Breaking Through
Transcending Personal Barriers by Laura Huckabee-Jennings

May 20, 2010

Becoming the Person You Were Meant To Be – part 2: Defining Your Values

Filed under: Career Development,Life Choices — Tags: , , , — Huckabee @ 9:03 am

The root of finding fulfillment and being true to yourself is understanding your own personal values at a deep and fundamental level.  When you honor your values, you find satisfaction in what you are doing and feel at peace.  On the contrary, when your values are violated, you may feel angry or deeply frustrated.

How can you discover your values?  One way is to look at  list of values and try to select those that speak to you, and then keep shortening the list until you are down to the most important 5 and prioritizing those.  You can also look at moments in your life when you felt most fulfilled, satisfied and full of purpose and ask yourself which values were being honored.  Conversely, when you think of times you were angry, you can ask yourself which values were being violated.

I noticed this myself when I found myself getting angry over trying to change an airline ticket to go home about 12 hours earlier than planned, and being asked to pay more than 3x what the original ticket had cost for the pleasure of doing so.  When I looked closely at my reaction I realized that I have a strong value around fairness, and this situation just felt inherently unfair, and that was the basis for my anger.

Keep a list of your values and once you have the top five, try sorting them in order of importance.  Which one must you honor above all others?  Which one would keep you from being happy were it violated?  Once you have a top value, which one would come next?  And so forth.

These Values help you quickly assess opportunities, people, projects and environments which will serve you and those which will conflict with your core values.  Here’s one list of possible values, but you may find others fit more closely for you – feel free to add your own words and explore what feels right for you.

Abundance Acceptance Accomplishment Accuracy
Achievement Adaptability Adventure Affection
Affluence Aggressiveness Agility Alertness
Altruism Ambition Appreciation Assertiveness
Attentiveness Attractiveness Audacity Awareness
Balance Beauty Belonging Benevolence
Boldness Bravery Brilliance Calmness
Candor Capability Celebrity Certainty
Challenge Charity Charm Chastity
Cheerfulness Clarity Cleanliness Comfort
Commitment Compassion Confidence Conformity
Connection Consciousness Consistency Contribution
Control Coolness Cooperation Courtesy
Creativity Credibility Curiosity Decisiveness
Deference Dependability Depth Determination
Devoutness Dignity Diligence Discipline
Discovery Discretion Diversity Dominance
Duty Economy Education Effectiveness
Efficiency Elegance Empathy Endurance
Energy Enthusiasm Excellence Expertise
Exploration Fairness Faith Family
Fearlessness Fidelity Financial independence Firmness
Fitness Flexibility Flow Focus
Freedom Friendliness Frugality Generosity
Giving Grace Gratitude Growth
Harmony Health Holiness Honesty
Honor Humility Humor Imagination
Impact Impartiality Independence Industry
Insightfulness Integrity Intelligence Intensity
Intimacy Intuition Joy Justice
Kindness Knowledge Leadership Learning
Liberty Logic Love Loyalty
Making a difference Mastery Maturity Meekness
Mellowness Mindfulness Modesty Neatness
Obedience Open-mindedness Optimism Organization
Originality Passion Peace Perceptiveness
Perfection Perseverance Philanthropy Piety
Playfulness Poise Popularity Power
Pragmatism Preparedness Privacy Professionalism
Prosperity Punctuality Purity Realism
Reason Recognition Recreation Relaxation
Reliability Resilience Resourcefulness Respect
Reverence Rigor Sacredness Sacrifice
Security Self-control Selflessness Self-reliance
Sensitivity Sensuality Serenity Service
Sexuality Silliness Simplicity Sincerity
Skillfulness Solidarity Spirituality Spontaneity
Strength Structure Success Support
Sympathy Teamwork Temperance Traditionalism
Tranquility Trust Truth Understanding
Unflappability Utility Variety Virtue
Vision Vitality Wealth Winning
Wisdom Wonder Zeal

February 25, 2010

Building Engagement

Filed under: Business Strategy — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 1:45 pm

Engagement is one of the most difficult concepts for most managers to grasp.  “What is engagement, what control do I have over it, and what would I do to increase it?”  And sometimes, “Why is this my job?”

Engaged employees work harder, are more productive, and actively build enthusiasm among fellow employees and customers.  If you are not the primary customer interface, think about the attitudes of the people in your company who are.  An actively engaged employee is going to go the extra mile to satisfy your customers and feel happy about doing it.

If your employees are not actively engaged (and the average percentage who are is 30%), they are either “not engaged” or worse, “actively disengaged”.  You may think of the actively disengaged as the whiners, complainers and others who spread disgruntlement throughout the organization.  You already know what impact the actively disengaged have on their coworkers – have you thought about how they treat your customers?  They don’t necessarily break procedure, but they are less cheerful, less helpful, and generally less willing to do the right thing for the customer.

So, if you weren’t before, you should now understand why engagement is part of any manager’s job.  It’s linked to critical measures like customer satisfaction, employee turnover, productivity and profit.

Secondly, you might ask, “How can I improve engagement?”  You probably have employees you think will never be engaged, but the average company has 25% of employees “actively disengaged”, while world-class companies only have 8% in this category.  Clearly there are some who cannot be budged out of this category, but most of them can be engaged.  Take responsibility for the level of engagement in your organization.  You can make a difference and you are contributing to the level of engagement you currently have.

But how do you build engagement?

Engagement starts with taking a personal interest in each employee.  Understand what they get out of work, help link their personal values and goals to those of the company or workgroup.  After this, begin to think of employees as assets that need development.  If you had expensive capital equipment on the factory floor, don’t you think you would pay for maintenance and upgrades as needed?  Well, employees are often the largest expense in any company, and yet they don’t get the training, mentoring and career development opportunities that would improve their productivity.

Find out what their strengths are, and find ways of using those on the job.  Find out their interests and look for ways to provide opportunities to grow and learn in areas they are interested in.  Celebrate successes, learn from failures and treat them like the valuable human capital they are.

You won’t be sorry you did.

November 24, 2009

Personalities in the Workplace: 5 Key Tips

Filed under: Business Strategy,Career Development — Tags: , — Huckabee @ 10:58 am

What do you do when you find someone in your workplace difficult?  Ignore them, undermine them, placate them?  How can you get disparate personality types to work together productively?

Most of us have found certain people difficult to work with from time to time, and just being the boss doesn’t make managing these people any easier, so what can you to keep work productive and less frustrating all around?

  1. First seek to understand.  What do you know about this person?  What motivates them?  Where are their strengths?  In what areas are they an asset to the team or business?  In areas you find them difficult, what about your own preferences may be conflicting with theirs?
    How could you adjust your way of communicating and working with this individual to make them feel more comfortable and motivated?
  2. Develop common goals and teamwork.  It’s harder to have conflict when you are united with others around a common goal.  But big goals that are a year away or depend on so many other factors are not very motivating or unifying.  Under the “big” goals, a team needs frequent, small measurable goals that they can share.  Do you have a goal for how many calls to make?  Response time?  Meetings completing their agenda on time?  Anything that is frequent, measurable and requires the team to get it done will work.  Make sure there are some rewards and recognition associated, even as small as a “Well Done” sign where everyone can see, or lunch for the team at the end of the month.  It doesn’t have to cost a lot to be effective.
  3. Clarify expectations.  I know, you are always very clear.  But, really, are you?  Is the message you are transmitting being received the way you intended?  Are you being specific enough about what is needed and how it is to be delivered?  Spend time not only communicating your expectations, but also hearing them played back to you so you can make sure the message was heard clearly.  “Be more courteous” could mean more pleases and thank yous to one person, but mean always showing up 5 minutes early for meetings to another.  Which did you want to have happen?  Be specific and concrete.
  4. Give and receive feedback on the spot.  When you see a behavior that isn’t in line with your expectations, or have a communication or meeting that goes badly, don’t let 2-3 weeks or even 2-3 days go by before you sit down and talk about it with the people involved.  Take 5 minutes right then and there.  Cool down if you need to, but make sure you provide feedback or gather feedback while the incident is still fresh in everyone’s mind.  You may discover that you are someone else’s “difficult person” and that a few small changes will improve the environment for everyone.
  5. Don’t hesitate to let a bad actor go.  If you’ve tried to understand motivational and personality differences, built common goals, clarified expectations and given and received on the spot feedback and someone is still behaving badly or wrecking your team dynamics, sometimes you need to just amicably part ways.  There’s nothing harder on a team than watching someone else “get away with murder” with seemingly no consequences.In one client’s company I remember an employee saying “You can’t get fired from here”.  Well, if that doesn’t just encourage bad behavior, I don’t know what does.  Stop the bad actor or eliminate them, and morale will improve.

Workplace harmony begins at the top, and it isn’t about agreeing or hugging each other.  It’s about finding ways to leverage differences rather than letting them become barriers to growth.  Healthy disagreement and dialogue usually lead to better outcomes, but they need to remain goal-focused, respectful and based on data whenever possible.

Giving Thanks

Filed under: Business Strategy,Life Choices — Tags: — Huckabee @ 10:56 am

This holiday season, I have so much to be thankful for.  My family is healthy, we are financially intact, my business is growing, my clients are interesting, learning and taking away great lessons and growth from our work together.  My children are doing well in school and other pursuits, and I’m taking on some new creative work that satisfies my soul.

Most of all, I feel a positive wind of change in the air.  I don’t know what 2010 will hold, but I am excited about it and meeting it with eyes wide open and charged up to take on whatever comes my way.  I am thankful for the energy to do this, and the support of my husband to keep pursuing my dreams.

What are you giving thanks for this holiday season?  What has blessed your life this year?

November 2, 2009

Environmental Design

Filed under: Business Strategy,Career Development,Life Choices — Tags: , — Huckabee @ 9:11 am

In the coaching world, we talk about environmental design as a way of enhancing and facilitating change and development. What that really means is that change is easier when the environment you live and work in supports the change.

Have you ever been to a training where you learned about a new exciting tool and came back ready to kick off a new way of working, interacting or planning, only to find that enthusiasm dampened by day 2, and the training forgotten within a few weeks? This is a result of poor environmental design.

You have a new tool or skill, but you come back to the same office, same desk, same tasks, same co-workers – all of which supported the old set of habits and skills. Without support and an environment that actively and passively encourages the use of new skills, the old patterns re-emerge quickly.

So what can you do to really look at your environment and how it impacts your ability to implement change? Here are 5 ways to look around and see what is supported in your environment:   

  1. Physical Environment. Look around and see what is in your immediate work environment. Is it neat and organized or cluttered and messy? Where do new items land? Where do “important” projects and tasks land? Do you face colleagues or a wall or window? What can you hear in your environment? When you look at your physical environment, does it encourage you to take the actions you need? Is it more conducive to collaborative work or solitary research/writing and thinking? Does it help you focus? Does it keep you abreast of what everyone in the team is doing? What is important to you and your progress, and does the physical environment support that? How could you make it more supportive of your goals?
  2. Social Environment. What do you get from the people in your work, home and social environment? Do they encourage you to reach your goals? Do they have compatible goals? Are they prone to sabotaging your efforts, or are they excited to see you change? If they aren’t supportive, who could you recruit to spend more time with who would be more encouraging?
  3. Temporal Environment. How do you structure your time during the day and over the course of a week, and how does that impact your ability to make changes and achieve your goals? Are you able to use your most productive hours on the most difficult tasks? Are you actively managing your energy levels and scheduling tasks when the right energy is there to support them?
  4. Intellectual Environment. What kinds of intellectual stimulation do you get from your environment? Do you have challenging people with new ideas in your environment? What kinds of reading material, news, radio and other media do you keep in your environment and how does that impact your goals? What changes might improve your motivation and ability to stay on track with new behaviors and skills?
  5. Measurement Environment. What is tracked and measured in your environment? How is progress noted and how often? Are the things being measured encourage you to make change? If not, what kinds of measures might make more sense? How often are they measured?

In order to effectively make a change or build new behaviors, you can make it infinitely easier by designing the right environment. Think about someone trying to start a new diet. One of the first changes is to take “forbidden” food out of the kitchen, maybe join a support group or begin the diet with a friend or spouse, to get new recipes supporting the new diet and setting up a measurement and tracking system to see daily progress and understand any setbacks.

All changes are similar in many ways. They are hard, and can only be tackled when the motivation is there, but that is rarely enough. In order to create success, you need to carefully examine your environment and create stimuli and support for changes, new behaviors and new skills.

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