Lucy Sullivan’s Post

Love Maria Brown, Ph.D.'s take on why competency models aren't serving your organization or its leaders. 5 minutes well spent, imo! #disruptHR #HRleadership #research #competencymodel #leadership

🚨 new dream team alert! 🚨 I'm looking forward to hosting a webinar with co-presenters Maria Brown, Ph.D. and Christine Chasse - a team that's worked together beautifully in MRG (Management Research Group) education for years, but who are somehow presenting together in one of our webinars for the very first time! They'll be digging into our research on confidence (which has some fun and fascinating surprises), then exploring the implications for coaching. It's free to join us - register at the link!

As my 7yo would say: phewf! As of 11am today, our first MRG Academy session is in the books, and I couldn't have asked for a better launch! I've grown to be so proud of the content we're delivering to the public in our webinars, educating them about the broad best practices in developing people and helping them understand how assessments can fit into their work. But I know we've had a gap in content delivery for the people who are already in the MRG community. People who are looking for a deeper dive into our specific assessments, and want to dig deep into both the nuance and the practicalities. With Samantha Bryden fully onboarded and boosting our marketing capacity, marketing has finally had the bandwidth to team up with our educators and launch a series to meet this need. MRG Academy has been many months in the making, and now it's here. We welcomed our first group of enthusiastic attendees to a one-hour virtual session today, and, woooh, they were a lively bunch, with a ton of thoughtful questions for Andrew Rand, Ph.D. and Maria Brown, Ph.D. about how to incorporate impact measures into your behavior-based coaching work with the LEA. Moderating the chat and interacting with attendees, the vibes were good - but I was admittedly VERY nervous to peek at those initial survey results. I knew we wouldn't be perfect out of the gate, but I just wanted to see an indication that we were on the right track, and that people felt good about the time they invested with us. And boom! Some absolutely glowing responses. (A score of 4.8/5 on "would you recommend MRG Academy to other practitioners" - what?! 😁 ) Plus plenty of thoughtful and constructive feedback to guide future session planning, which is worth its weight in gold. I'm so excited to keep growing this series - helping our practitioners get more from their tools, and to connect with them (and connect them to each other!). If you're part of the MRG community and want a heads up on the next MRG Academy session, be sure to follow MRG (Management Research Group) here and keep an eye on your inbox. Next session coming soon! #assessment #leadership #content #continuingeducation #launch

Did you know that on average we spend 38% of our energy worrying about things we can control… and 62% worrying about things we can’t? Using this fun fact I got from Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal’s keynote this morning - plus some of the amazing reframe strategies she gave us - here’s how I’m thinking about my day: I had the opportunity to make a day trip to Rockport for #MEHRC2024. While it was a quick visit, I was fortunate enough to glean a ton from the sessions (including Tricia Naddaff (she/her/hers) - more to come on that!) and I appreciate all the effort Katie Jones and the Strategic HR U.S. crew put into this vibrant event. And I *can’t* control this ridiculously gloomy Maine spring weather, but I *can* still choose to be brave and show up for a selfie by the breakwater (because you can’t go all the way to the Samoset and come home without one!). Looking forward to the opportunity to spend longer here in 2025! PS. Dressing to match the badge was purely unintentional 💙💛 #maine #hr #conference #resilience #rain

Are we as kind to ourselves as we are to others? One of many thought-provoking questions explored this morning with Lida Hutchings, CPA, Staci Nisbett at the Mainebiz Women's Leadership Forum. As women leaders carve out space for more authenticity, emotion, and uncertainty in the workplace, we may forget to give ourselves the grace that we're so quick to give our colleagues. Striking that delicate balance between presenting as confident, credible leaders who have earned our roles - but who also are human, who make mistakes, who need time to step away, to breathe, to think, to just feel some feels? It's no easy feat. And there are no easy answers to the dilemmas that presents. But I'm grateful for the thought-provoking conversation - and grateful to know I'm not alone. #womenleaders #portlandmaine #authenticleadership #emotionalintelligence

I'm going to be joining Tricia Naddaff (she/her/hers) at the Maine HR Convention next month! Looking forward to it. Who will I see at the Samoset?!

Last week I had the pleasure (really!) of chaperoning my older child's field trip to the Portland Museum of Art, then the next day reading three (!!) Grumpy Bruce stories to my younger child and his class (with his proud participation). I'm so grateful to have the flexibility in my working life to take some midday breaks to enjoy these moments. While my parenting style is not ideally suited to field trip management (I was a "let them chase their bliss" mom living in a "make sure they stay with the pack" world), watching these kids get captivated by art was an absolute high; and I am a lifelong ham, so read-alouds (with an array of character voices, obvs) are absolutely in my wheelhouse. Also, though: it's important to message to our kids (and ourselves, and each other) that not every parent or grown-up has the same access to participate in things like this, and THAT IS OKAY. There are a lot of jobs where a midday walkabout to read or look at pictures is just not an option. There are also great reasons that a grown-up who has the option to do these things may choose not to. There are a lot of ways to show up for the kids in our lives, and some are more visible than others, but they're all valid. The best thing we can do in our workplaces is continue to flex, stretch, adapt, and keep our minds open when it comes to what our colleagues might need in order to show up for family members of all ages. And no, you're probably not going to be able to create a policy that accounts for every specific family scenario that might come up. (And please don't burden your HR team with developing a Field Trip Chaperone Policy to add to the employee handbook!) Focus instead on developing a culture of trust, autonomy, and flexibility (and generous PTO) so your team members can feel empowered to take the time they need to live lives they value. #PTO #worklifebalance #family #workingparent #adapt

😏 😏

We had an amazing team working on this webinar (Maria Brown, Ph.D., Andrew Rand, Ph.D., Samantha Bryden and Kayla Burnett) and it came together beautifully. We broke our all-time registration record ( 🎉 ) and seeing (unsolicited!) feedback like this in the webinar comments was the icing on the cake. If you weren't able to join us, you can catch it on demand here: https://hubs.la/Q02q731x0 And for those in a time crunch, we'll have a few more wrap-up resources on the way in the coming days, stay tuned!

My time at women-led organizations has truly changed the way I work, and the way I define success, and the way I approach my world. Happy International Women's Day!