Some useful questions - for inquiry and reflection

One of the challenges of executive life is the huge demands made on finite time, energy and resources. Many executives have shared their anxiety about balance, keeping pace, staying healthy and keeping on top of things.

In this fast paced world there will be no time for reflection, for noodling on open-ended questions, for speculation about other possibilities for organizing work and life unless the time is allocated for that purpose. The "found time" can be in the car, the shower, on a plane, wherever - the important thing is to engage with questions, not for THE answer, but for the insights the question provides. These are the kinds of questions that can be revisited for new insights and new perspectives - that's the value of inquiry and reflection.

For example, considering a coaching relationship? Here are some questions to noodle on:

1. Why would I want to engage in a coaching relationship - what value would I want to get from being coached?
2. Is it my choice to engage in a coaching relationship - is anyone "encouraging" me that I "should" have a coach?
3. If I did get a coach and the coaching relationship works our well, what would I want to accomplish – both qualitatively and quantitavely?
4. What do I want to accomplish in my career and in my relationships at work that is not currently predictable – like I could not promise that outcome any time soon – and I want it?
5. What am I dealing with – that is on my plate right now – that isn’t moving as fast as I want – where my intentions are being stopped blocked or interrupted?
6. What have I been told about my results, my ways of being, my ways of dealing with people, that does not work?
7. Where do I find myself constrained, thwarted, resigned or stopped?
8. What have I been told – or just know about me – that works?
9. When I am backed into a corner, or when I am under pressure, what technique do I use to get what I want and get out of difficulty - my winning play-book?
10. What kind of people, or situations, do I have difficulty dealing with, or avoid altogether - that if I could deal with I would be more effective in my work, life?
    

Conditions for a Successful coaching relationship

Every successful relationship has, as part of its foundation, a set of agreements, or understanding, which are understood, shared and shape the day-to-day interactions. The same is true for the relationship between and executive and his or her coach. The best executive coaching relationships are partnerships. They are collaborations with a level of authenticity, mutual respect, and shared commitments that is rare in corporate life.

Mostly in our relationships understandings and agreements are implicit - we have just come to know the other person over time, and they know us - it just works.

Before a coaching relationship starts there needs to be some explicit understandings. Here are a few:

1. The executive being coached is committed to an outcome, which appears to be beyond his or her grasp, given historical performance.
   
2. The executive considering a coaching relationship is authentically open to being coached, and not because it is the ‘thing to do’ or because someone else thinks it is needed or a good idea.
3. The executive to be coached has a choice of coach such that they can say to a coach, “I am open to be coached, and coached by you”.
4. The coach is committed to the executive he or she is coaching and can relate to their commitments like they are his or her own.
5. The coach is competent in the area where coaching is requested.
6. The coach wants to coach this particular executive.
   

When the executive and coach are clear they want to work with each other - when they are clear there are the conditions in place for a successful working relationship, the next step is to develop a set of operating agreements.

Executive Coaching - NOT for every executive!

Every executive coach should have some non-negotiable conditions that need to be in place before a coaching relationship starts so that it has the greatest likelihood of realizing its intended outcome. Here are some that my colleagues and I share:

1. The executive wants to be coached – wants to be coached because there is a result (a future) the executive is committed to that is a risk – it cannot be authentically promised and delivered drawing on past-based knowledge and experience. Or, current events or circumstances are stopping, blocking and thwarting the executive’s efforts in realizing of that future.
2. The executive is willing to “try on” the coaches’ perspective – and think and act from that perspective and see what transpires – even (especially) when the coach’s perspective seems illogical, unreasonable, infeasible – or just plain wrong from the executive’s point of view.
3. The executive needs to be grounded in the realities of his/her world. Which means a finely tuned sense of whether he and his organization is exceeding stakeholders’ expectations, meeting expectations or failing to do so.
4. The executive being coached needs to demonstrate being in, and committed to, his/her own game. He/she knows the key registers of performance (KPI’s), and is responsive when there are variances. The executive is engaged with all the key elements of the business (accountabilities, project, assignment) that he/she is working with – as in hands on.
5. Being accountable is essential. Operating from, “I am accountable”. Holding him/herself and others to account. Being willing to look at what is present, and in the way, and what is missing, that needs to be provided. Being his/her word – keeping promises and holding others to account for their promises.
6. The willingness to make “unreasonable” promises is critical – with the authentic intention of acting consistently with the promise. And when time has elapsed review “what happened” so that what works can be distinguished and built on, what does not work can be distinguished and eliminated, and what is missing can be identified and put in place.
   
7. Executives who are unwilling to “interrupt the flow” of business as usual and, by doing so, put themselves at risk of failure – by making unreasonable promises and requests – are not candidates for coaching.
   

Manage the conversations, not people or things

I have the view that the folks we have been calling "leaders", whether designated as such with that role and title or not, are in fact "conversation generators and managers". That’s what they do, they bring new conversations into existence, nurture and manage them till they are sustainable, and displace, or take out of existence, existing conversations that are inconsistent with or thwart the conversations they generate.

Before I go on, a bit more of the framework my colleagues and I work with: Context (the sum of our conversations internal and external) shapes the way we see the world; the way we see the world shapes the actions that are available for us to take; the actions we take shapes the outcomes/results we produce.

Which means, if we want different outcomes we need to change the context – which means put a new conversation into existence and/or take an existing conversation out of existence.

It is not hard to see the impact of new conversations on behavior and outcomes. Some politicians and marketing folks are brilliant at what we call “conversation management”. Look at the impact of Google and uTube, to say nothing of the Internet - powerful examples of new conversations - and new behaviors and outcomes from those who engage with these conversations.

What we, as leaders (conversation generators and managers) have available to us now is a technology, that is getting more sophisticated as we speak, to disseminate conversations – virally multiply them – till they are “the way people see the world, which shapes their actions…” We are now able to troll the Internet for particular conversations – to give them more mass, and therefore power to shape behavior - or to delete them, with the same intent in mind.

Part of what some people complain about in this emerging real/cyber world is their sense of dislocation as the form and content of “conversations” they were familiar with are changing or don’t mean anything any more. So-called leaders complain that what used to work for them in getting people to do what they want doesn’t anymore. They don’t appreciate how come a conversation in a private meeting is all over their organization, or even the Internet, in minutes because someone sent an instant message – a what? Or how come an off-hand remark can have such devastating results. In the US we even have a new way to speak about the phenomenon – a macaca moment - thanks to a former US Senator, George Allen, who was recorded on video making an off-hand derogatory remark, which got lots of play on TV and uTube.

We only have to look around us to see the power of conversations on the collective behavior of a group, organization or society. For example, I suspect there are few in the world who are unaware that the US has a presidential campaign under way. Here are some implicit/explicit conversations in the US about what a candidate must believe to be fit for the role:

1. You have to believe in god – with a capital G, (a Christian God). If you are an atheist or agnostic, or believe in some other god don’t apply – or, be very good about faking being a believer
2. Guns are like children, they’re ours – don’t even think about taking them away. And you better show you are for them – guns and children that is.
   

Staying with the US for a moment. Much of the world may have been perplexed that a second or two of Janet Jackson’s breast being exposed – which most people did not see until the instant replays – could have ended in senate hearings, the Federal Communications Commission issuing new broadcast regulations and fines. And broadcasters instituting new practices the insert time delays in their broadcasts so they can edit out “indecencies”.

Anyone who doubts the power of conversations in shaping actions and outcomes only needs to reflect on some examples like these that are all around us. Any anyone who is unsure of the power of technology to amplify and disseminate “transformational” conversations is not paying attention.

You Just Don’t Listen!

One executive I have recently started working with has a constant complaint about the members of his team that, "they just don't listen!". His evidence for that assertion is that things he (thinks) he has communicated clearly are just not understood or acted on by people.

When he started to examine who listened to him and who didn't, he was not sure. What he was sure about is that his messages were not getting through - most of the time. "You see, the problem is, they just don't listen. You need to help them listen better".

Putting aside for the moment the "externalizing the source of the issue", what is accurate about the accusation? Is it accurate that, "they just don't listen"?

It is a familiar accusation for sure, familiar perhaps because we often make it of others – “the problem with John is that he just doesn’t listen”. How is it that so many of us can claim to be good listeners and yet, at the same time there is this general and pervasive accusation that people don’t listen?

The truth is however, we do listen. We are listening all the time. In every conversation, in every interaction, we are listening. The big question that is worth serious inquiry is, “to what are we listening?”

The easiest answer and the one that most people give is, “well I am listening to what is being said of course”. That is accurate for sure. However, if we press the inquiry we will soon discover that the “what is being said of course” that we are listening to is being said by us, to ourselves, in what I call our background conversations – the conversations that go on in our own heads.

As far as I can tell these conversations are going on non-stop, sometimes more loudly than others, but non-stop nonetheless. If that the notion of background conversations is not something you are familiar with, at this point stop reading, and for about 30 seconds and just listen.

It won’t take long for the internal commentary to start up: “What am I supposed to be listening for?” , “I don’t hear anything!”. Whatever the content was, what you were listening to was your background conversation - the constant commentator.

What we will begin to discern, when we start listening to our background conversations, is that we have an opinion about everything. We are constantly commenting on everything that is going on around us. We will even notice that frequently we are commenting on our own comments. We are constantly expressing our likes and dislikes, our judgments and evaluations, our preferences and prejudices; this is why we get accused of not listening. Because in fact, we seldom actually hear what is being said to us – the "just what is being said to us" - because we are also listening to our own commentary about what is being said, it as if we are trying to listen through a filter of interference that keeps interrupting what is being said to us that we are trying to listen to.

Often, and more often that we know, this filter of interference, is our own internal commentary. And often it is louder and more insistent than was is being said to us by those who are trying to get a message through to us.

We even have a whole repetoire of techniques to cover up the fact we were listening to ourselves and not the person speaking to us, for example, "can you just say that more more time, I want to be sure I heard you accurately?"

So it is really important for leaders to pay more attention to what is being listened, than what is being spoken. Too many "leaders" broadcast rather than communicate.

"What's the difference?" my man asks.

"Well, that's your first inquiry - Oh, and start from the perspective that you are the problem, not your people. A useful starting perspective, don't you think? Given there are ten people on your team not listening (they are the problem) and one person on the team not being listened to, who thinks he's not the problem".

Can executive coaching really make a difference?

For the most part business executives are a pretty pragmatic lot; results, ROI, being competitive are just a few elements of their lexicon. Accountants, lawyers, marketing people, strategists, technologists are just a few of the people that make up an executive team. Rarely though, do you see the team coach as part of the line up - as you would if we were talking about football, basketball, or baseball.

How come that just about every sport, and all the performing arts, have the notion of coaching, and being coached, as a normal part of the structure and disciplines of their profession - but not for most executive teams?

Is there a huge opportunity for enhanced performance being missed here? One would think so.

The image of a particular coaching scene sticks in my mind when I think of what would be possible if executives were coached the same way sports professionals or performing artists are.

Some years ago I saw the Kirov Ballet in rehearsal in front of an audience of about 2500 people in the London Coliseum. I don't remember the ballet being rehearsed, or who the prima ballerina was. What has stayed with me is a series of exchanges between the ballet master and the prima ballerina:

• The stage is empty but for the ballet master, who signals to the orchestra to play, at which point the prima ballerina makes a dramatic entrance from back stage right and traverses the stage to front stage left, dancing in a way I cannot describe, except to say it was breathtaking
• When she came to a stop the audience, mostly mothers and daughters, and clearly ballet enthusiasts, broke into thunderous applause
• At which point the ballet master pounded the stage with a long staff, like a broom handle, silencing the applause. He wagged his index finger like a high speed windshield wiper and, in Russian rapid fired a series of, "niet, niet, niet's", issued some instructions and at then pointed to the back right of the stage. It was not difficult to deduce that some powerful coaching had just been given
• The prima ballerina walked to the back of the stage, the orchestra was instructed to play again, and the prima ballerina repeated her performance
• When she finished this time the audiences response was still enthusiastic though a little less thunderous
• The ballet master repeated his pounding, his wagging, his niet's and his pointing to the back of the stage. The tension in the audience was palpable
• As before, the prima ballerina walked to the back of the stage, the orchestra was instructed to play again, and the prima ballerina repeated her performance
• When she finished this time, the audience was silent, the atmosphere was tense
• After a brief theatrical pause, the ballet master turned to the audience and said in a loud strong, accented voice, "Now!" and the audience exploded in applause, as much to relieve tension no doubt as to show appreciation. He then turned his attention to the prima ballerina and was clearly showering her with praise and appreciation as her delight was obvious.
  

I have often thought, "what would be possible for organizational performance, for work satisfaction, for relationships, and so on, if that kind of rigor and discipline was a regular part of work? If that commitment to each others' best performance was what characterized relationships at work?"

For me, that is the possibility of coaching.