Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Work

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

  • Feed Your Future With Feedback & Feedforward

    Feed Your Future With Feedback & Feedforward

    Next week, I’m talking about Feedback and Feedforward at the Tennessee SHRM Conference. While preparing for this session, I’m reflecting on my own feedback and feedforward skills. Am I following my own advice in giving meaningful feedback and practicing feedforward? If I do receive input from others, am I following up and actually implementing any change? Are you? 

    Just this morning, I received (unsolicited) feedback from my husband that I have not been practicing what I preach in work-life balance. I enjoy my work, paid and volunteer, so much that I have found myself with a plate that isn’t just full…it’s spilling over. Now I have my own homework to do to take this feedback to heart and actually examine my schedule and commitments. 

    Have you received similar feedback? That is, unsolicited feedback? Let’s talk about the types of feedback: 

    Unsolicited – The Kind You Didn’t Ask For

    Solicited – Well, You Asked For It 

    Observation – It’s Not What They Said, It’s How They Said It

    How often do you actually solicit feedback? For most of us, that type of feedback is the least common. We typically receive unsolicited feedback and/or observe feedback behaviors. Why? It is a whole lot easier to see our problems in others than it is to see them in ourselves. Even though we may be able to deny our problems to ourselves, they may be very obvious to the people who are observing us. 

    We can probably all work on soliciting feedback and actually listening to it. Today, since I already know an area that I need to work on, I’m thinking about the practice of Feedforward. Here’s how it works: 

    1. Pick a behavior you want to change that would make a significant, positive difference in your life
    2. Describe what you want to change with someone (one-on-one)
    3. Ask the person for two suggestions for the future
    4. Listen attentively to the suggestions
    5. Thank them

    Feedforward is a smart, effective way to take action and have accountability for the change you’re working on. 

    I’ll leave you with this quote from Marshall Goldsmith in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There:

    “We’re being told all day long how we’re doing. And the reason we accept this feedback and actually attempt to respond to it (e.g., if we’re down in sales, we’ll try harder to bring the figures up) is that we accept the process: An authority figure “grades” us and we are motivated to do better because of it. It’s not like that with interpersonal behavior, which is vague, subjective, unquantifiable, and open to wildly variant interpretations. But that doesn’t make it less important. It’s my contention— and it’s the bedrock thesis of this book— that interpersonal behavior is the difference-maker between being great and near-great, between getting the gold and settling for the bronze.”

    Use our free resource – Practice Feedback & Feedforward Worksheet – to check in with yourself and others and set timely goals for improvement and mutual commitment. 

    How can you feed your future? 

    Attending the TN SHRM Conference? Catch Jillian’s session on September 13 at 3:15pm. Learn more about #TNSHRM22 at horizonpointconsulting.com/whatsup. 

  • Atomic Habits: A Book Review

    Atomic Habits: A Book Review

    As summer turns to fall, and the busyness of the last quarter of the year approaches, habits have been on my mind. I recently had a routine doctor’s appointment where my blood pressure was slightly high, and my weight had increased more than I’d like. Following a conversation with my doctor, I reflected on a book I’d read recently about “atomic” habits. 

    The book is called Atomic Habits by James Clear. Clear said it best in this quote: “The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.”

    Atomic Habits is a practical guide with several tips that you can implement immediately to change your habits. Here are a few of my favorite takeaways from the book:

    1. Aim to get 1% better every day – Just a 1% increase every day yields a 37x improvement by the end of the year. He writes, “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement” and “You are what you repeat”. Continuous Improvement: How it Works and How to Master It provides more insight from James Clear.

    2. Habit Stacking: Everyone has daily habits already in place: brushing your teeth, making coffee, etc. Why not tack on a positive habit to something you already do? While making coffee, drink a large glass of water to help you stay hydrated during the day. Habit stacking is a great way to start a new habit by adding it to something you already have in your daily routine. Check out How to Build New Habits by Taking Advantage of Old Ones by James Clear to for more ideas.

    3. The 4 Laws of Behavior Change are Cue, Craving, Response, and Reward. This can be used to build new habits and to break bad habits. Check out How to Start New Habits That Actually Stick by James Clear to learn how to implement behavior change with this technique.

    What habits do you need to break or start today?

  • 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.

  • 5 Tips for Inclusive Recruiting

    5 Tips for Inclusive Recruiting

    “Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At (company), we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You might just be the right candidate for this or other roles.”

    This was recently included in an actual job posting. I found it posted in an HR group on Facebook and the feedback from HR professionals was pretty negative. The company may have had good intentions, but the message sent was, as one respondent put it, “offensive”.

    So how can companies ensure that they are being inclusive in their recruiting processes? How can they put their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policy to work and make it effective in recruiting talent? Yes, the statement in the job posting is correct, women and people of color ARE less likely to apply for positions if they don’t meet all of the requirements of the job posting. One study shows that men will apply for a job if they meet 60% of the requirements while women will not apply unless they meet 100% of the requirements, but what is the right way to combat that? It’s definitely not putting that statistic in a job posting.

    Here are 5 practical steps:

    1. Review your job descriptions. Be honest with yourself, are your qualifications must have or really wants? Break out your qualifications into required and preferred. Also ask yourself if the degree requirements are absolutely necessary. Can someone who is self-taught with five years of experience in the field perform the work just as well as someone who has a degree and no experience? If you’re job description has a weight lifting requirement, is it accurate for the job? Is that position really required to lift 50 pounds on a regular basis or are they lifting 15 pounds on a regular basis and once every month they might have to lift 50 pounds and can actually get someone else to lift that for them if necessary. If you’re not sure about your requirements, do a job analysis and ask someone currently in the role what they feel someone needs to have in order to be successful in that role.
    2. Use gender neutral language. Instead of using he or she, try speaking directly to the person reading the job description by using “you” instead. If that won’t work, use they/their.
    3. Consider where you are posting your jobs. While Indeed and Linkedin are great sources for candidates, are you utilizing resources that can help you target underrepresented populations? Are there veterans’organizations that you can send your job postings to? Are there job boards or associations that target specific populations (like Women Who  Code)?
    4. Incorporate diversity into every step of your recruiting process. Think carefully about who to include in the interview process. Imagine being a female interviewing for a leadership role and you’re scheduled for a panel interview with five members of the leadership team. You walk into the panel interview and the five individuals sitting across the table from you are all men. What impression do you think that would give? Would that be representative of the diversity of your organization?
    5. Train interviewers on biases. We all have biases, whether we realize it or not. And those biases play a part in how we interview and how we rate candidates. By understanding what the potential biases are, we can better identify them and minimize the impact they have in our decision making.

    How can you create a more inclusive recruiting program in your organization?