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janhoistad@drjanhoistad.com

Impartial Management: Doing Away with Favorites

DJHP / Leaders Nothing is more disheartening for employees than being on a team where its leader just seems to play favorites — unless, of course, you’re one of the chosen few. You get your pick of projects, find yourself constantly tapped for input, and may even enjoy a little preferential treatment when it comes time for promotions. Even then you might not feel you can trust the spotlight, especially if your leader shows any fickleness. But that’s really a story for another day. The thing about favoritism is that it’s become almost an epidemic. Sounds alarmist, I know. But according to a survey by McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University,92 percent of senior business executives have seen some level of favoritism in the workplace. While this number may appear high, it does stand to reason. If you click, you just click, and this can inadvertently lead to favoritism when you’re in an advisory role. Even something as innocent as a standing lunch date can turn into bias toward subordinates. We’re human, after all, and it’s difficult not to let our emotions hold sway over our decisions. To determine whether or not your attitude and actions are led by favoritism, I recommend taking stock of the following: Feedback. Everyone has his or her own managerial style. There’s nothing wrong with that, and this style inevitably affects how you deliver feedback. But this feedback should always be constructive in nature. It should set consistent expectations for every member of your [...]

5 Cultural Shifts to Improve Business Outcomes

DJHP / Leaders There’s not a business around that doesn’t have a culture. Some companies actively develop their cultures while in the startup phase, whereas others leave culture to chance, never settling on their vision for the company beyond what products or services they intend to sell. If you weren’t an active participant in the cultural development of a company, it may be in need of a cultural shift. And as a leader, here’s what you need to do to make it possible: 1. Commit to the shift. Shifting a company’s culture takes time and patience. Don’t start unless you intend to see it through to fruition. Doing anything otherwise can cost you staff, and those who do stay will likely feel discouraged, which can erode your employee engagement, lower productivity levels, and stifle innovation. Before tackling a cultural shift, evaluate your current company culture with key decision makers in your business. Look at its strengths and weaknesses, as well as your priorities, such as growth or profitability. Then, settle on your vision for an organization that lives its values and gather the resources to make it possible. 2. Embrace new values. Cultural shifts start from the top, so you must start talking the talk and walking the walk if you ever hope to make a positive change in your business. Adopt these new values as your own. It’s an opportunity to not just improve a culture but set the stage for your own professional growth. To help with this [...]

Career Transition as Opportunity

You are reading this article because you have recently or are now experiencing a career transition. So I write this with an assumption, that we all: Want to do good work, and want to be valued for it and supported in achieving our efforts. We have expertise and a desire to serve and in return receive compensation that supports our families and the things we love. The data is iffy on a real ability to have this consistently. Want to be engaged in good, satisfying, hopefully enough long-lasting relationships. Harvard’s 75 year longitudinal study (and many others) indicates that relationships are key to happiness. While we may approach THIS CAREER TRANSITION as an isolated incident, however when we get real about it, life is a constant series of transitions. Especially in this day-and-age when data shows most people will experience a career transition seven times. Young people experience an average of 4 by age 32. Stop to think for a minute… quickly tally the number of career transitions you’ve been through so far: Those you chose? Those imposed? Those created by life circumstances outside your control—e.g. birth, death, illness or other life events– maybe even a spouse's job change Some career transitions we navigate more gracefully than others. For everyone I've encountered in the work world, it's a high desire to feel empowered, confident and take job-seeking, career-development steps that are generated less out of fear or anxiety and more out of purpose and values. Career transitions cause changes that [...]

Grounding Your Career and Business Development Expectations in a New Reality

 DJHP / Leaders / Careers Astronaut Scott Kelly had much training in the art of navigating while being untethered by gravity and is suffering sore muscles now that he's landed. Back here on planet earth the heads of many bright, highly motivates men and women are bumping an unanticipated career ceiling. Up to now they describe a career trajectory that has followed personal growth expectations as well as those projected by the culture. However, instead of the former upward (and sometimes rapid) mobility of their earliest years, they are now praised, asked to be patient—and given an increased workload. Any available opportunities are few and many are lateral moves.  At the same time, there may be no opportunities for advancement or they may see others, less experienced, advancing before them. Having taken on responsibilities and expenses of couple-hood and parenthood with related obligations and activities that allow little personal time, these men and women report feeling trapped and isolated. Frustration accompanies anxiety because they have so much experience, energy and more to give. This desire is typically not tied to a desire for greater income as the top priority. Instead, they desire a challenge and opportunity to feel stimulated, do great work and grow in responsibility and leadership. Turning inward, these feelings impact self-confidence and self-concept. Keeping up appearances at work makes home-life a safe haven. But mates and kids are often sacrificed. The need to project an image of having it all together on the job runs counter to [...]

50 Ways to Create Snippets of “Soul-Time” or me time

Remember when you were young and a bit more carefree? Maybe you had time to just lie in the grass and gaze up at the sky? One of the corporate leaders I coach calls his adult cloud-gazing time “soul-time.” I love that term. Since no one has an abundance of soul-time these days, it’s important to create it in snippets you can savor on a regular basis. It’ll keep you sane, make your brain function better and it contributes to better over-all well-being and physical-mental-emotional-spiritual health. Even snippets can do that…amazing! This week's post, 50  Ways To Create Snippets of Soul-Time For Yourself includes ideas you can incorporate during those times when you don’t have a long stretch of time to take a vacation, go on a retreat, relax, play or go inside.   Karin just told me this morning when I saw her over coffee: “In former summers I would be bored by now and looking for things to keep me and the kids occupied til school started—even when I was working! That’s certainly not true this year! We’re busier than ever and trying hard to fit everything in before the two oldest go back to school. I have no idea how we are staying on top of both our work demands.” Like Karin, most of my clients say: “I have no time to think, to set goals, to look ahead, to dream. All I can do is keep my head down and handle whatever crises or needs are [...]

When Being A Cog-In-the-Wheel Can Be a Good Thing

DJHP / Leaders / Careers Many years ago, as a young professional, part of an expert team, I was called on to give my first important presentation in a difficult negotiation. The sale was tough. The stakes were high. It was for a highly valued client.  We were up against other highly qualified competition and we wanted to win. I prepared my presentation and materials with all the expertise I could muster, integrating feedback from my superiors and team mates. Then I mentally played and replayed the argumentative questioning I suspected I’d face.  I’d have to think on my feet and defend my point of view. Do it fast, be smart, rat-a-tat-tat. It felt exciting. But the responsibility felt s-c-a-r-y! Though knowledgeable about my position, my confidence was peppered with the self-doubts found to be common among women.  I was young and not fully grown into my own sense of presence and roller-coastered through waves of anxiety. Amy Cuddy had not yet appeared on TED with her talk about how you just need to fake it til you become it.  She had yet to demonstrated her“power poses” and research that allays body responses that can hijack the mind, leaving it blank, voice shaky, weak and knees quivering. Nor had she writtenher bookPresence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges in which she states that "Presence is the state of being attuned to and able to  comfortably express true thoughts, feelings values and potential. That's it. It is not a [...]

Emancipating – It’s Never Too Late for Millennials

DJHP /Careers / Generations Becoming a fully independent young adult is challenging for many millennials. Emancipating one's self from the restrictions of living with parents or 5 friends sharing a house requires patience, goal setting and specific action steps to achieve the financial, emotional and physical freedoms that are all aspects of becoming autonomous and creating a life. Here are thoughts from Emily Hinderaker, one millennial on the DJHP Team. In my late twenties, it may come as a surprise to hear that I still live at home. I’m the first to admit this isn’t the best of situations, and I’d much more prefer to emancipate myself. In fact, that’s exactly what I’ve been working on for the past few months. But before I dig into how, I’d like to give my perspective on the situation and let you in on what goes on in my mind as I move toward creating the independence I want. Saving Money Comes at a Cost Yes, it’s true, I do not pay rent, but I pay in privacy and adulthood. There is a fine line between the parent/child roles and the roommate living situation. Although I am very thankful, I am also very afraid because I have never truly lived on my own, I constantly ask myself, “Can I even do it?” Dating is Right Out the Window I’m single. I have been single for a very long time. I feel that I am not in a position to date, mainly due to [...]

3 Time Factors for Success In Any Career Transition, Relocation, Lay-Off, Exit or Succession Plan

You schedule everything in your work time. Yet when things are unsettled at work, your personal life can provide much needed stability. This article contains tips that will help you integrate your home life during times of professional change, be it job change, relocation, lay-off or exit plan.  It will make your career and transitions go better for you—and everyone in your life. Everyone thriving is the end-result. Time Factors in a Transition-Time In an ideal world, the outcome of any career transition would be focused on everyone thriving. That includes not only the company achieving stated results, but you—and your family—having positive experience and outcomes as well. Companies with well-developed systems for carefully growing human capital anticipate and strategize change. Over time they have conversations to ensure a match of values, expectations and life-style changes that leaders face as they grow in their career while also growing a family and rich personal life. Coaching is provided in corporations with well-established growth trajectory and budgets to match that growth. This is not always true however, in a rapidly changing world of economic competition, mergers and acquisitions, massive company lay-offs, and huge generations of boomers anticipated to exit while similar numbers of younger generations need to become educated as they assume powerful positions. Circumstances do not always allow the time, nor provide the opportunity, to assess the wide-ranging ramifications such demands make on employees at all levels and their families. While many couples succeed, at worst, we all know stories of professionals [...]

4 Secrets to Successful Work-Life Change

DJHP / Careers The direction and force of nature is continuous growth. So change is a natural part of life to be embraced. Otherwise, it's like living life with your head in the sand. Whenever a change is desired–in work or life–shifts in attitude and behavior are demanded of you to grow. Choosing to rise to the occasion, to learn from your experiences develops inner strength, character and greater capacity for what life brings. These are qualities of leaders in work and life. Facing Change People seldom seek change when things are going well. Seeking to grow during these times is then a choice versus a push. Because the force of nature is all about growth, if we are not doing so, circumstances will arise to create discontent or circumstances leading to eventual change–desired, planned for or not. So the internal or external circumstances leading to the desire for work-life change are less important than how you approach it. You might as well embrace it. Listening to the Discontent Instead of exiting a job dramatically with a bang, seeking a promotion with lots of over-zealous activity, or starting a new venture flailing about trying everything that the media says you should do, I’m advising what I call ”standing still.” Standing Still is taking a breath, taking the discontent as opportunity. It's an opportunity to become more self-aware so you assess fully, listen to what the discontent is telling you and then, from that centered place opening to new possibilities that [...]

Stacking the Deck for Success: How Business Can Learn from the Medical Residency Training Model

DJHP /Leaders As roughly one-third of Boomers prepare to exit the workforce, companies are fast becoming aware of need for next generation of workers: Millennials. In fact, an estimated 86 million of them will be part of the workforce by 2020. That’s 40 percent of the total working population. This impacts both business and education alike. We’re working harder and faster than ever to figure out effective ways to educate and train this new batch of workers in the skills necessary for tomorrow’s workforce. Working closely with educational systems is important to develop long-term strategies, but what do we do in the interim? How do we ensure that we’re meeting the demands placed on businesses by the ever-changing marketplace. For the near future, what you can do is develop one strong solid part of your strategy to create a learning environment and consider the medical school residency model — which is education by apprenticeship — as an approach. Core Characteristics of the Apprenticeship Model TV shows like Code Black or the early days of Grey’s Anatomy capture some of this model. In the “emergency room setting,” they role-play a culture in which medical residents and doctors are all working from the same values and intent toward the same outcome. They’re individually and collectively: Hell-bent on learning, intense growth, and teamwork.Continuously reminded — implicitly and explicitly — of their higher purpose. They know their work matters.Given the tools, structure, and support around each task.Know that wisdom and experience is responsible for [...]

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