The Revolution is Live… This is the closing lyric of the song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron written in 1971. The song/poem speaks to the transformation of America, through dismantling racism, capitalism and mainstream media by Blacks getting off the couch and taking to the streets to reclaim their humanity. Over the last 50 years, we have experienced a variety of social revolutions in the United States and perhaps the most recent revolution is in the workplace. As Ariana Huffington recently stated, “Welcome to the Human Revolution” She continues by acknowledging the truth that “life should be centered around our full humanity, which includes work but also includes nurturing our health and well-being, our relationships, our capacity for joy and wonder and for giving back.” The Pandemic has been the global disruptor for our generation in all aspects of our lives: personal, work and community. We have been experiencing dramatic shifts in the workforce over the last three years. The Great Resignation continues, the priorities of the current workforce are changing and employees are demanding changes that support their overall well-being. The Human Revolution is Live. In the article, What the Pandemic has taught us about prioritizing well-being, Julia Hobsbawm suggests that the old strategies used to address well-being considerations no longer serve the needs of employees. Covid-19 has forced organisations to dial back on pingpong tables, massages at your desk, to focus instead on strategy and specifically how you create an organisation where people feel valued, trusted, and you identify the problem areas, and how you correct them. The Human Revolution is Live. In a recent HBR article, Designing Work That People Love, Marcus Buckingham reinforces this strategy of downplaying the “trendy perks” and focusing on redesigning jobs around a simple and powerful concept: love for the work you do. What does love got to do with it? Actually, quite a lot. As we know from neuroscience research, when we engage in activities in which we experience love, hormones such as oxytocin and dopamine are activated to promote access to the prefrontal cortex of the brain where the executive functions of creativity, innovation, empathy and strategy reside. Research done regarding employee engagement shows that people who find love, strength, joy and excitement in what they do each day are far more likely to be productive, stay at companies longer and sustain themselves in the face of life’s inevitable challenges. Work hasn’t been working for us for awhile, the Pandemic just turned up the stress and cast a bright spotlight on what was broken, people hate their work. There are two aspects of fixing this problem. First, individuals need to have clarity about what they love and second, organizations need to see people as full human beings not workers. When those two elements are aligned we have thriving human beings and a prosperous economy. Designing the Life and Work You Want Over the last 12 years, I have coached people who were not happy in their jobs and didn’t know what they wanted to do next. I created an individual coaching program called the Personal Odyssey Tour that helps clarify your life purpose and uses design-thinking principles to identify the path toward the job or career that aligns with what you love. Stanford professors, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans published a fantastic resource, “Designing Your Life” back in 2016 and are soon to release a new book called, “Designing Your NEW Work Life” in response to the disruption that has been caused by the Pandemic. First you need clarity about what you love, what gives you energy, brings you joy and then you can go after it! As Buckingham suggests, a true Love + Work organization is built on a recognition of and commitment to the fundamental importance of each person who comes to work. Buckingham tosses out Milton Friendman’s model of shareholder capitalism, which focuses on maximizing shareholder value which has definitely been losing favor over the last 15 years. However, he takes it a step further and challenges the concept of stakeholder capitalism which is a pillar of the certified B Corp movement. Stakeholder capitalism introduces the construct that organizations should also maximize value to employees, customers, the broader community and the environment. Buckingham contends that employees are the integration point for all stakeholders rather than one of many. They are where the work actually happens. Organizations Investing in Human Sustainability Thrive What has also become clear throughout the Pandemic is that globally we are in a mental health crisis. Research conducted by Gallup in 2021 states that seven in 10 people are struggling with mental health issues. It has been known for decades that organizational productivity is tied to employee well-being. Yet, very little has changed. The Human Revolution is Live. Organizations that focus on the well-being of employees will lead us to the future of a prosperous, inclusive and regenerative economy. How do they do it? A few strategies proposed in Time to Invest in Human Sustainability and Designing Work That People Love include: Give employees control over when, where, and how work gets done. Create an environment that builds trust, creating a safe environment for open discourse on topics that matter whether it is DEI, mental health, climate change or organizational policies that impact overall well-being. Foster a culture that supports and encourages life-long learning, focuses on teams and the use of wellness resources (time off, tuition reimbursement, leave) Set goals for achieving workplace well-being—then aim to surpass them. It’s time for all of us to get off the couch, the human revolution is live.
What it Takes to be a Solopreneur: Know your Strengths When I started my company in 2011, it was not because I had a grand vision of starting a company. It was because I wanted to continue doing what I loved doing for the previous four years in a new location. I would call myself an “accidental entrepreneur”. I had been working at a national management consulting firm supporting nonprofits and foundations and I decided to move to give a long-distance relationship a chance. A bold move but I knew in my heart, it was the right decision for my overall happiness. When the firm said that they weren’t interested in keeping me on, based in a different location, I made what I thought at the time was the most rational decision. Keep doing what I was doing under my own shingle. And Vista Global was launched. I was fortunate to have had the experience growing up in a family business, understanding what is required to keep operations running smoothly. I also learned a lot by being a Senior Associate in a small firm, learning what is required to bring in business, write proposals, manage projects and keep clients happy. In addition, I possessed the natural talents to get things done! I learned this through taking the CliftonStrengths assessment. The CliftonStrengths assessment has been used by more than 27 million people globally to identify natural talents. It provides a deep understanding of 34 themes of your natural patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving in four domains: Executing: Help you make things happen Influencing: Help you take charge, speak up and make sure others are heard Relationship Building: Help you build strong relationships that hold teams together Strategic Thinking: Help you absorb and analyze information that informs better decisions I took the CliftonStrengths assessment in 2012 and learned that 5 of my top 10 themes were in the Executing domain. How does that relate to being a solopreneur? When you start your own business, you do everything – business development, service delivery, project management, bookkeeping, administration, marketing. Unless you have start-up capital, you are bootstrapping until you can generate enough capital to contract for support services. Understanding where you have natural talents and where you may need additional support is important to set yourself up for success. If you have thought about starting your business and aren’t sure whether it is the right path for you, I would love to connect. After celebrating Vista Global’s 10 year anniversary, I know it was the right path for me. But it isn’t necessarily the right path for everyone. To hear more about my journey as a solopreneur, listen to this episode of Minutes With Mary.
3 Ways that Defining your Talents Will Help Build your Personal Brand I recently hosted a “sneak peek” webcast on the topic of personal values and strengths. This offered participants a window into the Vista Leadership Institute programs and the journey of crafting your next chapter. We start with the broad question of “Who am I?” and “Where are my natural talents?” The CliftonStrengths assessment measures your natural talents from 34 themes and you arrive at the list of your “Top 5”. Continue reading “3 Ways that Defining your Talents Will Help Build your Personal Brand”
How do we actually “Be the Change We Want to See”? If you have been following my blog over the last few years, you may recall that I wrote a blog series on a course I was taking on Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) for coaches regarding the impact that neuroscience has on the quality of conversations. The blog series can be found at the bottom of the post titled, Courageous Conversations: The Future is Now. Skills that I learned in the course were: Being Open to Influence, Priming for Trust, Asking Questions for Which We Have No Answers, Listen to Connect, Conversational Agility and Double-Clicking. Over the last two years I have been using these skills with coaching and consulting clients to close gaps between intention and impact and to elevate awareness of the power of conversation to transform the world. This year, I decided to certify as a C-IQ coach. The certification program was an additional six months of course work and a capstone project to demonstrate how I embody conversational intelligence. During the first few months, it was very challenging to grasp what “embodying C-IQ” really meant. The dictionary.com definition is “to give concrete form to; express, personify, or exemplify in concrete form.” To embody conversational intelligence, we were asked to explore our level of competence along the four stages of competence. The highest level of competence is “unconscious competence”, which is the level at which we are in flow, when things come so easily that you don’t even think about what you are doing. It becomes second nature. In C-IQ certification, as coaches we were challenged to go deeper with our learning, adding new conversational essentials, to stretch ourselves to move through the four stages of competence. New conversational essentials presented were: Making the Invisible Visible, Deconstructing Conversations and Co-Regulating our Conversations — up-regulating oxytocin and down-regulating cortisol. Oxytocin and cortisol are the neurotransmitters triggered when we have either positive or negative conversations. As I mentioned, I was really struggling with the notion of embodying and then one day, I realized I was TRYING too hard. I wasn’t getting to the flow because I was too much in my head, not in my heart. When I “loosened up the grip” on learning and leaned back, I started to notice that I was now using these skills not only in my work but in all aspects of my life. I can see how many of the conversational essentials I learned in 2017 have now become second nature. I am deconstructing conversations with family and friends. I am raising visibility of conversational patterns that are unproductive in all aspects of my life. I am starting to build the unconscious competence…embodying conversational intelligence. Conversational Intelligence essentials have helped guide me in all aspects of my life, to be the change I want to see in the world. Are you experiencing challenging conversations in any area of your life and don’t know how to shift from the patterns that keep you stuck? Are you THINKING about it too much? To get a sneak peek of how C-IQ can help you transform your conversations, we are offering a free 30-minute webcast and live chat on Conversational Intelligence next week, August 21 @ 12:30pm CDT. We will offer it again in September, if you can’t make it live. Join us to begin the journey of transforming your conversations!
Transforming Paradigms for 21st Century Leadership The world is changing more rapidly, in more contexts, than ever before. Technology seems redundant or obsolete just as soon as we understand how to use it. Restaurants open and close, trends change – so often to our surprise, and who knows what television show we should be watching on what streaming service and when? There are viral challenges, new social media platforms, photo apps to age us and others to turn us into rabbits. As trends and new apps come and go, we are welcoming more of the world into our smartphone and encountering more diversity, more ideas, more complexity in our workplace. This requires a change in leadership that rejects many paradigms that warn us “but that’s how it’s always done!” Leadership strategist Dov Baron writes, “For many in ‘old school’ leadership positions who are unfamiliar with allowing people to really see them, this can, of course, be scary and may even seem threatening.” Some of it might seem daunting, but so much of it is exciting when viewed through the lens of social impact and resources for a more just and sustainable world. But how do we transition from the “old school” to a 21st-century leadership model? Baron can summarize it succinctly: “In a word—by learning.” Continue reading “Transforming Paradigms for 21st Century Leadership”
Blast Off! How VLI propelled me to the stars! When I started the Vista Leadership Institute, I felt stuck in my career and life plans. I had a successful career, health, great community; but I didn’t feel like my dreams were being realized. I needed help implementing ideas I was hesitant to take action on. Continue reading “Blast Off! How VLI propelled me to the stars!”
