If You Care About The Relationship (WT608)

If You Care About The Relationship (WT608)

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by Shirley Dalton | 18 Feb, 2022 | Blog, Leadership

WT 608 If you care about the relationship

Day 2 of our Leading Yourself and Leading Others experience.

One of the biggest concepts to appreciate when you’re learning to improve your communication skills is this:

“If you care about the relationship, use your skills. If you don’t care about the relationship, take the gloves off and have a go.”

What does that mean?

It means that we have a choice.

We are always choosing whether to use our communication skills or not.

Why would we care about the relationship?

  1. The person you’re in relationship with is important to you
  2. The relationship is important to you and worth fighting for
  3. Another relationship is important to the person that’s important to you, eg. An inlaw or friend
  4. Harmony is important to someone you care about, eg. your mum or dad or grandparents
  5. You have to work with the person
  6. It’s important to your boss and you care about your relationship with your boss.

Years ago, Ross came home from work and told me about a conversation he’d had with a colleague.

I was initially horrified to hear what Ross said to the colleague until I thought about it and processed it and then realised it was a valid point.

Having what we refer to these days as a “robust conversation”, in other words a fight, Ross told his colleague, “I have to work with you, I don’t have to like you”.  His colleague didn’t like hearing that because he wanted Ross to like him.

How about you? Is it important to you to be liked?

For me, reminding myself of the choice I have when it comes to relationships, I usually end up choosing to use my skills.

Those skills include:

  1. Active listening to what the other has to say.  It doesn’t mean you agree with what they are saying, it means you demonstrate that you heard and understood their message.
  2. Understanding if the issue is a conflict of needs or a values collision. Depending on the answer, we use different skills.
  3. Engaging my empathy and following Steven Covey, “seek first to understand before seeking to be understood”.

There are many many more skills and concepts we can choose to use and if you’re interested to know more, you’re welcome to join our Practical Leadership online membership or register for one of our Leading Yourself and Leading Others experiences.

For today though, your mission is to look at all the relationships you are in and decide if you care about the relationship and why or why not.

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I’m Scared (WT607)

I’m Scared (WT607)

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by Shirley Dalton | 11 Feb, 2022 | Blog, Mindset

WT 607 I'm Scared

Yesterday we completed the first of 4 workshops in our Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience.

Some of the participants expressed to me that they were feeling nervous prior to starting the experience.

For me, nervous is also another word for scared.

It’s okay to be scared and nervous or anxious when you do new things or open yourself up to new experiences and growth.

What matters is that you keep going. Often what happens is that we get to the point of almost breaking through and we give up just before the moment when …. because we feel uncomfortable.

It’s helpful to understand the concept of “perturbation”. Perturbation occurs when you feel the pressure to breakthrough. As the pressure is applied, often from a coach or facilitator, the participant starts to resist and gets hot. This heat can come in the form of emotion such as crying, laughing, sweating, trembling, even yawning.

Ross and I learned early on that when I’m learning something new and I haven’t quite gotten it nor become competent, I tend to get angry, hot, short tempered and swear a lot. It’s not a pretty sight.

Once I’ve mastered the skill though, all that emotion goes away.

In my role as the facilitator and coach for the leadership participants, it’s my job to apply the pressure and also fan them at the same time because what we know is that once the breakthrough has come, it is often invisible, unpredictable and irreversible.

It’s truly magical to experience.

The formation of diamonds is another example from nature. Diamonds are made of carbon that form crystals that bond together over billions of years when subjected to extreme temperature and pressure. Without all that heat and pressure, we would not have them to enjoy.

Next time you feel nervous or scared, take Susan Jeffers advice in her book, “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway”. It’s okay to be scared and nervous and it’s okay to let out the emotion. It’s simply part of the process of your growth and development as you learn new things on the way to becoming competent and self-aware.

And I’m curious, how do you react when you’re feeling perturbated?

P.S. I’m scared at the moment. We’re about to launch my new book, “The Loyal Lieutenant: How the Second-in-Command Brings the CEO’s Vision to Life” at The Complete Leader conference in Sydney next month, where I will also be speaking. I’m feeling the pressure, giving off heat and I’m committed to doing it anyway.

P.P.S. Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thoughts delivered directly to their inbox. Go to https://shirleydalton.com/weekly-thoughts.

Knowledge or Wisdom (WT606)

Knowledge or Wisdom (WT606)

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by Shirley Dalton | 4 Feb, 2022 | Blog, Leadership

WT 606 Knowledge or Wisdom

This week I had a wonderful conversation with a colleague around knowledge vs wisdom.

You know my favourite quote in the world is “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action” by Herbert Spencer.

Well this week I learned a new term “propositional knowledge”. It’s a concept in psychology.

If you have propositional knowledge about a topic, you know the theory and you have an understanding of the proposition that you believe to be true.

For example, you can watch someone ride a push bike. You can see that you need to keep your balance centred, your back straight and use your legs to push the pedals to make the bike go.

This is propositional knowledge. You understand the proposition or concept of riding a bike.

It is only when you get on the bike and ride it for yourself (many times) that it becomes embodied knowledge, ie experience and eventually wisdom.

As an example, I remember when I was studying for my teaching degree, I thought I knew everything about class control and discipline strategies and techniques.  I had read the books, listened to my lecturers and completed my assignments, that was, until I actually got in front of a class and realised I didn’t know how to control the class at all.

It was only after having acted out the propositional knowledge that I was able to embody the knowledge and achieve the result of controlling the class.

Propositional knowledge is like having a theory or hypothesis and then testing the hypothesis through experimentation to see if it works.

Until you have conducted a few successful experiments and altered a number of variables, all you have is theory (propositional knowledge) not wisdom or lived experience or embodied action.

Remember, “the great aim of education is not knowledge but action”.

Are you embodying what you know or are you espousing theory?

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Not Every Kid Gets a Trophy (WT605)

Not Every Kid Gets a Trophy (WT605)

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by Shirley Dalton | 28 Jan, 2022 | Blog, Mindset

WT 605 Not every kid gets a trophy

When I was growing up I had a friend who was very athletic. She always seemed to get out of school by going to the regional, zone and state athletic carnivals and she would come back with a fistful of medals and trophies.

I was very envious. The best I could do was come last in a three-legged race.

I wasn’t athletic, but I was smart.

I learned that not every kid gets a trophy and this helped me to understand my strengths and weaknesses.

This memory came to the fore recently when one of my clients was telling me about some of his team members whom he had to let go. “Shirl, they just couldn’t do the job. They just couldn’t seem to learn it. I really started questioning myself and whether it was the way I was training them and you know the really interesting thing, was that they didn’t see it. They really thought their skills and ability were much higher than I did.”

This also reminded me of the research conducted by Carol Dweck. According to Dweck, there are two basic mindsets: fixed and growth. If you have a fixed mindset, you believe your abilities are fixed traits and therefore can’t be changed. You may also believe that your talent and intelligence alone leads to success, and effort is not required.

In my client’s case, the team members seemed to have a fixed mindset albeit an inflated picture of their real abilities.

Dweck worked with children in school and found that some would not even try because they had decided they couldn’t learn or that they were stupid etc.   They blamed themselves and circumstances and believed nothing could or would change. This is a Fixed mindset.

With one 3 letter word, Dweck was able to help them change their mindset to that of a Growth mindset, where they were able to believe that effort and practice over time could make a meaningful difference. A fixed mindset contributes to limiting beliefs whereas a growth mindset empowers beliefs.

Would you like to know what the three letter word is?

It’s “Yet”.   When children said they couldn’t do something, Dweck encouraged them by adding the word “yet” to the end of their sentence.

Give it a go.  Next time you find yourself limiting what you think you can achieve, insert the word “yet” when you hear yourself say, I can’t …………yet.

And as for the kids with a fixed mindset that they can’t be beaten or no-one else is as good as them, a timely reminder that not every kid gets a trophy.

If you’re interested to see whether you’ve got a fixed or growth mindset click on the link to complete the quiz.

https://blog.mindsetworks.com/what-s-my-mindset

Regards Shirley

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The Second in Command (WT604)

The Second in Command (WT604)

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by Shirley Dalton | 21 Jan, 2022 | Blog, Leadership

WT 604 The Second in Command

This week I thought we’d talk about leadership and what it means to be the Second in Command (2IC).

In a few weeks I’ll be launching my new book called The Loyal Lieutenant: How the Second in Command Brings the CEO’s Vision to Life.

Before we look at the role of the person in your organisation who supports the boss, let’s look at the boss’ role.

The CEO, Managing Director, CVO (Chief Vision Officer) or whatever title the head person goes by, has the responsibility of creating the vision and direction for the organisation.

Being able to see what the majority cannot see is a true gift. That’s what makes them so valuable. They see possibility where the rest of us see darkness.

But – the majority of visionaries lack the ability to clearly articulate their vision in a way that others can see.

This is where the 2IC shines.

The 2IC is an interpreter. The 2IC gets the vision and is able to explain that to the team in a way they can understand.

The 2IC is responsible for bringing the vision to life; for developing the strategy and the plan and the actions that need to be completed by the team.

The 2IC is there to guide and support the team; to provide the resources and to solve problems.

The 2IC is the conduit between the team and the visionary.

The visionary wants to know where the projects are up to and the 2IC is the person who provides the progress updates. Communication is key.

Have a look in your organisation, even if your organisation is your family unit. There will be one person on your team who has the vision. There will be another who interprets and communicates this to the rest of the team, who will get stuff done.

Here’s an example that can be applied at both the workplace and at home.

Visionary decides to take the team to Disneyland. This is the destination.

The 2IC questions and clarifies what the visionary sees and shares this with the team and comes up with the strategy and the plan and then assigns the tasks to the team:

  1. Someone to arrange flights and accommodation
  2. Someone to arrange meals
  3. Someone to arrange insurances
  4. Someone to create an itinerary of activities
  5. Someone to organise transport in America

Every single person on the team contributes to the end goal in some way. Think of it like an orchestra with many different instruments, all led by the conductor. The 2IC is the conductor, guiding and mentoring the team.

Question: if you have a team to complete the tasks, should the 2IC be doing the tasks?

No. The role of the 2IC is coordinate and make it happen.

Who is that person in your organisation or family?

If it’s not you, are you supporting them by doing the tasks or are you standing back and letting them do your job?

The role of the 2IC is to bring the vision to life.

What’s your role?

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