Archive for the ‘Discipline’ Category

Why?

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Do you know the answer to this ques­tion? Dis­cov­er­ing “why” is crit­i­cal to so many areas of our busi­ness and our lives.

We all walk through life hear­ing about what we should do to improve. Still, most of us strug­gle with chang­ing our behavior.

Over the years, I have coached thou­sands of peo­ple in one-on-one or group ses­sions. Most of these coach­ing con­ver­sa­tions revolved around the topic of improve­ment — qual­ity of life, busi­ness results, health, rela­tion­ships, team per­for­mance. Peo­ple typ­i­cally hire a coach because they believe they will have a bet­ter chance of mak­ing the nec­es­sary changes with a coach on their team.

And of course, I agree!

The prob­lem is that almost all of these improved results require improved behav­iors, and behav­ior is not eas­ily changed. If we want to change our behav­ior, we must change our think­ing. And to change our think­ing, we must be able to clearly define “why.”

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The Monday Morning Huddle

Friday, May 28th, 2010

I was in a meet­ing this morn­ing with a few of the part­ners at a great com­pany here in Port­land. The pur­pose of the meet­ing was to assess how coach­ing might help them to improve their cul­ture and their results. They already have a good thing going, and have been the gold stan­dard in their indus­try for the niche they serve.

Like many CEO’s and busi­ness lead­ers today, they are feel­ing a bit battle-weary. The last three years of eco­nomic chal­lenge forced them to make many of the dif­fi­cult busi­ness deci­sions that many of us faced, includ­ing down­siz­ing, cost cut­ting, and fight­ing for sur­vival over the short term. Today, they find that they have weath­ered the worst of the storm, and are now buried with too much busi­ness and too much oppor­tu­nity for their maxed out team.

I know many of you can relate to this story.

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Me First!

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Too many peo­ple believe they would have a bet­ter rela­tion­ship or a bet­ter work­place if only they had bet­ter spouses, kids, friends, and team­mates. If only other peo­ple were more thought­ful or lis­tened more or per­formed better!

Sure, there may be room for improve­ment in those around us. There may even be oppor­tu­ni­ties to help oth­ers grow. But first, we must take respon­si­bil­ity for how WE are think­ing and behav­ing, instead of lament­ing over the actions of others.

If I want a bet­ter mar­riage, I have to be a bet­ter hus­band first. If I want my rela­tion­ship with my kids to get bet­ter, I have to be a bet­ter father first. If I want a bet­ter team or a bet­ter com­pany, I have to be a bet­ter leader first.

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I Love a Good Vacation in the Morning

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

The alarm rings, the head rises, the shower steams, the cof­fee is brewed, the email inbox chimes, the news is watched, the car door slams, and the game of chase begins.

Wak­ing up run­ning is the norm for many in these crazed times. This daily rou­tine can leave many a leader feel­ing over­whelmed and tired. It can cause us to live our days crav­ing an escape.

We go about our sched­ule with mechan­i­cal pre­ci­sion, with­out really being present for days, weeks, or even months. We’re just wait­ing for the day we can board a plane to the trop­ics. Then, once the wheels are up and the Mai Tai is in hand, relax­ation will finally set in.

It does not need to be this way.

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Reboundability

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

I had the oppor­tu­nity to work with one of our favorite clients last week in Den­ver. Our team orga­nized and led a two day expe­ri­ence for their top per­form­ing man­agers and sales force. It was a won­der­ful time.

Won­der­ful, that is, once I arrived.

I will spare you the brunt of my travel woes, but my day involved can­celled planes, standby, and an arrival just 3 hours after the event started. Slightly stressed (or just a bit more than slightly), I made it to the site with just 15 min­utes to spare before I was to speak on Coach­ing Leadership.

It was at this event that I learned about the term “rebound­abil­ity”. After my pre­sen­ta­tion, I was talk­ing to a few of our clients and I shared about my day’s mishaps. This is when our friend and client Melanie Nygren shared this idea of reboundabilty.

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