Hello Everyone,

I want to share with you an HBR article that covers research done by one of my favorite IO Psychologists, Tasha Eurich. I am a huge fan of her work that has mostly centered around the science and importance of self-awareness.

As you will recall, I have quoted in the past here work where 95% of people think they are self-aware, but only 10-15% really are. This article breaks this down further.

First, it defines self-awareness in two broad categories of internal self-awareness which is how we see ourselves and external self-awareness of how others view us.  And this may sound familiar for those with background in Fierce: Many times these are competing perspective… how we view ourselves versus others. You guessed it… both can be a reality.

The article breaks self-awareness into 4 archetypes based on levels of internal vs. external self-awareness. The article has a link to take a self-assessment and Tascha advocates that working on both are important to success.  Specifically, they require distinct skillsets:

1. Identification of what you are feeling and experiencing and being able to explore with deep introspection.
2. Being able to ask for and absorb feedback from your external environment.

At Fierce we have been teaching tried and true techniques for giving and asking for feedback to promote a thriving culture of open dialogue and growth.

I am so happy and excited to announce we have recently launched an innovation that uses wearables to categorize your stress events and when merged with calendar and GPS data, help you determine what is biologically impacting you. This exploration and awareness can be done with a live coach or our proprietary AI BOT.

After self-awareness, we want to move you into action and show you how to tackle and solve your most pressing issues. This is what we have been doing for the past 20 years… teaching research backed conversation techniques that help your tackle your toughest challenges, reduce stress, and drive your personal and organizational outcomes.

We call our innovation Pulse by Fierce to further our mission of bettering the world one conversation at a time.

Hello Everyone, I just learned about a newly defined soft skill called “Hybrid Competence”.  This is defined as the skills necessary to be successful in a remote and hybrid environment.

The article describes these skills as the ability to forge strong relationships and flexible thinking as a “source of Power”.

Additional skills called out are ability to multi-task, think flexibly, and navigate networks to be seen as trustworthy.

All these are great and as we have said, remote, hybrid, or in-office shouldn’t matter. Our research shows that the skill-sets necessary for both employees and managers to create and foster a transparent culture that focuses on results is exactly the same.

If your culture is suffering from toxicity, lack of collaboration, silos, high turnover, and missing goals, this is going to be the case regardless of your office policy.

The solve is in your employee’s ability to tackle their toughest challenges with feedback, confrontation when necessary and the ability to get curious; as well as conversations on setting formality for delegation and accountability.

All of this with the objective of enriching the relationships around them. These will help ensure you have a culture focused on results, an inclusive environment that avoids proximity bias and recognition for only those who choose to be in the office, at informal events, and partaking in other in-person influencing activities.

Fierce has been teaching these skills for over 20 years and now more than ever they are needed as we see shifts in how work gets done.

We want to retain the best employees and create the most inclusive environments for all stakeholders and at the end of the day reach our personal and company goals.

Remember – The conversation is the culture.

Diversity Equity and Inclusion is a powerful initiative, and the right thing to do and many companies still don’t have it right.

Disturbingly, the article states based on their survey of companies:

93% of leaders agreed that the D&I agenda is a top priority, but only 34% believed that it’s a strength in their workplace. In another survey, 80% of HR professionals viewed companies as “going through the motions.”

The one strategy provided “Pivot from diversity training to leadership development coaching” resonates and is the position that we have taken here at Fierce.

For 20 years, we have taught conversation skills that improve day to day interactions and get results. On DE&I, we have taken the approach that the development has to be in the line of work and relevant to what the employee is facing in their employee lifecycle stage. For example, as a new hire, as a new manager, as a senior leader and so on. We have developed microlearning and 3D/VR simulations for each stage that solve for application, scale, and sustainability with the impacts of providing the exact skills necessary when needed.

We know this isn’t easy and we are committed to continuing to innovate our offerings to help support these impactful goals.

Thank you and remember, the conversation is the culture.

Hello, everyone. I want to share with you an article that highlights a study done by Gallup and Work Human that states that 50% of employees who say the recognition that they receive is not authentic and equitable are looking for a new job. A culture of recognition is defined as one in which gratitude, praise and appreciation are freely given and regularly receive in an authentic and equitable way. Some of the statistics from the study that highlight the benefits of having recognition in your culture are that employees are four times as likely to feel that they belong at their organization, four times as likely to be engaged, and this also supports their general well-being.

This also aligns well with the positive leadership course I have the opportunity to take at the University of Michigan through their executive education courses. I had to do one of the most challenging exercises ever. So imagine this. It’s the first day within the first hour or two, we’re sitting at desks or cohorts with four or five other people from different companies and across the US. And we’re asked to authentically identify and describe a positive behavior or attribute of each individual out loud to the group. Now, let me remind you, we barely met and from my career experiences up to that point, the training that I had received was more around focusing on areas for improvement. So this is a very foreign approach and as I mentioned, one of the most difficult exercises I’ve ever had to do up to that point.

So they showed a video of an award winning National Geographic photographer who highlighted some of his famous work. He showed how the most mundane field or an urban empty lot could have beauty if looked at from different angles. He showed how getting on top of a ladder or laying on the ground on his side with his head to the ground, could find the angle or the perspective that could accentuate and highlight aspects that were easily missed with a quick glance. And what these exercises and what the program was meant to do is to help you tune into the positive behaviors in your leadership of others versus negative or areas of improvement, which most of us are trained to do here.

Here at Fierce we’re passionate about providing the tools to give feedback. And we’ve always advocated that feedback is feedback. And even with positive feedback, it has to be based on observable behavior, such as, wow. The example you gave in that presentation really brought to life the themes we needed to understand versus, Hey, great job. Actionable and memorable feedback will always be based on tangible, observable behaviors and also help you enrich the relationships in your lives.

Remember, the conversation is the culture and it’s also the relationship. Thank you.

Hello, everyone, I read a practical HBR article that asks the question, what are managers doing about change exhaustion, and that’s right, change exhaustion. The article references a Gartner study that states that employee’s ability to cope with change is 50% at the level it was pre-pandemic. I mean, there’s a drastic drop. And they talk about things like resilience, fatigue, work from home fatigue, zoom fatigue, constantly changing, work returned to office fatigue, and so on. These are absolutely real stressors. And they offer a few suggestions to deal with these in our current environment.

Number one is to pause to acknowledge the change and the discomfort that comes with it. I like this, because instead of just jumping into action, as an impulse to create momentum, it’s really positing knowledge, the reality of what’s what’s happening.

Number two is to give yourself a break from perfection and state, I am a person who’s learning… and fill in the blank with whatever your situation is, for example, I’m learning to be a great manager in a remote environment, or for me, personally, I’m learning how to be a great keynote speaker.

Number three is be realistic that you have a plan that will change it’s going to happen, it will happen.

And the last one, number four is invest in rituals. Interestingly, the research states that it doesn’t matter what the ritual is doing the same thing at the same time improves your mental health. It provides a level of comfort.

The reality is is that leaders and organizations sometimes don’t have everything figured out. And that uncertainty can be unsettling for everyone around. Here a Fierce, we advocate to interrogate reality to provoke learning. This is to get curious and ask questions to garner a deeper understanding versus sitting with a feeling of not knowing or not understanding. However, you should absolutely be prepared to learn that this uncertainty is real, as well as inevitable that constant change is a staple of the current environment and the world that we live in today.

We are with you and we completely understand this exhaustion. And we want you to always remember that the conversation is the relationship and it is the culture. Thank you.

Hello, everyone, I want to share a research related article from Forbes that states that 50% of people are self aware. The study was shared by IO psychologist Tasha Eurich. She states that 95% of people think they’re self aware, where in actuality only 10 to 15% really are. The study scientifically links people who are self aware with better performance at work, getting more promotions, and most importantly, leading more effectively. And it also shows that companies with more self aware people generally perform better financially. So amazing results with these linkages.

The research advocates for being internally and externally aware. The reason why this article interests me is because of the work that we’re doing at Fierce or we’re linking our conversation tools, which help you tackle your toughest challenges, with scientifically reducing stress, and also achieving higher and personal success. However, we run into the same core issue, which is a lack of self awareness to pinpoint what it is that’s causing angst and or the problem that needs to be solved. The starting point really is self exploration and analysis and then asking for feedback in your environment.

You know when something’s not right, and it’s absolutely up to you to stay awake and manage your gradualies to navigate more of your desired suddens. We’re passionate about this work and making it easy for people to identify their daily stressors and then tools to tackle them head on.

Thank you and remember the conversation is the culture.