Tag Archive for: authenticity

Building a Bucket List Board: Inspire Your Team With What Matters

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One of the most rewarding parts of my business is the quality of the leaders I meet. One of these leaders is Dean Koeller, CEO of Calvert Home Mortgage Investment Corporation. Mentored and encouraged by his father to build an organization that truly cares, it’s inspiring to walk into his workplace. Invigorating and welcoming, you’ll find his team engaged in lively conversations, sharing ideas and laughter. There is a palpable sense of community. This atmosphere not only inspires productivity, it makes employees feel valued and connected to one another, ultimately cultivating a strong sense of belonging within the organization and a commitment to serve their clients and their community in the same way.

When I asked for an example of how he cultivates such an incredible culture, Dean took me into the lunchroom and introduced me to the Calvert Team Bucket List. Every team member is encouraged to post on the board a project they are pursuing – away from work – that matters to them. You see people climbing mountains, preparing for triathlons, traveling to amazing places, going up in balloons, and visiting grandchildren. You learn what challenges people, inspires people, and is important to them. You learn why people come to work. You learn things that many individuals, hidden behind office doors and computer screens, may work together for years and never know.

Three things I learned about leadership from Dean:

  1. Caring is everything. Dean didn’t do this as a “leadership technique.” Everything Dean does comes from his heart. It’s who he is. Caring is at the core of everything in his organization. He genuinely wants to know people better and the bucket list board is a way to learn about them and celebrate who they are.
  2. Recognizing what matters to people matters. Creating a space to acknowledge what’s important to your team in a unique and authentic way connects people and transforms a company into a community. And a community is a safe place for people to be who they are and be inspired to bring the best of who they are to what they do.
  3. What you give will come back to you – multiplied. Whether you’re celebrating what matters or simply taking the time to listen to and value people, your team will give it their all to build a successful organization when they know you’re giving your all to them. Loyalty, trust, and a commitment to service don’t come from expecting. They come from giving.

The Calvert Team Bucket List Board is an example of a unique method for building a caring culture and it goes a long way in creating psychological safety in his organization. Psychological safety is a crucial element for fostering high-performing teams and innovative work environments. People need to feel safe to express their ideas, admit mistakes, and challenge the status quo without fear of negative repercussions. People need to know it’s expected that they will be who they are. Psychological safety abounds in Dean’s organization and his team thrives as a result.

Why don’t people like change?

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How do you get to the root of resistance and help your teams embrace change?

Resistance to change is complex and influenced by many factors such as:

  • Lack of control
  • Fear of the unknown
  • Lack of awareness and communication
  • Attachment to old habits and routine

How to help your team embrace change:

  1. Communicate your why. When initiating change, give people a clear rationale and vision. You may not know how you’re going to get there, but people need to know where you’re going and why you’re asking them for change.
  2. Welcome resistance. Resistance simply means that you are alive. Even insects squirm when you poke them. Listen to the resistance. Resistance is a necessary part of change. Don’t take resistance personally. Welcome it.
  3. Turn resistance into honesty. When people feel safe to be honest, resistance turns into emotions like loss, fear, and uncertainty. People need to grieve before they rebuild. When people genuinely feel supported through resistance, you’ll build community, creativity, and a commitment to embrace new possibilities.

I love Halloween.

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I love going to a party wearing a mask so people don’t know who you are. I would even dress up when I took our daughters trick or treating. It’s a blast being incognito.

However, when we unintentionally wear masks to protect ourselves we present a curated version of ourselves to the world, hiding our true self. We can identify so strongly with the mask – the calm mask, the humor mask, the overachiever mask, the accountable mask, the perfectionistic mask, the people-pleasing mask – that we aren’t even aware we are wearing one or who our real self is any longer.

While they serve important protective functions, prolonged masking can take a toll on our mental health. Suppressing true emotions can lead to anger, rage, depression, and disease in the body. It’s exhausting and isolating.

So have fun wearing masks this Halloween. Just be sure you choose to wear them and know when to take them off and reveal the real you.

What does “good with yourself” look and feel like?

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First, it means having the courage to be open to an awareness of yourself, and how your life impacts those around you. It’s about knowing what drives you and what blocks you while understanding and appreciating your blind spots. It’s about facing the darker sides of your nature, to acknowledge the traumas, inadequacies, self-doubts, insecurities, and fears, and having the willingness to work with and heal these aspects of yourself.

Second, being “good with yourself” means having a degree of self-acceptance. Rather than judging, acceptance means realizing that all behavior stems from positive intent, and healing begins with learning to be friendly with all parts of yourself. It means appreciating that each aspect of yourself can be both a blessing and a potential curse, a strength, and a weakness. Acceptance means finding empathy for others by being gentle with yourself.

Third, being “good with yourself” means taking action, having an orientation toward results. Action means a life-long commitment to continually change, to learn, to grow, to evolve. Growth is a combination of self-awareness and risk-taking. Action means not trying to do everything that everyone expects of you in the way they expect it but to feel comfortable enough with yourself to take the necessary risks that move you out of your comfort zones. You no longer have to create an illusion that you are further along that you are.

Being “good with yourself” means being comfortable enough to be who you are and keep growing. Being “good with yourself” means remembering what enough actually feels like.

 

What’s it like to live authentically?

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What’s it like to live authentically?

When asking people their experience of living authentically and inauthentically, they describe living when not being themselves as “Exhausting,” “Depressing,” “Sad,” “Stressful,” “Lonely,” “Disengaged,” “Empty,” “Lost.”

When asked what it’s like to live accepting of yourself, responses include: “Happy,” “Confident,” “Joyous,” “Free,” “Inspiring,” “Appreciative,” “Alive,” “Fulfilled.”

When we create places that support people to work and live true to themselves, we create work that’s meaningful. They lose all track of time at work and make a massive contribution to the organization.

What are you doing to create authentic workplaces, where people contribute in a way that is aligned with their authentic self – their “sweet spot?”

Attracting and Retaining The Right People

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Attracting and Retaining The Right People

I had an amazing experience during the first of a four-part webinar series on Authentic Leadership with Trucking HR Canada.

The trucking and logistics industry is complex, sophisticated, and built on grass-roots values. Like many industries, leaders are dealing with rising input costs, tight margins, increased pressure on time, and a continual shortage of team members. In the midst of these pressures, one thing leaders have control over is the culture they create.

If you want to attract others, you must be attractive:

1. Commit to leadership. There’s a difference between a boss and a leader. Bosses might get the job done, but leaders create a culture that inspires the right people to sign up and stay.

2. Ensure a healthy Senior Leadership Team. There is a direct relationship between the health of the leadership team and a culture that keeps people.

3. Hire for attitude. You can’t train someone to be nice. Hire good people and train them to execute good processes. In the words of the management guru Peter Drucker, “Hire s-l-o-w-l-y. Fire quickly.”

4. Foster alignment. We have to align people to the organizational values, and even more importantly we need to align the organization to the values of the people who make that organization what it is. Creating a place for people to live their values at work in a way that supports the values of the culture is what builds loyalty, ensures the long-term success of your organization, and creates a place worth working in.