Self Leadership Coaching Blog » Coaching

Year of the Tiger 2010

Andrew Bryant, CSP — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:27:14 +0000

As a Leo/Ox I don’t believe much in hororscopes but with Chinese New Year celebrations in full swing I cannot ignore the current zeitgeist.

According to the Chinese Zodiac, the tiger is a symbol of power and authority and therefore leadership; unfortunately the style of leadership represented is poor on relationship.

Poor people leadership is something I encounter on a daily basis; just recently I was conducting a Coaching for Managers program and one senior manager told me his boss had refused to attend saying, “I don’t believe in that s#!t”

On the flip side I have been working with some great people, recently, who really believe in developing people-skills and are seeing the business results to confirm their belief.

If this is your first or fiftieth time reading this blog, I hope my posts, in some small way, make the Year of the Tiger profitable, productive and harmonious for you.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

The Evolution of Coaching

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:03:27 +0000

Coaching, circ. 1984

As part of my study of leadership and business, I recently read a classic— Tom Peters’ 1985 book, A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference. This book followed his best selling book on great companies, Search for Excellence (1982). By the time I read over 300 pages, I knew that I was going to use a number of quotes on “coaching.” Then I turned the page to Chapter 18. It has a one line title, Coaching.

Now if that doesn’t surprise you as it did me, then let me remind you that Thomas Leonard did not create the field of “Coaching” until 1991. So this chapter was published 6 years earlier! And while there’s a few things I’ll mention in a minute that doesn’t fit for Meta-Coaching, mostly it is right on target. Chapter 18 is addressed to executive leaders and managerial leaders in an organization about how to be a leader coach. Now is that relevant? To see for yourself, here are a few key quotations from the book:

“Coaching is face-to-face leadership that pulls together people with diverse backgrounds, talents, experiences and interests, encourages them to step up to responsibility and continued achievement, and treats them as full-scale partners and contributions. Coaching is not about memorizing techniques or devising the perfect game plan. It is about really paying attention to people— really believing them, really caring about them, really involving them.

“To coach is largely to facilitate, which literally means ‘to make easy’ —not less demanding, less interesting or less intense, but less discouraging, less bound up with excessive controls and complications. A coach/facilitator works tirelessly to free the team from needless restrictions on performance, even when they are self-imposed. In these next few pages we will talk about some of the most vital aspects of coaching: visibility, listening, limit-setting, value-shaping, skill-stretching.” (325-326)

Under the title of “Coaching by Wandering Around,” Tom Peters writes about leaders and managers who use coaching as their methodology for leading:

“Coaching is the process of enabling others to act, of building on their strengths. It’s counting on people to use their own special skill and competence, and then giving them enough room and enough time to do it. Coaching at its heart involves caring enough about people to take the time to build a personal relationship with them.” (328)

“Coaching is tough-minded. It’s nurturing and bring out the best; it’s demanding that the team play as a team.” (329)

“Every coach, at every level, is above all a value-shaper. The value-shaper not only brings company philosophy to life by paying extraordinary attention to communicating and symbolizing it.” (330)

“The best coaches spend as much time developing the team’s ability to believe in what each member can contribute as they do working with individual players. It sets the tone for the way people should aim to work together and trust evolves in the process.” (334)

Now for what Tom Peters wrote that does not fit for coaching today as we know it via Meta-Coaching. This indicates the way coaching has evolved from 1984 to today:

“Five Coaching Roles: In short, sometimes coaching is not coaching, but counseling, or sponsoring, or confronting, or educating.” (337)

“It turns out that successful coaches instinctively vary their approaches to meet the needs of this person at this time, or that group at that time. They perform five distinctly different roles: they educate, sponsor, coach, counsel, and confront.” (338)

The theme of this chapter on Coaching is that the leader is a coach and the leader who coaches appeals to the best in each person, has an open door, is a problem-solver and cheerleader, thinks of ways to make people more productive, manages by wandering around, is a good listener, etc. (354-357).

“Effective coaching means creating winners, keeping the faith in the thick of turmoil, building momentum, finding tiny glimmers of light (to reinforce) in the midst of darkness…” (357)

“Effective leadership is full-time people development. … In coaching, the name of the game is execution.” (359)

“Coaching includes praise— expressing approval or admiration, applauding, commending and lauding small (and large) victories.” (361)

“Coaching is ongoing leadership. … Coaches stretch you to your limit, a limit often beyond what you thought possible.” (362)

“The best coaches set in motion a continuing learning process —one that helps people develop a tolerance for their own struggles and accelerates the unfolding of skill and contributions that would not have been possible without the ‘magic’ attention of a dedicated coach.” (377)

“Leading is a hands-on art. Coaching is the essence of leading– developing those with whom we work. Coaching is MBWA (management by wandering around.” (384)

As I reflect on these writings some 26 years ago, no wonder coaching has become such a powerful modality in the business world. And today we stand on the shoulders of such giants as Tom Peters.

NLP in Singapore and Asia

Andrew Bryant, CSP — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:59:11 +0000

Neuro Linguistic Programming – NLP

NLP is a model of how humans think, feel, behave and communicate. When NLP was developed in the 1970’s by Bandler and Grinder it was a radical departure from the field of psychology, which at the time was focused more on human dysfunction than peak performance.

Today, with the acceptance of positive psychology, NLP appears less radical can be viewed as an excellent framework for learning to communicate effectively, to model people and systems and to design strategies for peak performance. Learning NLP can improve the performance of athletes, sales people, business people, coaches, trainers, teachers, therapists and parents.

NLP for Consulting, Training and Coaching

I use NLP and NeuroSemantics in my consulting, training and coaching and I enjoy sharing the technology through public programs that I hold in Singapore and other parts of SE Asia. You can get a list of the upcoming programs by clicking here. I highly recommend NLP Communication and Coaching Essentials which is the first 3-day of a NLP Practitioner program and covers how to communicate and coach effectively plus we are conducting a full NLP Master Practitioner training in October.

NLP Association of Singapore Video

If you like watching videos on YouTube then you can watch part of my presentation to the Singapore NLP Association, Click here. A full DVD of the presentation is available for purchase from our office.

Self Leadership and Choice

Andrew Bryant, CSP — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:55:15 +0000

As a continuation of my previous blog post Permission to Succeed I wanted to share the story of a coaching client who was allowing a number of people, some no longer living, to control what he was or was not allowed to do. This man in his late 30’s did not have full permission to think for himself, to really choose the life he wanted. The anxiety this caused was seriously impeding his success.

With self leadership coaching he came to the powerful realisation that it his ‘Mind’ his ‘Choices’ and his ‘Life’.

If, like my client, you are lacking ‘permission’ by taking ownership and responsibility of your mind, your choices an your life puts you in the drivers seat and enables you to create the personal or business success you want.

Confirmation of this power to choose is the theme of the final part of The Matrix movie trilogy. The character Neo is able to triumph over Agent Smith when, after prompting from The Oracle, he re-discovers his power of choice.

Is there an area in your life or career that you have been saying “I have no choice”? I wonder what would happen if you were to take responsibility and say; “My mind, my choice, my life!”

My coaching client did take control and left a low paying, menial job and started traveling; he settled in Vietnam where he started a business and met the love of his life.

If you would like coaching to assist you achieve this positive and powerful choice then connect to a coach or attend one of our self leadership programs.

Permission to Succeed

Andrew Bryant, CSP — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:31:08 +0000

Recently I presented a workshop on success principles and what was interesting was that many of the participants struggled with the concept that they did not need permission from anyone to feel good about themselves or to be successful. One lady that I coached in front of the group was struggling with receiving money for the services she offered even though ‘intellectually’ she recognised the value she offered but ‘emotionally’ she felt she did not have permission to be paid. “Just do it” is the Nike creed; “build it and they will come” says the Kevin Costner character in Field of Dreams. Whilst these maxims may seem selfish or gung-ho, they do reveal the power of self-belief and intentionality. When we believe in ourselves and set an intention to do something, we become an ‘attractor’ and draw to ourselves the people and resources we need to complete the project. Will it be easy? Unlikely, nothing worthwhile is usually easy. Will it be rewarding and satisfying? Absolutely!What will certainly stop you in your tracks is the lack permission or the opposite of permission – a taboo. There are external permissions that are imposed on us by our governments, such as you do not have permission to exceed the speed limit; you can but if caught you will be fined or even jailed. Most permissions and taboos, however, are frames of mind – unconsciously adopted from our families’ teachers and culture.

Do you have permission to take risks?
Do you have permission to speak your mind?
Do you have permission to say “No”? Or do you feel that you can’t say “No” to others even if the request imposes on your own personal boundaries?

The list could go on for several pages but I think you get the idea, you can choose who you want to be and what you want to do without breaking any universal, moral or government laws. To be successful you must first step back and realise – No permission is required.

“Isn’t this approach selfish?” I am often asked by students and clients, my answer is definitely “no” but this issue is more eloquently answered by Marianne Williamson in her book ‘A Return to Love’:

“There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you… your playing small does not serve the world… as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I was recently asked, “Shouldn’t we find out what others think first?” Whilst at Self Leadership International we teach the art of feedback, you must be careful – if you solicit opinions from the wrong people you’re likely to reach the wrong conclusions – remember that the personal computer didn’t research very well in the 1970s and Richard Branson was told that the airline business was saturated.

So my question to you in this blog is “What is it that you want to do but are not doing because you are waiting for permission?”

Certified Speaking Professional (CSP)

Andrew Bryant, CSP — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:13:13 +0000

In a previous blog on professional development, I shared that I had submitted my paperwork for the designation of Certified Speaking Professional (CSP); well I am proud to announce that my application was successful.

The Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, conferred by the National Speakers Association (USA and Australia) and the International Federation for Professional Speakers, is the speaking profession’s international measure of professional platform skills. There are less than 600 CSP’s in the world and only 3 currently in Singapore.

If you are a meeting planner or planning a meeting, hiring a professional speaker who has achieved CSP means that you have insured that your event will be a success because the speaker has demonstrated competency in:

Professional platform skills
Professional business management
Professional education
Professional association

In addition the speaker has received excellent ratings from past clients on performance evaluations.

If you are a speaker or want to become a professional speaker I highly recommend that you join an IFFPS association, I am a member of the Asian Professional Speakers Singapore and you can read my blog post on presentation skills.

See you on the platform, Andrew Bryant CSP an expert who speaks on Self Leadership, Coaching and People Development.

Executive Coach Andrew Bryant presents at ICF Singapore

Radu Palamariu — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:48:04 +0000

Monday May 25, 2009: Executive Coach and Meta Coach, Andrew Bryant will present ‘Masterful Coaching’ at the Singapore International Coach Federation (ICF) chapter meeting.

Together with Executive Coach, Dennis Heath, he will facilitate a debrief a video of masterful coaching by Meta Coach Michelle Duval.

If you are in Singapore and want to see how masterful coaches, build rapport, ask questions, probe for meaning, and co-create new behaviours and reinforce resourceful thoughts and actions, then come along. Details here.

Common Communication Mistakes

Andrew Bryant, CSP — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:54:31 +0000

A couple of yeas ago I was rushing to meet a new client, a CEO who required some coaching; as I was running short of time I chose to miss lunch and go straight to the appointment.

I was greeted at the company by the company’s communications manager who was to show me to the boardroom to meet the CEO. She politely asked me if she could get me anything, perhaps thinking I might need a tea or coffee. My response was, “well actually, I intend to break at about 3pm, could you possibly get me a sandwich as I am starving!” She looked somewhat surprised but at 3:00pm exactly a 12 inch Subway sandwich arrived in the boardroom.

Giving the CEO the opportunity to take a bathroom break I hungrily bit into the sandwich only to be surprised by the fact it was full of jalapeno chillies! Now I normally like spicy food, but it was the surprise that got me. At the end of the day when showing me out, I asked her whether the jalapenos were revenge for being asked to get me a sandwich, “Oh no”, she replied, “I just had it made the way I like it.”

I use this story in trainings to make the point that most often we communicate the way we like to be communicated to. If you prefer people to be direct, you will speak directly – If you prefer people to build a case you will build a case. So a common communication mistake is not considering your audience and communicating in your default or preferred style.

I provide influence training for an international bank and I find that I really need to stress the importance of a flexible approach to communication. Since the client is a bank I use the analogy that everyone has a PIN (personal identification number) that will unlock their resistance and allow you to communicate with them and, mixing my metaphors, each person broadcasts their SSID (a wireless access point identifier) to tell you how to log on to their network.

Leaders, managers, coaches and trainers need to learn to read people’s preferred communication style in order to adapt their communication in order to be understood. It may be arrogance or even stupidity to expect others to always adapt to you. There is a direct correlation between communication and productivity and so your results in work or life will depend on your ability to get a message across.

Can you learn to read people and adapt your communication to get better results? The answer is, of course “yes” So to help you get started here is a list of things to avoid:

Common Communication Mistakes

Being directive when you want buy in
Using “I” when you want team effort
Using “You” when you want to resolve conflict
Being aggressive or submissive (assertive is the alternative)
Attempting to influence when your are unclear what you want
Not finding out what’s important to the other party
Using only logic without emotion
Using only emotion without some logic
Talking down to people
Asking questions and not listening to the answer

So if you find yourself using any of the above or are not getting the results you want in life and business, then why not contact us to find out how to become an effective and influential communicator?

HR Summit Singapore 2009

Andrew Bryant, CSP — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:52:30 +0000

Self Leadership International is a sponsor of the Singapore Human Resources Summit 2009.

Please come and visit us at our exhibition booth to find out more about our Leadership Development, Executive Coaching and Business Communication programs.

Mark Liew an Executive Coach and Leadership Trainer from our team will be speaking about ‘Creating Behavioural Lasting Change’ in the Corporate Learning Stream.

See you there?

What do Children Teach us about Leadership?

Andrew Bryant, CSP — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:42:17 +0000

When I speak about leadership at a conference or workshop, I often talk about my children, Tasha (3 1/2) and Nathan (22 months). This is for a couple of reasons, firstly and selfishly because I am a proud father, secondly because it builds rapport with the audience and thirdly and most importantly because they are good examples of leadership and influence principles. In this blog post I wanted to share 3 such leadership principles.

1. Modeling Behaviour

Every parent knows that children are great mimics, they watch you like a hawk and duplicate your behaviour. This can be amusing, as when Tasha first started painting her nails after watching my wife or Nathan picking up my tennis racket and saying, “like daddy.” The dark side of this modeling is when children mimic the aggressive behaviour of adults, which was demonstrated by Dr. Albert Bandura with the Bobo Doll experiment and is evidenced in war torn areas of the world where children carry weapons.

Adults to0 model behaviour which is why the leaders of any team or organisation must “walk the talk”, they must be the model for the behaviours they wish to see duplicated. Talk is cheap – action is real.

2. Validation

Both Tasha and Nathan like to clap themselves when they do something right and they both beam when Zurina and I give them praise. As a leadership consultant I know how important it is that I continue to praise even moderately good performance as research by Dr Ethna Reid shows that teachers who get the best results, validate regularly. Successful teachers also alternate between teaching and questioning (testing) for comprehension.

In leadership and management in a hectic paced world it is all too easy to criticise poor performance and to tell rather than ask. In our leadership for managers program, we emphasise and rehearse the arts of validation and asking good questions.

3. Story Telling

Children love stories and interpret our cultural moral code from those stories. Tasha knows who are the good princesses (coutesy of Disney) and who is the evil queen, Nathan is learning from Thomas the Tank Engine that when you break the rules you go off the rails, he even exclaims very loudly “oh no!” when this happens.

Effective leaders also tell stories that let their followers know what the vision and culture of the organisation is. These stories get retold and strongly influence the behaviour of the team or workforce. When I was teaching coaching skills at Singapore Airlines I noticed how they regularly used stories of exemplary customer service to validate and reinforce the behaviour of going the extra mile service (GEMS).

Perhaps you have other Leadership Principles you have learned from children – feel free to share.

Self Leadership Coaching Blog » Coaching

Year of the Tiger 2010

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The Evolution of Coaching

Coaching, circ. 1984

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NLP in Singapore and Asia

Neuro Linguistic Programming – NLP

NLP for Consulting, Training and Coaching

NLP Association of Singapore Video

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Self Leadership and Choice

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Permission to Succeed

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Certified Speaking Professional (CSP)

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Executive Coach Andrew Bryant presents at ICF Singapore

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Common Communication Mistakes

Common Communication Mistakes

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HR Summit Singapore 2009

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What do Children Teach us about Leadership?

1. Modeling Behaviour

2. Validation

3. Story Telling

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