I was delighted to lead a workshop on “Diversity and Inclusion on Teams” for a class of engineering students at the University of Toronto last week. As part of the university’s Leaders of Tomorrow program, students can obtain a certificate in Team Skills.

Engineering. Leadership. Team Skills. Diversity and Inclusion. How remarkable! All these critical competencies offered in one program. Times have changed and learning about this program, which has been around since 2002, buoys me with optimism for the future.

I worked for almost two decades in a global technology company. In my early years I was responsible for recruiting new grad engineers and technical staff. While of course we wanted people who demonstrated leadership and showed potential for advancement, our primary focus was technical competency. Team and diversity education wasn’t on our radar.

These same engineers are still in the workforce today and I hear continually from clients and colleagues about the challenges of working effectively on teams – silo mentality, lack of trust, and high levels of stress and anxiety from the pressure to produce results.

In my current field of leadership and team development, diversity and inclusion are topics that are rarely addressed directly. In fact, when I ask colleagues how they deal with diversity and inclusion challenges on teams and in organizations, they often respond saying “That’s your thing. I don’t talk about it.” Ugh.

Research shows positive relationships have a direct positive impact on the performance of teams and their ability to be innovative, problem solve and produce results. So with this knowledge I am frustrated by the reluctance to talk about diversity on teams by my colleagues. Developing inclusive teams and workplaces must be integrated into the leadership and team development work we do in organizations.

Now you can understand my excitement at discovering a terrific program like the Leaders of Tomorrow at the University of Toronto. Their vision is as bold as the projects their students will create in the future “An engineering education that is a lifelong foundation for transformational leaders and outstanding citizens.” Things really are changing.

Let’s celebrate efforts like these by sharing them publicly. What innovative, integrated programs do you know about for developing “leaders for tomorrow”?

An important aspect of career advancement is the establishment of a diverse developmental network which is defined as “a set of relationships an individual has with people who take an active interest in and action to advance the individual’s career by assisting with his or her personal and professional development.” -Higgins & Thomas, Constellations and Careers.

Accordingly, the best developmental networks are diverse across three dimensions:

1. Functional (e.g. policy, finance, operations; marketing, HR, R&D)
2. Positional (e.g. hierarchy – senior, peer, junior)
3. Demographical (e.g. race/ethnicity, gender, generation, geographic region)

Three Roles You Want Present in Your Network:

• Mentor: A trusted person in the organization or industry, often at a more senior level, with whom you can get advice, gain perspective, get connected to others, access information and learn from the experiences of the mentor.
• Coach: An individual who provides support for self awareness, personal development and accountability to achieving goals. Coaches support you to develop ideas and discover answers about yourself and your work. Good mentors are often good coaches too
• Sponsor:  Sponsors help you connect to influential people. Sponsors advocate on your behalf for recognition, funding, promotions and career opportunities gaining support from prominent peers in the organization or industry. Sponsors are seen as critical to career advancement and business development 

Developmental networks are also referred to as a personal board of directors or advisors, a wisdom council, career constellation or a sanity circle. Whatever term you prefer, take the time to reflect on who is currently on your team. What roles are missing? How diverse are your members? Who would you like to invite onto your team? 

Please share your suggestions and experiences below. What name do you use for your developmental network?

Chaos. Not knowing. Confusion. Uncertainty. These are not words that we typically include in describing the environment we want to create to solve problems. More likely these are often the descriptors we are actively seeking to eliminate. And yet, it’s at the edge of chaos and order that innovation lives. It is also the exact place where the practice of leadership lives. This Chaordic Path between chaos and order is where things are not fixed but rather flexible enough for new connections and solutions to occur. New levels of order become possible out of chaos if we’re able to stay on the path long enough to see what emerges. How do we do this? More »

On Sunday I ran a 10k race in beautiful central Ontario. When I picked up my kit bag, my t-shirt was men’s size small/medium which was the smallest shirt they had. Too big. Again. Not a big deal you say. Not really. Except that I have so many men’s t-shirts from running races that do not fit because they are too big and too baggy. What’s frustrating is that in recent years more women are signing up to run races than men. In this particular race, there have been significantly more women than men participating for the eight years the race has been in existence. Why are only men’s style shirts available?

Now flip to the boardroom. Last week I was reading about the lack of progress women are making in obtaining boardroom seats. More »

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make lasting systemic social change. There are lots of methodologies and best practices and training programs around that serve a good purpose and yet the problems they are intended to resolve are still prevalent, in some cases getting worse.

Last week I attended a Change Lab workshop in Toronto, facilitated by Adam Kahane and Joe McCarron of Reos Partners. The Change Lab is an approach designed for working on complex social problems. Their version of a Change Lab has  “Theory U” at its core.  The process is systemic, participative and creative. Kahane explained that for complex problems where we don’t know how to get from A to B, where the answer is around the corner, More »

What is so fearful about saying “I don’t know”? Who made up the rule that we have to know all the time? That there is something wrong if we don’t know?

No such rule exists. In fact, the more we can slow down and be ok with ‘not knowing’, the better ideas we’ll have and the greater progress we will make more quickly. Consider these three approaches to decision making: More »

Recently I was in a meeting with a few colleagues talking about co-developing a customized leadership program for a client. When it came time to decide how we’d actually create the program, one person said “well we all know the best way to develop a program is to lock yourself in a dark room and write it by yourself.” I was surprised (shocked actually) by this comment because this person is someone who works as a team and leadership coach and “knows” all about generating high-quality team experiences. As coaches and leaders, isn’t it important to practice what we teach?

My colleague is human however and unfortunately her gut level response is indicative of how many people feel when they think about working on teams. “Oh no! Not another team!” We envision complex to do lists, More »

I’m running the Boston Marathon on April 18th for the first time. I’m very excited. It’s been a really big goal for me since my first marathon in 1995. Since then I have run 15 more marathons in my effort to qualify to run Boston. For those of you not in the running community, Boston is the premiere marathon. Every marathoner I know wants to run Boston. To do so you must qualify by running a previous marathon within a certain time depending on your age and gender. The question for most people at the beginning of each marathon is “will I qualify this time?”

So here I am – less than 3 weeks from achieving my really big goal. How did I get here?  More »

There are many different descriptions of coaching – leadership, team, executive, organizational, wellness, sports – to name a few. At the core they are all the same – helping people get clear about what they want and how they want to get there. Underpinning this goal setting and planning is raising awareness of values, beliefs, roles, preferences, stuck places and edges. Coaching is really a mindfulness practice. More »

With the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day taking place on Tuesday this week there have been lots of articles, stories and videos about women – our successes and accomplishments over the years as well as the many challenges and barriers still ahead. For as much as we can measure our progress we still have a long road before us. I sit here wondering what exactly does all this mean? What are we measuring and whose criteria are we measuring against? Do we celebrate or commiserate?

I attended a Women’s Day celebration hosted by the Women and Children’s Shelter of Barrie and Colibri: Centre des femmes francophones du comté de Simcoe. It was one of the most delightful evenings I have had in a long time. More »