Strategy and Team Health: A Story from the Coaching Field

I had the great fortune of working with a manufacturing team recently to talk about team health and strategy.  Both of these facets of a team are incredibly important.  As people get to know, trust and respect each other more, they are better able to do the heavy lifting of putting issues on the table in the service of the betterment of the team, department and overall company.  Workers with boots on the ground, doing the everyday tasks can feel disconnected sometimes to the overall mission and vision of their company because they just see what is in front of them.   They are ‘in the weeds’ and not necessarily ‘seeing the forest’.  In my work I seek to connect people to each other, to efficiencies, to connecting their roles to a purpose. 

As we explored what it means to be a good teammate, guys started to chime in and give shape to a definition.  A good teammate is humble, open to learning, able to ask questions and ask for help, have fun and humor together, pick up where each other leaves off and just tacitly, implicitly know how to pitch in to help the overall cause or goals for the day.  It was awesome to see grown men in greasy Carhart jeans describe this ideal and have an earnest desire to embody it.  They don’t always exemplify these traits, but that’s the journey.  Sometimes people get into funky moods for whatever reason, personal or professional.  This is normal.  Being supportive of others in down moods was another characteristic that came up.  Additionally, the team just let go of an employee who was being overly negative for an extended period of time.  They know what they stand for and use this as a standard.  They realize that attitude is far more important as technical aptitude on the job. 

We also talked about issues and goals, two sides of the same coin.  Issues are normal, and abound in most relationships.  My job as a coach is to smoke these out by making it a safe space to do so.  If people can’t trust that their truths will be met with openness and a desire to work them out, they will stay silent, or hold back the totality of what they want to express.  We came up with some really pressing issues that they are faced with currently: workflow, communication, efficiency and training issues.  In my estimation, issues are opportunities for growth, and as we put them out there together, we can solve them together.  Amazing.  People are wise and it’s my contention that we are more wise together, what I call collective wisdom.  We talked about two of those issues, namely training new guys, and a particular workflow issue.  It was awesome to talk through why they are issues and move to figuring out how to solve them.  It was beautiful to see the creative responses that ensued.  For training we came up with shadowing other people, being mindful of training opportunities, giving a plan each day for training, and sticky notes on various machines.  Now they will go and try these tactics, and then I will follow up and see how it goes. 

I haven’t been with this team for about 7 months during COVID and it was great to reconnect.  My mission is always to uphold focusing on what we can effect, defining it, talking it through and finding actions to solve it.  It’s a really good process that works over and over again because as humans we are always working on something.  Most humans I work with as well are committed to learning, evolving and growing. Nobody really wants a bad work environment. 

The CEO and The Coach Part 3: on Resilience

The CEO and the Coach Part 3: On Resilience

On this episode of the Focus Coach podcast. I interview Ken Abbott, President of ABTech Manufacturing in Fitzwilliam, NH about the notion of resilience and how that has manifested in this economic COVID downturn as well as through an injury he sustained while riding his mountain bike.  We talk about what tools have helped him recover from these downturns and the current state of his life and business.

On the podcast we discuss:

·       The notion of resilience, or learning how to cope better with adversity

·       Some things Ken has done to help his business thrive

·       The value of teamwork and values to sustain through challenges

·       The value of keeping calm under duress

·       How coaching helped Ken make shifts in his thinking

·       How an injury led to right-sizing his expectations

The Unintentional and Intentional CEO

The Unintentional and Intention CEO

In this podcast episode of The Focus Coach, I interviewed Mark Bodin, president of the Savings Bank of Walpole in Keene and Walpole, NH.  On the podcast we talk about his ideas and strategy for succession planning, employee development, culture building, community focus and employee well-being.  Mark gives us an in-depth expose of his journey of the path to becoming president, which he wasn’t necessarily looking for.  When he realized that the mission of the bank in its community and people first culture was aligned with his strengths and core values, he jumped at the chance. 

On the podcast we talk about:

·       Mark’s history leading up to becoming president of a community bank

·       Mark’s diligent and methodical approach to employee development

·       Mark’s definition of culture and the bottom-line and values-driven benefits of getting it right

·       Mark’s approach to succession planning, an indispensable function of any Executive

·       Mark’s deep roots in the value of giving back to the community and how his bank achieves this

·       Mark’s candid and humorous style

·       Mark’s strength for understanding individuals’ needs

·       The dichotomy of the organization giving opportunities for growth and advancement and the employee seeking them out.

Don't Let Self-Criticism Thwart Your Success

Here is an excerpt of a coaching session that I did with a client recently around his self-criticism:

 Growing up with a parent who was critical has created a 'not good enough' energy that lurks inside of you and rears its ugly head sometimes.  You reported to me that it's oftentimes that you berate yourself for past failures/missteps and things that don't turn out to your standards.  You are your own judge and jury.  The voice of self-criticism is strong within you, probably because you heard it so much growing up.  You are even seeing it in how you parent, or how you get triggered by your spouse sometimes. 

The 'not good enough' button gets pushed by many situations, most notably your boss being critical of your performance. So, here is your boss, frustrated and condescending and that sends you into a spiral of trigger, defense and offense.  The recent conflict you both had is evidence of this.  Now you are a grown man, and not a little boy who couldn't protect himself, so you can fight back, even if that means storming out.  Really what the situation is, is a mirror for your self-inflicted not good enough story and identity.  

I did a brief, but powerful exercise with you.  I had you look around and notice real things like my shirt color, the ticking of the clock and the hard table.  Being here now is important because we are always in the moment.  Then I had you try on and say out loud "I'm not good enough," several times.  By the end you began to feel it more strongly than just a mental exercise.  This is because this energy is lodged into the mental AND emotional parts of you, practiced and honed for years, over and over again.  What we are trying to do is to dismantle its power and grip over you, so you can be more free to be, well, you.  

Another trigger you experienced was your spouse is condescending to your kids.  She gets triggered when she isn’t listened to and reacts with anger and critical words.  This caused you to react and go into the next room to cool down.  Remember(!!), your trigger is your trigger.  You wanted to lash out.  Funny thing is though that she is purveying the same behavior that you purvey to your kids at times, so she is a mirror for you.  I'm not saying that condescending behavior is ok, but that fact that you had an emotional reaction to it shows that it pushed your button of self-criticism and not being good enough.  It's interesting too that you said that it stems to when you were 5 or so.  When we are kids, we are programmed by the people around us, who have their good and bad qualities.  You know your dad loved you, but he was also hard at times.  

It's easy to fall into perfection and try to prove yourself when motivated by feeling not good enough.  If the project or whatever is perfect, then you will feel good and get the people around you to think and acknowledge that you you’re good.  But that's a paltry win.  We really win when we do our best and don't give two shits about what people think about it.  Great if they like it, and great if they have feedback for us to get better next time.  It's all a win in that operating system.  I don't need to prove myself anymore because I know I'm not good enough, or at least I think that at times.  And it’s true that I’m not the best coach out there, there are certainly more experienced and more successful coaches in the world. But I am also good enough, excellent sometimes.  I told you about the anxiety I felt before a bank meeting 6 years ago.  I was in my head.  I was worried about looking like a fool, making a mistake, and feeling dumb.  This was my negative self-identity creeping in (which is here to stay I'm sad to say).  I caught it though and turned it around by pretty much saying to myself that I wanted to do the meeting, was prepared, and I was going to do my best and not think about the outcome.  If the outcome was good, good!  If not, then I learn.  It doesn't have to be about my identity. 

Wow, that's it for now.  Just be mindful and gentle with yourself around this energy.   This strong energy may amp up a little bit as you reconcile it.  It will get better, trust me, but it won't go away.  Gotta figure out how to bridle this beast.