Playbook For Performance

We're in the middle of our 20-week challenge to build your resilience. So what is resilience? Resilience means that when times get tough, you bend instead of break. And how do we build resilience? We build a strong foundation. To do that, we've got 20 weeks of tips and tricks that will help you take action, and build that resilience. This week, we're talking about simplifying your life. Right now, it's the holiday season when I'm recording this and things are really busy. We've got a lot of schedules that are quite full. There are a lot of obligations because the school year is ending. Things like that. So we have to be choosy so we don't burn out. What's burnout? Burnout is when our demands exceed our capacity. And this is a very common time for people to have burnout because they're trying to make a year-end push, whether it's work quotas, sales quotas just general additional activity. So one of the best things we can do is just simplify our life, and that means, in a drastic sense, cutting 50% of what's in there. What are 50% of the things that you could cut?

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

LIVE IN THE MOMENT

- Avoid dwelling on the past

- Avoid speculating on the future

- Media influence

Don't Forget:

- Rising tide lifts all boats.

- Grow together

- Theme sheet at our site

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

Book and lunch and learn:

[email protected]

Grab your PDF copy of the Theme Planning Sheet

#20weekChallenge #resilience

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xwJKoN6Wr_f8gORDvKfUpoJdccJUs8Ty/view?usp=share_link

When we talk about resilience, we really mean that we want you to be flexible and bend like a willow does in the wind versus break like an oak. We've had some tough times making strong people. But if you feel like maybe you're not as strong as you'd like to be, this is a great way to build that. So let's get started on today's lesson, 10 daily habits. If you are a listener, you've probably heard me refer to a couple of books in the past. One is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhig. The second is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Those are both excellent books that talk about how habits work. There's a cue, there's a routine, and there's a reward. So the cue might be your alarm going off, the routine is getting outta bed, and the reward is hopefully getting excited about your day. So that's a good example of that. Now, we all have habits that we conduct each and every day.  Most of our habits are what we call automatic. We've done them so many times, we really don't think about it.

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

CONSIDER ENRICHMENT

- Celebratory items

- Rituals

- Previous successes

- Positive change

Don't Forget:

- Rising tide lifts all boats.

- Grow together

- Theme sheet at our site

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

Book and lunch and learn:

[email protected]

Grab your PDF copy of the Theme Planning Sheet

#20weekChallenge #resilience

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xwJKoN6Wr_f8gORDvKfUpoJdccJUs8Ty/view?usp=share_link

Part of making work fun again has to do with building our personal resilience. As you've heard me say in our previous podcast, three things determine a successful change effort, first has to do with leadership, leading yourself and others. Second is communication, being clear and succinct with expectations. And then, finally, personal resilience. How do we build resilience? Well, we need to be well grounded and have our act together. So this is part of our 20-week challenge. We're helping people build their resilience, and it’s free to join.

This week, we're talking about clearing the past. Well, what does that mean? Well, it's this idea that sometimes we have things anchoring us, slowing us down, acting as a burden when we don't need that extra baggage. It's kinda like hauling around something that doesn't have a handle. It's kind of heavy, and not very fun to carry.

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

LIST THE BAGGAGE:

- What's your goal for this week?

- Carry it all 20 weeks?

- Reward/Consequence

Don't Forget:

- Rising tide lifts all boats.

- Grow together

- Theme sheet at our site

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

Book and lunch and learn:

[email protected]

Grab your PDF copy of the Theme Planning Sheet

#20weekChallenge #resilience

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xwJKoN6Wr_f8gORDvKfUpoJdccJUs8Ty/view?usp=share_link

This month, our theme is about planning 2023 to build your resilience. So the mission is to make work fun again and work is not fun. If we're depleted and we feel like we don't have any energy, we know that success in a change effort is really dependent upon good leadership. That means leading ourselves and others. It means good communication. Are we being clear about the vision, expectations, et cetera? And the third piece is really about resilience. That's why we're tackling this 20-week challenge to help build people's resilience. It's free to join each week. There's gonna be a new video out on YouTube for you to join along. There's a theme sheet that goes along with that and that theme sheet helps you structure the goal for each week. Then what your reward is if you meet your goal, and what the consequences are if you don't meet the goal.

This week, we are discussing one of the 20 lessons in planning your 2023 to build resilience, and that is "tolerations". So what's toleration? Think about the term tolerating. It's like I am putting up with a blank. This could be friends, could be your environment, could be your income level, it could be settling.

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

LIST YOUR TOLERATIONS:

- What's your goal for this week?

- Carry it all 20 weeks?

- Reward/Consequence

Don't Forget:

- Rising tide lifts all boat.

- Grow together

- Theme sheet at our site

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

Book and lunch and learn:

[email protected]

Grab your PDF copy of the Theme Planning Sheet

#20weekChallenge #resilience

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xwJKoN6Wr_f8gORDvKfUpoJdccJUs8Ty/view?usp=share_link

This month's theme is about planning 2023 and here's how we got there. There are three things that really affect the success of a change effort. And since we're all going through change pretty dramatically, I thought we'd hit those. Those are leadership, communication, and employee resilience. I've talked about the first two a fair amount. I haven't talked about resilience a whole ton, but one of the things that I have done in my history to make work fun again is helping people build their personal foundation.  I've put 150,000 people through this class over the many years I've been teaching it and I'm inviting all of you to join along. It's my favorite class to teach and I think there's so much we can get out of it. So let's get started. So when we come to building your resilience, we don't want it to feel like a must checklist. We really want this to be fed from your personal preferences and your tendencies. And we want to create these habits quite easily. And so the very first step that we're gonna start with is planning your theme. So the first thing we wanna do is review your 2022 so far, what do you want more of and what do you want less of?

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

Book and lunch and learn:

[email protected]

Grab your PDF copy for your Theme Planning 

#20weekChallenge #resilience

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xwJKoN6Wr_f8gORDvKfUpoJdccJUs8Ty/view?usp=share_link

Today, we're going to be talking about the scary outcomes in the gist of Halloween. The scary outcomes of a polarized society. So let's get started. So what's so scary about it? Well, all humans have a need for certainty. They also have a need for novelty, but when we are in a polarized society, we are requiring that things be certain, so that reduces the tolerance for novelty, for surprises, for things that are different and things get pretty boring when everything's predictable and inevitable. Number two, we only have room for the like-minded. So our circles get smaller and smaller.

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

SPREAD THE WORD

- If you're like me- and fear the effects of Polarization- spread the word and socialize the need to grow our skills of prevention!

- What do you need to help? I'm here to speak to your organization, team, or workgroup.

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

Book and lunch and learn:

[email protected]

Preventing polarization really requires good listening. So what's your skill level in listening? Are you a decent listener? Are you a half-listener? What's the purpose of your listening? What are you listening for? So in the case of listening, we are really looking for people to understand more than the words that are being said. 

Listen to this week's podcast on building good skills in listening.

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

PRACTICE LISTENING:

- With a trusted colleague

- Record a Zoom Call

- Collect the transcript

- What was the theme of the conversation in 5 words?

What was the emotion of the speaker? Where are they coming from? Where did they start? How did they end?

- And if you could sum it up in one word, what would that word be?

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

 This week, we are talking about skill development to prevent polarization. One of the best things that we can do to prevent polarization is to ask really good questions and asking good questions is a skill. It's something that we need to practice and as a coach, a faculty member who teaches aspiring professional coaches, an instructor, and a coach who mentors leaders on asking good coaches and using coaching skills in their management, it's something that I work with regularly. And there are people who ask really good questions and people who do not. So let's get into it. Preventing polarization really requires asking good questions. What is the purpose of your question? Are you asking questions to collect information or are you asking questions to advance an agenda? So if you're in a meeting, whether it's a one-on-one, whether it's a group meeting, you usually have an agenda. You have an objective that you're trying to reach in the meeting.

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

PRACTICE QUESTIONING:

- With a trusted colleague

- Record a Zoom Call

- Collect the transcript

-Review your questions- Rewrite them

-Breathe

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

Today, specifically, we're going to talk about, okay, you had the polarizing conversation and you're separated, so now what, what are you gonna do about it? Well, let's analyze. It might be a good or a bad thing. Let's find out. Last week, we talked about the example of being in the midst of a polarizing conversation, trying to understand the other party and we use the example of gun control and opinions about guns. So let's continue with that example. So you're separated. You had this fallout with your friend, they're pro-gun and you're anti-gun et cetera. What do you do now? Well, the first thing that you can do is project the outcome. Now, this is a great little tool that came from Suzy Welch, and I think she even had a book by the same title called The 10, 10, 10 rule.

And here's how works. You want to basically conflate what will happen 10 hours from now, 10 months from now, and 10 years from now.

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

We want you to really go through this analysis to recognize that the “who of a person” is more important than the “what of a person”.

The Who is our essence- our values, boundaries, needs standards-adjusting this helps everything

The What is the packaging- your demographics- adjusting this doesn't make a huge shift...

Where will you invest?

Of course, I want you to invest in the who. Who will this require you to be?

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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

 Today, specifically, we're going to be talking about what to do in the midst of a polarizing conversation.

So you found yourself in this conversation and you're like, oh crap, how did I get here? And what are we going to do about it? How do I either exit the stage gracefully, or if I really am invested in this person, and I want to make sure that I continue my relationship with them. What are the things that I can do while I'm here to help you out? So let's get started. 

Some people find themselves caught in the middle of this polarizing conversation. So what do you do? Well, first things first, listen, without interrupting. This shows that you respect the other person and you are respecting their right to have their own opinion, even though it may differ from your own. We also want to ask questions to which we don't know the answers. This is not a debate club. You are not trying to convince them. I would bet big money, no matter how prepared you are. You never going to convince this other person. They have arrived at their beliefs over a period of time. And they have data that supports how they think. So start to get curious, and ask questions to which you do not know the answers.

Fieldwork this week:

We assigned fieldwork because coaching without action is just entertainment.

Choose a non-threatening topic. Should there be mountain Dew in the break room on tap? That's probably non-threatening for 99% of us, right? Have the previous page checklist handy. Okay. If, if you're listening to the podcast, you can go out to our YouTube channel and take a screenshot. Where do you struggle in those 10 steps? Is it to ask questions that you don't know the answers to? Is it something else? And what's natural to that is the further something is from your natural tendencies, you have to be more, you have to practice, it's just like being flexible. If you can't touch your toes naturally, you know that you need to warm up, you have to practice. And it's okay to say that out loud.

It shows that you're trying, but do acknowledge that your partner is important to you to be able to have a conversation that allows you to grow, learn new things, and not be that guy that we talked about in the podcast 10 episodes ago. You don't want to be that person. Making this effort doesn't mean it's perfect. Doesn't mean that you guys are going to be happy at the end of the conversation, but hopefully, you'll shake hands. You'll bump this, whatever it is, and you're going to say, thanks for engaging with me. I felt like this made me a better person to practice this.

And that's it for this week. I hope you found these tips helpful.

Have a question for me? Please email me: at  [email protected]

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