Work in Progress: A Blog by BridgeWork

Value Their Time Like It's Yours

ccammack@dobridgework.com (Charles Cammack) — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 12:07:18 GMT

Value Their Time Like It’s Yours

As I prepare for my 10th recruitment season in undergraduate admissions, I’m reflecting on the many times I’ve shared the same information in various formats. While this repetition is part of the job, it also ensures that I use the 20-60 minutes I have with each high school student purposefully. As I do with most things, I organize my time with them in three repeatable/malleable sections, depending upon the setting. This allows me to ensure that despite the change in audience, setting or even time, the takeaways for the student and their experience, remain consistent.

Here are the the three sections that I’ve utilized over the years:

Section 1: Understanding My Audience
This is my favorite part because it allows me to connect with students beyond their interest in the University of Miami and challenge their thinking. I usually ask for their name, major of interest, and a thought-provoking question.

Section 2: Overview of the University of Miami
I cover three crucial areas: academic life, the student experience, and the application process.

Section 3: Question and Answer
This is their chance to ask about the University of Miami and my personal experiences. I assure them that while my answers may not always be helpful, they will always be honest.

In many ways, I’ve been able to draw from my recruitment experiences with students and apply them to my work in management. They are easily transferable because at the end of the day, both revolve around the same thing, people . I’d challenge you to reflect on all of your various experiences with people, from family to friends to volunteering to the workforce, inevitably you’re going to not only find overlap, but invaluable nuggets to utilize in a different area of people engagement.

One of my reflections over the last few years has been to revisit the thoughtful questions I’ve utilized over the years in my recruitment presentations, as they often shape the rest of my interactions with students. These questions have varied from their ideal podcast guest to their non-negotiables at their next institution. This year, I’ve settled on a question that prompts deep reflection:

“If you knew you didn’t have much time left, what would you be doing more of?”

Though it might seem heavy, it’s a question worth considering. Time is our most valuable asset. It’s the one thing we have complete control over. Through this question, I invite these prospective students to begin, before they launch into their collegiate and career journey, exercising extreme ownership over the use of their time. Mastering this skill now, will benefit them greatly in school, but even more so as they enter the workforce.

Outside of the years spent in grade school and college, we spend, on average, we spend one-third of our lives at work. That’s half of our waking hours – sometimes even more. Given how much time we spend in school and at work, it makes sense to be intentional about how we use it.

However, this is not a truth only relevant for students and employees, but for those who support and manage these individuals. Many managers and C-suite executives make it clear through their actions and accessibility, how much they value their own time. Perhaps our organizations would thrive if we valued everyone’s time as much as our own.

Though employee management and collegiate admission, on the surface, are unrelated. My approach to maximizing my limited time to recruit for the University of Miami can be directly applied to how we engage and respectfully manage the time of our team members and employees.

While the time and backgrounds of employees will vary, maintaining a consistent quality and intentionality is key. You can apply the following approach:

Section 1: Understand Your Employees
Find out where they want to go and how you can help them get there.

Section 2: Educate Them About the Organization
Treat your organization like a mini-school, preparing employees for their future careers and lives.

Section 3: Share Your Wisdom
Allow employees to benefit from your experience and insights, which will also contribute to your own growth.

Notice that it is almost identical to the way in which I engage with the students I recruit. Why? Because while the application may vary, the value we all place on time remains the same. It is the asset none of us can live without.

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Plant the Seed Right: A People-Oriented Outcomes Approach

ccammack@dobridgework.com (Charles Cammack) — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:33:31 GMT

Plant the Seed Right: A People-Oriented Outcomes Approach

The entire meaning or implication of this post could change with a simple positional switch of two words: “seed” and “right.” In fact, I’m here to argue that many of us in our workplaces default to the idea of “I just have to plant the right seed.” What if there’s another way to look at this? Let me illustrate what I mean.

About a year ago, I was working in my yard when my neighbor called me over to our shared fence. As I walked over, he began to point out a particular plant that had grown onto his side of the fence. From my vantage point, it was a majestic member of the plant family. I noticed it every time I walked out of my home, marveling over several months at its growth among other plants and admiring the flowers blooming up and down its stems. My dream-like understanding was abruptly halted by these words from my neighbor: “Hey man, I’ve been wanting to tell you, I know it looks good, but that’s a weed.”

I was genuinely shocked and immediately began trying to pull it up and cut it down. However, as my neighbor had warned me, it was going to be a challenge. The “weed” had taken root and made a home, and it took me well over an hour of labor to completely remove it. How could this seemingly beautiful plant suddenly become the most hideous nuisance? The explanation is simple. It’s in the definition of the word. A weed is generally defined as a plant growing where it is not wanted and in direct competition with the plants intentionally planted around it.

Here’s the key: the plant I was marveling at before my perspective shifted wasn’t the result of someone planting the wrong seed, but rather someone not planting the seed right. A dandelion in my yard is certainly a weed, but a dandelion in a dandelion garden is perfectly at home. The seed that produces the dandelion isn’t inherently bad, but it can certainly be out of place due to poor or mistaken planting.

Many of us are navigating workplaces filled with people who were planted incorrectly or who have had seeds, knowledge, and/or strategies planted in them wrongly. This creates a variety of problems, but one of the most common is that it fosters an environment where toxicity can grow. You want your coworkers or direct reports to be strategic, but you’re only seeing manipulation. You want them to advocate for themselves, but instead, you encounter selfishness. You want them to embrace work-life balance, but you’re faced with entitlement. The list goes on, but maybe, just maybe, they’re struggling to navigate the tension between these areas.

We all at times must hold the tension between two seemingly competing variables. An individual wants to be strategic, but if met with resistance time and again, it may feel like manipulation is the only answer. This way of thinking can be applied to almost any scenario. The key is to provide them with the tools to create bridges, even when it feels like there isn’t one.

It starts with them knowing, and you accepting, that it isn’t about planting the right seed because we all belong somewhere. Rather, it’s about ensuring that we plant the seed right.

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People First: The Key to Fulfilling Your Organization’s Mission

abolden@dobridgework.com (Anthony Bolden) — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 00:18:47 GMT

People First: The Key to Fulfilling Your Organization’s Mission

The world of work is changing. In some respects for the better, but in other ways, not so much. Organizations are struggling to find the sweet spot between prioritizing their mission, securing the necessary funds, and supporting their people. As a result, mission-driven organizations are facing some of the lowest levels of employee engagement and retention. When you step back and consider the unique challenges these organizations often face, it’s not surprising that these priorities sometimes feel like they’re in conflict.

Healthcare, nonprofit, and education sectors are leading the pack when it comes to challenges with retention and employee engagement. These issues aren’t insurmountable, but solving them requires leadership to take the reins—not just employees. The current narrative tends to put too much emphasis on what employees need to do to improve their work experience. But recent studies tell a different story: it’s the organization’s responsibility to create a culture where both the entity and its people can thrive.

Your organization’s goals and your people's needs don’t have to be at odds—they should work together to uplift one another.

“Your number one customers are your people. Look after employees first and then customers last.”
—Ian Hutchinson, author of People Glue

Forbes reports that highly engaged teams are 21% more profitable. These are the employees who bring passion, purpose, and energy to their work. When people feel valued by the organization they serve, they’re more inclined to stick around, perform their roles with excellence, and engage fully in all areas of the organization.

As counterintuitive as it might sound, mission-driven organizations need to become a little less obsessed with the mission and a lot more obsessed with the people who move the mission forward. The mentality must shift from “what I need you to do” to “what can I do for you?” Imagine a different ethic, one where an employee’s next organization benefits even more from their impact because of their current organization's commitment to their personal and professional growth. This form of "altruistic organizational reciprocity" or "developmental reciprocity" isn’t just about immediate gains—it’s about creating a legacy of growth that extends beyond your organization, showing a commitment to the broader ecosystem. It’s about seeing your people as human, with needs and aspirations that extend beyond the 40 hours a week they commit to your organization.

Embracing this approach to leadership and development will optimize the employee experience and grow the organization. If you’re interested in making this change in your approach to workforce development, start by wrestling with these seven simple questions:

Do my people understand how I am currently working to support them?
Do my people feel fully supported in their work? If not, why?
What mechanisms do we have in place to gather insights into how our people are feeling and what they need?
What are my people’s greatest needs? What are the organization's greatest needs? Can addressing those needs positively impact the organization?
Does our current organizational budget reflect how much we value our people?
What budget adjustments can be made to create more opportunities to invest in my people?
Who can help me invest in the growth and development of my people?

This list of non-exhaustive questions can help your organization simply evaluate where you are, where you need to go, and how you can get there.

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