Alloy Solutions Leadership Blog

Preparation is Everything! by Cindy Braun

A few years ago I found myself walking onto a stage to deliver a presentation to a large audience. This was my first presentation to such a large group - there were more than 250 participants in this room - and I felt myself break out in a cold sweat as my heart began to race. Even though I knew the content like the back of my hand, the thought of so many people staring at me and eagerly waiting for my nuggets of wisdom left me feeling nervous and inadequate.

Years later, I look back on that experience and I am grateful that my confidence has grown and I can speak to groups of any size with a calm and enthusiastic heart. Years of practice have served me well, along with lessons learned from John Maxwell's Law of Preparation. Allow me to share a few of these lessons with you today.

First, take a moment to reflect on a recent speaking or teaching opportunity. Perhaps you spoke to a large group in a brightly lit ballroom, or maybe you led a tra...

Got Denial about Denial? by Jamie Hansen

Most of us have likely entertained the wish that a problem or issue at home or work would go away if we just quietly avoided it long enough. It is true that avoidance can be a helpful
approach to dealing with conflict in the interest of gathering more information, allowing other parties to learn from an experience, or just giving the concern enough time to work itself out. This effective approach does come with a few important caveats. One, we may need to let other involved parties know why we’re not addressing the situation immediately, perhaps for one of the reasons above. And two, maintaining a mindset of avoiding for now, as opposed to avoiding forever is crucial in case the situation isn’t moving toward resolution. If we find ourselves in the avoiding forever lane with a particular issue, or if avoiding isn’t a proper response for the situation in the first place, that’s not effective conflict management, but rather its seductive and more d...

The Best Decision-Making Advice I Ever Received

Four years ago, I walked into a massive ballroom at the Orlando World Center Marriott for an afternoon teaching with John Maxwell. It was right after lunch and the enormous meeting room was freezing cold. I was clinging to a paper coffee cup to keep warm - and to fend off an afternoon nap. Thinking back on it now, I certainly didn't know that the lessons Maxwell shared in the next hour would stick with me for years to come.

Before we get to the specific advice, think back on a big decision you made in the last year. Maybe a few examples come to mind. Perhaps someone else's decision comes to mind - a decision handed down from leadership, or a decision made by your favorite sports franchise to trade a player, change systems, or fire a coach. Think back to how you felt in the days leading up to that decision, and remember what came next. Remember the feelings that followed the decision, and the steps that you or someone else took as a resu...

What’s Your Story?, by Cindy Braun

Have you ever experienced a trip to your homeplace with memories and find out there is more to your story than you remembered? What is the significance of sharing your story and how does it relate to leadership? I notice when in communication with others, people pull out their phones and share pictures or stories that are funny, dramatic or inspirational. Stories are how we connect with others and most people don’t want to sit and hear about statistics and charts. Recently, traveling to visit my 93-year-old stepdad at our homeplace in the Midwest who raised four “little women” on a farm, I became aware of the story he is still writing while living his life with intention. We shared stories, pictures and events ranging from his service in the Korean War to his most recent move to a townhome from the family farm. He has lived an awesome life and this poem from Edwin Markham summarizes what I witnessed:

There is a destiny that makes us brothers

None

...

A Shift in Thinking: Focusing on Mental Fitness, by Jamie Hansen

Spring is here, and May is upon us! I’ve believed for a long time that this month gives December a run for its money in terms of manic demands and hectic family schedules. Thankfully, the days are growing longer, the air warmer, and the grass and trees greener, while the entries on the calendar are experiencing their own kind of exponential growth.

You may be aware that May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and bonus points if you’re also aware that it’s Global Employee Health and Fitness Month. These two topics are near and dear to my heart and their intersection has been on my mind of late. 

To delve a little deeper, Mental Health Awareness Month has been recognized for over 20 years by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) to provide education and reduce stigmas around mental illness and to highlight the effectiveness of treatment and celebrate recovery from mental illness. This is a...

Making a Business Case for Empathy, by Ryan Hansen

Breaking News: Work sucks.

Okay, so maybe that's not exactly breaking news, and allow me to apologize for starting off on such a cheeky note. The truth is, this is a tough time for employees and employers alike. But, of course, you already know this. You've seen the headlines. Layoffs abound. Quiet Quitting. The Great Resignation.

We can unpack the causes behind each of these at another time, but the effects have been unmistakable. Employees are stressed out, and with good reason. Inflation has reduced the value of their paycheck, and childcare is harder to find than ever before. Layoffs and turnover have stripped teams of years' worth of institutional knowledge and left fewer, newer hands to do the same amount of work. In some cases, the work has even increased. Scope creep, or "quiet hiring," is becoming more and more common as managers ask their top employees to fill gaps by taking on more responsibilities without any change to t...

Leadership Boundaries, by Cindy Braun

Leaders create a vision and the people will follow. With so many changes in the workplace over the last three years, especially the rise of remote workers, how do leaders keep the vision alive and communicate to employees that their work contributes to the end result? How do leaders set boundaries that determine whether the people will thrive or fail? This article will only touch the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding leadership boundaries and how they apply to creating a vision.

In my work coaching leaders who work with hybrid and remote teams, I see three common questions:

1. How do I keep this company's mission and vision alive for a workforce that spans the entire country instead of a single zip code?
2. How do I lead my employees to work smart and be motivated to achieve the results I know they are capable of?
3. How does a leader teach and enable collaboration when working with a hybrid workforce?

My passion is helping leaders...

Loving the Toughest to Lead by Jamie Hansen

Effective leadership arguably involves a certain amount of love. Not of the romantic variety so much, but certainly the type that involves showing respect, affirmation, and positive regard for others. Like the love of a coach for her players or the dedication of a staff sergeant to his squad. As Joel Manby, author of Love Works so aptly stated, "Treating someone with love regardless of how you feel about that person is a very powerful principle. It can make us great spouses, great parents, and great friends. Great leaders too." 

To his point, the more we separate our temporary feelings for someone (the noun version of love) from our decision to treat them with value and respect (the verb version of love), the more effective we can be in any of our relationships and roles, leadership included. And to be fair, many of us have experienced a relationship or two that has required an extra dose of intentionality for us to lean into the verb side ...

What If?? by Jamie Hansen

One of the things I find most magical about movies is that every once in a while, one comes along with a concept that stretches our thinking and makes us ask, "What If?" Whether it's a drama, romance, comedy, or action film -- the genre doesn't really matter to me -- I find myself captivated with the ability of these movies to help us see things that we didn't notice before, or envision things that haven't yet come to be. From a psychological perspective, I'm a true believer in, "once you see something, you can't un-see it." As for horror movies, they may have us seeing things we don't ever want to see or experience, so let's count that category out for the sake of discussion. Rather, it's those movies that take us on a two- to three-hour journey and leave us asking questions we've never asked before, or envisioning things we've never seen before, that I find particularly compelling.

​One movie that comes to mind (especially this month) with this captivating...

Peace on Earth. As 2021 draws to a close, I think of these three words as so much more than a phrase scripted across a beautiful holiday card. With all that's going on in the world, it's a more thought-provoking phrase for many than it was even a few years ago. Peace is certainly something our world could use much more of, and maybe even our own corners of the world. Many people are saying 2021 presented surprisingly more challenges than 2020. Here at Alloy, requests for support on the topics of resilience, healthy management of conflict, leading through change, and understanding the mental health impacts of a crisis were at an all-time high, and it doesn't appear that will be abating soon. Here we offer three year-end exercises to glean everything you need from 2021 to look forward to a more peaceful 2022 -- at least in your corner of the world:

Make Peace with Your Past Year. I have long loved to use the photos on my phone at the end of the year to make calendars, notecards, or othe...