Today is our last post on how to use The Engagement Spiral©. For those of you just joining us, here is a list of the previous posts, click on the link to read those you have missed: The Engagement Spiral© Overview Step 1: Tell Them They Matter Step 2: Teach People How to Provide Input Step 3: Take Input to the Relevant Decision-Makers Step 4: Use the Input and Perspective They Provide. In our years of coaching, we have seen…
We hate to keep giving those of you who are already members of our community a recap but we’ve had a lot of people joining our online coaching community in recent weeks and we want them to be able to successfully follow the process in this series. As you will recall, in our December 9th post we gave you an overview of The Engagement Spiral© that we created to help leaders in organizations, communities, and even families create engagement and alignment…
Most of the executives who come in to work with us are bright, well intended individuals who are struggling simply because they haven’t been taught the tools to succeed – especially in the area of engaging others. We created The Engagement Spiral© to teach individuals how to increase engagement and a sense of ownership in others in 6 basic steps. Step 1 is to Tell People They Matter – And Mean It. Step 2 is to Teach People How To…
Last week we talked about the importance of having people in your circle who mirror back to you your impact in Surrounding Yourself with Good Mirrors. Without mirrors it is challenging to know, accurately, what your skills are, how they contribute to your success, how they (sometimes) block your success, what your impact is, where you can have influence and how you lose influence. You can guess, of course, and you can look back and reflect on what happened as…
In our recent work with a CEO, we asked him how things were going with his team, what they felt he was doing well and where they had concerns. He reflected on this question for quite a while before saying he had no idea what they thought of his work or his impact. He said his team was a strong group, for the most part, but were not confident when it came to challenging him or giving him clear feedback…
The process of shifting a team to engage them fully in solving a problem, looking for opportunities, or challenging the cultural norms takes practice but can be successfully started using a simple discussion framework that we call Benefits, Concerns & Suggestions. The Benefits / Concerns / Suggestions framework is an easy to use discussion process that will shift the way your team works. To use the framework, take the following steps: Use this format to foster engagement and communication. Always…
There is something of an epidemic plaguing businesses in the Pacific Northwest called Northwest Nice (NW Nice). NW Nice is an affliction whereby a business professional will smile and speak collaboratively about an issue or a person in a public forum but later, will attack and/or undermine the very same issue or person behind closed doors. The problem with this disease is that the afflicted rarely believe they have the ailment. They deny their behaviors and imply that “others”…
Throughout our lives, there are times (sometimes many times) when we disagree with someone about an issue. Whether that person is someone we work with, live with, or relate to on a regular basis, knowing how to disagree with them without being disagreeable in an important skill that will increase your effectiveness and personal power. Two basic things are required to effectively disagree with someone without being disagreeable, the first is knowledge of oneself and second, communication skills. Let’s look…
In the last few weeks, we’ve explored how to receive and integrate feedback that you receive on your performance or behavior. Today, we are going to look to the other side of the equation and explore how to provide effective feedback to others. As with receiving feedback, there are specific steps to take that will help you to provide feedback to another person in a way that will minimize defensiveness, create an opportunity for discussion, and allow for the greatest…
In the first Integrating Feedback with Skill and Grace post we outlined the 3 key steps for integrating feedback about your performance: Work with what you’ve heard Prepare for the next meeting Meet again Last week, we looked closely at the second step Prepare for the Next Meeting and today we’re going to focus on the final step: Step 3. Meet Again By now, you should have finished the first two steps of the process of integrating the feedback. The…
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Carpenter Smith Consulting is a Women Business Enterprise, Oregon Cert ID 7047.
