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executive coaching

Episode 18: Brian Underhill on executive coaching, politics, and presence [The Amiel Show]

Episode 18: Brian Underhill on executive coaching, politics, and presence [The Amiel Show]

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Brian-Underhill

Brian Underhill founded the world’s most experienced leadership coaching company, CoachSource. And he’s personally seen it all. So, I thought, what better person to ask about the “undiscussable issues” in leadership coaching?

In Episode 18 of the podcast, we discuss:

  • 10:30 Why many people still associate executive coaching with being messed up
  • 16:45 When leaders’ direct managers want them to be more like them
  • 19:45 The crucial role that HR leaders play in coaching
  • 23:00 How companies discuss the ROI of coaching
  • 29:00 Executive presence, grooming, and media skill
  • 38:00 Political challenges around executive coaching
  • 41:00 When coaches are asked to be surrogates for managers like George Clooney’s character in the film Up in The Air
  • 43:00 The challenge of integrating leaders from other cultures
  • 48:00 Brian’s personal use of peer coaching to stick to his goals

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Episode 7: Bob Dunham On Reliable Promises And Listening For Commitment

Episode 7: Bob Dunham On Reliable Promises And Listening For Commitment

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Amazing things happen when you remove your blinders and see what it actually takes to coordinate action with others. First, you focus on how we make commitments to each other through conversation. Then, you realize that listening isn’t about being nice. It’s about producing reliable promises. Finally, you take seriously the notion that your public identity–or “personal brand”–depends on your understanding of others’ concerns, the offers you make to address those concerns, and your emotional mood as you walk down the hallway.

Bob Dunham has been introducing leaders and coaches to these points for three decades–and helping them practice their way to excellence. In Episode 7 of The Amiel Show, Bob distilled these lessons into an hour of actionable insights. Bob and I discussed:

  • 2:00 Our blindness that action starts with commitment
  • 7:00 How understanding conversations demystifies innovation
  • 13:00 Bob’s rapid success as a manager by evoking reliable promises
  • 21:00 The conversation for action, listening acts, emotions, and body language
  • 33:30 Getting people to say “yes” is an absolute disaster
  • 40:00 Having opinions but no evidence
  • 51:00 Personal brands and influencing senior leaders
  • 57:30 What Bob is personally practicing in his life

BD-edited

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Learning to lead

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The challenge lies in making use of on-the-job experiences. This means finding better ways to identify developmentally significant jobs, to move the right people to them and to help talented people learn from them. How well these things are done is far more important than how formal or elegant the procedures are.

—The Lessons of Experience by McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison, 1988

In 1988, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) published an important study. Important because of the insights it contained, and important because it has largely been ignored for the past 25 years. CCL interviewed successful executives to better understand how they got better at leading. These were in-depth interviews, the kind that allow participants to tell stories about their experiences and reveal what they had learned.

The researchers found that the primary way successful executives learned was from on-the-job experience. Not training, not books, but the work itself. Hence the title of their book, The Lessons of Experience. [Read more…] about Learning to lead

Waking Up The World [March 2003]

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When movers and shakers in the world declare that they feel powerless, it is time to take notice. In the past week, several people I consider teachers and leaders of the highest order have made precisely this declaration with reference to the war in Iraq. I did not argue with them. Yet as the murmur of their words settled in my mind, I began to sense that this moment in history calls for a richer response. It is not that the feeling of lacking efficacy is untrue. Instead, this feeling is but one of many truths – and, of these, the least likely to be helpful.

When we say that we lack power and criticize people we think have it, we are engaging in what Harvard researchers Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey call the language of complaint. This language is pervasive in our organizations and families. Indeed, it is so common that we hardly notice it. It is particularly prominent when compared with declarations of what we truly care about, or the language of commitment.

What is wrong with a culture where it is more permissible to complain than to state our commitments? Nothing, other than (a) life becomes less fulfilling and (b) it’s harder to get things done. This is why it is so painful to be part of conversations lamenting the war and the futility of our actions. It is also why we can’t seem to find an alternative to them. [Read more…] about Waking Up The World [March 2003]