March 8, 2010

Motivate You

Leadership is the ability to inspire and motivate YOURSELF and OTHERS into taking positive, lasting action!

Motivating You

These days, more and more of us are freelancing, or running solo businesses.

The life of a solo practitioner can be a lonely one. Alone in your office or home, without the stimulation of colleagues and the energy of a busy office or institution, it can be a challenge to maintain your positive energy and stay motivated.

In other words, the life of a “solopreneur” can be a lonely one.

For those who chose that route because of all the benefits it offers – being your own boss, choosing your own clients, setting your own schedule – there are a number of ways to stay sharp and positive.

Attitude is everything! Believe in yourself and the work that you are doing and don’t let negative people get you down.

Surround yourself with positive people – clients, friends, family, partners. Working with clients who are passionate and excited about what they do and who have reasonable expectations of what you can do for them will keep you motivated and interested. Friends and family help to keep you grounded, and their faith in you is invaluable. A good executive coach (hey, is that a plug?!!!) can also help you to remain motivated and to focus on your goals, both professional and personal.

Speaking of goals, focusing on short-term, realistic goals will also help to keep you motivated. Think about your client load, their expectations, and how much work you can reasonably handle without driving yourself crazy.

Be realistic about your strengths as a sole practitioner and reach out to others to help you with everything else. Better to  play to your strengths, and hire talent to fill the gaps, rather than struggle to be good at everything.

As you work with clients to help them achieve their goals, keep your own goals in mind. Visualize what you want to accomplish and remain faithful to that. Focus on the larger goals.

Keeping a positive attitude can be difficult when things don’t go exactly as planned. Take time to work through the negative feelings, realizing that they are temporary, and work at getting back to a positive place.

When things don’t work out as planned, turn disappointments into opportunities for growth. Learn from failure and use it to build success.

And finally, be good to yourself. Take time for friends and family. Step away from the computer. Put down the Blackberry. Eat well, get enough sleep, and indulge your passions. Nourish yourself.

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February 23, 2010

Attention Employers: Your Employees Want, No NEED, A Coach Approach!

February 19th, 2010
It’s one of the toughest times ever — both for those out of work and perhaps, even more, for those who have held on to their jobs. The plain fact is that employees need to cover more work with less available resources in order for their companies to survive, let alone thrive. Employers, on the other hand, require employees who understand just how much is at stake and who are just as invested as the top executives are in making things work.

Employers have been able to hold onto top talent because of the poor economy, but that may no longer be enough to retain those high performers, especially when the economic climate improves. The number of Americans who reported being happy with their careers dropped to an all-time low — 45 percent — in a new Conference Board survey that found people are more miserable than ever in nearly every aspect of their work lives.

What can you, as an employer, do to increase motivation and engagement and help those employees you value through challenging times? How can you, as a leader, set the tone and motivate and inspire your team, leading to a happier and more productive workplace? (Remember, when things get better, you don’t want to lose your best workers – retraining and rehiring is an expensive proposition!)

Employees are looking for true leaders…who can talk AND walk like true coaches! “Nothing is better than a leader who understands the value of the coaching process, who learns from his or her own coach, and then takes those skills into the workplace to develop and lead a team,” comments Ed Abel, President of Abel Institute, an international leader in business coaching, whose company develops business owners into powerful business leaders.

Here are just a few great skills that all leaders can develop, courtesy of iPEC Coaching:
• Share the vision and empower employees to contribute their ideas and give feedback. Ask more questions than you answer, and seek to get “buy in” to the plan. Ask questions like, “what does the plan need in order to make it work for you?”
• Don’t make promises you can’t keep – employees appreciate honesty! Level with your team and show that you are committed to helping them.
• Listen to your employees’ concerns, and acknowledge and validate their fears. Focus not only on “what” they say, but on the context of the message (where are they truly coming from? why are saying what they are saying? what does their tone tell you? other non-verbal cues?).
• Celebrate successes and give recognition. Adam Gostick and Chester Elton, in “The Carrot Principle: How Great Managers Use Employee Recognition,” write “For organizations that do it right, it’s a bit like discovering gold in your backyard. Employee recognition, long considered a benefit that costs money, can actually be a management tool that makes money.”
• Find out what internal drivers motivate your employees (it’s not a one size fits all approach) — is it more exposure, creative outlets, time off, etc? What else will speak to their individual needs? Then create opportunities that play to these drivers.
• Lead by example, and with integrity: D. Luke Iorio, President of iPEC Coaching comments, “It’s often been said that true leaders emerge when times are tough – it’s what you do in the difficult times that makes you a leader; and this is when your integrity will be tested the most… When your actions match your message and your decisions match your principles, others view you as genuine, authentic and trustworthy. They will follow your lead.”

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December 26, 2009

IT’S ALL IN THE RIGHT QUESTION: CREATING A SHIFT IN OUR THINKING IN THE NEW YEAR

“When are you going to start living your dreams?,” asks Ryan Bingham (played by George Clooney) in the new movie, “Up in The Air.” Bingham, who is a corporate axe-man, asks the question of a guy he has just fired. The fired executive smiles, knowingly, as he realizes that the time has come — and that, at last, he may have a shot at living the life he had only imagined.

It was the right question, at the right time, asked in the right way.

The right question can make your head hurt. Why is that?

When we ask ourselves questions, we ask the same kind of questions — resulting in the same kind of answers. And , so, we are stuck, and then usually stay stuck — stuck in our old patterns, and our old way of doing things. Stuck in mediocrity. Stuck in the cycle of stuckness. Unless we ask ourselves new kinds of questions, we can’t seem to break the pattern of our responses — and the quicksand thickens.

My coach asks me questions that can leave me dumbstruck, sometimes generating an audible groan or whimper, like that of my dog, Bueller, when he knows he has misbehaved. It is an “oh, I wish you hadn’t asked that” groan, because it is exactly where I need to “go” — it is the unexamined which needs examining. It is the line of questioning destined to uncover my gremlins and fears, my assumptions and limiting beliefs — those thoughts that hold me back.

Albert Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” What this means is that a shift needs to happen. We need to see things from a different perspective.

A coach helps clients see things from a different view to create a necessary shift in order to find the answer or solution. It is a little like rewiring the brain..and our brains often need rewiring. Asking these kinds of questions can also create an energy shift, moving an individual into a higher level of conscious energy and positive possibilities.

So what are the elements of a good question? (now, that is a good question!)

These are questions designed to elicit the other person’s point of view. Open-ended (Who, what, when, where, why and how) questions that genuinely invite open sharing and begin with phrases such as:

How does that affect…?
What did you notice about…?
What were our expectations when…?

Stay away from questions that can be answered “yes” or “no.”

A few examples of a good question:

When are you at your best?
What would you be able to do if you had no fear?
How do you express your gifts?
What is your purpose?
What are your core values?
What would be the best thing that could happen by “saying no?”

Or the question that motivated me to pursue my ambition of starting my own business, “what would your life look like if you stopped playing small?”

So, consider surrounding yourself with people who ask you those open-ended questions, those empowering, powerful questions that get your mind really working. Maybe it is a coach, maybe it is a good friend or another supporter, someone who will suspend judgement and compel you to think in a new way – a way that will create new energy to take different and more positive action.

And try to be that person who asks these kinds of powerful questions – what a gift you can give to others in your life. The gift of curiousity and caring…and empowerment.

And how do we, as listeners, learn to listen between the lines when receiving the answer…well, that will be the subject for some future article.

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November 21, 2009

Top 10 Leadership Lessons I Learned from My Wheaten Terrier, Bueller

Top 10 Leadership Lessons I Learned from My Wheaten Terrier, Bueller

Leadership is the ability to motivate and inspire others to take positive and sustainable action. We are all leaders – it is not whether we lead, it is how well we lead. While human beings may be the alpha in most families, that is not to say that we can’t learn much from our canine friends. So here are the top 10 leadership lessons I learned from my sweet and adorable, albeit highstrung 3 year old Wheaten Terrier, Bueller (yes, as in “Ferris”).

10. Run with the Alpha Dogs

Whenever I take Bueller out for a stroll or to the dog park, he’s immediately attracted to lively, energetic dogs, as if feeding off their energy and level of excitement. But are humans really that different? Energy and enthusiasm are contagious, so surround yourself with as many optimists, go-getters and energetic types as you can (just be sure to skip the “dog greeting” part)

9. Be willing to learn new skills

Last month, at the ripe old age of 3, Bueller learned to fetch for the first time. Turns out, you can teach an older dog (he’d be highly insulted if I referred to him as “old”) new tricks. Those times they are a changin’, so acquire the skill sets you need to change with them, or risk getting left behind when the pack moves on. 

8. Get enough sleep

A no-brainer. You can’t even function properly, let alone be your sharpest or at your absolute best, on less sleep than your body needs to renew/regenerate itself. Of course, perhaps the 17 hours a day Bueller puts in is overdoing it a tad…

7. Be a dog with a bone

Bueller’s tenacious. When he gets his hands, er, teeth, on something, he never lets go, no matter what I try to do to yank it free or distract him. Perseverance, determination and tenacity are the qualities of many an effective leader.

6. Be loyal

Sure, loyalty comes naturally to pets, but humans do seem to struggle mightily with the concept at times. Showing loyalty and acting with integrity not only reveals character and lets people know if you can be trusted, it inspires others to treat you in kind. In this case, you get what you give, so why not give your absolute best?

5. Be curious

Bueller accepts nothing at face value. He sniffs and sniffs until he finds out all that he wants to know. He is curious about who is at the door, where the smell of food is coming from and what you have in your pocket. Great leaders are equally curious, and while they might not eat your couch to get to the bottom of things, they definitely “listen between the lines” until they get the answer they seek.

4. Live in the Moment

Every moment is a new opportunity for my pup. What happened a minute ago, or what might happen in the future, is of far less interest to him than what is happening at this very second. The freedom that he finds in living this way releases him from worry. Great leaders, while they have a compelling vision, believe that to truly experience life is to be in the moment.

3. Know when to stop chasing your tail

Tail chasing can be really fun for a dog, and for some people, too. But even a dog knows when enough is enough, when it’s time to eat, or chase a new dog, or give you a hug or a lick. A true leader realizes when it is time to let an idea go and to create something new, and when enough energy and resources have been devoted to a project which , perhaps, is ahead of its time.

2. Use your instincts

Bueller is a holographic thinker – he brings in all of his senses as he lives his life. He smells it, tastes it, feels it, sees it, hears it.  Great Leaders use all of their senses, their instincts, their emotions, intuiton and analytical skills to arrive at the best possible solution.

Bueller and Alan

Bueller and Alan


1. Bark Loud, Be Proud

Dogs love to bark and to bark loud.  They say “here I am, and I listen to what I have to say.”  A true leader makes sure that his voice is heard, even when expressing an unpopular opinion. He risks what people think about him, and speaks his mind.

So how are you going to lead? Time to learn from our four-legged friends!

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November 16, 2009

MediaBistro Interview

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