Role Nausea, or How to Not Get Sucked Under
Just as families do, organizations and teams have roles, too. Leader. Fixer. Communicator. Follower. Questioner. Avoider. Philosophizer. When someone joins the organization or team, the system shifts slightly. People may retain the roles they had occupied, adding or shedding new aspects of new or vacated roles, they might step into new roles altogether, or they might exit the team. Systems, be they familial or organizational, are not static.
Relationship systems rely on roles for their organization and execution of functions. Roles belong to the system, not to the individuals that inhabit the system.
To tie this back to coaching, I have pondered relationships, roles, and what to do when tired of and overwhelmed by a role. So, this month, this almost August, I’m writing to work through these questions:
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What are the roles in my system?
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How am I playing into these systemic roles?
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How do I step out of one role and into another?
Five Organizational Languages of Appreciation
As humans, we often teeter between connection and estrangement. When we don’t feel appreciated, seen, or valued, it’s all too easy to tip over into estrangement. By paying attention to how we appreciate one another in an organization, we stay out of estrangement and in connection. So, look around and pay exquisite attention to what you see happening around you. What do you see? What do you not see? What effect do organizational choices have on individuals?
Fizzy Pop Whoosh, or Why I'm Going to Celebrate
I’m often asked how I got from there (a technical writer for engineering teams) to where I am now (coach, mentor, speaker, <insert favorite noun here>). And the answer is simple: a whole lot of very hard work. And a lot of very expensive training that I go out of my way to practice and to use. But the answer goes deeper than that. I am here because my past experiences forged the woman you see before you. Who I am now is because of what I survived.
Dunbar’s Number, or the Care and Feeding of Human Connection
And this brings me back to questions. The flippant, easy answer is that questions are how we seek information, but they’re so much more than that. A good question shows that someone is paying attention, they’re thinking about you. A good question shows care, interest, our dedication to maintaining that relationship. Good questions are the care and feeding of human connection.
The Upside of Grit, or How We Care for Our Skills
And that is where grit comes in. Raise my hand, get up and do the thing that scares me. I depend on my grit to get me through, and it does. I’ll return to Texas this weekend, and one thing I’ll make certain to pack is my grit. I’d be nowhere without it. In fact, grit is the trait helps me to be a good steward for my skills.
The Hogwarts Maneuver, or Dealing with Imposter Syndrome
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Can’t you do anything right? What were you thinking? Why would anyone work with you when you can’t do something as simple as send an email?” And then they got even nastier. “Oh, they’re just being nice. They didn’t really mean it when they gave you that compliment about your work. They were just afraid of hurting your feelings,” said that insidious, unctuous voice in my ear. “You’re not good enough to do this work. You don’t have enough experience, you don’t read or study or know the right things. You’re just a nobody from the middle of nowhere, and you’re lucky that none has seen this yet. You may talk a good game, but people see right through you. You’re a fraud, so pack up and go back where you belong.”
Finding My Blindspots, or the Painful Truth of Admitting My Own Biases
I’m human, fallible and imperfect, and therefore I have biases. But how I handle—not carry, not hide, but handle—these biases is up to me. As I mull this over, I come back to curiosity, to good questions, to starting with heart. I handle my biases by being genuinely curious about another person, to asking great questions that allow them to open up, and double-checking that my own heart is in a good place. Amy Cuddy calls this social bravery, and says that it “something we do first so that we can respect ourselves, not so that others can respect us.” When I handle my biases, forcing myself into social bravery, that is how I come to self-respect.
Kindness as an Engine for Personal Growth, or Practicing What I Preach
It wasn’t until I got home that I remembered a question I’d posed to an audience last year while speaking at a conference: What if kindness was an engine for personal growth? Essentially, isn’t that what we were talking about? Weren’t we demonstrating kindness for the other person by caring so much that we would be willing to have the hard conversation, and wasn’t that demonstrated kindness fueling our own growth in return? I cannot help but think yes, to both halves of the equation.
The Radical Kindness of Good Boundaries
Boundaries are a marker, a line. On one side of the line, you feel safe, secure, but on the other side, you might feel unmoored, violated, unsafe. Boundaries exist to keep us safe, be it physically or psychologically. Brene Brown has a line that I love and repeat often: “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” When we are clear about our boundaries and our values, we feel secure. When we are unclear, it is all too easy for that line to be crossed, and we then feel ignored, unseen, of no value to others. Boundaries are a reflection of our values. When our values are threatened, who we are as a human is threatened, too.
Why Do I So Love Poppies?
Poppies are a flower of remembrance, honoring those who died in the First World War. My husband and I have been to France many times, and we’ve walked many of those battlefields. Poppies greeted those soldiers then, and they greet them still today. But poppies also have a deeper, much more personal meaning to me. They bloom from blood, from pain, and ask us to remember even as we move forward. I’ve had years that have taken everything from me, that have forced me to the lip of the abyss and made me question what I was willing to do and to withstand in order to live. Those poppies are a visible reminder that life comes back, that I came back, even from war-torn soil.
Is There Room for Me, or the Humble Approach to Good Conversation
What would it be like to take the humble approach to conversations? What would it be like to consider what another person or another group needs in order to know that they can contribute to what is being said, to know that they will be included?
Unraveling with Questions...
And that got me to thinking: are good questions a way to add space around a knot?
