Are you the Tiger Woods of your office?

I recently wrote about the "uncoachable" - those among us who are not interested in shifting anything, because we're perfectly and adequately happy with how things are.

 

Tiger Woods - athlete exemplar, spokesman and role model - is now being laughed at as a hypocrite and egoist. But no one is talking about how ordinary this behavior really is. Many people in positions of power act as if there is a different set of rules for them because there so often are. Do you really wonder why Goldman Sachs got swine flu vaccine ahead of the rest of us? Or why the Salahis thought they could get away with gate crashing at the White House?

 

The answer, of course, is because they did before. Because privilege, or the assumption of it, brings with it the assumption of even more privilege. And sooner or later (unless you're a king in an earlier century or a despot on some tropical island) it catches up with you.

 

The link to you and your office life? Well, this can start early. As you get promoted, remember that you are now seen as the CIO or the SVP no longer as only the Barbara or Charlie that we know and love. And you're acting differently too, aren't you? How could you help it? And how do you know when you've crossed the line from enjoying the perks of your role to abusing the power it gives you?

 

A few signs that you've grown a little too big for yourself:

1. Does everyone agree with you? Bad sign - they care more about kissing up than doing the right thing by being curious and adding value.
2. Do you feel entitled? Why?
3. Do you still ask yourself how you could be a better leader, boss, manager, employee?
4. Whose needs are primary? Yours or your customers/stakeholders/team's?
5. Do you hold yourself to the same rules of conduct you hold your team to?

A little self examination is a very healthy thing - not enough, and you can find people wishing they could smash in your car windows with a golf club too.

Nancy Halpern

KNH Associates

http://knhassociates.com/

917-331-9592 (phone)

917-677-8519 (fax)

 

 

Are Parents Better Managers?

Peter Bregman (who I swear I met for a cup of coffee when he was just starting out years ago) has a new post about how parents are better managers. He cites several reasons including:

1. They express care

2. They're patient

3. They set boundaries

4. etc.

 

Now Peter is clearly not the parent of a teenager, because if he were he would know that option #1 and option #2 were long ago extinguished.....but he is on to something that I have observed over my last 12 years as an executive coach.

 

Being a parent teaches you how people misbehave in organizations and how to manage them better. Truly.

Your kids teach you that there is not one way to motivate human beings. Your kids teach you that attention spans are really short no matter what the age, so you better put the big news first. Kids teach you how to deliver bad news effectively, nuanced for the individual recipient. Kids teach you that some people are solo contributors, some are team players and some leaders - and I suspect you, as an observant parent, learn this very early on. You see that what someone starts with is always there - it can be massaged, it can be shaped, it can be directed. But as a senior leader told me today in a meeting about a problem employee: "you are who you are."

 

One tip for parents who are terrified of public speaking or tend to just drone on in a monotone: think of your kids. Pretend that you are reading that speech to them. Your face will relax - your voice will soften - you just can't help yourself. And you'll find that letting your kids into your thoughts about how to interact at work will make you not only happy, but more successful.

--
Nancy Halpern
KNH Associates
http://knhassociates.com/
917-331-9592 (phone)
917-677-8519 (fax)

Are You Coachable?

Having a coach is a little bit like being tutored - you're doing okay, but you really want to do better. You know you can, but there seem to obstacles and roadblocks getting in the way.

Or perhaps you're hiring a coach for someone on your team, and you wonder if the investment will pay off. How do you know if someone is coachable or not?

I could tell you all the positive signs - receptivity to critical feedback, adaptability, excellent listening skills - but you know all those. So instead, here are some of the signs of people who are not coachable:

1. It's the boss's fault. Well, frankly, sometimes it is. But the biggest unwritten part of any job description is managing your boss. A decent coach will set down with you and your manager to determine mutually agreed upon goals. A good coach will help you manage your boss better. A great coach will do all of the above plus sit down with your manager and help them figure out how to manage you. Someone who hangs onto the notion that it is completely their rotten, lousy boss's fault will never make any progress.
2. It's all about me. Narcissism takes all sorts of forms. A corporate narcissist seems very interested in their own development, but not for purposes of improvement, mostly because they enjoy the "me" time. They think they are fine, just not adequately appreciated. They won't admit error, and frankly - when they have misstepped, they ascribe it to good intentions. Narcissists spend a lot of time thinking about themselves, but not self- critically. They are impossible to help simply because they don't think they need any.
3. I just want to be more successful so help me. A recent client shared with me that she had no specific goals, she just wanted to be more successful. What does being more successful look like, I asked? She stared back. If the candidate is goal-less then coaching is a waste of both money and time. How will you know you're succeeding if you can't define success?

 

To make progress with a coach you need specific goals, so that both of you can plan objectives, metrics and reasonable time lines. Otherwise you're not engaged in the business of being coached, you're just enjoying the perks of having one. 

 

 

--
Nancy Halpern
KNH Associates
http://knhassociates.com/
917-331-9592 (phone)
917-677-8519 (fax)

Stop Going to Work

There's been a rash of recent news stories crossing my laptop screen. They're not in newspapers, or the weekly news magazines. They're from Fast Company, The Harvard Business Review and other bibles of the forward thinking business population. I'm not sure if what I'm reading is sexy copy meant to sell or the beginning of a new backlash. Here's what it's about:

 

Take time off from work.

Take a creative sabbatical.

Glory to the 9-5 worker!

Unplug whenever you can.

Go outside.

 

Interestingly enough, most of these stories are coming from design firms and product development houses. Have they been watching too many episodes of Mad Men, wondering why they too can't disappear for hours like Don Draper and sneak off midday to drink and have nooky in a nearby hotel?

Alternatively, are they seeing that the investment of hours and months and years inside an organization have not necessarily brought secure wealth? Goldman Sachs might be doing swell, but the rest of us are worried about budgets having been cut, having more assignments, a rocky foundation from which to argue for the raise we deserve and so on.

Or, maybe this is just day dreaming. Like other indentured servants, we are imagining what life would look like without our masters. Slaves to the machinery - blackberry, ipod, cell phone, lap top - we start to think that most of our motions at work have become routinized and reactive. When was the last time you actually spent time thinking at work? What would happen if you did?

And how will you ever find time to do it again?

--
Nancy Halpern
KNH Associates
http://knhassociates.com/
917-331-9592 (phone)
917-677-8519 (fax)

Who's Your Daddy?

For those of you who missed this week's Meet the Press, watch the roundtable discussion on newly released data indicating that 40% of women earn as much or more than their husbands.

I liked hearing David Gregory talk about how he negotiates with NBC for extra time because his wife, a trial attorney, has to travel. And I liked hearing Maria Shriver declare that institutions have not kept up with how times have changed. I was, though, a little skeptical hearing that these discussions are going on around the kitchen table at least two or three times a week. Really?

 

My female clients would not disagree with the statistics. And they are typically blessed with great partners and husbands, who do their best to share in the overburdening responsibilities of home, child and elder care. But here's the difference: they're afraid that they're turning into their fathers. They remember how their dads caught the 7:50 am train into the city, trudging through the door at 7 pm at night, tired, worn out. How their dads worked every day at corporate jobs so that there was certainty of income and benefits, family life squeezed into the scheduled vacations and days off that everyone had.

 

At least Meet the Press made a glancing reference to the fact that the recent economic downturn has hurt men more than women. Many of my clients have partners and husbands who were stock brokers, entrepreneurs, commission based sales. They have either lost their jobs or seen their income slashed. Or they are the primary bread winners with husbands who stay at home as writers, inventors, or start up gurus exploring that next great opportunity.

 

And they feel trapped. They can't push for more responsibility and bigger jobs that would earn them more money because they can't take the extra work load. Besides - they're already getting the extra work load thanks to hiring freezes and "special projects" (code for what we used to hire more headcount, contractors and consultants for). They can't cut back on what they do now for fear of being seen as dispensable when the next wave of job eliminations happen.

 

It's ironic - these women didn't necessarily want to be their mothers, and it never occurred to them that being their fathers would look like this.

 

Meet the Press announced that the "battle of the sexes" is over - it's now on to the "negotiation of the sexes". I think it's going to be a very, very long negotiation.

--
Nancy Halpern
KNH Associates
http://knhassociates.com/
917-331-9592 (phone)
917-677-8519 (fax)

Is your nose to the grindstone?

I think we're witnessing a backlash.

Yesterday I wrote about the new entrepreneurs trumpeting "forget work/life balance - work until you drop dead!"

Today the headline is: "hip hip hooray for the 9-5!"

 

Stefan Dooran argues that "flexibility" is just another word for nothing left to loose. If we're always connected, how can we ever be free? But if we check in at 9 and clock out at 5 then we get to leave work, not take it with us.

 

O poor naive Mr. Dooran. He must be too young to remember the ebullient Robert Morse (before he morphed into his  Jabba the Hut incarnation on MadMen) in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". In order to climb the rungs, one always put in extra face time. One was always in the office before 9 and after 5. One always read reports, memos and stacks of analysis during the little league games or on metro north.

Other than Dolly Parton, no one ever succeeded by working from 9 to 5. If Mr. Dooran was leading the charge on making whatever hours we work more productive by eliminating unnecessary hours, limiting business travel that is only for show and creating office environments and norms of behavior that bring back "thinking" as a valuable use of time, well then I would be....uncharacteristically and thrillingly quiet.
--
Nancy Halpern
KNH Associates
http://knhassociates.com/
917-331-9592 (phone)
917-677-8519 (fax)

Is it too late to work yourself to death?

I love contrarians. Maybe because I like to think I am - or just because I wish I were.

 

A contrarian is not necessarily a good thing to be in a corporate setting because you run the risk of being labelled as "problematic" or "difficult to manage" or just obstinate. But it is a very good thing to be if you are blogging about work/life issues.

So in the spirit of contrariness, I bring you Jason Cohen, who dismisses work/life balance as something to give away if you want to be successful:

http://blog.asmartbear.com/sacrifice-your-health-for-your-startup.html

 

To do it right, you must put work before self, before family, before all. He and his readers do seem to be mostly in their 20s, glad that they can do this before they have kids and other obligations. They figure make the money now, and then they can take it easy later.

 

On the days when I am not wishing I were a contrarian I am busy remembering that I am an ancient relic, a dinosaur, a solo business owner who launched her own ship at an age not to be revealed. My blackberry is surgically attached to my thumbs, I have a life insurance policy on my laptop, and I always feel like I'm not doing enough. Isn't that working myself to death? Besides, the people I know who "worked themselves to death" in their 20s, guess what happened to most of them?

 

That's right! They kept working themselves to death in their 30s and got divorced in their 40s.

 

I think the conversation about how hard we have to work to be successful isn't the right question - how do you define success? what does that look like at what age and at what level? what are its parameters - compensation? how well you sleep at night? how close you are to your children and partner?

 

I love work. I can't imagine, really, giving up the intellectual satisfaction and sense of accomplishment I get from work. And what in the world did the 20 somethings see in the 40 somethings that led them to this kind of thinking? --
Nancy Halpern
KNH Associates
http://knhassociates.com/
917-331-9592 (phone)
917-677-8519 (fax)