Leadership Coaching | Self-Management | Capacity Development
Organisational progress, success and resilience are more likely when work in the business (doing the work) is sufficiently balanced with work on the business (improving how we work). But in reality, that balance is rare. This discussion describes common signs of that imbalance, its common causes, and what might be addressed to resolve them. Work in the business focuses on the Primary Task - the matters necessary for the organisation to stay in business. Work on the … [Read more...]
Can most of us, with enough persistent effort, get pretty good at anything? Probably. Effort, as psychologist Angela Duckworth has shown, counts twice: talent x effort = skill, and skill x effort = achievement. And though both talent and our willingness to exert persistent effort may be at least partially genetic, only a minority of our personality is inherited. High performers don’t rely on either nature or nurture, but on a combination of the two — and they are really good at nurturing … [Read more...]
To have a decent shot at developing our personal character, we must bring the mind itself under control. For this ... We should prepare for a lifetime of challenge, as there is no more difficult task in life. [1] One test of progress is how calm we remain under provocation. On what does our ability to do that depend, and how might we enhance it? Mountaineering over a molehill I offered to support a colleague, but during the exchange he offloaded irritation in my direction. It was a simple … [Read more...]
His opening gambit was, What do you do? Not my ideal subject for small-talk during a short flight, but Oh well . . . I spoke of coaching leaders to lift their game through a systematic focus on developing their own and others’ capacity for effectiveness . . . how this saves an extraordinary degree of otherwise wasted energy and . . . As his eyes began glazing over, I invited him to talk about his work. Although my companion spoke enthusiastically of recent developments in his (very … [Read more...]
We know from personal experience that our capacity for performance is significantly enhanced when our efforts and we ourselves are appreciated. When we believe otherwise, we become easily stressed and soon give up or stop caring. We also understand that people who go out of their way to acknowledge our effort and output, even if only with simple words of sincere thanks, go far beyond the limits of performance appraisal systems or conventional customer-client relationships: they nourish a … [Read more...]
