The power of vulnerability

The power of Vulnerability - presented by Brene Brown - well worth a watch.



Executive Coaching
NLP Courses
NLP Practitioner Courses
NLP Practitioner Training Courses
NLP Training
Coach Training

Leading The Inner Game - Meta Stating & Emotions

If Leadership is about anything - like Coaching, it is about pacing and leading the inner game of the individual and the collective. Dr Michael Hall below writes about the Meta Stating process that a Meta Coach uses to facilitate empowerment. We teach Leaders to do the same as part of our Leader as Coach training program. This a terrific article - Dr Hall has permitted us to reproduce here.

META-STATING AND EMOTIONS
By Dr L.Michael Hall

If the Meta-States Model offers anything, it offers some very powerful processes for detecting your emotions and managing those emotions from a higher level. When most people first experience Meta-States as a Model, the process seems counter-intuitive, it seems paradoxical, and the last thing they would have thought of or utilize for emotional mastery— yet it is the most effective method.

So what does the Meta-States Model say about “emotions?” First that there are levels of emotions; that is, emotions do not occur just at one level, but multiple levels. First there are primary emotions —direct and emotions that are in direct response to a stimulus in the world. Theorists tend to posit that there are anywhere from 7 to perhaps 20 primary emotions. I follow Robert Plutchik (The Emotions) who posited the following primary emotions: joy / sorrow; anger / fear; anticipation / surprise; acceptance / disgust; tension / relaxation; love / apathy. Then, when you begin mixing these primary emotions, you get secondary emotions — similar to how mixing primary colors gives secondary colors.

Then above and beyond primary emotions and various mixtures of those emotions, there are the meta-emotions of your meta-states. These arise due to your self-reflexive consciousness as you associate emotions to emotional states. To detect these and to flush them out, just inquire, “What do you think and feel about X state?”
What do you think and feel about anger? What emotions do you experience when you experience anger? Or fear, sadness, anxiety, guilt, tenderness, love, joy, etc.?

Now generally speaking, when you bring a negative emotion against a previous emotion, you set the second negative emotion as a frame about and over the first emotion. Now you have fear of anger; anger at your fear; shame about your guilt; fear of relaxation; anxiety about anger, and so on. Do this and you construct a “dragon state” within your mind-body system so that you are essentially in self-attack. And the energy of the meta-emotional state has no where to go except against your mind-body system. Then you will pay for this construct by experiencing mental and emotional suffering.

Yet here also begins the processes that seem paradoxical and counter-intuitive. If you bring emotional states as acceptance, observation, interest, curiosity, appreciation, learning, etc. to your negative emotions, your “negative” emotion will change. Typically the intensity level of the energy of the emotion will be reduced so that you’ll be able to handle it much better. Calm anger, acceptance of fear, curiosity about sadness, appreciation of anger, etc. transforms the primary emotional state so that it can be much more useful and resourceful.

When you meta-state your primary emotional state with resourceful emotional states, you are in a position to qualify your emotional states in ways that will transform them into allies that will support you rather than diminish you. So in Neuro-Semantics, we don’t repress emotions, nor do we suppress them as much as we meta-state them and transform them into resources. This creates a new level of emotional intelligence and effectiveness.

So when you next experience a negative state, the first thing to do is to bring a state of calmness to the experience. Step back in your mind for just a moment and appreciate that you just received a signal— a communication signal. And just observe it. What is the signal about? Something “out there” in the world? Something within your mental mapping about something? What?

Next bring states of curiosity, interest, and exploration to your primary state. Curiously explore how you just created that negative emotion. Accepting that the emotion is yours, and that you created it within your mind-body system, you now have an unprecedented opportunity for deepening your self-knowledge and self-control. Wow! And, once you discover the process, then you can meta-state yourself with a strong sense of commitment to yourself and others as you choose the best way to respond to the situation that has triggered the emotion.

This means that you are creating new adjustments to your life-coping maps, making yourself more effective, enriching your relationships, and properly using your emotions, especially your negative ones. And while doing this, meta-state yourself that it is just an emotion (not “you,” don’t identify with the emotion and personalize it). It is just an emotion— a somatic energy response giving you a signal. Now you can choose:

What would be the best response I can now make?
Act on it; explore it some more; notice and ignore it; act against it; etc.?
Is the emotion appropriate, accurate, useful?
What resource would texture and qualify it making it more ecological for me?

Emotions — we all have them, they are a vital and important part of our mind-body system, and like the rest of the system, they are fallible and can easily be mis-used, abused, and become problematic for us. Emotional mastery and intelligence requires awareness, monitoring, managing, meta-stating, and then using them effectively.

Coach Training
Meta Coach Training
Executive Coach Training
Coach Certification
Coaching Certification
Coaching Accreditation

The Coaching Relationship

The Executive Coaching Relationship

By Joseph Scott of The Coaching Room

Coaching is often misunderstood, most often! To this end, I am aiming to give a rambling, yet comprehensive, overview of the coaching relationship (between coach and coachee), its functionality and purpose.

The coaching relationship is designed to be an intimate one, based on trust, honesty, equality and love, though for some, you may prefer the label, unconditional positive regard.

The coaching relationship is about the coachee, it is also about the coach and it is also about the organisation that the coachee works for. All of this sounds fundamental as I write this - yet it is most often overlooked.

Coaching is a mutual commitment to the coaching process in service of the coachee. Coaching is a safe space where coach and coachee share together, individual and collective interiors. From here coach and coachee co-create, share and explore the coaching needs and objectives as they hold a rare and authentic ‘we’ space, in service of the coachee's desired outcomes and their New Way of Being (NWOB).

Next, we'll look at the functionality of the coaching relationship.

There are several functions for coaching; the primary one is having conversations that enables coach and coachee to meet each other at the very heart of the coachee's Current Way of Being (CWOB) and doing. We explore their thinking, feeling, understandings and perspectives; We call this your way of ‘seeing’. Of yourself, others and the world.

The functionality of coaching is also about looking at the coachee's current behaviours and communicating around specific or general experiences (out there); their way of ‘going’ through the world.

Thirdly, the functionality of coaching is about how the coachee shows up with ‘others’ and their ‘environments’ physically and emotionally. It is about their shared actual interactions and collective connections. We call this your way of ‘checking’ - how you check out yourself and your results.

This enables us to fully understand the coachee's integrated current way of dealing (or thinking/feeling, interacting and moving) with and through their personal and professional life. (yes, we get personal!)

Along with the functionality of coaching, are the types of conversations that are available to you to help you actualise the very best 'you' - in your chosen coaching topic.

There are numerous contexts or coaching conversations that you can have, we’d like to share just six of the most utilised conversations from our experience.

We can have a coaching conversation for the exploration of clarity. To explore, discover, causes, drivers, symptoms etc.(that arise internally) with regards to an external event. This allows you time to think out loud, to help you really see the reality of your situation.

We can have a coaching conversation for making decisions and or commitments. This conversation is about exploring the pros and cons with a focus on motivation and usually leads to some form of decision and commitment being realised.

We can have a coaching conversation about planning and implementation, to help you co-create and take effective action on a strategy or game plan, in line with your desired way of being and doing, seeing and checking.

We can have a conversation that helps you to embody, feel and incorporate into your neurology a new skill or role. We can have a conversation that helps you translate the knowing into your body - this is called a mind to muscle conversation for accelerated ‘doing’.

We can have a coaching conversation about transformation. This is an extremely powerful conversation, one that can alter, add or eliminate toxic and unhealthy thinking and doing, it can also change and empower your thinking, beliefs and even your sense of identity.

The last (sixth type of conversation) type of conversation we can have is the confrontation for accountability conversation, which offers a space to address an unpleasant or challenging issue. This tuype of conversation will enable you to be held accountable for doing what you say you are going to do, or to enable you to hold others in this space. It is about resolving conflict internally or out there, with others.

Finally, the purpose of coaching.

There is a widely held corporate theory (or unspoken assumption) that if you are in coaching, then you need fixing, you are falling behind or not good enough.

The actual truth of it is the exact opposite. Coaching is for health people that are not broken! Coaching is premium octane fuel for a high performance output.

Coaching is about unleashing and actualising your greatest and highest potentials, it is about supporting you as you reach further and father than you have ever reached before.

So, if coaching is for you, make sure you hold your coach accountable to being clear about the coaching relationship (between coach and coachee), its functionality and purpose.

Radiantly, Joseph

Do you need a Leadership or Executive Coach?

Do you really need a coach?

By Joseph Scott of The Coaching Room

The 'why work with a coach?' question is most often (in my view) driven by the frame of reference of 'what can a coach do that I can’t do by myself?'.

Well, my view is this, if you can be and do the following 7 things with and by yourself, you don't need a coach.

However, if you cannot do all of the following, and you want to ‘be or do’ things differently, be better, move to a higher place or move faster etc. Then I suggest you get yourself a coach. Take a look!

The 7 things a coach can facilitate that you my not currently be able to do, be or see. Can you:

1. Hear and detect your own limiting beliefs? These are the beliefs that hold you back from achieving your potential. Can you hear and understand the distortions in your own self talk that leash you to your current reality?

2. See and understand your own (self-reflexive) consciousness as you create (positive and) toxic frames of mind from which you deal with reality? Can you master them so that you can self-author your own life story, over the one you’ve inherited from others?

3. Apply actual change to your life that is systemic and lasting?

4. Hold yourself fully accountable to empirical benchmarks of performance and development?

5. Engage yourself in actualising your own development, across recognised psychological aspects of self, to live and operate at better states and stages of being?

6. Perform your meanings and mean your performances, as you realise and release your innate propulsion (motivation) system toward achieving your fullest potentials?

7. Ask yourself a range of simple questions that allow you to live beyond scarcity & deficiency, into a place of giving and abundance?

If you can say yes to the above, YOU DON’T NEED A COACH.

If you cannot say yes to all the above, and self development, transformation and performance both personally and professionally are important to you and you intend this… Then my advice is to GET A COACH!.

If you already have a coach and with your coach, you are not experiencing the above, GET A DIFFERENT COACH.

For more information on how The Coaching Room can help you, your team or your organisation, call us on 1300 858 089 or use our handy contact form. We’ll call you back quickly, listen to your needs and together work through what we can do to help you get what you need or want.

Leadership, Corporate Culture and Paradox

Leadership, Corporate Culture, and Paradox
by Dr. Mike Armour

One of the most unheralded roles of leadership is paradox management. Odds are, you've never heard this term before. Few texts on leadership even mention it.

Nevertheless, paradox is at the heart of every dynamic organization. Not just a single paradox. But a set of them. And each paradox creates tension (and frequently conflict) in corporate culture.

The tension arises from the very nature of paradox. Paradoxes center on a quandary that defies solution. The quandary presents itself as though we must choose between path A and path B (or between truth A and truth B). However, reality dictates that we must choose both A and B simultaneously.
The Structure of Paradoxes
Viewed another way, all paradoxes have three qualities:

1. A paradox pairs two elements, expressed in the form or statements, principles, or values.

2. The two elements seem to exclude one another. They appear contradictory.

3. Yet, in spite of the apparent contradiction, neither element may be excluded. We must embrace both of them.

Paradoxes are commonplace in business. Here are some familiar examples:

Our customers demand products of high quality and detailed craftsmanship.
To remain competitive, we must minimize production costs.
Under our labor contract, we assure workers of exceptional benefits and job security.
Payroll expenses are squeezing our margins and leaving us unprofitable.
Our culture is built around collaborative decision-making.
Fast-changing markets demand swift, almost instantaneous responses.
Non-profit organizations face paradoxes of their own.
To make the wisest use of our funds, we need a quality management team.
High management salaries threaten the loss of donor support.
Our founder's passion is what drives this organization's growth.
Our organization's growth is limited by the founder's management skills.
New realities are forcing us to change our mission.
Our donor support was built around excitement for our mission.

Balance Points

Each of these paradoxes presents two forces that contend with each other. And both elements of the paradox raise concerns about near-term or long-term survival. As a result, leadership cannot afford to ignore or dismiss either element. To do so is to court calamity. Instead, leadership must maintain a balancing act between the two.

Whatever the balance point, someone is likely to second-guess it. Since both elements of the paradox represent legitimate concerns, each element is likely to attract ardent advocates who view their concerns as paramount. To these partisans the chosen balance point may not adequately accommodate their concerns. If not, they will press and politick to relocate the balance point and give their concerns more leverage.

To illustrate, let's look at a widespread paradox at the moment. Due to the prolonged economic downturn, businesses need to preserve capital. On the other hand, they need to invest strategically to position themselves for an eventual turnaround.

Which is the proper thing to do? Conserve resources? Or invest strategically? The answer, of course, is that leadership must do both. But to the degree that we spend money we cannot conserve it. So what is the proper balance point between maximizing reserves and investing strategically?

Those with a more cautious nature will press hard for conserving cash. Those of a more entrepreneurial bent will argue for the opposite priority. And both sides will stake out their position with conviction. Hence the prospect for conflict.

Harnessing Tension

This is why paradox management is vital to successful leadership. Not only does paradox management address survival issues, it also forestalls unhealthy conflict. Proper paradox management maintains creative tension between contending concerns, rather than allowing the tension to degenerate into destructive conflict.

About 15 years ago I came across a thought-provoking book by Charles M. Hampden-Turner entitled Creating Corporate Culture: From Discord to Harmony. He argued that the role of leadership is to identify the most critical paradoxes at work within their organization, then manage these paradoxes adroitly and artfully.

I think his counsel is spot on. And his counsel is just as valid for non-profits, churches, government agencies, educational institutions, and military organizations as it is for companies in the for-profit sector.

Nor is paradox management a challenge merely for managers at the top of an organization. Sub-units of the organization contend with their own set of paradoxes.

Here are some examples:
IT departments struggle with the balance between maximizing network security and optimizing employee access to needed data.
Sales departments struggle between stroking current customers to keep them happy and expanding into new markets.
HR departments struggle between standardizing personnel practices and giving managers latitude over personnel matters.

Priorities for Leadership
So let me conclude with a suggested exercise. Take some time to identify the paradoxes that run through your organization. You might do this by yourself, or as a team exercise with your colleagues, peers, or direct reports.

If you discover more than five paradoxes, highlight the five that you consider most critical. (You don't want to ignore any paradox, of course. But in terms of focused management, it's difficult to concentrate on more than a handful of corporate paradoxes at the same time.)

As a leader, no priority is more important than attending to the critical paradoxes you've identified. What are you doing on a consistent basis to manage the natural tension within the paradox? Is the balance point slipping (through inattention) so that it is no longer where it needs to be? If so, what can you do to nudge things back toward a more appropriate balance point? How do you keep your team's priorities aligned properly to sustain this balance point? These are all essential questions for paradox management.

And just a couple of thoughts in closing. We have centered this discussion on paradoxes which pose threats to survival. There can also be paradoxes of opportunity, i.e., two wonderful prospects which, at first glance, look mutually exclusive. But with creativity, imagination, and innovation, perhaps both are possibilities. As you look for paradoxes in your organization, don't overlook paradoxes of opportunity that may be there.

Second, great spiritual teachers and philosophers often use paradoxical statements to convey key concepts. The very tension within the paradox forces the listener to reflect deeply on the teacher's words. In the same way, simply spending time to reflect unhurriedly on the paradoxes within your corporate culture can yield invigorating perspectives and insights.

Identify corporate paradoxes. Reflect on them. Tackle them. That's your task as a leader.

Used with permission of Dr. Mike Armour
Copyright 2010
MCA Professional Services Group, LLC

The Coaching Room
OUR SERVICES INCLUDE

Executive coaching and training – C-Suite, Executives & Managers
Leadership coaching and training – C-Suite & Executives
Management coaching and training - Managers
HR coaching & consulting (recruitment support, employee relations, performance management consulting, etc.)
Life coaching for professionals
Sales coaching & training – including in-house training & licensing of our facilitative methodology
Leadership, team and organisational diagnostic solutions and support services
Organisational development and change management consulting

Wil Smith on Leadership, Talent and Success

The video below is a powerful, yet simple expose on Leadership, Talent and Success by Wil Smith (actor).

For me this is Leadership.



Jay

How New Leaders Build Trust

How New Leaders Build Trust - A Leadership Coaching article
by Dr. Mike Armour


In 2007 I was introduced to an informal initiative at Microsoft called 42Projects. Formed largely by word-of-mouth, 42Projects is a grassroots community with a singular purpose: to find practical ways to increase innovation by enhancing team trust.

The group is coordinated by Ross Smith, an imaginative leader and a master of collaboration. Since I first addressed the 42Projects team two years ago, they have launched Trust 2.0, an experiment in using wikis, blogs, and productivity games to expand trust within an organization.

Trust-Building Priorities
This month I was back in Redmond to speak to them again. We met at noon over pizza in a spacious multi-media center, with others around Microsoft joining through a video feed. The topic, as you might expect, was trust-building. In particular, we talked about building trust when you move into new management or leadership positions.

During the question-and-answer period, one person observed, "When you step into a new position like this, it's vital to become trusted by both your team and by those above you. Which of these should be your priority in the first months on a job?"

That's an intriguing question. No one had ever put it to me quite that way before. Yet the question is universally relevant to managers and leaders. How would you answer?

Some might argue that you should build trust first and foremost with those above you. After all, they control your funding. And need we mention their clout in making or breaking your career?

But I took the opposite stance. I argued that your first priority as a new manager or leader is to build your team's trust in you and to strengthen trust within the team itself.

Here's my rationale. Those above you already have a certain degree of trust in you. Otherwise they would have never placed you in this new role. The team you are leading, however, probably had little or no voice in your selection. They might not even know you, especially if you were hired from the outside.

Yet your success in the eyes of those above you will largely be measured by how well your team performs. And every study on the subject shows that teams perform at their best in settings of high, mutual trust. To the degree that you build productive, high-trust relationships with your team and within your team, you make their success all the more likely. And in the process, you gain greater trust from those to whom you report.

Engendering Trust
Someone then followed up with a second question: what should I do in the first months on a job to engender trust within the team? This was a more familiar question for me. It comes up frequently in Q&A sessions or radio interviews. And I've boiled my response down to a simple three-point approach.

First, you use your initial weeks in a new leadership or management role to establish your "likeability." I'm not talking about launching a charm offensive. Or setting out to win a popularity contest. But your new team is watching from day one to see if you are truly a likeable person.

Are you approachable?
Are you friendly?
Are you courteous and well-mannered?
Are you thoughtful and considerate of others?
If your team quickly decides that you are likeable, it becomes easier for them to trust you. Or to put it another way, we don't readily trust unlikeable people.

But it's vital to keep a key distinction in mind here. Being "likeable" and having people like all of your decisions are two entirely different matters. People want leaders whom they like. But they also want leaders who can make tough, timely decisions. If you become known for putting off critical decisions, hoping to find a solution to everyone's liking, you will soon lose your team's respect.

Which leads us to the second point. We tend to withhold trust from people whom we don't respect. Therefore, in the opening weeks of your new role, you must work daily to build respect for yourself. Here I'm not talking so much about respect for your authority. I'm talking about respect for you, personally.

This is not to downplay the importance of respect for authority. It's clearly important. And in military-type organizations it's paramount. For them success in the thick of battle depends on respect for authority, whether you happen to like the person in authority or not.

Outside of military-type organizations, however, effective leaders today rely far more on personal influence than on command and control. And personal influence depends directly on the level of respect that others have for you as a person.

How, then, do you gain people's respect? You begin by respecting them. When someone treats us with respect, we find it easy to reciprocate in kind.
Building Respect
In your opening weeks in a new leadership or management role, therefore, you must work daily to show your team – collectively and individually – that you respect them.

Do you seem genuinely interested in their ideas?
Are you responsive to their emails and inquiries?
Do you openly commend them for a job well done?
Do you share the credit for success with them?
Do you actively discourage jokes, sarcasm, or derisive statements that demean people or treat them dismissively?

Treating your team with respect, however, is merely the first step in gaining their respect. Equally important is acting in ways that merit respect.

Are you truthful?
Do you keep promises?
Do you meet deadlines?
Do you refrain from vulgarities and off-color jokes?
Do you avoid favoritism?
Do you hold yourself to the same standards that you expect of others?
If not, the team may appreciate you for respecting them, but they will not give you their full respect.

Consistency
The third key in transitioning to a new position of leadership or management is consistency. The team will be watching to see if you are consistently trustworthy. Absolute perfection is not necessary. Slip-ups now and then are to be expected. But overall the team is looking for consistent, trustworthy behavior over the long haul.

In the sequence of three priorities, I purposefully put respect ahead of consistency. Once the team genuinely respects you, they will be more willing to overlook an occasional lapse in consistency. Because of their respect for you, slip-ups now and then are not as likely to cost you their overall trust. But if they neither like you nor respect you, even the slightest inconsistency will serve to jeopardize trust.

Used with Permission of Dr. Mike Armour - Leader Perfect.

Leadership Development Book List - The 10 Leadership Books you must read ASAP

As part of our coaching engagement, we will require that you grow through education and reading. Below is an ordered list of must read books for Leadership growth and development:

1. Leadership and Self Deception - Arbinger Institute

This is a journey every leader must wrestle with - that of understanding the failings of self deception. As Leadership is about Leading through others, we must first learn to understand and change ourselves, our strengths, issues and challenges. Only then can we hope to become more authentic and congruent and ultimately more influencial with her people.



2. The Anatomy of Peace - Arbinger Institute

Continuing the journey from Leadership and Self Deception, every Leader must learn to understand and deal with conflict - therefore facilitating better communication.



3. The E-Myth Revisited - Michael Gerber

Understanding the role of a Leader and Entrepreneur in an organisation. Michael Gerber is at the forefront of thinking about the impact of Leadership on business.



4. The Leadership Challenge - Kouzes and Posner

A broad and deep text on what Leadership really is. An outstanding reference guide with wonderful metaphors and stories. Heavily research based.



5. Mastering the Rockerfeller Habits - Verne Harnish

Masterful simplification of the keys to Leadership and Business success. Harnish is very talented at simplifying the complexity of business success.



6. Selling With Integrity - Sharon Drew Morgan

The new paradigm of sales and change - Morgan is a genius.



7. Dirty Little Secrets - Why Buyers Can't Buy and Sellers Can't Sell - Sharon Drew Morgan

Morgan has gone further in this book to look at how change occurs through the buying process. An extraordinary piece and literature that every Leader must read.



8. Bonds That Make us Free - Terry Warner

Warner is one of the Co-Founders of the Arbinger Institute. This book is an essential for the Leader in helping create meaningful relationships with their people (followers).



9. The Art of Possibility - Rosamund Zander

The new paradigm of Leadership - Leading through inspiring, enabling, awakening and empowering others - YOU MUST READ this book if you are in any type of Leadership position.



10. Generation Y - Peter Sheahan

An Australian author writing on thriving and surviving with Generation Y. A must read for any Leader dealing with 18 - 35 year old staff. This book will help you understand and awaken this generation from a Meta-perspective (Values/Thinking Patterns/Beliefs etc.

Leadership and Executive Coaching; The New Leadership Paradigm

The second of 2 videos on Leadership by Ben Zander, author of The Art of Possibility; an exceptional book on the new paradigm of Leadership. This video looks at Leadership from a completely new perspective. This is an example of the new Leadership paradigm in action.



Leadership and Executive Coaching in action

Leadership Coaching - The Art of Possibility

Below is a video showcasing a simple and yet very effective metaphor for Leadership. This video features Benjamin Zander and his new paradigm for Leadership Coaching - The Art of Possibility. It is well worth the watch and just may have a profound effect on your Leadership potential.

Leadership Development - Maintaining Balance Between Leading and Managing - A Leader's Article

Maintaining Balance Between Leading and Managing

by Dr. Mike Armour

It's increasingly common for companies to refer to everyone in management as a leader -- whether they genuinely function as leaders or not. In our last issue we looked at this trend and outlined a three-point litmus test to determine whether someone is truly a leader or merely a rechristened manager.

As we noted in that issue, we cannot fully separate leadership and management. Truly great leadership always includes a certain element of solid management. But from my experience and observation, it's a relatively easy matter for the management task to consume the leadership task. That is, we end up spending so much time on management that we no longer act as leaders.

The "Gotta Know" Test

So how do we avoid this pitfall? How do we keep from subverting the leadership task by spending too much time on the management task? And similarly, how do we keep from subverting the leadership task by spending too much time on the wrong management tasks?

The answer, obviously, is to maintain the proper balance between time given to management and time given to leadership. For me, finding that balance begins with this question: "How much do I feel compelled to be 'in the know' about everything that happens in my organization?"

The more intensely I feel a need to be 'in the know,' the more likely I am to devote too much of my energy to management functions. I will be spending too much time with my fingers in the pie. I will slowly gravitate from being a leader, because my focus is on management.

At lower levels of leadership it may be possible to lead well while also staying fully versed on what's happening below you. But the higher we climb on the leadership ladder, the less time we have to stay fully informed. This happens in part because our responsibility is so much broader that expanded duties simply take more time.

But there are also other contributing factors. Most of them relate to three decision-making realities that change as we move higher in leadership.

First, our decisions must focus on longer time horizons. Lower level managers rarely need to look more than a few weeks or a few months down the road. Upper management, however, must constantly anticipate what lies several years down the road.

Second, this longer time horizon means greater ambiguity in the data on which we base decisions. We must often rely as much on forecasts and estimates as on solid data, which adds to the difficulty of confident decision-making.

And third, our decisions have far greater collateral impact on people and corporate processes. We must develop a keen instinct for anticipating this impact and factoring it into our decisions.

The Leader's Management Priorities

All three of these changes greatly reduce the amount of time we have to be "fully up to date" on the details within the organization we head. Learning to feel comfortable without being fully "in the know" is the most difficult stretch for many leaders aspiring to senior executive positions. I work regularly with executives who are struggling with this very challenge. Here's what I tell them.

To begin with, your management energy should center almost entirely on three concerns:
Having the right processes in place.
Having the right controls on the processes.
Having the right people in charge of the controls.
Once you satisfy these three criteria, you can trust your organization to do the right thing and to do it consistently. Trust is the key. An obsessive need to be "in the know" usually points to deep-seated distrust. When we can trust the processes, the controls, and the people responsible for those controls, we can be at ease, even if we are not completely "in the know."

Which then leads to a corollary. When things go wrong, our management duty as leaders is not to fix the problem. If we have the right people in place, they have the know-how to fix the problem.

No, our task is to determine where the breakdown occurred. Was it a breakdown in one or more processes? Was it a breakdown in control? Or was there a miscue on the part of those who manage the controls? These should be our primary management concerns as leaders.

And again, once we have determined the nature of the breakdown, it's best if we let our people design and implement the fix. There are exceptions to this rule, to be sure, particularly where the fix entails personnel changes. But to the degree that we get drawn into fixing problems that others can handle, we are sacrificing precious time we need for the leadership task.

Reviewing the 'To-Do" List

Our first priority, then, is to put the proper processes, controls, and people in place. The second is to "stay out of the way." A massive list of "to do's" is often an indicator that we are becoming a bottle neck. When my to-do list starts mushrooming, I have to ask whether I'm injecting myself too deeply into the process. It's easy to do.

And it often happens insiduously, incrementally, over time. It may begin innocently enough with the identification of a problem and the guidance we give for overcoming it. The guidance should build around desired outcomes, not instruction on how to fix the problem. Too much "how-to" guidance is a step toward injecting ourselves into the process.

But another subtle trap is lurking at this point. Once we empower our people to find solutions to a problem, it's almost natural to say, "Just keep me informed." As leaders, of course, we need to be informed on the progress toward resolving problems in processes, controls, or interpersonal relationships.

But from "keep me informed" we typically move next to "run your solution by me before you put it in place," which easily turns into "be sure I sign off on the key steps before you implement them." Little by little, with the best of intentions, and always under the guise of having "empowered my people" to solve problems, we put ourselves in the middle of the process.

Sometimes, when the problem is considerably complex, when the solutions stretch our people to the outer limites of their experience or competence, or when the economic or political consequences are extremely high, we need to have "sign-off" as leaders. But when "my sign-off" becomes a routine part of a process, "my sign-off" is soon likely to be routine in multiple processes. I'm on the way to becoming a bottle neck.

So the key is to minimize the number of issues that need our sign-off, then ridding the process of my sign-off requirement as quickly as possible. Remember, one of our three critical tasks as a leader is to design good processes. And execessive dependence on "my sign-off" is carte blanche evidence that either our process is not good or that we do not have confidence in the controls and people we've put in place.

Copyright 2007 - Dr Mike Armour
Used with permission and respect.

Leadership Development and Executive Coaching

Leadership Coaching Article - In the Absence of Vision - A Leadership Article

In the Absence of Vision

by Dr. Mike Armour

Books on leadership inevitably place a priority on developing a compelling corporate vision. But articulating a compelling vision is a challenging task. Just ask anyone who has ever taken a stab at it.

So what do you do if you can't come up with a strong statement of vision for your organization? As a consultant and coach, I'm increasingly asked this question by clients. Oh, they have a general, well-conceived notion of where they want to take their people. But they are stymied when it comes to reducing these intuitions to crisp, compelling language, visionary enough to guide the organization for years to come.

It's not that these men and women lack the imagination, creativity, or insight to develop a well-formed vision. No, the villain is most commonly the relentless pace of change. These leaders find themselves in settings where vision statements are outmoded almost as soon as they are finished.

This is especially the case in industries where marketplace realities change color more quickly than a chameleon. In technology-related businesses, for example, product obsolescence is often measured in months, not years. It's not uncommon for market conditions to compel companies to rethink their entire business model in relatively short-term cycles.

A Heretical Notion.

In circumstances like this, how can you develop a long-range, sustaining vision? The truth is, it's often nigh unto impossible. You fundamentally have three choices.

First,you can forego a vision statement altogether. A second alternative is to develop a vision statement in precise, engaging language, simply accepting the fact that it is likely to be quickly outdated. Yet this goes against the principle that vision statements should provide consistent, long-term definitions of direction.

The third option is to offer a vision statement that is so generalized that it can weather periodic wholesale redefinitions of the core business. When they are this generalized, however, vision statements typically sacrifice the precision to be motivational and compelling.

Thinking about this problem recently, I've begun to toy with a bit of a heretical notion. Namely, vision may not always be as necessary for success as our management theories make it out to be. In particular, if you have a set of core values that are well-conceived, precisely-stated, and consistently-pursued, your organization may be able to do quite well based on these orienting values alone.

The power of vision is that it gives people a common focus and a common sense of direction, while also serving to inspire them to superior performance. Well-stated core values have the same potential. True, values do not give us as much focus as a compelling, well-articulated vision. But it seems to me that (in the absence of a clear sense of vision) corporate values which are carefully-enunciated, constantly promoted, and consistently followed can afford us much of the benefit of leadership vision.

A Values-Shaped Company

I had been toying with this concept for several months when I came across a book that seems to illustrate the power of values to shape a company's destiny. The book is Kirk Kizaniian's Exceeding Customer Expectations, a study of Enterprise Rent-A-Car and how it rose from obscurity to be the number one rental car company in the world.

Founded by Andrew Taylor, who fifty years later is still its Chairman and CEO, Enterprise began as a car leasing business. It started in two rooms (actually converted service bays) at a Cadillac dealership in St. Louis. Taylor had no vision of becoming a dominant player in the car rental business. In fact, he made a reasoned, purposeful decision to stay out of the car rental business. He felt the car rental industry was cluttered with too many players, which made margins too thin for sustained profitability.

From the outset, Taylor set out to build his automobile leasing company around a handful of orchestrating values. His first and foremost value was to exceed customer expectations and to do so consistently. Another value was to make it easy for customers to do business with his company. Still a third value was to provide a fun place for people to work and to give employees every opportunity to grow and advance both personally and professionally. Only satisfied workers, he believed, would rise to the performance standards to meet his customer satisfaction expectations.

Responding to Values

Without making this newsletter interminably long, let me quickly summarize how Enterprise went from ignoring the rental car business to being the industry's front-runner. Taylor's leasing customers kept asking him if he had a car that they could rent for a few days. Usually this was because they needed extra wheels for guests from out of town or because their own vehicle was out of commission for repairs. In the early years Taylor said, "No, we don't offer short-term car rentals."

But then he concluded that his failure to accommodate these request violated his value of exceeding customer expectations. So he added a few "loaner" cars that could be rented on a short-term basis by preferred customers. Slowly the rental car side of the business grew and expanded. Soon it was operating out of several locations.

But to honor another of his values -- making it easy for customers to do business with him -- he located his rental agencies in residential neighborhoods, not at some remote airport, as other companies did. This same core value led to another innovation which became his company's hallmark, the famous "We pick you up" policy.

Next, because customers needed a rental car so often in the wake of an accident, he pioneered arrangements with insurance companies to provide Enterprise vehicles to policy holders who had cars in a body shop. And to make things even more convenient for customers, Enterprise today offers rentals at body shops themselves.

At each step of the way, this progression of expanded services resulted from a commitment to exceed customer expections and to make it easy for customers to do business with Enterprise. None of these innovations occurred because Taylor had a vision of revolutionizing the car rental business. To the contrary, his innovations all came about because he kept his eye on his orchestrating values. Had he not given himself so thoroughly to exceeding the expectations of his leasing customers, he might well have never entered the rental car industry.

Values as Substitutes for Vision

If Taylor had a genuine vision early on, it was apparently to build a company that was true to his orchestrating values. Then, as unexpected opportunities came along, he opted to capitalize on them, not on the basis of a compelling vision, but on the basis of their alignment with his most critical values.

This, then, takes me back to the observation at the outset. A crisp, well-articulated vision may not always be essential if, in its stead, a proper values-structure is in place. Now, I'm not suggesting that just any set of values will suffice. From what I can tell, the values that best serve in lieu of a vision are those that embody the essence of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."


Moreover, the primary, orchestrating values need to be few in number. Perhaps no more than three or four. Otherwise it's difficult to maintain consistent focus on the critical values over the long haul. And these values must be the determining factor in who gets raises, who gets promotions, and who gets celebrated as a hero within the corporate culture. Only then will employees take the values seriously enough for these orchestrating values to exercise their full potential to shape the organization.

So strive for vision. There is no substitute for a precise, inspiring, compelling vision statement. But absent a vision statement (or the ability to create one), capitalize on a central core of appropriate values. Talk about the constantly. Relate every element of your business plan to them. Embody them personally yourself as the leader. Let them serve as marker buoys to keep you moving in the direction of whatever success the future holds out to you and your people.

Copyright 2007 - Dr Mike Armour
Used with permission and respect.


Leadership Development
and Executive Coaching