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Inside this Issue: • Conduct as self-assessment with Donna Collins, pg. 3 • Overcome a career slump with Amrita Mainthia, pg. 4 • 40 Under Forty honors AJ Enchill, pg. 7

… and more!

APRIL 2019 VOLUME 12, EDITION 4

CREATE SUCCESS FOR YOU AND YOUR ORGANIZATION— AT THE 2019 GEN NOW RETREAT.

APPLICATIONS ARE COMING IN! DON’T DELAY: APPLY HERE.

NOV. 1-3 / PROPRIETOR’S LODGE / THE BERKSHIRES OF WESTERN MA

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Spring Awakening: You and the DLE, too! At last! April’s arrival has brought welcome relief from a wearying winter in the Northeast. With temperatures pushing 60 and radiant sunshine, the ice is FINALLY starting to surrender on Pontoosuc Lake in the Berkshires, where I live. Signs of change mean time for change—not only for Mother Nature, but for you, too. Even the DLE is undergoing a spring refresh. We have created a new, interactive platform for learning and networking called Open Forums. Open Forums feature lively exchanges between subject matter experts and a diverse professional audience. Driven by direct feedback from the DLE community, topics directly respond to expressed interests and needs for improving and accelerating professional development. The debut forum, held in the Berkshires on March 26, featured the topic—Nonprofits Want You!—which was inspired by discussions at the 2018 Gen Now Retreat. Guest speaker Liana Toscanini, the founder and executive director of the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires, provided an actionable game plan for donating time and talent for community service. Liana advised the overflow audience to: 1. Identify your passions, interests, skills, motivation, and how much time/money you can contribute 2. Research nonprofits of interest through online resources

and others. 3. Once you’ve identified an organization, engage initially by

attending events and volunteering. 4. Armed with experience and information, call the

organization directly to inquire about board service (or have someone active with the organization connect you).

5. Be prepared with a bio, your availability, and some creative ideas for what you can contribute.

Catch Liana’s remarks on the first Open Forum Podcast, another new resource, coming soon to the DLE website. Spring forth! Use tips from this Community Connection to revive your professional and personal energy. Keep soaring!

LINDA DULYE: FOUNDER’S COLUMN

Linda with Liana Toscanini (far left), DLE alumni Abby Powers

(far right), and Nicole Mancivalano, who helped plan

the first DLE Open Forum

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Step Up by Sharing Ideas, Questions, Feelings and Fears – Part 2 By Nicole Mancivalano This follow-up to last month’s column features more insights from DLE Correspondent Nicole Mancivalano’s interview with Donna Collins, Director of Employee Training and Development at Greylock Federal Credit Union, about how to prepare for a management position. Donna is a strong supporter of the DLE—backing several staff members from her company to attend the 2018 Gen Now Retreat.

I advise all young professionals to conduct a self-assessment in order to start taking ownership of their career. For example, ask yourself: how would you compare your level of ability or your skillset to others on your team or in a position one or two job levels higher than your own? If you could advance your skillset, would it help your department achieve more? Would it get you promoted to a higher position? Don’t be afraid to ask your manager what skills can advance your career and help the team. Be open to your manager’s feedback. Ask your supervisor to cite a situation where you demonstrated a gap in your skills and how you could better develop the skill. What would success look like? Don’t take the analysis personally. Use the feedback as a gift. Finally, observe others. Listen to the way others phrase questions; get people to talk; get the right answers. Watch how others respond. Strive to get to the level of those you admire. Let people know you admire them and ask if they would mentor you and provide feedback. As you move forward in your career, one of the more difficult transition challenges I’ve seen is when an employee is promoted and is now managing former peers, especially when the new manager has a social relationship with those peers. It can be uncomfortable to put the “boss” relationship ahead of the social one. Another challenge is moving from only being concerned about one’s own work and results, to now being concerned about the performance and results of direct reports and the company. New managers must learn how to think strategically and globally. Be reminded, however, that whatever missteps you make, you can build relationships by recovering. This includes initiating difficult conversations, getting to the real stuff, and figuring out how to move forward from failure. Avoiding difficult conversations does not make the problem go away—it just postpones the inevitable explosion of frustration. Those frustrations may not have escalated had the manager set expectations sooner and provided positive and corrective feedback along the way. Ultimately, actual experience is what will really develop you and create your management style. You have to put yourself out there—even possibly to fail.

CAREER SKILLS SPOTLIGHT: DONNA COLLINS

Donna Collins

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Overcoming a Career Slump By Amrita Mainthia, DLE’10-‘11, who leads Special Projects & Research at General Catalyst, Cambridge, Mass. Edited by Danielle Waugh It happens to the best of us—the slump, that moment when it seems like work has more downs than ups. Research and conventional wisdom both show that we perform better at work when we feel engaged. A study out of Harvard Business Review reported that millennials consider opportunities for learning, development, and advancement at work “extremely important,” at a rate higher than any other generation in the past century. So when our work is no longer engaging, we get restless and frustrated. The mere shadow of uncertainty tends to fog our brains and prevent lucid thought. In surviving—and ideally thriving in—those moments myself, I've learned this much: clear thinking and game planning are critical to finding a way forward. Here are the key questions and guideposts I use when life at work needs some TLC. PHASE 1: Assess the situation + game plan What factors are driving my negative feelings? Is this something that will pass, or persist? What is my role in this malaise?

• Be precise. What exact actions, meetings, dialogues, or lack thereof have occurred to make you feel the way you do? As my boss says, work forward and reason backward. Being specific in what has led you to this moment is the only way to exact a solution. Figure out the right decision-maker and plan a conversation accordingly.

• Be honest with yourself. Feedback is a gift! Ask colleagues and mentors, family and friends, how they’ve perceived you lately. Although it can be a punch to the ego-gut, it’s critical to acknowledge your role in what's happening. After all, while we can’t control the actions of others, we certainly can control our own.

• Be realistic. It may not make sense to act. We can’t control every down moment at work,

especially as we navigate through increasingly complex organizations. Stay focused and realistic—if you can’t act now, be patient and professional. Above all, avoid gossip. See below for some tips on how to distract yourself until things change.

PHASE 2: Take action + reflect What timing is at play here? What can I do if there are bigger issues without a short-term fix? How will I know if things are getting better?

• Keep emotions out. Assuming you’ve decided to have a conversation about your situation with a colleague or manager who can help you pivot, outline that discussion with rigor. What do you

CAREER SKILLS SPOTLIGHT: AMRITA MAINTHIA

Amrita Mainthia

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want to get out of this? Synthesize your thoughts until you can almost recite the problem statement and associated solutions within a few minutes. Avoid whining—it rarely helps you and tends to make the person on the other side feel uncomfortable.

• Keep a diary. There's a reason food diaries remain one of the most effective weight loss "tricks" of all time—they require accountability and reflection. Be diligent about follow-ups, next steps, and continued feedback. Decide to regroup—mentally and professionally—in six months. In the meantime, change things up. Get creative about small wins and track how you feel. Have coffee with a colleague outside your team, send positive feedback to someone, or raise your hand for a side project. I’m convinced paying it forward is an endorphin in itself—acts of kindness tend to make us feel really good, so lean into that.

• Keep on keeping on. As the saying goes, "this too shall pass." In the event you’re not sure what

more you can do to enact meaningful change, be patient. Reorient your attention to other endeavors and dive into something new—revisit your New Year's Resolutions, stay healthy, dig into a novel, book travel, volunteer your time, or call friends or family just to catch up. Stepping out of the day-to-day and into someone else’s is often more therapeutic than we realize.

Amrita is happy to share more information about interesting tech investments with Stripe, Warby Parker, AirBnb, and more.

Recommended Reading from Donna Collins There are numerous books and training programs that can help new managers understand management theory and company expectations. In Life Would Be Easy if it Weren’t for Other People, author Connie Podesta introduces four styles of leadership: aggressive, assertive, passive, and passive-aggressive. Podesta reinforces the importance of being an assertive leader and helps you easily identify instances that might cause you to stray into a less productive style. She also teaches how to gain respect through your newly assertive ways. Her book is filled with great examples of why we might have developed any of the four styles and how others perceive each style. Ultimately, you can’t help but want to be seen as assertive.

Timeless Advice Photo of whiteboard at Conte Elementary School in Pittsfield, MA taken by Linda Dulye, who has been mentoring students there for a decade.

WORTH THE READ

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Confidently Facing New Dynamics in the Workplace Compiled by Morgan Maier

Every field of work and everyone’s professional path has its curveballs, which are often sudden and unforeseen. In this two-part series, we asked DLE alumni to describe a time they took on a responsibility at work that challenged them--made them feel unprepared for and unsure of themselves. In this second installment, Natanya Levioff, DLE ’18, Independent Management Consultant, reveals techniques she used to confidently face the new and unfamiliar at work.

As a lover of anything other than science or math during my school years, taking on the role of Director of Public Relations for a growing aerospace engineering software firm was probably the biggest challenge—and tangent—of my career path to date.

I actually did feel I could do well in the role—even though I had never held that title before. Rather, my challenge was to learn about an industry and a subject area in which I had very little experience.

My first step was placing myself in the role of a student. I first went to a colleague for a crash course (no pun intended) in the company’s software, what it was meant for, and a vocabulary lesson. This person’s job was to pitch the company’s offerings to people who didn’t know about them, so I determined he was the best person to start with.

After him, I went to one of the lead developers to learn more from a content and back-end perspective. In other words, I wanted to know what he and the rest of the development team did to actually create and iterate on the products.

Because I had just come from a role that required me to work with system engineers and design requirements, I was able to lean on the very small, core set of knowledge I had developed around programming and flex it to learn about something that was infinitely more complicated.

At the end of the day, we are constantly learning, whether we do so deliberately or not. In this particular case, I learned that I was willing to take chances and open myself to things that felt way outside my comfort zone. I learned to take a moment to step back, gather and synthesize the information I needed—to completely immerse myself in the world I was now in—and to tackle my lack of knowledge head-on by being proactive and asking for help versus waiting for someone to come and teach me.

Now, when I use the phrase “it’s not rocket science,” you know it’s true because I have worked with actual rocket scientists!

WE ASKED, YOU ANSWERED: NATANYA LEVIOFF

Natanya Levioff

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DLE Alum Earns 40 Under Forty Honors DLE’18 alum Alfred (AJ) Enchill is among a distinguished group of young professionals selected to the prestigious 40 Under Forty in the Berkshires program for 2019. The honor recognizes AJ’s meaningful accomplishments in his role as district aide for (MA) State Senator Adam Hinds as his district aide and his extensive community service with the Boys and Girls Club, the NAACP Berkshire Chapter and many other organizations and causes. Thanks to the creative energy of graphic designer Carleen Leibinger, DLE’18, the DLE celebrated AJ with a special ad appearing in the 40 Under Forty program guide. Reflecting on his award and his DLE connections, AJ recalls that his 2018 Gen Now Retreat experience quickly opened the door to an extraordinary networking opportunity. “My one-on-one conversation with speaker Sally Roberts, Founder of Wrestle Like a Girl, led to an invitation to be her guest at the People’s Portfolio Award Ceremony in New York City, shortly after the retreat. There, I met Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III, Founding Director of Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture—a true gentleman who encouraged me ‘to pull others up as I climb’.” He adds, “The experience is one that I'll never forget, and it was made possible by the DLE's impressive networking and coaching opportunities. Participating in the Gen Now Retreat opened the door to opportunities and connections that have inspired my personal and professional growth.” An enthusiastic DLE contingency cheered AJ at the 40 Under Forty awards ceremony on March 21. On hand were: (front, left to right) DLE-ers Lindsay Codwise, Linda Dulye, AJ, Adelle Eberhardt, Nicole Mancivalano; (second row, left to right) Grace Barlow, AJ’s fiancé, alum Auric Enchill (AJ’s brother), Al Enchill (AJ’s father) and alum Prince Abanulo. DLE, this year, became an offical sponsor of the 40 Under Forty program in the Berkshires.

MAKING THEIR MARK: AJ ENCHILL

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Four Ways to Stay Mentally Fit A few years ago, I learned about a military program for “mental fitness” training designed to prepare soldiers to cope with emotional stress. It stuck with me. As a hiker and trail runner, I know how easy it is to talk myself out of the next mile before my body needs to quit. This got me thinking about the mental fitness required for my career. How often was I stuck in my head, experiencing stress and self-doubt regarding new responsibilities that I really did have the skills to accomplish?

A 2017 American Psychological Association survey found that 58% of Americans identify work as a significant source of stress, and that occupational stress costs employers $300 billion per year in absenteeism, illness, and loss of productivity. Research also shows that organizational change and increased workload are among the top contributors to work stress. This is where mental fitness can be a great tool! Rather than giving in to emotional stress, we can train our brains to use techniques that combat fear and self-doubt. I’d like to share four strategies that have helped me stay mentally fit for new career challenges.

1. Channel fear and anxiety into action steps that move you forward. Research shows that some stress is good—it optimizes our reaction time, heightens our awareness, and unlocks creativity. Sometimes a new challenge is exactly what we need to get us thinking in a new way, rather than getting stuck in old, inefficient thought patterns.

2. Challenge negative self-talk about why you aren’t prepared for new challenges. The reality is that someone believes in you. Take stock of your skills, resources, mentors—and tap into them!

3. Create a plan that includes goal-setting. Without a map, the journey can take you in circles. Early on, spend 30 minutes creating a list of goals for the next year. For me, these focus on productivity, workplace culture, and increased training.

4. Make time to reflect and self- assess, taking time to regularly review your goals, reflect on successes, and strategize to address barriers. Self-assessment should also include a self-care plan that attends to any lingering fears, anxieties, or negative self-talk. For me, self-doubt or signs of stress mean it’s time to go for a run or to start planning my next hike!

A healthy self-care plan taps into your gifts and talents. It brings joy to your heart and calm to your brain.

FIT TO LEAD WITH APRIL ROCHE

Related Reading: Stress Relief & Mind/Body Balance Don’t bring work stress home with you! Tips from this Harvard Business Review article will guide you to leave it behind.

April Roche

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April Tunes to Get You Moving in New Directions When I started crafting April’s Monthly Mix, I had a clear vision that this playlist had to start with Robyn’s ‘Because It’s In The Music.’ I recently saw her in concert, and it was a magical night of fan favorites as well as songs from her newest album, Honey. One of those songs was ‘Because It’s In The Music.’ After the concert, this was the one song that stuck with me (aside from Dancing On My Own, which she lets the crowd sing back to her—a powerful experience that I can’t even describe), mainly because of the lyrics and how the track just filled up Madison Square Garden with beautiful melodies. I am someone who firmly believes that it is in the music. Some of my fondest memories are associated with songs and concerts I’ve been to. As humans, we all tend to develop connections to the music we love, and this song does a great job of conveying just that. A lot of the songs this month have left an impression on me. ‘Glad’ makes me feel like I’m in the era of Studio 54. ‘Nobody’ is a unique telling of the madness we can sometimes feel when we’re lonely. And ‘Enter One’ continues to fill me with emotion, years after hearing it for the first time at the end of a yoga class. I have fun with every Monthly Mix, but April has been one of the most exciting for me to share. A lot the songs oddly have a retro, 70s-inspired flare (it seems to be making a resurgence this year), but their adjacency to more subdued acoustic tracks somehow works. I hope you all enjoy. Happy listening!

JEEB’S MONTHLY MUSIC MIX

Jesse Noll (aka Jeeb)

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CK TAKES Making Strides in Online Commerce Shortly after celebrating his brother, AJ’s 40 Under Forty Award, alum Auric Enchill was revving up the online capabilities of his Berkshire-based embroidery business, Elegant Stitches. As sales manager at the family business, Auric has launched a website with a friendlier interface, featuring a digital design studio with popular brands and 13,500+ templates and clipart at https://elegantstitchesinc.com “The upgrades make this an ideal platform for creating t-shirts and custom apparel for organizations, business teams, and special events,” he points out. “The site is super

easy to navigate. Our online guests will be able to create what they want. So, it’s a personal and pleasurable experience.” Adds Auric, “Our production process is handled by a team of individuals with decades of experience under their belt, meaning items receive special attention to detail.” Speed matters, and Auric assures customers that orders will be processed and shipped within 10 business days. Andrew Diamond Hits the Career Refresh Button

DLE ’11 alum Andrew Diamond has taken a position as Content Marketing Manager at FANCHEST, managing all owned and earned media channels (email, blog, social, influencer, and SEO). Launched in 2015, Brooklyn, NY-based FANCHEST sells premium, officially-licensed sports gift items produced by external vendors and packaged in one box. As the company’s 11th employee, Andrew says, the evolving culture and operations “set the table for me to have a significant amount of responsibilities, even beyond the job description itself—which I’m very excited about!”

Looking to make an impact, Andrew has a clear goal in mind: “driving as much qualified traffic to our website—and to ultimately have that traffic convert to sales.” FANCHEST’s core consumer is currently female (making up to 80% of purchases), so Andrew’s content strategy will need to cater to this audience, while also considering ways to expand and appeal to more demographics.

QUICK TAKES

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Andrew still reflects on his biggest takeaway from his DLE experience: to always strive to put yourself in a position to dictate your own path. Feeling stuck in his prior position with Modell’s Sporting Goods, he decided to hit his career refresh button. “I began looking for opportunities that I deemed as more advantageous for career growth than what I had in front of me. Eventually I stumbled upon the opportunity at FANCHEST on a networking site called angellist.com, and the rest is history!”

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THANK YOU! DLE COMMUNITY

“The best leaders are those who embrace that they are

like no one else. Realize you have a unique set of

strengths and weaknesses, interests and knowledge,

and know that you are always going to be a work in progress.”

-David Novak, CEO of GoLead, rated one of the world’s best CEOs by Barron’s and bestselling author of The

Education of an Accidental CEO and Taking People With You

“I’ve found that when we’re

able to relinquish the punishing need for

perfection—or, rather, let go of the fear of not being perfect—we can find

freedom, joy and all the other stuff we want in life. Letting go of the fear is easier than

you think; it all comes down to exercising your

bravery muscles.” - Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, and Fortune “40 Under Forty” top leader

HOT RESOURCES FOR CONTINUOUS LEARNING

Articles

How To Advance Your Career Without Going Back To School

From Forbes

Five Simple Steps to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed At Work

From Forbes

I read the 8 Best Business Books of All Time (So You Don’t Have to)—

Here are the Only Lessons you Need to Know

From CNBC

Podcast

How Business Leaders Can Navigate the

Unknown—and Thrive From Knowledge@Wharton

Memorable Quotes

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DLE COMMUNITY CONNECTION VOLUNTEER TEAM

Follow the DLE Online Click on the icon to connect to these platforms News to Share? Have you started a new position, traveled an amazing trip, read a great book, accomplished a personal first or volunteered for a memorable cause? Tell the Community Connection team. Contact us at DLE!

Linda Dulye President & Founder of Dulye & Co. and the Dulye Leadership Experience

Morgan Maier DLE ’18, DLE Intern, Journalism Major at Syracuse University

April Roche DLE’ 18, Director of Clinical Services at Hillcrest Educational Centers

Danielle Waugh DLE ’10, ’12 & ‘13, Investigative Reporter at WPEC

Jesse Noll, DLE ’16 & ’18, Senior Associate, Integrated Planning & Custom Content & Experiences at Wavemaker

Mary Gallagher DLE ’08, Assistant Director, Center for

Academic Success at Universities at Shady Grove; PhD student at UMBC

Nicole Mancivalano DLE ’18, Human Resources Representative at Greylock Federal Credit Union