Coach Andrea

Coach Andrea’s Intro

Want to be more productive? In this week’s Tip, a new contributor, Natalie M. Houston, shares a great idea on how to protect your focus and attention during your “always on” day.

Quote of the Week

“The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.”

~ Robert J. Shiller

Are you Leaving the Door Open?

By Natalie M. Houston

Would you leave the front door of your home wide open all day? Would you allow strangers, colleagues, and friends to walk in that open door at any time, and start asking you for directions, assistance, a snack, or a hug? Would you welcome the squirrels, racoons, and stray cats that might stroll in the door? What about the raindrops, dead leaves, or litter that drift in?

If your answer is no (or even a more strongly-worded negation), then I have another important question for you:

Are you leaving the door of your focus and attention wide open all day?

Each time you check email, each time you respond to your phone’s buzz or flashing light that announces the arrival of a new text, each time you jump to read your direct messages on Twitter, you’re opening the door of your attention. No matter what else you were doing, if someone suddenly walked into your home and asked for your assistance, you would probably respond right away, by either helping, redirecting, or rebuffing them.

Just as you protect your family and your belongings by choosing when to open the door of your home and when to leave it shut, you can choose to protect your focus and attention by choosing when to open yourself up to other people’s demands.

Every time you read your email, you’re putting someone else’s priorities before your own. Even if you don’t immediately respond or act on their request, you’re giving their message your attention. Sometimes, of course, that’s exactly what you want to do: we all need to engage with other people, to respond to their requests, and to communicate our ideas and decisions. But you can choose when to do this.

Decide Now When You’ll Check Your Messages Tomorrow

One way to maximize your focus and attention is to define a few set times during your day when you will read and process your incoming emails and messages. Put these blocks of time on your calendar like you would any other appointment. During those set times, bring your full attention to reading and responding to other people. At all other times, bring your full attention to your own priority work or relaxation.

If you’re accustomed to leaving your email open on your computer all day, or picking up your phone whenever it buzzes, it will feel awkward to retrain yourself into a new habit. As a good starting point, try checking your messages for just 20 minutes every two hours. Try it for a full three days before adjusting the length or frequency of your message sessions.

When you get the urge to check your email or messages and it’s not your predefined time, ask yourself:

In wanting to check email right now, what am I pulled towards?
In wanting to check email right now, what am I avoiding?

Just pay attention to what comes up for you in the process. You may decide that given your professional obligations and personal temperament, checking email all the time is what you choose to do. Or you may discover that checking email only a few times per day frees up energy and attention that you can direct towards other things. Either way, just make sure you’re making a conscious choice and not just leaving the door open out of habit.

Natalie M. Houston is a personal productivity coach who works with academics, writers, and entrepreneurs who want to stop procrastinating, gain more control over their time, and move forward on the projects and goals that matter most to them. To find out more, visit: http://nmhouston.com

Coaching Call To Action

What is your habit on email checking today? Minute by minute? Hourly? Twice a day?  Does this strategy increase your focus and attention or decrease it? Will you try a different strategy next week per Natalie’s suggestion to improve your focus?  Who do you need to share your new strategy with to keep to your commitment to yourself?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Is there value in promoting conflict? Encouraging differing opinions, yes.  Conflict, no.  If you are noticing conflict is becoming more prevalent in your company, consider David Cottrell’s tips on how to minimize the potential conflagration of conflict.

Quote of the Week

“Conflict is going to happen whether you want it or not. People will be butt heads. Sometimes when you least expect it.”

~ Jimmy Bise Jr.

Ways to Prevent a Conflict from Escalating

By David Cottrell

1. Get all the facts and clearly identify the problem.
2. Encourage people to challenge the status quo often so that alternatives are continually being evaluated.
3. When others explain their intention and viewpoints, summarize and paraphrase to confirm understanding.
4. Look for common ground in any difficult situation.
5. When possible, resolve one issue at a time.
6. Deal with the molehills before they become mountains!
7. Only send and respond to e-mails that are informational in nature. If there is any hint of disagreement, meet in person or pick up the phone.
8. Watch and listen for inconsistencies between people’s words and their nonverbal behaviors and encourage them to voice their concerns (Cottrell, p. 80).

From:  Cottrell, D. (2009).  Monday morning motivation: five steps to energize your team, customers, and profits.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Reprinted with permission from the OSU Leadership Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, (614) 292-3114, http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu/

Coaching Call To Action

Are you a conflict inciter or smoother?  What is the value of your position to yourself and those around you?  What would add even more value?  Who in your company will you share your thoughts with this week?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Adrenaline is robbing us of our health. If you run on adrenaline, please consider other ways to get energized.  In this week’s Tip, Steve Straus provides healthy alternatives to adrenaline.

Quote of the Week

“This art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.”

~ Captain J. A. Hadfield

Beyond Adrenaline

By Steve Straus

Adrenaline has its benefits. And its costs.

Great outcomes have been accomplished using the adrenaline tool. It is one of the most popular drugs-of-choice for driven achievers. A source of ready energy, it provides focus, is cheap to acquire, and easy to use. Also, you don’t need to do deals in dark back alleys, you’re your own drug dealer!

Need some? Leave late for an important meeting.

Need more? Under-prepare for that meeting.

A little more? Fear not getting what you want.

Your ability to create the adrenaline you need, when you need it, is huge. But at what cost?

Like any stimulant, the use of adrenaline requires a balancing of the scales. Your physical system experiences a crash and needs recovery time.

The focusing which adrenaline can provide may act as blinders and cause you to miss available resources. And someone hyped-up on adrenaline attracts similar people. Adrenaline is expensive.

Rather than suggest that you simply give up adrenaline, how about replacing it with healthier forms of energy? Such as passion. Such as clarity of purpose. Look for the joy in situations rather than possible negative consequences.

An often overlooked resource is to pause and revel in your intermediate wins. Adrenaline junkies tend to focus only on the big payoff at the end, but there is plenty of healthy energy available from the incremental victories along the way.

Copyright 2012 Steve Straus. All rights reserved. Steve Straus can be contacted at http://www.StrausUSA.com.

Coaching Call To Action

Who can help you remove the adrenaline needle and move beyond it, permanently?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

I particularly enjoyed this week’s Tip by Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch due to its honesty – some days you just don’t feel like a leader.  They provide their recommendations for “damage control” on those days.

Quote of the Week

“Focus on remedies, not faults.”

~ Jack Nicklaus

Not in the Leadership Mood? Here’s what to do.

By Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch

While everyone loves leadership concepts and practices, it’s fair to say that there are days when you wake up and you’re not “feeling it.” You know those days … those days when it’s going to be pretty tricky to influence outcomes and inspire others because your attitude, frankly, stinks.

If there’s one thing we know about humans it’s that we are inconsistent.  However, don’t let one bad day damage the leadership reputation you are working so hard to develop.  Here’s what you need to do:

• Don’t deny it – call it what it is. Be accountable to how you feel and why you feel that way.  A bad attitude is a pink flag that is getting redder by the minute.  Really try to figure out what the heck is going on and how you can solve it.
• Minimize your impact on others. Don’t walk around the office with your head down, telling everyone that “it’s just one of those days.”  On the flip side, don’t feel that you can counteract your mood by insincerely spraying sunshine and false enthusiasm everywhere.
• Focus on what you can control. When you are down and low, it is easy to hurl blame on external circumstances and people.  Blame doesn’t solve problems.  Your accountability solves problems.  When you figure out what you can control, you put yourself in the position of ownership … a few steps closer to attitude adjustment.
• Hit the reset button. Go home and before you go to bed identify a few things that you can do differently the next day to do better and be better.  Action is always a great anecdote for a poor attitude.

This article was provided courtesy of Lead Star – a premiere leadership development firm. You can learn more about leadership by visiting their website at www.leadstar.us

Coaching Call To Action

Firstly, may you not need this Tip.  Secondly, for insurance purposes, you may want to prepare for a day when your leadership mood is slipping.  What will your actions be on the day you’re not feeling like the leader you are?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Is someone at work pushing your buttons?  Does this lead you to frustration and anger?  This week’s Tip describes a simple process to follow that changes your reaction and the outcome.

Quote of the Week

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes–ah, that is where the art resides!”

~ Arthur Schnabel

Business Coaching and the Power of the Pause

By Andrea Novakowski

Cara was a manager at a Providence, RI consulting firm who could always be counted on to get the job done. She had a hard-driving style that got results, and her boss recognized how valuable she was to the company. Then one day Cara walked in and discovered she had a new manager, one who didn’t appreciate her take-no-prisoners approach.

Suddenly, what was once applauded was now being penalized.

No matter where she turned, she found herself in continual conflict with her new boss. Every meeting ended in a heated discussion. Every day was an exercise in frustration. Cara called me to help her decide if it was time to leave the company.

We used the PaperRoom System to determine that Cara was getting more than 80 percent of her needs met at her current job. Obviously, quitting wasn’t the solution. She had to figure out a way to work with her new manager.

Communication with your boss can be a challenging thing, especially when your styles clash. Cara and I tackled the problem by using a simple diagram from the book 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by business coach and consultant Peter Bregman.

According to Bregman, here’s how most conflict plays out:

Event => Reaction => Outcome

Someone says or does something that pushes your buttons (event). You respond with anger or frustration (reaction). This leads to an undesirable outcome. For Cara, it was wasted time and energy, not to mention the stress of arguing with her supervisor.
I showed Cara how to recognize this dynamic and change it to yield more productive results:

Event => Outcome => Reaction

First, Cara determined which part of her boss’s behavior triggered her negative reaction.  Next, she paused and envisioned the outcome she wanted: not a battle with her boss, but more appreciation for her contribution to the company and more responsibility. She saw her typical reaction wasn’t producing this result. So she changed her reaction.

As you might expect, that part can be tricky. How do you pause in the heat of the moment, rather than responding automatically to provocation? Cara determined three actions that worked for her:

• Calm down by counting to 10 in her head.
• Agree with what her manager is saying in the moment, then circle back for a more complete conversation when he is calmer.
• Observe how other people manage her boss when he gets worked up.

Over the next two months Cara practiced her new strategies. She became more aware of her manager’s behavior and trained herself to respond differently. She and her boss started having more productive meetings. In our last phone call, Cara was thrilled to report she’d been invited by her manager to work with him on a special project!

Do you have a manager, co-worker, or employee who rubs you the wrong way? If your conflict with this person doesn’t produce the outcome you want, it may be time to visualize the outcome you do want — and then change your reaction to make it happen.

Coaching Call To Action

This week plan for the potentially contentious interactions on your calendar. You know which ones I mean.  What is the outcome that you want?  What will you do differently to get that outcome?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

When you delegate a job to one of your staff, why don’t you get back what you asked for?  One way to get closer at hitting 100% on your requests is to be clear in your communication.  Natalie Manor’s Tip this week is a great reminder about creating that clarity.

Quote of the Week

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”

~ Joseph Priestley

Are You Creating Clarity?

By Natalie Manor

This is crucial to building a confident communication habit.  Make sure that you are clear each and every time you speak and/or write and that the other(s) in communication with you understands the usage of your words. In England, a boot is the trunk of a car.  In New Jersey, a hoagie sandwich is a submarine sandwich. In New England, a frappe is a milk shake.

Find out if people understand what you mean, especially when it involves critical communication such as projects, sales, negotiations, and performance requirements. People will trust and respect you for creating clear communication.

Natalie R. Manor, CEO is an author, business consultant, speaker and executive coach. Her company, Natalie Manor & Associates, is the ultimate resource for business leaders, executives, owners and managers who want to master their life and their business by Getting Clear, Getting Confident and Being Effective faster than ever before. You can register for her free bi-weekly articles at: http://www.nataliemanor.com/newsletter/subscribe.html

Coaching Call To Action

When you are communicating with others this week, look to be especially clear.  What is one thing you will do that will add clarity?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Last week while I was on vacation in NH. I had time for long conversations as life for me moved a bit slower, people listened a bit longer and it was a joy. Coming back to work on Monday, I noticed that I wasn’t so appreciative of the wonderful twists and turns and openings that occur in longer conversations. I wanted people to get to the point! This week’s Tip by Loren Ekroth has me wonder, during these days of 24/7, might a powerful communication strategy for you be to talk less?

Quote of the Week

“Be sincere; be brief; be seated.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Are You Too Wordy?

By Loren Ekroth

One of the biggest dislikes about conversationalists is that they ramble, don’t get to the point, and dominate by going on and on. They can’t seem to say anything without using lots of words.

The ability to be brief will serve you well. How?

1. You’ll be admired for your care with language.
2. You’ll be able to talk effectively when you have minimal time, especially if you are on radio or TV, but also in meetings.
3. Listeners will better remember what you say.
4. You won’t steal the “air time” of other conversers.

Here’s what some very smart people had to say about being brief:

“Fifty years ago, John F. Kennedy gave one of the shortest inaugural addresses in U.S. history, yet it is one of the longest remembered. The Gettysburg Address required only a few minutes. During the height of World War II, Churchill said to the Luftwaffe, “Do your worst, we will do our best!” Memorable ideas and powerful directions are succinct, pithy, and relevant. How do you want people to think of and remember you?”
– Alan Weiss, professional speaker, consultant

“To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher

“Be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.”
– Robert Southey, English poet, 1774-1873

To express yourself succinctly, wrote Mark Twain, is to speak with “a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense.” He also wrote, “I’d have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have time.”

Here are some ways you can develop your ability to be brief.

1. Read a short magazine article or newspaper column of 500-1000 words and try to express the gist of it in less than 50 words.
2. Look for exemplars of this ability in your place of worship, workplace, or club. See what they do, then do likewise.
3. Read short poetry, especially haiku. “Feel” what can be done with few words.
4. Join a Toastmasters club. (Find one in your area at www.Toastmasters.org)
5. Practice in everyday life. Slow down a bit, breathe more often, say fewer words.

Take to heart the profound words of the Bard:

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” — Shakespeare, Hamlet.

From “Better Conversations” newsletter by Loren Ekroth. Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2011. All Rights reserved. Dr. Ekroth is creator of information products to improve conversation, such as “Small Talk Success Tips” and a free newsletter at www.ConversationMatters.com.

Coaching Call To Action

As you attend meetings this week, notice the impact people have through their communication style. What works better in your business setting – more words or fewer words? Do your observations support Loren’s hypothesis or not?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

I burst out laughing when I read this article from Simon Tyler as the power had just come back to my home office after being out for 24 hours thanks to Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. I woke up on Monday morning thinking and planning about how I was going to get my work done when there was no electricity. When will I move appointments to, where can I charge my cell phone, what time does the library open so that I can I charge and use my laptop? How long will my cell phone battery last if I make back to back calls? When will the electric company fix the power? Should I call someone? On the way home from an hour at the library, I noticed the traffic lights were working again. I crossed my fingers – hoping, hoping, hoping that the power would be on when I got home and IT WAS! Almost exactly 24 hours after it went off. There was nothing I could do to bring the electricity back any faster.  I had to allow things to work out in that department. And they did! Thank you NStar and anyone else who had a hand in bringing back my electricity.

Quote of the Week

” Do not run away; let go. Do not seek, for it will come when least expected.”

~ Bruce Lee

Allow Things To Work Out

By Simon Tyler

They do. When it appears they don’t or haven’t yet, it’s simply that we haven’t given them enough time.

I have been caught in the middle of ‘arrgghh’ moments when situations are irritatingly not sorted, giving rise to all types of unhelpful emotions and responses. Often in client coaching dialogues this is the focus of our conversation, to move to the positive, focused, and powerful state of allowing rather than effort laden, having to make things happen.

For a number of my clients at the moment their world seems to be serving up many examples of this, and as the volume increases, often without realizing it, the emotional response and general state of mind slips down and into a fog.

Hold on to the truth that these situations ARE working out, and, crucially, without you needing to get in the middle and do the sorting.

Allow things to be, well… simple.

Simon Tyler is one of the world’s leading business coaches. His work simplifies the lives of business leaders and owners. He is an incisive consultant, inspirational writer, provocative public speaker and master facilitator. To learn more about Simon, visit http://simontyler.com.

Coaching Call To Action

This week I invite you to shift what may have become an ingrained attitude. Dedicate this week to charting incidents, simply allowing them to be what and wherever they are at that moment, and discover evidence of ‘things working out’ (particularly without your control or active input). Curb your impulse to wade in, relax and let it be.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Many of my clients have been reporting contentious conversation with coworkers and direct reports. Maybe it’s the heat of summer, although we’ve had beautiful weather this week here in MA. In the ’70s during the day! This week’s Tip from Angie and Courtney has you consider the other person’s perspective before jumping into defending your own position.

Great advice on how to keep your cool!

Quote of the Week

“The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.”

- Joseph Jouber

Seek Resolution, Not Revolution

By Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch

Take a moment today to think about an argument or heated discussion that you have had recently. It might have been a disagreement with a coworker, a fight with your spouse or a conflict with a friend. Whatever the case, think, not about the subject of the conversation, but about your underlying motivations.

How much of the conflict centered around your own ego? If you are really honest with yourself, as the conversation progressed, wasn’t the disagreement less about the topic at hand and more about your need to be right?

As a leader, you must work on your ability to take others’ views and opinions into account. If the topic involved was important enough to invest your energy in the argument, then what you really seek is resolution not revolution.

So, the next time you find yourself embroiled in an argument, stop and check your ego. Before you vigorously defend your own position, take a moment to consider the opposing perspective. After all, it’s not about being right, it’s about making progress!

This article was provided courtesy of Lead Star – a premiere leadership development firm. You can learn more about leadership by visiting their website at www.leadstar.us

Coaching Call To Action

This week expand your perspective by seeing situations through the other person’s eyes. What do you learn about them? Yourself?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

This is a great Tip for sales people by the authors,  Bob Burg and John Mann. How many times have you been “turned off” by sales people who wouldn’t keep their mouths shut? Bob and John offer an alternative to talking… listening.

Quote of the Week

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

Sell More With Silence

By Bob Burg and John David Mann

The legendary architect and futurist Buckminster (“Bucky”) Fuller hit a deep crisis in his twenties. Having gone broke and lost his infant daughter to meningitis, he felt his life was a shambles.

Standing on the edge of Lake Michigan on a bitter winter evening, about to throw himself in, he paused to think.

His life was a mess, he reasoned, because he had spent his years up to that point repeating things other people had told him.

In that moment, Bucky decided to close his mouth and not open it again until he was sure that the words he spoke really came from him.

For the next two years, he did not utter a single word. When he finally did begin to speak again, what came out was not always easy for people to understand, but the passion and conviction were unmistakably and unequivocally his and nobody else’s. It was only decades later that people came to recognize that his words also contained great genius.

What happened to Bucky is available to each and every one of us, and it was simply this:

In his silence, he discovered his authentic self. It was a critical turning point: it was in those minutes of being entirely silent and fully listening to his wife Susan that he began to understand the laws of the Go-Giver.

You tap into your greatest value and authenticity when you are not speaking. It’s not that what you say isn’t important. That’s just not where your power lies.

The most common way inexperienced salespeople shoot themselves in the foot is by saying too much when they talk about their product or service. Why do they say too much? Because they don’t yet really trust themselves. True conviction is best conveyed not through more words but through fewer; it dwells behind the words.

The Bill of Rights is stated in 660 words.

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address consists of 267 words.

The Ten Commandments takes 163.

It doesn’t take a lot of words to make a powerful point. Say less; communicate more.

In conversation, often the most powerful moments are not when you are speaking but when you pause and make room for the other person.

Sometimes we rush to fill in those empty moments, perhaps out of fear that the silence will feel awkward. But it’s better to let the silences be there: silences in a conversation have a wonderful way of coaxing deeper thoughts to the surface. The most important words that will ever pass between you and your prospective customers are the words spoken by them — not by you.

What you have most to offer others, you have to offer least of all through your words; in greater part through what you do; but in greatest part through who you are.

From: Burg, Bob and Mann, John David, (2010). Go-Givers Sell More. Portfolio Hardcover.

Reprinted with permission from Art Sobczak, Business By Phone Inc. Providing how-to ideas and tips for rejectionless prospecting, selling, and servicing by phone. Get the free ebook, “29 Sales Tips You Can Use Right Now” at http://www.BusinessByPhone.com

Coaching Call To Action

If you are on sales calls this week, consider Bob and John’s advice and talk less, listen more. What do you learn?

What’s New?

Happy 4th of July!
July 4, 2011

Next week we celebrate the 4th of July in the United States. The Coaching Tip of the Week will be on vacation. Enjoy your holiday with family and friends honoring all that we have. We’ll be back on July 15th with more new information.

Insights

Want to smile for a few minutes? Watch the video at the link below. Turn up the volume on your computer.

http://www.flixxy.com/jive-aces-bring-me-sunshine.htm

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