Category: Life Lessons

The Joys of Volunteering

Good day team,

Once awhile in your career, you have a rare opportunity to work on an assignment that is life enhancing. When I was asked last month by the board of director’s at St. Mary’s Home for Boys in Beaverton, Oregon to help them find a new executive director, I knew it was just this kind of opportunity. But, I didn’t really understand how rare it was until I met with 15 of the courageous people who work at St. Mary’s last week to get a better idea of what they thought was needed for the director position and the kind of person they’d like to see in the job. But first, here’s a brief description about St. Mary’s.

Founded in 1889, St Mary’s offers residential treatment and services to boys at risk between the ages of 10 and 17. Treatment plans include individual and group therapy, counseling, training sessions, juvenile sex awareness program, and aftercare services. Physical, social, emotional, and spiritual programs are also conducted. Cognitive, behavioral, and relationship treatment approach is provided. The curriculum includes reading, language, computers, art, life skills, health, and physical education.

I cannot begin to explain all of the emotions I experienced while I was there this past week. I am still digesting much of what I saw and learned. But I did come away from the experience knowing how vitally important it is that St. Mary’s and other institutions like it exist and how much they need our support.

The staff members I met were very open and honest in our discussions and gave me more information than I expected. They also gave me the great privilege of having lunch with the boys and to attend a student’s graduation. What these children have survived is unspeakable. I honestly cannot imagine a world where the kinds of abuse and neglect these children experience exists. But it does happen and often, in our own communities. St. Mary’s embraces these children with safety, security, sensitivity and sanitation as their underlying values in practice and for most of these kids, it’s the first time in their lives they’ve had any experience of these four things, let alone 3 meals a day, a roof over their heads, and an education.

The statistics prove that these kids have a much greater chance for success when people on the outside volunteer to mentor them. It only requires about one hour a week, but it improves these kids lives forever. While I was there last week. some drama coaches were there volunteering to give the kids acting lessons; there was also a play writing workshop going on. All of these activities were conducted by local people volunteering their time and energy for the children. And, the kids just loved it. When I saw the joy on their faces at lunch time I knew that this kind of activity was essential to their healing and the importance of it was priceless.

As a coach, I see clients all the time who are trying to find some inspiration in their daily lives. They want to be happier or to move in a direction that gives them joy and abundance. They are often looking for more meaning in their lives. In that search, people try to find happiness by delving deeper and deeper into their own psychology. They work so hard to try and fix what’s wrong and then become narrowly focused and obsessed with themselves. This doesn’t bring any joy at all. As one client said to me recently, ‘ All of these thoughts about myself are driving me nuts and it’s all the same old stories, over and over again.”

One of the best remedies for this kind of psychological and emotional trap is to be of service to others. Your challenge this week is to serve someone by volunteering your time and/or energy on their behalf. It doesn’t mean you have to become an official volunteer; there are small ways in which each of us can serve others every day if we try to make that kind of service a priority. Perhaps you clean up after someone at work or set a goal to spend more time reading to your children each day. Maybe you do actually sign up for a mentoring program or to serve meals to the homeless. If you can spare some extra time during your week, investigate ways in which you can volunteer that time to benefit others. In Oregon we have the SMART reading program, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, to name a few. Perhaps your company has a program that allows you to take some time from work to do volunteer work during the week. Whatever it is, find ways to broaden your emotional life and reap the rewards of serving others.

This past week I realized, yet again, the importance of extending my heart and hand to others. The world is very much in need of us and we are very much in need of experiencing the good we can bring to the world. Extending your loving kindness to others is a sure way to experience it in yourself. At the end of the day, isn’t that what life is all about?

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Attitude Is Everything

Good day, team,

The title of this challenge could be “atttitude is everything.” I continue to be amazed at how our attitude has everything to do with how we feel about ourselves and our lives. Here are some examples of friends whose lives have changed recently and how the changes have altered their attitude.

My friend Kimberlee realized her lifelong dream this past year by buying a home in France. Ever since she was a young child, she has dreamed of this event. After working full time through most of her adult life, she now lives in France in her new home. But having just moved there, she’s living without furniture till it arrives. She’s also living in a construction zone while the house is being renovated. When I last read her blog, she had written, “First off, imagine undertaking home repairs and renovation with someone who doesn’t speak your language. Extraordinary patience, especially—cough, cough—for a male… [smiles]. Not only that, I am sleeping on a ‘mattelasse’ he has loaned me until my bed arrives and using a one-burner camping stove for coffee and such.”

Kimberlee was very successful in her career. She had grown quite accustomed to living in comfortable surroundings, be it her home, beach house, or nice hotel rooms (having traveled a lot for business over the years). In her American life, she never would have put up with sleeping on a mattress and making coffee on a hotplate each morning. But she’s now living her dream come true, and that’s made her quite willing and happy to endure whatever hardships she encounters, knowing that someday she will have the home she has always envisioned. Her attitude toward creature comforts has changed, and what would normally be intolerable circumstances are more than bearable in light of this change.

One of my previous clients works for Morgan Stanley. Two years ago, he sent me an e-mail with a picture attached of his new multimillion-dollar condominium in New York City. He was overjoyed to have finally reached the kind of financial success that allowed him to live the kind of life in New York that he had always desired. He dined at the best restaurants, had his shirts and suits hand-tailored, had season tickets to Knicks games, and frequently went to the best Broadway plays and nightclubs. I began to worry about him raising his standard for quality of life too high when he complained that because his local dry cleaners had gone green, he could no longer get his shirts cleaned in 24 hours. He was becoming incredibly spoiled, by my view, but he felt entitled to his lifestyle, particularly since most of his co-workers were experiencing the same success and had similar attitudes.

Today, he’s lucky to still have a job. His salary is a quarter of what it was, his condominium sold for quite a bit less than what he paid, and he’s living in an apartment that’s much smaller than anyplace he’s ever lived. I reminded him the other day about his disgruntled attitude about the green dry cleaners, and he replied, “Now I feel lucky when I come upon an unoccupied machine in the laundry room at the apartment building and I have enough quarters at the same time.” His sudden change in fortune has changed his attitude dramatically. Two years ago he felt entitled to immediate service and was angry when it didn’t happened. Today, he’s grateful to be able to accomplish his chores himself.

Your challenge this week? Take a look at your attitude about your life and the way you live it. Have you lost your ability to be grateful for some of the simplest things? Have you been forced to adjust your living standards, given current economic pressures, and struggle with old attitudes that cause you to resent your current circumstances? Do you believe that because of your title at work, you’re entitled to certain privileges and perks that you don’t really need, but have grown accustomed to?

Instead, try cultivating an attitude that serves your current situation. Experiment with changing your circumstances so that you can change your attitude. I used to think I couldn’t cut my use of electricity. So I experimented by stringing a clothes line and hanging my laundry. My electricity bill went down. More important, my attitude changed about doing my laundry. It was nice to go outside to hang it, it folded better when it was dry, and my sheets smelled incredibly good when I made the bed. (I even found that my clothes lasted longer: Dryers are hard on clothes.)

Whenever I feel disgruntled and ungrateful, I try to remember this story.

A Buddhist monk once traveled to the next village to help his brothers. While he was gone, his small home burned to the ground. As it was burning, a friend from the village found the monk and told him what was happening. They ran to the home site and arrived as the last few bits of wood turned to embers. The monk’s friend looked at him with tears in his eyes and exclaimed how sorry he was that the monk had lost his home. The monk stood in silence for a moment and then, as he gazed up at the sky, proclaimed, “Ah, now I have a much better view of the moon.”

Take a hint from the Buddhist monk: It’s all in your attitude!

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Appreciating Competitive People

Good day, team,

This week, the Olympic games start in China. I’ve been watching the games on television ever since I can remember. I’m not necessarily interested in all the sports that are showcased, but I always marvel at how well-trained and highly disciplined the athletes are who make it to the competition. In reading about the upcoming events in today’s paper, I was thinking about the spirit of competition and what makes some people more competitive than others.

Competitive comes from the Latin word “competere,” which means to meet, coincide, be fitting, and to seek or ask for. Our English definition is as follows: to strive to outdo another for acknowledgment, a prize, supremacy, profit, etc.; engage in a contest; vie: to compete in a race; to compete in business.” Perhaps that’s why we use words like track meet. A competitive event actually has something to do with meeting with another to engage in a contest of some kind.

Anyway, back to my original question; Why are some people more competitive than others? In “Now, Discover Your Strengths,” Marcus Buckingham identifies competitiveness as one of the possible 34 traits a person can have. There is some truth to his observation. Some people spend their lives striving to win in almost everything they do. That’s not true of all of us, so I have to believe that some people are just predisposed to this kind of behavior. Growing up in a highly competitive family greatly influences a person to be more competitive. A friend of mine on the East Coast grew up with some of the Kennedy children. She told me that almost everything they did was in competition with other members of the family or close friends. Joe Kennedy brought up his children to be highly competitive, and we can see from history that it’s a trait that has put many of the Kennedys into high positions in business and politics.

A few years ago, my mother joined a shuffle board team at her retirement community. She was very excited, going on and on about how she had done so well in her first game and how much she was enjoying it. I said something like, “Gosh, Mom that’s great exercise for you.” She replied sharply, “I don’t do it for the exercise, I do it to win!” I suddenly realized that my mother had always tried to be the best at whatever she did, and striving for that brought her the most enjoyment. This trait often shows up in me in my inability to lose gracefully. I don’t always have to win, but I sure hate to lose!

Many of us work with people who are highly competitive. Working on the same team with such people can be difficult. Their overwhelming desire to always win leaves very little room for failure, and it’s hard not to feel judged as the competitive person continues to raise the bar and set standards that are often hard to meet. But most competitors love doing whatever they need to do to win, and their inspiration can carry a team much farther when the going gets tough. Somehow the greater the challenge, the more these competitive people dig in and ramp up their skills and energy level to try to meet it and then overcome it.

This week, see if there are people you work with or know who are highly competitive. Try to appreciate their dedication and strong desire to win. If you have a competitive streak, ask yourself what brings it out in you? When you become more competitive, is it for yourself or for the team? Do you try to use your competitive nature to help your teammates, or do you often try to overpower them? How can we use competition to work together in a more healthy and productive way?

This week, as the Olympics begin, enjoy the spirit of competition in its finest form. We’ll have the opportunity to see the winners and the losers and the lessons they learn from their extraordinary experience as they compete on the world stage.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

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

Excellent Customer Service

Good day, team,

Today’s challenge is about customer service.

Last Friday morning I was out and about by 7 a.m., running errands for an off-site I was hosting for a small, local team of very talented design and sales people who deal with the public in a retail store every day. I scurried around purchasing fruit, pastries and coffee so that we could have a bit of breakfast together before we started our agenda for the day.

Since I don’t have a large coffee pot, I decided to go to Starbucks and purchase what’s called a coffee traveler. It’s a cardboard box that’s lined with heavy-duty aluminum foil into which they put a large pot of coffee. I’m not a huge fan of Starbucks products, but for this kind of event, the coffee traveler is a great invention.

I walked into the store and was greeted by a young, smiling woman who asked if she could help me. I told her what I needed. She asked how many people I was serving. I told her and she suggested that I buy two coffee travelers to ensure that I had enough. Then she asked me what kind of coffee I wanted. I replied that one strong coffee and one a little lighter would be good. She suggested I take a seat, as she would need to make the coffee fresh and it would take about 10 minutes. She also asked if I wanted a free sample of anything while I waited. I said no, I had already had my coffee that morning.

What happened next was simply amazing to watch. This woman was a true artist at her work. Every movement she made was just right: not too much, not too little. Her ability to maneuver coffee pots and filters, coffee beans and grinders, water pitchers and thermostats was a marvel to me. She was extremely efficient and focused without expressing any negativity about her tasks. She didn’t seem stressed when other customers tried to interrupt her while she was waiting on me. She even responded with a smile and managed to multi-task, making sure that anyone who addressed her was immediately taken care of by her or someone else. Her demeanor was professional and easy-going, efficient and flexible, directed and approachable. Her actions were like watching a beautifully executed dance. She was a joy to watch!

As she was finishing up my order, she asked if I wanted half and half as well. She packed up cups, lids, stirring sticks and sugar packets in the same bag with the half and half. She asked if I needed help to my car with the coffee travelers and bag. I said no, it would be good for my triceps for me to carry it all myself. She laughed and flexed her arm (sort of a “We can do it” move) that created a small emotional moment between us.

Before I left the store, I told her what a pleasure it had been to watch her and that my view of Starbucks had just been altered by the experience. She said, “I really love my job. I’ve been doing this for awhile and finally found my niche. I like the company, and they’ve been good to me. Each day, I try to intentionally treat each customer the way I like to be treated. And, frankly, I’m pretty picky.”

She thanked me for noticing. I replied, “No, thank you for such great service!”

Your challenge this week is to take her advice. Think about how you like to be served and then try approaching each task with intention and focus. Try doing everything with a sense of abundance and joy. Whether it’s stacking papers, making coffee, creating a strategic plan, doing complex mathematics, or cleaning your desk off, every action can become a joy if the person doing it has the right attitude and energy.

As I left Starbucks, I realized that it’s not where you serve but how you serve that makes all the difference.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Four Capabilities of Leadership Model

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge comes from some thoughts on leadership that I read about in an MIT alumni magazine while visiting my father in Maine. People debate whether great leaders are born or made, and good evidence supports both sides of the argument.

Accordingly, some educational institutions have created programs and curriculum to build their own leaders. For example, the Leadership Center at MIT developed a Four Capabilities Leadership Model. These capabilities are sensemaking, relating, visioning and inventing.

Rather than teaching leadership, which everyone agrees is hard to do, the program teaches students to cultivate these four strengths: Using their common sense when making key decisions, creating strong relationships with others, making their vision a reality, and allowing themselves to be inventive (meaning not fearing to make mistakes or fail).

“Anyone has the potential for leadership, of course, but certain people have a greater set of skills and aptitude. Leadership starts with someone who wants to make a difference… . When people are truly motivated toward a goal or a vision, they will do it, even if they have to change themselves. In many ways, leadership starts with what’s important to you,” writes Professor Ancona of the Leadership Center at MIT.

Another course that has become part of the leadership program is improvisation. Daena Giardella, an executive coach and professional actor, writes about that aspect of the program.

“What we believe we are, or are not, limits how effective we can be as leaders. Improvisation forces you to break out of your habitual roles. You have to be ready to respond with dexterity to the moment… . You have to dare to make an impact in the scene without worrying about looking stupid or seeming silly. Improvisers learn how to manage the ‘inner critic’ voices that chatter in everyone’s head as we go through life. The inner critic might be saying, ‘Stay small, don’t get too big for your britches’ or ‘Give up, you can’t do this.’ Great improvisers and great leaders learn to play many roles and be adaptable scene to scene. In improvisation the goal is to make the other person look good and to bring out the best in the other person. An improvisation is destroyed if it’s all about me, me, me… and the same is true about leadership. Master leaders and master influencers know how to bring out the best in their teammates.”

Your challenge this week is to identify where you play the role of leader in your life and consider whether you need to improve your ability. Perhaps you’re excellent at creating a vision and translating that for others into realizable goals and objectives, but your relationship skills could use some work. Maybe you find that common sense comes quite easily to you and that you have a reputation for being street smart and pragmatic when making decisions. However, the practical aspect of your common sense may stand in the way of your ability to be innovative. What can you do to be more inventive in your approach?

More and more organizations are realizing that leadership is not just the domain of people at the top but of people at all levels. Our ability to lead has everything to do with how committed we are to our vision and to the people around us who will help us make it a reality. Don’t be afraid to examine how you lead others and what you’re prepared to do to achieve your goals. Leadership doesn’t just come naturally. It requires real work, and we all can stretch our ability to become better at it.

Have a great week!

Kathleen