Cooper Consulting Company

01/20/2023

Hello again, friends! Cooper Consulting here, sharing news and insights on our latest projects, new partnerships, technology we're excited about, and some of our very special employees. Enjoy!

Hello, dear employees and friends of Cooper! This is a quarterly newsletter meant to connect us to our employees and peers, to create community dialog, and to facilitate knowledge-sharing.

07/21/2022

Hello, friends of Cooper! This is a quarterly newsletter meant to connect us to our peers, to create community dialog, and to facilitate knowledge-sharing.

Hello, friends of Cooper! This is a quarterly newsletter meant to connect us to our peers, to create community dialog, and to facilitate knowledge-sharing.

04/02/2019

Cultivating a peer network (a “tribe”) is as critical to your success as is cultivating a mentor/protegee network.

Here's what's special about a Peer Network where you have developed trust over time:
• They are more likely to call you on your BS.
• You will discover that even if they aren't in your industry they are facing similar challenges and you will feel less like the only one on that planet.
• They will listen to you whine - though sometimes you have to bring the wine - and you have to be willing to reciprocate.
• You can be more vulnerable with them and open about what you are facing.
• You can ask them for support on work and personal challenges.
• They may provide you with a new perspective on one of your challenges to get you "unstuck".
• They will celebrate your victories with you!
I've been part of two significant peer groups over the last 15 years. While they were both focused on business challenges, the members also became friends, confidants, resources, and sometimes even customers. Just this last month I reached out to my Executive Women's Forum group for support on a family challenge - elderly parents - a challenge many of them have tackled already. Somehow just reaching out lifted some of the burden.

There are lots of avenues for finding your own tribe - just raise your hand and ask.

~ Melynda Caudle

02/06/2019

Someone who worked for me a long time ago reached out to me this week.

She asked me to meet with someone she knew who was just starting out in his career and see if I could advise him on next steps. She mentioned that I was her first mentor and "gave her wings".

This is what leaders aspire to - having a group of folks who will say of you the following:

You helped me grow as a person.
You helped me grow as a leader.
You helped me find my wings.

One of the most pivotal things she tells me about the time she worked on my team is this story and once she reminded me I remembered it very clearly.

Every time she would come in to my office to deliver news, ask for help, or receive feedback - every time - she apologized for being there to do so.
There was no need for this apology and I viewed it as her putting herself in a "one-down" position, not valuing her own contribution, and not feeling worthy. I had mentioned to her that an apology was unnecessary at least once and coached her on what was clearly (to me) her value to my team.

I finally became so concerned about her that the last time (!) she did this I told her if she ever came into my office again and started with an apology I would fire her on the spot. I didn't do this to be mean or to diminish her in any way - I did it to get her attention when everything else had failed to do so.

This small interaction caused her to take a step back and really examine why she always led with an apology. She tells me she decided she would never do it again and that it helped change the course of her career/belief in herself.

Now the point of all of this is not to say look at me and how wonderful I am. It's to say that you never know which of your interactions will affect and change some one's life. And far beyond that, you can't know the ripples that changing that person's life created in all of the lives that were touched by the people you touched.

My mentors get all of the credit for creating that for me - are you creating that for others?

~ Melynda Caudle

01/23/2019

One of my best friends and mentors told me once that women "fall in love through their ears...." Meaning, of course, that they pay more attention to the words of their beloved than the attention they pay to the actions of the beloved! And they ignore the "red flag" actions because the words are sweet.

This behavior is evident not just for women in relationships - but it's evident in all kinds of situations where really allowing yourself to pay attention to behavior (and turning your ears off) that might move you to take action to remove yourself from a situation, execute a risk mitigation strategy, put an employee on a PIP, fire a customer (!), or replace a vendor.

If you examined your relationships would you discover that the words don't match the behaviors?

~ Melynda Caudle

01/14/2019

We were in oral presentations last week and were asked the question: What are you most proud of accomplishing at Cooper?

I've not been asked that question before in that setting.

My answer was something like - we have been in business 25 years and we are still standing when many companies are not - through downturns and upswings and full employment and huge unemployment - and constantly changing regulation of contracting for our primary customers.

I am proud of that - but upon reflection over the succeeding days I have a more thoughtful answer. I'm proud of our culture of "whatever it takes" to make our customers successful. I'm proud of providing opportunities for employment for friends and family - and looking forward to employing new friends. I'm proud of having the opportunity to spend time and money giving back to the community in which I live and from which I profit. And the entire time that I'm telling you how proud I am of all of that - I am also humbled at the opportunities I and Cooper have been given to participate in all of that.

~ Melynda Caudle

12/05/2018

Happy Holidays, everyone! Our tree is up at the office, and we're thinking it's high time the norm should be to have twinkle lights everywhere, year-round. Can we collectively decide that's a thing now? Yes, let's make it happen.

Anyway, we're wishing you and yours a wonderful, cozy (and as stress-free as possible) holiday season! We appreciate you all, and we look forward to another year of learning, discovery, and work together!