Many companies and organizations are dealing with multiple changes right now to adapt to the huge shifts in our economy: layoffs, salary reductions, and freezes, office closings, budget cuts, etc. My CEO executive coaching clients are making painful decisions, managing personal stress, communicating more often with employees, customers, and suppliers. All of that is useful and important.
I also find it useful to remind managers that change is not quick or easy for companies.
Leaders, especially the most dynamic, creative, and entrepreneurial, must keep in mind that stability is in the nature of organizations. That’s why we call them organizations, rather than alterizations or adaptizations. People, especially in groups, need (more…)
I tell my CEO executive coaching clients, prior to the executive offsite, that the CEO can dictate the values statement, perhaps with some team input on word choice. If the organization’s stated values are not entirely consistent with the CEO’s personal values you are in for a rough ride. The CEO must embody and have an emotional commitment to the vision, so it largely comes directly out of him or her, too. I like to start the offsite at a dinner where the CEO clearly and emotionally states the values and vision. Then, with those guideposts, the team can get to work on strategy, tactics, milestones, etc.
A question naturally emerges when I suggest this sequence: what about the executives who do not share the CEO’s values or vision? This helps smoke them out early and by “out,” I mean resigning from the company. Any compromise on values is a step into the abyss, what Bion called “non-work.”
For more than twenty years, I have led groups and individuals through a powerful goal-setting process with astonishing results: marriages, career changes, doubled incomes, published books, and more.
The two downloads linked from this post include all you need. Use the Specific Measurable Results (SMR) Kitworkbook and podcast to follow the same planning method my executive coaching clients have long employed. Like them, you can create a (more…)
Tracy Goss has long been closely associated with Werner Erhard, the originator of EST and Landmark Education Corporation’s Forum. I expect happy graduates of those programs to be very happy with this book (I am and I am). The book presents the central concepts of those programs very clearly and in a format designed to help business people put the “distinctions” to work immediately. I doubt, however, that a person not trained in ontological coaching could get much sense from these pages. It can seem to be merely jargon and wild promises unless you have actually put the techniques to work for yourself with the assistance of a coach (as I have and I do).
For people experienced with the methods, this book is an effective refresher and spur to action. A friend and I (more…)
One of my CEO coaching groups recently discussed the creation of the President/COO role in their companies. I came up with this alliterative and highly distilled suggestion.
Decisions may be:
Dictated,
Discussed, or
Delegated
To help define the duties of your #2, examine the range of decisions you make as head of the company and notice which you will dictate, discuss, or delegate. Core values, for example, are yours to dictate; the COO complies with your decision or leaves. Strategy is something to discuss, create together, and have a healthy back-and-forth conversation about between the CEO and COO. Hiring a sales rep or changing your health care provider are probably best left entirely to the COO; delegate those areas and keep your handsoff.
While coaching top executives, I often paraphrase contemporary philosopher Ken Wilber to the effect: I have found that most of my trouble comes from trying to control things that, if left alone, would take care of themselves.
We have all heard the advice to empower self-directed teams, push responsibility down close to the action, give authority over service decisions to the person in contact with the customer. Implicit in all these dicta, however, is the assumption that it is properly the executive who has the power, responsibility, and authority being meted out. What is it about showing up for work that strips people of agency? Maybe management should stop ignoring the fact that people are doing a fairly good job of managing their lives and consider that these skills can be used at work?
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Many companies and organizations are dealing with multiple changes right now to adapt to the huge shifts in our economy: layoffs, salary reductions, and freezes, office closings, budget cuts, etc. My CEO executive coaching clients are making painful decisions, managing personal stress, communicating more often with employees, customers, and suppliers. All of that is useful and important.
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