Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

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  • Loving Monday: Exploring New Territory

    loving_mondayTraveling in a strange place can feel either like an exciting adventure or a nerve-wracking nightmare.

    So much newness can arouse our curiosity, excite our senses and expose us to fresh perspectives. On the other hand, so much newness can disorient us, make us feel lost, and scare us into extreme cautiousness.

    Some of us love to travel to new places. Some of us prefer the routine of the familiar.

    At work we experience a similar tension between the need to explore the new and the need to respect the reliable.

    The great thing about Monday morning is that it comes around only once a week, but it keeps coming around.

    We don’t have to operate at either extreme of always exploring what is new and different or remaining fixed securely in the confines of what we know works.

    What if, once a week, we gave ourselves permission (or challenged ourselves, as the case may be) to seek out fresh perspectives and explore new ideas, methods and relationships?!

    The adventure (or nightmare) would only come around once a week, but it would keep coming around.

    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.

  • Quote to Consider: Believing in Oneself

    quote-to-consider“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires… courage.”

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> What the Dog Saw #18: The New-Boy Network

    thought-leadersFirst impressions stick. While strangely enduring, these impressions are not necessarily accurate.

    In this week’s chapter of What the Dog Saw, Gladwell explores how much weight we give our first impressions and the misleading conclusions we too readily draw.

    What-the-Dog-Saw

    The result being, “we replace the obviously arbitrary with the not so obviously arbitrary.” This one quote is worth the price of the entire book.

    I have long advised that the traditional interview process of hiring is fraught with pitfalls given the brief and artificial nature of the structure.

    All involved are putting on their best social personas in order to make a positive impression. Interviewers usually omit disclosing anything negative about the working culture of the organization. Applicants are careful to use the wordings and examples that they have been told the employer wants to hear.

    Now on top of these practical limitations, Gladwell reveals how often most people don’t let any of this information inform their initial gut impressions anyway. We replace one set of fallacious information with another.

    Our lengthy interview processes don’t feel arbitrary, but if they aren’t providing valid or meaningful information that is resulting in any better hiring results, why should we bother?

    Is it all a waste? Should we conduct all our hiring at social mixers and simply select the people we enjoy the most?

    As Gladwell concludes, maybe all that is necessary to secure your next job, get your next promotion, or possibly even win your next date is to, “speak clearly and smile.”

    What do you think? What was your main take-away from this chapter?

    Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Avoiding Success. Four Fears That Hold Us Back #3: Fear of Blame

    Politics is a management reality that will give us as much challenge as it does headaches.

    Learning to face reality is a different process than becoming adept at avoiding it. The reality of office politics too often degrades into a no-win blame game. When something goes awry it seems the leaders focus first on whom to blame and then on what happened or what needs to happen next.

    Again, it is normal to experience some fear when such craziness affects your job. We are not interested in helping you not feel something which is perfectly normal to feel when the powerful act like children.

    What Claudia and I discuss in this week’s show is how we actually step away from our own leadership opportunities in order to avoid experiencing this ordinary fear.

    Don’t let the fear of being unfairly blamed hold you back from the very opportunity you’ve been waiting and working for!

    Listen in.

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

  • Loving Monday: Choosing to Choose

    loving_mondaySome Mondays we arrive at work to find that we’re behind before we’ve even started.

    If we came brimming with hopes of launching right into our next project, this can feel like quite the set-back. The energetic buoyancy replaced with enervating heaviness.

    After we’ve picked our respective selves up off the ground, this is the precise moment when we need to coach ourselves about choices.

    How we proceed forward is our choice. Will we choose to continue defeated or challenged? Give up or reengage?

    “Remember, self?” It’s a form of reminding ourselves. Reminding ourselves of the power we have as choosers of our attitude, perspective, and next steps. We are then better poised to address the feelings of disorientation, disappointment and frustration resulting from the difficult adjustments at hand.

    We need not function as the unfortunate victims of our circumstances when challenges arise.

    To choose constructively is to affirm and practice our own strength. We demonstrate that we are larger than the surprises that intrude into our day. We choose the interpretation of the facts that works best for us.

    It’s Monday. Whether you arrived floating or deflated the next choice is yours. Seize it.

    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.

  • Quote to Consider: Distilling True Value

    quote-to-consider“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.”

    T.S. Eliot

  • Focus and Push

    “Focus and push.”

    A reminder to simplify. A reminder that less is more. A reminder that we cannot do everything. A reminder that we must, in fact, do something.

    I’ve been advising myself and others to “focus and push” in various ways and forms for years now.

    This week valued friend and associate, Rodney Walker of Walker & Associates, offers a helpful piece, “3 Common Mistakes Businesses Make By Doing Too Much” on his blog.

    Check out his practical suggestions for exchanging busyness for effectiveness. His advise on allocating time, nurturing connections, and continually improving are excellent.

    Rodney Walker is a must-meet professional. Make a point to have a conversation with him if you haven’t yet.

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> What the Dog Saw #17: The Talent Myth

    thought-leadersPretty sobering to read that the company which believed in and practiced talent-based hiring and promoting was Enron.

    Assessing performance instead of potential. But performance cannot be measured when promotions are taking place within the span of an evaluation cycle.

    What-the-Dog-Saw

    We tend to describe ourselves by the categories used by those with power. But those categories do not always (if even very often) either help us describe or understand reality accurately.

    Gladwell suggests that the system is the star in companies that consistently thrive.

    Different systems serve different strategic needs better. Whether highly centralized or decentralized, there is no one-size-fits-all “best” management system.

    What intrigues me most is our enduring desire to find the “magic” answer. Which is the “correct” or “best” management system? What leadership style is most effective? Tell me, expert, tell me. Don’t make me think. Don’t make me choose. Give me another book. Find me a more authoritative guru.

    This chapter makes me feel a bit proud that we at Bold Enterprises help leaders discover and develop their own individual “leadership poise.” The stance from which and out of which you observe, reflect, act and adjust on an on-going, non-formulaic basis.

    Instead of searching for “the right answer” we become proficient at raising the right questions. The way forward through uncharted territory (the future) is not going to be found on any map. Becoming better map readers is not the skills leaders need in these times of rapid change.

    How does one become a better explorer in a culture of competence, perfection and short-term measurements?

    What do you think? What was your main take-away from this chapter?

    Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Avoiding Success. Four Fears That Hold Us Back #2: Fear of Failure

    Even if the promotion is long overdue. No matter how qualified we believed we were before receiving the promotion, after we get the promotion the first ordinary fear that we have trouble owning is the possibility that we may not be able to perform.

    I identify the fear as “ordinary” precisely because it is so difficult to name in our culture of pseudo-alpha confidence. We feel we shouldn’t experience fear of failure if we’re ready for the professional challenge of advancement.

    The problem is not experiencing the fear of failure. The real problem is not being able to be honest with oneself about the fact that one is, in fact, feeling fear.

    As a result we sabotage our own success by putting on a false bravado and confidence. We use this superior knowledge of ours to talk ourselves out of accepting the promotion for other reasons. Not enough pay. Not enough budget. A booby trap. A bad boss.

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I look at this ordinary fear and find that we destroy its power by acknowledging its presence. Instead of making up excuses for refusing a challenging promotion, you can step into the challenge and succeed even if a bit nervous.

    Listen in.

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

  • Dreaming of Perseverance

    Keep on keeping on.

    Both a frame of mind and the next decision.

    A blend of courage, hope and love for which there is no recipe.

    A life skill developed one obstacle at a time.

    – Karl Edwards