”Bob, I can’t tell you how scary the future is!” stated Jim, CEO of a leading oil and gas process equipment engineering firm. This was said with a strong sense of anxiety. “I thought that we would have already started to come out of this economic mess. From the latest I’ve been hearing, the upcoming year is forecasted to be as challenging, if not more, given the global economy. We’ve kept outselves out of the red so far, but have an ever pressing need to assure that we come through this upcoming year with minimal damage to our ability to be on top of the recovery curve when it actually arrives! That’s my mandate from our Board!”

“Given that, what’s in survival and readiness for your organization?” I asked. “Quite frankly I’m running out of options and that’s what I would like to explore with you. Are there any other ways I might approach this?” Jim replied.

“Well, as you know in our coaching relationship I don’t provide advice, counseling, consulting or therapy. However, that doesn’t stop us from brainstorming some creative approaches and cherry-picking those ideas you think and feel will work for you. I’m never attached to what it is I share with you. Choose what will work for you.” I stated. “Hey, that’s just what I want!” Jim quickly responded.

In our following coaching exchange, a key piece discussed was to encourage Jim to step back and look at his oganization in it’s entirety. Support him in breaking it down into sub-components that could be viewed individually, but with the full understanding that each component still has a significant effect on the whole organization. A powerful framework shared with him  in our coaching conversation was McKinsey & Company’s 7-S Model used to diagnose organizations and establish a base from which to make necessary organization design changes that would help Jim deliberately work toward assuring his firm’s strategic success.

Although there’s really no best approach, Jim did confide that this particular model was most helpful in ensuring the organization is in an ideal position to positively respond to the business world around it. From our conversation he learned that there are seven key aspects to his organization that are critical, maximizing his organization’s effectiveness at the individual, groups/team and system wide levels. Again, McKinsey & Company referred to this model as the 7-S Framework that was reviewed with Jim as follows.

1.  STRATEGY:   “ What are the sources of sustainable competitive advantage (e.g. cost, quality, service, technical leadership) Jim’s firm has? “ What are the key strategic priorities (e.g. penetrating new markets, new product, development, speed-to-market, improving customer service) Jim’s firm has?

2.  STRUCTURE:   “ What’s the basic structural form of Jim’s firm? “ How centralized or decentralized is Jim’s organization? “ What is the relative status and power of each of the sub-units of Jim’s organization?

3.  SYSTEMS:   ” Does Jim’s firm have the systems it really needs to run its business (e.g., does it have a system for monitoring staff and customer satisfaction?) “ What are the management systems that Jim and his executive leadership team use to run his organization? What ones do they pay the closest attention to?  Need to pay the closest attention to?

4.  STAFFING:   ” How does Jim’s organization recruit and develop its people? (e.g. formal training, coaching programs/services, stretch programs, developmental assignments, etc.) “ What are the demographic characteristics of Jim’s executive leadership and lower management teams? (e.g. background, education, age, gender, nationality, professional identity, experience outside the firm, etc.) “ Where are the strongest leaders found in Jim’s organization (e.g., in which functions)? The weakest? 

5.  SKILLS:   ” What business activities are Jim’s organization distinctly good at performing? “ What new capabilities does Jim’s organization need to develop, and which ones does it need to “unlearn,” to achieve strategic advantage and compete in the future?

6.  STYLE:   ” How does  the top leadership team make decisions? (e.g. in formal meetings, informal conversations, in the field, with staff, with customers, in product development, etc.) “ What are the demographic characteristics of his leadership team? (e.g. background, education, age, gender, nationality, professional identity, experience outside of his firm, etc.) “ Where are the strongest leaders found in his organization (e.g. in which functions)? The weakest?

7.  SHARED VALUES/GUIDING PRINCIPLES:   ” Do people in Jim’s organization have a shared understanding of why the firm exists? “ Do people in Jim’s organization have a shared understanding of the mission/vision of the firm? “ What types of issues receive the most and least attention by Jim and his executive leadership team? (e.g. short run versus long run, internal versus external, etc.) “ How do people in Jim’s organization describe the ways in which his firm is distinctive? (e.g. focus on quality, emphasis on people, importance of customer satisfaction, etc .)

“This is exactly what I was hoping to get our of today’s coaching conversation. You don’t even have to ask me if I’m up to answering these questions and submitting them to you by our next coaching meeting.” Jim enthusiastically offered.

“I’m quite excited for you my friend, and frankly I can’t wait to hear what you come up with and how you think and feel you ‘need to be‘ as CEO in supporting where your organization needs to go from here!”

I invite you, the reader, to let us know what your key ‘take aways’  are from this discussion with Jim. What piece(s) would you like to personally cherry-pick and run with. As always, I’d love to hear your reactions and contributions to this coaching discussion. Take care!

Any transition to a new role, while exciting and an acknowledgement of what the organization thinks of you, is a time of anxiety for every newly transitioning leader.
A few of the common errors of a new role leader include trying to do too much too soon, failure to understand the de facto culture/sub-culture, and/or misinterpreting the expectations of their superior. Danger lurks ahead….. in the form of mistrust by others, leader fatigue, compounding anxiety with over preparation, and possibly the creation of an unsafe environment for employees.

As stress intensifies for the new role leader, can you really be making the best decisions for the organization as a whole, your team and yourself?

Stress has a tremendous effect on performance levels, particularly at a time when a leader is under the magnifying glass. Stress studies have demonstrated that it’s effect alters the ability to learn, to remain agile, and to make effective decisions.

I have worked with leaders who admitted that they have hardly slept in three months and leaders who existed on a pop and pizza diet. It is rewarding as an executive coach to support leaders in these circumstances and be part of the process that allows them to gain back a feeling of balance and control, rewarding them with restful nights rather than a continuum of midnight note taking sessions.

With invested and targeted support, these leaders can bring about greater contribution to the organization in a shortened time frame as they learn to manage their stress, embrace the transition, garner early credibility and move powerfully forward with their leadership.

What is the cost to an organization of not readily investing in the transitioning new role leader?  This is not just about the leader’s transition. You have to take into consideration the transitional impact on those who surround the leader and the cost to the organization when their performance falters as a result of how the new role leader shows up for others.

Some thoughts for effectively supporting senior leader new role transitions in your organization:

• Identify communication gaps and improve communication of support and development programs
• Appoint an “ambassador of programs” who can effectively inform, steer, co-design, and co-manage a transitioning individual’s action plan
• Gain commitment of senior leaders to provide face-to-face time with newly promoted leaders, ensuring relationship building, clarity of expectations, and constructive feedback sessions 
• Provide senior leadership networking opportunities 
• Encourage formal and/or informal mentorship 
• Ensure strategic alignment to the overall succession strategy of your organization 
• Utilize psychometric assessments in the early stages to increase leader’s self awareness 
• Design or contract for an accelerated leadership transitioning program that can be self-directed and facilitated by an executive/leadership coach 
• Implement usage of a senior leadership 360° assessment for a transitioning leader at an 18-month interval, with a smaller version of the assessment redone at 24 months.

Can your organization afford to falter in its role to more effectively support transitioning leaders? Is there an opportunity to step back from the status quo and examine the question: How could we transition our new role leaders better and assure their and our organization’s success? Let me know how you feel and what you think. Take care.

It’s not unusual in our executive coaching to come across comments such as “I’m fed up with his micromanaging!”, “I want to make sure they do it right!”, “I need to make sure my group doesn’t make any mistakes!”, “I’m tired of solving everyone else’s problems!”, “I have to stay on top of them!”, “As the head of this organization, I’m getting exhausted working 24/7!”. The litany of comments like this are endless.

We find that leaders often don’t hold their people ‘Big’. Allowing their staff to tackle the concerns they own and to learn from the consequences of their decisions, using this learning to grow, become even stronger performers and contributors, and as a result more satisfied.

What happens more often than not is that the leaders not only holds themselves ‘Small’, unfortunately they also hold their people ‘Small’. Meaning, they interfere by giving them ’solutions’ to their presenting problems, not allowing them to stumble, fall, get up and try it again until they successfully work it out, allowing them to mature as individuals and professionals.

It’s similar to raising a child. If you insist on ensuring they not run, fall, eat a little dirt, bump their heads, experience life . . . what normal kids do . . . this will only contribute to retarding their growth and development. We’re not talking about letting them get into serious trouble. That’s a given.

Rather, it’s about letting them experience normal day-to-day challenges and allowing them to learn from the consequences of their choices. From these life experiences they mature and grow into healthy, reasonably well balanced adults (god willing).

The same is true for leaders working with their staff. The choice is about either holding people ‘Big’ or holding them ‘Small’. The benefits of the former are clearly obvious once we think about leadership in this way.

Recently a good friend and colleague, Jake Jacobs, and I had a discussion on this very topic. Jake is a leader in the field of organization development, a noted author of cutting edge books on large-scale real-time strategic change and the Principal of The Winds of Change Group out of Marina del Rey, California. We continue having very rich conversations around potential synergies between Jake’s large-scale work and our executive/corporate coaching. You’re invited to listen to our most recent conversation on the subject of leaders holding their people ‘Big’ or ‘Small’. Enjoy!

    Click here to listen to our discussion!

 What’s been your experience on this? What are your insights? How might you leverage your learning? What is it you would like to do with this? We always enjoy getting your thought and feelings. Take care!

We often work with executives and leaders who experience enormous amounts of stress at work. As they say, ‘the closer to the top you get, the closer to the door you get’. In the compensation world, their total compensation is influenced by the size of the ulcers that go with the job. It’s also referred to as being in the grip. We’re sure you’ve  gotten our point .

Naomi Quenk wrote a wonderful primer called ‘In the Grip: Understanding Type, Stress, and the Inferior Function’ based on the personality type theory developed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. As Naomi mention’s in her work, Jung’s theory was refined and put into accessible form by Isabel Briggs Myers and Katharine Briggs, who developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) personality inventory.

As part of working with and addressing the issues when each of us feels caught In the Grip, it behooves us to take a little time to answer some questions. Being completely authentic and honest with yourself goes a long way in helping you deepen your understanding of the way you think, behave and remedy the causes that trigger in the grip  reactions. When you partner with a qualified executive coach, you’ll receive amazing insights and the ability to extricate yourself from this potentially devastating situation.

Naomi puts forward that there may very well be times when you feel or behave quite differently from the way you normally do. In other words, the way you see and react to everyday events at work is so unlike you that others you work with would describe you as “not being yourself,” “someone else” or simply “in the grip”. So here’s the invitation, try to think about how you are when you are most like yourself and how you are different when you are least like yourself by answering the following suggested questions from Naomi:

•  What are you like when you are most yourself? That is, what qualities best describe you or define you as an individual? For example, you might describe yourself as typically optimistic, careful with details, concerned about others, future oriented, and so on.  
• What are you like when you are not yourself-how are you different from your usual way of being?  
• What events or circumstances are likely to provoke the reactions and changes you experience?  
• What can you or others do to help the return process?  
• What can you or others do to hinder the return process?  
• What aspects of your work life are most satisfying and energizing?  
• What aspects of your work life are most dissatisfying and stressful?  
• How do you typically deal with chronic stress?   
• What new things have you learned about yourself as a result of your out-of-character experiences?

We have worked with many executive clients who have successfully addressed being caught in the grip.  Because of the great results  they’ve been able to experience, we thought you too would find the foregoing of interest. What was your take away? On a scale of 1 – 10 where is your stress level (1 = none, 10 = let me out of here!)? What’s your next step? We would enjoy hearing your thoughts and feelings. Take care.

Every now and then a gift is given to the world, and that is just what Paul Hawken gave us in an unforgettable commencement address to the Class of 2009, at the University of Portland. It was recently passed on to me and I want to gift it forward so you too can enjoy his powerful message. Enjoy.

“When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.

Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation . . . but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seat-belts, lots of room in coach, and really good food – but all that is changing

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.”.  For the rest of the address go to http://youarebrilliant.org/. “ It is well worth the few additional minutes to read the balance of this wonderful commencement address. Then I invite you to gift it forward!

Paul Hawken is a noted visionary and entrepreneur whose many books can be found on Amazon.com. We would enjoy hearing what your gold nuggets are from reading his comments and observations. Who are you becoming? What are you willing to change? What’s next?