Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Career Development

Beyond Work is our line of resources for people and community leaders looking for something new and innovative, be it a new job, career change, or personal development outside of work. Read this category specifically for Career Development.

  • 2022 Book of the Year

    2022 Book of the Year

    “Gratitude became my door to grace.” 

    Alexsys Thompson The Power of a Graceful Leader

    This year at Horizon Point, we launched a training curriculum called Illuminate, seeking to further our mission to innovate the workplace through people practices and bring light to all that we do.  

    The training idea came about from our work seeking to help organizations adapt in a rapidly changing workplace environment and from our personal experiences of trying to do the same. 

    What seemed to resonate the most in all the concepts taught was the practice of gratitude. Each participant was given personalized thank you notes and encouraged to write one note a week for a year in order to express gratitude to people that had an impact on them. 

    We realized there wasn’t enough gratitude going around. That’s why it was so impactful, because there was a scarcity of it instead of an abundance. 

    And with this, we realized that in order for gratitude to go around, we needed to focus on what it means to be a Graceful Leader and hold ourselves and others to Graceful Accountability.  We needed to help people see that they could exist in a place where accountability and expectations can and should coexist with empathy and grace.  

    That the duality of things actually improves upon all things.  As Aleyxs Thompson quotes Richard Rudd in our book of the year, grace is “careful without being fearful, caring without being overbearing, candid without being cruel.” 

    Our book of the year states that “grace is the key to sustained happiness, more fulfilling work, and performance that impacts the world” and that gratitude is the door to accessing this kind of grace. 

    So with this, we decided to present two gifts to you this year in appreciation of your partnership with us.  You’ll find our book of the year- The Power of a Graceful Leader, as well as twelve personalized thank you cards.  We hope you will use the book to fuel your thoughts on leading with grace. Chapter three specifically focuses on how gratitude is the entry point to grace. As we move into 2023, we hope you’ll write one note a month to someone to whom you owe an acknowledgement of your gratitude and how they have impacted you.

    One is the means and one is the end. Our habits form us and shape who we are becoming. We hope that the habit of gratitude will mold and shape us all into graceful leaders. 

    We are incredibly grateful for your partnership with us this year.  Thank you for trusting us to walk alongside you to impact people and workforce practices. Many blessings to you and your family during this joyous season!

  • Today I Was Biased

    Today I Was Biased

    This morning my 16-year-old informed me that tomorrow is “Senior Day” for Homecoming week and as part of the SGA leadership team, he has to dress up as a senior citizen. The immediate image in my head was that of an old man with a branded t-shirt, khaki pants held up by wide suspenders, and clunky white tennis shoes. So that’s what we went with.

    Why that’s the image that popped into my mind, I don’t know. My dad is 71, he’s a senior citizen, and he’s never dressed like that. My uncles don’t dress like that. In fact, no senior men I know dress like that. But yet that’s the first image I have when I think of a senior man. And I realize that’s a very biased image.

    Biases and perceptions have been on my mind a lot lately. On October 24th, my colleague Jillian and I will be traveling to Perdido Beach Resort to speak at the Alabama Association of Regional Councils Annual Conference and one of our sessions will be on Overcoming Bias. I’ve also been researching job requirements and disability accommodations for my capstone thesis for law school and much of my research includes discussions on biases and perceptions.

    We all have biases and perceptions. Some are conscious biases, we know we have them, and some are unconscious. We may react a certain way in a given situation but haven’t yet connected the dots to understand why we always react that specific way. So, what are some steps we can take to minimize bias in the workplace?

    • Sit with your feelings. If you’re familiar with Emotional Intelligence, the first skill is self-awareness. Being aware of your own feelings. If you’re dealing with a difficult situation or decision, have to have a tough conversation, or just have some pressing thoughts running through your mind, find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted and ask yourself how you’re feeling and be honest about it. Are you angry, frustrated, sad, happy, confused? Don’t try to talk yourself out of how you’re feeling or think you should feel guilty for the emotions you’re experiencing, just feel them and ask yourself why you feel the way you do. Acknowledging the feelings is the first step to understanding them and learning how to manage them, which is the second skill of emotional intelligence; self-management.
    • Understand that biases can be positive or negative, and both can have a huge impact. We tend to think that biases are negative beliefs or views, but that’s not always the case. Imagine you have a great employee that reminds you of yourself when you were “that age” and so without even realizing you do it, you begin to give them preferential treatment. They get all the best assignments, you take them under your wing and teach them everything you know, you end up going out to lunch together more days than not to discuss work, and eventually the other members of your team start to get resentful of always being left out. Their performance starts to deteriorate, their morale slips further and further down, and you just can’t figure out why. And before you know it, your star performer seems unhappy too and appears to be avoiding you. You’re guilty of engaging in the Similar-to-Me Bias, you showed a preference toward the employee who you felt was most similar to you, without even realizing you were doing it.
    • Practice change. Your biases and perceptions are formed based on your experiences and environment. When we experience similar situations, we begin to create biases towards those types of situations; same with people. For example, if you hate going to the dentist, you talk yourself into how horrible going to the dentist for your checkup is going to be and the closer it gets the more you dread it and you are miserable the entire time you’re getting your cleaning done and you come out and you think about how miserable it was. What if you purposefully changed your approach. Instead of self-talk about how horrible the visit was going to be, what if instead you gave yourself a pep-talk about how it wouldn’t be that bad and you could handle it and that the dentist and hygienist are both really nice. And during the visit you tell yourself how well you’re doing and when it’s over you congratulate yourself on doing so well and how it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be. Do you think that maybe after a few visits that might help change your mindset about going to the dentist? Same with those dreaded weekly meetings that last forever – try some positive self-talk and see if you can’t change your biases and perspective towards them, even if just a little.

    My challenge for you this week: Pick one bias or perception that you want to change and start practicing.

  • Negotiation Styles and Why They Matter

    Negotiation Styles and Why They Matter

    Later this month I’ll be speaking at HR Florida about Negotiation Skills. We are all negotiators, even if we don’t realize it. Think for a minute. What did you do when your alarm went off this morning? Did you immediately jump out of bed or did you negotiate with yourself to allow yourself just “five more minutes?” Did your kid talk you into letting them pack cookies in their school lunch instead of a granola bar? Or did you agree to allow Jim to take the lead on the new project at work because Ally has too much on her workload as it is?

    While I’ll spend most of my session at HR Florida talking about how to navigate the negotiation session itself, there’s one important topic that I’ll tackle first, and that’s negotiation style. Based on the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) there are five styles:

    1. Competing: Those who exhibit the competing style are aggressive and uncooperative. They are power driven and pursue their own interests at the expense of others. Competing may mean standing up for what’s right, defending what they believe is correct, or simply trying to win.
    2. Collaborating: Those who exhibit the collaborating style are both assertive and cooperative. They attempt to work with the other party to find a solution that meets the needs of both parties by trying to understand the issue from both sides and identifying the underlying concerns, then trying to find alternative solutions that meet those the needs of both sides. This may mean exploring a disagreement to learn from each other, resolving some condition that would have them competing for resources, or trying to find a creative solution to an interpersonal problem.
    3. Compromising: Those who exhibit the compromising style are intermediate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness. The goal is to find an expedient, mutually acceptable solution that partially satisfies the needs of both parties. Compromising falls on the middle ground between competing and accommodating, giving up more than competing but less than accommodating. It might mean splitting the difference or some give and take.
    4. Avoiding: Those who exhibit the avoiding style are unassertive and uncooperative. They do not immediately pursue their own concerns or the concerns of the other person. They do not address the conflict, but instead choose to side step it, postponing the issue until a better time or simply withdrawing from the situation completely.
    5. Accommodating: Those who exhibit the accommodating style are unassertive and cooperative, this is the opposite of competing. They neglect their own concerns and instead choose to only satisfy the concerns of the other person, thus self-sacrificing their own needs.

    What’s important to understand about negotiation styles is that while we may have a dominant style, for example my dominant style is compromising, we use all five styles depending on the situation that we’re negotiating and it’s important to understand that the style you use in a negotiation can have a huge impact on the outcome of that negotiation.

    For example, think about the following situations and consider what negotiation style you would use and why.

    • Going to buy a new car
    • Asking your boss for a pay raise
    • Trying to negotiate a multi-million dollar contract at work

    Now, think about the negotiations that you will need to make in the next week and what styles you will need to use to successfully complete those negotiations.

  • Here’s to Senior Year!

    Here’s to Senior Year!

    Here’s to Senior Year!hpc senior year group photo

    My daughter is returning home from a surprise senior volleyball girls’ beach trip today, and I’m realizing these are the last days of her final summer as a high school student. A new school year is quickly approaching, and I am trying to wrap my brain around the fact that she will be leaving the nest soon. The days are long, but the years are short has never hit home like it does now. Revisit this post by our Founder to learn more about College Prep for Seniors.

    Here is a collection of blog posts and articles I’ve saved over the past year or so to help me prepare for this year. I hope it helps you too:

    Finally, a dear friend gave me a gift that will help me through this year. Starting 31 Prayers for My Daughter now.

    Did you know we offer an assessment and coaching session for students who need direction? Reach out to us at HPC for more information.

  • Growth Mindset in Career Development

    Growth Mindset in Career Development

    We’ve been talking about having a Growth Mindset for the past few weeks. If you missed it, check out the series kickoff blog here: What is Growth Mindset? 

    This time of year, we often get the opportunity to work with high school students looking for guidance related to the next steps after graduation. Career development for students looks like career exploration and exposure. That should start way before the final two years of high school, but it is definitely a priority for most students (and their parents) as secondary education draws to a close. The number one recommendation I have for high school students is to job shadow and/or conduct informational interviews to gain as much exposure as possible before selecting a career path. Check out 4 Tips for an Awesome Job Shadow or Informational Interview.

    Growth mindset looks different for individuals who are in the early stages of their careers. It looks like learning and growing. Check out The Essentials of Professional Development for ideas at this stage.

    For mid-career, growth mindset looks like continued development and sometimes a revisit to exploration and exposure. It is not uncommon for individuals to seek a career change in the middle of their careers. If someone is looking to make a change, an interest assessment is often a great place to start. A free assessment recommendation and more can be found in Career Change – Is it for you?

    As our Growth Mindset series comes to a close, we encourage you to adopt a growth mindset and reach out to us at HPC if we can help!