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Letter from the Editor
How do you look at things?
I watched a PBS special on Les Paul this weekend. In addition to inventing multi-track recording, Les Paul is the man who refined the electric guitar in the mid 1930s. Experimenting with his mother’s radio, telephone, and a dense railroad tie, he created a solid body (that would be the railroad tie) electric guitar that far outperformed the electric guitars currently sold then.
How does one look at a problem and think, “Maybe a railroad tie will improve the sound quality of my output…”???
I think that one way to inspire creativity is to expand one’s breadth of experiences and look for connections. Sometimes analogies and metaphors are found in completely different environments.
Recently I asked friends and family to vote for me. Actually, to vote for my car that I entered into a local car show. I have a 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner that I’ve restored over the past seven years. Many people who know me professionally are surprised to find out that next to designing and developing a knock-your-socks-off workshop, the thing I love to do is wrench on a muscle car.
In addition to finding the hobby rejuvenating, there are parallels between mechanical performance and human performance that clear my mind and sometimes inspire me. Take an engine, for example. To get peak performance from an engine, you need to consider many interrelated factors, just like human performance. For example, if you give the engine too much or too little fuel – or a person too much or too little contextual information (the “fuel” for human performance) – the engine/person “bogs”. Knowing when and how much fuel to give is key to performance with humans and with muscle cars.
Where do you find inspiration for your job? Where do you find metaphors for improving what you do? How is gardening like human resources (that’s not too difficult a stretch!)? How is golf like leading a team (think specific “tools” for specific situations)? How is being a parent like managing a department (that’s TOO easy!)?
Then use the metaphor to improve how you manage the department, lead the team, or manage human resources at your company.
In the meantime, I could use your vote! Go to: http://nashuatelegraph.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=246099
and click on the picture of my Roadrunner:
If you’d like the whole story on my car, visit my car website at
http://users.adelphia.net/~trtraut/index.html.
Terry
A Good Offer Bears Repeating
Last month we sent out a special offer to newsletter subscribers. We offered to give you a weekend off. Instead of spending the weekend writing a proposal that you could take to your boss, spend a half hour on the phone with us at Entelechy and WE’LL write your proposal.
We know that many of our readers are short staffed and short of time. As a result, training and performance improvement projects – sometimes very important projects – don’t get off the ground due to the fact that no one has been able to draft a proposal.
We want to help!
We have a ton of experience in writing proposals and can create one for you to use as you wish. If you want to use it to collect your thoughts or get an outsider’s perspective, that’s fine. If you want it to get competitive bids from training vendors, that’s fine. If you want to use the proposal to stimulate discussion on the project, that’s fine.
 Here are just three examples of those who responded to our offer last month:
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The CLO of a fortune 100 company used our offer to explore leading edge delivery techniques that his company can use to reach out to remote branch managers.
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The Training Manager at a state government agency used the proposal we created to spark a fire under the seats of decision makers regarding documentation needs.
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The Senior HR Consultant at a large financial services company used our proposal to solidify an approach – and get some preliminary costs –
around designing and developing performance management training for the company’s managers.
What has fallen off your plate but remains on your table of work that needs to be done? What project seems to continue to loom on the horizon because it may be too big or too amorphous?
Let us help by writing a proposal for you. There’s no obligation. We give you the Word® document to modify and use as you wish. All we’ll need is about a half-hour with you on the phone to better understand the project and your needs. Interested in saving your weekend? Call Terry at 603-424-1237.
Coaching and the Impetus for Improvement
 Over the weekend I was sharing thoughts with two of my favorite authors, Marshall Goldsmith who wrote the current best-seller,
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, and Henry Mintzberg who wrote the revealing book,
Managers, Not MBAs.
The subject of our conversation was the impetus for improvement. Marshall had shared an article in which he and co-author Howard Morgan stated:
Time and again, one variable emerged as central to the achievement of positive long-term change: the participants’ ongoing interaction and follow-up with colleagues. Leaders who discussed their own improvement priorities with their co-workers, and then regularly followed up with these co-workers, showed striking improvement. Leaders who did not have ongoing dialogue with colleagues showed improvement that barely exceeded random chance. This was true whether the leader had an external coach, an internal coach, or no coach. It was also true whether the participants went to a training program for five days, went for one day, or did not attend a training program at all. (Leadership is a Contact Sport,
http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/docs/articles/LeaderContactSport.pdf)
Henry had actually provoked the discussion by pointing to his website:
www.CoachingOurselves.com, which “offers [managers] a powerful framework to learn from your own colleagues within your own organization.”
I agree that change/development is most effective when the person proactively seeks feedback from others (as Marshall suggests in his article) and dialogue with colleagues (as Henry suggests). Unfortunately, many – I would argue MOST – people in organizations DON’T proactively seek feedback or set up support groups.
 M
y premise is that 10-20% of the population will proactively seek feedback and self-improvement; call them the “talented top.” Ten to twenty percent will actively oppose any change; call them the “belligerent bottom.” The 60-80% in the middle may be receptive to directed development through coaching. Furthermore, I believe that the receptiveness of this “malleable middle” to developmental coaching is the result of things a coach can influence such as the relationship, perceived credibility of the coach, perception of the coach’s motives, etc.
I believe that the coach can influence the coachee’s willingness to change. I believe that HOW a coach coaches will influence the coachee’s reaction – be it defensively digging in or opening up.
Do you agree? Do you disagree? Tell me what YOU think on the Coaching Blog at
http://coachingforperformance.blogspot.com/.
Please share with me your thoughts and specific examples and read what others have to say at
http://coachingforperformance.blogspot.com/.
(If you prefer, you can also email your ideas to me at ttraut@unlockit.com.) Stimulate. Be stimulated! Invite your colleagues and bosses to join the discussion by pasting the following into an email:
We’re talking about coaching – something that I know you have a passion about. Share it with the rest of us on BlogSpot at
http://coachingforperformance.blogspot.com/.
And Now, Something Completely Different
What common nine-letter English word allows you to remove each letter and, as each letter is removed, the remaining letters form a new common English word?
For the answer, go to http://unlockit.com/Quiz_answer.htm.
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to be removed immediately from our mailing database with our apologies. (If you have trouble with the optout link, please reply to this email directly and I'll personally remove your name.)
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Terence Traut, President of Entelechy "unlocking potential"
ttraut@unlockit.com
phone: 603-424-1237
fax: 603-424-6361
http://www.unlockit.com
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