Change 1 “I am…” And You Can Change It All!

In the past hour, did you use “I am…” in a sentence? In your thoughts? In a conversation? What was the rest of that sentence?

Pause what you’re doing. Lean back in your chair and repeat that sentence out loud again. Feel what it feels like throughout your body when you see everything through that world-view.

Now, reword it. Say it out loud with the new start to the sentence.

“A part of me…”

Notice what shifts in your world when you reframe that idea.

January 29, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Inspiration | 1 Comment 

HOW’S THAT LABEL WORKING FOR YOU?

The Simple Power of Changing Perspective.
By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst” 

I confess, in the 1970s one of my favorite songs was sung by Neil Diamond. Every time the song played on the radio I wailed along with him “I AM I CRIED…” It spoke to what was churning in me at that stage in my life, uncertainty over who I actually was, looking for a voice. 

I didn’t give much thought to it beyond that. And I didn’t give much thought to the phrase ‘I am” and all the ways it showed up in daily speech, for many years.

Then along came self-actualization courses, growth programs, personal development gurus. Each of these offered new ways of standing in front of a mirror, figurative or literal, and learning techniques to shift self perception. To change the words that follow the “I am…” of identity in order to offer me new opportunities, possibilities, and options for my present identity and future life.

I’ve loved immersing myself in every single one of them. But frankly, I’m always taking in tools and techniques so I can take them to my clients, and those particular tools often required hours, days and even weeks of attention. Not easy to translate into a discussion with a client.

This past week, one of my busy, overworked clients looked me dead in the eye and said fiercely and militantly “I’m rotten at managing.”

We were discussing the poor performance of one of his new hires; a young woman with little work experience who was having a hard time learning how to follow through on assignments he gave her. He was tense and frustrated and angry at her for needing repeated time and attention from him. He wanted a good fight and it might as well be with me. She was making him ‘work’ at managing, and he expected I was going to as well.

So I asked, “Do you mean you’ve tried to manage, with poor results, or you can’t be bothered to try?”

He paused. Well, let’s call it a pause. He took a deep breath and said “I am …” and I interrupted him before he finished the sentence.

I pulled out the big guns – the howitzer of consulting and coaching, the well aimed powerhouse tool … Actually, I slipped in under his radar - I interrupted him.

“A part of me…”

I spoke it right over his voice and he stopped without finishing the sentence.

“What?”

I repeated it. “A part of me…”

“A part of me, what?”

“Reword that sentence - A part of me is rotten at managing.”

He sat there facing me, in silence, letting the words and their implications settle in.

“You can hang on to that label, and make yourself right. Or you can recognize it’s only a part of you and open up the world of options.” I offered.

That simple change in wording gave him a choice. He could choose between different realities and insist that ‘all of him’ was rotten at something, and be darned proud of it. Or he could declare that his effort had been lacking. Or that some portion of himself might be rotten. But that last one left a whole lot of himself that might have never actually been given a chance to show what it might do by way of managing.

And he sat there in the choice. He’d hired me to help him get new results. And in that moment he was faced with the fact that the results he was getting were due to the identity he was fiercely and proudly holding onto. Being rotten at managing meant the solution would have to come from elsewhere, not him. His consultant was going to have to solve this enormous, insurmountable problem for him!

“Try it,” I said. “A part of me…”

“A part of me doesn’t want to spend all the time managing takes. It’s distracting me from getting stuff done.”

He changed the issue itself right then and there. And by shifting his certainty and identity, the challenge melted away, the guns were rolled back, the battle melted out of existence.

“OK. So let me show you a simple, efficient way to walk her through the assignment that will get her on track and get you up a level in managing.”

And he did. And I did. And she did. And a part of him is.

What about you?

© 2007 Linda Feinholz.

January 26, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Inspiration | Leave a Comment 

Change 1 Habit And You Can Change It All!

Do you know what pattern you use with opportunities? The approach you typically use when it comes to moving into action towards the goals you say you want to achieve?

“Grab it - Solve it - Miss it?”

You have 3 choices. You can take advantage of clear opportunity, or wait until it’s showing up as trouble, or let it pass you by altogether  – it’s your choice!

Set aside 10 minutes today to make a list of the last 10 opportunities you missed the 10 you solved once they were trouble. Now figure out what it’s cost you.

It’s time to figure the first action you’ll take to identify the opportunities this coming year so you won’t have to sit around hoping for those infamous “accidental successes!”

January 22, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Productivity Tools, Time Management | Leave a Comment 

3 Keys to Seizing Opportunities

Setting Yourself Up For Success In 2007

By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst”

As you look at last year, do you ever feel like there wasn’t enough time in the day? Did entire afternoons…and sometimes days…slip by without your even noticing? Were you “too” busy? And when you look ahead this year, does it feel like you might relive that?   

It’s not an uncommon sensation. But, it’s very familiarity creates a trap – it often stops my clients from taking control of their time to set themselves up for the deliberate actions their future success requires.

When I suggest setting aside committed time for managing success, some folks look at me like a deer in the headlights – frozen! Last week one of my clients asked, sincerely, “Really? You want me to meet with my direct reports weekly?”

I insisted. (We consultants and coaches get to do that!) And this week he reported back a discovery he’d made.

“It was amazing how much we got accomplished in 30 to 45 minutes. I realized that I’ve resisted holding meetings for the past 20 years because of how boring and useless they felt when I was a young lawyer and I was made to sit through meetings.”

In that 45 minutes he sorted out a work flow breakdown that had frustrated him no end and stopped forward progress… for the past 6 weeks!

Is it possible to be a successful business owner or leader without having and using management skills? Not really.

Calculate for yourself how much might have been accomplished with that one weekly meeting in the last 18 years… in your own firm or department. How much greater success went missing?

Never mind. What’s passed is past.

Now for going forward: I developed a system for managing the challenges that have you stalled, and I’d like to share it with you. It’s not only efficient, it’s easy!

“Shift” Your Attention - The first secret to getting un-stalled is to shift your focus away from the breakdown itself. Do you have a colleague who isn’t following through on a commitment? A staff member who just never does a thorough job? Or too many choices for how to proceed? Are you having fun stewing about it? Carry On!

Or, declare that the way you’ve been dodging dealing with it isn’t letting you make headway.

Start fresh by shifting your attention off of what is stymied right now, back to the larger picture – the goal. Ask yourself what the purpose of the project, effort, or work task is. Notice I said “Is” and not “Was.”

Don’t assume that this effort was kicked-off well in the first place. Take a fresh look at what you now want to accomplish. What specific, measurable, observable result is all the effort supposed to be targeting? Write it down in plain language that anyone could understand.

One of my attorney clients, “Mike” has been frustrated at the gaps in thinking one of the junior attorneys has produced. His words to me were “I asked for his recommendation. He’s not backing up his recommendation thoroughly enough, so I have to do too much re-work.” After I probed further, he was able to list 15 steps he wants to know have been researched, thought through, analyzed, challenged, and so on before that recommendation is brought to him for review. That’s the result he wants, not the ‘recommendation’ he told his new attorney when he gave him the assignment.

Plan It in Reverse - After I choose a goal, I develop a specific action plan to accomplish it. The trick is to work from the goal, backwards to where you are now, and layout the plan as a road map of steps to be taken to get there.

For Mike, that meant designing how he’ll ‘know’ when the goal is achieved… before that, how he’ll remove any obstacles from the younger attorney’s path to that goal, and what tools he needs to provide so that he can achieve it… and before that, how he’ll walk the attorney through the steps he’s expecting to see him take so there’s no confusion…

Put It In Action – Discussing the reverse plan is all fine and good, but you must take action on this, too!

For instance with Mike, we developed the check-list he’ll be using to evaluate whether the work was done to his satisfaction. Then we developed the reference tools he’ll make sure are available to be used in the research. Then we scripted the conversation he’s going to have to kick-off the work from a fresh start.

We’ve even found an additional use for this material – it’s going to give Mike the case study outline he’ll be using as he interviews new attorney’s he brings on board, so he’ll know how they approach similar types of work, and he’ll know what development and management needs there will be if he hires them.

With these 3 steps, you’ll give yourself a fresh start for the year and be accelerating your results effectively, efficiently and successfully!

© 2007 Linda Feinholz.

January 18, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Inspiration, Time Management | 1 Comment 

Change 1 Objective And You Can Change It All!

There’s nothing worse than chasing old objectives just because they were ‘decided on’ in the past.

Wasting your resources working toward an objective that no longer fits the marketplace isn’t using your time, effort, or intelligence in ways that will give you the return you deserve! You’re letting potential rewards slip through your fingers.

If you want to aim for the 50% higher returns that private equity firms are getting, you don’t have to wait for new investors to stimulate new thinking about what will direct every effort in your organization.

Set aside 1 hour this week to explore what’s changed in your world and ask

“What NEW objective needs to be set to get us to our Vision?”

January 15, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Inspiration, Processes | Leave a Comment 

The “Action!” Trap

Learn from the Private Equity Experts!
By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst”

Nike advertising says “Just do it!”

Coaches everywhere bombard their clients with “What steps are you taking this week?”

The army lining the hills in Monty Python’s movie The Life of Brian shouts “Get on with it!”

And they’re not wrong. I’ve said all of those things myself… and I will again.

But I come from four different meetings in the past few days where clients were in full out “action” mode… and couldn’t tell me what the specific goals were for all that effort.

Regardless of whether you’re an independent professional, a leader in a corporation, or owner of a business, here’s information that should give you pause.

Investors in private-equity deals averaged 22.5% returns on their investment in the 12-months ending last June, while the S&P 500 returned 6.6%… over the past 10 years that return was 11.4% versus 6.6%; over the past 20 years it’s been 14.2% versus 9.8%.

Return on investment means return on time, money, elbow grease – everything that’s put into a business. So how would you calculate the return on effort you’re getting from your own “investment?”

The seldom-discussed reason for the difference in returns is the difference in management strategies used in these two arenas. And it begins with the fundamentals of managing – regardless of the size of the business.

The starting point in private equity firms is in setting specific objectives. Often, new objectives are set when new investors come on board. With new investors come new experience and new insights to help refresh the thinking of the management team. New ideas from people standing in a new line of sight on the industry, competitors, customers.

Although private investors are often looking at their three to five year exit strategy as they walk in the front door, it’s a perspective that keeps attention on how every effort is increasing or diverting the value of the business.

Every business decision, every operations and management choice is deliberately aligned with that objective.

Every activity throughout the business is in turn evaluated for how well it’s moving the company’s efforts toward those results… and redesigned to be sure it IS!

And the result is 50% higher returns on that investment of… time… money… resources!

The objective set by one of my law firm clients is to double net income in five years. That objective leads to a list of decisions that need to be made regarding: which client work to take on and which to turn away; what legal staff to bring in to do the work; what support staff and infrastructure are needed; and what new management skills have to be honed to manage that effort.

Having all of that laid out first, before leaping into ‘Action!” by hiring the wrong experience, moving to the wrong space and neglecting managing the resources already on board, is having a direct result - streamlining his daily decision making, eliminating two lines of low margin legal work commonly taken on, and setting clear directions for his marketing.

And productivity? Stripping out fully one-half of the daily confusion and stress he and his people were working under focused their concentration and accelerated the work results in the span of two days. He’s targeting that 50% boost in returns.

Whether you run your own business, manage a department of a larger organization, or staff a project, take a lesson from the private equity world and set clear objectives first. Then put on your Nikes and go for it!

January 12, 2007 | Filed Under Processes, Time Management | Leave a Comment 

POKER & PASSION

The Power of a Perfect Question
By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst”

There are times in life that seem to naturally give us the opportunity for self-reflection. I don’t mean the big life events of births, deaths, graduations, weddings, and so on. In fact, I’ve been to many of those, as I expect you have too, and I find they breed the usual reflections over and over… “What’s the meaning of my life and how am I doing against my idea of what it ought to be?” and so on.  

And there are the ‘normal’ questions that work so powerfully with my consulting clients - “What is working well, and what could be working better?” These questions open the floodgates for folks who haven’t had a moment to stop and look at what is going on in their business and their life. They create the opportunity to reshape our efforts and achieve new and different results. I’ll come back to those questions over and over in my coaching and writing and offer you plenty of chances to use them. But today I offer you another type of moment.

I’m talking about the unusual events that we’re not expecting and so they slide in under our radar and some of us catch them, and some of us miss them altogether.

For me, one particular occasion was a family dinner at the change of season called the “new” year. A group of us had decided to have dinner together and in the middle of passing chicken and veggies back and forth, someone posed the question

“What gives you ’sheer delight’?”

“You know, ” she said. “The type of thing that makes you hum, makes you feel great and makes you appreciate the place you’re in and the thing you’re doing.”

Her own answer was “Singing.” She had a busy life, a successful career doing work she loved. The question made her realize how empty one quiet corner of her life was for the lack of time spent singing. She missed using her voice to create beautiful sound, the challenge of mastering notes some composer had laid out, voicing in combination with others. With that discovery, she got involved in a choir. No dramatic change of career, no upheaval of life. Yet the realization that there was a missing activity that added spice to the rest of her life was profound for her.

My answer worked its way up and spoke itself with quiet simplicity.

At that point in my life I’d lived overseas twice, worked in other cities, traveled widely, changed jobs at least five times. If the question had been worded “Someone, tell me what gives Linda ’sheer delight’.” the answer from the folks around the table would likely have been “Travel!” or “Fixing problems!”

And they would have been off base. Those are among my gifts, my expertise and my enormous satisfaction. But not at the heart of the matter. My answer?

“Great conversations!”

What gives me intense joy is being engaged in conversations, ones that raise new ideas for me, that create energy with the person I’m in conversation with, information that shifts my perspective and adds new resources to the Mary Poppins kit bag I carry in my mind. It doesn’t matter the subject or location. A side benefit of those conversations is in the rich problem-solving that can take place.

And understanding that distinction changed my life.

I realized by voicing my answer, that the consulting I was doing at that time was boring me. It was analytical work resulting in written reports presented to appreciative clients. It didn’t matter that I have a very analytical mind and I was identifying critical issues and valuable solutions effectively for my clients. And, it wasn’t making me smile when I got out of bed on Tuesday mornings.

We’re all so used to putting on our poker face and carrying on that we forget to look inside ourselves. My discovery that I could name what made me hum allowed me to take a fresh look at how to incorporate great conversations in the foreground, on purpose, in my daily life. And that led to changing the form and the content of the work that I do in my consulting and coaching. I now build in an emphasis on conversations where ideas and visions and goals are up on the table, assumptions get challenged, new perspectives and approaches are offered toward achieving results more effectively. All things considered in order to shape new successes.

The results speak for themselves. I get calls and letters telling me that the question I posed to a client, the idea I shared in a conversation, the approach I used for running a meeting or facilitating a management retreat changed someone’s perspective, their internal assumptions, their know how, and their results in their work and life.

Building my life around my sheer delight has helped me create a six-figure income, relationships with people looking to increase the effectiveness of their efforts in their professional and personal worlds, and has me smiling when I wake up on Tuesday mornings.

Being inspired by sheer delight has had the same result in the lives of others who have looked behind their own poker face for their passion. What might you create with yours?

 

January 5, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Productivity Tools | 2 Comments