Leadership Development

Bright Idea: Cindy Gillespie of Amy’s Kitchen

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“How did you convince your leaders to invest money in leadership development?”

“I didn’t have to.”   said Cindy Gillespie, VP of HR at Amy’s Kitchen.

This was in response to a question I
received when accepting the LEAD award
for the #1 Corporate University on behalf of Amy’s Leadership Academy.  Andy and Rachel Berliner, the founders and leaders of our family-run company have always
fostered a strong company culture and a community that takes care of each other (one of Amy’s values). Investing in growing our leaders is just one way we take care
of our employees and is critical to the future
of Amy’s.

During Amy’s early days of crazy rapid growth, we saw the need for more leaders, so we hired talent from other big food manufacturers.  Many of these external hires struggled to quickly learn and appreciate the complexities and culture of our company. We also recognized we needed to develop more of our existing employees into strong leaders that would drive continued strong growth, but also protect and role-model our equally important company culture

At that time, I was personally participating in a Community-Leadership training program.  I was inspired and motivated by the high level of engagement, motivation, and on-going connection with fellow participants.  In partnership with Enact Leadership, we incorporated this community approach into Amy’s Leadership Academy (ALA), which is headed into its 7th year this fall.

ALA combines building a leadership foundation with key business capabilities.  Employees from across the organization have the opportunity to apply.  We select a cross section of HiPos and current leaders to participate in the program, to create a leadership cohort with different backgrounds and experiences.   This emphasis on leadership skills anchored in our strong company culture is creating value not only from external recognition, but also in our internal engagement efforts.

Contact us at Enact Leadership if you want support in co-creating customized leadership development solutions of any size (in-person AND online) that incorporate your organization’s values and drive tangible business results.

Leap… Don’t Fall!

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As the leaves turn and the new year looms, are you looking for high-impact development solutions to set the stage for success in 2020? Enact is pleased to offer a special promotion on four of the most in-demand topics our clients request, taught in a half-day interactive workshop formats (or via webinar).
  • Power of Feedback
  • Foundations of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • Create Accountability
  • Increase Self-Awareness
We are offering a significant discount if these are booked/scheduled by December 31, 2019.
Click on this link for additional details.

 

Act quickly to benefit your employees with new skills for the new year!

Tune In: Sindri Anderson to be Featured on CUTV News Radio | May 28th

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Please join us to hear Sindri Anderson, co-founder of Enact Leadership, interviewed on CUTV News Radio as part of its Empowered Women Series program. During the interview, Sindri will discuss why:

  • Leadership is not for the faint of heart, and how, even at the first level of leadership, people can be negatively impacted if a leader is unskilled or not self-aware.
  • No matter what kind of an organization, leaders have to figure out how to lift up and unleash the talent of all of their people
  • If we want parity and true inclusion for the under-represented and marginalized in our leadership ranks, we have to commit to culture, policy, and leadership mindset changes

When? Tuesday, May 28 at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET
Where? Listen in live on Blog Talk Radio here.
Can’t join live? Listen in later here.

Eager to participate in the conversation? If you have any questions for Sindri while on air, please call (347) 996-3389.

We hope you’ll listen in!

Move over yawn-line training — Dynamic Digital Learning is here!

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One of our clients faced a dilemma. Her budget for leadership development wasn’t growing, but the organization was. Existing and new managers were struggling and employee engagement was starting to show the impact. She needed a solution that could quickly make a difference across the organization, but had never met a digital leadership skill-building program that worked.

Our client isn’t alone. While past online training has been anything but engaging and impactful, in- person training requires significant resources and can’t scale quickly. In addition, today’s workforce demands personalized and ongoing development when and how they want it.

Honestly, we cringed a bit at the idea of creating a digital solution for our clients since it is so important to deliver our trademark levels of engagement, relevance and results. We pride ourselves on partnering with our clients and customizing offerings to be sure they achieve results.

So we searched for an advanced technology that was collaborative, engaging, flexible and–most importantly—could deliver the impact of in-person. We worked closely with a lead client to develop the very best content and experience possible through digital. We are delighted to introduce Enact’s Emerging Leader Experience (ELE)!

Key benefits of the program include:

  • Customized for your organization, and personalized for each participant
  • Proven content that equips emerging leaders to elevate from managing to leading
  • An engaging, collaborative learning community
  • A rich, learner-centric design with real-world applications that are challenging and fun

As one leader noted:
“This has truly been a great hands-on leadership program with practical exercises I learned from and apply every day. I built new relationships that have already paid off in improved cross-functional collaboration on business projects.”

ELE can be a key piece of your leadership development strategy. Use it to establish a core set of skills across your emerging leaders and complement it with “Communities of Practice” and/or in-person application workshops where leaders tackle real-world situations and deepen their ability to use the skills/tools from ELE. You can even wrap action learning projects around ELE, creating small teams that apply the ELE skills while working on real business opportunities/issues.

We’re rolling out ELE now and look forward to sharing more. Receive a 10% discount if you book a delivery by the end of 2019! Click HERE to contact us.

In the meantime, you can learn more about our Emerging Leader Experience here.

What’s up with sharing our pronouns?

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How pronouns can pave the way to equity and inclusion

From local coffee shops to global corporations to families, the communication of our pronouns is emerging as another crucial expression of identity. Enact is choosing to communicate our pronouns too, and we wanted to share why.

Alchemy Coffee Collective in Berkeley, CA

Alchemy Coffee Collective in Berkeley, CA

Forcing individuals to conform to pronouns that do not accurately reflect their true identity is another form of marginalization and exclusion. The main principle is that gender is a social construct, separate from biology. As such, each person may define what (if any) gender they identify with. While this can seem complicated, it is both compassionate and good for relationships & results to honor and respect each person’s gender expression in the workplace and beyond.

We want to help lead the change in inclusive behaviors—both as individuals and allies–by supporting the personal choice to use They/Their, She/Her, He/His, or other pronouns/identities. We will be communicating our pronouns and invite others to inform us of theirs.

As leaders in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work, we’ve seen how new behaviors, words, and habits can be uncomfortable at first. It’s like the old story of walking through tall itchy grass in shorts. The more often we travel these new paths, the easier and more comfortable we feel. Furthermore, we pave a path for others to follow with less “itchiness.”

In the spirit of allying and embracing each other’s full humanity, we are ready to lean into discomfort together.

 Ask yourself…when someone requests a different pronoun than you expect, do you: 

A. Try to argue or force the person into conforming to existing norms
B. Encourage dialogue and educate yourself, even if uncomfortable, as you fulfill their request
C. Join in the eye-rolling, “some people are so sensitive”
D. Do nothing

At Enact, we answered B and welcome you to join us.

You can CLICK HERE to learn more about our consulting solutions for creating equitable and inclusive work cultures.

Check out Pamela Hopkins, Enact’s co-Managing Partner in this upcoming panel discussion!

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https://generalassemb.ly/education/women-and-leadership-how-women-navigate-power-structures/san-francisco/46832

Panel will be made up of the following: 

Marta Hanson (moderator) – Assistant Dean & Associate Director, Stanford Women’s Community Center, Stanford University

Kelly Buchanan – VP of People, Revinate

Pamela Hopkins –  Owner and Managing Partner, Enact Leadership

Heather Rivers – CTO, Mode Analytics

 

Women and Power — Panel discussion – BigTalker

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Enact Associate Susannah Baldwin, PhD recently spoke on a provocative and insightful panel titled: “Women and Power”, hosted by BigTalker. The discussion revolved around women’s discomfort with playing the power game as it exists in many organizations, how to “self-promote” with integrity, and embodying your leadership role by claiming your authentic strengths. Pamela Hopkins, Managing Partner at Enact will be speaking in the second of the series on March 16. More details to come.

Check out more information on BigTalker’s blog below:

https://blog.bigtalker.io/women-and-power-panel-discussion-8a69be9a6066

When Sports and Politics Collide in the Workplace

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Historically, it was taboo to discuss  politics in the workplace. Instead, Americans would play it safe and discuss sports. The biggest conflict would be which team was favored over the other. It all changed this weekend when football couldn’t be discussed without talking about political positions.

On Friday, during a campaign rally for U.S. Senator Luther Strange  President Trump suggested that the NFL should fire players who protest by kneeling during the national anthem. 

This caused a tweet storm between players, owners and President Trump and ultimately sparked an increase of protests. The protest spread into the sports of baseball and basketball this weekend for the first time.

Trump suggests that, “this has nothing to do with race…this has to do with respect for our country.” On the other side of the conversation, the athletes feel that they are standing together in non-violent protest about social injustice. Many who knelt say they support the military, consider themselves patriots, and are exercising their right to free speech.

The lack of productive discussion around this topic is building the divide between people and reinforcing us/them thinking. As the conversation spills into our work environments, employers are struggling with how to respond. In general,  we have not taught our employees how to talk about differences in a respectful and productive way. We don’t provide many opportunities to share stories and reach understanding which compounds the divide in the workplace.

Now is the time to have productive discussions around the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion. It starts with genuine curiosity and suspension of your own perspective to explore someone else’s.

A few questions to start the conversation:

  • What is your response to current events surrounding the athletes’ actions?
  • Why do you hold that perspective?
  • What experiences have you had in your life that contribute to how you think about this issue?
  • How do you feel about what is being said and done by all parties?
  • What information would you like to gain to understand the situation better?

Do you need help facilitating this conversation at your workplace? Let Enact Leadership help. Contact us now.