A Quarry House Blog on Life, Work and Success
Last week I mentioned that I was going to be offering a free version of My “Reclaiming Your Creative Life” class free, on-line, in exchange for a little feedback on how well the webinar platform I am using works.
If you are interested in taking part, it will be on July 5th, at 7 PM. If you can’t make the live presentation, you can sign up anyway, and get a recording of the program to view at your convenience.
Interested? The details are here.
Tom
A note and free offer to my readers.
I am in the process of changing my platform for doing on-line meetings and classes. Sometime next week, I will be running a free trial – a free version of a class I do, aimed at helping people who have gotten away from their creativity recover the joy and power of their art (whatever art that might be.)
Why free? Because I need testers to tell me if the platform is working well. If this is something you’d be interested in doing, stay tuned. I’ll be doing an official launch early next week.
Tom
I began my work as a consultant/coach almost six years ago. And in that time I have learned this: That the most important question to ask yourself before bringing a consultant or coach into your life or work has nothing to do with what you want, or their credentials or the project itself.
I didn’t understand that at first. I had a hard time understanding why some clients flourished, and some did not and it’s taken a lot of note taking, study and number crunching to finally get to the place where I can say this in confidence – your success, whether it is on your own or with a consultant or coach helping you along the way, is your willingness to be uncomfortable.
That’s right, uncomfortable.
You see, if you are making progress – and this is true whether you are building a startup, re-inventing an organization, building your own perfect life, or recrafting your marketing – if you are making progress, you will get to the place where you have to change something you are comfortable with. And that thing you don’t want to change, while it feels comfortable, is what is holding you back. It’s the same for all of us.
It sounds pretty obvious. Change means change. But when we want to change something that is comfortable, something happens in our head. We become resistant. And many of us decide to just keep that roadblock in place.
It happens in technology. I had a client once (who will remain un-named) who hired my company to redo their audio room. They spent over a hundred thousand dollars on a new digital audio board. The new board was crazy powerful. It could do things that twenty years ago we never thought about doing. It was amazing. But the client was afraid of all the change. They were comfortable with how their old board worked. And so slowly, we dumbed down the new one, until it was the effective equivalent of the old, less than ten thousand dollar board we replaced. As far as I know, they never grew into the board and are still living without the change they claimed to want.
It happens to people and companies too. They are all fired up to change, to become something new, to re-invent, but at some point, we hit that comfort zone and it’s like running head first into a stone wall. Often I continue for a while as a consultant or a coach after we hit the wall, but inevitably, their discomfort is the end. All the advice, information, history and facts in the world can’t budge them.
I, as the consultant/coach generally gets the blame.
Fortunately, the reverse happens too. When clients take a deep breath and plunge through their comfort zone, they generally find out that stone wall is really made out of tissue paper. They barrel right through and suddenly, begin to make real progress. They almost inevitably get to where they want.
And I, as the consultant/coach generally gets the credit. But the credit is not mine. The credit goes to them. They pushed past their uncomfortableness and that’s where success is found.
They are no smarter than my less than totally successful clients. No richer. No more resources. They are simply braver. More willing to live in that place of uncomfortableness for a short while to get to where they want to be.
Here’s what is most remarkable about this.
It works for clients, no matter what they are after.
And, once the time of uncomfortableness is past, they all tell me the same thing – that it was not nearly as bad as they anticipated. The dire things they worried about did not happen.
All that worry for nothing.
So do you want to make a change in your life and work? A serious, major change? Don’t fret over the how. At least not at first. Save yourself a lot of time and work and getting halfway there by asking yourself if you are willing to be uncomfortable for a while.
If you are, you are already 2/3 of the way there.
Be well. Travel wisely
Tom
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Combining my business, arts and church blogs into one. Less work for me. And maybe some cross pollination as people were exposed to other sides of me.
Silly me.
I’ve been chewed up by readers this past week or so. Or a least a lot of my readers. It seems that my business readers have little use for poetry and spirituality. They don’t want to sort through the stuff they don’t care about to get to what they do.
And my spiritual, Christian, looking for a sermon readers don’t care much for things like marketing, leadership.
Oddly, my readers of poetry and art aren’t complaining. They may hate the idea, but they are quiet about it.
My other readers? Not so much.
So please, disregard my post about combining them all into one. I was wrong. I’m pretty good at it. That’s why the picture that heads this entry is my absolutely favorite picture of all the images I’ve ever taken.
With that in mind, you might want to check out this TED talk on being wrong. It was great for me and my slightly bruised ego. If you hate being wrong, this might give you another way to look at it.
So. back to 3 blogs on three subjects. This, of course, is my work blog, focused on my work as a personal coach and corporate consultant.
My blog that follows my part-time pastorate, with occasional sermons and topics of faith, is Two Tiny Churches.
My blog of poetry, thoughts, and photography is The Quarry House Blog.
Be well. Travel wisely. And don’t worry about being wrong.
It can be good for you.
Tom
I am making some changes in my blog.
Actually, I am making some changes in all my blogs. You see, I have several. One for my work as a coach and consultant. One for my work as a pastor. One for my poems, essays, and photography. One for my affirmations and memes. One for my artwork.
Following all the tenants of modern marketing, that’s the smart thing to do. It’s called micro-marketing or target marketing, and you create separate paths, each one tailored to a specific group, to draw them in. People who read poetry, the thinking goes, aren’t going to be interested in business reading. Business people aren’t into that touchy feely faith stuff. You get the idea.
But a new client recently blew that concept of micro-marketing right out of the water for me. I’ve known this guy for 20 years. I once hired him as an intern, gave him his start and watched him soar. He’s done remarkably well and is ready, twenty years later, to make some major life changes. He called on me out of the blue.
“Why me?” I asked. He lives in a major city. There are zillions of life coaches in big cities. High powered, well-known guys. The kinds of guys he works with all the time and would feel comfortable with. I live in Nowhere, Vermont. I run a small, low-key coaching practice. I like it that way, but I am not exactly the kind of guy this client normally works with.
“It’s because you do everything.” he said. “I don’t want a compartmentalized life any more. It’s too hard. I want everything to fit together better. And that’s what you do. “But,” he said. “You sure make it hard for people to realize that about you, with all your different blogs.”
Ouch.
I mean, I am the guy who writes about an integrated life, why it’s so important, how to do it, I teach it. In everything I do, from technology consulting, to coaching to preaching, I mix in elements of all the different things I do.
Screw modern marketing. I am going to practice what I preach.
Over the next few weeks, I will be combining my blogs into one. The one will be my Quarry House Blog. If you like what you have been getting here, please go there and start following me from there.
When you do, you will start getting a mix of everything I do. Posts will be labeled, with new headers. Not just “Poems” or “Thoughts”, but also “Life”, “Work”, “Faith” and “Art”. Just ignore the stuff you are not interested in and read the stuff you are. Or read it all. You might find they all blend together in a way you like.
It will happen slowly. I get married in just a few days and will likely disappear for a week or so. And it will take time to do the technical part of the merging. But that’s where I am heading, so if you start seeing changes, you’ll know why. Eventually, I will be closing this one down. But all the articles will go to the Quarry House Blog.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for your comments and letting me know when and how I make a difference. And thank you for bearing with my changes. Like everyone, I am still learning,
Be well. Travel Wisely,
Tom
The Children are Right
The children are right.
All you have to do is shut your eyes,
and breath,
and believe,
and fly.
About this poem
Sometimes. Mostly. We make it too complicated. Whatever “it” is.
Tom
If you could do one thing, just one thing, that would improve your organization, increase sales and profitability, lower turnover and create a more engaged workforce, would you?
There is such a thing. It’s called leadership. And the studies show that more than anything we can do for our organizations, building better leaders makes a positive difference.
First, let’s look at the cost of poor leadership.
According to a major study by the Blanchard corporation, poor leadership costs companies an average of 7% of sales. What else can you do to increase your sales by 7%
Depending on the company, better leadership could reduce turnover anywhere from 9% to 32%. Consider the cost of hiring and training new employees and executive and that’s a serious drag on profits.
according to Gallop’s American Workplace report, only 30% of employees are truly engaged in their work. 50% are just going through the motions and 20% are so down on their leadership that they are a negative influence in the workplace. Gallup estimates that last 20% alone costs organizations about half a trillion dollars a year. The biggest complaint? Poor leadership.
Poor leadership has been shown by groups ranging from Gallop to Harvard Business Review to show up in a myriad of ways:
All due to the lack of one skill: Leadership.
There is a popular myth that leaders are born. And it’s true that some people just seem to have “it”, that mix of charisma and skill that makes people want to perform well for them. But it is just as true that leadership can be taught. It can be learned. Introverts and extroverts can make good leaders. Everyone can become a good leader.
Becoming a leader, or developing leaders is not a matter of just taking a class or reading a book. Each person in our organization brings different strengths and proclivities that can be developed into strong leaders, but to do it well, it takes individual coaching, the ability to work with that person, that manager, that project manager, that executive to build around their individual strengths and weaknesses to make them the best leader possible.
Teaching leadership is not the same as teaching management. Management is about skills, numbers, goals and such. Leadership builds on management, inspiring and motivating people to be their best.
Some organizations understand this. They have built in-house teams that constantly coach and build up their people’s leadership skills. Other organizations invest in hiring leadership trainer/coaches for their most promising and most important people. Either way, they grow leaders, and they reap benefits that can be measured both in terms of money, and in terms of a more inspired workplace.
Other organizations limp along with a mix of natural born leaders, and poor leaders. And these organizations? They pay the costs outlined in this article.
The cost of poor leadership is known. And so is the cost of investing in leadership development. Studies have consistently shown that investing in leadership development coaching, whether it is internal or external, pays back a return ranging from 200% to over 700%. That’s right, a return on investment. There is no long term cost to investing in leadership training/coaching. There is only payback.
Which brings me back to my original question: If you could do one thing, just one thing, that would improve your organization, increase sales and profitability, lower turnover and create a more engaged workforce, would you?
Be well. Travel wisely,
Tom
