Category Archives: Developing as a leader

Empathy and 21st Century Enlightenment

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The RSA is a charity which encourages the development of a principled, prosperous society and the release of human potential.  As a Fellow, I appreciate the RSA’s ongoing programme of talks and occasionally dine in the RSA’s wonderful restaurant even whilst being aware that I am barely scratching the surface of what the RSA has to offer and of what I have to offer to the RSA.

I was curious this week to receive a link to a talk by Matthew Taylor, the RSA’s current chief executive, about 21st Century Enlightenment.  This is available on the RSA’s website and on YouTube.  It’s not only that the visual image which accompanies Taylor’s presentation is an intriguing live illustration by cognitive media (which you can download at their website at http://www.cognitivemedia.co.uk/).  It’s also that the substance of Taylor’s presentation is highly thought-provoking and intriguing.

Above all, I take from his presentation the question of the role that empathy has to play in shaping the world we live in as we go forward.  As an admirer of Marshall Rosenberg’s work in the area of nonviolent communication as well as through my work as an Executive Coach I am used to exploring the role of empathy and how to develop empathy in the context of the individual and his or her interactions with others.  Taylor’s presentation raises a much larger question for me:  what role does empathy play in the way we shape our society, including social policy and the way we live?  What role should it play going forward?

What are your thoughts?

Developing your empathy: learning from intimate relationships

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Recently I wrote at length about empathy and made a mental note to write about the “how” of empathy – both of giving and receiving empathy and of how you develop it if you’re not there yet.  I haven’t yet fulfilled this promise I made to myself so, when I was sent a link to a podcast by Kelly Bryson I took time to listen.

Kelly is talking about empathy in the context of intimate relationships, including sexual relationships.  And let’s be clear, if ever there’s a context in which challenging emotions and emotional pain are triggered it’s in our most intimate relationships.  Over the years, our failure to “mop up the mess” of our misunderstandings can drive us apart or create an inbuilt “toxicity” in our relationships.  Kelly’s podcast talks through some of the elements of Nonviolent Communication and how they can be used in intimate relationships to give and receive empathy.  In this way we can clean up the messes as they occur and – over time – build, restore and maintain trust.  It also completes with two exercises for giving and receiving empathy and building connection.

What is the relevance of this in our professional lives?  I could say so much about this.  Firstly, insofar as we carry the hurt of our unmet need for empathy in our private lives, we are likely to be sensitive in our professional lives – and so are others.  This is a common human experience, encoded in the most ancient parts of our brains.  Learning to give ourselves empathy or to ask for the empathy we need makes us more able in our work to be present in the here and now rather than to be triggered by “old stuff”.  As leaders, it helps to know that this is true for those we lead, too.  With this understanding we can see and respo9nd to the behaviours and responses of our staff in their wider human context.

And what else?  Well, for now, perhaps it helps to know that the skills for giving and receiving empathy are the same no matter what the context.  For this reason I share Kelly’s podcast as a resource for all my readers.  And if you do choose to listen to it, will you let me know what you take from it?  I’d love to see your comments below. 

Empathy in practice: free of enemy images

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I am grateful to Bridget Belgrave, certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication, for sharing this link to a video taken from the security camera of a mobile phone shop in the US.  The video shows how the shop’s manager, faced with a would-be armed robber, engages him in conversation and shows she understands what he is going through.  At the point at which she tells him that she will have to make up any shortfall that results from a theft he decides to leave.

The manager is showing one of the fundamental qualities of empathy – the ability to connect with their shared humanity and to engage with him as a real person rather than from a place of fear.  Her care for the would-be thief is striking.  In the case of this young manager it seems to be her Christian faith that inspires her, though this does not mean you have to be a Christian or have any religious faith to provide empathy.

So, if you are seeking to develop your ability to show empathy, take a look at the video on this BBC News Page.  To what extent are you able to engage with other people in your life from this place of seeking to understand them as fellow human beings?

Feeling your way into your perfect job: a powerful question to bring your dreams alive

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In recent days I’ve been exploring ways to feel your way into the perfect job for you, recognising that the more you have a felt sense of your perfect job the more likely you are to be inspired to find it.

In this last posting on this topic (OK, at least for now) I offer the simplest of questions which you can ask yourself about the job you really yearn to do – and perhaps the most powerful.  This question comes from my NLP trainings and is the number one question for coaches everywhere (and no doubt others, too):  what do you want?

Well, actually, there’s a supplementary question, too.  And it’s this little supplementary question that gives the first question its power and that is:  what would that do for you?  So, what do you want in your new job?  (Let’s say:  “I want to lead a business out of the current recession”).  And what would that do for you?  (“It would give me the thrill of turning around a business which otherwise could go under”).  And what would that do for you?  (“It would meet my need to contribute to our economic recovery”).  And what would that do for you?  (“I just want to make a positive difference to people, to conribute, to offer hope…”).  You get the gist!

This powerful little question takes us from the surface manifestation of a dream to the underlying needs that would be met by fulfilling that dream.  In the language of Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life, this is the difference between recognising the strategy by which we meet meet a need and connecting with the need itself.  You know you’ve connected with the core of your dream when you feel you’ve connected with your dream – everything in your body changes at this moment of recognition.

Several things happen when we explore this question which are invaluable to the job hunter (and to anyone else come to that):

  • Firstly, as we get closer and closer to recognising the needs we think our dream job will meet we experience a felt sense of this perfect job.  This is, if you like, another way of “trying it on for size”.  In terms of the way we feel, connecting with our needs in this way is pretty much as good as meeting them!  At least in this moment of connection we experience the quality of feeling we would like to experience in our lives on an ongoing basis;
  • Also, recognising our underlying needs can open up new options as we realise “Ah!  If that’s the need I’m trying to meet, I could do it in this way, too, and this way…!”
  • Occasionally, as we connect with the need we recognise that our initial choice of how to meet the need was, frankly, way off beam.  If caring for your family is your number one priority for example, maybe the high flying job that takes you all over the world supplies the money you want to earn …but not the opportunity to stay closely involved and connected with your loved ones in your every day lives.

 So, I invite you to try on this powerful pair of questions and of course, be sure to let me know how you get on.

PS I love Rosenberg’s book!  So much so that I’ve set up this link so that, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee if you buy this book using the link in this posting.

Feeling your way into your perfect job: trying it on for size

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If you’ve been reading the posts I’ve already written this week it’s possible that you’ve already spent time connecting with the life you most want to lead and also with the full arc of your career.  If you haven’t done these things yet please do – your perfect job sits in the context of your perfect life and is part of a career whose overall timespan may well get longer and longer in the coming years.

For now, though, let’s do something very simple, called “future pacing” in the world of neurolinguistic programming (or NLP).  Imagine the job you most yearn to do and simply try it on for size.  This goes beyond thinking about it to experiencing it in your body as if you were already doing the job.  You can do this with your eyes open or closed.  You can do it standing or sitting…  you get the drift!

As you do this, notice what’s true of the job you are trying on:  give yourself full scope and permission to create your dream job in the present moment.  No need to force or push:  just let it unfold.  (And yes, if a part of you raises any objections and tries to bring you right back into another reality – especially a “that’s not possible” reality – you might like to cut a deal with that part and agree to come back to all the objections a little later).  At the same time, notice what’s alive for you as you try the job on for size.  What are the features of the job that really energise you?  What do you really relish?

A couple of notes for you.  Firstly, you can do this at any point in the process of seeking out your next job.  You can do this in your current job to see if, with the odd tweak, it could become your perfect job:  try on your current job with a few “it would be perfect if…” tweaks and see how it sits with you.  Then you can think about whether those tweaks might be things you can move towards.  You can do it when you’re first starting to ask yourself the question “what is my perfect job?”  This can help you expand your search as well as to develop a felt sense of and pull towards the job you desire.  You can do this as preparation for a interview, so that you walk through the door with a sense of confidence in your ability to do the job you’ve applied for.

Oh!  And note two:  trying things on for size this way is not confined to your perfect job.  You get to use this approach for absolutely anything in your life.

Be sure to let me know how you get on. 

Feeling your way into your perfect job: walking the full path of your career

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Whether you’re in a job or out of it, when you’re thinking about your next career move it can help to take a walk along the full length of your career in order to step more fully into the role that’s right for you now even as you start to explore what that next role might be.  In neurolinguistic programming (or NLP) this is called “walking your timeline”.

I have found it helps to do this physically so that the length of your walk or the different points along the way act as a metaphor for the different points in time that you are seeking to embody.  You can do this in your office or living room.  My favourite choice is to take a long walk and keep going for as long as I find helpful.  Just take yourself right back to the beginning of your career and try it on for size as if you were still that young man or woman embarking on your career.  Keep walking through your career and notice what is true for you along the way.  Here are some questions you might like to ask yourself:

  • At the beginning of your career walk:  What am I doing now that points the way to my perfect future career?  What are the high points for me and what are they telling me about my natural gifts and inclinations?  What are the things I do so well and with such ease that I almost take them for granted?  What do I bring that others value in me?
  • In the middle of your career walk (including where you are now in “real time”):  What did I learn in the early part of my career that is serving me now?  What challenges or hardships did I face and what did they bring that has served me in my career?  What did I take with me that is best left behind now?  What did I leave behind that I could have usefully carried forward?  What am I ready for now as a result of everything I have done so far?  What can I learn from my ups and downs that might ease my path as I go?
  • As you walk through the next phase of your career:  What am I doing now that I am in this next phase of my career?  What am I bringing that is ensuring my success?  What am I doing that is making me thrive?  What is calling me as I move forward?  How am I feeling as I walk through this next phase of my career?  What am I seeing?  What am I hearing?
  • Looking back on the whole of your career:  At this point you might like to find a comfy seat with a long perspective (metaphorically and/or literally), to look back and to reflect on some additional questions:  how do I view my career now that it is over?  What do I most celebrate and enjoy?  What do I know now that would most have helped me along the way?  What does this “me” now most want for the “me” I was in 2010?

These are just a few of the questions you might ask yourself as you walk – or entrust to your coach or walking companion.  Be sure to be in the present at every point on your timeline.  This exercise is not about being in 2010 and looking back or forward – it’s about stepping back into the present and forward into the present and trying it on for size.

Do let me know how you get on.

Feeling your way into your perfect job: your job as part of your “dream life”

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I’m sometimes surprised at the way coaching clients say “no” to exploring what they really want in their lives because their focus in our work together is on their career.  This can have the strange effect that the signs of their discontent are there for everyone to see – except the client.  For if your current job is not in tune with your deepest aspirations what’s the point of seeking to sort out this bit of the job or that?  What use is tinkering with the engine when you’re driving the wrong car?

So, if you’re thinking about your next career move, one way to get started is to imagine the life you most want to lead, allowing yourself to feel your way into this future life as you go.  And if you find that a part of you is raising objections even as you start to dream you might like to cut a deal with that part of you and ask it:  “if I agree to come back and hear your concerns by (set a time – next week, tomorrow, whatever) would you allow me to take this time just to dream?”  Be sure to be sincere in your commitment to come back to hear those concerns and set a timescale that works for both the dreamer in you and the pragmatist.

Now there are many ways to imagine your dream life so the ones I offer here are just some of the multiple possibilities:

  • If you enjoy writing (as I do) sit at your computer or with pen and paper and just write.  Imagine that you are already living your dream life and write about everything that you notice is true for you.  Keep writing as long as you feel inspired then take a break, come back, read what you’ve written and write some more.  Notice where you’re living and in what circumstances.  Notice how you’re spending your time at work and at play.  Notice what’s true of your relationships – who are you spending time with and how?  Notice what money you have in this perfect life.  Notice what’s true of your health – be it physical, mental, emotional or spiritual;
  • You might like to build up a scrap book or picture board of your dream life using words and pictures.  Take some old magazines and browse through them, cutting or tearing any images that you warm to – these are clues about the kind of life you want to lead.  In the same way, cut out words or quotes or anything else that brings you closer to imagining your dream life.  Keep doing this until you feel this dream life is complete;
  • Take some time with someone – your friend or coach or partner – who is able to leave practicalities to one side (they come later) and to hear you talk about the kind of life you would really love to live.  Allow this discussion to have an open-ended, exploratory feel – there are no decisions to be made yet, just possibilities to explore.

Whichever way you choose, notice where the energy is in your explorations – notice what ideas have resonance for you or are most compelling.  If you pay attention to this energy you will begin to build a picture of your “dream life” that is a reflection of who you are and what you most want.  Notice, too, how committed you are to building a life that is perfect for you.  (If for any reason you’re not, you might like to expore this with your coach).  The more you have a sense of the life you want to lead, the more you will be able to imagine the kind of job that best supports and sustains you both at work and in creating the life of your dreams.

Be sure to let me know how you get on.

Feeling your way into the perfect job for you

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On Monday I wrote about what it takes – from the point of view of the employer – to make a successful senior hire.  But what about the other side of the coin?   What if you’re looking for the right role for you and wondering quite how high to pitch your aspirations at this time of economic downturn?

I found myself reflecting on this question after meeting with one of several coaching clients who are all currently looking for a job.  One thing I notice about friends, colleagues and clients who are currently searching for jobs is a tendency to scale back their aspirations in order to guard themselves against possible disappointment.  This is a tendency some have at any time (after all, it doesn’t do to get ideas above your station and modesty is a virtue, right?).  It’s also a tendency that is somehow magnified by the idea that in a downturn, organisations have few vacancies at senior levels and are inundated with applications from highly talented candidates for the job.

Rather than scale back their aspirations, I have been encouraging clients to dream big and to embody their dreams in advance in order to make it more likely that they will apply for and successfully find the perfect job for them.  After all, as well as coaching senior executives when they are looking for or (more usually) in big jobs, I also have experience over a number of years of assessing candidates for senior roles.  I find that the complaint that organisations have “too much talent to choose from” is rare.

So how can you step into that senior role ahead of time and in such a way as to provide clarity about what you’re looking for and to boost your confidence as you undertake your search?  Neurolinguistic programming (or NLP) has encoded some of the things we do quite naturally and these can be used to help us to explore what we are really wanting and to make our aspirations more vivid and compelling.  In this series of postings I offer just a few approaches from the NLP toolkit to help you to develop a felt sense of your perfect job.  You can try any or all of these to build your perfect job “muscle”.

When it’s time to hire new talent: the successful senior hire

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Our current economic conditions place different demands on our leaders and this in turn places a new level of pressure on the critical task of recruiting the right people to senior posts in your organisation and supporting them in doing a great job.  No surprise then to read a request for ideas from one of my colleagues on the Training Journal Daily Digest.  This was my response:

You are looking at how you integrate your senior executives into your organisation in the best possible way to increase their effectiveness and help them deal with changes in organisational culture. You are particularly interested to learn how other large organisations manage the process and any thoughts or information on best practice or leading edge.

I am offering a few ideas based on my experience of conducting research into effective leadership over many years and helping client organisations to apply it, via executive assessments, coaching etc. Here’s a quick brainstorm and I’d be delighted to speak with you if you would value chewing over a few ideas at some point:

• I would say that nine tenths of ‘getting it right’ happens before your senior executives join the company. There are two things in particular, here. The first is establishing and conducting a dialogue with prospective executives which allows both parties to assess the extent of the match. This requires you to be scrupulously honest (with yourselves and with prospective candidates) about your agenda. The second is conducting an assessment of your candidates which is effective in establishing whether they have the skills and competencies needed for the job. I have seen any number of senior hirings fail because one of these two issues has not been addressed effectively;
• Perhaps it’s worth mentioning a third aspect of this pre-recruitment dialogue, speaking as someone who conducts executive assessments on behalf of client organisations. I have seen people fail whom I have assessed and when I have told clients that they are not a good match for the job. This has never done my business any harm – it tends to strengthen my credibility and to provide an opportunity for dialogue with my client which strengthens my relationship with clients. I do recommend that you consider what third-party support you use in the hiring process and pay attention to your relationship with your partners in the assessment process;
• Research shows that the most effective leaders, when they start a new job, spend time gathering information and shaping their agenda and your focus needs to be on supporting this. For your senior hires, this involves getting out and meeting key people including peers and those people they are leading. So, if you are serious about integrating senior executives into the organisation you will support this process of dialogue and you may want to play a role in it – giving regular time to newly-hired executives to discuss what they are finding and what plans they are shaping;
• There’s another category of new hires that often fails – this is when organisations bring in people with the aim of shaking the place up a bit and then make it very difficult for the new executive to fulfil this remit. I wonder if this is what you are talking about when you mention ‘changes in organisation culture’. If you want new executives to thrive in a culture that is serving your organisation well why not recruit to match in the first place? If you want them to have an effect on changing the culture you need to be honest with yourselves – what are you really ready for? – and also recruit people with the necessary skills. I have seen people recruited who are steeped in a culture to which organisations aspire but who have no skills in bridging the gap between cultures and taking people with them. They get rejected by people in organisations pretty quickly;
• I want to declare my interest as a coach when I say that there may be times when Executive Coaching can play a role in supporting the new senior executive. Some senior hires will bring their executive coach with them as a matter of course. It’s also been my experience that some organisations have seen the opportunity to bridge the assessment process with life in the organisation by hiring me as a coach: this is particularly effective when the assessment indicates some growth areas for the executive if he or she is to be effective or if the agenda in the new role is stretching for the organisation.

I notice I could go on! A couple of books spring to mind: Watkins’ The First 90 Days and Wageman and others’ Senior Leadership Teams. The first offers advice for the new hire and may offer pointers for the hiring organisation. The second talks about research into effective conditions for senior leadership teams. This points to a key factor for me – unless you have the right people in place in the right teams with the right conditions any amount of support to the new hire may be wasted.

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.

Empathy begins at home

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Today I decided to share my needs with the man from the call centre who wanted to sell me services I didn’t want to buy. When he said he wanted to ask me some questions about my current service provision I knew from experience that this might lead to a conversation about how I could get better, cheaper services with his company.  I did not want to go down this path, and I told him so.  In addition, I was already wary of the “I’m wanting to have this conversation because it meets your needs” routine that is encoded in so many call centre scripts.  Here’s a brief extract from our conversation:

Call centre man:  Do you mind if I ask you which company you’re using at the moment?
Me:  Actually, that’s not how I’d like to spend my time today as I have some commitments I want to fulfil.
Call centre man:  It won’t take long.
Me:  May I just check with you – would you be willing to tell me what you heard me say so that I can check that I made myself clear?
Call centre man:  Are you telling me that you don’t want to save money on your broadband services?
Me:  No, that’s not what I said.  And I do have a need to be heard and understood that’s not being met here and I notice that I am feeling some anger right now…

Our conversation reminded me just how often we find it hard to hear and be present to the needs of others.  I could identify any number of reasons for this which all lead back to the same Mother-of-all-Reasons:  because we live in a culture in which we think there is such a thing as “right” or “wrong”, believing that this is some independent and objective truth for which we are searching rather than believing that this is a concept we use in pursuit of power and control.

What about the man from the call centre?  Whether correctly or not, one thing I infer from the comment “Are you telling me that you don’t want to save money on your broadband services?” is that my partner in conversation is wanting to meet his own needs and that he isn’t owning what they are:  he isn’t being honest about his true aims.  If he really wants to be of service, he would be attuned to my desire to choose how I spend my time and support me by getting off the phone after a respectful goodbye.  It’s not entirely clear what needs he is trying to meet – the needs that might be met by getting X number of clients to buy today.  (And I could say that yes, the conversation is scripted and he is following somebody else’s guidance about what to say.  Still, he has chosen the job in which he has to execute this script again and again and again and – I believe – he has made this choice because to do this job and to earn the salary it provides helps him to meet needs he can identify).

I see a level of self-honesty as an important pre-condition for empathy.  When I can be very clear with myself about what needs I am trying to meet I am more likely to be able to empathise with my partner in conversation.  This is not just about conversations with strangers from distant call centres:

  • When a senior executive can own her enthusiasm for a particular path or project she is more likely to recognise that when she responds to a colleague’s request to be heard by making a suggestion in line with her preferred path she is not responding to her colleague’s need for empathy so much as seeking to meet her own needs;
  • When a father can own how scared he is of the prospect of his daughter learning to drive and be honest with himself about about his needs and about those actions he is taking to meet his needs he is more likely to be able to be present to his daughter and her excitment when she thinks about the increased level of autonomy that learning to drive will give her;
  • When a line manager can own his anxieties about speaking openly with a much-loved employee about his recent poor performance he is more likely to be able to address his needs by holding an open and honest conversation with the person concerned.  What’s more, this level of self-honesty makes it far less likely that the line manager will see his choice to hold back as “protecting his employee”.

To be able to be present to and honest about our own needs whilst also being present to the needs of others, even when it seems impossible for the needs of both parties to be met, belongs to the post-graduate school of empathy – a level that many of us never reach.  Is it possible – maybe even for all of us? – to reach this level.  It’s my experience that empathy can be learned.  How?  That’s a posting for another day – so please keep reading.

PS  And was I present to the needs of the man from the call centre in my conversation today?  No.  Today I was asking for empathy without offering it.  Maybe next time.