Here Is Some Advice That You Can Use..Or Not

From time to time I receive questions from readers asking for advice on how to handle certain leadership situations. One thing you have to know is that I am not big on giving advice. To be able to advise, I think you need a lot of details on the situation the person finds themselves in. There are usually so many details that could sway something one way or another.

Douglas Stone and Sheila Henn in Thanks for the Feedback say that the problem with advice is that it is not specific enough. We tend to give some sage comments without giving enough detail to implement them. Or, we are such experts in something we assume that everyone knows our jargon. For example, “When you deliver your presentation make sure it stands out.” This is interesting, but what does “stand out” even mean?

The other thing that makes advice hard is that when I give it I now own the result. Since it was my idea, it is in some way on me if it doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter if the person didn’t follow my advice the way I laid it out, or if they took some of it, but not all of it. The advice didn’t work and I am in some way responsible. That is usually why I prefer to coach and help people find options that seem reasonable and doable for them to try versus just giving advice.

One thing I had to learn as I was growing as an executive coach, mostly the hard way, is that while coaching is in some respects about helping people solve problems, it is far from telling them what to do. It is more about what Parker Palmer calls “pulling out their inner teacher.” Helping them see options and then supporting the options they choose is, to me, more of what coaching is about.

So, when I get a question from a reader seeking advice, I usually will read it and ponder it for a week or more. I am not thinking about what the person should do in the situation described, or what I would do if I were them. Instead, my thoughts usually turn more to trying to understand the context of the situation they might be in and then coming up with some general guidelines or options they could choose.

With that in mind, I did receive a fantastic question from someone who has read this blog for years.

The Question

“How do leaders know when to intervene in order to promote better collaboration and stop the group in-fighting versus just reorganizing the department? Is there a tipping point where a simple intervention can help to resolve the issue rather than incur an expensive reorganization?”

My Thoughts

As pondered this question, I really saw two very distinct ideas emerging. The first is organizational and the second has to do with how teams function.

The organizational aspect has to do with the needs of the organization and strategically how the group is put together to meet the needs of the organization, while the team function is more about the relationships amongst the members of the group. I want to tackle these areas independently, and then bring them together for you.

The Organization

Teams are formed to meet a specific need that the organization has realized. Teams of people come together in an organized fashion to accomplish a specific set of goals or tasks. They can also come together as change agents. This allows them to move the organization from an old set of objectives to new goals that move it closer to completing its mission and making the vision a reality.

As I step back and think about the question above, if I am going to reorganize a department, then there needs to be a strategic reason. There will likely have been some change, either internally, like a new or redefined mission, or externally, like a shift in customer demands. This type of change to reorganize will be driven by forces external to the team. Something has happened that causes what the team is doing to not be as valuable to the organization. Rather than dismantle the team completely (reorganize), the team is given a new set of goals and objectives that match the external reality.

Reorganizations are chaotic, emotional, and expensive. The external pressures being experienced need to be greater than the emotional and financial cost to reorganize. Reorganizing dysfunctional people on a team only sends the dysfunction to another part of the organization. Dysfunctional people in an organization have attitudes and behaviors that are destructive and if left to their own devices will have a very bad effect on the organization. Just because an organization can afford to do it doesn’t mean that is the right thing to do.

The Relationships of the Team

If teams are not functioning well, a leader or coach has to be able to step into this moment. It takes both personal courage and a mindset that the needs of the organization outweigh any personal agendas that might exist. The leader must have the courage to call out behaviors that are not conducive to good team functioning.

General Stanley McChrystal, in his book Team of Teams, writes that “superteams” are able to construct a strong lattice of trusting relationships. He makes the point that in a true team environment, the leader needs to be less concerned with hierarchy and command; what their position is, and telling individuals what to do, and more concerned with ensuring that trusting relationships are forming so that there is a supportive network to perform.

Trust amongst team members is ensuring people are comfortable being vulnerable about weaknesses, mistakes, fears, and behaviors without fear of reprisal. So, if someone doesn’t know something, they are not judged for the lack of knowledge, but supported in getting the knowledge they need. A teammate should feel a sense of confidence to admit a weakness and have someone on the team come alongside them and say something like “Here, let me help you with that.”

There are three things I find vital for a team to be able to trust each other:

1. Cultural Integrity - As a group, we are always going to do the right thing. If someone on the team is being mean, as a team we are going to go to the person and let them know that this is not how our team behaves. We want to have them on the team, but the culture here is one of kindness and respect. Integrity matters always.

2. Comfort with Vulnerability - Teammates have to be willing to admit their weaknesses and mistakes and can never be penalized or punished when they do. If you are a person who avoids conflict, you should be able to admit this to your team and they need to come alongside and help you get better at this. The team has to believe in you and that you can help them improve. It all starts with a culture of realizing we are all human and we all fall short somewhere.

3. Confidence in the Members - No single one of us holds all the answers. Teams have to believe in the mission and have confidence in each other to tackle whatever is put before them. As individual humans, we crave safety and security. Taking risks is not always a safe feeling. This is the value of the team. As an individual, my need is for safety. The team is there to support each other to take risks and achieve much more than an individual ever could. High-performing teams have confidence in each other.

Back to the question at hand. I would argue that one of the main purposes of the leader of a team is to foster a culture of collaboration that leads to results. Not a collaboration so that every person touches everything, but trusting each other enough to know I don’t have to touch something if you are.

The leader is the person accountable if someone is not living up to the team charter of expectations. The leader should rally the team to their responsibility of pulling that person back in line. If the team won’t do it, then the leader has two jobs. One is with the team to create a culture of team discipline, and the other is with the person who is not living up to team standards by coaching them individually.

My position is that if there is a group in conflict, then the leader is accountable. Maybe if there has to be a reorganization because of this very non-strategic reason, it should come out of the leader’s bonus.

What about you? What advice would you share in response to this very interesting question? Is this advice you can use, or not? I would love your input. Thank you, Jenny, for helping us all think.

If You Hate Change, You Are Not Doing It Right

I have to tip my cap to you! You read the title of this post, and even though it had the word change in it, you continued reading. As a reward, I want to present you with 6 strategies that will help you get your mind right when change is imminent in your life.

Over the past few years, my mantra for this topic of change has been that “people don’t resist change, they just resist being changed.”   We all know that our organizations have to change to stay competitive in the marketplace. How many of us go into a grocery store or a pharmacy and have the person checking us out actually press buttons to get the cash drawer to open?  Not many anymore, right? To that end, how many of you paid cash for any of your purchases last month? Times and technology change, and they change fast.

We don’t always resist change, but we tend to rebel against ourselves being changed. The idea of being changed means that we must leave behind the status quo to become something new. 

For example, I don’t resist the idea of needing to lose 10 pounds, but I don’t want to give up the potato chips that I eat with my lunch. I don’t resist the idea of needing to exercise, but I don’t want to get up an hour early to do it. I know I need to stay calm when something doesn’t go my way, but I don’t really want to make an appointment with a coach to work on my issues.

My 6 Strategies for Adapting to Change:

1. Get Your Mind Right. It is important for you to feel some positive emotions around your feelings of change. If you feel anxious, what do you need to do to turn this anxiety into a more positive sort of excitement?

   • Howard Gardner in his book Changing Minds reminds us to prepare for the barriers that will come when we make changes to ourselves.

   • Anticipate these obstacles and the emotions that will come with them. Then as they happen, you will not be surprised, and they will not have the triggering effect on you they otherwise could have had.

2. Commit to Being Changed. There is no better way to do this than to write it down. I think the first step after becoming aware of a change that you need to make is to commit to it.

   • Why not write down what is being changed and share it with a few people? Then you are held accountable.

3. Understand Your Change Preference.

   • Some of us actually love the idea of change and innovation. We are the first in line when new technology is launched. Others of us are much more conservative and we are more comfortable with what we already know and is predictable.

   • Where most of us actually sit though when it comes to our preferences around change is somewhere in the middle. Researchers call these folks pragmatists, and they might not be the ones who are first in line for new tech, but they certainly will buy the current model before the next one launches (or soon thereafter). 

4. Value Your Change Preference and Act. My good friend Joe Laipple in his book Rapid Change urges leaders to look for natural consequences when they are making changes. Part of valuing something is weighing the positive and negative attributes.

   • So those of you who hate change may appear cautious and you may move slowly so as to not be hurt by the change. However, on the flip side, you can be seen as inflexible and not wanting to work with others.

   • You all know the positive and negative sides of your change preferences, and you find a lot of value in your approach to change. So, with what you know about yourself, find some positive natural consequences while you are changing.

     • Rapid Change recommends things like having fun, making it easy, making it simple, making it quick, and having it feel effortless. As you are changing, the more simple and positive you keep it, the more your desire to act will be. 

5. Plan to Be Resilient. No change process ever goes 100% the way it was planned. There are always things that get in the way, barriers to overcome, and stressors that will try and limit your effectiveness. There are three big ideas to consider when it comes to being resilient:

   1. Stay committed. Life is meaningful even when it is hard. It was worth it for you to start the change, so stick with it.

   2. Stay challenged. Change is supposed to be hard, that is the whole point. Don’t quit because it is hard. Finish and celebrate how hard it was.

   3. Stay in control. With this change, you believe it is the right thing to do and you are making sure you will make a difference in the world. Do things like managing your impulses, getting enough sleep, and eating, right. Have some fun with the journey.

6. Celebrate Your Wins Often. We need to stop looking at change as an event and look at it as more of a process. Doctors do not give newly diagnosed diabetic patients shots of insulin for a month and then declare them cured. Diabetes treatment is a combination of behavioral changes that if implemented can extend a person's life because diabetes is chronic.

   • Change is more of a lifetime or a career process Since change often has a longer-term focus, ensure you are recording milestones and when you hit them, and taking the time to celebrate. However, if you don’t quite hit the milestones, why not celebrate the effort you put into trying to make it happen?

Patience and Urgency:

My encouragement for you as a leader is to embrace the feeling of being uncomfortable as you grow and have patience with yourself. If you are feeling resistance to a change, try turning it around so that the feeling becomes more positive and encouraging. As you do this, celebrate the fact that your emotions were telling you to stay where you were, but you saw the urgency and were able to overcome it and change. Remember, if you hate change, you are not doing it right!

Patience: A Strategy for Getting Unstuck

Years ago, I worked with a business leader who had an incredible vision for his organization. He was a passionate leader with excellent communication skills and so much energy for his mission. He was intellectually and morally solid and cared deeply for the people in his organization.

But He Was Stuck.

His organization just could not grow the business past a certain industry-standard metric. However, the stagnation issue became evident as we looked over some feedback provided by his peers. One of the interview questions I ask the peers of my clients (as a routine part of my data gathering) is, "What is the vision this leader has for the organization?" After several interviews, the collective response was, “The vision is very clear, but we have no idea what steps we need to take to get started. It is like he has been dreaming of this his entire life and we are just catching it for the first time."

As I presented this feedback to the leader and we went over the data together, his knee-jerk reaction was: “We don’t have time to wait for them to process this. The time is now! They need to get on board or get out of the way. We are going to miss our opportunity. The timing is just right!"

So I asked him, “Is it their lack of urgency, or could it be something else?”

After thinking it over with him for a while, we discovered that there was not a lack of urgency on the part of the organization. There was, however, a lack of emotional connection between the leader and his team. The urgency that the leader was feeling for vision implementation and change was being offset by his lack of emotional connection and patience. People in organizations need time to absorb, process, and own the vision themselves. They need patience.

Patience is devoting the appropriate time and attention to others in ways that enhance meaningful interaction.

Patience is suspending your personal needs for satisfaction and action.

Patience seeks to slow down fast-paced exchanges with others in order to facilitate better decision-making.

Patience is not racing ahead in the thought process while missing information that others are endeavoring to share.

Patience is not wasting opportunities to encourage, inspire, and motivate others.

In leadership development, it is always important to keep your perspective on a leader who is not connecting emotionally with his team. Without this emotional connection, it is virtually impossible to have the social intelligence needed to achieve organizational effectiveness.

There are a number of reasons a follower may choose to align with a leader. Fully committing to the vision of the leader is a quintessential desire that followers have. What they receive in return for committing to the vision of the leader is an emotional connection with that leader.

In our case study above, the leader has a choice. He can either move forward with his urgency and risk losing his entire vision. Or, he can proactively slow down and take the time to encourage, inspire, and motivate his people. By embracing patience and connecting emotionally with his team, he can catapult the vision to the next level with everyone on board.

How are you connecting emotionally with your team? I’d love to hear your comments.

Are You Happy With Your Level of Well-Being?

A client once said to me, "Scott, I realize I need to take better care of myself. When I do that, I am at my best. I have decided to do yoga when I get up in the morning and exercise again at noon. I am going to be more conscious of my diet and make better choices about what goes into my body."

When I probed for the reason, he continued.

"Recently, there has been a lot of negativity in my life and I am not going to allow it to get me down any longer. I am choosing to be the leader I want to be and not be a weak victim of my circumstances."

His decision prompted me to ask you a question:

How Are You, as a Leader, Focusing On Your Emotional Well-Being?

There’s a great story I know about two out of 180 nuns who were the subjects of a study on longevity and happiness. If you want all the details, you can read the book Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, for some interesting facts and percentages about the nuns.

Studies of longevity are very complex from a purely scientific standpoint. Causality is extremely difficult to make a case of. However, one of the reasons this study is so impactful is that nuns lead very similar lives. They eat basic food, they don’t smoke or drink alcohol and they have similar routines. Of course, there are differences such as intellect, depths of spirituality, and outlook on the future that could account for varied results in the study on the nuns.

However, none of these aspects made any difference in the research. In his book, Seligman points out that the largest contributor to their longevity was the sheer amount of positive feelings.

According to the National Wellness Institute, wellness is "an active process through which people become aware of, and then make choices toward, a more successful existence."

Four Things to Notice About Wellness:

• It is an active process. It is something you devote energy to making happen. It is intentional on your part as a leader.

• It starts with self-awareness. Are you aware of the moment when health choices present themselves?

• Wellness is a choice. You decide to be well in the moment or you decide to say “screw it” and become a victim of your circumstance.

• There is an end game. A successful existence. This is your life. You only get one. Why not make it the very best that it can be?

Emotional Intelligence and Well-Being:

One of the attributes we measure in Emotional Intelligence training is either happiness or well-being. In our model there are four factors that can comprise well-being:

1. Self-Regard: Believing in yourself and living according to your values.

2. Self-Actualization: A willingness to learn and grow in accordance with your beliefs.

3. Interpersonal Relationships: Engaging in mutually satisfying relationships.

4. Optimism: The ability to respond, recover, and claim a happy state from disappointments and setbacks in life.

Two Considerations for Evaluating Your Own Level of Well-Being:

1. The first is attempting to display as many of these four attributes as you can:

   • Believe in yourself and live according to your values.

   • Learn and grow in areas that really matter to you.

   • Have friends that reciprocate these areas.

   • Realize that things in life are not always going to go your way. What matters is how you respond when setbacks happen.

2. The second is to have a balance between these attributes:

   • For example, you want to make sure that your self-regard is balanced with your interpersonal relationships.

   • If you have a high level of self-regard and low levels of interpersonal relationships, you could come across as prideful.

   • If you have low levels of self-regard and high interpersonal relationships, then you could come across as needy and not fun to be around. It’s all about balance.

As You Think About the Successful Life You Want to Live as a Leader:

Are you choosing to maximize and balance these 4 attributes of emotional health?

What changes can you make to ensure that you have a good level of well-being and live a long and successful life?

Are Your Goals Making You SORE or Helping You SOAR?

Remember back in January when you had that new year motivation and fresh start attitude? You had all of this pent-up passion for making something change for 2023. You had the idea that something was going to be different this year from your previous rut.

Once you identified the “what” you wanted to change, your next step was to set some goals for yourself. Most of us set goals for work, travel, or even fitness.

Do you remember your goals from the beginning of this year? Do you remember where you wrote them down or typed them? Are they still in legible form or is the sticky note you wrote them on and put on the refrigerator now covered by last month's grocery list?

Have You Made Any Progress on the 2023 Goals You Set?

You might even have named your goals something like Key Results Area, Performance Management Objective, Personal Development Plan, or some other colloquial term that you or your organization or discipline uses.

It is now almost September, and it is time to go back and check in on what was important to you at the beginning of the year. Ask yourself, "Have I accomplished my goals, or did I get off track?”

It can be quite common for people to not to want to review the goals they set earlier in the year, especially if they know they have not made the progress they had hoped. The feeling of discouragement can become overwhelming when we see a lack of progress and we know we aren't where we had hoped to be by now when the goal was originally set.

Stay in the Game.

Discouragement can be devastating when it comes to goals. In my experience, it can be one of the hardest obstacles to overcome.

The goal had meaning and significance to you almost nine months ago, so it's time to start asking yourself some questions as to why you are not making progress on it this far into the year. I want you to know that YOU HAVE NOT failed! You have likely learned a lot in the last eight months about the goal and your progress if you stop and think about it for a bit.

An analogy came to me the other day that may have some application:

In January, you set your goal. Let's say you wanted to exercise three days a week for an hour. Think of this goal as getting on an airplane. You are all buckled in your seat and ready for take-off. You know the goal. It is written down and it actually feels secure and comfortable.

The plane starts down the runway, shakes, and surges as it gains speed. All of a sudden, it is February. You likely have taken a couple of steps toward goal attainment. You are gaining speed and you can feel the inertia of the plane starting to lift off. In regards to your goal, maybe you called around to see what gym would best fit your needs. You went out and bought new exercise clothes and maybe some shoes. The feeling and speed of the change felt good.

Then comes March. The plane reaches 30,000 feet, the seat belt sign turns off, and the plane levels out. And this is also where the exercise doldrums set in. You no longer feel the rush of take-off. You no longer can sense the speed of the plane. This is when goal attainment becomes difficult. This is when it feels like you are not making any progress at all.

This Feeling Is Not Real.

The interesting thing to me is the lie that our emotions give us in this context. While the positive dopamine feeling of starting to work on the goal may be long gone by next month, the important thing to realize is that the plane is still going 450 miles an hour even when you can’t feel it. You are still moving. You are still experiencing progress. Even though you have said goodbye to almost eight months of the year, you are STILL flying. Realize that your plane is still in the air. You have not crashed. YOU HAVE NOT FAILED!

Instead of assuming that you are way off track and that you've already failed, step back and look at your goal objectively. Think about the time when you set your goals — were they SMART goals?

Most likely you've heard this acronym here before and even used it when setting goals, but it is also helpful to use to check up on your goals or even get them back on track.

Was It…?

• Specific? When getting specific with your goal, don't just consider what your goal is, but why and how you want to achieve it. Perhaps you want to work on developing young leaders. Your why might be because you want to prepare them for more responsibility in the future and your how will be through professional development workshops or one-on-one mentoring sessions.

• Measurable? Are you able to see where you are right now and where you'll end up? If you are not able to track the progress of obtaining the goal along the way, you'll have a hard time seeing if you succeeded in the end or staying motivated along the way.

• Achievable and Realistic? I feel the A and R in the “SMART” acronym go hand in hand in some ways. When you figure out your goal, how to do it, and when to accomplish it, you have to think about the parameters and circumstances that you are working in that will make it possible. This isn't to discourage you from setting the goal, but rather to encourage you to think about how you will make sure you complete the goal and ensure that it's not out of reach or asking too much from your team.

  At this point, something may have come up this year that has changed your circumstances and deterred your goal. That's okay. Life happens. Instead of seeing it as a failure or no longer attainable, just think about what changes need to be made to your goal, the plan, or the timeline. Don't be tempted to start from scratch. Instead, make less work for yourself by simply re-evaluating and tweaking what's already in progress and steer it back on track.

• Time-bound? Some of you may have set goals that you've already completed, others might feel the pressure of the time ticking away. Use the time as positive pressure to get the work done, not to stress you out. If you feel constrained, give yourself a break and allow yourself more time. If it's a project with a deadline, reach out to your team or manager and see how you can work together to get it completed. Also, consider how you are using your time and what could be distracting you from focusing on your goal. What limits do you need to implement personally to give yourself time and focus to achieve this goal?

Most importantly, remember the WHY behind your goal and the reasons that motivated you to set it in the first place. Visualize what it will look like for you and your team when that goal is accomplished. Write this down and keep it somewhere you'll see it and can read it often. (Perhaps avoid the refrigerator this time!)

Keep yourself in the air and land that goal safely on the ground.

Homework:

Take a look at the goal you set at the beginning of the year. Grab a coach, mentor, or trusted advisor and share with them your SMART goal. Listen to any advice they have for you. Be encouraged by the progress you have made (even if it feels like you are flying in circles). Decide with your support system what steps you need to take to land your plane safely. Set up another meeting with them in November for a progress check and then in December for a celebration of your achievement.

Build a Culture You Can Be Proud Of

“Oh, the comfort…the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure word, but pouring them all right out, just as they are…chaff and grain together…certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

- George Elliott

As leaders and those who support, mentor, and coach other leaders, I often wonder how well we are living up to those poetic words of George Elliott above. I know Elliott was talking about friendship in his poem, but I do think there is also a great application for those of us involved in leadership.

How We Can Apply Elliott’s Poetry to Our Leadership Lives

Provide Feelings of Safety:

Basic neuroscience tells us that if people feel threatened, they will shut down and protect themselves. This means that if they feel attacked, put down, let down, shut out, disrespected, or judged, the chances that they will be able to perform or even listen to what we are saying as their leaders are slim to none.

If you want your followers to trust you with the issues of their heart (and those that matter to your business), then a culture that creates a feeling of safety is essential. If you create a culture where people can only bring you what you want to hear, this is not a place of safety. This means that people would only feel safe telling you what you want to hear, which can be a huge problem both in friendship and leadership. If you want the trust of your followers, creating a feeling of safety is critical.

Authentic Leadership:

In my training and coaching work, this is a leadership theory I hear used almost as much as “Servant Leadership”, meaning that the servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first, and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Leaders will say, “I just want to be myself. I don’t want to have to pretend and be somebody I am not. I want to live out my own morals and my ethics as I lead.” I think this is what Elliott is saying about friendship in the quote at the beginning. A friend is someone who shows up just as they are - no pretense and no judgment. They show up with just the ability to be with the other person to listen to and support them. This means that followers can feel free to tell you what they think, and they know that you as their leader will listen without punishing or penalizing them.

Chaff and Grain:

The grain is the good stuff inside a stalk of wheat. The chaff is the outer covering and is not useful for nutrition. This metaphor is that of good and bad, useful and not useful. The leader, coach, or mentor is able to take in the good and the bad together. The follower has developed enough trust in the leader that they can share in both the good and the bad, knowing that the leader will take them, sift them, and let the things that are not helping blow away while savoring the good stuff.

Homework:

• How are you doing in your leadership, mentoring, or coaching in creating a safe, authentic environment where the good and the bad can be shared?  

• What are you leaving on the table by not creating this type of culture?

• Have a discussion with a trusted advisor about ways you may be inhibiting trust in your organization.

• How might you be creating barriers to the performance of your followers because they do not feel safe?

Have a Longer and More Successful Leadership Life

One of my clients had a profound impact on me at a certain time in my life. What I heard him say is:

"Scott I realized that I have to take care of myself. I am at my best when I am taking care of myself. I decided that I am going to do yoga when I get up in the morning, and I am going to exercise at noon. I am also going to be conscious of my diet and make good choices about what goes into my body."

When I probed for the reason for the changes, he continued,

"There has been a lot of negativity in my life recently, and I am just not going to allow it to get me down any longer. I am going to choose the leader I want to be and not be a victim of circumstance."

Absolutely Profound

According to the National Wellness Institute, wellness is "an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward a more successful existence."

Four Things to Notice About Wellness:

1. It is an active process. It is something you have to devote energy to making happen. It is intentional on your part as a leader.

2. It starts with self-awareness. Are you aware of the moment when health choices present themselves?

3. Wellness is a choice. You decide to be well in the moment, or you become a victim of your circumstance.

4. There is an end game: a successful existence. This is your life, and you only get one. Why not make it the very best that it can be?

The National Wellness Institute describes six different dimensions for us to consider as we examine our own well-being:

1. Emotional

2. Occupational

3. Physical

4. Social

5. Intellectual

6. Spiritual

This week I want to focus on your emotional well-being as a leader.

The Story

One of my favorite authors is Martin Seligman. As a past president of the American Psychological Association, he has credibility from a research standpoint that is really meaningful to me. In addition, Martin is a gifted storyteller who can weave a story together and then bring home a point that has a real impact and causes me to pause and examine my own life.

One of my favorite stories that Martin tells us in his book Authentic Happiness. He details the stories of two of 180 nuns who are the subjects of an impactful and noteworthy study on longevity and happiness. If you want all of the details, you must read the book. Here is the bottom line:

• 90% of the most cheerful 25% of the nuns were alive at age 85 vs. only 34% of the least cheerful 25%.

• 54% of the most cheerful quarter was alive at age 94, as opposed to only 11% of the least cheerful.

Studies of longevity are admittedly dicey and very complex from a pure science standpoint. Causality is extremely difficult to make a case for. However, one of the reasons this study is so impactful is that nuns lead very similar lives. They eat similar food, they don’t smoke or drink alcohol, and they have similar routines. Sure there are some other differences that could account for the results, like:

• Different levels of intellect

• Different depths of spirituality

• Different outlooks about the future

However, none of these criteria in the research made any difference. The thing that Seligman points out that made a difference in the longevity of the nuns was the number of positive feelings expressed. If longevity is at least one measure of successful existence, then the positive outlook you have on life definitely matters.

Happiness and Emotional Intelligence

In the Emotional Intelligence training I do as a part of my consulting, one of the attributes we measure is that of happiness or well-being. In the model we use, there are four factors that can comprise someone’s well-being:

1. Self-Regard: Believing in yourself and living according to your values.

2. Self-Actualization: A willingness to learn and grow in accordance with your values.

3. Interpersonal Relationships: Engaging in mutually satisfying relationships.

4. Optimism: The ability to respond, recover, and claim a happy state from disappointments and setbacks in life.

Here are two important considerations as you evaluate your own level of well-being:

The first is that you display as many of these four attributes as you can. Believe in yourself and live according to your values. Learn and grow in areas that really matter to you. Have friends and ensure that there is reciprocity. Realize that things are not always going to go your way. It isn’t a case of whether or not you are going to have a setback in life, it is when. What counts is how you respond to it.

The second is that you have a balance between these attributes. For example, you want to make sure that your self-regard is balanced with your interpersonal relationships. If you have a high level of self-regard and low levels of interpersonal relationships, you could come across as prideful and in it for yourself. If you have low levels of self-regard and high interpersonal relationships, then you could come across as needy and not fun to be around.

As you think about the successful life you want to live as a leader, are you choosing to maximize and balance the four attributes of emotional health above?

Homework

Rate yourself on a scale from one (low) to 10 (high) on each of the four attributes of well-being above. Are you maximizing each attribute? Are all four of the attributes in balance with each other? As you reflect on these, what changes would you need to make to live a longer and more successful life?

Will These Three Ideas Help You Succeed?

What questions have you been asking yourself as you build your success story? Perhaps one is, “As HR Vice President, what does leadership development look like?” Or, “As a sales leader, how can I balance work and family?” Or possibly, “As a Church Pastor, what do I need to do to grow my congregation?”

These are tough, yet realistic problems that we face as professionals, but I think we need to reframe the questions.

Any coach (whether formal or informal, external or internal, paid or volunteer, executive, life or organizational) must have the skill of listening and then reframing questions. Reframing a question provides a different perspective on the issue at hand.

As a coach, it is my job to reframe questions in order to help you get to the heart of the matter. Rather than asking about leadership development, I would challenge you to ask the real question, “What do I need to do to get promoted to my next role in the company?”

Or if you’re a sales leader, what I really hear you asking is, “If I sacrifice time with my family, will it be worth it financially?”

Or to the pastor, I would reframe the question as, “What should I be doing to grow my church?”

Please don’t misunderstand my point. I do think that people want to know how you approach things, how you set goals, how you solve problems, how you prioritize resources, and how you assess risk. But, the answers they want will direct back at themselves. Enter the world of what psychologists call self-efficacy.

Three ideas

Self-Efficacy is a fancy term for belief in yourself, and confidence in the capabilities and talents you have been given and developed. Studies have shown that the confidence you have in your capabilities affects your performance and is linked to happiness, satisfaction, and well-being. All of these attributes in one way or another link to success.

Research published in the December 2016 issue of the “Consulting Psychology Journal” outlines that you can help those you coach to be more successful by following three simple ideas:

1. Invest the Time: The confidence of the person increases as the coaching relationship evolves over time. As you coach others over the course of your conversation, notice how their confidence increases toward the coaching objective. When it does, make them aware that you are seeing this increase in confidence.

2. Say it Out Loud: The more the client verbally articulates their confidence, the higher the achievement of the goal actually becomes. “I am going to do this” types of statements show confidence in the client's ability. The more they make commitments out loud, there is an increased likelihood of believing in themselves.

3. Ask the Right Question at the Right Time: In this study, questions asked by coaches fell into three categories:

   • Open-ended - “What do you want to do?"

   • Proposing Solutions - “Could you search for other companies that offer better possibilities?”

   • Provide Support - “You know what? That sounds like a great idea."

The research points to proposing solutions as the only effective method of triggering self-efficacy statements in the very first coaching session. While the other two methods are also valid, they merely enhanced the confidence of the other person throughout the coaching engagement.

As you work with and coach others on your team, especially if you have more of a long-term relationship, focus on asking them open-ended questions and providing support for the ideas they bring to the table. Too many of us fall into the trap of proposing solutions because it makes us feel better about ourselves or like we added real value.

I would argue that the value you bring is the investment of time and the belief in the person you are coaching. The research says that the value of you proposing solutions early in a coaching relationship does little to improve the confidence or belief in the mind of the person you are working with.

How would your work environment change if you focused on building the confidence of others in your organization? Will these three ideas we discussed help you succeed?

When you are coaching others, resist the temptation to make the coaching about you by offering advice and providing them with solutions. Really focus on practicing open-ended questions and providing your client with the support they need.

Two Helpful Tools for Improving Team Health

A few years ago I had the opportunity to facilitate a discussion for a team on how they could become healthier as this team.

They were by all accounts high performing - made up of “top guns” from the industry. They were a group whose contact list went three and four layers deep into important and influential customers. They had done a remarkable job as a team, pulling their share of the weight for what needed to be done in the organization. They were hitting all of their yearly goals by the third quarter of that year.

The premise for team health is that there is a synergy that happens where the team can do amazing things that no single member could ever achieve on their own. When there is team health there is a feeling of invincibility.

This is when there is a chance for performance to increase

On the flip side, when teams are not healthy, like when certain aspects of performance become overemphasized, other parts of the systems that make us human can become damaged. And while it may look like we are performing, the results are short-term. Worse, the synergy that is anticipated never happens.

I had a conversation with a physician friend about this idea of extremes in performance when it comes to human health. This physician is actively involved with athletes in a consulting capacity and recalled a meeting he was in preparing a local community for a race. This race is fairly well known so, as you can imagine, the health of the athletes is really important. The people in charge of the race convened a committee of 20 physician marathon runners and my friend chaired the committee. The interesting thing about the group of physician-runners was that all of them were under the age of 55, and that of the 20 runners, about 40% (8) of them had heart stents. High performers in any discipline have to think deeply about all of the systems that go into their performance. Failing to do this will put undue stress on one aspect of the system, ultimately causing a breakdown in the ability to perform.

My Story

The objective given to me by the organization that hired me was clear: The folks on this team needed a perspective that they are leaders in the organization. To achieve this, they needed to learn to better understand themselves and lead themselves as leaders.

Those of you who love to study how organizations learn will recognize the task as one that involves double-loop learning. The group I was working with needed to examine some of the basic assumptions they had about themselves and then how the organization defined performance. Double-loop learning encourages teams to ask clarifying questions about how they identified the problem, what processes they used to understand the problem, what they can learn from the problem, and how they can apply that learning in the future.

To get this team to see their performance in a new way, they needed to think differently about what this term means and then develop some new ways of going about their work.

Two Ways To Encourage Learning

Two ways that leaders can foster learning on teams are: by providing opportunities for exploration and for advancement.

1. Exploration stimulates innovation, new ways of thinking, and creative processes to develop new products or incorporate new technology. One of the exercises I took this team through was how to be better listeners. I gave them some guidelines on how to listen better and focus on the needs of the other person. Then they were given a listening partner and a set amount of time in which they were to do nothing but listen to the other person. We did three rounds of these questions and each time the questions got more difficult to just sit and listen to.

   The idea here was to give the team a new way of thinking about listening. As a leader, it is good to have a perspective or opinion but know that the broader organizational teams also have opinions and ideas. The takeaway for this group is that if they listened with more intensity, then they would understand the perspective of others on the team and be able to create the organizational synergy that senior management was expecting.

2. Advancement is when teams look for ways to improve existing processes or products while incorporating innovation and creativity. Leaders encourage team learning through experimentation, providing resources, implementing reflective practices, and celebrating victories during the learning process. One of the unhealthy behaviors that had surfaced on this team is that when something did not go their way, rather than engaging in healthy conflict, they internalized and awfulize the issues. So if one of their members was inadvertently left off of a meeting invite list, rather than be more assertive and reach out to the meeting organizer, the team would say, “It is not our place to get invited, if they don’t value our input then that is their fault.” As a team, we worked on understanding our individual conflict styles and then improving processes where they needed to be flexible from their default conflict style.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to care for the health of your team. It is my hope you will continually be looking for ways to use exploration and advancement tools to improve the health of your team.

4 Strategies for Leaders to Think More Critically

I was on the phone one day with an old friend who was retiring from his job of 30 years but felt like he was still too young to just spend his days fishing and playing golf. So, we started talking about what it is like to be in business for yourself. As the conversation went along, he asked me “Do you know the story of the turtle on the fence post?"

This story, that I wanted to share in honor of Father’s Day yesterday, is about a father and his daughter driving along the road in West Texas. The road was long and straight and there was nothing but concrete, blue sky, and fence posts to look at. It seems like they had driven for hours to the point where all they saw was fence post….fence post…..fence post. If you have driven in West Texas you know what this can be like. Fencepost…fencepost…fencepost with a turtle on it….fencepost…Then the young girl turned to her dad and said, “Did you see that turtle on the fencepost? I wonder how it got there!”

The story has been around for a long time, and yet, as I was thinking about the relationship between coaching and leadership it really struck me as impactful. As both coaches and leaders, we get mental pictures of how we are seeing the world. One very important task we all have is to be able to ask the right questions in order to get our clients and teams to broaden their perspectives when obstacles arise. Being open to perspective is the key to understanding and a sure sign you are at a minimum being empathic. The father, seeing a teachable moment, pulls the truck off the side of the road, turns to his daughter, and says, “The question isn’t how the turtle got there. The question really is WHO put the turtle there?”

Leadership Application

As leaders, so many times we see it as our job to have all the answers. We can have this insatiable desire for information or for knowledge. We fall into the trap of thinking that the person with the information is the one who has the power in a relationship.  While it is foolish to discount the importance of having information, I have come to believe that it is the person who asks the right questions that really sets the tone and the agenda in the organization.

In the story about the turtle on the fence post, the daughter had the information. She was able to observe what was going on in her world. She even asked her dad an interesting question. She did not assume she could explain the quite unnatural phenomena herself. In front of her was a turtle on a fence post. This was: unnatural, interesting, alluring, and intriguing.

All of these would be natural responses to seeing a turtle on a fence post.  And she also did not do something mindless, like go on her phone and mindlessly scroll through her social media pages. She is present and asks a question of her dad, in fact, a good question, a reasonable question.  “How did the turtle get there?” The father knew that in this case, the answer to the question lay deeper.

4 Strategies for Leaders to Think More Critically

As I was thinking about the story of the turtle on the fence post and how it might apply to leadership, four main things came to mind about strategies for leaders to think more critically.

1. Be careful not to rush to judgment.

   This is a real trap for the experienced leader. A young person brings a problem into the office and rather than ask for understanding or context, the wise sage says, "I have seen this 100 times in all my years…."

   While having experience is important, as leaders we must be cautious in playing the experience card. Experience can give the impression of certainty. Certainty brings with it an idea of mitigation of risk. "I have seen this before and this is what will work."

   The problem with certainty is that there is no room for creativity or curiosity. There is no room for learning for that young leader. There is no place for them to develop their own set of experiences so that they have things to judge against in the future.

2. Be open and curious in your questioning.

   The main point here is for the leader to work hard to be unbiased and to be really genuine. We have to have our curiosity meter set on maximum as well as our genuine interest be on helping the other person.  

3. Co-create reality.

   Leaders who are skilled at critical thinking have the ability to co-create reality with those they are working with. Develop the ability to come up with questions for which you have no answer.  These types of questions will help to create the reality that you and your followers are experiencing.

   As you think about the turtle on the fence post, remember that the father knew that there was no way the turtle could have gotten there on its own. There was some assistance that was needed.  “How” the turtle got there was not going to get the conversation much further.  “I don’t know” is about the only answer you could expect to get. In this case, the person who might come into your office might be left with “Well, let me see if I can go find some reasons for turtles to be on a fence post and I will get back to you.”

   But the father circumvented this by changing the question.  By changing the question, the little girl now can co-create the reality with her father and a teachable moment comes about.  As the question changes from “how” to “who," the leader is able to set the agenda and the follower is able to enter into this reality as a co-creator of what can be versus just describing what is.

4. Think about WHO as much as you think about HOW.

   Almost once a week I find myself in a conversation with someone looking for a new job. Their questions often go something like: “I am thinking about looking for a new job and was wondering if you could take a look at my resume?” My standard reply has become, “Who do you know there? Who do you know in the industry?” 

   Call me old school, but it is the person hiring who gets me the job, not my resume. How you got to the interview and all of your great experience IS NOT getting you the job that you desire. I guarantee it is the hiring manager who is going to bring you on the team.

So let’s remember these strategies and the story of the turtle on the fencepost when we need to think more critically. Do you have any additional tips to improve your critical thinking?

Having a Longer and More Successful Leadership Life

One of my clients had a profound impact when he told me:

"Scott I realized that I have to take care of myself. I am at my best when I am taking care of myself. I decided that I am going to do yoga when I get up in the morning, and I am going to exercise at noon. I am also going to be conscious of my diet and make good choices about what goes into my body."

When I probed for the reasons for the change, he continued,

"There has been a lot of negativity in my life recently, and I am not going to allow it to get me down any longer. I am going to choose to be the leader I want to be and not be a victim of circumstance."

Absolutely Profound.

According to the National Wellness Institute, wellness is "an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence."

Four Things To Notice about Wellness:

1. It is an active process. It is something you devote energy to making happen. It is intentional on your part as a leader.

2. It starts with self-awareness. Are you aware of the moment when good or bad health choices present themselves?

3. Wellness is a choice. You decide to be well in the moment, or you become a victim of your circumstance.

4. There is an end game: A successful existence. This is your life, and you only get one. Why not make it the very best that it can be?

The National Wellness Institute describes six different dimensions for us to consider as we examine our own well-being:

1. Emotional

2. Occupational

3. Physical

4. Social

5. Intellectual

6. Spiritual

Let’s focus on your emotional well-being as a leader today.

The Story

One of my favorite authors is Martin Seligman. As a past president of the American Psychological Association, he has credibility from a research standpoint that is really meaningful to me. In addition, Martin is a gifted storyteller who can weave a story together and then bring home a point that has a real impact and causes me to pause and examine my own life.

One of my favorite stories that Martin tells us in his book Authentic Happiness. He details the stories of two of 180 nuns who are the subjects of an impactful and noteworthy study on longevity and happiness. If you want all the details, you really need to get the book, it is a great read. I learned that 90% of the most cheerful 25% of the nuns were alive at age 85 vs. only 34% of the least cheerful 25%. 54% of the most cheerful percent was alive at age 94, as opposed to only 11% of the least cheerful.

Studies of longevity are admittedly dicey and very complex from a pure science standpoint. Causality is extremely difficult to make a case for. However, one of the reasons this study is so impactful is that nuns lead a very similar life. They eat similar foods, they don’t smoke or drink alcohol, and they have similar routines. Sure there are some other differences that could account for the results:

• Different levels of intellect

• Different depths of spirituality

• Different outlooks on the future

However, none of these criteria in the research made any difference. The thing that Seligman points out that made the most difference in the longevity of the nuns was the number of positive feelings expressed. If longevity is at least one measure of a successful existence, then the positive outlook you have on life matters!

Happiness and Emotional Intelligence

In the Emotional Intelligence training I do, one of the attributes we measure is that of happiness or well-being. In the model we use there are four factors that comprise well-being:

1. Self-Regard: Believing in yourself and living according to your values.

2. Self-Actualization: A willingness to learn and grow in accordance with your values.

3. Interpersonal Relationships: Engaging in mutually satisfying relationships.

4. Optimism: The ability to respond, recover, and claim a happy state from disappointments and setbacks in life

There are two important considerations as you evaluate your own level of well-being.

The first is that you display as many of the four attributes above as you can. Believe in yourself and live according to your values. Learn and grow in areas that really matter to you. Have friends and ensure that there is reciprocity. Realize that things are not always going to go your way. It isn’t if you are going to have a setback in life, it is when. What counts is how you respond.

The second is that you have a balance between these attributes. For example, you want to make sure that your self-regard is balanced with your interpersonal relationships. If you have a high level of self-regard and low levels of interpersonal relationships, you could come across as prideful and in it for yourself. If you have low levels of self-regard and high interpersonal relationships, then you could come across as needy and not so fun to be around.

So, as you think about the successful life you want to live as a leader, are you choosing to maximize and balance these 4 attributes of emotional health?

Homework

Rate yourself on a scale from 1 (low) to 10 (high) on each of the four attributes of well-being.

Are you maximizing each attribute? Are all four of the attributes in balance with each other?

As you reflect on these, what changes would you need to make to live a long and successful life?

Your Story Is Worth Reading

Happy June! A few days before Father’s Day back in June one year, I was doing some research for an article and I came across this thesis that used journaling as a research component for self-discovery in youth football coaches.

A leadership discovery: enhancing Finnish youth football coaches' Effectiveness through the Transformer Research Project

While in this study, journaling was a tool and not the primary outcome, I realized as I glanced through the article many of the benefits of journaling came through very clearly to me.

Benefits of Journaling for Leaders

As I have worked with my coaching clients over the years, I have recommended this leadership development strategy to so many of them. Journaling is nothing more than taking some time to be reflective and to write down how you observe yourself showing up.

Because the lack of self-awareness is so prevalent in leadership, journaling is a key way to document what you think and how you feel about what is going on in your world. It really can be used as a stake in the ground to preserve your thoughts and emotions on any given day across a number of circumstances.

These are my top 5 reasons that every leader should journal:

1. Self-awareness: Leaders need to be reflective of how they show up in different contexts and what triggers their emotions. No matter how well we think we know ourselves, we can always learn something new upon reflection.

2. Managing Stress: There is nothing like writing when it comes to lower levels of stress. Perhaps even better than writing is visual journaling or what Mrs. Carlson, my second-grade teacher, would have called “drawing.” In a 2010 study with medical students, Amanda Mercer found a reduction in stress and anxiety when medical students kept a visual journal of how they were feeling.

3. Gaining Clarity: I find that when I am faced with issues that have multiple inputs and layers of complexity there is nothing like writing or drawing to help me sort things out. Just taking the time to clear my mind and put it on paper or my tablet really helps me to clarify what it is that I am even having to decide.

4. Prioritizing: Life, especially in our Western world, can get really crazy with so many priorities that some leaders find it hard to decide to turn right or left. Journaling can help you prioritize what is important and to stay focused because you have it written down. You put a metaphorical stake in the ground and now have something to come back to.

5. Controlling Impulses: A key benefit of keeping a journal is having a place to go to before you act. I like to just go to my journal before I agree or commit to something so that I have the ability not to be impulsive. My journal is an important place I turn to before I say yes to a project that I should be saying no to.

Mind-Blown

Recall that it was a few days before Father’s Day when I was reviewing this article I mentioned above. Then Father’s Day happened. And for Father’s Day, my kids bless me with, you guessed it, a journal.

But not just any journal. This one was called StoryWorth. As an orientation, here is how StoryWorth works:

• Every week you get an email journal prompt to write about a memory from your past.

• All you do to journal is reply to the email you get. You can write as much or as little as you want on the topic. Usually two or three paragraphs in my case.

• These journal entries are then saved for you and you can eventually turn your journaling into a book if you want. At the end of 52 weeks, you could have a book of memories to cherish for years to come.

At the top list of reasons that leaders need to journal: Because your leadership story IS worth reading.

Handling Leadership Situations Without Giving Advice

From time to time, I receive questions from readers asking for advice on how to handle certain leadership situations. I think, that to be able to really advise, you need a lot of detail about the situation the person is in because there are so many details that could sway things one way or another.

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen in the book Thanks for the Feedback say that the problem with giving advice is that it cannot ever be specific enough. We tend to try to give out sage or wise comments without enough detail for the person to implement that advice. Or, we are such experts in something that we assume everyone knows our specific jargon. For example, “When you deliver your presentation, make sure it stands out.” Interesting advice, but what does “stand out” even mean?

The other thing that makes advice hard to give is that when I give it out, I now own the result of it. Since it was my idea, it can in some way fall back on me if it doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter if the person didn’t follow my advice the exact way I laid it out, or if they took just some of it, but not all of it. In the end, the advice didn’t help and I feel I am in some way responsible.

That is usually why I prefer to coach in order to help people find options that seem reasonable and doable for them to try. One thing I had to learn as I was growing as an executive coach is that while coaching is in some respects about helping people solve problems, it is far from telling them what to do. It is more about what author Parker Palmer calls “pulling out their inner teacher.” Helping them see their options and then supporting the options they choose, is to me, what coaching is about.

Now when I get a question from a reader seeking advice, I usually will read it and ponder it for a week or even more. I am not thinking about what the person should do in the situation described, or what I would do if I were them. Instead, my thoughts usually turn more to trying to understand the context of the situation they might be in and then coming up with some general guidelines or options they could choose from themselves. I had a question from a reader. The question was, “How do leaders know when to intervene to promote better collaboration versus just reorganizing the department? Is there a tipping point where a simple intervention can help to resolve the issue rather than incur an expensive reorganization?”

My Thoughts

As I pondered this question and decided on how to react without giving advice, I really saw two very distinct ideas emerging. The first is organizational and the second has to do with how teams function.

The organizational aspect has to do with the needs of the organization and strategically how the group is put together to meet the needs of the organization, while the team function aspect is more about the relationships among the members of the group. I wanted to tackle these areas independently, then bring them together at the end.

The OrganizationAL IDEAS

Teams are formed to meet some specific need that the organization has realized. Teams of people come together in an organized fashion to accomplish a specific set of goals or tasks. They can also come together as change agents moving the organization from an old set of objectives to new goals that move the organization closer to completing its mission and making the vision a reality.

As I stepped back and thought about the question above, I thought that if I was going to reorganize a department, then there needed to be a strategic reason. There will likely have been some change, either internally, like a new or redefined mission, or externally, like a shift in customer demands. This type of change to reorganize will be driven by forces external to the team. Something has happened somewhere that causes what the team is doing to not be as valuable to the organization. Rather than dismantle or reorganize the team completely, the team would be given a new set of goals and objectives that match the external reality.

Reorganizations are chaotic, emotional, and expensive. The external pressures being experienced need to be greater than the emotional and financial cost to reorganize.

Reorganizing dysfunctional people on a team also only sends the dysfunction to another part of the organization. The description I hear most often for dysfunctional people in an organization is that they are not good for the team. The attitudes and behaviors are destructive and left to their own devices will have a very bad effect on the organization. So then, why would you move them somewhere else? Just because an organization can afford the reorganization doesn’t mean that is the right thing to do.

HOW TEAMS FUNCTION

If teams are not functioning well, a leader or coach has to be able to step into the moment. It takes both personal courage and a mindset that the needs of the organization outweigh any personal agendas that might exist. The leader must have the courage to call out behaviors that are not conducive to good team functioning.

General Stanley McChrystal, in his book Team of Teams writes that “superteams” are able to construct a strong lattice of trusting relationships. He makes the point that in a true team environment, the leader needs to be less concerned with hierarchy and command, what their position is, and advising individuals what to do and be more concerned with ensuring trusting relationships are forming so that there is a supportive network to perform.

Trust amongst team members is ensuring people are comfortable being vulnerable about their weaknesses, mistakes, fears, and behaviors without fear of reprisal. So, if someone doesn’t know something, they are not judged for the lack of knowledge, but supported in getting the knowledge they need. A teammate should feel a sense of confidence to admit a weakness and have someone on the team come alongside them and say “Here, let me help you with that.”

There are three things I find vital for a team to be able to trust each other:

1. Cultural Integrity: As a group, we are always going to do the right thing. If someone on the team is being disrespectful, as a team, we go to that person and let them know that is not how this team behaves. We want to have them on the team, but the culture here is one of kindness and respect. Integrity matters always.

2. Comfort with Vulnerability: Teammates have to be willing to admit weaknesses and mistakes and can never be penalized or punished when they do. If you are a person who avoids conflict, you should be able to admit this to your team and they need to come alongside and help you improve this skill. The team has to believe in you and believe that you can improve. It all starts with a culture of realizing we are all human and we all fall short somewhere.

3. Confidence in the Members: Not one of us holds all the answers. Teams have to believe in their mission and have confidence in each other to tackle whatever is put before them. As individual humans, we crave safety and security. Taking risks is not always a safe feeling. This is the value of the team. As an individual, my need is for safety. The team is there to support each other to take risks and achieve much more than an individual ever could. High-performing teams have to have confidence in each other.

Back to the Question at hand

The question was, “How do leaders know when to intervene to promote better collaboration versus just reorganizing the department? Is there a tipping point where a simple intervention can help to resolve the issue rather than incur an expensive reorganization?”

I would argue that one of the main purposes of the leader of a team is to foster a culture of collaboration that leads to results. Not collaboration so that every person touches everything, but trusting each other enough to know that one person doesn’t don’t have to touch something if another person is already running with it.

The leader is the person accountable if someone is not living up to the team's expectations. The leader should rally the team to their responsibility of pulling the person back in line. If the team won’t do it, then the leader has two jobs. One job is with the team to create a culture of team discipline, and the other job is with the person who is not living up to team standards by coaching that person individually. My position is that if there is group conflict, then the leader is ultimately the one accountable and at fault.

What about you? What advice would you share in response to this very interesting question?

How Can Curiosity Help Your Leadership Journey?

When a child builds a LEGO creation, they rarely step back and say, "This is my masterpiece, now my life's work is finished!" Instead, they allow their curiosity to grow and they often improve their handiwork or break it all down and build something entirely different with the LEGOs. Kids are very open to the possibilities of their creations.

Leadership is also this way.

In leadership, you cast a vision, identify your followers, and build your team up, but you definitely should not stop there. Become curious about your team, how you work together, and the goal(s) you are working toward achieving. Learn about your followers and look at your projects from all different angles. This will allow you to gain more perspective on how others see your leadership versus how you see it and it will allow you to revel in this curiosity.

WHAT IF YOU HAVE LOST YOUR PASSION FOR THE JOB?

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the book Eat, Pray, Love, says that one of the grand misconceptions about quitting your boring job so you can have a more creative life is that 90% of what you will find in your new life will be boring or mundane to you too. In my own life, I left my old job to pursue my passion and do what I felt would be more exciting.

Today, I get entrepreneurs and business people who come up to me and say, "I want to do what you do, it seems so rewarding!" This really makes me feel like helping my clients become more effective in their leadership is greatly impactful and I am proud of the work I do.

(But I want to let you in on a secret. 90% of what I do IS “boring”.)

I have contracting and invoicing, managing expectations, TSA, and delayed flights. But I would not trade my job for anything because I enjoy the wonderful and exciting 10% that allows me to interact with interesting people. The one main thing that motivates me through the mundane is those people, as well as one simple word: CURIOSITY.

CURE IT WITH CURIOSITY.

I learned to treat boredom by igniting curiosity. I take myself and my needs out of the equation, and instead, I make it into an exploration. Then, I am always learning and always curious.

I encourage you to add this to your leadership experience. Apply a journey of curiosity with the discipline of organizational leadership. Leadership is an arrangement between you and your followers. After some time, this relationship can become very boring if you don’t continue to remain curious.

Through curiosity and learning, you will strengthen your leadership and build stronger relationships with your followers. This newfound understanding will allow you to work in sync with your followers and you will see your visions arise. When this happens, there will be moments where the passion on both sides is reignited. Until those moments arrive, remain curious and eager to learn. This is a safe and wonderful place for you to explore.

What would it take for you to ignite more curiosity about your team? What can you learn from them? What insights could they offer on any of your current projects that you have not yet thought about?

Let Them Eat Waffles!

As we enter mid-year, we may reflect on some of the significant things we have experienced up until now and ponder what we want to try and accomplish for the rest of the year.

This same exercise happens across organizations of every size and business structure.  

As you are evaluating your year and thinking about what you want to accomplish in the next one, here are some words of encouragement I have for you… 

Let Them Eat Waffles! 

What does this really mean? Well, I was meeting with someone a few months ago. As we talked, he described his job to me in some detail. He is a plant manager for an organization that makes all kinds of electronic components. These gadgets go in hundreds of products, everything from airplanes to automobiles to grocery store freezers. His job is to oversee the plant’s manufacturing of these things and to ensure they get to the right customer.  He finished his description of his role simply with this statement, “It is pretty mundane stuff, nothing major.”

Wait! That really struck me and made me stop and ask, “What do you mean nothing major?” The way my brain works (which is quite odd at times, I will admit), I added, “Did you say grocery store freezers?”  I went on to tell him, “To me, and lots of other people too, that is a really big deal!” 

One reason that this is so big to me is that I love frozen waffles. Every time we go to our local grocery store, I take a walk down the frozen waffle aisle to see what is on sale and what items are new, then I decide what I am going to buy. It is rare that I go to the store and do NOT pick up a box of delicious frozen waffles. 

Then it hit me - this guy had lost his vision, his passion for what he does.  His lack of vision could also someday interrupt my breakfast, and I am not okay with that.

Self-Actualization

In the world of emotional intelligence, self-actualization is finding one's meaning and purpose in life. It is the willingness to persistently try to improve and engage in the pursuit of personally relevant and meaningful growth that will lead to a rich and enjoyable life. 

Someone who acts on the idea that what they are pursuing and involved in actually adds meaning and purpose is experiencing self-actualization. For some, it is that they feel they have more of a calling instead of just having a job. For others, what they do is an act of service that fulfills their destiny as human beings.  It is very much more than what they do, it is about the meaning and purpose they have in life and whom they serve. I think the reason behind the struggle some folks have is they have lost the link (or maybe it never existed) between who they are and what they do.

Let’s say, if you deliver pizza for a living, some of what you really are doing is feeding a hungry family or bringing joy to a group of people so that they can socially connect. But it is so easy to get lost in the idea that you are merely transporting a disc of dough with sauce and meat from a storefront to a house, and you have to do at least 100 of them in a night to make any decent money.

It is really easy for us to lose sight of what we do and become defined by our tasks rather than the bigger vision of who we serve. In the example above, you are not merely delivering pizza, my friend, you are feeding people and helping cement relational bonds with family and friends. 

Who You Serve 

Let’s really try to engage in what it is that you are doing with your life. Perhaps as a part of your mid-year review, you should be asking yourself who it is that you serve and how well you have done so.  Let go of defining yourself by WHAT you do and give some consideration to WHO you serve.  

The plant manager at the beginning of the blog post plays a critical role in getting component parts to people who need them. Without him and without his team, a poor schmuck like me would not have my frozen waffles in the morning for breakfast...may it never be so!

As a leader, have you lost sight of the vision and the passion for what you do? If so, the people on your team can usually sense this. You need to make sure that you show them your commitment.

Let's make sure the people on our teams and those around us have a clear vision of what they do and how it links to the people you all serve. This may help them rediscover their purpose and drive, benefitting everyone.

How Do You Solve This Leadership Problem?

Several years back, I had a fascinating conversation with a client who had an unusual problem. His organization was hiring for an upcoming position and the internal candidate was confident, driven, and articulate during the interview process. However, when he asked her to explain the different ways she’s handled “critical feedback,” she was silent. My client asked the same question in a different way and framed the query with how she normally handled “personal development opportunities.” Still no answer.

He even used an example of something he had observed in their workplace interactions and it still didn’t induce a clear answer on her part.

He was puzzled, and I could see why.

What are the best practices for a leader to implement in order to help someone see their personal weaknesses, and at the same time see their potential areas for development? 

Here are some ideas of what may be happening when your team member can’t seem to see their own development opportunities:

1. Lack of self-awareness.  They don’t know themselves enough to receive constructive feedback and how to process the information. A lack of self-awareness is actually quite common in leadership development. Self-awareness means understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the leader and the effect these have on others in different situations and contexts.

2. Poor listener.  Even though my client asked the same question in different ways, it is possible that the woman didn't understand what was being asked. In any dialogue, there are three conversations happening. The first is between the two participants, and the other two conversations are the ones that each participant is having within themselves. If their interior monologue has a “higher volume” than the verbal conversation, active listening is not happening. The conversation energy ends up being internal, going toward preparing what to say next when the other person stops talking.

3. Arrogance. It is common for leadership literature to call this arrogance. Other common descriptions are pride or being so self-absorbed that previous feedback rolled off their backs. In this particular case, it seems like the woman heard the feedback, but she rejected it.

4. Omniscience. A high level of knowledge is often seen as a positive quality in a leader, as knowledge and experience are valuable commodities. However, a leader who believes they are all-knowing can be on a slippery slope.

5. Lack of self-regard. Self-regard is the ability to be able to accept yourself for who you are. It is the appreciation for your positive attributes and your perceived negative traits, while still feeling good about yourself. With my client’s interviewee, it was possible that her personal view of self was so low or distorted, that admitting any fault would have appeared as weakness.

As leaders, it is vital we learn how to receive critical feedback.

It is also important to capitalize on any potential personal growth opportunities. So, how are you doing on answering the question, “What is your personal development opportunity”? or “How do you solve this leadership problem?”

Give these inquiries full breadth and stretch yourself a bit. Get honest with yourself and ask, "What do I need to work on that will allow me to be a more effective leader?"

5 Questions Every Leader Needs to Ask Themselves and Reflect On

How good are you at spending time in purposeful reflection?

This is a question I ask a lot of the leaders that I coach. The reason I ask about purposeful reflection is that I think leaders are fairly good at reflecting because they are constantly seeing things differently in their own heads than maybe their employees.

For example, I had a client who was working on a review of the talent in her organization. She spent a lot of time reflecting on the individuals that she was representing. However, she spent almost no time intentionally reflecting on her own overall outcome or any of the biases that she might have experienced when going through the talent review process. 

I think it is fair to say that many of us are good at reflecting on the work in front of us, but maybe not so good at critical reflection on the processes we went through to make the work happen. There are not many of us who spend time on this. And I get it. 

Those of us in leadership development have spent way too much time working with leaders on obtaining good outcomes and not nearly enough time helping other people think about their processes.  We have encouraged you to go from “good to great,” to be “innovative,” and to “work from your strengths.” But what we haven’t given you are tools to purposefully reflect on how you are showing up as a leader.

A leadership guru, Gary Yulk, wrote that “to facilitate favorable learning environments in organizations, leaders must act as a role model”.

Have you thought much about that? Do you see yourself as a role model?  What does that even mean for you and how you are impacting those on your team? Are you one who encourages your team to have a good work/life balance but sends emails at 5 pm on Saturday evenings and 9 am on Sunday mornings?  

Role models set the tone and the pace for those they work with.

Some of you might be saying, “Well I want the people on my team to work hard. I need to make sure they are always really engaged.”

Dan Goleman, in his book Primal Leadership, calls out this “pacesetting” style as dissonant. The problem, according to Goldman, is that you will likely burn out people on your team if you push them to work too hard.  If you don’t burn them out, you will run them down so much that they will lose energy to be able to give you any kind of extra effort when it is needed. 

Here are those five other bias questions that leaders can be influenced by and some additional questions that you can spend some intentional time reflecting on:

1. Confirmation Bias? Seeking out proof that will confirm what you already think or believe.  Are you working on a project or with a team and unduly influencing them to show you something that you already believe is true? What do you need to do to eliminate this bias from a project you are currently working on?

2. Hindsight Bias? The belief that the past was more accurate and predictable than it really was. How old is the data you are using to form your opinions of people on your team? I have a client who made a mistake several years ago. Although he has had many successes since then, he is still in a “penalty box” for that error. Are there people in your organization you need to forgive because you are putting too much emphasis on errors that may have happened a long time ago?

3. Gender Bias? A widely held set of implicit biases that discriminate against gender. Let's say a female in your organization gets really intense in a meeting. You think about the situation and come to a private conclusion that “when under pressure, women get emotional.” Anytime we use all-inclusive language about an individual we are showing a bias. Step back and think about what happened to her at that moment and consider maybe why she got emotional. Then apply the same standard to one of the guys on your team. If he gets emotional, does he get credit because he is passionate? How might you take gender bias out of your thinking as you work with talent on your team?

4. Anchoring Bias? Relying heavily on an initial piece of information or a data point that unduly influences your decisions and thought processes. “Do you remember that guy we hired from a competitor 5 years ago? He was a total washout.” Do you use comments like this that influence your thoughts and feelings today? Does this one situation anchor all of your thoughts on hiring competitors? How could you look at each individual without labels and find the good in what they are bringing to the table no matter what their work history might be?

5. Available Thought Bias? Your decision is influenced by what springs first into your mind. I witness this a lot in leaders. They tend to fall in love with the first thing that comes out of their mouths. This comes from pride and the feeling that we need to defend an idea just because we said it. This one happened to me one day in a meeting. I was asked my opinion and gave it, but then felt like if I didn’t defend it I would be seen as not having a take on the topic. So I ended up defending something I was not even really that passionate about.  How might you overcome pride, admit you were wrong, and agree with someone who had a better idea than you?

take some time today or this week to pause and reflect on how these biases might be affecting your leadership.

As you reflect, I encourage you to forgive yourself. We all have biases - we can’t help it. Our brains are association-making machines. They fill in blanks to make reality from things that may or may not be there. Realizing we all have biases is the first step to better team outcomes. 

The Question Behind the Question

My daughter Gretchen texted me an interesting question one day that I thought would be an interesting topic for us to reflect on together here on the blog.

Her question was: “If the average person had to choose whether to be bored or stressed, which would they pick?" What I found so intriguing about this question is that I had not thought about these two things on opposite ends of a spectrum before.

The contrast I usually think about for STRESS is RELAXATION.

An example of stress vs. relaxation, not being bored vs. stressed is that being stressed is like when I am running to catch a plane that boards in 10 minutes and I am still in the security line, versus relaxation like when I am sitting by the pool with an adult beverage, reading a book that has been on my list for months.

Similarly, the opposite of being bored, to me, is being energized. Being bored is when I have a complete lack of interest in something, like when my wife wants me to sit down and watch a reality show with her. Being energized is when something brings excitement and even joy into my life, like playing golf or watching a great baseball game on TV.

But Gretchen’s question pitted running to catch a plane that is boarding while I am not at the gate against watching reality TV. To me, they are both just different kinds of pain. I was not seeing the win in the question at all. In fact, my initial thought was that Gretchen is so smart that she was trying to bait me into one of those questions that, as a dad, I wished I had my initial answer back to her once I heard what was really behind the question.

So, in a fairly typical response style, rather than answer the question, I thought that I would ask one in return. I typed, “It depends on what you mean by stress and what the last 60 days were like.” It was the best I could do at the moment. And it came off so clinical and “coach”-sounding. Why did I answer in such an egotistical way, rather than being open and curious about my daughter’s question?

why didn’t I think about her actual question behind the question?

I think my pride got the best of me. You know, my only daughter is texting me to get some of my sage wisdom and advice on something. Even as I write this I can feel myself swell up with regret. That is when I think a lot of us get caught up in our own heads. Our own high level of self-regard comes blaring though when talking to someone when we forget to have any empathy for the person who is asking the question or the question behind the question.

I wish I had asked, “Now, that is an interesting question! Why are you asking?” A much better response. Much more open. Much more curious. Much more about HER than it was about me.

I am so fortunate to have a daughter who looks past my flaws and insufficiencies and offers me grace at the moment. Rather than beating me up about lecturing her or accusing me of always being on my “emotional intelligence work game,” she said, “Thanks, Dad! A friend and I were talking about kids who have high school jobs and if it was better for them to have a job that was kind of relaxing but boring, or to have one that was stressful but went by really fast.” As I read her response, I thought, “Man I really blew that one”. The answer I gave had nothing to do with the real question.

My Life Lesson

I decided that I have to get better at this. I need to work on shedding my pride and focusing on what the person I am engaged with is really asking me. The skill for me to practice is listening to the question and remaining open and curious about what is being asked. Most of the time, I have to admit, I have no idea what is really being asked.

I need to get better at answering the question that lies behind the question. That is where the real gold is in relationships and communication.

Things I Learned About Leadership From My Mom

I hope everyone had a good Easter weekend. Back to the work week and our own personal development. I want to share some things I learned about leadership from my Mom this week. If you are not considering wellness in your personal development, then you are leaving out a big component of your leadership unexamined that could have an impact on your effectiveness. This week's blog really had a profound impact on me personally.

Things I learned about leadership from my mom:

Culture Matters

My Mom was all about family. We were together all of the time. Not just my parents and siblings, but my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My Mom was a “stay-at-home Mom," and I was also with my grandparents every day. The culture of the family mattered. My Mom created a family culture that oozed safety and security for us as kids.

My good friends and experts on organizational culture, Dr. Boyd Johnson and Dr. Mike Linville will undoubtedly support this notion of the importance of culture in organizations. As will my old boss and good friend Tom Considine, who famously agrees with Peter Drucker that "Culture eats strategy for lunch."

“Culture, Culture, Culture” rings through my mind with the same tone that Jan Brady had in an old Brady Bunch episode, complaining that her sister Marsha got all the attention…”Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!!!” Culture definitely needs to get MUCH more attention in organizations than it currently does.

Edgar Schein, the great organizational culture theorist says that in our Western traditions of human nature, humans are social animals with primary social needs*. When these humans come together, if they are to survive, a set of rules and regulations will need to be established to make the environment safe for everyone.

I hope you caught the nuance. The rules and regulations are about making the environment safe. This set of rules and regulations is not about making people feel valued or understood, but safe. Why? My Mom said that because when people feel safe, they are able to perform at maximum capacity. When they feel threatened, their survival mode kicks in, their thinking decreases, and their ability to hear what the leader has to say goes down.

This is why we say when leaders are trying to make a point or provide feedback, it is important to focus less on what you have to say and more on how the person is receiving it. If the person receiving the feedback feels safe, then there is a greater likelihood that your message will be heard. My Mom created an environment of safety and security (with discipline) that allowed for growth and well-being to be nurtured in our family.

Leaders Show Up

You can’t delegate presence.  As a leader, you can delegate a lot of things to other people. However, you can not delegate your physical presence when it is needed by your followers. In my family, it didn’t matter what you had going on, you showed up for weddings and funerals.  You showed up for birthday parties and baptisms. You went to church every Sunday morning. My parents never missed a sporting event, a theatrical performance, a band concert, etc.

If you want followers to follow you, then you have to show up to what is important to them. Are they making a big presentation, but you are triple-booked on your calendar? Decide to show up to their presentation! Do they have a meeting scheduled with you where they need a decision? Show up to the meeting! Is there a crisis in their life and they need you to listen? Show up and listen!

Leaders Sacrifice

I grew up in a blue-collar, working-class neighborhood in Peoria, Illinois. My parents came from working-class parents who worked on assembly lines. We did not grow up with privilege, status, or great means.  Yet I always had new shoes for basketball tryouts, killer birthday parties, and an extra $20 bill in my pocket for gas to drive back to college. My Mom never seemed to have the newest or best, but I feel I always did. My Mom showed up. This created a feeling of caring and support that allowed for risk-taking and freedom.

Followers notice the sacrifices of the leader. They notice when you stay late and help them with a project when you could be off to a social event. They notice when you answer a phone, text, or email from them. They notice when you give of yourself to them when you had other options. What do you think you might get in return for your sacrifices? I would propose that you would get these things: commitment, loyalty, and extra effort.

Interestingly, do you know what is missing in a lot of organizations today? I would suggest these things I learned about leadership from my Mom: commitment, loyalty, and extra effort. I wonder if there is a reason. One thing I would add is that my Mom never expected anything in return. If you expect loyalty, then to me that is a bit coercive. But if you willingly sacrifice as a leader, expecting nothing in return, like my Mom, then you may just get the loyalty and commitment you are looking for.

Homework: Consider the reflection questions posed in the article. After you spend some time thinking about them, see if you notice any changes that you need to make in how you are approaching your leadership.

*Schein, E. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (p. 144).

Do You Share These Observations Regarding Leadership Momentum?

I am regularly adding new coaching clients into my practice throughout the year. With that in mind, an important area to reflect on is the future of my coaching practice. “How many new clients will I engage with next year? Who will they be? What will my coaching practice look like in the coming months?” It is important to thoughtfully reflect on these questions in order to determine how I can proactively plan for a successful year for both myself and my clients.

Another area of my professional life that I reflect on is the work my clients have asked me to do with them. I begin by looking at my calendar to observe all the work I did in the past 12 months. I look at all the times I spent teaching, training, facilitating, coaching, creating content, etc. Then, I ask myself a hard question: “Is the work I am doing still relevant? Is it meaningful for those who call on me to work with leaders in their organization?”

Finally, I spend time in personal reflection and journaling. Perhaps most importantly, reflecting on how I spend my time, then I compare this data with what I really enjoy doing in my work life.

Momentum

One way to look at whether or not I am relevant is by using the idea of momentum. This is a concept that I borrow from the world of personal investing and finance.

One of the personal-finance newsletters I read on a very regular basis is called “Sound Mind Investing. (You can learn more about them at www.soundmindinvesting.com.)

In an older newsletter, Matt Bell wrote about the concept of momentum. According to Matt:

“A fundamental mistake many investors make is to move too quickly in choosing investments. They read about a hot stock or this year’s best-performing mutual fund and jump in. It’s all very ad hoc and reactive. Momentum is the idea that the recent past performance tends to persist-that is, it tends to continue, at least into the near term future.”

This means that what has happened in the recent past is likely to continue into the near future. It is what we know to be true from the world of physics; that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, while an object at rest stays at rest.

Momentum in the financial world becomes an objective measure of what is going on in the marketplace so that the investor can build a strategy based on real data and not just turn on the TV and be moved to buy random stocks.

Momentum Analysis

As I analyzed my journaling from the past years, here are 4 things I noticed:

1. Emotional Intelligence remains an important leadership construct.

   This is true for both the training work I do as well as the coaching. Most of the time when leaders hire me there is some growth desired in this area. I think Dan Goleman got it right when he wrote, “What really matters for success, character, happiness, and lifelong achievements is a definite set of emotional skills, not just purely cognitive abilities.” Organizations put so much emphasis on how smart and skillful people are that they often miss this other very important dynamic of “how” they work with others.

2. Relational empathy.

   I don’t know if this is a symptom of our political climate or not, but people have become very polar. They have an idea or a framework for how the world should be and they stick to it no matter how silly it makes them look. Maybe this is a natural outcome of divisions of labor, where those trained in finance wear finance glasses and only see the world through finance. Or, how those who are trained and educated in marketing only see the world through a marketing lens.  As leaders, we seem to have lost the skill of trying to understand where the other person is coming from, and, even more important, what it is like to be them. We are so concerned with our own selfish ambition and desires that we have lost sight of the perspective of other ways of seeing and doing.

3. Being flexible in ambiguous times.

   I was on a call with a potential client once whose organization has been turned upside down. Half of the people have either been laid off or reassigned to new roles. There is a tremendous amount of ambiguity about what certain jobs actually are and what people are supposed to do every day. I was asked to talk with the team about the impact of emotions during times of tension and what to watch for as leaders when working with others. I was interrupted with a question in the middle of my presentation when one well-meaning soul asked, “Dr. Livingston, enough already about helping people process the loss they have experienced, can you just help us get to a place where things are normal and we can all just get back to work?” My response to them was? “This is your new normal. Learning to be emotionally flexible and helping people deal with where they are in the moment IS the new calling for leaders.”

4. Connecting with talent.

   When the stock market slides, notwithstanding the economic outlook and, more specifically, the jobs outlook, is really robust. Senior leaders need to make sure they are connecting with talent because my sense is that talent is always itching for new opportunities. I think senior leaders need to get much better at proactively scheduling time to connect and care about the talent in the organization. Take them for coffee. Schedule a lunch. Learn what is on their mind. You do not need to do another ROI calculation on a process. What you really need to do is ensure you have the talent on your team to turn the future you are planning for into a reality.

Do you agree with these 4 observations? Let’s discuss these observations, or you can share your unique observations regarding your own organization.