Transcript of Your Best Next Move: How can leaders ask for help without feeling judged?

Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tip for your Best Next Move – where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act, and see what you can do right now.

It may seem like I’m taking a bit of a U-Turn from my post last week – when I bemoaned people who continually tell you how swamped/overworked/stretched they are. I suggested that they look for solutions – based on the strengths and assets in their team that could be used in broader ways – instead of complaining.

But sometimes that is not enough to achieve our goals. We may need to ask for help. So, how can leaders ask for help without feeling judged?

Let’s rewind a little here. During the pandemic, with all the uncertainty, anxiety, and personal threat surrounding us, we learned the importance of being empathetic – of not judging others and being of help any way we can.

We also learned about the power of being vulnerable; of admitting that we don’t have all the answers and that we need help. Many of us realized the power of showing our teams and others that we needed them.

Back to the current state: now that we are coming out of the pandemic, I am seeing the tendency of leaders to default back to our natural state of wanting people to need us, to come to us for direction.

It is natural to want to be the ones people look up to and turn to for answers; the ones who walk with surety down the hallways; the ones who instill confidence in others.

But we now know that world has disappeared; we no longer have the answers, we can’t even see around the corner to what tomorrow may bring, never mind the next quarter.

The toughest thing for leaders to face in this situation is that they really don’t know what to do, and that’s okay. In fact, research shows employees have more trust for leaders who do ask for help. You don’t need to revert to being “the boss” who has it all under control – once again.

So, here’s my tip:

Look at what’s ahead of you, what you need to accomplish – and objectively ask yourself two questions:

1. what knowledge, experience and skills do you need that you don’t have?

2. Who do you know that has that experience or skillsets – and ask for help

By doing that, three things result:

1. You get relief from feeling unsure and overwhelmed and can focus on what you can do.

2. You are using the skills and talents of others – possibly in a different way or setting – and helping to increase their capacity.

3. You show others that it’s ok to ask for help.

So don’t sit there, worrying and sweating it out. Just ask.

I want 2021 to be a year of momentum for you, one of possibility thinking where you take advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have.

That’s my tip for this week. I’ll see you next week; take care of yourselves!

Leaders in high-trust workplaces ask for help from colleagues instead of just telling them to do things. My research team has found that this stimulates oxytocin production in others, increasing their trust and cooperation. Asking for help is a sign of a secure leader—one who engages everyone to reach goals. Jim Whitehurst, CEO of open-source software maker Red Hat, has said, “I found that being very open about the things I did not know actually had the opposite effect than I would have thought. It helped me build credibility.” Asking for help is effective because it taps into the natural human impulse to cooperate with others. – Paul J. Zak, “The Neuroscience of Trust,” Harvard Business Review

TRANSCRIPT OF “YOUR BEST NEXT MOVE: TAKING THE ENTERPRISE VIEW”

Hi, everyone. Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tips for “Your Best Next Move,” where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act, and see what you can do right now.

Right now it’s 90 degrees here in Lake Tahoe, so I hope you’re staying cool wherever you are!

If you’ve been following this weekly video tip series for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about taking the “Enterprise View.” Doing that can be very useful to connect people to a greater goal or when you’re presenting your ideas to senior management. And now, as we’re coming out of the pandemic, taking the Enterprise View is more important than ever.

Right now, people are in different places in this transition. Some are gung-ho to quickly move forward, looking to get this show going again, and to reconnect and start collaborating with colleagues on deferred initiatives.

Others are more cautious, not sure if they want to jump right back in, whether it’s for their own personal safety or if they’re uncomfortable emerging out of the often siloed state that we’ve all been operating in.

The term for this is liminal, which means the place that defines the end of one stage and the beginning of another one. And that’s where many of us are right now. And we also know from neuroscience that when people are anxious, unsure when they’re facing uncertainty, they tend to isolate themselves, to hunker down, and take a go-it-alone mentality. And right now that’s not beneficial to anyone.

So now, more than ever, we need everyone’s experience, their skills, their perspectives to address the complex problems that companies will be facing in the coming weeks and months. We also know the connecting to a higher goal activates the parasympathetic nervous system. That’s the neural network that connects a part of our brain that’s responsible for creativity, inspiration, and seeing what’s possible.

This Week’s Tip

So with all that is context, here is my tip this week. Whether you’re in a one-on-one conversation with a team member, making a presentation to other leaders in your company, or reconnecting with a peer, take the Enterprise View in your conversation. It could be about clients you’re serving or about the objectives of the business. Or it could be connecting the people you’re talking to about the mission and the values of the company. After all, that’s likely one of the reasons they joined the company in the first place.

Doing this will help elevate their focus to the reason that you’re all working together and see what the impact and the response could be. Your brain is a powerful instrument to help people see what is possible, and there is no better time than to take the Enterprise View NOW and make that happen.

I want 2021 to be a year momentum for you…one of possibility thinking, where you take advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have. So that’s my tip for this week. I’ll see you next week. Take care of yourself. Stay cool!

TRANSCRIPT OF “YOUR BEST NEXT MOVE: FINDING THE RIGHT POST-COVID BALANCE”

Hi, everyone. Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tips for “Your Best Next Move,” where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act, and see what you can do right now.

I’ve been talking with a number of leaders over the last few weeks about their challenges keeping their teams focused and productive coming out of the pandemic. We’re almost to the finish line, but not quite.

And now many managers face a real dilemma as we enter this period of uncertainty: How hard should I push my team right now? With the end of the pandemic in sight, we can see business challenges that need to be addressed. Things that may have been put on hold during the last year, as well as opportunities to take advantage of, will be all too tempting to overload your team by attacking on all fronts at once.

Some of you may feel just the opposite, that you want to ease up to give your team a break and let them catch their breath after this last long year.

Both approaches are problematic, and here’s why. Taking on too much at this particular juncture can lead to overload and a sense of futility that can lead eventually to burnout. But on the other hand, if your team is merely maintaining what they’re doing, just responding and playing defense, they won’t feel a sense of progress. And if this persists again, they’ll have feelings of meaninglessness and futility.

So what do you do?

One way to address this dilemma is to find the spot in the middle, and that means eliminating the far extremes of what you’re doing in terms of your business strategy. So resist the extreme of trying to accomplish everything you want to do, even if you think it’s possible. But also resist the extreme of just treading water. Given the increase in uncertainty in our lives over the last year, the last thing we need now is too little direction or too many objectives. Get clear on one meaningful and achievable objective for your team in addition to what they’re doing every day.

So how do you find that one important goal for your team?

Here’s my tip:

When you talk to your team, take a moment to acknowledge the craziness, the anxiety, and all the pressure of the last year. Recognize that we’ve all been whipped around. Then start a conversation around this question: If every part of our operation except one stayed where it was today, what is the one area we need most to improve as you move forward during this time of transition and uncertainty?

The answer is the same now as it was pre-COVID. You must offer your team a sense of progress, meaning and purpose, remove ambiguity, and propel them forward to move towards the next most important achievable goal.

I want 2021 to be a year momentum for you…one of possibility thinking, where you take advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have. That’s my tip for this week. Take care of yourself. Have a great week, and I’ll see you next Monday.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT OF “YOUR BEST NEXT MOVE: A DOG’S LIFE: BE IN THE MOMENT”

Hi, everyone. Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tips for “Your Best Next Move,” where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act, and see what you can do right now.

Right now, it just got windy out here! Over the last few weeks, we’ve covered some serious topics in this post, and so this week I just want to lighten things up a bit. And, as you might expect, my two Golden Retrievers are going to be part of the story. That’s Posey and Nilla, who are hopefully sleeping someplace.

So I’m working from Tahoe this month, and managing the two girls has really been a challenge. At home in San Francisco, we have a fenced-in yard. Here at the lake, the back fence opens up to the lawn that goes right down to the lake. And Nilla still has not learned good recall, which is understandable at 4 months, I guess. So I always have to have her on a leash. And to add to that, there’s a popular path that runs along the cove in front of all the homes here, so people walking by are always a distraction, particularly for Nilla and Posey, who think that everyone is a member of their fan club.

So every time I’ve had them out, I found myself hurrying them along, not letting them sniff and explore as they love to do. I was getting tangled up in their leashes. Twice, I missed my step on the rocky beach, and I twisted my ankle. I was becoming more and more impatient, thinking of all the work that was waiting for me back on my desk, and I kept yelling at them to move along. And then one day I just stopped and looked at the beautiful glass-like lake, the pure blue sky, the bright green of everything around here.

Now that summer has almost arrived, I saw them totally absorbed in whatever pine cone or duck feather had crossed their path. And I realized that they were finding a way to enjoy these somewhat torturous outings, even if I was not.

And why? Well, because dogs live in the moment. They don’t worry about the past or stress about the future. They focus on whatever is in front of them. They truly take advantage of the moment.

Now, that isn’t to say that action and planning aren’t valuable. Of course they are. But we often miss opportunities that are in plain sight when we just go, go, go from one thing to another.

This Week’s Tip

Well, here’s my tip. Try to begin to practice this appreciation of being in the moment this week by selecting one or two activities. It could be exercising. It could be playing with your kids. It could be talking with a colleague. Just try and focus on what is happening. Just be there. Enjoy the moment.

This helps build the discipline to make this a more regular practice, one that will help you develop the strategic awareness to see what is possible, instead of automatically moving from one thing to another.

I want 2021 to be a year of momentum for you: one of possibility thinking when you take advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have. That’s my tip for the week.

If you like, you can keep me honest and ask me if I took time this week to really be there when I’m out with my dog. All right, everyone, have a great week. I’ll see you next week. Take care.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT OF “YOUR BEST NEXT MOVE: SURVIVING THE TURNOVER TSUNAMI”

Hi, everyone. Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tips for “Your Best Next Move,” where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act, and see what you can do right now.

If you’ve been looking at the news lately, you’ve probably seen a number of articles that talk about as the economic recovery continues, how companies are starting to craft their return-to-work plans. And experts and surveys are showing that businesses also need to be prepared for what’s being called yet another potential disruption after the pandemic. And that’s a potential surge in turnover called the “Turnover Tsunami” or “The Great Resignation Wave.”

Some surveys state that as many as 50% of employees plan to look for a new job with a different employer now that the threat of the pandemic is clearly lessening after a year-plus of dealing with uncertainty, not knowing what the future will look like either personally or professionally.

This is probably not entirely surprising, but I don’t think that many leaders who now have increasing demands to catch up on missed or deferred projects from last year are really focusing on this potential catastrophic impact on their organization.

Here’s a few other data points. Recent surveys have shown that one of the most important benefits to employees is career mobility, and a Gallup workplace poll showed that more than 50% of people don’t feel that they’re appreciated or valued, something that obviously can be challenging to provide in a virtual work environment. And many of you will continue to be in that environment for a while.

Look, there are many things employers can do across the enterprise to retain employees, but you have a lot of power and influence as a manager.

So here’s my tip (and we’ve talked to this a little bit before):

Be sure to take time to reach out to your team members to see how they’re doing, let them know you appreciate them. And now that we’re coming out of the pandemic, acknowledge that we can finally start to think about the future. Ask them what they’re looking forward to and what would they like to do next in their career. And then, how can you best support them?

At the very least, this will establish an important connection in case you don’t have it already. And it might just be the start of a dialogue that could help retain a key employee.

I want 2021 to be a year momentum for you…one of possibility thinking, where you take advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have. That’s my tip for this week. (Sorry about Nilla barking in the background!) Have a good week and take care of yourself.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT OF “YOUR BEST NEXT MOVE: EMBRACE CHANGE WITH CONFIDENCE”

Hi, everyone. Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tips for “Your Best Next Move,” where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act, and see what you can do right now.

Over the last few months, I’ve been sharing tips with you about how to use a possibilities mindset to find Your Best Next Move. And the more you intentionally approach how you respond to unexpected situations this way, the faster you’ll shorten your response time until it begins to feel more natural.

This week, I want to share an example of this from my upcoming book on this subject, which will be published later this summer. So, here’s a scenario to consider: Your company announced a major reorganization that was unexpected and significantly impacts your team. Your first reaction is one of frustration and fatigue to yet another change. You also feel unsure about what, if anything, you can do to prepare your team for how this may affect them. And like many of your peers, you simply feel resigned to whatever happens next, waiting to see how the whole scenario plays out.

As a result, you and your team end up on the defense, reacting to the change, feeling powerless and unempowered. So sensing a lack of engagement and productivity from your team, you recognize that you need some response. So you address the most obvious organizational changes that are needed, and you do your best to rally your team to get on board with the new direction. With these moves, you feel at least a small sense of control and agency, but the hits keep on coming.

As a result of the reorganization, your boss leaves, and you find yourself reporting to someone who was previously your peer. This is really a blow! You had a great relationship with your boss and were hoping she would provide the support and guidance that you need to navigate the new organization. So now what?

Well, you could dig in your heels and feel sorry for yourself and hope that the new boss just leaves you alone. But at the same time, you realize that this situation is here to stay, at least for a while. So you opt for a response that takes advantage of this opportunity to showcase what your team has accomplished and to start a positive, generative relationship with your new boss. With these moves, you begin to see possibilities and use your personal agency to make a more optimal move. This is what progress looks like as you practice finding Your Best Next Move.

So here’s my tip: 

When these unexpected situations seem to follow one after another, you can’t afford to ignore them or to respond in ways you’ve done in the past. Try to think about using each of these situations as a lab, as a way to try new things, and to become comfortable acting without knowing what the end result will be. This is how confidence is built and progress is made in uncertain times.

I want 2021 to be a year of momentum for you…one of possibility thinking, where you take advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have.

That’s my tip for the week. Enjoy the Memorial Day holiday weekend, right? Finally, our official start of summer! And hopefully, everybody can get out and be with family and friends. So I’ll see you next week, take care of yourself.

If you are feeling this way, trust me—you are not alone. No one has the magic answer; everyone is still struggling with how to manage through what feels like an unending period of change, complexity, and uncertainty.

There is no doubt that this is our “new normal.” Yes, 2020 is in the rearview mirror, but it does feel like 2021 is offering up more of the same, doesn’t it?  And noted futurists are predicting that we will see more change in the next two years than we have seen in the last ten—so fasten your seat belt and get ready!

In this challenging environment, we are all operating under a heavy cognitive load: dealing in new ways with work, family, health and safety; how we shop, exercise, and more.

When our brains are under this type of strain, we struggle to deal with big issues, problems or assignments. We can only take on so much because we no longer have the personal resources or mental capacity to deal with “just one more thing.”

How to keep your team motivated

So how DO you take the next step, keep moving yourself and your team forward, and use the agency that we often forget we have?

Here is an approach that I believe can be very helpful during these times.

We all face unexpected situations, problems or issues—both at home and at work. These may not be major obstacles or career-defining issues, but just something someone has brought to your attention to address.

Instead of looking at any of these as, “this is a big deal and I need to fix it now” perspective, or immediately starting to create a comprehensive action plan with a long list of to-dos, think: what is essential vs. what is exhaustive?

What is one small step, one simple action you, your team or family member can take that will give direction, make progress, or provide some satisfaction in moving forward? The goal here is to act, not wait for the perfect solution: to do something rather than nothing.

Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what the road ahead looks like because no one does. And that’s more than okay for now.

Remember: In these challenging times, when you’re not sure what to do next, think essential, not exhaustive.  

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT OF YOUR BEST NEXT MOVE: THE POWER OF DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTY, UNEXPECTED SITUATIONS AND CURVEBALLS

Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tip for your Best Next Move – where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act and see what you can do right now.

This week I wanted to share a personal experience about dealing with those small frustrations, unexpected issues, everyday things that go side-ways in your daily routine that can really throw you off base and tempt you to say “That’s it – I give up”

Many of you know I am training for my 7th Ironman triathlon. Every day I get a training schedule from my coach for either a swim, bike, run, or strength workout – or some combination. Saturdays are generally for the long bike ride of the week. Right now, my bike is set up on what is called a “smart trainer” – which allows me to simulate road conditions and set specific targets for power, cadence and other metrics.

Last Saturday’s schedule called for a 2:30 minute “ride”, which is a long time to be on a bike, continually spinning but I have been working up to this, am getting stronger and was up for the challenge.

Let me paint the picture for you of what happened that morning.

My partner Larry was out so I was also on puppy duty that morning… which resulted in several interruptions in my ride as Nilla – our new Golden Retriever puppy – wanted to go out, then come in, then she was chewing on something she wasn’t supposed to; then the app on my phone stopped working, my bottle of nutrition started leaking, then the doorbell rang.

I was getting frustrated with all the times I had to stop and get off, attend to her and then get back on. I like to get in a groove when I am riding.

About halfway through the ride, as I was getting back on, I felt the bike shift on the trainer – one of the bolts holding it on came lose, the bike fell off the trainer, and I fell with it. My first thought was to make sure I wasn’t hurt; then I righted the bike – only to find that I had bent the skewer on the rear wheel and the bike was no longer rideable.

That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I was discouraged and demoralized, ready to throw in the towel. I had always been able to overcome obstacles and distractions but I felt like the universe was telling me that this workout was just not meant to be.

Wait a minute. Haven’t I been preaching the power of dealing with uncertainty, with how to handle unexpected situations by responding with what is possible, not reacting in resignation?

So, I took a breath and thought okay, this is just another unexpected situation, like all the others I experience during training and on race day. All I need is a new skewer for the rear wheel. I can walk down the street to the bike shop, get a new one and get back in the saddle (literally).

Look, this happens to all of us… probably every day. There are surprises and interruptions – a customer escalation, employee problem, unexpected family issue – when they pile up over a period of time, they can really shake us up – and the environment of uncertainty and anxiety that still surrounds us make it easy for us to give in and give up. But that’s just exactly the opposite of what your team needs from you right now.

Here’s my tip:

When this happens to you – stop for a moment, consider the overall picture of everything that is going on around you, the arc of your work and life right now – including all the good things in your life you are grateful for. Is this one thing really significant enough to derail your efforts and intentions?

Think about that for a moment and see if addressing this one thing can be the thing that stops the slide and gets you back on track.

I want 2021 to be a year of momentum for you, one of possibility thinking where you take advantage of the agency, we sometimes forget we have.

That’s my tip for this week. I’ll see you next Monday; take care of yourselves!