Coaching in Education for learning and leadership

"Do or do not ... there is no try.” -- Yoda

Can you make a clear request? Do you use direct language? Do you use these phrases:

It would be great if...

Can you try to...?

Someone should...

The typical way to avoid making a clear request is to make a muddled one.

A well-formed request demands a clear response. 

Strong and forward-thinking leadership looks to the boundaries and fringes for those diverse voices often left out.

Great read for Head Coaches before Parent/ Program Meetings

Colleage David Lee shared this post with me and I think it's great because it reminds us again about how the stories we share in business can help create shifts and changes in people.

Lee shares a situation he had with a client, and how he used a story to help that person shift to a different place and resolve a long-standing issue.

While the post is about a coaching interaction and the power of story, I bet a good number of the busines stories you share have the same ability. Lee makes good points in the article that how stories can create both personal and organizational change.

Lee's post is perfect timing. I've just been re-reading the book "Influencer: The Power to Change Anything" by Kerry Patterson, et al (2008). It's all about storytelling and great stuff.

If you want to read more about how stories can influence people to shift, then read Lee's post. For a deeper dive, dig into "Influencer" (I have no relationship with the authors or their publisher, I just think it's a fab book!).

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it

Our thoughts become our words, which will become our actions. Positivity pushes forward; it never holds you back.

Just starting out on Scoop - Let's see what we can do

Are you guilty of any of these?

Good Scoop David!  These ones got my attention:

Employee Idea Killers

~The management team does not share information about the organization to allow employees to generate strategic ideas.

~No one openly requests employees share their expertise and insights.

~Requiring all employees to participate in the program.

~Not explaining the impact employees can have on the organization with their participation.~Hanging up a suggestion box – either physical or virtual – and expecting the rest to take care of itself.

As aspiring leaders, we need to be sure we have these qualities.

(From the Article): Are you deeply curious? Do you respond to challenges with openness? Do you ask powerful questions? 

Or do you want just the facts? When challenged, do you defend yourself and attack the other person? Do you have more answers than questions?

I encourage you to cultivate your curiosity as a leader and to promote a spirit of inquiry among those you lead. Make extra effort to explore an issue before deciding. And, when someone disagrees with you, see that as a gift.

Intellectual curiosity, at its deepest, reaches outward and inward.

There is an external openness. The leader has a willingness to explore the unknown – seeking new situations, new data and new insights from others. When challenged, the leader wants to explore the differences.

And there is also be an internal openness to new ways of thinking. The leader is willing to challenge her own biases. The leader is willing to approach an issue with alternative perspectives.

This is really thought provoking and promotes the idea that innovation comes from the fringes, from non-conformity, and from the disagreeable.

Love this:  " the dissenting voice gets stifled when it is not well received."

The dissenting voice often includes divergent pieces that are missing in an otherwise brilliant body of work.  Listen carefully.  Good could become better .

Thought provoking and promotes the idea that leaders need to be brave enough to welcome dissention.

In Paul Miller‘s excellent book, The Digital Workplace, he defines the digital workplace as, “the technology-enabled space where work happens.”  He further states that, “it involves all the tools we use to do our jobs:  email, phone, text, intranet, micro-blogging, Internet, office documents, shared documents, teleconferences, video, software packages, smart phones, tablets, and the cloud.”

The Digital Workplace is about an overall philosophy and approach for managing a very flexible and free organization.  He is referring to the digital workplace as the entire underlying technical infrastructure that allows such an organization to exist.  It is a very broad usage that includes all of the technical capabilities that power a modern business organization and really focuses on a management philosophy rather than on how to use a specific system to implement that philosophy.

Mark Morrell, a noted internet blogger, defines the digital workplace even more generally as, “Work is what you do, not where you go to.”  Again, this definition focuses on an overall philosophy for how we approach work.

For the purposes of this blog series I’m going to focus much more specifically on a digital workplace as a collection of tools and capabilities that allow team members to work much more effectively together, especially in an environment where the participants may be physically separated from their offices, and from each other, by hundreds or thousands of miles.

For the purposes of this blog entry, a digital workplace is an integrated collection of tools and capabilities that allow team members to connect, communicate, collaborate, and conduct all of their required work activities wherever and whenever they may be working.

The closing line makes the point a digital world will play a role. It won't play the only role. What we need to develop is effective and mindful practices to integrate digital technologies into the workplace and our world.

A useful view of embracing the deep sense of what is influence, relating it to motivation to change.  ~  Deb

Tpotally agree with Don on item #5.  I also like #3.

Create an environment of trust.

Many organizations believe internal trust is nice to have but not a key factor for bottom line profitability. That simply isn’t true. Trust directly affects speed and cost. When trust diminishes, speed goes down and costs go up. These economic factors are usually disguised as other things, but when there isn’t trust between team members, or between the company and its customers, it is impossible to achieve real success. The myths are that trust is built solely on integrity, that you either have it or you don’t, that if lost it can’t be restored, and that it can’t be taught. The realities are that trust is a function of both character and competency, it can be both created and destroyed, it can be restored (in most cases), and be taught and developed into a measurable strategic advantage.

5 steps to defining your winning culture explained succinctly for any leader looking to change their own organisational culture.

(From the post)

10 phrases that we should avoid using in conversation. Here they are:

1. “If I were you…”

2. “I understand how you feel…”

3. “This is a valuable life lesson…”

4. “I told you so…”

5. “Here’s how you can solve your problem…”

6. “Relax…”

7. “Calm down…”

8. “Can I pick your brain about… ?”

9. “No offense, but…”

10. “You don’t have to feel that way…”

For those of us who follow English football, the dismissal of Roberto Mancini and the elevation to sainthood of his Manchester counterpart Sir Alex Ferguson are interesting contrasts in this debate.

Show me a "leader" whose employees don't trust him/her, and I'll show you a "leader" without followers.

If any initiatives are being implemented in a low-trust culture, its chances of success are really remote.

We need kindness and compassion in our lives.