Category: Blog

The following is the first in a series of pieces I am writing tackling day to day management and leadership questions taken from a quiet leadership approach.

Problem: I am an introverted leader and find it difficult to run effective meetings or establish influence as the leader.

Good news for quiet leaders; your approach that comes naturally to you, is one that is now recognised as the best way to communicate with a team and that is through one to one check in’s. No need for loud town hall meetings, you can best support your team using your quiet leadership style.

Authors Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall of ‘Nine Lies About Work’ say, that without regular (weekly) check in’s you are only talking in generalities with your team and not specifics. They say your brief check in should include two questions:

What are your priorities this week?

How can I help?

You might be thinking I have too many people on my team to be able to do this but if you do Buckingham and Goodall would suggest you have too many people on your team or what is called your span of control.

Check in’s can be short but must be regular. The analogy of brushing your teeth is used. You wouldn’t give them a good brush twice a year for good oral health, it needs to be regular. Data shows that team leaders who take this approach have higher levels of engagement and lower levels of voluntary turnover.

Colleen Barrett, President of Southwest Airlines is said to have spent 70% of her time interacting with her people. Things change fast in an organisation, information becomes obsolete, goals and plans set at the start of the year can become irrelevant. If you don’t know the specifics of what is going on for your team you can’t effectively support them.

The totality of our work experience comes down to the local interactions we have with our colleagues, managers and within our team. According to Corporate Rebels 50% of employees quit because of bad managers. Don’t let your team members become one of them schedule your weekly check in’s today.

Aoife Lenox is an Introvert Coach and Engagement Specialist. She promotes strategies of quiet leadership to promote meaningful and high performing work.

‘People are responsible adults at home. Why do we suddenly transform them into adolescents with no freedom when we reach the workplace?’ Ricardo Semler, Corporate Rebels.

It’s Sunday night, how are you feeling? Are you energised and excited for the work week ahead or is it more a feeling of dread in anticipation of Monday morning?

While catching up (virtually) with some friends earlier in the year I was struck by both their attitudes towards work. Sentiments such as I can’t believe I have to do this until I retire pervaded the conversation. While starting and running a business is no walk in the park and I have many days where I think I will give up I no longer have the dreaded Sunday night feeling anticipating the week ahead. For the most part I really enjoy my work, get great satisfaction from it and am rewarded by its growth trajectory for which I am truly grateful.

What would it look like to reimagine work so everyone could shake off the Sunday night feeling? In the book Corporate Rebels, authors Joost Minnaar and Pim De Morree describe their journey of traveling around the world to visit some of the most progressive organisations who have managed to make work more fun. Some are pretty radical and need to be changed from the top down but others can be done at any level of the organisation and you can try them within your own team.

1. Embrace a culture of experimentation. Let go of the idea that anything is predictable or planned – never more true than right now. Throw out the annual plans which are archaic and take advantage of opportunities and experience available to you. Give your colleagues autonomy to try new things and ensure that mistakes are welcomed as learning opportunities. From this you will build yourself an empowered workforce.
2. The higher you go in an organisation the less is known about what goes on the frontline. What impact would it have if team leaders and management viewed themselves there as service to employees? Their only role was to support their team. Traditional organisations often experience the HiPPO effect (highest paid persons opinion) or as the Peter Principle describes ‘in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence’.
3. Throw out the job descriptions. Hire for personality and train for skills is well recognised but I would suggest rarely implemented, take a look at the ads on any job board and you will see the lengthy list of skills and experience required. In progressive organisations roles are developed around the talents of its workforce. The Dutch home care organisation Buurtzorg got rid of job titles, employees are encouraged to explore their talents in order to reach their full potential. ‘Studies show that employees are 15% less likely to quit if they can use their strengths and 8% more productive when they use their talents.’
4. Distribute authority. Speed up decision making and promote autonomy by giving pre-authorisation. Employees can make decisions within certain pre-determined boundaries such as within Netflix to ‘make wise decisions despite ambiguity’. Their research found that when employees can make important decisions, ‘they have a greater sense of entrepreneurship and pride’. David Marquet, American Navy submarine commander managed this despite working in a highly traditional and hierarchical organisation such as the navy.

From democratically electing leaders to salary transparency (which btw has a positive effect on gender equality), there are lots of seemingly radical changes that can be implemented. But if your organisation does not start to change it risks stagnation and we know the world of work is changing. The 4 day a week movement is starting to gain momentum. Just this week Spain announced it would facilitate almost 200 companies to offer this to its employees at a 100% pay for 80% work. Countries are measuring their wellbeing rather than GDP. Mental health statistics are frightening.

What is progressive today will be the norm of tomorrow. Do you want to set your organisation apart as a great place to work and start integrating these approaches now? If so, I would love to work with you on gently exploring these changes at work.

Aoife Lenox is a Coach, Trainer and Consultant and works with organisations who wish to experiment with new ways of working to create better workplaces promoting engagement, wellbeing and ultimately resulting in performance. Would you like to take the first step in adapting your work environment? Reach out for a free consultation.

For some introverts attending a training session even a virtual one, can be an intense experience and a step enough outside their comfort zone. When the ice-breakers arrive, you might find your introverts wishing they could run for the hills.

Yet, we know as Trainers and Facilitators that developing relationships is an important part of working within a team and even a temporary team for the duration of a training session can benefit from these interactions. Social learning theory emphasises how much we learn from observations and interactions with other people.

Our challenge as Trainers is, through an inclusive approach to find the sweet spot that encourages some openness to promote relationship building but respects the reserved nature of many introverts and the combination of personality types in the session.

How we Differ

We now know from neuroscience that introverts and extroverts differ in their sensitivity to the neurochemical dopamine and have different ways of processing information. The level to which this influences your interactions with others will vary from person to person as we also know personality is very complex and temperament is only one aspect of it. Nevertheless, temperament is worth considering when designing a training session.

Small levels of stimulation can increase dopamine levels in an introvert to the point of shut down. Introverts will say, they find they can no longer think or talk because of this overstimulation. Extroverts on the other hand require larger doses of it and are stimulated by external interactions which is why they often prefer to process externally and interact with more people than introverts. I am categorising for the purposes of discussion but generally these are our two big differences.

The good news is, with some awareness and pre-planning there are ways to build relationships, create trust and openness in a team setting that can satisfy everyone. The following are some suggestions around ice-breakers that should support introverts attending feel comfortable, and be in a position to get the most out of the session. When we feel psychologically safe we are able to contribute.

Independent Activities can also be Ice-breakers

An important part of team building is shared experience and so your first ice-breaker to warm everyone up could be an independent activity that does not require verbal contribution but is done together. I enjoyed a communication exercise done by a presenter which involved him asking us to take a square piece of paper and we followed his explicit instructions in how to fold the paper in half, then quarters, cut pieces off the edge and keep folding. One would assume because we had been given the same instructions that our papers should all look the same but when the 15 of us held it up to the camera, we laughed at how different our designs looked. The lesson of course was that we all hear things differently which can make communication so challenging. The other result however was we were warmed up.

Keep Ice-breakers Purposeful

To manage our energy as introverts we seem to instinctively know to focus our engagement on purposeful activities. Choose ice-breakers that will help move the training session along rather than just to get to know each other. You might consider an alternative independent activity relevant to your topic such as a ‘treasure hunt’ on the internet to find an article relevant to your training or put people in breakout rooms and give them a task or problem to solve.

One comment from an introvert said, ‘To me, the best icebreaker is a task or meaningful goal that you work on with someone’.

A purposeful exercise like this will allow introverts to participate fully but comfortably while extroverts who wish to talk it through afterwards can also do that. The results can be captured on a tool like Padlet.

Keep Questions Concrete

If you’re going to ask some warm up introduction questions, I suggest keeping them concrete rather than abstract. Introverts tend to be quite logical thinkers, fMRI’s demonstrate the differing ways our brains process and increased activity in the frontal cortex contributes to our preference for deep thinking and analysis. In one particular exercise I was asked what type of fruit I would be, this did nothing but sent the cortisol shooting through my body and made me feel anxious.

Small Groups

Introverts will generally be more comfortable in small groups so utilising break out rooms even for ice-breakers are a great idea. Assigning a purposeful task rather than a random topic can focus the group. Brian Little, Professor and Author on personality and well-being says

‘We are like all of the people, we are like some of the people and we are like none of the people’.

A break out room task could be to find commonalities rather than differences as a basis to build meaningful relationships. The results can be captured on a tool such as padlet.

It can be fun

Even Introverts are not opposed to a bit of fun! Integrate an element of competition such as quizzes or as in the example above perhaps the room who have identified the most in common wins. Or a short light hearted video, relevant to the topic can also relax the mood to get the session going.

Keep it Simple

The tool ‘one word’ allows participants to share just one word about a topic which reduces the pressure to speak up for a longer period and makes it easier to process. It can also be contributed in the chat function too but helps everyone see what others are thinking.

Overall, your ice-breaker is there to build a sense of community and togetherness for the purpose of the training session. Ensuring that everyone is comfortable is integral to that. Keep it simple, concrete rather than abstract, purposeful and a balance between independent activity and interaction, is in my opinion is the key to successful ice-breakers.

Peter Drucker, the management guru is famously to have said, ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’, and yet the elusive matter of culture is so intangible it can be hard to describe, create and measure. If you’ve been house hunting you may have chosen your home based on a feeling. Culture within organisations is often very like this; a feeling.

Tony Humphreys in his book ‘Work and Worth’ says work culture is made up of ‘symbols, language, assumptions, traditions and behaviours’. He further adds that when such work cultures are not caring in nature ‘they can have profound affects on well-being’. I often quote Martin Seligman, one of the founders of Positive Psychology who suggests well-being should be our only goal.

While chatting with a neighbour this weekend who has two young children and returned back to work last October after maternity leave. I asked her if her organisation had made any amendments to her work schedule to allow her to care for her children while schools and childcare are shut. Her answer was no, in fact her workload has increased since the beginning of the month. Only 4 of her 20 person team have children and it’s not spoken about. Humphreys says there are very few examples of person-centred workplaces and the emphasis still seems to be on productivity.

Human Centered Approach

A tweet went viral last week which went something like this. A woman approached her boss and asked for her work hours to be reduced to 80%. Her boss refused. That was the headline that caused the tweet to go viral, but when you read on, the poster explained that he refused to reduce his employees pay to 80% but told her take the time she needs to support her family and to do her best in her job. By the way, this could also have been a man making this request but the reality is women take on most of the caring responsibilities in most families. This boss reflects a human centred approach to work.

When we focus entirely on productivity, we treat people like robots. Life is messy, it doesn’t go according to plan and certainly not in the middle of a pandemic. There will be ebbs and flows. There are hours, days, weeks and months over the course of my career when I am really productive and there are times when I am less so and that is life.

Humphreys suggests that many managers would consider the above approach as ‘soft’ and not befitting of leadership. Yet, research shows that happier workers are ‘not only more creative and productive but are supportive of each other and of management, and this especially shows itself in crisis’. This book was written well before the onset of Covid19 but how relevant it is.

I recently learned about Jim Sinegal, co-founder and former CEO of Costco the large warehouse style retailer in the US. His management style was described as benevolent. He would travel each year to every location to inspect them personally. He believed by treating your employees well, they in turn will serve customers well. For example, over 90% of Costco employees qualify for medical benefits as against the US average of 60%. This results in a very low level of turnover.

Characteristics of a Caring Culture

Humphreys identifies some characteristics of a caring culture:

• Views all employees as unique with rights and needs
• Listens and responds to these rights and needs
• Values and affirms workers which takes precedence over productivity
• Recognises the influence that self-esteem has on creativity, productivity and management
• Provides special attention to those that feel bad about themselves or lack confidence
• Affirms the vast intellectual capacity of each of its workers
• Embraces failure and success as equal stepping stones
• Praises work efforts and love of work
• Makes work and management enhancing of an employee’s welfare
• Stresses caring relationships
• Creates an environment where people learn to take self-responsibility.

Create a Caring Culture

Creating a caring culture begins with you. You know the metaphor of putting the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping others. When you are kind to yourself you are in a better place to be kind to others. A recent study reported on how people felt after performing or observing acts of kindness every day for seven days. Probably not surprising, but it boosted happiness levels by increasing serotonin and oxytocin levels. We all have a choice on how we react to ourselves and to others. If you need convincing on this you might like to read The Choice by Edith Eger or books by many of the other incredible people who have survived harrowing circumstances.

If you currently work in an organisation which doesn’t reflect a caring culture this might sound like an unachievable goal or perhaps even fluff and not real leadership but the evidence suggests otherwise. A caring culture can be the critical ingredient for organisational success. It is important that caring is not just a value on the wall but a part of your strategy and visible at various touchpoints. In fact, research suggests that emphasising caring approaches can improve critical thinking.

Caring approaches can be taught, but people need to understand the why of taking a caring approach. To serve comes naturally to some but not everyone. Learning compassionate approaches can lead to lasting changes in how people think and act. How can you help to create a culture of care where you work? We need it now, more than ever.

If you would like support in creating a more caring culture in your organisation reach out to me for a complimentary consultation.

Flexibility at work has always been important to me. In 1992, as a 16 year old my Dad suggested that I apply for the Morrisson visa. At the time, this was the visa that offered Irish nationals the opportunity to get a green card and live in the US. I grew up on Dallas and Knots Landing so heading to the US was definitely attractive to me. I can still remember walking into Presentation ‘Pres’ Secondary School in Cork on a cold and dark Winters evening where we took our seats and listened to a presentation on the programme. I was young and innocent but my Dad suggested it would ensure I had opportunities in case I had to leave Ireland. We were just coming out of the mass emigration of the 1980’s. At barely 18 I found myself up in the US Embassy raising my right hand, taking an oath and signing paperwork that would change the course of my future. That Summer, I took my first ever plane ride to begin my relationship with America which would result in over 10 years living there full time, and a further 15 commuting back and forth, and as my husband likes to remind me I wouldn’t have met him had I not taken that route.

Yesterday, in an event dedicated to discussing remote work with Irish Network USA, Tracy Keogh of Grow Remote included in her presentation the phrase that those of us who grew up in the emigration era of the 1980’s and 1990’s remember well, ‘There are no jobs here’. In every small town and even big cities this is what young people faced. I was one of the luckier one’s, by the time I graduated college in 1998 the tide had turned in economic development in Ireland and my siblings a few years younger than me, did not share this same experience of lack of opportunity. That phrase sparked the memories of my emigration journey.

Just recently, I came across a piece of paper from 1999 where I had laid out my 10 vacation days and personal days for that year that I received in my job in the US. I was trying to stretch them over a 12 month period to attend my friends’ wedding in Sydney to be her bridesmaid, a trip to see family in Ireland and a short vacation. These were the days before video calls, phone calls were expensive and not everyone had e-mail. The one visit home a year was it and a once a week phone call which was usually abruptly ended by my mother exclaiming how expensive the call must be. We ended up flying to Sydney for only 6 days. Had remote work been the norm back then imagine the privilege of being able to spend a few weeks in Ireland with my family while working. I’m glad my children will never have to make these hard choices.

Remote work will help ensure that no young person in Ireland will ever have to leave our shores if they do not want to. It will open up global opportunities without ever leaving home. It offers parents who want to balance work and childcare increased possibilities of doing that. In 2008, my husband and I decided we would like to raise our boys in both countries and we chose to move back to Ireland to enrol them in school here and divide our time between both countries. I should add this has not been as logistically easy as I imagined back then but we have managed to do this in some shape or form for the past 12 years. Even with the restrictions of Covid, we have just returned from over two months in the US. None of our family situation would have been possible if Steve and I could not work remotely and our boys can currently remote learn.

Whatever hybrid model is developed going forward remote work can be life changing for people. The future of work is now and we have been afforded an incredible opportunity to finally reimagine work. Disruption often does this but we must seize the moment and create the work experience that our lives deserve.

                          ‘You only live once but if you do it right once is enough’. Mae West

Did you know snakes shed their skin when it doesn’t fit anymore or because it is old or worn out? Imagine if we could do this. Unhappy with our persona and wanting to project a new one we shed that skin. In fact, we do this as we grow and learn but it’s a far more gradual and less obvious process.

Shedding my discomfort with networking and sales is not easy for me but I know in order to build a business it is a necessary part of my journey. For the clients and contacts who message me to thank me for continuing my work it is because of you that I continue. It is because of you I can see the value in what I do and as a purposeful driven Introvert that is really important.

I learned in Matthew Pollards first book in The Introverts Edge Series that I needed a system for sales and in his follow up book The Introverts Edge to Networking he continues that message. As Introverts we need a focused, strategic and smart approach to networking in order to manage our energy. By the way networking is really important for everyone not just business owners. You never know when you will need to find your next role.

Networking, he says got a bad rap from the ‘churn and burn’ mentality of the traveling American salesperson. He says his system will allow us to ‘walk out of every room feeling like we’ve made powerful connections, portrayed the best version of ourselves, and remained authentically ‘us’ the whole time’.

He describes three types of networkers, the transactional networkers focused on the sale, the aimless networker who builds some connections but it really goes nowhere or the strategic networker connecting with people who value your work and can help you reach your goals. I have certainly been the aimless networker.

In the strategic networking approach 90% of the work will be done outside of the room, music to my introvert ears. I just need to develop my process. It’s about owning my ‘uniqueness, passion and stories’. And I begin the process with planning, preparation and process.

Uncover your passion

I begin my shedding process by focusing in on my passion. Doing this means connecting with the reasons why I was drawn to coaching and training introverts. For me, that comes down to feelings. Feeling like I have said the wrong thing and overanalysing, feeling like I was being judged for not speaking up, feeling left out of groups, feeling like there was something wrong with me. This is ultimately what I want to do, help other introverts to not feel like this. I want other introverts to not hold back from pursuing opportunities. I see so many people with gifts who don’t pursue them because they feel they’re not good enough. I want other introverts to celebrate who they are. Matthew asks what work is important enough for us to make the sacrifices we make. We all have a finite amount of time and to make our work matter we must understand it’s worth. Why do you do what you do?

Niching

He sets a few myths straight about niching. First, it’s absolutely necessary but it doesn’t mean you can’t work with clients outside of this niche or focus on this niche forever but in line with our introvert personality it means we strategically focus our efforts. I am an Introvert Coach and so I have niched but to niche even further Matthew suggests looking to see where my current clients are coming from. Although I am a new business with a small client base, I noticed that 100% of my personal and corporate clients were from the tech or creative sectors. This is not overly surprising as many introverts are drawn to these industries but I had not noticed. This now gives me a focus to cater my message to these sectors.

Next, I have to identify my secret sauce. This reminded of what has been called the best pitch ever on Dragons Den. Levi Roots pitched his sauce to the judges and he made it stand out so much he got the investment. Best way to do this? Ask your clients. Find out what makes you stand out when you do what you do. Disclosure: I have yet to do this.

Stories

Stories are powerful, they target the limbic or emotional part of our brain and can bypass the cognitive where we logically assess what someone is saying. Physicist Stephen Hawkins said ‘quiet people have the loudest minds’. Matthew shared a story of a presentation he did where he created the most informative and detailed presentation he could. He found out afterwards the audience felt it was like a ‘fire hose of information’. This resonated with me because it is exactly what I have done and after a year of many presentations, podcasts and webinars that haven’t yielded much results I now realise I need to master the art of storytelling. Stories are also helpful when we are asked a question, responding with ‘let me tell you about….’ And even better is when we have carefully constructed and practiced these so they roll off the tongue. This is useful in any people interactions not just networking. As Maya Angelou said ‘people won’t remember what you said but they will remember how you made them feel’.

‘Your job when networking is not to download a lifetime of experience, but instead, tell a powerful story that educates and inspires’.

The next piece in the puzzle is to create our unified message. This should be catchy and create interest. If I introduce myself as an introvert coach and trainer people can put me in the ‘yet another coach’ box and it can stop the conversation, but a phrase that captures what I do but differentiates me creates interest and can open up questioning which is what we want.

Stay tuned as I am currently working on this and taking his advice of using a thesaurus to play around with different words. Matthew recognises it takes courage to take this step and stand out but really that’s what we are all meant to do because we’re all unique. I love Professor Brian Littles quote of ‘we’re like all of the people, some of the people and none of the people’.

The final piece is around our current network. He divides our network into champions, those contacts who are the ‘movers and shakers’ and momentum partners who would willingly help you to connect with others. We all have the potential to help each other out and at the end of the day that’s what networking is all about. It’s about building those relationships, offering reciprocity and supporting each other to reach our goals.

When you hit that networking room virtual or otherwise you will know exactly who you want to meet, your unified message to peak their interest and the stories that capture what you do so no need to have any anxiety about getting tongue tied or not knowing what to say and of course don’t forget the follow up to stay in that persons mind.

Keep taking small steps to build your network and I hope like me you are slowly shedding some of that old skin.

Many, lament the loss of face to face networking this year. As an Introvert I don’t share their grief. In fact, quite the opposite.  I am revelling in the experience of virtual networking. Not only do I not miss rushing to evening or early morning events, arranging childcare, and sitting in traffic but I actually prefer and find the virtual experience to be more enjoyable and effective.

Networking, I have come to appreciate is important for career development and personal growth, but this year as a new business owner it has been critical for me to connect with others, stay motivated, find support, share challenges, learn and enjoy meeting new people. Particularly important during lockdown when we were stuck within a 2K zone around our house; networking became a link to the outside world.

Do you remember the traditional networking experience? Walking into a big room filled with people huddled in groups, people standing on their own nursing a drink hoping to speak to someone or others like me who latch onto the first person they know just to get over the discomfort of standing awkwardly in a sea of people wondering why you decided to come to the event at all. It was all quite honestly something I dreaded to do. Despite the inaccurate stereotypical perception of introverts as anti-social I love to meet new people. I am very curious and love learning about people and their work. I just prefer to do it in small groups or one to one.

How effective were those traditional events anyway? Angela Bahns, an American Psychology Professor has studied the way in which social networks were formed particularly in academic institutions. She found, that the larger the context the narrower peoples’ social connections were. Her research showed that in large Universities with over 30,000 students, people formed more homogenous social networks than in smaller Universities with only a few hundred students. In other words, in a really large group we will go for like minded people or people we know. Paul Ingram, Professor at Columbia Business School created an experiment where 100 people were invited to a mixer event in NY. In a pre-mixer survey, many attendees said their primary purpose was to make new contacts. What did they find? People spend their time talking to the few other guests they know well.

In the virtual networking scenario, I log in from the comfort of my home workspace, I feel much more comfortable and confident than walking into a crowded room and many introverts I have spoken with attest to this increased confidence when working from home. Everyone is on an equal footing. Dominant and quieter personalities pressed into the same 2×2 box. The organiser of the event takes the lead. As an introvert I possess great leadership skills but I am more than happy when someone wants to take the reins. This organiser will assign me to a breakout room of 3-4 people. Imagine trying to do this in a face to face setting in such an organised manner; like herding sheep. As an introvert I like structure and prefer small groups. I get 10-15 minutes to learn about the people in my group. Introverts prefer depth to small talk and while small talk gets a conversation started, in many breakout rooms I have attended this year a topic was given to discuss. This allowed for a much more in-depth conversation than the typical small talk prior to a traditional networking event. No awkward ending of conversations either, the organiser pulls me straight back into the main room.

In a smaller group typical of virtual networking our pool is narrower and we are forced to mingle with who is there. This has multiple benefits. We are pushed to expand our network and not just speak to who we know. Connecting with others from different fields and backgrounds brings diversity of thought and sparks creativity. It allows us to share our work with a new audience, learn from their experiences and perhaps develop our ideas further or address shortcomings in our thinking.

This pandemic has afforded us some opportunities to which we should grab onto. An opportunity to innovate, to move away from traditional approaches just because that is how it has been done. Matthew Syed, author of Rebel Ideas suggests you take core notions and turn them on their head. If networking has been done one way what would it look like if it was done in a totally different manner? Is there a hybrid model that combines face to face with virtual, small group with large? Or will we miss the opportunity to innovate networking for the next decade?

Aoife Lenox is The Introvert Coach, Trainer and Consultant designing work practices that promote well-being, increased communication and engagement from introvert personalities.