Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Skills Improvement

We all need a little personal development mixed in with our professional and career development. Read blogs in this category for personal skills improvement.

  • Tails and Tales of Remote Work

    Tails and Tales of Remote Work

    “I’m sorry, I’m working from home and my dog is barking.” How many times have you said or heard this lately? I have a mini schnauzer with a not-so-mini personality, so I’m an experienced “I’m sorry my dog is barking” professional. So is the HR leader who said that exact sentence on our call this morning. 

    By now, many of us have been working remotely for months. Some for years. We’ve adopted new methods, like wearing pajama shorts under that sharp shirt and blazer because no one really ever sees below our shoulders. We’ve found a new rhythm. We work when the kids are doing homework or the baby (and/or dog) is napping. We’ve got this. 

    But are we engaged? Are we growing? Do we feel connected to our colleagues, our leaders, our organizational and personal purpose? We’re working longer hours and producing great work, but we don’t know if it’s sustainable. The events of 2020 are taking a collective toll on our mental health. If you are an HR leader or a manager of people, consider some best practices for supporting remote workers. 

    1. Offer options. Remember that employees have different learning styles, different engagement preferences, and different abilities. We have more options to accommodate differences when we can be in person in an office setting and use technology. Our options shrink when we’re forced to rely exclusively on technology. However, shrunk isn’t nothing. There is really great HR tech out there. There are free online tools. We’re not stuck. We can still offer different options for communication, learning, and engagement. Employee wellbeing is negatively impacted when they’re boxed into a corner. Give them some wiggle room.  
    2. If it ain’t broke, don’t break it. If you had systems in place prior to the disruption that still work in a remote environment, leave them be. For example, if you used to send an email or pick up the phone and call when you had a question, but now you’re defaulting to a video call, take a step back and ask yourself why. Do you feel required to use video calling because it’s “more engaging” than phone calls? Video calls certainly add value to a remote work environment, but they should be limited to scheduled group meetings that you would normally have in person, just like scheduling a conference room. Video fatigue is real, and our mental health slides when we feel forced into unnecessary camera time. If the good ol’ telephone ain’t broke, don’t break it.  
    3. Seek feedback. I know you know this one. Are you doing it? Openly, regularly, meaningfully? The only source that can tell you if employees are feeling energized or overwhelmed, engaged, or burned out (or Zoomed out) is…drum roll…employees. Talk to them. Remember #1 and offer options to talk to them by email, phone, video, anonymous survey, etc. Pay attention to the options they choose; that’s immediate feedback. The employee who always uses video calls may be signaling that they need social interaction. The employee who emails at midnight may be navigating a schedule with a newborn baby. Next time you’re in a virtual meeting with everyone, use a polling feature or link to a 3-question survey in the chat feature to ask for anonymous feedback about wellbeing and engagement. Here are some tips for effectively using pulse surveys. 

    We all have barking dogs and laughing children who are equal parts of our remote work environment, and with the right support and good leadership from HR, we can find high work engagement and general and mental wellbeing in this new worklife. We’ve got this. 

  • How to Do Virtual Training Well

    How to Do Virtual Training Well

    At Horizon Point, we have always offered virtual training in some form or fashion. While navigating a pandemic, more and more companies are reaching out to us about facilitating training virtually. We are fortunate that this is not new to us & with SO MANY tools, i.e. Zoom, virtual sessions can be just as fun and effective as live, in-person training!

    I facilitate an online career development course for Horizon Point. Typically, we offer a new course every month and have people from all over the US and occasionally other countries participate.

    Here are my top tips for successful facilitation of a virtual course:

    1. Set Clear Expectations – During or prior to the first virtual session, make certain that all expectations are outlined. If you must utilize the computer camera, give everyone a heads up, so no one shows up in their PJs.

    2. Allow for Flexibility – Everyone appreciates some level of control when participating in the training. Allow some flexibility in your course/training. If someone is unable to participate for reasonable circumstances, offer a makeup session, or record the live session. I also allow for flexibility in submitting required assignments, but still set clear expectations on what must be completed in order to successfully complete the course (like a hard & fast deadline for all assignments).

    3. Be Available – This should be a given. As an instructor, you must be available and approachable. Provide participants with your preferred method of communication & make it a habit of returning calls, texts, or emails within 24 hours.

     

    Need more ideas on Engaging a Remote Workforce? Check out this podcast from Adam Grant: How Science Can Fix Remote Work.

  • Birthing Babies & Businesses

    Birthing Babies & Businesses

    I seem to have a knack for birthing babies and businesses at the same time.  Blaming the hormones as a cause of a healthy dose of insanity, I launched my first business almost nine years ago when my now nine-year-old son was a newborn. 

    Our second child, a girl, came three years behind her brother. She was a well thought out and planned decision.  Her current personality actually reflects this truth. No businesses were birthed during her arrival but taking a leap to go beyond myself and out of the desire to integrate home and work in a way that was meaningful and purposeful for me, I hired my first employee when she was a newborn. 

    Fast-forward several years later, and my husband had convinced me we were done with babies.   We had two children, a boy and a girl, two thriving careers, a home, and a dog. What more could we need?  But, of course, my heart was telling me something, and after much prodding, my husband got on board as well.  I wrote about this decision in a blog post about Using Your Heart Not Your Head. 

    Our third child arrived almost to the minute of when our son started third grade and our daughter started kindergarten.  Not what I had planned. He was to stay in place until after I walked my ‘baby” who would no longer be the baby, into her first day of real school. 

    For the well planned out people we thought we were, this third child a boy, and the events so far of 2020, has proven to show us that sometimes planning is actually the worst thing you can do.  It impedes risks and can lead us to over rationalize, keeping us from making decisions and steps forward especially ones that come from the heart. 

    Of course, with this child being a boy, birthing a business had to come along with him. The new business was formally incorporated not a week after I found out I was pregnant with him, and we have spent much of 2020 albeit remotely, breathing life into the idea and goals of this new venture.  We would launch into a plan, then stop and change course more times than I can count in response to the ever-changing world and challenges around us. 

    Our new “baby”, MatchFIT, takes me down a different path than the first one.  This one requires even more risks than the first to be able to capitalize on the need to scale and scale quickly and to bring a team together at a faster pace than one every two to three years.  Just like the third child brings about more challenges than just the one. We are playing zone defense now, not man to man.  Of course, the business launch has hit a time when our product, a hiring tool, seems to be unnecessary when most businesses aren’t hiring.  

    Should we just quit? I’ve thought that more times than I can count. But our heart has told us to keep moving forward because we are passionate about our purpose. 

    Our need for moving forward sent us down a path of applying for Alabama Launchpad for seed funding. We made it to the finals last week and pitched our idea to the judges and then live through a social media streamed event.  It was a risk, and we lost.  

    As my husband said, we literally lost to sh*t, as the winner was a compost company.  The people running the venture we lost to were far from sh*t, though.  They seemed to be genuinely nice guys with a passion and heart for their business idea.  It was almost impossible not to be happy for them. 

    At the heart of this business and its start-up are the core values of innovation and creativity. We help organizations and job seekers also define their core values and find opportunities and relationships that allow for workplace engagement to take shape. 

    I find myself engaging in the best of myself when I live out innovation and creativity, even though it forces more risk-taking, especially because it requires more risk-taking.  And with risk-taking also comes the risk of embarrassment –  of literally losing to sh*t, live and publicly. 

    Just like the decision to have our third child, applying for Launchpad and pursuing a business venture amidst a global pandemic and global unrest seems to be a huge risk. 

    But what often seems counterintuitive from the outside looking in is usually an active process that is occurring from the inside out. One that is a step out in faith. One governed by living out the values that make us and businesses unique and allow us each to thrive. 

    More often than not, these steps out in faith lead to more joy than each of us can possibly contain.  The joy our third son brings to our lives is contagious, and the joy I felt despite the loss via Launchpad, in innovating and creating in a collaborative way with my business partner and the team at MatchFIT is full of joy in the journey. 

    I told the team we’d lick our wounds of loss over the weekend and then rise this week having learned and grown, thankful for the experience and exposure Alabama Launchpad has given us.  But most especially, for the opportunity to live out our workplace values in the process, and to be a business that helps others discover workplace relationships that do the same. 

     

    Do your organization and your life decisions allow you to live out your values?

  • Do Only the Really Smart (or Stupid) Fly Without PowerPoint?

    Do Only the Really Smart (or Stupid) Fly Without PowerPoint?

    When I get ready for a training or a speech, the first thing I do is outline content in PowerPoint slides.  It helps me frame my thoughts and gauge for flow of material.  Then I go back and provide content for a supporting document like a handout.  And I’m lucky, I hand it off to someone else to make it all look pretty, cohesive, and professional before it ever goes live. 

    I’m working on a pitch now for some seed funding, and my first thought is how do I organize the pitch through PowerPoint slides.  The information on guidelines for the pitch session even specifically references using “supporting slides.” 

    PowerPoint seems to be the default when we want to present ideas to a group.  Whether there are words on a slide or just graphics, it seems to be the way everyone thinks when it comes to sharing ideas. Even the more innovative talk formats like Ted and Ignite talks almost always use slides.  I’ve written some do’s and don’ts based on experience for creating a winning presentation, but what if we ditched the slides all together in favor of another way? 

    It’s well known that Jeff Bezos at Amazon called for just that in 2004.  He deemed presentation slides out and narrative text in.  Why? From his email announcing this: 

    “A little more to help with the questions ‘why.’

    Well structured, narrative text is what we’re after rather than just text. If someone builds a list of bullet points in Word, that would be just as bad as PowerPoint. 

    The reason writing a good 4-page memo is harder than ‘writing’ a 20-page PowerPoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what’s most important than what, and how things are related. 

    PowerPoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the interconnectedness of ideas.” 

    He went on to say at another time: 

    “Great memos are written and re-written, shared with colleagues who are asked to improve the work, set aside for a couple of days, and then edited again with a fresh mind.  They simply can’t be done in a day or two.” 

    To summarize, Bezo (and I would agree) believes that this version of presentation style: 

    • Increases thinking and clarity of thought
    • Increases collaboration
    • Requires and builds patience

    All this leads to better communication. 

    Great narrative written format, like someone who can fly without PowerPoint in a pitch or presentation and opts only for narrative verbal prose to make a lasting point(s), is hard.  It’s really hard.   

    I think Bezos also would say, ditching the PowerPoint helps me see who is smart, really smart.  And also, a really hard worker. 

    So, if you are going to fly without the slides, you need to be a very good storyteller in written and/or verbal prose and know if your audience is geared well towards the shell shock of another format.  Amazon created an environment where no PowerPoint was the norm. Almost everywhere else this isn’t.  

    So, should I fly solo with no PowerPoint in my pitch in June? You tell me.  Could it show that I am smart, hardworking and different or will I crash and burn given that the instructions for format already tell me my audience is expecting slides?  

    Am I smart or just plain stupid ditching PowerPoint? 

     

    Like this post, you may also like:

    The Most Popular Slide in All My Leadership Trainings

    7 Pieces of Advice for Becoming a Great Speaker

    3 Ways to Create Insights for Learning

    Why? Again.

  • The Most Popular Slide in All My Leadership Trainings

    The Most Popular Slide in All My Leadership Trainings

    I often glance at what people take note of when they are a part of one of our training sessions.  Not the notes or handout questions we make them fill in, but the notes where they turn over to a blank handout page or pull out their own notebook and jot things down.  The notes people take because they want to make sure they remember something.

    The times when people say, “Can you go back to that slide for a minute please?” And then they start furiously writing.

    We also get feedback from all participants at the end of each session in order to see how the training will affect their behaviors at work going forward. What will they do differently we ask? What will they use?

    After gathering this feedback and paying attention to what people take note of, I think this slide is the most meaningful slide in all of our trainings:

    I think this slide is even more meaningful given our current situation with the COVID-19 crisis.   I’ll be covering this slide as well as others and the tools that go along with it in a webinar: Leading in Crisis hosted by our friends at the Huntsville Madison County Chamber tomorrow, Wednesday, May 6th from 9 am- 11 am.

    Click here to register. Click here to download the handout for the webinar. It has tools that go along with this information.

    I hope you can join us as we learn more about leading in crisis, especially through employing the bright spot philosophy and the accomplishment list.

    What do you to help you lead in crisis?  What has been the best training takeaway you’ve experienced?