Be Visible, Be Vulnerable, Be Authentically You!
A quick search on google informs me that 28% of adults changed jobs during Covid lockdown. That’s around 9 million people, and I was one of them.
Something that came easily to me in a pre-covid ‘5 days a week working from the office’ world is now proving to be more difficult than I could have imagined! From my desk, in my home 100 miles away from any of my colleagues, the challenge for me is how can I ensure I am visible to senior management, my team and my colleagues?
How can I build various relationships, share my vulnerabilities and be comfortable allowing colleagues to see my authentic self? That’s why when Gousto announced a session as part of International Women’s Day (#IWD) celebrations where expert ‘Emma Cowling’ could share with me answers to all these questions and more, I jumped at the chance to attend.
Scheduled at an hour, the session involved lots of break out discussions, chatting with colleagues, sharing experiences and challenges which meant in reality the time flew by fast. Emma had a very relaxed approach to the session which contributed to it feeling more like a chat amongst friends than a learning experience. As promised Emma delivered to me the answers I was looking for and as with any good session like this, almost everything Emma shared immediately felt like common sense and things I could easily absorb into my current working activities.
The session itself was broken down into 3 focus areas. The first Be Visible explained that whilst you could put your faith in a higher power that if you go about your normal tasks you will be visible across your organisation and the right people will see you at the right time. You’ll likely see faster results if you follow the advice of Emma and treat it like a project or an end goal. Something that requires planning and a collection of tasks to come together to deliver success. For this, you need to articulate to yourself your vision, identify your target audience and plan a set of actions that are going to get you where you want to be.
The second focus area Be Vulnerable explained that my own experiences, passions and how I choose to express myself make me unique and when I share these experiences and passions openly I provide an opportunity for others to connect with me. In turn they share their own experiences and passions with colleagues and the ripple effect goes on and on. Seems simple right, so why don’t we all do this? Well, Emma explained we often carry baggage from past experiences that makes us project our worries into the present and future. Things like worrying that we’ll mess it up and get it wrong, worrying that your actions will damage your reputation or that the audience isn’t interested in what you have to say. To overcome this Emma advised that we recognise this thought process, let go of the ‘dreaded outcome’ we are projecting and deal with things as they happen and believe that in the moment, you are going to be OK.
The third and final focus area Be Authentic really resonated with me as something I’ve struggled with in the past. Emma explained that as women in an often male dominated tech environment it is easy for us to fall into the trap of ‘hiding’ the things that make us different to our male colleagues. We find ourselves trying to ‘connect’ through changing ourselves. Perhaps attempting to laugh and enjoy the jokes and football banter when in reality we didn’t find it funny or have no interest in football. Perhaps altering the way we dress so as not to draw attention to any differences — wearing jeans instead of the skirt or dress we would actually choose to wear if we were being authentic to ourselves. Surprisingly Emma shared a perspective that when we try to be someone we are not, people listen to us less. So the very actions taken to deepen connections with colleagues has the opposite impact overall, and we connect less. Emma’s advice on how to overcome this includes exploration outside of the workplace to understand who you are, what brings you joy, why your passions are important to you? As well as acceptance that your authentic self might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it will attract colleagues who do and you will build a following across the organisation. The key message from Emma for being authentic is to adapt your message for the audience without changing yourself.
So, did I get answers to my questions and have I formulated a plan on how I can improve things — hell yes!
