Coach Dan's Blog

  "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Alvin Toffler Continuious Improvement means continuious learning. It means undderstanding that just because something worked yesterday, doesn't mean it will work tomorrow. It means that everything should be on the table to reevaluate and reassess. A growth mindset in necessary to continuiously improve. When was the last time you challenged your thinking, and learned something new?

  📖 "Any fool can know. The point is to understand." - Albert Einstein The siren call to action can be impossible to ignore. In fact, the pressure to "do" can be so great, that we'll look at data- make an assumption and then act without ever looking back. Albert Einstein seemed to be warning us not to confuse knowledge (data) with understanding... something worthy of exploring. I got curious and tried a CHATGPT prompt. (Data vs. information vs. insight vs. understanding.) I was presented with following response- 💻 Data –Raw, unprocessed facts or figures without context. 💻 Information –Data that has been organized, structured, or contextualized to make it meaningful. 💻 Insight –A meaningful interpretation or discovery derived from information, often leading to action. 💻 Understanding –A deep, holistic grasp of patterns, causes, and implications that allows for better decision-making. 💻 Each level builds upon the previous one, moving from raw data to action...

  Over the last 24 hours, I heard 3 questions that really caught my interest. The first question was "How can you coach someone to get better at something if they don't think they need to improve." The second question was "What do you do with that one person on the team who always seems to have an excuse as to why things aren't finished." The third question was posed today on LinkedIn by our very own Andrew (Drew) Boyer, "Is the demand for Leadership Coaching coming from Corporate Leaders or Employees??" What struck me is the answer to all three questions is quite the same... A coach can't help someone improve if they aren't open minded and ready to improve. If there is no invitation for coaching, no coaching will occur. If the person you are working with doesn't believe they need to improve - the likelihood of them investing in improvement on their own volition is small. You may show them data indicating there is room for improvemen...

  📖 “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ― Anne Frank What are you waiting for? ✔️ Reflect ✔️ Set a goal ✔️ Make a small change ✔️ Repeat You don't have to swing for the fences every day. Small experiments bring about small changes that add up over time. What's stopping you?

  📖 “Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.” - John Dewey Some people view failure as a negative, and I can understand why that might be. Consider this.... 🤔 If you never fail, did you really give everything you could to something? 🤔 If you never fail, have you discovered everything there is to know about what you tried? 🤔 If you never fail, did you really ever take any risks? Making a team afraid to fail means they will never accomplish all that they could have in the first place... Try something and fail? Reflect and apply your learnings - this is the way to continuous improvement. What's stopping you?

📖 “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”  ―  Plutarch Today is a great day to kindle the fire of curiosity in your mind. 🔥 Ask questions. 🔥 Listen to understand. 🔥 Encourage others to share different perspectives and ideas. 🔥 Show enthusiasm for finding answers. 🔥 Read or follow someone new. If you don't make time for curiosity, you run the risk of snuffing that fire out completely! What's stopping you? We all win together!

"I want my team to be more accountable." "I wish my team took initiative more often." "It would be great if my team thought more 'out of the box.'" Teach your team HOW to think, instead of WHAT to think. Teams follow your lead, so if you're looking for improvements in them... why not start looking at how you're leading? Start by turning the statements into questions. ❔ How can I make my team more accountable? 💡 Give them a stake in solving problems. Encourage them to design AND build solutions. People tend to feel more ownership when they have a hand in designing what's being built. For example: -- Conduct brainstorming sessions around solving a specific problem. -- Gamify problem solving ( such as rewards for the most creative solution to a sticky problem.)   ❔ What am I doing to keep my team from taking initiative? 💡 Be clear about the results you are looking for, and reward your team for identifying ways t...

  “Do not give them a candle to light the way, teach them how to make fire instead. That is the meaning of enlightenment.” ― Kamand Kojouri   It's a fine line- balancing between helping your partners achieve a goal, and teaching them the skills (and building the experience) necessary to achieve their goals over and over and over again.   ⛔ "Just tell us what to do, and we will do it." ⛔ "Provide us the steps or the checklist." ⛔ "How do you want us to do this?"   This language is common, and it suggests to me that the team (regardless of level) has been conditioned to not take risks. To me it means they have learned through experience that their safest course of action is to have someone else solve the problem and instead just do as told.     In other words, they are doing exactly what they have been trained (and incen ted) to do.   Sure- some problems need to be solved right now! There can be an immediate benefit ...

  Teams follow the cues of their leader. They will often mirror the leaders mindset, values and behaviors. Observing your teams in action followed by some reflection is a great way to learn about yourself. Ask yourself: ❔ What did you see in your teams that you were proud of? ❔ What did you see in your teams behavors that surprised you? ❔ What are you doing to reinforce the behaviors you observed? ❔ What would you like to see your teams do differently? What are you doing to reinforce (or model) that behavior? Much can be learned by observing your team - it's a bit like looking at your leadership in a mirror. Why not look into your mirror today? We all win together!