Leadership Jam Session

Do less and think more. Easier said than done, right? All too often we want to solve our team’s problems by doing it for them. After all, as leaders, we have the answers, correct (wink wink)? In this episode, I sit with Tracey DeSilva, a Vice President of a Learning and Development function, in the healthcare industry. We discuss how stepping back and allowing your team to do their job creates more space for us, as leaders, to become better at ours.

• Focus on being a coach versus doing the work for your people
• Carve out time to write down things, whether you call that journaling or note-taking. This allows you to reflect on your thoughts and reactions to things
• Slow down, take a breath, think more, and do less
• When you include people in dialogue and decision making, you end up with a more enduring culture built on trust
• “Perfectionism is the thief of excellence.” In your pursuit of finding the "perfect" outcome, you speed right past the "excellent" outcome, and excellence is a very good outcome to have for an organization
• Embrace the concept that failure today is preparing you for success tomorrow 
• The greatest resource you have as a leader is tapping into the leadership experience of your fellow peers
• Prioritize the things that will imminently impact the people who report to you, followed by things that are related to the business strategy and implementation
• Remember, as a leader, your way is not the only way

• Imagine it Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change, by Beth Comstock

Giving and receiving feedback, as we know, is one of the core tenants of great Leadership, and it’s no different whether you’re a first-line manager or a C-Suite executive. In this episode I sit with Michele Korfin, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Commercial Officer for Gamida Cell Ltd., an advanced cell therapy company committed to finding cures for patients with blood cancers and serious blood diseases. Michele's career spans across 25 years holding leadership positions in sales, marketing, manufacturing, and as a pharmacist by training, other scientific positions. 

Create a safe environment focused on three key areas of feedback:

1. Feedback on strategies, business objectives, and business planning
2. Feedback to others
3. Asking for feedback from your employees (And act on it!)

Best practices for giving feedback

• Take the time to invest in preparing for the discussion
• Start with open-ended questions 
• Conduct a "Dry Run" with a trusted partner to walk through the conversation
• Understand that there is a connection between giving feedback and Situational Leadership, and it applies at all levels of leadership

• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Suzanne Toren, et al.

As managers and leaders of teams, 2020 has done nothing short of throwing everything but the kitchen sink at us all (maybe the sink too!). As leaders, we need to be mindful of how our employees are dealing with these challenges, so that we can understand how best to support them.

Things like team morale, productivity, and enhancing overall employee satisfaction are more critical now than ever before. It’s our responsibility to support our employees, but sometimes that responsibility gets pushed towards issues that managers may not feel equipped to handle.

Let’s view this time as a great opportunity for managers to be able to put their best foot forward so they can have long lasting effects on their teams.

Joining me on this episode is Anushka Arellano, MBA. Anushka has more than 20 years of HR and Marketing experience across the biopharmaceutical and medical device industries. Anushka works with clients to shape the culture, capabilities, operating models and employee experiences as they transition through rapid growth. She serves as a trusted advisor to CEOs and Executives on talent management, workforce development, strategic recruitment, leadership development, and performance management.

Step 1: Empathy

• Show empathy, not from a distance, but up close. This demonstrates you care as a manager and that you're invested
• If you think your employee is struggling, don’t jump to conclusions or make any judgements
• It's ok as a manager to show some vulnerability by sharing some of the challenges you're going through
• Don't pretend to have all the answers. Nobody expects you to have all the answers
• If your employee is struggling to perform, try breaking up their tasks/responsibility into smaller, more manageable pieces

Step 2: Communication 

• In these times, it's better to over-communicate rather than under-communicate
• Try and stay as connected to your team as possible. Rather than asking broad questions such as how are you doing, try to be more specific, i.e., what are one or two things that are working well for you? What are one or two challenges you're facing?

Step 3: Resources

• Understand what resources are available for your employee and also for yourself as a manager
• When in doubt, reach out to your HR business partner to get guidance
• Lean on other managers as they can be your some of your best resources

Step 4: Self-care

• As the manager, what are you doing in order to keep yourself healthy and resilient so that you can show up and be effective in supporting your employees?
• Remember, your employees will mirror your behavior

One of the most important responsibilities that a manager has is onboarding. It's a huge investment for any organization in terms of time and resources, and it’s an even bigger investment by leaders as it is their job to make sure new hires are positioned for the best possible chance to succeed and grow.

In this episode, I talk with James Christie and Ramahn Ritchie, two tenured professionals from different industries, about best practices for onboarding new and/or transferring employees in today’s environment.

• Before you review the onboarding checklist with your new hire, take the time to share your management style, what they can expect from you, and ask what expectations they may have of you 
• Inform internal stakeholders of the onboarding plan and timelines for engaging your new employee
• Sequester your employee for at least the first 30 days. This gives them time to get up to speed before getting involved in their responsibilities
• Make sure they understand how to use technology (virtual platforms, equipment, etc.) 
• Texting has become an effective way of communicating and keeping in touch with new employees
• Onboarding virtually still requires the same basic elements as onboarding in-person:
• Invest the time to map out an onboarding plan
• Set expectations and be very intentional 
• Share the company mission and vision, the org chart, etc. 
• Hold weekly touch points, but make them aware that you are always available to answer questions
• Provide them with peers to reach out to for questions  
• Lastly, remember onboarding is all about helping people become prepared and feeling welcomed

Alain Hunkins helps high achieving people become high achieving leaders. Over his twenty-year career, Alain has worked with over 2,000 groups of leaders in 25 countries. Clients include Wal-Mart, Pfizer, Citigroup, General Electric, State Farm Insurance, IBM, General Motors, and Microsoft. In addition to being a leadership speaker, consultant, trainer, and coach, Alain is the author of Cracking the Leadership Code: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders. (Wiley, March 2020), which was endorsed by leadership luminaries Jim Kouzes, Barry Posner, and Marshall Goldsmith. A faculty member of Duke Corporate Education, Alain’s writing has been featured in Fast Company, Inc., Forbes, Chief Executive, Chief Learning Officer, and Business Insider. 

In this episode, we talk about how leaders work hard to try and be a great leader, but sometimes lack the proper mind-set and tools. Alain provides a road map along with tips and tools to cracking the leadership code through Connection, Communication, and Collaboration.

Connection

• Leadership is a relationship between a person who leads and a person who follows
• Demonstrate empathy; caring for you people is the number one thing that will increase engagement and retention
• Cognitive empathy - knowing how people feel
• Affective empathy - heart-based; you can feel what people are going through

Communication

• We need to have a shared understanding of each other; align on what you mean, what you say, and what you hear
• Give context to why and what you are talking about
• Provide insights and not just information
• “Ask for a receipt”, i.e., go around the table and recap what everyone is doing        

Collaboration

• Design an environment focused on results and value vs. time spent on tasks
• Give ownership to your people. Give them the space and autonomy to work
• Look at your systems and processes to ensure efficiency, especially in a work from home environment, i.e., carve out time for focus to reduce interruptions
• Create workplace rituals to make your engagements memorable. Your employees should feel excited or secure or happy to be there working with you

• Cracking the Leadership Code: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders, by Alain Hunkins
• https://www.alainhunkins.com

Building cohesive teams is not something that happens overnight. There is no magic bullet. It takes time, effort, and the laying of a solid foundation built on trust and many other leadership principles. To discuss this topic, I’ve hand-picked a panel of leaders with a demonstrated track record of building cohesive teams. Joining me from the healthcare industry are leaders Eileen McCay, Jim Lajeunesse, and Matt McDonald.

• Firstly, build mutual respect and trust within the team
• Hire a very diverse team; people who think differently from you and each other
• Be a leader who genuinely cares but also brings tough love when needed
• Demonstrate vulnerability by admitting mistakes. This will foster an environment of trust
• Set clear expectations, at the individual and team level, on how to approach each other as a team
• Set high standards for your team
• Part of the having great team unity involves team members who engage in healthy conflict with each other
• There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes at the individual level that builds to the greater collective
• Identify and leverage your people's strengths
• If there's a problem on the team, there is an expectation that you, as the leader, will fix it. And fix it soon!

• Workshop Resources for your team(s)
• 5 Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Workshop Overview
• The 5 Behaviors of a Cohesive Team, by Pat Lencioni

Jordan Mendoza is the host of the Blaze Your Own Trail Podcast. As a sales and training professional, Jordan helps people discover their Myers-Briggs 4 letter type, taking them from self-awareness to coming up with their personal Leadership philosophy. In this episode, Jordan and I discuss the Myers-Briggs assessment, how it has impacted his leadership style, and how he teaches leadership through the lens of the MBTI assessment.

• Myers-Briggs (MBTI) is one of the most widely used personality assessments in the world
• Firstly, you, we, are all way more than just a type. We are humans first
• MBTI has 4 preference pairs that are opposites of each other:
• Extroversion/Introversion – we get our energy from the world (internally or externally)
• Sensing/Intuition – how we take in information
• Thinking/Feeling – how we decide and come to conclusions
• Judging/Perceiving – opposite ways we approach the world (and not people)
• We may be a version of each of these pairs and their opposites, but we don’t do them with equal ease

• linktr.ee/jordanjmendoza  
• linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza
• anchor.fm/blazeyourowntrail  
• myersbriggs.org

Amy Blaschka has made a career offering “stories as a service.” From her degree in film to her two and a half decades spent branding products, places, and people, to founding her writing practice, Amy has always understood the power of weaving an engaging tale. She helps leaders craft their stories to communicate and connect better through ghostwritten social media posts and articles.

As a longtime leadership contributor for Forbes, Amy covers personal transformation and its impact on career growth. She is a collaborative writer, working with partners to bring to life compelling narratives. The mindfulness book Amy co-authored, I Am: Escape Distractions, Unlock Your Imagination & Unleash Your Potential, helps others understand the power of the stories they tell themselves. And with her latest creative project, she’ll finally share the story brewing in her head and gain a new moniker: novelist. 

• Be intentional as to why you’re on social media
• Bring value to the platform
• You've got a personal brand whether you want to or not, but no one knows who you are until you tell them who you are!
• When writing your profile write in first person and as a narrative
• When engaging on social media stay positive
• Have a clear message and get to the point
• Be consistent and disciplined with publishing content
• For the entrepreneur - “Serve don’t Sell” - talk about who you help, how you help and why, in as few words as possible
• Lastly, just take action and get started!

• www.amyblaschka.com
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyblaschka/
• Co-author: I am: Escape Distractions, Unlock Your Imagination & Unleash Your Potential

With the NHL playoffs set to come back next month, I was fortunate to sit down with a hockey legend. Brian Propp is a former National Hockey League All-Star, legendary Philadelphia Flyer, former sports broadcaster, entrepreneur, business relationship and development guru, and a philanthropist in his community. 

Brian spent 15 years in the NHL, of which he appeared in 13 playoffs, 5 NHL All-Star games, and 5 Stanley Cup Championships (1979-1994).

• The importance of leading by example, both on the ice and off the ice
• The best team plays for each other, not themselves
• The best leaders are the ones that are not selfish
• Great teams are built by recruiting for character 
• Never stop looking for ways to get better

• https://brianpropp.com
• An NHL Legend Gets Back in the Game after Stroke: https://youtu.be/SG7NyOcZ8M4      
• (Chelios Hits Propp): https://youtu.be/zaHQ5mLiL1w 
• Chris Chelios vs Rob Hextall, May 11, 1989: https://youtu.be/2nAVNvoUp2Y  

In this Jam Session, I sit with Bill Kieffer, President and Chief Advisor of Kieffer and Associates, an advisory firm focused on optimizing talent capabilities for individuals and organizations. Prior to opening up his firm, Bill spent 20 years working in a variety of roles associated with human resources, such as organizational development, and global talent management roles.

In 2017, Bill had to the opportunity to speaker at a TEDx conference in Toledo, OH, on the topic of investing in the middle (of organizations); that is helping leaders and organizations strike a balance of being successful while juggling the demands of leading at different levels inside organizations.

• It's important that leaders take action to achieve appropriate levels of balance for the organization and for the people by establishing the following three keys to success:

1. Position - understanding that you do have a position of authority and it's incumbent upon those folks to use that position wisely
2. Priorities - understand how important priorities are, and how making sure that those priorities are clear, consistent, and positively impacts the success of people in the organization
3. Pay Attention - people in positions of authority simply need to pay attention to what's going in the organization, business circumstances and their people

• Talent Management involves Process Transparency: A balance between privacy and transparency
• We need to look at Performance Management, and Talent Management as two different sides of the same coin
• When it comes to Talent Management, the most impactful breakdown is if the senior leader doesn't truly believe this is a priority
• The success or failure of my career as a leader is only a little bit dependent on me
• The A's of Talent Development and Succession Planning:

1. Availability
2. Aspiration
3. Agility
4. Ability

• Investing in the Middle, TEDxToledo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYY79oR85XA