Paying it Forward

Posted byErik AngusPosted inLeadership, Personal, Professional

“You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.” – Henry David Thoreau

Throughout my life I have always chased after opportunities to learn and develop myself.  Due to this passion for growth, a strong program of development opportunities for employees was always a key item in where I wanted to work and build a career.  Thankfully, all of my employers have always surpassed this desire, and in early December I had the opportunity to complete Cerner Corporation’s six-month Rising Star Program, a program designed for associates early in their career that have been identified as high potential leaders.  

The Rising Star Program consisted of six different modules across six months where we were expected to complete readings, videos, assessments, reflections and additional pre-work leading up to a large group session led by content experts and leaders across Cerner.  

Below I will outline my key takeaway from each module and provide all of the content that was utilized throughout the program hopefully paying this forward to be able to be used by others in the pursuit of growing and developing themselves.  

Module #1 – Becoming a Person of Influence and Strengths

Throughout this session we dove deep into what it means to have influence and how to recognize and take advantage of your strengths.  My key takeaways were in having a deeper understanding of my top 5 strengths and how I have the ability to influence all different types of people; influence doesn’t have to be specifically from a position of power.  

My Top 5 Strengths:

  1. Positivity
  2. Achiever
  3. Futuristic
  4. Learner 
  5. Arranger

Resources: Influence

Resources: Strengths

Module #2 – Emotional Intelligence and Feedback

Throughout workshop number two we discussed and learned about how critical emotional intelligence and the ability to give and receive feedback is in the professional and personal world.  

During this workshop we were challenged to create our own personal feedback philosophy.  The feedback philosophy that I compiled from my readings and the workshop consists of 3 key components:

  • Core Belief: Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
  • Feedback Rights
    • Right Place
    • Right Time
    • Right Person
  • Always be solution oriented

Additionally, one of the most intriguing readings that I completed came from Google’s Project Aristotle where project teams within Google studying how teams were built and worked.  Their research came to the conclusion that “How a team works matters more than who’s on the team.”  Specifically how a successful team works depends on five key components.

  1. Psychological Safety – Team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other.  
  2. Dependability – Team members get things done on time and meet expectations.
  3. Structure & Clarity – Team has clear roles, plans, and goals.  
  4. Meaning – Work is personally important to team members.
  5. Impact – Team members think their work matters.  

Resources: Emotional Intelligence

Resources: Feedback

Module #3 – Business and Industry Acumen

In order to be a successful project or people leader you have to understand how the team and the organization functions.  Diving deeper into the business of healthcare, corporations, and specifically Cerner was at the core of module three.  

The pre-work and resources used during this session consisted primarily of listening to and reading historical earnings calls, and then being challenged to analyze the information to have a better understanding of the state of the business and the industry.  We also had the opportunity to learn from business architects about how Cerner and specifically the Consulting organization is structured and why it is built that way.  

Throughout this session I walked away with two main takeaways.  

  1. Pay attention to quarterly earnings calls; every company has them and they tell you a lot about your organization or organizations that you have interest in.  
  2. Business and healthcare (or another industry) can be incredibly complex.  If you want to actually be a leader in your arena, you have to be a student of the game.  Take the time to study and understand your industry, your business, and how they fit together.  

Module #4 – Managing Conflict and Embracing Diversity & Inclusion

Workshop number four consisted of two unique and incredibly important topics, managing conflict and embracing diversity & inclusion.  

My greatest takeaway from the conflict portion of this module focused on a conflict management strategy proposed by William Ury in his video, Getting to Yes.  He proposes that when you get into a conflict to work through the following steps.

  1. Go to the balcony – getting to a place of perspective, keeping your eye on the goal.
    1. “Is my action going to solve the problem or advance the decision?”
    2. Remember why you are there.
    3. Develop your BATN (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) – best course of action if you cannot reach agreement. 
  2. Separate people from the problem.  Soft on people, hard on the problem.  
    1. Listen; be empathetic.  
  3. Invent options to negotiate with solutions
    1. “What would it look like if…”
    2. Always think win/win
    3. Seek first to understand before being understood

Resources: Conflict

Resources: Diversity & Inclusion

Module #5 – Fostering Accountability and Time Management

In the effort to become more self aware in how we hold ourselves accountable, we completed an assessment called Four Tendencies that assessed how you act towards outer expectations and inner expectations.  Unsurprisingly my results labeled me as an Obliger, meaning that I often struggle with internal expectations but thrive with external expectations.  This was no surprise to me as I am always focused on what I can do for others and how I can live up to what other people expect.  This activity only increased my own self awareness, helping illustrate that I need to be more public with my internal expectations to the point where they almost become outer expectations.  

David Allens’ “The Art of Stress Free Productivity” utilized multiple unique stories to illustrate how critical time management is to a fulfilling personal and professional life.  My three key takeaways from Allen were:

  1. Capture Your Thinking – Try to focus on one task at a time (avoid multi-tasking).  When those other thoughts cross your mind, write them down to view later.
  2. Make actionable decisions later about what was on that list
    1. “Your toughest work is defining what your work is.” – Peter Drucker
  3. Use the right maps (goals, strategy, management, etc.) to get where you need to go with this list.  Think BIG PICTURE.  

Resources: Accountability

Resources: Time Management

Module #6 – Building Relationships

There are few items more critical to building relationships than the power of vulnerability.   Brene Brown does a masterful job articulating this in her book, Dare to Lead and her video on The Power of Vulnerability.  This workshop was very timely in my life as I was learning a whole new level of vulnerability with my professional team as I was articulating what I needed to help my wife’s grandfather transition into Hospice care and eventually pass away.  This was one of the most vulnerable moments of my professional career, as I wrote about in “It is a privilege to help someone die”.

This workshop also empowered me to go one step deeper into the impact of what practicing something means in life through Dave Mochel’s “What are you practicing right now?”.  Mochel’s video spends time discussing how we build habits through practice.  But the key piece that was new to me was how as humans we also build bad habits and skills through practice.  Whatever you do regularly you are practicing, and whatever you are practicing you are going to get good at, so be careful with what you practice.  

Resources:

Over the last six months I have learned a lot about myself and others, built a new network of peers that will push and challenge me, and hopefully supplied others with these same tools and resources.  At the end of the day, we learn to pay it forward to make the world and those around us a better place.  

One thought on “Paying it Forward”

  1. Solid post.

    “Whatever you do regularly you are practicing, and whatever you are practicing you are going to get good at, so be careful with what you practice. ”

    That’s fire. What’s usual is usual.

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