Desperately Seeking Advice

What happens when you face a rut in your professional life?

Coaches or mentors can be useful allies when we hit our plateaus in our performance. They can assist us in building our potential by nudging us forward. They function best by shifting our perspectives to usefulness and relevance. Productive conversations with your coach orientate around how we can move from our current state, to a future ‘expected’ state.

Effective coaches will ask questions that help us reflect on our condition. They lead us into our future with our visions of achievement. Skills-wise, they give us feedback that corrects our techniques and approaches, so we earn more ‘bang for our buck’. They help us move from ‘define’ to ‘refine’. Once we achieve our objectives, they disengage from the process of coaching. This relationship is about building independence and inter-dependence, and not dependency.

I have sought the assistance of coaches for my triathlon training, especially in swimming and running. My physiotherapists and sports-doctors are also my coaches, in that they provide consultation on which movements to do or avoid for my rehabilitation. I also seek the counsel and advice of business mentors on developing my consulting and performance audits businesses. The relationships are different, but similar in process and outcomes: to achieve my best in my performance and build my capability, capacity and interests.

This working relationship relies on a maturity that presupposes that you (being coached) are open, broad-minded and receptive to learning.

Leadership Lessons: How many coaches do you have? How do they assist you specifically in your competencies? How do you respond to your coach’s feedback when you need correction?

Starting Conversations

I have heard, on many occasions, how students, friends and associates have found it hard to sleep after an engaging conversation. That is what a great conversation can do to one’s senses and sensibilities. Creating conversations of worth at the workplace can lead to more productive performance. We relish in the meanings and moments found in these interactions, be it face-to-face or through social media.

We are responsible for whatever happens at each stage of the dialogue: beginning, middle and end. The process can be as straightforward as ‘How are you today?’ to ‘How do you do it so well?’ to ‘I like to apply some of your ideas!’ Integrate questions with useful ‘silences’ and appreciate the responses.

Conversations are subtle interviews, or interviews done in an invisible way. Introverts can benefit and be assured with asking questions, and then listening actively. Extraverts can answer with more focus, when you are specific about the comprehension questions you ask. Apply your sense of curiosity and intrigue, and delight in the discovery of new knowledge and insights. Each respond or question is another starting point for how the conversation can shift or assume new momentum.

Begin your enjoyable conversations now.

Leadership By Expression

‘Express yourself…’ ~ Madonna, pop-music icon

Your leadership style is based on your personality. An introvert will express himself/herself in a more inquisitive way, through questions, and actively listening. An extravert will be more inclined to share their private thoughts openly, preferring to answer questions. Our preferences do guide us, naturally, to express ourselves, and our leadership differently.

People will judge us no matter how you project yourself in public. How do you assert yourself in conversation, as well as in your writing? Are you more asking or telling? Do you offer others a chance to convey their ideas? How much do you present of your leadership when you apply the ‘golden silence’? Are you only a follower if you choose to read instead of respond?

If you initiate or participate in a discussion on social media, how are you leading? If you choose to refrain from commenting, how much of a leader are you promoting? If you correct a piece of factual inaccuracy, how do you do it without a friend (or friend of a friend) losing face? There is authority and responsibility in our role as a leader, so how do we maintain each aspect?

Leadership Lessons: How will you express your influence this week? What will you do differently when you lead? How will you lead in your written correspondence? When did you last start a discussion thread on Facebook or Twitter and lead in the process? How long did it last before you terminated it, and how did you discontinue the process?

The Art of Productive Conversations

Keith Delarue writes about the Art of Conversation. Conversation is what occurs between our noses. How do you express, impress and compress your thoughts in verbal communication?

Lim Leong starts a new series called Spin-Off Mondays, about how to create a productive week beginning with the first 10 seconds. How do you frame your week with activities and mental strategies that trigger off Real Work, versus Fake Work?

Online forums are useful for initiating conversations, of sorts. Social media allows some form of real-time conversations, provided you wish to engage in such form of mental exchanges.

How would you engage in productive conversations? How do you inspire staff to do the Real Work? What can you do to reduce the occurrence of Fake Work?

*****

Tomorrow morning (Saturday, 22 January), a small group of intrepid endurance athletes will be making a pilgrimage to Sentosa Island and do a swim-run brick session. Please drop by at 9.00am at Tanjung Beach if you think you can benefit from these sessions, held in anticipation of the Singapore Biathlon. It will be a short and simple session for me, just before the Duathlon on Sunday. I hope that the midday sunshine will be forgiving. I just sent a friend my running approach via Facebook, and it reinforced the relevance of writing replies – it crystallizes my beliefs and thoughts, while allowing me to engage in another form of conversation. Have a splendid weekend!

7 Ways to Lead With Your Time Instead of Time Management!

Stop wasting time with time management workshops! There are numerous ways to spend your time wisely. Seriously, time cannot be saved, stored or retrieved although our language describes it as ‘save time’, ‘invest in the time’, ‘make time’ and ‘buy time’. Instead, we ‘kill time’, ‘pass time’, have ‘time-out’ and ‘lose time’.

I have been intrigued and excited by the many executives I have met over the years who seem to use their time well. The ones that amaze me most are those who can fulfill more results in each day. It is not that they have more time (24 hours is maximum), but how they utilize each packet of time. Time can be measured in discrete quantities from seconds (beating a PB), to minutes (length of an interval training set), to hours (total time spent weekly preparing for a marathon). Writing a proposal or preparing for a business presentation may take a few days (so does completing ultra-endurances like the Quadruple Ironman or Deca-Ironman).

We can model the good practices of these time-travelers:

1)    Make a daily and weekly list, and refer to it occasionally.

2)    Tick away as quickly as you complete the tasks you aim to accomplish.

3)    Challenge yourself to do more, without exhausting yourself.

4)    Check for signs of burnout.

5)    Attain an active balance of the physical-mental-emotional, with personal and professional lives.

6)    Be decisive on how you use your time. Hesitation builds delay, and consumes time.

7)    Have productive conversations. If you aren’t enjoying it, you are wasting somebody’s time.