Why won't my team just cooperate? Why have we come to standstill when there seem to be clear avenues to progress and expansion? How can I get my employees to be genuinely motivated? How do I lead more effectively?
Do any of these questions resonate?
A new kind of soul searching is infusing the business world.
For many these days, it is not enough to just show up at work and do their job. People want to feel engaged, inspired, passionate about what they do, and valued. There is a lot of emphasis on leadership and presence. These things can be largely enhanced with the right questions, shifts in perspective, insight and behavioral skills. This is where Blair, with her theater, teaching and group training experience can be a most useful asset.
With the same forthright, compassionate insight that Blair lends to her private clients and in her year-round personal growth/empowerment workshops, she is pleased to now offer non-profit and corporate business clients via a new branch of services, dedicated to addressing conflict and boosting productivity on a corporate level. With so much of our time being spent physically in the workplace or via telecommuting in a home office, Blair is able to offer a fresh perspective and unique strategies for key issues that arise again and again, issues that eat into productivity, satisfaction levels and peace of mind -- issues that impact both the employer and the employee.
Take a moment and give thought to your current corporate climate. What works and what needs tweaking? What has been successful and what piece of your vision needs to be articulated more fully? What has been finessed over and over again yet yields the same middling results? If you knew all the answers, you or your company might be in a different place. A consult with Blair can set you and your company on the road to bigger, more realized profitability, productivity and overall satisfaction.
Contact Blair for more information on how to get started with personal executive or organizational work.
Read more about Blair's transition into corporate work here.
Transitioning to Corporate Work
One day I realized that a large percentage of the women in my private practice, (mostly between the ages of 23 and 45), were all dealing with similar issues that could be categorized into two themes:
- They did not have work that satisfied them and/or were disappointed in the career paths they had chosen.
- They did not have other women with whom they felt deeply connected, ones with whom they felt safe to really share the depth of their struggle and the awe of the transformation they were experiencing in the therapeutic process.
This propelled me to develop a workshop for women, held in October of 2009, entitled, "What is Your Real Work?". The premise of the workshop was to be able to give women a safe and supportive laboratory for creating work they love, while realizing and engaging in their "real work" – the process of creating a life in which they can manifest their true potential.
The workshop filled up immediately and was extremely poignant (given the low employment rates of these tough economic times). After attending, women not only started getting new, better and more lucrative jobs, but they also felt less isolated and more hopeful about being truly satisfied. They were excited to find other women who were invested in developing themselves in the same courageous, soul bearing, FUN, and ultimately freeing manner. The power of that workshop and the bonds it elicited were so strong, and the transformation so palpable, that I was inspired to create a seasonal series for us to continue to work together, which all but one member of the original group attended in full. The result, I hoped, was that at the end of those four workshops, each woman would emerge with: a greater sense of personal authority; stable footing on her path to satisfying work and pleasure; a tribe of support backing her; confidence in her ability to direct her life, and the ability to use the tools she learned to get where she wants to go, or to get moving again when she got stuck. This was achieved!
As I continue to teach groups of women in this manner and I witness the struggles they bring around their relationships and their actual jobs, I realize that the same issues exist on a broader scale in the workplace. Women ask: why didn't this relationship work? Organizations ask the same thing in reference to their failed clients and employees who leave for better jobs. Women ask: why is it that change feels so hard, and what can I do to stick with it this time? Many a workplace can become a particularly testy environment when there are growth spurts, and that stress and interpersonal testiness often works against the common goals of the company. Women ask: Now that I have everything I ever wanted, why do I feel so dissatisfied? Organizations who have achieved their start-up goals also get into a rut in which creativity and impetus wanes and a type of rote, "deadness" clouds the atmosphere.
I see that applying the principles with which we are working – principles of understanding difference, roles and the art of negotiation, awakening a sense of spontaneity and play, and the ideas of developing personal character and connecting to one's larger task – can be readily applied to corporate life with dramatic results.
While continuing to teach strategies of successful living to women, I am also aiming to help organizations clearly see the story and "script" that their business is currently "writing," so that they can open the window of opportunity to choose different, more creative and productive strategies, with a healthy, engaged team.
Issues of territory, office politics, conflicting values and unhealthy competition can make a workplace quite an unpleasant place to be, resulting in lower morale and productivity. I can aid in assisting leaders in effective strategies to enable their staff to feel supported and valued, and aid employees in understanding their personal power and the true requirements of their job (which, for example, does not include getting their emotional needs met by their boss), so that work can once again be an engaging and dynamic place to come, and with people truly working together, productivity and personal achievement can skyrocket!
Take a look at these five very common organizational pitfalls that frustrate, erode and muddy the waters for colleagues, managers and even CEO's. Do any of the below resonate with you and your current work experience?
Overblown interpersonal conflicts -- Nancy and Ed have to work together. She is an excellent idea person and he has a way with putting them down in words. When they complete a job, their product is golden. But they hate working together, and the entire office, and some of their clients, knows it. Nancy is deeply frustrated with Ed's dismissive style, and he feels that her ideas are half-baked and he should really be getting more credit for the filling in he does. How do they resolve their issues to get the work done?
Leadership issues/management issues -- Bob is frustrated that his authority is constantly undermined. His employees often come in late, and he is convinced that his team hates him. In fact, they often report to the higher ups about it. His ability to lead is constantly thwarted by his self-doubt and by the way the team sets him up to fail. He is afraid he will get fired. How can Bob learn to lead effectively in the current circumstances?
Inability to retain employment/employee issues - At Such and Such Design Firm, employees are leaving left and right. The company pays competitive salaries and gives good benefits. They hire talented people. The management, who are not known as nasty, is confused. What is happening and how can they keep their employees?
A desire to awaken creativity and teamwork -- Angie sees that her team is in a rut. There is chronic lateness in her division and a lot of excuses, but the work gets in on time. She wants to infuse the workplace with a spark that will make her team more excited about their jobs. Where does she begin?
Corporation transitioning from 1 structure to another -- It seems as if overnight, This-N-That Exports is moving from a staff of 15 to 45. This is great news that the core partners have been hoping for. But you wouldn't know it if you popped in on one of their meetings. The fighting is constant. The CEO, CTO, CFO and VP's spend much of their time in meetings about the expansion in which very little is actually accomplished as each tirelessly tries to advocate for his or her needs and vision as they move forward. Morale drops throughout the firm as blame and bickering continue. A successful expansion is in peril. How can they ease their transition?
Do you have trouble in the following areas: presenting, running meetings or managing people? Do you struggle with doing your job and attending to all the other things your job requires, like social diplomacy and public speaking?
Blair can help you identify what's in your way and work with you one-on-one to rectify your weak spots. Increase skill and awareness in the following areas:
In addition, Blair has developed a process called Character Development, which uses a unique blend of acting and leadership techniques designed to help you maximize efficiency by building an authentic work persona. By focusing on who you want to be and recognizing your default behaviors, you learn new skills to engage in ways that help you garner more respect, offer more substance to your clients and team, spend less time in dysfunctional entanglements and increase your self confidence and effectiveness by a large percentage.