The Opposite of Success

In Marcus Buckingham's book "Go Put Your Strengths to Work: Six Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance" he poses and answers the question "What's the opposite of success? The obvious answer is failure, but in fact failure and success aren't opposites. They're merely different." Brilliant distinction.

Many need to look at things as black and white, good and bad, up or down but don't look at the nuances and intricacies that make up each. Just like success and failure aren't opposites, a leader might be brilliant in one organization, but fail in the next. It’s more than learning leadership proficiencies; it’s learning how to work with the personalities around the table, monopolizing on them and respecting the differences. Successful leaders speak to strengths while accepting the entire individual. Successful leaders know how to dance to the music that's played and know how to change on a dime while keeping focus on the bigger picture.

Lots to think about!

Donna Karlin

*Note: 2 new additions to the Perspectives world from Benin and Madagascar. Make yourselves welcome!

Looking In All the 'Right' Places

At a recent conference presentation, one of the other presenters was a person I’ve worked with on a few occasions. She is a dynamic fireball of energy, a leader in every sense of the word, ‘lives’ professionally and is a key player in the middle of where things happen in government, from policy to how the workings of the government are decided and implemented. Her presentation was dynamic, energetic and very, very powerful. At the end of her talk she took questions from the hundreds of people in the room.

I sat at a side table watching this unfold. She’s a what you see is what you get person with a fabulous sense of humor, and as I’ve worked with her and knew her style, I was eager to hear how she would answer the questions put on the table. I figured some of the questions would be the kind many people ask country leaders, i.e. those aiming for the magic wand kind of answers. They were asked and answered in as honest a way possible.

What really delighted me was when she answered one of the questions which was “What do you read to strengthen your leadership? What books would you recommend for us to read to grow as leaders?” She gave them a list of what came to mind, not only books but articles and speeches but then threw in the unexpected: “John Cleese’s videos on Leadership.”

For a moment the room went silent and then everyone started talking at once. Earlier she had mentioned loving Monty Python so everyone in the room thought she was pulling their leg. My table mates had seen me deep in conversation with her recognizing I knew her, so looked at me as if I would confirm that she was in fact pulling their leg. My answer was “She’s right! It’s an amazing series. You should watch it as it’s unlike any other training video you’ll ever see”. They thought I was kidding. I sat there with a grin on my face and then added “It really is a great series. Are you only looking in what you think are the ‘right’ places, reading the ‘right’ things and speaking to the ‘right’ people? What makes them all ‘right’?

I am constantly asked what books l read to hone my professional skills and my answer is “Everything I can get hold of”. If I stuck to books only on coaching I’d miss out on the rest of life and coaching isn’t only about coaching. It’s about working within the context of life. One can’t be separated from the other. Just as leadership can’t be found in a canned course or book it’s snippets of everything we live, experience, read about and learn, all mixed up and filtered through our unique personalities to come out when we need it and how we need it to lead, direct and question.

Are you looking in only the ‘right’ places and feeling as if you’re coming up short? Many look for the perfect book, course or direction. Life isn’t like that. True leaders glean information from everywhere. They soak it up like a sponge, are constantly growing, rethinking and reinventing.

What are you reading? What are you not paying attention to that you should be paying attention to?

Best!
Donna Karlin

*Note: Welcome new subscriber from Namibia. 133 countries and counting!

Check out the book The Back of The Napkin by Dan Roam. You will never think of a presentation in quite the same way ever again!

Hearing or Truly Listening?

Most leaders ask for information but not necessarily for advice. Many will listen to advice and then end up tossing it and doing their own thing. Is it a pride issue do you think? Or in some cases, do you think leaders hesitate to ask for and implement advice because they think in some people’s eyes it shows a sign of weakness?

I often work with leaders who listen intently to what’s unfolding before them and even though some of the issues are critical, respond by saying “I would have done it this way” or “Yes, I see what you mean but you should do this instead”, totally discounting all advice. They are downloading information, perhaps using bits and pieces of it to validate what they already know or feel, but they’re not doing anything with the advice they were given. Most of the time it’s unsolicited and they let you know they didn’t ask for it either, making that one of the main reasons for not taking it into account.

People will stop suggesting or giving well based advice because they know it’s falling on deaf ears. Is that leadership or dictatorship? And we all know what that kind of dynamic does to self-worth.

Is it power, politics and self-preservation?

It doesn’t matter how secure we are, don’t we all want to be on top, the kingpins, to dominate those who we feel might just know more than we do?

Ego at play; no matter how much we want the best for the organization and its people, we all need to have our egos stroked now and then, don’t you think?

Even if we think we know all there is to know, mastery comes from practicing from a position of what I call grad basic or going back to the basics from a position of having been there, done that. There is always something more to learn. You might be starting from a higher plane but just think of how much you’re going to pick up that you missed the first time ‘round.

Whose responsibility is it to encourage advisors to speak up, to bring ideas, thoughts and concepts to the table by actively engaging others with the intention of listening and learning? The leader’s or the staff, or both?

Best..
Donna Karlin

*Note: Welcome new subscriber from Cambodia. 132 countries and territories and counting!

Work Life Balance

You might be wondering why I haven’t been posting for a while. I, as many other do, blog to reach out and have a conversation with people from all parts of the globe and do so to learn, to hone my writing skills and to share a perspective or message. I am honoured when others think my post is important enough to quote it in their blog or publication with a link back to the original. What I have a fundamental problem with is when others take my posts in their entirety and publish them as their own. This has been happening way too frequently so I paused in publishing until I could deal with this in a systematic and legal manner. I must thank Google and Wordpress for acting so quickly on this. They don’t like copyright violation any more than I do! Now that it seems there’s a handle on this, I’m back and raring to write! Time to tackle the subject of “Work Life Balance”…

Recently I was at a Coaching Best Practices Conference at INSEAD Global Leadership Centre in Fontainebleau. To say the conference itself blew me away is an understatement.

For now however, I’d love to delve into the world of “Work / Life Balance” which seems to be on the minds of people in the private and public sectors alike. I’ve had many a conversation about this with clients over the years. Most of the time it was them turning the tables on me asking if I had a private life, if I ever slept and “Where’s YOUR work / life balance?” I always answered in the same way: “It’s personal. It’s up to an individual to determine what that balance looks like and what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another”

One of the amazing people I met at the conference was Kavitha Iyer from Singapore; Director, Human Resources, JAPA at American Express International and Adjunct Faculty Coach at INSEAD. She had a very unique way of looking at work / life balance that immediately resonated with me. With her permission I would like to share it with you. She talks about ‘Work / Life Values’, or a psychological balance. To me that made a great deal of sense. If I am living within my personal values, then the balance happens. For some with young children, they might come home from work early to spend time and have dinner with their families, but once their young children go to sleep, they put in another couple of hours work to stay on track. No one said we have to work consecutive hours. This way we work within our family or personal dynamics.

Last year when I took a few days off (and yes, I do that once in a while) my friend challenged me to disconnect from my BlackBerry and was adamant that I not check my emails. I disconnected the email feature of my BlackBerry and only left the phone on as that was my connection with my family. I was able to mentally disconnect from the 'CrackBerry' however when I got home I had over 2000 emails waiting for me. I had to take time off to process them all, figure out how to jump back into the intensity of my work and all in all, just being faced with that volume of correspondence was overwhelming enough to negate most of the benefits of taking the time off.

For me in future, I plan to log on twice a day for a short while to process what I need to so I never come back to that level of overwhelm again. That for me is a balance. Over time and as life’s circumstances and dynamics change I will continue to redefine and design just what ‘balance’ means, but as long as it’s within my personal values, I know I’ll stay on an even keel.

Kavitha, thank you for illuminating this very important distinction for me and our readers.

Best!
Donna Karlin

*Note: Many of us – and many of our clients – hate presentations: hate preparing, doing and attending them. It needn’t be like this! Check out James Caplan's I Hate Presentations: Transform the way you present with a fresh and powerful approach

If You Don't Know, Ask...Then Ask Again

First impressions... Whether or not people should read a book by its cover, or the proverbial personality cover in this instance, the fact remains that most people do. So how you hit the floor running when you enter an organization will be very telling. This is a heads up to remember that in most cases, this is the norm. The only question might be is 100 days too long or do many organizations form an opinion much faster than that?

I would ask, what do you need to do to hit the floor running and stay running? Otherwise you'll be running to catch up, not lead. After a while it'll be more like hitting your head against the wall than evolving into any semblance of leadership. I'd also suggest learning as much as you can before walking through the front door. What is expected of you and by when? What do you need to know that you don't know in order to do your job in the best possible way? And if you don't know, then ask. Ask again. Ask someone else for their perspective. Don't forget to listen from a perspective of what you don't know. There's always more than one perspective. If others are holding back information, that says a lot about corporate culture and if the staff is collaborative or not. It'll also be a key determining factor as to how quickly you can get moving.

Balance those answers with your knowledge, innovative approach and energy. Integrate what others say to build a strong, cohesive team, not a dictatorship, and you'll have others on board to support you.

"Leaders don't force people to follow—they invite them on a journey." - Charles S. Lauer

Remember, in any context you have power with people, not by holding power over them. You'll all know within 3 months or less whether or not it's going to work. Cut that in half and you're ahead of the game.

Best!
Donna Karlin

Making Distinctions

Discrimination: def "Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favour of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit."

Lives take shape in ways we cannot always predict or fathom. People are complex creatures with a myriad of ways to look at life. Few embrace life as is without placing judgment as good or bad, comfortable with or fearful of…the blacks and whites of this world with little grey… Most people see life from a perspective of their own history, rather than looking at how to create a life they love because of it and in spite of it.

I’ve witnessed and experienced discrimination on many fronts from racial, religious, level of education and yes, even colour of one’s hair. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told I intimidate because of the level of work I do and yet I’m a person just like anyone else. One is judged by how little education they have to how much, whether they work in powerful circles or, perhaps drive a bus (I’m just using this as an example not as a slur to bus drivers). In some ways it’s a mirror of what one doesn’t want to gaze at within themselves. Excuses aside, as a Shadow Coach™ I observe people in their worlds and can help them look at the filters through which they look at life. Whether or not they change them or remove those filters, is their choice. I can deal with being the recipient of discrimination, but I will not make excuses for who I am because of it.

I tell my students “What someone else thinks of me is none of my business” and then we look at just what that means. If I constantly change myself to suit what someone else wants me to be, I am no longer my authentic self. To do that not only compromises my personal integrity but fundamentally breaks down my person foundation from which I build my life. If I did constantly change myself to suit others, who would be me? How could I ever think of coaching anyone else in alignment with their personal values and ethics if I don’t live by my own?

So as life comes full circle, I might not be able to predict where mine might be going but I can make choices in the present to create a future that will blow me away. It’s about paying attention before possibility goes poof into the night…..

Best
Donna Karlin

Note: Tuesday, June 17th our newsletter is about 'change'. 2 minutes reading time or less. To access it click www.perspectivesinbrief.com/subscribe. Remember to opt in so it'll come right to your inbox.

©2008, all rights reserved.

Not to be missed!

It's not often I write a post about an upcoming talk but in this case, I'm making an exception. My esteemed colleague and friend, John Lazar will be the guest on Global Abundance Alliance, Coaching For the New Millenium on Sunday, June 15th at 10:00 am Eastern (details below).

"Traditionally, we think of coaching as being confined to some athletic or physical endeavor such as sports or personal fitness. Fifteen, even ten years ago, coaching for individuals to produce success in their personal and business lives was virtually unheard of. Yet in today's world, coaching is credited with giving many people and companies that extra edge to attain top success in their field.

The Global Abundance Alliance is proud to present John Lazar, MA, MCC, a Professional Coach, for this month's Learning Leader Call. John describes himself as a "change agent with diverse experience in consulting and telecommunications industries." He is "committed to delivering solutions that develop competitive, agile organizations and productive, engaged teams and individuals."

Date: June 15, 2008
Time: 10-11:30 am ET, (7-8:30 am PT)
Conference Call: Dial - (712) 432-9998
Enter Access Code - 875617#

Don't miss it!

Best..
Donna Karlin

***Note re republishing my blog: Should you care to include all or part of any article from my weblog in one of your publications you have my permission to do so provided that you credit me for the material, mention where it was obtained and also my copyright. A suggested form might be "The above (or following) article is included with the permission of Donna Karlin betterperspective.blogspot.com and is Copyright ©2003-2008 by Donna Karlin. All rights reserved."