I encourage you to subscribe to our blog & newsletter – and also to consider if one of our coaches might be just the thing you need to take your performance to the next level.

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A leader I greatly admire is responsible for a global team of professionals. As such, there are frequent conference calls and individual calls, which present unique challenges in driving toward agreement and understanding. The first challenge comes with the dynamics of phone calls – in which we only hear voice and inflection – and miss the normal cues from body language and facial expression. For those for whom English is a second language, using their non-primary language must be like me trying to write with my left hand. It is slower, awkward and not very comfortable. And for everyone, there is the challenge of English spoken with a myriad of accents – from Midwestern twang to Italian to German to Asian. As such, the phrase – Listen till your ears hurt – was coined.

Listening till your ears hurt is a great metaphor for the type of listening one does when engaged in important dialogues like coaching, mentoring, guiding, supporting, explaining, or teaching. It is the type of listening that commands your full attention. That causes you to test what you heard and check for understanding. That makes you slow down and be in the moment with the other person.

That’s one of the wonderful things about coaches – they listen till their ears hurt.

I encourage you to subscribe to our blog & newsletter – and also to consider if one of our coaches might be just the thing you need to take your performance to the next level.

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The hallmark of a great coach is the ability to ask questions. Not just any questions… but insightful, thought provoking, no judgment attached, open your mind and speak your truth questions. Once they’ve done this they listen – and ask another question – and then listen – and ask again.

The questions are ones that you ponder and review and come back to – often well beyond the coaching session. At times, they bring to the forefront something hidden that you were unable to see. At times, they make speakable the thing that has been unspeakable.

Asking compelling questions is an art – especially in the dialogue of a coaching session. Every artist needs some tools – so here is a list of questions you can use or build on:

• What is right about your world currently?
• Where do you experience your best energy?
• If you could change one thing about your current situation, what would it be?
• What does an ideal solution to this problem look like?
• What is your greatest fear right now?
• What is your greatest hope right now?
• Who else is involved in this situation? How might they see things?
• What is one small step you can take to move forward?
• What have you learned from similar situations in the past?
• What is holding you back from taking action?

I encourage you to subscribe to our blog & newsletter – and also to consider if one of our coaches might be just the thing you need to take your performance to the next level.

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This is the year I’ve finally decided to attempt a sprint triathlon. This means I will run 3.1 miles (can do), bike 10 miles (can do) and swim 300 meters (can’t do). I’ve talked about this for 3 years. It’s on my bucket list. I’ve watched sprints and talked to those who have done sprints. I’ve finally decided it was time to stop talking and begin doing – and the first step was learning to swim.

There is something a bit disconcerting about swimming – rather than biking or running. I can walk a bit in the middle of my run. Worst case with biking is getting off and pushing. But swimming feels quite different. You are either swimming or drowning.

As such, I was terribly apprehensive about the pool, the water, and my ability to learn to do this. I found a local pool and was pleased on my first night to meet Mary, who oversaw lap time and was also available to coach and teach.

I explained my plight to Mary and she asked to me swim a lap. She remained upbeat and positive, even though my floundering confirmed how little distance I could go, how poorly I kicked and how I was afraid to put my head in the water.

Mary reassured me that I could learn this and then proceeded to help. She had me use a kick board and fins, two tools that greatly helped me gain both skill and confidence. She broke swimming into infinitely small steps and drills –so that I could learn a part at a time  and then put them all together. She encouraged. She demonstrated. She provided suggestions. She encouraged some more. And by the end of the hour – she had done a marvelous thing. Although my swim skills were only marginally better, my mental state was 1000% better. She had taken me from fear and apprehension to hope and determination.

Good coaches do the same. They can break things into manageable pieces. They can help you learn a step at a time. And most of all, they can boost your confidence and will.

I encourage you to subscribe to our blog & newsletter – and also to consider if one of our coaches might be just the thing you need to take your performance to the next level.

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We are a sports-crazed nation in the US. We love our teams and the competition and all the festive rituals that accompany game day. We admire the great performances of athletes – yet fail to make the link between what they do to improve performance and how we might do the same in our professional careers.

Take a look at any sports team, from high school through pro, and you’ll see a common denominator. There are lots of coaches. And the players expect those coaches to teach, encourage, support, exhort, observe, provide feedback, and stay focused on making each athlete achieve their top potential. And the better the athlete, the more coaching there is.

In business, we tend to overlook the need for coaching, especially for high performers.  In fact, these are the individuals that will flourish with support, encouragement, challenge and feedback. Coaching is like putting fertilizer on a healthy plant – resulting in better yield – in the short and long term.

Since then I’ve been both a learner and a practitioner and an explorer – of both personal and professional change. The organizations we’ve worked through have provided a rich and varied tapestry of people and projects. Becoming an empty nester, striking out on my own, dealing with destructive tornado losses, working through a failed business and near bankruptcy, and supporting parents and in-laws through end of life transitions have made change a deeply personal matter. And of course, I am an explorer, a reader and a learner – so my book shelves are groaning under the weight of many other’s work on change and transformation.

Stepping back from it all I see that there are a few deep truths guiding my actions – both personally and professionally. I’ve distilled them into our Change Credo that you see on our home page and can download. I tackled each one in blog posts in recent weeks – yet wanted to provide you with a bird’s eye view of the “big picture”.

Above all, I continue to have a deep belief that positive change is possible – for each person, for every family, for all organizations, and for our society and world. Note that I said possible – and not easy. We desperately need individuals who can engage others in crafting a compelling future vision. Next we need individuals with both the desire to achieve that vision and the willingness to work toward it. There are no magic wands, there are no leaders who will “save” us or that have all the answers. However, the types of changes we desire can be possible – once we agree on a direction and put time, energy and effort into effecting the change.

As you read through our Change Credo – you will see that progression. It begins with someone (called a leader) that is willing to step up and out, that is willing to go first and has the skills to engage and involve others in shaping and executing the change. The leader must be the catalyst – and cannot mandate change. Instead they must engage and motivate others. Leadership, in my definition, is not about a role or a position. It is ideal when the individuals in our organizations who have roles of influence exhibit leadership – yet some of the most adept change leaders come from unexpected places.

Change is neither a one person show nor a spectator sport. The “others” must do their part; there is no sitting on the sideline with deep and lasting change. The more hands involved, the lighter the load, the greater the energy, the richer the outcomes, the more lasting the change, the more transformational for all involved. With engagement – things begin to happen. Change is possible. All that are involved are also transformed. And there is a deep learning about our personal power – to shift, to help, to work with others.

And that, my friend, is magic.

I encourage you to check out our blog postings from recent weeks and learn more about the elements of our Change Credo.

When our ancestors faced something unexpected – it was most likely a true threat to survival – perhaps a wild animal thinking we might be a pretty tasty morsel! In those situations, either fighting or fleeing equated to survival. Brain researchers tell us that those reactions are hard wired into us – a result of our primitive, reptilian brain.

As such – humans have the tendency to engage in fight or flight behavior. In an organization, change (and the perceived threat) often results in resistance (fight) or avoidance (flight). Anyone with any amount of time in an organization know the behaviors, which include, but are not limited to: the dragging of feet, the avoiding accountability, the nodding in agreement but doing things the old way, and the 1000 subtle ways that change becomes undone.

Changing our view of change from a “danger” (which evokes the fight/flight response) to an opportunity provides a viable third option. Reframing the change in this way evokes a host of healthier ways to navigate change, including:

• Creating a willingness to explore the change and its implications
• Opening us up to the possibilities that might come from the change
• Considering ways in which we might participate, and even benefit from the change
• Enabling us to plan our response to the change

You’ll know the next time the fight or flight response is upon you – based on the emotional surge you experience. When that happens, pause and ask yourself if there is a third way to approach this situation.

Face it – perfection is an unattainable place – to both reach and sustain. Entropy alone means the well organized office gets messy at times. The variety of customer’s needs and perceptions means you’ll never be perfect in 100% of their views. Introduce people into your perfect process and things are guaranteed to go awry.

Not only is perfection unattainable, the time, energy and effort to move from pretty doggone good to perfect is an exercise in diminishing returns. If excellence requires 8 hours of effort, near perfection might require 20 hours of effort. The difference in the end result will be difficult to discern, the anguish on the person doing the work is great, and the ROI declines.

In the mind of a perfectionist – there are only two states: perfection and total failure. I’m suggesting that there are a range of states – and that striving for excellence is an entirely different goal than striving for perfection. With that comes a shift from obsessing on all the things that are wrong – to a clear picture of the future reality – where you stand and what you can do to get better. The process of taking stock and moving forward is then repeated over and over – smaller steps toward the desired place. This is progress – and not only is it more obtainable, there are major positive side effects.

Letting go of perfection and instead focusing on progress frees us. To relax and thereby get better results faster. To celebrate forward movement instead of agonizing over miniscule details. To be in the moment and fully present, rather than fussing and fixing things. And ultimately to be better, faster – and happier with the results.

Too often problem solving feels like blame. We ask: What went wrong? Who screwed up? We focus on the people and not the problem, resulting in shifting responsibility, lack of honesty, and failure to get our hands around the true “root cause”.

Creating starts from a different perspective. It asks: “What is it that we wish to be or do?” “What is our current reality?” “What steps can we take to move us toward where we want to be?” The focus and energy is focused and forward leaning. There is an honest acknowledgement of the current state – but a collective agreement on creating, together, a better future.

How many times, in a home repair project, have you hit upon the reality that it is easier to build from scratch than to renovate or upgrade something existing? The same thing can be true in an organization.

Leaders need to show up in visible and tangible ways. Actions speak louder than words.

• Being attentive says “This is important.”
• Being engaged says “I’m in this with you.”
• Leading the way says “I am going first.”

I’ve worked with many great change leaders, who:

• Participate in regular reviews about the effort
• Ask good questions
• Model the change that is desired
• Find opportunities to speak in a positive way about the change
• Find and celebrate quick wins
• Ask what support is needed – and find a way to provide it
• Appreciate effort in the right direction – even feeble first attempts
• Communicate, communicate, communicate
• Hold folks accountable, and most of all themselves
• Sustain the focus for longer than it seems necessary, for they know that slipping back is an ever present danger

The right leadership question is: My organization needs to be more …fill in the blank… creative, productive, focused, lean. How do I need to change to make that happen? How do I need to show up differently? What am I doing that promotes or supports the current state?

When leaders are willing to do the inside work that leads to the outside results they want – amazing things happen. The shift in focus creates a domino effect. The leader becomes a powerful role model. The organization is willing to follow. Resistance fades, as people are being led and not coerced.

The inside shift can be the hardest – it means giving up old ways of thinking and doing and being. Yet once made, the outside work falls in place much easier.