• What behaviors define leaders that listen?
• They do not cut off people in the middle of sentences.
• They do not look at their blackberry or computer when someone is talking to them.
• They do not ridicule people in public or private. This action almost insures that people will assume that you are not a good listener.

These are just some of the observations I have made in my experience in working with high-powered leaders. The best leaders have been able to balance these behaviors with the amount of time they spend listening to people who are not very articulate or succinct in their conversation.  Essentially, good listening is a character trait. A person must have a general respect for others if he wants to be a good listener. Leaders that look down on the people who work for them are not able to make a permanent shift from poor listener to great listener unless there is a shift in the way that they view people.

Some effective ways to make someone feel heard are:

• Make eye contact consistently
• Acknowledge their words by asking clarification questions to show that you are really trying to understand what they are saying
• Use body language that demonstrates that you are not distracted. If you are distracted, tell them and have the conversation later
• If you are on the phone, you will have to acknowledge more than you would in person by using phrases that confirm that you are attentively listening on the other line. (i.e. uh-huh, makes sense, okay)

Hiring a coach is a difficult decision. Many people spend time and anxious energy in deciding whether what they are hiring a coach for can be done themselves. For example, recently I thought of hiring a marketing coach. I know all the essentials that I need to accomplish to market my business. Yet, I had the opportunity to work with a coach that would help me with marketing. I had a few conversations with the coach and decided that this was something that I wanted to try out on my own. It was an intuitive feeling that led to this decision. On the other hand, I am currently using a coach to help me navigate through the fundamentals of establishing a sound coaching practice, financially, organizationally and emotionally.

Recently, a potential client asked me a great question. How do I know I can trust you? The client works for a financial institution that is extremely particular about what information it shares with the public. I answered the question intuitively. I told him that legally, all we can do is sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. We agreed that most of the time, that agreement is nothing but a piece of paper.  I told him that it is not in my best interest to share information about clients with other people. What I do is based fundamentally on trust. If I violate a client’s trust by divulging information to another client or anyone else for that matter, I risk losing my client. I also risk taking on a reputation for violating peoples’ trust. The person who I divulge the information to will think twice in the future before telling me anything that is even remotely sensitive in nature. Other than the fact that I had my reputation to lose, I could not come up with any other reason for my potential client to trust me from the get go. So, I simply said to him that we would have to see after we start work together if we have the ability to establish a trusting relationship.

In my career as a consultant, I have come across people who are so good at what they do that I could not imagine them doing anything else. All the variables of the “sweetspot” are apparent with these types of people. The content of the work is interesting to them. The people that they are surrounded with appreciate their personality. Their personal and financial needs are met through the job. Their bosses appreciate their work and reward them regularly. In many cases, these people were not always in their sweetspots. They had been in work situations where they failed miserable and hated their jobs. It is through observing these people that feeds my confidence in the notion that there is a sweetspot for most people. Finding this sweetspot is not only gratifying, often, it enhances one’s quality of life in invaluable ways.

I have heard that managing people is more like playing chess than checkers. This is because each person that you manage comes with a distinct background, experience and motivation. However, there are many forces that push us in the direction of standardizing our approach to the people that we manage. As an organization grows larger, the CEO is distanced from most of his people. Once this happens, he is inclined to play checkers because he does not want be perceived as unfair or accused of playing favorites. However, this transition from playing chess into a an environment where playing checkers is construed as more “fair” is challenging for many leaders.

Great article in the WSJ on how we will view work in the future:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203803904574429151858232582.html

I am helping a client select a Performance Management tool. It has occurred to me that the performance review exercise can be quite meaningless if not given the proper thought and attention. In fact, now I understand why so many manager are so apprehensive and stressed about writing performance reviews. In order to make the review process more meaningful, it is important for the reviews to be customized for each department or in some instances each role. The person who initiates and manages the process should be the department manager as opposed to an HR manager. However, the initiative will not be taken by a manager unless she is convinced that the review process will enhance her bottom line in some way.

In my engagement with my clients, there is almost always a period where there is tension. The cause of the tension can be from multiple sources. In my view, there are two main sources. The tension usually emerges after the initial engagement or what I like to call “the honeymoon period”. Most clients are initially excited about the prospect of the change that they think that I can help them with. They think that I can give them answers that they could not come up with themselves based on my wisdom and experience.

Of course, the relevant experience that I bring to the table in the relationship is my coaching experience. I rarely bring any subject matter expertise about the client’s industry or job function. So the tension emerges from the client’s misunderstanding of what coaching is. If this is the source of the tension, my shortcoming at that point is usually that I was unable to properly explain the nature of coaching to the client.

Another source of tension between the client and I is the work related to the change that the client engaged me to help him with. The destination is appealing to the client, but when there is ambiguity in our thinking during the coaching process, he gets frustrated. This situation usually emerges when we are exploring options and the client wants to jump to solutions. In fact, a lot of the time, I also get frustrated with the ambiguity and start to get tense.

In my view, this tension is unavoidable most of the time. In order to mitigate the risk of damaging the relationship with the client at these sensitive stages, I warn the client of the imminent tension ahead of time. This manages both of our expectations and reduces the feeling of uncertainty in the relationship. However, it does not avoid the inevitable; meaningful change comes with work, which is pleasurable, satisfying and at the same time, uncomfortable.

In order for a person to be coachable she has to be at a point where she is looking for movement. She must be dissatisfied enough with her current state or she should have an intense desire to reach her future state.  Above all, she has to be convinced that shifts in perspective can occur and that these occurrences can produce positive outcomes.