In our Fit Leader’s Program ™, we teach 32 different ways to move from confusion to clarity, from fear to confidence, from frustration to effectiveness and from overwhelm to vitality. In coaching my clients to successfully adopt the positive habits that lead to sustainable leadership success, I often hear how hard it is to make change happen.

One of the secrets to successful change management is the realization that each of us must navigate four distinct phases as part of the process of implementing anything new.

We call the first phase “unconscious incompetence”. This initial stage actually precedes any new learning. When we are unconsciously incompetent, we don’t even realize we are incompetent or ineffective at something important.

Remember the saying “ignorance is bliss”? Until we become aware of the need to learn something new, we remain oblivious to any need for change.

The next phase of learning is called “conscious incompetence”. This second phase often is uncomfortable for us as we become all too aware of the need for change. At this point in the process, it becomes undeniable that we are not getting the results we want, and we begin to seek out whatever assistance is available to move us to a more desirable place.

To make serious progress, and effectively begin the change process, we actually need to start going against the grain by working consciously to do things differently. This initiates the third phase of learning, “conscious competence”, where we must stay mindful of the changes we are executing so that we do not default to the old way of doing things.

Staying consciously competent takes a lot of work and is perhaps the hardest part of the learning process. It is during this phase that we are most likely to experience a relapse by reverting back to our old way of doing things.

When we have dedicated sufficient time to practicing our new habits by remaining consciously competent for however long it takes, then and only then can we move into the fourth and final phase of the learning process which is “unconscious competence”.

When we are unconsciously competent, we don’t need to think about our new behaviors on an ongoing basis because they now come as natural to us as brushing our teeth each morning. Getting to this final phase of unconscious competence requires patience with the learning process, and an acceptance that learning new behaviors is often not an overnight accomplishment.

The good news is that all of us are unconsciously competent with regard to hundreds of behaviors and actions we undertake each day. As long as we remain focused and committed to learning new habits, and as long as we appreciate the four phases of learning, all of us can confidently attain unconscious competence in our lives.

This weekend, I had the pleasure of screening a number of films at the Phoenix Film Festival. One of my favorites was “Shuffle”, a tale of a man who begins experiencing his life out of order.

Part “Twilight Zone”-style mystery, part Frank Capra fantasy, “Shuffle” stars TJ Thyne, co-star of the hit TV show “Bones”.

What I liked most about “Shuffle” was its subtle invitation to “pay attention” to our daily experiences, and to become more aware of the pattern to those experiences over time.

Sometimes it can take years, even decades, to discover the thread that increasingly defines us and our meaning and contribution in the world.

Throughout my life, I can point to several key experiences that, when viewed together over a longer period of time, all seem to converge on a unique ability that I now actively give voice to on a daily basis.

While it can sometimes be hard to detect the patterns in our lives, taking time to connect the dots from day to day can result in true meaning and reinforce the value we bring to others.

Why do we have a variety of friends who are all so different in character? How do we get along with them all? I think that each one helps to bring out a “different” part of us.

We joke with one friend.

We sit down and talk about serious matters with one.

With another, we laugh a lot.

We may have a coffee with one.

We listen to one friend’s problems.

Then we listen to another one’s advice for us.

Our friends are all like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

When completed, they form a treasure box.

A treasure of friends!

There are friends who understand us better than we do, who support us through good days and bad days.

Real Age doctors tell us that friends are good for our health. Dr. Oz calls them Vitamin F (for Friends) and counts the benefits of friends as essential to our well being.

Research shows that people in strong social circles have less risk of depression and terminal strokes.

If you enjoy Vitamins F constantly, you can be up to 30 years younger than your real age. The warmth of friendship stops stress and even in your most intense moments, it decreases the chance of a cardiac arrest or stroke by 50%.

Make an effort to keep a stock of Vitamin F!

In summary, we should value our friends and keep in touch with them. We should try to see the funny side of things and laugh together, and pray for each other in the tough moments.

Thank you for being one of my Vitamins!

Soon after Edison revealed his earth-shattering invention, a French reporter asked, “Mr. Edison, how did it feel to fail 999 times?” As the story goes, Thomas Edison just smiled and replied, “Young man, I have not failed 999 times. I have simply found 999 ways how not to create a light bulb.”

In other words, Thomas Edison learned from his mistakes—and he refused to be discouraged by those 999 botched experiments. Most mortals would have given up much sooner. Yet each failure taught Edison something important
that allowed him to go back and tweak the process or switch out the components until he finally got it right.

I myself have failed many times in my career, but one particularly painful failure always stands out in my mind. It all started when I was hired to develop a brand new product line for two very big name customers.

At the very outset, my boss told me that the company knew this was a high-risk project. However, the project had the potential to lead to all kinds of opportunities—we could build a whole new part of our business around this product.

Because I had experience in this particular area, they really wanted me to lead this development team. So, I decided to come aboard and take on the challenge.

I worked on the project and led the team for about two years. However, at the end of that arduous two-year period, I came to an alarming realization: we were not going to succeed. We just weren’t going to pull it off. Even though we had made some progress and created some headway in this new area, in the end our customers were not supportive of what we had created.

I had to conclude that this two-year project was a failure. And this was something new to me. Up until that point, I had enjoyed one career success after another. So I was thinking, “Gee, maybe I should leave the company. I’ll never be able to do anything else here. I’m a failure.”

You see, when we fail, we tend to personalize it. That’s exactly what I did. In my mind, it wasn’t that the project failed—I failed. I spent about two months feeling really miserable. I was trying to figure out what to do, and I talked to my wife about it every night.

Eventually, I realized that the company did not see me as a failure. As a matter of fact, they followed through on their original promise. They told me from the very beginning that this was a risky project, but they still wanted to give it a shot—and if it didn’t turn out to be successful, it would be okay and we would learn from it. And that’s exactly what happened.

In the end, instead of running away from the failure, I embraced it as an essential step in my learning process. I decided to stay with the company, and I went on to become the VP of Product Development, then the General Manager for the largest business unit and eventually the Executive VP of the entire organization.

It was a great experience. And had I not embraced failure, had I run from it instead of learning from it, I never would have been as successful as I was at the company.

I think there are two lessons here: One is that leaders really need to stick to their promises. For example, when an organization says, “We view this as risky, and if it doesn’t work out it’s going to be okay,” they really need to follow through with that. As a leader in your organization, you need to nurture an environment where an employee can fail without it having negative consequences on her career.

Secondly, any employee or individual who leads a failed project needs to embrace that failure as an essential step in the learning process. Success is not a linear journey—most leaders do not have careers that advance in a straight line.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the people who have been the most successful in life and in business are the people who have failed the most. Therefore, your ability to fail is directly related to your long-term success.

However, fit leaders know that money is not the main motivator for most people. Yes, we have to pay people fairly based on their responsibilities and the level of work they provide. Once people are paid fairly and they feel like their basic financial needs are being met, money quickly loses its motivational power.

Trumping money, most employees want to feel like they’re working on something important. They want to feel like their organization, and particularly their boss, cares about them and is looking out for their professional goals.

People want to work on exciting, fulfilling projects. They want the freedom to create-and also the freedom to fail. Most professionals are looking for environments where they are appreciated and have an opportunity to excel.

If you appreciate your people and provide them with opportunities to grow and move through the organization at an appropriate pace, they are much less likely to say yes to a recruiter-even if that recruiter is dangling more money in front of them.

In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Riverhead, 2009), author Daniel Pink points out that an overreliance on carrots and sticks, or what we would call extrinsic motivators, can actually decrease employee productivity and engagement.

As a leader, focus on leveraging higher level rewards or “intrinsic” motivators. You can do this by creating an environment where your employees enjoy autonomy, have opportunities to achieve mastery and can commit to a common, lofty purpose. Together, these three factors will keep your people engaged, empowered and confident.

Most of us rely on directed attention when focusing on our work, or when we engage in potentially dangerous activities, like crossing the street.  And, most of us know from experience that when we keep our attention directed for too long, it can become tiring.

One way to keep our attention in top form is to allow it sufficient time to recover on a periodic basis.  When our minds are inadvertently drawn to something interesting that does not require intense focus, we tap into what is called involuntary attention.

Taking periodic breaks gives our attention a chance to refresh.

In a classic study on violinists and the impact of practice on their levels of achievement, Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, of Florida State University, discovered that the truly great violinists typically worked in cycles of three focused practice sessions of 90 minutes each day with renewal breaks between each session.

You will perform any task more effectively if you take a 10-20 minute break every ninety minutes or so. Get up, eat a healthy snack, take a walk or just close your eyes for a while and you will return to your next task more refreshed and energized.

Martin E.P. Seligman, a former President of the American Psychological Association and a pioneer in the field of positive psychology, has been studying optimists and pessimists for 25 years.

In his national bestseller Learned Optimism (Pocket Books, 1990, 1998), Seligman writes that pessimists react to setbacks with a “presumption of personal helplessness”.  Pessimists believe that bad events will last a long time and are somehow their fault.

On the other hand, optimists react to setbacks from “a presumption of personal power”.  They view bad events as temporary setbacks that are isolated to particular circumstances. Optimists believe they can overcome bad events through their effort and abilities.

The way you define your circumstances determines whether you are optimistic or pessimistic. When you choose optimism, you inoculate yourself against the feeling of helplessness and strengthen your emotional competence, which leads to increased productivity.

Here are five simple tips that will get you on the road to optimism:

1. Know that most bad things are not permanent.

When something goes wrong, try not to blow things out of proportion.  Ask yourself if the negative effect is permanent. More often than not, it’s only temporary. Optimists realize that most bad events are fleeting and will not permanently alter the course of their lives.

2. Give yourself credit for positive events.

When something good happens, take time to pat yourself on the back.  Celebrate your strengths and think about the ways you contributed (both directly and indirectly) to this accomplishment.

3. Cut yourself some slack.

Pessimists often blame themselves for every negative event. But when things don’t go as planned, it’s not always your fault. Consider the extenuating circumstances that could have contributed to the bad outcome. Not every failure is caused by one of your own personal weaknesses.

4. Remember there’s always next time.

Instead of dwelling on your mistakes, try to think about how you can do better next time. When you start to embrace failures as powerful learning experiences, you’re beginning to think more like an optimist.

5. Challenge your negative thoughts.

When you catch yourself thinking negatively, stop, take a deep breath and make a conscious effort to change your thought pattern. The more often you challenge negative thoughts, the more natural it will become for you to think like an optimist. Before you know it, you’ll be finding the positive in almost any situation.

Unfortunately, many leaders struggle when it comes to delegating.  If you are having a tough time in the delegation department, think about the three T’s: Train, Transfer and Track. Here’s how it breaks down:

Train

When you hesitate to delegate to a team member, it’s often because you worry the employee has not been properly trained. You are not alone-this “lack of training” fear is one of the most common barriers to delegation. However, as a leader, it’s your responsibility to train your people. You have to teach them how to accomplish their work and successfully contribute to your team and organization.

When you do not take the time to train your employees, they feel underutilized and overlooked. They might wonder why you continue to pass them over as they see you continually hand out projects to the same small group of employees.

Of course, training an employee means you’ll have to take time out of your busy schedule and teach him how to effectively perform important tasks.  However, your efforts will pay off in the long run. If you spend some time training an employee upfront, you’ll save countless hours when the time comes to transfer projects to him.

Transfer

When you delegate a project to a team member, you are not relinquishing responsibility. After all, your boss will continue to hold you accountable for accomplishing the ultimate business result.

Consequently, when you delegate you are essentially “deputizing” a member of your team. You are transferring your authority to her so she can act on your behalf in managing a project to completion. This allows you to focus your energies on other projects, knowing that members of your team are working to complete the tasks you’ve assigned to them.

Track

Once you’ve delegated a project to a team member, you cannot simply check it off your list and forget about it. Because you will remain responsible for the final outcome of the project, it is crucial to keep track of the employee’s progress.

When I worked at Ford Motor Company, my supervisor kept track of all the projects he delegated by recording them in a notebook he kept in the top middle drawer of his desk. I came to refer to this sacred notebook as his “delegation diary.” Because he documented all the projects he assigned to team members in this notebook, he had one central place where he could keep track of all of his outstanding delegations.

My supervisor would consult his delegation diary on a daily basis to determine if he needed to check in with an employee on the status of a particular project. While he was not a micromanager, he knew the value of stopping by at least a couple of times before the assignment was due. This gave him an opportunity to see if there were any unanticipated issues that might prevent the employee from delivering the project on time.

If you want to be a fit, effective leader, it’s important to learn how to delegate. Remember, delegation is as easy as the three T’s: Train, Transfer and Track. And never underestimate the value of a delegation diary! ]]> http://instituteforleadershipfitness.com/2011/12/train-transfer-and-track/feed/ 0 http://instituteforleadershipfitness.com/2011/11/tis-the-season/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tis-the-season http://instituteforleadershipfitness.com/2011/11/tis-the-season/#comments Sun, 27 Nov 2011 23:29:05 +0000 David Chinsky http://www.theleadershipfit.com/blog/?p=104 Tis the season to give feedback in many organizations.  If you struggle with conducting feedback conversations, try our seven-step process and turn feedback into a gift.

Step 1 Describe the Problem

Describe the problem in a sentence or two. Remain as objective as possible and stick to one point-do not talk about multiple performance issues. Here’s an example:  “Tom, I’d like to talk with you this afternoon because I’ve noticed that you’ve been late to four of our last five meetings.”

Step 2 Explain the Impact

Leaders often jump from the description of the problem directly to the development of an action plan. They want to know immediately what the employee is going to do to resolve the problem. It’s important first to explain the impact of the employee’s performance problem. 

During this step, you help the employee understand how his or her behavior is impacting colleagues, the organization and perhaps customers. Let’s go back to the previous example: “Tom, I’d like to talk with you this afternoon because I’ve noticed that you’ve been late to four of our last five meetings. When you are late, it causes us to have to stop what we’re doing while everyone acknowledges your arrival, and it interrupts the momentum of our meeting and lowers our productivity.“

This second step is crucial because many times employees don’t even realize their behavior is causing a negative impact. Here’s another example: “Jen, I wanted to talk with you today because I’ve noticed that you are the first to dismiss the ideas of other members of our team. Before you ask questions and try to understand someone else’s position, you immediately point out how it won’t work. When you are so quick to judge, it causes other members of the team to withdraw and withhold their input because they are afraid that when they speak you’re going to cut them off or give all the reasons why their idea is stupid. And that works against the environment I’m trying to create where everyone feels comfortable sharing their unique perspectives.”

Step 3 Identify the Cause 

Once you have described the problem and explained the impact, then you can work with the employee to identify the cause of the performance problem.  Let the employee take the lead here. Your job is to ask good open-ended questions that invites the employee to think about what might be causing the lateness-or what might be preventing her from listening before she shoots down a teammate’s idea.

Step 4 Develop an Action Plan 

You can develop a much more valuable action plan once you’ve clearly described the problem, explained the impact and identified the cause. Identify a solution, come up with a time table and make sure the action plan is specific and measurable.

Step 5 Confirm Understanding

Before the conversation ends, ensure that both you and your employee are on the same page. This is an opportunity for you or the employee to summarize what was discussed, who has agreed to what, and when you expect these changes to occur. 

Step 6 Document the Conversation

Document the conversation even if this is the first time you’ve had to talk with an employee about an issue-and certainly if it’s the second time you’re having the same conversation. When you document, you’ll have the information available should this develop into a more serious performance issue.

Step 7 Follow-up 

More than likely, you or your employee will make some kind of commitment during the feedback conversation. It’s incredibly important to follow up on these commitments. This helps you determine if the employee has actually improved or changed behavior.

Walk through these steps one at a time and in the sequence outlined above, and you’ll be more confident and effective at providing important feedback to others.

A few years ago, one of my clients introduced  me to David Whyte, a poet and a naturalist.

Whyte shows us how changing the way we ask our questions can lead to strikingly different ways of seeing the world and our lives. 

Take a look at the following sets of contrasting questions. 

When waking up early

Can I fall back asleep again?
Should I go back to bed?

vs.

What would be the best way to start my day?
How can I energize myself?

When contemplating exercise (and feeling unmotivated)

Can I skip it for today?
Don’t I deserve a day off?

vs.

What should I listen to while I work out?
What will the feeling be like when I accomplish my fitness goals?

When considering a dietary improvement

What foods am I going to have to give up?
How am I going to deal with the deprivation?

vs.

What foods that I like will I get to eat more of?
What new foods can I experiment with?

When nearing the end of the workday

Have I done enough that I can justify quitting for the day?
Can I finish this tomorrow?

vs.

What’s next?
How can I complete one more task?

When facing an unfamiliar social situation

How did I get myself into this situation?
Can I get out of going?

vs.

How much fun will it be to meet some new people?
What can I expect others to have in common with me?

What questions are you asking today that can be converted into more powerful inquiries?