Category: Coach’s Challenge

How Quickly We Lose It

Good day, team.

The theme of this week’s challenge is how quickly we can lose our cool in challenging situations.

My husband and I recently took a 10-day vacation to Great Britain. Inspired by our godchildren, who are spending the summer in Europe, we concocted a plan to surprise them in England, in an incredibly beautiful area called the Cotswolds. After a few days in London, we rented a car and took off for our destination, which was a few hours drive from the city.

Thus commenced one of the most trying three hours of our marriage. To start, our motorcar, as the Brits call them, was small, had a standard transmission and very little power. Second, getting into the driver’s seat on the right side of the automobile was disorienting. As we settled into our seats, my husband instructed, “I need you to be the navigator. It’s going to be challenging enough for me to drive on the left side of the road without having to worry about how we get there.” Little did I know how challenging it would be for both of us to fulfill these roles.

Getting onto the motorway was easy enough, although as we approached our first roundabout, trying to remember to stay to the left and watching other cars sail past us on what seemed to be the wrong side of the road gave both of us a hair-raising preview of what was to come.

Once off the main motorway, we drove along country roads that were no more than 9 feet wide, surrounded on both sides by hedgerows that were sometimes 12 feet high. How were we supposed to navigate our way down these roads when we couldn’t see what was coming up or even when another car was approaching from the opposite direction? Each time a car approached, it struck panic in both of us. The amount of jockeying that had to go on in order to pass the other car was a complex set of maneuvers. After both cars came to a screeching halt, we were never quite sure if we should back up, drive forward, move sideways or what. Once we managed to get past another car, I often found an assortment of broken plant matter in my lap from the hedgerow because we usually swiped the hedges in our attempt to get past the opposing traffic.

All this, and I had to navigate as well. Those of you who know me may be thinking, “Never make this woman the navigator.” I am good at a number of things, but navigation is certainly not one of them. I don’t think in terms of direction, and I have a hard time envisioning which direction I’m going at any given time. If the sun’s out, and I can look up and see if it’s not high noon or dark, then I can tell you which way is east or west. That allows me to then determine north and south. But short of that, I am lost.

So I’m in the passenger seat (in what I think should be the driver’s seat) with two maps open on my lap, my cell phone (hoping to use my GPS), the map my husband has copied for me on his iPad and a compass (as a last resort) in my hand. I won’t go into the sordid details, but suffice it to say that after 2½ hours of struggling to read road signs (which were cute but not accurate), trying desperately to figure out where we actually were, and lots of shouting and accusations, eventually we ended up completely lost. As my husband pulled over to the side of the road — a space that could not have been more than 2 feet wide — we realized that this situation had taken us to the limits of our ability to get along. I remember thinking, “I can’t believe I married this guy!”

This was a humbling situation. I saw how quickly I can lose it — even after all the meditation and spiritual work I’ve done over the years. Despite all of my attempts to be more “Buddha-like,” there was definitely no Buddha in the car that day!!

Herein lies this week’s challenge. It’s easy for us to be calm, cool and collected when we’re not feeling challenged. But in situations where our abilities are in question, it’s easy to descend into backup behaviors. How quickly we move into negativity and resentment!

This week, observe how tense situations change your state of mind and actions. What can you do about it? Maybe it’s appropriate to argue and express your thoughts. Or maybe you need to step back a bit. Is it really so important to try and prove your point or convince someone that you’re right and they’re wrong?

When I get angry, I try to breathe through it. This technique helps me have more perspective. That day in the car, however, I couldn’t neutralize my anger. I was completely caught up in trying to defend myself. At one point, I thought, “This is one of those times when I could say something I really don’t mean, and it’s important right now to be aware of what I’m saying.” In the heat of an argument, we often say and do things we regret later. I didn’t want that to happen. Fortunately, my husband and I managed to not do any lasting damage. But I know that a trusting relationship can be threatened pretty quickly by viperous words and actions.

Try stopping in the midst of an argument, if possible. I recall having a heated discussion with a co-worker when suddenly she said, “Wait, let’s stop for a moment. I’m not sure this is worth arguing about.” We just stood there in silence for a few minutes and realized that we were making a mountain out of a mole hill and that trying a different approach in the discussion was going to work much better for both of us.

However you choose, take a look at what happens when feel you need to defend yourself or want to argue your position. Is it worth it? If you do need to express yourself that strongly, are you prepared for the consequences?

As my husband and I continued our journey in the car that day, we reached an intersection that I thought would tell us where we were. There we sat, at a crossroads surrounded by high hedgerows on all sides, without a sign in sight. In complete frustration, I looked at the compass. My next statement truly summed up the entire experience as well as my ineptitude as a navigator: “This must mean that north is west of here!” In disbelief, my husband just shook is head.

This week, do your best to see how you lose it in challenging situations — and if it’s really worth it. And if you never lose it, well, that’s worth looking at too!

Have a good week,

Kathleen

© Copyright 2013 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

Success in Recruiting

Good day, team.

This week’s challenge is about the evolution of the recruiting process and tips for finding a new job — or the right candidate.

Here’s a snippet from a recent Business Insider article, “Moneyball at Work: They’ve Discovered What Really Makes a Great Employee” by Max Nisen:

“Hiring decisions have always been limited to a few imperfect factors, including what appears on a resume and what impression a candidate gives off in an informal interview.

“That’s all changing.

“As Dan Shapero, LinkedIn’s VP of Talent Solutions and Insights puts it, ‘Recruiting has always been an art, but it’s becoming a science.’

“Using new tracking and analytic tools, researchers have learned to value things like adaptability, social and emotional intelligence, resilience and friendliness, as well as raw intelligence.

“Companies are scouring the Internet for data about potential employees’ professional lives, applying the big data technology to years of employee surveys and tests, and even picking up new data from specifically designed games.”

In my years as a recruiter, I always new that a person’s resume only addressed what a person had done with a small indication of how they had done it. It gave me information about someone’s education and the different jobs they’d held. What it didn’t address was who the person was, how they reacted in different situations, what motivated them, what happened to their behavior when they were under pressure, what really engaged them and so on. If I was lucky, I might get a small indication of who a person was at the bottom of their resume if I found a line like this: “Personal Interests — hiking, bird watching and cribbage.” That line provides an opportunity to get into a very different kind of conversation with a candidate. You can learn a lot about someone if you ask why he or she loves to play cribbage. Does he enjoy the competition? Perhaps he likes moving the pegs and counting up his points. Maybe his grandfather taught him how to play and he loved spending that time together. Regardless of what the personal interests were, as a recruiter, I was often relieved to see that line on a resume because it gave me a way to discover something meaningful about the person.

In today’s world, recruiters use all kinds of tools and modes of discovery to find out who someone is and how he or she behaves. Many companies use behavior assessment tools to understand more about candidates’ motivations and preferred behaviors. Having candidates participate in games as part of their interview process gives employers much more information about how someone thinks, reacts and succeeds. Asking candidates to make a live presentation to team members reveals a lot about how they compile information and deliver it to a larger audience.

A company called “Knack” has a variety of games that help companies find the behaviors and personality traits that boost productivity and performance.

“Cognitive ability is a small fraction of what we measure,” says Guy Halfteck, Knack’s CEO. “We measure everything from creative abilities to emotional and social intelligence, to how you think and make decisions … how you interact with emotions, understand emotions, how you learn new information, how curious you are about the world.”

Educational background has always been a key element in hiring decisions. But today, having an advanced degree from an elite university doesn’t mean you’re a shoe-in for the job. It’s not how much you’ve learned that’s important but how agile your mind is and how adaptable you are. It’s the ability to pick things up quickly, to learn on the job and to take initiative. Anyone who can get thrown into a new situation and figure out how to thrive is the candidate companies select.

Resiliency is another factor. It’s the ability to hear “no,” time after time, and still return to try again.

Having strong emotional and social intelligence is also key to anyone’s success, no matter what industry you’re in. I used to tell my candidates, “You may have great ideas, but if you can’t explain why someone needs your ideas or products to succeed, if you can’t sell them, they won’t matter, and neither will you.”

The Business Insider article goes on to address what companies in today’s world are looking for in selected candidates. Here’s a sample:

A diverse background — Exposure to other cultures, languages, customs and traditions far outweighed many other traditional factors such as what college you attended when it came to someone’s success.

Friendliness — Enjoying people is a big factor in service-oriented jobs. Companies have found that when someone is a happy person, other people want to be around them because happy people enjoy sharing their happiness with others. One study done by a movie theatre chain found that the most successful theaters had the happiest employees. They smiled at customers when they came in, talked with them about the movies and made an attempt to emotionally connect with them in a positive way.

Raw processing power — At the end of the day, how sharp you are still matters. Being able to quickly process information and conscientiously apply it is key to anyone’s success. These two aspects of someone’s baseline attributes are an indication of his or her raw potential.

Professional presence — Today, companies expect you to have a professional profile online that exemplifies your professional brand. Most recruiters are looking for passive candidates. That is, people who aren’t actively looking for a job but keep their professional backgrounds updated on sites such as LinkedIn or Vizify. Through research on these sites, recruiters are able to see people’s background details and more — what their interests are, examples of their presentation skills, lines of code they’ve written, software they helped design, their strengths and behavioral styles, etc.

Your challenge this week is to consider your presence in the digital world regarding your personal brand. Do you have an old resume that is outdated? Do you have a LinkedIn profile? Maybe you use other forms of electronic media to let the world know who you are and what you’ve done. Whatever it is, make sure it’s updated and that it addresses the kinds of things that recruiters are looking for in today’s world.

If you’re looking for good candidates, using the old method of poring over stacks of resumes, either on paper or online probably won’t get you great results. Try researching candidates’ backgrounds on the Internet and finding better ways of screening applicants. Work out a set of good behavioral interview questions that you can use to find out more about who your candidates really are and how they act on the job. Investigate companies such as Knack and others that are using games to find out more about how candidates problem solve, think creatively and take initiative.

The recruiting world has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. Many more tools are available to all of us for finding the right candidate or finding the right job. What we used to call “chemistry” between people is still an unpredictable factor, and I suspect someday, someone will find a way to scientifically quantify that element as well. Until then, get smarter about the way you present your professional and personal brand and don’t rely on chemistry or college GPA to get you the job you want.

And when interviewing candidates, make sure you understand who a person is before you hire. It’s often that “who” factor that makes or breaks a person’s ability to be successful in your company.

Note: The coach will be on vacation until July 7, 2013. The next challenge will be published on July 14.

Have a good week,

Kathleen

© Copyright 2013 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

Horse Sense #1 – Dealing With Fear

Good day, team.

Today’s challenge is about fear and what to do about it. It’s also the first of many challenges that I’m categorizing as “horse sense.”

What started out as a way for me to overcome my fear of heights has become a doorway into an entirely new presence in my life: horses. Eighteen months ago, I thought that learning how to ride a horse would help me overcome my fear of heights. When you sit on a horse, you are pretty far off the ground. Not only that, but they move. The idea of combining these two things turned my stomach into knots. Still, for some reason, it seemed like the right antidote for my fear of heights.

Over the past year, I have persevered by attending horse clinics and exposing myself to some calm and friendly horses. Last week, I finally took a leap of faith and leased a horse named “Treasure” for the summer. I’m not quite ready to own a horse (it’s a big commitment and expense), but I realized that if I’m going to learn about natural horsemanship, I needed to have a partner to help me. Treasure is 15½ hands tall. She’s black with brown eyes and has a very sweet disposition. She’s a Tennessee Walker, which means she should be a very smooth ride if I can ever get up enough courage to get on her!

Over the summer, I’ll be writing about the horse sense I’m learning from Treasure and our ongoing experiences with each other. Experts say that a horse mirrors its owner, and if that’s the case, I’m in for a journey of self-realization and reflection as well as some lessons in my limitations.

Yesterday, I went out to the stables where Treasure lives and had my first lesson. I was excited. I got up early and decided I would get to the stables 30 minutes early, put on her halter and take her out of her stall to spend some time getting to know her. I arrived at her stall, halter and lead rope in hand with positive expectations. She immediately stuck her nose through the stall door to greet me. She seemed happy to see me, too. With great confidence, I opened her stall door. As I approached her with the halter, she took a step toward me, stuck her head in my chest and wouldn’t back up. No matter how hard I tried to push her back, she wouldn’t budge. With 1,200 pounds of four-legged animal pressing on me, fear coursed through my body. I quickly removed myself form the stall and shut the gate as quickly as possible. Treasure’s ears pricked up and stretched backward as if to say, “What just happened? I thought we were going to do something fun, and now I’m afraid of you.” I stood outside the stall and looked at her while my heart pounded in my chest.

“I can’t do this,” I thought. “What was I thinking? I’m too afraid to learn how to ride. I’ll never be able to train or ride this horse.” I had to take a walk and settle myself down. After walking nervously around the stables for a while, I approached her stall again. She was still standing where I’d left her. We looked at each other. “Who are you?” she asked. She stomped her foot as if to say, “I want to move my feet, let’s get out of here and go do something.” As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t get up the courage to open the stall door again. I stood there paralyzed.

Pretty soon, an elderly lady walked toward me in the barn. “Hi there,” she said. “How ya doin’?” “I’m scared to death,” I admitted. “I’m brand new to all this, and when I went to halter her earlier, I couldn’t get her to move away from me, and it frightened me so much I just rushed back out of the stall and haven’t been able to get back in since.”

“Well, Treasure sure does love attention,” she explained. We stood in silence for many long minutes as my heart rate settled down. “This will get easier over time,” she reassured me. Then she held out her hand, “My name’s Kathleen,” she said with a broad smile. “Good to meet you.” “Gosh,” I said. “That’s my name, too!” As I shook her hand, I felt the waves of fear begin to disappear. “You know,” she said, “I’m in my 80s, and I’ve been around horses since I was 5 years old. I’ve learned a lot from them over the years. I’ve made lots of mistakes with horses, but I’ve learned that it was usually my fault and not the horse’s. You and Treasure will learn a lot from each other.” I pondered this as we stood in the barn together listening to the horses in their stalls.

Later on during my lesson with Kathleen’s daughter, Debby, my instructor for the summer, I felt my fear ebb and flow. Each time my heart rate speeded up, Treasure seemed more upset, more anxious. Each time I calmed down, so did she. There must be something to this mirror business, I thought.

What did I do in my first lesson? I sat on a half-barrel in the middle of the round pen with a bucket of carrots hidden under my shirt. Treasure ran around and around me until she finally slowed down and came over to check me out. She sniffed me and nudged me a bit with her nose and then just stood there making full eye contact with me. Each time she fully acknowledged me with no fear or anxiety, I gave her a carrot. And each time she took a carrot from my hand, she became a bit more confident, as did I. I didn’t bribe her. I just gave her a treat for treating me the way I wanted her to. I congratulated her for calming down and getting to know me. And she rewarded me by getting over her fear and allowing herself to approach me.

You may be reading this thinking, “What kind of horse riding lesson is that? You just sat in the middle of a pen for an hour and let the horse run around you?” But I can’t begin to explain how important that hour was for me. I’m setting a foundation of trust with my horse, and every little thing that happens between us will be a reflection of many more moments to come. As Debby instructed, “You don’t want any surprises with your horse.” I couldn’t agree more. I also know that if I ever do own a horse, surprises will come. The real question is, how prepared am I when they do come?

This week, notice where your fear comes up and how it impacts those around you. Are you being asked to do something you’ve never done before? Are you feeling paralyzed? Maybe you have to have a difficult conversation with someone, and you’re experiencing a mixture of fear and dread. What are you doing to embrace the fear and then move past it? You could take a walk like I did if the fear becomes too much to contain. Or you could engage in a conversation with someone who can help you see your fears from a different perspective. Perhaps you’re lucky enough to learn from someone who’s dealt with these same fears before and can walk you through steps to help you gain your confidence. Does your fear strike fear in others? How can you help neutralize your own fear so that others around you calm down and see that everything is going to be all right?

I suspect that Treasure and I will learn many valuable lessons from each other as the summer progresses. I’ll share more horse sense with you as I learn it.

As Ray Hunt, the famous horse trainer and natural horsemanship clinician, said, “My goal with the horse is not to beat someone; it’s to win within myself. To do the best job I can do and tomorrow try to do better. You will be working on yourself to accomplish this, not on your horse.”

Have a good week!

Kathleen

© Copyright 2013 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

6/9/13 “Body Language”

Good day, team.

This week’s challenge comes from the New York Times editor, Adam Bryant. Bryant’s column “Corner Office” runs every Friday and Saturday. He also writes a blog where you can read his editorials and make comments.

I’ve been thinking a lot about body language lately, and when my good friend Jan Foster sent me this article, I realized how well it expressed what I’ve been observing in myself and others.

In that vein, today’s challenge is about the messages we send with our expressions and body language in the work environment. This week, become more aware of the impact your body language and facial expressions have on others. See if you can alter them to evoke better responses from your co-workers.

Are You Mad At Me?

“Are you mad at me?” That surprising question packs a powerful lesson.

A colleague I have worked with over the years came up to me in the hallway and asked if we could talk in a conference room. Sure, I said, wondering what was up. We sat down, and the question came out of the blue: “Are you mad at me?” Of course not, I responded immediately, since I had to no reason to be.

I was puzzled, but I realized later what was going on. As an editor, I faced a lot of tight deadlines, and I would often have just a short window to get a story into shape for the next day’s paper. I’m guessing I was thinking hard about some story as I walked through the newsroom one day — probably furrowing my brow, my mind a million miles away — when I briefly locked eyes with my colleague, who was startled enough by my body language to later pull me into a conference room to wonder if the air needed to be cleared between us.

That colleague did me a huge favor because I learned a memorable lesson that day about how people can read so much into subtle, often unintended, cues. From that moment on, I found myself making much more of an effort to be aware of my body language, particularly with the team of reporters I was leading, and to always show energy, confidence and optimism, even if I was on a tight deadline and wrestling with a difficult problem.

Many CEOs have told me similar stories about moments when they realized how much they were, in effect, constantly under the bright lights of a stage, intensely scrutinized by employees who often pay more attention to the nonverbal cues than what their leaders are saying. Do they look concerned? Is something up?

The leader who best crystallized this notion for me was Linda Hudson, the president of BAE Systems. I’ll let her tell the story, which comes from my interview with her a few years ago. I asked her about important leadership lessons she had learned. Here was one of them:

“It was when I first became a company president, and it was the first job where I was truly responsible for the performance of a company. I had mastered the day-to-day mechanics of running organizations. But I don’t think the leadership part of it had settled in quite as profoundly as it did when I took over a company.

“I was the first female president of the General Dynamics Corporation, and I went out and bought my new fancy suits to wear to work and so on. And I’m at work on my very first day, and a lady at Nordstrom’s had showed me how to tie a scarf in a very unusual kind of way for my new suit. And I go to work and wear my suit, and I have my first day at work. And then I come back to work the next day, and I run into no fewer than a dozen women in the organization who have on scarves tied exactly like mine.

“And that’s when I realized that life was never going to be the way it had been before, that people were watching everything I did. And it wasn’t just going to be about how I dressed. It was about my behavior, the example I set, the tone I set, the way I carried myself, how confident I was — all those kinds of things. It really was now about me and the context of setting the tone for the organization.

“That was a lesson I have never forgotten, that as a leader, people are looking at you in a way that you could not have imagined in other roles. And I didn’t see that nearly as profoundly when I was leading a functional organization or a smaller enterprise. But to this day, not only the awareness of that, but the responsibility that goes along with it, is something that I think about virtually every day.”

It’s a challenge that every leader faces. Here’s a smart tip that Jeffrey Swartz, the former CEO of Timberland, told me he learned from his father:

“I remember him saying, ‘Pick a face. If you want to be serious, then you have to be serious all the time. Because if you’re serious one day and happy the next, people will be confused. They won’t be able to figure out where you’re coming from and that’ll be threatening.’”

Pick a face. Ever since that colleague asked me the surprising question about whether I was angry, I’ve tried to pick a face — no more furrowed brows — and be consistent. If leaders are consistent, then their employees can spend more time focusing on their work, and less time searching for clues in the boss’s body language.

***

This week, try “picking a face” that is appropriate for your situation. I don’t think this suggestion was meant to imply that you should only have one expression all the time but that finding the right face for a particular situation is important for sending the right message to your team members. Try noticing how other people’s expressions change when you talk with them. Often, they will imitate what they see on your face. So if someone starts furrowing their brow when you’re speaking to them, check it to see if you’re also furrowing your brow. Perhaps you’re smiling while someone is speaking to you about a difficult situation. This makes it look as though you’re laughing at them or not taking them seriously. Or maybe you often roll your eyes when you’re frustrated and you didn’t even realize it.

Whatever the case may be, pay attention to your own expressions or body language first and see if you can adjust them so they appropriately convey your attention, your concern or your levity. Have the presence and confidence to convey the right message and not one that’s mixed up and confusing to others.

Have a good week!

Kathleen
© Copyright 2013 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

6/2/13 “Birthday”

Good day team,

In honor of my birthday this past weekend, I am celebrating by sharing one of my favorite poems with you. I hope you enjoy it!

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you have ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

~ Derek Walcott

Have a good week!

Kathleen

© Copyright 2013 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

5/19/13 “Bullies”

Good day, team.

The coach’s challenge this week is about dealing with bullies in the workplace. Prompted by a request from a client to write about this subject, I am re-publishing the challenge dated 7/23/2006. It is a applicable today as it was then.

First, let’s define what constitutes bullying behavior at work. Here’s the definition of “workplace bullying” from Wikipedia:

Workplace bullying, just like childhood bullying, is the tendency of individuals or groups to use aggressive or unreasonable behavior to achieve their ends. When perpetrated by a group, it is often called “mobbing.” Unlike the more physical form of schoolyard bullying, workplace bullies often operate within the established rules and policies of their organization and their society. For instance, a workplace bully might use the office’s “rumor mill” to circulate a lie about a co-worker. An employee who dislikes a co-worker for personal reasons may incessantly criticize everything that co-worker does. Such actions are not necessarily illegal and may not even be against the firm’s regulations. However, the damage they cause, both to the targeted employee and to workplace morale, is obvious.

According to the *Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute (WBTI), workplace bullying is “the repeated mistreatment of one employee targeted by one or more employees with a malicious mix of humiliation, intimidation and sabotage of performance.”

“Statistics show that bullying is three times as prevalent as illegal discrimination and at least 1,600 times as prevalent as workplace violence. Statistics also show that while only one employee in every 10,000 becomes a victim of workplace violence, one in six experiences bullying at work. Bullying is also far more common than sexual harassment and verbal abuse.”

Following is a list of common tactics of workplace bullies listed by the WBTI:

“Constant criticism. Bullies attempt to undermine the target’s self-confidence. By exaggerating the target’s mistakes, bullies intend to make the target look incompetent in the eyes of co-workers, make their own work look better by comparison or divert attention from their own mistakes. Often, bullies will expand their criticism to the target’s private and social life. Since criticism can become habitual, the target will be criticized by the bully no matter how well the target performs.

Isolation. This tactic used by bullies is intended to separate the target from the workplace’s social circles and information networks. Cut off from all social and business interaction, the target is more vulnerable to threats and verbal assaults. Bullies then take a “divide and conquer” approach.

Monopolizing. Bullies try to work their way into a position in which they are the only source of certain supplies or information. The target is thus given a choice between submitting to the bully or doing without necessary facts and supplies. In this scenario, a target gets what he or she needs only if the bullies get what they want.

Gossip. Gossiping is perhaps the most common tactic of workplace bullying. Simply put, bullies start a rumor about the target. As the rumor moves through the workplace, the target becomes the object of suspicion. Since bullies often control the target’s contact with co-workers, the target has no way of knowing what’s being said behind his or her back. Co-workers who have little contact with or were hired after the target may make judgments based on a bully’s gossip rather than by the target’s performance. By spreading rumors about the target, bullies are turning co-workers against that person. This is a form of mobbing.

False documentation. Also known as “ghost gripe,” many bullies find this to be an effective tool. Bullies claim that complaints have been filed about the target’s behavior or performance. Next, they will either fabricate an incident or misdocument a real event to place the blame on the target. The bullies then will refuse to identify the complainants, citing the company’s confidentiality policy and saying that they want to prevent retaliation. In reality, the bullies are preventing the target from investigating the complaint and disproving the allegations. The bullies use the company’s policies to achieve control over their co-workers. Countless targets have been disciplined and even fired over ghost gripes. False documentation is most common in companies that do not have at-will hiring and firing policies, since the manager must give a valid reason for firing employees he personally dislikes.

Stealing the credit. Bullies commonly use this tactic. Bullies place themselves in a position to claim credit for a target’s efforts and ideas. The target is unable to document his or her efforts, so the bullies get the rewards and the target is stuck with all of the work.

Verbal abuse. Bullies often use language to attack the target personally. Verbal abuse includes—but is by no means limited to—profanity, shouting and racial or ethnic slurs. It can consist of giving the target a disrespectful nickname or subjecting him or her to a constant stream of insults.

Passive aggression. Lazy bullies can be passive aggressive. By leaving certain jobs undone or incomplete, they force the target to do their work for them. Also, if they discover behaviors that irritate the target, they will be certain to repeat those behaviors until the target loses his or her temper, thus giving the target an undeserved reputation for violent behavior. Procrastination is a common form of passive aggression.

Sexual harassment. Bullies also commonly use this tactic.

Violence. As a last resort, bullies may turn to violence. Unlike schoolyard bullying, surprisingly little workplace bullying involves physical violence. Since violence is illegal, such behavior will usually cost the bully his job and perhaps his freedom. While violence makes headlines, most other acts of workplace bullying aren’t considered newsworthy. Thus, the public is frightened by stories of violence in the workplace while the causes of the violence are ignored.

Note that bullies seldom rely on just one tactic. Most have learned to combine several different tactics in an organized assault on the target. For instance, many bullies will effectively combine isolation and gossip.

Here are some common mistakes made by management:

Appeasement. Managers commonly try to appease the bullies they are dealing with. This approach assumes that the bullies’ aggressive behavior will cease when they are given what they desire. History has proven this approach to be counterproductive. People who use aggression to satisfy their desires have no logical reason to stop being aggressive. They may calm down for a while when given what they want, but they will resume and possibly escalate their aggressive behavior when they want something else.

Blaming both parties. When a manager blames both parties involved, the manager punishes the bullies for aggression but also punishes the target for failing to get along with the bully. The manager ignores the possibility that the bullies are purely to blame.

Blaming the target. This mistake is even more serious. Instead of acting against the bullies, the manager may simply order the target to stop complaining. If the target continues to complain about the bullies’ behavior, the manager will discipline the target and may even come to the bullies’ defense. Thus the target is made to suffer twice, once at the hands of the bullies and once at the hands of management.

Ignoring the issue. Sometimes management is deluded into believing that problems will vanish if the bullies’ behavior is ignored. Thus the bullies go unpunished. Bullies who go unpunished have no logical reason to relent. Their aggressive behavior will continue and may even escalate to physical violence. This approach involves wishful thinking on the part of the manager.

Emphasizing teamwork and ignoring individual effort. This mistake plays into the bullies’ hands. Often, the target is a creative, productive individual whose ideas work. In today’s workplace, the emphasis is on team effort. Management tends to dislike subordinates who think for themselves, regardless of how good their ideas are. This makes it easy for bullies to accuse the target of “not being a team player.” ”

Your challenge this week is to ask yourself if you can identify any type of bullying behavior within your environment and if you’re willing to deal with it. More important, ask yourself if you manage others by bullying them or if you’re making some of the common mistakes management makes in dealing with workplace bullies.

Each of us has a responsibility to create an atmosphere in the workplace that is free of hostility. We do this by adhering to the human resource policies that are already in place in our companies or, if they don’t exist, by creating good, sound policies that are very clear about which behaviors are acceptable in our work environment and which are not. As managers, we need to work together to ensure that the workplace is safe, not just physically, but also emotionally.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

For more information about workplace bullying, please go to http://www.workplacebullying.org/

© Copyright 2013 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

Facing Your Fears

Good day, team.

Today is Mother’s Day, and in honor of the day, I want to share a wonderful piece of writing that my stepdaughter Sari, shared on Facebook recently. It was written by her friend Angela Schuler. Sometimes the very thing we fear most happens and changes everything. I am grateful to Angela for her heartfelt and honest message and to Sari, my stepdaughter for sharing it.

“Before I had my children, I never wanted children. I also was frightened by other people’s children. I knew they were smarter than me and would see right through my insecurities and blurt them all out to everyone in their precious, honest-to-a-fault little voice! Man, I’m glad my life isn’t up to me! I started to transform into the person I should have always been once Linc came along—not while I was pregnant with him (I was still petrified) but the second he was born. I could feel it happening. People who had been around me before and after commented on it, and all I could say was, “I love being a mom.” It wasn’t what I wanted, but it turns out it was what I wanted. The movie “Waitress” with Keri Russell shows my transformation in movie form. Just take out the affair, the deadbeat husband and the pie-making skills.

These three amazing people that live in my house and depend on me, I have no doubt, they are my angels. Happy Mother’s Day. “

This week, think about how your fears hold you back from experiences you might actually want. Try stepping out of your comfort zone for 20 seconds to do something completely different, out of character or frightening. Maybe say something to a work associate you’ve always wanted to say but have been too afraid. How about standing up and speaking out in a group, when normally you would sit quietly? Perhaps call a relative and have that conversation you’ve always avoided. Or maybe find a way to approach a homeless person on the street, look them sincerely in the eye and ask if you can help them.

Whatever the scary thing is, see what happens when you jump into it rather than avoid it. You may discover, like Angela did, that it wasn’t what you wanted, but it turns out it was what you wanted.

Life offers us gifts in so many ways, and we often get in the way of receiving them. In Angela’s case, she was moved out of the way of her fears, and it brought her three children and more joy and happiness than she could have ever imagined.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

© Copyright 2013 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

Blindspots

Good day, team.
A former client of mine sent me an article this week about our blind spots — character traits or personal behaviors we don’t see but that show up in our interactions with others. This week’s challenge is about being willing to see our blind spots and what to do about them once we see them.
When I took my training to become a coach, I was introduced to one of my major blinds spots: I often interrupted people when they were speaking. I did this in a variety of ways. I interrupted them mid-sentence to express what I thought about their subject matter, I finished their sentences for them, and I sometimes asked them a question while they were still talking. This behavior was definitely not appropriate for coaching someone and, I painfully discovered, was extremely irritating to my friends and family who had been putting up with it for years.
Once I got over the embarrassment of having this behavior pointed out to me, I began to observe what was happening to me when I interrupted someone.
First, I was more prone to interrupt someone if I was really engaged in what they were saying. Getting excited about the subject matter raised the energy in my body. My heart would beat faster, and I felt the excitement of connecting with an idea or having thoughts quickly come to my mind. I had to do something with all that energy, so words would come out of my mouth before they were supposed to, often right in the middle of another person’s sentence.
Second, somehow I thought I knew exactly what other people were talking about, so I finished their sentences for them. This became such a habit that I found people I often talked with just naturally allowed me to finish their sentences.
Third, I was clueless to the reaction people had to my interruptions. I was usually so absorbed in what I was saying that I would miss their reaction. This kept my blind spot fully intact. I was missing all of their “this really irritates me” signals. I had no reason to change my behavior if I wasn’t aware of how irritating it was to others.
When I became certified in the Goldsmith stakeholder coaching program recently, I realized the importance of having others give us feedback so we have an opportunity to observe our blindspots. At the heart of this coaching model is the participation of the stakeholder, and that’s why it’s so successful. It’s the people you ask to observe your behaviors and give you constant feedback — or as Marshall Goldsmith calls it, “feed forward” — that make this coaching model so useful.
With this method (if you have the courage to do it), you ask your stakeholders to tell you if you’re using the behaviors you want to use to improve or if you’re still stuck in your blind spot behaviors. In my case, I asked my stakeholders to observe whether I was still interrupting them, and they had my permission and encouragement to tell me when I was. In the spirit of feed forward, they could also give me ideas for what I could do going forward to change this blind spot behavior.
I have a clear memory of the first time my coaching professor observed my interrupting behavior in front of the rest of the class. I was so embarrassed and humiliated. To make matters worse, within my body I felt like someone had just taken all the wind out of my sails. All that energy that was enthusiastic about what the other person was saying was stopped dead in its tracks, and I was left to wallow in it as it slowly dissipated.
I weakly asked, how do I stop this and what do I do with all this energy? What do I do instead? The teacher was smart enough to ask my fellow classmates. Many of them chimed in with great suggestions, and I realized that by being vulnerable and willing to listen, I got some very sincere and great suggestions:
“Try being present to your breathing while the other person is talking, and when the desire to speak arises, breathe your way through it until the person is done speaking.”
“Sit on one of your hands or put your hand in your pocket as soon as the other person starts to speak. Don’t allow yourself to say anything or move your hand until the person is done speaking.”
“Listen to your voice when you speak. Is it high and excited sounding? Or does it sound like it’s coming from deeper within you, from your belly rather than your throat? Try hearing the difference in tone, and when you do speak to someone, try speaking from your belly. You may find that speaking from there allows you to control the urge to interrupt and slows you down enough to catch yourself from interrupting.”
I was humbled by the sincerity of their suggestions. Everyone could see that we all have blind spots, and mine weren’t any better or worse than anyone else’s. And when they were caught in their own blind spots, I greatly wanted to help them see their behavior and find good ways to change it.
All of this encouraged me to ask for more feedback and suggestions. As painful as it was to receive it, I knew that this was where I really needed to do my work — in the places where I was most blind.
This week, have the courage to ask some of your stakeholders (the people who see your behaviors daily) what behaviors they see you doing that are not helpful or useful. Ask them how you could change your behaviors to better suit the situation and be more appropriate.
Maybe you get immediately defensive when someone gives you constructive feedback and say things like, “I do not” or “You’re mistaken.” This certainly won’t encourage the person to continue to offer suggestions. Maybe you’re someone who talks too much. Try becoming more aware of how people react to you in the moment. Do you notice that people stop listening to you while you are talking? How about the blind spot of always playing the role of the devil’s advocate? Do you find that you almost always disagree with what’s being said just to make sure the other side is heard? Or maybe you want people to see how smart you are by raising the other perspective? Sometimes this behavior can be useful and sometimes not — it all depends on the situation. But if you always do it, chances are there’s a blind spot there. Here are two more of my favorites: acting as the class clown or the cynic. Do you frequently use humor to buffer situations, even at the expense of others? Or are you the one who often makes a cynical comment, particularly when someone in the room is excited or hopeful about the work he or she is doing? One client of mine told me he was afraid to go into meetings with his boss. He seemed so mild mannered and polite with everyone most of the time, but occasionally, his boss would make a snide remark to someone in a meeting. It was so out of character that no one was even sure if he’d actually said it — except for the person he made the snide remark to. They never forgot it.
The best part about asking others to help us increase our self-awareness is in their sincere responses. We all know we need help, and it’s the loving kindness in us that wants to serve each other in the best way we can. When someone sincerely asks for help seeing their blindspots, we are more than willing to assist. It’s like seeing a blind person trying to cross a busy intersection, would we just allow them to walk into the street without trying to help them cross it?
Have a good week!

Kathleen

Many thanks to Christian Buschow for sending me this blog entry about blind spots. Here’s the link: http://aslantraining.com/blog/what-does-your-sign-say.

4/28/13 “Learning”

Good day, team.

Over the past few months, I’ve been participating in a number of different coaching training and certification processes. My experience in these classes has reminded me how important it is to understand how we learn best — and this is the subject of this week’s challenge.

Research has uncovered three major types of learning styles. Auditory learners enjoy learning through hearing. They would rather listen to a subject being explained than read about it. Reciting information out loud and having music in the background while studying or reading is common for these learners.

Visual learners prefer to see examples of what they are learning. They learn best by looking at graphics, watching a demonstration or reading. For these people, it’s easy to look at graphs and charts, but they may have difficulty concentrating while listening to an explanation.

Kinesthetic learners learn by touch. These people enjoy hands-on experiences. Doing an activity can be the easiest way for them to learn. Sitting still while studying can be difficult, but writing things down makes it easier to understand.

It’s certainly possible for a person to learn through all of these methods, but many find that one is preferable. For example, I can’t concentrate when there’s a lot of background noise. I find it difficult to listen to music, for example, while reading a book. On the other hand, if someone is teaching me something and explaining it to me while giving me a visual representation of the subject, I learn far more easily.

Last week, while sitting in a training class, I noticed that the gentlemen sitting next to me was a very different learner than I am. The trainer presented the information in a number of different ways. First, she explained what she was trying to teach us. Then she gave each table of five participants an opportunity to do some activity that taught us the material. After that, we shared our experiences, and the teacher finished by walking us through the written material in our manual.

I definitely learned more by participating with the group at the table. The activity gave us an opportunity to experiment with what the trainer had presented and to learn it by doing it. I was least interested in the last part when she referenced the manual and walked us through the written descriptions.

On the other hand, the gentleman next to me made very detailed notes when the trainer first introduced the subject. His handwriting was small and neatly placed in his notebook. When it came time for group participation, he was quiet and didn’t seem very interested in participating. But when the trainer referenced the manual, he took out his yellow highlighter and highlighted the parts he found most important. Another woman at our table talked more than the rest of us during the group activity, and when we reviewed the manual, she spent her time texting. Still another person at our table seemed anxious for the trainer to move along at a faster pace and had trouble paying attention.

These observances showed me just how differently we all learn. I realized how important it is to understand what particular style works best for each of us individually. For example, I am a visual and kinesthetic learner. I often think in pictures, and the best way for me to learn something is to try it. I’m not afraid to jump right in because I believe that it’s not until you’re actually doing something that you can learn it on all levels. If I have to sit through PowerPoint presentations with more than three bullets per slide or a presentation that’s more than six pages long, I have trouble paying attention. If someone puts a spreadsheet up on the screen, I’m bored, regardless of how important the information might be. On the other hand, if someone demonstrates what the spreadsheet represents or tells me an interesting story about the information, then I can begin to learn it.

The gentleman in my class who wrote everything down is obviously not a kinesthetic learner. He found participating in our table experiments and exercises difficult, and he much preferred to read the information and pick out the specific parts he found relevant. The woman at our table who talked a lot needed to engage with the group and ask questions. She seemed to be an auditory learner and wasn’t distracted by other teams in the room or incoming text messages.

The week, observe how you like to learn. Watch your teammates in meetings and see if you can determine how they like to learn. Maybe one of them has to frequently repeat what someone else has said in order to get it. Or maybe someone on your team loves to take notes and refer to them often until he or she fully understands what’s being presented.

Do you prefer visual presentations of a topic more than reading about it in a manual? Perhaps you are like me and prefer to plunge right in before reading the manual. Maybe you like listening to audio recordings, podcasts, webinars and lectures. Or maybe you find that the tactile method of hands-on learning in labs, workshops or participatory classes works best.

Acknowledging how you like to learn can save you an enormous about of time and energy when it comes to learning something new. Don’t be afraid to let the people around you know how you like to learn. If you love to learn through visuals such as movies, presentations or whiteboards, tell your boss, your teacher and your other associates. Knowing this about you will help them decide which learning format is the one you thrive in.

Whatever your preferred style, try to create situations for learning that are enjoyable.

As Confucius advised, “He who learns but does not think is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”

Have a good week!

Kathleen

© Copyright 2013 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.