Mandy Varley, PhD

Critical thinking skills were fully engaged at today's Twin Cities Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Roundtable. The current state of flux in DEI work is highlighted in this piece from HR Dive yesterday (https://lnkd.in/e4irGW-j) Regardless as to where you stand on the topic, as with many things in life, constantly reimagining what we do and how we do it can be good practice. Dr. Ramon Pastrano IV, D.Min., MATS, MSM led a great session in Human-Centered Design. Cassandra Gomez led a thoughtful and reflective conversation about mental health. Thanks to co-Chairs Philomena Morrissey Satre and Kevin Lindsey, and the entire TCDEIR team who put the work into making these gatherings happen. “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence itself, but to act with yesterday's logic” - Peter Drucker. #dei #inclusiveleadership #diveristyequityinclusion #curiousleadership #professionaldevelopment #learninganddevelopment #humanresources

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'We model the world only for many of us to mistake our model for the world.' Jazz Rasool, 1994 Sarah Short in her post and through the comments of Dr Ruby Campbell MAICD, MScCoachPsych, MBA(Exec), PhD(Sc) attention is draw to respect how coaching governance is promoted. In the comments for Sarah's post, the role of science, especially mind-body science, was emphasised. For coaching to become a credible profession it needs to be founded on credible scientific evidence as well as aligned human coaching lived experience and models of education that are not solely western centred or sourced. Science doesn't care which coaching body you belong to or whether you are a coach, advisor, therapist or consultant. It has laws, some of which empirically have been shown to be inviolable and unbreakable like the First Law of Thermodynamics, The Law of Conservation of Energy. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another. The First Law is used to categorise 'the performance of cyclic conversion systems'. My own cyclic Coaching Enhanced Technology/Coaching Enhanced Technology, CET-TEC, practice is based on this fundamental law of science, on the cyclic management of energy conversion, which don't just apply to the material world but functions equally for our psyche and inner world when using the right frameworks. The Perennial Coaching Frameworks (PCF's) I work with, many of which come from non-western cultures and through methods that are thousands of years old, existed long before any governing body was set up with their set of competencies to curate some professional structure to coaching. Don't get in a fuss about which body you belong to, focus on the body of experience and evidence of sciences and methodologies that work whether we believe in them or not.

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The latest workplace research from the American Psychological Association and conducted by The Harris Poll including my colleagues Aimee Vella Ripley and Nicole Alfano are concerning. The findings feel so relevant to me both because I am in the group of workers aged 58-64 and because my children are in the 18-25 year old worker group. We cover both ends of the spectrum. My son will start his first post-college professional job on Monday. I'm so excited for him. I try to coach from the sidelines whenever he allows, including my insistent suggestions to participate in any and all social events his employer may offer. The release talks about a variety of issues but as it relates to age: 💡 Workers aged 18–25 and 26–43 were significantly more likely than workers aged 44–57, 58–64 and 65+ to say that they feel more comfortable working with people their own age than with other age groups (62% and 57% vs. 42%, 38% and 27%). 💡 And nearly three in 10 U.S. workers (29%) said that they feel self-conscious about their age at work, including 43% of workers aged 18–25. This leads to younger workers reporting feelings of loneliness and higher rates of stress. As someone who likes to chat, in general, and likes to chat with people in my age group and outside my age group, if you need someone to talk to, I'm available. I love learning about my younger colleagues lives (and it helps me relate to my kids) and I hope they don't mind too much hearing about my family life including my new cocker spaniel puppy, Louis. I feel like it's incumbent on everyone - of all ages - to try and connect and develop relationships. It may feel uncomfortable but it's worth it. #connections #loneliness #workplace #psychologicalsafety https://lnkd.in/ebWit8VM

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If you don't know your Professional Design, you can't possibly know the best way to thrive. Does work feel best when it is something you can "win"? Do you press into conflict where others fade? Do you often feel alone and isolated? Do you often suffer from "burn out"? You might be what Carl Jung would call The Hero archetype. Tune in as we explore ALL of the key Professional Personality types (1 released each week; 12 in all). People get better results when they connect to their Professional Design, rather than fighting against it. #UBU #ProfessionalDesign Find this and the other Strategists Here:

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The latest Rumination from Dr. Steve Rumery. How do you sustain your engagement in your coaching practice? Put your comments below! https://lnkd.in/ed3xKdAW

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The effects of childhood trauma may be affecting your workplace without your even knowing it. As leaders, we must create psychologically safe environments to support the healing and overall growth of those with chlidhood trauma. Here is what we can do to help foster employee growth from trauma: 👐Offer accessible mental health resources and support programs. 🛠️Promote open dialogues about the impacts of trauma and ways to build resilience. ♾️Create a company culture that prioritizes employee well-being and psychological safety. 🗣️Collaborate with mental health professionals to develop tailored strategies and training. By taking these steps, we can help employees turn childhood adversity into catalysts for positive change. This supports healthier workplace cultures of support and resilience. Let's work together to create workplaces where all employees can thrive. #TraumaAwareness #WorkplaceWellbeing #EmployeeResilience #PsychologicalSafety #MentalHealthAtWork

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What defines a great leader? In my opinion, it’s partly about not being a bad leader. The Hogan personality assessments can help organizations know where each leader’s risks lie. Will you be too arrogant or competitive? Will you have incomprehensible ideas? Will you act without bringing others along? Will you not act at all? A good personality assessment identifies dark-side tendencies (the challenging parts of personality) so the organization and the leader can mitigate the likelihood of failure with development. This article from Susan Ko, PhD and Lauren Fisher, Ph.D. is wonderful and i highly recommend you reading it. Let us know what you think.

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Is it just me that finds it odd that abstracts in American Psychological Association's journal Psychological Methods (https://lnkd.in/eTV9ZUht) are SO inaccessible that they require a translational abstract?? Of course, I get it: the latter is intended for a different (non-academic/less statistically-versed) audience. But in all seriousness: the latter is much more accessible for an academic/more statistically-versed audience as well (indeed, I can follow the latter abstract much better), and covers the same essential content. As such, I really don't see the need for two abstracts. Let's just go with the more accessible version. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on this, Fred Oswald? #ClearScientificCommunication #MakingScienceAccessible

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Another tool in my L&D Toolbelt - Measuring the ROI of training    We've all heard, "Learning is a change in behavior." I prefer "Learning is a measurable change in behavior." We all want to be able to answer the measurement question. Most people are familiar with the four levels of the Kirkpatrick model. I prefer the five levels of the Phillips ROI training evaluation model. The four lower levels are similar to the Kirkpatrick model. The fifth level is Return on Investment or ROI. Can we isolate the program's effects, convert it to payback and monetary value, and calculate an ROI? It can be challenging, but I've been able to do it. Here is one example that might help you show the payback for your training.   At Microsoft, I owned the onboarding of new-hire software testers. I gathered "smile sheet" and sentiment data, along with issues the testers found in the software during the application phase of the training class. That's all well, but I wanted to prove to management that the program saved the company money. I worked with Human Resources to compare two groups of new hires: those who went through my onboarding and those who did not. The training was optional, and some product groups did not use it. It took some negotiation from my managers and a phone call from my VP to the VP of HR to prove that no PII would be revealed: I provided the names, and HR sent me the anonymized data. The data showed two statistically significant improvements for those who took my training: increased time to first promotion and decreased attrition.    While those statistics were an excellent win for the program, I wanted to calculate the ROI. Here is how I used the decreased attrition by 5% to arrive at an ROI.   * Attrition rate decrease: 5%  * The number of SDETs hired per year: 500 * The number of positions we didn't need to fill: .05 * 500 = 25 * SDET starting salary (posted salary in 2016): $100,000 * A study showed the total cost of hiring and training a new hire employee is the same as the annual salary for that position, so the direct company saving: 25 * $100,000 = $2,500,000  * Subtract a portion of my salary. Say I spent 50% of my time on the new hire program, and my salary was $150,000: .5 * $150,000 = $75,000   * Subtract my salary from the savings for the annual savings to the company: $2,500,000 - $75,000 = $2,425,000     Now, THAT is a nice Quantitative number to share with management.   Next week, I'll share an example from my time at Dell Technologies, where the measured savings were in improved productivity.

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Counter-intuitively (or maybe not counter-intuitively if you are well-versed in signaling theory), the future of work might be one in which employers place *more* importance on educational attainment and social connections as signals of candidate quality, not less, given that skills will: (1) continue to be difficult to measure, if you think about how an individual person's skill attainment is measured digitally for more than five minutes; (2) educational attainment will continue be a relatively honest signal of skill attainment (because you have to expend some cost to attain it), whereas you could create a digital profile of your skills by asking an LLM to write you an impressive resume (reducing the quality of online profiles as a signal of candidate quality).

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A thought-provoking and insightful article on How Diverse Teams Need Psychological Safety to Excel! The authors share three recommendations from their research outcomes for diverse teams - starting with team leaders - to build psychologically safe environments: framing, inquiry, and bridging boundaries. Framing Framing is about helping team members reach a common understanding of the work and the context. Two frames are particularly relevant for diverse teams: goals for the meeting and the value of expertise. Inquiry The best way to help people contribute their thoughts is to ask them to do so. It’s that simple. When team leaders — and others — practice genuine inquiry that draws out others’ ideas, listening thoughtfully to what they hear in response, psychological safety in the team grows. Bridging Boundaries Framing and inquiry help build psychologically safe environments. But getting even more tactical, what can individual team members do to bridge expertise and background boundaries? Teams need to figure out where their objectives, expertise, and challenges come together. #PsychologicalSafety #TeamLeadership #InclusiveLeadership https://lnkd.in/gezGXHA6

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Very simply, if your people don’t understand how they’re contributing to your strategic direction, then your EVP isn’t doing its job. The harder it is for employees to articulate the strategy and direction of their organisation, the more challenging it is for them to understand that they themselves are playing a key role in delivering such a strategy. Communicating effectively, regularly and clearly that the great work of your people is tangibly contributing helps drive meaning, purpose and engagement. As well as facilitating the very strategy that your EVP is linked to. Some thoughts around the relationship between EVP and strategy, infinitely enhanced by the insights of Julie Griggs FCIPD, Andy Hendon, Naomi Blackwell and Mike Jefferies.

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One component of psychological safety is that team members accept others, no matter how different. As a leader, you can model this behavior by: -Demonstrating that you value different viewpoints -Acknowledge and respect each person’s experiences and opinions -Helping your team members understand what each person brings to the table -Actively listening to all voices and bringing in the quiet ones -Recognizing unique contributions and making sure the right person gets credit -Allowing team members to discuss and debate decisions to be made Happy Monday!

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I’m a certified ICF leadership coach so I take to heart the stats ICF puts out and want to share these with you. How ready are you to level up your leadership and your personal growth?

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I'm so glad to see McLean & Company working to help organizations be more trauma-informed. Its new report notes that, “regardless of industry, failing to be trauma-informed can have negative impacts on organizational outcomes, including decreased productivity and increased absenteeism and turnover” and that "becoming trauma-informed is a key part of being a safe workplace.”   I also appreciated the admonition that being trauma-informed never means requiring people to share their trauma with you; rather, it's about ensuring that individuals know that if they choose to open up, they will be met with empathy and a lack of blame, and that the "organization will respond by asking them what they need and facilitating access to the support.” See more on the link below! Ramsha Munshi Emma Schwichtenberg Elysca Fernandes, MIRHR https://lnkd.in/euxzTd-P #humanresources #traumainformed #leadership

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P.E.T. AKA, Parent Effectiveness Training, (the program by Dr. Thomas Gordon that introduced Active Listening, I-Messages to the world) was in the news recently...that is, it was in "Newsweek" Magazine: They interviewed GTI Master Facilitator, Meike Lemmens and our CEO, Linda Adams, and produced a very in-depth article - please share away! https://lnkd.in/gPvikAdU #newsweek #parenting #parenteffectivenesstraining #magazine #blog #parents #gordonmodel

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Psychological safety remains a critical yet often overlooked factor in onboarding success. Recent research from Harvard Business Review reveals a concerning trend: new hires experience a rapid decline in psychological safety shortly after joining. This phenomenon, rooted in the disconnect between expectations and reality, threatens innovation and productivity. To counter this, the article suggests: 1. Implementing targeted interpersonal skills training for leadership 2. Reframing workplace culture to value calculated risk-taking 3. Cultivating an environment where curiosity is rewarded Thoughts on how this impacts your onboarding strategies? #onboarding #psychologicalsafety https://lnkd.in/eTVakzsK

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