Enabler or Gatekeeper?

When you think of HR, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Compliance officer? Gatekeeper? Controller? Or is it trusted advisor? Enabler? Business partner?

The HR profession has transformed from being a highly administrative function to being a strategic voice in business. Traditionally, HR has been perceived as a gatekeeper. Instead of managers being able to move forward with their ideas or challenges, HR was a roadblock where necessary action stopped.  There was an us vs. them mentality that pushed leaders away and forced them to circumvent processes to still get their job done.   

Gatekeeper: a  person  or  organization  that  controls

 whether  people  can have or use a  particular  service.

(www.dictionary.cambridge.org) 

When I started my career, I knew one thing for sure: my mandate was to connect with people, develop meaningful relationships, elevate the employee experience, and make things happen for the business. And through my lived experiences, I learned that a command-and-control approach with people and processes (i.e., being a gatekeeper) did not produce results. I also knew that from an HR perspective, well designed guidelines that fit the culture and values of the organization were necessary and added value to the employee experience. So, the trick was to figure out how to produce results, animate the culture and values of the organization, and nurture the employee experience by empowering them in their roles and their decision-making. 

 

The choice for me was always simple on how I would show up and perform.  To be an enabler, I had to pave the way to make things happen, influence people’s decisions with knowledge and data, and help leaders bring their ideas to life through collaboration.   

Enabler: a person or thing that makes something possible.

(www.lexico.com)

One of my greatest memories in HR was working at a land development and housing company. Working alongside the Vice President of Housing and other members of the senior leadership team, we clicked and made significant progress on the employee experience. My commitment to being an enabler was an important piece to my success in moving the business forward, as described here by the VP of Housing: 

 

“Rita is the first HR person I have worked with that gets the relationship between operations and HR. She is an enabler of people where others are gatekeepers. Rita consistently earned and built trust on the senior team through outstanding credibility, objectivity, and professionalism. She challenged experienced managers in our construction and sales culture to modernize and be open minded to the benefits of cultural change and modern people policies.” 

 

My goal was to create an open and collaborative space for leaders to feel safe, to be vulnerable, to proactively raise people issues, to evaluate options to solve problems, and to create solutions that fit the situation.   

 

My role as enabler looked like this: 

 

• Trusted advisor: earning trust, respect and credibility by being present, walking the talk, listening well, asking the right questions, and challenging thinking by bringing forward different perspectives. 
• Business knowledge: leveraging human resources knowledge and investing time to understand the business, the people, and the drivers for success. 
• Open door philosophy: having an open door for employees and leaders to discuss issues, to clarify understandings, and to be a sounding board.  My door was always open. 
• Delivering candid feedback: being comfortable with the uncomfortable, having difficult conversations, and offering honest feedback with empathy, courage, and respect. 
• Being proactive: anticipating what the business required and bringing forward valuable ideas and insight to make informed decisions about people. 
• Collaboration: great things happen when people work together.  Collaboration is one of my values and it is how I partner with the business to improve people decisions. 

 

How can leaders support HR to be an enabler to the business?    

 

• Be accountable to themselves, their teams and the organization. 
• Communicate often. Leaders are a pathway to raise awareness, share knowledge and keep employees informed.   
• Leverage human resources. HR is on your team and they want you to succeed!   
• Be open, transparent and honest. Share information often and speak up if you cannot meet a company deadline.  
• When in doubt, ask for HR’s help before a small people problem becomes a big people problem.   
• Put employees first. HR is supportive when they know leaders have done everything in their power to work with their employees and position them to succeed.   
• Get social and take a break with your HR partner.  We are human too! Go for coffee. Create space for HR to get to know you, your pain points, what keeps you up at night.  Developing trusting relationships is hard work but well worth it when you want to accomplish great things together.  Trust me, this is a cool thing to do! 

 

HR is no longer an administrative function, but an enabling voice to organizations. And as the future of work evolves, HR will continue to be a center of influence and a strategic voice to organizations. 

 

HR is in a unique position to influence business and people decisions and offer valuable insight. It can connect the dots between people, data, and business, giving organizations a competitive advantage.  Organizations that enable HR will improve business performance. 

As human beings, we are wired for social connection. This is a year where that wiring has been tested in every aspect of our lives. As I write this blog, it is the last month of 2020, and a time to reflect on what this year has taught us about where we show up as gatekeepers and where we show up as enablers. How have those occurrences impacted your ability and capacity to experience connection? 

 

I believe it is in each one of us to be an enabler.  Human beings have the ability to be open minded, to collaborate, to be vulnerable, to empower others, to be empathetic, to communicate often, to be active listeners, to show up with no judgement, and to accept different perspectives.  Imagine the possibilities if the enabler lens was expanded from the HR function in a business and applied to a vision for humanity and the world.  Just imagine! 

Driven by connection,

Rita Filice

______________________________

Rita Filice, BCOMM, CPHR

Partner, BreakPoint Solutions

ritaf@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2544

Rita thrives on connecting people, leveraging human resources and delivering performance.  She is a collaborative and accomplished HR leader who values authentic connection, meaningful conversation, and her positive energy and outlook make anything possible.

Moral Distress, Residue and the Price of Leadership

Today - November 25, 2020.  As I write this, Alberta is coming off successive days of over 1,000 COVID cases and ICU capacity is reaching pre-determined threshold limits in the province.  We have the dubious distinction of leading the country.  For days, weeks, and even months, our provincial government has been admonishing citizens to exercise personal responsibility in how they work, play, live, and socialize in order to flatten the COVID curve.  

The current conservative government has been loathe to impose (and enforce?) more significant restrictions up to and including a circuit-breaker lockdown of between two to four weeks long.  This would harken back to earlier this year when businesses were shuttered and schools either effectively closed or moved to virtual reality through to the end of June.  Similar efforts have been used to positive affect in other jurisdictions like Australia.

In April, daily cases reported numbers in the low hundreds.  Today we are multiples beyond that and likely to hit new highs in the coming days. The Grinch is likely to steal Christmas this year. 

The current choice provincial political leadership seems to believe it is faced with is one between economic disaster that would arise from a lockdown, the potential backlash from some who believe any form of restrictions is a violation of their individual rights, and a continuing - and accelerated - rate of infection, hospitalization, and death of Albertans. Livelihoods or lives.

Leadership is about hard choices.  Compounding that reality is that those hard choices are fraught with imperfect information, particularly around decisions where there are conflicting opinions, motivations, and truly unknown future outcomes.  Leaders rarely get clear and distinct choices between right and wrong, yes or no, black and white.  Leadership is about the courage to function and excel in the shades of gray. 

Those choices can result in pain and anguish when we struggle through what is the right thing to do or we may even be actively prevented from doing the right thing.  There may also be times where we feel we are forced to do the wrong thing.  We experience moral distress.  I can only imagine the moral distress that our Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) faces each day as she watches the cases climb, contact tracing systems collapse under the volume of activity, citizens ignoring recommendations to promote their safety, and having to toe a political line relative to what should be done versus what will be allowed or tolerated.  

Beyond the period of agonizing over that first big choice comes the consequence of having to now live with those choices.  Moral residue follows moral distress - a feeling of having compromised ourselves, our ethics, our values, and ourselves when the anticipated and real consequences of our choices come home to roost.  I believe the CMOH is trying to do the right thing.  The question becomes is she being prevented from doing the right thing or is she even being forced to do the wrong thing.

The answers to whether our government is doing the right thing or the wrong thing will become much more abundantly clear in the next two to three weeks.  In that time we will find out how much of a game of Russian roulette we have been playing.  We will find out how many blanks or live ammo are in our collective gun.  If we have guessed, hoped, or chosen wrong, we will put our healthcare system in another situation of moral distress. In fact, we already have.  Elective and non-urgent surgeries have already been cancelled.  Other appointments and diagnostic tests have been delayed or postponed.  These consequences will pale in comparison to the choices we may be placing before our healthcare professionals in the weeks to come.  We could be asking them to NOT put COVID patients on ventilators because we lack capacity.  We may be asking them to CHOOSE between providing life-saving care for a 55-year-old father of three daughters, or the 80-year-old grandmother of six grandkids, or the 30-year-old just-married wife starting to really launch her career.

Moral distress.  Moral residue.  It's being writ large for all of us.  Send our kids to school or not.  Work from home or not.  See our families or not.  Support a lockdown or not.  

This is the time for strong leadership.  This is a time for courage.  This is a time of commitment.

It's About Leadership.  Period.

______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Exorcising our Ghosts

Growing up I had my fair share of fears as I suspect most kids do.  In particular, I somehow learned to fear the dark and more particularly all the evil creatures that might be lurking under the bed, in my closet or just outside the window.  Every noise and small movement of shadow seemed to be amplified, the precursor to my impending doom.  Several decades removed from those childish fears I still find myself somewhat anxious at the thought of a night out with my telescope observing the heavens.

The reality is, however, that in my youth those monsters were quite real.  And in truth, it was only over time and not through any particular parental logic that they were overcome.  I profess to still having some fear of the dark, but more often it is borne out of knowledge of what is really out there - farm dogs that might perceive me as a threat; skunks, coyotes or other wild animals; and other humans who might have less astronomical things on their minds.  My fears are more grounded in reality these days (e.g., COVID impacts, US election results??), but they don't hold me back from pursuing one of my personal passions.  So what gets me out there in the middle of the night regardless of perceived or real ghosts?  In this case, it is the opportunity to gaze upon celestial wonders of far flung galaxies, nebulae, and the rings of Saturn. In some bizarre and metaphorical sense, I am driven to face my fears by a higher purpose.  

As an executive coach - and a leader/entrepreneur in my own right - I experience and realize that I can be subject to a number of different fears.  Most of these come down to self-doubt and the courage to take on new and different challenges in my career and business.  And I see similar behavior in many of the clients I work with.  The mythical monsters that have lived in the closets or just outside our windows in our youth now stalk the halls and alleys of our hearts, minds and souls.  These monsters and ghosts are some of the most insidious we will ever face.  They know us well and play on and magnify our weaknesses, insecurities, and doubts.  Left unfaced, they grow in strength and hold us paralyzed with fear striving to ensure we never take that next step forward.

These ghosts don't operate purely or even mostly on horror and shock value.  Rather, they are more cunning and possessed of a powerful voice, constantly talking us out of taking that next bold step into the future.  They are the voice that suggests we really aren't qualified to apply for a new position.  They help us procrastinate and rationalize to the point where even if we were to apply and get an interview we would show up with the belief we don't belong.  We display our anxiety to the point that those who would make the selection decision recognize our lack of confidence and make the non-selection decision we have been expecting all along.  We become our own self-fulfilling prophecy.

But like conquering our own childhood fears, success in facing our more mature fears is possible.  My success and the successes of my coaching clients are proof of that.  In my first year away from an executive role and into my new venture, I probably had more sleepless nights - and self-talk - than I'd had in the previous 10 years.  What made this the right move?  Was my business plan just wishful thinking?  What made me think that my marketing efforts were the right ones? And so on and so forth.  I could say it was the powerful vision of my ultimate success that kept me going, but that would be too easy a way to rewrite history.  Truth be told, I was probably just too proud and stubborn to give in.  But I did ultimately face and conquer (most of) my fears.  I often did so with the encouragement, support, inspiration, and examples of others.

In similar fashion, I have been inspired by the courage that many of my coaching clients have ultimately demonstrated as they struggled with realizing their potential, seeking out new opportunities, and taking on new challenges.  We have helped them face their fears, challenge their self-limiting beliefs and powerfully own their strengths.  A quote from one of my coaching colleagues comes to mind in this regard: "Your mind is a dangerous neighborhood to go into alone."  So together, we have walked the dark halls and alleys of their mind, challenging assumptions, taking small steps, all in service of a grander vision of what is possible for them, to realize their potential and open up new vistas they had not even imagined.

The fears and doubts never truly go away.  I still fear the dark, I still fear swimming in open water, and I still fear that success enjoyed today is fleeting.  Even as my clients enjoy their current success (e.g., new job, award, raise, promotion), they still wonder how they will maintain or build on that success.  Our fears and doubts won't go quietly into the night, but perhaps rather than paralyzing us, they can serve a more useful function of keeping us sharp and helping us prepare for potential (and reality-based) setbacks. 

Keeping a higher purpose and vision in front of us - the celestial heavens, the triathlon finish line, a successful and fulfilling career - is a foundation by which we can keep moving one step ahead, developing our own level of reassurance that our fears are often overblown.  We can choose to live in fear or live in purpose.  We can look back on our past successes as harbingers of bigger things to come.  We can believe in our strengths and in our capacity to become stronger.  We can ultimately build the confidence and courage to overcome what is holding us back from our un-imagined potential.

Choose to face your ghosts, get off your (metaphorical) bed, and shine a flashlight into the dark spaces.  What you don't find there might amaze you and lighten your load.

Exorcise your ghosts - own the night.

______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Understanding Your PLC

We are now full on into our seventh month (October 2020) of leading life in and through a COVID-19 reality.  If you are like me, this has meant juggling as a leader, business, and family like never before.  What I know and have experienced, and what my clients have expressed to me, is that everything we do seems like it requires a great deal more intentionality than ever before.  Nothing just happens as a matter of course.  And that means we are expending more effort and energy than ever before.  It is testing our PLC - Personal Leadership Capacity.

This post comes courtesy of the intersection of a number of parallel but distinct events and experiences over the past week.  Often times as individual leaders and organizations we feel overwhelmed by the opportunities and challenges before us.  This reality hit me particularly hard this week - in more ways than one.  I heard flavors of it from a couple of my coaching clients, in individual coaching and group planning sessions I facilitated, and from my own personal and business perspective.

From several of my coaching clients this week I heard the lament of too much on my plate, how do I get this all done, how do I prioritize and/or how do I get others to appreciate that my plate is already full.  If we flip the coin on this lament we can hear some other common themes that are all too often a part of our work these days - stress and fatigue on the part of our colleagues and staff, even complete absence or disconnection at times, and points of conflict that seem to come out of nowhere or on issues that seem relatively minor.  Sometimes these results are being borne out because of or in parallel to the perception or reality of lack of resources.  "How do we keep going with this remote working reality?  How do I juggle this home office with my kids doing their school work (or not) at that same I'm trying to manage this meeting?  Where do I find the time - or the commitment from others - to deliver on our plans?" The examples and the list go on and on.  Time, energy, and money - and more - don't seem to be on our side more than ever these days.  

Just as challenging it would seem for some leaders or organizations is the willingness to say no or to otherwise prioritize the requests and workloads coming at them.  This is further compounded by the fact that our boundaries between work and home are incredibly blurred, if they even exist at all right now.  In some of these cases, as described by my clients, there appears to be an organizational willingness and imperative to say "yes" to everything that comes across the table.  If we don't say YES, perhaps that is THE decision that puts us over the brink into irrelevance!  Conversely, it may be that there is an organizational unwillingness to say "no" to anything that comes across the table.  This predicament is probably enhanced in the kind of reality that we are experiencing right now.  Saying no to a request might be perceived as tantamount to asking for your own termination notice.  Unfortunately, too many organizations have not been willing to truly establish the key guideposts by which they would evaluate any initiative that comes before them.  The result is predictable - yes is the answer to every initiative regardless of current workload or resources.  The long-term sustainability of such a response is hardly considered.  Just don't say no now.

Therefore, for me, it was refreshing to recently hear a CEO of a large organization espouse to his executive team and governing board the need to understand - and respect - their personal and organizational capacities.  Rather than demand more and more - as is the wont of many hard-driving executives - he was holding the feet of his people to a different fire.  Understand your capacity.  Understand that there are limits to the time available to you in a day, week, and month.  Understand that there are limits to your ability to handle multiple priorities.  Understand that there are limits to your energy reserves. Don't tell me you are going to add another initiative to your plate and keep to every other milestone you have already set.  Chose wisely and execute well.  It was a powerful message and one that clearly was being understood and accepted, even if slowly, over time.

The message of this forward-thinking CEO, an individual that I would no way characterize as soft, stands in sharp contrast to others I have experienced or worked with during this time. One of the most iconic examples is of a CEO who tried to alter his staff's perspective on prioritization by use of the somewhat infamous "Big Rocks in the Bucket First" exercise.  A decent enough exercise, but it presumes that all managers and staff have the ability - or are allowed - to pick their own big rocks.  In the case of the forward-thinking CEO already noted, this appeared to be the case (outside of regulated or legislated initiatives).  But for other leaders, who most often define what the big rocks are, there is a lack of appreciation of how many big rocks can be rolled down the hill or the potential consequences of ignoring some of the little rocks that others in the organization need to work with.

In fact, perhaps it's time to update the Big Rocks exercise, particularly now.  Perhaps there has to be an understanding of what size of bucket we are actually working with.  What's our actual Personal Leadership Capacity?  Perhaps as leaders we need to undertake a bit more of an internal environmental scan before launching the next big rock down the hill and understand how that fits with - or displaces - other rocks we launched yesterday or the week before.

The final hitting home point for me on capacity has come on my own business and personal side.  The past month has been one of the busiest and most challenging for me on a number of fronts. Altered reality has been challenging my capacity and, more particularly, made me feel that I have been less of the quality family man and coach than I should be and aspire to be.   Others - most notably my wife - are also in that same boat.  Our stress levels are up.  Our capacity is down.  While potentially manageable in the short-term, the stress tolerances of continually exceeding one's capacity has inevitable and predictable consequences.

The lesson of capacity is one that I'm trying to learn (or learn again) in my personal and business life and I trust that you can be more forward-thinking, insightful and discerning as you contemplate launching your next big rock into your leadership or organizational bucket.
_________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Ironman & Leadership Lessons - COVID Reset!

The die has been cast yet again (and again?).  After a failed restart of my Ironman or endurance endeavors in 2020 - thanks COVID - I recommitted to Ironman Canada 2021!  Bring on another year of prep, training, weight loss, and 2-day workouts. 

This effort brings back to mind the training, lessons learned and experiences of my two previous experiences of triathlon. That experience, and those lessons as it relates to leadership are recounted below.

I originally penned a post about how THE Ironman experience related to leadership for me in August 2012!  At this point in time (September 2020) I'm updating and reprising my musings on this comparative based on the fact that I'm back for another bite of the pain, suffering, and glory that is the Ironman Canada triathlon.  It will have been 10 years since I last took on the challenge so we are definitely going to see what I have learned - and can apply - since the last effort!

It's certainly cliche to identify that many leaders look to and experiment with a variety of initiatives designed to improve the performance of their organizations.  Paradoxically, however, the majority of these efforts often fail and can be traced back to the quality of leadership at their helm.  We squander our potential and the potential of our people from not focusing more strongly on self awareness and self development.  So what can the experience of preparing for and competing in an Ironman competition tell us about leadership?  Well here are my thoughts.

I've competed in the big Ironman Canada event in 2010 and 2011 and I'm NOW going back in August 2021 - 10 years removed between competitions.  I've done other running events since then - the Goofy and Dopey races in Disney World, the Berlin Marathon, the Venice Marathon and a few others.  But nothing is going to compare to reprising the event - and the preparation - of Ironman.  And in some respects I begin almost from where I started in 2009 getting ready for the 2010 Ironman - trying to establish a training foundation (e.g., relearning how to bike, swim and maybe run), trying to get into a proper race weight zone (as of Christmas 2019 was at 204 pounds and as of writing at 185 with a goal to get to 160 by December 31, 2020), get re-geared with tune-up of bike and purchase of new bike computer.  

But it's also going to be somewhat tougher this year than in the past.  In 2010 my family was smaller and perhaps a bit more manageable.  My wife was coming off of her own history of several years of triathlon experience.  I was employed rather than running my own business which meant paid vacation time and perhaps (ironically?) greater control over time and workout time.  And, of course, I'll be 56 years old by the next event versus 45 when I last entered the fray!  

Interestingly enough, from the standpoint of being an executive coach, through much of 2011 and into 2012 I had the privilege of working with an executive coach.  At that time, my coach helped lead me through some challenging times and a major transition in my career.  Aside from all the skills and talents you would expect to see in an executive coach, he also brought another dimension to our conversations - he was and is an accomplished triathlete and has competed at Ironman Canada.  This shared experience allowed us to make many comparisons to my work environment and Ironman.  It allowed me to put into perspective aspects of my work that I did control and those that I did not.  As I prepared for 2010 and 2011 - and as I now prepare for 2021 - versions of Ironman Canada I thought I would share with you some of the analogies I've been able to draw between Ironman and Leadership - and throw in a few more that grew from our work together - and from my life and business experience since then.

First, there has to be some motivation or goal in mind to undertake an Ironman event - as there must be in taking on a leadership role.  As "they" say , without a goal any direction will do! Ironman is a daunting undertaking - 3.8 km swim, followed by 180 km on the bike, followed by a 42 km marathon.  As I'm sure most amateur athletes would attest to there are not a lot of positives that come with doing this event.  You certainly get cheers along the way from family and friends, and sometimes from complete strangers.  You do get a finisher's medal at the end of the race (no podium finish for me!).  

And you get to feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment (and relief!) when you cross that finish line.

Otherwise it's a lot of hard slogging through the three disciplines and sometimes a lot of talking to yourself as you try to reach the finish line.  You are in the race in some cases just to say you did it, to prove to yourself that you are capable.  And most of us in leadership roles would agree that recognition is outweighed by ongoing challenges.  Like Ironman, it's often a lonely journey we take on.  

Related to this motivation and goal setting, the intervening years in business have also taught me the powerful role that experience and specificity of goals can play in one's success.  In each year of my business I have updated, on at least an annual basis, my goals for the year.  In that process, and as I have coached and worked with my clients, I have come to appreciate how many of the barriers we believe we face are actually self-created.  If we create stretch goals - that are specific and challenging - we can often surprise ourselves with our success.  That success then encourages further "audacity" in setting the next impossible goal.  So in Ironman that has meant that simply achieving a new personal best is not enough.  I want to - and am working towards - trying to better my last, best time by 10%.  Perhaps that still seems like a small goal to you.  For me it means ramping up performance in each element of the race.  Same philosophy applies to my business which, since 2012, has grown by nearly 400% as measured by gross revenue.  Success, courage, determination, realism and purposeful action has continued to lay the foundation for better results.

Second, for best results in an Ironman, you spend a significant amount of time in training and preparing for the race.  No different than getting ready to take on a leadership role.  For Ironman, you can find yourself starting to prep as early as a few weeks after the last race for the next race!  Granted your training isn't as intense at this point. Rather, you are now trying to maintain your level of fitness, work on improving or sustaining technique, improving core strength and (if you are like me) looking to shed a few more pounds.  Entering race day - or starting a leadership position - without any form of preparation is a high risk proposition to say the least!  For most of us - including the professionals - success does not come without months of preparation.  Others may spend years getting ready for the ultimate event, building up confidence to take up the challenge by doing shorter distance triathlons.  In much the same way, successful leaders prepare themselves academically, take on smaller challenges, and ultimately work up to larger leadership roles.

Triathlon is a multi-discipline sport.  So is leadership.  However, if we think of triathlon as swimming, cycling and running we would miss out on other equally important components.  A critical part of training and race day preparation is making sure your nutrition and hydration is race ready.  Throughout the year leading up to Ironman you use training days and smaller events to figure out what works for you and will keep you fueled for the race - what will your body tolerate? what amount do you need to sustain race pace? what kind of electrolyte replacement do you need? do you need to use salt replacement? how will that change depending on weather conditions?  So what's the leadership analogy for nutrition?  My take on that is all leaders need to continue to fuel their minds through continuous education and learning.  You can't continue to make positive impact if you don't continue to hone and advance your skill set.  There is too much change too fast in our work world - labour force dynamics, regulations, government direction, world events and upheaval - to stand pat with existing learning.  Leaders must continue to fuel their minds.

AND...just like nutrition and hydration, the form of your learning and development has to be customized to your needs and appetite.  What works for one athlete/leader may not work at all for the next.  Know yourself first and best.  Take advice, information and learning from others.  Create your own best solution within the context of your own personal goals and expectations. 

Success in Ironman also requires that your equipment - wetsuit, bike, shoes, watch - is race ready.  This means making decisions early on as to whether you want to take on the race with a road bike or a tri-bike, whether you want to go with base components or invest in top-of-the line products, what type of running shoes work for you and so on.  You'll also find that your training and smaller races will take their toll on your equipment.  At points in time you will have to replace your shoes as you put on the miles, replace your tires and otherwise tune your equipment in the hopes of not having a breakdown on race day.  In much the same way, as a leader, you have to make the appropriate investments in equipment and tools to undertake your leadership task - do you have the right measurement systems in place, the right tools to effectively communicate with your stakeholders, the right mechanisms to ensure that your work group or organization is aligned towards the achievement of a common goal.  Your experience will cause you to change/upgrade your tools as you work towards your goal.

I can't do justice to the comparison between Ironman and Leadership if I don't discuss mental preparation and hardening.  You can have everything in place mentioned above - training in several disciplines, fueling plan nailed, equipment ready - but if you are not mentally prepared for race day all of the prep work might be - will be - for nought.  In this way, "failure" during training or in a shorter race may become the best guarantee of future success at Ironman.  If you don't face adversity, large or small, prior to Ironman - flat tire, slipped bike chain, bad weather - you likely won't know how to react when something like that happens on race day.  And you don't want to be doing all your learning on race day!  It's no different with leadership.  The best leaders have faced their share of adversity on their way up to their current roles - they've experienced conflict, they've had to make tough choices, they've had to balance multiple priorities and tasks, and they have sometimes failed.  However, that's what has (hopefully) helped them to become better leaders.

Then it's race day.  All your preparation has led to this moment.  In 2011, that meant nearly 3,000 people entering the water at the same time.  Each one with their own anxieties, skill level, and goals.  Some were rookies.  Some had done this more than a dozen times.  Regardless, for the next nine, ten, twelve or even seventeen hours you effectively begin to race on your own, trying to beat the clock.  At this point there is no guarantee as to how the day will go.  You may have expectations but once you start the race you surrender yourself to the events of the day.  Weather can be a factor. In 2010 I got hailed on part way through the bike ride and the temperature dipped to 10 degrees Celsius.  In 2011, the temperature hit a peak of around 40 degrees Celsius.  Same course - different conditions.  In 2011, I got slugged in the face and developed a cramp in my leg half-way through the swim.  Early in the bike course somebody had thrown tacks on the road.  I got through while others had to deal with replacing a punctured tube.  I saw someone else with a broken bike chain.  You can't predict what will happen.  No different in our leadership roles.  Your day can be exquisitely planned out and then you get that one call and your day is radically altered.  As a leader you must be prepared to respond and adjust to the events of the day.

At some point the day does end!  While I did better in 2011 than I did in 2010, I still believe I have more in me.  I have a desire to achieve what I believe my body is capable of.  As in leadership, there is a need for a post-event evaluation.  What worked?  What didn't?  What would I change?  In Ironman you have a small number of well-established metrics that help you to objectively evaluate your performance - heart rate, pace, swim time, bike time, run time, transition times, and finish time.  There are also subjective evaluations at play and most of them relate to how did I feel during different parts of the race and after the race.  Was my stomach working ok?  How well did my body hold up to the pounding?  What does all of that mean in preparation for next year?  In the same way, leaders have to conduct ongoing evaluation of their efforts by whatever means available so as to ensure a greater degree of success in future endeavours.

While I have described Ironman as a solo event it is anything but.  Most competitors have been introduced to triathlon through other people.  We don't just miraculously decide to take on triathlon without having someone initiate us, inspire us or mentor us to take on the challenge.  Many of us are also part of teams that we train with and learn from.  Good leadership is also a function of working with and learning from a team.  This includes subordinates, peers and mentors.  We shorten our learning curve and mitigate the risk of failure by learning from others and leaning on their experience and knowledge. 

Finally, as I hope all leaders and triathletes would attest to, none of us truly succeeds or reaches our full potential without the support of our families.  Training for an Ironman can often take up to and over 20 hours of time each week.  This means many early mornings, evenings or weekends away from family.  It means adjusting family plans to allow for participation in lead up races and Ironman itself.  It means financial investment in equipment.  Same holds true for most leadership positions.  Early morning meetings, late evening meetings, planning forums that take place out-of-town, conferences and crisis events all take time away from family.  In addition, as leaders we all experience varying levels of stress, trials and tribulations in the course of our careers.  We have to make decisions about when to upgrade our education.  We have to make decisions on when to make a change in career.  Are we prepared to move to another city or province to pursue a career opportunity.  None of this can be a solo decision and our success is in no small measure attributable to our families. 

Ironman and Leadership - more than a few lessons to be learned.  Keep training, learning, growing, experimenting and enjoy the race!

_________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.