I have been working on this blog for a while, and now it’s time to go public.  I hope you like what you read, and I look forward to hearing from you. Let me know if you disagree, think I am way off track, or, better still, share a story, article or thought that reflects your point of view. Enjoy!

‘Go Easy On Him’

Hardlines means making hard decisions and taking risks. As leaders and coaches, we have to act with courage and honesty, even at the risk of encroaching on some established communication patterns, if those patterns are dysfunctional.

I once worked with a client whose manager was having some difficulties with him. I tried to contact this manager to get some more information, but it took her months to respond to my calls and emails. When she finally did speak to me, she cushioned her comments by remarking, “He’s a nice guy. Go easy on him. Don’t share everything I’m telling you with him.” When I asked her why she thought it necessary to ‘go easy on him,’ she claimed a business emergency and cut our phone call short.

When I met with my client, he said he wanted the truth. After I shared the manager’s comments, he seemed bewildered by some of her perceptions. He planned to communicate with her directly about them. Apparently, this was the first time he had received honest, clear-cut, specific feedback from his manager.

I’m glad I didn’t ‘go easy on him.’ To do so would have compromised my integrity with this client, and it would have perpetuated the practice of wriggling around issues, which was apparently part of the communication pattern between him and his manager.

The point? It’s foolhardy to try to hide facts from people if you want them to change. This manager genuinely liked her subordinate, and she never got into specific performance issues with him because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. And he never pushed for those specifics.

Perhaps you’ve experienced that compassionate reluctance to provide honest feedback to one of your reports. However, to fail to provide it does a major disservice to both of you. You can provide that feedback without being demeaning or cruel. How? Address the situation with honest inquiry: “This is what I see happening here. What do you see? What do you think?” Balance inquiry with advocacy of your point, and give some specific examples of the issues in question.

And maybe you’ll learn something from the exchange. You see the situation from your point of view, and you may discover something new through this dialogue. Convey your honest regard for the individual, and you can both emerge enlightened. It’s a win-win!

The science section of the New York Times recently featured a piece claiming that mindfulness meditation is perhaps the most popular new psychotherapy technique of the past decade. One psychologist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto states that a major factor in this shift is that more and more therapists are practicing some form of contemplation themselves, and they want to bring its benefits to their patients.

Can the same be said about coaches? I certainly hope so. Contemplation is a blood relative to self-awareness, and without client self-awareness, a coach would be of little value.  Interestingly, one of the most well-known leadership coaches in the world today is a proponent of this technique. A Buddhist, he urges clients and colleagues to ‘let it go’ when frustration, disappointment  and worries clamor for valuable space in your cerebral cortex. Live in the moment and appreciate it.

Mindful meditation is often practiced with closed eyes, with an internal focus on breathing. When stray thoughts or emotions enter our consciousness, they are allowed to pass through, and we refocus on our breathing. One could argue that when a stray or negative thought enters our consciousness when we aren’t in a mindful meditation position, we need to be aware of that fact, and let those thoughts go as well. Is this ability reflective of a certain developmental stage? It could very well be. Kids have a hard time letting go of a wish for the latest great toy rage. Impulse control — what’s that?

According to the Times article, mindful meditation can also help manage chronic pain, and it certainly can help individuals cope with chronic or acute stress as well. Other forms of meditative practices whose effects on mental and physical health have been studied by western researchers are Tai Chi, Transcendental Meditation, and Yoga.

It’s a fair bet that all business coaches want their clients to achieve mental and physical health. So consider these techniques. They can only help you become more aware, and, very probably, more productive.

What is executive coaching? Come on — let’s get focused and clear!

I recently attended a presentation entitled Executive Coaching: The client perspective.  Here both coaching clients and their coaches had an opportunity to talk about what the coaching meant to them, and the specific interventions and practices that made a difference in behavior. Although there were some intriguing insights from both the client and coach, such as the clients finally seeing how they are perceived by others, the meeting was frustrating because each coaching situation seemed to have a different (1) approach and methodology, (2) definition of the term coaching, although no one even defined the term and (3) goals were not always stated or clarified. The context in which the coaching took place was also not described adequately and no one really talked about the contracting process, why the coaching was initiated and for how long? I am not sure how much the coaching clients listened and try to do what their coaches suggested and how much actual learning took place, specifically, how the client went about testing their own assumptions, beliefs and thoughts through how these assumptions and beliefs and values affecting their behavior and actions.  Did the coach suggest new challenging situations that stretched the client and gave them opportunities to try out new action? These issues were not discussed. But please folks lets try to be clear about what we are trying to do — it’s a great start for any engagement.