Growing from HR Business Partner to Head of HR
Melissa was a senior HR Business Partner at a luxury retail company. She was ready to step up into a Head of HR role, but she had a few problems.
Her team didn’t like working with her. They thought she was too aggressive and direct. Her business stakeholders didn’t view her as a leader that was ready to step up into a more senior role.
She was really good at execution, but that didn’t leave her much time to be more strategic or focus on building relationships.
That’s when Melissa called me.
She wanted help in preparing to step into a bigger role and addressing some of the behavioural issues that were blocking her success. But she didn’t know how to journey from Point A to Point B.
Trying to change your behaviour at work is particularly challenging. You are not just changing for yourself. You are trying to address feedback and change the perceptions of those around you – your peers, clients and stakeholder group. These are the people who often determine your bonus, your promotions or exciting stretch assignments. In many ways, it’s not about you. It’s about what others think of you. As part of our coaching, I brought in some of the ideas championed by Marshall Goldsmith, the preeminent academic and leadership coach. Ideas from two of his books (What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful and Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts, Becoming the Person You Want to Be) were very useful in supporting Melissa.
Many of Goldsmith’s coaching techniques seem simple but they are not easy. If they were easy, everyone would be achieving all of their goals all of the time and no one would need an Executive Coach. As Goldsmith says, “If you want to really know how your behavior is coming across with your colleagues and clients, stop looking in the mirror and admiring yourself. Let your colleagues hold the mirror and tell you what they see.”
Afraid to look in the mirror? There is a gap between who you believe you are and who others believe us to be. The Johari Window is a useful tool for determining how others see you. The 4x4 matrix is fairly self-explanatory: “blind” is the important quadrant. This is where things are unknown to you but seen and acknowledged by others. As Goldsmith says, you can deny your problems to yourself, but they may be very obvious to the people who are observing you.
When we started our coaching engagement, Melissa was sitting squarely in the “blind” quadrant. She could not see herself in the way that her team and her peers saw her. Therefore, we had a lot of work to do. Below, I share 4 techniques that Melissa and I used to help her shift from being “blind” to “open.”
Ask for feedback
We asked for feedback. We started small so that Melissa could get comfortable with hearing some of the feedback and building on it. She asked her colleague Helen to observe her and give her feedback on her communication style for two weeks.
Be specific when you ask for feedback from others. Don’t just say “Oh, do you have any feedback for me?” Let your peer group know exactly what behavior you are trying to change in advance and ask them to look out for it during a particular meeting or presentation. For example, you could say, “I am trying to improve my listening skills, especially when interacting with other departments. Can you give me feedback on how I’m doing during our next few weekly team meetings?” When feedback is too general, it is not helpful. Help others help you.
Observe the way others react to you
Our words are not the only way we speak. After a few false starts, Melissa implemented the “speak last at meetings” rule, giving others a chance to have their say and holding onto her thoughts until she knew what others thought.
Goldsmith recommends “turning off the sound” next time you are in a meeting or interacting with colleagues. Tune out the sound of the words and pay attention to body language, hand gestures and facial expressions. Do your colleagues sit next to you or find a seat at the other end of the table? Do they roll their eyes when you are talking or scroll through their phone? By trying this technique, you will notice more than you normally would in a typical conversation or meeting.
Find an accountability partner
Find someone who will hold you accountable on your journey. After receiving feedback from her peer Helen for a few weeks, Melissa spoke to her 4 direct reports and brought them into her accountability circle. Through this, she realized that it was easier to try taking different approaches to her communication style when working with her junior team rather than her senior stakeholders.
An accountability partner can be a mentor, a peer or a friend. Typically, your boss or your spouse are not good options since they will have an ulterior motive and your existing relationship may adversely influence any successful outcome. Be specific about what you need from that person and how they can support you. Then, hold up your end of the bargain!
Keep a log
All of this newfound knowledge is only useful if you find some way to reflect on it and later action it. Melissa found it difficult to keep a daily spreadsheet, but she made a mental log of three things each day that made her angry or frustrated at work. From this exercise, she recognized some patterns and deployed techniques to remain calmer and listen more.
Your log can be in whatever medium works for you: a journal, post-it notes, Kanban board, Trello, etc. Seeing things in black and white makes the feedback more concrete. The simple act of writing things down and keeping a record helps you to recognize themes. Generally, these themes will coincide with the area you are already trying to improve and give you some ideas for how to move forward.
Sounds simple, right? And it is. But it isn’t easy.
So, what happened to Melissa?
At the conclusion of the coaching, Melissa felt that she had made a lot of progress on her communication style. She was more mindful of her tone, asked more questions, and listened more. She realized that the great leaders around her don’t necessarily provide solutions – they asked questions and listened.
Using these newfound skills, she had an in-depth 1:1 career conversation with her manager. Her manager recognized her progress, but ultimately, Melissa decided to leave the company to pursue a Head of HR role in a different industry. Through our coaching together, she realized she needed a change of environment. And with the skills she gained through coaching, she was able to successfully secure a Head of HR role and thrive in her new position.
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