What are some parallels between coaching, time management, and saying no?

Does the expression “To-do list” ring a bell? Have you ever created one? Have you ever been frustrated for not being able to finish your tasks? Or have you ever attended a training after which you thought, “It was so interesting, and there was so much great content in it!” And what happened after a few days and weeks? If someone had asked you what your takeaway was, what would you have said? Would you have been able to articulate the main area of focus clearly? It is not hard to believe that research shows that an average human being remembers only 10% of what you hear after 24 hours. 

How to focus

That is why the most significant responsibility of every trainer is to make sure that it is clear what the participating potential or existing leader should remember. What determines what should be in focus? It depends on a lot of different factors. What are the critical leadership competencies of the organization? What are the key values reflected in the behavior of the leader? What are his current strengths and areas of development? On a scale of 1-10, how motivated is the leader to work on the given area? After putting all those questions in a blender, the right focus area will emerge. 

Through a straightforward process of designing and facilitating the LPA journey, the participant receives feedback, a combination of the observation of all participants and the trainer. Out of this 5-6 pages document, the participant decides one and only one area of focus. It is tempting to list several items. Evidence shows that leaders tend to define many activities not just for themselves but also for their team members. 

What happens in a lot of cases? Only a fraction of the activities listed on the to-do list is accomplished, which causes frustration and lack of motivation. In the worst case for some perfectionists, this results in burn-out because they will do more than they can. As a leader, it is the critical responsibility to say no in two ways: 

1. One is to themselves. When the manager thinks about what they want to accomplish, they have to say no to most tasks. They should be able to delegate and restructure the jobs. One of the easiest ways is to say no to meetings that are not entirely relevant to them. Back-to-back meetings are not just exhausting but also have the potential of finding time for what is essential. 
2. The other “no” is when they define what their expectations are for their team members. They have to help them to see what is essential and what is not. What is the one key area that will work to move the team member towards their goal and towards the results expected by the organization? Every single member of the value chain should be clear about the one Key Area of Focus. 

That is also what we teach and use in our development program by helping the leader see his/her Key Area of Focus in the leader’s development journey. Because if Everything is important, nothing is important.

Contact Us to learn how Leadership Potential Accelerators’ leadership journey can help you.

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If we believe in the definition that Ego is our operational center that defines who we are and why we are different from others, then we can state that a great leader has to accept his/her team members. I mean, accept WHO they are. 

How to appreciate team members

Great leaders make sure that the team members feel this. When they feel accepted and valued and can work and exist based on their values at work, they will be much more open to receive (and give) constructive, corrective feedback. And the feedback has to focus on HOW the person did something and not on the person. In other words, it is not about the person but the behaviors.  

And let me share a piece of insider information with you, just today; that is how we trainers do it as well. We do our best to appreciate participants’ comments and shared ideas. We make sure that their Ego feels safe and respected, and when they say something that is not right, we ask them why they think it is correct. It is almost always an open discussion in which the participant can draw their conclusion. 

And sometimes we change our minds because we learn something from our participants! Suppose the trainer is 100% sure that the participant’s opinion is not correct, and an open dialogue does not help because it is not the right tool at the given moment. In that case, the trainer can share different options, and the magic question can be asked: “Which option do you think could work best A, B, or C?” 

Leaders can achieve a lot by respecting the person, communicating that, and correcting behaviors. It is hard to overcommunicate respect and acceptance. By regularly giving positive and constructive feedback, team members will open up and autocorrect their views about themselves. It takes time, effort, and sometimes even more effort.  

Your managers can become great leaders with the right insights in ego and how it is used. Contact Us to learn how we can help.

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“If I understood you correctly, your priority is to update your CRM data?”

I have never heard anyone answer with a clear Yes or No, which is excellent news! It opens new possibilities to involve the other person. People like to make corrections; they add something and say “Yes and,” “Not exactly because,” etc.

To be agile:

1. Understand the other person’s view,
2. Solve conflicts without burning bridges and hurting others, and
3. Involve and motivate others to achieve even more.

Ask questions to help communications. Try to limit your questions. The more straightforward question will be answered. Too many questions can limit your exchange. If you ask several ones at once, the other one goes to waste.

And the real magic of questions is…SILENCE. Make sure you count until 10 when you raise a question. What I see leaders struggling with is waiting for the answer because they think they know it better, not you, of course, the others who are not reading the book.

There is another question I have received many times: “How do I know that I asked a good question?” You don’t need me or a coach or a trainer to let you know. The reaction of your team member will tell you. The first reaction to a good question is, “I didn’t think about that; it is a good question!” Or “Hmm, I don’t know!” A great leader stays in the tension of the conversation and observes the impact of their questions and statements. He navigates through the conversation like a great captain taking one wave after the next. Good luck with adjusting the angle of your next conversation!

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How can a leader show agility the quickest way in interactions with team members?

Many times, training participants ask me what they can do to make an impact in their team? In other words, what is the quickest way to act in an agile manner?

Without going deep into the theory about agility at this point, I would like to share my point of view about how to act in an agile way related to people’s skills.

People Agility

My suggestion takes into consideration the definition of what leadership agility or more specific, People Agility means “The degree to which you are open-minded toward others, enjoy interacting with a diversity of people, understand their unique strengths, interests, and limitations, and use them effectively to accomplish organizational goals.”

My recommendation to you comes from my observations in training and shadow coaching. And it is not rocket science, but to be able to do that, you have to fight with a basic instinct. Usually, the default behavior of leaders is talking, giving advice, and telling team members what to do. Why? The explanation is also easy. Because they think they know the answer, they want to keep the way to the end, to the solution quick and “simple.” And because most of them have been in the job role of the team members. So they think the best is if they “help” them with their clear advice.

Add More to The Toolbox

Advice is one of the tools in the toolbox of every leader. There is a reason why the Swiss army knife does not consist of one tool only. Give advice when time is short, and you are 100% sure that it is appropriate. But include asking questions much more. In spontaneous conversations, in meetings, in your negotiations, in your presentations. With your colleagues, family members, and everywhere where human interaction is happening.

When I observe leaders, I hear them asking a lot of closed-ended and or leading questions. A lot of them think that they have involved their team members. Meanwhile, they shared their expectations in the form of “questions.” I am sure you are a Master of Asking Questions, so this chapter is relevant for those NOT reading this book.

Ask the right questions

My clear suggestion is that when you prepare for a conversation, write down 5-7 open-ended questions to make sure you are interested in the other person’s opinion. You show that you care about their solution. It does not cost anything to include more questions, but it lifts your team’s level of motivation and commitment. Some of my favorite questions are:

Classical open-ended questions: “How are you making sure that you focus on your key task?” “What do you need to be ready for the presentation?”

Comparative: “Would you rather choose A or B?” “What would be the advantages of option A?” “For you and the others involved?”

Hypothetical: “What if we postponed this question to next week, and you would think about 2-3 more alternatives?”

Scaling: “On a scale from 1-10, how well prepared are you?”

Playful: “What would you do if you had a magic wand?”

Provocative: “Are you ready for the next challenge?”

Priority questions: “What are your three most critical priorities?” “your most important goal..”, “your least important concern….”

Past: What worked best in the past in such a situation?

If you don’t have time to prepare or the conversation is happening spontaneously, you can still write them down meanwhile the conversation is happening. There is nothing wrong with taking notes either on paper or on your laptop/Mac during a conversation. If you want, you can even share with your counterpart that you are taking notes to focus on what matters.

Have questions about People Agility or Leadership agility? Contact Us to learn more.

Ask Questions

Most manager’s go-to tool is giving direct reports advice. Asking questions and listening are important tools too.

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Covid forced us to spend most of our time in the online world. A lot of us had to learn how it works by trial and error. No organization or human being was fully equipped with tools and techniques in mid-March 2020 when Covid-19 changed our life from one minute to the other. Let me share with you what I have learned about how to be successful in virtual interactions.

Do you remember your last face-to-face interaction before the announcement of the lock-down when you did not think your life would change radically? Do you remember your first frustration when you had to run an important meeting in the virtual world and there was a lack of engagement even though you were well prepared?

As a trainer, I first thought that soon everything will return to normal, I was happy to have a little “break” when the lockdown was communicated on March 13th. Fortunately, I appreciated having less work (at that time I traveled 2-4 times a month), and I enjoyed having more spare time than usual. Soon reality kicked in and I saw that Covid-19 was here to stay for a while. My trainer colleagues and I had to unlearn, relearn and learn some new ways of teaching, training, and facilitating workshops.

I had a terrible experience during my first training in which an internal training manager wanted to control the way I was running the program. She did not want to have any breakout sessions and she wanted to limit the individual reflection time of the participants to two minutes. I had 22 participants, which is a large group in the virtual world. Since I was just learning how this works, I gave in and accepted her “rules” and it did NOT go well. I felt terrible. After having a lot of brainstorming calls with my wonderful colleagues about how to run workshops efficiently, we created our own set of tools and best practices which we are happy to share with you.

If you are interested in learning about what I consider as best in the world of virtual training, keep reading.

I have learned most of my tools from the evaluations and verbal feedback of my participants. They absolutely LOVE the work in smaller groups called “breakout sessions”. They feel much more confident sharing their thoughts when they are not together with 20+ other colleagues but rather with only 4-5. The engagement becomes very lively and afterward, they are happy to share their main points. It is beneficial if they know beforehand that they will be asked to do so. This means that selecting a spokesperson is an additional task for them that should be communicated before sending them into their subgroups.

I learned from a dear friend of mine that in the online world you always have to transmit energy, enthusiasm, and clarity. You cannot expect the same from the receiving end, your participants. Sometimes you have to wait until the end to get some recognition. Under clarity I mean you have to be 100% clear about what you want to share. The likelihood that people will ask questions in case they don’t understand is low, much lower than in the face-to-face world.

Using different devices such as a flipchart, annotation on your screen, a lot of open-ended questions like “On a scale from one to ten, how clear is this exercise to you?” or “What would you prefer, a break now or to finish sooner?” is key. Involving participants is even more crucial than in the “real world”.

Another important success factor is whether you are standing or sitting while you are talking as the facilitator. (Which is better, standing or sitting? What are the impacts of standing or sitting?) All this counts a lot when you do what, and why.

A lot of our clients could not imagine that a real leadership development program could be run in Zoom or on any platform. Our internal research tells us that participants are not just fully engaged and committed, but they are finding that an additional advantage of the program is that they can spend quality time together. Since Covid-19, most team members are working individually from their homes, so virtual training where they can see each other is a unique gift that is even increasing their loyalty to their team and organization. They feel that they are listened to and cared for.

If you want to hear more tips, contact us, and we will be happy to discuss virtual learning further with you.

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