Managing Stress and Building Resilience: Quick Tips
Leaders, Resilience is that indescribable capability that helps us bounce back from adversity and leadership setbacks – qualities that are crucial in today’s business environment. Building and strengthening your resilience muscle takes time, attention, tenacity and patience. It also requires a decent amount of self-awareness that enables you to realize when you are on the verge of becoming out of balance. This April, the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute asked me to support their career services center at their annual conference, held in Frankfurt for the first time. Part of the deal was an interview with me on ‘stress and resilience’ that you can watch below. The ten resilience boosters reflect the necessity to adopt a growth mindset, to center regularly, and to seek support. 10 Boosters: Building Resilience Tap into your inner resources and stay calm. Maintain a clear sense of purpose for long-term goals and priorities. Nurture relationships: your [...]
No Love. No Change.
Leaders, What role does love play in change processes or work relationships? What is its opponent? What do you think of love as one of the underlying forces driving transformations? To be crystal clear: The corporate understanding of love differs from a personal or intimate definition of love. Generally, love consists of emotions and feelings such as ‘serenity’, ‘joy’, ‘acceptance’, ‘trust’ and ‘interest’. Love is a positive force that helps us be at our best. Of course, the term is not explicitly used in organizations. However, ‘partnership’, ‘collegiality’, ‘collaboration’ or ‘appreciation’, for example, are also related to this kind of love. In an organization, people can greatly cherish a goal or can be deeply committed to a value. This is impersonal love. Interpersonal love is closely associated with interpersonal relationships. I heard colleagues call each other ‘sis’ (for sister) or ‘buddy’ or ‚mate’ – a reflection of their mutual respect [...]
Managing Stress and Building Resilience (Interview with the CFA Institute)
Leaders, The CFA Institute (CFA = Chartered Financial Analyst | http://cfainstitute.org) invited me to join their annual conference that was held in Frankfurt, 26 – 28 April 2015. Around 1,100 attendees had the opportunity to learn about the latest and greatest of research in the industry, to network and to interact with us coaches on any questions relating to their careers and personal development. Ms Julia VanDeren, Manager of the CFA’s Institute Career Services Center, interviewed me on managing stress and building resilience – themes that arise in many coaching processes. Here is the script of Julia’s and my conversation: Julia VanDeren, CFA Institute: What makes resilience such a hot topic? Especially these days, I’ve started hearing more about it in the past year or two in particular. Annette B. Czernik, Inspired Executives: Let’s face it. More people are increasingly under a lot of more stress. In corporations, resources become [...]
Communities of Practice for Start-Ups – An efficient way to grow faster
In the context of the development of organizations, there is one concept which emerged as one of the most influential concepts in social sciences over the last years (Hughes, Jewson, & Unwin, 2007): The concept of “Communities of Practice'” (CoP). The name was first mentioned by Wenger, 1998. CoPs can be defined as “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise'' (Wenger, 2000, p.139). For example, if you are a manager who is specialized in Content Strategy, the outcome of your CoP would mostly be knowledge. Insofar, CoP can be seen as important approaches to informal learning. There are many different forms of CoPs: Some are within an organization, others extend across organizational boundaries. Some have fixed meetings, others are more loosely organized. Communities of Practice can take place in face-to-face meetings, in the coffee lounge, via e-mail distribution or social networks. The [...]
Self-Control and What it Takes …
Leaders, Haven’t we all had the experience of doing something in the heat of the moment that we regretted later? Wasn’t that almost as if our rational mind stopped and what came out not only surprised us but everyone else around? This overwhelming emotional reaction is called ‘amygdala hijack’ (as described by Daniel Goleman in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ drawing on the work of Joseph E. LeDoux). I have experienced and observed amygdala hijacks a couple of times, both at work and at home. The amygdala is the part of the brain’s limbic system, which plays a primary role in the processing of memory, decision-making, emotional reactions, and empathy. When threatened, the amygdala can respond irrationally, and a flow of stress hormones streams the body before the regulating prefrontal lobes have a chance to reconcile this bottom-up impulse. An amygdala hijack displays three typical signs: Strong emotional reaction, sudden onset, [...]
Startup: Being an Entrepreneur Means Taking Risks
Leaders, When you decide to start your own business, your career, personal finances, mental health and more are at stake. What probably drives you is the desire to be in charge of your own destiny, and making your own decisions. Entrepreneurship is neither easy nor risk free. If you want to have a chance at success, you even have to take significant risks. When starting a venture, however, don’t leave too much to happenstance. Choosing not to take risks means not to be an entrepreneur. Risk and entrepreneurship aren’t for everyone. There is no path to entrepreneurship without risk. Risk surrounds us. The flip side of risk is opportunity. And there is a direct relationship between risk and reward: The greater the potential upside, the greater the risk involved. Risk exists in any situation where there is a possibility of an outcome that we would rather avoid. Unforeseen circumstances and [...]