Piper Jaffray/Building Your Support Team (ALD, Thursday, Week 8)
authentic-leadership-developmentyear-twoThe people you spend most of your waking hours around (colleagues) may not be well-equipped to give you insightful personal or professional counsel.
If you do not deliberately cultivate mentors and keep in touch with them, you will not have anyone else to turn to in times of uncertainty.
Solution: develop a support group.
When did Noah build the ark? Before the rain.
High-achieving people are often the worst at cultivating a support group because they can usually plough through challenges alone. And then a huge problem comes along and they need help, but there's no one to turn to...
Approaching difficult problems/asking for help:
-- Separate need for affirmation from need for counsel.
-- Share vulnerability. Maintain public confidence.
-- "Wall off the problem" => Big step in 'resilience training' is ability to see the whole forest, and not just the forest fire. Just because you can't control everything doesn't mean you can't control some things.
Example: "So I didn't get the job I wanted, but I still have X and I can still do Y."
Tad Piper on formal support groups:
-- Meet on a regular basis (weekly, monthly, annually)
-- Someone in charge of the agenda (usually rotating)
-- Ground rules for group behavior. Example: married couples group agrees not to talk about kids or sports.