Blog Archives - Page 7 of 13

A bad case of binary thinking?

I spend a lot of my time teaching managers and leaders core coaching skills. They bit they most consistently struggle with is being non-directive – asking rather than telling. You can clearly see that this does not compute for many of them. “Isn’t leadership about setting direction and providing clarity for others” is the direct or indirect challenge. “Why shouldn’t I give them the answers if I know them?”.

I think they have a point… up to a point. Leadership is indeed directive; its about providing others with a sense of where they are going, and it is about providing clarity. However leadership is also about bringing out the best in others, and developing autonomous contributors independent of the boss.

So I don’t see this as either/or binary argument. Leadership has to be about asking and telling – and often all in the same conversation. Its just that many managers are much more skilled and familiar with the directive end of the spectrum than asking genuinely open questions, listening fully or delivering skilful feedback. Great leaders know when people need certainty and clarity, and when its best for them to figure it out for themselves.

Playing your own game or someone else’s?

I had the pleasure of talking to a highly successful project leader today – the sort of guy who takes multi-million pound projects of frightening complexity in his stride and still looks around for a challenge. He’d found exactly that in his new appointment – taking over the leadership of a global transformation team – but to his surprise was finding it harder going than he expected and not a lot of fun.

Inventing your own game?

“I’m so used to playing on my own pitch” he mused ” I was so familiar with how things were with my old team but now I’m having to fit in with this new lot”. He was right at the start of his own change process, feeling the discomfort and uncertainty of change.

This got me thinking about what it takes to be playing your own game rather than someone else’s. For some it is about picking their own team, for others it is about throwing out the existing agenda and bringing in their own. Others never get there and are forever dancing to someone else’s tune… never a great place to operate from.

Niceness – an over rated virtue? Issues in Coaching

Is it possible to be too nice? I am lucky enough to work with some really nice people but sometimes wonder if it is a trait that some people take too far. Take Peter – he’s a very successful senior manager on the brink of joining the executive ranks of his organisation. He delivers the results, has great relationships at work but his Achilles heel … well… he’s just too nice.

To Peter this is not a problem at all. He has very strong values about courtesy at work and will move heaven and earth to make sure everyone around him is happy and feathers remain unruffled. In short, he likes to be liked and probably, as a consequence, works too many hours and takes on too much. He’s a nice guy to be around.

However, from his bosses perspective, Peter’s niceness is the only question mark hovering over his further promotion. Does his niceness mean a lack of ‘grit’ and a reluctance to face into the difficult conversation or make the unpopular decision? Does he spend too much time trying to keep everyone happy? Peter in turn is adamant that his niceness doesn’t mean he can’t handle tricky situations… he just doesn’t want to do it like Genghis Khan.

So is niceness for you a handicap or a sign of an evolved leader?

Talking strengths

I came across an amazing statistic yesterday – it was hidden in a paper by the Corporate Leadership Council on what drives individual performance… a subject dear to the heart of most learning and development professionals. The 2006 CLC’s survey of 28,000 people, had distilled out what organisational ‘levers’ impact individual performance and found that the vast majority of performance management practices make minimal positive difference. Shocking indeed!

However, stunningly, what did make a big difference was talking performance strengths – that’s the conversation that helps employees to know what their strengths are in the first place and and secondly help them figure out how to use them. Conversations that emphasized performance strengths drove a 36.4% improvement in performance, a particularly amazing figure when the same data showed that conversations that emphasized weaknesses lead to a 26.8% decline in employee performance.

Now I think this is big news for all of us involved in learning and growth in organisations and real affirmation for the positive psychology movement. Many managers and leaders I meet seem to have an assumption that development = fixing our weaknesses, and therefore performance management conversations must be about identifying our gaps and plugging them. This data would suggest that this approach is not only unhelpful but potentially detrimental. So are we teaching managers how to have strengths-based conversations or are we perpetuating the ‘fix the fault’ approach to development?

Corporate Leadership Council (2006) From Performance Management to Performance Improvement: leveraging key drivers of individual performance. For a copy of the paper click here.

From armour plating to string vest .

Fascinating conversation this morning about our relationship with feedback.

I was talking to George, a newly appointed sales coach, who had been on something of a roller-coaster of self-discovery and we were talking about his journey from loathing feedback to loving it.. well at least being more acceptant of it.

“Every time I went into the boss’s office I’d be expecting a rollicking so I’d put on my armour plating and anything he said would just ping off me”. For George, the relationship with his boss was too similar to his relationship with his headmaster and it came as a bit of revelation that he might be transferring the associations and feelings of this old relationship onto his relationship with his boss. “I was going in there expecting to be ‘told off’ and made to feel like a schoolboy again – actually, when I opened up a bit, my boss had some really useful things to say, and even the critical bits didn’t smart too much”.

While George had make great strides to opening up to feedback he still felt there would always be a bit of him that he would need to protect “It’s a bit like string vest now – there are holes to let the arrows through, but I am still covered up”.

So how do you receive feedback – armour plated or string vest?

“I’m not confident” – issues in coaching

When people tell me they are not confident I’m never quite sure how to take it. It strikes me that people use this phrase in two very different ways – situationally or personally.

For some it is seems to be simply a shorthand expression that they are moving into new territory in which they can’t reliably predict the result – e.g. “I’ve never done tight rope walking before so I’ve no idea whether I’m going to fall or not”. Used in this way lack of confidence is a prediction of an uncertain outcome in a new situation, but not of a unwillingness to give it a go anyway. Coaching this group of ‘unconfidents’ can often be a joy as they expand what they can do by exploring into what they’ve never done before.

For others, “I’m not confident” is a more blanket assessment which seems to be much more personal and final – e.g. “Don’t ask me to tight rope walk – I’m not the sort of person who would ever succeed at that”. Used in this way “lack of confidence” is often a defence against tackling things outside the norm, and a prediction of likely failure – self-fulfilling you might argue. Coaching this group can therefore be much more challenging as the badge/label that clients have placed on themselves has first to be dislodged. Much more challenging.

Should’s, must’s and ought’s – issues in coaching

How do you know when to bend and when to walk away? This has been a recent question for a coaching client who is finding it heavy going in their organisation. Despite putting in massive effort and extra hours they find themselves somehow still behind the pace, and struggling to know what is expected of them let alone deliver it. Our conversations have therefore turned to how much it is reasonable to try to adapt, and at what point does adaption actually become maladaptation, and the only sane response is to do something radically different or leave.

A tell-tale sign of maladaptation for me is when the “should’s, must’s and ought’s” become a signature of the coaching conversation – “I should try harder… I must fit in .. I ought to be able to”. Albert Ellis, founding father of Rational Emotional Behaviour Therapy (REBT), a forerunner of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), amusingly but rudely called this ‘mustabation’ – a compulsion to rationalise away our own needs in favour of someone else’s. So when I hear a crop of “should’s, must’s and ought’s” my instinct is to get curious about the assumptions my client is making and challenge their source and validity.

Of course we all have to bend a little to fit in, however its also healthy to know when not to. Watch out for your “should’s must’s and ought’s”.

Fixed mindset or Growth mindset?

I’ve just been reading Carol Dweck book ‘Mindset‘. According to Carol’s research humanity come in two basic flavours – those with a ‘fixed mindset’ and those with a ‘growth mindset’. The fixed mindset is characterised by a limiting belief that that personal abilities are finite or fixed. This shows up as an all consuming goal to prove oneself – every situation calls for a confirmation of intelligence, personality or character. Every situation is evaluated: “Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected?” In contrast the growth mindset is based on belief that your basic qualities can be cultivated with a bit of effort – everyone can change and grow given application and the right experience.
I’ve often wondered about this – without knowing this research – observing how people respond to being thrown into new situations in the training room. There are those seem to need to be perfect before they even try to develop their skills and reticent to just ‘give it a go’ in for fear of making mistakes and getting it wrong. Others seem much more able to just pitch in and take the learning, unafraid to hear feedback or reflect on their gaffs. Job one for the facilitator is therefore making it ok to ‘fail’ and not set expectations of perfection.
Don’t you love it when you find an idea that fits observable facts?

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential London: Constable & Robinson Ltd.

The distorted self – issues in coaching

Given we walk around all day with ourselves for company you would think we would know ourselves pretty well . However the evidence would suggest otherwise – most of us seem to distort how we see ourselves, either inflating or deflating our capabilities and capacities out of line with how others see us.

Getting to know our real self is more than a bit tricky. Even systems such as 360 feedback are not infallible – we often present to different people in very variable ways and it is not uncommon for our bosses to view us differently from our peers or teams. Which one is the ‘true’ self? We are also skilled a selectively hearing messages from feedback, picking out those that confirm our self image and rejecting those that don’t

If this were not difficult enough, many of us are disconnected from our view of our ideal self – the self we would like to be – the reputation we would like, or the difference we want to make. However, according to leadership author Richard Boyatzis, this is the self view that can drive and propel change . Boyatzis believes that the more we are connected to our ideal self the more we are likely to accurately self-assess. Tackling our weaknesses (aka development needs) therefore become palatable when the ideal self provides the imperative.

Important stuff to remember if you work in the business of developing people.

Goleman, D, Boyatzis, R and McKee, A. (2001) Primal Leadership: the hidden driver of performance, Harvard Business Review

Defensiveness – issues in coaching

Understanding defensiveness is stock in trade for any coach who is worth their salt – being able spot how the client can deny/ rationalise/ justify/ minimise their behaviour and impact is essential. Defensiveness keeps the conversation closed and limits the possibilities that can be discussed or discovered. It would not therefore be unreasonable to see the defensive client as a problem… a bit of an issue.

However a more compassionate view is that the client is always doing the best they can, given the context, resources and knowledge they have. Defensiveness is therefore potentially a legitimate response given their circumstances.

This was borne when I was recently introduced to a new client. They had been told to come for coaching because they needed to fix some stuff. Not too surprisingly they entered the room bristling with indignation and highly suspicious of me and this coaching malarkey. It has taken several session to build up trust and for him to lower the barricades enough to talk about a change agenda that he is willing to buy into. The work continues…

“Defensiveness is usually someone silently screaming that they need you to value and respect them in disguise.”