Working as a manager or leader in any workplace leaves a lot of room to influence other people.  And shouldn’t that include then some specific coaching and discussion to help others improve their role and work results?  I certainly think so and I also think that every person in a leadership or supervising role should be expected to learn about coaching in the workplace.  If coaching were better understood and used on a regular basis, the results of whole teams and companies could be drastically improved given some time.

Coaching in the workplace is something I’ve practiced for a number of years through managing others and it is now one of the most effective ways I have to develop people for higher level roles, better performance and to address weaknesses getting in their way from being as effective as they could be.  I originally learned the model I use now for coaching from Manager Tools at one of their effective manager conferences.  I can’t stress the value enough of their many free podcasts and training for managers.  These models and tools create a foundation for coaching that works reliably and you then only need to tweak it to fit your style, your methods for your workplace and to adjust each session of course to the person you are coaching, the most important part of course.

Uncovering Goals through Questioning

Questioning is a tool, unfortunately overlooked and under studied which can help you tremendously in coaching others.  Learning to use probing questions and digging deeper with the 5 common W questions, you can get to the root of motivations or problems to uncover the real goals the other person might have.  Its often easier to determine some simple goal or short term item that you can coach a person for, but if it has an underlying motivation and meaning that has more impact and value to the other person, it is worth using questions to uncover that.  I have 3 previous articles on questions, all can really help in coaching:

• Better Communication: Using Questions Regularly
• Using the 5 W Questions to Improve Your Training
• Open Ended Questions Make Better Conversations

The Coaching Model

The model that Manager Tools is best described in their podcasts mentioned above.  It is essentially a series of 4 steps toward achieving the coaching goal.  They are:

1. Set a Goal
2. Brainstorm the Resources
3. Create an Action Plan
4. Act towards the Goal

Tailor Coaching To the Individual

Coaching only works if it is specific to an individual and the same coaching plan will never work for everyone.  The brainstorming and even the goal could be the same, but each person will have their own action plan and steps to achieve their goal.  This is because you need to let the action plan be something that works specifically for the individual you are coaching.  For example, just because I know I can easily learn content from reading a book by some subject matter expert, I know this doesn’t work for everyone and reading a book in a coaching plan might be more discouraging to some individuals than it is helpful.  Some people will need to learn by trial and error, some by courses or training, some self taught, some through experimentation, research or by hearing stories and reacting emotionally to some method.  Everyone will have their own style and its your job as the coach to tailor the coaching to find the methods that work best for the individual and then incorporate that method for them to practice and learn most effectively.

A Six-Session Investigation of the Toughest Objections to Christianity

Buy the AudioCD at Amazon

Author: Lee Strobel and Garry Poole

I know not everyone is interested in spiritual books so link ahead to other categories or articles here if you don’t care to explore what could be a way to discover new meaning and purpose in your life.  I’ve read several books by C.S. Lewis recently which I really enjoyed, like The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man, and The Great Divorce.  The screwtape letters were wonderful and insightful in a sad and scary way while the other two were more intellectually challenging as they were a much harder to read from the sense of understanding the author, Lewis.

Anyway much of Lewis’ writings have triggered many other authors to seek their questions about God and Christianity and the Case for Faith is one of those examples, by Lee Strobel.  I’ve read several of Strobel’s other books (see my review of God’s Outragious Claims and The Case for Christ) and this book is definitely my favorite of the three.  Faith is something I have deeply grown in and it has become an important part of who I am, and it drives me to live the way I live.  It brings joy, contentment as well as turmoil and question about what I should be doing, what I can be doing and if I’m leading myself or letting God lead me?

Faith

Faith is a tough subject to write about, and even tougher to make arguments for since Faith itself is completely based on believing in something that you are not entirely sure about.  This book puts both of that into a mixture of questions around faith and Christianity, yet at the same time, providing a number of explanations and reasons why those questions are so important in the context of faith.  There are a number of interviews conducted in the book, with scholars and subject experts, both aethiest and Christian and Strobel presents them into a convincing set of apologetic answers and explanations that should be enough for any faith seeker to be convinced that there is ample truth and evidence in those many questions to warrant the faith that is then required to become a believer.

A few areas I especially liked in the book were how much of the atheist claims about science, evolution, and attempts to discredit the Word of God, have been repeatedly discredited by not only Christian research and scholars, but science as well.  I’ve learned some of this on my own researching science that has become the “standard explanation” for the origin of life and the universe.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of science taught in school as truths, when in reality, they are not proven any more than many of the cases this book argues.  I’ve met my share of atheists and even had arguments from them on this site, and surprisingly I see they have as much faith in their religion (I mean non-religion since that is what they would have you believe) as I have in mine.  That is still a clear case of faith and the ability to choose your faith should only be done with what can be believed with enough credit and evidence that you feel you can trust it, go with the uncertainly you still have and grow in that faith by experiencing the results of it.  This is where I feel Strobel’s book did an excellent job, covering in interviews how faith is not just an initial leap, but a transformation towards something through experience.  Faith leads to something you can truly know in your soul and that experience and relationship with Christ that so many discover is what separates believers in God and Christ from those who have a faith that He does not exist.  Not believing requires putting your faith in other people, scientific theory, research, scholars and much imagination, since there is no supernatural to explain the origin of life and the universe.

Strobel was once an atheist so many of his questions were formed when he was seeking answers and arguing against the requirements of faith which he now as a Christian, puts to the challenge with the evidence and arguments that he has collected to help others understand and explain some of the toughest objections to Christianity.  As with any book, and especially to the atheist, you have to understand this book is about a Case FOR Christ, it helps to steer you toward a Faith in Him that can change your life. I think the book is great for anyone seeking more answers about God, wanting to see arguments for or against their current views and to add a deeper perspective on what Faith really requires, regardless of your current believes, Christian or not.  It’s easy to read and doesn’t require you to know a lot of historical background or content from the Bible but of course that helps as many references are used as evidence but not the whole context of them outlined.  So, if Faith is either something you are lacking, want to strengthen or simply curious to explore what Faith is all about, I think you will then certainly enjoy, The Case For Faith!

It’s been a few months since I’ve shared another resource list so I’ve got a great round up for you, which hopefully you haven’t seen many of these.  

Articles

• I have my share of 100 lists and this is another great one: 100 Ways for Your Family to Make a Difference
• I wonderful response and article based on Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness.  This one is called Futile Pursuit
• Here is an article sent to me about inspiring elderly learners, who believe learning is worthwhile, no matter what their age.
• 50 Ways to Show Gratitude for the People in Your Life, gratitude is often overlooked, and these tips will help keep it active
• 14 Links to Make You A More Intelligent Person - Some great websites and online learning tools, many that I frequent are in this list and I’ve certainly found a few new ones, which I’m sure you will like as well!
• 30 Days of for 30 days of Growth – A worthy list of ways to grow in life
• How to be Yourself – some excellent tips at discovering yourself and being more authentic (a VERY important trait to great relationships)

 Videos

• This is a very interesting video about the Captch project and now, there new research for language translation, which I am excited to try once public.
• www.instructables.com is a great website for finding out exactly how to do a lot of things and simple DIY projects.

From the Archives here at LearnThis.ca

• Passion: Find your passion in life
• Reach Out Beyond Your Comfort Zone…
• Being Humble: Why Bother Learning to be Humble?

During a book study recently, I had a question or comment from my pastor that really struck a nerve and it left me thinking about it for a while.  It was along the lines of “How do you learn to be more present in everyday life?”  It was a question that I certainly have never really spent much time thinking about it.  I have some of my habits and behaviors that help me stay as present as I do and some of those may be obvious and some not.  I also likely have a number of things that have developed out of those habits that I may not have ever really thought about before.  And of course, there is then the enormous amount of distractions and things that prevent me from being present and only some of those things I purposefully control.

So, I thought I would start on this new topic for me by putting down some of the things that I’ve learned just from recent thinking about the subject regarding being present and some of the advantages of it.

Commit and set a Goal

Being more present or being more anything really in life starts by requiring some new commitment or choice that you want to behave a certain way.  I think this is especially true about being present, since the rest of the world will so easily consume you and keep you from that, it has to be a conscious choice to really let it happen.  Here are just a few ways you might make a choice to act on this.

• Put attention to small things around you
• Make unconscious actions something you notice.  Breathing, heart rate, feelings in your toes, the top of your head, your tongue
• Imaging observing yourself from other people’s point of view, especially strangers or people who don’t know you that well
• Observe simple actions in others (how they hold their hands, open and closed body position, facial expressions, their breathing rate compared to yours)
• Match the communication style or behavior style of others (obviously without playing copycat though, you don’t want them to notice and be annoyed)

Practice by Planning Activities

Plan some regular activity to be a trigger point to become more present.  You can train yourself to use these daily triggers as a reminder for jumping back to the present moment.  For example, every time you get a drink, say hello to someone, stop at a red light, etc.  Other activities that you can plan to practice in is a particular time of day.  For some, this works best by setting aside 10 minutes in the morning or after supper in the evening or some time when you can take a few minutes and simply practice being present in your environment at that time. This combined with the triggers you have for the goals above will really help you find time to repeat and practice being present.

Eliminate Distractions

This seems to be the most difficult part of being present in today’s modern society.  Everything around us is designed to distract us and bombard us with a bit more information.  Whether it is our own mobile devices, our past times like television or the continual advertising we face, everything is hoping to catch just a moment of our time.  These distractions individually are quite small but add them all together and you end up in a day to day cycle of jumping from every little thing immediately to the next, multitasking with ten things on the go at once and endlessly having things to check, read and respond to.  All of these things keep you from being present and can easily be reduced with some dedicated choices and follow through.  That follow through is eliminating some distractions.  I recommend that you really look for some things you can completely get rid of, not just reduce or minimize, but completely eliminate.  Personally, I choose a long time ago not to watch TV, ever.  The commercials and distractions during any show are enough to drive me crazy and can really no longer stand any advertising.  Instead of watching TV, I get some TV series that I like either on Netflix or on DVD, without the commercials.  The shows end up being MUCH more enjoyable as I can watch them whenever I want and without the horrid commercials.  I watch movies as well and don’t miss for a second any wasted time watching TV.  That leaves me a lot more time to focus on other things, think about being present in other activities and it helps to train my mind to find other distractions I can eliminate.

One other distraction I’ve eliminated is answer a phone when I’m in a conversation with someone already.  I want to always focus on the conversation and person at hand and don’t like distractions.  To me, its simply good phone etiquette to put it on silent at all times and never interrupt someone to check or answer your phone.  At work, as an engineering manager, I have a lot of people I am in meetings with each week, my directs, my project teams and the executive team; it makes no difference to me who, I never stop or interrupt a conversation to be distracted by a phone.  Do the same with your friends and family, and the phone can be an easy distraction to eliminate.  Voice mail is there for a reason, use.

Forgot the Past

Next is then knowing to forget the past.  Often, what keeps us from being present in the now, is things we are thinking about that already happened, especially with other people.  You might be wondering about a person’s reaction to something that happened previously, like a comment made, or saying no to that last invite.  If you dwell on those past things you will only make yourself more distant from being present now and so you must let it go and think about the now and what is, at the present.

This occurs a lot because of things that hurt or broke a relationship and it prevents the present from ever becoming dominant, which is what you need for any good relationship to thrive.  Let go of past issues, concerns and worries and think about what you want the now to be like, what could make the present the best and start working toward that.

Ignore the Future

On the flip side of the past, often the future is what blocks us from being present and it surfacing because of thinking about what might happen, or what a person may think if you do or say a certain thing.  The social ties we have often block being present because we know someone else might say something or hear something about what we are doing now.  Being present helps leave those concerns out of mind and let the moments and the people immediately around you be your focal point.  Enjoy what is right there in front of you and let the future be an unknown, something to experience when it gets here and don’t concern yourself so much with unlikely consequences.  You obviously can’t always be in the moment and thinking in the present or your future could slip past without ever having plans or hopes fulfilled, but ignoring the future when you want to enjoy the present is one of the best things you can do.

I hope this article left you thinking as well about how to be more present and living in the moment and its likely an article I should right more on.  I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on the topic!

I’m a very direct person when it comes to how I communicate and saying ‘no’ has never been that difficult for me. However, that is not the case for most people and I have had to coach several people on learning to say no to prevent themselves from being overwhelmed or burdened by requests from others they regretted taking on. There are a few ways to make saying no easier and the first thing to remember is that the whole reason it might seem uncomfortable to say no is entirely in your own mind.  The reason people ASK for things IS to give you the opportunity to say no when it is the right response for you.  Remember that and take a look at these additional techniques.

Change How You Delivery a No

• give an explanation – this helps associate logic with the response (some p
  eople value that)
• say you want to, but simply cannot or are unable to at that time
• No thanks, I’m simply not interested.
• Well I’d love to, but I don’t have time this weekend, sorry.

Say No When It Truly Matters

When first learning to say no, it might be very difficult to have that response for everything you want to actually say no to.  There are certainly things you value your time for more than others and its these most important things you value that will help you say no when requests come piling in for your time.  Perhaps its your time with your family you value most, perhaps its your activities, a special event; whatever it is, remembering to keep time available or that important item will help you identify which requests you should start saying ‘no’ to.  The ones that will impact your important time the most, the things that truly matter to you, those are the ones you need to start saying no to first.

One more of the traits I referred to and read about recently in “The Good Among the Great” that I wanted to explore in more detail is Performance and Process Oriented.  I especially value the performance oriented and while I know the process piece is associated with that, to me it is a subset of performance.  This article explores how to put performance as a focus in much of what you do.

Work for Joy and Not for Money

Performance occurs when you are happy doing the job you do.  Study after study shows that money does not bring happiness to life or a workplace and so you have to find joy in what you do to truly perform at your best.  Finding ways to enjoy your work are important regardless of what you do.  At the same time, I don’t think you need to quit your job or find a new career that is more satisfying just to have a joyous reason to work.  Every job has its joys or satisfactions and it requires the person doing them to discover them.  In whatever job you do, you can either choose to complain about it (which many people seem to do in work) or you can find ways that you can value the work, the results you get and make the job more enjoyable.  Perhaps this is through the people you work with, adding some humor or fun to the culture, making some friendly competition or self challenges to make the work more than just showing up for a pay check.  If you don’t enjoy your job now, ask yourself, “Will it really make a difference to liking your job if you get a 10% raise?”  Probably not, however, it will make a BIG difference if you can positively change the culture, make work more fun, know and have fun with the people you work with or simply love the results you can produce in that job.  The great part of having more joy in the workplace, is that you will still end up having better performance which will always lead to that better pay in the long run anyway.

Value The Journey more than The Achievement

Being performance oriented often leaves people solely focused on a outcome instead of truly optimizing the process or journey towards that achievement.  While obviously results are an important aspect of any performance oriented person, they are not the only thing that matters.  The methods, the journey and the process used to get to that outcome is often more important since it is where the learning occurs along the way.  The journey is where the experience is really coming from, not the end result and that experience is what you will remember and be able to repeat.  If you achieve something and don’t know how you achieved it, does it really have any value?

Study The Results of Everything You Do

So, if you look at the journey or your performance and not only the results, it helps to pick apart the results and examine them to help uncover the truths of why they work or how you got them.  Of course the journey is part of this to know the process and methods, but the results are often not as obvious as they might seem at first either.  What impact does the result actually have?  Does the result reach other people, other areas or aspects of that job that you didn’t intend at first?  Are those positive or negative results?  What about the repeat-ability of your results, is there someone else who you could teach or help achieve the same thing?  Can you repeat them yourself?

Reflect on Your Talents and How to Use Them

Something leads to great results and sure the journey is part of that, but often that journey is shaped by a talent that you have.  Do you know what your greatest talents are and is it clear to you when you are using them and how to make them more effective? Being performance oriented will require you to use all of your skills and talents.  Reflect on them to figure how you can use them more?  You are way better off spending your time on your strengths and talents than you are on weaknesses when you are looking to be performance oriented.  Weaknesses may be an area you want to improve on to help get results, but every hour spent using a talent will always get you more than an hour spending working on a weakness.  That is exactly why you would call it a weakness in the first place, you are not as good at it!

Learn From your Mistakes

I am amazed how many people seem to be afraid to make mistakes, want to hide mistakes they do make, and don’t seem to tolerate others making mistakes.  These are not the behaviors of performance oriented people, as hiding and avoiding mistakes is something that limits people from learning from them.  Obviously making mistakes  on purpose is not valuable here, but tolerating mistakes for what they are and then maximizing them by learning from them is incredibly valuable.  Ask yourself why the mistake happened?  Can you avoid it from happening again?  What did you learn from the mistake and can you share that or teach it to others?

Create Experiences Over Acquiring Things

The materialism and disposable world we have created is shifting people more and more towards what they want instead of why they want it.  Acquiring things is often at the top of people’s goal lists or wish lists and it happens more and more as people achieve more.  To be truly performance oriented however, one has to care more about the experiences they gain and wish for over the things they might be able to acquire.  Every thing (even a status item or symbol of prestige) is still for the purpose of the feeling it gives the person.  That is even more true with experiences that don’t come with some item or thing.  The stuff we accumulate often holds us back from being able to do and experience more.  If you want to be more performance oriented, you must think about and shift from acquiring things to creating experiences.  It is the experiences you will remember and value years later and its the experiences you can share with others on a personal level.

Change What Doesn’t Work Quickly

Many people get their mind set on something and keep being persistent, without exploring new options.  Persistence has its merit when it is the only option to accomplish something (like my article on perseverance climbing a mountain) but most of the time there are alternatives choices and methods to get a similar result from.  This is why it is good to react when something doesn’t work and to change it before wearing yourself out or wasting too much time on the wrong thing.  If you can change something that is not working quickly for another method, this is much better than just continually pushing through when there is tiring resistance (either skills, circumstance, etc).  Optimizing the way to get results is important to do at all times, so change what doesn’t work quickly and you will certainly find the optimal path and be more performance oriented.

Kill Distractions and Find Solitude

Distractions seem like they have become part of everyday life now for most people but the truth is that they are chosen by people and it is quite possible to choose to eliminate distractions just as easily as it is for people to choose to have them.  Whether it is how many times a day you check your facebook page, whether or not you stop a personal conversation to answer a phone or simply how you fill your productive and spare hours with extra things like music, a bit of web surfing or checking your email 25 times a day;  all of these are distractions you choose to have or allow.  If you want to be more productive identify the distractions that don’t help you and choose to kill them.  Maybe for an hour to start, a day or if you are determined, forever, but no matter the time frame you have to choose to kill the distraction to gain performance.  Combine that with some solitude where you can actually think about your life and the things you need to accomplish and you suddenly find yourself more performance oriented with an ability to get a lot more done in the same period of time.

Take Risks and Ignore Conventional Thinking

Performance oriented individuals are those who are willing to take risks and they know that a risk is often necessary to take a leap forward instead of always playing everything safe and conservative.  Often conventional wisdom or wisdom of crowds forces conventional thinking that keeps us from trying something new, being creative or experimenting with some idea that might fail.  Without the guts to take the risk, we limit every possibility of it working and kill what might have turned out to be an amazing ideal if only it was acted on.

Relationships Must Come First

Last but certainly now least in this list of being more performance oriented is relationships.  Relationship are absolutely crucial to great success and are one of the strongest areas to help accelerate and connect a person for success. Whether it is for support and empathy from people we know, trust and love, or connecting businesses and networks of business people towards win win situations, no matter what the performance you are after, relationships will help it come faster, make it easier to enjoy and share, and empower you with more passion and emotion than when others are not involved with you.