”How can I help my Boss?” This was a simple yet fascinating question asked by a recently hired senior operations executive regarding his boss, the President. The President, who I also coach, had hired me to provide Accelerated Leadership Transition Coaching services to assure the success of this new acquisition to the executive team. Her organization had invested considerable time, money and effort in finding and bringing this unique individual on board and she was determined to protect that investment and accelerate his successful transition. In coaching him toward formulating answers to his question, the following piece was shared with him and was intended to bein service of deepening his intention, providing alternate perspective(s) and putting him in choice as to how he might truly be there for the organization and the President. The end result was his being in amazing clarity around next steps. The author is unknown, but it has always intrigued and been received very positively by all my executive clients when introduced. It is called ‘The Fixer’.

• A fixer has the illusion of being causal. A server knows s/he is being used in the service of something greater, essentially unknown.
• We fix something specific. We serve always something: wholeness and the mystery of life.
• Fixing and helping are the work of the ego. Serving is the work of the soul.
• When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix you see life as broken. When you serve you see life as whole.
• Fixing and helping may cure. Service heals.
• When I help, I feel satisfaction. When I serve, I feel gratitude.
• Fixing is a form of judgment. Serving is a form of connection.

What does this mean for you? What is the blinding glimpse of the obvious? What small or large change in perspective does this create? What are in the possibilities for you?

 “What does a powerful and healthy work relationship with my staff and others really look and feel like? I want to make sure that not only do I successfully bring in the Bottom Line, but as importantly, I need to successfully produce a strong Top Line—my staffs’ and customers’ satisfaction.” I always love it when my executive clients talk to me like this. This great question led to a very rich coaching discussion where the client identified and explored some of the following blinding glimpses of the obvious that were felt to be keys to building and sustaining strong, caring, mutually satisfying and highly productive work relationships that more often than not bring in a strong Bottom Line. Based on our coaching discussion and mutual sharing of information and insights, the result for the client was that a healthy work relationship truly reflected the following:

• I can listen to you without interrupting
• Because I am in a working relationship with you, I choose to listen to you and see how my behavior impacts you
• I will not control and manipulate you to get what I want
• I will not punish you for saying “no” to me
• I will not fear your rejection. I understand that “no” to me is a “yes” to you. I care about you. I want you to take care of yourself
• If you leave us, the team, I will have definite discomfort and I know that I can be satisfied here without your continued support
• I will not ask you to give up who you are to be cared by me. Your security, satisfaction and development will be as important to me as my security, satisfaction and development 
• I will not try to take away your feelings or rob you of them so I can be comfortable
  

What’s your reaction to the foregoing? What piece resonated the most with you? What might you add to the list created? You thoughts, feelings and comments are most valued.

I happen to be at what is referred to as a ‘Real Time Large Scale’ change event that EDS was engaged in. They had brought together their top 400 leaders within their global operations a number of years ago to meet over a two day period to gain a collective understanding where they were at strategically, obtain a clear picture of what better would look like, agreement as to what they needed to do to move forward and achieve what it was they wanted, and to work on initial plans to develop their capability to successfully make it happen. 

As the Vice President-Human Resources & Organization Development of a large financial firm at the time, I had brought with me the CEO and the Vice President-Finance of the organization. The objective was to provide my associates with the opportunity to watch a large-scale event happen first hand and then decide whether to bring this particular approach to our own organization.

The experience absolutely bowled my associates over when they experienced first hand the enormous level of collaboration, the open sharing of thoughts, feelings and wants by all participants in a way that was designed to fully engage their hearts and minds. The level of positive high energy, caring, and openness was palpable in a very large meeting room organized specifically for this unique event.

At one of the breaks on the second day of the event I approached the two Organization Development consultants who had been contracted to lead the design and delivery of this amazing event. They were Kathy Dannemiller and Jake Jacobs. Both global leaders in the field of organization development, and in particular, the facilitation of large-scale real-time strategic change events such as this one. These events range from facilitating anywhere between a couple of hundred up to thousands of organizational participants at a time. Both are remarkable people. Unfortunately Kathy is no longer with us, but is key to my next experience.

I walked up to both of them and asked. “So how do you think the process is going? Are the participants . . . the organization . . . where you think they should be?” I thought this was a pretty mundane question that would beget a simple response. But that didn’t happen. Instead I received a very perfunctory comment from Kathy that literally made me step back. Learning doesn’t always come in pleasant doses. She turned around and simply said to me, “Listen my friend (we knew each other relatively well), they are exactly where they should be! It ‘s irrelevant where we think they should be! It’s where they are now that we need to work with. They will move forward at a speed that works for them. So what’s your next question.” Jake was sitting to the side and just smirked. This was Kathy-forthright, authentic, completely honest and tended not to pull punches. That’s why anyone who was open to truly learning and growing loved her. She was always free in the gift of her skills, knowledge and experience and never hesitated to be there for you and give when asked. She never hesitated to cut to the quick and call a ‘spade a spade’ as they say.

From this I developed a profound understanding of what it takes to ‘be’ with clients and work with them at their readiness level. Even if you want them to be two light years ahead of where you think they should be, it’s where they are ‘now’ that is most important. It’s about them and not you. When that happens, it takes enormous pressure off you as an agent of change whether you are a leader, manager, consultant or coach. Work where with where your clients, staff, boss, customers, etc. are at.

I’ve found this gold nugget has paid off huge dividends. Does this experience resonate with yours? What’s in working with others’ readiness for you? When you honor this, what’s in the payoff? If you ignore this, what are the consequences? Where might this be of value ‘back at the ranch’? I would love to hear your thoughts and feelings?

Kevin an executive who struggled with his boss relationships approached me feeling that executive coaching might be in service of him successfully addressing this concern. His values were clearly in opposition to those of his previous Senior Vice President. He characterized their relationship as “frosty” at its best. He said in our initial meeting, “I’ve spent a lot of time looking for ways to minimize my contact with my boss as a way to reduce my stress. What I’ve found is that my doing this has actually increased it to levels that I think are unhealthy for me.” It was clear from our discussion that his distancing of their relationship had increased his internal chatter to all time high and his assumptions had run rampant.

Fortunately, it was fortuitous for Kevin that a new Senior Vice President was hired while he and I were in the early stages of our executive coaching. He now had a great opportunity to build a strong new working relationship. Yet Kevin’s anxiety still remained and appeared to be in control of his thinking. He was engaged in making more assumptions about what this new working relationship might look like. His feelings were starting to take on a familiar pattern. In fact, Kevin shared, “My ability to ‘manage up’ is quite frankly being held back by my low feelings of confidence.” At the time, I asked him a number of intuitively driven questions, “Who do you give your power away to? What are some of the triggers for you? What has been the cost of this to you, your career?; and What is your contribution to your perceived lack of quality of the relationship with your bosses?”

Kevin’s reflection on these questions uncovered a number of candid comments. “It’s clear that I’ve wrestled with authority figures in my life, and quite honestly I’ve come to the blinding glimpse of the obvious that I’ve got to change this perception before it creates more damage to my life and my career! I now truly realize just how much this has held me back, not only at work but in other parts of my life. I’ve made choices that have created major obstacles to my being able to rise to more senior leadership levels.” This took enormous courage to put out there, but had to be done before Kevin could powerfully move forward. Kevin’s dissatisfaction level with his current state of affairs was what was absolutely needed for change to take place ‘within’, and eventually ‘outside’. He was now ready to make powerful movement. I asked him “What’s would your ideal-preferred-relationship with your new boss look like?” Working with this question, he got very clear on what that would be. We coached around this at great depth, and the result was his setting up a series of meetings with the new Senior Vice President where they would discuss the current business situation, expectations, resource requirements, leadership styles, and Kevin’s professional development. This established a solid foundation for how they needed to work effectively together.

Anxiety, a powerful and future oriented emotion that is always there to one degree or another, still remained with Kevin as the first meeting approached. As he said in one of our calls, “I’m still sweating bullets and would like to be coached around managing my anxiety so that it serves me positively and does not get in my way.” We coached around that with the objective of ensuring that he had ‘just enough anxiety’ to bring out the best in him, but not so much as to interfere. With this, Kevin created his own “game plan” for the first meeting, a practical approach that he could take to assure meeting success, learn from the experience, and leverage this and future meetings into a deep and enduring working relationship.

To this end I asked Kevin, “try to think about what it would be like to ‘partner’ with your new boss?’ Languaging here was critical for him to begin thinking very differently about this new relationship. In our following executive coaching sessions Kevin and I co-created a number of talking points to pursue. He recapped, “I want to:

• “ Explore the current business situation and gain an understanding of my boss’s diagnosis of what is in front of us; ensure that our conversation completes with a shared understanding where the business is really at today;
• Agree to those expectations that are critical to our success as partners in the business we face, and ensure clarity and understanding of expectations in our relationship, our respective roles, and negotiate where needed; “ Candidly discuss our individual and collective working styles; What we need to do to overcome any differences that will no doubt arise, and frankly discuss how we prefer to communicate with each other;
• Agree on what resources I’ll need to successfully deliver on the deliverables we agree on; what changes in this regard, if any, that need to be initiated; and how my new boss will support the resources need; and
•  Share and agree on the focus of my personal/professional development required to deliver on the foregoing and gain his full support.”

Once this was achieved, Kevin bottom lined it, “I’ve now got a real plan and for the first time feel I’m on top of things.” He was supported in our coaching with sincere acknowledgment of what he had achieved thus far and was championed-I knew he could do it, do it well and told him so in no uncertain terms.. AND IT WAS! Kevin was amazed at the results of the conversations with his boss. In one of our later coaching meetings he stated, “This really served to set a firm foundation for a great relationship with my boss. We are now very open in our conversations and make huge progress every time we get together, which is always a challenge given our hectic schedules. I feel like I have the power and influence I need to achieve what I’ve committed to. I continued to work on strengthening this relationship at every opportunity. WE’RE PARTNERS!”

Always the coach, I asked Kevin, “Given this experience with your boss, how does this translate to those reporting to you and your leadership?” Talk about silence-it was deafening. I could hear the wheels grinding. Oh the places he was going with this new insight on Partnering. It was now a key part of his vocabulary. He simply and very confidently said, “I’m going to invite my direct reports to have a similar series of discussions with me, and they with their direct reports! I want to have this completed by the end of the second quarter. As a matter of fact I’ll send you a summary email when its all been done.”

“So how stressful is it for an executive who’s responsible for the development and implementation of an organization’s strategic plan?” This was a provocative question that clearly showed this student was thinking bigger than the subject I was teaching at hand. In response I recalled some work that I had been leading as the Vice President of Human Resources and Strategic Management with a large tertiary care hospital earlier in my career. It involved partnering with Dr. Dave Hitchin, a former professor[1] of mine, a faculty member with the School of Business and a member of the Master of Science in Organization Development Program, at Pepperdine University at the time.

In one of our many discussions while at the professor’s home in Sun Valley, Idaho, he mentioned that in doing this work over the years he had observed a number of the senior executives he had the good fortune to work with who had passed away unexpectedly. Of course I was curious about this interesting observation and I was particularly curious about the issue of executives providing strategic leadership within their organizations and the enormous stress that is a part of that journey.

Dave then shared that he was working on a concept with his wife Jill at the time that he felt would be of value to his executive clients. Not only did it speak to the related issue of stress as executives engaged in developing and leading strategic change within their organizations, but also provided a model for them to consider in the thinking and behavior necessary to better achieve and sustain healthier balance in their work and personal lives. He referred to it as ‘Middlaning’.

In this model work was viewed as a three lane highway. He referred to the inside lane as the ‘fast lane’. This was where you put the pedal-to-the-medal so to speak. Of course, it can be absolutely essential at times, but it should be engaged in by exception only, not as a general way of operating. Typical types of behavior involves going in extremely early every day, pushing it hard throughout the day, rarely ever taking meaningful breaks, staying into the very late evening hours to get that all important report out, financials analyzed, proposal prepared, presentation drafted, negotiations completed, etc. I’m sure many of you reading this can think of a long list of other urgent concerns that always need addressing. Unfortunately, this is typical of executives, managers and professionals who live to work, versus the rest of people who normally work to live. Now if you stayed in the fast lane on an ongoing basis, it wasn’t if you were going to crash and burn, it was when you would hit the wall. Further, this could very well lead up to eventual burn out, and yes, possibly death. When I thought about this, and I still do, I can recall a significant number of associates that I’ve worked with in the ‘C-Suite’ over the years who are no longer with us because of just these circumstances.

Guess what lane most organizations want their leaders, and often their employees in general, to work in. Yes, the fastlane! They don’t intentionally have the foregoing consequences in mind and, at times, even express in their own way that the that the fast lane is not a healthy place to stay.  But watch what actually happens if the executive tries to work toward more balance in his/her work and life. Out come the organizational antibodies that try to get rid of any behavior that actually involves work/life balance or seeks to minimize it.

Next is the middle-lane. This lane is a healthy and productive one to travel in.  As opposed to the peddle-to-the-metal approach of the fast lane, here you keep a good healthy speed and a solid, productive momentum. Give or take a few clicks either way, in this lane you will successfully achieve planned intentions, on time, within the resources allocated, fully meeting and even exeeding standards of performance, producing high employee and customer satisfaction (the Top Line), and often beating revenue and cost targets (Top Line). The Middle-Lane should never be confused with the Slow Lane which has a totally different purpose.

Oh, the Slow Lane. Perhaps a bit of a misnomer, but essentially it means going to work at a reasonably appropriate time and taking healthy breaks or time outs throughout the day so that you remain maximally productive. It includes taking time for lunch, either by oneself or as an opportunity to engage in relationship building with key others. It means leaving at a reasonable time at the end of the day or going home to be with your loved ones. Not taking work with you (unless you happen to be temporarily in the fast lane). It means taking the weekends off for you to be with your family and friends. It means taking your scheduled vacations, even stat holidays. The whole purpose here is for you to live the life that you’re working to create and enjoy. These are critical opportunities for you to regenerate you batteries. Otherwise, if you don’t do these things you will eventually end up being no good to yourself, your family and or to the organization over the intermediate to long term. But many of us learn the hard way, and often too late.

Is Middlaning easy? I would love to hear your experience, thoughts and wisdom on the subject. What does better look like for you? What are the consequences of not addressing and facing up to this? What’s in the payoff of dealing with it? What prevents you from addressing the matter? Have fun with this and I look forward to hearing from you!