Shine from Day One – Five Tips for New Managers

RobertaMatusonContributed by Roberta Matuson, Author of the recently released book, Suddenly in Charge: Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around

Congratulations! You’ve just been promoted into management. Now what?

In an ideal world, new managers would be groomed for their new role. However, this is rarely the case. People go to bed one evening as a member of the team and wake up the next morning to find themselves managing the team. One of the most challenging and critical tasks new managers face is striking a balance between managing down—dealing with employees—and managing up—reporting to bosses. To add to concerns, there are scores of replacements waiting should you fail. Here are five tips to help you shine from day one.

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Three Reasons Flexibility Stinks – and How to Fix It

cali-and-jodyContributed by Cali Ressler & Jodi Thompson, creators of the Results-Only Work Environment

Does this scenario sound familiar?

Employee: “I have a dentist appointment on Wednesday at 2pm so I’ll be leaving at 1:30.”

Manager: “But I thought with your new schedule – Fridays off – you could make all of your appointments for Friday.”

Employee: “My dentist isn’t open on Fridays, and anyway, I’ve had this appointment for 6 months.”

Manager: “Well, I really took a big risk with the team letting you go to a 4-day workweek. Perhaps you could look for a dentist that’s open on Fridays.”

Can you find anything in the above scenario that gives any hint of concern for RESULTS? Does the manager trust the employee to deliver results? Why is the employee informing the boss that s/he has a dentist appointment? Why does it matter? Why is the employee on a schedule anyway?

The flexible schedule is an oxymoron.

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5 Remarkable Traits of Female Firsts

TinaSavasContributed by Tina Savas, author of Women of True Grit

What does it take to be the first woman in your field? Do you have it in you? Are you born with a certain gene that enables you to withstand the pressure of taking risks? Perhaps your outstanding ability to successfully face obstacles began at an early age…at home… with nurturing parents or pushy parents who enabled you to reach a level not ever achieved by another woman. Or maybe the very nature of time allowed you to achieve greatness. After all, many people believe women have arrived, and attribute this notion of time as the sole reason for bringing about change in women’s achievements. We’ve all heard it said, “It’s about time!”

But for many women who set firsts in their fields, what they heard was that the time wasn’t right for a fight or a fuss over what they wanted to do, and they challenged the naysayers to make it the right time and to make it NOW.

Yes, it takes courage, vision and integrity to reach for your dreams, but, as I see it, there are very definable traits that set you apart.

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Eliminating Unconscious Bias, for a More Productive Workplace

salmaContributed by Salma Shah, Founder of Beyond, an HR talent consultancy.

Is unconscious bias impacting business performance? The UK consultancy Beyond’s recent Unconscious Bias survey results reveal 1 in 3 believe consciously or unconsciously that a woman’s place is at home and not work.

67% of those surveyed have a low or no bias at all. At first glance this appears to be good news. On close scrutiny 1 in 4 of this group when placed under pressure emotionally or cognitively and their biases too will surface. The same applies to the 26% with a moderate bias. We’ve all been there, unrealistic deadlines, last minute requests in the inbox, difficult colleagues, meetings that are time wasting, unachievable targets, budgets being squeezed, clients delaying decisions and on and on.

Everyone has pre-existing concepts surrounding particular groups. These concepts can form at an early age from personal experiences, what we see in the media and moral guidelines for example parental influence and education. The internal perceptions we have of certain groups lead to prejudgements that take place automatically, at high velocity, and are not privy to conscious manipulation. Through bringing the concept of unconscious bias into individual awareness, we begin a process that can regulate the resulting behaviours and eventually effect the beliefs that exist.

Is unconscious bias impacting your business performance? Are there challenges in attracting, retaining and developing top female and diverse talent?

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Move over Time Management: Increasing Your Power, Effectiveness, and Fulfillment with Choice Management

iStock_000000698005XSmallContributed by Alison Miller, PhD & Peg Rowe, MS (Chicago, Tiara: Exceptional Women’s Coaching)

Life is busy. Perhaps that’s a huge understatement. For many, life is moving at a very fast pace and it has become a never ending to do list. You have careers and personal lives and no matter how much you do each day, it is often hard to feel like you are ever getting ahead. So how do you try to solve this problem? By better managing time.

You may attend time management seminars, buy time management calendar systems, or endlessly play with your outlook schedule in search of more time. But in truth, time is finite. There are only 24 hours in a day and 168 in a week. Time actually can’t be managed, as hard as we may try. Sure there are times when you get a lot done but you may feel as if you are on treadmill with no way to get off. You are moving fast but not feeling inspired or fulfilled by your accomplishments Bottom line, you may feel like you hardly have enough time to manage all of you roles and responsibilities let alone contemplate how you can be more fulfilled and inspired. Given this reality and how much is on your never ending, ever growing to-do list, what are your options? How you can stop trying to manage time? How can you find a way to be more powerful and effective in the face of everything you juggle and end the day with sense of fulfillment and purpose? You can begin managing your choices – instead of focusing on time.

Choice management is fundamentally about consciously choosing how you direct your energy, what actions you take in life, and what you agreements you make. At the heart of choice management is awareness of your values and what matters most in your life. It is about having a vision for your life and what you want it to look like. So instead of managing time, you start to manage the choices you make so they are in greater alignment with your vision and values. For example, if you are clear that you highly value family, then each night at dinner you have the opportunity to choose family. You can put your Blackberry away and allow yourself to be present and enjoy each and every person at the dinner table. At work, if you value collaboration, you can pick up the phone and have a conversation, rather than perpetuating an endless round of emails to resolve an issue.

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Four Unfair Questions Still Nagging Women About Leadership

FrohlingerlowresContributed by Carol Frohlinger, Co-Author of Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success, available in paperback October 5. Carol will be a panelist at theglasshammer.com event on November 2, 2010. Click here to register.

Despite the fact that women hold 50 percent of middle management jobs, leadership roles still elude us. Why? After all, more collaborative organizational structures are “in” and archaic “command and control” hierarchies are “out.” That shift was expected to greatly advantage women — but it hasn’t. So what’s the problem?

My book, Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success first offered women in leadership roles practical advice about what they needed to negotiate in order to get and hold onto leadership roles – and in the 6 years since it was published, much as changed.

Carly Fiorina has abandoned business for politics. Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, who’d endorsed the book, died in 2006. Hillary Clinton ran for President. And, Sarah Palin, who’s not endorsed the book, resigned as governor of Alaska.

But a good deal hasn’t changed — questions about women and their suitability for leadership roles still dog women and their employers. What makes it even more complicated is that most of the time we aren’t even aware that these questions are in play.

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5 Ways to Leverage the Power of Employee Resource Groups for Leadership Development

jenniferbBy Jennifer Brown, President & Founder of Jennifer Brown Consulting

Picture the most efficient, productive, and innovative organization you can imagine. What does it look like? Chances are that it resembles a highly-advanced form of an Employee Resource Group (ERG), also known as Affinity Groups or Business Resource Groups — a multi-disciplinary, globally dispersed, diverse yet inclusive organization — in which ideas flow up and down the hierarchy and across silos.

ERGs should be considered the best resource and opportunity for the next generation of women leaders, and other diverse talent, and here’s why. Today (or in the near future), ERGs enable women to:
1. gain exposure and visibility within broader networks
2. learn a broader set of skills by collaborating on ERG projects and initiatives
3. seize leadership opportunities within ERGs that they may not otherwise realize in their day jobs, and
4. contribute to their company’s “cultural competency” through participation in sales, market, and product development.

ERGs provide a win-win opportunity for employers and female employees because they will realize the value and bottom line impact of women who are empowered and connected like never before. JBC has developed the following insights to help women think most strategically about where they can gain leverage. We encourage women to take advantage of and leverage the existence of these networks, to not only grow their careers but also demonstrate the value of female talent, and markets, to organizations everywhere.

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Connect the Dots to Solve Workplace Conflict

SylviaContributed by Dr. Sylvia Lafair

Handling conflict is a major part of leadership development. You can have the best product in the world yet, if the marketing team, sales team, or administrative team is at odds with each other the dissention will tumble to customers who will find another product elsewhere.

Think about the word conflict. What is your initial reaction? Do you think “Not another ##&%!! Issue?” Do you say “Not my fault” as you look for the nearest exit? How about playing Scarlett O’Hara brushing past the upset with “I’ll think about it tomorrow”? Or are you one of the few who says “Oh great, I know I can learn from this mess.”

Whatever your first response, be kind to yourself. Your knee-jerk reactions are those you have developed over time for security and survival. Yet, there is a better way. Once you learn to think in terms of connecting the dots of an experience you can find a better way to handle all conflict.

Begin to think larger, holistically, about “if-this-then-that.” When you think in terms of a system your thinking is integrated and interdependent. It takes into account the big picture and long range thinking.

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Five Important Steps to Secure Your Financial Future

PariContributed by Pari Hashemi, Financial Advisor, Financial Planning Associate, The McFadden Group at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC

Are women conditioned from an early age to not focus as much on money as men? Think of the daily chores a brother and sister in a household might traditionally be expected to take on. As her daily chores the girl is asked to do the dishes, set the table, or clean the house. The boy is asked to take out the trash, mow the lawn, or perhaps rake the leaves.

This may seem ordinary, but there is a hidden meaning: the boy gets the chores that are traditionally paid!

This early division of labor suggests that women are not predisposed to money. And it may be why I have seen that even affluent women do not prepare as well as they should, financially. But there’s no need to be overwhelmed! Here are a few steps that can help make the process a bit easier.

Involve a Professional

When looking for the right advisor for you it is important to take a few things into consideration. Do you trust that person? Do you have a good relationship with them? Are they looking out for your best interest? It should be the advisor’s job, just like a doctor, to make sure you are diagnosed and treated properly. You work too hard to make your money for that to be taken for granted. Unlike your doctor though, this checkup should be free and not even have any co-pay!

Yes, your financial advisor will likely want to be paid in one way or another, but some advisors are moving away from charging commissions on every trade to fee-based platform. This way you sit on the same side of the table and they want your investments to grow just as much as you do, because they get a percentage.

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Brand Preservation: Five Critical Steps for Effective Crisis Communications

Susan 07_2008Contributed by Susan Stern, President, Stern + Associates

Few companies or organizations will never face a serious and immediate challenge at some point during their history. How effectively and quickly the organization deals with the threat and communicates with the media, customers, employees and other key publics often determines how its products, services and corporate leaders are viewed – positively or negatively – for many years to come.

What essential steps should executives and managers take to avoid damaging their brand and ensure a positive outcome when a crisis occurs?

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