Leading About

Welcome to the International Executive Coaches Forum

Welcome to Leading About, the blog of the founders of International Executive Coaches Forum.

Our intention in launching this blog is to have a central meeting place to share thoughts and insights that in some way touch on how leadership, good and bad, is applied in far-flung business and civic settings.  As professionals committed to developing effective leaders and teams within and across boundaries of country and culture, we are fascinated by the topic.  We endeavor here to bring something different and additive to the current discourse.  

We invite you to follow along with us.  Moreover, it’s our sincere wish that you join the discussion whenever the spirit moves.  Thank you for visiting Leading About.

Enduring Foundations of Leadership

While Diane Brady’s brilliant debut Fraternity isn't a “Leadership” book, it still might be the most important one I’ve read in a while.

It’s a challenge keeping up with all of the “new discoveries” of esoteric practices distinguishing truly effective leaders.  Amazon allocates 75,000 hits of virtual “shelf space” to the genre.  Some works emphasize how well you strategize.  Others tout execution on core processes.  Many stress emotional and social intelligence.

And yet, follow the news and what leadership behaviors will you observe?  Senior military officials overstating the success of high-stakes interventions abroad.  Technology standard-bearers manufacturing products through third party sweatshops to maximize profits and plausibly deny culpability.  Successful university sports programs overlooking criminal behavior in their leadership.  Financial Services institutions betting against their clients.

If you’re weary of the seemingly endless disappointments in our institutions and the people who lead them, read Fraternity and meet Father Brooks.  The Reverend John E. Brooks was a theology professor at the virtually all-white College of the Holy Cross, during the 1960’s, committed to racially integrating the school.  His argument was simple.  All learners deserved to benefit from the diversity and development of the widest swath of future leaders.  Squandering the strengths and talents African-American students could bring to Holy Cross was therefore unacceptable.

Belief was not enough.  Father Brooks drove his vision hard.  He took it upon himself to convince the college to put up scholarships.  He personally identified high-achieving and high-potential African American high schoolers and took to the road to sell them on largely Irish Worcester, Massachusetts.  With consistency of purpose and action, he attentively nurtured, mentored and repeatedly went to bat for the students with the Administration and Trustees during a time of unprecedented social upheaval, confusion and instability. 

To be sure, the story is mainly about the hard-won achievements of a group of remarkable young men.  Among Father Brooks’ twenty recruits in 1968 were top defense attorney Theodore Wells, Pulitzer Prize winner for literature Edward P. Jones, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and other noteworthy successes.  Their individual accomplishments and proven talents notwithstanding, many alums continue to place credit with John Brooks.  Without him, “none of us would have made it,” Brady recounts one telling her.

Fraternity reads well, drawing you in quickly and holding your attention throughout.  If you read it with a view to the leadership angle, Fr. Brooks’ behavior demonstrates a four-prong model of leadership people used to unselfconsciously term “moral authority.”  Simply put, he had a (1) clear vision of a future (2) promoting shared benefit, which he (3) pushed toward with stubborn flexibility, consistently upholding his (4) personal accountability.  Rather than acting to promote his own financial security, position of power, or even social standing, he committed to serve as a vehicle for achieving something of intrinsic value.

Maybe, Fr. Brooks’ leadership model will cycle back into vogue soon.  I’m hoping so.

Posted by Ephraim Schachter

 

Happiness is Good for the Bottom Line

Should we bring our emotions to work? I was asked this question by a finance manager when delivering a leadership programme recently. Part of my answer was to ask “Is it possible to leave them at the door on the way in?” We then went on to discuss a more fruitful question - how can we actually harness our emotions productively at work? 

At around the same time, I read a magazine where the whole issue was devoted to the emotion of happiness. What is surprising is the magazine was the Harvard Business Review. Being happy at work makes people more productive and more creative, says the Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert.  New research suggests that happiness depends more on our day to day experiences – our routine interactions with colleagues, the projects we work on and our daily contributions - than on the stable conditions previously thought to promote happiness, such as high salary or a prestigious title.

My experience from coaching conversations with people at all levels has shown me that people become happier and more fulfilled when they:

1. Build challenging yet achievable goals with clear and measurable targets – seeing progress towards a well-visualised desired improvement is one way my coaching clients build their self-confidence and become more innovative as well as fulfilled.
2. Become more positive with themselves and those around them – one of my clients was quite startled when he compared the amount of poorly phrased, critical feedback he was giving himself versus the positive, carefully constructed feedback he gave others and so switched to giving himself higher quality, respectful, positive feedback
3. Build strong networks where they can both give and receive support – using time away from the “task” to network can seem like a luxury but interestingly many clients who are strong networkers seem to embrace high workloads with less stress, often by getting more things done for them. 

I was very interested to see that the latest research supports this approach, reinforcing the positive link between a happy working environment and the bottom line.

Like it or not emotions exist regardless of whether we are at work or not. Some people are managed by their emotions; others try to bury them. Learning how to use emotions effectively is a skill that gets results and, the Harvard research shows, impacts on the bottom line. How much more effective could you and the people around you be if tackling your work in ways that result in happiness and fulfilment?

So are emotions appropriate in the workplace? Yes – and not just happiness. There are a number of emotions that effective leaders and managers should be developing proactively. One really powerful secret emotion stands out to me. I have seen used to great effect by those in the know..... but you’ll have to wait for my next blog to find out more !

Posted by Rosie Miller

International Executive Coach | Multiplying Your Return on People

 

My website:  www.rosyfutures.com | LinkedIn profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rosiemiller

Avoiding the Defection Anxiety Trap

If you have a talented direct report with a history of success who’s now struggling, chances are it’s the role. 

High performers tend to be consistent. They’ve risen through their organizations demonstrating competence in successive roles. Sometimes it’s technical expertise. Even more often, it’s their tendency to work hard and demonstrate agility navigating unfamiliar terrains. The common disclaimer, “past performance may not be an indicator of future results” is truer of investment vehicles than people. Past performance actually serves as a pretty reliable predictor.

 Inadvertently Setting the Trap

For many senior leaders, experience had demonstrated that highly motivated, highly able performers (let’s call them “stars”) are hard to come by. Worse yet, they’re harder to keep. The good news is stars are independent. The bad news is . . . well, they’re independent. I’ve observed numerous execs – itching to ward off a dreaded, imagined defection – preemptively try to “promote” a star. Two well-worn maneuvers: (a) creating a brand new role; or (b) cobbling new accountabilities to the star’s existing job. Each is intended to project an aura of ascendency and warrant more generous comp and perks. Good intentions. Bad ideas.

In one case, the Office of the CEO had a star business unit head it wanted to warehouse for a few years in readiness to replace an EVP that was due to retire. The in-between role they created for the star was meant to serve as a clearinghouse for information between levels. Instead, it merely added another review layer and wound up a bottleneck for decisions and action.

In another instance, a COO handed his star Chief Marketing Officer responsibilities in Decision Support. It was a discipline in which she lacked grounding and the painstaking learning curve interfered with her making a serious contribution while still performing her marketing day job.

In both of these cases, the role changes destabilized the organizations by confusing expectations, boundary management, and accountability for multiple stakeholders.

Both were seen for what they were: interim gigs to support career aspirations instead of helping workflow and results. Both stars underperformed and their reputations suffered. 

 Avoiding the Trap

Before you inadvertently set this trap for your unwitting stars, test your “promotion” against each of the following criteria: 

     1. There are Clear Lines of Authority and decision rights for all work;

     2. The role is Value Added to the existing structure; and

     3. The job is easily Describable in a few sentences.

If your new-and-improved role can’t pass this test, let it go. Consider, instead, tapping into your star’s set of drivers. Typically, this includes some combination of interesting work, autonomy, and professional development. You, raise the topic.  Disclose your defection anxiety right to them. Jointly work out a plan. There’s no need to blow up anything to keep your talented direct reports onboard.

Posted by Ephraim Schachter

 

More women in leadership positions – quotas as the solution?

Although more and more private and public companies are  reacting to societal and gove rnmental pressure, the majority of lead ersh ip positions are still taken by men. As a solution, the gender quota has b  een introduced, which is already common in political parties. In other sectors such as managing boards it is still a controversial topic, whereas there are already examples of the successful implementation of female quotas.
In 2003 Norway went ahead by introducing a legal 40 % quota, with the aim of gender balance on company boards for state-owned enterprises and large Public Limited Companies (PLCs). Before the legisl ation, there were only 7% women recruited in PLCs boardrooms. The regulations led to the result that nowadays 40% of the positions in the affected boardrooms are taken by women. Hence, Norway is the No. 1  in the world.
Convinced through the performance of Norway in 2007, Spain followed with its own 40% regulation for PLCs. Similar quotas were passed by Iceland, the Netherlands and France. France could double the percentage of female directors within three years from 6.4% (2007) to 14.4%  (2010), even though the law has still to pass the General Assembly. In Austria there is a regulation for the management boards of universities, stating that 40% of the board need to be women.
Specific examples of companies which set internal gender quotas to reach board diversity are Deutsche Telekom and Daimler. Interestingly, all the countries which established a quota law also did research on the effects of t he quota. The outcome of all the studies was similar: the more women are on boards, the better is the company’s financial result. But there are also critical voices, saying that gender quotas will not bring a sincere improvement with them. Will women be elected to boards simply because they are women and not because of their qualifications? Will it be hard to find qualified women? Is it fair that companies are restricted in whom they are going to recruit as board members?
Norway is the best example to show that the female quota certainly is a step towards more equality. There is an obvious trend to recruit qualified women also within companies who are not affected by the quota law.
Facing the reality that the majority of university graduates are women, the fear that there won’t be enough qualified women for leading positions can be allayed. When there is more gender diversity within boards, one effect will be that unreflective group thinking will be reduced. Moreover, women, who are barely acting in traditional networks, represent an effective and independent monitoring position on the board. Finally this will lead to the above mentioned better financial performance of businesses with a female quota. So why shouldn’t we enable more women the access into leading management positions?

Posted by Claudia von der Linden

For further information please visit my website: www.permion.com

To Better the Best

 

Is there a point in your career when it’s no longer wise to seek professional development?

 About ten months ago, a new employer recruited “Brian,” a senior executive. By their own account, it was a long, expensive search for a tough-to-fill, key role. In place for a month, Brian approached the head of HR to request an executive coach for support as he assimilated into the complex, matrixed multinational. The HR head rebuffed, “I thought you were qualified when we hired you.” Three weeks ago, Brian called me. He had just accepted a job offer from a higher tier competitor, which included one year of executive coaching in addition to other generous terms.

 We’re accustomed to professionally developing High Potentials.  Progressive organizations dangle it as a perk for which up-and-comers vie.  Yet, it’s hard to deny there’s a point where we view this differently. At a certain career stage or role, we expect the incumbent to have already “arrived.” What would you think of your CFO wanting to learn more finance?  Your General Counsel seeking confirmation about the law?  How about the CEO requesting leadership coaching.

In a recent piece for The New Yorker, physician and bestselling author Atul Gawande challenges the successful and accomplished to engage a coach to improve some area of professional performance. Already deeply experienced and highly skilled, Gawande describes how he engaged a retired surgeon from his residency to further hone his specialized technical skills in endocrine surgery. In the comprehensive and nuanced article, he admirably and unflinchingly self-discloses some cases where he underperformed. He goes on to describe how the coaching led him to performance improvements.

When it comes to supporting senior executives with their leadership and team effectiveness skills, I can vouch for two consistent success predictors. The first is whether the “coachee” will be – like Gawande – unsentimentally open about his or her performance. The second is whether the coachee’s key constituencies can handle it. Gawande describes the awkwardness of explaining a coach’s presence to his surgical team and to a patient awaiting anesthesia.  Wait, you mean my expert isn’t the expert?

Gawande cites Tennis superstar Rafael Nadal to point out the inherent irony. There’s no surprise when the world’s elite athletes work closely with a coach. We’d be shocked to hear otherwise. Yet, some institutions – like Brian’s former employer – expect their top performers fully baked. I find this as unrealistic on Mahogany Row as it is on the 50-yard line at Giants Stadium. That’s because we all benefit from some scrutiny to adhere to form, prevent bad outcomes and prepare for future challenges.

Maybe it’s time for organizations to take material steps to destigmatize executive-level performance improvement mechanisms. Build a rigorous program, announce it to the world, measure the results and publish for all to see.  Create pull by providing the support first to the highest achieving, most widely acclaimed performers.  Brand it as a perquisite; not remediation.  Let’s encourage unselfconscious lifelong learning in our institutions.

Posted by Ephraim Schachter

 

Will You Get a Seat in the Boat?

Imagine postponing your own wedding because it was “impractical to fit it in”. That’s just what Dan Ritchie, a member of the GB Rowing Team and world silver medallist, has done in order to train for the London Olympics. He won’t find out until April if he has a seat in the boat, but he is focused on his dream of Olympic success.

Hearing of Dan Ritchie’s commitment made me reflect on the parallels between elite athletes preparing for the Olympics and business planning.

Athletes across the world are entering the final stages of preparation for the games: training hard, working with their teams and coaches and honing their plans. Success in business also requires good planning and execution. Even with the forward thinking and goal setting you did in 2010, it’s possible that some of your dreams are not coming true in 2011.

So what can you do now to give yourself the best chance of success in 2012?

Reviewing the process itself is a great place to start. Does your planning involve enough of the right people?  Do you think enough about external trends and their impact? Maybe your planning needs to be looser, or tighter, or more specific. Are you focused enough on the things that really matter? Are you setting goals that really ignite your own and others’ energy and commitment?

Think about the process you used last time – what could you do to make it more effective, more efficient or more engaging?

A strong process is needed to get your own “seat in the boat”. Good forward thinking and preparation allows you to leverage trends and take advantage of the opportunities that arise, whether business or personal. It may not bring you an Olympic medal but it will give you the best chance of realising your own dreams.  

 

Posted by Rosie Miller

International Executive Coach | Multiplying Your Return on People

 

My website:  www.rosyfutures.com | LinkedIn profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rosiemiller

How to MORPH Your Leadership Brand

In my last post, What Corporate Logos and Digital Cameras Tell Us About Change, I described a dilemma you might face when striving to reverse negative perceptions about you.  That is, what if you’ve earnestly adopted new behaviors and approaches but your organization won’t allow you to change?  In other words, what if others are dead-stuck in their perceptions of you?  What if they have “emotional expectations” of – or are just plain invested in – your existing brand?

 

My recommendation is that you M-O-R-P-H to rewire their expectations.  Here’s a five-step formula: 

1.  Enlist your Manager.  Explain what you’re doing and ask your boss to fly air cover.  It is foundational that this person visibly stands up for you to create the space for perception-change.  Understand, however, that you’re asking a lot.  This is the same boss who might have recently told her higher ups – and maybe even your peers – that you weren’t promotable.  Win her over.

2.  Oxygenate the problem areas.  A wildly successful marketer once advised me that when an offering has a shortcoming “if you can’t hide it, then feature it!”  Air it out.  Commission HR to provide you with a 360-degree assessment and feedback.  Strategically select respondents.  In addition to the standard complement of boss, peers and direct reports, invite key organizational influencers and opinion leaders.  Ask humbly for help and you will predispose a person to your emerging improvements.  

3.  It’s now time to Reframe the perceptions.  Based on the feedback, commit to a development plan.  Vet it with your boss and ask for his input.  Distil it into talking points and meet with each individual that participated in the 360 as well as all others you see key.  Tell them what you learned and tell them what you’re doing about it.  This primes them to discard their newly obsolete emotional expectations of you.

 4.  Now, Prove it!  Your parents always said that actions speak louder than words, didn’t they?  Undertake a project that showcases the new-and-improved you by demonstrating “disconfirming” behaviors and approaches.  Here are some examples.  (a) If you are reputed to drive results uncollaboratively, assemble a cross-functional, multi-level diagonal cut of the organization and identify a nagging organizational dysfunction.  Go against type and revel in methodically tackling it with every constituency represented. (b) If the rap on you is that you’re great with the numbers, but don’t inspire your team, plan an offsite to share your vision.  (c) If others believe you’re strategic at the expense of implementation, roll up your sleeves and try a deep dive.  

5.  Finally, Honor those who’ve helped your turnaround.  Find a time and a way to thank every single person you can . . . whether they rooted for you or not.  Your boosters will enjoy the acknowledgement and recognize that their investment of political capital appreciated.  Detractors will find your confident magnanimity unnerving.  Sensing the shift in popular opinion, they will likely resign themselves to the reality of your successful re-branding. 

 

Recognize that you didn’t build your current brand overnight.  Patiently and tenaciously MORPH expectations following these steps. It’s up to you.

 

Posted by Ephraim Schachter

 

Tansform Uncertainty into Corporate Value

The financial crisis has forced changes along the business system. A major key success factor has   been the capability of companies to find innovative ways for entering into new market  opportunities. 

However, the traditional planning systems of big companies which are heavily based on prediction from figures of the past years are often not very helpful for new and uncertain situations.

Listening to a speech about “decision under uncertainty”*) I was thinking that the presented learnings from experienced entrepreneurs could also be a good approach for bigger companies when they are interested in evaluating very uncertain new ways for (parts of) their business.

 

The learnings are based on international research and are summarized in 5 straightforward principles.

1)    Take a look at your basis: what do you have available? What knowledge do you have? Which people do you know? Which resources do you have at your disposal?

2)    Watch out for opportunities with low risks and try to evaluate the downside risks. Therefore set a limit for an acceptable loss.

3)    Form Partnerships. Seek out partnerships with people and firms willing to make a commitment to jointly creating the product, service, firm or market with you. With the creation of new Partnerships, new opportunities will arise.

4)    Surprises are good. Try to see a surprise as a good thing, from which you can learn. A surprise can be an excellent possibility for rethinking and developing new ideas. Moreover surprises support you in staying flexible.

5)    Very important for you is to find an activity which can be controlled, although it might not be the one with the highest outcome. Furthermore you should try to focus on those activities, which will have a positive result for you.  

 

These principles represent a transformative approach, called “effectuation” *). Managers can use the techniques for transforming uncertain situations into new ideas and new opportunities, e.g. new markets, services, products etc. that they themselves could not have predicted in advance. Effectual opportunities are not found; they are made.

A different way of thinking – maybe a good opportunity for you to try? 

*)Stuart Reed, Professor of Marketing at IMD, Lausanne Switzerland 

 

By Claudia von der Linden

What Corporate Logos and Digital Cameras Tell Us About Change

Executive coaches are frequently asked whether people can change.  I mean, truly change.  I, for one, haven’t seen evidence that a core personality is all that malleable.  That said I’ve seen countless examples of people deliberately choosing new behaviors in order to become more effective.  While their essence doesn’t change, their strategies, approaches and interactions do.  This is a foundational premise of executive coaching.

 

The Harder Question

The harder question people ought to pose is whether that on its own is enough.  In truth, I have seen execs work assiduously and successfully cultivate new behaviors – say, after receiving a tough 360-degree feedback report – and later garner minimal if any outward acknowledgment.  More than once, I’ve seen perceptions so stuck an exec picked up and left for another company to start fresh.

 A pair of recent articles shed some light on why it might be hard to deliberately change how one is perceived at work.

 The first, from Wharton, offers dueling professors considering whether Starbucks’ logo change might hurt its business.  As you may have noticed recently, the Starbucks mermaid is sporting a new simplified look, with no outlines or text.  Nope, it doesn’t even say “coffee” anymore.  Why?  CEO Howard Schultz explained the logo change signifies it’s move away from offering just coffee in predominantly English-speaking markets.

 It’s a fraught move.  There are numerous examples of loyal customers rejecting new company logos.  Both Tropicana and The Gap failed in recent attempts.  In fact, it was the most loyal customers who expressed the most negative reactions.  Why?  That brings us to the second article. 

 

Emotional Expectations

In Why Innovation Doffs an Old Hat, Joshua Brustein frames a dilemma facing designers of all kinds of new products.  That is, to what extent must they incorporate vestigial elements of older versions to keep the new ones acceptable?  Examples he cites include the familiar shutter snap sound a digital camera makes and the turning-page animation displayed when swiping fingers across an iPad.  When you think about it, both of these effects are superfluous.  Brustein cites Urbanscale’s Adam Greenfield as explaining that a new innovation still must “correspond to the emotional expectations” the customer possesses of the existing product. 

 Isn’t this true about the people we work with, as well?  Every exec has a brand in the organization.  “Brian’s great with the numbers, but doesn’t inspire his team.”  Or, “Audrey’s so strategic; it’s too bad she struggles on implementation.”  Now, what if Brian indeed tackles the challenge of engaging his team or if Audrey rolls up her sleeves to try a deep dive.  Will stakeholders abandon their emotional expectations of the execs and begin to see and describe them differently?  Will they even notice the changes?

 If you are an exec seeking traction, you will need to formulate how to make sure the changes you’ve undertaken strike root. 

 How?  I’ll tackle this in my next post.  Stay tuned.  

Posted by Ephraim Schachter

Leadership in Crises - Lessons From Japan

Japan is experiencing a horrific cocktail of natural catastrophes.  These are made significantly worse by the threat of a nuclear disaster, a threat the Japanese authorities thought they had planned and protected against. Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his leadership team are dealing with a new reality. The situation demands decisive leadership that the Japanese people can trust and follow.

The Japanese are noted for their expertise in earthquake and tsunami preparation, yet were overwhelmed by the events of 11^th March 2011. The sheer scale of the natural disaster that befell them was greater and more damaging to their nuclear plant than they had planned and anticipated in their risk management strategies.

Yet the Japanese people are responding with coping strategies rather than panic. The press are full of admiration for their dignity and stoicism.  So whilst their training and mental rehearsal had not prepared them for exactly this disaster they had developed skills which improved their chance of survival and they are expected, as a nation, to come back from this fairly quickly.

Times of crisis force change.  Leaders must let go of existing plans and expectations very fast and create a different sense of purpose and hope that acknowledges the new reality. The speed at which a leader can establish new direction and a sense of control dictates their success in dealing with adversity.

So what are the lessons for us?

We admire people who rise to the challenge of a crisis and lead their followers with vision and purpose through a new landscape. Speed and agility at dropping old plans and setting new ones defines this style of leadership.

We will have to wait to see what the future holds for Japan, but they are a good example of how better outcomes result from improving the pace at which they can get their heads around a new reality. This skill is helping them now as they battle with the aftermath of the disaster.

Should you build your abilities to lead successfully in a crisis? I have done this effectively with several clients using scenario building and strategy testing techniques. It has made them faster at getting through the shock of change, faster at letting go of old expectations, more decisive and better at communicating with people.  Having these skills does not stop a crisis happening but does allow you to take your people with you, enabling them in turn to respond quickly.

Core to that is the ability to give people a renewed sense of purpose, strength and hope; a hallmark of strong leadership and a skill which can be learnt. 

Posted by Rosie Miller

International Executive Coach | Multiplying Your Return on People

My website:  www.rosyfutures.com | LinkedIn profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rosiemiller

Image: The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Japanese artist Hokusai. Source: Wikipedia.

Choosing Between Right and Right

There is an interesting conversation around risk which is being conducted on a global stage. Bankers, politicians and regulatory bodies are in a heated debate about what sort of risk management we should adopt in our banks. 

Do we want our banking systems to be “Fail Safe” or “Never Fail”? Both could work (and not work), making the choice all the more hard to make.

At the moment some commentators and regulators favour “Fail Safe” and are arguing to split up the banks so that none are “too big to fail”. However this option has its own widespread consequences for the international banking system. While it may reduce the risk of system wide failure it does not necessarily avoid risk at the individual firm level.

Other commentators and regulators favour “Never Fail” strategies but, as opponents point out, that comes at a price in terms of high capital reserves, less flexible rules, and potentially a higher cost of doing business. So a “Never Fail “culture can be reassuringly predictable yet low on customer responsiveness and innovation.

Many organisations struggle with exactly this dilemma in their own internal culture.  Should your culture encourage people to experiment and take manageable risks with no loss of credibility, or do you want your managers and leaders to make sure they have no failures? The decision drives not only how the organisation bears risk but also its ability to innovate and to attract and retain different types of talent.

It will be interesting to see how the debate unfolds in the financial industry. To what extent will the decision making be affected by being in the full glare of a critical public eye, amidst the high emotions and painful aftermath of the 2008 crash?

 As David Dotlich, Peter Cairo and Stephen Rhinesmith say in their book “Head, Hearts and Guts: How the Worlds’ Best Companies Develop Complete Leaders”:

 “It is easy to choose between right and wrong. The difficult bit is choosing between right and right.”  

Posted by Rosie Miller

International Executive Coach | Multiplying Your Return on People

My website: www.rosyfutures.com | LinkedIn profile:http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rosiemiller

 Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The King’s Coach

To be sure, The King’s Speech is an engaging film worth seeing.  It’s well written, brilliantly acted and – historicity aside – compelling and uplifting.  Watching it, I smiled as I noticed another, probably unintended, achievement: it’s an outstanding example of a thriving CXO executive coaching engagement. 

The film begins in 1925 and follows Prince Albert’s quest to overcome a debilitating stammer.  He works with multiple specialists before engaging Lionel Logue, an unrealized actor turned speech therapist-cum-coach. They develop a tight working relationship through and beyond Albert’s ascending the throne as King George VI in 1936. 

 Free Choice:

 There’s a riddle we coaches have appropriated from the shrinks: how many coaches does it take to change a light bulb?  Answer: just one, but the bulb has to want to change. 

 First comes the coachee’s free choice and commitment to the development process.   Not unlike Prince Albert (“Bertie”), the CXO looking for professional development support should accept that coaches can be pivotal to challenge tired assumptions, improve technique, and speak truth to power when others won’t.  Bertie understands that his duty to inspire the people of Britain requires him to confront his shortcoming, and that this will take outside help.  Period.

 Safe Space:

 Logue is deliberate in creating a safe space for the work.  As the master coach, he knows that as Bertie works on technique, he will also need to mindfully problem-solve alternatives for action.  Logue creates the conditions for Bertie to loosen up enough to have a go at self-consciously awkward muscle and breath-control techniques.  This isn’t psychotherapy or worse, new age squish.  It’s a confidential context for the client to make honest disclosures and discuss real topics.  The agile coach toggles roles – catalyst, cajoler, devil’s advocate and refuge, to name just a few –  to elicit and amplify an exec’s specific moments of insight. 

 Chemistry:

 Foundational to a successful CXO-Coach partnership is relationship chemistry.  When they first meet, Logue addresses Prince Albert by his familial nickname, Bertie.  The Prince bristles at the profound protocol breach but Logue persists in order to connect as equals, undefined by status or station.  It needn’t approach the professional equivalent of “love at first sight,” but a promising coaching relationship develops quickly from respect and mutuality to genuine affection.  The two look forward to the work together.

 With Bertie’s free choice, Logue’s safe space and their shared chemistry flourishing, the film culminates dramatically.  Bertie (now, King George VI) delivers a three-page speech declaring war with Germany from Buckingham Palace live over the radio.  With Logue’s coaching, he might just perform at his peak. 

 Posted by Ephraim Schachter

Let’s Focus on the Positive – You Can Make Your Own Happiness

People have a great innate ability to adapt to circumstances. However, continuing to adapt to ever-changing circumstances will cause stress and negativity. With regards to the recession, people needed to be confronted immediately and in one go with what is facing them, so as to allow them to adapt well to the new realities and circumstances.  

A client whose business was down for the past three quarters decided to initiate a robust team development project: 

What can people do in stressful situations? 

1. SET AMBITIOUS GOALS

Set yourself an ambitious goal in order to “flourish under fire”.  People should use a “gain goal” approach, which focuses on growth and accomplishment. This is characterised by eagerness and enthusiasm, which triggers a strategy of decisions and interactions designed to ensure successful achievement of the goal and avoid errors of omission. A “gain approach” will lead to a more positive mood and a more energetic and persistent focus. It will make goals easier to plan for and to achieve. It opens a person up to thinking about alternatives and encourages flexibility and creativity in generating alternatives when confronted with setbacks. Research has shown that people’s happiness is determined 50% by genetics, 10% by life circumstances and 40% by their engagement in interesting/fulfilling personal projects (Lyubomirsky 2007)

2. ADAPT YOUR HABITS

Dr Maureen Gaffney, a leading Irish psychologist, says it is important to “set limits and create guidelines on venting behaviour.” She emphasises that after a certain point, anger and venting become unproductive and ineffective for moving forward.

Don’t overuse your strengths and favoured coping mechanisms. Sustained high-stress situations require different coping strategies than low-stress situations. In low-stress situations, men are more likely to use distraction as a coping mechanism. However, in circumstances of high stress this technique will not work, and men should try and talk through their stress. Women, on the other hand, tend to talk too much about their pressures in situations of high stress and need to find a way to distract themselves. 

Continually remind yourself that you are a free person; that you are making choices all the time and have some choice in every situation. How you react to a given situation is what potentially creates stress. Therefore, you can’t be driven crazy without your full cooperation.

3. THE KEY TO HAPPINESS

Happiness has nothing to do with success. You need success and money to live, but happiness is dependent on entirely different factors. 

According to recent studies, both happy and less content managers experience a similar number of successes and disappointments in their careers. Happy managers, however, only waste half as much time brooding over past disappointments. They think constructively about how to get the upper hand again, and how they can do something for their wellbeing. Apparently, you are quite literally the maker of your own happiness. Exactly how to make it depends on whether you choose a strategy of perception which leads to passivity (brooding), or take the active route toward happiness. As long as you still believe in your own free will, you will be able to influence your actions (and with them, your happiness). 

You can make your own happiness. Make it!

By Claudia von der Linden

 

Connection and Engagement

How do you motivate people during lean times? Increasingly my coaching clients want to hone their communication skills in order to better connect with people. One of the issues they raise is that messages get misinterpreted or “lost in translation”, especially as their stake-holders get increasingly diverse and dispersed geographically.

Good leadership of people requires an acceptance that they will respond to how they perceive your words and behaviours and not necessarily to your original intention. This is particularly true with communication. If the received message does not match the intended outgoing message then the point gets lost or is misinterpreted.

We all carry in our head pre-suppositions about how things should be, what certain words or behaviours mean, how people should behave and what's the right way to do things. These pre-suppositions are like filters - and everyone’s filters are different. Being able to consciously recognise your own and others’ for what they are is a pre-requisite to good communication.  It helps to stop you assuming too quickly that you understand someone else’s intention – or they yours!

Accepting that different people carry different filters allows you to appreciate that if you want to “treat someone well” then your actions must be consistent with their filters about what “being treated well” looks like. For example, assume you want to thank and acknowledge someone for making a special effort. Your own preference might be to get a public thank you in front of an audience. But another person’s might be a private thank you and a small personal token, like a meal out with their partner. To make the right connection you need to make the effort to understand others’ filters and preferences.

When I meet effective leaders I am often struck by their ability to read other people and then adjust their own behaviour to get the results they want. In doing this, they all display two vital ingredients: a desire to connect and curiosity. Connecting people make the effort to determine the other person's perspective and respond to it. They think through the other person’s likely issues, concerns and hot buttons. They ask questions, listen carefully and probe for insights. This makes for increased understanding, better communications and better outcomes. 

I have seen many successful leaders reap the rewards of investing time in connecting with people well. Who are you investing in this year?

by Rosie Miller

How fear kills the creativity and innovation

“John! I guess I will take that € 2500 Euros out of your next pay check!”

John made a mistake on an order that caused a serious delay for a key customer. He tried to solve a problem in a novel way and failed. The customer called the boss to complain. He threatened to stop using them as a vendor. The boss made the assurances necessary to keep the customer happy. Afterwards he headed straight for John... 

This is the same organization that pretends to understand, and honour, creativity – how to “think outside the box.” Displaying a classic problem: the creativity rhetoric gap. Most of the time there is a difference, a gap, between what the top brass say about creativity and innovation and what the average person in the organization does regarding this. A CEO might say that creativity is the oxygen of the organization.  However, whether or not the rest of the leadership structure lives out these ideas every day is definitely another matter. 

The direct effects of this incident include:

• Damaging John’s ego

• Making John more “risk/creativity averse” in the future

• Causing John to lose respect for you, the boss

• Causing John to dwell on the issue, hurting his productivity

The indirect effects may be even worse. If the boss did this publicly, it was a huge violation of the age old rule “praise in public, punish in private.” The boss did not merely harm John. He caused problems with each and every employee around this. Worse, their learning from this example was that making mistakes is costly and that creativity and the risks involved are not worth it.

There is no shortage of risks employees will perceive when trying to be creative and engage in a new idea: 

• looking silly or incompetent

• receiving negative feedback

• losing face, social capital, reputation

• hurting relationships (every new idea can obsolete older ideas and practices)

One thing is required to win at the creativity and innovation game: You must manage and embrace the risk! Step one, banish negativity. Negativity at work kills creativity and innovation. If you are serious, it must be banished. Across many studies, the number one predictor of employee creativity is being “supportive” and “encouraging.” 

Next, understand the “bumps in the road.” This is a reminder that creativity is the product of iterative attempts to improve over time and rarely results from an instantaneous flash of insight. Translated: it takes a lot of less than wonderful ideas to get to the rare good ones that move the organization forward. Each and every time you see one of the bumps, like the one John experienced, you have a choice. Either be negative and fix the problem yourself. Or, you can see it for what it is – one of the many bumps that are inevitable on the road to creativity and innovation!

So, how are you going to respond next time you encounter a “John situation” ?

Posted by Dag Roslund

 

Before You Accept That Change Agent Role

A bunch of you followed up with me after I posted Before You Bring in That Change Agent in September.  Maybe this economy is provoking more organizations to source outsiders to drive course corrections or all out direction changes.  Maybe, instead, recently less-than-successful change agents are formulating how to better set themselves up next time around.  Either way, many of the inquiries I fielded weren’t from CEO’s embarking on change, but rather prospective CxO’s contemplating stepping into direct reporting relationships to them.

  How do you improve the odds the new gig will be not just compelling but also winnable?  Here are some recommendations for your due diligence before you accept that change agent role.

1.  Test for Clear, Aligned Expectations

  First – and I’m not kidding, here – make sure the top of the house is in agreement on the change they’re seeking.  Do they describe it the same way?  Are they consistent on why it’s imperative and urgent?  Watch out when key leaders define the underlying rationale for your prospective role differently and sound like they’re hiring for slightly different jobs.  It’s okay to tolerate a little ambiguity; not confusion.

  Make sure that your prospective role is explicitly spelled out.  Have they articulated the goals and performance targets against which you’ll be measured?  Who owns the change, besides you?  Don’t go it alone.

  Finally, is the CEO the chief change evangelist?  Have a conversation up front with her using Before You Bring in That Change Agent for your talking points.  Really. 

2.  Gauge Change Elasticity

  Assess how the organization handles disruption.  How did they fare on the last big change?  Has anyone previously held your prospective role and failed?  Check that leaders have made the requisite shifts of mind to drive the change with you.  Identify at least two other “true believers” in influential roles.

  Feel free to turn the behavioral event interviewing back at them.  Ask questions such as, “tell me about a time when key leaders stood up to the status quo and implemented necessary change.  How did the organization do?  What did it learn about itself?

  Finally inquire into how senior leadership handles conflict.  Are their meetings replete with robust idea sharing where honest and open inquiry is promoted?  Driving change will demand it.

3.  Formulate Your Counter-Resistance

  Once you accept the role, it’s not a question of if there will be pushback, but rather what kind and how strong it will be.  First, master your composure.  Your co-workers will be scrutinizing your cues.  If you’re anxious, deal with that before you’re on the job.  Project confidence without arrogance and respectfulness without hesitancy. 

  Second, anticipate specific anti-change tropes and master your rhetoric.  In their recent release, Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down, John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead warn of the four predictable resistance lines: fear mongering, death by delay, confusion, and ridicule.  Prepare your responses before Day 1 on the job and manage your messaging.

  When considering whether to step in as change agent, be unsentimental in your analysis and perform your upfront prep.  This might just turn into the most exciting job of your professional life.

   Posted by Ephraim Schachter

It’s not rocket science – it’s just magic!

from Rosie Miller, RosyFutures

In a recent coaching conversation a client said to me “This is obvious now that I think about it. It’s not rocket science is it!”  I was tempted to add “No, but seeing the obvious sometimes needs a little magic.”   

This led to me thinking further about “how does a coaching conversation produce this magic?” Like most magic, it comes from directing someone’s focus and attention on to something. Unlike magic, the purpose of coaching is to unveil rather than conceal possibilities and options around us. It may unveil unconscious patterns of behaviour, or hidden assumptions, or simply a lack of attention to signals around you. It may open the mind, consciously or unconsciously, to think of new options or see from alternative perspectives.

The human brain can only hold up to about 10 bits of information in our conscious mind at any one time. We have therefore devised an array of tools to extend our capabilities further than this limited capacity.  These tools include diaries, lists, books, computers, habits, processes, photos and notes.

Coaching dialogue works by giving someone space and time to think, reflecting them back to themselves and creating effective focus. In this way a coaching conversation also extends a person’s capabilities.

An inquiring mind combined with well directed focus can appear very simple but produces very powerful results. What ways do you use to help yourself and others get real thinking time?

How to Learn from Your Leadership Mistakes

We learn most from our mistakes. It's true. But problems occur for us when we forget this. Or when we deliberately deny that we made a mistake. The key point here is that success stops our learning. When we take action and we succeed, we just don't learn. 

This is the case unless we actively build in time to review that success. Most of us, however, prefer to push on to the next challenge, perhaps never being really clear HOW we succeeded. 

This mindset creates a major problem for us. Because when we fail at something, when we don't meet the expectations we set out at the start, it's a shock, a major setback. There are three things we tend to do when we discover that we made a mistake somewhere along the line:

First, we don't admit we made a mistake. It's a natural habit, not to admit we made a mistake. 

Secondly, we try to conceal or minimize our mistake. To bury it so no one can find it. 

The third thing is blame. If we actually do admit we made a mistake that’s ok. But when we start go witch-hunting, we will kill learning. The sole purpose of a witch-hunt is to blame someone else, to direct attention away from ourselves, to someone in the team or in another department, perhaps. 

If we don't tackle these three problems, the mistakes won't be fixed. This could happen all over again tomorrow.

The only surefire way to learn from our mistakes is to admit there's been a mistake and then to act differently next time.

Don't waste energy and emotion on finding the culprit to blame them. Instead focus on the future. What needs to happen next time? Then just do it. Act differently in the future.Successful learning involves analysing the past and present, yes, but it's mainly about acting differently in the future. 

Learning - your learning, your team's learning, your company's learning - demands change.

How much change are you prepared to embrace when it comes to admitting mistakes? What's your mistakes policy? If you haven't got one, get one.

By Dag Roslund / Prudencia

 

More Collisions, Less Friction

In the latest edition of Boston University School of Management’s alumni eNewsletter, there’s a piece about “Tech, Drugs, & Rock ‘n Roll.”  TDRR was a night of networking and presentations bringing together “leading venture investors, industry professionals, research scientists, students, and budding entrepreneurs from BU and elsewhere” held this July.  BU has committed to establish itself as Boston’s new entrepreneurship hub, seeking to integrate disparate expertise to solve diverse challenges.  BU’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) Managing Director Vinit Nijhawan framed the challenge inspiringly: “Our goal is to increase collisions and reduce friction in bringing ideas to market."  An elegant formula well applied.

 Here’s another great case in practice.  In 2007, University of Pennsylvania Health System launched an initiative called Unit Based Clinical Leadership (UBCL) to drive better patient outcomes.  The imperative was to reduce variations in patient care.  They elected to form UBCL teams consisting of a physician, nurse, and quality coordinator who would together make interdisciplinary medical rounds.  The approach succeeded at tackling multiple challenges, including lowering – at this point, nearly eliminating – Blood Stream Infections while wringing significant cost savings.

 From a third distinct industry, here’s another.  Back when current NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg ran Media empire Bloomberg L.P., he designed its then Midtown headquarters with the express intention of sparking interaction to generate information sharing and new ideas.  Two examples: the elevators opened on only the middle of six leased floors so that  everyone would interact, passing through the same doors when arriving at and leaving work.  Second, there was a food court brimming with free food and beverages to attract workers into chance encounters to hash out their ideas.  Today this media powerhouse boasts annual revenues topping $6.6 billion.

 So, whether your organization is splintered in silos, you’d like to elicit wider stakeholder input, or you’re simply looking for some breakthrough ideas, the common elements in these cross-industry cases provide some working guidelines for application:

1. Bring together people from differing, complementary disciplines
2.  . . . in live, physical proximity to each other (no conference calls, please)
3.  . . . engaged in real-time problem definition, ideation and decision-making
4.  . . . taking the leap of faith the time will be productive enough to justify everyone’s presence. 

 Where might you apply these guidelines to increase collisions and decrease friction in your organization?

Posted by Ephraim Schachter

Good intentions don’t always deliver on their promise.

The Indian Government is struggling right now to convince the world, and the sports world in particular, that everything will be OK on the day for the Commonwealth Games. The intention to stage a fantastic sporting event is strong and clear. But actual actions on the ground are letting this intention down badly. The extent of the mis-match between well-meaning intention and tangible output remains to be seen as the games unfold. 

 

The situation reminds me of the fact that we are judged on our behaviours and not our intention. Worse still, that judgment by others is influenced by a whole range of pre-set filters in the recipient of our behaviours. These filters are set by a wide range of influences including values, previous experience, cultural norms, family norms, age and so on.

 

It can be hard when leading and managing people to accept that they will respond to how they perceive your behaviours. This may well not correspond to your original intention.  Nor can you assume that their behaviours mean what you think they mean when viewed through your filter system.  

Building self-awareness and a curiosity about others helps you recognise your own and others’ filters for what they are. One way to do this is to get better at asking more questions before leaping to conclusions. This often repays you in improved communication and reduced misunderstanding and conflict.

 Another way to increase this awareness is through models such and Myers Briggs, DISC, SDI and so on. These help us understand patterns of behaviour that tend to be observable and repeatable, helping us respond appropriately.

 What other ways have you used to build awareness of personal filters?

By Rosie Miller, Rosyfutures