Practice (and Reflection) Make Permanent....plus evaluation audits, AI, recruitment trends, and a note on the Chaos-Order Muppet Theory

Table of Contents

• Hello

• The need for practice and reflection

• April Showers Bring….Coaching?

• 1% Solutions

• Things I’m Reading, Watching and Listening To

Hello

It is apparently event and conference season. I am currently at Transform, trying to both connect with new and old friends while also trying to get to as many panels as possible. I am one day in, and it’s been a lot in the best possible way (minus my hamstring which has apparently taken a turn for the worse). Next month, I’ll be at the ASG AIR conference in San Diego. If you’ll be there too, please let me know, as I’d love to grab coffee!

These types of events highlight a tension I feel in leadership in general- striking the balance having a plan with the flexibility of knowing when to adjust or even simply throw the plan out. My guess is by EOD Tuesday, I will fully embrace the chaos Muppet within me and simply go with the flow. As an aside, planning gives me a sense of control but sticking to that plan too much conversely takes that control away. Welcome to my ADHD brain!

(And if you don’t know about the chaos versus order Muppet dichotomy, please enjoy this 2012 Slate article. After much reflection, my spirit is a chaos muppet but my brain is an order muppet. BTWs, identifying what kind of muppet you are makes for an excellent icebreaker).

Oh and one last thing. I’m helping to organize Dextagon, an intimate event focused on talent, upskilling and AI. It’s in NYC and tickets are available here.

The need for practice and reflection

In recent years, I’ve become an unapologetic Swiftie. I am even going to Stockholm in May to see her (it’s a long story but trust that this made a lot of economic sense.). One story about her that I love is how she trained for the Eras tour. Swift apparently ran or jogged while singing her set. She then began practicing her dance moves so she could “get it in her bones.” But my favorite quote of hers was “I want to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with my fans and not lose my train of thought.”

Another story about practice I love (and am reasonably sure is true) is that Chris Rock used to try out new material in random comedy clubs in small towns, while Wanda Sykes sat in the back taking notes on his delivery and the audience’s reaction. Jokes were dissected in order to engineer better jokes. Can you imagine walking into some random comedy club and seeing two of the greats on a random Tuesday?

When I led new teacher orientation and training in NYC, we spent a good amount of time framing the importance of practice and reflection. For some reason in work culture, being open about the need for this is seen as a sign of weakness- or maybe folks only fear that to be the case? But our framing, explanation of the science and a lot of deliberate work to make the room feel like a space safe to try and experiment went a long way. Similarly, my team framed the importance of practice and reflection in all of our leadership trainings- and then created the space for people to do it.

There are books about the importance of practice (My recommendation: skip Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hours and go straight to Daniel Coyle’s Talent Code). To quickly summarize a few points that resonate with me:

• Simply you have to practice and internalize the essentials until they become second hand so that your working memory can focus on the situation in front of you (just like Taylor’s quote above). The essentials should hopefully come with some level of automaticity. (For brain science nerds, essentially if you practice something enough it becomes part of your long-term memory, freeing up your working memory.).

• Similarly you need to practice identifying and addressing the nuances in scenarios so that you are honing your decision making. Why are you making the choices you are making? Under what conditions are those the right choices?

• You also need the space to reflect on what is nonnegotiable practice and what is nuance. Sometimes, I’ve so focused on the essential that I’ve missed the nuance, and sometimes I’ve over-complicated matters when a best practice well executed was the answer.

So what does this look like in practice? A few ideas:

• In 1:1s running through a presentation or potentially challenging conversation then reflecting on what went well, what didn’t and next steps.

• In team meetings or peer cohorts, sharing a problem of practice or concern to problem solve and role play. Get feedback and try the role play again.

• It could also mean recording meetings or presentations for you to analyze with a coach, your team or trusted colleague (depending on the nature of the call).

The above are times that are already on your calendar which is why I named them. But get creative within your own org structure!

What other ways can you be more like Taylor Swift and Chris Rock?

April Showers Bring….Coaching?

With the official start of spring, I’m opening my books for a few coaching clients in April. I primarily work with leaders navigating the new- new role, new team, new organization, new challenge. Know someone who is taking on a new opportunity or has a year under their belt and is ready to affect change? If that’s you, let’s book a discovery call, and if it’s someone you know, feel free to connect us.

1% Solutions

• Create a sample meeting agenda for teams and 1:1s for managers to use- We fall to the levels of our systems. For new leaders, having a well constructed agenda can facilitate more effective 1:1s- and effective 1:1s save time later because you’ve done the discussion and norming you’ve needed to do. For more on this you can check out my Linkedin newsletter post from Friday here.

• Share an evaluation audit with managers and add this to your next check-in- It is March— meaning that we are about two months out from your last performance review. How are folks doing? How do you know? Have you shared that with them? Take the time to do a feedback audit and then follow up with folks accordingly. If folks are making great progress or are consistently doing well- tell them! And if the needle isn’t moving, get curious as a first step. And also, please talk to your HR Business Partner for ideas on how to engage in this conversation with the person you are supporting (If you don’t have one and need one, feel free to email me)

• Review, revise, codify and share ONE process for your team- Back in December, I shared this tip. So often we are moving fast and our processes are either not codified or if they are, that written version is outdated. This isn’t a problem until it is- especially during onboarding. Well, I’m bringing it back up because likely with all of the other things happening, this may have fallen by the wayside. But can you commit to doing this for ONE process in the next two weeks?

Things I’m Reading, Watching and Listening To

• AI, Your Future Partner, Not Your Future Replacement- I’ve become fascinated by the opportunities of AI- partially because of what it can allow us to do and also because as a talent professional, it’s important to understand trends so that you can help future-proof your organization. I appreciated this articles focus on AI’s ability to allow humans to do the work that only humans can do, and the need for consistent upskilling.

• LinkedIn Future of Recruiting- This update lists key trends in recruiting. Not surprisingly, AI’s role in recruitment is #1. The one I am most excited about is a focus on skills, leading to a closer partnership of recruitment and talent development teams. Having a better data sharing and feedback loop between those two teams would support organizations in building a talent portfolio.

• Why neurodiversification is important- An old coach once told me hiring a team is like building a portfolio- you need to diversify the skills and talents of a team. And while you should hire people who believe in your mission and vision, you also want to prevent against groupthink. As this article states “An active program of proactively embracing neurodiversity inclusion can act as tremendous hedge against this risk.” To do this, though, organizations need to move from culture fit to culture expansion. I appreciated how the article framed neurodiversity as a superpower and pushes orgs to rethink hiring and promotional criteria to be able to harness that diversity. (Also building a neuro-inclusive organization regardless of who self-identifies is important given HOW MANY women are not diagnosed until much later in life, but that’s a whole other newsletter.)