Buzz Words

Tom Stern, one of my co-bloggers on Fast Company Experts wrote a blog on Business Buzz Words We Can Safely Get Rid Of that is priceless. To read his hillarious words of wisdom click here

Languaging is everything and this is way too good not to share!

Best..
Donna Karlin

Leadership: Assumptions or Facts?

I was revisiting many of the comments I've received in the past and they got me thinking….

I heard everything from “Talking about leadership style is a distraction” to analogies re the present Administration to definitive ideas of what makes a leader. These are amazing, insightful comments.

I wonder how many assumptions are made around the term and definition of ‘leader’? One might assume that a leader needs followers. One might assume a leader is brought on board to help evolve an organization. And one might assume that a leader has the ideas, insight and innovation to bring a stagnating organization forward. There are assumptions that leaders have the “ability to see a bigger picture than us and an ability to make meaning for us”. That is definitely not the case, though something most people crave in their leaders.

I could ask 100 people about what they look for in a leader and get 100 different answers. Oh yes, there would be commonalities, but as everyone’s needs differ, so do their needs for what they want in a leader.

A question recently asked is “Do leaders really listen to advice or do they use advice to validate what they already know and want to do?” A great question. To find out the answer I’d have to poll many a leader. You might assume I’m going to pose that question to you (and you would be right)

Listening to advisors and integrating their advice are very different and can really impact a leader’s world. Paying attention to informed advisors can also make or break a leader. I know many in positions of leadership who are known for their experience and level of expertise but that doesn’t mean they have the up to the minute information they need or are up on current trends. No one person has all the information necessary to run an organization. What they need are the right contacts in various areas of expertise to give them what they need when they need it.

As a Shadow Coach™, one of the dynamics I question clients on is when they say “Interesting concept, however I would have done it this way”… and continue to outline their perspectives. When this happens on a regular basis, I challenge my clients to stretch beyond what they know into the world of the unknown to listen for and integrate what they didn’t know.

Great leaders listen to the wisdom of those around them. I’ll go out on a limb to not only say that’s an assumption but a fact. Learning is more than gathering information. It’s being open to realizing you don’t know and will never know all you need to know to lead and operate from that premise.

Your thoughts on this?

Best!
Donna Karlin

**A few notes: Welcome reader from Suriname, 120th country and counting! We're very glad you've joined us and hope you stick around for a long long time.

Many of you are emailing me directly with your insightful comments, which is great! Keep them coming! Now if you posted them as comments on the site, that'll generate more than just my three cents and will create a community dialogue. That way everyone can benefit from your perspectives as well.

Secondly we put out a free newsletter, Perspectives in Brief every other week that is delivered to your in-box or handheld that will give you great tips on the run to run with, pricing breaks for coaching and program launches. Reading time 2 minutes or less. To subscribe, go to www.perspectivesinbrief.com/subscribe

Perspectives of 2007 and What’s to Come in 2008

It’s that time of year again. Amazing how much was packed into the year and what’s to come for 2008. 2008…. Wow!

As busy as I was in 2006, I was even busier in 2007, but I figured it out. It’s that Time Mastery thing where I really learned to respect time and my life in relation to it. I figured out I do about 30 days work in 20 days. Impossible? No, not at all. It’s working smarter, making better choices, working with clients and in realms that energize me rather than deplete my energy. Nothing will take me from enjoying an amazing personal life as success is life. To me, a successful life is one lived from joy and growth. It’s all of my life, not just one aspect of it.

So let’s recap for a moment. And if I forgot something and you catch it, let me know OK?

I’ve been writing more programs, launched ‘It’s All About You…and Others”, I’m working on a guide for those going through a rough divorce, a coaching methodology perspective so you thrive throughout, I’m doing Time Mastery workshops and working on a virtual program with my friend Donna. Yep…the Donna and Donna team. Scary duo but hey, we’ve been creating some great things…

I’ve been teaching in many parts of the world and loving it. I was elected to the Board of the International Consortium for Coaching in Organizations and the Board of Governors for the International Association of Coaching. Those positions are a huge honor for me as they are at the cutting edge of Coaching in Organizations and credentialing based on Mastery in our field.

I’m working with clients who are global leaders and continually blow me away at their authenticity even in positions of power (and yes! they can and do co-exist).

I’m wearing many hats, that of Executive Coach, Shadow Coach, Teacher, Lecturer, Participants in Research and Development and Think Tanks, collaborating with some amazing colleagues, writing both articles and program content, became an expert on SelfGrowth.com, have developed quite the readership for my Fast Company Experts Blog, am now a part of Faith Popcorn’s TalentBank, still working with Microsoft Vision Team to look at the life/balance and context of technology.

The new year will bring me to new parts of the globe as I teach my Shadow Coaching model to Master coaches from all over the world. I’ll be writing more, picking and choosing the clients I want to work with, and helping design international symposia. I’ll be looking at identifying rising stars and helping them evolve into their level of excellence. It’s not only about succession planning…it’s about growing new talent and helping the next wave of leadership slide into roles they are really ready for. As corny as it might sound to some of you, I’ll be looking to see how I can make a difference in the world. It’ll mean strategic choices as well as paying attention to how I could have the biggest ripple effect. And I’m going to help grow the practices of future Master Coaches so they thrive and have prosperous practices. It’s not only about teaching what it is I do….it’s about helping them create sustainable, thriving practices where they can do what they do best and grow their businesses at the same time.

It’s time I shared more. It’s making strategic choices in that as well as let’s face it, I can’t be everywhere at once. But just as my work is laser, so can my mentoring sessions be as well.

I don’t make new year’s resolutions. I do, however set intentions as for me, they’re a lot more powerful and do-able. My main intention for 2008 is to make sure I always have time for the people in my life ....and life!

And to you all, I wish you a happy new year, filled with possibilities, and choices, not out of obligation but joy. May you grow, experience life to the fullest rather than just exist through it and may you realize how you touch everyone around you, known and unknown to you in a profound way. It’s how you choose to touch them that will determine what that might mean to them and for you.

I wish you the best of 2008 and beyond.

Donna Karlin

***Note: For tips on the run to run with, and to be the first to know about program launches and special pricing packages, subscribe to our free newsletter Perspectives in Brief; 2 minutes reading time or less, delivered every other Tuesday directly to your inbox, BlackBerry or handheld.

Reacting? Responding? Is There a Difference?

Of course there's a difference. There's a huge difference even in the subtleties.

"People limit themselves without realizing it by reacting to situations, rather than responding and broadening their horizons."

That statement is one of many in a new program we launched this past year called "It's All About You...and Others". It's been tweaked, proofed and reviewed and is now being tackled by participants all over the world. Out of the 26 segments of this mini self-coaching course, this one statement is pushing more buttons than any other, and let me tell you, as a self-awareness behavioral course, there are a lot of very edgy truths besides this one that one might think would push more buttons than this.

Perhaps it's taking responsibility for how we react to situations that are out of our comfort zone and then get angry and react in the process or perhaps it's an in your face "look at when you react and act yourself why" question that comes to mind.

I'd love to hear how you look at a statement like that and how, if at all, it might apply in the context of your world. That's what it's all about, though isn't it? Awareness of self and our place in our world.

What's your immediate gut reaction to this?

Inquiring minds (or coaches in this case) would love to know.

Best!
Donna Karlin

*Note: Check out this new article about my work as a Shadow Coach™ in Personal Success Magazine called "Why I Shadow My Clients' by Mary-Louise Cook

We Know What We Know…Doesn’t Everybody?

I was recently reading a book summary for “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” and as I had recently read “The Tipping Point” where they talk about stickiness as well, the topic of this book intrigued me. I was fascinated by this not to promote a product, but to help me in my work laser coaching my clients through chaotic days. This concept helped me articulate a snapshot of a moment in time in such a way they’d not only see it but ‘get it’.

I just returned from Washington D.C. doing a training for The School of Shadow Coaching™. My goal was for the participants to know what I do so intricately, they would not only get it but could walk away using it in their day to day practices. The first step to get my concepts across was to ask them to park all assumptions about what they had already learned...what they already knew. There were two reasons behind this: 1) so that they wouldn't keep trying to 'fit' what I do into what they had already learned and instead look at how they could add it to what they already knew and 2) that they would all be on the same page because even though these were experienced coaches, they all didn't know what the others knew. This way they would be learning one methodology and then align it with their current ways of practicing.

To get back to the summary, something really hit home when Chip Heath and Dan Heath stated “To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize. Saying something short isn’t the mission — sound bites aren’t the ideal. Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound. A one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning it…. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it’s like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us.”

It then occurred to me that many people are cursed by their knowledge as they can’t fathom why others don’t see things as they do because it’s obvious, right? ‘Knowing’ becomes a filter through which ideas are shared and instructions given but if the other party has no idea of what you're talking about, there is an immediate disconnect. That was another key aspect of the training; looking at filters, both ours as coaches and our client's filters, acknowledging them and working with them.

As much as I dislike assumptions and how they get people into trouble, what would it mean if we assumed others didn’t know what we knew? If we started off with that premise, how much easier would it be to have generative dialogue and create something that not only stuck but just might be sustainable?

This was an extraordinary group, coming together from all parts of the US and Canada; seasoned, experienced coaches.... practitioners in various fields of expertise with different clientele. They all parked their assumptions and came together to learn, to grow and to work with each other to help integrate that learning so they could broaden the scope of their practices.

It was magical! But learning is magical, don't you think?

Best..
Donna Karlin

*Note: Welcome 117th subscriber from the US Virgin Islands!

Learning Lessons Learned

I'm about to go to Washington D.C. to do an advanced coach training with the School of Shadow Coaching™. I always look forward to these sessions as amazing minds come together, already masterful in the coaching field, to learn something new.

A great byproduct of my work is what I learn through the day. That's an advantage of being a Shadow Coach™, being in the middle of my client's world as it unfolds. I learn about what they do and learn about what I do at the same time.

Every time I teach, I have tweaked the program to integrate what I have learned as a professional. Add into the equation the great minds, knowledge and expertise of the participants and the methodology has to evolve along with it as newfound awareness of what's possible emerges.

What if we applied this across the board? Learning from lessons learned on a regular basis, not just after an event or assessment. If we shared better business practices, ideas, concepts that morph as they're tried and tweaked along the way. How could we not stay 3 steps ahead of the current trends?

Corporate memory can hold an organization back just as living your life by dwelling in the past will not only hold you back but stop you dead.

Once ever year or so I invite people who have done the training to come back for a grad basic of sorts; revisiting the basics from someone who's been there, done that to see what works really well and how to do other aspects of our work better. We always leave the room with a whole new perspective of our work and how to be better practitioners.

What would it mean for you if you could go back to the basics with your colleagues and revisit what you might have forgotten and change what's no longer working for you? How powerful would that be?

How can you make that happen?

Best..

Donna Karlin

*Note: Welcome 116th country subscriber from Mozambique. We hope you stay around for a long time to come.

Living Through a Rear View Mirror

My business cards have a shadow of a person driving with a reflection in the rear-view mirror. Why? Because I tell my clients “If you live your life by constantly looking in the rear-view mirror, you’ll eventually crash and burn. Objects (or past history) in rear view mirrors do appear larger than they really are. Our pasts seem to be magnified exponentially in our memories.

To build on my Fast Company Experts post for a moment from July 11th 2007 Direction Defined or Not , you can’t live your life through your past. You can build on it and move forward because of it, for good or bad but you can’t live on your laurels forever. You’ll have to start living your future right now or before you know it, you’ll be looking at just more of the same and no movement whatsoever. For leaders, that could very well mean being put out to pasture and replaced by those who build a future by the choices they make right now. Successful leaders celebrate their successes, build on them and move forward. They constantly reinvent.

Recently I was with a group of people working together to create business plans. What an amazing experience! Each person asked for help and support in making their professional (and in some instances personal) dreams a reality. Yet there was one who started off every sentence by “Oh I used to do that, and when I did, I did it this way!” His was the only way, the best way, and he seemed to have done it all. If there were twenty projects and directions the others wanted to take you can be sure he said he had done all of them at some point in his life, and yet he was the only one who had no definitive direction as to where he wanted to go for his future. The others around the table gave him some ideas he might want to work with. He nodded as if he was actually listening but ran with none of them. Through the week we kept hearing “When I used to do that…”

A few weeks have now passed and I’m watching as the others work towards their plans and are actually building a life they love. They’re making professional changes to grow and are collaborating on both small and large projects that will give them more visibility, knowledge, experience and expertise in their fields, helping them achieve their level of excellence. And yet this individual, while he looks in his rear-view mirror is at a standstill for now. He’s stalled in the past and has no vision whatsoever for his future.

Does this sound like anyone you know? You can only challenge someone so far to take a good hard look at where they’re at in the scheme of things, but if they’re not willing to truly see the path they’re on, they will eventually crash and burn. It’ll then be much harder to pick up the pieces and start from scratch.

Some points for you to ponder:

Do you find yourself thinking and speaking in the past tense?

Do you have a plan for your future? Not necessarily a list of goals but a dream you’re working towards?

Who can you ask for help so you can really get there and make it happen?

What do you need to know that you don’t know? (A great barometer)

People generally find it easier to help others than to ask for help. If you like the feeling of giving to help someone else to realize their dreams, why in the world would you deprive others of feeling the same way when they want to help you?

Have you articulated what your future will look like? Until you see it, touch it and breathe it, how can you figure out ways and steps forward to make it happen?

No ceiling, just sky.Best..

Donna Karlin

*Note: Many of you have been asking me about my travels and where I'll be teaching next. I recognize I can't be in all parts of the continent (and beyond) in one fell swoop but will post my whereabouts for you on here as well as my website. For those of you who want to learn the Shadow Coaching model, I'll be teaching in Washington D.C. on November 28 - 29th, 2007 and there's room for about 6 more people before we close registration. If you want to join in, I urge you to register now to hold your place. To do that click here to register.