Coaching For Leaders

Helping people utilize new skills they are learning is an essential skill for all leaders. In this episode, I'll examine four ways you can do this as a leader. To reach me with questions, comments, or feedback: CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback REFRAME Move people away from just task accomplishment and more towards skill mastery. There's a difference between having knowledge and being an strong contributor to an organization. Challenge people for practical experience. Challenge them to put what they are learning into action. RECONNECT Engage people during regular development meetings (at least once a month - once a week is ideal). Discouragement and obstacles will happen - we need to provide coaching along the way. Give perspective by using encouragement and also reward progress (not just results). Challenge people to compare themselves with themselves. RENEW Make things new again. You can't know everyone on January 1st - be ready to add in more, make changes, and adapt Add new challenges and

This week's topic is how to spend $700 on your professional development. Frances, one of our listeners, contacted me this week to say that she has $700 in a "use it or lose it" budget within the next week and wanted some advice on what to do. Since many of these resources would be helpful to all of us, it's the topic for this week's show. To reach me with questions, comments, feedback: CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback Two overarching rules to keep in mind before you do anything: Talk to people who are doing the stuff you want to do Have your own professional development plan (I use Michael Hyatt's life plan that I've discussed on prior shows) Books The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner How to Win Friends and Influence People (and the new version for the digital age) both by Dale Carnegie The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (link for the printed version) Amazon Prime - $79 a year (2 day shipping, streaming of movies, borrow on

Welcome to the fifteenth episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders. This week's topic: Get Specific With Goals This week I was listening to the HBR IdeaCast and a recent interview with Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson about her book: 9 Things Successful People Do Differently I've also been reading Get Rid of the Performance Review! by Samuel Colbert To reach me with questions, comments, feedback: CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback Examples of actual ineffective goals: "Communicate more effectively" "Develop leadership skills" "Communication skills to be improved (writing) and get your point across more clearing and concisely" "Improve quality and completion of assigned duties" "Begin working outside of their comfort zone towards new opportunities and/or subject areas" SMART Framework S - Specific M - Measurable A - Attainable R - Relevent T - Time-phased Examples of more effective goals, utilizing the SMART framework: Establish procedures with vendors to reduce year-over-year error rates by 20% before June

Welcome to the fourteenth episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders. This week's topic: Four Leadership Lessons I'm Thankful For "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 2 To reach me with questions, comments, feedback: CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback Four stories from my career of leadership lessons I've valued: McDonald's and the value of humility How I utilize this in daily client interactions now Orientation and the value of excellence I utilize this in teaching and production of this show My first job and the value of consequences Today I utilize this to have courage "Our chief want in life is someone who shall make us do what we can." -Ralph Waldo Emerson My friend and colleague and the value of love In tough situations, find something to love about the other party More coming with this show in 2012! In the meantime, I'd like your feedback on these questions: Start: What should I start doing on the show that I'm not doing? Stop: What should I sto

Welcome to the thirteenth episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders. This week's topic: How Culture Affects Coaching To reach me with questions, comments, feedback: CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback What do we mean by a strong culture? Strong culture: consistent throughout the organization and thus has a strong influence on individuals Weak culture: do not have as strong an impact on individuals because of inconsistencies (does not mean it is not effective) In Organizational Culture and Leadership, Edgar Schein (2004) defines culture as, "…a pattern of SHARED BASIC ASSUMPTIONS that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to PERCEIVE, THINK, and FEEL in relation to those problems" (p. 17). We accidentally referred to Schien's book in the episode as "Making Sense of the Organization" which is actually a book by Karl Weick and also an excell

Welcome to the twelfth episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders. This week's topic: Five Ways to Have Courage to Coach To reach me with questions, comments, feedback: Visit CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback Courage (n) as defined by Merriam-Webster's Dictionary: Mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty Eleanor Roosevelt is famously attributed to having said, "Do one thing every day that scares you." "If you're the king of your world, you're playing in the wrong world." -Unknown 5 Pieces of Advice: 1) Have a mentor - for me, it's been my wife (and past managers) 2) Educate yourself on the issues - for me, it's reading and RSS feeds Check out Shelfari.com and you can view my profile here. Six Ways to Get Smart and Stay Smart TechCouple Episode #5 3) Surround yourself with people who will empower you. 4) Have direction - a personal vision Michael Hyatt's life planning e-book is a great way to start I'm Irrational With My Time (and so are you...) 5)

Welcome to the eleventh episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders. This week's topic: How to Create a Shared Vision. Also a special welcome back to my favorite guest: Dr. Bonni Stachowiak, President of Innovate Learning. What did you do with the tools from last week's episode? Who did you give constructive feedback to? To reach me with questions, comments, feedback: Visit CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback You can't create a shared vision without having your own vision first. It's inappropriate for us to be dependent on others or independent from them. Rather, we need to have relationships of interdependence. Bonni mentioned a clip from the movie Spartacus which captures the power of interdependence: Two key elements of a shared vision: The people involved have a shared picture of what the future looks like. Everyone is committed to achieving the work and working towards it together. We discussed four steps for leaders to take when creating a shared vision: A few books that we mentioned on this episode

Dave Stachowiak: Coaching for Leaders In his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith warns against the habit of leaders adding too much value and stifling the motivation of an employee’s independent ideas. He says that when we start improving an employee’s idea, “You may have improved the content of my idea by 5 percent, but you’ve reduced my commitment to executing it by 50 percent, because you’ve taken away my ownership of the idea.” Does it even make sense to give someone feedback? Here's a helpful guide. Minor issue? If the person is aware: ask what they plan to do to resolve it If the person is unaware: let it go Major issue? If the person is aware : ask questions and help brainstorm If the person is unaware - redirect by using EXPECTATION -> EXAMPLE -> EMPOWER Saying something "nice" first can get us in trouble as a leader: It doesn't sound sincere, since it's often done only before constructive feedback It's not credible since the leader will o

Dave Stachowiak: Coaching for Leaders Weddings are an interesting place to watch people give positive feedback to others. I give a few examples. The problem with feedback is that intentions are good, but that sometimes feedback still comes out awkward…sometimes it would have been better if the person said nothing at all. I share a story about someone who heard "good job" just one too many times. Here's the model you want to use: ATTRIBUTE-EXAMPLE-THANK An example of it in action: “Helen, I appreciate how much diligence you brought to this project. Just two weeks ago, I remember you telling me that one of our vendors was very concerned about being able to make our final deadline. I noticed that you had two conference calls with them and worked late one evening last week to help get them back on track and ensure that both they and our campus looked good in the end. Thank you for putting forth the diligence to bring this project to a very successful close.” You're done - don't go further than the above. W

Welcome to the eighth episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders! This week's topic: How to Coach the Millennials (Part 2). One of the biggest challenges I hear from leaders today is how to coach this new generation of young people entering the workforce. I cite current statistics from the Fall 2011 edition of the Leader to Leader Journal. Special guest: Dr. Bonni Stachowiak President of Innovate Learning (our firm) Associate Professor of Business at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA You can reach Bonni at bonni@innovatelearning.com Bonni mentioned the book Drive by Daniel Pink as well as this brief video. In addition, she made reference to this graphic from Harvard Business Review: Stay connected with this show on iTunes or on Facebook I'd love your feedback on this show as well as any questions or topics you'd like me to address in future shows: Visit CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback to submit comments, questions, or feedback. See you in a week for the next episode!

Welcome to the seventh episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders! This week's topic: How to Coach the Millennials (Part 1). One of the biggest challenges I hear from leaders today is how to coach this new generation of young people entering the workforce. I cite current statistics from the Fall 2011 edition of the Leader to Leader Journal. Special guest: Dr. Gilbert Fugitt Associate Dean of Students at Concordia University in Irvine, CA You can reach Gilbert at gilbert.fugitt@cui.edu Gilbert mentioned the book Not Everybody Gets a Trophy by Bruce Tulgan as a resource for leaders. Next week, I'll continue the conversation with Bonni Stachowiak (my best friend and wife) who will bring her perspective on working with the millennials from experience as a corporate vice president and business professor. Stay connected with the show on iTunes, our website, or on Facebook I'd love your feedback on this show as well as any questions or topics you'd like me to address in future shows: Visit CoachingforLeaders.com/

Welcome to the sixth episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders! This week's topic: The Importance of Making Time to Coach. I begin the show by speaking about my first job out of school and revisiting our coaching definition from episode #2. If you want to know what is important to people, look at their calendar and in their checkbook. Why don't we make time to coach? People don't know the correct way. Perception that things take too much time. I cited some of Larry Bossidy's comments and lessons from the book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. Coaching takes time. Are you investing time into coaching? Here are four ways to get started: Contract with the other party on development priorities Plan out the schedule of when to meet and what to do - book it Follow-through on your coaching commitments Be flexible and yet consistent You make life easier during review time as well if the above four things are done consistently. Make a commitment this week to do one of these things above. St

Welcome to the fourth episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders! Today's topic: What is coaching and why it's different from other development tools. Here's the link I promised to the EDS commercial on building a plane in the air. Visit CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback with questions, comments, or feedback. Socrates said, "The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms." (accidentally attributed to Plato in the audio of the show - apologies!) Let's look at: leading, managing, training/teaching, mentoring, consulting, counseling, and of course coaching. Leading: Creating environments that achieve a shared vision. Peter Senge describes a shared vision in The Fifth Discipline The rose windows at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris are a good analogy John F. Kennedy's shared vision to get us to the moon Managing: Establishing, monitoring, and controlling processes and procedures Communicating clear expectations Follow-up Feedback or consequences My work at SCORE! Educational Centers was an example of man

Welcome to the third episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders! Today's topic: Why teaching adults is different than teaching kids. Visit CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback with questions, comments, or feedback. A brief overview of how teaching fits into coaching. We're going to examine a few lessons from The Adult Learner by Malcolm Knowles, Elwood Holton, and Richard Swanson (7th edition). Pedagogy vs. Andragogy (art of teaching kids vs. self concept of being responsible for ourselves) (Greek: child-leading, man-leading). You can't teach adults the way you teach kids. Why talk about kids? As coaches, there's the tendency to fall back on what we've seen all our lives and what we remember from school - unfortunately, those same skills don't work with adults. 6 assumptions about andragogy: 1) The Need to Know (adults need to know why something is important before learning it) With kids: because the teacher said so I share my experience with stats in graduate school As a coach, you might need to help make this

Welcome to the second episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders! Special guest this week: Matt Ross from Liberty Mutual How did things go with the listening assessment from the first episode? If you missed it, download the PDF here. For questions, comments, or suggestions visit coachingforleaders.com/feedback How to start coaching someone: This is a huge missed opportunity for a lot of leaders. Leaders start teaching a new skill, and that's it…before getting to know someone and without connecting it to the other person's goals/desires. The model for how to start coaching someone: F - Future R - Reality O - Obstacles M - Meaning What to listen for in the interview with Matt Ross: 1) FROM model 2) This shouldn't be an interrogation...you can jump around 3) The importance of silence Interview with Matt Ross Contact Matt Ross at this link or: matt.ross@libertymutual.com / @MattRossLM What I would do if I was Matt's manager? I'd want to talk in terms of how the tasks he's working on connect with his

Why start this show? A bit of background about me How my doctoral dissertation got me thinking about the importance for leaders to focus on themselves One thing I've learned for sure: leaders can make a big difference in the lives of others if they take a little time to make a difference in themselves Why I care about this Lots of resources coming - articles/blogs/Q&A/guests/authors/books/my own perspective I want your perspective as well: To submit a comment, question or feedback, visit coachingforleaders.com/feedback Powerful Listening Audio exercise - part 1 What did you hear? It sounds a lot like a lot of our work lives. Audio exercise - part 2 Four Listening Levels: Pretend Partial Present Powerful You can't listen powerfully all the time - but you need to at least some of the time. Good listening is important work for a leader...just an important (if not more so) than "normal work" Download the Listening Skills Assessment Discover More Activate your free membership for f