Be Kind, Not Nice

I recently received a bit of wisdom from a colleague of mine, and it was very important in a conversation I had today with a client, so I”m passing on to you.

First, an important distinction between being NICE and being KIND

Nice is about what the other person is thinking and feeling–it’s their perception of the situation.

Kind is about what you choose to do and why.

When you want to be nice it’s because you want to please the other person; you want everyone to be happy. When you want to be kind it’s because you want to do what is right regardless of how other people feel about it. Nice is permissive. Kind is grace-based discipline

If I want to be nice to my children I will give them what they want, not do what is needed, seek to please them and hope they like me. If I want to be kind to my children I will give them blessings, do what they need, seek to teach them and hope they learn. Nice manipulates. Kindness trains.

What is the lesson for leadership and life?

When you fail to provide critical steering feedback to a team member who is heading down the wrong path, you are being nice.  They will go home and feel good about you and the workplace.  When you intentionally create an UNCOMFORTABLE conversation in which you share your observations and engage that person around improving, you are being Kind.  For if no one tells them, how will they know of the issue?

If you have a friend who’s lost their job, it’s probably important to be Nice to them for a short time. Let them cry on your couch.  Invite them over for drinks and a chance to vent about the mean old company.  But don’t be nice forever.  As a friend, you must be Kind, and look your friend in the eyes and say, “You need to find a job, and you can’t do that from your couch.  I’m happy to help you create a more positive story about your last boss, but I’m not going to listen to the old story anymore.  It’s time, my friend, to get over it.”

If you really, truly want what’s best for yourself and for others, think beyond what will allow everyone to feel good about THIS conversation. Instead, think ahead and, if necessary, step into a NEW conversation that may feel uncomfortable, yet will provide the push or shove or difficult feedback — and support — for what is needed in the future.

Be Kind, not Nice.

When a Coach Can Help

Today’s guest blogger is Marcia Yudkin**, one of my Marketing Mentors.

When we drive, most of us know when we’ve reached our destination as planned or realize that we’re lost. We don’t need a driving expert to tell us we’re holding the steering wheel wrongly, heading north to go east or annoying others on the road.

Business is much more complicated. Destinations are no longer clearly marked.  We can be lost without realizing it or think we’re lost yet actually be moving ahead nicely.

Without a clue, we might be going around in circles, about to run out of gas where we can’t refuel.

An experienced business expert – consultant, coach or mentor - has observed people like you, knows common and uncommon signs of trouble, understands subtle relationships between cause and effect, and can tune into what you know but don’t realize that you know.

When does it make sense to ask for help from a coach?

• When you are floundering, feeling confused or stuck in a pattern that feels wrong.
• When you can’t see why you’re not getting the results you’re aiming for.
• When you’re humming along and your inner voice wonders about your direction, methods or progress

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~

One of the most common questions I get when I speak about coaching is this:

Why would I need a coach to help me do something I can do on my own?

My response:  If you can do it yourself, then why isn’t it already done?

Think about it! And have a great day.  Jim

**the first part of this post is from The Marketing Minute, by Marcia Yudkin, Marketing Expert and Mentor.  I read her weekly Marketing Minute newsletter and get a nugget of wisdom just about every week!  You can subscribe at http://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm

If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not leading

People don’t like to be uncomfortable. I cannot recall the last time I had a conversation a leader where the subject of “difficult conversations” about performance did not come up as one of their most feared situations.  Second to that is concern about telling people that “change is coming.”  Meanwhile, we face the reality that forward progress inevitably requires change, and change itself is uncomfortable.  What’s a leader to do?

If you want to be effective as a leader, you’ve got to get over yourself. While you may prefer to spend all your time in a happy, comfortable world where everyone does their job well and processes always work, that is, in the end, a fantasy world in which your role is unnecessary.  The raison d’être – the core justification – for your job is to solve problems, to declare new futures, to reallocate resources, and to name the elephants in the room.

In other words, your role by definition requires that you create discomfort, both for you and for others. I’m not advocating for “control freaks” or for those with anger issues to run amok in the workplace, because those behaviors create a dysfunctional form of discomfort.  I’m simply reminding you that you must, in today’s fast-moving world, continually stir the pot of change, and regularly challenge your team members to step up their game – and hold people accountable for delivering on their commitments.

In order to create discomfort, you must regularly practice that emotional state; you must become friends with unease, concern, nervousness, and even trepidation. When you become intentionally familiar with those emotions in small doses, you will gradually strengthen your ability to manage them.  You will find yourself more capable of holding difficult conversations because you’ll be confident in your ability to “live through the experience.”

How do you “practice” feeling comfortable with discomfort?

1. Start by having small conversations about minor concerns. Address little performance issues as they occur, so that the conversations can be about improvement versus “your job is in jeopardy.”
2. Rehearse your conversations with a coach or colleague. Many times the fear of delivering a difficult message dissipates when you speak it aloud in a practice session – so by the time you have the ‘real’ conversation, your system is already used to the message.
3. When a change is imminent, start talking with people about the high-level issues and direction even before you know all the details. By the time the final details emerge you and the team will have already gotten gradually used to the idea(s).
4. Have difficult conversations as quickly as you can after an issue emerges. 90%+ of the “drama” and discomfort comes not from the issue but from your thinking (and thinking and thinking) about it, and creating stories about what might happen.  Act before your imagination freaks you out.

Remember: Leadership is not about a title.  Anyone can be a leader who can step into the discomfort of a difficult conversation, knowing that on the other side of that discomfort lays greater potential for progress, accomplishment, and a more positive workplace experience.

The Point is to Live the Question

At a recent coaching conference, a wise colleague shared a very powerful practice: the 10-Year Question.

In coaching, questions are the primary tool: the probe, the lever, the dynamite that can explode a story, the key to unlocking awareness.  What sort of question, I thought, could take ten years to answer?  That would be a powerful question, indeed!

“So,” we asked eagerly, pencils poised above our notepads and journals, “what is the 10-Year Question?”

Fact is, a question that powerful does not come from the coach, it comes from the client.  Here’s the question I can ask as a coach: “what is a question that is so big that it will take you 10 years — or more — to completely answer it?”

Are you getting it, now?  It’s YOUR question.  It’s the question you have not dared to ask yourself.  It’s the deep question that you’ve probably ignored in the busy-ness of getting things done.  It’s the question that does not have a clear answer.  Indeed, it may not have any answer.

What is point of asking a question that does not have an answer?  Practice. practice holding the question and notice how the question affects everything you do — the decisions you make, the paths you take, the conversations you find most compelling, the things you become curious about, the part of you that choose to explore.

I met a friend for lunch; I gave her the 10-year question as a “gift” and she sent me a lovely magnet with the following quote, which eloquently captures the spirit and power of a 10-year Question:

“I beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms of books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…”

~Rainer Maria Rilke (German poet, 1875-1926)

So, what’s YOUR 10-year question?  And what will happen when and if you have the courage to LIVE that question?  I”m still working on mine….

Nothing is Good or Bad

“…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Hamlet, Act II Scene 2

This quote from Shakespeare is one of my all-time favorites… and defines a foundational element of my coaching practice and life philosophy.

Events are just events.  Stuff happens.  That’s it.

THEN…we create a story to explain that event.  In our “story” we interpret what happened and make up reasons why it happened, and that story evokes an emotional response from us… and suddenly an event is labeled: good, bad, ugly.  And we feel sadness, optimism, fear, anger, appreciation, frustration, concern, etc

Not from the event, but from our thinking about the event.

In the past week I’ve coincidentally had two separate coaching conversations in which the subject was betrayal – one work-related, the other personal.  Both parties showed up in the coaching conversation with a bubbling stew of negative emotions — Which they’d cooked up themselves, by the way.  And in both cases I coached them to step away from their story and examine a few others.

Example: Another person (X) failed to keep a promise (this is a fact).

Possible interpretations:

• (original story) X has harmed me.  X did it on purpose to hurt me.  I’m angry.  X is always trying to make me look bad.  What have I ever done to deserve such treatment?  I’m gonna watch for my opportunity to get back at X….  (down the path to rage and vengeance)
• X let me down.  I feel betrayed.  I have this big presentation coming up, and now I’m not ready, because of X.  This is going to be a disaster (down the path of embarrassment)
• X has harmed me.  That’s not like X; this is unusual.  I hope everything is OK with X.  Maybe I should give X a call (down the path of concern/empathy)
• X is so unreliable.  Why did I ever believe X would do as promised?  I am such an idiot for ever believing X.  Why am I so stupid?  I’m so bad at reading people.  (down the path of self-loathing)
• This is the third time this has happened with X.  I need to sit down with X and understand why this is happening.  I must renegotiate the promise (down the path to determination)
• The track record of X shows that promises made by X are not meaningful.  I did not really expect X to deliver.  So this is no big deal.  I’ll just have to complete it myself in time for the presentation.  (down the path to acceptance)

Each of these is a valid interpretation.  Notice how each one, however, creates a very different emotion and response.

I’m not ever saying that one story is ‘more true’ than another…I just invite my client to explore other possible stories, and consider if there are valid explanations other than the one that they are hanging on to that is harming them and keeping their emotional stew on a slow boil.

In this particular situation, my client – after creating the above options – chose to pursue the path of determination, and instead of simmering in her office she sat down with X to express disappointment and then immediately renegotiate (“what’s it going to take to have this done by tomorrow at end of day?”).  She realized that hanging on to her anger was hurting only her.  X was blissfully unaware of the concern, and when approached about the broken promise X apologized and confessed to not realizing how important the project was.

So in the end, much of her original story was fiction, and the emotional stew was self-cooked.

Creating Your Own Good from Bad

Does the above ever happen to you?  (of course it does.  You’re human!).  So when you find yourself sitting in assessment and stewing in your own emotional juices, turn down the heat!  Step out of the situation for a moment and consider OTHER possible stories and interpretations for the event.  Maybe select a different story that allows you more control of the situation, and lets go of blaming the other person for your own emotional reaction.

And then take a deep breath.  Remember, it’s only your thinking that makes it good or bad.  So change your thinking when you need to, and have a happier day.

Tough Choice

I could not resist pulling this two-minute video onto my blog.  It resonated with me because, of all the leadership challenges that come up in coaching and training conversations, this is the most common area of concern (I can’t tell you more without giving away the twist).

This is part of a new series of humorous looks at Crucial Conversations posted by Vital Smarts.  It’s certainly a novel way of getting out the word!

Now that you’ve watched it, we can talk.

I deliver several different workshops on Communication and Coaching, and the PA conversation seems always to be at the heart of “concerns.” Sad, AND true.

Truly, how many of you carry this same perception of the Performance Appraisal experience? Guess what — LOTS of people feel this way.

Thanks goodness we can laugh about it. Now, what might we DO about it, so this is not such an unhappy process for so many people? How might we show up differently as leaders so that it’s an easy choice?

Something to think about.

Are You as Happy as You Want to be?

Are you are as happy as you want to be?  Have you “succeeded” yet still find happiness elusive?  Do you sometimes feel “stuck” in your career or your life, without a clear path to what’s next for you?

If those questions caused you to pause for a moment, I invite you to read on.

What is Happiness, and Why Should You Care?

I define happiness as wanting what you have. Happiness, then, is an inner state; the quality of being joyous, glad, or contented.

Who cares?  Well, studies in the field of Positive Psychology look at the cause-and-effect cycle of “positive emotions,” e.g. gratitude, joy, hope, contentment, optimism, love, and, of course, happiness. Those studies show that that people who experience more positive emotion in their lives are:

• More RESILIENT. They hold up to stress better, and recover from negative or traumatic situations more quickly.
• More CREATIVE. They typically see more options available to them and are more comfortable trying new ideas and experiences.
• HEALTHIER.  Happier people get sick less often, and when they do they bounce back more quickly.

The good news: anyone can learn to experience more positive emotions in their life by engaging in a variety of skill-building exercises.

You see, our emotions function like our muscles. When we work out regularly, our muscles grow larger and stronger; if the emotions we most often exercise are worry, anxiety, and fear, those moods dominate our lives. Our positive emotional “muscles” need to be worked out to help them grow stronger.  The more often we seek out and experience positive emotions (happiness), the greater our capacity to deal with the future.

For example, keeping a gratitude journal helps strengthen your awareness of the blessings in your life. Other “exercises” for your emotional self can include:

• Learning how to breathe differently, e.g. deeper vs shallow breathing supports a different set of emotional responses
• Shifting how and where you carry energy in your body (calm energy resides in a different place than the energy of purpose, action, pain, anxiety, creativity, and so on)
• Noticing the reactions you have to various people or conversation topics (e.g. that coworker who always “pushes your buttons”) and gradually introducing a new response on both physical and emotional levels
• Changing the language you use in conversation.  Simple changes in the words you use can yield amazing changes in how you feel and the quality of your interactions

As a coach, I work with people who want to show up differently in the world.  The above are some of the tools I use with my clients to make the changes they seek.

Where’s this article coming from, you might ask… Well, I had a conversation yesterday with someone who appeared to get irritated with me, and said, “why would I need a coach to help me do all that? I can do it myself!”

My response:  “If you can do it yourself, then why are we having this conversation?”

You see, knowing is not the same as doing.  We benefit from having people outside of our world to help us understand who we are and how we are really showing up in that world.  That’s why I have several coaches.  That’s why Oprah Winfrey has a coach. And Tiger Woods.

A personal coach is a resource to help you achieve more in the world than even you believe possible.  In a world gone CrazyBusy, I know I can use all the help I can get!

How about you?

Jim Smith, PCC, is a personal and executive coach.  He works with clients who want to change how they show up in the world — because they “have it all” but still aren’t happy.