Don’t Let Silence Write The Narrative: How To Handle Improvement Plans



There’s a saying that “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

In business and life, communication on all levels is a key component to success, but there are so many ways in which communication can go wrong or be misinterpreted. We may think we are saying one thing, but something different is being perceived. Other times, we do not think communication is needed, but the silence is perceived as a message in and of itself.

A leader’s job is to evaluate all communications and make sure that teams and departments are involved and in-the-know internally.

I will give an example. My client Maureen leads a large team, and in an annual evaluation, she realized that two of her direct reports were underperforming. Company protocol allowed her to write out a performance improvement plan (PIP) to help these employees understand the fundamental issues and work toward reaching a desired standard within a couple of months.

If not, then they would be encouraged to find other positions better suited to them, either internally or at a different company. Maureen was very intentional with her communication with these employees, conducting discussions with discretion, composure, respect, encouragement and empathy. Since the talks went well, Maureen considered her communication work done.

However, a couple of months later when neither of the employees met their goals and left the company, there was unrest in her team. Two brave employees confronted her, asking about company layoffs and what to expect. She was so surprised. It turns out the departure of those two employees made people believe that the company was undergoing layoffs and “cutting the fat.” As a result, valued teammates who—in Maureen’s mind—were perfectly safe in their jobs felt unstable and at risk of being the next ones to be let go. Silence wrote the narrative in their heads.

The situation is delicate. Maureen did the right thing, discreetly working with the employees involved in their own PIPs; they did not deserve the shame of a department-wide announcement. However, there are more subtle ways communication could have been built in to help avoid team unrest.

For instance, when you put together a PIP, include a plan for communication. During the conversation, discuss with the employee how they would like to handle it. Perhaps they want to keep the situation quiet or maybe they would like to share the details with a select few. An agreed-upon plan keeps everyone on the same page and can help mitigate the damage of angry venting sessions in the workroom or the feeling of unease that silence can foster.

Another way to build in communication is to have human resources (HR) lightly cover PIP notices during the onboarding process. Some workers do not know what a PIP is until it happens to them or a colleague, and that situation can be scary. If everyone understands the concept and process of a PIP from the get-go, there will be less likelihood of a misunderstanding later on.

Work with HR to build communication after someone leaves a team, sending out an email or leaving an “away” message in their email using language such as “So-and-so has decided to leave for another opportunity. We wish them the best of luck.” That phrasing is more reassuring to other team members than not saying anything at all.

Maureen’s situation provides us with an example of the importance of built-in communications and how silence, intentional or not, can write a narrative that causes unrest and discomfort. Every manager needs to walk the fine line between respect and discretion while also keeping information flowing. Silence is not an option. As a leader, how can you build better communication?

Laying A Foundation Of Self-Care To Avoid Burnout



According to the World Health Organization (WHO), stress is “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation. Stress is a natural human response that prompts us to address challenges and threats in our lives.”

Unfortunately, stress is all too common in our lives. While the WHO tells us that “everyone experiences stress to some degree,” it seems that today’s business leaders come to expect it as a normal part of their everyday life. That stress not only wreaks havoc on our physical and mental health but also leads to major unhappiness and burnout.

Conversely, I have seen clients with what I can only describe as “positive” stress. They are excited about a project, and the desire to do an excellent job is a motivator. However, if that stress becomes an overwhelming pressure that takes away from the excitement of a project, then it becomes detrimental.

Creating A Self-Care Foundation

Laying a solid foundation for self-care is fundamental in the art of managing stress.

Be aware of your physical state. In general, doctors recommend seven to nine hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, making healthy food choices and getting 30 minutes of exercise or movement three to four times a week. These suggestions from medical experts are widely known, but are you following their advice? I can attest to the benefits of a good night’s sleep, and my mood is always lighter after taking a walk. Simple changes to your lifestyle aimed at improving physical well-being can really improve morale and lower stress.

Right alongside taking care of your physical health comes mental well-being. Take mental breaks throughout the day. Easier said than done, I know, but see what works for you. One of my coaching clients has a daily meditation routine built into her schedule. She has a 10-minute video that she uses at 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and right before bedtime. The two daytime meditations help calm her mind so that she can better process the work constantly coming her way. The videos are a “reboot” for her overstimulated brain.

Physical and mental health breaks can be intertwined. The pre-bed meditation my client implements allows her to calm down both her body and hyperactive mind after a long day—setting her up for better sleep. Walks are also good for both our mental and physical health. I have a colleague in New York who walks to her local coffee shop every day at 2 p.m., often not bothering to order anything. Just the act of escaping a workplace environment for 20 minutes and moving her body enables her to calm her mind.

Obviously, there is more to stress management than just taking care of your physical and mental self. However, by doing so, you can better manage external stress from a place of internal calm and objectivity.

The next step is self-reflection, examining previous situations in which you felt overwhelmed. What pressure points do you have that take you from excitement to dread? Were there any physical symptoms? What calmed you down in those situations?

Identifying those triggers and weaknesses allows you to notice them or see them coming in current or future projects. Then you can take steps to prevent or manage them. For example, if you are loving a project but tight deadlines are a trigger, see what you can do about tweaking it. Often at this stage, communicating with teammates and supervisors is crucial.

Turning Negative Stress Into Positive Stress

Every person and situation is unique, but I can share a few examples of how communication helped some of my clients manage their individual stress triggers:

Kensley was charged with overseeing the redesign of the company website. She was excited and proud of this major responsibility but felt overwhelmed with all the components and moving pieces that went into the project. Her brain felt overwhelmed and pulled in too many directions. She spoke with her manager, and together they broke down the process into clear and manageable steps and priorities.

Robert oversees teams that create data models for analysis. However, most of his annual projects were put on hold so that he could put out fires elsewhere, and he did not meet his year-end goals. He felt stressed about how this “failure” would be perceived, but after talking to his boss, he quickly realized that he was a valued and appreciated member of the company. Contrary to what he believed, his managers were impressed at how well he pivoted and prioritized in the face of those challenging situations. Feeling validated and appreciated reduced his stress immensely and restored his sense of pride.

Hannah felt stress with her work-life balance. She spoke with her team and supervisor and worked out a schedule in which she was able to get off work a couple of hours earlier on Wednesdays to spend time after school with her children. That one day a week of extra quality time with her family enabled her to lower stress and feel more focused on work when she was in the office.

In all these situations, communication was key. My clients laid out a foundation of physical and mental self-care, named their triggers and communicated their needs. We are all different, so by knowing yourself and engaging in creative brainstorming, you are better equipped to find a solution to your individual situation.

What Athletes Can Teach Executives About Self-Examination



At the highest levels of sports, coaches and players put a lot of effort into their game, both on and off the field. In fact, some of the most important work they do is studying themselves and their past performance. Under the guidance of their trainers, athletes undergo self-examination and trial-and-error strategies for improvement. Part of that process is examining replays from previous games or practices to spot strengths and weaknesses, both as individuals and as a team.

Performance Review

As business executives, I believe we should be doing the same. Luckily, technology provides us with plenty of footage and access to our “performances.” AI programs are built into our video calls and can take detailed meeting minutes. Presentations and educational sessions are recorded and stored for employees to watch at any time. These are all readily available resources that we can use for self-examination.

I also recommend that my clients acquire a personal journaling habit. Even just a few sentences at the end of the day can provide great insight into our thoughts, our interactions with co-workers and our progress. Over time, a journal can help you objectively recognize habits or patterns that are often enlightening.

Focus On A Few Areas

While self-evaluation is key to progress, the trick is to not get overwhelmed. Nit-picking your entire performance is never helpful. Instead, my clients and I focus on one or two areas in which they would like to improve.

For example, a basic exercise to improve one’s public speaking is recording a practice presentation, with just the speaker and a camera. You run through the presentation and then watch it back. This practice can be incredibly revealing. Perhaps you notice that you look down and read from your notes way more than you thought. Or perhaps you use a lot of “filler” words such as “like,” “umm,” “so,” etc. to fill in extra space. Perhaps you fidget from side to side, which can distract from the message that you are trying to convey. Or perhaps you notice something as simple as a bad hairstyle that falls into your face.

These types of exercises can be painful. Admittedly, I cringe when watching myself on camera, and I dislike doing it. But it can be enlightening, helping me better understand how others may see me and what bad habits I might not realize I’ve picked up. However, when conducting this type of exercise or anything similar, focus on only one or two specific aspects that you would like to improve. Watch – or read – with intention. Focusing on small changes one at a time will feel much more achievable than changing everything all at once.

Celebrate Progress Rather Than Perfection

Secondly, make sure to honor your progress. Rome was not built in a day, as they say. A key step in improvement is recognizing and applauding small steps toward the ultimate goal.

Let’s say you ran through the public speaking exercise and noticed that you were looking down at your notes 50% of the time you talked. You focus on cutting down on looking at notes—aiming for about 10% of the time—and at a presentation six months later, you manage to only look at your notes for 30% of the time. That’s progress! Honor it, and appreciate how far you have come.

Final Thoughts

Evaluating our performances and noticing trends is an incredibly helpful tool in our leadership tool kit. Reviewing our work helps us honor our progress and keeps us on the path to continuous improvement. So don’t drop the ball. Take a cue from the pros and make time for self-examination.

Increasing Employee Engagement By Risking Compassion



With the rise of disengagement in the workforce, leaders are asking themselves: “What can I do to increase engagement in my team?” The answer is not a simple one, but one of the first steps is to treat employees as people – not as numbers.

One of the clients I work with (Sarah) leads a team of 10 direct reports, and she is a fierce defender of her team. She has high expectations but also advocates strongly for their needs – a leadership characteristic that reaps major benefits in her employees’ engagement and loyalty toward the company.

For example, her business instated a rule that no employee can take vacation within the first three months of their employment. This policy was initially put in place for good reasons. HR wanted to discourage employees from training in the company, gleaning insider information, and then leaving to work for a competitor. It also guaranteed that employees would “earn” their vacation time instead of taking it and then leaving. Lastly, the policy assists with quick and efficient training.

The company rule was set up with good intentions and makes sense. However, Sarah encountered a situation in which a new employee on her team had started at the company and on his second day, put in a two-week vacation request only six weeks into his employment. Sarah had every right to immediately deny the request and move on with her day.

Instead, she treated the employee like a person and called him into her office to ask questions. It turned out that the two-week vacation was a family trip to the Paris Olympics. Flights had been purchased six months before the recruit had even accepted the position, and everything had been set in place. When he accepted the job, he was unaware of the blanket vacation policy that might have affected his decision. Understanding the special circumstances of this request, my client allowed the exception. She let her new employee take this once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris with his family.

“But wait,” you might say to me. “If you give an inch, they will take a mile. Sarah took a risk because now others might come to her with the same request in the future. And weren’t other teammates disgruntled that their counterpart was allowed to take a vacation and they weren’t?”

Good point. Not all leaders would have made the decision that my client did, and only time will tell if that employee stays at the company. However, I admire Sarah’s ability to see the person, evaluate the circumstances and act accordingly. She treats all her employees with that same level of respect, support and compassion, so I highly doubt that jealousy will fester in her other employees.

In fact, from what she tells me, in this instance, the other employees agreed with her decision, and Sarah felt that because of her empathy, she earned the respect of several new hires. Seeing how “the boss” treated one recruit as a person, they feel more comfortable knowing that they, too, will be seen as people and treated with the same compassion and respect when their time comes.

In the first quarter of 2024, employee engagement fell to 30%, the lowest level in 11 years. To combat this decline, leaders are asking themselves how to increase employee engagement and motivate their teams. Today’s leaders can succeed more if they tune in to the emotional needs and expectations of their reports. What can you do in your team to engage and motivate?

Engendering Trust As A New Leader



You’ve made it. You have been awarded a promotion or landed your dream job in a new company. Now you are in a position to lead and do remarkable things. The pride and excitement of beginning a new chapter in our careers can be invigorating and bring out our best work. It can also be challenging and overwhelming at times.

Traditional business maxim suggests that new CEOs need 90 days in their position to start implementing widespread initiatives and programs, setting them on a path to make their mark on a company. However, recent research and case studies suggest that it can take two to three years to develop trust and get a team or company rolling smoothly under new leadership.
Newly appointed leaders can set themselves up for success if they give themselves the time to settle into the role, understand the work environment, study the needs of a company, draft initiatives and roll them out when the time is right. Speeding everything up to meet a 90-day personal deadline based on a decades-old maxim could be disastrous not only for a leader but also for a team or company.

One of the reasons leaders should wait a bit is that they will need the support of their teams to successfully implement change. Without a unified vision, with all key players working toward the same goals, new leaders may find it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to get projects or initiatives off the ground. They will most likely sputter and fail.

So how can you successfully acquire that support? Gain their trust. In addition to learning the role and the company, I tell my clients to also focus on forging relationships and cultivating trust with those who will play a critical role in their success—investors, colleagues, fellow leaders and company employees.

Working toward garnering faith from your colleagues and teams goes hand in hand with the process of adapting to a new leadership role. Whether you are new to the company entirely or have been promoted from within, it takes time to create healthy working relationships and allow others to see your confidence and wisdom. Think about all the stakeholders you would like on your side when instituting and launching your ideas and programs.

Investors need to trust that your plans will keep the company profitable. Your colleagues and fellow leaders will be asked to help you implement new initiatives, so they must be fully on board. Only by helping them see and trust in your vision will they be willing to collaborate. In turn, if your direct reports see a unified leadership team backing you, they will be more likely to feel confident and even enthusiastic about the work they will be asked to do.

To engender trust, repetition can be a powerful tool. What may seem like common knowledge to you may not be for everyone else. If we want to communicate our vision, our plans or who we are, we need to present the key facts repeatedly to really drive home the message. Consistency and repetition are the names of the game. Even if we feel like we sound like a broken record—repeatedly homing in on our main messaging is crucial to communicating who we are, what we stand for and that we are worthy of their trust.

Speaking of broken records, I always say—and will say again and again and again—form a group of confidantes and supporters to support you as a leader. These people can be trusted colleagues, family, a leadership coach or mentors who are willing to tell you their true thoughts and help you consider all angles of a decision you are about to make. This core group can keep you grounded and allow you to maintain patience through the years it takes to settle into your new leadership role. Their guidance can help you remain patient to make and implement savvy business decisions when the time is right—which can in turn help secure the trust you seek in company stakeholders.

Engendering trust and establishing a leadership presence takes time and patience. Take the time you need, free of self-imposed deadlines, to understand the company and make well-informed decisions. Stay consistent with your messaging to coworkers and employees, without fear of sounding like a broken record. People respond best to those who seem dependable and steady because they can be sure of what you will say and do. That consistency can help instill confidence in you. And lastly, do not forget to rally your support team to bolster you and provide wisdom through this exciting new chapter.