Building Relationships

So, recent events have really brought home for me the need to focus on creating long-term relationships based on mutual respect.

As a business owner, I am constantly forming new relationships -- clients, suppliers, business partners. This have been fabulously enlightening. I would assume that being that I am a rational, decent person who runs my business with integrity, these relationships would all be productive. Not so.

I have to say, the relationships I have had with my clients have been fantastic. Ironic, isn't it? They are the ones paying me directly for a service, yet all of these relationships have been very positive and productive. Really a delight. And I reach out to them from time-to-time just to touch base, or to share articles or referrals.

Business partners have been a mixed bag. With the exception of one relationship, all of these partnerships have struggled down the stretch. A lack of goal alignment seems to be at play here.

The most interesting situation has been with suppliers. I literally have to track down the suppliers that I work with to get them to engage with me... and I am paying them! They don't return calls, frequently make mistakes, and only contact me when they want to sell me something. I receive no ongoing communications, business ideas, or check-ins. I found this post from Seth Godin to address this sentiment: This must be hard.

For those of you who provide services to others -- what have you done for your customers lately?

Time Is On Your Side

In business and in life, we show up late, cancel at the last minute, or don't show up at all for appointments and meetings.

Sometimes, an urgent or important activity crops up at the eleventh hour, but more often it is simply someone's lack of planning that leads to the "miss."

We often actually start to blame time itself. "I don't have enough time!" we lament. "I lost track of time!" we cry; or my favorite "My time is not my own!"

When we take this passive approach to time we often end up off course -- in the wrong career, network, or relationship. When we simply see ourselves as a leaf adrift on the raging river of life, we cede our power to the current, not realizing that all we need to do is to grab a paddle and start paddling.

Are you ready to pick up a paddle and take back control of your time?

Tips for Making Your Time Your Own:

• Find A Paddle: Start by realizing where you need help. Select the physical tools you'll need, like a planner, an electronic calendar, or a PDA.



• Navigate: Figure out where you're headed. What will taking control of your time give you? Perhaps you will have more time to work out, to spend time with family, or to pursue a personal passion. I have one friend who won't compromise on her weekly volleyball game -- which activity is sacred to you?



• Hire A Sacagawea: Maybe you need help navigating. Hiring an assistant or using a virtual assistant can help you to protect your time and prioritize those things that are most important.



• Watch Out For the Reeds: Some meetings or appointments may be regularly unproductive for you, or may emotionally exhaust you. Get out your calendar and identify at least one commitment that is unnecessary or unproductive. Notify the meeting scheduler that you will not longer be attending.



• Focus On The Destination: What do you hope to accomplish by navigating the river? Perhaps you will improve your health, accomplish personal goals, or deepen important relationships.
  

When we regain control over our time, we often feel both relief and a sense of possibility -- we can get out of the panic of the moment and gain a new, long-term perspective.

Staggering Toward Greatness

Winning an Olympic Gold Medal is a dream for many, and a reality for a very few. We watch an athlete like Michael Phelps compete, and it almost looks effortless -- like something staged for our enjoyment. An athlete dreams, he trains, he wins gold!

In reality, most of us are more like Gabriele Andersen-Scheiss than Michael Phelps. Andersen-Scheiss is the female marathoner who staggered into the the Memorial Coliseum in LA in 1984 -- clearly exhausted, barely able to walk, and brushing off all attempts at help. And she finished the race. She didn't earn a medal, some might say she embarrassed herself, but she finished the Olympic marathon under her own power.

And I find that when we are moving toward "greatness" in our lives, however we define that for ourselves, that we are not running swiftly toward that goal, with styled hair, matching accessories and a clever quip on the tongue. We look more like Andersen-Scheiss, contorted and exhausted, but so very human.

Where in your life are you staggering? Where are you aware that what you are doing is unfamiliar, rough, or messy? Good news -- that is the very place where you are moving toward something better for yourself. You are not content to sit on the sidelines, either cheering on others or complaining about how no one has ever bought you the right running shoes.

I find in my work with my coaching clients that we often believe that change is easy -- whether one desires to find a new job, become a more balanced person, or invite love into their life. We believe that if we only put our mind to it, we could run that Olympic marathon tomorrow; so we set out with the best of intentions. Guess what happens? We cramp up in mile 6 and have to walk, or feel dizzy and have to stop, or someone trips us and we fall flat on the pavement. "How could this be?" we often ask. "I must be a failure!" we might say to ourselves.

Just run. And when you fall flat, get up and start running again. Or go buy better shoes, or talk to someone about how you could change your form. Or simply ask for someone to help you stand up. But just keep running.

For, in the words of actress Mary Pickford, "what we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down."

As long as you keep getting up and staggering forward, then greatness truly awaits you.

Bustin' Out of the Zone

The comfort zone, that is. It is interesting to imagine that our comfort zone is a physical place, a small room that is filled with the things that we love, a room that completely reflects our character, strengths, and values.

My zone would be painted a soothing light blue, filled with an aroma of achievement and silly jokes, and would be lined with shelves of half-read books on a variety of topics. Posters of my values would hang on the walls -- like "Integrity" with a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and "Loyalty" with a kitten curled up in an old man's lap.

What would be in your zone? What colors, objects, scents, and sounds? How big is your zone?

A more interesting question then becomes: what is outside your zone? When we stick to our comfort zone, we stay with the familiar. We eat the same foods, wear the same clothes, and talk to the same people. What are the things that you dislike or are afraid of? For me, choosing not to be part of an organized religion was part of my comfort zone and I now realize that this came at the expense of exploring my spirituality. Sticking with my comfort zone did not help me to grow in an important way.

Try and think of one simple thing that is outside your comfort zone -- something like stopping to talk to a neighbor you usually don't speak to or biting your tongue when someone says something that you don't agree with -- anything.

Try to do that one simple thing tomorrow. Can you feel your comfort zone expanding already?

Two Types of Skills Every Leader Needs

As a leader moves up in their career, two critical things begin to happen:

• Soft skills, such as persuasively selling one's ideas, motivating others, and setting organizational vision, become more important. These are often directly opposed to the functional skills that helped a manager to be successful earlier in their career.

• Latent skills, often things that a leader finds distasteful or unpleasant, become liabilities. These latent skills might include dealing with public speaking, conflict, or organizational politics.

It is essential for a leader to develop personal, authentic strategies to address these two important areas. I will look at each of them in turn on this blog.

Forgetting How to Fall

In an effort to learn a new skill and remain physically active, I’ve started taking adult figure skating lessons. Each week, five women and our coach take the ice and practice our basic skills. This week, we were practicing backward crossovers. We are all ringing a blue circle in the ice, focusing intently on moving our bodies in the proper way. Our bodies are hunched up, with our shoulders elevated and our fingers splayed wide, looking something like the zombies from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

Our furrowed brows and pursed lips show how hard we are trying… how hard we are trying not to fall. This strikes me as being in stark contrast with how my daughter and her friends are on the ice. In fact, it is not uncommon for a figure skater to fall 10 times in a 30-minute period. That is how they learn to execute the skills correctly, and ultimately how they learn not to fall.

As adults, many of us have forgotten how to fall. Why? It is likely a combination of ego and the fear of the physical pain that comes with falling. So we try desperately not to fall… moving our bodies and brains to ridiculous limits, simply not to look embarrassed. And then we stop trying new things.

In our careers, we are often looking to avoid situations in which we might fall. So we come up with excuses — I’m too busy, I forgot, I already now how to do it. Or, if we do fall, it was because the ice was bumpy, or that other guy got in our way, or we were distracted by all of the other things that were on our mind at the time.

If you watch a child fall while skating, they spring right back up and do exactly the same thing again, this time working harder not to fall, or even asking a coach how to improve their technique to limit the chance of falling. And guess what, they fall less and less until they’ve mastered the skill.

So I ask you to try to fall this week — either physically or metaphorically. Try something that intrigues you, something that you’re not yet good at, and discover the gift of falling.

But I Told You To Do It This Way

On the job, as in life, we learn to tell others what to do. We first learn these skills when we are in our earliest positions of power, such as big brother or older neighbor to easily influenced siblings or neighbors. We tell them “It would save Mom money if we cut our own hair — why don’t you go first?” or “Ride this plastic horse down the stairs and let’s see what happens.” In so doing, we learn how powerful we are to influence others.

As we grow older, we refine our techniques. We might say “You’re doing that wrong, you need to hold your handlebars like this.” No longer content to simply make suggestions, we now want them to act in exactly the way we’ve told them.

As we begin in a career, we once again become that younger neighbor. Invariably, there is someone in the cube next to you, let’s call her Shelly, who has 3 1/2 months more experience than you do, and she’s taking us under her wing to “show us the ropes.” With an air of confidence, she imparts to us, “Never talk to Fred before 10AM, he’s a real jerk before he’s had three cups of coffee,” or “Be sure and leave work right at 5:25 so you can ride down in the elevator with the boss.” And, as we want to get ahead at the firm, we listen and imitate Shelly. Shelly feels powerful, and we do not. We resent Shelly.

This changes when we become the boss. We become that big brother or sister again, and we proceed to tell our direct reports, and perhaps some of our weaker peers, how to think and act. In the interest of helping, we re-write faulty memos and tell them exactly what to say when they’re making a presentation in front of the big boss. Feeling good in our newfound confidence, we begin to make suggestions about where they might want to consider buying a condo, or what school at which to get their MBA (your alma mater, of course!).

Suddenly, you find yourself offended that the employee bought a condo across town from your recommendation. Just as the big brother dismisses his younger sister when she resists his suggestion of how to wash the family dog in chocolate milk, we are surprised. What a stupid thing to do! “They must be too green to know better,” we say knowingly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t trust her judgment so much,” we note. We become more guarded in our interactions with them, and the relationship and the work suffers.

We only become more powerful as a manager when we realize that it is not the suggestion that limits us, but rather our emotional investment in having our suggestion (order?) followed. We are not genuinely interested in our co-worker finding a condo that he loves, but rather in him following our suggestion. Why? Probably because it validates our power as the authority.

So the next time you are tempted to tell a team-member how to do something, what if you asked her how she would like to do it, first? You might be surprised that she plans to do it the same way you would. And to that you could say, “great idea.” Therein lies the power of leadership.