Archives: 2015
September 28th, 2015
My last post, titled “Looking Forward” was focused on the work we do when we’re in the planning stages of our life, whether it’s our own personal development or the kind of strategic planning we do as an organization or a team. For some reason fall feels like a good time to look back.
What I see, from this vantage point, is you. You are one of a number of very committed, talented, articulate and caring leaders. You come from all kinds of diverse industries – fashion, tech, CPG, health care, to name just a few – and you represent a range of ages, from 20 something millennials to 60+ year old boomers. You’ve held all kinds of jobs, the good, the bad and the ugly.
A few weeks ago I found myself on a radio panel on the show Vermont Edition, with Jane Lindholm, discussing exactly that – Why We Hate/Love Our Jobs. My fellow panelist, Renee Beaupre-White, director of career services at Castleton University, had some great advice for those just starting out in their careers. Take risks. Don’t spend all of your energy looking for your ideal job. Try things out. You never know where that might lead.
I didn’t have a chance to say so on the air, but I’d like to offer the same advice to all of you more experienced, well-worn, been-there-done-that worker bees. Even if you’re a senior leader, in fact, especially if you’re a senior leader, be willing to look at other ways of doing things, other ways of looking back at what’s worked with your team/company and ways to do things differently. A way to look back to learn more about yourself and your team. To look at things from a different perspective, take a more positive approach, reinvent your problem solving process.
This month also coincides with the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, known as the Day of Atonement. A day to give thanks, and praise, and to humble oneself. A good practice for every leader, no matter your faith, no matter the time of year.
Life’s short. Clear eyes, strong hearts, can’t lose.
June 26th, 2015
Wow! Do you ever feel like life is moving so quickly that there’s rarely time to stop, look around, much less look forward? As you know, part of my work as an OD consultant is help companies large and small – sometimes just individual entrepreneurs – plan for their futures, both strategically and tactically. It just hit me that I hadn’t ever done the same thing for myself; not for Cole Consulting, not for Peter Cole.
So I did.
Not in the tired old way, using the classic SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to get started, but in the way I’ve come to appreciate as a more affirmative, results-oriented approach: the SOAR method.
SOAR takes the positive half of the SWOT, omits the negative, and brilliantly adds Aspirations and Results; providing both an inspirational element along with a very practical, tactical Results focused component. This fits perfectly with some of the other work I’ve been personally inspired by recently in the field of Positive Psychology. Check out Dr. Maria Sirois’ site, a colleague of mine, for some inspiration of you own.
I have had the good fortune to facilitate some very meaningful, powerful, insightful and productive strategic planning sessions with a number of organizations and teams. During the past few years I’ve been struck by how different it’s been to use the SOAR process. I recently led a team of about a dozen scientists through their SOAR and came away in awe of how creative and synergistically innovative their planning process was. What historically would have taken two to three days to achieve, they knocked out in less than a day. What was even more impressive was the fact that there was no ‘afternoon meeting fatigue’. No wondering how it might all fit together. Their energy was infectious, their commitment contagious, their synergies inspiring. The team’s manager wrote us afterwards… “Thank you so much for the excellent Strategy session yesterday with the team. It was a very productive and fun meeting! I am so pleased the whole team engaged, participated, and drafted excellent action plans.” It’s not often that we get to hear “meeting” and “fun” in the same sentence.
When I completed the SOAR process for myself I had the most amazing epiphany! I could clearly see how elements in each of my four quadrants connected to one another. Connect the dots! Certain Strengths led directly to definite Opportunities, which then connected to a few of my more meaningful Aspirations, leading right to a few very specific Results. My path forward, clearly spelled out.
Be forewarned… one of my results was to write more!
If you’d like to know more about SOAR and/or need a little help in putting the process in place, drop me a line or give me a call. I am happy to help – positively!
March 13th, 2015
My mother, Julie, may she rest in peace, was an avid gardener. She managed to get through the relatively long, hard winters of the NY metropolitan area not by flying south to Florida or other warm climes as so many of her friends did, but rather by sorting through seed catalogs and researching perennials to add to her flower beds. And reflecting on what she’s going to let go of to make room for the new.
She was accused of wearing rose colored glasses, forever seeing the positive and the beautiful, ignoring the worst in people, sometimes at the risk of avoiding what appeared to others as the obvious, looming misfortune. And yet she managed to remain positive even in the midst of the inevitable calamity that avoidance often brings.
As a leadership coach I often see people I’m working with avoiding the difficult conversations all around them – with a direct report who shirks their most basic responsibilities, with a boss who micromanages to the point of project destructiveness, or with a life partner who no longer supports the marriage. Avoiding the obvious does a disservice to us all. It is the profound difference between compassion and codependence. Having the difficult conversation is the path of compassion. Avoiding it perpetuates the codependence, unhealthy for all involved.
What does this have to do with rebirth, rejuvenation and/or renewal you may ask?
Everything.
I suggest that with the end of winter, we take these last cold, rainy days to reflect on what we need to let go of, what we need to clear out to make room for the wonderful new things that spring will bring, and the conversations, as difficult as they may be, that we need to have in order to move things forward. And we do so with a positive approach, an act or two of random kindness as a gift of gratitude for all that we have to be thankful for, and, with some rose colored glasses to shade us from the dark glare of the kooky world around us.
Happy Spring everyone!
