The Business Coaching Toolkit

Top 10 Strategies for Solving the Toughest Dilemmas Facing Organizations

Stephen G. Fairley, William Zipp

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780470146927
• eBook ISBN: 9780470893425
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Discover the 10 best Coaching practices for solving problems and implementing change with clients--right away Coaching works, there's no doubt about that. But the coaching industry is going through tremendous change that all professional coaches need to address. Equipping coaching professionals to stay on the cutting-edge of their craft, The Business Coaching Toolkit: Top 10 Strategies for Solving the Toughest Dilemmas Facing Organizations expertly provides a collection of application-based, proven tools that present creative solutions to common situations encountered in today's workplace. This hands-on guide creatively empowers professionals to:
* Achieve greater performance by identifying and maximizing strengths and managing weaknesses
* Lead their team or client through setting specific, measurable, and reasonable goals
* Discover the deeper meaning of vision and tie goals into the client's core values
* Guide clients through a comprehensive analysis of their current situation--the good, the bad, and the ugly
Whether it's increasing a client's time management skills, giving feedback to an employee, or building a leadership team, The Business Coaching Toolkit presents a valuable supply of straightforward exercises designed to bring a new dimension to every coaching professional's work with clients.

CHAPTER ONE

Developing a Leadership Vision

(It’s not What You Think!)

Look at any list of great leaders of the twentieth century, and you will find these five people at the top:

• Mohandas Gandhi

• Nelson Mandela

• Mother Teresa

• Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Franklin Roosevelt

At first blush, these people had more things not in common with one another than they had in common. They came from vastly different parts of the world: India, Africa, Germany, and the United States. They had different religious viewpoints: two were Protestants, one a Hindu, and one a Catholic. And they had vastly different economic and educational backgrounds.

Yet each one of these leaders started movements that still exist today and delivered sustainable results that any executive would envy. How? By the one thing they did have in common with one another: commitment to a cause. Deep in their soul was a vision for what they believed in and a dedication to see that vision lived in real, tangible ways. Although Martin Luther King, Jr. was the only orator of the group, “I have a dream . . .” could be words that introduce each of these five’s life’s work.

We tend to think of vision differently in business, and that is not a good thing. Too often we define a “good leader” simply as someone who sets a big, measurable goal for a company. The problem is an organization may meet the goal but not grow in its character, undermining the ability for continued goal achievement. In others words, goals, as important as they are, must have a deeper why or they are not sustainable. There must be an engine that drives them, commitment to a cause that is bigger than just raw market share.

In coaching executives on the issue of tying vision and values together, you may experience significant push-back. Talking about values in today’s postmodern work environment is often seen by hard-charging personalities as soft and unrelated to the bottom line. Nothing could be further from the truth. Values-based vision is the essential foundation for enduring success, not just a good quarter or two, as evidenced by the research that follows.

A BUSINESS CASE FOR VALUES-BASED VISION

In 1982, Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman wrote a groundbreaking business book titled, In Search of Excellence. It quickly became one of the best-selling business books of all time, making phrases like “management by wandering around” and “stick to your knitting” a permanent part of our corporate lexicon. Peters and Waterman examine in this book the practices of America’s best-run companies and reach this final conclusion:

Let us suppose that we were asked for one all-purpose bit of advice for management, one truth that we were able to distill from the excellent companies’ research. We might be tempted to reply, “Figure out your value system. Decide what your company stands for. . . .”

Every excellent company we studied is clear on what it stands for, and takes the process of value shaping seriously. In fact, we wonder whether it is possible to be an excellent company without clarity on values. (Peters and Waterman, 1982, pages 279, 280)

Twelve years later, in 1994, Jim Collins and Jerry Porris conducted a similar six-year research project of companies that had achieved long-term corporate success, and another business classic was born: Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. What Peters and Waterman called being “value-driven,” Collins and Porris refer to as having a “core ideology.” Either way, Built to Last concludes as well that this is key to a company’s success:

Contrary to business school doctrine, we did not find “maximizing share-holder wealth” or “profit maximization” as the dominant driving force or primary objective through the history of most of the visionary companies. . . . Through the history of most of the visionary companies we saw a core ideology that transcended purely economic considerations. And—this is the key point—they have had core ideology to a greater degree than the comparison companies in our study. (Collins and Porris, 1994, page 55)

Fast-forward another decade to yet another business best seller, The Leadership Challenge, by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. More research on this subject yielded the following real-world results:

Shared values make an enormous difference to organizational and personal vitality. Research confirms that firms with strong corporate culture based on a foundation of shared values outperform other firms by a huge margin. Their revenue grew four times faster, their rate of job creation was seven times higher, their stock price grew twelve times faster, and their profit performance was 750 percent higher. (Kouzes and Posner, 2002, pages 80, 81)

What would these numbers do for the companies you serve? Clearly this issue has application beyond that of religious organizations and social movements. Here’s why.

THREE REASONS VALUES-BASED VISION IS CRITICAL TO ORGANIZATIONAL SUCCESS

REASON ONE: Values Give Your People a Cause to Live for Instead of Just a Job to Do

The human spirit yearns to contribute to something that is bigger than itself. Human beings have an amazing ability to sacrifice almost anything for something they believe in. Individuals and organizations that think more deeply about their work, and the greater good it serves, tap this power of the human spirit and unleash its potential to deliver extraordinary results.

Consider the difference between these two statements, a first and second draft of a real mission statement for a local organization:

Statement One: To provide affordable housing for the citizens of Wayne County.

Statement Two: To raise the dignity of the families and children of Wayne County by providing affordable housing.

Which one moves you? Why? The first statement gives you a job, providing affordable housing, but the second statement gives you a cause, raising the dignity of families and children. Yes, you need a job to fulfill a cause, but it is a cause that will drive you to do the job to the best of your ability and overcome all its obstacles along the way. Effective organizations and effective leaders help their people understand that they are not just laying bricks, as the well-worn story goes, they are building a great cathedral. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Walk into any Starbucks and you will find the lush aroma of fresh ground coffee, a friendly greeting—by name if you’re a regular—and a values statement. Prominently placed in every Starbucks is a 12-panel color brochure titled, “Social Responsibility.” On that brochure is a list of Starbucks’s core values, things like fair trade, the environment, social responsibility, and employee health insurance. But the brochure’s title is “Social Responsibility,” so in addition to these topics, specific, measurable steps of action for each value are enumerated for all to see. One of the reasons for Starbucks’s meteoric rise in the industry is that working there is not just a job, it’s a cause, a cause their employees fervently believe in and give their best effort to support.

In the war for top talent that hiring has become today, values-based vision also sets you apart. The best and brightest want to work for a company that is a making a difference in the world, not just making money. Your values, your core ideology, your commitment to a cause will make your organization an employer of choice and attract the very best candidates to the hiring table.

REASON TWO: Values Give Your Associates Principles to Apply Instead of Just Policies to Enforce

One of the most infuriating customer service experiences is to be told by someone that your reasonable request cannot be met because “it’s not our policy.” Many companies develop policy manuals as a rule book to keep people in line and keep customers from stepping out of line. Leading companies, however, do not throw rules in your face, but teach their people values that can be applied in any situation to serve the customer.

Visit any Marriott hotel and you will experience this phenomenon. “Do whatever it takes to take care of the customer” is their mantra and they live it every day. The heroes at Marriott are frontline employees who give money out of their own pocket to help with a guest’s cab fare or take special care of a package so that a traveler’s child receives it on her birthday. “Do whatever it takes to take care of the customer” drives fanatical care for their properties with extraordinary attention to detail and personal pride in their appearance. Not surprisingly, this also affects the bottom line. Marriott consistently stands as one of the most profitable businesses in the hospitality industry and in 2005 won an award for best customer service for any hotel chain in the United States.

Rules take you only so far with people. Principles like service and social responsibility learned and lived by everyone in your organization deliver an unparalleled customer experience that keep people coming back again and again and again. And the really good news is that this loyalty, once gained, makes price irrelevant. Clearly, Starbucks doesn’t sell the cheapest cup of coffee you can buy, nor does Marriott have the cheapest room in town. “Why would I go somewhere else just to save a few dollars,” your customers will say to themselves (and others), “when they treat me so well?”

REASON THREE: Values Produce Leaders with Relational Authority and Not Just Positional Authority

There are two kinds of authority that leaders can possess: positional authority and relational authority. Positional authority is the authority of title, rank, or status within an organization. It is the authority that is conferred on us by virtue of moving up the organizational ladder. A second kind of authority is relational authority. This is authority that is given to us, not by words on a business card or a sign on the door, but by the relationship we have with real people. It is the authority we earn from others over time and is measured by the trust and respect they have for us. These two kinds of authority put together determine our effectiveness as leaders.

We have all worked for bosses who had positional authority without relational authority and remember how painful the experience was. They could tell us what to do, and did so repeatedly at various volume levels, but never won our respect, because on a personal basis, they were so offensive. We couldn’t wait for them to move on, very often further up the organizational ladder. This kind of leadership ultimately derails as everyone tires of its tone.

Those of us who have sold for a living know well the person who has relational authority without positional authority within an organization. She is the executive assistant who does not appear on any flowchart but knows everyone in the company and is trusted explicitly by all. These unofficial leaders have great power, and you cross them at your peril, for they can kill any sale at its inception. Yet, ...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• CHAPTER ONE - Developing a Leadership Vision
• CHAPTER TWO - The One-Percent Solution
• CHAPTER THREE - Getting Things Done through Others
• CHAPTER FOUR - Making Goals SMART
• CHAPTER FIVE - The Power of Positive Praise
• CHAPTER SIX - Making Feedback Effective
• CHAPTER SEVEN - A New Twist on SWOT
• CHAPTER EIGHT - The Life Leadership Dashboard
• CHAPTER NINE - The Sixth Suitcase
• CHAPTER TEN - What Color Is Your Team?
• CHAPTER ELEVEN - Using the 10 Tools
• APPENDIX - The 10 Tools
• Bibliography
• Index