In the Event of an Emergency

Lately I have been doing succession planning with most organisations I work with. This month alone, I am working with 3 companies doing various succession plans 1) with a leader to support with the departing of a staff member and the work they are leaving behind, 2) succession planning with staff, ED, and Board and 3) group leadership development with a tech company leadership team.

Succession planning doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does help to get a consultant into your workplace to support you. One of the things you can begin immediately is to future-proof your workplace by being in a continuous mode of knowledge transfer. In other words, don’t wait for the day when one of your team members calls in rich and quits or moves to Australia to become an ultra-minimalist – start knowledge transfer processes and succession planning now.

Having good documentation in place and building a culture of knowledge transfer supports with retaining information inside your organisation. It ensures in the event of a staffing emergency you can continue your day to day operations smoothly.

This can be is done through:

After Action Reviews: These debriefings are a way to capture experiences, what worked well, what needs improvement, and what can be done differently next time so others can learn from those experiences. It allows a leadership team to share learnings with other program leaders and departments.

Creation of Job Aids: These are tools that help people perform tasks accurately and could be built off best practises. They include things such as checklists or decision tree diagrams that provide specific concrete information and serve as a quick reference guide. Job Aids help with knowledge transfer and also improve on-boarding. Job aids  ensure key processes and functions do not just live inside people’s heads.

Mentoring (formal & informal): In mentoring, an experienced skilled person (mentor) is paired with a lesser skilled or experienced person (mentee), with the goal of developing or strengthening the competencies of the mentee. Mentorship programs support with leadership development, succession planning and on the job training (win-win-win!)

Why succession plan? Replacement hiring is a reactive process to a staffing emergency to fill an immediate need, whereas succession planning is proactive and works to address the need before it exists. By having a succession plan in place, companies save time (and dollars) through building internal capacity and knowledge. No emergencies here.

Ready to create work you love in 2019?

I’ve had many clients who have a hard time thinking about the kind of work they are really after. To help them better understand what they want, I get them to do a visioning exercise.

Visioning for future work is important for a couple of reasons:

First, as Robin S. Sharma wrote in The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, “Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.” For the change we want to take place we have to have a vision, or a road map, linking our mind to our reality.

Second, life will present a series of opportunities. What we say yes and no to are equally important, as is the timing of the opportunities. Having a clear sense of what is important to you ahead of when the time comes to make a decision will be invaluable to making the right one.

So, I’m asking you to write like no one is reading…answer the following as honestly as you can. Don’t overthink your answers, write whatever comes. Then look at your responses as the beginning marker on your 2019 road map. Notice all the new places you can go.

What type of work brings you joy?

Describe your ideal work environment?

What is most important in your day to day work?

How will you know when you have created the ideal work situation?

What will you notice?

How many hours do you want to work each day?

How many hours do you want to work each week?

How many free days do you want to take each week?

How many vacations do you want to take each year?

How much money do you need to survive each month?

How much more money do you need on top of your basic expenses to feel you have enough?

Ready for the next step? If you are a person that wants to find fulling and purposeful work in 2019 we can do that together in a 2-hour vision session. January vision spaces already filled, and only minimum February spots left . Call now to create work you love in 2019. 

Reimagine 90 – Cause one-third of new hires ended up quitting in the first six months…

Studies show that no matter what side of the interview table you sit on, what happens in the first 90 days after the job becomes official sets the tone for both success and failure. Whether you are – or represent – the employer or you are the newly minted employee, how the first three months play out literally make or break the professional relationship. Despite knowing this, many employers and job seekers end up in revolving door situations with staff and jobs as they try to find the best match.

So, in Victoria’s economy where, across most sectors, there are more jobs than qualified people to fill them, how can it possibly go wrong?

Consider the results of the survey BambooHR conducted in February 2014:

·       One-third of the 1,000 respondents said they had quit a job within six months of starting it

·       Between 16-17% of respondents left between the first week and the third month of starting their new job

·       Of those respondents who left within the first six months, 23% said “receiving clear guidelines to what my responsibilities were” would have helped them stay on the job

·       21% said they wanted “more effective training”

·       17% said “a friendly smile or helpful co-worker would have made all the difference”

·       12% said they wanted to be “recognized for [their] unique contributions”

·       9% said they wanted more attention from the “manager and co-workers.”

What is so enlightening about this from a Reimagine Work perspective is that approximately one-third of new hires who ended up quitting in the first six months stated they’d had barely any onboarding or none at all; and 15 percent of respondents noted that lack of an effective onboarding process contributed to their decision to quit.

How Reimagine Work can help:

REIMAGINE 90: Onboarding Coaching for You as a New Hire

This customized package helps individual clients get the support they need in the first three months in a new job or work place – 90 days of coaching to gain that critical early momentum.

This package includes:

·       4 one-to-one coaching sessions to provide you greater capacity during your first 90 days

·       A personalized transition roadmap to get you up to speed in your new role

·       Leading With Your Strengths assessment — Objective insights about the unique strengths you bring to your role and how to use them optimally to both lead your team and/or join a new team of colleagues

·       A plan to help you build lateral relationships within your organization quickly and authentically

·       Identifying the key influencers around your new position/role and how to leverage those relationships

·       How to spot and make those important ‘early wins’ in your new job

REIMAGINE 90: Onboarding Coaching for Employers

This package is for anyone who leads a team in both the public and private sector. It is designed to help employers create a welcoming, effective and efficient onboarding process for new hires that puts them on a track to succeed and to stay.

This package includes:

·       Development of an onboarding process for the first 90 days unique to you and your organisation 

·       Develop a new staff orientation that meets the needs of your workforce

·       Strategies to onboard current staff members to make sure your employees have the information they need and understand their workplace culture.

Give me a call and we can reimagine a new way to improve your first 90 days at work.

What’s Your Leadership Practice? Here is mine...

Prior to my VP role I had not developed a leadership practise. In the past, I just always pushed through – email by email, report to report, one conversation to the next. But after my first 90 days as a VP Operations, which I can only liken to trying to drink from a fire hose, I very quickly knew that I would need to establish some routines to keep me as high functioning in life and work as possible. A leadership practise for me is defined as a leadership discipline that I do on a daily basis. Here are my leadership rituals and routines:

1. Create a healthy headspace: I arrived at the office very early each morning to get through emails and reading prior to any meetings. But the first thing I would do before I turned on my computer was meditate with Headspace: Headspace Meditation App

Some days my practise was better then the others, but regardless it helped reduce stress. I would also  take time out during really busy days to practice – this was super helpful to refocus as we know stressed workers engage less. Mediating for 5 minutes is certainly more restorative than zoning out on Facebook for 20.

2. Take stock: Creating both a culture of learning within a company and being a leader that adapts and learns is key for workplace surviving and thriving.  For real learning to happen in both a group or via self reflection there has to be candor. What worked? What didn’t? What can you do better or different tomorrow? My journal is chock full of learning – lots of it.

3.  Ground yourself: Sometimes my head would get so busy and I would take a few minutes, go outside,  take off my shoes and put my bare feet in the grass. Best done out of the sight lines of your bosses and colleagues, but instantly grounding.

4. Unbiased Support: Coaching was a game changer for me. Coaching increased my accountability, supported with confidence and reminded me of what I value most. Find a coach who can give you unbiased support.

5. Breathe: My coach told me to breathe more and her advice worked. I breathed through tough meetings, tight deadlines, driving too quickly to school pick up. I breathed and breathed and breathed some more. I had some difficulty with 7-11 breath count so I did in for a count of 3 and out for 5. As long as the out-breath is longer than the in-breath it will work to calm your nerves. Slow and steady – then on with your day.

I would love to hear about your leadership practice. Got some routines to share?

She Leads Interview with Mary Logan, a creative small business owner in Victoria with an enormous love of fashion.

She Leads is a place to share stories about women who lead in their own unique ways and an opportunity for them to pass on their invaluable wisdoms to others. Following are edited excerpts of the She Leads dialogues with Mary Logan. 

Mary is an entrepreneur and owner of Blush Bridal. I have spent the past 2 years learning about her and her business while we drop off and pick up our daughters from school. Here is what I know to be true about Mary: she puts people first, she treats her staff well, and leads with heart. She rises above – even in tricky times she acts with integrity in her work. She comes from a family of entrepreneurs – Mary’s two sisters are also owners of successful small businesses. 

How would you define success?

As a general life-happiness.  If a person feels happy with their life on pretty much a day to day basis, then there is no denying they've set up a successful life. This is, of course, usually directly related to what they do for a living.  Success is when, at the end of the day, you really like your life, whether through a career you are inspired by, or by working a job that provides you with a happy life.   I feel like not enough credit is given to the latter category; we seem to live in a time where the belief is that to achieve true career success, one has to be a passionate entrepreneur.  Don't you see people who seem genuinely pleased to be both starting and finishing their week...not the type to grumble and mumble but the ones who are at peace with where they are? Success!  It helps to feel truly valuable at your workplace :)

What is one leadership lesson you've learned in the past year?

Face the hard situations as quickly as you can. Leave them for tomorrow and they fester. Pick up the phone and make the dreaded phone call as soon as you arrive at work. 

As a female entrepreneur, what are the opportunities and challenges you face?

In particular when I first started, people generally seemed really pleased to have a fairly young female growing this company.  At the time even my industry was run by men...it was husband and wife teams heading up all the successful North American bridal gown shops, often in the family for generations.  Now, 11 years later, it is full of young female start-ups.  As a female-led and based company, we are very good at apologizing.  This is both excellent and very sad.  We get taken advantage of for that...by our female only customer base, I'm afraid. 

What is your daily leadership practice?

I try to stand outside and look back in with an objective perspective.  Look at the boutique, our collection, our daily practices, staff and the way we run things.  What needs to change? That, and I exercise almost daily to clear my head and give me focus. 

How important is failure in business?

I wish it wasn't, but I believe it gives you greater success ultimately. If you have the stomach needed to deal with professional failure, you face necessary risk and hardship with much more ease. It's easy to get eaten away by stress caused from fear of failure, or actual failure.  Learning to choose to NOT live by this stress is vital.  

What advice would you give to a new start-up?

This is not Instagram and Pinterest! Women in business is so much more complex but it seems people find inspiration there. Partner up if you can – two heads are often better than one. 

Breaking the Ice

I’ve been offering the workshop “Fabulous Facilitation” for over 10 years now. When I talk about the importance of icebreakers and energizers, I often hear polite groans within the group. And I get it. People are reluctant to step out of their comfort zones and that is exactly what icebreakers ask them to do. But icebreakers and group warm ups are essential in workshops, conferences, and staff meetings because they:

·        Prime a group at the beginning of a meeting

·        Increase participants’ comfort levels immediately

·        Shift both social and power dynamics within groups who regularly work together 

·        Reduce learning overload and increase retention

·        Raise energy and set the tone for fun!

When the icebreaker/energizer segment is finished, the same people who resisted the idea are now smiling and chatty. The energy in the room is higher and more connected. There is a palpable team spirit and participants are ready to get some good work done together.

Icebreakers can be used nearly any time a new group gathers or to help an established group move forward with building effective rapport. Energizers are also used to stimulate, challenge, and motivate participants.

For an icebreaker to be effective, it has to be appropriate to the group as well as efficiently timed.  Knowing when it’s time for an icebreaker requires sensitivity, the ability to read a room, creativity, and the confidence and agility to work with any resistance. Icebreakers can be used for the duration a group is together, from beginning to end, depending on the dynamics that day.

Want to learn more? Join me at my next Fabulous Facilitation workshop Oct 17th in Victoria – more information can be found here https://www.reimaginework.ca/workshops/