You know you are having a hard time dealing with change if any of these statements are true:

• I am easily irritated by other people’s behaviors.
• My old ways of doing things are now met with resistance, especially by people in new roles.
• I feel overwhelmed and unproductive most of the time.
• I sometimes feel discouraged or insecure about my future.

Power Coaching Tip

Take a step back. Reflect on where you are in the change/transition process described in last week’s post, Change: From Fear to Hope.

Make time for an activity you really enjoy. Take a vacation day to relax, exercise, read a book, or spend time with a good friend. The goal is to have some fun.

Keep your eye on the prize. Eventually, you will work through the process.

While the expression, change is the only constant, may be trite and a cliché, it does seem as though the world has been in a bit of a tail spin these past few years.  Whether it is in the Middle East, the Mid-West or Wall Street, dramatic and continual change seems to be the name of the game.

Many organizations will initiate change that may or may not make headlines. Thousands of employees will face revised job responsibilities, a new boss or a layoff.  Research indicates less than 30% of corporate change initiatives succeed. One primary reason is leaders mismanage the human side of change. Many leaders believe that if structural, financial or technical changes are implemented well, people will fall in step with the new order. But change only succeeds if people move successfully through three stages of psychological adjustment.

First, people must let go of old realities, embracing that there’s no going back to old ways. Only then can individuals move to the second phase: a scary, unsettled place dubbed the “neutral zone”. During this critical stage, each person must overcome anxieties and fear and prepare to move in a new direction. Finally, the process is completed when the individual arrives at a new beginning with renewed energy, purpose and identity.

A change event – such as a layoff announcement – is situational, outcome- focused and relatively quick. The three-stage transition to a new normal extends over a longer time period. People need time to cope with loss of the familiar. It takes time to adjust to new relationships, behaviors and places. The process is uncomfortable and downright painful if mismanaged.

Fortunately, the change and transition experience is both predictable and manageable. Leaders can prepare for, understand and do the right things at the right times. They can successfully navigate through their own psychological stages even as they skillfully assist others through the transition. Change leadership skills can be learned.

Sadly, many organizations falter because leaders are human too. A natural human reaction is to withdraw emotionally.  Another typical mistake happens when leaders dismiss others’ emotional distress. The opposite response is needed during organization-wide upheaval – or when one new team member comes on board. Leaders must bring hope by reaching out, acknowledging natural human anxieties, and responding in ways that help people transition to higher potential.

When the going gets tough, check your values, worldview, or core. By whatever name, each of us responds to challenges from an internal framework, best described by John Maxwell as security, guidance, wisdom and power.

• Security represents your sense of self-worth, or lack of it.
• Guidance comprises the standards and principles that govern decisions and actions.
• Wisdom describes your perspective on life, how its various parts apply and relate to each other.
• Power is strength to accomplish things, energy to make choices, and capacity to overcome limiting habits and cultivate effective ones.

How strong is your core?

Do your decisions and personal conduct change depending on circumstances? Do your core values limit or expand your potential as a leader? Answering these questions requires serious self-reflection.  Growth and effectiveness as a leader requires understanding who you are — and where you stand — at your core.

What Makes You Strong at Work?

On a sheet of paper, track your tasks, activities and accomplishments for 2 days. Check off only those things that make you “feel” strong.

Power Coaching Tip:

At the end of Day 2, review the items you checked and look for patterns.

Record your observations in the following way: I feel strong when . . .

This exercise is adapted from a presentation given by Marcus Buckingham, author, Go Put Your Strengths To Work.

In Now Discover Your Strengths, authors Buckingham and Clifton make the case that to excel, each person must become an expert at finding, applying and refining his or her strengths. Energy, motivation and business results flow when people can connect what they do best with their work roles – and help others to do the same.

Consider Gallup’s surveys of more than 10 million workers and responses to the question, “Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?” Employees who strongly agree were 50% more likely to work in business units with lower employee turnover, 38% greater productivity, and 44% higher customer satisfaction scores. Over time, business units that increased positive scores on this question also realized comparable increases in productivity, customer loyalty and employee retention. Matching employees to what they naturally do best emerged as one of 12 elements that best predict the performance of an employee or team.

Strength-based leadership sustains marketplace advantage.

What would happen if every leader in your company worked in a role aligned closely with his or her strengths?

What if those leaders could identify and nurture the talents of every individual on their team?

Sustainable success in the marketplace flows from success in the workplace. A strengths-based work environment produces the culture for sustainable organizational excellence in innovation and execution, and, ultimately marketplace results.

My life, perhaps like yours, is at times, just plain hectic.  There are so many challenges in managing one’s career, home, and children.  Many of us have eldercare issues on top of what is required to be a good partner, sister or brother.  There is little time for oneself and let’s not forget what is going on in the world of politics and current events. It can feel overwhelming.

When you’re constantly on life’s treadmill and embroiled in problems, challenges and negative events, our blessings can be easily overlooked. During the worst war in our history, President Abraham Lincoln understood this and in 1863, proclaimed a National day of Thanksgiving which we have celebrated ever since.

Taking time away from the day-to-day to engage in reflection is important for leaders throughout the year.  Reflective thinking makes one more creative, productive and strategic.  I’m not sure this what President Lincoln had in mind, but certainly, time spent giving thanks and removing our focus away from our problems, even for a short time, feeds our collective soul.

We need to be disciplined about scheduling these opportunities into our lives.  That’s one of the reasons I’m thankful for Thanksgiving; it is an opportunity for all of us to stop and reflect upon what we appreciate about our family, friends, and all that is good in our lives.

I wish you and your loved ones a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Real potential lies in cultivating talents, not fixing weaknesses.

Doctors study disease to learn about health. Psychologists study depression to learn about joy. Therapists study divorce to learn about marriage. The workplace is no different. Performance appraisals are designed for employees to identify and correct their weaknesses to become worthy of promotion and recognition. Typical coaching programs seek to develop leaders by fixing soft skills gaps. Conventional developmental approaches reveal little about a person’s strengths. This is not surprising since most organizations take employees’ strengths for granted and focus on minimizing their weaknesses.

Organizations fail to capitalize on the strengths of their people.

In a global poll conducted by Gallup, only 20 percent of employees report working in their areas of strength every day. Worse yet, the longer an employee stays with an organization and the higher they climb, the less likely they are to strongly agree that their jobs play to their strengths. Unfortunately, people in leadership roles are often enrolled in training or coaching with a goal to address weaknesses. These programs are sometimes necessary, but development typically takes a back seat to damage control. Consequently, people most responsible for the success of the enterprise may be doing so without full benefit of their strengths.

As Stephen R. Covey put it, “Ultimately, a good leadership team is a complementary team where people’s strengths are made productive and their weaknesses irrelevant by the strengths of others.”

A strength is not something a person does well; it is that which makes a person feel strong.  Leaders who focus on building strengths understand this difference and work with team members to contribute fully in their work roles by building on their strengths.

A strengths-focused leader understands the following principles:

Each person’s talents are enduring:

Talents indicate strengths that remain with individuals all their lives. Strengths-focused leaders determine the best environment and roles for team members to develop and use their strengths.

Each person’s talents are unique:

Strengths-focused leaders can help team members set performance expectations and outcomes that match their strengths rather than trying to fit into a stylistic mold.

Each person’s greatest opportunity for growth lies in his or her strengths:

The strengths-focused leader’s goal is to support team members accomplishing more while achieving greater satisfaction.

Organizations become more productive and competitive when every employee is leveraging his or her strengths.

I recently saw the movie Unstoppable with Denzel Washington.  It’s the story of a runaway freight train loaded with volatile cargo, speeding toward a highly populated area.

More than one hour of non-stop action begins when another train carrying 150 school children narrowly avoids a wreck with the runaway.  Then, one man is seriously injured and another loses his life in a failed attempt to stop the train.  Two railroad employees decide to chase and stop the train despite the previously unsuccessful attempts, direct orders to the contrary, and having narrowly avoided a head-on collision themselves.

Let’s be honest, one has to be willing to suspend belief to accept the heroics that resulted in stopping the train, but it’s a very exciting movie nonetheless.

One of the film’s heroes has a line that has captured my imagination.  He announces to the railroad’s VP of Operations that “We’re going to run that b**** down”. (I’m sure you can figure out what he actually said).  I do not condone this type of language — or insubordination — but I do love the spirit of stepping up to a challenge and wrestling it down.

There are times in our careers and our lives when we have to aggressively go after something because we believe it’s the right thing to do.  Had the characters in the movie not put their personal safety and careers at risk, tens of thousands of people would have been killed.

In 1985, when I opened VJ Holcomb Associates, I was told flat out by more than one person that I would not succeed. (I hope they are reading this now).  I believed so strongly in this work that I was willing to take the risks to my finances and my family and… here I am 26 years later. I’ve been able to support and grow hundreds of leaders.  And I’ve never looked back.

Today, with so much financial uncertainty and, frankly, poor leadership, fear and lack of engagement run rampant in the workplace.  People are scared and unwilling to take an unpopular or controversial position. I am very troubled by the amount of opportunity, creativity and innovation that never materializes because so many people are playing it safe.

I felt inspired when that line was uttered in the movie.  I wanted to stand up and cheer.  (This would have looked kind of silly as I was sitting in my knitting room.)  Call me crazy, but I’ve decided to adopt a sanitized version of that line as a kind of mantra to challenge and motivate me as I work this final quarter of 2011 to complete my goals.

Will you join me in becoming unstoppable? Simply fill in your unique “b****” and run it down.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over…if you just sit there.
– Will Rogers

It takes more than talent to succeed at work.

It’s fall and in homes and offices all over the US, it’s all sports all the time.  Football season is in full swing, baseball fans are enjoying the World Series, and basketball fans are mourning the potential loss of the upcoming season.  With so much talk about sports, I cannot help but be reminded of the relationship between an athlete’s performance and their confidence.

When athletes have confidence in their abilities, not only do they play better, they sometimes deliver extraordinary performances. This confidence is fueled by their desire to win. In the world of sports, it is well understood that talent and skill are important, but confidence provides a winning edge.

How exactly does confidence strengthen performance? Confidence is belief and faith that you can do what it takes to achieve your dreams. Confidence fuels a combination of desire, willingness and energy to produce another factor we call sheer determination. Sheer determination isn’t just working hard. It involves first making a decision about what you want, then being disciplined about how you are going to get there. Sheer determination takes drive, energy and focus to achieve your goals and aspirations.

Where does confidence come from?
Confidence is born out of one’s experience with success. Successful outcomes are the result of your strong desire or determination to achieve. The greater and more frequent your success, the more your confidence is strengthened. Stronger levels of confidence allow you to muster even greater determination, discipline and focus – leading to increasingly higher levels of success. Leaders who build the individual confidence of their people will reap superstar performances.