Category: Uncategorized

  • Fortune 500 Coaching: Measurable Impact Studies

    Fortune 500 Coaching: Measurable Impact Studies

  • Excellence in Leadership: The C-Suite Imperative

    Excellence in Leadership: The C-Suite Imperative

  • Courageous Leadership in Digital Transformation

    Courageous Leadership in Digital Transformation

  • Leading Through Chronic Unease

    Leading Through Chronic Unease

  • Three Things Successful People Do!

    by Marshall Goldsmith

    If you’ve read my best-selling book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, you know that most of us are successful in spite of certain behaviors. For instance, most highly successful people have the bad habit of Winning Too Much.

    Winning too much is the #1 challenge for most people because it underlies nearly every other behavioral problem. If we argue too much, it’s because we want our view to prevail (in other words we want to win). If we put other people down, it’s our way to position them beneath us (again, winning). If we withhold information, it’s to gain an edge over others. If we play favorites, it’s to gain allies so “our side” has an advantage. Our obsession with winning crosses the spectrum of our lives. It’s not just an issue in our professional lives, it works its way into our personal lives as well. It is incredibly difficult for smart, successful people not to constantly win.

    Another classic behavioral challenge of smart, successful people is Adding Too Much Value. This bad habit can be defined as the overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion. A slight variation on Winning Too Much, Adding Too Much Value is common among leaders who are used to running the show. It is extremely difficult for successful people to listen to other people tell them something that they already know without communicating somehow that (a) they already knew it and (b) they know a better way.

    These are just a couple of the behaviors that the most successful leaders I know work on to become even better. A lot of leaders choose to forego change, believing that they are “successful enough” and that change therefore isn’t necessary.

    What makes the most highly successful leaders different is what makes them some of the greatest leaders in history. I believe there are three characteristics that differentiate good leaders from great leaders.

    The first thing successful people do is have Courage. Great leaders have the courage to get feedback and to look at themselves in the mirror, honestly. This isn’t an easy task. To truly look at yourself and to ask for, accept, and act on feedback you receive from others, you have to have courage.

    The second thing successful people do is have Humility. If you’re going to get better, then that means you probably don’t think you’re perfect. This is a great place to start. Think about it. It is very hard for perfect people to get better! For someone to change, he or she first has to have the humility to admit there is room for improvement.

    The third and final thing that great leaders do is they have Discipline. To be a great leader, you have to have the discipline to follow up and do the hard work to keep getting better.

    There you have it: the three must-have characteristics of very great leaders: Courage, Humility, and Discipline. Are you a great leader? Do you know a great leader? How would you describe a great leader? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

    Life is good. Marshall.

    View original publication here

  • Lead with Empathy

    Contributor: John Baldoni

    Deposit Photos

    Empathy has become the buzzword of 2020.

    And that’s too bad because too often, buzzwords fall into disuse. We need empathy now more than ever.

    Empathy is the capacity to feel for someone else, to feel compassion for what they are experiencing. As our nation is riven by the twin viruses of Covid-19 and systemic racism, and the resulting economic fallout, people in need, or people in general, want to know that someone cares.

    When we see images of people who have suffered or are caring for those suffering, we feel sympathy. We are in synchronicity with their loss. That is fine, but it’s not empathy. Empathy, as classically defined in Webster’s Dictionary, is “the ability to share in another’s emotions, thoughts or feelings.”

    Leaders can be empathetic, but feeling empathy is not enough. Acting with empathy is what’s necessary. “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths,” wrote the Swiss psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. “These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

    Acting with empathy

    Being and doing are different things. Here are some tips for acting on empathy.

    Listen intently. While sympathy is an inclination to experience another’s pain, empathy is the willingness to act. You can only act if you know what the issue is. That comes from listening. Focus on the other person. Have a conversation.

    Anticipate the need. Acting on empathy means not waiting to be asked. Sense the need and fulfill it. Don’t ask if someone is hungry. Bring them a meal. Don’t ask if they need a job. Help them find one. Don’t ask people if they feel sad. Find a moment of joy for them.

    Follow up. People with genuine empathy follow up to see how those in need are doing. Sometimes all a person needs is a shoulder to lean on for support. Other times it is a blueprint for survival with assistance along the way. Checking in on people keeps you in touch. It also gives the individual being helped the opportunity to say thank you. Being grateful opens the door for them to maintain their dignity. And even more, it reminds them of their self-worth. 

    Leo Buscaglia, popular author, speaker and university professor, wrote, “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” 

    Empathy is generative. That is, the more we give, the more we get in return. We feel good about helping others and, in turn, feel the energy from that. Empathy is the capacity to care and act on that caring.

    John Baldoni
    Master Corporate Executive Coach
    Member of Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches
    www.johnbaldoni.com

  • How to Improve Your Performance with Nerdy Brain Tricks

    by Liz Guthridge | Nov 7, 2020

    What’s one of the biggest winners of 2020? Video games.

    Already a popular form of entertainment, video game playing has been surging since March. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, spending on video games and equipment has been hitting all-time monthly highs for the past eight months. The trend of video games over other forms of entertainment is expected to outlast the pandemic.

    Are you one of the 244 million people in the US who play video games?

    Not me. I don’t play many traditional games either since I don’t have a natural game partner. My husband would rather cook and clean than take the time to play a board game or solve a puzzle. (Go figure!)

    Yet, I’m a big player of tricking my brain. This is the concept of challenging yourself with simple ploys, stunts and plots to achieve a particular outcome.

    Whether you fool yourself on purpose or by chance, these brain games can be a powerful way to get things done. And even better, you also can improve the quality or quantity of your work or both at the same time.

    My three favorite brain games are:

    1. Do it better: Before you start a project – or an aspect of it – ask yourself how you’re going to do it better. How you define “better” is up to you. “Better” could be more customer-focused, more efficient, better use of technology, more collaborative, or whatever. You then need to determine how to make yourself accountable and measure your progress.
    2. Race against the clock: When you’ve got just a few minutes (10 or so) between Zoom meetings, figure out how to make the most of this found time. You decide what’s best to do. Do you send a quick email or text? Stretch your shoulders or other muscles? Drop to the floor and do some pushups? Open the door or window and breathe some fresh air? Check your to-do list? You choose. And whatever you decide, you’re the winner!
    3. Reappraise the situation: When you are annoyed, anxious or discouraged about a situation, make an effort to turn it around and view it from another perspective, preferably as positively as possible. For example, let’s say you were looking forward to meeting colleagues for lunch around Thanksgiving but with COVID-19 cases spiking in your area, you realize it’s not safe. Rather than feeling sorry for yourself, you try to look for the positive benefits.

    For instance, what can you be grateful for and how can you and your colleagues celebrate that in new, different and fun ways? Who knows? You may come up with an idea that consumes fewer calories, costs less money, and takes less time and is more enjoyable!

    By re-framing the situation or event to reduce the negative emotions you feel, you can see things in a more positive light (or at least less negative), decrease your stress level, and reduce wear and tear on both your mental and physical health.

    Keep in mind that for some people, these brain games, especially reappraisal, don’t come naturally. You may either have to learn the methods from a coach or work with a coach to help you refine your technique.

    And even when you do learn to play them, it helps to practice regularly, which can be hard to remember to do.

    However, when you position these brain tricks as simple games you can play that help you, you’re more likely to use them and reap benefits, based on the experiences of my clients and me.

    And while brain games may seem nerdy, you have to admit they require minimal investments of money, screen time and other resources. Plus, you can still play video games after work with friends.

    Are you ready to play?

    liz.guthridge@connectconsultinggroup.com

    Liz Guthridge
    Connect Consulting Group
    10 Nassau St.,
    Charleston, SC 29403

  • CB Bowman LIVE!

    Oct 1st 11am MDT Join CB on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cbbowman/

    This week on Workplace Racial Equality, special guest: Alaina Love, one of the foremost experts in DEI!


    Alaina is an author, speaker and leadership expert with broad business experience. Through Purpose Linked Consulting, her focus is connecting the skills and passions of employees with the strategic objectives and core purpose of the business, leading to the kind of employee engagement that delivers successful financial and organizational results. More about Alaina: https://mailchi.mp/acec-association/linkedin-live-event-cb-bowman-live-oct-1

    CB will be interviewing special high-profile guests in Organizations and Industry twice weekly to discuss
    Opportunities for Workplace Racial Equality Every THURSDAY, Challenges C-Suite executives face EVERY TUESDAY


    #csuite #leadership #executivecoach #mg100 #coaching #wre

    Join CB on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cbbowman/

  • What Great Listeners Actually Do

    Good listening is much more than being silent while the other person talks.

    Chances are you think you’re a good listener. People’s appraisal of their listening ability is much like their assessment of their driving skills, in that the great bulk of adults think they’re above average.

    In our experience, most people think good listening comes down to doing three things:

    • Not talking when others are speaking
    • Letting others know you’re listening through facial expressions and verbal sounds (“Mmm-hmm”)
    • Being able to repeat what others have said, practically word-for-word

    In fact, much management advice on listening suggests doing these very things – encouraging listeners to remain quiet, nod and “mm-hmm” encouragingly, and then repeat back to the talker something like, “So, let me make sure I understand. What you’re saying is…” However, recent research that we conducted suggests that these behaviors fall far short of describing good listening skills.

    We analyzed data describing the behavior of 3,492 participants in a development program designed to help managers become better coaches. As part of this program, their coaching skills were assessed by others in 360-degree assessments. We identified those who were perceived as being the most effective listeners (the top 5%). We then compared the best listeners to the average of all other people in the data set and identified the 20 items showing the largest significant difference. With those results in hand we identified the differences between great and average listeners and analyzed the data to determine what characteristics their colleagues identified as the behaviors that made them outstanding listeners.

    We found some surprising conclusions, along with some qualities we expected to hear. We grouped them into four main findings:

    • Good listening is much more than being silent while the other person talks. To the contrary, people perceive the best listeners to be those who periodically ask questions that promote discovery and insight. These questions gently challenge old assumptions, but do so in a constructive way. Sitting there silently nodding does not provide sure evidence that a person is listening, but asking a good question tells the speaker the listener has not only heard what was said, but that they comprehended it well enough to want additional information. Good listening was consistently seen as a two-way dialog, rather than a one-way “speaker versus hearer” interaction. The best conversations were active.
    • Good listening included interactions that build a person’s self-esteem. The best listeners made the conversation a positive experience for the other party, which doesn’t happen when the listener is passive (or, for that matter, critical!). Good listeners made the other person feel supported and conveyed confidence in them. Good listening was characterized by the creation of a safe environment in which issues and differences could be discussed openly.
    • Good listening was seen as a cooperative conversation. In these interactions, feedback flowed smoothly in both directions with neither party becoming defensive about comments the other made. By contrast, poor listeners were seen as competitive — as listening only to identify errors in reasoning or logic, using their silence as a chance to prepare their next response. That might make you an excellent debater, but it doesn’t make you a good listener. Good listeners may challenge assumptions and disagree, but the person being listened to feels the listener is trying to help, not wanting to win an argument.
    • Good listeners tended to make suggestions. Good listening invariably included some feedback provided in a way others would accept and that opened up alternative paths to consider. This finding somewhat surprised us, since it’s not uncommon to hear complaints that “So-and-so didn’t listen, he just jumped in and tried to solve the problem.” Perhaps what the data is telling us is that making suggestions is not itself the problem; it may be the skill with which those suggestions are made. Another possibility is that we’re more likely to accept suggestions from people we already think are good listeners. (Someone who is silent for the whole conversation and then jumps in with a suggestion may not be seen as credible. Someone who seems combative or critical and then tries to give advice may not be seen as trustworthy.)

    While many of us have thought of being a good listener being like a sponge that accurately absorbs what the other person is saying, instead, what these findings show is that good listeners are like trampolines. They are someone you can bounce ideas off of — and rather than absorbing your ideas and energy, they amplify, energize, and clarify your thinking. They make you feel better not merely passively absorbing, but by actively supporting. This lets you gain energy and height, just like someone jumping on a trampoline.

    Of course, there are different levels of listening. Not every conversation requires the highest levels of listening, but many conversations would benefit from greater focus and listening skill. Consider which level of listening you’d like to aim for:

    Level 1: The listener creates a safe environment in which difficult, complex, or emotional issues can be discussed.

    Level 2: The listener clears away distractions like phones and laptops, focusing attention on the other person and making appropriate eye-contact. (This behavior not only affects how you are perceived as the listener; it immediately influences the listener’s own attitudes and inner feelings. Acting the part changes how you feel inside. This in turn makes you a better listener.)

    Level 3: The listener seeks to understand the substance of what the other person is saying. They capture ideas, ask questions, and restate issues to confirm that their understanding is correct.

    Level 4: The listener observes nonbverbal cues, such as facial expressions, perspiration, respiration rates, gestures, posture, and numerous other subtle body language signals. It is estimated that 80% of what we communicate comes from these signals. It sounds strange to some, but you listen with your eyes as well as your ears.

    Level 5: The listener increasingly understands the other person’s emotions and feelings about the topic at hand, and identifies and acknowledges them. The listener empathizes with and validates those feelings in a supportive, nonjudgmental way.

    Level 6: The listener asks questions that clarify assumptions the other person holds and helps the other person to see the issue in a new light. This could include the listener injecting some thoughts and ideas about the topic that could be useful to the other person. However, good listeners never highjack the conversation so that they or their issues become the subject of the discussion.

    Each of the levels builds on the others; thus, if you’ve been criticized (for example) for offering solutions rather than listening, it may mean you need to attend to some of the other levels (such as clearing away distractions or empathizing) before your proffered suggestions can be appreciated.

    We suspect that in being a good listener, most of us are more likely to stop short rather than go too far. Our hope is that this research will help by providing a new perspective on listening. We hope those who labor under an illusion of superiority about their listening skills will see where they really stand. We also hope the common perception that good listening is mainly about acting like an absorbent sponge will wane. Finally, we hope all will see that the highest and best form of listening comes in playing the same role for the other person that a trampoline plays for a child. It gives energy, acceleration, height and amplification. These are the hallmarks of great listening.

    Authors: Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman

    Original Content Published by Harvard Business Review

  • Don’t Let Perfection Be the Enemy of Productivity

    by Alice Boyes

    Recommended

    Productivity isn’t about getting more done. It’s about what you get done. Three aspects of perfectionism can interfere with your ability to prioritize the most important tasks.

    1. You’re reluctant to designate decisions as “unimportant.”

    There’s an argument that, for unimportant decisions, you should either decide quickly or outsource the decision. 

    But perfectionists have a hard time designating decisions as unimportant. They like to be in control of everything. Why? Because imperfections bother them more than they do other people. If something goes wrong, perfectionists might feel explosive frustration or a niggling sense of irritation that’s hard to ignore, and they don’t want to take that risk.

    Sometimes, perfectionists are so accustomed to micromanaging that it doesn’t even occur to them that any decision is unimportant. They’re blind to it. They habitually and automatically classify everything as worthy of their full effort.

    Solution: In modern life, decision fatigue can be intense. A perfectionist can learn to love giving up control over some choices if they pay attention to how good it feels to be relieved of the decision-making burden. Try using heuristics to quickly decide or delegate with the expectation that you will get much faster and pretty good decisions overall but not perfect ones. For instance, one of my heuristics is: if I’ve thought about doing something three times, I will get on and do it without further deliberating. For a useful decision-making matrix, see this tweet.

    2. You feel morally obligated to over-deliver.

    The belief that you need to beat expectations in any situation can manifest in many ways.

    Let’s say someone offers to pay you $1,000 for a service. If you’re a perfectionist, providing $1,000 of value might not seem like enough. You might think that you need to give what your competitors would charge $1,500 for because you want to outperform. You think: “If I don’t over-deliver, I’m under-delivering.” 

    Or if you judge that 24 hours is a respectable time frame in which to respond to a colleague’s email, you might set your own bar at within six hours. The key point is that you believe what’s generally reasonable doesn’t apply to you, and your own standard needs to be different.

    Sometimes this line of thinking comes from wanting an excessive cushion; for instance, you think “if I aim to deliver 1.5X or 2X value for all the services I provide, then I’m never going to under-deliver.” It can also be driven by anxiety, insecurity or imposter syndrome; for instance, you think the only way to prevent anyone from being disappointed or unhappy with you is by always exceeding expectations. Perfectionists also sometimes imagine there will be catastrophic consequences if they fail to over-deliver; for example, they worry a client won’t want to work with them if they take a day to answer an email request, even if it’s a non-urgent query and they’re happy with everything else.

    Solution: Have a plan for how you’ll course-correct if you notice these thought patterns. Understand what it’s costing you to always aim for out-performance. What else don’t you have time, energy, attention, and willpower for? Perhaps your own health, your big goals, or your family. If you assess that the costs are significant, try having a rule of thumb for when you’ll over-deliver. For instance, you might decide that in three out of ten situations in which you have the urge to do so, you will, but not in the other seven. 

    Situation-specific habits can help you, too. For instance, if a reporter sends me more than six questions for an article they’re working on, I’ll generally answer six or so questions in detail, and either minimally answer or skip the others. (I probably give better answers using this strategy because I focus on the areas in which I have the most interesting things to say.)

    3. You get excessively annoyed when you aren’t 100% consistent with good habits. 

    When perfectionists want to adopt new habits, they tend to fall into one of three categories. They bite off more than they can chew and their plans are too onerous to manage; they avoid starting any habit unless they’re 100% sure they can hit their goal everyday, which leads to procrastination; or they take on only those habits that they can stick to no matter what. 

    Flexibility is a hallmark of psychological health. You need to have the capacity to take a day off from the gym when you’re sick or just got off a late flight, even if it means breaking a streak. You should also be able to shift away from habits that were once important to your productivity or skills development but that you’ve outgrown. Maybe as a beginning blogger, you vowed to always post three times a week, but now that’s burning you out or, as a new real estate investor, you always attended a monthly meetup, but now you get little out of it. 

    Sometimes the more-disciplined behavior (deviating from an ingrained habit or pattern of behavior) looks like the less-disciplined one (taking a break). But when conventional self-discipline turns into compulsion, perfectionists may actually be held back by it.

    Solution: Have a mechanism in place for checking that you’re not sticking to a habit just because you’re worshiping at the altar of self-discipline. If you’ve never missed a workout in two years (or any other habit), it’s likely there were some days when getting it done wasn’t the best use of your time. Regularly review the opportunity cost of any activities or behaviors you diligently do to make sure they are currently the best use of your physical and mental energy.   

    Perfectionism is often driven by striving for excellence, but it can be self-sabotaging if it leads to sub-optimal behavior like continuing habits beyond their usefulness, over-delivering when you don’t have to, or overthinking every decision you make.

    Original Article appears here: https://hbr.org/2020/03/dont-let-perfection-be-the-enemy-of-productivity?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits