Leaders, Are You Ready for 2024?

In my last article, we explored how your team performed in 2023 and what they might need to thrive in 2024. Today, I'd like to focus on you. These five thoughtful questions are designed to help you conclude this year on a positive note and set the stage for a successful 2024.

Photo by Rebrand Cities

1. What Can You Do for Yourself?

As the year winds down and we look toward 2024, consider what changes could simplify your life. If constant distractions and interruptions are a challenge, discussing ways to streamline communication with your team could be beneficial. Alternatively, if you find coaching your team challenging due to time constraints, our New Lens® app might offer the supplementary support you need.

2. Are You Getting the Support You Need?

In our fast-paced lives, it's easy to neglect our personal connections. These relationships, however, are crucial, especially during busy or stressful periods. Don't hesitate to reach out proactively for support. For instance, you might ask a partner to encourage you to start your day with a walk or run if they notice you're overworking and becoming irritable.

3. How Will You Balance Results and Relationships?

As high performers, it's common to focus intensely on results, sometimes at the expense of nurturing relationships. Remember, effective leadership is about achieving goals through and with others. To build stronger relationships in 2024, consider setting aside 15 minutes each week for relationship-building activities, such as sharing articles or making introductions.

4. How Much Did Your Behavior Reflect Your Intentions?

It's important to realize that others assess not only your accomplishments but also the experiences others have working with you. Your intentions are vital, but if they are not reflected in your interactions, they may fall short. Regular feedback from peers can be invaluable in ensuring your behavior aligns with your intentions.

5. What Team Issues Did You Play a Role in?

Every team faces challenges, such as conflict, low performance, or stress. To prevent these issues from spilling into 2024, it's helpful to reflect on your contribution to your team's dynamics. For example, I advised a leader who was inadvertently enabling a problematic dynamic by taking over urgent tasks. By helping her team reprioritize instead, she made a positive change.

What insights did you gain from these questions? Were there any surprises? As you continue to develop your leadership skills, consider exploring our range of products and services, including the innovative New Lens® app, designed to make leadership coaching more accessible.

Here’s to being intentional in shaping what your leadership journey looks like in 2024!

12 Key Takeaways from the New Lens Micro Summit

What an amazing event we had last week! Of course, that's thanks to our wonderful speakers and to all of you, our engaged New Lens® Micro Summit: 4 Core Strategies for Success attendees. I’m still soaking in all the insights that were shared and am so grateful to each of you who joined us.

Reflecting on the summit, it's clear that each speaker brought a unique perspective, shedding light on critical areas of leadership, teamwork, networking, and resilience. I've taken a moment to recap a few of the takeaways that stood out to me. Whether you attended the summit or are catching up now, I believe these insights will resonate and offer actionable strategies for your own leadership journey. Let's dive in.

Michol Ecklund

Michol, Chief Sustainability Officer and General Counsel at Callon Petroleum, has navigated change throughout her career. So who better to speak on the topic “Focus on the Right Work: The Great Resignation Compounded Workloads”?

In her comments, Michol highlighted the emerging challenges post-pandemic where workers are increasingly unhappy, burnt out, and seeking new job opportunities, often attributed to amplified workloads from organizational restructuring. Here are some highlight from the advice she shared:

• Create space to connect in a genuine way. Remember, everyone has a life outside work. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable with your team. “By checking in with others and sharing more about your own situation, I think you ultimately build deeper relationships,” Michol said. “You build even more motivated employees and even more committed employees that want to be part of your organization.”  

• Balance your personal productivity with that of the team. You may be more productive working from home, but your team may be more productive if everyone spends more time at the office. Find an approach that considers both sets of needs.

• Get back to the basics to avoid burnout. Getting enough sleep is critical. It affects how you show up personally and professionally, your energy, and your ability to be productive.

Mark Benton

Mark, Vice President of HR Corporate Functions at McKesson, also talked about navigating the shift to hybrid work when tackling his topic, “Develop a High Performing Team: How Unprepared Leaders Impact the Workplace.” I so admire Mark's ability to surface important topics that need attention. 

One theme that stood out was the challenge of staying connected when working remotely. In this context, building trust and understanding your own strengths and weaknesses are vital for good leadership. Other highlights:

• Empathy is more important than ever in the world of hybrid work. Your team members want to know that you care about them as people, that you recognize what they are contributing and that you are willing to help them.

• Managers today have to help distributed teams stay connected. One way to do this: be very intentional about checking in with each other.

• Be more of an "ask person" than a "tell person". You can help your team members grow by asking coaching questions.

Hilda Galvan

Hilda, Partner-in-Charge at Jones Day Dallas, spoke on the topic “Build a Powerful Network: How Remote Work Affects Relationships & Productivity.” Hilda is gifted at cultivating relationships both professionally and in her community involvement, so I was thrilled that she could share her advice with us. 

She advised leaders not to favor in-office workers over remote ones and to communicate clearly. Building relationships, even when remote, is key to good leadership. A few key takeaways:

• To get people back to the office, talk about why it’s so important. For example, remind veteran team members how much they learned by being around colleagues who were senior to them. Today, they can do the same thing for younger employees. By broadening their perspective,

• Engaging with issues you care about will energize you and can help counteract any feelings of loneliness from remote work. Connecting with others who share your passion can also lead to meaningful relationships.

• Treat small pockets of time in your day as opportunities to maintain relationships. For example, call an old friend while you’re driving to a meeting across town.

Tina Bigalke

As Global Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at PepsiCo and someone with a wealth of leadership experience in business and HR, Tina was the perfect speaker to talk about the topic “Build Leadership Courage & Resilience: Strategies to Navigate Uncertainty”. 

She also gave us insight into how PepsiCo has been a training ground for so many Fortune 500 CEOs and shared PepsiCo’s holistic resilence model which has helped its staff navigate these challenging times.

Some key insights:

• Identify the capabilities and skills your organization will need for the future (not just for today) and assess your employees against those skills.

• Don’t be afraid to have honest conversations with employees about how they’re doing and their path forward in your organization. 

• Have a variety of development tools in place for employees, especially younger ones, who truly want to gain new skills.

More Micro Learning

A huge thanks to Michol, Mark, Hilda and Tina for packing so much valuable information into just a couple of hours. It was so important to us that this event fit into busy schedules and deliver a powerful payoff for just a short investment of time. That’s the same philosophy that drives Newberry Solutions’ award-winning New Lens® app. With “snack size” lessons combined with collaborative learning, New Lens makes leadership development affordable and scalable. I invite you to learn more and schedule a demo for your organization.

Don’t Miss Out on This Leadership Event

We’re counting down the hours now! Newberry Solutions’ Micro Summit: 4 Core Leadership Strategies for Success happens on Wednesday, October 25. If you haven’t registered yet, please take a moment and do so now, because I don’t want you to miss this unique opportunity.

During the Micro Summit, I’ll be talking about vital leadership strategies for today’s world with four incredible business and HR leaders:

• ​Focus on the Right Work: The Great Resignation Compounded Workloads | With Michol Ecklund, Chief Sustainability Officer and General Counsel, Callon Petroleum.

• ​Develop a High Performing Team: How Unprepared Leaders Impact the Workplace | With Mark Benton, Vice President, HR Corporate Functions, McKesson.

• ​Build a Powerful Network: How Remote Work Affects Relationships & Productivity | With Hilda Galvan, Partner-In-Charge, Jones Day Dallas.

• ​Build Leadership Courage & Resilience: Strategies to Navigate Uncertainty | With Tina Bigalke, Global Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, PepsiCo.

I’m so excited that Michol, Mark, Hilda and Tina will be joining us. They have been successful in their own right, but each of them also does so much to give back to the community and elevate others. Having just one of them on our program would be amazing, but the fact that all four have agreed to share their expertise fills me with gratitude.

Can you take a couple of hours out of your day on Wednesday to make a powerful investment in yourself? Then register here. Know a leader you want to encourage? Share the link with them, too. I’ll see you there on the 25th!

What Does It Mean to Coach Your Team?

Over the past year, we have been delivering a coaching workshop globally to help leaders build critical thinking skills of their teams. We’re seeing a huge demand for this topic, and it’s no mystery why. A survey by the Association for Talent Development found that 90% of organizations expect managers to coach direct reports. At the same time, though, more than half said that a lack of coaching skills stood in the way of their goals.

To become a better coach to your team members, the first step is understanding what coaching really is — and isn’t. And that’s what I want to explore with you today.

Photo by Christina Morillo

Coaching ISN’T Advice or Feedback

I’ve found that many leaders think they’re coaching when they are actually advising or giving feedback. Developing your team members involves all of these activities at one time or another. But they aren’t the same thing.

Advising is defining or directing the action an employee should take to solve a particular problem or issue. Advising is the best option sometimes — for example, in a high-stakes or crisis situation under a tight deadline. But it’s also easy to overuse, since solving an issue for your team member is often the quickest way to get it off your plate.

Delivering feedback is describing past performance with a focus on acknowledging strengths and ways to improve. Meaningful feedback is crucial to keeping your team members engaged. Like coaching, delivering feedback can fall by the wayside when things get busy. But it doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Get in the habit of sharing what you noticed a team member doing as soon as possible after you observe it. Even a couple of minutes after a meeting to point out what worked well and what would have been more effective can go a long way.

Coaching involves listening, asking thought-provoking questions and acknowledging the employee’s perspective, which empowers them to problem-solve and take action. Each part of that definition is important:

• Active listening helps you understand what’s really happening with your team member and the situation.

• Asking questions helps your team member develop their own solutions. A common mistake here is asking leading questions that nudge the employee toward what you would do. Leading questions negate the benefits of coaching.

• Empowering your team member means that you are laying the groundwork for them to handle situations on their own in the future instead of coming to you for answers.

Empowerment is at the heart of why coaching is so important. Your team members will never develop to their full potential without coaching that challenges their thinking, broadens their perspective and helps them get unstuck. Learning and growth enhance performance and engagement, which is good for employees themselves and for the organization.

But coaching also benefits you. As we touched on earlier, giving employees solutions when they come to you with a question or issue might save time in the short run. But, in the long run, you’re setting yourself up for spending yet more time “putting out fires.”

This week, think about how often you are taking advantage of coaching moments with your team members and start looking for more opportunities. I also invite you to check out our New Lens® app, which we designed to arm your team members with high-impact strategies and facilitate manager coaching. Bimonthly one-on-one meetings between managers and participants are part of the program, and we make it easy by providing a discussion guide for managers to use.

Free Leadership Development Event

Since we’re talking about ways to develop your team members, I wanted to remind you about our upcoming Micro Summit: 4 Core Leadership Strategies for Success. This is a rare opportunity to get insights from four dynamic and accomplished business and HR leaders, all in just a couple of hours and for free. The Micro Summit happens 11 a.m.-1 p.m. CST on Wednesday, October 25. Please sign up while we still have open spots. You can register here and share this link with your team members and other colleagues. I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

Are You Using These 3 Types of Coaching?

Coaching is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the job for leaders. As someone who is all about helping companies and leaders achieve high performance, it’s exciting to see in Harvard Business Review that employees want more coaching, and organizations want managers to spend more time providing it. 

As a Master Certified Coach and creator of a leadership development app, I’ve seen the powerful benefits of different types of coaching. That’s why we integrated three types into our New Lens® app. Read on to learn about the different forms that coaching can take, and how each one can benefit you and your team.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Individually Working with a Certified Coach 

This is what many people picture when they hear the word coaching. If you are looking for a coach, whether for yourself or for others in your organization, research candidates carefully. Look for a coach who has formal training and certifications. The International Coach Federation advances the coaching profession by setting high professional standards, providing independent certifications and building a network of credentialed coaches. There are three levels of ICF certifications: Associate Certified Coach (ACC), Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and Master Certified Coach (MCC).

I also recommend asking a coach these types of questions before engaging them:

• What is their coaching philosophy and approach?

• What types of clients do they work best with? 

• What kind of results can you expect?

• What examples of success do they have from past clients?

To learn more about our approach, check out the executive coaching page of our website.

While one-on-one coaching delivers powerful benefits, it may not be affordable or accessible to all the employees in an organization who want or need it. New Lens addresses this by providing targeted coaching within the app that focuses on some of the most impactful tools, exercises and strategies to drive high performance. 

Peer Coaching

Even if working one-on-one with a coach isn’t within reach right now, there are other ways you or your team can experience the benefits of coaching. One of those ways is peer coaching. Through our work with client companies that have used New Lens and our other programs, I’ve seen firsthand how effective peer coaching can be.

Peer coaching can take many forms. For example, in the New Lens Program, participants meet monthly with a cohort. The experience is designed to strengthen relationships, create a safe place to share challenges, amplify the power of the content, and promote sharing of best practices. Recent research by Rob Cross shows that peer relationships have a bigger impact on inclusion, advancement, and retention than relationships with managers.

Remember that you can also create your own methods to take advantage of peer coaching — for example, setting up coaching partnerships or small groups.

Peer coaching has its own set of advantages. It’s less expensive than working with an executive coach, so more people in your organization can benefit. Peer coaching is also usually easy to implement. 

Manager Coaching

Of course, your team members also need coaching from you. This can feel difficult sometimes. I don’t have to tell you how busy leaders’ schedules are these days. On top of that, many leaders have not been trained on how to coach effectively.

However, giving your team more coaching is probably easier than you might think. A great first step is looking for coachable moments as they arise during your day. When you identify good opportunities for coaching, remember to practice active listening. Pay attention to what your direct report is really communicating and don’t just wait for your chance to talk. By listening deeply, you can identify questions that can help employees develop their own solutions.

We designed New Lens to facilitate manager coaching. Bimonthly one-on-one meetings between managers and participants are part of the program, and we make it easy by providing a discussion guide for managers to use.

A Powerful (and Free) Event to Share with Your Team

At Newberry Solutions, we’re always looking for new ways we can help you steer your team’s growth and development. That’s why I’m so excited about our upcoming Micro Summit: 4 Core Leadership Strategies for Success. This virtual event is easy to fit into busy schedules. In just a couple of hours, you’ll gain valuable, actionable strategies for success from four incredible business and HR leaders. It all happens 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. CST on Wednesday, October 25. Please join us while we still have open seats. You can register here and share this link with your team members and other colleagues.

How to Develop Your Team When Time, Budgets Are Tight

As a leader, one of your most important responsibilities is helping your team members develop to their full potential. But that raises a big question: How are you supposed to accomplish this when all of you are busy and your training budget is small? Today I want to give you some quick, affordable and easy ideas to encourage your team members’ learning and growth. Be sure to read to the end of the article, where I’ll tell you about a free leadership development event you can share with your team.

Photo by Christina Morillo

Leverage What You Already Have

It’s easy to forget about the existing learning and development opportunities at your organization, especially when your schedule is full. But this is a great place to start when you’re looking for ways to develop your team. For example, does your workplace have a cross-training program? Are there affinity groups? What about tuition reimbursement? If you’re drawing a blank, get together with other leaders so you can pool your knowledge about current resources.

Help Team Members Learn from Each Other

So what’s your #1 existing resource? Your people themselves. Take a moment to think about the strengths of each of your team members. You’ll probably be impressed by the depth and breadth of knowledge and experience on your team! Now consider how you can tap into each person’s expertise. Some options include lunch-and-learn events and peer-to-peer coaching.

Build Learning into Every Day

All too often, we think of learning as something that happens in addition to our regular jobs. But some of the most powerful learning actually happens through our work experiences.  Leadership expert Josh Bersin calls this “growth in the flow of work,” and research has shown it delivers real results. According to Camille Preston, a business psychologist and leadership expert: “The most innovative leaders and organizations are seeking ways to integrate leadership development into everything they do.” You can help your direct reports grow by helping them join a cross-functional team, present in front of senior leaders or take on a special project, just to name a few examples.

Coach and Give Feedback

I get it: You’re really busy. But you can provide more coaching and feedback without taking too much time out of your day. Get in the habit of sharing what you noticed about your team members’ behavior right after you observe it. Even a couple of minutes after a meeting to point out what worked well and what would have been more effective can go a long way. If you want to start coaching more but aren’t sure how to begin, I contributed to an article for Forbes Coaches Council that provides some “baby steps.”

Our Free Leadership Development Event

I hope the ideas in this article will help you create more development opportunities for your team members. Making learning more accessible is one of our key values at Newberry Solutions. That’s why we created our award-winning New Lens® app. And it’s why I’m so excited about our upcoming Micro Summit: 4 Core Leadership Strategies for Success. Like New Lens, this virtual event is easy to fit into busy schedules. In just a couple of hours, you’ll gain valuable, actionable strategies for success from four incredible business and HR leaders. It all happens 11 a.m.-1 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, October 25. I invite you to register here, and to share this link with your team members and other colleagues. 

Meet Our Micro Summit Speakers

I am thrilled to have four incredible business and HR leaders speak at our Micro Summit: 4 Core Leadership Strategies for Success, which is just one month away.

It is not easy to get on their calendars, let alone have all four speaking at one event! They have so much collective leadership insight to share, and we’re going to tap into it through conversations about core strategies that drive high performance. 

The design of the summit is all micro, modeled after our New Lens app, so that you can fit it into your schedule and get the most value from the event. 

In just a couple of hours, this virtual event will give you valuable, actionable strategies for success.

Let me introduce you to our incredible lineup of powerful, hand-picked senior leaders from top companies:

• Tina Bigalke is Global Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at PepsiCo. Her work focuses on increasing diverse representation, empowering courageous conversations and investing strategically in communities. Tina leads the development of programs and partnerships that drive diversity, inclusion and engagement as part of the business strategy, as well as internally and externally. This includes PepsiCo’s commitment to racial equality and gender parity. Tina is a 20-year PepsiCo veteran. Prior to her current role, Tina was Senior Vice President, Commercial Human Resources for PepsiCo Foods North America division, where she shaped strategy for customer sales, marketing and transformation. 

• Mark Benton is Vice President of HR Corporate Functions at McKesson Corp. In this role, he partners with executive leaders to identify simple, yet effective ways to implement talent strategies that accelerate employee development and drive engagement and culture within the organization. With over 28 years in the HR/Talent space, Mark has a reputation for balancing straight talk with humor and empathy. He has used this approach to partner with hundreds of leaders at all levels to link business strategy to people-focused solutions.  

• Michol Ecklund is Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Callon Petroleum Company. She oversees the legal, sustainability and human resources activities of the company. Since joining Callon in 2017, Michol has supported the company’s growth through a series of corporate- and asset-acquisitions, resulting in 500% production growth and doubling of the employee base. Before joining Callon, Michol was Deputy General Counsel for Operations & Commercial Law at Marathon Oil Company. During her 15 years at Marathon Oil, she served in progressive positions within and outside the law organization including compliance, litigation, human resources, investor relations, corporate communications and tax. She began her legal career at Baker Botts LLP.

• Hilda Galvan is Partner-in-Charge at Jones Day Dallas. A nationally recognized trial lawyer, Hilda has been recognized as one of DFW's Top Defense Attorneys. She was also named 2019 Lawyer of the Year: Litigation-Patent by “The Best Lawyers in America.” Hilda has served as lead counsel in the enforcement of patent portfolios as well as defense of infringement allegations. Her cases have involved various technologies, including electronics, software wireless communication and semiconductor processes.

I’m looking forward to the insights each speaker will share. Want to join us for this event? The Micro Summit happens Wednesday, October 25, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. CDT. Reserve your spot now. Know others at your company who might be interested? Please share the registration link with them.

Big Insights from One Little Question [One Thing Video Series]

Sometimes the wisdom you need in a particular moment comes from a surprising source. For me recently, that source was a note I wrote myself a couple of years ago. That note consisted of just a single question. But it’s been helping me anytime I’m feeling frustrated or if something isn't going my way. In my latest One Thing You Can Do video, I talk about the simple but effective message of that note and how you can use it, too.

For more practical leadership strategies you can start using immediately, I invite you to check out our award-winning New Lens® app. It’s designed to make leadership development more accessible than ever through bite-sized lessons and small action steps. Ready to learn more? Request a demo now.

Micro Summit: 4 Core Leadership Strategies for Success

Have you registered for our online micro summit coming up on October 25? In just a couple of hours, this event will give you actionable insights into some of Newbery Solutions’ core strategies for success. We developed these strategies over 15 years of executive coaching and leadership development and incorporated them into the New Lens™ app.

This virtual event is geared toward executives, professionals in areas like human resources and talent development, and other business leaders who want to make a bigger impact and get results they couldn’t before. Don’t miss this chance to learn from powerful leaders who’ve been there and know the ropes. 

It all happens from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, October 25, and registration is open now.

Transcript

Hi, I am Neena Newberry with Newberry Solutions, and I'm excited to share the next installment of our One Thing You Can Do video series, which is all based on New Lens, which is our leadership development app that focuses on micro learning, giving you valuable strategies in two to seven minutes. This video is going to be under two minutes, and today I want to share with you a note that I just came across from a couple of years ago. This was a note that I wrote to myself and I had completely forgotten about it, but it has a really important question on it, which is, what meaning are you assigning to this?

So when I am in a position of feeling frustrated or if something isn't going my way, or if someone's behaving in a way that I don't necessarily expect, the question is what meaning am I assigning to this? And we all have a tendency to personalize things, and this question will prompt you to pause and really think about what you're doing in the situation. And it's very empowering when you realize you can make a different choice than the one that you're making. So I want to arm you with that question today. And for more leadership tools and strategies, visit newberrysolutions.com.

Micro Summit: 4 Core Leadership Strategies for Success

Over the past 25 years, I've seen employees struggle with the same types of issues over and over as they underestimate the importance of certain leadership strategies and skills or fail to recognize unwritten rules or adapt their approaches as they move up.  And unfortunately, their managers often lack the skills to help them. After all, many were promoted for being good individual contributors.

All of this has shaped our work, from executive coaching to leadership development programs and now our New Lens® app.  As we developed New Lens, we identified eight core strategies for success at any level. We got excited when our Fortune 500 clients validated them – and even more excited when we thought about the impact we could have by making leadership development more widely available through a technology-based solution!

Today, I'm excited to invite you to join other business and HR leaders to our online micro summit, which is inspired by these core strategies. Four powerful, hand-picked senior leaders from top companies will each share their insights into one of these core strategies in the context of the world today:

• Focus on the Right Work is all about focusing on where you can have the biggest impact on the business, while working in a way that is sustainable.

• Develop a High-Performing Team can help you whether you’re a member of a team or the leader of it.

• Build a Powerful Network helps you develop lasting, authentic relationships that will support you in delivering business results and advancing your career.

• Building Leadership Courage and Resilience helps you notice your thinking traps and arms you with tools to navigate challenges, change, and uncertainty.

Just like New Lens, which is full of powerful microlearning, our micro summit will pack valuable, actionable strategies into a short timeframe. I can’t wait to see you there. Secure your spot now—and please share this invitation with other leaders and team members who would benefit too. 

When:
Wednesday, October 25, 11 a.m.—1 p.m. CDT

Newberry Solutions Turns 15

Whaaaat?! Newberry Solutions has been in business for 15 YEARS!!! This huge milestone crept up on us. These 15 lessons have made the biggest difference on this unexpected journey into entrepreneurship (yes, I had no idea I was going to start a business when I left my executive role at Deloitte), and I hope they help you as you continue to navigate your path.

Photo by Cup of Couple

To help me celebrate, please pay it forward by sharing this list with others. Giving people the tools and resources they need to be successful is what has meaning and heart for me.

1. “I’ll see it when I believe it” - Wayne Dyer. It all starts by taking a leap of faith. I started my company three months before the economy tanked in 2008. If I didn’t believe that what I wanted to achieve was possible, how could anyone else? (My commencement speech at Texas Woman’s University was inspired by this too.)

2. Keep passion and purpose at the forefront. In times of fear, self-doubt, and fatigue, reconnect to your passion and purpose to get yourself back on track. Your “why” is powerful.

3. Keep your eye on the big picture. It will keep you from sweating the small stuff and will help you keep things in perspective.

4. Focus on the “right” work: those areas where you can have the biggest impact on the business given your role and strengths. There’s only one of you – invest your precious time, energy and strengths wisely.

5. Pause. Exhale. Repeat. Never underestimate the power of breath to ground you. In a few seconds, you can bring your stress level down.

6. Small steps lead to big results. To keep from getting overwhelmed, don’t worry about solving everything; start by defining the first two steps. Learn from each step and iterate. This helped me immensely in 2008 and again when I battled cancer during the pandemic.

7. Trust that things will unfold as they should, especially when you’ve already taken proactive steps. Get out of your own way and don’t overthink it.

8. Keep generating options (aim for at least three). You always have more options than you think, even when things seem impossible.

9. Take care of yourself. Self-care is not a nice-to-have strategy. It’s your oxygen mask. You can’t be there for anyone else, let alone yourself, if you run out of gas.

10. Make it easy for people to help you. Arm them with the information and tools they need to help. And, most importantly, accept help.

11. Surround yourself with people who energize you, raise the bar and challenge you to think differently.

12. Trust your intuition or gut. Remember that it’s not just a feeling in your body; it’s wisdom developed from years of experiences, challenges, painful lessons and resilience.

13. Know when to walk away. When emotions run high, take a break. When you are fried, take time off. Keep Maslow’s hierarchy in mind.

14. Pay it forward without worrying if anything will come back to you. It always does—tenfold.

15. Use your body to change your mind. Blast that favorite song and dance it out, walk in nature, and do those power poses (Amy Cuddy).

I want to challenge you to identify one or two lessons to keep at the forefront for yourself. These lessons apply whether you are an entrepreneur, in the corporate world or not in the workforce at all.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t express my gratitude to you for being part of this 15-year journey. We wouldn’t be here without you. As always, our top priority is your success. If we can help your organization through the New Lens® app, executive coaching, leadership development programs or speaking, please reach out to us.

Turning Our POWER into Action

How can you claim your personal power and put it into action? That was the question at the heart of Orchid Giving Circle’s annual POWER Leadership Forum earlier this month.

I was very honored to emcee and work with the planning committee to design this event for an organization I’m passionate about. Hosted and supported by Texas Women’s Foundation, OGC raises funds to support nonprofits serving the North Texas Asian community. The POWER Forum’s purpose is twofold. It advances OGC’s philanthropy. At the same time, the event develops and connects leaders within this community. POWER Forum 2023 succeeded in both of these missions. I came away inspired and energized, so I wanted to share with you some of my key takeaways.

Learning and Connection

The POWER Leadership Forum featured a high-caliber lineup of speakers. These AAPI women executives delivered insights on topics like confidence, purpose, imposter syndrome and being a “first” or an “only.” For those of us in the audience, hearing executives talk about issues that we have faced as well created a greater sense of connection and openness.

The speakers’ words left me thinking about questions like these:

• How can we better recognize the power that we have?

• When things don’t go our way, what roles do we take on (victim, aggressor, etc.)?

• As leaders, how can we better educate others about identifying their power and using it as a resource?

I also appreciated the chance to talk in small groups about the advice and stories we heard in the presentations and how to apply it to our own lives. To keep the momentum and learning going after the event, POWER Forum attendees received a subscription to Newberry Solutions' award-winning New Lens® app. New Lens® makes learning digestible through bite-sized lessons and small action steps to enhance your impact as a leader.

Coming Together for Change

In addition to providing inspirational content, this OGC event also drove home the power of people identifying a need and then coming together to address that need. In this case, the need was for more philanthropic dollars earmarked for the AAPI community. (Currently, only 0.4 percent of all U.S. philanthropic dollars go to Asian Americans.)

All of us members of Orchid Giving Circle are so grateful to the sponsors who joined with us to make this year’s POWER Forum a success. I’m proud to say that Newberry Solutions was a presenting sponsor and that several of our client organizations also backed this event. It was amazing to collaborate with them, especially Frito-Lay who generously hosted us at their beautiful campus.

This week, I encourage you to think about the power that you have, how you might use it and how you can amplify your power by joining with others. The New Lens app can be a valuable resource as you consider these questions. Schedule your demo now. I also invite you to learn more about Orchid Giving Circle and how to support our work.

How to Ease Your Team’s Stress (and Your Own)

Has the cumulative stress of the past few years taken a toll on you and your team? You aren’t alone. I’m hearing the same thing from many leaders I work with. As we created Newberry Solutions’ latest white paper, “Managers Under Pressure,” we learned that research backs up what we’ve all observed firsthand:

Photo by Pedro Figueras

• Employee engagement is at a seven-year low, which Gallup calls “one of the biggest threats to organizations and entire economies” in 2023. 

• On top of that, more than 40% of professionals report feeling burned out at work.

• For managers, the situation is even more dire. Their burnout rate is 43%. 

If you lead a team, it’s crucial right now to both prioritize your own wellbeing and support the people who report to you. You can make a big difference for them. A survey by The Workforce Institute at UKG found that managers impact people’s mental health just as much as their spouses do. 

I understand, though, that helping your team deal with stress (and managing your own) might feel like just one more thing to do when your schedule is already packed. So today I want to make this a little easier by passing along some unique, impactful tools that can supplement more traditional approaches to stress management. You can use these tools yourself and share them with your team members.

• The Living in Green Project. The website for the Living in Green Project provides information about stress management that’s great for sharing with your team. One valuable tool is the “Which State Is Your Nervous System In?” infographic, which can help you understand your stress levels. Be sure to check out their blog for more simple but powerful strategies grounded in neuroscience. 

• The Chopra App. If you are interested in meditation, but not sure how to get started, this app from wellness pioneer Deepak Chopra makes the practice more accessible. It includes meditations designed for a variety of situations. You can also find meditations as short as five minutes so that you can always fit a mindful pause into your day.

• Tapping. This is one of the quickest ways I know to reduce negative emotions and get your energy back to a calm and balanced state. Tapping is also easy to learn, affordable and can be used almost anytime. Think of it as a form of acupressure as a way to identify and release roadblocks. It is backed by science, and I can tell you from my own experience that it really works — and works fast.

Resources from Newberry Solutions

Our passion is creating solutions that address the challenges we see leaders experiencing. Earlier, I mentioned our white paper, “Managers Under Pressure,” which will help you learn more about both the magnitude of workplace stress in 2023 and how you can empower your managers to deal with their own stress and support their teams. We’re also thrilled to hear from users of our award-winning New Lens® app that they feel better equipped to handle any stressful situation. Schedule your demo today.

New Lens Video Series: Popcorn and Perspective

Today I’m kicking off a new feature, the New Lens Video Series. Like my New Lens app, this video series is all about helping you see yourself, helping others see you and leading through a new lens. And, just as the New Lens app does, these videos will give you quick strategies that you can start using immediately to become an even more effective leader. 

The insight I’m sharing with you today has what might seem like an unlikely inspiration: a bag of burnt popcorn. So what does popcorn have to do with leadership? Watch the video to find out.