Hanna Cooper

10 Ways to Keep Team Agreements Alive

Make fair agreements and stick to them  -- Confucius

One of the most powerful and useful tools a team can have to assist in developing and maintaining effective working relationships is a set of working agreements - the ways you agree as a team to operate together.

The beginning of a new calendar or fiscal year is a great time to review and refresh (or possibly dust off!) team agreements, as part of examining team goals or aspirations for a new year.

Here are 10 ideas for keeping team agreements alive:

1. Open each meeting by reminding yourselves of your agreements – what they are and why they are important.
2. Toward the end of your meetings, periodically review how you honored your agreements.
3. Choose a particular agreement to practice honoring consciously.
4. Choose a particular agreement to discuss as a group to deepen its shared meaning.
5. Practice honoring these agreements in interactions between formal meetings.
6. When dealing with tough or contentious issues, invoke an agreement to support you (i.e. “I think this might be contentious, let’s really be mindful of “actively listen to each other”).
7. Provide group feedback on how the group is honoring the agreements – focus on one that is going really well and focus on one that is more challenging to honor.
8. If you believe a colleague is not honoring an important agreement, be curious in case you may be understanding the agreement differently.
9. If you notice a colleague is not honoring an agreement, model your agreements in bringing it to their attention; (i.e. if your colleague is struggling to be respectful, model respect in bringing it to their attention).
10. If you realize you have failed to honor an agreement, own your failure and try again.

For more information on team agreements, or other tools for team effectiveness, contact me for a no-obligation, confidential consultation!

Finding your path

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every person I've worked with as a coach - whether an individual or a team - is on a path of some type.  It's not always initially clear to them what it may be; but ideally, part of what I want  for everyone I work with is that they can see that their path - whatever it is - contains discovery and possibility. 

(Although not everyone can see or embrace that idea initially!)

As humans we seem to cling to the known, and fear the unknown.  In actuality, the only thing we can really count on in life is the fact that things will change.  Times of statis or calm are merely a type of momentary oasis, resting points, while the waves of life continue to roll.

Rather than resist the natural flow of life, what if we could embrace not knowing?  Not even having to know?  To know that the path of integrity is being created as we step, and that we will continue to find our foothold as we journey forward.

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What's your path?
How do you know you are on it?

It's all in how you look at it

Wherever you go, there you are. - Anon

They say travel broadens your horizons, and from my experience it certainly can, but not always in the ways you might expect.  I get to travel occasionally for my work, with the amazing benefits of meeting and interacting with whole new sets of people, seeing new and interesting places, and having brand new experiences. 

Sometimes travel creates novelty in life, and sometimes it purely offers different view point:  taking a short trip out of town recently with my family, I came back after just a few days more deeply appreciating my surroundings, my home, and my relationships with those I live with daily.  My environment, house and family hadn't changed, but my perspective had.

So much of life is about our perspective, how we choose to see any particular situation.  I liken it to the cliche of getting out of the wrong side of bed in the morning: if we see things as trouble, we seem to generate trouble to fit our theory.  

Stepping out of our usual story about how things are (or should be) allows us to see what is truly present with fresh eyes and new options, whether or not the situation or conditions have actually changed.

Where could you use a new perspective?
What perspective will you choose?

Life's work

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it - Buddha

I didn't discover my life's work as a professional coach easily or overnight; if anything, coaching as a profession found me. 

Ten years ago, I'd thought I'd found my calling as a supervisor of public health education programs. 

What I loved about supervising - and was really good at - was clearing the path so that my staff could best use their own gifts and talents.  And, I loved watching that happen, knowing I was assisting in their learning and growth.

Then, in 2000, I heard about this thing called "coaching": it sounded kind of cool.  So I did an informational interview with the sister of a friend of mine, who was one of the first certified coaches in my state.  As she talked about what she did and who she worked with, I thought:  That's it!  That's the name of what I'm already doing!

And then, I got scared.  In fact, so scared that I put off getting professionally trained as a coach.  For four years. 

I was too busy, I couldn't make the time in my schedule, I had too many other things and people to attend to.

Of course, I eventually did take the training - during one of the craziest, most complex times of my life.  So much for excuses.  And I haven't looked back since. 

I've found my life's work.   And, while I give my heart to it, the biggest gift is that my work also gives back to me in ways I never thought work could do.

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What's your work?

How do you give your heart to it? 

Lessons from the violin

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu

My 7 year old son has been taking violin lessons for the past 6 months - a complicated delicate task with many components to the learning.  Like all beginning violin students, he is learning how to hold the violin with just enough pressure from his chin and hands -- but not too much. 

In his last lesson, his teacher was using a variety of methods to work with his left hand's near death grip on the delicate instrument.  Learning to relax his hand, she said, will allow him to have more physical and musical range, play faster, as well as be able to learn new songs sooner.  Without relaxing his hand he could also run the risk of injuring himself long term.

From this experience, I've been pondering the lesson of loosening the grip - not just on violins, but in life - and how doing so can allow us to access more of our potential. 

As humans we seem to cling to what we know, fearing what is "over there" in the unknown, that which is yet to be.  However, novelty, possibility, expanded range, and yes, even joy also exist in what we don't yet know.  In fact, it's known that we can physically hold more in an relaxed and open hand than a closed fist. 

As Joseph Campbell said, “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.”

Where do you need to loosen your grip?
What might be possible if you did?