Devil’s Snare
My oldest child was the perfect age when JK Rowling was publishing her Harry Potter books. Together, we began learning about Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with me reading the stories to her at bedtime. And as Harry grew up, so did my daughter. By the time the final books were coming out, she was finishing High School, and I’d have to wait until she had devoured the latest novel on her own before I could have my turn.
The characters each have their individual challenges but always have the need for one another, which is a great life lesson—not just a coming of age lesson. Naturally, some of my favorite themes from the series are appropriate in Coaching.
In the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry and his best friends are new students at Hogwarts, and are on a quest to find the Stone. They are continually thwarted by unexpected enchantments, and they are just learning how to use their magical skills. After quelling “Fluffy” (a three-headed snarling dog!) they are enmeshed in Devil’s Snare:
This plant uses its creepers and tendrils to ensnare anyone who touches it, binding their arms and legs and eventually choking them. The harder a person struggles against Devil’s Snare, the faster and more tightly it binds them; if they relax, it will not tighten as quickly.
This encounter with Devil’s Snare illustrates the character distinctions of Harry’s two best friends which plays out through the entire series: Hermione is a studious perfectionist and Ron is ill-prepared and emotional. Because of her research, Hermione recognizes the species and tells her friends to relax to get out of the clutches of the plant. At first Ron fights, causing more distress. Finally, despite his fear, he follows her advice and is freed.
- What are the circumstances you face in which struggling is increasing your distress?
- Have you relaxed in the face of fear? What occurred?
- Do you have associates who have knowledge to share with you? Are you listening to them?
As the venerable Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, told Harry: “It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
Choose wisely!
Going With the Flow
Flow : The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced mee-high chick-sent-mee-high, my friend David Rock told me that, and he is important because he wrote one of my top books The Brain at Work) is another book that stopped me in my tracks. Published in 1990, my copy is old, much dog eared and underlined. The author is more recently widely known as a pioneer in the Positive Psychology arena, and his early work outlined in Flow was required reading for coaches because it was solid research about what makes people feel good. Absent real problems like psychological damage, war or pestilence, people were coming to coaches with the objective of optimizing their existence and more specifically, their time at work. Csikszentmihalyi says that in his studies, when people reflected on their most positive experiences they seemed to share one if not all of these characteristics:
- “ the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing.”
- we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing.”
- The task has “clear goals and
- Provide immediate feedback
- There is deep but effortless involvement that shuts out the noise of everyday life
- We are able to exercise a sense of control over our actions
- Self consciousness disappears, but sense of self emerges more strongly after the experience is over
- The sense of time passing is altered; minutes can seem like hours, or hours can feel like minutes.” (Harper, 1991, pg. 49)
Csikszentmihalyi’s theory was that to achieve flow we needed to maintain the balance between the level of challenge of the activity, and our skill level – if the challenge is too low, we become bored, if it is too high we become overly anxious. Each individual needs to monitor their own challenge level to keep it optimal to stay engaged. 
This rang so true for me, and it was extremely useful in work with clients who were clearly bored, but judging themselves for it, thinking they had perfectly jobs and should be happy. Not so! To stay in Flow, it is critical to constantly be raising the bar. This is not totally true for everyone all the time, but for some people, some of the time, the model is extremely useful.
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.
Who Do You Aim To Please?
Throughout the course of our lives, we’re constantly trying to impress someone.
As kids, we want our parents to be proud of us. We want our friends to think we’re cool. We want our teachers to think we’re smart.
As we get older, we still want our parents to be proud of us. We still want our friends to think we’re cool. And now, instead of teachers, we want our colleagues and clients to think we’re smart.
Then, one day we wake up and realize we’re spending most of our waking hours trying to live up to someone else’s expectations. We’re spending more time trying to make everyone else happy than we are on meeting our own needs. We’re not necessarily unhappy, but we’re unfulfilled.
Depending on how we choose to look at it, that unfulfilled feeling can be a blessing or a curse. We can either let it spiral out of control into a deep depression or, hopefully, we can choose to use it as a wake up call.
To determine if your life needs a slight course correction, ask yourself the following questions:
“Whose life am I living?”
You only have one life to live, you might as well make it your own.
“Am I being selfish enough?”
You can’t take care of others if you’re not taking care of yourself.
To have any chance at spreading sustained happiness to others, it’s vital to make sure that YOU are happy. From time to time, do a check-in to make sure that YOUR needs are getting met so that YOU are able to continue to meet the many needs of all the important people in YOUR life.
Creme brulee and leadership point of view
I am a foodie. I avidly watch the “The Next Food Network Star”, not only for the amazing food each chef makes, but to watch the growth and development each contestant achieves over time. One of the things that make the final four contestants successful is the ability to articulate their point of view. In this case, the POV is about who they are, what food they cook and why. Being a leader is similar to being a contestant. A leader must know who they are, and what they stand for in order to get others to follow.
At Blanchard, we know that a leadership point of view can be developed. All the ingredients are already present in each of us. We just need to sift, mix, and blend those elements together. Ask yourself “Who inspires me? What are my core values? What do I believe? “ Do the work to think through the recipe that is uniquely YOU, and like the Sandwich King (my personal favorite) or the spicy Mexican chef (another contender), you will discover that the more you know yourself, and are true to yourself, the clearer will be your leadership point of view.
My LPOV is like Creme Brulee – simple ingredients transformed into something satisfying and elegant. What ingredients are in your point of view and what masterpiece will you create?
Unplugged
I recently spent seven days on a deserted island with just my husband. No children, no family, no friends, no cellphones, no iPhone, no blackberry, no computers, no internet, no TV. No work projects that make us feel guilty that we said we would do but don’t. This is the 6th year we have done this, we try to do it every year but with work and four kids, sometimes we just can’t swing it. We walked, we read, we paddled around in the water, my husband played his guitar. We did some light snorkeling. When we walked, we talked. About our kids – we have four 22,19,14 and 12, all of whom need something different from us. About our jobs – we work together and we work constantly- about our health, about our disappointments and dreams. How we are different today that we were 6 months or a year ago. How we are growing, how we would like to grow. We always have a few epiphanies. This year I realized that I had let my work dictate my schedule and that my health is suffering because of it. Now, some folks don’t have a choice in this area, but I specifically built my life so that I would, so it is completely my own doing. How is it possible that I had not seen this? I needed some distance.
The jury is out on the topic of what this modern 24/7 connectedness is doing to our brains. I am quite certain it is making us smarter in a lot of ways, and that my children’s brains will literally be wired differently from my own. But I do know this for sure: taking seven days to completely unplug is one of the healthiest things you can do to refresh yourself and get some perspective. If you are married, doing it with your spouse will result in a healthier marriage. You don’t have to go anyplace fancy or expensive. It is really hard to get coverage for work and kids but it is so worth it. Nobody died because I didn’t answer my phone for seven days. No, a four day weekend won’t do it. If you give yourself permission, and save up vacation days, you can actually do it.
Ah…Success
After a recent conversation, I realized that the word success carries a lot of baggage. It’s not a soft word by any means. For many, including the person I was talking with, successful leaders are difficult, self-interested, argumentative, and disruptive. They pursue their goals with singular ambition. If you look at success solely through that lens, then the workplace becomes a tough environment to thrive in (unless, of course, you are said leader).
What about another set of adjectives? What if we flipped the descriptors of success around and defined it in terms of collaboration, harmony, contribution and dedication? When you look at success through those terms it creates an environment that supports teamwork. And, teamwork that is well focused creates synergy which provides the fuel for innovation and creativity. It also creates a workplace where people are fully engaged and who are empowered to do their best work.
Success means many different things to people. How do you define success? How do you model success in your company, business unit or team?
All Is Well
One and a half years ago, I was completing a coaching engagement with a dynamic leader. As with all my “wrap sessions,” I asked the leader to reflect on her learnings and to tell me what she will commit to for her future actions. Her eloquent response sent me on a quest which I only completed this weekend.
Concurrent with her professional goals of successfully developing her work team and attaining all project deliverables, she spoke about a personal goal: resuming singing. She’d stopped singing after coming to the US from India. I had suggested that if she allowed room for her gift, she would notice and benefit from the gifts of others. At our final call, she said that was so true: she had found a teacher of traditional Indian music, and was radiant because she’d found her voice again. And, because of this, she saw with greater clarity the gifts of communication the members of her team possessed. She instilled an expectation that they all “catch people doing things right,” and it accelerated the development of high-performance qualities within the team.
She then told me how transformational this “coach approach” is, and insisted that I see the movie The Three Idiots. She told me that the movie was set in an elite engineering college, rife with competition and anxiety, bred into the students by their parents since birth. However, the protagonist, Rancho, was impervious to the stress suffered by his peers. Instead of chasing something as elusive as success, Rancho LOVED learning. He had a mantra, “all is well,” which he explained kept him calm and focused in the present. He challenged his classmates that they were all too worried about the future, and their fears of failure were robbing them of the joy of the present.
My client told me she kept thinking about what she learned from coaching while she watched the movie. Rather than chasing success, Rancho would tell his friends “pursue excellence, and success will follow.” Through coaching, my client knows this to be true.
Well, I’ve been searching for this movie since that final conversation. I fell over myself when I found it Saturday on the rack at my DVD store (yes, I still go to a DVD store!). It was everything my client told me…and more. Find the flick, carve out at least three hours (Bollywood doesn’t produce short movies) and prepare to laugh, cry, sigh, sing, dance and think.
As the three idiots sing: “Aal izz well!”
The Big Picture
Yesterday, as I was rummaging for my stash of gift wrap, I found my vision board. It was in the back of a spare closet buried behind coats, folding chairs, and some rather dusty hand weights. Needless to say, when I created it last fall at a coach retreat, this is not at all what I had intended. I had intended for it to be a visual representation of my personal direction and goals for 2011. It was where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to behave, so I had put a lot of thought and effort into carefully selecting the right images, words, and yes, even colors. I had intended to frame it and hang it above my desk so I could look at it every day, and at the very least, attempt to stay on track with that vision of my future self. And, yet, here it sat overlooked in the closet under the stairs, no thanks in part to the general business of life.
Vision is important. For as much as leadership is about influence, it is also about pointing the way towards what you are trying to build and why that matters. It’s all too easy when people are immersed in the practical day-to-day tasks of long work days and big workloads, of just going through the motions without connecting their actions to the bigger picture, of how what they are doing actually has meaning. Vision is the narrative that protects against the daily challenges and obstacles that will naturally occur along the way. What story are your people telling themselves? How well have you articulated the future you want their help in building? Are you just being tactical or inspirational in your leadership?
I am delighted I rediscovered my vision board. Because, now that I feel like I am getting back on track with where I had wanted to be, I am optimistic and energized.
(Author: Andrea Greenwell…posting assistance provided by MESailer)
The nature of giving
This time of year we turn our attention to the idea of giving. While a new sweater, or a pair of gloves can keep you warm, I have been thinking about a different kind of gift. Coaching at its core is all about this different kind of giving.
We give our clients the gift of a deep and abiding conviction that they can and will achieve their goals. We give them the precious gift of listening, truly and carefully. We give them a heartfelt gift of trust. At its best coaching is ultimately the gift of belief. When we believe, we invite our clients to believe – and then everything becomes possible.
As a coach, I am often astounded at clients who hesitate to give the gift of themselves in all of their brilliant glory.
They hide their gifts out of fear, or modesty, or for some other reason, and yet these gifts are the very things that drive their purpose in the world.
Giving feels good. And there is no better gift than to be your amazing self.So let me end by asking – How will you give the gift of yourself?
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