If we complain to a third party about someone else, they may suggest we “step in their shoes” or “see it from their perspective” – also good advice but a challenge to put into practice when you are experiencing righteous indignation and we are more inclined to set the other person’s shoes on fire rather than to step into them.

There is a technique, if practiced, that can help you to see things from multiple perspectives, including your own, the other person’s and gain insight into the contextual forces that are driving both of your behaviors. With this insight you will have choice over your emotion, communication and actions, you will have Self-leadership.

This technique called the ‘Step Back Process” works because you have the ability to think about your thinking; without moving a muscle you can shift mental perspective and notice what you are thinking and feeling relative to a stimulus, whether that be person or an event. As mentioned  earlier, this is easy to do when you are calm and much harder to do when you are angry and plugged in which is why it is good to practice this with something that is not a 10 on your emotional scale. Think of something that annoys (a 2 or 3 on your emotional scale), such as somebody cutting in front of in traffic.

Even with this low level trigger it is difficult to see the world from the other person’s view, but if you instead shift your perspective to be an observer of the incident. Imagine you are standing on the sidewalk as neutral observer of both cars, what would you think and feel then? You would be able to see both points of view, you could empathize with both drivers who are trying to do their best to get where they are going as quickly as possible in traffic.

We have all experienced the observer position, for example, when two friends or associates are quarreling and we can see both sides of the argument. What we need to do is to train ourselves to take this observer position in our own lives. When we feel triggered we need to make it a habit to ‘step back’ into this observer perspective as soon as possible, because from this point of view we can be curious about what made us react, we can examine our frames of mind and assumptions and from here we can make better choices about how we act.

First perspective is from our point of view. Second perspective from the ‘others’ point of view. Third perspective is the observers point of view. when we train our self to go to third perspective first, we can then explore positions one and two in way that will get useful information.

There is a fourth perspective in any communication or conflict, this is the ‘context’, ’system’, ‘culture’ or the ‘rules of the game’. In my traffic example the system would be the road rules and the context would be any changes in the environment, such as road works. At work the system could be a standard operating procedure and behavior could be affected by the organizational culture.

To really understand why we behave the way we do and why others do what they do we must learn to operate from multiple perspectives. To just think you are right and they are wrong is immature and selfish; people do what they do because it feels right to them but when we work together we must consider what is best for ourselves and the group. When we take responsibility for our perspective and invite others to do the same we can communicate at a much higher level and give ourselves the flexibility to update our perspective with new information.

Is operating from multiple perspectives easy? Of course not, when we are tired and stressed it is easy to be hijacked by our emotional self and see the world in black and white, right and wrong terms.

Is operating form multiple perspectives worthwhile? Absolutely, the more we can do this the more leadership we can exert – over ourselves and the situation. So, step back and take a deep breath and observe your situation anew.

Have you ever lost sleep thinking about what someone else said or did? I know I have, and the worst offence, in my experience, is when you feel that person has judged you unfairly.

This week I’ve had two conversations and some personal experience to remind me that, “What other people think about us is none of our business.” This is a tough mindset to master because most of us want to be liked and respected by others. Hell happens when we are not liked or loved or when people do not behave in the way we think they ‘should’.

A coachee of mine, let’s call him Simon, received his performance review this week. Whilst most of the document was positive there were some comments from somebody on the management team that were, in Simon’s view, not factual and he was ticked off. I read the review and the comments in question were certainly subjective, historical and not based on actual observation of Simon’s current behavior. Notwithstanding how unprofessional it is to write such things in a performance review, my job, as coach, was to help Simon process this information and move on.

In my book (Self-leadership, published by Mc Graw-Hill in 2012) I explain that we are responsible ‘For’ our thoughts, feelings, speech and actions – we are not responsible ‘for’ what somebody else thinks, feels, says or does. Our sense of ‘Self’ our self-esteem is not dependant on others and we give up our power of choice if we allow others to define us.

As a child you did look to others and to define you because you had not yet developed your autonomy;  and as an adult you can carefully observe the behavioral norms from any group/team you decide  to join an choose to ‘fit in’, but ultimately who you are is your choice.

Simon was particularly angry because his reviewer was not seeing him the way he saw himself. Her comments were based on an incident that had occurred three years ago which she had not personally witnessed and so was basing her judgment on hearsay. What can I say, “Life is not fair”, and people are going to do ‘unfair’ things. Also this week, I consoled a friend who had been contacted for a dream job. This would have been great if it had not been for the fact that a friend of hers had applied for the same job and considered it “hers” – On learning that my friend had been contacted; she was furious and stopped speaking to her friend.

Should we consider the feelings of others? Of course we should.

Are we responsible for the feelings of others? Absolutely not!

Hell would be trying to please all the people all the time. We must live according to our values and our vision; if we are part of an organization or team we choose to align our values with the values of the group. When other members do not behave according to those values then we can bring this to their attention in a respectful but assertive way. If we say nothing but just judge these people in our minds then we create a hell for ourselves.

We all have a mental bias that what we do is right and what others do is wrong. As I was driving to work today car moved rapidly into my lane and I cursed his driving; just a few moments later I needed to also rapidly change lanes and because I indicated expected to be let in. The car behind beeped me, and I am sure he judged my driving as bad whilst I am convinced I was in the right.

There is a story about two monks walking in the forest when they come to a stream. There is a woman struggling to cross and so one monk picks her up and carries her to the other bank. The monks continue on their journey but the one who had not carried the woman was, despite not saying anything, obviously furious. After some miles he broke his silence and said, “Our order prevents us from touching women, I can’t believe that you would carry that woman across the stream!” He is met with a smile from the first monk who says, “Brother, I put that woman down five miles ago, why are you still carrying her?”

Choose to put down the baggage; don’t carry other people around in your head. If you need to say something, say it but remember they will often feel as justified in their perspective as you do in yours.

Mark Liew, Trainer and Coach at Self Leadership International, will be conducting a Coaching and Mentoring for Talent Management program in Singapore on May 17, 2012.

When you have developed your people where they are motivated to increase the value of the team and organization by taking on additional delegated tasks, then they are ready for the next level of development. In retaining and developing your top performers, a manager must recognize when coaching and mentoring are the right tools for the next steps with their right people.

In knowing the strengths of your team members, their work behavior, and communication style, you can then engage your staff in creating an actionable plan for their performance goals, discover their approach to increase their effective results, and help them deliver on standards.

In this program, you’ll recognize the opportunities to put on the coaching or mentoring hats for your staff in order to serve the organizational needs. You’ll also discover the importance of serving these roles for your team members, and how they relate to keeping and growing  the right talent.

You’ll also be introduced to the tool of performance coaching for managers, where asking the right questions can facilitate co-creating a plan, finding the internal drive behind the plan, and reinforcing the approach in actualizing the outcome.

Learn how to set up a mentoring relationship by communicating the expectations of and value created for each party. Understand the process and context of the mentoring relationship, and how to effectively navigate from the beginning to the end of the process.

This program helps you take your leadership to the next level by a practical hands-on approach to helping your team members develop their professional skills and maintaining their talent within your organization.

Self Leadership International workshops help you specifically bridge the tools to apply to your particular scenarios, so you are empowered with the guided steps on how to increase your effectiveness as a leader and manager of your team.

Email or call us to enroll or enquire about more information on how you can retain and grow your talent with coaching and mentoring.

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!

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.

Steve Jobs will be missed for sure, but what can the rest of us learn from his leadership style? Should we all just trust our gut and say, “to hell with what other people think”?

Firstly I think that if we know our strengths and work on developing them we should not be shy about letting people know what we are talented at. As the great Will Rogers said, “If you’ve done it, it isn’t bragging.”

Secondly we must realize that although we strongly associate Steve with Apple, Apple is more than Steve. Steve was smart enough to attract and retain good people around him to get the job done. Yes he was a charismatic leader but he was not a loner.

When we witness genius, such as that which Steve embodied, we might surmise that we could never be like him, but perhaps you can throw red paint balls in your life? Collaboration is great but not when it leads to procrastination or second rate solutions, so look for an opportunity to lead, to make a difference and to live your legacy – because nothing feels as good as being able to say, “I did that.”

Culminating in last Saturday’s election, Singaporeans from all walks of life, representing the full range of political views and associations, have recently taken part in an unprecedentedly open and passionate debate about who their leaders would be. While the PAP won a clear majority of votes, it’s also clear that many people aren’t happy with the status quo.

In short: Singaporeans may not yet be ready to change their leaders, but they are ready for their leaders to change.
As coaches to corporate executives across Asia, we have seen this played out many times before. Of course, the context is a bit different: employees don’t get to vote for their CEOs. But their voice is still heard, through the strength (or lack) of their commitment to the leadership team’s strategy and vision. In our experience, when employees don’t commit, it’s usually because they lack a strong connection to their leaders – not because they think the strategy is wrong.

When an organisation’s leaders aren’t competent, then of course they need to be changed – time to call in the headhunters. But what to do when competent leaders are no longer connecting with their key stakeholders? Who helps leaders make that change?

Change is always difficult, but a core premise of coaching is that people are capable of changing and growing, usually more than they suspect. And while coaches don’t know much about politics, we do understand the process that leaders typically go through to create this change. In our experience five steps apply:

1. Awareness: Leaders need to be made aware of their effectiveness with key stakeholders through regular feedback. Politicians do this through research polls and, ultimately, elections. In the corporate world this takes place through stakeholder interviews and 360 degree reviews. Like the ballot box, this process needs to be confidential to allow for genuine and honest input. External agents such as coaches are more likely to confront an executive with the hard realities than are employees who depend on the executive’s continuing support to keep their jobs.
2. Insight: Habitual behaviours that were once a source of success can, in a different context, become problematic. For example, some CEOs see every meeting as a chance for them to show how smart they are – which may have worked well enough on their way up the ladder. But they may not realise the negative impact this has on their senior leadership team. Until they can get insight into their own motivations for acting this way, and can change a core belief (e.g. from “I add value by being the smartest guy in the room” to “I add value by bringing out the best from my team”), they will stay locked into the old way of behaving.
3. Action: People don’t acquire new leadership styles overnight. But most people are able to consciously make small if important changes to how they act. If these lead to better results then these small changes can become stepping stones to a more lasting change.
4. Commitment: Changing behaviour is a lot like losing weight: it’s easy to sustain a diet for a week or two, much harder to create a whole new way of eating. To achieve lasting change leaders need both a deep internal commitment and the committed support of key people around them.
5. Mastering the art of Change: As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus noted, “nothing endures but change…” Today’s corporate leaders are faced with a dizzying array of challenges and a constantly-shifting business environment. So even as they successfully master one behavioural change, new situations arise that challenge them to change in other ways. The truly successful leaders are those who can apply what they’ve learned through the process of adapting and changing to the next set of issues. This is true self-leadership.

When leaders take the view that the change that needs to happen is all external to themselves then failure will be the result. Our experience is that personal and organisational change are inextricably linked. Leaders must be part of the change process, and the commitment they make to changing themselves can set off a transformation in their organisations.

Rob Bier & Mark Powell are Directors of 6:30 Partners in Singapore and associate consultants with Self Leadership International.

So how can a leader be humble when he/she has to be so good?
Research (Tangney 2002) identifies a number of key features of humility:

1. An accurate (not underestimated) sense of one’s abilities and achievements.
2. The ability to acknowledge one’s mistakes, imperfections, gaps in knowledge, and limitations.
3. Openness to new ideas, contradictory information and advice.
4. Keeping one’s abilities and accomplishments in perspective.
5. Relatively low focus on self and the ability to “forget the self”.
6. Appreciation of the value of all things, as well as the many different ways that people and things can contribute to our world.

Each of these attributes of humility can be practiced, alone or with the help of a coach. The alternative is to be drawn towards narcissism. The narcissist has a positive view of themselves which is fuelled by fantasizing about fame and success, trying to publically outperform others and winning admiration. Narcissists have a feeling of entitlement, that they deserve special treatment, and are focused on collecting those rewards.

Many corporate cultures fuel the narcissistic personality because this type of behavior can deliver short term results. The price that organizations must pay is that the narcissist is hypersensitive to threats to their esteem and are likely to react with anger and aggression at any sign of disrespect. Such a culture will be low on cooperation and collaboration and high on defections.

In Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” he found through surveys that humble leadership (opposite of arrogance) was one of the many leadership traits that contributed to the long-term success of organizations. Humble leaders get involved, are willing to listen to opposing viewpoints, and have high self-esteem. They have high moral values, which causes them to be centered on doing things right for the right reasons. They energize others, and believe their talents are a gift to be kept in perspective both in the work place and in their personal lives.

In our Self-leadership programs we stress the importance of developing a healthy Self-esteem that allows the individual to welcome both positive and negative feedback without over-reacting to either. In working with leadership teams, we stress discovering your own strengths and the strengths of your colleagues which make us more accepting of weaknesses and creates the cognitive trust and collaboration to win as a team.

So consider this; you may not be perfect in every way but that is by design, leadership is about playing to your strengths, minimizing your weaknesses and developing trusting relationships that get the job done.

I think it has to do with our tribal mentality, it somehow serves us to think of “The Others” as different and therefore inferior to our tribe. And yet when we meet people one-to-one we discover that, whether they live in a high-rise in Manhattan or a yurt in Outer Mongolia, people are interesting and generous and have a sense of humour.

I am a fan of the mythologist, Joseph Cambell, who made the observation that the human race missed an epiphany. When the Apollo Astronauts stood on the moon and watched the Earth rise we should have all had a massive shift of consciousness. All the world’s religions talk about God or gods looking down on us from above, and now we have experienced the same perspective of ‘looking down’ on Earth. What should we realise when we see our beautiful blue green planet spinning in space? We should realise that we are all One Tribe on One Planet, dependant on it and each other to survive and prosper.

Why do we miss this perspective? Are we hard wired to think in term of them and us; Shi’ite or Sunni, Catholic or Protestant, Democrat or Republican, Male or Female, Black or White?

Yes, we are all unique and different and that’s what makes us the same. Is it easy to honour and respect those differences? I know it’s not for me. I struggle to look for sameness and often default to finding what’s ‘wrong’ about another person. I am, however, aware of my weakness and my Self-leadership journey is to overcome my programming, to see each human as my brother and sister. Does this mean that I will agree with what others do and say, “Hell No!” but I know that by making them wrong I will not be able to influence them.

If leadership is about influence then we must, as Stephen Covey tells us, “Seek first to understand and then be understood”. So my brothers and sisters do you agree or disagree?

What is Self-leadership?

Self-leadership is about intentionally influencing yourself to achieve your objectives.  Self-leaders have the drive for autonomy and so can make thier own descions. Self-leadership Part 1

Self-observation and Resilience

Self-leaders demonstrate resilience and we have discussed Self-observation in a previous blog post. Self-leadership Part 2

Self-leadership and Communication

Self-leaders are intentional about what they say and do; they can communicate assertively and manage thier emotions. Self-leadership Part 3

In October of 1982, Tylenol, the leading pain-killer medicine in the United States at the time, faced a tremendous crisis when seven people in Chicago died after taking extra-strength Tylenol capsules. It was reported that an unknown suspect/s put 65 milligrams of deadly cyanide into Tylenol capsules, 10,000 more than what is necessary to kill a human. Tylenol’s manufacturers Johnson & Johnson was faced with the dilemma of the best way to deal with the problem without destroying the reputation of the company and its most profitable product. Even though the Tylenol product itself was not at fault the Johnson & Johnson leadership asked the question, “What is the most ethical action we might take?” They withdrew Tylenol from shelves and made public announcements warning people about consumption of the product. The company then created the industries first tamper proof container and restored the public’s confidence.

A true leader faces facts, presents a situation fully to all stakeholders, and models accountability. A leader does not attempt to minimize the extent of a problem or promise action faster than can be delivered. A true leader sets appropriate expectations and delivers. He or she does not duck responsibility by shifting the bulk of the blame to someone else.

About a week after the 2010 platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico BP’s Chief, Tony Hayward, was quoted in the New York Times as asking his executive team, “What the hell did we do to deserve this?” Then he lost all credibility by declaring, “I want my life back.”

Leaders usually believe that they are being paid for fixing problems rather than for fostering breakthrough thinking. Consider these four questions; “What time is it?””Did you take a shower””What possibilities exist that we haven’t thought of yet?””What does it mean to be ethical?” I think you will agree that the last two questions require a different level of thinking than the first two.

A leader’s questions should invite fresh thinking/ feeling. They should be familiar enough to be recognizable and relevant —and different enough to call forward a new response. A leader’s questions should generate hope, imagination, engagement, creative action, and new possibilities -it should not increase focus on past problems and obstacles?

How many leaders today know how to frame strategic questions that open the space for thinking about possibilities rather than solving problems? How many leaders are comfortable with not knowing and can constructively help others bring forth their collective knowledge? Could you be that kind of leader?

Companies are currently facing many problems, not least of which are, “how to restore trust in the leadership and how to engage employees?”

If leadership is getting work done with and through people, whilst gaining their trust and cooperation; is it not time to ask some good questions?

In the words of the wise Lao Tsu, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. Not so good when people obey him and acclaim him, and worse when they despise him. Fail to honour people and they will fail to honour you. Of a great leader, when his work is done, people will say, we did it ourselves.”