Real conversations – what are your aims for communication in your organisation?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

In this posting, I write about one area to which we need to attend if we are to learn to have real conversations in the organisations we lead.  This posting builds on my posting of 3rd March, 2011 on Discuss HR.

So much has been done to study the effects of different styles of communication that it’s possible to choose your approach to communication based on a clear understanding of your aims. Choose one style of communication, for example, and you increase levels of mistrust which, in turn, makes it hard to get to the root of and to resolve problems. The more this style of communication is endemic across an organisation the more it leads to mediocre performance, poor morale and low levels of engagement, increased sickness and high staff turnover – and that’s before we even start to think of the impact on our customers.

Choose another style of communication and you build trust even whilst making it easier to have some of the most challenging conversations which face us (and, let’s face it, as a leader in your organisation or an HR practitioner you are charged with your fair share). This second style of communication gets to the root of problems so that they are addressed fully and effectively. It also facilitates the conversations that generate the most creative and effective solutions.

Once you have a clear understanding of the outcomes you would like from your chosen approach, you can choose a communication paradigm that supports you in making progress towards your aims. This is relatively easy given the amount of research available in this area.

In my next posting, I’ll be writing about the different paradigms that underpin different styles of communication, and which lead to some of the outcomes I’ve described above.  Meantime, in case you are interested to explore your aims and aspirations for your communication and for communication across your organisation, I encourage you to take time in a place in which you will be undisturbed to explore the questions below:

  • Take time to connect with your aspirations for your business or organisation in the next 12 months, 24 months and 5 years.  Notice the outcomes to which you aspire in 5 years’ time.  Notice the milestones your organisation needs to achieve along the way in order to move smoothly towards your five-year plan;
  • Notice the challenges that you and others will have to overcome in order successfully to achieve your plans for the next 12 months, 24 months and five years.  Take time to imagine what it will take successfully to meet those challenges;
  • Notice the role that communication will play in overcoming challenges, in meeting milestones and in moving smoothly towards your five-year plan.  Who will need to communicate with whom?  What will be the most critical conversations along the way?  What will be the most challenging conversations along the way?  As you consider these questions, take time to notice the full range of relationships and conversations that will contribute to your organisation’s progress during the coming five years;
  • What are the critical outcomes as you see them from communication within your organisation and between your organisation and its key stakeholders?  I invite you to think not only about the business outcomes themselves but also about those areas of outcome that contribute to business outcomes over time.  What areas do you see as important?  What outcomes do you want in those areas?

You might like to take a moment to notice how confident you feel when you think about your organisation’s ability to deliver the quality and effectiveness of communication needed to achieve your aims and aspirations.  What is this telling you about your experience of communication right now within your organisation?  If your heart is sinking right now, I hope you’ll return to read the remaining postings in this series.

Either way, I’d love to hear about your aspirations for communication across your organisation.  If you’d like to share any of your thinking here, please leave a comment below.

Real conversations – talking in ways that work

Emotional Intelligence
And because we are human and the leaders we serve are human 
I would want to see us make the mother of all our investments in learning how to hold
what I call “real conversations”. This would require an examination of the beliefs
that underpin our chosen approach to communication and a commitment
to replace a unilateral (“domination”) approach with an approach which is
rooted in acceptance and aspires to mutual learning.


In January, I wrote the inaugural blogpost for Discuss HR, in which I laid out some thoughts about my aspirations for Human Resources in 2011.  In it, I shared my aspiration – no surprise to you, I’m sure, as a regular reader of this blog – that we learn to hold what I call “real conversations”.  This led to a request that I use my next blog posting to outline what I mean by real conversations.  My posting will be published on Discuss HR on Thursday, 3rd March, 2011.

My goodness, I found it hard to distill into just one posting, the essentials of a real and meaningful conversation!  So, I decided to enlarge on my initial thoughts in a series of postings here on my own blog.  This first posting positions communication.  I’ll be following up with a series of postings on different areas to which we all need to attend in our communication with others.

Recently, when a valued friend and colleague (let’s call him John) wrote in response to an e-mail I sent that “your tone towards me in your email is inappropriate and not appreciated”, I knew immediately that the spirit in which I wrote had got lost in translation.

Communication, it seems, is something we all recognise as important and, at the same time, find difficult. Many organisations continue to invest in training in many aspects of communication. There is no surprise in this: we all know that poor communication skills can lead to any number of outcomes which, in turn, lead to poor business results. Improve communication and we reverse this trend. How is it, then, that even with the level of investment that many organisations make in communication, few organisations boast of their prowess in this area?

Perhaps one reason is this: that few organisations, and few organisations that consult to organisations, have taken any systematic view of what it takes to hold a real conversation, let alone what it takes to make such conversations an ongoing part of an organisation’s culture. In the next two weeks, I shall identify and briefly explore seven areas which need to be addressed as part of any systematic approach to communication in a series of articles here on http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com/.  I hope that you will find these article interesting both as you consider your own approach to communication and as you consider the prevailing culture of your organisation and its common communication practices.

Meantime, I am interested to hear your questions and I also have some questions for you. Some of these questions are organisational:  to what extent, for example, do you see HR as guardians of effective communication in your organisation? How desirable is it – and how realistic – to have a communications policy which identifies the aspirations of your organisation?  Some of these questions are for you as an individual seeking to communicate:  what are the situations in which you find communication most difficult?  And what is it that you find most difficult about communication in those situations?

Please share your thoughts and questions here on the blog.  This is invaluable for me as I seek to write about the issues that are most pressing for you in your work.

Mahler’s Third Symphony: all in a day’s work for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

All articles,
Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall for their London residency
Sometimes, the experience of going to see a film that has been highly praised by the critics leaves you feeling curiously disappointed – hungry even, yearning for something more.  I ponder this as Sir Simon Rattle steps onto the podium to conduct Mahler’s Third Symphony at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Rattle will be conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra which has the reputation of being the very best orchestra in the world.  How much better, I wonder, can the world’s “best” orchestra be than so many other world class orchestras with whom I have had the privilege to sing as a member of the London Symphony Chorus?
For I am here as a member of the London Symphony Chorus, and as a result I have a seat at a concert which has been sold out for who knows how long.  In the midst of Mahler’s Third Symphony there is a brief and intensely beautiful alto solo which is, in turn, accompanied by ladies and children’s chorus.  With efficiency and compassion Rattle rehearsed the choir (the BBC Singers, ladies of the London Symphony Chorus and the boys choir of Eltham College) at the beginning of the morning’s tutti rehearsal and sent us on our way so that I do not know how the orchestra will perform across the grand sweep of this epic piece.
The concert begins with an hors d’oeuvre of two short pieces sung with great confidence by ladies of the BBC Singers before the concert’s “main course” begins.  I notice I am searching the filing cabinet of my Mahler 3 experiences in order to make comparisons and quickly decide to let go of experiencing this work through the filter of my intellect in order to surrender to my experience of this performance.  I am not disappointed.
Listening to the wide sweep of the symphony’s lengthy first movement, I am struck by something that goes beyond fine playing, even whilst wondering how many hours of study, practice, playing and performance are reflected in the exquisite playing of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.  It seems to me that there is an intensity in the performance which comes from Rattle’s attention to the music’s every nuance as well as from the orchestra’s total commitment to their performance.
Seated as I am next to the boys of the Eltham Choir as they sniff, cough, fart and fidget I am aware of just how long a sit it is for them and still, I am barely distracted from the music.  And when our time comes to sing I am aware of how Rattle’s rehearsal has prepared us all – combining a lightness of touch with both confidence and precision for our brief performance.
Some time before the performance ends I find that I am experiencing something akin to the deep stillness I sometimes experience when I meditate – when I am present to everything that is around me even whilst experiencing a deep stillness within.  This has been an experience I cannot begin to render in words, one that I do not wish to discuss when, eventually, I leave the concert platform.
There is a moment of stillness as the piece ends which is quickly punctured when a member of the audience calls out “bravi!”  The audience is ecstatic, with fulsome applause as more and more people rise to their feet.  One of the boys of the Eltham Choir savours this word – “Bravi!  Bravi!” – like a new sweet he is tasting for the very first time.
I notice how Rattle not only acknowledges the performers, including individual members of the orchestra but thanks them, striding through their ranks to speak personally with those who have played some of the solos.
It’s hard to believe that, for these guys, this is all in a day’s work.  For me, it was far from an every day experience. 

Integrity – a different form of leadership

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , , ,
What counts is for a man to dare to be entirely himself,
standing alone, one single individual alone before God,
alone with that enormous effort and responsibility. 
Søren Kierkegaard
Working with client organisations to create a model of the competencies they wish their staff to demonstrate – that is, the competencies that differentiate high performance – I have noticed over the years how quick commissioning clients are to ask for the inclusion of Integrity.  This competency is concerned with acting in a way which is consistent with what one says is important – some call it congruity.
In practice, though, I find that organisations want this from their employees – up to a point.  Leaders want their employees to speak openly and honestly, for example, as long as the message is one they want to hear.  They welcome employees who act in line with their own values, as long as their values are congruent with the values of the organisation.  Perhaps, even, they want their employees to be open and honest with customers or clients, as long as they still get the deal.
I have been reminded of this in recent days as I reflect on Uwe Timm’s book In My Brother’s Shadow.  Born in Hamburg in 1940, Timm was 16 years younger than his brother and had few memories of the young man who lost his legs, and then his life, as a member of the German Army.  Timm’s book is both an intensely personal memoir of family life during and after the war and an exploration of the difficult questions that surround the Germans’ involvement in World War II.  How is it, for example, that the Germans asked so few questions about their Jewish neighbours as they gradually disappeared from view?  Of his own brother, he wonders how he could speak of the British bombing of Hamburg as inhumane whilst never making the same judgements of the killing of civilians by soldiers in the German army.
Surveying the literature Timm highlights the case (from Wolfram Wette’s book The Wehrmacht) of a German officer who walked down the street in his home town in uniform together with a Jewish friend, at a time when Jews were branded by the Star of David.  The man, who, in this way, demonstrated the highest level of integrity, was dishonourably discharged from the army.  He also highlights, drawing on Christopher Browning’s book Ordinary Men, how few soldiers took the opportunity that was freely given to them to ask to be withdrawn from duties which included killing their Jewish compatriots.
I want to add that I share Timm’s reflections with the clear understanding that we all face challenges when we seek to act with integrity – to make choices in line with our values in the face of increasing levels of personal risk.  In this sense, leadership has nothing to do with the official role in which we find ourselves.  Rather, it has everything to do with our willingness to make considered choices – and to own those choices – in line with our most heartfelt values, knowing that we cannot control the responses of others to the choices we make.  I believe that this remains a challenge for us all.  And I am grateful that I have not yet had to face the level of challenge faced by Germans during World War II and by many around the world today.
Returning to Timm, I note his awareness of the values that fuelled the choices of his parents’ generation including a strong sense of community and of obedience to community values.  It was in adherence to these values that many men, brought to trial after World War II, said:  “I was only obeying orders”.
No wonder, then, that Timm chooses to quote Kierkegaard, as part of his explorations.
PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

What’s your Monday morning story?

Emotional Intelligence,

Monday morning.  The alarm goes off to signal the beginning of the working week.  As a lover of sleep my first alarm goes off ten minutes before I intend to get up and in this time I take time to come round and to ponder the week ahead.  Almost without exception, I work from home on Mondays, and enjoy my full schedule of coaching by telephone.  So, as much as I love my sleep, I come round to the prospect of a day I am confident I will enjoy.

Over the years, my Monday morning story has been a gauge of the good – or otherwise – health of my working life.  Sometimes, the sinking of my heart as I wake signals a week to which I do not look forward.  Too many Mondays like this and I know it’s time to take stock and ask:  what needs to change?  Sometimes, it has been my understanding that the time has come to change jobs.  Sometimes, I have seen the need for me to change in order that I might open my heart and mind to a greater measure of fulfilment in my work.

The moment of waking on a Monday morning is also a good time to catch my hidden and limiting beliefs.  Do I believe I am deserving of a job I love or do I see it as the fate of man (or of this woman) to experience work as toil, a means to an end?  Do I see myself as the victim or the creator of my working life?  Do I believe I can take action towards my dreams or do I believe they will always be just out of reach and beyond arms’ length?  Do I believe I have what it takes to succeed or do I believe that I shall be forever wanting?  Do I see work as struggle or do I enjoy work as a sense of flow, of synchronicity, an unfolding adventure?

Whatever my early Monday morning thoughts, they are a powerful indicator of the experience that lies ahead, since – unless I catch them with my awareness and make changes to them immediately, or over time – they dictate the nature of my experience during the week ahead.  More than that, they send signals to others who, in turn, are influenced by my thoughts.

I wonder, at this stage in your life, what is your Monday morning story? 

Creating the climate for success

Clients and testimonials, Developing as a leader, , , ,
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, in their book The New Leaders, identify the range of leadership styles that leaders draw on and highlight those styles that create a climate for success.  This is what they call “resonant leadership” and they contrast this with the use of styles which, if overused, create “dissonant leadership”.  The key here is “if overused” – all the styles identified in the research have a role to play when used effectively.
Developing a repertoire of leadership styles and the capability to use them effectively is not easy.  Many of us lack strong role models to emulate so that we just don’t know what “highly effective” looks like when it comes to leadership.  Perhaps we will copy leaders (from our parents, teachers and other childhood figures to our managers at work) without even recognising the implications of their chosen approach.  By copying poor role-models in this way we repeat the behaviours that were not effective first time round.  Perhaps we will try hard to do anything but what they did.  This carries a particular challenge:  whilst we may know what we don’t want to do, how do we know what to do instead?
At the same time, making effective adjustments to our approach can yield benefits all round, as the testimonial below highlights.  I’m grateful to Fabienne Luisetti, with whom I worked in coaching partnership during 2010, for sharing her experiences.  If you’d like to know more about how I work with clients please follow this link for details of how to contact me to arrange a complimentary consultation.
Meantime, this is what Fabienne had to say about her experience of working with a coach:

There came a point where my reputation of being a fair but tough leader became an obstacle to both my career and my well-being. Whilst projects were completed and goals achieved, people were bruised along the way and, at times, I would be living with negative feelings in the evening from my interactions with others during the day.  Having gone through all the leadership programmes available in our company, I decided I needed a more focused one-to-one coaching programme and this is when I started working with Dorothy.

Right from the start Dorothy was very professional in her approach and created the right environment of trust for me to express my feelings, thoughts and reactions.  She challenged a few pain points and also helped me to distil feedback from others and my own work into key areas to focus on.  Her willingness to share theory and to describe others’ experiences helped me to place my situation in perspective. I am delighted to provide this testimonial.

How has coaching worked for me?  A 1:1 coaching program with set milestones was particularly motivational.  At every meeting, I wanted to show progress.  Therefore, in between two coaching sessions, I tried a few new strategies to be able to report upon.  When I realised they were working well for me and the people around me, I was motivated to try further.  This is the way I achieved my three personal coaching objectives;  I am now engaging people and teams in a more collaborative manner;  I can feel people contribute to my projects in a more spontaneous way not because they have to but because they want to.  And I feel good about progressing projects, keeping within deadlines in a much softer way.

Fabienne Luisetti

For the total *twitters* amongst you

Coaching

I confess, I’m really not au fait with twitter.  You may be reading this posting because you’ve signed up to me on twitter. (Thinks:  should I include my twitter name.  Decides, no).  I know I’m not alone.

Still, every now and again I see a resource and want – at the very least – to bookmark it or file it here on my blog.  Mark Shaw’s Twenty Minute Twitter Workout is one such resource.

Useful to you?

A reminder for you on your worst of bad days

Alternative approaches, Emotional Intelligence, , ,
Few people are one hundred percent winners or one hundred percent losers.
It’s a matter of degree.  However, once a person is on the road to becoming a winner,
his or her chances are even greater for becoming more so.

Born to Win
Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward

There are days when everyone else seems to have it sussed.  Other people have got there, so why haven’t I?  If you add timescales (“other people have got there before me”) you have the killer equation for feeling really bad about yourself.

“There” might be a state of mind (“other people are more calm, relaxed, joyful”).  “There” might be some kind of skill, aptitude or personal quality (“other people are more emotionally intelligent, diligent, organised”) or even the sum of all the skills, aptitudes and qualities to which one aspires (“other people are so much more capable than I am”).  “There” might be some position – personal or professional – to which one aspires (“other people find partners and settle down”;  “other people get to be Director by my age” etc.).

This is the language of “winners” and “losers”.  Psychology – and especially the branch of psychology called Transactional Analysis – has long since identified this kind of thinking with all its permutations.  We might think “I’m OK, you’re not OK” and act from this position.  We might think “you’re OK, I’m not OK” and act from this position.  We might make the ultimate generalisation (“everyone’s OK, except me”) to make it especially tough to get out of bed in the morning.  It’s not that we live the whole of our lives from one place – though we may do.  Rather, at a particular point in time, we may unconsciously choose a position.

As a coach, I work with people who are choosing to become winners, even if they were not winners before.  Even so – perhaps especially so – the person who is dedicated to his or her learning may have days when all the learning he or she has done seems to amount to nothing.  How come, with all this learning, I am still struggling with the same old things?  I was reminded of this recently as I held a space for a client on just one such day.

There is of course, an assumption that lurks beneath such thinking.  It is the assumption we brought to our journey of learning – that once we had done our learning, everything would be OK.  We did not anticipate that part of our learning would be to discover that we continue to have good days and bad days, we continue to have areas which sit outside our comfort zone, we continue to have experiences which stimulated grief in us, or sadness, or anger, as well as those which stimulate joy, gratitude, delight.

In my own journey, I have been especially grateful for Muriel James’ and Dorothy Jongeward’s wonderful book Born to Win.  They begin their book, which draws both on Transactional Analysis and Gestalt, by providing a vivid and compelling description of what it means to be a winner and what it means to be a loser. Winners are those who successfully make the transition to become independent and then interdependent adults, choosing authenticity over putting on a performance, maintaining pretence or manipulating others.

Perhaps the most essential point in their description is this:  being a winner is not a “once and for all” thing, but an ongoing journey.  As much as we may have our bad days, winners are able to be present to their emotions, to welcome them even, and still to recognise them is what is, in this moment.  Winners get to choose how they respond to their emotions and winners choose responses that reinforce their overarching choice to choose to win.

I could say so much more and still, I choose to leave you with this simple question:  what choices are you making on your worst of bad days?

PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

Talking about coaching for International Coaching Week

Coaching

I promised to make some offers this week for International Coaching Week and this is my third of three.

I am offering to give a complimentary talk about the business benefits of coaching for senior leaders to the first organisation that contacts me, quoting “International Coaching Week:  please come and give a talk about coaching”.  You can contact me by following the view my complete profile link here on my blog to find my e-mail address.

My talk, which can be tailored to meet your needs, will explore:

  • How effective leadership correlates with business performance;
  • How emotional intelligence is central to leadership success;
  • Leadership coaching (and other alternatives) as a powerful way to accelerate the development of leaders in your organisation.
I will ask you to pay travel and accommodation expenses as needed if the talk takes place outside the M25.  And if you, too, would like to “pay it forward”, I invite you  to make a donation to the Disasters and Emergencies Committee (DEC) for their work in Haiti via this link or to make some other gesture that is meaningful to you. 

Offering a complimentary coaching consultation to you for International Coaching Week

Coaching

Like many of my colleagues, I want to spend my time where it makes a real difference and International Coaching Week is no exception.  So, today I am reaching out to the senior leaders in organisations with whom I mainly work to offer a complimentary coaching consultation in celebration of International Coaching Week.

I have reserved a one-hour telephone coaching consultation in March and April for the first five people who send me a message with the heading “International Coaching Week:  please reserve a one-hour coaching consultation for me”.  My invitation to you is to bring the issue which, if you were to identify a way forward, would give you the greatest sense of progress.  I will help you to:

  • Get to the nub of the issue;
  • Clarify what outcomes you are seeking;
  • Understand the scale and scope of the issue;  and
  • Identify a way forward.
In the spirit of International Coaching Week, these coaching consultations are open to anyone who comes forward and are available at no charge whatsoever.  You can contact me by following the view my complete profile link here on  my blog and sending an e-mail.

If you decide that you, too, want to “pay it forward”, I invite you to make a donation to the Disasters and Emergencies Committee (DEC) for their work in Haiti via this link or to make some other gesture that is meaningful to you.