Good day, team,

I was just reading about Brandon Roy from the Portland Trail Blazers, our local basketball team, in this morning’s paper. Brandon is a rookie who just became an NBA All-Star. This is not an easy honor to achieve and is only bestowed upon players whose performance is truly extraordinary. It’s even more difficult to achieve for someone who’s relatively new to the NBA.

This achievement reminded me of a challenge I wrote in November 2006, when Portland got a new coach, traded away some bad boys, hired some rookies and began to turn the team around. Today, we see the results. The Blazers are tied for first place in the their division, and players like Brandon are making it happen. Tickets to games are hard to get and Portlanders have a new sense of pride in their hometown team.

Take a look at the challenge I wrote 14 months ago. The message and the challenge are still the same for all of us:

The coach’s challenge this week is about playing on a winning team. Last evening, I was watching the Portland Trail Blazers play basketball on television. This is a rare occurrence since I don’t particularly like watching televised basketball, though it’s a great game in person. I also have no affection for the Trail Blazers, or at least I didn’t before last evening.

For those of you who don’t follow basketball and don’t live in Portland, I’ll include a brief description of our basketball team. Since I moved here in 1998, the Trail Blazers (or the Jail Blazers, as they are affectionately called) behaved like the biggest bunch of spoiled-brat losers I had ever seen. They were all paid outrageous salaries, they frequently made the front page of the newspaper for committing misdemeanors, and when I shyly said hi to one of them in the grocery store one day, he just frowned at me. How could life be so bad for someone who gets paid so much to play sports?

Last season, you couldn’t give away tickets to their basketball games. They were an embarrassment to all of us, and as the coaching staff continued to turn over rapidly, the city was rife with rumors that their wealthy owner was trying to sell both them and the arena in which they play.

But with a new coach and some rookies, much has changed since last year. What I saw last night amazed me. The rookies ran up and down the court as though their lives depended on it, trying to take every shot they could. In fact, the only guys who looked flat-footed were players who were holdovers from last year.

The arena was full, and the fans were shouting and jumping up and down with great enthusiasm. This was a team they could get behind. Here were some winners they could believe in. Maybe, just maybe, things had turned around, and the Blazers were back!

Clearly, being part of a winning team is the best. It’s great to be part of an endeavor in which people go beyond their normal limitations to win. It makes everyone feel good to see players who “have each other’s backs” work incredibly well together and support each other on every play. Even the coach didn’t sit down. He paced back and forth on the sidelines, gesturing for the ball to go in the basket, giving his players a high five when they came back to the bench, encouraging them to keep the energy up and not to slack off. And he didn’t shy away from letting the slackers know that they weren’t holding their own for the rest of the team.

This week, consider your team. Whether you’re the coach, or a player, or both, are you winning? Are you letting your team players know that each one of them plays a critical role and that their ability to work together is essential in winning? Does your coach give you all the support and encouragement you need to win? Are you putting out your maximum effort to be the best player on the team?

Your challenge this week is to do just that. Play as though your life depended on it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Have a winning week.

Kathleen

Good day, team,

On a recent weekend up at our ranch in the Columbia River Gorge, my husband and I observed one of nature’s most amazing phenomena, when, early one morning, we took a walk to the far north end of our property.

From the edge of a cliff we looked out over a spectacular sight: The Klickitat River running down in the valley below and emptying its cold, clear water into the Columbia River, after which it runs through the magnificent contours of the Gorge out to sea. There are sheer, sculpted rock walls, lined by waterfalls and cascades, that rush into the river. Below us, we could see the creek that runs through our property and pools in a shallow lagoon before it meets the Klickitat.

We scrambled down the hill, moved closer to the lagoon, and were rewarded for our efforts by the sight of large salmon spawning at the mouth of the creek. We sat to watch this ancient ritual, honored to witness the end of the salmon’s long journey up river to lay their eggs in a safe place and then die. Majestic birds sat in the surrounding trees—bald eagles, blue heron, and golden eagles—waiting patiently, knowing that when the salmon finally lay to rest on the lagoon floor, they could swoop down and feast on the remains.

I watched the large salmon use their powerful tails to groom the creek bottom before laying their eggs, exhausted but still energetic. I admired their fortitude, their dedication to ensure the survival of their species.

Why do these fish have such an arduous migratory pattern? They make their way out to sea to feed and gather strength, then have to swim all the way back upstream through many hazards—hydroelectric dams, pollution, fishing nets—to their birth place on a final mission to spawn and die.

Watching them reminded me of the many times in my life that I’ve had to struggle and persevere to achieve my goals in the face of great obstacles. Going with the flow is good advice in many cases. But there are times when we need to borrow some courage and strength from our salmon friends and swim upstream as hard as we can. Think about the times when, under extremely difficult circumstances, people have had to fight for their land, their freedom, their lives. Just like the salmon swimming against the current, we do what we have to do to survive.

Your challenge this week is to identify where you’re swimming upstream and recommit to achieving your goals. In the salmon’s case, their goal—to keep their species alive—means paying the ultimate price. In your case, perhaps you’re working with a team unable to achieve their objectives, forcing you to find new ways to re-energize them. Maybe you struggle to help a sick family member navigate through their health-care options. Or perhaps your boss is asking you to achieve a seemingly insurmountable task and you must nonetheless realign your priorities and push on.

Whatever the issue, take a lesson from the salmon, who courageously take on some of nature’s most powerful forces to reach their goal.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good morning, team,

Team collaboration continues to be an important topic for me in my coaching practice. In the course of my research, I recently read a study conducted jointly by the Concours Institute and the Cooperative Research Project of London Business School. They sent surveys to team members and leads, executives, and human resources leaders at a variety of companies in different industries. The results surprised me in some cases and in others confirmed many of my observations about effective team collaboration.

Many companies rely on large, diverse teams of highly educated specialists to complete major projects. These teams consist of people from diverse backgrounds, often from many different locations, who are brought together to meet an urgent need. They work together virtually, collaborating online and often over long distances.

However, in the above-mentioned study an interesting paradox became clear. Although teams that are large, virtual, diverse and composed of highly specialized professionals seem essential to major projects, these are exactly the factors that make it extremely hard to get anything done.

The study showed that once the team increases beyond 20 team members, the level of cooperation decreases substantially. Members are much less likely to share knowledge freely, to learn from one another, to shift workloads flexibly and to identify bottlenecks and help each other move through them. And, in my experience, sub-teams that are asked to work on a portion of a major initiative get folded into a much larger corporate team and often get lost in the shuffle.

The study further discussed how the strengths of a team can become its weaknesses. Diverse knowledge and views can spark new insights and innovation. However, the less people were familiar with others on the team (their background, history with the organization, views and behaviors), the less likely they were to share knowledge.

Virtual participation is a way of life in all companies these days. In the study, 40 percent of all the teams researched had members all in one place; the other 60 percent did not. The research shows that as a team becomes more virtual, collaboration declines. Unfortunately, the old saying "out of sight, out of mind" applies.

Highly educated people with a specific area of expertise do bring a lot to the table in terms of knowledge and experience. However, the greater the proportion of highly specialized people on the team, the more likely the team members were to argue from their sole viewpoint. In other words, if team members think they know it all, they’re often unwilling to learn from others or experiment with new ideas.

The study offered eight recommendations for successful collaboration:

• Invest in environments that encourage strong relationships, such as open floor plans that foster communication; increased travel budgets so people can interact face to face; and meeting spaces that encourage activities beyond just sitting around the table, so people can interact on many different levels. Anything that demonstrates a commitment to collaboration sends the right message.
• Model collaborative behavior. At companies where the senior executives demonstrated highly collaborative behavior, the rest of the team members did too.
• Create a "gift culture" rather than a "tit for tat culture," that is, a culture based on coaching and mentoring. Such a culture helps team members build networks across the organization that they can use to do their work. Daily coaching increases people’s level of cooperation, their ability to feel empowered and take ownership. The study demonstrated that in such an environment, team members were less likely to blame others when things didn’t get done and more willing to help them out when they needed it.
• Teach people relationship skills, such as appreciating others, being able to engage in purposeful conversations, resolving conflicts productively and creatively, and managing programs.
• Support a strong sense of community. When team members feel that they are part of a community, they feel more comfortable reaching out to others. When a situation is not emotionally safe, people are reluctant to participate.
• Assign team leaders who are good at getting tasks done and building relationships. The study found that focusing on task orientation at the beginning of the project and later focusing on relationships is most effective. Regardless of seniority, those team members who weren’t willing to take on tasks and deliver results were seen as untrustworthy.
• Build on the existing relationships within the team, that is, include a few people who already know each other. This sets up a model of behavior that new members can emulate.
• Be very clear about roles, responsibilities and tasks. The study showed that cooperation increased dramatically the more sharply defined these elements were for the team members.

This week, consider the size and effectiveness of your teams. Are you investing in their ability to relate and collaborate? How well are your team members exchanging ideas and being open to each other? Is everyone on the team aware of roles, responsibilities and ownership tasks? Do they feel safe working together?

Don’t assume that just because a bunch of people are assigned to work on a project that collaboration will occur automatically. Try using some of the above suggestions to help your team work more successfully together.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Next to champagne and fireworks on New Year’s Eve, one of the most revered rituals of the turn of the year is to set new goals. Maybe it’s the time off around the holidays that gives us a chance to stop, reflect and resolve to improve the things we ignore when we get too busy and stressed out.

Many people resolve to improve their physical health. If you already belong to a health club, you know the irritation that can result from the sudden on-rush of newly signed-up members hogging your favorite treadmill. (By April, they are usually gone, and you and the other regulars can get back to your old routines.)

But while hordes of people will resolve to improve themselves physically, most don’t give their emotional health a moment’s notice. And in setting new goals for our physical health, we can disturb our emotional well-being greatly. We all know what happens to us when we get too hungry—we become short-tempered and irritable. As of Jan. 1, how many of your co-workers are on a new diet? (Be careful in the break room—you may find someone salivating at the vending machine who snarls at you when you try to put a coin in). In our attempt to lose 10 pounds, we may also alienate a few friends, family members and co-workers.

Your challenge this week is to try improving your emotional health and well-being this year. Here are some suggestions:

1. Try to create a positive attitude each morning. One of the managers I work with says that, as she reaches for the door handle to go into her building each morning, she stops for a brief moment and resolves, "Today is a new day, and I’m going to try to make it as good as I can for myself and others. I’m leaving all my troubles and negative thoughts right here and not taking them into work with me."
2. Resolve to reach out to someone you are either avoiding or ignoring. Having direct, sincere conversations with others is never easy. However, when we avoid them, we only make initiating them more and more difficult. Be courageous and reach out to the other person.
3. Don’t engage in negative conversations with or about others. Gossip is destructive. And you’ll often find that the people you gossip with gossip about you when you’re not around.
4. Respect the people around you. Be willing to see someone in a new way through a different lens. The roots of the word re-spect actually mean "to look again" and when we spend alot of time around others it becomes harder to see them differently.
5. Breathe. When we’re under stress, our bodies tend to hold our energy in our upper chest and throat. Don’t forget to breathe, go for a walk, feel your feet, get up out of your chair, anything to move the energy around and distribute it more evenly through your body.
6. Be honest with yourself and stop making excuses. When you work as part of a team and make excuses about why you haven’t done your part, your fellow team members become resentful. Say what you’ll do and do what you say.
7. Become a good listener. Giving others your full attention is not only respectful but gives you the greatest benefit in your experience of them. Try reining yourself in when you notice you’re talking too much.
8. Go the extra mile when you are able to. Doing small, selfless acts for others is a great way to extend yourself beyond your daily routine.
9. Be grateful. We are surrounded by abundance each day. Tap into that wealth of gratefulness in your heart and let others know about it.
10. Be present. Try seeing what is, rather than believing the story you or someone else made up about a situation. Realizing that the present moment is actually all we have—since the past is gone and the future isn’t here yet—is incredibly empowering. If a half hour has gone by, and you can’t remember what you’ve been doing or where you’ve been, come back to the present moment. It’s your life and your moments: Don’t miss out on them.

New Year’s resolutions are tricky. I’ve noticed that I frequently bite off more than I can chew by setting my goals too high. Remember that it’s through small increments that we often get to the finish line.

Whatever resolutions you’ve made for 2008, don’t forget that physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health are all connected. Ignore one, and the others suffer as well. Try improving one of them and they all benefit.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Knowing that this is the last coach’s challenge of the year, I’ve spent the past week trying to think of what has helped me the most in my coaching practice and my life in 2007. When all is said and done, “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz offer me the most guidance and continue to be my greatest challenge. Here they are:

Be Impeccable With Your Word

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t Take Anything Personally

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t Make Assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always Do Your Best

Your best is going to change form moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

I wish all of you peace and joy for the coming holidays and prosperity in the New Year!

Kathleen

Note: Stay tuned for upgrades to the coach’s challenge that will make it more user-friendly and for a better look and feel to my Web site. The folks at Cloud Four are helping me redesign, refresh and reinvigorate! Those of you who wish to be removed from this mailing list can reply to me with “no challenge” in the subject line, and I will delete your name.

Good day, team,

Many of my clients are going through organizational changes. Needless to say, it’s a difficult time of year for people to undergo changes that affect their jobs. However, many companies want to reposition themselves for the new year to increase their competitive advantage and revenue share. To do so, they institute structural changes that range from modifying reporting relationships to transferring people and establishing new departments and positions.

In the midst of these changes, our instinctive need to feel snug and secure in wintertime is often ignored, not to mention the added cost to finance holiday celebrations. (Sometimes I wish companies would factor the patterns of nature into their decision-making process. But that would require an awareness of how these patterns affect our behavior and how connected we are to the natural world; perhaps the next generation of leaders will take them into account.)

When companies go through numerous changes, their processes, reporting structures and ability to get things done become more and more complex. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, “Simplicity-Minded Managements,” Ron Ashkenas writes, “Complexity is actually the cumulative by-product of organizational changes, big and small, that over the years weave complications into the ways that work gets done. For example, at a major pharmaceutical company, the CEO realized that too many layers separated him from the frontline employees. When he challenged the leadership team to flatten the organization, many of the divisions were surprised to discover that there were more layers than they had realized—as many as 14 in one case. The organizational structure had taken on a life of its own.”

In many cases, employees end up spending most of their time navigating the labyrinth of complex structures and personalities within the organization. In the end, accountability is unclear, and decisions are muddy. Sooner or later, it becomes impossible to get anything done.

Your challenge this week is to consider ways to simplify or eliminate some of the complexity in the way you do business. Here are suggestions from the HBR article:

Make simplification a goal, not a virtue:

* Include simplicity as a theme of the organization’s structure
* Set specific targets for reducing complexity
* Create performance incentives that reward simplicity

Simplify the organizational structure:

* Reduce levels and layers
* Increase spans of control
* Consolidate similar functions

Prune and simplify products and services:

* Employ product portfolio strategy
* Eliminate, phase out or sell low-value products
* Counter feature creep

Discipline business and governance processes:

* Create well-defined decision structures
* Streamline operating processes (planning, budgeting, etc.)
* Involve employees at the grassroots level

Simplify personal patterns:

* Counter communication overload
* Manage meeting time
* Facilitate collaboration across organizational boundaries

Engaging your team members in this simplification exercise can reap you large rewards. “At Nortel, employees generated 3,000 simplification and improvement ideas, implemented 900 and saved $14 million”, according to the HBR article.

In our desire to reorganize and function more efficiently, let’s not forget the useful reminder of K.I.S.S., or “Keep it simple, stupid.” A phrase that comes to my mind frequently for me is “Less is more.” Whatever reminder works best for you, make it a priority in the new year to simplify.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge comes at the request of a technology manager I work with who wanted guidance on an all-too-common scenario: How to make decisions and communicate appropriately during times of crisis and high stress.

When something goes wrong—a major server outage, a system failure, or a missed deadline—how does one explain what’s happening, attempt to fix it and respond appropriately to managers when all they want to hear is that the problem has been fixed or the deadline will be met? In such situations, pressure mounts, and pretty soon the people trying to fix the problem want to throw up their hands and say, “I quit,” while the management continues to say, “Just fix it, now!”

In times of high stress, people tend to behave in one of two ways. Some people go immediately into activation mode, that is, they jump in and attack the problem with a strong sense of urgency. Other people go immediately into analytical mode by collecting all the relevant information, analyzing the problem and only then coming up with a solution.

For example, I recently witnessed a phone outage in a call center. Some of the supervisors were immediately up out of their chairs, talking with their phone representatives, and trying to address the problem with action. Other supervisors were on their computers trying to assess the problem by reviewing the numbers, and then determining who in the command center was taking care of it and what the overall impact would be on the business.

Interestingly enough, when the phones went back up and all the supervisors met to discuss what happened, everyone had something worthwhile to contribute, both those who immediately went to their phone representatives and those who spent time analyzing the problem.

Yet the manager of the call center responded most positively to the supervisors who showed a sense of urgency. Most leaders are motivated by results and are easily frustrated by people who begin with research rather than action. I’ve heard more than one business leader say, “What’s wrong with these people? The place is falling apart, and they’re analyzing our downfall instead of turning it around!”

Clearly, telling business leaders the truth when they don’t want to hear it is daunting. Sometimes we don’t know what the problem is; other times, we can’t promise it will be fixed on schedule. Sometimes we can’t even be heard, if leaders spend most of their time trying to give sometimes ineffectual orders and definitely don’t want to hear that their directions aren’t going to be carried out.

Speaking truth to power is challenging for all of us, especially if there’s a history of negative consequences. I remember one senior director telling me, “I don’t care what the problem is, I’d much rather have them tell me the truth immediately than shy away from it and have it broadside me later. I don’t care how bad it is or how much someone screwed up: Just tell me the truth, and we’ll deal with it.” The same director, however, upon hearing that an important customer’s order had been botched threatened to fire the people responsible if it ever happened again.

The same situations can crop up in our personal lives. How many times do we shy away from tough conversations with family members or friends because we are afraid of the other person’s response? Speaking the truth to anyone is difficult; speaking the truth to those who have a say in our livelihood or whose opinion of us matters is even more challenging.

But as Winston Churchill said, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is what it takes to sit down and listen.” Whether we are the purveyor or the receiver of bad news, handling the truth is an act of trust. Trust is at the heart of all healthy relationships, and we cannot trust people who don’t tell us the truth or who withhold information because they’re afraid to share it.

During times of crisis, it is especially important to be honest about what we see and communicate it to the best of our ability. Conversely, we need to listen to what’s being said and honor the person saying it. The more we can lessen our resistance to the truth and remove impediments to action, the faster any crisis can be resolved.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

I am especially pleased to offer this week’s challenge because it’s been written by my colleague Colleen Sullivan. Colleen is a writer and editor who lives here in Portland. She’s been my editor for the past few years and has given me much sage advice about my writing. Many thanks, Colleen!

Here’s her challenge about creativity:

In the spirit of holiday giving, this week’s challenge offers you encouraging insights from experts on a subject that makes many people sweat: Creativity.

Whether you are frustrated by a problem to which your usual solutions have proved ineffective, or you have a heartfelt thank-you or sympathy note to write, or you’ve been invited to a brainstorm to help other people with their creative challenge, you may be experiencing that combination of dread and panic that confronts most people when they feel pressed to come up with something original.

You first consolation comes from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 1: “There is nothing new under the sun.” It is certainly reassuring to note, for example, that if you want to write a love song about a break-up, there’s probably room for one more, given how many already exist and how many new ones become popular each year.

But if we compare, say, Joe Cocker’s “I Cried a River for You” with 10 cc’s “I’m Not in Love,” although the situation is the same, the interpretation is new. Joe Cocker’s lament is forthright and abject; 10 cc’s is defensive and denying, but moving in its own way.

As we strive for originality, the what may be the same, but the who and the how are different. Just as each of has a unique personality, we each have potential to create a new interpretation of experience, based in our individual authenticity and passion.

Some version of the claim “Good artists borrow, great artists steal” has been variously attributed to Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso and T.S. Eliot. Thousands of books of art criticism trace the lifting of motifs, images and turns of phrase by one generation from the art works of its predecessors. If even professionals in creativity recognize the value of reusing and recycling what already exists, we too can allow ourselves boosts of inspiration—not to mention outright quotations, as long as they’re attributed—from those who came before us.

An earlier challenge referred to Einstein’s quote “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” Science, too, is a process of questioning, rebuilding and then destroying what is known, and Einstein’s modesty acknowledges the debt of his genius to the thoughts of previous physicists.

All these experts recognize the threat to our ego that lurks under any attempt to make something up: the risk involved, and fear of failure.

For encouragement to take that risk, we can turn to the advice of cartoonist Scott Adams, who draws “Dilbert”: “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” Your portfolio, resume, business plan or final draft is a record of the keepers, but don’t forget your debt of gratitude to your doodling pad, the balled up pieces of paper in the wastebasket, or—best of all, from a writer’s point of view—the cut and paste functions of your word processor.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about the power of storytelling.

Consider these two scenarios. In the first, a group of people arrive at a business meeting to talk about the company’s results in the last quarter. One of the managers stands up and introduces the subject by clicking through a PowerPoint presentation showing charts and numbers. He talks about the relevance of these numbers in terms of benefits to their customers. When he’s finished, he asks if there are any questions.

In the second scenario, the same group of people assembles for the same reason. But this time, the manager stands up and tells a story about having dinner with one of the company’s best customers, whom he discovered was being wooed by a competitor; the competitor had offered the customer a significant discount for services.

The manager then explained that he told the customer about the new quality initiative his company had instituted specifically for customers like him (at which point he paused and asked the audience to applaud the members of the quality department): the time, effort and care that the quality folks had put into studying the customer’s business and what they had discovered. He talked about the weekend he went into the office and found the entire quality department surrounded by empty pizza boxes and soda cans, talking animatedly about the new initiative; many of them had been up all night, but had forgotten what time it was because they felt they were heading for a breakthrough.

The customer immediately jumped into the conversation. Years ago, he had been part of a team that had done the same thing. He remembered feeling excited about what he was doing and proud to be part of that team. Then he told the manager that he just needed to be able to convince his board of directors that they were still getting the best service for the price. The manager showed him a chart demonstrating, first, how the customer’s sales had improved year after year by using his company’s services, and second, the projected lift in sales that would result from the new quality initiative.

At this point in the presentation, the manager projected this same chart up on the screen and then stopped talking. A member of the audience asked, “What happened with that customer?” The manager replied, “He decided to stay with us and even called me back last week to say that when he described the story as well as the specifics of the quality initiative, his board members were more than satisfied.”

According to Chip Heath, professor of organizational behavior in Stanford University’s graduate school of business, “Good corporate stories are more likely to conjure up tangible visible images than anything in a PowerPoint presentation. Stories are flight simulators for our brains.” /He explains that they portray experiences which members of the audience may not have had yet. /

Good stories convey information, share knowledge, clarify an organization’s mission, underscore values, sell products or points of view, honor traditions and celebrate successes. “An authentic story reveals the true personality of the organization—in effect, its heart and soul,” writes Evelyn Clark, author of “Around the Corporate Campfire.” “To be effective, it must focus on a clear objective, told consistently and sincerely.”

This week, try telling a good story that honestly reflects a point you’re trying to make with your team. Perhaps you talk about something that happened over the weekend that best illustrates the frustration the team may be experiencing around a bottleneck. Maybe you help them understand the importance of customer loyalty by telling them a story about a vendor who made an extraordinary effort to keep your business. Ask if someone on the team has a story to tell about a subject you’ve raised. It’s remarkable to see how inspired people become when they describe how they solved a problem.

Here are some pointers for telling a good story in your business environment:

* Ask yourself, “What’s the purpose of the story?” Is it to inspire your team by conveying information about company culture, or to convey your level of personal service to customers?

* Think of an experience that reflects that aim.

* Write it down. Rehearse it. Give it a title and state the moral of the story.

* Make it personal: Name the hero(s).

* Don’t make it too complicated. The simpler, the better.

* Make it short. In a Powerpoint presentation, three bullets on a slide is much more powerful than a page of text. The same is true in storytelling. A gifted storyteller talks for about two to three minutes.

* Keeping looking for new stories to tell. It makes you a better leader because you have to listen to what others have to say.

Proverbially, a picture is worth a thousand words. The right story can speak to all parts of human beings: their brain, their heart, their soul. Your ability to influence others depends on your ability to engage the whole person, not just their thoughts. So what’s your story?

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Here’s a challenge written last year that a client asked to see again.

In a recent off-site meeting, I was working with a team that made a commitment to each other. The commitment comes from an old Italian proverb that we translated to say:

Honor when present.
Praise when absent.
Assist when necessary.

Last week I talked with one of the managers on the team about the challenge of following through consistently on this commitment with peers and team members. We agreed that we were able to honor others when we were together, and that assisting others when necessary was also not so hard, but praising others when they weren’t around us was very difficult. Especially the people we don’t particularly like and have the hardest time with!

We also observed that we have a much harder time not gossiping about others when we’re talking with friends. The maxim “Familiarity breeds contempt” confirms that it’s much harder to be impeccable with our word when we’re talking with our closest friends and familiar business associates than with people we don’t know as well. Our familiarity gives us free license to voice our opinions and judgments, or so we think. I know that it always makes me feel uncomfortable when someone I’m friendly with starts to complain about someone else. I want to ask them not to do it, but I’m afraid they’ll judge me for judging them!

If we can keep in mind that none of us likes to be gossiped about, we might have more courage when it comes to saying, “I understand that you’re having trouble with that person, but I don’t think running them down is going to help.” Or maybe the solution is even simpler. We could just say, “I’m trying not to gossip” and leave it at that.

At the heart of it, none of us likes to be judged by others. We often see the same events from different perspectives, and judging others because they don’t see it our way is narrow-minded. Clients have said to me, “I can’t believe they accused me of something I didn’t do,” or “How could they assume that I was at fault for that mistake? Why can’t they see all the work I’ve done and appreciate that rather than focusing on what I did wrong?” We tend to make snap judgments when things don’t go the way we want them to and by doing so, often forget about all the good things people have done and how sincere they often are in their efforts.

Taking the high road in our interactions with others is one of the cornerstones of professional behavior. I’ve noticed that senior people in an organization seem to be the least petty and talkative about others. This discretion is a key to their success. They hear a lot of things about many people in a week, and yet they often don’t repeat what they hear. They allow much of the chatter to just go by them and try to stay focused on what’s really important: people’s strengths and the team’s results.

Your challenge this week is to try (yet again!) not to speak negatively about others. Take it one step further and try to praise others when they’re not around you. You may find this difficult to do, but you’ll also find that the more positively you speak about others, the better you’ll feel about yourself and the people you work with. Try also to be more aware of the desire to gossip with friends or family members rather than strangers. We can all help ourselves be better friends if we have the courage to remind each other to see people’s strengths rather than concentrating on their weaknesses.

As my very wise stepmother reminded me last week, great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about other people.

Have a great week!

Kathleen