Two senior associates, Debbie Robbins and Frank Wagner recently published the following superb article in the Huffington Post that I believe you will find both interesting and intriquing titled ‘It Takes Human Contact to Create Success’. Enjoy.

If you made a list today of your top 25 business relationships and asked yourself, “How much full-on human contact have I had with these people this year?” we (Frank Wagner and I — Frank is also a top leadership and executive coach, an expert on leadership behavior) think you’d be shocked to discover that 95 percent of it may be solely digital: e-mail, Facebook, texting or Twitter. Frank and I have stopped tweeting each other the number of times weekly we beg our clients to simply pick up the phone! We recently sat at a business dinner where, despite the opportunity for unimpeded face time, the two executives at the heads of the table were texting one another while we ate!

Up until 1990 the phone was the equivalent of e-mail, and CEOs were always telling their employees to hang up and have meetings. Now it’s a win to get to voice contact. What’s so powerful about full-on human contact is that it engages all aspects of our ability to access information and make informed decisions. Most meet-ups will include writing, reading, seeing, hearing, speaking and doing. 

Yes, technology has expanded our network of relationships. People brag about how many friends they have on Facebook or the size of their network on LinkedIn. Yes, technology has expanded our capacity to communicate in writing. Twitter has made communication almost ubiquitous and omnipresent. Yes, technology allows our thoughts to be transmitted instantaneously at the speed of our wireless networks. It’s easy. It’s seemingly efficient. That is the good news. 

The not-so-good news is that the side effect of all this technology is the loss of genuine connectedness. As humans we have always found in-person interaction meaningful, rich and complex. Face-to-face relationship-building also deflects the possibility for miscommunications and misunderstandings. With less physical data to interpret because of the heavy use of digital communication, more and more problems are arising between colleagues and consumers. 

Psychology Today did a great piece about a social psychologist and Northwestern University law professor named Janice Nadler, who paired Northwestern law students with those from Duke University and asked each pair to agree on the purchase of a car:

Researchers instructed each team to bargain entirely through e-mail, but half the subjects were secretly told to precede the negotiation with a brief getting-to-know-you chat on the phone. The results were dramatic: Negotiators who first chatted by phone were more than four times likelier to reach an agreement than those who used only e-mail. In the study, which appeared in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, subjects who never spoke were not only more likely to hit an impasse, but they often felt resentful and angry about the negotiation.

Our personal favorite is the famous New Yorker cartoon that shows a dog sitting on a chair in front of a computer. He turns to his doggie friend sitting on the floor and says: “On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.”

Be honest — electronically, you do not really know who the person is on the other end of your digital exchange. You can’t hear their voice, which is robust with clues. You don’t know how they are receiving your words or even when they are getting your message in physical-time reality. You can’t assess their body language or observe their responses. The sense of professional “intimacy” we depend on is, at best, only utilizing 10 percent of our communication cues, tools and competencies. The more we rely on e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and texting as our primary ways of communicating, the less likely we are to be known by those with whom we are interdependent for our success.

What to do:

1. Assess who is important to you in your professional life, those people with whom you will need a relationship strong enough to weather any storm. 
2. Consciously monitor how much e-mailing, texting or tweeting you rely on for building these relationships.
3. Make sure that at least once a month you either speak with these people by phone or see them in person! The latter is better, even if it entails travel.
4. When you do connect in person, leave enough time to communicate in greater depth so that it really strengthens your relationship. Enjoy yourself when you get this chance to be up close and personal (it is contagious).
5. When you are in human contact, keep any electronic devices far enough removed so that these devices do not interfere with the conversation. Even the slightest eye movement to see who is texting, e-mailing, etc. gives the other person the impression that someone else is more important to you.
6. Find media-free time each week to counter your addiction to staying connected online. You will probably find out you like it.
7. Stay vigilant in your efforts; technology is amazing, but it is also seductive.

When babies aren’t physically touched, they develop severe emotional challenges. E-mail does not qualify as touching, even if your fingers are on your computer or mobile key pad.

We would enjoy hearing your observations and insights. In the meantime, take care!

“Well, I guess if I get some 360 feedback that will help address some of the leadership challenges I’ve been experiencing.”, said Eduardo, a Senior Vice-President with a major EPC (engineering-procurement-construction) corporation . “I think it would be a good start Ed. However, 360 feedback is where the rubber hits the sky. Feedforward is where the rubber hits the ground.”, I responded.

“So what is feedforward?”, Eduardo inquired. “Well, it’s essentially getting suggestions from those impacted by your leadership, your stakeholders, around what it is you can start, stop and/or continue doing . . . what it is you could change . . .  about your leadership behavior that would help them do their work more effectively and fundamentally enhance their overall contribution. Does that make sense?” I asked. Eduardo’s responded, “Absolutely! However, if I did get feedforward from my stakeholders as you put it, how would I know if I’m being successful when doing it?”

“What I offer comes from our collective experience of coaching executives and leaders worldwide, and it is also  based on the research , findings and experience of one of the world’s leading management and leadership thinkers and his associates, Marshall Goldsmith. Keep these basic key points in mind if you want to engage in a successful stakeholder centered leadership coaching initiative. Of course there’s more involved, but these will get you going in the right direction.”

• Choose the behavior you want to improve – improve the leadership behavior that is important to you and be confident that you will indeed improve
• Truly want stakeholder input – pay undivided attention to and  geniunely hear your stakeholders’ messages/gifts
• Appreciate the feedback/feedforward –  take your stakeholders’ input seriously, be willing to respond to the input they provide and take the opportunity to reflect on what it is you are hearing
• Don’t give in to superstition of “negative” self talk - do a levelheaded cost-benefit analysis and commit with a decision on what leadership behavior you  truly want to develop
• Appreciate the help from all your stakeholders - commit to improve and, again, be confident you will improve
• Actively work on what you commit to improve - make every attempt to demonstrate your success and try to reduce the likelihood of a return to your old habits
• Eagerly gain your stakeholders’ insights - actually learn from their experience of you and focus on producing related measureable results

With the support of a highly experienced senior executive coach and confidante to partner with throughout the stakeholder centered leadership coaching process, success and fulfillment is well within reach, not to mentioned the strategic advantage created for your organization.

Thank you for taking a few minutes to read this. What specific leadership behaviors do your people need from you in order for them to be more powerful contributors? I would enjoy hearing any of your thoughts and feelings on this subject? Take care.

Here’s a gift of 5 actions you can start right now in service of strengthening your Leadership capabilities!

1. Build greater trust. You do this by ensuring that you follow up when you say you will. Lack of follow up, putting promises on the back burner because your busyness is the priority, or dismissing the promise to follow up as not really that important can dramatically erode trust. Instead of espousing intentions to follow up, commit to doing so and DO IT, whether you are managing up or down.
2. Put on your big set of listening ears. People want to be listened to, they want to know that you care. Practice harnessing your energy that hungrily wants to take over every conversation and anxiously move things into action. Just decompress for a moment a really listen to your staff, customers, peers, team members . . . hell, even your boss. If you want to develop high contributors, they need space to be heard and acknowledged . . . by you!
3. Increase your self-awareness. How are you showing up for others as a leader? Don’t know! Contact your Human Resources people, Organization Development professionals or your RWBA executive coach to be in service of your finding out what processes, instruments or other support might be available to help you understand yourself better and leverage that knowledge into stronger top and bottom lines!
4. Be a better relationship builder. Vertically, horizontally, and diagonally . . . throughout the organization.
5. Model great leadership to others. You’ve got to walk the talk. Your direct and indirect reports emulate the leadership that they experience with you. Are you proud of everything that you do? If you had to pick one leadership behavior to work on, what would that be? How can you assure you can successfully change that behavior?

Most importantly, have fun with these thoughts and enjoy yourself!

“What happens if you walk out the door and get hit by a bus?” It is not unusual when dealing with leaders in our coaching conversations when a question similar to this surfaces. There’s usual a bit of chuckling involved and an exchange of humorous comments before we get down to where the client wants to go . . . the serious five-sixths of the iceberg below the surface of the initial discussion. There is a tendency for some leaders (not you of course) to feel infallible and indestructible. This can get in the way of building greater capacity in those who report to us.

The metaphor of ‘the bus’ comes in many forms. If a version of the bus does in fact unexpectantly run over you (note Schultz’s Law: Murphy’s an optimist), then who is able to seamlessly step into your shoes should you find yourself temporarily out of the game . . . on the sidelines as it were? Are you ready my friend for such an event? Quickly filling the leadership pipeline is one of your major responsibilities . . . your organization should not expect less! As an executive coach who works with clients around the world, I have the slight luxury of a broader perspective of organizations . . . both private, public and not-for-profit sectors. In fact, this year to date I have seen three key senior leaders be unexpectedly moved over to the sidelines in their respective organizations. One leader, a Vice President – Operations, recently reflected on just such an experience. They shared just how thankful they were for the executive coaching support that was in service of their ability to see the value of changing their leadership behavior of shifting from a high need for absolute control to that of developing a greater capacity in others to grow, develop and increase their skills and abilities to take on increased accountability and delivery of high quality results . . . not to mention dramatically enhanced levels of professional and personal satisfaction. The value of succession planning for this particular leader has taken on a whole new level of importance, not to mention for the organization. 

Letting go of the reins of control can be exceptionally challenging for any leader, yet the return on the invested time and resources for the leader, key staff, other stakeholders and the organization typically exceeds all expectations when (not if) the inevitable reality of an unplanned highly stressful event occurs and readily takes the leader out of the game.

Should the inevitable surface for you, are you or your organization able to operate at you’re the most effective levels? Are you truly able to successfully step back and confidently address the presenting issue when temporarily sidelined? I would be most interested in hearing your thoughts, your truth, when the bus comes screaming through your world.

The CEO, who I have been coaching over the past four years, called and said, “I think it’s time that we expand our coaching arrangement!” “So, what do you have in mind?” I asked. My client responded, “Well we’ve been engaged in a series of strategic planning events where frankly the rubber has been hitting the sky. Now it’s time for the rubber to hit the ground? We need to make those organizational changes that will assure our strategic success, starting with our Executive Leadership Team!”

My client continued by stating, “A primary objective that we need to quickly address is how we operate at the Executive Leadership Team level. To me Bob, our ELT is the number one team in the organization. All of our other line and staff teams, although very important, are secondary to the ELT. For us to achieve our strategy, the ELT needs to be high-performing. My direct reports don’t appear to get this concept, and if this situation continues, we’ll never achieve our current strategy! We appear to be a high-performance team in waiting!”

Together, the CEO and I co-designed an approach that would support the ELT in accelerating their growth and development. We co-designed a diagnostic method that would produce critical baseline of data and information on the ELT’s effectiveness. We did the same for presenting the foregoing results in a positive, non-threatening, supportive, and motivating way.

Because the CEO is a very big picture, strategically oriented individual and the balance of the ELT members are very here and now, data driven individuals (which spoke volumes in and of itself), the data and information collected was presented in a way that fully met their need for facts and numbers that would allow them to move forward as quickly as possible in order to strenghten the ELT’s ability to work more productively together and produce the necessary results.

Our design and process incorporated in part the key concepts developed by Pat Lencioni with a focus on further strengthening the ELT’s ability to:

1. Create Confidence in Each Other – this included the ELT’s comfort level with each other at a profoundly emotional level, a deeper knowledge of each other beyond what they thought they knew, including their personalities and preferences, levels of openness, and the ability to safely be authentic, open and candid with each other.
2. Manage Differences Between Members – the ELT’s capability to be frank with each other in a non-threatening way, call a spade a spade, not take things personally, and to integrate each other’s needs in the development of strategic business plans and actions that would powerfully move the organization forward.
3. Take Full Responsibility For Making Agreements Happen – out of an integrative approach to managing differences between each other, ELT members became individually and collectively much more able to step up and take full responsibility for commitments, these being recapped at the beginning and end of each and every ELT strategic and operational meeting.
4. Hold Each Other’s Feet to the Fire – each and every ELT member understands that they are fully accountable for delivering on their commitments as well as collectively tracking each others’ progress. This means not just being accountable to the CEO, but more importantly holding each other accountable. To this end they do not hesitate to challenge each other when commitments are not being met, acknowledging and championing each other, all in service of each other’s success and ultimately that of the organization.
5. Focus On Both Top and Bottom Lines – the ELT exclusively focuses on achieving specific strategic and operational top- and bottom-line results that have been fully committed to. They place their departments, career aspirations, or ego-driven status completely behind the agreed to collective results that define the ELT’s and the organization’s strategic advantage and success.

The journey with the ELT still continues. Momentum being built is truly wonderful to observe. Authenticity between the ELT members continues to expand and deepen. The connection between the organization’s bottom line and top lines is being much more clearly and concretely realized, and at times with amazement by ELT members. The motivation to move forward with each ELT coaching meeting continues to escalate (and quite frankly was a real concern for me at the beginning of this particular intervention). Oh, the places they’re now going!

If you have had similar experiences, I would love to hear about them. If you’re interested in exploring possibilities with your leadership/management team or project group, let’s talk. In the meantime, let me leave you with this inquiry: “What are the possibilities for team/group coaching from your perspective?” Your comments and observations would be most appreciated. Take care.