How to Tell When It’s Time to Change

by Denise Green | Adapting to Change, Career Satisfaction, Coaching, Energy, loyalty, Personal Development Comments | 0

Time to let go?

 

The Downside of Loyalty

There’s a lot of talk in the business world about how to increase loyalty. I want to turn it around and talk about when loyalty goes too far.

On the surface, loyalty—defined as devoted allegiance and support—sounds like a noble concept. But you can be too loyal to just about anything: a job, relationship, hairstyle, wardrobe, habit, strategy, or even a belief.

How to Tell if You are Too Loyal

Ideally, the object of your loyalty rewards you with equal or greater rewards and positive energy and emotions than you put in. While some people are commitment-phobes, easily jumping from job-to-job or person-to-person, other people are like barnacles on a ship—you have to scrape them off to break the attachment. For example, once we Scorpios commit to someone or something (to make a grand generalization) we’ll doggedly defend it with all our heart and determination for better or worse.

 

Grow or Wither

You are too important, and your energy too scarce, to allocate your loyalties in ways that don’t support you.

Staying loyal to a relationship, job, habit, or situation that doesn’t help you grow is like pouring water on a dead plant, expecting it to grow fruit. You end up resentful of the plant for the fact that you’re dying of thirst and hunger.

To determine if your loyalty is misplaced, ask yourself:

  • Is this attachment helping me grow?
  • Are the rewards I receive equal to or greater than the energy I put in?
  • Do I feel energized by the loyalty?

You’re either growing or dying—there’s no in-between.

—Anthony Robbins

If your answer to the above questions is no, consider: [Read more...]

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Are You the Best Kind of Corporate Outlier?

by Denise Green | achieving goals, Coaching, Communication, Developing Others, Employee Engagement, Leadership Comments | 0

In my years of experience working with Corporate leaders, I’ve developed a strong belief that companies gain the most return on their coaching investment when they focus resources on their top talent. You may refer to them as HIPOs (High Performers or High Potentials). I also like to think of them as Corporate Outliers of the best kind.

I absolutely love working with these people. They are so intrinsically motivated that, once they have clarity about where they need to make behavioral changes, they experience profound insights and growth.

So, how do you tell if you’re a Corporate Outlier?

Let me describe some incredible clients to you. See if you recognize yourself anywhere.

  • You’re often at least two steps ahead of others in anticipating problems and divining solutions.
  • Some people are intimidated by your quick thinking and abrupt communication style.
  • You’re unwilling to settle for ‘good enough’. You have high standards and are willing to invest time and energy in developing brilliant performance.
  • You‘re allergic to the status quo and recognize that reality is constantly changing. You believe that if you don’t adapt your business & your skills, your business (and you) will cease to be relevant.

“You’re either growing or dying—there’s no in-between.”

~Anthony Robbins

  • Sometimes others assume that you care more about results than people. What they may not realize is [Read more...]
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How to Lessen the Sting of Criticism

by Denise Green | Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Neuroleadership, Personal Development Comments | 0

Fragile Beginnings

Recently, a client of mine told me he was a little embarrassed about taking criticism personally. He felt that, at his level in the organization, he should have tougher skin, so to speak.

I asked him, “So, do you think you’re unusual for taking criticism personally?”

I assured him that every client I’ve ever worked with, no matter how amazing, successful, and outwardly confident they appear, feels the sting of criticism.

And there are good reasons why. One is that they care; they want to do excellent work and be seen as capable, competent, well-intentioned people. But there’s a deeper reason: humans are biologically wired to take things personally.

Human beings are one of the only animals on the planet who are dependent on others for more than a decade after birth. Sea turtles, for example, are born alone in the sand and left to dodge predators while scurrying for the deep. Only a fraction of the turtles make it, yet there are no turtle psychologists or self-help books for the survivors—just hard shells.

As infants we learn how to connect and communicate so we get basic care. As a result of this early fragility, nearly every human suffers at some level from two basic fears: I’m not good enough, and I will never be loved.

These fears plague us to varying degrees depending on our upbringing and our current mental and emotional state (e.g. how much sleep we’ve had, or how much stress we feel).

Some people try to develop virtual hard shells so they feel the sting less intensely or less often, but there’s a significant cost to this approach. Because we can’t filter which emotions we feel, we sacrifice real connection with all our emotions. They risk losing the ability to authentically and fully connect with other people. They risk losing the ability to feel joy and meaning.

There’s a better way to deal with these universal fears.

Here are steps you can take to develop emotional resilience: [Read more...]

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The 4-Letter Word to Add to Your Conversations

by Denise Green | Coaching, Communication, Feedback, Leadership, Management Comments | 0

Harder than it Seems

At a recently Conversations for Brilliance workshop, we came to the part where participants prepare for a difficult conversation. Using our planning tool, they draft an opening statement for a corrective feedback conversation. Once completed, they read their draft aloud to a peer and ask how they could make it less threatening and more inviting. The idea is to craft a concise opening statement that creates a safe environment and starts the conversation off in the best possible way.

Because these conversations are often very emotional and difficult, I give people the opening line and ask they read it exactly as written on the page. It goes like this:

“I’d like to talk with you about __________.” (They fill in the blank with the high-level topic, e.g. “I’d like to talk with you about your communication style.”)

10 seconds into the exercise, I called a stop. Despite reading from the page, everyone misspoke. Can you guess which word they got wrong?

[Read more...]

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