Chronic Stress? Three Steps To Complete The Stress Response Cycle And Increase Health And Wellness
This post first appeared on Forbes.
Life is full of stress. Traffic, deadlines, interviews, conflict, financial pressure, the news, politics…the list goes on. Many of us are so accustomed to stress that it feels like a constant state. This is because we can get into a never-ending stress cycle that feeds on itself.
In their recent book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, authors and sisters Ameila and Emily Nagoski suggest that we can break the vicious cycle of stress by completing the “stress response cycle” that is triggered by a stressful event. Like all biological processes, the stress response cycle has a beginning, middle and end. Or rather, it should have an end, but unfortunately all too often we don’t manage to complete this biological cycle. Instead, a stressor—getting cut off on the freeway or receiving harsh feedback at work—activates the same physiological response as if our ancestors encountered a lion in the wild. We go into fight or flight mode. The heart races, breathing quickens, muscles tense, stress hormones secrete! In nature, (assuming we didn’t get eaten by the lion) we would run away, find a safe place and rest. This burst of activity followed by rest would complete the stress response cycle, bring it to closure and allow us to recover. However, in modern life, many of us ping-pong from stressor to stressor and are unable to find the release and the rest that we need. These repeated incomplete loops of stress build up, making it hard to sleep and compromising our ability to manage the next event that might be a trigger. Our wellbeing and health suffer.
(more…)Moving Beyond Likability: 5 Principles For Women Leaders That Men Can Learn From Too
This post first appeared on Forbes.
Everywhere you look, women are rocking it. This year saw a dramatic rise in the number of women CEOs in the Fortune 500, from 24 (4.8%) in 2018 to 33 (6.6%) in 2019—still low but improving. Young women have some very impressive entrepreneurial role models, as documented in Diana Kapp’s recent book, Girls Who Run The World: 31 CEOs Who Mean Business. There are a record number of women in Congress, and we saw four women candidates participate in the latest Democratic presidential debate. We also witnessed some tremendously competent and powerful female career diplomats—notably Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill—testify in the recent impeachment inquiry hearings.
And yet, “the likability trap is still a thing.” A recent New York Times/Siena College poll indicated that nearly 40% of respondents found all of the female candidates for president “just not likable” and many are drawing an inference from this that they may not be electable. Never mind the fact that President Trump is widely disliked, or that Hillary Clinton, who also struggled with likability, won the popular vote in 2016. Women continue to be dogged by the issue.
(more…)Managing Up With Authenticity: Tips To Get The Most From Your Boss
Originally published on Forbes.
“When I was moved to my current manager, I wanted to make a good impression. I figured out early on that she liked to talk about herself, so I usually start our one-on-ones with a question and just let her talk. When I do bring an issue to her, I always have a solution.” Sarah, a director in a tech company, thought she was managing up. But Sarah has been so focused on keeping her boss happy that she has not communicated her own aspirations and struggles. Afraid to show any weakness, she’s sacrificed authenticity and failed to develop a real relationship. “She hasn’t really advocated for me or my team,” says Sarah. “I don’t feel I can go to her for advice about my career, because she doesn’t really know me.”
Managing up is more than just keeping your boss happy. Building a strong, trusting relationship with your manager can be a powerful lever for your success. Every manager has strengths and weaknesses, and understanding them is essential to managing up well. Your boss should be a resource for you and your team, so if your manager isn’t initiating conversations about priorities, goals, working styles or professional development, you need to be proactive. Skillful employees can actually help their bosses become better managers. Here are some tips for managing up:
(more…)Dealing With Difficult Clients: 7 Approaches To Transform Challenging Client Relationships
This post first appeared on Forbes.com
If you’re in a client service business (lawyer, consultant or in-house services), you’ve met them: difficult clients. These clients are demanding. They may be anxious and need a lot of hand-holding. Or they habitually lob in urgent requests at the last minute. Some nit-pick your work. Some are rude or behave badly. Others try to micromanage you or are very hard to please. You see them as “difficult” because they demand special attention or effort and they often make your life harder. In extreme cases, they may seem like the enemy.
However, sometimes difficult clients also push you to do your very best work. They question your ideas and assumptions. They require you to explain what you’re doing and not operate on autopilot. They push you to meet tough deadlines. They require that you apply your skills and expertise and also your emotional intelligence. They can make you better.
(more…)How To Manage Workflow For Pressure-Prompted Procrastinators
This post first appeared on Forbes.com
Confession: I don’t always practice what I preach.
As a coach, I work with my clients to build habits that will support them in achieving their goals. Our approach typically involves creating structures that promote steady effort and accountability. Clients practice mindfulness to learn how to self-manage their emotions; leaders schedule a weekly “meeting with myself” for planning and prioritization; some create spreadsheets for tracking networking targets and follow-up; others write in gratitude journals. All of these are effective in cultivating the new behaviors and awareness that will help them grow and develop.
(more…)Don’t Be So Sure: The Perils of Certainty
This post first appeared on Forbes.com.
I was certain that my flight to Chicago was at 10:30, so I aimed to leave for the airport by 9:00. But at 8:30 when I checked to verify the exact takeoff time, my chest seized up. My flight was leaving in less than an hour! I yelled for my husband to take me to the airport now. By the time I made it through security, the boarding gate had closed. I watched my flight take off without me.
Maybe something like this has happened to you. You felt so utterly sure of something that you did not consider the possibility that you were wrong, not bothering to check, but instead plowing ahead feeling right until the moment you realized you were wrong.
This experience is at the heart of Kathryn Schultz’s exploration of being wrong. As she points out, until you realize that you are wrong about something, it feels just like it does when you are right. You feel certain, confident, convinced of your rightness. We tend to think of certainty as the product of rational thought. But according to Robert A. Burton, certainty itself is actually a feeling—an involuntary mental sensation of the accuracy of one’s belief. It isn’t a thought but a feeling about a thought. You feel that you are right. And it turns out that we all tend to feel that we are right a lot, walking around in a bubble of certainty. As Daniel Kahneman writes in Thinking Fast and Slow, we are prone to “excessive confidence in what we believe we know” and an “apparent inability to acknowledge the full extent of our ignorance and the uncertainty of the world we live in.”
(more…)When Should You Take No For an Answer?
This post first appeared on Forbes.com
The consequences of overwork are evident in my coaching practice. In startups, established companies and nonprofits I see teams in a constant state of fire-fighting and leaders who are unable to prioritize, where the quality of work is suffering, individuals are experiencing stress and anxiety, and valuable people are burning out. In a previous post, I wrote about building the “no” muscle—learning to say “no” to certain activities in service of being able to say “yes” to the right things.
But what if you say “no” and your colleagues won’t accept it? “I can say no ‘til the cows come home,” said Gayle, a member of the leadership team of a growing nonprofit organization, “but it’s not heard. I get push back. We have a culture of yes, and it’s killing our team.”
(more…)How to Prepare for Critical Feedback
This post first appeared on Forbes.com
“I’m totally terrified,” said a colleague. Was she skydiving or going for a big job interview? Nope. She was preparing to receive feedback—in this case from an interdisciplinary group of experts who were reviewing a draft of her book—and she was afraid of being pummeled by their critique, even though she was also excited for the opportunity. It felt a little like facing a firing squad.
The fear of receiving criticism is not unique to her. Many of my clients enter their 360 feedback sessions with trepidation about what they will hear and how they will handle it. Like my friend, they may be bracing themselves for an attack on their performance or they may be concerned about how they will handle the criticism. Fear of your own reaction is especially acute when you are facing your reviewers in person, as my friend was. Preparation is key. Here are some suggestions to help you face your critics with equanimity and curiosity:
(more…)Want to Make a Difference? Focus on Contribution, Not Impact
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I nominate “impact” as one of the most annoying and potentially harmful buzzwords in business today.
Countless clients tell me they want to make an impact. Whether they are leaders in growing startups or tech giants, Millennials seeking meaning or mid-career professionals pursuing their next big job, they define success as having this thing they call “impact.” But what is it really about?
Impact is defined as the striking of one object into another, a collision. This kind of impact is violent, even shattering, like a hammer through plate glass. (Echoes of Facebook’s “move fast and break things” mantra?) When used in the term “Impact Investing,” it refers to the pursuit of a social benefit as well as profit. And because measuring social benefit is trickier than measuring profits, there is an ongoing debate about how and if to measure impact. It turns out it can be pretty hard to assess.
(more…)Overworked? A People Pleaser’s Guide to Saying No
This post first appeared on Forbes.com
“I have more work than I can possibly do, my team is stretched to the breaking point, and the requests keep coming,” said an executive coaching client in a large tech company, her eyes welling with tears. She was not the only one to whom I gave a tissue this week.
Overwork is widespread in the U.S., and research indicates that it is bad for people’s health and productivity. An excessive workload can be caused by many different factors—a demanding organizational culture, poor planning, failure to delegate or a lack of adequate staffing. But often times, it is exacerbated by an inability or unwillingness to say, “no.” People pleasers (you know who you are) hate to let down their colleagues and will sacrifice their own well-being to avoid causing disappointment. If they don’t develop their “no” muscle, they are likely to burn out or make themselves sick. Here are some strategies for people pleasers:
