Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
The Quick Take podcast provides concise and actionable tips to help executives and leaders, like you, tackle the thorny and complex challenges that affect us daily. By leveraging their experience and relationship with other global leaders, our hosts provide suggestions that are based on their deep experience as leaders and coaches but also pressure tested in boardrooms everywhere because they asked their friends….(almost). Hosted by James Capps and Susie Tomenchok. Episodes release weekly on Thursdays.
Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
Invisible to Indispensable: Workplace Recognition
Feeling invisible at work and unsure how to get the recognition you deserve? In this episode, we explore the journey from being overlooked to becoming indispensable. We share our tips on how to stand out, gain influence, and advocate for yourself in the workplace. Learn how to secure a seat at the table, leverage your network, and turn setbacks into opportunities for growth. Tune in for a 15-minute power session that will help you transform your visibility and impact at work!
In this episode, we discuss the following:
1. Standing out and being seen in meetings.
2. Building a supportive network of advocates.
3. Turning setbacks into growth opportunities.
CONNECT WITH SUSIE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok/
CONNECT WITH JAMES:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/capps/
Welcome to the Quick Take podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Susie Tominchuk.
Speaker 2:And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today.
Speaker 1:Hey Quicksters, welcome to Quick Take. I'm Susie, along with James. How are you, James?
Speaker 2:I'm great, I'm great we are doing a special session today. I am at Google here in Mountain View for a conference, doing some interesting conversations around some of the technology they're bringing to the table, and I thought it would be very applicable for us to have a conversation from here today.
Speaker 1:Nice, Nice. You're too cool for me today. I'm just saying Well it is pretty palatial.
Speaker 2:here I'm trying to figure out how to steal a bike, but they frown on that.
Speaker 1:Be the first one I give you permission.
Speaker 2:I'm 90% sure I would not be the first person to steal a Google bike, but that's neither here nor there. Okay.
Speaker 1:All right, so, as I always have content that we can chat about, I had a I actually had a friend of mine who's a coach that is an executive coach and she called me yesterday because she said I need some advice from you for one of my clients, which was super interesting to me, to me. So the scenario was her client this guy is a VP level, just for context, and he was is having an issue with his boss and one of the things that it's all around recognition, he feels like he's kind of invisible, and a great example of this was he wanted to do this pitch to a new client, which is totally in scope with his role and responsibility, and so he went to his boss and said you know, I'd like to be the one that is the front for the pitch this time.
Speaker 1:And the boss said actually, Ron's better at it than you, so we're going to let Ron do it Ouch.
Speaker 2:Ouch yeah. Yeah, that's a tough one to come back from, for sure.
Speaker 1:And so what he does is his thing is. He just says, okay, because he, the coach, told me he's very conflict avoidant, he doesn't want to bring it up, but he feels like invisible. He doesn't know what to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's pretty common. I think people's reaction to those things is to get small and to hide, so I can see that being a problem Boy. That's really tough but not terribly uncommon.
Speaker 2:I think there's varying degrees of it where you can either be very hidden, like this particular case, or it could be either a subconscious or a subtle subtlety that your boss is. You can find that when you do the math, hey, you know what your boss is. You can find that when you do the math, hey, you know what Rob does get all the opportunities to present, and so, yeah, you can come to a realization that you don't have the visibility you'd like, and there's some, I think, some good tricks that you can bring to the table to address that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm really curious to see what your tips are, because you know, one thing that I talk a lot about is your internal influence. I know I'm not going to take stuff away from you, but your internal influence and and what that quotient is and do you have influence to make things happen? And when you do, how do you advocate for yourself?
Speaker 2:how do you?
Speaker 1:make. How do you advocate for your development? And what do you do when you hit a brick wall? So yeah, I'm your student here. I can, can't wait to hear what you say. So what are your tips?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, the first one comes to mind here being in the Valley this week, you know in, you know Charles Sandberg's book talking about leaning. In her obvious book by that title, she was very particular about the concept of sitting at the table and I think so often lot of the um, the issues with you not being particularly perceived correctly or you're not being perceived as part of the conversation, is your confidence and I think that to address that as a human, it's not something you could just to say today I'm going to be better at this it's about building that, that framework for yourself and building the reputation for yourself within your workplace, your personal life, wherever that is, and I really love. The first step is changing your physical approach towards things. She talked about sitting at the table, finding a place to sit.
Speaker 2:that was strategic and important and putting yourself there. Now you can do that with elbows and punching and pushing people out of the way. That's not how the real world works. But you can get to the room early. You can choose the seat that is next to the executive in charge, actively putting yourself in a place, so you, consciously and subconsciously, are presenting a good forward. What am I trying to say there? You're being seen as somebody that's important and then you don't feel like you have to work as hard to be part of the discussion. It's very difficult when you're in the back row. You're up against the wall trying to show that you're a player, and if your reputation or your confidence isn't there, then don't try to hurdle that additional challenge. Put yourself in a place, sit at the table, do something physical that allows you to be more engaged.
Speaker 1:I like that a lot. What comes to mind for me is not just show up, be seen, and how do? You do that, and I think another just point on what you said is we get so used to our habits and we all tend to sit in the same place at staff meetings.
Speaker 2:We tend to sit in the same place in meetings and even disrupting that, because everybody has their habits it will create this forced way of looking at you differently and they won't notice it.
Speaker 1:They, they might, they might go. You're sitting in a different place and you could say absolutely I'm. You know, I'm a new person today. I'm different than I was yesterday, so this is a new day. So I like that idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's important and I think it is both, you know. I think it's achievable too for those of our listeners who are kind of struggling with that and don't really have the confidence or the skills and we're not talking about, you know, the confidence required to jump out of an airplane, and this is a challenge for junior executives and board members that sometimes they're not feeling like they're getting the respect they deserve. Step one change your physical environment, sit at the table, take that step.
Speaker 1:It makes a big difference and I will say cause I remember having to do this.
Speaker 2:I remember sitting on the outside perimeter and my executive coach yeah, I can?
Speaker 1:I can picture it, and the first time I did it it felt uncomfortable. But the second time, and the third time it was just like and everybody just, and everybody might go. Oh, that's funny, she's sitting there, she must be taking a stance. But the next time they didn't think that.
Speaker 2:That's right, and I think that's a great segue into the second piece of advice that I'm give is to create a network that supports you in that effort, because what will end up happening invariably is you will end up sitting in the back of the room. You will end up sitting in the back of the room, you will not be sitting in the meeting and those people who are your advocates will move and say hey, susie, you should be sitting at the table, or why aren't you sitting up here? You need to be here, and having that kind of champion, having that somebody that speaks for you and honestly holds you accountable to what you're trying to accomplish, goes a long way.
Speaker 1:Yes, I totally agree with you in having somebody to give you that push, that push and and helping you see yourself outside of yourself so that you can, they can give you that perspective and it's funny, but somebody tells you it almost. When somebody does that for me, it gives me permission to do it. So, whatever you need to trick yourself into, it is what you need to use. That's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think when you look at or you hear executives speak or politicians speak and they have honest moments and they're not trying to point out that they are a self-made, individually curated magical man or woman they will point out the fact that they are there based on the support and growth of others who have promoted them and pushed them to be better and have advocated for them when they're not in the room, and that's how it happens, and so to put yourself in a situation where you have people that are supporting you, it's very, very big.
Speaker 1:It is very important. All right, what's your third one?
Speaker 2:The third one is to actually change the narrative. So often you know people who have setbacks, look at those as roadblocks. You know, one of our favorite leaders yours and mine has often been quoted saying never let a good crisis go to waste. And I think when you have a setback, you need to reframe that as an opportunity. So in your example, where that individual leader was perhaps not allowed to speak, maybe you can't fight that battle at that moment, but you can say hey, you know what? I know that the last one presentation didn't go so well, but I just thought I'd let you know that I actually went off and took some some speech, some some coaching, I did a speech class and I actually did join Toastmasters, so that that that crisis, that that stumble, use that as an opportunity to show that you are willing to go that extra mile. And I think that so often we look at those things as don't. Look at those things as ways to highlight your willingness to grow and improve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and make sure you reframe that always in a way that's a positive development for you. And don't fall on the sword and say I know. I don't do this very well Really talk about the forward movement, and one of the things that I told this woman to tell her client too, is have her go back to the boss and say and reframe it for them, especially with the next opportunity and say you know I know you had said that.
Speaker 1:I don't remember. Oh, Ron, Ron was better at presenting, but I've been really working on this and I know that you said that this was something I need to work on, so I would. I want this opportunity because, you have told me you wanted to see me develop, so reframe it in their words.
Speaker 2:And it can't be any better than that. Right You're actually. You're addressing the situation, you're highlighting the fact that you're listening. I think there's just such great opportunities to do that, and oftentimes people just miss them. So I think it's super critical and I think that people need to remember that. That's a good way for you to again show up and be seen.
Speaker 1:And I think it's. And here's the bonus one I think that's always something before you're going to any senior leader is how I'm going to frame this up to them, how am I going to frame this? In a way that they're going to be able to say yes, Because if you frame it from your view and you've done this to me I've asked you to read an email for me and you said, okay, when you write it, don't write it from your perspective.
Speaker 2:Write it as this persona.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I think that's really important to think about what's important to them, because if this person would have framed it differently in the very onset, I think that the response wouldn't have been as easy for that boss to say no.
Speaker 2:I totally agree. I totally agree and I think when leaders come to the table with those challenges, it's like how do I get to the place where you know I want people to be seen as somebody who is growing and changing and growing and changing makes me laugh. All of our parent listeners know exactly where that came from. Changing and growing how about that? Or evolving we're already down the rabbit hole there, but I think you want to highlight your willingness to adjust, and I think that that's super critical.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, big man on campus, bring us back around. What are those three tips?
Speaker 2:First number one change the way that you show up physically, find a seat at the table, put yourself in a position that is actually to be seen, and whether that's even on remote, I was going to say turn your camera on.
Speaker 1:Turn your camera on.
Speaker 2:I can't say that enough and I think have a background that is professional and looks like you are a professional. Just because you don't have to wear a sport coat to work doesn't mean you should look like you're wearing pajamas. See the previous three episodes of this podcast regarding professionalism. That's number one. Number two obviously you need um, uh, what was number two? And now I can't remember what number two was.
Speaker 1:It was the seat at the table, and then it was um. I have a sponsor.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right, Sponsors. You need to see. You were my way to help me there. See, I needed support from somebody and there was Susie to help me.
Speaker 1:I had your back. Let the record show I had James Capp's back. Always have my back Number one seat at the table.
Speaker 2:Show up Number two create a group of people who will support you and save you a seat at the table. And three, obviously you want to be able to take advantage. Realize that those setbacks may be something you could take advantage of and grow from those.
Speaker 1:And reframe it for your audience around you, reframe it for your audience, I think is huge.
Speaker 2:That's a great one.
Speaker 1:Love it as always. Thanks, james. What is the best thing about getting older?
Speaker 2:Having no more fucks to give Having more what no more fucks to give.
Speaker 2:Um, I think the truth is that, um, maybe age is not the relevant factor. It's just having the more experience you get, the more confidence you have in being able to address the unknown. Yeah, and so I I feel fortunate that I've worked in multiple industries and I've had different careers and worked for different people, and it gives me the confidence to be able to explore different challenges and not feel constrained by my maybe, you know extended tenure in one situation, and so it's less about age and it's just more about you know, I've seen, I've seen a lot of stuff and um, and that makes it, that makes challenges less daunting.
Speaker 1:Okay, fair. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of quick take, where we talk about the questions that are on the mind of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind.
Speaker 2:You can find us on LinkedIn, youtube or whatever nerdy place on the internet. You find your podcasts. Our links to the show are in the show notes. We appreciate you.
