Where does all the conflict come from? Nowadays people tend to believe that if you are not with me then you are against me, our communities are increasingly divided by conflict. Once we were used to “agree to disagree”, we would seek to understand and wouldn’t force our opinions on others.

Sharpening your listening skills can help you identify generalizations, deletions, and distortions that are not fact-based forms of using language, usually resulting from becoming more emotional and less rational.

Conflict can be good, there is no point in rushing to resolve or avoid it, create a platform to express challenges or grievances, this can spark a dialogue that encourages a better outcome than the original one desired.

 

Fieldwork this week: Think of your conflict as a ladder, place at the top of the ladder the fundamental conflict, take a step down and see what is below that? Keep repeating until you get to the point where you are both at the same level. How can you create a situation where both can win? Examine the conflict for the shared foundation and figure out where the blocks truly exist.

 

Quotes:

“Our opinions and ideas are not facts.”

“Often our adversaries in conflict share the same values as us but the expression of those values can be different.”

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

Coaching is an investment that should be reserved for the very best at your organization in the beginning. Once you have your leaders on board you can begin with the areas you most want to leverage. The target of Coaching is fulfilling potential, every top performer should engineer his days and time in the most strategic and important areas (not the urgent).

These are the main features of a good Coaching Program: -A Coaching Program allows for new pathways and identities to be created, challenges assumptions that have been treated as facts, and provides partnering for results. - The solutions are solely the client’s, poor coaching slips into giving advice. - Each Coaching Program should have a center of excellence, in order to keep the standards of the program high. - Coaching needs continuity, it shouldn’t be a temporary endeavor based on the leader’s passion. - Tracking a coaching program is crucial to know its impact.

 

Fieldwork for this week: Begin with the end in mind for your Coaching Program. Ask yourself: What is that your Coaching Program wants to achieve? Consider the most important piece of your organization, are they capable of more? Could they be more strategic? Could they achieve more? Consider coaching as a tool to achieve that improvement.

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

Why consider coaching? Coaching is an investment and a tool to solve problems, it can help you accomplish your goals faster with long-lasting results and more permanently. Coaching surpasses the “what” and takes us deeply to the “why” we do what we do, coaching works on identities, values, behaviors, and habits. 

The Bottoms Up approach starts from the lower levels of an organization, its greatest benefit is that the people who really want it can apply it immediately to their everyday work. Another method is the Tops Down which is much faster once executives experience coaching and recognize the benefits for lower levels employees. A third approach is directed to a Targeted Segment of the population who might be struggling and finally, the fourth area is the Center of Excellence Approach, an area that keeps the standards, policies,  and methodologies of the coaching program and shares these practices across many areas of an organization. All four approaches are successfully proven methods for beginning your coaching program. 

 

Fieldwork this week: In order to be able to identify the real problem you need to make sure you are asking the right questions. Practice these questions: What is the real issue here? If I solve this, how long will this solution last? What would be the permanent fix to this challenge? Who do I have to be to adhere to this permanent fix? What would I have to believe for this to be true?

 

Mentioned in today’s episode:

Bridge’s Transition Model 

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

Coaching can take place in many forms, but there are three main forms:

• External: External coaches are not employed by the company they are providing coaching for. In this case, the executives are usually receiving the coaching. The focus is often on modifying behaviors and habits. This coaching can last from 1 to 2 years. Advantages: Coaches have a wider perspective from companies in related and unrelated fields, these coaches are not influenced by the company’s politics, they also have the distance to ask fundamental questions without making assumptions. Disadvantages: Not knowing the history of the culture of the organization from the inside.
• Internal: People employed by the company they coach for. Many organizations take proven leaders with emotional intelligence and a passion for people and send them to become professionally trained coaches. They often focus on the levels of director and below ensuring there is not a conflict of interests in the topics executives are raising. Advantage: Already knowing the culture in the organization and being respected by their peers.
• Leaders with coaching skills: Leaders who have some professional coach training and use their skills as part of their role vs conducting formal coaching engagement. Advantages: The benefits of coaching are reflected in everyday interactions. Disadvantage: Leaders have to have experience coaching themselves to really get it and avoid leaning towards “advising”. The formal aspect of coaching is missing.

 

Fieldwork this week: The Coaching Agreement is much like a contract where the coach and the client agree to a topic, the desired outcome, and the coach asks questions based on what the client has offered that help them arrive at that outcome. The client determines what the agenda will be.  Try to have an agreement for each meeting you have this week.

 

Mentioned in today’s episode:

Coach Culture: A Playbook for Winning in Business, Shawna Corden

 

Quotes:

“Coaching is a champion problem-solver, it accelerates change with action aligned with purpose.”

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

What is coaching? Coaching is a way to bring out the best in others whether it is performance, career, or sports coaching, the focus is to develop someone’s strengths to perform at their best. A Coaching Culture is when coaching is part of everyone’s role, where everyone tries to be kind, honest, and the best version of themselves.

Organizations are constructed with policies, habits, and behaviors that look and feel like coaching. These habits are about being curious (the opposite of judgment), assuming positive intent and realizing when the intent did not match the impact, growing, asking good questions, creating, designing, measuring, adjusting, and building relationships (not transactions).

The experience of the Coaching Culture improves leadership, clarity, communication, and decision making, it builds employees' resilience and engagement.

 

Fieldwork this week: Take the Coaching Assessment for Leaders to evaluate the presence of a coaching culture in elements of the areas of leadership, engagement, retention, and fundamentals.

 

Mentioned in this episode:

Listen to What is the Coach Approach?

Retreats that Work

The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us, Daniel H. Pink

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

What is the best version of ourselves? It is the one that is energized, sincere, and egoless, that version that is quite content with everyone being themselves, recognizes the gifts of others, and is happy to share its own talents. This version of ourselves is also ready to try new things and believes in the fact that jealousy has no place because there is enough for all. To achieve this you need to know yourself, your personal mission, passions, and respect what is unique about you.

 

Fieldwork this week: If you want to be the best version of yourself, book a DISC workshop, virtual and in-person versions are available.

 

Learn more about the DISC Assessment

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

How do we discover gifts and strengths? Most of the time, they are related to our values, and in other cases, it is simply something we excel at without much effort and enjoying the process. While searching for your own gifts you can ask yourself: 

• What are the consistent things that people tell me I am good at?
• What are you naturally good at?

These answers will help you reveal your essence and help you focus on the activities you perform better and amplify them to the highest potential in your personal performance.

 

Fieldwork this week: Visit Gallup’s website and take the StrengthsFinder Assessment. Draw a pie chart with the major activities you perform in your role, how satisfying is each slice of the pie for you? Can you overlay your strengths and gifts with the pie? Create a plan to move to a more satisfying pie!

 

Mentioned in today’s episode:

Check out The Do’s and Dont’s of A Grief Anniversary on Ken Druck’s Website.

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

What is Flow? Is that magical state where you are so engrossed in what you are doing, that the time flies! What is the relationship between flow and engagement? We are at the best of our productivity when we are flowing, not only because we are highly focused but we are also enjoying ourselves.

You are in a state of flow when you are present and in the moment, you are clear about the purpose of your actions, you lack self-consciousness, have a sense of personal control, time flies, and what you are doing is intrinsically rewarding. Coaching can influence each and every one of these factors that make flowing possible. Listen to today’s episode to find how leaders can foster a team environment that encourages flow.

 

Fieldwork this week: Eliminating obstacles: The practice of removing obstacles that prevent work from being completed. Employees should be able to ask for what they need and gets in the way of flow. Create good habits that feed you and make work a joy!

 

Mentioned in this episode:

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

Engagement is defined as productivity, profitability, and retention, it is a key component of every successful company. In today’s episode, I share how to measure engagement using Gallup’s tool called the Q12 and explain the three aspects that truly keep employees motivated: purpose, mastery, and autonomy.  Engagement is what makes us pay attention and give our intention to time and effort, it’s what drives us to get smarter, learn more, take risks, grow and endure discomfort through challenges. Remember that caring about employee engagement is the way to increase productivity.

 

Fieldwork this week: I encourage you to take a look at Daniel’s Pink TED Talk on Drive, reflect and put some of the learned skills into action.

 

Mentioned in today’s episode:

Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel H. Pink

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com

There are two overarching themes involved in every productive conversation, one is partnership (a conversation cannot be one-sided) and the other is being (you need to be present in the moment of the conversation). The intention of a conversation needs to be identified as well as the topic and the expected outcome. Decisions are led by a commitment, that points that we are ready for accountability.

Fieldwork this week:  Begin with the end in mind. The third of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey). Dream out the ideal of your work environment, once you have the full picture, engage all the images, sounds, and smells, break it down! Include values, operating procedures in place, characteristics of the staff, and what is the environment made up of. Repeat this process for all the areas in your life.

 

Mentioned in today’s show: 

Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, Mark Murphy

 

The Four Tendencies:  The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too), Gretchen Rubin

 

Goal Setting Tips to Create an Extraordinary Life, Jack Canfield

 

Have a question for me? Email me: [email protected]

 

My mission is to make work fun again by building better leaders. Find out more on my website: shawnacorden.com