This week, we have asked a dear client, friend, and colleague to share her experience and her strategies for finding her way back to herself after a layoff. We know that life offers us many opportunities to find ways back to ourselves and she has much to teach: Moving Forward After a Layoff by Heather Stewart For the past 5 years, I worked for an incredible little company that makes creative products for creative people. I first joined the company…
For the past couple of weeks, our clients have come to meetings looking a little worse for wear. They are running hard at work—where many are at fiscal year end—while also trying to prepare for the holidays. They are attending the plays and shows that their kids are in, going to office and personal holiday parties, participating in religious services or activities, and trying to figure out great gifts for hard-to-buy-for family members. Many report that they both love and…
Everywhere you look there are articles and books about becoming more creative, expanding your organization’s culture to become more innovative, and leading change rather than reacting to it. We’re all for greater creativity and innovation. Unfortunately, the current approach of many individuals and organizations leaves them disappointed and in a state of constant reactivity. Often, leaders treat creativity and innovation like they are either a box to check on a to-do list or something to do once a year at…
We heard from several of you over the past two weeks that you were concerned that if you use our 3 steps to delegate effectively, it would be experienced by others as micromanaging. Delegation, as we described a couple of weeks ago, is about providing Context, Content, and Connection so that the individual who is assigned the activity can organize their thinking and their tactics to accomplish the delegated task. When you provide the three ‘C’s of delegation, you are…
If it’s true that life is a journey, then the most important voyage we know of is the one that takes you back to you. This holiday season, we want to encourage you to take time for yourself. Yes, there is a lot of pressure to spend time with family and with friends, but as your coaches we strongly recommend that you plan some time for yourself that is unencumbered by the demands of life. Time to relax, reflect, work…
As coaches and consultants, we find that people regularly struggle with delegation and they tend to feel uncomfortable admitting it because they believe they should know how to do it. In our experience, delegating is a challenging skill; one that few of us are taught. People are frequently told they should “just delegate that” but when they try, they don’t get the results they hoped for so they give up delegating and just heap it onto their already full plate…
We were recently at a meeting where the presenter asked these questions: Who in the room has read an article on time management? Everyone raised their hand. Who has taken a class or webinar on getting more things done? Almost everyone raised their hand. Who feels great about their ability to prioritize their key imperatives and get them done in an efficient and timely manner? Only about 11 people raised their hands. Despite all of the reading and classes, it’s…
Those of you who know us know that we believe that leaders exist at all levels of an organization and in all walks of life. We believe that leadership is a way of being in the world. It requires a willingness to influence the world (not stand on the sidelines and complain) and to be influenced by the world (not stand impervious to the events and lives playing out around you.) We are passionate about finding the key nuggets of…
At a local professional meeting, we ran into a man we’ve known for some time who reported that he’d recently had his first appointment with Jill Banks, our Director of Career Services. He said that he had been thinking about calling for a while, but just wasn’t sure he was a good candidate for career coaching. (With career coaching being a relatively new field, many people don’t really understand what it’s about.) Our friend started to share his experience and…
Recently, while hiking with a wonderful 6-year-old, she asked a question that highlighted the importance of creating a shared vision. That morning, one of her parents had asked a group of us, “Who wants to go on a hike?” A small number decided that a hike sounded like fun, and so we each grabbed our hiking shoes, a bottle of water and a small snack. When we were no more than 10 steps into our hike, this youngest member of…
We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with leaders, teams, and individuals who are passionate about growing in their leadership and in their ability to create cultures of psychological safety and engagement.
Carpenter Smith Consulting is a Women Business Enterprise, Oregon Cert ID 7047.
