Each day women are faced with difficult and often uncomfortable situations in the workplace. I was recently asked, as a MoZen Inc. coach to give my input on how I would help Nancy, the person in the example below, by a board member of ‘Rise Up Women Leaders.’

Scenario:

Nancy is a Regional HR business partner who manages two regions of her company. John is the operation Manager for Region 1, and he is relatively new, open to Nancy and her help in attaining his departments business goals. John loves to engage his employees and is extremely collaborative with Nancy in coming up with ways to help employees feel valuable to the company.

Bill, a twenty year veteran, is the operations Manager for Region 2, he is not open to Nancy and feels he has better things to do. Bill is not collaborative; he ignores any of Nancy’s attempts to collaborate with him.  He tells her he does not care about collaborating; as his job is to make money.  He also went to Nancy’s supervisor to say he does not want to be bothered by Nancy; his department is doing fine.

Nancy went to her supervisor to ask for support and guidance on the best way to work with Bill.

Nancy’s supervisor told her Bill is not going anywhere and that she either has to figure out how to work with him or maybe this is not the right company/position for her. I was asked as a MoZen Inc. coach, how would I help Nancy?

First, I would have a conversation with Nancy and ask her three questions:

1. Is your job success dependent on working with Bill?
2. Is your job success dependent on her boss’s support?
3. What are the benefits of working at a company in this culture?

There are no right or wrong answers or just one solution to any problem.

Life is not black and white; there are always shades of gray in any situation, plus we all view each situation through our current life filters. Additionally, there are multiple catalysts in any situation that move us forward or hold us back.

The goal is to understand the kind of life we want live and allow this objective to guide you in your daily decisions throughout your day. We don’t realize that the little decisions we make every day and throughout each day that dictates the type of day we have and ultimately the life we live.

Depending on how Nancy answers the above questions would determine the solution which could be one of the following actions or a combination of the three.

My Response:  If Nancy’s job success is dependent on working with Bill and her boss, she can develop the skills to work with any individual’s personal style. All she needs is time, guidance and support from a MoZen Inc. coach, as her boss either does not have the knowledge or desire to supportive/mentor Nancy into her skill development. Additionally, the MoZen Inc. coach would help Nancy set life and professional goals that will guide her daily decisions and facilitate her understanding the filters she views her life experiences through today along with evaluating if they are helping or hindering her success.

The MoZen Inc. coach would work with Nancy reviewing her current concerns, her situation, the stakeholders involved, and her feelings about the situation. The coach would then ask questions to help her work through potential actions she could take and the impact of each action on stakeholders to determine the solution she ultimately wants to put into action. However, it would also depend on Nancy’s personal and professional goals.

Second, how long has Nancy had the job and what was her original reasons for taking the job? These benefits could be the job offers an excellent salary, great skill development opportunities, a springboard to an incredible job that would make it worth working for a manager who obviously is not supporting her by even offering guidance and to help her interact more successfully with Bill.

We at MoZen Inc. work with clients implementing our Next Generation MoZen Inc. coaching, which teaches them how to leverage their current knowledge and experience while removing barriers to success, which holds her back. MoZen Inc. coaching is a results-orientated systematic process that facilitates personal growth and success.

Second Question: As a leader how would you solve this challenge?

My Response: The only way to understand any complicated situation is either a 360 with Skip level interviews or interactive Leaders.  Leaders who interact with employees at all levels on a regular basis in a way that employees are comfortable discussing real concerns and recommendations.

Currently, the behavior of both Bill and Nancy’s boss is impacting employee engagement, productivity and the culture of the company.

Third Question: What would you do if you were in this situation?

My Response: I’d want my company to have a good coaching program to help me understand how to assess what was happening, the impact on the stakeholders and what my options were. I would want assistance to help me develop new skills so I could handle this situation in a productive, proactive manner that benefited stakeholders.

We cannot eliminate stress, but we can mitigate and manage it. The ability to manage your stress is critical for your health.

Types of Stress

Work Stress
• We all work longer hours, are expected to do more with less and have busier personal lives.
• We are connected 24/7 to technology and 63% of people say they are at chronic burnout.

Relationship Stress
• Relationships can provide love, support, happiness, friendship, but add stress if they break down.
• Stress can lead to poor communication, creating misunderstandings and conflict.

Impact Of Stress:
• Feeling overwhelmed, anxiety, you can’t cope.
• Head or stomach aches, poor sleep, anger, high blood pressure, feeling out of control.
• Lack of concentration & negative thoughts
• Stress impacts work or personal relationships.
• Long term, increased health problems.

Stress Management Tips:
• Learn when and how to say ‘no.’
• Participate in stress training & coaching.
• Be realistic in your goals
• Build into your schedule downtime.
• Meditation, breathing techniques/ visualization,
• Eat a good diet, get 8 hours of sleep and exercise

MoZen Inc Training & Coaching

1. Stress Management Training
• Understand stress and it’s sources.
• Learn typical pressure situations.
• Understand how to reduce stress.
• Mitigate stressors you cannot control.
• Tips & Techniques to mitigate or remove stress

2. Stress Management Coaching Program
• Understand your stressors and define the triggers.
• Learn how to change your perception of stress.
• Build new skills to see stress options and solutions.
• Learn and practice techniques to apply to your life stressors transferring them into positive results.

MoZen Inc. offers Training, Coaching, strategies, tips, and techniques to help you deal with stress.

Each little decision you make throughout each day dictates the day you have and life you live.

Contact: Rita.Witherly@MoZenInc.com or call 201-337-6813.

1. Relationships (with yourself, i.e. your physical health and relationships with others in your life).
2. Personal long term goals
3. Professional short term goals, taking care of any current job concerns/growth.
4. Professional long-term goals, to build new skills for job growth or new jobs.

Step #1
Create a bulleted list under each of the four areas regarding what you don’t like about that area of your life today. (i.e. Physical health):

Things I do not like about this part of my life:

• Not in good shape
• Get 8 hours of sleep each night
• I eat junk and fast food for most meals

Step #2
Create S.M.A.A.A.R.T. Goals for each of the four key areas above and state each goal in a positive format.

• I will Lose 15 lbs by June 30, 2016
• I will walk 30 minutes a day to exercise. (I will park at the back of the parking lot each morning causing me to walk 5 minutes extra each way to and from work, the grocery store, etc. I will take a ten-minute walk after
• I will go to bed by 11 p.m.
• I will follow the Atkins diet starting 1/25/16

Now complete this same process for the other three ‘key goal areas’ of your life, listed above.

Step #3
To add goal perspective define your personal long term goals by completing this exercise:

• Picture yourself at 104 sitting on your front porch talking to a friend and discussing your life.

• What kind of a person are you? (loved friends, family and your community, someone who improved your community or the world, someone who had adventures or made a lot of money, etc.).

• This exercise helps establish long-term personal goals. Is there a difference from the person you are today compared to the person you picture yourself, at 104?

• What types of things would you need to do to become the person you envision yourself to be at 104? Add any of these goals to your personal long term goals list and work on a couple each year until you have become the person you would like to be.

Step #4
Transfer your S.M.A.A.A.R.T. goals and the measurement for each to your daily calendar where you see them daily allowing you to track your goal success. If you are moving toward your goal, then continue with what you are doing. If you are not moving toward your goal, tweak your current behavior until you are getting the results you want.

So why do we set goals and how do we set goals to ensure we successfully attain them. Research shows that written goal setting is a proven powerful process that improves goal attainment tenfold.

I am sure you have all set goals before, the question is, did you accomplish them. We all get ‘stuck’ at times or struggle to get the things we want or need both personally or professionally accomplished.

At some point in life, we all get off track, overwhelmed or just don’t seem to be able to get to our goals in relationships or our job, which is why understanding how to define goals, how to write S.M.A.A.A.R.T. goals and create a goal action plan is critical to your goal attainment success.

The process of setting goals helps you set an end point of where you want to go, similar to using a GPS system. Your goal action plan help break down your goal into measurable steps as the GPS directions do, and if followed, you will get to your goal. By knowing specifically what you want to achieve, gives you clear goal focus. You then need to write your goal in the S.M.A.A.A.R.T. format. Yes, I know you may not be familiar with my spelling New England S.M.A.A.A.R.T. goal model, but being from Maine, we tend to have a couple more ‘A’s in our words, and this model is much clearer and more precise.

When we write goals, they need to be S.M.A.A.A.R.T. The ‘S’ stands for Specific. How do you know the goal is specific because it is measurable. It follows then that the ‘M’ stands for Measurable. The first ‘A’, and I apologize for this because most people think this is a dirty word…the first ‘A’ is Accountable. The second ‘A’ is for Action Oriented, and the third ‘A’ is Agreed upon. The ‘R’ stands for Realistic, and the ‘T’ is for Time-bound as if the goal is not written with a specific time-frame defined, there is no urgency to the goal. So if there is no completion time frame we just never seem to get to that action item.

These goal setting techniques are used by the best athletes, successful business people and high achievers in all fields. Clear, concise goals give you long-term vision and short-term motivation. They guide your daily decisions, as each little decision you make dictates the success of your day, and ultimately the type of life you live.

By setting clearly defined measurable goals, you can track your success and achievement. If you are off target, you see where changes need to can be made to the current plan of action ensuring your goal achievement. Having a buddy, a coach or a friend who reviews your goals and helps holds you accountable also helps ensure your success.

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