Whether you’re in a new role and facing challenges, or are an experienced executive or business owner or a seasoned executive, coaching can help you change your thinking and behavior.  A coach can help you reshape how you see and approach things. Being more flexible and responsive to your circumstances rather than being stuck to habits and patterns can unlock your potential for growth.

Many individuals confuse coaching with consulting.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  A consultant provides answers to the clients and in most cases times does the work for them.  Then they go away until the client once again needs answers and work done for them.  A coach will help the client reshape their thinking and approach, enabling them to be more responsive in formulating answers to their challenges. Coaching is a partnership that is designed to increase work performance, self-management skills, and the ability to effectively manage other people.

If a coaching client is willing to engage in the coaching process and is committed to learning and growing, a coach can help transition their management skills and leadership style for personal excellence and business success.

Here are just a few reasons why an individual may want to consider the services of a coach:

1. Need to clarify a vision and communicate it so others will follow.
2. Tend to try to do everything themself and don’t know how to delegate.
3. Procrastinate due to insecurity because of inner voices (gremlins) that keep telling them they will not succeed.
4. Lack focus or are over-focused.
5. Struggling with professional relationships and the need to “fix” behaviors.
6. Ready to take the next step and prepare for a larger role and responsibility.
7. Needing an unbiased sounding board and/or a need to be held accountable.
8. Knowing what to do but don’t have the tools to implement change.
9. A need to find balance in life and start enjoying the things they love to do.
10. Focusing on small details when they should be looking at the “sky-view” of things.

These are but a few of the reasons a person may want to engage the services of a coach.  If you see one or more of these in yourself or your valued employees, I might be able to help.

The coaching process can be accomplished one-on-one or in a team or group process.  With today’s technology we can coach clients located in other cities or countries, without the coach or client ever leaving the comfort of their office.

Become the effective leader you can be and leave the mindset of “a hope and a prayer” that things will work themselves out.  By the time you realize they won’t, it can be too late.  Coaching is about improvement and changes so that you and your business perform at a much higher level. A coach can be the catalyst to generate that improvement and positive change.

While preparing to teach the topics of the Vitality aspect of The Fit Leader’s Program™, I came across some interesting articles on sleep, including on authored by: Melinda Smith, M.A.; Lawrence Robinson, and Robert Segal, M. A.

If you think your body is at total rest and restoring its energy levels while you sleep, think again.  While we sleep our brain stays busy by overseeing a wide variety of biological maintenance tasks the keep us in top condition and prepare us for the day ahead.  Think of it like our car’s oil change.  If we avoid giving our car regular oil changes it will not run at its optimal level and can even have a major breakdown sooner than if we had regularly maintained it.  It’s the same with our body. Without sufficient restorative sleep, we won’t be able to function at a level even close to our potential.

Sleep is prompted by natural cycles of activity in the brain and consists of two basic states: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and not-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, which consists of stages 1 through 4.  Our body cycles through these, alternating from REM sleep to NREM sleep throughout the night.  When we dream, we are in the REM stage of sleep.

Non Rem Sleep occurs in four stages:

Stage 1:  Light sleep, in which we can be easily awakened.  This may last for five to 10 minutes.
Stage 2:  A period of light sleep in which we experience periods of muscle tone and muscle relaxation.  The heart rate slows and body temperature increases.
Stage 3 and 4: Deep sleep stages, with stage 4 being more intense.  If we are awakened during these stages we may feel disoriented for a few minutes.  During this stage brain waves are extremely slow and blood flow is directed away from the brain and towards the muscles, restoring physical energy.

It is during these NREM stages that our body repairs itself, regenerating tissues, building bone and muscle and strengthening the immune system.  As we get older we sleep lighter and get less deep sleep.

Sleep follows a predictable pattern, moving back and forth between deep restorative sleep and more alert stages and dreaming (REM sleep). REM sleep occurs about 90 minutes after sleep onset.  The first period lasts about 10 minutes with each stage lengthening, and the final one lasting about an hour.  Dreaming occurs when you are in REM sleep.  Your eyes actually move rapidly during this stage, which is why it is called the Rapid Eye Movement sleep.  Breathing is shallow, heart and blood pressure increase and arm and leg muscles are paralyzed.

Deep sleep renews the body, REM sleep renews the mind.  REM sleep is key to learning and memory.  This is the time our brain consolidates and processes information we have learned during the day, when it forms neural connections that strengthen our memory and replenishes its supply of neurotransmitters.  These are chemicals that can boost our mood during the day.  I guess that’s why people can be grouchy during the day if they are not getting enough quality sleep.

The amount of sleep we need is different for each of us, depending on various factors, one of which is age.  Below are some average sleep needs:

New borns (0-2months)                                12 – 18 hours
Infants (3 months to 1 year)                        14 – 15 hours
Toddlers (1 to 3 years)                                  12 – 14 hours
Preschoolers (3 – 5 years)                           11 – 13 hours
School-aged children (5 – 12 years)        10 – 11 hours
Teens and preteens (12 – 18 years)          8.5 – 10 hours
Adults (18+)                                                      7.5 – 9 hours

About 3% of the population has a gene that enables them to do well on 6 hours sleep a night.  For the rest of us, six hours doesn’t come close to meeting our needs.  If we are getting less than eight hours sleep a night we are probably sleep deprived.  We may think it’s normal to get sleepy in a boring meeting, struggle through an afternoon slump or doze off at dinner.  In reality this is only normal if we are sleep deprived.  Drinking those sugar-filled energy drinks or stimulants only help you temporarily overcome the effects of sleep deprivation, but that can’t be sustained for any extended period of time.

Thus, all sleep is not created equal.  We sleep in recurring stages that are very different from one another and affect what is happening to our body, beneath the surface.  Each step is vital to our mind and body, each preparing a different part of us for the day ahead.

Sleep is vital for a leader to maintain a healthy body and mind.  Get into a regular sleep pattern and make sure you get a restful night’s sleep.  Since we typically can’t sleep later in the day, this can be best accomplished by going to bed earlier.

I trust individuals participating in my next leadership workshop will get plenty of sleep so they won’t nod off in class.  They might miss this vital piece of information.

Good night and sweet dreams.

A recent article in the Arizona Republic discussed the importance of determining others’ communication style, then responding accordingly.  The article listed some of the most common styles:

The Analytical: Business like, slower-paced, time conscious and focused on facts.
The Driver: Fast-paced, focused on results.
The Expressive: Fast-paced, enjoys variety, big picture projects and recognition.
The Amiable:  Slow-paced, excellent at building relationships, listening and sharing their personal life.

So which is your style? There are many tools and processes we can use to discover our communication style and explore the communication preferences of others.  The key is to understand our own communication preferences and to take the time to discern others’ communication style. If we learn to understand how others respond to us, we can adapt our communication style to fit our needs at the necessary moment.  The key is to stay flexible.

Knowing your subject is certainly one aspect of effective communications. Achieving mastery as a communicator involves knowing what to communicate, and when.  People possess different goals, fears, motivations and different ways of seeing the world.  If they are different from ours it doesn’t make them wrong, yet leaders must learn how to recognize these differences and adjust their style of communications accordingly.

Becoming an effective communicator also requires a high level of self-awareness.  It is important to understanding your personal style of communicating.  It will help create good and lasting impressions on others. This does not mean you have to be a chameleon, changing with every personality you meet. Instead, you can make the person listening more comfortable with you by selecting and emphasizing certain behaviors that fit within your personality and resonates with them.

In our year-long Fit Leader’s Program™ participants learn sixteen different tools and processes to become fit leaders. It provides aspiring and high potential leaders with a unique and integrated leadership development experience. One tool they learn is The Effective Close™, a process for convincing others to follow your lead and win them over.  Developing this skill of dialogue is important because like many things in life we want to master, it takes know how and effective practice; we have to work at it

At Transition Execs we coach our clients to meet the challenges of change and the challenges of the future, so they can achieve personal excellence and business success.  We teach them to use their strengths as a foundation to transition their management skills and leadership style to develop into high performance individuals or teams.

Contact us and let us know how we can help you.

I was recently asked by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Phoenix to coach three refugees who were starting new businesses and a new life. The IRC helps refugees thrive in the country that gave them sanctuary and a new beginning. These individuals are hoping to fulfill their dreams of business ownership. I never asked why these individuals were refugees in our country; it doesn’t matter, I only know that they hope for a better life than they had left behind.

What was obvious to me is the desire they have to be successful. They are working hard: long hours every day, fueled by the power of belief, imagination and will. They are hopeful of a better future, grateful for the opportunity to realize their dream and find a way out of their current dilemma.

Many of my coaching clients are trying to make a positive change in their lives, their jobs, their careers or their businesses. Their hope is to become better leaders, better managers, better problem solvers and the type of individuals that people want to follow. It is not easy to separate our personal lives from our work lives, nor do we always want to. They are interchangeable. What affects one affects the other, no matter how hard we try to keep them separate. What is happening in our work environment impacts our home environment, and vice versa.

My most productive work with clients is with those who are hopeful, willing and courageous. They know they can be successful but need the skills of a coach to meet the challenges of change and the challenges of the future. I help them achieve personal excellence and business success while assisting them to maintain integrity to their values and beliefs.

Even Coaches have hope. I do. I hope to train high potential leaders to become fit leaders; to lead with clarity, confidence, effectiveness and vitality. That is why I strived to earn my designation as a Certified Leadership Fitness Coach. I accomplished that, but I’m not stopping there. I am pursuing my goal of conducting Institute for Leadership Fitness™ Workshops. It’s the first of what I hope will be many more.

I don’t have the workshop filled yet, I am working on it. With the help of former employees, friends and believers who know my work ethic and background, some are already signed up for the next Phoenix class. It is not too late for you to register or register a valued employee. This will be a powerful program. The workshops will grow in number: I am already planning the next cohort for early 2012.

Hopeful leaders know it takes courage to turn the unbelievable into the expected. Being hopeful is being human. It is about being able to see with your heart and moving forward in the face of uncertainty toward the future; to go after it and not wait for it to come to you. Hope is about learning to believe.

We cannot mistake hope for optimism. Optimists expect things to turn out for them without any effort. Pessimists assume all is doomed and there is nothing to be done except spread despair while there is still time.

Hope is based on uncertainty because we do not know what will happen next. But the real place for hope is in the possibility we possess for acting, changing, and mattering.

The Merriam-Webster definition of “hope” is to cherish a desire with anticipation. Saying that – I hope to see a few of you in the next Phoenix workshop where you will learn new tools associated with each of the four dynamic qualities of leadership fitness: clarity, confidence, effectiveness and vitality.

Take care and do not lose hope.

A positive legacy doesn’t just happen; you have to work at it by influencing those around you with your words and actions. These actions may include standing for what is right, taking risks with quiet tenacity, being good teachers and remembering that everyone has to learn and grow, being approachable and creating a safe and positive environment in your workplace. It certainly requires being a visionary and charting a course for the future. You influence those around you by demonstrating the way you live, the words you speak, and the actions you take in your daily lives.

Do you believe you are leaving a legacy? If you answered no, then think again, because we all creating and leaving a legacy. The question is not if you will leave a legacy, the question is: what kind of legacy will you leave.

Here are three key things you can do to create a positive legacy.

Maintain a positive attitude
Be persistent and make the extra effort
Look in the mirror

Yes, mirror. You need to look in the mirror of your life to see if you are striving to improve; and making sure you are living up to your ability and expectations. It’s important to regularly ask your spouse, close friends, executive coach and trusted colleagues what they see. The answers won’t always be what you want to hear because you don’t always make the right calls. But if you accept the feedback in the sincere manner it is given, consider it a gift. Without the mirrors you probably won’t receive it at all.

It’s not complicated to get that feedback. Simply ask “How am I doing?” Then sit back and listen without interrupting and without arguing. This is a time to sit quietly and just listen, deeply.

You might be the rainmaker in your organization. You might be a brilliant strategist, the best salesperson, or the one who drives in all the business. But if you quit or disappeared today, what would you leave behind? Would those who were around you think about things differently or would they emulate what you were doing? Would they say: “I’m never going to do that/be that/or act like him/her?”

It’s not about being popular or liked. It’s more about being respected. When you treat people with dignity and respect, when you support them, recognize them for the work they do, make them feel wanted and valuable, help them build their skills and show your confidence in them, it will make your and their job easier. It will help create a lasting positive legacy.

The way that people think, behave, approach work and life as a result of having know you is the legacy you leave. It has little to do with your abilities, how well you performed your job or how smart you were. It has everything to do with you, the person at work and in life. It has everything to do with your natural you; not your title or responsibilities. You are the custodian of the future, and it’s up to you to make sure you leave things in better shape than you found them.

How are you measuring up?

Which one do you think describes you best?

The animal that describes me best is the:______________.
The other animal that describes me is the:_____________.
The animal that least describes me is the:_____________.

From the list below, select the words that best describe you:

motivator, thorough, leader, entertainer, sequential, giver, risk-taker, colorful, detail-oriented, follower, focused, exciting, attention to detail, big thinker, quick-witted, outspoken, fun, peace-maker, analytical, giver, insightful, listener, slow to change, adventurous, methodical, introspective, orderly.

Of those you select, pick your top five words.

Panther
motivator
leader
focused
big-thinker
outspoken
adventurous

Peacock
motivator
colorful
entertainer
exciting
quick-witted
fun
adventurous

Dolphin
peace-maker
giver
follower
insightful
listener
slow to change
introspective

Owl
thorough
detail oriented
sequential
analytical
methodical
orderly
attention to detail

Which animal best describes you? Here are the descriptions of each.

Panther
Natural born leaders, great visionaries. Excel at the big picture, focused and decisive. Bottom line thinkers who don’t want a lot of information that confuses or muddles a decision. People oriented but occasionally loses patience with others.

Panthers often act before thinking things through. They are goal oriented and often too bossy and don’t listen enough. Panthers need help in keeping balance in their lives because they are so driven. They are disciplined and work hard.

The panther’s greatest value is productivity.

Peacock
Peacock personalities are natural socialites, meet people easily and love to have fun and create a happy environment. Peacocks love big events and are the life of the party, being comfortable being the center of attention. They handle chaos well and look at it as an adventure.

Peacocks are not great listeners and need to work on letting others tell their story. They can be disorganized, misplace items and lack focusing on details. They are willing to learn and enjoy challenges and risk-taking.

The peacock’s greatest value is fun.

Dolphin
The dolphin personality is a natural giver, great listeners and loyal friends. They value being a part of a team. Dolphins are service-minded but their greatest challenge is not ministering to themselves.

Dolphins don’t like change but can tolerate it if it helps the team. They are slow decision makers but stick to their decisions, once made.

The dolphin’s greatest value is relationships.

Owl
The owl personality pays attention to detail, preferring tasks over people. They enjoy working or playing alone. They are incredibly observant, independent thinkers and prefer behind – the-scenes tasks. Owls don’t share their feelings easily.

Owls don’t like change nor do they handle it well. They are very detail-oriented. They don’t’ speak a lot, but when they do they speak wisely.

The owl’s greatest value is security.

There is pride and freedom that goes with knowing who we are and that we were not meant to have all strengths. We have something to offer with our gifts, but must understand that we also have limitations and voids.

When we understand that we all have different personalities, we can be true to ourselves and not try to be something we are not.

A coach can help you identify your strengths and build on that foundation to make you better at what your passion is.

Take care,

Gremlins are very tricky, sophisticated and have developed elaborate methods of getting in the way of our natural, excited and vibrant soul. Once you know he or she is there and how it’s trying to run your life, you’ll appreciate its creativity.

Here are some signs that your Gremlin is around:

• You are paralyzed in indecision.
• You compare yourself to others and make conclusions about yourself based on that.
• You have done nothing or little to realize our dream.
• You feel good about yourself only if you hear it constantly from others.
• You think in terms of black and white.
• You have been in self-pity and/or victimhood too long.

Your Gremlin might be saying:

“Who do you think you are?”
“You can’t do that.”
“They’ll find out you really don’t know what you’re doing.”

Meet my gremlin: My Gremlin he has a knack of changing his features, but I know when he’s around. I named him “Firebrand” because he always tries to kindle a revolt within me. This way I acknowledge him when he appears and I let him know I am aware that he is trying to sabotage me. I’ve even met some of my coaching clients’ gremlins. At first they may not be aware that they have one, but during the coaching process they usually become aware and develop the ability to visualize and deal with it.

You can’t ever really get rid of your gremlin; you just have to acknowledge that it’s there and learn to not let its chatter ruin your life. Once you acknowledge it’s there, you can do some things to minimize the negative impact it can have on your life.

In his book, Taming your Gremlin, Rick Carson mentions three things you can do to quite the inner critic in you:

Simply Notice. Don’t take the chatter in your head too seriously; simply notice, it is the first step. The two important elements of simply noticing are awareness and choice.

Choose and Play with Options. Change for a change, play with different behaviors and consider changing the behavior. Select options that are creative and that are out of character for you. You’ll see the value in it and enjoy what it does to taming your Gremlin.

Be in Process. While it might be unsettling, Being in Process is about attitude – an appreciation that, while unsettling, your life will forever be unfolding and your future always unknown.

Taming you gremlin can happen at any moment, with any breath. It’s an ongoing process that can be challenging and exciting once you see yourself in the process and learn to appreciate your own gift of life.

Some of my coaching clients want help to identify and quiet their gremlins. It is also one of the sixteen tools that are taught in our Institute for Leadership Fitness™ Program.

Contact me to learn more about the Institute and how we can coach you to better awareness and to help you free yourself from the paralysis and defeat your gremlin is trying to talk you into.

Take care,

According to John P. Kotter, author of “What Leaders Really Do,” both management and leaders must make decisions and develop relationships in order to accomplish what they want. Each must ensure that employees get the job done, but each one accomplishes this in a different way. According to Kogger:

1. Managers plan, budget and set targets. Leaders create a vision and articulate it in a way that is compelling and establishes followership.
2. Managers organize, staff, delegate and monitor. Leaders align a person, which requires strong communication skills to articulate the vision in a way that inspires people to follow.
3. Managers monitor results, plan, organize, control and solve problems. Leaders achieve the vision by motivating and inspiring others, appealing to their needs, values and emotions.

While these three skills are essential, strong leaders must go beyond them in order to be effective. They have to remove confusion, establish clarity and set a clear direction. They must combine their sense of direction with a powerful self-confidence, overcoming paralysis.

With a sense of direction and self-confidence they must possess the skills and essential tools to keep moving forward. They do this by leading through conflict, hiring the best people, providing feedback, delegating authority effectively and creating accountability.

But all these skills can go by the wayside if leaders don’t have stamina and vitality. Leaders who lack the energy can become unbalanced and burn out, causing undue pressure on their organization and their personal lives.

Helping leaders become fit to lead their organization is the purpose of the Institute for Leadership Fitness™. The Institute provides aspiring and high-potential leaders with a unique and integrated leadership development experience. Combining tool-based workshops, professional coaching and leadership assessments, the Institute introduce new tools in each of the four components of leadership fitness: clarity, confidence, effectiveness and vitality.

Participants attend four full-day workshops, one every 90 days, during which they are introduced to 16 different tools and processes over the course of a 12-month period. In addition to the four skill-building workshops, each participating leader is assigned an executive coach with whom he or she works throughout the program to create and execute a customized development plan. Three leadership assessments and access to The Leadership Fit® Online are also part of the Institute. Over 250 leaders have already benefited from this 12-month leadership development program.

As a Certified Leadership Fitness Coach and Authorized Licensee of the Institute for Leadership Fitness™, I am pleased to announce the next Institute for Leadership Fitness™ in Phoenix, beginning September 15, 2011. We invite you to begin your journey on the path to leadership fitness! Call or email me with any questions you have about our program and how you can enroll and start your path to Leadership Fitness.

Thanks and take care,

I recently returned from a business trip to Mexico as part of an assignment as a coach/facilitator for the Leaders across Borders (LaB) program. I was assigned to a team of five health professionals from the United States and Mexico who are participants in the program. The purpose is to enable them to apply new and revisited leadership skills to a real border health issue. The team consists of three health professionals from Baja California and two from San Diego.

The team’s projects are designed to use an “action learning” approach. They select an issue important to them and reflect on what they learn. It is done in a group so that they collaborate and learn from each other. They will give a report on their project in El Paso, Texas at the completion of the program, October 22, 2011. However, the focus is not on completing the project, but rather on what they learn about working across borders to solve problems. As a matter of fact, the team I am coaching has stated they will not finish their project by October, but have committed to continue working together to complete it after the program has ended. The emphasis is on what they learn and that they apply that learning to continuing the program and any other projects they collaborate on in the future.

In essence, Action Learning is learning by doing. So many universities use some form of action learning via case studies, role playing and experiential analysis. Face-to-face training is often based on application activities and feedback.

A good definition of action learning is from the book Understanding Action Learning, by Judy O’Neil, ED.D and Victoria J. Marsick, Ph.D. They define it as:

An approach to working with and developing people that uses work on an actual project or problem as the way to learn. Participants work in small groups to take action to solve their problem and learn how to learn from that action. Often a learning coach works with the group in order to help the members learn how to balance their work with the learning from that work.

Action Learning Coaches use many group coaching tools when applying Action Learning. One that is particularly useful is the Learning Journal. A learning journal helps support both the task work as well as the learning of each participant. The journal is a book for recording one’s thoughts and feelings that are experienced on the project.

One of the most difficult aspects of Action Learning is evaluating the program. It can be complicated to check for learning and performance gains at different levels: satisfaction with the program, learning gains immediately and after the program, impact of performance on the job, and impact on the organization. It is difficult to link learning to impact.

So how do we define success when using Action Learning? In the Leaders across Borders program the success will be defined by the learning goals established at the start of the program. These include:

• TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE FROM CLASSROOM TO REAL WORK: What aspects of the of LaB classroom did the team bring to their project? Did the team try something new? Did individuals try something new? What?
• STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIPS: Did the team members create new relationships? Will these be long lasting relationships?
• KNOWLEDGE OF HEALTH SYSTEMS: Have individuals on the team increased their understanding of their own countries health system/issues and those of another country?
• HIGH PERFORMING TEAMS: Did the team increase their understanding of and/or abilities at creating and leading a high performing team? In what ways did they do this?
• UNDERSTANDING OF SELF: Did the individuals increase their own understanding of self as a leader?
• OTHER? Were individuals willing to share their knowledge and experience?

This project has been very rewarding and a terrific learning experience for me as well. I especially enjoy the bicultural and binational aspect of the program and the ability to use my bilingual skills in the practice of coaching.

It has been a great experience to see people from both sides of the US-Mexico border work in unison to solve health issues that impact both countries.

Is your team ready for an Action Learning experience?

The authors identify the five suitcases we pack as we travel through life. They are:

The Work Suitcase, our achievement
The School Suitcase, our education and training
The Personality Suitcase, our temperament
The Interests Suitcase, our tastes and hobbies
The Values Suitcase, our character

However, without the sixth suitcase we can’t effectively use the contents of the other five. If we don’t understand what’s in your sixth suitcase we will base our ambitions only on the first five. As a result, all our efforts may end in frustration.

When we unpack our sixth suitcase we’ll find that it contains all the natural gifts and talents we were born with. It is the unique mix of innate strengths in each of us that allows us to excel at certain things in life. It is the unique individual who is able to remain calm and lead in a crisis situation. It is the musician who composes music in his head without having to write it down, and yet the result is a masterpiece. Or it could be the business owner who feels the intuition about doing something that others consider risky, but risks it anyway and successfully brings a product to market.

Our first five suitcases are filled as we go through life. While we start life with our sixth suitcase already full; and it is up to us to unlock its potential and power. It is up to us to use the natural talents in our sixth suitcase and align them with what we do in our daily life. Many times they are so instinctive that we don’t realize we have them. This results in trying to fix our weaknesses instead of building on our strengths, and leads to frustration and unfulfilled dreams.

Another reason why we should unpack that suitcase is because when we don’t have balance in our life, we are out of alignment. When a tire is out of alignment, it wears unevenly, causing it to wear out faster than normal. When we go to work unbalanced and out of alignment we don’t do those things that come natural to us, so we tend to wear out as well. When we do not use our true talents we are drained of energy and creativity, sometimes becoming demoralized. We are better at what we do when we use our natural talents and come to work energized and motivated.

As a coach I am trained to help clients unlock their sixth suitcase. Using their strengths as a foundation, I help them transition their management style and leadership skills to develop into higher performance individuals and teams.

If you or someone you know could use some help in unpacking the sixth suitcase, I can help. Contact me so I can coach them back into balance.

Check your alignment to see if you are wearing well, and take care.