Handling Leadership Situations Without Giving Advice

From time to time, I receive questions from readers asking for advice on how to handle certain leadership situations. I think, that to be able to really advise, you need a lot of detail about the situation the person is in because there are so many details that could sway things one way or another.

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen in the book Thanks for the Feedback say that the problem with giving advice is that it cannot ever be specific enough. We tend to try to give out sage or wise comments without enough detail for the person to implement that advice. Or, we are such experts in something that we assume everyone knows our specific jargon. For example, “When you deliver your presentation, make sure it stands out.” Interesting advice, but what does “stand out” even mean?

The other thing that makes advice hard to give is that when I give it out, I now own the result of it. Since it was my idea, it can in some way fall back on me if it doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter if the person didn’t follow my advice the exact way I laid it out, or if they took just some of it, but not all of it. In the end, the advice didn’t help and I feel I am in some way responsible.

That is usually why I prefer to coach in order to help people find options that seem reasonable and doable for them to try. One thing I had to learn as I was growing as an executive coach is that while coaching is in some respects about helping people solve problems, it is far from telling them what to do. It is more about what author Parker Palmer calls “pulling out their inner teacher.” Helping them see their options and then supporting the options they choose, is to me, what coaching is about.

Now when I get a question from a reader seeking advice, I usually will read it and ponder it for a week or even more. I am not thinking about what the person should do in the situation described, or what I would do if I were them. Instead, my thoughts usually turn more to trying to understand the context of the situation they might be in and then coming up with some general guidelines or options they could choose from themselves. I had a question from a reader. The question was, “How do leaders know when to intervene to promote better collaboration versus just reorganizing the department? Is there a tipping point where a simple intervention can help to resolve the issue rather than incur an expensive reorganization?”

My Thoughts

As I pondered this question and decided on how to react without giving advice, I really saw two very distinct ideas emerging. The first is organizational and the second has to do with how teams function.

The organizational aspect has to do with the needs of the organization and strategically how the group is put together to meet the needs of the organization, while the team function aspect is more about the relationships among the members of the group. I wanted to tackle these areas independently, then bring them together at the end.

The OrganizationAL IDEAS

Teams are formed to meet some specific need that the organization has realized. Teams of people come together in an organized fashion to accomplish a specific set of goals or tasks. They can also come together as change agents moving the organization from an old set of objectives to new goals that move the organization closer to completing its mission and making the vision a reality.

As I stepped back and thought about the question above, I thought that if I was going to reorganize a department, then there needed to be a strategic reason. There will likely have been some change, either internally, like a new or redefined mission, or externally, like a shift in customer demands. This type of change to reorganize will be driven by forces external to the team. Something has happened somewhere that causes what the team is doing to not be as valuable to the organization. Rather than dismantle or reorganize the team completely, the team would be given a new set of goals and objectives that match the external reality.

Reorganizations are chaotic, emotional, and expensive. The external pressures being experienced need to be greater than the emotional and financial cost to reorganize.

Reorganizing dysfunctional people on a team also only sends the dysfunction to another part of the organization. The description I hear most often for dysfunctional people in an organization is that they are not good for the team. The attitudes and behaviors are destructive and left to their own devices will have a very bad effect on the organization. So then, why would you move them somewhere else? Just because an organization can afford the reorganization doesn’t mean that is the right thing to do.

HOW TEAMS FUNCTION

If teams are not functioning well, a leader or coach has to be able to step into the moment. It takes both personal courage and a mindset that the needs of the organization outweigh any personal agendas that might exist. The leader must have the courage to call out behaviors that are not conducive to good team functioning.

General Stanley McChrystal, in his book Team of Teams writes that “superteams” are able to construct a strong lattice of trusting relationships. He makes the point that in a true team environment, the leader needs to be less concerned with hierarchy and command, what their position is, and advising individuals what to do and be more concerned with ensuring trusting relationships are forming so that there is a supportive network to perform.

Trust amongst team members is ensuring people are comfortable being vulnerable about their weaknesses, mistakes, fears, and behaviors without fear of reprisal. So, if someone doesn’t know something, they are not judged for the lack of knowledge, but supported in getting the knowledge they need. A teammate should feel a sense of confidence to admit a weakness and have someone on the team come alongside them and say “Here, let me help you with that.”

There are three things I find vital for a team to be able to trust each other:

1. Cultural Integrity: As a group, we are always going to do the right thing. If someone on the team is being disrespectful, as a team, we go to that person and let them know that is not how this team behaves. We want to have them on the team, but the culture here is one of kindness and respect. Integrity matters always.

2. Comfort with Vulnerability: Teammates have to be willing to admit weaknesses and mistakes and can never be penalized or punished when they do. If you are a person who avoids conflict, you should be able to admit this to your team and they need to come alongside and help you improve this skill. The team has to believe in you and believe that you can improve. It all starts with a culture of realizing we are all human and we all fall short somewhere.

3. Confidence in the Members: Not one of us holds all the answers. Teams have to believe in their mission and have confidence in each other to tackle whatever is put before them. As individual humans, we crave safety and security. Taking risks is not always a safe feeling. This is the value of the team. As an individual, my need is for safety. The team is there to support each other to take risks and achieve much more than an individual ever could. High-performing teams have to have confidence in each other.

Back to the Question at hand

The question was, “How do leaders know when to intervene to promote better collaboration versus just reorganizing the department? Is there a tipping point where a simple intervention can help to resolve the issue rather than incur an expensive reorganization?”

I would argue that one of the main purposes of the leader of a team is to foster a culture of collaboration that leads to results. Not collaboration so that every person touches everything, but trusting each other enough to know that one person doesn’t don’t have to touch something if another person is already running with it.

The leader is the person accountable if someone is not living up to the team's expectations. The leader should rally the team to their responsibility of pulling the person back in line. If the team won’t do it, then the leader has two jobs. One job is with the team to create a culture of team discipline, and the other job is with the person who is not living up to team standards by coaching that person individually. My position is that if there is group conflict, then the leader is ultimately the one accountable and at fault.

What about you? What advice would you share in response to this very interesting question?

5 Questions Every Leader Needs to Ask Themselves and Reflect On

How good are you at spending time in purposeful reflection?

This is a question I ask a lot of the leaders that I coach. The reason I ask about purposeful reflection is that I think leaders are fairly good at reflecting because they are constantly seeing things differently in their own heads than maybe their employees.

For example, I had a client who was working on a review of the talent in her organization. She spent a lot of time reflecting on the individuals that she was representing. However, she spent almost no time intentionally reflecting on her own overall outcome or any of the biases that she might have experienced when going through the talent review process. 

I think it is fair to say that many of us are good at reflecting on the work in front of us, but maybe not so good at critical reflection on the processes we went through to make the work happen. There are not many of us who spend time on this. And I get it. 

Those of us in leadership development have spent way too much time working with leaders on obtaining good outcomes and not nearly enough time helping other people think about their processes.  We have encouraged you to go from “good to great,” to be “innovative,” and to “work from your strengths.” But what we haven’t given you are tools to purposefully reflect on how you are showing up as a leader.

A leadership guru, Gary Yulk, wrote that “to facilitate favorable learning environments in organizations, leaders must act as a role model”.

Have you thought much about that? Do you see yourself as a role model?  What does that even mean for you and how you are impacting those on your team? Are you one who encourages your team to have a good work/life balance but sends emails at 5 pm on Saturday evenings and 9 am on Sunday mornings?  

Role models set the tone and the pace for those they work with.

Some of you might be saying, “Well I want the people on my team to work hard. I need to make sure they are always really engaged.”

Dan Goleman, in his book Primal Leadership, calls out this “pacesetting” style as dissonant. The problem, according to Goldman, is that you will likely burn out people on your team if you push them to work too hard.  If you don’t burn them out, you will run them down so much that they will lose energy to be able to give you any kind of extra effort when it is needed. 

Here are those five other bias questions that leaders can be influenced by and some additional questions that you can spend some intentional time reflecting on:

1. Confirmation Bias? Seeking out proof that will confirm what you already think or believe.  Are you working on a project or with a team and unduly influencing them to show you something that you already believe is true? What do you need to do to eliminate this bias from a project you are currently working on?

2. Hindsight Bias? The belief that the past was more accurate and predictable than it really was. How old is the data you are using to form your opinions of people on your team? I have a client who made a mistake several years ago. Although he has had many successes since then, he is still in a “penalty box” for that error. Are there people in your organization you need to forgive because you are putting too much emphasis on errors that may have happened a long time ago?

3. Gender Bias? A widely held set of implicit biases that discriminate against gender. Let's say a female in your organization gets really intense in a meeting. You think about the situation and come to a private conclusion that “when under pressure, women get emotional.” Anytime we use all-inclusive language about an individual we are showing a bias. Step back and think about what happened to her at that moment and consider maybe why she got emotional. Then apply the same standard to one of the guys on your team. If he gets emotional, does he get credit because he is passionate? How might you take gender bias out of your thinking as you work with talent on your team?

4. Anchoring Bias? Relying heavily on an initial piece of information or a data point that unduly influences your decisions and thought processes. “Do you remember that guy we hired from a competitor 5 years ago? He was a total washout.” Do you use comments like this that influence your thoughts and feelings today? Does this one situation anchor all of your thoughts on hiring competitors? How could you look at each individual without labels and find the good in what they are bringing to the table no matter what their work history might be?

5. Available Thought Bias? Your decision is influenced by what springs first into your mind. I witness this a lot in leaders. They tend to fall in love with the first thing that comes out of their mouths. This comes from pride and the feeling that we need to defend an idea just because we said it. This one happened to me one day in a meeting. I was asked my opinion and gave it, but then felt like if I didn’t defend it I would be seen as not having a take on the topic. So I ended up defending something I was not even really that passionate about.  How might you overcome pride, admit you were wrong, and agree with someone who had a better idea than you?

take some time today or this week to pause and reflect on how these biases might be affecting your leadership.

As you reflect, I encourage you to forgive yourself. We all have biases - we can’t help it. Our brains are association-making machines. They fill in blanks to make reality from things that may or may not be there. Realizing we all have biases is the first step to better team outcomes. 

What Is Your Change Style?

Stop and think for a minute. Slow down, take a deep breath, and think for a minute about this question:

As a leader, what is the single most important thing you are trying to change in your organization?

Do you have that ONE thing in mind? Now write it down.

In my work as an organizational consultant and executive coach, I often work with leaders who have several things they are trying to change at the same time. They are trying to make their organization more efficient, plus more focused, and they want to have their employees think in a new or different way.

It would be fairly easy to lead if you only had to make one change at a time, and you could do this in a linear and synchronous fashion. No one I know in leadership has this luxury though.

Change is all around you, coming at you from every side.

• Budgets change

• People change

• Expectations change

• Visions change

• Customers change

• Products change

• Regulations change

• Bosses’ minds change

Often all of these types of changes happen at the same time. Sometimes you are in complete control of these changes, and other times you feel like you are in more of a reactionary position.

No matter the position you find yourself in, as a leader, one thing is clear, part of your calling is to be able and willing to change. No one these days is interested in people who can just lead the status quo.

Style Preferences:

One of the things I have been thinking more about over the past several months is not necessarily the types of changes or even my level of control over them, but more so about how my team members and customers approach change in general. In our organization, we have a lot of changes going on sometimes all at once:

• We add new team members

• We launch new websites

• We take on more projects

• We add new courses to our teaching repertoire

• We start to do executive coaching in new industries and with new clients

Change is everywhere.

However, I have been trying to focus less on the “what” that is changing and more on the “how” each person on my team responds to change.

Let’s face it. Some of you are change junkies. Change gives your brain a huge dopamine rush and you get an overwhelmingly positive feeling when things are changing. Some of you like to move so fast that you end up getting several steps ahead of everyone else and you are forced to slow down or lose others completely. Others of you realize that change is imminent, but you have more of a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach.

Experts on change agree that while there is no one-style-fits-all approach, each of us has our own approach or style that we are more comfortable with when it comes to change.

Changes Style Indicator:

A tool that I use to better understand the change styles of my team is the “Change Style Indicator”. This is a simple and easy-to-use assessment you can look up online that gives people a glimpse into their style preferences when they are faced with change. The assessment takes less than 10 minutes to complete, then you are scored on a change style continuum of three styles that represent distinct approaches when responding to change. The continuum ranges from a Conserver Style to an Originator Style, to a Pragmatists Style, occupying the middle range of the continuum.

I have found that working with my team in light of this assessment has really helped us to manage all the changes we are facing in a more productive way. While this tool does not give any indication of whether or not we are good at change, or even if our styles are effective for the type of changes we are facing, what it does for me as a leader is:

• Allow me to approach everyone on my team as an individual in the ways they like to approach change

• Get a better feel for the underlying emotion and anxieties associated with the change

• Better understand some of the natural conflicts that arise between team members based on the changes they are facing

• Get better at responding, helping to enhance collaboration, and even encouraging the team to innovate more

I asked a member of my team to answer a few questions about their perspective on the Change Style Indicator.

1. How easy was this assessment to take and how long did it take you to complete it?

   The Change Style Indicator assessment only took me about 15 minutes, including the time to read the instructions. The questions are straightforward and ask you for the response that immediately comes to mind. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers, you are just asked to be candid in your responses.

2. What is one thing that you learned about yourself from the assessment that you didn’t already know?

   I have utilized several personality and communication style assessments, but I've never taken one directly related to dealing with change. I enjoyed reading the detailed results report, which indicated I am a "Pragmatist" with a "Conserver" orientation. This means that I prefer the kind of change that happens for practical reasons, and I want to make sure any change is a group effort, keeping in mind what is best for the team.

3. How can you see yourself using this assessment as you influence others on our team?

   The results report provided a useful outline of my strengths and weaknesses when dealing with change. This is helpful for my work in the future as it gives me tools to explain to other team members how I can best contribute to change within our organization. If everyone on my team utilizes the Change Style Indicator, it can help us when planning our work so that the assignments and expectations are tailored to suit the strengths and weaknesses of each team member.

4. What advice would you give to someone who wanted to be more influential as a leader in their organization?

   Self-awareness is an essential skill for any leader. When working with a team, you not only have to understand yourself but you have to also be able to adapt your style when necessary to get the best results with your group. The Change Style Indicator is a useful key to self-awareness in managing organizational change.

So, as you can see, simple tools like this can be quite effective in helping us as leaders to assess our teams and what the best approaches might be to maximize our change opportunities.

Takeaway:

Go back to that change that you wrote down initially at the beginning of this post. Now think about all the people on your team who are affected by that change. What words would you use to describe the way they approach change? I think taking some time and assessing how people respond to change can make all the difference in how effective we are as leaders in making change happen.

One Way to Be More Open to Learning

It seems like people these days really have a hard time agreeing on much of anything, and most of what we argue about is misinformed. Nonetheless, we continue to drone on and on, spurred on by a few members of our tribe or a couple of dozen likes on Instagram.⁣

Can we just agree on one thing? Gene Roddenberry was a genius!
Who is Gene Roddenberry, you ask? You’re kidding me, right?⁣

As the creator of the original Star Trek, he was able to capture very distinct personality types in character development and then exploit them in a science fiction realm. One of the things I continue to be amazed by are the one-liners that came out of that show. ⁣

There are times when I will be in a conversation with someone and a Star Trek quote will just come to me!

Here are a few examples of some of those quotes:⁣⁣

- First, there is the overly emotional Dr. McCoy, “I am a doctor, not a bricklayer.”⁣
- There is the struggling fix-it engineer Mr. Scott, “You can’t mix matter and antimatter cold.”⁣
- Then, the starship captain himself, Kirk: “To boldly go where no man has gone before.”⁣

But one of my all-time favorite quotes comes from Mr. Spock, who in Season 3, Episode 9 says, “In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.”⁣

Oh, Mr. Spock, we need you now more than ever.⁣ Critical moments need critical thinking.⁣

Spock’s quote starts with “in critical moments.” To me, that means:

• When the pressure is on. ⁣

• When the stakes are high. ⁣

• When you feel like you are in a make-or-break situation. ⁣

• When your reputation is on the line.⁣ These are the times that the logical Mr. Spock would say that as humans we cave in and create the reality we want. ⁣⁣

We tend to see what we want to see, we just hear things wrong, our memory stores the data wrong, or we put two and two together thinking it should be an equal four but it turns out that the problem is not linear. Here are some examples for you to think about that fit into this category:

Which of the following statements would you say is true?⁣⁣

• Carrots improve your vision. ⁣

• Vitamin C boosts our immunity.⁣

• Coffee stunts growth.⁣

• Sugar makes you hyper.⁣

• Your body needs a good internal cleanse every now and then.⁣

• The Great Wall of China is visible from space.⁣

• Bats are blind.⁣

The thing is, it is not just Mr. Spock who accuses us of seeing the world as we wish. Diane Halpern, former President of the American Psychological Association and Professor at Claremont McKenna College, writes in her text on critical thinking that, “the rapidly accelerating pace of change and widespread availability of a glut of information has made the ability to think critically more important than at any other time in history.” ⁣

To Dr. Halpern’s point, I did a quick internet search for each of the statements bulleted above. While none of them are actually true, all of them require some deep critical thinking to come up with a reason why they are not.

Here’s what I mean: ⁣

I did a Google search of “does Vitamin C boost your immune system?” as my keywords. The sixth citation down (after all of the internet ads), is from the Cleveland Clinic. Talk about a reputable source! The title of the article is “3 Vitamins that are best for boosting your immunity.”⁣

Now, let’s face it. Most simply take into account:⁣

• The question you typed in.⁣

• It is the first page of Google.⁣

• You see that it is from the Cleveland Clinic.⁣⁣

You may figure, why even open the article? Case closed! Vitamin C boosts the immune system. ⁣The thing is, you would be wrong. ⁣

I can hear you now. “Scott, now you are being a mean blogger who is picking on Vitamin C. My Grandmother and my Mom swore by it and they never had a cold in their life. They never let me down and I love them. Who are you to insult my Grandma?” ⁣⁣

So, don't take my word for it. Do some critical thinking and digging for yourself. ⁣

According to Dr. Jen Gunter, MD who has done a podcast called “Body Stuff”, the immune system works just as it is, and if you actually were to “boost” it, that is what becomes the problem that will often bring people to their demise. Your immune system does not need a boost! ⁣

It turns out that most of us (please consult your own physician for anything health-related you read here or anywhere else), get enough Vitamin C in our diet and do not need to supplement it at all. If your body has enough Vitamin C, then it eliminates what is not needed in your urine. So for most of us, that 500mg of Vitamin C we take at about $0.10./day ends up in the toilet. ⁣

But wait a minute... The Cleveland Clinic said…⁣

Actually, no they didn’t. If you open the article they say you don’t need it unless your doctor advises it. But the marketing people who run the Cleveland Clinic’s blog posts know that if they put a number in the title you are more likely to open it. So, turns out, the article is true, but the title is a little misleading.⁣

I know some of you are probably rolling your eyes at me because I am making an argument against a longtime belief. You probably don’t care as much about bats not being blind (they are not blind, they just rely 3x more on their hearing) but when I put “detoxing your inners” on the list, well them’s fighting words.⁣

This is part of the problem.

Some of us have made very public claims about some of these things. You might even have an anecdotal story of knowing a person who takes Vitamin C and never gets sick. And you have told this story over and over again, so not only do you believe that it is true but you have claimed it publicly so your reputation is also on the line. This isolated example of the person you know does not support a direct correlation between Vitamin C consumption and immune system boosting. While both of the observations may be true, the conclusion is false. ⁣

Critical thinking is a skill. And for most of us, on most topics, we should likely say less and study a lot more. Rather than coming to a rapid conclusion, let’s get better at saying,

“I don’t know, but I am open to learning more.”

5 Coaching Mistakes to Avoid

As an executive coach, a common question I have to work through at the beginning of a new coaching engagement is

“Am I working with the right person?”

There are two reasons I find myself asking this question:

1. The person I am working with seems to be just as talented as their supervisor.

2. The people I coach are really good at what they do. They are technical experts in their field.

It doesn’t take me long to answer my own question. Yes, I am working with the right person. The higher you go in organizations, everyone is talented (for the most part) and the people are experts in their field. However, this does not mean they are experts in leadership.

Most of my coaching is helping to groom people for higher levels of leadership. Often there is some tactical, behavioral development that needs to occur.

It is the idea that Marshall Goldsmith writes about in his book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

I have had over 750 hours of coaching experience in the last 3 years and I have noticed something very interesting.

We all make mistakes.

Not a revelation, I know, but to me it is an interesting observation. Why? Because I wonder where organizations might be if not for the common mistakes I see them making in regard to coaching their leaders.

• Would turnover decrease?

• Would we unleash talent?

• Would customers have more delight?

• Would we ensure a solid foundation for future generations?

Enough Philosophy

Here are 5 coaching mistakes I observe. As you reflect on these mistakes, ask yourself what traps you might be falling into.

1. Confusing your needs with the needs of the person being coached
   
   Depending on your level of leadership, you are responsible for coaching your team to make one or more of the following connections:
   

   1. The mission of the organization to the vision

   2. The purpose of the organization to the mission

   3. The values you aspire to the purpose

   4. The guiding principles to the values

   5. The strategy to the guiding principles

   6. The tactics to the strategy

   7. Individual behaviors that implement tactics
      

   Let’s be honest, most of our coaching focuses on the last one. We are so in the weeds trying to control others that we often lose sight of what the person really needs.
   
   Rather than focusing always on whether or not they are “doing” things exactly as you want them, perhaps you need to go back and connect them to something that has more depth and meaning.
   
   I believe that most people get up in the morning and really want to do a good job for the company. Too many of us as leaders can not get out of our own way. We feel if we are not “doing,” we are not working.
   
   Before you coach someone, step back and ask yourself “What is really going on here? What does this person need from me today?"
   

2. You say it (or yell it) and they produce
   
   I wrote about this one in my book a few years back 7 Secrets of an Emotionally Intelligent Coach.
   
   We live in such a fast paced world that we lose our sense of time. We have instant access to so many things today that 10 or 20 years ago might have taken weeks or months. I no longer have to go through an administrative assistant or send a letter to see if someone can meet with me. I knock out an email or send a text and have a response, often 5 minutes after I sent it.
   
   I heard best selling author, John Townsend, (author of Boundaries, and other great books) give a great analogy the other day. He said it is like standing in front of an apple tree and yelling at the fruit to grow faster; all because the leader wants bigger or more fruit.
   
   Some things just don’t work this way. Some things take time to grow, develop, and mature, no matter how fast you want them.
   
   I recommend you spend some time doing what psychologists call “attuning” with your folks. The idea is to bring into harmony; to tune. The skill required is to connect with others at a deeper and more vulnerable level. This goes beyond being nice or friendly to really be able to listen well and understand the emotions and motivations that are the foundations for behavior.
   
   People will do amazing things for leaders they feel connected with.
   

3. This is their personality so they will always behave this way
   
   I have just about had it with personality profiling. All of them. From Myers-Briggs, to Insights, to the Enneagram, PDI, Horoscopes.
   
   What we are learning about human personality is that it is contextual. No one person is one way all the time.
   
   Those of you who love personality tests, especially those who are certified on them, will say that your model talks about how we need to be flexible and that this is an important aspect.
   
   Right. And if we need to flex, then we are not one way all the time.
   
   The problem is, as leaders, we put people in boxes. We create implicit biases around what people can and can not do based upon their level of introversion or extroversion. We judge, we label, we categorize, and way too often, we are dead wrong.

   
   According to Adam Grant, a leader in the psychology field out of the University of Pennsylvania, the statistical reliability and validity data around these assessments are just not strong enough to do with them the kinds of things organizations do.
   
   As coaches, we need to stop making judgments on personality and understand the context the person is. None of us is always a certain way. Let’s get in and coach people to understand more of what is at the root of what they are doing, not doing, or more likely doing, just not the way you want them too.
   

4. The person being coached is a robot
   
   Just because you run 24/7/365 and are always on, doesn’t mean everyone else is or that it is healthy. We have to start thinking more about corporate health, or better yet, the health of the people who work for us.
   
   How are you coaching your team to take better care of themselves?
   
   How are you modeling this behavior?
   
   If you give someone who already has a full place more to do, how are you helping them prioritize the work? They can not begin to know what is in your mind regarding how they should plan to deliver without your coaching and insights.
   
   Let’s remember that the people we are working with are just that: people.
   
   They have families and other communities outside of work. They have spouses, parents, and kids. They have all kinds of relationships they care about and care for. So, if someone on your team has a family member pass away, they are going to need time to mourn this loss. Just because they are back at work in 3 days (which is a travesty) doesn’t mean they are all the way back. If someone just got a diagnosis of liver cancer, for crying out loud, they are really not thinking about when they will have that report on your desk.
   
   Sure, you have a job to do. I get it. A lot of people are depending on you to drive results. But really, come on…just have a heart.
   

5. Your way is always the best way
   
   This one is a real mindset shift. It takes:
   

   1. Self-Awareness - Realize you don’t know what you don’t know. You might be really far removed from reality.

   2. Self-Regulation - Allow yourself the ability to think and not emotionally react.

   3. Humility - You don’t know everything so how can you get curious with others and develop a learn as we go frame of mind.

   4. Trust - Let them experiment with new and different ways and approaches.
      

   This really is about how you can create a learning organization, one that inspires people to creativity and innovation. At the very least, if there is a prescriptive way for them to work, be open to hearing other ideas on how the work could be done. People they will be more engaged if they know you want to hear their ideas.

As I reflect on this list, I realize it is very relationally focused.

That is because most of the time we hire smart, talented, skilled people who want to do a good job.

Therefore, it is the relationship with the leader that inhibits performance.

Humble thought.

7 Steps to Effective Coaching

There are times when I want to start new projects, but I hesitate because I am afraid I won’t know what to do. I felt this way for a long time when all of the social media platforms started popping up. Everyone was creating their brand, it seemed simple and fun, but I didn’t want to look silly if I couldn't figure it out. I didn't know what to do, so I sat on the sidelines at first and watched rather than jumping in and learning.

I originally felt the same way about this blog. For over a year, I wrestled with the idea. Should I start blogging? What would I say? What would other people think about what I had to say? All of this negativity swirled around in my mind.

Then one day I listened to a podcast by Michael Hyatt. I remember Michael saying “Stop thinking about it and start doing it." He gave some simple steps that I followed to start my blog. And here I am today and have been for many years now. Those steps gave me the confidence I needed to start something I wanted to do.

I started thinking; There are probably people out there that have this similar problem. Maybe there are people hesitant to coach others simply because they don’t know where to start. Maybe this is you. If only you had an outline of steps to take that would give you the confidence you need to do it, right?

Then I stopped to reflect on what I do when I get a coaching client for the first time and I outline the major ingredients that go into every coaching engagement that I do. My recipe for a successful coaching engagement is explained in the 7 simple steps below for you to follow, so you can try putting them to practice.

I personally think this model is transferable. So whether you are a professional coach, a supervisor of employees or even a parent coaching a youth soccer team, following these 7 steps can mean a world of difference for your outcome of being successful.

7 Steps to Successful Coaching

1. Begin with an open mind.

   Coaching never begins in a vacuum. We all come into coaching relationships with biases. Coaches must come to clients with an open mind. The client must be seen as being a whole and healthy person. While there are times when you will have received information from others, focus on what the client is saying to you.

2. Get to know your client.

   It is hard to coach someone without knowing more information about the client. Find out more about who they are, what they do, their life story, and what they hope to accomplish. Consider putting together a series of questions that could apply to any client that you serve. Personally, I use multiple types of personality assessments with my clients.

3. Confirm with the client.

   It is always important that you validate the collected data with the client. You want the client to be confident that you understand their perspective on what is happening, why they did what they did, or what is the genesis of how they are thinking or feeling.

4. Compare the data to a standard.

   Once the client agrees with the collected data, you'll compare it to an acceptable standard. The client must agree that the standard is acceptable. If they do not, then the data may become meaningless because the objective of what the data revealed could become irrelevant.

5. Identify gaps.

   Gaps are the space that exists between the client's current behavior and the agreed-upon standard. They are the difference between where the client is now and where they would like to be in the future. It is useful to talk these gaps out and to get examples of where they have taken place. Coaches should always be looking for gaps between current and expected performance.

6. Set a plan to close the gaps.

   When planning with your clients, develop a simple plan that is laser-focused on one or two items. When we give people too much, we lose focus and the person runs the risk of being overwhelmed. When examining performance standards I use the “Stop/Start/Continue” model. Here's how it works:

   • What behaviors do they need to stop?

   • What behaviors do they need to start?

   • What behaviors need to continue?

   Do not shortchange the "continue" aspect. Often when they stop and start a few simple things, people will see a dramatic change. Most of the time they are doing a lot of things right, and you want to encourage them to continue those.

7. Establish a date to follow up with them.

   It is my opinion that this step is where most coaching fails. There is no date set to follow up, no check-ins scheduled to see how the person is doing, and little to no interaction at all once a plan is put in place. Follow-up with those you are coaching is probably the most important part of the coaching relationship. I recommend scheduling all follow-up meetings with your client at the end of each of your sessions together. This will enforce some accountability on their end and help you maintain the relationship.

Coaching is a valuable skill for helping others become the best person that they desire to become. Coaching skills are important tools that anyone in a leadership position needs to possess. Coaching is the transportation vehicle that you use to help an idea become a behavior.

Homework

• Identify a person in your life who needs your coaching, or better yet someone who is already getting your coaching.

• Think about whether you have followed all 7 steps explained above to have successful coaching within that relationship.

• Are there any steps that you have missed?

• How can you use these 7 steps to coach yourself to improve your own coaching outcomes?

Feel free to share your experiences.

How Not to RIDE the Negative Train

Duke Ellington once said, “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.” I just love this perspective. I wonder how many of us really see it this way?  I wonder how many of us as leaders, when people on our teams bring us situations that feel like a problem, see it as an opportunity to do our best?

Reflect with me for a moment. Stop, take a sip of your coffee, and think back over your last week. What is a situation or a problem that someone on your team brought you? Do you feel as a leader that your perspective was a chance for you to do your best? Do you feel you took the opportunity to help the person bringing you the problem to do their best?

Perspective

One of the more interesting things about being an executive coach is that I get an opportunity to have a lot of interactions with a lot of different leaders. I have been known to log over 42 hours of Zoom meetings sometimes in a couple of weeks! For me, and I am sure you as well, this has been a pretty typical pace since the pandemic started. 

For the past couple of years, I have been paying closer attention to not only what people are showing up with, but how they show up. In leadership coaching, I get the chance to help folks look at their leadership and ensure how they show up is how they intend to keep showing up.

Most of us want to make sure our intentions match our impact. It is my experience, however, that not many of us stop and think proactively about what we want our impact to be. Especially when there is a problem and that problem has an emotion attached to it.

Go back to the reflection you did at the beginning of this post. As a leader, when the person on your team brought you the problem, did how you want to show up match how you did show up? Or, were you so caught up in the emotion of the problem that you had a hard time even knowing what problem it was you were trying to solve? I see this a lot! I will often ask folks I am working with...”Now, what problem is it we are solving exactly? Let's keep the main thing.”

Example

Some of you know that I am an avid golfer. Not a good golfer, but I really enjoy the challenge the game brings to me. So many little things have to be done right to hit a good golf shot, and once in a while, I hit a good one even though I don’t do everything right.  Those are the ones that keep me coming back.

So for Valentine’s Day one year, my wife gave me a great gift. It was a golf fitting for new clubs. It was a really great experience for me and I was like a kid in a candy store. I was so excited! This was something I had always wanted to do.  

When the day came for me to go to the fitting, I walked in at 3:30 pm for my appointment and I was met by this really high-energy guy named James. He could tell I had one eye on the bay where you get to try out the new clubs. But before he would let me take a swing, he asked me a question, “Why are you here?” My response was not well thought out, nor very accurate it turns out.  

I told James “I have always wanted to do this and I am really excited,” I quipped, just wanting to get into that bay and hit a ball with the newest technology golf club makers have to offer.

“Awesome!” James responded, with so much enthusiasm that it was effervescent coming out of him.

But, then he changed his tone, took his enthusiasm down about 3 notches, and said, “I appreciate your excitement, but why are you here? What is it that you are trying to achieve through this experience in your golf game?” 

Dang! I had been so excited about the opportunity, I completely lost focus on the problem I was trying to solve. 

“I want to hit the ball straighter and further,” I said in response. 

“Good,” he said. “I can help you do that, but I don’t think that is why you are here.”

Now I was a bit stunned, perplexed, and feeling a little like I was about to enter a therapy session. 

“I give,” I said…”Why am I here?”

“Exactly,” James said again…” Why are you here?” He didn’t answer my question for me but was going to make me answer. It was like therapy!!

Then, a light went off for me about skill. “I want to be a better golfer. No, wait, I want to lower my golf score. and I want to be more competitive on the golf course.”

“Yes!” James yelled. Literally yelled. I mean he screamed it so loud I think people having dinner at Chick-fil-A across the street could have heard him.

“Let's work to solve that problem,” James said when he calmed down. And when we got in the simulator and I would hit a ball 30 yards further with a new club, he would say, “Now that shot will lower your score on the course!” 

Being Coached

James either had a natural ability or someone had trained him on some excellent coaching techniques. As I reflected on that experience, James was actually pulling from some great psychology as he was preparing me to buy golf clubs. (Hey, James had a goal, too. Make no mistake, he gets paid to sell golf clubs, and I love the set he sold me!)

RIDE*

Here is a model I use in coaching when problems that have negative emotions are brought to the discussion.  I try to find a way for the person NOT to “RIDE” the negative train. I use the acronym RIDE as a process. Each element is really an independent tool, so you do not have to use them all or think of them in a stepwise fashion.

The problem I had in my golf fitting example was that I had lost my perspective on why I was there. Here is what James helped me with, even if he didn’t know the psychology behind it.

R: Remove the negative thing. This strategy employs taking the thing that is negatively impacting me out of the situation. My excitement was clouding my perspective to see why I was really there.

I: Insert a more positive perspective. This can involve distracting my attention away from the issue causing negative emotions. He took my emotion that to me felt positive - but it actually was negative because it was in my way of seeing the problem and got me to the root of why I was there in the first place.

D: Distract the attention from the negative thing. Finding something less negative can put the problem in perspective. James had me sit down, then offered me a Powerade as he was asking me about my expectations. He was distracting me away from my excitement so I could focus.

E: Emotionally Pivot. Help the person change the emotion to match the problem. James brought me down so skillfully off my high, never losing his enthusiasm, but helped me focus so that when I got in the bay I was calmer and he could do his job. Nice work, James.

How about you as a leader? If you go back to your reflection exercise at the beginning of this post, could you insert one of the elements of the RIDE model to help someone on your team?

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*For all you academics out there, the RIDE model was derived from research done by Little, Gooty, and Williams and published in Leadership Quarterly 2016. The article is titled: The role of leader emotion management in leader-member exchange and follower outcomes.

Three Ways to Improve Communication in a Hybrid Work World

Because of the pandemic over the last couple of years, our virtual work world seems to be here to stay. One thing the pandemic has caused organizations to rethink is how work is done. What people do has remained pretty consistent over these couple of years, but how they get it done has made some seismic shifts, causing in part what some are calling a “talent migration.” 

From my vantage point, an overwhelming part of the great talent migration has to do with workplace flexibility. I also think that this movement is away from what we all knew as a traditional flex model to hybrid work. In the traditional flex model, an employee could work (wink, wink) a day or so from home when needed. Some organizations even went as far as to declare a specified work-from-home day. The shift that employees started asking for, or perhaps even requiring through this crisis, is that they want to work from home indefinitely or want to only come into an office only when absolutely necessary.

This shift evolves as workers reprioritize what is important in their lives. Organizations need to brace themselves for new levels of competition and get used to not having as much talent around to compete with each other. At the end of the day, what wins this tug of war is the culture of the organization. Those organizations with great cultures will have much less migration than those that merely think they have a great culture. 

There will always be a story of a person who leaves and triples his/her salary. I think we all tip our hats to them and say “good for you.” However, as leaders, let's not be fooled into thinking that people always leave just for money. Employees want to be fairly compensated for what they do. The leadership and cultural battle is going to be waged not on what the associate is asked to do, but on how they can do it.

I think the call for us as leaders is to engage strategic thinking around flexible, hybrid work. In leadership, the future belongs to the curious and flexible. Those who can engage a growth mindset, be curious about what the talent is looking for, and be agile with the changing business landscape will evolve and win.  Those with a fixed mindset may get their way. The question is for how long.  Like it or not, hybrid work is here to stay, in some form or fashion. Even long after all the viruses have mutated away or herd immunity is achieved, some mix of working from home for knowledge workers is here to stay.

Like many of you, I also had to learn to adapt to this new business reality. Everything from virtual doctor appointments, to picking out tile for a remodeled bathroom, to individual and group coaching sessions have gone from face-to-face interactions to options for a virtual environment. I am realizing that no matter how much I want work to go back to the way it was before the pandemic, it will not.

Since I am imploring leaders to have a growth mindset around hybrid work, I have been challenging myself to see what encouragement I could offer to enhance the skills of leaders to retain talent. This has led me to observe how people are interacting virtually. 

Most of us have long gotten past some of the initial communication disruptions like dogs barking in the background, or cats climbing on keyboards, or people walking in the background of a video chat. The struggle became about being more effective with people when you are not in the same room.

Three Ways to Improve Communication in a Hybrid Work World

1. Focus on Energy. Judith Glaser in her book "Conversational Intelligence" encourages leaders to make communication about the exchange of energy and not information. She calls this Transformational Communication and it is a Share-Discover model versus an Ask-Tell dynamic. When you focus on the energy in the conversation, you create space by exploring others' perspectives, innovating, and creating. As a leader, you move from listening to the other person to protect yourself and your idea to instead listening to ensure you connect with the other person and they feel heard. The skill to develop here as a leader is for you to ask questions you don’t have answers to and to help the other person feel heard.

2. Principle of Physicality. This is a term I coined some years ago when working with sales professionals who had to be ready at a moment's notice to communicate with a customer. Pay attention to your physical environment. Get some good feedback from others on what your physical environment looks like on a video call.

   What is your background? It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be professional.

   1. How is your camera positioned? Are you looking at it or is it pointing down at the top of your head? 

   2. What kind of lighting do you have? If you are not well lit, people can't see you very well.

   3. How are you connecting with audio? Can you maintain a consistent audio connection for an entire call?

3. Give Trust. Many of us, with this hybrid model, have to rethink what trust means to us. The employment agreement we have had with folks has always been built on trust. The difference is we thought as long as we were coming into an office and could see the employees was that they were working. With the knowledge workers of today, leaders need to learn to set clear expectations for what and how work is to be approached and then trust that people are doing it. If there is a problem or a gap, then create psychological safety to address the gap. Don’t fall into the trap that the performance gap is the hybrid work model. You don’t know if this gap would not have existed if the person was coming into an office every day. Remember, the employment agreement is still built on trust. As leaders, we may need to spend some time thinking about what this means for us. If assumptions in how people work have been changing, what do we need to change to accommodate?

Flexibility is a significant part of a leader's emotional intelligence. Understanding and being flexible with how you feel about things prevents you from developing a fixed mindset. Stay open. Stay curious. If people are migrating away from your organization, work hard to find the real reason why.

Build a Culture You Can Be Proud Of

"Oh, the comfort…the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure word, but pouring them all right out, just as they are…chaff and grain together…certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away." - George Elliott

As leaders and those who support, mentor, and coach leaders, I wondered how well we are living up to those poetic words of George Elliott. I know Elliott was talking about friendship in his poem, but I do think there is a great application for those of us involved in leadership as well.

Here are my thoughts on how we could apply Elliott’s poetry to our leadership lives:

Feeling of Safety.

Basic neuroscience tells us that if people feel threatened they will shut down and protect themselves. This means if they feel attacked, put down, let down, shut out, disrespected, or judged, the chances that they will be able to perform or even listen to what we are saying are slim to none. If you want your followers to trust you with the issues of their heart (and those that matter to your business), then a culture that creates a feeling of safety is essential. If you create a culture where people can only bring you what you want to hear, this is NOT a place of safety. This means people only feel safe telling you what you want to hear, which can be a huge problem both in friendship and in leadership. If you want the trust of your followers, creating a feeling of safety is critical.

Authentic Leadership.

In my training and coaching work, this is a leadership theory I hear espoused almost as much as Servant Leadership. Leaders will say, “I just want to be myself. I don’t want to have to pretend and be somebody I am not. I want to live out my morals and my ethics as I lead.” I think this is what Elliott is saying about friendship. A friend is someone who shows up “just as they are." No pretense. No judgment. Just the ability to be with the other person to listen and support. This means that followers can tell you what they think, and you as a leader will listen without punishing or penalizing them.

Chaff and Grain.

The grain is the good stuff inside a stalk of wheat. The chaff is the outer covering and is not useful for nutrition. This metaphor is that of good and bad, useful and not useful. The leader, coach, or mentor is able to take in the good and the bad together. The follower has developed enough trust in the leader that they can share both the good and the bad, knowing that the leader will take them, sift them, and let the stuff that doesn’t help just blow away while savoring the good stuff.

How are you doing in your leadership, mentoring, or coaching in creating a safe, authentic environment where the good and the bad can be shared?  What are you leaving on the table by not creating this type of culture?

Homework: Have a discussion with a trusted advisor about ways you may be inhibiting trust in your organization. Check your pride. How might you be creating barriers to the performance of your followers because they do not feel safe?

7 Steps to Increasing Your Followers

With all the crazy in our world these days, most leaders I speak with barely have enough time to get their jobs done, let alone spend any significant time catching up on things they enjoy reading. I know for me it has been that way, I am about 3 books behind in my own reading schedule. The other thing I really enjoy that I just have not taken as much time for is keeping up with my journal reading. The journal Leadership is one of my favorites. 

I had a client who needed to reschedule the other day and I jumped on the journal Leadership’s website to see what was posted in the last couple of years. I was really intrigued by the framework of the August 2020 issue from 2 years ago. The entire journal is dedicated to the shift being seen in how effective leadership is being practiced. Here are a couple of the articles:

1. The price of wearing (or not wearing) the crown: The effects of loneliness on leaders and followers

2. Barriers to leadership development: Why is it so difficult to abandon the hero

3. Toward a methodology of studying leadership-as-practice

I find it very interesting to think about the leader not being the hero. For too long, we have been sucked into thinking that the leader will rush in and save us. That the leader is some sort of mystical figure who is smarter, more engaging, or has more energy than the average man.

As I watch other organizations and spend time reading and thinking about this, I am becoming convinced that nothing could be further from the truth.

Even certain personality constructs like Myers-Briggs give homage to types that they say are natural leaders like the ENTJ (see Myers-Briggs for more details). There are so many implicit and explicit biases in this kind of nonsense that the idea is almost laughable.  

Since leadership has such a strong relational component, I am becoming convinced that true leadership is really about whether others will follow. There will always be a consideration given that in certain circumstances people might have to follow. There is some power gradient in play where a person feels they have to tolerate the leader. But this is a leader in name only, or maybe a better term is boss or supervisor. 

True leaders have followers; not because they have to, but because they choose to.

Those following the leader do so because they buy into the vision. They find the work they contribute toward the vision to be interesting and worthy to spend their lives doing. Those in followers have heightened levels of accountability. They feel responsible for the vision and they understand their role in making it happen.

There are very significant trends (all being accelerated by COVID over the past couple of years) in the direction of follower models replacing traditional heroic, leader-centric models. These follower-centric models are replacing what many are now calling the “heroic” leader. The leader is no longer the center of the workflow to create leadership, rather, as Barbara Kellerman writes in her book, Followership, “Followership” implies a relationship between subordinates and superiors and a response of the former to the latter.”   

I really like the idea of followership as it brings into balance the task and the relationship side of the leadership equation. Followership is about empowering teams to higher levels of performance where the leader is setting the vision, building a safe environment, fostering learning, recognizing contributions, and maybe most of all not the focus of the attention.

Are You Creating Followership?

The above question is a good one for leaders in organizations to sit back and ask themselves. Really spend some time reflecting on your ability to create an environment where people choose to follow your vision, and not because they have to for some organization hierarchy or power gradient reason.  

Here is a little checklist of 7 things to reflect on your own ability to create more followers:

1. Clearly describing the vision - In a few words can I articulate our purpose?

2. Repeatedly giving the vision - How many times a day do I bring the work people back to the vision?

3. Reciprocal trust - Do followers feel psychologically safe to be themselves so they can contribute? Do you really understand their relational needs that unlock their true potential?

4. Learning - Do we encourage learning including: asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, and even making mistakes?

5. Expectations - Are they as clear to your followers as they are in your own head?

6. Coaching - Do you really want to win; or do you just want to be seen as a good coach?

7. Two-Tier feedback - Are you willing to examine original assumptions that were made or do you just give feedback on observed behavior?

I gave you these 7 ideas and questions not really as a model for followership, but more of a checklist to ask yourself or others around you how you are really doing at fostering the relational side of leadership.

I would love to have your perspective on increasing your followers and followership. If you have a comment, please put it below. Love hearing from you.

Will These Three Ideas Help You Succeed?

What questions have you been asking yourself as you build your success story? Perhaps, one is, “As HR Vice President, what does leadership development look like?” Or, “As a sales leader, how can I balance work and family?” Or possibly, “As a Church Pastor, what do I need to do to grow my congregation?”

These are tough, yet realistic problems that we face as professionals, but I think we need to reframe the questions.

Any coach (whether formal or informal, external or internal, paid or volunteer, executive, life or organizational) must have the skill of listening and then reframing questions. Reframing a question provides a different perspective on the issue at hand.

As a coach, it is my job to reframe questions in order to help you get to the heart of the matter. Rather than asking about leadership development, I would challenge you to ask the real question, “What do I need to do to get promoted to my next role in the company?”

Or if you’re a sales leader, what I really hear you asking is, “If I sacrifice time with my family, will it be worth it financially?”

Or to the pastor, I would reframe the question as, “What should I be doing to grow my church? I am doing everything the books say to do, but nothing is working!”

Please don’t misunderstand my point. I do think that people want to know how you approach things, how you set goals, how you solve problems, how you prioritize resources, and how you assess risk. But, the answers they want will direct back at themselves.

Enter the world of what psychologists call self-efficacy.

Research On Self-Efficacy

Self-Efficacy is a fancy term for belief in yourself; confidence in the capabilities and talents you have been given and developed. Studies have shown that the confidence you have in your capabilities affects your performance and is linked to happiness, satisfaction, and well-being. All of these attributes in one way or another link to success.

Research published in the December 2016 issue of the Consulting Psychology Journal outlines that you can help those you coach be more successful by following three simple ideas:

1. Invest the Time: The confidence of the person increased as the coaching relationship evolved over time. As you coach others over the course of your conversation, notice how their confidence increases toward the coaching objective. When it does, make them aware that you are seeing this increase in confidence.

2. Say it Out Loud: The more the client verbally articulates their confidence, the higher the achievement of the goal actually becomes. “I am going to do this” types of statements show confidence in the client's ability. The more they make commitments out loud, the increased likelihood of belief in themselves.

3. Ask the Right Question at the Right Time: In this study, questions asked by coaches fell into three categories:

   • Open-ended - “What do you want to do?"

   • Proposing Solutions - “Could your search for other companies that offer better possibilities?”

   • Provide Support - “You know what? That sounds like a great idea."

The research points to proposing solutions as the only effective method of triggering self-efficacy statements in the very first coaching session. While the other two methods are also valid, they merely enhanced the confidence of the other person throughout the coaching engagement.

As you work with and coach others on your team, especially if you have more of a long-term relationship, focus on asking them open-ended questions and providing support for the ideas they bring to the table. Too many of us fall into the trap of proposing solutions because it makes us feel better about ourselves or like we added real value. I would argue that the value you bring is the investment of time and the belief in the person you are coaching. The research says that the value of you proposing solutions early in a coaching relationship does little to improve the confidence or belief in the mind of the person you are working with.

How would your work environment change if you focused on building the confidence of others in your organization? Will these three ideas we discussed help you succeed? When you are coaching others, resist the temptation to make the coaching about you by offering advice and providing them solutions. Really focus on practicing open-ended questions and providing your client the support they need.

Is It Too Late to Restart My Goals for This Year?

We are almost halfway through the year! Time flies. How are you doing with the goals you set earlier this year? Have you accomplished them or have you gotten off track? It’s not uncommon for people to not want to review their goals, especially if they know they have not made the progress they hoped for. The feeling of discouragement can become overwhelming when we see a lack of progress and know we aren't where we had hoped to be by now when the goal was originally set.

In January, you set your goals for the new year. Let's say you wanted to exercise three days a week for an hour. This goal is like getting on an airplane. You are all buckled in your seat and ready for take-off. You know the goal. It is written down and you feel comfortable with where you are going.

The plane starts down the runway, shakes, and surges as it gains speed. All of a sudden, it is February. You likely have taken a couple of steps toward goal attainment. You are gaining speed and you can feel the inertia of the plane starting to lift off. In regard to your goal, maybe you called around to see what gym would best fit your needs. You went out and bought new exercise clothes and maybe some shoes. The feeling and speed of the change felt good.

Then comes March. The plane reaches 30,000 feet, the seatbelt sign comes off, and the plane levels out, and the exercise doldrums set in. You no longer feel the rush of take-off. You no longer can sense the speed of the plane. This is when goal attainment becomes difficult. When it feels like you are not making any progress at all.

The Feeling Is Not Real

The interesting thing to me is the lie our emotions give us in this context. While the positive “dopamine” feeling of starting something new may be gone, the important thing to realize is that the plane is still going 450 miles an hour, even though you can’t feel it. You are still moving. You are still experiencing progress. Even though half of the year is gone and we have said goodbye to March, April, and soon May, YOU are still flying. Realize your plane is in the air. You have not crashed. YOU HAVE NOT FAILED!

Instead of assuming that you are way off track and that you've already failed, step back and look at your goal objectively.

Is It a S-M-A-R-T Goal?

Most likely you've heard the acronym “SMART” and even used it when setting goals, but it is a helpful tool to check up on your goals or even get to help you get back on track.

• S: Was It Specific? When getting specific with your goal, consider why and how you want to achieve it and not merely the definition of your goal. Perhaps you want to work on developing young leaders. Your “why” might be because your want to prepare them for more responsibility in the future and your “how” will be through professional development workshops or one-on-one mentoring sessions.

• M: Was It Measurable? Are you able to see where you are right now and where you'll end up? If you are not able to track the progress of obtaining the goal along the way, you'll have a hard time seeing if you succeeded in the end or staying motivated along the way.

• A-R: Was It Achievable and Realistic? The A and R in our acronym go hand in hand. When you figure out your goal, how to do it, and its deadline, you have to think about the parameters and circumstances that will make it possible. At this point, something may have come up in the last 6 months that have changed your circumstance and deterred your goal. That's okay. Life happens. Instead of seeing it as a failure or no longer attainable, just think about what changes need to be made to your goal, the plan, or the timeline. Don't be tempted to start from scratch, instead, make less work for yourself by simply re-evaluating and tweaking what's already in progress and then steer it back on track.

• T: Was it Time-bound? Some of you may have set goals that you've already completed. Others might feel the pressure of time ticking away. Use the time as positive pressure to get the work done, not to stress you out. If you feel constrained, give yourself a break and allow yourself more time. If it's a project with a deadline, reach out to your team or manager and see how you can work together to get it completed. Also, consider how you are using your time and what could be distracting you from focusing on your goal? What do you need to implement personally to give yourself more time and focus to achieve this goal?

Most importantly, remember the WHY behind your goal and the reasons that motivated you to set the goal in the first place. Visualize what it will look like for you and your team when that goal is accomplished. Grab a coach or mentor and share with them your SMART goal. Listen to any advice they have for you.

Be encouraged by the progress you have made so far. Keep yourself in the air and land that goal safely on the ground. You still have 6 months!

4 Strategies to Prevent Burnout

I'm trying a little something new today and I have recorded a short video for you to enjoy in place of my usual written blog. Click below to check it out:

Additional blog posts that are related to burnout are listed here:

• One Easy Way to Avoid Burnout as a Leader

• 3-Step Recipe for a Productivity Reset

• Are You Dealing Effectively With Emotional Exhaustion?

As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

Thank you for reading and listening!

Answer Just One Question to Access Your Emotional Intelligence

I saw an article one day in my online news feed. It had a catchy title, something that really caught my eye regarding the “COVID fog" people are experiencing after they got over the virus. I clicked on it to explore what the author had to say about the topic, and about 4 minutes into the read, the curiosity that caused me to open it still had not been satisfied.  I had to spend 7 minutes to get to the main point, the reason I wanted to read the post in the first place. It was very frustrating. 

I just wanted to know what the title of the article had promised to deliver, which should have taken about 45 seconds, not 7 minutes. I get the whole advertising business model that drives this kind of writing, but frankly, I find it very annoying! Actually, I HATE it!

So, because that tactic annoys me so much, here is the one question I promised you in the title of the article. (I timed it...you’re about 45 seconds into the reading so far…)

Which of the following statements best describes when a leader is being emotional?

1. Their reactions tend to be knee-jerk, or not well thought through.

2. They snap in anger when something isn't right.

3. They say to themselves, "I am so stupid, why did I do that?”

4. They yell when tension is high to get their point across.

5. They are overly confident in their position even when the facts show there is good reason to question.

6. The overly optimistic way they present themselves doesn't fit the reality of the situation.

7. All of the above.

At this point, I hope the answer is obvious. All of these answers show that there is a fine line between expressing emotion and being emotional. I hope you take a deep breath and think about that line before you read on. 

Perhaps even pull out a sheet of paper and a pen, then spend a few moments journaling what you are thinking about this one-question quiz. Go ahead, I'll wait for you to come back.

I am really interested in what you think about the difference between showing emotional intelligence and being emotional.

The Underlying Philosophy 

Since all of the thoughts we as humans have come with an emotion attached, then really what exists is a range of emotion attached to any thought. The person who goes into a meeting with a "poker face" thinking that they will not express emotion on a topic is actually giving those they are interacting with within the room some type of clue as to where they stand. “At ease” is just the opposite end of the “glad” emotional expression range from “ecstatic”, just like “bothered” is the low end of the “mad” emotional expression range from “furious.”

So, if all our thoughts and behaviors have some emotional component to them, then the question to me becomes, how do I pick the right emotion to fit the moment?

To put it another way, How do I display emotion without being emotional?

 The Real Answer To the Question 

The primary idea of being emotionally intelligent is knowing when to display the right emotion, at the right time, for the right context. If you get it right, then that shows intelligence. If you get it wrong, then maybe not so much intelligence.

How does a leader:

1. Not give knee-jerk responses?

   • They balance their lack of impulse control with empathy. Show care and compassion for the other person's needs, not the immediate gratification of your own.

2. Not become angry when something isn't right?

   • They balance their lack of emotional self-awareness with Interpersonal relationships. Prioritize the mutual satisfaction of the relationship over your own selfishness.

3. Not talk down to themselves?

   • They balance the lack of self-regard with optimism. Practice positive self-talk and stop seeing failure as an outcome.

4. Not yell to get a point across?

   • They balance assertiveness with emotional flexibility. Find a different emotion on the “Mad Scale”, substituting irritated for furious.

5. Display overconfidence in a position?

   • They balance their strong “self-actualization“ needs with “reality testing”. This is done by taking a pause and being curious about facts rather than fixating on a position.

I think you get the idea. If a leader is being emotional, then the idea is to strengthen another emotional competency. If the leader is prone to an overly optimistic explanatory style, then strengthening the competency of reality testing will create the needed balance.

I compare this to a weightlifter who wants to get their body into condition. The lifter just loves to do arms, focusing all the development efforts on building biceps and triceps. They go into the gym every day and all they do is lift as much weight as they can with their arms. After a while, the arms look really strong. However, without giving some attention to strengthening the legs, the body isn't really in condition.

The same is true for emotionally intelligent leaders. The key is balance. The real signature to the emotionally intelligent leader is not how much confidence they have, what great relationships they have, or even how compassionate they are. Emotionally Intelligent leaders need balance to effectively lead a group of followers in a healthy and meaningful way.

The 7-Minute Point.

I figured I don't ever have to bury the lead in my blogging because I don't advertise. I don't sell ads and I never will. I don't write for revenue. I write my articles for all of you., to stimulate thinking on the topic I am most passionate about - Organizational Leadership. So if you hate ads too in your own personal blogosphere, then why not pass this post on to a few people you think might enjoy it? Feel free to share with confidence, because we will never sell to them!

Now some of you are saying, there is no way that you can assess someone's emotional intelligence with just one question. Most models for assessing emotional and social functioning are built upon multiple constructs such as Self-Awareness, Emotional Expression, Interpersonal Relationships, Stress-Management, and Problem-Solving.

So how could it be possible, with just one question, to ascertain your emotional intelligence? After all, most assessments for this leadership trait have at least 100 questions that will give you an answer to this question. I completely understand the argument that the details and intricacies of each of these domains are so nuanced and complex that you need questions that come at each of them from multiple perspectives to access a person's skill in any particular domain.

All of the very detailed complexities of assessing a person's emotional intelligence do require distinguishing lenses to give perspective as to how a leader might generally show up. If a "score" is going to be given for a particular trait such as Emotional Flexibility then I totally agree that you need several, if not many, questions to give a numeric level of ability.

However, in the crucible of leadership, when the pressure is really on you do you have the time or the mental resources to stop and think about the skill level of your Emotional Flexibility? I think not. And that is only one of 15 or more competencies in the area of emotional intelligence that you would have to assess to determine your overall emotional intelligence and how the skills are serving you in any particular moment.

The emotional component is too complex to really deal with at any given moment. Most of us have things we are really strong with, such as our self-regard or optimism. These serve you well most of the time. 

The question I started asking myself is this, "Are there times when my emotional intelligence strength is overplayed?" The answer for most of us is a resounding yes. 

If the person who is so empathic doesn't balance it with ensuring that relationships are mutually satisfying, they will at some point burn out. It is inevitable.

If as leaders we can ask ourselves this one question, then perhaps we will gain more enhanced followers. Then we could turn around as leaders and know that the people who are following us really want to be there.

After all, isn't that the point?

Patience and Urgency - Part 1

I received an interesting email from a leader last week asking me if I take requests for blog topics. I wrote back to her and let her know, YES I love it when folks engage and are looking for tips or tricks to enhance their leadership life. The question was so well-formed that I asked her for permission to quote it. 

I love leaders who care about their organizations! I really get the sense that this leader both wants to personally be brought into what senior leadership is seeing and cares enough to wrestle with such difficult questions.  

As a leader, if someone in your organization wants to go to lunch or grab a virtual coffee and ask a question like this, I think you should find a way to give them a raise. I have worked alongside too many folks who would just throw their hands up in the air and cast blame on the organization for the lack of productivity. What I love about this question is that there is no blame here, just a leader seeking to contribute. 

The Question

Her question was:

“If you're taking requests, how about something on patience with organizational readiness during times of change?

Lately, we have received several calls to action from senior leadership that incremental changes are not enough...we must make big changes (and in a relatively short time frame).

Oh, and all of this is supposed to occur in a matrix organization devoid of hierarchy.   I find that I struggle to find patience when we identify high-impact opportunities (to do things better, faster, more cost-effectively) that, in reality, will still take 6-18 months to persuade all the affected stakeholders to even START.  No tears or anger, just a lack of productivity.”

I am going to dissect the question as a series, a multi-week post. I am particularly intrigued by this question because at its core, the organization seems to be asking for two different things. Not only are there multiple requests, but they also seem like they are polar opposites.

Patience…………………………….and…………………………………….Urgency

How can we have patience and urgency at the same time? 

On the surface, these attributes seem to be time responses to the same trigger. And in some sense they are. 

When faced with dilemmas like this, I like to separate out the attributes and see if they really are on the same linear plane. Are they really polar opposites?  If we separate the attributes and put each on its own line, can we find any new or interesting ways to look at the problem?

My good friend and organizational change expert Dr. Drew Boyd, writer of Inside the Box Thinking would probably call this “division”. You see, Drew maintains that innovation does not come from what we do not know, but from what we do. So if we give our problem a new definition, we might learn from it. So I did the following:

Patience…………….

And 

Urgency……………

As soon as I wrote the problem on two different lines, the thought came to me that we are likely talking about two different things entirely.  I went back and read the email that my leader friend wrote to me and saw the problem anew. Here is what I am now seeing:

Individual Patience

And

Organizational Urgency

If we put each of these on some sort of linear graphic it could look something like this:

Individual Patience……….and…….Individual Impulsiveness

Organizational Urgency…and……Organizational Stagnation

What this graphic representation does for me is it helps me see how I need strategies for both myself and the organization. The problem with leaving the attributes on the same line is that my brain sees them as the same thing and if I have emotion about them, one will spill over into the other.

By separating out the issues, I can gain clarity and formulate a plan. So now that the question is clearer I can search for better answers to both of these problems.

How can I be more patient?

How can I help the organization gain a sense of urgency?

Next week, in part two, I am going to answer both of these questions and give some tips and strategies that leaders can use in their everyday practice. 

Until next week, I have an assignment for you:

Sit for 15 minutes each day with your journal and reflect on how you can be more patient. 

I really want you to try this. Don’t do anything else while you do this exercise (well maybe have a cup of coffee or hot tea). Just sit quietly with no radio or distractions on and write what it feels like for you to be patient.

If you do this exercise for a day or two, I would love it if you would write a comment below and let me know what the experience was like for you.

Three Ways to Improve Communication in a Hybrid Work World

Omicron.

Like it or not we are all either learning the Greek alphabet for the first time or being reminded of a time when we first tried to master the 24 letters.

Whether Omicron wreaks havoc on society or fizzles out as fast as it came, our virtual work world seems to be here to stay. One thing the Coronavirus pandemic has caused organizations to rethink is how work is done. What people do has remained pretty consistent, but how they get it done has made some seismic shifts, causing in part what some are calling a “talent migration.” 

From my vantage point, an overwhelming part of the great talent migration has to do with workplace flexibility. I also think that this movement is away from what we all knew as a traditional flex model to hybrid work. In the traditional flex model, an employee could work (wink, wink) a day or so from home when needed. Some organizations even went as far as to declare a specified ‘work from home’ day. The shift that employees are asking for, or perhaps even requiring, is that they want to work from home indefinitely, or want to only come into an office only when absolutely necessary.

This shift is only in its infancy as workers reprioritize what is important in their lives. Organizations need to brace themselves for new levels of competition and not having as much talent around to compete. 

At the end of the day, what will win this tug of war is the culture of the organization. Those organizations with great cultures will have much less migration than those that merely think they have a great culture. 

There will always be a story of a person who leaves and triples his/her salary. I think we all tip our hat to them and say “good for you.” However, as leaders, let's not be fooled into thinking that people always leave for money. 

Employees want to be fairly compensated for what they do. The leadership and cultural battle is going to be waged not on what the associate is asked to do, but on how they can do it.

I think the call for us as leaders is to engage strategic thinking around flexible, hybrid work. In leadership, the future belongs to the curious and flexible. Those who can engage a growth mindset, be curious about what the talent is looking for, and be agile with the changing business landscape will evolve and win. 

Those with a fixed mindset may get their way. The question is for how long. 

Like it or not, hybrid work is here to stay, in some form or fashion. Even long after all the Greek SARs viruses have mutated away or herd immunity is achieved, some mix of working from home for knowledge workers is a new reality.

Like many of you, I have had to learn to adapt to this new business reality. Everything from virtual doctor appointments, to picking out tile for a remodeled bathroom, to individual and group coaching sessions have gone from face-to-face interactions to a virtual environment. I am realizing that no matter how much I want work to go back to the way it was before COVID, it will not.

Since I am imploring leaders to have a growth mindset around hybrid work, I have been challenging myself to see what encouragement I could offer to enhance the skills of leaders to retain talent. This has led me to observe how people are interacting virtually. 

Most of us have gotten past some of the initial communication disruptions like dogs barking in the background, or cats climbing on keyboards, or people walking in the background of a video chat. The struggle has become about being more effective with people when you are not in the same room.

Three Ways to Improve Communication in a Hybrid Work World

1. Focus on Energy. Judith Glaser in her book "Conversational Intelligence" encourages leaders to make communication about the exchange of energy and not information. She calls this Transformational Communication and it is a Share-Discover model versus an Ask-Tell dynamic. When you focus on the energy in the conversation, you create space by exploring others' perspectives, innovating, and creating. As a leader, you move from listening to the other person to protect yourself and your idea to instead listening to ensure you connect with the other person and they feel heard. The skill to develop here as a leader is for you to ask questions you don’t have answers to and to help the other person feel heard.
   

2. Principle of Physicality. This is a term I coined some years ago when working with sales professionals who had to be ready at a moment's notice to communicate with a customer. Pay attention to your physical environment. Get some good feedback from others on what your physical environment looks like on a video call.

   1. What is your background? It doesn’t have to be perfect; it should be professional.

   2. How is your camera positioned; are you looking at it or is it pointing down at the top of your head? 

   3. What kind of lighting do you have? If you are not well lit, people can't see you and it is hard to develop the energy needed.

   4. How are you connecting with audio? Can you maintain a consistent audio connection for an entire call?
      

3. Give Trust. Many of us, with a new hybrid model, are going to have to rethink what trust means to us. The employment agreement we have had with folks has always been built on trust. The difference is we thought as long as we were coming into an office and could see them that they were working. With the knowledge workers of today, leaders need to learn to set clear expectations for what and how work is to be approached and then trust that people are doing it. If there is a problem or a gap, then create psychological safety to address the gap. Don’t fall into the trap that the performance gap is the hybrid work model. You don’t know this gap would not have existed if the person was coming into an office every day. Remember, the employment agreement is still built on trust. As leaders, we may need to spend some time thinking about what this means for us. If assumptions in how people work are changing, what do we need to change to accommodate?

Flexibility is a significant part of a leader's emotional intelligence. Understanding and being flexible with how you feel about things prevents you from developing a fixed mindset. Stay open. Stay curious. If people are migrating away from your organization, work hard to find the real reason why.

Leaders, Avoid These 5 Coaching Mistakes

As an executive coach, a common question I have to work through at the beginning of a new coaching engagement is

“Am I working with the right person?”

There are two reasons I find myself asking this question:

1. The person I am working with seems to be just as talented as their supervisor.

2. The people I coach are really good at what they do. They are technical experts in their field.

It doesn’t take me long to answer my own question. Yes, I am working with the right person. The higher you go in organizations, everyone is talented (for the most part) and the people are experts in their field. However, this does not mean they are experts in leadership.

Most of my coaching is helping to groom people for higher levels of leadership. Often there is some tactical, behavioral development that needs to occur.

It is the idea that Marshall Goldsmith writes about in his book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

I have had over 750 hours of coaching experience in the last 3 years and I have noticed something very interesting.

We all make mistakes.

Not a revelation, I know, but to me it is an interesting observation. Why? Because I wonder where organizations might be if not for the common mistakes I see them making in regard to coaching their leaders.

• Would turnover decrease?

• Would we unleash talent?

• Would customers have more delight?

• Would we ensure a solid foundation for future generations?

Enough Philosophy

Here are 5 coaching mistakes I observe. As you reflect on these mistakes, ask yourself what traps you might be falling into.

1. Confusing your needs with the needs of the person being coached
   
   Depending on your level of leadership, you are responsible for coaching your team to make one or more of the following connections:
   

   1. The mission of the organization to the vision

   2. The purpose of the organization to the mission

   3. The values you aspire to the purpose

   4. The guiding principles to the values

   5. The strategy to the guiding principles

   6. The tactics to the strategy

   7. Individual behaviors that implement tactics
      

   Let’s be honest, most of our coaching focuses on the last one. We are so in the weeds trying to control others that we often lose sight of what the person really needs.
   
   Rather than focusing always on whether or not they are “doing” things exactly as you want them, perhaps you need to go back and connect them to something that has more depth and meaning.
   
   I believe that most people get up in the morning and really want to do a good job for the company. Too many of us as leaders can not get out of our own way. We feel if we are not “doing,” we are not working.
   
   Before you coach someone, step back and ask yourself “What is really going on here? What does this person need from me today?"
   

2. You say it (or yell it) and they produce
   
   I wrote about this one in my book a few years back 7 Secrets of an Emotionally Intelligent Coach.
   
   We live in such a fast paced world that we lose our sense of time. We have instant access to so many things today that 10 or 20 years ago might have taken weeks or months. I no longer have to go through an administrative assistant or send a letter to see if someone can meet with me. I knock out an email or send a text and have a response, often 5 minutes after I sent it.
   
   I heard best selling author, John Townsend, (author of Boundaries, and other great books) give a great analogy the other day. He said it is like standing in front of an apple tree and yelling at the fruit to grow faster; all because the leader wants bigger or more fruit.
   
   Some things just don’t work this way. Some things take time to grow, develop, and mature, no matter how fast you want them.
   
   I recommend you spend some time doing what psychologists call “attuning” with your folks. The idea is to bring into harmony; to tune. The skill required is to connect with others at a deeper and more vulnerable level. This goes beyond being nice or friendly to really be able to listen well and understand the emotions and motivations that are the foundations for behavior.
   
   People will do amazing things for leaders they feel connected with.
   

3. This is their personality so they will always behave this way
   
   I have just about had it with personality profiling. All of them. From Myers-Briggs, to Insights, to the Enneagram, PDI, Horoscopes.
   
   What we are learning about human personality is that it is contextual. No one person is one way all the time.
   
   Those of you who love personality tests, especially those who are certified on them, will say that your model talks about how we need to be flexible and that this is an important aspect.
   
   Right. And if we need to flex, then we are not one way all the time.
   
   The problem is, as leaders, we put people in boxes. We create implicit biases around what people can and can not do based upon their level of introversion or extroversion. We judge, we label, we categorize, and way too often, we are dead wrong.

   
   According to Adam Grant, a leader in the psychology field out of the University of Pennsylvania, the statistical reliability and validity data around these assessments are just not strong enough to do with them the kinds of things organizations do.
   
   As coaches, we need to stop making judgments on personality and understand the context the person is. None of us is always a certain way. Let’s get in and coach people to understand more of what is at the root of what they are doing, not doing, or more likely doing, just not the way you want them too.
   

4. The person being coached is a robot
   
   Just because you run 24/7/365 and are always on, doesn’t mean everyone else is or that it is healthy. We have to start thinking more about corporate health, or better yet, the health of the people who work for us.
   
   How are you coaching your team to take better care of themselves?
   
   How are you modeling this behavior?
   
   If you give someone who already has a full place more to do, how are you helping them prioritize the work? They can not begin to know what is in your mind regarding how they should plan to deliver without your coaching and insights.
   
   Let’s remember that the people we are working with are just that: people.
   
   They have families and other communities outside of work. They have spouses, parents, and kids. They have all kinds of relationships they care about and care for. So, if someone on your team has a family member pass away, they are going to need time to mourn this loss. Just because they are back at work in 3 days (which is a travesty) doesn’t mean they are all the way back. If someone just got a diagnosis of liver cancer, for crying out loud, they are really not thinking about when they will have that report on your desk.
   
   Sure, you have a job to do. I get it. A lot of people are depending on you to drive results. But really, come on…just have a heart.
   

5. Your way is always the best way
   
   This one is a real mindset shift. It takes:
   

   1. Self-Awareness - Realize you don’t know what you don’t know. You might be really far removed from reality.

   2. Self-Regulation - Allow yourself the ability to think and not emotionally react.

   3. Humility - You don’t know everything so how can you get curious with others and develop a learn as we go frame of mind.

   4. Trust - Let them experiment with new and different ways and approaches.
      

   This really is about how you can create a learning organization, one that inspires people to creativity and innovation. At the very least, if there is a prescriptive way for them to work, be open to hearing other ideas on how the work could be done. People they will be more engaged if they know you want to hear their ideas.

As I reflect on this list, I realize it is very relationally focused.

That is because most of the time we hire smart, talented, skilled people who want to do a good job.

Therefore, it is the relationship with the leader that inhibits performance.

Humble thought.

5 Coaching Mistakes Every Leader Should Avoid

As an executive coach, a common question I have to work through at the beginning of a new coaching engagement is

“Am I working with the right person?”

There are two reasons I find myself asking this question:

1. The person I am working with seems to be just as talented as their supervisor.

2. The people I coach are really good at what they do. They are technical experts in their field.

It doesn’t take me long to answer my own question. Yes, I am working with the right person. The higher you go in organizations, everyone is talented (for the most part) and the people are experts in their field. However, this does not mean they are experts in leadership.

Most of my coaching is helping to groom people for higher levels of leadership. Often there is some tactical, behavioral development that needs to occur.

It is the idea that Marshall Goldsmith writes about in his book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

I have had over 750 hours of coaching experience in the last 3 years and I have noticed something very interesting.

We all make mistakes.

Not a revelation, I know, but to me it is an interesting observation. Why? Because I wonder where organizations might be if not for the common mistakes I see them making in regard to coaching their leaders.

• Would turnover decrease?

• Would we unleash talent?

• Would customers have more delight?

• Would we ensure a solid foundation for future generations?

Enough Philosophy

Here are 5 coaching mistakes I observe. As you reflect on these mistakes, ask yourself what traps you might be falling into.

1. Confusing your needs with the needs of the person being coached
   
   Depending on your level of leadership, you are responsible for coaching your team to make one or more of the following connections:
   

   1. The mission of the organization to the vision

   2. The purpose of the organization to the mission

   3. The values you aspire to the purpose

   4. The guiding principles to the values

   5. The strategy to the guiding principles

   6. The tactics to the strategy

   7. Individual behaviors that implement tactics
      

   Let’s be honest, most of our coaching focuses on the last one. We are so in the weeds trying to control others that we often lose sight of what the person really needs.
   
   Rather than focusing always on whether or not they are “doing” things exactly as you want them, perhaps you need to go back and connect them to something that has more depth and meaning.
   
   I believe that most people get up in the morning and really want to do a good job for the company. Too many of us as leaders can not get out of our own way. We feel if we are not “doing,” we are not working.
   
   Before you coach someone, step back and ask yourself “What is really going on here? What does this person need from me today?"
   

2. You say it (or yell it) and they produce
   
   I wrote about this one in my book a few years back 7 Secrets of an Emotionally Intelligent Coach.
   
   We live in such a fast paced world that we lose our sense of time. We have instant access to so many things today that 10 or 20 years ago might have taken weeks or months. I no longer have to go through an administrative assistant or send a letter to see if someone can meet with me. I knock out an email or send a text and have a response, often 5 minutes after I sent it.
   
   I heard best selling author, John Townsend, (author of Boundaries, and other great books) give a great analogy the other day. He said it is like standing in front of an apple tree and yelling at the fruit to grow faster; all because the leader wants bigger or more fruit.
   
   Some things just don’t work this way. Some things take time to grow, develop, and mature, no matter how fast you want them.
   
   I recommend you spend some time doing what psychologists call “attuning” with your folks. The idea is to bring into harmony; to tune. The skill required is to connect with others at a deeper and more vulnerable level. This goes beyond being nice or friendly to really be able to listen well and understand the emotions and motivations that are the foundations for behavior.
   
   People will do amazing things for leaders they feel connected with.
   

3. This is their personality so they will always behave this way
   
   I have just about had it with personality profiling. All of them. From Myers-Briggs, to Insights, to the Enneagram, PDI, Horoscopes.
   
   What we are learning about human personality is that it is contextual. No one person is one way all the time.
   
   Those of you who love personality tests, especially those who are certified on them, will say that your model talks about how we need to be flexible and that this is an important aspect.
   
   Right. And if we need to flex, then we are not one way all the time.
   
   The problem is, as leaders, we put people in boxes. We create implicit biases around what people can and can not do based upon their level of introversion or extroversion. We judge, we label, we categorize, and way too often, we are dead wrong.

   
   According to Adam Grant, a leader in the psychology field out of the University of Pennsylvania, the statistical reliability and validity data around these assessments are just not strong enough to do with them the kinds of things organizations do.
   
   As coaches, we need to stop making judgments on personality and understand the context the person is. None of us is always a certain way. Let’s get in and coach people to understand more of what is at the root of what they are doing, not doing, or more likely doing, just not the way you want them too.
   

4. The person being coached is a robot
   
   Just because you run 24/7/365 and are always on, doesn’t mean everyone else is or that it is healthy. We have to start thinking more about corporate health, or better yet, the health of the people who work for us.
   
   How are you coaching your team to take better care of themselves?
   
   How are you modeling this behavior?
   
   If you give someone who already has a full place more to do, how are you helping them prioritize the work? They can not begin to know what is in your mind regarding how they should plan to deliver without your coaching and insights.
   
   Let’s remember that the people we are working with are just that: people.
   
   They have families and other communities outside of work. They have spouses, parents, and kids. They have all kinds of relationships they care about and care for. So, if someone on your team has a family member pass away, they are going to need time to mourn this loss. Just because they are back at work in 3 days (which is a travesty) doesn’t mean they are all the way back. If someone just got a diagnosis of liver cancer, for crying out loud, they are really not thinking about when they will have that report on your desk.
   
   Sure, you have a job to do. I get it. A lot of people are depending on you to drive results. But really, come on…just have a heart.
   

5. Your way is always the best way
   
   This one is a real mindset shift. It takes:
   

   1. Self-Awareness - Realize you don’t know what you don’t know. You might be really far removed from reality.

   2. Self-Regulation - Allow yourself the ability to think and not emotionally react.

   3. Humility - You don’t know everything so how can you get curious with others and develop a learn as we go frame of mind.

   4. Trust - Let them experiment with new and different ways and approaches.
      

   This really is about how you can create a learning organization, one that inspires people to creativity and innovation. At the very least, if there is a prescriptive way for them to work, be open to hearing other ideas on how the work could be done. People they will be more engaged if they know you want to hear their ideas.

As I reflect on this list, I realize it is very relationally focused.

That is because most of the time we hire smart, talented, skilled people who want to do a good job.

Therefore, it is the relationship with the leader that inhibits performance.

Humble thought.

3 Reasons People Make Change

A question I am asked quite often in my executive coaching business is, “Do you really think people can change?”

So many in organizations have the idea that a leopard can’t change its spots and they apply this metaphor to the people they lead.. And while it is true that a leopard might not be able to change its fur pattern, that is where the metaphor breaks down. 

Researchers say that every cell in our body will be regenerated at least every 7 to 10 years. So, at a cellular level, I have been at least 6 different people.

The question that is really being asked is, can people grow? And this question comes down to choice. If the leopard could choose to change its spots, would it? If the person sees the need to grow, will they choose it?

While you may not have a choice to change, you for sure can choose whether you grow and develop.

Can people take on different skills, behaviors, or attitudes? Can they grow and develop? The answer to this for me is a resounding YES!

Acceptance 

The real question is not “Can people change?” rather, the question is “Will organizations let them change?”

If a person makes a conscious effort to grow and develop, can the people in the organization see the change? Or, do they walk around in their implicit memory of the person they remember; not who the person is now.

I know a midlevel manager who is a technical expert, holds a high standard, and received feedback that he doesn’t care about people. He worked on his empathy and made progress. He still has trouble, not with his team, but with senior leaders who remember how he used to be.

I know a more senior leader who was overly assertive at times, received feedback, made change, and the question now is, “What if this behavior comes back 2 years from now?”

I know a young leader who actually had to change companies because he could not overcome the reputation of being the entry level marketing guy. 

People grow and are changing all the time. All three of the people above responded to the feedback and were able to grow. And in all three cases, it was others in the organization who could not see the change the person had made. 

Can people change? A resounding YES! 

Do we let them? I sometimes question this. 

Many of you are saying, “Scott, of course I can accept that someone has changed!” And I hear you.

Explicitly, to the point you are aware of it, you probably can. But so many of our thoughts sit in our unconscious. We hold so many implicit biases that sometimes I think our subconscious does not agree with our conscious observation of ourself. I know I struggle with this in my own life. I have people really close to me who have made bad choices over the years. Right now, they are doing well, all signs point to significant change…and here I sit just waiting like a judge in court for them to screw up so I can bang the gavel and say, “See? I told you so!”

We tell ourselves we accept the changes others make, but do we really?

To me, that is the big leadership question of the day. Not can they change, but am I willing to accept the change I am observing?

3 Reasons People Change

First, Intention doesn't equal impact. Some people don't like certain aspects of who they are and they want to change that one thing about themselves, so they will set out a plan to become something they desire.  I think we all have inside of us a picture of our ideal self. That sort of "Disney Princess" of who we want to be. But then there is the real self. The person we really are. More like Ogre in Shrek. Much of the change and growth happens not because of what other people think, but because of who we want to become. This might be a certain character quality, such as being honest. "It’s not that Maria is dishonest, it’s that when I talk with her, I feel like I don't get the entire story."  If Maria gets this feedback, she might say, "I never meant to be dishonest, I just am never sure how interested people are in what I have to say so I cut it short. If they ask questions I give all the information." It is not that Maria's character is evil, it is that her intention for communication is not the impact she is having.

When our intention does not equal the way we come across, this can be a very powerful motivator for change.  

Second, they have suffered enough. The current way they are showing up is not getting them what they want. Pain can be a very powerful motivator. We see this one in action all the time. People leave marriages when there has been abuse. People change jobs, not because they don't like the work, but the Gallup organization tells us via their research most leave because they don't feel connected to their supervisor. These folks end up running from something. It is the person in an organization who just cannot overcome a deficit that was exposed early in their career. For whatever reason, even if they change, the organization just can't seem to get past it.  "See, there goes Gary again, he is your best friend when he needs something but when he is finished with you it is like he has no further need for you."  Gary might say “None of this is true, that is not me.” Or he might say “I feel like that is not me, but I will work hard to show how I can maintain relationships.” Maybe Gary is a super focused person. This hyperfocus is seen in some cases as a gift to get things done and in other cases stand-offish because he is focused on the task at hand and not the relationships around him.

If Gary can not rebrand himself, and if there is not organizational forgiveness, he often feels that it is best if he moves on. In the famous words of Lebron James when he left Cleveland, "I'm taking my talent to South Beach.”

Third, they want more out of life. Some people when they are handed lemons say, "Hey thanks...free lemons!” Other people go out and make lemonade, something sweet and delicious. Some folks in organizations just take what comes along. If something good comes their way then they say “Hey look! I just got something good!” Other folks really want more out of life and their career. They want more challenge or responsibility. They have a strong desire to learn and to grow. But there is a catch. They have a reputation. You know, that’s Charlie the marketing guy. What? He wants to be a marketing director, well he is good with the data but can he lead people? I don’t think so, because I knew a guy like him once and….  So, in organizations, if people want more, and we see the talent, the question is how do we keep them? They want more, let’s find a way to give it to them.

As much as we want to try sometimes, we can not change other people. The more we try to understand who they are, who they have been created to become, the more helpful we are. Most of us need to stop trying to change others and just dig in and really understand who they are. Help people think about who they want to be in 5 or 10 years. Where do they see themselves? Does the current trajectory of behavior or skill set get them to the desired state? 

Some people are pretty happy with who they are. Some folks not so much, and they really want to become someone different.

So, back to what I think the question really is…if someone puts in the work, no matter the motivation or desire for change, can you accept it when they do?

Perhaps it isn’t a question of whether they can change, but can YOU?

Have a great week!

7 Steps To Effective Coaching

There are times when I want to start new things but hesitate because I am afraid I won’t know what to do. I felt this way for a long time with Facebook and LinkedIn. Everyone was doing it, it seemed simple and fun, but I didn’t want to look silly if I couldn't figure it out. I didn't know what to do, so I sat on the sideline and watched rather than jumping in and learning. I felt with same way with this blog. For over a year, I wrestled with the idea. Should I start blogging? What would I say? What would other people think about what I had to say? All this negativity swirled around in my mind.

Then one day I listened to a podcast by Michael Hyatt. I remember Michael saying something like, “Stop thinking about it and start doing it." He gave 5 simple steps that I followed to start my blog. And shazam! Here we are today. Those steps gave me the confidence I needed to start something I wanted to do.

This got me thinking; There are probably people out there that have this similar problem. Maybe there are people hesitant to coach others simply because they don’t know where to start. Maybe this is you! If only you had an outline of steps to take that would give you the confidence you need to do it.

This led me to reflect on what I do when I get a coaching client for the first time and outline the major ingredients that go into every coaching engagement that I do. Please enjoy my recipe for a successful coaching engagement in 7 simple steps below and try putting them to practice.

(I think this model is transferable. So if you are a professional coach, a supervisor of employees, or a Mom or Dad coaching a youth soccer team, following these 7 steps can mean the difference for your outcome being successful!)

7 Steps To Successful Coaching

• Begin With an Open Mind Coaching never begins in a vacuum. We all come into coaching relationships with biases. Coaches must come to clients with an open mind. The client must be seen as being a whole and healthy person. While there are times when you will have received information from others, focus on what the client is saying to you.

• Get to Know Your Client It is hard to coach without knowing more information about your client. Find out more about who they are, what they do, their life story, and what they hope to accomplish. Consider putting together a series of questions that could apply to any client you serve. Personally, I use multiple types of assessments with my clients.

• Confirm With the Client It is always important that you validate the collected data with the client. You want the client to be confident that you understand their perspective on what is happening, why the did what they did, or what is the genesis of how they are thinking or feeling.

• Compare the Data to a Standard Once the client agrees with the collected data, you'll compare it to an acceptable standard. The client must agree that the standard is acceptable. If they do not, then the data may become meaningless because the objective of what the data revealed could become irrelevant. For example, I had a client who gave the appearance of being arrogant. The data we collected from others in the organization said this person’s primary objective was to get their own way all the time. This behavior is the polar opposite of what is expected in the organization: being collaborative. Before I can coach the person to a more collaborative style, they have to agree that collaboration is the right standard. Once this happens we can begin work on the arrogance. If collaboration isn’t the mutually agreed upon goal then it is tough to improve the behavior.

• Identify Gaps Gaps are the space that exist between the client's current behavior and the agreed upon standard. They are the difference between where the client is now and where they would like to be in the future.It is useful to talk these gaps out and to get examples of where they have taken place. Coaches should always be looking for gaps between current and expected performance.

• Set a Plan to Close the Gaps When planning with your clients, develop a simple plan that is laser focused on one or two items. When we give people too much we lose focus and the person runs the risk of being overwhelmed. When examining the performance standard I use the Stop/Start/Continue model. Here's how it works:

  • What behaviors do they need to stop?

  • What behaviors do they need to start?

  • What behaviors need to continue?

    • Do not short change the "continue" aspect. Often by stopping and starting a few simple things, people will see dramatic change. Most of the time they are doing a lot of things right, which you want to encourage to continue.

    • Establish a Date to Follow-Up It is my opinion that this step is where most coaching fails. There is no date set to follow-up, no check-in’s to see how the person is doing, and little to no interaction at all once a plan is put in place. Follow-up with those you coach is the most important part of the coaching relationship! I recommend scheduling all follow-up meetings with your client at the end of your sessions together. This will enforce some accountability on their end and help you maintain the relationship.

Coaching is a valuable skill for helping others become the best person they desire to become. Coaching skills are important tools that anyone in a leadership position needs to possess. Whether you have employees on your team or you are responsible for a group of 8-year-old girls on a soccer field, coaching is the transportation vehicle you use to help an idea become a behavior.

Homework

Identify a person in your life who needs your coaching, or better yet someone who is already getting your coaching. Think about whether you have followed all 7 steps to successful coaching within that relationship. Is there any step that you have missed? How can you use these 7 steps to coach yourself to improve your own coaching outcomes? We would love to hear from you regarding what you think about this process. Leave us a comment below!