RWL Newsletter #115
Greetings and happy Spring from the University of New Hampshire! Today I had the opportunity to crash the Women in Leadership conference here at Paul College of Business because I knew three of the women speaking on the healthcare panel. Karen Clements, CNO of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Heather Lavoie, President of Geneia, and my colleague Jo Porter, director of the Institute for Health Policy and Practice. It’s always so awesome to have these incredibly talented and hard working leaders give their time to developing the talent pipeline.
This week is all career development stuff - mentorship, listening, and networking. Some of my favorite topics!
Read
What: HBR, What the Best Mentors Do
https://hbr.org/2017/02/what-the-best-mentors-do
Why: Short read, but has some great tips. The first point, “Put the relationship before the mentorship” is so critical, and I think often it gets lost in our understanding of what mentorship actually is. Mentorship, according to Kathy Kram (the godmother of mentoring in the workplace) involves both a coaching component and a psycho-social support component. You can coach without really being a mentor. But to be a mentor, you have to be emotionally invested in the mentee. You have to care about whether the person succeeds or not, not because it will make you look good or make your life easier, but because their success is a good in and of itself for you. Everything else is just filling in the details after that, in my opinion. (HT to Kayla and Taylor who taught about mentorship this week in my OB class.)
Watch
What: TED Talk with Celeste Headlee, 10 ways to have a better conversation (12 minutes)
https://www.ted.com/talks/celeste_headlee_10_ways_to_have_a_better_conversation
Why: I think I may have posted this once upon a time, but after 115 newsletters, I do lose track. Regardless, it’s worth a listen, even if you’ve listened to it before, because listening is so much more complicated than we think. As she says, most people think they are better listeners than they are. I know I run into this problem all the time, even though, as a qualitative researcher, I listen professionally all the time. I find myself sometimes not really listening to students, to colleagues, to friends, and to my wife and kids. I often realize it after the fact, but sometimes I still have to get whacked up side the head. Take the 12 minutes to listen to this one. (HT to Jessica and Mark in my OB class who used this video in their presentation on listening).
Listen
What: WorkLife with Adam Grant, Networking for people who hate networking
(also on iTunes)
Why: Networking scares my students. This is a podcast for people who think it is scary or dirty. It really gives a different way of looking at networking - trying to be a giver - which I find a helpful way of looking at it. It makes the process of networking a lot more fun and exciting. The podcast also talks about how to get noticed at work, which is a related topic. All really good advice for students of any age!
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
Have a great weekend and do amazing things!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau