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Managing Difficult Conversations, Remotely

Posted on by April Benetollo

In our October webinar, Dr. Kristin Powell shared her insights for creating a culture where difficult conversations are not so hard. Having the tough talk gets a little more complicated with remote employees, so let’s review a few tips to make those conversations successful.

Address Issues, Behaviors, and Misunderstandings Head-On

You know when something doesn’t “sit well” with you. It could be a misunderstanding over something a co-worker said. Or perhaps you are reading too much into an employee consistently appearing defensive. It’s best to address any such concerns as close to “real time” as possible. That way the behavior is fresh and hasn’t had time to fade from memory or build up into something bigger than it needs to be.

Be Prepared

In just the same way that you would prepare for an interview, sales pitch, or salary negotiation, you need to prepare for your difficult conversation. You’ll need facts, examples, and neutral sounding questions. You’ll also want to anticipate likely responses and how you will handle them. This is really important with remote conversations, since reading the other person’s facial expressions and body language is so much more difficult.

Reiterate Positive Intent

Let the other person know you care about them and share the common goal of making XYZ (team, organizational objectives, etc.) work for everyone. That’s why you’d like to talk about this issue, it seems to be getting in the way of that common goal. Express that it is your intent to 1) understand, and 2) help resolve. With remote employees, it’s good to have some additional resources you can share that can help them continue the behavior change you are asking for even after you disconnect.

Allow Time to Hear Their Side

Difficult conversations are not a one way street. For some reason, video tends to make these kinds of conversations more lopsided than normal. Pay special attention to the opportunities you give for the other person to share their perceptions. Ask questions like “is there something I may be missing?” or “can you tell me more about what you meant?”

Always Follow Up

If an issue is important enough to require a tough talk, it’s not likely to be a one-and-done thing. The follow up to a difficult conversation can be just as important as the conversation itself, particularly with remote employees. During your conversation, agree on what would be a reasonable amount of time to check back in. This lets your remote employee or co-worker know that you care enough to make see the resolution through.

Having these conversations isn’t easy, but not having them is worse! Make sure your remote teams get the same level of feedback as your in-office teams do to keep everyone performing at their best.

 

 

 

Defining Intersectionality

Posted on by Intern

The Case for Intersectionality

Intersectionality has been a commonplace phrase in the feminist realm since Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term in 1989. Essentially, it refers to the notion that the combination of different identities – age, race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality dramatically influence the way people experience the world. The intersection of these identities contributes to the obstacles and/or privileges that those who share some but not all identities may experience.

Too often, human resource stakeholders fall into the trap of the one size fits all approach. Its appeal in simplicity sacrifices efficacy. These one size fits all approaches for women in leadership aim to solve the challenges for white, middle-class, cisgender women. The Western default. Which leaves out doubly or triply marginalized women as a result. As organizational demographics evolve, they leave out more women than they aim to benefit.

According to research conducted by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co. in 2019, women make up 38 percent of frontline leader-level positions in the United States and Canada. White women hold 27 percent of these manager roles and women of color only hold 12 percent. The disparity is even greater at the executive level. White women hold 18 percent of roles while women of color hold 4 percent.

These discrepancies are due to a large disfunction of systemic and cultural barriers, not just failed women advocacy programs. Infusing intersectionality into policies and practices aimed at advancing women in leadership can help.

How can we do better?

Embracing intersectionality means embracing variety which adds an element of complexity. To ensure an environment where everyone can thrive because of their differences, follow these three steps:

1. Ask the Experts

The ideal approach is to have a diversity and inclusion expert with a focus on human-centered design to solve persistent and painful challenges with an empathetic perspective. Applying these principles to intersectionality and women’s advocacy efforts ensures the correct focus. The women leaders that are the goal are experts in their own experiences and challenges. Opening a dialogue creates space for these women to tell you exactly what they need without any guesswork.  

2. Diverse Populations Deserve Diverse Solutions

It is necessary to tailor approaches to fit different populations to achieve satisfaction. Equality is about giving everyone the same level of support, but equity requires different supports for different situations.

3. Use Multi-Dimensional Metrics to Track Multi-Level Impact

Lean on metrics, track engagement, retention, promotion, salary, and representation to measure the success of empowering women leaders. It is important to look at the data from a demographic perspective to see if the efforts positively impact all women. If efforts to advance women leaders are working for certain groups disproportionately, it is important to investigate and reevaluate accordingly.

Be S.M.A.R.T.

Posted on by Allie Haynes

What are your goals for your career?  For your life? We like to use the S.M.A.R.T. method to break down large goals into smaller pieces. As you check off each shorter goal, they begin to snowball and eventually you have attained the larger one!

Here’s a great example from Mindy Santo, our Mentoring Coordinator, who wants to promote our mentoring program.  Her goal:  Increase awareness of Momentum’s mentoring program by featuring topics on our social media platforms reaching readers within and outside our network to help women progress toward their goals of skills development, like; leadership, professional presence, or entrepreneurship within their organizations.

 

Mindy’s SMART goal breakdown:

S-pecific increase awareness of Momentum’s Mentoring program through our social media platforms

M-easurable reach goal by end of Q1

A-ttainable increase our Mentor and Mentee pool of candidates by 20%

R-elevant reach readers within and outside our network to help women progress toward their goals of skills development, like; leadership, professional presence, or entrepreneurship within their organizations

T-ime-bound feature one topic every Thursday on the benefits of mentoring

 

By defining Mindy’s mission, she is able to tackle her goal one piece at a time and hit her target.

 

“Mentoring has touched me in so many ways. From the gift of personally being mentored so I could do my thing, to connecting with courageous women who want to be mentored because they want to do their thing — no matter if they’re moving up, out, or laterally — and finally to the exceptional Mentors who are willing to help their Mentees accomplish those things (who may surprisingly get something in return!). All of these people have special meaning.”

 

Mindy Santo, Mentor Coordinator

Mentoring is:

A gift

Up-leveling

The courage to show up, open up, and give yourselves grace during the moments of discomfort

Setting expectations AND meeting them

An unexpected mutual exchange between Mentee AND Mentor

Bringing you’re A-game to serve AND be served

A selfless act of generosity

Fulfilling and SO worthwhile

Paying it forward

Rewarding

Realizing you are a step ahead of someone with your life experience, and that you all have skills and talents in certain areas that can be beneficial to someone else

 

Have you challenged yourself to reach a goal?  Do you need a little guidance?  Momentum’s Mentoring Program may be a perfect fit for you to help you climb to your highest potential.  Check out our website or reach out for more information!

Breaking Down Focus 2021 – What Comes Next?

Posted on by Nikita Udayakumar

We are still on cloud nine from last Wednesday, March 31st, presenting the Momentum Conference, Focus 2021. Our goal: to combat the physical and psychological toll from 2020 through a more positive focus in 2021. The multifaceted conference featured inspiring keynote speakers, Momentum Lessons in Leadership, and messages from our sponsor partners. We explored our strengths in innovative teamwork, work-life management, making bold career moves, and supporting inclusive cultures.  

 

A main highlight was the return of our fabulous keynote speakers from Vision 2020, Risha Grant and Robyn Benincasa.

 

Takeaways from Risha Grant (Learn about her here)

Speaking on her experience trailblazing diversity and inclusion practices at Regions Bank, she urged us to “turn our brains off auto-pilot” to identify and address our biases.  To focus on equitable change we have to understand we have to understand how our individual behaviors, actions, support for certain workplace policies, and attitude to change hinder or support our efforts to social progression. 

Click to see her additional tips for carrying this internal reflection in a mindful way and more about sustaining personal progress on the Focus 2021 Resource Page.

 

Takeaways from Robyn Benincasa (Learn about her here)

Robyn shared her iron approach on how leaders should carry courage and guts through their journeys “adapt, overcome, and win” against tough challenges in their environment. She related this to the motivation necessary for her to continue to ascend the 19,000 ft. summit of a volcano. 

Remember, GUTS means:

Go the distance, quietly persevering

Unwavering in patience and faith

Taking calculated risks

Shattering the norm

 

How Can We Keep the Fire?

 

#1: Continue to encourage self-exploration through journaling 

There is no feeling freeing than the flow of unprovoked thought. To meaningfully access to our subconscious beliefs and attitudes, we must first displace the filtering, perfectionist monitoring of even the things we write to ourselves. Personal journaling can help us address the start of a negative thought and pull it out from the root.

 

Helpful Journaling Guides:

A Journal Prompt for Every Emotion You Feel

Start a Work Diary And Leverage it for Career Growth

 

#2: Fuel respectful discussions with others

The key to communicating is first and foremost active listening. We do this by tuning our attentiveness, our patience, and our receptiveness of what others confide in us. This should be a mutual practice among the members of a discussion group and should reflect a bare foundation of respect and empathy. It is challenging to engage in conversations about inclusion that might have never been confronted before, but if we are patient with others and ourselves it will empower us to have brave conversations.

 

#3: Give yourself some grace

We must understand that we do not all innately hold the perfect solutions to the problems we confront in our 3D world. We are positive people, passionately moving forward, building on our knowledge and reflecting that personal growth outwards.

 

Petite Can Mean Powerful

Posted on by Allie Haynes

Deborah Boswell, long-time President of Professional Speech Services of Alabama, spoke at last week’s Intentional Tuesdays event about the power of your voice. As a woman who measures over five feet tall on a good day, I was ready for this presentation with my trusty pen to take notes. Deborah mentioned some key takeaways that you probably haven’t heard before. Here’s the rundown:

  • Focus on your breath. You don’t have to scream to be loud! Try to talk from your diaphragm instead of your throat or chest to command the room.
  • When you’re nervous, you probably have shallow breath. Take some deep inhales and exhales before a presentation. Personally, I listen to a Lizzo song or some words of encouragement from Brene Brown. You can view some more mindfulness resources here.
  • First impressions count. Think about your posture and what you’re wearing. I have been moved mid-presentation because multiple people thought I was breaking out in hives. Turns out, I was just nervous, so now I wear a turtleneck.
  • Be concise. No one likes a long meeting that could have been summed up in a quick email. Executives don’t have a lot of time on their hands, and the average person’s attention span, according to research by Microsoft, is shorter than eight seconds. That’s less than a goldfish.
  • BLUF. Don’t bluff, but keep the Bottom Line Up Front. Capture their attention at the beginning so they stay with you for important information.
  • Conjunction junction, what’s your function? Diluting clarity, according to Deborah. Break up your sentences.
  • If you are the expert, behave like the expert! Stay confident; you’ve got this.

Wish you hadn’t missed Deborah’s presentation? Want to watch it again? Check out our new Youtube channel for her presentation and others!

Leveraging LinkedIn: Tips from Social U

Posted on by April Benetollo
CEO, Social U

We had an Intentional Tuesday session with Caryn Terradas this week on how to leverage LinkedIn to boost your professional brand. Caryn is a social media guru and owner of a digital marketing company, Social U.

Caryn shared so many highly practical tips, it was easy to leave with lots of action items. We’ve recorded the whole session and will be posting here, but if you just want a few of the highlights, here are our top five take-aways:

 

1. Update Your Profile

Use an updated, professional headshot. Edit your LinkedIn url so people can find you easily; if you have a common name, try adding your city or your position to your name (e.g. Christin Johnson_CPA_Birmingham.) Keep your Summary to a few short sentences, with your main “selling point” in the first line. Get more detailed in your work experience, listing out each position you held in a company to show progression. Don’t forget to list volunteer experience! Get about 10 good recommendations; the higher profile the recommender, the better.

2. Connect with Other Users

Start with people you really do know. Look at the suggestions LinkedIn proposes (connections of your connections) and add the ones you know or would like to meet. Get to 250 as quickly as possible. Connect with thought leaders in the Groups you join. Once you hit 500 connections, LinkedIn just displays “500+ connections.”

3. Join Groups

Speaking of groups, join a few. People are not using the Groups in LinkedIn as much as they used to, but if you can find a few active Groups in your field, it’s a good way to show your professional interests and to expand your network beyond the local scene.

4. Post Content

Ideally you want to generate content on LinkedIn about 20 times per month. It’s easier than it sounds. You can share content from others, post links you spot elsewhere on social media, comment on current events (diplomatically), post events, and share volunteer opportunities. Make your posts part of your daily routine, and post during business hours. A good habit is to post first thing, upon your return from lunch, or when you need an afternoon break.

5. Use Graphics

The more visually appealing you can make your posts, the better off you’ll be. Canva is the free, easy to use tool Caryn suggested for making professional looking graphics quickly. Canva has social media templates that are already correctly sized, and hundreds of royalty free photos. She also suggested Unsplash for even more royalty free photo choices.

Connect with Momentum! (Okay, so that’s #6)

 

 

Momentum has an active LinkedIn page, so please connect with us! We would also love for you to connect with our team:

April Benetollo, CEO

Andrea McCaskey, Director of Programs

Mindy Santo, Mentoring Coordinator

Katherine Thrower, Logistics Manager

Tina Upshaw, Director of Operations

Take Time to Assess

Posted on by April Benetollo

Every leadership journey begins with deepening your understanding of yourself and how you relate to an ever-changing environment. We have all gone through some big changes as a result of the Corona virus. Now that most of us are working from home (WFH), it’s a good time to reassess your personality and what WFH strategy will work best for you.

A fellow leader and friend of Momentum, Gayle Lantz, shared a complimentary assessment to determine your WFH style and how you can be most productive. It only takes 10-15 minutes to complete, and the assessment at the end had some good pointers for me.

Take the Work from Home Style Assessment

I hope you will find it helpful, too. Not everyone has the same work from home style, so we all need to approach it in the way that works best with our personalities.

Here are a few other free self-assessments that we’ve found to be helpful:

16 Personalities
Very similar to the Myers-Briggs personality test. The paid version is actually well worth the $30, IMO.

Enneagram
Fun and currently very popular among professionals. 

Who Am I
This is an interesting visual test where you choose your answers from a bank of pictures rather than words. I recommend skipping the non-essential consumer questions at the end. 

 

EQ: The Key to Leadership Success

Posted on by Intern
Dr. Jean Ann Larson

Dr. Jean Ann Larson, BSIE, MBA, EdD, FACHE, LFHIMSS, FIISE, serves as the Leadership Development Officer for UAB School of Medicine and will be a session speaker at Momentum’s Vision 2020 biennial leadership conference in March.

People often ask me what is one thing they can do to become a better leader.  The advice I offer is fairly easy. However, it is not quite so easy to follow.

My suggestion is to improve your Emotional Intelligence (EQ).  It is said that 90% of the difference in effectiveness between star performers and average performers can be explained by emotional intelligence according to Daniel Goleman’s, (1995) book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than Intelligence.  The good news is that if you really want to improve your emotional intelligence there are actions you can take.

First of all, why would you want to improve your emotional intelligence?  Improving EQ not only helps you become a better leader, it also helps you be better at navigating interpersonal differences, build stronger relationships and even deal with change more effectively.  Ultimately, strengthening our EQ connects us to more productive reactions to challenging situations.

There are five parts of the emotional intelligence model popularized by Goleman’s book which was built upon research by other researchers. Those five parts are:

Interpersonal aspects:

  1. Self-Awareness: The ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others
  2. Self-Regulation: The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods and the propensity to suspend judgment and think before acting.
  3. Motivation: A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status, and a propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence.

Intrapersonal aspects:

  1. Social-awareness or empathy: The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people by sensing others’ feelings and perspectives and taking an active interest in their concerns.
  2. Social regulation or social skills: A proficiency in managing relationships and building networks while wielding effective tactics for persuasion and listening openly and sending convincing messages.

So where to start?  It can be very helpful to take an EQ assessment, but even without that, I recommend starting with either self-awareness or self-regulation.  The idea is to start with things within yourself before beginning work on external or intrapersonal parts of EQ.  I have seen that by focusing on a very few but vital behavioral changes in yourself, it can have a large impact upon how you show up as a leader.  Here are some examples of things you can do to improve in each area:

Improving self-awareness

  • Practice self-reflection by recognizing your current emotional state – do you experience discreet feelings and emotions? Can you name them?
  • Once you identify the emotion, describe it aloud or write it down on paper
  • Feel your emotions physically
  • To improve your ability to self-assess, ask a family member or trusted advisor to describe your strengths and weaknesses. Compare their perspective with your own self-assessment
  • Pay attention to your emotions and behaviors and see if you recognize patterns throughout the day
  • Reflect on the connection between your emotions and your behavior
  • Know who and what pushes your buttons
  • Write in a journal about your emotional responses to situations that were significant

Improving self-regulation

  • Practice self-restraint by listening first, pausing and then responding
  • When becoming frustrated, identify what brought on that emotion
  • Create effective responses to stressful situations by finding strategies for altering a negative mood
  • Discuss ways of dealing with change and stress with family members, friends or a trusted advisor
  • Focus on events that provide a sense of calm or positive emotions
  • Ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that can happen?” in order to consider the reality of the situation
  • Journal occurrences during which you were able to regulate your responses or emotions. How did the ability to self-regulate affect the outcomes and your relationship with others?
  • Begin regular exercise, yoga or meditation to increase your ability to manage your emotions and relax both body and mind. Exercise regulates your emotions by releasing endorphins, adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine
  • Get adequate sleep and rest.  Without it, even with the best intentions, it is too easy to react in a way that you’ll regret.

The lists may seem long and you have many ideas to select from.  I recommend you select the one or two items that you can actually incorporate into your daily routine and which you feel will have the most impact on your ability to be a more effective and productive leader.

And if none of the above suggestions work for you, here are general ways to improve your emotional intelligence:

  • Improve your non-verbal communication
  • Focus on the other person
  • Make eye contact
  • Pay attention to non-verbal cues
  • Smile
  • Use humor and play to deal with challenges
  • Take hardships in stride
  • Smooth over differences
  • Simultaneously relax and energize yourself
  • Be creative
  • Resolve conflict positively and in a trust building way
  • Stay focused in the present
  • Choose your arguments
  • Forgive
  • End conflicts that cannot be resolved

Power Up! Summer Intern Event Was High Energy

Posted on by April Benetollo

Summer is a time for students, and this year Momentum teamed up with Alabama Power to host a half-day of professional development, designed especially for college student interns.

The day got started with a four-person panel featuring senior-level women from Alabama Power, Protective Life, and Regions Bank. Following the panel, Momentum alumnae and managers from Southern Company hosted round-table discussions on ten different topics, such as negotiation, work-life management, and career progression.

The event was the brainchild of Giuli Biondi Williams, campus recruiter for Southern Company. She approached Momentum about partnering for the event. Momentum decided to incorporate the idea into the quarterly Momentum Leadership Series.

With the combined resources of Alabama Power and the Momentum alumnae network on the event logistics, such as the event space, speakers, content, marketing and registration came together in just a under a month. All 120 seats filled in just two weeks. Our future leaders are clearly ready to jump-start their careers! Participants came from companies large and small, such as Protective Life,  Encompass Health, Regions Bank, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, UAB, Brasfield & Gorrie, Oakworth Capital,  Pack Health, and Peritus PR, just to name a few.

 

Thanks to the generous support of Alabama Power and all of Momentum’s program sponsors, there was no cost to attend the event.

Event organizers have already received great feedback from participants:

“Friday’s professional development event was amazing. Thank you for working with Guili to make it possible. I love the mission of Momentum and the intentional investment in women. My favorite part was getting to hear from the panel of women and then hearing interns ask in depth questions. I am always excited for new opportunities to network and I look forward to future events with Momentum.”

“This event was a great professional development opportunity as well as a great networking opportunity. I’m so thankful I got to meet so many women who have the same aspirations as I do!”

“I loved the panel and the panelists! From a college-aged, about-to-graduate-and-start-her-career, female intern, I thought it was very interesting and noteworthy to listen to other female leaders that have been working for a long time who had advice and stories to give. Listening to real workplace advice from real leaders is inspiring!”

While we can’t recreate the entire event in blog format, we can dedicate the next few posts to covering the most popular topics at the event. All of the topics are relevant at all career levels, so feel free to share and comment.

Here’s to a fun and productive summer.

Why Confidence Matters

Posted on by April Benetollo

When you work really hard to gain expertise in your field, you want to believe that your competence will earn you extra stripes and higher level positions. Turns out it’s confidence, more than competence, that makes the bigger difference. More than mere bravado, authentic confidence comes from believing in your competence, trusting your abilities, having faith in your instincts, and conquering the fear of failure.

Many women lack the same level of confidence and self-esteem that men have. While some level of explanation may be rooted in physiological differences, most of it is social. In a 2015 study on Age and Gender Difference in Self Esteem, Wiebke Bleidorn and her research team studied nearly one million subjects from 48 nations. They found that worldwide, men systematically have higher levels of self-esteem than women, and that self-esteem increases with age from adolescence to adulthood. What is surprising about their study is this: the confidence gap between men and women is actually higher in industrialized, western, more egalitarian countries than in developing countries. How can we explain that?

It seems to me that in countries where women’s equality is guaranteed by law and where women  expect to be treated as equals, the blow to self-esteem is much greater when women experience inequality, unconscious bias, and harassment.

So how can women overcome these deeply seated sociocultural norms to regain their confidence and self-esteem? Dr. Sharon Melnick is a leading authority on business psychology, stress resilience, and women’s leadership. According to Melnick, there are three main patterns that affect confidence levels:

  1. Seeking Approval

  2. Preventing Disapproval

  3. Looping Self/Other Criticism

To rise above these patterns, we have to understand why we do them and be willing to move from what Melnick calls a “confidence seeker” to a “confidence contributor.” Once we can make the shift from looking to others for our confidence, we can begin to gain confidence from the true value of our contributions.

Dr. Melnick is a preferred facilitator for Momentum’s executive leadership class. This year Momentum is hosting a leadership series open to the community, and this week Dr. Melnick will conduct her “Confidence When it Counts” workshop January 16, 2019 at Samford University.