Leaders must challenge the status quo and take unconventional actions to drive extraordinary results. When you take unconventional actions in hopes of getting an extraordinary outcome, the responses are similar.As a leader, you must have the courage to take such steps—to be “barefoot”—so that you can do whatever is necessary to achieve your most audacious goals.

Breaking from the Norm to Drive Change

Leaders need to regularly assess their organization's current state across factors like operations, team capabilities, resources, culture and more. Understanding the gap between the present and future state enables leaders to craft data-driven strategies and plans to reach the next level. Rather than relying on assumptions, leaders should gather data through assessments, analysis, staff and customer surveys and more.

Assessing Where You Are and Where You Want to Be

When you take unconventional actions in hopes of getting an extraordinary outcome, the responses are similar. As a leader, you must have the courage to take such steps—to be “barefoot”—so that you can do whatever is necessary to achieve your most audacious goals.

Change management provides structures, processes and tools to help employees across an organization understand the need for change, embrace new ways of working and adopt change.Because humans are wired for certainty and habit, leading change requires thoughtful change management.Leaders must clearly communicate "the why" and alleviate concerns.Coaching, training and organizational alignment are key enablers.

Enabling Transformation via Change Management

<ul><li>Leaders should intentionally expose themselves to new environments, people, concepts and ways of thinking to spark creativity. Insular thinking within one company or industry inhibits innovation.</li><li>Leaders must diversify their information sources and experiences to strengthen imaginative muscles.</li></ul>

Seeking New Ideas and Innovation

Customer motivations, values, challenges and desires continually evolve. Leaders must deeply understand target customers to create differentiated value propositions that evolve in line with emerging needs.This requires continuously gathering customer insights through surveys, interviews, advisory groups and journey mapping.

Understanding Evolving Customer Needs

When you feel discouraged, if you determine that you still want the result, you will achieve it as long as you keep taking steps in that direction. Trust the process." Breakthroughs take time

<ul><li>In today's complex, dynamic environment, leaders should resist relying on intuition or past practices when making strategic decisions.</li><li>Decisions should be grounded in real-time assessments and data analytics that provide an objective view of realities and future probabilities leaders need to navigate uncertainty.</li><li>Data illuminates customer needs, competitive threats, market trends and more. </li><li>Leaders must create a culture and systems to democratize data, enable insight sharing and drive data-driven decision making across the organization.</li></ul>

Making Data-Driven Decisions

Leaders are only as effective as their teams. To successfully execute on strategy, leaders must ensure they have the right talent in the right roles. This requires an understanding of each team member's skills, work styles, strengths and development needs in relation to the skills and behaviors needed to drive strategy forward. Leaders may need to restructure teams or reposition team members to align with strategic objectives.

The Right Team to Execute the Strategy

With a vision defined and the right team in place, leaders need to create a detailed action plan that outlines exactly how the future state will be reached. This includes defining key activities, owners, milestones, resources required, risks and mitigation tactics. An accountability framework should outline metrics and key results each team and leader will be measured on to ensure alignment and motivation to execute the plan.

Crafting an Action Plan and Accountability Framework

Markets, technologies, competitors and customer preferences are continually evolving. Organizations must build a culture and capability to anticipate changes ahead of the curve and embrace them.Rather than reacting, leaders should proactively predict industry shifts using market analysis, competitive intelligence, customer insights and more.

Anticipating and Embracing Change

Barefoot in the Boardroom is a book written by Shara Hutchinson, published in August 2, 2022. It is a guide for business professionals on how to expand their leadership skills and optimize their talents. The book provides techniques and methods on how to assess one's leadership capacity, create change and transformation, lead with authenticity, and develop a successful career.

Barefoot in the Boardroom is a practical change management manual for executives looking for a proven methodology that can break down a huge vision into manageable chunks. Certified as a Change Management Practitioner and Talent Optimization Consultant, Shara Hutchinson demonstrates how to assess one’s leadership capacity, change impact, and organizational health and reveals the strategies and tactics necessary to achieve a leader’s most audacious goals. By following Shara’s proactive measures and techniques outlined in this book, business professionals will expand their leadership skills while simultaneously encouraging the growth of others. Barefoot in the Boardroom will scale an organization, team, or department to not only identify the right strategic initiatives but to execute those initiatives and sustain success.Within Barefoot in the Boardroom, business leaders will find a vast array of proven techniques and strategies to apply. Shara Hutchinson’s “Exposeyour™” Leadership Capacity approach includes the nine leadership competencies needed to develop a high-performing team, while her encouragement of vision teaches leaders how to align their business strategy with their team, ensuring that they have the right people in the right seats to get the right results. Shara also introduces the “Barefoot Method™”—which is her signature change management strategy that can be applied to any organization, team, or department to ensure it is future-proofed. Barefoot in the Boardroom will challenge business professionals to break out of the box and innovate with the times. Each chapter offers clarity for strategic initiatives, key objectives, operational tactics, and measurable outcomes that encourages leaders to implement change and innovation in order to sustain professional longevity.

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Teamwork

books

Books

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Shara Hutchinson

Barefoot in the Boardroom

There are <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/passive-aggressive-diaries/201403/7-reasons-why-people-use-passive-aggressive-behavior">many reasons</a> people communicate passive-aggressively. This type of behaviour can arise when someone doesn’t feel comfortable or capable of expressing their feelings in an open, honest, straightforward manner. Some people struggle to communicate clearly and directly or don’t feel equipped to articulate their feelings—or equipped to articulate them without blowing up.

Underlying Reasons for Passive-Aggressive Communication

Some passive-aggressive comments are so subtle that you might not realize they can be received as passive-aggression. Below are a few widely used passive-aggressive communication examples, including ways to reword to avoid misunderstanding.Per my last emailUse this instead: I’m following up on my previous email regarding . . .This phrasing is effective if you’ve sent the recipient a message asking for something, but they haven’t given a timely response. The alternative statement names specifically what you’re referring to without forcing the recipient to guess.

Five Common Phrases That Sound Passive-Aggressive: 'Per My Last Email'

Passive-aggressive behaviour surfaces in different ways. It is sometimes used with the intent of secretly getting back at the person or group on the receiving end; other times, the passive aggression is not deliberate. It might present through body language, like eye-rolling, exaggerated sighs, or through written remarks. A person’s tone while making a passive-aggressive comment verbally can amplify a passive-aggressive statement, and in writing it can be difficult for the person on the receiving end to know the tone that’s being used, leaving it up to interpretation.

Passive-Aggressive Communication

Use this instead: I’m excited to work together to find the best solution.Bringing in a manager should not be the first resort for working out conflict. This alternative signals that you’re willing to problem-solve with your coworker, and it promotes team cooperation. It’s also a nondefensive option that avoids bringing in leadership to referee an issue.

I’ve Copied [Boss] On This Email

Use this instead: I can clarify. Which part is confusing?Although a report or situation might be clear for you, not everyone will comprehend it the way you do. This alternative statement is effective because it doesn’t undermine the other person’s intelligence; instead, it communicates a willingness to understand where they’re getting stuck.

'It’s Not That Complicated'

Leaning on passive-aggressive language in professional communication might feel like a safe way to circumvent potential conflict with a coworker. However, hiding feelings of anger and frustration can grow into bigger conflicts in the workplace. Consider giving your messages a close read to make sure you’re being professional and helpful.

The Bottom Line

While the above section highlights common instances of passive-aggressive communication, catching passive-aggressive language in all of your emails or internal memos can be challenging. One way to vet your communication is by asking yourself two questions: “How would I feel if I were on the receiving end of this message?” And, “Is this message helpful?” If the answers are “bad, hurt, or annoyed” and “no or not really,” then consider reframing your communication with more neutral language or offering guidance instead of a criticism or a brush-off.

How to Soften Passive-Aggressive Communication

In many life situations, including in the workplace, feelings of frustration and anger can surface. The desire to avoid confrontation and stifle these emotions is a common response. However, when those strong feelings are left unaddressed, they can manifest as passive-aggressive communication. These subtle but snide comments can slip through inadvertently and, over time, create more animosity within teams and professional relationships.

Being Passive-Aggressive

Passive-aggressive behaviour can be intensely frustrating for the targeted person or people because it’s hard to identify, difficult to prove, and may even be unintentional. Passive aggression can lead to more conflict and mistrust because it prevents people from having a direct and honest conversation about the problem at hand.

The Effect On Others

Use this instead: I don’t feel good about this. Can we talk about it in person?These words are contradictory, indicating that it’s both OK and that you’re dismissing it at the same time. A statement that’s both assertive (“I don’t feel . . . ”) and emotionally honest reduces the friction in a difficult workplace conversation. Additionally, speaking face-to-face can minimize misunderstandings about tone and illuminate other communication cues, like body language.

'Fine. Whatever.'

Use this instead: What do you think about trying XYZ instead?“For future reference . . .” assumes that the recipient is a) aware of the reference you’re making and b) that your approach or insight is the only correct course of action. Asking for their thoughts about different ways to approach a situation in the future softens an accusatory, passive-aggressive tone.

'For Future Reference'

Each word you say or write provides a glimpse of what you think and feel.

Passive-aggressive communication can show up at work and affect your relationships with colleagues. Learn how to stop it and reframe it constructively.

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Personal Development

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Marketing & Sales

communication

Communication

How to Reframe Passive-Aggressive Communication

I did not intend to get rich. I just wanted to get independent.

<ul><li>Level 0: Complete financial dependence on the kindness of strangers who have no vested interest in your success.</li><li>Level 1: Complete financial dependence on people who want you to succeed.</li><li>Level 2: Complete financial dependence on people with a vested interest in your financial outcome.</li><li>Level 3: Ability to partially support yourself by adding value for others.</li><li>Level 4: Ability to fully support yourself by adding marginal value for others.</li><li>Level 5: Enough savings to cover run-of-the-mill problems.</li><li>Level 6: Enough savings to cover large, unforeseen problems for a longer period.</li></ul>

The financial spectrum: Level 0 - 6

<ul><li>Level 7: Retirement savings, education savings, and avoidance of consumer and auto debt. You can see a time when your current savings will give you independence.</li><li>Level 8: The ability to pick a job or specific customers and say no to unnecessary hassle.</li><li>Level 9: Becoming comfortable with your social status to avoid flashing your expensive consumer goods.</li><li>Level 10: You can say no to banks whose debt you don’t need, including mortgages.</li><li>Level 11: You could support yourself for a year or more of your liquid savings.</li></ul>

The financial spectrum: Level 7 - 11

<ul><li>Level 12: Interest and dividends cover more than half of your living expenses because of a slim lifestyle rather than huge assets.</li><li>Level 13: Your assets and reasonable return expectations will cover basic living expenses for longer than your life expectancy.</li><li>Level 14: Your assets cover above-basic living expenses with assets and their reasonable return expectations.</li><li>Level 15: Independence lets you do and say what you please since you don’t rely on the support or opportunities other people could offer.</li><li>Level 16: Meaningful philanthropy.</li></ul>

The financial spectrum: Level 12 - 16

“I did not intend to get rich. I just wanted to get independent.” – Munger Place yourself, your business, and other people you know, on this list. Level 0: Complete financial dependence on the kindness of strangers who have no vested interest in your success. Panhandling when unable to work, or companies reliant on raising money from first-time investors who don’t care if you fail. Level 1: Complete financial dependence on people who want you to succeed because they like you and their reputation is attached to your success. Children under age 15 – supported by their parents and generally too young to work – fall into this category. So do companies backed by friends and family who don’t intend on getting their money back. Level 2: Complete financial dependence on people with a vested interest in your financial outcome. Unprofitable-but-promising businesses backed by investors who could earn a meaningful return on their investments, and are thus likely to keep supporting you. Level 3: Ability to partially support yourself by adding value for others while still somewhat reliant on external support. Young people who work but rely on their parents to support what they consider basic lifestyle necessities. Or companies that could realistically be profitable if they changed their cost structure, but continue to raise money from investors to fund growth. Level 4: Ability to fully support yourself by adding value for others, but value that is marginal and easy to replace. This is a common category for both people and businesses. It is grinding and tenuous. It smells like independence, but a boss or customer still owns your day and can dictate your future. Your future relies on their decisions. Level 5: Enough savings to cover run-of-the-mill problems. You can endure hassles that every person or company should expect to experience on a regular basis, without getting wiped out. Level 6: Enough savings to cover large, unforeseen problems. You still rely on your boss or your customers to get by month to month, but if a crisis struck you’d probably be OK for a reasonable period of time. Level 7: Retirement savings, education savings, and avoidance of consumer and auto debt. You still rely on bosses and customers, but you can foresee a time when your current savings will open up a new level of independence for you and your family. This is the most realistic goal for most people. Level 8: The ability to pick a job, or specific customers, that avoids the most egregious examples of bullshit and unnecessary hassle in your life. You still rely on bosses and customers, but have the freedom to say, “No, not you. I’ll find someone else,” when you get too frustrated. Level 9: Becoming comfortable enough with your social status that you don’t feel the need to flash your peacock feathers with expensive consumer goods whose only value is in signaling. The inability to do this is a hidden form of debt and dependence that exists, and it piles up on people who mistakenly think they’re wealthy enough to be independent. Level 10: The ability to say no to banks, whose debt you don’t need, including mortgages. Debt can be cheap capital but it keeps you beholden to others, owning a piece of your future decisions and cash-flow needs. Level 11: Few realistic situations would cause you, your company, or your family to be pushed back below Level 5. You could support yourself for a year or more off your liquid savings. It’s the first true stage of independence. You can now say “No” to almost anyone, with high odds of recovering from the repercussions. Level 12: Interest and dividends cover more than half of your living expenses. Most of this is independence is owed to a slim lifestyle, rather than huge assets. You realize that lifestyle desires compound faster than almost any asset. Level 13: Your assets and their reasonable return expectations will cover basic living expenses for longer than your life expectancy. Congrats. You are no longer reliant on bosses or clients. You can deal with them if you want, and you probably will. But only if you want, when you want, with who you want. Which feels good. Level 14: Your assets cover above-basic living expenses with assets and their reasonable return expectations. You can define “above-basic” however you want. Varies by person. Remember what Chris Rock says: “If Bill Gates woke up with Oprah’s money he’d jump out the window.” Level 15: Independence lets you do and say what you please, unconcerned with other people disagreeing with you, since you don’t rely on the support or opportunities they could offer. Level 16: Meaningful philanthropy is the only reasonable way your assets won’t compound faster than you spend. This, to me, is one of the most important topics in finance. Everyone’s different. But while almost everyone can adapt to their stuff, having control over your time through independence will always feel great when you have it and always be a miserable burden when you don’t.

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

The Spectrum of Financial Dependence and Independence

Employees need to feel like they have a comfortable direct line to their manager and a connection to one another. Frequent check-ins to seek everyone’s opinions can help build all team members’ confidence and comfort level, allowing introverts the opportunity to speak up and not hold back. 
Employees like to feel heard, validated, and connected. Managers must create the right environment for engagement to exist organically and effectively.

Managing Team Intelligence: Employee Engagement and Retention

Do you have people on your team that keep too much to themselves? This behavior can negatively impact the overall team effort. Non-team-players are often misunderstood as arrogant when they feel out of place and awkward in many cases.For every strength a team has, there is equal weakness. Identifying and addressing weaknesses on your team leads to a stronger, more successful unit. Taking time to understand individuals’ strengths and weaknesses and developing a strategy to overcome, is key to progression.

Managing Team Intelligence: Know The Weaknesses

Team intelligence exists when team members eschew self-interest, move beyond the individualized concept of emotional intelligence and take up a think-together operating mode that embraces the collective good—reaching optimal team performance. 
Teams built on a solid foundation of positive culture, who work in sync as a cohesive unit, irrespective of hierarchy position, will achieve better results —if they can think systemically through inter-connectedness of multiple viewpoints. With strong leadership, a team can adopt a think-together mode and view only through that lens.

Team Intelligence

One method of preemptively addressing issues is through the collective intelligence of your employees. Collective intelligence helps create organizational trust, access diversity of thought, and ultimately respect the basic human right to be heard. It also helps deliver the best solutions.
Team Intelligence is fluid and will continue to evolve as patterns within teams change. That said, if you have strong leadership and effective team interaction, you could replace one of the metaphoric cogs of your business, and the wheels should continue to turn.

Handling Friction: Team Breakdown

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Knowing what makes the team successful is a prerequisite for harnessing team intelligence. Small team inter-connectedness efforts can seem insignificant, yet their impacts on your organization at large can be huge (the Butterfly Effect).
We can harness team intelligence for business success when we capture what makes us unique in skill set, personality, and drive and bring together emotional and cultural intelligence with empathetic managers orchestrating team synergy.

Harnessing Team Intelligence For Success

The common goal should be clear and absorbed by all —regularly. Aligning the goal among teams gives your employees the feeling that everyone contributes to your goals together, forming stronger team bonds.One tip to help with reinforcing alignment at the team level is to start each meeting with a reminder of the goal for that meeting. Weaving in constant reminders will reinforce the end goal of supporting a shared vision.

Managing Team Intelligence: One Goal

Often the smallest gestures leave the biggest imprint. With abrupt changes to the corporate world in the past 18 months, many are experiencing greater workloads and responsibilities.
Taking time out from writing a business response to send personal praise or show of appreciation can go a long way in nurturing positive emotions and enhancing performance. Appreciation plays a major role in reducing burnout, boosting morale, and greatly impacting employee retention by increasing employee satisfaction.

Managing Team Intelligence: Frequent and Genuine Recognition

When you place an intentional focus on the concept of team intelligence, you realize benefits across teams, through to clients. You gain the following benefits:<ul><li>An understanding of employee's style, strengths, and development needs</li><li>Promotes diversity, inclusion, and belonging </li><li>Gives the responsibility of a connections planner to each team member </li><li>Creates accountability for achieving higher standards of team behaviors and delivery of work</li><li>Drives sustained business performance through improved communications</li><li>More efficiency and effectiveness in capitalizing on business opportunities.</li></ul>

Benefits Of Cultivating Team Intelligence

To cultivate a culture of transparency and support, specifically in remote or hybrid working environments, it’s imperative that all team members feel they can openly express their opinions.
Three ways you can do to build a psychologically safe workplace:
<ul>
<li>frame the work as a learning problem, not an execution problem.</li>
<li>acknowledge your fallibility.</li>
<li>model curiosity.</li>
</ul>
People are happiest and most productive when they have a sense of psychological safety. To create an environment where people are comfortable being themselves, they need interpersonal trust and mutual respect.

Managing Team Intelligence: A Psychologically Safe Environment

Want to build a high-performing team? Start with creating a safer work evironment

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Problem Solving

Fostering Psychological Safety In The Workplace

Team intelligence explores the concept of team unity across all aspects of team dynamics and uncovers the keys to optimal performance.

What is Team Intelligence and How to Manage It

Give people a choice and they're more likely to go along with your idea.Effective persuaders provide a limited set of options from which people can choose. For example, most successful advertising agency executives don't show up at pitch meetings with only one proposal. They don't present 12 ideas, either. They offer a choice between two or three ideas.

Provide a menu

If you tell someone what to do, they become defensive. However, if they arrive at the same conclusion themselves, they're much more likely to buy what you're selling, whether it's your idea or product.

Changing someone's mind

People strive for internal consistency. They want their beliefs and actions to align. Highlighting a gap means pointing out a disconnect between a person's thoughts and actions.For example, if you're convinced that a project needs to end, you've got a tough sell. Your team might be wedded to it because they've put in so much time. Inertia sets in. Start by asking your team if they were starting from scratch today--knowing what they know--would they embark on the project?

Highlight a gap

Applying "tactical empathy" is far more effective than telling people what to do. Effective persuaders make people feel like they're looking out for them. Rather than "persuade," start by understanding the other person.Pay attention to your words. For example, you can say: "You and I are going to work this out" or "We've got to keep working together." By using "we" instead of "I" statements, you're more likely to build a bridge of trust.

Start with understanding

Ask more questions and make fewer statements. People are often reluctant to follow someone's lead, but they're more likely to follow the path they set out for themselves.For example, when trying to get their team to go along with a new initiative, ineffective persuaders push it on people in the form of a declaration. Effective persuaders start by asking questions, visiting with stakeholders, getting their perspectives, and engaging them involved in the planning process.

Barefoot in the Boardroom

How to Reframe Passive-Aggressive Communication

The Spectrum of Financial Dependence and Independence

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

What is Team Intelligence and How to Manage It

CURATED BY

Barefoot in the Boardroom

How to Reframe Passive-Aggressive Communication

The Spectrum of Financial Dependence and Independence

It's time to Read like a Pro.

What is Team Intelligence and How to Manage It

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.