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Regardless of your industry, company, position, and present level of success, I’m sure there are problems on your plate for which coaching would be beneficial. The value of coaching is for a great deal in the interaction. For interaction with a skilled, astute coach creates deeper levels of awareness, stronger critical thinking skills, strengthened resilience, and improved accountability. This post is far from interactive, however, the following 21 questions can get you started when dealing with people, project, or other challenges. Answer them all, candidly and on paper, then revisit the questions and your responses in a few hours or, if it can wait a little longer, the next day:

1. Why is the problem a problem for everyone involved?

2. Which are your assumptions about the problem?

3. Which are your assumptions about every individual involved?

4. Do you recognize any untested and biased assumptions on your end?

5. What is the influence of power dynamics between you and others involved?

6. What are you trying to accomplish and whereto – for what bigger reason?

7. What’s important about that to you and others aware of this?

8. How are your sensitivities and ‘interpersonal allergies’ at play here?

9. What might someone who knows you well observe in this situation?

10. How candid have you been with yourself and with others?

11. How may stakeholders think totally different from you and why?

12. What specifically is it that the involved people are working to accomplish?

13. What have you tried so far and with what results?

14. What’s got you stuck, do you see connections with previous situations?

15. What is it that you may be fearing? And others?

16. What else would you do if you didn’t feel restricted by anything/anyone?

17. What would you need and from whom to actually do that?

18. How can you significantly change the conversation with those involved?

19. What are the next specific steps you will take to move things forward?

20. How will you know that you are progressing toward your goal?

21. How will you hold yourself accountable for progress and results?

Seriously answering every single question on paper, rather than zooming through them with an “I’ve gone through this before” or “I already know the answer to this question” – attitude, will help you think, choose, and accomplish differently.

Questions you need to ask as a leader

Leading yourself, leading others, and leading change are the three main responsibilities of any leader. Easier said than done, of course. For you to be successful in these areas you need quite a few ingredients. Industry savvy, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, influencing skills, courage, credibility, accountability, resilience…. I could go on for quite some time. 

A different way of looking at successful leadership is to formulate questions that a leader should ask. Eleven examples out of the many great questions are:

1 How can I help my staff be more successful?
2 How can I and we best serve our clients and stakeholders?
3 What am I typically allergic to and how can I grow in these areas?
4 Who should I surround myself with to compensate my own weaknesses? 
5 How can I more successfully stress-test my assumptions and my decisions? 
6 How can I help myself / staff more successfully embrace ambiguity, change?
7 How can I ensure all ideas are heard, that the best ideas are coming forward?
8 What would my people say about me if they felt totally free to speak? 
9 What may I be regularly missing, misperceiving, exaggerating, forcing? 
10 What is my leadership philosophy and have I shared it with my people?
11 How will my ideas and proposed changes impact the organization's culture?

Questions can help develop people, re-frame issues, re-direct energy and attention, acknowledge and encourage people, and open long closed blinds. 
Any questions that you wish to add? 

Applauding those who doubt themselves

It is often said that confidence separates average leaders from great leaders. That leaders without confidence lose the trust and respect of the people they lead. Of course we want teachers, surgeons, business executive, accountants, drivers, police officers, and plant supervisors who are competent, who know what they’re doing, and who know how to convincingly convey this. I also believe that a crucial element of competence is the ability to doubt yourself – to doubt your assumptions, practices, observations, conclusions, and style.

Self-doubt, when present in moderation, opens the door to unlikely approaches, to fresh perspectives, and to a deeper understanding of people who think and behave differently from how you do. It also decreases the risk of something we people are terribly good at: self-deception. If that isn’t a huge win?

When you look for definitions of doubt, you’ll find the following: to be undecided or skeptical about something, to tend to disbelieve, and to regard as unlikely.
 As a noun, doubt is defined as a lack of certainty or as a lack of trust and a point about which one is uncertain or skeptical. The definition of self-doubt: A lack of faith or confidence in oneself. That does not sound very attractive, I know.

And still, I wish to applaud those who doubt themselves.

Not because I worry about ego problems of the confident or the thin line between confidence and arrogance (which I do worry about, but that’s a different topic). Not because I have difficulty relating to confident, strong-willed, decisive people. I actually like them a lot and at the same time, they worry me, because here is what I believe to be the obvious catch: The more confident you and I are, the less likely we are to actively seek out different approaches, explanations, and styles. The more confident you are, the greater the chance that you’ll overlook and disregard viable alternative and opposing options. Options that might benefit you, your project, your team, your organization, and your clients. Options that you may still not choose, but that will help you understand someone else’s point of view or approach better and therefore strengthen relationships, collaboration, your influence, and your decisions.

There is research claiming that executives who underestimate themselves perform more highly than those who overestimate themselves. I think the ability to self-doubt and second-guess is part of that dynamic. Again, there are professions and situations where decisions have to be taken promptly and decisively and they need to be communicated confidently, especially in times of crisis. But even then, people who aren’t convinced that they know all the answers, look harder for them, they look in different places, they look with much more of an open-mind, and they are more receptive to new and possibly better perspectives.

People who aren’t obsessed with portraying confidence, with knowing it all, and with being the best, gather strong people around them. They don’t feel threatened by people who are smarter and more skilled than they are. And that takes a different kind of confidence, the one I’d like you to feel and display in abundance.

A Step-by-Step Framework for Candid Conversations

The why and whereto of candid conversations have been covered in some of my previous blog posts. Today I focus on the how-to:

1.    Tell the person you have something difficult to say.

2.    Optional: Warn the person that she/he might be upset with your message.

3.    Say it immediately. Say it straight. Say it brief. Say it clearly. (which means no beating around the bush, no sugar coating, no packaging between niceties.

4.    State it as your opinion or suggestions and not as ‘the’ truth since there is no one truth.

5.    Clarify that you care for the person, hence your candor and the risk that comes with this candor.

6.    Be prepared for a wide range of emotions and responses. Be prepared for push back.

7.    Realize that candor is a two-way street. Be ready to receive candor and straight talk and actively ask for it. Listen, ask clarifying questions, and consider and learn rather than interrupt and counter-argue.

When things go wrong

No matter how well you prepare and train, things can go wrong. Always. Here are tips to deal with such situations:

1. Be brave enough to be vulnerable and fallible

2. Know that very few mistakes are final and fatal – we’re talking communication and leadership here, not medicine and surgery.

3. Be present in the here-and-now. Use your awareness to sense when it turns bad and make it the topic of conversation.

4. Ask for feedback, suggestions, impressions. And listen.

5. Clarify again, your intentions and style.

6. Repeat your care and concern for the person, team or topic.

7. Apologize for the unintended impact but stick to the message if that is still what you believe.

Conspiracies of Silence

If you seal your lips when you really should be speaking out, 

If you don’t address the problem that everyone knows about,

If you notice failure but don’t acknowledge it,

If you let difficult truths remain unspoken,

If blind spots and self-deception go unchallenged,

If you allow yourself and others to ignore, suppress and distort information,

You may feel safe,

You may be able to avoid risk,

You may do as everyone is doing,

You may perceive communication to be constructive …

… but …

You

Know

Better

Whatever rational or irrational fears keep you from having candid conversations, a few things are certain. Dead certain:

à Problems that are not acknowledged do not get better on their own.

à Truths that are not spoken have an impact. The wrong kind.

à Critical information that is left out of the equation still adds up. To the wrong sum.

à Failing to elicit, hear, and act on critical feedback puts everyone and everything at risk.

à Organizational secrets distort information, practices, and relationships.

à An absence of courage and candid conversations jeopardizes you, your family, your team, and your organization.

  

Don’t be a conspirator to silence. Don’t contribute to destruction of transparency, creativity, effectiveness, and true respect. The most positive, contagious, and productive state of mind is candor filled with compassion and humility. Yes, they do go together. Very well. 

Simple Yet Hard: Back To Basics - Critical Skills In The Workplace

We’re all busy so let’s keep this post lean. I threw out irrelevant introductions and explanations you can do without. Will you make time to read just under 270 characters?

Critical skill number 1: Questioning

This is the ability to effectively and efficiently explore business issues and challenges in a way that demonstrates your understanding of someone’s business, of your own expertise and its place, and of your interest in the organization and its people. Asking relevant questions remains to be more effective than providing the right answers. Ask, not talk!

Critical skill number 2: Listening

This is the underrated ability to focus on, hear, and process both the content and the process side of messages, i.e. the emotions and intentions that come with the content. What messages are you sending besides your words? What messages are you receiving during the conversation? Take notice!

Critical skill number 3: Positioning

This is the ability to convey credibility and to persuasively link business issues with solutions that add demonstrable value to the business. Every time you are present, you present yourself, your expertise, your product or service, and your organization. Make it crisp and clear. Convince!  

Critical skill number 4: Checking

The ability to check, double check whether interpretations coincide, whether intention and effect are aligned, and whether what had to be said and heard is actually said and heard. Checking includes eliciting feedback that ensures your business partner or customer feels heard and that expresses your desire to have a deeper understanding of their perspective.

Thoughts on Perfectionism

Do you know the difference between working to be perfect

And working to be powerful?

Do you know when perfectionism is helping you accomplish goals

And when it is blocking and hindering you?

Perfectionism undermines risk-taking and learning.

Perfectionism carries the risk of anxiety and stress.

Perfectionism causes resistance to feedback.

Perfectionism threatens recognition and engagement.

Perfectionism disables and destabilizes in the worst possible way.

Perfectionism can be deadly.

One key to becoming powerful is to know

That perfectionism is only beneficial in some situations.

Another one is to accept

Your imperfections.

What can you be more accepting of about yourself?

What can you be more accepting of with others?