Not to toot my own horn, but I tend to be quite good at accepting feedback and and incorporating it into my work. I value it as an essential tool of collaborative work and as a means of ensuring that multiple voices and perspectives are heard and incorporated.
Perhaps you share this experience: a colleague delivered painful, unsolicited criticism so late in the game that you end up facing a sleepless night on the eve of a big event or before a deadline. Oh, the wound is still fresh!
In any case, we can always try to be proactive about getting responses and reactions to our work. I quite like the AWARE model:
Ask for feedback,
Watch your emotions,
Ask questions to clarify,
Reach out for perspectives, and
Engage your potential.
I particularly liked the description of why these discussions can be difficult–as it lives in that tense spot between the need to learn and grow, and the need to be accepted just the way we are. Yet, becoming comfortable with these conversation hones our growth mindset and helps us see it as a gift.
Your feedback:
Consider watching the video with your team. Lead them in a discussion about giving and getting feedback.
Can you shift your mindset to one of growth and see feedback as a gift? Your challenge for the week? Ask for feedback from one of your colleagues by using the AWARE model.
Have you ever been in a training where you feel a little bit like Charlie Brown when he is in his classroom? Where your attention everywhere BUT on the topic at hand?
Maybe what the presenter said was disconnected with your own reality (a la The Office)?
Or, maybe, just maybe, you jumped into a lecture that was above your head, your pay grade, or understanding? (this video has always been a favorite–glad I have the chance to throw it in here!)
You have been in those situations. We all have been. As a trainer, I like to cue up a lesson to make sure that the stage is set, learners are ready, and that they know what the point of the instruction is. In order to cue up a lesson, I remind myself of the first three, of nine, events of instruction.
Robert Gagne famously (ok, “famously” in certain circles) outlined nine events that codify learning and instruction. The events simplified and explained what was thought to be “good instruction”.
Let’s look at the first three:
Gain attention to ground the lesson and to motivate learners
Describe the learning goal and what will be accomplished by the lesson and how it relates to work/tasks/desired outcomes
Stimulate recall of prior knowledge
It should only take a few minutes to move through all three of the primers. For example, by asking about a problem and how the participants view that problem, you can easily accomplish number one and three. By drawing on the past experiences of participants you can touch on point number three.
I recently wrote training materials for health care workers who were being asked to switch up the treatments that their patients were taking. The activity below was meant to build empathy for the patients, describe a bit of what we’d be learning, and help the participants to consider how medications were currently being prescribed and the challenges patients face…
Activity
· This activity is intended to inspire an empathetic response among participants to the adherence challenges that their patients face.
Say:
· As we mentioned in the beginning, we are going to give you opportunities to try to put yourselves in the shoes of your patients.
· Let us do a short demonstration now to start our discussion on adherence. This demonstration will help us to start thinking about some of the reasons for poor adherence.
Do:
· Ask for three participants to volunteer for this demonstration.
· Each of the three demonstrations will be slightly different. Please read the instructions before facilitating the activity.
Bowl of Candy
· Demonstration One:
· Hand the first participant volunteer two bowls. One bowl should be empty. The second bowl should have 50 or so small candies in it.
· Tell the participant that he or she has exactly 30 seconds to transfer exactly 30 candies, one-by-one, from the full bowl to the empty bowl. The participant should aim to put the 30th candy in the bowl at the 30-second mark.
· Do not count down the time or indicate in any way that time is passing.
· At the end of the 30 seconds, stop the participant and ask the participant to count how many candies they transferred to the empty bowl.
· Ask the participant:
· How might this demonstration be like taking ARVs?
Answer:
· Patients take ARVs at specific intervals
· A specific number
· Regulated, etc.
· How did it feel to not understand why you were doing this task? Did you think that this activity might be pointless?
· How might patients feel about taking ARVs when they feel perfectly healthy?
· Demonstration Two:
· Hand the second participant volunteer the same two bowls. One bowl should be empty. This time, the second bowl should only have 20 or so candies in it.
· Tell the participant that he or she has exactly 30 seconds to transfer exactly 30 candies, one-by-one, from the full bowl to the empty bowl.
· Do not count down the time or indicate in any way that time is passing.
· At the end of the 30 seconds, ask the participant to count how many candies they transferred to the empty bowl.
· Ask the participant:
· How did it feel to be unsuccessful with such a simple task?
· How did it feel when you knew you did not have the 30 candies that I asked you to move?
· How might this demonstration relate to patient challenges with ARVs?
· Demonstration Three:
· Hand the third participant volunteer one empty bowl. This time, you, the facilitator, should hold the second bowl with 50 or so candies in it.
· Tell the participant that he or she has exactly 30 seconds to transfer exactly 30 candies from the full bowl to the empty bowl.
· This time, though, the participant must ask you for three candies at a time. You must hand the participant three candies and he or she will deposit them one-by-one into the empty bowl. Feel free to delay the hand off, give two instead of three, and otherwise make the activity more challenging.
· Do not count down the time or indicate in any way that time is passing.
· At the end of the 30 seconds, ask the participant to count how many candies they transferred to the empty bowl.
· Ask the participant:
· How might this demonstration be like taking ARVs?
· How did it feel to know that you had to ask for candies often enough that it kept you from reaching your objective?
· How might this demonstration relate to how clinics and patients interact?
Answer:
· Clinics do not always work according to the schedule or needs of the patient.
Ask:
· Why do you think we did this activity?
· Do you think that we, as providers, are aware of all of the challenges that patients have with adherence?
· What challenges came up in this activity?
Answer:
· Keeping to a schedule
· Stock-outs
· Conflicts between clinic and patient need, etc.
Say:
· In many cases, patients may not understand why they are taking their medications, just as in the first demonstration. Plus, the idea of taking drugs while still well is a new idea that many people do not understand.
· We also know that health systems are not always in sync with what a patient may need in terms of clinic hours or amounts of medication that they can be prescribed at a time, and so on.
As you can see, this brief activity, designed to take no more than five minutes or so, accomplishes the first three principles of good instruction. It grounds the participants. They are ready to learn, captivated by the exercise and they are linking what they are seeing to past experiences with patient adherence and, finally, they get a sense of what the lesson will be about.
I often write curricula that other people will deliver. Sometimes, I get push back around activities and cue-up questions as trainers sometimes want to rush to “get to the point”. I write these segues and lead-ins as deliberate elements of the training and a part of how I design the instruction. When learners can’t connect to new or unfamiliar content, the new concepts will become “slippery” and not stick. The next thing you know, you are Charlie Browns teacher.
What are some of your favorite cue-up activities or questions? How do you make sure you are incorporating these nine events of instruction?
PS: You can find the entire OPTIMIZE curriculum on the ICAP website and my review of the work here.
This week, I have been thinking a lot about the role of a manger and how complex it can be between driving a project or program forward, supporting our teams, helping our teams grow and develop, and strategizing about the future. Leadership.
At times, our own growth and development can get lost in the mix. For me, I have had a wonderfully fulfilling time focusing on my career. My development has certainly not made it to the top of my to-do list. So, today, in some ways, I am letting us all off the hook. There are many moments where we can seize the moment to be a good leader without planning or forethought. There are leadership moments at every turn.
His call to action for us today is…”that we need to get over our fear of how extraordinarily powerful we can be in each other’s lives. We need to get over it so we can move beyond it, and our little brothers and sisters and one day our kids — or our kids right now — can watch and start to value the impact we can have on each other’s lives, more than money and power and titles and influence. We need to redefine leadership as being about lollipop moments –how many of them we create, how many we acknowledge, how many of them we pay forward and how many we say thank you for. Because we’ve made leadership about changing the world, and there is no world. There’s only six billion understandings of it.“
Let’s start our day by thinking about someone who has made an impact in our lives—who should you acknowledge and thank today? How are you going to pay forward the impact that person had on you? How can you make your team feel like they have an “everyday leadership” role on your team and in our work?
Enjoy the everyday leadership in your day!
Want to watch this with your team? Awesome!
Discussion questions:
Here are some discussion questions that might help to spark a conversation!
What is a lollipop moment?
What does Drew Dudley mean when he says, “As long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as we keep leadership something beyond us, as long as we make it about changing the world, we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it every day from ourselves and from each other”?
How can lollipop moments can change our understanding of leadership?
Who has shaped you are in a positive way? What specific things has that person done to help you?
What are some big moments or milestones in your career? Who were important in making those moments happen?
Who helped you reach those accomplishments?
Who is someone you never thanked for something they did for you?
How can we have more lollipop moments as a team?
Looking for more?
Here are some discussion questions for you and your team on what it takes to be a good leader.
In his very humorous talk, Shawn Archor talks about how our world view affects our happiness. Seems obvious.
He also says, though, “75 percent of job successes are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.”
So what do you, as a manager, do to build that optimism and resilience among your team? I’ve written about the need for feedback, both constructive and positive, in the past. How can we link that to building that ability to see stress as a challenge and not a threat?
I’ve incorporated several of Shawn’s lessons in my life, including keeping a running gratitude list.
Even on the most craptastic days, there is always something out there that can add beauty to our lives. And if I am really struggling to find something, I create something to be grateful for. On those days, I reconnect with friends, set a (virtual!) coffee date, or even plan a trip (one of my favorite activities!). I usually write my list before I even get out of bed in the morning as a way of framing the day in the most positive sense possible.
What are our post-pandemic happy secrets to better work?
As I consider this Ted Talk, I think about how times have changed since Shawn delivered this talk. When Shawn delivered this talk, we were not coming out of a several-years-long global pandemic. One of the lessons that I learned through managing a remote team during COVID was that we built and constantly reinforced the expectation that we will change, evolve, and pivot as needed to address COVID. In some ways, knowing that more change will come, even if we don’t know what it will be, disallows the team to settle into complacency or routine. The routine IS change. That clear-as-can-be communication has been crucial. As I consider my work going forward, I will take that lesson with me: to build a resilient team that is adaptable to change.
Tell me about your happy secrets!
What is your happy secret to better work?
How have you built up your own optimism and resilience?
What tricks do you have up your sleeve for keeping the optimism on your team?
How have those skills served you now, given that we are living through this pandemic?
I often teach leadership and management courses and, inevitably, there are folks in my courses who believe that leadership skills are innate. Either you’ve got what it takes or you don’t to be a leader.
Good leaders are made!
I could not disagree more.
If you break down what it takes to be a good leader and/or manager, it comes down to a collection of tasks and skills that can be cultivated and improved upon over time. Yes, there will be some that will come more easily than others. I also firmly believe that, as leaders, we can build teams to compensate for our areas in need of growth. No one person is going to excel at everything, but by being mindful about creating teams with diversity of skill, thought process, and experience, we can build a team of leaders.
A colleague recently shared this article with me… The Three Leadership Types in a Nimble Organization. What stands out to me in this article is the notion that leadership and the opportunity for leadership can and must come from all levels within an organization.
I couldn’t agree more.
My take away, though, is to take these three archetypes into consideration as I build future teams for every global health team must be nimble and prepared for just about any twist or turn that our changing world throws at them.
Would you like to bring leadership and management training to your team or organization? If so, please reach out and let’s make it happen! You can read about what I did for the CDC here!
If you are like me, you likely have a lot to accomplish every day and it can often feel like there is not enough time in the day to do it all.
I often use time-blocking as a time-economizing, concentration-boosting trick. It is a simple technique that helps me stay focused on the task at hand and, as such, check more off of my to-do list.
Time blocking
My approach:
First things first, the to-do list is a critical element to the success of this technique. I am a big fan of and heavy user of the app-based to-do list called ToDoist. It allows for items to turn up on your list every day, every month on the 13th or every month on the third Thursday of the month, every-other-day and probably a ton of other customizable options. For me, this was a game changer. I have reminders programmed for weekly tasks like writing this blog, annual tasks like renewing business licenses, and daily activities like exercising.
The key to time blocking is to have a robust to-do list where you can see like tasks. For example, you would have a block where you’d respond to emails. Another block could be used for any phone calls you need to make or appointments you need to schedule. For me, a big block of time each day always goes to writing.
Next, consider the best time to do each of the types of work. For me, starting the day out with exercise energizes me and sets the stage for a productive day. I also find that my creative energies are flowing best in the morning and afternoons are a good time for tasks that require less brainpower.
By combining like tasks, you use less mental energy shifting how you think and what you are seeking to execute. For me, it it ensures I am working according to my priorities and the priorities of my clients.
If you’re like me, it is tremendously challenging to carve out time for so-called “deep work” while at work. Deep work almost seems mythical and elusive to me, at times. In one particularly intense role, I would “save” my challenging work and work that requires deep thinking or problem solving for the weekends when I could have some quiet time. Not ideal at all.
At other times, I do my very best to set myself up for deep work by closing my email and turning off notifications (all those chat notifications!!) on my computer and phone. In particularly busy periods where I’ve had several contracts I was working on simultaneously, I used online tools to block certain websites, mostly websites where I can waste a lot of time, in order to limit my temptation for distraction. When I can get into that mode, it seems nearly magical. The ability to think. Just think. Seems like a rarely offered gift
In my work as a curriculum designer, I like to think through an exercise and imagine how it would play out in a training setting. I think about how people will move around a room or virtual space. What materials I might want and if the use of those materials would be feasible and not too cumbersome for the facilitator? I do all of that thinking before I even put my fingers on a keyboard to write out instructions that match my vision.
The evidence is abundantly clear that we are more effective, more productive, and less stressed out if we have the ability to single-task (as opposed to multitask). How can we make it happen?
Deep work tips:
Mark Twain once wrote that “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” For me, if I am going to tackle something that requires deep thinking, my motivation, energy, and ability to pay attention are all at their height at the start of my work day. If at all possible, I try to schedule my intense work for the morning hours.
Luckily, I have control over my schedule, when I take meetings, and the structure of my day.. When I have found myself at the will of others or in particularly meeting-heavy roles, I have found that communicating about what I need to accomplish and how I will best accomplish is usually well accepted and understood. My coworkers are usually amenable to rescheduling or shuffling the day around.
I know I can forget that I also can say “no” to meetings. It seems nearly radical. Perhaps even more radical in a remote environment. Instinctually, we want to “prove” that we are at work and doing what we should be doing. Yet, we have to be careful to not mistake busyness to being productive.
As a manager, I have also tried to give the gift of deep work to my team. In my last role, I blocked off Friday afternoons as quiet time. It was meant to be meeting-free time where we did not expect immediate responses to queries or requests. Plus, we were all working way more than we should have been. This gave my team permission to leave before the official end of the work day if they were able to.
Tell me about you!
What are your tips for deep work? How do you make it happen in your busy life? Do you work virtually? How do you manage to keep focused when household distractions abound? No judgement, I frequently do dishes and fold laundry while in meetings! Would love to hear from you!
In his talk, he suggests that when the right environment is created, we are all capable of doing remarkable things and acting in great service to others. He attributes trust and cooperation to building that great environment.
I have found that, perhaps oddly, when I’ve worked in really fast paced environments (ie: disasters, pandemics, epidemics), the tolerance for mistakes is higher. We know that we are making decisions quickly and not everything will go right. But, in some ways, that increases the trust and feeling of safety. It allows for honest conversation. It encourages people to ask for help.
How do you create safety in your workplace?
But, how do you do you build a sense of safety? Simon proposes some suggestions, have a listen!
Discussion:
What are your thoughts?
Who do you look up to as good leaders?
How do you make your team feel safe?
Or, in your own heart, what could you be doing to increase that level of safety and security?
Interested in bringing management training to your team? Reach out! See what I can do for you here!
Poverty. Death. Illness. Repression. Injustice. These are the issues of global health. It is what we confront, among a laundry list of others, as a part of our daily work and as a part of our mission.
Behind all of that is such beauty and joy and resilience…it is breathtaking at times! I remember being at a hospital in Sierra Leone during the Ebola epidemic. A child who was orphaned due to Ebola had been admitted. She had been found after being alone for god knows how long. She had illness on top of illness; she was skin and bones.
Everything about what happened next, though, was a story of community and care. I saw a nurse at the hospital draw his own blood to donate to her. Two women unofficially adopted her and ensured that she was fed, diapered, clothed. She steadily made progress that some would call miraculous. And right before I left, the sign of her true recovery was that she led the ward, providers, visitors, and patients alike, in a jubilant dance party!
The love behind each and every action in this story is motivating. From the community health worker who found her and overcame his fear to bring her to the hospital. To the hospital workers who stayed in their roles when so many others fled out of fear. From the nurse who donated his blood. To the women who gave of their time and resources.
The great Ann Firth Murray at Stamford University is renowned for her work in global health, in particular, she was the founder of the Global Fund for Women. In her long career, she has borne witness to tremendous suffering and injustice. She developed a course called Love as a Force for Social Justice to investigate using love as a violence elimination tool. Elimination of violence against women drives her body of work.. I highly recommend it as a morale boost and an anti-burn-out tool. You can read an interview with her about the course here.
In the course, she explores several nonviolent movements, from Gandhi’s Salt March to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, in order to demonstrate how love and commitment can be transformational. She also taps into neuroscience, biology, and psychology to make her points (the science-minded side of me liked that!).
In our work, we often talk about human rights, empathy, accompaniment, commitment, humility….but we rarely talk about love as a force for change. I wonder why. Is it weak? Out of place? Unprofessional?
Martin Luther King, Jr, once not-so-famously said that “justice is love in calculation. Justice is love working against anything that stands against love. Standing beside love is always justice.” Cornel West said, more famously, “justice is what love looks like in public”.So, with love being so foundational to so many social movements and so intrinsically tied with justice, maybe it is time for a small change that would allow a tsunami of changes to come.
Adam Grant wrote Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers.
I’ve often witnessed an amazing power in collaboration around brainstorming and great ideas. It is amazing when it happens and has led to some of the best work in which I’ve participated. At times, though, managers will need to nudge their teams along when it comes to brainstorming. We’ve all avoided sharing the dumb idea or suggesting something tried before.
This talk by Adam Grant about the Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers and the accompanying discussion guide may help you to appreciate how your team may process their ideas, come up with creative ideas, and communicate about those ideas.
In global health, we strive to be innovative and come up with creative approaches to solving complex health issues. It is a task with significant weight–truly lives are on the line.
Might you be up for leading your team in a discussion about creativity and original thinking? Hopefully we can help to support the creativity of our teams and help to grow comfort in thinking about the same old problems in new sorts of ways.
PS: The Lean In website has lots of great resources that you can use. I am a fan of the discussion guides that can be used to guide our teams through difficult conversations or to help set team norms.
PPS: I used some of Grant’s ideas as inspiration for the training I did for CDC Haiti. I can do the same for you!
Here’s more info about Grant
Furthermore, Adam Grant has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for 7 straight years. In addition, as an organizational psychologist, he is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, rethink assumptions, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers and Fortune’s 40 under 40.
The great Ann Firth Murray at Stamford University is renowned for her work in global health, in particular, she was the founder of the Global Fund for Women. In her long career, she has borne witness to tremendous suffering and injustice. She developed a course called 
This talk by Adam Grant about the