New Age Manager

I wonder, if we run a survey to find out which one of the following elements (which are - mind you! - are essential for the New Age Manager) would be the weakest link in the chain, what results will we get? Without making it a wager, I am pretty sure it's gonna be Authenticity and Trust, and it being the foundation of the managerial competence, developing all others in isolation will be little gain.

My question to the thinking world will be: can you develop this competence without professional coaching?

(borrowed from http://www.towerswatson.com/manager-redefined)

The Shift: Take the Reins of Your Career

The companies are fighting an uphill battle at getting employees in when they are most needed (Just-In-Time Hiring) and keeping them motivated and engaged:

A global Gallup survey found that at the average big firm only 33% of employees describe themselves as fully engaged in their work, 49% say they are not engaged and 18% say they are “actively disengaged”.

Yet, I am not totally convinced that it is solely the organization that should bear the burden of fostering engagement. The employees are just as responsible for making their jobs exciting and meaningful.

Last month The Economist published a special report My Big Fat Career where the key ideas are

• The workplace is changing; information on employers and employees is balancing off; and you need to learn how to play the information battles

• Invest in your own development

• Stick with the right people

No question about this: workers have to take responsibility for their own future. For many the mantra will be "continuous learning, continuous learning, continuous learning". However, educational institutions from nursery schools up to universities are doing a poor job at instilling the idea of life-long learning. Most educational systems are built on two theories:

• The Pickle Theory: a cucumber put in marinade has no other choice but to pickle, and
• The Squirrel Theory: you should get your mushrooms and nuts now (get the knowledge!), maybe you will need in later in winter (when the crisis comes).

 So how do we prepare ourselves? If nobody really cares about our long-term career success either because of ignorance, powerlessness or lack of interest, it is you personally against the dragons. Fortunately, there are many who would help - help is often given to those who seek and those who deserve.

There is one thinker, author, professor and inspirational speaker that I would like to mention in this regard. In her book “The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here”  Lynda Gratton of the London Business School talks about the changes that we need to make in ourselves to create value-add jobs that we will enjoy.

According to Ms Gratton, people will also have to invest more in their personal “social capital”, which will involve three elements:

1. First, build yourself a “posse”, a small group of up to 15 people they can turn to when the going gets rough. They should have some expertise in common, have built up trust in each other and be able to work effectively together.

2. Second, you need a “big-ideas crowd” who can keep you mentally fresh. This echoes the discussion of “managed serendipity” in last year’s business bestseller, “The Power of Pull”, in which John Hagel and John Seely Brown argued that the successful worker of the future will live in clusters of talented, open-minded people and spend a lot of time going to thought-provoking conferences.

3. Third, you need a “regenerative community” to maintain your emotional capital, meaning family and friends in the real world “with whom you laugh, share a meal, tell stories and relax”.

Listen to Lynda talking about her new book and get inspired. Stop whining a-la "they don't appreciate me" and start paving your own road to happiness.

New Way to Look at Coaching

Today is September 1st. In Russia, this is the first day of classes for anyone who goes to school, college, university or any other form or shape of an academic institution. So I felt that I had to write about personal growth and self-development, and one of the most effective individual development instruments, in my opinion, is coaching.

Many people when they are faced with a dilemma to define "coaching" resort to the sports analogy and it does hold water: no matter how talented you are, you need a wiser and older companion to ensure that you maximize your body potential and survive the turbulent waters of sports politics. Read the story of Coach K if you want a prototypical example.

I, however, would like to suggest that you look at coaching from a different perspective, and to do so I am presenting to you a picture of a coach... in its logistical meaning...

Now, without being moralistic or didactic, I let you figure out the analogy by yourselves, simply by answering the following questions:

• What is the primary function of a coach (carriage)?
• Who does all the work of getting the carriage from Point A to Point B?
• Who is guiding the carriage?
• Who makes the decisions of where the carriage is going?
• What are the roles and responsibilities of the main players here (the coachman, the horses, the person inside)?
• How do the external circumstances affect the dynamics of the relationships?
• Who loses most if anything goes wrong (e.g. a wheel falls off)?
• Who gets the most benefit out of a smooth journey?

I hope I've got your creative juices flowing! 

Executive Coaching: A Guide for the HR Professional

There are a great plenty of books about coaching, some good and some atrocious. I have read many of those and should I have not had the pleasure of being coached on how to coach, I am pretty sure that I would not have been able to grasp the essence of the process merely by reading the literature. Well, surely books are necessary to provide you with perspectives, add structure and equip you with numerous tools and frameworks, but it's actually coaching and practice that will turn you into a good coach.

Most books will try to teach you how to become a coach. This one that I have just finished reading has a slightly different objective as you can gather from its title: Executive Coaching: A Guide for the HR Professional.


This is not a new coaching technique or philosophy. Actually, as a coaching textbook it's pretty useless. I can recommend you others that would be much better if it is your own skills honing that you are after, e.g.:
          - The Skilled Helper
          - Leader as Coach
          - Co-Active Coaching
          - and many many others
But if you work in HR and you need to come up with an effective and low-cost strategy for developing critical staff, you might find it worth reading.

The authors in an easy and non-intrusive manner tell us when and how to assess the need for a coaching intervention, how to gain the senior leadership buy-in, figure out the ROI and set up a network of those who need development help and those who can provide it. Besides, I was pleasantly surprised that Executive Coaching: A Guide for the HR Professional addressed such issues as:

• role definitions and clarity: where do the power lines in the HR/client/coach/boss lie and how to navigate the underwater currents;
• HR issues: confidentiality, involvement, budget, etc.;
• coaching populations: HiPos, expatriates, female talent, diversity groups, cross-cultural, etc.; 
• tools: a selection of questionnaires, forms and templates that any HR needs; 
• special topics when coaching is most needed, especially when we deal with high-fliers: assimilation coaching, executive development and coaching, multi-cultural issues, coaching and diversity.

It is an easy read: I doubt that it will take you longer than a couple of hours to get through the book. It is good reference material and your colleagues would appreciate if you lend it to them, whether they are employees, line managers, senior management or HR - this manual can appeal to a breadth of audiences. Actually, being a decent overview of the subject, I think this book is a good way to begin your relationship with the exciting sphere of coaching.

I had to learn the hard way. When we set up the coaching network back in Shell South Africa, I was not fully prepared to coach managers who were much higher than me in the hierarchy. I did have the support of two professional psychologists, to whom I could bring my cases for discussion and guidance, but that was post-mortem - with the client it always was one-on-one and at times I was simply freaking out. Often I had to make a tough conscientious effort to draw the demarcation line between me as a coach and me as an HR. Under the strict confidentiality agreement that we agreed upon at the very beginning of coaching, I could not use any of the information revealed to me in the coaching sessions in my professional HR capacity, and at times it was really difficult. There were instances of "scope creep" when, for instance, while I was supposed to do leadership coaching, I had to deal with personal problems of a crumbling marriage. At times I had to face situations when the coaching process became a political battle. Going through such experiences makes you a better professional and a better coach, but you can't learn that by reading a book.

Dare!

A few days ago someone asked me what coaching was about. I gave an explanation through the hackneyed metaphor of the mirror that we as coaches are holding in front of the coachee, which is true and highly accurate. One aspect that it is lacking is the courage it takes to look into the mirror and face your fears.

This video is an EXCELLENT demonstration of the powerful effect coaching can have on your self-growth and motivation:

Finding strengths

Have you heard of StrengthsFinder 2.0? I am sure this title has sent a number of my group mates into shudders. Some don't like, others are fascinated by the outcomes, but one thing that nobody can negate is that it is one of those rare personality assessments that focus on the strengths rather than on weaknesses.

From early childhood on, we are being reproached for what we are bad at, but rarely are we praised on our strong points. Why? Because the society likes to hold firm stereotypes of what we should be and once we wander away from the "ideal" picture, there is always a hammer to bang us back down. When you are a genius in Literature and failing in Maths, you will be sent to Maths courses and will have to spend innumerable hours with private teachers and Maths problems, rather than reading more books and honing what you have a natural talent for. It's time to shift the perspective.

StrengthsFinder helps you identify 5 areas (talents) that are your natural strengths. It was fascinating for me to go through the discovery process. At first, I read the book and tried to guess what my 5 talents were. Then I asked a friend who knows me well to guess what those were for me. After that we compared the two lists. Finally, I took the test. The interesting part is that none of us were able to guess more than 3, and two strengths came out of nowhere, but now that I am looking at the definitions, I can surely see myself in those.

The big question is, as always, what am I going to do with the results? Well, the first thing that I did was incorporating some of the strengths and the wording from the book into my resume and it does look nicer. Secondly, I used this concept at the interview when I was going through the assessment center at DHL. I was asked why I believed I would make a good consultant and I compared the qualities I thought a good consultant would possess to the 5 talents identified through SrengthsFinder. I am not claiming it helped greatly, but I got the offer. Thirdly, this assessment provides some suggestions on how you can build up even further in your self-development. After all, we all grow from the positive and strong, not the negative and weak.

If you have not read the book yet, I would definitely recommend, but take it with a pinch of salt. As everything in this world, nothing is definitive, not even death and taxes.

Personality Assessments

There are so many and they are so different. I guess I won't be far off if I say that MBTI, DISC, 16PF, Social Styles, HBDI would be among the most often used ones. There are surely many more, addressing various personality aspects and often targeted for particular goals, e.g. in recruitment or selecting team members for an important task. You might wonder why so many, but let's think about e.g. HBDI and Social Styles, their frameworks being:

While HBDI focuses on the way our brain operates, Social Styles assessment targets the behavioral aspects. While there might be parallels and we can make assumptions (though those can be wrong) like "Analysts most certain have a Green brain", such assumptions will prove to be erroneous without corroborating data.

Why are those assessments important? We talked about the Johari Window before - expanding the open zone (your Arena) is the one way to make sure that you capitalize on your strengths and leverage your weaknesses. As Stephen Covey said, "First seek to understand than to be understood". This is in a very broad sense paraphrasing of Cicero's nosce te ipsum. It is incredibly powerful to realize what your powers and limitations are, even though sometimes we don't like our own reflections in the mirror, but it's unlikely being the mirror's fault.

The most recent assessment I have done myself was comparing my profile to executive benchmark position, which I did through Korn/Ferry International. I was slightly disappointed... An executive benchmark required much lower level of intellectual involvement with issues and less expert knowledge. At the same time, a flexible thinking style is a big no-no in the executive world, so I am not gaining points there. The last drop was the empathy scale. I know that some of my friends complained that my empathy is like that of a refrigerator, and still I scored above the benchmark. Question: what do I do with results like that? Does it mean that most likely an executive position is not such a great fit for me? Well, I scored high on other aspects... Do I need to exercise less flexibility? Do I need to be less intellectual in my approach to problems? Anyone knows how to do that? Suggestions on postcards please.

Final thoughts on assessments and job search. In other words, how can we increase our chances to hit that sweet spot at the intersection of our abilities, attitudes and employment reality? By doing assessments, and I am not limiting this to self-assessments only: by all means, an assessment center or a 360/720 can provide even more information about yourself than you are aware of (think of Johari window again). At the interview, I guarantee (100% assurance) that you will be asked about your strengths and maybe weaknesses. Well, those you get straight from the assessment results. Additionally, if you mention a couple of assessment instruments to the recruiters, you'll make their day and gain brownie points.

Have I convinced you to go and do your own personality inventory? :)

Learning to Fly

’I suspect all of us who visit the worlds of Jonathan Seagull will never want to return.’

ERNEST K. GANN, author of The High and The Mighty

How many JL Seagulls are there? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? Eager for the thrill of breaking through. Flying higher. Trying harder. "The gull sees farthest who flies highest." Where is that goal you are striving for? Who is standing next to you to ensure you get there? Jonathan had Sullivan to keep him on the course, to motivate and support, to give tips and show the greater order of things. Alexander the Great had Aristotle. Duke had Coach K, much more than a basketball teacher. Can you come up with an example when someone has achieved greatness without really having a mentor nearby? 

Some are afraid to venture there, being afraid of failure. Fear of failure is ultimately the greatest damage a person can do to himself. “Each of us is in truth an idea of the Great Gull, an unlimited idea of freedom,” says Richard Bach. The resources are within: we only need to tap at the right door somewhere deep inside. Who will help you do that? 

Yes, I am advocating coaching. It might sound like selling, but I don't have to do it, because everyone realizes the need, and there is much more demand than supply when it comes to good coaches. And while you are ruminating the options, here is some beautiful Neil Diamond music, inspired by Jonathan Livingstone Seagull:

Why Coaching?

Only once or twice in my life I met people who claimed that they do not need to be coached (the sad part of it is that, in fact, it means they NEED to be coached big time!). Everyone can and will benefit from coaching. No matter what you do, what your needs are or where you might be moving towards in your life and career. You want to make better 5-point shots? A coach will help you. Will you be able to be the next Michael Jordan? That depends on your current abilities, potential, determination and the effort you will put in, but no possibilities should be ruled out, as most often we are unaware of our own abilities.

Think about the Johari window. Exploring what you already know about yourself is the first step in the coaching process. Later, a talented coach will ensure that you explore all four quadrants and expand the arena to the extend possible.

Isn't knowing yourself a strong impetus in itself to engage in a coaching relationship. Thousands of years back people were already concerned about exploring their inner selves and launching on the journey of personal development. Ancient Greeks knew better than divination (today's Greeks should learn from their ancestors, by the way, not to find themselves in bad-smelling situations of national debt the size of Texas) - remember what was written on the portico of the Delphi temple?

If that is not enough, contemplate the ideas presented in this short clip about life coaching. I am sure everyone will be able to pick at least one reason why he or she should challenge themselves.

Coaching: 5 Steps

In this short animated (very easy to follow) video you can observe all the basic steps of good coaching:

- engagement
- vision
- plan
- implementation
- success & disengagement

Simplistic as it may be, that it how the coaching process works. The metaphors actually work: it is a coach like in a sport (hence the baseball cap), there is a toolbox with all sorts of helpful techniques (for instance, coaches may use visualizations, affirmations, readings, experiments, surveys, etc), the allegorical safety net (so the coach should never allow the coachee to fail; it might erode the coaching relationship and undermine the self-esteem), and yes - often it is one step at a time.

One of the ideas that I have for the HR Club at IE is creating a coaching network. It is still at the conception stage, but I feel that something truly great and wonderful can come out of it. I will keep you posted. Whoever you are :)