My dear colleague and curator of the Library, Bill Bergquist, is a prolific author and visionary in the field of executive coaching.  His article titled, “Coaching and Neuroscience Research Findings” is posted in the Library of Professional Coaching and poses thought-provoking “animation” questions for you deep thinkers out there who like to grapple with the more academic side of the business.  The topics of these questions include procedural memory, neural networks, amygdala templates, stress ruts, psychological preparation, intimacy and friendships, and mirror neurons with respect to coaching.  Check it out!

Seven additional articles about neuroscience and coaching can be found here: http://libraryofprofessionalcoaching.com/category/research/brain-behavior/.  Enjoy!

Happy Groundhog day!  One of my favorite movies is the Bill Murray/ Andie MacDowell charmer, “Groundhog Day”, where Bill Murray’s character re-lives the same day over and over until he learns a few core lessons and transforms his being.  Many executives in organizations replay their own pattern with the development of leadership goals that are not clearly written with specific plans for how to accomplish them.  Thus, they are doomed to re-live over and over the fuzzy results produced with lack of clear goal-setting.  Now, thanks to Maynard Brusman’s article in the Library of Professional Coaching, you can learn about Creating Goals: Goal-Setting Strategies for Leaders.

Here’s an excerpt from his article, and the full 8 pages are available at the Library of Professional Coaching.

In a Harvard study conducted in 1979, the graduates of the MBA program were asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” It turned out that only 3 percent of the graduates had written goals and plans. Thirteen percent had goals, but not in writing. Fully 84 percent had no specific goals at all.Ten years later, in 1989, the researchers interviewed the members of that same class again. They found that the 13 percent who had goals that were not in writing were earning twice as much as the 84 percent of students who had no goals at all. And most surprisingly, they found that the 3 percent of graduates who had clear, written goals when they left Harvard were earning, on average, 10 times as much as the other 97 percent of graduates all together. The only difference between the groups was the clarity of the goals they had for themselves when they graduated.

Yes, you read that correctly. The 3 percent who had clear, written goals earned ten times as much as the 97 percent who didn’t have clear, written goals. Almost all successful people have goals, and outstanding high achievers have clearly defined written goals. That said, how come so few people actually write out their goals?

In the article, Maynard explores the psychological reasons why we don’t set goals properly, why the goals we do set might not work, and how to align purpose, identity and values to create goals and sustain  your motivation over time. He explains the SMART goals and what to do when goals are incomplete. Check it out!  There are several fabulous articles by Maynard in the Library, so you can search for other articles by this author here: http://libraryofprofessionalcoaching.com/author/maynardbrusman/.

In this superb article by Kevin Weitz, he explores positivity and happiness in the workplace and shares a good deal of research as well as personal anecdotes and observations about the workplace.  Below an excerpt, and you can access the full article (15 pages long) at the Library of Professional Coaching anytime.  He says, “My experience with positive work environments suggests that these were always was due to a specific manager or leader, who despite the milieu, created energy, positivity and happiness in his or her scope of influence.”

The Happiness “Challenge”

I titled this section of the paper “The Happiness Challenge” because happiness – or positivity – does not manifest easily, particularly in the workplace – certainly not without effort for most of us and it is particularly challenging in most work environments where deadlines, budgets and performance issues can compromise most people’s sense of happiness. Indeed, as Frederickson describes (2009, p. 28), in the United States, despite “The Pursuit of Happiness” being guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence, the US was rather forged under the influence of a harsh Protestant work ethic; a philosophy that holds that enjoyment, pleasure and leisure are bad and that people can only show their worth through hard work and toil; Happiness and fun should be shunned in favor of long, hard work hours and deprivation. Without doubt, this ethic was alive and well in the banking group example I described at the beginning of this paper. The US and many other societies have entrenched harshness in the very essence of who we are as a working nation. Its not surprising that even using the term “happiness” in the workplace, as I have personally experienced, can elicit dismissive eye-rolling and even a degree of contempt. As I describe in more detail later in this paper, the change management consulting methodology known as “Appreciative Inquiry”, in my experience, faces challenges simply based on its title (“Appreciative”) and its focus (the positive). It is common, I find, that business leaders focus on “problems” as their default lens of attention. Seeking out the positive and appreciating what is good in an organization is dismissed or ignored as irrelevant or even worse, a diversion from what is important and urgent.

The focus on negativity in the workplace can create a culture of anxiety, fear and distrust over time. How often do we experience co-workers arriving at work with full-blown flu or other illnesses because they feel guilty about staying at home, and half-joking comments about co-workers who arrive at work late or leave work early with the implication that they are lazy? Or colleagues who have difficulty taking vacations out of fear that they may fall behind at work. A former boss of mine frequently described how he had never fully completed a planned vacation because he felt compelled to get back to work – this is an individual who had a minor stroke in the office next to mine at the age of 42, and is a perfect example of what Achor (2010, p. 73) calls the “Workaholic’s curse”. Despite writing this paper in what is almost 2012, the workplace is still an environment more commonly characterized by harshness and negativity rather than positivity and upliftment. Indeed, as Fredrickson (2009, p. 28) comments, happiness in the workplace may even be considered “Un-American”:

“The United States – and much of the capitalist world – was forged under the influence of the Protestant work ethic, a philosophy that holds that enjoyment and leisure are sinful, and that only through austere work activities can people prove their true worth. This worldview produces characters who shun all pleasant impulses and activities that might generate joviality … in favor of long work hours and personal thrift. It produces a culture that celebrates intensity, competitiveness and doggedness.”

Your thoughts?

Just sharing with you all the note I got from Mari last night:

WOW! What an incredible, packed webinar we had today. Over 14,000 people registered for Facebook 2012: What You Need To Know. I opened up a few more seats at the last minute to allow more folks in, and over 5,500 attendees tuned in live from all over the world!

Of course, I do understand not everyone was able to attend live due to other commitments, access, and timezone differences. So, as promised, the entire event was recorded and we finally have the replay link up for you now. (Apologies for the delay; we had some hiccups but all is well now!) Just hop over to this page where you can watch the video and claim your bonus materials:

http://marismith.com/facebook2012/thankyou

 

Enjoy!  She’s fabulous!

A while back I posted the preliminary report that the Sherpa folks released, and now that they’ve concluded their annual research survey they’ve released the latest survey on Executive Coaching. As they say, “Executive coaching has arrived. It occupies a place as a permanent fixture in the modern organization. The perceived value and the credibility of coaching are at all-time highs.”  They report a new surge in coaching-based programs for teams, and the report also explores regulation and licensing for coaches as well as communication technology.  The good news is, “Over eighty percent see the credibility of coaching as ‘high’ or ‘very high’.”

The report is housed at the Library of Professional Coaching and you can access the full report here!

Here’s great news on a Facebook event I’m actually happy to hear about… because it comes from a true leader in the social media space! I’ve known Mari Smith for years now and she’s amazing. She is THE thought leader and top influencer in how to use social media, especially Facebook.

If you’ve been trying to get social media to work for your business, you know that Mari Smith provides some of the best guidance there is for making sense of it all.

And as entrepreneurs and small businesses owners, we are all interested in getting better at Facebook marketing and relationship marketing in a big way.

So, I’m VERY excited to tell you that Tuesday, January 31st Mari’s going to be leading one of her informative FREE webinars on Facebook Marketing for 2012 — and you’re invited!

http://bit.ly/xS88kE

With all the recent changes over at Facebook, sometimes it’s tough to stay ahead and use the world’s largest social network to guarantee consistent visibility, engagement and growth for your business.

That’s why Mari’s offering this free webinar, to get you up to speed on Facebook Marketing right at the start of the year. It’s all about the best ways to develop a raving fanbase so that they REALLY connect with you and love to buy from you.

http://bit.ly/xS88kE

I recommend you register right away to save your seat on Mari’s first big Facebook event of 2012 before it fills up (because if her previous webinars are any indication, I really think the virtual seats on this one will be overflowing too!) I’ve already signed up, so I’ll see ya there!

Enjoy these tidbits from Virgin’s founder and CEO, Richard Branson, who reminds us that companies are simply groups of people, delegation is an art, and entrepreneurs shouldn’t push their bank managers out of their homes!

There’s some great leadership research papers posted in the Library of Professional Coaching. Here’s an excerpt from one that’s about complex systems and decision theory by John Bush.

Organizations are complex systems. A system can be considered complex if its agents meet four qualifications: diversity, connection, interdependence, and adaptation. In an organization the agents are all the people who work within the organization. These agents are diverse in that they are individuals with their own unique personalities, experiences, intelligence, emotions, preferences, etc. They are connected with each other by affiliation within the organization for the purpose of achieving the goals of the organization. They are interdependent since the work of each depends upon the other members of the organization. They adapt because each member of the organization is learning, changing, and evolving as a result of his interactions with the other members of the organization.

The process of adaptation is highly dynamic in response to local and global environments. The local environment of an organization is the interactions that occur within the organization; global environments refer to the interactions of the organization itself with other organizations. As organizations are connected and interdependent globally, organizations themselves learn and change and evolve locally, and individual agents within those organizations also adapt. It can be seen that adaption is a highly interconnected dynamic system.

Complex systems are often unpredictable and they can produce large events. They are robust and able to recover from serious damage. Complex systems produce bottom-up emergent phenomena where the results on the macro level are not equal to the micro parts of the organization. This phenomenon of emergence means that not only will the results be larger than the parts, but that at times the results will be different in kind. An example often given is the phenomena of self organization seen in flocks of birds or schools of fish. Emergent phenomena arises bottom-up without any top-down planning.

To understand the process of decision-making in complex organizations we must understand the concept of landscapes. Professor Scott Page in The Teaching Company course, Understanding Complexity, presents a full description of landscapes in complex systems. The idea of the landscape is both a metaphor and a mathematical object wherein the value of a function at a particular point is mapped as an elevation on a landscape. Landscapes are composed of valleys and two kinds of peaks: local and global. A local peak is a point on the landscape from which a step in any direction is a step down in elevation. A global peak is the highest of all the local peaks of a given landscape. In the metaphor a peak represents a high point of value and for organizations, the height of the peak represents the economic success of the organization at that point in time.

 

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://libraryofprofessionalcoaching.com/research/decision-theory-in-complex-systems/

What’s the difference, really?  I tend to think of motivation as motion or causing movement in someone. And inspiration, to inspire, means to breathe in.  Take a look at the article below and add your thoughts and definitions!

In a provocative article on the Library of Professional Coaching, Bill Burtch tackles this question in his article titled, Motivation or Inspiration.  Here’s an excerpt:

Motivation is something that comes from within. As a manager or leader, I don’t believe I can motivate you to do something, especially something that you aren’t interested in doing. Motivation is completely personal.

What I CAN do is to create an environment that fosters self-motivation, based on precisely what motivates you – whether that’s money, responsibility, trust, empowerment, social meaning or something else.

And that’s where inspiration comes into the picture, in creating that environment. Inspiration is an external factor. It’s the spark that lights up an individual’s motivators and sets them into action.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://libraryofprofessionalcoaching.com/case-studies/leadership-case-studies/motivation-or-inspiration/

Marcia Reynolds is a prolific author, speaker, coach and blogger, and you can read the first chapter of her book “Outsmart Your Brain” at the Library of Professional Coaching.

The first chapter of Outsmart Your Brain: How to Make Success Fell Easy, by Dr. Marcia Reynolds, lays out the case for being emotionally aware at work. It then goes into how the brain processes input and what triggers emotions. Finally, the chapter includes exercises coaches can use with their clients to help them become emotionally aware as the first step toward emotional mastery.  READ IT HERE: http://libraryofprofessionalcoaching.com/research/brain-behavior/a-sample-chapter-of-outsmart-your-brain-how-to-make-success-feel-easy-by-dr-marcia-reynolds/