Catherine Ducharme Archives

August 13 2016

LeaderLounge – Rising Strong

ftyang Archive, Business Seminar Bailey Heckel, Business Seminar, Catherine Ducharme, Smart Savvy Leaderlounge 0

Date: July 28, 2016

Name: LeaderLounge – Rising Strong

Presenters: Catherine Ducharme and Bailey Heckel

Every successful leader need to go through their transformational change to get to where they are. Moreover, every time they go through the cycle, they become stronger than before. LeaderLounge, presented by Smart, Savvy and Associates, invites Bailey Heckel, the former Vice President of Operations Product at Lululemon Athletica, to discuss her entrepreneurship journey. The event is moderated by Catherine Ducharme, the Co-Founder of Outsidein Communications. In this presentation, Bailey Heckel will reveal her emotional triggers in her career struggles. Leaders will learn the impact of the stories they tell themselves during the transformational change. The concept in this presentation is based on the book, “Rising Strong”, by Brene Brown.

Bailey Heckel is the former Vice President of Operations Product at Lululemon Athletica. With over 20 years of retail experience, she managed to rise her career to yoga industry. The transformation career experience took her to a level she never expected. Her leadership with her team created many outstanding milestones in the yoga industry. Her success came from hard work and dedication. Moreover, Bailey Heckel is considered a young leadership model for many young generations. She is the Vice President of Brand Operations for Coldwater Creek.

All successful leaders face vulnerability. It is not about winning; in fact, it is about having the courage to show up when leaders do not know the outcome. In this current society, people believe vulnerability is a sign of weakness, but they never realize vulnerability is the birth of innovation and creativity.

Leaders must develop the understanding that people admire others who take risks.

“Vulnerability is not weakness; it is our greatest measure of courage”

In Brene Brown’s book, “Rising Strong”, she defines the word “shame” as the most powerful master emotion and it is the fear that leaders are not good enough. In reality, leaders need to have whole –hearted living in order to get to their end goals. This means they will need to understand their emotions. Leaders need to engage love in their lives. Whole-hearted living will make leaders more satisfied and it will revolutionize in the new generation.

Bailey Heckel shares she had struggle with numbers. In Lululemon, she faced her fear by asking people for help. She revealed her vulnerability to her team and asked for support. Furthermore, this built a strong relationship on trust with her team. Heckel believed this is growth. She breaks down into 3 simple steps.

Open
Recognize the problem
Action

Many leaders believe they should not reveal their emotions in workplace. Most of them are taught that feelings do not belong in business discussion. In reality, they need to be brave because when they fall, they can rise up again.

“People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses”

In the book, Brown uses the term called The Arena. It is a metaphor for where leaders show up, where they see, and where they put themselves out there. The credit belongs to the leader who is actually in the arena. If they fail, they fail greatly, but in every arena, they will see a tunnel. This tunnel can be unknown and uncomfortable. The end of the tunnel is the reward. Leaders can choose comfort. Leaders can also choose courage. However, they cannot choose both.

“If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked – then I am not interested in your feedback”

Heckel shares the story in her arena. 5 years ago, Heckel was facing a mid-career crisis. She was not brave enough to get out of the retail industry. She took the step to make the list and Lululemon was at the top. Heckel believed Lululemon was the company that could develop leaders. Heckel pursued them and made on the shortlist of an IT job. Heckel took the job even though she had no experience in IT. She was not afraid because she knew Lululemon was not looking for IT experts, yet Lululemon was looking for leaders who are willing to work in IT. This new career change allowed her to figure out her passion in operation. Heckel started to build her team and established team management. She moved to Canada with the support from husband. Her life was now appointed to the right career and she believed she can change the world.

“If we are brave enough, often enough, we will fall”

In the book, Brown explains even gladiators fall. Fail is painful and death of expectation can be beyond measure. As leaders, they need the embrace all different emotions because there is no learning without failing.

Heckel explains in every chapter, leaders need to go through something called “The balancing act”. Two months ago, Heckel lost her opinion in Lululemon. Her position was eliminated. Change management is not uncommon in this age. In fact, Heckel noticed there were signs of changing before the decision was made. The organization was going to a different direction. Heckel believed he let her husband down.

Heckel moved directly to action. She wanted others to know she was ok, but deep down, she was hurt. She forced herself to be busy. Three weeks later, she realized she was still in the fall.

In every leader’s journey, there are three important acts.

Act 1) Inciting incident

Act 2) Leader struggle to solve problem

Act 3) Learn the lesson and redemption

Act 2 is messy for many leaders, yet it is the most important act because it is where the magic happens. Within act 2, there are 3 steps.

Step #1: The reckoning

Leaders walk into their own story. They need to integrate all experience. Leaders can recognize their emotions by developing self-awareness, opening up line of inquiry, being brave enough to want to know more, and allowing them to come to the key moments.

“We own our stories so we do not spend our lives being defined by them or denying them”

Step #2: The rumble

Leaders must be honest and challenge their assumptions. Instead of going or certainty, leaders should go with uncertain. Leaders must confront the story they are making up.

“In the absence of data, we will always make up stories”

Step 3: The revolution

Leaders own the truth and integrate the learning.

Heckel noticed her behaviors had changed significantly. She started to hide herself and avoid herself. She could not let her ego down because she did not want the spectators to see the ugly side of her. Heckel realized she was a failure, but she was afraid to admit the truth because she lost her confidence, something she was proud of. She began to be vulnerable to her husband and realized her husband was supporting her the whole time. She has now found her new direction.

Heckel suggests leaders should stop using work and life balance as excuse. Everything has relationship with everything. Leaders need to start be generous of themselves. All revolution starts with a new vision of what is possible.

“More generosity, less judgement, your life will be different”

August 2 2015

How to make better conversation

ftyang Archive, Business Seminar Business Seminar, Catherine Ducharme, Peter Reek, Smart Savvy Leaderlounge 0

Date: July 29, 2015

Name: How to make better conversation

Presenters: Peter Reek and Catherine Ducharme

Leaders need to learn the art of conversation. Moreover, effective conversation can help leaders to inspire, motivate and encourage other people. Smart Savvy LeaderLounge is a community that improve the way leaders think, communicate, influence, mentor and strategize. Smart Savvy LeaderLounge invites Peter Reek, the President of Smart Savvy + Associates, and Catherine Ducharme, the Co-funder of Outsidein Communications, to discuss how leaders can create better conversations with other individuals. Leaders will also learn how to build meaningful relationship, values, and interaction by having a confidence and compelling conversations with other leaders.

Peter Reek is the Owner and President of Smart Savvy + Associates. Reek has the passion to help many companies make effective decision making to expand their operations. Moreover, he helps organizations to identify their “why”. Furthermore, Reek was a Vice President of Sensus Research and the Principal of Brandsense inc.

Catherine Ducharme is the Co-Founder of Outsidein Communications. Ducharme has over many years of industry experience to help many corporation on their communication. Ducharme has the background of biotech sector and strategy on branding and marketing. Moreover, Ducharme has the passion to build relationship with other leaders and help many leaders to enhance their connections and opportunities.

The anatomy of a conversation

Reek and Ducharme both believes all conversations are two ways. All conversation can lead the question or has the opportunity to know about other party. Every conversation has a beginning, middle and end. In addition, small talk is conversational icebreaker. Therefore, leaders can use question to start a conversation and add values to others, and they have to opportunity to listen and figure out the clues.

Leaders can identify their common traits from their conversationalists as their conversation characteristic. Reek identifies 6 laws of great conversation.

Law #1: Risk taking

Reek believes fears hold leaders back from making great conversation. Fears can create awkward silence, rejection, low self-esteem, and rejections. Therefore, Reek indicates many leaders are experiencing the fear of nothing to say. Reek wants leaders to identify their risks and overcome these obstacles.

Law #2: Self awareness

Ducharme believes every leader has their own unique conversation style. However, the important thing is to understand how other people perceive their conversation style. Leaders can irritate other people based on habits and beliefs. In addition, Ducharme suggests leaders not to be a conversational narcissist.

Ducharme recommends leaders to identify their strengths and opportunities, such as things they know they can be good at and can capitalize on. In enhance, leaders also need to mitigate their weakness and threats.

Law #3: Listening

Reek emphasizes good listeners can validate others and not worry about what they will say next. Leaders need to become good listeners because it helps them generate better ideas, heighten awareness, and stronger recall. Leaders need to shift the focus on other people. Reek indicates leaders need to have the ability to pick on what other people said and more in tune with themselves.

“Listen to understand, not to response”

Law #4: Genuine curiosity

Ducharme shows that based on statistic, many people prefer likeable people over confident people. Reek suggests 3 ways to approach conversation.

Sound of their names
Genuine compliment
Everyone has an interesting story

Each conversation can allows leaders to learn something new and connect with others.

Law #5: Perspective taking

Reek shares perspective taking often trumps empathy. Many people have the misconception that perspective taking and empathy are identical, but they are not. Empathy is understanding how other people feel. Perspective taking allows leaders to understand why they feel in the state they are in.

“Empathy is heart emotion, and perspective is head cognition”

As for leaders, their conversation must keep it cognitive.

Law #6: Shared experiences

Ducharme believes people gravitate to others who are like them. Therefore, it is important to use conversation to find their common interest. Ducharme shares 3 ways to help leaders find commonalities.

Ask questions
Share things about themselves
Compliment others

Reek and Ducharme believe it is important to have good conversation openers. Conversation openers can be different for different leaders. The rule of thumb is to interact and engage the conversation with others.

All conversations must come to end. Reek believes the 3 primary results can be as follows.

Leaders do not care because there of unclear connection
Great well it last
Beyond the event

Conversation enders can be a simple as shake other people’s hands, introduce other people, or leave a connection to continue the conversation. A silence pause can also be a good conversation ender as well.

Reek and Ducharme want leaders to balance from listening and contributing, oversharing and under sharing, and humour and creditability. There is a fine line between conference and arrogance, enthusiasm and disingenuous, curiosity and intrusiveness, sharing intel and gossiping, active listening and overactive listening, intentionality and intensity, and humour.

Reek and Ducharme suggest leaders to read more articles to improve conversation, listen to other thought leaders, stay on current events, choose the right programs, utilize social media, understand the geography, involve some political landscape, know the audience, follow the playoffs, and attend other events.