Believing you don’t have choices is the most common limiting belief.

When faced with options & yet not been able to make a choice, perhaps one needs to look at the desired outcomes or results.  Begin with end in mind, is what we have all heard. When we know our destinations, short or long, we start planning and acting in a manner to take us close & reach our destinations or outcomes. In professional lives we have our goals / KPIs which keep us focused. Thankfully someone does it for us in corporate life. When we work on our own or just purely in our personal life situations, determining what we wish to achieve in short time frames would help us think better and make great choices when options are generated or thrown at us. 

I am sharing a piece from a “coaching conversation” that may help readers in working their way up and out of confusion or dilemmas in same or similar situation. The client operates independently as a financial services professional with a very small team. In this business for last 2 years, he has had many options thrown at him to develop new businesses. He has seen them as opportunities to grow & make money.  Read on further.

Quote

Client: I am taken up by various options bordering on distractions that do not allow me to focus on my business. People in my network keep approaching me with business ideas and show their keenness to fund me and / or work with me on same. These business ideas excite me & I do spend time evaluating them. Somehow these fizzle out and / or do not meet my criteria of investment of time & money. Resultantly I spend considerable time evaluating and end up losing time for my own business. I would like to be more focused & less distracted by seemingly good business options.  

Coach: What makes you think these are options?

Client: Well, they are all part of financial services business that I have been part of past 8-10 years. So people who know me and my experience tend to approach me with ideas and options to pursue. All these are money making opportunities.

Coach: How do you currently evaluate these options?

Client: I currently look and estimate the market & opportunity size, competition and returns including time to break even. Any options that meets the criteria, I would pursue otherwise I drop. Incidentally I have not chosen any in last 12-18 months.

Coach: So, in what ways these evaluation parameters either been helpful or not?

Client: Not at all, I still get approached by people with at least one idea each week and then study and evaluate and that takes up my time, energy and effort. That is why I call it a distraction.

Coach: Which nature of options would you look forward to and is most likely to meet your evaluation criteria?

Client: Options closest to my current business of investment plans for high net worth individuals.

Coach: You seem quite clear and confident. So what is that are you doing currently to attract such options?

Client: Nothing at all. I just keep getting other options than what I really desire.

Coach: In your view what could you possibly do to attract options that you desire?  

Client: Well I guess I have to go out and offer people such options and seek their views and commitment. I can also ask the people approaching me with ideas, which I reject, to look at some ideas / options that I have. Who knows they may agree and that would be win-win.

Coach: How would you now be different in same situations?

Client: Firstly I will use filter of options offered against it being closest to my current business. If it is not, I will not even go ahead with any evaluation. Secondly I will create some ideas / options which would be offered by me proactively in my close network and seek commitments. I think these would help me stay focused. In fact I realize, I have been complacent, in I have not been going out with my ideas to sell and have waited rather wasted time.

Coach: You seem quite clear. You had mentioned all the ideas are money making opportunities. With your new approach, you are likely to reject most of them, how do you feel about it?

Client: As I mentioned, I was taking up options for evaluation because I myself was not clear on something– first being, I wanted it to be closest my current business and secondly I have much more money to make by expanding my own business line than put effort in starting a new business. I would now put a plan in place, shrug this complacency, and go ahead with execution.

I have clarity now that those options were not really the options & hence I was not making a choice among them.

Unquote

This coaching conversation (with permission) has been quoted to facilitate readers think about their situations and their dilemmas when faced with multiple options. The process of making a choice begins much before. We need to consider what options we really have on the table and which ones are not there that we need to have. Choosing among available options is not really the same as creating options that we really need to, before we evaluate and make choices.

Some questions asked here by the coach, could be applied. Coaches are trained to facilitate new & improved thinking leading to positive change in client. When reading through the conversation, one can notice that coach is just asking questions and client while responding is sharing his mind. This process itself throws up new thinking and insights for the client and therein lies the transformation and energy to act further.

Be the best ! Practice to Excel !

It is now 13 months that I have been practicing Executive Coaching as an independent professional. All my earlier experience as a coach were internal to organization which provided me an opportunity to practice , learn and hone my skills. The perspectives, I have gained , of coaching internally as a Learning & Development professional and later as an independent has truly been enriching & in many ways have helped my evolution as a coach.The journey has been humbling. Each Client/Coachee has experienced gains from this coaching relationship.  While they attribute their success to me as coach , it has been truly their own courage to reflect & change, get out of comfort zones and go out to try new things which have a radical impact on their desired goals & outcomes. They have experienced & acknowledged transformational , sustainable change.

Relationship with key stakeholders, Executive Presence , Communication , Conflict resolutions, Career Transitions, Managing Board members, Investing time, Building networks & many more areas in Coaching have helped me as a coach too to evolve and hone my skills. In coaching , there have been many a moments when as a coach I have been challenged. These challenges push you to reflect on your own effectiveness .Forcing me to think hard and have a dialogue with myself has helped me continuously expand my portfolio. 

Today as I share these thoughts , I realize that I have now coached for more than 400 hours. This is almost like 8 hours each week past 12 months.

There have been many things which have helped me reach where I am as a coach. If there is one thing that has had biggest impact on me as a coach , it has been my training / helping other people to be a coach. We have all known that " best way to learn is to teach". For me, this learning was there & yet I had made no conscious effort in last so many years to apply it for my own development. This is what happens with most professionals. We forget our lessons. We do not institutionalize our own success behaviors. 

For me it was providence or chance that one of my ex colleague requested me handle a training session that he was conducting as a Master Coach. Providence , as I myself at that stage had just qualified as a certified coach with probably less than 100 hours of coaching experience. It was immediately followed by an assignment to train employees in large MNC to be manager-coaches at workplace. Well, conducting those sessions - demonstrating coaching & then critiquing / giving feedback to trainee coaches started it all for me. I started having inner dialogue with each coaching conversation not only of mine but also the trainee coach.

My own dialogue with myself improved over these experiences , because with each training I was learning more and more. I therefore say that " teaching/ training" has been the best thing for me , helping me learn more.

Research suggests that 10000 hours of practice would make anyone expert / best at what he does.  Well all athletes & musicians have been known to start not only young but also put in practice hours of almost 6-8 hours per day / close to 50 hours each week. This way they practice 10000 hours in 4-5 years. No wonder they reach the pinnacle of performance and success in late teens to early 20s.

Where am I , at 400 hours !!! WOW

Simple mathematics and a basic assumption that if we practice something where we wish to be better , for 10 hours each week , could take us 1000 weeks i.e. close to 20 years. Can we afford to wait so long as coaches or as professionals ? Certainly not. 

We can even argue that corporate professionals need not reach such level of expertise & perfection. Fair enough. Let us slash it to to 2000 hours.With 10 hours each week it would still be 4 years. The biggest challenge, in pursuit to excellence , that confronts the professionals is not time. The challenge is where do they practice & hone their skills. Do they have the luxury in the corporate world today ? Corporates do want almost perfection & yet fail to provide for such an opportunity, an opportunity to their employees to practice those desired skills & success behaviors.

Here is now a suggestion that professionals may consider. If the organizations are not supporting your plans to improve yourself & achieve excellence in any skill or competency you may look at following:

1. Identify every 3-6 months one skill or competency that you are good & wish to radically move towards excellence. 

2. Identify at least one person ( team member/ peer/ colleague) whom you believe will benefit from your support in the identified skills/competency.

3. Discuss with that person & seek his consent for training / teaching in identified skill/competency.

4. Create an action plan & start execution.

5. Keep reviewing the plan & take corrective actions
 
This journey will create new insights & learning's in you , as It did with me, to be prepared each day , each time you interact with your " trainee". To teach him to be good , your preparation would make you learn more .

Over a period you would find yourself "Great " at those skills & competencies which were just " Good " at.

If you have done this , share.

If you consider the approach is simplistic, try it, validate.

Tiger Woods Uses a Coach—Why Not You?

Are you one of the elite performers who recognize the exponential value of leveraging outside advisors? Whether we’re talking about your golf swing or your business acumen, the question is whether you recognize the value in seeking out best practices from best practitioners.
Outside advisors can help us elevate what we do and the efficiency or effectiveness in how we do it for maximum results. I’ve been around gyms for most of my adult life, but I still engage a personal trainer, and a physical therapist (also known as pain and torture specialists!) who are not only knowledgeable about the equipment I should use to maximize my results, given my limitations (availability, physiology, lifestyle), but also provide accountability, consistency, and definitive progress.
As organizational leaders, we are trapped inside our own perceptions, our planning, our execution. Why would we reject the idea that consulting an outsider could free us to think and lead differently? And yet, many of us do. I’ve been musing lately on why, and it has led me to three core questions. As an executive, how would you respond to the following?

1. Are you confident or arrogant?
Confidence says, “I know a lot but there is still a lot that I can learn.” Arrogance says, “I know a lot and there’s nothing new I can learn.” I struggle with executives who seem to be allergic to outside advice. When they are offered an independent perspective, they respond with objections like, “She doesn’t know our industry.” Exactly! That’s why you need her! She doesn’t carry your industry or company baggage. She can also use her unique perspective and independent insight to challenge the critical assumptions you are making in the stewardship of this team or organization.
Dangerous assumptions surface as early as those first conversations about whether an outside adviser may be able to bring real value. When I hear a prospective client say things like, “We know our customers well,” at a cellular level, I’m compelled to simply ask “How?” One recently responded with “we have a great relationship with our customers.” Me: “Based on what evidence or observable behavior?” If I probe, I get archaic answers like sales volume. So you hit $2 billion. Is that because of what you’re doing right, or because a lack of competition makes you the de facto choice? Meanwhile, competition is coming that you don’t even know about. If you are a leader who aspires to a Tiger Woods level of performance, you need confidence, not arrogance.

2. Are you penny wise but pound foolish?
When a consulting services proposal is met with a “sticker shock” reaction, I’m curious where that comes from. Did the prospective client set out looking for a Mercedes expecting to pay a Hyundai price? Cars are easy to compare, because we’ve been educated on the brand promise that comes with each make and model. But it is harder to make comparisons for professional services. Is the prospect’s sticker shock due to a lack of the advisor educating him on the value of outside counsel? Or is it his lack of experience in working with expertise that will dramatically move his business forward? In either case, the moment is ripe for the advisor to educate the buyer—if he is not too arrogant to be open to thinking differently.
When I hear “It’s too expensive,” I think, compared to what? If an adviser helps you do one thing that dramatically improves the success of a product, or a campaign, or a team, what is the value of that one good idea? In my experience, budget constraints are seldom a financial issue; rather, they are a priority issue. It’s not that the firm doesn’t have financial resources; it’s that its decision-makers do not view outside counsel as a priority for an investment of the required resources. Have they considered the opportunity cost of failing to prioritize seeking the good idea that will yield truly transformative results? If you aspire to Tiger Wood’s level of play, there’s no ROI in being penny wise but pound foolish.
I’m reminded of the proverbial penny wise, pound foolish exchange between a CFO and a CEO:

CFO: “Have you thought about how much it will cost us to train these people, and then have them leave?”
CEO: “Yes. It’ll be a fraction of not training them and having them stay!”

3. Do you say “right relationship, wrong time”?
I’ve never understood that statement. When is it a good time to train your team, to audit your digital footprint, or to start building an agile workforce? “Right relationship, wrong time” reflects sequential thinking. The pace of business is too swift for that approach. Today’s leaders have to think in swim lanes. You have to be able to change the tire while the car is rolling down the highway. The moment you stop the car, pull to the side and get out the jack, you start to become irrelevant.
Of course the swim lane concept can get out of hand. I recognize that every firm must select strategic priorities; I’ve seen what happens when companies have too many initiatives underway. I’ve witnessed companies that hire two different firms to work on the same problem. That’s just silly. Because each brings a different lens, different skill sets, different market knowledge and experiences, one will recommend X and the other will say X is stupid, you have to do Y. But waiting to work on the identified problem isn’t the answer.
My three questions regarding confidence, fiscal resources, and priorities point to one key insight: The most effective leaders balance performance with learning. You need to become, in essence, your company’s “Chief Best Practices Officer.” Whose job is it to capture best practices across the proverbial silos? Especially in firms that are large, or geographically disbursed, or involved in multiple lines of business, this is key. It is no longer sufficient to say, “We’re a conservative company in a conservative industry,” to rationalize your refusal to seek business acumen from outside your fortress walls. Welcome to Generation Flux. Google didn’t get where it is by being conservative. Just ask Yahoo! Defense may win you Superbowl, but it’s not going to win you market share. Defense is not a strategy to thrive, or even survive, in a globally connected, always-on marketplace.
Why does Tiger Woods need a coach? Why do companies use outside counsel? In either case, the answer is the same—because we cannot see ourselves as others see us. Tiger can’t see his own golf swing, to critique and improve his performance. Companies can only see through the lens of their own budget constraints and business plan. Sometimes the best practice is to prioritize learning, to improve performance.
Nour Takeaways
1. An outside advisor can elevate your performance, if you have the confidence to recognize you have something to learn from someone not invested in your current playbook.
2. “It’s too expensive” usually reveals an issue with priorities, not finances. What is the cost of failing to invest in good ideas that lead to exponential performance improvement?
3. The pace of business requires a swim lane approach. Identify problems, and invest in outside counsel where it can accelerate your path to best-practice solutions.

sourced from Linkedin article / discussion by David Nour

HR Kites Presents Good to Great Leadership Transformation Program©

Leadership Competencies

I was fortunate having received an invitation to participate in a novel one day brainstorming session on leadership competencies 2020. Participated through skype shared my thoughts on leadership competencies in next 5-10 years.

It was indeed a good feeling taking questions from the audience on other side . It was fun , learning and great interaction.

This is the Pic from other side !

3 Ways to Go Further,Faster

By Michael Hyatt

Several years ago, I wrote out a list of “100 Things I Want to Do Before I Die.” It’s really an amazing, audacious list. Whenever I review it, I am both inspired and stunned by how many of the items I have already accomplished. And yet, there is so much more. The list keeps growing.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/RichVintage

I’ll bet you have a list, too. Perhaps you’ve written it down; perhaps not. Regardless, you doubtless want to accomplish things—probably a lot of things. Really important things. Unfortunately, life is short. I have more to accomplish than I could probably do in seven lifetimes.

So how do you actually make significant progress on your goals? How can you get more things done and squeeze as much juice out of life as possible?

One of the most important things you can do, of course, is to write down your goals. I have written about this in The 90-Day Challenge, so I won’t repeat myself here. But assuming you have done that, what’s next?

I’m going to tell you the single most important action you can take to go further, faster and to make your dreams become reality. I have done this over and over again in my life. To the extent I have achieved any level of success, I believe this is the secret:

Enlist the help of the best coaches and instructors you can afford.

My assumption is that someone, somewhere has already done what you are attempting to do—and done it well. If you can tap into their experience and learn from it, you can get to where you want to go faster and with fewer missteps along the journey.

There are basically three ways you can do this. These are arranged from least expensive to most expensive. However, you can often find free alternatives if you look hard enough.

Read the best, most relevant information. My journey into uncharted territory always begins with a search on Google. There is a ton of free information on the web (obviously). This will give you a feel for who the experts are and what they have to say. If I want to go deeper, I then buy the best books I can find on a given topic. For example, when I took up digital photography, I bought the three books with the highest Amazon ranking and the best customer reviews. I did the same when I decided to start running or wanted to learn how HTML or CSS. This is a relatively inexpensive way to learn the basics and get a broad working knowledge of the topic at hand.

But this step doesn’t just apply to new interests. I continue to read in areas where I am                 already proficient. I want to deepen my knowledge and my skills sharp.

Sign-up for specialized classes. I have a short attention span, so full-length, longer-term courses don’t work for me. I get bored. I prefer the all-day, three-day, or (occasionally) a one-week course. For example:

• When I wanted to figure out my purpose in life and where I fit into the totality of God’s plan, I attended John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart Boot Camp. It was so good that I went back two more times. The last time I took my two sons-in-law with me.
• When I wanted to learn how to build a great marriage, Gail and I attended several courses on marriage, some taught by Gary Smalley. (A bit of trivia: Gary and his wife, Norma, introduced Gail and me to each other. He actually performed our marriage ceremony.) A few years ago, we attended Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs’ “Love and Respect” marriage seminar. It was outstanding.
• When I wanted to learn how to create alignment in teams, I took a one-week course from Gap International called “The Alignment Intensive.” It blew my mind. I use the tools I learned in this course almost every day.
• When I wanted to improve my writing skills, I signed up for an intensive one-week course from American Writers & Artists, Inc. called, “The Copywriting Success Bootcamp.” This was one of the best professional investments I ever made. Recently, I went through the Fast, Effective Copywriting course. It was worth every penny.
• When I wanted to improve my golf short game, I signed up for a one-day course with Nancy Quarcelino, one of the best golf teachers in the country. Though my game is still not all that great, it’s a lot better since taking this course.
• When I wanted to learn how to use Photoshop to edit my digital photos, I took a one-day course from Ben Willmore called, “Photoshop for Digital Photographers.” (Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like he is teaching this any longer. But he does have plenty of other great resources.
• When I wanted to take my Bible study to the next level, I spent last weekend going through a seven-hour video seminar taught by Morris Proctor called “Camp Logos Live.” It was a detailed, excellent course on how to use Logos Bible Software. It was incredible.

These are just a few examples of dozens I could cite. Some of these courses were free. Some cost a few hundred dollars. In a few rare instances, the courses cost several thousand dollars. Regardless, you can sometimes find very good, free or inexpensive courses taught by churches or other non-profit organizations or even local colleges. Like I said, enlist the help of the best coaches and instructors you can afford.

Hire world-class experts. Next, I enlisted the help of real people who could hone my skills beyond what I could learn in a book or garner from a course. For example,

• When I wanted to create sustainable work/life balance, I hired Daniel Harkavy, the president and founder of Building Champions. He helped me craft my very first “life plan.” (You can do the same with my free e-book.) He then held my feet to the fire until I got my equilibrium. (He is also the author of the excellent book, Becoming a Coaching Leader.)
• When I wanted to take my personal leadership skills to the next level and really see how my own thinking was impacting my corporate results, I hired Ilene Meuthing of Gap International. She’s basically did a brain transplant on me., helping me change my thinking and produce better outcomes.
• When I wanted to figure out why I kept slicing my drives, I hired Nancy Quarcelino for a two-hour session. She videotaped me, so I could see the problem in my swing and fix it for good. Last week when I played, I hit every drive but two into the middle of the fairway.
• When I wanted to get in the best shape of my life, I hired Tom Gmitter at my local YMCA as my personal trainer. He designed a plan that I could have never developed on my own. He also kept changing up my routine, so I wouldn't get bored. He worked out with me twice a week for two years.

In addition, in the course of my life, I have hired nutritionists, counselors, music teachers, accountants, lawyers, fishing guides, agents, and various kinds of instructors and coaches. Some have been short-term; some have been long-term. My philosophy is to use them as long as they continue to provide value.

Note that I said, “hire the best coaches and instructors you can afford.” For years, the most I could afford was to check out a book from the library. Don’t worry about what you can’t afford or do. Focus, instead, on what you can afford and do that.

In the end, you can accomplish more than you ever thought possible. And you can do it faster and with better results if you just enlist the assistance of the right guide and do what they say. I can’t think of anything else that will help you accomplish your goals more than this.

Question: What coach can you enlist today to enable you to accomplish your goals?

Invest in Yourself - Build your Career

The career escalator is jammed today. It is not anymore the same situation as it existed a decade back. The industry and markets are changing at rapid pace and so are the expectations. The professionals are experiencing growing expectations and diminishing returns. It is all happening at a rapid pace. The work life balance is impacted & have you noticed that people have stopped complaining about it. Why, one would think? Perhaps there is a realization that nothing much can be done or controlled in this area. Perhaps people think that there compensation factors this. The problem does not go away and it manifests in different forms impacting health and relationships. It becomes a vicious cycle. It will come to fore one day. We know it but hope & wish that such a day or moment does not come too fast. It does and then we end up thinking, if only!  

Answers, are there any?

An awful lot of our current challenges at work place arise from lack of career planning & investing in ourselves to build contemporary and relevant capabilities.

Having said that, rather than look at what could have been in the past, building the career, we must begin from where we are. I would therefore like to extend a perspective, which most of you may know, but as they say perhaps it is relevant now much more than ever. There are more , but I am saving them for my next blog on “ building networks” to build careers.

The perspective is “Be in permanent beta”. If one browses through any resume of professional, it is structured to share accomplishments in particular role & company. Assuming you have stayed in same role & company for 4 years, your resume will talk about all you did and achieved there. If the interviewer seeks to know what have been accomplishments unique to each year of these 4 years, my guess is the professionals may not be able to say much. At best, he/she is likely to say achieved the KRA’s & targets year on year. 

In this situation it may be a worthwhile question for the professional to ask themselves “Do I have 4 years work experience” or do I have 1 year work experience repeated 4 times”. Think.  This is where the concept of “Permanent Beta” makes sense. Borrowed from IT industry, when a solution is launched for customers it is called “Beta Phase”. In this phase there is close look at customer feedback and solutions effectiveness. Based on this there are improvements brought about and over a period this beta phase is completed. I understand that popular GMAIL was in beta phase for close to 3 years after launch. Beta phase is a period when you focus on the product / solution ‘s success through feedback and make it achieve the intended objectives for organization and end customer.

In the professional careers, it is seen when we have our job ( even a dream role) one tends to be limited by what needs to be accomplished . However the new approach of staying in Beta phase means that each year you acquire a new and unique capability & your accomplishments stand out based on your own new initiative, innovation and creativity. It could be a new skill training, certification program or plain simple education/ course.  It could be seeking new roles, or geographies or challenges in the same company. Just that focus has to be what I have acquired uniquely each year which propels me, encourages me to make my journey towards my long term career goals. Invest in building your capabilities even when the organizations are not supporting you. At best they would invest in training you to be capable to do the job / role you have with them.

No one else is interested in building your career. It is you & it should be your interest only. That’s how it is now. Face it. Get in to “BETA”, son. !!! & stay there. Lifelong.