The Burden Of Confidentiality

During the 90’s, I was invited to teach at the University of Iowa’s Annual Summer School For Helping Professionals. This school was designed to help social workers, psychiatrists, nurses, psychologists, counselors and a variety of other helping professions to get all of their continuing education credits in one five day period, plus get university credits along the way.

My class was focused on how to teach stress management skills to patients and clients in clinical settings. Over the course of the week, we were going to learn a wide variety of stress management techniques and different ways to teach them. 

When I first got approached to do this, I was told that my class size would be 20-30 students max. Most professors had 15-20 people in their class for the five days.

So on a Monday morning in August, I went to the student union at the University of Iowa for the new teacher orientation and to fill out the appropriate paperwork to get paid for what I was going to do over the course of the week. After a rousing speech about the importance of continued education by one of the deans and a very nice lunch, each professor was handed a single sheet of paper with the names of their students and told which room they were going to teach.

When they came around to me, I was handed a stack of papers. I remember holding the stack of paper and inquiring to the woman who handed them to me, “How many students do I have?”

She replied, “Currently, you have 60 people and more are signing up right now. I think you will end up with 75 students. And, by the way, you will be meeting your class in the second floor ballroom. There are no classrooms in the Union to handle this size of a class. Good luck!”

Now, there is a huge difference between teaching 20-30 people something and teaching 75 people something. I had planned on the smaller number and now had 30 minutes to recreate my lesson plans for the larger number. When I walked into the second floor ballroom, the place was packed to the gills with people. They kept coming and the organizers kept bringing in more chairs and tables. 

Over the course of the week, I had to practice all the techniques I was teaching so I was not too stretched. I also had a fabulous time working with such engaged people who understood the importance of helping people in a holistic manner.

On the last day as people came up to thank me for a good week, one of the oldest participants hung back until she was the last one to say good-bye. Then, she came up to me, shook my hand, and said, “Not bad. You worked hard up there and you have figured out a couple of things that were interesting too. Still, you did forget one thing. Never go to a counselor who doesn’t have a counselor. The burden of confidentiality is real, and we all have stuff we need to work on along the way. Otherwise, good work this week young man.”

I smiled and she continued with a wink, “Next year when you do this, you will have even more students.” The following year when I repeated the class I had nearly had 100 students!

This week, remember that one of the challenges of coaching and mentoring is the burden of confidentiality. Therefore, make sure you have ample allies and confidants to help you do this level of work.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Why Invest In Leadership Training in 2019? - Part #3

People in leadership positions during the next 3 - 5 years must be able to do the following in order for them and their organizations to be successful over time.

First, they must be able to create and communicate strategy in a manner that creates focus instead of panic.

Second, they must be able to define a problem, technical or adaptive, and then be able to solve the problem.

Third, they must be able to build and maintain teams, analog or digital, and then get them to deliver results in a timely manner.

Finally, they must be able to coach individuals and teams so they improve their performance.

The challenge that I see this fall is that few people in leadership positions are good at coaching and even fewer are good at delegation. While on one hand these seem pretty basic skills for people in leadership positions, the reality is that to do them well, a person needs a greater depth of understanding and clarity to be effective. 

For example, in order to be an excellent coach, one should receive excellent coaching. Many report to me that this is not taking place on a regular basis within their company. Next, to be an excellent coach, one needs to understand that coaching is a structured dialogue and development process to improve professional competence to execute a particular goal while supervision is to observe, direct and oversee the execution of a task, project or activity. Many people confuse the two different activities.

When it comes to the subject of delegation, most people in leadership positions have also experienced very poor delegation. They are not sure if they have complete control to do whatever needs to get done or if they need to first run all decisions before action past the person who delegated something to them. Finally, many people feel like they got delegated the work but not the clarity or authority to do it well.

These are problems during the next 3-5 years that we can not let continue to take place. We need individuals and teams to receive solid and effective coaching. We also need people to delegate well given the expectations of customers and strategic partners.

And here is where the 2019 From Vision to Action Leadership Training can help. Through a challenging and interactive curriculum which blends lectures, selected readings, small and large group discussions, and how to skill-building exercises, participants in this four part leadership training gain critical knowledge and skills which improve their ability to not only create and communicate strategy, define and solve problems, build and maintain teams, but also coach people and teams better plus learn how to delegate effectively. 

For more information about this unique training experience, please click on the following link: http://www.chartyourpath.com/VTA-Leadership-Training.html

For more information about the dates, location, price and how to register for the 2019 training, please click on the following link: http://www.chartyourpath.com/VTA-Training-Details.html#Train2019

Now is the time to create better leaders in your organization. If we are to be successful in the next 3 - 5 years, we need to be well prepared. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

What is the connection between organizational history, culture and meaningful work within successful organizations? - part #1

As we sat down for dinner, I realized that I had not seen her in quite a while.

“So how have you been?”, I asked her.

“Overwhelmed” was her response. “I’ve had to work on all four pillars of the organization, namely people, structure, systems and culture.”

“It’s been painful,” she continued. “These are good people. We are good people, but we have no control over all the changes that are taking place. It is waves upon waves of unforeseen variables and choices being made by people who do not realize the impact of their actions. It breaks my heart to lead through such difficulties.”

“I am so sorry you are having to go through this,” I responded.

And she wept quietly at the table. They were tears of grief, tears of anger about stuff over which she had no control, tears of letting go of control, tears to finally be with someone who gets the pain of leadership and tears of realization that it is going to get harder before it gets better.

Right now, life is dynamic, not linear. We can not control so much that is going on and yet we have to move forward together through the pain.

Since the Fall 2018 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable, I have learned three important lessons. First, we need to pry ourselves away from screen time interactions and analysis, and reconnect with people, mission and meaningful work in person. Dashboards tell us some of the story but never the whole story. As Gregory Boyle in his exceptional book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (Simon & Schuster, 2017), reminds us: “Everything that counts can’t be counted.” There is a time and a place for fast leadership, but I believe we need to invest in slow leadership, namely the work of building and maintaining key relationship. Metrics help, but relationships are the foundation of successful action.

Second, we need to remember that deciding something and doing something are two different things. We have lost track of this in the work of fast leadership, particularly in our work with younger leaders. “I sent the e-mail” is not executing a decision.

Third, organizational culture, once established, can not be solved by reductionism. Trying to change group behaviors through individual goal setting, measurement and accountability will only work so far. We forget that our organizational culture reflects our collective behaviors. For example, you can not remove the ingredients within a baked cookie, i.e. the culture. You can not undo things to change things; you can not move backwards to make it better. Instead, you have to start over. This must be a re-founding by returning to our identity/purpose, reclaiming what we still believe in, a reclaiming of what gives meaning to what we are doing and what we aspire to be. It all depends on the values we embed at the start of this process.

Therefore, it is time for leaders in large and small organizations to engage in restorative processes. We must restore and/or build new processes where people feel confident and smart again. We need processes where we make sense of what formerly made us feel overwhelmed. We need experiences where “We are all in this together” takes on new meaning.

The first way to do this is to engage in more strategic dialogues. The goal of a strategic dialogue is to create strategic awareness, strategic understanding, and strategic perspective, which will result in better strategic choices and operational choices.

Strategic dialogues are a capacity building exercise. An effective strategic dialogue is the combination of three elements, namely education, awareness, and the building of commitment. Successful strategic dialogues are often facilitated so the leader or leaders can just focus on listening.

Within a strategic dialogue, focus on three areas. First, explore strategic context or if you do not like that word then use the words “strategic landscape.” Here, I encourage you to answer the question: Why are we moving forward? The big picture outside the organization needs to be explored and in particular, explain how the customer has and has not changed over time.

Second, explain strategic direction by answering the question, Where are we going? As leaders, we do this by connecting the why from above dialogue with the where of this question. In particular, explain how the company’s strategy has changed over time in order to meet the changing needs of our customers.

Third, explain the strategic nexus or philosophy by answering this question, How will we do this? Being mission-driven, and values-led means there needs to be  alignment and interconnection between mission, vision and core values with the current strategic plan. In particular, explain why the company’s mission and core values have not changed over time. 

For leaders to do the above successfully, they are going to need to get very good at the following two behaviors: sharing over telling and listening over responding. Now, some of you may be thinking what is the difference between sharing vs. telling and listening vs. responding? Mutual respect is one major difference. When leaders choose to share and listen during a strategic dialogue, there are no leaders or followers. There is no us vs. them. There is instead a collective we.

From my experience, this level of work requires leaders to utilize deep listening. This is a way of hearing in which we are fully present to what is happening in the moment without trying to control or judge it. We are hearing others with an open mind and a compassionate heart.

When we engage in restorative processes, we must engage in routine coaching in order to build capacity. From the person who is being coached, this means they are feeling heard. From the person who is doing the coaching, they must show up and be present. It is more transformational coaching rather than technical coaching. 

For coaching at this level to be successful, there needs to be the right environment for coaching. Many leaders think we are in sync with our environment, but actually it’s at war with us. As Marshall Goldsmith points out in his top-notch book, Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be, (Crown Business, 2015), we think we control our environment but in fact it controls us. Our environment changes us, and a changing environment will aways change us. Therefore, if we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us. And the result turns us into someone we do not recognize.

From my experience, the right coaching environment is one where certain elements are not changing, namely ample time, an uninterrupted space,  mutual respect, deep listening, two way dialogue, and active note taking.

Furthermore, when we engage in restorative processes, we must also engage in regular feedback. Feedback is vital to coaching. However, feedback is rarely given because it can make the coach and the person being coached uncomfortable. Returning to the aforementioned Goldsmith’s work, we forget that a coach is a follow-up mechanism. He or she instills accountability. At the highest level, a coach is a source of mediation, bridging the gap between the visionary Planner and short-sighted Doer in us. The Coach meshes our inner Planner with our inner Doer.

This week think deeply about strategic dialogues, restorative processes and how to take your coaching work to the next level. Given the dynamic world we are living in, this level of leadership is sorely needed.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

How do leaders get coaching and employee development to become routine and systematic? - part #2

The obvious answer to the above question is to set up regular coaching sessions with all of your direct reports. During these coaching or routine check in sessions, help all involved recognize that coaching is a structured dialogue about purpose, strategy, relationships. It involves questions, analysis, action planning and follow through. In essence, coaching happens with you, not to you.

What we some times forget in the process of routine coaching and development time is that one goal of this process is to create improved role clarity, job clarity, and priorities clarity. However, there is something else I have noticed when people receive regular coaching. The more they are coached, the better the coaching becomes. In short, the experience of coaching and being coached has a cumulative impact. 

Along with routine coaching, another element to successful coaching takes place when we help people set goals and teach them how to prioritize. One element of this process is to check to make sure those who are receiving coaching can differentiate between a check list and a goal. In simple terms, a checklist is binary and focuses on done or not done. A goal on the other hand has a clearly defined WHY element to it, and generates clearly defined results or desired outcomes.

Having coached people for over thirty years, I have learned that people want to be heard, and they want to be respected. People are always doing their best with the tools they have. And when possible, they always want better tools and better understanding if it allows them to deliver better outcomes. Therefore, we as leaders need to remember that operational and financial results happen when we have the right people in the right jobs, creating and executing the right business strategy, and with the right kind of routine coaching and development. 

This week, put that combination of elements together and you will always have a winning season.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Unleashing the Power of Culture and Coaching

When the history books are written about our time, many authors will focus on the flawless execution of brilliantly conceived strategies and the amazing level of teamwork that took place. Others will focus on the different personalities of our times showing how they were in command of smart people and delegated to them so they could solve amazingly complicated problems. Finally, these same authors will note that even in the face of adverse conditions these leaders and their companies did not give in or give up to the difficulties before them. Resilience and perseverance will become the buzz words of this decade.

While much of this is true on one level, the best leaders, especially the ones who are humble enough to not get caught up in the hype, will not let the focus be on effort and strategy alone. They will talk about the quiet revolution that took place when no one was looking. These leaders will talk about the interface between culture and coaching.  

From my experience of helping organizations and leaders improve or transform their organization over the course of 30+ years, I have watched the best leaders recognize that their organization’s culture is key to their strategic success. These thoughtful leaders focus on the systems that create this culture and sustain this culture. They understand that any cultural misalignment has the potential to impact the organization over the short and long term. Therefore, they are constantly monitoring for misalignments, and recognizing that these misalignments will have a profound impact on profitability and sustainable growth. 

At the exact same time, these profoundly successful leaders also focus on one to one coaching. While they can build and maintain amazing teams, the prerequisite to successful teams is to have a work place filled with successful people. Therefore, the best leaders are constantly focused on developing their people. This one to one level of coaching is mission critical to the culture and to the company. When people within a company are dedicated to constantly getting better, then a cultural flywheel is built. The power of all committed to continual improvement results in a company committed to continual improvement.  In short, organizational change and improvement is the sum of individual change and improvement.

For those leaders who are seeking to create and maintain this kind of flywheel during the next 3-5 years, then now is the time to sign up your key leaders for the 2017 From Vision to Action Leadership Training. Through a challenging, interactive curriculum which blends lectures, selected readings, small and large group discussions, and how to skill-building exercises, participants in this four part leadership training gain critical knowledge and skills which improve their ability to lead people to generate short and long term success.

For more information on this in-depth training and how to register for the 2017 From Vision to Action Leadership Training, please click on the following link: http://www.chartyourpath.com/VTA-Leadership-Training.html 

The history books about our time may or may not become bestsellers, but the impact of exceptional leadership will transcend this time because those companies will still be in business and still creating successful outcomes and solutions. I look forward to your participation in the 2017 From Vision to Action Leadership Training where we will explore these topics and many others that can make a difference.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Navigating the World of Excellence

In the midst of all their meetings and work, the best leaders routinely coach people. These are not Q&A hallway conversations. Instead, they are sit down visits where in-depth and important work takes place. The big challenge for many is that they do not differentiate between coaching and supervision.

Supervision is based on the observation and oversight related to the execution of a particular task, project or activity. Coaching, on the other hand, is a development process by which an individual is supported while achieving a specific goal. 

One challenge for many this late spring moving toward summer is that they are confusing the two activities of supervision and coaching. I think this is in part because they feel overwhelmed by the current context. We live in a world of hyper speed, connectivity, and vigilance which creates endless interruptions and distractions. Some leaders are even experiencing an addiction to these distractions, resulting in ADHD patterns of coping and leading others. As a result, their direct reports are suffering; they are overwhelmed by their boss’s ADHD behaviors.

Therefore, we need to enter into a discipline of staying focused on the right things while being mindful of our surroundings. We must proactively engage in relationship building which is the precursor to team building.

During the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, I remind people that coaching is a structured dialogue about purpose, strategy, relationships. It involves questions, analysis, action planning and follow through. In coaching, we may not always be able, as coaches, to solve the problem. Instead we have to emphasize the choices. 

While there can be many goals of coaching, this week I challenge you to assist those who you coach to figure out where they fit in best within the organization, to share with them information and perspective so they can make the right and the better choices in all situations, and to help them build healthy work relationships. When you do this level of work together, then you will be navigating in the world of excellence at a whole new level.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

An Odd Time Period

After many years of doing this work, I have come to the conclusion that the time period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is just an odd time period. Some organizations go into massive planning mode hoping that they can catch up and get prepared for the new year. Others just coast between the holidays, hoping that every one will show up at work and that all of the shifts will be filled. Whether you and your organization go hyper-vigilant or become hyper-mellow, the key as a leader is to make sure you are well prepared for the new year. Therefore, I recommend three specific actions to happen during this unique time period.

First, take all of your direct reports out for lunch or coffee. Do your regular coaching work but also do some more in-depth visiting. Focus on learning as much as you can about this person even if you know them well.  As Marcus  Buckingham noted in his book, The One Thing You Need to Know ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, Free Press, 2005, “To excel as a manager you must never forget that each of your direct reports is unique and that your chief responsibility is not to eradicate this uniqueness, but rather to arrange roles, responsibilities, and expectations so that you can capitalize upon it. The more you perfect this skill, the more effectively you will turn talents into performance.” More in-depth coaching and visiting time between the Thanksgiving and Christmas can help.

Second, get out from behind the desk, and visit the front line where the actual goods and service are delivered. This is not a walk-through, smile, and shake hands time period. It is instead a time period for in-depth exploration. In particular, look to see if the mission is alive and well or only a document on the wall or in a notebook. Check out whether or not the core values are expressed authentically or whether people are choosing to to do the standard “fake smile” delivery of customer service. Finally, dig into how well key teams are functioning. This holistic perspective will help you as a leader plan better for the future, and correct misalignments in the present.

Third, push back from the phone, internet and e-mail. With a sheet of paper before you, pause and think big.  Write out an answer to the following question: “If we had the kind of culture we aspire to, in pursuit of the strategy we have chosen, what kinds of new behaviors would be common? And what ingrained behaviors would be gone?” If need be, reread the following article where the aforementioned question came from: Katzenbach, by Jon R. and, Ilona Steffen and Caroline Kronley,“Cultural Change That Sticks”, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2012.

The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is an odd time period, but as a leader you can still use it to your advantage. Coach more, visit more, and reflect more. This will be a good way to start planning for the new year.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Too Much of a Good Thing

Growing up in the Philadelphia area and going to college in Indiana was a bit of a challenge around certain holidays when I was a young man. For example, I could take an all night bus back home for Thanksgiving with the family but given how short the break was and how long the ride, by the time I returned back to college I knew I was going to be pretty exhausted and burned out from all of the travel which was not a good way to go into the last couple of weeks of classes and final exams.

So one year, I decided to stay on campus and find some place local to celebrate. Having friends who were older and lived off campus, myself plus others decided to gather at their house and make a huge Thanksgiving feast. Everyone helped out and we had all of the traditional food. There was turkey, stuffing,  mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, candied yams with the little marshmallows on top, cranberry sauce, rolls, butter, etc.

On the day of the big event while the turkey was resting and then being carved, my college friend, Ian, and I got corralled into making the gravy. We had both watched our mothers do this so it did not seem like it was going to be too hard.  

We started by collecting all of the pan juices left over from the baking of the turkey and straining off the fat. Then, we sauteed some mushrooms in butter in a big frying pan. Once they were the right color, we add the drippings and began to stir as it bubbled. We stirred and stirred and it did not turn into gravy. We were stumped and those who were carving the turkey wanted us to hurry up.

Next, we add a little white flour and we got the right color but it was not coming together like good gravy. Then, we remembered that our mothers tended to add cornstarch to thicken the gravy. So, we found a box in the kitchen cabinet and put some in. Sure enough, it started to thicken.

With the color being right and the “gravy” bubbling away in the pan, plus with ample encouragement to hurry up from the people now carrying the turkey to the table, we added some more corn starch to the gravy so that it would get thick quicker. Our reasoning was simple. The more you add, the faster it will thicken. We did not take into account that we were cooking the gravy and in the process causing some of it to evaporate.  

Once, it was thick enough, we rushed around to find a gravy boat to put it in. However, we were college students and this was off campus housing rather than some one’s childhood home. Being resourceful, we found a big bowl and poured our very thick gravel into it. Proudly we carried the gravy to the table.

After prayers were said by all, the food was passed around. Plates were piled high and then the gravy was sent around. The only problem was that it had continued to cook through the prayers plus cool a bit. Furthermore, Ian and I had added so much cornstarch and flour that the gravy had seized up into one solid block. There was no pouring. The only solution was to slice the gravy and serve it. It did not taste like Mom had made it back home, but we were hungry college students so we ate everything nevertheless.

There are days when we as leaders have to remember that too much of a good thing can at times be just too much. For example, I recently have noticed that some people are going overboard on their coaching.  They think that if once a week coaching sessions are good, then multiple times a week would be better. While this might be a good idea in a few rare situations, the best thing to do in most situations is to coach people and then to let them practice. They have to apply what they have learned in their coaching session and then learn from the application process. Too much coaching, like too much cornstarch in the gravy, can cause a person to seize up and not think clearly. We forget sometimes that one of the goals of coaching is accelerated learning and helping someone to think clearly through their choices plus end up making the right ones.

During the coming thirty days, post Thanksgiving, just remember too much of a good thing does not always generate something better. A light touch always makes a better gravy. Same with people, too.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Quit Trying To Change People From The Outside

Each week during an executive coaching session, someone will tell me about an employee or direct report who is causing problems in the organization or on their team. Some times these individuals have problems with communication. Other days they have problems with solving problems. Routinely, they say one thing and do another. Whatever the case, they end up on the wrong side of the balance sheet and are labeled “a problem person.”

As a result of their actions or lack of action, morale drops, plans have to be adjusted, and systems are not working right. Then, the powers to be make a decision. This person has to change. They need more coaching and “more clarity.”

Next, as an experienced executive coach, I am called to help “fix this person.”  

Oh, for it to be so simple.  

I wish I could respond as follows: “Yes; I can do that. Let me go and get my mental adjustment mallet or my attitudinal correction wrench. An adjustment here plus a tightening of a bolt there, and then this person will be as good as new.”  

But I am not naive. This is not my first time to the rodeo. From experience and a ton of reading from people who are much wiser than me, I have learned two simple truths: Life at times can be difficult, and people do not change that much unless they want to change.

Rather than trying to cram something into another person’s head so they will be better, it is time for us as leaders to find out what is already inside them. Then, when and if they are ready, help them learn a new way of working and living.

This is not the work of a mechanic. It is the work of a gardener. We do not fix people. We instead help them to grow, mature, and gain new perspective.

When some one is rubbing you the wrong way, it is time for you to realize one thing. You can not change them. You can only change yourself.

So, rather than trying to fix your problem people, it is time to be more understanding about what is the source of their problems.  Remember, life at times can be difficult and people do not change that much unless they want to change.  

As Marcus Buckingham, and Curt Coffman wrote in their wonderful book, First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. (Simon & Schuster, 1999), “Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.”

This week get to know your problem people better.  Rather than trying to change them, first understand them better. With an open heart and lots of proactive listening, you can discover the right path to help them and yourself. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

The Goal of Coaching

Every week I listen to senior executives telling me that their mid-level managers need to become better coaches. “If they would just spend more time coaching front line supervisors and front line employees better, then we would not have the current problems that we have.” While this line of thinking is interesting, it makes some basic assumptions that are wrong. First, it assumes that mid-level managers have experienced good coaching themselves, which is rarely the case. Second, it assumes that they have the capacity to do good coaching which also is rarely the case. To expect middle managers to coach better means we need to help them become better coaches, not just expect them to be better coaches.

The first step in this process is to help middle managers understand the difference between transactive coaching and transformational coaching. The former focuses on the transferring of competencies, skills and/or techniques from one person to another. As a fine leader told me years ago, “they don’t know what they don’t know.” The later, transformational coaching, focuses on shifting people's view about themselves, their work, their values and their sense of purpose plus their view of the world around them. The combination of both methods of coaching and being conscious when you are doing each one and why transforms coaching from a random act of problem solving into a focus and structured exercise.

However, the major problem I often discover when brought in to solve a coaching problem is that few people are actually working with SMART Goals, i.e. ones that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. While this may seem like such a minor point, it is nevertheless a critical one because the goal of coaching is to help someone to achieve continual outstanding performance.

K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely in their wonderful article called “The Making of an Expert” in the July-August 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review note that expert coaches “accelerate your learning in an organized manner,” “give constructive feedback that challenges them to excel to the next level of their expertise,” and “help you become more and more independent so you are able to set your own development plans.” In essence, “good coaches help their students learn how to rely on an ‘inner coach’.”

The goal of coaching is always improved performance. The key is to figure out where to begin. Is it mind set or skill set? Answer the question and you have begun the journey in the right direction.  

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Key Skill Sets For Young Leaders

Years ago someone shared with me a simple truth: “We don’t know what we don’t know.” It is common for young leaders to have no reference point for what to do next in certain situations, because they often encounter many situations that are new to them. Still, with the right kind of coaching and learning, they can overcome these challenges and end up doing well in the midst of these challenges. The key is to teach them four key skills.

First, we need to help young leaders learn how to create and clarify direction. This sounds simple and yet may be the most difficult skill to learn. A good place to start is to have a young leader read the following book: Blanchard, Kenneth, Donald Carew, and Eunice Parisi-Carew. The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams, (Wm. Morrow and Company, 1990). In this very quick read, one learns that leaders use different skills to handle different situations. The authors also give a nice foundation about how to create and give direction.

Second, young leaders need to learn how to prioritize. The fastest way to do this level of learning is to review with them Stephen Covey’s model for putting first things first. It begins with learning how to differentiate between what is urgent and what is important. Click on this Wikipedia link and you can learn a lot more detail about how this works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Things_First_(book) Here is a YouTube video on the subject as well: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-357998200076562861 Helping young leaders understand what are the “big rocks” as presented in the YouTube video will help them learn how to prioritize.

Third, many young leaders do not know how to coach. They also have not received much good coaching over the course of their career, too. In the beginning, we need to educate young leaders that there are two kinds of coaching, namely transactive coaching and transformational coaching. The former focus on the teaching of key skills and the later is about developing a specific mindset. Both are important. The key in the beginning is to be more mindful of when we are doing which kind of coaching.

Fourth, we need to teach them how to resolve issues. For starts, I encourage all young leaders and those who are coaching them to read the following book: Patterson, Kerry, and Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High (McGraw-Hill, 2002). I have yet to meet people who were born to deal with conflict well within the work place or home. Yet, with some key information from the aforementioned book, they can get better at dealing with these issues. It also is important for young leaders to know that avoiding toxic people issues will cause more problems than dealing with them. They also need to know that not dealing with misaligned systems will also cause major problems.

Every day, successful, young and experienced leaders learn something new. However, after visiting with them for many decades, I can assure you that every one of them is good at the following four skill sets: giving direction, clarifying priorities, coaching people, and resolving problems. These skills are the foundation of successful leadership and management.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257