Happiness depends upon ourselves.
What's one thing you can do today to be happy?
Why Asking can be your #1 Strategy for Success
April 3, 2013 by · 2 Comments
When I first launched my business, the first month was super tough. I was trying to build partnerships and had just graduated from Harvard and MIT. People still saw me as a student, not as a full fledged professional.
When I asked for referrals and leads from thought leaders and friends, I got some great intros but I also found many hesitant without knowing exactly what I had to offer. I totally get it, it takes time for referrals to really happen.
Instead of waiting on others, I had to show what I offered first myself. I decided to approach some of my dream clients on my own-I approached over ten Fortune 500 executives, and almost every single one responded and followed up with me. Some led to full fledged projects, others led to just a phone chat to stay in touch. The truth is that: I learned more by reaching out than stepping back. I didn’t wait till a friend told me I was ready or introduced me.
We live in a world where it's easy to be fearful to ask for ways to help. Obviously we must be prepared, informed and ready to be thoughtful about our ask. The same situation occurs all the time in many areas, when we wait to get in touch, to reach out, to CONNECT for projects, idea generation, brainstorms, campaigns or startups.
We must connect, and by connecting we ignite change and prosper over the long term. This is the key principle in my own work on connectional intelligence as the key agent to generating breakthrough capacity in organizations and the world. Asking can be the #1 Strategy for Success for every leader of the future.
Who is one person that you’ve been dying to connect with, but just haven’t had the courage to reach out to on your own? First, reflect on WHY you want to get in touch with them. Then, reach out and set up a meeting. You NEVER know what it could lead to. And let me know what happens!
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The Biggest Gen Y and Gender Myths and Why Your Company Should Care
February 27, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
I recently published my Harvard study in Harvard Business Review: Busting Gen Y & Gender Myths and Why Your Company Should Care unleashing new research on the work-life aspirations of elite Gen Y women and men. Surveying a group of Harvard and MIT MBAs, I found that they hold more traditional attitudes about gender roles in the workplace than the rest of the Gen Y cohort. What is more, the driver for these traditional attitudes about the work-life balance was not personal belief, but the career structure and expectations of the high-level organizations they enter.
As a followup to this piece, many corporate leaders have asked me:
What does this mean for companies hiring Elite Gen Yers? And what should my company do about all these Gen Y & Gender myths in the workplace?
As Gen Y rises in the workplace, Gen Y men and women still struggle to balance work and home. Gen Y men still feel the burden of being breadwinners and women feel more responsibility at home.
This is a conversation that few Gen Y men and women are having–in companies. They need safe spaces to hash out these challenges – together. And your company needn’t make it a work-life issue; it can be coached in terms of leadership, performance, and strategy
Here’s what I think your company should do about it:
● Navigate the leadership conversation with language like strategy, and leadership, not work-family issues. This type of language makes it easier for organizations and Gen Y men and women to discuss why family issues play a role in career strategy.
● Understand the link between the bottom line and employee engagement of Gen Y: According to Gallup, engaged employees are “more productive, profitable, safer, create stronger customer relationships, and stay longer with their company than less engaged employees.”
● Know that the diversity of talent among Gen Y leads to better innovation. Dorothy Leonard’s concept of “creative abrasion” shows that innovative products and services derive from well-managed, diverse individuals across generations and genders.
● Retain and engage Gen Y men and women – it leads to more effective innovations. Show your Gen Y workforce why this matters to their future.
For the full report and findings, sign up for my mailing listserve here and receive a free copy of the Busting Gen Y & Gender Myths report. For a deep dive at your company, check out Erica's talent development young professional program.
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Monday Inspiration: Nic Askew
February 25, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
"Perhaps our deepest fear is that we don't belong to the "tribe". That we're separate. And perhaps it's this fear that drives us to "be a certain way" in order to belong. And compels us to hide what we believe to be imperfect."
Nic Askew, soulbiographies.com/
What are you hiding for its imperfections?
How to Get Motivated At Work
February 20, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
Have you ever tried to “get motivated” at the office—but nothing works? You start to feel terrible, like you’re falling behind in your business or career. You’re bored, lethargic, and you don’t want to meet up with your friends because you don’t want to talk about what you’ve been doing. (Or, more accurately, what you haven’t been doing.)
I’ve totally been there, too, and I’ve felt the frustration that comes from a lack of motivation at work.
But I’ve also got some good news. There are some key things that contribute to your work being motivating (or not), and once you recognize them, you have the power to redesign your workday in a way that gets you moving.
Here are five things you should make sure you’re getting out of your day-to-day tasks—and if you’re not, the changes you can make to jump start your motivation.
1. Task Identity
Work is most motivating when it’s clear what, exactly, you’re accomplishing. Think about it: How great does it feel when you know you’ve gotten a launch off the ground or made great progress on big project? On the other hand, nothing is worse than working all day and thinking “What did I even do today?!”
If you’re feeling like you’ve been spinning your wheels, try this: At the end of each day or week, make a “Got Done” list (the opposite of to the to-do list!), where you outline all of the tasks you’ve completed. For extra motivation, keep it somewhere you can see.
2. Task Significance
Another key to staying motivated is knowing that the work you’re doing makes a difference in some way—recognizing the impact you’re making on your clients, company, or the world.
If you’re not totally seeing this connection, try to dig deep. You could map your weekly sales reports to the increase in your company’s bottom lines or sales unit, for example. Or, say a key metric your company tracks is customer acquisition cost. Make a list of the tasks you do that reduce this cost for your company, and find ways to focus on those aspects of your job more often.
3. Skill Variety
Feel like you’re doing the same old repetitive work, day after day? It’s not so stimulating, to say the least. But when you’re engaging lots of different skill sets—that’s fantastic for your motivation.
Try to structure your days so that you’re working on different tasks (and thus, making use of different skills) throughout the day. For example, instead of writing all day on Monday and then building your client presentations on Tuesday, try to do both in smaller three-hour chunks each day. When you stimulate different parts of the brain, your motivation will be recharged.
4. Feedback
One of the most motivating factors you can have is getting feedback on your work. Not only for the ego boost you get when you’ve done a good job, but because the right feedback can help you hone your skills even further. It can also help you see the difference that your work is making. On the contrary, if you don’t know how you’re performing, it’s easy to lose steam.
If you find that you’re in a black hole of feedback, ask your manager, or even a colleague, for standing check-in meetings every one or two weeks. Let her know that you’d like to use the time to check in on your projects, and that you’d love honest feedback on where you could improve.
5. Autonomy
Finally, this is a big one: having autonomy in your job. Now, this doesn’t mean that you always get to do what you want—it just means you get a domain of choice about how you’re doing things.
For example, say you need to secure three more clients for the month. It’s much more motivating to be able to determine how to do that on your own—perhaps you want to build your online presence, or perhaps you enjoy building relationships offline. Sure, in the corporate world, there are plenty of things that have to be done a certain way—but there are also plenty of places where you can ask your boss for more autonomy.
And that brings me to my final point: Unless you work for yourself, you probably don’t have the power to totally rewrite your job description. But what you can do is communicate with your manager. You can identify the skills you want to develop, ask for feedback more often, probe for clarification when tasks are not clearly identified or seem insignificant, or ask to take on different tasks or have more autonomy on a project.
More than likely, you’ll be able to change something about your workload. And not only will you be more motivated—your boss will be impressed you've taken the initiative.
So what’s getting in the way of you being motivated at work? Find out, and then find a solution.
This post first appeared at Daily Muse.
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Top 7 Trends about Generation Z
February 13, 2013 by · 1 Comment
Generation what-now? Yes, I'm talking about Generation Z. This is a group born in the early 2000s to the present day, set to be the next generation rising up after millennials. The oldest of Generation Z babies are currently in first or second grade right now. With so much dialogue on millennials, many have asked me share some trends coming out about the next generation (currently toddlers). Here is sneak peek into this up and coming generation and seven traits that will make them different.
· Gen Z will never remember a time without terrorism. 2001 was a time when this generation was not yet in preschool.
· Gen Z will be shaped by parent “Velcro." The amount of time parents spend with kids will reach new peaks.
· Gen Z will witness deeper parental unemployment. They watch their parents more likely to have unemployment or be unemployed throughout their career than prior generations.
· Gen Z parents will keep their children in more controlled environments growing up. There will be less time playing outside, more time in smaller indoor gatherings.
· Gen Z will live by their I-Tunes application games. The amount of purchasing I-Tunes applications for children’s games will skyrocket.
· Gen Z won’t know a time when cell phones were not used by children under 12. They will be raised expected to use and carry cell phones to interact with parents and family members.
· Gen Z will never understand what it means to use one platform at the same time. Portable, digital, and mobile is all the same to them.
Want more? There will be more on the blog in the coming months about Generation Z. In the comments, share with me some of your big questions about this up and coming generation.
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You are who you walk with
February 7, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
Some people think that in order to make change you need to influence the community you are already apart of. But sometimes, what is more important is to first find your own community instead that will help YOU change first.
When I left my life on Wall Street , to pursue my creative life as an entrepreneur, I felt there was something missing in my life—a curated network of teammates, cheerleaders, and geniuses that were on the same path as me. I found myself surrounded by a lot of people that were living a different life than me.
When I left the academic world at Harvard, I deeply missed the intellectual buzz of my classmates, the constant questioning, but I realized that I was also a changed person now. And in order to cultivate my tribe now –I needed to build a new base again. I was not letting go of who was important from my past, but I was honoring who I am now.
Gina Rudan, author of Practical Genius writes about how at different points of your life, you need to shift the balance of people in your life from ‘just because’ to ‘on purpose.’ Throughout our life stages, we must raise the bar and build our networks with others who are living purposeful, inspired lives that match our values as we grow.
Who are the people you surround yourself with? Do they add to your life and to your story?
Remember –you become like the five people you spend the most time with –and you can choose this deliberately for yourself. You need to curate your own community. You are who you walk with.
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Don’t Go it Alone: Collaborate
January 31, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
Being a leader in today's world is about collaborating, giving the work back to a group, and experimenting with new solutions. Most importantly, leadership is always about working with others: we cannot go it alone and live in solitude– our greatest challenge is about trusting, testing and letting others in to our most important work.
Oftentimes, we don’t share those hours we work, the sweat we build up, and the tears we give. It’s easy to hide and not share your challenges. It may be for many reasons, you don’t feel ready to talk to people about it, you’ll think they’ll say negative things, or you just don't want to share it. The truth is feedback is all opinion and all positive. We just have to be in the right place to engage with others.
Here are four key ways to make sure you don't go it alone and collaborate:
1) Improve your capacity to ask for help: We all have to learn to ask for help. We need to work with confidants and allies. You can't lead alone. You need people to debrief with everyday.
2) Get comfortable and confident with yourself: Connect with your inner spirit that gives you energy. Connecting to our hearts give us an internal force that helps us grow–it's that little inkling of, I know myself and I can do it.
3) Create structures to stop feeling alone: Find an accountability partner, a buddy who is on your side and helping you grow in the same way you are helping them grow. Choose someone who knows your strengths and can help you move forward.
4) Build a board of quotes: Inspirational messages or some type of mantra / affirmation are excellent ways to reframe your mind, keep you motivated and energized for your next challenge.
Davos: Where are the women, again?
January 24, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
As CEOs, celebrities, and champagne covers the snowy streets of Davos this week for the 2013 World Economic Forum, the media is enjoying its own spin on the world’s most exclusive event. While the mix of people at the event is slowly changing with the rise of World Economic Young Leaders, Global Shapers and technology entrepreneurs, there is one population that remains quite the same—the overwhelmingly low ratio of women to men at the event and the whispers of the quota system in the air.
With women still only making up only 17 percent of Davos, we are moving closer but we are not moving fast enough. There is still a long way to go.
This week in Huffington Post I share some facts about quotas as "controlled experiments" and what it might look like in the future. Read the full article here.
How are you tackling quotas in your workplace? Do you have strategies to recruit a pool of diverse talent—diversity of backgrounds, experience and ideas? We might not be able to change Davos, but we can change our own teams and companies to generate better ideas, leaders, products and services.
My keynote on unleashing innovation across the multi-generational workforce
January 21, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
Here is a clip from my recent keynote speech at Rotman School of Management. I touched on some of my new material around driving innovation across multi-generational workforces, thriving in 21st century work environment, and reframing generational dialogue altogether. More keynote sneak peaks to come as I'm travel to over 5 cities in the next few months for speaking events.
Hire Erica Dhawan to speak at your next event. Click here for more information.