Executive Coaching and Advisory It’s tough to grow when you are breathing your own exhaust, getting little useful push back, and don’t know what you don’t know. Ann creates clarity, challenges assumptions, and provides forthright feedback. You accomplish more, faster, and with greater confidence and success. Executives eager to achieve greater individual performance will find in Ann the right mix of wisdom, patience, and candid persistence to help them get where they need to go. “Ann is an invaluable executive coach. She is a quick, honest, and insightful partner. I have learned as much from her about focused, action-oriented leadership in two months as in a decade of first-hand experience. Ann elevated my awareness of strategy, planning, and execution in ways that immediately impacted my work. I can’t recommend Ann more highly.” – John Bidwell, Director, Marketing & Digital Strategy, Baystate Health
We are really quick to assume some people are mostly just like us. These people may live in our neighborhood or neighborhoods like ours. They may work in our companies or companies like ours. They may have attended the same schools or schools like ours. They may share our passions or passions similar to ours. Once we decide these people are mostly just like us, we look past their color, religion, accent, gender, and sexual orientation. We treat them the way we would want to be treated. With courtesy and respect.
Most leaders understand the importance of getting buy-in. Few understand how to achieve it. As a result, their efforts frequently cross the line to manipulation. Are you one of them? If you have ever said, “We want people to feel they’ve been heard,” then you are probably one of them. Especially if your next steps are to attempt to create that feeling of being heard by asking for input on a decision that has already been made. That is pure manipulation.
I asked a freshly minted VP at a Fortune 50 company who has steadily risen through the ranks what he believed led to this and previous promotions. His answer echoed one I have heard from other executives as well: I am proactive Follow up Get stuff done Am helpful He takes for granted his technical expertise. But then again. he is surrounded by technical expertise. He wishes he were surrounded by more people who are proactive, follow up, and get stuff done! And he isn’t the only one. Many executives and managers share that wish. What can you do?
The year is half over. If that is bad news for you, I am sorry to be the one to break it! In our not too distant past, weather, daylight hours, changing seasons, and the calendar year ruled all. These days – not so much! Nonetheless, old habits die hard and that calendar controls far too much in the business world. While you reflect on progress to date at this half-year mark, reflect also on all the things that should NOT be controlled by the calendar year. Here are a few just for starters: Strategic planning Budgeting Performance reviews Goal setting Something to ponder while at the beach this summer. Have a great July!
If your to-do list has more than three items, you are in trouble. Why? Because as soon as your list exceeds three items, it actually decreases your productivity. Most people have dozens of tasks on their lists and looking at those lists leaves them feeling exhausted before they even begin. In the face of theses long lists, here are 21 games people play to feel more productive and/or less overwhelmed. All of these activities consume time and none of them help you accomplish more faster. Which ones do you play?
The government of the United States is unique in that it has provided stable governance and peaceful power transfers for over 200 years. Why? Because people generally trust the democratic process and the checks and balances established by our founders. The system is built on the tenets of fair process: 1. We have the ability to track what is being decided and why. 2. We know that we can participate by voting, caucusing, petitioning, demonstrating, calling our elected officials, running for office, and more. 3. We generally believe that our elected officials are fair and motivated to act in the best interests of the country. 4. We generally believe that those making the decisions represent the people who voted them into office. 5. And we know that there is always another election to throw out those who don’t measure up and there are processes that can be used to modify the system.
Making change stick is one of my specialties. It would be easier to pop in, teach a few skills, make a few recommendations, and move on. But I’m not satisfied until I believe real results are underway or in sight. What I really enjoy is returning a year or so later to enthusiastic reports from client and staff that they are all still doing as we’d agreed and seeing obvious benefits. Change fails far more often than not. The reason is that most efforts are comprised of much talk, a couple of decisions, a new rule or two, inevitably some kind of form, and a generous dose of fanfare. None of which guarantee anything actually changes. Change occurs only when people change their behaviors. So let’s look at the essential ingredients for making change stick:
OK, so sometimes what the boss says is gospel and unavoidable. No doubt about it. But other times, that is not the case and even the boss would agree. As a matter of fact, in many cases the boss really wants employees to push back! This lack of clarity creates big problems! Employees are afraid to speak up. Morale suffers. Talent is handcuffed. Trust and honesty are squashed. Meanwhile, the boss can’t find the middle ground between rule by decree and everything by consensus. So what’s to be done?
My husband and I were interested in purchasing a condo when we found out there was a lawsuit against the condo association. We really liked the condo, so we hired an attorney to help us understand the risk. After asking a multitude of questions over the course of several days, our attorney suggested we look elsewhere. “You just won’t be comfortable no matter what,” was his rationale. He was wrong.