaching and developing custom programs for groups across company verticals. By working with professionals to better understand their listener’s expectations, SW&A can coach  a communicator to influence people with a compelling storyline and personal style that drives engagement.

What spurred the conception of SW&A?

I founded SW&A when I realized the gap between training and coaching in the marketplace. We are one of the few firms in the training industry that combines both concepts to not only introduce skills but to help a person adapt skills to their communication situations. Communication is a durable skill that all organizations look for, and it is an essential skill of leadership.

In the early stages of a person’s career, if someone can express their ideas with confidence, they move up the career ladder quickly. For mid-level managers, clarity of communication is essential to manage people and processes. And for senior leaders, the expectations of communication increase significantly as employees and customers expect a compelling leader who can build trust, understanding and conviction behind ideas.

What are some of the recent trends that you have witnessed in the leadership development space?

The trend we see is urgency. Companies need leaders ready to lead, and new managers ready to manage right now. The skills haven’t changed; it’s the timing that has intensified in terms of having someone ready to step into a role. And, it’s why we have two delivery models: executive coaching and group workshops. Through workshops, we teach the foundational skills for future leaders and through coaching, we strengthen consistency and impact for someone who is already leading.

Tell us more about the services you offer and how do you deliver the same?

We deliver our services through group workshops, and one-on-one coaching programs.

When you work on communication skills, it comes down to content development, what someone plans to say, and personal delivery skills, how someone comes across when they say it.

We teach foundational skills for creating content and building personal confidence, and then we support that foundation with a number of situational tools to help someone apply the fundamentals in many different ways.

What sets us apart in the marketplace is a deep bench of expertise. Our coaches share the intent of communication rather than just the techniques.  And that means that we bring  knowledge from our research and our insights on what it takes to drive impact with listeners. While we often focus on communication in a classroom format, no one on our team started their career as an instructor. Instead, we were in roles that required clarity and influence and we have leveraged that experience into our coaching relationships.

Historically, our workshops run one-two days, and our coaching engagements are tailored to the needs of the coachee.  In 2020, many of our programs shifted  to a virtual format, and we now have the capability to deliver all of our services as a series of sessions with small group breakouts and coaching circles.

How do you measure the outcomes of your programs?

We start with the rating of the workshop by participants. We capture a self-assessment of skills at the start of the program and the completion of the program. We also have an online practice tool that allows us to track frequency of practice and the tools being leveraged by an individual. In our custom programs, we provide managers with tools for ongoing coaching and support. And if we’ve worked with a group on messaging as well as personal delivery, we can also design a customer survey to measure effectiveness of content and style.

Could you narrate an instance that highlights the benefits brought to one of your clients, through your coaching program?

One of our clients was a specialized group of technologists. They were the most senior technical team within the organization and a quiet resource to a top leader. With an abrupt shift in leadership, the senior sponsor was gone and the group had no visibility and no executive support. The technical leader feared that her team would be dissolved.

She sought help to build the storyline that elevated their role and their results within the organization. She knew they had to resell their value to the leadership team and build greater awareness across the organization. We worked with the team to build a story that highlighted their expertise and raised awareness of their impact. We built a strategy with their communications team to raise their visibility among colleagues and we helped each technologist gain confidence in sharing that story in multiple settings.

Within about six months, the group had established visibility within the company and had begun to establish value with the leadership team. Within a year, the group had doubled in size and was managing three times the amount of work for the full leadership team.

What is SW&A’s future roadmap and how do you stay ahead of the competition?

We always align ourselves with our client’s priorities and pain points. We learn a lot through relationships and discussions about expectations. One client may lead us to their priorities, and over a period of time, we begin to see a trend developing across a number of clients.

We’re able to share commonalities and bring conversations together as we position our response to a trend.

A great example was the pandemic. No one really understood the nuances of virtual communication and the balance of similarities and differences. We quickly pulled our learnings together and created a Virtual Communicator course to help our clients navigate the new normal.

We’re also underway with our fourth book on career disruption. The trends that we see are more frequent shifts in careers and roles.  So, whether you create your own disruption or are impacted by a company’s disruption, we believe professional development and skills of influence are ingredients that people need to take ownership for themselves. The book sets up the research to validate the trend and provides our insight and coaching on how to reset your personal brand and your professional career.