The Career Edge™

About mid-way through next season, which will start next week, we will explore the topic of different work styles. Our listeners will learn how unique approaches to work can be misinterpreted. For example, someone may be highly conflict adverse whose behavior may be interpreted as disinterested or lazy because they seem to be attempting to avoid work. When in reality, they will avoid conflict at all costs. Understanding our colleagues' unique work approaches, characteristics, or traits are key data points that enable us to build strong, trusting working relationships.

But before we get to that episode this week, we are sharing a replay of one of Leslie Ferry's (Brize founder and host of Bright & Wize) work experiences that demonstrate the benefits and importance of investing time to build strong work relationships. 

#teamwork #collaboration #buildworkrelationships

We have some exciting guests planned for season 3, which starts soon. In the meantime, we wanted to share some of our most actionable podcasts from Season 2, where Brize founder Leslie Ferry  explores 3 behaviors a growing number of employees are demonstrating that might be negatively impacting career productivity and growth. Leslie describes each behavior, shares how it is frustrating others, and provides a way to determine if you exhibit these behaviors. And then you'll hear actions you can take to adjust them.  

#careergrowth #selfawareness #intentionalthinking #criticalthinking #intellectualhumility 

We don’t walk around with a mirror at work, where we can watch ourselves to ensure our behaviors, body language, tone of voice, and actions demonstrate ourselves as we intend. Our intentions are misinterpreted by our co-workers more often than we realize.

One of the leading misinterpreted behaviors is how we share our opinions. We have invested time and energy to become subject matter experts. When we share our expert opinions, we express them with great confidence. We can sometimes be so sure in our opinions that we can appear to ignore or dismiss counter facts shared by others.

This extreme confidence can be interpreted as proving our intelligence, arrogance, or a need to be right.

When we subconsciously or consciously need to be right, we do not think objectively and miss important information that impacts our thoughts, ideas, and proposed strategies. This behavior frustrates others because, besides the lack of making others feel valued, we can miss information that might be critical to supporting our opinions and ideas for overcoming a problem and getting closer to the best solution. This need to demonstrate our intellect or to be right stalls progress for all.

In this potentially tricky topic podcast, we share ways to learn if you might be exhibiting this behavior and steps to take to change it.

This is the 2nd in a 3-part series of podcasts dedicated to exploring seemingly innocent behaviors that are frustrating managers and can stall an individual’s growth at work. 

 This week we tackle the topic of the rapid responses approach to work, with a stronger focus on getting something done versus producing high-quality work.

 At its core, this behavior is frustrating others because it stalls progress.

 In this podcast, Leslie revisits her conversation with Dr. Saundra Schrock to link our brain’s activities (default, automatic thinking) and prior experiences that lead us to respond quickly versus intentional, strategic thinking.

 Key topics covered include:

• Few to no answers to questions or problems at work have automatic answers.
• How automatic thinking leads to mistakes, lapses in judgment, & negative results.
• Developing foresight as the antidote to automatic thinking.

 Leslie shares a couple of exercises that help individuals measure their intentional thinking and steps to strengthen it.

 #careersuccess #strategicthinking #intentionalthinking 

This week we explore the frustrations being felt on both sides of the manager / employee work equation.

Employees become frustrated when they feel their manager hasn’t provided clear direction on how to move forward with a project or task.

Managers are increasingly frustrated by the evolution of new employee approaches to work. 

In the first of a 3-part series, we aim to reveal behaviors individuals may be unknowing exhibiting that are frustrating their managers and creating barriers to their career growth and development. For managers, we unearth the sources of these behaviors to help them better guide their team members to achieving their responsibilities and goals. 

In this episode, we explore asking questions, an innocuous, even helpful approach to work that drives some managers crazy.

In this week’s Bright & Wize podcast, Brize’s founder and CEO, Leslie Ferry, shares a personal experience of how strong soft skills led a Marketing Manager to offer Leslie, an Accountant, a position in Marketing. Leslie had not even taken a marketing class as an undergrad. So this was certainly a significant career change she could never have imagined as a 17-year old when she decided her vocation.

This story is about the unsung heroes and power of strategic thinking, collaborative behaviors, and positive mindsets and how they can bring about exciting opportunities and positive unintended consequences at work.

Today’s Bright & Wize guest is Dr. Saundra Schrock. Dr. Schrock brings a unique and far-reaching perspective to the topics of career growth, development, and success. For almost 35-years, Saundra was in the financial services industry, beginning her career as a bank teller and rising through the ranks to her role as Executive Vice President at J.P. Morgan Chase. Saundra shares how it was this last role that led her to develop a deep practice in mindfulness. The life-changing impact of her practice then led to Saundra founding a successful mindfulness development company and completing her Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Our conversation covers topics ranging from:

• The critical skills required in our new world of work, which are Collaboration, Communication, and Creation.
•  How fear of failure is a misguided belief that we can all overcome by quieting our inner critic. And Dr. Schrock shares an excellent exercise to silence that deflating voice.
• To an exercise that aids in graciously accepting feedback, even if unkind, to overcome missteps and grow and develop in our careers.
• How Saundra survived a severe bout of COVID-19, which led her to write a book during the pandemic, Thriving in a Global Pandemic and Beyond: More Than 100 Real-Life Lessons, which you can purchase at: https://store.bookbaby.com/book/Thriving-in-a-Global-Pandemic-and-Beyond

#emotionalintelligence #careersuccess #confidence #feedback

This week's Bright & Wize guest is Latané Conant, the Chief Market Officer of 6sense. During our conversation, Latane shares how developing confidence at a young age has steered her approach to work, how taking initiative and sweating the small stuff is just her MO. And when you listen closely, you'll hear Latane talk about how she now innately goes about problem-solving to remove barriers to her teams', company, and self-success. And that is how she looks at success. She provides what her team needs and then what her company needs. And with that emphasis, she also succeeds, without her success being her primary focus.

Latane also shares how her parents' high expectations were a gift that fuels her ability to push adversity aside and achieve her goals. 

The emotional intelligence work skills we talk about in this episode include:

Empathy
Initiative
Critical thinking
Problem-solving
Confidence

6sense is a California-based SaaS, or software-as-a service company that is leading the RevTech Revolution with their #1 Account Engagement Platform. 6sense leverages artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning to increase the success of a company’s entire revenue generation team, not just those with the word Sales in their title.

In this episode, Leslie Ferry explains how emotional intelligence (EQ) is essential to achieve our career goals. She links EQ and career goals with a specific example: getting a promotion because of a desire for more meaningful responsibilities or contributing to more purposeful projects. Leslie then tells how a particular work experience led to her getting tapped to lead a strategic, customer integration task force, not once but twice, following acquisitions by two of her employers.

The emotional intelligence cognitive skills Leslie highlights in this episode are:

• Active Listening
• Critical Thinking
• Problem-Solving
• Initiative

Brigitte Deel has already developed impressive self-awareness at 24-years of age. Brie attributes the early start of her personal awareness journey to being a student-athlete at Highpoint University.

As she transitioned from academia to the start of her career in 2020, she brought with her excellent time management and prioritization skills. After just 6-months as a Sale Development Representative with Salesforce, she has discovered a need to strengthen her active listening skills further.

Brie and I discuss:
• Managing competing responsibilities
• Delivering on your commitments to others
• The benefits of being coachable and accepting feedback as the gift it is
• The benefits of being open to diverse ideas
• And her discovery of the importance of active listening