Build a great company on a powerful foundation!
We live in a very anxious time.
Some of the stress is justified, I guess, but when I look at what’s happened for the last decade, or two, or three … a lot of what I felt at the time didn’t really make anything better.
So I try to maintain a little perspective.
Read the rest of this entry »A lot of us want to improve the state of where we live. It’s a way to make life worth living, and attract great employees, customers, and partners. Which is all fantastic.
But community isn’t limited to your city or town.
I’ve learned that you can think of many kinds of groups as “community”, something worth nurturing and supporting. Some powerful examples:
Read the rest of this entry »
Two years ago, I had a wonderful plan for building my coaching business in 2020. For some strange reason, that all got messed up!
I’m blessed that my coaching can instantly switch over to Zoom. In fact, I’ve been using that for all my remote clients for many years now.
No, my marketing strategy got totally derailed. Since my approach is heavily based on building one-on-one relationships, most of my networking instantly disappeared. Some groups fell apart while others stagnated or were forced to redesign.
Since I have a tech background and have lots of experience with Zoom, I got pulled into producing Zoom events for various organizations. It turns out that can pay pretty well, so I ended up getting some significant revenue for that in 2020. Some of it continued into 2021.
Along the way, I discovered something fascinating. It turns out that clients are drawn to my production work because I take a coaching approach to it. I focus on their deeper goals, and help them design an event which truly achieves that. Sure, along the way I need to cajole Zoom into working properly, but many people can do that.
I’ve also been told that my coach-like optimism is a real asset. It helps my clients to approach their event calmly, knowing that somehow the tech magic will happen behind the scenes and all their participants will get a lot out of it.
But the lesson here isn’t really about Zoom, or pivoting my business in response to the pandemic.
It’s about how I’ve learned to bring the coaching mindset to everything I do. Looking back on my life, I see many examples of how that thinking has served me well as facilitator, leader, volunteer, and parent.
As I look to the future, it appears that we all need to strengthen our skills in being flexible and adapting. Key forces might be health care, climate change and industry upheaval – or other new influences we haven’t yet seen. But it doesn’t seem like things will become stable anytime soon.
It turns out that coaches are well suited to navigate this space. We’re all about balancing the power of a vision with the reality of the present. We look for resources and capabilities, building on strengths and synergies.
I have no idea if the future belongs to coaches. What matters is that we help bring the coaching skills and mindset to more people in our society: leaders, collaborators, and problem-solvers.
It doesn’t mean that we coaches know any more about having solutions or what our future will look like. Most of the time we’re probably as lost and confused as anyone else.
What makes the difference is our optimism and confidence that we can, together, build a better future. We believe that problems can be solved. We believe that people are fully capable of achieving ambitious goals. We believe that every person is to be included and respected.
Those beliefs seem to be in short supply sometimes.
That’s why coaches and coaching skills are so vital to the future of our world!
This article was first published in Choice Magazine, Volume 21 number 1.
We all screw up. Well, maybe not you, but the rest of us sure aren’t perfect.
It’s called being human.
The problem is that we also get very judgemental and unforgiving. So this creates general internal stress, exacerbated by lack of sleep and other things going on in our lives.
Read the rest of this entry »The world has become a rather depressing place in the last decade. That has resulted in a whole lot of people who are disconnected, disenfranchised, and uninspired.
This might be you some days, or your employees, or friends. But you can become the ray of hope for others.
It’s not about ignoring reality and the challenges we face. The question is more what we do, and how we think, about the situation.
Read the rest of this entry »I don’t know if you’ve ever made a mistake when hiring someone. If you haven’t, then you must be smarter and luckier than I am.
Because it does happen, despite your best preparations.
And when you’re dealing with employees, it’s much trickier than if you purchase the wrong product. But there are things we can do about it.
Read the rest of this entry »There are times when progress is just … S O S L O W. It seems like I’m getting nowhere and wasting time.
Most of the time, that’s all in my head. The pressure is coming from wanting something Right Now.
But most things take some time to develop.
Many businesses are struggling to build their teams right now. This is a recurring topic, of course, but magnified by the pandemic and recent social unrest.
The media and politicians like to focus on minimum wage, which is often a source of unfairness and discrimination. But that’s nowhere near the whole story.
Minimum wage attempts to provide a baseline. But it doesn’t apply to many situations, and certainly doesn’t provide a living wage in Northern Colorado.
Read the rest of this entry »We often get entranced by new things. As a software engineer, I found myself drawn to every new computer, operating system and application for many years.
But that was just me. Everybody has different things that turn them on!
Why should we care? Because you have to realize that the things that get you excited may not at all be what thrills your employees. Or customers.
Read the rest of this entry »You’re the leader, so your job is to tell other people what to do. As if it ever worked that way.
No, you want to lead by inspiration. By example.
Which means that YOU are the first one that needs to change. YOU need to reflect the direction of your organization, and how you want your people to make decisions.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Values-Based Business 