Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

In Stressful Encounters, Rewire Yourself to Listen

In a stressful encounter, you may have less than two minutes to gain control and salvage the situation.

  Mark Goulston M.D.: Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Goulston recommends a five-step mental process, whether you’re dealing with a fender-bender, enraged teenager or work situation:

1.    “Oh, F#@&!” (Reaction Phase): “This is a disaster. I’m screwed. It’s all over.”

2.    “Oh, God!” (Release Phase): “This is a huge mess. I’m stuck with it. Why me?”

3.    “Oh, Jeez!” (Re-Center Phase): “I can fix this, but it’s not going to be fun.”

4.    “Oh, Well…” (Refocus Stage): “I’m not going to let this ruin my career/day/relationship. Here’s what I need to do right now to make it better.”

5.    “OK.” (Reengage Phase): “OK, I’m ready to fix this. Let’s go.”

Rewire Yourself to Listen

Many of us don’t listen well, especially when it comes to the people we deal with each day. We think we already know what they’re going to say.

When we size people up instantly, we form some pretty good first impressions.  The problem is, these impressions last forever, and many are a jumbled mix of fact, fiction, prejudice and unconscious intuitions.

We use filters to put people in mental boxes before we really know them:

• Gender (and all the stereotypes that go with it...)
• Generation (age)
• Ethnic background (names, skin color, etc.)
• Education (level, manner of speaking)
• Looks (dress, hair, body size,)

Check your filters, and examine how well you truly hear what someone is saying.

Your Three-Part Brain

Our brains evolved from lower animals:

· Our primitive reptilian brain remains responsible for split-second survival reactions (i.e., the “freeze, fight or flight” response).

· The middle mammalian brain or your limbic brain is the seat of emotions, where the inner drama queen reigns.

· The upper primate/human brain or your neocortical brain weighs a situation logically and generates a conscious plan of action. It may collect data from the reptile and limbic brains, analyze it, and make practical decisions.

How to Get Through to Anyone

Most likely, there are several people in your life to whom you can’t seem to get through.  You try persuasion, logic, pleading, anger and bargaining, but you hit a wall every time.

Most people, when faced with resistance, speak louder, persuade harder, encourage, cajole, argue and push.  The end result is greater resistance.

But when you listen, ask, mirror and reflect back to people what you hear, you’ll start to get through to those you need to reach, no matter how difficult they can be.

The Persuasion Cycle

In Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, psychiatrist Mark Goulston explains that persuasion moves through a cycle:

· From resisting to listening

· From listening to considering

· From considering to willing to do

· From willing to do to doing

· From doing to glad they did and continuing to do

Buy-in begins when people move from resisting to listening to considering what you‘re saying.  How do you get a person to go from the critical stage of resisting to listening? 

First, you listen to them.

  Mark Goulston M.D.: Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Just Listen

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, writes, "I suspect that the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen.  Perhaps, the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. And especially if it's given from the heart.  When people are talking, there's no need to do anything but receive them.  Just take them in.

Listen to what they're saying.  Care about it.  Most times caring about it is even more important than understanding it.  Most of us don't value ourselves or our love enough to know this.  It has taken me a long time to believe in the power of simply saying, "I'm so sorry," when someone is in pain.  And meaning it.

I have even learned to respond to someone crying by just listening.  In the old days, I used to reach for the tissues, until I realized that passing a person a tissue may be just another way to shut them down, to take them out of their experience of sadness and grief.  Now I just listen.  When they have cried all they need to cry, they find me there with them.

This simple thing has not been that easy to learn.  It certainly went against everything I had been taught since I was very young.  I thought people listened only because they were too timid to speak or did not know the answer.  A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well intentioned words."

Make the Other Person Feel “Felt”

Put yourself in the other person’s shoes so you can change the dynamics of a relationship. In that instant, you “get” each other, and this breakthrough leads to cooperation, collaboration and effective communication.

When you mirror what another person feels, she’s hardwired to mirror you in return.  When you say, “I understand what you’re feeling” — and you mean it — she will feel grateful and, in return, express her appreciation with a desire to understand you.  It’s an irresistible biological urge that pulls another person toward you.

  Mark Goulston M.D.: Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Leadership and Generosity

The tradition of private generosity in America has always been central to our free society.

Today, Americans voluntarily give over $30 billion a year to support higher education, and thanks in part to philanthropy, America has the best colleges and universities in the world.  There are three reasons why America is the most charitable country on earth:

First, we are the most religious people of any leading modern economy.  The single most important determinant of charitable giving is active religious faith and observance.  Americans who attend church or synagogue or another form of worship once a week give three times as much to charity as a percentage of their income as do those who rarely attend religious services.  One third of all charitable giving in America--$100 billion a year--goes to religion.

A second reason America is so charitable is because we respect the freedom and the ability of individuals, and associations of individuals, to make a difference.  Americans don't wait for government or the local nobleman to solve our problems; we find solutions ourselves.

The third reason for our extraordinary charity is that philanthropy is such an important part of our nation's business culture.  Wealth creation and philanthropy have always gone together in America.  They are reflections of the creativity and can-do spirit of a free society.  From Benjamin Franklin, who founded the first volunteer fire department, to Andrew Carnegie, who brought public libraries to communities across America, to Bill Gates, who is seeking to eradicate malaria, great business entrepreneurs have sought to be great philanthropists.

Source: Adam Meyerson, president, The Philanthropy Roundtable, from a speech delivered in Washington, D.C., on January 8, 2010 sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship

Why do 40% of New Leaders Fail?

Most executives think it is important to "go it alone" due to their belief in the myth of individualism; they hold tightly to the idea that everyone succeeds or fails on the basis of individual efforts and abilities.

This assumption is so powerful that when an alternative view is suggested (that success depends on our relationships with others as much as it does on us) the usual reaction is denial. Denial of the role of relationships in the executive's success preserves the self-enhancing illusion that we are masters of our own fates and, therefore, deserving of all the credit for our successes.

The myth of individualism can negatively affect our chances for success.

Consider that four out of ten newly promoted managers and executives fail within 18 months of starting new jobs, according to research by Manchester, Inc, a leadership development firm in Bala Cynwyd, PA. "Failing" includes being terminated for performance, performing significantly below expectations or voluntarily resigning from the new position. When newly recruited, the following types of executives experienced the highest failure rates within the first 18 months: senior-level executives (39%), sales executives (30%), marketing executives (25%), and operations executives (23%).

Here are the major reasons for failure in the new job: 

They fail to establish a cultural fit……………......................75%

They fail to build teamwork with staff and peers…...........…52%

They are unclear about what their bosses expect….............33%

They don't have the required internal political savvy…..........25%

There's no process to assimilate executives into the firm…...22%

Two out of every five new CEOs fail in the first 18 months (HBR, January 2005).

During the second half of 1999, when statistics began to be compiled, nearly 270 chief executives were forced to leave their companies or simply resigned, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the Chicago-based outplacement firm that follows employment issues. Since then, the pace has quickened--in 2004, 663 chief executives departed and turnover doubled to 1,322 in 2005, according to the firm.

CEOs are now lasting just 7.6 years in office on a global average, down from 9.5 years in 1995, according to consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.

Leaders often fail for a few common reasons: due to unclear or outsized expectations, a failure to build partnerships with key stakeholders, a failure to learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough, a failure to determine the process for gaining commitments from direct reports and a failure to recognize and manage the impact of change on people.

John G. Self of JohnGSelf Associates, Inc., an executive search firm in Dallas, TX, said, "When I first read L. Kevin Kelley’s comments in the Financial Times – that 40 percent of 20,000 executives that Heidrick & Struggles placed quit, were fired or forced out in 18 months – [I] was astounded.  As a recruiter, I have never had that kind of failure rate.  But I have since read other studies and apparently, between the poor recruiting processes and the refusal of executives to reach out for help, Heidrick’s experience is apparently an industry average."

Executive onboarding coaching (of the newly recruited or promoted executive can turnaround this high rate of failure).

Here are some of links for self-coaching on leadership issues:

CoachedtoSuccess.com -   Executive & Business Coaching

Leadership401.com  -  Typical personal and corporate coaching plans and costs 

CareerWomenCoaching.com  -  Blog for career women.

The-Leadership-Blog.com  -  A series of leadership tip postings, including this one, for women executives.

America: The New Entrepreneur Nation

More Americans are working as consultants or freelancers, either having given up or been forced out of the salaried world of 9 to 5.  It's a trend that began after the economic downturn of the late 1980s, when I became a management consultant like many other laid-off professionals who became consultants.

Evidence now suggests that this is our new economic condition.  Today, in fact, 20% to 23% of U.S. workers are operating as consultants, freelancers, free agents, contractors or micropreneurs.  Current projections see the number only rising in coming years.  Imagine one in four workers, of all collars, working on a contingent basis.  Whole career paths and professions have shifted from stable full-time jobs with definable career ladders and benefits to almost completely contingent work forces that shift from project to project.

There are plenty of consultants and freelancers who are earning real income and enjoying success in their careers (as well as redefining what it means to be a success).  So, what do these thriving solo artists have in common?  What is the recipe for their good fortune?

Leadership Lessons

Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible...a leadership primer of eighteen lessons from General Colin Powell, Chairman (Ret), Joint Chiefs of Staff and former U.S. Secretary of State.

Lesson 1: "Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."

Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. It's inevitable, if you're honorable. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: you'll avoid the tough decisions, you'll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted, and you'll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance because some people might get upset. Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying not to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally "nicely" regardless of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people you'll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.

Lincoln on Leadership

Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times  by Donald T. Phillips

People, Character, Endeavor and Communication

Part 1: People

Chapter 1: Get Out of the office and Circulate Among the Troops

"His cardinal mistake is that he isolates himself, & allows nobody to see him; and by which he does not know what is going on in the very matter he is dealing with."

Lincoln's reason for relieving Gen. John C. Fremont from his command in Missouri (September 9, 1861)

Lincoln Principles

Explain yourself in writing and offer advice on how to solve problems.

It is important that the people know you come among them without fear.

Seek casual contact with your subordinates. It is as meaningful as a formal gathering, if not more so.

Don't often decline to see people who call on you.

Take public opinion baths.

Be the very embodiment of good temper and affability.

Remember, everyone likes a compliment.

If your subordinates can stand it, so can you. Set a good example.

You must seek and require access to reliable and up-to-date information.

Also check out: What is Leadership, Colin Powell on Leadership and leadership skill-building.

Are You Practicing the Law of Love?

Divine Law can neither be ignored nor put aside. Perhaps, the most important of these laws is the 'law of love.'

Put simply, "Love is Law, Law is Love." This amounts to the same thing as "the gift of giving" without the "hope of reward or pay," or serving others. For how the Law of Love works in business, go to LawofReciprocity.com

What is this thing called love?

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Every religion teaches the Law of Love.

Buddhism
Hurt not others with that which pains yourself. Udanavarga 5.18.

Christianity
Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the Law and the Prophets. Bible, Matthew 7:12.

Confucianism
Do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you. Analects 15.23.

Hinduism
This is the sum of duty: Do nothing to others which if done to you, would cause you pain. Mahabharata 5.1517.

Islam
No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. Traditions.

Jainism
In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self, and should therefore refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear undesirable to us if inflicted upon ourselves. Yogashastra 2.20.

Judaism
What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go learn it. Talmud.

Sikhism
As you deem yourself so deem others. Then you will become a partner in partner to heaven. Kabir.

Taoism
Regard your neighbor's loss as your own loss. T'ai shang kan ying p'ien.

Are you putting The Law of Love to work for you?

For self-help books click on: be conscious of your default behavior, love, success, A.D.D., self-coaching, leadership , what should I do with my life, getting to know you and the meaning of life.