Keep on Returning to Your Strengths

We just keep on returning strengths, because so much of what is good that we see in organisational life can be tracked back to people using their talents and strengths rather than slavishly developing or eradicating their so called 'weaknesses'.

Dr John Hunt is quoted in Buckingham and Clifton thus:

Concentrating on people's strengths...this and only this, will be the major differentiator for organisations in the future."

And Peter Drucker had it this way:

"Most people do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer."

Our executive coaching is based firmly on talents and strengths for the individual and team. It can take quite some time for clients, and their managers, to really let go of deficit models and tune in to their strengths. One client of ours worked assiduously on understanding their talents and turning them into true strengths via practical activities that improved their performance and that of their team. Yet, even after a year of work, the deficit model is so strong in that organisation that our client still feels driven to find and excise his weaknesses because that's what his manager demands of him, to prove he his getting value from coaching.

Our response? Understand the pressure he is under and acknowledge the paradigm the organisation works to, and help him to keep finding those real-world activities that let his talents shine and become long-term, sustainable strengths for him and the organisation. Not because it makes him happy, although it more often does, or because we deny his manager's view, which we appreciate the genesis of, but because those talent and strength-based activities deliver more effective performance, more often and to a higher standard than 'weakness fixing' ever does.

To financial hell in a hand-cart

Like many, I have been viewing the virtual meltdown of much of the world's banking system with a strange sense, almost of awe, at the complete mess, the 'perfect storm' of apparent ineptitude and venality, that so many have displayed at all levels of the governmental, regulatory and operational elements of the international banking system.

As I watch in horror as the almost unmanaged, or at least unmitigated, risks occur with frightening pace and certainty, I ask myself did any of these institutions have even the most rudimentary of risk registers?

Now, I am agnostic at best when having to deal with the burgeoning risk universe that so many of our change efforts collide with at times. Yet, I do have a very strong sense that the pro-active identification and management of risk in so many of our previously trusted financial institutions was almost completely lacking or, even worse, ignored in the headlong pursuit of 'easy' profit. What other explanation can there be for part of what we are experiencing? And indeed we are experiencing this - not observing it, and will do for years to come.

Setting aside the admittedly at times arcane issue of risk, and whilst people's pensions and investments dissolve by the minute (mine included), I find I am drawn to the writings of those who see the world through different eyes. Those with appreciative insights to offer in these worrying and uncertain times, as new financial paradigms have to be fashioned in days rather than months or years.

Dan Saint and Jackie Stavros wrote several years ago in their short paper, Strategic Planning and Sustainability: Socially Constructing a New Corporate Purpose, the following:

"Imagine a sustainable world where humanity meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Business provides the goods and services needed by consumers in a way beneficial to all stakeholders. The world's vast wealth is equitably distributed to all people. We on Earth are working towards that future today."

Indeed we are, or some of us at least. For change to happen, David Cooperrider talks of "change at the scale of the whole". Well, perhaps as the 'experts' refashion our financial systems they might consider getting the 'whole system in the room' and engage in some powerful, face-to-face conversations with those who have been let down and who would share a very different guiding image of a future. For the future we need people who, as Peter Drucker put it, "transform not perform."

Seeing Systems - Barry Oshry

Meeting with a client last week for an executive coaching session, it was rewarding to have my client use a quote from a publication I mentioned to him several years ago, i.e. Seeing Sytems, by Barry Oshry. I think this book is an excellent 'primer' for anyone navigating the turbulent waters of change. Here's the quote:

There is no "We,"
There is no "Them,"
There is only You
and Me
and all of Us
And then the Dance begins

I'm involved in quite a few 'Dances' at the present. How do we 'see' the dances when we are in them?

"We can monitor our own behaviour. We can coach one another. We can take a stand for partnership. We can pay attention to our feelings.

Effective conversations

In seeking some inspiration to assist in the conversations I'm having, particularly about change, in and around client organisations, I turned, as I have in the past, to Meg Wheatley's excellent book, 'Turning to One Another - simple conversations to restore hope to the future'. Her advice to us in trying to host meaningful conversations it to practice several new behaviours through a number of principles. These are:

• We acknowledge one another as equals


• We try to stay curious about each other


• We recognise that we need each other's help to become better listeners


• We slow down so we have time to think and reflect


• We remember that conversation is the natural way humans think together


• We expect it to be messy at times

As Wheatley says, "the practice of conversation takes courage, faith and time. We don't get it right first time, and we don't have to... as we risk talking to each other about something we care about, as we become curious about each other, as we slow things down, gradually we remember this timeless way of being together. Our rushed and thoughtless behaviours fade away, and we sit quietly in the gift of being together, just as we have always done."

How frequently do we make the time and have the courage to slow down, reflect, recognise those behaviours that keep us apart, ostensibly in the name of being a hard-headed 'leader' or change 'manager?' We've actually been rewarded in the past for behaviours that keep us apart, e.g. speaking too fast, interrupting others, giving speeches or pronouncements, and people reach positions of influence and power through their use too. Yet these behaviours do not lead to quality thought or healthy relationships - they tend more to drive us apart and keep us apart.

Using the principles above and returning to more effective behaviours to host meaningful conversations must be a goal for all of us who have the responsibility to lead organisations through change.

Gordon Loraine - 60th Anniversary tribute

Today, Tuesday 29th January, represents the 60th anniversary of the date my late father, (Thomas) Gordon Loraine, started his career in local government. He served the people of several communities in the north-east of England and in Hertfordshire for 40 years, before taking an early 'retirement' to begin another career in the commercial sector and finally run an antiques business with my mother.

It's easy when times are as fast-paced as they are now, and our lives seemingly lacking in sufficient time and space for reflection, to forget what it takes to build and sustain a long and successful career in any field, let alone local government service. A service, which despite the cheap shots that many commentators and 'phone-in' 'pundits' take at it, remains as relevant, valuable and necessary now as it was in 1948; a time when the country was rebuilding after the war and its people suffering quite severe deprivations.

I became aware of and started to understand this thing called 'local government' quite early on in my teens. I came to learn about it variously as something that my father did, spoke of, and as a place where he went daily (and in the evenings for committee meetings) that I didn't see yet I gradually appreciated its purpose. I was able to join him at times in my school holidays, helping out in the post room of Bushey Urban District Council. That was followed by longer pieces of more official holiday work and then a permanent post when I joined Hertsmere District Council, as it had become after local government reorganisation in 1974, from my first authority, the London Borough of Brent.

I was very fortunate to have my father as a mentor in those early years in local government, and more latterly as a keen supporter and enourager of my intentions take a risk and set up a company when I was reaching my most productive years as a senior officer. That shift of career has worked out so far, and to his passing day my father retained an avid interest in how the local governance field was changing and developing. He did often though comment that whilst he recognised the general structure of local government, its various and many recent changes had rendered it quite a mysterious place to him at times - a notion many of my current clients might subscribe to!

There are a number of enduring values and attributes that I learnt from my father and try to practice in the way he did; values such as fairness, the need for balance and to seek to exercise sound judgement, and attributes like self-reliance and personal resilience. He taught me those things early on and as my career developed, in some ways mirroring his, they have stood me in good stead. A career that for me has now passed the 30 years mark, both in permanent roles and now in leading a company that provides services for local government.

So, 60 years has passed since Gordon Loraine first walked into the then Seaham UDC Council Offices, and as I walk through the door of the County Hall where I have an assignment today, I shall offer a silent word of thanks to my father, for introducing me to local government, and on behalf of all of those he served and worked with, for the fantastic and unsung service he gave for those 40 years.

Emotions affect your thinking - more support for appreciative approaches

Reading Fisher and Shapiro's new book, Beyond Reason, we found more support for the appreciative view of life delivering more and better, this time in negotiations. Consider this:"When you feel disappointment or anger, your head clogs with negative thoughts. You may criticise yourself or blame others. Negative thinking crowds out space in your brain for learning, thinking, and remembering. In fact, some negotiators become so wrapped up in their own emotions and thoughts that they fail to hear their conterpart make an important concession.When you feel positive emotions, in contrast, your thoughts often centre on what's right about you, others, or ideas. With little anxiety that you will be exploited, your thinking becomes more open, creative, and flexible. You become inclined not to reject ideas but to invent workable options."