How are you communicating your priorities and workload to others? (1-21-26)

Happy Wednesday,

Last week was asked ourselves the challenging question, “How broken am I willing to be to achieve my goals?” This week I want us to explore a question that should help us avoid being broken, and that question is, “How am I communicating my priorities and workload to others?”

I like my boss. He’s a cool dude and pretty smart. However, he can’t read minds. #bebetter Since I know he can’t read minds, this shapes how I talk to him about priorities and workload. Here was our conversation last week as we discussed goals for the year. I started by explaining the major workstreams and the ones I felt would provide the most value. I explained that in our current state I couldn’t do all of them justice. My boss asked me what my top 3 were. I explained, “Project A and B provide the most value and will take the most effort for X, Y, and Z reasons. I need high quality deliverables for A and B. That basically eats up my Q1. I won’t be able to do Project C justice unless I give up sleep and run myself into the ground, or I get some help. Help looks like this…” My boss tells me he agrees with my rankings and that if we can’t get help in that way we will have to push C until later in the year. We established priorities, trade-offs, and now I have the air support to not burn myself out. It was a 5 minute convo, but all we needed to ensure alignment.

Let’s connect dots. As good as my boss is, I can’t expect him to know everything on my plate. #slacker I can’t expect him to understand how long and how much effort everything takes. If my boss would play in radioactive waste, he might develop mind reading powers, but since that likely won’t happen I need to verbalize these things to him. Once I talk about these things, we can shift into problem solving mode where we can make actual trade-offs where we focus on some things and let others go.

Gut check. How often do you give an HONEST assessment of your workload and capacity? For many years in my career I just sucked it up and ran myself into the ground. I was scared to ask for help. I was scared to say that I had too much. I paid the price for this with my health, and it’s not a price I want to pay anytime soon. We can only address a problem if we know it exists.

The challenge: How will you communicate your priorities and workload to others?

Bonus for the leaders: Are you creating the environment to have these conversations? If your people come to you and discuss legitimate constraints and your default response as a leader is “Just figure it out” you’re likely doing more harm than you realize. I hope as leaders we are creating the environment to have these conversations where we can acknowledge legitimate barriers AND be problem solvers.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Parenting, Leadership, and Stepping Beside Someone (7-24-24)

Last week was about parenting and being okay with joining the failure club. This week is about parenting, leadership, and stepping beside someone.

A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I were on a pontoon ride at the campground. We were having a nice ride when Cam asked if he could get in the lake. This is a big deal, because Cam is usually scared of lakes for a variety of reasons. I tell him that he can go ahead and get in, and that he can just change into his extra pair of clothes when he gets back to the camper. He puts on a life jacket, and sits on the edge of the boat, putting his feet into the water. I’m happy that he’s even doing that. I keep giving him encouragement to get in. He asks me to get in with him. I don’t necessarily want to, because I don’t swim well and am not a huge fan of water myself. However, I also recognize this could be the support he needs to take a big step forward. I throw on a life jacket and jump in too. Cam gets in and loves it! It’s one more fear he’s conquered, and I’m so proud of him.

What does this have to do with anything? I was supporting Cam. I could have just kept giving him words of encouragement while staying on the boat. However, at this time, he didn’t need words from a distance, he needed someone beside him. When I saw that, I hopped into the lake and that’s what he needed to be confident. Now think about work for a minute and for the different leaders you’ve worked with. I’ve seen some leaders who tried to lead from their high seat. They said the right things, but they always stayed distant from the team. I’ve also seen leaders who were willing to step beside their people when that was needed. These latter leaders are my favorite. What about you?

The challenge: Will you be willing to step beside someone to lead?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Cleaning Rooms, Clear Expectations, and Feedback (10-18-23)

Last week was about calling people up vs out. This week we will look at cleaning rooms, clear expectations, and feedback.

Thursday is “Clean your room” day at the house. When we first initiated this, the kids had a very different idea of what clean was vs my wife and I (#shocker). Rather than get angry, my wife and I realized we needed to articulate the goal in a clearer and more explicit way. “Clean your room” day means picking up all the trash, taking it out, picking up all the things that are laying about so I can run a vacuum without sucking up your stuff, putting everything in its home, putting up your clean laundry, and ensuring everything is tidy. Those are the expectations. After outlining all of this, we also had to be more hands on initially to model and show them what this meant. Then, we would have them clean their room on their own, and after we inspected the work, we would give them feedback on what they did well and where they needed to improve based on the expectations we set. Today, they know what the standard is and the deliver on that, most of the time 😉

You might be wondering what this has to do with work. Throughout my work experiences, I’ve noticed that one of the biggest issues with feedback is a lack of clear expectations. Similar to my kids and cleaning their rooms, we can’t ASSUME that people will automatically know what the expectation is or how to execute it. Everyone is coming to work with their own experiences and views on things, which likely means that everyone will have a different view of what the minimum expectations are for any given situation. With this in mind, we have to be intentional about establishing clear expectations and we have to be willing to model and coach to those expectations until we are all where we need to be. This might include needing to be even more explicit than we think is necessary in order to deliver the feedback message.

The challenges

As a leader, are you clear about the minimum expectations for a role, project, and/or situation? Are you providing feedback when people aren’t meeting those expectations?
As an individual contributor, do you know what the minimum expectations are from your supervisor AND teammates? Do you know whether or not you’re meeting those expectations?

Bonus thought- It’s important to understand that expectations evolve over time. When my kids were much younger my expectations for them cleaning up after themselves was much lower. Now the context has changed, and my expectations are higher. In a similar way, our world is continuing to evolve and what might have been acceptable performance a few years ago, might not even come close to meeting the new bar. We must be willing to have those conversations with people to reset where the minimum expectation is, so they are able to know what they are shooting for.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Feedback and Calling Someone Up vs Out (10-11-23)

This week I’d like to start a series focused on giving and receiving feedback. This entry is inspired by Shellie Miller and recent comments she’s made about calling someone up vs. calling them out.

On my current team, we are in the process of resetting the bar, defining our mission, and reshaping our culture. One of the tenants of this new culture is Care+Accountability. It’s this idea that because we care about our mission and because we care about each other we will expect the best from and try to bring out the best in each other. Part of this will include sharing feedback when we miss, and we’re all going to miss sooner or later. As we’ve been having some of these conversations, Shellie Miller shared a quote along the lines of, “When you give feedback. You aren’t calling someone OUT. You’re calling them UP. You’re bringing them IN to help them see what they are capable and how they can be the best version of themselves and help us reach our goals.”

What does this have to do with anything? I’ve been reflecting on what Shellie said, because it is vital to creating high performing teams. Take a second and think of the best teams you’ve ever been on. What were they like? Two teams immediately come to mind for me. These teams were comprised of very different sets of people and existed in different parts of the organization. While they were each unique, both teams had a few things in common. First, everyone on both teams were obsessed with a mission greater than themselves. Second, everyone on both teams was willing to set a high bar for themselves and each other to help us accomplish this mission. Third, we openly and regularly gave feedback to everyone, regardless of their title or position, to help them get better. On both teams, feedback was merely a tool to make us sharper to help us achieve our mission. When I received feedback on my mistakes, I didn’t feel called out. I felt called to be better. I understood that the only way we could achieve our mission is if we were all at our best, and feedback conversations were someone who cared enough about me to demand the best from me. I grew more on those teams than I did in other roles. Calling people UP vs calling them OUT made ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

The challenge: How will you create a culture of calling people UP vs out?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

The Struggles of Parenting and Developing Parenting/Leadership Skills (5-4-22)

This will be the last in our series about lessons I’ve learned as a dad. This week is about the struggles of parenting and developing parenting/leadership skills.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time talking to my wife, friends, and therapists about the struggles of parenting. If I’m being honest, I’ve never consistently failed at something the way I do with parenting. Parenting is making constant mistakes. Parenting is consistently recognizing that the worldview that I was programmed isn’t always the right one. Parenting is a constant reminder that my current skillsets aren’t quite good enough, and I have SOOOOOOOOO much room to grow. Do any of you parents feel similarly?

When I talk about room to grow, I don’t just mean switching up parenting styles. I mean building parenting competencies and working on the fundamental skills that are required to be a good parent. If I had to oversimplify where I am, I have so much room to grow with regards to demonstrating empathy, understanding, and grace. I invest time in getting better at these things, so I can be a better dad. After all, my family deserves it.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything. I’ve said before that parenting is the same thing as leadership. Look at the above paragraph and replace the word parenting with leadership.

If I’m being honest, I’ve never consistently failed at something the way I do with leadership. Leadership is making constant mistakes. Leadership is consistently recognizing that the worldview I was programmed with isn’t always the right one. Leadership is a constant reminder that my current skillsets aren’t quite good enough, and I have SOOOOOOOOO much room to grow. Does anyone else feel this way?

Similar to parenting, when it comes to developing as a leader it’s not just about changing the style. It’s about looking at the competencies of leadership and working to develop those. It’s investing time in learning and practicing how to set a clear vision, how to create an environment where people feel like they belong, how to prioritize work, how to make decisions, how to hold others accountable, how to help people develop, and more. Like being a parent, it’s important to invest in getting better, because that is what will bring out the best in your team.

The challenge: Where do you need to grow as a parent/leader? How are you growing as a parent/leader?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

The Not So Polished Human Side of Things (2-9-22)

Last week we looked at giving yourself permission to not be perfect. Let’s continue that theme by giving ourselves permission to share the not so polished human side of things.

This is from lap 2 of the Abominable Snow Race. On the first lap I scaled the 8 foot wall like a pro. Not so smooth this time. I misjudged the distance, swung my leg incorrectly, and got stuck in a painful position. If you zoom in, you can see me dying on the inside from the pain or as my cousin said, “I can see your soul leaving your body.” It took me 30 seconds or what felt like 1 hour to shimmy my other leg over and slide down the wall. I was hurting. It was ugly. But I made it. #bestphotoever

Whether or not you’ve ever done an obstacle course race, we have all been in some version of this moment from the picture on the right. Everything is going smoothly, and then bam it turns painful and awkward in a heartbeat from a trip, stumble, or our minds just blanking. We’ve all been there. You can probably picture that moment in your mind right now. I hope you chuckle when you do. Sharing this story doesn’t make me look cool. It’s not a flattering photo. However, it is one way of showing I’m human. It is one way of helping us all connect to the fact that we are all human. I’d hope that by sharing something like this, it might make you feel a little comfortable sharing the human side of you whenever you’re around me.

What does this have to do with work? Have you ever been around a co-worker who only shows you the polished side of things? Have you ever been around a leader like this? I don’t know about you, but I have a real hard time trusting people like that. I have a hard time being open about my thoughts and feelings. If the leader never shows that they are human, how can I be expected to show that I’m human? Now, am I saying that everyone needs to share a painful picture of them getting stuck on an 8 foot wall? No. What I am saying is that it would be great if we all felt comfortable to share a bit of us that makes us human. This could mean sharing stories of our mistakes, flaws, joy, love, passion, and anything that gives an insight into who we are as people. These are the actions that create the environment where humanity can be shared.

The challenge: How are you sharing the not so polished human side of you? What are you doing to give people a place where it’s safe to show they are human?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Analyzing our Processes and Habits (1-13-21)

Last week was about choosing our one word or phrase to set our north star for the year. This week is about examining our habits and processes to see if they could lead to our north star. This entry is inspired by the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.

If I’m going to EMBRACE this year, I also need to EMBRACE the right habits and processes to get the results I’m looking for. For example, if I’m going to be healthier this year I need to look at my habits and processes as they relate to nutrition. If I continue doing exactly what I’m doing now will I be healthier in 2021? The answer is no. Since that is the case, what is the disconnect, the root cause of potential failure? What change will you need to make to be successful? After reflecting I realized it’s too easy for me to make unhealthy food choices if I haven’t meal prepped ahead of time. This year I’m making meal prep one of my focuses. By changing that one process, I’m not eating better and making fewer poor choices.

How does this apply to work? We could all benefit from taking some time to reflect on our habits and processes. In the above example, I applied this to overall health. We can apply this thinking to softer skills too. When is the last time you stopped to truly reflect and analyze the habits and processes that make up your leadership skills? If you continued doing everything you are currently doing would you become the type of leader you want to be in 2021? If no, why not? What is the root cause? Why aren’t you becoming the leader you want to be? What change will you need to make to become this leader?

Last year I did some reflection and realized that if I wanted to be a better leader, especially in my role in the Alliance, I needed to do a better job of casting a vision and how we will get there. I called this “laying the tracks” and that became my phrase for 2020. I overinvested time in making sure I was slowing down to identify/communicate a clear vision, lay out the right milestones, and bring the right people in along the way. This took A LOT more effort than I was used to, especially because I had to navigate across the two companies. However, this effort paid off ten-fold when things went smoother than they had the year before. I’m still not perfect, but I am so much improved, because I took the time to analyze my leadership skills and identified ways to get better.

The challenge: Will you reflect on your habits and processes to reach your north star? How will your habits and behaviors need to evolve for you to become the leader you want to be?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry