I just spent 2 days with a team of Account Managers who reminded me about how challenging it can be to survive in a sales environment. These managers are all intelligent, talented and highly committed to being the best they can be, but their performance is seriously hindered by the culture of their organisation.

They explained with utter sincerity that their usual work day can begin with Blackberry calls, texts and emails at 6 am, and that it is not unusual to be taking calls at 10.30 at night. Their days seem to be filled with activities they consider non-essential sales function, and their leaders apparently bombard them with conflicting messages, lots of negative feedback and very little recognition.

Some of these managers were so stressed they talked of “burn out” and “overwhelm” and their language was richly scattered with metaphors and analogies of “black holes, the abyss, burdens, weight, spreading cancers, dropping balls and carrying huge lumps of lead”. They described “impossible targets” and “meaningless goals”, “confusion, chaos and embarrassment with their customers.” Some were looking for an escape route. Others felt trapped and many said their home lives and health were being seriously impacted.

Their bosses are not intentionally having this negative effect. They are responding to their own concerns and fears about future uncertainties and current realities in the business. Unless they can achieve more with less cost their competitors will surely win the business they are working so hard to achieve and keep.

This is a dilemma facing many businesses in this economic climate, and the perceived urgency to achieve more drives this high pressure way of doing business.

This is not the only choice.

These managers work for an organisation that has chosen to explore change another way. They decided to engage their key people in a process they hope will shift their culture dramatically. The most influential sales and operations managers have been invited to explore their contribution to creating a new direction and a new culture, one they can all be proud of, and one which will enable the business to grow through creative choice, rather than the ‘do more’ strategy they seem to have slipped into.

The process involves individuals exploring their own beliefs, thinking and behaviours to see how they contribute to the highly pressured quality of work life they experience. This is counter-intuitive to the usual reviewing which encourages us to point the finger of blame at everyone else in the company, to the mythical ‘they’ who are never in the same room as the finger pointers.

We have designed a number of structured experiences to help these key people to uncover the direction they want the business to go in, so they can express it, and live it, rather than wait for their leaders to give them consistent direction.

This is a brave and brilliant approach. Some, of course, may realise they have no real vision of their own and this revelation could trigger their departure. But the vast majority will discover that the reason they are still there putting up with this highly stressful life, is because they genuinely care about, and have faith in, their organisation’s future.

Within the space of 2 days, these managers turned their persistent complaining about their managers, other parts of their business and their systems into a sincere and passionate commitment to change.

By the second morning one manager had arranged a meeting with her manager to agree some meaningful targets, another had fixed a meeting with his ops manger to agree some new standards, yet another had interrupted her usual pattern of rescuing a colleague and clearly asked him to step up to his responsibility. I could go on but essentially these managers have taken ownership of their organisation and have plans to transform everyone they can. They are prepared for set backs and have been equipped with some resilience tools. It’s early days but my guess is that this organisation will reach a rewarding tipping point soon!

I wish them well, life is far too short for such stressful working conditions. How about your organisation? Are you contributing to, or putting up with, stressful conditions? Let us know if you want some help creating the mind-set and skill-set for your people to thrive.

With love Lorraine x

Not so long ago the linking of ‘love’ and ‘work’ would have
been considered flaky and soft but now books on love and work, love and leadership, and many others, are filling Amazon’s shelves and a quick check on Google this morning revealed 969 million returns for ‘love and work’. Not all of these entries would be considered strictly commercial but my point is that we are talking A LOT about love as if it is the new, new thing in business and leadership.

For many years the love and work connection was dominated by
the HR departments desire to control and deter romance and sexual behaviour at work. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200703/love-work
Quite a useful strategy for keeping people focused, avoiding embarrassment and the whole spectrum of abuse of power that seems to be both real and perceived. But I suspect even the most stringent policy driven organisation has the odd romance and fling going on. It seems that human beings and love are inseparable.

Romance is not the only form love takes at work.  There’s much more to our work- love story. Think about your most inspiring or inspired leadership or work related experiences. Were they the result of some super sophisticated strategy, procedure or process or a gob-smacking vision that blew your socks off? I doubt it. Mine are all completely distinguishable by the difficult to define quality of LOVE.

I once worked in a team that was so highly motivated we worked for weeks at times without breaks or extra incentive. I couldn’t explain it then but looking back our boss inspired us through his absolute faith in our talents and learning ability (which was bordering on crazy at times), but like a proud parent he never doubted any of us for a second and held on to a vision for us even if we couldn’t see it for ourselves. He held our hands through challenging times, he provided support for every risk we took, he worked
restlessly to encourage and promote our personal as well as our work goals, and
he shared and celebrated our successes.

Our boss loved ‘IT’ (our business). He loved our company. He loved his team. He loved the contribution we were making to the business. And that LOVE was the fuel for our exceptional motivation and performance.

Leadership is not about models, theories and process. Leadership is not even about having the best vision, strategy, goals, people, technology or systems. If it were, Apple should never have been so outrageously successful and countless other organisations who invest millions in their technology, systems, processes and people would be much more successful than they have been.

It makes a huge difference to LOVE WHAT YOU DO. Where would Apple be if Steve Jobs didn’t LOVE sexy technology? Where would Microsoft have got to without Bill Gates’ LOVE of clever software? But that’s not the whole LOVE STORY either.

Effective leaders are able to inspire others to have the FAITH TO FOLLOW, even into the scary unknown. They also have the credibility to compel their people to dig deeply and draw on all their talents, qualities and resources to find solutions to impossible problems, to go the extra mile and find whatever it takes to achieve the goals.

Despite uncertainty about the future, true leaders create the conditions for their people to explore, experiment, test, fail, learn and succeed. They foster self belief and belief in the possible. They create a united sense of security and LOVE.

I realised long ago that when I peel away the hard nosed labels on the work I do (executive coaching, capability development, skills training, facilitating change, culture change programmes, team building, etc), what lies beneath is simply this: humans learning to love themselves, to love their work, to love their colleagues and to love the meaning they make of it all.

Powerful leadership is about having the conscious commitment to learn how to love. So, how do we love? Well that’s for another post! Take a few moments now though to look through this short self inventory survey and ponder your own LOVING capabilities at work.

Loving Capability Self Inventory:

So, are your LOVE AT WORK capabilities or LOVING LEADERSHIP
skills in need of some TLC?  Contact us to arrange a personal coaching session, an in-house talk or seminar, or to find out about our next public programme.

With love, Lorraine

We have within our grasp the ability to create a world of which we are all proud, and to change the things we know to be harmful to human existence and happiness.  All we need to do is put our people and planet at the core of every decision we make and every action we take.  It takes a special type of courage for a leader to own and face this challenge.

To create the kind of world we want to live in, and pass on to future generations, we must take responsibility for the quality of our thinking, intentions, motivations, emotions, decisions and actions. Conscious Leadership is emerging as the most important leadership style for today’s leaders because NOW we are shaping TOMORROW.

A mini self-assessment?

Where are you in your leadership approach now? Where are your organisation’s leaders? Here are some of the qualities of Conscious Leadership for you to consider and assess your own capapbilities.

Moral Integrity

Do you have moral authority? Is your integrity transparent? Do you wear your values on your t-shirt for all to know who you are and what is important to you? Do you know what factors or values influence all your decisions and actions today? Can others trust you to follow or support your direction with faith and passionate commitment? Do you inspire passionate commitment just by being clear about who you are and what you stand for?

Alert Awareness

Do you have exquisite self awareness, not just of your behavioural impact but of your deeper motivations, intentions and emotions? And do you have the choice to be free from habitual limitations and to face your absolute truth? How quickly do you pick up, make sense of and adapt to changes in others or the world around you?

Resourceful Capability

How much access do you have to the most important resources of alertness, sensitivity, agility, connection, confidence, creativity, courage, decisiveness, analysis, inspiration and honesty?

Systemic Intelligence

How well honed are your systemic skills? Do you have the imagination to be able to step into the shoes of children 7 generations into the future and be proud of your decisions and actions today? Can you step into the past and fully utilise the learning from old successes and joys as well as old wounds, mistakes and disasters? Can you make decisions and take action today based on multiple perspectives, contexts and timeframes?

Creative Imagination

How well honed are your strategic skills? Do you have the creative imagination to envisage multiple futures and map out multiple routes as you evaluate best possible direction in the moment? How easily can you access your intuitive wisdom to make the best choices? How effectively do you communicate with, and engage those who are key to your success?

These are just some of the emerging strengths of todays Conscious Leaders.

What next?

If you are ready to take your conscious leadership to the next level talk to us about our Conscious Leadership Programme or contact us for executive coaching, facilitation, speaking or workshops at lorraine@passionatwork.co.uk