The Peak Performing Team Faith Clarke

This week's episode is a real treat for me. My friend and colleague, Celeste Herron, interviewed me on my podcast! We discussed neurodiversity and the ways that the workplaces of today can better nourish all the ways that we are human. 

Fundamentally, cultivating the inclusive workspace is about knowing about and removing the barriers to full contribution for all team members. Because, let's face it, if your team members are performing in spite of the barriers, you are wasting money. Cultivating this workspace where human thriving isn't an exception starts with being curious about this question: What aspects of your work culture, workflow, systems, processes .. block team members people from showing up and contributing fully? More often than not, the most significant answers to this question dial down to difficulty tolerating differences. In our conversation, Celeste and I discuss this struggle using neurodistinctiveness as an example. We look at how our history contributed to this issue and how the workplace needs to chance to reduce and remove these barriers. As you listen, think of any aspect of difference that seems relevant to your workplace or team. Whether it's related to gender, ethnicity, personality, stage in life or anything else, the same principle applies. Get curious about the barriers to contribution.

There's so much written about building an inclusive cultur ein your organization, yet very few organizations are doing this effectively. Instead of trying to force yourself to expertly know it all, do a team audit instead. Based on what you share with me, you will get 2-3 customized solutions that you can easily implement, so you can see tangible changes immediately. Visit FaithClarke.com or click here to schedule your quick audit.

About Celeste: Celeste Herron, Brand Experience Designer, Strategist, and Mentor to visionary women, who build businesses and brands that change lives and are using their wealth to change the world.

She is the creator of the Embodied Brand Method, a framework and a new way of thinking about branding and business development, where the personhood of the leader, the humanity of the company are paired with a brand experience that is exquisitely curated to create a feeling of trust, bravery, and wonder that deeply supports your buyers and clients. This is a transformational rite of passage for the woman who is ready to move beyond being just a business owner and become the leader of a highly profitable, high-impact brand.

Book a consultation with Celeste to talk about your transformational brand or visit celesteherron.com to learn more.

Mia and I pulled back the curtains and looked at the innards of her team onboarding and staff supports practices. Since Mia is in a beautiful growth phase in her business, she's been expanding her team and is actively thinking through the most effective ways to connect her team members to Copy-Haus' unique approach to copywriting, while energizing their connection to the company and to each other. In a fast growing business, this has not been easy. You will hear us talk about figuring out what new staff need, your unique way of offering that and about integrating community connection rituals into the workflow to build a strong sense of TEAM.

Onboarding is really about cultivating connection and shared responsibility for the work and for each other, to maximize productivity while everyone thrives. In other words, feel good and like you belong WHILE getting the job done. If you think you'll be hiring a new team member in the next 2 - 3 months, this might be the time to audit your onboarding processes. I'm doing a few quick audits over the next few weeks. Go to https://calendly.com/faithclarke/teamaudit to schedule one and I'll share the 2 - 3 simple things that your process needs so that it can be more effective for your new hire and less overwhelming for you!

About Mia: Words are Mia Francis-Poulin's jam. A conversion copywriter, native New Orleanian, and Parks and Rec enthusiast, Mia helps impact-driven creators to find the right words to market their products authentically and confidently. She's the owner of The Copy Haus -- a boutique copywriting agency for course creators, consultants, and online business owners offering done-for-you and done-with-you sales page, email sequence, and website copywriting. Check out www.thecopyhaus.com/manifesto to see how The Copy Haus is doing copy differently.

Connect with Mia:


www.thecopyhaus.com/manifesto
Facebook.com/thecopyhaus
Www.thecopycommunity.com
Instagram @thecopyhaus

Studies say as much as 70% of new hired don’t think theirs companies onboarding processes helped them get up to speed in their new role. AND more than 50% of managers find their company’s onboarding processes to be burdensome and overwhelming. No wonder we have so many values breakdowns in our teams. What’s going wrong?? In this short episode, I discuss some ways to reframe the Onboarding experience so that it’s a win win all round, and some essential ingredients of effective Onboarding that helps your team recreate itself to include the new members, while strengthening a healthy team culture and infusing team values. If you are about to start recruiting for your team, this is the time to do an audit of your current Onboarding strategy so you can leverage what’s working and get rid of time wasting processes that frustrate new hires and overwhelm managers. Visit FaithClarke.com to talk about an Onboarding Strategy audit.

Jane Rosenzweig and I had a beautiful, vulnerable, courageous conversation about her experiences as a white DEI practitioner, wrestling with helping majority white organizations integrate their DEI values into the daily behaviors of all associates. Jane has spent her career developing corporate DEI strategies anchored in social justice foundations. Through her 20+ years experience in this industry, Jane formulated a support and racial literacy program for white leaders and corporate stakeholders loosely framed 'make better white people'. This program grew out of her own experiences as a practitioner, noticing that white associates in corporations needed a different type of education and accountability than their BIPOC counterparts and these differences must be identified within the DEI implementation plan. Listen as we talk through a specific intervention that Jane participated in and what she leaned as a result. If you want to your values infused into every aspect of your team’s work, let’s have a virtual coffee (schedule at FaithClarke.com) to brainstorm some strategies specific to your team.
About Jane Rosenzweig: As the first Head of DEI (CDO) at W.L. Gore & Associates (www.gore.com), Jane developed a philosophy and strategy that built on Gore’s humanistic values and innovative business model. Relying on culture change and social movement methodologies, Jane galvanized the involvement of thousands of Associates from around the world. Using curiosity and conversation, teams deepened their understanding of identity differences and committed to disrupting bias in day-to-day life. Jane’s approach is rooted in her belief that empathy and dialogue can solve most things. (Along with a strong focus on systems and structures!)
Prior to Gore, Jane spent 11 years at J.P. Morgan Chase in NYC. As part of the Corporate Diversity team, she was responsible for the employee engagement and communication strategy. She began her career at the US Attorney's Office in Washington, DC, where she had her fist formal DEI role: EEO Investigator.
Contact Jane by email: janerosenzweig1@gmail.com

In this episode I talk about one of the 3 C’s that help me figure out the best intervention strategy for teams. I gave an overview of the 3 C’s in episode #6 and then about Communication in episode #8. CRAFT is an artist’s analogy for the team’s WORK. Craft has 3 components and I talk about them with a triangle in mind so you can visualize the 2 foundations to the team behaviors that you want. As you you listen, think about the analogy that makes the most sense for you, and, if you want to personalize this for your team, schedule a virtual team chat and coffee at FaithClarke.com

Why did we have that meeting??? I’ve heard that complaint from BOTH team leaders and team members. It’s tempting to think that meetings are the problem and that they should be avoided at all costs. But avoiding them would be a mistake. Team meetings are synergistic powerhouses, when we get them right. So if your meetings feel like a drag, fix them. This episode has 3 suggestions for more productive meetings, including tips summarized from earlier interviews with Celine Williams (episode #7) and Nikki McKnight (episode #15). Enjoy and let’s not have any more meetings that could have been emails!