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I had a great conversation recently with a speaker who introduced me to the phrase “Tyranny of How”. It took me a few minutes to get my mind wrapped around the concept, and now I see how it can be very useful.
Like many people, I like to map out all the steps – to have a clear plan – before I get started. It gives me the confidence that I know what I’m doing and can just follow the steps to success.
Unfortunately life doesn’t work this way.
Read the rest of this entry »I find out that I get much more done when I have a clear deadline.
I’m not saying that I let everyone else schedule my work – I don’t. But I do look for useful deadlines and then link my thinking to those.
I’m presenting at a conference coming up in a few weeks. My experience tells me that the last week should focus on practicing and coordinating with my co-presenter. So that means all the content needs to be created before that, which means the structure should be in place by … this Wednesday.
Read the rest of this entry »I spent most of my career in technology, so I became accustomed to having the industry change very quickly. I appreciate that the professional coaching industry doesn’t move at quite that pace. Chasing waves of tech can get crazy.
When it comes to supporting my clients, I could argue that what we learn today is basically the same as it was three years ago. Or thirty. Or 300, for that matter. Because it’s about listening, helping them think through issues, and to chart a course forward.
I imagine that 300 years ago the role of a coach was performed by the wise elder or good friend. And the relationship was described as “wisdom” or “helping.”
Read the rest of this entry »When you’re at a point of making a decision, there’s usually a “good” direction and “bad” direction. But we usually pick the third option … doing nothing.
Now that doesn’t mean we need to rush things too much, which can result in a bad choice. But in our current environment, we’re overloaded with data and tradeoffs and options, which can put your lizard brain into freezing up.
That itself is a choice, even though it doesn’t feel like it.
Read the rest of this entry »We’ve spent the last five years staring at peoples’ Zoom backgrounds.
It’s interesting to see how this has changed. At first, it was just the view of someone’s kitchen. Then generic green-screened pictures, and now lots of blurring.
But it does bring to mind how much we pay attention to the larger context of every conversation.
Read the rest of this entry »When I was working for Corporate, yearly evaluations were the norm. I noticed that every employee would skip over the ten pages of recognitions for job well done, and immediately look at the “Areas for improvement” on the last page.
It frustrated me as a manager, because it completely imbalanced the focus of our conversation.
The truth is that people get a lot more traction from focusing on what they’re good at rather than what they’re not.
Read the rest of this entry »When you’re dealing with people, things rarely go exactly to plan.
Why is that? Because we’re all imperfect and broken in our own ways. It’s one of the things about being human.
If you’re a leader, you’ve also taken on the role of organizational healer. You may not feel qualified, but this is something you can’t fully outsource.
Because it’s core to leadership.
Read the rest of this entry »We all do dumb things and make mistakes.
But this isn’t about “following the rules” and “doing things right.” That’s an immature way of viewing things, which is fine when you’re eight years old.
Being beyond that, I recognize that I have done things to injure others’ feelings, damage relationships, and push people into cynicism and doubt.
Read the rest of this entry »There’s nothing which drives employees more nuts than being an unpredictable leader.
Careful! Predictable doesn’t mean boring. It means that your team can learn how you’ll make decisions and what is valued in the organization.
When they feel that you’re just making things up as you go along, that’s what drives them crazy.
Read the rest of this entry »The fires in the Los Angeles area over the last couple of weeks have been absolutely devastating.
As a leader, one of your roles is to address the impact of various disasters for your organization. So you create backup plans, for computers, equipment, and people. It’s not fun, but necessary to keep things humming as best you can.
But the deeper impact is what happens inside your employees.
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The Values-Based Business 