We work with leaders who are interested in reinventing and transforming themselves professionally (and personally). No matter how effective you were as a leader before COVID-19, today and in the future will present all leaders with new and different challenges so how you lead is paramount. If you are not intentional about how you show up, communicate, and make decisions during this disruptive time, you and your organization will flounder.
“ It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who has been swimming naked.” - Warren Buffet
Leadership transformation is cultivating the hard and soft skills of leadership, knowing how to leverage your weaknesses and maximize your strengths, and balance tough choices with refined EQ skills so your people feel psychologically safe during this global pandemic. There’s no “playbook” or silver-bullet solutions for leadership when a global crisis occurs, so we work with leaders to help them develop a ridiculous level of self-awareness.
A _ _ Wall Street Journal survey_ of 900 executives found that 92% said soft skills were equally important or more important than technical skills. But 89% of those surveyed said they have a_ very or somewhat difficult time finding people with these kind of attributes.
LinkedIn’s 2018 Workforce Report found that the four most in-demand soft skills are within leadership, communication, collaboration, and time management.
The world certainly needs creative and agile leaders now, those who know they will never have all the answers and that every opportunity is surrounded by a problem. The COVID-19 crisis is driving our work with leaders to:
- Develop a ridiculous level of self-awareness
- Increase their comfort levels on crisis management, change management, and risk taking
- Boost confidence in making and more importantly, communicating difficult decisions with confidence and empathy
- Strategic planning and conduct continuous scenario planning with your team
- Intentionally communicate with credibility and optimism
- Use multiple ways of communicating and staying in touch while working remotely
- Understand the importance of specific and structured messaging
- Ensure consistent messaging throughout the entire organization
- Repeat communicating key themes, organizational values, and connect employees work to the organization’s mission
- Communicate with authenticity to build trust, create calm, and help employees’ stay focused on what they can control…the work.
Even in “normal” times, teams struggle with how to build an effective team, work as a collaborative team, and how to develop team behavioral norms. The COVID-19 crisis has only exacerbated the team challenges we had before the pandemic. Teams today are usually challenged with issues around trust, conflict, communication, and/or holding each other accountable because we are a part of multiple teams, personality dynamics of the team, or the team members coming and going. Now teams have had to make an overnight switch to working remotely which only intensifies team challenges and dynamics.
The COVID-19 crisis is driving our work with teams to:
- Address the extra challenges of remote teams in how the work gets done with virtual teams
- Help teams create a shared vision and a set of guiding principles for how the team will work remotely
- Help teams create a framework for consistent and effective communication
- Approaches to enhance trust and a sense of community for better team dynamics
- Increase resiliency and agility of the team to counter the impacts of physical distancing, isolation, and emotional stressors
- Simplify the work by clarifying tasks and processes, not just goals and roles
- Foster shared leadership and finding ways to involve others in leading the team to enhance team relationships
“The most effective way for organizations to be successful in times of rapid change is having a culture based on leadership values that is reinforced by effective communication, consistent behaviors, and transparency.”
-Susan Stern
Are all your company leaders telling the same story, with confidence, compassion, and optimism: how to keep safe, how to work together, and how to ensure that everyone is focused what’s most essential for the business and its customers? Organization’s strategic priorities and visions are changing faster than ever before with the weekly/daily changes happening with the global pandemic outside of our organizations. No one has a crystal ball to know how long our staff will be forced to work remotely, what the transition back to the office will ultimately look like, or all the long-term impacts COVID-19 will have on our organization’s health and resources.
How are you or your organization investing on your people during the COVID-19 crisis? What tools, resources, and strategies have you implemented to ensure that your workforce is prepared to navigate the rapid changes, are comfortable pivoting on a regular basis and the stamina to move through the “mental health crisis” stated by medical experts?
If not, it is critical you do something about it.
If we were to pull back the curtain within your organization, what would we find?
- Are you equipping your leaders with the tools to deal with the changing dynamics of the COVID-19 ?
- Do your top leaders have the skills to ensure your vision and mission are in alignment with your organization’s every day actions?
- What processes have you put in place to manage work issues that are exacerbated by remote working?
Susan partners with clients to customize needs and goals for individuals, teams, or corporate culture through a 3-step process.
- Define the vision.
- Create training programs to create sustainable solutions from identified leadership goals.
- Measure & integrate leadership training and coaching.
Susan customizes programs for each organization, since no two organizations have the same culture or mix of people. She helps build cohesive and high performing teams through discovery with team members, assessment tools like DiSC ( DiSC Work of Leaders, DiSC Workplace, DiSC Sales or DiSC Management), DiSC certified training for HR professionals, and executive coaching.
We have remote and in-person “Train the Trainers” programs for your internal people to become certified DiSC® Workplace.
- As more organizations experience the benefits of bringing Everything DiSC® to their employees, they also recognize the importance of having a credentialed professional in their organization who can keep DiSC alive in the company's culture. Live Now, LLC’s philosophy is that internal professionals create well-informed advocates who help keep employees engaged and deepen learning with tools and strategies of DiSC assessments. Susan encourages putting the knowledge directly in the hands of users by offering education options that meet their goals and style of learning.
Leadership today is becoming less about what we know, and more about how we navigate the challenges we will face. With the recent COVID pandemic, leaders are being tested in their resiliency and ability to respond to fluid circumstances across an organization in an environment that changes day by day. As our clients continue to adjust into a myriad scenarios of “new normal” with their people and clients, shifting operational priorities, and “how the work gets done” remotely; we work with them on adjusting, resiliency, and stretching their leadership styles.
Organizational change and leadership challenges were difficult before the pandemic, this prolonged crisis is highlighting pre-COVID office issues and challenging leaders’ ability to sustain their stamina, balance, and confidence. The pandemic and sudden virtual work environment give us no past experience to pull from, so it is more critical than ever to have “out of the box thinking”, flexibility and resiliency, and be able to maintain a calm center. This is where professional coaching comes in to support our clients in minimizing the impact of toxic stress, get unstuck and move out of fixed thinking, and tap into your inner leader even when you can’t control the rapid external changes.
Our confidential, practical approach coupled with progressive coaching methodologies (based on human behavior and leadership models, neuroscience, positive psychology, and communication strategies) help our clients achieve the professional and personal growth they’re striving for and navigate the rapid pace of change.
With today’s diverse and virtual workplace, leadership and creating a culture of teamwork is a strategic investment companies can’t afford to go without. Assessments help your leaders and teams learn their and co-worker’s leadership styles, preferences, strengths and possible gaps or areas needing further development. Live Now uses a wide range of online assessments and virtual/in-person programs to help establish a solid, baseline understanding of yourself, your team members, the people in your organization, and create a common language throughout the organization.
Executive assessments let you see your current and future leaders’ strengths and weaknesses, uncover their natural abilities, and give you a feel for their personality and work or management style.
Everything DiSC® solutions provide rich, versatile learning programs that offer personal insight for learners at every level of an organization, using a consistent language of DiSC®.
Using a research-validated learning model, each solution provides in-depth information including tips, strategies, and action plans to help learners become more effective in the workplace. All Everything DiSC solutions include unlimited access to complimentary follow-up reports and MyEverythingDiSC®, the interactive learning portal exclusive to Everything DiSC.
Everything DiSC Workplace® delivers a comprehensive, easily customizable workplace development solution to engage every employee—regardless of title or position, department or function—in building increased self-awareness and more productive and effective relationships at work.
Everything DiSC Work of Leaders® lays out a clear path for helping leaders at all levels make the connection between their DiSC® style and leadership. With one unified model of leadership—vision, alignment, and execution—it focuses on helping leaders understand their own leadership styles and how their tendencies influence their effectiveness in specific leadership situations.
Everything DiSC® Management offers a customizable development solution proven to increase the effectiveness of anyone in a management role--whether managing direct reports or the relationship with their own manager. Participants learn how their management style influences how they manage time, make decisions, approach problems, and what they need to do to adapt to the styles of others to bring out the best in each and every employee in their charge.
By combining the personalized insights of DiSC® with active emotional intelligence development, participants discover an agile approach to workplace interactions and learn to navigate outside their comfort zone, empowering them meet the demands of any situation.
Everything DiSC 363® for Leaders isn't just any 360. It’s a dynamic 360-degree feedback tool plus 3 personalized strategies for leaders to put into action immediately—a 360 + 3! The richness of Everything DiSC® comes together with the research-based Eight Approaches to Effective Leadership framework to help any leader—emerging high-potentials and experienced executives alike—incorporate critical feedback from direct reports, peers, and bosses into a development plan to increase their effectiveness in a leadership role.
Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict helps participants improve self-awareness around conflict behaviors. Rather than focus on a step-by-step process for conflict resolution, Everything DiSC Productive Conflict provides participants with techniques to curb destructive behaviors and effectively respond to conflict situations.
Assessments will help you refine your recruitment and selection process. You’ll get a better feel for which candidates have the highest leadership potential and focus your time and energy on developing them. More importantly, you won’t waste time, money and resources on ineffective employees.
Effective leadership trickles down to the rest of the team. When you put the right people in the right leadership roles, you can also fill out other roles with the best qualified candidates. Effective leaders want to surround themselves with the best available talent and an assessment can help you create a healthy talent pipeline within your organization.
Succession plans flow much more smoothly when you do executive assessments. You can identify your organization’s leadership needs before they arise and develop people who are best qualified to fill each position. As a result, you lower the risk of turnover, waste less money during transition periods, and improve the potential for productivity.