“I really don’t like doing it!” claimed Frank, the Senior Vice President, Business Development with a large corporate leader in the energy business. “Doing what?” I asked. “Control. I hate finding myself in the position to have to control my direct reports. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“So what do you want to do?” was my response. “There must be some other way!” Frank said in frustration (always a green light for my executive coaching). “Do you remember when we talked about the four key components of management a few weeks ago?” I inquired. “Yeah, I do” stated Frank. “So what were they?” I followed up.

“Well, if I can remember the first was good old planning. Then, I believe the next was getting organized around supporting the plan. Oh yeah, next was leading. This is about truly caring and creating the environment for my troops so that they become more motivated to make it all successfully happen, thus driving up their work effort resulting in high quality performance . The last component was about control. OK, now I remember, it’s about controlling the plan, not my people. I know you really emphasized this last piece when we previously discussed this. Man, I’ve got to really get this into the marrow of my leadership bones. It’s about controlling the plan and motivating my people!”

“Great on you my friend for getting this clear. Around the motivating piece, here’s a small gift that might help you. As I’ve said many times in our past coaching conversations, you can either keep it or throw it in the garbage. I’m never attached to gifts given to you. This particular one has worked well for both myself and many of my executive clients. By the way, I’ve been unable to identify who the author of this is, but here it goes.” 

HEALTHY CARING IS  

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 truly care about you. I want you to take care of yourself  

If you end up leaving our group . . . the organization . . . I will experience definite discomfort and I know that I, we, can still be satisfied here without your valued 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

So there you have it dear reader, all of us are continually in choice as to how we relate! So what was the blinding glimpse of the obvious for you, your team, your organization in the above? I would love to hear your thoughts and gain your perspective. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

“I can’t believe those people. They just don’t get it!” was the response of my executive coaching client, Gerry, who heads up a key line of business with a leading defense contractor. I typically start off coaching conversations with a check-in question. After listening to Gerry further, I asked “So what’s in the anger my friend?” For a moment there was silence on the phone. I had learned long ago to always let silence do the heavy lifting! “Hmmm . . . , ” he expressed and then went on, “I really resent the fact that we had agreed on what had to be accomplished last week, and they haven’t even started on it. It’s simply damned unacceptable. I really feel let down. I could tear my office door off the hinges right now. I’m going into a meeting with them shortly and I think I’m going to straighten them out . . . make them new rear ends if I have to!”

“Well before you charge on in, are you game to take a few minutes to step back and take a look at what’s happening with you right now?” I asked. Gerry, to his credit had always been very open to self-exploration and said “Yeah, let’s go for it coach?” I love his honesty and candidness.

“So, if your boss was this angry with something you did or didn’t do, and stormed into a meeting with you having the same intent, how would you react?” In his typically succinct and earthy way he quickly responded, “Well I’d probably hang back, not offer much and look for an opportunity to get the hell out of there!”. “Given that, then what would you predict your people will do when you give them the old what for?” “Got it!”, he said with a bit of a snicker.

“So coach, I’d like to hear what the heck you think?” Gerry asked. “Sure. First of all, it’s not about them, it’s about you Gerry! Anger is actually a gift, not a weakness. It only becomes a weakness when this strength is taken too far. Kind of  like manure in the system that gets clogged up. Need I say more? Does that make sense?” “Completely.” Gerry responded.

“So, having said that, what’s in just enough anger for you?” I asked. “Well, for me,” Gerry shot back, “It certainly gets me up and running. Actually a source of energy. It sort of acts like a catalyst for making things happen. Come to think of it, if I become more aware of it in the moment I can actually use it to be more effective, otherwise it can get in my way. I think I prefer the former. Any thoughts on what I can do to regulate myself when the old fuse gets a tad short?”

“That’s a great question. Why don’t we take a quick moment and brainstorm some approaches?” “Ok”, Gerry said, “Maybe I should start not to sweat the small stuff as they say. Hell, if I learn how to better spot it when it shows up, I’d be better able to dial down the intensity a tad, not shoot first and figure out what I shot after the fact!”

“I love what you’ve come up with.”, I said. “You might also consider talking yourself down, for example saying to yourself, hey, this is no big deal, can I put this issue on the backburner for the time being? Perhaps I should give this some thought before I shoot. Why don’t I take  a couple of minutes to just let every muscle in my body, from my toes right up to the top of my head, just relax and decompress. You do whatever works for you.”

“So, when you do walk into the meeting after decompressing, how do you need to be?” I asked. “As opposed to what I would do?”, he responded. “Yes, exactly,” I retorted. Gerry then continued, “Probably be calm, more focused on them rather than me. I need to be honest with them in a respectful way, by sharing what my thoughts are in a fairly specific way, how I feel about it all in terms of its importance to me and what it is I think we should consider doing about it.”

“That sounds like a superb approach, but what might you do even before that?” I asked. “I think I know what you’re driving at. Rather than adversely pre-influencing them in a way that they think they’re getting my orders, it might be a hell of a lot better if I asked them collectively and individually what they thought, felt and wanted regarding the issues at hand, and then do the former. Yeah, that’d work a lot better. Probably generate a lot more information and data that would help us make much more informed decisions. Man, that’s my game plan!”

“What are some other potential payoffs of your taking this approach? I asked. “Obviously, it’ll be a heck of a lot safer place them, we’ll build more trust, they’ll feel heard, buy in will clearly go up, and the solutions we collectively come up with will  probably be a lot more effective as a result.” said Gerry.

“So what’s the take away for you my friend?” I asked in bringing our meeting to a close. “Well I guess it’s that I can use my anger in service of myself, my folks, our customers and our organization, or I can quite frankly let it control me and then blow it!” “If it is the latter,” I asked, “What might be the adverse consequences for you?” “I don’t want to even think about it . . . too scary!” Gerry concluded. “May the force be in you my friend with the upcoming meeting. I know you’ll be more than successful!” I offered.

Does your temper rise at times and get away from you?  Do you find that under stress your anger, anxiety, fear and/or shame show up a tad too quickly?  Do you even notice it?  If you do notice, what do you do with it?  I’d love to hear your insights and experiences. Take care.

Any transition to a new role, while exciting and an acknowledgement of what the organization thinks of us, is a time of anxiety for the 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 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?

A recent research article from the University of Washington reported the findings of imposing stress on rats. It took only one uncontrollable stressful episode to greatly effect the behavior of a rat. It actually took the rat several days to recover from the effects of the stressor and return to normal decision making ability. The learning of the stressed rat control group was delayed. As well, this group was unable to readily adjust to alterations made in the imposed stress exercise. Stress altered the ability to learn, the ability to remain agile, and the ability to make decisions. How does this convert to humans? Well, the scientific community has been using rats as study participants for years…there must be something to their selection.

As I look to newly transitioning leaders whom I have coached over the past 5 years, I relate to the news of the above study. Stress has a tremendous effect on performance levels and at a time when a leader is under the microscope and readily judged by others. Clients have shared with me how this has manifested for them and projected in all areas of their life. Many suffer from extreme sleep disturbances and/ or dietary challenges.

I have worked with leaders who admitted that they had hardly slept in two months and leaders who existed on a pop and pizza diet. It is rewarding as a 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 wide eyed 3 AM 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? As this is an area of continued research for me I repeatedly see transitioning phases of 14 – 24 months in executive level roles. More complex portfolios can exceed this timeframe. This is not just about the leader’s transition. One must 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.

What is your personal experience in a recent transition, either as the leader or as a direct report to a newly transitioning leader? While you are drinking from a fire hose, what soothing techniques have you found that help to manage anxiety and stress for you? In hindsight, how do you feel your decision making during a recent leadership transition may have been impaired?

 ”For some reason when I tell them what I want accomplished, I simply don’t appear to be getting the results!” stated Barbara, my executive coaching client. “So how do you feel about that?”, I asked. “Frustrated as hell, impotent, and powerless to make things happen!”, she replied. She went on, “I thought I understood this leadership and power stuff, but I think I’ve missed the boat somehow.” We engaged in some solid discussion and coaching around what power is and is not for her. From this Barbara mined some great insights and confidently identified what she needed to start, stop and continue doing as a leader to improve her ability to enhance her relationships and dramatically increase her group’s strategic contribution to both her Division’s and the organization’s success.

As we coached, she quickly became more aware that she can’t just power someone, she can only influence them. However, she also realized that she needs power in order to effectively influence others to do want she needed done. She noted in our coaching discussion that power for her was in fact an essential leadership resource. She also quickly ascertained from our exchange that there are basically two sources of power that are available for her to tap into: organizational position power that came with her role, and her own personal power.

As we explored sources of position power, Barbara concluded that this came from her access to the formal power essentially her right to command. She also noted that with her role came the ability to use rewards, be they financial or non-financial rewards. She quickly added to the foregoing her ability to use coercion to get want she wanted from others, be they threats, denial of rewards or even the use of punishment. Although she tried not to use these, she felt some folks may have seen it more often than not. After further discussion, she concluded that other sources of her position power might also include her control of her function’s business processes, access and control of key information, and the power to represent her strategic business unit. Although, all legitimate, she was very clear that these should be used with considerable forethought, sparingly and by exception. Unfortunately, in hindsight she confided that she was concerned about her inappropriate use of some of the foregoing and wanted to modify related behaviors.

We continued with our discussion around those sources of power. She emphasized a desire to increase her ability to get results through others, whether they reported directly to her or not, and assure that they would also be highly satisfied with their working relationship with her. She felt if she could achieve this the result would probably be higher motivation on their part, resulting in generally increased effort to make things happen and thus support successful achievement of her and their overall performance  targets.

This then lead to more coaching around Barbara’s sources of personal power. These tended to include her expert power such as her specialized knowledge, experience and judgment that the others needed access to because they didn’t have it themselves. Another source was her ability to rationally persuade others that the goals she wanted achieved were desirable and the way to achieve them reasonable. And last, but not least, was what we both agreed was absolutely one of her greatest sources of potential power and that was her ability to influence others because they genuinely like her and want to identify with her. Barbara knew that would be possible only if she takes the time to invest in relationships with key others and allows herself to withdraw when needed to get critical results accomplished.

It became obvious that for her to achieve important results through not only her people, but also through her peers, boss and key others, personal power was the most critical area for her to continue to develop and enhance. She felt the focus would now be on developing her likeability—referent power. This is one smart lady and I know she will become even more powerful and influential in advancing her organization’s strategic advantage.

Based on the foregoing, what would you have added that could enable her to be a more powerful leader? What was the gold nugget for you in Barbara’s situation? Oh, the places she’ll go when she gets on top of this one!

“You’ve got to watch out for those organizational antibodies!” said the former Head of Pathology for the Vancouver General Hospital and the British Columbia’s Children’s Hospital, Dr. David Hardwick, who I was sitting down with at the time. Dave had been instrumental in leading the establishment of the BC Children’s Hospital and we had built a strong relationship in furthering the organization’s mandate as the leading pediatric tertiary care facility on Canada’s west coast. I was then the Vice President – Human Resources and Strategic Management and Dave was a key internal organization client. Whenever possible we tried to get together and have one of those rare but powerful conversations over a cup of coffee about ‘life and times’. This was one of those get togethers that I’ll never forget.

Dave had made the ‘organizational antibody’ comment in a discussion around a number of joint-venture innovative initiatives in support of the physician community within the facility, and in particular the pathologists. In our discussion, we had come to a  blinding glimpse of the obvious that innovation in fact was a particularly powerful form of change. Dave, who was the Head of Pathology and the President of a world-wide organization of pathologists at the time, felt that not only were we being highly innovative with a number of initiatives we were leading, but it also had a unique dark side. Innovation also creates a considerable threat to some groups within the organization. Many of these groups simply felt they never received enough care, attention and resources to support their medical practice areas. Not an unusual disposition. For innovation to effectively take hold and to be sustained requires additional resources. Where do these resources (funding, people, space, capital equipment, etc) come from? Yes, from others within the organization. Thus the threat innovation unexpectedly creates even though it is so often promoted. Dave felt strongly (directly reflecting his professional background) that ‘organizational antibodies’ can always be expected to surface when something new is interjected into the system and ‘organizational antibodies’ will, not if, attempt to ‘remove or extricate’ anyone leading or anything related to the innovation itself – the foreign intervention – that are perceived as direct threats to their own existence and sustainability. This is what’s often referred to as a ‘blinding glimpse of the obvious’.

It was clear from our discussion that if you are attempting to create and lead innovation (pro-active change), not only do you need to address managing normal resistance to change, one needs to thoughtfully and planfully address ‘organizational antibodies’ that will (again, not if) surface. Thank you Dave for co-creating this very powerful leadership and organizational change concept.

Of course the foregoing is not unique to Health Care organizations. I’ve seen it in every private and public sector organization operating domestically and globally that we have had the pleasure to coach within. So, where do ‘organizational antibodies’ show up in your organization? What change are you currently leading within your organization (small or big) and where are ‘organizational antibodies’ surfacing? What are  the possibilities for turning this into an opportunity in disguise and creating a successful win-win approach? We would enjoy hearing your insights and observations.