Developing professional relationships starts with adding value to others’ lives. Networking can feel a bit scary for many people. For human social relations, small is often beautiful. After all, for a lot longer than modern civilisation has existed, humans lived in small, close-knit hunter-gatherer groups of  about 150 individuals . In these groups, we felt safer. We had the capacity to know those around us reasonably well, and to be aware of how they knew each other (which helped us navigate socially). This explains why venturing beyond the familiar can be fraught with some anxiety. In the modern world, however, networking is essential. Research tells us that extending our network helps us find new jobs,  be more creative and do well as a  leader (through the performance of our subordinates). The late entertainment industry legend Clarence Avant constructed a network in his lifetime that bridged many talents such as Bill Withers and Grammy Award-winning producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. If he didn’t navigate the unfamiliar, many of these bridges would never have been formed, and many talented artists perhaps never discovered. Martin Scorsese’s impressive  body of work included connections with several gifted actors who could be called upon for multiple productions over the years (Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Harvey Keitel, among others). While leveraging this familiarity, he further discovered and worked with a multitude of different actors across his career.  Unfortunately, many of us prefer the familiar. So powerful is this tendency to seek people who are  “similar” to ourselves that it has a name – homophily – and forms a substantial research subfield. Indeed, despite all of the popular attention on networking, the reality is that many of us find it shallow and overly  transactional . This shuts us off from discovering meaningful, inspiring and productive connections. Our dependence on others No matter how capable and independent we may be, much of our ability to do anything in this world depends upon others. It’s remarkable how incredibly dependent we ultimately are on other “experts” (for food, clothing, shelter, technology, information, etc.). Product-market ideas of all sorts depend upon the recombination of ideas from so many fields and experiences that it becomes less probable that it can be accumulated in the mind of solitary individuals. Robinson Crusoe-like development is unlikely to cut it in this day and age. How can we reach out and make new connections given our human nature? At the risk of over-simplifying things, let’s consider three do’s and three don’ts: Do’s Have something to give One of the reasons people loathe networking is because of the way it can be framed. Typically, it’s an “ask” and can be seen as a mostly selfish act. The caricature is that of a schmoozy networker who goes into it focused on getting something but giving as little as possible in return. Non-hierarchical relationships need to go in both directions. Starting with a  mindset of give (first)-and-take instead of take-take-take can help create value around you and form relationships based on trust. Ask yourself: “How can I use my knowledge, experiences and resources to add value to (new) people around me?” Yes, reciprocation is a very powerful human instinct, and so repayments in kind are likely. However, the idea is not some ostentatious “gift” that makes people suspicious of our intentions. Rather, simply consider, “Am I being as useful as I might, and reaching out to people further afield that I normally do?” Diversify One of the things that can make you more creative and innovative is the diversity of your network. This is because innovation is fundamentally about  combining pieces of knowledge that already exist. One of the ways you do this is by developing a network that bridges different pockets of knowledge. Uncorrelated, independent ideas are crucial for us to make better, more creative decisions. The benefits networking brings to innovation are apparent at diverse organisations like INSEAD. There are around 70 nationalities in any MBA cohort. The 159 faculty members come from 42 countries, while the 67,000-strong alumni are spread across 179 countries. Such a diverse network is perhaps one of the factors why INSEAD placed fourth in  Pitchbook’s latest annual ranking of MBA programmes by its track record of producing entrepreneurs and start-ups. Build relationships, not just networks LinkedIn contacts are not necessarily relationships. My guess is that, for most people, the vast majority of our LinkedIn networks are a kilometre wide but a centimetre deep. While this may be fine for simple information exchange (about valuable  job opportunities , for example), these ties are unlikely to lead to big co-created projects or help you with thorny problems you are trying to solve.  Someone I don’t know very well might just send a short response to my email question, but my closer acquaintances and budding friends are more likely to spend a few hours talking and sharing their thoughts. This doesn’t mean you must convert all contacts into “BFFs”, but developing real connections from some casual “contacts” may be worthwhile. Don’ts Don’t wait until you hit a crisis to network The worst time to develop your network is probably when you’re in big trouble. People can smell the lack of authentic interest in them. They are simply a means to an end, and no one likes to feel that way. Any help you receive can also amount to a substantial social debt. Again, look to build a network when you’re in a position of strength, when you have something to give. Don’t wait until crisis hits. Don’t be held captive by your ego As we move up in power and authority in our careers, there is the danger that we become complacent in reaching out to new people and exaggerate our importance. We start to let status get in the way, and we see networking as a weakness. Rather, we expect people to come to us, to seek us out as prized connections. We want to be the celebrity that everyone chases. The problem is that this may happen to us at precisely the moment, such as middle age, when we may need to transition and expand our thinking. Reaching out to others may become even more important as we progress from senior managers to executive leadership. Retaining humility is important: Never stop being curious and engaging with new people, no matter how many titles you have accumulated. Don’t overindulge in cliques The flip side of seeking diversity is avoiding an overindulgence in cliques. Don’t misunderstand: We all need a super-trusted inner core of best friends. That can be a wonderful gift in life, and, as noted, is very natural. But cliques can emerge. These are smallish, but substantial, closed groups of friends (everyone knows everyone else) with whom we spend much of our time. We crave them because they are easy to get along with and well-aligned to ourselves. The trouble is that they can become echo chambers – we hear similar ideas bounce around, and so these ideas appear more “obviously correct”. Cliques can also take us away from developing new and challenging relationships. How companies could help reluctant networkers Companies can play a role in fostering networks, especially among employees who find relationship-building arduous. In a  study of dozens of recently promoted professionals in auditing, consulting and law, my colleague Ben Bensaou ,  Claudia Jonczyk Sédès of Université de Neuchâtel and I found that there were three basic networking strategies. A few people put effort into networking, making connections beyond their usual work; some did it but not as actively; a third group, whom we call purists, simply refused to partake in a practice they found manipulative.  Purists tend to be dedicated to their work and feel self-sufficient in their expertise. Their relational energy is focused on their team. They tend to let connections fade. During the 12 to 16 months our research lasted, the purists’ networks shrank. They also expressed the least organisational commitment and the least integration with peers at the end of our study. But companies that lose purists might miss out on valuable employees. There are ways at various levels of the company to avoid this. Managers can use purists’ professionalism to build bigger networks by promoting networking that focuses on assisting others. Human Resources can help by organising task-based networking opportunities, such as cross-department seminars. Firms should also scan their performance management systems for bias. Internal performance review systems that encourage contact-making without looking at the value created risk disadvantaging purists. Balanced networks Our relationships can vary on many dimensions, and the choice is mostly ours. We have very close relationships, we have distant ones, and everything in between. Some people are a lot like us, while others are quite different. Some share our knowledge, and some bring entirely new and different ideas. Ideally, we should be neither hedgehogs (keeping our heads buried in the same social clique) nor coyotes (sly opportunists scanning the landscape for gain). Rather, we can think about our social relationships and find the balance that our lifestyles and careers require. This article is adapted from a commentary published in The Straits Times. Edited by: Lee Seok Hwai View Comments Leave a Comment

This content was originally published here.

The post Effective Networking Is About Giving, Not Just Taking appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

In many work environments, promotions serve as one of the few indicators of career success and advancement. But promotions have a long feedback loop. They often take years to happen, which means they mask the growth happening across the months and years before a promotion is conferred. Promotions are also not entirely under an employee’s or their manager’s control. Sometimes a higher scope of work is not available, or leadership roles are limited in number.

The bottom line is, organizations can’t promote everyone. There will always be high-performing employees who want to get promoted in situations where promotion isn’t possible or requires waiting. This creates a problem for managers who want to retain top talent; a recent survey found the number one reason for voluntary employee departures is a lack of career mobility.

What should leaders do to help employees with unmet desires for promotion?

When talented employees feel demoralized by slow upward advancement, managers need to develop interim strategies to help these employees get their underlying needs met.

First, even if an employee is a top performer, there may be certain skills or performance deficits that are holding them back from a desired promotion. If there are ways the employee can address and remedy these skill or experience gaps, talk with them and share your thoughts. Give them time to process your feedback on ways to improve, and make it clear in your conversation that there is nothing wrong with a desire for promotion.

Then start digging into what a promotion actually means to them. It could be some combination of the following, or something completely different:

By narrowing down what the promotion signifies or enables for a given employee, managers can then scan for opportunities that could lead to uniquely meaningful work experiences. For example, higher pay may be the primary motivator for many employees. To the extent that your organization’s compensation planning allows for manager discretion, consider allocating more significant monetary rewards for high performers who have been passed up for promotion.

Consider other examples:

If an employee wants to have more influence as part of their work, ask yourself how you can help them have more impact with clients and stakeholders. Are there meetings the employee can join to help them learn what’s on leaders’ minds or further steer the direction of a project?

Maybe your employee wants to have more public recognition. Are there opportunities to position the employee’s work to be more visible and celebrated? Can the employee apply or be nominated for professional awards or have their contributions called out in public communication channels?

As a final example, maybe becoming a people manager is important to your employee. Consider whether you can appoint the employee as an informal lead of the team before they are officially promoted to a people manager. Are there opportunities to give them increased exposure to managerial activities, like leading hiring for the team or coaching more junior employees?

An important caveat: Even as you partner with these employees to create work experiences that match their underlying motivations, don’t expect them to wait indefinitely for a promotion. Give them feedback that will help them develop, and be as transparent as possible about the realities of promotion decision-making. Taking action to support the underlying needs of frustrated high performers will go a long way in the short term, but should occur in tandem with efforts to advocate for their advancement.

Why this approach works

By encouraging employees to talk more deeply about what matters in their career, managers can take a more nuanced approach to helping the employee design a career that works for them.

Discussing underlying motivations can also help high performers feel heard, whether or not a promotion is possible. This in turn positions managers as active partners in solving for career success, rather than gatekeepers.

This content was originally published here.

The post How to Motivate a Top Performer — When You Can’t Promote Them appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

The pandemic’s negative impact on women in the workforce will not be reversed for a very long time. In the first year of the pandemic alone, 54 million women around the world left the workforce, almost 90 percent of whom exited the labor force completely. The participation rate for women in the global labor force is now under 47%, drastically lower than men at 72%.

These losses deliver a devasting impact to gender parity, career progression, and female representation in leadership positions. But we are underestimating the scope of the problem if we are just looking at the impact on women. The collateral damage is the loss of engagement and productivity from every employee who now won’t be working for a woman, since women leaders have more engaged teams, drive better job performance, and save their organization millions of dollars as a result. At a time when so many employeees are resigning to seek opportunity elsewhere and companies face a 15-year high in talent shortages, retaining and promoting more women leaders is the best and most urgent solution for securing one’s entire workforce.

Women Do Hard Things Better

Potential Project conducted a multi-year study of leaders and employees from approximately 5,000 companies in close to 100 countries. We wanted to learn how leaders do the hard things that come with their top jobs while still remaining good human beings. We distilled the analysis into two key traits: wisdom, the courage to do what needs to be done, even when it is difficult; and compassion, the care and empathy shown towards others, combined with the intention to support and help. Both traits are important, but when they are combined, there is an exponentially higher impact on important metrics. For example, job satisfaction is 86% higher for an employee who works for a wise and compassionate leader than an employee who does not. (To gauge your own wisdom and compassion as a leader, feel free to take this quick assessment.)

When we parse the data by gender, the differences, if not shocking, are pretty stark. 55% of the women in our study were ranked by their followers as being wise and compassionate compared to only 27% of the men. Conversely, 56% of the men in our study ranked poorly on wisdom and compassion, landing in a quadrant we call Ineffective Indifference. By a 2:1 margin, followers said that women leaders versus male leaders are able to do hard things in a human way.

Before we began the study, we had no idea that “doing hard things in a human way” would in essence become job #1 for leaders. When a global pandemic changed the very fabric of work and irreversibly upended our lives, leaders had to make incredibly difficult decisions with no playbook to fall back on. They were called on to navigate their teams through waves of grief, anxiety, and uncertainty, to help protect their mental health, and to show their own vulnerabilities along the way.

It isn’t surprising then that women who stayed in the workforce, and who excel at wise compassion, have emerged as the heroes of the pandemic. A recent McKinsey report confirms how women are rising to this extraordinary moment as stronger leaders and taking on the extra work that comes with it, compared to men at the same level. In their study of 65,000 employees, women managers were scored higher by their employees as taking the people-centered actions that helped them through the pandemic: providing emotional support (12% more), checking in on overall well-being (7% more), taking action to help manage burnout (5% more).

Beyond the Crisis

A narrative often arises which says that women are better at leading in a crisis, as if their leadership qualities emerge only episodically and then disappear again. Though the extraordinary circumstances of the last two years have once again shone a spotlight on women’s strengths as leaders, this isn’t an isolated event. The truth of the matter is that all of us enjoy our jobs more and perform better when we work for a woman. Our research confirms many great studies (such as this research by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman) that have already established this fact.

In our research, we looked at key business outcomes and the differences between the gender of the employee and the leader.  Here is what we found:

Across numerous metrics, including job engagement and job performance, the worst outcomes occur when a man works for a man, and the best outcomes occur when a woman leads either a woman or man. Data points such as these should call into question who is holding leadership positions and how we are developing leaders. When you translate these findings into financial impact, the call to action grows.

We looked at respondents in our survey population who are actively disengaged from their jobs; in other words, those who have miserable work experiences and spread their unhappiness to their colleagues. With male leaders in our population, 18% of their followers are actively disengaged compared to 11% of the followers of female leaders. Based on Gallup research, a disengaged employee costs their organization $3400 for every $10,000 of salary in lost productivity. By driving more engaged/less disengaged employees, women leaders save their organizations $1.43 million for every 1,000 employees (assumes an average salary of $60,000). Layered on top of this are the savings for not having to replace a disengaged employee which requires one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary, or between $30,000 and $120,000 per employee.

Where to Go from Here

There are critical ways in which organizations can leverage these insights towards creating more beneficial outcomes for all employees.

Promote gender equity.

First, although gains have been made, organizations still have a long way to go in supporting and promoting women. Currently, white men occupy 62% of C-suite positions and the pandemic has widened the global gender gap so much it will now take 135.6 years to close it. This work needs to start early in one’s career. As McKinsey describes, women face a “broken rung” at the first step up to manager: for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 86 women are promoted, which means far fewer women to promote to higher levels. The pandemic has worsened the pipeline problem by creating untenable work circumstances for women: millions have worked from home while home-schooling kids, caring for other dependents, and juggling increased domestic responsibilities. A first positive step towards long-term gender equity that organizations can take is to update flexible and work-from-home arrangements to really reflect and support the realities women face. Make sure these arrangements don’t hinder promotions, and evaluate the quality of childcare options that are available to your employees. Here are other ideas for advancing gender equity as we return to the office.

Develop compassionate leadership.

Second, although women may have a more ingrained, natural pre-disposition towards compassionate leadership, we also know that compassion can be learned. Anyone and everyone who is interested in becoming a wiser and more compassionate leader can unlearn old ways of leading and relearn how to be more human. The starting point is to set an intention to bring more care and kindness into your day-to-day leadership. It can be as simple as asking the question, “How are you really?” There are also mind training techniques that can help rewire your brain so that a compassionate orientation becomes your default way of living and leading.

Intentional peer learning.

Third, companies can create peer coaching and advisory circles for men and women where they can learn more from each other on ways to do hard things in a wise and compassionate way. In our work, we have found these forms of semi-structured, intentionally designed, development initiatives can help leaders from a wide range of diverse backgrounds learn from each other. These forums can also help to plant seeds towards creating more wise, compassionate and inclusive cultures where we recognize, leverage and learn from our strengths.

There is so much need for more wisdom and compassion in the world of work and beyond — and it’s clear that women leaders are a primary source of these invaluable qualities. Unfortunately, when we asked our survey respondents how much wisdom and compassion factored into their ideal leadership style, male leaders responded that they want more wisdom but less compassion. Perhaps not surprisingly, women leaders responded that they want to have more wisdom and more compassion.

Let’s do all we can to support and develop our current and future women leaders. We all need them.

This content was originally published here.

The post Supporting Women Leaders, Beyond the Crisis appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

When you head into any new year, it’s natural to think about where your career stands and where it’s going.

Companies traditionally notify employees of compensation changes and bonuses for last year’s performance in these first few months. They also announce promotions and reorganizations in line with succession planning and company strategy. As a result, this time can cause some colleagues to celebrate while inducing career angst for others.

But this year, it may be even more challenging to understand your career priorities and do anything about them, given the continuing uncertainty surrounding our work lives.

Since the pandemic, companies are still trying to figure out many factors that affect their employees’ careers, from deciding on the right remote work policies or their use of contingent workers over full-time employees to stemming the tide of the Great Resignation. A recent study showed that not only is employee turnover still on the rise, but people are also more willing than before to quit their company even without another job lined up. And whether you are the one leaving or remaining, your career stability is undoubtedly affected.

You may worry that your career will become directionless with all this volatility. But here are four tips that can help you not only weather the uncertainty around you but even find a way to leverage it for your future benefit.

Take advantage of uncertain times to sharpen your long-term career plans.

When things feel steady and predictable, there is no urgency to do any genuine introspection about your future. And career certainty may feel good at the moment but can also keep you from operating at your highest potential.

Instability can be an impetus to strengthen your career dexterity for the long run. Consider how most people wait to rethink their future until after a crisis, like being laid off or wanting to quit your company due to a toxic workplace.

At that point, it’s challenging to gain the necessary self-insight before making decisions out of desperation. Instead, invest in your career development while you still have a sense of control and choice so you can stay clear headed and act in your best interest.

A client of mine, a VP at a Fortune 100 company, found her plans to advance were disrupted when several of her staunchest advocates left to take on new roles elsewhere. She also was being courted by other companies, but the idea of having to be back on the market intensely frustrated her. Initially, she decided to show up, do her job and not worry about her future. But soon, keeping the instability “out of sight and out of mind” became impossible.

So we decided to use the precarious events as a time for introspection and self-assessment, something she hadn’t done in years. In addition to using some formal career discovery tools, we looked at her situation from a different lens: her future self as an SVP. What would she tell her current self today about feeling helpless and avoidant?

My client started to notice that she could make an effort to develop more relationships with key stakeholders. She also decided she didn’t need to look at external opportunities as a burden but rather a validation that she has a lot to offer at any company. Perhaps there was no harm in pursuing leads and no obligation to do anything with them.

By taking a step back during a time of unwelcome instability, this executive came up with a strategy that moved her forward intentionally, rather than letting circumstances out of her control disempower her.

Uncover who you need to be, not just what you need to do.

Recent research shows that two-thirds of employees felt the pandemic caused them to reflect on their purpose in life and that 70% of employees see their purpose defined by their work. The result is a sea change in how today’s job seekers are leading their careers with more intention and how companies need to respond in their selection and advancement decisions.

Think about how career advancement has always been about building your resume, with more activities and quantifiable results in each experience. This focus is still important, but it’s relentlessly centered on what you’ve done, not who you are.

To be successful in today’s changing work environment, particularly as a leader who inspires performance, you need to know who you need to “be,” not just a list of what you can do.

I worked with a former director at a Fortune 500 company who left his company at the height of the pandemic. After doing extensive self-discovery work uncovering his values and where his aptitude could be of higher service in the world, he felt an undeniable urge to become an entrepreneur and not just on the side.

Rather than simply making more to-do lists, he thought about who he needed to be to succeed as an entrepreneur and how he wanted others to feel in his presence. My client knew that his values were a steady anchor amidst the uncertainty that he could rely on, simply because when he honored them, his mood was up, and when he didn’t, he felt drained.

Just by tapping into who my client needed to “be” rather than what he needed to do each day, he was able to sustain motivation and resilience in the face of daily changes.

Focus on process, not outcomes, and your passion will find you.

In addition to the stability your deepest values bring, you can create certainty by focusing on processes rather than the shakiness of outcomes. Not only will this give you a sense of control, but it also increases the likelihood of successful results in something that can then generate more passion in you to keep contributing.

For instance, establish a few career behaviors that generally have a positive influence on your leadership impact and advancement potential. Examples may include: contributing or asking something insightful in every team meeting; taking on a stretch opportunity beyond your role every quarter; meeting a key stakeholder for coffee every week; introducing yourself to two new contacts every week; offering a strategic and revenue-impacting idea to leadership every month; and acknowledging a coworker for something helpful they did, every day.

Then make it your goal to demonstrate these behaviors on schedule, whether you feel like it that day or not. The idea is to focus on the “leading indicators” of career success, which are those actions over which you have full command to experiment with, rather than the “lagging indicators” which are unpredictable and apparent only after you’ve achieved the goal, such as a promotion or a new job.

The advantage of concentrating on the process of your work and career is that it helps shape your identity as a valued contributor no matter what happens. And as your self-perception improves, your intrinsic motivation increases, leading you to offer more of your talents to those that need them.

As mentioned at the outset, some years you’ll be the one celebrating the promotion, and other times you’ll be the one frustrated about having to report to a new boss. Many high achievers get disillusioned with their career during these ups and downs. They impulsively make decisions hoping for better outcomes, at times checking out completely, believing there must be something else out there more aligned with their passions.

But as studies have shown, following your passion is not only overrated, it can limit your career capital, which is knowledge, network, and mastery of skills that will make you attractive to employers. So in these uncertain times, it’s better to commit to a steady set of career behaviors and focus on consistency and refinement as you get closer to your desired outcomes. You will either achieve the initial career goals you had, or at least develop the self-efficacy and resilience to guide your career toward a new offering of value.

Develop learning agility to keep ahead of future change.

Assessing your values, working from intention, and investing in the process of doing great work are all vital for a successful career amidst change. But these factors primarily rely on who you already are.

One more factor is critical for your long-term success because it relates to how you evolve, namely how you learn. It’s called learning agility, and developing it will help you not only stay relevant in your career but outperform in an ever-changing world.

People who measure high in learning agility manage their career with a readiness to adapt, stay curious, are reflective, minimize defensiveness, and unlearn deeply held mental models to make room for more purposeful ones.

And research shows that high learning agility is significantly correlated with highly positive career objectives, from compensation to promotion frequency, proximity to the CEO, and perceptions of leadership competence.

Start to develop your learning agility with a simple reflection practice. End each day with a 10-minute journaling exercise where you ask yourself three questions: Did I experience and show genuine curiosity today? Was I defensive today, holding tightly to my perspectives? Did I learn anything new today or challenge my past beliefs?

In time, looking at the patterns of your reflection journal will naturally open your eyes to opportunities to shift your mental models and behavior for future growth.

The high level of uncertainty around us right now may increase even more in the new year and beyond. And with such instability, you may find it challenging to excel in your career now and plan for your future. But by following these strategies, you can better empower yourself to lead a longstanding career that is both successful and personally fulfilling.

This content was originally published here.

The post Setting Career Priorities When Everything Is Uncertain appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

So the division went on a feedback campaign. They spent more than $1 million with a consulting firm to develop rigorous, customized competency models. They trained managers to evaluate employee performance (based on dozens of relevant competencies), and give employees feedback about their developmental gaps and opportunities.

None of it helped. Two years later, 50% of managers were still not completing performance reviews, the reviews that were done had little impact on performance, and turnover remained undesirably high. Which was all entirely predictable. Because feedback rarely, if ever, achieves its desired objectives.

What’s the Point of Feedback?

Over the past 30 years, companies have been so focused on creating cultures of feedback, that we’ve forgotten why we’re doing it in the first place.

The objective of feedback is to help people improve performance. We want people to up their game. To live up to their potential. To contribute powerfully to their teams. To interact effectively with colleagues. We want our organizations to become places where people can skillfully and candidly communicate with one another in the service of their growth and improved performance. Those are all worthy goals.

But here’s the thing: Telling people they are missing the mark is not the same as helping them hit the mark.

In fact, it often has the opposite effect. Richard Boyatzis and his team have found that negative feedback (“Here’s what you’re doing wrong”) reduces engagement in 360 feedback conversations and suppresses exploration of future goals and desires.

And calling it “constructive” feedback doesn’t fool anyone. In their 2019 HBR article “The Feedback Fallacy,” Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall marshal overwhelming evidence that focusing on shortcomings and weaknesses doesn’t help the recipient of the feedback get better.

Which makes complete sense when you think about it. Of all forms of communication, feedback is perhaps the hardest to give and receive. The giver has to criticize, which might hurt someone’s feelings — so they avoid having the conversation in the first place. And if the conversation does occur, the recipient is likely to feel shame, hearing some version of “You’re not good enough, and you need to change.”

And people will do just about anything to avoid feeling shame, including denying the problem (no problem = no shame) or blaming it on someone else (not my fault = no shame). Even when someone appears to respond positively and “maturely” to feedback, they’re often inwardly in fight-or-flight mode.

But what about positive feedback, which highlights what they did well? It’s a form of criticism; if I can approve of your behavior here, I can also disapprove of your behavior there. Plus, focusing on positives won’t necessarily address weaknesses that are getting in the way of performance.

So if feedback doesn’t help people up their game, then what does? In our book, You Can Change Other People, we share a four-step process.

How to Build a Culture of High Performance

Step 1: Shift from critic to ally.

No one wants to talk to a critic. Everyone wants to talk to an ally. When you’re someone’s ally, you display caring for them, confidence in them, and commitment to them. In your presence, they drop shame and defensiveness, and instead focus on becoming better.

So how can you clearly communicate that you’re an ally and not a critic? Here’s a three-step formula:

Imagine a colleague is struggling as a team leader and engaging poorly with a disruptive team member. Initiating an “ally” conversation can be as simple as: “That sounds really frustrating. And I know you can handle it. Would you like to think it through together?”

Step 2: Identify an energizing outcome.

Once they’ve said “yes,” it’s tempting to go back into the problem — the frustrating past. (“Let’s talk about that disruptive team member.”) But don’t go there. Not yet.

Instead, focus on the energizing future they want to create. One that is bigger than their problem. Ask them: “What is the outcome you’re going for?” Allow them to articulate what they’re trying to achieve, for themselves and for the organization. (“I’d love to create a high-performing team, one in which we communicate, collaborate, and even conflict, productively.”) Help them get to an outcome that is positive, clear, and meaningful.

Step 3: Discover a hidden opportunity.

When you’re both clear about the outcome they want, then you can revisit the problem. But this time, instead of trying to “solve” it, you’re asking, “How can this problem help us achieve the energizing outcome?” How might it be a good thing? A chance to practice a new behavior in service of an important value or goal? An opportunity to address a larger issue that underlies this one?

In the case of our struggling team leader, after some brainstorming, you may discover that the person characterized as “disruptive” is actually the only one on the team willing to engage in conflict to raise important issues. Without them, elephants in the room remain unaddressed. In other words, with a little coaching on style, the disruptive person can be the key to the team’s high performance.

Step 4: Create a level-10 plan.

In this step, you guide them to brainstorm ways of capitalizing on that opportunity, and choosing and committing to a plan of action to achieve it. The term “level-10” plan means that when we ask, “On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that you will execute this plan?,” the answer is a resounding 10.

Our struggling leader’s level-10 plan could be scheduling a conversation with the disruptive team member, as an ally, in order to help them contribute positively to the team.

What’s important isn’t that the plan succeeds, but that they follow through on taking a new action, assessing the results, and continually moving forward.

Our client, the investment bank, proved the efficacy of this process. Unwanted turnover went down to 3%, which was their target. As managers changed the tone and focus of their conversations, performance review completion went from 50% to 95%. And those results were sustained for 15 years (when we stopped keeping track). That’s because the culture shifted, as employees and managers engaged in positive, productive, performance-enhancing conversations.

Feedback, skillfully delivered, can be a tool to help people identify their blind spots and opportunities for growth. But only when it’s embedded in a true process of growth and development.

The post Feedback Isn’t Enough to Help Your Employees Grow appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

To stay motivated as we encounter unprecedented levels of uncertainty in every aspect of our lives, we should understand that the human brain simply was not built for this. Knowing what your brain does well — and what it does surprisingly poorly — can give you a much clearer sense of the strategies you need to not just endure, but to thrive.

For most of human history, we have been hunter-gatherers, living in groups where individuals had established roles and lives. While sometimes dangerous, life was largely predictable. The brain evolved to be remarkably good at recognizing patterns and building habits, turning very complex sets of behaviors into something we can do on autopilot. (Ever drive home from work and end up in your driveway, with no memory of actually driving home? That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about.)

Given that habits and recognizable patterns are kind of its “thing,” the brain evolved to be uncertainty-averse. When things become less predictable — and therefore less controllable — we experience a strong state of threat. You may already know that threat leads to “fight, freeze, or flight” responses in the brain. You may not know that it also leads to decreases in motivation, focus, agility, cooperative behavior, self-control, sense of purpose and meaning, and overall well-being. In addition, threat creates significant impairments in your working memory: You can’t hold as many ideas in your mind to solve problems, nor can you pull as much information from your long-term memory when you need it. Threats of uncertainty literally make us less capable, because dealing with them is just not something our brains evolved to do.

The good news is that, from decades of studying human brains and human behavior, we know quite a bit about how to take the experience of threat from something overwhelming to something manageable. Whether you’re trying to keep yourself motivated and engaged, or you’re a leader trying to help those in your care, here are three strategies based in science that can keep the brain in a good place.

Set expectations with realistic optimism

The concept of realistic optimism is a simple but powerful one: Believe that everything is going to work out just fine, while accepting that getting there might not be easy. Research consistently shows that having positive expectations — or as pioneering social psychologist Albert Bandura called it, a strong sense of self-efficacy — is essential for staying motivated in the face of obstacles and setbacks. People sometimes mistakenly believe that being “positive” means believing that you’ll succeed easily, or that success will happen to you. Work by NYU professor Gabriele Oettingen has shown that this unrealistic optimism consistently predicts failure — when you think things will come easily, you’re rarely prepared for when they don’t.

So, when thinking about the changes and uncertainty that the pandemic (and working life in general) will surely bring, set realistically optimistic expectations for yourself and for others. Believe you will get there, and acknowledge to yourself and everyone else that uncertainty involves having to experiment to get things right. It means not everything works right away. It means if we hang in there, eventually it can be better than it is now.

Lift to bigger-picture thinking

You can think pretty much anything at different levels of abstraction or concreteness. Psychologists call this level of construal. For example, the act of voting can be described as “participating in democracy” (high-level construal) or “checking a box on a form” (low-level construal).

The level of construal we use to think about our actions turns out to have a significant impact on our behavior. When we think about the larger meaning or purpose that our actions serve (high-level construal), we’re more inspired and motivated and feel greater boosts to self-esteem and well-being. When we drop down to the nitty-gritty details of what we’re doing or need to do, we’re better at solving concrete problems and anticipating obstacles. Each level of construal has benefits, which is why it’s best to shift our thinking and lift up and drill down as needed.

Unfortunately, it can be all too easy to end up “in the weeds” and stay there — our brains naturally shift our thinking down to a lower level of construal when we encounter difficulty or uncertainty. Motivationally, however, these are precisely the moments we need to remember why we’re doing what we’re doing in the first place. At EY, we developed a unique program for our people to help them do exactly that, where EY professionals discover and clearly articulate the words of their personal purpose and vision through storytelling. This enables them to connect their personal purpose and vision to the work they do each day, lifting up to the “bigger picture” when they need it most. Not surprisingly, people who completed the program report that they’re significantly better able to stay focused on what matters most and remain more resilient in the face of challenges.

Embrace candor

Working through so much change and dealing with unexpected setbacks means we need to be constantly and honestly communicating with one another to co-create the right new norms and habits. We aren’t just talking about giving useful performance feedback — we’re talking about the everyday conversations about what’s working and what isn’t that are needed as we figure out what a new normal needs to be.

Of course, this sort of everyday candor is hard. People worry about how they come across to others as they share truthful perspectives. They worry that their opinions might not be welcome, or valued. They worry about bruising feelings and damaging relationships. And while these concerns are valid, in practice, the far greater damage is done when people operate in an environment that lacks transparency and empathy. People know when you aren’t telling them everything, and the uncertainty threats that can create are off the charts.

We created a program at EY called Everyday Candor to enable open and honest communication about uncomfortable topics. Instead of a typical workshop-style experience, Everyday Candor is a team-based toolkit, helping teams surface specific obstacles to candor and decide on a small set of new habits to adopt together. It is, in fact, essential that this work be done at the level of teams, because only there can you create new norms and provide the necessary support to reinforce one another when discomfort arises. Participants in this program now ask each other daily, “Could I be candid with you?” and “May I have your candid perspective?” creating a new common language that better enables us to solve for the new normal together.

Thriving through change and uncertainty is not easy. However, armed with the right strategies to help yourself and others, we’re confident that (realistic) optimism is indeed warranted. Remember what matters most, keep honest communication flowing, and know that in the end, it will be better.

The post Our Brains Were Not Built for This Much Uncertainty appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

Sometimes it’s simple busyness, our days eaten up by email and meetings that make longer-term thinking a challenge. Sometimes it’s procrastination fueled by self-doubt. (“Will I look stupid if it turns out I’m bad at programming?”) Sometimes it’s paralysis fueled by uncertainty over where, or how, to get started. (“I guess I could take a course — but which one? How do I know if it’ll be any good?”)

I’ve spent the past several years researching the question of how we can push ourselves to achieve the meaningful, long-term goals we purport to hold, despite the short-term incentives often pushing in the opposite direction. In my new book The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, I lay out strategies we can adopt to help accomplish our goals, even when the process may be frustrating or challenging. Here are three actions to help you get unstuck and get started achieving your goals.

Hire a coach.

It’s almost certain that if you wanted to improve your sports performance that you’d hire, say, a tennis instructor. And in recent decades, having an executive coach has transformed from a mark of shame into, oftentimes, a high-powered status symbol indicating that your company prizes you enough to invest in your performance.

But it’s rare that we encounter — or even think about — coaches for other situations. That’s a mistake.

Some of us have encouraging colleagues who can support us and provide guidance as we work to accomplish our goals. But not all of us do, and even if you have wonderful cheerleaders in your corner, they may not have the expertise necessary to guide you toward the outcomes you seek. Hiring a coach to help structure your learning, create momentum, and hold you accountable can be enormously valuable in advancing your goals.

That’s what Zach Braiker, the CEO of a marketing and innovation consulting firm, did. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Zach decided he needed to carve out more time for literature. “In the quarantine, the grind of daily routines, anxiety, working from home, higher stress, constant changes, and seeing people less really took its toll on me,” he says. “I knew I needed to do what I loved, and too often I made compromises — focusing on the urgent over the important.”

So he hired a literature coach, an English-speaking Ph.D. student in literature from a Mexican university. Every Friday night, they meet for an hour to discuss a short story they’ve agreed to read that week. “It brings me energy and it cultivates my curiosity,” he says — and it’s a way of ensuring he prioritizes the goals that matter most.

If it’s not possible to hire a coach because of finances or logistics, there are low-cost or even free options available on almost every topic, from online courses to YouTube instructional videos. In the early days of the pandemic before masks were widely available, my mother taught herself to sew them by watching Japanese and Chinese-language videos online.

Create a deadline.

For consultant and speaker Petra Kolber, it started as an idle wish: In response to an interviewer’s question at the launch party for her book, she announced that wanted to learn how to DJ. But when a friend, who ran one of the largest fitness events in North America, approached her afterward, her dream got real very fast. “A year from now,” the friend announced, “you’ll DJ our VIP party.”

It didn’t seem quite real at the time. But as the year progressed, Petra began to realize the enormity of what she’d actually committed to: running the afterparty for a high-profile, 600-person event. “The stakes were high,” she says, “and the potential for public humiliation was real.” She doubled down on her training and the event was a success.

Like Petra, most of us need a deadline in order to take action. Sometimes a friend or client will provide us with one, but if not, we can create our own as a forcing function. Signing up for a class means we will be studying on those nights. Committing to a public performance or showcase means we have to be ready to deliver.

Keep your learning going.

If your goal is tied to around a specific circumstance — presenting at a high-profile conference, or running a marathon, or learning enough Mandarin to greet the client from Beijing — it’s easy to let up once the big event is over. But after you’ve put in all that work, it’s important to solidify your learning, and keep growing.

In the wake of her DJing success, Petra Kolber visited a rooftop bar across the street from her New York City apartment and saw an opportunity. She asked the bartender, “Would you ever want a DJ?” He told her the hotel had just launched a new event series and asked her to perform the following week. “It really wasn’t any money,” she says, “but it was accountability to my dreams.” The ongoing gig enabled her to practice and learn in a low-stakes environment, which was key to her continued growth.

If we want our new habits and skills to stick, we need to find ways to bake them into our schedule on an ongoing basis — for instance, going to the gym with a friend to make it a social ritual, as well as a means of exercise, or downloading a dozen audiobooks on the topic we want to learn about, and systematically listening to them while we’re cooking or commuting.

We’re all busy, and when a goal seems onerous, or the path towards it is unclear, it’s often easier to do nothing and push it off to another day. But if we truly want to embrace long-term thinking, it’s time to get unstuck and move forward.

The post Start Tackling That Big Goal You’ve Been Putting Off appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

Saying no is never easy, but it’s particularly challenging after you’ve already said yes to a commitment. You may worry that backing out will burn bridges, cause you to be perceived as flaky or unreliable, or lead to you being labeled a poor team player. These fears are heightened for “sensitive strivers” — highly sensitive high-achievers — who tend to overthink situations and have a hard time setting boundaries.

If you can relate, then the thought of retracting your agreement and facing the brunt of another person’s disappointment or anger at you may be too much to bear. This reaction makes sense, since studies show that the brain makes no distinction between possible social rejection and physical pain. Instead, you grit your teeth and follow through with the commitment — sometimes at the expense of your own wellbeing, which backfires. Not only does it result in excess stress for you, but others may be able to sense that you’re distracted, overwhelmed, or resentful.

Whether you have overbooked yourself, realized you have a conflict, or otherwise can’t or don’t want to participate in a project, it’s essential to uncommit gracefully. Doing so will keep your reputation intact and your relationships strong. Here’s how to go about saying no after you’ve already said yes with tact and professionalism.

Consider the cost.

Before you deliver the news, make sure that backing out is in fact the right decision. Consider the opportunity cost. For example, let’s say you’ve said yes to a new initiative from your boss, but now you’re having second thoughts about participating. Evaluate how crucial the project is to key business priorities. If the initiative would give you exposure to other parts of the company or allow you to build social capital or new skills, then it may be worth the sacrifice. However, if the costs outweigh the benefits (such as the impact on your personal life or your current projects), then it’s better to withdraw.

Shift your perspective.

If you’re paranoid that saying no after you’ve already said yes will make you appear irresponsible, embrace the fact that it would be selfish and inappropriate to follow through on the task knowing you couldn’t complete it. You may feel like you’re being generous and helpful by agreeing, but if you can’t follow through on your promises, it’s not a recipe for high performance, personal happiness, or strong relationships. Plus, consider the positive traits you display when you back out gracefully. You exemplify strong prioritization, time management, and transparent communication — all qualities of powerful leadership.

Be diplomatic but truthful.

When it comes time to deliver your message, be assertive and clear without overexplaining. In other words, aim to be direct, thoughtful, and above all else, honest. For example, if you were pulling out of your friend’s committee, here’s what you might say: “When I said I could join the committee last month, I fully believed I had enough bandwidth to do a great job. After taking a closer look at my calendar, I realized I’ve overextended myself and there are several professional commitments I can’t move. This means I won’t be able to participate as chair.”

Providing a short explanation or justification as to your reasoning can help your withdrawal be better received. For instance, you could explain, “I know we talked about me joining as committee chair, but when I agreed I didn’t expect a big project would be assigned to me at work. Because of that, I need to decline.” In the case of backing out of the initiative with your boss, you could share, “I’ve had the chance to review my priorities and this new project would stop me from contributing to my core job responsibilities at the highest level. That wouldn’t be the right — or best — decision for myself or the team, so I have to respectfully change my yes to a no.”

Preserve the relationship. 

It’s appropriate to apologize and take responsibility for any mistake, misunderstanding, or simply overextending yourself. After all, the other person was counting on you and may have been making plans around your participation. In the case of withdrawing from the committee, you could say, “I’m sorry for any inconvenience this causes. It means a lot that you thought of me for this opportunity and I’m rooting for it to be a success. I can’t wait to hear how everything goes.” Expressing gratitude and ending on a positive tone shows care and compassion.

Offer an alternative. 

Propose a different timeline or to reschedule to a new date if you genuinely want to help. Take a raincheck and leave the door open to say yes in the future by saying, “After revisiting my schedule, I need to change my decision and decline this invitation right now. But please keep me in mind for the future. Would you reach out again in a few months?”

You can also avoid leaving the person in a lurch by suggesting an alternative. Perhaps you offer to introduce the person to a coworker who can help or a contractor they could hire. Maybe you redirect the person to a resource that can help them such as a community, podcast, or training material that can meet their needs or solve their problem.

Learn from it.

Backing out of commitments isn’t fun or comfortable, but it can provide a valuable lesson and an impetus to overcome people-pleasing tendencies that may be standing in your way of being more successful. Use this as a learning opportunity to build greater discernment around what you do — or don’t — agree to in the future. Going forward, try to say yes only to opportunities that excite you, and ones you have room for.

No matter how thoughtful you are, you may need to occasionally go back on a promise you’ve made or change your mind. Don’t make it a habit but do approach the situation with sensitivity and consideration to get the best possible outcome.

The post How to Say “No” After Saying “Yes” appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

But Jacob didn’t break. He and his team have held together as they continued to do their work throughout the pandemic. So what allowed Jacob to endure this period of extraordinary stress? Resilience.

The ability to bounce back from setbacks is often described as the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. Resilience has been shown to positively influence work satisfaction and engagement, as well as overall well-being, and can lower depression levels. There is even evidence that resilience can help protect us from physical illness. But resilience, conventional thinking assumes, is something we find within ourselves only when we are tested — a kind of solitary internal “grit” that allows those of us who are strong to bounce back.

But that’s not necessarily true. Our research (which is not yet published) shows that resilience is not purely an individual characteristic, but is also heavily enabled by strong relationships and networks. We can nurture and build our resilience through a wide variety of interactions with people in our personal and professional lives. These interactions can help us to shift or push back on work demands and alter the magnitude of the challenge we’re facing. They can help crystalize the meaningful purpose in what we are doing or help us see a path forward to overcome a setback — these are the kinds of interactions that motivate us to persist. People in our support systems can provide empathy or simply help us laugh and bolster our resilience by shifting perspective and reminding us we are not alone in the fight. In short, resilience is not something we need to find deep down inside ourselves: we can actually become more resilient in the process of connecting with others in our most challenging times.

Based on in-depth interviews with 150 leaders (five men and five women from 15 different organizations who were considered to be among their “most successful” leaders), we have defined how connections can help us become more resilient when we encounter major life or professional challenges. A well-developed network of relationships can help us rebound from setbacks by:

As Jacob (who was among those we interviewed) learned in what was unquestionably the toughest period of his entire career, resilience is a team sport.

While, clearly, a portion of Jacob’s fortitude came from personal strength, our discussion with him revealed a number of ways that relationships bolstered his resilience. A patchwork of different people in his network collectively played a critical role in helping Jacob navigate and survive this extraordinary period — each offering a different perspective or helping hand in some way. First, his boss was a continual source of input and validation, boosting Jacob’s confidence as he faced unprecedented medical and leadership challenges. “She always made herself available and these interactions helped me quit worrying endlessly about different decisions.” In addition, he tapped into the strong working relationship he had with another department head to jointly manage surges in workload. The resources he was able to “borrow” from this colleague enabled him to push back on non-essential work, as well as bypass typical bureaucratic gridlock to secure resources. “At a couple of really important junctures, this helped us from getting over-run.” And a very strong chief of staff stepped in and took ownership of several work-streams put in place to help deal with Covid. For Jacob, knowing that this reliable person had those domains in hand “took stress from a 10 to an 8 many times.” Even his daily exchanges with his office manager played a critical role — she was able to find ways to laugh with him even under this stress. “It wasn’t gallows humor, but sarcastic comments about difficult people or situations that lightened things for us and made us feel on the same team,” he recalled.

Jacob was also lucky in that his home was a critical refuge for him through this time. His wife, who also had a medical background, provided an outlet to vent that yielded both empathy and possible solutions. His children even played a role that he did not realize until past the early crisis: “They were proud of me. They would tell me this, and it was better than anything else to help me buckle down and keep pushing through.”

In short, Jacob shows us that resilience is found not just in having a network of supporters, but in truly connecting with them when you need them most. It’s in the actual interactions themselves — the conversations that validate your plans, reframe your perspective on a situation, help you laugh and feel authentic with others, or just encourage you to get back up and try again because the battle is a worthy one — that we become resilient. Yes, we’re all told to build a network to help further our careers, but what’s important to understand is how essential these relationships can also be to our day-to-day emotional well-being — if we are building these relationships in the right way as we progress through our careers. Relationships may be our most undervalued resources.

But such a network won’t materialize overnight. When we talk to people who have shown exceptional resilience, it’s clear that they often have cultivated and maintained authentic connections that come from many parts of their life — not only through work, but through athletic pursuits, volunteer work, civic or religious communities, book or dinner clubs, communities of parents they’ve met through their children, and so on. Interactions in these spheres provide critical “dimensionality”, broadening their identity and “opening the aperture” on how they look at their lives. We become more (or less) resilient through our interactions with others.

Are your relationships broad and deep enough to help support you when you hit setbacks? Here’s an exercise to help you think that through.

Step 1: Identify your top resilience needs.

Below are eight common relational sources of resilience, the same ones we noted above. Our research shows that these sources are not universally or equally important to everyone. For example, some people value laughter, while others prefer empathy. In short, our resilience needs are personal and are shaped by our unique history, personality, and professional/personal context. But collectively, the relationships we develop are a toolbox that we can turn to in our most difficult times, which we can rely upon to help us navigate day-to-day life challenges.

Using the framework below, identify the top three sources of resilience that you would most like to strengthen in your life. Make a note of those that are most important for you to work on developing.

Step 2: Plan how to expand your network.

Reflecting on the top three resilience needs you indicated, place the names of people or groups that you could invest in to further cultivate sources of resilience. Connections that yield resilience can be intentionally cultivated in two ways. First, we can broaden existing relationships by, for example, exploring non-work interests with a teammate or strengthening mutually beneficial relationships with influential work colleagues that help us push back. Second, we can initiate engagement with new groups or people to cultivate important elements of resilience — for example spiritual groups that remind us of our purpose, or affinity groups that allow us to laugh. Broadening our network helps us develop dimensionality in our lives — a rich variety of relationships and connections that help us grow, that can provide perspective on our struggles, and that can offer us a stronger sense of purpose.

These groups may come from any and all walks of life — athletic pursuits, spiritual associations, nonprofit board work, community organizing groups around social, environmental, or political issues, etc. Engaging in nonwork groups (particularly board work, social action, and community organizing groups) helps us develop resilience in our work life as well. Exposure to a diverse group of people allows us to learn different ways of managing, leading, and handling crises, and helps us develop different relational skills such as negotiating with various stakeholders. It also helps us cultivate empathy and perspective that we carry back into our work, among other benefits. In summary, meaningful investment in non-work relationships broadens the toolkit one can rely upon to manage setbacks when they arise.

One critical insight from our interviews is that relying on your network in times of transition matters a great deal. When people told us stories of significant transitions — moves, job losses, role expansions, or family changes — they tended to separate into one of two groups. One group tended to lean into the transition and relied on existing relationships to work through the ambiguity and anxiety they were experiencing. This group also used the transition to reach out to one or two new groups such as a working parents group, a newcomers group, or a work-based coaching circle. In contrast, the second group operated with a mindset that they just needed to absorb the transition and closed in on their circle. They felt overwhelmed and said they would lean into activities when they had time in the future. Over the ensuing 18 months, this group became a smaller version of themselves and often drifted away from the connections that had been so important to their lives.

Covid has created a significant transition for us all. The importance of building and maintaining your connections has never been clearer. For most of us, the challenges and setbacks we are experiencing in work and life during this pandemic have been relentless. But you’re not alone in this battle. You can build resilience. Start by understanding the critical importance of growing, maintaining, and tapping a diverse network to help you ride out the storm.

The post The Secret to Building Resilience appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

But many organizations lack a systematic way to think about options for increasing the self-awareness of their leaders. Is it better to hire a coach or to send your full management team to an experiential learning program? In this article, we offer four basic options and help companies pick the optimal approach for a given situation.

Why self-awareness is elusive. The human tendency to judge ourselves by our intent — not our impact — makes occupants of influential roles blind to how others perceive their behaviors. Social scientists have long documented how such blind spots can thwart productive conversation. We are stuck “in a box” of self-deception (as the Arbinger Institute puts it) and hard-wired for defensive reasoning (as pioneering organizational-learning researcher Chris Argyris found).

Indeed, people naturally view their abilities to be responsible for their successes and external factors to be the cause of their failures. This tendency — known as self-serving bias — protects our egos but inhibits our ability to receive constructive feedback. Exacerbating this problem is the Dunning-Kruger Effect: the tendency of people who lack the ability and knowledge to perform a particular task to overestimate their ability to do it.

If this is how we’re wired, does that mean we have to throw up our hands and give up? No. A range of options exist for leaders to develop greater self-awareness. But should one hire a coach or attend an off-site program that fosters self-discovery through team exercises? The answer depends on a weighing of the tradeoffs between discussion-based and experiential approaches and between individual and team-based training.

One variable concerns the type of learning experience. Whether targeting an individual leader or a team, experiential learning can be used instigate powerful personal insights in an emotionally engaging experience that brings self-discovery through surprise. Expecting to perform well on a challenge only to discover that one has missed crucial information that was readily available serves as a wakeup call that gets learners’ attention. But experiential learning can be time-consuming and expensive, because it takes place outside the context of “real work.” In contrast, a discussion-based approach, such as receiving real-time candid feedback from an executive coach — again for either an individual or a team — is simpler and more flexible, although it can be less emotionally engaging.

The other major decision is whether an intervention should target a full team or an individual leader. This depends primarily on whether the main goal is to develop the team as a performing unit — such as a leadership or project team — or to help an individual leader. The constraints faced in scheduling a team for leadership development (related to logistics, time, convenience, or cost) may also matter. These two decisions give rise to four options. Each can help new and experienced leaders alike overcome blind spots. Two involve discussion undertaken in the context of actual work, and two are “off-line” sessions designed to provoke insight and self-awareness through novel experiences.

4 Strategies for Improving Self-Awareness

Pick the type of learning experience that is appropriate for the situation and the participants.

Source: Amy C. Edmondson and Aaron W. Dimmock

1. Participate in a team simulation exercise. Team simulations can range from outdoor ropes courses that give participants a visceral experience of what it feels like to trust each other in a challenging task to indoor multi-round decision-making exercises done in intact teams. For example, Harvard’s Everest Team Decision Making Simulation provides teams with a series of decisions that participants later discover included crucial information that members failed to share. Some exercises requiring team members to work together effectively to deal with life-threatening situations (e.g., the Lost at Sea and NASA’s Survival on the Moon exercises) can help establish constructive discussion, collaboration, and decision-making norms within a new work group or introduce them to the value of synergy. In each case, the goal is to discover in a condensed time frame specific practices to use to help teams function more effectively.

Both of us have experienced the power of personal discovery while working with teams to successfully complete a ropes course. Aaron trained with the U.S. Marine Corps and learned how to best stay calm and provide guidance for other team members when they were stressed while being 15 to 20 feet off the ground — despite the safety nets. Amy studied management teams participating in a ropes course that gained profound insight about what it feels like to problem-solve productively during the unfamiliar challenge. As one participant put it, “If we could be like this back at work, we’d be awesome!”

2. Hire a skilled facilitator for your team. Developing an intact leadership team’s capability for effective processing of tough decisions and difficult conversations can leverage the pioneering work of skilled practitioners, who can help a team develop its capabilities while it carries out its work. The consultant’s role is to diagnose counterproductive dynamics and intervene to get participants to address them in real time. Observations may include how frequently individuals propose a new direction or action, agree with and build on others’ ideas, or provide challenge and dissent. Healthy team conversations present a mix of these actions and, if a conversation goes off the rails, pause to observe and comment on the team’s dynamics. This work is intellectually and emotionally demanding but offers powerful results when taken seriously and carried out in the context of engaging in real work.

3. Get a Coach. Surgeon, writer, and public health innovator Atul Gawande’s TED2017 talk “Want to get great at something? Get a coach” sets the tone for this approach. All of us are vulnerable to being stymied in our attempts to make it on our own. Most crucially, we often don’t recognize the roadblocks we’re putting in our own way. And if we do, we don’t know how to remove them. In this HBR article, Francesca Gino shares how Jamie Woolf, one of Pixar’s two main coaches, helps teammates expand their thinking to uncover their own barrier and address it.

4. Attend an interpersonal skills lab. Jim Detert and Bobby Parmar at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business developed the interpersonal skills lab (ISL) to immerse individuals, paired with actors, in realistic difficult decision-making scenarios and then provide objective feedback through video and physiologic data. Here, participants feel uncomfortable and uncertain, by design, as they go through an experience of leading. Detert finds that the ISL engages students — both young and experienced — in a visceral discovery session. Participants report watching their own videos and confronting their own errors directly as moments of profound surprise. As one participant exclaimed, “I watched my video for the first time a few minutes ago.  … In the moment, I felt one way and looking at it now, I realize how wrong I was.” Participants are deliberately stressed and then coached; the speed of discovery and opportunity to experiment with new approaches in real time promotes self-awareness and skill development.

By weighing the tradeoffs between discussion-based and experiential programs and between individual and team-based training, managers can choose the optimal approach for themselves or their leadership teams. By shrinking their leaders’ blind spots, companies will increase their ability to thrive in an uncertain, interdependent world.

The post Don’t Get Blindsided by Your Blind Spots appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.