Step #2 – Understand that Coaching is All About You! Coaching is about YOU – YOUR life, YOUR work, YOUR goals, YOUR needs, YOUR desires, YOUR dreams, YOUR values, etc. – and NOT about the Coach’s life, work, goals, needs, desires, dreams, values, etc.  This is YOUR time and YOUR space – and a trained and qualified coach is going to make this all about YOU!  I like to think of it as offering my client a “sacred space” wherein they can come to share any and every thing on their mind and heart.  In addition, like a fitting room, clients can try on new ideas like trying on a new suit of clothing – without fear of recrimination, competition, or rejection. 

Step #3 – Interview More Than One Coach and Have Your Own List of Questions Ready…The most important thing to look for in selecting a coach is finding someone with whom you feel you can easily relate in order to create and the most powerful partnership possible.  Here are some questions you may want to ask prospective coaches:·        What is your coaching experience? (number of individuals you have coached, years of experience, types of situations, etc.)·        What is your coach specific training?  Do you hold an ICF or WABC Credential? Are you enrolled in an ICF Accredited Training Program?·        What are your coaching specialties or client areas you most often work in?·        What specialized skills or experience do you bring to your coaching?·        What is your philosophy about coaching?·        What is your specific process for coaching? (How your sessions are conducted, frequency, etc.)·        What are some coaching success stories? (specific examples of individuals who have done well and examples of how you have added value)·        What is the average length of time you work with clients who are addressing situations similar to my own?·        What are your fees and how are they normally paid? 

Step #4 – Retain YOUR New Coach! 

When you are ready to retain the business coach that you have selected, be ready to do some work!  Most coaches will have you read over and sign a “Coaching Agreement” form that specifies the specifics you both have agreed upon with regard to the number and length of sessions per month; the initial duration of the coaching agreement; the agreed upon fee, etc.  You may also be asked to sign a credit card authorization form to make convenient payments.

Seven Habits of Successful People -Stephen R. Covey
1. Be pro-active
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think Win/Win
5. Seek to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize - collaboration
7. Sharpen the saw - balanced self-renewal

The Eighth Habit - Stephen R. Covey
Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs

The Six Secrets of Change - Michael Fullan
1. Love your employees & your customers
2. Connect peers with purpose
3. Capacity building trumps judgmentalism
4. Learning is the work
5. Transparency rules
6. Systems learn

The One Thing You Need to Know - Buckingham
Narrowing your focus is a fundamental element of success.

Do Schools Kill Creativity? - Sir Ken Robinson
“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

Turnaround Leader - Michael Fullan
Relentless instructional focus
Leadership depth
Capacity building
Non-Judgmental
Data Driven
Define closing the gap as the goal
Attend to the basics
Tap into people’s dignity
Be sure the best people are working on it
All successful strategies are socially based
Stay the course through continuity
Build internal accountability
Establish conditions for the evolution of positive pressure
Use the previous 9 strategies to build public confidence
Effective leaders are energizing - not just innovative
Recognize you are dealing with well-qualified and well-educated group of folks that deserve to be treated like mature adults
Don’t be afraid to compliment people for their efforts
Keep your ego in check
The term ‘principal’ used to mean ‘principal teacher’. Try remembering what it was like to be a classroom teacher.
Never use your authority to threaten, intimidate, or demean.
Lead the school with moral conviction.
Be humble.

If You Don’t Feed the Teachers They Eat Students - Neila Connors
1. Care and be concerned for others
2. Desire to be successful
3. Handle stress
4. Be in good health
5. Think logically

Leadertalk Blog
One can’t overemphasize the value of building relationships with colleagues
Taking notes makes a difference - simply ask to take notes during a conversation
If you don’t know something don’t try to fake it
Roles and value are not the same. We may have different roles but doesn’t mean we have different worth.

LeaderTalk Blogger’s Advice for New Administrators
I will do it. Volunteer to do just about anything
Tackle a major project
Get involved at the District/State level
Understand your School’s and District’s priorities
Model online collaboration and enabling others
“Staff your weaknesses” John Maxwell

National Ed Tech Plan
“For educators to get the most from the rapidly evolving development of information and communication technology, leaders at every level; must not only supervise, but provide informed, creative, and ultimately transformative leadership for systemic change.”

There isn't much to argue with in all this advice. It's like 'mom and apple pie'.

The problem is, even if you memorized every one of these points, even if you discussed them for hours with other prospective leaders, even if you wrote essays about them and gained a deep understanding of their meaning; it would not make you a better leader.

Knowing the elements of leadership is not the same as embodying the elements of leadership.

There are no shortcuts.

For example, (and this applies to most of the items on the lists above) knowing that you should be 'humble' does not make you humble. If, in fact, you are not humble, you won't become humble by just 'wanting' to be humble. The insight itself isn't enough to change a lifetime of behaviors make up the person you are. Embodying what it is to be humble takes a serious commitment to personal change. Personal change comes through ongoing reflection and daily practices.

I'll never forget the Principal who raised his hand during one of my sessions and proclaimed emphatically,

"I already know about leadership!"

I'm sure he could recite the "7 Habits" or the "6 Secrets"; but as the rest of the class looked at him, it was clear that his leadership journey was going to be a very long one.

pete

Disruptive physicians — the kind who insult nurses, throw tantrums and toss scalpels around — have always been a problem for hospitals and their employees. But the threat is looming larger given new developments, such as mandates that call for greater physician-coder/nurse interaction on issues that aren't purely clinical (e.g., present on admission (POA) reporting, hospital-acquired conditions payment restrictions, Medicare-Severity DRGs) and the government's push to link quality and payment. It's hard for a coder to team with a physician to make decisions about POA indicators if that particular physician tells the coder she's incompetent. And the hospital may struggle to thrive under value-based purchasing if a physician's contemptuousness leads to high nurse turnover.

As hospitals grapple with disruptive physicians, a new trend has emerged, making a stubborn problem even more resistant to improvement, says Pittsburgh attorney Henry Casale. Some disruptive physicians are trying to evade consequences for their behavior by claiming that they are not disruptive at all. Rather, they are whistle-blowers exposing hospital noncompliance and poor quality, but the hospital is trying to retaliate against their complaints by branding them troublemakers, he says.

"We are seeing this more and more," says Casale, who is with the law firm of Horty, Springer & Mattern. "Disruptive physicians raise specious claims that have no validity in an attempt to justify their disruptive behavior. Hospitals want to know legitimate compliance concerns, but if there were never any underlying compliance concerns, then lodging fictitious complaints is just another act of disruptive behavior. It's a very difficult issue, being made more complex and being obfuscated by claims that the disruptive behavior is part of some whistle-blowing activity."

Notwithstanding the distraction, the urgency for a solution remains. The Joint Commission requires hospitals to manage disruptive physicians. The code of conduct that hospitals must adopt for Joint Commission accreditation includes a standard for providing a "culture of safety and quality." That means "leaders set expectations for behavior" in the workplace, according to its Web site.

"Safety and quality thrive in an environment that supports working in teams and respecting other people, regardless of their position in the organization. Undesirable behaviors that intimidate staff, decrease morale, or increase staff turnover can threaten the safety and quality of care," the Joint Commission says.

Given the stakes, hospitals should consider ways to help disruptive physicians change their behavior, experts say. One approach is to do what hospitals do for any other outlier: confront physicians with data. Physicians respond to concrete information, even if it is about their own behavior, says Miami psychologist Larry Harmon, Ph.D. He runs a teamwork improvement program for disruptive physicians around the country.

Disruptive physicians are the kind who make life miserable for the people with whom they work — their health care team — with belittling remarks (e.g., "Are you a moron?"), sarcasm (e.g., "It's hard to believe you even have a nursing degree!"), yelling and screaming when things don't go their way and throwing things around the room.

Some physicians behave this way partly because of the milieu in which physicians are trained and practice, Harmon says. "Learning medicine is not a team activity," he says. "They spend much of their time learning technical skills, not teamwork skills." Also, physicians are what Harmon calls "feedback starved." The more prestigious the specialty (e.g., surgeons), the less likely someone will call the physicians on their behavior, he says. As a result, disruptive physicians may be highly skilled and passionate advocates for their patients, but nightmares as colleagues.

Physicians Respond to Feedback

So Harmon developed an educational program designed to get disruptive physicians to stop mistreating the health care team by giving them feedback they lack and helping them see themselves through other peoples' eyes.

There are three phases. First, there is assessment. Harmon sends personal e-mail surveys to the people who work with the disruptive physician. They are asked to answer, anonymously, a series of motivating (positive) questions and discouraging questions.

Examples of positive questions: To what extent does the physician treat team members with respect? To what extent does the physician adapt to changing policies? To what extent does the physician respond to conflict by trying to work out solutions? To what extent does the physician handle difficult team members effectively? To what extent does the physician point out mistakes in a helpful way? To what extent does the physician communicate clear expectations?

Examples of discouraging questions: To what extent does the physician talk down to team members? Overreact when little things go wrong? Yell and swear? To what extent does the physician get sarcastic or angry when asked important questions?

Avoidance, Favorable Comments Most Effective

Harmon summarizes the responses from the physician's team members and prepares a summary report and recommendations for the physicians. "Most [physicians] are surprised how negative the feedback is," he says. However, hearing the truth about how they are perceived "is necessary to break through the denial and defensiveness and to help the physician understand that his or her behavior is having a negative impact on others."

Disruptive physicians are particularly responsive to two kinds of feedback: (1) avoidance comments, such as when nurses state on the surveys that "I call in sick to work when I know you are scheduled [to perform] surgery" and "I am trying to get a job in another part of the hospital so I don't have to work with you"; and (2) favorable comments, such as "You're a great surgeon (even though I can't stand working with you)" and "I would take my mother to you for surgery." In other words, they are deprived of the compliments because of their demeanor.

Once all the feedback is in, Harmon analyzes it to home in more specifically on the disruptive physician's problem behaviors. That way, education can be tailored to the physician. There are education modules on frustration management, conflict management, people management and time management. For example, a physician who yells and screams a lot probably has an anger management problem.

Physicians then watch a video tailored to the triggers of their disruptive behaviors. It's designed to help the physicians change their behavior and work better as part of the health care team. They have to take an online test afterward to ensure they understood and absorbed the content, Harmon says.

Finally, Harmon monitors physicians for a year or so after the training to ensure the changes are sticking and bad behavior doesn't re-emerge. "We do periodic surveys [of the health care team] until the physician had had a sustained period of improvement," he says.

Harmon says that over the next five to 10 years, hospitals will emphasize "getting professionalism back. It will become routine." In fact, medical schools are already are addressing the importance of giving behavioral feedback to doctors-in-training. Harmon provides his program to all the medical students at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine. "Periodically giving and receiving feedback" is essential, he says. "You can't change what you don't know."

Reprinted from REPORT ON MEDICARE COMPLIANCE, the nation's leading source of news and strategic information on false claims, overpayments, compliance programs, billing errors and other Medicare compliance issues.

Emotional Intelligence and Anger.

The real test of our ability to understand, respond to, and manage our emotions is the way we handle anger.

1.  Do we use it in productive or counter-productive ways?

2.  Does our anger lengthen or shorten our lives?

There are several important things to remember when speaking of anger.

Anger is:

•  A powerful survival tool.
•  A source of energy.
•  A secondary emotion.
•  When angry, our brain “downshifts” to the primitive and instinctual level preparing for “fight, flight or freeze” response and higher level thinking momentarily ceases.
•  Anger that lasts for a long time is harmful.
•  Anger held-in is also very unhealthy.
•  Anger is a universal emotion everyone shares.

Anger is an Energizer. Anger is a natural emotional state and is designed to help us stay alive. Anger sends signals to all parts of our body to help us fight. It energizes us and prepares us for action. Often, the perceived need to protect ourselves comes from what amounts to psychological attacks from others.

Use Anger Wisely. When we feel energized by anger, it is smart to ask ourselves how we put this energy to its most productive use. How we wish to channel this energy. As with the use of other forms of energy, we want to use anger effectively and efficiently, not wastefully.

Anger is a Secondary Emotion. Beneath anger is always a primary emotion, such as fear, frustration, or sadness. The primary emotion comes from an unmet need. Our anger can become a signal to look for our unmet needs and care for them.

Anger – Its Role.

Anger, as a secondary emotion, rises out of some primary emotion, such as fear or loneliness, that signals an unmet human need, such as the need for connection.

Anger – The Visible Emotion.

Anger tends to feel powerful at the time. It gives us an illusory sense of control. It blinds us to our primary emotions, since they tend to feel weak and uncomfortable. We rarely notice what lies
beneath our anger.

Primary Emotions Are Signals.

We rarely notice our primary emotions. We quickly move through them and into anger. Becoming aware of our primary emotions gives us the choice of proceeding to anger or examining our needs.

“Negative” Primary Emotions.

When we feel angry, our primary emotions are “negative” emotions. “Negative” means that they come from unmet needs: An unmet need for connection to other people may give rise to loneliness, a negative emotion.

“Positive” emotions come from fulfilled needs: When our need for connection is fulfilled, we may experience happiness or love, both positive emotions.

Working Effectively with Primary Emotions.

By ignoring our primary emotions and emotional needs, we may actually move further from fulfilling them: If we act out our anger, we tend to push others away from us. This leaves our need for connection unfulfilled and increases our loneliness. If we look beneath our anger, we can discover what we need and work to get our needs met: realizing that we need to connect, we can use appropriate communications to connect with a friend, or we can learn to soothe ourselves with self-talk, taking care of our unmet needs.

Unmet Needs – The Root.

By understanding our unmet needs we can develop a strategy to fulfill them. We can share them with people who are close. We can work to calm ourselves, self-soothe, to help ourselves positively instead of acting out.

Unmet Needs – A Time To Heal.

Often, when using the Anger Log, ABCD process (Beliefs, Feelings, Actions, Dispute), we discover that our beliefs are immature: “I want to do what I want to do, and I get angry when anybody gets in my way or I don’t get my way!”

If we don’t act out our anger, we practice changing our old habits by using self-control. We develop maturity! By using the Anger Pyramid to discover and fulfill our needs, we demonstrate to ourselves and others, our growth and maturity and we discover inner resources – strength, self-confidence, and trust in our abilities to cope with situations and other people. We discover more reasons to be positive and fewer reasons to act out.

Tom Wentz, Ph.D., C.A.M.F.
Faculty Member, Anderson and Anderson

Think of a gift that does not cost you a penny but mean a lot to others.

Think of yourself as a gift.  What are your natural gifts?

Everyone who has hearing can give the gift of ears or listening to others.

Can you imagine how the world would change if every one in the world felt heard?  Just imagine how you would feel if you were heard and really understood by your loved ones, your friends, your associates at work, and your merchants who provide you with the products and services you need.

I believe there will be fewer conflicts, fewer wars, and much more peaceful and happier people.  I have seen this happen many times over with family members, friends, groups of people, and specially with my clients.

Think of other gifts you can give.  Can you give the gift of just being there for somebody?  How about giving only compliments or noticing positive qualities about others?

Anyone can easily give a gift of smile, laughter, and joy to others.  How about giving them giving a gift of unconditional acceptance of each human being? (Not saying that you should accept their negative habits or behaviors but just accept a human being unconditionally).

See how you would feel if you just started to accept yourself and love yourself unconditionally.

Try the following affirmations while looking in the mirror to boost your self-confidence, self-esteem, and get closer to your authentic self:

I unconditionally accept and love myself.  I choose to deeply and profoundly love myself.  My authentic self is my core which is pure, peace, and joy.  I now choose to live peacefully, joyfully, and share my gifts freely.

Just by saying these affirmations you will become the quite center of attraction.  You will be easily attracting more abundance, success in your worthwhile endeavors.  Law of attraction will be working for you full-time.

With WatsonSessions, you can rest assured that their expert team of strategic management consultants will help you plan your acquisition strategy. Planning is the key to a successful acquisition strategy and WatsonSessions consulting will be able to advise on all aspects from finances to timeframes.

Whist we can't all acquire 50 companies within 7 years of operating (as Google has), a healthy and well thought out acquisition strategy may grow your company.

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WatsonSessions are a team of strategy consultants, management consultants, business consultants, marketing consultants and leadership consultants based in Nottingham. Their vastly experienced and varied team will be able to help you unlock your company's potential as you drive for excellence in business.

WatsonSessions also offer executive coaching services and independent business advice. It is never too late to get advice from the experts. Check out WatsonSessions latest blog post on executive coaching and mentoring services.

Instead of sending people on brief management or leadership development courses and calling that professional development, personalised one-to-one coaching can have an enormous and lasting impact upon the individual and the organisation. Extraordinary conversations with a dedicated coach enable you to raise your awareness about your own strengths and the way you can be more of yourself, do things differently and have more choice about your actions, work, career & life.

So here's a rallying cry for you: "If you want me to change the world, get me a coach!"

If you'd like to learn more, contact me via Meridian Prime's website: www.meridianprime.co.uk

Today, I want to examine the not so secret, ‘secret’ among educators:

While every school has at least one administrator, few have leaders.

A recent workshop participant paraphrased Peter Drucker and said it this way,

“Administrators do things right. Leaders do the right things.”

While that simple statement captures some of the gulf between leadership and administration, I think it falls far short.

I have a long list, developed over many educational leadership seminars, that outlines the differences between administrators and leaders; but today I will start with the one element that seems to encompass so many others…

Leaders deal from their hearts as well as their minds; administrators work almost exclusively from the mental framework.

We’ve all encountered administrators who kick off the school year with speeches stating the districts goals and objectives, or by reciting well meaning mission statements; but it is rare to find leaders who articulate a vision and inspire their staffs to embrace that vision.

Administrators are comfortable speaking from and appealing to the cognitive domain, hoping others see the logic of their goals and objectives; while leaders want to stir the hearts, as well as the minds of those they seek to lead.

It is the power of the heart that injects a special life into the team. Leaders who use their hearts and minds when they speak have an authenticity that creates trust. Administrators who speak only from their heads may say the right words; they may have perfect scripts; but they appear less authentic, less fully committed, and therefore they create less trust.

Without trust it’s difficult to lead effectively.

I remember the Principal at my son’s eighth grade graduation ceremony speaking to the audience of proud parents and students. His first words were,

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here with you tonight.”

Unfortunately, he spoke these words in a monotone with no emotion (heart). Even worse, there was no smile, no crack in his bland and blank façade. He continued this way through the entire speech.

While I have no doubt that deep inside he meant every word he spoke; because he closed off his heart when delivered his words, it destroyed his message. It reeked of an administrator fulfilling his job requirements, when it could have been a leader expressing gratitude to his victorious 8th grade troops and sending them off to the high school full of inspiration and hope.

Not every leader needs to be a charismatic speaker. Even speakers who speak haltingly and uncomfortably, if they speak from the heart, touch the hearts of those around them; their authenticity comes through and with that, trust flows. We feel their commitment.

One of the first steps in the transformation from administrator to leader is to access the power of the heart. Tapping into the heart shows up in every aspect of leadership, not just in speaking. It is a way of tethering ourselves to something deeper than just our ideas and thoughts. It ties us to our purpose, values, and beliefs.

When we work from this place, we are grounded. We don’t change directions every time the political breezes shift. We are more apt to go the extra mile, even if it seems risky. We walk our own talk. We don’t have hidden agendas, they’re all out there for people to see. When we work from the heart, we don’t make decisions based solely on complicated political calculations; but we factor in our beliefs and values.

Most importantly, when we are grounded in the heart, we have the courage of a leader. Interestingly, the word courage comes from the French root ‘cour’ or heart. As leaders we don't avoid difficult conversations, or put off difficult decisions out of fear. We address them because they need to be addressed. The heart gives us the strength and passion to do the difficult things.

The transformation from administrator to leader is largely a journey of the heart.

pete

Emotions Are Important. Our emotions are a critical source of information. Our emotions are necessary for us to make decisions. Studies show that when a person has an accident in which those structures of the brain that deal with emotions is damaged the  person cannot make even simple decisions. Why? Because the person has lost the capability to feel and thus, evaluate their decision. Social Neuroscience has demonstrated cognition requires emotion in order to complete the transaction of the decision-making process. Without emotion, cognition remains incomplete and unfulfilled.   

Our Bodies Talk. Our emotions help us communicate with others. Our facial expressions, for example, can convey a wide range of emotions. If we look sad or  hurt, we are letting the other person know that we need their help. If we are verbally skilled we will be able to express more of our emotional needs and thereby have  a better chance of filling them. If we are good at listening to the emotional needs of others, we are better able to help them feel understood, important, and cared about. The emotionally intelligent person is able to read, with some accuracy, the feelings conveyed non-verbally by those with whom he or she interacts.

Stress Reduces Our Ability to Feel. As our society has become more pressured and we are constantly overwhelmed by stress, our ability to recognize and respond to our own feelings and those of others is diminished. Overwhelming feelings of stress result in a reduced ability to manage intense feelings and an increase in stress-related disorders. Consequently, there is an increase in road rage, desk rage, air rage, voice-mail rage, verbal and physical aggression, violence against  others, substance abuse, and other inappropriate displays of anger.

Emotions Bring People Together. Our emotions are perhaps the greatest potential source of uniting all members of the human race. This is what makes us human and creates the potential for our humanity. Clearly, our various religious, cultural and political institutions have not united us. Far too often, in fact, they have even divided us. Emotions, on the other hand, are universal.

Emotions are Universal. The emotions of…

• Empathy - The ability to understand and share someone else’s feelings.

• Compassion - The ability to care about and give to someone else.

• Cooperation - The ability to work together to achieve a common goal.

• Forgiveness - The ability to pardon someone for a grievance against you or against someone one or
  something you care about.

All of these emotions have the potential to unite us as people. Our thoughts may tend to divide us, whereas our emotions, if given the chance, will unite us in our humanity.

Tom Wentz, Ph.D., CAMF
Faculty, Anderson & Anderson®
Trusted Name in Anger Management

In today's competitive world, effective communication is extremely important for the success of not only personal interactions, but also for organizations and companies. There are different effective communication skills particular to various situations. So it is imperative to undergo communications training to effectively develop and improve communication skills. The communications training must balance both theoretical, as well as practical skills required for good communication.

Problematic Areas That Require Communications Training

In organizations, it is necessary to communicate with different sub-groups and overcome difficulties in effective communication. Since all sub-groups have their own sub-culture, therefore an effective communications trainer may help you in improving communication skills with other members of your organization. It is necessary to ensure that personalized ways of communication and the various sub-cultures do not clash between different sub-group members. Besides, it is necessary to assist the leader to improve the knack to perceive and understand how various subgroups relate to each other.

Focus of Communications Training

* Providing effective speaking ability

* Developing really good listening, as well as responding skills

* Improving personal qualities and strengths

* Giving a clear idea about communication dynamics

* Increasing total awareness, perceiving habits, beliefs and patterns

* Dealing with different assumptions, working with various viewpoints, giving candidates confidence and making them feel that they are in charge.

* Specialized training depending on requirements for effective office communication and other external dealings

]]> http://angerblog.wordpress.com/?p=321 Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:13:49 +0000 George Anderson http://angerblog.wordpress.com/?p=321 “A universal trigger for anger is the sense of being endangered. Endangerment can be signaled not just by an outright physical threat but also, as is more often the case, by a symbolic threat to self-esteem or dignity: being treated unjustly or rudely, being insulted or demeaned, being frustrated in pursuing an important goal.” (Goleman, 1995)

Emotional intelligence is a relatively recent concept, which is related to the ability to understand one’s own feelings and behavior as well as the capacity to sense the feelings and needs of others and to utilize this information in a way that enhances interpersonal relationships. Emotional Intelligence is also the capacity to create positive outcomes in our relationships with others and ourselves. Positive outcomes include joy, optimism, and success in work, school, and life. Increasing emotional intelligence has been correlated with better results in leadership, professional and academic, performance, marriage, friendships, and overall health.

Recognizing as well as understanding our feelings and emotions and then, managing their impact on other people must be practiced to internalize the skills being taught. We believe that it is important to take an interest in people and learn to listen to their views, problems and concerns. As previously learned in The Practice of Control, listening is important in communication and is a skill that can be learned as well as improved upon.

Emotional intelligence (EI) encompasses four domains:

   1.  Self-Awareness.
    2.  Self-Control.
   3.  Social-Awareness.
   4.  Relationship Management.

Self-awareness facilitates both empathy and self-control. Empathy and self-   control combine to provide effective relationship management.

Self Awareness is the Foundation. Without self-awareness, we cannot be aware of our emotions. We cannot manage emotions we are not aware of, so our emotions will tend to be out of control. Out of control emotions impair our ability to experience empathy and to connect with others. When our emotions are out of control, our relationships suffer – we do not have social awareness or the ability for social management.

Emotions Are Our Guidance System. Nature developed our emotions over millions of  years of evolution. As a result, our emotions have the potential to serve us today as a guidance system. Our emotions let us know when any natural human need is not being met. For example, when we feel lonely, our need for connection with other people is unmet. When we feel afraid, our need for safety is unmet. When we feel rejected, it is our need for acceptance that is unmet.

Perception Is Everything. The way we appraise (see) our environment at any given time is important in determining how we respond emotionally. If we appraise a situation as a threat, put-down, or an insult, we are more likely to respond with anger and negativity.

Thomas L. Wentz, Ph.D., C.A.M.F.
Faculty, Anderson and Anderson Anger Management

The Mental Health Foundation today released a report showing problem anger is left untackled in the UK, despite widespread concern about aggression, family breakdown and physical and mental health problems linked with anger.

The Boiling Point report says chronic and intense anger has been linked with heart disease, cancer, stroke, colds and flu as well as depression, self-harm and substance misuse. Higher levels of anger are related to lower levels of social support and higher stress levels. Anger is more likely to have a negative effect on relationships than any other emotion.

Problem anger goes largely untackled unless someone commits an aggressive criminal act, when a court may refer them to anger management training. The charity says we are intervening too late and could save many lives from being damaged if we tackled it earlier.

The report records interviews with GPs, psychologists and providers of anger management courses and therapies as well as a public attitude survey.  A literature review carried out for the report suggests anger studies and interventions for problem anger are in their infancy.

Anger is a vital emotion, and essential to our survival, but it can become entrenched in everyday life for some people, interfering with their thinking, feeling and behaviour and creating misery for themselves and others.

A public attitude survey carried out for the report shows widespread concern. Almost two thirds (64 percent) of participants in a YouGov* survey of just under 2,000 adults say that people in general are getting angrier. According to the poll almost a third of us (32 percent) have a close friend or family member who has trouble controlling their anger. More than a quarter (28 percent) of us worry about how angry we sometimes feel; and one in five (20 percent) of us say we have ended a relationship or friendship with someone because of how they behaved when angry.

Polling also found strong public support for tackling problem anger – 84 percent of us believe that people should be encouraged to seek help if they have problems with anger. But 58 percent wouldn’t know where to go.

Dr Andrew McCulloch, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation said:

“In a society where people can get help for depression and anxiety, panic, phobia, eating disorders and a range of other psychological and emotional problems, it seems extraordinary that we are left to fend for ourselves when it comes to an emotion as powerful as anger. We need to be able to recognise when anger is damaging our lives, ask for help and receive it.

In the media and in mainstream life we hear a lot about road rage and many other types of rage. Our polling shows that the general public understands what’s going on. But as a society we have yet to tackle the issue. It is the elephant in the room in mental health. This is not about excusing bad behaviour, but about helping individuals and communities to take responsibility. Tackling it won’t be simple or straightforward, but the benefits could be enormous.”

The report says that problem anger is not a mental illness in itself but many of the everyday tools used in mental health - such as talking therapies - can be applied to help people cope better with anger. But the area has been neglected by researchers, clinicians and policy makers. Consequently people who might benefit enormously from learning how to manage their anger better are not encouraged to come forward, or when they do, they may be offered little or nothing in the way of useful support.

Boiling Point says that there are already a number of schemes run by public, private and voluntary sector organisations that are targeted at helping people deal with problem anger. But most of these are post-hoc interventions to which people are referred because they have already got into considerable trouble at home, work or with the police and criminal justice system.

The topic of leadership is like love; it defies definition in any organized manner. The same is the emerging view regarding leadership development as even those organizations, which profess to do it well, acknowledge that there are issues that impact success.

A state of the art Leadership Development Process is a stated goal of most CEO’s.  Like many aspirations the “process” becomes dysfunctional despite the best of intentions of senior managers and the Human Resources function.   The principal contributing factors to this are as follows:

·        A lack of visible CEO and top manager commitment

·        The process devolves into initiatives in search of a context

·        A lack of clarity regarding the strategy, linkages among programs, and benefits to managers

·        Cost drivers frequently put process elements “on hold”

·        The program does not achieve the desired performance nor retention objectives

Based upon the above my colleagues and I have begun experimenting with a concept we refer to as Self-Directed Leadership Development.  Although like most consultants, we support the development of competency based development, performance management, and training programs, we have found that sustainable success in many respects relies upon personal initiative.  In fact there is an emerging consensus among our subject matter experts that Leadership Development programs designed around this “personal initiative” assumption have merit in addition to, or in conjunction with, the more organized approaches.

Managers whom want to take more control over their career development do crave guidance as to the areas on which they should focus, and what are the avenues of support that they can expect to receive from their organizations.

As to the former, we have worked with many top managers, both domestically and internationally helping them resolve the question, what will it take to succeed in their organization in the future?

In the context, we have developed a protocol we refer to as the Management Assessment Process (MAP).  Over the years, our experience using Management Assessment Process has allowed us to predict general management competencies that define organizational success.  Our data is based upon over 2,000 interviews of CEO’s and only their direct reports conducted since 1992.  Our data base of companies are derived from North and South America, Western Europe, Asia, and several Eastern European countries.  The range of company size is from start up- through large multi-national.  As well our data includes interviews with senior executives from foreign governmental agencies.

We have organized our findings into four categories Threshold Attributes, Role Driven Skills, External Leadership Attributes, and Influence Management that are presented in the balance of this document. In the creation of a Self Directed Leadership Development Strategy all four must be considered.   To appreciate the linkages the following graph is presented.

Threshold Attributes

We have defined Threshold Attributes as the “common denominator” skills required by all managers as the baseline for determining success.  Our consolidated experience indicates that these attributes must be possessed by all managers in abundance.  A deficiency in any of the core attributes, in our experience, either has to be corrected or we are not confident in predicting success for the incumbent.

Role Driven Skills

Globally successful businesses are made up of a coalition of managers who when acting in concert define their business and the competitive posture of it’s’ place within an industry as a leader or “wanna be”.  To be successful, the incumbent must function as a specialist and think like a general manager.  This balance creates opportunity for the successful and ambiguity for the less successful.

External Leadership Attributes

We have defined Leadership Attributes as those skills that when “rolled up” among all managers, defines the organization’s position in the external marketplace.  These skills define a manager’s ability to promote the organization’s interests through motivation, strategic thinking and knowledge transfer.  The syntheses of these skills frame leadership and the strategic thrust of an organization.

Influence Management

Companies are organic in their internal maturation and evolution of value systems.  The crafting of an organization’s culture, climate and social system, is a consolidation of managerial willingness to identify and push the organization’s “levers” and lack of risk aversion in promoting positive change.  Organizations grow from the inside out.  Managers’ influence skills define the framework that catalyzes the organizations common sense of purpose.

In an effort to provoke thinking, additional detail for each of these four major areas of developmental opportunity are as follows:

Threshold Attributes

Baseline attributes for successful general managers reflect the ability to think strategically while acting globally.  We have identified four common skills among successful managers.  We refer to these core skills as Threshold Attributes in that, without proficiency, in each, manager’s effectiveness is disenfranchised.

Global Orientation

As companies become more multi-national, it is essential that managers have the ability to think in a “big picture” context and realistically assess the implications of their decisions on a multi-national scale.  Parochially focused managers are not traditionally successful, based on our experience.

Problem Solving

This is the ability to solve business related problems creatively.  As well, and we believe more importantly, is the aptitude to anticipate where difficulties are like to arise and be able to address them innovatively before they take on lives of their own. Our data suggests that this is found to be a “gap” as often there is a restrained bias for action, and/or a lack of organizational support for the implementation of “untested” solutions.

Communication

Effective manager require the ability to move effortlessly among three vehicles of communication, the ability to persuade one-on-one, in writing and through speeches/presentations.  Expatriate and Internationally oriented managers need at least cultural sensitivity and optimally host country language skills as well.

Finance and Economics

Successful managers, in our experie3nce, have become somewhat expert in the area of Finance, Political Economies, and International Economics.  All managers can read a P&L.  However, we have found that most successful globally oriented managers have a “feel” for the broader international financial world.

Role Driven Skills

In the process of achieving General Manager Status, we have found that successful incumbents have architected a reputation as an “expert” in a specific discipline.  Our experience in numerous industries suggests that there is no one a discipline that is a “stairway to heaven”.  Alternatively, in the recent past, we have found that the more successful managers have been associated as a champion of a critical business process such as Supply Chain or Marketing.

In our work outside of the United States two trends bear mentioning.  First is that CFO’s who had traditionally been considered logical successor candidates are not being perceived as forcefully.  They have been supplanted by Sales and Marketing oriented managers.  Secondly, the successful International managers have become somewhat expert on the strategic use of total rewards despite the regulatory restrictions and inflationary conditions in the host country.

External Leadership Attributes

Leadership Attributes are the corner stone of differentiation among managers.  These skills define the managerial potential and the incumbent’s reputation within an organization.  We have identified a number of proficiencies we categorize as External Leadership attributes which we believe to be predictors of success for Leaders.

Strategic Focus

Successful managers understand the impact of their role on the business.  Most importantly, successful managers appreciated the inter-relationship and inter-dependencies of their roles among others.  Successful managers promote successful companies.  Our experience points out those truly successful managers have the organizational and personal maturity to avoid internal rivalries with a focus of realizing there is a need for all to be winners, or all ultimately are losers.

Leadership Challenge Alignment

Our experience repeatedly points out those successful managers have more that one management style they use with individual reports.  Worldwide, when mangers move up the career path, we have found that they become more delegators.  Obviously, there is a need to do this based on demands of time.  Our experience, however, indicates that successful managers, even in top positions, style ranges from directive to delegation, and they choose the appropriate style based on the task and the skill maturity of those direct reports. They are directive in suggesting to their direct reports that they pattern this behavior.

Industry Knowledge

Regardless of the amount of time a manger has spent in that organization’s industry, they can be perceived to have a strong content knowledge of the industry, its dynamics and position in world markets. This is an area we have found for extensive self-study if a manager is coming from a different sector.  The more successful managers have developed strongly held views on the future trends in their industry.

Integrity

We found that the more successful managers are role models for avoiding expediency.  Basically, we have found that these managers refuse to compromise and cut corners in the belief that their personal reputation is at issue.  These ladies and gentlemen, epitomize management by values.

The scandals at Enron, AIG, WorldCom, among others have raised the importance and visibility of this attribute.  Independent of Sarbanes Oxley, these managers “walk the talk” of Ethics.

Public Relations

Successful managers cannot practice mushroom management in respect to the general public, or more importantly, their employees and stockholders.  Our experience has found that the more successful mangers have developed a flair for external PR as manifested by the writing of articles or Op-Ed pieces, speeches, and interviews. As well they are pro-active in terms of efficient communication within their organizations.

Influence Management

Influence management are those skills that characterize the person’s positive ability to make a difference within the organization’s culture.  These skills build internal trust in a manager as he or she progresses up the career ladder.  This benefits the organization when the manger, through these proficiencies, is more accepted and credible when achieving a senior leadership position.

Conflict Management

Among the three options, avoidance, dealing with conflict badly or dealing with it well, our indicators are that successful managers make a good faith effort to resolve conflict in a principled and fair manner.  These managers engender a reputation for balancing assertiveness with compassion.   Above all contentious issues are not allowed to fester.

Network & Coalition Building

Successful managers are recognized for the quality of their relationships on multiple levels.  Foremost are their internal and external networks.  They can solicit and transmit information freely and with recognition that what they are being told is truthful and with the quid-pro-quo that they as well, are not misrepresenting their position.

Effective team management and participation is also a predictor of success.  My colleagues and I speculate that in the near term, this activity will only increase in importance as the business horizon becomes more competitive.

Staff Development

Everyone benefits when mentoring is positive.  We have found that managers who have engendered reputations as sought after mentors have predictably been more successful.  Our proven hypothesis is that these managers have a better appreciation of the energies that can be harnessed through people.  Most importantly, managers who are good mentors are usually good teachers.  As they evolve to higher levels in the organization, building stronger relationships, they are more likely to have their visions followed than managers who are perceived to be peevish, and “not having the time”.

Self-Directed Leadership

In the last decade the Management Assessment Process has been for us a core-consulting tool.  Through this work, we have identified predictors for future success. Our consolidated findings support our hypothesis that many of these skills cannot be taught.  Alternatively they require personal initiative in acquisition.

Our hypothesis is not intended to diminish the value of organization driven Leadership Development programs.  We take the view, however, that organization initiatives on their own, even when defined and managed, can only be relied upon to a degree.  The managers themselves need to be participants in controlling their own destiny. 

The Talent in any company is its only appreciating asset.  With this in mind we suggest that putting developmental onus on the manager as well as the organization, is a sensible request.

 These days you cannot read a business periodical or participate in a meeting where the need for teamwork and frustration associated with sub optimization isn’t being discussed.  The sad truth is that in this era of restructuring where resources are rationed or absent, the need for teamwork has never been greater  The added complexity is the benefits we are deriving from Collaborative Tools and the attitudinal preferences of the Generation Y workers to whom Teamwork is to be expected not a planned for or unanticipated outcome..

A plethora of literature exists on why teams are necessary to promote organizational interests with concomitant wringing of hands as to why the forming and effective use of coalitions is so difficult.  Let’s face it folks, eagles don’t flock.  Teamwork at senior levels is counter intuitive in that it has not been an outcome of conditioning or career recognition.  The achievement to executive levels is traditionally recognition of individual performance and personal decisiveness.

The effectiveness of teamwork is further complicated by performance management and reward strategies which emphasize the concept in spirit only.  There is no tangible emphasis on recognition associated with participation in or leadership of teams.  Few organizations “walk the talk” when it comes to promoting the need for teams.  All point to the necessity for cooperation within and across departments but few organizations back up the statements with rewards or sanctions.

Just saying teamwork is a desired organizational attribute is a little like kissing your sister.  Mechanically, it is the same but there is a certain ambiance missing…I hope!

 Senior Level Executive Teams Lessons Learned

My colleagues and I have been experimenting with various executive level team-building approaches as an extension or our organization and process redesign work.  A core of our point of view is that there is a necessity to embed into enterprise operations the use of highly proficient collaborative tools.

At the senior level what we have found is the critical need for executives to acknowledge that developing the environment for high performing teams goes beyond just framing the need and appointing the people.

Our work has led us to hypothesize that although there may be many appropriate interventions to build and sustain teamwork at levels, e.g. Outward Bound, the initial difficulty is persuading the executives that there is a true community of interests.  This deficiency allows executives to pay courteous lip service to the need for cooperating in a meaningful problem-solving way versus spectator level participation.  At the executive level, we infrequently find insincerity but often encounter over-politeness.  The continued denial that the development of a workable coalition with a unique identity and tailored set of operating principles creates a barrier to success.

Well-Intentioned Confusion   A European Company subsequent to a restructuring set up a Top Management team (TMT) with Pan European and American Membership.  The TMT meetings were described as exercises where “we all retreated back to our nationalist borders and ignored the fact our very survival depended on each other.”  “We all spoke English but listened in God knows what tongue.”   The popular excuse within the TMT was that cross-cultural differences were the barrier to success.   A consultant was retained to give a one-hour speech on Effective Teaming Principles.  Six hours, a spontaneous workshop and intense debate later, the managers emerged from the session having diagnosed the real problems as a lack of role specificity and articulation form the CEO as to what discretion the team enjoyed vis-à-vis decision making.

Breakpoints

Frequently, two major breakdown points are:  (1) a lack of clarity as to the purpose of the team and (2) awareness of the comfort zone of the top manager as to degree of participation.  The fundamental concern is whether or not the group is an advisory or decision-making entity. And (3) the lack of supporting technology compelling face to face meetings vs. ongoing communication.

Purpose of the Team

Sometimes the basics are so simple they are overlooked.  There is a need for each team to ask:  “What is the question to which our formation is the answer?”  Mission and charter statements do not go far enough.  Specific role delineations, identification of suitable topics to be brought to the team’s agenda, and most importantly articulation by the top manager as to how he or she wishes to see decisions evolve need to be specified.

Individual Roles

Teamwork is disenfranchised at the executive level by what we call the “I am my function” phenomenon.  This phenomenon occurs when people only represent the point of view associated with their designated role.

For example, finance people only participate in financial (or fiscal) economic discussions.  This is self-limiting as the intellectual capital in the room is untapped.  The goal is to create an environment that affords an opportunity for members to demonstrate the broadest skills for the team’s benefit.

Executive Team Building Approach

The desired state of executives to strengthen their potential to become a high performing team presupposes that members recognize the limitations of the status quo.

Our approach in “turning the mirror on the team” has a number of steps.

Organization Climate Diagnostic

We have found that it is necessary to “assess” the organization climate to determine the convergence or divergence of views on factors such as the following:

-        Role Architecture - the clarity surrounding roles, accountabilities, reporting relationships and performance expectations

-        Performance Mentality - the degree of organizational pressure to perform….meritocracy

-        Discretion - the freedom, or lack thereof, of management discretion in making and

-        executing decisions

-        Total Rewards - the perspective regarding the competitiveness and generosity of the organizations Compensation and Benefits programs.

-        Infrastructure - the level of support from entities such as finance, HR, IT, Marketing etc.

-        Commitment - the level of perceived commitment to the organization for “the next 5 years”

Teaming Workshop

Our two-day workshops have a threefold purpose:

·        Generate awareness as to the dimensions of the barriers facing this team

·        Agreement achieved as to role, meeting focus, decision-making discretion, top management involvement

·        Development of a Statement of Operating Principles, referred to as the Covenant

Teaming Workshop Process   ·        Exercise identifying High Performing Teams ·        Characteristics of High Performing Teams ·        Team evaluation against identified criteria ·        Organizational barriers identification, discussion, mitigation/elimination strategy ·        Meyers Briggs tutorial and implications on team effectiveness ·        Role and decision-making processes discussed and codified ·        Development of Teaming principles established as a covenant

High Performing Teams Example

The first step in our process is an exercise where the participants are broken into subgroups and asked to give examples of high performing teams.  The five examples found most frequently are:  sports (hockey or basketball), medical (ER or OR), music (symphonies), special ops (SWAT or Special Forces), and ants or bees.

Characteristics of High Performing Teams and Assessment

Participants are then asked to identify those characteristics that distinguish high performing teams.  The most common characteristics are:

·        Clear objectives, roles and accountabilities

·        Tailored participation maximizing individual skills sets

·        Tangible incentives for team performance

·        Effective vehicles for communication

·        Mechanisms in place to resolve conflict if it is encountered

·        A manifested sense of urgency focused on completion

Participants then compare desired characteristics with their own performance.  The team is continually asked to frame the dimensions of the sub optimized behaviors and develop action plans to reduce or eliminate success barriers.

Organizational and Personal Awareness

Using our climate diagnostic methodologies and the Meyers Briggs tool, there is a discussion in terms of how the organization and the personality profiles of integral team members affect the internal workings of the team.  The Meyers Briggs methodology is particularly useful in that the personality profiles point to diversity, the elements of which can be enhanced to promote group effectiveness.  The organizational climate aspects suggest outcomes which can translate into action plans to reduce success barriers and promote the growth and effectiveness of the coalition.

Roles and Protocols

Working in subgroups, team members identify specific roles and decision-making protocol to be utilized within the team environment.  There is aggressiveness in the context of assuring specificity in terms of both as an element of this component of the workshop.

Teaming Principles – Covenant

The program commonly culminates with subgroups developing “teaming principles.”  This covenant becomes the contract which the team conducts its affairs.  After each subgroup presents its findings, the members of the team are asked, unless they have severe reservations, to initial the flipcharts or viewgraphs.  We then create some type of display frame or table setting, etc. with signatures.  In addition, we actively encourage the executive teams to use communication organs to broadcast the covenant throughout the firm.  The benefits of that are self-evident.

14 Common Characteristics

Following is a description of the most commonly suggested inputs for the development of this covenant.

Characteristics   1.      Everyone participates without exception. 2.      Style, cultural and other differentiating filters do not become barriers.  They required validation of communications 3.      Listening is an art form, not a biological function, requiring care, thoughtfulness, and active involvement. 4.      Conflict is unavoidable, requiring principled methodologies for resolution. 5.      Assume good intentions, and do not position people as accidents waiting to happen. 6.      Recognize that the overall interests of the organization are paramount. 7.      Once decisions are made by the working group, there should uniform external communication.  No second-guessing or triangulation. 8.      Maximization of individual skills and contributions.  No one fails. 9.      No debate is engaged in without closure. 10.  Decisions are translated into actions with accountabilities and timeframes. 11.  Metrics are incorporated into an evaluation of group effectiveness and integrated with recognition and reward structures. 12.  Efficient executive teams focus on small numbers of high profile and high priority activities. 13.  Executive teams should demand and receive high quality information for their decision-making processes. 14.  For the staff development of others, non-group members should be allowed to make presentations and participate in relevant discussion and get a sense of the internal dynamics of the working group.  Transform external participants into missionaries.

The covenants aside, the two behaviors that can sabotage the best of intensions and most disciplined internal working agreements are:  (1) listening and (2) conflict resolution.  The executives’ listening skills have to continue to be te4sted and reinforced.  It is not something we do as an automatic response.  Often times, more senior executives appear to be listening but their brain is really running ahead in terms of how they are going to respond or, in many cases, focused on something totally outside the conversation.  This must be confronted in order for the team to optimize its effectiveness.

Conflict resolution is a result of human interaction.  The need for principled communication and successful conflict resolution versus finger-pointing is a necessity.  The group should agree in advance as an element of its principles how it will resolve conflict, i.e., the CEO makes the final call, etc.  It also should be recognized that no matter how much there is a desire to eliminate conflict, it will happen.

High performance Teams take energy.  However, this energy has benefit both in the short-and long-term.  If organizations continue to exist as coalitions of individuals that promote individual self-interest at the expense of the corporation, an organization’s ability to grow and prosper is hampered.

Conflict coaching is a one on one voluntary and confidential process that combines ADR and coaching principles. It is at its very essence, an individualized method for helping people effectively engage in conflict.

A few basic similarities between the fields of ADR and coaching, include the basic premises of self-determination and confidentiality. While some of the techniques and practitioner’s skills are similar, there are some major differences.

An important distinction is that the goals of those who participate in conflict coaching may not only be about resolving conflict. Rather, individuals seeking coaching (referred to as coachees in this presentation), may want to work on ways to prevent a dispute from unnecessarily escalating, to improve their competency in conflict management, to develop stronger communication skills for a difficult conversation and other objectives, that are often more about managing, than resolving.

What It Is Not

Considering when conflict coaching works and when it does not – the subject of this presentation - it helps to distinguish coaching from other processes.

Counselling/Therapy

In conflict coaching, it is inevitable that coachees vent their version of the incident and their concerns to the coach. The coach remains supportive and non-judgemental and is for all intents and purposes, the coachees’ champion. While therapeutic by virtue of this experience, coaching is not therapy or counselling. For instance, coaches do not explore past experiences, or the genesis of the conflict behaviours and emotional responses.

This does not mean coachees do not refer to historical events, or discuss the impact that conflict has on them. It does mean there are limitations as to where coaches intervene. The context is the coachees’ conflict management goals and is essentially, future-focussed.

Conflict coaching does not work then, when coachees need or want counselling or therapy, to address unresolved emotional issues.

Mentoring

Mentoring usually occurs when a senior person in an organization or position of authority, provides more junior people with the benefit of their experience and expertise. Mentoring is usually given in the form of advice, information and other direct assistance.

The CINERGY™ model of conflict coaching, that I developed is like many other coaching models, in that it does not operate on the basis that coaches give advice. The operating premise as articulated by the International Coach Federation’s philosophy, is that coaches are “creative, resourceful and whole”. This is of course, consistent with the concept of self-determination and self-discovery.

Conflict coaching then, does not work when coachees expect advice and are not interested in or willing to participate in a process, that expects them to be or become their own experts.

Mediation

Unlike mediation, in which a mediator facilitates a discussion with two or more parties in a dispute, coaches do not bring “the other person” into the coaching process to resolve the issues in dispute. Mediators may provide some form of coaching in pre-mediation meetings or in the process, e.g. in caucus. They are not however, a champion of one party. Generally, mediators focus on facilitating negotiations and discussions to assist both (all) parties identify their interests and work towards resolution of their differences.

Conflict coaching then, does not work if coachees expect the process to be more of the nature of a mediation, or for that matter, an arbitration.

Agent/Representative

Coaches do not act as an agent or representative for a coachee. That is, the coach will not on behalf of coachees, go to other people in support of the coachee’s goal or participate in a process, as the coachee’s advocate.

Coaching then, does not work if coachees want/need an agent or representative for a rights-based process. Nor, does a coach speak for coachees under any other circumstances.

Remedial Coach

There is some tradition that coaching was employed as corrective action, for discipline and other behavioural issues. Coaching has evolved in many ways and for many reasons, especially since the late 80’s. It is a process to help people be their best and achieve their personal and professional goals, personally and professionally. There are many types of coaching, everything from developing career objectives, to learning negotiation skills, to attaining work-life balance and so on. For the most part, people choose to go to coaching, although organizations may identify areas for improvement and introduce coaching programs to improve sales, communications, planning and so on. When it comes to conflict coaching, people are commonly referred, because they are demonstrating problematic conflict conduct in the workplace. Under those circumstances, it is not unusual for coachees to be resistant to the process and the coach. Lack of clarity or inconsistency about their goals, anger about being referred, assumptions about the reasons for the referral and other possibilities, have an impact on how coaching is received.

Coaches commonly work with resistant people and employ techniques to assess coachability and to manage the sources of the resistance. As a consequence, resistance does not flag that coaching is not viable. Conflict coaching does not work however, when referrals are inappropriate and when coachees resist to the point that they will not willingly engage in the process.

When Does Conflict Coaching Work?

This previous discussion on when coaching does not work, inherently points out when it does. There are other circumstances as well, when coaching applies.

Pre-Mediation Coaching

Coaching in which a coach prepares a party for mediation, is a valuable application of conflict coaching. Coaching in these circumstances is focussed on ways to support the party being coached, beyond what a mediator does in pre-mediation meetings with each party. The coach’s role is not only to help prepare the coachee to resole issues in dispute and understand the mediation process. It is also to assist the coachee to rehearse challenging communications, to identify mutual interests and consequences, to expand thinking on options, strategies and solutions and so on.

Post-Mediation Coaching

The objectives of post-mediation coaching include to help one or both (or more) of the disputants, on an individual basis, to reach whatever goals remain in the aftermath of the mediation. This may include to:

• improve the relationship, when it remains strained
• improve conflict management skills, having realized and identified areas that cause the coachee concern
• address any unmet or unresolved matters, about the person or the situation
• consider the types of reactions and situations that lead to unnecessary escalation and work on ways to manage them for the future

Pre and Post-Training

Another useful application of conflict coaching is before and after training, e.g. for mediation, conflict management, conflict coaching, group facilitated process or other training. The rationale for this application is that people being trained in these areas, are usually able to identify specific areas where their own conflict management skills are lacking. This fact may preclude their skills, both as a conflict participant and as a practitioner.

With preparatory work, pre-training conflict coaching may for instance, help participants identify their particular conflict management style (e.g. through the use of assessment tools), consider and name the areas in which they feel least competent, establish their individual training objectives and development plan and so on.

Post-training coaching may be linked to pre-training coaching when applicable, or exist as its own process. In either case, post-training coaching is aimed at sustaining what was learned, helping people identify areas requiring further development and plans for that development, including action steps, timelines and so on.

Mediation-Coach

Another application of conflict coaching is as a ‘silent partner’ to a mediation party, within the mediation process. To avoid imbalance at the table, this concept works best if each mediation party has a coach. Also, it is necessary for the mediator, the disputants and coaches to clarify their roles and ways of operating, in advance.

A viable model is based on the notion that the coachees are not only interested in resolving the issues in dispute. That is, there are other objectives for which coaching is chosen. This may include goals such as wanting to:

• improve conflict communication skills (and use this mediation opportunity to do so or learn from)
• gain increased understanding of one’s triggers and tendencies, e.g. to react
• shift destructive behavioural reactions, to constructive responses
• learn how to check assumptions

This model also presupposes that each coach is providing pre and post-mediation to his/her coachee regarding their stated objectives.

During the mediation, the coach does not speak on behalf of his/her coachee or otherwise participate directly in the mediation process. Rather, the coach observes the coachee, to be able to provide feedback relative to the stated goals and generally, assists with the coachee’s skills in conflict engagement. This coaching assistance is provided at caucuses (which may be requested by the mediator, coachee or coach), when it is pertinent to the focus of the mediation. Otherwise, objectives not relevant to the mediation, are addressed in post-mediation coaching.

Other situations when conflict coaching works Conflict coaching works in other situations, including the following:

• ”the other person” does not want to participate in a mediation
• a person seeking assistance does not want to engage in the mediation process. For instance, s/he may specifically state the objective of wanting to manage the conflict on his/her own, without intervention by a third person
• “the other party” does not show up for a mediation.

Summary

Conflict coaching is a dynamic process that has many applications and may be used instead of or, in conjunction with training, mediation and other conflict management processes. This may also include group facilitated processes and simply, to help people prepare to lead a meeting that has the potential for being fractious. Coaching may also be used to help people to effectively participate in rights-based processes. In short, coaching has application anywhere in the spectrum of conflict management processes, within or without an informal or integrated conflict management system.

In sum, conflict coaching is unique in many ways. This includes that it provides the support, assistance and encouragement that helps people improve their knowledge, skills and abilities to manage conflict, in an individualized process, that is specific to them. The growth of this process will undoubtedly have an impact on practitioners in the field of conflict management and on the range of techniques available to help people engage effectively in conflict.

www.masteringanger.com

Nancy Anderson

Nancy Anderson is the president of Anderson & Anderson, and the quiet impetus of its success. Nancy earned a Bachelor’s and two Master’s Degrees from UCLA, where she has also been a member of the clinical staff at the Neuropsychiatric Institute. She is licensed in Educational Psychology and Clinical Social Work in the state of California.

Currently, Nancy maintains a clinical psychotherapy practice at Anderson & Anderson and is available for consultation on educational or family issues that can not be addressed by an anger management program. She also works as an educational psychologist for The John Thomas Dye School in Bel Air. Although she is certified in anger management, her primary involvement at Anderson & Anderson has been as the CEO.

John Elder, MA, MFT, CAMF who is a long time Anderson & Anderson Faculty member will begin providing coaching in San Bernardino County and cities in easy commute from Loma Linda, CA.

John Elder, M.A., M.F.T.

Mr. Elder has been a facilitator and Anderson & Anderson Faculty for several years. John is one of the most interesting members of our faculty. He has assisted in writing most of our material and is a regular contributor to our blog and website. John is the author of the Anger Management Pyramid as well as the new meditation relaxation tape which will both be listed on our website very shortly. He is also the co-author of our new publication, “The Practice of Control".

Since the new JCHAO standards for “disruptive physicians” were imposed on all Health Care Organizations in April, 2008, Anderson & Anderson, Vanderbilt University Department of Psychiatry and the PACE Program at the University of California at San Diego have emerged as the principal providers of Executive Coaching/Anger Management for Physicians in the nation. Anderson & Anderson is the only nationally recognized provider to use a structured, non-psychiatric assessment tool for mandated and self referred physicians.

George Anderson, MSW, BCD, CAMF, CEAP
Diplomate, American Association of Anger Management Providers
Anderson & Anderson®, The Trusted Name in Anger Management
http://www.andersonservices.com/
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www.anger-management-resources.org