The Little Secret Good Coaches Know

Good executive coaches know a little secret about the goals you focus on during your work together:  it's not about the goals.  Accomplishing the goals you set is important, but the goals are achieved in service of a more valuable and enduring outcome.  It's really about what you learn about yourself as a leader, and the new habits you build, as you pursue the goals.

Strategists in the workplace see this dynamic playing out often:

• It's not just about the promotion; it's about the leadership skills, relationships, and experience you develop to become promotable.
• It's not just about your team's performance targets; it's about how they have to learn to collaborate, communicate and be accountable to each other to achieve them.
• It's not even about increasing your sales;  it's about learning to hear your market's voice, recognize emerging needs and build the kind of reputation that produces strong sales.

So the next time you're confronted with an over-stuffed calendar, deciding what to tackle first, look for the bigger impact. Assess each item, asking 

• "What will accomplishing this help me learn, or do better?" or
• "How could I approach this in a way that helps me achieve a bigger goal?"  

And then, after considering your answers, go for the bigger win.

Negotiation: Turning Bad News Into Good

Picture this: "Time for my favorite thing in the world - negotiation!" crows Jack Donaghy.  30 Rock's Liz Lemon cringes.  And then a testosterone-infused skirmish produces an absurd outcome - as two combatants' need to win once again hijacks their common sense.

MJ Tocci, co-founder and executive director of the newly launched Heinz Negotiation Academy for Women, points out why this scene is both funny and familiar:  

"So many of us see negotiation as a competitive, conflict driven contest ... and the fear of losing can make negotiation daunting.  That brings bad news and good news.

The bad news is that negotiation is an essential skill for resolving conflict, building your brand, doing good work, managing deadlines, and  getting paid what you are worth.  

The good news is that there are many ways to get there.  I often ask my negotiation students to substitute the phrase 'creative problem solving' for 'negotiation' when they get stuck in their positions.  

Often what was competitive becomes more collaborative as you explore different options. Shouting or posturing is replaced by questioning and listening, assumptions are recognized and updated, and outcomes become more satisfying for all involved.  

Does this work all the time?  No, but it works more than you might think."  

The next time you are ready to ask for something you need or deserve, MJ recommends that you consider creative and strategic prompts like:

1. What's the outcome I want most?
2. Where am I if I don't ask for it ... and where am I if I do?
3. What are several different ways I could get what I want? 
4. What facts would make it clear that there is an advantage to both sides when we agree to pursue the outcome I am seeking?
5. What is the best timing for my request? 
6. Who can help me influence decision makers? 
7. What's my response to "no"?  

Your response to #7 is important - because in the world of negotiations, "no' is merely a position from which to negotiate again. 

Earning Optimism

There's a distinctive form of optimism shaping the mindsets of successful innovators.

  

It's more of a "follow your learning" than "follow your bliss" expectation.  This form of optimism is earned.  It's a by-product of taking on the big goals, managing through ambiguous situations and living by your results.  Knowing that you'll incorporate successes and failures and keep pressing forward fuels a grounded confidence.

Earned optimism is shaped by curiosity.  The kind of curiosity that compels you to keep asking questions, to find and learn from people who are different from you, to tinker and experiment until you get it right, and to commit to success.  Even if you're not 100% sure of what the success will look like ... yet.

In an interview in the Paris Review, Ray Bradbury said:

"I don't believe in optimism. I believe in optimal behavior. That's a different thing.... Test it. Find out. You don't know - you haven't done it yet. You must live life at the top of your voice!  At the top of your lungs shout and listen to the echoes....

Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you've done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I'll be damned, I did this today. It doesn't matter how good it is, or how bad - you did it. At the end of the week you'll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I'll be damned, it's been a good year."

What will strengthen your optimism today?

Stressed? Mind the Gap

Stress is a constant friction that either hones our effectiveness or grinds us  down.  We work hard to deliver on ever-rising expectations in an ever-changing world.  It's not just work pressures - our own expectations keep rising.  The more we  achieve, the more we and others often expect. So we have our conscious and unconscious expectations - and then what  actually happens. As Peter Bregman pointed out, the gap between what you expect and what  actually happens is the underlying cause of stress.      To use stress well, it's critical to "mind the gap." On the London Underground, this means being mindful of how you step forward  from your subway car onto the platform of your destination. In life, this means being mindful of how you step forward from an unfulfilled  expectation into what actually happened.      You have two fundamental choices:  update your expectations or try to change  what's happening.  Trying to change the situation often creates more stress -  and you have more control over yourself than others - so it's productive to start  with updating your expectations.  Remember that other's behaviors and the changing landscape may have little to  do with you.  How you choose to respond to them has everything to do with you.   So travel well during your stressful days. Ask yourself -  "What am I assuming will happen today?"  -  and, "How well have I communicated this?"   When you're feeling stressed, ask -  "What was it that I expected that didn't pan out?"  -  and, "How important is this?"  -  and, "Where's the best opportunity now - in updating what I know and expect  or in changing the situation?" Then take a deep breath - and maybe another - and step confidently forward  into what actually happens next.

Innovation Leadership, With A Twist

You've learned core practices that build strong leadership, like setting the stage for your team's success, concentrating on what matters most, and leading by example.

  

Innovation leaders have the same kinds of practices, but they use them with a twist.

Innovation leaders set the stage for their teams by 

• consistently exposing them to new ideas and experiences
• protecting time to think
• building networks that include many different points of view
• and creating other interesting intersections, because that's where creativity occurs.

Innovation leaders pay particular attention to

• finding and spotlighting good questions
• looking for something they hadn't picked up on before
• seeing ways to create new combinations
• and highlighting the potential within fledgling ideas.

Innovation leaders set a distinctive personal example, of

• commitment to and passion for their work
• active experimentation, and effective uses of failure
• combining, building and improving upon ideas
• and celebrating once again finding an even better way.

If you want to build a stronger culture of innovation, start by noticing which of these practices come most naturally to you and then find ways to do them more, better or in combination with something new. 

  

Many innovation leadership practices are already in your grasp, you just have to use them with a twist.

Anti-Conventional Thinking

Want to try some unusually effective approaches to creative thinking?

Jeffrey Baumgartner studied the way “artists, writers, scientists and other creative geniuses” worked and noticed that they rarely followed the rules for brainstorming or creative problem solving (CPS).  Instead, they used intentionally unconventional approaches. 

They succeeded by using a provocative set of practices he summarized as “Anti-Conventional Thinking” (ACT)”   ACT encourages you to recognize conventional perspectives and then do something purposefully different. 

You can dip your toe in the ACT waters with some of the following practices.

When framing an issue:

If you’re stuck on a stubborn challenge, ask, “What’s a more extreme way to describe our goal?”  

So instead of asking, “How might we improve the customer experience with our services?” ask, “What would make our services as addictive as meth?”  or “How could we make our customers so happy they cry?”

Safer, more conventional ideas simply won’t work with these extreme statements, so you’re compelled to come up with more creative ones.  It’s OK if the provocative statement seems excessive, or if the ideas it prompts seems implausible.  It’s easier to tame down an outrageous but interesting idea than it is to juice up a bland one.

When generating ideas:

Only allow unconventional ideas.  Refuse to write down any conventional ideas.  You’ll get fewer ideas - but they’ll be more creative.

Encouraging respectful criticism of conventional or flawed ideas.  Criticism should be focused only on the idea.  The person giving the idea, and anyone else who’s moved to do so, is encouraged to defend and improve it. Again, you’ll get fewer ideas - but they’ll be better developed.

While brainstorming and CPS focus on generating long lists of raw ideas, anticipating that there will be a few gems in the midst, ACT aims to produce a few unconventional ideas that could have a brilliant impact.

When evaluating ideas:

Highlight the most unconventional ones and make them even better.  Consider potential weaknesses and how they could be addressed.  Find ways to make the ideas even more unconventional, and then identify how to make them work.

In other words, to get something different do something very different.  

Want to learn more?  You can read “ACT in a Nutshell” here. 

In-the-Moment Strategic Thinking

What's your first response in situations like  -  when an employee suggests a new, and somewhat risky, approach -  or a colleague is late with materials you need  -  or a customer requests a cut in rates? To stack the odds in your favor, don't respond to the situation.   Instead, think about the impact you want to create with your response,  and then choose your response. To paraphrase Peter Bregman, this means moving from the typical pattern of:        situation > response > outcome to:        situation > outcome > response. For example, when that employee suggests the new and risky approach (situation) if you want more of the status quo (outcome),  shoot the idea down (response). But if you want to encourage new and better ideas (outcome), have a PPCO conversation (response):             Plusses:  note what you like about the idea,             Potentials:  find ways to extend or build upon the idea,             Concerns:  only then - identify the drawbacks,             Opportunities:  and discuss ways they might be overcome. Responding to the outcome you want, rather than the situation itself, can help you amplify positive events and redirect less positive ones.        The more you practice a situation > outcome > response approach,  the more natural this in-the-moment strategic thinking will become, and the more time you'll spend on creating the outcomes that matter most.

Get a Grip on the Griping

Blamestorming can be seductive.  It's so pervasive that DIRECTV did a memorable spot on it.  It's just easier, not to mention self protective, to blame anyone but yourself for problems.  

Used judiciously, critical analysis reduces risks and improves ideas.  Used maliciously (for example, showing how smart you are by tearing down other's ideas) criticism saps energy, initiative and innovation. 

Whether it's a tolerated form of competitive positioning, a result of frustration, or simply a bad habit, the temptation to blame, vent and criticize is understandable.

And toxic.

So how to get a grip on the griping?

Here are three practices executives I've worked with have used productively: 

Refocus critical comments.  Diane Sawyer noticed that, "Criticism is just a really bad way of making a request.  So why not just make the request?"  Or, when someone else brings a criticism or complaint to you, shift the focus by asking what they want instead.

Check your intention.  Marshall Goldsmith recommends asking yourself three kinds of questions before voicing a complaint:  "Who will this comment help?  Is this comment the best way to help them?  Do I really believe what I'm about to say?"

Respect and practice the power of the positive. Shawn Achor researches positive outliers - people who are well above average.  He found that "...only 25 percent of job successes are predicted by I.Q. 75 percent of job successes are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.... If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive performs significantly better than it does at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, what we've found is that every single business outcome improves."