Perspectives in Brief

Change happens when the ‘hows’ meet the ‘whys’

Let’s face it, we’re all in the middle of change of some kind….change in career, in organizational structure, in how we live our lives, relationships.  The paradox of change is that it’s a constant.  Many however fight change tooth and nail as they are way too comfortable in the old ways even if they no longer serve them.

Nothing is easy when you’re not willing to look at it in any other way than as difficult.

“The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created–created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.” - John Schaar

Are you creating your future or falling into it by someone else’s design? The gap between where you are and where you want to be is filled by what you choose to do in the time available to you; every conversation, thought, choice and decision. I printed that on the notebooks I give my clients.  Why?  Because their future is created now with every choice they make.  For some, just that one change in behaviour and perspective, and taking responsibility for their future is change in itself and a profound change it is!

Coaches are personal change agents.  We need to work with clients to move with organizational change as their role shifts, while making sense of their meaning-making systems. If it doesn’t make sense to them personally, they will fight it and not work within it.

“What’s really driving the boom in coaching, is this: as we move from 30 miles an hour to 70 to 120 to 180……as we go from driving straight down the road to making right turns and left turns to abandoning  cars and getting motorcycles…the whole game changes, and a lot of people are trying to keep up, learn how not to fall.”  — John Kotter, Professor of Leadership, Harvard Business School

How do you weave through the traffic of change with ease and panache?  In other words, what roadblocks do you have to eliminate?

Something to check out…  

One of the participants in my last School of Shadow Coaching class recommended a book and website called Beyond Bullet Points.  www.beyondbulletpoints.com   Check it out as an alternative to the usual PowerPoint presentations.  Super neat!

As always this newsletter will be posted here.  If you like this newsletter or think someone would benefit from it, please forward this web link to others as pricing specials are only available to subscribers.Summer is when we finish all sorts of interesting virtual programs.  Remember, the launch of these programs is first announced to newsletter subscribers. Price breaks are for subscribers only.For July and August we’ll be posting our newsletter once a month rather than every other week and will be jumping back into the bi-weekly as of September.Our blog can be found at http://betterperspective.blogspot.com now with subscribers from 131 countries! I’ll leave you with this:“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” - Anais Nin

Are you getting what you want or what you think you can get?

Recently a client of mine had asked his head of HR to put a contract in place for Shadow Coaching so the entire organization could draw off of one contract rather than put in place small ones here. Her answer was “Why not use who we have?  They might not be coaches, and definitely not a Shadow Coach(TM) but we would get some of what we want”.  I was blown away.  Thankfully, so was he. 

I looked at her and used the analogy of medicine, stating “If you need a procedure done by a surgeon who specializes in a specific field, do you have an exploratory done by one person, diagnostics done by another, an intervention done a little bit because that doctor doesn’t specialize in the right field and then hope for the best?”

Enter the realm of damage control.

What are the implications?  How much more expensive does it ultimately become in money, energy, morale and engagement because you don’t have the right people in the right place?  Ultimately, how much does damage control cost?

These are the individuals who then sight all the statistics they can find to justify this decision and to show a high failure rate. No wonder people are skeptical of certain kinds of interventions.  It’s not the right one for the right reason or result.  And statistics re negative impact are shouted to the masses, tainting other’s impressions of how great interventions can make a huge difference.

How often does this happen in your world?

Do you have the right people doing the right things so you get the results you need or are you using who and what you think you can get?  It’s almost better not bringing anyone in at all if it’s not going to be done right and you have to fix things later.

We are not fragmented human beings who take who we are and what we do and separate them into task-like pieces.  Talents and strengths don’t work that way.

Meaning  

A coach is someone who is dynamic in their inquiry, to be able to move with their client as the client’s role shifts and changes within the organization.  People are not separate and distinct from the organization within which they work.  No matter what each person does, they need to find some personal meaning in what they’re doing in order to succeed.  They might be successful according to you but if what they’re doing has no personal meaning then they disengage.  The right people in the right positions allows you to put structure around what their meaning making system is so you can evolve the organization and the people within it.  Using the wrong people in the wrong jobs might get you some of what you want but will get you a heck of a lot of what you don’t want.  That goes for consultants, employees and people in leadership.  Bottom line is, don’t settle!

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” -  Patanjali (c. 1st to 3rd century BC)

Last but not least… As always this newsletter will be posted here.  If you like it, please forward the web link to others though, pricing specials are only available to subscribers.Summer is when we finish all sorts of interesting virtual programs.  Remember, the launch of these programs are first announced to newsletter subscribers and price breaks are for subscribers only.

Our blog can be found at http://betterperspective.blogspot.com   If you want deeper insight into human behavior, yours and others, then sign up for the self-coaching program It’s All About You…and Others, at: http://www.itsallaboutyouandothers.com/intro.htm I’ll leave you with this:

Coach friendly organizations and all the rest

Trends are clear.  Finding talent is hard.  Retaining talent is harder and for some organizations next to impossible. Not only are major corporations embracing executive coaching; they are now training their leaders to be coaches. It used to be that organizational leaders were taught how to do triage and fix things before they got too out of hand.  A reactive organization rarely retains talent as rising stars want to be affiliated with companies and government departments that are known for their cutting edge style of leadership.  Coaching is no longer an intervention; it’s now become an organization’s culture.

Human Capital

def: The set of skills which an employee acquires on the job, through training and experience, and which increase that employee’s value in the marketplace.  Add coaching to the equation which helps a staffer evolve into his/her level of excellence and you have a dynamic and attractive workplace. If the staff knows they’ll be valued, trained, coached and grown, they’ll stick around a lot longer than if the opposite were true.

Where is your organization in the scheme of things?

Are you growing your staff or burning them out?  Are you integrating coaching into their everyday worlds so they get the support and feedback they need to help them and the organization fly?  The chasm is ever widening.  Those organizations that promote coaching and who are measuring their success based on human capital are the ones that will stand out among the rest.  It’s already happening.

Look at the DNA of successful organizations and you’ll see a place that grows its people.  Look at the exodus rate of some organizations and you’ll see places that don’t care about their people at all.  For those talented individuals, where do you think they’ll want to be working? Just as look at successful coaches and where they’re ‘playing’.  They are picking and choosing clients who want to fly.  They’re not in fix-it mode.  If you’re fixing, time to switch to building mode.  You have to live it, eat it breathe it.  If you build it through a coaching culture, they will come.

“The goal of coaching is the goal of good management:  to make the most of an organization’s valuable resources.”  — HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Event to take note of

The Leadership in Coaching TeleSummit: First Worldwide Leadership-in-Coaching TeleSummit with a special focus on Emerging Trends and Markets.

Click  http://www.leadershipincoachingtelesummit.com/donna to find out more or register.

Last but not least…

As always this newsletter will be posted on http://www.PerspectivesInBrief.com.  If you like it, please forward the web link to others though, pricing specials are only available to subscribers.

Our blog can be found at http://betterperspective.blogspot.com   If you want deeper insight into human behavior, yours and others, then sign up for It’s All About You…and Others, at: http://www.itsallaboutyouandothers.com/intro.htm

I’ll leave you with this:

Asked for a conservative estimate of the the monetary payoff from the coaching they got, these managers described an average return of more than $100,000, or about six times what the coaching had cost their companies.  — FORTUNE MAGAZINE

With deepest respect,

Donna Karlin
Founder and Principal
A Better Perspective
http://www.abetterperspective.com

ISSN 1913-6307

Bouncing Balls

I’m going to contradict myself in a moment.  As a Coach we look at life and all it encompasses from every angle.  On one hand, I understand when Anthony Smith says “To achieve a high level of competency, work/life balance doesn’t happen.  Something’s gotta give.”

Take my son’s surgeon for example.  This woman worked up to 40 hours at a time on one surgery.  Is it possible to have any kind of life when this is the norm for her?  Absolutely not.  Is it imperative we have people like her in the world who can do such amazing work?  Definitely!  Is it up to me as a Coach to lecture her about work life balance?  No.  It’s up to her to make that choice and for me to support her in her choices.

On the other hand, to quote the past CEO of Coca Cola Enterprises (1959-1994) Brian Dyson, “Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends, and spirit - and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends, and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.” 

What balls are you dropping?  There’s the contradiction.  Why the contradiction?  Because it’s all about paying attention.  Only by paying attention to what you’re living and what you want in your life and seeing if they’re in alignment, can you make the choices that work for you.  Our lives are filled with contradictions!

Is it all about hours you put in?

No.  You can be working an 8 hour day, and even though you go home at the end of the day, if you take your stressors and problems home with you, well, you might not be working but you might as well be as you’re not ‘present’; your mind is miles away.

What can you do about it?

If nothing else, make a list for yourself to get to first thing in the morning.  Like that rubber ball, those problems will still be there waiting for you tomorrow.  It’s not to say procrastinate, avoid and shove everything in the closet.  It’s saying “I can’t do anything about it right now, so I’m going to park it until tomorrow, go home and do my thing for now, knowing it’ll be waiting for me in the morning and maybe…just maybe not seem so overwhelming when I’ve had a chance to sleep on it.  Maybe you’ll have more clarity of thought when you do get back to it or realize it wasn’t as earth shattering as you first thought.  Regardless…that ball will bounce back.  Or you can call someone whose insights you trust, set up a conversation for the following day and wait until you have an added perspective and support so you’re not going it alone.  You’ll figure it out, don’t you think?

Last but not least…

As always this newsletter will be posted here http://www.perspectivesinbrief.com/.  If you like it, please forward the web link to others though, pricing specials are only available to subscribers.

Our blog can be found at http://betterperspective.blogspot.com/   If you want deeper insight into human behavior, yours and others, then sign up for It’s All About You…and Others, at: http://www.itsallaboutyouandothers.com/intro.htm

I’ll leave you with this:

“The real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not, the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you “come to terms with” only to discover that they are still there. The real questions refuse to be placated. They barge into your life at the times when it seems most important for them to stay away. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will.” - Ingrid Bengis 

Make sure those questions are answered.
With deepest respect,

Donna Karlin
Founder and Principal
A Better Perspective
http://www.abetterperspective.com/

ISSN 1913-6307

So tell me…what do you want?

People think they know what they want until they’re asked.  Once they’re asked they can’t answer.  When someone asks you what it is you want, can you answer them or do you jump into what you don’t want?

And if you answer you don’t know what you want, is that really true or are you just afraid of articulating it because you fear the consequences (good or bad)?

Reality check

Are you fighting for what you personally believe in or for what others think you should fight for?

How many are in positions where they feel their personal values and ethics are being compromised and yet they stay silent because those around them tell them not to rock the boat?

That seems to be commonplace in many organizations these days.  Who does it serve?  Are you validating inappropriate behavior by not speaking up?  And bottom line is, will you beat yourself up later because you stayed silent and feel that inner tug of war every day you walk into work?

One of my mottos is “I will not give my personal power away to someone I least respect at that moment in time.”  If I did, I would be diminishing myself and my self worth and I will not give that up lightly or without a fight.

Is this you?

If the answer is yes, what are you going to do about it?

“How you choose to respond each moment to the movie of life determines how you see the next frame, and the next, and eventually how you feel when the movie ends.” - Doc Childre

How do you want to feel when the movie ends?

Last but not least…

As always this newsletter will be posted on http://www.PerspectivesInBrief.com, though pricing specials and program launches will only be available through this newsletter subscription.  Please feel free to share your comments, insights and perhaps a subject or two you’d like to open for discussion and we’ll look at it for future a future newsletter or blog post.  Our blog can be found at http://betterperspective.blogspot.com  

If you want deeper insight into human behavior, yours and others, then sign up for It’s All About You…and Others, at: http://www.itsallaboutyouandothers.com/intro.htm

So, I’ll leave you with this to reflect on:

“A reporter interviewing A.J. Muste, who during the Vietnam War stood in front of the White House night after night with a candle, one rainy night asked,”Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?” Muste replied, “Oh, I don’t do it to change the country, I do it so the country won’t change me.” - Andrea Ayvazian

Are you going to stand outside with a candle or, by your inactions, let the world you live in change you? 

With deepest respect,

Donna Karlin
Founder and Principal
A Better Perspective
http://www.abetterperspective.com

ISSN 1913-6307