Archive for March, 2010

Dr. Bret Simmons, a tenured professor and blogging friend at the University of Nevada in Reno, has a group of MBA students who blog; many of whom add their wisdom to my posts by commenting on a regular basis. I asked if any of them would like guest post. This is the second guest post from one of those students.  

Kate Grey finds joy in creating adventurous marketing communications programs that produce results. Thanks to Lynn’s influence and the MBA program at the University of Nevada, Reno, she is now a student of leadership too and blogs at Grey Matter www.kategreysf.wordpress.com. I hope you’ll find her short post as powerful as I did, and visit her wonderful blog too.

The best leader I ever had told me she loved me.

For anyone who knows Lynn S. Atcheson professionally, that might be surprising. Lynn is a business powerhouse and steward of organizations that matter in our community. When I worked for her, she was vice president of marketing communications for the region’s largest health system. Lynn was the first woman to fill several key roles our state, including the first female appointee to the Nevada Commission on Economic Development and the first female president of Western Industrial Nevada, a prominent executive-networking group. She helped establish the region’s economic-development agency, EDAWN, back when Reno, and just about every other city its size, was very much an old-boys network.

Caring for the team pays off

Love is an unusual attitude in a business leader. In Lynn’s case, love expressed the central tenet of her personal leadership philosophy: servant leadership. She was there to care for me and my peers, to shepherd us, to give us wings and help us grow. The result was a tight-knit, high-performing team. With all her achievements in a male-dominated business world, Lynn loved us in a distinctly motherly fashion, as her daughters and sons, which is exactly how she expressed it in the one or two conversations we had about it.

Lynn truly believes in the value and purpose of leadership, and spent a lot of time studying leadership concepts and bringing them back to her staff to consider. As our servant, she did all the heavy lifting, reading books and vetting ideas, and then presenting them back to us for adoption. Lynn built trust in her day-to-day leadership behaviors and actions, which lead to truthful, impactful conversations where life’s most meaningful emotions could be expressed.

Of course, love is only a small aspect of why I respect Lynn so much. I’m still in awe of the many, many things Lynn’s achieved in our community. She was the founding president of Truckee Meadows Tomorrow, which measures progress on our region’s quality-of-life indicators, as well as the founding president of the Nevada Women’s Fund, which offers programs for women and children. Today, she’s a member of the board of trustees of the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority and the board of directors of the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority, two key local agencies.

Lynn was, and still is, my archetype for leadership. I love her right back for that.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond imagination. It is our light more than our darkness which scares us. We ask ourselves – who are we to be brilliant, beautiful, talented, and fabulous?  But honestly, who are you to not be so?”

~Marianne Willamson

This beautiful quote from Marianne Williamson has made the rounds. Although inspirational and with some truth, I’m not convinced that it is the full truth about what keeps leaders from reaching their full potential.

Most of the leaders I know and work with dream of making a big impact in their organizations and communities (or world!). Many (though not all) have a healthy dose of self confidence. Most have been successful, however they define it, but they know that they have more in them – a potential that is not yet realized.

So behind closed doors – what do I hear from those leaders about what prevents them from reaching their full potential? What can they do about it? My two cents worth:

They allow the unknown to get in the way of making progress: How silly, really. The future is always unknown. A leader who is moving forward is willing to accept that, define the future in their way, and be adaptable when it isn’t exactly what they thought it would be.

What you can do if the unknown is stopping you Consider what your definition of the impossible future looks like and ask yourself: What is the best possible future that I can imagine?

They refuse to accept responsibility for their part: Even the best of us get caught up in the blame game; “there’s nothing we can do, it’s all those other guys who are keeping me from becoming great”.  The possibilities are endless but when we are caught up in believing that our inability to move forward, we think all doors are closed.

What you can do if you are playing the blame game: Stop blaming others, turn that thought around and ask yourself: What can I do, regardless of what “they” are doing?

They are unable to break down the vision into actionable steps: Most leaders are big thinkers – a good thing. Yet often, they need some assistance in breaking down the vision of what it means to reach their full potential into smaller pieces that they can move forward on.

What you can do when taking action feels overwhelming:  Think about what you can do, no matter, how small, to get started and ask yourself: What is the first step I can take?

They give up too soon: Most often this comes from not recognizing that we are our own biggest barriers to success; but it can also be caused by external barriers that we don’t know how to deal with. One of my favorite quotes is, “everything looks like a failure in the middle”. It takes persistence and dedication to possibility (reaching your full potential) to get through the middle.

What you can do to keep going: Consider the barriers to your success and ask yourself: What is it within you or external to you that is keeping you from achieving your potential? What will it take for you to break through these barriers? Who can help? 

We are all powerful beyond imagination. Our potential is unbounded. What is the potential that you have yet to achieve? What’s stopping you?

Every Thursday, we provide you with a thoughtful way to coach yourself – something all leaders need to do. So take five – enjoy the inspirational quotes  and reflect on the questions that follow. 

Every life form seems to strive to it’s maximum except human beings. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given the dignity of choice. You can choose to be all or you can choose to be less. Why not stretch up to the full measure of the challenge to see see what you can do?  ~Jim Rohm

Questions for you, the leader:

• What is the full measure of the potential that you will live up to?
• What will it look like, feel like, and be like when you fulfill your potential?
• What’s the first step you can take toward choosing to be all that you can?
• When will you start?
• Who will you ask to help you?

Questions for developing your team members:

• What is the full measure of the potential that each of your team members can live up to?
• What will it look like, feel like, and be like when each of them fulfills their potential?
• What’s the first step you can take toward choosing to assist them in being all that they you can?
• When will you start assisting them? How?

After this post, I PROMISE I’ll get back to the business of writing about leadership and workplace relationships. Interestingly, I received more comments on Monday’s very personal post than most – and it was a departure from my usual stuff. Becky Robinson’s question “What moments in the past seven years have been your favorite?” really got me going. These are some of the other thoughts that great question prompted.

Here are some of the early “moments” I remember from starting out with my life’s work. I really hope they are helpful to you in some way.

Some of the early moments that strike me as favorites:

My first client, a blustery, bigger-than-life, swaggering, sort of leader, whom I didn’t think I could like. I’d been watching him in our community for awhile – he was well known and in the press often. This man hired me without question the first time I met him, on the spot. No questions asked. Driving home after that, I was scared, and thinking, “ohmigosh – I’m going to actually get paid for this. What the heck do I charge?”.  Obviously, I hadn’t planned for the unexpected!  (p.s., he was the person who taught me that behind blustering, there could be a wonderfully kind man with a good soul. Yes, I found that I liked him and valued him for who he was - I could get beyond my first impression. It was a great lesson for me in learning to find value in someone about whom I’d made a negative judgment).

My first big organizational client. They found my website – how is that possible? – and sent me an email note to ask what could I offer them? They had twenty high-potentials they wanted coached through their organizational development program and they signed on the dotted line, right after my first big pitch. I was nervous and scared, but managed to land the work. I subcontracted enough top-notch coaches to make the program work. The hi-po’s thrived from the coaching they received through Aspire Collaborative Services LLC. I still work with this organizational client and their program every time they run it – and I love it. The dedication of the individuals working in this organization to making themselves, their organization, and the world better – still surprises me. It is humbling to be able to help them to realize their own potential for greatness in that. I found new courage I didn’t know I had with this larger scale engagement.

My first City Manager client. I absolutely, positively, fell in love with the work city managers (and other local government managers) do; it’s the hardest job on the planet. He, and his colleagues in local governments all over the world, take more grief than almost any leader I can think of. They’re required to report to a political board and stay apolitical. They run an organization and make sure their locality is run well despite the deep criticism of the citizens at a time when funds to do their best are drying up. Most of them are dedicated professionals who believe in what they do and follow an ethical code to a “T”. They are “called” to do what they do and are passionate about it. I will always make room in my schedule for such clients even though more money can be made elsewhere; it’s just that important.

I could go on about the clients whom I’ve learned from, those who work harder than anyone should to make the world a better place. Those who knew the gift that coaching provided them and were able to ratchet up their game, or stay resilient, or learn to develop others in their organization or community.

But I won’t. I’m quite satisfied with the stories above – they are enough, because I have a calling. I am blessed to do the work I do and would love to hear about your own discoveries of your calling or passion. I think this topic has a lot to do with leadership!

I have come to know Becky Robinson as a smart, insightful woman who also writes inspiring posts for Mountain State University’s LeaderTalk  . When I said I was celebrating seven years in business this month, she asked, “What moments in the past seven years have been your favorite?” A great question, because it made me stop and think about past “moments” when my tendency is to look to the future. This very personal post describes when I first knew I was embarking on doing my life’s work – my calling. Oddly, my mother’s death corresponded, in a way, with the beginning of my life’s work. This is what came to mind when Becky asked that question.

Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer before I left a long career in the corporate world and at the same time that I was dreaming about what I would do when I left. They gave her six months to live, but she managed to beat the odds and continue in relative good health for almost two years after the diagnosis.

The final days

When it came time for Mom to die, her normal crankiness ratcheted up to its peak, with good reason. Mom’s pain was not physical; it was a blessing that she didn’t suffer that kind of pain in her final days. Her fight with her illness caused her great emotional pain that was expressed in rage – at everyone and every thing.

Mom had insisted on staying and dying in her home (and I worked hard to honor that), but toward the end of her life, all of the “in home” help options had been exhausted; caregivers  either refused to work with her because of her verbal abuse, or she had “fired” them.

Two years after her diagnosis, I was called by the people who delivered oxygen to her. They told me her lungs and body were filling up with fluids; this likely meant she was in the final stages of her life. They wanted to take her to the hospital but she refused. I drove the 90 miles to her home as fast as I could and somehow managed to get her in the car and into the  hospital.

Once she was settled in the hospital during her final days, her anger became even greater. I would often ask, “Mom, what would you like?”. She would reply, “I want to die”. When I said that God would decide when it was her time, and asked what I could do for her now, she would say (quite seriously, and without a hint of humor), “Kill me”. I could sometimes hear her yell, “kill me” when I was stepping off the elevator to go to her room. She repeatedly asked orderlies, doctors and nurses to put her out of her misery.

Sharon the nurse

Sharon, was a nurse on the night shift at the hospital. She was able to get my mom to smile and agree that some things were okay after all. Sharon did all the awful, smelly things that nurses do, all the while taking Mom’s verbal abuse and constant requests to help her die with firm kindness and uplifting humor. She did not call my mom “hon” and talk baby talk to her like the other nurses did; she allowed Mom the dignity of being a person with a real name in her final days.

That’s when I learned what it meant to have a “calling”. I had an opportunity to speak with Sharon on some evenings when things were slow on the ward. She told me that she completely understood that she had been “called” to do the work she does, and that she had “jobs” and “careers” in the past. This was different; it was truly her life’s work. Her calling was evident in every loving interaction she had with my dying, cranky mom. She told me stories about the dying patients she had cared for in the past. Sharon was a woman imbued with grace and love.

Love

I understand Sharon’s love for her work now. I’ve owned and operated a business for seven years this month, and although the outward expression of my passion has calmed, I am still in love with what I do. It is a calling. I discovered my calling late in life, but in retrospect, it picked me at the perfect time. I now know that I was being led to it gracefully and gently by every past experience I’d ever had in my life. At the time of my mom’s death, it tapped me on the shoulder and said “it’s time”.

My mother’s dying and my getting to know Sharon the nurse were the catalysts that helped me to realize that it was possible to be in love with what you do for a living. I started my work  full throttle after mom’s death. 

I know the series of events I’ve described are an odd juxtaposition of death, love, and even a rebirth, but it’s how I see things now; its all connected for me. The moments I’ve described here were only the beginning; there have been many special ones that followed. Perhaps I’ll write more about them.

Every Thursday, I provide you with a thoughtful way to coach yourself – something all leaders need to do. So take five – enjoy the inspirational quotes or and reflect on the questions that follow. 

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.

Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within”

~ Albert Schweitzer

• Remember a time that someone in your life sparked your leadership flame. Remember the gratitude you felt. Have you thanked them? What’s stopping you?
• Look around. Where is there potential in your team that is lying fallow?
  • What can you do to rekindle the light for that person or persons? Ask them!

I recently contacted Dr. Bret Simmons, who writes one of my favorite  blogs and is a professor at the University of Nevada. I asked if he would see if any of  his graduate students were interested in writing a guest post about a personal story or experience they may have had when they realized the importance of relationships to their leadership. Brett McElhaney stepped up to the plate; his wonderful story is below. Thanks Brett,  for adding your first-person experience to my blog.

Brett McElhaney, the author of this post, runs a structural engineering business by day (www.mcelhaneystructural.com) and is an MBA student at the University of Nevada, Reno by night.  He has an engineering blog (www.mcelhaneystructural.blogspot.com) and a business blog (www.mcelhaney.wordpress.com).

When I was a fledgling engineer, fresh out of college, my first job was at a small A & E (architecture and engineering) firm.  This company was in the business of designing new buildings and was comprised of three main functional areas: architectural, structural engineering and drafting. 

For those who are not entirely familiar with what this means, here is a quick oversimplification: the architects design the building for interaction with its occupants; the structural engineers design it to interact safely with the forces of the earth.  The drafters, under the direction of the architects and engineers, generate the construction drawings.  Historically, the relationship between architects/engineers and drafters has been likened to the relationship between officers and enlisted personnel in the military.  The drafters take direction from the architects/engineers and perform the specific duty of generating drawings while the architects and engineers have more general responsibilities of deciding strategy and direction and dealing with the clients.     

So, being fresh out of the world of academia, I had trouble effectively communicating with and guiding the drafting department and developing of the rapport necessary for a good working relationship.  The drafters were resistant to my direction and resented me for being an IROC (Idiot Right Out of College). In general, I was twenty years their junior, had never worked in the profession and was now in a leadership position. 

The advice

After a little flailing and trial and error on my part, the owner of the company, a seasoned structural engineer and businessman, gave me some invaluable advice.  His advice helped to begin to turn around my leadership dilemma.  He tutored me on how to speak the drafters’ language, to tailor my communication, to use the jargon and lingo familiar to the profession.  Instead of “Please draw this.” I learned to say “Please block out this detail.”  Instead of “Get some drawings going.” I learned to say “Layout the building so I can have something to mark on.”

This change was by no means a panacea; the trust and the human relationships still needed to be fostered over time but ‘speaking the language’ helped to orient the relationships in the right direction and give them some initial momentum.  It also helped to turn around the perception that I was an IROC and had no idea what I was talking about.  The lesson is that communicating effectively and using the jargon that people are used to hearing are invaluable techniques that can foster respect and ease an employee’s acceptance of a new leader.

Ironically, eleven years later, I worked on a job just this afternoon with the most resistant drafter from my early career and we enjoy an ongoing and productive working relationship.

Change in our organizations is a constant occurrence; the pace seems to have picked up. I suspect this will be true for the rest of our working lifetimes. As our organizations and communities are becoming part of the global economy, resistance is still the currency.

Leaders tell me that implementing change is like pushing a several-ton boulder uphill; they are acting against resistance. Pushing uphill is tough enough; the people in their organizations are also pushing on the other side of the bolder, avoiding change, complaining and thwarting the uphill efforts. For every foot uphill, the organization is moving two feet downhill.

Do you feel it too? You’re wearing down. Pushing has taken its toll. You are pushing alone, against so much resistance, and it’s darned hard work. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Inviting

There isn’t a better time to stop pushing change and start inviting it. The word “invitation” is spacious and accepting; but it may also make you feel vulnerable. Rest assured that inviting participation in change beats the alternative of heavy pushing and the loneliness of doing it all by yourself.

Inviting others presupposes that some of those you solicit will RSVP in the affirmative, some will provide “regrets” and some will refuse to respond. As an organizational leader, you must be willing to accept all responses (or non-responses) and lead together with those who choose to participate.

Those who provide regrets or don’t respond must not suffer consequences. They simply choose not to participate; perhaps in some not- too- distant future, they will.

Participating

So call a meeting. Invite everyone who might care about making things better. Explain the dilemma of resistance you’re experiencing. Ask:

• If you were the leader, what would you do in this situation?
• What can we do better, faster, and less expensively?
• Who else needs to be included in this conversation?
• What are we willing to try?
• Who is willing to help?
• Where do we start?

Ahh…..feel the resistance changing to participation? Can you smell collaboration and teamwork in the air?

Every Thursday, I provide you with a thoughtful way to coach yourself – something all leaders need to do. So take five – enjoy the inspirational quotes or passages and reflect on the questions that follow. 

“When I dream alone, it is just a dream.

When we dream together, it is the beginning of reality.

When we work together, following our dream, it is the

creation of heaven on earth “

….. Adapted Brazilian Proverb

• What is the dream that you dream of becoming a reality?
• What does heaven on earth look for you?
• Who will you invite to dream with you?
• What first step can you take?
• When will you begin?

Leadership can be quite a journey. We have good days and bad days (and weeks, months, years). In the end, they all contribute to our learning. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all experiences that we can reflect on and learn from. Many of them “happen” quickly to us, providing us with a chance to react and do our best to change course.

Yet there are some things that we need to be intentional about improving. And one of them is us. You know, the self-development- that- forces- us- to- look- at- ourselves- and- do- things- that- will- force- us to- step- out- of- our- comfort- zone stuff.

Leaders must purposefully put themselves in a position where the discomfort of personal change (for professional and organizational good) makes them sweat. Sounds a little painful, but its one of those “it’ll be good for you” things.

We all have something we need to change about the way we behave. Some of us have lots of those. Consider the feedback you’ve received from your manager, your peers or your employees. What gives you pause?  Choose one or two big  things to work on that you are passionate about changing; don’t shy away from the tough stuff. Stretch yourself. If beads of sweat break out on your forehead, you are ready. Then: 

1. Write it down: I’m a big fan of writing out an action plan. What steps will you take? How will you know that you’ve succeeded? When do you want to achieve these goals?
2. Find a way to stay accountable: Oh, the intrusions of the ever-urgent, more important things to do. Following through is so hard. Many leaders find that a mentor or a coach can keep them on track. Many ask their staff and peers to hold them accountable. Whatever you decide, the “check in” with the people who are holding you accountable should be frequent. 
3. Take action: Take a step every day. Yes, every day. The more you “practice”, the better and faster you’ll hit your stride and form new habits (that’s when you stop sweating).
4. Get feedback: Ask those who observe you to provide specific feedback. How did you do? What can you do differently? 
5. Reflect: Post-action reflection is essential! Journal, talk with your coach or mentor, but daily reflection on the strides you make and the adjustments you still need to make is important for progress. 
6. Adjust: Make the necessary adjustments in your actions. Sometimes we “over correct” and need to pull back; sometimes we just need to step it up a notch. 
7. Do # 3, 4, 5 and 6 again: Keep it up. Keep practicing, reflecting and adjusting. You’re on your way! 
8. Celebrate your success: What will you do to celebrate? Who will you invite (hint: consider the same stakeholders whom are giving you feedback and are holding you accountable). Let me know where I can meet you – I love celebrations! 

Congratulations, you met your goals! What do you need to work on next? When will you get started?