Teamwork And Collaboration - part #2

Create The Right Environment

“What matters most to collaboration is not the personalities, attitudes, or behavioral styles of team members,” write Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen in the aforementioned article in yesterday’s blog post. “Instead what teams need to thrive are certain ‘enabling conditions’.” According to Haas and Mortensen, the secret to great teamwork and collaboration involves four components: a compelling direction, a strong structure, a supportive context, and a shared mindset. The two enabling conditions I want to focus on here are the strong structure and the supportive context. 

As they explain, “High-performing teams include members with a balance of skills. Every individual doesn’t have to possess superlative technical and social skills, but the team overall needs a healthy dose of both.” Then, they write that that “Larger teams are more vulnerable to poor communication, fragmentation, and free riding (due to a lack of accountability).” From my experience, I have seen both of these elements taking place. When the structure includes “a balance of skills,” and the reduction of the more vulnerable elements listed above, the potential for great teamwork and collaboration will take place. 

However, Haas and Mortensen note one other element that makes a difference when it comes to a strong structure. As they explain, “Teams can reduce the potential for dysfunction by establishing clear norms - rules that spell out a small number of things members must always do (such as arrive at meetings on time and give everyone a a turn to speak.) and a small number they must never do (such as interrupt)….. And in teams whose membership is fluid, explicitly reiterating norms at regular intervals is key.”

Years ago, I worked with a team who had the courage to explore their core values at a behavioral level rather than just at a conceptual level. Step by step, they walked through each of their core values and asked themselves two important questions: What do they  look like in action? What behaviors would make that a reality? Ever since then, I have admired the courage it took for them to hold this conversation and to boil it down to some very specific behavioral norms within the organization. 

I also admired the leader who ran this organization. I believe she had no idea what was going to surface during such in-depth dialogue. Yet, she had the faith and clarity to proceed in spite of her possible fears or worries. The outcome from this work has made a major difference. While her industry has gone through chaotic and transformational change, and her immediate team membership has been fluid, the organization has done exceptionally well. From my vantage point, this has happened because they have established clear behavioral norms and stuck to them through it all. 

Along with a strong structure, the second element that Haas and Mortensen focus on is a supportive context. As they write, “Having the right support is the third condition that enables team effectiveness.” Here, they focus on the team having the right resources, information and training in order to be successful. They also note, “Ensuring a supportive context is often difficult for teams that are geographically distributed and digitally dependent, because the resources available to members may vary a lot.” I have witnessed this often and I have also witnessed a variety of different organizations address this challenge in three unique ways. 

First, they build shared knowledge. As Haas and Mortensen write, “Incomplete information is likewise more prevalent in 4-D teams…. Information won’t provide much value if it isn’t communicated to the rest of the team. After all, shared knowledge is the cornerstone of effective collaboration; it gives a group a frame of reference, allows the group to interpret situations and decisions correctly, helps people understand one another better, and greater increase efficiency.” This level of shared knowledge comes from shared learning experiences and shared team experiences. The overall goal is to increase common language, perspective, and understanding across the entire organization, not just within one team. 

Creating and utilizing common language is critical factor in becoming a team, and improving teamwork and collaboration. “Language is our portal to meaning-making, connection, healing, learning, and self-awareness,” writes Brene’ Brown in her book, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (Random House, 2021). “Having access to the right words can open up entire universes…. Language shows us that naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.” 

Furthermore, when teams members build connections on multiple levels through shared learning and shared experiences, the outcome is powerful, namely a sense of belonging. As Brown explains, “True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.” And in the end, that is the challenge for all of us who are wanting to improve teamwork and collaboration. We do not need to change who we are to fit in. Instead, we need to be who we are so we can connect and belong.

Second, they ensure all subgroups feel valued for their contribution toward the overall goal. Returning to the work of Haas and Mortensen, they write, “… there are many ways team leaders can actively foster a shared identity and shared understanding and break down barriers to cooperation and information exchange. One powerful approach is to ensure that each subgroup feels valued for its contribution toward the team’s overall goals.”

I think the challenge here is that many people, subgroups, teams, and departments do not feel like what they are doing is making much of a difference on any level. It is just more effort, more paperwork, and more hassles on a day to day basis. The problem is that they have lost line of sight from their work to the team’s overall goal or goals. 

From my vantage point, the concept of line of sight is vital to success. At work, everyone has things that need to get done. Some are on a daily level and others are on a weekly level. Many of these things are SOP, i.e. standard operating procedures. At the same time, they are working on certain priorities and projects related to the team’s overall goal or goals. When there is line of sight, an individual or team can connect the dots from their actions to the team’s goals, and then from the team’s goals to the organization’s current strategic plan. When this happens, then all involved know two things. First, my job matters to the overall success of the team and the organization. Second, we are making progress and my contribution is helping us to make progress. This level of clarity builds commitment, shared identity and shared understanding. It also helps all involved feel valued as they contribute to the work of the team. 

Third, when wanting to create the right environment for teamwork and collaboration, leaders create structured unstructured time. Again, Hass and Mortensen note that effective leaders “… promote shared understanding through a practice called “structured unstructured time” - that is, time blocked off in the schedule to talk about matters not directly related to the task at hand.” As they continue, “How will you know if your efforts are working? … [evaluate] team effectiveness on three criteria: output, collaborative ability, and members’ individual development.” 

There are multiple questions that can be explored during structured unstructured time. The former is one such example. When I was actively consulting and was hired to help a team improve their teamwork and their ability to collaborate, I often utilized the six questions found in the following book: Lencioni, Patrick. The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business (Jossey-Bass, 2012). As Lencioni wrote, “Why do we exist?”, “How do we behave?”, “What do we do?”, “How will we succeed?”, “What is most important, right now?”, and “Who must do what?”. Each of these questions has the potential to build a shared understanding and common focus within the team and between teams. The challenge is to make time and space for this level of dialogue and to support people as they explore and process the answers that surface. Creating the right environment for teamwork and collaboration is hard work and worth every minute invested in the process. 

People Are The Solution

“People are the solution to the problems that confront us,” writes Margaret Wheatley in her book, Turning To One Another: simple conversations to restore hope to the future, (Berret-Koehler, 2001). “Technology is not the solution, although it can help. We are the solution - we as generous, open-hearted people who want to use our creativity and caring on behalf of other human beings and all life.” I agree 100% with her assertion that people are the solution, and I have witnessed this numerous times over multiple decades. 

And yet, if we seek to improve teamwork and collaboration in the midst of challenging times, we need to remember two things about people. First, as Wheatley notes, “Thinking is the place where intelligent action begins.” The work of helping people begins when we create uninterrupted space and time for reflection, because this is the effective prerequisite for using “our creativity and caring on behalf of other human beings and all life.” When we commit to this level of preparatory work, we must remember that this level of thinking is messy. Solutions and answers to big questions or big problems do not arrive all neatly packaged, organized and with a bow. Instead ,they come as pieces which we must put together. In short, the solutions to teamwork and collaboration issues are emergent rather than fully organized. Therefore, we must come prepared for the emergent process as we seek “the solution to the problems that confront us.”

Second, Wheatley writes: “People don’t support things that are forced on them. We don’t act responsibly on behalf of plans and programs created without us. We resist being changed, not change itself.” I think in our rush to solve problems we often forget to engage with people in order that they can co-create the solutions with us. Instead, in our rush to fix problems instead of co-generate solutions, we forget that ownership of the problem and the solution is important as implementing the solution. However, when we do seek to create clarity and ownership, we build an environment where generous and open-hearted people can come together as a team or work together as teams in order to create change based on choice rather than force. 

When leaders seek to increase effective teamwork and collaboration, they are making a long term commitment to people and to process. It takes time and energy to develop a shared mindset and to create the right environment to support all involved to move forward together. Yet, when those involved understand what is normal, recognize that effective collaboration is a continuum and the sum of multiple behaviors, then all involved will rise to the challenges before them, whether this is summiting a Mount Everest level problem or going the distance over a mountain range of multiple problems.  Because in the end, as Christopher Novak noted earlier, it is all “about the people we take with us on our journey forward.” And improving teamwork and collaboration is a worthwhile journey each and every day. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

Teamwork And Collaboration - part #1

Introduction

Twenty-four years ago, John Maxwell wrote a book called The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower Your Team (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001). In it, he shared “The Law of Mount Everest: As the challenge escalates, the need for teamwork elevates.” I believe that if he wrote the book this year, he would have modified The Law of Mount Everest to state that as challenge escalates, the need for teamwork and collaboration elevates. 

Christopher Novak in his book, Conquering Adversity: Six Strategies to Move You and Your Team Through Tough Times (CornerStone Leadership Institute, 2004), writes that “Collaboration is about the people we take with us on our journey forward.”

Dan Cohen in his book, The Heart of Change Field Guide: Tools and Tactics for Leading Change in Your Organization (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), notes that in the process of stakeholder enrollment collaboration needs to happen before people will commit and advocate for change. 

For me, the subject of collaboration and team work became a very big issue in the summer and fall of 2015. Everyone was talking about it and everyone one was asking questions about it. Recently, this subject has come roaring back on to my radar screen. People are once again interested in this subject and once again asking questions. All of this interest can be boiled down into one important and timely question: How can leaders increase effective teamwork and collaboration?

Three Distinctions

As we explore this subject, I think it is important to clarify three words, namely cooperation, teamwork, and collaboration. In particular, we need to understand that each word creates a different outcome. First, cooperation is an interpersonal interaction on the one to one level, and has the potential to create interpersonal synergy. In mathematical terms, one plus one has the potential to be greater than two. 

Second, teamwork is focused on intra-team interactions. In basic terms, my part plus all of your parts has the potential to create something greater than the team, i.e. the generation of collective synergy and collective results which is always greater than individual results. 

Third, collaboration is focused on inter-teams interactions. Again, in basic terms, my team engages with your team in order to create a level of holistic synergy. At this level, we are all focused on the success of the company as a whole, and the outcome is greater than individual cooperation or team work. However, we must keep in mind that cooperation, teamwork, and collaboration are all critical to short and long term success. 

The Collaboration Continuum

When we focus on collaboration, we must recognize that it is a continuum more than a specific event or singular action. In the beginning, people are working in isolation. There is no need to communicate outside the group and those involved only share with others as needed. 

Next, we see people engage in a level of consultation with other individuals and/or teams. They do this to gain perspective or understanding outside their group. Then, they take the parts that they like, and the parts that cause the least amount of disruption to their group. Still, in the end, they do what they want to do. For many, they believe that this is collaboration. 

Now some will engage in coordination but call it collaboration. I think there is a big distinction between the two. When people coordinate, they work with others outside the group to get something done. It typically starts with the “I have a plan and you have a plan” mentality. Once we recognize this, they meet to share what each have planned. Then, they work together.

However, what I have witnessed that is unique about effective collaboration is that both teams start with a joint analysis which includes an agreement about what is the problem. Next, they continue with joint planning and execution of the plan. Furthermore, they discuss the compelling reason to collaborate, and there are agreed to guidelines to the process. Then, they expect there to be trial and adaptation periods, along with reliance on each other to collectively solve problems. Ideally, each group or team integrates the solutions into what they are doing on a daily basis, too.

Finally, there is one more stage past collaboration which is rarely experienced or talked about much, namely co-creation. This follows the same path as the aforementioned effective collaboration. But they do one more thing, that from my perspective is most unique about co-creation, namely they share resources based on a high degree of personal, strategic and organizational trust. It is the resource sharing that accelerates collaboration into co-creation, and often results in very creative solutions and outcomes. 

A Shared Mindset

Recognizing the aforementioned continuum, we must realize that teamwork and collaboration begins with a shared mindset. All involved know why they need to do the work, and all involved understand what kind of problems or problems they are dealing with during teamwork and collaboration. They also know what to do and are capable of doing it. In essence, they understand the goal from an operational and strategic perspective. 

At this point, I am reminded of some thing that James Belasco and Ralph Stayer wrote years ago in their book, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring To Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead (Time Warner, 1994). As they explain, "The primary purpose of strategic planning is not to strategically plan for the future, although that's an important purpose of the exercise. It is primarily to develop the strategic management mind-set in each and every individual in the organization. The purpose of the process is not only to produce a plan. It is to produce a plan that will be owned and understood by the people who have to execute it.” The critical elements within this quote are the shared strategic mindset and that the plan is owned and understood by the people who have to execute it. 

Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen in their article, “The Secrets of Great Teamwork” from the June 2016 issue of the Harvard Business Review, write that “Distance and diversity, as well as digital communication and changing membership, make them [teams] especially prone to the problems of ‘us versus them’ thinking and incomplete information…. The solution to both is developing a shared mindset among team members - something team leaders can do by fostering a common identity and common understanding.” Again, a shared mindset is critical at the team level and in the collaboration process. 

Haas and Mortensen then point out something very interesting about effective teamwork which is the necessary pre-cursor to effective collaboration. As they write, “In the past teams typically consisted of a stable set of fairly homogeneous members who worked face-to-face and tended to have a similar mindset. But that’s no longer the case, and teams now often perceive themselves not as one cohesive group but as several smaller subgroups. This is a natural human response: Our brains use cognitive shortcuts to make sense of our increasingly complicated world, and one way to deal with complexity of a 4-D team [diverse, geographically dispersed, digitally connected, and dynamic as in in frequent changes in membership] is to lump people into categories. But we also are inclined to view our own subgroup - whether it’s our function, our unit, our region, or our culture - more positively than others, and that habit often creates tension and hinders collaboration.”

The tendency to sub-divide into small groups may be normal and a cognitive coping mechanism, but in the world of teamwork and collaboration this creates major problems. Leaders have to understand this is normal, and at the exact same time, they need to work diligently on building and maintaining a shared mindset. Given we are dealing with 4-D teams more and more, and given we are wanting these teams to work better as teams, and to collaborate better with other teams, then we need to recognize that clarity about why we need to work well together, and what we needs to get done becomes mission critical to success. We also need leaders who know how to help people collaborate. 

The Sum Of Multiple Behaviors

For many years, I have explained to senior executives, leaders and managers that collaboration is the sum of multiple behaviors. It is not a singular action but the outcome of multiple choices done well over time. For me, there are three core leadership behaviors that result in effective collaboration within a team or between teams. 

The first core behavior relates to communication. When an individual or team is outside their comfort zone and struggling, we need to remember that the support of a team, a strategic perspective, and a safety zone for strategic dialogue makes a big difference. Yet, the tap root all three is the ability to create and maintain safety in communication. While this may seem simple, it is not easy because safety at this level honors both facts and feelings. When I have observed exceptional leadership that has resulted in good teamwork and good collaboration, I have noticed two elements to their communication. First, they are exceptional listeners. The second is that they are credible leaders, because they do what they say they will do. Again, this seems simple but it is not easy because to do both things well, you have to be consistent and disciplined over time

The second core behavior relates to problem solving. While most leaders focus on the solving of the problem, the best leaders focus on the word problem itself. They spend a great deal of time identifying the problems, defining the problems, and analyzing the causes of problems. This takes a great deal of time and energy, but when it does well, the execution of the solutions has greater buy-in and commitment. 

The third core behavior relates to effective planning and execution. Most leaders who want better teamwork and collaboration focus on setting goals and making sure people are executing them. And while this is important, I have noticed that once the goals are set, they often do not take into account the rise of unknown variables or unpredictable issues that surface after the goal has been written. Thus, the execution of the goal by a team or a couple of teams working together becomes problematic over time.

Yet, in circumstances where the goal is written and then executed, a greater level of team work and collaboration will surface if there are weekly tactical meetings to check on the progress related to the goal, and when their are monthly strategic reviews where all involved analyze, debate, and decide if the goal is still the right goal as critical issues, unpredictable problems, or unknown variables surface post goal writing. If so, then all involved can adapt and work collaboratively to accommodate these factors. 

Through better communication, problem solving, and planning and execution, leaders at all levels of the organization can generate effective outcomes and build capacity for future efforts.  The key is to assist people at getting better at all three of these core leadership skills. 

To be continued on Tuesday.

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

The Intersection Of People And Work

A number of years ago, Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall in their book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), wrote: “Checking in with each person on a team - listening, course-correcting, adjusting, coaching, pinpointing, advising, paying attention to the intersection of the person and the real-world work - is not what you do in addition to the work of leading. This is the work of leading.” 

In our rush to get things done, I think we forget that checking in with each person on the team is the work of leadership. I think we forget to be of assistance to them rather than thinking they need to be offering assistance to us. I think the work of leading can happen each and every day if we remember to focus on the intersection of the person and the work. 

As we embrace this simple, but powerful choice, we need to do three more things very well. First, we must remember to manage up and across the organizational chart, not just down. Collaboration is the foundation for success during turbulent times. As part of this broader process, we need to understand the difference between ripe, unripe and ripening issues across the organization. Just because we think something is a hot button issue does not mean everyone else does. Therefore, we need to look at issues from multiple positions and multiple perspectives. We also need to recognize the difference between discernment and judgement when making a decision. When we engage in more discernment before engaging in problem solving, we can be better at helping others. 

Second, we need to learn to lead without ignoring the people we love. There will always be more work than time to complete everything. Home and major relationships outside of work should not always be a distant second to getting the work done. If this happens, then we have let the non-essential piles undermine what is most essential in our life. Remember that the word integrity comes from Latin meaning “to make whole.” When we make choices that fragment us and our life, we undermine all that helps us cope and maintain perspective at the interaction of life and work. 

Third, we need to remember our presence makes a statement. While actions speak louder than words, words still matter. They impact people and they can make a profound difference on how people engage with their job and others. If we choose to back up our words with thoughtful and consistent action, we are helping others make better choices. It is the combination of thoughtful action and thoughtful speaking that makes a statement about what we value and who we value. Being present and choosing to listen is critical to leading people. 

When we do the aforementioned three things well, we bring a level of authenticity and integrity to the daily work of listening, coaching and advising. We also build trust and create a greater level of commitment to accomplishing short term projects and long term goals. The intersection of life and work is busy and dynamic. People are working hard and want to get things done in a timely, accurate and efficient manner. When we meet them where they are, we can help them make progress and know that their job matters. And that is what people want to be experiencing at the intersection of life and work. 

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

The Challenge of Self-Management

A long time ago, Price Pritchett wrote the following: “The first chore in managing change is the toughest: self-management. Handle that right, and you’re halfway home.” On the surface, this seems self-evident. But when one rereads it a couple of times, we realize that it has great depth. The challenge is that most leaders do not do this level of work. They avoid self-management, and instead focus on managing others first, organizational change second, and maybe themselves as a distant third. Still, if they were to do self-management first, they might discover that they are “halfway home.”

From my perspective, self-management begins with an understanding of how we choose to think about time. Once you choose the path of leadership and then organizational change, you will be constantly interrupted by some one. Most people new to leadership are surprised by this happening. Most experienced leaders understand that it comes with the job. 

Years ago, Peter Drucker shared two important insights about leadership and time. First, “The executive’s time tends to belong to everybody else.” Everybody and anybody can move in on your time and eventually does. How we deal with these interruptions sends a message about what is important, how people should treat each other, and how people should respect each other’s time. 

Second, “Executives are forced to keeping ‘operating’ unless they take positive action to change the reality in which they live.” As leaders, we can not let the flow of events completely determine the priorities we hold. Instead, we need to define what is important in spite of the flow of current events and current interruptions. We need to lead proactively rather than manage reactively. 

I have often reflected on Drucker’s insights since he published them in an article called “What is Our Business?” in the June 2001 issue of Executive Excellence magazine. However, I always struggled on one level to explain them in a practical, self-management kind of way. It was not until I read Cal Newport’s book, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout (Portfolio/Penguin, 2024), that I discovered a key concept that explains a lot of about self-management.

In the book, Newport defines slow productivity as “a philosophy for organizing knowledge work efforts in a sustainable and meaningful manner, based on the following three principles: 1. Do fewer things. 2. Work at a natural pace. 3. Obsess over quality.” He defines “Pseudo-Productivity” as “the use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort.” Both of these definitions were helpful. They reminded me of an earlier book where he articulated the difference between deep work and shallow work. 

With this slow productivity framework in mind, Newport expands on the first principle called “Do Fewer Things.” As he writes, “Strive to reduce your obligations to the point where you can easily imagine accomplishing them with time to spare. Leverage this reduced load to more fully embrace and advance the small number of projects that matter most.” Then, for me, he adds a deeply insightful concept into the mix about leaders and time. As he writes, “In knowledge work, when you agree to a new commitment, be it a minor task or a large project, it brings with it a certain amount of ongoing administrative overhead: back-and-forth e-mail threads needed to gather information, for example, or meetings scheduled to synchronize with your collaborators. This overhead tax activates as soon as you take on a new responsibility. As your to-do list grows, so does the total amount of overhead tax you’re paying. Because the number of hours in the day is fixed, these administrative chores will take more and more time away from your core work, slowing down the rate at which these objectives are accomplished.” Later, he continues, “A key property of overhead tax is that it tends to expand to fill as much time as it’s provided. So long as a project is something that you’ve committed to, and it’s not yet complete, it will tend to generate a continual tax in the form of check-in meetings, impromptu email conversations, and plain old mental space.”

When I first read about the concept of an overhead tax, I had to stop reading, put down the book, and think. It was the key that unlocked so much for me as an executive coach. Over and over, I have worked with leaders who are willing to put in the deep work, i.e. the time, the focus, and the commitment, on a project, goal or strategy, and yet over time, they struggle with completing it. What I realized is that the problem is not effort or focus. Nor was the problem the lack of strategic perspective. The actual problem was the overhead tax. The more administrative details they had to manage, the less time they had for the actual work. Furthermore, if they were engaged in multiple projects, then there were multiple overhead taxes, all demanding time and attention. 

As I continued to read, I agreed with Newport that so many people are struggling with the overhead taxes that they have crossed a tipping point and therefore can not get to the actually key objectives, goals, or strategy that they were seeking to accomplish. Instead, they are swamped in administrative overhead. In short, their self-management is not self-management. They are actually just managing more and more administrative details with no time for self and actual work. 

Furthermore, as more and more of their time is consumed with the overhead taxes, they also do not have time for renewal or recharge. They just become consumed with minutia and the sinking feeling that life is nothing more than small details piled on small details. The outcome from this pattern of working and living always results in decision fatigue leading to decision burn-out. As Marshall Goldsmith in his book, Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be, (Crown Business, 2015), wrote: “Doing things that deplete us is not the same as doing things when we’re depleted.” And in the end, we always pay the overhead tax, resulting in careless choices, poor decisions, and ultimately a surrender to status quo. 

So, how does one do effective self-management when managing change?

First, sit down and evaluate how many current projects and priorities you are working on. Then, calculate how much overhead taxes you are paying per project. This may be an uncomfortable exercise, but the goal is to do fewer things well rather than many things poorly. And it is important to discern that doing fewer things well is not the same as accomplishing fewer things. The goal is to generate quality work by actually having real priorities rather than hopeful priorities. 

Second, improve your ability to delegate. When we choose to delegate something to another person, we are transferring the authority and responsibility from us to another person. The difficulty is that during the act of delegation we never clarify how much authority or responsibility the person has and can use. Furthermore, we assume that the person being delegated to understands the problem and has the skills and knowledge to solve the problem. Finally, we assume that they know how to measure their progress and know what a successful completion of the problem looks like over time. Nine times out of ten, poor delegation creates poor results, and in turn poor self-management. 

Third, schedule adequate transition time during each day. Our days are packed with back to back meetings and back to back check-in sessions. Often, we are shifting from operational issues to strategic issues to personnel issues. The result is reactive leadership and little time to process or complete anything. At some point, we just have to realize that this unceasing pace of work and life is unsustainable, and is detrimental to our health and our core relationships at work and at home. When we schedule transition time into our daily and weekly schedule, we are then moving from a place of clarity and alignment. 

Fourth, find and work with an executive coach, especially one who will ask you questions that you yourself would not ask. By creating time and space for structured unstructured time, we are building a foundation for resilience and capacity. This unique space gives us a chance to pause, share, and reflect. It also is a chance to think out loud in a safe and open environment. Here, we can zoom out to gain perspective or zoom in to gain understanding. We also can slow down so we can make wiser and more thoughtful choices. Then, we have a chance to check our default thinking and default reactions in order to not perpetuate unhealthy responses based on past unhealthy experiences. Over time, an experienced executive coach can offer unique insights and wisdom from their own years of working through problems of a similar nature, too. 

Fifth, discover or recover a why to live for that is greater than just getting all the office work done. As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz write: ”Purpose creates a destination." It is time to reclaim purpose and to reclaim destination in our life journey. It is time to figure out why we do what we do, and then use this to guide our life choices and decisions. Too often, we are living someone else’s definition of success. We also are trying to meet their expectations, and are not clear about what are our own priorities, hopes and dreams. When we create a purpose driven life, we are living and working from a place of great strength and deep inner alignment. We then move in a new and more grounded manner toward our desired destination. 

Self-management in the midst of change is hard and important work to do. It happens on a daily basis and is never completed in a single day. Still, by doing it consistently and thoughtfully, we can manage change in an effective manner. And then, we will be halfway home.

© Geery Howe 2025

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change