December 9, 2024 • 38 mins
In this episode of Demystifying Money, Misty talks to Karen Pambianchi about redefining financial habits and improving leadership skills through coaching. They delve into strategies for achieving work-life balance, enhancing communication, and addressing leadership challenges.
Where to find Misty
Website:
Instagram: @mistylynchcfp
- Understanding habitual financial patterns and reassessing goals
- Utilizing coaching to develop beneficial leadership habits
- Techniques for work-life integration versus traditional balance
- Improving communication within virtual and hybrid teams
- Addressing generational diversity and financial pressures in leadership roles
- Website: www.swiftwatercollaborative.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/karenpambianchi/
- Instagram: @swiftwatercollaborative/
Where to find Misty
Website:
Instagram: @mistylynchcfp
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Demistifying Money podcast, where each week you
will hear unforgettable conversations with expert guests about success, money, business,
and small steps you can take to elevate your life
and wealth. Now here's your host, Misty Lynch.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi, everyone, thank you so much for joining me for
this episode of Demystifying Money. I'm your host, Missy Lynch,
and today I am joined by Karen Pempianki. She is
the owner of swift Water Collaborative, and she is a
coach that helps people and businesses and teams develop and
you know, build stronger relationships so they can do a
better job. So I wanted to talk to her today
(00:41):
about how she helps people because I think that sometimes,
you know, we know how to do our jobs, but
we might need some coaching, We might need some support
when it comes to how to handle certain situations, how
to deal with teams, how to build, how to become
a stronger leader. And so I wanted to bring Karen
on today because I heard her speak and I was
super impress us with the tool she uses and really
(01:02):
how she communicates. So thank you so much Karen for
joining me today.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you so much for having me Missy.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
This episode of Demystifying Money with Misty Lynch is proudly
sponsored by Soundview Financial Advisors. Visit www dot Soundview financial
Advisors dot com to learn more.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'd love to hear about your journey, you know. I
talked to a lot of different entrepreneurs on the show.
None of them necessarily knew what they would be doing,
you know, when they went to college and graduate, they
ended up somewhere different. So tell me a little bit
about your journey and how you were able to establish
your business.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It's a great question, I find I can I can
tell it very long or very short, so I'll try
to aim for the shorter version. I actually was navigating
a career in events and fundraising for most of my
career and found the job that I thought I would
always have, working for a nonprofit coordinating events and raising
funds for an important cause. And then I became a mom,
(02:01):
and I realized that while the opportunity was there to
maybe change the boundaries and build the life I wanted
to be a working mom, I wasn't going to be
able to do that because of the investment I'd had
in that position and how committed I was to the cause,
so I decided to explore other options and found the
opportunity to start coaching at a university. The sort of
(02:23):
sim as they say about it all, was that I
had hired a coach about seven years prior to this
and was blown away by the impact that she made
on my life. When I started looking at this opportunity
to start coaching at the university. She actually helped build
the coaching program at the university, so she was not
actually working there anymore, but had partnered with the university
to build out what the coaching program would look like
(02:43):
and how we would support students. So it was so
fascinating to me that it kind of came full circle
that I understood the impact of coaching and then was
given the opportunity to start coaching. So I started my
coaching with students who were working professionals going back to school.
They were leaders in their organizations. Many of them had families.
We're caring for elderly parents navigating a life full of things,
(03:04):
and then somehow we're going to fit in adding way
back to school to their very busy lives. So that
was what I did for two years and really fell
in love with coaching. Had a really robust opportunity to
build my coaching skills with a team of coaches that
I was working alongside, and then fast forward to where
I am today. My journey has just continued to evolve
as I've met different clients and supported them through coaching.
(03:26):
So the bulk of my work now is, as you mentioned,
working with leaders and emerging leaders who are first time
people managers stepping into leadership roles, people who maybe aren't
leaders by title but really want to behave as leaders
in their organizations, and then working with teams to help
them think about their level of performance, the level of
standard that they want to have, and their behavior. A
(03:47):
lot of people wonder what coaching is too, So my
brief explanation of that is I don't come in and
tell people what to do or even how to do
their jobs. Really, what I do is enlist the things
that they already know inside themselves and help them draw
out that authentic person and that authentic leader that they
want to be and make sure it's aligned with how
(04:08):
they're being perceived in a day to day life.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I think coaching and it's it's interesting you mentioned
being you know, coaching have an impact on you yourself.
I agree. I think that when I started working with
coaches now, I did when I was younger. You know,
athletes have coached every you know, we and we're not
they're not out on the field doing it. But then
when we're you know, older, we expect the coaches are
going to answer all of our questions. For us, it's
(04:32):
like no that they might help you figure out how
to unlock some things that maybe you haven't looked at,
or see things a different way, or ask better questions.
And so I think that that's something that I'll anybody,
whether you're self employed, whether you're a leader, whether you're
a parent, when any sort of role where you're taking on,
you know, those leadership responsibilities, being able to use your
(04:54):
own brain and ask yourself better questions because such a
such a powerful thing. And I think think leadership is
definitely changing for people these days. What are some of
the things that you're noticing with your clients, you know,
the way that teams are being built. What are some
of the challenges that leaders today are facing that they
might not have anybody to go ask for help because
(05:17):
we're kind of in a new new territory when it
comes to this type of work environment.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, it's a great question. The trickiest part is that
the challenges are so unique to the individual, right, because
we all bring our story, right, I give you the
two minute story of my journey here, but each one
of us brings a different story with us, and that's
the lens that we look through life through. So the
most common challenge is helping people in their interactions in
(05:43):
the workplace or as you said, even as parents, in
relationships outside of work. How do you recognize the lens
which you view the world through and how that relates
to the lens that others view it through. So again,
we're not trying to change it and say we all
need to look at the world the same way, but
how are we taking the opportunity to recognize what is
the lens that I bring, What bias might that present
(06:04):
in how I approach things, what limitations might offer me,
what opportunities might offer me, and how is that inter
interacting with those same perspectives that someone else might bring
to it. So that's sort of like the overall theme
I think and challenge that I see. What also comes
into practice I think for people with that challenge is
(06:26):
they show up with what they think is a behavior
that aligns with their values and how they want to
be perceived, and yet they're being received in a completely
different way. So there's this misalignment in those perspectives. Right.
I view myself as x y Z. I view myself
as a realist and very thoughtful and practical, but my
(06:46):
colleagues view me as negative and dismissive of every new
idea that comes through. Right, So it's simply a matter
of perspective. But then what can we do as a
leader to make sure that our behaviors really showcase we're
not trying to be negative, we're trying to be a
realist or whatever that characteristic might be. That's just one example.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, No, I think that that's true when you know,
we've all had different interactions with different people that we've
worked with, and nobody sees themselves as the villain with
that guy ever, you know. So I think that's just
an interesting way to frame it as far as how
are you being perceived even if you think I'm you know, practical,
(07:23):
and everyone else might think like your means or you
don't listen, And so I think that's such an interesting
thing and I can imagine that now with teams being
maybe more remote, more spread apart, where you might not
be able to necessarily read the room the same way.
How is that changing? You know, when you're trying to
(07:45):
be a strong leader, what are some of the techniques
and maybe didn't maybe they used to work in the
past that you know need to evolve for today.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think a big one in the virtual environment is
making the opportunity to get to know people outside of
those team interactions, so that you start to learn how
somebody communicates and a little bit of those body language
nuances that you might gain in a one on one
environment but not in a larger group. And particularly I'm
thinking of things like there are people who are more
(08:18):
reserved when there's six, eight, ten people in a meeting,
and when they're in a group of maybe one to
three people will engage very dynamically, and so being able
to understand those nuances about people so that you're not
making broad judgments based on a behavior just from one
type of interaction. So being able to diversify the types
(08:38):
of interaction than a virtual environment is a big strategy
that I think can really help people. Another one is
thinking about the power dynamics that exist in a virtual environment,
which you'd think it eliminates them, but particularly as people
are going back to the office and there's more of
a hybrid work setup where some people might be remote,
(08:59):
one person be in a different office or a different city,
and everyone else is back in the office in the
same city, or half the team is in one location,
half the team is in another. When you're using the
virtual tools, are you even taking into consideration things like, well,
there's only one person on zoom and we're all going
to go to the conference room. So now that person
is displayed on a you know, a fifty inch TV,
and their facial expressions can be read every little line
(09:22):
increase that they think right, every indication, and to that
one person the room of five ten people, they're tiny,
tiny little faces. They have no idea who's reacting and
how So how can you level a bit of the
power dynamic by either saying in those environments, you know,
only every other meeting will be go to the conference
room and the other ones will all be equally sized,
you know, within within the zoom box or things like that.
(09:44):
So it's getting a little bit creative and how you
execute things in the virtual environment.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, I think that's that's a smart thing to consider,
is the optics. I remember, you know, you're before COVID
when my husband was a virtual employee, Like people would
just forget to sign on right up, and like it.
It's such a different It didn't feel like you could
be a leader or successful. It felt like, okay, this
is the choice you made to be a virtual and
so now I think it's changing, but it is important
(10:09):
to consider those those things. Or you know, if when
everybody's in or if you know, you have a few
people that just kind of unmute themselves to say nothing
from me and you don't notice that you're not getting
anything from them, maybe one on one meeting or different
types of meetings could be more helpful because it is
(10:30):
easier maybe to kind of stand, you know, stand up
against the wall and not be heard or seeing, you know,
when you have maybe a couple dominating voices the same
way as it used to be in a conference room,
but now it's a little different to turn your picture off.
So it's such an interesting thing. And I do have
you know, I think that it's interesting the work you're
(10:50):
doing with teams, because I'm also hearing that like, people
are different, and I think this has probably been something
that's always been true that older generations. I thought, younger
people don't want to work, and maybe that's been true
throughout the dawn of time, because given none of us
really do. But what are you seeing as far as
people interacting, you know, maybe with different generations or younger
(11:12):
leaders or things like that. Have you helped people kind
of manage those dynamics in a team?
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, So it's another great question and it comes up often,
this idea of the different generations. And part of the
reason it's such a new territory is it's we're facing
one of the most diverse groups of workforce, where we
have people working much later in life and people obviously
starting you know, younger in some cases, especially with the
(11:38):
changes and expectations around college and what people do after
high school, and so we have such a broad range.
I think similar to all the work I do from
a coaching standpoint, is helping people just simply recognize again,
what is that lens that you're showing up with, What
judgments are you making, what observations are you making? How
(12:00):
how can you remove some level of assumption and actually
ask the questions that get to the root of the situation. Right.
So making an assumption that someone's not going to be
productive simply because they're working from home, right, is a
big assumption. So what questions do you need to ask?
What do you need to do to be comfortable with
that opportunity? And sometimes the person who's making the judgment
(12:22):
isn't the one who's being thoughtful about how to change
their behavior. So in that example of right, maybe there's
somebody will go with the general stereotype of the older
generation wants people in the office and doesn't want the
remote work because they think they won't be productive, and
the younger generation advocating for the flexibility of remote work.
Most likely the older generation person isn't going to be
(12:44):
the behalf of the equation who's going to say, what's
the lens that I'm looking through and what can I
do differently? Right, So, for the other person, rather than
going in at the ready with your defenses up to
say why it should work and why you should be
allowed to do it, it's starting to be curious about
what are their reservations, what are they actually worried about,
What do they need to see to know that you're productive, right,
(13:07):
you know you're productive. How can you showcase that to them?
How can you speak in their language so that they
can have their worries and their anxieties about whatever. The
situation is minimized by you proving to them what they
need to see, but in sort of on their terms.
So you saying, well, I'm productive for that many hours, right,
But maybe it's the format of the reports, it's the timing,
(13:29):
it's the communication level. What do they need from you
to know? Because to them, just because someone's showing up
in the office, they think they're productive. But when you
start to ask that question, they might say, actually, productivity
is x y Z. They might actually start to realize
people in the office aren't delivering on those very same metrics.
So it becomes an opportunity for everybody to learn when
(13:51):
you can ask those awful questions.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, I think that's I think that's a great point
to men, because you can't make anybody else change. I
think that's one of the things that I learned first
when I started, you know, in coaching, is really that
like you can change a relationship with one person. You know,
there's certain things you could do, but a lot of
times and this comes up and it's a big financial
(14:14):
discussion that I have with people where they're like, my
boss just needs to get recognize what I do I
need to make more or I you know, I want
you know, if I leave, things will be better, even
if they're the same person going to a different role,
you know, and it could end up being you know,
another environment that's not perfect. So I think there are
(14:35):
a lot of different ways that doing this kind of
work on your on your own can can be helpful.
But I wondered, what are your thoughts as far as
some of the you know, the financial pressures and things
that people see, because a lot of times in the workplace,
I think there's you know, a lot of competing goals
and sometimes leaders have to manage their team's budget what
(14:56):
everybody wants, what they want.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
So so how much.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Does you know when you're talking with people, how much
does it does the money aspect of leadership come into
play or is it really just trying to you know,
I don't know if it's a predetermined budget, and then
the answer is we can do the best that we can.
But does the financial pressure come in when people are
(15:22):
worried about their job or their next step.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
On the surface, no, but I think what you're getting
at is often the root cause of a particular behavior
is something very unconnected. So the way in which a
leader might show up to their team might have nothing
to do with how the team is performing and everything
to do with their P and L management that they're
doing right. And so I think what you're alluding to
(15:46):
is there's always an element of sort of financial challenge
and pressure that exists, and it's really empowering leaders to
become aware of that and what kind of transparency do
they need to have with their teams about it but
also with themselves? Right, how stressed are they related to
that financial component and how is it impacting their behavior
as a leader. As you were asking the question, the
(16:07):
other thought that came to mind for me is the
idea of emotional intelligence, and one competency related to emotional
intelligence is called it's ethical decision making, which we often
think of simply as morals of sort of the right
decision or the wrong decision, But what it really means
is are you taking into account when you make a
(16:27):
decision all of the data, all of the consequences that
will happen. The financial elements the bottom line, business, the productivity,
all the sort of business components, as well as how
it's going to impact the people around you. And so
I think what you're also getting at with this question
is oftentimes people might make a decision rooted solely in
the impact it has on the budget or on the
(16:50):
financial component, and they don't take into account anything else,
or vice versa. They say, let's blow the budget because
I don't want to make anybody unhappy. And what really
is impact for leaders is the ability to look at
all of those pieces and make the decision that is
best given the information in all of those different buckets,
knowing that there's probably going to be a place where
(17:12):
it's not going to feel like the best decision for
a group of people or an element of the business right,
But if you can explain why it's the best decision overall,
regardless of that smaller impact that might feel more negative,
that's really when you start making really impactful decisions as
a leader in business.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's definitely it's definitely tough, I think for leaders. I've
seen that where some people you know have been very
methodical when it came to things like layoffs or and
just you know, and then others that really couldn't handle
that unfortunate like aspect of it of having to be
(17:50):
profitable or you know, the financial end of it. So
I think it is something interesting. I also was curious
your thoughts because there could be some young leaders listening
who maybe have been a peer of their teammates and
now are given a leadership role. And sometimes that's a
very exciting thing financially, more money, more, you know, better
(18:11):
title all these things, but it can be a very
stressful thing when it comes to kind of changing that dynamic.
What are some things that people who do have the
ambitious people listening to this call that want that but
also feel a little bit nervous about that dynamic shifting,
what are some things that they could do to kind
of improve that that transition.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
It's a really great, great question, and it probably is
one of the top three things that I hear from
emerging leaders people who are stepping into leadership roles, you know,
either for the first time or that dynamic, right, the
challenge of shifting a relationship with somebody, my gut in
instinct for sort of initial reactions to them would be
(18:55):
to make sure that they're clear on what their ambition
is right, why do they want to move forward with
the promotion. Yes, it's more money or potentially right hopefully,
but you know, and title and all of that. But
chasing Are they chasing only the money and the title?
Are they thinking about the impact that they can have.
Are they taking into consideration those relationships? So what can
(19:17):
also happen is feeling that pressure. Right, imagine you have
a manager who's maybe a little bit toxic, they move on,
the position opens up, and a team of people start
encouraging you. Hey, mister, you should really go for this.
You should really go for this, And there's pressure from
it and maybe it's something you want, but maybe it's not.
So how do you make sure you're going for the
promotion that's the right move for you as an individual?
(19:37):
And so it sounds a little bit selfish when you
think about leadership, And oftentimes we hear about servant leadership
and we're here to serve others and our teams and
for the sake of everyone else, and leaders make sacrifices.
But if you're not stepping into a leadership role for
reasons that are right for yourself, you're not likely to
succeed well as a leader in that role. So that's
first and foremost, is it aligned with what they're going for?
And then secondly, if they get that opportunit, unity is
(20:00):
to be thoughtful and think about how they want to
handle those relationships. A very easy way is to be transparent,
to just open the door to conversation with your peers
that now are direct reports, and think about what kind
of conversations right acknowledging, asking and acknowledging what's their experience
as this transition is happening, understanding what they need from you,
(20:22):
but also setting boundaries and being transparent with your boundaries. Yes,
we have been friends in this way. These are conversations
that are no longer going to be appropriate for us
to have because now I'm your manager, right whatever those
might need to look like and be, But be thoughtful
about you sort of setting the boundaries, but also opening
the door and inviting the type of conversations that you
want to have from those peers. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I think that's a good point about the boundaries, because
you're right, it does have to change a little bit,
and that's okay, I think, And for some people, you know,
maybe moving into leadership is the absolute right decision. For
them and then for others. Like you've said, sometimes a
position opens up and a person is like, oh, you
need to do it, but maybe they were really happy
being an individual contrure they don't want to manage it.
(21:07):
And so I think those things, when you think about
those opportunities, are really important. And again there's always that
financial component. But also if you move into a job
that you can't stand from one that you enjoyed, then
that could cause some friction leader on. So those are
definitely good points and I do I do see that
come up with you know, teams change and people. You know,
(21:27):
if you promote internally, there might be a good chance
that the person sitting next to you becomes you know,
managing at some point, but it can be done.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah. The pressure can also come I think from you know,
the family component, right, you mentioned like your husband, So
if you're making decisions with someone else with a spouse
a partner, sometimes that pressure could come there. Well you
should take it because it's more money and that's good
for us. Right, But again, are you taking into consideration
the whole picture, because I'm sure as you help your
clients with like you can always find a way to
(22:00):
make good financial decisions with the income that you have,
and so sometimes you have to be creative there, and
so really weighing out is it worth making a huge
shift in your work life balance in the type of
role that you have in the leadership that you want
to portray it to your organization just for the money,
or how could you do those things and advocate for
(22:21):
a raise within the job that you have because of
the impact that you're having.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, I know a lot of those conversations, Yeah, like
could we afford to do this?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Should we do it?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Can be very different or would this be better?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Or you know because sometimes you know we can't make
the decisions for them, or we could see that this
is really stressful, or maybe it's something that you know
is not just a It could be your time, it
could be your energy aside from like the money parts.
So those are all it's really important I think for
people to know what they want to do. So when
you know we're coming up on the new year, when
(22:53):
you're talking to people who feel like they just don't
know what they want or if they want to be
a leader, how do you help people kind of define
goals or set some goals for themselves when it comes
to either professional goals, leadership, even personal development. How do
you help people get there if they're feeling maybe a
little bit lost at this point in the year.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, I mean, I think at any point in the
year people can feel a little bit lost. The element
that's most helpful is the fact that I don't have
a stake in their game. So as we were just
talking about the spouse or the partner or the peer
who wants a better boss, they're all acting, yes, maybe
with some of your best indest in mind, but also
(23:34):
how your decision is going to impact them. And the
ability that I have as a coach and being outside
of that realm is I'm not going to influence any
of that. So I have the opportunity to hear what
the person is saying, and actually we're played back to them.
You said this, but I heard it with this sort
of tone or undertone or hesitation or you got really
(23:55):
excited when you talked about that. Is that accurate? Right?
And helping them recognize what as we're asking the questions,
the kind of uncovering what they really want to do,
I'm able to listen for all of those other subtleties
that might give them more indication who I am on
the right track with this, because it does make me
more excited. I didn't even know that I was more
excited about it because I've had this pressure of something
(24:17):
else on the back of my mind or the stress
of something else on the back of my mind. So
that's probably the biggest tool that I use to sort
of support my clients is helping them realize what they're
sharing with me and how they're sharing it with me
to gain further insight into what they're doing. Another couple
of great questions to ask yourself that I would use
is things like what does success mean to you? Right?
(24:40):
If you haven't articulated that, how can you set a
goal on what you want to do to be more
successful or whatever that metric is. So in terms of
setting goals, you have to first kind of know what
your definition is in order to be able to set
a goal that you can then measure against. So you
have to kind of make those definitions of the first
part of the step, and then the goal is the
second part. Another great tip when people are setting goals
(25:02):
is to think about smart goals. Is one of the
terms people have usedn't if you've heard this before, but
making sure that they're really specific. They're measurable, achievable, and
the R and the A are like the same. They
sort of mean like you have the means to do
or if you're gonna say I'm going to lose one
(25:22):
hundred pounds in a week, that's not attainable. No one's
going to do that. It's not realistic. But if you
said I'm going to lose a pound a week, right,
most people would be able to achieve that. And then
it's sort of is it attainable for you? Do you
have the tools necessary to achieve it? So the A
and the R sort of categorizes that, and then the
T is time dount, did you set a frame a
(25:43):
framework for when you want your goal to happen? So
those can be really hard for people who are good
at long term thinking in five years, I want to
be a vice president. What does that mean I have
to do today? So a big part of what I
do with people is ask those questions, Well, what's a
meeting you have in the next month where you could
be interacting with people who have influenced over your ability
(26:03):
to become a vice president? What do you want to
have happened in those meetings, and then we sort of
turn that into a goal. So it's asking those thoughtful
questions about what's upcoming immediately to create more tangible goals
that are in line with what you want to have
happened over the longer term.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, I think that it's a great way to look
at those goals, especially because sometimes people will just tell
me a financial goal like oh, I want to be rich,
I want to have a million dollars, I want to
have this, and it's like, how do we back into that,
how do we get there? Or who has what you
want right now? And what did they do to get there?
And a lot of times it hasn't gone that step,
which is why a lot of people feel like those
(26:39):
are just out in the future goals. We're actually bringing
them to the present and it's really a different it
can be very different little steps to get there, but
it's great when you've seen somebody do it, you know
it's possible. Maybe some of the things you have for
goals you haven't seen anybody do in there, they don't
feel possible, but usually breaking down the steps like you
mentioned can help them become more more real, which is
(27:03):
super important when you're trying to get really big things accomplished.
So I'm curious from your perspective, just because it's something
that's come up before. When it comes to the term
like work life balance, I know I've talked to a
lot of people who were, you know, self employed, or
they maybe have busy lives busy jobs. What does that
term mean to you? And what would you say is
(27:24):
a good thing for people to try to shoot for
if they don't feel like a perfectly balanced fifty to
fifty life is going to happen.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
So a great question. One of the terms that I've
heard more recently is work life integration, So it's how
does your work and your life integrate with each other.
And I actually took about ten months last year, from
November of last year to the summer to sort of
step internally as a leadership coach and support two project
teams within one organization, and it changed my work life
(27:56):
integration a lot. So I sort of lived this out firsthand.
So one is your definition of balance fifty to fifty?
Is it something else? I've done some visual exercise of
people which is like what do you vision? Right? Many
people visualize that sort of law scale that has to
be hanging at level set right. But I also think
(28:18):
that work life balance could be how you're walking. Picture
a gymnast on a balance theme, right, Are you navigating
it all and keeping yourself upright and intact and moving forward?
That could be another visual. So part of it is
for each person to kind of define what it means
for them, and if a fifty to fifty balance is
what you want, then you can work towards achieving this.
(28:39):
So it's kind of back to that what does success
mean to you? That definition is going to be different
for every person. For me personally, being able to bounce
between personal and work throughout my whole day is what
achieves that. For me knowing that if I see an
email from a teacher, I have the ability. From a
technology standpoint, the organization I supported had a lot of
(28:59):
limitations on technology, so it made things like that a
lot more difficult. And so for me being able to
pop in and answer that school email from the teacher
handle that phone call really easily. But then my kids
might be home but doing their homework and I can
pop in and do a work email. Not having hard
and fast boundaries for me works better for how my
brain works in that ability to integrate for other people
(29:20):
that might make them absolutely crazy. So it's really looking
at that the big question I would ask as well
as when you start thinking about, Okay, this is the
boundary I'm going to set for my work life balance
and how I want to execute it, is what's really
driving that. So a great example for many people who
work a corporate job nine to five, or even in
their own business, who say, I don't want to be
(29:42):
answering my work emails all night long. I want to
be able to shut them off at a particular point
in the day. I had a client who really wanted
to do that, and before we started looking at the
iPhone hacks and all the things you can do to
make yourself not check your email, I sort of we
started inquiring what was going on, and she said, well,
I need to be the first person to respond to
(30:02):
emails that come in because I'm the most veteran team
member on my team and that's how I show my leadership.
And so I simply asked her, what would it say
about what kind of leader you are if you didn't
respond first? And I wasn't asking out of a place
of judgment that she should or shouldn't respond first, but
I wanted her to think about, do I want to
(30:23):
be the leader who responds first, who responds last, who
responds somewhere in the middle in title? On her team,
she was not the leader, but she was choosing an
action to display her leadership. And so the ability to
answer that question gave her them the choice that if
she didn't want to be the type of leader who
responded first, she could then start implementing the tools and
(30:46):
not checking her emails frequently. And if she wanted to
be I don't think she would have carried it might
have given her an opportunity to let go some of
the resentment about answering those emails in the evening hours
because she was choosing to do it for a particular
reason that was bred in to her goals and her
view of leaderships. So that's one of my favorite examples
about work of my balance, because it's not always about
the boundary or the time or how it looks. It's
(31:09):
really what do you want to portray and what are
the behaviors you need to do to do that and
feel good about?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, now that's so interesting, And really it was optional
for her rights optional, though she might have felt like, no,
I am the person who does this, and it's like,
do you want to be anyway?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Right? And I can actually not be. That brings up
a great point that oftentimes we go through life so quickly,
and I'm sure you see this in people's financial choices, right.
We just act the way we always have and we
don't stop to think about is that even what I
want to be doing anymore? And so just the ability
to stop and say what am I doing? Is it
(31:47):
what I want to be doing? Or am I doing it?
Because That's what I've always done, so people now just
expect it from me, And that can be hard to
think about making a change because someone else might reacting
or change. Right. It might be allowed, but they might
ask a question. They might say, what's going on? Are
you all right? And you might have to explain yourself
a little bit to reassure them everything's fine. I'm just
(32:09):
changing a little bit of how I operate and that's okay.
But that can be another chat people fall into. It's
just well that's what I've always done or it's what
people expect now, so how could I change it? And
really that's up to you. It is a choice.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, no, I've definitely seen that on the financial land.
I'm the one that always pays the bill if I
don't what if no one wants to spend time with
me anymore? Oh boy, Yes, things like that. So it's definitely,
like you said, that's where coaching can come in and
help you by kind of saying like, Okay, well, how
long is that helping you? Do we want to do
this and kind of get to the bottom of it,
(32:42):
because you're right, we'll just continuously do the things we've
always done. That's right. That is just easier. It makes
our brain happy. We know what to do next. So
that's such an interesting thought that. Thank you so much
for sharing those thoughts with us. I'd love to hear
more about how how your you and your business, how
you help clients, like who is kind of you know,
(33:05):
who are you going to be working with next year?
As far as teams things like that, like who who
should reach out to you if they feel like this
is something that could be really helpful for them.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, thank you, Misstan that it's a great question. I love
working with teams right now is a big part of
what I've been doing. But what I really love doing
is having a team of people, or in some cases
a group of people complimented with individual coaching opportunities because
they can learn a lot in the team environment and
(33:34):
the different things that we might be addressing. But the
ability to then have time one on one to sort
of process and unpack the experience you had amongst your
team or amongst a group can be really powerful. So
that's sort of my favorite way to work with people,
because I love both group and one on one scenarios.
If people are feeling I think any of the anything
(33:57):
that we talked about today resonating with people, I love
to have a further conversation with them. But really, emerging
leaders is a topic that I hope to be offering
a group program in next year for those people stepping
into leadership for the first time, or as we talked about,
that next level of leadership, maybe you've been a people manager,
but suddenly you're moving to that next level where peers
(34:19):
are going to become direct reports or really shifting the
dynamic of your leadership, and you want to reevaluate how
you're stepping into that leadership. From a team perspective, it
can be senior leadership teams at organizations, but it can
also be project teams, people who are assembled from different
functions and the organizations coming together to achieve a purpose
for a project needing help identifying how are we going
(34:41):
to operate as a team, what's our purpose as a team.
Are we all in line with the expectations and the
roles and responsibilities among our team where we clear on
who our leader is. So I really love working with
team leaders to set that up. I also do team coaching,
which is something we didn't really talk about, but it's
observing teams while they're working to deliver the work that
(35:01):
they're doing right so the marketing strategy or the budget conversation,
which I am not the expert in, but to then
enable them to raise their level of awareness about how
they interact. So as a coach, I might sort of
pull the time out card from the conversation on the
work and say, this is what I'm noticing is happening
in the group. What are you all experiencing right now?
And maybe teach them a few tricks about communication that
(35:24):
they can then implement with their team as they resume
that conversation, and then I kind of say time in
they go back to the marketing strategy, the budget conversation,
whatever it is, and think about how they're interacting with
each other to raise that level. So that's something that's
new and kind of different for teams. It takes a
little bit of getting used to, but that's something else
that I love. And then I love working with people
(35:46):
also on sort of the individual experiences that they have.
I know you and I met when I did a
talk on perfectionism, so things like burnout boundaries that we
were talking a little bit about today, perfectionism. What are
the situations that you face in internally with yourself when
you're showing up in a leadership role, So helping people
kind of unpack some of those imposter syndrome and things
(36:07):
like that, it's such.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
An I think it's so important to do that kind
of work. I think that we can get really good
at what we do, but if we have something like
that in the background, the boundary issues, imposter syndrome, it
can keep us from getting our best work out there,
helping more people doing more of what we want to
be doing. So I think that's such a it's such
a valuable tool to learn, and it isn't It isn't
(36:29):
easy it's not something that we necessarily were brought up
or learned in college. So thank you so much for
sharing that. How can people reach you or find you
if they're looking to either follow you on social media
or learn more and connect with you.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn Karen Panbiyanke. If you start
to should it should come up Karen Paanbiyaky on LinkedIn.
And then my website Swiftwater Collaborative dot com and my
email is Karen Atswiftwater Collaborative dot com.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Well, thank you so much, thank you so much for this.
I think it's such an important topic. And I think
that if you're a leader, you've got a big coming up,
you've got things that you want to get done. I
think this could be so helpful for your group, and
I'd love to Yeah, I'd love to hear some of
the challenges that people are facing and some of the
things that they're thinking about as they go into the
new year.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Or maybe how they set goals.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
So thank you so much everyone for listening, and please
head over to missde Lynch dot com if you're looking to,
you know, look for more episodes of the podcast, or
maybe buy a copy of the book demist buying Money
if you're looking to do some of your own internal
work when it comes to your budget, but maybe make
some room to invest in certain things like coaching for yourself.
Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk again
(37:33):
next week. Thank you for joining us on another insightful
episode of demonst Buying Money. If you enjoyed this episode,
please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Stay tuned for
more engaging conversations on our next episode, and remember knowledge
is the key to financial empowerment.
Welcome to the Demistifying Money podcast, where each week you
will hear unforgettable conversations with expert guests about success, money, business,
and small steps you can take to elevate your life
and wealth. Now here's your host, Misty Lynch.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi, everyone, thank you so much for joining me for
this episode of Demystifying Money. I'm your host, Missy Lynch,
and today I am joined by Karen Pempianki. She is
the owner of swift Water Collaborative, and she is a
coach that helps people and businesses and teams develop and
you know, build stronger relationships so they can do a
better job. So I wanted to talk to her today
(00:41):
about how she helps people because I think that sometimes,
you know, we know how to do our jobs, but
we might need some coaching, We might need some support
when it comes to how to handle certain situations, how
to deal with teams, how to build, how to become
a stronger leader. And so I wanted to bring Karen
on today because I heard her speak and I was
super impress us with the tool she uses and really
(01:02):
how she communicates. So thank you so much Karen for
joining me today.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you so much for having me Missy.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
This episode of Demystifying Money with Misty Lynch is proudly
sponsored by Soundview Financial Advisors. Visit www dot Soundview financial
Advisors dot com to learn more.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'd love to hear about your journey, you know. I
talked to a lot of different entrepreneurs on the show.
None of them necessarily knew what they would be doing,
you know, when they went to college and graduate, they
ended up somewhere different. So tell me a little bit
about your journey and how you were able to establish
your business.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It's a great question, I find I can I can
tell it very long or very short, so I'll try
to aim for the shorter version. I actually was navigating
a career in events and fundraising for most of my
career and found the job that I thought I would
always have, working for a nonprofit coordinating events and raising
funds for an important cause. And then I became a mom,
(02:01):
and I realized that while the opportunity was there to
maybe change the boundaries and build the life I wanted
to be a working mom, I wasn't going to be
able to do that because of the investment I'd had
in that position and how committed I was to the cause,
so I decided to explore other options and found the
opportunity to start coaching at a university. The sort of
(02:23):
sim as they say about it all, was that I
had hired a coach about seven years prior to this
and was blown away by the impact that she made
on my life. When I started looking at this opportunity
to start coaching at the university. She actually helped build
the coaching program at the university, so she was not
actually working there anymore, but had partnered with the university
to build out what the coaching program would look like
(02:43):
and how we would support students. So it was so
fascinating to me that it kind of came full circle
that I understood the impact of coaching and then was
given the opportunity to start coaching. So I started my
coaching with students who were working professionals going back to school.
They were leaders in their organizations. Many of them had families.
We're caring for elderly parents navigating a life full of things,
(03:04):
and then somehow we're going to fit in adding way
back to school to their very busy lives. So that
was what I did for two years and really fell
in love with coaching. Had a really robust opportunity to
build my coaching skills with a team of coaches that
I was working alongside, and then fast forward to where
I am today. My journey has just continued to evolve
as I've met different clients and supported them through coaching.
(03:26):
So the bulk of my work now is, as you mentioned,
working with leaders and emerging leaders who are first time
people managers stepping into leadership roles, people who maybe aren't
leaders by title but really want to behave as leaders
in their organizations, and then working with teams to help
them think about their level of performance, the level of
standard that they want to have, and their behavior. A
(03:47):
lot of people wonder what coaching is too, So my
brief explanation of that is I don't come in and
tell people what to do or even how to do
their jobs. Really, what I do is enlist the things
that they already know inside themselves and help them draw
out that authentic person and that authentic leader that they
want to be and make sure it's aligned with how
(04:08):
they're being perceived in a day to day life.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I think coaching and it's it's interesting you mentioned
being you know, coaching have an impact on you yourself.
I agree. I think that when I started working with
coaches now, I did when I was younger. You know,
athletes have coached every you know, we and we're not
they're not out on the field doing it. But then
when we're you know, older, we expect the coaches are
going to answer all of our questions. For us, it's
(04:32):
like no that they might help you figure out how
to unlock some things that maybe you haven't looked at,
or see things a different way, or ask better questions.
And so I think that that's something that I'll anybody,
whether you're self employed, whether you're a leader, whether you're
a parent, when any sort of role where you're taking on,
you know, those leadership responsibilities, being able to use your
(04:54):
own brain and ask yourself better questions because such a
such a powerful thing. And I think think leadership is
definitely changing for people these days. What are some of
the things that you're noticing with your clients, you know,
the way that teams are being built. What are some
of the challenges that leaders today are facing that they
might not have anybody to go ask for help because
(05:17):
we're kind of in a new new territory when it
comes to this type of work environment.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, it's a great question. The trickiest part is that
the challenges are so unique to the individual, right, because
we all bring our story, right, I give you the
two minute story of my journey here, but each one
of us brings a different story with us, and that's
the lens that we look through life through. So the
most common challenge is helping people in their interactions in
(05:43):
the workplace or as you said, even as parents, in
relationships outside of work. How do you recognize the lens
which you view the world through and how that relates
to the lens that others view it through. So again,
we're not trying to change it and say we all
need to look at the world the same way, but
how are we taking the opportunity to recognize what is
the lens that I bring, What bias might that present
(06:04):
in how I approach things, what limitations might offer me,
what opportunities might offer me, and how is that inter
interacting with those same perspectives that someone else might bring
to it. So that's sort of like the overall theme
I think and challenge that I see. What also comes
into practice I think for people with that challenge is
(06:26):
they show up with what they think is a behavior
that aligns with their values and how they want to
be perceived, and yet they're being received in a completely
different way. So there's this misalignment in those perspectives. Right.
I view myself as x y Z. I view myself
as a realist and very thoughtful and practical, but my
(06:46):
colleagues view me as negative and dismissive of every new
idea that comes through. Right, So it's simply a matter
of perspective. But then what can we do as a
leader to make sure that our behaviors really showcase we're
not trying to be negative, we're trying to be a
realist or whatever that characteristic might be. That's just one example.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, No, I think that that's true when you know,
we've all had different interactions with different people that we've
worked with, and nobody sees themselves as the villain with
that guy ever, you know. So I think that's just
an interesting way to frame it as far as how
are you being perceived even if you think I'm you know, practical,
(07:23):
and everyone else might think like your means or you
don't listen, And so I think that's such an interesting
thing and I can imagine that now with teams being
maybe more remote, more spread apart, where you might not
be able to necessarily read the room the same way.
How is that changing? You know, when you're trying to
(07:45):
be a strong leader, what are some of the techniques
and maybe didn't maybe they used to work in the
past that you know need to evolve for today.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think a big one in the virtual environment is
making the opportunity to get to know people outside of
those team interactions, so that you start to learn how
somebody communicates and a little bit of those body language
nuances that you might gain in a one on one
environment but not in a larger group. And particularly I'm
thinking of things like there are people who are more
(08:18):
reserved when there's six, eight, ten people in a meeting,
and when they're in a group of maybe one to
three people will engage very dynamically, and so being able
to understand those nuances about people so that you're not
making broad judgments based on a behavior just from one
type of interaction. So being able to diversify the types
(08:38):
of interaction than a virtual environment is a big strategy
that I think can really help people. Another one is
thinking about the power dynamics that exist in a virtual environment,
which you'd think it eliminates them, but particularly as people
are going back to the office and there's more of
a hybrid work setup where some people might be remote,
(08:59):
one person be in a different office or a different city,
and everyone else is back in the office in the
same city, or half the team is in one location,
half the team is in another. When you're using the
virtual tools, are you even taking into consideration things like, well,
there's only one person on zoom and we're all going
to go to the conference room. So now that person
is displayed on a you know, a fifty inch TV,
and their facial expressions can be read every little line
(09:22):
increase that they think right, every indication, and to that
one person the room of five ten people, they're tiny,
tiny little faces. They have no idea who's reacting and
how So how can you level a bit of the
power dynamic by either saying in those environments, you know,
only every other meeting will be go to the conference
room and the other ones will all be equally sized,
you know, within within the zoom box or things like that.
(09:44):
So it's getting a little bit creative and how you
execute things in the virtual environment.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, I think that's that's a smart thing to consider,
is the optics. I remember, you know, you're before COVID
when my husband was a virtual employee, Like people would
just forget to sign on right up, and like it.
It's such a different It didn't feel like you could
be a leader or successful. It felt like, okay, this
is the choice you made to be a virtual and
so now I think it's changing, but it is important
(10:09):
to consider those those things. Or you know, if when
everybody's in or if you know, you have a few
people that just kind of unmute themselves to say nothing
from me and you don't notice that you're not getting
anything from them, maybe one on one meeting or different
types of meetings could be more helpful because it is
(10:30):
easier maybe to kind of stand, you know, stand up
against the wall and not be heard or seeing, you know,
when you have maybe a couple dominating voices the same
way as it used to be in a conference room,
but now it's a little different to turn your picture off.
So it's such an interesting thing. And I do have
you know, I think that it's interesting the work you're
(10:50):
doing with teams, because I'm also hearing that like, people
are different, and I think this has probably been something
that's always been true that older generations. I thought, younger
people don't want to work, and maybe that's been true
throughout the dawn of time, because given none of us
really do. But what are you seeing as far as
people interacting, you know, maybe with different generations or younger
(11:12):
leaders or things like that. Have you helped people kind
of manage those dynamics in a team?
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, So it's another great question and it comes up often,
this idea of the different generations. And part of the
reason it's such a new territory is it's we're facing
one of the most diverse groups of workforce, where we
have people working much later in life and people obviously
starting you know, younger in some cases, especially with the
(11:38):
changes and expectations around college and what people do after
high school, and so we have such a broad range.
I think similar to all the work I do from
a coaching standpoint, is helping people just simply recognize again,
what is that lens that you're showing up with, What
judgments are you making, what observations are you making? How
(12:00):
how can you remove some level of assumption and actually
ask the questions that get to the root of the situation. Right.
So making an assumption that someone's not going to be
productive simply because they're working from home, right, is a
big assumption. So what questions do you need to ask?
What do you need to do to be comfortable with
that opportunity? And sometimes the person who's making the judgment
(12:22):
isn't the one who's being thoughtful about how to change
their behavior. So in that example of right, maybe there's
somebody will go with the general stereotype of the older
generation wants people in the office and doesn't want the
remote work because they think they won't be productive, and
the younger generation advocating for the flexibility of remote work.
Most likely the older generation person isn't going to be
(12:44):
the behalf of the equation who's going to say, what's
the lens that I'm looking through and what can I
do differently? Right, So, for the other person, rather than
going in at the ready with your defenses up to
say why it should work and why you should be
allowed to do it, it's starting to be curious about
what are their reservations, what are they actually worried about,
What do they need to see to know that you're productive, right,
(13:07):
you know you're productive. How can you showcase that to them?
How can you speak in their language so that they
can have their worries and their anxieties about whatever. The
situation is minimized by you proving to them what they
need to see, but in sort of on their terms.
So you saying, well, I'm productive for that many hours, right,
But maybe it's the format of the reports, it's the timing,
(13:29):
it's the communication level. What do they need from you
to know? Because to them, just because someone's showing up
in the office, they think they're productive. But when you
start to ask that question, they might say, actually, productivity
is x y Z. They might actually start to realize
people in the office aren't delivering on those very same metrics.
So it becomes an opportunity for everybody to learn when
(13:51):
you can ask those awful questions.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, I think that's I think that's a great point
to men, because you can't make anybody else change. I
think that's one of the things that I learned first
when I started, you know, in coaching, is really that
like you can change a relationship with one person. You know,
there's certain things you could do, but a lot of
times and this comes up and it's a big financial
(14:14):
discussion that I have with people where they're like, my
boss just needs to get recognize what I do I
need to make more or I you know, I want
you know, if I leave, things will be better, even
if they're the same person going to a different role,
you know, and it could end up being you know,
another environment that's not perfect. So I think there are
(14:35):
a lot of different ways that doing this kind of
work on your on your own can can be helpful.
But I wondered, what are your thoughts as far as
some of the you know, the financial pressures and things
that people see, because a lot of times in the workplace,
I think there's you know, a lot of competing goals
and sometimes leaders have to manage their team's budget what
(14:56):
everybody wants, what they want.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
So so how much.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Does you know when you're talking with people, how much
does it does the money aspect of leadership come into
play or is it really just trying to you know,
I don't know if it's a predetermined budget, and then
the answer is we can do the best that we can.
But does the financial pressure come in when people are
(15:22):
worried about their job or their next step.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
On the surface, no, but I think what you're getting
at is often the root cause of a particular behavior
is something very unconnected. So the way in which a
leader might show up to their team might have nothing
to do with how the team is performing and everything
to do with their P and L management that they're
doing right. And so I think what you're alluding to
(15:46):
is there's always an element of sort of financial challenge
and pressure that exists, and it's really empowering leaders to
become aware of that and what kind of transparency do
they need to have with their teams about it but
also with themselves? Right, how stressed are they related to
that financial component and how is it impacting their behavior
as a leader. As you were asking the question, the
(16:07):
other thought that came to mind for me is the
idea of emotional intelligence, and one competency related to emotional
intelligence is called it's ethical decision making, which we often
think of simply as morals of sort of the right
decision or the wrong decision, But what it really means
is are you taking into account when you make a
(16:27):
decision all of the data, all of the consequences that
will happen. The financial elements the bottom line, business, the productivity,
all the sort of business components, as well as how
it's going to impact the people around you. And so
I think what you're also getting at with this question
is oftentimes people might make a decision rooted solely in
the impact it has on the budget or on the
(16:50):
financial component, and they don't take into account anything else,
or vice versa. They say, let's blow the budget because
I don't want to make anybody unhappy. And what really
is impact for leaders is the ability to look at
all of those pieces and make the decision that is
best given the information in all of those different buckets,
knowing that there's probably going to be a place where
(17:12):
it's not going to feel like the best decision for
a group of people or an element of the business right,
But if you can explain why it's the best decision overall,
regardless of that smaller impact that might feel more negative,
that's really when you start making really impactful decisions as
a leader in business.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's definitely it's definitely tough, I think for leaders. I've
seen that where some people you know have been very
methodical when it came to things like layoffs or and
just you know, and then others that really couldn't handle
that unfortunate like aspect of it of having to be
(17:50):
profitable or you know, the financial end of it. So
I think it is something interesting. I also was curious
your thoughts because there could be some young leaders listening
who maybe have been a peer of their teammates and
now are given a leadership role. And sometimes that's a
very exciting thing financially, more money, more, you know, better
(18:11):
title all these things, but it can be a very
stressful thing when it comes to kind of changing that dynamic.
What are some things that people who do have the
ambitious people listening to this call that want that but
also feel a little bit nervous about that dynamic shifting,
what are some things that they could do to kind
of improve that that transition.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
It's a really great, great question, and it probably is
one of the top three things that I hear from
emerging leaders people who are stepping into leadership roles, you know,
either for the first time or that dynamic, right, the
challenge of shifting a relationship with somebody, my gut in
instinct for sort of initial reactions to them would be
(18:55):
to make sure that they're clear on what their ambition
is right, why do they want to move forward with
the promotion. Yes, it's more money or potentially right hopefully,
but you know, and title and all of that. But
chasing Are they chasing only the money and the title?
Are they thinking about the impact that they can have.
Are they taking into consideration those relationships? So what can
(19:17):
also happen is feeling that pressure. Right, imagine you have
a manager who's maybe a little bit toxic, they move on,
the position opens up, and a team of people start
encouraging you. Hey, mister, you should really go for this.
You should really go for this, And there's pressure from
it and maybe it's something you want, but maybe it's not.
So how do you make sure you're going for the
promotion that's the right move for you as an individual?
(19:37):
And so it sounds a little bit selfish when you
think about leadership, And oftentimes we hear about servant leadership
and we're here to serve others and our teams and
for the sake of everyone else, and leaders make sacrifices.
But if you're not stepping into a leadership role for
reasons that are right for yourself, you're not likely to
succeed well as a leader in that role. So that's
first and foremost, is it aligned with what they're going for?
And then secondly, if they get that opportunit, unity is
(20:00):
to be thoughtful and think about how they want to
handle those relationships. A very easy way is to be transparent,
to just open the door to conversation with your peers
that now are direct reports, and think about what kind
of conversations right acknowledging, asking and acknowledging what's their experience
as this transition is happening, understanding what they need from you,
(20:22):
but also setting boundaries and being transparent with your boundaries. Yes,
we have been friends in this way. These are conversations
that are no longer going to be appropriate for us
to have because now I'm your manager, right whatever those
might need to look like and be, But be thoughtful
about you sort of setting the boundaries, but also opening
the door and inviting the type of conversations that you
want to have from those peers. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I think that's a good point about the boundaries, because
you're right, it does have to change a little bit,
and that's okay, I think, And for some people, you know,
maybe moving into leadership is the absolute right decision. For
them and then for others. Like you've said, sometimes a
position opens up and a person is like, oh, you
need to do it, but maybe they were really happy
being an individual contrure they don't want to manage it.
(21:07):
And so I think those things, when you think about
those opportunities, are really important. And again there's always that
financial component. But also if you move into a job
that you can't stand from one that you enjoyed, then
that could cause some friction leader on. So those are
definitely good points and I do I do see that
come up with you know, teams change and people. You know,
(21:27):
if you promote internally, there might be a good chance
that the person sitting next to you becomes you know,
managing at some point, but it can be done.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah. The pressure can also come I think from you know,
the family component, right, you mentioned like your husband, So
if you're making decisions with someone else with a spouse
a partner, sometimes that pressure could come there. Well you
should take it because it's more money and that's good
for us. Right, But again, are you taking into consideration
the whole picture, because I'm sure as you help your
clients with like you can always find a way to
(22:00):
make good financial decisions with the income that you have,
and so sometimes you have to be creative there, and
so really weighing out is it worth making a huge
shift in your work life balance in the type of
role that you have in the leadership that you want
to portray it to your organization just for the money,
or how could you do those things and advocate for
(22:21):
a raise within the job that you have because of
the impact that you're having.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, I know a lot of those conversations, Yeah, like
could we afford to do this?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Should we do it?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Can be very different or would this be better?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Or you know because sometimes you know we can't make
the decisions for them, or we could see that this
is really stressful, or maybe it's something that you know
is not just a It could be your time, it
could be your energy aside from like the money parts.
So those are all it's really important I think for
people to know what they want to do. So when
you know we're coming up on the new year, when
(22:53):
you're talking to people who feel like they just don't
know what they want or if they want to be
a leader, how do you help people kind of define
goals or set some goals for themselves when it comes
to either professional goals, leadership, even personal development. How do
you help people get there if they're feeling maybe a
little bit lost at this point in the year.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, I mean, I think at any point in the
year people can feel a little bit lost. The element
that's most helpful is the fact that I don't have
a stake in their game. So as we were just
talking about the spouse or the partner or the peer
who wants a better boss, they're all acting, yes, maybe
with some of your best indest in mind, but also
(23:34):
how your decision is going to impact them. And the
ability that I have as a coach and being outside
of that realm is I'm not going to influence any
of that. So I have the opportunity to hear what
the person is saying, and actually we're played back to them.
You said this, but I heard it with this sort
of tone or undertone or hesitation or you got really
(23:55):
excited when you talked about that. Is that accurate? Right?
And helping them recognize what as we're asking the questions,
the kind of uncovering what they really want to do,
I'm able to listen for all of those other subtleties
that might give them more indication who I am on
the right track with this, because it does make me
more excited. I didn't even know that I was more
excited about it because I've had this pressure of something
(24:17):
else on the back of my mind or the stress
of something else on the back of my mind. So
that's probably the biggest tool that I use to sort
of support my clients is helping them realize what they're
sharing with me and how they're sharing it with me
to gain further insight into what they're doing. Another couple
of great questions to ask yourself that I would use
is things like what does success mean to you? Right?
(24:40):
If you haven't articulated that, how can you set a
goal on what you want to do to be more
successful or whatever that metric is. So in terms of
setting goals, you have to first kind of know what
your definition is in order to be able to set
a goal that you can then measure against. So you
have to kind of make those definitions of the first
part of the step, and then the goal is the
second part. Another great tip when people are setting goals
(25:02):
is to think about smart goals. Is one of the
terms people have usedn't if you've heard this before, but
making sure that they're really specific. They're measurable, achievable, and
the R and the A are like the same. They
sort of mean like you have the means to do
or if you're gonna say I'm going to lose one
(25:22):
hundred pounds in a week, that's not attainable. No one's
going to do that. It's not realistic. But if you
said I'm going to lose a pound a week, right,
most people would be able to achieve that. And then
it's sort of is it attainable for you? Do you
have the tools necessary to achieve it? So the A
and the R sort of categorizes that, and then the
T is time dount, did you set a frame a
(25:43):
framework for when you want your goal to happen? So
those can be really hard for people who are good
at long term thinking in five years, I want to
be a vice president. What does that mean I have
to do today? So a big part of what I
do with people is ask those questions, Well, what's a
meeting you have in the next month where you could
be interacting with people who have influenced over your ability
(26:03):
to become a vice president? What do you want to
have happened in those meetings, and then we sort of
turn that into a goal. So it's asking those thoughtful
questions about what's upcoming immediately to create more tangible goals
that are in line with what you want to have
happened over the longer term.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, I think that it's a great way to look
at those goals, especially because sometimes people will just tell
me a financial goal like oh, I want to be rich,
I want to have a million dollars, I want to
have this, and it's like, how do we back into that,
how do we get there? Or who has what you
want right now? And what did they do to get there?
And a lot of times it hasn't gone that step,
which is why a lot of people feel like those
(26:39):
are just out in the future goals. We're actually bringing
them to the present and it's really a different it
can be very different little steps to get there, but
it's great when you've seen somebody do it, you know
it's possible. Maybe some of the things you have for
goals you haven't seen anybody do in there, they don't
feel possible, but usually breaking down the steps like you
mentioned can help them become more more real, which is
(27:03):
super important when you're trying to get really big things accomplished.
So I'm curious from your perspective, just because it's something
that's come up before. When it comes to the term
like work life balance, I know I've talked to a
lot of people who were, you know, self employed, or
they maybe have busy lives busy jobs. What does that
term mean to you? And what would you say is
(27:24):
a good thing for people to try to shoot for
if they don't feel like a perfectly balanced fifty to
fifty life is going to happen.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
So a great question. One of the terms that I've
heard more recently is work life integration, So it's how
does your work and your life integrate with each other.
And I actually took about ten months last year, from
November of last year to the summer to sort of
step internally as a leadership coach and support two project
teams within one organization, and it changed my work life
(27:56):
integration a lot. So I sort of lived this out firsthand.
So one is your definition of balance fifty to fifty?
Is it something else? I've done some visual exercise of
people which is like what do you vision? Right? Many
people visualize that sort of law scale that has to
be hanging at level set right. But I also think
(28:18):
that work life balance could be how you're walking. Picture
a gymnast on a balance theme, right, Are you navigating
it all and keeping yourself upright and intact and moving forward?
That could be another visual. So part of it is
for each person to kind of define what it means
for them, and if a fifty to fifty balance is
what you want, then you can work towards achieving this.
(28:39):
So it's kind of back to that what does success
mean to you? That definition is going to be different
for every person. For me personally, being able to bounce
between personal and work throughout my whole day is what
achieves that. For me knowing that if I see an
email from a teacher, I have the ability. From a
technology standpoint, the organization I supported had a lot of
(28:59):
limitations on technology, so it made things like that a
lot more difficult. And so for me being able to
pop in and answer that school email from the teacher
handle that phone call really easily. But then my kids
might be home but doing their homework and I can
pop in and do a work email. Not having hard
and fast boundaries for me works better for how my
brain works in that ability to integrate for other people
(29:20):
that might make them absolutely crazy. So it's really looking
at that the big question I would ask as well
as when you start thinking about, Okay, this is the
boundary I'm going to set for my work life balance
and how I want to execute it, is what's really
driving that. So a great example for many people who
work a corporate job nine to five, or even in
their own business, who say, I don't want to be
(29:42):
answering my work emails all night long. I want to
be able to shut them off at a particular point
in the day. I had a client who really wanted
to do that, and before we started looking at the
iPhone hacks and all the things you can do to
make yourself not check your email, I sort of we
started inquiring what was going on, and she said, well,
I need to be the first person to respond to
(30:02):
emails that come in because I'm the most veteran team
member on my team and that's how I show my leadership.
And so I simply asked her, what would it say
about what kind of leader you are if you didn't
respond first? And I wasn't asking out of a place
of judgment that she should or shouldn't respond first, but
I wanted her to think about, do I want to
(30:23):
be the leader who responds first, who responds last, who
responds somewhere in the middle in title? On her team,
she was not the leader, but she was choosing an
action to display her leadership. And so the ability to
answer that question gave her them the choice that if
she didn't want to be the type of leader who
responded first, she could then start implementing the tools and
(30:46):
not checking her emails frequently. And if she wanted to
be I don't think she would have carried it might
have given her an opportunity to let go some of
the resentment about answering those emails in the evening hours
because she was choosing to do it for a particular
reason that was bred in to her goals and her
view of leaderships. So that's one of my favorite examples
about work of my balance, because it's not always about
the boundary or the time or how it looks. It's
(31:09):
really what do you want to portray and what are
the behaviors you need to do to do that and
feel good about?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, now that's so interesting, And really it was optional
for her rights optional, though she might have felt like, no,
I am the person who does this, and it's like,
do you want to be anyway?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Right? And I can actually not be. That brings up
a great point that oftentimes we go through life so quickly,
and I'm sure you see this in people's financial choices, right.
We just act the way we always have and we
don't stop to think about is that even what I
want to be doing anymore? And so just the ability
to stop and say what am I doing? Is it
(31:47):
what I want to be doing? Or am I doing it?
Because That's what I've always done, so people now just
expect it from me, And that can be hard to
think about making a change because someone else might reacting
or change. Right. It might be allowed, but they might
ask a question. They might say, what's going on? Are
you all right? And you might have to explain yourself
a little bit to reassure them everything's fine. I'm just
(32:09):
changing a little bit of how I operate and that's okay.
But that can be another chat people fall into. It's
just well that's what I've always done or it's what
people expect now, so how could I change it? And
really that's up to you. It is a choice.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, no, I've definitely seen that on the financial land.
I'm the one that always pays the bill if I
don't what if no one wants to spend time with
me anymore? Oh boy, Yes, things like that. So it's definitely,
like you said, that's where coaching can come in and
help you by kind of saying like, Okay, well, how
long is that helping you? Do we want to do
this and kind of get to the bottom of it,
(32:42):
because you're right, we'll just continuously do the things we've
always done. That's right. That is just easier. It makes
our brain happy. We know what to do next. So
that's such an interesting thought that. Thank you so much
for sharing those thoughts with us. I'd love to hear
more about how how your you and your business, how
you help clients, like who is kind of you know,
(33:05):
who are you going to be working with next year?
As far as teams things like that, like who who
should reach out to you if they feel like this
is something that could be really helpful for them.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, thank you, Misstan that it's a great question. I love
working with teams right now is a big part of
what I've been doing. But what I really love doing
is having a team of people, or in some cases
a group of people complimented with individual coaching opportunities because
they can learn a lot in the team environment and
(33:34):
the different things that we might be addressing. But the
ability to then have time one on one to sort
of process and unpack the experience you had amongst your
team or amongst a group can be really powerful. So
that's sort of my favorite way to work with people,
because I love both group and one on one scenarios.
If people are feeling I think any of the anything
(33:57):
that we talked about today resonating with people, I love
to have a further conversation with them. But really, emerging
leaders is a topic that I hope to be offering
a group program in next year for those people stepping
into leadership for the first time, or as we talked about,
that next level of leadership, maybe you've been a people manager,
but suddenly you're moving to that next level where peers
(34:19):
are going to become direct reports or really shifting the
dynamic of your leadership, and you want to reevaluate how
you're stepping into that leadership. From a team perspective, it
can be senior leadership teams at organizations, but it can
also be project teams, people who are assembled from different
functions and the organizations coming together to achieve a purpose
for a project needing help identifying how are we going
(34:41):
to operate as a team, what's our purpose as a team.
Are we all in line with the expectations and the
roles and responsibilities among our team where we clear on
who our leader is. So I really love working with
team leaders to set that up. I also do team coaching,
which is something we didn't really talk about, but it's
observing teams while they're working to deliver the work that
(35:01):
they're doing right so the marketing strategy or the budget conversation,
which I am not the expert in, but to then
enable them to raise their level of awareness about how
they interact. So as a coach, I might sort of
pull the time out card from the conversation on the
work and say, this is what I'm noticing is happening
in the group. What are you all experiencing right now?
And maybe teach them a few tricks about communication that
(35:24):
they can then implement with their team as they resume
that conversation, and then I kind of say time in
they go back to the marketing strategy, the budget conversation,
whatever it is, and think about how they're interacting with
each other to raise that level. So that's something that's
new and kind of different for teams. It takes a
little bit of getting used to, but that's something else
that I love. And then I love working with people
(35:46):
also on sort of the individual experiences that they have.
I know you and I met when I did a
talk on perfectionism, so things like burnout boundaries that we
were talking a little bit about today, perfectionism. What are
the situations that you face in internally with yourself when
you're showing up in a leadership role, So helping people
kind of unpack some of those imposter syndrome and things
(36:07):
like that, it's such.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
An I think it's so important to do that kind
of work. I think that we can get really good
at what we do, but if we have something like
that in the background, the boundary issues, imposter syndrome, it
can keep us from getting our best work out there,
helping more people doing more of what we want to
be doing. So I think that's such a it's such
a valuable tool to learn, and it isn't It isn't
(36:29):
easy it's not something that we necessarily were brought up
or learned in college. So thank you so much for
sharing that. How can people reach you or find you
if they're looking to either follow you on social media
or learn more and connect with you.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn Karen Panbiyanke. If you start
to should it should come up Karen Paanbiyaky on LinkedIn.
And then my website Swiftwater Collaborative dot com and my
email is Karen Atswiftwater Collaborative dot com.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Well, thank you so much, thank you so much for this.
I think it's such an important topic. And I think
that if you're a leader, you've got a big coming up,
you've got things that you want to get done. I
think this could be so helpful for your group, and
I'd love to Yeah, I'd love to hear some of
the challenges that people are facing and some of the
things that they're thinking about as they go into the
new year.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Or maybe how they set goals.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
So thank you so much everyone for listening, and please
head over to missde Lynch dot com if you're looking to,
you know, look for more episodes of the podcast, or
maybe buy a copy of the book demist buying Money
if you're looking to do some of your own internal
work when it comes to your budget, but maybe make
some room to invest in certain things like coaching for yourself.
Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk again
(37:33):
next week. Thank you for joining us on another insightful
episode of demonst Buying Money. If you enjoyed this episode,
please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Stay tuned for
more engaging conversations on our next episode, and remember knowledge
is the key to financial empowerment.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.