Tag Archive for: Trust
How can we make the learning from professional development stick?
Learning from professional development stick?
I was recently asked by the CFO of a tech company, How can we make the learning from the professional development events we do, stick? So I went ahead and wrote this article…
Check out this article on LinkedIn: How can we make the learning from Professional Development Stick
Enjoy!
Emily
Part 3: Setting and Attaining Goals
Diana Golden Brosnihan, a brilliant skier. Diana won 19 Gold medals in world competition.
How do you go about setting and attaining goals?
What challenges do you face when setting goals?
How do you hold yourself accountable for accomplishing a goal?
How do you know when you are successful?
How do you celebrate success?
Setting and attaining goals
Setting goals and how one attains them can differ between the athlete and the executive. With the end result being success for both, it differs in how one’s goals are identified and what role the coach plays. The skier may tell their coach their overall goal of wanting to ski all the intermediate terrain comfortably. The ski coach then identifies what the skier’s needs are to accomplish this and creates the smaller goals or stepping stones for their student, telling them and showing them what to do and how to do it. They encourage and provide feedback throughout, even skiing down the hill in order to literally mirror proper movements for them; perhaps even manipulating them physically so they may feel the correct positioning.
The executive coach questions, providing space for the client to explore possibilities and express how they see, feel, or think about things. Instead of focusing on what the coach thinks, an executive coach focuses on the client’s thoughts and ideas. It is a conversation to provoke thought and bring out of the executive his or her own goals and direction they want to go; guiding the executive to identify for themselves what the path is (obstacles and resources) to get them to their goal. Executive coaching includes mirroring also, but it’s mirroring the client’s words back to them and asking for more depth of vision.
The executive coach focuses on repeating the positive statements and rephrases in an affirmative way so as to support clear, positive, proactive thought patterns; similar to how the sports coach performs the maneuvers in the correct way, leading the student to see positive movement patterns with the goal of creating the correct image for the student. Through open-ended questioning, the executive coach listens to what the client says so they can identify what the client wants. The coach then takes the very words of the client, without analyzing or judging, and reflects them back to their client.
The scope of goals for an executive is broad and can range from any issue in the person’s life to one particular project in a particular area. This broad scope arena for goal options means the look of success for an executive is just as broad. The coach for the executive then uses their fine-tuned skills to help guide the executive to clarify and pinpoint particular goals and then prioritize them. Through further questioning to bring out existing resources and strengths, the executive coach helps the client to identify action steps and timelines as well as measures for success.
While the sports coach takes into consideration confidence levels, analyzes movement and then teaches and advises. The executive coach brings about awareness through discussion, plus exploration of their client’s wants, thoughts, and behaviors. Awareness is enlightening to the executive, just as it is to the athlete. Sports and executive coaches both seek to empower their student/client and provide action steps and timelines for making change based on new awarenesses of body mind and spirit.
In part 4, I address risk taking and behavior change.
Part 2: The Coaching Relationship
Women’s speed coach Chris Knight coaches Lindsey Vonn to one of her most successful seasons. (Getty Images/Agence Zoom-Alexis Boichard)
The Coaching Relationship
How do you see your self as a leader?
How do others see you as a leader?
What do you understand about your own vulnerabilities?
How do you respond when you feel fear?
What actions are you taking to address fruitless behaviors?
One’s relationship with his or her coach, whether for sports, health and fitness, or career is of the utmost importance. The value and effectiveness of the coaching relationship are based on openness and honesty where vulnerability is accepted and even expected. Trust and acceptance are key in this relationship. Often, the student of a sports coach looks up to them as a mentor and role model, even a philosopher of sorts. Most athletes will tell you they tend to perform better when their coach is present, supporting, analyzing, and providing feedback to improve performance. With executives, they are a client, not a student, and their coaches play more of partnership role, typically only present before and after an event such as a meeting. Regardless, the power of the relationship can often follow the executive into the meeting, providing a sense of supporting presence.
When asking coaches about how they view these relationships the sports coach often responds they think of their students as protégés’ or mentees. Sports coaches express their respect for their students, and the courage and dedication they have to their sport and their body.
The sports coach, being a coach because they have often reached the level of expertise in the sport themselves, respects the process the athlete is going through. They understand the motivation, determination and focus required to train and attain the level of skill to be a professional athlete. The sports coach relates to the whole-body/whole-person commitment to their sport and their body as their tool and that is part of where the value of having a coach comes in for the athlete.
The relationship between the executive and the executive coach has its similarities in many respects. Questioning people who have an executive coach, they express great respect and even gratitude for having the ear of one who understands the training and commitments required to emotionally and intellectually endure and maneuver the politics, emotions, and competitiveness that come with working in the business world.
Executive coaches express the respect they have for their clients comes from the very reason they are there to coach—the client’s commitment to endure and navigate the business world and all the challenging terrain that comes with it. An executive’s commitment to their mission, their job responsibilities, and to the people involved such as the staff, partners, clients, and the community at large is impressive and certainly respected by the executive coach.
Their accomplishments and resume are something to be respected as well; often it is the day-to-day existence that is the most impressive to the executive coach. Just as the day’s performance on the course for the ski racer is the ultimate impressive element of the athlete’s performance, the day’s performance in a meeting or challenging encounter can be the ultimate impressive element of the executive’s performance. The coaching relationship, whether for the athlete or the executive, requires trust and honesty for the student/client, with their success as the ultimate goal.
An important role of the sports coach is the ability to literally see and analyze the performance of the athlete. In a sense, the athlete is performing blind in the visual sense and their poor movement patterns are blind spots. Unless athletes see themselves on video, they are literally unable to see themselves. Similar to the athlete, it can be challenging for an executive to see themselves and how they appear in the field. What differs is that the type of blind spot is based simply on their humanness instead of physical performance; each produces its own type of vulnerabilities.
My take on the executive’s blind spots boils down to ego, unwise intentions, or over-confidence. Athletes also deal with ego, over-confidence, and competition—in fact, these things are huge barriers to success for the athlete. It is different though in the sense that a physical vulnerability such as athletic performance, is concrete and tangible with clear goals for change, whereas leadership vulnerabilities may be more personal, more about who the person is and how they are in their world. This difference of physical change versus way-of-being change creates a vulnerability much harder to see and admit to as well as change for the executive than for the athlete.
Another difference that stands out to me is that for the athlete, it is most often when they reach the top level of their field that they deal with these issues, whereas the executive may deal with such challenges at any point during their development. Having a coach to help manage these challenges are important for both the executive and the athlete, with the strength of the relationship being key.
Similar to a new skier, when executives encounter new terrain, it can be scary, creating vulnerability they are uncomfortable expressing for fear of looking weak or incompetent. Both the athlete and the executive face fear. Many blind spots are based on fear. The skier leans back when they are hesitant or afraid of the terrain or the speed they are gaining and I think that is an accurate statement and a good analogy for the executive as well—they lean out from, instead of into, the table or the conversation or the situation when the terrain is unfamiliar, picks up too much momentum, or gets bumpy.
This is where the coach comes in and adds value by implementing the delicate skill of helping to create awareness, for example, creating awareness of when in the process of their success did fear start to set in. The awareness may be as deep seeded as the use of early-learned survival behaviors in their family unit or in their social circles or it may be as surface as just never having experienced a particular situation; similar to the skier’s fear that happens when approaching unfamiliar terrain.
One executive I worked with shared she took on the role of mean girl in school and learned not to trust people because of witnessing gossip among her friends. The way in which she survived this experience was by distrusting and pushing her way over people. This learned behavior is very similar to what an athlete experiences if they learn poor movement patterns such as muscling one’s way through the bumpy terrain instead of balanced alignment allowing flow through the bumps. The way past these learned patterns of behavior are similar for both the athlete and the executive and can be changed through supportive coaching that creates awareness of challenging patterns while promoting positive ones.
The ski coach provides the resources in the form of physical skill building for the skier, knowing what terrain to put them on to practice those skills in order to own them and build confidence. Similar to the ski coach providing exercises for skill building and action steps that address the fear, the executive coach helps the client explore situations and resources and mirrors back what the executive is sharing, empowering them to see themselves. Both types of coaches provide guidance so the student/client can reach the top of the mountain without breaking their own leg or anyone else’s, if that is their goal. The difference in the relationship with the coach for the executive is that the executive has the answers whereas the athlete looks to his or her coach.
The relationship between the coach and the student/client is based on trust and respect. The student/client must feel comfortable being vulnerable and letting, even hoping, the coach sees them completely.
In part three of this series I address setting and attaining goals.
What Creates A Trusting Environment?
What Creates A Trusting Environment?
A recent coaching session began with the client asking me, “How does one creating trusting surroundings?”
This leader was struggling to enter into a new position and had the goal of building trust among his team. I loved that he cared so much about this because when people experience trust in their situation they are motivated to learn and be more productive.
Here are the highlights of what my client came to through our coaching session:
- It begins with the leader.
- Team members trust they can let their light shine and not be held back or overridden.
- Team members trust it is safe to stretch and grow even if they may fail.
- Team members trust they will be spoken to honestly whether they are overreaching or underperforming.
- And most importantly, the entire team trusts that leadership values and practices confidentiality.
The importance of confidentiality, especially from leadership is critical to Creating A Trusting Environment. Trusting one’s leader promotes each team member to trust one another and this promotes genuine behaviors and team members showing up as their authentic selves.
How will your workplace surroundings change, and What Creating A Trusting scenarioas team members whole-heartedly trust leadership?
Coaching provides a solid checkpoint for leaders to enhance their workplace surroundings.
Request a complimentary Leadership Enhancement session today!
How important is it for you to be your authentic self in the workplace?
Authentic self in the workplace
In its simplest form, authenticity means being true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.
Shortly after joining a team with a strongly established culture different than my client had ever experienced or was natural to her, she was thrown off her game. Advice from former colleagues and her boss was “Keep your head down.” “Follow their lead.” “This is the culture of this workplace so you will have to fit in.”
As her coach, I know how much she stretched to fit in but she just didn’t. She also expressed, the importance for her to feel safe to learn and grow in her job in order to maintain interest and enjoyment in her work. Her awareness raised, that in order for growth to happen she needs to feel safe. Growth and learning requires one to be vulnerable and not many want to create a vulnerable environment for themselves when they don’t feel safe.
Feeling safe in the workplace requires trust; it’s a rather essential human desire.
As new team members joined the organization, the culture shifted. Through coaching, she learned to observe the situation and what she saw was the entire culture shifting as more diverse personality types came on board. Eventually, the entire team became off balance. The culture was now unclear for all. Many felt there was no safe way of being and productivity declined significantly.
As a coach, I experience this topic in a high percentage of the people I work with and I often ask them how they can expect to stand up, let alone function at a high level, when they are off balance?” It provides awareness and opens them to consider the questions “How important is it to be authentic self in the workplace
—true to one’s own personality, spirit or character?” “How far must one/can one stretch to make the workplace culture productive and enjoyable for them?”
For this client it was absolutely essential for her to trust that she was part of the team because of who and how she is as well as because of her skills. So I leave you with this question…
What will be different in your workplace, as each team member trusts they are placed on the team for their unique personality, spirit, and character?
Coaching supports you as you find your place on the team while being true to yourself.
Request a complimentary Team Enhancement consultation today!
Note: When talking on this topic with a colleague, he shared a great article in the Harvard Business Review by Herminia Ibarra titled, The Authenticity Paradox about the complexity of what being authentic means. It is good food for thought and opens a meaningful conversation about authenticity when looking to hire someone.