You Did What?

As a leader, if you can strengthen these non-financial factors, your business will could organically double in 3 years. This is from my 25 years of experience with intense listening] Seems these three things are a challenge for leaders to involve the bottom of their organization; where, surprisingly many key answers are waiting to be heard! Appreciation for work done Feeling "in"on things Growth opportunities So: which area could you personally develop? Best, Alan

GUNS IN THE WORKPLACE?

Working in the oilfields of Houston, Texas, an HR manager came up to let me know he had to settle a dispute in another plant.

So curious me, I asked him what approach would he use.

"Alan, my first approach is to be armed."

Huh!?

Seems Texas law allowed concealed weapons at work...beyond the rifles on the gun racks of pick up trucks.

The most important thing we needed to do on this assignment was build a culture of collaboration. Stakeholders at all levels needed to be involved in projects from the beginning to cause ownership on an individual basis.

Were guns every pulled at this plant? Yes.

Why? Because mangers needed better awareness of how they disconnect from their people. That awareness, alone, leads to more effective collaboration, not power struggles

Alert! Your Clients Are Talking About You

Do you know what they are saying?

When I asked one of my clients about how she thinks her clients think about her, she said they sense that “I am sometimes a hard person to deal with, my services are less than I promote and my pricing is on the low side.

That is her belief…but how do you get the truth? [It may be less harsh]

I was fortunate to have a client for 10 years.  The Executive Director who engaged me asked towards the end of the first year,

“Why do you think I keep asking you back to do more work?”

He continued, “Well, two things”:

[1] you have taken the time to really know our business and the challenges we have, and

[2] you have developed credibility by the deep relationships you have developed with my staff

50% Challenge of Hearing

 Hearing

is 50% of communication

What keeps us from  LISTENING

So to better understand the other person

Barriers:


Distractions
 Over-active brain 

misinterpretation of email/text words

IS MANAGEMENT TRULY DEAD?

We have been tricked!

The Industrial Revolution which ended in 1840 was noted by  a manager's role to assign work, evaluate quality and efficiency.

These managers did not really know how to hire workers, establish a culture that increased productivity and solve problems.

They learned on the job.

Now we have MBA education, primarily based on management theory and case studies. Do MBA's make effective managers; i.e. add value to achieving strategic goals?  No.

But they do learn on the job when their manager is more of a mentor who understand each person as an individual.

Mark Fisch was an excellent mentor manager.  One day he stopped to tell me about my confusion as to his role.  He stressed, "it is to cause you to be successful".  And his process was to coach me to be independent of him, to answer my own questions, to know what action lead to success.

That is why I dropped the word manager and became a coach.

IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING YOURSELF

After intense listening to others introduce me at meetings, I began to hear what made me unique.

It was not my title, profession or who I worked for.

But I found at cocktail parties, people were interested in how I get CEO's more competent keeping focusing their staff on what is most important. To be forward thinking [strategic] rather than reactive to what challenges are in front of them

Last Sunday night we were at a friend's house for dinner.  Many were small business owners.

The last thing they would want to hear is that I am an Executive Coach. Likewise, it didn't matter to me what profession the guests represented.

So I talked about a 2nd generation owner who hated having his son in the business and the opposing view of the son's mother [spousal stress].  That is chaos, stress and exhausting.

What made compelling conversation was when and how we can stop parenting our kids. In public companies it is the same thing but labeled as managerial power.

So..."Alan, what is it you do? In family businesses I coach to reduce chaos, stress and exhaustion."

Thus begins my brand.

Myths of Coaching

When I asked 10 executives what their perception of the coaching process is, I received 8 different answers.

 "How do you select an executive coach?"

Best answer: experience a coaching session before selection!

Subsequently, I am offering a 30 minute coaching session to create that experience

 To do so, simply email me at:

AlanBooth@mags.net