Guest Blogger: Full Life, Not Balance

Today's guest blogger is our dear friend, Deb Hornell.  We all met Deb through the participation of the leadership program that brought us all together.  Deb is extremely passionate about living a FULL LIFE vs. "balance."  When we started our blog months ago, this was an area we wanted to help all of our followers with, we hope you will find ways to build Deb's words of wisdom into your life.    

Like many of you, I used to struggle with trying to “have it all” - to achieve that holy grail of work-life balance.  This popular concept is unrealistic.  It implies that work and life are somehow separate – they’re not.  It suggests that you can achieve perfect equilibrium – you can’t.  It also assumes that once you find a formula that works for you, you’re set for life – you’re not.

So I stopped chasing that elusive, unrealistic dream of “balance”, and began to focus on having a “full life”, full of the things that matter to me – work, family, friends, travel, self-care, music, gardening and not-for-profit work, to name a few.   I had to find what works for me, not what anyone else says I “should” be doing.  I need a life that fulfills me, that nourishes my spirit.  Once I owned responsibility for figuring out what matters and taking accountability for making it happen, I was less stressed and more satisfied with how my life was unfolding.

Here are some tips that worked for me. 

1. Forget about having it all.  Instead, consider what matters:  what’s important to you, what you want your life to be full of.  Make a list, then look at it again.  Is there anything you’ve forgotten?  Is there something you love to do, but haven’t been able to fit into your hectic, whirlwind of a life?
2. Begin to think of your full life as a chapter book, a series of phases you pass through.  Although many of the good things you want in your life will be present in various chapters, the energy and priority of those items may shift.  For example, when your children are young, you will need to devote more time and energy to their care than when they are in college.  Your career will require different things at twenty-five than at fifty-five.  Thinking of your full-life as a series of five-year chapters enables you to prioritize where to invest energy and effort.   What chapter are you in right now?  Are your current priorities aligned with your current chapter?
3. Diversify your activities to avoid investing too much of yourself in one area.  If you invest too much of your identity and self-worth in one area, a loss or disappointment will hit you harder than if you have a more “balanced” portfolio. How diversified is your portfolio?  Where might you need to make a shift to reflect what you need now?

Being clear on what a full life means to you will make it easier to say yes to the things that matter – the things that feed your spirit.  More importantly, it will empower you to say “no” to the things that don’t matter.

Deb Hornell is a wife, mother, sister, daughter, aunt, friend, consultant, mentor and gardener. Her new book, “Good Things for a Full Life”, contains 40 life lessons that have helped her build a satisfying life - full of the things she needs.  It can also help you discover what a “full life” means to you and how you can be more intentional in creating that life for yourself. For more information, visit her website at www.hornellpartners.com.

Guest Blogger: Advocates- Who are yours?

Today's Guest Blogger is Gina Flaig. These Ladies Have "IT" met Gina through the WOMEN UNLIMITED LEAD program that brought the four of us together.  Gina was our external mentor through the program and made an impact on our leadership style. Mid-program, Gina challenged each of us to identify our advocates during the program.  She was met with blank stares as we each thought about the question and racked our brains for who we could identify as our advocates. Clearly we had work to do in this area.  We asked Gina to share with each of you today her position on advocates.  She wants this to be interactive, so please respond via the comments section with your responses to her questions. 

Think back to when someone spoke highly of you in the workplace when you weren’t there to do it yourself.  What that person did for you is called advocating.  Advocates are like the wind beneath our proverbial wings.

What I have learned is that many decisions in organizations are made quickly and with much less conversation than most people would expect.  Say there was an opening due to a promotion.  There are often short meetings or concise emails that bring up a name ie “It’s time for Jaime; let’s move her into a role.”  And then, poof, the decision is made and Jaime is in.  And some are left wondering, “Why wasn’t it me?”

Sometimes we think that our hard work should speak for itself. And while hard work and results are important, they often are not enough to provide momentum when it comes to your career trajectory.  Your skills and performance coupled with others’ familiarity of you and their belief in you is how people make decisions about your future in the workplace.  Others need to believe and be willing to stake a claim on your future success to be an advocate.  If it was a betting game, they’d need to be placing bets on you.  

If you are not sure about the web of advocacy you have spun in your workplace, think about a recent organizational decision, and learn about how the decision was made.  When/if the next decision gets made that could benefit you; do the people making the decisions know enough about you? Do they know what they need to know about you?  Are they familiar enough with you? Do you have advocates whom can directly or indirectly influence the decision? ASK.

Even a more basic question is identifying who your advocates are or could be.  Think about who in your organization knows about you and has praised or complimented you; those who know your value.  Spot people whom have organizational “clout” or influence.  You might need to do some work here and create opportunities to work with and/or get appropriately noticed by these people.  Again, think through your web and get connected.   Find a trusted colleague to help you navigate through this process.

Talk with your advocates.  Get clear on how they speak of you and with whom.  Stay in contact and ask them to be barometers if your workplace currency is ever unstable.  If an opportunity comes up and you know your name is in play, ask one or two key advocates to lean in and actively support you.  Advocating is not a spectator sport.  In the spirit of paying it forward, examine your own ability and willingness to advocate for others.  

Please take a few minutes to respond to this blog by sharing one of two experiences: 1) share when you have successfully worked with your advocates to achieve a desired outcome; how did it/has it heightened your workplace “currency” and/or 2) looking back, when did you miss an opportunity to engage with an advocate(s).  Share your reflections and how you can reset your connections going forwards.   Please share!  Can’t wait to hear.  
Guest Blogger,

Gina Flaig

Guest Blogger- How Am I Different?

Today's Guest Blogger is Liz Meeks. These Ladies Have "IT" met Liz through the WOMEN UNLIMITED LEAD program that brought the four of us together.  The program was instrumental in growing not only us as leaders but a classroom full of women.  We asked guest blogger Liz Meeks to share her experience with WOMEN UNLIMITED, INC. LEAD Program.  Liz carries a presence that is inspirational and it is our hope that her story will lead you to reflect on your own journey of leadership. 


How am I different?
Reflection is important. It allows insight into what is possible, what is present and what has transpired over time. I recently sat down to reflect on what has transpired for me over the last year and the changes I have experienced in myself as a result of my Women Unlimited LEAD participation.

My goal for this last year (as stated in my IDP) was, "I will be known as an inspiring and influential leader people want to work for by providing rewarding and challenging work in a flexible and engaging environment." Using the EQ rules to frame my changes, here is what feedback suggests is different:

THINK EXCELLENCE – NOT PERFECTION AND DON’T DO IT ALONE. These two rules together illustrate a major shift for me. It was said that I’m, "not jumping in so quickly with the solution – I’m letting others find it on their own." This change is significant for me, because I am leading a team of people who are responsible for resolving problems that I used to be responsible for resolving. Pulling myself out of the details and finding satisfaction in others’ successes rather than my own was a transformation. Then, recognizing that their successes were also my own – by leading them through and to them – was another shift.

LOOK LIKE A LEADER AND MANAGE WORK, LEAD PEOPLE. These rules also come into my change together. One naturally leads into the other. In order to look like a leader, one must be visible. This was challenging for my team due to location and space issues. To overcome this, I embarked on a mission to gain more visibility, not only for myself, but for my team as well. I was intentional about getting my team to the locations where the majority of our larger organization resided – this allowed face to face meetings to occur and relationships to be built. These relationships are foundational to any highly engaged team and they cannot be built in a virtual environment.
Visibility isn’t the whole picture. Ensuring that what people are seeing is translating as leadership presence is crucial to looking like a leader. A huge factor in this is the level of one’s self-confidence. My confidence level has increased this last year and I’m successfully overcoming my Imposter Syndrome symptoms. These changes are the result of increase comfort in my current position and leadership level. This increased confidence has contributed to my being more influential in the organization.
Secondly, I needed to lead my team by removing obstacles to their successes, supply them with adequate resources (people, time, equipment, etc) to get the job done, and rejuvenate stale processes that got in the way of their engagement. In order to do this, I became a spokesperson for the "FICO Experience." I shared with HR and prospective candidates information about what our team is looking for in an employee as well as what someone can expect to gain from an experience with my team. I also reached out to the HR community to let them know that our team fully embraces flexible work arrangements like part-time opportunities, telecommuting, compressed work weeks and other informal flexible arrangements. Getting the word out about the benefits of an experience on my team brought more candidates to our job postings and enabled us to hire top talent into our group.
To provide them with additional time they need to do their work, I led a brainstorming session with my team to discover where our "time wasting" was occurring. We determined that we could reduce the frequency of several meetings – as well as the duration and agendas. We focused our time then on more knowledge management to allow all team members to gain insights into other areas of work, topics of interest to the overall group, as well as topics relevant to the company.
In order to better manage the work, I encouraged my team to be more active in the decisions affecting their work. They have the best understanding of the current workloads. When "nice to have" requests come in, they are free to say no, or defer them until later. Providing clear expectations for priorities allows them to make these decisions with the knowledge that management will support them.

TAKE RISKS – MAKE DECISIONS Being more decisive was an area I knew I needed to improve upon. My tendency was to get mired in the details and not able to make a decision without ensuring it was 100% correct. The following story illustrates this transformational shift for me.

Prior to our first Women Unlimited workshop, I took the initiative to organize a group dinner for all the participants. This would give us all a chance to meet one another in a social environment prior to entering the workshop. First, I sent out an email asking for everyone’s restaurant preferences. I polled all 30+ women, collected responses and narrowed it down to Maggiano’s. Then I took the menu options (there are several "levels" of family style dining available) from Maggiano’s and polled the 30+ women on what their menu preferences would be. I collected the responses and then agonized (right up until meeting everyone at the restaurant) on what selections to make for each course. My WU pal, Kathy R., finally brought me back to reality when she said, "Just make a decision, Liz. Everyone will enjoy it, no matter what you choose!" Wow – she was so right. I buckled down, made the decision and everything went off perfectly (or, rather, excellently!).
Flash forward 12 months…we are preparing for our graduation and final WU workshop. I wanted to organize another dinner for everyone to celebrate the culmination of our journey together. Rather than poll people for their choices, I simply sent out an invitation (for Maggiano’s), and collected the RSVPs. The rest of the process was my decision. I chose to have the event in a banquet room, I chose the menu (being conscious of any dietary restrictions), and scheduled the event for a time frame that should accommodate the majority of attendees. No agonizing over locations, menu options or other details.

THE BOTTOM LINE I am a changed leader. The change is subtle in some ways, more dramatic in others. My challenge moving forward is keeping up the momentum without the benefit of monthly workshops with my WU Clan. What am I going to do to ensure I am continuing to develop as a more strategic leader? There are several options here, all of which I hope to make use of. The Alumnae network provides regular opportunities to connect with other WU graduates for Webcasts and conferences. I have already scheduled a meeting for several WU graduates in my organization to collectively attend the next WU Webcast. There are several LinkedIn groups available that I am currently contributing to and will continue to stay engaged with in the coming months. Women Unlimited also provides opportunities to stay connected through attending one Lead session on a drop in basis as well as by becoming a TEAM mentor. I intend to make use of these options as well. I hope every one of my WU sisters keeps in touch. I will miss their faces, laughter and conversation.

Guest Blogger,

Liz Meeks
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