Boost Your Workplace Productivity and Well-Being with Joyful Leadership

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Maureen Metcalf, founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, shared this article as a companion to her podcast with Dr. Pamela Larde, a professor, coach, award-winning author, and founder of the Academy of Creative Coaching, Working & Living in Joy. 

Intro from “FauxMo:” Maureen’s digital twin and AI experiment.

 Link to the entire interview:

Listen to the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-Creating Our Future via Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify,  Amazon Music,  Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.

 

By integrating elements of joy into the workplace, leaders not only create an environment where employees feel respected and valued, but also where their personal and professional lives can flourish. This, in turn, translates to increased workplace productivity and a more positive company culture, making the cultivation of joy-infused spaces and activities something every leader should prioritize.

Here are some ways to create joy at work:

1. Cultivate self-awareness and emotional intelligence

By tuning into your emotions and reactions, you can create a more supportive and uplifting environment for your team members. Developing emotional intelligence and self-awareness allows for a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses and enables you to communicate more effectively with, and empower, your colleagues. The ability to pause when you feel overwhelming emotions, then reflect on them objectively, means you can engage with colleagues respectfully and productively, without expressing negative emotions that risk alienating colleagues. Moreover, regulating your emotions is an important behavior to model for your team.

2. Prioritize self-care and holistic well-being practices

Self-care and holistic well-being practices foster increased workplace productivity while also proving beneficial for one’s personal life. By encouraging a culture of self-care in the workplace, you can create an environment that supports mental stamina, resilience, and overall well-being for yourself and your team members. This may mean setting a limit on the number of meetings you have in a day, or making other small adjustments to your schedule to ensure time for self-care, such as scheduling dedicated times for practicing yoga. When people prioritize their own self-care, they are better able to focus on tasks, make informed decisions, and engage in more positive interactions. This positive environment, in turn, leads to increased participation, creativity, and a willingness to collaborate, all of which contribute to the organization’s success. These well-being practices are also foundational to building self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

3. Encourage open communication and team support

This has a twofold effect; it allows employees to share joyful experiences, which in turn spreads these positive emotions throughout the office, and it encourages team members to lend support to one another when facing challenges. Open communication and team support are vital components in cultivating a positive work environment and nurturing the overall well-being of employees. There is great value in building a community that fosters joy and provides a safe haven for individuals to express their emotions openly. This psychological safety not only builds stronger relationships between team members, but also garners greater facilitation of ideas and innovative solutions, higher job satisfaction, improved performance, and increased employee retention. Avoid talking over colleagues, be conscious of how you respond to perspectives which you may disagree with, and encourage everyone to express their emotions rather than bottling them up.

4. Celebrate achievements and express gratitude

Thank colleagues for their work and contributions to the team. People feel valued when they know their leaders and colleagues are appreciative of their work. This also prevents team members from becoming disengaged and empowers them to feel that their work is meaningful. Think of the joy you’ve felt when someone thanked you in an extra meaningful way, then set a goal to emulate that act of gratitude with your team members.

5. Create joy-infused spaces and activities in the workplace

Offer spaces for team members to gather and get to know one another outside of a project, offer periodic fun or relaxing activities, and give team members the space to set boundaries which contribute to their ability to create joy. This can start with leaders emulating this adherence to personal activities which create joy. Rather than succumbing to a belief that joy has no place at work, remember that our professional and personal lives are intertwined. Being able to nurture healthy behaviors in both areas is crucial to making meaningful relationships in and outside of work. Turn on some music between tasks to encourage yourself to get up and move around, set times throughout your day to walk or to read a chapter of a book, etc. Intentionally create joy by giving yourself the proper space to make it.

 

By incorporating a culture of joy and support in the workplace, leaders enable individuals to thrive and reach their full potential. Creating joy in the workplace not only boosts morale but also enhances overall productivity, meaning that joy has a significant place in the success of an organization.

These strategies don’t have to be implemented overnight. Try to give more thanks to your team members for their work and for showing up to participate in the success of your organization. Ask some trusted friends or colleagues to establish a check-in group, wherein you can send out ‘SOS’ messages when you’re struggling, and your community can rally around you. Set limits on meetings and dedicate a certain amount of time each day to something that is certain to boost your mood. Don’t hesitate to put these strategies into practice and experience the positive effects of a joy-centric workplace firsthand.

Have you tried any of these tactics and strategies? Share your successes and challenges with us in the comments.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Maureen Metcalf is the founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute. She is an expert in anticipating and leveraging future business trends. Ms. Metcalf helps leaders elevate their leadership quality and transform their organizations to create sustainable impact and results. She captures 30 years of experience and success in an award-winning series of books used by public, private, and academic organizations to align company-wide strategy, systems, and culture using Innovative Leadership techniques. Ms. Metcalf is a Fellow of the International Leadership Association. She also serves on the advisory boards of the School of Strategic Leadership at James Madison University and the Mason Leadership Center at Franklin University. Ms. Metcalf earned an MBA from Virginia Tech. She can be reached at mmetcalf@innovativeleadership.com.

 

NEW RESOURCE:

Starting Sunday, June 25, we will pilot an additional resource called “Leading Edge 120.” Each post will contain one 120-second video looking at a top story from the prior week’s news – but through a leadership lens. The intent is to keep you current as a leader in an easily digestible format. Our first round-up from last week is about the latest Gallup report tracking continued worker disengagement.

 

Thank you for reading the Innovative Leadership Newsletter by the Innovative Leadership Institute, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Ready to measure your leadership skills? Complete your complimentary assessment through the Innovative Leadership Institute. Learn the 7 leadership skills required to succeed during disruption and innovation.

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-Creating Our Future via Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify,  Amazon Music,  Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.

Humbitious: The Power of Low-Ego, High-Drive Leadership

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Amer Kaissi, a professional speaker and certified executive coach, shares content from his most recent book, from which this article is taken, “Humbitious: The Power of low-ego, high-drive Leadership.” in this article and his podcast, Humbitious: How to be Ambitious Without the Ego. 

 

Based on the extensive research published in the last 10 years, humility in leadership can be thought of in terms of three main building blocks:

  • how you understand yourself (self-awareness, self-reflection, and vulnerability);
  • how you understand your relationships with others (open-mindedness, appreciation of others, and generosity); and
  • how you understand your place in the universe (transcendence).

The first block: How you understand yourself

Humility is first and foremost about having an accurate view of yourself. Although some people—and even some dictionaries— view humility as synonymous with low self-esteem, psychology and leadership experts describe humility as understanding one’s talents and accomplishments while accepting one’s imperfections and shortcomings.

When you have a talent or special skill and you don’t acknowledge it, you are not displaying humility. Rather, you are engaging in self-disparagement and possibly ingratitude. As a humble, smart leader, you should recognize that you are smart but you should also know that you are not smarter than everyone else—or smarter than the collective intelligence of the group that you lead. You can appreciate that you have expertise in strategy, for example, but you should also acknowledge that you don’t know everything about the subject and that you still have a lot to learn.

The second block: How you understand your relationships with others

Once you are aware of your personal limitations, you can be open to new ideas and ways of thinking, and you become willing to learn from others. The clever organizational theorist Karl Weick perfectly captured this when he encouraged leaders to admit the shortcomings of their knowledge: “When a leader is able to humbly admit ‘I don’t know,’ that admission forces the leader to drop the pretense, drop omniscience, drop expert authority, drop a macho posture, and drop monologues . . . listening and exploring is the consequence.”

You then ask for advice, you seek and listen to honest feedback from others, and you even solicit contradictory views. Brad Owens, professor of business ethics at Brigham Young University and one of the leading researchers in the field of humble leadership, describes this quality as “teachability”: the willingness to admit ignorance, appreciate others’ contributions, and learn from them. Teachability entails having an open mind, a curiosity towards others, and an interest in understanding them and their views.

The third block: How you understand your place in the universe

As a humble leader, you aren’t just aware that you need others’ help and ideas; you are also aware of your insignificance in the universe. You may have worked incessantly with your team to develop a new product line that will significantly increase revenue for your organization for years to come, but in the grand scheme of things, your impact is insignificant, and you need to be aware of that.

This nothingness can be appreciated in terms of how powerful God is or how large the universe is, but it can also be realized by simply observing nature or contemplating history. Arrogance can sometimes make you feel like you are the center of the universe, but when you realize how connected everything is and how small and insignificant you are, you can truly develop your humility—and, in so doing, perhaps paradoxically, you become a fuller person.

Please note, though, that transcendence is not a call for surrender, laziness, or relinquishing action. It is about understanding your small role but still doing it to the best of your abilities in a humble and ambitious way. You may not matter much in the grand scheme of things, but you have an important role to play in your small corner of the universe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Amer Kaissi is a professional speaker and a certified executive coach. His most recent book, from which this article is taken, is “Humbitious: the power of low-ego, high-drive leadership.” Amer is an award-winning Professor of Healthcare Administration at Trinity University, a Top-15 program. He is also the author of the book “Intangibles: The Unexpected Traits of High-Performing Healthcare Leaders,” which has won the 2019 American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Book of the Year award. He is an avid soccer fan and he lives in San Antonio, Texas with his wife and two teenagers.

He can be reached at www.amerkaissi.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amer-kaissi-ph-d-38258919/

 

RESOURCES:

Ready to measure your leadership skills? Here is a free assessment provided by the Innovative Leadership Institute that will measure the 7 leadership skills required to succeed during disruption and innovation. Click HERE

If you completed the Leadership Mindset Assessment and want to explore additional resources to develop your leadership, we recommend you:

  1. Read the Forbes article Are You A Future-Ready Leader– free
  2. Purchase a comprehensive online course ILI Leadership Mindset Program for $174.99

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify,  Amazon Music,  Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Also, stay up-to-date on new shows by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

How To Make the Most of Every Word You Say In Your Next Meeting…WITHOUT Being Abrupt

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Jonathan Reitz, CoachNet’s FLUXIFY’s Director for Training/CEO provided this article as a companion to his podcast The SHORT List of Communication Skills EVERY Leader Needs. 

This insight and interview are brought to you in collaboration with WBECS by coaching.com. WBECS speakers represent some of the most brilliant minds and innovative thinkers in business and executive coaching. WBECS provides the most impactful training and resources for professional coaches globally.

We’ve all been in a meeting with someone who talks too much. You know people who don’t believe in using 100 words when they have 10,000 to say. There’s nothing more annoying or counter-productive.

During my first career in the radio and television news, we worked hard to say a LOT in just a few words. Time constraints were part of the reason, but so was the short attention span of the listener or viewer. “Say it shorter” was our mantra.

In my coach training business, I work with many coaches and leaders who have difficulty keeping their conversational contributions to a minimum. It’s a direct result of the coaching relationship but not necessarily a direct result of the coach’s contributions. One of the cornerstones of coaching is that we show up in such a way that the client connects the dots and comes up with new ideas on their own.

To remedy this, follow this nine-step plan:

  1. Record a meeting or a conversation that’s important to you. It works best when something is at stake because you’ll be motivated to make the most of your communication.
  2. Let a little time pass. You have to be objective about what you hear on the recording. Forgetting the details of the conversation makes this easier. I know after thousands of recordings of my coaching that I have difficulty being objective if the memory is too fresh. I think everything I say is either mind-blowing or uninteresting. So I let 4-6 weeks go by before I review the conversation. You might need that long or a little less.
  3. Take a first pass at editing what you said. Now comes the hard part. Get a pad of paper and a pen. (Remember paper and pen?) You must use paper and pen for the step in the process, as your brain engages more thoroughly when using multiple physical systems while writing with a pen/pencil compared to typing on a keyboard. Writing by hand multiplies the impact of the work we’re about to do.
  4. Listen to the recording. With paper and pen in hand, review the recording of your meeting, and write down every word you say. Allow plenty of time for this, but don’t overanalyze what you’re capturing. Don’t worry about what the other people say because we’re working on your communication. The work in this step is hard, agony; you’ll probably hate it. You might curse my name a few times. But the results will take you places you’ve never expected.
  5. Once you finish transcribing your contributions to the meeting, go back and look at what you say. Read it out loud if you can. Notice the times when you say more words than necessary. After a few minutes, rewrite everything your comments in half as many words while preserving the substance of your words. This first edit begins to point out different conversational choices and where you might be able to say the same things using fewer words. The most important thing is to keep the message intact but more efficient. Painful might describe this experience. It can be downright awful. But it is worth it. And we’re just getting started!
  6. By now, you see a tremendous opportunity for different communication. But don’t stop after one edit. Go back and take a second pass. Work to make it half as long as the first time while maintaining the content of your messages.
  7. Take a moment or two at the end of this second edit to reflect on how you could structure your sentences differently in your next meeting. Begin a draft of some communication guidelines you can use as a reference.
  8. Now the difficulty ramps up again. Take the second edit and pare it down a third time. Your transcript is now 1/2 as long as the second edit while still communicating the vital information. Now your communication becomes tremendously efficient, and your meetings will change! You might even find a few more slots on your calendar because your meetings shorten.
  9. For the last step, bullet out some ways your communication needs to change. Write your list by hand on a clean sheet of paper, trusting that using those muscles combined with the tactile sensation of holding a pen and writing on paper reinforces the learning and helps you retain what you discover.

Doing this exercise once or twice changes how you choose your words. Marrying this strategy with clear agendas and measurable outcomes ensures that your people will want to follow you because you respect their time and deliver meaningful messages. Your meetings will improve, and your people with thank you!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jonathan Reitz, MCC is CoachNet FLUXIFY’s Director for Training/CEO. Jonathan holds the Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential in the International Coaching Federation.   He’s also the co-founder of the Team Coaching Global Alliance, and a top-rated speaker at the World Business and Executive Coaches Summit (WBECS).

He wrote Coaching Hacks:  Simple Strategies to Make Every Conversation More Effective.  Jonathan is a member of the faculty in the Weatherhead School of Management Coaching Program at Case Western Reserve University.  Jonathan Reitz lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife Joy and daughter Julia.

 

RESOURCES:

Ready to measure your leadership skills? Here is a free assessment provided by the Innovative Leadership Institute to measure the 7 leadership skills required to succeed during disruption and innovation. Click HERE

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify,  Amazon Music,  Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Also, stay up-to-date on new shows by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

Coaching, the Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership

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Ruchira Chaudhary, leading executive coach and adjunct faculty at several top-tier business schools, provided this article as a companion to her podcast Coaching, the Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership. 

This insight and interview are brought to you in collaboration with WBECS by coaching.com. WBECS speakers represent some of the most brilliant minds and most innovative thinkers in the business and executive coaching space. WBECS provides the most impactful training and resources for professional coaches globally.

In June 1966, Robert F. Kennedy said in a speech in Cape Town, ‘Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history.’ You may be familiar with this apocryphal Chinese curse that sounds like a blessing or a warm wish but is used ironically to indicate a period of chaos or disorder. I cannot think of a better analogy to describe the uncertainty of mammoth proportions we face today, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the work front, virtually overnight, the economic shock gave rise to a new reality that caused much stress and anxiety, leaving everyone bewildered. The work from home (WFH) phenomenon is now becoming our new normal; we may have settled into a routine of sorts, but the underlying duress, angst and the occasional panic attack is not going away. Today, more than ever, leaders must discern, adapt to and shape this shifting terrain. It is about balancing many fronts: A leader needs to focus on employee well-being yet drive business results; he needs to provide clarity despite not knowing enough and, above all, he needs to project confidence despite knowing harsh business realities. It’s also a time for displaying resilience, bouncing back and building agility that will help weather this storm professionally and personally.

A Time for Uncommon Leadership

Bouncing Back and Leaping Forward

First, leaders need to build higher levels of resilience in themselves and their teams by taking charge of how they think about misfortune, crisis and adversity. Defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, or the ability to deal with a crisis situation or to quickly attain the pre-crisis status, resilience is perhaps the most essential ingredient in this leadership mix today. Resilient managers need to be nimble and show swiftness in taking decisions (even when they do not know the answers) and move from analysis to a plan of action (and reaction). It’s about shifting your thinking gears from what caused this crisis to how we fix it. Essentially, it is about moving from cause-oriented thinking to response-oriented thinking where the focus is strictly forward-looking.

Defining the end goal or destination first and working backwards to execute the plan will help employees envision the future and is emotionally stabilizing, suggests Punit Renjen, global chief executive officer, Deloitte. He adds, ‘Throughout the pandemic, organizations around the globe have demonstrated remarkable agility, changing business models literally overnight: setting up remote-work arrangements; offshoring entire business processes to less-affected geographies; initiating multi-company cooperation to redeploy furloughed employees across sectors. In each situation, the urgency for results prevailed over traditional bureaucratic responses. These organizations managed to do this because of the resilience of their leaders.’

Building Reservoirs of Trust

Second, leaders have to strengthen the trust equation. Trust, a seemingly abstract, ethereal concept, is critical for you to forge genuine bonds with the teams you lead. In times of crisis, as you lead through uncertainty, you need people to follow, and that can happen only if they believe in you, are inspired by you and are nurtured by trust. Research demonstrates that trust yields real results in terms of economic growth, increased shareholder value and innovation, greater community stability and better health outcomes. ‘From an employee perspective, consider that more than 60 per cent of workers say senior management–employee trust is paramount to their satisfaction. That’s because high-trust environments allow people to be their true selves, and when people can bring their whole selves to work, they are not only more creative, but more productive as well.’ Many leaders have done a phenomenal job of gaining this trust by deftly navigating the pandemic, despite the chaos, the unknown variables and the conflicting guidance at the start of the outbreak. They can continue to earn this trust by thinking of how they can rebuild a safe space for their people when they return to work (literally and metaphorically), how they stretch themselves to find the time to coach and guide in these uncertain times, and how they do their best to preserve jobs rather than cutting organization costs in the face of imminent losses. Therefore, trust is as important in a professional relationship as it is in a personal one. When leaders, despite their crazy schedules, find the time to check in on their people, they create with them a personal equation, based on trust.

Topics like grief are seldom discussed at work. In fact, more often than not, we don’t even know if we should discuss such topics. Leaders, mental health experts and coaches are now all telling us that it is okay to say you are not okay. Feelings of grief, loneliness and disconnection are real. It’s okay to respond by saying, ‘Actually, I am going completely crazy handling work, household chores, a young child and caring for the elderly.’ Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this pandemic is the open-endedness of it. If it were a temporary state, we could say aloud, ‘This too shall pass, hang in there.’ If we knew that there was light at the end of the tunnel, and we would eventually emerge from the long dark tunnel and soon there would be bright sunshine, things would have been very different. As a leader, it is a testing time for you. It is about maintaining the right balance and remaining focused on moving forward amid destabilizing uncertainty. That means helping your employees navigate complex emotions—grief, stress, loneliness—that most of us simply are not accustomed to in the workplace, at least at the scale we are experiencing now.

Extracted from Coaching: The Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership (authored by Ruchira Chaudhary) with permission from Penguin Random House India

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

An alumna of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Ruchira Chaudhary straddles the corporate and academic worlds – she is a leading executive coach, adjunct faculty at several top tier business schools and runs a boutique consulting firm focused on organizational strategy solutions.

Ruchira has a diverse and eclectic functional background in mergers and acquisitions, organization design, culture and leadership, coupled with two decades of experience in emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. During her corporate career, Ruchira held leadership roles in Medtronic and AIG in Singapore, Qatar Telecom (now Oredoo) in Qatar and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in India. 

Ruchira teaches and frequently coaches MBA students and senior executives as affiliate faculty at several top business schools. 

Her book Coaching: The Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership (PRH) has been critically acclaimed by so many luminaries – corporate leaders, sports captains and academics.

 

RESOURCES:

Ready to measure your leadership skills? Here is a free assessment provided by the Innovative Leadership Institute that will measure the 7 leadership skills required to succeed during disruption and innovation. Click HERE

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify,  Amazon Music,  Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Also, stay up-to-date on new shows by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Fear Is A Dishonest Act

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Peter Kozodoy, award-winning author of Honest to Greatness, provided this article as a companion to his podcast How to Harness Honesty. 

This insight and interview are brought to you in collaboration with WBECS by coaching.com. WBECS speakers represent some of the most brilliant minds and most innovative thinkers in the business and executive coaching space. WBECS provides the most impactful training and resources for professional coaches globally.

Have you ever let fear get in your way?

Let’s do a thought experiment.

For one day, you’re going to be your bravest, most I-don’t-care self.

Think about it for a moment.

How would you think?

Feel?

Act?

What would you say and do?

Chances are, you’d be… different.

Cuz everyone has fear.

And everyone usually lets that fear make up some part of themselves.

That’s the part that reminds you to be cautious.

Not stick your neck out too far.

Because, obvi, you might get your head chopped off.

But will you really?

I mean, fear is great in the wild.

It keeps you alive.

But in our plastic world? What does it really do?

Prolly nothin’ good.

In fact, I bet that if you went through one day and didn’t let fear creep in AT ALL…

You’d probably feel a lot better.

Do a lot more.

And look back on the day and say, see? That wasn’t so bad!

Or maybe you’d get your head bitten off by a lion hiding in your bushes…

I doubt it, but ya never know.

But one thing’s for sure: There’s no way to know unless you try absolute bravery.

And I bet that you’ll probably create better results than when you’re fearful.

Better, because they’ll be more honest.

Your actions will be more pure — more aligned to who you really are and what you’re really trying to make happen.

Fear is the opposite. It’s a run-away-now thing when you should be on a charge-the-hill thing.

Just remember one important thing:

Fear isn’t something to conquer.

That would imply it’s something to begin with.

But it’s not. It’s nothing. It doesn’t exist unless you give it power.

So stop. It’s not helping you now.

Try bravery and fearlessness for one day, and see how it makes you feel.

After all, there’s nothing to lose but fear itself.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Peter Kozodoy is the award-winning author of Honest to Greatness, an Inc. 5000 serial entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, and business coach. His articles on leadership and entrepreneurship have appeared in Forbes, Inc., HuffPost, PR Daily, and more. He holds a BA in economics from Brandeis University and an MBA from Columbia Business School, and lives in Puerto Rico with his wife and their spoiled dog. To strike up an honest conversation, visit PeterKozodoy.com. 

 

RESOURCES:

Ready to measure your leadership skills? Here is a free assessment provided by the Innovative Leadership Institute to measure the 7 leadership skills required to succeed during disruption and innovation. Click HERE

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify,  Amazon Music,  Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Also, stay up-to-date on new shows by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

Conflict Strategies for Nice People

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Liane Davey, as part of the World Business and Executive Coach Summit (WBECS) series, shares this blog and the companion podcast The Good Fight: Using Productive Conflict.

We’re not having enough conflict. When we avoid issues that we need to address, we get into what I call “conflict debt.” What is conflict debt? Essentially, each time you avoid a discussion, debate, or disagreement that you should be having, you add that issue to the list of unresolved issues. If you should be introducing novel ideas to get your organization out of a rut but you think, “that’s gonna’ ruffle some feathers,” so you stay quiet, you’re incurring debt. If you should be telling a coworker that he’s not pulling his weight, but you just can’t be bothered starting a fight, that’s conflict debt.

Like with any debt, conflict debt accrues interest that costs us dearly. As organizations, we fail to prioritize, dilute resources, and accomplish little. As teams, we work around problem people and overwhelm the capable ones. As individuals, we stifle our concerns and become increasingly disgruntled, stressed, and disengaged.

Conflict debt is too costly. We need to surface and work through conflict, but the voices inside our heads give us so many reasons why we should avoid it. Perhaps the loudest voice is the one that tells us conflict isn’t nice. But is that true?

You might think conflict has to be loud, or aggressive, or rigid. It doesn’t. You can have conflict nicely by choosing words skillfully and keeping your tone level and your body language open. There are a few techniques you can use to have conflict nicely.

Validating versus invalidating

For the most part, grown adults in the workplace understand that they can’t always get what they want. What really frustrates people is when they don’t feel that they’ve been heard. Unfortunately, the moment you get into a conflict, your attention gets laser focused on pleading your case, rather than hearing theirs. When they say, “We need to drive more traffic into the stores, I’m dropping prices,” you immediately go to, “We need to protect our margins!”

The most powerful thing you can do to have conflict nicely is to leave your colleague with the impression that you understand their point. That means you need to start by really listening to and carefully reflecting their concerns before even mentioning your own. “You’re focused on driving traffic into the stores. Tell me what our numbers look like this week.” If the first thing out of your mouth is their perspective rather than your own, you’ve set a positive tone for the whole discussion.

Ally versus adversary

Conflict is particularly unpleasant when you make the other person feel like you are working in opposite directions. Antagonistic conflict pits the two of you against each other and leaves the other person feeling isolated. Imagine standing facing one another pulling in a tug-of-war. “We NEED to drop our prices, we’re not going to get anyone in our store at these prices!” “Yeah, well we NEED to make a profit and we’re going to lose our shirts at that discount!”

Having conflict nicely requires that you pivot so that you are facing the same direction and looking at the problem together, as allies. The secret is to appeal to a higher purpose that you have in common. For example, “Look, I know you think we need to drop our prices and I’m pushing hard to keep them level. We both want to make it through the holiday season profitably. How can we think about this differently?” As soon as you can start saying “we” and stop saying “you,” the conflict will feel much nicer.

Productive versus unproductive

A sure way to be the bad guy in a conflict is to back someone into a corner. Making assertive statements, pointing a finger, and shutting the conversation down with closed questions will leave your colleague with no way out. You know exactly how people behave when they are trapped, they either fight more aggressively or they back down. Neither is going to leave them with the impression that you’re a nice person. “Do you want to be the person who destroyed our Q4 margin?”

The alternative is to create a path forward with everything you say. Rather than trapping the person so that their only option is to contradict you or disagree with you, ask open-ended questions that allow them to explain their position. “How are you thinking about the impact on our margin if we discount prices that far?” Even when you’re proposing a solution to the problem, pose it as a question to test whether it works, “Ok, what if we were to take the sale to 30% and sweeten it with a free gift with $50 or more?”

If someone raised you to believe, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” you might be avoiding conflict altogether. That’s not good for anybody. Instead, focus your efforts on having conflict nicely. Make your colleague feel heard and understood, make them feel like an ally, rather than an adversary, and constantly leave room for both of you to work together toward a solution. From now on, “if you can’t say anything nice, make sure you say it nicely.”

 

About the Author

Liane Davey is a New York Times Bestselling author of three books, including The Good Fight: Use Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Your Organization Back on Track. Known as the Water Cooler Psychologist, she is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review and frequently called on by media outlets for her experience on leadership, team effectiveness, and productivity. As the co-founder of 3COze Inc., she advises on strategy and executive team effectiveness at companies such as Amazon, Walmart, TD Bank, Google, 3M, and SONY. Liane has a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology.

Photo by jean wimmerlin on Unsplash

The Benefits of Using a Great Coach in a VUCA Environment

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This blog is provided by David Goldsmith of 7 Paths Forward, LLC. as a companion to his podcast as a part of the WBECS (The World Business & Executive Coach Summary) Series,  The Benefits of Great Coaching in a VUCA Environment.

VUCA stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. It’s a term that comes from the military to describe conditions during war. The current pandemic has highlighted and accelerated the disruption that leaders were already experiencing in their organizations. Now when we talk about VUCA more people have a first hand experience of what we are talking about.

The world is volatile right now. Everyday things change. We don’t know when and if things will return to how they used to be. This creates a lot of the uncertainty that we are all experiencing. Just as we think we know how things might be, we learn new things and our view changes rapidly. Sometimes we experience this change hourly! It’s a lot to keep up with.

It’s hard to imagine a time when things were more uncertain. When will children go back to school? How long will we work from home? Will there be further waves of the virus? How will we deal with those? What does “normal” look like in the future? How will this affect organizations? What kind of work will there be? What do we want to keep and preserve from the disruption?

The complexity has only increased. As a leader you had your OKRs for the year. How do you accomplish those goals with your workforce configured very differently? How do you get these done when your workforce is facing childcare challenges and experiencing a level of stress and personal disruption previously unknown?

The pandemic has also been a great example of ambiguity. We are watching governments manage a public health crisis and an economic crisis at the same time. There are no easy or right decisions. Every decision has consequences. And you never have enough information to make a decision. You have to choose and then be prepared to update your decision very quickly!

Coaches help leaders grow and develop and handle more complexity. Great coaches help their clients do this more efficiently and with deeper results. A simple example is inter-city trains. In many parts of the world you can take a train service from city a to city b that might take ten hours. Or you can take a high-speed train that makes the trip in six hours. The high-speed train is usually more comfortable and gets you there significantly faster. Both options get you to your destination.

During this pandemic we are finding that leaders are making time for their coaching sessions. However, many times these sessions are shorter. A great coach can efficiently work with the client to identify the issues, help them develop actionable insights and help them get on with their VUCA challenges.

To deal with these VUCA challenges requires a coach who has the experience, skill and insight to customize their work to provide what these leaders need now. They must be agile, insightful and armed with a large toolbox of skills and approaches. ​They must themselves be comfortable in a VUCA environment.

When you have to make a complex decision without enough information, you need a coach who can lean in to the conversation, help you understand all four of the VUCA elements and then help frame the issue so that the leader can make their best decision. And the coach is standing by ready to help that leader adjust (because they will need to).

Leaders also need great coaches who can work with a variety of narcissistic, defensive and emotional clients. All of us are dealing with a far greater level of conscious and unconscious stress. Leaders are behaving in ways that are unusual and often surprising to themselves. They need a coach who isn’t fazed by this and in fact knows how to utilize this new behavior to help the leader accelerate their growth.

Our current environment is a great example of why leaders who want to grow, develop, and thrive need to work with a great coach.

About the Author

A pioneer in the coaching industry, David Goldsmith was Chief Operating Officer of CoachInc.com and past President of CoachU. He has staged many innovative conferences on coaching and was the first to showcase coaching research almost 20 years ago. He co-founded the Foundation for Coaching which has now become the Institute of Coaching at Harvard. he has also co-founded Accelerating Coach Excellence, a program dedicated to helping coaches get to the heart of client issues in less time.  David is an active coach working with senior leaders, professionals, and entrepreneurs around the globe. He has also coached many of the leaders in the coaching profession helping to grow the impact of coaching worldwide.

9 Types of Silence and the Impact of Each

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Marcia Reynolds writes this blog. as a companion to her podcast Difficult Conversations That Get Positive Results as a part of the WBECS (The World Business & Executive Coach Summary) podcast series.

When you choose how to use your silence, you have the opportunity to align with, shift, and possibly transform the thinking of the person you are with. You must consciously choose how you are holding your stillness. Some of the 9 types of silence can hurt your connection with others more than help it.

For example, choosing not to speak when your brain is full of chatter is a kind of silence that can be disruptive. You aren’t present. You are biting your tongue until you can state what is on your mind. Others feel your impatient energy. They may yield the floor to you knowing you have something you are anxious to share or they may just avoid eye contact with you to keep you silent.

When in a conversation, especially a difficult one, you want to be aware of the silence you are holding. Is your silence alert and full of curiosity? Or are you just waiting to end what you think is a dead-end discourse? Are you open to receiving what your partner is expressing so you can share what you see and hear for clarification? Or are you just waiting for the opportunity to state your opinion?

9 Types of Silence and How You Use Them

Novelist, poet, playwright, and psychotherapist Paul Goodman identified 9 kinds of silence in his classic book, Speaking and Language.¹ Here is his list with my interpretation of how the silence might impact your conversations.

  1. Dumb silence of slumber or apathy. Do you have nothing to say because you don’t care? Their words are bouncing off you like a wall.
  2. Sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face. Have you given up being a part of the conversation and just listening because you feel you have to? You may feel like a prisoner until you are released.
  3. Noisy silence of resentment. The judgment you have for the speaker is so loud in your head you don’t hear what is being said.
  4. Baffled silence of confusion. You aren’t sure of the intention of the conversation, the meaning of the words, or the direction the story is going. You are reluctant to say anything because the speaker might not take your feedback well.
  5. Musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity. Whether you are alone or with others, you are so immersed in what you are doing that it feels as if the world is silent around you.
  6. The silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos. The science of awe and wonder reveals a beautiful combination of peace and curiosity when we feel a sense of oneness with what we see. We quietly accept the unknown but want to know more.
  7. Fertile silence of awareness. What is being revealed has your head spinning. Are the thoughts arising from what you are curious about now or from what you think you now know? Observations and questions arising from your curiosity can further the conversation. Sharing what you think you now know might shut it down.
  8. Alive silence of alert perception. Are you noticing everything in your visual sphere? Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton said, “Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.”
  9. The silence of listening to whole person you are with. When you are silent but focused on the other, you can catch the drift of their meaning from their words, their expressions, and the energy they radiate. This is how you cultivate non-reactive empathy. You not only understand their experience, you are then able to reflect what you hear and notice to help the other person assess their thinking. This is an alive silence but not intrusive. This is the silence most useful to effective coaching and leadership conversations, and probably parenting as well.

Can You WAIT?

There is an acronym used in training for many years, WAIT – Why Am I Talking? Whether you are speaking out loud or you are allowing your brain to fill your head with words, ask yourself if silence would be more useful and what type of silence you want to hold.

Kahlil Gibran wrote in his 1923 classic The Prophet, “There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.” You can help people feel connected with your silence. They will come to feel safe with you, willing to reveal what is on their minds that they do not understand.  Your curiosity and care can help them come to a new understanding filled with possibility. Gibran called this way of being with people, “rhythmic silence.” I believe this silence is what we hold when we are practicing Coaching Presence.

Alive, focused silence is a skill we can all develop. Find a moment to practice today.

 

Want to hear more from Marcia and other great coaching speakers? You can take part in the month-long 10th Annual World Business and Executive Coach free Pre-Summit  by signing up here.

About the Author

Dr. Marcia Reynolds, president of Covisioning LLC, is endlessly curious about how humans learn and grow. She found coaching to be the best technology we have for accelerating the process of change. She has coached and trained leaders and coaches in 41 countries and has presented at the Harvard Kennedy School, Cornell University, and The National Research University in Moscow. Dr. Reynolds is a pioneer in the coaching profession. She is a founding member and 5th global president of the International Coach Federation. She returned to the board for two years in 2016 where she focused on credentialing requirements and strengthening relationships with coach training schools. She is the Training Director for the Healthcare Coaching Institute and on faculty for the International Coach Academy in Russia and Create China Coaching in China. Global Gurus recognizes her as one of the top 5 coaches in the world. Dr. Reynolds has published 5 books.

¹ Paul Goodman, Speaking and Language: Defence of Poetry. Random House, 1972. Out of print but you might find it in your local public or university library.

Leveraging Technology To Improve Leadership Development

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This interview may be useful for those looking to use online platforms instead of in-person instruction. The following blog is a republish of an article in Forbes by Maureen Metcalf. It is a companion to the podcast Leveraging Online Kajabi Platform To Build Thriving Brands.

As a university adjunct faculty member, consultant and coach, I have been using the tagline of “Innovative Leadership” for many years. This sets the bar for how I commit to my work as well as the services I deliver. I recently started to explore how I could refresh my use of technology to teach leadership in conjunction with coaching and workshops. I am looking for options to accelerate the leader’s learning process and offer a broad range of tools for different learning styles. I want to share my experience of how I am leveraging this technology to support leaders in their development.

I researched the many robust online delivery options and selected a tool that was a solid fit for my work: Kajabi. I selected it because of the strong technology platform, strong start-up support, cost-effectiveness, integrated payment and affiliate tracking modules and the ability to communicate with participants by product.

With the support of the online platform, I am rethinking what is possible. Right now, I am using the online training for the following three applications initially and I will expand these as we use the platform.

  1. We recently launched a 10-month IT leadership development program. This program was designed to build skills in the IT community in order to build the talent pipeline for senior roles. It will be delivered through monthly in-person sessions in conjunction with our local CIO forum. The online platform allows us to deliver training that integrates structured exercises, case studies and audio interviews with local CIOs and executives. One of the key objectives of the in-person sessions is to learn content and build a network. We expect the online element to significantly accelerate the building of leadership skills for mid- to senior-level IT professionals.

The online platform allows us to track payment and engagement with the materials. As the facilitator, this lets me manage the finances easily and also identify who is highly engaged so we can offer additional resources to enrich their experience. It also tells me who is less engaged so I can reach out and troubleshoot.

  1. We often augment our leadership coaching programs with a series of exercises designed to help participants build self-awareness, knowledge and skills. Especially for emerging leaders, we deliver a hybrid of training and coaching to prepare them to step into larger roles. For this group, we created a standard curriculum with exercises, case studies, audio interviews and videos. I can monitor client progress through the platform, and in this case, they share their progress prior to coaching sessions and discuss how their learning can improve their leadership work.

The online platform offers the option to package the leadership development curriculum by leadership level. I can sell packaged offerings of coaching and online training. It also gives the option to support affiliates so the other coaches and consultants in our organization work from a single platform with consistent processes and offerings.

  1. We offer online development programs as standalone offerings for individuals and companies to provide effective (and cost-effective) training for their emerging and current leaders. These programs can be combined with other programs the companies are conducting. Because this program is comprehensive and participants work through it over time, it provides the opportunity to internalize the learning, not just attend and depart.

The online platform allows us to customize materials for specific groups and tweak other courses where appropriate to reinforce and build on the in-person development investments they are making.

Another element we will be building into the platform that we are very excited about is an assessment that will be used by those taking courses, and it is also offered as a standalone service. Because an online platform can support a range of services, we are able to create a clean and user-friendly purchasing experience.

I have struggled for years to present a simple path for clients. Our company website is highly complex and positions us as a thought leadership and executive advisory firm. While that works for some audiences, it is inappropriate for others. Using Kajabi as our online platform and linking it to our main site and our book website, we can tailor the user experience to the target audience in a manner that is cost-effective for us and easy for the user.

I talk about the most effective leaders acting like scientists. This endeavor is one of my experiments. I did my homework and selected this platform. We are implementing several modules and we will continue to test and refine our experiment as we go along. For other coaches and consultants looking to extend your offering, I encourage you to explore the broad range of options for technology to enable and even extend the strong impact you are already having on clients.

About the Author

Maureen Metcalf, CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, is a renowned executive advisor, coach, consultant, author and speaker.

Proven Path to Leadership Maturity and Effectiveness

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This post is a companion to the podcast featuring Mike Morrow-Fox talking about leadership maturity and vertical development to build the leadership qualities required to lead large, complex organizations and those that aspire to make the greatest impact.

Forbes Coaches Council first published the following article in August 2016.

Future trends indicate complexity, accelerated change, and near-constant uncertainty in the coming years. These conditions will require significantly different leadership skills.

With these new demands for evolving leadership, is there a predictable path to develop leadership? If so, what does that path look like?

Leaders develop both “horizontally,” increasing their ability at their current level of operation, and “vertically,” increasing their level of complexity, emotional maturity, and opening to new awareness. Many researchers are now saying that “vertical development” is required to navigate the complexities leaders and their organizations face.

To answer what the vertical evolutionary path looks like, I reference the research of Dr. Cook-Greuter, who developed a Leadership Maturity Framework (LMF) and measurement of adult development as part of her doctoral dissertation at Harvard University. Dr. Cook-Greuter is now the Co-Founder with Beena Sharma of The Center for Leadership Maturity, a firm that facilitates vertical development in individuals, teams, and organizations. The LMF is the basis of my work with vertical leadership development because it provides a model grounded in research and is practical to use in coaching and leadership development.

Vertical development does not mean that more developed people are “better” people, but rather, in many cases, they are likely to be more effective in key leadership roles within large complex organizations. The following is a summary of the LMF describing the predictable developmental trajectory people navigate as they grow:

The Group-Centric Level

This level is about conforming and belonging. People at this level follow rules, norms and observe hierarchy. They conform to social expectations, work to group standards, seek membership and approval, and appreciate outward signs of status as a sign of approval. They attend to the welfare of their own group; those who are not like them are the “other,” and therefore outside their circle of concern. They avoid conflict, think in simple terms, and often speak in generalities. Feedback is taken as disapproval since their driving value is to gain approval and be included.

Example: This is the employee who looks to what the group is doing to determine his actions. He looks to meet the “expectations” set by the organization, fit into the culture, and do what everyone does. Belonging is his key to success; standing out or having a different opinion feels risky

The Skill-Centric Level

This focuses on comparing self to others and perfecting skills. Individuals at this level focus on being competent in their own area of interest and improving techniques and efficiency. They aspire to quality standards and are often heavily invested in their way as the only way of doing things. Decisions are made based on incontrovertible “facts.” Given their focus on problem-solving and detail, they can get caught in the weeds and not see the big picture necessary to effectively prioritize among competing demands. All consuming attention on being right can lead them to be critical of and competitive with others. They hear feedback about their work as criticism of them as a whole person.

Example: This is the employee who points out when others make mistakes and tries to correct them so they can meet the standards. Her development efforts focus on building expertise. She usually has a “better” opinion unless she is in the presence of a subject-matter expert.

The Self-Determining Level

This focuses on analyzing and achieving to effectively deliver results. Leaders at this level look toward longer-term goals and initiate rather than follow expectations. They value objectivity and scientific knowledge, seeking rational, proactive ways around problems. They often seek consensus — “agree to disagree” — and value mutuality and equality in relationships. They accept feedback to promote learning and success.

Example: This employee continually drives to meet organizational goals. He works both efficiently and effectively and is continually competing with himself and others to drive the best results. He has a five-year plan, is open to new learning, and is beginning to be more reflective.

The Self-Questioning Level

This level focuses on self in relationship and contextualizing his/her experience. Leaders at this level are concerned with the difference between reality and appearance and have an increased understanding of complexity and unintended effects of actions. They begin to question their own assumptions and views and realize the subjectivity of beliefs; and talk of interpretations rather than facts. They can play different roles in different contexts and begin to seek out and value feedback.

Example: This employee is continually inquiring, challenging assumptions, and aware of the limitations of conventional thinking. She focuses on creating an environment where everyone feels valued. She is committed to appreciating value in different perspectives.

The Self-Actualizing Level

This level is about integrating and transforming self and systems, and recognizing higher principles, complexity and interrelationships. People at this level are aware of the social construction of reality — not just rules and customs. They are problem finding, not just doing creative problem solving. They are aware of paradox and contradiction in self and systems and learn to have a deep appreciation of others. They demonstrate a sensitivity to systemic change and create “positive-sum” games.

Example: This person is continually evaluating the organization’s strategy against long-term industry trends as well as global economic conditions while embodying her values and using herself as an instrument of transformation. She is self-aware and firmly anchored in principles while having the ability to adapt based on context.

As we look to the changes leaders are facing in the near and long term, it is helpful to have a robust model for development that allows them to focus their development energy effectively. This framework, along with it, measurement instrument — the maturity assessment for professionals (MAP) — is the most robust I have seen, and I find it highly effective in supporting leaders.

About the author Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Innovative Leadership Institute, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful profitability, growth, and sustainability strategies.