Teneal Taylor

At a career fair, I think a smart question can be more effective than an elevator pitch. I like to ask a question that causes the recruiter to think of reason why my skills could be valuable at their company. For instance, “how do you see someone with leadership development skills fitting into your organization?” Or, “how are HR professionals regarded at your company?” It’s kind of like flipping the script. 😊

If a client has concerns about a career shift later in life, it's important to help them understand how many of their skills and experiences can be transferred to other roles. Every industry and occupation has its own language and way of describing things. We often have to explore a new way of talking about the work we've done in order to understand how we could apply it in a new environment. A fun exercise that can facilitate this is to have the client talk about the work they love doing as if they were explaining it to a group of young children. What words would they use to describe their work? And then ask the client what other occupations might need that similar skill or service. This gets their brain thinking in a more creative way.

When a senior leader is showing strong resistance about something, you are likely getting close to a breakthrough insight. It might mean they feel their character is being questioned or a core operating principle is at risk. Understanding what is driving the resistance can help them identify what might be an unconscious motive or philosophy that could be holding them back. When you shed light on this behavior, it can help provide awareness and then provides them the opportunity to decide if this behavior is serving them or not. If it's serving them, they can continue. If it's not serving them, they can select a new narrative.

One thing I've found helpful is to is to clearly articulate what success looks like. Share as many details as you can so it's easy for the person to visualize what they are working towards. I also like to share a couple of options of HOW they could get there and then let them know it's up to them which path to take. Giving them ideas of how to approach the work sparks some creativity and let's them know they have my "permission" to do things their own way. I also like to share up front what is required is and what is optional. For example, "if there's time to add conditional formatting, that would be nice, but no matter what, we need to get this to marketing by noon."

One of the best ways to be able to handle an urgent employee relations issue AND keep base business going is to design the work with cross-training. Ensure there are no single points of failure and operate with transparency. You also want to be in control of work in general. Stay ahead of deadlines. If you are always putting out fires, another fire could totally devastate a team for days. Don’t allow yourself to operate in a deficit day after day.

Yes, recognize your feelings and emotions. You can be sad, mad, frustrated, annoyed, upset for as long as you need to be. Process them and then throw them out the window. Get as grounded in reality as possible by looking for facts, evidence, and details of what happened. The emotional side of failure is an indicator that something needs further review. But the emotions can't get us to the next stage, which is acceptance, change, and action. Emotions steer us but logic moves us. And when you are in your emotions (or as Drake would say "in your feelings") be very careful what you are putting out into the organization. Find the appropriate and safe spaces to process.