Author: Anne Taylor

The Benefits of Coaching and Listening

The Benefits of Coaching and Listening

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

What if your team were more Self-Reliant?

Want People to be Inspired and Motivated?

Do your team members want to feel Empowered and Valued?

Coaching is one way of doing all that and more. Coaching is a skill, a set of tools and also a mindset. What I’m presenting here is coaching as a skill and set of tools. This will not make you a certified coach; this will assist you in using coaching skills as an option in your toolbox of leadership skills.

I’m mentoring a business leader right now whose goal is to have her team “self-coach”, coach themselves so they don’t have to come to her for solutions, answers, or direction.

Benefits of Coaching

• People learn to think their way through a situation, enabling them, making them less reliant on you.

• People bring their ideas and thoughts to the situation which might result in new, unique solutions and more creativity and diversity of thinking.

• It’s less work for you in the long run as you train them to figure it out (make them more independent and empower them when it is done well).

• You don’t have to know everything all the time (which might be a blow to your ego).

• People feel valued and heard and often are more engaged as they are genuinely asked to explore their ideas.

• You develop leaders, grow greater talent, thereby growing the organization’s capability (and it just might be more fulfilling for you).

Coaching is really just the creation of a reflective space for someone (the client or coachee or employee or fellow human being) to figure out their own solutions and ideas in relation to a particular topic. This is done by the coach (or leader in your case) listening in a deep and non-judgemental way and asking open (sometimes powerful) questions that help the employee discover ideas and possibilities in themselves.

I’ve coached people for 10 minutes who were passing by on the street (it was part of a street team providing free coaching in London) and been given feedback that they found the experience profound. I’ve coached people for hours to the same result, meaning coaching can be 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour or longer – depending on the situation, topic, what they want out of it and the time you have.

Tips for Coaching

• Follow the energy of the person you are coaching – whether it’s positive or ‘negative’ energy. That energy tells you what’s important to the person.

• Ask a question – before you respond to someone asking you a question, ask them a question. For example, if they come to you with a problem and ask your suggestion, ask them “what do you think we should do?”

• Ask an open question – ask a question that starts with WHAT preferably. This sends people to the creative part of their brain. Don’t use WHY – that sends people to the defensive part of their brain. Keep HOW or WHEN until the end – as you want to be sure people are solving the right problem before coming up with a solution.

• Use short questions – short questions, even “So what?” create clarity for the listener. Longer questions tend to take time and focus away from the thinker, can contain implied solutions or be leading.

• Learn GROW – it’s a simple 4-step coaching structure of Goal, Reality, Options and Will Do.

• Listen more than you talk – in coaching the energy should come from the person you are coaching, not you.

• Do A&Q, not Q&A – listen to the answer you hear, and build the question from what they’ve said, not from what you think would be good to ask.

• Silence is golden – be ok with silence. Don’t fill it. When you ask someone a question and they are quiet, it means they are thinking. It’s probably a question they’ve never been asked before and hence need to think about the answer.

Have you ever been in a meeting where someone asks a question that causes everyone to pause? I have at Nestle. Often the smartest person in the room is the person that asks the best question, not the one with all the answers.

Listening

Listening is the starting point for great communication including coaching. Through my coach training with Co-Active Training Institute (CTI), I learned there were three levels to listening, which changed how I listen and engage (most of the time)1.

The Three Levels of Listening

Level 1 –

Internal Listening/ Focused on Self

 Your focus is on yourself, your thoughts, feelings, issues. When someone mentions a topic you immediately go to your thoughts, feelings and opinions on that topic. It’s about your internal narrative or conversation.

Level 2 –

Focused Listening on the Other

 Your focus is on what the other person is saying in a laser-like fashion, as though you’re under the ‘cone of silence’ in the old Get Smart TV program. When someone mentions a topic, you want to know that person’s thoughts, feelings and opinions about the topic. You have little awareness of the outside world.

Level 3 –

Focused on the Whole or Global Listening

 Your focus is on everything, the space, what’s going on inside you and with the other person, what’s going on energetically. This is where intuition or gut-feel might come in; the action, inaction and interaction.

Try listening at these 3 levels – what have you noticed? All 3 levels have information/data that can inform you about the person and/or situation with whom you are interacting.

Coaching and Listening go hand in hand. Using both with transform the potential of your team members (and other stakeholders and even your children).

What are your top tips about coaching and listening?

What would be possible if your team were more self-reliant?

What would it take for your to try coaching more?

If this is something you want to shift for your team, get in touch to discuss the possibilities at anne@directions-coaching.com

1 Witworth, Laura and Karen Kinsey-House, Henry Kinsey-House, Phillip Sandahl. Co-Active Coaching. Davies-Black Publishing. P34-40, 2007

5 Lessons of Leadership from Football Legends

5 Lessons of Leadership from Football Legends

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

Have you listened to the podcast The Rest is Football?

Any interest in football (soccer in North America)?

Ever wonder what 4 ex-footballers could teach you about leadership (and life)?

I never thought I’d cry during a football podcast, and I did.

I started listening to this podcast a couple of months ago to follow a sport again (given baseball and hockey get no coverage here, my sport fix has been barren for years).

The first episode featuring Thierry Henry was about more than football, it was a masterclass in leadership and life lessons.

Here is a snapshot of those insights, regardless of your opinion of football or footballers.

Emotions are Integral to Performance

As much as leaders want to say that business is rational, factual and to not get emotional, emotions are ever present in work.

Thierry Henry, famous former French striker and now coach to France’s under-21’s, said:

“I realized later on that at the time…I was scared [while playing]. These emotions are normal emotions of a human being. I couldn’t say I was scared [in the locker room}. I didn’t know how it would go down. I lied.”

Thierry performed to the highest level, he is thought of as one of the greatest strikers of all time, and one of the greatest players in Premier League history.

And he was scared.

At that time, and in that space, he didn’t feel safe to share those emotions. He lied.

What might your team members be hiding?

What emotions might your staff be feeling?

What could you do to create psychological safety in your workplace?

Allowing those emotions to be shared is key to unleashing people’s potential.

If someone is scared, they won’t be doing their best work. They will be trying to hide the fact they are scared – energy and effort that could be going into their performance.

Ask people how they feel. Don’t accept ok, fine, good. Those aren’t emotions.

You can find an emotion or feelings wheel online to help with building your emotional literacy.

If you think someone is frustrated, sad or anger – ask them “My sense is you might be frustrated, are you?” It isn’t about you being ‘right’, it’s about helping the other person express their feelings.

Leaders Strive for Self-Awareness and Growth Mindset

“I’m in tune with myself right now and I’m still trying to, to be better.” – Thierry Henry

Knowing ourselves is one of the four quadrants of Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

By knowing ourselves, what drives us, what motivates us, what scares us, what we hide, we can interact better with others. By knowing ourselves we can be more effective in how we communicate, lead, and motivate others.

EQ Leadership Model

As a coach and EQ leadership trainer I’m probably biased in wanting people to have a growth mindset and strive to be a better version of themselves.

I take this seriously myself as a professional. I do professional development for maintaining my accreditation. I do personal development to ensure my ‘stuff’ doesn’t get projected on those with whom I’m working.

Professor Carol Dweck defined the growth mindset in 2015 as the belief people have that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.”

When one believes they can learn and grow, they can do just that – rising to the challenges that face people in business, in organizations and in life.

Celebrate the Wins, Even if it’s Hard

One of the questions in the 360º feedback reports I review with leaders in my coaching practice is about celebrating success.

This is often an area of opportunity for many leaders.

A lot of leaders focus on the ‘gap’, what’s not done or not done well.

Thierry Henry expressed the same for himself,

“It was rough, it was touch. It was difficult. It was always what I didn’t do. Not what I did, what I didn’t do that mattered.”
He was told he never used to celebrate his goals. He said “No, because I was thinking about the one that I missed before that was easier to score [than the one I did].”

It’s not just about celebrating achievements. It’s also about celebrating the effort along the way and at the end.

Research shows that motivation and energy are improved when the ratio of positive feedback to constructive feedback are 4-6 positives for every 1 constructive.

The COIN Model is a great resource to use, download the template here.

Like children and dogs, try to find people ‘doing right’ more often, daily even.

Motivation can Come from Unknown Places

Thierry shared about his fear of not being good enough.

He said it came from his Dad. The day he was born, his Dad proclaimed, “this guy is gonna be a great footballer.” Thierry got accolades from billions of people for his football success and “I just wanted it from my Dad. I was chasing something that I could never catch. My little me wanted to hear it [from him].”

Many people feel this. Brené Brown’s research says this feeling is pervasive. People in your teams might be feeling this.

Your role is not to be a therapist. Your role is to make sure people know that:

• their contribution matters,
• their efforts (not just achievements) are unique and appreciated,
• they belong.

Each person is motivated by different things – money, status, learning, team involvement, collaboration, childhood conditioning, power and more.

What motivates each of your team members?

How do you adjust your delegation and communication to their motivators?

Vulnerability Begets Vulnerability

After Thierry shared his story about his father, not feeling good enough and the fears he had playing, Gary Lineker empathized and shared his own vulnerabilities. He said,

“I had a similar relationship with my Dad. Wasn’t until he was on my deathbed…[was] the first time I heard him say I love you, it was in the last conversation we ever [had]… I cried my eyes out in the lift, nurses asked if I was ok…I’m really happy I said.”

Alan Shearer then shared about his Dad.

As Thierry says “And Gary by sharing, obviously, it is contagious when you show vulnerability and you show empathy. You brought me to that story.”
Vulnerability takes courage.

Firefighters are courageous running into burning buildings to save perfect strangers. And by doing so they are being vulnerable. Putting their safety at risk, and their lives and the risk of not being able to save someone and having to live with that fear/guilt.

Leaders need to be vulnerable first, before their team members, because of the risk.

Leaders can share what’s called “allowable weaknesses.”

A CFO can’t say she/he is bad at numbers and can’t read a spreadsheet. They can say that public speaking scares them.

Vulnerability isn’t for the sake of exposing, it’s in service of expressing, sharing, empathy and freeing up constricting energy.

Think about something you can share about yourself, that’s relevant, that others could relate to in order to start the (foot)ball rolling.

Most of The Rest of Football podcasts I don’t understand because I don’t know the players, team or rules well enough. This one I could understand and appreciate. I appreciate it for the vulnerability each participant showed, and for role modelling the humanity that’s present everywhere, even in football 😉.

What could you do to build psychological safety in your workplace?

What would take your leadership from good to great?

What could you do to motivate and inspire your teams?

Get in touch with me here for a no-obligation consultation.

 

The Rest is Football name and images are owned by Goalhanger Podcasts
COIN from The Feedback Imperative, 2003 Anna Carroll
Growth Mindset, 2015 Professor Carol Dweck

Ever felt insulted or criticized by someone?

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

Ever been called high maintenance?

Ever received bad feedback at work or personally?

I have.

I’m single, looking for an LTR* and so on a dating app.

I was messaging with a man through the app about his invite to meet up.

I replied proposing a time and location for meeting up and asked if that worked for him.

He replied that I was a “Princess” and “high maintenance.”

That’s the response I got for replying in the affirmative to his suggestion.

So many reactions:

• I was bewildered and confused.
• When I told a friend, she said “You are a Princess and deserve to be treated as such. He is not your Prince”
• My friend’s husband said, “Give me his number and I’ll tell him how to behave”
• And then a friend sent me the meme below

There are 4 Emotional Intelligence angles for this situation. I’ve shared the last 3 on separate posts on LinkedIn and the first being a new perspective.

Where to Give and Receive Feedback

Like a good photograph you want your subject to appear in their best light, to look good. And you as the photographer want to have your work well-regarded. Same for giving any type of feedback, you want the subject or recipient to look good and for you to be perceived well or credible.

In my dating interaction above, I didn’t look good and he didn’t look credible or come off well.
He gave feedback to me in the form of labels, at an “identity” level – with a label of You are A Princess, You’re High Maintenance.

This type of feedback helps no one – the recipient often feels defensive or helpless to understand or change; the giver appears mean, imprecise, or judgemental.

  • Give feedback at the outer 3 levels of this bullseye below – focusing on behaviour. Be specific about the behaviour (good or bad) that you want to comment on – what specifically did the person do or say. Environmental comments are about where or when someone did something that impacted their effectiveness (positive or negative). Capability is about how they did something and often can be helped with training.

This bullseye mitigates the likelihood that someone will take the feedback “personally” as it focuses on environment, behaviour and capability rather than identity and values. This is about a team member’s effectiveness of doing the job. If you give feedback about someone’s identity that is personal. It’s why parenting experts advise to tell a child “that behaviour was bad” rather than “you are bad or bad boy.”

Where to Give Feedback

Where to give feedback
© Anne Taylor 2020 Soft Skills HARD RESULTS

Of note, this bullseye can be used for giving and receiving feedback. If you receive feedback that’s towards the middle of the bullseye ask, “what did I say or do that made you feel that way?” Or, depending on who’s giving you the feedback at an identity level, be confident in who you are and your value potentially choosing to ignore the feedback.

Don’t Take Things Personally

My potential date’s response was not about me. He didn’t know my intention. He doesn’t know me beyond some messaging.

To not take something personally, one has to see that his response says more about him than me.

Maybe he didn’t like someone dictating time and location to him. Maybe he thought I was shoehorning him into my availability. Maybe he wants to be in control or take the lead and I went a step too far.

So I didn’t take it personally.

According to the book, The Four Agreements, of which Don’t Take It personally is 1 of the 4 agreements, any criticism of me is not about me. It’s about the giver.

It goes on to say, any compliment of me is not about me either.

That feels harder to accept.

Except we can’t dismiss the bad and take the good.

Of note, criticism is different than proper feedback delivered with clean language focused on behaviours.

Perspectives

That potential suitor clearly had the perspective that I was high maintenance and a Princess.
I had the perspective that he was low effort and not my Prince.

This is often the case in many interpersonal relationships – we each have our own perspectives which are often different.

This matters when you are working together as it can create conflict or at a minimum, confusion.

If we don’t have a common understanding of a topic, challenge or issue we might be working at cross purposes.

People often assume that their understanding of something is everyone’s understanding of that thing.

We know people literally see things differently (remember that blue/gold dress image that went around social media years ago? Many swore it was gold, others that is was blue).
Great solutions come from differing perspectives. This is the whole advantage of diversity.
The learning is not to be unconscious of perspective, nor entrenched in your own perspective nor fight for it at all cost.

The learnings are to:

• realize we all have our own perspectives,
• surface those differing points of view,
• create common understanding and alignment,
• craft richness of thought and idea generation,
• establish common ground to move forward.

Clean Language For Giving Feedback.

The comment of “Princess” or “High Maintenance” is not clean language.

It’s an opinion, evaluation or judgement of me.

My use of the term clean language, derived from Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, is about separating out observations, feelings, needs and requests.

The cleaner our language when talking to another person, the more likely they are to hear what we are saying. The less likely they are to get defensive or withdraw.

When I received this reply on the dating app my first response was Screw You! And it might not have even been that nice 😉

Then it was “I’m not a Princess” because I have my own baggage around that term.

It took a little while for me to get to the interpretation and understanding I’ve been sharing here these last few weeks.

If he had said the following I would probably have maintained contact with him:

When you suggest such a specific time and location for meeting, it makes me wonder if you have time and space in your life for a boyfriend. Do you?

Because he just reacted, and name-called, I didn’t know what he was feeling or thinking. And I admit, I didn’t want to make the effort to learn.

If his first inclination is to judge me that’s probably what he’d do if we were in a relationship.

Clean language is especially important when giving feedback.

People need clear, tangible feedback so they know specifically what they do well and what they could improve.

Saying someone is “rude or egotistical” is an opinion or judgement.

There’s nothing helpful that the person can grab on to and learn from.

Saying “when you talk over people during a meeting” that is a tangible action or behaviour of the individual that they can understand and improve. You still might think they are rude and that’s not helpful to evoke change.

This clean language about actions or behaviours when giving feedback is the ‘O’ step of the COIN feedback model. See link in comments below for the whole template on how to give positive and constructive feedback.

If you want to motivate and inspire your teams, give great feedback so they develop more, or feel less frustrated by people get in touch for a no-obligation conversation click here

What are your feedback disaster stories? What are your dating disaster stories?

What feedback do you need help giving?

What feedback have you gotten that’s helped you

* LTR = Long-term Relationship

Say Thank You Despite the Times - Being ‘Grateful’

Say Thank You Despite the Times – Being ‘Grateful’

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

Are you concerned about the rising costs?

Is the environment and climate change a worry for you?

Do you think the country/world is going to ruin?

It’s easy to get in a downward spiral about the state of things – rising costs, healthcare waiting lists, annoying politicians, let alone war and conflict.

Media and news focus on this, it’s at our finger tips 24/7.

And what you focus on influences your mood, attitude and resilience.

It is easy to say Thank You during good times. More difficult to do in tough times. And it is possible to find things to be thankful for despite the stressful and uncertain situations.

Benefits of Being Grateful

The best time to start a gratitude practice is now as it improves your wellbeing. Multiple research sources document the benefits of being grateful, or living with the perspective of gratitude, across five key areas¹:

1. Emotional wellbeing – happier, less anxiety and depression, bounce back from stress

2. Physical health – better sleep, fewer aches and pains, less pain, more exercise

3. Personality – more optimism, self-esteem, spirituality

4. Social interactions – more friends, better marriages, deeper relationships

5. Career enhancements – greater networking, better teamwork, less absenteeism, greater employee and client loyalty

These benefits are great at any time in our lives and even more important during times of stress.

It’s such an important thing for me that it’s the last chapter in my book, Soft Skills HARD RESULTS.

My Origins with Being Grateful

I was a regular watcher of the Oprah Winfrey Show back in the 1990s–2000s. At that time, she was broadcasting her one-hour daytime talk show on national TV, well before she had her own network. In 1997 an episode of Oprah featured Sarah Ban Breathnach talking about her new book, Simple Abundance: a Day Book of Comfort and Joy.

I loved the show, so I bought the book and then its corresponding journal (which I dug out while writing my book to figure out the date I started my gratitude practice). I started the practice of capturing my daily gratitudes in that journal and have continued doing so on and off, but mostly on, for 25 years. It became a nightly practice and continues that way. It’s a relaxing and peaceful way to end my day and go to bed to fall asleep

What Am I Grateful for? The Positives

Let me state the obvious – I am not grateful for the suffering, hurt, grief, fear and loss that so many people are suffering from at the moment. I feel for those globally who are enduring hardships of every type.

And knowing light can co-exist alongside dark, helps us.

I’m reminded of some gratitudes I saw, felt and heard in 2020, with the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic:

● Consciousness about waste and need. People are turning to fresh ingredients where they can and are not wasting food, heck even heard of grilled celery being eaten so it doesn’t go to waste. I know I’m spending more time cooking new and nutritious meals.

● For some, being forced to slow down, to be less busy, less rushing around, less hurried-sickness (something many of my executive clients suffer from normally).

● People are seeing value in occupations they might not have noticed before, like carers, grocery workers, delivery people, telecom engineers, manufacturing and obviously healthcare providers (although I think these people have been valued previously and certainly differently than a shop attendant).

● Generosity – offering to shop for the vulnerable, free exercises classes on-line, volunteering in their communities, reaching out to others, people donating money and rooms for sick or healthcare workers, free food and parking to healthcare workers.

● Creativity is flourishing – companies making ventilators rather than cars, new hospitals built in a week which would have taken years previously, face-to-face things now being done virtually.

Top Tips for Being Grateful

The evidence is clear that being thankful and seeing our lives in a more positive light, regardless of everything going on, is better for us.

● Make it a daily habit or ritual. I do it at bedtime, others share their gratitudes around the kitchen table as a family.

● Physically write the gratitudes down in a journal or notepad – this engages your eyes, your hand (kinaesthetic movement), and your brain, making the gratitude more tangible as it’s a multisensory exercise. If you only ‘think’ about them they are just more fleeting thoughts.

● Be specific – the detail is what makes the experience rich and creates the good feeling.

● Try it for 30 days and notice the changes.

● If you’re grateful for an achievement – celebrate it and ask yourself what you did to make that happen. This helps us not only celebrate the DOING (what we did) but also the BEING (who we were while doing).

Gratitude at Work

This isn’t just a personal exercise. It can be done at work with colleagues or your team.
When colleagues share things they appreciate about each other it creates psychological safety and makes us feel better as it releases dopamine.

We often do this at the end of Leadership training programmes amongst small groups – Share one thing about each colleague that you’ve appreciate during the training. Suggest they think of sharing behaviours the person exhibited, qualities or characteristics you’ve appreciated or specific things they did or said.

NEVER EVER has anyone not been able to come up with something nice to say.

Everyone, the giver and receive, report feeling so good after the exercise.

Imagine if your team members felt good more often at work. What could that positivity and mutual admiration create?

The Evolution

Over time it does evolve and become easier. When I first started I had to reflect on the day to find things for which to be happy. Sometimes all I could think of was the weather or a friend. Over time it became easier. Now as I go about my day I notice things for which I’m grateful and actually feel and think that in the moment. When the bus is there ready to take me on my journey immediately, I do have a quick realization of being grateful I didn’t have to wait and can be on my way quickly. It can change the way you look at the world.

It can also change how you can interact with the world. When I’m grateful for something involving another person I’ll offer express that gratitude to them specifically and also do it in a tone and manner that is truly reflective of my thanks, not just a passing “thank you.”

You can download a free blank template for my daily Gratitude Practice here.

Thank You Reflection

Thank you for reading this. I invite you to reflect and share:

What are you grateful for today?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and what you’re thankful for – contact me here to let me know one gratitude you have for today or something about another person for which you are grateful 😉

 

¹ https://www.happierhuman.com/benefits-of-gratitude/ and https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/benefits-gratitude-research-questions/

 

Photo by Marcus Wöckel

From Dependent and Time-Sucking to Self-Reliant and Autonomous – How One Organisation Upskilled their People

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

Want more self-reliant and autonomous team members?
Want more collaboration across your organisation and less silos?

Do your leaders create positive, solution-oriented, self reliant employees?

For the last 4 months The EQ Leadership Formula Duo of Sue Belton & Anne Taylor have been working with an SME to develop their senior and middle leaders; upskill them with coaching, feedback and collaboration tools – with the underlying result being growth mindset and emotionally intelligent leadership group.

Proud to say it’s been a success with more growth and development still to come but we’re jumping ahead of ourselves. Learn how you too can have the same positive result as their case study…

Situation – Too Reliant on Senior Leaders

A medium size, fairly flat organisation approached us wanting to develop more of a coaching and feedback culture in their organisation with the target of training 20 middle and senior leaders.

The presenting problems were:
• Staff were overly-reliant on the executive team for helping them find solutions and make decisions
• Staff were issue-oriented, seeing obstacles, and feeling uncertain
• Staff were silo’d in their problem-solving and impact across the organisation

Action – Building EQ (Emotional Intelligence)

Through the lens of our proven EQ Leadership Formula Model, we did a needs assessment to determine the impact and outcome they wanted. We then designed the interventions that would be best suited to achieve those outcomes.

Development was needed across all four quadrants of our EQ model, with the specific desired outcomes for staff:

1. To develop their own solutions and be less reliant on the executive team.
2. To practice more coaching behaviours such as listening and asking questions and “tell” or give advice less.
3. To realise the benefits of working collaboratively and become less silo’d in their thinking and behaviour.

The needs assessment determined the following highly experiential interventions were necessary:

• Workshops on how to Coach in the workplace
• Workshops on how to Give Feedback – both constructive and confidence-building
• Observations of executive leaders coaching with each other with full debriefings

This last invention of training, observing and supervising key executive team leaders had two benefits:

• For the executives to role model the ideal coaching behaviours and growth mindset to the middle and senior leaders.
• To have the executive leaders realise their role in creating the ‘reliance’ of the senior leaders on coming to them for solutions and decisions.

Result – Development of EQ across all four quadrants, leading especially to Self-Awareness, Self-Reliance and Autonomy
Qualitative feedback was:

• Really useful skills that can benefit work and home life
• Clear explanations, with great practical activities
• Engaging, interactive, interesting and useful
• It was more relevant to my role than I initially thought

Average post-intervention score for:

• Quality of training was 9/10
• Quality of instructors 10/10
• Relevance of the training to the workplace 9/10
• Net Promoter Score of 78

Our programme sponsor said this at the end of the programme:

“The feedback I have received has been really positive, and they have got a lot out of the sessions. We have noticed them using the methods shared in your sessions and I know for sure that they have started using the feedback during professional growth and monitoring sessions”.

Next Steps – Culture Change & Growth Mindset

The key decision maker said they want us to continue working with them to further embed the learning, and to support the culture change.

Anne & Sue will celebrate the work and the feedback (we practice what we preach!) while reflecting on what was learned.

With the participants’ feedback we are now designing the next intervention with this now engaged and enthusiastic group.

**As any sustainable culture change needs to happen top-down, part of the design will include 1:1 coaching of the key executive team. This will enable them to lead the change, be the change, and ultimately create the mindset and culture they want.

What Else?

What aspects of EQ would you or your people benefit from developing?

Would your organisation benefit from having more resourceful and self-reliant leaders?

What bottom-line benefits would this give you and your organisation?

Book a complimentary coaching session with me here to explore how you could develop your emotional intelligence further to motivate and inspire your teams to achieve.

Leadership Lessons from Ted Lasso

Leadership Lessons from Ted Lasso

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

Have you heard of Ted Lasso?

Have you seen it?

I’ve been late to the party and am up-to-date after quite a binge this last couple of weeks.

For those that don’t know, Ted Lasso is an Apple TV comedy/drama of an American football coach hired to manage a British soccer team. He doesn’t know the sport, the rules, or much about the culture.

What he lacks in the hard facts he more than makes up for it in the soft skills.

Ted Lasso is an example of positive, conscious leadership, a leader with emotional intelligence (EQ), that’s equally applicable in business organizations as it is on the football/soccer pitch.

He plays an upbeat, positive, outgoing American rah-rah stereotype.

The stereotype aside, there are loads of leadership lessons anyone can use starting immediately.

Let’s start with a definition first.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

EQ (or EI) is, according to the English Oxford Living Dictionary, “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically”. The concept was popularized in the 1996 book Emotional intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

It’s the overarching term to describe four concepts: the ability to know one’s emotions, manage one’s emotions, understand the emotions of other people, and manage relationships with others.

Building Psychological Safety

What is exemplary about Ted Lasso is his understanding and creation of psychological safety for his team and the colleagues with whom he works.

Psychological safety is the shared belief of being safe within a team/system, in this case a soccer team, where you know you can risk and dare and be vulnerable without fear of negative repercussions.

The psychological safety amongst a team is most important for the interpersonal risks inherent in a team – risk associated with expressing ideas, asking questions, admitting mistakes and speaking up.

Tips for building psychological safety that Ted exhibits are:

  • Learning people’s names and using them;
  • Asking people questions that have them reveal more of themselves than usual. For example, what’s your favourite book? What’s the first gig you ever attended? Favourite gig?
  • Sharing aspects of himself, some of which don’t paint him in the best light possible or show some of his vulnerabilities;
  • Articulating clearly his intentions about what he’s trying to do when appropriate;
  • Focusing on improvement, learning from mistakes, and belief.

Finding Right

This is a concept I learned during my training to become a facilitator and team coach. It’s something I see Ted Lasso doing very often.

Finding right is about finding something positive in whatever someone else says or does. Sounds extreme. It’s not about agreeing when you don’t agree. It’s about finding something positive in what they said, how they said it or who they are being during it.

Ted often asks for input from others both for new ideas and to get them on board to his way of thinking. When he gets an answer that’s not correct or not what he’s looking for he’ll say something like “that’s a great idea, just not the one I’m looking for” or “I appreciate you weighing in” or “love you jumping in but nope, that’s not it.” All said with eye contact, softness in is face, and a light tone.

I’d suggest to the writers for Ted not to use the word BUT in these sentences. When ‘but’ is used in a sentence in our minds it often negates everything that comes before it. Instead use ‘and’ as ‘and’ infers both sides of the sentence have merit or equal weight. Notice the buts, try and.

Clarifying a Vision and How to Get There

Leaders share both context and content; they own the context more so than the workers; if leaders aren’t mentioning the vision few other people are talking about it. Simon Sinek talks about explaining the WHY to people, before getting into the WHAT; before them doing what you want them to do, they need to understand why they are doing it.

In season 3 (that’s series 3 in the UK) Ted changes tactics for how the team should play (trying not to spoil anything 😉). In making this change, he had his assistant coach explain the history and origins of the strategy. This helped the team understand from where this change was coming and the merits of the tactics.

Ted then went on to explain how they’d use these tactics in their team. The vision and path were made clear with the rationale for why he felt it was right. Very helpful as a means of getting people onboard for a change.

By the way, this tactic has its basis in a question that’s useful for all of us to consider – What does this situation need? It’s a good question for each of us to reflect on in at any given moment. What does this situation need of me at this moment?

Being Open and Vulnerable

This is the scariest for many leaders, heck, for many people in general.

Ted’s vulnerability has unfolded over the course of the 2.5 seasons. He was open with aspects of himself such as favourite books, gigs, movies, about his moustache, his previous work – very factual things. He was less open emotionally initially. As he created emotional safety for the team and colleagues he started to reveal more about himself.

Ted was also forced to be open near the end of season 2 when something about Ted’s mental health made headlines in the news. When asked about it at a press conference Ted was typical Ted, using the opportunity to raise awareness for mental health in sports in a positive way. Ted later apologized to his team for not having told them personally, and for them to have found out through the media. He says sorry sincerely and when meaningful, more often than many leaders might find comfortable.

The key is to know when to be open and when to stay at a distance. An easy example of this is that leaders would do well to join their team for a drink after a team away day and to ensure the leader leaves before the majority have left so that the team can relax and bond without the leader.

In Summary

Slight spoiler alert about end of season 3. A great summary of Ted’s leadership effect is summarized by Trent Crimm, a writer shadowing the team, who says the following a meaningful game where the team played like a team:

“You haven’t switched tactics in a week, you’ve done this over 3 seasons, slowly but surely building a club-wide culture of trust and support through 1000’s of imperceptible moments all leading to their inevitable conclusion”

What leadership lessons would you share?

What makes you positive and upbeat?

What aspects of leadership would help you?

Book a complimentary coaching session with me here to explore how you could develop your emotional intelligence further to motivate and inspire your teams to achieve.

Why Empathy, more aptly People Skills, Delivers Business Results

Does empathy deliver business results?

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

Would you like to improve productivity whilst having people be happier?

Are emotions that important at work?

A client asked, “why does empathy delivery results?” My first thought was that it doesn’t. And then after reflecting on the discussion I thought it would be good to share the rationale of why it doesn’t, on its own, and what does.

Meaning of Empathy

Empathy means the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another’s position as defined by Wikipedia which I think is a full definition.

Empathy is helpful in leadership, when building and interacting with others and is just one tiny part of Emotional Intelligence that will deliver business results. Empathy is great when a team member tells you their partner has cancer (we all know the feeling of fear and sadness of illness). Empathy is not helpful when you are making someone redundant, compassion and respect are better, so you keep your emotional stability as they will understandably feel sad and scared. My article on emotions at work explains more about this.

Empathy does build trust and helps leaders understand what others might be thinking and feeling. This helps a leader understand how someone might react in different situations, what their needs and motives might be. Empathy is the bridge between human interactions.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Emotional Intelligence or EI is defined by the English Oxford Living Dictionary as: “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically”. In leadership terms, it is the skill of building productive and fulfilling relationships authentically. The concept was popularized in the 1996 book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman¹.

Many organizations capture this concept in performance reviews as: a person’s degree of self-awareness; or HOW they do their job (versus WHAT they do); or their people skills or soft skills. Skilful emotional intelligence (EI) by a leader does deliver results.

Proof about Emotions and Leadership

What’s the proof that good EI in leadership is necessary to achieve business outcomes? Here is the answer from business, academia, sociology, neurology and financially:

1. The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations (yes, there is such a body) highlights 19 studies over the last 3 decades from different companies and organizations (American Express and L’Oréal to name two) and 9 research and academic studies from the last 9 years all identifying how EI delivers results².

2. Leadership is about relationships; it’s about unleashing the potential of your team by motivating and inspiring them to do the work to deliver the results. Leadership is also about removing barriers which often involves influencing others or resolving conflict. Relationships are about interacting with people, people are human beings not human doings so understanding and adeptness with regards to emotions is key. Additionally, most people leave a job because of their manager, not because of the organization³. That means the relationship (intellectually and emotionally) with the manager is pivotal.

3. Brain evolution and structure dictates that all the information from our 5 senses enters our brain through the brain stem and hits the limbic part of our brain first which is the place of emotions and feelings before reaching the neocortex near our forehead which is the place of rational thought. The emotional part of our brain is stimulated first with any piece of information before the executive functioning or reasoning part of our brain! Hence, emotions are always ‘present’ first when we take in stimuli – often the stimuli at work isn’t overly provoking so we don’t notice the emotional part, or we suppress it, or we have high EI to manage our own emotions and influence others’ emotions much more consciously.

4. Humans are herd animals or more politely, social creatures from a sociology point of view. We thrive in well-coordinated groups (hence some of the complications of WFH or hybrid working). Employees want to feel as if they belong to the work group. As such, skilful leadership fosters this feeling of belonging and inclusion.

5. Company investment in measuring employee engagement is huge! This isn’t about employee happiness or satisfaction. Forbes describes employee engagement as the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals4. An effective leader builds that emotional commitment through understanding and managing their own emotions and recognizing emotions in others and handing relationships and interactions with others. Thereby, having employees bring their heads, hands and hearts to their work.

6. There is a financial cost to poor people skills in terms of lost productivity. FACT. Imagine you have a manager who is in an open-plan office criticizing one of their team for a few minutes. How long do you think that employee is demotivated or unproductive? How long do you think the others in the office are unproductive (trying to console the berated employee or criticizing the manager’s actions)? Imagine the manager does this often. The cost is thousands of pounds over time. The incidences of berating managers are few for my clients. The incidences of empathetic and inspiring managers are few too. The big opportunity to positively increase productivity is the managers who simply do nothing about engaging or inspiring because they don’t know what to do.

7. Although people skills don’t have a line on the P&L, they do impact each line – salespeople have to have good relationship-building skills to generate sustainable income, customer service needs good people skills to resolve issues and protect reputation, employees who feel valued and are engaged are less likely to quit, saving recruitment costs and less likely to demand extreme compensation (assuming their basic need is met), purchasers with high EI skills relative to their suppliers can result in discounts, advantageous payment terms, and quicker exposure to new initiatives.

The facts in favour of EI at work are strong. The emotional response to EI at work is often concern, worry, and stress. One more thing that needs to be done. How will I find the time to do all this while also getting the work done?

What would help you figure out EI at work while getting stuff done?

Where could you benefit from more empathy and emotional intelligence?

What would help you be more motivating and inspiring?

Book a complimentary coaching session with me here to explore how you could develop your emotional intelligence further to motivate and inspire your teams to achieve.

 

¹ Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman (London: Bloomsbury Publishing 1996)
² http://eiconsortium.org/
³https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2015/08/04/people-leave-managers-not-companies/#12eaf30847a9
4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2012/06/22/employee-engagement-what-and-why/#794d90357f37

Spring is Emerging. An Activity to Unearth More of YOU

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

Wanting a better life – whatever better means to you?

Wondering how you could be happier or more effective?

Want to be a more conscious leader?

If any of those are remotely enticing here’s a simple and profound exercise.  This exercise is so important I’ve included it in Part 1 of my book, Soft Skills HARD RESULTS, about knowing yourself.

Spring is a time of renewal, emergence, and new growth.  What better time to have new growth for yourself as a leader and person.

The Activity to Learn

Personal and Professional Identity Narrative

This activity can be done in one sitting or easily over time as it fits into your schedule and it’s the latter I recommend.  PPIN stands for a Personal and Professional Identity Narrative. Jack Wood, International Institute for Management Development (IMD) Professor and Jungian Analyst, uses this exercise with MBAs and Executives for some of their greatest learning from their programs (a bold claim considering they are paying tens of thousands of euros). The PPIN is your life story – where you have come from, where you are right now and the general trajectory of where you are headed or where you think you might be headed. He says, “if you take the PPIN seriously, the process of reflecting and writing about your life – the sources of your identity and the objectives that you embrace – can help you better understand the deeper currents and patterns in your life and their continued influence”1.

2 Simple Steps for the PPIN Activity

Step 1 involves writing about the significant events in your life. Just start. This is just a collection of small stories, like chapters or simply paragraphs. You’ll want to cover your childhood (not just the facts but also your sense of what it was like growing up), school experiences, work and career (it’s not a CV/resumé though), relationships (parental, romantic, friends), what have been the highlights, the low points, the regrets (of what you’ve done or haven’t done), the times of greatest learning and when things have felt effortless. Don’t worry about whether it makes sense, is well written or in a logical format. This is only for you to read and analyse. Include examples, rich descriptions (not PowerPoint or bullet points) and your feelings and emotional reactions to the events and people.

I did the first draft of my PPIN in a week and ended up with over 10 typed pages, single spaced. Remember, I like to write and am a good typist, so I don’t want to intimidate you. A couple of months later, it was more than 20 pages. Jack Wood suggests 5–10 pages for the first draft and 10–15 pages for the complete narrative. If done exhaustively it can take a while, so at worst, it’s a legacy for your children (although it might be too revealing if done with no fear of it being seen). I’d encourage you to do more than what makes you comfortable; it’s at the edges of our comfort zones where we learn the most and feel energized.

Step 2 is the analysis of what you’ve written. The informative part happens during the reflection. This might be while you are writing it or once it’s written; when the patterns and themes in your life emerge (or appear once you observe your story on paper at a distance). What have you noticed about what you’ve created in your life? What’s been easy? What’s been hard? What has impacted you from one situation to another situation? What did you conclude about yourself or the way life works from the various events in your life? Where does it point you to in terms of further personal development? What patterns are influencing you?

Last year I took an introductory course on Transactional Analysis (TA).  TA is a psychoanalytic theory used in various ways, such as in therapy or coaching.  Its basis is that many of the ways we think, feel and behave today are established very early in life and therefore reflect aspects of parent, child and adult.  Some of these are very helpful and some are quite reactionary.  The PPIN exercise will help you determine some of these helpful and less helpful tendencies potentially.

For example, the PPIN exercise helped me understand why I adjusted so quickly when I moved from Canada to Switzerland; as a kid I had moved to a new city every five years due to my father’s career. Prior to the first move my parents asked an education specialist for advice on moving young children. He told my parents to move my brother and me a month or two before the end of the school year as that would allow us to make friends in the new place before being let off school for the summer. That way we’d know other kids in the neighbourhood with whom to play. This meant that at the new school I was put into established classes with groups of children who had been together for months and, as the newbie, I was required to integrate. I remembered one situation in Grade 3 (so I was about 9 years old) where I was escorted into the classroom by a school secretary after the kids had already started their day. The room was a mixed group of both Grade 3s and 4s and I was stood at the front of the class and asked to introduce myself. I did this on more than one occasion. Hence when I arrived in Switzerland, I just threw myself in, introducing myself to strangers. The PPIN helped me recognise this pattern; understand that aspect of myself and become more conscious of using the skill when it served me (such as when I moved to England on my own and starting my coaching career).

Dynamic Learning About Yourself Now

Write a few paragraphs or pages about your current situation now – your thoughts, your feelings, what bothers you, what pleases you, what have you observed in others or society and what’s your reaction to that?  How was it for you last year compared to now? Write about your experience of your current reality.  This is called free-flow writing, just writing what comes up for you in your mind, heart and gut; follow the flow without censoring or critiquing.

Reflect on what you’ve written:

  • What reactions and behaviours are you having now that you recognize in your historical stories? What is the continuing pattern?
  • What situations or perspectives from your past are hindering you now?
  • What situations or tendencies from your previous stories could you leverage to help you in current times?

 

I said at the beginning this was a simple exercise.  It is, just write your life story in chunks over time and reflect on the patterns and learning.  I didn’t say it would be easy. Contact me here for a complimentary session to understand more about your learnings from this exercise or for any avoidance you feel about doing such as exercise.

1 Wood, Jack Denfeld. ‘The Personal and Professional Identity Narrative (PPIN).’ Print.

When to Ask vs When to Tell as a Leader.

When to Ask vs When to Tell as a Leader.

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

Thinking your leadership style is a one-trick pony?

Feedback says you need to be the opposite of what you are?

Notice you default to a usual leadership response? Solve? Decide? Ask?

You’re not alone.

A small coaching group I’m working with were sharing the feedback in their 360 reports. One leader said he needed to change his leadership. He needed to be decisive, not collaborate as his development areas were about being too inclusive, slow, vague and not decisive enough.

I disagree.

A leader needs to be able to TELL, for example if there’s a fire in the building you need to loudly tell people to leave swiftly. A leader needs to COLLABORATE when working on cross-functional issues. A leader needs to DECIDE when the financial risk is within their remit. A leader needs to DELEGATE when it’s within the remit of their team member.
Situational leadership is not about changing yourself in my opinion. It’s about broadening yourself. It’s about having more skills and behaviours to increase your effectiveness as a leader rather than one size fits all. In doing so you also develop the people with whom you work. Win-Win.

My analogy is that of a tool box. If all you have is a hammer, you’ll deal with everything as if it were a nail. A hammer won’t help when you want to fell a tree or open an oyster. The more tools in your tool box the more situations you can address effectively with better results.

What is Situational Leadership?

Literally It’s a 2×2 model first developed by Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey in 1969!
Conceptually it’s about a leader adjusting their leadership style or behaviour to a unique situation and hence to the specific people in that situation.
Practically it’s about leaders assessing the individual with whom they are interacting and what their needs are for completing the task at hand. In the model this is called “Readiness,” how ready is the individual to do the work asked of them both in terms of skills and motivation (intellectual and emotionally). And then the leader adapting their style to how ready the individual is. it’s the degree of directive vs supportive behaviour on the part of the leader. The relationship is often leader/follower and can also extend to leader/stakeholder so don’t just think this is for hierarchical relationships.

It’s about managers or leaders adapting their leadership style to the situation and people involved; matching their leadership behaviours to the needs of the individual to maximize their performance.

Situational Leadership Example

You notice one of your direct reports does great presentations on their team’s projects in meetings but the employees in your direct report’s team do the actual powerpoint presentations and project work and never present. You’re thinking there’s a lost opportunity for that leader to develop their team members by having them present in the meetings. What do you do relative to your direct report?

It depends. It depends on the readiness of that direct report. Are they able to develop others? Are they confident in doing that? Do they even see the opportunity? Are they uncertain? How supportive do you need to be of them given where they are?

Most leaders are paid to solve problems and would just jump in with recommendations of what that direct report should do. Situational Leadership says pause, assess where the situation is on the model and then act accordingly.

What are the Leadership Styles in Situation Leadership?

There are 4 styles outlined in the model depending on (1) your behaviour in relationship with an individual and (2) what’s needed for the individual relative to the task that needs to be done (what’s their ability and willingness to do that task).

1. Delegating – this is a great choice when the individual is capable and willing to take on the task. The leader delegates to the individual who just gets on with it with minimal involvement from the leader – the employee is competent, motivated and empowered to do the task.

2. Supporting – sometimes called Participating. The employee is competent in the work to be done and resistant for some reason. That resistance can be conscious or unconscious. The leaders must participate and support the ‘follower.’ Detailed instructions of how to do it are not required, rather it’s about the person’s motivation or confidence. The leader focuses on the relationship and the person themselves rather than the task in this style.

3. Coaching –The leader must focus on both task and relationship. There are probably practical things that the individual must think through about the task and coaching helps immensely with this. If motivation is the blocker then coaching can help to unearth the emotions. Sometimes this is called selling as it’s leader-driven.

4. Directing or Telling – clear instructions must be given by the leader. The follower is often motivated yet not competent on the task. A common scenario for this is a new employee who doesn’t know the processes yet so required clear and detailed direction.

How to Decide Which Situational Leadership Style to Adopt?

There are some fundamental beliefs or assumptions implicit to me in this model. They are:

• Every situation is different or unique, to varying degrees.
• Leaders can choose their behaviour.
• Different people require different thinkg to perform and excel.
• Task and relationship focus are equally important to getting things done.

Because Situational Leadership is about consciously choosing your behaviour as a leader it requires self-awareness and social-awareness. That means your behavioural default tendencies and preferences. Like my client in the small group, he tends to listen, ask, ponder things with others. Good in some situations we know. What are yours? Social-awareness is about knowing the other person – what’s going on for them? what might they need?

The leader needs to assess the situation especially considering the readiness of the ‘follower’ – both intellectually (skills competence) and emotionally (motivation). Obviously, this implies there is time and it’s not an emergency like a fire.

Discuss with the other person what their level of readiness is for a task or project – how is their competency in terms of skills and abilities? How is there motivation and empowerment? What support do they need from you to do the job at hand well?

Consciously choose where you are on the model. What style and hence behaviours will you exhibit?

Check in on how it’s going between the two of you. As the relationship and task progresses your style and their readiness changes, this is a journey rather than a static model. Treat it as such.

If nothing else, embrace the concept that different situations and people might require different leadership behaviours from you.

What would help you practice the 4 leadership styles from Situational Leadership?

What tools would make your tool box more useful?

What’s your development goal to increase your effectiveness?

Book a COMPLIMENTARY coaching session with me here for some thinking about your leadership effectiveness and what you might need more of from your team.

Be Intentional About 2023: Create Your Future

Be Intentional About 2023: Create Your Future

Posted on | by Anne Taylor

With 2022 behind us and the lengthening of daylight each day, my positivity says things can only get better. Now is the time to think and dream about 2023. What would you like to intentionally create for yourself this year? By thinking about what you want to create in your life this year and how you want to BE as you do those things, it just might be the hope you need to get through these darker months.

Now there are people out there that say they don’t want to plan; they want to accept what comes along spontaneously. If they plan they think they’ll take the fun out of life or miss what comes along. Why not have both? Think what you want in your life and be open to the serendipity that comes along.

Just like a company has a vision and strategic plan, or at least successful companies, you as an individual would do well to have a vision and strategic plan for your life. This isn’t about making New Year’s resolutions, those don’t work. This is simply about thinking about what you want and being intentional about having more of that in your life.

The photo here is my business partner, Sue, and I doing our reflection, lessons learned and creation this year at a very nice spa hotel. That’s how much we are committed to this exercise, as we’ve done it every year for probably over a decade.

Lessons Learned

In last month’s article I suggested reflecting on 2022 which you can reread here The self-reflection was to capture the successes, achievements and celebrations and release the failures, disappointments and regrets. From those reflections of the past year, what are the lessons you’ve learned?

What matters to you?

What do you want more of in your life? Less of?

If you could have a do-over of something within your control this past year, what would you do differently?

Think baby steps, what are some qualities you’d want more in your daily life (humour, fun, depth, lightness, purpose, consciousness)?

Even if you don’t do the reflection exercise you can still do this next step…

Create Your Future

With everything you’ve learned from 2022 now create a captivating vision for 2023. Think about the following questions. As you think about 2023 also think about how you want to feel. What would excite you about the year? It’s not just what you want to achieve, it’s also about how you want to feel and be.

What do you want in the year ahead? Think of all aspects of your life – family, work, personal, financial, health, fun, spiritual, relationships, etc.

What are you tolerating that you’d like to change in the next year?

What would you add more regularly to your life for more enjoyment, fun or fulfilment?

What is something you’d do this year if you didn’t care what people thought of it/you?

If this year was a chapter in the book of your life, what would this next chapter be called/what would its title be?

Things I’ve been thinking of for this year are: more joy, laughter, singing, delivering a new leadership program with a colleague, gratitude and lightness.

Capturing Your Vision – Vision Board or Something Else?

Now that you’ve thought of the various aspects you’d like, you have an idea of the overall theme (from your chapter title) and some qualities or characteristics you’d like to experience more, it’s time to pull them all together.

There are a few options for how to do this however, first why do this? Because we know that by engaging the creative part of your brain there’s more chance of following through than just relying on willpower.

1. Make a vision board – this is the most popular suggestion although this doesn’t appeal to everyone. Find images (from the internet, canva, pintrest, magazines, draw) of the things you’ve just identified and put them together (on a poster, on-line). It’s essentially a collage, so you have a visual reminder of your aspirations for the year. This is what I chose to do this year, as there were pictures of me from the year that were ‘what I want more of’ this year so I’ve included them.

2. Write a list – so you can refer to it periodically through the year to plan your intentions into your schedule.

3. Pick some music that represents your theme and qualities – play it often. A friend of mine has chosen “I’m Coming Out” as her song, I’m still looking for mine. Any suggestions around fun, release or letting go would be very much appreciated.

4. Draw yourself a picture – this is what I’ve done for many years prior to 2023. I draw images and words for the coming year and at the end a central image usually emerges that I then photograph as my phone wallpaper.

There’s no right or wrong way to capture your visioning, do what appeals to you most or create your own idea and let me know what that is. Once captured, plan how you can work towards including those new aspects into your life, in small incremental steps.

2023 will pass (if you’re lucky; the alternative is sad and not pleasant) like every other year. To have an idea of how you want it to be better or different than 2022 requires visioning and then action. Take the time to dream, it doesn’t have to be long or all at one time. Then live the vision through reminders, action and inspiration. And enjoy whatever else comes along the way!

I’d love to hear about your theme, vision, images and ideas if you’d like to share them with me or how you felt trying this exercise.

Book a COMPLIMENTARY coaching session with me here for some guided visioning time – and some practical tips for how to achieve that vision. What would make you more effective and fulfilled at work and personally?