May 7th List

Mental Health Week in Canada, more poking at performance reviews, convivencia, and finding the influential Schein at Faking Sanity in Dawson Creek, B.C.

Here are the tabs and the books that have recently been left open, revisited, or in other ways have stayed with me and left a mark on my thinking.

1

Over the years I have done a fair amount of studying, most recently human centred strategy, at IDEOU and their work continues to delight me as I find new paths and views into how we might think, create, and show up better.

Their blog post, When Are You at Your Best as a Leader? is a quick check-in and tune-up on the importance of leaders having a practice of reflective self-awareness. For me, the icing on the cake of this post, was being introduced to the Japanese concept of ikigai—your reason for being.

2

How to Improve a Meeting (When You Are Not in Charge)

I like how this article from HBR (March 26, 2024) can be read differently from what the authors, Tijs Besieux, PhD and Amy Edmondson perhaps intended. I’m not being particularly brilliant here (I’ll leave that to the article) as we all take away what we want from anything we read.

My first read was the expected wow, as in the article is spot on for how to improve meetings when:

• there is a low level of psychological safety*, by using helpful workarounds
• there is a medium level of psychological safety, by using solution-centric proposals
• there is a high level of psychological safety, by using constructive confrontation

For my second read I looked at it a bit differently and asked:

• How many of us as meeting chairs, team leaders, or in other leadership positions recognize when someone is using helpful workarounds or solution-centric proposals?
• If we recognize that this happening, do we know how to get curious about it and any not-so-comfortable feelings we may have?
• Do we have a reflective practice and a growing skill set for our own leadership journey and the development of our teams and organization?
• If we don’t, what are we doing about it?

3

I’m on LinkedIn to connect with smart people who share information that I otherwise would not see, such as Shared Leadership at Oodi by Tommi Laitio (April 18, 2024) who publishes Policies for Convivencia on Substack. Thank you smart people!  

From Tommi Laitio:

One of the main findings from my fellowship research at the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins on public spaces around the world was the need to practice convivencia in public space organizations. The growing complexity and uncertainty of public life requires intentional practices that support 1) attentiveness to people’s diverse behaviors and interests, 2) willingness to learn new ways of working by doing things differently and in collaboration with partners and residents, and finally, 3) a commitment to constant reconfiguration. Public space organizations grounded in the reality of urban life understand that a library, a park, a plaza, or a museum is never finished. That it requires constant nurture and care.

The piece left me with many questions and curiosities, the biggest being (and admittedly, its kind of a leading question), what is required of leaders for an organization’s culture, and therefor its people, to be willing or desirous to learn new ways of working?

4

Organizational Culture and Leadership by Edgar H. Schein

This past Sunday Schein re-entered my lifeat Faking Sanity in Dawson Creek, B.C. (Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway) and now here I am, coloured pens and sticky notes at hand, digging back into a classic that I haven’t spent time with since my MBA studies.

As I make my way through it, I’m curious about:

• How his work on organizational culture aligns with more recent works on psychological safety?
• Artifacts. When working with leadership teams, I dig for artifacts and I wonder how far my practice has moved from my earlier Schein informed thinking on this.
• Will I re-read the whole book?

5

“Feeling uncertain as a new leader? Eight ways to recalibrate for more confidence” by Eileen Chadnick. While I first ran across the article in the Globe & Mail, Eileen has also posted it on her blog at Big Cheese Coaching.

Below is a list of the “eight ways” with a bit of random commentary from me. I encourage you to read the full piece. It is quick, concise, and a great tool for checking in on how you are doing as a leader and where you might want to pay a bit more of attention. Paying attention is like water and sunshine for your leadership growth and I’m here to support you with that – like really here.**

1. Expect this. A great summary of everything from overload to accomplishing great things
2. Shift your focus. Perhaps one of my favourite ways as it is about the need to shift from developing yourself technically” to also developing “yourself personally and interpersonally”. I want to talk about this more!
3. Focus on your people. Leadership isn’t just about directing work, it is about a commitment to people.
4. Embrace not having to know all answers.
5. Forget certainty. Get good at working within ambiguity and change.
6. Be yourself.
7. Be courageous. This is why I am here for you.
8. Be a masterful learner.

6

I seem to have radar for anything and anybody poking at performance reviews. “Why we need fewer performance reviews – and more check-ins” at Fast Company from Ashley Goodall made my day. If I could wrap it up in shiny paper with a big bow … well you know what I’m getting at, this article is like a gift.

Goodall has introduced his approach to weekly check-ins being better than stand-alone performance reviews at both Deloitte and Cisco. After more than 11 million check-ins at Cisco he has much to share about the benefits of weekly, meaningful, and conversational check-ins such as increases in “wellbeing, engagement, performance, and employee retention”.

Wow, that feels good just reading about it. If you aren’t yet doing this, I bet you want to.

Goodall’s latest book, The Problem with Change: And the essential nature of human performance, has caught my attention andand dollars to doughnuts it will hit an upcoming List.

7

Uncharitable

Nope, I haven’t seen it, just the trailer, but if someone is talking about compassion, big dreams, and a better world, I want to share it.

If the movie is not coming to a screen near you, check out the Uncharitable website, Dan Pallotta’s 2013 TedTalk, The way we think about charity is dead wrong, and his website and books.

8

This week is Mental Health Week in Canada and the theme is kindness and compassion. Let’s bring it on.

We all need regular mental health check-ins and an awareness of our supports and resources (inner and outer) for achieving and sustaining wellness. I encourage you with so much love to do this. It has over the years become part of my life practice, but only after not doing it bit me hard. Real hard, deep, multiple bites.

Courageous leaders also ensure that everyone in their organization is working in an environment that supports their mental health and well-being.

• How does your organization’s policies and procedures support staff with their mental health and well-being?
• How well prepared are you and other leaders in the organization for recognizing and taking appropriate action (appropriate being key) with unacceptable behaviours such as harassment?
• How well prepared are you and and other leaders in the organization for recognizing and taking appropriate action (appropriate being key) with signs of struggle or un-wellness?
• If there is an HR team, what is their role?
• Do you share EAP information at employee orientation? Most likely yes, but do you also have the EAP information posted prominently in staff areas and washrooms in such a way that I might easily and privately read the information and take down the phone number?
• Is EAP a hush-hush type of resource? How else is the stigma of talking about and taking care of mental health perpetuated at your organization?
• How confident are staff in their dignity and privacy being respected when they access EAP or if they need to take time off from work? How does their dignity and privacy drive the return-to-work plan rather than operational and scheduling needs?

Based on my experience, the above questions get lost in our own discomfort, organizational culture, and lack of training.

—

What you have been listening, watching, reading, or practicing to support your mental health and well-being? I really want to know. Email me ([email protected]) or drop a note in the comments.

Here are two podcasts I listened to this past weekend.

• Sharon Salzberg’s Real Life Series from July 4, 2023 featuring Dr. Gabor Maté (Metta Hour Podcast Episode 217). Listening to Maté talk about states of contraction and how we can move out of those states was very cool.
• Brenee Brown’s Unlocking Us where she talks with Esther Perel on “New AI – Artificial Intimacy” (March 20, 2024). We need to up our skills at making connection and being in the present moment. If we aren’t quite ready for sing-alongs, we can at least recognize those moments of when to put our phones away.

Photo by Simon Harmer on Unsplash

*Last month I received a certificate in psychological safety and work place mental health. It was important to me to renew and strengthen my skills and understanding of how mental health and addiction, wellness, and psychological safety manifest in the workplace because I care about what this means to your leadership journey and to the people working in your organizations.

**I really am here for you. Invite me in to your leadership journey as a facilitator or coach. More about me and what I do at the Courageous Leaders Project.