Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’

The Gender Delusion

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In our first session a few weeks ago, I asked my client why she decided to get coaching. “I’m a female lawyer,” she said.

“And?” I asked.

“And, well, it’s really hard,” she replied.

She was telling herself a story, and boy is it ever a popular one.

I don’t mean to imply that women aren’t up against it. Women still face sexism in the workplace. Women make up less than 3% of the CEO’s of major corporations. And yes, women still make less than men. There is definitely work to be done. But when it comes to communication, gender is just another story we tell ourselves, and that story is undermining women in a big way.

Just this week I read an article by a friend of mine titled, “Top Seven Qualities of Women Leaders.” It was a good article. But I had to wonder, why are we talking about female leaders and male leaders as if they are two different things? Every “top quality” on the list applied to women and men.

I bet articles titled, “Top Seven Qualities of Black Leaders” or “What Asians Can Do to Get Ahead” or “Five Reasons Why Paraplegic Leaders Aren’t Taken Seriously” wouldn’t go over well. Most of us would be offended that black, Asian or paraplegic people were categorized separately from their white, able-bodied counterparts. And yet we have no problem differentiating between “female” and “male” leaders.

But aren’t men and women different? Not as much as you might think. Continue reading: “The Gender Delusion”

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I Totally Screwed Up… Again!

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Yep, I did it again. Totally screwed up. But this time, not on purpose.

Awhile back, I spoke at an ICFNW Coaches Meeting. I guess it’s not fair to say I “totally” screwed up. I developed a new presentation with solid content that I organized well—that was good. I knew the material cold—that was good. And I delivered the talk with decent presentations skills, such as voice tone, pausing, and gesturing—that was good.

So where did I fail?

I didn’t show up.

Ironically, a big point in my presentation was this: Continue reading: “I Totally Screwed Up… Again!”

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In My Opinion…

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Last week I worked with a group of high school girls on presentation skills. I introduced them to approachable and authoritative nonverbals and when to use each, we discussed how to gesture effectively, and we talked about why pausing is so important.

But when it came time to discuss the actual speech itself, I was struck by how every single girl in the room prefaced her statements with: “in my opinion.”

This is a serious problem folks.

“In my opinion,” or the closely related “I think,” or “I feel” is, at best, verbal filler. A presenter doesn’t need it, and it weakens most sentences.

But at its worst, it’s a dangerous nonverbal we often overlook. Particularly for young women.

Prefacing statements with “in my opinion” communicates, “This is just my opinion, so it probably doesn’t carry much weight, but if you’d be so kind to hear me out…”

Which means that somewhere along the line these high school girls learned that their voices didn’t matter, that they needed permission to speak, that they weren’t allowed to have an opinion without qualifying it first.

Perhaps boys have the same problem, but in my experience I hear way more “in my opinions” when working with my female clients than I ever do from my male clients.

If we ever hope to increase the amount of women in leadership (which is the focus of the group working with these high school girls) we’ve got to start from the inside out. Leadership is communicated. And our communication is a reflection of what’s going on inside.

Sometimes we’re not aware of our limiting beliefs until they show up nonverbally, like in this case. Which is why this work is so life changing: it illuminates our blind spots but also gives us tools to communicate in ways that expand our self-concept.

Which is exactly what happened once I disabused these girls of the notion that they needed to qualify their opinions. I asked them to state their content without any “announcing.” At first they struggled. “How do I start, then?” they asked. “Just say what you think!” I said.

As they stated their opinions without any introduction, they stood taller. They spoke with more authority. They made more eye contact. Suddenly they became believable, passionate, and powerful.

Word choice is nonverbal. How we think affects how we communicate nonverbally, but never forget that how we communicate nonverbally also affects how we think.

 

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I Am Amazing. And Broken. Just Like You.

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Every January, a brand new year begins, full of promise. Every square on the calendar is empty, waiting for us to fill it with life well-lived. The beginning of this year is more special to me than most, as some good friends just welcomed a brand new baby girl into their family. This new year brings with it new life, also full of promise.

When you see a newborn baby, you can’t help but be awed by how beautiful and amazing human beings are. (This is especially true if the baby is sleeping, as opposed to crying.) I have an acquaintance who recently gave birth to a son with cleft palate—and it struck me that the birth defect could not diminish the sweetness and beauty of that little boy.

My daugher, Juliana, holding our friends’ new baby, Emma.

It’s not how babies look that makes them amazing—it’s who and what they are. Those precious snuggly cuddle-bugs are a bundle of gifts and talents, personality quirks, strengths, emotions, and unique traits that make each of them a work of art.

That goes for every person on the planet.

Yes, everyone. Everyone is amazing.

The problem is that we’re also broken. Continue reading: “I Am Amazing. And Broken. Just Like You.”

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The Language of MONEYBALL (or, Don’t Shoot the Asst General Manager)

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Corey here….Since starting to work with Sari and the FORTE gang, I see the power of nonverbal communication everywhere around me.  Some of you know how obsessive we can get about this.  And, I am always finding examples of nonverbal communication in film and television.  Last year, Sari went gaga for how communication is portrayed in THE KING’S SPEECH and now I cannot stop thinking about the communication lessons in MONEYBALL.

In case you haven’t seen the film, MONEYBALL is based on the book by Michael Lewis and chronicles the struggles and triumphs of the Oakland A’s during the 2002 baseball season.  General Manager Billy Bean is struggling to build a winning ball team with the lowest budget in the major leagues, and brings on a shy young economist as his assistant general manager.  And, he makes the radical decision to run the team by statistics over stars.

So, where does the nonverbal communication come in?  It is all about leadership.  Billy Bean is already a leader, but is he going anywhere?  He has a bold new message, but is anyone listening?  At first, no one is listening.  The team’s manager Art Howe resists Billy’s statistical approach, and the team flounders–badly.  Everything changes when Billy begins to speak the language of leadership.

Billy learns to lead from where he is, as we like to say at FORTE.  When Billy owns his vision and authentically communicates it to the team, the team starts to win. And, they don’t just win; they go on a winning streak unlike anything seen in the history of professional baseball.  He “out cats” manager Art Howe.  He becomes more approachable with the players in the locker room.  And, in the course of events, the Oakland A’s literally change the history of baseball.

And, what of Assistant General Manager Peter Brand, the shy young economist from Yale whose statistical methods fueled Billy Bean’s leadership?  Billy expects more than just statistics from Peter, and soon Billy is asking awkward young Peter to fire some veteran players.  If you have attended FORTE’s Don’t Shoot the Messenger workshop, the scenes where Peter has to let go a player will feel very familiar.  They could be videotaped sessions right out of the workshop.  Peter puts on his cat pants, uses a credible voice pattern, and even refers to a “third point” to carry the bad news.  Sure, he is a little nervous, but he pulls it off.

There are lessons about communication and leadership all around us.  Even in Brad Pitt movies.  Have you ever seen the FORTE philosophy in any movies or TV shows?

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