Coach Dan's Blog

  Good morning! As you're setting your goals for the day, why not include something quick and easy that may just help you improve your leadership and communication skills. Almost all of us interact with others throughout our day, and each of those interactions is an opportunity to reflect, gain insights and learn. What if... at the end of each meeting or call today, you paused for 60 seconds and reflected about that interaction? (Any of the following questions would work, or create your own!) ❔ After we concluded, what impression about me did they walk away with? ❔ On a scale of 1-10, how clear was I with communicating my intentions? ❔ What new thing did I learn about that person just now? ❔ What new thing did that person learn about me just now? ❔ What one thing might I do differently in my next interaction? Taking a brief pause and reflecting in the moment can be a powerful way to identify opportunities for improvement throughout your day. Commit to pausing and reflecting for ...

Happy Monday. As you set your goals for the upcoming week, why not challenge yourself to try one small thing? Leaders who ask questions instead of giving instructions create an enviornment where team members feel empowered and passonate about solving problems. 💡 "What are your ideas about how to solve this?" 💡"If you were me, how would you address this?" 💡"If you could solve this problem right now, what would you do?" Give your team members the space to be creative, and the support to implement their own solutions - and they will thrive! What's stopping you from making a small change today? We all win together.  

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou What ONE THING will you do to make someone feel seen / heard / listened to / understood / valued / good today?

I get it - you're busy!  It's the end of the year.  Performance reviews are due (or late!)  Holidays are coming up.  Projects are in critical phases.  End of year "spend it or lose it" time with budgets.  Probably some annual planning work in there somewhere too!  Busy, busy, busy! I can't think of a better time to pause, take a moment and reflect... "Am I being an empowering, transformation manager/leader, or am I being a command and control manager?"   I can tell what you're thinking already!  " Ugh Coach Dan!  Are you serious???  Time to reflect, NOW?  It's one of the busiest times of the year."    Yup!  This is the perfect time to pause and reflect... because if you're as busy as I think you probably are right now - you've probably been oper ating on "manager / leader auto-pilot," and you've been showing your true management colors!  What better time to take a critical look at how you've been acting...

  I was doing some reading on the topic of "servant leadership" last week, and I rediscovered an article in  Harvard Business Review  that I'd read a couple years back.  In it, the author explores the concept of leaders serving the people they lead rather than trying to exert control.   The author really highlights the point that the true value managers bring to an organization is not necessarily being a gatekeeper or order-giver, but rather creating an environment where team members (people actually creating value the customers consume) are enabled and empowered to innovate, solve problems, grow and improve.  This, of course, helps us all to create a culture that reinforces an   agile mindset !  Key Excerpts from the article ,  How Humble Leadership Really Works   "When you’re a leader — no matter how long you’ve been in your role or how hard the journey was to get there — you are merely overhead unless you’re bringing out the bes...

Empowered teams self organize around a shared objective, and optimize themselves around achieving it. That all starts with team members who feel empowered, and frankly... that starts with you!  “I want you actively to train your people on how to think for themselves” - Eiji Toyoda "Think more like a gardener, less like a general." - General Stanley McChrystal It's often faster to solve the problem instead of challenging people to stretch and grow. How you interact with your team tells them a lot about how empowered they are to self-organize and optimize. Every interaction is a chance for you to help a person feel empowered. The next time you interact with a team member, challenge them to decide...  Are your team members... ...asking for permission? Instead of "Yes" or "No" ... try: "What would you say if I was asking you for permission to do this?"  "How does this help you to achieve your team's shared objective?"  "How ca...

The most important people in any company are the ones who make valuable things for your customer. In our complex world, very few things can be done without the help of teammates, partners or other critical helpers. Take a moment and acknowledge the people who help you create and deliver value. Showing genuine appreciation for the work others do to deliver value for your customer is proven to increase productivity and reduce mistakes! Coach’s Challenge for next week - Keep track of how many times you  genuinely  share appreciation for someone at work.  Grab a scrap of paper or a sticky note and make a mark for every time you genuinely tell someone you appreciate what they do.  Are you surprised (pleasantly or not so much) by the result? A genuine “thank you” costs you nothing, but can make someone’s day.   Two tips for showing appreciation   Highlight the outcome, not just the task … “I appreciate what you did to help build that feature for our users”  ...

I   was dutifully going through my LinkedIn notifications this weekend and stumbled upon a quote shared by Daniel Abrahams.  Now mind you, I don't know who Daniel Abrahams even is, (someone I linked to in the past liked what he had to say,) but I have to tell you - the quote gave me pause.   "Sometimes what people teach us is who we don’t want to be."  -  Link to original post What a powerful statement.  I mean, I always knew there are people I interact with who can be.... challenging... and I tend to reflect on those challenging situations to see what I can learn about myself.   It's what people who have a growth mindset do!  Something about that quote, however struck very close to home for me.  It made me wonder what people were learning from the interactions they have with me.  Are they "seeing" the agile mindset being personified when they interact with me? Do they see me challenging teams to solve their  own  pro...