Category: Executive Leadership

The Benefits of Scenario Planning

Good day, team.

This week’s challenge comes from the Harvard Business Review blog. It is written by Grant McKracken, a research affiliate at MIT and author of “Chief Culture Officer” and “Culturematic.”

In his blog post “Every Company Should Build a Second Corporation,” from Friday July 6, McKracken suggests that while companies need to keep doing what they’re doing to win business and be successful, they also need to create a second company that is always looking at worlds that may be in the future and designing ways to best survive different scenarios. It’s like having a scout who’s out in front of you always looking for the best path ahead.

Here’s the post in its entirety:

“All winners lose. The market leader is a dead man walking. The incumbent is cursed with inevitable failure. That seems to be the prevailing sentiment among many in the investment and journalism worlds: The smart money, they argue, bets against the incumbent. Their surmise: The world will change. The reigning corporation will fail to adjust. The right thing to do? Short them (assume that their share price will fall). Short the winners. Bet against those who flourish. Because all winners must lose, and sooner than we think.

“I have heard this argument before, but for the first time I am hearing it argued as something unobjectionably and manifestly true. At some point in the past 10 years, ‘short the incumbent’ had gone from being a daring proposition to received wisdom. There is evidence, to be sure. Of the top 25 corporations listed in Fortune in 2000, only 12 were still there in 2010. Let’s put this another way: In the decade between 2000 to 2010, half the winners lost.

“And the structural factors are clear enough. The world is changing more quickly. Black swans are multiplying. Disruption is everywhere. The incumbent can end up failing dazed and confused.

“Success makes the corporation believe it has got things right. So change feels like self-betrayal. The competition forces a new business model. So change feels like a tumult. The new market often forces a move from a premium price position to a commodity one. So change feels like a giveaway. Adapting to change feels just plain wrong.

“But the market has spoken. It’s telling us we have a systematic problem. It’s time for a systematic solution. We cannot nickel and dime our way out of this one. We need a big, bold answer. Assuming, that is, that we want to escape the curse of the incumbent.

“My version of this answer — and I am sure there are others — is to build a second corporation and wrap it around the first. So now we have two. The first corporation is defined pretty much as it is now. And the second corporation is another creature altogether, with a different set of principles and processes.

“The first corporation exists to win. It exists to find, extract and capture available value. Leave this just as it is. But let’s acknowledge that this first corporation exposes us to risk. After all, it is designed to work with the world as it is. So it must be out of alignment with the worlds that may be. It makes us a prisoner of the moment. The second corporation is looking for those worlds that may be. Its task is not to win but survive.

“It’s counter-intuitive and I can hear you arguing: ‘Winning, surviving, this is a distinction without a difference!’ But look at it this way. If winning (and the first corporation) were enough, we wouldn’t see half the winners on the top of Fortune 500 fall like Icarus. If winning were enough, surviving would take care of itself. But it turns out, winning and surviving are different things. They take different mindsets. They take a different set of systems and instincts.

“Just to be crystal clear, I’m not saying that the corporation should stop struggling to win. It should keep hiring the best people, finding the best partners, devising the best strategies, squeezing out costs, innovating faster and smarter, clobbering the competition, etc. Winning is the deepest part of its DNA.

“I am merely saying that now that the incumbency comes with a curse, now that the smart money is betting against us, now that our death is nigh, we need something more. We need an exterior that is vigilant, experimental, assumption hunting. We need a bridge from which to spot those black swans. We need a way to prepare for worlds that are implausible.

“Everyone knows that we live in a world of tremendous change. But our response has been what Andy Grove calls ‘building a better firehouse.’ We are committing to getting faster and more agile. But there’s an absolute limit to how fast we can get. Many corporations run pretty good firehouses as it is. They can’t get a lot faster. The world doesn’t care. It’s going to get much, much faster. Time to rebuild the firehouse. Time to rethink firefighting.

“Indulge me a different metaphor. As the world gets more turbulent, the organization gets harder to ‘fly.’ What used to be simple acts of navigation now have a lot of guesswork. Simple acts of decision-making are no longer straightforward. Once as easy to fly as a 747 in light chop, the corporation can now feel like a Piper Cub in high winds. There are moments when the instruments go out and decision-making takes on a ‘hope and prayer’ quality. We are pretty sure those lights on the port side are Baltimore. Because, well, they could be Cuba.

“Now that the smart money assumes our demise, we need a system to ensure our survival. We need something that looks less like improv and more like engineering. We need a second corporation.”

Your challenge this week is to explore ways to be nimble and quick in the face of an ever-changing world. Maybe your processes are currently working, but if one part of your customer base suddenly changed, would you be able to stay on top of servicing them? How about creating a team of people within your organization who’s sole focus is on scenario planning — that is, creating strategic plans for a variety of possible outcomes? If you’re currently working on a team, what would it look like if your team got caught in firefight mode? Would it survive? And what can you do to help the team create the kind of skills that expert firefighters need to have?

As McKracken says, “We need a way to prepare for worlds that are implausible.” This week, try thinking outside the box and look at your job, your company and your team from a completely different perspective. What would it look like if the world changed?

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinder’s Coaching

(503) 296-9249

Note: Many thanks to my coaching associate Kate Dwyer for sending me this article. It’s just one more way that she’s helping me take a more expanded view of my business.

© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

What Not To Do if Your a Leader

Good day, team.
I tend to focus on the strengths and positive aspects of any person or situation. This is often reflected in my weekly challenge since I believe that encouraging and inspiring others to take positive action is part of my job as a coach. Consequently, many of the weekly challenges revolve around what to do to improve a situation. However, this week’s challenge is about what not to do.
The following article comes from Steve Tobak, a consultant and former high-tech executive. Tobak offers “10 Things Managers Should Never Do” — meaning anyone in a management position, from first time managers to CEOs.

“We’ve all had bosses do things we didn’t like, appreciate or respect. And every manager has done things they later regret. The business world is, by necessity, one of real-time decisions and judgment calls that sometimes turn out to be bad choices, in retrospect.

After all, nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes. And that’s a good thing, since that’s how we learn lessons, including how to do our jobs better. That goes for every employee, manager, executive, business owner, CEO, everyone.

But sometimes a mistake can become a slippery slope. An exception can all-too-easily become the rule. Simply put, there are lines that managers should not cross, behavior they should not exhibit, and not to be overly dramatic, pathways that lead more or less to the dark side.

In 10 Things Great Managers Do, I went back in time to the best characteristics of the best CEOs I’ve worked for and with over the past 30 years. I decided to do the same thing here for the simple reason that I learned as much from the negative experiences as I did from the positive ones.

Keep in mind, this isn’t meant to be a whine-fest to get employees riled up and pissed off at their bosses. Think of it instead as a standard that employees and managers alike can agree upon and, perhaps, a wakeup call for those who need one.

10 Things Managers Should Never Do
Order people around like dictators. Contrary to popular belief, managers are not dictators. Every manager has at least one boss. Even CEOs serve the board or directors and shareholders. Any manager who thinks he can order people around or abuse his authority because he’s the boss is a terrible leader. Employees are not soldiers or children. You can tell them what their job is and even fire them, if you want, but if you order them around, the good ones will up and quit, as they should.
Forget about customers. It never ceases to amaze me how many managers forget that organizations and companies exist for just one reason — to win, maintain and support customers. Business is about business, and when you make it about you — your issues, your fears, your empire, your thin skin, whatever — you cease to be an effective manager.
Behave like arrogant jerks that are better than others. Just to be clear, I’m not saying managers or bosses can’t be jerks. A lot of people are jerks, including plenty of employees, and almost everybody’s a jerk under certain circumstances. I’m specifically talking about the arrogant “I’m better than the little people’ thing. It makes you look like a little brat and completely neuters your authority and credibility.
Let their egos write checks that reality can’t cash. Oftentimes, leaders attain their position because they believe they’re special — a fascinating misconception that’s nevertheless often self-fulfilling. The problem with that is the slippery slope of drinking your own Kool-Aid. Either you grow up or, sooner or later, things end up unraveling. I’ve seen it time and again, and it isn’t pretty.
Publicly eviscerate employees. Of all the things I’ve experienced over the decades, this is not only the most dehumanizing but also the most demoralizing to employees. I had a couple of CEOs that practiced this on a regular basis, and both were universally despised, as a result. Moreover, both self-destructed in the end.
Wall off their feelings. This may sound touchy-feely, but it’s far from it. Researchers are fond of classifying executives and leaders as psychopathic, but the mechanism by which that happens is compartmentalizing of emotions. If you’ve ever wondered how people who seem to lack any semblance of humor or humility can behave the way they do, the answer is, if you’re not connected to your emotions, you’re far less human.
Surround themselves with bureaucrats, BSers and yes-men. When you encourage the status quo and discourage dissent, you doom the organization to stagnation and eventual decline.
Threaten. Threats don’t work. They’re just as likely to motivate the opposite behavior of what you’re trying to achieve. They diminish your authority and make you appear weak and small. You should communicate what you want and why, then act on the results. That works. Threats don’t. And for God’s sake, never threaten an employee with his job or a vendor with your business. That’s just out of control.
Act out like little children. Everyone goes through the same stages of human development on the road to adulthood and maturity. Unfortunately, some of us get stuck in one stage or another, stunting our growth and rendering us dysfunctional. We look just like ordinary adults, but we actually behave a lot more like children, acting out, throwing tantrums and generally making life miserable for everyone around us.
Break the law. America is a nation of laws, and civil or criminal, they’re black and white for a reason. For some reason, executives will sometimes risk everything — power, wealth, careers, families, everything — for motives most of us will never understand. We’re talking accounting, securities, bank, wire and mail fraud; insider trading; bribery; obstruction of justice; conspiracy; discrimination; harassment; it’s a long, long list.”
This week, be honest with yourself. Could your behavior be defined by one of these 10 categories? If so, you may have moved away from a management style that helps your people be successful into territory that is counterproductive, dysfunctional or destructive. If you find yourself doing any of these things, stop. Ask for help to stop. Get some feedback and suggestions from one of your peers or friends to help you find ways to avoid these dysfunctional behaviors. Hire a coach to help you draw out your more supportive behaviors. Talk with your human resource manager to find professional development courses that can teach you effective ways to manage others.

As Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is leadership.”

Have a good week,
Kathleen
Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249
© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

The Difference Between Competition and Capitalism

Good day, team.

A few months ago, David Brooks wrote a very interesting article for the New York Times, “The Creative Monopoly.” For today’s challenge, I’d like to share a few paragraphs from that article in which he writes about the differences between competition and capitalism and how we often confuse the two.

“As a young man, Peter Thiel competed to get into Stanford. Then he competed to get into Stanford Law School. Then he competed to become a clerk for a federal judge. Thiel won all those competitions. But then he competed to get a Supreme Court clerkship.

Thiel lost that one. So, instead of being a clerk, he went out and founded PayPal. Then he became an early investor in Facebook and many other celebrated technology firms. Somebody later asked him, ‘So, aren’t you glad you didn’t get that Supreme Court clerkship?’

The question got Thiel thinking. His thoughts are now incorporated into a course he is teaching in the Stanford Computer Science Department. One of his core points is that we tend to confuse capitalism with competition. We tend to think that whoever competes best comes out ahead. In the race to be more competitive, we sometimes confuse what is hard with what is valuable. The intensity of competition becomes a proxy for value.

In fact, Thiel argues, we often shouldn’t seek to be really good competitors. We should seek to be really good monopolists. Instead of being slightly better than everybody else in a crowded and established field, it’s often more valuable to create a new market and totally dominate it. The profit margins are much bigger, and the value to society is often bigger too.

Now to be clear, when Thiel is talking about a ‘monopoly,’ he isn’t talking about the illegal eliminate-your-rivals kind. He’s talking about doing something so creative that you establish a distinct market, niche and identity. You’ve established a creative monopoly, and everybody has to come to you if they want that service, at least for a time.”

His lecture points to a provocative possibility: that the competitive spirit capitalism engenders can sometimes inhibit the creativity it requires.

Think about the traits that creative people possess. They don’t follow the crowds; they seek out the blank spots on the map. Creative people wander through faraway and forgotten traditions and then integrate marginal perspectives back to the mainstream. Instead of being fastest around the tracks everybody knows, creative people move adaptively through wildernesses nobody knows.

Now think about competitive environments that confront the most fortunate people today and how it undermines the creative mind-sets.

First, students have to jump through ever-more-demanding, preassigned academic hoops. Instead of developing a passion for one subject, they’re rewarded for becoming professional students, getting better grades across all subjects regardless of their intrinsic interests. Instead of wandering across strange domains, they have to prudentially apportion their time, making productive use of each hour.

Then they move into a ranking system in which the most competitive college, program and employment opportunity is deemed to be the best. There is a status funnel pointing to the most competitive colleges and banks and companies, regardless of their appropriateness.

Then they move into businesses in which the main point is to beat the competition, in which the competitive juices take control and gradually obliterate others goals. … Competition [trumps] value-creation. In this and other ways, the competitive arena undermines innovation.”

All of this got me thinking about the importance of not worrying about what the other guy is doing, but instead, using that energy to create something new or a niche in your market that no one else has inhabited yet.

I am reminded of my first job working for MCI in Washington, D.C. At that time, AT&T had the monopoly on all phone service in the U.S. It also owned the company that made the telephones. Jack Goeken, the founder and Bill McGowan, the CEO of MCI, intended to create a microwave phone service for trucking companies between St. Louis and Chicago so the truckers could communicate far more effectively for a fraction of the cost. Everyone thought they were crazy. No one in the U.S. other than AT&T, was in the phone business. When MCI’s telecommunications system was finally up and running, the Wall Street Journal interviewed Bill and asked him how he could possibly think he could compete with AT&T. His response was, “I’m not competing with AT&T. I’m creating a completely different kind of telecommunications service, of which, in 10 years, MCI will only be one of many players.”

How prophetic his comments were. I remember that our mantra at MCI wasn’t, “We’re going to beat AT&T;” it was, “We’re creating a brand new way to communicate.” The latter statement was much more motivating for us.

This week, ask yourself if you’re competing or creating. Are you spending more time thinking about how to beat out your co-workers for the next promotion or creating new and different ways to work with your fellow team members? Maybe you’re thinking of creating something in your life that has nothing to do with your job. How about finding ways to nurture that creativity by spending time coming up with new ideas?

Maybe your job is to study what the competition is doing to give you an advantage. How about thinking about what your competition is not doing? Is there space in your market to create a niche no one else has thought of yet? Some companies have “idea rooms” where employees can go to for a week and do nothing but draw, paint, write and so on to come up with new product ideas, creative organizational structures and innovative services. How about giving yourself free license to spend time creating something new?

As Brooks writes in his article,

“We live in a culture that nurtures competitive skills. And they are necessary: discipline, rigor and reliability. But it’s probably a good idea to try to supplement them with the skills of the creative monopolist: alertness, independence and the ability to reclaim forgotten traditions.”

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

The Perils of Separating Ourselves From Others

Good day, team.

This week’s challenge is about separation. That is, how we sometimes separate ourselves from others, including family, co-workers and friends.

All of us experience this sense of being separate from time to time. Sometimes it’s caused by a succession of failures, too much stress, or being out of sorts with family members or friends. Whatever the cause, when I feel disconnected from others, it is frequently accompanied by a state of depression and I experience a lot of negative thoughts:

“No one understands me.”
“Why do I have to do this all on my own?”
“No one likes me, so it won’t matter whether I show up or not.”
“I’m such a failure, I can’t do anything right.”
“I’m really an impostor here; if people really knew that I have no idea what I’m doing, I’d never have a job.”

All of these thoughts have the ring of separation to them. In these moments, I see myself as separate from the team, from my family, from my friends. I’m not like them. I’m different in some way.

When I work with teams, I often notice that someone on the team is separating themselves from the others. They may do this by not responding when asked to participate or by having the attitude that they know more than the rest of the group. If someone acts in an antagonistic or provocative way, it can separate him or her from the team. At the same time, feeling like a victim can separate a person from the whole. Even leaders who see themselves as powerful or authoritative can begin to feel separate from their teams. Whether a person sees him- or herself as special or insignificant, the results can be the same: separation.

This feeling of separateness is an illusion. Although we play different roles in our lives, we are all connected to one another. When we forget our connection to all other living beings, we start to get into trouble. I may think the Japanese tsunami last year was an event separate from me, but the remaining debris from that tsunami’s aftermath is about to show up on our west coast shores. I can judge my neighbors and feel like I’m better or smarter — until I need to call them for help. Will they judge me in return in that moment? What about when a fellow team member needs to pick up some of my job responsibilities when I’m out sick? I hope he or she won’t be feeling separate from me and will be able to see the importance of supporting me when I need it. Every action we take impacts someone else somewhere, somehow.

The best metaphor for this is the ocean and the wave. In our various roles, we show up as a wave. Sometimes waves are big and powerful, and other times, they roll calmly onto the shore. Waves can be bright and beautiful with white, frothy crests and deep blue colors or dark and grey with a slick surface. Just as we can be bright and beautiful or dark and grey, our various personalities show up as waves. Believing that our wave is separated from all the other waves can make us feel alone — but in reality, we are part of a huge ocean. That ocean is made of water and the water is what makes up the waves. Without the ocean, there is no wave. Without the rest of humanity, there is no one person.

This week, see whether you’ve separated yourself from others in some part of your life. Do you pride yourself in being different and, in turn, think you’re better than or less than others? How about with your family — are you the black sheep or the odd one or the best one? Do you separate yourself by spending most of your time alone? Do you not pay attention to others when you’re in a meeting and separate your attention away from everyone else? When you resist participating, what is it in you that thinks you’re not connected to everyone else? If you envision a sports team playing on the field, what if someone kicks the ball to their teammate and their teammate decides not to play anymore? Doesn’t the game stop? We are indeed each unique individuals, but it’s important to understand that what makes us special doesn’t need to separate us from others. In fact, that’s what makes teams so great — all of those unique qualities and strengths directed toward a common goal.

This week, appreciate how connected you are to others in all things. We were not put here to be alone and belonging to each other is one of the great gifts of humankind.

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 422-9249

How Do What You Love is Often Bad Advice and How To Use Your Strengths

Good day, team.

This week’s challenge comes from the author and blogger, Penelope Trunk. Her book “Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success” is a must read for anyone trying to figure out what career to follow or how to be more successful in a current job. The book includes 45 tips that are brazenly unconventional, bold and radical.

Because I’m an avid fan of Joseph Campbell and his advice to “follow your bliss,” this blog entry from Trunk definitely caught my eye. Have a look:

The Worst Career Advice: Do What You Love
By Penelope Trunk

“One of the worst pieces of career advice that I bet each of you has not only received but given is to ‘do what you love.’

Forget that. It’s absurd. I have been writing since before I even knew how to write — when I was a preschooler I dictated my writing to my dad. And you might not be in preschool, but if you are in touch with who you are, that sort of behavior continues: You do what you love no matter what, because you love it, not because you get paid to do it.

So you will say, ‘But look. Now you are getting paid to do what you love. You are so lucky.’ But it’s not true. I mean, there are things I enjoy more, and I discover new things I love all the time. We are each multifaceted, multilayered and complicated, and if you are reading this blog, you probably devote a large part of your life to learning about yourself. And self-discovery is a process; none us loves just one thing.

Career decisions are not decisions about what do I love most. Career decisions are about what kind of life do I want to set up for myself. After all, how could you possibly pick one thing you love to do?

The world reveals to you all that you love by what you spend time on. Try stuff. If you like it, you’ll go back to it. I recently tried Pilates. I didn’t want to try, but a friend said she loved the teacher, so I went. I loved it. I have taken it three times a week ever since, and it’s changed me.

Often, the thing we should do for our career is something we would only do if we were getting a reward. If you tell yourself that your job has to be something you’d do even if you didn’t get paid, you’ll be looking for a long time. Maybe forever. So why set that standard? The reward for doing a job is contributing to something larger than you are, participating in society and being valued in the form of money.

The pressure we feel to find a perfect career is insane. And given that people are trying to find it before they are 30 in order to avoid both a quarter-life crisis and a biological-clock crisis, the pressure is enough to push people over the edge. Which is why one of the highest risk times for depression in life is in one’s early 20s when people realize how totally impossible it is to simply ‘do what you love.’

Here’s some practical advice: Do not what you love; do what you are. It’s how I chose my career. I bought the book with that title — maybe my favorite career book of all time — and I took the quickie version of the Myers-Briggs test. The book gave me a list of my strengths and a list of jobs where I would likely succeed based on those strengths.

Relationships make your life great, not jobs. But a job can ruin your life — make you feel out of control in terms of your time or your ability to accomplish goals — but no job will make your life complete. It’s a myth mostly propagated by people who tell you to do what you love. Doing what you love will make you feel fulfilled. But you don’t need to get paid for it.

A job can save your life, though. If you are lost and lonely and wondering how you’ll ever find your way in this world, take a job. Any job. Because structure and regular contact with regular people and a method of contributing to a larger group are all things that help us recalibrate ourselves.

So if you are overwhelmed with the task of ‘doing what you love,’ you should recognize that you are totally normal, and maybe you should just forget it. Just do something that caters to your strengths. Do anything.

And if you are so overwhelmed that you feel depression coming on, consider that a job might save you. Take one. Doing work and being valued in the community is important. For better or worse, we value people with money. Earn some. Doing work you love is not so important. We value love in relationships. Make some.”

Trunk offers much to think about in this blog post. None of us have the luxury of only doing work that compliments our strengths. But if you’re lucky enough to be part of a team, the work can be divided in such a way as to play to each team members’ strengths. A smart manager quickly tunes into everyone’s strengths and aligns responsibilities accordingly. This makes for a much happier group of people who support rather than detract from one another. It’s often in the relationships we form at work that we receive our greatest gifts and challenges.

If we follow Trunk’s advice and don’t expect our job to make our life complete, then we accept what a job can actually do for us. A job can provide part of what we need in life to succeed — by our own definition, not anyone else’s. Many other aspects of our life can provide the deeper satisfaction and joy we seek. If we expect our jobs to give us everything, we will probably get disappointed.

From another angle, there’s something to be said for knowing when to get things done and how to allocate our time so that we’re spending more time doing what we’re good at rather than struggling with things we’re not as good at. Years ago, my grandmother told me that she liked to get her household chores done early in the day so that later on she could bake. My grandmother definitely had strengths in baking — her chocolate donuts and apple pies were amazing! I know that my grandmother didn’t enjoy cleaning up after four children and a husband each day, but she did love to bake. She was smart to concentrate the best part of her day on her favorite activity. This seemed like a great use of her strengths to me, and it was a good lesson in doing the stuff we really don’t like first to get them out of the way so we can concentrate on what we do enjoy.

Your challenge this week is to consider your strengths and try aligning your job responsibilities with your strengths. If you’re not aware of what your top strengths are, take a strengths assessment to find out. There are lots of books on the topic: “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham, “StrengthsFinder 2.0” by Tom Rath, “Strengths-Based Leadership” by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie. All of these books help you discover your strengths and learn to use them in your job. They also all have instructions for how you can go online to discover your strengths.

Dr. Donald O. Clifton, cited by the American Psychological Association as the father (and now the grandfather) of strengths psychology, wrote, “A strength is something you like to do, are good at and learn quickly.”

Sounds good to me!

Have a good week,

Kathleen

* The coach will be on vacation next weekend. The next challenge will be published 5/13/12.

© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

Good Ways to Remove Self-Doubt

Good day team,

This weeks challenge comes from a quote I read by the great French novelist and playwright, Honore de Balzac.

“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.”

I think we all know what Balzac was referring to. When we set out to accomplish something that doesn’t go exactly as we expected, or when our ideas or actions are rejected by others, we immediately experience self-doubt. Our inner voices are suddenly fueled by negative thoughts that say things like, “My idea was stupid in the first place”, or “No one ever appreciates what I do”, or “What made you think you could accomplish this in the first place? What a fool!” and so on.

This experience of self-deprecation is one of the greatest ways we sabotage ourselves. We give our power away to that self-doubt and shy away from what we were trying to do in the first place.

How many of us sat at the dinner table growing up and were asked this question by a parent. “What did you do today at school?” Our parents were expecting us to describe what we had achieved, not how we had failed. “Well Dad, I got a B+ on my history test.” “Great son, what else?” Again, tell me what you accomplished.

Imagine how the conversation might have gone if Dad had congratulated us for our failures as well as our successes. Here’s a great example of what can happen when failure is encouraged.

Sara Blakely is the founder of Spanx, a highly successful company that makes women’s undergarments. Just a few months ago, Sara was on the cover of Forbes magazine and recognized as one of this country’s newest billionaires. She built her fortune by conceiving, designing, and manufacturing a product that millions of women around the world wear. It’s a bit like a modern day version of a girdle. Call it panty hose without the hose.

Sara didn’t come up with this over night. She was involved in a number of start-up ventures before she launched Spanx. They all failed miserably. But unlike many of us, she never got discouraged. She never allowed self-doubt to disempower her. She just kept coming up with new ideas and trying to turn them into successful businesses.

When Sara and her brother were growing up, their father asked them a completely different question at dinner time – “How did you fail today?” When they answered the question, their Dad would respond, “Gee, that’s great. You learned another set of lessons about what works and doesn’t work. Good job!”

When I read about Sara’s father asking this question, I realized that he was helping to teach some valuable lessons:

1.

failure is to be expected whenever we try to achieve something new
2.

what we learn from failing can be most important.

Instead of criticizing his children for failure, he did just the opposite. Consequently, Sara grew up more than willing to take risks, try out new ideas and products, fall on her face more than a few times, and still get up everyday with the attitude that she was doing the right thing – because she was failing! Think of how different your life would be if you had been raised to embrace and celebrate your failures? The whole notion of success and failure would be turned on it’s head.

This came as a revelation to me a few years back when I realized that I made many decisions from fear rather than from desire. I wanted to write a book of poetry when I was in my 20’s but I was too afraid of criticism. I wanted to go back to school and get an advanced degree. But I was too afraid that the work load would prevent me from attending to my business and that I wouldn’t make enough money. I wanted to learn how to play piano again. But I was afraid I wasn’t committed enough to practice and that it would be a waste of my time. I wanted to travel to Africa but I was too afraid that I might get sick and not be able to find good healthcare. The list goes on and on. In each case, the more I heeded my fear and inner negative voices, the more empowered they became. Eventually, they became powerful enough to talk me out of doing what I wanted to do and feel justified in not doing them.

One day, I got angry enough to change. I wasn’t going to continue to listen to my self-doubt. I was going to start making decisions based on what I wanted to do. I felt like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, when, after many years of war and destitution, she reached into the earth, grabbed a clump of dirt and raised it to the sky exclaiming, “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!” Well, as my God was my witness, I wasn’t going to let fear lead my life!

I had to come up with ways to neutralize my self-doubt so that it wouldn’t become so convincing. I needed to find ways to convert doubt and defeat into empowerment and courage.

I discovered some things that helped me and offer them here as suggestions that might help you have more trust in yourself :

1. Get grounded through presence

I often find that when I’m experiencing a lot of self-doubt, the simple act of trying to be present brings me out of it. This requires focusing on my attention on something very specific (like feeling my feet or my breath) to bring me into the moment and change the subject. Sometimes I focus on a sound, or a picture, or a sensation. Sometimes, going for a short walk will immediately pull me out of my negative thoughts and refresh me. Talking with a colleague or friend can work as well.

2. Balance the minuses with pluses

If you naturally see the glass half empty, try seeing it half full. If you still can’t focus on the positive aspects of something, ask someone who you know sees the world naturally as half full. There are always losses and gains to everything, but focusing only on the losses keeps us in that negative place. I often ask my clients to tell me what they gained from having worked with me. I keep their comments written down and review them whenever I find myself in a particularly bad bout of self-deprecating thoughts.

3. Find what makes you feel good

Finding yourself in a funk can be remedied by doing something that makes you feel good. Find what nurtures you and do it. Maybe you enjoy listening to music or reading books. How about having your significant other massage your hands or feet? Sometimes, when I’m feeling overwhelmed by self-doubt, I take a hot bath. My husband finds his joy in playing, writing and arranging music. This always changes his state of mind and heart. Make sure you make time in your day to play at whatever you enjoy and get enough sleep. All of these things will help you maintain a healthier state of mind and body.

4. Reach out to others and connect

As much as we can try to do things for ourselves in our moments of self-doubt, reaching out to others for help is essential. This is where coaches and therapists, teachers and mentors really come in handy. They are trained to listen and support us when we need it most. We can also benefit from acting in this role for another. One of my favorite ways to neutralize my self-doubt is by coaching someone else. Just by taking the focus off of me and being present to them, I automatically benefit from the interaction. And, it always gives me a different view finder through which to look. Even reaching out to a co-worker or friend and asking how they see something can help us adopt a more positive point of view.

This week, try using some of these methods to cast self-doubt and deprecation out of your mind. No one ever got anywhere by listening to their inner thoughts telling they couldn’t do something. See if one of these methods helps you cultivate a different set of thoughts that serve you better. How about working on your attitudes about success and failure? Maybe just seeing it completely differently is enough to encourage you to keep going.

Having the courage and determination to keep trying in the midst of failure seems to be one of the major keys to success. When you experience self-doubt, don’t give it any more power than it already has.

As Steve Jobs powerfully reminded us,

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

~ Steve Jobs, Co-Founder and CEO of Apple Computer

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Founder, Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

The Benefits of Aligning With The Flow of Nature

Good day, team.

This past weekend, all of the daffodils finally bloomed out at our property in the Columbia River Gorge. It makes me so happy to see them. Although the weather changes frequently at this time of year — light snow, hail, rain, sun — once all the daffodils are in bloom, I know that spring has finally announced itself.

This season of growth and fertility is a great time for new beginnings. Just as we watch nature transform itself from dormancy to activity, we also are encouraged to wake up and fully engage in our own endeavors. The coming of spring, reminds me of something I often tell my clients, “When the light is green — go!” The arrival of spring is very much like a stoplight turning green. Everything around us tells us to emerge, become, initiate, flower. Beginning new endeavors when the time is right can be critical to their success.

On the other hand, trying to get something accomplished when the time isn’t quite right — when the light is red or yellow — can be frustrating. No matter how hard you try to make something happen when the light is red, it’s not going to happen. Sometimes we are unsure whether it’s a good time to begin something new — the light is yellow. We proceed with caution knowing that we may be stopped along the way and often experience a slow down of events and accomplishments.

Many of my clients and friends are motivated by achievement and have a strong desire to keep going at maximum speed throughout the year, regardless of whether the time is right for various activities. They are frustrated by others who are not as motivated by achievement and blame them for blocking their desire to get stuff done. In fact, this desire for constant achievement can become an obstacle in itself. If you keep trying to go when the light is red — or when your own nature is calling for you to slow down — you end up crashing sooner or later.

Sometimes it’s difficult to tune into the shifts and changes of your own nature. It can be helpful to tune into the nature around you as the seasons change. For example, no matter how hard I may want my tulips to bloom in November, they won’t until spring arrives. So perhaps I should listen to nature’s message. Why not shift down into a slower gear in winter, while nature sleeps and gathers energy? Then allow myself to grow and blossom during spring along with nature’s budding flowers and trees. How about allowing myself to glow in the fires of joy and happiness in the heat of summer? And then harvest the fruits of my own labors along with the cornucopia of Indian summer and autumn.

Tuning into the flow of nature is not a new idea. Many Native American cultures observed the ways of nature and celebrated it with their foods, traditions and ceremonies. The Chinese Five Element Theory helps form the basis of Chinese medicine, feng shui design principles and many seasonal foods, acknowledging the five seasons: winter, spring, summer, Indian summer and autumn. Many native tribes around the world still use the seasons as hallmarks for their annual excursions and sacred ceremonies as a way of honoring nature with their tribal traditions. Going with the flow of nature — that of the earth and of our own true selves — just makes good sense. When I do this in my own life, I experience much less resistance.

This week, notice if you’re trying to make something happen when the time truly isn’t right, when the light is red. Do you feel like you keep hitting a brick wall? What kind of resistance is making it difficult to achieve your goal? Conversely, notice when your endeavors just fall into place with very little effort. If so, then the light is probably green, and it may seem like you can barely go fast enough to keep up. Or maybe you are just feeling your way, with a yellow light, and it’s a bit slow going with plenty of confusing messages along the way.

Whatever the case, try to tune into spring and see whether it can influence you with its growth and promise. See if by realigning yourself with nature, you can find the green light you need to proceed with a new idea or venture.

“The seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other,” 
wrote the famous concert pianist, Arthur Rubenstein.

This week, see whether you’re in harmony with nature and the changes it brings. What is nature encouraging you to do?

Have a good week!

Kathleen

© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

How To Deal With Blame

Good day, team.

Each week, I try to write about a subject that’s relevant for my clients. Unfortunately, I’m seeing blame crop up in the teams of some of my clients so I feel compelled to make it the focus of this week’s challenge. Blame is one of the most destructive attitudes to cultivate when in a dispute with someone. Whether you disagree with a family member, a friend or a teammate at work, blame plants the seeds of distrust, which in turn creates suffering for everyone involved.

When someone blames us, we go into defense mode. But the reality is: If we are trying to do our best, there is nothing to defend. Pay attention to how often you defend yourself with others. More important, notice how often you defend yourself internally with thoughts like “They really don’t understand me. I’m the one who was right; they just don’t get it.” Sooner or later, this inner defensiveness gets projected out onto to someone else.
What strikes me most about this is the partnership that blame and defensiveness form in working against us, particularly when we’re trying to play on the same team with someone. At the heart of this defensiveness is our overwhelming desire to be right. This desire, along with wanting to look good or appear smart, is so overwhelming that it blinds us to whatever anyone else is saying or doing.
I remember my father talking with my mother over dinner one evening about his colleague Bill. Bill always had to be right, always had to put himself in the best light possible and could not be trusted because he focused entirely on making himself look good. My father said, “Bill is so determined to be right that even when he’s wrong, he’s often the first to point it out so he can be right about being wrong!” I remember thinking how awful it must be to worry about what other people think about you all the time.
On reflection, I realize that what my father said that evening about not trusting Bill is at the heart of this issue. We can find other people to be reliable, competent and friendly, even committed to the same goals we are, but if we think their chief motivation is to make themselves look good or that their goal is merely the next promotion, a big bonus or a chance to pump up their ego, we won’t trust them.
When our self-image is at stake, many of us go to extraordinary lengths to defend ourselves. Sadly, though, the self-image we’ve created is imaginary, and so we end up defending something that doesn’t exist. I often ask my husband, “What do you see me doing?” because I cannot see myself. I’m too close to my well-honed self-image. I often have to check in with myself to inquire about my true motivation. Am I only doing this to make myself look good? Have I taken anyone else’s well-being into account before I pursue a given course of action?
Some of the people I consider heroes — Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mother Teresa or the Dalai Lama — have never been afraid to be wrong in the eyes of others when it comes to the well-being and welfare of their fellow beings. I hold them in high esteem and often think, “What would they do?” before I act.
Your challenge this week is to notice when you tend to be the most defensive. If you blame others when something goes wrong, ask yourself if blaming them will lead to a good outcome. How much of your motivation is about making yourself look good rather than what’s best for the team? Be courageous in your inquiry.
The Dalai Lama advises, “When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy. Pride leads to violence and evil. The truly good gaze upon everything with love and understanding.”
Have a good week!
Kathleen
Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249
© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Effective Interviewing Tips for The Hiring Manager – Part 1

Good day team,

I’m happy to see that organizations are hiring again and hear about renewed interest in interview techniques. This week and next, I’ll be writing about good interview techniques – this week from the perspective of the employer and next week, from the perspective of the applicant.

First things first – a big part of what results in a good interview depends on how well the hiring manager has articulated the responsibilities and qualifications. Many companies write their job ads using a general view of the skills they want for the job, rather than specifics, e.g.. “Selected candidate will have strong financial analysis  skills” vs. “We require 3 to 5 years of financial analysis with strong business acumen, analytical, problem solving and quantitative analysis skills demonstrated in previous work experience.”

All good job descriptions make a clear distinction between the job responsibilities and the qualifications for the job. If you write, “we’re looking for someone who can thrive in a fast paced environment and communicates well” and you put that under the job responsibilities, you’ve gotten it wrong. Job responsibilities are the specifics of what you want them to do on the job. Qualifications are the specific things they’ve done in the past that qualify them for the job. For example, under the responsibilities heading – “Job responsibilities include communicating effectively in a fast paced environment across many levels of the organization”. And under the qualifications heading – “Advanced communication skills both verbally and in writing are mandatory, with demonstrated ability to work effectively in a fast paced environment with all internal and external customers.”

Most employers don’t include behaviors in their job ads. And yet, behavioral interviewing is highly effective. Specifying up-front what kind of behavior works well within your culture is a smart thing to do. If your company has a values-based culture, that is, a culture that focuses on what’s foundationally important to the company’s mission and the people who are part of it, then state that. For example, Zappos, a company with a very strong values-based culture, points that out in the first sentence of every job they post by saying, “Live the Zappos values and WOW co-workers at all levels, in all departments, customers, and vendors.” Their values are clearly defined. Zappos looks to hire people whose personal values are similar to the company’s and will, therefore, fit well within the Zappos culture. If you read Zappos values, they clearly state the employee behaviors that support those values: http://about.zappos.com/jobs/why-work-zappos/core-values

Once you’ve posted the job and selected some good candidates to interview, how do you conduct behavioral interviews? Resumes can tell us what the person has done and a little bit about how they do it. But, how do we discover what really motivates someone? What do they do on the job that gives them energy? What do they avoid? What happens to their behavior when they’re under pressure? How would others describe what it’s like to work with them? Knowing the answers to these questions is essential to making good hiring decisions.

Here are some examples good behavioral interview questions from an article entitled, “Behavioral Interviews: Use a Behavioral Interview to Select the Best”, by Susan Heathfield (this is for a sales job):
Tell me about a time when you obtained a new customer through networking activities.
Give me an example of a time when you acquired a customer through cold calling and prospecting. How did you approach the customer?
What are your three most important work-related values? Then, please provide an example of a situation in which you demonstrated each value at work.
Think of a customer relationship you have maintained for multiple years. Please tell me how you have nurtured that relationship.
Assume that your manufacturing facility shipped the wrong order to one of your important customers. Describe how you solved this problem both internally and externally.
If you are hired as our sales representative, you may see the need to change the organization of the department. How have you approached such situations in the past?
Give me an example of a time when your integrity was tested and yet prevailed in a selling situation.
And, here are some of my favorite questions to get to the heart of matter:
What excites you most about your job? What are you doing that gives you energy and what do you do that takes a energy away from you? What do you avoid doing?
How have you re-engaged in the past when you’ve felt that your commitment was waning on the job?
What are you most proud of achieving in your last job?
With answers to these behavioral questions, you can compare your candidates based upon how they get the job done and how they performed in real-life situations.
Most of the difficulties we have with our fellow team members are not based on competency issues. Those are relatively easy to fix – often just a matter of teaching them new skills. The real problems arise around their commitment to the job, how they feel about their fellow team members, and how deeply they believe in the company. If they’re not actively engaged, then no matter how competent they are, they will have a negative impact on the rest of the team. On the other hand, team members who are completely on-board and committed to supporting their team will gladly acquire the skills they need to be successful.
The best question I ever received in a job interview was:
“Kathleen, what strengths do you have that would be enhanced by this job and what makes you uniquely qualified to do it?”
I realized, when asked this question, that I’d never thought about how the job would enhance me. I always thought about how I would enhance the organization. By turning it around, the hiring manager encouraged me to talk about how well I knew myself, what worked and didn’t work in a job for me, and what I was most passionate about. In one question he exposed my level of self-awareness, my strengths and qualifications, and what kept me engaged.
I discovered later that part of the reason I got the job was that the other candidates didn’t answer his specific question because they weren’t listening. Their answers focused on what they would do to enhance the job, not how the job would enhance them.
This brings me to the most important thing you can do in conducting successful interviews – listen. Hear every thing the candidate says and note what they’re not saying. Watch them carefully, body language speaks volumes. If you’re conducting a phone interview, listen carefully for changes in tone of voice. If they start speaking faster and seem more animated, you’ve touched on something that has gotten them excited. If they stumble over their words, you’ve hit a spot where they’re not too sure of what they think. Don’t be afraid to explore those less scripted places. That’s often where you’ll discover the real person.

At the next opportunity, try using some of these interview suggestions and job description writing techniques. Don’t forget to ask your human resource professionals for help. They can be an excellent resource when it comes to writing effective job ads and improving interview techniques. A good HR person will also be very clear about what you can say in an interview and what you can’t. Always ask if you’re unsure. Employment law protects individuals from discrimination in the interview and hiring process and is very specific about questions you must not ask.
Think about your culture and what’s most important to your company. Find ways to describe what’s unique about it and don’t be afraid to let people know it’s ‘who’ you are as an organization. You’ll make better hiring decisions and save yourself many hours during the candidate screening process if you articulate up front exactly what types of experience you’re looking for and what behaviors fit well within your organization.

Have a good week!

Kathleen
© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.

How To Have a Hard Conversation With Someone

Good day, team.

I’ve been reading a good book called “Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most” by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen, and would like to share some of it with you this week.

Plain and simple, a difficult conversation is anything you find hard to talk about. Whether at work or home, we all face the unpleasant feelings that come up when we know we need to have a difficult conversation with someone.

Here are some great examples:

Firing or laying off employees
Letting a client know that the project you bid on will be twice as expensive as your original quote
Telling a sibling or friend that they need to pay back the money you loaned
Explaining to one of your parents that he or she needs to move into an assisted living center
Describing to a team member that their behaviors are having a negative impact on the rest of the team

This list could go on and on. I’m sure you can remember the last difficult conversation you had and how it made you feel.

At the first thought of talking to the other person, we begin to feel dread and anxiety. Because of our aversion to these anxious feelings, we often talk ourselves out of having the conversation. Unfortunately, the longer we put it off, the greater the anxiety becomes. No matter how you spin it, delivering a difficult message feels like throwing a hand grenade, and as they say in the book, “There is no such thing as a diplomatic hand grenade.”

So, what’s the answer? By taking an in-depth look at what’s actually happening when we attempt to have these tough talks, we can become more aware of the opportunities that the hard conversations can create for all parties involved.

The book presents the idea that each difficult conversation is actually three conversations: What happened? What are we feeling? How are we identifying with this situation?

What Happened – the facts
Most difficult conversations involve disagreement about what has happened or what should happen. For example, a client thought a project was going to be completed within a certain timeframe and now it is well beyond the set deadline. The consultant says she informed the client that the deadline would have to be pushed out since project requirements had changed.

The truth is, these difficult conversations are not really about getting the facts right. According to the book’s authors, “They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations and values. They are not about what a contract says but about what a contract means.”

Instead of arguing about what happened, the trick is to get to the real intention of a conversation. And the real intention (How can we move forward and get this project completed?) can remain invisible unless it is stated up front. Because we all act with mixed intentions from time to time, it can be difficult to understand what our intentions are, let alone express them. Taking some time to clarify our intentions before we start a difficult conversation is one way to mitigate the anxiety. Expressing your intention up front shows your listener that no matter how confusing the facts are, your intention is still the same. And, most important, you can avoid the blame that often results from making negative assumptions about the other person’s intentions.

Feelings
Every difficult conversation asks and answers questions about feelings. “Engaging in a difficult conversation without talking about feelings is like staging an opera without music,” write Stone, Patton and Heen. They advise us to share our feelings in difficult conversations. If you’re under pressure to meet a deadline and it is making you feel stress, say so. If you’re having anxiety about discussing the challenging situation, name it. The other person will feel your anxiety anyway, and owning what’s happening to you in the moment will let the listener know that this message is as hard for you to deliver as it may be for him or her to hear it.

Hurt feelings are often at the heart of anxiety in a tough exchange with someone, and not speaking about them is a way of avoiding the real issue. Of course, sometimes we need to let sleeping dogs lie to not exacerbate a situation. More often than not, however, honesty about what’s happening to us in the moment and describing our feelings with clarity and sincerity is always a good practice.

Identity
For every difficult conversation, we have an internal debate with ourselves about what the situation means to us. For example, the client maybe be asking herself, “What did I do wrong here? I thought we were on the same page in terms of how this project would go. Did I not manage it correctly? How will my boss feel about my hiring him to do this in the first place?”

It’s likely that the contsultant is having his own internal dialogue stemming from their own identifications with the situation: “I’m responsible for getting this project done, and I’ve totally disappointed my client. I can’t afford to have him see me this way.”

If we weren’t having this internal dialogue, it’s unlikely that the conversation would be so difficult. That’s because we’ve identified with the situation and the stakes have been elevated with a challenge. We may begin to ask ourselves deep questions about who we are and what we are doing.

Try asking for a raise. Many questions start to come up as we attempt to put our identity on the line: “Will my boss think I’m worth it? Do I think I’m worth it? What happens if I get turned down?” No one likes to blow their own horn because we don’t want to seem self-centered. The irony is that it’s just as self-centered to focus our inner thoughts on what people think about us as it is to act from conceit. The focus is still all about us and the real message — the facts about our achievements — never gets delivered.

Your challenge
This week, spend some time thinking about the three aspects of difficult conversations. Spend time identifying your intention before you even start the conversation. What’s the result you’re trying to achieve? Don’t be afraid to express your feelings with sincerity and acknowledge that your listener is having his or her own set of feelings during the conversation. Try not to project your inner dialogue into the conversation. Understand the difference between how you see yourself delivering the message and the actual delivery by focusing on how the other person receives your message. Both identities are being challenged in the conversation so don’t be afraid to express how you see that.

As Stone, Patton and Heen advise, “Spend seven minutes and save seven hours later. The earlier you raise an issue, catch a misunderstanding or ask a question to clarify intentions, the sooner you clear it up and move on. The longer you let things fester, the bigger the problem becomes.” So, invest a few minutes and be skillful in delivering your message to save you and everyone in your organization time, money and a tremendous amount of frustration.

Have a good week!
Kathleen

© Copyright 2012 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search Inc., all rights reserved.