Great Listening Is Still A Two-Way Conversation

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With more of our interactions than ever happening in a virtual meeting room, are you truly listening? And if you are, at what level are you listening, as a leader?

Empathetic listening is an essential component of influential leadership—it fosters better connections, supportive relationships and increased commitment.

Not only does listening require a willingness to listen, but also understanding of both the spoken and unspoken messages, as well as active engagement with the speaker’s opinions and ideas.

If you’ve made a practice of simply not speaking while listening, or parroting back the speaker’s points, it’s time to redefine what good listening looks like.

Listening in a Zoom Office World

Previously, our multi-tasking technology was one of the distractions that made listening more difficult in the workplace. Now, technology has become the workplace itself.

As we conduct most of our group conversations online, we are more inclined than ever to zone out, whilst active listening is even more important to meeting cohesion.

According to Sarah Gershman in Harvard Business Review, President of Green Room Speakers, within a virtual meeting, we are especially subject to the “Ringelmann effect” – the bigger the group for a task, the less responsibility each person feels in making the effort a success and the less personal effort each exerts.

While this effect occurs in an in-person meeting too, the online office amplifies the tendencies to tune out and talk over each other. Whether leading the meeting, one of many participants or engaged in a one-on-one, your quality of listening still matters.

Strategies for doing your part in creating meeting cohesion include:

  • Before signing in, consider what value your participation holds for you and the group.
  • Reiterate previous points before introducing a new topic so others know they were heard.
  • Listen for and see themes raised by multiple speakers, asking reflective questions.
  • Note down peripheral thoughts that pop into your head, bring your attention back.
  • If you get distracted, acknowledge you lost the thread with a clarifying question.
Good Listening = A Conversation That Elevates

In Harvard Business Review, co-researchers Jack Zenger (CEO) and Joseph Folkman (President) of Zenger/Folkman, assert that good listening is not what most people think: simply not talking over others, making affirming facial expressions and sounds, and repeating back what was heard.

While it’s also not a ping-pong of contrasting viewpoints or oneupmanship stories, zipping your lips is not the golden standard of listening.

Rather, the researchers found that great listening experiences feel like an elevating conversation. The best listeners are more like “trampolines” than “sponges.”

“They are someone you can bounce ideas off of — and rather than absorbing your ideas and energy, they amplify, energize, and clarify your thinking,” writes Zenger and Folkman. “They make you feel better not merely passively absorbing, but by actively supporting. This lets you gain energy and height, just like someone jumping on a trampoline.”

Qualities of a Good Listening Experience

The researchers found these core components of good listening experiences.

Good Listening:

  • Becomes a dialogue: Exceptional listeners comprehend the speaker so well they can ask occasional constructive questions that carefully challenge assumptions that expand the conversation. So rather than being a one-way interaction, the listener enables the speaker to explore and share more.
  • Is supportive, permissive and builds self-esteem: Neither passive nor critical listening is enough. When a listener creates an environment that is safe for open discussion, regardless of the issue or differences, the speaker gains confidence and feels supported and positive about the experience of being heard.
  • Is cooperative, not competitive: In the best conversations, neither speaker nor listener becomes defensive as the conversation flows, even when assumptions are challenged. But if the listener highjacks the conversation to focus on making their own points or winning an argument rather than supporting exploration of the speaker’s viewpoints, the connection unravels.
  • Opens up the conversation with suggestions: While people often feel they aren’t listened to when the listener jumps to fix their problem through suggestions, the researchers also found that exceptional listeners do make suggestions—skillfully—- that “opened up alternative paths to consider.”
Leveling Up as a Listener

A good listener doesn’t have an agenda—instead, park your own needs, wants and self-concept. Mistake one can be to self-identify as a good listener. Instead, take ‘yourself’ out of the way.

You can skill up by asking yourself these questions, related to levels of listening, which may also lay the trust foundation for making suggestions:

  • Are you creating a safe environment to bring up complex and emotional discussions?
  • Are you clearing away distractions to help bring your focused attention to the conversation?
  • Are you seeking to understand the substance of what is shared, and clarifying with the speaker to confirm that you do?
  • Are you listening to the 80% of communication that comes from nonverbal cues such as posture, facial expressions, eyes, gestures, breathing, energy, tone? (even more challenging over a screen)
  • Are you grasping the emotions and feelings at play from the speaker’s perspective, and are you acknowledging without judging and validating them with empathy?
  • If doing all of the above, are you able to ask the questions that clarify assumptions and help the speaker to consider the topic in a way that is expansive?
Extra Tips From Listening Leaders

According to Enterprisers Project on being a better listener, CEO Chris Kachris of InAccel suggests to take a page from reflective parenting: “Don’t try to reject or beautify their concerns, their stress, and their worries. Don’t try to convince about your opinion without first understanding their worries.”

Dr. Bahiyyah Moon, president and chief data officer of Polis Institute, advises, “The most important rule of listening is the 3-1 ratio. Listen three times longer than you talk. The next rule is to ask more than you respond. Typically people have a comment after another person speaks. Great leaders follow up with questions.”

Ed Jaffe, founder of Demo Solutions, shares, “It is not just listening, it is trying to see the problem from the side of someone else, and understand why they are saying it. You do not have to validate the idea, but you must validate the person.”

“Listening is the key to asking the right questions” says Nicki Gilmour, the head coach of Evolved People Coaching and Founder of theglasshammer.com. “Tuning in to people requires hearing not just the content of what they are saying, but listening for the meta messages of what is really going on to help people identify what really matters.”

Ultimately, leveling up your listening can only create better connections, and enable you to become a more empathetic and expansive leader.

By Aimee Hansen 

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How to Achieve What You Want Professionally in 2021

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Nicki GilmourIt is the time of year when professional women (and men) try to finish out the year at work. Reflecting upon and making meaning of an extraordinary year is no easy task as we look back at 2020. An executive coach can help you figure out what matters to you as we enter 2021. Flash forward a year from now, what story do you want to be telling about how your 2021 went? Achieve what you want professionally next year!

Working with a coach is a great way to accurately goal set and get clarity and not just rely on hope as a strategy. Executive coaching helps you behaviorally align to  achieve what you want, no matter what 2021 throws our way. Self- efficacy is a pretty interesting topic at a time when productivity hacks are definitely top of mind.

Promotion or Just a Better Version of Yourself?

Whether it is promotion, advancement, enjoyment, renewal, growth or balance and boundaries at work, most people have some thoughts about how they want 2021 to play out.  Coaching is a process but it is also very much a relationship between coach and ‘coachee’. It can be very intimate in the sense that both the coach and the client has to show up with honesty and vulnerability. Curiosity is important , but not for curiosity’s sake but rather to truly evoke true insights that the client can experience to help them further their leadership or career journey. Sometimes people know the questions and answers consciously and just need help with options. Sometimes people may not know the questions or answers that they need to solve for their challenges or mindset.

The What, The Why, The How and The When

Everyone who comes to coaching knows they want to change something. Or at the very least, the know they want to be a better version of their current selves at work, as a leader or an aspiring leader. Figuring out what you want to achieve, defining it and making sure it is really want you want is cemented by checking in on the ‘why’ you want it. This way we tap into understanding your motivation so we can leverage that to make it actually happen. Are you committed? If not, let’s find out why! And, find out what you really want.

The best way to succeed in 2021 is to clear the life long mental debris, and surface any lingering competing agendas that hunker down in your subconscious and tell you things like you don’t have time or you aren’t good enough which stops you from going after your goals.

More often than not, the subconscious sometimes heard in self-talk, drives the bus, so goal setting is futile if behaviors are not aligning with achieving those goals and your brain tricks you into rationalizing it all that everything is as it should be. Literally, coaching work we do here at theglasshammer is based on a methodology developed at Columbia university and further developed by our head coach. It encompasses adult learning theory, developmental psychology and our immunity to change, neuroscience, behavioral science, social or individual/organizational psychology known as I/O psychology and psycho-dynamic theory around groups and how they operate. In plain english? It boils down to two things:

  • Fear, shame or esteem issues might be sitting hidden in your subconscious paralyzing you from being your greatest version of your professional self.
  • Sometimes it is not about, the systems and dynamics are dysfunctional and you are bearing the brunt of it in your role mostly.  Also sometimes also there are traits in your identity or personality that accentuate issues or make you take up a role like the person who calls it for example.

In coaching, the co-creation of the “how to” begins with a serious look at context, where do you work and what are the organizational norms as these do vary depending on the team and workplace. How does work get done? What is rewarded and what gets tolerated that should be?

Coaching Leaders in Real Life

If you are a leader who struggles with followership after a very successful career built on getting things done, then it is a matter of looking at how work gets done around you.

EQ is about adapting. So, if despite your technical competence and generally mastery of skills, you just cannot get people onboard with the plan the way you want to see it executed, you may be left scratching your head.

Chances are you are not hearing people around you when they explicitly or infer things to you about the project and how they see their role in it. Not listening to feedback, everyday conversations, observations on how people act and react is probably part of what is going on there.

When talking about feedback, I am not referring to the once per year performance formal feedback review. The answers are always in front of you, even in passive aggressive “covert process” type teams and organizations where people seem to say yes but do what they want anyway.

Maybe, you are a manager whose peers and managers do not think you are ready for the next step. Again, what are you missing here? Is it a behavior of yours? Is it something you are or are not doing? What should you do more of, less of and maybe stop or start doing?

If you are a leader who needs to internalize that leadership identity, chances are you have “imposter syndrome” and you might be working very hard in the same way as you always have. Often people who have these tendencies of being “insecure overachievers” do not realize that the behaviors of large amounts of quality work output that got them so far, is not what is going to take them to the higher echelons of company management. Authenticity comes into play here as they struggle to shift identities as fear dictates so much around losing the identity of being the expert.

Cognitive understanding of what you need to do is one thing, behavioral change is another and it is very hard to do.  That is where a good coach  can come in to help you look at your options. Caveat emptor, buyer beware, there are millions of coaches out there as the industry is under-regulated, feel out the fit with a chemistry meet and ask for their methods and see if they are certified by the ICF at PCC level.

What should you expect? After a time, some people can start to reflect not just on action but in action and make behavioral choices in the meeting live time no longer beholden to the old ways that were not longer working for them. Real strategic insights and executive muscle can be built.

You get to be in the movie and watch the movie at the same time. Who wouldn’t want that?

To book an exploratory call with Nicki our founder and Head Coach select a time below

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We Are Reworking Our Site This Week

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Dear Readers,

We are reworking and updating our site this week so please have patience while we troubleshoot to bring back our leading career advice and news by next week at the latest.

Thanks in advance,

Nicki Gilmour

CEO and Founder

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5 Tips to Manage your Productivity, Sanity and Career during the Coronavirus

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Nicki GilmourProductivity is state of mind.

Aided by peace of mind which none of us have right now in the midst of a pandemic.

As someone who invented and launched theglasshammer from my living room in Brooklyn, I can testify to needing utmost grit, tenacity, determination and focus to produce a large volume of work on a daily basis for thirteen years through good and bad times looking at a wall or a screen. In fact, the irony is, social distancing feels rather similar to my everyday professional life of walk the dog, write editorial, do coaching on zoom/facetime, cook lunch, walk the dog, write, coach, cook, childcare on repeat. I even lived in the woods for two years so social isolation is clearly what I have been training for, dear readers.

Here are my top 5 tips for keeping it all going during this time:

1. Set Boundaries- physical, mental and emotion for yourself

Physical boundaries are the easiest. Delineate areas in your house, even a corner of your apartment to work from. Do what you need to do to make it “nice” for you. Pictures, or a bare desk, you know who you are. Keep it clean by clorox wiping the bottom of your laptop and keys and screen once a day. Ditto phone.

Mental and emotional boundaries are harder. Confine work to work and don’t check email on the couch on your phone for example. Also, to emotionally protect yourself during work do not read news, instead listen to soothing classical music, jazz, a radio station that you like ( for me BBC Radio 2 cannot be beaten)  or an old “album” that brings you back to a good time. Create nostalgia if you need that on dark quarantine days as this is going to last for a while so stamina and strategy are crucial elements to keeping sane and therefore productive.

2. Get Exercise

Get up and walk outside (while keeping a distance of course) or peleton or bike yourself skinny. Whatever your jam is, and is still ok to do, do it. You can sit on an exercise ball and have a stand up adjustable desk, there are ways to create variety. Get your trainer to work with you virtually. You don’t have to go as far as Sarah Conner in Terminator 2 doing chin ups on the metal bed frame ( humor will get us though this).

3. Get hobbies.

Ever wanted to speak a language? I learned to cook when i lived in the woods, cook like Julia Child with WW2 dried goods. Challenge yourself to be resourceful. Grow veggies, knit, read books about foraging mushrooms even if you never do it.  It is amazing what you learn skill wise and more importantly what you learn about yourself.

Have kids? Explore new stuff with them in the down time. Coloring is extremely soothing and Frozen 2 will provide you with plenty to do there including googling “let it go” in many languages and belting it out “Libre Soy”.

If you are a busy person, chances are there are several TV shows you have wanted to catch up on. I just started Outlander, a celtic time traveling tale that lasts for 6 or 7 seasons, that will be a great mental distraction to invest in (also life in 1743 makes our current reality as dire as it is, still better). And novels, remember them? Have virtual book clubs with your friends. Virtual wine and cheese ( i have been invited to one already). Business books and professional development books are also good and here are my recommendations for the next few weeks:

Authentic Gravitas

Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader

Everyday Negotiations

You are a Badass

Immunity to Change

Buy extra coffee, tea, candy, chocolate, vodka, wine or whatever you need for the days that you need a cheap thrill.

4. Get reflective time

See this as opportunity to look inwards and reflect what is meaningful to you. Take a list of “should do’s” and figure out what is real and what is not. What is working for you? What is not? What do you want to do differently when we emerge from this? What has been the best of 2020 so far that you can expand on at work? Meditate – however and whatever method works and watch how you can regain the power of your mind.

5. Use technology to get the job done

There is actually a lot to be said for saving time not commuting. You might find you do more old fashioned calling and videoconferencing with someone because you do lack the human contact factor. Email is still email. It is by getting sucked into facebook and other productivity sucks like cat videos that you will wonder why the “to-do” list is still there.

Video call your friends near and far, call your parents and older friends as they have to stay in the most.

Good luck and if you need executive and frankly, life coaching on how to thrive professionally and personally during this unusual time, book in with me at nicki@theglasshammer.com – 3 video sessions x 90 mins long that you can use all year long for $899 or book a 15 mins chat to see if it for you here

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I am a professionally certified coach (PCC) with a masters in Social (I/O) Psychology, i am your person on this one.

Write “coach me” in the email headline and we can set up a time or book now if you are ready for a full session here.

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You will get through this! STAY SAFE.

 

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Women, Get Promoted in 2020

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Get PromotedIf your goal is to get promoted in 2020, then you might consider doing an inventory of your relationships. Figuring out who your advocates or sponsors are is a good start. Then think about how you deploy them as true sponsors, so that you can secure and be rewarded for some high profile assignments. This, if you can get a great sponsor and are willing to make them look good is still a very effective career strategy.

My favorite academic Hermina Ibarra discusses the spectrum of mentor to sponsor or advocate in HBR in a way that really demonstrates that it is ok to have a mentor but to not be surprised when they are just an advice giver as opposed to an opportunity giver or “cash their chips on your behalf” person for you.

Sponsorship, almost ten years old as a named concept

We first started writing about sponsorship when the term was coined by Sylvia Ann Hewlett in 2011 when she wrote with Amex about the benefits of the relationship for female executives looking to succeed at work. We continued to write about through the early teens of this past decade as people struggled with the differentiation of mentors versus sponsors. The conclusion that Ibarra makes and I agree with as an organizational coach, is that most formal sponsorship programs haven’t delivered and in some cases have been scrapped altogether. As she states in her article,

“Typically, they abandon sponsorship because experience has shown them that while you can ask senior executives to provide advice and support to high-potential women, you cannot mandate that they spend their personal capital advocating for people they don’t know well or may not be bullish about.”

So, what can you do? Figure out who is who in your network using Ibarra’s sliding scale of mentor, strategizer, connector, opportunity giver and advocate. Once you know where you stand, you can start to know what your ask is!

Know the talent processes

Secondly, I am often surprised when as a coach, someone tells me they want to be promoted but yet have not investigated the formal talent processes at their firm. It is important to know what you have to do to be in the running as sometimes there is formal nomination and that can form the very basis for the plan that will take you to the next level. You can tell HR or your boss that you are interested in a long-term future there at your firm and therefore would like to know what you need to do to be considered for promotion. You can even request a specific timeline as the worst that can happen is that you tell you nothing, which is information in itself. Observe what behaviors and who gets rewarded at work as these are cultural norms that play a part in subjective talent processes in firms that are looser on their formal processes.

You can then focus your networking, and your work projects. When you are doing stretch assignments that matter, find ways to make sure others know as that is better than working yourself to the bone and expecting the reward on sheer volume of work alone.  Start having the right conversations with the right people, and if this sounds political then know that is how life implicitly works as men have meetings outside meetings all the time in the bathroom, bar, ballgame and the hallway. I sit in cafes a lot with my laptop and I hear men gossip about work even more than women do and they never say that other men are not competent, yet I hear women colleagues being undermined over coffee by women and men, sadly most days. The double bind of how you are darned if you do and darned if you don’t!

Other things to do in 2020 to get promoted

Thirdly in 2020, read the book by long-time collaborator and friend of theglasshammer Sara Canaday called “You, according to Them” that will help you understand that how you are perceived is just as important as who you actually are.

Lastly, to get promoted one of the best strategies is to get a coach. The FT just reported it’s the biggest thing so far in 2020 for career success and empirical evidence suggests randomized control tests showed that 85 per cent of coachees were better off than those in the control group,  not just in their own view, but also in the opinion of their line managers.

Hermina Ibarra’s latest work espouses coaching style for managers as the future. I believe her.

We walk the talk so call us for a complimentary chat about whether a coach can help you get what you want in 2020. Email nicki@theglasshammer.com as we have real life success stories for the past seven years of coaching VP, SVP, Managing Director and C-level women in the financial, professional and technology industries. Put coaching in the email subject line.

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Imposter Syndrome? Stop Being an Insecure Overachiever

 

imposter syndrome insecure overachieverMy bet is that if you are reading this column you have either googled the words “imposter syndrome” or “insecure overachiever” at least once.

Maybe more than 50% of readers today might identify with all or some of the traits and behaviors that apply to insecure overachievers since people who read theglasshammer are seeking career advice, information or inspiration of some kind.

I can tell you that most of us are driven by something.

Fear of failure comes up a lot amongst highly successful executives and how could it not? The stakes are high and what got you to where you are is an individual mix of skills and behaviors purely contextual to your lived experiences in your organization. The culture that each firm and team embodies varies and evolves moment to moment and person to person but is very relevant to norming overwork as a good thing. But imagine what your life would be like if failure large or small was seen as a learning experience and not a devastating event?

Driven people are driven by something and it is not usually ambition for ambition’s sake, if you think for a second about that. Motivations behind all behaviors can be somewhat simplified by categorizing them into three summarized buckets that Socrates and then Plato spoke of much less concisely in The Republic:

1) Gain, or what’s in it for me?

2) Honor, such as high altruism traits or desire to leave a legacy work

3) Fear, or what will happen if I fail or do not do this

Many successful people in the world are insecure overachievers because always wanting better has given us great products and services and achievements as humans. No matter how you cut it, subjective judgment, and in this case your subjective judgment against yourself to believe there is a better product or version that you can produce next time, fuels innovation.

However, where hardworking, smart people fall under the insecure overachiever definition is when fear is extreme, almost all-consuming, and underlined by a feeling of permanent inadequacy despite having a range of actual significant achievements. “Work harder” is what people who suffer from this implicitly tell themselves. And in a world of more is more for work in many industries the norm is to put in long hours and show commitment, so discovering this issue may be harder than for people who work in very balanced, life- and family-centric societies.

Imposter syndrome fits here too when fear includes a feeling of secret shame of not being good enough and shows up as fear of being found out as a fraud. Usually, this comes with a feeling of needed external validation as the person cannot validate themselves. The person can feel anxious and unhappy no matter how many advanced degrees completed with honors and jobs they have excelled at. No matter how much money they earn or amazing projects they have completed, they can only see the future challenge in future time and cannot enjoy their past achievements or present successes.

If any of this sounds familiar, it is entirely important to get to the root cause of why you feel how you feel. It is usually sitting in your subconscious as a construct or several constructs that have formed into a belief.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Decide if you want to change from a stressed-out, unhappy ?insecure overachiever? or someone who doesn?t belong or deserve their success.

2) Get a goal, such as ?be more content with my work achievements? or ?look at balance of my entire life, not just work? or ?get healthy mentally and physically in 2020.?

3) Work on awareness and making explicit to yourself what you tell yourself when you indulge in some self-deprecation (and not the modest, historically British kind).

4) Read ?Immunity to Change? which provides a great model for practical use around seeing what hidden competing agendas you might be carrying around that are thwarting your goal of being more sustainable and satisfied.

5) Call me and sign up for a coaching pack of 5 sessions to support and facilitate this work. As a coach who has written a paper at Columbia University on how goal setting is derailed by the subconscious, I can help you.

Ready to start? Book your first coaching session here for 90 minutes (pay online) and get started on the mental debris so that you enter 2020 in a new mindset with a real plan.

Or book a free 15-minute exploratory call here to see if this is for you.

 

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Review Last Year’s New Year’s Resolutions Now!

Nicki GilmourIt may sound crazy and slightly anxiety-inducing at a time when you have enough to fit in to your busy life, but it might just serve you well to review last year’s goals now.

Why? Firstly, you can review how you did against those espoused goals. If the answer to that is “not great” then you have a massive opportunity to ask yourself “What matters now?”

You can start to work towards a 30-day plan to really address whatever you still care about.

Secondly, before entering the season where you can feel as tired and pushed and possibly partied out as any other time in the year (referring to entertaining family more than swinging from the chandeliers), give yourself mental room to think. Even if that only means that it gives you a head start on thinking what will make it into 2020’s goals. A plan for the plan if you will. Reflecting before formulating those January 1st ideas might give you the mindfulness you need to get what you really want.

Think holistically, what do you need for every area of your life to feel good in 2020? So many of us reading this site (and writing it) are hard-charging overachievers. Work and career is front and center. Take a moment to think about how you would like your life to look a year from now. How will you have spent your time? What will have changed? What will you have done more of? And less of?

What worked this year and what have you simply outgrown? What will it take to let go of that habit that isn’t serving you? Ask yourself: what do you have to gain by spending your time/energy/sanity/money elsewhere?

If you would like to go into 2020 with a coach on your side, we are offering a coaching deal of five (60 mins) sessions for the price of four (phone/video), if you sign up between now and thanksgiving to start in January. Book with Nicki Gilmour and start making your 2020 a year that changes everything.

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6 Tips to Understanding the Company Culture Before You Take the Job

Nicki GilmourIt’s not you, it’s them. Finding the right cultural fit at work is key.

How many times have you seen a high performer move firms and just not do so well? That person has not lost their talent or work ethic, nor has their personality changed. The environment or ecosystem in which they are operating has changed and it is organizational culture (or team culture for that matter) which makes or breaks successful female and male executives at work.

Organizational culture is quite simply about “how do we do things around here? How does work get done?” and spotting it can be easier said than done. Having recently read a couple of pieces on how you know when you have taken the wrong job, including a humorous one by Liz Ryan, I wanted to supply you with six tips to help you understand how work gets done before you say yes to the job (get the offer, or close to the offer, before you ask, perhaps?):

#1 Ask what gets tolerated that shouldn’t in the team
#2 Ask what a high performer looks like
#3 Ask who the high performers are (clue: if they rattle off only men’s names and there are plenty of women on the team, that should be further investigated)
#4 Ask what the leader’s strategic vision is and how that is being executed by this team specifically?
#5 Ask if they could change one thing for the team to be even better than it is, what would that be?
#6 Ask how closely the team operates to the firm values regarding policies that matter to you such as remote working, flex time, parental leave, taking vacation, etc.

You might be surprised at the answers. And, of course, hear what they are saying, not what you think you want to hear!

If you would like to have Nicki Gilmour or one of theglasshammer vetted coaches as your coach, schedule an exploratory call here!

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Design a Quitting Plan: Opportunity Cost is Real in Your Career

Nicki Gilmour
Stop doing things at work that don’t work. Heard this before?

Has anyone told you to quit unproductive habits, or even quit your job? Well, today we are going to talk about not quitting.  At least, when you shouldn’t.

How many of us quit at the wrong time? When the going gets tough? The other side of the coin is that so many more do not quit something when we should ( job, project, partner, habit etc.) to do something better that we do not know exists yet.

Beyond being a coach and keeping my knowledge up to par, I love reading good personal and professional development books. I can be found having a little peace away from the madding crowd on the floor of a Barnes and Noble in summer months when work is less crazy. Air conditioning an added bonus. Recently, I picked up Seth Godin’s “the dip: a little book that teaches you when to quit (and when to stick)” and it resonated deeply for this column and the career advice I offer. Seth has a great blog too and this book is based on this blog “The four curves of want and get.”

Basically, the dip, according to Seth, is the moment we want to quit in the hard bit. This means when we feel exhausted or frustrated in our career, working out, or trying to learn new skills generally. Sometimes, things get hard, setbacks happen. No new news there, but why this book is a good and quick read (but gender bias in his examples at every turn in the book with implicit assumptions around the best being portrayed as a man continually is my only critique of an otherwise fabulous read), is that it compels you to think about why you quit when you do.

What is worth pushing through to the other side?

This little gem of a book talks about what criteria can be created to give yourself the permission to quit for the right reasons and at the right time. Invaluable.

Why is it that some of us don’t quit when we should?  When there is a dead end or a cliff that ultimately creates a downfall or loss for us in some way?

It got me thinking about so many of the people I coach.

It is my opinion that we are all in a state of quitting, we just do not know it. Much like Steven Covey’s identified habit of ‘begin with the end in mind’ in his book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, success often comes with an exit strategy or a desired outcome.

We might be at the start of the curve and full of enthusiasm. But, over time it is inevitable that we are fighting entropy, boredom or irrelevance unless we find new ways to do things. We should know our mission and our end goal but change the product, tactic, approach where necessary, quit those things, but not the stuff that makes us great and makes us happy.

Seth Godin agrees, “The best quitters are those who decide to quit in advance, not because of panic or momentary dip. When you are being asked to settle for less, compromise or drop out, your desire to quit should be at its lowest. If it’s the easiest time to give up that is not the time to give up. “

He continues, “Strategic quitting is a conscious decision you make based on the choices that are available to you. If you realize you are at a dead end compared to what you could be investing in, quitting is not a reasonable choice, it’s a smart one.”

You should quit when you are facing a cliff or a dead end. Forget pride, sunken costs, quit when you know you can do better or be better or have more of what you want.

What is the bigger picture?

So, the message here is don’t quit your job if there is still value to you in the firm or industry, quit the way you do your job or quit the team or manager or even the firm. But, know what you want and need to know what you have to do to get it.

Need help figuring this all out? Work with a career coach – schedule a free exploratory chat to see if coaching is for you with Nicki Gilmour here.

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How To Get Promoted

If getting promoted at work is on your goal list for the rest of the year, or part of early ruminations for a new year resolution for next year, how then can you do your best to achieve your goal?

How To Get PromotedHere are some things to consider:

1. Do you know what the formal promotional process is? Are you in it? What do you need to do criteria wise to get into it? Who drives it in your firm? What roles respectively do your boss(es) and HR play? What other stakeholders are important?

2. What job do you want? Do you want to take the next promotional step as defined by the company? If so, great, take time to understand the competencies needed to make the leap – both hard skills and behaviors. All jobs have tasks that we prefer over other tasks. Be honest with yourself, how strategically important are the tasks that you are avoiding and how will that impact you when being considered for the promotion?

3. If you do not want the linear next step, think about what you like doing, with who and why you enjoy it. This is a great way to distill what would be a good expansion of your role or even a lateral or a non-linear upward move to a different department. Then, work with your sponsor, boss and HR to craft your path.

4. Culturally, take a long hard look at what behaviors get rewarded at your firm. Do they equally get rewarded no matter what gender you are? What flies? What does not get tolerated? What grabs senior management’s attention? This is an important analysis to do as these data points are all keys to seeing what the future could look like so that you can proactively manage your career, every step of the way.

If you would like to work with an executive coach on navigating the terrain, schedule a free exploratory chat with Nicki Gilmour here.

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