Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: empowerment

  • Loving Monday: Happy New Year! Are You Kidding?!

    loving_mondayToday is the first working Monday of the new year. All the schools are back in session. The morning commute here in Los Angeles is packed again. The neighbors are all back from their holiday family trips.

    Happy New Year! Or is it?

    For many this is a tough year to celebrate the ringing in of a new year.

    The economy is still limping along. Unemployment is still a painful reality, either for themselves or someone they know personally.

    Job security feels fragile when one can be so easily replaced.

    Bosses are afraid of making mistakes, which is resulting in a depressing risk-averse conservatism in decision-making.

    The advent of a new calendar year does present an opportunity, though.

    Even if the optimism isn’t built in this year, we can choose to use the calendar to our advantage. Even if (especially if?) our spirits and energies are low, we can use the tool of the new year to choose an attitude shift within ourselves.

    Even if circumstances are difficult and the outlook is bleak, we can choose to face and confront this reality rather than complain about it or wish it were otherwise. 

    Yes, for many people it would be dishonest to exult “Happy New Year!” That things are difficult doesn’t mean, though, that it has to be a bad year.

    So choose yourself a “Meaningful New Year!”. Give yourself a “Proactive New Year!”

    There is no power in the world that can stop you from choosing to have an empowered, responsible, determined, creative, persevering, generous, and life-enhancing new year.

    To those for whom this is a particularly difficult season, I pray we find our way together to making it a deeply worthwhile season.

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • Loving Monday: Taking Your Cue

    loving_mondayI remember when I first caught myself taking my cues from others.

    I‘d be about to pass by someone walking the other way, and I would keep an sly eye peeled for whether or not they would greet me.

    If they did greet me, I’d instantaneously gauge their mood and respond appropriately. If I received a warm greeting, I’d respond warmly. If they were grumpy or stressed I would either keep my distance with a curt reply or engage with a sympathetic “How ya doing?” Or if no acknowledgment at all was extended, I would keep my focus elsewhere and carry on.

    Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was taking my cue from others. I was playing the passive, responsive role in the relationship.

    “What’s the big deal?” you might ask.

    Well, it’s a big deal if I’m in a great mood, ready for a good day of engaging work, and I let someone else’s mood determine mine.

    It’s a big deal if I want to greet and be greeted in the morning, and I miss out because I waited for the other person to initiate.

    It’s a big deal because others might be operating out of a perspective of caution or fear or anger or bitterness in any given situation, for example. If I take my cue from those people, then I’ll be interpreting and responding to them instead of to the situation. Not taking my cue from others, I may very well have chosen to respond to that situation in a very different way.

    By taking my cue from others I turn my brain, intuition and social skills off too early. I grant more credibility to other people’s discernment than my own.

    And so I have stopped taking my cue from others, so to speak. If I want to greet someone, then I do. And I let them greet me in return. I have more say in my own day, because people are responding to the mood, tone and subjects that I am putting forth instead of the other way around.

    Who are you taking your cue from?

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • Listen In -> Bridging the Work-Faith Divide #4: Collaboration, Empowerment and Accountability

    We don’t work alone.

    Some of may wish we worked alone, but reality returns each morning and we find ourselves face to face with another task on which to collaborate, another meeting to schedule, or another disagreement to work through.

    Bridging the Work-Faith DivideWe need ways to share information, combine efforts, enhance motivation, and be accountable to achieve results.

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss how our faith informs how we work with other people.

    But, true to our the workplace perspective of this series, we are not going to ask how to be a good Christian at work. We are going to discuss the workplace realities of collaboration, empowerment and accountability.

    We have to share tasks and pool our skills; we have to tap into people’s core motivations and working styles; and we need to be able to confront problems and achieve results.

    You’ll be amazed at how relevant and helpful being a person of faith is to effectively navigating these common workplace issues.

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.
    Interested in how we can resource your church or organization? Get more information here.

  • Listen In -> Why We Hate Meetings #4: Not Resourced by Participation

    There is a lot of knowledge, experience and skills in the room when you gather the team for a meeting.

    Why then do so many of us leave it all untapped by doing all the talking ourselves?

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss the most valuable resource a leader has… their staff.

    Oddly enough our silly leadership paradigms lead us to believe that we must know more than everyone on the team if we have the position of leader. Therefore, a meeting must where I gather the team to listen to me.

    FAIL.

    Meetings take off, go somewhere, get things done, discover new opportunities, solve intractable problems, and build passionate cohesiveness when everyone on the team participates.

    An important mentor of mine kept a plaque on his desk that read, “On this team everyone plays.”

    Find out what participation can do for your meeting.

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Loving Monday: Empowered By Identifying The Lies

    loving_mondayWe all believe certain lies. Even lies we know to be lies. Even lies that undermine our well-being. We believe them in spite of ourselves.

    Don’t ask me why. It would probably take years of therapy to uncover why we might internalize as true something so blatantly false.

    One set of lies has to do with the negative names we call ourselves. “I’m a loser.” “I don’t have what it takes.” These non-specific, unverifiable conclusions we draw about ourselves hover as accusing judgments, sabotaging our ability to see much less consider options in which we may thrive.

    Another set of lies has to do with imaginary rules that then become obstacles to us. “You have to earn your stripes first.” “That’s now how it works.” “Who do you think you are?” Before you even begin a conversation, act on an idea, or move toward a dream, you talk yourself out of it because you somehow are not qualified or are not approaching it “correctly” and therefore doomed.

    Whether or not you choose to explore with your therapist why you believe these lies, I want to suggest that you’ve achieved a major feat of self-empowerment merely by identifying them.

    Merely by calling them out for what they are—lies—we disarm much of their power over us.

    For example, it will serve me better to identify that I am afraid of being criticized for my decisions than to bluster and pretend to be more confident that I am. In the first case, I can go ahead and make the best decision possible. In the second case, I end up making lousy decisions because all my attention is diverted to appearing more confident than I am.

    Calling out a lie might go something like this, “That’s a lie! I don’t know why I act as if it were true, but doing so is keeping me from doing what I feel is best. I’m going to take a step toward what I want anyway.”

    Oversimplified to be sure, but what’s the point here? Instead of unconsciously behaving as if the lie were a truth and pretending to know better (an energy consuming process of self-deception), we choose to consciously call out the lie and our mysterious buy-in to it (an energy freeing process of honest self-awareness) so that our behavior can be a deliberate, intentional, and personal choice. Now that’s empowerment!

    What lies do you find yourself believing in spite of yourself? Experiment with identifying those lies and calling them out. I believe you will discover you have a bit more internal space to make better decisions, make more timely decisions, and make more satisfying decisions.

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • Question of the Week #18

    Whose day would be transformed if you paused in your busy schedule and expressed interest in their work?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Question of the Week #17

    How do you affirm and encourage risk-taking without reducing your demand for results?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Listen In -> Visionary Leadership with Marion Skeete #5: Cultivating a Language for Change

    How does a leader speak boldly without robbing others of their voices?

    Who gets a voice in the conversation of work, leadership, collaboration and the goals of the organization?

    We conclude our series with Marion Skeete of LegacyMakers International with a discussion about how difficult it is for most leaders to surrender their excitement about their own personal ideas in order to pay attention to and incorporate the ideas of the rest of the team.

    How does the leader stand with integrity in the tension between owning their responsibility to show up, engage and lead on the one hand, and showing deep respect for the participation, contribution, and dreams of the wider community on the other?

    Could the leader’s empowerment to lead be woven into how well they empower the community to embrace the stewardship of their own lives?

    How do you view the role of the leader?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Good Leaders in Bad Times #4: Reporting To Your Team

    What if you measured your effectiveness as a leader by the effectiveness of your team?

    At first blush there’s nothing unusual about the question. Leadership is measured by one’s ability to achieve results.

    At issue though, comes in the process of achieving those results. For whom do you really work?

    Are you looking back, over your shoulder, at those higher on the organizational chart? Or are you looking forward, at those who report to you?

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I suggest that leaders who report to their teams have a better chance of achieving results in tough times than those who report to their official bosses.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Good Leaders in Bad Times #3: Training People to be Better Than You

    Come on now. Do you really believe that you got the promotion because you know more than everyone else on the team?

    If you have a “more than” mentality about the tiers on the organizational chart, then this episode is for you.

    The question becomes, whose skills, capacities and energies are you quenching if you have to know more than everyone else on the team? What talents and expertise are you missing out on by not being able to hire those who have more experience than you?

    This week Claudia and I discuss the value of training people to be better than you. Imagine with us the breadth and depth of skills and experience you could amass if you didn’t need to be better than everyone else!

    Listen in.