Hanna Cooper

How To Improve Your Working Relationships in Minutes a Day

  Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image - Goethe

 

Many people I work with have some type of frustration in their working relationships - with employees, co-workers or their boss.  A pretty human experience for most of us to have.

One of the best and quickest ways I know of to improve your working relationships is by using the skill of acknowledgement.   It's easy, fun and increases positivity in the workplace - kind of like throwing candy off the side of a float at a parade.  And it works - it will radically improve the quality of any relationship. 

Though the two are often confused, acknowledgement is different than praise.  Praise expresses your opinion, an evaluation: thumbs up!

Examples of praise sound like:  "Great job, Bob!" "I like how you did XYZ, Mary."

Acknowledgement instead names a specific quality or attribute and its impact. 

Examples of acknowledgement sound like:  "Bob, when you led the meeting today, you really made made sure everyone got a chance to speak their mind.  I think we're all clearer on next steps now." "Mary, your ability to get us focused on the details really helped the team get more accomplished today."

There's a place for praise: it gives people some feedback about your opinion about their actions.  It's not wrong, but it doesn't always seem to sink in very far or have much impact on the quality or depth of the relationship.

Acknowledgement - as a way of seeing, noticing, and validating someone's impact on you, a group, or in a specific situation -- tends to be a deeper, more specific and more intimate way of communicating.

In my experience, most people, teams, and in fact the world, are hungry for acknowledgement.   Because, giving an acknowledgement is a actually giving someone a gift.  A really beautiful and important gift, because when you give an acknowledgement of someone, you hold up a mirror and let them see their own impact through your experience of them.

Not only that, but a regular diet of acknowledgement has been known to lead to more positive interactions with colleagues, reduced conflict at work (and as a side bonus, at home too) as well as improved trust and respect in teams.  Oh, and world peace too.

(…and despite what any well-meaning relative may have told you, I promise neither you or other other person will develop a giant inflated head by giving or receiving an acknowledgement.)

Practice the skill of acknowledgement:

1)  How many people in a day can you acknowledge?  Challenge yourself.  Your  colleague.  Your boss.  Your spouse.  The woman at the cash register.  The bus driver.  Your arch enemy.   (And, for extra credit, practice acknowledging yourself.)

2) Notice what happens to you and to the recipient when you spread some acknowledgment around.  Pay attention to what happens in the moment, as well as later on.  Note that this is a different way of communicating, and can take some practice before it feels entirely natural. 

3) How many different ways can you give an acknowledgement?  In a conversation, in a written note, a voice mail, an email or text, a speech, a billboard….Try them all.

4) When you receive an acknowledgement, model the appropriate response:  "Thank you."  Not: "Oh, no, no, really...let me tell you why that isn't true…" Not:  "OK, now let me tell you something great about you…"  Just: "thank you."

In the comments below, I want to hear from you.  Below, let me know:

1) What's the best acknowledgement you've ever received?
 
2) How did being acknowledged impact you?  What was the impact on the relationship with the person who acknowledged you?

3) Which of the suggested practices above will you try?  Let me know how it works for you!

Five things I learned on my mini blog-vacation

"Be the change you seek in the world" - Gandhi

 

So, I write a post about change, and then what:  I go AWOL on you, my people.  What's the deal?

In case this has been keeping you up nights (though I'm guessing and hoping it hasn't), I've been spending my time in the past two and a half months working on my business, this business.  What I do, how I do it, why I do it, and who it's all for.

(In fact, if you are a frequent visitor to this site, you'll see that some things have changed around here.  Please take a look around  - I'd love to hear your feedback: what do you like, what would you like more of?)

And I've learned quite a bit that I think can be applicable to you all as well, my dear readers.  So, without further ado, here are my top 5 learnings from my blog vacation (AKA busting my rear on business development):

1) Learn or stagnate.  I love to learn - I always have.  But I haven't really been sure about what steps I needed to take to grow my business to have the impact and make the difference I want to see in the world.  I love what I do, I love who I work with, and the changes my clients make, and there are ways to do even more of that and still honor who I am and how I want to run my business.  Cool stuff.

2) Ask for help.  I tell clients all the time that asking for help is a leadership skill.  Guess what: this applies to me too!  When I don't know how to do something (like grow my business), it's OK to ask for help.  I've know this one before too, but I guess it was time to re-learn it (see #1).

3) People are really awesome.  (OK, I'm cheating.  I already knew this one too!)  Really, people are amazing.  When I reached out and asked for help (see #2) from colleagues, other business owners and clients, their enthusiasm and generosity blew me away.  Not only that, but the information was critical in helping me improve this website, what I offer and how I talk about my work.

4) Cut to the chase.  We all get very attached to our "stuff", our way of doing things, our language.  Even though I've been told I write well, I was getting all tongue-tied and fancy-pants about how I describe my work.  The feedback I got from my clients helped me cut through the coach and OD organizational development (thanks, Pam!) speak and get down to what really matters for the people I want to serve: you.

5) Have more fun!  I've described that my website has worked like a parking lot: my reserved parking space on the web.  And funny enough, it became just that: a pretty dead space without a lot going on.  But get ready, because I've got plans to turn this lot into an awesome carnival/street fair/amusement park where we can have some fun, take some risks and do some cool things together.  How does that sound?

So, let's get this party started!   As a result of all this cool learning, I've developed a practical and action oriented e-workbook for you to get some traction on your own path and journey.  You can access it by signing up for regular updates from me in that pretty blue box in the top right hand corner.

In the comments below, I want to hear from you.  Let me know:

1) Which of my five learnings is your favorite? 

2) What's your greatest learning of the past two or three months?

My Not-So-Secret Agenda

"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." 

— Henri Bergson

While the coaching I do is absolutely about helping my clients achieve personal or professional goals, I will be honest with you: I do have a secret agenda (or two) in my coaching practice. 

OK, I'm not actually not that sneaky about it - I let them in on it, and here it is:

1) Good coaching will help you (or your team) articulate goals, overcome obstacles, and make significant change in your life or organization.  Great coaching will not just rearrange the circumstances of your life or team, it will transform it.  As I sometimes say, this stuff is not for wimps.

2) Transformation in coaching comes about via the dual action of cultivating greater awareness, or insight, and harnessing that insight with action.  I like to say that coaching is a two legged animal that moves forward on these two legs: awareness harnessed with action, action that creates more insight.

3) I don't want clients to work with me forever.  I want them to get their insight and meet their goals, and get back out there, clearly knowing and willing to act on what they care about in the world.  I want clients to be able to ask themselves their own coaching questions so that they can coach themselves once coaching with me is over.  I invite clients to see the notes, exercises and assignments they do in coaching as creating the owner's manual on themselves -- a resource that they can use long beyond when coaching is completed.

That's my not-so-secret agenda -- what's yours?

The Way of Gratitude

If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.  - Meister Eckhart

I recently finished reading "365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life " by John Kralik.  It's an amazing account of how one small consistent action - thanking people in his personal and professional life for their contributions and actions - produced incredible results, both small and large, in the author's life and in those around him.

This book resonated for me in a number of ways.   I'm a big believer in expressing gratitude and acknowledgement, in part because it is a seeming rarity in many areas of life and yet makes an enormous difference when we do it.  I think the people, and in fact the world, hungers to be acknowledged not just for what we do but how we do what we do.

The book also connected for me because it's not rocket science: it's what your grandma told you to do.  It's small, it's actionable, as well as meaningful.  Repeated often, gratitude becomes a way of life, a way of being.

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Where do you want to express more gratitude in your own life?
What's something small and actionable you can do today to express it?

All 88 Keys

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.  And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds. -- R. D. Laing

One of my own personal values is represented by a metaphor that I call "All 88 Keys", representing the 88 keys on a piano keyboard.

What does this mean?  For me, this value is about range, our full expression as human beings: creativity, possibility, many pathways to a goal or an end.

This value is important to me because it's something I want, both for me and for the clients I work with: a sense of operating from our full range.  My experience is that most of us, including me, tend to play within a relatively small and prescribed range, zone, or octave. 

What I want for myself, and for my individual and team clients, is ability to stretch, to reach, even just slightly out of the comfort zone, to be able to access higher and lower points in our own personal keyboard.  The higher or lower notes of life themselves aren't the important thing; the possibility exists in the ability to access them for use in composing our own life's symphony.

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What range do you currently allow yourself?
What possibilities might you create, if you reach?

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?

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?

Getting Messy

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.  - Albert Einstein

Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.  - Abraham Lincoln

Last Fall, I was working with a team that had hit an impasse: they'd accomplished some of their goals with coaching, but still hadn't quite dived to the depths of their core stuff.  Circling, perhaps, but not landing.

Then the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan.  Out "it" came, like someone had finally let the raging tiger out of the cage.  Anger, frustration, blame, defensiveness, and finally, a shut-down.  The coaching session ended without resolution, or a clear way forward.  This happens sometimes in change - that we have to step into the chaos in order to find our way out of it. 

However, in thinking about their system over the next few days, I realized that as their coach, I had missed an opportunity to name and call out issues.  I admitted my failing to them, corrected it (!) and then brought them back to some core work they'd previously done.

When I next met with them, a month later, there'd been a shift in the team: this time, expressing themselves - even in frustration - led to new learning, understanding and opportunity.  A way forward.  The final sessions I coached them through brought them to truly a new place as a team with increased trust, respect, and functioning.

What I took from this experience was:

• It takes great courage to step into chaos - whether it's your own, or someone else's.  Courage not know, not to know where it's going: to be lost, at least momentarily.   This is the place of great learning, if you are willing to notice.

• Willingness to step into the messy stuff can lead the way into something new.  This wasn't the first time I've been offered this learning - wise colleagues of mine gave me some feedback some years back about my own performance:  "When you get messy, you give us permission to get messy, Hanna." 

• Breakthroughs come not from being perfect or knowing the answer or the way forward all the time, but from sticking in there, through the mess, anyway.   Rather than seeing it as failure, to see the breakdown as an opportunity to review, rewind, reposition, reboot.

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What if your failure was an opening for change?

How might you welcome "mess" as a sign of change?

Books that make a difference

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.  ~James Bryce

In the mode of end of year lists, best of, picks and favorites, I find that there are a core set of books I return to repeatedly myself for inspiration, as well as regularly recommend to clients.  So here, in no particular order, are some of my all-time favorites:

The Art of Possibility - written by an orchestra conductor turned leadership development specialist and his psychologist wife, the book gives concrete examples and methods for viewing life as a series of opportunites rather than obstacles. 

The Four Agreements - Be impeccable.  Don't take it personally.  Don't make assumptions.  Always do your best.  All at the same time.  A great set of agreements to hold with yourself and practice out in the world.

Wherever You Go, There You Are - Self-awareness and self-reflection are core elements of nearly every leadership development model out there.  Jon Kabat-Zinn's accessible approach to mindful meditation encourages the ability to be present to whatever is happening in this moment - as this moment is the only one we have in which to choose and act.

StrengthsFinder 2.0 /Strengths-Based Leadership - based on years of Gallup research, these books and their associated online assessment tool is one of the best (in my opinion) and least expensive ways to get an objective view of your strengths and how to apply them as an individual leader and/or in a team setting.  I recommend this to almost every team I work with.

What books have impacted you on your journey?  What resources do you continue to return to?