What To Do When Joining a Pre-Existing Team as the New Leader

You just got promoted, or maybe you just took a leadership position in a new company. Regardless, you will probably find yourself leading a pre-existing team. Team members know each other well, but you are the new one on the team.

Here are a few tips that clients have found to be universal principles of success for this scenario.

Building Rapport and Establishing Trust

1. Get to know your team well.

The faster you can build a connection with each member of the team, the more you will understand each other. You will build trust. You and your team members will discover how to leverage each other's strengths and contain one another's weaknesses.  More than that, you will be building a foundation for bringing the team to the next level.

2. Learn who the influencers in the company are.

In whatever organization you are in, there are certain people who have tremendous influence. Many times it is the leaders, but often you may discover that there is an administrative assistant who seems to hold a lot of influence.  Don't forget that each team has a member who is not the leader, but who wields a lot of sway over the others on the team.  As early as you can, you want to be actively building relationships with those people. Influencers can help you bust through obstacles. They can catalyze other relationships for you. Influencers also help with that next promotion. But even more than that, they will help you master the role you are in. Get to know who they are and build relationships with them.

3. Go through Greg McKeown’s book, Essentialism, for yourself, your team, and if possible, with your boss.

One of the first things you will need to understand is what is the most important part of your role, your team’s role, and your boss’ role. This book will help you do just that.  The more you, your team, and your boss are focused on the most important part of your roles, the more you all will move to the next level.

4. Find a base hit that is at the core of your role, your team’s role, or your boss’ role and fulfill it within 90 days.

Many start in a new role and just want to observe.  Others start, but they want to make a big grand slam home run right away.

In most cases, I've discovered that the clients who deliver base hits are the ones who win over their stakeholders and fellow associates.

Look for something that’s important in your role, your team’s overall role, or your boss’ role, where a base hit can be created.

If you can consistently deliver base hits, you will achieve remarkable results for you and your team.

Be sure to have one completed within the first 90 days so that it influences the perception people have of you.

5. Observe, observe, observe.

You will probably need to become a student for awhile, learning from your team members, peers, and boss how to accomplish meaningful actions.

You need to get the lay of the land first. If you try to make big bold moves right away, you may not realize until it’s too late that the big bold move was a colossal mistake because it did not fit the way the team or department works.

People tend to struggle with change. They want to build trust with you before things become massively different. Give them a chance to do that, and you will see how much more buy-in you will get.

Congratulations on landing the new position. You have the competence to pull off what you were hired to do. Now it is time to apply some principles and emotional intelligence to build relationships and set a foundation for major impact.

Enjoy the ride.

Chew On This:

• What can you do to know your team better?

Ryan C. Bailey is President and CEO of an organizational effectiveness company

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

8 Tools to Help You Manage a Layoff

I am currently working with two different companies that are going through significant changes. They are outsourcing some of their work, eliminating the roles of some employees. The leaders want to handle these situations really well.  They care about the displaced employees and want to ensure a proper fit for them moving forward. Laying off an employee is no easy task. Confusion, anger, and even denial are some of the reactions that often greet a layoff. Working with these companies, I began thinking through tools that can aid in the lay off process. Here are 8 helpful tips to help you manage layoffs:

1. Have a Clear Mindset

• Know that all eyes are watching how this is done, and it is important to have a clear mindset as you approach the layoff process.

2. Establish Healthy Principles

• Communicate transparently and often:
  • People know when things are not going well. We often don’t give them enough credit, and attempt to hide the full picture. Instead, it’s important to be honest with the people who will be impacted.
  • Next, set clear goals with the given resources. Share market data and competitive information.
  • Don’t lie or be unrealistically upbeat before the layoff.
  • Answer the most critical question right away, then offer support.
    • People first, and most critically, want to know if there is bad news ahead. Answer that first. They will not be able to think clearly and listen through options with that question looming over their minds.
    • Then, support them with a discussion of the competition, market forces, or the financial environment. Take the time to talk through options with them.

3. Never delegate the pain:

• Most people are loyal to their manager first, then to their companies.
  • The news needs to come from the manager directly.
  • The manager needs to be prepared to be there for the dismissed employee.

4. “Dismiss others as you would have them dismiss you.”

• Practice empathy towards your employee. Empathy involves sitting with others in their current emotions and letting them feel understood.
  • Some common emotions felt during a layoff include:
    • Humiliation, anxiety, fear, and anger
    • An underlying emotion is the experience of shame: where they doubt that they are good enough.
  • Major concerns in the midst of a layoff are:
    • How do I leave the premises with some semblance of self-respect and with the information and materials I may need to help me in my job search?
    • What will I tell my significant other/family/friends etc.?
    • How will I afford to stay afloat now that I am unemployed?
• Dismiss with dignity.
  • Deliver the message in private and face-to-face:
    • Do the dismissal before or after work so they don’t feel paraded around.
    • For most, avoid letting someone go on Friday because they will stew and could get worse. Also they will want to be able to reach out for advice or effectively start the job hunting process
    • For others, Friday is great because they need to decompress and can use the free time to do so.
    • Make the termination meeting quick and humane.
      • It should be done with the manager leading the conversation but it is also important to have another person in the room, such as HR.
      • If there is any concern, for safety make sure security is close by.
      • Within the first 30 seconds, state that their position has been eliminated.
        • “Sales have been down at the company and tough staffing choices had to be made.  It is with great regret that I must tell you that the company has decided to eliminate your position.”
      • Don’t get into messy personal discussions or say anything that can haunt you later.
    • Along with empathy, active listening is key. Give them a space to voice their emotions, concerns, and frustrations. Connect with them through the use of empathy statements, such as, “I hear you saying that you feel shocked and afraid, and I imagine that this is really hard for you.”
    • Along those lines, give them time to react in safe environment.
      • Some may need to vent
      • Some may need time to think
      • Some need facts and explanations
      • Your role in this is to provide a space free of judgment, where they can feel safe to express themselves.
    • Give them what they need to move to a stable, emotional keel.
    • Then as quickly as possible, move them towards thinking about their own future and not about the company.
      • They should feel that you want to help them succeed in the future.

5. Give them practical tools moving forward. Severance Package must be vetted by an employment lawyer. An appropriate severance package is:

• Clear on what it offers
• Includes the date it must be signed off by
• Provides conditions on which it can be revoked

• • Provide outplacement consulting as part of the severance which helps to mitigate potential liability.
    • Most people who are in the process of getting laid off are thinking, what do I do now? Few have resumes at hand.
    • Providing outplacement consulting sends a message to the dismissed employee and the remaining employees that you are treating the ex-employee as a human being, not a line item on the budget.
    • Then, direct them to the outplacement immediately.
  • Allow them to come back to the office on a weekend or evening to get their valuables and/or return company property like laptop and smartphone to minimize embarrassment.

6. Give them the best chance to transition successfully by focusing on the person’s needs.

7. Have an exit interview with the terminated employee so you can grow.

• Assess how will they represent the firm after they’ve been let go.

8. Have a town hall meeting for those who survive the cut.

• Know that you are going to lose a lot productivity the day the layoff happens (and possibly more days).
• Address the core questions of: What is the company’s future? Are there more layoffs coming? How will their jobs change? What are the expectations/goals now? Will they have to do two jobs?
• The doubts start with their role and then expand outward to their team and then the company overall. Be honest, clear, and available to your employees.

Chew On This:

• What areas of a layoff seem particularly challenging to you?
• How can you improve your layoff strategy?

Ryan C. Bailey is President and CEO of a company that catalyzes the transformation of leaders’ lives.

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

7 Tips To Be Fully Present When You Have A Lot On Your Mind

I recently did a "Getting Things Done" workshop where the first exercise I had the team do was to list on a piece of paper all the things that were on their mind at that moment.... I asked them to be thorough. Then I asked them to think not just about work, but also what was going through their minds about home, family, hobbies, entertainment, etc. If it was on their mind, they needed to get it down on paper. They had only 10mins to do this brain dump.

The number of items each team member listed was between 13-28.

That’s a lot swirling in the head.  But these people were not unusual.  I bet if you took 10mins right now to do the same exercise, you would be in the same range.

How do you think all of those things swirling in the head impacts your ability to be fully present with a direct report, or fully present in a meeting?

Being fully present is an easy way to show someone, or a group, that you value them.  It is also a fantastic way to create impact.

But how can you be present when you have 13-28 big things on your mind?  How can you push them aside for a bit and focus on what is before you?

1. Brain dump.

Try the brain dump exercise I described above.  Just dump everything in your head onto a piece of paper.

Next to each item, quickly jot down the ideal outcome you want for that item.  Then write down the next action step that needs to be taken to achieve that outcome.

For more on this, check out Productivity Made Simple.

2. Schedule time to worry.

Maybe you don’t have time to list everything.  An impromptu meeting is about to happen and you need to be fully present.  A technique that has helped some people is to schedule a time to worry about the things that are on your mind.  Literally, put it on the calendar. (You can create a code phrase for it in case others look at your calendar.)  Don’t be surprised if, after you set the appointment, you find you can fully focus.

3. All distractions out of sight.

What distracts you when you are in a meeting?  Often it is a smartphone alerting you to a text or email.  Sometimes it is a call, or someone knocking on the door.

Make a list of the things that have prevented you from being fully present, then find a way to radically deal with them.

So for example, if your phone is the culprit, turn it off and put it in a desk drawer. Don’t let the smartphone run you.

Look at the other things that distract you.  What do you need to do to radically deal with them?

4. Set an alarm for the end of the meeting, or ask someone to knock on the door when five minutes are left.

Since your smartphone is away, have some sort of alarm that can go off 5mins before the meeting is scheduled to be over.

Another way to do that is to ask your assistant, or the next person who is meeting with you, to knock on the door five minutes before the meeting is scheduled to wrap up.

Five minutes should be sufficient time to capture the action steps from that meeting and close things up.

If you need more time and you choose to run late, let those who need to know how much time you think you’ll need, with some small buffer.

5. Deep breathing.

Now it’s time to take five deep breaths.  Get some oxygen to your brain.  Let yourself be present to your own breathing on the way in, and out.  This type of focusing will help you get into the right mind-space so that you can be fully present.

6. Look them in the eye.

When you get in front of the stakeholder or group, really focus on their eyes.  Make a connection with those who are before you.  See if you can pick up their emotions.  Allow yourself to mirror it for a moment.  Let yourself be with the person/group you are with.

7. Active listening.

Active listening techniques help you to be fully present.

Those who are masters at being present are those whom you want to spend more time with.  They lead you to feel motivated, engaged, and liked.  Learning to be fully present is also a great way to make sure you are communicating clearly with the person meeting with you, which can be a huge time saver. Being fully present is a gift, but by using these seven tips, you will find it is also a skill that can be developed.

Chew On This:

• How many things are swirling in your head right now?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams.

How to Lead Your Team Through Personal Change

A client, let’s call her Liz, made a huge transformation.  Putting it mildly, she used to have an anger management issue.  She was the executive that you never wanted as a boss.  At times, she would be super nice and seem like she was your best friend, but if you crossed her or screwed something up that embarrassed her, she could be brutal. After we worked together for about a year, everyone began noticing a remarkable change.  Frankly, it was a change that happened faster than most.  To be clear, she made the change. She took the change process very seriously. She had great desire and she really embraced the coaching process.

After the year was up, she noticed that some people with whom she had not had much contact were still walking on eggshells around her.  They were unaware of her change.

Here is what I saw her do that helped others to trust the change:

1. Explain the change.

When she saw people were walking on eggshells with her, she would explain that she had gone through a change because she had worked on the anger issue.  She would not go into a lot of details, but a simple acknowledgement went far.

2. Apologize for the previous behaviors.

She then apologized for the role she had played in leading the person to walk on eggshells.  She said things like, “At times I was out of control, overly brutal, and completely unempathetic.  I was like a bull seeing red.  I am sorry for the impact I had on you.”

3. Be patient as they speak while they are still on guard.

As she noticed that people were still on edge, even after her explanation and apology, she showed a great deal of patience.  She shared with me, “Eventually they will know that the change is real.  In the meantime, I just need to stay the course.”

4. Slightly soften tone to convey that you are going to be calm.

When she noticed that they were getting on edge, especially if they made a mistake, she softened up more by adjusting her tone and body language.

When you soften your tone and relax, people start to reflect that posture. That helps them to lose the edge.  She also did a great job assuring them that she would remain calm and that they were going to fix the problem together.

5. Take them out to lunch or coffee so they can experience the new you.

She took a few key people out to lunch or coffee outside of the office.  This helped them to experience her in a different setting.  It was really important for them to see that she was authentic.  If something happened that she felt angry about, she expressed it; but she also shared what she does with the anger to bring it down.

What is hard to remember when you make a real transformation is that other people have to adjust to your change.

Unfortunately, when you make a real change, others can become uncomfortable around you, especially when the change is a positive one.

Positive change can bring about a level of conviction in others, if they are not growing.  It can also bring doubt that the change is real which impacts the level of trust.

It is important to stay the course. It's also important to have people around you who will encourage you to stay the course, and even grow more.

Eventually people will adjust and, hopefully, enjoy the new you.

Chew On This:

• If you are working towards transforming yourself, how can you prepare your team for the change?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams. *This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

Establishing An Ownership Culture Within Your Team

I was in a meeting with my client (let’s call her Jane), one of her direct reports (let’s call her Martha), Martha’s coach, and someone from HR. As you have probably already guessed, it was one of those meetings. Weeks earlier, Jane had learned that Martha was gossiping about her to other people on the team.  How did she learn about it?  Not one, not two, but three people on Martha’s team had gone to Jane and shared how uncomfortable they felt around Martha.  All three shared how raw and wounded Martha seemed to them.  Two out of the three stated that the ongoing gossip was having a negative effect on the team.

Jane had tried to talk to Martha one-on-one.  She listened carefully, paraphrased what she heard, owned what she could own, but held firm on areas that were Martha’s responsibility. However, Martha refused to accept responsibility. Later, Jane shared with me that all she had gotten during that one-on-one was “defensiveness and political posturing.”  When the gossiping continued, Jane tried a couple of different ways to help mend the relationship between herself and Martha, but nothing worked.

Martha’s coach reached out to me and we, with permission from our respective clients, had an open dialogue as to how we could help them reconcile. Although our conversation was enlightening and productive, we closed the conversation realizing that Martha’s lack of desire to own responsibility and work for change would be an ongoing source of trouble.

The team Jane leads is a shining star in her company.  It wasn’t always that way.  When Jane started with the team she earned a 33% engagement score. (For those of you who don’t know, that is a terrible score. It shows how little the team felt motivated and empowered, or how little they enjoyed the work they were doing.)  Within two years that engagement score went up to 88% and in the third year it went up to 97%--a feat no other team in their company had ever accomplished in such a short time span.

Jane was feeling a lot of pressure to maintain the engagement score, and she feared that because of Martha’s clout with the team, the turnaround story of her team was being threatened.

So now we are all together in a room and HR is involved.

What happened?

Martha chose to sit at the head of the table.  Jane was to her left.  Martha’s coach was to her right.  HR was behind Jane.  I was behind Martha’s coach, but because of the angle of the table and the fact that I was sitting a little farther back than the man from HR, I could see everyone’s reactions as the conversation progressed.

Jane opened and tried to set the stage for a constructive conversation. She expressed gratitude to Martha, was humble, real, authentic, vulnerable, and owned the parts that she felt were off.  She also shared the steps she was taking and would be taking to correct those parts.

Martha kept interrupting.  Her voice was raised almost to the point of yelling. I am pretty sure if someone walked by the office, they could have heard, even though the door was closed.

The reactions from the observers in the room were really different.  At times, HR was shocked.  Martha’s coach was noticeably nervous, and at times she tried to interject to help Martha gain some emotional self-control.

I was really surprised that Martha was as brutal and brazen as she was in front of HR.

Despite everyone’s attempts, Martha refused to own any part of what she had done.  She blame shifted, minimized, rationalized and made excuses.

When it finally hit Martha that she may lose the leadership of her team, she offered to stop talking about Jane to her team and to work to mend the relationship.

However, although there were some superficial changes, the relationship between Martha and Jane never improved, and team members noticed that Martha’s decision-making, leadership, and engagement went into the tank.

Jane escalated steps to resolve the tension, but to no avail.  Martha saw the writing on the wall.  Three months later she took a different role in the company, which had nothing to do with Jane’s team.  A year later Martha’s role was eliminated and she started her own company.

The Role of Ownership

In short, Martha formed some destructive beliefs about Jane.  Despite solid evidence to the contrary, Martha became entrenched in those beliefs.

The more entrenched she became, the less she was able to hear Jane or anyone else on her team.

Having witnessed a few other situations like this, I can see one clear difference between those that were successfully reconciled and this one.  In the ones that were reconciled,  there was ownership.

Ownership takes place when you accept responsibility for your role in a problem and express it to those involved without trying to “market” yourself.  That is, there is no blame shifting, excuse making, minimizing, etc.  It can be as uncomplicated as saying, “I did X.”  Simple short sentences are often key.

The first step on the way to change is real ownership.  Ownership leads to humility.  Humility is key to being teachable.  When we are teachable, we can learn how to make the changes we need to make.

When someone owns what they did, they lower their guard and become vulnerable.  This can make ownership feel too risky.

However, when most people hear clear, authentic ownership, they feel hope.  That hope leads to a desire to protect and help the one who owned make the necessary changes.  Moreover, we want to forgive them.

I have seen some people not own and make changes, but I often wonder how deep those changes go. Sometimes the change seems superficial, made only because of the threat of loss.  It is more like a dam that is holding back water.  Once the threat is removed, the dam breaks and all the stored-up wrath floods not only the one who offended them, but their entire team as well.

This level of toxicity kills engagement and productivity, and impacts results.

Chew On This:

• What do you need to own?  What short phrase captures what you need to own?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams.

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

How To Turn Around A Bad Performance Review

It was so uncomfortable.  I was sitting in the room while a client I had recently met laid into one of his direct reports during a performance review, and it was painful. I could tell that both the boss and his direct report were nervous.  The boss revealed his nervousness through anger and an attempt to wield power.  The direct report was just nervous.  A couple of times his hands shook. He did not say much, but that only seemed to anger the boss more.  It was horrible to watch.

A few years later, I was asked to sit in on a performance review between another boss (once again my client) and a direct report with whom he wanted me to work. As in the first case, it was not a good review, but this direct report used an entirely different approach as she responded.

Here are 6 things she did really well:

1. Lowered her defenses. She viewed the review as the start of her comeback story.

When the boss came in with lower scores than she expected, she openly said something to the effect of, “These scores (performance review scores) are lower than what I thought.”  Then she leaned in, smiled slightly, and continued.  “I will listen to you so that I can make any and all changes to ensure that the next review is a big step up from here.”

Her boss smiled and said something to the effect of, “I am going to help you get there.”

It was obvious that she did not let the poor review go to her core.  In that is a huge lesson for us.  The truest you is not your performance.  If you can separate yourself from your performance, you can gain a lot of insights that will be effective in raising you to the next level.

When receiving negative feedback, it is easy to get defensive.  We can be so afraid of how an authority figure is perceiving us that we want to make excuses, or deflect the criticisms, in hopes of convincing the person that the perception we fear they have of us is not true.  But defensiveness usually makes things worse.

Instead, view a negative review as the start to your comeback story. (Everyone loves a comeback story.)  If you can see it as the start of your comeback story, then you will probably regulate your emotions well enough that you can gain clarity on what and how to improve.

2. Listened carefully to the feedback and repeated back/paraphrased what she was hearing.

She continued to lean forward slightly as she took notes on what her boss was saying. She used positive body language (i.e. nodding her head up and down) to connote that she wanted to receive the feedback and was taking it in.

She repeated back or paraphrased at times, which had the effect of engaging her boss so that they were aligned together against the problem, instead of her feeling like he was against her.

Anytime she was unclear about something her boss said, she would ask for clarity.

3. Searched for what is true.

It is easy during a bad performance review to pick apart what isn’t true.  However, if you do, you will miss a huge learning opportunity, which will, in turn, hinder you from being the person you were meant to be.

Focus on what parts are true.  Repeat back or paraphrase those parts.

If some aspects are not true, and these are important, ask how you could address these without sounding defensive.  For example, “XYZ is true. I will work on that. There are a couple of aspects of what you said that seem to be important, and I want to address those in a way that doesn’t lead you to believe that I am defensive. Should we set up a time to talk about those?”

4. Developed a plan and asked for a plan feedback time.

When the review ends, don’t forget to thank your boss.  As you probably know from personal experience, giving a negative review is tricky.

Let your boss know that you are going to develop a plan around the areas of concerns.  Inform your boss that you are open to hearing what, if anything, was not included that might be helpful for you to implement in order to grow in the areas you need to grow in.

Also be sure to ask your boss if you could gain feedback on the plan.  This will further align the two of you towards the common goal of helping you reach your potential.

When making the plan, be sure to create small tangible steps that will encourage you and empower you to continue to make the journey towards transformation.

5. Included mentors and coaches in the plan.

Be sure to ask, if you don’t know, who the people are who are excellent in your areas of weakness.  Contact them and see if they are willing to mentor you.  Hiring a coach could also be effective in helping you continue in your turnaround story.

6. Made sure that the feedback time was clear.

When you have the feedback time with your boss, make sure you are completely clear on any points they are making.

Be sure to mention that you are grateful for the opportunity to grow and that you are committed to making the changes.

A poor review doesn’t mean that you are bad.  It can actually be the start of something fantastic.  Having watched a few people get promoted within a year of a poor review has more than convinced me that the sooner we let go of our egos and embrace a humble posture, the faster we can continue the climb.

Chew On This:

• What will help you to believe at a core level that you are not your performance?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams.

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

Forgiveness At the Executive Level

You give a lot of yourself in order to develop those on your team.  You’ve taken some hits for them, provided cover for them, and you have also shown them a lot of loyalty.  You take leading your team seriously.

So what happens when a team member betrays you?  What happens when you realize that the loyalty you thought was mutual isn’t there?

If you are not careful, you might start to over-lead with self-protection.  That is, you can protect yourself from being hurt again by giving less of yourself to your team.  Without realizing it, your passion, drive, and even desire to make an impact through your team can be crippled.

In order to do your best and develop a high performing team, you need to be fully engaged, willing to risk betrayal for the sake of developing others.

If you find yourself being too defensive or self-protective, and you can see that part of the reason was a betrayal, you need to learn to forgive.

What purpose does forgiveness serve?

Forgiveness satisfies the debt that the offense created.  If you can forgive the offense, you will stop thinking about it.  You will function out of a sense of wholeness and peace, not out of the sense of loss that the offense generated. You will see yourself become stronger than you’ve ever been, and more resilient than you thought you could be.

However, the sad reality is that most of us don’t really know what forgiveness means, much less know how to forgive.

What do you believe would happen if you fully forgave the one who hurt you?  Some believe that a part of forgiving is to treat the offense as if it did not matter.  Others believe that if they forgive, they have to be close to the person they forgave.  Some believe that if they forgive, they are actually enabling the other person to continue to repeat the behaviors that caused so much damage.  What if I told you that none of those things is what forgiveness is about?

According to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ to forgive is:

1a : to give up resentment of or claim to requital for

1b : to grant relief from payment of

2: to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) : pardon

Notice that forgiveness has nothing to do with reconciliation. Notice that it doesn’t even have to do with whether or not the offender has changed, whether or not they have asked you for forgiveness, or if they even want it.  In fact, the offender does not even need to be part of the process.

• Forgiveness is not saying that what the offender did is okay.
• Forgiveness is about you being free from the burden of the offense. It prevents more from being stolen from you than what the offensive act(s) already stole.
• Forgiveness prevents you from closing off your heart and not letting anything in. When you close off your heart, not even good can come in.
• Forgiveness prevents bitterness and a life that is utterly unfulfilling and frustrating.

Eventually, those who do not forgive isolate themselves as they perceive that more and more people are like their offender, and systematically remove them all from their lives.

But how do you forgive?

First, you need to know what you are forgiving. There is going to be a part that is obvious. For example, one of your directs, whom you poured yourself into, took a job with a competitor.  There are also going to be parts that are not as obvious. For example, you feel used and discarded.  You need to know both the obvious and the not-so-obvious parts.

Once you know what you need to forgive, we can use one of the following six options or a combination of them. Each one requires that you really chew, or thoroughly think it through, if it is going to help you fully forgive:

1) We can choose to pay down the debt ourselves. When we have not forgiven someone, our hearts often look for ways to get justice that are not appropriate. One way could be gossiping about the offender. Another could be just thinking about the offender in negative ways.

When we actively choose not to pursue inappropriate justice, it diminishes our feelings of vengeance.

The more we make that choice, the more we pay down the debt the offense created.

Eventually, we won’t even seek the inappropriate justice because forgiveness has happened.

2) Chew on what it would be like to have forgiven the offender. Dream here. Ask yourself questions like:

• What would your life look like if I forgave the offender?
• What would I think about instead of dwelling on the bitter scenes that come into my head?
• What would my energy level be like if I released myself from the burden of carrying un-forgiveness?
• What would my moods be like?

The more details you give to the answers to those questions, the more you will desire to forgive. The more you desire to forgive, the more likely you are to forgive.

3) Recognize that, in some cases, the offense is so big that no amount of justice can satisfy it. When the offense is great, nothing the offender can do will ever make up the loss created.  Furthermore, if the offense is great, no amount of vindictive actions on our part will assuage the injustice we feel.

So even if the person spent an entire lifetime trying to make it up, and we spent our entire lifetime being as vindictive as we could be, at the end of life we would feel like we had not begun to mitigate the offense. We would die bitter old people.

The more we chew on that, the more we will sense that our lack of forgiveness is a trap. Therefore, in order to keep ourselves from being trapped, we forgive.

4) Need to make the offender an equal. By refusing to forgive someone, we make ourselves a judge over that person. It leads to a one-up/one-down relationship.

The one-up/one-down relationship leads us to believe that we have the right to judge them, and so we don’t pursue forgiveness.

If, however, we note that there is something in our hearts that, if left unchecked, could cause damage comparable to the damage that was done against us, and if we “chew” by thinking through the logical implications of that, we start to see that the offender is not that much different from us.

It is easier to forgive someone who is “just like us” than someone who is beneath us.

5) Repeat to yourself in many different ways that you forgive the offender. Sometimes we need to say we forgive in different ways for the forgiveness to be released at a heart level. “I forgive Jim.” “I release myself from pursuing the justice I deserve from Jim.” “I choose to no longer try to make Jim pay for what he did to me.”

6) Write a forgiveness letter to the offender (you can choose to mail it or not). First take some time to understand your offender. What led them to do what they did against you?

Doing this will not minimize the harm they have done to you. Nor will it lead to excusing what they did. Instead, it will start to humanize the person.

Writing a letter in which you 1) express all the harm done to you, 2) attempt to understand what may have led to it, and 3) clearly declare that you hold nothing against the offender, can be cathartic and lead to forgiveness.

Some people choose to mail the letter, some save it, some decide to burn it.

I wish we could all forgive as easily as little kids seem to, but we can’t.  Know that forgiveness is going to be a process.

You know that you are done forgiving when you can think about it and it no longer feels raw.  I know that I have forgiven someone when I no longer randomly have an argument in my head with them.

Forgiveness brings about freedom.  It helps you to fully engage your team and do the work that you are best at, with joy.

Chew On This:

• What would your leadership be like if you fully forgave?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams.

How To Work With Someone You Don't Like

High performing teams exist when there is a high degree of mutual trust and respect.  Team members need to believe in each other’s abilities and fight to draw out the best in everyone on the team.  All members need to know that they belong. But what happens if there’s someone on the team that you just don’t like? Maybe the person is too abrasive, too blunt. Or maybe it’s the opposite: they are too passive. In order to avoid conflict, they appear inauthentic. Or maybe they are ego-centric.  Then again, maybe you can’t put your finger on why you don’t like them; you just don’t.

Whatever the reason is, you need to know that when you don’t like someone, it will affect your ability to work with them.  Your degree of trust in them, your respect for them, and your belief in their abilities will all be impacted, with the result that you are not going to want to fight to draw out the best in them.  Most of us want to spend as little time as possible around people we don’t like.

The good news is that you can learn to trust and respect them, and even believe in their abilities.

1. Get to the root of your reason for not liking them.

What is it about them you don’t like?  List the character flaws or behaviors that really bother you.

Next ask yourself, What is it about those traits that leads you to feel that way?

Is it that you have some of those traits?  Yup, ouch!  If we don’t like someone, it is often because that person has traits that we see in ourselves, and don’t like.  The good news on this one is that you can start turning your dislike into empathy just by realizing that the person you don’t like is a lot more like you than you thought.  You have a negative trait in common, and if both are willing, you can even partner with each other to overcome it.

Is it that this person has the same traits as someone who hurt you in the past, someone whom you have never forgiven? Do you seem to keep bumping into that kind of person? If so, that could be a sign that you have never fully forgiven the person who hurt you originally. Consequently, when you meet someone with similar traits, you become defensive and over-react.  The key here is to forgive fully the original person.

Or is it that you just don’t like a particular personality trait? For example, Thinkers vs Feelers.  Thinkers are about truth.  So they freeze their emotions in order to get to what they would consider objective reality.  In the process of freezing their emotions, they can come across as cold, abrasive, and too blunt.  Understandably, this can lead to conflict or disharmony. Feelers are about harmony.  They hate conflict.  As a result, they can appear inauthentic, or even manipulative in order to avoid disagreement and maintain harmony.  But this can prevent the truth from coming out. Can you see why it would be easy to dislike someone who is the opposite of your personality bent?

2. It’s okay that you don’t like them.

I know, I know... This is not what we were taught in kindergarten.  But it’s true that at the end of the day, we can work through whatever forgiveness issues we may have, we can learn to appreciate personality differences, we can even overcome our negative traits, but still not really like someone.  We may have learned to tolerate them and even to see value in our differences, but we are not ready to start hanging out with them.  That is okay.

The important thing is that you work through your stuff, while still showing them the dignity that all humans deserve to be shown.

In addition, if we are going to work with them we are going to have to up our trust, respect and belief in their abilities.

3. Increase your desire to trust, respect, and believe in their abilities.

If you don’t want to like them, you are not going to like them.  The same is true if you don’t want to trust, respect, or believe in their abilities.  Sometimes we need to list reasons why we should increase our desire for the good of the team.

You can go about this in several ways. One staple of mine is to ask a “What if” question.  “What good could come if...” So in this case it is, “What good could come if I trust, respect, and believe in their abilities?”  Notice I did not say what good will come.  I said what good could come.  Here is where you want to list as many good things as possible that could come.

If I am struggling to want something that I don’t want, and I ask a “What good could come?” question, I may come up with only 2 or 3 things, and not feel really satisfied.  Try Googling “Benefits of trusting a co-worker,” and you will find more to add to the list.

You can also think of the benefits you yourself have received from trusting, or respecting, or believing in a co-worker, and add those to the list.

The idea is to come up with as many things as you can think of until you see your attitude changing to one of increased desire.  Then, as that desire gets fueled, you won’t be able to stop yourself from taking action.

4. While you are working on the first three, know that you don’t have to act on what you feel towards them.

One of the things that I love about emotional intelligence training is seeing how someone learns to increase their emotional self-awareness and then learns to regulate their emotions on the fly.  The confidence that comes is tremendous.  You can learn to do the same.

As you learn, stay away from gossiping about them.  Instead, actively find ways to help them.  That will help you to change your attitude towards them.

5. Find the good in them for you and the greater whole of the team.

They are on the team for good reasons.  Identify and focus on those reasons and you will find yourself able to handle the less desirable traits much better.

6. Set boundaries with clear upfront communication.

If part of why you don’t like them is that they “push your buttons,” then know that you are not their victim. You alone are responsible for your response to those buttons being pushed.

Read some blogs or books on boundaries, and learn some basic techniques for minimizing your exposure to toxic behaviors.  One of the biggest ones I have learned is to use clear upfront communication, like speaking in terms of, “When you do X I feel Y.”  Notice you are not telling them what to do. Instead, you are making them aware of your response to their behavior.

If they don’t want to do anything about X, then you can step it up a notch and request a change in the behavior. Or you can say “If you don’t want to stop doing X, then I am going to leave the room for a bit and consider how we can find a different way to communicate. You have a lot to offer this team and I don’t want to let my response impact the success of this project.”  In other words, fully own that it is your response you're working on, and then take active steps to work on it.

7. How do those who work successfully with them interact with them?

Are there some on the team who work better than you do with the person you don’t like?  If so, what are they doing that’s different?  Adopting some of their techniques can be helpful.

8. Celebrate the times when they are displaying likeable behaviors.

During times that they are doing things that are much more likeable, recognize it and celebrate it.  “I really love it when you do ABC." That type of emphatic acknowledgement could go a long way towards long-lasting behavioral change.

9. Radical idea #1: Choose to work on a really tough project with them.

People who work on something really tough together tend to bond better.  It also helps to draw out the interpersonal dynamics more, and that forces you to deal with them more quickly since the tough project needs to be accomplished.

10. Radical idea #2: Find ways to laugh with them.

People who laugh together start to like each other more.

I remember watching a really funny movie when I lived in New York.  After the lights came on and audience members made eye contact as they left the theater, it was obvious that they felt warm towards each other.

On a team, that warmth develops into a real liking of each other.

If you don’t like someone on your team, you have the choice either to be stuck with them, or to find ways to make the most of the relationship. The person you thought you never would like may become one of your closest co-workers. Stranger things have happened!

Chew On This:

• What will you do to escape the sense of being stuck with someone and, instead, make the most of the relationship?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams.

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

Three Tips For Forming a Lifestyle of Gratitude

cellars

Today being Thanksgiving, it is a natural time to think about gratitude. However, our lives would be radically different if every day we found reasons to be grateful.

Let’s start with a simple exercise that can help to develop that lifestyle.

Think of a time when you were really grateful.  Really go into details of what it was like to feel grateful.  Literally take a couple of minutes just to taste it.

As you remember a time when you were grateful, what happens to you the more you think of that time?

What are you experiencing? Feeling? Thinking?

Notice that you are becoming more grateful in the present.

Notice that no matter what you were feeling before you took those couple of minutes, you are now more content and peaceful.

Notice the humility, the awareness of what a gift you were given.

Notice the simplicity.

Now think for a moment.  What would happen to your life if you took even just 5 mins a day to think of a time when you were grateful?

How would you lead your team differently?  How would you approach your stakeholders?

How would you give feedback to a direct report?  How would you receive feedback?

Gratitude is serious business.

If you read Benefits of Gratitude, you will find 31 benefits to developing a lifestyle of gratitude, including:

• Becoming a better manager

• Improved networking skills

• Achieving more goals

• Improved decision making

• Increased productivity

Gratitude makes a huge difference in the business world.

So now let’s talk about some different ways in which you can cultivate gratitude in your life

1. Remember moments when you were grateful - Gratitude Chronicle

This is what you did at the beginning of this blog.  If you download the Gratitude Chronicle that we’ve created, you can capture different times throughout your life when you felt grateful.

Some like to write the details about the times when they felt grateful on the Excel spreadsheet.  Others like to write just the headline and then let themselves really get into the story.

If you write not only the facts of your gratitude story but also what you feel about the facts, that will help you get into a grateful mindset.

Typically gratitude happens when we:

• Get relief from a hard time we are going through.

• Are given a gift.

• Remember the things that we take for granted, which would be a terrible loss to us if they were taken away (i.e. our eyesight, family, friends, etc.).

• Hear someone else’s stories of when they felt grateful.

Any of these could be captured in your gratitude chronicle.

2. When you give negative feedback to a direct report, also give 2 or 3 things you are grateful for with respect to who they are or the work they did.  

Your direct reports want to know you value them.  If they hear mostly criticism from you, they will tend to focus on that criticism instead of what you value about them.  So when you give negative feedback, be sure to include 2-3 things you are genuinely grateful for.  Then find more positive ways to communicate the feedback so they can see that you are looking to help them grow even further, rather than squash them down.

3. Start a ritual of beginning your day by thinking of three things you are grateful for about the previous day.

Imagine what it would be like to wake up in the morning and feel grateful.

Another simple way to develop this skill is to start your day with it.

When you wake up in the morning, take a few minutes to list three things that happened the day before that you were grateful for. Let yourself enjoy these three for a few minutes so you can taste the gratitude.

If there were bigger things that happened, take the time to record them in your gratitude chronicle.

As is implied by this blog, gratitude is a skill that can be grown and improved.  A few minutes a day will go a long way towards developing a lifestyle of gratitude.

I hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving filled with finding ways to be grateful for those who are enjoying this day with you!

Chew On This:

• What would your team be like if everyone cultivated a lifestyle of gratitude?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams.

MBTI Bite: How To Pick Up Someone's Personality Type Over The Phone

Just think of what it would be like if you could figure out a new stakeholder’s personality type while you speak to them on the phone. Think of how quickly you could connect with them, tailor your dialogue to their preferred communication style, and even know how to balance their weaknesses so that they feel empowered to stay in their strike zones.

It's possible.

Myers-Briggs is the most popular and most researched assessment in the world. It breaks down personality types into four dichotomous pairs.

1. E vs I, Extrovert vs Introvert.

You know the person on the other end of the telephone is an E if they consistently talk things out with you. We E’s are notorious for thinking as we speak. We've also got a case of verbal diarrhea. That is, we are verbose.

I’s, on the other hand pause, think things out and give more concise, formed answers. They also tend to process new information internally instead of with others.

2. S vs N, Sensing vs Intuition.

S’s, or Sensors, are 75% of the population. So when in doubt, you can guess that the stakeholder you are speaking to is an S. But another way to know is if they speak in specifics. Do they give detailed descriptions as they lay out information? Do they talk in more tangibles (sights, smells, sounds) than in abstract concepts?

You know you are speaking to an N, or Intuitive, when they focus on the big picture. N's often think broadly, basing their ideas more on intuition than sensory cues. N’s also love new ideas and possibilities.

3. T vs F, Thinking vs. Feeling.

T’s, or Thinkers, can be spotted because they talk about the logical implications of things.

F’s, or Feelers, may first talk about a task but will often interject with the impact the project will have on the people.

4. J vs P, Judging vs. Perceiving.

J’s or Judgers, feel more comfortable once a decision is made. Over the phone, you will sense them wanting to lock down a decision.

P’s, on the other hand, like to keep their options open. It will be harder to nail things down.

Here is a cheat sheet that gives you all of the above in one page:

rcba-mbti-cheat-sheet

rcba-myers-briggs-cheat-sheets

Once you can pick off the letters, go to 16personalities.com and get detailed descriptions that will help you get them better.

Even if you can't nail all the letters use this cheat sheet to tailor the way you communicate with them not just over the phone but in email too.

Chew On This:

• How can you implement this mindset into your phone calls today?

Ryan C. Bailey is an Executive Coach who helps business leaders develop in-demand high performing teams.

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.