Partnerships And Possibilities Podcast

“You cannot be a good contributor if you never look away.” Have you read any of the recent articles published in the September 2013 issue of the Harvard Business Review? Where do you agree and where do you take issue?

“There’s a lot in the zeitgeist right now that’s looking at the differences between how men and women lead, how those differences in leadership style, whether done by a man or a woman, impact people’s ability to get things done in the workplaces and move around in their organizations.” What type of culture does your organization promote? Does it encourage collaboration? Conflict avoidance? Constructive confrontation?

I think that we have a culture, right now, a business culture, a larger social culture that has so much rigidity around scarcity and fearfulness and a lot of the negative parts of being human and we’re not very much focusing on the positive parts of being human … All of us, men, women, everybody can get better at how we interact with each other at work that opens up possibilities and potential for everyone. If you have read Lean In, what did you think about it? Did it resonate with you? We look forward to continuing this conversation.

HR typically has been set up in the past and has been staffed by people who saw it as their role to protect the organization… but there is another whole set of function that support the strategic role of HR… That’s where organizational development work comes in, that’s where leadership development comes in. Those are the kinds of things that need to support the business unit of an organization to do what the business units need to get done. Do you have stories about corporate structures and functions working well together?

“It’s how we respond to the changes, it’s how we think about them, it’s how we interact, how we deal, how we cope, how we make meaning of the change that makes the difference.” What are you doing to influence change and recognize patterns in your organization?

“It’s really about stepping into your power, and believing that you have more power than many women typically do.” Have you read Lean In? Or have you experienced some of the issues discussed in today’s podcast? Maybe someone you know, a mother, sister, friend, wife, grandmother? How have you or they worked through some of these challenges?

“The meetings you do have you want them to be a good use of everybody’s time but there is also ‘do we really need to have a meeting every single time?’” If you have other techniques in helping meetings really work where you work, or things that have worked for you in the past, share your clues, hints, stories, and anecdotes.

“ More often the same person who is convening the meeting is expected to lead and facilitate it. Leading it is making sure the right content is being covered, and introducing the content, facilitating it is making sure the discussions go well, that there is a process in a group that gets you those outcomes that you are looking for, and those are really two separate jobs.” Have you led a meeting where you were both the leader and the facilitator? Or attended a meeting where the leader and the facilitator were the same person? What was your experience?

“It is not only new information coming in all the time that needs to be learned. But old assumptions are being challenged, so everything we thought we knew and could be put on the shelf and rely on, those are coming up for grabs too.” Have you come up with other ideas and application for some of the core principles of lean and notions of agility and complexity?

“Lean is about being accessible to and more influenced by the voice of the customer and having the flexibility to adapt and adjust as you move along.” Have you participated in a lean start-up process? What was your experience?

“In a team situation, having a star performer becomes a threat and an opportunity. If a person is a star performer, their job is to spread their skills around to other members, to mentor and pair with people so other people’s skills are lifted up to where theirs are.” Have you encountered a star performer in your organization? Was it a positive experience? How did your organization respond to the star performer?

“Using self-awareness and self-knowledge for self-management seems to be key in becoming an effective leader.” What instruments have you experienced that have been helpful to you? When has really good self-awareness and self-knowledge helped you self-manage as a leader? If you’ve experienced the Hogan, tell us about it. We’d love to hear your stories.

“Membership in the secret club carries with it the need to behave in certain ways that may not be your personal inclination. My advice would be to get some experience to get a clear-eyed understanding of what it looks like because it’s not a one size fits all.” Have you made it in the secret club? What has your experience been like? If you opted out of the secret club, what prompted you to turn away and go in a different direction?

“Leadership really comes from the nature of the questions you ask rather than the statements that you make.” What questions have been particularly powerful for you? What questions have you asked or have been asked that have made a difference in your life or which have stimulated learning in others (and in yourself)?

“One of the guiding thoughts about simple rules is that not only are they pretty short and action oriented by starting with a verb, but they are also generalizable and scalable so that they can help you in many different kinds of context in any situation, whether it’s a big or small decision to be made.” Are you using simple rules in your work? Have you found ones that work particularly well for you and your team? Do you have questions about how simple rules can be applied in your organization?

“How can a leader be an innovator or expect innovation in their own organization if they’re not willing to experiment with the idea of innovation about what leadership is and how you do it?” How is leadership defined in your organization? Does it stay confined at the top or is it a shared function throughout the organization?

“To really accept that the world and change are emergent is to accept a kind of stance that says ‘I really can’t know the future and I really can’t do a whole lot to prepare for it’ and that makes people, including me, sometimes uncomfortable.” What kind of changes are you encountering in your organization? How is your view of change changing and what are you learning from that?

“You can’t really be a good negotiator if you can’t hold boundaries …And to hold the boundary you have to be able to see it, you have to be able to perceive where the boundary lies.” What kind of negotiations are you involved with every day? Have they been successful or unsuccessful? Where are you using power and love? If you’re a woman, what strengths are you using in negotiations and where are your boundaries?

“We become somehow acculturated to making do with what we’re given rather than asking for what would make things better.” What are some of your negotiation experiences? What tips did you garner from those interactions? What has helped you or hindered you in the midst of a negotiation? Share your stories with us and help us learn from you.

“If we admit that we can continually improve, we somehow think we’re admitting we’re not enough right now. And I don’t think of it that way, I think we are doing the best we can right now, and we can identify a new level of best and strive for that.” What are you seeing in your organization? Where are your disappointments and what progress is being made? Where you are seeing real progress being made, how it is made and how is it sustained?