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 was recently asked by someone I met, "Isn't a coach really just a trainer?" My response was quick - "While a coach sometimes trains on new skills or knowledge, they also facilitate, mentor and challenge teams to improve the way they work." Looking back, I would grade myself a "C-" on that answer. I WISH I had said... "A great coach works with you to achieve your goals. They bring experiences, perspectives and tools to help you and your team accelerate performance. It's not always about faster... but it IS about better! A great coach helps you and the team identify ways to improve and then challenges you address them WHILE working to achieve the teams goals. They know that there are many different ways to make improvements, and have a "toolbox" of processes, frameworks and techniques to help identify and make them. That said, they don't just want to teach you a skill (or framework, or process) - they want you to use your skill...

The way an organization operates is a reflection on the beliefs and values of the leader. If you want to improve the way your organization creates value, start with taking a hard look at yourself. The best-laid change management plan will help you move boxes around your org chart, but making meaningful improvements within an organization first requires intentional mindset and behavior shifts across the leadership team. Where have you seen leaders change their mindset before an org change? What were the results?

There are no shortcuts to transformational improvements - but starting with small changes today can lead to big results in the future! Long term, meaningful improvements come from small, thoughtful experiments today. ✔️ Remind yourself - what's your long term goal? ✔️ Ask yourself - what's one small thing I can accomplish today to bring that goal closer? ✔️ Reflect - what did I learn from my small change? Commit to trying one small thing differently, then assess the results - You will get closer to your goal every day.  

“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?

Painting a new process overtop of the same organizational structure will not result in the meaningful improvements you're hoping for. Successful transformation leaders reorganize their people to improve effectiveness, efficiency and engagement. Just look at the data! ·  McKinsey found that organizations that adopted cross-functional, agile teams were able to improve decision-making speed by as much as 40%, compared to traditional hierarchical structures. ·  Stanford University found that an organization’s time to market decreased by 30% after implementing cross-functional teams in an agile setup. ·  Forrester Research indicates that cross-functional teams in product development (especially those aligned around customer needs and business outcomes) can lead to 20-30% faster time to market compared to traditional, siloed teams. ·  HBR published research that found that cross-functional teams led to a 25% improvement in team effic...