Ginny Wilson-Peters' Blog
For most people, it’s not what they are that holds them back;
It’s what they think they are not.
John C Maxwell
I know better than to try and take an entire weekend retreat and narrow it down to just a few words to describe its impact on me. And yet I desperately want to do just that. As I went through the weekend, writing my journals, I found myself putting a star next to various sections and marking them “Blog”. And so it is that I’ve decided to share those sections, without a great deal of detail.
The experience I’m referring to was a 2.5 day leadership retreat in Princeton New Jersey. The retreat is based on neuroscience brain research to create a leadership retreat that combines emotional and cognitive learning and growth. Mission accomplished!
One former participant described the LIFE program (Leadership Initiative for Excellence) as the best and most life changing experience that he hoped to never have again.
After a difficult day of travel that started at 4AM, I arrived in Princeton NJ in the mid afternoon Friday. Our session officially began at 4PM and the first day concluded at midnight. I found myself so keyed up with emotions (mostly negative and judgmental) that I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill at 1AM in order to move the energy around in my body.
I started the next day at 5:30AM and made a conscious decision to use a brand new set of contacts. As I was putting in the new contacts, I said to myself, I’m putting in a new set of eyes today. My intention is to truly open up to learning.”
Mission Accomplished—but it wasn’t easy. One of the first exercises the second day involved the expression of big joy. I struggled with the exercise instructions and wrote the following in my notes:
“I was continually challenged to stop judging the process and focus on what I could learn about myself and how I could support others. I desperately wanted to get people to vote for me so I could sit down and stop the activity.
I noticed feeling very scared and then ashamed during the enthusiasm exercise. When I heard the feedback I felt angry (Just wait until YOU have to do this) and I wanted to retaliate by not voting for them. As I stood in front of the class I felt afraid and suffocated when people began giving me advice. I wanted to flee the group and the room.”
But I hung in there and put myself into the exercise 100%. With the support of the class, and by digging deep within myself, I successfully accomplished the task. And that exercise served as the true shift in my entire weekend.
Other journal comments from the weekend: “When I was cheering others on, I began with just doing it in order to support the team. As we continued though, I noticed more and more of my enthusiasm was coming from a genuine place of wanting to give my 100% to the person in the spotlight and to my team. I feel surprised that I could keep my energy level up so high for so long. I am thrilled that I did so. I feel such an increased confidence in knowing that I can sustain such a high energy level and that I do whatever I put my mind to, especially when I have the enthusiastic support of others. I feel excited and hopeful about taking action to make my vision become a reality.”
The LIFE retreat reinforces an important leadership concept; one that many people shy away from. Study after study continues to remind us that the best leaders are those who move through difficult (crucible) life experiences. By doing so, they gain the necessary skills (mental, emotional, and spiritual) in order to be better leaders. It really is true that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
The LIFE experience also aligns greatly with my work at Integrity Integrated Inc and my teaching with MBA students. My work is dedicated to creating opportunities that ignite people to explore new possibilities in their lives—personally and professionally. One of my teachers always used to say, “It’s not always easy, but it’s always good.”
Security is a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is not safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing
Helen Keller
Posted in Feedback, Teams | 4 Comments »
“Mind-blowing”; “amazing”, “helpful”, “enlightening”. These are just a sample of words used to describe the feedforward exercise from a recent weekend of MBA Leadership and Personal Development class.
The feedforward exercise is a modification of the exercise created by Master Coach, Marshall Goldsmith. http://www.marshallgoldsmithfeedforward.com/html/Articles.htm. Rather than giving people feedback about their past performance, the idea is to provide ideas for future performance, ie, how to do things different in the future in order to be a more effective leader.
Prior to class each student was asked to think about one area of leadership development they were willing to share with their small group with the intention of receiving feedforward ideas for the future. The class of 45 students was divided into groups of 5 or 6 students who hadn’t previously worked together in class. However, this was our third weekend of class so many of them had some previous interaction in the large group.
When the class came back together after completing the exercise, I asked them to complete the following: “This Feedforward exercise was BLANK.” That is when I heard some of the responses at the beginning of this blog. I think my favorite was “mindblowing.” What can I say? I love it when people think about things in a new way!
And while those words were exciting, what was most eye-opening was the comment from one of the students who said something like, “I was surprised at how quickly we all opened up and engaged in a meaningful conversation…Why is it that we can do this in this class but we can’t find anything close to that kind of conversation in our workplaces?”
We opened that question up to the class, and the majority of students said that many of their workplaces are so competitive that it is challenging to be vulnerable and have open conversations. And so I am once again struck by the irony of some of our business cultures. We want high performing work teams, but are we truly providing the opportunity and culture for our people to have the kind of conversations necessary to build solid teams?
Don’t worry—I didn’t let the students off the hook. I reminded them that if they wanted to be part of a culture that is open to having authentic conversations, then THEY have to be the ones to go first. After all, that is what leadership is all about—creating change. And leadership isn’t defined by a position but by your actions.
“A leader is anyone who is willing to help; anyone who sees something that needs to change and takes the first steps to influence that situation.” Margaret Wheatley (http://www.margaretwheatley.com)
For more about building trust in your organizations, consider books by Patrick Lencioni, such as “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, or “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” http://www.tablegroup.com/books/
“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear; so you can see what you don’t want to see; so you can be what you’ve always wanted to be.” (Tom Landry, former coach of Dallas Cowboys)
I’m learning more about coaching all over again. Last fall I began working with a personal trainer in order to improve my physical strength and to become healthier. In addition to the personal benefits gained, the process has solidified the value of the coaching process I use with my clients.
The training process with trainer Dave began with measuring weight, body fat and various body measurements. Yes, I was shocked to hear that while my overall weight wasn’t out of line, my body fat percentage was 31.5%, which put me in the 28th percentile for women my age. Wake up call—I’m ready for change!
The next step was to discuss my goals. Dave was great at helping me gain clarity about my goals—and where I wanted to be. For me, it wasn’t just about weight loss, but more about reducing body fat and also gaining muscle. My goal was to reduce my body fat percent to a very healthy 18%.
With the measurements and goals established, the hard work began. For me, that was three times a week training with Dave and three times a week of cardio and abs on my own. I also was diligent about my eating and kept a daily food diary.
This entire process has been a perfect reflection of the leadership development model I use. It begins with the realization that leadership is a measurable, teachable, and learnable set of skills. But just like weight loss, you don’t learn about it from reading a book—you learn—and make changes in your life by measuring, setting goals, and going out and practicing.
Step one in the leadership development process is to define your current reality (what are my strengths and weaknesses; how do others see me as a leader, etc). For many of my clients, we use a 360 leadership assessment to assist with this step. Results of the 360 assessment vary by client, but I will say that some clients receive the same type of wake-up call as I did with my body-fat percent. “You mean I’m NOT as good a leader as I thought I was?”
Step two in the process is to define our “ideal self”: how do we want to be seen as a leader? While step one requires a great deal of willingness to receive feedback from others; step two requires self-reflection, a willingness to dream, and to challenge ourselves to be our best.
And then the hard work begins. You know, I’m just like many other people. I was wondering why I couldn’t just get healthy without having to do all this hard work? Isn’t there a pill I can take and be done with it?
No pill for me—and no quick and easy pill for strengthening your leadership skills. Once you’ve defined your current reality and ideal self, it’s time to develop a plan and begin practicing new skills. Practice…practice…adjust as necessary…keep practicing. You won’t do everything perfect; that isn’t the goal. The goal is to continue on the path and to learn from your mistakes. (You mean I can’t have a large piece of chocolate cake and 2 glasses of wine for dinner and wonder why my energy level is so low??)
In my ten years of coaching others, I’ve witnessed other people create sustainable positive change in their lives and work. A short list of accomplishments includes:
- Improving listening skills (which helps both personally and at work)
- Gaining clarity on personal mission and vision and values
- Learning to better delegate
- Learning skills for leading change
- Exercising more self-regulation during challenging situations.
- Improving Emotional Intelligence skills
- Improving skills for visioning which in turn led to promotions to higher levels in the organization.
- And many more.
None of the above happened overnight. Leadership development is a journey. It requires an accurate assessment of current reality, defining your ideal self, establishing a plan of action, and then an ongoing commitment to practice and adjust as necessary.
Oh, and for me…I reached my goal. During my check-in last week, my body fat percent was 17.8%. Even though I’ve reached my goal, I’m continuing my commitment to my personal health, including healthy eating, exercise and continued work with my trainer. Thanks Dave!
“Life is not tried; it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire.”
From the song “Standing Outside the Fire” by Garth Brooks
“Are you willing to be unimportant and insignificant?” It was a straightforward question from a friend of mine. During a lunch conversation this summer he asked me those words. I stopped for a minute and told him that I honestly didn’t know the answer - which made it a great question. And I needed that kick in the pants to remind me to stay true to myself, even during times when I might not be taking a popular position on an issue.
Colleagues and friends who challenge me with tough questions are an important part of my leadership growth process. This past spring as I was preparing for my Vision Quest, I noticed that I was experiencing a disconnect from the community of women who share that experience with me. The women are located primarily in the Porland, Oregon area, so it was easy for me to blame geographical distance as the reason why I wasn’t feeling connected with them.
During a conversation with my teacher I shared my frustrations. She asked me if I would be willing to speak with some of the women and ask them what I was doing that contributed to the disconnect. OUCH! You mean that I have to ask people for feedback about how I might be responsible for the experience that I am having? I swallowed the lump in my throat and agreed to make those phone calls.
And so I did. Initially I asked them how I showed up that caused distance with each of them. While I had difficulty at times hearing some of the feedback, I stayed open to hearing from each of the women. I heard from some who said that I showed up as cold and unempathetic; judgmental, and withholding of feelings. Another said that I was more of a taker than a giver. Another said that she found a comment I made at the end of our ceremony last year to be judgmental and arrogant.
I took all of their feedback to heart and began working with even more awareness to be more open and less harsh with my comments. I expressed gratitude to each of the women who opened up and helped me to learn. In the process I also found myself feeling a great deal of excitement about going to camp and seeing all of them and fully opening to their support.
If that sounds painful to you, you’re right. As I listened to the feedback, I felt hurt, anger, shame and probably more. But I also felt hope. I felt a deep sense of gratitude for having women in my life who were willing to be honest with me in order to deepen our relationship and help me to grow. Those same conversations also helped us to build a stronger community. The experience I had this past summer on my Vision Quest was a deeply spiritual healing on many levels and I am quite certain that healing would not have happened had it not been for the conversations I had prior to going to camp.
Consider these questions as a starting point for your own journey into getting candid feedback:
1. If I were guaranteed honest responses to three questions, whom would I question and what would I ask?
2. What are my goals when I converse with people? What kinds of things do I usually discuss? Are there other topics that would be more interesting?
3. What am I pretending not to know?
4. When was the last time I confronted someone at work or at home about his or her behavior and ended the conversation having enriched the relationship?
Posted in Feedback, Self-Awareness | 1 Comment »
