Tag Archives: emotional intelligence

When asking for feedback fills you with fear

About Dorothy, Emotional Intelligence, ,
There’s no failure, only feedback

Recently, I found myself talking with a friend about my life as a singer.  Specifically, I was remembering a performance of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast in which I had made a very lusty entry – in the wrong place.

In my early days as a member of the London Symphony Chorus, I would never have made such a mistake.  The fear of making a mistake made me hold back;  my singing was (largely) correct but it lacked gusto.  With time, I have learnt that a mistake is just a mistake so that when I came in (with the men, as I recall) in the wrong place in Belshazzar’s Feast I found myself celebrating it as a sign of a growing sense of ease and self acceptance.

In my work with clients, I am constantly reminded of how vulnerable people can feel in receiving feedback.  At times, charged with giving feedback to people I have assessed for jobs, I meet strong resistance and defensiveness.  One client told me a while back that he thought I’d taken a dislike to him before the interview had even begun.  Another recently asked for chapter and verse of how I’d reached my conclusions.  Coaching clients are no different.  Recently, I invited a client to seek out feedback from three people she trusts about her core strengths.  Even though she was charged with asking for positive feedback, she found herself paralysed by the fear of what people might say.

Maybe you have your own experience of wanting to know how people see you and yet, finding it challenging to ask.  Perhaps you worry that your work falls short of the mark.  You want to know how your work is seen and still, you are afraid to ask.  You want to be seen – and seen fully – and yet you fear that you may be seen as “less than”.  Perhaps “less than” relates to your job or promotion prospects;  you fear you are not performing or lack what you need to make your next career steps.  Perhaps “less than” relates – oh, so personally! – to who you are;  you fear that in some way you are fatally flawed.  You are not alone in having such fears.

Let’s be clear, these are the kind of fears that hold you back.  This is true at any number of levels.  One client, for example, was investing a great deal of energy in guessing where his colleagues might be coming from and seeking to put himself beyond reproach, until he started to test his assumptions and realised that his fears were unwarranted.  Another client kept missing out on a promotion that was easily within her reach because she was not open to hearing feedback and adjusting her approach in one key area.

It can help to realise that your behaviour is not who you are.  We are all so much more than the sum of our behaviours.  Yes, our behaviours reflect who we are – our values and intentions, our feelings and needs.  Still, there are many ways in which they don’t reflect our essential self.  Perhaps, for example, you simply lack skill in a certain area.  Perhaps you have followed a poor example or even been taught to behave in a certain way and are doing so unconsciously.

Once you start to strip away old and unhelpful beliefs or to develop new skills your behaviour comes closer to reflecting who you are and may even leave you with an enriched sense of yourself.  Once you start to understand that you are not your behaviour, asking for feedback becomes easier.  In the discipline of neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP) this is reflected in a presupposition:  there’s no failure, only feedback.

Let me return to my client – the one I asked to seek out feedback about her core strengths.  If you’re anything like her, you may be wondering what steps you can take before asking for feedback to build your sense of ease.  Here’s just one thing you can do to begin to understand what stands in the way (which I learnt from Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator):

Step 1:  Identify a recent conversation in which you could have asked for feedback (and may even have wanted to) but didn’t.

Step 2:  Take some paper or open a document and create two columns.  In the right hand column, capture as much as you can of the actual conversation – what you said and what the other person said.

Step 3:  Write down any additional thoughts and feelings you had during the conversation in the left hand column alongside details of the actual conversation.

Capturing your thoughts in this way offers the opportunity to reflect on what beliefs and emotions you have about receiving feedback and opens up awareness and new possibilities.

When you can’t change the others

Emotional Intelligence

Recently my niece, Dr Rebecca Nesbit, was interviewed by the BBC and quoted in an article entitled Smart approach to house spider survey.  Rebecca has been working with her colleagues at the Society of Biology to design and launch a new recording scheme to capture information about the UK’s house spider population.  I am getting used to Rebecca’s presence in the media – interviews on the radio, visits to the House of Commons and so on.  These are moments of quiet celebration for me – I love it that Rebecca is doing work which reflects her passion for all things natural and environmental…

…Except that Ella Davies and her fellow journalists at the BBC misspelt Rebecca’s name throughout the article (***sigh***).  Let me tell you, if your name is Nesbit (with one ‘t’) this is a familiar and wearisome mistake.  I try not to judge and still, isn’t the first rule of journalism that you check your facts?  It seemed to me to be a sloppy mistake.

It soon became clear to me that I was caught in a pattern of thinking that I see from time to time in my clients, especially in relation to the boss or “powers that be”.  It’s a pattern that’s stimulated when my clients, as employees, have something on their agenda and are not getting the response they hope for from their boss.  The pattern goes something like this:

*An employee wants something that is deeply personal to them and related to their work;
*The employee has an expectation and may or may not make a request of their boss with the aim of realising their hopes;
*When the boss doesn’t do what the employee expects, the employee invests time and energy in thinking about what the boss should do and how much the boss has failed them – but this doesn’t bring them any closer to realising their dreams.

I wonder, do you recognise yourself in this at all?  Perhaps you are seeking a promotion or a pay-rise and you feel frustrated that it hasn’t been forthcoming.  Perhaps you’d like your boss to take account of your preferences – to better understand how you like to work – and you are outraged by your boss’s lack of sensory acuity;  his or her complete failure to read the signals you are giving that the way you’re being treated isn’t working for you.  Perhaps there’s a key project coming up in the business and you hope you’ll be nominated to take part because you know you have the skills and it’s something to do and your boss ought to know to put your name forward.

Reflecting on the many examples I see of this pattern, I was also reminded of a colleague (let’s call him John), years ago, who wanted a promotion which was slow to materialise.  His response was the opposite of this wait-and-grumble approach.  John started by asking for a meeting with his boss, and used the meeting to express his desire for a promotion and to ask what he would need to do to be eligible for the promotion.  When he listened to everything that his boss told him he realised that the boss was essentially saying, “you need to become more like me”.  John was quiet, thoughtful, purposeful and methodical – unlikely to become the kind of outgoing, alpha male he saw in his boss.

This is the kind of meeting that can stimulate the pattern of thinking described above;  John could have fallen into the pattern of quietly grumbling about how his boss should be different.  He didn’t.  He started to gather information about the way promotions happened inside his organisation and about those people whom his boss had promoted in recent years.  This confirmed his view that he was unlikely to get his desired promotion in his current job and maybe even his current organisation.  He took the view that whilst his boss’s feedback suggested he didn’t have it in him to reach the level of seniority he aspired to, he had faith in his potential to succeed in his own way.  He set out to find an organisation which was better able to recognise his skills and he did, rising steadily in line with his aspirations.

John succeeded because he was willing to examine the realities of his employing organisation rather than to get stuck in a pattern of thinking that things ought to be different and doing nothing himself.  In doing so, he stood firmly in the energy of his own needs and allowed that his original strategy for meeting his needs might not work.  Rather than looking to his boss for the solution, he took responsibility himself.  As one of my coaching colleagues often puts it, you can’t change the others, you can only change yourself.

And in case you’re wondering, the photo of the spider is my own, from my recent stay in the beautiful Oxon Hoath.  Oh!  And I’ve just dropped a line to the BBC via their ‘contact us’ form and highlighted the spelling error in their article and asked if they would be willing to correct it.  If they change it, that’s all for the good.  If they don’t, I will leave their mistake with them – sloppy or not!

Up against conflict? Graceful ways to ease your path

Emotional Intelligence
Do you really want it to come to this?

I am back now from a wonderful time at Oxon Hoath in Kent.  My break was deeply restful though I have come back to a busy time, including coaching on Sunday in Harley Street.  It is early days for the Sunday Coaching Clinic and still, I notice how I have been scanning for patterns in what my clients are bringing to our sessions.  I have been wondering what clients will bring that is different from those clients whose coaching is funded by their employing organisations and there are indeed differences as well as similarities.  One theme has popped up which spans both our personal and professional lives – conflict.

Maybe you have some experience of conflict.  It could be the kind of nitty gritty conflict that is part of the day-to-day experience of living together.  (“When will you actually get round to doing the thing you promised to do – moving the lawn/clearing the garage/fixing the shelf etc.?”).  It can be the kind of interpersonal conflict that bedevils both our intimate and our professional relationships (“I wish you’d show some appreciation for the things I do for you!”).  For one client, recently, it was the kind of conflict that can arise at work when two people who both have a role in a project have different ideas about how it should be run (“I thought you had agreed to wait until our meeting so that we could make a decision together, but you’ve gone right ahead and I think what you’ve done is a big mistake!”).

Equally, you may also recognise the roller-coaster of emotions that can come when you are in conflict rather than collaboration.  Perhaps you feel anxious about the consequences of speaking up – worried about how you might be seen, about rocking an already unsteady boat, about fuelling the fire…  Perhaps you feel frustrated by the actions of your partner or colleague – you know you’re on a short fuse and your anger is easily triggered.  Perhaps you feel resentment when you think of the role this other person has played or of the actions you have taken that just aren’t being taken into account.  There’s a risk of conflict and an unproductive conflict at that.

Over the years, I have observed people who manage conflict well and notice how many of them head off conflict a long time in advance.  Today, I thought I’d share just some of the things I have seen them do, in case for you, too, they offer some graceful ways to ease your path:

  • Focus on who wants what:  Some people talk of “needs” and others of “interests”.  This is about getting under the skin of strategies (the “how to” of getting things done) and understanding why a particular approach is important.  This is about empathy and applies as much to you as it does to the other person.  Why do you want to move faster or to slow down?  Why does your colleague want to invite views from John and Gerhardt when you would prefer to seek input from Chris and Faisal?  If you can understand your own needs and the needs of others, you can start to generate ways forward in which everyone’s needs will be met;
  • Reach clear agreements about roles and who will do what:  Conflict can arise when roles or decision-making are unclear.  It can help to agree roles, how you will work together and who will do what.  This can be true in your personal relationships as much as it is at work.  If you’re unhappy that you’re always the person who handles the household bills, for example, then you need to say so – and to make a request of your partner or spouse that would meet your needs more fully.  If you don’t like it that your colleague keeps taking unilateral actions, then it can help to discuss what decisions need to be taken jointly so that you can both feel confident about the progress of a project or initiative;
  • Explain your reasoning and test your assumptions:  It’s easy to assume that your own logic is an example of some universal truth and to assume others will naturally understand your thinking.  It’s also easy to interpret what others say based on your own way of thinking.  This is where misunderstandings occur.  Over the years, I’ve observed how explaining your reasoning and testing your understanding of others’ reasoning helps to head off misunderstandings before they’ve even happened and to smooth a path to a solution that works all round.  “Want to recruit more people like James?  I’m concerned that if we do that without any way of knowing who is bringing in most sales, we may recruit people who are not the most effective – that’s why I want to introduce more effective monitoring before using James (and others like him) as the basis for modelling the behaviours we want to recruit to”.  “When you say ‘stop badgering me’, I’m wondering if you want to know that I’m making a request rather than giving you an order.  Is that right?”
  • Tailor your approach based on what you know of the other person:  I’ve seen people’s effectiveness in influencing others and heading off conflict improve dramatically when they start to speak the language of the person they’re talking to.  You may want to secure a quality of work that will meet the goals for your process improvement but if your boss wants speed, you need to talk the language of speed.  If your colleague wants value for money… you get the gist.  This is about framing a problem or issue in language you know the other person can actually hear;
  • Influence indirectly:  If your conflict – or potential conflict – is with Graham, the answer may be to step back and look at the wider picture.  Who does Graham listen to and why?  These are people you need to get on board.  Which other stakeholders are important?  Talk to them all.  I have seen many skilful influencers go into meetings knowing precisely who thinks what and how likely it is that their proposal will be accepted.  This gives them the opportunity to shape their proposal and present it to gain maximum support.  At home, the same people think about what their spouse or partner really needs and how to engage others to support their partner in meeting their needs without placing themselves in the role of saviour;
  • Take time over important issues – and know the limitations of what’s possible:  Sometimes, you need to know what’s possible now and what might be possible later.  That way you won’t try to force an issue ahead of others’ readiness to hear you.  Equally, for as long as someone is immoveable in adopting a particular position, trying to force them along another route may exacerbate conflict and increase stress.  In this latter case, your question may be “Given that X is true, what’s the right decision for me to take right now?”  X could be anything from a statement from your partner that she’s just not willing to move so that you can take on another new job to the recognition that your boss, because he isn’t yet up to speed with social media, is not going to fund a project to increase your company’s presence in places (Twitter etc.) where your core customer base hangs out.  In this case, recognising what is frees energy up and allows you to take informed decisions.

If you’re trying to navigate conflict right now, I invite you to reflect on these strategies and to try just one or two that might work for you in your current situation.

Please let me know how you get on.

Seven steps towards taming your inner critic (and one sure fire way not to)

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,

Have you noticed how, just when you’re trying to muster a bit of confidence, your inner critic steps in and pulls the rug right out from under your feet?

Perhaps you’ve just started a new job – you’ve had a promotion or moved to a new company.  You’re doing your best to focus on how to succeed in the job and all the while, your inner critic is telling you that you don’t have what it takes, with full and vivid detail of the reasons you’re unlikely to succeed.

Or maybe you’ve taken on new responsibilities at work – they’re everything you’ve been campaigning for and you know you have everything you need to deliver and still, your inner critic is ready to wade in the minute you get what you want with objections and concerns.

It seems there’s no end to the situations in which your inner critic can find fault.  Some are in your professional life and some are in your personal life.  What’s worse, it seems that the closer you come to realising your goals, the more the voice of your inner critic is amplified.  At times, it’s so overwhelming that you’re paralysed with fear and you wonder if you’ve made the right decision.  Maybe you’ve already started to look for the sign marked “exit”.

One common approach to taming your inner critic… and why it doesn’t work

Over the years of dancing with my own inner critic and of working with clients, I have found that the most common approach to taming your inner critic simply doesn’t work.

What’s the approach?  Put simply, it’s to dismiss the concerns of your inner critic – and maybe your inner critic him- or herself – using every means at your disposal.  One way is to use rational persuasion (“You say I can’t do X but I did X last week and it worked really well”).  One way is to dismiss your inner critic with anger, hatred and disdain (“Why won’t you leave me alone?  I’m not listening to you!  You talk such rubbish!”*)  When I ask clients how well these strategies are working for them they tell me, without exception, that they’re not.

Why not?  The answer is simple.  Your inner critic is a guardian for you of particular needs.  The more you ignore your inner critic, the more he or she fears that your needs will not be met… and the more s/he turns up the volume to make sure s/he gets heard.

If you can’t go to battle with your inner critic and win, you may find that the only alternative you can find is a sense of inner collapse.  In this state, you wonder if you really should have taken on the job, you tell yourself you’re bound to fail, you find no way forward.

There is though, a way forward.  You simply need to take a different approach.

Seven steps towards taming your inner critic

Even when the voice of your inner critic is overwhelming, there are ways to move beyond fear to achieve an inner calm.  These are seven steps towards “taming your inner critic”:

  • Step 1, step outside and say hello:  Have you ever noticed how, when your inner critic is active, his thoughts are your thoughts?  His fears are yours?  Especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed, it can help to step out of being the inner critic.  Step out of your inner critic – stand up and shake yourself down, for example, leaving your inner critic behind on the chair.  Or hold out your hand and look at your inner critic – and take a moment to say hello.  Your hello is a way of recognising your inner critic and engaging in dialogue;
  • Step 2, get curious:  Far too often, when you do battle with your inner critic, you lose sight of an important principle – that she loves you and wants to do you good.  Your relationship with your inner critic starts to transform when you start to really understand what she wants for you, so ask her!  Keep asking (“what is it that you really want for me?”) until you get under the skin of particular strategies (“I want you to say no to the job”) to the baseline need she is trying to protect.  This is usually about safety, security… she wants to keep you safe;
  • Step 3, acknowledge your needs:  When you dismiss your inner critic, you arouse his fear that you don’t care about your needs for safety and security so that he redoubles his efforts to protect you.  It helps to let him know that you, too, want to be safe.  No ifs or buts – just let him know that for you, too, safety matters;
  • Step 4, say thank you:  Take time to thank your inner critic for her good intentions.  Thank her for being the guardian of your safety and security throughout your life.  If this sticks in your throat it may help to separate in your mind her good intentions and her ways of trying to meet your needs – there’s no harm in saying that you’ve really struggled with her way of supporting you and still, you’re beginning to understand how much she has always meant well;
  • Step 5, notice his skills:  Your inner critic brings a great deal of skill to the task of taking care of you.  When you try to dismiss him, you’re likely to dismiss his skills… his ability to think ahead and to see all the potential pitfalls, his imagination in conjuring safe alternatives.  The more you notice and acknowledge these skills, the more you can begin to see how it might be helpful to have these skills on your team and to collaborate with your inner critic;
  • Step 6, share with her your other needs:  Your inner critic may be the guardian of your safety and security but you also have other needs – the kind of needs you meet when you take on a promotion, or new responsibilities or, in your personal life, embark on a new relationship or take on a bigger mortgage.  It’s never your needs that are in conflict – only the strategies by which you seek to meet them.  So, when your inner critic has been heard, she may be ready to hear you.  Let her know what other needs you want to meet – over the years, clients have talked about freedom, autonomy, self-fulfilment, intimacy and many more;
  • Step 7, invite collaboration:  When you are confident that you have heard your inner critic’s need for security and that your inner critic has also heard your wider needs, ask him if he would be willing to collaborate so that you find ways to meet all your needs.  When you hear a yes, you have reached a point of departure – a moment where creativity begins.  At this point, you have moved from struggle into a creative embrace of “how can we collaborate to make sure all our needs are met?”

In truth, these steps are not so much about “taming your inner critic” as about building a different relationship with the guardian of your safety and security.  And it is a relationship rather than a once-and-for-all way to rid yourself of fear.  One implication is this – that the more you learn to engage in constructive dialogue with your inner critic, the more you can work with him or her to balance your need for safety with other needs.

(*And in case you’re reading this and looking over your shoulder – pretending you don’t talk to yourself in this way – well, I want to let you know that in my experience, we all do.  Healthy people have a rich inner community of parts, including their inner critic.)

When does your inner critic shout the loudest?  And what has worked best to help you to move out of overwhelm and into inner calm?

Essential lessons from The Apprentice

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,
Neil Clough
Fans of the BBC’s Apprentice were glued to the television last night for the interviews.  The gears were shifted from the fun and games of various tasks (a bit like the kind of assessment days I have been involved in over the years in corporate GB) to close scrutiny of candidates and their business plans.
It soon became clear that it wasn’t looking good for the men.  It was hard to see a way out for Jordan Poulton, whose business plan, it emerged, was for a business owned by someone else with whom he had a ‘gentleman’s agreement’.  He was the first to go.  Next, it was Neil Clough, who continued to maintain that his business plan could work despite clear feedback to the contrary from Lord Sugar’s advisers.  Finally, it was Francesca MacDuff-Varley whose spirited performance could not disguise her lack of business savvy.
Of the three candidates to leave this week, none was as hard to let go as Neil Clough, who has looked like a potential winner from the beginning.  As he sometimes does, Lord Sugar expressed his regret at having to say goodbye to him.  On The Apprentice‘s sister (or should I say brother..?) programme, The Apprentice:  You’re Fired, he said that “Neil’s greatest flaw is his inability to listen to sound advice”.  In a way, it doesn’t even matter whether or not the advice was sound – Neil was unable to adjust his approach for any reason.  It could be that listening to sound advice was indeed where it was at.  Equally, it could be that recognising that the people with the power and the ear of Lord Sugar had a view which was different from his own should have been enough to have Neil thinking about how to adapt.
For me, the important issue was not that Neil was unable to listen to sound advice.  No.  The important issue was this:  why was Neil unable to listen to sound advice?  We already knew, before last night’s episode, that Neil saw the death of his father when he was just 18 years old as a defining experience – this is something he shared in an impassioned speech on the business away-day task.  What struck me last night, though, was Neil’s need to succeed in order not to let his father down – or his wife and children, come to that.  To put it another way, Neil’s personal need to succeed – linked to his experience of losing his father – was such that he couldn’t let go of his faith in his business plan, for who would he be then?  There was, simply, too much at stake.  And maybe to put it yet another way, Neil had conflated separate issues (the death of his father, his desire to live up to his father’s expectations, his success on The Apprentice and no doubt more besides).  If you can’t separate your feelings about a past event from what’s happening today you will, at times, act in ways which are not good for you or your business.
Now, please don’t get me wrong.  Our most personal experiences can be a great force for good.  How many charities are borne out of grief and loss which successfully address injustices or provide much-needed support?  How many great leaders are fuelled by the desire to right some wrong or heal some injustice?  To bring this right up to date, I think of Andy Murray’s recent Wimbledon win and its potential to heal the deep sense of loss and emotional scars of the community of Dunblane.  Perhaps the word ‘heal’ is the important word here.  The desire for healing can be a force for good both for an individual and for those whose lives they touch, within business or without.  At the same time, the failure to bring healing where it’s needed can lead to behaviours in the workplace which are dysfunctional both for the individual and for the business.  For me, more than anything else, last night’s episode of The Apprentice shone a light on Neil’s deep need for healing from the painful, early loss of his father.
Neil, in case you’re reading this, I want to express my wish for you.  I hope that you come to understand one day that, no matter what your father wished for you when he was alive, you do not have to be better than anyone else or to succeed every time in order to do your loved ones justice… nor indeed, in order to be loved.  I hope you find self-acceptance such that you can see yourself more fully, knowing that the occasional failures that will beset you take nothing away from who you are.  Indeed, I trust that by developing a deep sense of self-acceptance you will uncover the fullness of your strengths as much as you are able to see and embrace your weaknesses and your failures.
And to others who read this posting I would like to add that  if you see something of Neil in yourself I want to reach out to you, too.  Let your experiences be a force for healing for you and for others – a force for good in the world.

Just how much can you flex in the workplace and still be yourself?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,
Just how much can you flex in the workplace and still be yourself?

I’ve been reflecting on a challenge I observe amongst my clients – maybe it’s one with which you, too, are familiar.  Some of the most successful people I know are also those who are most flexible and able to adapt. These are people who are able to read a situation and to know what’s required in that situation in order to achieve their desired outcome.  These are people who choose their behaviours carefully in order to move towards their end goal.  These are not the people who behave, repeatedly, in particular ways and say “people can like it or lump it – it’s just who I am”.  No, these are the people who know that they are far more than the sum of their behaviours.  Confident in their sense of self, they adapt easily to change and maintain steady progress towards end goals.
At the same time, I meet people who have flexed so far that they have lost touch with who they are.  These are the people who have pursued end goals and may even have succeeded and yet, they have done so at the cost of their sense of connection with who they really are.  Perhaps they never knew who they are – busy pleasing their parents or their employer they have drifted further and further away from any sense of who they are.  Sometimes the disparity sits right under their nose, if only they were open to seeing it.  Sometimes it is so well hidden that they have no sense of it – just a vague sense of unease.
For this second group (do you belong in this group?) there is a paradox.  The more alienated we are from our true sense of self the more challenging it becomes to change and adapt at a behavioural level.  It goes like this:  I think I am what I do – so any change to what I do threatens my sense of who I am.  Maintaining behavioural habits becomes a proxy for being ourselves.  This presents many challenges.  If I am what I do, how will I experience any feedback about my behaviour?  Of course, I shall try hard to dismiss it or the person who gives it.  If I am what I do, how will I manage in situations in which old behaviours are ineffective?  It’s likely that I will chose to be ineffective over changing my behaviour because this gives me some sense of preserving my sense of identity.  If I am what I do, how will I experience failure in a particular task or even in my job as a whole?  It’s hard not to take it personally.
So just how much can you flex in the workplace and still be yourself?  I wonder if this question opens up an ongoing journey rather than a once-for-all-time answer.  It requires us to be curious – on an ongoing basis – about how much of what we think of as “me” really is me.  The newly promoted leader, for example, may find him- or herself looking over his shoulder for weeks until he realises that yes, I can do this job and it’s OK to do this job.  Sometimes it can take feedback to reinforce this new sense of workplace identity.  At the same time, part of this ongoing journey is to become increasingly aware of times when an action does not sit comfortably with essential motivations and values.  Yes, I can lead my team in a certain direction and still, every day I find myself struggling to get out of bed or simply forcing myself to do what I need to do to deliver in this job.
Often, I have found that the instinct for change – for a move towards a life which is more congruent with who we are – is barely hidden beneath the surface.  The right question will open up the need to reconnect with our sense of self and to identify, quite quickly, that the life we are leading lies outside what is normal and natural for us.  Sometimes we have the joy of discovering that we are in the right place at the right time:  learning to bring ourselves more fully to our life and career can open up much greater ease as well as higher levels of achievement.  Sometimes the realisation is that, by continuing to strive to succeed in this situation, we are flexing too far from our essential selves.
I wonder how much you are flexing in your life and career?  And with what results?

There’s wisdom in knowing when to forgive

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,
There’s wisdom in knowing when to forgive
I’ve been struck recently by the way the theme of forgiveness has been popping up.  Over lunch the other day a colleague described how he had been reaching out to former colleagues some years after leaving the organisation in which they’d worked together.  Clients have been talking about difficult experiences with their colleagues – when someone had done something they’d found hard to forgive.  Rosabeth Moss Kanter has been writing on the subject recently in a blog posting for the Harvard Business Review entitled Great Leaders Know When to Forgive.  Even as I sat down to write this posting I realised there was a phone call I needed to make before I could be in integrity with myself in writing about forgiveness.
The interesting thing is that forgiveness is not a word that comes up often at senior levels – so you may be wondering what I’m talking about.  Reflecting on this topic, I wondered if – at least for now – the topic of forgiveness covers three areas.  In the first area, colleagues do something that is deeply personal – these are the small-scale actions that can be a thorn in our side.  Perhaps, for example, your colleague has taken credit in the board-room for an idea you know he or she got from you.  Perhaps he got the job you really wanted and you find it hard to let go of the conviction that, for some reason, the job was meant for you.  Perhaps you know someone has ‘bad-mouthed’ you to your colleagues at senior levels without ever coming to you to give open and honest feedback.
This first area has a ‘first cousin’ in the form of actions your colleagues may or may not have taken and which you have taken personally because you have attributed some kind of intention or drawn some kind of conclusion.  Yesterday, for example, before I wrote this posting, I decided to phone someone I’d been reaching out to for weeks – I’d sent multiple e-mails, I’d phoned and then phoned again.  I was starting to feel angry about the lack of response and also to wonder – was there something going on?  Part of me was concerned for the person I was contacting who is normally so reliable in coming back to me.  Part of me was angry about the consequences of not bringing to a conclusion some conversations we’d started earlier in the year.  And part of me was, well… a bit paranoid.  Had I done something wrong?  Was she angry with me?  I knew I needed to find out what was going on.
Sometimes, the things we struggle to forgive move beyond the personal to the organisational and beyond.  Moss Kanter, in her posting, Great Leaders Know When to Forgive, points to some of the examples that are familiar to us all.  Most striking to me is the example of Nelson Mandela, whose actions included appointing a racially diverse cabinet when some of his colleagues were clamouring for revenge against those who had oppressed black people in South Africa under apartheid.  In the kind of organisations I work with, forgiveness can range from letting go of one’s feelings about a hostile merger to forgiving those who had failed successfully to deliver an expensive IT project or letting go of angry feelings about a financial loss incurred.  These are examples of events that can cast a long shadow across an organisation unless they are forgiven.
How do you know that there’s something you need to forgive?  Your emotions – if you are attending to them with care – will give you some clues.  Do you feel angry or resentful, for example, about something someone has done or about some ongoing situation in your organisation?  Such feelings are closely linked to thoughts which are also worth noticing – when you’re telling yourself that someone has done something wrong or that such-and-such a situation is unacceptable.  This doesn’t mean it’s time – yet – to forgive.  Instead, such moments represent an opportunity to be present to your anger and to notice what it means.  Often, beneath the anger there are fears – fears that your needs (which needs?) will not be met.  You may also be assigning responsibility to someone else for your well-being.
Connecting with your thoughts and emotions in this way can lead you to insights about what you really want and open up new ways forward.  It’s not that such ways are always easy.  Perhaps your reflection will help you to realise that the things you most want to change in your organisation are not going to change and that it’s time for you to accept the status quo or move elsewhere.  Perhaps you need to recognise the incompetence of colleagues and consider what you need to do given the capabilities of your colleague(s).  Perhaps you need to look at the larger outcomes you desire for your organisation and accept that maintaining a low level feud stands in the way of your desires.
And then, it’s time to forgive.  In my experience, forgiveness becomes an option when we recognise that whatever has happened, it is the way we are thinking about our experience that makes us feel so bad.  Change our thinking and we open up the opportunity both for forgiveness and for a better experience going forward.  As a leader, your act of forgiveness may be an act of heroism on a grand scale.  It may, equally, be entirely invisible to anyone but yourself.  Either way, it releases you to move forward in a more constructive way and makes energy available to you that was previously the fuel of anger and resentment.
Forgiveness.  When have you done it?  How?  And with what outcomes?

When it’s time to give feedback to the boss

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,
Giving feedback to the boss?
Don’t skirt around what you have to say.

I have been following a thread of discussion on LinkedIn.  The discussion, amongst fellow coaches, was prompted by a request along the following lines:  Anyone got any suggestions for building rapport with a CEO whom the Board has asked you to coach, but who believes he’s doing a good job?  I have the opportunity to have a couple of interactions with him before the Board lets him know they’d like him to work with a coach.  Whilst the coach is at risk of tying himself in knots, most colleagues have encouraged him to establish clear boundaries with the Board.  It’s for Board members to give clear and direct feedback to the CEO about the behaviours they find difficult.  It’s for Board members to suggest that the CEO work with a coach.

The issue is common.  I leave out the word “surprisingly” because why would it surprise us that a human being who’s risen to a senior position may do things we find difficult – unless, of course, we hold the view that  organisations only recruit people into roles who are effective and well suited to the role.  We’d like this to be true but it isn’t.  Instead, we are faced with human beings in the role of the “boss”, people whose behaviours we find difficult.  “He tells us he wants us to share our ideas but when we do, he dismisses them out of hand. It’s always his ideas that prevail”.  “It’s been five years since I told her that John isn’t performing and he’s still sitting round the top table.  Yes, she’s taken work away so he can’t do any damage but she needs to face the issue straight on so we don’t have to work around him any more”.  “I’d like to actually have a boss – someone who is aware of what I do and who is able to give direction and support.  Yes, I am pretty self motivated when it comes to it and still, I’d like to know how my work is seen in this organisation”.  To these issues, I am sure you can add your own – because bosses rarely measure up and give us the support and direction we need, even though it’s in their job description to do so.

And it’s hard to give feedback.  It’s hard because we find ourselves chafing against our expectation – of which we may or may not be aware – that it’s for the boss to know how to manage us.  How come we are doing the work of managing our staff and we have to manage the boss as well?!  It’s hard because the very reason the feedback is needed is because the boss has a blind spot and he or she does not enjoy hearing about behaviours of which s/he’s unaware.  It’s hard because, at the end of the day, the boss is the boss – there is an inbuilt difference in the power he or she wields in the organisation.  So we fear our boss’s response to any feedback we might give.  Most of all it’s hard because to share our needs fully can leave us feeling vulnerable and exposed.  More vulnerable and exposed than we like to admit.

There are ways around this.  You can try to outsource the giving of feedback like the Board I mentioned right at the top of the page.  You can talk about your boss to others – to your colleagues or your loved ones – declaring heatedly that he or she ought to know better.  Hey!  You can even change jobs in the hope of finding a better boss next time.  These strategies protect you from the vulnerability of giving feedback.  Some of them leave you with the same boss and the same behaviours and the same unmet needs.  One of them may even leave you with a different boss and different behaviours and different unmet needs.

Some people even protect themselves from the vulnerability that can come from giving feedback by showering their boss with “shoulds” and “oughts” and even “good ideas”.  “Don’t you think it would be a good idea if we checked in every few weeks to make sure we know we’re on track?”  “I thought you might enjoy this article – it says that effective leaders should hold regular meetings with their teams”.  Even when the “should” is not explicit, holding the view that our boss “should” (take time for one to one meetings, understand your need for clarity, lead more effective team meetings…) in some way protects us, placing the responsibility for change with the boss.

At the same time, if you want things to change, the ball is in your court.  It’s time for self-examination:  do you want this change enough that you’re willing to speak up or is this one you want to let go?  And if you choose to speak up, it helps to be clear.  Let your boss know what it is he or she does that doesn’t work for you and what behaviours you’d like instead.  Be willing to share how these different behaviours would contribute to you so your boss can understand the significance of what you’re asking.  Be willing to listen – there may be reasons why your boss chooses not to do what you ask.  Focus on your needs and the boss’s – and explore how you can work together in ways which meet those needs.

More than anything, be prepared to learn.  This kind of conversation, without exception, yields information.  It’s not always information that’s easy to digest.  It may be information about you (that you can make requests of your boss, for example, who always wondered why you weren’t more demanding).  It may be information about your boss (that s/he knows what you say is right but may not follow through to action).  It may be information about the wider organisation.  Being better informed opens up choices.  They may not be easy choices but they are better informed because you’ve had the conversation.

I wonder, are you ready to give feedback to your boss?

Good Communication that Blocks Learning

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,


Twenty-first-century corporations will find it hard to survive,
let alone flourish, unless they get better work from their employees.
This does not necessarily mean harder work or more work
What it does necessarily mean is employees who’ve learned
to take active responsibility for their own behavior,
develop and share first-rate information about their jobs,
and make good use of genuine empowerment
to shape lasting solutions to fundamental problems.


Chris Argyris


Whilst not directly aware of the work of Chris Argyris, I have nonetheless been aware of his work via the work of Roger Schwarz.  I was interested recently to come across an article by Chris on the Harvard Business Review blog, entitled Good Communication That Blocks Learning.  The quote above is the opening paragraph to Chris’s article, positioning it within the challenging economic times we live in.

Chris’s article took me back to the early days of my career, when Total Quality Management was all the rage  and everyone was reading Tom Peters’ In Search of Excellence.  This was an era that emphasised making many small improvements based on listening to members of the workforce in order to create a quality product or service and to design out flaws and wastage – at least, this is my memory of Total Quality Management approaching 30 years later.

I don’t remember ever hearing anyone criticise the logic of TQM and still, there are reasons why, all these years later, we still talk about the need to empower – without actually empowering.  Argyris’s article scratches the surface to uncover the unconscious behaviours that run counter to our leadership aspirations, preventing us from ‘walking our talk’.

It’s long and it’s also worthwhile – so make yourself a cuppa and close the office door before you read it.

How much do you recognise the behaviours Argyris describes – in yourself?  In others?

The not-so-positive “positive sandwich technique”

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,
If you’re using the ‘positive sandwich technique’
to convey negative feedback, you may
be treading on thin ice 

In 2007, it was my privilege to participate in an Intensive International Training in Nonviolent Communication with Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication:  a Language of Life.  Regular readers will know that this book is a favourite of mine and gets a regular mention on my blog.  I went with a friend of mine and we decided to join some of our fellow participants in the dormitory accommodation a short walk from the main building.  It was only on day two of the training that I realised that one of our companions in the dorm, surrounded by women old enough to be his mother, was a young man.

The training was a rich experience for me which I continue to treasure.  A few people touched me in particular, including the young man in the dorm.  As our time together was drawing towards its completion, I asked him (and a few others) if I could have some time with him before we said goodbye.  I wanted to express my gratitude and appreciation ahead of our final goodbyes.

Sitting in a quiet corner, I shared, one by one, the things he had done that I most appreciated and how they had contributed to my well-being and enjoyment of the course.  It’s been my experience that sharing appreciation in this way can create moments of connection, both with the pleasures of giving and receiving and with each other.  On this occasion, though, I noticed that my colleague was becoming increasingly tense – I watched as his body stiffened and asked him what was going on for him.

He told me he was waiting for the real feedback and when I asked him what he meant, he said he was waiting for the negative feedback which must surely follow.  I told him there was no negative feedback – I wanted to talk with him precisely because I wanted to share my joy at meeting him and how much I appreciated the time we had spent together.  For a moment he seemed to doubt this until he realised that, yes, I really meant what I said.  We laughed about the misunderstanding and went on to have the real conversation, celebrating together the times we had enjoyed.

I was reminded of this experience recently when I received notification from Roger Schwarz of the publication of a blog posting he wrote, entitled The “Sandwich Approach” Undermines Your Feedback, published recently by the Harvard Business Review.  This approach has been taught to managers over time as a way to soften the blow of giving negative feedback, making it easier to give and easier to receive… or so the theory goes.  In practice, as my own experience illustrates, this approach can make people wary of receiving positive feedback because they assume it’s a precursor to some kind of corrective feedback.  If you’ve ever tried the “positive sandwich technique” to giving feedback and wondered why it doesn’t work or even tried it and come away believing that it did work, it’s worth reading Roger’s article for a different point of view.

Please let me know know how you get on.