Practice Gets Personal

by Denise Green | Career Satisfaction, Communication, Developing Others, Employee Engagement, Innovation, Relationship & Trust, Science of Leadership, Uncategorized Comments | 0

iStock_000010121766Small We have been working for some time on a webinar to help geographically dispersed teams—whether separated by a wall or an ocean—achieve high levels of trust, engagement, and results when frequent face-to-face interactions aren’t possible.

Little did I know that the content would become so personal to the Brilliance Inc. team. Since our founding 2008, we’ve had the luxury of proximity. We could brainstorm around the same pad of paper or flip chart, share challenges and successes across the table, strategize and debrief meetings in the car pool lane.

And that luxury is about to become history as life takes us in different geographic directions.

So here are some reminders that I offer to myself, my team, and any of you who are charged with achieving great things with others at a distance.

Working remotely can feel like you are isolated on an island. Not entirely a bad thing at times, but posing real challenges. In order to truly feel like a cohesive team and exceed your goals, you need to build sturdy, reliable bridges. In our program, Communicating Across Networks, we focus on three of the most important links.

Bridge #1: Connection

Relationships and trust are critical to any high-performing team. And if you’ve ever been new to a team, or worked on a team with low trust, you know how much extra effort it takes to get stuff done. When teams have trust, benefit of the doubt, a sense of humor, and true connections, mistakes and misunderstandings are merely speed bumps. Without trust, mistakes become mountains, where people play a version of corporate musical chairs to avoid sitting in the blame seat. Strong relationships can be forged and maintained regardless of geographic location. But it takes intention, skill, and constant awareness and effort to do it over phone and email.

Bridge #2: Clarity

Misunderstanding is common. And when communicating across networks, misunderstanding seems to be the NORM. Communications via email and text, even in the same language, can require translation. I can relate to George Bernard Shaw’s quote that “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”.

In the age of texting and shorthand communication, it can be tempting to assume we understand and move on. Clarifying your statements, assumptions, expectations, requests and intentions becomes even more important when you can’t infer from someone’s body language or tone.

Bridge #3: Commitment

Ever wrongly assumed that silence meant agreement? Tasks fail to get done when we presume commitment that isn’t real or when we don’t clearly grasp someone’s full workload. Clarifying who’s doing what by when and with what support, will help strengthen the other two bridges (connection and clarity). It takes courage to admit that one is not committed to a task.

Best Bridge-Building Behaviors

Key behaviors help create effective, engaged, dispersed teams. Perhaps the most essential are these:

  • - Assume positive intent in others
    - Be curious and seek to understand
    - Display authentic, appropriate humanness (e.g. admitting fear or fault)
    - Adjust to the audience (tone, content, speed, medium, approach)
    - Offer clear, requests, statements, declines, opinions, praise, and feedback.
    - Recognize and appreciate differences

Here’s to the team (mine and yours)!

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Leaving the Land of Denial: eBook Launch

by BrillianceInc | Adapting to Change, Authenticity, Building Teams, Career Satisfaction, Communication, Conversations for Brilliance eBook, Developing Others, Emotional Intelligence, Employee Engagement, Favorite, Innovation, Newsletter Archives, Our Favorites, Relationship & Trust, Science of Leadership, Strengths, Virtual Teams Comments | 0
book image from constant contact

Think you could become fluent in Spanish in a one-day workshop?

Us neither.

How about proficient on piano in one day?

Nope.

Scientific research tell us, (what you already knew intuitively), that it takes at least 21 days of practice to instill a new habit. And, mastery is another thing altogether. If Malcolm Gladwell has it right in his latest book Outliers, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be superlative in any field.

Yet, when it comes to developing the behaviors that characterize great leadership, many clients expect mastery in a day. We firmly believe that a leadership training workshop is just the beginning.

Practice makes…
If you are in a fabulous training program (like one of ours for example!) you can gain awareness about yourself and others, practice new skills, and plan to implement the behaviors.  While helpful, it’s probably not enough to keep the momentum going while everything in your life and workplace encourages business (and behavior) as usual. If you need any evidence that this is true, just glance at that shelf in your office where good training binders go to die, collecting dust.

Real, lasting improvement begins with epiphanies and takes hold with practice. That is why we became coaches. We saw too many great people fail to turn their insights into action after the (Incredible! Amazing!) workshop ended and reality happened.

Our goal:
Change the way corporations support leadership development so that the efforts create real, sustainable, brilliant results.

We have left the land of denial where we pretended that deep change could happen in a few hours, as long as the content was well designed, the leaders well-intentioned, and the facilitator was incredible.  We want you to join us!

You need support while you create new habits, gain proficiency and eventually, fluency. That is why we created the ebook Conversations for Brilliance: Tools to Help You Inspire Extraordinary Results from Yourself and Others.

Conversations for Brilliance:
With this ebook, you can become your own personal coach and refine (or overhaul) your practice to improve the quality of your conversations, your relationships, and your results. Learning how to consistently have more powerful conversations takes practice.

Leaders don’t have the luxury of practicing their trade off the field. Every day, in every conversation, and with every decision, you are developing yourself as a manager, colleague, influencer, collaborator, parent, trusted partner, etc. You’re practicing anyway…why not get the benefit of some pragmatic, experienced help so you develop the outcomes you need?

What’s in the book:
We’ve included ideas, information, assignments, assessments, and other tools that, when applied with regularity and gusto, will shape your results in all aspects of your life.

Our mission is to help you have more powerful conversations-all conversations, whether with yourself or with others, big or small, long or short, easy or uncomfortable-so that you evoke brilliance in yourself and others.

Are you ready to have more powerful conversations and improve your results? If yes, click here to order your copy.

Testimonials
Here’s what people are saying about the book:

“Conversations for Brilliance is a powerful tool for managers at all levels who want to challenge and inspire their employees, as well as themselves, toward achieving ever improving performance. ”
- JAY S. BENET, VICE CHAIRMAN AND CFO, The Travelers Companies, Inc.

“It’s been said that the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves and others who are central to our success and happiness and, of course, the quality of our answers to those questions. Those who thoughtfully answer the provocative questions posed in Brilliance will have insights galore, plus a wealth of recommendations from which to choose as they step onto a more effective and compelling path. What a great resource!”
- SUSAN SCOTT, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF Fierce Conversations, Achieving Success at Work & in Life – One Conversation at a Time and Fierce Leadership, A Bold Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices of Business Today

“In Conversations for Brilliance, Denise and Heather succeed in communicating profound and complex leadership concepts in an accessible manner. I recommend this book for good, introspective managers looking for advice on how to grow people-advice that goes beyond the simple management or coaching how-to’s they can find elsewhere.”
- MARIA V. WAYNE, Ph.D. AND SENIOR DIRECTOR, GLOBAL LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT, Seagate Technology

“Reaching for our potential is in our DNA; we’re each born with an innate desire to discover all the brilliance that lies within us. In Conversations for Brilliance, Denise and Heather provide a guide, a wealth of tools, and practical advice to enrich the journey of discovery. This book is a resource you will find yourself going back to again and again as you navigate the most important relationships in your life.”
- KIRSTEN WOLBERG, CIO salesforce.com

Click here to learn more and order the ebook!

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Unique Brilliance

by BrillianceInc | Authenticity, Career Satisfaction, Developing Others, Newsletter Archives, Strengths Comments | 0

Ever had someone try to “help” you by trying to mold you into the image that they had in mind? How’d that work out? I’m guessing not well. Yet, we see the phenomenon over and over.

Children grow up and sign on for a career path that their parents wanted for them, only to wake up years later, unfulfilled, wondering whose life they have been living. Managers guide their employees to positions that will diversify their skills, trying to ensure that everyone can do everyone else’s job, and wonder why morale is low. Knowledge of what other team members do is helpful, but being expected to be good at everything your co-workers do is a different matter.

One place you rarely see this is in professional sports. Great coaches know that they have to win to keep their jobs and to keep the mob of fans from dragging them out of town. With so many eyes watching, the great coaches figure out who is good at what and they put them in roles that maximize their innate talent, passion, and learned ability. Can you imagine a coach saying to his star quarterback, “Since you’ve been doing such a great job throwing the ball, I’m going to give you a chance to build your skill at blocking and tackling. We’ll let a linebacker take your job as a stretch assignment.”

Queue the mob.

Gallup found that great managers have given up on trying to make everyone over. Instead, they look for each person’s kernel of brilliance and cultivate it. These managers post incredible results. When people get to shine at work, they are more engaged, more productive, more inspired, and inspirational. When people get to use their brilliance every day, they are more willing to pitch in on work that can be a chore, more willing to coach their peers, and more willing to stay on through difficult times.

No two cut diamonds are alike. Even in the same family, children’s talents and passions can be wildly divergent. If you want to inspire brilliance, start looking for the diamond wanting to shine through. Then help a person cultivate their unique brilliance. You may want to start with yourself.

Questions for Finding Brilliance:

  • When have you felt most satisfied? What skills were you using? What were you learning? What was the environment?
  • What about your job most engages you?
  • What praise has meant the most to you?
  • Assuming that all your needs were taken care of, what work would you do for little to no pay?
  • What talent or knowledge do people seek you out for?
  • What comes easily for you?

Questions for Cultivating Brilliance

  • How could you build more of ____ into your job?
  • What books, classes, or other development opportunities would help you grow in this area?
  • What support do you need from me?

Resources:

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