The King's Speech

We have just seen "The King's Speech", a movie about George VI and an Australian speech therapist, the man who helps him find his confidence and ability to rally the English during the second world war.  

It's a great drama about the royal family and their crisis as Edward VIII abdicated and the shy Prince Albert found himself the leader of what the film describes as "a quarter of the world's population."

Here's what I took away from the movie:  If you are having difficulties dealing with the demands of your position you can do a lot worse than getting yourself an Australian coach!

Ok, that's a little tongue-in-cheek and a more than a little self-serving, but what the heck.

Geoffrey Rush captures the Australian archetype really well.  Faced with a prince and heir apparent to the British crown he nevertheless insists he's Lionel, and the prince will go by Bertie, just as he does with his close friends and family.  

When Prince Albert argues about the course of the therapy Lionel insists "my castle, my rules."  And when Prince Albert and the future Queen Elizabeth, (The current Queen Elizabeth's mother), doubt Lionel's effectiveness he lets his results recorded on a gramophone record speak for themselves.

Despite the professional chasm between the worlds the two individuals inhabit they come together as equals in the coaching process.  Lionel and Bertie struggle through ups and downs together, but one thing the future king never has to doubt is that Lionel is definitely on his side.

The speech therapist's one mis-step in the movie comes when he oversteps the boundaries of their relationship and presumes to give advice on the throne and how to run the kingdom.

I work with partners in big city law firms, CEOs, senior executives and very successful entrepreneurs:  I know my stuff, but I sincerely hope they never think I believe I can run their business better than they can!

I really liked the Lionel Logue character.  I almost wish every management consultant and coach had to watch this film and critically compare their practice with the trusted Lionel Logue…I wonder how many  would fall short.

One tip to make your New Year resolutions achievable.

Hopefully you are celebrating the successful achievement of your 2010 goals.  And hopefully you are looking forward to setting new goals for yourself and maybe your department, organization or community.  You have probably heard it's a good idea to write them down and tell other people about them.

Most people think it is about record keeping.  Good record keeping is no small thing in itself when it comes to September and you are trying to remember what you promised to do.  However, that is not the main reason why  writing a resolution down and telling other people about it makes it more achievable.

It's nothing "new age" or anything mystical about the universe.  It's a simple insight we have into the psychology of how our minds work.  There is indeed a power to writing things down and telling others:  it's the psychological power of cognitive dissonance.

Consider two statements:  "I am a good person" and "I tell the truth".  Most of us would believe both of these to be true about ourselves.  Now say you write down your resolution and you achieve it.  Ta dah!  You are a good person and you tell the truth.

However, let's say you wrote down your resolution and you are maybe not going to achieve it.  Cognitive dissonance kicks in.  Perhaps "I am a good person" and yet "I don't tell the truth".   This is unlikely and your mind rejects it.  Instead, your conscious and subconscious mind works on the the idea that "I am a good person" and "I tell the truth" therefore … "I should/I must achieve my resolution". 

The act of writing down your resolution means you have taken more effort with your resolution and the harder is it for your mind to think you went to that effort, you're a good person but you didn't tell the truth.

The power of cognitive dissonance says the more effort you put into writing down your resolution the more your unconscious will motivate you to make it true.  Buy an expensive note book, use  fancy calligraphy and give a copy to all your friends.

Of course, you could argue that telling other people just means you will get shamed into having to complete your resolution, but it is really the same thing.  If you are a good person and you tell the truth and you look like you are not going to achieve your resolution…either you have to put a lot of mental and social effort into explaining to yourself and others why…or you just put extra effort into achieving the resolution!

If you are a manager or leader get the people you work with to write down their resolutions, goals and promises for the coming year.  Join them, and be the first one prepared to share your resolutions publicly.  Watch how the more effort is put into writing down the resolution, and the more publicly it is shared, the harder people will work at all levels to make it come true.

Cognitive dissonance was one of the first things I learned as a psychologist about counseling people and I was stunned by how well it works in almost every case.

What Five Questions Help Me Chose An Executive Coach?

Choosing a good coach is likely to be the best thing you could do for your professional development because the return on good coaching is higher than for any comparable form of development.

Coaching used to be just for boardroom executives, but now senior executives, family business owners and many mid-level managers wanting to develop an edge on their peers are turning to an external coach. As the business of coaching business leaders grows larger each year it is becoming more important to chose wisely from the many coaches marketing their services.

The greater number of coaches available makes it more difficult to find a truly exceptional coach. A great coach will provide returns worth many times the investment of time and money. The following questions cover the range of issues needed to establish a good coaching relationship, and are designed to help you make a smart choice.

1:  What are my goals?

Decide if you are looking to achieve personal or business goals. Some “life coaches” specialize in personal goals, while many executive coaches focus on business and commercial objectives. You can talk through with the coach whether you are looking to overcome a current challenge, find professional growth, compensate for a perceived weakness or identify ways to capitalize on your strengths. Do you need help identifying goals? This can be a good place to start with the potential coach. 

2:  What standards and qualifications does the coach have?

Many people say they have had “coaching training” when they are really a speaker, trainer or consultant. Unfortunately, there are many short courses certifying people who claim to be coaches after a few days or weeks of training. Most of these courses do not require either training in psychology or executive experience.

One way to identify a credible professional is to look for membership of the International Coach Federation, the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches, American Psychological Society or a similar professional body in your area. These organizations provide certification for members and require adherence to strict ethical and professional practices.

3:  Does the coach have common sense, and practical business experience?

Find out what relevant pre-coaching background and experiences the coach has that you can relate to. Knowing what they did before they became a coach will help you determine if you will feel comfortable that you can discuss your issues freely with a coach who will be supportive and understanding.

An indication that the coach will have practical business sense is their experience as an executive. Coaching is a special relationship that relies heavily on trust. Perspective and feedback are part of the coach’s role, so you need to feel their judgment is sound and you can value their perspective on your business issues.

4:  Do we have rapport?

Coaching is a very personal interaction. Not every coach will be right for you, even if their qualifications, experience and credentials look ideal. Make sure the “chemistry” is right so you have the basis for a lasting relationship.

5:  What are the deliverables?

A credible coach should be able to explain a process that shows they have a high concern for both task issues and people issues. A typical process will involve a warm up, an assessment of your situation, focused action planning, and opportunities for feedback, self-learning and teachable moments as you follow through on your development.

The personal benefits of good coaching are threefold:

1. Focus on achieving what matters most to you and your organization

2. Growth toward personal and organizational goals

3. Relationships to provide mutual support, resources and opportunities

And if you wonder about the “hard” return on investment, I’ll leave the last word to an old article from Fortune magazine, (19^th Feb, 2001, Executive Coaching - With Returns a CFO Could Love):  (you can do the math to get the current value)

“Asked for a conservative estimate of the monetary payoff from the coaching they got, managers described an average return of more than $100,000, or about six times what the coaching had cost their companies."

Why your 360 appraisal shouldn’t suck!

In various places around the world there are probably more than 20,000 professionals doing some kind of 360 degree performance review that I helped their employers design.  

Obviously, I like multi-rater appraisals.  But, just like the airline employee that is told everyone’s travel woes, I am told all the time about 360 processes that suck. They shouldn’t.

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When I hear 360’s aren’t going well I know it’s one of two things:  either there’s something flawed in the process, or the culture of the organization isn’t supportive of candid, constructive feedback.  This article is about what you can do to fix each of these.

A 360 Degree review is when someone gets structured feedback on their performance from the variety of sources  all around them…peers, internal and external customers, their managers, people they have worked with on projects, and their direct reports, just to name a few different groups who can be involved.  Let’s call them the 3Cs:  Customers, Colleagues and Community.  All of these have a vested interest in recognizing the person’s strengths and helping them improve their performance.

Ideally there are only two questions you need to ask:  “What does the person do well?” and “What are the person’s opportunities for improvement?”

That’s it.  Why?  Because the aim of the exercise is to find out what the person does well so we can recognize and reward good behavior, along with what the person could do better so we can help them improve to meet the reasonable expectations of the 3Cs.

Sometimes the raters find it hard to structure their feedback in a way that is specific and relevant.  It can be useful to ask more guided questions to help the feedback be more useful and easy for raters and person being evaluated.  Sometimes an organization will have a leadership model, management competencies, or specific promises that have been made to the 3Cs, (like a “customer service pledge”).  If that’s the case it makes sense to ask specifically if these are things the person is doing well, or if they are examples of things the person can usefully improve.

Basically though it will still come down to two questions: “What does the person do well?” and “What are the person’s opportunities for improvement?”

In terms of process it’s now possible to identify a few things that can make 360s suck.  If  there a bunch of questions that are onerous, intrusive or irrelevant to the raters, then the process sucks.  If it isn’t easy for the person rated to translate the feedback into actionable, meaningful performance improvements, then the process sucks.  If the person being rated is more concerned with the salary, bonus or promotion impacts of the process than the opportunity to meet the reasonable expectations of their customers, colleagues and community, then the process sucks.

The other big problem with many 360 programs is that they are embedded in a culture that doesn’t support candid, constructive feedback.  The most common reason is that they are inappropriately tied to performance and/or salary reviews, so let’s deal with this first.

If I’m designing an ideal performance review there are only two questions I would add to the two 360 review questions.  The first is “How did the person do compared to what they promised to do?”   The answer could be in the form of sales results, budget variations, project milestones or whatever.  The issue is “here’s what you said you would do, and here’s what you actually did”.  If your goals and reviews aren’t that specific they’re probably useless.

Armed with the variance between promised and actual performance you can now sit down with the person to review their results and look at consequences.  First, let’s hear what the person has to say, both about their actual versus promised performance, and about what they think they do well.  Let’s confirm what they think  where we can with the feedback from the 3Cs.  Then let’s talk about opportunities for improvement using the 360 feedback and the person’s own views.

Now it is time to move on to the second question you can add to the 360 input at performance review time: “Is this how you want your career to go, and what can we do about it?”  With input that’s objectively sourced from all around the person, and a respectful consideration of what they want to get out of their job and career, it’s relatively easy to look at what kinds of training, development activities, rewards and recognition will best suit the individual and the organization.

That sounds like a lot of work, but it isn’t and even if it is, it’s worth it.  Lack of effort is one of the biggest problems with 360 feedback or any kind of performance review.  There are few things more debilitating for an employee than knowing there is a great, big review coming up only for it to be a one off event followed by “business as usual”. 

I have seen a lot of carefully thought out review processes undone by the fact that once the feedback has been received the notes, commitments and details go into a drawer.   They don’t get looked at again for twelve months or the next anxiety producing review session.

Another big organizational killer of 360 feedback, (or any kind of performance review), is the tendency to personalize the material.  This takes two forms.  One is where the providers of feedback don’t get confidentiality.  It should always be possible to give and take candid feedback.  It should go without saying that when you solicit feedback anonymously the people providing the feedback should be confident that their input will be kept confidential and there will be no adverse consequences.  Without confidentiality where appropriate the feedback becomes self-serving.

The second kind of personalization that kills feedback is when the input from the raters focuses on the person rated rather than their performance or abilities.  Sometimes people use the review process to “get back” at the person rated, or use the opportunity to make the rated person look worse thinking it makes the rater look better.

 If the process is being run internally the solution for both of these is for someone outside the feedback loop to moderate the input.  This can be done by merging/purging the data so that it doesn’t easily carry identifying material, or by going back to the rater and asking them to be less personal and more performance focused with their comments.

This sort of process moderation is often carried out by functions such as HR or Quality Assurance.  Similarly, HR or the person’s manager should ensure that the person being rated doesn’t take the feedback personally, or disrespect the input by devaluing the people it comes from.  If an external coach or consultant is running the process this is one of their essential functions.

In summary then, here are the keys to ensuring your 360 doesn’t suck: 

•    One questionnaire to the person’s customers, colleagues and community with as few as two questions, or as many as are specific, relevant and easy for raters to handle.
•    Confidentiality for raters.
•    One review at the end of each significant time period, achievement or milestone that adds a comparison of actual and promised performance, identification of what’s going well and what can be improved, and a discussion of career and job development.

•    Feedback formatted in a way that is actionable for the person rated.
•    Developmental 360 feedback separated from salary, bonus or promotion consequences so that the focus is on…development.
•    Accountability placed on the rated person to come up with an action plan, and follow up sessions to ensure that what is promised becomes what is delivered.

A good 360 degree performance review process focuses attention on what matters most for the person to meet the performance expectations of their customers, colleagues and community, and provides a supportive environment for that to happen.  That's what performance reviews should be all about.

My work with clients is like the first run of spring!

If you know anything at all about me you probably know I’m a runner. My parents remember me heading out for a run in my neighborhood from the time I was around eleven. At fifteen I got a part time after school job in a supermarket about three miles away, and I would walk home, change, run to work, pack bags and stock shelves until store closing, then run home again.

I’ve been running for a long time. Today my running broke through to a new level and it reminded me of my client work. Here’s how.

This is me just before my first outdoor run of the spring season. It’s a beautiful change of seasons day in Minnesota. The temperature is a relatively balmy 45F but the lakes are still crisp and white with winter’s ice. The trees are still bare yet the snow cover has melted and the first blades of grass are coming through.

I approach my running the way I approach much of my consulting and coaching work.

First, you had better enjoy what you do.

Every now and again I run into a prospective client or an employee in one of my clients who just doesn’t enjoy their work. When I was fifteen I never imagined being able to run a marathon. Now I’m going to be fifty this year and I can’t imagine the sprints and splits I used to do when I was younger. Nevertheless, at each time in my life I’ve matched my expectations to what’s practical and enjoyed the ride. Life’s too short not to enjoy what you do, so a good starting point for everyone is to make sure you love what you’re doing.

So...I enjoy running. I’m heading outdoors for the first time in three or four months when I’ve been avoiding the depths of winter. While it’s been cold and dark I have been running indoors on a treadmill. Since my operation last year I’ve been slowly building back up, grateful that it was probably my fitness that pulled me through the surgery in the first place.

Over the course of winter I have changed my technique quite dramatically. For those of you who are runners, I’ve moved from being a heel strike/toe liftoff runner to a midsole runner. That means I am no longer landing on my heel and rolling forward through my stride until I push off from my toe. Instead, I’m landing on my midfoot and pulling up on my heel to move forward. That’s a very big difference and not at all intuitive, but it’s the way most long distance runners run.

Learning any fundamentally new skill is hard but there are three stages and they apply equally to running or learning a new management competency. The starting point for me was form. First I had to focus on the new way of moving my legs and feet, and I had to practice it over and over until I was doing it right. In the early stage of developing any skill it’s all about technique. I knew getting the motion right from the beginning would mean I had less to “unlearn” as time went on.

The second stage in my transition was range. I started off barely able to maintain my form for more than a few hundred meters. I slowly extended my limit, being able to maintain form for longer and longer. Once I could do that I worked on the other part of my range, the ability to move uphill and down, to maintain my form when I was fresh and when I was tired, and finally, to maintain my form through the whole running repertoire of sprints, jogs and fast walks. All the while I was gradually growing my abilities while still focusing on my technique.

Finally, I could pull it all together and see the effect on my enjoyment, endurance and speed. Speed is the last thing a runner should concentrate on. All things being equal I know I can maintain my form over any distance or type of terrain in front of me. The only thing that varies is the speed and how long it will take. Once I’m thinking about speed I start to see how everything relates together, how little changes here and there improve performance, the fun I get out of my running and how my new technique works successfully across all environments.

Working with businesses and senior executives is exactly the same. First, focus on technique and the few things with the most impact. Second, grow skills and range, developing capacity and confidence. Finally, look at how everything relates and how to maximize results. Focus, Grow, Relate.

I cruised around the lake today at my fastest speed for a couple of years. Excellent. And yes, I really enjoy my work too.

A lesson in presence from The Next Food Network Star

Developing presence is one of the most common coaching requests from middle and senior executives. It’s rare that someone comes out and says “I need more presence”, but it’s common for people to review their 360 feedback or reflect on their career progression and decide they need a better ability to engage others and generate respect and support.

The Next Food Network Star is a reality program where a season’s worth of contestants come together to compete for the prize of their own show on the Food Network. Culinary challenges are thrown at the contestants each week with the aim of finding out two things: do they have cooking expertise, and do they have the presence to become a television star.

Something that makes the show different is that the judges’ panel includes two food network executives who provide real feedback and coaching. They want to select the finalist with the most presence who will generate ratings for them next season. Along the way they want to develop the finalists with the best potential to maximize their presence for the home audience.

This week, we got a lesson in developing presence from Melissa, (Season Five, Episode Seven if you want to Google it and see the show highlights). In this episode the network deliberately messes with the finalists, putting them on a live breakfast show with various technical faults they can’t anticipate and have to deal with on-air. The host gets Melissa’s name wrong repeatedly, and in various other ways gets her totally flustered on live television.

We see Melissa panic. Her delivery quickens, the tone of her voice goes up, and her facial expressions give away that hunted look that communicates “get me out of here”. After, the judges tell her what they saw, and give her advice on how to improve.

Here are the three things she does to improve her presence:

• Incorporate stakeholder feedback
• Communicate to connect
• Get in flow and enjoy the work

Incorporate stakeholder feedback. I have written before about what many people do when faced with negative feedback. Usually it’s one of four things. They claim it wasn’t really a problem, they provide reasons why they really aren't unhappy with the outcome, they blame something or someone else, or they act like what we know happened didn’t really happen. We can call these the Justify, Rationalize, Excuse and Deny strategies. The trouble is, trying to Justify, Rationalize, Excuse or Deny when we know something went wrong just makes things worse. It makes people want to argue with you so that you “get it”, or it makes them want to punish you so that you “get what’s coming to you”.

Melissa takes the opposite and better tactic. She acknowledges feedback and shows respect for her stakeholders by demonstrating to them how she has incorporated it into her behavior. Note: she doesn’t always have to agree, but she always at least acknowledges feedback and shows how it will affect what she does next time. In almost every case responding positively to audience feedback builds presence. It makes your audience invested in your success because they feel a part of what’s going on with you. In this case the judges panel are a proxy for the real at-home TV audience. Nevertheless, in a strange way watching Melissa take on the panel’s feedback engages our attention and commands our respect and support. (Or at least it did with me…your results may differ).

Communicate to connect. There are many aspects of communicating with presence. In this episode Melissa loses her audience when she is seen to mildly panic in front of them. The judges advise her to be more commanding with her communication. Melissa focuses on what she feels she can control, and we hear her tell herself that she is going to slow down her delivery to be more impactful. “When I slow down my speech my mind and body follow” she says. This is actually great advice for anyone. Call it gravitas, purpose or presence; we know that people with slower and more deliberate communication generally command more audience attention and respect. Speed of delivery is something concrete and actionable that most people can control.

Get in the flow and enjoy the work. You have to “read between the lines” to see this one in the episode. When people are given pep talks before going out to perform they are often told to “just go out there and enjoy yourself”. It’s easier said than done. However, I believe that’s because the advice often misses one vital aspect. You have to “get in the flow” and go enjoy yourself. Think of getting in the flow as being totally immersed and carried along by the work.

Flow is a concept popularized by one of my favorite psychologists, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. The big implication for presence is that audiences tend to mirror the emotions and behaviors of their presenters. Humans are wired for empathy and imitation. If we see someone enjoying themselves and fully engaged in their work we tend to be more interested and enjoy ourselves more as well. In her final challenge of the episode Melissa lets go of her anxieties, slows down her communication and visibly enjoys being fully engaged in her cooking. (And as an added bonus her better performance comes out in her meal!)

Presence is an elusive concept. Having an impressive appearance or bearing, commanding respect and attention, enlisting others sympathies and support….who wouldn’t want these things?

In this episode we see someone take on three highly actionable behaviors and improve their presence. Whenever I have clients who want to improve their presence here’s my three part program:

• Actively solicit stakeholder feedback and visibly incorporate it into your behavior
• Communicate to connect, (we often need to look at just what is being done to lose the audience)
• Get in the flow and enjoy your work

Aristotle and corporate coaching: An unlikely mix?

I’m often asked at parties and business gatherings what it is exactly that I do. My work has a broad scope that makes it difficult to summarize. I trained for six years to become a psychologist, and had a career after that as a corporate executive for over fifteen years before striking out on my own. It’s hard to summarize my work for my clients in a simple sentence. The hardest thing to describe is the leadership coaching work I do. I have tried different formulations: at the end of this article is what I think is a neat sentence summarizing the work of the corporate coach.

I was reading one of my journals recently and came across some material on Aristotle and his philosophy. I’m going to suggest that Aristotle fits the bill as the first example of the work of a corporate coach. He was a simple man who served as teacher and guide to three kings, including Alexander The Great. He had to make his advice straightforward, serve it up with humility, and make sure it worked. That sounds a lot like the work of a corporate coach. So how might Aristotle sum up his role?

Let’s start with this idea: The role of the leader is to create the environment in which everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential. This is not some new age philosophy. You want people to do their best, and to do their best they have to reach their full potential.

Aristotle isn’t talking about businesses or corporate organizations, he’s talking about the role of the leader to develop the citizens in their state, but the basic idea is the same. “Help people reach their full potential”. The bottom line is that this is as good a formulation of the role of the leader as you’re likely to see anywhere. It’s simple, it’s timeless, and it beats “people are our most important asset”.

Ok…so here’s the second big idea. Aristotle’s “clients” were the leaders and future kings of Athens and ancient Greece. He saw his role as helping them reach their full potential. What’s more, he wanted them to be able to do the same for their people. So Aristotle had a simple “three step program” to help someone reach their potential.

Step one: Help them become a person of practical wisdom. Aristotle called practical wisdom “the happy medium between two extremes”. A simple example can illustrate what he meant. I occasionally have clients who have become quite senior, but who still have time management issues. They struggle to maintain a good calendar, projects can be derailed because significant milestones are missed, and it’s harder for them than it should be to keep track of their various obligations.

To begin to correct this I help them learn about the extremes of time management, understanding what happens when too little effort is made, and the consequences of becoming overly burdened by an inflexible set of obligations. In the middle is a happy medium. Between being completely locked into a calendar or totally out of control there is a happy place where you have a simple system to prioritize obligations with enough flexibility to meet every day circumstances. If you study the fundamentals it’s easier to see the pay-offs for just the right amount of effort.

Step two: Find a good role model. Aristotle called these people phronemos. They’re not the same as a coach or teacher or mentor. They are people who have achieved success in a particular field, or practice a skill well. They provide an opportunity to study practical wisdom in practice by observing their success.
For my time management challenged clients good role models often include many of their peers and colleagues, and even some of their clients. They could certainly just passively observe how these people juggle their obligations successfully. More often I suggest they kill two birds with one stone. I recommend they approach these role models directly and asks them how they do it. My clients learn something valuable and build stronger relationships at the same time.

Step three: Learn from experience. Aristotle is no armchair philosopher. He completely believed in observation, evidence, and the role of experience. I often tell clients that “people don’t learn from experience”. What I go on to add is that people only learn from reflecting on their experience. To do anything well you need to practice, reflect on what happened, and build your learning into your next trial so that you continuously improve.

In a nutshell, these three steps are 90% of the work of the corporate coach: Help your clients see the fundamentals in a situation, point them in the direction of good role models, and get them to practice, practice, practice.

The Culture Words Exercise in Organizational Awareness

There is a theory in the study of languages that the words you can use to describe something determine how you see the thing you describe, an idea that culture shapes your language, and your language shapes your culture.

In other words, if you don’t have a word for it, you don’t see it, and vice versa. Family, work and national cultures are full of culture specific words that help you understand how the culture works.

For example, when I learned Japanese at High School I learned about wabi, a flaw that makes something beautiful, or “the perfection of imperfection”. It sounds like nothing we have a word for in English but we completely understand the concept. We buy handmade suits or shoes because it’s the very imperfection of the handmade process that makes them perfect…perfectly machine stitched mass-produced clothes just aren’t as good. If you lived in a culture or worked in a place where wabi was a frequently used word you would know something about what the people value…you would be more "culturally aware" or “organizationally aware”.

An organization I once worked with frequently used the phrase “weed, seed and feed”. It represented an HR philosophy that first you had to weed out the bad performers, then seed the organization with good performers, and only if you were doing that could you afford to feed the ones who were left over. You can see that knowing about “weed, seed and feed” tells you a lot about the HR team.

Exercise:

Find three words, phrases or pieces of jargon that are specific to your organization. What do they mean, who uses them, and when are they most often used?

Review:

What does this tell you about what your organization thinks is important?

For Advanced Discussion:

Find someone who is not in your organization but who can relate to it in some way, (maybe a customer, a competitor or even a family member who shares your values but works somewhere else). Ask them what culture specific words they use in their organization. Are they describing something you understand but don’t have a word for, in which case, does this mean it’s something more important to their organization than yours? Are they describing something you have in your organization but use different words for, in which case how do you think the different words came about and what does that say about your organization?

You can down load a copy to print or share here, or email me with a comment or question here. If you want to leave a comment for everyone to see click on COMMENTS below.

The Self-Identity Exercise

How you view yourself, and how others view you, has a major impact on how effective you are.

We know from extensive research that if you identify with a group that gives you a sense of meaning, purpose and belonging, it's likely that your positive self-image will spill over into your ability to interact positively with the world. In other words, if you feel you are part of a group or community that is generally successful, you are more likely to be generally successful yourself.

There is also a very obvious corollary of this. It is usually called the “halo effect”. If other people identify you with a positive and successful group, they are more likely to think of you the same way. Not only that, but as a result they are more likely to present you with opportunities, forgive you for minor mistakes and recognize you for your achievements.

Exercise:

Pick three aspects of your self-identify that have the most power to describe you to others and yourself.

It is likely the most powerful self-identities will be the ones that most differentiate you from other people. For example, being an American in America is unlikely to be a powerful differentiator. On the other hand, being an American might be a powerful descriptor of yourself if you move to the Middle East. Similarly, being a good parent is unlikely to be a powerful and distinguishing self-identity, although it might be if you have made some significant sacrifice to be a parent and it has changed your life as a result.

Here are three of my most significant self-identities, along with a few words that describe each one for me:

Psychologist: A person with evidence based expertise in how people behave.

Australian: A bit of rebel, open-minded, friendly, believes in a “fair go for all”.

Marathoner: Self-disciplined, determined to finish, able to achieve over the long-haul.

What three groups do you most identify with?

Review:

What do you do to live up to the ideals of the groups you identify with? How do you communicate to others that this is who you are? What happens when what you aspire to do comes in conflict with the demands of your life?

For Advanced Discussion:

Ask three to five of your closest friends, colleagues and associates to do the same exercise thinking of you. Do they come up with the same three ways of looking at you? What are the differences? Explain your three self-identities to them and note how they react.

Download a version to print or share here.

You can email with comments or questions by clicking here, or leave a comment for others to see by clicking on "Comments" below.

Connections, Connections, Connections

During my recent hospitalization I made many connections with the nurses, technicians, physicians and support staff on my ward. Hospital rooms are a bit like Times Square or in my home town, Flinders Street Railway Station: many people constantly coming and going whose purpose and motivations you don't understand.

A concept I discuss with my students and clients is Peter Singer’s “circle of ethics”. Drawing on a long history Singer talks about how most of us start with a fairly narrow circle of care: the people whose interests we try to assist and whose positive outcomes we support. It begins with parents and family, extends to neighbors and play-mates at school, and over time comes to include “first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity.” As the circle of care expands, so too does the circle of influence. Once we begin to care about suffering in other countries, we start to find ways to positively influence overseas welfare. Our circle of care runs a little ahead of our circle of influence, and directs where we spend our time and emotional energy.

In the hospital I made a point of introducing myself to everyone who came into my room. When Genevieve was allowed to stay with me I introduced both of us, and I made a point of trying to remember everyone’s names so I could greet them again when they came back. This is just part of my nature, but I imagine it’s also something I have learned to do because I am positively rewarded for it. The staff made little allowances for us, and generally made our stay as pleasant as possible. We were pulled into their “circle of care” because we had created a personal connection with each other.

As an example, it seemed like every six hours or so someone would come to change my IV site, take a blood sample or do something else that involved tubes and poking me with sharp needles. One day, two gentlemen came in together and I went through the usual introductions: “Hello, I’m David, and this is my wife Genevieve.” Almost anyone will then tell you who they are by name, and these two introduced themselves and told me they were the new phlebotomist and his trainee. We made a little small talk, and I was interested to hear how the trainee's job was going because my Little Brother from the BigBrotherBigSister scheme has just started working as a trainee at the Red Cross.

So then the time came to stick me. “Ah,” I said. “And which of you will be drawing my blood today?”

Now you have to remember that my arms already have two IV lines in them, and they are blue and bruised all over from the many blood draws I already have. A trainee will be hard pressed to find a spare vein, and will find it even more difficult than usual to take the blood sample painlessly.

“Well…I guess I can do your draw today” said the trainer, and the trainee handed over his needles.

Connecting with people draws you into their circle of care, and if they have the ability to influence your well-being it makes people positively inclined to go out of their way for you. It’s why waiting staff introduce themselves to you at your table, and why it pays to get to know your auto mechanic. Done with sincerity and genuine care it expands the circle of people around you who will put out their hand to help you.

The Three Principles Exercise

Three principles govern your success as an ethical leader who gets things done:

• Treat everyone with integrity
• Align activities to deliver what matters most
• Engage stakeholders to commit their time, talent and trust






Exercise:

Divide your activities each month or week into three groups:

1. Treating people with integrity: All the things you do specifically to communicate the core purpose of yourself and your organization, set your values and demonstrate your principles in action. This is how you shape Why things are done by you and your organization.

2. Alignment: All the things you do to set and support business goals that focus on what matters most; your activities to drive results, and actions you take to cascade accountabilities to all levels. This is how you shape What is to be done in your organization.

3. Engagement: All the things you do to encourage people to commit their time, talent and trust; the things you do to provide recognition, build morale and encourage effort. This is how you shape How things are done in your organization.

Review:

Do the review at a high enough level that you start to see themes in your activities. Don't be too concerned if you assign some of the activities to more than one of the principles.

What can you learn from how you spend your time? Given your Strategic level, what things are you doing that don’t contribute to the three principles? What things do you need to do more of and less of?

For Advanced Discussion:

Compare how you spent last week/month/year with how you plan to spend next week/month/year. What are the differences? When are you most successful? What are the barriers that prevent your time being spent the way you plan?

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Self identity and effectiveness

This is me two weeks exactly after my surgery. You can tell from the beard...I'm not planning to keep it but it's been growing since the operation. It gives me a Ernest Hemingway look that goes with the fact I have been doing a lot of writing and reflecting lately.

Two things happened today that made me think again about how my recovery process has progressed. Firstly, I received my monthly copy of the Journal of Applied Psychology today. This month's special edition is on social identity and well-being. (I'm an applied psychologist...that means I did six years full time university study after my undergraduate business degree, and my focus is psychology applied to real world issues. In my case my expertise is psychology applied to business, ethics and organizations. The International Association of Applied Psychologists is the world's oldest professional psychology association.)

Secondly, someone I don't know was reading this blog and commented "...I did find it interesting. He sure is a type A. I could not agree with him more on how his outlook affects how he recovered!!!"

I don't think of myself as a type A, or super competitive, or very driven. I've had feedback before that I come across this way, but, like most people I just think I'm "normal". However, I know that how you identify yourself makes a huge difference to your effectiveness when faced with stresses and challenges.

You've possibly heard the saying "whether you think you can or think you can't, you're always right". A lot of people mistake "positive outlook" for some kind of new-age ability to affect the world around you because of how you think. It's much more complicated than that. My IAAP journal featured articles that show that if you identify with a group that gives you a sense of meaning, purpose and belonging, it's likely that your positive self-image will spill over into your ability to handle challenges, particularly health related challenges.

Type A outlook? Sort of, but not quite.

You can see in the picture that I'm wearing my last marathon finisher's t-shirt. Today was my first day of physiotherapy, and I wore it to the physio session. I wasn't trying to be smart, but I think of myself as a marathoner. I identify with that determination to finish, stamina, and positive mental attitude. I didn't think about why I wore it today until I came home, read my email comments and opened my journal. Yep...that's one of the ways that I identify myself, and that attitude carries over into my ability to deal with this surgery and everything else in my life.

Social and self identity are extremely important. How you see yourself is reflected in how others treat you, and plays a key role in determining the mental resources you can muster. I once coached a Finance Director who felt that every day on the job was a fraud...another day he got by until people found out he wasn't very good. The thing is he really was good, running financial operations for a multi-billion dollar operation spread across dozens of countries, but with that attitude he could never muster the self-confidence to be a really effective leader in his organization.

It's better to find a more effective self-identity...like great parent, generous parishioner, faithful friend or whatever. All of us have complex self identities, part of mine is being a marathoner.

How do you identify your self?

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