Good day, team,

This week I’m inspired by the following quote from Harry Overstreet: “The very essence of all power to influence lies in getting the other person to participate. The mind that can do that has a powerful leverage on his human world. What’s the best way to get others to participate? Participate yourself.”

I’ve been talking with some of my clients about what makes people participate with each other in the work place*. The consensus is that our willingness to engage and actively work with others encourages them to do the same. No manager or leader can afford to tell people what to do from a distance. It’s imperative that the people who work for you see you actively engaged in their business and their challenges.

Ford was the first automaker to use assembly lines to produce automobiles. You can imagine how hesitant the plant workers were to try something so revolutionary. Within the first few days of production, Henry Ford was out on the floor, showing his employees how the assembly line worked and how he was adapting to this new way of doing things. He wasn’t afraid to make mistakes, and he appeared to be truly enjoying the experience. He was an active role model.

We strongly influence others when we show our willingness to be open-minded, open-hearted, and willing to engage at any level. And besides motivating others, there are two more reasons for getting into the trenches with your team members: You find out what the work is really about and you learn what your customers are saying. Ultimately, we all are in the customer service business. We need to hear what our customers are saying, what they’re experiencing, what they need, and whether they’re satisfied to stay on top of our business.

Your challenge this week is to actively engage with people you work with at all levels. Take a cue from Henry Ford: find out exactly what people are doing and try it yourself. They will appreciate your engagement, and you might just learn something valuable about your customers.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

* Special thanks to Howard Eaton, Customer Service Manager at Wells Fargo Bank in Des Moines, for encouraging me to send this challenge out this week.

Good day, team,

Tomorrow is officially the beginning of summer and if you haven’t already scheduled some leisure time, it’s a good time to do so. In light of this, the coach’s challenge this week comes from the subject of fishing. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how fishing is a good metaphor for life*. Your challenge this week is to read the following observations and see how these fishy truths relate to your work, your life, and your leisure time.

� “Go where the fish are. Once when I was fishing, I kept getting my line caught in an overhead tree, which prompted my partner to remind me, ‘You’re not going to catch many fish in a tree.’ The same goes for business or any other enterprise – you’ve got to go where the fish are if you hope to be successful.”

� “You don’t have to like to eat fish to like to catch them. And vice versa, I suppose. Some of the best fishermen I’ve known couldn’t stand to eat fish. Which illustrates a truism: that the chase is often much more rewarding than the catch. ”

� “Fishing has entered our language in ways that don’t have anything to do with fish. We fish for compliments. We fish around for information. We bait an opponent in a debate. We lure someone into an argument. We toss out a line in a speech. We are told to fish or cut bait when we need to make a commitment. We bite, or fall for things hook, line, and sinker.”

� “Fishing probably does not teach another virtue very well – telling the truth. The fish get bigger and more abundant the more their stories are told. Possibly that’s because fisherman have to be so optimistic by nature that they begin believing what they wish to be true.”

� “There are scenic spots all over the world [in which] to experience fly fishing, but we have to make the effort and spend the money to get there. It is easier to just stay where we are, and fish the places that we know, rather than take the risk and invest the resources in new adventures. In life, as in fishing, sometimes we need to get our of our comfort zones and expand our horizons.”

� “If something is suspicious, dubious, or shady, why is it considered fishy? Maybe because it smells.”

And finally

� “If people fished more and complained less, it would be a better world.”

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

* Special thanks to Glen Dromgoole and his book, “I’d Rather Be Fishing: Some of Life’s Lessons Can Be Learned With a Fishing Pole,” for his insights.

Good day, team,

The coach’s challenge this week is about engaging in your work and finding the energy with which to do it. Studies show that the average person puts only between 25 percent to 40 percent of available energy and ability into his or her work.

This percentage may be shocking, but time and time again, studies show that we could all improve our level of engagement on the job. There’s nothing more gratifying than working for or with someone who’s energized and always ready, willing and able to serve the customer. Each of us struggles with the same things: how to get all the work done, how to think of new and better ways to do things, how to improve our performance, etc. But when it comes to figuring out how to increase our energy on the job, we often fall short of solutions.

Here are some ways to increase your level of engagement and help your team do the same.
1) Get involved in the activities in front of you. Be present for what you’re doing in the moment.
2) Take ownership for your responsibilities and results.
3) Know where you have power and where you don’t. Stay involved where you can make the greatest difference and are most empowered.
4) Keep your network alive and well. Know who you’re affiliated with and continue to keep the energy flowing between you.
5) Understand what you’re most competent at. Leverage your strengths and don’t be afraid to face your weak spots.
6) Give yourself credit for your achievements. Find ways to reward yourself for a job well done.
7) Don’t be afraid to ask for recognition or to give it. Simply recognizing where we add value is often its own reward.
8) Make the connection between what you do and who you are. A job that has no meaning for you is the wrong job.

When managing teams, you can increase energy and engagement by giving your team the authority to make decisions and act upon them. Don’t forget to recognize all the different phases the team is going through, regardless of how smooth things are. Be alert to signs that the team needs additional coaching when times are tough. When things are going well, let everyone be involved in the rewards and recognition. Team members usually know better than anyone else what motivates them.

Try increasing your energy level this week by using some of these suggestions to re-engage in your work. In the words of Harry S. Truman, “I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work.”

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

The coach’s challenge for this week is to pick your battles wisely. In our determination to prove ourselves “right,” we often lose our ability to see the big picture, and in turn lose sight of our ultimate goal. That is, we may win the argument, but lose our way in the meantime. I remember my high school debate coach saying, “If you use all your energy to win one argument, you may run out of resources for the rest of the competition. It may also be the wrong argument to sacrifice to the competition, and in the end, you will have won the battle, but lost the war.”

Each day at work, we face many challenges and opportunities with our fellow team members. Sometimes we find ourselves arguing about different ways to do things, or we become irritated because we think someone is doing something wrong. It’s our natural instinct to try to correct mistakes. This often leads us to compete or lobby for what we think is right. But do we consider the ultimate price we pay just to be right? Are we distancing ourselves from our team members as we try to prove something to others?

Focus this week on where you’re currently engaged in battle with someone or something at work. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What am I really fighting for?
2. What am I trying to prove or win?
3. How does this altercation relate to the overall goals we have for our team?
4. If I win this battle, does it get me closer to achieving my ultimate aim?
5. How can I think about this differently, so that my actions are more proactive and less confrontational?
6. What can I do to neutralize this situation rather than escalate it?
7. Try considering other approaches that may be much more beneficial in the long run. Sometimes not engaging in something that we feel strongly about requires much more effort that allowing ourselves to fight for what we think is important. In the end, it’s the consistent stride that wins the race.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

The coach’s challenge this week is about sending out mixed messages. Last week, I was coaching one of my clients who is a manager. He is struggling because he has to deliver a new program that his boss just told him about. This program entails changing many of the ways his team has been doing things, and he knows they are going to resist these changes. He also knows that two years ago, the company tried putting this same program in place. At that time, it didn’t work, and the manager had to try extra hard to fix the damage that the program caused.

On top of all of this, he knows that his current boss hasn’t fully bought into the program either. Though his boss said, “This is the new program we’ll be rolling out, and I want you to get buy-in from your team and make sure it happens,” the manager’s intuition told him that his boss really wasn’t behind it and wasn’t convinced it would work. (Research shows that listeners interpret only about seven percent of a message through words. For the other 93 percent, they are relying on demeanor, gestures, tone of voice and other nonverbal clues.)

What usually happens next in this situation is that the manager then delivers another mixed message to the team members. Now they have the same problem: Do we trust the words or the underlying, contradictory impression?

How can we avoid such situations? We have to go back to the source of the mixed message. The responsibility lies with the boss who delivered it in the first place. By failing to acknowledge his own mixed feelings about the program, the boss started a chain of communication that people couldn’t trust.

Rather than simply delivering the “party line,” the boss could have acknowledged that he is not completely sold on the program, but will make an effort to get behind it and hopes that his managers and their team members will do the same. That way, he’s delivering the message but also being frank about his contradictory feelings. People are far more willing to support someone whom they believe is describing the full picture.

The manager could also have pushed back on his boss by being honest with him, saying, “I know you want me to buy in to this program, but frankly, we have tried it once before. It didn’t work, and I’m skeptical about trying it again.” At least then the manager has been true to his feelings, and even if he can’t change the rollout of the program, he can ask his boss for suggestions on how to deliver the message.

People are far more perceptive than we imagine them to be. If you often send out mixed messages, your team will begin suspect you even when your actions and words align with your feelings.

This week, try matching your words more closely to what you’re really thinking and feeling. Even if we can’t say exactly what those thoughts or feelings are-since professional behavior needs to be ethical and well-balanced-we can tell the truth more often by acknowledging what is really happening, instead of pretending that it’s not.

Have a great week!
Kathleen

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 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 day, team,

The coach’s challenge for this week is to refrain from gossiping and spreading rumors. I don’t think we gossip intentionally. My observation is that it tends to “happen to us.” That is, we hear or see something about someone else that we think is odd, or creates an emotional reaction in us, or is inconsistent with our values, and we feel compelled to share it with a third party whom we think wants to hear about it. If we are lucky enough to remember how painful it is to discover that someone is gossiping or spreading rumors about us, we may refrain from sharing this information with another. But, unfortunately, we usually don’t think about what we’re doing, and we go ahead and speak negatively about someone else.

Now the receivers of the gossip are in a tough position. If they’re trying to behave impeccably, they may remind us that gossip never benefits anyone or simply not at all. All too often, they may agree and then become gossipers themselves to yet another person.

It’s hard to remember that all rumors start with one person, but it’s true. A rumor can spread like a virus throughout an organization within minutes. Ironically, as a rumor spreads, the initial story gets changed many times over in the telling, and the rumor may end up being more untrue than accurate. A person’s reputation can be greatly impacted in a matter of moments when a rumor about her or him is spread throughout a team. An entire organization can suffer for months when a rumor starts and people become distracted by the story being spread around. Look at what happens to the stock market when rumors spread about a company’s earnings.

Observe your own behavior this week around gossip and rumors. How often do you make negative comments to your team members about other people in your organization? Ask yourself if what you’re about to tell someone else is really important for that person to know. Will it negatively impact another? Do you feel good about what you’re saying about another person? Would you want someone to say those things about you? Do you hear yourself repeating what may be an embellishment or inaccurate story about someone or an event? Are you trying to behave impeccably?

Will Rogers wrote, “So live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.” Try to say only what you mean. Avoid using words to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.

Use the power of your words to support the truth about and appreciation of others. Then you will speak with integrity.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

The coach’s challenge this week is about abundance. Look around you. What do you see? Do you have everything you need? Do you have everything you want? What is the difference? Are you grateful for what you have, or do you find yourself constantly longing for what you don’t?

Recently, I’ve been reading a book about life in the slums of Bombay, India. Most of the people in this book live in small, handmade huts on the outskirts of the city. They own a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a cup, a plate, a fork and a mat to sleep on. (And these are the lucky ones!) I am amazed at how happy these people are and how they experience abundance in their lives. They are grateful for the smallest things, because they have so little. I’m also reading a book about a young girl who was born into a family of billionaires and has all she’s ever wanted. Her life is characterized by continual displeasure with everyone and everything around her. The contrast between the two stories is obvious: Abundance is not about having more and more things, but about our attitude toward the things we have.

We live in a world of enormous wealth and consumerism. The selection of products is overwhelming at times. Do you ever find yourself in the store unable to decide among the 30 brands of laundry detergent on the shelf? I often think that the time I spend analyzing which brand to buy is worth far more to me than any benefit I might derive from saving money or getting better quality with the “right” choice. I have found that I’m actually happier if I have a more limited selection. Faced with too many options, I chafe for what isn’t available, and then I’m dissatisfied with what is.

Cultivating an awareness of our surroundings is one of the best ways to experience abundance. Right now, we are enjoying the explosion of springtime. Even in colder climates, the geese are migrating back to their northern climates and small buds are beginning to appear on the trees. Each of us can experience the abundance of spring, but only if we take the time to see it, smell it, touch it. Maybe we are even grateful for some aspect of our indoor environment: the chair we sit in at work or a new pen that someone has given us. Perhaps we have bought ourselves a new shirt or sweater, and we appreciate how well it fits or how nice the cloth feels on our skin. The next time you laugh with a friend or team member, try experiencing the abundance of being rich in relationships.

When we feel abundant, we tend to attract abundance. When we cultivate an attitude of scarcity, our minds focus on what we don’t have, and in turn, we attract less of what we need and want. Try finding something in your environment this week that makes you truly grateful. Experience how happy and abundant this appreciation makes you feel; enjoy life as William Blake expressed it in “Auguries of Innocence.”

“To see a World in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.”

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

The coach’s challenge this week is about not being afraid to lead. In thinking about this subject, I remembered a defining moment in my own life, when I was elected president of my eighth grade class. It was a hard campaign against the star quarterback of our junior high school, and I won by only two votes (one of which was mine, of course).

But the evening after the election I began to wonder what I was supposed to do next. Campaigning was something I had learned how to do well and for which I had a natural talent. I was able to persuade others to my point of view about a new menu for the school cafeteria. I managed to get different cliques within the school to come together and vote for issues they shared, rather than disagreed upon. I rallied for the school choir when it was threatened with extinction and found a new source of funding to keep it alive. I had no problem speaking in front of the student body about issues that mattered, and I was able to create a win-win spirit within the crowd to get projects initiated. The campaign had been about selling, persuading and winning. But what was I supposed to do now? When I presented my father with this conundrum, he counseled me, “Don’t be afraid to lead. You’ve earned it.”

Truth be told, I was afraid to lead. It wasn’t that I was afraid to tell others what to do or to act as the representative for the student body. The real truth was that I was afraid to be wrong. How could I lead others if my decisions were unpopular? It was easy for me to encourage others to cooperate, but what would I do if, after getting others to buy in, I didn’t always get the best results? How could I be the leader if I led others in the wrong direction?

Looking back, I understand that leadership is not about being right or wrong, but much more about being courageous enough to continue on your course even in the face of adversity. Leadership involves remembering past mistakes as well as analyzing what’s happening today and then adjusting one’s vision. Someone once told me, “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” The best leaders stay the course, even in light of diverse opinions. Surprisingly, I learned that people like to be led. They are relieved when given direction. It motivates them to move toward a common goal.

I encourage each of you this week to “be the leader you have already become.” Don’t be afraid to stand out in the crowd and direct others to move in the best direction. We embody years of experience and understanding that make up the foundation we stand upon when we lead. Don’t let self-doubt fool you into thinking that the leadership role you’ve attained hasn’t been won by hard work, vigilance and the ability to inspire others.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
2839 NE Hoyt Street
Portland, Oregon 97232
(503) 296-9249