Coach John G. Agno is your own cultural attache; keeping you abreast of what's effective in leadership. People learn better and are positively motivated when supported by regular coaching.
PERSONAL COACHING Leadership onboarding coaching helps the executive adapt to the employer's culture, create rapport with their team and develop productive ways to achieve necessary goals.
SELF ASSESSMENT CENTER Leadership skills and style testing. Know how you motivate and coach people to gain success at work and in life.
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP? Leadership is an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.
LEADERSHIP TIPS “The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning: intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be, or both.” Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee (Harvard Business School Press)
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The Power of Collaborative Leadership by Bert Frydman, Iva Wilson and JoAnne Wyer has arisen from the spirit of partnership and mutual inquiry. It is a rare book, one that actually captures "thinking in the moment" from experienced practitioners. It reflects the complexity of feelings and multiplicity of interpretations that coexist in complex change efforts.
In short, the book is for those who are genuinely interested in expanding their capacity to learn from history. For those looking for easy answers and quick fixes, it would be better to look elsewhere.
Co-author Iva Wilson was always on the periphery of the mainstream. She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in engineering at a prestigious German university. In virtual all of her engineering managerial positions, she was the first woman. Eventually, she became the highest-ranking woman manager for a global electronics firm. Hers is an impressive CV, but it was not an easy journey, just as it is not easy for most women like her who have breached the walls surrounding previously male-dominated workplaces.
The Road to Transforming Management
The Power of Collaborative Leadership is written primarily as a conversation between two senior managers, Bert Frydman and Iva Wilson. It takes that form because the authors wanted to capture the spirit of exploration. The field of organizational learning is new, and the challenges to its proponents, especially to business people, are many. In the book, Bert represents our pragmatic side, and Iva our visionary tendencies. Of course, everyone has aspects of both. As they share experiences and reflections, you are invited to shape your own arguments, your own change strategy.
When we come to know and accept ourselves, we become free to accept others and appreciate how they complement us.
Whether you are looking for a job promotion, seeking peace within your team, or looking to improve relationships, we can all benefit from learning more about what drives and energizes us. Finding common ground among an office or different personalities can sometimes be difficult or even detrimental to a career or an organization.
What if discovering what motivates you and others, you can begin to identify and eliminate what doesn't? In "The Birkman Method: Your Personality at Work" by Sharon Birkman Fink and Stephanie Capparell defines a critical workplace assessment that has given millions of business professionals the awareness tools they need to reach a higher level of performance.
The Birkman self-assessment goes beyond behavior to give insight as to why certain things will satisfy or stress you. It is built on the foundation that once you discover your own personality and interests, you can better understand others, resulting in a more fulfilling work environment.
Each person who buys the book, will be able to complete a full Birkman questionnaire and receive his or her own personal "life style gird" with an easy-to-understand summary of key Birkman scores, which are more thoroughly described in the book. The book then helps you understand your results and personal report.
In The Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes and Barry Posner point out how important honesty is in a leader and how it ranks first among employee expectations, surpassing even competence: "In every survey we conducted, honesty was selected more often than any other leadership characteristic."
Of 462 executives who were asked, "What characteristics are needed to be an effective leader today?" 56 percent ranked ethical behavior as an important characteristic, followed by sound judgment (51%) and being adaptable/flexible (47%). --American Management Association, New York, NY
It's one thing to understand that honesty and trust start at the top and quite another to develop the strategies and the philosophies that make the understanding a reality.
As deadly as lies are, they're especially poisonous in the workplace. They can destroy employee engagement and productivity, undermine teamwork, ruin people's livelihoods, and even bring down entire companies.
Lies need to be caught quickly in the workplace before they snowball into something catastrophic. Unfortunately, most of us have no clue about how to spot a liar, and the workplace setting adds another layer of complexity.
In The Truth About Lies in the Workplace, leading workplace body language expert Carol Kinsey Goman combines her own experiences with the latest research to provide a comprehensive guide to spotting, exposing, and minimizing workplace lies. Once you spot a lie, she provides tactical advice on how to respond, whether the liar is above, below or on the same level as you. Goman also explains what leaders can do to reduce lies and encourage candor.
Detecting Deception through Nonverbal Cues
Reading body language to detect deceit in a business interaction is similar to what a professional poker player does during a card game. The card player is looking for tells--nonverbal cues that indicate increased stress or are out of sync with what the opposing poker player is saying. The difference is that you are applying these skills in a workplace setting. There are 30 body language tells that will help hone your liar-spotting skills.
Detecting Deception through Verbal Cues
People's choice of words often reveals more about them than they realize. For example, because most people experience stress when lying, they often try to circumvent that by speaking the literal truth. So, if your boss says, "I'm thinking of recommending you for the position," that is exactly what she means. She has not told you she did recommend you. She has not told you she will recommend you. All she said is that she is thinking about doing so. In the same way, if your colleague states, "That's all I can tell you," believe him. He can't or won't tell you more. But remember: that doesn't mean this is all he knows.
A liar's choice of words, in contrast to a truthful person's, will frequently include several verbal cues. Dr. Goman's book provides 20 verbal cues to hone your liar-spotting skills.
A growing body of evidence shows that the ability to be smarter with ones feelings is tied to improved leadership, effectiveness, relationships, decision-making health and well-being; all of which help higher emotional intelligence (EQ) leaders create greater economic and societal value.
“EQ has quickly become a global movement that’s helping companies large and small rebuild trust internally to make its employees happier and more productive, which in turn impacts the overall ROI,” said Joshua Freedman, chief operating officer for Six Seconds and the chairman of NexusEQ, a global conference taking place this summer at Harvard. “We now know that these skills alone predict more than 50 percent of performance – which is more than can be said for IQ, or even for technical skills. Companies implementing EQ have stronger leaders and more committed employees, which turns into productivity, loyal customers and profit.”
EQ – Explained and In Practice
Just as the traditional idea of cognitive intelligence is measured by IQ, emotional intelligence tests create an EQ score. Though various working models of emotional intelligence exist, all recognize the importance of accurately assessing emotional data, then integrating and applying it effectively. The Six Seconds model of emotional intelligence structures these into a three-step process for putting EQ into action:
Awareness is “Know Yourself” – accurately assessing emotional data
Management is “Choose Yourself” – consciously selecting emotional response
Direction is “Give Yourself” – purposefully applying emotion toward significance
Among the benefits that organizations have reported:
EQ has twice the power of IQ to predict overall performance
High EQ salespeople at L’Oreal achieved $2.5 million more in sales
An EQ initiative at Sheraton helped increase the hotel chain’s market share by nearly 25 percent
The U.S. Air Force is using EQ to screen para-rescue jumpers to save $190 million
Higher EQ managers in a major restaurant chain created 34 percent greater annual profit growth
The seventh NexusEQ conference will take place at Harvard University from June 24-26, and will feature more than 80 experts sharing examples of how emotional intelligence is creating a positive impact around the world.
According to Freedman, the goal of the conference is to help leaders learn how to leverage the science and practice of emotional intelligence to improve prosperity and well-being in the workplace and community. More than 300 participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with some of the world’s best neuroscientists, authors and experts on emotion, learning and business to begin incorporating EQ into their lives and business practices.
Our assumptions/beliefs are the elements we use to construct new ideas in our imagination, and they constrain us to what we readily accept and believe is possible. When these intangible assumptions/beliefs change, there is a corresponding effect that changes what we imagine and then in turn what we create.
Knowing who we are and what we are meant to do allows us to focus our energy and achieve sustained high performance. This is true for a person or for an organization and for each of the people who work there.
Being clear on the intangible elements of one's identity can build a strong foundation for greater self-awareness, purpose, well-being and building competencies in those areas that are important to you. Here are intangible elements defined:
•Assumptions/beliefs: A reality map formed through your collective reinforced experience. This would be a manifesto of the mental models you use and believe in to create your work and personal lives.
•Values/Aspirations: An attitude or world-view depicted by one word or one single concept observed through one's behavior. Values often influence people's choices about where to invest their energies. Please recognize that values change over time. Being "fair" means something different for a person at 44 than at 4 years old.
•Vision: A word picture of the future leading from now through near to far reality. You energize people to support your purpose or life signature with an overarching description of what you see.
•Guiding Principles: A universal operating standard that guides decision-making both personally and organizationally. Use guiding principles to align, create trust and walk the talk by putting everybody on the same playing field. Energy isn’t wasted in the politics of the team, organization or community because there aren't different rules for everybody.
Shifting Perspective
Shifting perspective is essential if you are going to get innovation right according to Seth Kahan, author of "Getting Innovation Right." Shifting perspective should put you in a new relationship to everything you thought you knew. From this new perspective, you'll find it easier to innovate successfully.
You must try to work your way around to seeing your business from"outside" perspectives. Seeing your enterprise as your clients and partners view it means understanding why they do business or join forces with you. If you do not know the why of their participation, you are severely handicapped when it comes to expanding the value they have come to rely on you to deliver. However, when you know what your clients and partners believe is most valuable, your innovation program is more effective.
When you see your operations from varying viewpoints, you sometimes spot opportunities to parlay what you are doing today into a new field altogether.
Viewing your world from a different angle requires getting out of your own way, questioning the assumptions that likely have aided your success up to this point. It is not an easy task, but it is a skill all leaders must master if they want to innovate and reach levels beyond their current success.
A Gallup Poll conducted last year gives credence to what many successful companies have known for years--engaged, involved workers impact a business' bottom line in a positive manner.
In 2012, Gallup looked at 49,928 businesses or work units and about 1.4 million employees in 49 industries in 34 countries. It found that "employee engagement is an important competitive differentiator for organizations" (Gallop Poll results: http://bit.ly/ZlPFPl).
Gallup's findings are the same across the board no matter what type of business and should serve as a reminder that employee well being is critical to company success, says Dr. Noelle Nelson, a career and workplace expert and author of "Make More Money By Making Your Employees Happy."
Gallup also found, in a separate study (http://bit.ly/Zwth1I), that regardless of the number of hours worked, weeks of vacation time or a company's flextime policy, engaged workers have a higher overall level of well being. Unengaged workers, even when given six or more weeks of vacation a year, still did not reach the same levels of well being of highly engaged workers. Well being translates directly into higher performance and productivity.
“Despite a continuing tough job market, a majority of employees claim to be getting approaches from other companies,” said Monika Morrow, Senior Vice President of Career Management at Right Management. According to the findings, 64% of survey participants said they were approached either directly or indirectly about a possible job offer over the past 12 months. Only 36% said they had not.
The latest findings are consistent with other Right Management workplace polls, noted Morrow. “Late last year a great majority of workers told us they were going to look for a new job in 2013, and more recently a similar majority admitted to cruising Internet job boards during work hours. So I think that’s the trend – that a lot of people are dissatisfied or bored with their current position.”
For what employers must do to keep and recruit employees, read "Turning Heads."
There is a difference between information and insights. Accessing good data is becoming easier, but reaching insights requires a genuine curiosity--a team must be interested and willing to tinker. Insight is what moves a team to action.
A team's goal is to figure out why data is behaving in a certain way. Good analytics bring data to life. The data needs to be pushed and pulled by different forces. The team's job is to understand the forces pushing the data so that insights can be gleaned and plans built.
Data has movement. It tells a story. A team has to figure out what the story is and why the story is being told.
Gut instinct is rarely arbitrary. Gut instinct is built on truth, experience, history and perspective--a composite of the person. The right composite leads to insight. Even intuition is based upon understanding how things should work or taking into account more than the traditional data set.
"TEAM Renaissance" is a simple model of a highly effective team. The book, "TEAM Renaissance: The Art, Science & Politics of Great Teams," is a collection of stories, specifics and immediate takeaways built around the Team Arch. Complementing the text, the Team Renaissance Survey is an interactive tool that assesses the strengths and weaknesses of a team.
Simply put, the biggest challenge most teams have in forming sharp insights is that they become complacent and stop looking beyond their own four walls. In essence, they lose perspective because they hear opinions from the outside less and less and are told what they want to hear more and more.
Instead, get comfortable with inviting fresh thoughts in. Listening for fresh thoughts is akin to reading a book, watching a play, or listening to music. Odds are that one of these fresh thoughts will be an insight. The better you get a pointing your awareness in the direction of freshness and the unknown, the more likely you will hear the insight when it arrives.
A deep and sharp insight into a problem permanently changes the way we look at it, and when we have a new perspective, a clear solution will present itself, often in days or even hours. Listening for insight is simply about being present and reflective. It's a very natural, maybe even our most natural, way of listening, but it can be awkward for many of us to empty the chatter in our heads and look instead for fresh thoughts.
Organizational psychology has long concerned itself with how to design work so that people will enjoy it and want to keep doing it.
Traditionally the thinking has been that employers should appeal to workers’ more obvious forms of self-interest: financial incentives, yes, but also work that is inherently interesting or offers the possibility for career advancement. Grant’s research, which has generated broad interest in the study of relationships at work and will be published for the first time for a popular audience in his new book, “Give and Take,” starts with a premise that turns the thinking behind those theories on its head. The greatest untapped source of motivation, he argues, is a sense of service to others; focusing on the contribution of our work to other peoples’ lives has the potential to make us more productive than thinking about helping ourselves.
“Give and Take” incorporates scores of studies and personal case histories that suggest the benefits of an attitude of extreme giving at work. Many of the examples — the selfless C.E.O.’s, the consultants who mentor ceaselessly — are inspiring and humbling, even if they are a bit intimidating in their natural expansiveness. These generous professionals look at the world the way Grant does: an in-box filled with requests is not a task to be dispensed with perfunctorily (or worse, avoided); it’s an opportunity to help people, and therefore it’s an opportunity to feel good about yourself and your work. “I never get much done when I frame the 300 e-mails as ‘answering e-mails,’ ” Grant told me. “I have to look at it as, How is this task going to benefit the recipient?” Where other people see hassle, he sees bargains, a little work for a lot of gain, including his own.
The message sounds terrific: Feel good about your work, and get more of it done, and bask in the appreciation of all the people you help along the way.
Relationships between people or institutions are based on exchange in which all parties have an understanding of their rights and obligations. Relations can be forged through personal favors and bring with them obligations and expectations. For every action, something is expected in return. Those who do favors are highly esteemed; they are recognized as people who have respect for those around them. Every previous or current situation produces expectations for future behavior on the giver and gift recipient.
Reciprocation flows from Divine Law that can neither be ignored or put aside. Perhaps, the most important of these laws is the 'law of love.' Put simply, "Love is Law, Law is Love. God is Love, Love is God." This amounts to the same thing as "the gift of giving" without the "hope of reward or pay," or serving others. This 'law of love' is identified in many different ways--for example, in Wayne Baker's bestseller, "Achieving Success Through Social Capital"(Jossey-Bass), this law of love in the workplace is described as the "law of reciprocity."
The law of reciprocity is not what can best be described as "transactional reciprocity." Baker says that, "Many people conceive of their business dealings as spot market exchanges--value given for value received, period. Nothing more, nothing less. This tit-for-tat mode of operation can produce success, but it doesn't invoke the power of reciprocity and so fails to yield extraordinary success."
Baker explains, "The lesson is that we cannot pursue the power of reciprocity. When we try to invoke reciprocity directly, we lose sight of the reason for it: helping others. Paradoxically, it is in helping others without expecting reciprocity in return that we invoke the power of reciprocity. The path to reciprocity is indirect: reciprocity ensues from the social capital built by making contributions to others.
The deliberate pursuit of reciprocity fails, just like the pursuit of happiness. Acts of contribution, big and small, build your fund of social capital, creating a vast network of reciprocity. And so those who help you may not be those you help. The help you receive may come from distant corners of your network."
Rule for Reciprocation:"One of the most potent of the weapons of influence around us is the rule for reciprocation. The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us."Robert B. Cialdini, author of "The Psychology of Persuasion" (William Morrow, 1993)
Grant’s book, incorporating several decades of social-science research on reciprocity, divides the world into three categories: givers, matchers and takers. Givers give without expectation of immediate gain; they never seem too busy to help, share credit actively and mentor generously. Matchers go through life with a master chit list in mind, giving when they can see how they will get something of equal value back and to people who they think can help them. And takers seek to come out ahead in every exchange; they manage up and are defensive about their turf. Most people surveyed fall into the matcher category — but givers, Grant says, are overrepresented at both ends of the spectrum of success: they are the doormats who go nowhere or burn out, and they are the stars whose giving motivates them or distinguishes them as leaders.
Thousands of leaders attend leadership training every year to glean insights into how to lead better. At the end of the training, most of these leaders will resolve to become more effective by using these new insights; hopefully with the guidance of a personal executive coach. Unfortunately, few of them will implement these good intentions. Yet, they need to pay attention to their intentions in order to get to where they want to be.
Although the executive education debate still rages on whether leadership is learned or innate, there is no doubt that the subject is being taught. Back in October 2003, BusinessWeek reported that 134 companies from 20 nations spent $210 million to enroll 21,000 employees in executive leadership programs. Since leadership development is not an event, that's a significant investment in classroom activities that may or may not produce company leaders or even better managers.
Resources: Support desired changes with coaching and infrastructure.
The most important resources for leaders to access are human resources, both for themselves and for their organizations. It turns out that when desired behaviors are reinforced by personal coaching and institutionalized in human resources (HR) practices, they are much more likely to be sustained.
Coaching sustains change because it personalizes and reinforces a leader's intent for the future. In the last 20 years, as leadership coaching has mushroomed, the range of coaching expectations and services has exploded. To use coaching to sustain change, leaders should answer these four questions:
To lead to sustainable change, coaching needs to be based on a more rigorous typology of outcomes. Leaders sustain personal behavior change when they identify specific behaviors that can and should be changed: coaches provide feedback and advice about how to make those new behaviors consistently happen. Leaders sustain change when their coaches help them to see the valued corporate outcomes or personal results that come from the change.
Expert coaches can help leaders to sustain changes in both behavior and results. They may explore candid (and at times brutal) information about the leader's behavior and performance. They may make suggestions about how to improve and challenge the status quo. They may help the leader to create a personal leadership brand by combining behavior and results into a leadership identity.
When leaders use coaches to help sustain their behaviors, their chosen behaviors will be more likely to endure over time.
