Speak Her Name in Rooms She Isn’t In

Hello All,

This week's wisdom comes from Kae Harrison, Program Support Specialist with the SUNY Center for Professional Development.

Kae is a thoughtful, values-driven professional who cares about people, cares about doing good work, and is always trying to learn and grow. Skilled at seeing the bigger system behind a problem while still paying attention to the people affected by it, she’s passionate about removing barriers for people who need support, especially any marginalized or historically under-represented groups.

---

Speak Her Name in Rooms She Isn’t In

One of the simplest and most powerful forms of professional advocacy requires no budget, no committee, and no formal authority. It requires only a moment. It’s practical without being transactional.

When an opportunity arises, speak positively about a woman who isn’t in the room.
Recommend her.
Mention her expertise.
Share her accomplishments.
Connect her name to the opportunity before she has to advocate for herself or before she has to ask someone to be a reference.

Too often, professional conversations happen behind closed doors. Someone asks, “Do you know anyone who would be good for this project?” or “who should we ask to lead this” or “who has experience with this topic?”

Those moments matter. Careers can change because someone replies “Oh, you should talk to Sarah”, or “Aaliyah would be excellent at that” or “I’ve worked with Anh before. She’s incredibly capable”.

Those recommendations often last only a second or two. The impact can last for years.

The beautiful part about advocating for others is that it costs us almost nothing. We lose nothing by acknowledging someone else’s talent, hard work, or expertise. In fact, we strengthen our professional communities when we become known as women who notice excellence and are willing to point it out.

It’s positive without being performative. It gives us something concrete to do. First, you notice the moment, then you speak up. You can do it, starting today. Small actions can create ripples we never get to see. You may never know how much your comments mattered.

Professional advocacy doesn’t require perfection. It simply requires us to pay attention. Who do you know who consistently does excellent work? Who solves problems quietly? Who deserves more visibility? Who would benefit from someone else recognizing her strengths?

Then, when the opportunity comes – speak her name.

---

Great advice from one of our SUNY colleagues! Thanks Kae!

All the best,
Holly

Short Anchor Lines: Why a "Rising Tide" Isn't Enough

Hello all,

Are you seeing headlines like this one: Schools are Cutting Women's Scholarships Even When They Don't Have To and wondering what's happening? I certainly am!

I'm not a proponent of the zero-sum game type of thinking. I'm more of a rising tide lifts all boats type of thinker... that is assuming that some of the boats aren't tied to a shorter anchor line, and therefore unable to rise! And assuming that all the boats are equally seaworthy, and none of the boats are carrying more passengers along than others. But wait... that's exactly how it is...

Even with a rising tide, some boats can rise faster and easier than others because of their structural differences.

So there is still work to be done even in a rising tide.

And WIT is here to help!

WIT is for everyone interested in making sure the rising tides (the training, promotions, projects, mentoring, raises, visibility, access to new technologies...) aren't only lifting the employees who are already floating well. That's what WIT is for. Not exclusionary, because this is an "all hands on deck" situation.

• If you see a colleague with a short anchor line, see what you can do to help.
• If you notice a colleague who isn't getting to training and conferences, see what you can do to help.
• If you observe the same colleagues on high-visibility projects or committees while others are left out, see what you can do to help.

And don't stop doing equity and inclusion work, because you don't have to!

All the best,
Holly

Building Critical Thinkers: Translating Parenting Wisdom into Workplace Coaching

Hello All,

I had a conversation recently about the difference between rules and guidance, and realized that my thinking on this was quite different from the thinking of the other person's.
I see these as distinct, they were seeing these as the same, just dressed up with different words. One pretending not to be a rule.

But I truly think that these are different. And that reminded me of some of the common sayings we use at home and at work with children and with colleagues.
With children, I've certainly used this phrase "be careful" without providing any useful details that could help a child actually be safe, until I learned better phrases such as the ones covered in this image.
I saved this image years ago, but still go back to it as a reminder regularly.

And then I wondered, what would this look like in the workplace? I put that very question to Google in AI mode, and here is the result:

My prompt: "locate a workplace example for a supervisor or coworker that corresponds to this image of language instructions for parents." and then my followup " provide the source for your response" gave me the following information to share with you.

"Instead of telling a team member to "be careful" or "don't make a mistake," supervisors and coworkers can use language that builds situational awareness and prompts proactive problem-solving.

Help Your Team Foster Situational Awareness by Saying:

• Notice how... the client reacts to that pricing, the system logs spike during deployment.
• Do you see... the conflict in these project requirements, the bottleneck in this workflow?
• Try adjusting... your presentation speed, the testing parameters, the communication frequency.
• Try leveraging your... data analysis, past campaign templates, cross-functional partners.
• Can you track... the shifting market trends, the negative user feedback, the scope creep?
• Do you feel... confident in this timeline, aligned with the broader stakeholder group?

Help Your Team Problem-Solve by Saying:

• What's your plan... if the vendor misses the deadline, if the server goes offline?
• What can you use... to automate this manual process, to back up your hypothesis?
• Where will you... document these compliance risks, allocate the remaining budget?
• How will you... address the executive pushback, scale this feature next quarter?
• Who will... sign off on the final budget, support you if you hit a roadblock?

The workplace examples provided in the previous response are an original, direct adaptation of the parenting framework shown in your image.

Framework Source
The original graphic and language framework, "What to Say to Kids Instead of 'Be Careful!'", was created by author and blogger Linda Akeson McGurk for the website Backwoods Mama. Her guide focuses on fostering risk-awareness, physical competence, and autonomous problem-solving in children during outdoor play.

Workplace Adaptation
Because there is no official corporate version of this exact infographic, the previous response translated McGurk's core structural categories directly into professional management equivalents:

• "Foster Awareness" was mapped to "Situational Awareness & Risk Assessment" in the workplace (monitoring workflows, deployment logs, and client reactions instead of slippery rocks or poison ivy).
• "Problem Solve" was mapped to "Proactive Contingency Planning" (planning for missed vendor deadlines or feature scaling instead of navigating climbing boulders or crossing logs).

This translation aligns with modern agile management, coaching methodologies, and psychological safety practices where leaders are encouraged to ask open-ended, active-learning questions rather than issuing vague, anxiety-inducing warnings like "don't mess up."

I hope this is useful information, and would love to hear from you if you think it is...and if you think it isn't!

All the best,
Holly

Knowing What Can Wait: managing Energy, Priorities, and Summer Zucchini

Hello all,

This week...it's hot and humid!

While I am busy at work, and getting through my daily checklists, and participating in my library's AI July professional development with gusto...I'm also taking it a bit easy the moment I get done work.
Pick up my dad's groceries...of course.
Go to Wednesday night trivia with my retired library peeps...yes, I can do that.
Repaint the hallway...nope.
Extra chores...nope.
Garden projects...nope.
I'm just expending the required minimum distributions of energy. Remembering that there will be time later for things that aren't both important and urgent.

And I hope that you are saving your energy for the important things also.
Try The Eisenhower Matrix, (also referred to as Urgent-Important Matrix) technique or others you've heard of to get through a draining week or month.

Finally, in case you have a vegetable garden or CSA share, here's some super Zucchini recipes from Jim Wilson/The New York Times:

"Our Best Zucchini Recipes
Zucchini is summer’s gift. Embrace it with simple grilled zucchini, crunchy fried zucchini, ever-popular zucchini bread and all the options in between."

View the recipes.

All the best,
Holly

From Students to Staff: What Do We Need to Thrive?

Hello all,

I recently worked with a few librarian colleagues to plan a library orientation for our summer EOP students, always a fun, smart group of young students.

Our plan focused around giving them a headstart on the fall semester with important knowledge about the library services, spaces, and staff who are all here to help them achieve at their best level. We created a brief study preferences survey designed to break the ice and get them thinking about what they needed in order to be successful academic students, so that we could then highlight all the different ways the library meets a wide variety of student needs. We also asked questions about their research experiences and ways they like to get help.

That started my thinking about what all of us need in order to achieve at our best level as employees. What do I need? What do you need? What does your colleague need?

If SUNY employees are like SUNY students, (and I know I am), we need a variety of different resources at different times. Knowing what's available to you is the foundation of being able to draw on those resources when you need them. And summer is a great time to do a little exploration of your campus landscape of resources. Career resources, mental health resources, upskilling resources, physical health resources, and so much more are available to most of us.

So, what do you need to be successful in your next challenge? What resources are around you that could help make that happen? Like students needing to know about library services, spaces, and staff, we need to know about SUNY services, spaces, and staff that are here to help us thrive.

Take a look around your campus and talk with your colleagues about strategies and tactics they have used to get where they are, and map out your own network for success.

All the best,
Holly