You need more than just advice. Here's what you need to build a powerful Inner Circle.

Q: I have a lot of expectations from work that just keep growing. I’m struggling and feeling stuck particularly as business expectations continue to expand. There is an expectation to do more with less and drive short term growth. How do I build my motivation, energy and resilience?

Is this something that resonates with you?

I hear you and I also know the feeling of pressure when business results are not going in the right direction, there are budget and resource pull backs, activity focused on short term results and strategy pivots. It makes for a tough environment and I’m sure you are not alone in the organisation with your feelings. When you aren’t alone with those feelings you tend to search out the colleagues that are feeling the way you do, start to complain to those colleagues about the pressure, the direction of the business. This becomes an unhealthy circle of negativity that won’t serve you well or maintain positivity towards the workplace where you spend a big chunk of your time.

Sometimes, you need a bit of pressure relief, someone impartial to speak to who has been there, done that and you can bounce ideas off to help you solve your challenges and get fresh perspectives. To help you snap out of your funk and bring you back up to be the best you can be.

Most people search out a like minded friend, a mentor or family member to speak to. Others, during critical times, reach out to a psychologist or EAP (employee assistance programs) if this becomes all too hard. The challenging thing is, the modern corporate environment is complex and evolving and quite often the people in your network aren’t as well equipped to help you deal with those challenges and the people that know you have inherent biases about you.

So how can you build a network of people to turn to when the going gets tough or better still, not just in challenging circumstances but when you are at both your highs and lows.

Support is not singular, its important to build a network

If you have started working or been working for a while, you’ll be surprised at the networks you have the potential to draw upon. Be it your current work colleagues, past and present; your family and friends, your mentor network, someone you might have met at a conference. If you haven’t actively nurtured a network, no matter how big or small, just get started.

Having a single mentor is empowering. Particular at points in time during your career it's remarkable how energising it can be to connect with a good mentor. I would suggest however, if you are looking to grow and expand your professional development, just like diversity in teams is important, diversity in your network is important too.

It would seem there is plenty of content out there on how you build your network. So I’m not going to cover that today (however, I would love to hear from you if you would like me to cover this!) but less information on what sort of network you build. I refer to this as my brains trust or inner circle. People I go to for a variety of different opportunities, challenges and transitioning periods.

The Power of Three

To address your workplace pressure (or many other challenges fall into this bucket), it's good to have a diverse brains trust to be able to give you advice, keep you positive and motivated and move you forward. I call this the Power of Three.

A Mascot

Be thoughtful the way you craft the right type of “brains trust” to help you not only get unstuck but thrive. It's more than likely that you have an existing mentor, a person “like you”, who has a similar background, similar expertise. This could be an existing mentor, a friend, a work colleague who knows and respects you.

These people are great at reinforcing and amplifying what you already do and likely what you already know. They offer you positive, hopefully constructive feedback and great confirmation and reassurance. So if you are doing something well, they will probably tell you to keep doing it or they’ll support you to keep doing it. On the flip side, if you are stuck, chances are you might get more of the same entrenched thinking by speaking to the people like you.

If you don’t have one, ask your friends or your colleagues if they have anyone in their networks that they respect who could make an introduction. Goes without saying that you review their LinkedIn profile, their background to see if they might be a potential good match. The expectation will be longer term relationship building so they can get to know your strengths and weaknesses and can be someone you lean on for positive support over time.

A Contrarian

To get you out of your entrenched stuck thinking, you need to find people that are contrary to you. I don’t mean in an argumentative or negative way, but someone that is polar opposite to the way you think. This is someone most people don't seek out enough because its uncomfortable.

In this context, it could be your most challenging stakeholder, it could be a challenging customer, it could be someone in your industry that has a vastly different opinion to you. They think differently to you, they offer you a new perspective that can sometimes shake your sense of equilibrium and that’s very helpful. This is helps you grow. You will get a completely independent source of wisdom and your job then is to collate those different ideas and figure out what can work best for you.

A book How to get Unstuck when it matters most. Anatomy of a Breakthrough, by Adam Alter, Professor of Marketing at New York University talks about this person as non-redundant with a third person being a “black sheep”, someone who actively shakes things up in the context of a team. Here is where you are likely to get new and more ideas in quality and quantity. Think about that in the context of the team you have in the organisation, is there enough diversity of people and thoughts to challenge each other and drive more creative outcomes?

A Coach

The third role in your brains trust is a Coach. Unlike a mentor that is a great resource who shares advice and tips about their lived experience and how they have tackled issues that you might be experiencing, a coach is someone that follows your agenda and helps you uncover the resources within yourself to move forward. This is someone that holds you accountable to take action to move you past your negative thoughts and limiting beliefs.

When you feel this pressure, there tends to be a mix of emotions that come up from anxiety, defensiveness, a lack of motivation and sometimes hopelessness and dread. I have at times suffered from restlessness and insomnia with a million racing thoughts. Sometimes you need someone completely impartial, a prod from someone to help you reframe your thoughts and the way you look at the problem, helps remind you of the skills that could be applied in a different way. This is someone who also helps you hold yourself accountable and commit to move forward, even if it's just one small step at a time. Progress over perfection is definitely a motto of mine and movement that gets you steps closer to a better level of engagement will shift the way you are feeling.

Now, whilst it helps to have a formal mindset or career coach, there are a few tools in their tool kit to help you uncover some of your internal resources. However, it's not necessary in all cases and if you can find people in your inner circle that aligns to the roles of the Power of Three, that diversity of feedback will go a long way to helping you uncover your next steps, shift your creative thinking and mindset and build momentum.

If you are feeling the business pressure or feeling stuck and need help breaking through, book a session with one of our coaches or advisors through Dear Thrive.