Laura Wolfe Coaching LLC

Supporting the Evolution of Careers, Leaders,

& Climate Consciousness

About Watching Others and Others Watching Us

By Leave a Comment

CSC_001111Just because a bigshot or prominent organization does something, doesn’t make it right. Evaluate actions you hear and read about against your values. I say this because behavior modeling is one of the most fundamental ways that humans learn and it includes modeling both positive and negative behaviors. If you’ve ever let a bad word slip in front of a toddler, you know this to be true.

When you observe those in leadership positions and/or institutions doing despicable things, don’t be influenced to behave in similar ways. And leaders, do you want your people doing what you are doing? Because they are watching and they will. I’ve written about behavior modeling previously here and here.

One of the Secrets of Adulthood in Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project is that ‘people don’t notice your mistakes as much as you think’. On a recent Super Soul Sunday she discussed this with Oprah who said that Quincy Jones once told her (something like) “if you knew how little people are thinking about you, you wouldn’t be so bothered by stuff.” I find that oddly comforting. Gretchen Rubin was part of an earlier post here.

Came across this one about the changing environment of content marketing. Do you wonder if anyone is watching your online actions? Change is the only constant these days, especially in our million billion-stats world.

Who and what have you been watching lately? Would love to know your thoughts. Comment below.

The River, Change, Growth, and Work

By Leave a Comment

IMG_3279Welcome to the latest incarnation of my business website! Over the years my site has had a variety of looks but this is my favorite so far and I am excited and proud to share it with the world.

The header photo on the home page is the Mississippi River viewed from downtown Baton Rouge. The photo in this post is the river in New Orleans. Most of my life has been spent close to rivers. Our home in Baton Rouge is two miles from and our New Orleans condo is two-thousand feet from the mighty Mississippi. I love to be near a river, maybe because it’s such a metaphor for change, growth, and work.

Martha Beck explains it eloquently – “rivers exemplify the change that fills our lives. Every molecule of water moves continuously; its relationship to other molecules, to objects in the river, to the land it passes is always changing. You can stare at a spot on the river all day and never see anything stable. That’s why rivers are fresh and alive, rather than stagnant and stale. Though everything in the river passes away, the river itself remains constant, and it is constantly beautiful.”

Think about the work of managers and leaders – problems faced early in a career are usually very different from challenges down the road. Or the evolution of any career – during which the individual is both the same person they’ve always been but constantly changing.

Interesting river tidbit: when entering the Mississippi River system from the gulf, oceangoing ships are required to take a pilot on board. River pilots guide ships from the Gulf of Mexico into the mouth of the Mississippi and upriver to New Orleans and Baton Rouge. A few years back on a cruise, near the mouth of the river, we watched a pilot boat pull alongside our ship and the pilot jumped from the boat into an open door in the side the ship – a tricky maneuver indeed. It is an exclusive and fascinating profession and necessary because of the always changing features of the mighty Mississippi.

Is your career or work as a leader any less complex than the river? What I do is provide individuals and organizations with tools and support to diagnose, analyze, and deal with change through growth. Because in the world of work, change is the constant.

Got Power?

By Leave a Comment

Maryhill_Museum_Romanian_crown_7-11French and Raven’s bases of power came up in a recent conversation so it was on my mind as I considered the few minutes of the Republican debate I saw. The exchange was between Fiorina and Trump in response to a question about the economy and they bantered about their respective corporate successes and failures (during which both mentioned Jeff Sonnenfeld whom I worked for years ago at Emory).

French and Raven’s original model proposed a person’s power comes from one of five sources:

Legitimate – using formal authority to gain desired outcome (Army general)
Referent – using relationship skills to gain desired outcome (charismatic leader)
Expert – using specialized knowledge and skills to gain desired outcome (an attorney)
Reward – using positive or negative rewards to gain desired outcome (a carrot)
Coercion – using force to gain desired outcome (The Godfather)

Source of power is a useful lens under which to examine a leader or yourself. Considering where another person’s power comes from can help you craft an effective response. Understanding the basis of your power is yet another facet of self-awareness, but realize you may get your power from different sources in different relationships or situations.

Regarding the debate, it seems some of the candidates are still trying to figure out where their real power comes from.

Which source of power works most effectively for making things happen in your workplace? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

Measurement & Star Quality

By Leave a Comment

star qualityCharles Handler of Rocket Hire spoke at the July ATD Baton Rouge Chapter meeting. His presentation about talent assessment woke up my inner quant-geek because I don’t often encounter other I/O psychologists.

His talk and our chat before and after the presentation brought back memories of the SIX stats classes I took in grad school (my PhD program was deeply rooted in measurement) and of the famous (or infamous) faculty who taught those classes. I was reminded too about varied assessment work I’ve done for organizations including surveys, 360s, and employee selection. He even knew my former boss, a selection expert, from whom I learned much. Finally, I told him of teaching Employee Selection and Placement at LSU. Because selection is measurement based, it can be less than exciting. However, I did mix it up by teaching several sections using a service-learning model that benefited local nonprofits.

This stroll down memory lane started me thinking a lot about measurement and here’s Today’s Real Message:

Our house is 88 years old so home improvement projects are always in the queue. A lesson from years of renovation is that the most skilled craftspeople who produce the finest work are the ones who know how to take and use precise measurements.

Are people your most valuable asset? Do you truly understand the knowledge, skills, and abilities your recruits and employees possess? Are you looking for star quality but falling short? Good measurement can help you identify the right people, place them in the appropriate role, and provide the developmental experiences they need.

Here is an interesting example of how the FBI uses measurement data to figure out who belongs in the most important jobs. Note that the Assistant Director of HR says they “rely on other information and not exclusively on the surveys when promoting employees.”

The finest outcomes result from appropriate, reliable, and valid measurement.

I can help you with that.

Are you using assessments to identify, place and develop talent in your company? How’s that working for you? You can comment here.