Coaching Blog
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Hiring a candidate can feel like reaching the finish line of a journey. After weeks or months of recruiting efforts, you finally found the right fit. But it’s not – it’s actually the beginning of a crucial stage of your hiring process: onboarding.

“It is an incredibly vital stage of the hiring process because employees are acclimated to their position, the company’s philosophies, and what the organization has to offer during onboarding,” says Jamie Olson, Head of People & Culture at Continu, a learning amplification platform for teams.

“It also increases motivation, resulting in employees who are dedicated to the company’s success, and promotes the retention of new recruits by making them feel like a part of the team.”

Your onboarding process is the first impression. It can make or break the long-term chances of success of your new team member – it’s when expectations are set and important information is passed along. Olson broke down everything you need to know about how to effectively welcome a new employee to the team. Learn more in the checklist and onboarding tips below.

The ultimate onboarding checklist
First of all, it’s important not to “wing it.” Onboarding doesn’t consist of greeting your new report and making a few introductions before leaving them on their own. You’ll need to create a streamlined process that is consistent every time you hire someone new. Here is a checklist.

• For small teams or Start-Ups that are focusing on crucial projects, the BG5 assessment and intervention allow you to see the underlying mechanics of the team and engineer the way to high performance. 
• You find out what key business and team skills are missing on the team, e.g., planning, administration, accounting, oversight, sales, marketing, coordination. These gaps are a problem because they become the focus of the team, distracting from the important work at hand.
• With BG5, you can explore practical ways to fill the specific gaps on the team—often without hiring more staff.
• You can also see the interpersonal communication challenges on the team—and when conflict is good and when it’s not.

by Susan Steiner, Career, Team and Executive Coach
Photo credit: Unsplash

What makes for effective and resilient teams is something that interests many leaders and organisations. I have spoken about some of these aspects in other articles, particularly on team composition. But some new research gives some insights into the leaders themselves and how they influence effectiveness and resilience in the face of unexpected situations. Something that is of particular interest with the pandemic which has raised the importance of resilience.

So what behaviours created more effective and resilient teams?
Research into 48 teams from 5 Canadian startups by Brykman and King showed that those leaders who encouraged on-the-job-learning, and of note, also enabled and encouraged employees to speak up and give their ideas and suggestions for change, were more effective and more resilient.
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An obvious point is that this is not in one-off situations but this must be constantly reinforced by 

By Marcel Schwantes
In 2016, the World Economic Forum released its fascinating Future of Jobs Report, where they asked chief human resources officers from global companies what they saw as the top 10 job skills required for workers to thrive by 2020.

One skill projected for success in 2020 that didn’t even crack the top 10 list in 2015 was — you guessed it — emotional intelligence.

According to many experts in the field, emotional intelligence has become an important predictor of job success for nearly two decades, even surpassing technical ability.

In one noteworthy CareerBuilder survey of more than 2,600 U.S. hiring managers and human resources professionals, it was found that “fifty-nine percent of employers would not hire someone who has a high IQ but low [emotional intelligence].”

In fact, 75 percent of survey respondents said they’re more likely to promote someone with high emotional intelligence over someone with high IQ.
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Companies are placing a high value on workers with emotional intelligence for several reasons. In my own studies and observations over the years as a leadership coach, here are six that really stand out....

By Jessica Hicks, Associate Multimedia Editor at Thrive Global
Managing people is tough — but managing people as they work from home during a global pandemic, well, that’s another story. Whether you’re a first-time manager or have been leading people for years, the coronavirus crisis has likely pushed you into uncharted territory. On top of overseeing day-to-day workflow, problem-solving, and paying attention to the bottom line and deliverables, there’s another big task on your plate: helping to take care of the human capital on your team when you don’t see them every day. 

“It is difficult to know what demands each individual is facing — whether it be navigating health issues, a partner that is a frontline responder, children in need of care, extended family members that are isolated,” Ashley Hardin, Ph.D., a professor of organizational behavior at Washington University in St. Louis, tells Thrive. “Many employees are balancing many roles and enacting those roles simultaneously for the first time.”

by Travis Bradberry
The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. At TalentSmart, we have conducted research with more than a million people and found that 90 percent of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control.
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There is some startling research that explores the havoc stress can wreak on one’s physical and mental health (such as this Yale study, which found that prolonged stress causes degeneration in the area of the brain responsible for self-control). The tricky thing about stress (and the anxiety that comes with it) is that it’s an absolutely necessary emotion. Our brains are wired such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel at least some level of this emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the stress isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.

By Rebecca Muller, Assistant Editor at Thrive Global

​It’s incredibly gratifying to achieve a goal you’ve set for yourself, but the real challenge often begins after you hit your target, when you have to maintain the practices you have begun in order to see prolonged success. According to a new Stanford study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, individuals are more likely to continue their positive habits after the fact if they see their goal achievement as “completing a journey” instead of “arriving at a destination.”

The researchers looked at people who managed to reach their individual goals and continued succeeding afterward, and asked which mindset allowed for their continued wins. “This question is critical, because it helps us to redefine success,” study co-author and General Atlantic Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Jennifer Aaker, Ph.D, explained in a statement. “It moves us from focusing on the short-run win associated with attaining a goal, to the longer-term benefits associated with continued improvement after the goal.”

Dianna Anderson,
Dianna is the thought leader behind Cylient's unique, comprehensive approach for instilling coaching cultures. 
Is building a coaching culture for your enterprise a strategic priority for your organization in 2019, or does it fall further down the list in the “nice to do someday” category? If building a coaching culture isn’t at the top of your priority list, here’s why I think it should be:

I believe that many of the top priorities that Learning and Development professionals focus on are actually symptoms of using traditional “direct and correct” leadership approaches to try to manage our current multifaceted, ever-changing work environments.
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Here’s why I think that:
When people lead by telling people what to do, and then correcting them when they think they are “wrong,” it teaches the people they are leading to:

• Wait to be told what to do, which causes inertia, particularly when it comes to making any kind of change happen.
• Avoid taking initiative because they may be sanctioned, sometimes in subtle but impactful ways, for choosing the “wrong” approach.
• Only propose ideas that their manager will understand and grasp quickly because those are “safer,” resulting in lack-luster innovation.
• Avoid being accountable for things they can’t control, which can become a pretty long list as the most pressing issues become increasingly complex.

By Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO
In 2016 I founded Thrive Global “to end the stress and burnout epidemic,” citing the Belgian philosopher Pascal Chabot’s definition of burnout as “civilization’s disease.” And this week, burnout was elevated by the World Health Organization from a built-in feature of our always-on world to a fully defined “occupational phenomenon” that stems directly from our collective crisis of workplace stress. 

It’s a real milestone to have the World Health Organization for the first time include burnout in its handbook International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. Burnout, according to the entry, is “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” It is characterized by three key factors: “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and reduced professional efficacy.”

by Katie Santamaria
What’s your most cherished value? We all have driving forces that keep us inspired and motivated, whether it’s supporting our loved ones, giving to those in need, finding fulfillment in our work, or making a difference in our community. 
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Determining your most cherished value and using it to your advantage can drastically change your approach to your work, infusing you with additional internal motivation, says Rebecca Greenbaum, Ph.D., professor of human resource management at Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations.

That’s where value triggers come in. Value triggers are items that represent something that matters deeply to you — for example, ...

by Suzie Doscher, Executive Coach and Life Coach focusing on Personal Development, Self-Help Author

​Coaching your team? 
​Add this skill to your coaching style – being non-judgmental.
​There is an abundance of articles on being a coach to your people. I enjoy reading the quality information provided by the Harvard Business Review.  
The desire to increase, enhance or maintain the quality of work, and in some cases even the quality of life at work, is evident.

The article in the HBR: Most Managers Don’t Know How to Coach. But They Can Learn, offers wonderful insights on what coaching is all about and aims to achieve.
Your responsibilities include leading, motivating, inspiring and with your coaching you hope to further their growth, development and enhance their skills.

By  Jaleh Bisharat, Co-founder and CEO, NakedPoppy.

There’s no such thing as a slow day when you’re an entrepreneur.
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To me, the most anxiety-producing days are the ones where a lot of people need my time. These are days filled with a never-ending stream of meetings, calls, requests, and interactions  —  with little time to reflect in between. And when the work backlog keeps rising, and I don’t have a minute of “think time” to myself, it can be easy to start operating in a reactive (and not proactive) state.

I love people. I actually thrive when managing teams. But part of being successful is finding ways to remain calm and clear during hectic moments of the journey. When my days get crazy and difficult to manage, I use a series of productivity hacks, mental tricks, and other strategies to make sure I’m achieving progress, not simply motion.

Here are some of my favorite strategies for staying grounded and productive during a hectic day:

By Shelley Zalis
​I always say a woman alone has power; collectively we have impact. Traditionally we have been taught to be competitive with one another, because there was such a scarcity of jobs at the top. It’s so clear that strategy doesn’t work. The truth is that raising each other up and channeling the power of collaboration is truly how we’ll change the equation—and have a lot more fun along the way.

There is a boys’ club where women never felt comfortable, so we decided to create a Girls’ Lounge more than six years ago where everyone feels like they belong. We discovered two things:

1. There is power in the pack.
2. You realize your strengths make the table better.

Today we’ve connected more than 17,500 corporate women and female entrepreneurs, and evolved the name to The FQ Lounge, where women are still the majority, but men feel welcome and comfortable.
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We need to reverse the stereotype that women don’t support other women. There is research that shows women in particular benefit from collaboration over competition.  Study after study shows women who support women are more successful in business.

Guest post by Nate Regier for Seapoint Center
Ask anyone about “conflict” and you’ll most likely hear negative descriptions such as: painful, damaging, draining, upsetting, disrespectful, demeaning and relationship-destroying.
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Most people dread conflict and can’t imagine how they could turn conflict into an energy source because they don’t understand what it really is.

Conflict is simply energy – the energy caused by a gap between what you want and what you are experiencing. The energy of conflict can be misused in “drama” or it can be harnessed to create something positive and useful.
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The Cost of “Drama”
Drama is created by “struggling against self or others, with or without awareness, in order to feel 

BY DR. JOSH DAVIS
Most tasks, at least for professionals and knowledge workers, lead to some mental fatigue. After all, we are constantly engaging in activities that involve decision making and self-control. The key to limiting mental fatigue is recognizing the work that is most likely to deplete your resources in a substantial way and, when you have any say in the matter, to simply not engage in that work before you want to be at your best.
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So how can you identify the tasks that lead to mental fatigue and keep you from being incredibly productive? If you feel spent after doing a task, there’s a good chance it is tapping into your self-control. The degree to which tasks take a toll on self-control, decision making, or other executive functions varies with each person.
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Here are some examples of common activities that can lead to mental fatigue:

by Christopher Peterson Ph.D.
​When positive psychologists advocate a strengths-based approach, I hear it as an important correction to decades of interventions (in clinics, schools, and workplaces) that focused on problems and their remediation. I do not hear it as advice to ignore weaknesses and problems or as an assertion that change is only possible if a person is already skilled at something. Somehow this completely reasonable advice has been morphed into the completely unreasonable proposal that only strengths matter, and I have been asked repeatedly about the evidence in favor of addressing only one's strengths if one wishes to achieve a good life.

We don't need studies to refute the claim that only strengths matter, just common sense. Regardless of what they do especially well, workers need to have the "strength" of showing up on time, and they need to have the "strength" of being minimally civil to their coworkers. And so on.

By ​Adam Schorr
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​Consider a married couple. He’s spent the last 20 years working on himself. Learning, exploring, discovering. Changing. So has she. Each has been on a journey of enlightenment to become a better person. And they are, in fact, both of them, wonderful people. But they’ve each been on their own journey, and now, while each is one with the universe, they’re not in the same universe. They have nothing left in common. He doesn’t fit in her world. And she doesn’t fit in his.

This scenario came to mind recently during a conversation with a financial services executive I advise. He is interested in becoming a more creative leader. And it occurred to me that there are really two dimensions to this challenge. Or any leadership challenge.

There’s the internal work of improving yourself. But in parallel, there must also be the work of engaging your team. When you work on yourself but not on your team, two unintended consequences can unfold.

by Tsedal Neeley

When you exchange pleasantries with a co-worker in the elevator, the two of you are building trust. When you stop by a colleague’s office and see their family photographs on a desk, you learn about that person’s life outside the office and, as a result, usually feel closer. Face-to-face meetings, office parties, and opportunities to socialize together after working hours can all contribute to the feeling that your fellow employees will be reliable in what they say and do and that they will act for the good of the team and the organization. You believe they are trustworthy because you’ve developed this feeling over time.

So how do you trust a co-worker you barely see in person?