Self Leadership Coaching Blog

I was recently interviewed on the question of “What makes a successful communicator?”

In Summary this is what I shared:

• Communication is about creating shared meaning and understanding
• Be mindful  of how your message will be received understood, and adapt accordingly
• Always check if your communication is received and understood
• Listen for how the other person feels about the information (emotional response)
• Aim to create dialogue. Try saying”do you mind if I ask you a question?
• Discover what’s important to them. Ask, “what’s important to you about this?”
• Summarise the conversation to confirm understanding
• Suspend your own mental maps to avoid missing out on the other person’s perspective
• Be ok with silence – the other person is probably processing what you said.

What I didn’t say in the interview which is very important, is that you must get the other parties attention first. An obvious tip but one that is often missed.

We have all experienced days when we just don’t have our usual zip and if this happens on a Monday then it gives further credence to the ‘Monday Blues’ myth.

Research shows that more sick days (MC’s) are taken on a Monday but moodiness and low engagement can happen equally on any work day. Whilst it’s easy to blame the boss or the company for your lack of energy and commitment to work, I thought on this Monday that I would share some Self-leadership strategies for having a great Monday.

1) Look Sharp – Monday is the day to spruce up after a casual Sunday. Wearing our best clothes makes us feel good and radiate confidence.
2) Say “Hello” and ask after the wellbeing of your office colleagues. Showing interest in them will likely make them feel positive and supportive towards you.
3) Think about what you want to achieve this week – find some challenge for yourself that you will feel good about when you achieve it. In reality all motivation is really self-motivation.
4) Consider how you are going to reward yourself for being focused and in the flow this Monday. When we create small rewards for ourselves, (chocolate, a massage, a movie) we stay motivated.
5) Snap Out of it – If you are prone to lag on Monday, put a rubber band on your wrist and each time you feel yourself becoming down or sloathful – give it a big twang.
6) Stretch and take deep breaths – Get some oxygen to your brain, it’s a safe and natural high.
7) Say, “Thank you” to at least two people for something they have done. Gratitude has been proven to increase happiness.

Have a great Monday, or for that matter Tues, Wed, Thur or Fri!

Recently I was interviewed on the topic of ‘Leadership’ by Hubbis CEO Michael Stanhope.

It’s insidious, it creeps up on you. At first you don’t notice, you brush it off as tiredness or the latent effects of a night out. You can cope, an extra cup of coffee, a Red Bull, a Panadol for the headache and you will be fine.

You wonder why your spouse is giving you those disapproving looks; sure, you have been a bit grumpy but surely they should be supportive, after all it’s work, it’s important it pays the bills. Things start to build up, you can’t clear your inbox or your call list and things start to slip through the cracks. You start to go from crisis to crisis and you don’t know who you are anymore.

If you are experiencing any of the above, you are stressed and at risk of burnout.

Work related stress has been rising and the rate has increased since the Global Financial Crisis. Not only has the work load increased but there are now less people to do it. The result – working long hours and coming to work even when you are sick.

In a perfect world employers should do more about workplace stress but it isn’t a perfect world and work-life balance appears to be a myth. If you are putting on the pounds and turning to the bottle you need to take action today and not wait for HR to role out a policy.

At the heart of Self-leadership is response-ability which means that you can choose your response. Choose to acknowledge that you are important; that you are the CEO of your self and that you can say, “yes” to being healthy and say, “No” to becoming a burnt out blob.

Start small and build your confidence. You can reclaim your life and your sanity onestep at a time and still keep your job or run your business. Consider which of the following you can do today and which you add over the coming weeks.

• Alcohol free days
• Exercise – even a 15 minute walk is a start
• Playing with your children
• Finishing work at 5pm – just one day/week is a start
• Talking to you spouse – but not only about work
• Taking one task at a time and finishing it
• Answer your e-mails in chunks rather than as the come in
• Reconnecting to why you are doing what you are doing
• Take lunch breaks
• Eat good food
• Breath - take time out during the day for deep (nicotine free) breaths
• Learn to say “No” to the unimportant things

The secret is to take control. It is not how long you are at work that matters, it is the quality of your work. If you are stressed the quality will decrease. You may think you are indispensable, but if you start to show signs of stress your employer may not see this as loyalty but fire you for not coping. Life is not fair unless you take control of your life.

As a footnote, it’s 2 months since my last drink, I am exercising everyday, my kids know my name and I have lost 7Kg. I feel great and am more productive – sometimes we need to practice what we preach

Self-leadership has many applications including the ability to influence and therefore to sell. As a Self-leader you know what’s important to you and so can sell with the intention to add-value to your customers or clients.  

I shall shortly be giving a presentation to a group of private and investment bankers in Singapore. You can view the slides from my presentation here. In this presentation I highlight a few key strategies to be successful at selling value and  these are as follows:

1. According to Heiman – “Selling is a professional, interactive process directed toward demonstrating to all your buyers how your product or service serves their self interest, and will enhance their lives.” It is therefore important that we behave as professionals and get good at selling value.
2. Consumers are getting smarter and with access to the internet are likely to be familiar with your competitors products and pricing. You must therefore influence them to buy from you.
3. To influence effectively requires trust. You can generate trust by exercising Self-leadership and by your intentionality you become an electromagnet.
4. According to Aristotle you must demonstrate, Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Just having a logical argument is not enough, you must be ethical and show empathy. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
5. You must be an excellent listener for if you will fail to meet your sales numbers if you are unable to identify & effectively communicate unique value contribution by understanding, prioritizing, and matching to customer needs.
6. To find out what the client needs, you must be adept at asking the, “What’s important to you about that?” question.
7. People’s needs and values generally fall into the categories of; Security, Performance, Appearance, Convenience, Economy or Durability.
8. You can ‘frame’ you sale by pacing the client’s needs and values and connecting these to your product or service – providing there is an ethical fit.
9. Remember to apply the Law of Reciprocity – if you want to create success for yourself, help someone else become successful.

Of course there are other strategies and I can only share so much in a blog post. Feel free to add your ideas and techniques in the comments section.

Communicating to the Male Mind

Women often complain that, ” Men Don’t Listen”. They may be correct, some men and for that matter, some women don’t listen. What is perhaps closer to the truth is that men ‘listen’ for the things that are important to them that are phrased in a way that they understand.

I live by the maxim, “The meaning of communication is the response you get”, which puts the onus on the communicator to be flexible in their communication style to get their meaning across.

Today I spoke  on this topic at the Women’s Leadership Forum 2011, “Gender Diversity for Success” on November 3, 2012 in Singapore. If you attended please give feedback in the comments section and you can view the slide deck here.

Does possessing combinations of certain leadership competencies make a leader more effective? Based on our research of over 25,000 leaders, we found strong interaction effects when leaders perform two competencies well. To understand this interaction effect, we looked for leaders with one competency being a strength (at or above the 75^th percentile) and another competency that was not a strength, but not a weakness. Of those leaders with that combination, we determined the probability of them being an extraordinary leader (in the top 10%). The chart below shows the individual effects (e.g., “A without B” and “B without A” and the interaction effect (e.g., “Both A and B”) of communicating powerfully with strategic perspective.

PROBABILITY OF BEING IN TOP 10% OF LEADERS

Profound strengths are created from the combination of competencies. What is better than a leader who is able to communicate powerfully? A leader who communicates powerfully, who is also clear about where the organization is going and how they will get there. Communication skills without strategic perspective are much like an anchor man without a teleprompter –great delivery, but no content). The combination of the two skills creates a combined effect that is greater than the effect of each skill individually—synergy. Continue Reading »

I was coaching an IT Director of an international bank and we were discussing the challenges of getting consensus decisions in a large organization. He was frustrated and described his approach thus; “When everybody is trying to decide what color to paint the wall, I throw red paint balls at it and then the decision about what color it should be is passed and we can get on with finishing the painting!”

With the sad passing of Steve Jobs today I wanted to make the point that he was a leader who threw lots of red paint balls. Steve did not conduct customer focus groups or ask other people for their opinion; he trusted his aesthetic sense and gut feel. Steve will not be remembered as a great people manager or collaborative team member but as an inspirational innovator who redefined the way we view and use technology.

Steve Jobs was a Self-leader; fully aware of his strengths and unapologetically used them to pursue his vision. He was often compared to a modern day Thomas Edison and I think you could also compare him to Galileo who similarly challenged authority and gave us a new way of looking at science rather than hanging on to outdated models. Continue Reading »

A friend of mine is an Asia Pacific Managing Director for a global firm. We were chatting over lunch and I was sharing the need for a longer term approach to developing leaders; “I agree”, he said, “but my company would never sign up for something like that.” When I inquired as to why not, he explained that any commitment to learning and development would be viewed by quarter, because, with the uncertain future in 2012 they would want to be able to cut back on any non-essential expenditure!

This conversation highlights the dangerous lack of preparedness that many leadership teams are in. If 2012 is going to be uncertain or tough, then shouldn’t we get ready for it? Shouldn’t we put the best leadership team in place and make sure they have the competencies required? Or is this a non-essential expense?

Consider that, post the Global Financial Crisis, many leadership teams were decimated by cut backs and organizations are talking about growth when they don’t have the bench strength of talent to achieve it. It is frightening that less than 10% of executives have a plan to develop their strengths and the more senior they get; the less likely they are to receive constructive performance and strategic feedback. Continue Reading »