Good morning, team,

The following challenge is inspired by Jan Foster, sales manager at XPLANE, who often sends me words of wisdom that she reads along the way.

The excerpt below reveals the philosophy of Charles Schultz, creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip. You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just read the e-mail straight through, and you’ll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.

4. Name 10 people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.

5. Name the last half-dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remembers the headliners of yesterday. And these people aren’t second-rate achievers: They are the best in their field. But applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones who care about you.

Your challenge this week is to let these people know how much you appreciate having them in your life. Try extending yourself to others so they know you care about them too. It doesn’t have to be with banner headlines: Just, in some small way, let them know you’re there to help if they need it.

Many thanks to Jan for sharing the Schultz philosophy. She’s not only been a great client, but has referred many wonderful clients to me over the years. I appreciate her insights and amazing networking abiliities!

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Here is a challenge from the archives that seems appropriate again.

Good Day, Team,

The coach’s challenge for the week is inspired by a quote from Albert

Einstein: “A problem cannot be solved at the level of consciousness in

which it occurs.”

The challenge this week is to consider one problem you’re currently

dealing with and find a completely different way to solve it. To

create new ways of doing things, we have to think very differently

about possible solutions. This requires us to actually “see”

differently, that is, we must be able to look at our difficulties with

a completely different perspective in order to create new solutions to

them.

One of the great benefits of working on a team is that you can ask a

team member how she or he views a situation. In asking for another’s

point of view, we gain a different perspective, and this allows us to

see something in a new way. This then enables us to also seek a

different solution.

Changing your environment can alter your perspective, too. How often

have you found yourself sitting at your desk laboring over possible

solutions to a problem, just to find that your mind is continuing to

circle around the same solutions you’ve already tried that aren’t

working? If at that moment you decide to get up and take a short walk

outside, you can easily change your state of mind and have access to

more creative thoughts. It’s as though the cobwebs have cleared, and

you can literally see the problem and possible solutions in a different

light.

Try experimenting this week with different ways to solve a problem. If

you’re able to allow an outside influence to alter the way you see a

problem, you may find the right solution.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

From the Coach’s Challenge archives:

Good day, team,

This week’s coach’s challenge is about learning to trust. When I first pondered this idea, I thought it was about trusting other people. But upon reflection, I realized that it was first about trusting myself and then trusting others. That is, we build trust by behaving reliably and by expecting the best from others.

We earn other peoples’ trust by doing what we say we’ll do. We act with care and consideration. We are dependable. We are known for our integrity. No hidden agenda causes us to give mixed messages to others. Our actions reflect our intentions.

We reinforce our trust in others by releasing skeptical thoughts about them. If we start out suspecting someone or something and entertain the suspicion long enough, we convince ourselves that it is the truth. But skepticism is usually more wrong than right. Thoreau noted, “We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.” I think the opposite is also true: If we expect to trust other people, we will find something in them to trust.

This week, observe what you do to be trustworthy and also how much you trust your fellow team members. What are you doing to foster feelings of trust in others? Do you find yourself deceiving others either by lying, withholding key information, or telling stories that are untrue about yourself and others? Are you fooling yourself by thinking that others don’t see your deception? If you do trust others, how do you communicate that trust?

Trust is key to the development of any strong friendship, partnership or working relationship. Mutual trust and esteem are part of the foundation of all successful ventures. Look for ways this week to be more trustworthy and to be more trusting of others. You will find that much more is possible when we trust each other.

See if you can confirm the words of Francois de la Rochefoucauld: “The trust that we put in ourselves makes us feel trust in others.”

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good morning, team,

April is National Poetry Month, and the occasion reminds me how important it is to pursue interests other than work. When I was young, I wrote poetry.  I’m not sure why; somehow poetry spoke to me very early on, and I started making up rhymes in my head and then writing them down. Once, I woke in the night with a poem that was so anxious to get written down that I wrote it on the bed sheet. My supportive mother cut the poem out of the sheet the next morning and remade my bed with a new one. When I came home from school that day, there was my poem, written with pencil on a piece of rumpled sheet. From then on, there was always paper and pen by my bedside.

My poetry muse continued to influence me until I was in high school. When I was a sophomore, I began to be very critical of my poetry. I worried what other people would think, and the satisfaction I felt after I’d written a poem was quickly being replaced by embarrassment. One day in English class, I wrote a poem about our beagle, Charley. We all had to read our poems out loud, and although mine was far superior to many, when a boy I had a crush on teased me later and told me how stupid my poem was, I didn’t write another for almost 25 years.

By the time I was in my early twenties, I was working in Washington, D.C., in a crazy, fast-growing business, and all my available time was taken up by my job. I worked incredibly hard during the week and then tried to recover on the weekends. Hobbies and extracurricular activities went by the wayside.

It wasn’t until I was approaching middle age that I began writing poetry again. I had forgotten how good it made me feel to use words to create pictures and to be able to express my most intimate thoughts in poetic form. I also realized that it had been years since I’d engaged myself in any activity that wasn’t work-related.

The experience I had had as a child when I wrote poetry began to re-emerge. It was so satisfying to sit and write for a few hours and then go back the next day and read what I’d written. The critical part of my brain had matured and was not so anxious to jump in and tell me everything that was wrong with the poem. Or perhaps those thoughts were there, but I just didn’t take them as seriously any more. I was finally able to do something for pure enjoyment that had nothing to do with my work or my family: It was just for me. And every time I wrote a line it energized me and made me feel good.

Your challenge this week is to identify your interests that are not work-related and cultivate them. In my husband’s case, he plays keyboards once a week with a drummer. They don’t do it to perform or to record, they just get together every Wednesday night and play because they love it. This pleasure keeps him balanced and healthy. When he plays, he’s not thinking about anything else, he’s just enjoying the music.

If you already have something in your life that you do for pure enjoyment, be sure you continue to make space for it. If you find that most of your time is taken up by obligations, carve out some time for yourself when you can re-energize, recreate, and renew by doing something you love. Maybe it’s quilting, (how many women do you know who have a room full of crafting materials that never get used?) or knitting or painting or gardening. Perhaps you enjoy carpentry or boating or dancing. A game of golf can often restore all the energy that an entire week of strategic planning meetings uses up. Find your special hobby or interest and don’t let a week go by without making time for it.

Remember the old saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Find that thing you love to do and do more of it.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

Last week I traveled to Southern California to visit a client for a few days. On my early Tuesday morning flight, I found myself seated in a Bombardier aircraft, a small turbo prop that seats about 70 passengers. The seats line up in rows of two on either side of a central aisle and are extremely small.

I found myself sitting alone as the passengers filed in and gratefully began to realize that it was possible no one would sit next to me. “Ahhhh,” I thought. “I can stretch out and take a short nap.” Unfortunately, a large man got on the plane at the last minute and, since someone was sitting in his seat already, he chose to sit next to me.

I immediately went into judgment about the person who had taken the man’s seat: “Why do people do that? I never do that. Why don’t people consider the person whose seat they’ve just taken? What makes them exempt from following the rules like the rest of us?  Why do they think they’re special? Why doesn’t the flight attendant do something about it?”

Then, as the large man squeezed into the seat next to me, I realized that his body was taking up more room than his seat allowed, and I would have to move partly into the aisle to give him extra space. So I went into judgment about him too: “Why do large people book themselves on these kinds of airplanes? Someone should be making them take another flight on a regular-sized aircraft. Why did this guy have to pick the seat by me? Who let him just take any seat he wanted to? Someone should be in charge and make him sit in the back where there’s more room.”

As we settled uncomfortably into our seats, the man said something like, “Sorry, lady, but someone took my seat.”  I muttered something like, “Yeah, I don’t understand why people do that sort of thing.”

At this point, I tried to calm down. I was uncomfortable, angry and tired, and a thousand judgmental thoughts were racing through my head. Each one felt justified as I kept telling myself that the whole situation was someone else’s fault:  the jerk who took the man’s seat; the large man sitting next to me,  and the flight attendant who didn’t seem to care about any of us.

I tried focusing on my breathing as a way to calm down, and as I took my first, deep meditative breath, I realized the large man next to me smelled pretty awful. Well, that just fueled my anger—even breathing was not going to be the answer.

Then the man reached into his pocket, pulled out a tin of chewing tobacco and put a wad between his teeth and gums. That terrible aroma I was smelling was partly due to the tobacco. “Geez,” I thought. “I can’t believe I have to sit next to someone who has this disgusting habit. This is just gross!”

But worse than the physical discomfort was how miserable I felt because of my judgmental thoughts. Throughout the following week, I saw clearly how often I was overtaken by this state of judgment. Because my experience on the plane was so strong, it reminded me each time I judged another person how often it happens and how bad it makes me feel. In some cases, it affects my psychological state for hours, and I have to work hard to come back to a place of relative peace and tranquility.

Your challenge this week is to observe when you judge others. Then, try not to let the state overtake you. If you find yourself justifying your judgment, ask yourself, “Would I want to be judged so severely by the person I’m judging?” or “Am I so aware of all the factors that affect this person that I have a right to stand in judgment about who they are, what they do or how they do it?”

Maybe you work with someone whom you frequently have negative opinions about. Perhaps you can try to see what positive qualities this person brings to your team, and when your judgment arises, try thinking about those better qualities. When you notice yourself developing strong, negative thoughts about another person, ask yourself whether this attitude is helping you in the moment.  Perhaps you could turn your strong opinion into a question about the person. That speculation might give you a different way to view him or her and change your attitude.

None of likes to be judged by others. But this last week I also realized that being the judge feels pretty awful too. It’s not how I want to spend my time. This week, I’ve challenged myself to trade my judgment—my certainty about another person—for curiosity about what I don’t immediately see, a practice that serves me and other people better.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

I’ve been rereading some of Marcus Buckingham’s book “The One Thing You Need to Know,” which focuses on the key things all managers and leaders need to know to be successful.

Buckingham defines the main responsibility of a manager as follows:

“The chief responsibility of a manager is to turn one person’s talent into performance. To speed up the reaction between the talent of the person and the goals of the organization.” He goes on to say that it’s really a catalyst job. Managers create a win-win situation when they see that supporting the strengths of all team members energizes them, because they’re allowed to do what they love and that gives them extra energy. That energy, multiplied by the energy of the other team members, who are also jazzed if they’re working from their strengths, creates an organization with an unbeatable sustainable edge. And the energy makes working together incredibly exciting!

He goes on to say that the main responsibility of a leader is as follows:

“The chief responsibility of a leader is to rally people to a better future, and the two words that are most important here are ‘better future.’” Buckingham notes that all great leaders are keenly optimistic. Not that they’re always in a good mood, or always positive, but that they are optimistic about the possibility of a better future and absolutely dedicated to moving people in that direction. He uses people like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln as examples. These leaders were dedicated to a vision of the future that was far better than what existed in their day. And yet both of them suffered from deep depression at certain times in their lives. Regardless of what was happening personally, they never lost sight of the better future they saw for the world. And they never gave up in their efforts to try to move people toward that better future.

Your challenge this week is to leverage your team members’ strengths and all the possibilities that they create for your overall team. If you’re a leader, try to articulate your vision for a better future so that people understand what you see and where your dedication lies. Try increasing the level of engagement within your team by getting to the heart of the matter – what’s truly important to them and to their team. Each of us has an internal combustion engine that gets re-energized by doing what we love and working on what we think is important. Try freeing up that energy within the team so people are encouraged to make extraordinary efforts to achieve their goals.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

It’s officially springtime, and I can’t let the beginning of this wonderful season go by without writing about it. Spring is about energy, renewal, opportunities for new growth and color! On Saturday morning I went for a walk in the park, and the radiant, beautiful colors of flowers and shrubs were showing up everywhere. It’s tough to stay in a bad mood when you have a bright purple azalea staring you in the face! Think about how the daffodils feel when someone walks by who’s angry or sad.

These emotions just don’t fit with the energy of daffodils. The new growth of spring always inspires me, and here’s how that inspiration affected me that morning.

After walking for about an hour, I realized that my walk was making me feel so good that I felt like giving something to someone. I walked by a grocery cart containing a homeless person’s possessions, and I thought about slipping a $20 bill inside to give the person a nice surprise and allow her or him to buy a decent lunch. But there was no one around, and I wasn’t quite sure it seemed right, so I continued on my walk.

I strolled by a church and thought about making a donation in the offerings box. But the door was locked, so I kept going. I walked past a home where they were having a garage sale. A 12-year-old girl was minding the store and asked me if I wanted to buy anything. All she had left were old Barbie dolls.

I don’t have any grand-daughters (yet) or friends whose daughters like Barbie, but I gave her $1.50 for a Barbie doll who was missing part of her blond hair and had permanent pink marker drawn on her face. As I walked away, the little girl had a big smile on her face.

A little while later, I came upon a group of girls who were drawing chalk pictures on the sidewalk. I asked them if they wanted an old Barbie doll, and they all ran to me to claim her. As I left, they were giggling and talking excitedly about what clothes they could put on her from their doll collections.

When I got home, my mailman was just leaving the mail at my front door. We chatted for a bit—about what a beautiful day it was, about how time flies and we just couldn’t believe it was Easter already. As we talked, I saw the extra broccoli plants that I had bought to plant in our garden. My husband had already planted some and these were extra. I asked my mailman if he had a little garden spot where he could plant some broccoli and whether he’d like these plants. It turned out that he’d planted potatoes and tomatoes before, but never broccoli, though he was wiling to try. So I bagged them up for him and off he went, carrying the mail in one hand and his new broccoli plants in the other.

Your challenge this week is to give something to someone. Spring is the season of abundance, and we are all blessed to be surrounded by wealth and beauty. Sharing with others is rewarding: It’s always a good time to do it.

You don’t have to give someone a material object. Maybe you give of yourself by extending a favor to someone. Or maybe your gift is as simple as offering someone a cup of tea or a hand with a chore. Whatever it is, this is a good week to give and to rejoice in the spirit of your generosity.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

David Brooks has been writing for The New York Times editorial section for more than 30 years. He’s a conservative, and although I don’t often agree with his political opinions, I do appreciate a great writer when I read one, and he fits the description.

This past week, he wrote a very interesting article, “The Rank-Link Imbalance,” describing a trait he often sees in people in power: “People who have all of the social skills to improve their social rank, but none of the social skills that lead to genuine bonding. They are good at vertical relationships with mentors and bosses, but bad at horizontal relationships with friends and lovers.” He could have called the article “The Sad Sagas of the Supremely Successful.”

He describes how this happens:

“Perhaps they grow up in homes with an intense success ethos and get fed into the Achievetron, the complex social machine that takes young children and molds them into Ivy Leagues valedictorians. They go through the oboe practice, soccer camp, homework-marathon childhood. Their parent-teacher conferences are like mini-Hall of Fame enshrinements as all gather to worship in the flame of the incipient success. In high school, they enter their Alpha Geekdom. They rack up great grades and develop that coating of arrogance that forms on those who know that in the long run they will be more successful than the beauties and jocks who get dates.

“Then they go into one of those fields like law, corporate management, medicine or politics, where a person’s identity is defined by career rank. They develop the specific social skills that are useful on the climb up the greasy pole: the capacity to imply false intimacy; the ability to remember first names; the subtle skills of effective deference; the willingness to stand too close to other men while talking and touching them in a manly way.

“And, of course, these people succeed and enjoy their successes. When Bigness descends upon them, they dominate every room they enter and graciously share their company with those who are thrilled to meet them. They master the patois of globaloney—the ability to declaim for portentous minutes about the revolution in world affairs brought about by technological change, environmental degradation, the fundamental decline in moral values.

“But then, gradually, some cruel cosmic joke gets played on them. They realize in middle age that their grandeur is not enough and that they are lonely. The ordinariness of their intimate lives is made more painful by the exhilaration of their public success.

Brooks goes on to describe some of the stupid things these powerful, emotionally adolescent people do to fix that loneliness. How many times have you seen the corporate executive get drunk at the company Christmas party and make a sloppy pass at one of the pretty young things in the crowd? Maybe they turn to prostitution, as we saw in the recent headlines about the governor of New York, because transactional relationships are something they understand. How many managers do you know who claim that they work as hard as they do because they value their families most, and yet they travel most of the time and are hardly ever with their families?

This entire phenomenon creates middle-aged professionals who end up emotionally bankrupt due to their inability to experience any genuine intimacy in their lives. They carry on inauthentic relationships until they suddenly realize that their lives are made up of empty successes without any real connection or heart. They feel a lack of integrity since their external actions don’t match their internal state and often find themselves acting out in undignified ways.

I remember working with someone years ago who always looked and acted the part, but never seemed happy doing it. He couldn’t give anyone else his full attention and would often start working on his computer in the middle of a conversation with someone on the team. This inability to really connect with anyone was filled instead with a false personality that liked to act as though he always had it together and didn’t really need anyone else to help him out. He was cool and smart and always had the same kind of smile for everyone. We called him “Teflon man”: nothing ever stuck. He was so smooth and seamless that it was almost scary to watch him, because he seemed so inhuman.

When his wife walked out on him one morning after 24 years of marriage, he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t like who he had become. He came to work a week later and announced to all of us that he’d hit a wall in his life and that he knew things had to change. He asked each of us to write a small paragraph about who we thought he really was, and started the process of unraveling the false personality he had so carefully woven over the years. The person who emerged was a really nice guy who wasn’t going to be the next president of the company, but was a pretty darned good manager and friend.

Your challenge this week is to try being true to your self and authentic in your interactions with others. If you’ve been living up to someone else’s idea of who you should be or some company’s idea of what a successful person looks and acts like, ask yourself if this is who you really are and if you want to continue to support that false personality you’ve created to fit in.

As Shakespeare wrote, “This above all, to thine own self be true, and…thou canst not then be false to any man.” Try finding out who that true self is and allow it to come to the forefront. You may just find that others respond in kind and your work and personal relationships are far richer because of it.

Have a great week!