This summer has flown by and it was awesome!  I went to Paris for the first time and loved it.  What an amazing city and culture.  The most white bread I’ve eaten in years and I loved every bite.  Now I’m buckling down and scheduling for the fall and thinking about you – this topic of follow through has been a theme with many of my coaching clients (and not necessarily because they are the ones not following through).

Whether you like it or not, as a leader people are watching you.  They are watching what you say, how you dress, how you handle stress, how you handle success and pretty much your overall behavior.

I’m not mentioning this to make you paranoid but to help you leverage your modeling to increase your team’s productivity, loyalty, and morale.  The leadership behavior I want to discuss is follow through.  What do I mean by follow through?

Joe told his struggling worker that he would be monitoring his documentation completion weekly until he was caught up and consistently productive.  After two weeks Joe stopped requesting the documentation because other issues came up.  As a result, the employee went back to not meeting performance expectations.

Sandy promised to introduce her employee, Tom, to a contact that would be a key connection in completing his project assignment.  Despite Tom’s reminders, Sandy never got around to making that introduction.

Juanita was charged with putting together a sub-committee to address safety issues in her department.  Three months later, after an initial push to recruit members and schedule a meeting date, Juanita dropped it and the first meeting never happened.

Let’s look at the consequences of not following through using these same fictitious examples.  Joe’s worker continues to struggle because he didn’t have enough accountability to form the habit of timely documentation.  His view of Joe is that Joe doesn’t think this issue is that important since Joe dropped it.  The worker continues to under perform.

Tom is frustrated with Sandy for not connecting him with this important contact and without any intended malice, he acts out and talks badly about Sandy to his colleagues.

When the department head decides that another subcommittee needs to be formed to address an important issue, the new committee chair decides she has too much to do and only half- heartedly tries to pull a committee together.  She is not concerned about getting reprimanded because Juanita still hasn’t had her first safety committee meeting.

It is challenging to follow through with everything and even the best leader’s make mistakes and drop balls.  The best thing you can do when you recognize that you haven’t kept a promise, met your stated goal or you let someone down, is to acknowledge it openly.  Be clear that you messed up and are sorry.  I’ve met several leaders who struggle with this and would rather ignore the mistake and hope it goes unnoticed.  I promise you, it is not unnoticed.  Besides, if you are modeling the behavior you would like to see in others, what would you want from your team?

As my personal trainer says as I attempt to do more than 3 pushups at a time, “progress, not perfection”!

In what areas are you already following through, both professionally and personally?  Where do you struggle in either keeping your word or following through?  What’s the impact on your team?

I wish you a happy start of fall and let me know how I can support you in your leadership journey!

Leadership Courage – Do You Have It?

I’ve been thinking lately about the essential qualities of great leaders and which qualities are teachable.  The one I’m going  to write about today is Leadership Courage which I believe is very coachable.

The definition of “courage” according to dictionary.com is:  “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty,  danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.”

If Webster asked me, I would take out the “without fear” and change to “in spite of fear.”  Why?  All the successful leaders I know feel fear everyday but they move foward anyway.

Last week I faced an example of this.  I was scheduled to present a workshop on work/life balance to 100 corporate leaders in a national bank with several more individuals participating via video feed.  I felt solid with the material but 2 days before the presentation I was told I needed to shrink the presentation to 30 minutes from 1.5 hours.  They had a “time crunch.”  Where was my fear?  It was my inner critic saying that they didn’t really want this training, it was not important enough to devote sufficient time to it, and I was going to struggle in engaging this audience.  My visual was 100 people in chairs either checking their smart phones or looking at me blankly.  What were my choices?  Get out of the engagement or just tweak the material and do my best.  It turns out all went well, they were an open and participatory group and I was able to present the best parts of the workshop.

Since I do a lot of presentations in my work, you can bet that I often feel some type of fear on a weekly basis.  And when it comes up,  I acknowledge the feeling and move foward anyway.

How do great leaders show courage in the work place?
1. Telling employees the hard truth even if the information is
upsetting
2.  Being honest with your board of directors or stakeholders about
organizational challenges
3.  Apologizing when you did something wrong
4.  Because you have certainty around an issue you take a stand even though it’s unpopular
5. Resisting external or internal pressure to do something out of integrity even if it’s quicker and easier
6.  Being authentic with who you are – sharing all of you (or most of you ) and not pretending you are super human without flaws
7.  Asking yourself everyday, “what’s best for the organization?”  And acting on the answer
8.  Asking for honest feedback from your employees, customers/clients, colleagues, and those above you about your performance
9.  Asking the questions that you are afraid to find the answers to
10.  Being willing to consider ideas and viewpoints from all levels of the organization
11.  Being willing to let go of what’s not working even if you created it
12.  You tell me… Feel free to post on this site!

Now for you:  If you were to rate your Leadership Courage on a scale of 1-10, what would it be?

What would others in your organization rate you?

Looking at the examples I shared above, what area could be strengthened in  you?  What’s holding you back or stopping you from growing your Leadership Courage?

I wish you the best with this and have an awesomely courageous week!

When working with my clients invariably there’s a session or more devoted to managing difficult conversations.  These are the discussions that are postponed or avoided altogether or they occur with anxiety, defensiveness, hurt or verbal aggression.  If handled poorly, both parties leave the conversation beat down.

Here are some examples of tough conversations calling to be had.  Any of these sound familiar?

1.  Joe needs to confront a supervisee on a performance issue that has not been addressed before.
2.  Mary’s mother just moved in with her and is driving her nuts.
3.  Rashida is feeling like her supervisor doesn’t trust her to make her own decisions regarding her team.
4.  Tom learns that his colleague at work has been making snide remarks about Tom behind his back.

I could provide plenty more examples and so could you.  What all of these scenarios have in common is that they are begging for a conversation to be initiated with the goal of resolving the issue.

Think of a tough conversation that you have been avoiding.  What’s holding you back? What are possible outcomes from this conversation?  What are you most afraid of in moving foward in this discussion?

I know for myself, I dislike conflict.  I strive for harmonious relationships where everyone is happy.  From doing my “inner work” I have gotten a lot better at tackling tough conversations that need to happen personally and professionally.  Here are some tips to help you master the tough conversation.

1. If you are in a leadership position, ask yourself  “what’s best for the organization?”  Recognize your responsibility as a steward for your company.  It’s not about you; rather, you are holding the organization’s values, ethics, mission and best interests.  Keeping this in mind can help provide you the motivation to initiate a tough conversation.

2.  Get clear on the issue.  What’s really going on?  What’s at stake here?  How does it impact you and others?  What evidence do you have regarding the issue?  Be prepared to share a specific example regarding your concern.  Without clarity, the discussion can easily get off track and not get resolved.

3.  Listen fully to the other person.  Be completely present in the conversation.  This means not thinking ahead about your next comment or retort.  This means asking non-judging, clarifying questions to make sure you truly understand what the other person is saying. Repeat back your understanding so your partner knows you get their perspective and so they feel acknowledged.

4.  Show that you want to resolve the issue.  This includes admitting  your own contribution to the problem.  This also means showing up with compassion for the other person and yourself.

5.  Make a plan to move foward.  Discuss what is needed for resolution.  What will each of your do differently to resolve the issue?

Mastering tough conversations takes courage, practice, preparation and a willingness to learn.  The payoff is in improved relationships, increased worker performance, and improved results.

If you are interested in more depth around this topic I highly recommend the book “Fierce Conversations” by Susan Scott.

As a Leadership Coach and Trainer who spends a lot of time helping leaders uncover and leverage their unique strengths, you might find it odd that I’m writing about weaknesses, but let’s face it – we all have weak areas in our game.

What I have found over the years is that the very trait that makes a leader or employee valuable, is the same trait that when overdone, becomes a negative.  For example, a director I was working with was always the go to person in a crisis.  He would drop everything including his time at home with his family to make sure the work crisis was managed well.

In his work in human services, there were always crises, allowing him to leverage this strength on a weekly basis.  There were also frequent licensing updates and program evaluations requiring chart inspections and documentation.  For this director, documentation was boring and became the last thing on the to do list.  Crises were exciting and got him out of doing documentation.  Monitoring his staff’s records was an equally undesirable task.  As a result, he looked bad when his programs were evaluated because he did not have the proper documentation in the files.

His manager was frustrated with him because he was under performing in this aspect of his job despite repeated counseling.  The manager saw him as a rock star in certain areas of his job but was left considering whether the tradeoff of his crisis management versus his inspection readiness skills was worth it.

How did I help this client manage his weakness?  Here are 5 things we did together that were helpful.  These can be applied to any strength that is being over used and looking like a weakness.

1. Build awareness of the behavior.  I firmly believe that without self-awareness, behavior change is not going to last.  I had him keep a log of his crisis management events, noting what the crisis was, how long it took to manage, whether delegation was possible, and what plans were aborted in favor of the crisis.
2. Hit the pause button when confronted with a decision to be made.  This gives time for a quick internal assessment to inform what action to take.  What’s to be gained?  What’s the cost of managing the crisis?  Who else could get involved?  Where can time parameters be put in place?
3. Bring in real time support.  I offered for two weeks to be on call to help him with his decision making process.  This was helpful for him to have outside perspective.  If you don’t have a coach, consider having your supervisor or a colleague help you.
4. Examine how this strength can be balanced so as not to become a weakness.  This client knew managing crisis was his most valuable contribution to the organization.  What he needed to see was that he was not playing a balanced game.  You can be the best 3 point shooter in the NBA but if you are terrible at playing defense you are going to get benched.
5. Let others know you are working on not overusing your greatest strength.  Give others at work (and home) permission to point out when you are tipping in the weakness direction and when you are leveraging your strength positively.  My client enlisted his supervisor and had the courage to let his supervisees know what he was working on to get their help.

Now it’s your turn.  What is your greatest strength? When does it become a weakness for you?  How can you apply the five steps listed above to reign your strength in and show up as a rock star leader?

PS  If you are thinking about becoming a part-time or full-time Professional Coach OR want to bring coaching skills into your workplace, consider signing up for this course.  Information here:

http://chriscoward.com/programs/

Happy New Year!  I love this time of year (minus the cold weather, lack of sunlight and snow shoveling ) because of the opportunity to reflect on the past year and create new goals for the upcoming year.  It’s always exciting to commit to achieving something bigger than before and stretching to expand myself personally and professionally.  So how about you?

What I’ve learned over the years from being a coach and having a coach is that it is so much easier to do this new year visioning and goal setting with a coach’s help.  Yes you can complete a worksheet independently, read a self-help book or make New Year’s resolutions to your family and friends, but imagine if you had someone skilled in asking questions to help you get clear on what you really want and who you want to be.  Imagine this person holding you bigger than you hold yourself and supporting you in creating your dream 2011.  Let’s be real – if you don’t do anything differently than you normally do, you will not get different results.

Here’s where I can be helpful.  I am offering to coach you for one hour by phone to “Create Your Awesome 2011.”  We will partner together to capture the learnings, successes and challenges of 2010 and create a powerful, inspiring, no one can stop you plan for 2011.  I will take notes so you can be fully engaged in the process and I’ll send you the created plan after our meeting.  Prior to our appointment I will send you questions to consider so we can hit the ground running.

My coaching is typically $175/hour and higher.  I am offering this “Create Your Awesome 2011″ session for only $75.  Why?  Because I want you to start 2011 off in the best way possible and I want to spread the power of coaching.    This is the start of my 2011 dream, making it easier for more people to receive coaching.

If you want 2011 to be a year of accomplishment, realized goals and dreams than I invite you to sign up for “Create Your Awesome 2011.”

To register for an appointment, please e-mail me at chris@chriscoward.com or call 215.472.1572.

Here’s to a fulfilling and productive 2011!

The summer has blown by and I’m busy getting geared up for the fall.  There are a lot of great things happening that I will keep you posted on.

I am training for a big cycling ride with a friend and we were discussing the high probability of getting a flat tire as we were riding on one of our several epic training rides.  We were both saying that it would be a great idea to take a mini-course in changing flat tires and also to carry a spare tube and pump.  Three weeks later we had a similar discussion, no action taken.

You can guess what’s next… This past weekend I noticed my tire was low as I was leaving my house to meet friends for a long ride.  I pumped it up and went on my way hoping to get lucky since I did not have a spare tube.  Sure enough, it became fully flat and I needed to turn around.

Was I prepared?  No way.  I found several tubes at my house, none fit my bike.  In fact, I didn’t really know how to change the tire, although I knew with enough time, I could figure it out.  However, I didn’t have time!  My friends were already at the site, the temperature was going up and we had other things to do that day.  What did I do?  I grabbed a different bike and hustled down to meet my friends.  The final result:  I was slower with the other bike (and more tired at the end), I held up my friends unnecessarily, and we biked in hotter weather than we needed to.

How does this compare to the “flat tires” we encounter at work?  The phone calls that we procrastinate returning that turn into a crisis; the piles of documentation that await us that we put off until the audit; the problematic employee who needs crucial feedback or disciplinary action that you hesitate to give until the situation gets out of control.

What would it be like to have the initial concern/task/idea and then take pro-active action?

How much time is lost changing the proverbial flat tire when you are blindsided by the sharp object?

Being ready means having the knowledge, the resources (material and people), the time, and the motivation to manage the issue.  Instead of pushing away the initial concern, I invite you to get ready for the situation and take action.

I wish you an awesome start to the fall season.

I admit that the plot of land in front of our house is hurting.  We have a combination of weeds, grass and random plants that do not look attractive.  I decided to tackle this issue over the weekend and made only a small dent until my weed pulling hands started cramping up.  I was surprised that the next day I was walking like I participated in a rodeo.  Who would have thought my groin muscles would have been so affected by weed pulling activity?  Seriously.

So you can imagine my frustration when I received a ticket from the city for $75 for grass/weeds over 10″ high.   No warning first, no “I’m sorry we have to do this….”  In fact, this ticketing effort is part of a city plan called SWEEP (Streets & Walkways Education and Enforcement Program).  The program brochure talks about recycling and keeping the area clean.  We received the “enforcement” part of the program without the “education” part of the program since we had no idea there was a 10 inch grass height rule.

What does this have to do with your leadership?  Compare me to one of your low performing employees.  When it comes to the annual performance appraisal time do you issue the $75 fine?  Or, is there verbal feedback given at the first notice of a problem that educates your staff person about your expectations and what it takes to get an excellent performance evaluation?  What wording, tone of voice, and emotion are you using when giving the feedback?  Is this a dialogue or a one-way giving of information?

The officers who issued our ticket have no idea how much my husband contributes to the neighborhood’s overall health.  I don’t expect them to but I expect you know what contributions your employee makes to the organization other than the low performing area(s) and that those are considered in your feedback as well.  When we share the Leadership Without Excuses Model we often get comments about how several members of the team are sinners in some ways and saints in other ways and that it’s not a clear cut delineation.  How do you factor this in to your leadership?

Thanks for reading my rant today and I welcome further discussion on this topic of giving feedback and enforcing rules.

Last week I shared 5 Tips to Increase Your Team’s Performance using the Leadership Without Excuses model.  I focused on the area of “making your expectations clear.” Today I’m sharing the next 5 tips on “making your expectations credible and
reasonable.”  I hope you find these tips valuable and doable in your organization.

1. Make crystal clear your conditions of satisfaction about the activities they are supposed to perform or not perform. If you aren’t clear than it is not your employee’s fault when they do an unsatisfactory job.
2. Communicate the rationale for why they are supposed to do the things they are supposed to do.  “Because I said so” is old school and doesn’t cut it (not even with children).
3. Ensure they have the capacity with time and resources to do what’s required of them.  I work with a lot of human service leaders who are stressed by this concept, but the fact is, the task won’t get done in time or to your satisfaction if the person
assigned to complete the task doesn’t have the time to do it.
4. Ensure they have the capability to do what is required (technical or professional training).  I have made the mistake as a leader in assuming a competent employee knows how to do a certain job activity and then find out they never learned that skill.  Oops!
5. Be sure that they receive credible guidance when a choice they make will support one organizational value at the expense of another (Example: Quality vs. productivity or compliance vs. speed and cost management). This comes up in documentation requirements – if there’s a choice between rushing to meet the documentation deadline vs. being late but having better quality documentation, which do you
choose?

I would love to hear your feedback on this material.  Please e-mail me at chris@chriscoward.com

Happy Spring (for real this time)!  I’m really enjoying the blooming trees and plants and trying to get motivated to do some planting myself.  Will keep you posted on that…

My colleague Neill Edwards and I presented last week at the Pennsylvania Children Youth and Family Services conference on “Creating the Conditions of Accountability From the Top Down” and it was great.  We had 75 people participating in our workshop (and I mean participating, minimal lecturing going on from us), sharing ideas of best practice along with their successes and challenges.  Of course we had tons of fun along the way.

Today I want to give you 5 Tips to Increase Your Team’s Performance using the Leadership Without Excuses model.  The model has 4 parts: Making your expectations clear, making your
expectations credible and reasonable,  following high performance with positive consequences and following low performance with negative consequences.  Simple, right? As you know the simple things can be difficult to implement which is where these tips can help.  So I don’t overwhelm you with information, today’s 5 tips will only be in the category of “making your expectations clear.”   Enjoy!

1.  Don’t assume your common sense is their common sense
2.  Create an atmosphere where questions for clarity are
encouraged rather than viewed as “not getting it”
3.  Check for understanding by asking what they heard
4.  Ask good, probing questions to make sure they really got it
5.  Give candid, constructive feedback on an ongoing basis, not
just when a deliverable is due

If you really want to take your leadership up 10 notches then read about our Leadership Without Excuses Coaching Group that starts next Wednesday at noon.

To see the details:  http://chriscoward.com/leadership-programs/

If you have any questions about this material or the upcoming  LWE Coaching Group please call me at 215.472.1572 or Neill at 610.955.3702.  We would love to hear from you!

I’ve had several visits to my physical therapist in the last month and each time I go I am so impressed with the work culture of the staff and their leader’s ability to give clear and credible instructions.  The work environment is sometimes very hectic and fast paced, serving several patients at once and requiring each PT to juggle the monitoring, instruction and treatment of more than one patient at a time.  At other times, the work environment is slow, the ratio of PT to patients is almost three to one and I always wonder if the PT’s are bored (although they don’t show it and seem to be having fun).

My physical therapist, Kim, is in charge of the other PT’s who seem to be at varying levels of experience.  Here are five things Kim does well in modeling leadership without excuses:

1)  Kim makes her expectations clear to the staff.  She tells them which exercise they need to help me with and if it’s not a common exercise, she’ll demonstrate exactly what she’s looking for.  She does not assume her common sense is their common sense about how to work with me.

2)  Even though Kim is often super busy, she will always take time to give clarity about an assignment.  This includes providing a rationale for why a particular exercise needs to be done in a particular way.

3) Kim ensures that staff have the capacity and capability of executing their assignments.  If capability is unclear, Kim will take a moment to teach the assigned intervention or make a staff switch to a more experienced person.

4) Kim sets up frequent, brief check points to ensure that her team is following the treatment plans correctly and managing their array of patients smoothly.  She doesn’t wait until a problem occurs nor does she wait until the end of the day to address concerning issues.

5) Kim treats high performers differently than average performers.  I have overheard her mentoring and advising a less experienced (but high performing) PT during downtime about this person’s career opportunities.  How great does that young PT feel about working there and giving 100%?

Your turn.  Are you taking excuses away from the team by implementing some of these strategies that Kim uses?  If not, I challenge you to take a small step in implementing Leadership Without Excuses.  The “Leadership Without Excuses Assessment” CLICK BELOW

http://bit.ly/LWOChangeGrid will give you a full picture on how you are managing change and where your tension is at work.  I encourage you to take it and schedule a complimentary debriefing session with me.

I wish you all the best!