What stops us from making change?
When individuals who have been successful in their previous positions step into a new senior role, they are usually required to learn new skills. Whatever got them here is not going to get them further. While it is true that achieving promotions and advancements often require new abilities, the process of acquiring these skills can be challenging.
When individuals who have been successful in their previous positions step into a new senior role, they are usually required to learn new skills. Whatever got them here is not going to get them further. While it is true that achieving promotions and advancements often require new abilities, the process of acquiring these skills can be challenging.
One common misconception is that deciding on an action and then performing it is sufficient for learning. But knowing something theoretically does not equate to actual behaviour change. For instance, leaders may understand the importance of delegating tasks to team members but continue to micromanage due to their mindset around controlling outcomes.
Our mindsets, shaped by experiences and past successes, can be obstacles to learning new skills and adapting to new roles. Changing our behaviours might feel inauthentic and contrary to common advice. Thinking this way usually keeps us within our comfort zone. Paradoxically, when we are pushed to the edges of our comfort zone, we may become more rigid and resistant to change. We stick to what we know, and what has worked for us in the past.
To address this dilemma, we should be asking ourselves: how do we define our authenticity? One way is by viewing new actions, behaviours, and decisions as experiments. It means trying new things outside of our comfort zone, and being open to failure and iteration. By reframing these changes as experiments, we can approach them with a growth mindset and a willingness to learn from our experiences, rather than staying in our lanes. It requires redefining our personal authenticity to include novel and adaptive ways of being. By doing so, we can continue to grow, learn, and thrive in new situations while staying true to our values and who we are.
One of the sessions in our Empowering Individuals for Team Success workshop is about self-care and resiliency. Resiliency is our response to challenges, big and small. One way to build resiliency is facing smaller challenges, which sets us up to deal with bigger ones. Another is by reframing how we think, also known as cognitive reappraisal. For example, normalising a new challenge as a new adventure, an opportunity to learn, or an experiment. It makes us put less importance on the experience, be more open to fail, and to learn from our experiences while staying authentic to ourselves.
Coaching can also support individuals as they navigate challenging circumstances and adapt to change. The coach can provide guidance, support, and practical strategies to help build coping skills and adjust mindset and ways of thinking.
So a couple of question to you: how do you approach change in your personal life and at work? And is it working for you?
~ Elle
What’s been happening?
Coaching
As a leader you believe you should know the answers. You feel responsibility and ownership to drive work forward. You aim to make perfect decisions but get bogged down and you keep finding caveats. You might not have clear priorities from stakeholders which makes it challenging to communicate clarity to your team. You are unhappy with the status quo and unsure how to make change happen. As a leader, you have a lot on your plate and are time-poor, you don’t feel like you are across all the ongoing projects.
We have been through the kinds of problems you are facing and have developed tools, strategies, and methodologies to help you navigate your current challenges.
Let us support you to grow your capabilities, strengthen your skills, so you can overcome your current challenges and approach future ones with more confidence and resilience. With leadership coaching you will increase your effectiveness, and inspire engagement from everyone around you.
Our leadership coaching is typically one hour, delivered online, every two weeks. This lets you stay on top of your responsibilities, while being frequent enough to develop the skills you need to meet the challenges of the moment.
Community of practice
Do you find it hard to find peers at work that you can turn to? What about having appropriate professional development at your career level?
Our Community of Practice program is structured around your busy work schedule to provide you maximum learning with very little investment. You will address actual challenges at work, reduce your risk by reducing your blind spots, gain perspectives from others, and build a support network of trusted peers.
For our next cohorts, we're looking for experienced product engineering leaders. If that is you, or someone you know, you can check out to apply at https://blackmill.co/coaching-training/community-of-practice or book a chat with us to learn more at https://meet.blackmill.co/blackmill/30min
What are we reading?
Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued — 7000 words from 2012 on why negotiation is important, shifting your mindset, and more
Scaling yourself during hypergrowth — In this video, Julia Grace shares tips and stories from the leadership front lines as she learned how to rapidly scale herself and her leadership team during a period when her job was substantially changing every six months.
Global Gender Gap Report 2024 — This is 18th edition, looking at 146 economies, providing a basis for the analysis of gender parity developments across two-thirds of the world’s economies. While no country closed the gap, many are heading in the right direction, but we still have a ways to go.
How to build (and rebuild) trust — Dr Frances Frei talks about the three foundations for trust: authenticity, logic, and empathy.
ADHD Unfinished Projects — Unfinished projects are a common phenomenon for individuals with ADHD, often stemming from challenges in sustaining focus, managing time, and the allure of new, more stimulating tasks. Understanding and strategising around these tendencies are key to successfully completing tasks and reducing the pile of unfinished projects.
And we’re out
Thank you for showing an interest in our newsletter and we hope that you enjoyed the read. Feel free to contact us if you have any feedback, a burning question, or just a recipe that you would like to share.
Until next time, keep learning!
Everyone at Blackmill