Category: Professional

11/8/10

Good day, team,

I have a confession to make. I’ve rewritten this week’s challenge numerous times and still don’t feel satisfied with the quality of what I’m writing. So rather than send out a piece that is not particularly good, I’m now exploring my real challenge: following through on the commitment I made six years ago, to publish one every week, even when I’m not inspired to write.

Years ago I took a writing workshop with the poet and writer David Whyte. I remember him saying, “If you commit to being a writer, then you need to discipline yourself to write. Each morning, I return to my desk and writing pad. Sometimes I sit for an hour or so with nothing written on the page. Other times, I can’t write the words down fast enough. But what’s important is that I return each morning to write.”

His advice surprised me. How could that daily discipline exist in the same mind as the incredibly powerful images his poetry evoked?

I had thought of artists and poets as people who went though their lives waiting for a moment of inspiration to overtake them. Then they went into a frenzy in some cold, cramped, solitary space, drinking gallons of coffee and working feverishly late into the night with no regard for food or sleep so that their masterpiece could emerge before their inspiration was gone. It never occurred to me that they could apply the discipline of showing up each day to create with the same energy others would use to show up at a regular job.

Recently, I heard this same message while sitting in a large conference room surrounded by hundreds of bank employees. We were listening to a speaker who was the first woman at the bank to achieve the high position of executive vice president. She talked about what she had done over the years to succeed. What she said struck me powerfully:

“At the end of the day, the most important thing I’ve done in my 26 years with this organization is to keep showing up. When I worked as a teller, a supervisor, a manager, a vice president, a senior vice president and now as an executive vice president, each day, I just show up, sometimes without the slightest idea of what I’m doing or how I’ll get through the day.”

Although it came from two completely different sources, the advice is the same. And so each week I sit at my computer, and sometimes the words come so quickly that my fingers can barely move fast enough to keep up with them. Other times, I sit and gaze out my office window at the lovely wisteria that frames the windows, or the brilliant coral leaf maple trees that show off their seasonal colors of brilliant greens in spring and summer, deep ochres and reds in autumn, and the delicate, woody, bare boughs of winter, waiting, waiting for the words to come.

Your challenge this week is the same as mine: to have the discipline to continue to show up in whatever work you do so that if the inspiration comes, you’re there to experience it.

Upon winning one of her many Wimbledon titles, the great tennis star Steffi Graf was asked, “What’s the most important thing you do to be such an excellent player?” Graf replied, “I practice. For as long as I can remember, I go out each morning and I practice. Some days I play reasonably well, and some days I can barely make the right shot. And then, on rare occasions, I just throw the ball up to serve, and something else takes over. I’m no longer in charge. Some energy takes over, and I watch myself, as if in slow motion, move in exactly the right way to hit the ball in the sweet spot, with the perfect swing. Then I watch the ball sail through the air and land in the perfect spot. In that moment, I know that every hour of practice has made that magical moment possible.”

My challenge is to keep practicing, to keep writing in the hope that, one day, magic will take over and the perfect words will write themselves onto the page. I know I can’t make it happen, and I know I can’t hold onto it if and when it does. But I also know that if I don’t show up every day, I’ll miss it.

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

11/1/10

Good day, team,

This morning I read a quote from Charles Darwin on which I’d like to base this week’s challenge:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

I think it’s safe to say that I have seen more radical change happen to my business clients in the past two years than ever before. In some cases, they’ve had to completely change how they operate to stay in business. In others, they’ve had to downsize their workforce considerably or completely reorganize to meet the demands of their customers. And in some cases, they’ve gone out of business altogether.

This kind of radical change causes a natural response of fear and negativity. Most of us know that change can bring about many new opportunities. But, as creatures of habit, we loathe the actual experience when we’re going through it. The uncertainty as we cross into unknown territory can be paralyzing.

Because I’m often brought into organizations to help support them while they’re going through transitions, I admire what GE did four years ago to teach its senior managers how to lead change via the Leadership, Innovation and Growth program it introduced in 2006.

GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, had decided to grow the company by focusing on expanding existing businesses rather than by making acquisitions. Thus his senior managers had to take a good look at their business segment to see what needed to change in order to grow. Here’s what they did:

* The LIG training was delivered to all the senior members of the business management team to give them an opportunity to reach consensus on the barriers to change and how best to attack them.

* Participants were encouraged to consider both the hard barriers to change (organizational structure, capabilities, resources) and the soft (how the leadership team members individually and collectively behave and spend their time).

* The challenge of balancing short-term and long-term goals, that is, simultaneously managing the present and creating the future, was explicitly addressed.

* They created a new and common language of change, words that became part of their daily vocabulary.

* The training was not an academic exercise: It was structured so that a team would emerge with the first draft of an action plan for instituting change in its business.

All participants accomplished three things before attending the training. They updated their three-year business strategy, or what they call their growth playbook. They underwent 360-degree reviews to get feedback about their behaviors and leadership abilities. And they were assessed as to how well they had created an innovative climate for their employees to be creative and evolve.

GE identified the following attributes of an innovative organization:

1) Team members feel connected to and challenged by their work; they are free and encouraged to try new approaches.

2) Team members feel safe sharing ideas and working with one another (trust).

3) Time is made to share new ideas.

4) Team members see their workplace as easy-going, fun and relaxed.

5) Conflict is seen as part of the reality of work, and team members are encouraged to deal with it openly and constructively.

6) Team members are encouraged to share ideas with each other.

7) There is healthy debate between team members.

8) Team members can made decisions and take action in the face of uncertainty (take risks).

In the training, GE’s senior management team spent a week doing in-depth reviews of each of their businesses, examining what they would need to change to become more profitable and how to become better leaders. They asked themselves questions that would help them reset the bar and start to coalesce around the changes that needed to be made: How do we stack up? Are we really as good as we think we are? Are we walking the talk? Are we leading this business the way we think it should be led in order to optimize growth?

As they worked together, GE’s leaders started changing their ideas, their attitudes, the way they saw their business units, and how they could lead further changes throughout their organizations. They started becoming who they needed to be to lead effective change throughout their teams.

This week, take a look at your team, your work group, your company. Are you being forced to make big changes throughout your business and, if so, how will you overcome the natural resistance to change by your team members? Take some of GE’s suggestions and see how you can apply them to your team.

After going through the training with his leaders and watching how it was implemented over the next two years, Immelt observed, “To pursue growth, you have to give some clear no’s and yes’es, and I would say that what we always struggle with—even at high levels in the company—is too many maybes. Decisiveness is one of the core traits of a growth culture.

“I still have to push, and I think that will always be true. But there are now more people pushing with me. When somebody asks me, ‘At your level of the company, what does a leader do?’ I always say, ‘Drive change and develop other leaders.’ Our training gave me a way to do both at the same time.”

This week, think about what you’re doing to get the most out of your business and your people. Chances are some changes need to be made, and your challenge is to find the best way to lead your team through them.

Have a good week!

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Note: If you want to learn more about this topic, read the article “How GE Teaches Teams to Lead Change” by Steven Prokesch in the Harvard Business Review, January 2009 edition.

10/25/10

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about the benefits of shaking up our normal patterns. I just spent two weeks immersed in French culture and cuisine, and the greatest gift of this vacation was the opportunity to do everyday things very differently.

Try speaking a foreign language for two weeks: That alone will help you see yourself and your world from a different perspective (three years of high school French was not much help). Take two hours for lunch each day dining on some of the finest cuisine in the world or walk everywhere you want to go in a large city. Find yourself in a toilette without any toilet or ordering a steak medium rare and having it served raw. Become totally lost and be forced to ask a complete stranger for help without speaking their language (in our case, this always lead to a positive experience as the French are always so willing to help and have a wonderful joie de vivre!).

Each of these experiences gave me the chance to be more awake, to be out of my comfort zone and struggle to make something work or to be understood. Although it’s irritating, it always forced me to pay attention and provided the opportunity to notice aspects of my surroundings I never would have seen if I were in my normal daily routine, like the way light falls through a hotel window in the afternoon after a luxurious nap or what a carpet of ferns looks like in the early morning on a search for mushrooms in a French forest.

Every time I travel, I experience a wonder and innocence that get lost in my regular life of work, chores and responsibilities. I know this doesn’t have to be the case, and I’ve tried many times to jolt myself out of the low hum of work life, but the more familiar my life, the more asleep I seem to be. Fortunately, I find myself in a business where my clients tend to awaken me with their comments, stories and observations. Being present to them is my most important job, and it never ceases to amaze me how much I am inspired by their sincerity and hard work.

This week, try changing how you do things just enough to wake yourself up. You don’t have to travel halfway around the world to be more aware of your surroundings. Knowing how easy it is to take our lives for granted, try spending some time doing the dance a little differently so you can remember how much you enjoy it.

Here’s a lovely quote from Gresley that speaks to my point:

“Our object in traveling should be not to gratify curiosity and seek mere temporary amusement, but to learn, and to venerate, to improve the understanding and the heart.”

And another from Mark Twain:

“I have traveled more than anyone else, and I have noticed that even the angels speak English with an accent.”

Think about what you can do to shake things up a bit and notice what otherwise gets lost in your day. Or, better yet, start planning your next vacation and do some research about where you’d like to go and what you’d like to see.

Standing in front of Notre Dame in Paris last week, I noticed that the entire front of the cathedral has now been completely cleaned and restored. When I visited two years ago, much of the front was covered in scaffolding. There in front of me, the late morning light shone on the beautiful faces and figures carved out of off-white, pink-hued stone. The entire structure is such a thing of beauty that it took my breath away. In that moment, I realized how fortunate I was to be there. Now my challenge is to bring that appreciation to the more mundane moments in my life.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

9/20/10 “Spirit”

Good day, team,

This week, I’ve received two messages that reinforce each other, one from a client and one from a speaker whose lecture I hope to attend.

In our coaching session this past week, one of my clients said, “I don’t see myself as a particularly spiritual person, but I’ve been working on changing my attitude. I’ve decided to choose to be more positive at work and to see people and difficulties in a more positive light. I think this will help me psychologically and spiritually at work.” I couldn’t agree with him more.

My client’s use of the word spiritual makes a lot of sense in this context. The word “spirit” derives from the Latin word “spirare,” meaning to breathe. So one interpretation of the word spirit is to breathe life into something. When we are inspired, we are likely to have more breath in us. For example, when we see something beautiful, we gasp and say “Ah, that’s so inspiring!” When people say, “It took my breath away,” what they actually mean is the inspiring event stopped them in their tracks and then filled their heart and lungs with energy.

The most inspiring leaders or managers are the ones who breathe life into their teams and projects. They do this by expressing their enthusiasm or confidence in the team, posing a difficult challenge, executing in a spectacular way, or just being particularly compassionate or appreciative toward the people they work with. These actions give their teams a boost and encourage them to re-engage.

I found the other message in an announcement about an upcoming speech by Ellen Raim for the Women’s Center of Applied Leadership here in Portland: “Work happy: Your success depends on it.” She’ll focus on three areas in her speech:

• Working with the attitude, outlook and mindset for success

• Framing difficulty in a positive light

• Building lasting relationships and connections in the office

Again, I see a similar message: choosing to be happy and framing difficulty in a positive light. One of my consistent aims in dealing with others is to assume positive intent. This tenant has helped me more than anything else to see people in a new way, regardless of what has happened in the past. Of course, the difficulty is that often our behaviors do not match our intentions, and in dealing with our own and other peoples’ behaviors, our greatest challenges arise.

This week, try choosing to be positive rather than negative about whatever you’re working on. There is always a silver lining in what appears to be an ominous cloud, and finding that brightness can inspire you in your own life and lift the lives of others.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Coach’s challenge for 9/13/10 “Time”

Good day, team,

As I sat gazing out the window this morning, coffee in hand, I noticed the twins who live across the street heading out for their first day of school. When we moved into this house seven years ago, these girls were toddlers. Now, here they were, looking so grown up, one dressed in a cute plaid skirt, knee highs and sneakers (do we still call them that?), the other in jeans, bright pink boots and a jacket that had a big “C” sewn on the back. (The “C” stands for Cordelia, and her twin’s name is Hortense. Unusual names, but, I think, very distinguished!) How happy and hopeful they looked as they moved forward toward another year of experiences, friends, learning and activities!

What struck me most as they passed by my window was the passage of time, which is the subject of this week’s challenge. Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” I pondered this quote as I watched the twins walk to the bus on the corner. In seven years, these two have grown up to be young girls; where have I been all of this time?

I’ve noticed that people who raise children tend to have a better sense of the passage of time than people who don’t. Children change so fast and so drastically, from week to week when they’re infants, from month to month when they’re toddlers, from year to year in their first decade. In contrast, the passage of 10 years for someone without children may seem to be a time when he or she doesn’t seem to change very much. But growing children demand very different kinds of attention and care as each year goes by, and parents are continually amazed at how quickly they grow in such a short time.

The value of this observation for me is to see how much I’ve changed over the years and to not take it for granted. One of the blind spots in most human beings is our inability to observe ourselves. We look in the mirror and see the same person, day after day, year after year. Often it isn’t until you notice the first grey hairs, or see wrinkles that don’t go away, or take twice as long to heal from a cold, that you begin to realize you’re actually getting older! With this realization, there’s often the accompanying thought: “What have I done with my life? Have I been wasting my time? What happened to the last 10 years? They went by in a blink!”

This week, take a good, long look at yourself and see how you’ve changed. Perhaps age has brought you more understanding, or a more even-tempered disposition, or some patience you didn’t have a few years back. Maybe you’re in a completely different job or family situation or residence than you were five years ago. How have you adapted to these changes over the years? I think it takes consistent effort and a positive attitude to make our way though this life with a small bit of success and happiness as the result. Taking all that for granted doesn’t give us the opportunity to clearly see what we have become.

We give value to the time we have by using it wisely, and we also give value to ourselves. I like to think of it as putting gold coins in jars. How many gold coins have I put in the family jar today? Or the job jar? Or the exercise jar? Or the television jar? Do I spend my time (my gold coins) wisely, or does time spend me? This week, I’m resolved to spend my time more wisely and not take the benefits of that good use for granted. George Matthew Adams wrote, “We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves.” See where your gold coins are spent this week and by week’s end, enjoy the benefits of your investment.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching (503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

9/6/10 “Acknowledgement”

Good day team,

In pursuing the challenge archives this past week, I found one written in October of
2004 by my sometimes associate and coach extraordinaire, Kate Dwyer. Here it is:

This week’s coach’s challenge is to “celebrate what you want to see more
of”. Throughout the work week, we often witness each other making an effort that
goes above and beyond the usual standard of a job description. It may be
a small gesture (over in a heart beat) or it may be one of those bigger,
more heroic gestures that makes that person’s day much more challenging. Regardless
of the size of the effort, we see someone take an extra step or a giant step
on behalf of the whole. Part of great leadership is noticing, and acknowledging.

We all have lots of good reasons we don’t give that most rare reward, acknowledgement.
Perhaps we have a meeting to go to, or we don’t want a compliment to go to
someone’s head. Maybe we’re concerned they won’t like being the center of attention,
or we think they’re too busy right now. The bottom line is we miss an opportunity
to celebrate great work.

This week, aim for giving more mini doses of positive feedback right when you notice
things, in the moment. Monthly one-on-ones, annual reviews, scorecards or
periodic evaluations are all valuable formats for giving organized feedback,
but they’re not going to put the spring in our step that makes a work day
fly by. What gives us that extra boost is knowing that the people we work
with pay attention to what we do well. Acknowledging great work, however
small, inspires ownership, quality, and endurance.

“Correction does much, but encouragement does more.” Johann Goethe

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” Thomas J Peters

Have a good week-

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights
reserved.

8/23/10 “Blame”

Good Day Team,

The subject of this week’s challenge is “blame”. As you may remember, I have sent this challenge out about every six months since I started writing the challenge. Blaming others is so prevalent that I find it useful to remind myself and others what a waste of time and energy it is.

The definition of blame is, an expression of disapproval or reproach. It usually involves one person disapproving of what another person is saying or doing. Blame often goes beyond the disapproval stage and becomes a judgment or opinion on the part of the person who is blaming. It is then left to the person being blamed to respond in some way. Their response is often negative, since none of us enjoy being disapproved of or being seen as having done something wrong.

In “The Four Agreements” , Don Miguel Ruiz, the author, has a wonderful way of addressing blame. He writes, ‘the biggest assumption that humans make is that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. We are afraid to be ourselves around others because we think others will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us as we do ourselves.”

We can see that blame arises when we take things personally and then make assumptions about others. This week, try seeing blame when it arises in you and then try not to project it out onto others. When we realize that nothing good comes from blame and that no one, including ourselves, enjoys the experience, we can have an incentive to catch blame and stop it before it becomes our reality.

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are they who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” George Bernard Shaw

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights
reserved.

8/16/10 “Wisdom”

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge comes from a graduation card that I saw in a store today. It’s such good advice, I thought I’d share it.

Wisdom for a Good Life:

As you
go out
to remake
the world,
I offer
the following
bits of wisdom—
keep learning,
stay awake
to amazement,
be kind
rather
than right.
And remember,
while you
might not
agree
with this now,
being loved
is
better
than being
rich.

—Lisa Rice Wheeler

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

8/9/10 “Learning”

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about learning and appreciating the variety

of ways people learn and understand things.

Last week, my husband sent me this paragraph from a great article he

read that touches on this subject. It’s by Pete Warden @typepad.com

from his article “Harness the Power of Being an Idiot”:

“I learn by trying to build something; there’s no other way I can

discover the devils-in-the-details. Unfortunately that’s an incredibly

inefficient way to gain knowledge. I basically wander around stepping on

every rake in the grass, while the A students memorize someone else’s

route and carefully pick their way across the lawn without incident. My

only saving graces are that every now and again I discover a better

path, and, faced with a completely new lawn, I have an instinct for where

the rakes are.”

I find that I learn in much the same way. I recall my high school algebra teacher,

Mr. Johnson, trying to explain the concept of A + B = C to me without success.

He finally sat me down at a desk with 3 different sized boxes and encouraged me

to move them around and assign different values to them. Only then did I begin

to understand the concept.

If Mr. Johnson hadn’t taken the time to try to discover how I learn, I might have

failed my course. And, more importantly, I might never have discovered

how I learn. It’s a real eye-opener to realize that not everyone learns in

the same way. I have had clients, for example, who have suffered from dyslexia

or some other learning disability, and because the way they learn is not readily

accepted, they struggle for many years in school. Making the discovery of

how they learn and adjusting the way they take in information is very liberating

for them.

There’s no doubt that the best computer applications are written by

software designers who take the time to understand how their users learn and

experience their products. Don’t we all want technology that easy to understand

and use?

Your challenge this week is to think about how you and others learn. Do you

take in information and easily find ways to apply it without a lot of show and

tell? Maybe you learn by participation like I do: I have to be

actively involved with the thing I’m learning or participating with

others in an active exchange of ideas to increase my understanding.

Some people memorize information easily and can immediately come up with

the right answers from their vast storehouse of facts and figures.

They learn by lots of input and can often recall all that information at

a moment’s notice. And then there are people who learn things through

their senses and experience the world through sight, sound and touch.

Take a master cooking class sometime, and you’ll discover what I mean.

Most master chefs don’t measure, and they don’t read recipes: They cook

by taste and feel.

If you’re trying to explain something to other people, don’t be afraid to ask

them if they understand you. And don’t be surprised if they take in the same

information in a completely different way. There are as many ways to learn

as there are ideas, and no one way is better than another. Assuming that

we all learn in a similar fashion is one of the unfortunate characteristics of

most educational systems, and when you find a teacher or manager who takes

the time to help you discover how you like to learn, a whole new world opens

up to you.

This week, try exploring how we learn. You might just learn something new!

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights

reserved.