Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your Modern Mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders activate performance and engagement without burnout. We run boot camps that deliver confidence tools and community. We deliver keynotes that inform and inspire, and we do pulse checks to help you build custom blueprints that unlock your team's best performance. Just let me know what you need.
So when I was a kid, but also sometimes still, I wanted to be a person who names the colors of things like paints or lipsticks or nail polishes. I mean, it looks so fun. I have a neutral colored nail polish called the Queen, takes her tea with milk and a blue one called Iconic and a red called Don't Mess With Me. Kind of the best job ever. Yeah, I think I missed the color naming boat, but I do have an appreciation for the media and its parallel work in naming our workplace trends and crises.
You know, the great resignation, the great reconsideration, quiet, quitting, all the things we've seen in the headlines these past few years, like with nail polishes. They're all variations of the same, but the names are memorable. The latest one I'm seeing is called The Great Detachment, which I'm pretty sure is a rebrand of Quiet, quitting. But either way, it's to say that we're not quitting, but we are out of steam.
Whether we're bored or lonely or overwhelmed, we're going through the motions of doing the work, but our hearts aren't in it, which means our creativity and our opportunity to drive change and deliver impact aren't so much there either. I believe like to my core that the solution here is the great reactivation. It's why I spend so much time working with leadership teams, enabling them to do this very thing. Delivering tools, practice confidence and accountability.
You can check it out@leadabovenoise.com slash bootcamp. But the thing is, while activation is all about action, it's not exclusive to leadership. We can be activating ourselves by taking stock, taking action, and celebrating progress. And today I'd love to walk you through how you can do this for yourself so you are ready to start the new year with energy, enthusiasm, and a plan to really tackle something big. So I use an activation framework in my programs.
It stands on the four pillars of deliver, develop, connect, and thrive. As in when we can do all of these things and do them well, we see both our performance and our experience of engagement start to climb together like they fuel each other. So let's talk today about how well you are currently doing each of these and how you might discover a handful of tweaks that you can make to turn the dial up one notch at a time. So let's start with deliver. You know the basics.
How well can you deliver your work? I mean, how simply and how effectively and how efficiently can you get your stuff done? And how much aggravation, repetition, and inefficiency is weighing you down. These questions are important obviously, because getting our work done matters, but also there's tons of data that show that when we're able to get our best work done, we're actually more engaged in our jobs. So it's a double win.
Start with an honest assessment of how you're spending your days sitting in meetings, responding to emails, whatever the shape of a typical day, how's it serving you? We're not looking for smoking guns, but tiny tweaks you can make.
Like was there one meeting on your calendar this week that should have been an email or that another member of your team attended and could have just given you a summary of has something been stuck in approval for a while and it's not moving because that one leader who needs to decide is drowning in 27. Other decisions Are you spreading yourself way too thin across way too many priorities? Really ask and answer these questions. The goal is not a major overhaul, but tiny tweaks.
What if next week you could save yourself 30 minutes of aggravation or rework, and then 30 more the next week find a small change you can make and just make it next? We've got develop. And this one is about finding small ways to expand your knowledge and your growth and your learning. It can't be formal programs, but it doesn't have to be. And again, when we're developing our work product and our personal engagement, both amplify.
So now ask yourself, who do you know in another part of the organization whose expertise intrigues you? Can you invite them to coffee and just listen and learn what meeting is coming up where you would love a chance to speak or present and get some feedback? How about you start a shared drive with your team, with your favorite TED Talks or podcasts or books? These are all ways to creatively drive development without having to make a huge investment. The next pillar is connect.
One of the secret superpowers of this framework is how the pillars start to overlap. So for example, when you create more efficiency in your day, finding meetings you didn't need to be at and you move processes faster, then you find more time to invest in your learning. And when you see someone in another function whose expertise you'd like to tap, you invite them for coffee to teach you. And this also drives connection, right?
It's a little bit magical. So what more can you do to amplify your feeling of connection? I know it doesn't have to be in person. So personally, I do love a little bit of shared space with members of humanity. Like can you put two 30 minute meetings on your calendar each week just to catch up with someone you haven't talked to in a while? Can you spark some reciprocal thought partnership with a colleague you've always respected?
Can you share one brave idea in a meeting just to see who might build upon it and make it even sharper? And before you tell me you don't have time, let me assure you, there's data that says feeling part of a trusted community positively impacts our health, our efficiency, and our creativity, all of which drive great work. And finally, let's talk about thrive. This is about your health and your wellness, your sense of being recognized.
And again, it matters When we're healthy and rested, we have boundaries. We show up more fully, more energized with more creativity. So what can you play with in this bucket? Is there a boundary you can set? Like just stop responding to emails after 6:00 PM or on weekends and just watch the world not end. Can you schedule one walking meeting per week where you don't need to be on a screen and you can just breathe? Can you humbly highlight something you're proud of that your boss may have missed?
Make sure you're being seen for the work you're doing. At the end of the day, when we deliver our best work, develop new skills and capabilities, connect with our colleagues, and we thrive, we manage our boundaries and our health, the work gets better and our experience gets better, and we start to reattach and reactivate. And whether or not my specific suggestions resonated, the point is this, there's a lot that lives outside of our control and yet still plenty that lives within it.
So be your own advocate. Find the things that you can influence and go influence them. And if you'd like to have a facilitated conversation with your team, shoot me an email at rachel@leadabovenoise.com. For now, join me next week for another great episode. Until then, visit my website@leadabovenoise.com.
If your workplace could use an activation boost, whether it's a bootcamp, a keynote, or a pulse check, you choose, you can follow Modern Mentor or on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you listen. Thanks so much for listening and have a successful week. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. It's audio engineered by Dan Feierabend. Our director of podcasts is Brannan Goetschius. Our podcast and advertising operations specialist is Morgan Christianson.
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