IS PRIDE A GOOD THING?

• I told a friend this weekend that “I help executives deal with pride.”
  
  At first he thought I was dealing with people who did not take pride in their organization or their people who did not take pride in their work.
  
  Wrong!
  
  I was referring to those executives whose ego gets in the way of hearing their people express what they think is important for the success of their organization. Worse are those who listen but their pride distorts their understanding…or their pride reverts to anger or frustration.
  
  This is not to diminish the genuine pride an executive should have in building a strong enterprise that continues to grow in this recession of 2009. It is when pride gets in the way that we need to address the implications.
  
  For example:
  
• Employees not having their ideas acted on because leadership needing to be the generator of new approaches to the business.
• Executives who are "too busy" because they are reluctant to delegate decision-making with trust
• Organizations that have low trust of executives because their engagment with the organization is primarily "telling" but less genuine listening
• Employees who really do not understand what is expected of them.
  
  Managers and employees ask, “If we do not know where we are going, how can we be expected to perform in ways to get us there?”
  
  This is truly a challenge I encounter in the beginning of every coaching and consulting assignment: where are we going and how will we know when we arrive? Pride (too much of it) causes lack of clear communication; “Only I know what is happening”.
  
  How does a coach help the issue of pride? With lots of praise and admiration balanced with small does of reality (feedback). One beginning approach is the question, “What is it like working for (executive)?”
  
  It is amazing how this begins to encourage an individual to verbalize some of the “truths” that have been previously ignored.
  
  Example: after a 1.5 hour meeting where the CEO passionately talked 98% of the time, I asked what he thought it was like sitting as a staff member. At first he talked about his entertaining passion and the exciting news he was announcing; but the comments changed when I asked him why, when he asked a question, no one answered!
  
  “Maybe I should involve my staff better!” This does not diminish pride…it just puts it into better balance with other people’s needs as contributing employees.

THE MOST IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP SKILL

There really is only one most important leadership skill. Listening.

It is that ability that measurably differentiates great leaders and mangers from the not so great. Great listening inspires people to action, influences people more effectively, prevents conflict and is the one factor that is most powerful in dealing with change.

Maybe you caught the April 2009 New York Times interview of James J. Schiro, C.E.O. of Zurich Financial Services where he was asked: What is the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned?

A. It’s the ability to listen, and to make people understand that you are listening to them. Make them feel that they are making a contribution, and then you make a decision. I don’t think any one individual is so brilliant that they know all of the answers. So you’ve got to have a sense of inclusiveness.

My experience?

No matter the title or role of a leader, my clients typically do an exceptional job hearing and frequently listen to the point of listening; i.e. taking the time to understand others. The critical leadership skill; however, is having people feel they are understood!

"COACHING" IS A BAD WORD

Most of you who are or have been my clients rarely call me a coach but usually refer to me as a consultant.

I have figured out why that is; a “coach” could be misinterpreted to mean “As your leader, I have a significant enough challenge to have to engage this coach-guy. Almost like admitting one is seeing a therapist. Ouch!

But the bigger problem for me is how to inform people what I do, rather HOW do I help leaders achieve key goals they struggle with? So what is the word for the skills of being a consultant, coach, advisor, trainer, mentor…using all in a typical day with a client?

My newly found colleague, Sue Melone of BoldTrek, Inc. says she just tries not to use the wordcoach.

I guess I am back to talking only to the challenges I help resolve: getting greater focus on the most critical business imperatives, getting others to aligned to those imperatives and increasing the effectiveness of engaging with one’s organization that people work with an owner mindset.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Your Job or Mine?

The most frequently heard dilemma I hear from managers in my NYU Leadership class is creating accountability of their direct reports. My coaching and consulting clients agree and describe the challenge around getting others to step up their performance...to think creatively, lead change with greater initiative and deal proactively with people issues rather than ignore them.

Yesterday a CEO called me for help with his VP Marketing, describing disorganization and weak time management that could risk millions in lost business. In over one year nothing has changed. So, where is the ownership of this problem...with him or his VP?

The question I ask is: "How can we create an owner mindset with this person?"

My experience with the past 10 clients I have worked with this year shows that leaders & managers do more to NOT create "ownership" but cause the opposite: a dependency bordering on a "permission" relationship.

Second is the observation that leaders are not clear enough communicating their expectations, not only the measuable results but the actions most critical to achieving those results.

The test: ask any of your people what they think you expect of them, this week, month or quarter. Their response will provide the kind of feedback that will guide you to being more clear, more frequently and greater commitments on both sides...witch will begin to shift the accountabity to where it belongs.

Why Managers Need to Coach

I had a surprise last week when I was asked to be an instructor at NYU Graduate School of Leadership & Human Capital Management…perhaps more surprised when I learned they wanted me to teach one of six courses on Coaching.

The class comprised of a group of Gen X/Y and Millenials. Why are they interested in learning coaching skills? Because their experience in being managed in traditional ways has taught them that as managers themselves they need new ways to motivate, inspire and support their people to be satisfied and productive contributors.

But a series of graduate level courses on coaching? Blew me away that what I have been teaching and preaching for over 30 years has come to this. Now that I think about it, When I was working on my MBA we were taught “coaching” but it was then termed Theory “X” and Theory “Y”.

Not much, then, has really changed. A predominate number of mangers get appointed because of their technical expertise and manage others based on how they were (are) managed. Just like becoming a parent!

So I am delighted to have the opportunity to really help managers understand new ways to be instrumental in causing greater success in others.

RANDY STILL NEEDS HELP

Do you remember my client, Randy? [My History with Randy]

He is the high assertive CEO who struggles with the paradox: "the harder I work at causing accountability with my people, the less they seem to deliver".

At a December meeting, he said, "You should know that you went down a different path than I wanted you to." Gulp. "With all of the work you have done with my VP's you got me to realize I also had to make some changes; and that is really hard work!" Whew!

We laughed, but not for long. Randy wanted me to help turn around his Operating Executive, Tom. This is "code" for "I need more coaching but working my challenges through your work with Tom will be easier for me." This is one reason why I always involve the coachee's manager.

Why is Tom a challenge for Randy? As direct as Randy is, Tom is indirect; slower paced, less demanding of his people and more tolerant of performance gaps.

So how can we deal with this situation - opposite styles and lack of accountability?

1. Coach Randy to tone down his assertiveness
2. Encourage Tom's confidence

This process seems to be working:

• 1:1 meetings with Tom are boosting his confidence
• We are moving him away from full staff meetings to short one-on-one weekly meetings where he works on his people's commitments for action
• We are teaching him the language to deal with broken commitments
• Randy-Tom-Coach meetings around key business issues where my role is to prompt Randy when his assertiveness causes Tom to withdraw. For example, a simple glance at my watch is the cue to stop talking and ask Tom his opinion.
• Immediately after meetings with Tom, Randy and I debrief by playing on Randy's competitiveness. The winner is who can recall all of the situations where Tom was not meeting Randy's expectations -- and why!

Results to-date? Sales are up 5.4%

Do You Know Randy?

Senior leaders I have known for years thought I should think seriously about publishing my coaching experiences as they would learn from them. So here is my first "case study":

IS IT ME OR THEM?

Randy, the top executive at his company, called me because “the lack of accountability of my people is impacting our growth…and causing me growing stress”.

Do you know Randy? He is a passionate hands-on leader, highly directive with little patience for discussions that attempt to change his mind about how to grow his company.

The paradox trap: the harder he works to get his people more focused on priorities (his), the less the results. Emphasis is on “his” priorities, not necessarily those of his team!
Causing Greater Individual and Team Accountability

So…to increase accountability, is the solution around “them” or is it “me”? In the end, Randy discovered that he was as much a part of the problem as his people were! What we did:

[1] For Randy to understand what it is like to work for him, we interviewed each of his direct reports around 10 leadership qualities and asked, “To achieve your goals, what one thing do you need from Randy?” Two feedback points:

■ He proudly accepted being labeled a micro-manager
■ Being classified as a card carrying poor listener caused him to admit that maybe “I don’t know what I don’t know”

[2] Facilitated discussions with his direct reports around accelerating growth, surfaced issues never put on the table before…but critical to causing greater accountability and action. Some of Randy’s progress:

■ “When I reject new ideas, I might be too quick to think through, needing to hold on to my own strategies. I now understand why this can stop ideas from coming to me”
■ “Meeting participation is less than productive because I take 80% of the voice time…I can change that.” Actually I strong armed him to stop attending certain meetings.

Post meeting debriefs gradually helped Randy recognize: to get what he wants, he needs to also change, especially in modeling what he wants from his people.

So he ended up with more time on his hands…and more time for golf is a good thing when key customers are teeing off (and not being teed off as before!). And 15% annual growth to boot.
Alan Booth – Gilman Performance Systems, Inc. 203.454.3502