Complete 2017 in a meaningful way

/in , ,

As we enter the holiday season and end of 2017 it seems appropriate and timely to write something about “completing the year.”

Completing a chapter, initiative or task effectively can be just as powerful and exciting as starting or executing it effectively. However, it seems as if most people tend to focus more on the starting and executing part. We underestimate the power and value of completing things effectively, not merely finishing or ending them.

The dictionary defines finishing as Bringing a task or activity to an end‘. It defines Completing as ‘Making something whole or perfect’.

You don’t have to do anything for something to end. It is the nature of life. Things begin, go through their evolution and end. A year, a project or a lifetime, it’s all the same. But, in order to complete things – or more accurately to feel complete with activities or situations you need to apply a deliberate and mindful focus and awareness.

How do you complete things?

If you review the year’s events without the distinction completion in mind, you are likely to focus on the cold facts of what actually happened. You will ask yourself questions such as: “What did I do?” “What didn’t I do?” and “What results did I achieve?” While you may find intellectual satisfaction in taking stock of this year’s events in the most factual, objective and accurate way, this information won’t empower or uplift your spirit and soul.

In contrast, if you look at 2017 through the lens of completion you will be compelled to push your thinking and reflection beyond the cold facts of what happened to a deeper level. You will be compelled to own what happened and what didn’t happen in a more meaningful way.

You will ask yourself questions such as “What did I accomplish?” “What did I learn?” “Where and how did I grow?” and “How am I better, stronger and more prepared for the future?” This type of taking stock will deepen your connection with your higher purpose and vision and it will make you feel more satisfied and complete.

The notions of success and failure are interpretations, not facts. You can feel victorious and successful even when you haven’t met your goals. And, you can feel disappointed and unfulfilled when you did meet your goals. The feeling of success or failure is often determined by the notion of completion.

Completing the past will enable you to put things into a more powerful perspective. It will help you put the past behind you, and this will leave you feeling freer, stronger and more empowered and excited to focus on the future from a clean slate.

However, if you leave things incomplete, past incompletions could haunt you and cloud your thoughts, plans, and aspirations for the future. Furthermore, you could become more hesitant because of past failures and/or blindly confident because of past successes. In both cases, you would be reacting to your past and that won’t be effective or satisfying.

The good news is that you can bring completion to your past at any moment, no matter how good or bad things were. You just need to take stock, draw empowering conclusions from past events and then declare the past complete. It requires taking a stand, and, it takes courage. But, you can do it!

How to complete 2017 in a practical and meaningful way:

As you are ending 2017, reflect on your year. First, make the list of the facts – what happened, what you did and didn’t do and accomplish. It’s useful to start there. But don’t end there.

Ask yourself:

  1. What did I accomplish?
  2. What did I learn?
  3. Where and how did I grow and improve in the areas I care about?
  4. How did I forward my bigger personal and professional vision and purpose?
  5. What am I most grateful for?
  6. Who do I want to recognize and thank? (Make sure you tell them.)

Once you declare 2017 complete, you will feel a sense of satisfaction, peace, and fulfillment. In that space, you can powerfully start creating your next year to be your best year ever.

In conclusion, on a personal note  – thank you for following my blogs during 2017. I hope at least some of them were useful to you. I will be taking some time off myself and will post my next blog in the week of January 8th, 2018.

Wishing you and your family a Happy Holiday Season and Happy New Year!

 

Success through Rigor, Clarity and Responsibility

/in ,

I received a few reactions to last week’s blog about not expecting what you haven’t been explicitly promised. Explicitly being the key word here. One of the comments said: “How do you deal with situations where someone promises you something, you expect it and it doesn’t happen?”

The dynamic of people requesting and promising is often not as clear-cut and straightforward as people think, expect and describe it to be. In fact, it is rife with pitfalls, misunderstandings, and upsets. I have learned from experience that when disappointed people describe breakdowns as: “They promised and didn’t deliver!” there is almost always more to the story than that.

I want to share a few basic tips that may help you navigate this area more effectively:

1. Be committed to rigor and clarity. It will prevent misunderstanding:

I have seen so many times, in situations of conflict or dispute, person A insisting that person B promised to do or deliver something and simply not doing so, while person B denies that they ever made the promise in the first place.

Both sides feel resentful. Each side believes their version of the story represents the facts and truth. However, in many cases when both parties stepped back, looked under the hood and tried to view the situation objectively they realized that not bad faith or bad intent caused their heartache, but rather the lack of rigor and clarity in their initial interaction.

When requesting or promising there are three potential places where things could go wrong:

  1. What you are asking or what you are promising is not clear enough and not understood and agreed to in the same way by both sides. Often, instead of spelling it out people assume the other person knows exactly what they are asking or promising. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen that approach leading to misunderstanding and disappointment.
  1. The time frame of the promise is not clear. For example, a manager asks for a promotion, more resources or more budget for a strategic project, and his or her superior commends the effort and promises to make it happen “Sometime in the near future”. The manager leaves the exchange feeling excited and confident they will get what they have requested in the next thirty to sixty days and when it happens after six months he or she feel resentful that the promise was not met. Again, I have seen these types of misunderstandings many times.
  1. The level of sincerity and intent of the promise is not explicit. When you make a request and someone responses with “I’ll do my best” or “I don’t see any reason why not” don’t make the mistake of taking that as a promise. A promise is clear, explicit and unconditional. This doesn’t mean that a promise is a guarantee and therefore will always be fulfilled. However, when someone says: “I promise,” “You can count on me” or “You have my word” that represents a much stronger, sincerer and more committed intention to do what they said. People often avoid this level of clarity because it is uncomfortable and they fear it could lead to the realization that they may not get what they want.

2, Check-in, follow up and support the promise while it is being delivered:

When someone promises you something and they are in the process of working on it, your job is not over. You want to stay engaged and involved throughout the duration of the delivery cycle as a committed and vested partner in order to keep the promise alive. This interaction will look different depending on the nature of the promise and person you are dealing with. Sometimes it may mean checking in on a frequent basis. At other times, it may mean looking the person in the eye at the onset to get a sense of confidence that they really mean it, got it and will follow through.

Again, people avoid this type of interaction because it is disruptive and uncomfortable. They fear it could lead to the realization that they may not get what they want.

3. Manage undelivered promises with integrity:

No matter how sincere the promise, it is never a guarantee. Things happen and people who promise sometimes fail to deliver or change their mind. If you understand and accept that simple fact, you will be in a much better place to deal with promises.

The good news is that for the most part, people know ahead of the deadline when they are not going to deliver what they had promised. But unfortunately, people seem to have no problem not doing what they said, they typically just have a problem being upfront about it ahead of time.

The deficit in courage to acknowledge and take responsibility for promises that are not going to be delivered often goes both ways – to the one promising and the one being promised to.

Have you ever been in a situation in which someone promised you something, you had a feeling they may not come through, and still you avoided confronting them about it?

Regardless of position and role; whether you are the boss, a peer or a subordinate – if you are not going to deliver on your promise, letting others find out at the last minute and be surprised is not acceptable. It undermines trust, credibility, team confidence, team strength, and success.

If you can’t deliver what you promised, communicate in a timely and responsible manner. Then the two of you – together – can figure out alternative solutions and routes to rectify the situation or take a different course.

People want to fulfill their commitments and succeed, but they also can handle the truth, even if it is unpleasant. By interacting with rigor, clarity, courage, and responsibility you are giving respect, enabling success and fostering personal growth.

Stop expecting what you haven’t been promised

/in , ,

Having hopes, dreams, and expectations is a good thing, for the most part. However, sometimes having expectations can be a source of disappointment and frustration.

We have expectations in most areas of our life. At work, we expect our boss and colleagues to treat us a certain way. And we expect that things that are not working well in the work environment will get addressed and fixed in a timely manner.  In our personal relationships, we expect our partners to treat us lovingly, and with respect and generosity.

In fact, if you self-reflect I am sure you’ll see that most of the time in most key areas you have clear images and standards about how things should be and what they should look like.

Sometimes we explicitly express our expectations to others. However, more often than not we either describe them in diplomatic ways or drop hints or simply not say them at all.

When our expectations aren’t met, we tend to get upset, disappointed, frustrated. resentful, and angry. We also tend to complain and criticize those who didn’t do what we expected.

If we are honest with ourselves, we may realize that in many cases – perhaps in most cases – our disappointments are not based on the fact that someone explicitly promised something to us and didn’t deliver, but rather on our own personal expectations, standards, hopes and wants.

We often complain about things that we have no legitimate claim over because no one promised us those things. If someone did promise something to us and they didn’t live up to their promise and deliver, we would have the right to complain, but absent that premise, regardless of how strongly we feel that “they should have done it”, our expectations remain just that…

I was coaching two senior executives in a successful technology company. They were the heads of the two biggest sales divisions in the company. These two sales divisions had to collaborate on daily bases in order to pursue, close and execute deals. However, they also needed to abide by clear role definitions, in order to avoid stepping on each other’s toes in the marketplace. Striking that balance often proved challenging. The two executives had very different management styles and temperaments, which often caused them to clash when they had to deal with the inevitable challenges, disputes, and disagreements between the two divisions. Needless to say, their level of personal trust and communication wasn’t high.

They had many complaints about each other, which they often voiced even with their subordinates – about lack of honesty, courtesy, respect, transparency, and collaboration.

One of the executives kept complaining about the fact that his colleague was not including him in new opportunities and leads in a transparent way. But, the other insisted he was doing his best to do so. When I asked if they have created clear and explicit expectations about how to work together, and if they had made specific promises to each other on what they could be counted on for, the frustrated executive said “No” and added

“This is basic stuff. My colleague should know how to communicate and how to include me”

– as if there is some universal truth about how to work together effectively.

Once the executives learned to make specific requests for what they needed from each other, rather than merely expect the other to behave according to their standards, things started to work much smoother.

The good news is that there are effective and empowering ways to turn unfulfilled expectations and illegitimate complaints to effective and accountable actions and results. Here are some practical suggestions:

  • Every time you are frustrated, disappointed or upset about unfulfilled expectations in any area, ask yourself:
  • “Are these my expectations OR did someone actually promise these to me?”
  • If someone actually promised you something, don’t complain. Instead, hold them to account. You have the right and responsibility to do so.
  • If you want an expectation to be fulfilled in a certain area, look for someone who can promise what you want and explicitly request it.

It can be very energizing to have dreams, hopes, and desires as long as you don’t get trapped in the vicious cycle of unfulfilled expectations. You can start by simply abiding by the simple commonsense rule:

Stop complaining, being disappointed or upset about unfulfilled expectations that nobody explicitly promised you.

Are you living in the moment…?

/in ,

I work with a lot of ambitious and driven professionals who set big goals for themselves and pursue these goals with extreme passion, commitment, and relentlessness. I pride myself on being the same.

For highly driven people the line between work life and personal time are often nonexistent. They think about work-related matters at home, attend to emails and text at all times of the day and night, and they have no issue creating, planning and managing personal endeavors while at work.

I have had many friends excuse themselves during dinner to take a call or respond to email about a business deal or transaction. At first, this seemed rude and antisocial behavior to me. However, over the years I have learned to accept and tolerate it. Personally, I try to avoid this behavior while entertaining or socializing with friends. However, I could do better at home and I believe I am, thanks to my wonderful wife who is on our entire family’s case about “Close all devices while the family is together!”.

If you are ambitious and driven, you know it comes with other characteristics, such as

  • You focus on the outcomes much more than the destination.
  • You don’t seem to ever be satisfied until you achieve your goals.
  • You spend very little time (if any at all) acknowledging, enjoying and celebrating your achievements. In fact, the minute you have achieved a goal you are immediately on to the next one.
  • You tend to be more highly-strung and not as good at “chilling”, “relaxing” as my teen kids sometimes put it, and simply enjoying the moment.

Generally, highly ambitious and driven people seem to be on a bold mission 24/7 and even when we achieve great milestones, progress, and achievements along the way, and others recognize us for it, we still often seem to feel like “We are not quite there yet”. We fall into the trap of feeling that only when we realize our goals and other achievements “we will really make it, and then be able to truly relax and enjoy life to its fullest”.

I have personally experienced this, and I have seen others become overwhelmed by the pursuit of their goals. It’s like, we create these goals to empower ourselves and them along the journey we sometimes forget that we are the ones who set them in the first place and put us in this dynamic.

Consider this quote from Fr. Alfred D’souza, which I thoroughly love and resonate with, which eloquently conveys this:

“For a long time, it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last, it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life”.

The entire “retirement” concept is predicated on this paradigm – we work extremely hard throughout our life, often sacrificing and neglecting key areas like family, marriage, health and recreation, typically in order to achieve financial goals that would allow us to get to that stage in our life when we can retire and then “Truly start doing what we love to do” I have heard this strategy from so many people.

In addition, ambitious and driven people so often equate their material achievements and success with their identity and self-worth. As a result, they get caught in the hamster wheel of jealousy and competitiveness, and even when they reach certain milestones they don’t take the time to appreciate and celebrate what they have accomplished. Instead, they move right into the next goal and the rat race continues.

And, let’s be honest, the popularity of social media doesn’t help at all! In fact, it only makes things worse. Instead of only seeing our neighbor’s new car, we are now connected with thousands of “friends” online and seeing how others live their lives. No wonder we often feel like the grass is greener on the other side.

Throughout our prime years, as we are working our butts off, we feel like “when we get the next promotion…. close the next deal…. make the next million…buy the house or car of our dream or get our children through college or “married…. “THEN life will truly be great”.  But then when we reach old age we often talk about our life as “The good old days”.

So, if throughout our life we feel that “someday” we will start living and then at the prime of our life we feel like “the good old days are behind us”– When is our time to live and enjoy, and be happy???

We all know the answer – “NOW!”. But, it’s not enough to understand this. You need to translate it into real practices, routines, and priorities.

In a future blog, I’ll share my thoughts about “How to not forget the Now” and not forget to live in the moment!

Don’t ask if you don’t want to hear the truth

/in , , , ,

I was attending a senior leadership team meeting of one of the key functions of a large global technology company. The function’s leader, in his attempt to improve the team’s alignment with, and in support of the business, leader undertook a significant organization structure change, in which he created new departments and made changes to existing ones.

The leaders were discussing the reorganization that had been announced and purpose of the conversation was to review the list of team members who were going to move from one team to another as part of the change. Needless to say, for many of the leaders, this was not an easy or comfortable conversation. Those who were losing team members felt somewhat upset and those receiving people felt somewhat guilty.

The function head was eager to drive the transition as fast as possible, but in his haste, he left some of his leaders behind. By that I mean, that quite a few of his leaders didn’t fully understand and buy into his change. The leaders who were not on board still moved forward with his plan but they dragged their feet in every decision and as a result, deadlines were not met and overall things moved slower than the function head had wanted.

The function head was frustrated and so were his leaders. In the meeting, he reiterated his plan and then he asked his leaders: “Do you get it and does all this make sense?” It was clear that what he really meant was: “What do I need to do to get you on board to start owning and driving the change?!”

The question was a legitimate one, but even though the function head kept his cool everyone could sense the frustration behind his words.

There was an awkward silence at first, which was broken by one of the leaders who usually spoke up first reinforcing to the function head in a politically correct way, that everyone was on board. The meeting went on with the agenda.

It was painfully obvious to me – and I believe to everyone else in the meeting – that not everyone got it, not everyone agreed and not everyone felt it made sense. But, people didn’t say a word.

My question to you is:

When is the last time you heard a team member respond to the question from his or her boss “Do you get it and does it make sense?” with:

“No I don’t get it and no it doesn’t make sense. In fact, it is a bad and unnecessary idea!”

I have seen team members feel and think this way, but rarely to never have I seen them say it out loud.

Why?

Because justified or not, they fear retribution. Telling your boss that he/she is wrong; that they don’t get it and that their idea is dumb or unnecessary, is not something most people do at any level of any organization.

In most teams, there isn’t a safe enough space to have these types of authentic and courageous conversations. So, when the boss asks a bold and direct question, even if he or she means well, they will most likely always get the politically correct, diplomatic and cautious answer. People will say the right things, but they will most likely continue to find ways to pretend like they are on board while continuing to drag their feet and pay lip service to the change.

Unfortunately, I see too many leaders and managers who don’t seem to get this. As a result, they ask the same types of naïve blunt questions, they get the same politically correct answers and they leave these interactions feeling good about the outcome, even though in reality nothing really changed.

So, if you want something else to occur, either address the unsafe space and change it, or simply don’t ask if you don’t want to hear the truth.

Courage makes the world go around

/in , ,

W.H. Murray, the leader of the Scottish Himalayan Expedition that pioneered the path to the top of Mt. Everest, knew something about COURAGE.

He shared his experience in a known quote, which I really love:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.

Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

That, the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

As far as I can tell, from many years of experience working with people, as well as from my own life experience, if you want to generate a high level of success at work or in your personal life, courage is always going to be the single most critical ingredient for achieving that.

Courage comes in many forms, expressions and styles. Sometimes standing boldly for what you believe and fully expressing yourself with a loud voice is an act of courage. However, sometimes remaining thoughtful and calm in the face of turmoil or adversity is an act of courage. In other times allowing yourself to be vulnerable and/or to listen to other’s views with openness and generosity requires courage too.

Being ‘courageous‘ is very different than ‘being fearless’. The dictionary defines fearless as: ‘Lacking Fear’. But, if you are courageous it does not mean you lack fear. On the contrary, you need to be most courageous when you are most afraid. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather embracing your fears, no matter how daunting, and behaving in a way that is true to your values and commitments anyways.

The good news is that we all have the innate ability to be courageous. We can bring forth courage and live courageously at any time, no matter what our circumstances are.

What we sometimes seem to forget, however, is just how powerful and magical courage really is. Perhaps that is why we don’t rely and bet on it as much as we could and should when we want to make big things happen.

Early in my career when I was struggling with achieving my sales goals, my mentor at the time told me something that stayed with me my entire life. He said,

“If you do the right thing for long enough you will eventually always get the outcome you want.”

I believed him and it worked. I became the most productive and successful sales leader in the company. I have experienced this principle time and time again in multiple areas of my professional and personal life and I have seen it work in the lives of others too.

If you are willing to be courageous, take a stand for what you want and then stay the course by living, acting and behaving consistently, sooner or later the circumstances will line up with your stance. As W.H. Murray put it in the 3rd paragraph of his quote: Providence will move too.

Yes, you need to believe in yourself and your ability; you need to have faith for this to work. If you stay cynical, negative or sarcastic, the circumstances will prove you right. You know how the saying goes: “Be careful what you wish for!”

When you avoid taking a stand you can easily feel lost, ineffective and uncertain about your direction or pursue, as well as less confident in your ability to achieve what you want. You can more easily fall into a waiting mode, hoping that someone else or something external will clarify things for you. People ask me all the time questions like: “What should I do?” as if there is a right answer. Or they compare themselves to others, looking to imitate or surpass others. Unfortunately, too often I see people pursing “should” goals and dreams that they don’t authentically feel passionate about.

So, if there is no right or wrong answer to the question: “What should I do?” and no one can predict the future, how can you know what direction and goals to pursue?

Alan Kay, ex-Apple fellow answered this question most clearly and powerfully, in my mind. He said:

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it!”

He meant, you just need to take a stand. Even if you only have a sense of what you want and are committed to, take a stand. Even if you are open to more than one direction and you are undecided, take a stand. Always take a stand, write it down and share it with others who are committed to you.

Taking a stand requires courage. It seems that most people who avoid it do so because they are afraid of the future, not because they have no idea of what they want. They simply question or doubt their ability or chance to achieve it.

Inaction can be deadly when it comes to success or having it all. In order to become confident in, and proficient at the game of courage, you need to practice on a regular basis. Eleanor Roosevelt gave very practical and powerful advice on this. She recommended to:

“Do one thing every day that scares you!”

Courage makes the world go round. It inspires, enables, pushes and reminds us to pursue our dreams and never give up. And, when we remain true to our self, we are always the happiest.

Are you having or avoiding the courageous conversations?

/in , ,

The senior leaders of a large and successful technology company I was working with wanted to improve their overall effectiveness as a team, including their communications and meeting productiveness.

The leaders acknowledged that their conversations and meetings were not effective and that included:

  1. The short-term fire-fighting always took over meeting’s agendas and the team never got to discuss the more strategic topics of opportunity and change
  2. When the leaders did get to the discussions the same few team members always dominated the conversation and other team members felt unable to contribute
  3. The team debated issues endlessly without reaching conclusions, alignment and decisions
  4. Important decisions that affected everyone were made behind the scenes with the same few inner circle team members, and
  5. When the leadership team did make a collective decision (especially change-related) leaders often didn’t comply, follow up and/or reinforce these.

The senior leaders were frustrated with their colleagues in the team. However, for the most part, they all blamed their boss, the CEO, for not making the meetings productive, and not empowering his senior leaders to make the key decisions.

Meanwhile, the CEO was even more frustrated. He expected his leaders to communicate, collaborate and work together behind the scenes between the meetings in order to address and resolve issues, align on strategies and plans, and hold each other to account for decisions that were made in prior meetings. Instead, the senior leaders were escalating all the tough issues to him, expecting him to resolve and make the tough decisions, even on issues the leaders were fully capable of and empowered to solve.

Because the leaders were not having the important and often tough conversations among themselves the leadership team’s meetings were unproductive because most of the time was spent reviewing and reacting to updates and reports, as well as confirming decisions and talking about other mundane topics that could have easily been handled between the leaders elsewhere. Needless to say, the leaders were complaining about these meetings too.

In short – The leaders were simply avoiding having the courageous conversations.

I see this dynamic at all levels of seniority in most (perhaps all) organizations. Leaders want things to change, they want more empowerment, responsibility, involvement and authority, but they are not willing to step up and have the courageous conversations that come with the territory of higher responsibility and empowerment.

Yes, courageous conversations can often be messy, unpredictable and uncomfortable; they could cause tensions, conflicts and even deteriorate trust temporarily or permanently. But the cost of avoiding them – for the leaders – is not being able to provide leadership, make the difference and drive change. And, for the organization, the cost is not functioning on all cylinders.

So, how do you change this?

It starts with leaders owning up to their avoidance of the courageous conversations and perhaps also to their lack of courage. It takes authenticity and courageous to admit that you haven’t had courage. Most leaders won’t do this. Instead, they typically come up with circumstantial excuses and justifications such as “it wasn’t the right time for the conversation,” or “We were too busy to talk today” or “I need to get them in the right mindset”.

Admitting that you have been avoiding the courageous conversation is a courageous conversation in itself, so it is a great start for generating change. Honesty and ownership always bring about fresh beginnings, which afford us the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment. In this case, it is our commitment to being a courageous leader.

That may be enough to get you back on the horse. However, being a courageous leader is a new space for you, you should make a list of some practical actions and practices a courageous leader would carry out and then take on the commitment to start behaving accordingly, even if you have to “fake it till you make it” in the beginning.

The great thing about being a courageous leader is that it is completely within our reach; we have the entire wherewithal to step up to this standard. It is simply a matter of making the choice, taking the stand and getting into action consistently.

It’s always the time for straight talk!

/in ,

I was coaching two senior executives in improving their trust, collaboration and communication. They were the heads of two businesses that had to work closely together. In fact, the success of the entire company depended on it.

They were both seasoned, effective and knowledgeable executives who commanded large organizations and achieved great results. Both were highly respected within their respective teams as well as among their peers.

However, they had very different personalities and styles, and they had an acrimonious relationship for a long time.

Even though their team members had to work closely together, the two executives went out of their way to minimize their interactions and limit them to mission-critical activities. Many times they dealt with issues, conflicts and opportunities via email rather than walking down the hall to each other’s office to talk.

While the business continued to push forward, the two executives continued to avoid dealing with their personal conflicts, lack of trust and overall contentious relationship, even though it negatively affected the people under them, as well as the overall effectiveness of their company.

When I talked with each of them alone, they always had blunt criticism and negative comments about each other, as well as an ear-full of stories and examples to justify and back-up their sentiments. But, when the three of us got into a room together, their accusations always seemed watered down and they were no longer communicating in a straightforward, bold and honest way.

In addition, every time one of them criticized the other in front of me, I would ask them, “Have you told your colleague how you feel and what you want/need?” and if the answer was “No!” (as it often was) I coached them to go do so.

On several occasions when one of them would report: “We had a blunt conversation and I told my partner exactly how I feel and what I want,” the other would contradict the story and say: “We talked, but we didn’t discuss anything new.” It was as if they were living on different planets… definitely living in different conversations.

When I have challenged leaders for not communicating directly, openly or authentically sometime they would fess up and acknowledge: “I know! I chickened out at the last minute…” But, many times they attribute their lack of following through to the circumstances: “We didn’t get to it…”, “We didn’t have time…”, “It wasn’t the appropriate time…”.

I see this type of dynamic happening in organizations all the time. People can engage in straight talk with me, but then when they talk to the person with whom they have a problem or need to have the blunt and direct conversation, they sell out and water the communication down.

Does that ever happen to you?  Why does this happen?

From my experience, this happens due to one of the following reasons:

  • People are not clear about what they want to say. When people ‘beat around the bush’, stumble on words, or when they are ‘lost for words’ it is often simply because they don’t know what they want to say. Many times, people enter conversations feeling confident about what they want to say, but then during the conversation, they become overwhelmed or simply realize their thoughts are still half-baked and unclear. Some can power through it and use the chaotic space of the conversation to form their thoughts. However, many don’t feel comfortable doing this.Many times people are unclear about what they want to say because they haven’t taken a stand. It’s not that they are confused. It’s that they haven’t made a choice about where they stand. The minute you become clear about what you believe and want, you always find an appropriate and effective way to say it.
  • People are not willing to own what they have to say. Sometimes, expressing what you feel and/or what you want could be uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. Perhaps, you don’t want to hurt someone else’s feelings or you are afraid that if you say something tough they may retaliate with something that will hurt your feelings too. Perhaps you feel guilty for having such strong criticism or emotions about another, or you are simply trying to avoid conflict. When people are not willing to own how they feel, their feedback or what they need, they tend to not speak up or water down their communications.
  • People lack the courage to express what they want to say. At some basic level, communication always boils down to personal courage. First, having the courage to be honest with yourself about what you feel and want. Then, having the courage to express what you feel and want to others without filters. Also, having the courage to be open and vulnerable, including listening openly with your ears and heart to what someone else is saying and receiving their feedback.

So, next time you find yourself stuck or lost in a conversation ask yourself: “Am I really clear about what I am trying to say?” or “Am I avoiding owning what I have to say?” This will help you move forward.

Promise results or don’t promise at all!

/in , , ,

I was coaching the marketing department of a global technology company in coming up with its strategic plan. They had identified their key strategic areas and were working on articulating the outcomes they wanted to achieve in each area. However, in several of the areas, instead of coming up with clear end results, they identified activities.

For example, instead of promising to grow the number of customers and potential customers who are signed up, and actively contributing to their user-group community to a specific number, they promised to increase the number of events in which they promoted the community. Instead of promising to increase the number of high-end industry events they are invited to speak at to a specific number, they promised to increase the number of training classes they would offer to train people to speak. And, instead of promising to be recognized by the key relevant CEOs as one of the top thought-leaders in their field, they promised to drive a vast list of PR and social media activities including the number of followers on Twitter and LinkedIn, the number of press and analyst briefings and more.

Whilst all these activities are important as part of the means to get to their desired end, they are just that – the means, not the end itself.

This mindset and approach of focusing on the activities that would achieve the results, rather than on the results themselves is very common in organizations. The explanation I often get to this is something to the effect of “We can’t control the results. We can only control our activities…”

The problem with the activity-based approach is that it creates a lot of busyness, but after a while, people tend to lose track of what all the busyness is for in the first place. In fact, after a while, people can’t tell the difference between activities and results.

In addition, the focus on the means (activities) versus the end (results) hinders the ability of the team to assess the effectiveness of the activities and if they are in fact achieving the results, and make any necessary changes. Most organizations are good at adding activities, but they are not good at stopping them.

Lastly, the activity-based approach undermines the team’s culture of accountability. Real accountability is always for clear results. It promotes a mindset of overcoming any obstacles. The activity-based approach tolerates and nurtures a culture of circumstance limitations, self-protection and excuses.

At first, I thought that the activities-based approach is more common when outlining a strategy for more subjective business areas like “brand awareness”, “team culture” and “customer satisfaction”. However, my experience has shown me that it is often the same when dealing with the most objective areas such as: “revenues”, “profitability” and “market share”.

In the world of strategy, there seem to be two schools of thought:

“Promise your desired results and then put the activities in place to fulfill them.”

“Promise the activities that you assume and hope will fulfill your desired results.”

Unfortunately, the second approach seems to be much more prevalent, most of the time in most organizations.

Why is this the case?

My favorite explanation is: It is much easier and safer to promise activities than results. Less risk and responsibility. Less need to challenge the status quo, think outside the box and come up with new ways to do things. And, you are off the hook for the most important piece – the actual outcome!

Another popular excuse that people give for focusing on activities and not results is: “You can’t measure areas such as “brand recognition”, “team culture” and “customer satisfaction”.

But, that is not true! You can measure anything that is important for you. You just need to understand that there are no right or wrong, perfect, and/or factual measures. When it comes to measures you need to choose something that is meaningful to you and then take ownership of it.

In my work with organizations, especially when creating bold future-based strategies teams often create new metrics for new areas they want to take on. It is actually quite refreshing to think differently about new areas, rather than trying to force old metrics on them.

To conclude, in today’s world where opportunities are abundant, resources are scarce, competition is fierce and everyone is looking for ways to scale and do more with less, you can’t afford to waste time and cycles on activities that may or may not deliver the results you want.

Your job as a leader is not to track and report on activities. It is to cause results.

So, if you are not going to promise to cause specific results, don’t promise anything at all!

6 essential steps to help you reach your next level

/in , ,

A lot of my one-on-one coaching work is focused on helping leaders and professionals take themselves, their environment, performance, and results to the next level.

Whether you are a beginner or veteran at your game, there are clear, powerful and practical principles that if you understand and follow will help you reach your next desired level:

  1. Get clear on your desired end state. Project yourself into your future – at least a year or two from now – and envision that you have achieved your desired end state. Then, describe what your success looks like. Write it down as clear and vivid as you can.
  1. Visualize how you are behaving and performing in your new future state. When you visualize your future, take notice of how you are behaving and acting in that reality. Pay special attention to areas where you are doing things differently from today. Record a few practices and behaviors that you can start applying today in order to start driving and drawing your desired state to you.
  1. Start behaving consistently with your future state now. Start applying the practices and behaviors that you outlined in the previous step in your day-to-day routines. Every time you find yourself regressing to old habits, stop, acknowledge it and correct yourself back to behaving consistently with your list of future reality practices.
  1. Get people around you to support you. Just like a world class athlete wouldn’t dream of reaching the Olympics without a support structure, don’t try to go the next level alone. Don’t keep your commitment and project a secret. On the contrary, share it with the people you trust and ask them to be your committed ‘partners in crime’; to look out for you and support you to stay the course, especially when the going gets tough and old habits kick in. The fact that you include them in the first place, will cement your commitment and put you in a more determined mindset. Especially, when they actually start holding you to account, even if it may be uncomfortable, it will make a significant difference.
  1. Start recording accomplishments and wins that are consistent with your future state. At the end of each day or week reflect on what you have done and list all the specific areas where you have had wins and made progress consistent with your desired practices and future. Don’t be concerned with the size of the wins/progress or if others would recognize or appreciate them too. Any win that has meaning to you, no matter how small or big, counts and should be included in your list. In fact, the more accomplishments and wins you record (or “collect”) the better.
  1. Own and represent your progress. Always speak about your journey to the next level in a powerful, positive and empowering manner. People tend not to take responsibility for their growth and greatness. They tend to always keep one foot in the back door, just in case they’ll fail. They say things like: “Things are going well… BUT… I am not there yet!” They emphasize the “I am not there yet” more than “Things are going great.” Don’t do that! In fact, do the opposite. Acknowledge and share your progress with the people you trust. Keep reminding yourself that progress promotes and invites more progress and the opposite is also true.

These last two steps are often most underestimated, ignored and/or avoided. In order to drive and materialize your new future state most effectively, you need to have the right mindset and behavior. Listing and acknowledging accomplishments and wins will empower you to overcome any skepticism and/or doubts and replace them with genuine enthusiasm and confidence about what you are creating. The more you believe in the viability of your aspiration the more you are likely to stay the course to its fulfillment.

While these steps may not come naturally at first, they will over time.  Make them your new normal, for they are essential when it comes to taking your game to the next level.

How to drive strong ownership, commitment, accountability and passion in your team

/in , , ,

As a leader – here are five practical things you can do to deepen the level of ownership, commitment, accountability and passion in your team:

  1. Make sure people are engaged in setting the goals early on. This practice would most likely be applied differently depending on the size of your team, and how dispersed it is. In a small team, it is easy to engage people in the strategy or goal-setting exercise. In a large organization, this principle will have to be implemented in steps. Step one – would be to get your senior team engaged and aligned. Step two – bring the middle managers on board. And step three – update and include the rest of the team. The application may be different, but the principle of engaging everyone in the goals early on is always relevant. This is because the more people feel listened to and engaged in setting the goals the more they will feel a sense of personal ownership and accountability toward them.
  1. Promote a culture of open, honest, authentic and courageous communication. The more your people feel they can speak their mind, especially addressing what is not working the more they will naturally gravitate toward feeling and behaving like loyal owners of the business. Regardless of what senior leaders often think, people will only speak up if they believe their leaders genuinely want them to. If you want to deepen ownership and accountability throughout your organization, you have to start with yourself and your senior leaders. You and your leaders need to show that you are open to honest dialogue, including feedback and criticism about yourselves.
  1. Instil the language of accountability as the norm. The language of accountability sounds and feels very different than the typical language of compliance that permeates throughout most organizations. In an environment of compliance, people tend to tolerate and indulge in excuses, justifications, blame and reasons why things can’t be done, why they didn’t get done or why they aren’t done with excellence. In contrast, the language of accountability is all about clarity and action. People make clear requests and promises. And these get responded to with clear and authentic acceptances, declines or counter-offers. People always know where things stand and they value integrity and honesty over appearances and political gain.
  1. Deal with failures, mistakes and shortfalls in an empowering way. In most organizations when people underperform or fail, senior leadership tends to look for someone or something to blame. The problem is that when people feel there is a witch-hunt going on to find a scape-goat they react by hiding, protecting their behinds, even lying. As a result, teams often don’t get to the source and root-cause of the failure in the first place, so they find themselves repeating the same failures in one way or another over and over again. If you want to create an environment of authentic accountability deal with all failures, mistakes and shortfalls only in an empowering way – don’t entertain the ‘blame game’. In fact, don’t be concerned with ‘whose fault it is’. Instead, be obsessed with learning from past failures and correcting the issues. Ask your team questions like: “What was missing?”, “What was in the way?” and “What can we change, correct and improve?”. You’ll see that your people will be excited to contribute to the investigation and as a result, you’ll come up with new ideas and solutions that will take you to new heights. In addition, you will strengthen your people’s sense of ownership and accountability to your vision.
  1. Highlight, recognize and celebrate displays of accountability. Most leaders don’t do a great job of acknowledging and recognizing their team members for a job well done on any day. I am not referring to the formal corporate human resources recognition programs that occur at best once a quarter or a couple of times a year. I am talking about creating an environment of day-to-day verbal recognition. People respond extremely well to genuine recognition. It makes them feel noticed, appreciated and valued and that causes them to want to do and contribute even more. If you want to create a powerful culture of ownership, commitment, accountability and passion, go out of your way to recognize small, medium or large displays of ownership and accountability. Make it a daily routine and practice. It’s so simple!

While I have directed this list to “leaders” and “managers”, these topics are so universal and basic that anyone in the team, no matter what level or position, could suggest them, promote them and bring about positive change with them…. especially if they are eager to make a difference and are willing to be courageous.

Taking responsibility makes the difference

/in , ,

I was working with a large technology company on transforming their organizational culture and elevating their business results to a new level. We started the change initiative with the senior leadership team, getting each of the leaders to whole heartedly believe in, and own the process and its objectives.

We then extended the process to the top 100 senior managers by holding a multi-day session that also included the senior leaders.

Like many companies, there was history and baggage with regard to change. There were past attempts to improve the basic organizational dynamics that everyone was frustrated about, such as transforming the silos, politics and ‘blame game’ between functions and levels into genuine alignment, trust and collaboration, bringing clarity to everyone’s roles and responsibilities, and changing the overall sentiment in the organization that the senior leadership was not ‘walking the talk.’

In that initial session, the managers had the opportunity to express to the senior leaders what they were most frustrated about and what they wanted to see a change in, including in the way the CEO and the senior leaders behaved and operated. The senior team listened openly and together with the managers they committed to improving things.

The managers left the session really excited and hopeful about the future. However, they also left with high expectations of their senior colleagues regarding the continuity and follow through of the process.

The senior leaders were determined to drive changes in culture and business processes and performance. They set up task teams to drive the strategic commitments and they started – slowly but surely – to upgrade and change key employee related policies and processes.

The problem was, however, that the senior leaders did not do a good job communicating down to the managers what they were doing and the progress they were making. The managers who took part in particular activities knew only about those activities, and those who weren’t actively involved had no awareness of any progress. And, even those who saw segments of the progress felt it was too small and too slow.

With no communication and updates, managers became increasingly frustrated, skeptical and discouraged about the change. Negative hallway chatter increased and there was a growing sentiment of criticism and invalidation of the senior leaders and the change initiative for its lack of traction and progress.

Needless to say, even though the CEO and senior leaders felt good about the progress in the change initiative when it came time for the next in-person session with the managers, they were extremely nervous and worried about their ability to re-engage the managers in the next steps of owning and leading the change.

This true story does have a good ending…

The meeting with the managers was very successful because instead of ignoring sentiments and putting on a fancy presentation, the CEO and his senior leaders generated a dialogue that was very honest, authentic and courageous in which they referred back to the initial meeting and acknowledged what they had committed to at the time. They also shared what had progressed since the beginning, and also what hadn’t. They recognized the managers for the progress and took responsibility for what hadn’t progressed, including the lack of communication and update along the way. They also, committed to specific areas to tackle next in order to accelerate the change.

Not only did the CEO and senior leaders take responsibility, but they did it in a genuinely open, vulnerable and courageous way. This touched the managers and enabled them to get beyond the past, quickly and regain their faith, commitment, and ownership in the future of the change.

From the several lessons I took from this powerful, inspiring and transformational event, I want to highlight two:

First, it was another reminder of just how powerful and magical open, honest and courageous communication and dialogue can be.

Second, that no matter how challenging or frustrating things may be, when leaders take responsibility for what they said and committed to, what they have done and what they hadn’t, in a genuine and courageous way, this transforms almost any level of skepticism and doubt below them.

In fact, if I had to capture the blueprint of the conversation that makes the difference it would look like this:

  1. Acknowledge what you committed to in the first place, including what people may have expected out of what you said.
  2. Share what you have done, achieved and accomplished and where there have been small, medium or large progress.
  3. Acknowledge what you have not done, and do it without excuses, justifications or stories.
  4. Commit to what you will do moving forward in order to continue to drive the commitments you promised in the first place.
  5. Invite you managers or team members to join you and co-own the game moving forward – But, DO NOT start the process with step 5, because without taking responsibility first for past successes and failures you don’t have a high chance to succeed.
  6. Keep your commitments. Learn from the past, correct errors and improve your process.

People will forgive you once or twice. In fact, they will trust you even more if you demonstrate learning from history, especially your mistakes and failures. However, if you don’t, you will lose the trust and your credibility and it will be extremely difficult to recover from that.