You're listening to the coach approach with Diane Ravenscroft, whether you're an entrepreneur, an ambitious employee or someone interested in getting the most out of every connection, responsive communication is. Join management and learning specialist, Dr. Diane Ravenscroft, as she gives you the tools to improve any relationship that matters to your business, your career and your life. All right. Here's Diane. Welcome back to the coach approach podcast. I am Diane Ravenscroft.
If you joined me before you learned about the steps, challenges, and traits of the coach approach, you've heard stories of real people sharing real challenges. They overcame. I like to think the coach approach had something to do with their success today. I confess part of my reason for developing the coach approach was for myself in the past, I struggled with a scarcity mindset so I can recognize scarcity mindsets quite easily.
And I can hear naysayers whether they're aware or not of their tendency to think about what to avoid. To see problems first and not always consider opportunities. The reason for this is I often default to being a naysayer, and I know what this mindset has cost me. It's been a long time coming, but I am grateful for my decision to shift the gears and fears in my brain. The coach approach was also developed after a series of observations and interactions with many people.
Over many years, people who in their words were trying to reform to see the best in everyone. Maybe it's too harsh to describe myself and others as a naysayer though. The first thing many people's brain wants to do when presented with what's possible is analyze and strategize until just about every possibility for failure is eliminated. This is really important in many professions. The challenge is it can be a way of thinking that deters people from considering possibilities.
Individuals who see problems that they can solve to protect people from harm. Find it easy to perform business analyses and swats, you know, the strengths, weaknesses, observation, and threats, and figure out how to leverage strengths, minimize weaknesses, optimize opportunities, and ideally anticipate threats. Strategic planning is loved by people with my brain. In the past.
Speaking what I think without thinking led me to some challenging conversations, especially with dreamers and I am not alone. I wonder if you've noticed what I've noticed and that's that problem solvers can be misperceived as problems and troubleshoots can be misperceived as troublemakers to individuals who like the status quo.
And can be misperceived by people who are insecure and worse, possibly feel threatened by these important skills, the skills of troubleshooting and problem solving these skills are really crucial. And if you know how to apply critical thinking as well to difficult challenges, you are special. You're what I call an idea person. Imagine. Being an idea person who works for someone who likes everything, just the way it is.
Countless people have told me that individuals on their team who brainstorm potential threats in a strategic way, sound really pessimistic. One person said quote, and remember, people give me their permission to write their words down. Quote, they are always seeing the next problem as they look for what might go wrong end. In my mind, I think as if that's a bad thing, listen, again, they're always seeing the next problem as they look for what might go wrong.
I wanna say exactly this person has saved your neck more than a few times, but instead I say in a measured way, true. And I think this is exactly why they're valuable to your team. Do you not think. It takes some doing, but it's always worth trying to get to the root of whatever challenges exist between people. In this case, a decision was made to bring these two individuals together, to hash out a vulnerability commitment, a trademark of the coach approach, seeking mutual understanding.
Unfortunately, there was very little trust and it was not possible. The idea person remained unappreciated by the individual who was described as a naysayer. And they continued to avoid each other as much as possible in the workplace. It appeared their customers were not impacted by their poor working relationship. So the CEO didn't intervene to encourage or force if you will, any kind of improvement in their professional dynamic.
I'm never quite sure if a customer can be UN impacted by poor working relationships between key people. I'm also never in favor of chief executive officers or other senior leaders forcing professional interventions. So to speak, these things tend to backfire. Sometimes I don't know about it until the individual who comes to me for coaching says I was sent to you, by the way, how does that sound? I was sent to you by the way. This doesn't always yield receptivity.
It tends to yield resistance, but common sense approaches like the coach approach can slowly but surely chip away at even the most committed skeptic. As for the pair of people who didn't like to work together, they were a member of a team and everyone else on the team seemed to accept their quiet rivalry and frankly ignored their often unprofessional antics. Most of the time, the pair was rarely disruptive in meetings, but they weren't productive.
Eventually the idea person managed several workarounds to have her ideas considered, just not in team meetings. How many working situations do you know where people just don't think it's worth it to try to fix or improve interpersonal challenges? I see it all the time. Seeing interpersonal challenges among coworkers was actually one of the reasons I decided to become a licensed practitioner with the global company discovery insights.
It was a significant investment of time and money, but it's proved invaluable discovery insights creates a frame of reference using colors. So certain thinkers who just don't understand the people they work for or. Can consider their individual preferences and learn how best to relate to people who don't think like them, discovery, insights, preference, model compliments, the coach approach. If you're curious, you can go to insights.com.
I will dedicate several podcasts to some examples of how people using this color model can phrase statements to appeal to individuals who don't think alike. I love the association with color. To me, it gives me a thinking preference for people you're not labeled. You're not pigeonholed. It's a preference. You can dial up and dial down preferences based on situations. I love it. Check it out.
If I had known my preference towards communication and risk and collaboration, for example, I may have had quite a different work life in my early years. In fact decades ago, I met someone who no small thing may have changed the course of my work life. Maybe even my life. I'm not exaggerating today. I describe this as my 6 million regret. This podcast will serve as an introduction to my most expensive decision based on my former scarcity mindset.
This scarcity mindset bound my thinking into overly cautious. Highly suspicious and skeptical, nay saying quite often, this is a true story. It still makes me feel somewhat nauseous. Thinking about what can only be described after the fact, maybe as directly as stupidity, possibly as kindly as shortsightedness. You decide what word to assign for me, it's regret, but regret I've learned. Here's what happened in the early nineties, I was on a plane.
I was heading to Boston on my way to Dallas, the young woman, I was sitting next to struck up a conversation with me and asked me why I was traveling to Boston. And so in turn out of just basic politeness, really, I asked her, she told me how excited she was about working for a growing technology company and certainly had infectious enthusiasm. But I was not drawn in. No. I had enough skepticism and reservations to ward off the most engaging and polite person, especially a salesperson.
Snake oils seemed to run through most sales people's veins. I had concluded. So though I was curious deep down. I just knew that what was being pitched could only be too good to be true. Not for me, but thanks for sharing. I thought we did chat a lot during the flight and she was very pleasant as we landed. She gave me her card and I looked at it and read her name. And then the name Microsoft.
I remember this clearly and somewhere in some box in some corner of my basement, I am sure I could unearth this card. The young, enthusiastic Microsoft employee asked me about my career goals and said they were looking to recruit young entrepreneurial thinkers. I had discussed my love of business and I was on my way to a conference. So she must have heard something that sparked her interest. Unfortunately, I remained wary of her enthusiasm.
Didn't really understand the business after all at the time, what was a PC, a word document, the internet , I'm laughing, but I'm really not laughing. As we disembark to go our separate ways. She encouraged me to call. I never did. I often wonder where she is now.
I don't have to wonder if this is the most expensive flight I have ever taken, because I know it is my most colossal missed opportunity, whatever you might think of bill gates and Microsoft investing early in a company worth billions today is truly the definition of a missed opportunity. So why did I shrug off her enthusiasm? So effortless. Why did and do so many leaders, I meet shrug off enthusiasm so effortlessly. I can't speak for them at the time. Yes. I was young.
I wasn't even 30. I had tons of energy and lots of interest in business, but deep down, I just didn't believe what I believe and teach today. That vision and effort applied to a solid business idea can produce amazing results. That's what I believe. That's what I teach, especially if you surround yourself with people who balance what they want to achieve with what ought to be avoided.
So I have learned to successfully balance what I wanna achieve or accomplish with what is best avoided or delayed it's. It's like I have this small mental scale in my mind. I teach leaders how to communicate to advance. Excellence with care using a mental scale. In fact, here I go again with my acronyms scale, S C a L E successful communication advances, leadership excellence.
It takes practice, and it's amazing to watch people change in how they express reservations so that their teams stay energized while knowing their leader believes in. As an aside, as I was preparing for this podcast, I Googled an estimate of how much money I might have today. So full disclosure, I never invested in Microsoft. So if I had invested even a few thousand dollars at Microsoft in the early nineties, not including my salary, if I had been hired it's about $6 million.
That's why I call this my 6 million mistake. And that doesn't include the compound interest over 25 years, but that just is not something I want to think about either. So that's enough reality, but this speaks to choices, decisions, sound judgment, and just giving someone a chance to present their ideas, to consider potential steps. I didn't even know what due diligence was back.
In this, my third podcast, I shared this true story just in case anyone out there is a leader and super cautious, perhaps you're even risk averse because if you lead people and they hear you share too many unfounded hesitations and worries out loud, if they're not part of your closed circle, if you will, of people that you share hesitations with even unfounded. You may discourage the very people who need to be energized to get the tough work done.
The key is unfounded, hesitations or unfounded, anxiety or suspicion. I know. How do we know what's unfounded or, or founded? I mean, how could I ever have known Microsoft became a Microsoft well experience, maybe even evidence from patterns, but sometimes we can't know. We trust ourselves. We learn from mistakes and success. Back to my colossal mistake.
I wonder are times why I didn't listen to that inner curiosity that spurred while my willingness to consider risk was drowned out by doubt today, I think give it a chance and truly appreciate the value of due diligence. I love asking effective questions. Of course, there'll be a future podcast on these topics. So as a review picture, a person who, instead of finding the balance between what to achieve and avoid only focuses on telling people what has never worked before.
If we can balance what has never worked before with looking at what we might wanna achieve, we do not limit people's thinking, finding the balance between what to achieve and avoid sounds open to new ideas and innovation.
It kind of amazes me that even after positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and so many incredible resources for self-improvement that people who lead others can become so bogged down in details and issues and problems and challenges as well as valid concerns that they begin to sound pessimistic to the very people they need to hear their vision, their vision for what's possible in this highly competitive business.
L. Maybe these individuals are not fortunate enough to work for a company that positions itself as a learning organization, a learning organization offers targeted resources for learning and development to improve people's business acumen and their capacity to think big. If you don't know what a learning organization is, talk to me, I've built.
How do I know this I've spent the last 20 years watching and encouraging business leaders to share their vision in an aspirational manner, not as merely what can be done unless it's the exception of excellence in avoidance. I love excellence in avoidance. I have truly been interested in how thinking impacts decisions for most of my career. Especially when I became aware of the cost of some of my worst decisions. That's why I studied decision making. I have a doctorate in decision sciences.
I now realize that the way my brain has been trained is to interpret situations in the negative first. I've been striving to change that and teach others to do the same. In fact, I can hear a scarcity mindset from across the room in a social gathering. It's like my ears have become attuned to negativity with all the efforts I have made seeking after what realistically possible instead.
I can clearly remember when it clicked for me that I couldn't see what was possible, amid all the many obstacles I put in my own way. The first time someone used the expression, don't give it a second thought I can recall a Eureka moment. It just happened in my head. I realized that's it. I give almost everything a second thought.
Because I think twice, no wonder, I used to struggle with headaches because instead of approaching decisions with a mindset that was wired to consider what's possible first, what my brain wants to do more on that in a minute. My thought patterns were negative first and I would have to reverse course to consider what was possible. Well, knowing deep down, my idea would never work. So neurologists.
Brilliant scientists have discovered, and you may know this, that the brain actually defaults to thinking in the positive first. So for example, if I say to you don't think of a blue mushroom, my next question could be, how big is your blue mushroom? How blue is your blue mushroom? Because your brain wants to do what it's told in the positive first. So your brain said blue mushroom and pop. There's a blue mushroom in your mind. You can see it. I don't know how big it.
Dunno how blue it is, but it's there, even though I said don't think of a blue mushroom, our brain wants to ignore the don'ts the cans, the shouldn'ts the Wooden's the warnings. Our brain wants to do what it's told. I thought that was fascinating. So I share it with you. So therefore we literally think twice the military trains us to do the opposite. The military trains us to say don't think of a blue mushroom. We don't think of a blue mushroom. We are compliant.
Neurologists tell us what the natural brain does. Our brain can be trained away or towards the natural tendencies, but our mind wants to do the positive first. Think of it this way. Have you ever gone to a grocery store and you leave the house and you think, oh, don't forget the eggs. Don't forget the eggs. Don't forget the eggs you come home. Wouldn't you forget, you might have forgotten something else, but you definitely forgot the eggs.
So you wanna say to yourself, remember the eggs, remember the eggs, remember the eggs, remember the eggs? I can't explain it. I'm not a neurologist, but more on this in a future podcast. Thought patterns matter. The coach approach is about directing our thought patterns towards accomplishment. So more observations when surrounded by leaders, I pay attention to how they speak and how their words impact their teams.
People talk to me, they share with me, they use words like excited, anticipate enthusiastic. They also use words like discourage disheartened and my least favorite demoralizing people who are preoccupied with what to avoid rather than what to achieve can discourage others, especially others with a different mindset. Of course, we must look at what can and cannot happen. What better, not derail a project, which shouldn't be included in the scope of work and how we shouldn't speak with customers.
I have nothing against apostrophe T statements. I have nothing against not statements. It's about when they're said and who they're said to. I have an apostrophe T rule. I encourage you to count how many times you sound negative. How many times you don't wouldn't shouldn't can't won't and then there's my all time favorites, never. And without the words without, and never don't fall under the apostrophe T rule, but there's still scarcity words.
So here's some favorite statements that break the apostrophe to you rule, which is by the way, an awareness of the number of times we say don't shouldn't couldn't can't to name a. The rule I ascribe to is if I make more than two statements with not or a Poste tea, then I need to balance with positive statements. Also remember the scale I put a couple of don'ts and won'ts on there. And I put a couple of possibilities on there as well.
Here's a typical strategically balanced statement from real meetings of managers who've bought into the coach approach. Quote, let's make sure we're not taking on more than we can. How many new business units do we have the capacity to add to our portfolio based on our current projections and based on the number of people to do the work, is this realistic? Did you hear that?
And quote, negative and positive caution and vision, the person wanted to make sure they're not taking on more work than they could handle asked how many new business units have the capacity to take on the work. Could they add to their portfolio and evaluated the current projections and looked at the number of people to handle the work negative and positive. Caution and vision scale, successful communication, advancing leadership, excellence, balanced statements.
Here's another, we can't possibly be behind that much in our quarterly earnings. Didn't we plan for what we knew. Wouldn't potentially scale. What are the earnings? What are they compared to year to date last year? Who can describe the plan to see what we can do better? So imagine the tails skip this way. We cannot possibly be behind that much in our quarterly earnings. Didn't we plan for what we knew.
Wouldn't potentially scale, fill your adrenaline rise, heart rate, possibly blood pressure by adding what are the earnings compared to year to date last year, this time, who can describe the plan to see what we can do better? My suggestion would be getting everybody together to look at the plan and brainstorm. Information can calm anxiety, achievement and avoidance in balance is a significant element of the coach approach, mindset and skills.
As I said earlier, there are people whose instinct is to protect first and these individuals fall under the excellence in avoidance exception. Excellence. And avoidance is an exception because by stating what we want to avoid without what we want to achieve can normally discourage people.
But in the same vein, I've been led by individuals who would focus on aspiration almost exclusively, and didn't see threats coming and all kinds of plans and projects were derailed because anytime you asked a cautionary question, you were labeled a naysayer you're accused of not sharing the person's vision. So excellence in avoidance is an exception. I've shared the story of the engineers who are responsible for clean drinking water and their excellence in avoidance was not to poison people.
That's a great vision surgeons, not to have someone die in the operating table. Other engineers, not to have bridges, collapse, cybersecurity experts, not to have our information technology hacked. Excellence and avoidance is important. So I don't have anything against apostrophe tea. I don't have anything against negative statements. I just think it's important to have a balance. I believe I've made that point.
So. I came face to face many times with the importance of clear unambiguous communication and the focus of my next coach approach will be that story of what I learned waiting in an atrium at a hotel for an important meeting while very impressive training was happening in a beautiful room, preparing for a large banquet, possibly a. And the way the individuals were given direction remains fascinating to me to this day. So please tune in next time.
I am Diane Ravenscroft and you have been listening to the coach approach podcast. See you next time.