Influencing without a word

When not to coach

While I promote coaching as an exceptional method to build competency, there are times when it is not appropriate to coach. Watch this video for a few hints:




(some material sourced from Dennis Kinlaw's Coaching for Commitment)

Law of Diminishing Intent

"We intend to take action when an idea strikes us. We intend to do something when the emotion is high. But if we don't translate that intention into action fairly soon, the urgency starts to diminish. A month from now, the passion is cold. A year from now, it can't be found.” -- Jim Rohn

What ideas do you have right now? What are your dreams? Start today! Want to run a 5K someday? Go for a walk today. Want to be a better communicator? Start writing now. Want to know your kids better? Sit with them when they do their homework tonight and listen to their concerns and ideas. Start right now -- don't let that great idea turn cold.

There are physical, emotional, intellectual, and character strengths. Do you know your character strengths?

Often we are told what our intellectual strengths are early in life: you're good in math, you're a good reader, you're quite the musician. We're told what our physical strengths are: you're flexible, you've got a great throwing arm, you're nimble, you've got great rhythm.

But, what are our character strengths? Are we industrious, socially intelligent, curious, prudent? And what is the value of these strengths?

To best utilize our strengths, we must identify them and then develop them. Identify your character strengths with the online test at www.viastrengths.org.

• From the top 10, choose the 5 that best fulfill the “Strengths Criteria”
• Choose one character strength and for the following week use the strength in a new way every day
• Each night, briefly describe how you used your strength in a new way today and how you intend to use the strength in a new way tomorrow

--from UPenn's course Positive Psychology, 2009

Play to your strengths

"The real tragedy of life is not that we don't have enough strengths. It's that we fail to use the ones we have." -- Buckingham and Clifton

Many of us spend enormous energy fixing our weaknesses and the weaknesses we perceive in others -- our direct reports, our spouses, our bosses, our children. There is much more to be gained by enhancing and then playing to our strengths. Figure out what everyone around you is best at and then put them to work on that -- utilize those strengths and both you and others will gain. And be far more content in life!

"I'll just explain why it's necessary"

. . . the answer most people give when asked how they will persuade someone to make a critical change. And yet:

"Two years after receiving coronary bypass surgery to save their lives, 90% of patients are back to old behaviors." -- Dr. Edward Miller, Johns Hopkins University*

Can you imagine a more persuasive argument for changing behavior? "Change your behavior or die"; yet, it doesn't work!

Explaining is not persuading. What else can you do to persuade others to make needed changes?

* as quoted by David Maxfield in his program, Influencing for Change

Human potential is underrated

My son's class learned about Stanley Milgram's famous "shock" experiments, where nearly 50% of subjects were willing to shock another human being to death because a man in a white lab coat told them to. My son is exceedingly upset about the baseness of human nature.

Here's what I tried to tell him today, summed up much better than I could do by Abraham Maslow:
"“If we want to know how fast a human being can run, then it is no use to average out the speed of a ‘good sample’ of the population; it is far better to collect Olympic gold medal winners and see how well they can do.

If we want to know the possibilities for spiritual growth, value growth, or moral development in human beings, then I maintain that we can learn most by studying our most moral, ethical, or saintly people.

On the whole I think it is fair to say that human history is a record of the ways in which human nature has been sold short. The highest possibilities of human nature have practically always been underrated"

We have to look at our best to see what we can be; perhaps we can look at the worst we can be so that we know what to avoid, yes. But, don't forget to also look at what we humans can do in the face of adversity. Don't forget Lincoln, Gandhi, Dr. King, Mother Theresa, Moses, and others who were the change they believed in the world!

Clarity wins over pretension

Which of these is more likely to propel you to take action?

"illumination is required to be extinguished when vacating these premises"

or

"turn of the lights when you leave"

What's my purpose for listening?

Do you use active listening to show you care, or to truly understand?

Leadership is a team sport

In my leadership courses and when I conduct corporate training, participants/students often point to great historical leaders' qualities as examples of successful leader characteristics. Yet, follower characteristics are critical to determining the leader characteristics that are most successful within a certain context. Leadership is only successful when followers follow!

Recent research by Adam M. Grant, Francesca Gino, and David A. Hofmann demonstrates that extroverted leaders succeed with passive employees while introverted leaders succeed with proactive employees.

What type of team do you play for? How are you leading that team?

(title source: Trina Soske and Jay A. Conger in HBR article, It's Time to Focus Executive Development on Real Business Issues. Research source: Reversing the Extraverted Leadership Advantage: The Role of Employee Proactivity)

Life is a series of extenuating circumstances. So, are choices ever "just this once"?

Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He writes:

"A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. It suckers you in, and you don’t ever look at where that path ultimately is headed and at the full costs that the choice entails. Justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of “just this once.”

I’d like to share a story about how I came to understand the potential damage of “just this once” in my own life. I played on the Oxford University varsity basketball team. We worked our tails off and finished the season undefeated. The guys on the team were the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. We got to the British equivalent of the NCAA tournament—and made it to the final four. It turned out the championship game was scheduled to be played on a Sunday. I had made a personal commitment to God at age 16 that I would never play ball on Sunday. So I went to the coach and explained my problem. He was incredulous. My teammates were, too, because I was the starting center. Every one of the guys on the team came to me and said, “You’ve got to play. Can’t you break the rule just this one time?”

I’m a deeply religious man, so I went away and prayed about what I should do. I got a very clear feeling that I shouldn’t break my commitment—so I didn’t play in the championship game.

In many ways that was a small decision—involving one of several thousand Sundays in my life. In theory, surely I could have crossed over the line just that one time and then not done it again. But looking back on it, resisting the temptation whose logic was “In this extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK” has proven to be one of the most important decisions of my life. Why? My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed."

Does your team share privately held information?

Is your organization a "best place to work"?

According to Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge, companies that are on the best places to work lists are also the most profitable in their industries.

Perhaps people prefer to work for profitable companies? Or, are the companies profitable because the culture supports employee innovation and ownership, which in turn lead to employee satisfaction?

What do you think?

Would the people who report to you say they work in a great environment? Why or why not?

source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5917.html

Finding brilliance

When people don't think like we do, we think they're stupid:


Okay, maybe these folks are not too bright. Nonetheless, we have to find ways to persuade others who do not think the way we do. One way is to find the brilliance in everyone and speak to that -- are they really good at numbers and not so good with people? Are they great at sports? Computer technology? Find what they're really good at and see if you can approach them from that perspective.

Any ideas?