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navigating unfamiliar situations
Uncategorized

Seamlessly Navigating Unfamiliar Situations with Andy Molinsky

In this episode of Work That Matters by WorqIQ, Andy Molinsky joins us to talk about seamlessly navigating unfamiliar situations in the workplace, and in life…

Ambiguity is no stranger to the workplace.

In a time where disruption is increasingly more common—start-ups competing with legacy companies and technological advancements changing the workplace landscape, for example—there is no shortage of unfamiliar situations to test leaders and employees alike. It’s no longer enough to have a great product or service. If companies and its employees at any level are ill-equipped to navigate today’s ambiguous, rapidly changing business realities, they will struggle to remain relevant. For people, there is another level of concern: developing the skills to adeptly respond to new situations.

Today’s career playbook has added and revised chapters. With the aforementioned technology advancements, employers are seeking more soft-edge skills: collaboration, emotional and workplace intelligence, and navigating conflict, for example. It’s not that these skills are new expectations. But their importance has moved to the top of the list because how we are working is changing. Consequently, companies are seeking talent who can more gracefully integrate their professional disciplines with soft-edge skills.

For employees and job seekers to stand out, they absolutely need to learn how to step outside their comfort zones.

In today’s episode of Work That Matters by WorqIQ, this is what we explore.

 

 

About This Week’s Episode

Andy Molinsky is a professor of psychology and organizational behavior at Brandeis University’s International Business School. His work is widely published in reputable media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Fast Company, and has been featured on NPR. His latest book is Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge, and Build Confidence.

Molinsky reveals some invaluable ways to help boost your repertoire of skills and success, including navigating unfamiliar situations and extending our comfort zones. The five core psychological barriers people face when stepping outside their comfort zones is particularly important to understand. We specifically talk with Andy about the authenticity challenge and the morality challenge. This is fascinating stuff!

If you struggle with avoiding doing something you want or need to do, be sure to listen to Andy’s insights about why this happens.

Throughout our conversation, you’ll also hear tips to help you navigate ambiguity and ways to help behavior change stick.

Today’s top performers may be reluctant to step up and rise to new challenges. But they find a way to lean on their talents and move forward. Indeed, this has always been a winning strategy. It’s merely evolved to be more important for all of us and not just something the daring do.

Important Links

As you’re thinking about navigating unfamiliar situations, be sure to check out these links mentioned in today’s podcast episode:

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clarity
Uncategorized

Clarity: The Critical Culture Element (And a Key to High Performance)

In this episode of Work That Matters by WorqIQ, we talk with Karen Martin about the impact clarity has in today’s workplace culture…

Admittedly, the phrase “high performance” has become cliché. In fact, its overuse seems to have pummeled any meaning out of it. And yet, high performance remains a highly desirable achievement in workplace cultures.

So if “high performance” has lost its sense of originality, what should we use in its place?

The Most Important Culture Element

Karen Martin, today’s guest on Work That Matters and best-selling author, would provide a one-word answer: “Clarity.”

“Clarity is instrumental to effective communication. It also plays an important role in encouraging employees to bring their best selves to their work,” Karen, author of Clarity First, adds.

Of course, you could ask what does “clarity” mean? In our work with clients, it consists of goals, priorities, and expectations. If none of these three are clear, then you have a performance issue. How can you or your team have a desired impact if there is no desirable outcome that unifies a well-coordinated effort?

“If you want high performance, then you need clarity,” says Karen. “If you want your employees to excel, then you must constantly seek and nurture the core culture element. In the end, this is the culture element that eases the ongoing struggle to focus on doing work of the highest value.”

 

 

About This Week’s Episode

Karen Martin is president of The Karen Martin Group. Today, we talk with her about what leaders can do to strengthen clarity from the executive level, mid-management level, and at the employee level. As you’ll hear, Karen explains that clarity is not just a highly desirable reality, it is an organizational value, a state of being, and an outcome… all at the same time.

As Karen astutely observes, the opposite of clarity is ambiguity. Though there is no way to remove ambiguity from the workplace completely, you no doubt know the impacts if ambiguity is the norm, rather than the specificity gained through clarity. Additionally, when clarity is more pronounced, it helps to boost employee confidence.

Listen in, and you’ll hear Karen discuss how “confidence breeds competence.” She adds: “Even purpose begins to shape actions when clarity is paramount in your leadership.”

Enjoy the listen… and then think about how much of a culture element clarity might be, or become, in your organization.

Important Links

Be sure to check out these links mentioned in today’s podcast episode:

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energizing work
Uncategorized, Workplace Optimism

Workplace Sanity Check: Are You Doing Energizing Work?

70 percent of employees, including managers, have a negative experience of work. So businesses must find solutions that change this long-standing reality. While it may be daunting to change how you and your employees experience work, there are significant benefits to consistently doing energizing work.

What’s more, there are intrinsic benefits that are harder to quantify. However, they are equally, if not more, important to shaping perceptions of work.

The Science and Emotions of Energizing Work

One input to positively shape the experience of and be energized by work is strengths. Strengths are what energize you. For example, if one of your strengths is creativity the more work you do that flexes that strength the more energized you feel. The positive emotions you experience from energizing work has quantifiable benefits to results.

Studies on strengths have found that when a strengths philosophy is designed into the culture, employee performance increases 38 percent. When you or your employees are energized by work you are more focused, enthused, and can apply greater mental and physical strength to the task. These are key inputs to creating a high performance organization.

Even recruitment is positively impacted by tapping into strengths to energize the workforce. The Strengthscope Partnership found that customer retention improved by 44 percent when a company helped employees learn what energizes and drains them.

When our clients integrate a strengths-based philosophy into the culture a common misconception is employees will work only on energizing assignments. What drains people (the opposite of a strength) is a subjective conclusion. Therefore, it’s way too complicated to align work assignments based on strengths and drainers. What’s more, even well-crafted jobs have “unsexy” work. The goal, then, is to increase the amount of energizing assignments while balancing business needs.

Some Sources for Energizing Work

Even if you don’t use an assessment to learn what energizes you and employees, there are sources to energizing work. Here are a few:

Meaningfulness | Work that is meaningful to you energizes and enthuses. Learn what is meaningful to you. Learn what significance people on your team gets from work that that they find meaningful.

Psychological Safety | Focus on creating a team environment where people feel safe to share their ideas and not worry about looking bad or unprepared for not knowing something. In other words, don’t beat people up for being different or not being “in the know.” Instead, focus on coaching people and modeling the way in terms of understanding differences and what barriers exist to staying informed.

Purpose-Orientation | Make sure you know how your work generates value for the company and its customers. That will make it easier for you to help your employees understand their role in generating value. As adults we need to understand “why” something is important.

Focus on What’s Possible

You do not need to wait for permission from HR, or your CEO (if it’s not you). You can turn work into an energizing experience.

Seek out zero-cost solutions like these. Once discovered, you simply need to be willing to invest the time. One word of caution: avoid taking on this work by yourself. It’s energizing to involve the entire team in transforming the experience of work.

While a bit cliché, we are stronger when we do energizing work together.

 

This post originally appeared in Shawn’s weekly column on Inc.com.

 

 

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high performance teams
Transformational Leadership, Uncategorized

10 Focus Areas That Help Build High Performance Teams

You’ve heard it before: No one person is more important than the whole team. This is especially true when building high performance teams.

The best teams win together, learn together and adapt together. They lose together and, over time, they grow together. In high performance teams, their interactions and communications are fluid, relevant, and even playful.

Astonishingly great teams are capable of achieving results in large part because their leader intentionally shapes the conditions that help people do exceptional work together.

The complexity of human nature and office politics can obfuscate where a leader needs to focus his/her attention. Amidst office drama, jockeying for resources, or decoding the tone of the boss’s emails, it is easy to become distracted and overlook what needs to be done to build great teams. These are, however, daily realities of business. The exceptional leader rises above the distractions. When that happens, these ten focus areas become more apparent paths to more meaningful work, and help build high performance teams.

Focus on Clarity

Clarity is made up of four items: goals, priorities, expectations, and a short feedback loop. With clarity, a team knows where to shift its focus and determine the level of effort necessary to finish an assignment. In the absence of clarity, teams make up what they think is important. The leader is rarely pleased with the outcome.

Focus on Relationships

It is easier to trust and understand colleagues when relationships are high-quality. Great teams make time to eat together, have coffee together, plan together, review progress, and even share a drink together. We find safety in relationships where there is a bond.

Focus on Solutions

High-quality teams solve problems. They do not get to absorbed in idolizing the problem. Instead, they develop a bias for solutions and what is possible. Central to this focus is clarity and quality relationships. Clarity provides the parameters to solve problems. Relationships help us determine who needs to be involved and when to achieve the desired solution.

Focus on Radical Candor

In a results-oriented culture, people practice radical candor. Author and consultant Kim Scott popularized the term in her book with the same name. Scott explains radical candor this way:

“Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. When you challenge without caring it’s obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging it’s ruinous empathy. Do neither, it’s manipulative insincerity.

Focus on Progress

It is maddening and demotivating to spend time on a project that goes nowhere. Progress is particularly powerful for teams. Leaders must remain aware of impediments to progress and then remove barriers swiftly.

Focus on Strengths

A strength is not just what we are good it. It is also something that energizes. It’s a performance advantage to pair up a strategic thinker with another team member who is strong in execution. Know how to position team members to maximize their strengths individually and collectively. This also boosts work fulfillment.

Focus on Purpose

A team that knows its purpose and how they make a difference can innovate, adapt to change more easily, and make stronger decisions. Purpose is a calling that unifies the team’s collective effort. Without purpose the team’s focus can meander, undermining performance and discipline.

Focus on Workplace Climate

Climate is what it feels like to work in the team. In a cause-and-effect relationship, employees’ perception of their boss influences their commitment and effort that ultimately effects results. As a leader, know what your actions and words create. Collaborative, affiliative, and coaching leadership styles have a positive effect on climate and motivation. On the opposite end of the spectrum are authoritative and controlling leadership styles. Both approaches undermine motivation and often lead to toxic workplaces.

Focus on Whole-employee Growth

In high performance teams, team members’ commitment and performance increase when they believe you are genuinely invested in their success. Broaden your perspective on growth. Instead of focusing only on professional growth, also spend time helping each person on your team grow outside of work. Simple ways to do this include not sending emails after 6 pm. This signals to employees that downtime from work is key. Another way to invest in your employees’ growth is paying for classes that enrich their lives.

Focus on Values Alignment

Employees want greater alignment with their personal values and the company’s, too. One way to look at this growing workforce expectation is as a source of fulfillment. Fulfilling work is an intrinsic motivator that has a long-lasting influence on performance. Evaluating the opposite dynamic–believing in a value but not acting in alignment with it–we become anxious. Lasting cognitive dissonance becomes distracting and consumes our thinking. It is difficult to summon the mental focus to do phenomenal work when doubt shadows our thoughts and actions.

Each of the focus areas are important. But knowing when to use them is far more valuable and effective. The place to start? Understanding your current team’s reality versus where you need them to be in order to be considered one of your organization’s high performance teams.

 

 

 

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