Interns...Sponges Waiting to Absorb Knowledge

As the summer season approaches, many of us working in Corporate America will see an influx of interns floating around in our hallways.  These interns are sponges waiting to absorb knowledge.  I take pride in spending time with our interns.  Teaching them about life in the corporate world. Teaching them about topics I wish colleges had classes for like: your career journey, how to get ahead, understanding your personal brand, understanding what success looks like, and understanding what is important in life.

Our careers, especially in the last 15 years, are no longer a straight line up the ladder with promotions within your function.  Companies are flatter, jobs are less silo-ed, employees are more apt to change jobs, we have four generations in the current workforce, and there will be a shortage of leadership in the next five years as the mass of baby boomers retire.  So, what do we do?  We need to understand the changing dynamics in our workforce.  We need to understand the needs of the different generations.  We need to understand the realities of budgets and training.  We need to break some paradigms around leadership and management.  We need to embrace telework and constant conversations.  We need to embrace more recognition.  We need to let every voice be heard.  We need to embrace and support difference.  These are easier said than done.

The career journey needs to be about challenge and impact.  We need to teach the future leaders about education (not traditional, but the value of continuous learning), experiences (think about your experiences like a stock portfolio – better to be diversified), performance (what impact do they have and how do they perform against their peers), potential (how do they act and interact with the people in the jobs they desire), and relationships (we are in a relationship world – even virtually).  How do we take these five cards they hold and build a winning hand.  I like to speak to the interns about this “poker game” and as they look to move up, they need to constantly assess their five cards.  AND they need to understand what they control vs what cards their peers hold.  An easy visual to help them understand that life is not entitled.

And this leads me into a discussion about their personal brand.  Their brand, simply stated, reflects their performance, the exposure they have had, and the perception about them.  Performance is about understanding what is valued, what is expected and what they accomplished.  Exposure is about understanding how careers develop in their company, who are the decision makers, what are the functions and levers that drive the business forward, and how are they taking in new information and ideas.  Finally, perception.  This is most often overlooked by the interns.  What is their “brand”?  Do they understand self-awareness?  How do they view themselves as it relates to their own image, attitude and impact?  How do they think others view their image, attitude and impact or their leadership (people, thought or functional).  This is often an eye-opening conversation for many.  Not everyone gets a trophy in the corporate world.  You may get criticized in the corporate world.  You may not win.  But how do you rebound, learn and persevere?

Next, I try to give them insight into what success drivers they can control.  We speak to finding good managers and mentors.  Building their leadership skills and interpersonal skills.  The value of hard work, enthusiasm and ambition.  Keeping their skills “current and “relevant”.  And lastly, understanding the environment they work in.  If you are creative free-spirit, maybe Ben & Jerry’s is a better culture than IBM.  If you are analytical and a bit OCD, maybe E&Y is better than Pixar.  It’s all about matching their values and skills to that environment which will allow them to flourish.  Also, finding a great boss never hurts!

Finally, I like to give them some life lessons from my own journey.  We talk about the following in no particular order: taking chances, being true to your values, aligning your career with your personality, finding great bosses, trusting the inherent good in people, controlling your own destiny, saying thank you, making a difference, and prioritizing your life (family, friends, hobbies, activities, dreams, etc.).  There is no work/life balance.  It is just balance.

I leave them with a little Nelson Mandela quote, “A leader…like a shepherd.  He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go on ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind”.  …and I sit in the back of the room and watch the light bulbs go on.  Some today, some tomorrow, some by the end of summer.  And then I smile.  Pay it forward.

Dave Harmon

People Division

“Kindness is Currency”

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Follow Dave and other USA TODAY NETWORK highlights at: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse and Gannett Careers

Reshaping the Narrative Starts with You

50/50 Day.  Equality. Fairness. 

These words are not taken lightly. “We have been telling the story of scarcity {of women leaders} for so long and maybe it’s time we told a new story of abundance.”  This is a quote from a film I recently watched regarding women leaders today and throughout history.  This narrative reshapes the way we think of women and shows the real story is of a history rich with women leaders and conquerors.  Unfortunately, through the ages this story has changed.  Not only did women become ‘less’ in our societies, but the stories of the past were changed or disappeared altogether.

So, I did more reading on this issue, and in an article I read from Gloria Feldt, “Just as Galileo had a tough time convincing folks the world wasn’t flat and Earth wasn’t at the center of the universe, studies by a small army of scholars have yet to dislodge a worldview about the lesser value of women’s work. Culture runs deep, and it’s hard to change while you’re living in it. People in power don’t relinquish it willingly.  The diminution of women happens all the time — from a woman being offered “a mommy track” she never asked for, an unnamed leader refusing to shake a woman leader’s hand or outright sexual harassment. Let’s not fool ourselves — all of those moves are power plays meant to keep women off-balance, undermined and “in their place,” psychically and metaphorically.”

Time to create another way. Let’s start by refuting once and for all old myths about why women do or do not work.  There are so many articles and books exploring why parity has been so elusive, from Anne-Marie Slaughter’s piece in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” to Jocelyn Frye’s just released “Defining Power and Why It Matters: Securing Women’s Equality and Women’s Futures.” They reveal compelling, maddening sides of this issue. Frye observes, “Unfortunately, one key problem that needs fixing is an old story encompassing obstacles that limit women’s autonomy and ability to control their futures. These obstacles are embedded in our laws, institutions and even our culture — obstacles visible and invisible but no less pernicious or impactful.”

Think about in your own life and family history.  Are there women in your life and ancestry who did remarkable things and accomplished much?  I am betting that for most of us there are. For me, a few stand out - my aunt, Elyse (Knox) Harmon was a Hollywood leading lady in the 1940's; my grandmother, Libby, an English scholar; and my mother, Joan, was a driving force at the Business Department at Skidmore College (and a driving force in our home growing up – paid the bills, disciplined, coached, cooked, cleaned, nurtured, listened, pushed…the list goes on AND I miss her everyday).  I am proud to have had some great role models.  

I also have some great role models where I work.  At Gannett, our Chief Financial Officer, Chief Legal Counsel, Chief Transformation Officer, Chief Content Officer and one of our Chief Executive Officers are all great leaders.  And they rock.  Oh, and yes they are female.  We want to lead the way. 

This does not change the fact that throughout our lifetime women have been marginalized and gender equality has not been an important issue until the last decade or so.  We still have a long way to go to achieve this goal.

The following video (below) is part of an initiative to change the narrative.  The purpose of 50/50 Day is to remind those who may have forgotten their history. May it remind us all that “women are more than capable and have paid their dues multiple times over” (Feldt).  I encourage all of you to watch the video and get involved.  Let’s start by changing the narrative in our own lives and our own families.  Let’s raise our daughters and our sons with the full story, where they are equally able to be anything they want to be.  They can lead, they can build, they can play, they can create.  They can change the world.  Together. We. Win.  (and for all the great Mom’s  - Happy Mother’s Day).

Here is how to get involved:

http://www.letitripple.org/films/50-50/ 

Dave Harmon

People Division

“Kindness is Currency”

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Follow Dave and other USA TODAY NETWORK highlights at: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse and Gannett Careers

Sports, leadership...and life

Walking on to the lacrosse field on Tuesday night, I looked around and thought, this is it.  This is my final walk with any of my three boys onto the playing field.  Football, Basketball, Track, Lacrosse…this was it.

This past Tuesday was Senior Night.  After 3 sons and 24 years of coaching and cheering, my youngest son will play his last high school varsity lacrosse game this month and I am officially retiring as a high school sports parent.  It has been twenty-four years of watching, coaching, learning, playing and working with my three boys through sports.  Twenty-four years of teaching my boys and other young men about team work, hard work, and having fun.  Twenty-four years of learning how to get the best out of your team.  Twenty-four years of making mistakes and learning from them (which has carried over into my work life).  Twenty-four years of watching my boys win and lose, celebrate and cry, have some luck – good and bad, and finally experience life lessons through success and failure.  Twenty-four years of trying to not be “that Dad” and rooting for my kids quietly on the sideline.  Twenty-four years of some funny stories – running all the way down the sideline in football a few times when my son(s) had a long run or catch for a touchdown, or cringing when my son broke a brand new lacrosse stick less than 48 hours after we purchased it, or when coaching and getting excited over a big basketball win and realizing the kids were more concerned about what the post-game snack was (Oreos by the way), or when boys came up to me to excitedly show me their cell phone wallpaper which was a football or lacrosse photo I had taken the week before.  The stories are too many to recount in this blog.  The memory is still fresh.  The smiles endless.

And making an impact.  Little things I love, like hearing “Hey Coach” when I am out in the neighborhood or eating somewhere.  Or when my boys will recollect, “Dad, remember that time when…”.   I love it when boys come back from college and tell me about leadership and they tie it back to a coaching moment.  I love it when I look back at all the photos, enjoying all the memories and realizing it was all a wonderful time and opportunity in my life.  Making a difference with so many young men – including my own.   An opportunity to be with and watch my boys (and other boys) grow.  I have learned so many things throughout this time, and as my youngest son heads off to college in the fall, here are just a few of those things:

• Time flies by, every year goes by a little bit faster.  Enjoy the moment.
• Our children reflect ourselves (both good and bad).  So are the teams we lead.
• Change happens right beneath your eyes.  Be part of it.
• Milestones matter.  They are the memories you hold onto.
• Parenting is full of mistakes and regrets, but overtaken by caring and memories. So is leadership.

Whether you are parenting or leading, there are things which seem to transcend both: being accountable, having discipline, showing respect, acting with restraint, giving recognition….and caring.

As parents, we certainly make mistakes, and as leaders we do as well.  The key is to rebound and learn from these mistakes and make personal change.  While it is important to understand your mistakes, it is also important to keep moving forward and take on new challenges.  Do not be afraid to admit your mistakes, your team will respond positively (believe me, I have made thousands).

I will leave you with this thought from something I read a day before I took my final walk for “senior night”.  “Hold your boy a bit longer, rock him a bit more, always read him another story – you’ve only read him four.  Let him sleep on your shoulder, enjoy his happy smile, for he is only a little boy for such a short while.”  (Author unknown)    Together.  We.  Win.

Dave Harmon

People Division

“Kindness is Currency”

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Follow Dave and other USA TODAY NETWORK highlights at: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse and Gannett Careers