Safari for My Soul

I'm about to head out the door for Kenya, East Africa. For vacation? No, for work, although if this is work, then I'm the luckiest woman alive.

I'll be leading a Safari for the Soul, leadership retreats that help senior managers find their organizational values and mission. We use the world as a classroom, letting our travelers see a new part of the world, and perhaps change their perspective about their current work.

People always ask me why I don't lead the trips in the US. I can. But it's not the same. When people go to a developing country on a different continent, their world opens up. They see, hear, smell and discuss things that would never have been discussed while accessing emails, iPhones and the newspaper back at home. With little access to the outside world, our traveler is forced to really dig deep and see what's going well and what's not going so well in his/her life and work. We don't give them any answers; we just ask the questions. They find their own answers by watching nature, talking to the local tribe people and seeing another world.

We only take a few travelers a year and it's always a privilege to do so. It's truly a gift to see these people start the two-week trip as one person and leave as another person...someone more confident, strong and focused on who they are and what they're supposed to be doing in this life. It makes my heart sing to watch this happen.

Someone asked me recently if I'd do these trips more often. These trips fill my soul, so if I didn't have a husband and a 3 year old daughter waiting for me, I'd do these trips monthly. But I do love my husband and daughter, so being away from them for a few weeks a year is enough. The trip fills my soul until the next time. I'd have it no other way.

Outsource Your Work and Get Your Life Back

I admit it. I can be a bit of a control freak. I like things done in a certain way. The upside to this is that my work is finished to a very high standard. The downside to this is that everything takes a long time, leaving me little time to do what I really enjoy doing...going for a run, playing with my daughter, hanging out with my husband.

So what's a professional gal to do? Outsource. I was introduced to this concept by Tim Ferris, the author of "The Four Hour Work Week". This book is full of lots of tips on how to focus on what's working and leave behind what's not working. The best thing I learned from this gem of a book is to outsource my work to a company such as Get Friday. I work with Sona at Get Friday and give her all kinds of work that I consider drudgery. For example, I need a spreadsheet of all management associations, their contact person and their annual conference dates, to help me market my new book "A Manager's Guide to Coaching: Simple and Effective Ways to Get the Best out of Your Employees", being published by the American Management Association (AMA) in spring 20008. Creating that spreadsheet could take me hours and bore me to tears. Instead I tell Sona what I need and in a few days I have a working document. Is it completed the way I would have done it? No. But I'd rather have something to work with than spend my own time creating a "perfect" document.

What else can you outsource? Updating your holiday card database, researching information for an upcoming talk, updating your contacts on Plaxo or Constant Contact. The list is endless once you start to think about all the work that needs to get done that you don't enjoy. So take a minute and think of some work that is required but not particularly interesting to you. Determine how you would train someone else to do it, write it down and contact Get Friday. You'll be glad you did. You may even get your Fridays back! TGIF!

Magic

I've always loved make-believe..stories...Disney...pretend worlds. It's wired into me. Playing with my 2-year old daughter is a piece of cake. We speak the same language and play for hours in other worlds. It's a fabulous place for her and her freinds to learn about life; it's a fabulous way for me to learn how she thinks.

So it's natural for me to use imagination and creativity as a tool when coaching. If a client doesn't know how to solve a problem, I'll often say, "Make it up."
Silence. "What do you mean?"
"Make it up...throw out an answer...just say the first thing that comes to mind."
More silence. "Ummm...I dunno."
"OK..how would Harry Potter do it?"
"Oh, that's easy. He'd call Hermione and Ron to help him and they'd do A,B and C."
"How do you know that?"
"Umm, I guess I don'treally *know* that."
"So you made it up. You based your answer on what you knew already and imagined the rest, right? And you even said that was easy."
"Yeah..I guess so."
"So let's try that again. How would you imagine solving the problem we were talking about earlier, based on what you already know about it?"
"I'd do X, Y and Z and then ask Joe to help me with E, F and G."
"Do you know it'll work? Have you done that before? Or are you imagining it?"
"I've never done it before, but I imagine it'll work out OK."

Imagination...creativity...pretend worlds...make-believe. It works for a 2-year old and works for a 40-year old. It takes you to a new place...gives you a new way to look at the things...a new perspective. Try it...play in another world today and see what's different tomorrow. Let me know how it goes...I'd love to hear from you!

How to Save Time When Working with an Editor

My coaching client, Sue, was at it again. Complaining about a co-worker. "If only he did this, then everything would be OK." "He takes up too much of my time." "I have tried to talk with him again and again, but it only ends in a big argument. I'm fed up listening to him."

I finally asked "What's your contribution to the situation?" She looked at me as if I was from Mars. "My contribution? I've been trying to work with him for months. It's not about me. It's all about him."

"Every situation is created by at least two people with different perspectives. You could both see the exact same event and have different stories about what you saw. So somehow, you helped create this situation. Subconsciously or conciously. It doesn't matter. But the fact is that you contributed to the situation."

Sue sighed after a long silence. "Well, maybe I could have handled it differently in the beginning. I wanted him to like me. To think that I was a collaborative colleague and a good listener. But maybe I started things on the wrong foot and set a precedent for him coming to my office any time he wanted."

It wouldn't be an easy road to repair, but Sue was on the right track. Thinking about her contribution to the problem and how she can change it. She was ready to start moving ahead, instead of getting trapped in the quicksand every time this colleague came to her office.

Funnily enough, this week provided a similar lesson...for me. From my editor, of all people. My book, "A Manager's Guide to Coaching: Simple and Effective Ways to Get the Best out of Your Employees" will be published by the American Management Association in March '08. My co-author, Brian Emerson, and I turned in our manuscript. Our editor then sent us her edits for the book. We were dismayed when we saw her comments and changes. Not that she had done anything wrong. On the contrary...she had edited our manuscript perfectly regarding the grammar and syntax. But it wasn't our book anymore. it didn't sound like us..it didn't feel like us. So poor Brian had to read all 200 pages of the edited manuscript again, to see how she had changed the grammar. It took him hours and delayed other work. He then sent it to AMACOM to be approved, which it was.

When we discussed the situation at lunch, I asked "What was our contribution to the situation?" It was clear. We hadn't talked to the editor beforehand, outlining the tone of the book. The book was intentionally written in a conversational style...hip and trendy. Easy for a manager to pick up and read. Yet the editor thought our grammar and slang was a mistake...not intentional. So she wasted time editing it and we wasted time re-editing it.

Lesson learned: Watch your contributions..they can come back to haunt you!

Turning Leaves

I constantly push organizations, clients, family and friends to turn over a new leaf and make changes for sustainable growth. "Will you please stop coaching me?!", exclaimed my sister during a recent phone call. I blushed; I didn't even realize that I was "coaching" her. I was just asking questions, probing, and challenging her to think outside of the box, push outside her comfort zone and look at issues with a different perspective. It's second nature to me...like breathing.

But when is it too much? When is it time to stop growing and just veg out on the couch? For me, the answer comes from my body. When I'm feeling exhausted. When I crave carbs and sugar. When tears are always close by. That's when it's time for me to stop pushing for growth and start looking inward.

How do others know when it's time to stop pushing for constant growth? When organizations feel the need for strategic retreats. When leaders need to "get away" from it all and take stock of their next step. When managers are tired of finding all the answers and take time to listen to their employees.

When this happens, eventually new growth will occur. Leaders will feel refreshed...employees will feel heard and recognized, able to make their own decisions.... organizations will be heading on the right track for success. And my sister will feel like she had a chat with me, instead of a coaching session.