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0. Opinion 1. Leadership Coaching 2. Sales Management Coaching 3. Change Management Coaching 4. Career Coaching
FURTHER NEWS * For upcoming seminars & events please visit: http://www.progressu.com.hk/ * For recent articles on Coaching please visit: http://www.progressu.com.hk/
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Contents of this Article 1) Definition of Organisms - Individuals vs. Organizations 2) Common habits and traits of outstanding individuals and organizations
3) Reflection on yourself and your organization - how to find and define your successful habits 4) From Reflection to Action -> Progress-Urself and your organization 5) Evaluation of Support Systems for organisms 6) Outlook for Success
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Home > Resources > Progress! Newsletter > "Progress!" Issue No2 / February-March 04 "Progress!" (Progress-U Leadership & Coaching) - Issue No2 / Feb-Mar 2004 Dear "Progress!" Reader, Recently, I read an article about leadership by Carol Hymowitz in the Asian Wallstreet Journal. The author suggested that good leadership could be gauged by using a simple question: "How many people would follow you out of the door?" Or, would they want to work for you even if you moved to another company? When I first read this excellent article, I easily grasped the rationale behind it. However, something intuitional disturbed me. It took me a while to figure out what it was. For sure, if your staff members are ready to "follow you out of the door," it means that they believe in you, like to work for you, are probably very motivated and so on. However, after thinking about various managers I know, applying the gauge to them, and comparing the answer with their actual performance and success, I discovered what was bothering me. I realized that not all of the leaders whose staff would follow them to another company were actually good performers. Surely, successful leaders know that they can't succeed without a motivated team. However, they are also aware that the team members don't necessarily have to like them-it is more essential that they are respected. Leaders who are less successful try all means to be liked by their staff, probably avoiding difficult and sometimes necessary decisions that the staff would not like. If a manager bases his leadership on being liked rather than respected (these should not be mutually exclusive), performance is likely to be limited because he will try to avoid tough measures. Therefore, to measure good leadership, I would enhance the statement to: "How many people would follow you out of the door even if they may not like all the decisions you make?" This, to me, is the more accurate measure of successful leadership. Yours sincerely,
1. Leadership Coaching 2.5) Be prepared to fail - learn from it rapidly What do outstanding companies and very successful individuals have in common? They are prepared to take risks and by doing so, they are equally prepared to fail. For sure, not every organism- that takes risks and is ready to fail will be successful. Hence there must be more to it. First of all, outstanding organisms are not taking foolish risks, which means that before making any major decision, they make themselves aware of the risks involved. They project worst-case scenarios and evaluate them with the most realistic and also with the best case they can imagine. Based on this, there are two main considerations: a) Will the failure "break my neck", or will I have a chance
to overcome the consequences and move forward to a more successful
future? These considerations help to avoid foolish risks. Many organisms do exactly that and still, they are not outstandingly successful. I found that the key to extraordinary success after a failure is to i) Make errors faster than your peers If you make mistakes faster than your competitors, then you have the chance to learn quickly and win. What does it mean to learn quickly? First of all, it is necessary to have a culture that does not penalize making mistakes but is instead supportive. It requires a certain level of error tolerance and processes that lead to an analysis of the mistake - only then learning happens. Even little mistake can yield big insights! Finally, the most important for success - be it for individuals or organizations - is to believe in it, no matter how badly or how often one fails. This is nothing new (Napoleon Hill stressed this factor already over 40 years ago in his book "Think and Grow Rich") and yet, it is still very true. Let me give you a popular example where all of these three factors have been accomplished. Amazon was a pioneer in online bookshops. They were one of the first to try to sell books on the internet. As you may know, in the first years Amazon burned millions and millions of dollars, yet today they are one of the few profitable and by far the largest online retailer worldwide. Many other dotcoms and traditional companies like Bertelsmann tried to follow the example of Amazon. Today, most of them either completely disappeared or moved out of this business. Why did Amazon succeed while the others failed? Because they started early and made their mistakes quickly. They learned from their errors at a fast pace and eventually realized that the key to success for their business is logistics, logistics and again, logistics. Today they have mastered their logistics almost perfectly in the US. At the end of the dotcom boom, Amazon was thought to be dead soon like other money-burning New Market companies. However, it was their leadership's firm belief that they will finally succeed that kept them going, despite huge debts and great difficulties to get further funding. Their CEO and his team followed the old saying: "If there is a will, there is a way" - and found it. I want to go even a step further: it is necessary to make mistakes. Let me give you an example which is totally unrelated to business but can be applied to professional organisms. While learning downhill skiing, there is a risk of falling down, which is certainly painful. When I started skiing at the age of 10, I could see exactly the difference between those who fell frequently and those who hardly ever fell down. First, those who fell down frequently a) progressed much faster, because they took risks to try out new
styles Those who tried to play it very safe did not only progress much slower, but worse, in the rare cases that they did fall down, their injuries were more severe and more painful. As James Joyce said, "Mistakes are the portal of discovery." 2.6) Keep reviewing and aligning - stay flexible Do you sometimes catch yourself running on a treadmill that goes nowhere? Do you sometimes wonder why, despite your hard work and great efforts, things seem not to progress the way you wanted? I think that this happens to most of us once in a while, even to the most successful people and organizations. There are certain downtimes and that is good. Downtimes are there to make us aware that we might be running in the wrong direction, that we need to review and align the way we are working, thinking, acting, moving, etc. It was a downtime in my career that led me to a complete career transition. For several years I was working successfully in general management in an international setting. All of a sudden, things became tougher and tougher, the success was not so great as it used to be, and the abundant energy I used to derive from my successes was suddenly missing - I was having a downtime. Since I have a strong belief that every thing happens for a good reason, I started reflecting on the way I was working. Did I miss something? Did I get into an unhealthy routine? I analyzed my work style, my strategy and so on, but I couldn't find anything drastically wrong. I made some small adjustments here and there but that did not considerably change how things were going. So I went deeper and started to analyze whether this job was still right for me, whether my motivation was still appropriate for the great challenges of my job. I found that there were a number of requirements in that job which I could fulfill but which - if I were true to myself - I really did not enjoy. I realized that my personality, needs and wants have changed over the years and that my current position would not cater sufficiently for those. It was a long and painful process and looking back, I wish I had a support system at that time which would have helped me to come to these realizations faster and which would have assisted me in my career transition. There was one positive side-effect of this process, especially from the time I realized what went wrong and what I would do in the near future. I regained my full motivation to bring the business for which I was responsible back on track before finally leaving for my new professional choice. You certainly know enough cases of organisms in which the importance of review and alignment was forgotten. In a world of fast changes, the best strategy may need a total shift when there is a drastic change in the parameters on which the strategy was based. Strong leadership is marked by increased awareness, great flexibility and forward thinking.
2. Sales Management
Coaching
As a rule, the customer today can choose from several companies. Who will he choose? The answer is simple: The one who is sympathetic and competent will receive the customer's trust. This trend can be illustrated as: Competence + Sympathy = Trust The person you are in contact with appreciates your competence. But what if the competition is competent as well? Then your personality, charisma and pleasantness are crucial for your success. The best sellers put the customer-not themselves-at the center of attention. They avoid "antis" because they do not make the customer feel important enough.
It is scientifically proven that minimizing antis increase the sympathy for the communication partner. Example: "I recommend that you buy this model from our company." --> This contains two antis. This is a better statement: "Considering your requirements, this model would be most suitable for you." Aside from avoiding antis, it is also important to use adequate body language: · Open arms, palms and posture Another way of winning sympathy is by using positive language such as:
There is a thin line between sounding overenthusiastic or flattering and complimenting. It is important to consider the style of the people you are talking to and to mold your style accordingly. Otherwise, you may achieve just the opposite of what you wanted. Most importantly, don't use the phrases above mindlessly. Adjust
them to your own style to remain authentic in your communication.
3. Change Management
Coaching Imagine this: You are a new CEO (or any top position) in a company and you realize that the motivation of middle management and, consequently, of the entire staff is rather low; quality problems seem to repeat themselves; sales are stagnant; and profitability is far from good. What are you going to do? When you applied for this job, you were told that your task was to grow the company and improve the profitability. Of course, you could start a marketing campaign, strengthen your sales force and implement a cost-saving program. These are generally accepted, typical management methods. Will all those methods lead you to success? Honestly speaking, to me this sounds like carrying the dog to the hunt, i.e., investing a lot of energy with little chances of considerable success. To me it is obvious that if there is no massive positive change in the mindset of the people, you will only fight against windmills. It is time for a culture shock-a strong wake-up call for everybody. How can that be achieved? Is it necessary to be a charismatic leader to be able to induce such a culture shock? That may help, but is not a necessity, as many successful examples show. In my Change Management Workshops, I use the systematic coach approach to work out a strategy to implement such a culture shock. I ask the following questions: · What is our goal, where do we want to be after a defined
period of time (e.g., in 3 years)? Based on these findings, we work out a strategy to achieve the success the organization desires. And the starting point must be a culture shock, i.e., we have to brainstorm with the top management team about which creative measures can challenge and shake the existing beliefs and replace them with new ones. This is only possible if the top management team fully (!) agrees that such drastic measures are really necessary and useful. Only when the thinking and beliefs of those in top management team are fully aligned is there a chance of a successful cultural change. This is everything but easy. An experienced executive coach can help find out whether this is truly the case, and he can also help ensure that each team member stays aligned and does not drift off. This is achieved in individual coaching sessions that deal with potential doubts, fears, etc. Without this follow-up coaching after the workshop(s), there is a
high risk of failure of such critical initiatives. That is why Progress-U
offers such workshops as part of the package with coaching of all
executives involved in the workshops. If such an initiative fails,
the damage can be much greater than the benefit and things could turn
out even worse than they have been. There are sufficient examples
for such failures in business literature. In all of the failure cases
I researched, this kind of intensive follow-up during implementation
was missing. The additional cost for follow-up coaching could be the
best investment you ever make.
NOTE: Progress-U Ltd. offers the Win Through Change! Program
to assist corporations in their change process. For details visit
http://www.progressu.com.hk/ChangeMP.htm
4. Career Coaching The Ultimatum A couple of months ago, Marc (name changed), a manager in his early 40s, called me and said: "I need your help! My superiors told me today that I get another 6-week trial period and if by then I can't show a good performance, I will be fired." He sounded quite panicky and outraged, which is not surprising in such a situation. First, I helped him to calm down so that he would be able to think clearly and rationally. Typically, my clients get coached 2 to 4 times per month. However, as this was a true emergency case, we decided to set up 2 coaching sessions per week for the first 3 weeks and then review the situation again. It turned out that he started this job less than 6 months ago and that in the first 2 to 3 months, everything seemed to develop well. And then all of a sudden, according to him, everything turned against him:
What happened? Looking at Marc's career, we see a person who made his way up from the bottom. His two previous positions gave me a clear indication about the root causes of the problem: - In his second to the last position, he was working in the export
department of a medium-sized company and was responsible for the sales
of a certain region. He had no personnel responsibilities in this
position. That means, he: ... never had to "take over" existing staff. As a consequence, he assumed that his new staff would accept him as their boss in the same way the people he employed accepted him in his previous job. He did not realize that he first has to earn the respect of his staff. ... never worked as a manager in an existing organization. He underestimated the cultural aspects, as well as the dynamics and politics involved, of a grown management team. ... as a manager, never had to work closely with his boss. Because he didn't want to do anything wrong, he initially did not make any decisions, but always asked his boss how to handle things. Worse than that, he did not even prepare possible solutions but plainly asked what he should do. Now, it suddenly became crystal clear to him what went wrong and that the reaction of his boss and his team was not something which happened suddenly, but that it was an inevitable consequence of his behavior. Unfortunately, his boss was not the type who gives constant feedback on what's good and what he should improve. Instead, he was just waiting whether Marc's behavior would change over time and got more and more upset and disappointed when it did not happen. Emergency Action Watch out for the 2nd part in our next issue of "Progress!"
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