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Sometimes, You Have To Tell Your Boss What You Really Need. How to Coach Up to Create New and Better Possibilities. Part One

Oct 21, 2010 accountability, Career Advice, coaching salespeople, Communication, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management

Coach UP!

It’s the Message That Matters

During my trip to Moscow, while delivering my management coach training program, a manager, frustrated by the fact that she wasn’t getting the recognition and support she needed, asked, “Is it acceptable to tell your boss what you really want from them? I mean, shouldn’t they already know what I need and if they don’t know, shouldn’t they be the one to find out?”

While the quality of every relationship between a manager and direct report, as well as the success and failure of every individual on a team ultimately rests on the manager, unfortunately, there are still some managers who have yet to get the memo on this. Some are still in the process of learning how to become a better coach and yet other managers simply do not have a clue regarding how important a responsibility this is, how much power they actually possess to measurably impact their team’s success and how much of an influence they have over their direct reports and on their career.

In order to foster a stronger environment of trust, loyalty, accountability, collaboration and openness amongst your team, the answer to the question posed by this manager is “Yes,” it is up to the manager to sit each direct report down, one to one, in order to ensure they have a keen understanding around exactly what each of their people need so they can foster this type desired environment. The manager must uncover how to coach to each person’s individuality and support them based on what their unique needs, goals, skills, concerns and objectives are.

As you can see, given the location in which I delivered this particular training event, this is not an isolated issue but a global one that affects employees in every position in practically every organization and in every country worldwide.
To further support this, after delivering my management coach training program hundreds of times in practically every corner of the world, I continue to here the same question at some point during every training I deliver. That is, “Will my manager be going through this same training as well?”

Regardless of where your manager is on their own path of development, if your manager has not yet come to you to establish these boundaries and expectations around your relationship, especially as it relates to coaching, then it is only in your best interest to be the one to take the initiative, step up and initiate this conversation.

The good news is, you can coach up! That is, rather than leaving it up to chance, or waiting around until your manager gets a clue that they’re the person who needs to begin this discussion, and hopefully do so in an effective way, you can enroll your manager on establishing these new boundaries and expectations of how you like to be coached, managed, communicated to and supported. How effective you are in doing so rests in your ability to craft your message in a way that creates a new possibility rather than a confrontation.

That is, how can you approach your manager in a way that would open them up to the point that they would want to listen to you?

Tomorrow, we’ll begin answering this question and continue this discussion on this timely and relevant topic. More specifically, what you can do to overcome the reluctance to coaching your boss.

Tags: coach up, coach your boss, coaching up, coaching your manager, communication strategies, manage up, managing up, managing your manager

Book Recommendation: Driven – A Guide to Harnessing Your Inner Focus to Achieve Unprecedented Results

Jul 13, 2010 Books, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living

Driven

Imagine being able to transcend the boundaries of what you think is possible and become powerful beyond measure? It starts with identifying your Junoon.

I am excited to announce the availability of an intriguing book written by my friend Razi Imam. Razi is an incorrigible entrepreneur who has taken an interesting approach in helping people achieve extraordinary results.

Told in the context of a story, Razi’s book “Driven” teaches the ancient Eastern concept of “Junoon” as the means to help people find their dreams and get in a state of single-minded focus that makes the achievement of those dreams and goals a certainty.

Whether you want to start a business, learn a sport or solve a major world problem, achieving the state of Junoon is where you start.

When Razi asked me to share my Junoon, it was an opportunity to take an immediate and important pause in my day to reflect upon his request. What came out for me was a moment of intrigue, of inspiration, of focus and of unwavering passion for my convictions and purpose.

Your Junoon is not just the vision for your life or career. Your Junoon is not simply a list of your goals. Yes, your Junoon encapsulates these things but it is more – even more than the declaration of the source of your power. Writing my Junoon was powerful exercise, to say the least. The following paragraph is my Junoon, which I share with you here:

“Imagine being able to tap into your deepest level of authenticity and full accountability that makes us all powerful beyond measure. To empower others to break through what may have initially been perceived as an insurmountable challenge. To be human, to find strength in vulnerability, to deeply connect with people and touch the lives of others in a way that transcends the boundaries of what we think is possible.

To profoundly impact a culture – one person at a time, whether in our community, our schools or our businesses. To live in the relentless pursuit of wanting to serve others. To channel your vision, beliefs and convictions so strongly that they become contagious and echo indefinitely throughout the halls of change.

To be inspired by a mission bigger than you that engulfs your thinking and is manifested in everything you do – to the point of obsession. To awaken the gifts and tap into the value of each person that may lie dormant so they can achieve the things they never thought could be. To know that where this all starts is at the home; with my children the ultimate source of my power-and purpose.

My children fuel my inspiration, my passion and are the center of my universe. This is my Junoon.”

Driven will give you the infinite inner strength, heightened awareness, hyper focus and deeper insight to overcome the most overwhelming of obstacles in pursuit of your dreams. Razi has crafted the formula so that who you really are, who you want to be and what you truly want can work in harmony. Driven will enable you to recognize how influential you are and can be.

What is your Junoon? This book will show you how to tap into your purest source of greatness and heartfelt energy that will drive unprecedented change – and make you unstoppable.

Download a free chapter now at Drivennation.com.

Tags: Books, Junoon, recommendations

Coaching Questions Part 4 – Questions that Build Accountability

Feb 17, 2010 coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Sales Coaching

These questions uncover the salespeople’s level of ownership and accountability around their goals, their job, and their problems – even down to the way they want to be managed and held accountable. These questions shift the responsibility back to the salespeople who are avoiding it and build in further accountability around their position.

Take a look at the bonus questions below, which are great for those people who may have struggled in the past meeting deadlines or commitments. While the source or the problem is typically a time management issue and their lack of having a structured routine, it could also be a limiting perception regarding how long certain tasks actually take, their a ‘yesaholic’ or they could simply be an adrenaline junkie who enjoys the rush when working on overdrive. So, keep an eye out for some of the symptoms that would support these observations.)

Remember, treat these questions like a buffet. So take what you like and leave what you don’t. Depending upon your situation and the individual you’re coaching, all questions don’t work for everyone so a few here may not work for you.

1-What gift or talent do you feel you are you not leveraging to the fullest potential?
2-I hear your good intentions behind reaching your goal. Can you share with me the evidence or activity that demonstrates your commitment to it?
3-What role are you playing in all of this? What part did you play in creating that (in your life)?
4-How have you demonstrated ownership of this?
5-What do you feel you are responsible for? What do you feel is outside of your control?
6-How would you like me to hold you accountable around your goals in a way that will sound supportive rather than negative?
7-How do you want me to approach you if you don’t follow through with the commitments you make? What would be a good way to bring this up?
8-How do you like to be managed? What type of management style do you respond best to?

BONUS QUESTIONS: Building Deeper Accountability around Meeting Deadlines

1-How long do you think it’s going to realistically take you to complete this task, considering the worst case scenario?
2-What resources do you need to complete this successfully?
3-What have you already committed to that you need to be mindful of which could get in the way of meeting this deadline?
4-Looking at your schedule and your current commitments, when can you realistically devote the time you need to complete this?

Tags: Executive Coaching, management coach training, Sales Coaching

Goals Can Be Your Worst Enemy – An Intervew with BNET’s Sales Machine

Jan 7, 2010 Career Advice, Executive Coaching, Goal Setting, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, management tips, Time Management Tips

A few months ago, I was interviewed by Geoffrey James who writes the Sales Machine column for BNET. (Geoffrey is also the author of seven books and the columnist for Business 2.0, CIO, The New York Times as well as many other publications.)

Today, he wrote about something we discussed during our conversation, which is one of the most important characteristics that successful people possess, especially top sales champions. And that is, the importance of being process driven rather than being so result driven.

No, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t focus on the results, or set goals. After all, we need to have something to measure our success, especially in sales, and we need those goals to help determine an endpoint to strive for, something that we’re focused on attaining and the gauge that lets us know when we’ve ‘arrived’ at our destination.

What I am suggesting is to also adopt a mindset that may seem, on the surface, to be in conflict with the belief that you should stay focused on your goals. So, if you suffer from absolute or ‘either or’ thinking, this concept may be a real challenge to wrap your head around. Since we’re on the subject of healthy thinking, absolute thinking is something worth abandoning as well. It’s not one way or the other way; instead, it’s both. (“Either-or” vs. “And.”)

Those people today who challenge status quo and traditional ways of doing things are realizing the benefits of embracing not just one but two truths; two conflicting truths that can, in fact, live together in harmony. Yes, I know this sounds counterintuitive but that’s the paradox and the source of power for those who adopt this mindset.

That is: be mindful of the future, while engaged in and living in the present. To get a bit more cerebral, your process lives in the present where your results or your goals are all living in the future. And if you’re always focused on the result or outcome you seek, it’s going to affect what you need to be doing in the present moment. That includes the quality of your activities, the way you communicate, how well you listen, your level of creativity and ultimately how connected, present and engaged you are with people, especially your customers.

The point is, once your goal is set, continually thinking about or obsessing over your goal or the results you need to achieve doesn’t make that goal manifest itself any faster or easier. Instead, it actually winds up becoming a diversion, keeping your stuck in the future. The real cost is, you’re not being fully present and focused on today and more important, the actual process that’s going to take you to your desired destination.

Think if it this way. If I wanted to move a concrete wall, does the act of pushing on that wall all day make the wall move? Not even a little. It’s the same as spending all of your time thinking about the goal or the result. Doing so doesn’t move you any closer to your goal.

Once your goals are set, they’re not going anywhere! Now it’s time to shift your focus on developing and fine tuning your process which is what will ultimately be the vehicle that will take you to your goal.

Below is an excerpt from Geoffrey’s post based on our interview. You can read the full post here.

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Sales pros always have goals, and most enjoy the process of achieving them. But did you know that goals can be a major impediment to your success?

Take cold-calling, for instance. Most sales pros see cold calling as a goal-oriented activity — fill the pipeline with “X” number of prospects, in the hopes of creating as many customers as possible.

That makes sense, but it also encourages sales pros to see each conversion that results in a prospect as a “win” and each cold call that ends in some other way as a “loss.”

And that’s setting yourself up for failure, because the nature of cold calling is that only a small percentage of the people you contact will be potential customers. The majority will be people who simply aren’t interested or are not a fit for a variety of reasons.

However, if you’re caught up in the “win/loss” way of thinking, you may feel like a “loser” even if the person you called had absolutely no use whatsoever for your product!

Not surprisingly, sales pros begin dreading it, avoiding it, and become increasingly less effective when they actually get around to doing it.

The root cause of this deeply flawed “win/loss” thinking is focusing on the goal rather than the process. If you’re focused on the result, you are visualizing the future (i.e. “will I make my goal???”) rather than experiencing the present moment.

As a result, there’s no way that you can really listen to the prospect, because your attention is on a possible event in a future-yet-to-be. Because your focus is elsewhere (on your goal, that is) you’ll find it difficult to be creative and flexible in responding to what the potential prospect actually says.

Here’s how you fix this. Define cold-calling as a process rather than goal-oriented activity. Stop focusing on the result and start focusing on the potential prospect and the process of communicating with that prospect to determine if in fact, there’s truly a fit.

Changing your way of thinking is that you’ll immediately become more effective because it removes the “sting” of contacting a lead that turns out, for whatever reason, not to be a real prospect.

Rather than a “loss,” the event simply becomes something that you happened to discover during the process of cold-calling.

More importantly, treating cold-calling as a process keeps you focused on finding ways to help potential prospects and customers – and on not wasting the time of those who don’t need the help.

Your true goal shouldn’t be to make your sales goal, but to emulate an Olympic athlete. Top athletes visualize “winning” (the goal) before competing, but when they’re actually performing they focus on what’s happening right then and there.

Here’s the cool part… the real reason for this entire post. Focusing on process rather than your goals increases the chances that you’ll fulfill your goals.

In other words, know your goals, then forget them, and put your mind into the process. If you do this right, your goals will take care of themselves, because your process will make them happen without you wasting time obsessing on them.

You can read the full post here.

Tags: calendar, career coaching, Executive Coaching, goals, results, Sales Coaching, schedule, time management

Are Your Goals The Right Goals? For A Year of Success – Align Your Goals With Your Priorities

Jan 4, 2010 Career Advice, Goal Setting, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Coaching, Setting Goals, Time Management Tips

With the timely pressure that we place upon ourselves in the New Year when declaring our resolutions and charting our goals, many people often fall short of attaining their goals or honoring these resolutions. Sure, there are many reasons why we may not reach our goals but before we point our finger at things like lack of execution, resources, skills or effective time management, we need to first look at the source of the problem; that is, the goal itself. In other words, are you sure you’re setting the right goals for yourself?

Sure, our goals are supposed to resemble and support that which we want to bring into in our life or career, yet many times, people set goals around what they think they want, what they think they need or what they think they should be doing.

Several years ago, I introduced the difference between priorities and goals and the importance of aligning the two when setting the right goals. Here is the full definition and an example to make sure that you’re setting the best goals for you.

Priorities vs. Goals- What’s the Difference?

Definition:

Priorities: What is most important and meaningful in your life today (activities, values, beliefs, lifestyle, principles, standards, hobbies, integrity, etc.) that you are not willing to compromise or sacrifice in pursuit of something else (such as a goal).

Goals: A future based anticipated expectation, possibility, measurable end result or experience that you are working towards creating, achieving or bringing to fruition that has not yet been realized in the present.

Comparisons:
*Present Focused vs. Future Focused
*What Is Happening vs. What Will/May Be
*In The Present vs. In The Future

Here’s an Example:

John had a goal of being a top producer in his company. As such, he looked at the other top producers and the activities they engage in which make them successful. The top salespeople are working twelve hour days, sometimes even seven days a week. Thinking, “It worked for them, so I guess I should do that too,” he decided to give up a chunk of his family/personal time and other enjoyable activities/hobbies in his quest to become financially successful.

Although John’s priority was spending time with his family, he didn’t understand why he felt miserable and encountered resistance while attempting to achieve this goal.

Once he created a personal strategy and a routine for achieving his own bigger goals that supported his lifestyle and priorities without having to sacrifice what matters most to him, he was able to reach his goals with less effort and enjoyed the process even more.

Here’s The Key Point:

If you are encountering resistance while attempting to reach certain goals or performing certain tasks, chances are it’s either something you really don’t want to be doing, an old goal that may not serve you anymore (a “should“) or you are operating from someone else’s agenda (also a should)! The bottom line is, these goals don’t support your priorities and you’ll continue to feel “off” or out of your integrity throughout your pursuit of these misaligned goals.

Take the time to align your goals with your priorities. Otherwise, you’ll feel confined or powerless to make changes, allowing situations, circumstances or other people to influence or control you. Discover what YOU truly want by aligning your goals with the priorities in your life rather than the “shoulds.”

The fact is, “Should-based goals” do not support your priorities or personal vision. So, if you are unsure whether the goal, activity or task classifies as a should, take a look at your lifestyle, values and priorities and see if they are all in alignment. If the goal doesn’t support them, it’s a “should.” So, don’t “Should” on yourself!

Benefit of Getting This Distinction:

At the end of the day, your goals need to be aligned with your priorities. Honor the priorities in your life by making them non-negotiable.

Before you map out your goals, determine the priorities in your life that you’re not willing to sacrifice. This way, you can identify the activities you need to engage in and what you are willing to give up today (maybe even a conscious, short – term sacrifice of certain priorities) in pursuit of a bigger dream tomorrow.

When your goals are aligned and balanced with your priorities, natural strengths and talents, you’ll maintain your integrity, feel calmer and will experience greater peace of mind while traveling on your path to achieving bigger goals and meaningful, long lasting results. You’ll find the process of working towards these goals more enjoyable and fulfilling, without feeling as if you’re continually pushing for something to happen. Instead, you’ll be pulled towards your goal with less of an effort.

Once you can orient your life around your priorities, you’ll find that you will actually have fewer goals that you’ll feel compelled to attain or be driven and consumed by. If you design your life and career around what is most important to you on a daily basis, you’ll avoid becoming hooked or attached to creating something ‘better’ at a future point in time, which can rob you of the quality of your life today.

Tags: career coaching, Executive Coaching, Goal Setting, goals, life coaching, priorities