Jumping Into the Deep End of Leadership by Donna Karlin

04:07 pm | 0 recommendations | 20 comments

Leadership: Can a Workplace Be Too Enticing?

Some organizations are making the work environment such an enticing place to be, people are lining up at the door, clamoring to be hired. Let’s face it…from an organizational perspective, if you’re competing for the best talent, why not tempt future employees with perks? It gives you the edge right?

Many companies are cutting back on the extras and staff find themselves bone weary as they work long hours in less than energizing environments. Many burn out and many more leave for greener pastures if they have the caliber of resume that attracts potential employers. From the hiring perspective, if you lure the best people away from their current jobs and universities by offering them more money, that might be good enough bait to get them into an interview or conversation, but add on perks like an executive chef on premises, nap rooms for when you need a break, showers and state of the art work out centers and why wouldn’t someone want to come and work for a place that has all that, right? It's in the bag...you've got them!

That’s the goal. Get the best people and make life so comfortable there that they wouldn’t think of leaving. Sounds like a plan, but have these companies thought of the ramifications of this? And even if they have, do they care enough to do something about it?

What I’m talking about is, staff love working in these organizations so much and enjoy the perks to such an extent that they’re spending really long hours at work. Some are sleeping over to get an early start in the morning and not going home every night to the detriment of their home life…that is if they still have a home life to go to once they’ve (as their spouses and partners call it) gone MIA.

Companies preach work life balance, however if they’re making the environment so ‘luxurious’, and know their employees will stay longer, don’t they realize there are consequences to their home life? And if they do realize it, what are they doing about it if anything?

The company becomes a community of sorts and the staff is so used to having meals together and interacting for so many hours straight they forget about the outside world and the people they’ve left behind. It’s subtle. One day gets a bit longer than the one before and before they know it the rest of their world ceases to exist. There’s no one left to go home to.

Oh it’s great to have a company care enough about their people to make sure the environment is a comfortable one, but it’s also important to make sure that’s not taken to the nth degree to the detriment of everything else in their staff’s life. That’s a whole other balance.

Does this scenario or a part of it describe what’s happening to you? Do you want to define your life by what goes on within the walls of the company you work for? It might boggle your mind to think this might be happening but take the ‘might’ out of the equation because it is. What started out as a great idea for all the right reasons, is creating results no one considered then. Some are taking stock of this now, paying attention and doing something about it. And if they're not, I certainly hope you are.

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • •www.abetterperspective.com

08:53 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Leadership: Change... Either Move With It Or Let It Paralyze You

Change. That word alone tends to paralyze many people. They start assuming and pre-acting about what they think will happen before it even starts and go off on a tangent until they're paralyzed by the mere thought. I'm not going to say "Now how smart is that exactly?" Preconceptions of what might happen if something else happens first without any basis whatsoever, is a smart use of energy, right? Not!

Recently, when I was in California in conversation with George Leonard, we talked about how one could use the game of tennis as an analogy for change. The way he described it, everything is in constant motion. Nothing stays stagnant. The ball moves, the racquet moves and you move. None of the three move in the same way twice, so there are always variables. If you panic and freeze you'll miss the ball and if you're totally honed, aware and focused on the ball, chances are you'll hit it. And once you get the hang of it and hit it more than once until the dance of tennis itself is a constant; a foundation is built on movement.

If you don't move with the flow of the game and stand still, the ball will end up hitting you over the head; more than once. Unless you learn to move and respond to it, you're going to get beaten up big time!

What if you used that analogy on a regular basis when doing a reorg, learning something new, starting a project...anything really? It would give an odd sense of stability in an ever-changing, ever-moving world. Energy would increase, focus would be absolute and not only would you watch, learn and become more masterful in what you do, you would be mindful of everything around you because, as in tennis, not only are you, the racquet and the ball moving, but the person on the other side of the court is moving too. You have to know where and how the other person is apt to move so you can play accordingly. It's a give and take.

That's where the analogy ends because the key is to lob the ball back and forth, getting better with each swing of the racquet and contact of the ball, not make the other person miss and lose. So if you both practiced, even just the volleying of the ball back and forth, the practice itself will bring you to a new level of mastery, give, take and flow. It might not be something that happens overnight or in a dramatic way but when you look back at when you started, you'll see just how far you've come; far enough to celebrate your success and proficiency.

How could you use that analogy to manage and thrive through change that's happening in the context of your world right now? Might you already be connecting with that ball without realizing it? Think of all the times you were given something to do and jumped in with both feet without resisting? And somehow it ended up just clicking. That's it. The first step to mastery comes from practice. Change is constant. It's the paradox of life. And when you think you've integrated change and have it down pat? Keep practicing as you'll get even better than you ever imagined.

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • •www.abetterperspective.com

01:51 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

People Tend to Support What They Help to Build

It’s about engagement, enthusiasm, the idea that “I’m a part of this and I’m going to do my best to make it succeed”. How powerful would it be if you could engage the staff to that depth of and passion for what they do?

People tend to support what they help to build, so how do you translate mandate, focus, and vision for an organization into projects that engage staff as key players in the future success of each one? One of my client’s managers does that with his staff when at all possible. Every organization has its pet projects and the ones that staff have to get stuck with, however when you strike that balance like ‘John’ did the result is engagement.

The key is paying attention. When the staff is sitting around the boardroom table and a new file comes in that they have to work on, he looks around the table to see whose eyes light up because of the subject matter. Then he starts asking questions of the group as to their opinions on how to get going on the file. He then listens for engagement, interest, level of energy in the responses and how each one begins a dialogue with the group and from that, along with their work load and all the other things managers have to take into consideration, tasks to the people who were fascinated by the project and look at it with a sense of possibility. They were already engaged, looking forward to tackling it and doing it really well, not to mention already having fun with the concepts and plans to get going.

Tasking to strengths; well this is one way of looking at it but it’s more than that. It’s letting people fly after their imagination has already engaged in the project and letting them go with it. Even if they don’t have all the experience and knowledge necessary to jump in immediately, with this level of energy they will find out everything they need to know and then some, and grow in the process.

It might take a bit more time to discern staff’s interests and level of engagement but if you did this on a regular basis, could you imagine how powerful it would be for your organization to have complete engagement, loyalty and a sense of ‘being a part of it all’, not just a small piece in a huge puzzle of manpower?

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • •www.abetterperspective.com

09:12 pm | 0 recommendations | 5 comments

We Know What We Know…Doesn’t Everybody Know It?

Have you ever found yourself taking for granted that everyone else knew exactly what you knew and didn’t begin to think that might not be the case? What would it mean if we assumed others didn’t know what we knew? If we started off with that premise, how much easier would it be to have generative dialogue and create something that not only stuck but just might be sustainable?

I was recently reading a summary for the book “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” and as I had recently read “The Tipping Point” where they talk about stickiness as well, the topic of this book intrigued me. I was fascinated by this not to promote a product, but to help me in my work laser coaching my clients through chaotic days. This concept helped me articulate a snapshot of a moment in time in such a way they’d not only see it but ‘get it’.

Something in the summary really hit home which is when Chip Heath and Dan Heath state “To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize. Saying something short isn’t the mission — sound bites aren’t the ideal. Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound. A one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning it…. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it’s like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us.”

Then it occurred to me that many people are cursed by their knowledge as they can’t fathom why others don’t see things as they do because it’s obvious, right? ‘Knowing’ becomes a filter through which ideas are shared and instructions given but if the other party has no idea of what you’d talking about, there is an immediate disconnect.

Have you ever found yourself taking for granted that everyone else knew exactly what you knew and didn’t begin to think that might not be the case? Then you find yourself explaining everything to the ‘nth’ degree only to find yourself starting back at square one? There’s nothing more frustrating.

As much as I dislike assumptions and how they get people into trouble, what would it mean if we assumed others didn’t know what we knew? If we started off with that premise, how much easier would it be to have generative dialogue and create something that not only stuck but just might be sustainable?

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • •www.abetterperspective.com

08:17 am | 0 recommendations | 7 comments

Reading Books... Here to Stay?

A few weeks ago when in California for the Conversation Among Masters Conference we spoke about publishing books, how many books are indeed published every year, and what the future of print books looks like, especially in the day of the Internet, blogs and audio.

I am a book junkie, there’s no question about it and can never get enough to read, for my profession, life, or to feed and nourish my imagination but truthfully how many are still reading and how often? By virtue of you reading this blog, you're reading, yet how many books have you read this year?

My clients’ lives are so busy, that by the time they get home, spend time with the family, do whatever needs to be done at home etc, they have no energy left other than to perhaps walk the dog, and go to sleep.

Many collect books to read on their holiday as that’s the only time they have to pick up a book, but what are they missing?

I maintain that those who can read and don’t are functional illiterates; don’t as in never, by choice, not sporadically as time allows. There’s a difference. There is so much richness to books, all literature in various forms, that our world would be very mundane without the concepts, mental images and perspectives that come out of books of any kind.

As long as there are readers, there will be books written and published.

A few years ago a colleague challenged me to read a minimum of four books a year. For me never a problem! I read that a month. The caveat was to read books in areas I didn’t know anything about, not in relation to my work or hobbies or anything I already knew. He wanted me to grow in knowledge and awareness and one way to do it was to pick up a book about something or someone I knew nothing about. Talk about an eye opener!

How many do that on a regular basis I wonder? When you buy a book, a non-fiction book (assuming you do buy some non-fiction) is it about something that will increase your awareness of the rich world we live in? Ultimately, especially in my line of work, it gives me context in areas I never took into consideration before. How rich would your life be if you learned something new or about someone who made an impact in some way in this world that you never even thought or heard of? The more you learn the easier it will be to lead.

So now I’ve taken this one step further. I’m reading 4 books a year minimum on subject matter I have no prior knowledge of…am reading 4 new blogs a week to see what’s out there and commenting on them as well. The community of interactive dialogue because of that is blowing me away. Try it. And let me know your thoughts if you’ll share them.

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • •www.abetterperspective.com

11:08 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments

Six Degrees of Separation...or Is It Two Or Three?

Who do you know who knows…? Years ago one of the first shampoo commercials said it perfectly. Tell two friends, who tell two friends and so on and so on.

It's quite something how an idea or concept can be shared world-wide within a few degrees of separation. A month or so ago, there was a blog post about LinkedIn. I am a firm believer in business networking. One of the bonuses of being on LinkedIn is the ability to ask questions of those on the service. Many of the answers generate dialogue, collaboration and partnerships for projects or research. I can't tell you how much valuable information I've gotten through this service.

It's about connections. Who do I know who I could connect with someone else I know in order for them to succeed in their realms? We witnessed that this past week at The Conversation Among Masters, inaugural conference of Master Coaches from all over the world. Within that conference we launched The Coach Initiative. The mission is "To be the central gathering point where professional Coaches can volunteer their experience and expertise in support of global projects that focus on the betterment of the human condition and uplifting the human spirit. The Coach Initiative holds the value that professional Coaching has the ability to increase both personal and professional effectiveness, contentment and success of committed clients ("coachees")."

This is where the power of connections is so evident. I started contacting my colleagues all over the world, blogged about it in my own blog and was asked to guest blog on other's Blogs. And so it begins. The power of people connecting people has been invaluable in my profession, my creative work and for my clients, colleagues and friends and can help you attain a level of mastery in your field beyond your dreams. If we connect people who can support us in our passions and us in theirs, it gives a whole new meaning to open source. It can create strong, cohesive global working groups. Location doesn't matter any more because technology can connect us. Think bigger. Think beyond your geographical box. The saying "The world is our oyster" has never been as true as it is in this day and age.

My Research and Development team is made up of people from all professions, not just executive coaching. Break the box in that way as well and you'll be amazed at the world wide community you create.

Who can you support where you both grow, develop and attain mastery in each of your fields?

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • •www.abetterperspective.com

01:40 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Generated Wisdom

In many organizations wisdom is generated but not captured. Teams amass an incredible amount of wisdom which isn’t captured or catalogued for subsequent teams and future use. Knowledge transfer is a constant struggle, especially for many organizations that bring in consultants to do long term work. Once they leave, the knowledge leaves with them.

How can you not only capture organizational wisdom at all levels, but have it readily available to use as a resource and build on to create organizational excellence? Think of how much time and money is wasted when you have to start from scratch time and time again. This, however is the status quo for many an organization.

In a world where technology is a part of everything we do, we should be able to catalogue this wisdom and ‘bank’ it to be built upon, honed, and changed as needed so this knowledge becomes part of the organizational structure.

Knowledge is power. That’s a given. How an organization captures and integrates this wisdom is what makes it stand out in a crowd. Any organization that lets its wisdom evaporate only to start anew will be wasting time, energy and money instead of becoming masterful and known experts in their fields. This is not only unsustainable but damaging to its overall success.

Every retreat, strategy session, project and program should be captured, documented and archived for future use and background material to use as a foundation for future growth.

If you can’t afford the resources to start capturing and cataloguing this information bring in a student to work on it. It’s a cost effective method and the student you train now can be your executive of the future. Coach them now and they’ll be ready to hit the floor running if you bring them on board.

Just think of the massive project archiving the internet is, but the Wayback Machine is a testament to what’s possible. I realize that’s on a global scale but if that’s possible anything is.

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • donnakarlin@abetterperspective.com •www.abetterperspective.com

08:05 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Toleration 3: Dealing with a Critic

Are you working for someone who is constantly and consistently critical? No matter what you do there’s always an element of something wrong with it? Bullies come in all shapes and forms and are very prevalent in the workplace, even at the highest level of leadership which is why, when going on an interview it’s just as important for you to interview the people in the organization as it is for them to interview you.

Critics make you feel about an inch tall. They criticize everything you do and even if the piece of work is great, find a way to criticize how you do it. Often they begin the sentence with “Yes, that’s good, however I would have done it this way…” and begin to describe in great detail how many ways you screwed up.

Often these individuals operate from a position of secrecy. The more information they hoard the easier it is to pull apart the numerous ways you didn’t meet their expectations and didn’t produce. When this behavior continues, you start feeling “Why should I bother if it’s going to be redone anyways and even if it isn’t I certainly won’t get credit for my work.” Eventually, hopefully sooner than later, you start looking around for another job and leave.

When looking to move to another job, one of the key points to look for is staff turnover. If the organization has a revolving door, then run the other way. If this is happening a level below leadership and the powers that be aren’t doing a thing about it, then run faster.

If you’re in a position where you have to deal with a verbal bully, then have some responses ready at the tip of your tongue. Don’t become them and bully back, as what would be the point in that? However show the individual you will not tolerate derisive behavior and challenge them on it. For example a way to respond is “Are you sure you meant that? It doesn’t look good on you. You might want to rethink your position”. Or, “Did you really say that or was I imagining it?” Then walk away. A verbal tug of war doesn’t get either of you anywhere but if you take the high road and let go of the rope, then there’s nothing to war with. Another powerful one is “And the purpose of your comment is?” It calls them on it. When you answer in one line, toleration-eliminating speech, they eventually back off.

As an organizational leader it’s paramount you keep an eye on the communication style of your managers. If this is at all prevalent you need to nip it in the bud before you end up in a staff exodus, for along with the people who end up walking goes corporate memory, knowledge and wisdom. As well, the possibility of generation wisdom when people are afraid to speak up is severely diminished. Bullying goes well beyond inappropriate behavior. It also speaks to organizational wisdom and excellence or lack of.

Bottom line is, if you accept this kind of behaviour, then you’re giving away your personal and organizational power to someone you least respect. What does that say about how you respect yourself?

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • donnakarlin@abetterperspective.com •www.abetterperspective.com

09:50 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Toleration 2: Thinking Traps

Last week I asked the question "What are you tolerating?" I wrote of one toleration where people habitually come into meetings late. That results in everyone else having to wait around, push back the rest of the day and other people's appointments to accommodate disrespectful behavior. This week I'd like to talk about another toleration; that of draining thoughts and beliefs.

Holding onto old ways of doing things, paradigms and processes that are no longer applicable can bring an organization down. Often, leadership, especially a leader who founded the company way back when and perhaps taught by a mentor from a generation past, wants to stick to methods that were tried and true. That doesn’t mean everything has to be scrapped and changed but if you're dealing with thoughts and beliefs that are draining you because you're in a constant tug of war with automation, technology, methods, and new "whipper-snappers" who want to do things the 'new-fangled way', not only will you be fighting them but you’ll have an inner tug of war going on that will spiral all of you downwards.

You end up tolerating this for many reasons, one of which is because you’re not sure how to modernize or change that paradigm without looking 'stupid' (or so you think). Those become thinking traps or patterns of thought that become roadblocks to success. These thinking traps don't serve you any more. It's time to revisit, upgrade your thinking, personal operating system or whatever you want to call it.

When you get into thinking traps you’re no longer making decisions that are best for your lives and/or organizations. It has nothing to do with how intelligent you are. It has to do with how quickly you can integrate new ways of thinking that will serve you better. It’s mental flexibility.

Are you tolerating a leader who is stuck in a thinking trap? Could you be the one who might be stuck?

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • donnakarlin@abetterperspective.com •www.abetterperspective.com

07:47 pm | 0 recommendations | 4 comments

What Are You Tolerating?

I’ve written articles about being scheduled to death, and living in meeting hell but another question that comes to mind and often, is, “What are you tolerating…and why?” I can’t tell you how many leaders I observe who put up with staff consistently coming late to meetings, their one-on-ones and committees while the rest of the group sits there wasting time waiting for that individual to show up. Whenever a client allows this to happen and accepts it by pushing his schedule back the ten or fifteen minutes when his employee is late, then it’s saying many things. First it’s saying the individual who obviously has little respect for his boss’s role, schedule and volume of work is also saying by his actions that his work or schedule is more important.

By accepting it and then putting everything and everyone else off those same fifteen minutes it’s telling the rest of your staff, this individual is more important than you are because I’m letting him get away with it. It’s also telling the rest of the staff that you don’t respect yourself because you’re not doing anything about it. You’re tolerating it. Why in the world are you doing that?

A few years ago I worked with a president of an organization who wouldn’t put up with anyone being late for any of his meetings. If the meeting was called for 9:00 then you’d better be in there because if you weren’t the door would be closed. His meetings always started and ended on time. You’d have to walk into a meeting that was already on its way to the glaring stare of the President. Oh he wouldn’t say anything but you’d better believe it would have had to be a major car accident or family crisis to make you late ever again. He wouldn’t tolerate behaviour that was disrespectful and a time waster and walking in consistently late and not respecting time is saying you don’t respect your colleagues, staff, peers or leadership.

If the boss lets it happen then the boss deserves the consequences. When I hear how he’s lost control of his day, my first response is “You haven’t lost control. You’ve relinquished it. Those are two very different things!

If you look at your day and see all the tolerations you put up with, no wonder you leave stressed, feeling overloaded with work and out of control. And if you no longer tolerate this one behavior, what is the ripple effect? Just think of what would happen if you stopped tolerating some other basic inappropriate ways of being. Boggles the mind don’t you think?

What are you currently tolerating, what is it doing to your life and what would your life look like if you stopped tolerating it?

Donna Karlin • Executive and Political Shadow Coach™ • Ottawa, Canada • donnakarlin@abetterperspective.com •www.abetterperspective.com