The Most Powerful You: 7 Bravery-Boosting Paths to Career Bliss

Posted on by Paul Cowan

Recent research shows thousands of women want more impact and success in their careers, but shunpower. Yet ironically, power is what will help them attain the career goals they truly value. If they don’t take the reins now, they’ll miss out on achieving what they want most in their careers.

Here seven are the 7 most damaging power gaps that prevent women from thriving in their careers, and seven bravery boosting paths to break free of them. 

Why do some women shun power? 

Confident, assertive women are often still perceived as too “forceful” in the workplace. Sadly, we cannot achieve the highest vision of our work without access to greater internal and external power. From an early age (12 or 13), girls who were once just as confident and self-assured as boys start going “underground.” They become more concerned with their body image and social media pressure than boys. As they mature and grow, the idea of becoming powerful is not encouraged for girls and women. 

I see bravery and power as two distinct and essential elements needed for self-actualization and authentic success. Bravery is the courage to face head-on what isn’t working in our lives and careers and taking proactive steps to change. Power is the ability to act on your behalf and effectively advocate for yourself and others. This approach is essential to helping us stay competitive in a challenging labor market.

Why is accessing inner power harder for women?

My research has revealed that there are seven damaging “power gaps” that working women face, which prevent them from success:

(1) Not recognizing your unique talents, abilities, and accomplishments
(2) Communicating from fear, not strength
(3) Reluctance to ask for what you deserve
(4) Isolating from influential support
(5) Acquiescing, instead of saying “Stop!” to mistreatment
(6) Losing sight of that thrilling dream for your life
(7) Allowing past trauma and challenges to define you.

So, how do we close these power gaps? 

By building a happy life and career through consistent, committed, and intentional bravery, we become the true authors of our existence. We are an amalgam of everything we’ve ever experienced — our childhoods and early family life, cultural and spiritual influences, defeats and victories, even lessons and experiences from our ancestors. This rich material shapes who you are and how you see the world. To leverage your uniqueness, recognize everything your life has given you to this point: your unique perspective, strengths, and abilities. We cannot lead anything well (including our teams, organizations, staff, and projects) if we’re not able to effectively lead our own lives first.

The 7 Bravery Boosting Paths to follow are:

  • See yourself more powerfully (Brave Sight)
  • Speak more confidently (Brave Speak)
  • Ask for and receive what you deserve (Brave Ask)
  • Connect to your advantage with influential support (Brave Connection)
  • Challenge and change negative behavior toward you (Brave Challenge)
  • Be of service in more meaningful ways (Brave Service)
  • Heal from past trauma and challenge (Brave Healing)

Choosing these paths increases self-confidence, improving communication, relationships, recognition, leadership impact, and support, which in turn, transforms our careers and futures.   

How to Feedforward, and Never Feedback

Posted on by Paul Cowan

We were a young breakaway agency, packed with talent and hungry for all the opportunities we could get. Our overhead included a ridiculously large budget for salaries that had to be covered every month. We brought in all the clients we could and always asked for their feedback on our work and our agency — how did we do? What could we have done better? Like many start-up businesses, we thought asking for feedback would prove useful and demonstrate that we valued the client relationship above all else. We asked for feedback on almost everything.

Unquestionably, their feedback was filled with good intentions. But our clients tended to be untrained in how to deliver useful feedback. It was often filled with a mix of minute details and opinions, focusing on what was wrong rather than a balanced, useful perspective. The process created tension — our clients were uncomfortable giving feedback and tensed up when they had to. The very act of providing feedback seemed to put them into a negative mindset — the higher the tension, the more negative their feedback.

We’d respond to client feedback as best we could. But it ate up time, eroded our already thin margin, often failed to improve the work, and occasionally increased friction with clients rather than decreased it. We knew there had to be a better way. It was a client-sponsored program that showed a better way, and I have used it ever since: forget about feedback and just focus on feedforward.

We found feedforward could be easily used by even the youngest and most naive clients to give clear future direction. We grabbed the idea and ran with it, using it with every client and internally on candidates, appraisals, office designs, pitch work, and each other. Doing so saved us work, time and money, and helped improve pretty much everything.

While it’s especially useful for agencies and clients, feedforward can work for any enterprise. It can result in meaningful information from any stakeholder, from leadership to consumers. As businesses get back on their feet, we’re facing a climate that’s more competitive than ever, and feedforward can help gain a tremendous advantage.

Here’s how it works:

Get your eyes out of the rear-view mirror. 

Feedback looks at where you were, not where you need to go. It tends to highlight what was wrong, taking energy and focus away from steps for improvement. Meanwhile, time marches on, and you get closer to deadlines every day. Putting yourself in your client’s shoes, consider what it’s like to ride in a car when the driver is constantly checking behind rather than focusing on the road. Doesn’t inspire too much confidence, does it. Without necessarily knowing why, clients get uncomfortable. The friction comes from being asked to provide critique and being concerned that the process of responding could derail momentum and cause delays. 

Focus on what’s in front of you. 

The feedforward structure enables a response from even the most inexperienced clients in a stress-free, organized way. The result is an accurate map of what needs to happen next and a sense of collaboration and shared direction without tension. Couched in the positive, it also tends to build trust. The key is to begin by asking clients to note their instant gut reaction to a proposal, idea, or experience. Sometimes new ideas provoke uncomfortable feelings; we encourage clients to use these feelings as a signal that a new, different, or strong idea might be emerging. In other words, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that they are uneasy about a potential strategy or idea. In fact, it may be a sign of something good.

Ask four essential questions. 

Whoever is providing the feedforward, what’s needed is a response that covers all the bases and allows for everything from initial reactions to tapping into what seems like gut instincts to fuller guidance.

  1. What inspires, excites, or moves you? It could be anything, however small or relevant to the brief or work at hand.
  2. What works? Or what’s just okay? This is an opportunity to acknowledge which aspects are good but not amazing.
  3. What’s missing? This is the chance to give useful guidance. It could be that what’s missing is something that inspires or excites. Or it could be something more ordinary, such as the compulsory requests in a brief.
  4. What would make the idea bigger and better? This provides the opportunity to build on what has been done. It also allows clients and others to articulate ideas for the agency to consider.

Feedforward delivers on its full potential when those providing it are totally honest and open. We found that when questions are framed positively, it’s easier to be thorough. I recommend clients write down their feedforward before sharing it — since in conversations, we are often influenced by others. Writing feedforward in advance also gives a client team the chance to align their thoughts and keep the messaging consistent and on point.

What feedforward does is open up a sense of possibility.

Feedforward gives agency teams a way to feel great about what they’re already done and then build on it. It’s certainly worked that way in our firm and likely will in yours.

How to Feedforward, and Never Feedback

Posted on by Paul Cowan

We were a young breakaway agency, packed with talent and hungry for all the opportunities we could get. Our overhead included a ridiculously large budget for salaries that had to be covered every month. We brought in all the clients we could and always asked for their feedback on our work and our agency — how did we do? What could we have done better? Like many start-up businesses, we thought asking for feedback would prove useful and demonstrate that we valued the client relationship above all else. We asked for feedback on almost everything.

Unquestionably, their feedback was filled with good intentions. But our clients tended to be untrained in how to deliver useful feedback. It was often filled with a mix of minute details and opinions, focusing on what was wrong rather than a balanced, useful perspective. The process created tension — our clients were uncomfortable giving feedback and tensed up when they had to. The very act of providing feedback seemed to put them into a negative mindset — the higher the tension, the more negative their feedback.

We’d respond to client feedback as best we could. But it ate up time, eroded our already thin margin, often failed to improve the work, and occasionally increased friction with clients rather than decreased it. We knew there had to be a better way. It was a client-sponsored program that showed a better way, and I have used it ever since: forget about feedback and just focus on feedforward.

We found feedforward could be easily used by even the youngest and most naive clients to give clear future direction. We grabbed the idea and ran with it, using it with every client and internally on candidates, appraisals, office designs, pitch work, and each other. Doing so saved us work, time and money, and helped improve pretty much everything.

While it’s especially useful for agencies and clients, feedforward can work for any enterprise. It can result in meaningful information from any stakeholder, from leadership to consumers. As businesses get back on their feet, we’re facing a climate that’s more competitive than ever, and feedforward can help gain a tremendous advantage.

Here’s how it works:

Get your eyes out of the rear-view mirror. 

Feedback looks at where you were, not where you need to go. It tends to highlight what was wrong, taking energy and focus away from steps for improvement. Meanwhile, time marches on, and you get closer to deadlines every day. Putting yourself in your client’s shoes, consider what it’s like to ride in a car when the driver is constantly checking behind rather than focusing on the road. Doesn’t inspire too much confidence, does it. Without necessarily knowing why, clients get uncomfortable. The friction comes from being asked to provide critique and being concerned that the process of responding could derail momentum and cause delays. 

Focus on what’s in front of you. 

The feedforward structure enables a response from even the most inexperienced clients in a stress-free, organized way. The result is an accurate map of what needs to happen next and a sense of collaboration and shared direction without tension. Couched in the positive, it also tends to build trust. The key is to begin by asking clients to note their instant gut reaction to a proposal, idea, or experience. Sometimes new ideas provoke uncomfortable feelings; we encourage clients to use these feelings as a signal that a new, different, or strong idea might be emerging. In other words, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that they are uneasy about a potential strategy or idea. In fact, it may be a sign of something good.

Ask four essential questions. 

Whoever is providing the feedforward, what’s needed is a response that covers all the bases and allows for everything from initial reactions to tapping into what seems like gut instincts to fuller guidance.

  1. What inspires, excites, or moves you? It could be anything, however small or relevant to the brief or work at hand.
  2. What works? Or what’s just okay? This is an opportunity to acknowledge which aspects are good but not amazing.
  3. What’s missing? This is the chance to give useful guidance. It could be that what’s missing is something that inspires or excites. Or it could be something more ordinary, such as the compulsory requests in a brief.
  4. What would make the idea bigger and better? This provides the opportunity to build on what has been done. It also allows clients and others to articulate ideas for the agency to consider.

Feedforward delivers on its full potential when those providing it are totally honest and open. We found that when questions are framed positively, it’s easier to be thorough. I recommend clients write down their feedforward before sharing it — since in conversations, we are often influenced by others. Writing feedforward in advance also gives a client team the chance to align their thoughts and keep the messaging consistent and on point.

What feedforward does is open up a sense of possibility.

Feedforward gives agency teams a way to feel great about what they’re already done and then build on it. It’s certainly worked that way in our firm and likely will in yours.

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