Category: General

Horizon Point writes about dozens of leadership, career, workplace, and workforce topics. Sometimes we write whatever we want. Read this category for general blogs from the HPC team.

  • 4 Ways to Seize the Moment

    4 Ways to Seize the Moment

    I had the chance to catch-up on some reading while on vacation recently.  I received The Power of Moments from a co-worker as a birthday present (she knows my love language is books), and it had been sitting on my office desk just itching to be read.

    The book highlights the importance of four characteristics that create moments:

    1. Elevation- Experiences that “rise above the routine.”
    2. Insight– Experiences that “rewire our understanding of ourselves or the world”.
    3. Pride–  Experiences that “capture us at our best” including times of achievement and/or courage.”
    4. Connection– Experiences that are social and that are heightened because they are shared with others.

    And I can think of no better “moment” to share than that of our little girl’s first t-ball game this past weekend.

    Her coach apparently understands how to create a moment. Check out the video of her at bat here:

     

    You may not have noticed the nuances that make this a moment if you aren’t looking for them in the video, so here they are:

    1. Elevation-The coach went out of his way to get the Atlanta Braves announcer to record an intro for each kid… “Now batting for the Ball Patrol (yes, a play off of PawPatrol the kid TV show), number ten, Paige Ward!”   Yes, you read that right, the Atlanta Braves announcer.   He also asked parents to help select their kids “walk up song” and since Paige calls “This Girl is on Fire” her theme song, of course we had to go with it.  Her other favorite song “Body Like a Back Road” just wasn’t appropriate…   Four-year-old t-ball is eventful and memorable for a number of reasons, but it usually doesn’t include walk up songs and professional announcers calling out your name.   In addition, he had a smoke machine for them all to run through to come out on the field.
    1. Insight– This helped us as parents realize, more than perhaps the kids did, that this is supposed to be fun.  It isn’t about winning and losing and it isn’t about our kid being the best. It is about the sheer fun of the game.   An insight we all need to realize more.  Life is should be more about having some fun.
    1. Pride- Paige is one of two girls on her team. The other little girl on the team, unfortunately, didn’t want to play once she got there, got scared and sat in her grandmother’s lap the whole game.  But for Paige, this was an I can do this with all the boys type moment.  It was a moment to create courage at her first at bat. Oh how fitting then was her walk up song.
    1. Connection-T-ball is a team sport and a sport where family and friends come and watch.  It is shared and the sharing of it makes it more fun.  Our neighbors across the street came to see the walk-out routine and laugh with us at the mass chaos four year old t-ball is. All the grandparents were there.   It was something we will have shared memories about.

    So kudos to this coach that gets what it means to be a leader by creating moments.  Maybe it is easier to create moments for kids, but I think it can be just as easy to create them in the workplace if we will only challenge our thinking to elevate, create insight and pride and connect with others.

    When was your last workplace moment?

  • Jump start your 2018 professional growth now!

    Jump start your 2018 professional growth now!

    Have you ever wanted to start your own business?
    Jump start your 2018 professional growth now!

     

    Introducing new coursework available,
    Getting Off the Ground: 7 Steps to Developing a Successful Business

    Entrepreneurship is one of our passions.
    First taught at Professional Development Institute (PDI)
    at the NCDA Conference Summer 2017.
    Customized for Career Development Facilitators.

    Take advantage of this opportunity now!

    If you missed it at PDI, you can now benefit from the course at your own convenience at an even lower cost. The course is set-up on Udemy.com for easy processing, payment, and participation.

    Get here: 7 Steps to Developing a Successful Business

    Use coupon code: 7STEPS 

  • Getting Off the Ground: 7 STEPS TO DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

    Getting Off the Ground: 7 STEPS TO DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

    Entrepreneurship is one of our passions. We are excited to be presenting at the National Career Development Association (NCDA) conference in Orlando next week about how to start a business. We hope you can join us if you are at the conference, but if not, here are our 7 steps for starting a successful business.

    After the conference, we will be launching an online course with this curriculum, so stay tuned for how you can participate in learning this information in a self-paced format online.

    Getting off the ground infographic (1)

  • Mommas Maintaining Grit?

    Mommas Maintaining Grit?

    Throw-up had literally been everywhere.  All week.  As had it’s counterpart that also comes along with what would later be diagnosed as rotavirus in my son.

    I had multiple meetings scheduled both with current and desired clients.  I had blocked off time to prepare for the next week that involved three different training sessions.   Each required the preparation and roll out of new material. I just couldn’t wing these.

    And because of said throw-up coming often at night, I hadn’t slept.  Neither had my husband, and he had multiple priorities at work to attend to as well.

    I canceled all but a couple of meetings.  Some were rescheduled, some were covered by someone else on my team, and the ones I made were possible because my husband and I swapped out or my in-laws were available for a couple of hours to help.

    In between his (my son’s, not my husband’s) trips to the bathroom, I laid with him, laptop in hand and tried to crank out the work that needed to get done, while rubbing his head.  By figuring the logistics out on that, I have officially deemed myself as the master of multi-tasking.

    But I really didn’t feel like a master at anything. I felt pulled in multiple directions.  When my in-laws called as I was finishing up a meeting and said “He wants you,” I dropped everything and went to pick him up.  When we got home, the throwing up that I thought had stopped had returned.  He had just wanted to puke in the comfort of his own home.  I set the computer down and took a nap with him.  And then later, we made a trip to the emergency room for fluids because his blood work showed that dehydration had thrown everything out of whack.

    During this time research, that I had seen before, showed up again on my radar.   Taken from a Business Insider article, titled “Parents of Successful Kids have these 12 Things in Common”.  Number eight reads: “The moms work outside the home”:

    According to research out of Harvard Business School, there are significant benefits for children growing up with mothers who work outside the home.

    The study found daughters of working mothers went to school longer, were more likely to have a job in a supervisory role, and earned more money —23% more compared to their peers who were raised by stay-at-home mothers.

    The sons of working mothers also tended to pitch in more on household chores and childcare, the study found — they spent seven-and-a-half more hours a week on childcare and 25 more minutes on housework.

    ‘Role modeling is a way of signaling what’s appropriate in terms of how you behave, what you do, the activities you engage in, and what you believe,’ the study’s lead author, Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, told Business Insider.

    ‘There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother,’ she told Working Knowledge.

    Hmm, I thought.  He had definitely seen his daddy role model that it’s not just mommy’s job to clean up the throw up.   But as I looked at the same article, number seven on the list was “the (parents) are less stressed.” Was there some methodology and importance to the order of this list? Does being less stressed trump me working outside the home when it comes to my children’s success in life?  If multiple priorities raise my stress level, should I choose just one- my kids?  Will this lead them to success? Or is success what matters?  These research findings point to nothing related to happiness and joy.

    As I contemplate this idea a few weeks later, I’m solely focused on work, because I’m alone in a hotel room.  And when I’m alone, I catch up on reading while I work out in in hotel fitness rooms.   While reading Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, (I had about zero grit in reading this book considering I started reading it in 2016) I quickly scan through the author’s quiz on grit- which is a measure of passion and perseverance- and, as the author shows through research, more important that talent in success. I realize by this quiz, I’m short on some grit.

    The author says just after the scoring for the quiz. “Keep in mind that your score is a reflection of how you see yourself right now. How gritty you are at this point in your life might be different from how gritty you were when you were younger. And if you take the Grit Scale later again, you might get a different score.”

    Yeah, I thought. I’ll take this quiz in about 16 years when both my kids are off at college because I’ve made them so “successful” because I’ve worked “outside the home” while simultaneously raising them, doing my best to keep them alive while basically being able to focus on nothing with passion and perseverance because something like the rotavirus is always lurking.

    But passion and perseverance does come in raising children.  And it does come in work- even if there are bouts of intensity in hotel rooms-  followed by periods of idleness because of other demands.

    One author, who wrote on the same research findings about what parents of successful children do says, “There is no such thing as a complete list.”  He points to grit saying,  “like virtually every other trendy article on this subject, they recommend teaching ‘grit,’ defined as the ‘tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals.’ While that’s virtuous in a vacuum, I think we’re going to find as a society that the way we teach grit omits something serious: the ability to maintain motivation while simultaneously, continuously reevaluating your goals.”

    Sometimes goals are as short term as making it through a nap with your kid without throw-up ending up on either one of you.  And sometimes it’s about getting an article done about such a topic.

    But overall, as we approach mother’s day as a time to celebrate all the mom’s in this world, motherhood is a lesson in grit, whether you work outside the home or not.

    Give yourself some credit moms (and I’ll try to do the same for myself), realizing that there is a time and season for everything, and it is up to you to choose what is best for you and your family right now.   Grit or not, don’t let anyone tell you that it is not okay to shift focus for the sake of what is important when it is important.   That will teach your kids to be successful because they have been taught through your “modeling” to know what is important and adjust accordingly.

     

  • Horizon Point welcomes Lorrie Coffey to our team!

    Horizon Point welcomes Lorrie Coffey to our team!

    Introducing Lorrie Coffey! 

    If anyone had asked me when I was in college what field I wanted to go into, Human Resources wouldn’t even have been on my list of possibilities. There are those of us who know what we are destined for and then there are those of us, like myself, who seem to stumble upon it when we least expect it. I like to say that I didn’t find HR, it found me.

    I started my HR career working for a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) providing outsourced HR services to clients that ranged from small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, and I loved it! During my career I have helped companies that didn’t have formal HR policies and procedures in place get a solid foundation built as well as help companies with a crumbling foundation restore it.

    My dad owns a construction company in my home state of Virginia, and I grew up helping him build and remodel homes. I know I’m biased, but my dad is extremely talented in his field and I’ve always admired him for what he creates. I’ve always loved watching something beautiful being built from the ground up, or watching a run down old house turned into something new again. My dad taught me to have very strong work ethics, but he also gave me a love for building and fixing things. While my dad’s end results definitely yield a much more aesthetically pleasing product, my end results are just as rewarding and beneficial to my clients as his results are.

    I am an HR Consultant at heart. Just as my dad is passionate about what he creates, I am passionate about HR. I often describe HR as a complex puzzle and I thrive on figuring out how to fit all those pieces together into a finished masterpiece. I am excited to join the team at Horizon Point Consulting as a Talent Management Consultant and look forward to helping our clients solve their HR puzzles.