One of my coaching clients recently recommended that I read the 1987 classic Odessey, by John Sculley – who is famous for succeeding Steve Jobs during the first Apple turnaround. Back in 1987 Sculley implemented ideas that we’re still waking up to today. His pretext for what I call Leading from the Future (I used to have a blog by that title, and it’s also a subtext of Theory U by Otto Scharmer) is that, because the future is increasingly unpredictable, traditional ‘planning’ can turn out to be a crap shoot. Once again, the ideas on Leading from the Future are resurfacing in a new book by Douglas Rushkoff called Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now published just this year. The point of it all is (as Rushkoff’s title hints) that focus on the current moment is the best indicator we have for not only predicting the future – more important, focus on the current moment informs us of what’s possible, where we’re heading, and how to create the future we want.
Here’s a place to start NOW
Sculley is hip to the coaching mantra: Solutions are often obvious once you get the questions right.
He details how part of Apple’s strategic planning process was to ‘project ourselves out into the future and then work backwards to the present’. I’ve personally been using this same technique, in a variation called A Walk Through Time – based on NLP, since 1999 to help teams to start with the future they envision and work their way backwards in time to knit together the pieces of a more cohesive present. Since 2005, with my partner Liz Dallas, we’ve used her Visionary A to B Leadership Model to help leaders and teams work from their Now to future possibility to cohesive strategies. The trick is to shift your attention from Planning for the Future to Leading from the Future. This shift creates the opportunity for insight and the new, more relevant actions that spawn from there. Insight into now is key.
And that’s why I’m such a champion of coaching. The inquiry process that seeks to get the right questions is the mother of all inventions. We no longer have time to invest in scenario and strategic planning that looks forward. Instead, let’s invest in what we do know, our NOW, and ask the right questions…maybe even with the help of a coach?
Recently I’ve had a spate of coaching clients who are grappling with relationship issues at work. A painful condition, some of the ramifications of which are: suffering a lack of confidence, being unable to get your point across with traction, demotion or lateral transfer between departments, and feeling isolated. However, the true downside of not having satisfactory (not to mention “great”) working relationships is that my clients are unable to do their own Great Work. A common approach to dealing with this condition is looking through the lens and using the tools of Emotional Intelligence (EI): Understanding competing styles and relationship management. Lately, I’m more convinced than ever that using these tools is not enough. We can do better.
Right now, the field of Neuroscience is enlightening us as to how the brain actually works. The brain is like a machine and the more we know about how it works the better we are able to use it. In particular, the field of Social Cognitive Neuroscience (a blend of how the brain functions and psychology) is giving us information about how to have great relationships in terms of that very Emotional Intelligence popularized by Daniel Goleman in the 1990′s. Now, instead of just managing our Social Intelligence we can actually redirect our brain to function from an entirely different place, the place in the brain most suited for what we’re after.
Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Here we come to where East meets West. In my continuing interest in the advances of Cognitive Neuroscience, as well as research in the field of Organizational Development, I find the crossover to my studies in the Eastern studies of Advait Vedant and the Science of Yog Philosophy to be consistent.
Here is an example of how the brain works through each of the three lenses:
Organizational Development From Immunity to Change by Kegan and Lahey
There are three levels of mind which include Socialized mind – concern about alignment of values, beliefs, feelings (outside authority); Self-Authoring mind – able to take others’ values, beliefs and feelings into account and choose how to relate to them vs. just alignment (internal authority); and Self-transforming mind – able to create new values and beliefs (authoring our own present and future).
Neuroscience From Your Brain at Work by David Rock
Conscious information gathering which can be used for problem solving; Sub-conscious awareness – memories, conditioned responses and habits; The Director mind – the awareness to stand outside of your experience and decide where to send your attention (to which part of your brain).
Eastern Philosophy from Walk on Water by Lea Belair
Identified state – You are identified with your feelings/no choice; You can choose how to relate to your feelings/EI; You have a 360 degree view and can create something entirely new.
Do you see the crossovers?
So how does this relate to having great relationships? Re-direct your brain’s attention and energy to be the Self-authoring Director
1. Quiet the energy (take a deep breath and relax in your body first) – this is the environment that promotes insight
2. Practice watching the action that is taking place (like a Director) – this makes you faster at being able to change your conditioned response
3. Reflect on what you want instead (focus on patterns and connections, metaphors, and visualize vs. problem solving) – using the right side of your brain because having great relationships is not a problem to be solved but rather a conscious creation in the moment
4. Redirect your attention (brain power) to getting more of what you want – whatever question you ask your brain, your brain will answer it, so directing the brain’s attention is crucial!
At the Coaching Center of Vermont we work and play with people who want to Do More Great Work.
Sometimes I hear people tell me they are too busy to find the time to do more, or even any great work.
They say, “Look at all this stuff I have to do today. I don’t have any time left.”
Now that’s a provocative statement: “I don’t have any time left”.
I would say, that depends on how you look at it…
Watch this video to see how much time you really have left and to help decide how you want to use it!
PS It’s already the end of January
Lea Belair and the Coaching Center of Vermont are licensed to deliver Do More Great Work and other Box of Crayons programs.
A useful distinction for you this year: Advice - When asked for, can be very helpful to those who value your experience. Coaching – When asked for, can be the vehicle for making a shift in how we look at the world and ourselves. Wisdom - Often not asked for explicitly, given as a gift when someone is ready to transcend from the ordinary to the universal.
Thanks for your support and interest this year and we look forward to engaging again in 2013!
What’s the coach approach to this state of the art training tool?
Just getting ready to deliver another ChangeCycle(tm) training, and I’m reminded how important it is to use your change tools early and often if you want to have an organization or team that is resilient in change. People usually nod their head enthusiastically when they hear that the most important part of change is to make it feel safe – but they rarely take action on that knowledge early in the process. Good example: President Obama defaulted to using the word ‘safe’ repeatedly by the time he got to the third presidential debate, and Governor Romney defaulted to playing it safe. But I digress.
The most important thing I learned, when studying to become a facilitator for the ChangeCycle(tm) training is that no matter whether a change is good or bad, the mind reacts the same way…in neuroscience layman’s terms, your lizard (primitive) brain takes over and yells STOP! In order to get to the part where you can use your reasoning skills, you first have to overcome this instinctual response. And the next most important thing I’ve learned about the process is you can’t do it too soon or too often.
So when we work with groups using this training tool, the primary thing we do is to establish rapport = real rapport, meaning trust, no matter how long it takes – maybe even half the training day! Because learning about change and practicing new change tools can be darn irritating. You can’t do it too early or too often. And seeing safety in change modeled is the best training there is to make change easier.
Yikes! I’m still surprised at how divergent the views are on what a professional coach is, and what you can expect regarding the results from a professional coaching relationship vs. hiring a consultant for a consulting relationship.
Since I have been a certifying agent for both ‘coaching school certification’ and ‘professional coaching credentialing’ as well as a consultant, I can assure you there are clear distinctions between hiring a coach and hiring a consultant – and these distinctions are important considerations if you are thinking of buying coaching for yourself or someone in your organization.
To put it in a nutshell, a coach partners with the client on their (the clients’) agenda for the purpose of unfolding their personal and professional development; a consultant provides expertise and answers, and guides or leads the client to attain a specific result or results as outlined by the consultant/expert or the hiring firm.
The question to ask yourself in making the distinction on who to hire is: Is your goal to develop or to problem solve? In coaching, we say the result is the byproduct (of the process).
When you hire a professional coach from the Coaching Center of Vermont, rest assured your coach underwent a rigorous training program that upholds the professional standards of the coaching profession.
In a recent article, “The Magic Eyes(R) of Innovation: Ontological implications 1″, author Bruce Vojak makes a case for innovation as the discovery of a hidden/underlying reality vs. an imposition of will. As a member of the Chaordic Solutions forum on LinkedIn, I get access to a series of articles like this and the innovators who study change and post. I thought you might enjoy reading my response to Mr. Vojak’s article, which also received some feedback skeptical to his proposition.
On August 16, Lea Belair wrote…
An interesting connection to your excellent essay:
In The Power of Habit, Duhigg writes that in order to cause widespread shifts (read innovate) “Identifying keystone habits [is key to] creating new structures”. He shares several provocative stories of how innovators used their magic eyes (to use your term), to set off a chain of events that led to massive innovation. Example: Paul O’Neill, in taking charge of Alcoa (1987), identified ‘safety’ as a keystone habit around which other habits could change – thus changing the entire culture of Alcoa. The key to innovating and spreading the innovation was: “…leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach.”
And yes, of course, the real key to the innovation is having the ‘magic eyes’ to be able to see the pattern/keystone habit.
As someone who has studied meditation and advait vedant for almost 30 years, I know that developing the ability to see through ‘magic eyes’ is a skill that can be learned. There is definitely an underlying reality and one can learn how to discern it.
*******
I have been using the technique that Vojak describes as ‘magic eyes’ in coaching and teaching others how to do it since 1995. Not coincidentally, this skill was identified by Thomas Leonard and labelled Hones in on what’s most important, as well as by Michael Bungay Stanier who refers to it as Blue Card Coaching. The point is, similar to the example in Mr. Vojak’s article – that Michelangelo was able to see the sculpture/form that wanted to emerge from a blank piece of marble/formless. And, also not coincidentally, I specifically remember reading about that in The Agony and the Ecstasy, when it came out in 1961 (before I ever heard of meditation and advait vedant, and before coaching became a profession). You can learn how to do it, and you can learn how to use it to innovate your work and your life.
If your succession plan is just a ‘replacement’ regime vs. a result of building your leadership pool, you’re not prepared for the massive change and increasing complexity of future growth. So how can you build your company culture and team capacity to leverage the kind of leadership that is embedded and self-sustaining?
We have a model we use at the Coaching Center, developed by Liz Dallas – founder and Executive Director, that we are currently calling the A to B model. We have been using this model at Vital Business since 2005, because it works. A simple explanation of the basis of this model is available in Liz’s chapter in the book Roadmap to Success. What’s germane here, is that the A to B model intentionally creates space for the question mark, “?”, a place holder for the unknown – for the sake of building employee engagement and a strong leadership culture. The ? is a place where your talent* has the ability to leverage its strengths, be flexible in change, and lead.
Read Liz Dallas’ chapter on Creative Visualization: Disciplined Thinking for Leadership Success
Here are a couple of quick tips on building a strong leadership plan:
1. Embed a language that attracts and reflects talent
Now that most people are familiar with the drawbacks of top-down leadership they are ready for something else, but many are not sure what that something else looks like, sounds like, and feels like. At Vital Business we have seen the benefit of inspiring and engaging as the modus operandi for creating a talent driven leadership culture. The old operational and strategic models are not enough. There needs to be a more flexible underpinning that pulls your talent forward, into leadership vs. pushing them into overwhelm and burnout. Language can go a long way to making that real/demonstrative so that your leadership initiative won’t come off as another ‘flavor of the week’ new idea.
2. Have a talent plan
In addition to valuing and leaving a place holder for the unknown, another key to succeeding in growing your leadership is a company culture that has a clear vision of success, beyond strategy. When you have that, the vision is one that is energized, “caught” and “carried” like a virus, and it naturally spreads throughout the organization. It’s tricky to identify what is ‘strategy’ and what is ‘pull’ vision. You’ll know you are successful when your leadership has both a natural path forward in strategy and the emotional intelligence and communication skills they need for succession that is inspired and talent driven.
*There has been debate on the difference between talent and strengths. I like the definition given by the Gallup organization: “talents are innate and cannot be acquired, unlike skills and knowledge”.
As I am attending a variety of conferences lately, this time the Vermont Employee Ownership Conference (VEOC), this time as a speaker on coaching and mentoring at PC Construction, I gleaned some insights on what works (and doesn’t) in Employee Stock Ownership Plan companies.
Here are a few I think are worth sharing:
1. There is no power where there is no collaboration
Actually, I knew this one already. But it struck me as bold to say it in this way. Usually power and collaboration aren’t used in the same sentence. There’s maybe power ‘over’, or power ‘to’, but here it was: power ‘with’.
In a company, just like in any ecosystem, collaboration bridges boundaries so that decisions and actions can be more informed and effective. If your system has no bridges the power gets interrupted.
2. Be in the bigger conversation vs. the subsets
In ESOPs the bigger conversation is how to educate, inspire and engage employees so that they think and act like owners. Why limit this to ESOPs? What if we all thought and acted like owners at work? When employees feel like they are at the mercy of the owners they actually subvert the goals of the organization.
3. ESOPs are part of the move from the extractive economy to the generative economy – or can be… The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) says on its website:
“ESOPs are most commonly used to provide a market for the shares of departing owners of successful closely held companies, to motivate and reward employees, or to take advantage of incentives to borrow money for acquiring new assets in pretax dollars. In almost every case, ESOPs are a contribution to the employee, not an employee purchase.”
And, let’s face it, a lot of ESOPs are still run like old fashioned top down organizations (power over) with updated retirement plans.
The VEOC was a great place to be in conversation about what all of us in business need to be talking abut…what goods and services will be important in the NEXT economy as we move from the “me” society to the “we” society.
PS During lunch we were treated to a fiery speech by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders – a long time supporter of ESOPs.
Bernie Sanders speaks about how Employee Ownership is important to the state of Vermont
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of meeting and mingling with members of the OIWC (Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition), as one of their speakers in their year long series on Change – an event hosted by REI in Berkeley CA. I was struck by how much fun it is to be with a group of aspiring and inspiring women leaders.
Last night, I had the added pleasure of attending their Burlington event, hosted by Terry Bicycles, full of more inspiring and aspiring women leaders, our treasures in Northern Vermont. Liz Robert, CEO of Terry Bicycles, was the speaker for this event, and a big draw that got me in my car in the midst of the drumbeat of business. Liz’s message of paying attention to opportunity – no matter how it presents itself, is one every leader and aspiring leader needs to keep top of mind in these times of change.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, we shared some common themes in both our talks. One of which, and I’ll steal a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt to capture it, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do”, is key to seeing and taking the opportunities that open unexpected doors for women who aspire to inspire. As a leadership and change coach, I’m often asked to share tips and techniques in achieving success in change. Here’s the one that goes along with Eleanor’s quote, and which Liz described as ‘taking the quantum leap’ – Pay attention to what you want, without knowing how you are going to get there. It’s about taking action, one action, and then – of course – it leads what’s next.
This way of focusing and taking action is especially important for women because often women have a less direct path to walk through life and work. We’re more apt to have our attention and energy diverted by childbearing, family, and a different set of expectations as we set out to navigate life’s changes. You must do the thing you cannot do to take the quantum leap.
Both Liz and I shared stories at OIWC of taking jobs for which we weren’t sure we had the right experience, without clear expectations of what they would entail – whether it’s the risk taking of the entrepreneur or working within the biz/corporation.
Doing the thing you think you cannot do, taking the quantum leap, means being open to what is needed/offered and knowing you can provide value – even though you’re not sure how it will play out.
Many of life’s greatest gifts are surprises. If you navigate change like riding a bike, you’ll make the most of the opportunities along the way!
His pretext for what I call Leading from the Future (I used to have a blog by that title, and it’s also a subtext of Theory U by Otto Scharmer) is that, because the future is increasingly unpredictable, traditional ‘planning’ can turn out to be a crap shoot.
Once again, the ideas on Leading from the Future are resurfacing in a new book by Douglas Rushkoff called Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now published just this year.
The point of it all is (as Rushkoff’s title hints) that focus on the current moment is the best indicator we have for not only predicting the future – more important, focus on the current moment informs us of what’s possible, where we’re heading, and how to create the future we want.
Posted on May 13th, 2013 by leab | Tags: 
