Melanie Parish, MCC

As a longtime business coach, I have been through downturns and recessions. The heart and soul of the business owner always emerge again. Wherever you are and whatever you are grappling with, I know it is hard and I believe in your ability to figure out the next step. Don’t forget that you are resilient and you can do this. Go experiment!... Read More

These are crazy times we are living in. As a leader, during COVID 19 (or any crisis) it can be hard to find your feet and to feel confident in your path. You may feel inadequate, unsure and out of your depth. That is to be expected. This is leadership like we have never seen before. So many businesses are closed or trying to find new ways of doing things. I believe almost every organization feels like a start-up right now. Uncertain times need new kinds of leadership. We don’t have the answers, only questions, and still we are asked to be leaders. Being experimental in your leadership approach will help you try things, learn from them, and figure out your next experiment. These tips will help you find a new center for yourself as a leader.... Read More

These are crazy times we are living in. As a leader, during COVID -9 (or any crisis) it can be hard to find your feet and to feel confident in your path. You may feel inadequate, unsure and out of your depth. That is to be expected. This is leadership like we have never seen before. So many businesses are closed or trying to find new ways of doing things. I believe almost every organization feels like a start-up right now.... Read More

These are such unusual times. For the most part, all is well with me. I have work, I have worked at home for a long time so it feels normal, my children have adjusted to being home and are learning and connecting with friends online, our financial situation is stable, my out of work chef daughter is getting financial assistance from the government, and our home is comfy. That said, my empathy muscle becomes exhausted every day about 5 pm and I often weep for all people have lost. I’m fine but I worry about others. I am able to brush it off by dinner time to be ok as we gather and eat together. With everyone making delicious food, I often think, “Who knew a pandemic would be so delicious?”... Read More

Being a leader is challenging work. When I first started working with clients, one of the biggest surprises for me was that almost every leader (with only rare exceptions) suffers from some kind of imposter syndrome. It is ubiquitous. The more success the leader is having, the more imposter syndrome they seem to feel. I believe this happens because they are stretching into new territory–taking up a little more space than they took up before–and it leaves them feeling exposed. Imposter syndrome isn’t a pleasant feeling. When it happens, we want to try and make it go away. Even though it is ubiquitous, imposter syndrome is still scary and uncomfortable.... Read More

“Leadership can be lonely experience. This situation is that on steroids. Whatever best practices we have are designed for a world from the past, “ shares Parish. “To counterbalance the challenges this poses it’s critical that we all shift towards an embracing of the exciting and sometimes nerve wracking world of experimentation.”... Read More

Everyone is already experimenting with the global pandemic right now. Many people are trying new things as they respond to working at home and having kids home. Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, is single parenting alone at home while his wife is quarantined in another part of their residence. He is experimenting with so many new things, as are all of us. What is important is to see them as experiments and to collect data to decide what is working and what is not. This helps to minimize overwhelm and helps us improve over time. Every time we try something new as leaders, we are experimenting. We need to remember our experiments are not permanent. We can collect data and make a decision about how our next experiment needs to be different.... Read More

Having an experimental mindset helps leaders and teams open a variety of possibilities and a free flow of ideas. Seeing the things you try as experiments orients you to collect data and evaluate whether the experiments or things you try are working or not. Sometimes a team will luck into things that work but many times they don’t. When things don’t go as hoped, we fail. An old friend of mine says, “Education is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.” And education can feel like a consolation prize in the race to innovate. It isn’t about whether it feels bad to fail (it does), but how to emerge resilient and ready to experiment again. To fail better, experiments need to be safe-to-fail, small enough to iterate often, and there needs to be a plan in place for data collection and decisions about the next steps.... Read More

Being a leader is lonely work. As an executive coach, I hear it from new leaders often—especially if they are promoted from within. They say, “I was doing a good job as an individual contributor, but now I’m not sure what I should be doing after my promotion. I feel really alone.” They find themselves in a leadership role without much guidance and they aren’t sure how they can “skill up.” Every leader has to find their own way of doing the work of leadership. They have had a variety of bosses in their career but they aren’t sure who to emulate, and they may feel like they aren’t providing any real value in the organization anymore. Some get sucked into a spiral of trying to do more and more work while missing the real work of leading.... Read More

Being a leader is lonely work. As an executive coach, I hear it from new leaders often—especially if they are promoted from within. They say, “I was doing a good job as an individual contributor, but now I’m not sure what I should be doing after my promotion. I feel really alone.” They find themselves in a leadership role without much guidance and they aren’t sure how they can “skill up.” Every leader has to find their own way of doing the work of leadership. They have had a variety of bosses in their career but they aren’t sure who to emulate, and they may feel like they aren’t providing any real value in the organization any more. Some get sucked into a spiral of trying to do more and more work, while missing the real work of leading.... Read More