Coach Andrea

Coach Andrea’s Intro

There’s so much negative press about meetings and how they are a waste of time.   I was intrigued when I read this week’s Tip by Jill Geisler about when meetings are beneficial.

Quote of the Week

“A great strategy meeting is a meeting of minds.”

Six Good Reasons to Call a Meeting

By Jill Geisler

1. To provide timely information.  These meetings involve announcement or status reports shared among colleagues.
2. To give direction. This is the huddle before the play; the review of roles, responsibilities and goals.
3. To make group decisions. These confabs give people a voice in a pending matter.
4. To produce a product. The team is together to create something right there, or produce some part of it.
5. To generate ideas and solutions. The group is brainstorming or problem-solving.
6. To observe rituals.  People gather to celebrate, share, bond and make memories (p. 280).

From: Geisler, J. (2012). Work happy: what great bosses know. New York: Center Street.

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

Your Call To Action

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

“How do I share my ideas so that my team sees what I see?” James asked at the beginning of our coaching session last week.  This week’s Tip by Peter Jensen discusses the importance of communicating using imagery to enhance performance.

Quote of the Week

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

Paint Clear Pictures of What is Desired

By Peter Jensen

It is common for coaches to tell people what they don’t want them to do, but it’s often difficult for them to articulate what they do want.  This seemingly simple concept – tell people what you want, not what you don’t want is so easy to put into words, but so hard to put into action!  Remember that people can’t do things they can’t imagine.  Once we understand, at the cellular rather than the intellectual level, that imagery truly is the language of performance, everything opens up for us in a different way.  We begin to realize, for example, that we must communicate so that people can create clear pictures in their minds of what we want, if we are going to get them to do what we want.  And when we say “communicate,” we don’t mean just through the words we use, though our choice of words is important.  If we want our people to perform in a particular way but don’t behave that way ourselves, the picture we are creating can get very blurry, no matter how clear our words may be (p. 116)!

From:  Jensen, P. (2012).  The winning factor.  New York: AMACom.

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 sharing what you want or don’t want when you talk to your team?  Sometimes to be able to articulate what we want, we need to start by taking thinking time on our own to address what we don’t want.  Once we see those conditions, we can then move to defining what we do want.  What is your process for creating imagery for your team?

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Please call Andrea at 508-231-0766 or email Andrea@CoachAndrea.com for additional information.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

David Cottrell provides an insightful idea about team make up that you may not have realized. He says there are two types of people: high-energy performers and energy sappers. The ratio of energizers to sappers is important for the team to be successful.  And it’s not a 1:1 ratio. Who is on your team?

Quote of the Week

“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
~Vince Lombardi

Identifying Energizers and Sappers

by David Cottrell

In theory, every person on your team is a source of energy for your organization.  But in reality, some team members create energy while others sap or destroy energy.  If you know your team well, you already know which team members are sappers and which ones are the energizers.

High-energy performers test the limits and spur themselves and others on to even greater results.  These are the people who will push you up and add energy to your reservoir.  They spark others to perform.  It’s fun to watch them in action.  A team full of energized people is typically easy to motivate but challenging to manage because their high energy level requires constant direction and focus.

At the other end of the spectrum are the sappers.  You know who they are – they complain and whine, and think of every reason possible why plans and strategies will not work.  They are the people who pull you down and sap your energy.  They blame others for their issues and don’t accept responsibility for what they control.  Their negativity and cynicism effectively sucks out the energy right out of the room.  A team dominated by energy sappers is relatively easy to lead because there is little forward movement or activity.  But it is very challenging to motivate these team members to achieve results because they are content with mediocrity.

Your organizational energy is not the sum of your individuals.  It is dependent on the ratio of energizers to sappers.  If you have more sappers than energizers, the energy will be drained, and in fact the energizers may eventually become sappers.  As unfortunate as it is, a negative, cynical person has a far greater impact on the energy of the team than a positive person.  Adding a positive person does not counter a sapper; in fact it probably takes at least three energizers to counter the energy drained by one sapper (Cottrell, p. 33-34).

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

This week take some time to look at who you are being both at work and outside of work.  Are they different?  What if you were to align them so that you were being the same in both places?  What will you do more of, keep the same, stop doing?

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