Enduring Success

Research done at the Harvard Business School has shown that enduring success is seen across four areas :

• Achievement: Do you measure accomplishments against an external goal, e.g., for example, power, wealth, recognition, competition against others?
• Happiness: Is there contentment or pleasure with and about your life?
• Significance: Do you have a valued impact on others whom you choose?
• Legacy: Have you infused your values and your accomplishments into the lives of others to leave something behind?

Stevenson and Nash contend that in fact, all four areas are required to achieve enduring success. Achievement or what we often see as success often arrives in the business world without balance across the personal, spiritual and service spectrums. The research points out conflict often arises across these areas, as they compete for your attention and resources.

As we move into the Year of the Golden Pig - year destined for prosperity - consider whether your success is balanced.

Achievement: What measures of success have you established for your work life? What have you achieved in your life? What challenging goals have you set for the future? Are you progressing toward your goals? Is there a way this could or should be accelerated?

Happiness: Is there contentment or pleasure in your life? Have you surrounded yourself with people and things that bring you enjoyment? Where are your sources of frustrations? Are there actions you could take today to reduce them? What small step could you take that would bring you a smile? Can you make it last?

Significance: When you look at the people that you interact with in your personal and professional life, are you added positive value to their lives? Consider your spouse/significant other, your children, your co-workers, your subordinates, your clients, and your friends. Are you adding to their achievement? to their happiness? to their development? What more could you do? What are your aims as you consider your impact on others?

Legacy: What impact will you leave behind you, whether small (influencing the life of one person) or large (improving the world)? What impact would you like to leave? What could you do today that would begin to use your success in other areas in a way that leaves positively influences the world?

Consider the words of Robin S. Sharma, from The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari,

...the purpose of life is a life on purpose. Those who are truly enlightened know what they want out of life, emotionally, materially, physically and spiritually. Clearly defined priorities and goals for every aspect of your life will serve a role similar to that played by a lighthouse, offering you guidance and refuge when the seas become rough".

Have you set goals and priorities that will lead you to enduring success and a life on purpose?

Lagace, Martha. “Four Keys of Enduring Success: How High Achievers Win”, June 24, 2002, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2990.html. HBS professor Howard Stevenson offers insights from research he and HBS senior research fellow Laura Nash are conducting on the meaning of success for high achievers.

Sharma, Robin S. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, 1997, New York: HarperTorch.

The Power, or not, of Acknowledgment

Growth occurs with a person when she has ownership over the learning, changes in habits and thoughts, and the outcomes. Coaching literature is filled with recommendations on the importance of acknowledgment. I contend that some of the forms of acknowledgment do not serve the client, and at worst, are disempowering.

Making a change is a continuous cycle of understanding one’s current experience, creating images of the future, developing a plan for achieving those outcomes and acting upon the plan. Each action requires another cycle of understanding, adjustment to the image and plan, and further action. A coach helps in all areas of the cycle from helping the client build the connections between experiences, assisting them to clarify and deepen the images, offering alternatives when needed, supporting the plan and actions, and helping the client process and learn from the experiences.

Coach training suggests that we provide support to help “clear out doubt and even disbelief in oneself.” Absolutely; however, when the support is based on “I [the coach] know you can do this”, who has ownership of the actions, risks and outcomes? Alternatively, when we have our client reflect on the prior experiences they bring to the situation that support future success, we engage their understanding of probabilities. The client then owns the probability of success, the actions, risks and outcomes.

Coach training recommends that we use the language “I want to acknowledge you for ....”. From the first time, I heard this phrase I had, and continue to have, a visceral negative response. My reaction has two components. Firstly, I characterize the language as “coach speak”. A definition of acknowledgement is:

ac·knowl·edg·ment or ac·knowl·edge·ment n. 1. The act of admitting or owning to something. 2. Recognition of another's existence, validity, authority, or right. 3. An answer or response in return for something done. 4. An expression of thanks or a token of appreciation. 5. A formal declaration made to authoritative witnesses to ensure legal validity.

If any of these definitions are put into the sentence, “I want to acknowledge you for ...”, I find jibberish. More importantly, the emphasis is on what I, as the coach, see, recognize, admit or own.

The training materials state, “If you simply help your client see and appreciate their strengths you will empower them and even encourage them to do better.” To this, I strongly agree. When the client sees and appreciates their strengths, they own them.

The question then becomes how we help our clients see and appreciate their strengths. How do we help the client believe in the probability of success, and thereby reduce the self-doubt? How do we help them to learn from an experience regardless of the outcome? To do this, we need to ensure that the learning remains with the client, supported by the coach.

In the book, “The Art of Changing the Brain”, James E. Zull talks how about learners respond to teacher evaluation of their work, in particular with re-writing.

“They were fighting to keep control. I could not create enthusiasm for my suggestions, exactly because they were my suggestions. Their emotional connections are with their own ideas and their own judgments. When I made suggestions, they only knew they had lost control. ... In the final analysis, we still find that we defeat learning when we take it away from the learners, when we make it about us rather than about them.”

Our role as coaches is to help the client overcome self-doubt, to evaluate their progress and to turn that into a new learning. We have the ability and the charter to stand away from the emotions, risks and outcomes. In that role, we can and should challenge the client to see the probabilities, to capture the learning, and to celebrate the successes. We need to do this not from what we “acknowledge”, but rather through our questioning, so that the client can recognize, celebrate and therefore own their growth.

International Coach Academy, AC101: Acknowledgment (2002)

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Zull, James E., The Art of the Changing the Brain, pg 242 (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2002)

Helping Others Think

A colleague or subordinate walks into your office and says, “I really don’t know how I’m going to ....” Before the words are out of her mouth, are you already working on the solution? Do you have three recommendations that he can use before he’s even sat down at your desk? All too often, as managers, colleagues and friends, we see someone else’s dilemma as an opportunity to problem-solve, after all, that’s what we’re good at,

If we could take a step back from the situation, we might first determine what our colleague seeking. Does she want an empathetic ear, a sounding board, a brainstorming partner, some counsel, or an answer? Most of us jump immediately to working out an answer; yet from the time we were five, we were pushing away the people who told us what to do. Consider what might happen if the next time you are presented with a dilemma, you ask the question, “How can I best help you resolve this?” Or “Would you like to use me as a sounding board or would it help you more if I used some questions to help you clarify your thinking?”

By using these simple questions, the ownership of the problem stays firmly with your colleague or employee. It is not your problem to solve; it is his problem. You have offered support. In addition, you have respected his capability to solve the problem; you will stay in the role of a facilitator.

Once you have established your role in the discussion, you will usually find it best to assist your colleague in stepping back from the problem, and in clarifying their direction. In his book, Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work, David Rock suggests using questions that focus on the “thinking” she has done about the dilemma. You might consider something along the line of this series of questions:

How long have you been thinking about this?

How clear are you about this issue?

How committed to resolving this are you?

Can you see any gaps in your thinking?

Do you have a plan for shifting this issue?

What insights are you having?

Are you clear about what to do next?

How can I best help you further?

The initial questions will help your subordinate clarify his objective, how long it’s been an issue, and how important it is to solve. Most people will have some thoughts about next steps and in the process of speaking about them, will gain additional insights. By the end of this conversation, your subordinate will be clearer on his direction, have identified the next step, know he has your support and will have retained ownership for the problem and solution. Notice too that the conversation focused on solutions, did not delve into the details of the problem and steered clear about wallowing in dramatics.

Occasionally, your subordinate or colleague may stuck and looking to you for guidance. Your goals should be assisting her to find a solution for herself. Refrain from offering “the answer”, as in, “this is what I would do.” Make an additional attempt at “What’s your gut instinct here?” If she is still stuck, you may want to offer alternatives in the form of suggestions. “Here are a few ways you might explore this question”, and end with “which of these seems like it might help you, or have these suggestions triggered any other ideas for you?”

Rather than solving problems for others, as a manager, let them retain the opportunity to learn the skills of solving their own problems, let them have the sense of accomplishment and the commitment that comes from the accomplishment.

For more on levels of thinking, see the blog “Choose Your Focus”.

David Rock. Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work (New York: HarperCollins, 2006). Questions above from pages 131-132.

Choose Your Focus

In his book, Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work, David Rock proposes a model called Choose Your Focus. Rock proposes that the thinking involved in any conversation or project planning activity will fit into one of five levels. By following either a structured process through the levels, or being able to recognize whether the current thinking is occurring at the right level, decisions and actions can be taken more efficiently and effectively.

The five levels are:

1. Vision thinking: Have we clearly defined the reason – the “why” and the “what” – of the project, the meeting or the conversation? Consider carefully the objective and your “Measures of Success”.

2. Planning thinking: At this level, we are trying to define the actions needed to achieve the vision, without getting into the details. At this level, we need to make choices about the processes or methods to be used. We may need to choose to focus on certain segment of the overall project.

3. Detail thinking: At this level, we define or take the actions – who, what and when – that moves the project or conversation from thinking to delivery. Having the processes defined at the planning level allows this stage to become more productive. Questions can be resolved by looking back at the planning stage or vision.

4. Problem thinking: At this level, the conversation or thinking focuses on what has gone wrong, or could go wrong. Questions such as “why did this happen?” and statements including “but” or “however” often lead to a focus on the problems. Problems abound whether in work or life. When we stay in this level of thinking, we are not working on solutions; solutions involve thinking in the levels above.

5. Drama thinking: When all else breaks done, we are left with nothing but an emotions. We are no longer even analyzing the problem or taking action steps. Addressing emotions may be necessary before moving back into action.

As an example in my own work, a colleague has suggested that I conduct a goal-setting/action-planning seminar. She assures me that she has some other people interested in the program and it is sure to draw together a group. Immediately my head spins with content, structure, pricing and reels with problems of location, publicity, and logistics. In fits and starts, I work through some of these details and problems, all of the while noticing that I am floundering.

How often do we find ourselves in meetings or in personal projects revisiting the same ground time after time? Using this model of thinking, we can begin to identify the nature of our thinking and assess whether we need to go to another level. With my seminar it means looking back at my vision (some of which you can find in my last blog) and evaluating whether it is consistent with my business direction. That was easy – it was consistent – but the seminar raises questions about the planning. In particular, what mechanisms will be I be using to reach my target audience and how will I divide my resources (primarily time) between those mechanisms? Once I determine where seminars fit into my business model, the details will fall into place.

Here are a few ways that you can use this model.

• Use the model in meetings to structure the agenda.
• Keep the model in front of meeting participants to identify the focus of the discussion
• When presented with an issue by an employee, colleague or family member, identify the level of thinking and structure your questions to move to the appropriate level.
• When opportunities present themselves, identify where your thinking should be to enhance productivity.

What ways can you find to use this model?