Archive for Leadership Coaching

Capiche Conversations: Interview with Jonathan Hann, Operations Director at iOpener Institute

With Contributions from Oriana Tickell, iOpener Director of Coaching Programs & Science of Happiness at Work™, and Chris Cook, Founder of Capiche

Interview conducted by Melissa L. Michaels, Capiche Contributor/Strategic Partner, Michaels & Michaels Creative, LLC

In 2003 when Jessica Pryce-Jones founded iOpener Institute for People and Performance, the Science of Happiness at Work™ was just a ripple in the sea of business research. Today, it is a tidal wave that has transformed organizational development. Jessica’s 2010 book, Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital for Success, played a pivotal role in creating the science of happiness field (a topic we have frequently written about at Capiche), and the data proving the profitability of pursuing employee happiness has only continued to accumulate in the ensuing years. It was shortly after the publication of that book that Chris Cook became the only person in the Northwest accredited by iOpener Institute under Jessica’s mentorship.

Today, Jessica is spearheading a new enterprise (stay tuned for details in a future Capiche Conversations interview), but iOpener Institute continues to thrive, having helped as many as 60,000 people from organizations across 182 countries renew their culture while boosting employee happiness and productivity. Following is an interview with Operations Director Jonathan Hann with contributions from Director of Coaching Programs & Science of Happiness at Work™ Oriana Tickell. Chris Cook also shares a real-life example of her iOpener consulting in action.

Special Offer! Starting now until August 15, Chris is offering free iPPQ individual assessments with a coaching follow-up. Call 541.601.0114, email Chris, or use our Contact form to schedule your assessment.


Jonathan Hann HeadshotQ: How did a Canadian wind up living and working in Oxford, England?

Jonathan: I had just finished my BMus at McGill University and was beginning to think about next steps. Around the same time, my partner got accepted to a master’s program at the University of Oxford. I tagged along for the adventure, landed a place in an orchestra as well as job to help cover the rent, and the rest is history!

Jonathan Hann Performing in Orchestra

Q: Describe the trajectory that took an oboe player with a BMus in music performance to a position as operations director of iOpener Institute?

Jonathan: One of my many passions is classical music, but I’ve always been inspired by social entrepreneurship, community development, labor relations, and the ability to make a positive impact. Much of that drive was instilled in me by Peter Frampton, a friend and mentor whom I worked with at The Learning Enrichment Foundation. He also showed me how important it is that your values are aligned with your work. When I saw the job posting for iOpener, that was what I looked for. Seeing that the values matched, I decided to apply.

Q: You bring a broad range of experience to your present role, including investment consultant; account executive; events and entertainment coordinator; and childcare research and financial analyst. How did these various posts prepare you for your current responsibilities?

Jonathan: In the learning and development space, it’s important to be constantly curious—curious about what’s possible and happening in various industries. Having a broad range of experiences is both a product of my curiosity and part of what sparks it, so it helps with my current responsibilities. It’s also helped me learn how to juggle—not literally, though.

Q: Haha. Tell me about iOpener Institute and how this international consultancy firm serves organizations and their employees.

iOpener Institute LogoJonathan: We make leadership, learning, and life better—both for our clients and our team—by helping everyone find the tools they need and the capability within themselves to achieve their potential. We do this by getting under the skin of any problems and bridging the knowing-doing gap in our programs, interventions, and research.

Q: You became operations director after nearly three years serving as senior project manager, so you’ve been at iOpener for over six years now. What it is like working at iOpener? How does it model the principles of a happy workplace?

Science of Happiness at Work LogoJonathan: We do our best to hold ourselves accountable in the same way we would hold our clients accountable, and that’s grounded in the Science of Happiness at Work™. Sometimes holding ourselves to that high standard can get difficult, but by having those conversations, we can ensure we can constantly grow as a team. And I appreciate the freedom that model gives us to explore and change. Ultimately, no two days are the same, and we get to work remotely and collaborate with consultants and teams around the globe to create actionable change. That makes me happy.

Q: iOpener offers a free iPPQ Happiness @ Work assessment to individuals. As an accredited practitioner, Chris Cook is available to provide coaching to individuals and consulting to organizations who wish to take advantage of this extraordinary tool. How does the iPPQ (People & Performance Questionnaire) help both individuals and organizations improve their happiness at work?

Jonathan: Let me give you an example. An organization came to us with a big strategic problem. They were having trouble retaining business-critical employees, and this was having a devastating effect on their ability to grow. They simply couldn’t take on more client work and were in danger of over-trading. Internally, there were problems scoping projects, meetings milestones, and delivering quality outcomes for their clients. The business was unable to expand because they were losing talent fast. That meant every team was pretty much in permanent crisis, so our goal was to help them improve this turnover number.

iOpener iPPQ Report Team Overview: 5 C's

To aid with employee retention, we:

  • Assessed the whole organization using our research-driven tool, the iOpener People & Performance Questionnaire (iPPQ).
  • Analyzed the data to see what worked and what could work better both at a team and organizational level.
  • Ran focus groups to flesh out some of the internal issues that were hampering growth.
  • Coached the board and senior leaders using our proprietary 360 tool, which aligns with individual iPPQ reports.
  • Ensured the people strategy was aligned with the organizational strategy.
  • Realigned some of the HR processes to ensure they were based on what worked well and what could work better.
  • Helped leaders implement the refreshed and realigned HR processes.
  • Worked with HR to plan and then deliver leadership development aligned with the Science of Happiness at Work™.
  • Ensured knowledge transfer into the organization so that HR, leaders, and managers could be self-sustaining.
  • Found champions for every team so the approach would remain alive and at top-of-mind.
  • Reassessed the organization.

iOpener iPPQ Report Trust, Recognition, and Pride

So what were the outcomes? When the project started, turnover of business-critical employees was running at 25%. Over 15 months, this halved to 12.5%. Not only has this reduction created much more stability and a platform for growth, but recruitment costs have fallen dramatically.

What matters more is the intangible effect on the organization’s social networks. Real-time relationships and therefore trust within and between teams has increased significantly because there is a much greater sense of stability and progress.

A further positive outcome is the language of the organization has changed. Employees and leaders are using the terminology of the Science of Happiness at Work™. This means conversations are easier because there is a framework and language, where before there wasn’t. And that means it’s much easier to have new, deeper, and potentially more meaningful interactions. When the shape of language changes, you open up different conversations, cultures, and outcomes. And to do that through a positive approach creates incredible cohesion, which is something all organizations need in today’s uncertain world.

Q: Chris Cook says of the iOpener tools and research, “I find the work extremely powerful because it’s not about what your employer does for you but about what you bring to the table: the 5 C’s.” What are the 5 C’s?

Oriana Tickell HeadshotOriana: Culture, Conviction, Commitment, Confidence, and Contribution. The 5 C’s come together to create the model and show how happiness at work is structured.

  1. Culture is about having a feeling of fit with the organization.
  2. Conviction is about the short-term and can be influenced by any current situation, such as, “My boss hates me,” or, “I hate my boss,” which will obviously have an immediate impact on performance.
  3. Commitment is long-term and is about feeling committed despite any short-term obstacles simply because we believe that work has a sense of purpose and we are making a difference. This distinction often makes sense and helps people make solid decisions about their careers.
  4. Confidence is about levels of personal confidence.
  5. Contribution is about an individual’s feeling of contributing to something bigger than themselves and sense that the organization also contributes to the individual.

Balance between the five elements will create well-being for any individual, and the particular formulation is highly personal.

As you mention, happiness at work requires input from both sides. Individuals can only create sustainable well-being for themselves through the 5 C’s when the organization has the right factors in place for this to happen.

When we look at the bigger picture of creating the right environment for happiness at work, we have to address it at all levels of an organization—top-down and bottom-up. Misery is contagious wherever you find it.

iOpener Pride Trust Recognition GraphicQ: And how do pride, trust, and recognition fit into the equation?

Oriana: Pride, trust, and recognition are the elements that wrap up the 5 C’s and hold them together. They are the questions to ask oneself—how proud am I of what I do, how much do I trust the vision of my leaders, and am I getting the recognition I need to keep me engaged and motivated? These factors help create an environment in which employees can thrive. And leaders can be directly involved in making sure they are present.

Pride, trust, and recognition underpin the 5 C’s and relate directly to achieving your potential, which is at the center of our model. For us, “potential” is an elastic term—when you are growing at work, achieving your potential will always be just out of reach. The goal posts move in a positive way, encouraging you to achieve that little bit more.

This, of course, is what companies want to see in their employees—that they really are stretching themselves and expanding their idea of what their potential is. The data helps us see what people need to feel in order to keep engaged and find their inner motivation.

Q: Chris, can you share a case study of an organizational culture iOpener has helped transform?

Cinema Box Office Sign MarqueeChris: Shortly after receiving my coaching training and accreditation by iOpener, I met with John Schweiger, Executive Chairman and CEO of Coming Attraction Theatres. We were friends and business associates, and when I told him of my new accreditation and affiliation with iOpener, he became very interested. The success of his organization was hugely dependent on the performance of its employees—from the internal operations to the external customer service teams. John shared with me that “something just wasn’t right,” and he was not able to put his finger on it.

We decided to assess the situation by having all of the management team take the iPPQ. We looked at the team report and saw a few areas that could be strengthened. John agreed to have me coach individuals (including himself) to help them strengthen elements that were detracting from their happiness (a direct correlation to their performance) and to conduct a series of team workshops specifically related to organizational issues around pride, trust, and recognition.

Of course, the team was a bit skeptical as none of them had ever been coached before (other than on a sports team), but they kept an open mind. About midway through our work together, the movie industry made a push to convert all theatres from “real” 35mm film to digital content. This meant installing new equipment and revamping operations at all of the company’s locations (for approximately 149 screens). The real kicker was it had to be done in less than 90 days to meet the timeline to premiere Thanksgiving/holiday releases—the biggest money-making season for the movie industry!

The good news is Coming Attractions Theatres did not miss a beat. All conversions were completed—successfully and ahead of schedule. John credits our work together for improving communication, accountability, teamwork, and turning an onerous change into a challenge all were prepared to dig in and meet.

John Schweiger

Chris has helped me become a better executive. I’m a better listener, and I’m handling stress better by realizing when to let things go that I can’t change. During this time of extraordinary challenges in the entertainment business, Chris has helped us come to a common vision, function as a team, and communicate better using a shared language. This has made a difference in bringing organization back into the company.John C. Schweiger, Executive Chairman & CEO, Coming Attractions Theatres, Inc.

Q: Why should a company worried about the bottom line care about happiness at work?

Oriana: Over time, what we see from our data is that when we compare the least happy with the happiest people, there are significant differences. The least happy think they will stay in their job for another 18 months. During that time, they will be less focused on task, take more days off, and dedicate less energy to their work. Not only are they less productive, but they plan on doing this for an extended period of time, which is costly for a company.

Now Hiring Banner

Q: Now more than ever, employers are paying close attention to their employees because there’s such a scarcity of good staff. There are Help Wanted signs everywhere; simultaneously, there are few management positions and opportunities for advancement. How does an organization find and then keep high-performing employees?

Oriana: A lot of people will stay with a company even if they’re unhappy. It’s better to have a job than not, but the minute they find something better, they’re out the door. Just because someone’s hanging in there doesn’t mean they’re happy and going to stay—especially high-performing people. They’ll still be high-performing but also highly motivated to look for a new job or company.

When you look at an individual iPPQ report, it is often clear what would need to change for the person to reclaim their well-being and productivity. And action can be taken. One client looked at his iPPQ and realized exactly what he felt was holding him back at work. He told us he had been planning to hand in his resignation that day and accept a job offer he’d received. With the insights he got from the report, he made the decision to stay. Within a couple of months, he’d made significant changes and subsequently became managing partner of the organization.

Especially now, as we emerge into what may be a radically different world at work, companies that pay attention to the well-being of their employees are well-positioned to retain their talent. Interestingly, what we have seen in our recent research is people really want to have opportunities to learn at work. When we compare the happiest at work and the least happy at work, people who say they have sufficient opportunity to learn at work are 29% happier and 17% more focused on task than their least happy counterparts. They also want to stay 27 months in their job. When we translate this to financials, the people who are both happy and feel they are learning at work will be generating nearly $10,000 more in productivity per year. These are the employees everyone wants to keep! They are happy, intrinsically motivated, and on a path of constant self-development, which will up their levels of contribution and productivity.

Executive Coaching: Why Bother? Why Now?

COVID-19 is spiking, Oregon’s Governor Brown just declared a two-week freeze, and businesses are scrambling to determine what the 2021 landscape will look like. Some predict the virus’s spread will worsen and further shutdowns will be necessary, while others anticipate a return to quasi-normality following the introduction of a vaccine. In any case, uncertainty is the name of the game.

As a leader, you need to be prepared for not just the present, not just what’s around the corner, but what lies beyond the foreseeable future. Instead of lamenting potential revenue losses during these fragile times, begin to think of this pause as an opportunity to deepen your and your team’s knowledge, skills, and vision so your company is resilient enough to withstand and even triumph during times of crisis.

To give your organization the best chance of surviving—and thriving—you need to focus on your own growth, sanding down the rough edges while equipping yourself with a toolkit for success.

Co-Active Coaching

Executive coaching can take you there … but not just any type of executive coaching. Capiche leans on co-active coaching techniques like those taught at the Co-Active Training Institute, which emphasize clarity of communication, conversation, awareness-raising, and concrete actions.

A co-active leadership coach partners with you to reveal your strengths and push you toward greatness. Together, you will identify problem areas and strategies for addressing those weaknesses. Be prepared to be inspired—and held accountable.

Are You Ready?

Before you dive in, ask yourself, Are You Ready to Be Coached? Don’t fool yourself—the co-active coaching process is hard work. But that hard work yields exceptional results.

Growth can be painful. It may require you to examine aspects of yourself you’d rather leave hidden. Exposing those vulnerabilities, however, can divest them of their power over you and enable you to rise above them.

Co-active coaching is a creative, experimental process. You need to enter it with an open, willing mind to fully benefit from the experience.

You also need to let go of perfectionism—waiting for the perfect moment to start, the perfect moment to pursue a new idea, the perfect moment to resolve issues that have been festering underneath the surface. The perfect moment is NOW.

What Do You Get Out of Co-Active Coaching?

Honing your emotional intelligence (EI), strengthening your willpower muscle, developing true grit, deepening your humility, heightening your sense of responsibility—all of these occur as part of the co-active coaching process and ultimately result in your becoming the finest leader you possibly can be.

Perhaps the best-known executive coach in the world, Marshall Goldsmith has conducted extensive research on what drives leadership success. As discussed in this Capiche blog post, the level of employee engagement is not the responsibility of the employees but rather their managers. It is when leaders accept that responsibility that their team begins to mirror that behavior back. You need to model the type of person you would like your team members to be.

Is it worth the effort? If you care about your company, your team, and yourself, then the answer is an emphatic “Yes!”

In this Forbes article, business thinker and author Erika Andersen outlines the following benefits of executive coaching:

  1. It helps you see yourself more clearly.
  2. It helps you see others more clearly.
  3. It teaches you new ways to respond.
  4. It illuminates how to leverage your existing strengths.
  5. It enables you to build more productive relationships.
  6. It gives you the tools to achieve what you want.

It’s Time

So you’re convinced. You realize it’s time to stop procrastinating and to commit to co-active coaching. How do you find the right fit for your personality, needs, and goals? Read this blog post for starters. Then contact Chris Cook at chris@capiche.us or 541.601.0114 to schedule a complimentary phone or video consultation so you can discover if she is the right co-active leadership coach for you.

What Would You Do If You Couldn’t Fail?

In October 2011, I posted one of my first blogs on my then-new website. Countless posts later, I am often reminded of these questions posed by Dr. Robert H. Schuller.

So I ask you these three simple questions:

  1. If you knew you could not fail and those around you would wholeheartedly support you, what would you do?
  2. Are you doing it?
  3. If not, then why?

Oh, and one final question …

If your reason for not doing something is that you’re afraid of failing or being judged … how much worse would that be than never having tried?

And remember: it’s better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly.
It’s better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly. Share on X (If this kind of questioning feels helpful, perhaps it’s time for you to start working with a coach. I have two openings for coaching clients at this time, so give me a call at 541.601.0114 or email me and let’s start a conversation.)

Eureka! Why Relaxation May Be the Key to Optimal Performance, Creativity, and Flow

There’s a reason Eureka moments tend to strike in the shower—or in the case of Archimedes, the bath. Performing mindless activities gives our brain an opportunity to relax, kicking the prefrontal cortex (a.k.a. the brain’s command center) into autopilot mode. That daydreamy state is when creativity emerges.

In this Business Insider article on why 72% of people get their best ideas in the shower, Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman explains, “The relaxing, solitary, and non-judgmental shower environment may afford creative thinking by allowing the mind to wander freely and causing people to be more open to their inner stream of consciousness and daydreams.”

Whether we’re scrubbing dishes or practicing meditation, letting our brain idle increases alpha brain wave activity, known to boost creativity and reduce depression.

How does this translate to the workplace? No, we’re not saying you should install showers or offer transcendental meditation classes (although that may not be such a bad idea). Rather, you may wish to cultivate an organizational culture that encourages play, humor, quiet, and relaxation—all ingredients to heightened productivity and creative flow, most famously studied by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

No number of hacky sacks and hammocks will counteract the toxic miasma of a stressful, high-anxiety workplace, however, and that cortisol-spiking atmosphere often starts at the top.

If an organization’s leaders exhibit stress, fear, rigidity, and panic under pressure, those emotions quickly spread to the employees.

How many times have you entered a meeting in a good mood only to leave feeling anxious and tense? This article by Psychologist Daniel Goleman discusses a study that revealed the contagious nature of moods in work groups and calls on leaders to practice the emotional intelligence necessary to prevent their own stress from infecting the group.

It’s no surprise that people want calm, assertive leaders as this Psychology Today piece explains. If you are wheeled into the hospital for emergency surgery, do you want the head surgeon to fly into hysterics, or do you want her to calmly assess the situation, lay out a clear plan of action, and set to work?

How people respond to crises reveals a lot about them, and demonstrating resilience, resourcefulness, and ingenuity in the face of obstacles instills employees with confidence and trust in their leadership.

That’s one reason this Harvard Business Review article encourages first-time leaders to relax. Employees sense insecurity and anxiety in their leaders, and that lack of confidence derails productivity.

As the Tao Te Ching states:

“When your body is not aligned,
The inner power will not come.
When you are not tranquil within,
Your mind will not be well ordered.
Align your body, assist the inner power,
Then it will gradually come on its own.”

If you want your employees to achieve the optimal performance, relaxed alertness, and creativity possible in a serene, inspiring environment, you need to cultivate your own inner balance, emotional intelligence, and mental well-being.

To get expert guidance from an empathetic yet challenging co-active coach, contact Chris Cook about her leadership coaching services. If your organizational culture could use an injection of positivity and transformative authenticity, Capiche can help with that, too.

It’s Time to Disrupt Our Leadership Culture

Which of these statements can you relate to? Check the boxes.

  • I don’t love my current job.
  • I often feel alone.
  • I often feel like an impostor.
  • There’s something new I want to try, but fear is holding me back.
  • I’m in a new season filled with uncertainty.
  • I know I have what it takes, but I’m tired and sometimes I want to quit.

Guess what? You’re not alone.

Last week, I was fortunate to participate in the 2019 Women’s Leadership Conference and attended a session called “The Value of Disrupting Leadership Culture.” I didn’t expect the session to begin with all of us women checking boxes on a half-sheet of paper with these six statements. It made me feel a little (or maybe a lot) vulnerable.

We each folded our sheets and passed them over two to the right. Then one back. Then three more to the right. We were now all holding someone else’s sheet, but we weren’t sure whose.

That’s when the magic happened. One by one, the presenter read each statement. All whose sheet had that box checked stood. Six times. We heard each statement, and each time, a large group of our peers—all successful women in their own right—were standing up for us.

We weren’t alone.

We then listened as the presenters debunked the concept that we should follow others on the paths they once blazed to success—which were now safe and proven. What if our truest path to groundbreaking success lies in who we already are—foibles and all? What if our perceived “weaknesses” are what will set us apart and propel our respective industries forward?

Every day, we’re seeing examples of how purposeful disruption of our traditional leadership culture is the key to our individual success. You can own who you are and know you are not alone.

Thanks to session presenters Lindsay McPhail and Kristy Laschober for their insights.

Ready?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above or you’re ready to launch your own disruption of leadership culture, call 541.601.0114 or email Chris to get going on the next chapter of your life! Whether you’re interested in leadership coaching or reshaping your organization’s culture, Capiche has you covered.

What Employees Want from Their Boss

This morning I was watching a video in my USA Today newsfeed, and I came across an article about five things a boss looks for in an employee. What the video didn’t note is that employees look for the same five things in their boss. It got me to thinking about the strategy session I just led for a multi-state business. It came to light at the outset of the strategy session—and was reinforced throughout—that bosses and employees are looking for the same things in one another and need to have the ability to hold each other accountable.

Here’s a tool to help make that happen: a designed team alliance (DTA). I start each strategy session with a DTA, something I learned from my work with CRR Global. A DTA sets the stage for a productive meeting, workshop, or any sort of session where people come together to accomplish a goal. Participants agree upon how they want to “be” together and how to handle conflict when it occurs. For example, traits that come up as desirable often include: respect, openness to new ideas, listening, promptness, equal participation, and confidentiality. Undesirable behavior may include judgment, interrupting others, checking emails, and using cell phones.

Designed Team Alliance Meeting NotesIn the training I led last week, one of the values the team agreed on was no BS—and to call it if you see it. Just as important as creating a productive space is agreeing on how to handle conflict.

This strategy session went beautifully, and when we hit the point where everyone was being assigned specific tasks to help the organization meet measurable goals, the issue of accountability came up.

For all of you leaders, I promise your employees are seeking accountability (and no BS) from you. You must take your “assignments” and deadlines as—or even more—seriously as your team. If you are counting on them to complete tasks in a timely manner, they need to know they can count on you to do the same.

They want to know what you are doing to help further the organization. They want transparency. And they want to be able to tell you when something you’re doing is not working.

However, this can be complicated.

It’s up to you as a leader to facilitate and nurture a climate that allows employees to talk with you frankly and openly, even if it’s a message you don’t want to hear. If you want your team to be all in, you have to be willing to accept the same kinds of feedback you give your employees.

Looking to create a more productive workplace? Let’s get started with a DTA for your team. Call me at 541.601.0114 or email chris@capiche.us.

Winning with Joy: The Golden State Warriors

I don’t usually do this, but after a meeting last week with friend and colleague Diana Hartley, I was inspired. She told me about her love for the Golden State Warriors and how it came to be. This story resonated with me so strongly I had to share. Below is Diana’s article.

Note: This post was originally published at Diana Hartley Consulting. Thanks to Diana for allowing us to republish it here.

Sports has never been my thing. I was raised in New York City, which meant my family’s sports were shopping and going out to eat. As a child raised partially in Manhattan and West LA, I did attend a few Dodgers games and one or two evenings of Golden Gloves boxing (of all places for my dad to take us in our white gloves and Mary Janes!).

Sports was never encouraged, so after a few attempts at biking and roller skating and falling into rose bushes, I gave up in favor of indoor activities such as ballet, jazz, and tap. I was in LA, and that’s what young ladies did at the time. It took decades, but sports showed up big time last year, and I am thrilled it did.

Last year when my friend Jim started talking a mile a minute (not his normal speed) about Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors, I listened. His nonstop enthusiasm brought me into his living room to watch Steph and the team do remarkable things night after night, game after game—all the way through the playoffs and their championship win. Wow, such happy energy, such honest victories. I was smitten.

I think what really made me fall in love, besides the high I always get from watching excellence, was how the team seemed to be coached. Something was different about the Warriors. I could feel it. Head Coach Steve Kerr stressed having fun while still being able to compete at the highest level.

“It’s a long season, this was meant to be fun,” he was quoted as saying in a CBS Bay Area article in 2015.

His style seemed down to earth, positive, and highly effective, with no BS and very little ego. In the same article, he described four important values from his coaching philosophy. They are joy, compassion, mindfulness, and competition. Who would have thought three of these values would be soft skills?

Even though the NBA basketball season is the longest in sports—with six more weeks of playoffs until the final championship game—the Warriors brought it with heart and savvy to each and every game. They had what it took to finish the season as champs. Steve’s humane coaching style, generally relaxed demeanor, and wry sense of humor kept everyone grounded and focused.

“When we hit those four things, we’re not only very tough to beat, but we’re very fun to watch, we’re very fun to coach, we’re very fun to be around,” he told the reporter.

How could these values be used to coach a sports team? How does Kerr use them to bring success to his team? Can joy, compassion, and mindfulness really be part of a winning strategy in the highly competitive world of professional basketball? We’re talking about an organization worth $3.1 billion. Do soft skills generate sports dominance and billions of dollars, too? It appears so for the Golden State Warriors organization.

I am not in the locker room or practice facility nor at courtside, but I intuit the word “joy” to mean a great, easy enjoyment for playing with teammates who love the game equally. The Warriors really seem to love what they do, and their enthusiasm is contagious. As their fans know, when the Warriors are on, you can feel the joy in your living room.

The team plays for the love of the game, and that’s joy. Kerr’s coaching style supports handpicked players who work hard for each other because they are all crazy about basketball. It gives them the juice to play a tough game night in and night out for months on end. I believe their natural exuberance comes from team pride and a desire to deliver victories to their huge fan base, both young and old.

Mindfulness, well, that’s another story. I don’t know what that means to Coach Kerr, but for me it is staying tuned to the present moment, acknowledging and respecting others. I see this presence and lack of negativity each time a player is interviewed, teaches their youngest fans the fundamentals of the game, or speaks lovingly about the charities they so generously donate time and money to. These individuals care about others a great deal.

Compassion is empathy at its best. I know that when I feel compassion, I extend my heart to others and am open to understanding them even when it’s hard, even when I don’t like them. It is a belief in people, fairness, and acceptance. Compassion means caring for others, sometimes more than yourself. I see this in the unselfish way the Warriors share the ball as they play. Kerr supports team victories, not star player victories.

And, of course, the last value—competition—must be present to be your best in the world. For the Warriors, I do not think competition means “winning at any cost” because the other three values make competition a game, not ego enhancement. They are great role models for fairness in sports and the many young people who look up to them. This means they competite to win, naturally, but they also compete with themselves to be better every day. All great athletes compete with themselves first.

Why did I share this blog on Coach Kerr and the Warriors (besides being a crazy fan)? Okay, so I wanted to write about them for a while, but I also wanted to show you a winning example of cooperation, teamwork, joy, mindfulness, and compassion, within a competitive business. I wanted you to see that a team, with fans throughout the world, can be role models for how we interact with others in everyday life and can create a win-win situation.

I know that if all of us can embody these values in our daily lives, we will find a way to create a world that works for us all. That is my hope for a brighter future.

So, go out there and be a warrior of joy.

Photo: Thanks to Ron Adams, Ray Rider, and Matt de Nesnera of the Golden State Warriors organization for this photo.

Is Radical Candor the Key to Transforming Your Company?

You know that employee who means well but is so ill-suited to her responsibilities that her coworkers have to pick up the slack? Or the knowledgeable guy who looked great on paper before you hired him but who is now disrupting the workplace with his logorrhea?

Let’s face it—sometimes we make mistakes. We get one impression of a candidate during the hiring process and later discover he or she is a poor fit for our organization’s culture. Maybe we inherit a bad apple from a predecessor. Whatever the reason, as managers we occasionally encounter a problem employee whose behavior compromises the effectiveness of the team or even the larger organization.

But you’re a nice person—how do you tell these folks they’re not measuring up to your expectations, or even more awkward, that some personal idiosyncrasy is irritating the rest of the staff?

Perhaps the offense isn’t egregious enough to merit termination, requiring tact given that you and your team will need to continue collaborating with this individual.

So what do you do? Candor, Inc. cofounder and CEO Kim Scott has two words for you: radical candor. Forget the spoonful of sugar—pour that medicine right down their gullet. Be brave enough to give employees candid feedback about their performance.

In Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity—currently the #1 Best Seller in Workplace Culture at Amazon—Scott presents a management philosophy based on two counterbalancing approaches: you need to care personally while simultaneously challenging directly.

Scott coins the term obnoxious aggression for the brutal honesty managers exhibit when they don’t care. Those are the one-in-five-psychopath CEOs we discussed in a previous article. That’s not the kind of candor we mean.

On the flip side, compassionate managers who don’t want to hurt their employee’s feelings are practicing what Scott calls ruinous empathy. That is equally destructive, not only undermining your leadership but compromising the integrity of the workplace by allowing poor workmanship to slide.

What may surprise you—when you do muster the courage to confront an employee about problematic behavior—is that withholding honest assessment of a person’s abilities and performance actually harms the employee, too. He may find himself continually fired from job after job without ever understanding why and being given the opportunity to correct his behavior.

While Scott’s advice may be old hat to veteran leaders, less-seasoned managers can benefit from her general rules of thumb: practice humility, offer immediate feedback and deliver criticism in private.

The last thing you want to do is shame an employee. That will only serve to trigger her defense mechanisms, and she won’t be able to absorb your instruction.

Instead, take more of a mentorship approach. Maybe you’ve made similar missteps in your past—share an example of where you went awry and how you appreciated when someone took you to task for your shortcomings. Let the employee know you’re on her side and you want to come up with a solution together, whether it involves reconfiguring the job description to focus on strengths and offset weaknesses or introducing some ground rules to help curb the problematic behavior.

However you choose to approach situations like this, remember to practice emotional intelligence along with radical candor, and you’ll be ahead of most bosses when it comes to giving honest but sensitive feedback.

Being Self-Employed: What’s Not to Love? Plus, This 1 Tip Will Boost Your Productivity—and Happiness

It’s the life many of us daydream about while languishing in a stagnant job where our talents go untapped and unappreciated: starting our own business.

And many act on that dream—nearly a third (30%) of the American workforce comprises the self-employed and their employees (approximately 15 million in 2014) according to this Pew Research Center article.

Working at home, earning 50% more, doing what we love, using our gifts, finding a sense of purpose, calling our own shots—sounds sweet, doesn’t it?

The reality, however, may not be so rosy. That’s not to say striking out on your own doesn’t have its rewards—a lot of those perks we just mentioned are borne out by statistics.

Work-Life Imbalance

There’s a flip side many fail to realize until they’re ensconced in their new venture: that work-life balance Americans already have trouble achieving? For most self-employed, work trounces life beginning on Day One.

If you’re thinking about becoming your own boss, be prepared to say goodbye to evenings, weekends, eight-hour workdays, sick leave, vacation time.…

The Overwork Epidemic

This Gallup report reveals 49% of the US self-employed put in at least 44 hours a week—10% more than their employee counterparts at the time. Worse, 26% of the self-employed workers Gallup surveyed reported working more than 60 hours a week. A later Gallup article calculates the average employee work week at 47 hours, with 25% reporting working more than 60 hours—nearly catching up to the self-employed.

American freelancers aren’t the only ones suffering from overwork. This 2016 Quarterly National Household Survey reports that Irish employees averaged 34.6 hours a week during the first quarter of 2016 as compared with 44 hours for the self-employed.

And that earlier statistic about the self-employed (specifically incorporated business owners) earning up to 50% more than their employee counterparts—it turns out 29% of that increase is due to their working more hours. Entrepreneurs may earn more on average, but that comes at the cost of time.

The Secret to Productivity

It doesn’t have to be that way, though—in fact, it shouldn’t. According to this Fast Company article, the secret to accomplishing more isn’t working more hours—it’s working fewer.

Our brains need regular breaks to recharge. When we neglect this fundamental requirement, productivity dips.

A recent Draugieum Group experiment showed those workers with the greatest productivity rates took a surprising number of breaks—for every 52 minutes of work, they took about 17 minutes off.

And we’re not talking about playing computer Solitaire or checking Facebook. The kind of breaks our brains need do not involve electronic devices—instead, try taking a brisk walk, reading a chapter in your latest book or enjoying a non–work-related chat with a colleague.

To many of us, that sounds like a lot of downtime, but our brains reward us by performing more efficiently during the time actually worked.

That magic trick applies whether you’re an employee, independent contractor, business owner, freelancer or entrepreneur.

Working fewer hours and getting more accomplished—now that sounds pretty sweet.

Need Help Taking More Breaks?

Here are some additional tips from Fast Company on how and why to take more breaks as well as what you may be doing wrong.

The workaholics among you probably need more hands-on assistance with reforming your work habits, and that’s where Chris Cook comes in. As a self-employed co-active coach, Chris can help you achieve your professional goals while maintaining a healthy life balance. Call her at 541.601.0114 or email chris@capiche.us to get started today.

What Are Words For: 6 Writing Tips from the Masters

If you only remember one lesson from The Elements of Style—affectionately known as Strunk & White—it’s probably Rule 17 in the “Principles of Composition” chapter.

Editors hear William Strunk’s curmudgeonly admonition “Omit needless words” every time they strike out a“very” or superfluous “that.” Or—as I like to put it—“Omit needless words.” Once you adopt this mantra, formerly invisible words pulse red as you read. You may even be seeing red now.

While our last post explored how your diction affects others’ sense of your power when speaking, this article focuses on the written word—although the lessons apply equally to speech.

Below are six writing tips from the masters.

1) 1+1 = ½

Sol Stein spins Strunk’s famous edict another way in his formula 1+1 = ½. In Stein on Writing, the master editor reveals this secret to powerful writing: redundant language weakens.

If you’re using two words to say the same thing, you’re diluting the effect. Axe the less precise word or find a single term that captures the meaning of both, and you’ll strengthen your sentence.

2) Beware of Modifiers

Sol Stein’s Reference Book for Writers warns us adjectives and adverbs “weaken nouns and verbs, and therefore weaken your writing.” If you can swap out an adverb for a more telling verb, do so.

Trade “ran quickly” for “scampered,” and the sentence jumps from report to story. The reader visualizes the subject scampering away, learning something about the subject’s motives and character in the process.

3) Conquer Clichés

Watch any reality TV show, and you’ll realize it’s a pastiche of clichés, from “I’m not here to make friends” to “It would mean the world to me.” We breathe them in like smog, scarcely noticing how polluted our language has become.

4) Jettison Jargon

Bullshit Bingo players racking up the points during a staff meeting know the workplace is riddled with jargon.

Orwell predicted as much in “Politics and the English Language”, where his fifth rule of writing cautions, “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”

5) Use Active Voice

Out of Orwell’s six writing rules, we’ve already covered four (banish clichés, embrace brevity, trim fat and ditch jargon). His number-one rule tops nearly every editor’s list, too: “Never use the passive where you can use the active.”

The classic example of cowardly passive voice (which misdirects the audience by omitting the subject responsible for the action) is, “Mistakes were made.” No, you made a mistake. Muster some moxie and admit, “I made a mistake.” That’s how passive becomes active.

6) Remain Civil

What’s Orwell’s final mandate to writers? “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.” That’s right—civility outclasses dogma. Value dignity, respect for others, ethics and graciousness over nitpicky rules. In other words, don’t let your newfound linguistic powers turn you into a grammar Nazi.