Category: Professional Development

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Internal or External Coach? How to Decide?

Business professionals having a conversation about internal and external coaches

My coaching clients often ask, what is the difference with working with an internal coach (an employee) or an external coach (an independent contractor)? Here are a couple considerations to keep in mind as you make the decision to hire a coach.

1. Clients tend to talk more freely with an external coach than with someone within the organization. An external is “unbiased” while an internal may be influenced by the goals, politics and culture of the organization. For example, it is very common for senior management to “open up” only to an external coach due to the sensitivity of issues they are working on. No matter how well self managed the internal coach may be, if the focus of the coaching is on strategic issues, executives may not feel free to discuss them.

2. Be sure to have a clear agreement upon how coaching information will be exchanged among the client and sponsor. For purposes of identification, the International Coach Federation defines these roles as follows:

  • Client: The “client” is the person(s) being coached.
  • Sponsor: The “sponsor” is the entity (including its representatives) paying for and/or arranging for coaching services to be provided.

3. An internal coach may have access to organizational resources that could enhance the coaching. They may also be more available between coaching sessions for extra support.

4. The external coach may have broader range of experience as they often work with many different organizations.

5. This does not have to be an either/or situation. Many progressive organizations choose to use both internal coaches and external coaches in order to provide best match of coach for the client as well as the objectives of the coaching engagement.

What do you think?

For more resources, see the Library topic Personal and Professional Coaching.

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Pam Solberg-Tapper MHSA, PCC – I spark savvy business leaders to fire up their cutting edge, be extraordinary and do great things for their world. How can I help you? Contact me at [email protected] ~ Linkedin ~ 218-340-3330

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C is for Connection

"Everything is connected" neon light signage

My description of spirit in the workplace is that it allows you to feel a greater sense of connection by bringing your whole self, the essence of who you are, to a supportive environment. People are yearning for connections on multiple levels – connecting with a higher purpose, connecting lovingly with yourself, connecting deeply with others and connecting meaning with your work.
“Spirituality is the deep feeling of interconnectedness of everything. To be spiritual is to examine the connections between one’s products and services and the impacts they have on the broader environment. The recognition of interconnectedness constantly forces one to expand one’s vision,” according to the authors of the book A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America.

THE CONNECTION OF THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
The “butterfly effect” is a wonderful example of this interconnectedness principle. What started out as a myth and legend in 1963, has now been proven scientifically through the Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions. What this means is that the mere flaps of a butterfly wings can set “molecules of air in motion and continue to do this until eventually it’s capable of starting a hurricane on the other side of a planet.” Andy Andrews in this book The Butterfly Effect: How Your Life Matters explains this theory and shares wonderful examples of this interconnectedness of our lives. It’s a fascinating book and makes me think about how incredible it is to know that we are connected to everyone. He says, “Every single thing you do matters. You have been created as one of a kind. You have been created in order to make a difference. You have within you the power to change the world.” Click here to watch an inspiration movie of it along with more information about the book.
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT IN ACTION
So here’s where I need your help to test out this butterfly effect theory. My husband and I have been selected as one of four finalists for a national marriage contest. We share in our five minute video the connectedness we felt when we first met and knew that we had “found the one.” The original inspiration for writing our love story was to share this “divine connection” with our three sons. Then our inspiration grew to inspiring others to show their love for each other by writing their own stories. Now my inspiration is to test out the butterfly effect theory with your help. Will what we did with our story matter to someone else in the world? Will our actions impact others who have never met us? Please take five minutes to watch our video and post a comment. I’ll check back with you in another blog to share what we found out. It’s a win-win by doing this; we all get to test out this spiritual law of connections and it’s a win for us if our love story gets the most comments!

I greatly appreciate being connected to you!

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Travel lightly

Brown leather traveling bag and a passport

This past week my sister-in-law died. Nothing like a death to put things into perspective. I reminded my in-laws as they were worried about details of the funeral, ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’. After seeing their sister die, it was an easy message to get across. After that ordeal the type of flowers or coffin decoration really wasn’t that important. Does it take a death to put the small things into perspective?

What are you worried about these days that really in the end don’t matter that much? Are there things at work that generally annoy you but if you took a 10,000 foot view isn’t really that important? Would you worry about those things if you were lying on your death bed?

I heard an expression once about holding on to kindness and letting go of grudges. If you have grudges, annoyances, harsh judgements or built up resentment about people at your work- let them go. If you are still carrying memories about people who have done you wrong or made foolish decisions, travel lightly. Do you really want to be carrying that extra burden around with you every day? What could you do more of if you channeled your strength and extra energy towards acts of kindness? Let go of these small burdens and move in more peaceful ways. Walk lightly and carry only those things that serve you well.

Here’s a tip to figure out what you can release – for each resentment, negative judgement, complaint or grudge- ask yourself – how is it serving me? Do you want to stay in victim ‘ain’t it awful’ mindset or bring peace to your work and yourself? The choice is yours. Every day you wake up and go to work, you choose your attitude. What do you want to carry with you to work tomorrow morning?

I love this Buddhist story of the monks crossing the river. Two monks arrived at a river that was quickly rising. A young woman held on to a basket of clothing she was washing. She looked worried about getting to the other side with her wash. The older monk asked the woman if she needed help. When she replied yes, he quickly handed the clothing to the younger monk, picked the woman up as he stepped carefully across the rocks through the rushing water. He set the woman down on the other side and kept walking. The younger monk quickly followed with the clothes and left them with the woman without speaking or looking at her.

The two monks walked for over an hour in silence. The younger monk pondered repeatedly in his mind how the older monk talked to the woman. Didn’t that go against their vows of silence? What about his physical contact with women? The young monk couldn’t get the image out of his head as they walked, replaying the scene dozens of times in his head. Finally after nearly two hours of this constant stream of thoughts crashing through his mind, he stopped and asked the older monk – ‘master why did you pick up that woman?’

The older monk nodded in silence and replied. ‘I assisted the woman across the dangerous waters. Then I set her down. You have been carrying her ever since’.

As the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us – Peace is Every Step.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Survival without social media and website has a new look

Man in White Long Sleeves and Black Pants Sitting on Sofa While Holding a Book

I’m back after a one-week at-home vacation that included no computer use for business purposes and no social media participation. A very relaxing change of pace! But, alas, time and mortgage payments wait for no man, so I reluctantly return to the land of the working stiff.

I’d like to invite readers to check out (and comment on) the newly redesigned Bernstein Crisis Management website. It has the same content and even the same sections, for the most part, but a fresher “look” and it has been SEO optimized from the get-go, versus continuously updated to SEO standards over the 10 years of its prior existence. Kudos to Tao Consultants for the design, with thanks to my Creative Director (and wife) Celeste Mendelsohn and webmaster Oliver del Signore for consulting on the site changes.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

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Coaching Leaders: A Systems Approach

Smiling man holding a silver tablet

Guest Submission by Steven Ober, EdD

Leaders live and work in complex systems. In fact, we all do. These systems include our organizations, our teams, our families, our communities, and our larger society.

In today’s world, it is incumbent on those of us who coach leaders to deepen and broaden our ability to coach from a systemic perspective—to understand our client leader as an individual human system working and living in larger systems. How a leader proceeds in those systems, and how those systems operate, can have a huge impact on her ability to achieve her goals.

This article presents an overview of Coaching from a systems perspective:

  • Definition What is a “system”?
  • Why coaching from a systems perspective is critical in today’s world.
  • What systemic coaching includes.
  • How you can, on a practical level, coach systemically.
  • Learning Opportunities that can help you broaden and deepen your systemic capability.

Definition

A system is a whole made up of interdependent, interacting parts. Changes in one of the parts create changes in one or more of the others. All of the parts are interconnected. Examples of systems include: You as a human being, your coaching client as a human system, the system that consists of you and your client interacting, the client’s organization and marketplace, and/or all of the above taken together.

Why is it important to coach from a systemic perspective?

There are two fundamental reasons that a systemic approach is critical to effective leadership coaching:

  1. We are, in fact, systems living in larger systems. As human beings we know we are part of a whole natural system. We are all interconnected. A systems perspective gives us access to the fullness of this interconnection. Systems thinking is a powerful way to understand ourselves, one another, and our world.
  2. The systems in which our clients live and work have a significant impact on their ability to achieve desired results. To serve them best, we need to help client leaders see how the forces in their internal and external systems influence their ability to create what they want and what they can do in their system to increase their success rate. If, as coaches, we do not take into account these broader and deeper systemic forces, we are ignoring huge areas of their lives, areas with forces that can greatly impede, or powerfully support their work as leaders.

What does coaching from a systems perspective include?

Coaching most broadly and deeply (coaching systemically) means being aware of three worlds and how they interplay to produce outcomes:

  1. The Face-to Face-World—our interactions with our client, and their face-to-face interactions with other key people.
  2. The Larger External World, for example our client’s organization, their business, their customers, and their marketplace.
  3. The Deeper Internal World: How/what our client leaders think and feel, their mental models/underlying assumptions, their deeper beliefs, and in some cases, their deep story.

Systemic coaching is about helping our clients “see” the key variables from these three worlds, how they interact, how they help or get in the way, and what our client leader can do to change the system in favor of their leadership vision and desired results.

A leadership coach also needs to have a deep understanding of his own internal and external worlds and how they play out in coaching relationships.

How, on a practical, can you coach from a systems perspective?

  1. Approach each phase your coaching work with the client’s (and your own) systems in mind. In each phase—entry, contracting, data collection, goal setting, action planning, and supporting implementation–ask, and help the client ask, “What are the key systemic variables we need to be paying attention to here?” For example, coaching from a systems perspective means having an understanding of the system around your client and how it may impact her. If you don’t have that information, you probably need to structure your assessment so that you gather some of it.
  2. Use your client’s goal as your entry point. Focus your systemic thinking on helping your client achieve her coaching goal rather on than on a broad analysis of the entire system. Focus on her goal and how her internal, external, and face- to-face systems influence her ability to achieve it. Help your client set his goals, create his action plans, and implement those plans in ways that take into account key systemic forces at play.
  3. Learn and use systemic tools in your coaching. There are many good tools out there that help us work with systems—for example, influence diagrams, causal loops, systems archetypes, the Butterfly model of Complex Human Systems, Jay Forrester’s systems dynamics out of MIT, and David Kantor’s Structural Dynamics.
  4. Help your client leader look for leverage. Nobody can take on everything. Work to identify the key systemic forces he can focus on to have the most impact.
  5. Always learn. Integrate and synthesize your systemic understanding and approaches through practice, practice, practice, combined with reflection, reflection, reflection.

Learning opportunity

Consider enrolling in an exciting new program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective. How do we increase our capacity for seeing and understanding systemic connections? How can we become more effective in dealing with the complexities of the systems in which we, and our clients, live and work? This three-day course, designed for practicing coaches, offers a basic grounding in modern systems theory and provides specific tools for seeing and understanding systems. We practice these during the program through a sequence of mutual coaching sessions. Participants consistently report that the program experience has taken their coaching work to a new and deeper level.

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Coaching from a Systems Perspective was developed by a group of senior coaches from the Coaching Community of Practice, Society for Organizational Learning. We call ourselves Systems Perspectives, LLC. You will find an overview of the program, dates, locations, and a contact person for each offering on our website: http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com. Upon completion of the program, 29 ICF CCEUs are available.

If you want to talk more about systemic coaching, how it can enhance your practice, and you can use it to help client leaders, feel free to contact me:

Steven P. Ober EdD
Office: 508.882.1025 Mobile: 978.590.4219
[email protected]

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Is the Day Before Vacation Your Most Productive Day of the Year?

Smiling businessman at his office desk

Have you ever noticed that the day before you leave for vacation is your most productive day of the year? From my perspective here are some reasons why we become “super efficient”. I suggest these strategies to my coaching clients who are getting ready for vacation – I trust they will help you, too.

Focus on essential priorities – create a sense of urgency to only focus on the things that absolutely need to get accomplished

Delegate or ask for help – find ways to get assistance for tasks that you cannot accomplish alone

Reschedule the non urgent tasks – tasks or meetings that are non-essential are slated for a later date or cancelled entirely

Understand the finite nature of time – respect your time – no procrastinating, “busy work”, reading junk emails, extra phone calls or unnecessary searching the web

Use block time – utilize uninterrupted periods of time to increase your efficiency

Have a plan – have a “do list” to follow – either on paper or in your mind. It is your “blueprint” for completion of the essential tasks

What do you do the day before vacation?

For more resources, see the Library topic Personal and Professional Coaching.

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Pam Solberg-Tapper MHSA, PCC – I spark savvy business leaders to fire up their cutting edge, be extraordinary and do great things for their world. How can I help you? Contact me at [email protected] ~ Linkedin ~ 218-340-3330

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Buy An Existing Business?

Man in suit reading a business paper

Can a nonprofit purchase a for-profit company and operate it as a social enterprise?

This question came up in a recent discussion on the npEnterprise Forum. Incidentally, npE is the official listserv partner of the Social Enterprise Alliance, and, with 7000+ global subscribers, has become the global commons for the social enterprise movement. Subscriptions are free and open to all. I’m one of the moderators.

OK, back to the above question. A lawyer (Arthur Rieman) replied: “In general, an exempt org that wants to engage in a transaction such as [this] can do so provided the transaction is properly structured and documented, on the one hand, and all of the relevant IRS and Attorney General (especially here in California) regulations are heeded. Depending on the actual facts of the situation, your legal counsel should be able to guide you and the organization’s Board of Directors through the processes necessary to make the transaction sufficiently transparent and in compliance with the relevant laws and rules should a regulator come knocking at your door.”

A foundation officer (Ken Ristine) replied (edited for length): “[This topic] demands particular attention to detail regarding how you structure such a deal. The question is, do you want to expose the nonprofit to the legal consequences of [potential product or practice] liability? Are your nonprofit board members willing to accept such a risk? In both cases the answer is probably No.

“One idea then is to structure the for-profit in such a way, say as a wholly-owned subsidiary, that it has its own formal corporate structure. That structure, including a separate board, creates a barrier between the for-profit and the nonprofit regarding issues such as operations, taxation, and liability. But, if the enterprise generates profit, all or part of the profit can flow to the nonprofit.

“This example is only a small look at what you have to deal with. You really need to get together with an attorney and accountant who understand these issues to hash out the details. You may need both someone with small business experience as well as another person who really knows the nonprofit law around structuring related organizations.”

So there you have it. Yes, your nonprofit (probably) can do it, but be sure to get good legal and accountant advice first.

Here’s a useful IRS web site on this: http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=96104,00.html

Copyright © 2010 Rolfe Larson Associates – Fifteenth Anniversary, 1995 – 2010
Author of Venture Forth! Endorsed by the late Paul Newman of Newman’s Own
Read my weekly blogs on Social Enterprise and Business Planning

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B is for Bliss

The word "bliss" printed on a ceramic mug

Many of you have probably heard the famous quote by Joseph Campbell to “follow your bliss.” So what is bliss? And how do you follow it, especially at work?

Ecstasy, paradise, heaven are a few of the synonyms used to describe bliss. I’ve heard bliss being described as the ultimate level or intense happiness. We all have had those moments of intense happiness when we feel true joy in all the cells of our body and being. When we are experiencing this blissful state we are fully alive and fully experiencing what makes us most happy. The challenge for many of us is being able to translate the feelings of bliss at work. How can we really do this?
Here is how I’m learning to do just that. If right now I had to put a face on bliss, it would be of my son, Garrett, who is 8 months old. He is pure bliss and emanates bliss from the inside out. Bliss is our natural state of being. It is what we are when we are born and what we can continue to access when we “just be it.” He teaches me how to follow bliss wherever I go pursuing whatever work is in front of me.
I’m learning how to get into the state of bliss more often while working. For me it’s easiest to do so late at night when it’s completely quiet while I’m inspired to write or create. I’m so present and in the moment that I don’t even realize that it’s 2am. I am completely just being and have become one with my work. It’s a blissful state. It’s like being what athletes might describe as the zone or experiencing the flow state.

Deepak Chopra in his book Creating Affluence: The A-Z Steps to a Richer Life, discusses the qualities of the unified field, the self – pure Being, which is the source of all abundance and affluence in the universe. He says that bliss is the most important quality of the unified field, which should not be confused with happiness. According to Chopra happiness is always for a reason. You are happy when you get something. But bliss is about being happy for no reason. “This bliss is where we come from; it is the nature of existence itself. In this state of pure bliss is the expression of pure love. It just radiates from you, like a light from a bonfire or dreams from a dreamer” And I would add like my son’s smile.

How are you following your bliss?

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Succession Planning: Is It a Staffing Matter? No

Business executives discussing about succession planning

Succession planning is one of the most important topics in nonprofit capacity building. That wasn’t the case even 10 years ago. Today, there’s more people moving from job to job, and a large number of baby boomers retiring. Effectively filling those open positions is critical to the success of the organization.

Unfortunately, succession planning is still done quite poorly — primarily because it’s too often seen as a matter of replacing a person, rather than organizational performance management. Those two perspectives produce very different ways to do succession planning.

(Unfortunately, performance management is too often viewed only as employee performance management, and not as organizational performance management — but that’s another blog post.)

Succession planning is a management function,
not a staffing crisis.

Establish Board-approved, up-to-date personnel policies

They should include guidelines and procedures about, e.g., staffing analysis, hiring, orienting, training and organizing employees; performance management; and compensation and benefits. Those policies not only ensure fair and equitable treatment of employees — they can minimize chances that you’d lose a lawsuit with an employee.

Here’s more about personnel policies.

Conduct relevant and realistic strategic and departmental planning

The planning clarifies the most appropriate priorities for the position to address. A position, or job role, is really a means to get something done in the organization — it’s means to achieve an overall goal or address an overall priority. Why fill a position that was not designed well in the first place? Only through useful planning will the organization know if the position is designed well.

Here’s more about strategic planning.

Conduct staffing analysis to identify most appropriate roles

Too often, job roles are developed in response to recurring crises in the workplace, to an increasing amount of work that is not getting done. Instead, roles should be identified near the end of strategic planning when clarifying what expertise is needed to achieve goals. The analysis should produce up-to-date, relevant job descriptions. (There are many who assert that job descriptions are no longer a useful management tool — that’s another blog post.)

Here’s more information about staffing analysis.

Use suitable practices of employee performance management

These practices should be done regardless of whether the employee is leaving or not. They include:

  • Establishing performance goals in reference to the employee’s job description and priorities for the year
  • Techniques for effective delegation, not just work direction
  • Getting up-to-date descriptions from the employee about his priorities, issues, plans, etc.
  • Sharing useful feedback to continue to enhance the employee’s performance
  • Addressing performance issues when they occur (they might require training, providing more resources, getting more from the employee or firing the employee)

Here’s more about employee performance management.

Making sure all employees go on vacation

That forces the organization to learn about — and be able to do — the jobs when the employees are gone. A supervisor might not really know what his employees are actually doing to get the job done. Ironically, the better the supervisor is at delegating, the less the supervisor might know about the details of his employee’s job.

Succession planning is about developing and implementing a system, a practice of activities on a recurring basis. Then, when an employee leaves, the system almost naturally refills the position with the most suitable candidate.

Here’s more resources about succession planning.

What do you think?

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For more resources, see our Library topic Nonprofit Capacity Building.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

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How “Disconnected Conversations” Can Kill Consulting and Collaboration

A disconnected conversation between two work colleagues

Here’s an Example of a Disconnected Conversation

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine and I were talking about a particular consulting project. We just weren’t connecting in our conversation somehow — I kept repeating my points and he kept repeating his. It felt like we were disagreeing somehow, but neither of us were actually saying that we disagreed with the other. Still, we felt increasingly frustrated.

He kept asserting that the client’s CEO needed to show stronger leadership, including by being more participative.

I kept agreeing. I suggested one-on-one with his managers, ensuring time in staff meetings to hear from each manager, and using a technique for consensus when making decisions.

My friend didn’t seem convinced — and seemed even more frustrated. He asserted that the CEO needs to read “Servant Leadership” by Robert Greenleaf. I agreed.

My friend asserted that the CEO needs to do a better job of bringing out the best in his people. I agreed.

Results Versus Methods — We Should Talk About Both

Finally, it hit me — my friend was talking about overall outcomes, and I was talking about activities to achieve those outcomes. Although we both wanted the same thing, we were focusing on different aspects of that result.

I find this type of disconnected conversation occurs more than we realize, especially about grand topics, such as leadership, accountability, transparency and performance.

It’s most powerful and poignant to talk about outcomes. It can be boring and even tedious to talk about methods to achieve those outcomes.

But we owe it to our clients and ourselves to go beyond preaching at them about outcomes. That can get that from reading a book. We owe it to them to produce some relevant and realistic ideas about how to achieve those outcomes.

What do you think?

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For more resources, see the Library topics Consulting and Organizational Development.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.