Thoughts on Leadership

Thoughts on Leadership is moving to Typepad

2006-05-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hi. Thoughts on Leadership is moving over to Typepad and being consolidated with my signature blog, The Coach Approach......because ALL business is relationship business.

I've enjoyed learning to blog here at blogger.com and I am moving my blog over to Typepad because it gives me a few more tools to work with when blogging. I am still learning and you can read more about thoughts and tools for leadership in business at The Coach Approach......because ALL business is relationship business at The Coach Approach.

Hope to hear your comments over there.

Kind regards,

Lora
lora@TheCoachApproach.net
www.TheCoachApproach.net

Politics, Religion and Deep Democracy

2006-01-30T12:48:00.000-08:00

Where I grew up, in a small industrial town in northern California, we were taught never to discuss politics or religion except in our most intimate circles. I was surprised when I moved to New York City right after college and no sooner did I exit the plane, I learned that every taxi driver in the big apple is listening to NPR and has opinions about these closet topics that he is willing to spew about from airport to the city, east side to west, and uptown to down. Everyone in Manhattan was willing to toss around their thoughts on these hot spots and they wanted to know, “Where do you stand?”

To this day, I don’t take rigid stands on either. I grew up a Democrat and a sporadic Baptist. I joined the Catholic Church at 18 and converted to the political right when I went to work on Wall Street. While our family now attends a Catholic church, my spiritual beliefs are greatly influenced by eastern philosophies and I am one of those folks who claims to votes the issues and the candidates rather than “my party.”

So there is everything I never wanted to say about myself and politics and religion and I put it out there now because I am about to approach a highly charged political, spiritual, religious, and social issue. I am afraid that my words will be divisive and cause the reader to want to take sides for or against something, or at me for that matter, when everything in me is about bringing people to a better understanding of each other personally, socially and professionally. I am afraid that someone I know will walk away from this blog and say, “Lora Banks thinks the answer to the world’s problems is to negotiate with terrorists.”

It is not the answer but trying to silence the voices of what we consider extremely radical is part of the problem. This week, a militant Islamic group, the Hamas, won the Palestinian parliamentary elections. Now this is a dilemma. We have an extreme political group, voted into authority in a democratic election, which has historically taken a stand for violence and the destruction of a nearby people. While democracy values peace and liberty, this group values something more highly than peace. What is the message in this seeming contradiction?

The Hamas represent marginalized voices in our global society that have historically been overpowered and stifled because they do not fit into the current fabric of the world community. The heinous attacks on the twin towers in New York City were indeed a dramatic and devastating representation of a similar energy. This is not about right or wrong or who is doing what to whom. This is very much about the physics, the science of energy and thought. Thoughts and by extension collective opinions, are energy and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can be channeled and transformed among other things but, it cannot be destroyed. It will continue to exist somewhere in the universe.

The problem is when we use power or rank to assert our positions, the answer is almost always revenge. The energy of the deviant thought does not vanish. It is like the children’s arcade game where you take a mallet and bonk a mole over the head only to have one of its buddies quickly appear somewhere else on the field. You bonk that fellow over the head and another mole instantly appears somewhere else. The game continues sort of endlessly until the timer runs out.

It is ultimately impossible to defend against revenge. We can only drive the energy underground. It will continue to reappear somewhere else until we can hear and understand the disparate view, to have it be part of the solution at best or part of designing the container for the conflict at the very least. On the one hand, there is something that rings true about making the unpopular view more legitimate just by being willing to be in the conversation with the opposition. And on the other, legitimate or not, it continues to be a toxic force at work in the world.

What is needed is a deep democracy. Deep democracy is the process of making space for all of the voices in the system to be heard, even and maybe especially, the unpopular ones. This pioneering concept, articulated by Dr. Arnold Mindell, both a psychologist and physicist trained at MIT among other places, assumes that the wisdom needed to heal a conflict lies in listening to all views - not some views, not the majority views or minority views, but ALL views. It invites the players to separate the people from the issues, to stop blaming each other and sit side by side to bring the collective wisdom to bear on our shared problems.

When the dominant powers of the world are willing to go forward without blame and to enter into the conversation where the unpopular voice has the safety to speak, we can expect quantum healing of historically intractable conflict.

Lora

Lora Banks, CPCC
lora@TheCoachAppraoch.net
www.TheCoachApproach.net

For more on Dr. Arnold Mindell click here and see the tab on "World Work."

Right Mental Development

2006-01-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

I started writing before the end of the year about the eightfold path in the Buddhist tradition and what it might like to use these values as a structure in business and organizational leadership. It’s been awhile, so just to recap, here is where we have been:

We begin with right view and right intention. Right view means thinking objectively and without prejudice while right intention involves turning away from political and selfish motivations in service of the whole organization as well as the stakeholders. We looked at the concept of right speech, using your words to serve rather than to hinder which means to be honest, gentle and warm with your words and to avoid mistruths, slander, and gossip. Right effort is to quite simply do the right thing, guided by a set of principles or values such as these and to refrain from unethical conduct. And in my last post, we considered right livelihood, earning a living in a way that lights us and serves humanity in some way however large or small.

The final three aspects of the eightfold path are right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. I put them all together here because they all fall into the category of mental development, how we use our mind and mental capacity. Right effort includes the effort to avoid, overcome, develop, and maintain. As it applies to the professional landscape, it means we must not only avoid unethical behavior and situations in our organizations but we must overcome them once we become aware of them. There is no turning the other cheek. If we do not participate in eliminating the unethical behavior, we are aligning with it simply by ignoring. At the same time, we must develop in ourselves an ongoing commitment to ethics and sustain ethical behavior over time.

Mindfulness as I use it here refers to the vigilance that is required to continually separate ourselves from our perceptions in an attempt to see more clearly what is actually present. We form judgments, assumptions, and opinions based on our cognitive experience which is indeed filtered through a myriad of perceptions and beliefs. Over the holidays, I had a conversation at a Christmas party with a friend of mine who works in the financial markets. He was telling me how a high profile local CEO was having an affair with an administrative assistant some years ago. The evidence he presented was that someone had seen the young woman walk into the CEO’s office looking fresh and come out some time later looking disheveled. When we actively engage right mindfulness, we simply observe the facts and refrain from making up or interpreting something we have not actually observed. It requires a constant vigilance, a constant witnessing of our ourselves and a pursuit of the objective truth. What is possible here is the complete elimination of hurtful, extraneous gossip and mistruths in the organization as well as our broader communities.

Finally, right concentration is wholesome concentration; it is to bring awareness in our actions and in our thoughts to that which is positive and constructive. I am reminded here of the little I know and understand about quantum physics. What I understand according to this branch of science is that where and how we focus our attention does in fact impact reality as we observe and understand it. When we focus on the positive and the constructive, we are much more likely to bring into existence positive and constructive circumstances. So be disciplined in your concentration and focus on that which you want to create rather than what you want to avoid. The mere act of concentrating will increase the likelihood of the event. Be pointed and conscious in your attention.

In reviewing these powerful concepts, it is clear that if we apply any one or two regularly in the organizational arena, we can powerful and positive impact our organizations. What would be possible if the whole of the organization interpreted events objectively, acted from a place of service, eliminated hurtful speech and unethical behavior, performed with passion, refused to tolerate the negative and unprincipled, acted mindfully and brought wholesome concentration to day to day tasks?

Now that is a powerful, world-changing vision!

Mindfully,

Lora

lora@TheCoachApproach.net

www.TheCoachApproach.net

Right Livelihood

2005-12-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

Right Livelihood

While I worked in the financial markets trading stocks for a living, one of the phenomenon that never ceased to amaze me was the change in the energy of the trading room when trading began at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. I don’t mean just the excitement and the sense of urgency but rather how many of us would morph into seemingly inhuman creatures. It was a bit like we had left our real selves in the parking garage or the taxi cab on the way to work.

There was a saying around my office at Montgomery Securities that I am sure was heard around the street, “Kill or be killed.” And that is what it felt like. Besides being extremely competitive, we used profanity, threats, aggression, and intimidation to get our trades done. The truth be known, some traders would frequently distort the facts to make transactions happen. What is really interesting is that all of this bizarre behavior was not only accepted by the players but expected in the game of trading stocks.

The ethical guideline of “right livelihood” encompasses not only what we do for work but also, how we do our work. First, the how. No matter what our chosen profession, we must do no harm to ourselves, others, or the environment. We need to approach our work from a place of service regardless of how we make a living. This means bringing the heart and soul into the workplace rather than checking them at the door. I would bet that none of that team of traders I worked with at Montgomery treated their other relationships the same way we treated each other when the market was open.

How do we serve in our work organizations? While some work is service oriented by nature like teachers, doctors, and therapists, we can serve no matter where we sit during the day. We can serve by treating each others with compassion and kindness – think Golden Rule here. We can serve through collaboration and mentorship. We can serve through fine modeling and powerful leadership regardless of our industry.

In coaching my clients, I start in the perspective that everyone deserves to have work that fills them up and makes the best of use of unique talents, wishes, and passion. That too is part of right livelihood, making money doing what makes our hearts dance. Again, think about what is possible for our organizations when the collective “we” is truly happy with the work that is being done. Real genius. Real creativity. Two possibilities for starters.

Right livelihood means, we have an obligation to earn a living in a way that lights us up and it is not so much about what we get as it is about we give.

Lora

lora@TheCoachApproach.net
www.TheCoachApproach.net

Do the Right Thing

2005-12-14T13:42:00.000-08:00

Do the Right Thing

To do the right thing is not the same as doing it right or not making a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. Leaders in all forms of leadership make mistakes. Doing the right thing comes back to values and principles. It means making choices and decisions in accordance with the highest good.

Now, if everybody everywhere always was doing the right thing the world would cease to exist as we know it. There would be no war, no fraud, no hunger, no crime and no injustice. A nice vision and one certainly worth holding but let’s chunk it down a little bit. What might it look like at work?

There are three guiding principles in choosing your actions. First, abstain from doing harm to other beings by intent or delinquency. As it speaks to business leadership, it is interesting to note a call here to a higher standard which includes accountability for failing to take right action as well. Second, refrain from taking that which is not given which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty. Enough said about that. Can an organization be too honest? I don’t think so.

And finally, refrain from sexual misconduct. This is of course a loaded one. Who defines misconduct? As it applies at work, what I know for sure is that misconduct clearly encompasses sexual harassment. I suggest that it also includes not engaging in extramarital affairs that impact the work environment. Affairs that impact the work environment are those that involve associates, subordinates, or co-workers or as well as alliances that other employees may become aware of in the course of business activities. Think holiday party or business travel.

When you apply this framework to the business environment, it is clear that most of the bad business news would be eliminated if those in leadership would simply do the right thing. We would continue to read about earnings shortfalls, product failures, and management changes. And the Enrons, the Worldcoms, and the Martha Stewart headlines would be decidedly absent from the business press.

With respect,

Lora

lora@TheCoachApproach.net
www.TheCoachApproach.net

Right Speech

2005-12-13T17:01:00.000-08:00

Right Speech

Borrowed from www.bigview.com.

Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.

In summary:

1) Tell the truth.

2) Refrain from slanderous and malicious speech.

3) Speak friendly, warm, and gentle words.

4) Don’t gossip.

At The Coach Approach, LLC we have conducted many hours of corporate training and leadership development targeted directly at creating right speech, in particular eliminating the energy drain of gossip and inefficient communication. It seems so simple and yet requires a kind of vigilance to keep us mindful of the power and impact of our words.

Mindfully,

Lora

lora@TheCoachApproach.net
www.TheCoachApproach.net

Right View, Right Intention

2005-12-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

Right View, Right Intention

The first two aspects I want to explore fall into the category of wisdom. They are right view and right intention. What I love about applying this framework (see previous blog entry) to the business organization is that it is simple and in many respects quite clear. Business decisions often embrace a great deal of uncertainty and generally speaking, the higher your position within an organization, the more variables you must juggle. The future is uncertain. The impact of your decisions might be far reaching and the impact may not even be fully known for some time to come, if it is ever fully known at all.

What I know for sure about decision making is that the best decisions are made based on a set of principles. Look now at the first principle listed here, right view. Right view means that in looking at the scenario before you, you are free from prejudice, false perceptions and delusions. This begs the question of what does it really mean to be objective. So the starting point is a clean slate. Begin with a clear, objective mind.

The second aspect is right intention or right thought. Perhaps I should backtrack just a little to say that the word “right” is not used here as in right vs. wrong but more in the context of what best serves the leader and his constituents. And in this context, right intention, refers to turning away from politics and gaming and toward what is true, positive and in service of the organization and it’s stakeholders. Right intention is thinking about the complexities of the business in a way that serves.

I make the assumption, rightly or wrongly, that most leaders in business endeavor to bring a great deal of wisdom to their leadership and in particular to the making of important decisions. Starting from right view with an objective mind and right intention, freeing yourself from gamesmanship and pointing in the direction of service, are two great starting points for rock solid leadership in your organization.

With respect,

Lora

lora@TheCoachApproach.net
www.TheCoachApproach.net

The Enlightened Executive

2005-12-07T22:21:00.000-08:00

The Enlightened Executive

For more than a year I have been toying with the idea of writing a book (I know isn’t everybody?) entitled, “The Enlightened Executive.” When I googled it many months ago, it didn’t look like anyone else had had the same idea, yet. During the course of my work today, the phrase once again popped into my head. According to Google, there is now a soon to be released book by this title about one executive’s experience on his path to (shhh, shhh, whisper, whisper, say it very softly)…….enlightenment.

It is almost hard to write the word in a business blog which talks about leadership in the workplace. One reason I didn’t even pen an outline or write a newsletter column or create a seminar program around the concept is because the word seemed so out of place in the workplace. Yet, it whispers to me. I look at the work we do, executive coaching, leadership coaching and training, team-building experiences, through my company, The Coach Approach, and ask myself, what is it really that we are training leaders, managers and employees to do?

What I know for sure is that ALL change, ALL growth and ultimately transformation is a function of awareness. Enlightenment is by many definitions a state of awareness of our surroundings and the energetic workings of our systematic relationships. So I find myself interested in taking framework I have been working with personally and exploring how it might be applied in the business organization. Not to pull any punches here, it is taken straight from the ancient eastern philosophy of Buddhism. In the Buddhist tradition it is referred to it as The Eightfold Path and is considered as the way to end suffering in the world.

So I am not a Buddhist and I haven’t studied this much at all but take a look at this matrix of the attributes and actions that pave the way to enlightenment. Consider what might be possible if we embraced these concepts in our organizations……………More tomorrow.

1. Right View

Wisdom

2. Right Intention

3. Right Speech

Ethical Conduct 4. Right Action

5. Right Livelihood

6. Right Effort

Mental Development 7. Right Mindfulness

8. Right Concentration

What’s Here Now?

2005-12-06T12:38:00.000-08:00

What’s here now? I actually have no idea what I am about to put to this page but it is my blog and I suppose I have the right to write from a stream of consciousness. There are no sponsors or shareholders to worry about here.

Well, summer came and went and here we are right smack dab in the middle of the holidays. I wonder what I accomplished this year. I wonder what I missed out on. I wonder about my report card as a parent, as a wife, as a member of various communities and I don’t know that I did so well this year. To be honest, I might actually be disappointed in myself on many fronts.

And I wonder, what should I do with these thoughts? Well, my mom came over this weekend and brought me a little pre-Christmas gift, a four disk audio set of a program produced by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I had read some of his books years ago and he really fell off my radar until he became of client of my friend Josie Stein and her 15th step work, then in Maui.

So as I worked out on the stairmaster last night, I popped in the second or third disk to hear Dr. Wayne share some of his new as well as ancient wisdom. In this particular set he was saying something about the 10 surefire steps to personal fulfillment. Well I have read just about every personal and professional development piece of literature that is published or produced and there was nothing new. That is, the IDEAS were nothing new. Where I fail, is the same place my clients fail, and that is PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE! I usually refer to this as “walk the talk.”

The talk is generally easy. Many times, I would bet most times, we know what needs to be done. Even if we don’t know the specific steps, we know the spirit of what needs to happen. And something happens between knowing and doing.

And here is what stuck out for me on those 60 minutes of audio. One of the keys to success that Dyer was pointing to was the willingness to give up our story. There is a way that we tell the story of our lives, to ourselves and maybe to other people that limits who we are and who we are to become. It actually frames our future experience if we let it. Because, when we lug it around mentally, emotionally, subconsciously and even physically, it really becomes an intention and expectation for our future.

For me, my story has been about a life of hard work. It has been a bit of a Cinderella story, to be slightly dramatic, and a lot about persevering and succeeding against all odds. Now this story has brought me quite a bit of success in my life no doubt. Perhaps, at an earlier point in life, it may have even served me well. It doesn’t serve me now.

I made the choice yesterday to be willing to give up my story and see what might be possible. What is the new story that my life and my work want to write, to create? What is here now?

Each moment is new. Each day, each month, each holiday season, year, birthday, is new. Let us treat it that way and create ourselves anew in a fashion that befits who we are now and not the story we have written over many years of life experience.

Our future depends on it.

Wishing you all many blessings this holiday season and fresh new perspectives that serve you in your quest for personal and professional leadership growth.

Blessings,

Lora

lora@TheCoachApproach.net
www.TheCoachApproach.net

The Goose and the Golden Egg

2005-08-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

The Goose and the Golden Egg

What does Aesop's fable of the goose and the golden egg have to do with The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? Author Steven Covey calls is the P/PC balance where "P" stands for production and "PC" stands for production capacity. To be effective, you obviously have to both.

The goose and the golden egg is the story of a farmer who discovers he owns a goose who lays golden eggs. Everyday he finds a golden egg beneath his prized goose and he become fabulously wealthy. Unfortunately, he becomes greedy and impatient. He does not want to wait for the golden eggs so he kills the goose with the intention of removing all the golden eggs only to find out that there are no eggs inside the goose and now, the goose that lays the golden eggs is dead. It can no longer produce for the farmer. In this story, the goose represents the production capacity and the golden eggs are the production.

What does the P/PC balance principle have to do with leadership? In the old icon leadership model, leaders were charged with getting other people to do something, to generate results and the results themselves were paramount. That is, the production or the desired outcome was what mattered most. There was little if any awareness of the “PC” component of this principle. How do you achieve results AND create sustainability? Production capacity speaks to sustainability. The old command and control style of leadership most certainly achieves results and fails to foster loyalty, commitment, or passion. As leaders, you want both results and the capacity to continue to produce results which comes from nurturing the relationship with those you lead.

During my ten years trading stocks in the financial markets, I saw many trading desks that produced outstanding results under near-tyrannical leadership. These were managers that would yell, swear, intimidate, humiliate and insult traders into outstanding performance. The traders were extremely well-paid, many making somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000 a year. And undoubtedly when the stock market was performing well and talent was tight, employee turnover constantly undermined production goals. These traders were producers and their managers did little to develop PC, to nurture relationships, inspire loyalty etc.

This phenomenon is not specific to Wall Street. Every organization will improve sustainability of results by looking at the P/PC balance. If you are achieving results, how well are you leading to develop capacity in the future? If you are not achieving results and know you have developed the production capacity, how do you lead from here to generate desired results? Most importantly, don’t simply focus on one or the other. Focus on both for maximum effectiveness.

The Being of a Leader

2005-08-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

The Being of a Leader

It’s been a busy week. All four of the children are here in Tahoe along with my husband and our new puppy for our last week of vacation before school starts on Wednesday for the older kids. I have finally moved beyond the first 33 pages of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I have made it to page 44. More from Covey.

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Albert Einstein

Personal effectiveness starts from the inside-out. We start first with self, the deepest parts of self, in other words our character. Says Covey, “It is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.” In the language of co-activity, he is pointing to who do we want to “be” as opposed to how we act. Our being is the essence of who we are and our energy and our actions will follow our core being. So, this is where we check in on our leadership.

According to Covey, “If you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.”

We start with our own personal paradigms, our character and our motives. Who do we want to be as leaders? What habits must we develop to support that being? Private victory precedes public victory.

Borrowed from a Friend Today

2005-08-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

I borrowed this post from a friend's blog today. Favorite poem of Ms. Laura Whitworth.

You cannot stay on the summit forever,
You have to come down again . . .
So why bother in the first place?
Just this: What is above knows what is below,
but what is below does not know what is above.
One climbs, one sees. One descends,
One sees no longer but one has seen.
There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions
By the memory of what one saw higher up.
When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.
— Rene Daumal

The Character Ethic - More From The Seven Habits

2005-08-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

More from Covey and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And, I am still in the first 33 pages.

Covey studied over 200 years of success literature and noticed that since about World War I, the literature has tended to focus on the Personality Ethic or the technique of success such as networking, communication, and positive mental attitude. Prior to this time, the literature focused on the Character Ethic as foundational to success. Think Ben Franklin again. Principles such as integrity, courage, justice and the Golden Rule were considered integral to success.

I recently coached several engineers who were surprised to learn that I would hold the possibility of great leadership for them. They were standing in the perspective that they were engineers, technical folk without good communication skills or people skills, generally introverted. They held a stereotype of “leaders” as the outgoing, vivacious and charismatic type ONLY.

Not so. There is so much more to leadership than personality. What Covey calls “primary greatness” comes from the idea that there are principles that govern human effectiveness just as there are natural laws that govern the physical world. Principles he says are not “practices or values but rather guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value.” He refers to the principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, human dignity, service and potential, to name just a few.

I couldn’t agree more with the earlier literature and Covey. And what I love about this perspective is that greatness and success are not a function of personality or technique. They are available to each of us based on how well we conduct ourselves and align with certain unwavering principles of conduct.

What's in the Eyes of the Beholder

2005-08-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

I just picked up Stephen Covey’s, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and began reading it for the third time. The book is ultra rich in leadership material under the labels of personal effectiveness, success, and/or self-improvement. Anyway I look at it; it touches on leadership from many, many angles. I could easily spend the rest of the summer blogging about it and I very well may.

In the first 33 pages, I have highlighted 17 learning points that I want to reflect on and revisit. The one that sticks out for me at the moment is the role of perception in decision making. As leaders, we make decisions based on imperfect information. We use the data available, our experience and our own wisdom and yet, all of our decisions are colored by our perceptions. We filter the data through our lens on the situation, the world, the players involved. The decision is NEVER entirely objective.

Covey retells this story told by Frank Koch in Proceedings, the magazine of the Naval Institute.

Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.
Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow."
"Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out.
Lookout replied, "Steady, captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.
The captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees."
Back came the signal, "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees."
The captain said, "Send, I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees."
"I'm a seaman second class," came the reply. "You had better change course 20 degrees."
By that time the captain was furious. He spat out, "Send, I'm a battleship. Change course 20 degrees."
Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse." We changed course.

The captain makes a decision based on imperfect information. Great, someone has to do it! He takes action and when he receives the response, his ego gets hook and he gets married to his own perception, only to learn that his perception is indeed flawed. He changes course to protect his ship.

The lesson I am looking at here is, “How do we lean into our expertise while at the same time remaining open to different perspectives, points of view? What perspectives are we holding as we lead and manage others through different situations? What is the impact of our expectations?”

For Leaders Learning is the Gift of Failure

2005-08-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

The fruit of all failure is the learning. I love Thomas Edison’s perspective on failure and learning. He said, “I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

History is flush with stories of famous people who met with adversity and applied the learning to go on to great success. Before he became a successful lawyer, Abraham Lincoln spent 17 years paying off debts he incurred in a failed business venture. Dr. Sally Ride dropped out of Swarthmore College to try her hand at professional tennis. After failing at tennis, she enrolled at Stanford University, went on to join NASA and become the first American woman in space. And, more recently, Lance Armstrong overcame testicular to go on to seven consecutive Tour de France championships.

All of these famous people took risks. Yeah! Risk-taking is no doubt a key leadership competency. And they failed. Ug. They recovered and they learned. Abraham Lincoln discovered his love of oratory and politics. Sally Ride discovered an aptitude in science and engineering and Lance Armstrong totally changed his psychological approach to racing. Failure is not a place to wallow. It is a true gift, an opportunity to seize the learning and move forward more powerfully, more confidently, and better informed than you were before the experience of failing.

Recover, Don't Persevere

2005-08-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

The big difference between persevering and recovering through failure is that recovery requires a pause and a conscious choice about where you go from here based on what you have learned from failing. Webster defines persevering as, “to go on resolutely or stubbornly in spite of opposition, importunity, or warning.” Recovery is about fully stepping in, once again, to your leadership and moving forward with the new information rather than in spite of the learning. See the difference?

What is here now? What is different now? What is available now that perhaps didn’t exist before this failure?

Here is a personal story. After the market crashed in 1987, I left my job trading stocks to start a sports marketing company because the career prospects in the market looked rather dim to me. After a phenomenal start with a contract from Coca-Cola USA and then Oakland A’s slugger Jose Canseco, the business continued on for six years generating revenue and growth but unable to generate a profit. I persevered. I was an entrepreneur, committed to my vision. I could make this succeed against all odds and in fact, by some measures of success, growth and revenue, it was doing well. But, very little profits.

The business plan was flawed. We were negotiating contracts between corporations and professional athletes and collecting a commission. We were selling large consumer promotion programs to McDonald’s, Burger King, and 7-11 Convenience Stores on dinky margins and we were running labor intensive sports events doing everything from finding sponsors to selling tickets and managing event logistics. We had failed to define our niche, a point of differentiation between us and our competitors and we therefore never said no to a contract, even if the margins were too thin. We were so busy persevering that we never stepped back to see that the plan was failing and then make the necessary adjustments.

Culturally there is a sort of honor in persevering but the risks are high. When faced with failure, your most leaderly move is to take pause and make a conscious choice about where you want to go next and how you want to lead from this place.

Making Amends After Failure

2005-08-10T20:04:00.000-07:00

The good news is that when moving through failure, when you get to the point of making amends and looking at the commitments you can make in the future, you are well on your way to recovering. Beware of the temptation to expedite things by apologizing. While apologizing is sometimes what is needed, oftentimes it is the result of the group’s desire to quickly get out of the discomfort of the failure zone.

I have seen groups in team-building training vehemently demand an apology from an associate after some violation of trust or over the line behavior. And I have seen the targeted participant acquiesce and apologize only to find out the group was not satisfied with an apology. The issue continues to resurface over and over again and to fester in small cells within the group or the team as a whole. It might be uncomfortable to stay in the interaction and determine what is really needed but look deeper. Don’t sell out at this point in the game. What is needed to make amends and move the situation forward?

Another urge that shows up is the temptation to make promises. You might feel the need to overcommit to compensate for the failure. Don’t! Your credibility is on the line here. Promises you can’t keep usually fall in the category of things you can’t control. This is a good time to be precise in your language and to clearly understand the difference between your good intentions and the limitations of your influence and control.

Leader Moves - Asking for Help

2005-08-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

What is so difficult about asking for help when you need it? I am not sure I can answer that question, although it comes up again and again in the leadership training seminars I conduct for business leaders through The Coach Approach. I wrote a few days ago about the importance of leading through failure and never forgetting that you are continuing to lead, even when faced with failure. One of the ways you actively lead is by making choices, taking proactive action rather than just dodging bullets. So know that one of the options available to you may very well be – asking for help.

Taking responsibility is an important step in recovering from the failure and I sometimes see managers go to the extreme, acting as if, “I got myself(us) into this and I’ll get myself(us) out.” Valiant, perhaps honorable and not necessarily the most leaderly move. Leaders cannot be afraid to ask for help. Remember the Law of Requisite Variety which says that the organism with the greatest number of responses available to it, is the organism that survives. To survive and even thrive through failure, let asking for help be one of your options and don’t hesitate for second if that is what is needed.

Take Responsibility for Failure with Clarity

2005-08-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

Leaders inevitably lose credibility when they don’t take responsibility for failure. And, it is impossible to move past the failure, to recover, without taking responsibility. So, what does it mean to take responsibility? If you continue to lead through the failure and have honestly assessed your actions and your impact, taking responsibility is a natural next step.

You quite simply must speak about the failure. You must acknowledge your role and responsibility for the failure and provide your assessment of the impact. What are the current conditions surrounding this issue now? This isn’t about having a plan to “fix” the failure. You don’t need to be that far along in the process just yet. As a matter of fact, solutions have been known to spontaneously appear the minute you acknowledge your responsibility and identify your impact.

Here is a short script you might use.

1) Name the event. What exactly is the failure?

2) What is your perception/understanding of what has transpired?

3) Name your role, the role of your team, organization or company clearly.

4) Here is my honest assessment of current conditions.

5) Make whatever requests might be useful in moving forward through the event. What help do you need? What information would be useful? What feedback is needed?

This short script will allow you to get all the important information on the table with some clarity and point you and those impacted by the issue in the direction of moving forward.

Learning from Failure - Getting Real

2005-08-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

I often experience an “A Ha” moment with clients when we discuss the difference between “being good” and “looking good.” In this context, I use the phrase, “being good,” to describe consistently acting in accordance with your values. When facing failure, looking good may not be an option. Being good is always an option and in fact, is the most powerful form of leadership in difficult situations.

I wrote yesterday about actively leading through failure, rather than defending or retreating from it. One of the ways you begin to do that is to get real with yourself and those impacted by the failure. This is not the time to put a positive spin on things, deliver part of the truth, blame or avoid. If you want to lead effectively through the difficulty this is a time to be brutally honest with yourself. Ask yourself, what exactly happened here and what is my responsibility? Who or what is impacted here and in what way?

In order to move forward, you need to be able to accurately assess the damage as well as your role, your team’s role, management’s role, outside circumstances and all the variables that came to bear on the situation. When you are dealing with a team or organization, you are going to need to invite honest assessment of the failure to learn from it. Most importantly, understand your role and the full impact of what is going on at the present time.

While you are getting real with yourself and the impact of the failure, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. This is particularly difficult to remember in extreme situations. Are you dealing with a good employee who made a bad decision or an incompetent employee? Is this a legitimate misunderstanding with a client or is the client disrespectful of the business relationship? Are you in the wrong job with the wrong company or is it just the wrong company or the wrong position? Failure can sting, especially when it is high profile or public and you don’t want to amputate the whole leg when you just need a cast on the ankle.

Understanding your role and responsibility as well as the full impact of the failure, leads you down the path from failure to learning. Not a time to be gentle, vague or obscure and not a time to make yourself and everyone involved wrong. The more real you can be, the more you extract the learning from the situation.

Never Stop Leading During Failure

2005-08-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

You know that failure as a leader is inevitable. You make decisions based on imperfect information. You are going to be wrong sometimes. You step up to handle a project and find you don’t have adequate resources. You use your best judgment in a difficult situation and it leads to disastrous results. You can absolutely count on the fact that you are going to make mistakes or sometimes find yourself in circumstances beyond your control or influence.

So, when you find yourself in the midst of failing, how do you lead through it?

Most importantly, remember that you are still leading through the failure. In the leadership development programs I lead for The Coach Approach, I frequently see business leaders make one of two choices when faced with failure. Their competitive instinct seems to be to defend the actions or process that lead to the failure to take some of the sting out of it and minimize “political” damage. Or, they retreat as if to make themselves and therefore the failure less visible. They wait for the next opportunity to demonstrate competence so that if someone is keeping score, they have more wins than losses.

Both defending and retreating will compromise your impact as a leader. Certainly if there is some misunderstanding around an issue, you will take a stand for your point of view. And when you find yourself smack dab in the middle of failure, ask yourself, “How do I want to continue to lead through this?” There is always a range of options available to you and you want to be actively making choices as you move through critical moments. What conversations do you need to have? Where do you go from here? Who needs to be included in the next round of decisions? What needs to happen differently next time?

Times of failure will test and define your leadership skills and abilities. Associates, teammates, clients and bosses will notice how you conduct yourself during trying times. While you won’t be able to control the outcome of many of the challenges you face, you can always choose to respond to the circumstances from a leaderly perspective, a place of power and authenticity.

Leadership Through Failure

2005-08-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

All paths to success must necessarily pass through the land of failure, some large, some small and all quite necessary to the process of growing yourself as a leader. If you are not failing, you are probably playing too small. You learn by trying new things, taking risks, stretching outside of the comfort zone, failing, and learning. You don’t grow yourself as a leader by doing what you already know how to do.

Nobody enjoys failing. Ug. Failing can be embarrassing, even humiliating. Who can get excited about not achieving a goal, letting an organization down, destroying a relationship, losing a key customer, or not achieving a desired goal? Nobody. And yet, when you fail, you have a chance to both demonstrate and improve your leadership skills, to grow yourself as a leader. Failure is necessary and the gift is the opportunity to learn.

How do you make the most of failing? Here is a short list of do’s and don’ts that can refine and grow your leadership skills. The list is provided here and will be explored more in depth in the next few blogs.

Remember that you are always leading, even when you are failing.
Get real with yourself and those impacted by the failure.
Take responsibility.
Ask for help when you need it.
Make amends. Don’t make promises you cannot keep.
Recover and move forward rather than “persevere.”
Look for the learning AND take it with you.

Four Leadership Pitfalls to Avoid

2005-05-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

<>Leadership is a relationship between the leader and the led. If no one is following, then we are not leading. We may be doing some wonderful, creative, provocative things but, that in itself is not leadership. On the flip side, if two or more people come together and no one steps into leadership, we are a collective perhaps with a good idea, a vision, or an agenda but without a process for moving forward absent leadership.

Leadership happens in the relationship whether it is between two people, a team, a whole organization, a church, or a community. And that relationship is characterized by many of the attributes present in all relationships such as assumptions, expectations, values, emotions, successes, failures, dreams and disappointments. With so much going on in the connection between people, how do we minimize the possibility of failure?<> <>

According to Dr. John Gottman, well-known for his extensive research of relationships out of the University of Washington, there are four important pitfalls that must be avoided to reduce the possibility of failure in relationships. They are:

· Blame

· Defensiveness

· Contempt

· Stonewalling

Think about how these apply to leadership. First of all, take blame. Where there is blame, we have a leader that does not take responsibility for her actions and puts others down. A leader who is defensive is unable to hear valuable feedback and learn from the perspectives and opinions of others. Contempt and contemptuous behavior destroy morale and model a value of disrespect in the organization. And finally, stonewalling. Stonewalling may appear a bit benign if we think of it as appearing strong and unflinching. But stonewalling is one of the most effective tools at destroying the leadership relationship. A leader who stonewalls will find himself isolated, unapproachable, and perceived as lacking in humanness.

As you assess your own leadership abilities whether you are a leader at work, at home, in the community, and/or in your relationship, ask yourself how often you fall into these destructive behaviors and disempower your relationships, undermine your leadership. How would you like to be different this week?

Conversations of a Leader

2005-05-12T18:07:00.000-07:00

In my work with corporations delivering team-building and leadership training programs, I routinely see a hunger for more direct communication at virtually every level of the organization. Executives want upward communication. They want to know what is really happening in the company. Department heads want clear communication from other departments about what’s working and what’s not. Human resources wants to hear about labor law violations before problems mushroom into expensive lawsuits. Managers and employees want more useful feedback in performance reviews and most employees want to really know about the critical factors affecting their jobs and their careers. What’s the real perception of my abilities at headquarters? Is the company considering a lay off? A geographical move? A shift in strategy that would eliminate or create jobs?

In The Coach Approach to Leadership and Management, we do an exercise called the “get real list,” which is to identify all of the obstacles that get in the way of real, direct communication. The list is generally long and here are just a few highlights:

• I don’t want to look bad, ignorant, uninformed.
• It wouldn’t be good corporate politics to disagree, challenge etc.
• I don’t want to hurt someone feelings.
• Things will never change anyway. That’s just the way it is.
• I can handle this myself. It’s really not that big of a deal.
• So and so never listens, so why even try?
• My boss is a jerk and doesn’t really want real feedback anyway.
• If I speak up, I’ll pay for it later.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We have plenty of reasons for not speaking our truth. Leaders however, must be willing to give a voice to the truth, their truth. They must be willing to take the risk associated with naming what they think they see, what they believe, what they notice and what they feel. The fierce conversation, the leaderly conversation, is not always the difficult conversation, although it often is, but rather the conversation that is longing to be had to keep integrity in the space of the relationship or the organization. It is the conversation that many are sensing but, for whatever reason, no one is saying.

This is the place where the leader steps in and creates the leaderly conversation.

Leadership Tools - The Fierce Conversation

2005-05-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

Jack Welch calls it "candor." My associate, Leslie Flocchini of the Holistic Coaching Center, calls it "fierce conversations." It is a leadership tool that must be present in every leader's toolbox because, it creates trust. Fierce conversations quite simply boil down to being direct, frank, and honest with people. Sounds simple but it's not. According to Susan Scott, author of the book "Fierce Conversations", direct, honest conversations are contrary to our adult human nature. When we were kids, we learned how not to insult grandma's cooking, not to hurt a playmate's feelings, and not to say things that were true but not necessarily nice. So, we learned how to sugarcoat and to avoid the truth. We learned how to minimize our emotional impact in conversations.

But honest, direct communication is what's needed in our organizations and in our relationships. In fact, an unwillingness to have fierce conversations will undermine a team and, potentially destroy relationships. As leaders, we need to be willing to say what we see, what we sense. We need to be able to name the real issues and be in conversation around what is real. Scott says, wherever you find yourself in challenging circumstances in relationships or with your organization, know that you got there "one failed conversation at a time."

The flip side is, we can begin to shift our circumstances by taking responsibility one conversation at time. The place to start? Just for today, begin to notice, to listen to yourself to see where you sell out. Where do you change the subject? Where do you hold back, tell little lies or even big ones? Where do you keep your opinions to yourself or sugarcoat the truth only to become entirely bored with the meeting or the conversation at hand? Just for today, when you hear yourself sell out on the whole truth, try stepping into the real conversation and notice your impact.

Incredible Leaders - The Importance of Candor

2005-05-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

One of the things I most appreciate about my travel schedule is the opportunity to log a fair number of reading hours away from the responsibilities of home and my four children. On my trip last week to Wyoming to deliver a series of leadership training programs, I picked up Jack Welch's new book, "Winning." I love the fact that the second chapter is dedicated to the topic of "candor" in organizations.

In the programs delivered by The Coach Approach, we have long focused on the importance of direct communication in organizations. We often call this direct communication, "fierce conversations." According to Welch, lack of candor basically, "blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they've got. It's a killer." He goes on to list the following benefits of frank communication:

Gets more people in the conversation
Generates speed
Cuts costs, although you'll never be able to measure it

The book is filled with 40 years of leadership wisdom. And, candor is one of the cornerstones of incredible leaders.

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Thoughts on Leadership - A new blog

2005-05-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

This blog is being launched as a place to share the author's views on leadership. The author is a new blogger and is trying to learn this system. Please be patient.