Coach Dan's Blog

Our Coaching Chapter has been engaged in a discussion on how best to articulate the value that our role brings to leaders and teams. We've had great, in depth discussions, and while we are still finalizing our shared framework for articulating our value, the exercise has caused ME to think deeply about the topic. Here's my take! It’s easy for a leader to get caught in the daily swirl of doing . We all feel the pressure to have the right answer, to make the right decision, to deliver results and to justify the resources we've been entrusted with. But true leadership isn't about getting the team to produce faster; it's about empowering the team to produce  results efficiently and indefinitely .  A coach doesn’t just show you what to do, they help to challenge your assumptions about how  things should work. They bring an external lens and a focus, not only on your growth, but to help you to step back and reflect. By partnering to explore new ideas, and challenging bias...

  tldr;  The  "agile mindset"  means treating suboptimal results, negative feedback, and missed goals not as failures, but as  invaluable data points and opportunities for improvement. Key takeaway:  Leaders must foster a culture o f Psychological Safety  where teams are encouraged, not punished, to be transparent about disappointing results. Actionable steps:  Use "bad news" to get curious, hypothesize, adjust strategy (pivot), and measure outcomes (results) over just outputs (activity). The goal:  Create an environment where there is "no bad news, just news that can help us get better at achieving our goals." Things to try:   Specific action steps a leader can try to improve the team’s Psychological Safety can be found at the end of the article.     I’v e said it before, and I’ll say it again - I am blessed to work with some of the best, most talented people I’ve ever met. I was participating in a Crew meeting this week where...

  📖 A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."
 -Lao Tzu True leadership is about helping people to grow, and enabling them to succeed. By creating a clear understanding of the goal, equipping people with the tools they need, creating an environment where people can feel empowered and inspiring them to work together to achieve... a leader fulfills their purpose. Are you leading to equip, empower and inspire? Or are you leading to be seen?

📖 “If I were asked for the most important advice I could give, I should simply say: stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” - Leo Tolstoy Tolstoy understood the importance of awareness and reflection. Pausing a moment and reflecting on your day is a vital way to continuously improve the way you work with your team, your partners, your clients and your customers. Did you pause and reflect today?  

  "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Alvin Toffler Continuious Improvement means continuious learning. It means undderstanding that just because something worked yesterday, doesn't mean it will work tomorrow. It means that everything should be on the table to reevaluate and reassess. A growth mindset in necessary to continuiously improve. When was the last time you challenged your thinking, and learned something new?

📖 “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” -Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche's thinking about how individuals interact when in a group closely aligns with the concept defined by Irving Janis in 1972 called "groupthink." ✏️ Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon in which people strive for consensus within a group. In many cases, people will set aside their own personal beliefs or adopt the opinions of the rest of the group. Individuals with differing opinions, or even opposed to the group's decisions frequently remain quiet in order to keep the peace rather than disrupt the crowd's uniformity. This phenomenon is common in the workplace, as the decision-making cycle continues to compress, and the pressure to deliver increases. It's a danger to leaders and managers because it reduces the likelihood of teams identifying and mitigating risk. Creativity and innovation is pushed to the side in favor of "goin...

  Over the last 24 hours, I heard 3 questions that really caught my interest. The first question was "How can you coach someone to get better at something if they don't think they need to improve." The second question was "What do you do with that one person on the team who always seems to have an excuse as to why things aren't finished." The third question was posed today on LinkedIn by our very own Andrew (Drew) Boyer, "Is the demand for Leadership Coaching coming from Corporate Leaders or Employees??" What struck me is the answer to all three questions is quite the same... A coach can't help someone improve if they aren't open minded and ready to improve. If there is no invitation for coaching, no coaching will occur. If the person you are working with doesn't believe they need to improve - the likelihood of them investing in improvement on their own volition is small. You may show them data indicating there is room for improvemen...

  📖 “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ― Anne Frank What are you waiting for? ✔️ Reflect ✔️ Set a goal ✔️ Make a small change ✔️ Repeat You don't have to swing for the fences every day. Small experiments bring about small changes that add up over time. What's stopping you?

  📖 “Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.” - John Dewey Some people view failure as a negative, and I can understand why that might be. Consider this.... 🤔 If you never fail, did you really give everything you could to something? 🤔 If you never fail, have you discovered everything there is to know about what you tried? 🤔 If you never fail, did you really ever take any risks? Making a team afraid to fail means they will never accomplish all that they could have in the first place... Try something and fail? Reflect and apply your learnings - this is the way to continuous improvement. What's stopping you?

  📖 “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” ― Marcus Aurelius   It's easy to be so confident in a direction or a belief, that we forget to reflect. Challenge yourself to reflect and identify bias in your own thinking. You may be surprised about what you find. We all win together.

  📖 "You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." – Jane Goodall   The daily leadership calendar hits just right again!   Every single day we make an impact on those around us. Everything from the questions we ask, to the tone of our voice makes an impact on another person's day. What we believe in... what we value - comes shining through in the way that we show up to our colleagues, teams, partners, friends and families.   What kind of impact are you having today?   ❔ Are you leading with curiosity? Asking questions to grow and challenge, and then empowering to follow through can help a team member learn a new skill, or gain confidence in skills that are developing.   ❔ Are you balancing results with growth? Getting the job done is important, and when you balance getting results with learning new skills, ...

📖 “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”  ―  Plutarch Today is a great day to kindle the fire of curiosity in your mind. 🔥 Ask questions. 🔥 Listen to understand. 🔥 Encourage others to share different perspectives and ideas. 🔥 Show enthusiasm for finding answers. 🔥 Read or follow someone new. If you don't make time for curiosity, you run the risk of snuffing that fire out completely! What's stopping you? We all win together!

"I want my team to be more accountable." "I wish my team took initiative more often." "It would be great if my team thought more 'out of the box.'" Teach your team HOW to think, instead of WHAT to think. Teams follow your lead, so if you're looking for improvements in them... why not start looking at how you're leading? Start by turning the statements into questions. ❔ How can I make my team more accountable? 💡 Give them a stake in solving problems. Encourage them to design AND build solutions. People tend to feel more ownership when they have a hand in designing what's being built. For example: -- Conduct brainstorming sessions around solving a specific problem. -- Gamify problem solving ( such as rewards for the most creative solution to a sticky problem.)   ❔ What am I doing to keep my team from taking initiative? 💡 Be clear about the results you are looking for, and reward your team for identifying ways t...