Weekly Inspiration: You Can Do It! (click) Affirmation by Louise Hay from her 2010 calendar:
- “I am dancing with joy. My life is so good.” I picked this one because I’ve had a series of physical challenges lately that literally makes it difficult to dance (nothing serious - just “old jock” stuff). I like the title because it starts with the word “learning”. We don’t feel like dancing with joy every day. How do we learn to live in gratitude for all the reasons to dance? One way is getting in the habit of watching the Simple Truths video - Learning to Dance in the Rain – The Power of Gratitude
- Last week, we passed the one-year-to-go anniversary to my daughter Molly’s wedding – 09-10-11. They haven’t picked the song for their first dance as a husband and wife. I’ve sent them a couple of suggestions just for the fun of it. I just put my favorite on my desktop - Colour My World, by Chicago, to remind me how to feel love around me every day. Enjoy!
XLR8 YOU!!! – An invitation to our vision:
For all of us to awaken to the magnificence of our limitless possibilities.
I was planning on moving on to The Passion Test as the next important step in providing clarity and focus in your life and leadership, however, something very interesting happened with one of our clients following her second 3600 assessment that I’d like to address.
We All Need Loving Critics
When Kouzes & Posner came out with A Leader’s Legacy in 2006, it immediately became the book we gave to all our “graduates” of the “XLR8 YOU!!! Leadership Excellence” process. One chapter that had an immediate impact on our coaching was Chapter 3: We All Need Loving Critics.
We use The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), their 30-question behavioral assessment, as one of two 3600 assessments. Their most recent analysis of data from more than seventy thousand individuals found that the statement that ranks lowest from the observers perspective is question # 16: “He (or she) asks for feedback on how his/her actions affects the other person’s performance.”
We found the same true was true from our experience with our coaching clients. We asked ourselves how we could help our clients ask “How am I doing?” more. Going forward we tried to emphasize the following:
- Getting back to their raters: While fundamental to initiate change, many find this very difficult.
- Creating an XLR8Forward inquiry on the leadership behavior they want to demonstrate more and handing it out at the feedback session and then again several months down the road.
- Read Marshall Goldsmith’s audio-tech summary: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (e-mail me if you would like a copy) and utilize Feedforward for quick ways of asking “How can I do better?”.
We are currently participating in a study of these changes with a PhD student in St. John Fisher’s Executive Leadership program. We chose to look at this because of one of our client’s remarkable second 3600 results.
Her second LPI showed the largest gains of just about anyone we have worked with. When we looked at question #16 (hers was also last at #30) in her first 3600, however, it was #19 (the highest we have ever seen) in her second 3600. She did an excellent job with all of the above suggestions, as well as acting on the ideas she felt would help the most.
We’ll let you know what we find in the research study. In the meantime, just ask the question: “How can I do better?”.
