Out Of The Comfort Zone

What do you need to do to be sure you land that dream job – whether it’s inside your current company or in a different company? The interview is scheduled, you are excited, how do you make sure you are prepared and will leave a great impression? How do you negotiating the offer (including salary)? And, how do you make sure you avoid the biggest mistakes people make?

Mentoring, advocacy, sponsorship – so much has been discussed about the importance of these key relationships. How do you build a strong mentoring relationship? What is the natural cycle of a mentoring relationship? As a mentor, are you doing the best for your mentees? As a mentee, what can you do to get the best out of your mentor relationship? Join us to learn more.

Managers who coach their people get better performance, greater loyalty, higher engagement and stronger brands – to name just a few of the benefits. The great news is that coaching can be done is 10 minutes or less and anyone can do it. What to know how? Tune in to hear the five best questions to ask in any situation and more.

Millenials, the group of workers just now entering the workplace, are the largest cohort ever in history and they will change by virtue of their size all of our workplaces. Yet for all the conversation, there is a lot of hype, some mythology and limited advice on what really works. We have topics for the show: First, what is myth versus what’s reality and what does it mean? Second, what should we do on our teams and as managers that’s productive? Third, how can we meet in the middle? What’s to be gained – on both sides – from including millennials and managing them well?

Three very important and connected ideas… How do you get things done when you are not in charge? How do you inspire people to do what you have in mind without telling them what to do, especially when you don’t have the authority to do so? It turns out, that building trust is one of the keys. How do you build trust in your team and their trust in you? All this takes time – more of our precious, highly constrained time. Actually, it’s not really about time, it’s about how we choose to spend that time. How can we focus more on what really matters and manage our selves to get the results we want?

Millenials, the group of workers just now entering the workplace, are the largest cohort ever in history and they will change by virtue of their size all of our workplaces. Yet for all the conversation, there is a lot of hype, some mythology and limited advice on what really works. We have topics for the show: brFirst, what is myth versus what’s reality and what does it mean? Second, what should we do on our teams and as managers that’s productive? Third, how can we meet in the middle? What’s to be gained – on both sides – from including millennials and managing them well?

If there is no discomfort you are not growing, not getting out of your comfort zone. Organizations expect leaders to have the right answer, to do the right thing and to be nice to everyone. Yet, if you don’t challenge people with discomfort, they don’t grow. How do you lean into discomfort? How can you find the courage to do things that are hard, awkward or just plain different? As a leader, how do you push your team into the discomfort zone to achieve even better results? How can you find the right balance between being too confidence and too wishy-washy? Tune in to find out.

Coaches and mentors are the key to an engaged workplace, to retention, to career satisfaction. Find someone who is being coached or mentored effectively, and you will find a positive, inspired, committed person. Take those away and performance declines. How do you mentor or coach someone? What skills do you need? How do you get the best out of the relationship as a mentee or coachee? Tune in to hear the advice.

Have you been told that what is holding you back is your visibility … that you need to promote yourself? Want to know how to self-promote in ways that actually build credibility? Tune in to find out why self-promotion matters, how to create your unique value-proposition and what you use the proposition to build credibility?

Have you ever wondered how to understand your purpose at work or how to find purpose and meaning in your work? As a leader, do you aspire to lead so that others find meaning and purpose in what they do? If so, this show is for you. It’s easy to use the words but not so easy to understand what to do – until you hear from Arthur Woods, this week’s guest.

Is your organization going through massive change? Is the pace of that change difficult to manage? Are you or your team struggling to make sense of the resulting chaos? Do you need tactics for managing increasing levels of uncertainty? Do you prefer clarity and certainty rather than thriving in the midst of ambiguity? If so, join us to learn how to manage uncertainty and chaos. Learn the habits that undermine our ability to cope with uncertainty.

My guest this week says that work-life balance is dead …. But we have to live well anyway. So how can we do just that given all the competing demands on our time and attention? Part of living well is the ability to be able to confront people and situations. What’s the formula for supportive confrontation? And, finally, what can we do to cope with stress?

Have you been told that what is holding you back is your visibility … that you need to promote yourself? Want to know how to self-promote in ways that actually build credibility? Tune in to find out why self-promotion matters, how to create your unique value-proposition and what you use the proposition to build credibility?

Everyone complains about the number of meetings and the ineffectiveness of meetings. What if you had tools and processes that would help you lead more productive meetings? What if those same processes helped make all conversations more effective? Tune in to find out how.

Being a newcomer is daunting – whether it’s a new group, a new team, a new boss or a new company. There are relationships to build from scratch, people to remember, questions to ask and work to be done. What should you do when you are new? How can you build relationships with strangers? How do you manage all these new people if you are more of an introvert than an extrovert?

What impact do you want to have on your organization? What do you want people to say about your leadership? Who do you want to be as a leader? How can you shape the culture around you as a result? How can you be more intentional – every day in every situation? Tune in to hear the answers.

How can you go from one discipline or function to a totally different one and still be effective? How can you move from one country culture to another and adapt quickly enough to be credible? How can you move from one company culture to a radically different one and adjust your approach? Tune in to find out how one executive survived several career transitions and the lessons learned along the way.

What do you need to be doing as a manager to be a fabulous boss? How can you as a manager both get results and inspire the team – what do you do and not do? What are they keys to managing up most effectively? How do you deal with “challenging” managers? In effect, how do you win well - without loosing your soul along the way?

Trust! We know it’s critical, it’s easily broken and societal trust is declining. What does it take to create a culture of trust? How can you repair trust? What’s your legacy? My guest this week, Roy Reid, says that an average level of trust is totally inadequate – we should live our lives with OUTRAGEOUS Trust. To do so, we have to be intentional and mindful about how we earn, build and restore trust. Then, benefits will follow… economic and personal.

Are you managing people in different locations who have little chance to get together in person? Are you struggling to create a virtual team? More and more managers are having to give feedback over the phone. Telepresence is becoming common in offices. With the rise in global projects and the increase in flexible working, learning to manage, lead, build teams that are not co-located is an important skill. Hear expert advise on best practices.