Tag: sue bethanis

Let’s Leave the Armor Off, for Good

A personal perspective on leading differently in the next pandemic transition

We have choices as we emerge from the pandemic: We can go back to what now seems like an unsustainable pre-Covid frenetic pace, or we can use this next pandemic transition phase to start afresh, to have different kinds of conversations with our teams (and ourselves). What’s at stake is our well-being, actually. The pandemic has taken its toll on us (collectively and individually), and we are still in the midst of having to weather a storm unlike any other in our lifetimes.

So, let us admit that we are more fragile now; that we need to be more patient with each other; and that we need to be more mindful about truly understanding each other and not leave it to happenstance or the occasional meetup.

This next pandemic transition is an opportunity for leaders to be real: We can focus on bringing our full selves to work and breathe a sigh of relief that we don’t have to put on the armor anymore.

It’s an opportunity to care for each other in ways we really didn’t have to in the “Before.” We can deepen connections with our team members, focus on staying flexible and open amidst constant (and continued) uncertainty, and model self-care to keep ourselves and our teams resilient.

CONNECT. FLEX. CARE. Hopefully, you can hang your hat on these, and put that armor in the junk pile.

ONE: Stay close and stay connected.

Most likely your company is sticking to a remote-only WFA (work-from-anywhere) model OR a hybrid model with some over-arching RTO (return-to-office) policies. Whichever work model your company has or is adopting, it’s vital to stay close and connected to your team members in some way, every day. Closeness comes in various forms and builds the trust needed as we enter this transitional and uncertain hybrid phase. With the daunting amount of Zoom calls endured over the past 18 months, we have glanced into our work colleague’s living rooms, kitchens, and makeshift offices in bedrooms and closets; and we have chuckled with each dog and child passer-by. We have also experimented with a myriad of coffee-, drink-, game-, knitting-, movie-, you-name-it affinity-group meet-ups. These glimpses and Zoom micro-meetings have brought us a bit closer and allowed us to stay connected to our work colleagues. And so-called work-life balance has become more like work-life intertwine. Yes, we have struggled with boundaries, but we have also opened up in ways we haven’t before. What are some ways we can continue to open up, to deepen closeness and connection? Here are some ideas to try out, drawn from my own experiences with running a 13-person team of coaches and listening to many leaders tell me their stories. One, encourage others to share thoughts and feelings in 1-1s and team meetings. This flows better if you: a) create a safe space with thoughtful questions, and b) model your own vulnerability and share what’s happening for you. Here are two examples:

Do consistent check-ins at the top of team meetings. We don’t mean just a “how’s-everyone-doing-today” check-in. We have found with our team — and in listening to our clients talk about what works with their teams — having an initial 3-5 minutes to banter is important; then asking one specific question that allows people to be themselves and learn about each other works well. Questions like:
- What is one thing you overcame this week that surprised you?
- What activity did you do with a friend or family member that gave you joy?
- What skill are you working on outside of work that you kicked ass on?
- What movie or show did you watch that you adored?
- What conversation did you have with a colleague that gave you the support you didn’t even know you needed?

Have lunch, coffee, drinks in-person, outside whether you’re WFA or RTO. Perhaps you will discover some new places near the office, renew ties with old haunts, and/or meet up with a team member at a halfway point between your homes. And decide if it’s feasible to travel to see team members (if WFA) or bring them to headquarters. All of these ideas take time and there is nothing scalable about it. On purpose. The presence you share will go a long way. And it sure beats emailing an Uber-Eats gift card.

Two, coaching your team members regularly is also a way to stay close and stay connected. For example:

Put more attention on in-the-moment coaching. Linger after Zoom group meetings by picking up the phone with a team member or use Slack to continue a conversation; or, if you’re in the office, walk team members to their next meeting. These in-between moments are not only ripe for learning and problem-solving, but also demonstrate you’re going the extra mile for your team members.

Listen for the “hard stuff.” By giving your team members more opportunities to be themselves and talk about what’s going on for them, people will inevitably bring up hard things. Like, someone might express grief over the death of a loved one from Covid; or express overwhelm with balancing kids and work; or express fears about coming into the office. Just listening and acknowledging people’s pain may be all they need; yet in some cases, a person may need much more support — from inside or outside the company. You might suggest that they chat with HR and/or Employee Assistance. Perhaps they have their own coach or therapist; check in with them about that, and if not, suggest it.

TWO: Stay flexible, open, and experiment.

(Especially if your company is doing an RTO hybrid.) I have written previously about the importance of a leader thinking like a designer. Staying flexible and experimenting — central tenets of design thinking — is going to come in handy here in this next pandemic transition phase. Back in March 2020, we all went out of the office together, and as tech leaders and employees, you were mostly in the same boat as far as being disadvantaged or advantaged (depending on your perspective) by working from home. Not the case now. The RTO hybrid is about to be different-day-different-company-different-boat. This is concerning for many reasons, mostly because things and people will get lost in the shuffle. Unfortunately, this is a perfect storm for even more exclusion and lack of continuity. Yet, there are things you can control and design for.

One, do a mindset re-set: Prepare yourself for even more uncertainty. (“Oh god,” you’re whispering under your breath right now). If you expect that things (i.e., outside-the-company forces, inside-the-company policies), will be in constant motion, then when you hear about (yet again), another shift in mask-wearing, or that you can’t get monitors for your new hoteling desks because the supply chain is four months behind, or that the facilities app that determines who is in-the-office-what-days completely gets f**ked up, then you could say to yourself, “It’s ok, we are expecting these snafus to happen…this isn’t a surprise.” We know this is easier said than done. But this is the point. With prototyping new work models and any new apps/tools/platforms, etc., there will be failures. Fail fast, get the feedback, and try a different way.

Two, in the midst of the grandest prototyping experiment ever, it’s important to check your anxiety along the way. Your anxiety level very much will determine how much uncertainty you can handle. Part of being flexible means being calm in the midst of a big, fat mess. What can you do to be more patient, overall, and catch yourself when things aren’t going the way you want them to, or the way they should be going? We know meditation and breathing helps. We know that people who meditate regularly (sitting for as little as 10 minutes a day) will be able to access the calmness they experience when they meditate when the going gets tough at the office, at home, or in-between (because we know that commuting on those freeways again is really going to suck).

Three, another aspect of being flexible is the discernment you model when dealing with the myriad of new circumstances-turned-dilemmas that are already popping up in the RTO hybrid. From our vantage point at Mariposa (currently working with approximately 24 companies and 70+ leaders), the primary problem in the RTO hybrid is “managing by exception.” This could be related to everything from how many days in the office to traveling to offsites to mask-wearing (and a host of other new policies).

For example, if your company has instituted a mandatory 3/2 hybrid (three days in the office, two at home), and you have a team member who moved away during the pandemic, what do you do? This situation came up with one of our clients recently. The leader — a senior director at a 1500-person tech firm — wasn’t sure what to do with a top performer who had permanently moved 1000 miles away in the early part of the pandemic. She didn’t want to lose the employee, so she granted an exception to the company policy. The leader made the decision based on a lot of communication with her team member — to understand their situation — and she looked at all the possible angles. The leader was definitely concerned about flight risk (because her team member could easily go work for another remote-only company — even a competitor). However, in the end, it wasn’t just about the flight risk. By taking ample time to learn about the employee’s circumstances at home, the leader gained a deeper understanding and more empathy, so ultimately, the decision wasn’t that hard to make. This senior director is not alone in trying to solve for these types of dilemmas. (In fact, her situation is so typical that “remote-only” companies are starting to capitalize on this status as a competitive advantage.) We have all seen the headlines about the protesting at large tech companies (e.g., company wants 3,4,5 days in the office; employees want less). Now multiply that by every tech company. Wow. Each tech company has its own RTO hybrid policies. And bosses on every level are going to be bombarded with exceptions to the policies (e.g., company wants 3 days in the office; employees want 0,1,2). There aren’t scalable solutions here; in fact, by its nature, “manage by exception” IS one person at a time. Thus, in anticipation of this messiness, we have outlined some questions you can ask yourself when you’re working with your team(s):

- What are your initial criteria for granting an exception? While performance most likely is one of the criteria, what other criteria are you considering? (Their home life circumstances, their value to team, etc.)
- What is your opinion of the RTO policies? How might your views be affecting how you’ll be granting exceptions?
- What is your relationship with the person you’re granting the exception to? Are you granting exceptions to people you know better and trust more? In other words, check yourself on favoring people you know better.
- How can you be the most flexible and still hold to the company policies?

Expect the unexpected, continue to hone and experiment, and do the best you can to discern the optimal solution for that day or that situation, person, or team.

THREE: Do self-care and help others do it, too.

All through the pandemic, in our coaching work, we have supported leaders in many areas of skill and design; and self-care and well-being have been a central focus. In the initial stages of the pandemic, we helped clients design boundaries around what-was-work-and-what-was-home — everything from “Zoom Room” logistics to exercise routines to how to hide out from one’s two-year-old. More than anything we focused on helping clients model what Tony Schwartz so aptly calls “manage your energy, not your time.” Now, 18 months later, we have not changed our tune. We still think self-care is the single most important act you can do right now for yourself, and it’s a twofer: Modeling self-care is the single most important leaderly act you can do for your team or organization’s culture.

One, as we move into the next pandemic transition phase, what are the self-care routines you will want to keep that have served you well during the pandemic?

- Are you getting outside every day, for example, and if so, if you’re continuing with WFA, how can you increase that outside time? If you’re going to a RTO hybrid, how can you keep your commitment to outside time (no matter what!)?
- What other exercise routines will you keep and add to?
- What about your nutrition?
- Your sleep?
- Your meditation and/or alone time?

Two, what are some rituals you would like to add now that being social is a thing, again? For example:

- How will you socialize at work?
- When and where will you travel for work and for fun?
- What networking events will you do?
- How will you deal with some of the awkwardness of greetings, leavings, and lingerings? (A colleague said to us the other day that he went to a networking event, and he found himself not knowing what to do with his hands; he had to think about it way too much. While it was so welcomed to get out there, he said, it was super awkward, too. This, too, shall pass…with practice.)
- How will you see your in-work and out-of-work friends regularly? And could you up your game in keeping it real?

Three, how will you encourage others to focus on their self-care and well-being? One way is by making it a standing agenda item in your team meetings by asking: How do you rate your well-being on a scale of 1-10 today? And what could you do to up it a notch the rest of the day? Another way to encourage your team members’ self-care is by matching up team members with each other as support partners or buddies. Ask that they meet up once a week for 20-30 minutes to ask each other how they’re meeting their self-care goals.

Finally, hopefully, it goes without saying, that you, as a leader, need support, too. Please be gentle with yourself and ask for the support you need.

Last week, one of my favorite people, Steve Cadigan, happened to be in Maui at the same time as I, and we took a walk on Kama’ole I, my favorite beach. He asked me: “Sue, how are you doing, really?” I thanked him for asking and said: “Well, the pandemic has kicked my ass, no question about it, and I don’t think I will ever be the same. And…I have gotten through it, thanks to being outside like we are now in this glorious place…and, well, the Giants’ winning ways have helped my spirits immensely.” We both laughed out loud. All kidding aside, I got through the pandemic and will continue to “keep it real” for one primary reason: I ask for support. For example, I have worked with both an executive coach and a therapist on-and-off over the past 25 years; during the pandemic, I have upped this to every week without fail. I have sought out professionals for my teenager to support him through distance learning and to help me support him as well. I have regularly connected with my friends for their support and to get us outside so none of us get too isolated. I initiated and still facilitate two Zoom support groups (one with my best friends which meets Monday nights; and one with executive coaches across the U.S., which meets every other Wednesday morning). My weekly calls with my business partner, Tawny Lees (another one of my favorite people), have been focused on our respective well-being as much (or more) as our strategy and operational agenda items. And Tawny and I shifted the Mariposa team weekly Zoom meetings so we could spend more time on individual and collective well-being, including helping each other through continued uncertainty. In this essay, I have asked you to take the opportunity now, in this next pandemic transition phase, to refresh your conversations with your teams — to connect, to flex, and to model self-care. I can ask (and hopefully, inspire) you to do these things because I am on the same journey to do these things, myself.

My best to you as we all navigate this new world. I welcome your comments and ideas.

Thank You’s

I want to acknowledge the Mariposa Leadership team, all of whom are partners in these white paper endeavors. We try to practice what we preach in giving each other constant feedback and in trying new things (ad nauseam). Special thanks to Tawny Lees and Allison Adams for their edits and insights. And we owe all of this to the Mariposa clients. Their ideas, practices, and successes are woven throughout these pages.

About the Author

Susan J. Bethanis, Ed.D., is the Founder/CEO of Mariposa Leadership, Inc., a 13-person San Francisco-based firm that provides executive coaching and design thinking to tech and biotech leaders. Sue’s book, Leadership Chronicles of a Corporate Sage, is a fly-on-the-wall account of real conversations between a coach and an executive. Sue received her Doctorate in Education at USF, specializing in Organizational Leadership; her dissertation looked at the interdependence between language and change in organization culture. She received her Master’s Degree in Education from Stanford, specializing in Instructional Design. Sue also has a certification in Design Thinking from Stanford’s d.School. Sue lives in San Francisco and Maui with her 15-year-old entrepreneurial teen, Max. When she’s not coaching, Sue’s playing tennis, pickleball, and (attempts) golf; and she makes photographs all over the world. Contact her at 415-265-3142, sueb@mariposaleadership.com. Follow her at @suebethanis on Twitter and Instagram.

About Mariposa

For 25 years, Mariposa has been offering leadership coaching and consulting to tech leaders in both 1-1 and group formats. Mariposa’s recent clients include AppFolio, AWS, Gilead, Honor, Intel, Nvidia, PayPal, Peloton, Tapestry, Twitch, Theravance, Zuora, and Zynga. Leaders are turning to Mariposa’s executive coaches to help pivot, plan, and perform through this uncertainty. For more information, visit us at www.mariposaleadership.com. Download the PDF here

July 27th, 2021|Categories: Blog, Culture, Leadership, Mariposa Articles|Tags: company culture, design thinking, effective leadership, executive coaching, executive leadership coaching, HR Leadership, Mariposa Leadership, sue bethanis|

May 26, 2021 / Blog / Culture / Leadership / Wise Talk

Herminia Ibarra on Career Reinvention – Post Pandemic

We featured author Herminia Ibarra on our executive leadership podcast, WiseTalk just before the release of her book Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader. The intelligent, insightful discussion (see recap and link to recording below) covered topics including the outsight principle, how behavior drives attitudes (as opposed to the other way around), and why people fall into the authenticity trap – and how to get out.

As a recognized authority on leadership and career development, we were curious to learn how Herminia is coaching leaders in today’s strange corporate climate.

Here’s what we learned – At the start of the Covid-19 lockdown, as early as April 2020, Herminia Ibarra was quick to consider and share the effects the pandemic and its newly created challenges might have on the workforce. As a twenty-year scholar of career change studying periods including the dot-com boom and bust, the 2008 financial crisis, and the subsequently extended bull-market run, she is all too familiar with unexpected, even catastrophic change on company leaders, employees, and culture.

In an article for Harvard Business Review titled Reinventing Your Career in the Time of Coronavirus dated April 2020, Herminia states,

Unexpected events or shocks disrupt our habitual routines, jolt us out of our comfort zones, and lead us to ask big questions about what matters and what is worth doing. It’s no wonder, then, that during the current pandemic, many people are rethinking their careers.

Today, more than ever, the path to your next career will be circuitous. To cover all of the ground you’ll need to cover, it’s vital to let yourself imagine a divergent set of possible selves and futures. Embrace that process and explore as many of them as you can.

At that time, among her recommendations was to welcome the downtime. She urged people to get involved in projects, take courses, cultivate new knowledge, skills and relationships, do pro bono work, investigate start-up ideas, etc, until they can achieve a state of confidence or better footing.

Lockdown imposed limitations but, the concept was, as is in line with Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, that the time could be an opportunity to learn about yourself and the kinds of contexts and people that bring out the best in you.

Now that we have traveled through these strange months and are emerging back into the world and some semblance of normalcy – Herminia considers lessons learned by the upheaval and the downtime as they relate to career and reinvention. She shares in a recent interview with RSA events, called Precarious Reinvention Through Precarious Times that, while there were rumblings of career change before the pandemic, since Covid those thoughts have been exasperated. The downtime activities and reflection she refers to in April of 2020 are now percolating ideas and actions for change. What is now occurring is a deep dig into what people really want in their careers. People can typically talk about what they do not want in a job. But identifying needs and desires is harder.

The pandemic caused a shock to the system that opened a window for consideration and contemplation. People merely dreaming about a job with more substance, meaning, passion, balance, and control became jolted into a new reality. Mortality entered the equation. Whether their health was in question or they experienced fatal or near-fatal events with friends, family, or colleagues, the question – Is what I am doing worth it? – And so now the real change begins. And, if you did not take the time early in isolation to practice self-reflection, skills building, or experience experimentation, it may be the time to do that now.

Our WiseTalk discussion between Sue and Herminia provides profound insights into how leaders and employees can come to purpose, understand and overcome the common traps that get in the way of stepping up to bigger or different positions or careers. You’ll learn how change really works when we are attempting to grow professionally, and how applying the “outsight” principle reshapes our image of ourselves, our jobs, and our potential. You can listen here.

In case you don’t know Herminia, she is the Charles Handy Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School. Before joining LBS, she served on the INSEAD and Harvard Business School faculties. Herminia was ranked 18th among the top management thinkers in the world by Thinkers 50 in 2019. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, a judge for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award, and one of Apolitical’s 100 most influential people in gender policy.

____

WiseTalk recap:

Favorite Quote:

“Until you can feel it in your bones, it’s very hard to have thinking drive your behavior.”

Insights:

The “outsight” principle means learning by going outside the norm. It’s an external perspective that you get from doing new things and experimenting, by interacting with new people, going outside your past experience, outside your usual network of contacts, and getting a more external perspective to open your eyes to a different reality.
Traditional leadership development methods tend to emphasize learning through introspection, which is the opposite of the outsight principle. Sue inquired about this juxtaposition. While there is a place for introspection in developing leaders, Herminia’s research showed that behavior drives attitudes and thought processes as opposed to another way around, particularly when the end state is unclear. When transitioning from A to B, and B as the end state is known, it’s easier to plan the steps to get to B. But when the end state is unknown or murky, all the thinking in the world is theory and likely to not match reality. When transitioning to a leadership role for the first time, Herminia explains the only way to aspire to that goal in a way that’s motivating, is to get closer to it through experimentation. Only then will you have fresh material for reflection afterward.
To gain outsight, Herminia suggested three areas for aspiring leaders to create some experiments: redefining your job, extending your network away from the usual suspects, and being more playful with yourself. Getting started with experiments in these three areas, especially with job activities and network building, will help you gain positive momentum. The people you meet along the way make a huge difference because they become kindred spirits or people who can guide you or you can bounce ideas off of because they are going through something similar. The more time spent thinking about it and conceptualizing this concept, the slower the learnings will come. But those who take action even if they aren’t sure where they are going, or because it feels unnatural, will learn more quickly.

What we found most interesting:

As people try to step up to leadership, they sometimes experience the authenticity trap. Things that don’t feel comfortable for people tend to feel inauthentic. But Herminia explained authenticity can be a defense against learning and a defense against getting out of your comfort zone. Authenticity can be defined in a number of ways, but when people hide behind it they tend to mean, “being as I’ve always been.” Which is not great, because you can be authentic and change a lot. She says, “The way you actually become really authentic is by changing and adapting and by doing so, mean you remain true to yourself in an evolving way…we all want to be ourselves at work but we want to be ourselves in a way that takes into account growth and evolution.”

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Join us on WiseTalk for inspiring conversation and practical insights when Founder/CEO Susan Bethanis speaks to thought leaders in leadership, tech, design thinking, and human resources.

May 26th, 2021|Categories: Blog, Culture, Leadership, Wise Talk|Tags: act like a leader think like a leader, career strategy, coaching, company culture, covid-19, executive leadership, herminia ibarra, HR Leadership, sue bethanis, wisetalk|

August 18, 2020 / Blog / Leadership

What Leaders Are Facing in the Pandemic

COVID-19 is bringing about a cultural transformation that will have lasting effects. In many ways, we have lost what is familiar but also gained new opportunities for possibility. While we all experience this pandemic differently, perhaps now is the time to rethink how these new and improved ways of working together through digital interactions create and foster community in our professional and personal lives.

Please take a quick look at this short video clip with Bob Baxley, Head of Design at ThoughtSpot, where he asks me about the major issues leaders are facing during the pandemic. I speak about logistics, well-being, culture, and strategic pivoting.

How can we look inward so that you can have a meaningful impact on your work culture to make better and healthier decisions in this rapidly transformed workplace environment?

by Sue Bethanis, CEO/Founder of Mariposa, sueb@mariposaleadership.com, @suebethanis

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August 18th, 2020|Categories: Blog, Leadership|Tags: bob baxley, corporate culture, effective leadership, executive leadership coaching, leadership, post pandemic, sue bethanis|

June 26, 2020 / Press Releases

Added to SF Business Times Top 50 List

Mariposa Leadership Executive Coaching Firm Secures the No. 35 Spot

San Francisco, CA, June 2020 – San Francisco Business Times has named Mariposa Leadership, Inc. to its Top 50 list of “Largest LGBTQ-Owned Businesses” in the Greater Bay Area. Ranking at number 35, Mariposa is the only Executive Leadership Coaching company listed in the publication’s recent survey.

“We are humbled by this recognition; we are proud to be a part of such a great group of successful LGBTQ-owned businesses, and we want to congratulate everyone on the list,” said Sue Bethanis, Mariposa Leadership’s CEO and Founder. “We would like to thank the SF Business Times for honoring us, and we hope to be on the list for many years to come.”

(more…)

June 26th, 2020|Categories: Press Releases|Tags: awards, executive leadership, leadership, organizational culture, press, San Francisco Business Times, sue bethanis|

October 2, 2015 / Press Releases

Mariposa Leadership, Inc. Hosts an Executive Onboarding Expert and Author, George Bradt

George Bradt, co-author of The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan, and an executive onboarding and transition acceleration expert, to be interviewed by Sue Bethanis, CEO/Founder of Mariposa Leadership, on the popular Wise Talk Leadership Forum for executives on October 22, 2015.

October 1, 2015 | SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Mariposa Leadership, Inc. is pleased to announce that George Bradt, an executive talent onboarding expert and co-author of the book, The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan, will be a guest on Wise Talk, a popular monthly leadership forum for technology executives, on Thursday, October 22 at 3pm PT/6pm ET. In an interview with Sue Bethanis, CEO/Founder of Mariposa Leadership, George will share insights on how successful executives plan for their first day on the job, the information they gather as early as the interview process, and how they use that knowledge to craft a message, build a team, and deliver quick wins.

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October 2nd, 2015|Categories: Press Releases|Tags: george bradt, Mariposa Leadership, onboarding, sue bethanis, talent management, wise talk|

February 19, 2015 / HR / Talent Management / Wisetalk

WiseTalk Summary on Capturing Rookie Smarts

To kick off our 2015 Talent Management theme, we invited Liz Wiseman to join Sue Bethanis as a guest on WiseTalk. Liz is a highly regarded leadership expert recognized by Thinkers50 and author of the new Wall Street Journal best seller Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work. She is the President of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California.

Sue and Liz had a rich dialogue on the research and findings in her book Rookie Smarts. One of our biggest a-has from the conversation was about the value of the inexperienced. It could be said that those who are new to something for the first time can’t bring value, but we learned that this is essentially a myth. Those who are inexperienced operate from a “hungry state.” They lack expertise so look outward to a network of experts to get ideas and leverage their knowledge a project, much more so than experts. We also learned in the tech world, where everything is changing so fast, the value of the experienced leader is in how fast he or she can learn, not what they know.

Favorite Quote:
“When I’m quick to say yes to something I don’t know how to do, I don’t need a personal development or learning plan that tells me to go work in certain ways that are against my nature, I’m just forced to do it.”

Insights:

Liz’s definition of a rookie is being new to something important and hard, regardless of age. Whether you’re 21 or 71, it’s doing something you haven’t done before. The value of a rookie doesn’t come from bringing fresh ideas. The value comes from bringing no ideas. When one comes in and has a gap in knowledge, it puts them in a predictable hungry state. They tend to point outward, ask more than talk, they lack expertise so seek it out in others. Liz mentioned an interesting data point: the inexperienced bring in 5x level of expertise on a problem then experts. The reason is because they lack expertise, so they point outward and ask for help. Rookies mobilize a network of expertise and bring it back to bear on a problem. When they ask others how they do something, they receive a diverse set of voices that they have to reconcile. The process of reconciling is when some of our best thinking is done and is why rookies get so smart in the space of relative ignorance.

In her research, Liz found that experience leads to success but rookies are surprisingly strong performers and in many cases outperform people with experience. Those cases are the knowledge industry, where work is innovative in nature and where speed matters. Why? Not because rookies are more skilled, but because they are more desperate. They have “no points on the board,” they are the new kid on the block, so work quickly to deliver quick wins and proof points to see if they’re on track. The most successful veterans and rookies operate in fundamentally different ways. When she looked at low performing cases, they failed in very similar ways.

Tips for capturing rookie smarts:

Individuals: Liz suggests individuals try not to linger too long in a job that you’re qualified for. Say yes to things you don’t know how to do. When we keep putting ourselves out there in rookie situations, we are forced to ask questions and seek help, because we don’t know what we’re doing. She also suggests refreshing your assumptions by practicing “naive” questions, such as, what are we doing this for? Who is the real customer here? What happens if we don’t do anything? A fun exercise to audit our assumptions is to ask, what is it we believe to be true about this? Our work? Our customer base? List out the assumptions and see if you have evidence to support them or if you have evidence to the contrary. Also, swapping jobs with someone for a day will build empathy for what others do, as well as leave you with fresh ideas that can help you innovate.
Feed a diet of challenge: In Liz’s research, she found, on average, it takes someone about three months to wrestle down a new challenge, and about three months after to be ready for the next one. The real practical way to keep you and/or your team rookie smart is to continue to feed yourself or your team a diet of challenge. Ask every three months, am I or is this person ready for a new challenge? Not more work, but harder work. Liz’s research also correlated satisfaction with challenge. As challenge goes up in a job, so does satisfaction and vice versa. If leaders want to drive satisfaction up on their teams, give them harder things to do.
Power combinations: At team level, one suggestion Liz offered is for leaders to be deliberate about how power combinations are created. There is value in the way that both rookies and more experienced talent work. Partnering this talent is important, such as reverse mentoring and being clear about giving veteran leaders a chance to learn from rookies on their team. Try pairing a team of rookies anchored by expert, or put an empowered rookie on a team with more experience.

What we found most interesting:
In Liz’s research, when she looked at high-performing rookies, she found the most valuable/highest performing of the rookies were experienced executives taken out of one domain and put into a different one. They know enough to know the good questions to ask, how to manage people, and have their “sea legs” but are placed in a different sea so don’t know all the answers. This is where she found executives are at their best.

To learn about Liz’s approach to the extensive research, the four rookie mindsets, and more interesting insights from Liz and Sue on mid-career professionals and the world of work today, listen to the recording here.

February 19th, 2015|Categories: HR / Talent Management, Wisetalk|Tags: executive leadership, executive summary, liz wiseman, Mariposa Leadership, rookie smarts, sue bethanis, talent management, wise talk|

October 24, 2013 / Articles We Like / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation

On: "Productivity Improvement: It's Not What You Think"

In this article, author Dorie Clark sets out to challenge the traditional mindset on what it means to improve one’s productivity. Many executives try to increase productivity using times of intense focus without interruptions. Dorie contends that this “head’s down” approach isn’t the only route to increased productivity, and may hinder creativity and innovation.

In the article, Productivity Improvement: It’s Not What You Think, published in the National Center for the Middle Market, Dorie redefines productivity. She draws on the expertise of Mariposa CEO, Sue Bethanis, for tips on behaviors executives can adopt right away to positively harness the energy in office interruptions. Read it now.

What is your definition of improving productivity? How do you go about making the most of office interruptions?

Comment below! Or pose a question via Ask Mariposa.

October 24th, 2013|Categories: Articles We Like, Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation|Tags: creativity, Dorie Clark, innovation, interruptions, Mariposa Leadership, productivity, productivity improvement, sue bethanis|

August 1, 2013 / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / Mariposa Articles

Leader as Designer

Learn how to utilize Design Thinking in your role as a leader. This essay, Leader as Designer, by Mariposa Leadership CEO Sue Bethanis, opens up Design Thinking to different applications and audiences that goes beyond product development. She offers a clear 4 step process to easily move from idea-to-innovation. The results: successful services, new experiences, and novel solutions to old problems.

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“We are on the cusp of a design revolution in business. As a result, today’s business people don’t need to understand designers better, they need to become designers.”

—Roger Martin, Dean of University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management

Roger Martin equates the role of “designer” with “leader.” I do, too. He and I are not talking about graphic design or interior design or designing the next Eames-like masterpiece. Instead, we are talking about Design Thinking—a movement, a model, and a philosophy that has caught on in business schools and business settings. Design Thinking taps into imagination and practicality, which taken together form the backbone of creative problem-solving and
innovation.

There are a myriad of definitions of Design Thinking, many of which you can read about in the Executive Guide to Design Thinking. I see it as my role in coaching and writing to curate and translate various available theories and approaches, and my hope is that you use Design Thinking to help your teams think differently, solve problems, and come up with the next new things.

In describing Design Thinking, I have settled on the Breakthrough! model (detailed below) which emphasizes idea-to innovation. Since I was a college student, I have believed an idea is only as good as its usefulness and adding Design Thinking to my repertoire three years ago only deepened my belief in this mantra. Things, services, and experiences can be beautiful and interesting, and practicality is still the key to good design!

In my coaching, I observe leaders who are “popcorners”: They’re considered visionaries who come up with an idea a minute—often in isolation—many of which don’t go anywhere. Even more often, I see leaders who “put all their eggs in one basket” and settle on one idea too quickly—again in isolation from their internal or external customers—and implement it without much testing or gathering enough feedback. For “popcorners” and “eggs-in-one-basket”-type leaders, their ideas often don’t materialize into innovations. A Design Thinking approach offers a practical way to get from idea-to-innovation, and I hope the Breakthrough! model of Design Thinking will serve you well.

When you apply the Design Thinking principles of the Breakthrough! model to leadership, it looks like the following: Ask lots of well thought out questions, brainstorm frenetically, prototype imperfect things and experiences, test out multiple prototypes, fail fast, and start all over again. This is what being a designer is, and this is what leaders who are design thinkers do to help solve some of the seemingly intractable issues faced in this rapidly changing business landscape.

Whether you are trying to make a new product, establish a new service, design a workshop, figure out a new operation or process, delineate a new sales strategy, or productize a service, the Breakthrough! model can be applied. Each facet of the model can be used as a stand-alone tool; however, the overall process provides the necessary arc to set and solve the most wicked problems in a team or organizational setting.

Empathy – Put yourself in your customers’ shoes through interviewing and observation.

We create products, services, and experiences in isolation too much of the time. We need to have intimate knowledge of the users/customers by seeing people in action. We need to ask lots of well-thought-out, imaginative questions; videotape people in action; and sit next to an internal or external customer to experience what they are experiencing and feeling. This gives us context, and gives us a better chance to design something that will work best for the customer, not just for us. Constant customer feedback is vital when we are creating a new product or service. The same is true when we are solving even a simple problem.

A leader who is a design thinker will automatically look at a problem from multiple viewpoints. Good designers and leaders are “T-shaped”: They have both horizontal perspectives and vertical skills. The vertical axis is typically the specialty in which you have been trained (in college and on-the-job) like accounting, psychology, industrial engineering, mechanical engineering, graphic design, or marketing. The horizontal axis portrays your ability to both empathize with and master disciplines other than your primary one. Thus, an optimal T-shaper is one who has a strong discipline and also takes the time to empathize with and apply other disciplines. For example, a General Manager (GM) of a game studio may have a vertical background as a product manager and be trained in and terrific at getting product features out the door; by comparison, a highly successful GM of a game studio also understands and applies knowledge in business analytics, user/customer experience, and organizational development. In other words, he or she is part MBAer, part designer, part anthropologist, and part coach.

Two good tools that get at empathy are journey mapping and contextual interviewing.

Journey mapping is plotting out each aspect of a customer’s experience. It is a good primer before you go into contextual interviewing. A couple of months ago, I did a customer journey map with a 7-person data storage marketing team made up of directors and managers. We actually did it over the phone, which I would not normally recommend. Even with that, I was amazed with the insights they were able to gain. This marketing team went through every touchpoint their external customer had in making decisions about buying their company’s most popular storage product. By going into minute detail and putting themselves in the customers’ shoes (their thinking and feelings), they were able to see some areas of opportunity that they had previously missed. When the team’s assumptions became clearer, they wanted to test them out. This required them to influence their sales counterparts to let them interview the customers and offer up a different set of questions than their sales partners had asked in the past.
Contextual interviewing is conducting conversations to understand the customer’s experience in their world. Early last year I helped a big data startup come up with pinpoint questions designed to get as close to potential users’ context and experience as possible. I encouraged the two founders to do as many interviews fact-to-face at the potential customers’ job sites or workspaces instead of on the phone or at their local Starbucks. The founders got such rich data from their “contextual interviewing” that they changed the direction of their startup because they saw a stronger need for a different kind of product.

The kind of data that you can get from journey mapping and contextual interviewing gives you the information you need to “set” the problem you will try to solve with brainstorming and prototyping. And having different perspectives in the room also helps “set” the problem.

Brainstorm – Do frenetic brainstorming that produces 100-200 new ideas; cull those ideas and determine which ones could be breakthroughs.

Remember the last time your team did a “brainstorming session”: You sat around a flip chart, blurted out a few things, and tried really hard not to judge someone else’s ideas as someone tried to write on the flip chart the ideas that he/she heard. Throw that method out and try this one instead. I learned a variation of this at the Stanford Design School:

As the leader, come to your team with a specific question you want answered. This can be a question distilled from journey mapping or contextual interviewing. Or a question related to an internal team matter.
Encourage your team to be fearless, have fun, think differently and imaginatively.
Create 3-4 groups and give each team member a pack of sticky notes; ask each team member to write one idea on one sticky note, and say the idea out loud as he/she puts each sticky up on the wall.
After 10 minutes ask each team to count their stickies; then ask each group to double the amount of their stickies in the next 10 minutes. Remind them to merely put their ideas up on the wall and not comment on others’ ideas.
Let another 10 minutes pass…then see how many ideas were generated.
Take another 10-15 minutes for each group to look at the ideas as a whole.

If you employ this type of brainstorming, you will generate more and more varied ideas. It also nicely balances the individual and the group. People need to have time and space to do imaginative thinking on their own while also getting support from the group. Brainstorming the ideas is the easy part; culling and curating the ideas is harder. Use all or a few of the following questions to help you sort the data:

What are the patterns and/or themes you see in the data?
What are the outlying ideas?
What idea is your favorite?
Based on the problem, what idea(s) carry the most energy for a breakthrough?
Does it make sense for each person to develop one prototype? Or should small groups of 2 or 3 form to build a prototype together (or both)?

I have worked with many groups using this brainstorming protocol, and the key to success is casting a wide net. That little gem in the rough appears when you least expect it.

Prototype – Build prototypes rapidly, get feedback from users, refine product and relationships.

Prototyping is the “design doing” of Design Thinking, and it is the bridge between ideas and innovation. Once you have built an initial prototype, this is your vehicle to collect feedback from users and potential customers. This back and forth process is typically called iteration.

Prototyping takes on many hues depending on whether you are engaging in product or service design or creating an experience.

If your goal is to design a new product, here are some points to keep in mind:
- “Rapid prototyping” is a term IDEO and Stanford d.school adhere to; they mean build your model fast and cheap, and sacrifice beauty for speed so you can get feedback sooner rather than later.
- “Fail fast” is another important guideline that goes against the grain of traditional product development. The quicker you know your prototype doesn’t work, the better, so you can try something else.
- Refine your product by getting customer feedback through interviews and observation. Watch your potential customers use your product in their environment and videotape their experiences. It is great at this stage if you can have an attitude of detachment so you’re more open to feedback and change.
- Hopefully, you started to build a relationship with current users and potential customers in the empathy stage, and now in the prototype stage, here’s where you want not only to refine your product, you also want to refine your relationships. Your goal is to have a long-standing sustainable relationship so you can continue to go back to them for feedback, testimonials, and eventually, referrals.
If your goal is to design a new service, all of the above points apply as well as the following:
- Oftentimes when we design something non-tangible (think Virgin America’s kick-ass flying experience or an experiential workshop on influencing skills or ease of use at the ATM), we describe the experience in 2-D. We put it on PowerPoint and/or we tell a story with a lot of words. Tim Brown of IDEO often refers to prototyping as “building to think.” So even if you are designing a service or experience that seems non-tangible, make it tangible. Draw a storyboard of the step-by-step process of what the user will experience. Better yet, use raw materials with your hands to make a 3-D version of the service or experience.
If your goal is to solve a team problem and design a new experience, I want to strongly encourage you to make 3-D models of the potential solutions that you and your team have brainstormed.
- Here are 3 recent “problems” I have facilitated with teams:
  - Networking Marketing VP/Directors: What is our 3-year vision?
  - City Government Managers: How do we best engage our employees to prevent burnout?
  - Social Media HR VP/Directors: How do we best productize our services?
- There is no question that in coming up with the solutions to these problems, the teams could have used PowerPoint and even added a few nice photos or graphics to their presentations to capture the emotions of the users and/or employees. However, when you add the element of 3-D, it certainly livens up the solutions, and it allows you to use your right brain while you’re building. The 3-D versions act as lasting symbols that you can proudly show to your colleagues, use to decorate your desk, and of course, test with your employees. In the Breakthrough! workshops, I bring in a big backpack filled with raw materials—construction paper, PVC tubing, hot glue guns, straws, tons of markers, pipe cleaners, foam board, rubber bands, LED lights—so participants can turn concepts into breakthroughs. Remember, this process is less about drawing (2-D) and more about making (3-D), like the two examples here.

Last, whether you’re building prototypes for products, services, or experiences, it’s important to put attention into the space you’re using. Be sure you allow ample room for people to spread out, be
messy, and be in their own worlds. Unless you are trained as an artist or product designer, the process of “making” things may cause some anxiety and resistance in people. Ensure that the environment is comfortable and fun and has some natural light.

Implement – Determine what works through testing and influence.

Implementing starts as a very soft launch. In this stage, you will test your product, service, or solution for an extended period of time, continue to refine it, and determine who you have to influence to get your product, service, or solution approved or blessed. Here are some essential elements of this stage:

You will want to test a more refined version of your prototype, and if you are a product developer, perhaps you have now transferred your prototype from handmade to computer-made. Inexpensive technology now available allows you to print prototypes on a desktop 3-D printer. It’s pretty amazing, actually, and if you haven’t seen or used this technology, I highly recommend it. I believe these devices alone will shift the way we design products.
You will determine what users will test your refined product, service, or solution. Perhaps it is the same internal or external customer you partnered with on the prototype, or perhaps you have referrals from these customers. With these users, you can pilot a workshop or ask a customer to use your refined product for a couple of weeks; all the while you will be collecting more data.
- Depending on how refined your product, service, or solution is, at this time, you will need to start planning one or all the following:
- develop your go-to-market strategy
- choose your internal partners to form a team
- gather success data in order to make your business plan
- determine who you have to influence to get budget to manufacture your product, or roll out your service or solution.
Whether you are attempting to implement a product, service, or solution, please keep in mind: No matter how neat your prototype is, implementing requires more than just a happy user or customer; influencing the internal decision-makers is just as essential in order for your idea to become a true innovation. Your idea cannot stand alone on its beauty, coolness, performance, or even its usefulness. So much of what determines whether your idea turns into an innovation depends on your ability to influence your boss, your colleagues, the finance department, etc. More than any other single dilemma I hear from my clients is: How do I convince the so-and-so department to adopt my (you name it)? Influencing skills have always been an essential aspect of leadership (see Leadership Chronicles of a Corporate Sage), and influencing skills are central to Leader as Designer. There are many resources on influencing skills; please consider two of my favorite authors, Dan Pink and Robert Cialdini.

Conclusion

My goal in this essay is to open up Design Thinking to different applications and audiences, and to offer up a clear process to go from idea-to-innovation. The Breakthrough! model is not just a way to design cool products (it is that!); it is also an engagement method that leaders can use to solve problems. If your tendency is to be impetuous, then be sure to interview your users/customers/employees before you try to sell them your product. If your tendency is to sink into scads of data so that you can perfect the ultimate product or experience, then stop, make a prototype of your concept and get it out to users ASAP to see what people think and feel. If you’re already using the Breakthrough! model or some semblance of it with success, fantastic! Then get out there and coach someone else to be a Leader as Designer!

Finally, I welcome your comments and questions! This essay is merely a prototype; there will surely be more iterations!

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April 17, 2013 / Blog / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation

Products Are Hard Conference Recap: Design Thinking Process and More!

The 2013 Products are Hard Conference on April 1st proved to be rich with insights and fresh thinking on the product development process. More than 200 product designers, developers, marketers, entrepreneurs and executives were treated to stimulating talks throughout the day by various thought leaders, including Mariposa Leadership CEO Sue Bethanis. Sue presented a design thinking model that leads to breakthrough thinking and therefore has value for leaders beyond product creation. Attendees participated in a rapid prototyping exercise to get a taste of how a design thinking process can be applied to solve wicked customer or team problems, as our clients have done in our Design Thinking workshop.

We captured brilliant tidbits from the presenters. Here are a few of our favorites:

“LEAN Startups: Learn. Measure. Build.” Janice Fraser, Founder/CEO, LUXr @clevergirl
“Hardest part of product management is creating order from chaos. Listen. Learn. Think (dream). Test.” Sarah Rose, VP Product, ModCloth @sarahfrose
“Understand all your customers. Your product must produce value for all of them.” David Charron, Senior Fellow and Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Haas School of Business @d_charron
“Few things lose investor confidence more than an inability to launch. Better to launch and learn.” Charles Hudson, Venture Partner, SoftTech VC @chudson
“Product building challenge: knowing when working with opinion vs. fact. Turn opinion to hypothesis and test.” Hiten Shah, Co-Founder, KISSmetrics @hnshah
“Using design thinking for services is equally important as using it for products.” Susan Bethanis, Ed.D., CEO and Founder, Mariposa Leadership @suebethanis
“If trying to design products for global users, think about similarities in shared social and psychological rewards.” Judd Antin, User Experience Researcher, Facebook @juddantin
“Empathy interviewing requires beginner’s mind, getting off your own agenda!” Indi Young, Consultant @indiyoung
“The people who make the product need to fall in love with it first.” Chris Lindland, CEO & Founder, Betabrand @Betabrand

Products are Hard presentation slides are available for viewing.

April 17th, 2013|Categories: Blog, Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation|Tags: brainstorming, creativity, creativity in business, design thinking, design thinking model, discussion, empathy, Mariposa Leadership, PAH, products are hard, sue bethanis|

April 4, 2013 / Ask Mariposa / HR / Talent Management / Influencing Skills

Ask Mariposa: 3 Tips for Developing Leadership Influence

Andrea asks: I am not in a formal position of power but lead several cross-functional projects and collaboration is critical to our goals. How can I develop more leadership influence?

Susan Bethanis, CEO of Mariposa responded:

You are smart to be thinking about developing leadership influence skills, even as an informal leader. Cross-functional initiatives, flatter management structures and virtual teams which sometimes include third parties have become the norm in business today. Understanding how to influence others is a skill that when honed, serves company goals and your career.

Here are 3 tips:

Consult and Pre-Sell. Meet with stakeholders to share your ideas on achieving a desired outcome. Solicit their reactions and ideas as well. By inviting input and balancing it with advocacy, resistance can be minimized while gaining buy-in.
Know Your Audience, Tailor the Message. Develop clear and compelling messages rooted in short and long-term requirements. Research your stakeholders’ needs and tailor the message based on their interests.
Establish Behavioral Rapport. Match the pace and volume of your speech with that of your stakeholder. Avoid matching negative emotional states. Be conscious of your body language, including posture and facial expressions, as unintended non-verbal cues can undermine effective communication of your message.

Want more?

Read: Smart Work: The Syntax Guide to Mutual Understanding in the Workplace, by L. Marshall and L. Freedman
Inquire about our workshop: Master the Skills of Influence

April 4th, 2013|Categories: Ask Mariposa, HR / Talent Management, Influencing Skills|Tags: advocacy, ask mariposa, business, effective communication, effective leadership, HR Leade, HR Leadership, influence, influencing skills, leadership, Mariposa Leadership, rapport, sue bethanis|

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