Give Thanks

We have all heard how essential it is to give thanks and be grateful for things we have in our lives, but sometimes gratitude can be challenging. In a little over a week, it will be the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, so BCG is taking this opportunity to share some of the primary ways that we try to give thanks in our daily lives.

Be Present

Don’t let the moment escape you! Stopping when you feel that warmth of gratitude fills your body and acknowledging the goodness surrounding you is essential to finding what truly matters to you. Taking this opportunity to give thanks can turn your whole day around.

Send a Thank You Notes

Sending a note to say thank you can help you and your recipient a moment to reflect with gratitude. Of course, texts and emails count too, but a handwritten letter is a fun way to show others that you appreciate them.

Practice Patience

It is a work in progress, but being intentional in responding to others and exercising patience, can go a long way in gratitude practice. In addition, if we can realize that everyone is doing the best they can in their current situation, then extending some extra grace comes naturally.

Show Verbal Appreciation

When someone takes the time out of their day and helps another person, it is an act of giving. Even if the action is a part of their job, it is still a choice, and they choose to provide a service. So give thanks to those who help others, a simple “Thanks!” after the checkout line at a grocery can make all the difference.

Having thankful intentions does not have to be fancy or complicated. It does not have to take more than a couple of moments in your day. Once you form a habit, it can be something you do without trying, and that is when genuine gratitude surfaces because we develop a new perspective.

We compiled this list at BCG to start a conversation about how we all give thanks daily and begin a larger conversation about gratitude in our work lives. We hope that our customers and readers know how very much we appreciate them! Thank you for looking to BCG for your needs—we feel very grateful to work with amazing people and agencies. Keep your practice strong and your gratitude stronger; ’tis the season after all!

What is a Coach (and Why Would I Want One?)

 While many people have heard of coaching, few have a clear understanding of exactly what a coach is and does. This prevents people from getting appropriate support for life changes. As a coach the most common thing I hear from people is, “I’m not really sure what a coach does or how they could help me.” 

What is coaching?

Coaching is not the same as consulting nor the same as therapy, but it takes elements from each discipline to create its own unique method. A coach works with individuals who are focused on making changes in their lives. While a therapist may seek to diagnose and treat a client, coaches work under the assumption that their clients are whole, healthy individuals. Coaches ask thought-provoking questions that challenge clients. They create collaborative and individualized strategies, set goals, and keep the client focused on the future.

What happens when someone hires a coach?

While each coach has a unique style and approach, most expect clients to commit to working with them for a set period. This can vary from anywhere between 4-18 months – depending on the changes that the client intends to make. Some coaches meet with clients in person, but many hold coaching sessions over Zoom or the phone. During those sessions the coach will ask probing questions, serve as a sounding board, offer an outside perspective, help maintain motivation, provide strategies, set goals, and ensure accountability. 

What can a coach help with?

Coaches help individuals move forward. They guide business owners as they strategize for growth. They partner with professionals seeking to develop their career path, manage a workplace environment, launch a new business, or find work-life balance. They help students discover career aspirations and plan educational paths. Coaches offer support to individuals seeking to improve relationships, focus on their health and well-being, change their mindset, or alter habits. Essentially, coaches help people create change – even if they don’t quite know what that change is yet.

Is coaching right for me?

Not everyone is a great fit for coaching. Coaches typically like to partner with individuals who have a desire to learn and grow. Ideal clients make a commitment to changing and arrive with some level of motivation to make that change. Since it’s a collaborative process, it’s also important that the coach and the client have good chemistry and feel like the partnership is a good fit. 

At Bauman Consulting Group, we provide both individual and group coaching to help people achieve their personal and professional goals. Find out more at www.baumanconsultinggroup.com.

Eliminating Overwhelm with the Daily Three

Overwhelm is a constant for many of our clients. There are so many tasks that need to be accomplished – at work and away from work. Many of our clients report the sense of running on a treadmill. They’re running at top speed, but they never get anywhere. Overwhelm is common and normal, but it doesn’t have to continue. In the next several posts, we’re going to share some of the top tips for managing overwhelm in your life (whether it’s at work or outside of work). The first tip we’re going to share is how to eliminate overwhelm with the Daily Three.

The first step in tackling overwhelm is to prioritize your demands. That sounds relatively simple, but many of our clients will say, “It’s all important!” Maybe that’s true. But it’s likely not all important today. Let’s walk through how to prioritize your tasks.

First, get out a piece of paper, a pen, and a timer. Set the timer for 10-15 minutes (no less than 10, no more than 15). You choose your number. Then, during that time, you’re going to do a brain dump. Write down everything you have to do – all those things that are giving you a sense of overwhelm. No editing. No categorizing. Just dump it all out of your brain. Keep writing until the timer goes off.

Now, take a critical look at this list. Often, what we find is that individuals who are motivated, visionary types, will often take on other’s problems. These are things that you truly have no control over. So, go through your list from your journaling activity. Cross off anything that you truly can’t control. We can only control things that are internal to us. In other words, I can control my thoughts, feelings, and actions. But outside of that – I can’t control anything else! So, if these items are outside of your control, mark them off your list.

Next, consider if you have the ability to delegate any of these tasks to others. It’s ok to ask for help! If there is someone who can do something on your list for you - ask them to do it! And then mark it off your list. If there is anything else on the list that you can mark off (perhaps you don’t really need to do it or it’s just not that important), cross it off now.

Now your list is paired down to the items that you can control and that you want to accomplish. This is your overall list. Looking at that list may still be overwhelming. That’s ok. We’re not done!

Each day, you will select three items that take top priority for that day. Only three. Your Daily Three. These are three non-negotiables in your day. You must accomplish these three. Why only three? Because the reality is that things will come up during your day – phone calls, emails, sick kids, traffic, headaches, etc. Three is manageable. Three is memorable. And three is often not overwhelming.

After you’ve selected these three, order them based on priority. We recommend that you list the item you dread the most as your first item – this way you tackle it first, when you have the most amount of willpower in your day. Pick the easier task – or the one you enjoy the most – for the last item. Once you’ve ordered these three items, write these on a white board in your office, on a post-it note on your fridge, or in a note on your phone. We like to use the “Stickies” app on our computer to post our Daily Three to our desktop. Whatever method you choose is up to you. Just make sure that you can see these three items.

Now, get to work on those three items for today! And tomorrow, you’ll tackle another three items from your list. Each day you’ll be focusing on and prioritizing only three items – your Daily Three. 

It’s recommended that you engage in this brain dump to Daily Three practice at the start of each week (either Sunday evening or Monday morning – before you get started on your work!). You may find that doing this on Sunday evening even helps you sleep a little better that night. Give the Daily Three a try and come back to future blog posts to see some more tips on how to manage overwhelm in our lives.

Top Secrets of Success from a Professional Coach

When we began our company 8 years ago, our goal was simply to help other people live better lives. We had some tools available to guide us, but it has really been the relationships we’ve had with clients over the years that have given us the most valuable insight into how people live fulfilling lives – lives where they are healthy and full of energy, feel a sense of purpose and happiness, achieve success at work while maintaining a full life at home, and develop meaningful relationships with others in their life. 

Most of our clients had heard of coaching before, but they were skeptical. They weren’t really sure what a coach would do. But what they all agreed upon, was that they needed a partner in this – someone to be a sounding board and to be their accountability partner. Many were wrestling with a single issue that they decided to get help with: a desired promotion, a desire to make a career change, a lack of work-life balance, or a desire to spend more time away from the office. They were surprised to learn that we didn’t believe in one definition of success. Instead, we spent time learning about what success was going to mean for them. They were also surprised to find that what they believed to be one single issue was actually connected with other issues in their lives. In fact, it became clear that there were 4 main areas that were impossible to disentangle as they all impacted one another. We call these the Four Core Components of Success: 1) Health, 2) Personal Fulfillment, 3) Business/Career, and 4) Relationships. 

This is why our coaching is focused on a blended approach – both life and business coaching. It’s all connected! If you’re not taking care of your health, you can bet you won’t feel very fulfilled, your career is likely going to suffer, and your relationships can take a hit. Not nurturing relationships in your life? Anticipate problems in the other areas. It’s a delicate, deliberate balancing act. 

In fact, every client we work with evaluates their life through the Four Core Components of Success. It’s through this analysis that they can identify the big picture or themes that are the root of the problem. And when we address big picture themes, we create success in multiple areas – not just the one that first brought them in.

But what is it about these four areas that makes them so powerful? They each play a key role in your well-being. When they are out of balance, they can leave you feeling unhappy or overstressed. Regardless of your definition of success, these four components are integral to accomplishing it.

Health: Successful individuals dedicate time to their health. This encompasses both your physical and mental health. They exercise in a way that they enjoy. They eat nutritious foods that fuel their bodies. They practice mindfulness and stress reduction techniques like meditation. They make time to play and have fun.

Personal Fulfillment: Successful individuals focus on their inner self. They can clearly articulate their purpose in life is and what they value – and they intentionally live their lives according to those. They spend time on self-improvement and development (both personally and professionally). They nurture their soul. They read books or take classes. They spend time in nature.

Business/Career: Successful people engage in meaningful work. Depending on your stage of life, this can mean going to work every day, writing the novel you’ve been dreaming about, or volunteering for an organization that is important to you. For some this may mean climbing the corporate ladder and landing that c-suite job of their dreams. For others, it means finding a job you enjoy that can support a flexible schedule which allows you to pursue other dreams. The key is that successful people find value and meaning in their work – it’s not simply a job or a paycheck. 

Relationships: Successful people nurture the relationships in their lives – family, friends, co-workers. They regularly spend quality time with these important people in their life and they foster deep connections. They nurture friendships and have a deep sense of community. They have love in their life and companionship.  

Take a moment to reflect on your own life now. What do the Four Core Components of Success look like for you? Could you stand to make some changes? If you would like to learn about how having a coach could benefit you on your path to success, be sure to reach out to us here. We’re ready to help you put your Four Core Components of Success in balance.

Leading Growth with an Assessment

Agency leaders are often tasked with working to develop staff throughout the organization. Often times leaders tend to focus on two types of staff – the shining stars that we see headed for success within the organization or the struggling supernova who need to drastically improve or move on to another company. As a result of the time and attention placed on this task, leaders are often quite skilled at identifying the strengths and areas for improvement in our own staff. However, when we have achieved leadership status within an organization a fatal flaw often presents itself. Leaders tend to believe that they don’t need to improve any more. They view themselves as having arrived or achieved what they set out to do. What’s the point of more personal and professional development when you’re at the top? 

The truth is that we can all continue to improve and develop. The better our leaders become, the better the staff can become, and the better the agency can be. When we partner with clients, we often hear leaders say, “I’ve worked on so much over the years, I’m not sure what to work on now.” Our response is always simple – “You need to take an assessment.” It’s impossible to make a good plan without data to drive it. Taking an assessment will give you the data you need to draft an improvement plan.

Leaders have often taken a great number of assessments over the years and are apprehensive to return to that route. They feel as though they’ve already gained all the information they can from that process, but assessments remain a valuable tool. Assessments are great at giving us information about a person at a particular point in time. Yes, you may have taken an assessment as part of an employee development protocol several years ago – but you’ve likely changed a lot over the years. You’ve probably completed a great deal of development work. Perhaps you’re not even in the same position anymore. You may have a completely different work environment. All of these (and there are many more!) are reasons why you should go back to step one and complete an assessment.

There are many different assessments on the market that you can consider to inform your developmental path. Each serve different purposes and provide different types of information – and some are definitely better than others. There are four assessments that we recommend to our clients who are looking to start this process: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Everything DiSC, the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0), and the CliftonStrengths. These assessments provide a diverse array of information – which is why we suggest that our clients take any and all of these assessments. The more data you have the better – so invest in as many of these as you can in order to develop your growth plan. If you have taken one of these in the past, but it’s been more than 2 years since you’ve completed it, it’s worth investing in another assessment. If nothing else, it can confirm your earlier results and provide you with more confidence in the outcomes.

 ·      Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) – The MBTI is perhaps the world’s most well-known personality assessment. The tool can be completed online or in-person and provides a typing which places you into one of 16 different personality types. The results of the tool provide insights into the way that you interact with others, increased self-awareness of each personality type’s strengths and challenges, and ideas for adapting your behavior in response to other personalities in the room that can assist you with achieving greater success. 

·      Everything DiSC – The Everything DiSC is another personality assessment designed to help individuals better understand themselves and better learn to adapt their behaviors with others. This online questionnaire classifies individuals into four quadrants: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. The information is then utilized to explore strengths and areas of growth. 

·      Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) – The EQ-i 2.0 is the world’s leading assessment tool for evaluating emotional and social intelligence. The assessment contains 133 items which converge to provide insight into 15 competencies and 5 composite areas. The EQ-i 2.0 provides you with a picture of how you operate emotionally – something that research now demonstrates is a greater predictor of success than traditional intelligence.  

·      CliftonStrengths – CliftonStrengths (formally the Clifton StrengthsFinder) is an online talent assessment. This assessment evaluates your natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving and categorizes them into 34 CliftonStrengths themes. The results are utilized to identify what you naturally do best, how to develop and leverage your greatest talents into strengths, and how to maximize your potential. 

Don’t stop at just completing the assessments. Once you are armed with this data, it’s time to put this information to work for you. You can incorporate these findings in a detailed personal or professional development plan for yourself. Partnering with a coach through this process can assist you in your growth development journey. A coach can assist you in interpreting your results, shed light on blind spots that you may not be conscious to you, guide you in setting goals related to your development, and act as an accountability partner as you take the action steps towards your goal. 

Start Your Year Off Right - Plan the Strategies (Part 6)

In our last post we discussed how to develop SMART goals - goals which are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Now we have to break those goals down into actionable steps. We call these strategies. 

A strategy is just like a goal in that the strategy must meet the SMART criteria, but there are a couple of clear differences. First, a goal is a big picture idea. Something that may take a lot of work to accomplish. A strategy on the other hand is a small step towards accomplishing that goal.  These are the baby steps that we take. The things that we do each day or each week to chip away at that big goal. These are the items on our "To Do" list. Second, a goal is something that you want to accomplish. It's the what. But a strategy tells you what's involved in accomplishing that goal. It's the how. 

Let's return to the example we used in the post about goals: "I will pay off my credit card debt so that the total of my credit card balance at the end of year does not equal more than $7,500." That's a pretty commendable goal. As you can see, paying down the credit card is a big goal - something that we'd like to accomplish over the course of the year. It tells us what we want to do. But it doesn't tell us anything about how that credit card debt will be paid off. Time for the strategies to come into play.

I like to begin strategy development by simply brainstorming. You can do this in a variety of ways such as:

• Make a list

• Write ideas on post-it notes and cover your wall

• Write ideas on index cards and put them in a large stack

• Draw a mind map

• Locate ways others have accomplished this goal

• Solicit ideas from friends, family, or advisors

Don't limit yourself as you brainstorm. Any idea you have or come across - write it down. Even if you think it's a bad idea. Why would you write down a bad idea? Because it may be the idea that inspires the right idea. Keep generating strategies until you can't come up with anymore options.

Now it's time to prioritize the strategies. Sort through them all. You may want to rank order them, sort them into categories, or evaluate their practicality. Create a discard pile. These are the strategies that you've decided aren't right for you. Before discarding a strategy, first evaluate to decide if you could alter the strategy to make it a better fit. If not, send it packing.

Once you've narrowed down the strategies, it's time to ask yourself the key question. If I implement these strategies, will I accomplish my goal? If the answer is yes, it's time to add these strategies to your plan. Repeat this process for each goal that you've set for yourself. 

Before you hit "print" on your document, take a moment to review the entire plan carefully. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does my plan help me to fulfill my mission statement?

2. Are my values reflected in this plan?

3. Did I utilize the assessment results (if I have them) in my plan?

4. Are my priorities reflected here?

5. Will my goals help me accomplish my priorities and my mission?

6. Do the strategies I identified lead me to accomplish my goals?

7. How do I feel when I read this plan? Am I energized? Excited? Overwhelmed? Sad?

Always keep in mind that this plan is a living document. You can make modifications! Maybe you get laid off, find out you are having a baby, or you get a promotion! Life isn't a streamlined document. It twists and turns and has ups and downs. You can adapt the plan to fit you and your life along the way.

Periodically you'll want to evaluate your progress. I like to sit down with my plan quarterly and take stock through a focusing session with myself. That's the time where I determine if I've made as much progress as I'd like to, if I need to change any strategies, or if I need to speed up or slow down the pace. I find that it helps me to refocus and recommit to my goals over the next three months. It also helps keep me engaged so I don't pick up my plan in September and try to knock out the whole thing in a couple of months! It can be very helpful to have a coach help you through those sessions. A coach can be your accountability partner - someone to keep you on track and follow up on all the things you wanted to accomplish. A coach can problem solve with you, encourage you, and motivate you to stay on track. 

Congratulations! Your plan is complete. Now it's time to get out there and put it in action. Best of luck as you have the most productive "resolution" ever. 

This post is the sixth and last in a series of posts about personal strategic plans.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

Start Your Year Off Right - Setting Goals (Part 5)

You've done so much work setting the foundation for your personal strategic plan! While it may seem like you've done quite a bit of work, it's all about to pay off. Now is the time to get to the heart of the work.

Take a look at the priorities that you've set. In each area that you've prioritized, you want to create at least one goal for the year. What is it that you want to be able to accomplish in this area? 

You've probably heard of the concept of SMART goals at some point in your life. It's used in so many different fields that it's hard not to have heard this acronym used somewhere. But if you haven't heard of it, don't worry - I'll give you a quick primer!

As you can see in the graphic above, SMART goals refer to those which are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. As you look through the priorities that you've identified, you'll want to create a goal (or goals) that is specific - you'll know what you meant when you look at this goal in 6 months. It's so clear that there is no question what you are supposed to do. And it will be very apparent whether you've accomplished this goal or not because the terms are so well defined. Perhaps one of your focus areas is around improving your personal finances. That's pretty vague. So as you think about setting a goal, you'll want to get specific. Perhaps your goal could be, "I will get out of debt." What kind of debt are you talking about? All debt? Student loan debt? Paying off your mortgage? After thinking it through, you've decided that you really just want to have your credit card debt paid off, so you revise your goal to say, "I will pay off all my credit card debt."

You'll also want the goal to be measurable. In other words, how will you know that you've accomplished your goal? Returning to our example of credit card debt, you may decide to change the goal to say, "I will pay off my credit card debt so that all of my credit cards have a zero balance." That gives you a very clear finishing point. When your credit card statements all read "0" you've accomplished your goal.

Goals must also be attainable. You don't want to set yourself up for failure. Is it feasible for you to pay off all your credit card debt this year? After evaluating this a bit, you might decide that it's something that will take more than a year to accomplish. Perhaps you'll decide to make your goal something less ambitious - but still something to strive for: I will pay off my credit card debt so that the total of my credit card balances does not equal more than $7,500. 

Surprisingly one of the common things that we see with strategic planning are goals that aren't relevant. How could this be possible, you ask? Often it's the result of not connecting goals to overall priorities - not doing the early work that we did first. Sometimes people will list a goal that is easy to accomplish. Or they will list a goal that sounds good, rather than what they really should be prioritizing. If financial status is a problem for you, then paying off credit card debt may be a perfect way to help with that problem. It's an incredibly relevant goal! However, if you're goal to address your financial status was about reducing stress at the office, that may not be the most relevant goal. Accomplishing that goal won't help your financial status.

The final piece of the puzzle is to make sure that your goals are time-based. Simply put, you need a deadline. Otherwise, you could be working on that goal for a long-time to come. By using an annual personal strategic plan, you've already essentially committed to accomplishing this goal in a year. But you may want this goal to be something you'll accomplish in 6 months. Or maybe this goal will take a year, but your next goal (to address something like the amount of time you spend with friends and family) is something you could accomplish much sooner. The key is to have a time stamp on it. This way you won't put things off too long and you'll have some motivation to work towards that goal. To bring our example full circle, let's see where our goal ended up: "I will pay off my credit card debt so that the total of my credit card balance at the end of year does not equal more than $7,500."

That's a solid goal. It meets all of the SMART criteria and sets you on a path towards success. Keep in mind that you may have multiple goals toward improving your financial status. Or you may decide that is sufficient for this year, and you'd rather focus on other areas more intensively. 

Return now to the priorities that you've established. Determine what you want to do to focus on each of these areas. Write out a goal or two for each area, keeping in mind the SMART criteria. Once you've written out the goals, take a look at them as a whole. Can you accomplish ALL of these goals? Or should you pare the list down a bit? Write out a list of goals that you feel comfortable with. You may wish to challenge yourself a bit, but don't overwhelm yourself with so many goals that you can't possibly keep up. 

Next time we'll explore how you can put those goals into action!

This post is the fifth in a series of posts about personal strategic plans.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

Start Your Year Off Right - Setting Priorities (Part 4)

Now is the time in the personal strategic planning process to take all the individual pieces and begin to put them together. Schedule some time to review your mission statement, your values, and your assessment results. Evaluate those items. What are your strengths? Where can you grow and improve? What would you like to change? What would you like to accomplish? What areas of your life need the most attention (i.e., finances, friends/family, intimate relationships, career, health, social/fun, personal development, home/work environment)? Be sure not to limit yourself as you answer these questions. Write your thoughts down in your notebook. Spend as much time as you need to flesh out each of these areas. We'll pare these ideas down soon enough, but you want to start by tapping into your ambition and creativity. There's no bad idea here.

Take your time and don't rush yourself. You may want to pick this task up multiple times over the course of a week. Try looking at it in the morning. Again in another afternoon. Try again in the evening and before you go to sleep. Give yourself as many opportunities to change your perspective and mood as possible. Give yourself the freedom to dream and stretch outside of your comfort zone. Work on it until you have exhausted yourself. 

Now, go back through your notebook. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Which ideas are in line with my mission statement? (Highlight those ideas in your notebook!)

• Which of these are in conflict with the key values I identified? (Cross these ideas out!)

• Which of these utilize strengths that I have? (Underline these ideas!)

• Which ideas do you feel excited about pursuing? (Star those ideas!)

You may find that there are certain ideas that generate energy in you. For instance, you might be interested in obtaining additional schooling or training. Just thinking about learning something new may ignite something in you. You find yourself imagining the fun you'll have expanding your knowledge base. You might be catching yourself browsing programs online or exploring ways you'll be able to incorporate this new skill in your work. This is your energy building. It's an energizer.

Other ideas may have the opposite effect. For instance, you may recognize that you've outgrown your existing office space. You need to move, but the idea of moving just overwhelms you. The thought of finding another place, packing everything up, changing your address with all of your clients, etc. makes you want to run away - or at least push it to the back of the list. This idea is an energy drainer.

Evaluate your ideas in terms of how they impact your energy. This doesn't mean that you can't add an item to your plan that is an energy drainer - it just means that you'll have to figure out how to make that a task you will actually accomplish. For some clients, that means they will put that item at the top of their priority list. For others, it means they will need to build a good reward in it for them or find a way to reframe the idea so it is more appealing.

Now that you've studied your ideas through all of these different lenses, it's time to pick your priorities. What do you want to accomplish this year? Make a list. Ensure that whatever you put on your list is able to be accomplished within this year. If it's on your list, it should fit with your values and your mission statement. Pick things that are important to you. Things you are motivated to accomplish. Things that will give you joy. When you've finished this list, review your list as a whole. Could you accomplish all of this in a year? If not, pare it down a bit. You may need to only tackle parts of a task. Or you may want to wait and put something on your list for the following year. Try to be as specific and detailed as you can be in your list. Make it very clear what you want to accomplish. We'll be using this list to write your strategic plan. 

You're only two steps away! And the great news is that the hard work is already done. Now you just have to organize the information and get to work on it. Reward yourself for being more than halfway through the personal strategic planning process. The investment you are putting into yourself is priceless.

This post is the fourth in a series of posts about personal strategic plans.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

Start Your Year Off Right - Knowing Yourself (Part 3)

Whether your personal strategic plan is focused on helping you grow personally, professionally, or both, it's important to take a good look at yourself before proceeding further. Taking some time to be introspective can help you to determine the what, why, and how of the changes you want to make. 

For instance, one woman I know felt like she was always struggling to balance work and home. Work seemed to always dominate her life. She was convinced there was nothing she could do about this situation. She just had to work and meet her deadlines. When she took some time to examine herself she realized that her assumptions weren't true. Rather, she found that she was driven by accomplishment and recognition. At work, it was easy for her to feel successful. She could complete projects, sign contracts, and acquire new clients. She received bonuses, promotions, and praise frequently. At home, these sort of accolades were harder to come by, and she found that this part of her personality was being swept aside. She rarely felt as if she accomplished anything at home and often didn't feel appreciated or valued. It's no wonder she found herself "stuck" at the office so often. If she wasn't working so hard at the office, no one would appreciate her!

Imagine if we'd just tried to work on strategies to help her balance work and home without that critical insight. Knowing this information gave us the much needed information to develop meaningful strategies that would really work for her. Balancing her time wasn't really the problem at all. Learning how to recreate her home environment made all the difference. We focused not on ways to spend more time at home, but on how to gain a sense of accomplishment and reward in her home life.

But how do you gain that insight? There are many ways to take a look at the inner workings of yourself, but my favorite method is through the use of assessments. There are two that I rely on the most that translate powerfully into personal strategic plans: the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI) and the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0). 

The MBTI is a personality inventory based upon the work of Carl Jung. The tool examines the ways that you utilize perception and judgement to assign you to one of 16 personality types. It's important to know that no type is better than the other - they are all equal. Knowing your personality type helps bring to light your innate preferences and allows you to learn about yourself. Once you understand yourself through this lens, you can grow and develop in ways that help you accomplish your larger goals. 

The second tool, the EQ-i 2.0, measures your emotional intelligence. Essentially, emotional intelligence is a person's ability to recognize and manage her own emotions and the emotions of others through successful interactions. In other words, how well do you understand, empathize, and connect with the people around you? The EQ-i 2.0 evaluates your abilities on five composite scales and fifteen subscales to give you an in-depth look at yourself across a variety of situations. While you may have little control over your level of traditional intelligence, you can work to develop your emotional intelligence. And research has demonstrated that emotional intelligence is a better indicator of success in the workplace than traditional intelligence. All the more reason to work on it!

So which test should you take? It depends. With clients who haven't done a lot of introspection, I like to begin with the MBTI. With the MBTI results the client can focus on how to stretch and balance their personality. EQ is a bit more complex, so I use that with clients who have already spent a good deal of time working on self improvement. For the clients that really want to make growth and change in their lives, I use both. While that may seem like a lot to some individuals, I like as much information to go on as possible. You may try the MBTI now, and the EQ-i 2.0 a little later in the coaching process. Clients rarely find that they didn't gain anything from the assessment process. 

You can take these assessments online, but working with a coach to interpret and apply these results gives you a whole other level of value from those tools. A coach can help you to apply this information to your personal strategic plan to help you live your life with purpose. With introspective work, it's helpful to have someone "outside" to process the results with.

BCG offers these assessments in the context of coaching or just for your own informational purposes. Visit our marketplace to set up your personal assessment today: http://baumanconsultinggroup.com/marketplace.

This post is the third in a series of posts about personal strategic plans.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

Start Your Year Off Right - Living Your Values (Part 2)

Once you've developed your personal mission statement, it's time to move on to identifying your core values.

First, let's talk about why identifying your core values is so important. Many of us have a general sense of what we value in life - what we think is most important to us. But how many of us have made decisions that are in conflict with their values?

One of my clients was a busy professional with a husband and two children. She was adamant that she valued family more than anything, but when she began looking at the decisions she was making in the context of her values, she found she that she didn't seem to really "walk the walk." She was working 60+ hours a week, never took vacation time, missed most of her children's activities, and rarely spoke to her husband for more than a few moments each day. It seemed to me that her primary value was actually work. Now does that mean she didn't love her family? Not at all! It meant that she was pushing her values aside and wasn't being intentional about how she was living her life. She wasn't living a life in accordance with her personal mission and values. You may be in that trap too. So let's get looking at your values.

There are a lot of great ways to identify your values. Coaches have a number of ways they can do this with clients - and they can really help you to flesh out those values. One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply create a list. It can be difficult to list your values off the top of your head, so I like to begin with a list of common values and select ones that resonate with you. You can add to this list, search the internet for other common value lists, and brainstorm with others to complete your list. Take out your trusty notebook. Begin with the list below and write down any value that speaks to you. Remember to only write down values that truly are important to you, not values that you think should be important to you. It's important to be honest with yourself. (Click on the list to enlarge it!)

Adapted from W.R. Miller, J. C'de Baca, D.B. Matthews, and P.I. Wilbourne (2001) Personal Values Card Sort.

Are there other values that are important to you that are missing? Search the web. Talk to a trusted friend or family member. Examine your life. If there are missing values, add them to your list! Once you are finished, begin paring the list down until you've identified your top 10 values. You may even try to rank order those values. How do you feel about that list? How does it feel to see those values in writing? Does it reflect who you are? Adjust the list until you're really satisfied with it.

Now return to your personal mission statement. Does your personal mission statement fit with the values you identified? Is it in conflict with those values? Do you need to revise the mission statement or the values in order to have them align with each other? Spend some time reflecting on those questions and make sure that the two work together in a clear way. You may continue to revise and refine these as we work through the personal strategic planning process. That's ok! Completing your plan is a process, and the end product is going to be so helpful to you. You'll never go back to resolutions again!

This post is the second in a series of posts about personal strategic plans.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

Start Your Year Off Right - Don't Make Resolutions! (Part 1)

As 2019 comes to a close, many of us will engage in the time honored tradition of making New Year's resolutions. We'll promise that this is the year to stop smoking, lose weight, exercise more, spend more time with family and friends, find a new job, get a promotion, tackle a new hobby, or finally engage in all those home improvement projects. Sadly, only 8% of us (according to Statistics Brain) will be successful in those resolutions.

Don't be a statistic. Don't make resolutions.

Wait. Did I just tell you to give up? Did I just say that you should live an unfulfilled life? No! I said don't make resolutions. This year, make a plan that will work - a personal strategic plan.

Most people want to change something in their lives, but they don't often think through how to go about making those changes. Making a life change as big as a career move or a lifestyle adjustment requires a thoughtful approach. It's a time consuming endeavor, but you'll get lasting results. And there is no better investment than investing in yourself and your happiness.

The first thing you have to do is identify what is most important to you - not the changes that you want to make, but what you hold most dear. This is your life's purpose, your hopes and dreams. It's about what you value most. You can't make a plan to go forward until you know where you want to be. 

Just as a company has a mission statement to guide its short- and long-term plans, creating a personal mission statement can help you to provide direction in your life. So grab a notebook, take out a pencil, and write down your answers to the following questions:

• Where do you want to see yourself in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?

• What does that look like personally? Professionally? Spiritually?

• What do you want to accomplish? How do you want to make a difference?

• What do you need to be happy - truly happy?

Spend some time wrestling with these questions. Really mull them over. Sleep on it, and then mull them over some more. When you feel happy with your answers, try to take your answers and put them into a single statement. One sentence that sums it all up clearly and concisely. You want it to be simple enough that it can be flexible to grow with you and that it can be applied to all areas of your life.

You may find the template below useful to get you started.

"My purpose is to utilize ________ to accomplish/contribute to ________ in order to achieve _________."

You may also wish to see how some women leaders have crafted their own personal mission statements.

• Denise Morrison, CEO of the Campbell Soup Company - "To serve as a leader, live a balanced life, and apply ethical principles to make a significant difference."

• Katie Arnold, CEO of Talk Less, Say More - "To constantly be striving to be the best version of myself - in my job, with my health and fitness, with my relationships with family and friends, and with my emotional well-being."

• Amy Ziari, CEO of Pasta - "To live life with integrity and empathy, and be a positive force in the lives of others."

Take some time to reflect on the statement that you've written. Does it inspire you? Can you envision yourself leading a life that reflects your mission? Revise it until you are truly happy with it. It's going to be very important to you this year. This is the year you begin living your mission!

This post is the first in a series of posts about personal strategic plans.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

Personal Branding

Personal branding has become a topic that many individuals in business have come to dread. It’s one additional topic to put someone on the spot and require them to have a flawless answer. It’s the 21stCentury’s “elevator pitch”. But personal branding is nothing to be feared, and spending some time developing and finessing your personal brand can pay dividends in the long run.

For those new to the concept of personal branding, it can be helpful to begin by thinking about corporate brands. What do you think of when you hear Starbucks? What about Nationwide? Target? You might think of colors, of jingles, or of experiences you have had there. Maybe you have an emotional reaction. Whatever it is that comes to mind – your view of the company – is the brand of the company. It’s what you think and feel when that company comes to mind. Company’s work hard to build their brands and to maintain their brand – they want you to feel a certain way and think certain things when their name comes to mind.

Personal branding is no different. Jeff Bezos gave a great definition of personal branding that really put it into perspective. He said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” The reality is that we all have a brand. Everyone that you interact with has an opinion about you. You may as well take the opportunity to control that brand so that it works for (rather than against) you. 

There are many misconceptions about controlling your brand. It’s not about being narcissistic. It is not all about being on social media. And it’s not something that’s just for millennials or Gen Z. Personal branding can be the key to your career success.

Take a moment to think about your coworkers or a boss you’ve had in your career. What adjectives you would use to describe them? Smart? Lazy? Ambitious? Competent? Imagine you were in the position of selecting a new boss for your office out of your co-workers. Who would you pick and why? Typically, we select people because of their brand (how we feel about them) rather than their paper credentials. When you identified the co-worker that you would select as the new boss, you likely weren’t thinking, “Well, Bill has the highest education level among us, so he’s the perfect fit.” You likely thought something more along the lines of, “Ruby is really fair. She’s a hard worker and gets along with everyone here in the office. We can count on her to be reliable and not play favorites. She’s the best option.” And this is why your personal brand is so important. These are the views that shape your promotions, your opportunities, and your experience in your career. How you are viewed matters.

Now that you’ve agreed that personal branding is important, let’s talk about how to develop your own personal brand. Our five-step process to creating your personal brand will set you on the path to the career that you want. 

1. Define:The first step to crafting your personal brand is to define what it is you want your brand to be. What do you want others to say about you when you are not in the room? Be specific. Start with a list. You likely have manythings that you would like people to say, but it’s unlikely that all of that will come to mind. Narrow the list down to the key items. What are the 4-5 things you’d like to be the priorities? I.0f you are struggling to meet your core list, you can always try assessment tools like the MBTI or the EQ-i 2 to get the ball rolling on seeing what traits you possess. 

2. Gap Analysis:You know what you’d like people to say, but are you really demonstrating these traits? You’d like to be viewed as hard working, but are you really a hard worker all the time? Maybe you’d like to be seen as a great public speaker, but how often do you actually find yourself engaging in public speaking opportunities? Evaluate the key items you’ve listed and determine how you currently measure up. Then think about whether or not people would actually say these items about you. You may find it helpful to ask a friend or trusted colleague to list five things they think of when they think of you. See how closely their list matches with yours.

3.  Vision:Now you have a good sense of where you currently are and where you’d like your brand to go in the future. It’s time to craft a vision. How will you create this personal brand? If you want to be seen as outgoing, what opportunities do you have to demonstrate that to others? You’d like to be seen as an expert, how do you put yourself in that position? People will only describe you in ways that they see you acting. So if you want to be viewed as hard working, people need to seeyou working hard! If you’d like to be viewed as a leader, you’d better be leading where people can see it! This isn’t about being a bragger or boasting about yourself. It’s about ensuring that the traits you want identified can actually be seen. If you are only funny when relaxing with your close friends, no one else but your close friends will know that you are funny! If you don’t speak up in meetings, no one but you knows that you have great ideas! Develop your plan so that you know how you will show others the great traits you have to demonstrate.

4.  Create:It is time to put your plan in action. View your work and personal life through the lens of your brand. Is your plan making a difference? Are people beginning to describe you in the ways that you could like them to? Maybe you need to adjust your plan. Or maybe the plan you created is working perfectly. The key is to make sure you are monitoring the results and adjusting as needed. This is where you may find that your social media presence, your daily work tasks, and your interactions with others begin to pay dividends. Figure out what works in your situation, and go with it!

5.  Evolve:Our brands change over time. This depends on the stage of life that you are in as well as the stage of career you are in. The brand you needed to develop as a 22-year old trying to get your first job out of college is different from the brand you need as a 55-year old hoping to become the boss of the company. You need to be seen in different lights for different jobs, different roles, and at different stages in your career. Trying to define yourself as an expert when you are a rookie in the field is not likely to work well for you. But that may be more attainable for you after you’ve worked in the field for a decade or two. You’ll want to check in with your brand every 3-5 years and decide if it’s time for your brand to evolve to a new stage or if you’re still on track with your current brand. Don’t be afraid to take the next step. That’s how you move up!

A career coach often helps clients to figure out what they’d like their brand to be to best serve their career goals. Together a coach can work with you to formulate a plan to put that brand in place, and ensure that the strategies you develop work for you. Partner with a career coach at Bauman Consulting Group and begin your personal branding journey today!

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

What is it Like to Have a ProfessionalCoach?

This article was originally posted on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/whats-it-like-to-have-a-professional-coach_us_596e5916e4b05561da5a5b2f

You may have heard about coaching. Perhaps you’ve seen someone in a TV sitcom with a coach. Or maybe you’ve heard coaches are some sort of therapist. But what is a coach, really? What’s it like to have a coach, and why would you want one? Throw out that mental image. I’m going to tell you all about the coaching process and what it’s really like.

Before you hire a coach, you need to be clear on what exactly a coach is. A coach is not a therapist, counselor, or mental health professional; a coach is not there to provide mental health care of any kind. Coaches are there to support adults as they work to improve their lives - personally or professionally. A coach does not view you as needing to be “fixed.” A coach views you as a fully capable, competent, and whole individual who would like some support. A coach is trained to be an expert in coaching. This means they have received education in how to support you; this doesn’t mean that they have all the answers. Coaching facilitates collaborative growth - both the coach and the client improve!

[Related: he Difference Between A Coach And A Mentor: Which Is Right For You?]

So why would you want to hire a coach? There are so many reasons why you may want support from a coach, such as:

• Strategic thinking

• Decision making

• Problem solving

• Building/improving relationships

• Work-life balance

• Managing life transitions

• Developing self-confidence

• Increasing self-awareness

• Stress management

• Career navigation

• Personal branding

• Time management

• Networking

• Building and maintaining motivation

• Intentional living

• Uncovering strengths and weaknesses

• Authentic leadership

The first step in hiring a coach is finding one that is a good fit for you. Most coaches will do a free consultation with you so you can see if you like their style and have a connection. You want a good relationship with your coach, so you should shop around until you find the right one for you. Some coaches meet with you in person while others utilize technology for communication such as telephone, video conferencing, or email. You’ll also decide how frequently you want to meet with your coach. Some meet weekly, every other week, or even monthly. And the price of a coach can vary just as much as their approach. A good coach will set up an arrangement specially for you - rather than offering a single option.

After you decide on the coach that you want to hire, the coach will give you a welcome packet which serves two functions. First, it gives you the run down on the costs, boundaries, and procedures for coaching. Second, it collects information about you. For instance, it will ask you questions about why you want a coach, what things you’d like to improve in your life, and what you’d like to accomplish. This gives the coach a starting point to work from.

Next, your coach may have you complete some assessments. These are often optional and vary based upon what your interests/needs are. For example,  I often have my clients take the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI) or the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) in order to help them to learn more about themselves. By taking these assessments that stimulate their introspection, they have the opportunity to really stretch themselves. They grow and achieve more than they thought possible. Assessments are also really helpful when clients come to coaching with dilemma’s such as “I know I hate my job, but I have no idea what else I want to do,” or “I’m in college and need to make a career plan, but I don’t know where to begin.”

Once your coach feels that she has sufficient information to guide the process, you’ll spend some time talking about your goals. They may have changed a bit now that you have more information about yourself. You and your coach will examine these goals from many angles and fully explore why you want to accomplish this goal, how it will impact your life, and what you’ll need to be successful.

When you’re ready to take the next step, your coach will work with you on developing strategies or action plans to accomplish your goals. Expect to have fieldwork. You’ll never be told to do anything. A coach may ask you to do something, but you always have the ability to say no. Often, clients generate their own action steps.

Along the way you’ll have regular check ins with your coach to problem solve, celebrate accomplishments, and continue to create action. Overtime, you may reevaluate your process with your coach. New goals may emerge. Old goals may be accomplished. It’s a flexible process that permits you the opportunity to evolve as a person in your own way and at your own pace.

[Related: Want to Get Ahead in Your Career? Consider Hiring a Professional Coach]

Often times, clients will gradually reduce the number of sessions with their coach. Some clients like to continue to have quarterly or biannual sessions with the coach to just check in and make sure they are staying on track.

Coaching is a process that is customized to you and your needs. It consistently provides a partner that delivers an outside perspective on your unique situation, connections to valuable resources, someone to hold you accountable to your commitments, a person to challenge you to go further, and a support system to count on.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides leadership and management consulting and coaching with a focus on women in business.

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