Babette Ten Haken

Contact Babette
  • Home
  • Programs
    • Keynote Presentations
    • Breakouts & Workshops
    • Coaching & Mentoring
  • Blog
  • About Babette
    • Testimonials
    • Honors & Awards
  • Contact Me!
You are here: Home / Professional Development / Professionally Opting Out Instead of Always Opting In

Professionally Opting Out Instead of Always Opting In

October 5, 2022 by Babette Ten Haken Leave a Comment

professionally opt outAre you always opting into requests to join another initiative or team or engage in business? What about signing up for more newsletters, subscribe to organizations, etc.? It just may be time for you to start professionally opting out.

You know the phrase: “The word ‘No’ is a complete sentence.”

For starters, take a look at your Inbox, social media feed, and daily-weekly-monthly schedule. Does your professional life reflect a strong sense of who you are professionally? If you understand your professional purpose, you create a more logical yet innovative set of people, topics, and interests to focus your time and attention on.

Otherwise, your inbox, feeds, and professional schedule easily resemble a FOMO smorgasbord. Plus, what happens when your schedule is not entirely curated by you, alone?  Can you opt out of what others schedule to opt you into?

I recently spoke at a women’s conference about creating and owning your professional story. In the post-presentation Q&A session, attendees expressed concern about how frequently their professional stories are pulled in all sorts of directions due to over commitment. Yet, they continued to professionally opt in to any invitation to participate. Otherwise, they feared that declining invitations would be negatively perceived by colleagues.

As a result, their resumes looked impressive and highly participatory. In reality, many of these immensely talented STEM professionals felt they had insufficient time to focus on the areas most relevant and valuable to them.

You may need to start opting out to get to where you really need to go, together, one millimeter at a time.

If you are passionately committed to specific causes and initiatives within your profession, there is tremendous self-awareness, professional focus, and power in learning to say “No.” Especially when you are focused on the type of professional innovation which launches you into tomorrow’s more strategically agile leadership models.

You know that phrase: “She thought she could, so she did.” I have absolutely no doubt in your capabilities to excel at any professional endeavor you become engaged in. How many invitations do you opt into which initially strike you as “easy,” involving very little time and energy? Yet once involved, you realize the model, team, organization, or opportunity is poorly conceived or not well-run. Then, because you can, you put on your superhero cape and dive in and attempt to bring light to the situation. How well are your actions received?

Not everyone is as comfortable with complex decision making as you are. And not everyone is comfortable and confident to move beyond beyond groupthink and consensus so they can explore areas of innovation together. They just may want to opt in because it looks good on their resumes.

Just because you can does not mean you actually should choose to professionally opt into to every request you receive.

Over-commitment, including newsletters and professional memberships, can create unnecessary energy and emotional drains which impede your professional innovation. To create your professional trajectory, curate what you professionally opt in to. Your greatest opportunities are best viewed from an uncluttered perspective, focused on your professional purpose and story. Do you understand and embrace what yours is?

Catalyzing you to be ahead of what is new, next, and continuously changing. | Professional Innovation | Cross Functional Leadership | Complex Problem Solving | Speaker, Consultant, Mentor |

How do you become more professionally visible, cross-functionally relevant, and strategically valuable throughout your career trajectory as the problems you solve become more complex? Babette Ten Haken’s One Millimeter Mindset ™  speaking, consulting, and mentoring programs catalyze people who solve problems differently to collaborate more innovatively as they create and implement innovative and robust business outcomes together. Regardless of whether you are a traditional thinker or a more creative one, use her 3 Core Questions, 4 Change Agreements, and 5 Professional Whys so everyone gets to where they really need to go, together.

Babette walks her talk so you can walk yours. A speaker and consultant, Babette leverages her own professional, cross-functional experience in new product development and market research to become your concierge mentor. Babette  is a business-oriented STEM professional, qualitative Voice of the Customer facilitator, PMI-certified Wicked Problem Solver, Duke Corporate Education licensed Strategic Agility practitioner, and Six Sigma Green Belt (Quality). She is a member of SHRM, PMI, the National Speakers Association (NSA). Delivered virtually or in-person. Her playbook of cross-functional collaboration, Do YOU Mean Business? is available in digital format on Amazon.com. Contact Babette here. Image source: Adobe Stock.

Enjoy this post? Please share it!

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on LinkedInShare on EmailShare on Reddit

Filed Under: Human Capital & Industrial IoT Workforce, Professional Development Tagged With: complex problem solving, cross-functional leadership, HR professional development keynote speaker, human capital value, one millimeter mindset breakout speaker, one millimeter mindset consulting, one millimeter mindset keynote speaking programs, one millimeter mindset mentoring, professional innovation, project management professional development, strategic agility, Women in STEM professional development speaker

About Babette Ten Haken

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Hire Babette to speak at your next conference or corporate meeting.

https://youtu.be/Yf-h80O_QZ4
Sign up to receive posts via email
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
No spam, ever. Promise. Powered by FeedBlitz
SalesProCentral
Customer Experience Update

Categories

  • Collaboration And Convergence
  • Customer Experience, Success, Loyalty, Retention
  • Human Capital & Industrial IoT Workforce
  • Professional Development
  • Trending Book Reviews
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • You Need To Have Your Own Back First
  • Smarter Questions Yield More Informative Answers
  • Find Your Daily True North
  • Are You Upskilling Tactically Or Strategically?
  • Are You Really Spending Quality Time With Colleagues And Clients?

Archives

Revenue-Generating Problem Solving | Professional Innovation | Collaborative Leadership | Keynotes, Workshops, Facilitation Learn more....

Contact Babette
Sign up to receive posts via email
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
No spam, ever. Promise. Powered by FeedBlitz

Recent Posts

You Need To Have Your Own Back First

Smarter Questions Yield More Informative Answers

Find Your Daily True North

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on LinkedInFollow Us on Instagram

Privacy Policy

Change Catalyst | Revenue-Generating Problem Solving | Professional Innovation | Collaborative Leadership | Keynotes, Workshops, Facilitation
Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, All Rights Reserved 2023 ©
By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies