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Mary Nestor

Focuses on the Rainbow Profile total quality management training exercise developed by MJN for Augusta Technical Institute (ATI) for employee teambuilding. Derivation of the training exercise's name; Preparation; Day of training exercise; Rearrangement of the profiles; Debriefing for team building; Debriefing for diversity training.

Getting to know you A tool for teambuilding

Mary J. Nestor

Focuses on office discourtesies committed by employees against their co-workers that contribute to job stress and wasting of productivity. Loud radio or music; Borrowing and not returning of office supplies; Tardiness in meetings; Failure to return telephone calls, voice mail or electronic mail.

Top 10 Things That Drive CoWorkers Crazy

We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.  Oliver Wendell Holmes A choice implies movement, options, and change. It involves a willingness to risk, evaluate, and visualize. You need to know when the time has come to make a committed decision and feel confident about this. Sometimes that takes courage, sometimes it takes faith that everything will work out, sometimes it means living outside of your comfort zone, and sometimes it leads to compromising.  This is what “owning” your career and its pathway means.In general, what are your hopes and practical expectations for this coming year?  Here are some major and minor work choices you could make in 2014 that could have a long-term impact on your career:changing careersbeginning a professional development activityseeking a promotionvolunteering in your local ASTD chapterstarting a business.However, you don’t need to limit yourself to these obvious alternatives; be creative and think outside of the box. Below are some actions to take to help you think through and understand some of the factors to consider  in making your choices.List any personal or family life events that have occurred within the past year. For example, did you join the sandwich generation, became a parent or an empty nester, or have changes in your marital status?  If so describe how these event have affected your professional life.  For instance, you may find you have more work anxiety, need a larger salary, or are now ready for a job change or career shift.List any professional life events that have occurred with the past year. For example, did your company go through a reorganization? Did you receive a master’s degree, a certification, or get a new manager? Again, describe the events and their impact on your professional life. These could include more work stress and pressure, a new role, or changed responsibilities.Assess and evaluate  your options. Write out the pros and cons of each alternative or option. Select the top three best (for you) options. Then take the following actions:Describe how you feel about the choices available to you based on weighing the pros and cons of each in terms of  satisfaction level, attitudes, and the emotions you are experiencing. Then make your choice (s).Establish timelines to develop an action plan to turn the selected option(s) into realities. Write out this time schedule, including interim reviews.Describe the possible consequences and impact on your and your family's lives if the “status quo” continues.A final thought – the old adage is still relevant: “He who waits, waits; he who doesn’t, does something about it.”  Be confident, take chances, and most importantly, trust in yourself, the choices you make, and the resulting outcomes. You may very well surprise yourself with your success in taking ownership of your T&D career and its pathway in 2014.

Career Moves: What Career Choices Will You Make in 2014?

One can imagine the time in our pre-paleolithic history when formal learning consisted of two balanced parts:During the day, people with skills would show others how to do something. "Grab the spear here," the teacher might say, taking the hands of the apprentice and putting them in the right spot. "Now practice in that sandlot over there by throwing it at that big tree. Keep doing it until you get it right. Then throw it at the smaller tree."While at night, people around the campfire might tell of great adventures, including myths and legends. People would share ideas, and help their community expand their thinking. The best story tellers would gain bigger audiences and develop their own craft of narrative and suspense.Then came the technology of writing. And suddenly the balance shifted. Communities were able build on the written work of the past. Written work also scaled well, where the work of one village could impact villages all around it. The disciplines of accounting and drama evolved geometrically. Meanwhile, practicing in the sandlot didn't change much. It was still a one-to-one activity.Since the technology of writing, many subsequent discoveries have further augmented the "learning to know" skills. Paintings, theaters, printing presses and books, photographs, schools, universities, sound recordings, movies, scanners, Google (and now, the Kindle) all turned our culture into masters of linear content, enabling both great artists and our own exquisite vocabulary around such catnip as plot devices, antagonists, suspense, and the hero's journey, just to name a few. We can watch a Spielberg movie, a piece of campfire-style intellectual property that is the recipient of cumulatively trillions of dollars of investment and R&D, and evaluate it at a level of cultural sophistication that would awe citizens from a even a hundred years ago.And yet, in the "learning to do" area, we are probably worse than our hunter-gatherer ancestors. For teaching the simplest skills, we mirror our ancestors ("put your hands here"), and for the more complicated skills, we don't have a clue. Ask a Harvard Business School professor to develop leadership (or any Big Skill) in a student and she will go into campfire mode with PowerPoint slides of grids, case studies, and so-called inspirational stories.The advent of flight simulators and computer games, however, have introduced technology around "learning to do" that can finally scale. Today, there is a robust, if nascent, set of "sandlot" tools that is receiving a significant intellectual investment of the current community, and is able to build on the discoveries of the past. Today's "authors," often game designers, can begin to create virtual sandlots where participants can practice skills, instead of just hearing about them (the theory of nudging a pinball machine to get a better score, from a campfire perspective, is trivial; the practiced application is where it is hard).And, correspondingly, an entirely new language is being developed. Gamers now effortlessly talk about end-of-level bosses, mapping Actions to interfaces, the attributes of Units on Maps, and what is good or bad level_design_.During the next twenty years, the sandlot technologies (the "learning to do" through games and simulations) will successfully challenge the campfire institutions of universities, movies, and books not only for the discretionary time of the community (which we have already seen), but for help in improving their quality of life. We are already seeing glimpses of the latter through Carmen SanDiego, The Oregon Trail, Age of Empires, America's Army, Full Spectrum Warrior, Virtual Leader, and Brain Age. Will Wright, the creator of SimCity and The Sims, is the first Shakespeare or Beethoven of this medium.In other words, people will engage in games not to play a super-hero, but to actually become more like one. And the balance between "learning to do" and "learning to know" may finally be restored.

The Campfire and the Sandlot

June 2020 - TD Magazine

Synopses of Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data by Rishad Tobaccowala, and Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking into Break-through Growth by Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz

Book Capsules, June 2020

Rare is the workplace where you don’t have one or more sensitive coworkers. The reasons for such sensitivity are endless, and some are even valid, but when such sensitivity is combined with emotional displays, they can especially be a challenge! Such reactions are one of the main reasons people don’t hold others accountable. As we discuss how to work with sensitive, emotional employees, there are two questions I want to address: Why do people get defensive? What can you do? When I teach or coach leaders, I find that many of them believe that employees get defensive because they simply don’t want to hear “the truth.” As far as the manager is concerned, the employee got caught in their mistake and their guilt is driving them to emotion. So, their response sometimes is to get tough and say unhelpful things like, “Let’s not get emotional, let’s keep this professional,” or “No need to get defensive, let’s stay on topic.” While it may be true sometimes that people get emotional because they feel guilty, our experience suggests something else. When people get defensive, it’s because they don’t trust your intent. They’re leery that you either don’t respect them or don’t respect what they care about (shared goals). When one or both are lacking, or the other person perceives a lack of respect, you see a spike in emotional responses. See, our brains are always scanning our external environment for threats. The moment we perceive a threat, our fight-or-flight response is triggered. We react. Defensiveness is the attempt to restore safety in response to a perceived threat. And some employees may have been shut down, mistreated, or disregarded by previous bosses, contributing to extra sensitivity that needs to be considered. So, what do you do about it? You need to make it clear to the other person that you DO respect them and care about their goals. This can’t be accomplished with trite phrases when you’re in a bind. You’ve got to truly care. The way you treat them outside of crucial moments may do more for your Crucial Conversations than how you respond during them. I love what the late Stephen Covey said. “You can’t talk your way out of something you’ve acted your way into.” If you don’t show respect for their time, their work, or their unique personality, no amount of flowery language will ease their defensiveness. I think you could have a conversation with this person to address this dynamic between the two of you. You might begin, “Hey Gabriel, I’ve noticed a pattern between us that I want to talk about. When I bring up a concern about a commitment you didn’t complete, you often raise your voice or start crying. I’d like us to be able to talk about things in a way that allows both of us to feel heard and find a solution. But I’m wondering if I’ve done something—or not done something—that’s provoking your response. How do you see it?” That may not be a perfect opening statement, so adapt it to work for you. But please see the principle in the details. Be honest about the issue. Don’t let them off the hook because they get emotional. Show them you care AND address the issue. Ask how you can show you care. Keep talking. 

Working With Sensitive, Emotional Employees

How many times a day do you either ask or respond to the phrase, “So, how’s it going?” It is a quick way to connect with others, and the expectation is a simple reply, such as, “Life is good." But then we look at our calendars and, to our surprise, realize that we are in the last half of the year! Where did 2022 go?In January, as a new year began, we thought of the many things we were going to do and experience because we had so much time. We documented goals for our professional roles and personal lives. Given that it is August, what is your real response to “So, how’s it going?” What progress have you made toward those big January goals? What has worked? What has surprised you? What unanticipated detours have you taken? What new opportunities have surfaced?As the summer winds down and we move closer to 2023, it is a good time to reflect on where you see yourself relative to your January view. As you head into a new season, do a quick review and refresh of your goals for the rest of the year.What is a goal, and why is it important? Goals can be a means to greater ends. There are big goals, which take years to achieve, medium goals, and small steps, but all goals are about change and moving to a different place or state. And since life is a long journey, goals provide pathways for the trip that lead to something bigger: a life purpose. Purpose is the big mountain or the North Star; it is our vision for the future. Clarity of this vision is highly related to our values and what is important for our professional and personal lives. Setting and following goals reflects how we choose to use our time, energy, and resources. As the wise Dr. Suess once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”Setting a goal can be rather easy and is a great starting point. However, it is the execution of the strategies for reaching a goal that takes work and skill, especially discipline or what is sometimes called grit. Some helpful skills include project management—scheduling, planning, assessing options for risk or feasibility, allocating resources, and monitoring and evaluating progress—motivation, time management, change, and decision-making. There are 24 hours in a day for everyone, and how you choose to spend them is based on moment-by-moment decisions and actions.There are generally two stumbling blocks that many people agree are barriers to goal accomplishment: priorities and time. One way to determine priorities is to divide your goals into various categories, such as professional, personal, financial, or spiritual. Prioritize their importance based on your overall purpose and values. Narrow them down to your top three based on additional criteria, such as available resources, skill, feasibility of timing, and sequencing. Once you have your top three goals, document them using the SMART format.Time management has many challenges. Are you procrastinating? Do you start many projects but only complete a few? Do you have too many competing tasks filling up your calendar?One of the biggest barriers to effective time management is getting caught up in urgent tasks and not focusing on more important ones. In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic, Stephen Covey expanded on the Eisenhower Decision Matrix framework for prioritizing tasks for optimized efficiency and productivity. Covey’s Time Management Matrix quadrants adopt the same labels as Eisenhower’s: urgent, not urgent, important, and not important.One tip for better time management is scheduling specific tasks associated with your goal on your calendar to keep you on track. Another tip is generally credited to Mark Twain’s adage, “Eat your frogs first thing every morning;” it suggests waking up 30–60 minutes early to work on your goal. A time management hack to keep from wasting small amounts of time—such as the 5–15 minutes spent waiting for a meeting—is to ask yourself, “What is the best use of my time right now? What one task on my list can I do in the short amount of time I have?”Being skilled in managing your tasks is a huge advantage for accomplishing your goals. There are a plethora of ways to stop wasting time, including having accurate data on how you spend your time and reframing how you look at productivity. One place to start is with Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.Here’s a checklist to refresh your 2022 goals:Define your life’s mission and purpose.Write a purpose or vision statement about where you see yourself in 10 years.Compare your current state with your desired state.Document your goals and prioritize them.Identify one to three goals linked to your purpose.Document your goals using SMART or a visual action planning tool.Separate the important from the urgent in your weekly planning.Determine the execution barriers and develop ways around them, especially with the use of technology for scheduling and tracking progress.Assess your progress weekly or biweekly.Recognize and celebrate your small successes.Setting and achieving goals takes a mindset of continuous improvement and learning to get better at getting better based on a future vision or purpose. It is more than a focus on an end state. It is being intentional about the actions we take each day and the small goals we accomplish every week or month. It is not simply keeping busy, but it is a strategic and focused journey, albeit with some side excursions just for fun.How might you use the rest of 2022 to climb further up your purpose mountain to achieve your vision? What paths will you traverse during the fourth quarter? What will you focus on for the rest of this quarter, the remainder of this month, or this week? How might you work on your goals today?What will your response be the next time someone asks you, “So, how’s it going?”

So, How’s It Going?

Employees worldwide are experiencing a transformation in how and where they work. This constant change affects our daily life and challenges our habits and patterns.Dr. Wendy Wood from USC reminds us that on any given day, almost half of our activity is repetitive and habitual. When put into this context, the shifts and adjustments we’ve been required to make during the pandemic have interrupted our routines in a significant way, which can leave us feeling drained. The good news is we can fend off burnout and enhance our ability to “burn bright” by rethinking daily rituals.Below are specific tips and tactics to bring greater intention, attention, and science to three important timeframes in your day—morning, midday, and evening.Recharge Your Morning RitualIt’s hard to argue against the importance of morning rituals for setting the tone of the day and setting us up for success. However, our early morning habits are among the most well-established and least examined. Here are a few tactics to improve your morning:Hydrate before caffeine. The ritual of morning coffee has high appeal for many of us. However, caffeine consumed too early provides little actual kickstart. Within the first 30 minutes of waking, your brain is firing up and getting systems functioning on its own—adding caffeine is like throwing some twigs on an established fire. Instead, try waiting for 60 minutes before consuming caffeine and drink water in the meantime.Delay jumping into email. As you lounge in bed for the first few minutes of the morning, would you invite your colleagues into your bedroom to share their needs and requests? It sounds ridiculous, but that’s what you do when you check email upon waking. Avoid the emotional hijack that can occur from jumping into email straightway and try to delay checking it by at least 10 or 15 minutes.Refresh Your Midday RitualThe middle of the day provides a prime opportunity to hit refresh on yourself. But most of us are missing out on the midday rituals that can help us gather energy for the second part of the day. Carving out time for yourself can have an exponential effect on your ability to burn bright. Here are some tips:Remember to breathe. Take a couple of minutes to notice your breathing. Is your breath quick and shallow? Breathing in this way causes your nervous system to up-regulate, leading to feelings of tension and anxiety. Instead, breathe slow and deep, which turns on your body’s anti-stress response. Studies have shown that less than a minute of intentional breathing has a positive impact.Reclaim time for yourself. Tune in to what you need on a particular day and determine how you can carve out time on your calendar for yourself. Do you need to get some sunshine? Eat a nourishing snack? Catch up with a friend? Unless you claim the time and schedule it for yourself, others will continue to nibble away at it.Revise Your Evening RitualMuch like our morning habits, our nighttime, pre-sleep routines are often ingrained and unexamined. Noticing and adjusting what we do to set ourselves up for successful sleep (falling asleep efficiently and staying asleep) is a critical component of renewing our rituals. Consider these tips:Choose an evening attitude of gratitude. Regularly practicing gratitude promotes a calm and settling environment that helps with sleep onset. Even just verbalizing to a family member three good things that happened that day helps set you up for sleep success.Say no to the nightcap. While alcohol and its sedative qualities can promote feelings of sleepiness, alcohol in your system overnight is shown to disrupt REM sleep. That disruption, in turn, diminishes the restorative effects of sleep, such as emotional maintenance and creativity. Consider leaving at least an hour between your last adult beverage and bedtime.Refine Your Rituals to Build ResilienceAt the foundation of your day are rituals and routines, whether you plan them or not. Take some time as the new year emerges to examine and refine your daily rituals. Doing so will allow you to build a foundation and become more resilient so that you can show up better for yourself and others.

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