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Dropinceo > Blog > 2020 > May

Frustration is healthy for your career; it shows you’re ready to make a change…

You’re a talented young professional who up until this point was a high performer and moving through the organization like a superstar. Then this happens; it all stops. You’re frustrated with what worked in the past no longer works now. You find the people dynamics are more challenging than the work you are doing. You start to doubt your capability and lose some confidence. You stop taking risks or sharing new ideas and start to feel frustrated. At this point, you either fall in line with simply doing the work, or a spark inside of you is telling you that you need a change, but not sure what to do.

I’ve seen this pattern time and time again and some of you are lucky enough to find a new opportunity and renewed joy in your work. For others, it simply is not possible at this time and you seek guidance from peers or managers and find it’s simply not there. You may have performance reviews or 1-2-1’s where you may take an assessment or go out for training in hopes you’ll raise your awareness or find a new skill; but seldom is there the support to evolve your performance.

There are multiple areas that at this juncture in your career you need to assess:

Me: What do I know about myself and what are my Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities or Threats. What am I really good at and have a strong passion for, but I’m not leveraging that in my current role. What can I do to bridge the gap, take action and hold yourself accountable.

Them: Understanding the people around you is probably your biggest challenge, but going deep into understanding what makes them tick can be invaluable to connect with them and be able to do work with and through others.

Us: Even trickier than understanding yourself, the people in your work environment, but is the dynamics of then working together through situations. This process takes a higher level set of skills for which mentoring is needed; but seldom available.

So what is the solution for which is probably common sense to you, but are not share where to find the guidance for such skill development? It’s unfortunate to say most of this is reserved for executive leadership or in a few organizations, reserved for a select few High Performers with focus development and mentorship.

This under served market can gain so much momentum if we provide a framework to take you through the skills and provide mentoring to elevate your performance. It is this market that Illumination Partners sincerely cares about and we think we can provide some simple tools to get you started. Here are a few things to start you on your journey:

1) What are those mindsets that you have about yourself, your value, your skills and abilities and what you are capable of.

2) Which one of these are limiting beliefs and ask yourself why and what holds you back.

3) Prioritize the limiting beliefs and which one or two you want to change. Identify the action you will need to take to close the gap to what you want,

4) Take action, practice with someone to help you make the change,

5) create a tool that will help you practice the new skill and make it stick.

If you need more help or guidance or wish to learn more about our New 6 week course that is in pilot, but want to get in on the next round, please connect us on our Contact Page.

Until we connect, I wish you success in your career and hope these few tips were helpful.

Deb Coviello, Founder of Illumination Partners and The Drop in CEO.

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High Performance Intrapreneurs Need a Different Lens to Develop in Three Essential Areas.

When you adjust the lens through which you see yourself, others and the collective team, everything comes into focus and your career will move forward. Now that doesn’t mean you need to get a new eyeglass prescription, but it does require you to look at things differently in order to elevate your already amazing Intrapreneurial skills. You are the future of what it takes to lead others in business, but you’ve reached a point where you’re challenged and overwhelmed to get ahead.

For you, I write this piece because I see so much of myself in you as I moved through my career. I followed the path of “getting the job” and ascending to get the next great job and while on the surface satisfying, upon reflection it was simply a grind. I have seen so many high performing professionals hit a wall and then they don’t know what to do next. It is in this moment that these high performers come to a place of self awareness that the need to do something different, they’re busy writing down their goals and getting ready to sign up for their MBA or certification in the hope that they’ll get ahead. Perhaps they will try working harder to push their way through, but only to be met with more frustration. These are noble pursuits and definitely part of your growing portfolio, but not what’s going to get you ahead.

It comes down to three essential areas to focus on in your new awareness and skills development that we need to get you on the road to your greatness.

Me– You need to work on your mindset and limiting beliefs that hold you back. I find this is where I spend 2-3 sessions with people I mentor to reveal what is holding them back. It is during your self discovery we need to break down the choices you have in how you see your self, make changes and develop habits to act in a way that serves you.

Them – You often start with looking at others through a lens of being difficult, not playing by the rules or having some kind of power over situations or yourself. This actually is about understanding what makes other people tick and seeing them through a different lens in order to better understand others and how you interact with them. This shifts your mindset from one where you perceive others don’t play by the rules to truly understanding them and interfacing with them differently.

We – Once you see yourself and others through a different lens of performance, you need to develop the skills to elevate the collective group to achieve the goals and that takes another set of development skills about interactions with others, having challenging conversations and opening the doors to continual feedback.

So where do you sign up to gain these essential skills? Well, the problem is it doesn’t exist in one place. We often send our high potentials to different courses to focus on one skill vs. in the context of Me, Them and We. We may assign this person a mentor, but without a structure broken down into focusing on you, then others and then the collective performance of the team. Having seen such a gap in business to support High Potential Intrapreneurs, I’ve designed such a course and we’re going into production soon to bring it to you.

If you have any interest in this and want to get into our early offering, please go to our contact page. and let’s talk.

Until we meet, I wish you great success and if you want to learn more from industry experts, please listen to the Drop in CEO podcast.

Be well- Deb

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How to build a business based on delivering a lasting impact.

How to build a business based on delivering a lasting impact.

I never went to school to learn business, but the journey of creating a business for the last 16 months has taught me important lessons about creating a lasting impact with clients. The most important lesson I learned was simply to be myself, to listen with empathy, listen some more and only once I felt I understood my client, do I offer my thoughts that give them peace of mind. I also realized that to start a business, I didn’t need content or a list of services to get started. If I had no clients, all the services were meaningless. So, I started my business based on having conversations and building meaningful relationships.

I talk about peace of mind at length because it is the outcome of connecting with a client emotionally and giving them the assurance that I will take care of them. That is only build on a foundation of trust, confidence and true understanding of their needs and finding a way to apply my technical skills to give them what they want. My favorite clients know that my skills can be found anywhere in Quality & Operational Excellence; they’re a dime a dozen. But to find a partner that takes the time to know them and can paint a picture of the outcome we want to achieve, that’s what I provide to my clients. They know that if I need technical expertise beyond my skills I’ll find it, I’ll anticipate their needs and provide proposals and in the event of a situation, they know I’ll take care of it and keep them informed. A partnership is one where you have their back and they can depend on you now and in the future.

What I have described is the experience I’ve provided to past and current clients, but this next message is for the client who has not done work with me yet. I see a lot of you in my network and beyond, but we simply have not had an opportunity to work together. Until then, I continue to share my thoughts on business & personal development in my content because I care about you and am seeking to build impact before we have had a conversation. That’s what the Drop in CEO brand is about; it’s an experience that you can trust and be confident that we’ll take care of you and leave a lasting impact.

And so turning my thoughts to those who want to go into business or a new direction, I ask you what holds you back? Do you have a belief you don’t have the skills? If you think in the context of building a business, you might be right and you shouldn’t start. However, if you think in the context of connecting with people and leaving a lasting impact as your true north, you actually have all the skills you need to move forward. Think about it; are you delivering a business to your clients or a lasting impact and partnership? Start with the client first and how you serve them, be confident in who you are that you can leave a lasting impact and the rest will come.

Deborah A. Coviello

Founder of Illumination Partners, LLC

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The Human Development Gap – Why We Fail our Professionals to Develop the Essential Skills for Business

The Human Development Gap – Why We Fail our Professionals to Develop the Essential Skills for Business:

I’ve had the good fortune of starting my career in a Manufacturing Management Development Program through Raytheon Company where aspiring professionals were rotated through four (4) six month rotations in manufacturing while learning essential skills for business. And that was the end of my formal leadership on-boarding sadly. There were instances where at International Flavors & Fragrance 15 years ago where I was again identified as high potential and sent out for training at the Center for Creative Leadership, but again an instant in time with no support. I’ve ascended to leadership roles as the Head of Operational Excellence and later Head of Quality at Givaudan, but it was mostly through driving my own development plan. Is this a pattern that sounds familiar? Let’s press on to break this down into Why I believe this is happening.

Companies are not in the business for Human Development: Companies for the most part are short sided and need to monetize products and services for the profitability they need to support all stakeholders. We don’t communicate the ROI to top line growth, cash flow or bottom line profitability based on Human Development. So it falls to a good idea, some will benefit, but others will have to find the courage, the confidence and the will to find people to mentor them or to pave their own path.

Developing Human’s is difficult; especially if we don’t take the time to understand their talents and how to leverage them: I’m mentoring two individuals and by my perception, they should be identified as High Performers worthy of being developed. Then why do they feel stuck? I see it as the workplace shows intent of meeting regularly with their employees, but don’t take the time to understand their mindset, goals and needs. Very often their managers are accountable for human development, but have never gone through the process of having someone develop their essential skills; so how do you expect them to mentor their direct reports? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some amazing servant leaders through the years, but they’re far and few between. Sending people out for a course is a “check the box” and hope to see a result. “Mentoring” equates to commitment over time and that’s difficult when leaders are tasked to deliver tangible results.

Business does not see how big the problem is, but see the impact of doing nothing: When we don’t have a name for it, we see the problem in several ways: a) Millennials jumping around to new roles and labeled as entitled, when in reality they’re looking for purposeful leadership to develop them, b) 30 year professionals moving on to “pursue new interests” translates into a business no longer knows what to do with this talent and helps them to transition. But often these professionals become the consults that businesses pay dearly for their capability c) up and coming professionals are frustrated, often trying for 3-5 years to make a difference, later to be profiled as being simply “average” and they too will leave after they’ve tried everything. What we’re seeing here is a terrible loss of employee investments in time & money to train these people only to see them leave and businesses are losing these “$’s” because there’s no line item on a P&L to account for lost intellectual property or Human Capital.

What’s the solution? Well, the Drop in CEO brand is based on providing solutions to their business issues, but elevating their people to sustain the gains. We truly care about the Humans for which the brand, the Drop in CEO podcast and our course work is dedicated to helping individuals who cannot get the support they need from within the organization. We are passionate about elevating the essential skills of the people we come into contact with and supplement the gap that businesses don’t provide.

For more information, please contact us and we’d love to continue the conversation about the The Human Development Gap.

Deborah A. Coviello,

Founder, Illumination Partners, LLC

Host of the Drop in CEO podcast

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