but rather an emotional duet played between the advisor and client.

If you cannot learn to recognize, process and respond to a client’s emotions,

you cannot be an effective advisor.”

~David Maister

A couple weeks ago, I had coffee with Rob Nance of IShade. One of the top issues we discussed was the critical importance for CPAs (and other professionals like lawyers and engineers) to shift into a role of “trusted advisor” to their clients moving from a transactional problem solver or one-dimensional technician.

How can the shy or reticent professional, who is confident in the numbers they’ve crunched or statutes they site, move beyond the role of technician and into a role of a true advisor? Or how can the extravert stop talking long enough to listen to their clients in order to learn their most pressing issues?  

It turns out that developing professionals along 5 specific emotional intelligence (EQ) realms can make the difference between being seen as “just a bean counter” OR “a valued member of the client’s team.”

David Maister in his book, The Trusted Advisor, describes several distinct attributes.

Trusted Advisors focus on:

• the client, rather than on themselves
• the client as a whole individual, rather than a person fulfilling a role
• problem definition and resolution rather than technical or content mastery
• new ways to be of great service to the client
• doing the right thing rather versus achieving their own rewards
• quality client relationships

Over the next several blog posts I’ll share each of the five key EQ realms along with strategies for building your skills in these areas. We'll talk about the first, self-actualizaton, today.

Trusted Advisor EQ Skill #1—Pursuit of Meaning

All the skill building in the world won’t matter if you don’t find meaning or purpose or desire in becoming a trusted advisor to your clients. So ask yourself: What motivates me? Is becoming a trusted advisor a focus for me as I plan for my future? How committed am I to continuous improvement and building the skill sets that becoming a trusted advisor requires?

The process of becoming a trusted advisor is a journey not a destination. It’s a process of continuously honing your skills and abilities to become an outstanding resource for your clients. It often requires moving outside your comfort zone and stretching beyond your current capabilities.

If your answers to the above questions indicate that you are ready and willing to transition into this more advanced role, now take stock of your strengths and weaknesses. Ask yourself: What are my best gifts and talents that I can leverage as I make the transition? What do I enjoy currently in my role in serving clients? How can I take the skills I use successfully in my personal life and apply them in my professional world?

Becoming “self-actualized” may sound high minded or philosophical but it’s actually quite practical. When you are interested in persistently trying to improve yourself and engage in meaningful goals and objectives, great things can happen. Success, happiness and life satisfaction involve doing what you enjoy and finding ways to apply your talents and strengths.

Your assignment for the next week is to take stock of your strengths. What do you love to do in your job? What do you excel at? What gives meaning to the work you do? What are you motivated to achieve in your role? How about your areas for development? What are those? How motivated are you to shore those up?

Your journey to trusted advisor begins here.

To your success,

Mary

“We grow the aspects of our lives that we feed-with energy and engagement-and choke off those we deprive of fuel. Your life is what you agree to attend to.”

~Jim Loehr

Mark,* a high level CPA with a Fortune 100 Company, bounded into our coaching meeting, out of breath and clearly wired. As he caught his breath and calmed down, I asked him what was up. This was the second meeting in a row where he showed up at wits end, clearly having difficulty staying focused and managing the pace of his role. He was in overload.

And to catch up and save time, Mark did what he thought was the obvious: He skipped his lunch, ate candy bars in the afternoon for bursts of energy and rarely got any exercise. Making matters worse, he averaged about 4 hours a night of sleep.

But Mark was misguided. Rather than saving time, these behaviors were actually undermining his overall effectiveness.

Can you relate to Mark? Are you just about out of gas? You’re not alone.

When the seemingly relentless demands at work and burdens of a busy life take their toll on work performance, we tend to think that managing our time better will improve the situation. If we can just work faster, multitask more efficiently, things will be better, we think, as we skip another meal or pass up on that extra hour of sleep.

However, as Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, authors of The Power of Full Engagement, explain, it is the skillful management of energy, not time, that most significantly affects high performance. Too often, we squander this valuable resource through energy-taxing habits.

Take a look at this list of physical, emotional or mental habits and assess how you are managing your energy:

1. I rely on sugary or carbohydrate-rich snacks for bursts of energy when I need an energetic pick-me-up

2. I believe that life is an endless marathon to be endured; you just have to keep on running. 

3. I tend to do what feels immediately pressing and easier to accomplish rather than make intentional choices about how I spend my time and what matters most. 

4. I hate routines; they’re too much like being stuck in a rut. I prefer to be loose and spontaneous.

5. I’m so busy I rarely have time to reflect on what I value most deeply.

6. I seem to be stuck in overdrive; I feel like I’ve lost the ability to shift to any other gear.

7. I work out (cardiovascular and weight training) irregularly, if at all.
 

8. I regularly get less than six hours of sleep.
 

9. I rarely take breaks; that way, I can get more done.

10. When I take the time to notice, my breathing seems shallow; I seem to go a long time without taking a deep breath.

11. Anxiety, frustration and overwhelm seem ever-present for me.
 

12. When I’m under pressure, I easily become harsh or defensive with others.

13. Personal relationships are not something I devote a lot of energy to. If they don’t work, I move on.

14. I smoke and/or drink; to be honest, doing so really helps lower my anxiety level. 

15. I believe that downtime is wasted time. 

Hint: If you answered “true” to more than just a few of these statements, you’re probably not performing—or feeling—as well as you could be. Taking more effective charge of your energy can keep you moving strong with a full tank of gas. You’ve got too much to do to ignore the facts surrounding high performance.

Is it time to fill up your gas tank? What practices and behaviors have you found that give you the energy to work and live at your very best?

To your success,

Mary

“Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.”

 ~Michaelangelo

Michaelangelo said that in sculpting his masterpiece “David” that he was merely chipping away from the marble everything that was not David. In other words, one needs only remove the excess stone to reveal the work of art within.

When we apply this notion to us as humans, we discover that we are all works of art in all our varied shapes and forms. Life’s true journey is the process of uncovering and removing what’s in the way of our shining through with beauty and brilliance.

In support of helping us find the best in ourselves and others, consider the practice called "giving an A" that comes from one of my all-time favorite books, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life, by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. This practice asks us to choose the perspective of seeing everyone (even ourselves!) as holding great potential. You can give an A to anyone—your spouse, children, employer, co-workers—even strangers.

Taking the familiar classroom example first, notice that when students think of themselves as C students, they may not bother trying very hard. If the teacher expects them to do poorly, the students are likely to fulfill that expectation. What would happen if the expectation were that the students were A students?

Benjamin Zander, a world-renowned conductor and teacher, experimented with giving As to all his graduate music students at the start of school. They were instructed to pre-date a letter to him from the end of the semester, writing to tell him not just what they had accomplished, but who they had become in the process of living up to that A. The results were amazing. Students who had been anxious over their performance and who were playing it safe, began to see themselves differently and participated at a higher level.

In our work lives, it is easy to fall into the habit of judging others (ourselves, too..) for not living up to what we think is right and then holding that judgment as always true—in essence, labeling them C or D students. Imagine coming from a perspective of believing in an associate’s creativity and potential. The result can be working together toward a shared goal of excellence.

The world is much more beautiful and full of possibility when we choose to focus on the work of art within rather than the excess stone that appears to be the reality. It’s really a choice of perspective. What grade do you want to live into?

To your success,

Mary

“It is the men behind who make the man ahead."

~Merle Crowell

My daughter Emily, soon to be a law school graduate, is an extra in The Avengers movie that premieres today. That’s her, in the back left. I can pick her out.

Her experience as a cast member in the movie was certainly a memorable one. But it involved long, grueling nights last summer (midnight to 7 am) to shoot the same scenes over and over and over again. And many of her hours were devoted to scenes that will never see the light of day.

But without Emily and scores of other followers like camera people, costume designers and technical crafts people, superheroes like The Avengers would never get to shine so bright. These followers are cooperative team players, persistent and determined, committed to the excellence of their project.

Building and developing leadership skills is the focus of books, coaching sessions and even many of these Leadership Notebook blog posts. But we must remember the wise words of the great philosopher Aristotle: “He who’s never learned to obey can’t be a good commander."

What do you think? What is the value of a good follower in your organization?

To your success,

Mary

Recently, I had a coaching call with a client, an internal audit leader of a Fortune 500 Company. (We’ll call him George.)  George’s performance was solid but his 360 results indicated a need for more strategic thinking and less time operating “in the weeds.”

George’s previous roles and background supported his habit and comfort with the details. However, as he took on additional leadership responsibilities, he knew he needed to shift his focus to a more big picture and strategic mindset.

George genuinely wanted to learn new skills, to grow in his role and to move up in the company, but he was struggling to make the shift.

Once we uncovered George’s beliefs (many of them false) about what kept him in the details, I asked George for a visual that would describe what it would feel like if he remained there.

“Like I’m lost in a jungle,” he said. “I want to get out. I need to get out. It would be great to get out. And the longer I stay here, the more it will negatively impact my career.” (Just let your mind wander about the long term dangers of being lost in a jungle.)

The Jungle. For George, it was a powerful visual.

So how could he get out? During our call, we worked to identify strategies or “tools” he could use to exit the jungle. A helicopter (his direct reports) and a machete (increased self-awareness to know when he was getting pulled in) were just two of the tools he identified.

Once his limiting beliefs were identified and strategies for action were developed, coaching then focused on building new habits and behaviors to keep him out of “the jungle.”

Fast forward to today. The visual of the jungle and the personal and professional dangers it held for George were strong enough to lead him out. With his awareness raised and his team solidly behind him, George is now more effective at operating at the strategic level that his role requires.

What about you? How often to you get stuck in The Jungle? Is there a good visual that describes a shift you need to make to take your performance to the next level?

To your success,

Mary

“Appreciative Inquiry is more than a focus on the positive.

It is the creation of conditions that tap the generative potential of people and organizations.”

~Gervase Bushe

CPAs across the country have put the finishing touches on their “busy season” and there is a collective sigh of relief. But you’re not really done yet. Now, is a great time, while the memories are still fresh, to reflect and “re-view” your performance over the last six months.

What went well? What should I do more of? Less of? How can I use the best parts of my performance to learn and take my performance to the next level?

Taking this “appreciative approach” helps you manage your change and development through the identification of what works and analysis of how to do MORE of that.

This is an alternative to the typical view of “what did I do wrong?” or “what are my weaknesses?” We identify a problem, analyze the cause and generate solutions all through the lens of fixing or avoiding problems. That approach works in some cases but it encourages us to focus on the negative rather than the energy and sense of possibility that comes from envisioning what’s possible.

To illustrate an appreciative approach to “re-viewing” your performance, think about your responses to the following questions suggested in the Appreciative Inquiry mindset:

1.  Considering all of your objectives for your role, what are you proud of?  What have you accomplished and what are you doing that works?

Give yourself credit for every little thing you do that brings you a feeling or demonstration of success, to even the smallest degree, in any work situation.  Be specific.   

2.  What contributed to those successes? What caused those things to work? What or who has allowed you to do your best work? (Consider your team leader, team, firm overall, clients, circumstances, physical situation, and opportunities.)

3. How have you changed?  Think about yourself at the beginning of the year and the person you are today. How have you changed? Again, give yourself credit for every little improvement in your professional competencies or personal effectiveness. What did you do that helped you improve? The activities may have occurred at work, home or in the community.

4. Going beyond your given objectives...  In your work at your firm and as a member of a greater community, what achievements, accomplishments, or activities are you proud of?

5. Becoming even more effective….   To make yourself even more effective in the future, what do you want to continue to do, do more of, do better, or do differently? Of all the items listed and described above, which are the ones you are inspired to act on. (This is where your team leader can help prioritize your objectives.)

6.  What support within the firm do you have to do the things you identified in #5? (Money, time, training, access to subject matter experts and support staff, equipment, materials, etc.)  What resources do you have outside the company?  This is where your team leader can help in making sure you have what you need to succeed.)

Appreciative Inquiry as a model for change has been around awhile and its applications to individuals, teams and organizations are far and wide. It is a different approach to viewing your situation today that helps shape your vision for tomorrow.

What do you think? Have you used this approach in your firm’s change initiatives? I welcome your comments and input. I’d love to hear from you.

To your success,

Mary

“…successful teaming begins with an embrace of the unknown

and a commitment to learning that drives employees to absorb,

and sometimes create, new knowledge while executing.”

~Amy C. Edmondson

Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management

Harvard Business School

What is “teaming”? In her recent HBR article titled, Teamwork On the Fly, Professor Amy Edmondson describes her research and experience with a new form of team, a new way to get work accomplished in our fast paced, global business environment. 

Flexible teamwork, or “teaming,” gathers experts from wide ranging divisions and disciplines into temporary groups to tackle projects or problems and accelerate reaction to new opportunities. Imagine a team where:

• Multiple functions/disciplines work together
• Relationships are temporary
• People are geographically dispersed
• Each project uses new and evolving individual skill sets
• Work can be uncertain and chaotic

Sounds like fun. But building a solid base of soft skills is critical to  successful “teaming.“

You may think this type of team arrangement would never apply to your circumstances.…but think again. In recent months, I’ve had several of my coaching clients and one family member participate in this type of team format.

A Case in Point

Yesterday, IBM launched PureSystems which IBM describes as  “a new, simpler era of computing.” I’m not a techie but it’s a big deal and as the company shared during its launch event, “it’s the result of $2 billion in R&D and acquisitions over the past four years.”

My daughter Sarah, an “IBMer” and a member of the marketing launch team, has lived and breathed the project since she joined the company last year. It was top secret and she could not share what she was working on but I do know that her team could be described with the “teaming” characteristics described above.

In another case, one of my coaching clients, a CPA formerly with a Big4 firm and now with General Motors, was tapped to lead a project with team members who span the globe and possess variety of skills and disciplines. He had not previously met any of his team members.

You don’t have to work for mega companies like IBM or GM to experience this teaming concept. This type of flexible team work is happening at large and small firms alike.

Required Skill Sets

Technical skills are expected of course. But to achieve and excel in this new form of team environment, soft skills in emotional intelligence (EQ) are imperative. And the good news is that these skills can be learned and developed.

Witnessing teaming in action through my clients and daughter and reading Edmondson’s descriptions of successful teams, I believe the following are key EQ skills that can make all the difference:

• Flexibility: Not surprising, your ability to adapt your emotions, thoughts and behaviors to unfamiliar, unpredictable and dynamic circumstances or ideas is critical to survival in this type of team environment. Change is here to stay and being adaptable and flexible in team circumstances has never been more important.

• Problem Solving: How do you find solutions to problems in situations where emotions are involved? Deadlines are a way of life and especially in teaming circumstances, complete information is just not available.

• Interpersonal Relationships: Developing and maintaining great relationships is a skill set that is easier when teams are based on longstanding, mutual experiences and geographic proximity. But in teaming, relationships must build quickly without the benefit of trust building as a foundation.  

• Empathy: Differences in cultural norms, values and perspectives are natural in a teaming situation. Empathy built on listening to others opinions and ideas is critical to successful decision making and project completion.

• Assertiveness: In a teaming situation, team members must speak up and offer their perspective and ideas. They must be able to communicate honestly and directly, raise issues and acknowledge when errors are made.

• Stress Management: This form of team is not for the faint of heart. Being able to cope with stressful, rapidly changing circumstances, different personalities and functional skill sets  is a requirement of leaders at all levels. And I would argue, even more so in a teaming situation.

As Edmondson says in her article, “teaming” is here to stay. This form of flexible team is challenging for sure, yet as Edmondson describes in her article, there are great rewards for both the individual and the organization.

Are you ready for this brave new world?

To your success,

Mary

“The great leaders are like the best conductors-

they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players.”

~Blaine Lee

Imagine you’re playing Leadership Jeopardy with Delegation as one of the categories.

“I’ll take Delegation for $500, Bob.” The answers could be any one of the following:

1.  “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
2. “My team members are all too busy to take on more work.”
3. “I’m too busy to teach them the right way.”

The Question: What is: “Why I don’t delegate?”

I’ve heard these same worn out answers from my harried coaching clients. They’d rather work 25 hours a day than delegate to their eager and capable staff.

As leaders, we have two major priorities. Our first is to think strategically, crafting a plan and approach to solve our toughest problems. A second priority is to develop our teams to help us solve those problems.

But you don’t have time to do the first unless you’re committed to the second.

Leveraging leadership is all about giving yourself the opportunity to do what you do best, and making sure your teams can do the same. And you can’t do either without effective delegation.

So if we know we must delegate effectively to succeed, how can we move beyond thinking like the answers detailed above.

Here are 5 tips that you can use to begin to develop your leadership leverage:

1. Accept the fact that effective delegation is a leadership imperative and decide to improve your delegation skills immediately.  I’ve reviewed numerous position descriptions and competency models and completed scores of 360 interviews and assessments. In every case, effective delegation is a skill requirement for leaders at all levels. Don’t resist building this necessary skill.

2. Effective delegation involves understanding the competencies of your team.  Match the skills and abilities of the individual to the tasks to be delegated. Be patient. Know that they will not complete the task exactly like you would but that is the key part of their learning and development. Understand their focus for development. What is it that they want to learn to be more fulfilled? What do they need to learn to advance? Know how the delegated task fits their developmental needs.

3. Invest the time up front to make sure you teach them what they need to know to get them on their way.

• Clearly articulate your desired outcome. 
• Clearly articulate the time expected for completion.
• Clearly articulate the deadline for project or task completion.

Giving blanket orders to “do what it takes” or “get it back to me sometime next week” only sets both parties up for frustration and potential failure. Time spent up front provides greater returns on your investment once the project is complete. And that’s the definition of leverage.

4. Don’t get caught in “upward delegation,” which occurs when your staff attempts to give the project back due to time constraints or lack of understanding. Encourage your staff to focus on solving the problem and taking responsibility to complete the work. This is their time to learn and your time to lead.

5. Thoroughly review the completed work and provide feedback, positive if it meets your needs or constructive if the results are less than you expect. This is not the time to just “let it go” and rework it yourself.

Effective delegation provides a win-win solution for you and your team members. As the leader, you have developed and empowered your team to be more comfortable in taking on additional responsibility. This frees up available time for you to think strategically and work on more complex challenges.

So, what holds you back from more effective delegation habits? How can you break through to realize this is a win-win for both you as the leader and your team members who must develop in order to move forward?

To your success,

Mary

“Four young men sit by the bedside of their dying father. The old man, with his last breath, tells them of a treasure buried in the family fields. The sons crowd around him, crying and asking, “Where, Where?” but it’s too late…

The day after the funeral and for many days to come, the young men go out into the fields with their picks and shovels and turn the soil, digging deeply into the ground from one end of each field to the other. They find nothing and, bitterly disappointed, abandon the search.

The next season, the farm has its best harvest ever.”

~ Story as told by Ben and Rosamund Zander in their book, The Art of Possibility

Exactly one year ago this week, I wrote a blog post titled “Doing the Work,” reminding all of us that the fruits of our labors will come, but we have to “till the soil.” We have to do the often hard and sometimes painful work that it takes to achieve our goals.

Last evening, like clockwork, I heard the farmer on the working farm next door, go to work on getting his soil ready for spring planting. Ironically, I had just had a “crucial conversation” with one of my coaching clients regarding her resistance and inactivity in doing her own work. She wondered why she wasn’t seeing her desired results.

Blame and excuses were sprinkled all around but she refused to take responsibility for her own poor results.

As I said last year, it’s hard to “do the work.” It takes effort, commitment, and an openness to change. But there is support and encouragement along the way. And remember that it’s also true that the “harvest” can be so rich.

So again, I challenge you to think about what you want to be different in your life.  And then ask yourself: What effort am I willing to commit to “doing the work?” What digging do I need to do that will help me succeed at the goals and results that I long to achieve?

It’ spring. Time to prepare the soil. Time to do the work. The rewards are waiting for you.

To your success,

Mary

“We must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives.

We must take charge of our own destinies, design a life of substance

and truly begin to live our dreams.”

~Les Brown

“No.  I’m not going play that way. I want to win.”

My tennis team member was firm. She was not going to practice our doubles drill as designed.

Hearing this resistance, our tennis coach calmly explained that the drill was supposed to help us think and play more offensively, to be the first to come to the net, taking balls out of the air and putting them away. In the long run, we’d learn a new skill that would definitely give us a better chance to win.

My tennis colleague would have none of it. She wanted to play back, preferring to hit from the baseline with a strong, consistent ground stroke.

Our coach said “Fine. We’ll see who wins.”  

Over the next hour, rotating partners, we played the drill, keeping track of the points and how they were won.

You guessed it. Our stubborn team member lost each point when she stayed back, preferring to play it “her” way.

I smiled when I thought of how this same stubbornness plays out in the world of work. How often do we resist change, preferring to do things the way we’ve always done? How often do we let short term “win’s” get in the way of learning new skills that would actually benefit us in the long run?

What would be possible if we began to play offense?

To your success,

Mary