The E-Myth Revisited
As a fledgling coach with a private practice, back in the day when if you said you were a coach the inevitable question was “oh, what sport?” a book that made an earth shaking difference was the E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. If you are in business, thinking of starting a business or have a friend or loved one who is suffering in a business, this book is a must. There are several brilliant ideas in this book including:
- If you have started a business, you are either a technician (that’s what I was as a coach, so is your friend who loved to knit and started a knitting shop), a manager (the guy who understands the processes and systems that a business must have to succeed – people who buy franchises are usually managers) or a visionary (the person who sees a gap in the market place – Don Fisher started The Gap because he couldn’t find a pair of jeans, Steve Jobs wanted computers to be friendly). You might have a little of the other two but you are primarily one of these and if you are going to succeed you need to partner with others who have the other two or find a way to grow yourself enough to get the other two covered. It is stunningly simple and true. The crazy thing is that as I have moved out of the small business world into the corporate world, I find that the same holds true for leaders inside organizations who need to be “intrapraneurs”.
- As a business owner, you need to find a way to spend as much time working on your business as you spend working in your business. Obvious? Maybe, but in 1995 I didn’t know it. Again, totally applicable to people in organizations.
- Anything that works in the business must be systemized and if possible automated. You have to do this so if you get the flu and can’t make it in, the whole house of cards doesn’t fall down. You also have to do it so you can grow. It was the compelling evidence for how important this is that made me start my own coaching company with coaches using my system to coach the audience I had mastered. And finally, I have used this maxim again and again as a manager in a much larger machine and it has served me well.
Michael Gerber has many other books out and has an institute and all that, but for sheer straightforward simplicity for people who maybe don’t think of themselves as “business” people, this book is a bible.
Habits Make All the Difference
The promise was books that rocked my coaching practice that are off the beaten path. OK, so maybe this one isn’t that original, and I must have stumbled on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey in Barnes and Noble because I can’t remember who recommended it. But I have to say that from the day I read this book, I changed some habits that utterly altered the trajectory of my life. I don’t think it is a coincidence that when I started doing what Covey said (and let’s be clear, not everything, just a few things made a huge difference) my business took off, my household became more orderly and calm and my quality of life shot up. I developed a reputation for being freakishly productive. I feel that almost every other “self-help” book that came after this one simply fleshed out some of the good ideas that were here in the first place.
In the section called Put First Things First, the 4 box quadrant probably made the biggest impact on me. The idea is that we all can put every single thing we do into one of the four quadrants.
| Urgent | Not Urgent | |
| Important | QUADRANT I crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects |
QUADRANT II prevention, Principle Centered activities, relationship building, recognizing and leveraging new opportunities, planning the future, recreation |
| Not important | QUADRANT III interruptions, some calls, some mail, some reports, some meetings, popular activities |
QUADRANT IV trivia, busy work, some mail, some phone calls time wasters, pleasant activities |
The ones who spend the bulk of their time doing things in the “important” quadrants are simply going to have a much higher life satisfaction quotient. This very concrete model gave me the courage to say no to things that did not fall into the Quadrants I or II. Today, I let people assume I am extremely busy (everybody does) and if pressed I will admit that I am no busier than anyone else, just extremely focused on what is most important to me and ferociously choosy about what I focus on. Don’t tell anyone.
Learn to Love Chaos
The second book in my series on books that knocked my socks off and made an appreciable impact on my coaching practice: Leadership and The New Science
In the early 90’s I was having lunch with a friend and mentor Alex Caillet and I asked him what one book would make the biggest difference for me and he recommended Meg Wheatley’s Leadership and The New Science. One of the things I had noticed working with clients is that they were desperate for answers. The right answers. Of course, as a coach, it was not my job to be the truth dispenser with all of the right answers. But I did feel an obligation to help clients articulate a set of internal values that they could use to make decisions no matter what the situation. But I was still at a loss for a set of Universal Laws that were consistent, were not beholden to any particular world view or religious law. I kept coming back to quantum physics – there had been a recent splash in the news about complexity theory and I had been noodling on how to apply those laws to regular life and work for my clients. Well – Meg beat me to it, and what an amazing job she did. Her breakthrough book made a huge impact on me and in the business world at the time, but as happens with many great books, it has fallen out of circulation. I say, it is time to bring it back. Some of the earth shaking concepts:
- Order will naturally emerge out of chaos. You have to be patient and order will come naturally from within. Good leaders accept occasional chaos as a revitalizing and renewing step.
- Relationships are the only things that matter- it is critical to develop a diversity of relationships.
- Information is the organizing force in the universe; it is the life blood of any system. If it is not flowing freely, the system will not self organize properly.
- Vision is an invisible field and it is the leader’s job to hold this field.
Is that all? Isn’t that enough? Going back to re-read this book to create this blog post, it has once again rocked my world.
Click here for a terrific, oldie but goodie interview with Meg Wheatley
PS I think it is important to give credit to whomever introduces us to great books. The person who introduced me to the Angeles Arrien book mentioned in the previous post is an old, dear friend Belle Linda Halpern, founding partner of The Ariel Group.
Unexpected Inspiration
In my mentoring of coaches and coaching practitioners in organizations I am often asked what my influences have been, so I thought it would be fun to do a short series about the books that have rocked my world as a coach. Not the obvious ones, the books that are not necessarily on the beaten paths and the coaching school reading lists. Over the next few weeks I will share some of my favorite books with a short review of their key messages.
To get us off to a brilliant start for 2012, I will tell you a little about The Four Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary by Angeles Arrien. Arrien is an anthropologist who travelled and lived among indigenous peoples and studied change agents – all of whom draw on the power and wisdom of the 4 archetypes in the title. What she found was that no matter what their culture – peace loving or warlike, maternal vs. patriarchal, agrarian or nomadic – all of the effective leaders follow roughly the same four principles which comprise the Four Fold Way.
- Show up and choose to be present (Warrior)
- Pay attention to what has heart and meaning (Healer)
- Tell the truth without blame or judgment (Visionary)
- Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome (Teacher)
I have been using these principles personally as a self leader, and experimenting with them with clients for over 15 years. They have proved to have astonishing staying power and have supported those who wish to build personal power, be more effective with groups, and increase their coaching skill. Most fine leaders are not as well rounded as they might be, and find very little inspiration in competency models to articulate their gaps and create a real plan to close them. This model provides another angle and I have found that the principles work regardless of religious conviction or cultural background.
Stop Adding Value
I was talking with a Blanchard Coach the other day about the topic of recognition. One leader she’s working with had noticed that although there were “formal” recognition programs in his company, he believed there was a need for informal, just-in-time recognition. I reminded the coach that Ken Blanchard calls that catching people doing things right.
As we continued on the topic, she told me how this leader wants to be very encouraging of other people in his company—and often joins team meetings to hear about the latest ideas, projects, and plans. In his enthusiasm to endorse the thinkers, he always adds value.
What happens when he “improves” on a decision? She’s going to ask him…but I’d say it’s a safe guess that when this leader speaks, others stop speaking. It’s pretty hard to disagree with the boss—especially when he’s not been part of the creative process.
This leader has a great idea—to recognize and endorse the good work of others. I’m glad he’s working with a coach to support him in this plan, because even the best of intentions can sometimes have the opposite impact! Rather than add his comments, the true value he could add in these meetings would be to really listen. Through listening, he could coax and encourage the ideas of others in these meetings. From his encouragement, better decisions can be added by members of the team.
By first stopping his own reflex to fix or improve, he will certainly then be able to catch people doing things right!
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders About Change
There are probably six excellent change theories and models, and hundreds of books. Here are a couple of little factoids about the human brain that just cuts to the chase on this topic:
- People can only really focus on one big goal at a time. Setting another goal will most likely cancel out the original goal (Rock).
2. Change is hard for everyone and really really hard for some, because it literally sets off alarm bells in the brain (Rock and Schwartz). When navigating a change, take more time than you think should be needed, set up systems for people to have conversations about the change to process it. People need time and coaching to relate, repeat and reframe (Deutschman) their thinking about the changes expected of them. Be ready to be talking about the change long after you have become bored to death with it.
As Peter Senge so advises:
- Start small
- Grow steadily
- Don’t plan everything and
- Expect challenges.
Image by Paul Brentnall
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders – 7
Many people have an intuitive sense about how sensitive people are to their own and others’ status. Some are oblivious. BUT…it is critical that you be mindful of your people’s status. People need to know where they stand, and will respond well when treated appropriately in terms of their status (Rock) (Zinc et al).
People who feel that their status has not been fully recognized will also feel a damaging sense of unfairness which will negatively impact how they feel about their work environment far beyond what might seem rational (Tabibnia). When people act like lunatics, before you judge them, check first to see if someones’ place in the hierarchy has been threatened. Don’t upset the cupcakes, unless you mean to.
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders About False Consensus
You will vastly overestimate what people know, for example, your take on the current context or your reasoning for a specific course of action, assuming that others know what you know and see what you see; this is called False Consensus (Ross et al). Remember this when explaining the nuts and bolts of your vision, strategy and goals. Become accustomed to seeing the world differently from others, and defining reality as you see it regularly, more than you think you should need to (Senge).
Stan Slap once said “Most leaders would just get where they’re going by themselves and send a postcard if they could.” Don’t try it, it won’t work. Stand at the front, hold the map aloft and keep explaining again and again. Long past the point when you are bored.
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders About Feedback
Feedback: The never ending mystery! Here is yet another installment in the series on what we have to learn about Leadership from the study of neuroscience.
Feedback:
- Hire for Feedback Orientation. Individuals, who have feedback orientation like feedback, believe it has value, seek it regularly, have the wherewithal to process feedback with and without help, are sensitive to others’ view of themselves and generally feel accountable to act on feedback (London and Smither). Ask yourself about your own feedback orientation? Are you a role model for asking for and receiving feedback?
2. Build a culture in which feedback is natural and given in the moment. A culture of feedback is :
“…one where individuals continuously receive, solicit, and use formal and informal feedback to improve their job performance. This may be linked to effective policies and programs for performance management, continuous learning and career development. The individual’s feedback orientation depends in part on the support and climate for learning. The more frequent the feedback and the closer it follows the behavior in question, the more likely it is to be accepted. The more support [from you the leader] for learning and development, including the availability of behaviorally-oriented feedback, the more the individual is likely to develop a positive orientation toward feedback. ” (London and Smither)
3. People who have sustained a great deal of trauma are going to have a very hard time distinguishing a real threat from a potential one (Rock). This means that workers who go through rounds of layoffs and are not given new information to raise their levels of certainty will most probably become less and less able to receive any critical feedback. Only people working in an environment where they feel safe will be open to learning, be more likely to have insights and be generally more creative and productive (Gordon).
Image from Grant Cochrane
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders 4
A new installment in the series on what we have to learn about leadership from the study of neuroscience.
Fear is bad for Business:
Well, it’s true. We suspected that it was, but now we know for sure. No one gets smarter when they are afraid. Living in an environment of constant threat erodes creativity and cognitive ability (Phelps) (Gordon).
And:
Expectations have real power. The disappointment of expectations feels much worse to people than simply not liking events or policies when something happens. If an employee has an expectation of a reward or promotion that is not met, the brain feels just terrible. It is critical to manage expectations carefully to avoid people feeling awful and taking it out on each other or even more likely, your customers (Rock).
Image from IdeaGo
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