I have been reflecting on the toughest issues to influence as a business coach. Common barriers affecting high flyers include; insufficient strategy, fear of action, poor decision making, low self-confidence, beliefs that do not support success. However, each of these is relatively easy to spot and there are good ways to work on them to get an impact.
Perhaps the hardest to deal with is loving work too much - where positive intentions collide and the appearance of success in every area distracts the executive from realising there is greater potential entirely missing from the picture. The specific issue is personal success combining with highly positive attitudes to a range of tasks and not seeing what is not achieved but could be with a different approach.
Here is your high flying CEO; Monday morning. She picks up the weekly priority list; done the night before (good start).
1. Read final documents and prepare for final meeting for an acquisition by a top client, really me, love the technical detail and cut and thrust of negotiation, big money on it, tick
2. Cashflow nearing overdraft limits, read partner debt lists and do the rounds with the weaker guys, getting their actions going to bring in some cash, helps the firm, uses my courage and persuasion skills to the full, tick
3. Strategic review preparation; need to read Gladwell's book, and review the market research, talk to the board about the key issues and prepare the ground for Thursdays strategy session. My experience counts, great fun and vital for our future, tick
4. New client presentation, best fun, I'm really good at it, need to show I can still top the new business chart, tick
5. Property issues to be addressed, where will we go next at the fast growing Manchester office, complex negotiations, lots riding on it, I have vital views on how the practice offices should locate and look, tick
6. Our plans are to double with acquisitions, I have no likely firms in the viewer, need to identify partner to help target and start the process, must be me as I have clear views on the ideal target, tick.
7. Senior and capable colleague having a wobble, offers in from competitor, personal persuasion needed! Tick.
Great at everything, loving all of it; sound familiar? It's all good for the firm so what's the issue?
I am reminded of the scene in Band of Brothers - the episode was "the Breaking Point", the scene is the attack on the town of Foy, breaking out after the siege of Bastogne. Colonel Winter's men are led by Lieutenant Dike, who makes mistakes, leading to casualties and a faltering attack. Winters had risen to lead his company, loved his men, was a great field leader. Seeing the problems he rushes forward, and is harshly called back by his commander. "Winters, get back here, your place is on the line, not in the attack!" Winters replaces Dike with Spiers in the heat of action and the attack goes in successfully.
Of course Winters could have led in the attack. But his commander knew only Winters had the experience of his men and battle to manage the overall campaign and unfolding situation. If distracted by close action, or worse taken out by chance or failure, the whole campaign might fail.
The point of experience is constantly to challenge yourself to have the greatest impact and focus. Who is forcing you to take a step back and stay focussed on a simple list of your greatest strengths? My own coach is fond of encouraging an annual "garage sale" of tasks. Half must go - and each year the half on the fire sale are things that are more impactful than the last year's list.
What are the consequences of giving in to all the pleasures of their high performance ability?
What is the practice or firm missing that it could have by now, but for their distraction?
Why is there no succession of tasks that should not be top of their list, but do need high skill?
What growth could have been achieved had they focussed on increasing activity around their top three skills and replacing resources for the remaining tasks?
Wise CEO's and partners seek to surround themselves with people cleverer than they are.
The hardest thing to get people to realise is that when there appears to be nothing wrong, it is their great capability that might be the biggest barrier to their potential.
Do you love your work too much? Are you too good to benefit from coaching?
Sunday 20 February 2011
Saturday 12 February 2011
That's not what I meant!
"My dinner's caked and dry on top of the oven, which means you're angry that I am late, and you just don't appreciate the hard work I have to put in to support this family, in fact I'm beginning to wonder if you love me anymore!"
"You've accepted my view and that means you agree with me."
"You're always on time for meetings, which means you respect my needs."
"I can tell from the way you wear your hat that you love me!"
"Because it has snowed we are in for a double dip recession, sledging back down at speed to another crash!"
What a strange and natural skill it seems we have, when you think about it, to make meaning out of apparently unconnected things, and of imposing our meaning where there is none to be found.
You might argue that the search for meaning (the interpretation of what we sense) is a vital strategy for survival. We watch, we wonder what it all means, and how it will affect us. We make up some meaning (anger of the gods, a sign from the otherworld, evidence of a slide to a double dip recession), and we choose how to act (say a hail mary, throw salt over our shoulder, stop spending).
As we watch each other's behaviour, there seems, from board room to bedroom, challenge after challenge to judge events, and find a complicated equivalence of meaning between them and our outcomes.
Some of these complex equivalences can become institutionalised: if you didn't manage to get this sale, it means you are not a good salesperson, if you didn't realise early enough that this unit would fail, it means you have a poor attitude to health and safety. That person, team, department, is just not working hard enough. It is fairly common to see an event interpreted into a generalised assumption about a person or group's abilities
Like my last post on universals, this complex equivalence is evident at the heart of a lot of human communication and rife with difficulty. The problem is that we are only quite good at guessing what things mean. If it is not that we were too afraid, lazy or careless to check on our accuracy, it is entirely possible that any validating information was also unavailable.
Even when we do trouble to check, it's sometimes not so easy to find out. "What do you mean? Not everything is about you, you know!" "I don't want to talk to you right now! :-("
No surprise then that there can be a lot of confusion, even among the highly articulate and intelligent, about what is going on, and a heap of judgements being made about what to do about it too - what is the right and the wrong way to act, who's behaviour is "right" and "wrong".
Our guesses about what a major customer, colleague or loved one "really means" significantly influence our responses. As relationships build a bit of history, especially through adversity, what started as a series of simple uncorrected misunderstandings can become entrenched difficulties; even legal battles.
There is plenty of material here for the business coach to use. Firstly, check up on yourself. You can probably find 4 or 5 situations just in the last week (look for those few where things have not gone quite to plan and a bit of temper or sorrow has resulted). Were the meanings you made possible...can you map that comment or action to this outcome? Does it map across? Is that the only possible meaning? Did you check?
Having practiced this for a while, you should quickly be able to pick up possible complex equivalence confusion in client presentation - especially about those board room battles that can take up so much energy.
The role of the coach is varied, and a couple of very useful elements are to help clients find perspective, to see things from other angles, and encourage them to increase their range of response. This applies as much to the internal response (what meaning am I making about this event, and how do I feel about myself and my colleagues as a consequence?) as to the external response (what will I say and do, and how will I do that?).
When you pick up on a strong problematic complex equivalence: disrupt the thought pattern, challenge the meaning, and look for evidence of alternative meanings and choices.
"So, what happened to my dinner then?"
"Oh, I am so sorry about that, my aunt rang and was on the phone for an hour, John turned up from rugby caked in mud and traipsed it all through the house and by the time I'd cleaned it up it was bath time for the Melanie...I am afraid I just couldn't do it all"
"Oh, and I thought it meant you didn't love me any more, Mike!"
"Awe, Mary, don't be silly, come here, you!"
"You've accepted my view and that means you agree with me."
"You're always on time for meetings, which means you respect my needs."
"I can tell from the way you wear your hat that you love me!"
"Because it has snowed we are in for a double dip recession, sledging back down at speed to another crash!"
What a strange and natural skill it seems we have, when you think about it, to make meaning out of apparently unconnected things, and of imposing our meaning where there is none to be found.
You might argue that the search for meaning (the interpretation of what we sense) is a vital strategy for survival. We watch, we wonder what it all means, and how it will affect us. We make up some meaning (anger of the gods, a sign from the otherworld, evidence of a slide to a double dip recession), and we choose how to act (say a hail mary, throw salt over our shoulder, stop spending).
As we watch each other's behaviour, there seems, from board room to bedroom, challenge after challenge to judge events, and find a complicated equivalence of meaning between them and our outcomes.
Some of these complex equivalences can become institutionalised: if you didn't manage to get this sale, it means you are not a good salesperson, if you didn't realise early enough that this unit would fail, it means you have a poor attitude to health and safety. That person, team, department, is just not working hard enough. It is fairly common to see an event interpreted into a generalised assumption about a person or group's abilities
Like my last post on universals, this complex equivalence is evident at the heart of a lot of human communication and rife with difficulty. The problem is that we are only quite good at guessing what things mean. If it is not that we were too afraid, lazy or careless to check on our accuracy, it is entirely possible that any validating information was also unavailable.
Even when we do trouble to check, it's sometimes not so easy to find out. "What do you mean? Not everything is about you, you know!" "I don't want to talk to you right now! :-("
No surprise then that there can be a lot of confusion, even among the highly articulate and intelligent, about what is going on, and a heap of judgements being made about what to do about it too - what is the right and the wrong way to act, who's behaviour is "right" and "wrong".
Our guesses about what a major customer, colleague or loved one "really means" significantly influence our responses. As relationships build a bit of history, especially through adversity, what started as a series of simple uncorrected misunderstandings can become entrenched difficulties; even legal battles.
There is plenty of material here for the business coach to use. Firstly, check up on yourself. You can probably find 4 or 5 situations just in the last week (look for those few where things have not gone quite to plan and a bit of temper or sorrow has resulted). Were the meanings you made possible...can you map that comment or action to this outcome? Does it map across? Is that the only possible meaning? Did you check?
Having practiced this for a while, you should quickly be able to pick up possible complex equivalence confusion in client presentation - especially about those board room battles that can take up so much energy.
The role of the coach is varied, and a couple of very useful elements are to help clients find perspective, to see things from other angles, and encourage them to increase their range of response. This applies as much to the internal response (what meaning am I making about this event, and how do I feel about myself and my colleagues as a consequence?) as to the external response (what will I say and do, and how will I do that?).
When you pick up on a strong problematic complex equivalence: disrupt the thought pattern, challenge the meaning, and look for evidence of alternative meanings and choices.
"So, what happened to my dinner then?"
"Oh, I am so sorry about that, my aunt rang and was on the phone for an hour, John turned up from rugby caked in mud and traipsed it all through the house and by the time I'd cleaned it up it was bath time for the Melanie...I am afraid I just couldn't do it all"
"Oh, and I thought it meant you didn't love me any more, Mike!"
"Awe, Mary, don't be silly, come here, you!"
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