Back in the Game

Get Going.

That is the inner impulse I’ve been feeling since this new calendar year began.  While traveling the final stretch through one of life’s dark valleys, I have felt a parallel sense of awakening in what I think about as my creative capacity. The sensation feels like a crackle, an igniting.

I noticed that as I began to express myself creatively through art, the flow of ideas intensified: books and articles to write, story lines for my upcoming podcast. I’d be in a conversation with a friend, see a billboard, be reading a biography, engaged in a client session, walking in the woods – and Zing! Another flash of illumination.

I decided to take a first pass at “scooping up” some of these idea fragments. Fragments are recorded in the margins of client notes, on post-its, in the notepad or voice memos on my phone, asterisks in my journal, in a digital photo of a prompt snapped quickly. I started gathering them on two pages in a sketchbook: one page of concepts for different kinds of books, one page of ideas for article-length pieces.

So. Much. To. Write.

I have no shortage of offerings for my fellow humans to read, listen to, and reflect upon. My overarching intention is that through them, one is able to find a nugget of illumination that deepens one’s own understanding and appreciation of self, and in so doing, relate to others and the world in ways that bring forward more fulfillment, more peace, more healing, more connection, more joy.

And yet, despite this motivation I feel powerfully and deeply within me, the cursor blinks at me from the blank page of a Word document. “Well? And?” it seems to say. The concepts wait, dormant, in the sketchbook.

Why?

Physics gave me a clue. In a nutshell, Newton’s First Law of Motion puts forward that a body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts upon it. A body in motion -- at a consistent velocity -- will remain in motion (unless acted upon by an outside force).

Bottom line: it’s all about Getting Going.

Because once you get going, you typically stay going  -- towards the destination you focus on.

It is always possible that such an outside force materializes to jumpstart me -- in the form of an established publishing house asking me to submit a book proposal (that did honest-to-goodness happen, in 2019 .. Simon & Schuster!) or that a well-known magazine (that’s you: Fast Company, Forbes, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.) asks me to write an article. But that could take some time. If I really want to get going to be of the greatest help I can be to others, I can’t wait. I need to be my own “outside force”.

What’s holding me back?

People who know me well tell me that I’m a force of nature, an effervescent catalyst, a determined, energizing person who takes initiative and drives something forward, one who “makes things happen”.  Being an “outside force” on myself is something that is in my very nature and has been since I was a child.

What’s different in this situation? Where did that part of me go?

I started to get curious about myself on the nature of inner resistance that appears to have taken over. Who or what am I resisting in relationship to bringing these ideas fully to life?

I realized that understanding the nature of the resistance comes through the stories that other parts of me are telling.

What are some of these stories I’m telling myself? The inner monologue says things like: It will be hard. It will take a lot of time. It needs to be comprehensive. It needs to fit this kind of mold, to look a certain way. You need to do more learning. You need to do more research. It needs to have an appendix! It needs to go through this kind of publisher or media source. Softer, quieter are comments like: The content will not be special or different enough. Everyone’s already said everything to be said or written on that topic. It won’t be good enough. Is anyone going to read it or listen to it?

As I reflected on these different story threads, I realized that there was one that “hit the jackpot” – one I felt a lot of inner energy around.

The bulk of my resistance to bringing these books and articles to life is not anchored around concerns about the end product of my effort and whether it will be read, accepted, well regarded – or what people would in turn think about me.  I am very clear that whoever is intended to benefit by reading or hearing my words will receive them. And that this is not about me. It’s about the messages.

The inner resistance centers around the story about the PROCESS getting there – what will be involved in having the book, the article, in hand. Specifically, that it will be hard, effortful, time-consuming, and so not fun. (Hello, family lineage. I saw in those words the implicit motto – life is hard, you have to work hard - I inherited, a belief passed on through generations of my family. It morphed over time to take on an implication that everything is hard.)

How do I defuse the blocking energy of that storyline within me?

I stepped back from that story and I thought about other “hard things” I’ve done in my life (there are many). I focused on one in particular, because it involved doing something that I don’t think my body physiology was particularly designed for: running a half marathon. While I played softball growing up from elementary school to college, I’m not built for speed. Let’s just say I was not at the front of the pack in any kind of sprint running drill.

I realized I was clear on the goal: it was not my speed in running a half marathon, it was about finishing one. I decided that completing a half marathon was something I wanted to do for myself – to prove I could do it, that I could legit call myself ‘a runner.’

What did I do? Well, what I DIDN’T do was wake up one morning and decide to run a half marathon that afternoon. I trained in a structured way with guidance from expert sources, one step, one mile at a time, from walk to jog to run. And through this consistent approach, I created momentum. I cultivated a tempo. A body in motion stays in motion. And I remember after my first 12-mile-long training run, I was bit stunned. I felt like I could have run longer – another mile or two. It was easier than I thought to build up to running that distance. I could do it! And I did it. (I still have the medal from that half marathon in my desk drawer.)

So yes, I need be my own ‘outside force’. I’ve done it before. I can do it again. Else, I will be forever at a standing start holding a sketchbook of partially developed writing concepts.

Remember, I told myself. I didn’t launch right into attempting a 13.1 mile run; I began with walk/jog intervals for 10 minutes. I didn’t get discouraged. I reframed the challenge in my mind. I told myself everything I did in training was running a half marathon. What if I did the same here? Instead of doing a stare-down with the blinking cursor for the first page of the first chapter of one of the books, what if I approached it like the half marathon? What if every word I wrote was part of writing and publishing the first book?

I looked those sketchbook pages and flipped them over. Just for the moment.

I wrote in block letters: GET GOING.

Then I asked myself this question:

“What is my FIRST next step?”

And so how did I respond to that question, you may ask.

You’re reading it now.

I am building momentum, one step – one post, one podcast episode at a time. The published articles will come. The books will come. Probably faster and easier than parts of me imagine. Stay tuned for those.

What’s on your own wish list for what you want to be true this year?

What’s your FIRST next step?

I’m Getting Going. Will you join me?

As inspiration, I offer these words from the eloquent former Poet Laureate for the state of Maine, Stuart Kestenbaum:

Benediction

Heaven knows

where you’ll go

once you

get started,

only that

the rain

will wake

your heart

and something

will sprout

within you, something

you can’t name and the earth

of your body

will welcome

it home.

What We Can ALL Learn from Elmo....

I thank Elmo (Elmo Sesame Street) for my return to writing these posts/articles (after a necessary personal period of what I call “deep scuba mode”).

Elmo, a kind, open, friendly muppet from Sesame Street, tweeted on Monday a question on X. A question so simple on the surface. A question that sparked a veritable tidal wave of response. (As of this morning, if I’m interpreting it right, it’s close to 200 million views.)

So seemingly outsized was that response that The New York Times ran a follow-up article observing the phenomena, entitled: “Elmo Asked an Innocuous Question” with a subtitle of “Elmo was not expecting it to open a yawning chasm of despair” (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/style/elmo-x-question.html). This is what caught my eye, and I was intrigued.

The NYT article quotes Samantha Maltin, chief marketing and brand officer of Sesame Workshop in sharing her perspective of the phenomena: she “thinks the overwhelming engagement with Elmo’s post points to a dire need for free, easy-to-access mental health resources.”

I don’t disagree with that as a need.

Or that she points to the multitude of societal, economic, and geopolitical forces today as sources affecting the mental health – and inter-connected physical well-being – of many, if not all, of us to one degree or another.

Yes, and… I see something deeper at the root.

We are in what I hold as a “Disconnection Epidemic”.

Disconnected from each other – I’d argue in all aspects of life – and even more, disconnected from ourselves.

We have the illusion of connection with others that social media has been carefully cultivating for us for some time, through apps that track likes and followers and views. (Pick your app du jour.) The global pandemic accelerated and deepened this trend, with its required physical social distancing.

What happens in this illusion of connection?

When we really feel something, we get a sense that there is no one to turn to. No one to feel with. To be fully vulnerable to, in all the rawness and the messiness. To simply express things to out loud. To work through whatever we may be wrestling with.

When life inevitably gets hard, messy, painful, dark – we need that connection.

When life is joyful, and we want someone to celebrate with us -- we need that connection.

A connection with someone who shows up for us, and keeps showing up, because what I call their “come from place” is a deep care for us as a human – it’s not about them.

We are inherently – biochemically and psychologically - relational creatures. Neuroscience research has underscored this many times over. We seek others to feed a core need of what I see as witnessing – to be seen, to be heard, to be valued for being simply who you are and all you are, right now. These are the yearnings of the human heart – to be witnessed in this way by others.

Someone who posted a response to Elmo said it with such emotional poignancy, I immediately felt the pang deep within my own heart:

“Somehow this actually legit makes me feel better. Thank you Elmo, for caring.”

Witnessing is a powerful act of kindness, of caring, or love.

What happens when we feel unseen? Unheard? Unappreciated? Not witnessed for the truth and realness of who we fully are in a given moment?

The heart freezes, numbs. It can do so slowly, so we don’t even fully notice it happening. It is an ultimate protective move when parts of us feel or perceive the loss of access to caring connection, to love. We’re kidding ourselves by telling a very tall tale if we say this is not true.

And witnessing benefits the one who is witnessing as well – it is an act of giving, helping another person. Again, scientific research points to the “good feeling" chemicals such as endorphins (a sense of euphoria) and oxytocin (promotes tranquility and inner peace) that are released biochemically when we are involved in acts of giving to others. (As an aside, I don’t see witnessing as a passive role; it is an active one. And the act of witnessing gets diminished, I think, because witnessing is a state of being, not doing. And today’s society and cultures wire us to look for, prioritize, and value acts of doing over acts of being.)

The “Disconnection Epidemic” has even deeper roots. For not only are we increasingly disconnected from others, but we are also disconnected from ourselves: our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our spirits. Some might say they are connected by the self-care they take with their physical bodies – yoga, movement, diet, sleep, etc. That is all very important. But the connection to our minds, hearts, and spirits is equally so.

So, what does that look like? Well, how often do you pause, and in the inner quiet ask yourself the questions: What I am feeling in this moment? Can I simply be with that? What do I need? What are my heart’s core wishes, my spirit’s deepest desires, in this moment?

To what extent do we ask ourselves these questions and pause, holding space for the responses to come forward? If we deny our feelings, and our core wishes, we deny ourselves. For in naming our feelings and the thoughts that go with them, seeking to have our needs met - by ourselves first and foremost, and others as they can, and pursuing our core wishes are all acts of self-love. In ignoring, avoiding, dismissing, or resisting those, we create disconnection from our core essence as human beings. We become un-moored.  And in so doing, we prevent ourselves from being able to access the full range of inner resources and capacities that are within all of us as part of our birthright as humans.

Asking these questions is not a ‘one and done’. It is a continuous inquiry we need to ask ourselves – I’d advocate daily - for we are ever-changing and evolving, as the context around us ever changes and evolves.

So now what? What can you do in this Disconnection Epidemic?

Connect to yourself. In the morning, before you get out of bed. Or in the evening, after you’ve climbed back into bed. Or when you’ve got a few minutes of solitary time in your day, maybe on your commute. Or when you’re getting ready in the morning, and you look in the mirror. Pause. Ask yourself these questions with as much kindness as you would show to the person you love most in this world:

·       What am I feeling in this moment?

·       Can I take a few minutes to simply be with that feeling? To just experience it?

·       What do I need?

·       How can I give that to myself?

·       Is there a request I can make of someone else to help me with that need?

·       What does my heart desire in this moment? How can I give that to myself?

Connect – truly connect - to someone else. As Elmo did, a simple check in with an open-ended question that comes from a place of kindness, with a charge of curiosity (I genuinely want to know) and compassion (I see YOU, I hear YOU) can mean far more to that person than you will ever imagine. It’s most powerful if it’s voice to voice, or face to face.

A question I always start every client session with is: “How are you in this moment?”

I’m not interested in a generic “Good” or “Fine” or “Busy” which is often a default answer to what can feel like a superficial ‘how are you’ question, because a part or parts within us may challenge in our inner speak: Do you really care how I am? Do you really want to listen?

“In this moment” is a key phrase for me because it anchors a person in the now, in what is the present. The question always draws forward a range of different emotions and thoughts than many times my clients are surprised to hear themselves expressing out loud. At the close of a recent session with a client where he named and allowed himself to just experience and be with each of the emotions that were activated for him from a series of recent events, he said, “I feel 10 pounds lighter right now.”

Who is one person you can reach out to today and simply say: I’m thinking about you. How are you in this moment?

Imagine the possibility of what happens if every person who reads this asks this question of both themselves and one other human.

What opening is possible? What release is possible? What sense of kindness, care, and love is sparked in the atmosphere around each of us? Let’s experiment and find out…..

The theme of connection – to ourselves, to others (in all aspects of our lives) – is something that I have ever deepening passion around. It is a key to everything. If this resonates with you, or you have even a spark of curiosity, stay tuned. I’ll be writing about this more, and I have a podcast in the works for a launch soon.

Whoever arrives at these final words, know that I appreciate you for following the impulse to click and read.

Leonard Cohen, a Lyft Driver, and me

By Karin Stawarky

When you tune into the quiet voice deep within or notice a gentle but clear impulse or ‘pull’ towards something, remarkable things can happen. I have opened myself and surrendered to those intuitive callings, as I believe there is a greater wisdom giving ‘lift’ to them.

Last week on the West Coast, I ordered a Lyft back to my hotel. I requested a “quiet ride” in the app because I was tired – it had been a 3:30 am wakeup for a flight, on the heels of a remembrance service the day before for someone deeply beloved to me. That experience of honoring his life had left me emotionally drained and I was not up for engaging in conversation with a potentially chatty driver.

The car pulled up, and as I got in, the driver – I’ll call him Allen – said graciously, “hello, Miss Karin.” Now, very few people I encounter in my travels in life engage in that polite, genuinely respectful way. I didn’t expect it from a young man whom I thought to be in his twenties.

But there was something different I sensed about his presence. A brightness.

He asked where I was coming from, and I replied that I had just had a meeting with someone whose work I admired. And through that meeting, an unexpected gift – an emergent friendship.

I thought that would be that in terms of our interaction – I could turn my head towards the window, or close my eyes, and communicate that silence was desired.

Then deep within me, the soft voice urged – talk to him.

I sighed. Really? Okay, I’ll talk to him.

So, I asked Allen what he liked about being a Lyft driver.

And with that question unlocked one of the most amazing exchanges I’ve had in a long time.

Allen described – in a very upbeat way – how he works 3 jobs. He is very focused on goals that he has for himself, and he works hard to achieve them.

As a former college athlete whose injury prevented him from joining the pros, he is a personal trainer for adults… but he also elects to go back to his high school as a volunteer to coach and mentor kids on the team.  As he talked about the high school team, it was clear that he was not only training bodies, he was training minds – inspiring these teenagers to not only finish school and go to college but also see the possibility and opportunity they could make for themselves as humans.

One of his personal training clients then recruited him to a job in case management – he works with clients who are experiencing housing insecurity and helps place them in a more stable living situation. (This is an urban area that is experiencing a particularly acute issue with homelessness and a shortage of viable housing options.)

His description of the clients he serves in case management was striking. “When I get on the phone with them, sometimes they’ll get mad and start yelling at me. But I know it’s not me that they are mad at. They are angry with something that’s happening in their life or something that happened before the call. I just stay calm, and I tell them: I’m sorry that you’re mad. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to help you, so we can help get you into a better situation.” And he said that most of the time, that seems to calm the client down so that they can actually talk. He and I then discussed how the anger does not define that client as a person. It is a part of them that is activated by something that happened to them or is happening to them. This angry part is trying to protect them in some way.

If you are on the receiving end of the anger, we talked about how you can ask your own mind: ‘can I look through the anger to imagine what’s behind the anger?’ What we can see from that place is that behind the anger is always a fear. Fear that is grounded in belief and story about what a part of them predicts is going to happen, often based on something that did happen at a point in time – something that threatened an aspect of their safety, their belonging or acceptance, their ability to be respected and valued.

“All three jobs are about customer service,” he said. “How you treat people influences how successful you are.”

The way that Allen engaged with the teenagers, the housing clients, and me as Lyft customer illuminated for me how he is living and leading with an open heart. He is able to engage with the other person from a place of calm, connection, compassion, and courage.

He didn’t learn any of this in school. He didn’t learn it in any kind of training. No one directly taught him this or told him to do this or be this way. (I asked him.) His poise, perspective, and wisdom are remarkable. Allen expresses an authenticity that comes from his heart – he is guided by his own inner ‘yardstick’ for success instead of looking outside himself to what I call ‘the invisible they’ for validation.

Allen is a human who is highly observant, deeply reflective, clear about his values, and seeks to live in integrity with them. He also truly believes he can make a difference. That he matters in and to this world.

As we were getting closer to the hotel, he reflected: “I enjoy all three jobs. But I think there is a bigger stage for me… I just don’t know what that is.”

It was clear to me what a powerful force for good Allen is, bringing light to every interaction he has in a given day, including me as a random passenger.

Suddenly a song flashed into my mind (that gentle impulse again). I knew I had to speak it. “Allen, have you heard of Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem?”

Allen didn’t know of the song or Leonard Cohen.

“There’s a line in that song where Leonard sings ‘ring the bells that still can ring.’ Ring that bell, Allen,” I urged. “All we tend to hear about in the world is the hate, the violence, the division. But there is so much light. There is so much goodness. If we look for it, we find it. There are examples of human spirit in everyday life, of one person genuinely connecting with another person and trying to help them. Not because there is anything in it for them as a helper. Because it’s simply the right thing to do. That drive comes from the wisdom of the heart.”

Allen immediately looked up the song and hit play just as we stopped at a red light. As Leonard spoke the first few words, Allen said softly, “Oh wow. I love his voice.”

Leonard’s unique vocals filled the car like we were in a grand cathedral, in reverence. Allen and I were motionless and almost breathless.

After Leonard uttered lines, “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in”, Allen exclaimed, “I’ve got chills all over my body. There is no perfect offering! Yes! Yes! There’s a crack in everything! That’s how the light gets in!”

As we pulled up to the hotel, I said, “we’re all perfectly imperfect as humans, Allen. And we all can be such bright lights in the world, just as we are. Ring the bell that you can ring – keep doing what you are doing. And I know without question a bigger stage for you will present itself for you to shine that light even brighter.”

Allen stopped the car and turned to me, saying, “You wait right there.”

He ran around the car and opened the door for me, a lovely and gentlemanly act. As I got out of the car, I looked up at him (I’m tall, and he’s quite a bit taller than me) and again the impulse came from deep within. “Allen, this is a very odd thing for me to ask a total stranger, but would it be OK if I gave you a hug?”

“Absolutely!” he beamed and folded me into a big bear hug.

He then stood back and looking at me said, “I appreciate you, Miss Karin.”

What did I do? I just asked a question with genuine interest and listened deeply, witnessing him. That is the simple gift I gave to him – seeing him for who he is and how he is in the world, hearing him, honoring him.

The whole exchange was maybe 10, 15 minutes. And the content and energy of the conversation still stay with me.

And Allen gave me a gift, one that I don’t know he does not appreciate the depth of.

He reminded me to ring the bell that still can ring.

The bell that amplifies goodness and love and joy and hope in this world.

Bells can appear when you least expect them.

The bell doesn’t have to be large to matter.  It can be a small bell, but its sound can travel from person to person to person in ways one can’t anticipate or will never know.

Isn’t every interaction we have with another human an opportunity to ring a bell?

What would that look like? How would we choose to show up differently, even in difficult, charged conversations like Allen does with his housing clients?

He reinforced for me yet again that our real gift to the world and to each other is that simple yet that powerful: how we are being, not in what we are doing.

From the Kitchen to the Corner Office: How Ina Garten Offers Lessons for Leaders

By Karin Stawarky

Ina Garten has lessons that are bigger than how to make “Foolproof” dinners.

If you widen your lens on where leadership lessons come from, they aren’t always authored by a professor from a well-known business school or a famous CEO. They often come from unexpected people, both recognized names and individuals in one’s everyday life.

The last place I would have thought to get a reminder of a leadership lesson was an article in Food Network Magazine. And yet, there it was.

Ina Garten has been on my mind since I read a piece last night about her 20-year anniversary with The Food Network.  I’ve been a long-time Ina fan; my Mom bought me Ina’s first cookbook – The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook – when initially published in 1999, long before Ina was a household name. (Mom herself was a spotter of talent). Ina is my go-to for dependably delicious, consistently repeatable recipes.

But Ina is more than her magic with recipes (like her Pan-Fried Onion Dip, a staple). What has been sitting with me is how people talk about Ina. Individuals (celebrities in their own right) in the article comment about feeling “lucky” to have met her; what is striking is that they speak about the qualities of her state of being and what the experience is like to be in her company.

An overarching theme from those reflections is Ina’s authenticity and accessibility, her real-ness. Ina is who she is – the persona seen on TV is who she is experienced to be in person. “Ina is everything you hope she’s going to be, that she appears to be.” Her warmth is married with a strength and there is “a ferocity” to her as well. “She is always true to who she is.”

Individuals remarked on her “humor, wit, intelligence”. Ina’s wit and sense of play was vividly illustrated when she “broke the internet” on April Fool’s Day 2020 in the early days of the pandemic when the world was in lockdown. She posted a short video of herself concocting what looks like cosmopolitans for a crowd. As she’s shaking the mix in the cocktail shaker, she quips: “you have to shake it for 30 seconds. But you have lots of time, it’s not a problem.” She then pours the liquid into one single enormous cocktail glass – so large one needs to hold with both hands. Ina gave a gift of laughter in a time of anxiety, uncertainty, and stress.

In conversations, Ina is experienced as a “wonderful storyteller and even better listener.”  She is appreciated for her kindness and her gift “of always making you feel special.”  After one friend had Ina and her husband over for a home-cooked dinner, “Ina then took me aside and told me she knew how much work went into this wonderful meal and how much she appreciated it. I was in heaven.”

The Washington Post published an article about Ina Garten in 2018 titled “What is it about Ina Garten?” referencing the notable diversity of her fan base, which currently includes 3.7 million followers on Instagram. What IS it about Ina? From my view, at the heart of it all, it’s about the power of presence and the atmosphere that then gets created - whether the interactions are in-person or virtual - which sparks followership.

Ina popped into my mind when coaching a CEO of a mid-cap corporation this morning. I’ll call him Frank for now. What could Frank and Ina possibly have in common? It turns out, quite a bit.

In other writing I’ve posted, I’ve talked about your ‘weather system’ -- by that I mean the qualities of and energy around how you show up. The power of your weather system can influence the atmosphere of a conversation, a meeting, a gathering or event. And with applied consistency, it can create permanent climate change in the nature of a relationship, or the culture of a team or an organization. The weather of every person can have a multiplier effect. No matter how long or fleeting the interaction, your weather system can leave either a positive glow or a negative residue on those you come in contact with.

Frank, my CEO client, knows this lesson well. In my coaching session with Frank, he reflected that what matters most in having influence and impact centers around your presence and how you show up. As evidence of that lesson, Frank recently received a message from a colleague who commented along the lines of: “Heard you had plenty of energy at the meeting… I heard from a few folks who were there who are all happy to see you and appreciate the energy. You always show up.” Frank acknowledges: “when I am my best self, I know the impact that I have.”  By Ina being Ina, she reminds us how effective you can be when you go “Back to Basics”.

Beyond a given interaction, the nature of your weather system also influences your ability to effectively generate and maintain followership. Good leaders have followers - people who follow them because they want to, not because they have to (because of title, etc.).  When you generate that kind of voluntary followership, you then create the conditions to invite commitment. Making a commitment is always a personal choice. Commitment begins with people choosing to give you their loyalty, to continue to follow you in the direction you lead. But the magic really happens beyond loyalty. The greatest commitment that a leader can receive is someone choosing to give you their hands (to help you do the work), their heads (to freely share their ideas, creativity, the full extent of their knowledge) AND their hearts (to unleash their passion and energy). With that kind of commitment, any organization can become electric with possibility and results.

Your weather system shapes the atmosphere of the interaction you have with another. Our weather system can send clear messages without us even saying a word. In order for a person to consider giving you their loyalty and then making the commitment to give you their ‘all’, they need to experience three things from you: That you see them. That you hear them. AND that you value them. To truly be seen in that moment, for your voice to be heard and received, and to be appreciated for who you are is a gift.

Frank is ‘tuned in’ to the effect his presence has on his organization and makes conscious, intentional choices about how he enters into conversations with others. Like Ina, he is also thoughtful and deliberate in expressing his appreciation in the moment. Frank’s company recently received a milestone recognition. Frank invited his members of his extended leadership team to participate with him in the event. At one level, participation in such a public event itself signals appreciation – a way of recognizing that you mattered in getting us to this moment. But Frank took this one step further, in a very personal way. Frank decided to hand write thank-you notes to each leader and named specific contributions each made that supported this achievement.  Interestingly, Frank wrote these cards on a flight. The flight attendants noticed his activity and asked him what he was doing. He explained his intention and continued writing. As Frank was leaving the plane, one of the flight attendants handed him a small box of chocolates with a note and said: “This is from the crew. We wish we had a CEO who did that for us.”

After the event occurred, Frank shared that one of his team had told him: “This was a once in a lifetime experience for me. Quite possibly the best 48 hours of my career, but what made the trip so memorable was spending time with all of you. Your handwritten note to all of us makes it evidently clear—we’re not just at the right company, we’re working with the right leaders.”

We can get caught up that the lessons of effective leadership must be more complicated, more sophisticated, more advanced. But we are fooling ourselves. At the core, it’s not about strategies, techniques, or frameworks to be learned. It all about you as an instrument in how you relate with others.

Personal Weather System Check: You can ask yourself the following 3 questions to be your own weather barometer and raise your awareness on the nature of your presence:

• How do I want to be experienced? (Clear intention)

• Who am I being in this moment? Am I my best self? (Real-time self awareness)

• What is one thing I can do or say to myself to shift into how I want to be experienced by others? (Choiceful action)

Pause for Connectivity: As you enter into an interaction with another person, or a team, ask yourself the following two things:

• How can I indicate to the other(s) that I am fully present with them in this moment, that I truly see and hear them?

• What is one thing I can do or say to acknowledge or appreciate the other(s) for in this moment?

Ina often remarks when she is demonstrating a recipe: “How Easy Is That?” How easy it is indeed, Ina. Thank you for reminding us that effective leadership is a deceptively “easy” one: it is first and foremost about how you show up and how you engage with others. As Maya Angelou rightly and wisely stated: People will never forget how you made them feel.

Postscript: I shared the final draft with Frank for his input prior to publishing and to make sure he was comfortable with his inclusion. He offered the following in response which underscores the importance of this lesson is in today’s context: “The article really is perfect and one of those things I should read each month to remind myself in this complex, chaotic, exhausting world of business (and life) that sometimes just SHOWING UP well is enough … How easy is that? (It’s my favorite when Ina says that!)”

Author’s note: Foolproof, Back To Basics, and How Easy Is That are all titles of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks by Ina Garten.

The Doing Mask

By Karin Stawarky

In this unprecedented time of the pandemic over the past few months, much has shifted.

Our routines are interrupted.

We have been forced to step off of the treadmill that many of us have found ourselves on day after day, consciously or not, running and running and yet never arriving.

A number of us no longer drive to offices, to train stations, to airports, to schools… let alone do errands that fill weekends with one store after another, or shuttle from one activity to another for ourselves, family members, or friends.

This forced “pause” is a stark contrast to what many of us experience as normalcy. If you have found this shift jarring, or uncomfortable, you are not alone. If you are experiencing sensations of anxiety that you can’t quite put your finger on the why behind them, you are not alone.

Cognitively we know from research that pausing is a good thing. Reflecting — one form of pausing — is recognized as beneficial for individuals, teams, and organizations but infrequently gets translated into consistent practice. When reflection does happen, it seems to be with difficulty, effort, and resistance.

Many of my executive coaching clients find it hard to stop, to pause. We are constantly moving, constantly doing. This operating mode is reinforced within our families, our communities, our institutions (from schools to companies), and societies more broadly. This is particularly true as a cultural norm within the United States, where there are unwritten rules in our collective ethos around contemplation, rest, and work: just look at the difference in terms of the granted vacation time between companies in the US versus Europe as one manifestation.

Constant motion, or movement, is a mask. I call this the “Doing Mask”.

I have worn the Doing Mask. In fact, I’ve worn it for most of my life. A very dear friend of mine once remarked to me: “You know, you are one of the most productive people I know.” At the time, I took this as a compliment - indeed, a “badge of honor” – that I was continuously creating and producing. I was the one whom people turned to and relied upon to “get things done.” I proudly crossed item after item off of my daily to-do lists.

In recent years, as I have immersed myself in my own deep inner work bringing together a variety of disciplines and techniques, I became aware of the presence of the Doing Mask. The Doing Mask is a key tool for a part of me that I call the “Energizer Bunny”. Just like in the commercials, the Energizer Bunny was seemingly inexhaustible, never running out of battery, perkily keeping up a consistent drumbeat. Never resting, always moving. In fact, I even convinced myself – for years! – that I really only needed about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. After all, I could then accomplish that much more.

Why do I call it the Doing Mask? One purpose of a mask is to keep something hidden, be it an identity… or a truth. As I explored that part of myself, I discovered something – a different lens through which to view the Doing Mask. I realized that a driver for my constant doing, my endless to-do list, stemmed from a deep need to justify my worth to others. By producing, creating, doing, I was “productive” and being productive to me meant being of positive, accretive value – to my family, my team, my organization, my community, the world. It was a strategy that I learned very young and was implicitly, sub-consciously reinforced by the systems of which I am a part: family, schools, companies I worked for, the community and country I grew up in. Deep down, I believed it granted me respect, standing, and credibility.

Has the Doing Mask served me in my life? Absolutely. In many ways, I would not be where I am in this moment if not for that Energizer Bunny part of me, and for the Doing Mask. I am very grateful for both. I am proud of all that have accomplished and all that I have created.

And what have I also learned?

I now see the shadow side of the Doing Mask. In endlessly Doing, I was not permitting myself to Being.  I de-valued the worthiness of “just” Being.

I appreciate the intrinsic necessity of Being. Being produces the essential spark and the wise compass to my Doing. Being enables what I call Directed Doing.

The value in taking off the Doing Mask is that I create the space to look in the proverbial mirror and ask myself two essential questions:

• To what end?

• For whom?

To what end calls my attention to what the specific “doing” is in service of. Something or someone I value? Aligned with my intentions and aspirations? Enabling me to be of greatest service?

For whom calls my attention to whether I am doing this because I think is important, essential, or of value…. or if I am subconsciously doing it because “people” think I should. I call such people “The Invisible They” because I can’t point to any specific person in my life who expresses such judgement or opinion.

By downshifting into Being, I give myself the space to consider and make intentional choices, choices that transcend from the mundane to those of the highest order in guiding my life’s journey.

What do I say yes to and what do I say no to in terms of commitments and responsibilities?

What truly serves me? What does not?

How do those actions align with what I see as my calling in this world?

What does my body need from me, a body that has carried me through much thus far?

What care does my spirit need?

What relationships mean the most to me, and what tending or presence do they need?

I appreciate that Doing and Being are yin and yang; the greatest benefit is experienced in the combination.  We need to BE in order to most effectively DO, and as we DO, we are provided with learning, wisdom, and insight that illuminates our awareness as we BE. The balance between the two states is dynamic.  With growing awareness and deliberate practice, I find myself more fluidly now moving between them over a course of a day.

An unexpected gift of this global health crisis – the forced stopping - is the reveal of the Doing Mask for those who choose to see it and embrace it, with courage and with curiosity.

I invite you to explore the Doing Mask for yourself.

• Consider your usage. In what ways have you been wearing a Doing Mask?

  • What has wearing the Doing Mask provided to you? How has it served you?  In what situations particularly?

  • What did wearing the Doing Mask encourage you to say YES to? What have been the implications?

  • What did wearing the Doing Mask encourage you to say NO to? What have been the implications?

• Trace the ripple effect. How have you been encouraging a Doing mask for your team or your organization?

  • What have you prioritized as a result?

  • What have you de-prioritized, or turned away from?

  • How has that served you?

  • How has it gotten in your way? What has it held you back from?

• Visualize removing the Doing Mask. What comes up for you?

  • What do you become aware of that it has been hiding? What yearnings or desires? What fears or concerns? What questions or uncertainties?

• Explore the Being.

  • What does being in Being look like to you?

  • How do you create space for Being?

  • What do you need to believe to create that space and allow that for yourself?

  • When will you practice that?

  • What will you do when that that intention or time is challenged (when the pull of the Doing Mask becomes powerful)?

The Doing Mask is an important life accessory. It has usefulness in different situations and contexts. Going forward, may you put it on with greater intentionality and fully leverage its benefits and impact in balancing it with times of Being.

Possibly Your Most Important Week One As A Leader

Ensuring Calm Cohesion triumphs instead of Fear-based Fragmentation

By Karin Stawarky

What’s the “week one” that I am referring to? When all those across the world have returned to their physical places of work from this extended period of working from home or quarantining.

Why is it your most important week? Because at a time likely unparalleled in your career, the stakes now have never been higher because of collective threats to one of our most fundamental needs as humans: our need for safety – physical safety, financial safety, emotional safety.  

And less obviously, this period has magnified another essential human need – for belonging. As work consumes the majority of the waking hours, it is for many a large component of self-identity. Work also provides us with membership in a community, and these connections feed us in different ways. When we are prevented from going to the familiar physical structures of the workplace and engaging in routines, rituals, and interactions that explicitly reinforce belonging in the context of work, we can feel un-moored.

As we are sequestered to home over an extended period, our needs of safety and belonging can be satisfied on one level. For many we have benefited from being cushioned in our most familiar and intimate space, our nest. We may have family members or people we love together with us. We connect virtually with friends and family through video or voice. The experience is like being wrapped in a cocoon which muffles the emotions of anxiety, frustration, despair, overwhelm, and fear.

Proactively shape the climate

The atmosphere shifts when we come back to the office. And that atmosphere at work does not just happen; it is generated when people come together and interact.  The most powerful influence over the nature of that atmosphere is you as a leader. As a leader in an organization, you shape what the qualities of the atmosphere are through your presence, your words, and your actions. The nature of the atmosphere you create will make it easier or harder for the organization to rebound from the current crisis, a world turned upside down. It can be a powerful force that boosts or holds back an organization.

At the most basic level, there are two different kinds of atmospheres that can be created: Calm Cohesion or Fear-based Fragmentation.

When an atmosphere of Calm Cohesion prevails, people share the mindset that we are truly in this together. We look at the world through the lenses of WE and US.  We are aware of and speak about the reality we face. While being clear-eyed about the implications, we experience calm because of the confidence in our individual and collective ability to see through to the other side of this. When we act as a collective, we multiple our energy and effort, generating significant force and momentum.  We focus on what we can control and what we can influence. We don’t let concerns over which we have no agency consume our thought and action. What we see is the organization acting as one whole, one unit, where inter-connections are reinforced. This activates the organization’s ability to tap into the full extent of the energy, experience, and expertise that is present and available, producing innovative ideas, insightful learning and knowledge, considered decisions, and aligned action.

When an atmosphere of Fear-based Fragmentation dominates, the prevailing mindset is one characterized by the belief that I am alone. In this case, the lens is focused on ME. One feels disconnected from others and without support. In this state, our minds tend to anchor on what is out of our ability to control and we live in the world of worst-case scenarios. We see all that is not present, instead of all that is. The risk of being in a state of overwhelm is high. A feeling of fear escalates as a downward spiraling train of thoughts of “and then… and then…” takes hold. The consequence? An organization fragments into individual parts. We experience separation from others instead of connection. Forward movement stalls. In a state of paralysis, the best ideas are blocked from coming to the surface, decisions (if made) are made reactively and isolation, learning is neglected, and knowledge remains unexploited.

What can you do as a leader to foster Calm Cohesion instead of Fear-based Fragmentation in your organization?

Put on your oxygen mask first

Mirror neurons in our brains sense not only the actions but also the emotions and intentions of other humans we encounter. A high degree of interpersonal sensitivity exists below the surface of our awareness. We often think we can “fake it” to others, presenting an external face (e.g. of calm, of confidence) at odds with the emotions wreaking havoc within. At a subconscious level, other people can quickly and effectively read your inner state more accurately than you think. It affects how they resonate with you and influences whether they decide to engage with you or follow your lead.

Managing your inner self is then job #1. How do you not let anxiety get the best of you? Consider what you need to maintain your personal center of calm; this inner calm is a state of being that is present within all of us and available to us when we need it. You may already have personal practices that help to re-ground and re-center you. Such practices may include meditating, being out in nature (walking under trees or gardening), creating or building something, organizing, or spending quality time with those near and dear to you. If you have not identified what those are for you, this is a great time to start experimenting. Clues that will help you discern if that the practice serves you is noticing if your breath slows and quiets, or sensing if your body relaxes, with an absence of sensations of tightness, constriction, or rigidity.

Create an atmosphere of safety

A key differentiator between Calm Cohesion and Fear-based Fragmentation lies in the effectiveness of our collective adaptive response to the crisis we find ourselves in. Neuroscience research highlighted by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk outlines two factors which influence the effectiveness of this response to threat: (1) the ability we have to take an active role and demonstrate agency (become an agent of our own rescue, so to speak) and (2) the arrival at a place of safety within which we are able to tap our imagination and inner creativity to generate alternative solutions to address the situation.

Some things you can do to create a space which engenders feelings of safety include:

• Make yourself accessible to others. Let people know when and how they can talk with you.

• Listen deeply, listening to understand and not to respond. Play back what has been expressed to you (“what I heard you say is….”) to affirm you heard them.

• Establish a regular communication tempo. In your communications, follow a consistent pattern of sharing where you are at now, where you are going, what you know and what you don’t know, and when you will get back to them with more information and updates.

• Highlight accomplishments of what has been achieved and unexpected discoveries.

Engage others in co-creating solutions

By involving your organization or team in the “now what” strategizing and operationalizing, you provide them with a degree of agency in shaping the future as well as the now. You benefit from the diversity of perspectives, experiences, and expertise to get a better-informed grasp on the situation and innovative approaches to address them.

• With your team, create a list of issues, challenges, or problems.  

• Go through one by one and screen them by their nature:

  • What ones do we have control over and can directly affect the what and the how?

  • What ones do we have ability to influence?

  • What ones do we have concerns about but that we have no ability to influence (it is out of our hands completely)?

• Focus on the subset that you have control or influence over and prioritize these in terms of urgency and importance. Brainstorms options for how to best tackle the top priorities.

Reaffirm community

Stories inspire us and connect us to one another. Identify and share stories from your organization’s history that exemplify attributes which will help you now to successfully weather this current situation.

Look for and reinforce examples of the kind of organizational community you most aspire to be. Seeds of who you are at your collective best are present all around you. Shine a spotlight on those to the organization as a whole.

Mind your mind

As you navigate the days ahead, you may well feel the tendrils of anxiety, frustration, or overwhelm within. This is entirely normal. Interrupt those thoughts and feelings in your mind by seeing these as an opportunity for you to reground yourself. Simple affirmations, said aloud daily, are powerful tools for engaging your mind as a partner instead of an adversary. An affirmation that I often offer to my executive coaching clients is:

“I am doing the best I can in this moment with all the knowledge, experience, and tools that I have.”

This is indeed an extraordinary time in our history. And the time can be extra-ordinary for you and your organization. See and seize the possibility that lies within your grasp.

Are You Steady or Nimble? Watch-outs When the Unexpected Happens

By Karin Stawarky

When life throws you a curveball, are you steady? Or, are you nimble?

We each tend to have a default propensity towards one of two responses when unexpected things happen that disrupt the world around us. If we tend to be steady, we may deliberately not change our course at all, staying true to both the plan and the destination despite the changing context. If there are any shifts, they would be minor. On the other hand, if we tend to be nimble, we respond very quickly to the stimulus by rapidly adjusting in response to it. This may be creating a different plan to get to where we want to go or potentially defining a whole new direction all together. 

Neither one is good or bad, right or wrong. Either can be just exactly the right response in the circumstance given the context and other factors. (It’s worth noting that we have the capacity for either response, but just like a dominant muscle, when our mind is in autopilot we show a preference for one.)

The challenge comes in high stakes situations where there is a significant amount of uncertainty. Both of those propensities can go from helpful where that propensity is working for you to the shadow side where the propensity is harmful to you, where that response pattern no longer serves you and can work against you. Are you steady, or are you stuck? Are you nimble, or are you reactive?

When you’re in the stuck shadow, it causes you to hold back. Often it is because you’re in resistance to something. There is a resistance to movement, and what underlies this resistance is a belief or assumption about what you think will or will not happen. For those in the reactive shadow, it often indicates that you’re running away from something. At its root, there is a belief or assumption which triggers fear that then prompts the movement.

For leaders in organizations, the ripple effects of these default propensities can be significant, particularly when the behavior shifts from helpful into harmful. When a leader who has a propensity to be steady becomes ‘stuck’, it can freeze a team or organization from moving forward, effectively staying super-glued to a course that may have become obsolete. Similarly, when a leader who has a propensity to be nimble becomes reactive, they can make what look like erratic or irrational adjustments. This at best causes confusion in an organizational system and at worst can produce material waste in work and time.  At the extremes of either scenario, you risk employee disengagement and an eroding trust in leadership. Further, when there are two dominant leaders who firmly anchored in ‘opposing camps’, a polarizing tug-of-war is created which can wreak havoc in an organization, let alone on the quality of the leaders’ relationship to each other.

So, what can you do?

• Recognize your default propensity.  Reflect over the recent past, let’s say the past year or two. Think about times in your professional and personal life when you suddenly faced unexpected events or ‘curveballs’. Visualize yourself back in that moment. How did you react?

  • Did you think carefully through the situation and generally keep true to your original course of action, thinking about why the approach should not change?

  • Or, did you flex into a new course of action quickly, fueled by the reasons why the original plan should change?

  • Make a note of how many times you were in the steady versus the nimble camp.  What pattern do you notice?

• Appreciate how it has served you. Now think back on those situations. In what ways did a propensity serve you? What benefits did it produce? What did you learn from those experiences?

• Sharpen your pattern recognition. Reflect on those times when your default propensity worked against you. What common themes or characteristics do you notice about those situations?

• Dig a little deeper. Unearth insights on what cause you to shift into the shadow side during trigger situations.

  • As you reflect on those moments of stuck-ness, ask yourself: what am I resistant to in this moment? Trust the first thing that comes to the surface of your mind. What is the belief or assumption that jumps out as to what you believe would have happened if you did the opposite?

  • As you reflect on those moments of reactivity, ask yourself: what am I running away from in this moment? What is the belief or assumption that jumps out as to what you believe would have happened if you did the opposite?

In completing this reflection thoughtfully, you amp up your capability to respond more effectively in situations moving forward. Awareness of your propensity enables you to intentionally act in ways that best serve you and your organization in the future.

What’s required to activate this awareness you have developed? It’s the power of the pause between the trigger event and your behavioral response. Pausing creates space for you to assess how your propensity works for you or against you in the situation. I think about this as “Take 3” when you sense the warning lights flashing given your heightened awareness of trigger situations:

1. Am I operating from my shadow? What is really motivating me in the moment?

2. What would the opposite course of action from my default (steady or nimble) look like? What are the benefits of that?

3. Who can I check in with to test my thinking on the best course of action?

By pausing, you enable your propensity – be it steady or nimble – to be the asset it can be to you and your organization.

Helpful Hygiene to Strengthen Your Inner Self: One Simple Practice

By Karin Stawarky

Helpful Hygiene to Strengthen Your Inner Self: One Simple Practice

I recently watched an old video of the late Jimmy Valvano, the renowned coach of the North Carolina State men’s national championship winning basketball team as he received the Arthur Ashe Courage award at the ESPYs. In this memorable speech given two months before he passed away from cancer, Jimmy encouraged all in the audience to do three things each day: think, laugh, and cry. In his words, if you do all three, you have had one heck of a day.

Wise words indeed. For in doing those three things, we are allowing ourselves to feel the range of human emotion. We then live into all of our humanity rather than operate as a shell of who we are. When we engage all parts of us, we can then bring the best of who we are to any situation -- and what a goldmine that represents.

In the time and space that this crisis has opened up for us as individuals, I realize exactly how important it is to be able to tap into all I am. That represents a lot of horsepower. Drawing upon the full extent of that inner self enables me to be who I want to be to those around me.

I created a simple personal ‘weekly round-up’ practice as one way to tend to my inner self and raise my consciousness about aspects of me that will serve me now and into the future. The round-up has 5 categories (I call them “bases” in my video blog available on the Spark website), and I have a specific focus in each category.

The five categories are:

• Reflect. Reflect is about looking back on our journey in life to this moment and see everything that appears in that rear-view mirror. The terrain behind us is abundant with learning, perspective, and wisdom gained through both the peaks and valleys we have lived through. When we deliberately consider where we have come from, it is like tapping into an abundant fountain of confidence and courage.

• Proflect. Proflect -- yes, this is a word I invented -- is about looking ahead out the windshield into the future. I find that playing with two different time horizons – 1 year from now, and 5 years from now, to be most useful. Visioning the future that we most want provides us with hope and inspiration. Even more, defining what you want to be true about your life and about who you are in the future provide us with a more concrete destination to orient towards.  It gives us something to reach out and grab onto. With more clarity on the destination, we are then better able to define the next first step to make that our reality. We have more agency than we think in creating our future.

• Disconnect. Disconnect is about consciously and intentionally releasing what no longer serves us. It could be a belief, assumption, thought pattern, or a mindset that we have been holding on to (consciously or not) that we can let go of. Deciding what you are complete with frees up space – mentally and otherwise – to bring in things you want instead. There are some beliefs that you can just let go of; others, you may want to “turn around” and replace with a new belief that serves you better now.

• Connect. Connect is about celebrating an aspect of who you are at this moment. It may be an aspect of your state of being (your character or personality, your presence) or it may be an aspect of your state of doing (your actions, experiences, accomplishments). Why is this important? It is a way to increase your capacity for joy. Joy is an inner state of being that we cultivate for ourselves. While happiness is dynamic and driven by external factors in our physical context (e.g. people, events, places), joy is a more consistent state that we nurture for ourselves. Joy is present and available when we see ourselves for all we are, our light and our shadows. By consciously ‘holding’ all that we are when we look at ourselves in the proverbial mirror, we connect into and remind ourselves of our unique presence and voice.

• Respect. Respect is about recognizing the individuals who have shaped us in our journey to get us to this moment – some deliberately and supportively, others in ways that forced us to look in the mirror or learn painful lessons. It may have been what they did or said, or what they didn’t do or say. Their impression may be significant. It may be fleeting – a passing interaction that served to remind you of something or illuminate something. All provided learning and insight, shaping our way of being.  These may be individuals from long ago, or last week. It may be an individual who is living or dead. It may be an individual who knows you well, who does not know you at all, or anything in between.

I ask myself one question in each of these categories. My questions are:

• Reflect: What is one thing I have learned from an experience in my life journey to date that will support me now?

• Proflect: What is one thing I can do, one step I can take, to move closer to the future I most want or the person I want to be?

• Disconnect: What is one thing that I can let go of or shed that no longer serves me?

• Connect: What is one thing about who I am, how I act, or what I have done that I can celebrate?

• Respect: Who is one person who has helped me in one way in becoming the person I am today?

It takes me about 15 minutes to do this round-up, which I do on an early weekend morning.

Some additional tips to maximize the impact of this practice:

1. Write out your responses, don’t just think them. Handwrite them in a notebook or type on your device of choice. A physical record matters, as it is a treasure you can come back to.

2. Re-read what you have written during the week. These reflections can help to re-ground you if you feel off-center, offering evidence, acknowledgement, and inspiration.

3. Share with others. Talk with people in your life about one or more of your weekly observations. Doing so gives our thoughts more weight and meaning. (And you may find out something expected in how someone else sees you!)

4. Try the round-up for at least a month. Doing this four times will start to provide you with a minimum amount of insight for you to see value – and help to create the conditions for growth and positive change.

5. Say thank you to the person you identified. If possible and appropriate, give specific gratitude to the person who came to mind for you through a call, an actual letter, or an email about how they influenced you.

If you are interested in the worksheet on this practice to support your own growth, go to the Contact Us tab on the Spark Leadership Partners website and submit your information with a request for the “Helpful Hygiene to Strengthen the Inner Self” worksheet.

8 Common Traps about Culture (and How to Avoid Them)

By Karin Stawarky

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This familiar Peter Drucker quote has been heard on so many conference stages, in team meetings, and hallway huddles. Yet we still can’t seem to learn this lesson. I am fascinated by insights like these -- about organizations, about teams, about leadership – that we have ‘discovered’ over the decades yet fail to systemically respond to. We are surprised when we experience the repercussions of old ways of doing again and again.

In my career, I have worked with organizations across the spectrum – those with a handful of employees to those with thousands of employees distributed around the globe, from early stage companies to hundred+ year old entities. I witnessed the authenticity of attention and effort that is paid to culture – and the weight it is given by the executive leadership as a strategic lever – vary just as widely.

Beware of the Traps

There are some common traps about culture that I observed in organizations regardless of their size or maturity. Each trap is linked to quotes inspired by things heard in organizations:

•       Product is king: “We’ll figure out culture once we have a viable product.”; “Culture is the soft, fluffy stuff. Proving our product works is more important.”

•       Rose colored glasses: “We are all smart, nice people … I don’t see an issue in us figuring it out and getting along.”

•       Someone else’s job: “Our HR person will figure out the culture piece.”; “Culture is just something the HR team is responsible for.”

•       Checking the box: “We did an engagement survey – so our employees feel like they can influence the culture.”

•       Hopeful osmosis: “A lot of us are from Company X. We like that culture; I think it works for us.”

•       Values as the ‘end all be all’: “We’ve defined our values. Isn’t that sufficient?”

•       The perks mirage: “We have all the perks in the office for employees – free food, drinks, games, sleeping pods, cool music… what more do you need?” or “We have epic company events. That’s what defines our culture.”

And perhaps the most insidious one:

•       Incubating the bad seed: “Even though Person X is toxic to our culture, they are such a good [engineer, salesperson, analyst, etc.] we won’t address it or fire them – after all, it’s only one person.” or “Person Y is the best in their field but has a reputation of burning through teams… we need to hire Person Y because the Board believes they are necessary to raise the next round with investors.”

All of the traps are problematic.  While each is distinct, I argue that they all reflect flavors of the underlying assumption of “we’re different” and its twin: “it [everything bad that I’ve seen or heard happen elsewhere] won’t happen here”. But organizations are more alike than they are different. Organizations are human systems, just like families and communities (be they religious, academic, civic, social, etc.). From relationships and roles to rules and rewards, as humans we orient and act in patterned ways.

Mindset Mantras for Organizations that Thrive

What does it take to avoid getting caught in those traps? In part, holding following mindsets:

Culture is inseparable from results.

My mother often would tell me: “you get out what you put in.” Business outcomes are affected by the culture you perpetuate. How conducive is the culture to attracting and retaining the talent you need? Does the culture inspire people to give their full creativity and effort of their own volition, are they doing the minimum required, or even worse, are they operating from a basis of fear? The sustainability of performance is intrinsically linked to the health and vitality of organizational culture. 

How we describe our culture needs be meaningful and actionable.

Culture needs to be specific to the organization, sprouting from and aligned with the organization’s unique purpose and identity.  And words matter. Language must be clear and simple in describing the key cultural attributes; to be actionable, concrete supporting behaviors everyone can identify with need to be conveyed in order to create a practical daily compass.

We all own it.

We each contribute to the organizational culture of which we are a part; it is a collective consciousness that we adopt and adapt with --- or rebel against. Yes, the CEO and executive team have the greatest influence, but everyone’s fingerprints shape the culture.

We need to be in continuous integrity with what we say is important.

Unfortunately, the old adage of: Do as I say, not as I do is one that I have seen alive and well in organizations. Plaques of values hang in the meeting rooms, while decisions are made and actions persist that run completely contrary to them. This is true at all levels of the organization. From headquarters to the front line, there must be congruence between what we define as our compass, and our words, our actions, and our nonverbal behaviors.

Our work on culture is never “done”.

Among the many lessons I have learned ‘from the field’ – as an executive, a trusted advisor, and an executive coach are 10 universal truths I hold about culture. Two of these truths for me are: 

I think about culture like a garden, which needs to be continually tended and tilled. How do you approach the initial design so that it complements and respects the terrain, the climate, and your own needs and preferences? How do the parts help to nurture each other?

Then, as what you planted sprouts: What elements are thriving? What are not? What needs more of what kind of support or resources? What needs to be weeded out? How do you protect it from unwanted pests (or, destructive influences) and erosion?

Keeping the Beat

Strengthening and evolving culture needs to be intentionally woven into the rhythm of the company, just like regular business or operating plan cycles.  I think of this Culture Cultivation Rhythm™ has having the following “notes” or elements:

FRAME is where you draft the primary design principles for the culture you want to intentionally develop; this is typically done by the leadership team. You ENGAGE the organization in refining those and aligning to them. The leadership team will then TRANSLATE those principles into key systems, processes, practices, etc. – effectively creating the ‘wiring diagram’. The leadership team must collectively COMMIT to living those principles themselves and hold each other accountable to them. Employees throughout the organization INTEGRATE those principles and build our or refine the organizational elements identified in Translate. The leadership team and others MONITOR the principles in reality, engaging the organization in feedback mechanisms and dialogue. Based on these insights, a point of view is defined on how the principles or the systems need to ADAPT. That triggers a new flow through the cycle.

So, what three things can you start with as you head out into that garden?

·       Ensure the foundation is solid and shared. The core culture design principles (including what is important to you and how you show up to one another) are your foundation – the proverbial cornerstone on which a company is built and expanded upon. Don’t rely on your own opinion of how strong it is – engage different audiences to test people’s actual experience of it.

·       Define the Culture Cultivation Rhythm™ – and stick to it. The rhythm is as much about what happens and when is it is who is involved. In the early stages of a company (or a team), you may need to go through this cycle more often than you think.

·       Hold up a mirror to yourself – regularly. Everyone has an impact on a system. How are YOU living in integrity with the desired culture?

We seem surprised when the likes of a giant like Boeing and GE fall from grace. Any culture, if not regularly tended in a disciplined way, is susceptible to becoming overgrown and overrun with ‘invasive plants’, choking out the desired growth. We all need to be gardeners for the environment in which we all thrive.

Rethinking Resolutions

By Karin Stawarky

We associate many things with the month of January: the taking down of holiday decorations, MLK day, football playoffs, clearance sales, winter weather delays … and resolutions. As we close out the month, I wonder how many resolutions formed so earnestly on January 1st have held….

I have a problem with resolutions. Why? For one, resolutions are black and white. Further, we often set the targets aggressively, tending to be driven by what we think we should do versus what is realistic or feasible. These targets tend to be either falsely precise (I will lose 15 pounds by May 1! I will run 3 times a week! I will only have wine on Saturday! I will not check my phone before bed! I will get 8 hours of sleep every night! I will host weekly dinner parties!) or abstract (I will be more patient with the friend who texts me incessantly about the minutia of life).

Framed in that way, resolutions become zero-sum games – we win /lose, we succeed / fail. There is no continuum, no grey zone. The question is stark: did we meet it or not? We have a tendency to only say we have ‘achieved’ if we hit whatever concrete goal we have defined. That is how we have been schooled to think about resolutions, and what our societal norms tend to promote. Who jumps up and down for partial victories (e.g. I ran once this week instead of 3 times)?

I offer that it is in our collective consciousness that resolutions don’t work. Think about the number of jokes we hear or tell each other on the breaking of resolutions. Deep down, there is a belief seeded that resolutions are meant to be written, not to be realized. Consider the number of people you see at the gym the first week of January….and how that number dwindles by mid-February.

If you are like many, you may have given resolutions the good college try for a year or two, and then after a spotty track record (perhaps some “wins”, some half-hearted attempts, some non-starters), you profess to friends, “Oh, I don’t do resolutions.” Because why would you want to set yourself up for something that you believe is going to ultimately make you feel bad about yourself? Who needs more opportunities for self-flagellation or blame? No deliberate set-up for discouragement, thank you.

And yet. You wish for something to be different, you dream about an alternative – whatever that may be. How does one get from here to there?

Change is hard. Really hard for us humans. While many of us cognitively are aware of that, we seem to fight it, believing that we can power through to new behaviors with a flip of a switch.

I think we need to give ourselves more grace. No, this does not mean giving ourselves an “out” for not taking steps to take better care of the sacred vessel of our bodies, to show up as better humans to one another, to create better lives for ourselves -- whatever that looks like to you.

It does mean there is the possibility to think differently about how we frame our intentions in a way that gives us permission to respond to dynamically changing contexts, needs, information, and insights.

It also means we celebrate our progress, taking heed of the old adage “life is about the journey, not the destination”. Yes, in the hyper-paced, results-oriented world we live in with instant tabulation of successes and failures, this can be challenging.  I propose that by celebrating small increments of progress or growth, we are reinforcing the shifts in mindset and behavior we are pursuing.

So, what is does the alternate approach look like? Consider the following:

1.    Instead of making a list of specific resolutions (what I will or won’t do), identify two simple things: a state of being (who do I want to be? How do I want others to experience me?) and an area of focus (what part of my life do I want to raise my awareness or consciousness around?).

Take this on for 12 months. The beauty of this approach is there is no right or wrong. Whatever that looks like to you is just perfect. As an example, my state of being for 2019 is to be radiant – radiate the love, joy, wisdom and hope I have within to illuminate the world around me and touch those I interact with. My area of focus is relationships – in all senses of the word: personal and professional, long-lasting and fleeting, new and old.  I chose this state of being and area of focus because I believe that this will help to expand and enrich my life in desired and unexpected ways, all contributing to my wellbeing and my ability to positively affect the world around me.

2.   Add color. What does it mean for me to be radiant? What do I need? In part, it means I need to feel good. What does it take for me to feel good? I think about aspects like the food I’m cooking and consuming, monitoring the amount of sleep I’m getting, listening closely to my body for what it is telling me, creating time for play or “chillaxing” (chilling out + relaxing). [A shout out to my dear friend Julie who introduced this term to me.] I realized that I’ve never allowed myself to chillax. That was not my family model of hyper-productivity. We are always on the go -- doing, working, producing, creating, taking care of others. While still honoring my crackerjack planner mode, I’m now giving myself permission for chillaxing time.

3.   Break it down. Think about it in increments. First, figure out the time interval that most resonates with you – this month, this week, tomorrow. Next, ask yourself what I am going to do to support my state of being? My area of focus? I suggest using the following format:

To support my desired state of being, I seek to _______________. To do that most effectively, I need ________________.

To advance within my area of focus, I seek to _______________. To do that most effectively, I need ________________.

You may find it helpful to write those statements down: in a journal, on a note on your smartphone, on a post-it note that you affix to your bathroom mirror or computer.

(To note: there has been much written about actions or specific techniques for changing one’s habits. I’m not going to focus on that here.)

4.   Pause and reflect. Yes, this is ESSENTIAL. At the end of month, the week, or the day, think about your intention for how you want to be and where you want to give energy and focus. How did it go? What did you learn? What did you notice? What did you experience? How did you experience others as they interacted with you?

5.   Celebrate. Reaffirm your intention and acknowledge your effort towards that – however modest the progress or small the step may seem. Say it aloud to yourself – even better if you say it to yourself while looking in the mirror. For the best coach of you is you.  Would you refrain from cheering on friend, a significant other, a sibling, a co-worker, a child, a favorite team as they try for something they want? So why not say “YAY ME!” (with regularity) in acknowledgement of where you are and where you have come from?

6.   Focus forward. For the next month, or next week, think about the adjustment(s) you will make based on those observations and insights. It helps because we learn as we go, and we may shift approaches or behaviors that are a better fit for what we want to accomplish or experience. The key is flexibility. I may run some experiments one month in the area of relationships and decide that some of them are worth continuing (because I’m feeling energized and I like the response I get from others) and others not because the energy and effort expended was greater than the outcome/benefit I experienced.

I believe in possibility, and in the ability of each one of us to grow into the kind of person we most want to be and life we most desire. Realizing that can be as simple as unleashing the curiosity to explore a different path to make that your reality.

Discover Your Magnet: Two Simple Words To Get What You Want

By Karin Stawarky

Be intentional. Sounds simple. But how consistently are we in that, really?

Some of us practice intentionality in terms of what we do – the actions we take. For instance, being intentional in everything from proactively planning your time during a week, to creating space for reflection, to ensuring you get 8 hours of sleep. 

I argue that we do not equally focus on the how – our mindset and presence in our doing. Why is this important? Most of the time, achieving what we want is in some way dependent upon others. We realize our goals and dreams with, supported by, and because of others we are in relationship with. These relationships can be long-lasting or brief.

Relationships reflect a series of interactions over time. In those interactions, we are seen, heard, and experienced by others in ways that may help us or hold us back from realizing what we hope for.

So let’s think about a typical interaction on a given work day. How many of us are truly intentional about that? We tend to operate on autopilot: we make assumptions and leap into the conversation, focusing more on what’s being said (and often, what we say) than anything else. Sometimes the interaction just flows, sometimes it is rocky, sometimes it is just unsettling – we can’t quite put our finger on it. And we wonder why the interaction unfolded as it did.

Here’s the catch: we’re often so focused on the content of a conversation that we completely miss the experience of a conversation – for ourselves and for others. It is the experience of the conversation more often than not which influences how people see us and hear us -- and thereby, what they do or don’t do. Do they effectively tune us in or tune us out? What we think is happening may not be how others perceive us. 

The secret to realizing what we want is very much tied to how we show up. Yet how often do we think about that? We are so heads down in the “doing” that we don’t remember or give attention to the “being”. What about how we show up is going to help us or hold us back from achieving what we want?

In a recent coaching conversation with Kate, a senior executive, we talked about her frustration in the lack of recognition for significant contributions she has made to the growth of the business. As we talked about these examples, she shared how these priority projects involved her recruiting others from different parts of the business to work through a problem and create a solution together. In replaying those interactions, Kate described how she stepped into the role as the facilitator to move the discussion forward. She acknowledged that she effectively “sat back” and left the space for others’ voices to carry the recommendation. Kate realized that in doing so, she faded into the background. She was not front and center putting her own voice into the mix and advocating explicitly for what she thought.  “I think I was waiting for someone to give me permission to lead it”, she reflected. As a result, the CEO and others did not identify her with the success of the initiatives.

Who did she want to be? The words came quickly:  highly respected leader, insightful strategist, an innovator who gets it done. Kate wanted to feel more powerful, more significant. She wanted to be seen as a material player in the organization – for the CEO to say: “we would not have been able to do this without Kate.”  She wanted to be in demand for her abilities, expertise, and knowledge. To make this real, we identified an important mindset shift about her role: from enabler to owner.

To put this into action, we came up with an experiment: Every meeting she walks into, she thinks: “I own this” – I own the process, I own the quality of the conversation, I own the outcome.

To help reinforce this way of thinking in her mind, each time she walks out of her office, she said to herself: “I own it”. The phrase “I own it” provides a clear intention for her mindset, her actions, and her presence in how she approaches interactions. And over time, Kate found the outcomes changing in ways she desired, with more recognition for her contributions. She was treated differently by her colleagues, who frequently reached out to her as a thought partner in solving thorny issues. Kate recently was asked by the CEO to present to the Board a major new strategic initiative she developed.

How do you open up this up for yourself? Here’s how to get started:

Break it down. Experiment with a single interaction. Pick one interaction you know you’ll have in the course of the day, an interaction with someone else that matters to you. You might choose a lower stakes interaction to get started (where the consequences are not too high, versus one that involves a big decision).

Pause. Create the mental space for yourself. It may be as you’re having your first cup of coffee, as you’re in the shower, or as you’re driving your car to work. Our minds can be an endless train of thoughts; you need to consciously put these on temporary hold.

Ask yourself 3 simple questions.

• WHAT do you want: What do you want to have happen? What do you want to be true?

• WHO do you want to be: Who you need to be to make that outcome possible? (Tip: Think about the three words you’d like someone to say about you when you leave the room – the impression you make with others.)

• ·HOW do you want to be: What do you want to feel during and after that interaction? How do you want others to experience you? (Tip: Think about an adjective you would want the other person to use to describe what it is like to interact with you.)

Write it down.  The response to these questions can be a few simple words. Capture these as a note in your phone or write it on a Post-It note and stick it somewhere where it will catch you eye. Refer back to this throughout the day to consciously remind yourself.

Reflect. After the conversation or meeting, or at the end of the day, take a few minutes to consider how close you were to realizing your what, who, and how. In particular, think about:

• What helped you achieve that? What are the enablers to help you realize your intentions?

• What got in your way? What were the blockers? What took you off course from realizing your intention?

• How can you make sure you have more of the enablers in place? And how can you get rid of (or reduce the strength of) the blockers?

Repeat. Stick with your WHAT-WHO-HOW for a week (ideally a month). What do you notice?

Be intentional. Simple words with the potential for big impact. Go ahead – try it on in your next interaction. See the difference that you can create in getting closer to what you want.

Take Charge of Your Mind: The Sneaky Power of Labels

We give meaning to things we experience by the words we use - out loud or in our own heads - in how we describe them. Those words can have a lasting impact on our choices and actions in ways that work against us.

By Karin Stawarky

Good. Bad. Positive. Negative. Best. Worst. Success. Failure.

Simple words. Each weighty in the effect on our thoughts and actions.  Yet it is we who give them power. And I’m ready to take that power back.

I have been reflecting on how quick people are to label events or experiences that happen to us. How often have you described something to another person as “that was a total bust” or “it really sucked” or “I completely screwed that up”?

An experience that happened to me a while ago that was just that. It was an unexpected event that stirred up a lot of emotion within me. At the time – and for some time after – I heaped labels on the event: Really, really bad…. Awful…. Traumatizing…. Unfair…. Worst. Thing. Ever.

It created a new ‘tape’ in my head about me – as a leader and as a person. It made me doubt things I thought to be true about myself and about my effectiveness and strength as an executive. It changed the trajectory of my path. Importantly, it made me feel bad about myself. It churned up emotions about what I imagined that I wasn’t. I lost sight of who and what I am.

Finally, the dark, heavy storm clouds lifted. I looked back at this same experience through a different set of lenses. I actually breathed a sigh of relief. The old labels were peeled off, and new ones stuck on: Blessing…. Dodged a bullet…. Best. Thing. Ever.  If that experience had not happened, I would not be where I am today, flourishing. I am now in my zone, a place where things are increasingly effortless, my creativity is buzzing, and time flows with ease.

But wait. How can the same experience have two diametrically opposed descriptions in my mind?

You might argue the old adage of ‘time heals old wounds’. Sure, to some extent. Time gives us perspective that in the moment – when physiological reactions in our brain activate the ‘flight or fight’ response – we lose sight of. But, consider the opportunity cost of the time required for that to take place. And think about how it influences your actions – what you do and don’t do – and your attitude in the meantime. And the energy you put out into the world. And how that energy can pull different kinds of people towards you, and push others away from you. For me, it was a good year and a half before the lens shift happened. What was lost in the interim? Holding those ‘negative’ labels cast a mental frame that how I saw things. It became a filter that influenced what I went after, my confidence, and my belief in what was possible. I wore mental shackles for a year and half. And I did that to myself.

With the passage of time, and reflecting back on this, I realized how frequently I categorized events in this way. You name it, I labelled it.

Then the proverbial brilliant flash of light occurred. As with some of the most powerful insights for me, it came from an unexpected source, at an unexpected time, in an unexpected setting. What if something is neither good or bad? It just is?

Experiences or events do not have meaning in and of themselves. We give meaning to them by the words we choose to describe them – either in our heads or out loud to others. (Taking this further, we have a general propensity to label fellow humans in a similar way: in simplistic terms, that is a “bad person” or a “good person”.)

Our brains are enormously powerful. The extent of that power is something I have more fully come to appreciate over the past few years. Its impact extends beyond dimensions that are obvious, to ones that are subtler yet very significant. Our mental frame influences what we think, what we believe is possible (or not) and what we do. Importantly, it does not just influence our immediate course of action, but it can groove our behaviors far into the future, holding us back instead of propelling us forward. Labels like these can take root in our minds. They encourage devious limiting beliefs for us – about what we are capable of (or not). It has the effect of shutting down possibility, instead of opening it up. Does “I can’t do that….” or “that’s not going to happen…” ever run through your thoughts?

This holds true for teams and organizations. Take notice of language used in a team debrief or in small talk with co-workers at the coffee machine. Think about how often this type of pattern emerges. How does it affect how the team shows up in a meeting? How employees approach their work? Language starts to influence attitude, which shifts behavior, which then effects the shape of a culture – the culture in a team, an office, or an organization.

While you can sense how limiting negative labels can be, the same is true of extreme positive ones. Why? It can prevent you from seeing potential insights or lessons. It may also ascribe agency to the event, instead of what you did (or did not do) in the situation. This can prevent you from replicating something that has positive benefit or value.

Operating below our level of consciousness, our brains are constantly on the lookout for patterns, scanning past experiences to find similar situations. Once a pattern is recognized – a label “found” – the associated emotions and thoughts are once again brought to the surface to respond to what is going on. We have been unconsciously training our brains for years. Think of it as deliberately building up a powerful super-highway system of situation-response. This labeling can at times work for us – but it also can work against us. The good news is that we have the ability to build new superhighways in our brain, no matter what age we are. Overcoming the deeply grooved “mindways” of thinking and acting means consciously laying down new tracks. And peeling off those sticky labels.

Shifting your experience and your response starts by changing the lens you use to view the circumstances. As you find yourself in a challenging situation, consider the following approach:

• Pause. Breathe deeply. Slowly exhale.

• Notice the adjectives/descriptors that come to mind about the situation (or the person). Write them down.

• Notice what gets triggered when you look at those words. What thoughts come to mind? What feelings do you experience?

• Now, look at the situation like a drama unfolding on stage that you are watching as an observer. In objective terms, what is happening? what is not?

• How would you describe the role are you playing?

• Instead of making a judgement about the situation, get curious. What is causing that action? What possibilities emerge? What insights present themselves? What options do you see?

Over time, you will find you have the ability to recognize how you are labelling a situation, and be able to“frame shift” in the moment as a situation is unfolding.

Resist the urge to label a situation. Remember, a situation just is. Leave the labels for mailing envelopes and file folders.

What If Every Employee Was Your Most Strategic Employee?

Imagine how your business would benefit. Here are three key employees you’re overlooking and tips for tapping into their strategic potential.

By Karin Stawarky

All organizations have the potential to thrive in our uncertain, complex, dynamic world. However, the resources required to do so often are not recognized and therefore remain untapped. These riches lie in the minds and energy of all your employees.

How do you better tap that potential? Challenge the assumption that strategic contributors sit in the corner office, have lengthy resumes or hold multiple degrees.  Asking the question – what if every employee was your most strategic employee – can surface unique value from unexpected sources.

Three examples of employee clusters often overlooked:

The front line employees

Those on the front line, directly serving your customers, have access to a treasure trove of customer insights. They have the ability to detect changes in preferences, new product opportunities, service enhancements, or new competitors. While sometimes subtle, these “weak indicators,” when aggregated over time, offer valuable intelligence. With insights from emerging data patterns, companies can design low-risk experiments to evolve the product, service offer or customer experience – well ahead of competitors.

Consider how bottled water rocked the soda industry. Coca-Cola and Pepsi had to play catch-up to niche companies who, as first movers, established brands, captured market positions, and built loyalty. Yet, Coke and Pepsi had scouts who could have tipped them off that a change was afoot: employees who drive delivery trucks, visiting bars and restaurants each and every day to restock coolers and shelves.  If those individuals were asked to pay attention to what they saw and heard while in customer establishments, imagine what picture would have been revealed (e.g. observations of more young people carrying around Nalgene bottles of water). What can your customer-facing employees tell you about your customers in real time that no market research will be able to provide?

The youngest or least experienced employees

When young employees join an organization they are often rushed directly into training programs to provide them with tools and knowledge to accelerate their productivity. The flow of knowledge sharing is typically one way, with a view that they are ‘blank slates’ to be developed. But how many times do we ask them to teach us?

Finding ways to harness the Millennials’ technology savviness and energy can catalyze innovation. Milennials think innovation is essential for growth, yet few believe their organization’s leadership encourages idea generation and sharing regardless of seniority. Crowdsourcing innovation can be a powerful “two-fer”: sparking new product/service concepts and business improvements while strengthening engagement. The Millennial Action Project spearheaded Hack4Congress, three hackathons mixing millennial political thinkers with technology experts to address dysfunction in Congress. Issues covered campaign finance reform to facilitating cross-partisan dialogue and modernizing congressional participation; solutions included policy innovations to new digital tools, like Coalition Builder, a free, open source tool for Congressional members to search issues colleagues are championing.  Multi-national companies to non-profits are increasingly adopting this format –hackathons or ‘shark tank’ exercises – to unleash creative thinking and tap the collective passion of this generation.

MasterCard, where Millennials are 38% of the workforce, takes this concept a step further. MasterCard Labs plays host to numerous mini-companies spawned from innovation contests on new product / service concepts within the organization. An example is ShopThis, a 9 person company with a 25 year old at the helm, which lets people buy products directly from pages of digital magazines. The value goes beyond revenue generated from these ventures. Actions like this provide powerful ways to surface entrepreneurial talent existing within the organization – and act as a valuable platform to attract more of that talent. This is particularly critical for a generation where the majority would prefer to work for a start-up than a global behemoth.

The experienced new hires

Most onboarding programs for experienced new hires focus on defining ‘what we do’ (think: products, markets, customers), intended to help them “get up to speed’. But often ‘how we work’ – and the relationships needed to effectively get work done – is not explored. What if these employees could make contributions of value from day one while simultaneously accelerating their learning of the culture? Yes, it’s possible.

Experienced hires offer fresh eyes and no ties to established routines.  Giving them license to ask WHY, long-held assumptions and deeply grooved ways of seeing and doing are tested. They should be tasked to actively observe the organization’s practices: Why do we to do things this way? What problem are we trying to solve? Are there different ways of solving that problem? Or, is it even a real “problem” in the first place, one that is still relevant?

At Organic, a pioneering agency in digital advertising, the CEO frames this as the "CEO Challenge." This positioning underscores his belief that from day one a new hire has a significant opportunity to contribute value. In the Challenge, he deputizes new recruits to observe and tell him what they see the company doing (that should stop), not doing (that should start), and do differently.  The Challenge offers a forcing function to pause and reflect on how work gets done. In some cases, the rationale for why things happen in certain ways is no longer valid … or it didn’t really exist in the first place (e.g. “because Bob did it that way, so we just started doing it that way”).  What if you gave new hires license to observe and challenge the practices of your organization?

The key ingredient is creating a context where the organization actively asks for the contributions of all its employees. And when a contribution is made, it is acknowledged and appreciated. Such a reinforcing loop will encourage employees to continue providing contributions over time. So the next time you walk down the hall and pass by the college intern, or the newest recruit from your competitor, or the individual at the reception desk, ask yourself: what if she is my most strategic employee? What does she know, see, or experience that I could learn something from? I guarantee you’ll be surprised at what lies beneath the surface.