Accomplishment Coaching

As leaders in business and life, we’re called upon to have lots of answers.  Frequently, we come up with an answer that works.  As well, we come up with ones that don’t.

But maybe being a powerful leader isn’t about having the right answers.  Maybe it’s about creating and asking powerful questions.  Consider some of the most powerful leadership is delivered through questions.

Eric Vogt, Juanita Brown and David Isaacs wrote a fascinating article called The Art of Powerful Questions.  In it, they explain the architecture of powerful questions.  I’ve paraphrased the definitions below:

1. Construction – We all understand open-ended questions to be far more powerful than closed-end (questions that get only a Yes or No answer).  Use questions that begin with “what”, “how”, “when”, and “where”.  These evoke insight and discovery.
2. Scope – When asking questions, be aware of how big your question is.  There’s nothing wrong with the question “How can we fix the SE Michigan economy”, but it’s a doozy to answer.  Rather narrow the scope down to your immediate audience – i.e. “What action can you take today to create a new client?”
3. Assumptions – Almost all questions we ask will have assumptions built into them.  “How should we revamp the automotive industry to improve our economy” assumes that if the auto industry is revamped, our economy would improve.  Perhaps it would and perhaps it wouldn’t.  The lesson in this architectural component is to become MORE aware of the assumptions in questions and to use assumptions appropriately.  Here’s a great example:  “What went wrong and who can we blame” vs. “What can we learn and what new possibilities have arisen from this situation”?

So, how can you apply these concepts to your own leadership?  Lots and lots of practice.

Here are some questions to get you started:

• What’s possible for you to spend an hour more time with your family each week?
• How does discipline impact performance in your organization?
• What situation in your workplace, community or the world would you like to see turned around?
• What does a blessing look like?
• What “fray” are you involved in that you could “rise above” by taking an aerial view?
• What project or relationship have you been hanging on to so tightly that it’s causing you to lose balance?
• What in your life still has the plastic on it, being saved for that “special occasion”?
• What’s the payoff for giving up?  For digging in?
• What are ten new ways to increase your visibility as a leader?

Getting the question “right” is not the point.  It’s about expanding by practicing.  Keep asking questions each day and observing the results.  Take the questions above and use them in your business and community.  Empower others to come up with the answers.  Soon enough, you’ll become the leader you’ve always wanted to be with a heck of a lot less work.

How exhausted have you become in trying to have all the answers?

Happy Inquiry,

- Coach Preston

The power of more

Partnerships are a funny thing.  We seem to love creating them, but it often seems we have real struggles sticking with them.  So what gives?

Rarely intentional, we enter personal and professional relationships without truly considering what’s important for each one of us.  The Gallup Management Journal ran an article last year that identified the three “most important statements in determining how well your abilities mesh with those of your collaborator”:

1. We compliment each other’s strengths
2. We need each other to get the job done
3. He or she does some things much better than I do, and I do some things much better than he or she does

Although this can apply to personal partnerships as well, I wanted to give an example of how this so critically applies to professional partnerships.  Let’s use our old friend, Stan, as an example.

What Stan knows about himself is the following:

He’s created a successful business over the past 12 years primarily because he’s great at fostering relationships, freely expressing compassion, mentoring and developing his staff, being highly self-aware, and upholding integrity. 

But he also realizes that he’s often too narrowly and short-term focused, jumps too quickly to fix symptoms rather than identifying the root problem, and lacks critical decisiveness in taking action.  This often puts him in a position of complying with the views of others and current circumstances.

When I asked Stan who he felt would be a good fit as a potential partner, he suggested he’d look for someone who has a high level of relationship building skills, sees a similar future for the business, and is willing to weather the bumps of partnership.

If we take a look at this more critically, Stan was really looking for someone who was very similar to himself.  Of course he would… he’s built a successful company on the culture he’s created.

But that’s exactly what Stan doesn’t need.

Rather I suggested he look for someone with the following characteristics:

• Willingness to speak powerfully and pointedly, even if he/she occasionally steps on some toes
• Has little interest in the symptoms of business challenges but can see the root-causes
• Maintains daily focus on the five, ten and fifteen year future of the business
• Has a focus and drive for business results and keeps individuals and teams accountable for results
• Regularly displays courageous behavior in making decisions and taking action

At first Stan was completely resistant… “That person will get crushed in my company.”  Eventually, he began to see exactly why that type of partner would be best.  Through interviews with his staff in which he asked what they thought his leadership gaps were, they almost perfectly outlined the above description.

A year later, Stan and his partner Mary have grown the business significantly, hired more effective staff and shifted the company culture from being 100% “nice and friendly” to “nice and friendly AND results-oriented”.

Stan found a business partner who compliments his strengths, keeps him accountable to results, and is able to do what he can’t.  He does the same for Mary.

Powerful partnership is often most effective with clear difference rather than similarity.

Leadership Practices:

1. Schedule interviews with your staff over the next two weeks and ask the following questions:
   1. What do you see are my gaps in leadership?
   2. If you were going to partner me with another leader, what qualities would that leader possess?
   3. What two actions would you assign me to practice more effective leadership?
2. Write out the three top characteristics you bring to the table as a business leader
3. Notice how many times your actions say “I can do this all on my own” – what are the results?
4. Publicly share your gaps with at least two people, and especially with your current business partner

The myth of “individualism” died long ago, but there’s a large contingent of business owners who still buy into it.  If you’re ready for a new level of success, I invite you to consider a partnership or, if already in one, revisit it.

If you (and your partner) are interested in discovering exactly what you do and don’t bring to the table, please contact me to take my Leadership Circle profile.  I’ve found no better profile to support effective partnership development.

Happy Cahoots,

- Coach Preston

Are you producing or consuming?

If you own a business and have employees, you’ll want to read this.

If you volunteer your time with charitable organizations, schools or other public organizations, you’ll want to read this.

If you’re a “solo-preneur” working to produce results, you’ll want to read this too.

If you engage the media in some way, shape or form, it’s likely you’re in the midst of a training process.  If you respond to direct mail or advertising by clipping your coupons and certificates, it’s likely you’re in the midst of a training process.  If you watch the news and form certain perceptions of the people you see reported about, it’s likely you’re in the midst of a training process.

A training process that, although completely legitimate and okay, is likely doing damage to your ability to produce money, time, power, love, compassion, results, and life.

You may be rolling your eyes and saying to yourself, “Preston has finally gone off the deep end now.”  No problem.  If you are, this would be a good place to stop reading.

Here’s where I’m going with this idea:

In the age of us being bombarded by information, we are involuntarily put in the position of being consumers of this information.  It shows up without us asking for it, at any time, on any day of the month, and in almost any environment.  Through the consistency of this bombardment, we cannot help but be in a training process to consume more.

Can this really be true?  Just ask the neighbors or friends you have who are in the advertising industry.  They’ve built fortunes from you and me being in this training process.

So, I’m not here to bash the advertising and marketing industries.  I’m in business for myself and I work everyday to meet professionals who will consume my services.  It’s how all of us will eat today in some manner.

However, I invite you to get some altitude on the concept and look at it from 50,000 feet rather than 500.

How can being trained as a consumer disrupt or hinder what you’re up to?

Consider that by being trained consistently and reliably as a consumer, we begin to lose our ability to produce.  We learn through this training process that everything is available for us; that it can be delivered right to our door; that if one place doesn’t have what we’re looking for another will.

This training process begins to dissolve our ability and motivation to create.  It has us become lazy, unmotivated, and (here’s the nasty part) slip into the role of irresponsibility or victim-hood.

Yes, victim-hood.

As a business professional and leader, how often do you work with, manage or lead others?  How many people have you found unmotivated, uninspired and, at times, incapable of producing even modest results?

Personally, how often do you notice those characteristics in yourself?

What stands in the way of you and your team producing results isn’t the economy, your prospects, your industry, the weather, the government, your employees or your mother-in-law.  It’s that you, your team, me and most of our culture has been trained to consume rather than produce.  It’s a “what’s in it for me” culture.  This is a great concept to leverage as a marketer, and in my opinion, it’s not a great concept to deal with when working with others to produce results.

Leadership Practices:

So, what can you do, or who can you be, to “un-train” yourself and your team?  Here are a few ideas:

• When you experience an employee doing just enough work to get by, ask “What would be available for you if you took that one, extra step”?
• When you notice your sales team complaining they don’t have enough resources to perform better, ask them “What resource are you able to create to support your efforts”?
• When you see that you consistently get stopped by negative judgments or interpretations of the economy or industry, ask yourself “What am I capable of producing in this moment”?
• When you notice you or your team depending more on hopes, wishes and prayers to make things happen, ask “What are we willing to declare and fulfill upon this week”?

Success isn’t about getting home runs all the time.  That may be what you’ve been trained to understand when you consume the information that’s put out by media and marketing sources.

Success is about getting up to the plate, declaring a result, taking the action aligned with producing that result, and being with whatever result occurs.  Then do it all over again.

Or you can choose to sit in the stands and watch the game and hope the hot dog vendor comes soon to satisfy your hunger.

Happy Producing,

-  Coach Preston

What hole have you dug?

Stan’s business had been booming for years.  Recently it’s been taking a beating.  Clients have been slow to pay, more prospects are saying “no thanks”, and the constant concern of missing payroll keeps him up most evenings.

“What changed?” he kept asking.  “Things were terrific just six months ago.  I just need to dig in and put all my energy into my business.”  Stan spent the next six months toiling in his business with little results, even though he poured everything he had into it.  That’s when he and I met.

How frequently do all of us follow a similar path… we find something’s not working and we “dig in and put all our energy into our business”, then find we dig ourselves a deeper hole?

In my experience working with business owners and professionals, there are two theories as to why this forced myopia method doesn’t work:

1. The myth of individualism
2. Biomutualism

The Myth of Individualism – this myth defines our belief that our success is dependent entirely on ourselves.  In other words, if I’m going to win, it’s all up to me. 

This is truly a myth.  If it weren’t, we’d see millions of sole proprietorships develop into large and profitable organizations regularly.  Instead, we have millions of sole proprietorships, many of whom struggle.

Biomutualism – Although founded in biology, this theory proposes that with biology and another discipline: a) each discipline advances the other, and b) collective discoveries emerge beyond a single field.  In other words, we can produce results AND learn when we embrace diversity and collaboration. 

I want to take this a step further to propose that in the realm of business and self-development, we will produce the results we want if we break out of our tendency toward myopia and individualism.

In Stan’s case, instead of “digging in and putting all his energy into his business”, we had him create a project separate from his business – a fundraising event for a charity he loves.

In the process of developing a team, mapping out the results plan, and engaging his team in taking action to raise money for the charity, his business began to turn around.  What made the difference?

According to Stan, several factors made the difference:

1. The fundraising project forced him to collaborate with a team.  This project demanded a short time frame and Stan knew he couldn’t raise the amount of money he wanted alone in that time frame.
2. The fundraising project required Stan to explore new ways of asking for money by first identifying the myriad of reasons someone would or wouldn’t donate, then revising his approach based on his findings.
3. The fundraising project exposed some of Stan’s “weaknesses” in leadership that he so skillfully hides in his business.  Doing things independently (being a loner), demanding rather than requesting, and operating without a clear and detailed plan would not work.  Those habits had to change or the fundraising project would die.

And they did.  Once Stan started learning what worked in his fundraising project, he began applying that learning to his business.  Eight months later, his business is back on track.

Leadership Practices:

1. Create a project in an area of life that will inspire you – separate from your business.
2. Assess what habits do and don’t support you in your business through self-assessment and the feedback of others.
3. Choose one area of your business in which to collaborate this month.
4. Look for related learning in seemingly disparate areas of your life.

Like Stan, you’ve created success on your own that you can be proud of.  Perhaps the next step to creating breakthrough results lies in diversity and collaboration.

Happy New Perspectives,

- Coach Preston

Are you a relationship hub?

… I can call on a moment’s notice.

You might not think this applies to you.  However, you might consider otherwise…

Question:  In an emergency, what’s the one thing we all immediately think about? 

Answer:  Can they get here fast enough?

It’s a knee-jerk reaction to experiencing a catastrophe.  We all do it.

But do we all have the resources, connections or relationships to know exactly who to call that will be able to get there “fast enough”?  If we do, we’re in good shape; if we don’t, uh-oh.

Let’s apply this concept to the world of business.  Most days, we’re not faced with emergencies (although that’s an entirely new discussion), but we are faced with challenges and obstacles.  If I don’t have the resources or know the resources to overcome those challenges and obstacles, I might be in trouble.

So what will I do?

Often, I’ll make a phone call or two to a select group of folks I know who are what I call “relationship hubs” = people who seem to know every single resource in the area.  Their spokes are all the other professionals they have a relationship with based on trust and integrity.  I know when I make that call that I’ll be referred to someone who can help.

This is of amazing value as I don’t have to worry about doing the research, wasting time or getting frustrated with a less-than-qualified referral.  I get my challenge or obstacle removed and I’m off to the next thing in my business.

How valuable is that “relationship hub” to me in my business?  More than I can imagine.

Are you a “relationship hub” for your network, business or community?

If not, you’re missing an incredible opportunity to be of service to your clients, friends, family, business associates and community.  And, perhaps most importantly, you’re missing an incredible marketing opportunity.

My “relationship hubs” get my attention on a regular basis.  They are my “go-to” people.  I’m in communication with them regularly.  When they ask for an introduction or referral, I drop what I’m doing and help them.  Do you think they appreciate that?

Becoming a “relationship hub” might just be the most lucrative and charitable initiative you take on this month.

Leadership Practices:

1. Join a BNI, LeTip or other “lead generation” organization.  These are intimate and rigorous groups that meet regularly to build relationships and refer business.  When you join, make sure to create a sub-group of like-minded businesses as some of these groups can be more than 40 people.  Sub-groups (or in BNI parlance, Power Teams) are very effective.
2. Don’t just have your plumber fix your sink; invite him/her out for a coffee.  Get to know their business and them as a person.  Do this with every one of your vendors, coffee shop / restaurant owners, folks at church/synagogue/mosque, and neighbors.
3. Ask everyone you meet “What project are you currently working on or stuck around?”  This gives you the opportunity to refer someone to them to solve their issue.  And best yet, in the process you’re training them that you’re the “go-to” person – the “relationship hub”.

Happy Hubbing,

- Coach Preston