I use quotes sometimes when I conduct workshops, give keynote presentations and even when I’m coaching leaders one on one. They are often a great way to create a change in perspective very quickly. They allow us to, for an instant, see the world through the lens of another person. That helps us evaluate our own lens with a little bit more objectivity. It only lasts a few seconds; then all of our own experiences, biases, and convictions swoop back in to put our thinking right back where it was before the little vacation. Sometimes though, a moment is enough to create a few cracks in our window on the world and allow us to question our own thinking. When leaders do that, it’s usually a very good thing. One of my favorite quotes is by Mia Hamm. Virtually everyone has heard of Mia, she has scored more international soccer goals than anyone in the history of the game, male or female. She was referred to by Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon as “perhaps the most important athlete in the last 15 years.” The quote is this: “I am building a fire, and every day I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match." Now lot’s of athletes and other successful people have made similar quotes about trainin…
I was speaking to a group of public relations executives recently and one of the questions that I received following my presentation was “how do I create the culture that will drive success in my local office when the company culture is different?” I think I gave a long rambling answer of some sort but I could have answered in one short sentence; Culture is local. I have worked with many organizations where the culture differs dramatically from manager to manager or office to office. That’s because culture is built very differently by different leaders. Walk into any organization and find the leader who is building the most effective culture within their team, and you will probably find the most successful leader. Culture starts at the top but when you are the leader of your team – that’s you. Successful leaders take complete ownership of the culture that exists on their team and they understand that their actions create the culture that will help their people make countless decisions every day. Part of becoming a successful leader is defining and building the culture that helps everyone make the right decisions, the ones that lead to sustainable growth and success. Most of the leaders I work with have never really …
I was talking to a friend recently who was at the top of a pretty big company for several years. He was running a business that was bringing in nearly a billion dollars in revenue annually and there were only a few layers between him and the CEO. He had a great paycheck, tons of people reporting to him, credibility in the organization and a pretty nice annual bonus. He was miserable. The politics at that level of the organization was incredibly challenging. The expectations were extreme with respect to the amount of work that was generated and the scrutiny on the weekly and monthly numbers was intense. My friend was spending every moment of his eighty hour week managing, and none leading. He had a huge organization that counted on him for leadership and yet he was mired in the reports, the meetings and the bureaucracy. Although he wanted to take his business to the next level and be the kind of leader that would help his team accomplish more, he had become just the opposite. He was working harder, stressing more and accomplishing less. So he traded it all in for a front line job that put him back in front of clients. He gave up the prestige and the nice office and went back into selling. He couldn’t be happie…
This is part five of a five part series on becoming a better coach. Each article explores a different element of what it takes to help others accomplish more than they thought they could and become the kind of coach that can consistently build high performing teams and an unstoppable organization. You can start at part one by going here I was coaching a business owner several years ago who seemed to get a lot out of our conversations but was making little or no progress because of them. Although she was saying all of the right things to me and appeared to be focused on the goals we had worked together to set, she wasn’t ready to let go of where she was, to get to where she could be. She simply wasn’t ready There was too much comfort in the familiar. The familiar way of staying busy, of wrapping herself in urgent things and in feeling a sense of satisfaction with checking things off her to do list, even though they were the wrong things. There was security for her in spending her time the way she was used to spending it. Like a comfortable pair of jeans that are hard to throw away, even if there are one too many holes in them, we humans cling to what we know. There is a point for anyone we are coaching where they…
This is part four of a five part series on becoming a better coach. Each article explores a different element of what it takes to help others accomplish more than they thought they could and become the kind of coach that can consistently build high performing teams and an unstoppable organization. You can start at part one by going here In the 1960’s a study was done to determine the power of positive expectations on the performance of school children. In the landmark study done by Dr. Robert Rosenthal, former chairman of the Psychology department at Harvard, it was found that 47% of the children who were labeled as “having unusual potential for intellectual growth” demonstrated IQ gains of 20 points or more while only 19% of those in the control group showed such gains. The students in both groups, however, were chosen completely at random. There was no group of specially gifted students. The only difference in the control group and the "gifted" group was the expectations of the teachers. Since the completion of that study, hundreds of studies have been conducted in schools and workplaces, that show a correlation between the expectations of a coach, mentor or teacher and the performance of the individual. In the…
This is part three of a five part series on becoming a better coach. Each article explores a different element of what it takes to help others accomplish more than they thought they could and become the kind of coach that can consistently build high performing teams and an unstoppable organization. You can start at part one by going here I touched on the subject of goals very briefly in my first post in this series but I want to dive a little deeper into the discussion of goal setting and the power of helping others set and achieve meaningful goals as well as the importance of a coach understanding the goals of others. I was working with a group of sales managers recently when I asked each of them to take a few moments and write down the goals of their top three performers. None of the sales managers could answer the question with anything more than a few vague guesses or some business jargon. I’ve asked that question several times and the outcome is usually the same. On a very few occasions, I have had a manager very clearly describe what their team members wanted out of life, out of their career, out of their year. When I ask these managers to tell me how successful their team is relative to the others in the business…
This is part two of a five part series on becoming a better coach. Each article explores a different element of what it takes to help others accomplish more than they thought they could and become the kind of coach that can consistently build high performing teams and an unstoppable organization. You can read part one here A few weeks back I caught myself uttering the phrase “because I said so” to one of my kids. I immediately had one of those moments when you realize that you just did something you swore you would never do. I did it because it was quicker, and easier and I was focused on getting the task done, not helping my daughter. Effective coaching is about building capability. It’s about creating in others the capacity to solve problems on their own, to think differently about solutions, and to examine their own thinking about any challenge they are facing. Too often, we make it about giving them the answer so they can get the task done, at the expense of creating the capability to accomplish that task, and others, better in the future. Let me give you an example of the difference I have seen in managers I have worked with. The first manager we will call Scott. Scott was a phenomenal sales representative a…
This article is part one of a five part series on becoming a better coach. Each article explores a different element of what it takes to help others accomplish more than they thought they could and become the kind of coach that can consistently build high performing teams and an unstoppable organization. The word “coach” originated from the name of a Hungarian village where early vehicles of transport were built. The village was called Kocs (pronounced kotch) and eventually these horse drawn wagons become known as coaches, as in stagecoach, and later, motor coach. The word was built around the concept of getting a person from one place to another. Even though we have adapted the word to represent helping others make a journey in their abilities instead of a physical relocation, much of what a good coach does is still connected to that original definition. One of the keys of great coaching is never losing sight of the fact that you are there to help them go where they want to and need to if they are to achieve their own goals. The operative words here are “their own goals”. Too often coaching has become something we do to someone to get the results we want. When we operate that way, we aren’t coaching, we are only te…
I was working with the president of a business once and he was describing to me how all of the employees had committed the business' value statement to memory and that every sales associate would start their conversations with customers using the value statement. That way the customer clearly understood how the business could meet their needs. I left the president’s office after the discussion and walked down to where some of the local sales associates were sitting. I struck up a conversation and then asked one of them about their value statement. The response I got was “oh that’s on that card we are supposed to keep handy in case the President or one of the VP’s stops by right? I know I’ve got it here somewhere”. Not one of his closest advisers was willing to tell the president that the value statement he had personally worked so hard to make part of every client conversation was usually stuffed in a drawer somewhere and largely forgotten. The president had been lied to. He was a competent, successful leader but he was making his business decisions with bad information. And not just about the value statement. “Lie” is probably a little harsh. Often people are not intending to be deceitful but the reality is that whe…
The job of a leader has gotten much harder over the past year or so. Let’s face it, it’s relatively easy to get out in front of people and be positive and uplifting when things are going well and business is growing. Lately though, leaders have had to take the stage and deliver somber news and a dismal outlook Leaders who want to keep their organization strong during this period, though must still find a way to focus on a message of hope, possibilities and resolve. That’s what leaders do. That’s not to say that leaders need to pretend everything is rosy when it’s not or lose touch with the harsh realities that face their organization. But one of the biggest jobs any leader has is helping others see a way out, no matter how dark the situation looks. In 2003, McDonald’s posted a loss of $343 million and had suffered from consistent sales declines for over two years. The stock price had tumbled from the 30’s to below 13 in about ten months. Stock analyst Jim Kramer had this to say about the company “There can be no fixing of McDonald's because there is no McDonald's. The company itself can't control its franchises. The franchises used to be the source of so much growth and so much profit, but now the franchises ca…