Leadership Solutions

Have you heard the ads that begin, "We know times are hard..." They go on to tell you why you need a new car, a new investment strategy or even a beer. What these pleas never say is what you really need in difficult times is a good support system. A good support system can help you network, affirm your competence, challenge your beliefs and ultimately help you through the tough times. A support system is more than a sympathetic ear.

The key to a support system is to make sure you have a variety of types of "support." People fill different roles in our lives and this will ensure that you always have just what you need to succeed.

Here are some roles you might consider for your support system:

• Role Models are people you admire or emulate.
• Peers share experiences and ideas. These are the people that are "in the same boat" with you.
• Confidants provide warmth and closeness when you share feelings or struggles and as the word implies they hold your trust.
• "Dependables" assist in a crisis and are people you can always ask for help, even at the last minute.
• "Respecters" understand the magnitude and complexity of your work and appreciate your efforts.
• Challengers stretch your perspective and question basic assumptions to push your ideas forward.
• Resourcers link people together or act as networks for others who need help.
• Advisors provide methods to solve problems, achieve goals, or take action.

If you are able to find people who fulfill all or most of these roles you will have a strong support system. While Madison Avenue would prefer you grab for a beer when times are hard, a support system will keep you on track and help you through any transition you face-you could also grab the beer!

Try this experiment sometime. Present a new product or idea to a representative sample of consumers, the people who might buy what you are "selling." Before you say anything about the product, ask the group to nod their heads up and down as they listen to your "pitch." The results will surprise you. The group is more likely to have favorable feelings or "buy" your product than they would had they remained still. It's as if just nodding their heads tells their brains that they like the product or idea.

This is just what Dr. Alex Pentland and his colleagues at the MIT Media Lab have been studying, the way people use nonverbal communication. In his book "Honest Signals," Dr. Pentland gives lessons for business leaders.

Basically, the idea is that people have a second channel of communication that involves around their social relations rather than their spoken words. What Dr. Pentland found is that behavior can be predicted from the "honest signaling behaviors" that people use such as head gestures, voice inflection, and body language. One experiment involved mid-level executives pitching business plans and then rating each other. If the presenter sounded excited the ratings were consistently higher-even with people that should have been listening to more than tone of voice!

Here are some tips to help you get your next idea sold:

Mimicry - Copy the other person's nonverbal cues during a conversation, for instance if he smiles, you smile. This signals that you understand him and are empathetic.

Vibes/Buzz - Participate in conversation with a steady pace; in a dialogue the ideal situation is a natural flow of conversation back and forth-it should not be weighted heavily towards one person or another. As a leader, turn taking in conversations actually strengthens your role in the organization or group.

Attitude - Enthusiasm about an idea or product is essential to its successful implementation.

Consistency - If you want to signal a willingness to accept ideas of others, then vary your speech patterns; however, if you want to convey that you are an expert, keep your speech pattern steady and fluid without big variance in tone or emotion.

The impact of honest signaling to you and your teams is huge. It seems that social signaling predicts outcomes better than strategy, motivation, experience or personal characteristics. Leadership Solutions can help coach your team on the signals they send to their clients and customers.

If you are like many, the New Year brings resolutions to work out or get to a gym. It seems that we all want to be as fit as the athletes we see in the sports world. But by the end of the month, many will stop using those new gym memberships. It is hard for individuals to keep themselves motivated to exercise. Add a personal trainer and the incidents of success go way up. Walk into any gym that trains high level athletes and you will see coaches. Tiger Woods is said to employ four coaches, while at his peak of play Magic Johnson had six coaches. Why is it a recognized way of improving an already stellar athlete? Because it helps high level performers fine tune their game.

This tactic has been under appreciated in the business world. To date, coaching is seen as only for the very few high potential leaders or the "big problem" leaders to try to flesh out issues that are holding a person back. Coaches are not utilized in the business world as effectively as in the sports world.

Leadership Solutions hopes to change that with the introduction of Solutions-Based Coaching. It's a shift in the direction of executive coaching to look at leaders as people striving for excellence in their fields. Sometimes, a leader will have specific very short-term needs that require a coach. This is where Solutions-Based Coaching comes into play.

Managers can select the option of coaching when they want to learn something rather than when the company feels he or she needs to improve. The coaching can be focused on a specific learning objective and customized to targeted goals.

For example, a manager in Topeka wants his team to work more effectively. He signs up for Solutions-Based Coaching and it is decided that in about four sessions his issues can be resolved. In these sessions, he and the coach will:

• Conduct a mini-survey
• Clarify goals
• Make a plan of action
• Estimate the business impact of the team working more effectively
• Refine the plan based on data received from the team
• Execute plan with the coach monitoring progress
• Follow up with additional resources if needed
• Evaluate the impact of coaching

In this example the sessions might stretch over four to six months to allow the manager time to implement the changes recommended by the coach. Unlike a seminar this process does not require travel costs or time away from the office and it can fit around business deadlines and work demands.

Here's one way to emulate the professional athletes and you don't even need to head to the gym. Solutions-Based Coaching can give your business a new efficiency for the New Year.

It's Back to School time!

Even though it may have been years since you waited for the school bus wondering if you will have a nice teacher or if the cool kids will sit with you at lunch, the fall seems to bring a feeling of change even to companies. At some, fall marks the end of the casual style employees have been afforded over the summer-it means wear a tie; for others fall marks a serious push to get projects done before the holidays slow everything down. Leaders are coping with unrelenting changes, demographic shifts, technology advances and the need to keep pace with management practices. Curt Carlson, the CEO of SRI International talks about it as the "exponential economy". Segments of the economy are doubling in the ability to deliver performance for the price charged every nine to twenty-four months. The impact of exponential growth to leaders is profound. Never before has understanding and managing change been so important.

The problem from a leadership perspective is that most people do not like change. Like the child that wants last year's teacher rather than a new one, employees prefer what they know. In fact, it's said that only one third of the population reacts to change with acceptance. The other two-thirds range from a minor reaction to a major problem when change is introduced.

Here are some suggestions to help employees deal with changes you might face:

Communicate! Hold frequent communications sessions.

• Acknowledge individual's feelings throughout the process, including your own.
• Ask for opinions or talk to people one-on-one. (Especially if you are not hearing from them.)
• Be open, encourage employees to voice their comments and concerns.

• Be Proactive--The first 100 days of any change make or break the implementation-do your homework and be ready.
• Contact virtual and remote employees on the phone, if not face to face.
• Address "What's in it for me?"
• Include the input of others before and during the change process.
• Ensure that objectives, responsibilities and time frames are clearly defined and communicated during transitions.
• Maintain a positive and upbeat outlook, but don't try to oversell the bright side at a time when others need to vent or explore their concerns with you!

Like going back to school, leaving those carefree days of summer behind is fraught with both excitement and dread. Leadership Solutions can help you manage the changes...now if only we could get the cool kids to have lunch with my grandchildren.