Vedere Consulting

I want to share a small triumph with you. I want to share it because it happened when my husband, Mike, and I were fighting. We don’t fight often, but when we do, old patterns from 32 years of marriage and 36 years of knowing each other still can kick in. And they aren’t pretty. We are both oldest children. We know how to manipulate others to get our way. Put us together in that frame of mind—it becomes a contest of wills.

Perhaps you may know what I’m talking about. Perhaps you can imagine yourself in such an exchange. This one started out innocently enough. I had come home around 6:30 from a late meeting. I was tired and hungry. Mike greeted me at the door, “Let’s go out to the Quadrangle for dinner.” Immediately I pictured smoky room, long wait for service, loud music and football on TV. Ugh.

“I don’t want to go out for dinner,” I said. “We have lots of food here. I can fix something.” Mike puts on his most convincing smile. “It’ll be great. No preparation, no clean-up.” I counter, whining, with, “We’ll have to wait for hours to be served. I don’t want to be out late.”

OK. I’m going to stop the action here for a minute. Maybe you can see the spiral and maybe not. But the conversation’s rapidly going down hill. Each of us is trying to convince the other why our solution is the right one. We are getting nowhere. In this scenario, whoever is the most persistent wins. The other person will end up going along resentfully—and neither of us will have a good time.

This conflict spiral is never fun, no matter how much you love each other. But it doesn’t have to be this way. My triumph (and I treasure it) is that the spiral stopped. It stopped because this time I was conscious. By conscious I mean that I started paying attention to the way we were talking, not what we were saying. What I saw then was the spiral, the fact that we would never get anywhere as long as we focused on trying to convince each other our way was the right way.

What I did differently was to start paying attention to what we both needed. I asked Mike what made going out so attractive. He said he really wanted to get out of the house and he really wanted to get some exercise and we could walk to a restaurant. Okay, that made sense. The most important thing for me was to avoid a long wait to be served in a restaurant. I was ready to relax at home.

We now both knew what was important to both of us. That meant we were able to start thinking of solutions that let both of us get what we most wanted. For us, this turned out to be simple. We ordered food from a favorite carry out place, walked there, and came back home to have dinner. We both were happy and we had a great meal. It was a win-win.

Win-win solutions don’t just happen. They happen because someone in the conflict becomes conscious. S/he starts paying attention to the conversation’s process, and then deliberately asks a question or makes a comment that allows the partners to focus on what each of them really wants instead of why their “solutions” make sense. Then, instead of two solutions with a win-lose outcome, it’s possible to generate multiple solutions. The more solutions you generate, the greater the possibility that one of them will satisfy you both.

Let me tell you, it feels awesome when you find a solution that makes both of you happy. You’re connected again, in a little deeper way. You’ve taken care of each other.

Thankfully, we’re not married to the people we work with, but the process is the same. Good solutions to conflicts require that someone pays attention to the process, that someone steers the conversation toward what’s needed by each party, and that someone uses those needs to craft solutions that satisfy you both.

Labels: Crucial Conversations

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April 16 was the first anniversary of the massacre at Virginia Tech, my alma mater. I was touched by the many ways people at Tech remembered the event—reading poetry, writing memorial letters, creating art on rocks to symbolize “hokie stones,” planting trees to honor the victims—all actions that honor and support and touch the heart. I learned the meaning of courage and grace from Tech students and faculty last year. This year, they offer us lessons in remembering and learning from our darkest hours.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, in his remarks during a memorial ceremony for the 32 shooting victims, challenged us to see the implication of young lives cut short to our own. He said:

“The world was cheated on April 16 a year ago—cheated out of the accomplishments that were sure to come from these 32 lives. These 32 lives were too short. But we all lead lives that are too short. If we realize how short life is, how short our lives are, we will focus on what is important—faith, relationships with family and friends, dedication to great causes and principles, and service to others.”

Our lives are short. What we do with them each and every day makes a difference—sometimes in ways we cannot imagine. You’ve probably heard about how the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can affect the weather thousands of miles away. You never know when one small thing you do sets off a chain of events that produces consequences far beyond your intention.

Governor Kaine articulated the things that matter to him—where he wants to focus his energy in his too-short life. His faith, his relationships, his service—this is how he knows he is giving himself a life well lived. I believe his challenge to all of us is to find the things we value and to live those things every day so that at the end of our lives we can celebrate the short time we’ve been given.

Labels: Personal Growth

Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.

“I have this employee who can do the work, but just isn’t motivated. What can I do to motivate him (or her)?” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard this question. I hear it in leadership workshops, I hear it from my coaching clients. It’s probably the most frustrating question leaders I know confront. It’s stood the test of time—the leaders in my first workshops 30 years ago asked it as frequently as managers do now.

My colleague and friend, Kathleen McSweeney, has one answer based on the research chronicled in Tom Peters and Bob Waterman’s classic In Search of Excellence. She told how a friend of hers had met Bob Waterman and asked him what he and Peters had learned about motivation. Waterman said that their research showed that the single most motivating factor for individuals is having their ideas adopted by management.

I’ve spent several hours recently listening to employees who are struggling to care. They are competent and capable. None of them believe they are recognized or appreciated for what they do. As they told their stories, I kept thinking about how simple it would be to reach them. It seemed that what they wanted most of all was for someone to pay attention to them, to recognize their contributions and to acknowledge what they did right. Each story was different, but they all boiled down to the simple human need to be valued.

Peters and Waterman exhorted managers to “catch them [their employees] doing something right.” Animal trainers know you get a much better response when you reward positive behavior and ignore bad behavior. Many leaders do the opposite—often unintentionally. I believe leaders spend far too much time managing their problems and too little time looking for and acknowledging what’s going well. Public recognition isn’t always important. Listening, asking for employees’ opinions, implementing their suggestions, thanking people for going the extra mile, giving people tasks they love doing—these are the things that matter. They show that you give your employees your undivided attention—often. It’s as true for senior leaders as it is for frontline employees.

How often do you catch your problem employee doing something right?

Labels: Strengths Based Leadership

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Once upon a time—actually about 20 odd years ago, there was a lovely old public park which had fallen on hard times. It had been a jewel in the Richmond park system, but now its gardens were neglected, its trails were overgrown, its lakes polluted and trashy, its fields used as a dump.

I loved that old park. I walked there almost every day. It made me sad to see a beautiful place reduced to such sorry circumstances. Often, the only people I saw there were a few creepy men with unknown intentions. I believed no one cared.—and that nothing I or anyone could do would make a difference.

How wrong I was. Today, that same park is vibrant and alive. In good weather, the park is full of people --children play in the playground, people walk or bike the hiking trails, play tennis, soccer, or Frisbee golf, feed the geese, fish, picnic. It just feels good to be there, to see the transformation.

How did it happen? A group of people, the Friends of Bryan Park*, thought big when I thought small. They refused to believe nothing could be done. They started working on the park in small ways—clearing a trail here, weeding a bed there, advocating for more funds, creating partnerships with the city department of recreation and parks. Over time, their hard and work persistence paid off and the park slowly came back to life.

You know, when I took those lonely walks in the park years ago, I thought things there would only change for the worse. What time has given me is perspective. Things can change, people can make a difference, what seemed impossible is possible. I have the ability to see something that I couldn’t see 20 years ago. This new perspective gives me hope.

I believe that we can approach life more calmly because we’ve lived enough of it to see that what seems huge is really small, what seems hopeless is truly accomplishable, that what seems like forever is really a moment. Great leaders have this perspective. They help the people around them see it too. They make it possible for people work for the prize despite setbacks, hardships and disappointments.

What is your perspective? How do you share it with others so that they see it too?


P.S. Vedere means “to see” in Italian. I believe perspective is an important element of success. As a coach, it’s my job to help my clients examine their perspectives and discern where their viewpoints no longer serve them. If your perspective is small when it needs to be large, consider coaching as an opportunity for growth. My contact information is below.

P.P.S. If you want to learn more about the Friends of Bryan Park, visit their website at http://www.friendsofbryanpark.org/ .

Labels: Organizational Change

Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.