Executive Coaching

Ira Chaleff

What Exactly Do You Do During Coaching?

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I do not solicit testimonials from coaching clients but recently received a copy of one client’s voluntary summary of her experience with the coaching program sponsors. I think it is a useful reflection on the coaching experience from someone who did not know what to expect from coaching. Therefore, it may be of use to others considering coaching. We worked together for about 20 one-hour sessions spread over 18 months. The coaching was entirely by phone. During this time the coachee applied for and was promoted to a position at the national level of the agency and used coaching to successfully make the transition. To further add value to her new group she volunteered as a member of a three person employee engagement council and used coaching to help her design activities the council used with its national workforce:

Good morning Audrey –

I was given your name as the contact for the Agency’s Executive Coaching program and wanted to pass along a few comments, now that my coaching sessions have concluded.  I didn’t think it would be right to let my experience come to a close without sharing the impact it had for me!

  1. This is an excellent program for Agency staff, and I hope it will be continued.  I had a great experience, and a wonderful coach (Ira Chaleff).
  2. I appreciated the opportunity to have open conversations with someone outside the Agency, who could be an impartial observer and resource and whose sole focus during our conversations was my professional development.
  3. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when we started, and when someone recently asked me ‘what exactly do you do during these sessions?’, my first response was ‘well, he asks a lot of questions!’.  And that’s been a great thing.  He was always prepared with thoughtful and insightful questions, that caused me think about things differently than I might have otherwise.
  4. Along with good questions, Ira was also prepared to share meaningful insight that was relevant to my situation, or in response to questions I’d asked him.  This practical insight and willingness to share his wisdom and experience were greatly appreciated, because he could share from experiences and knowledge obtained outside a career with our Agency and that perspective only helped to expand my own understanding of things.
  5. The individualized attention was invaluable.  Even for those of us with good Agency managers (I’ve been with two supervisors during my coaching experience, and both have been supportive of this process), the inherent nature of the coaching relationship makes it very individualized and focused on development for the sake of development.  Good supervisors can and should be invested in employee development as well, but in fairness to them (as a former supervisor myself), it’s difficult to always separate needs as a supervisor (e.g. – needing the employee to perform well, meeting goals and expectations set my upper management, etc), from the best interests of the employee.   Hopefully the supervisor’s needs and the employees best interests converge of course, but a coaching relationship removes that buffer if you will, and allows the coach to focus solely on the employee.  Not many of us can get that kind of individualized attention in our professional careers, but it’s beneficial when it can happen.
I’m grateful to the Agency for providing this opportunity, to my supervisors who have been supportive, and to my coach who was fantastic.  Great program, well worth the Agency’s investment in my opinion!

Sincerely,

SLC

No, You Probably Shouldn’t Follow Every Order from Your Boss

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By Ira Chaleff

(As appeared in GovExec.com August, 2016)

To protect the reputation of your agency and its leaders you need to know when and how to disobey. You read that correctly. There is a high level competency called intelligent disobedience. It is rarely taught in leadership development programs. It should be. Here’s why.

No leader is going to give correct orders all the time. Sooner or later they will issue or approve a poorly thought out initiative. Why? There are many possible reasons. They have been given skewed data, the analysis is faulty, they are under pressure from powerful constituencies, they are tired. It happens. The question is what do the people who receive the order do?

I was teaching a course for the Office of Personnel Management on Leader-Follower dynamics based on my earlier book The Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders. I asserted that most of the time it makes sense to comply with orders, but sometimes it is wrong or dangerous to do so. A mid-level careerist said she had an example of that under the table. Huh? That got my attention.

There was a dog under the table, she explained, that was being trained to be a guide dog for a blind person. For the first 18 months of its life, the dog lived with her family and learned to obey all the commands it would need to know. After that it would go to a higher level trainer to teach it intelligent disobedience. If the dog received a command that would cause harm to the team (of leader and dog) it must disobey that command. For example, the dog would not proceed into oncoming traffic, travel through areas where storms had toppled power lines, or walk into a construction site. If the dog could not differentiate between commands to obey and commands to disobey, it could not become a guide dog.

I suggest that this is equally a test for fitness to be a senior government manager. It is also much harder to do than it sounds. The pressures of hierarchy, culture, and leadership style can overwhelm a sense for doing the right thing. Yet failing to do the right thing ultimately lets down stakeholders, agencies and senior executives themselves. We watch in pain as agencies are skewered in congressional hearings, in the media and in costly legal proceedings for ill-advised actions individuals took or failed to take. Someone in the chain of command could have prevented that with the early use of intelligent disobedience.

Creating a culture that understands the place of intelligent disobedience in risk management and mitigation takes time. But there are principles to begin the discussion.

  1. Understand that the social pressures to conform and obey are baked in and powerful.
  2. Recognize that the number of people who touch any major decision is so large that it is hard to feel personally accountable.
  3. Despite this, each individual is personally accountable and cannot claim to be just following orders if executing the order would result in harm.
  4. The formal channels for expressing concern are necessary but often insufficient.
  5. The group needs to step back and create norms of communication to guard against groupthink and pre-empt inappropriate obedience.

Lessons that we can import from guide dog training include: training together before a danger is encountered; pausing before determining the safety of an order; “counter-pulling” if the leader is about to step directly into the path of danger; generating alternatives to safely achieve goals; appreciating appropriate disobedience. These save lives, careers and agency reputations.

Obedience is in the DNA of hierarchies. The whole point of a hierarchy is to determine who can give orders to whom in service of the mission. This arrangement avoids endless conflict and paralysis and allows us to get things done. Suggesting there are times when obedience is not the correct response to a situation flies in the face of this solid wiring.

Yet, it has been observed that if you want to do in your boss, do everything that he or she orders exactly as you are told. Sooner or later you will get a bad order and executing it will make the boss look very bad. So it is in the interest of leaders to create and support cultures that value both great execution and skillful push back when each is warranted.

We think of dogs as paragons of loyalty. We can think of guide dogs as the best of man’s best friends: they serve, support and protect. Both their obedience and disobedience are acts of loyalty. When needed, intelligent disobedience in public service is also an act of loyalty to the leadership of our agencies and to the citizens we serve.

Change Careers By Using the ‘Sugar Grain’ Principle

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To Shift Fields in Midlife, Start with a Manageable Process

By Beverly Jones

(This article previously appeared on Clearwaysconsulting.com.)

The trick to shifting careers in your 50s or 60s or even earlier is to create a disciplined change process and stick with it.

When I work with mid-career coaching clients, I often suggest a simple process that I’ve been exploring since I was a teenager. I call it the “Sugar Grain Principle.”

As a child of New Zealanders, I drank lots of tea and liked it loaded with sugar. But during my teen years, I worried about the calories. Kicking my sugar habit seemed tough. One day, though, I came up with a way of reducing the sugar volume so gradually I’d never miss it.

Origin of the ‘Sugar Grain Principle’

As I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the heaping pile of sugar on my spoon, I decided to start by removing just a few granules. In each of the following days, I tried to remove a few more. I kept at it, progressively lessening the amount of sugar from two or three spoonful’s to none. It took nearly a year, but I ultimately learned to enjoy sugarless tea without ever feeling deprived.

I was so intrigued by the power of creating change through small, painless steps, I started applying the Sugar Grain Principle to other aspects of my life. For example, I became better at keeping my room neat by building little habits, like spending five minutes cleaning each morning.

A 7-Step Process

Today, I often suggest the Sugar Grain Principle to mid-career clients looking for a new direction in their lives. Here’s my seven-step process to do it:

1. Start with a vision of the career you want. Begin the “Sugar Grain” process by creating, as clearly as possible, a picture of what you desire in your next career phase.You needn’t define a precise destination before you get going, but you may be surprised at how much you already know.

List the elements you want in your work. One way to begin is by identifying the good and not-so-good aspects of your current situation.  As you find the negatives, rephrase them as positives for your next-job wish list. For example, if you’re bored, reframe that into “I want work that’s varied and interesting.”

Think too, about new skills you’ll need to develop and embark on a plan to get them.

Next, imagine it’s three years from now and you’ve moved to a new professional path. Figure out what made those years so productive and satisfying. You may want to add some of those elements to your wish list.

Consider, too, what else you want in your life. Certain values or interests might be important in shaping your career. If you want to spend more time with your grandkids, for instance, maybe “no weekend work” should go on your vision list. Or perhaps you want to live in a different climate.

2. Organize your vision. Now, break your wish list into categories. I often ask clients to create a “mind map,” a colorful, branching diagram with the power to quickly portray complex concepts or projects.

Start your mind map with an image or keyword in the center of a page. From that center, draw main branches, spreading like the spokes of a wheel. Label each branch to represent a sector of your life and fill out the details by adding smaller branches to the main branches.

3.Add a category for your job search. Now that you have a vision of where you want to go, add a branch on your map (or a section on your vision list) related to your possible job search.

If these items don’t show up anywhere else, you may want to include: expanding my network; reconnecting with people I know; building my social media presence; developing new skills or experience or acquiring certifications and methodically exploring fields a step or two removed from my own.

4. Commit to a pace. Once your know where you want to go, decide how quickly you need to move. That will determine how many things you commit to doing each day, or week, or month, for each category you’ve identified. The power of the Sugar Grain process comes from your commitment to keep up your pace even when you feel like you’re out of ideas or don’t have the time.

5. Begin a list of small to-do’s for each category. You’ll want a list tor each area on your map. They might include sending an email to an old contact or spending an hour setting up your LinkedIn account or exercising for 30 minutes.

They needn’t be related to one another; sometimes they’ll feel pretty random. But over time, patterns will emerge.

6. Maintain records.  Keeping track of the things on your lists is important to the success of your process. Your recordkeeping will help you see your progress, bring you new insights and inspire additional to-do’s. Whether you keep records on paper or in the Cloud, is up to you.

Logs often work well because you’re more likely to stick to, say, an exercise if you record each minute you spend on it. Logs can illustrate your efforts, reinforce your commitment and help you see the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

Journals are another method. They can promote self-reflection, help you explore and keep track of new ideas and give you a way to manage frustration and setbacks in the course of your transition.

7. Finally, enjoy the Sugar Grain Process. Once you get going, your small-step agenda will seem to generate its own energy. You’ll start feeling confident that it’s taking you somewhere interesting and important.

Often a client who has completed a career shift will say something like: “I’ll kind of miss the Process. It was getting to be really fun.”

 

8 Tips for Inspiring Employee Engagement

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By Beverly Jones

It’s well understood that upbeat and highly motivated employees achieve more than their negative, disgruntled peers. Recognizing the link between attitude and job performance, human resources experts used to talk a lot about the need to enhance “employee morale” and build “job satisfaction.”

In recent years, however, the buzz has been all about increasing productivity and innovation by promoting “employee engagement.” Definitions vary, but the Gallup organization describes “engaged employees” as “those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace.”

Your engaged colleagues are the builders – the ones who are moving the organization forward. You probably enjoy working with these animated people. Folks who aren’t engaged may do the basics, but they won’t be passionate about tackling challenges or breaking new ground. And your actively disengaged coworkers can spread their unhappiness around and undermine the whole group’s progress.

According to Gallup Daily tracking, only about 32 percent of U.S. employees are engaged at work. And, despite a wave of engagement improvement programs, that number hasn’t fluctuated much since Gallup started its measurement in 2000.

Experience shows that there’s no one simple way for leaders to jumpstart a surge of workplace enthusiasm, but many small steps can help.

My client Heidi began reading about employee engagement as she started a new assignment. She had moved out of the busy headquarters office of a Federal agency to become director of a low performing regional office.

Heidi is talented, personable and deeply committed to the service mission of her agency. To date, her rise through the government ranks had been rapid and smooth, and she’d made many friends along the way.

When Heidi arrived at her Midwestern post in the dead of winter, the climate inside her office felt as cold and frightening as her icy commute to work. Three of the top ranking members of her team had applied for the directorship, and now all three made it clear that they resented having the position go to her, an outsider. And while the attitude of those senior staffers seemed to vacillate from sullen to openly hostile, most of the dozen other professionals just seemed tired and disinterested.

Heidi developed a set of principles for stimulating new energy and commitment from her team. After a year, she has seen a mood shift, and the office’s performance statistics are up.

These 8 strategies are helping Heidi to stimulate better work from her more fully engaged team members:

  1. Meet in person. Heidi’s predecessor, Jill, was described as a brilliant but reclusive workaholic. Jill spent long hours alone in her office, with the door closed, and she’d make her wishes known by shooting out frequent emails. Particularly during her early weeks on the job, Heidi elected to meet often and face to face with her team members. She shared news from around the agency but generally tried to listen more than she spoke. As Heidi concentrated on listening, she grew better at resisting the urge to feel defensive or disheartened from the flow of negativity
  2. Empower the team. Jill had talked often about her own high standards, and had tried to control the workflow so that every project was done in exactly the way she would do it. Heidi looked for ways to delegate more responsibility, and make assignments that allowed professionals to show off their strengths and personal styles. She caught an early break when her embittered deputy left for another job, enabling her to distribute his responsibilities so that more people could share in team leadership.
  3. Reward good work. As a Federal manager, Heidi had limited control over bonuses and raises. But she found other means to express appreciation for excellent work. For example, she shared an insightful staff memo with high-ranking colleagues in Washington, she worked her network to snag a plum speaking invitation for one of her experts, and she asked her people to speak about their successes at meetings with sister agencies.
  4. Find learning opportunities. Heidi saw that many of her team members had been doing the same kind of work for years, and they were bored. She made training a top priority, and encouraged each person to commit to a professional development path. She also shuffled assignments so that most folks enjoyed more variety, and she came up with new projects that meant learning for everyone involved.
  5. Clean up. When she agreed to take the job, Heidi negotiated a budget to improve the office’s aging physical space and furniture. Early in her tenure she involved her team in planning the modest office redesign. And she designated certain days when everybody wore jeans to work and pitched masses of old documents and other clutter. When the renovations were done, the fresh new atmosphere gave most people a boost.
  6. Have fun. In an early meeting, one employee told to Heidi, “Once this was a fun place to work, but Jill didn’t believe in fun.” On the job, “fun” might mean that the tasks are stimulating and coworkers are good partners for brainstorming. But sometimes “fun” just means having a good time. Heidi found ways to vary the routine with surprise treats and entertaining meetings. She invited clever speakers to come to staff meetings, she encourages humor as long as it wasn’t mean-spirited and she created a committee to create events like surprise pizza parties.
  7. Remember the mission. Most members of the staff began working for the agency because they believed in public service. But they had become cynical and discouraged. Heidi invited reports about the full scope and value of the agency’s work, and she encouraged team members to join agency-wide or other professional committees. She regularly looks for ways to remind people of the value of their work together.
  8. Take care of yourself. Even though she had family members nearby, Heidi was a bit lonely in her new town. And after a week of struggling to be relentlessly positive, she often felt like spending the entire weekend in bed watching old movies. Heidi knew that negativity can be contagious, and in order to inspire her team she needed to remain optimistic and energetic. So a key element of Heidi’s leadership philosophy is to find stimulating activities and build supportive relationships when she’s away from the office. As part of her program of self-care, she decided to act on her lifelong dream of horseback riding. She rented at horse housed near an indoor riding arena, and she takes lessons every Saturday.

Engaged employees need strong relationships and lots of communication with their managers. To launch an effort to energize your colleagues, consider a round of meaningful conversations.

For more tips on how to engage your team or rediscover your own enthusiasm at work, check out my new book The Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO