Joelle K. Jay

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Planning Your Journey

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but if you’re planning a long and successful journey, you should also have a strategy.

That’s definitely true if you are on the journey to a board seat.

As you know from our introductory articles, women who are pursuing a seat on a corporate board are often at a disadvantage.

Board seats tend to go to men and to those on the “inner circle” – a situation that tends to leave women out. That’s why The Athena Alliance was created. CEO Coco Brown and her team present women with a path to a board seat, and it is a journey that begins not just with a single step, but a strategy.

They call it the Journey Planning Strategy. In today’s issue of the Journey to a Board Seat Series, I want to share with you my personal experience with the Journey Planning Strategy – a benefit offered by The Athena Alliance that instantly gives women on the journey a great start.

Orientation

Starting the journey to a board seat can be daunting.

  • You’ve never done it before.

  • You don’t know what’s involved.

  • You have no idea whether you’re qualified.

  • You don’t know what gaps you need to fill to be qualified.

  • You wonder if you can be successful either way.

How much easier it is to start a journey if you have a guide.

At the Athena Alliance, your guide is your Member Success Manager. Member Success Managers serve as a “Personal Chief of Staff.” Athena Alliance Members are encouraged leverage these partners to access the full value that Athena can offer, from coaching and events to meaningful connections to other members, and it all starts at the beginning of the journey.

When I was first introduced to my Member Success Manager, she did two things for me.

First, she gave me an overview of the stages of the journey I’d be taking. To review these from our last article, the six steps on the journey are these:

  • Step 1 – Planning Your Journey Strategy

  • Step 2 – Creating Your Executive Brand Package

  • Step 3 – Developing Voice and Presence

  • Step 4 – Identifying Thought Leadership and Presentation

  • Step 5 – Personal Positioning and PR Strategy

  • Step 6 – Network Leverage and Enhancement

She introduced me to The Athena Alliance website, www.AthenaAlliance.org, and shared with me their considerable resources, including a library of relevant articles and dozens of other women on the journey, many of whom were open to conversations with me and some of whom were seasoned board members willing to help me on my way.

Having given me the map and assuring me I could get in touch anytime, my Member Success Manger launched me on Step One – Planning My Journey Strategy.

The Strategy Sessions

Planning my Journey Strategy again sounded worrisome. How could I plan a strategy for a journey I’d never taken? Where would I even begin?

Again, The Athena Alliance is designed specifically to guide women down the path with experienced experts virtually leading the way. My Member Success Manager handed me directly into the care of my first coach: Chief Journey Advisor Nancy Sheppard.

A seasoned board member herself, as well as an Athena veteran and executive coach, Nancy had the skills and the system for helping me discover what it would take for me to get a board seat.

In our first meeting, Nancy got to know me and asked a series of questions.

  • Why do you want to be on a board?

  • What kind of a board interests you?

  • What qualifications do you have, and what do you need?

She read my bio, explored my social media profiles, and asked about my references and connections.

In our second meeting, Nancy presented me with a Plan for my Journey Strategy. By the time our conversation was over, I had her honest assessment about what assets I had that would make me successful in obtaining a board seat and where I needed to fill in some blanks.

In other words, she answered all of those questions I had at the start of my journey. I knew now that even though I’d never been on this journey, I was in good hands. I understood what was involved; I knew where I was and wasn’t qualified; and I had confidence that by taking the Athena Alliance Journey to a Board Seat, I could be successful.

You can hear how other members experienced this thorough launch of their journey by listening to them describe their experience in this phase:

“I had a wonderfully motivating journey planning call. I am grateful to have been paired with someone in an active leadership position in [my specific] sector. She tailored the journey overview to focus on helpful tips for me to get the most out of my journey. I wasn’t sure what to expect out of the first call, but our time certainly surpassed anything I envisioned. She injected such well-crafted role-playing exercises to more deeply explain the goals and purpose of my network and visibility session. I left feeling energized and ready to take full advantage of what the Athena program has to offer.”

Erin DeCesare
CTO of ezCater

Next Steps for You

If you haven’t already visited the Athena Alliance website, take a moment to explore: www.AthenaAlliance.org. There you’ll get a sense of the resources they offer, from research to services and events. Even if joining a board is a distant dream of yours or a new interest, you will begin to discover what’s ahead on this journey – and what’s ahead may be an exciting adventure in your career.

And an expert tip: you may not yet have a Chief Journey Advisor like Nancy to build your plan, but by comparing Member Profiles and reading through The Athena Alliance website, you can ask yourself the same kinds of questions Nancy asked me and start sketching a plan for your journey to a board seat. You already have a lot of the pieces – just take some time to put them together, and you’ll be able to lead yourself down this path.

Coming Soon

Watch for our next article in the Journey to a Board Seat Series, in which I will share with you how to package yourself as a potential board member with your Executive Board Package: The Four Must-Haves of Your Personal Brand.

P.S. Here again is the website for The Athena Alliance: www.AthenaAlliance.org

As always, I send my best to you. If I can help you in any way, or if you’d like to network your way into success, please reach out anytime! I’d be delighted to hear from you.

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An Interview with Coco Brown, CEO, The Athena Alliance

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Today we are launching our Journey to a Board Seat – a 12-part article series to show leaders how to become a board member. If you want to advance your career as a business executive, improve your skills in your leadership role, or find a way to transition from a corporate career into an interesting semi-retirement, this journey is for you.

Subscribe Now to the Journey to a Board Seat Series

We are guided on our Journey by The Athena Alliance, an organization that prepares women to succeed in finding a board seat – and for corporate boards to find them. Today, we are introduced to our journey in an interview with the CEO of the Athena Alliance, Coco Brown. Coco will be sharing with us why having women on boards is so important for companies and compelling for women, as well as what challenges and opportunities are available for leaders who want to take this road.

In our Journey to a Board Seat, we will mostly be helping leaders understand what they need to do to find the board seat they want. But companies also have to want the women to have those seats. Why is it important for companies to focus on getting women on boards?

Coco: An overwhelming amount of evidence says that having more women on boards leads to better performance for companies. Women are a huge economic force. If businesses want to thrive, they need to be able to market to and sell to women. Women make over 80% of health, financial, and buying decisions. In addition, women fill 23% of top senior leadership and are 46.5 % of breadwinners. Companies that want to succeed financially must be able to win with women – and having women on their boards can help them to do that. 

What is unique about women getting board positions compared to men?

Unfortunately, it is uncommon for women to be highly visible at this level of corporate leadership. 

Think of this. Only 2.2% of venture funding goes to women, so almost all of the companies that have potential to scale quickly are run by men. The investors in those companies are over 85% men, and the investors are the ones who often take the board seats. So in early stage companies, where the founders are men and the board members are men, the executives they recruit also tend to be men. Humans are tribal, and at this level of business, women are not in the tribe. In order to get a seat on a corporate board, one has to be a part of the network, and the biggest problem women have is that they’re not. 

Why do women/executives want a board position?

In my opinion, the number one reason business leaders should become board members is because it makes them better executives. It also broadens their impact beyond the immediate role they hold as their main job. Serving on a board allows leaders to share their capacity and skill with more than one company, without having to leave or compete with their primary employer. Finally, for leaders moving toward retirement, serving on a board is a great way to extend your career. This may be new to women, but men have been doing it forever! Now women have access to the economic and lifestyle benefits of extending their careers by becoming the member of a board. 

The Athena Alliance helps women get the board seats they want. How do you prepare women to be successful in securing a board position?

The two biggest thing any woman can do for herself are these: 

  1. Know your story.
  2. Have a plan. 

Women need to be able to articulate the value they bring to the table and to develop a plan in which they identify where and how they would like to serve on a board; what skills and talents they bring; what they need to do to become prepared; and how to find the right match. We help them do that by bringing them along a journey to their board seat. 

It’s not a passive process. Taking the journey requires time, attention and learning, but it will lead them to the board seat they want.

What is the process you use at the Athena Alliance to help them do that? What is the journey? 

We have a process that includes coaching, getting involved in a network, and gaining access and visibility into the world of board membership. 

The coaching component includes a series of opportunities to shore up your ability to know and tell your story – in other words, to show yourself to be the board member you want to be. Those opportunities include: 

  • Step 1 – Planning Your Journey Strategy
  • Step 2 – Creating Your Executive Brand Package
  • Step 3 – Developing Voice and Presence
  • Step 4 – Identifying Thought Leadership and Presentation
  • Step 5 – Personal Positioning and PR Strategy
  • Step 6 – Network Leverage and Enhancement.

That’s a process in which leaders work on themselves and ensure they’re prepared for the board seat they want. It can take six to nine months to complete the coaching and get prepared – but once they do, they are ready to start seeking those board positions. 

Beyond the coaching, there are a number of other components to the journey, including: 

  • Mentoring – working with seasoned board members who help women with the nuances of board membership. 
  • Connections – getting connected with companies that are seeking women to serve on their boards.
  • Exposure  – gaining insight into the process of getting a board seat and being able to see their own progress.
  • Virtual Salons – our ongoing series of virtual educational opportunities to expand their knowledge about how to be successful in this world of board membership. 

Best of all, we take a highly customized, personal approach to this process, providing white glove service to our members to ensure they’re getting the information, learning and opportunities specifically curated for them.

Sounds amazing! How can women get involved? 

The first step would be to visit our website, AthenaAlliance.org. This article series, Journey to a Board Seat, that you will be sending out all year will also give leaders a chance to experience the steps of the journey and start becoming acquainted with what’s ahead for them if they are interested in this path. 

Subscribe Now to the Journey to a Board Seat Series

Secondly, if they wanted to explore membership, they can request an invitation to join. That will give them the opportunity to have a conversation with a Membership Consultant who will take them through the experience.

Thank you for taking the time to introduce us to The Athena Alliance. As you know, we will have the entire year to explore the stages of the journey, but for today, can you share with us what makes you most proud as you look at what The Athena Alliance is achieving?

I’m proud of the way we are building something of so much value to other people. It’s a privilege to lead this endeavor, seeing how many women – and men – we’ve helped in an area that is so vital to the success of companies and their leaders. 

You can hear it in the way members talk about their experience: 

“Athena Alliance is powerful and game-changing organization at many levels. Athena opened doors and created the network trust I needed to have access to public board opportunities that otherwise would have remained hidden. Athena encouraged, (sometimes pushed when required) and supported me to go after those opportunities with the knowledge and mentorship of the broader Athena community.”

Yvonne Wassenaar
CEO of Puppet
Board Director at Forrester

Congratulations to you and The Athena Alliance for all of your successes, and those yet to come! I look forward to sharing your good work through this series. Thank you!

And for those of you reading this article, get ready for next month’s article in which we take your first step on the journey!

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Journey To A Board Seat

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The problem many women leaders face is that their career path at some point hits a dead end. Either they want a senior executive position and can’t seem to get it; or they have that position and know they need to expand their skills to succeed; or they have had it and are ready to ease off – they want to move into a new phase of their professional lives without giving up their professional identities.

Becoming a member of a corporate board solves each of those problems. It is the best kind of professional development for senior executive leaders, and it’s also a way to transition out of the workaday world into a less intense but more fulfilling phase of contribution and meaning.

Nevertheless, few women actually find their way to a board seat. Why? Perhaps they don’t know how valuable that role could be for them, or perhaps they don’t know how to get there. Perhaps they simply don’t believe it’s possible, given that most board’s seats are filled by men.

Enter The Athena Alliance, an organization that prepares women to succeed in finding a board seat – and for corporate boards to find them. The Athena Alliance offers Membership options for individual leaders. Even better, companies often cover the costs of Membership for their employees as a benefit, knowing that the journey to a board seat will actually make them better leaders.

I became acquainted with The Athena Alliance when I was promoting my book The New Advantage: How Women in Leadership Can Create Win-Wins for their Companies – and Themselves. The Athena Alliance helps women to be successful in finding a board seat by preparing them, educating them, and connecting them to a network, until they find the board seat they want.

In my coaching, I have seen women take this journey with remarkable results.

  • Laura was an Executive Vice President who tried for years to break into a C-level role. Only when she joined The Athena Alliance and took the journey to a board seat did she get the visibility, credibility and opportunity she needed to finally gain the title of CEO.
  • Nancy had been a CFO in a Fortune 500 company for years and was ready to retire ~ but at 52 felt she had much life ahead of her. Taking the journey to a board seat led her to explore many new interests and gave her the opportunity to support companies she believed in and help them succeed.
  • Lillian had led a company as the CEO before it sold. After a year’s rest and retirement, she started to get restless. She loved her work and felt she had a lot to offer. Her journey to a board seat gave her a way to exercise her mind and share her skills while maintaining an easy, peaceful quality of life – and get paid well to do it

Whether you are a business leader who wants to succeed as an executive, or an executive who wants to transition to a board member, you will benefit from understanding what The Athena Alliance has to share with women about how to succeed.

Join me for this 12-part series as we explore your Journey to a Board Seat – up next: An Interview with the leader of The Athena Alliance, CEO Coco Brown. As a sneak peek, here are a few words from an Athena member:

 “Athena Alliance is tireless in its mission to bring valuable opportunities and indispensable resources to its membership. There are only actions and results—from matching me to stimulating board roles, promoting my company and my profile among industry leaders, to helping me make the most important business connections. When I think of any organization that is a must to be a part of, I first think of Athena Alliance.”– Caroline Tsay
CEO & Co-founder of Compute Software, Board Director @ Coca-Cola Company and Morningstar

Sign up to receive the next installment of Journey to a Board Seat!

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How To Organize Your Life, Do Less and Have More Time

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Many of us have an action plan, or to-do list, to keep ourselves organized – at the beginning of the day we write down everything that we have to do, and then the day is filled with the victorious crossing off of items from the list. But what happens when you get to the end of the day, and too often there are lot of things left?

We’re left with a feeling like the work is never done, but perhaps the problem isn’t so much that there’s so much that needs to get done, but the fact that we’re putting everything on one long to-do list.

You can actually organize your thinking, and organize your time, just by changing your to-do list.

Having a detailed daily action plan can help you stay focused – it’s called the catalyst. In science, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process. For you, your catalyst is an action that dramatically increases the rate at which you achieve your vision without it consuming you.

The CATA-list action plan is divided into 4 categories:

  • Catalysts
  • Achievements
  • Tasks
  • Avoidances

The catalyst: To find your catalyst, ask yourself: What is the one thing I can do that will have the greatest impact on my vision? The guiding principle for your catalyst is that you know this one item would do the most to get you to your goal. For example, let’s say you’re trying to lose 50 pounds. A catalyst might be to go running, or give up sugar. Your catalyst is that one thing that’s most important for you to do to manifest your desired outcome.

Achievements: These are the actions you classify as highly important. They might not have the transformational effect of your one catalyst, but they’re the achievements that matter on a day-to-day basis. It’s your daily actions, priorities, projects and deadlines.

Tasks: This category is for the actions you like to take, but can’t justify as truly critical, at least not in terms of your priorities and goals. Tasks are typically big time consumers. These are the long meetings that need to be scheduled, networking events, or maybe they’re things you like to do only after the more valuable action items are taken care of.

Avoidances: These are the actions that have actually very little return. Often times, scrolling through social media feeds falls into this category. Surfing through our emails, unuseful conversations are avoidances that actually take up the time we need for more important priorities in our lives. By creating a catalyst you have organized now your to-do list in an efficient way in an organized order of value for your time.

By creating a catalyst you have an organized your list of action items in an efficient way, and in an organized order of value for your time. When you see your catalyst through, you free yourself of the daily to-do list, and organize your list of action items according to your priorities – and, ultimately, achieve your vision.

For more resources on time management, work-life balance and other leadership coaching materials, see Joelle’s recent books and articles, and resources for women leaders.

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Delegation

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If you are looking to be more effective and intentional with your time, and, ultimately, elevate yourself to a higher level of leadership, you are probably discovering that the delegation is becoming essential.

Delegating tasks on your endless to-do list is a necessary reality if you’re going to free themselves to achieve those “big bets” and your long-term goals.

So why can task delegation be a struggle for many leaders?

The answer is simple: It takes time and effort. It’s tempting to avoid it altogether.

If you hear yourself saying, “It would be easier to just do this myself,” think again. Remember those big goals of yours! You won’t achieve them if you’re trapped in the day-to-day minutiae. Instead, let’s look at an approach to delegation that can get you the support you need to succeed.

Broken down, delegation also means training others to do the task that you need done.

You may need to confront your own insecurities about quality control here; the person to whom you delegate may not do the task as well as you do. That’s okay. They don’t need to do it as well as you, and they don’t need to do it the same way as you. They just need to get it done – and by the way, if you choose selectively, you will be giving them the opportunity to stretch and grow as they do.

You may also need to calm your fears about whatever cleanup may be ahead if things go badly. Delegation runs the risk of failure. No wonder that cautious side of you wonders again if it wouldn’t just be better to do the task yourself. But be strong – the likelihood of failure is far less if you take responsibility for helping the people to whom you delegate to do the task well. In fact, if you teach them thoroughly and coach them along the way, you may free yourself from the task for good, as you will have trained a capable other to do the task in your place.

It bears repeating: If you insist on doing every task on your list yourself, you’ll never rise above the level of your to do list. You’ll always be doing the same work.

Mastering the skill of delegation is what can free you to rise to the next level.

Here’s a handy technique to get you started. The next time you need to delegate tasks, just remember this method: the ODC. An ODC is a message you deliver to the person who will do a task.

  • The “O” stands for Outcome. What outcome are you trying to achieve?
  • The “D” stands for Deadline. When you want to the task to be done?
  • The “C” is for “Clarification.” What detailed directions can you provide, and what questions do you and your task-doer need to discuss?

Here’s an example of ODC in action. You have traditionally planned the end-of-the-year party for your team, but this year you’re focused on delivering a high-impact client engagement and don’t want to take time away from this critical project. You choose Michael, the new coordinator on your team, to take on the party.

You’re ready to delegate.

Promising yourself that you will let Michael do things his way, and promising Michael that you will do everything you can to help him succeed, you launch the ODC.

“Michael, I would love to have you take on this new project. The outcome is to have the final end-of-the-year party planned for our team, and we want to have it completed by June 10th. What questions do you have, Michael? And, before you start, let me show you some of the criteria that we want to use.”

It’s an easy, quick reminder of how to transfer information from your brain into someone else’s. You don’t have to talk Michael through all of the details. You don’t have to explain to him what last year’s party looked like, you don’t have to give him all of your files, unless Michael wants them. You can trust Michael to do things his way. He knows the outcome, he knows the deadline, he’s had a chance to ask questions, and you’ve given him enough detail.

Now if you check in with Michael every other day to make sure he’s on track and keep giving him the opportunity to ask questions, he will have taken on the whole project. You have one giant piece of work delegated to someone else, and you are free to concentrate on something bigger. Michael gets a new opportunity, and guess what: you do, too. The whole thing is as easy as remembering “ODC.”

For more strategies to take control of your time and cultivate better personal leadership skills, see Joelle’s book: The Inner Edge.

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How to Network to Grow Your Business

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Mastering the art of networking is one thing – but using it to grow your business is a whole other level.

So may books and articles have been written on how to network effectively, and if you want it, you can access a lifetime’s worth of advice on how to connect with others. But although connecting with people is certainly a nice thing to do, at some point it can feel futile. There are only so many names you can collect; only so many events to attend.

If you really want to take your networking to the next level, you’ll need to approach it in a way that ultimately leads to business growth. To do that, the best thing you can do is show people who you are. Give them the experience of you.

This goes beyond your elevator pitch. Ideally, you do have an elevator pitch and have crafted it to represent who you really are. But that’s just the first step. After all, in your elevator pitch you’re simply telling people who you are. In next-level networking, you also show them.

If you’re an executive coach, for example, instead of chitchatting with new connections, look for opportunities to ask genuinely helpful coaching questions.

If you’re a resource who provides a valuable service, pose thought provoking, reflective questions or point people to something that might be helpful for them to read, related to something that’s important to them.

To get away from the superficial connection and into a real conversation, move from telling people what you do, and just do that for them. Forget about trying to get business from them; rather, just be you and show them how you can help.

All of this helps you connect with people in a more impactful way – one that helps you express what you care about and make the impact you’re striving to achieve.

If you want to set yourself apart in your networking, I advocate for going in with a thoughtful, reflective plan. Organize what you’re thinking before you go into any networking situation:

  • Ask these universal questions, in order: Who, why, what, how and what if?
  • Ask yourself who you would really like to connect with. Follow up that question with why you want to know them, and what you want to ask them to make a connection.
  • Determine how you want to open the conversation. Choose one really good question that you’re comfortable delivering and is also meaningful to you and the people you meet. For example, “Tell me about your practice and how you got to be as successful as you are?”
  • Finally, imagine what kinds of interesting things might happen if all goes well. What if you find a meaningful connection with exactly the right type of person? What is the ideal outcome for you, and for them? Thinking about this ahead of time will focus your efforts.

If you know what you’re going to ask, it takes down the exhaustion factor immediately, and you’ll ultimately come off as much more genuine. More importantly, you’ll learn to embrace your story, and learn about others’ stories, in a more powerful way.

Shy? Get more of Joelle’s networking strategies from her recent article in The Oprah Magazine.

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How NOT to Fail at Networking

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At an event recently, a businessman walked up to me with his business card in hand. He smiled and winked, handed me his card, and delivered his slick elevator pitch in one clearly practiced motion. I thought, “Ick.” 

My next thought was, “Yikes – I hope when I introduce myself at a networking event, people don’t think, “Ick!”

The Ick Factor in networking is directly related to one avoidable thing: insincerity. To the businessman winking his way over to me, I seemed like a “prospect.” Certainly his approach made me feel like one. I was a target, and getting me to take some kind of action to his benefit was seemingly the goal.

You can avoid the Ick Factor and make sure people respond well to your outreach by dropping the façade and bringing something far more meaningful to the conversation: you. 

I believe that businessmen and businesswomen are most successful in their networking when they’re truly genuine, and when they think of networking as building strong relationships with people they care about over the things they value.

Otherwise networking is too transactional. People fail at networking when they start with the task of achieving something – “I need to get a job,” “I need to make this ask of somebody,” “I need to get a client.” They succeed when they seek to build deep relationships with people they really genuinely care about.

Researchers have observed that men and women tend to network differently – another element of networking you can use to refine your approach and genuinely connect with others. They note that women tend to lead their networking with a focus on relationships. They will talk to people in a way that’s about getting to know them, and ask questions like what brought them to the event. Women will use that as a foundation for eventually transitioning into a business conversation.

In those same studies, men are shown to lead with business. They are more likely to start by asking someone about their profession, and what they’re hoping to accomplish at the event. And then, if they identify common interests they will evaluate the relationship as one to move forward with at that point.

With that in mind, whether you’re networking with a man or woman, one way that you can master networking very quickly is to let other people lead the conversation just long enough to understand which angle they’re coming from. If the person in front of you opens with a relationship-forming question (“Have you been involved with this organization long?” “Are you front this area?” “What does your lapel pin mean?”), ask a relationship-forming question back, If the person opens with a business-type question (“So, what do you do?” “What brings you to this conference?” “How do you define success?”), ask a business-oriented question back. You will be starting the conversation with the focus where it should be: on the person with whom you’re starting to connect.

Essentially, by deciding which of the two approaches a new acquaintance takes, you can actually control the conversational outcomes much better, and ultimately, make stronger connections that make networking more worthwhile.

Read more about Joelle’s views on networking in Oprah Magazine. For more resources on effective networking and other leadership coaching materials, see Joelle’s recent books and articles.

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How To Stop The Busy-Ness

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Do you ever feel exhausted by all the things you have to do? Being busy “doing” burns us out, it scatters our brains, and ultimately it keeps us from being productive because we are simply too exhausted to focus.

An alternative to “doing” is to practice “not doing.” Practicing not doing is about stopping the busy-ness – putting it down, taking a break, getting focused and choosing a new path.

Let’s examine the art of not doing one piece at a time.

What does it mean to stop? Imagine you are in the middle of a busy day – you have your to-do list, your meetings, your calendar, your email – so many things to do, so many pressures, and you know you’re never going to get it all done. Imagine if, just for the moment, you closed up shop, and walked away. What does it look like for you? Maybe it’s simply walking into another room and sitting quietly for a moment.

The first step is to break the connection and stop doing, even if just for a moment, so you can get some perspective.

The second step is to get focused. Getting focused means remembering the single-most important thing you should be doing. What’s essential? Asking yourself what your priority is will help you quiet the demands on your time, both internal and external, and focus on the one thing that matters most to you.

So now you’ve stopped the busy-ness, you’ve gotten focused again – now you can move forward to the third step – moving forward. Moving forward means clearing the desk and getting out a fresh sheet of paper, with a fresh mindset to match, and redefining how you use your time.

With this strategy you’ll find that a lot of things that were taking your time share, and mind share, before will fall away – because now you are focused on the number one most important thing.

When you practice not doing, you can breathe again. You can focus on your most important goals and you can finally stop the busy-ness. You’ll feel re-energized, you’ll feel excited again and you’ll be more effective than ever. All it takes is three steps: Stop the doing, get focused and move forward. 

For more ways to improve your personal leadership and gain more control over your time and productivity, see Joelle’s book: The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership.

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Why You Need To Stop Over-apologizing In The Workplace

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  • “I’m sorry I’m late!” 
  • “I’m so sorry to ask you for this.”
  • “I’m sorry I’m not as prepared as I would like to be.”

How many times have you started a sentence with an apology?

For some people, it’s multiple times a day – often without even noticing. Unconsciously, those of us who over-apologize can be weakening our power. Becoming more aware of what for many has simply become a habit can help them gain a more influential communication style, a stronger executive presence, and more respect from the people around us.

Now, let’s acknowledge that a sincere apology holds a special place in our relationships. And even the off-handed “so sorry” (“Sorry to interrupt – I know you’re busy!”) is often merely intended to be polite and kind. But it doesn’t always work in a business setting.

Often I will hear a leader says something like this to a team member:

“I am so sorry to ask you this, but we really need someone to take on this project, and it’s a big one. It might be kind of a challenge, but we really need to impress this client.”

The intent of the leader here may be to connect personally. The leader means, “I know you weren’t expecting this, but I trust you, and you’re the best person for this job.” But the impact may not be what s/he wanted professionally. The team member hears, “She’s apologizing; she doesn’t feel strongly about this and in fact may feel guilty. I’m going to push back on this.” In a business setting, apologizing as a form of communication can come across differently than it may between friends.

Believe it or not, through no intention of your own, starting an ask with an apology may sound insecure, not very convincing, and even a little whiny, and ultimately you’re not going to get the “yes” you’re looking for.

There are three elements of that communication style that are a problem.

  1. The apology itself. In a business setting, “I’m sorry” can immediately put you into a smaller role, suggesting you have done something wrong that you have to apologize for. More often than not, you do not have anything to apologize for, so choose another approach. Raise your awareness of the overuse of the phrase even for one day and you’ll feel the difference!
  2. The explanation. Whatever follows an unnecessary apology invariably is diminished by the apology itself. “I’m sorry, I really would have liked to get this into better shape for you before sharing it” emphasizes that what you’re delivering isn’t very good. Try owning the deliverable just as it is, knowing that it – and you – are fine and valuable as is.
  3. The implication. Between the apology and the explanation lies one more problem: the emotional tone. When you apologize unnecessarily, others get the sense that you think they feel bad, and/or that you feel bad, and so the feeling is…bad.

Let’s see what happens if we rephrase the apology above, ridding ourselves of this apologetic baggage. How about if instead of saying this:

“I am so sorry to ask you this, but we really need someone to take on this project, and it’s a big one. It might be kind of a challenge, but we really need to impress this client.”

…our team leader instead said this?

“Would you please lead our next project? We really need to impress our client, and you have the right skills and talent to do is.”

Now s/he is asking directly, with courage and self-confidence, for something of importance from someone she respects. The apology is gone, the explanation is clear, and the implication is that the leader expects the best – a delivery that leaves the leader and the team member feeling powerful and ready to succeed.

Again, please don’t misunderstand me – many a sincere apology has healed a relationship and righted a wrong, and it should be a valuable communication tool in the right setting. Just save those apologies for when you need them.

In the meantime, without the unconscious or unnecessary apologies…you’ll be communicating like the leader you are.For more ways to improve your power as a leader, and create new advantages for yourself and your company, see Joelle’s book: The New Advantage.

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Email Hacks You Can Master In Minutes

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Have you ever sent an email and not gotten the response you wanted? Maybe you got a negative response – something you intend to have happened. Or maybe you got no response at all. Sometimes when we communicate via email, the intent we have doesn’t match the impact we make.

There are a few simple things that you can use to make your email communication more effective – it’s all about keeping things concise.

One problem with email is that sometimes they are simply too long. If your messages go on line after line, paragraph after paragraph, almost as if someone’s reading a novel, for many people that’s too long. Your email may be perfectly crafted, have a very urgent message and be perfect for you, but if the person at the other end doesn’t read it, it does you no good at all.

Instead, try these email formatting hacks:

  • Communicate in bullet points.
  • Use bold.
  • Make your email succinct – 5 to 10 lines is perfect.

So what if you did those things, but you ran into the problem mentioned above: you sent a succinct, simple email, and for some reason you’ve created bad feelings and the sender responded negatively. This might be because your email’s actually too short – you didn’t say enough. So even though you feel you’ve made an effective use of time with a very brief email, the other person received it as a “barking order” or they weren’t really clear on what you meant. Perhaps you got a response that was incomplete, or you didn’t get a response to your email at all.

Here is a simple formula I learned from my good friend and productivity expert, Meggin McIntosh, the Ph.D. of Productivity, that you can use anytime you write an email to help you be effective in your communication. It’s called:

  • Know
  • Do
  • Feel

In a few simple lines, communicate to the person that the other end what you want them to know, what you want them to do and what you want them to feel. If you communicate in every email, what you want them to know, do and feel in roughly 5-10 lines with clear formatting, you will get the answers you are looking for, and will solve the problem of ineffective email communication.

For more communication tips and personal leadership strategies, see Joelle’s books: The Inner Edge and The New Advantage: How Women In Business Can Create Win-Wins For Their Companies And Themselves.