Cultivating Brilliance

by BrillianceInc | Authenticity, Communication, Developing Others, Emotional Intelligence, Employee Engagement, Newsletter Archives, Our Favorites, Relationship & Trust, Uncategorized Comments | 0

Most people don’t wake up wanting to be mediocre. As children, we design visions of profound success and happiness. Still, one day, we reflect that while we may appear successful to others, we don’t feel as though we’ve tapped all our talents to create a truly fulfilling life. We’ve plateaued. And we don’t like it.

One of the most powerful, reliable ways to break through is to work with a partner who, when they speak with us, is intently focused solely on our complete success. Most people don’t have someone like this in their life. And such a partner is so valuable, they are willing to pay for it. Thus, the rise of coaching as a profession.

Though skillful and effective, coaches are no magicians. If you want to improve your relationships, your results, and your satisfaction in every aspect of life, borrow the behaviors of the coaching trade and become a leader who cultivates excellence in yourself and others.

This may sound daunting. Managers lament that they don’t have time to add yet another meeting to their busy work day. We agree. Instead of trying to crow-bar disconnected development conversations into your schedules, weave these behaviors into existing conversations in ways that inspire better results.

Inspirational Conversation:
Coaching conversations don’t have to be long. Inspiration can come in an instant. You can probably recall a moment when a comment, question, or gesture profoundly affected your life’s direction.

For evidence that a brief conversation can be meaningful, look to Hawaii. Hawaiians can have a meaningful exchange using ONE WORD: Aloha. Most people know that Aloha means both “hello” and “goodbye.” Yet, there’s a much deeper, heartfelt meaning that conveys grace, respect, and goodwill. Hawaiians speak of the Aloha Spirit that imbues their world, creating a shared, sacred space.

Our ALOhA Conversation Model for evoking brilliance has four steps: 1) Assess, 2) Learn, 3) Offer help, and 4) Action.

Coaches embody this model as follows:

1. Assess:
They assess all aspects of a situation-self, other, and situation-before deciding how to react in conversation. They examine the baggage they bring to the conversation in the form of assumptions, beliefs, moods, etc. and consciously make an effort to set a positive intention for the conversation and leave unnecessary baggage at the door. If the baggage comes along, they admit it. This could look like a manager saying, “I had a terrible morning and it has nothing to do with you. I am doing my best to leave my morning behind me and be here for our conversation.” Or, “I have a lot of emotion wrapped up in this project.”

2. Learn:
Once in conversation, coaches listen before they jump. They ask questions to learn about the situation instead of making unchecked assumptions. They speak less than the other person. They ask open-ended questions that begin with “What,” “When,” and “How” to help gather information.

3.Offer help:
Once they achieve shared understanding, coaches offer help strategically. They may share an observation, give feedback, praise, or give advice. Or, they may help someone find a new way of looking at the problem that opens up possibilities. We refer to this as recasting.

4. Action:
Finally, they help people take decisive, effective, strategic action.

Not rocket science. But not easy either. We’re simply not conditioned to behave this way in conversations. Most of us make assumptions, act on them, and leave a quick conversation with mutual misunderstanding. People often leave the same meeting with different understandings of what happened and what’s expected.

Moving at warp speed, we’ve misplaced our curiosity, believing that taking time to really understand someone will create a drag. But it’s the haphazard conversations that slow us down and challenge our success. One of the easiest ways to offend someone is to tell them “I know how you feel.” People want to feel understood, and feel seen. Telling them we know how they feel, although it may take less time and may even be sincere, only pushes brilliance further away.

While it may take some effort and practice, it’s worth it to build the capability to slow down, increase you curiosity, and really understand the person before offering help.
Get good at taking these four ALOhA steps often and you’re likely to experience the following:

• You will have a greater impact in your conversations
• People will want to help you achieve your goals
• Your company will save money on leadership coaches and team performance consultants

We invite you to inspire brilliance.
Aloha

Aloha:
Folk etymology claims that the word is derived from the
Hawaiian words alo meaning “presence”, “front”, “face”, or
“share”; and ha, meaning “breath of life” or “essence of life.”

Resources:
Brilliance Inc. eBook: Conversations for Brilliance: Tools to Help You Inspire Extraordinary Results from Yourself and Others. Click here to learn more about the eBook and purchase your copy.

Quotes:

A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations.
~ Truman Capote

Each person’s life is lived as a series of conversations.
~ Deborah Tannen, Author

Share

The Art of Letting Go

by BrillianceInc | Adapting to Change, Communication, Newsletter Archives Comments | 0

Many leaders consider it their job to provide answers. And by leader we mean anyone who needs people, of any age, to follow in order to get things done. This unfortunate and common misunderstanding of the job-description creates all sorts of problems, including: poor financial results, poor employee engagement, poor loyalty, and not very much fun.

A leader’s job, rather, is to create the environment for innovation and help people discover the best possible answers that will result in the best possible outcomes. This is most likely to happen when you take the following 6 steps:

1. Seek out people completely unlike yourself in terms of experience, view of the business and client, and beliefs
2. Ask questions, listen deeply, and pay intense attention
3. Pause for reflection
4. Decide, and then act quickly on a small scale
5. Observe, learn from the results, and adjust accordingly
6. Act in a big, bold way that would have been impossible had you decided and acted alone

Seems fairly straight-forward, no? Then why do we often see this practice instead?

- Decide alone or with like minds, act, and fail to meet desired outcomes
- Repeat and talk about “holding people accountable” then
- Repeat, possibly firing people who aren’t “team players” then
- Fail on a grand scale…which leads to at least two options:

- Leave, blaming the failure on others, and repeat the process elsewhere,
or
- Try something new.

For examples of this leadership technique and its aftermath you can look to Wall Street, American auto-makers, or the Oakland Raiders since 2003, to name a few heart-wrenching examples (for a long-time Raiders fan, that is).

No leader wants to fail. So, why are so many smart, competitive, well-meaning leaders continuously trying to impose their ideas on others, wondering why people don’t always line up in compliance or why results aren’t up to expectations? Answer: years of conditioning and a millennia of programming.

Let’s briefly look at how we often get derailed on our way through the 6 steps in the high-performing process.

Step 1
First off, step 1 (seeking diverse views) is counterintuitive. Our brains are wired with a bias to surround ourselves with people like us. To engage with people unlike ourselves entails overcoming our primitive conditioning to fear or mistrust anyone “different.” It takes a very mindful and confident person to admit that he has this bias, and then act against it.

Step 2-3
Second, steps 2 through 3 (ask questions, listen, pay attention, pause) involve going slow to go fast. And Americans (among others) are generally conditioned to prefer fast. It takes incredible discipline to slow down amidst the competitive pressures and the habit of speed. The pressure to act quickly (and autonomously) is even more intense when leaders are new to a role or expectations and pressures are high.

Step 4-5
Steps 4 and 5 are all about course-correcting based on available evidence. The problem here lies in evaluating evidence objectively, instead of skewing the data (even subconsciously) to prove our assumptions and biases correct. A wise scientist once spoke: “I have trained myself to see what I observe.” One way to ensure that you “see” clearly is to consult people who see the world differently from you, then listen objectively to their feedback, ready to see flaws in your brilliant prototype. Or, you could just plow ahead with your “Flat Earth” campaign and see how that works for you.

Step 6
Finally, step 6 (acting boldly) requires leaders to take a leap of faith. Smart, analytical people can get caught up in scenario planning and fail to act. If you’ve ever been on a team that suffered from “analysis paralysis” you know how draining such inaction can be.

Though challenging and counterintuitive, it can be done: we can intentionally create the conditions for productive innovation. And recall that the first step requires us to seek out council from potentially unlikely sources.

What is possible in conversation
Otto Scharmer of the Presencing Institute describes ground-breaking work with African Leaders. They convened a forum where the most powerful leaders in Africa conversed with the least powerful people imaginable: child victims of AIDS. After one 90-minute conversation with an 11-year old girl, one ex-president changed his point of view and was ready to act differently and with passionate intent. All it took was a conversation.

Conversations with differing people are not that hard to set up, yet we tend to avoid things that slow us down in the short term. But at what cost?

The U.S. military conducts “ground truth” conversations, where the highest ranking officers seek input and listen to lower ranking troops. For, when Generals and politicians act without such insight, really bad stuff tends to happen.

How often are rich, lively, cross-functional conversations taking place in your organization? What would happen if they were commonplace?

Imagine what could be different about the conversations (and results) in your world.

Resources:

Questions for reflection and inspiration:

  • How am I listening to people I disagree with?
  • How readily do people bring me bad news or disagree with me?
  • How am I at creating spaces of silence where reflection, thought, and inspiration can happen?
  • Whom can I seek out to better understand the issue from another side?
  • How do I feel about my results in all aspects of my life?

Video:

This three minute video features a leader (conductor) with his orchestra and guest star performer. Pay careful attention to the conductor at about 2:45 into the video. How is the conductor, not the vocal artist, the leader? How does the conductor let go? What arises when he lets go?

Books:
Presence, Human Purpose and the Field of the Future, by Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers
The Art of Possibility, Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

Links:
Presencing Institute: http://www.presencing.com/
The World Café: http://www.theworldcafe.com/

Quotes:
No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.
- H.E. Luccock

We can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
- Einstein

Poem/Song excerpt:

Feel the pain
Talk about it…
Open hearts
Feel about it
Open minds
Think about it …

Time to eat all your words
Swallow your pride
Open your eyes…

And anything is possible when you’re
Sowing the seeds of love
Anything is possible
Sowing the seeds of love

- Tears for Fears

Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose
the good we oft might win
by fearing to attempt.
- Shakespeare

Share

Leading In The Dark

by BrillianceInc | Adapting to Change, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Newsletter Archives Comments | 0

Dialog in the Dark, a traveling exhibit, has much to teach us about leadership in difficult circumstances. This one-hour guided tour has a twist: your guide is blind and the entire experience is conducted in complete and utter darkness. Does this sound a little too like your work environment?

On the tour, anticipation of the dark unknown creates fear and anxiety in some. This angst can cause tourists to cling tightly to their canes with one hand, reaching out with the other hand until they find a wall.

Once there, they back up against the beloved wall or corner and try to get small. They listen for instruction, hoping that the tour is almost over. If not for the skillful, calm direction of the guide (the only one who actually seems comfortable and confident) peoples’ experience would be very limited.

Unless your idea of success involves cowering in a corner, business leaders may want to take a few cues from the tour guides. The following are some ideas that can help you lead more effectively when the way forward looks a bit dark. If you are not a business leader, substitute the word ‘team’ in the following tips with the relevant audience (e.g. self, colleagues, family, boss):

1. Admit it’s dark and uncomfortable and scary.

Putting on a brave face and pretending that it’s not hard or that you won’t stumble, will not win you any favors or followers. People need to hear that their fears are normal. If they see that leaders can acknowledge fear and still take action, it opens up possibilities for others. Admit there will be stumbles. Express your genuine confidence that you will all survive the experience and be better for it.

2. Describe the environment as you know it.

Share any information that you can legally share. Err on the side of over-communication. On the tour, people find it helpful to know the dimensions, purpose, contents, and layout of the room. Leaders, what are your revenues, losses, cash flow, business plans, and commitments? What does the future hold? Are lay-offs happening? When? If you don’t know, share that. For individuals, learn your options. When people don’t have facts, they invent their own.

3. Encourage people to use their strongest resources.

If business as usual isn’t working, look to your other strengths and use the resources that fit the situation. Trying to rely on a capability once it’s gone is nonsense. Yet, on the tour, sighted ones found that their useless eyes hurt from strain, when they could have just shut them and learned from the scents, sounds, and textures. Stop trying to lead with a service, skill, or product that’s no longer in demand. Successful teams and individuals recalibrate and rely on their available individual and collective strengths.

4. Encourage and permit people to explore and innovate.
Innovation–creating value for the customer–is the escape hatch out of dire business circumstances. Yet, in turbulent times, we are most likely to opt for safety instead of moving toward something unknown. Encourage people to leave their corner, get big, and join you in creating something.

5. Rely on others and practice gratitude

You are not alone and no points are awarded for martyrdom. So ask for help and accept it from others. If you have an internal “competitor” in another department, join forces, reminding yourself that you aim for the same vision, then leverage your collective strengths.

In uncertain times, there’s at least one thing you can count on: The sun will come out tomorrow. On this, we would bet our bottom dollar. May we all rise to the occasion.

Resources to Ignite You and Your Team

Free Webinar: Moving your Team from Concern to Confident Action. Click here to sign up.

Contact us to discuss how our new offerings may help your team:

58-Minute Workshop for Managers: Moving from Concern to Confident Action
Program for In-Tact Teams: Achieving Results in Turbulent Times (ARTT)

Share

Thriving In Turbulent Times

by BrillianceInc | Adapting to Change, Emotional Intelligence, Innovation, Newsletter Archives Comments | 0

Two Camps
In turbulent times, there are both victims and victors. Which camp you fall into depends less on your circumstances, and more on your attitude and actions. To some, accepting that we control our destiny is liberating.

To others, the idea that we have responsibility for our satisfaction and success is deeply, deeply annoying.

While we may not like to readily admit it, being a victim is fun stuff. For, as victims, we can wallow in anger and resentment, burying feelings in a heap of ice-cream, nicotine, exercise or (insert your favorite distracter here) _____. As victims, we are not at fault but at the mercy of the economy, a boss, an ailing company, a family member, or (insert favorite villain here) ____. As victims, we run little risk of improving our circumstances.

If you want your circumstances to improve, you must abandon victimhood.

Switching Camps
It takes more than a sunny disposition to climb from an abyss as deep as the one you may feel like you’ve fallen into. Here are some steps you can take to hike your way to victory. If you lead others, engage in this work as a team for best results.

1. Establish (or re-establish) a Vision:
What matters? Why do you do what you do? What brings meaning to the work that you do? Without a vision to anchor us, our actions tend to lack direction and focus.

2. Take Stock of Your Strengths:
What differentiates you? What opportunities can you find in the market?

3. Cut the Fluff:
What can/must you stop doing? Say no to those activities that don’t move you toward your vision and delight your customers.

4. Create Products and Services that Delight Your Customers:
Those who do so will thrive. The Leaders of the Big 3 carmakers said they were victims of the economy: they did their jobs and created the products people wanted. What they should have been doing was creating products we didn’t know we wanted.

Nintendo didn’t create the Wii because of the pent up demand for virtual bowling in our living rooms. Apple didn’t imagine and create the iPod or iPhone based on user satisfaction surveys or buying trends. Victors don’t sit around waiting for the public to create their new business plan. Rather, they empathize, anticipate, and deliver. Then they do it again. No excuses.

5. Create a Plan:
Create realistic, achievable, stretch goals. Then delegate assignments based on team members’ strengths and passion. Ensure plans and action steps align with your compelling vision and are leading toward a delightful outcome for clients.

6. Retool:
Take time to improve your skills, knowledge, processes, habits, and relationships.

Lead by Example
Barack Obama has been asked by various interviewers if he has regrets about taking over a lemon of an economy. He responds that, for those who aspire to public service, there is no better time than this. For, turbulent times offer the greatest opportunity to make a positive, lasting difference in people’s lives.

While it sure was fun, coasting along blithely on the economic bubble that burst under some quite villainous actions, it’s no fun wallowing in the aftermath. We invite you to set aside your tub of Ben and Jerry’s and join us on a path to victory. Ok, you can still bring the ice cream.

By the way, victors are not villains. They do not rise to success on the backs of others. When we prevail brilliantly in turbulent times, we bring others with us by demonstrating courageous leadership.

Share

Utter Brilliance

by BrillianceInc | Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Newsletter Archives, Relationship & Trust

The holiday season is upon us, which for many of us involves the opportunity to connect with family. While those connections can be loving and satisfying, family gatherings can also provide opportunities for misunderstandings, and some less-than jolly moments. Have you ever said something and moments later wished you could take your words back? Or had a conversation in which you swallowed your voice and really wished you had spoken up? Even when we generally feel we are pretty effective communicators, all of us have moments in which the words we uttered (or didn’t) are less brilliant than we hoped.

Unfortunately, innumerable examples of less than brilliant conversations exist in the workplace: The team conversation impersonating a rolling hairball, with no clear end in sight and all sorts of fluff and dust getting caught up in the mess; the feedback conversation that starts out tense and ends with us wondering if the relationship (and our stress level) would be better if we had kept out mouths shut; the career-limiting comment to the boss’ boss that leaves you wondering why you got out of bed; or the well-meaning co-worker across the globe who keeps misinterpreting what you say.

Sound familiar?

There’s hope. You can learn to consistently express yourself with aplomb and grace, eloquence and candor.

First, Begin With the Behavior: Identify Your Weak Spot

We invite you to observe yourself over one week and identify which of the following less-than-brilliant behaviors you notice in conversations that matter to you:
Monopolize the conversation (speak more than 50%)Speak before thinking (and regret what you say)
Make snarky or snide comments
Make comments that others seem to misinterpret
Raise issues/confront people in an unproductive way that leaves the relationship soured

  • Refrain from speaking your mind
  • Stumble over words
  • Be at a loss for words
  • Ignore the elephant (conflict/upset) in the room
  • Be wishy-washy (instead of making clear assertions, requests, or observations)
  • Others?

If you checked more than one, identify the one that feels most egregious and focus on improving that behavior first. If you checked none, hand the list to someone you trust to speak the truth with compassion (or at least a good sense of humor) and ask them to pick one for you.

Second, Investigate: When Does this Undesirable Behavior Pop Up?

Once you have identified the behavior reflect further:

  • What situations do I tend to be in when this happens? (with my boss, on a conference call, in a team meeting, in a one-on-one, when I am nervous or stressed, when I am overly confident, when I am unfamiliar or unsure of the content/topic, when I am feeling relaxed, when I am offended, when I have had too much coffee?)
  • Who are the people I am talking with when this happens? (Boss, peer, client, vendor, friends, family?)

Once you realize when you are most likely to be at your worst conversationally, you are better prepared to self-observe and self-correct. This self awareness is the first step toward being emotionally intelligent-recognizing your own actions and emotions and being able to moderate them to be effective with others.

Third, Practice a New Behavior

  • Pick an upgrade: What reaction would you rather have or what action would you rather take? (to pause before speaking, to ask others what they think, to interject, to share your opinion, to be genuinely more curious about what the other persons’ perspective is, to have more self compassion for how difficult it is to act to our full capacity in stressful situations).
  • Pick a venue: You may want to start practicing the new behavior in less triggering situations or with less provoking people. Think of it as putting training wheels on your bike before transitioning from a tricycle to a ten-speed, or (if it has been a long time since you have been on a bike) as lifting weights for lasting improvement: lots of repetitions with light weights.

Here are some common behaviors and suggested practices:

Allow others air time:

  • Count to three (or five if you can stand it!) after you ask a question. This allows others time to interject and often provides more information too.
  • Identify a team meeting you regularly participate in.
  • Notice who doesn’t speak up much. Draw them into the conversation, inviting them to share their valued thoughts.

Think before you speak:

  • Before you make a phone call, write an email, or speak up in a meeting, stop and consider: What is my purpose for this meeting and what is my intended outcome? Clarifying this can help you be more succinct and clear.
  • Then ask yourself if you still want to make the comment. Will what you are going to say help move the conversation forward?

Speak with empathy

  • Before a one-on-one meeting, pause for a moment and put yourself in the other person’s shoes.
  • What might they be concerned about, excited about? What matters to them? What might they be seeing from their perspective?

Express yourself clearly

  • Prepare your thoughts in advance. Note your opinions, requests, facts, ideas. Edit them to remove any non-essential words.
  • Practice speaking in phrases that do not rise in intonation (like a question).
  • Practice asking others to paraphrase their understanding of what you have said.
  • If you tend to think best talking out loud, find someone who will listen and help you clarify your thoughts before a meeting with others.

Apologize

  • Despite your best intentions, you are bound to err. When you do, apologize and communicate your intention to do better. Then do better.

Brainstorm some practices on your own, or work with a coach to help you identify what you want to do more of in your conversations. Identify the outcome you want (a productive conversation with your boss, to engage and motivate the team)and figure out what it will take to produce that.
Because we believe it is always good to keep our eye on what is working well, we encourage you to leverage your strengths, look at what you do well in conversation and practice that more too.

Conducting conversations skillfully can be challenging; with practice you can be utterly brilliant.

We hope you enjoy your holidays and wish you a Happy New Year!

Share
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »