Values in Action – The Value of a Coaching Conversation

A CEO of a company that manufactures and distributes all the little plastic parts that go inside all the electronics no one is buying right now says “I know what we’ve done before when business was down.  I have no idea what the right thing to do is now though.”  The crux of leadership – deciding what to do when no one has any idea what to do. Tough job.

In our coaching session we laid out two options:

1. A variation on the obvious, what had been done in the past.
2. A creative approach that would challenge his team, and scare the board.

What to do?

When we first started working together he clarified two of his top values as being to try new things, and respect for his people.  I asked which option most clearly reflected his values – his eloquent silence made it clear that it was option #2.

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“I have to try something new, I think,” said he.

A valuable conversation.

Preoccupied?

Working with a new client, the planned 360° Feedback is delayed so we are having the conversation about what we can accomplish with coaching without the benefit of clear data to create a development plan.  We start with, “well, I’m not perfect but I can’t really think of anything I should be working on.”  Out comes the magic wand question: “if you could wave a magic wand what would be different (at work) a year from now?”

Well, it turns out there’s plenty to work on.  I can hear the client’s mental wheels whirring through the phone!   A week goes by and client comes back with “wow, it’s amazing what one hour of thinking can change.” (And I get paid to do this?  After 20 years I still pinch myself.)

Client decides to start at home and polls his family.  The unanimous response from all quarters is that he is over stressed and absent – not there even when he is there.  The word preoccupied comes to mind – literally previously occupied and therefore NOT AVAILABLE.  Not present.  So client then asks “I have wonder to what extent my employees feel that way?”  Indeed.

We have reams of research – thank you Daniel Goleman for your work on Emotional Intelligence and to Kurt Kaufman and Marcus Buckingham for First, Break All the Rules – that support the notion that people are desperate for a decent manager who pays attention to them.  And not just negative attention when something goes wrong.  But the kind of attention that signals:

I see you.

I hear you.

I notice distinctions, details, differences, growth, and effort.

I notice when you are struggling, rise to a challenge, go above and beyond.

You are important.

And we all know that we can’t pay attention, at home or at work, when we are pre-occupied.

It is true that if the client changes only this one thing in a year, if he in fact disciplines himself to be present with whomever he is with (at work and at home), his quality of life is guaranteed to go up.  The possibilities of what can come from this tiny shift are endless.

Cranky Boss Day?

Have you ever noticed that things tend to go in trends?  Well yesterday I had 4 coaching calls, and every single client was inordinately frustrated with his or her boss.  All four of these folks had definitely tagged ‘managing up’ as a focus area for coaching, but things seemed to have reached a fever pitch yesterday – it made me wish I understood astrology to see if there was something in the stars!

All of the complaining (gently called venting by coach Mad) centered on the same things –bosses who try to be decent at certain things that aren’t natural to them have folded under the stress and aren’t even trying anymore.  The general message is “don’t expect me to change my spots – just suck it up and deal with it.”  The result is that unsupportive bosses are less supportive than ever, uncommunicative bosses cease all communication, surly bosses become downright mean.  None of this is improving anything.

Some questions for my clients in pain:

• What can you do to take care of yourself?
• How can you communicate your distress to your boss, if at all?
• As a boss yourself are you potentially weakening the same way?

Here are the takeaways from collective brainstorming and discussion:

1. It takes guts to call your boss out on bad behavior, but if the relationship is there sometimes it is worth it.  Practice giving feedback using concrete observations and neutral language.  Ask how you can help ease pressure.
2. If your boss is folding under pressure and providing you with nothing you need, stop complaining and start finding what you need elsewhere.  Sure it sucks more time, but you can’t go under just because your boss is losing it.
3. If you notice other people – especially your boss’s peers- are also complaining about your boss, keep your ear to the ground for political repercussions.  If people are being laid off, your boss could be on the list and you need to be prepared.  Harsh but true.
4. If you are a boss and you have more work than usual because people have been laid off, and business is down 27% and you are more stressed than you have ever been in your adult life, now is the time to grow.  This is not the time to fold under pressure and revert to bad habits. Under no circumstance is it appropriate to take things out on your direct reports. Now is the time to be more communicative, patient and generous.  It is called “rising to the occasion” – a marvelous expression. Ask yourself how you are rising to this occasion.

Where Have All the Managers Gone?

I recently published this article in Talent Management Magazine. Enjoy!

As any executive coach will tell you, a good 15% of coaching time is spent on helping individuals manage the fallout from poor relationships with their managers. Most surprisingly, these situations occur with people who originally loved their jobs, but through neglect and poor day-to-day management, things have come to a head.  The result is a deteriorating work environment where managers and direct reports communicate less and less until a triggering event brings everything to a crisis point.  When that occurs, an executive coach will typically have a client in their office relating a story like this.

Client talking with Executive Coach:  “I know my performance hasn’t been quite up to par, but we were getting a quick coffee between two big client presentations when my boss just launched into me.  We hadn’t had a chance to go over everything in a while, so I don’t think it’s fair that out of the blue, with no warning and in a public place, he starts to compare me with some notorious underperformers in our company, warning me that I’d better shape up.  That takes a lot of nerve considering he has missed most of our last one-on-one meetings and doesn’t seem to have time for me.”

This manager behavior – paying no attention to people and then coming from out of the blue making a lot of noise and leaving a big mess – is so common that Ken Blanchard actually coined a term for it: “seagull management.”

“Seagull managers fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone, and then fly out.”

Read the entire article in the magazine.

Useful Coaching Metaphors: You as a Ship

What if you were a ship?

Here are some intriguing questions:

If you were a ship:

• Where would you be going?  (General direction)
• How accurate are all of the instruments for ascertaining location?  (How well tuned is your ability to understand and be clear about where you are?)
• How accurate are the instruments you use to detect threats? Weather, pirates, underwater obstacles?
• What ports are you welcome at? (Where are you supported, where can you go to re-fuel/re-group? what is your community, where are you most comfortable?)
• Who is your crew (Who works on your behalf? Who are your friends?)
• What kind of ship are you? (What is your purpose? I.e.: pleasure, work, save the whales, generate income)
• How strong is your hull?
• Are you part of a fleet?  (What are your roles in life?)
• How many lifeboats do you have?  (Are you prepared for contingencies at all times)?

More food for thought:

The things that you tolerate in life are like barnacles on a ship: one or two is no problem, a couple of hundred are a huge problem.  The moment, at which the barnacle situation crosses over from being a slight “drag” to being a factor in fuel efficiency and speed, the ships need to be dry docked for a scrub down and overhaul.  Everyone needs a couple of scrub down days per year to keep the ship barnacle free. Stowaways can also be a metaphor for Tolerations or crossed boundaries.

Finally:

The larger and stronger the ship, the longer it takes to turnaround.  Often people think they need a 180-degree turnaround when what they really need is a tiny adjustment in course, which over time and distance makes a radical difference in where they end up.  Dramatic change is often difficult, costly and not particularly useful.  A small shift makes a big long term difference.

How are You Sharing Your Heart?

You know, sometimes people are just so amazing.  I recently started work with a new client whose reads like an exemplars manual for management and leadership excellence.  I combed through it looking for something that she could possibly work on.  There were a few communication details we can polish, maybe refine some delegation skills.  It was all practical and straightforward. We spent an hour setting some goals that weren’t particularly compelling because, let’s face it, she is in good shape.

I realized after we said goodbye that I needed to ask her the bigger questions.  Questions like:

• Are you sharing your heart the way you always wanted to?
• Are you having enough fun?
• Are you connected with the meaning that sustained you the first twenty years in your field?
• Are you making the impact you dreamed of making when you were young?

I feel better already – I hate wasting clients’ time.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Top 10 Excuses To Avoid Change

I was recently a part of a panel on Pay Me What I am Worth’s radio program. It was a great panel to be a part of, and the topic we covered is relevant to just about anyone, especially if you’re a changephobe!

Enjoy!

The Needs Exercise

For those of you following the Needs conversation here is what to do about it if you decided to do a better job getting them met.

1. Identify and articulate specific highly personal needs.    The easiest way is to do The Needs Exercise. To do this visit this website – when you get there you can gain access to the website by pressing USE IT and using the log in: coachme and the PW: now.

Once you access the site click on the Needs Identification Exercise.  This site is free for anyone and is loaded with fun and useful tools.

Some may have already occurred to you. One of the best ways to quickly identify a need is to think back to a recent moment when you felt you were simply not yourself. This would be a moment in which you behaved in a way that you simply do not condone and are ashamed of because you knew it didn’t represent what is true about you.  Ask yourself: what need was not getting met?

2. Surrender.  You only need permission from yourself to get your needs met..  One of the prime motivators for doing so comes from recognizing that not giving in and admitting to a need will end up hurting you more in the long term.

3. Identify the people in your life who can help. It is a really good idea to cultivate relationships with people who know you and can listen to you, and to learn to return the favor.

4. Set a goal and design a set of activities to move you toward it: Once the problem is clear, it is much easier to come up with solutions.  Often, a plan will come as a blinding flash of the obvious because the obstacles to getting needs met are usually self-imposed. Read the rest of this entry »

Getting Your Needs Met

This is part two of a series on Needs.

Let’s face it.  Most of us didn’t have a lot of great role models of people who persistently and graciously got their personal needs met.  What we did have is models of people who got their needs met in ways that were perceived as pushy, whiny, or shrill. Selfish. We hear others talking about these people and we think “oh, well, no one is going to be saying that about me.”

From an early age many of us learn to dismiss our needs, afraid we will appear selfish, or rude, uncooperative, not in the team spirit.  We often view our habit of dismissing needs as a useful or even healthy one; we’ve gotten this far after all.  However dismissing needs gets you only so far and no farther.

In order to function at the kind of level you demand of yourself without burning out, you will simply have to give yourself permission to get your needs met- to be selfish – but in a way that won’t alienate  your friends or diminish your influence.  The paradox you will discover is that as you understand yourself, others will find it easier to understand you. They will help you more often than not.

Linda Berens, an expert on Psychological Types and the way personality differences affects relationships has this say about needs: “The Needs represent…the driving force. Individuals unconsciously and consciously seek every avenue to get the Needs met.  When these Needs are met the individual is energized and light of spirit.  When these Needs are not met, the individual is drained of energy and suffers dissatisfaction or stress.”

Drained of energy?  Dissatisfied in some unidentifiable way? Sound familiar?

So just for now think about what thoughts (the Greek Chorus of judgment in your own head) gets in the way of your getting your needs met.  Examples include:

Are Your Needs Met?

I was recently asked if we had a recommendation about a good article about Needs.  I really don’t know of one, though there are some good books.  Because Needs are a critical building block for a productive coaching experience, I thought it would be helpful to start a small series on the topic.  So here is the first installment:

A personal need is that which you must have met to get to and maintain a peak state. Needs and your ability to get them met are a fundamental part of your coaching journey.  We aren’t talking about basic survival needs like food and shelter – we‘re referring to deeply personal, often emotional needs.

Because needs are so personal, it can be hard to admit we have them. God forbid that we appear “needy.” Having needs can make us feel so terrifyingly vulnerable that we develop a habit of denying them to ourselves, or if we are aware of them, of trying to hide them from others.  But that we all have needs is a simple fact, an undeniable reality. It is also true that they cause much less trouble if they are identified and taken care of.

Trouble?  How do needs cause trouble? By getting met, consciously, or unconsciously – and productively or unproductively. Because needs simply will get met you can make a choice to understand them well or you can choose to let them rule your behavior in ways that take you (and others) by surprise.  Let’s be clear that the choice is not “do I get my needs met?” It is “How do I get my needs met?”

Next time: Getting your needs met.