2qtr2008 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

Table of Contents - 2qtr2008 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

• Book Review: Improv Wisdom
• Ask the Coach: 90-Day Plan
• Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)
• GottaGettaBlog! Highlights
• Decision Matrix E-book
• What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?

2qtr2008 - Book Review – Improv Wisdom

Title: Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up
Authors: Patricia Ryan Madson
ISBN-13: 9781400081882

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I did with Improv Wisdom – and I’m glad I did. Turns out, it was really clever, practical, insightful, and fun.

Patricia Ryan Madson, its author and an award-winning Senior Lecturer Emerita at Stanford University, has been teaching acting and improv for 40+ years. And it’s clearly been a labor of love – and mastery – for her.

In Improv Wisdom, not only does Madson share her considerable expertise on the topic, but she endearingly shares a very engaging way of thinking with us, as well. “Life is an improvisation,” she says, “and if we are lucky a long one!”

I don’t even know this woman, but I like her! I really do!

According to Madson, improv has 13 ‘maxims’ – and they apply not only to improv, but to life itself. They are as follows:

1. Say Yes!
2. Don’t Prepare
3. Just Show Up
4. Start Anywhere
5. Be Average
6. Pay Attention
7. Face the Facts
8. Stay on Course
9. Wake Up to the Gifts
10. Make Mistakes, Please
11. Act Now
12. Take Care of Each Other
13. Enjoy the Ride

Life is an improv, indeed!

Some of my favorite snippets:

• “Saying yes is an act of courage and optimism: it allows you to share control. It is a way to make your partner happy. Yes expands your world.”
• “The spirit of improvising is embodied in the notion of ‘yes and.’ Agreement begins the process; what comes next is to add something or develop the offer in a positive direction. Avoiding this step is a form of blocking.”
• “The habit of excessive planning impedes our ability to see what is actually in front of us. The mind that is occupied is missing the present.”
• “Fear is not the problem; allowing your attention to be consumed by it is.”
• “Make a list of five places that are your ‘hot spots,’ places where the important things in life happen for you. Why not put the book down, pick one of the places on your list, and show up there?”
• “There’s no need to find the right starting place. With a big task or a confusing problem, when you don’t know where to start, begin with the most obvious thing, whatever is in front of you.”
• “The improviser focuses on making that idea into a good one, rather than searching for a ‘good idea’.”
• “When asked to uncover what is obvious to you, count on the fact that your view is already unique.”
• “Life is attention, and what we are attending to determines to a great extent how we experience the world.”

This is good stuff, whether she’s talking about improv or not, don’t you think? And there’s much, much, more:

• “Wishing things were different (or that I was different) simply wastes time. The improviser can’t afford unrealistic thinking. Instead, she builds bridges over rocky terrain and turns lemons into lemonade. She works with what is actually in front of her, setting aside the temptation to dwell on what it is not.”
• “Life is all about balancing not about being balanced … embrace the wobble.”
• “Some gifts are not objects, but support and encouragement we give each other… make a point of thanking people for thankless jobs.”
• “If you can’t get out of it, get into it.”
• “When I see something that needs to be done, I usually do it without debate. The improviser in me is trained to take action rather than muse over whose job it may be.”
  “Learning how to work together moment by moment without a known formula is the essence of improvisation.”
• “The improv ‘talent,’ which involves listening carefully, observing the actions of others, contributing, supporting, leading, following, filling in the gaps, and looking for the appropriate ending, can be taught and learned.”

From my own experience, I am continually amazed by what good things tend to happen whenever I just let go and … go! That’s not to say that planning doesn’t have its part to play. But Woody Allen was really on to something when he said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

And so is Patricia Ryan Madson with what she’s written in Improv Wisdom.

2qtr2008 - Ask the Coach: 90-Day Plan

Question: Barry, I have an account with The Ladders and read your piece on 90-day plans, which I liked very much. Two questions …

Answer: Glad you liked the article. (For those who didn’t see it, it was a reprint of Help Them Say Yes: Provide a 90-Day Plan, which was first published by http://www.theladders.com/ in March 2006.) Now let’s see if I can answer your questions:

1. When would an applicant offer such a 90-day plan? Before the interview, after the first interview, after successive or final interviews?

I would think that to maximize its impact, you’d want to get the plan into the hands of the hiring manager either after you’ve talked directly with him/her the second time – you could even ask during that second conversation if it’d be all right if you put the plan together “just to clarify in my own mind how I’d best dig in” – or you could bring it with you to that second interview (but only if you have sufficient insight about the position to actually create an insightful plan).

In other words, I don’t think a 90-day plan will automatically put you in the “final few” of candidates still being considered, but once you’re on that short-list, it will definitely help distinguish you from the others.

2. It’s very painful to consider the possibility that your proposed plan becomes another candidate-turned-employee’s blueprint for a work plan you proposed. Is there a solution to this quandary (e.g., copyright marking, etc.)? Or better to just live with that risk?

Is it really ‘very painful’ or is just a pain?! Sure, they could steal your ideas and run with them, but frankly, if you don’t offer up any ideas worth stealing during the interview process, why would they want to hire you to begin with, eh?! Less flippantly, yes, it is a risk you take, but it’s a risk that helps:

(a) Better position you vis-à-vis your competition;

(b) Get you deeper into the mindset – good or bad – of what it’d be really like to work there; and

(c) You learn to better articulate how you think, which is really what companies are trying to figure out through the interview process.

Too, I doubt very much you’ll have actually garnered enough insight from your interviews to provide sea-changing details. Remember the goal of the 90 day plan is not to solve the problems – it’s to show them you understand what the problems are and give them a taste for how you’d start to solve them.

And should they ‘steal’ your idea and not hire you? I suspect that you’d probably not want to work at a place like that, even if they did offer you the job.

Hope this helps. Good luck to you.

2qtr2008 - Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)

• "Life is all about balancing not about being balanced…Embrace the wobble.” - Patricia Ryan Madson
• "More of me comes out when I improvise." - Edward Hopper
• “Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.” - Winston Churchill
• “From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.” - Arthur Conan Doyle
• “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” - J.K. Rowling
• “It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.” - Dizzy Gillespie

2qtr2008 - GottaGettaBlog! Highlights

I've been using GottaGettaBlog! as a vehicle to capture news, notes, and musings about coaching, mentoring, and getting more from YOUR Untapped Potential – along with whatever other I happen to find amusing and/or thought-provoking – since June of 2003.

Highlighted blog postings from last quarter are, as per usual, listed below – just follow the links:

from January 2008

• What conversations do you know you need to have?
• The Planet Mercury and Other Flybys
• FAQ Sheets - Frequently Asked Questions
• Write It Down; Bring It With You

from February 2008

• Control, Challenge, Commitment
• Remembering to Remember (BEFORE you Forget)
• 30 Reasons to Work with a Coach
• Fear 101: A Model

from March 2008

• Office conditions leave room for improvement
• Creatively Sparking Creativity
• Fear 303: A Revised Model of Fear
• New Thinking; New Doing

As always, your on-line comments at GottaGettaBlog! and its 2003-2007 archives are both welcomed and encouraged. To receive weekly digests of new GottaGettaBlog! postings, update your subscription here. Thanks.

2qtr2008 - Decision Matrix Tutorial

Welcome to all my new subscribers courtesy of TheLadders.com.

As you work through your job search opportunities, you may find that you need to be able to more objectively assess the pros and cons of what your prospective employers are offering. A great way to do that is by using a Decision Matrix.

But matrices can be cumbersome and unproductive if you’re not exactly sure how to make them work for you. That’s why I created a helpful little e-book called Should I, or Shouldn't I? - a downloadable tutorial about mastering the Decision Matrix.

From it, you can learn (or refresh your learning) how to easily – and objectively – asses what’s important to you, how important is it, and the choices available to you, without having to rely so heavily on your gut feel.

The Decision Matrix is also an excellent tool to help identify what additional information you might need in order to make a true apples-to-apples-type comparison between options.

Increase your confidence in the decisions you make and your ability to explain them to others.

Order your copy of Should I, or Shouldn’t I? for immediate download at: http://www.ggci.com/Store/career-resources/decisionmatrix/.

2qtr2008 – Last Quarter's News from GottaGettaCoach!

• Building Employee Trust: A New Equation (ISBN: 81-314-0875-2), a book based on "relevant, authoritative, and thought-provoking articles written by experts," is published featuring an article by Barry Zweibel titled, "The Dangerous Allure of Trust."
• GottaGettaCoach!, Inc. is commended by the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois, Inc. with its Complaint Free Award for 2007.
• With the start of the New Year, GottaGettaBlog! moved to a new location: www.ggci-blog.com. The 400+ posts already made are now permanently archived at www.ggci.com/blog under the heading of GottaGettaBlog! 2003-2007 and will remain accessible there, or through the GGCI search engine (www.ggci.com/search) along with newer blog posts, and newsletters, past and present.
• Happy New Year!

1qtr2008 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

Table of Contents - 1qtr2008 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

• Book Review: You, Inc.
• Ask the Coach: Working with a Terrible Boss
• Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)
• What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?
• GottaGettaBlog! Highlights

1qtr2008 - Book Review – You, Inc.

Title: You, Inc. – The Art of Selling Yourself
Authors: Harry Beckwith and Christine Clifford Beckwith
ISBN-13: 9780446578219

I was very eager to read this, the latest book by marketing guru Harry Beckwith. After all, his “Selling the Invisible” was an indispensable resource for me as I starting building my business way back when. So when I found it while browsing in an airport bookstore one evening, I immediately grabbed it and headed toward the checkout counter.

So while I found much of its content to be quite excellent (more on that in a moment) I didn’t really care for how it was written. It felt like two separate books, actually – one written by Harry and one written by Christine – that somehow got randomly shuffled together into one. Don’t get me wrong; they each shared some wonderful stories, vignettes and lessons learned. But it felt quite disjointed to not know whose lessons learned I was reading about at any point in time – especially in the first few sections of the book. I don’t know why it was so distracting to me, but it really was.

Okay, that said, on to some of nuggets about the art of selling yourself that I highlighted while reading:

1. The first thing to sell is ... yourself.
2. The future belongs to the Communicators.
3. Ambiguity is expensive.
4. To improve your writing, read what you write aloud and revise before sending or submitting.
5. “A poor teacher describes; a good teacher explains; an excellent teacher demonstrates; a great teacher inspires.”
6. How to give an excellent thirty-minute speech: Speak for twenty-two minutes.
7. Life is not what you make it. It is how you take it.
8. How many thank-you notes did you send last year? This year, send twice that many.
9. Follow up within a day.
10. The greatest gift you can offer is your time.
11. The greatest compliment you can pay is: “I understand something deep in your heart.”
12. Give your all.
13. Keep learning.
14. Always do right.
15. Be vivid.
16. Don’t just be brief; be briefer.

Good stuff to be sure. But I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Amidst some truly helpful tips and tricks, I found it bloated with more than its share of platitudes and filler. I mean were two chapters really necessary for tips on attire, when one advised us to “buy one great suit,” and another was needed to simply add “and one pair of great shoes”?!

You, Inc. is billed as “The Definitive Guide to Career and Personal Success.” And maybe it is. Thirty reviewers on Amazon.com thought enough about it to give an average rating of 4½ stars (out of 5) – and more than half of them gave it a full 5-out-of-5 star rating!

I don’t know about that, though. I mean I did learn some things – and if you read it you will too. But, on balance, the Harry Beckwith book I’m far more comfortable recommending is his Selling the Invisible.

Surely I could go on about You, Inc., but I want to honor that last nugget I learned from it!

1qtr2008 - Ask the Coach: Working with a Terrible Boss

Question: Barry, I saw you were quoted in a Wall Street Journal article about working with a lousy boss. I liked your advice. But my boss isn’t just ‘unreceptive’, he’s downright unbearable! Any additional suggestions for working with a truly terrible boss?

Answer: Not that it’s a panacea, but I think that developing your abilities to engage in meaningful and relevant conversations with your boss will go long way toward improving relations – a key to making him/her a less-difficult boss for you. So let’s go to the interview’s cutting room floor and take a closer look at how to improve your ability to M-E-E-T with your boss:

Acronym: M-E-E-T

M – Match – Match the ‘style’ of your request to the preferences of the boss (time of day, day of week, by phone, in person, via email, etc.) Don’t just send an email and wait. And don’t just burst into his/her office demanding a one-on-one. You may not think so, but when and how you ask for a meeting can make a world of difference in terms of his/her receptivity (or defensiveness) to your request.

E – Explain – ‘Cranky’ bosses really don’t like surprises, so be clear about what you want to meet about. Asking for approval to attend a professional development opportunity (or to hire a coach!) is a very different type of conversation than wanting to refute a poor performance review or substandard raise. Give to boss time to adequately prepare for the conversation by letting him/her know what it is you want to talk about, before you jump right in and start talking about it.

E – Engage – Okay, now it’s time for the meeting itself. Again, match (tempo, style, language, etc.) and quickly explain what you want to talk about. Remember, though, the point of meeting is not to explain – it’s to engage in a discussion so that a decision can be made, or an agreement reached as to next steps. So:

• DON’T push the boss into a corner.
• DON’T be inflexible in acceptable outcomes.
• DON’T get emotionally hooked.
• DON’T over-reach.

And

• DO be tolerant.
• DO be open to counter-intuitive ideas … negotiate, if need be.
• DO stay focused.
• DO keep breathing.
• DO remain respectful at all times.

T – Thank – Regardless of outcome, express gratitude for being able to even have the meeting. You may not always get what you want, but that’s okay. The Bigger Goal, after all, is to facilitate your ability to have these types of conversations in the future, not just for today. Before you leave, reiterate any Next Steps that you and your boss have agreed to. Then work these items as you would those of a major project or deliverable. Because in very real terms, it is.

And what if your boss doesn’t want to meet or keeps canceling? Above all else, keep your cool. Bosses are busy people. But, when appropriate, find a moment and say: “I know you’re crazy-busy these days, boss, but this is an important conversation for us to have together. So how do you recommend we make it happen?” Again, no guarantees you’ll get the meet, but this approach will surely increase its probability.

Point Last: What to do before you even ask for a ‘meet’:

Good – Do your homework. Be sure that whatever you’re asking for is: (a) reasonable; and (b) non-precedent setting, so it doesn’t set off a chain of downstream implications.

Better – Think things through from the boss’ perspective. Understand the risks and potential unintended consequences of giving you approval. Thoroughly consider what doing so would mean to others. Assess how helping you would also help your boss (and the opposite).

Best – Do really, REALLY, good work on a day in/day out basis. Provide the boss with value-added regularly. Show, through your ongoing actions, that you truly are worthy of the boss’ trust and regard. Build and nurture a solid relationship with your boss before you need or want anything.

1qtr2008 - Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)

• "The person who knows how will always have a job. The person who knows why will always be his boss." - Diane Ravitch
• "Only the mediocre are always at their best." - Jean Giraudoux
• "Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict." - William Ellery Channing
• "Respect a man, he will do the more." - James Howell
• "Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win." - Jonathan Kozol
• "Don't just think better, think different." - Harry Beckwith

1qtr2008 – Last Quarter’s News about GottaGettaCoach!

• Perri Capel, columnist for The Wall Street Journal quotes Barry Zweibel in a 12/4/2007 piece titled, "When a Boss Is Unreceptive To New Views" published in both the on-line and print editions of the paper. An expanded version of the article was also published by WSJ CarrerJournal under the title of "How Can I Defuse Tensions With a Difficult Manager?".
• Barry Zweibel was invited to be coach and facilitator as part of a two-day November team-building retreat for employees of Hill-Rom Company, Inc., as a follow-up to a series of team-member interviews completed in October.
• Barry Zweibel attended (and volunteered at) the 12th annual International Coach Federation conference in Long Beach, California, as did about 1,500 other coaches from 36 different countries, in total.
• Sally J. Zepeda, Ph.D., professor and graduate coordinator at the University of Georgia, requested permission to include excerpts of written materials by Barry Zweibel in two books that will be published in the very near future - one on Professional Development and one on Coaching - by Eye on Education (Larchmont, NY).

1qtr2008 - GottaGettaBlog! Highlights

I've been using GottaGettaBlog! as a vehicle to capture news, notes, and musings about coaching, mentoring, and getting more from YOUR Untapped Potential – along with whatever other I happen to find amusing and/or thought-provoking – since June of 2003.

With the start of the New Year, though, GottaGettaBlog! has moved to a new location: http://www.ggci-blog.com/. Don’t worry, though, the 400+ posts already made are now permanently archived at http://www.ggci.com/blog/ under the heading of GottaGettaBlog! 2003-2007 and will remain accessible there, or through the GGCI search engine (www.ggci.com/search) along with newer blog posts, and newsletters, past and present.

Meanwhile, highlighted blog postings from last quarter are, as per usual, listed below – just follow the links:

from October 2007

• For Future AND Incumbent Executives - Today
• Higher Understanding through Ping-Pong
• Thank-You Notes
• Taking it Off-Line
• It's Not Still Spelled "Busy-ness" for a Reason

from November 2007

• Coaching Next Level Leaders
• Coaches and Therapists - How Different?
• Chuck Norris is afraid of choking

from December 2007

• Who Said Quitters Never Win?
• A Prescription of Description
• Wynton Marsalis: Leadership Lessons

As always, your on-line comments at GottaGettaBlog! and GottaGettaBlog! 2003-2007 are both welcomed and encouraged. To receive weekly digests of new GottaGettaBlog! postings, update your subscription here.

Thanks.

4qtr2007 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

Table of Contents - 4qtr2007 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

• Article Review: The Real Reason People Won’t Change
• Authentically Munch
• Ask the Coach: A Whiter Shade of Pale
• Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)
• What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?
• GottaGettaBlog! Highlights

4qtr2007 - Article Review - The Real Reason People Won't Change

Article Review: The Real Reason People Won’t Change
Robert Kegan And Lisa Laskow Lahey
Harvard Business Review (reprint R0110E)

So what is the real reason people won’t change? To bottom line it,

"It’s a psychological dynamic called a “competing commitment,” and until managers understand how it works and the ways to overcome it, they can’t do a
thing about change-resistant employees."

When people resist change, it’s not necessarily because they’re opposed to it. It’s not even necessarily because they’re lazy or inattentive to it, either. Rather, it’s because they have one or more hidden beliefs that directly conflict with them working toward meaningful change.

Example:

People often don’t collaborate even though they truly believe in teamwork. Why? Because they’re also dedicated to avoiding the confrontations that are typically intrinsic to any team-based activity. So, push come to shove, they never fully engage in the collaborative process for fear of that probable confrontation and what that means to them.

Oftentimes, though, it’s not readily apparent what the conflict is – or that a conflict even exists. So to unwind things, the authors have developed an interesting three-stage process to help figure out what’s in the way:

1. Through a series of key questions, managers can guide employees to uncover any competing commitments.
2. Employees can then examine these competing commitments to determine the Underlying Assumptions inherent in them.
3. Based on this new awareness, employees can then start changing their behaviors accordingly.

Uncovering Competing Commitments

The key questions recommended for guiding the uncovering process are as follows:

1. What would you like to see changed at work, so that you could be more effective or so that work would be more satisfying?
2. What commitments does your complaint imply?
3. What are you doing, or not doing, that is keeping your commitment from being more fully realized?
4. If you imagine doing the opposite of the undermining behavior, do you detect in yourself any discomfort, worry, or vague fear?
5. By engaging in this undermining behavior, what worrisome outcomes are you committed to preventing?

It’s important to realize that competing commitments do not necessarily reflect weakness or incompetence on anyone’s part. So, managers, don’t go there. Competing commitments are merely just a form of self-protection, and in that context, they make total sense. (e.g. If you want to avoid confrontation, avoid collaboration because collaboration results in confrontation.) Of course the follow-up question to ask is this: What are you protecting yourself from? What are you assuming will happen as a result of a confrontation?

Interestingly, once people start looking at things this way, it’s fairly easy for them to identify (and admit) what they are protecting themselves from. And once they identify that, most are ready to take some immediate action to overcome it.

But the authors suggest that a manager not press for behavioral change just yet. Rather, managers should encourage the employee to first notice his/her current behavior in light of now knowing about his/her competing commitments, Underlying Assumptions, and self-protecting mechanisms. That way, s/he can also look for what I like to call irrefutable evidence that their long-held assumptions might no longer be valid. (Who hasn’t found that a type of food they once thought they didn’t like was actually quite tasty?!) This can open whole new world of possibility for someone as one can use this as an opportunity to reflect on what caused these specific protection mechanisms to be created in the first place.

Understanding the circumstances that created the Underlying Assumptions can be very helpful in freeing oneself from them. And from there, meaningful change is not only doable, but often preferred to the status quo.

4qtr2007 - Authentically Munch

According to NYMag.com, Law & Order character, Detective John Munch, “is the longest-running character on any American drama still on the air. What's more … [since January 1993] the aforementioned Detective Munch has appeared in no less than nine different television shows.”

For you trivia fans, the nine shows are:

1. Law & Order
2. Law & Order Special Victims Unit
3. Sesame Street (my personal favorite!)
4. Arrested Development
5. Law & Order: Trial by Jury
6. The Beat
7. Homicide: Life on the Street
8. The X Files
9. The Lone Gunmen

What’s particularly interesting to me – aside from being a long time Belzer fan – is that it speaks to a frequent life coach topic: Authenticity.

It’s one thing to show up. Indeed, as Woody Allen says, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” Authenticity, though, speaks to how we show up. Munch is very consistent in that regard. “I yam what I yam,” both he and Popeye the Sailorman would both say, albeit with slightly different affects.

Munch – and Popeye, for that matter – has a definite personality. But authenticity is more than just personality. Authenticity is about being completely comfortable in one’s own skin without fear of what others might think, and without need to unduly impress anyone with it.

So how does one become completely comfortable in one’s own skin without fear of what others might think? And how does one avoid overdoing the whole authenticity thing?

Step One – Realize that you have a right to be comfortable in your own skin. We really do have that right, you know, – We yam who we yam?! – even if it feels completely unbelievable at times. Authenticity is about “showing up” as who we are, not just as some cardboard cutout of who we think we should be. Surely Detective Munch would agree – and he’s not even a real person!

Step Two – Own your skin. Feel what it’s like. Note what works for you, and what doesn’t. Understand what makes it easier for you to just be yourself, as well as what makes it more difficult. Look for patterns and explanations, and how they all might interrelate.

Step Three: Actively calibrate. Something helpful to remember about becoming more comfortable in your own skin is that you really don’t need to get it exactly right at first, you just need to understand what types of things will move you closer to, or farther away from, it so you can calibrate accordingly.

Here’s a fun game to practice calibrating: Pick a number between one and 100; ask someone to guess it; when they do, tell them only to guess higher, or lower, until they get it exactly right; count how many guesses it takes for them to get it exactly right. This is how we work toward homeostasis – when we guess too high, we back it off a bit, and when we guess to low, we up it from there.

As with home heating and cooling, sometimes we need to heat up how we’re interacting with the world, sometimes we need to cool it down a bit, and sometimes, Goldilocks, it’s just right. And each little calibration helps.

A word of warning: Some people confuse comfort in their own skin with vanity, as if to say, “Look how authentic I’m being!” The ultimate litmus, then, is this: If you’re ego is what’s really loving how well you calibrate, there’s likely still more work to do. But if your heart loves it, then you’re likely on the right track.

Detective Munch already understands that – as do his writers.

4tr2007 - Ask the Coach: A Whiter Shade of Pale

Question: Barry, I'm so frustrated. Try as I might to see things otherwise, I’m such a Black and White thinker. What can I do to open my eyes to other possibilities when problem-solving?

Answer: Here’s something that often helps the B&W types: Shades of grey!

Seriously, anyone who’s able to discern black from white, as you are, certainly understands that what they’re discerning from is actually shades of grey. If you allow yourself to play with that notion a bit you’ll soon likely notice that you already see other possibilities – you’re just discounting them a bit prematurely, that’s all.

A good question to ask is this: “Okay, I see the black and white of it all, but what are some of the grey tones I’m also seeing? “

Too, it’s often helpful to look at the whiter side of the spectrum. Did you know, for instance, that there are about a zillion shades in the white palette?! Here, courtesy of Benjamin Moore, (http://www.benjaminmoore.ca/colours/offwhite.aspx) is quite a few of them.

Of course the deeper issue has nothing to do with colors at all really – although a nice Bordeaux Red / Dill Weed Green combination is quite smart-looking for the coming cooler months! What’s really needed here is a way to expand your thinking in a way that encourages your creativity to kick in.

An approach that’s often helpful in getting things going is the pick-a-metaphor-and-go game. It works like this:

1. Close your eyes, take a few deep, cleansing breaths.
2. Open your eyes and allow them to settle on something/anything.
3. That something is the metaphor you can use to stimulate your creativity.

Example #1: You open your eyes, look around, and find your gaze focusing on your backyard. Stoke your creativity by asking some imaginative questions like theses:

• Thinking about that idea I’ve been struggling with, what part could clearly use a little more watering?!
• All things being equal, what parts need to be mown or trimmed a bit?!
• What would make my idea that much more lush and green?!

Example #2: You open your eyes, look around, and find your gaze focusing on your kitchen freezer. Stoke your creativity by asking some off-the-wall questions like theses:

• My current idea is too vanilla so what would adding a nice chocolate mocha fudge swirl do to it?!
• For that matter, what would turn the whole thing into a delicious banana split sundae?!
• And what little something extra could I add to my idea as a cherry on top?

Example #3: You open your eyes, look around, and find your gaze focusing on a yellow highlighter sitting on your desk. Stoke your creativity by asking some silly-little questions like theses:

• What parts of my idea do I want to particularly highlight for others?
• Given that the color yellow is sometimes associated with cowardice and other times associated with peace and happiness, what part of my idea makes me the most nervous, and what do I need to modify to make me happier with it?
• How might the impact of my idea change if I changed its color or some other physical attribute?

While the pick-a-metaphor-and-go game might not immediately provide you with the answers you’re looking for, it likely will bring a smile to your face, which is very helpful when trying to look at things in terms other than simple blacks and whites.

4qtr2007 - Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)

• “Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.” - Alan Alda
• “The life of my personal has nothing to do with me,” - Claire Danes
• “I Eats All Me Spinach, And Takes To The Finish, I'm Popeye The Sailor Man! Toot! Toot!” – Popeye, the Sailorman
• “He's very comfortable in his own skin, ... That's his personality. When you're true to self like that, it comes across well.” - Jeff Van Gundy
• “Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.” – Pablo Picasso
• “We've been dreaming in color since 1883.” – Benjamin Moore, the Paint-man

4qtr2007 - GottaGettaBlog! Highlights

I've been using GottaGettaBlog! as a vehicle to capture news, notes, and musings about coaching, mentoring, and getting more from YOUR Untapped Potential - along with whatever other stuff I happen to find amusing and/or thought-provoking - since June of 2003.Highlighted postings from last quarter are listed below - just follow the links:

from July 2007

• Handling Your Mistakes
• Networking Nmemonic
• Goals, Priorities, Procrastination, and Deadlines

from August 2007

• Check Email More Regularly
• Getting a SLANT on Doing Better

from September 2007

• Creative Listening, redux
• What Goes Around, Comes Around
• Friday Afternoon, Idealized

Your on-line comments at GottaGettaBlog! are both welcomed and encouraged. To receive weekly digests of new GottaGettaBlog! postings, update your subscription here.

4qtr2007 - What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?

• Barry Zweibel is interviewed for an article on Lessons in Leadership in the September/October issue of INSIGHT, the magazine of the Illinois CPA Society.
• GottaGettaCoach! celebrates its seventh anniversary!

3qtr2007 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

Table of Contents - 3qtr2007 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

• Book Review - Juicing the Orange
• Ask the Coach: More Better Creativity
• Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)
• What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?
• GottaGettaBlog! Highlights

3qtr2007 - Book Review - Juicing the Orange

Title: Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Powerful Business Advantage
Authors: Pat Fallon & Fred Senn
ISBN: 1-59139-927-0

Okay, this is another in a series of "Inside Secrets" books written by seasoned advertising pros about their unique strategies and resultant successes. And I'll admit that I really like books like this. (Other good ones include: Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, by Kevin Robers, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi; and The Trendmaster's Guide, by Robyn Waters, former VP of Trend, Design, and Product Development at Target.) Advertising-folk are just so creative and upbeat when things are going right.

What I particularly like about this book - and the Fallon Worldwide agency - though, is that so many of the client case studies highlighted are for products and companies that I not only recognize, but actually like - something I directly attribute to their, ahem, really good advertising. Examples, include:

• Those animated, music-only, story-telling tv commercials for United Airlines
• Those "No, but i did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night" ads
• Buddy Lee blue jean commercials
• The way that BMW cross marketed with Bond, James Bond
• Those wacky Virgin Mobile holiday ads
• and more

Another favorite was for a barber shop in NYC called "7 South 8th for Hair," a small business with very little money for advertising. It was Fallon's very first account and they really wanted to show how they could be creative AND effective. So, they bought a few poster spaces at bus stops near the barbershop and, on them, featured big pictures of somebody famous with really bad hair ... and a cleverly related tag line:

• Moe Howard (of Three Stooges fame) - "A bad haircut is no laughing matter."
• Albert Einstein - "A bad haircut can make anyone look dumb."
• Susan B. Anthony (from the failed $1 coin) - "A bad haircut can take you out of circulation."

Fallon's Inside Secret? What they call the Seven Principles of Creative Leverage:

1. Always start from scratch.
2. Demand a ruthlessly simple definition of the business problem.
3. Discover a proprietary emotion.
4. Focus on the size of the idea, not the size of the budget.
5. Seek out strategic risks.
6. Collaborate or perish.
7. Listen hard to your customers (then listen some more).

It struck me that these seven principles can apply to far more than just advertising. I know many of them seem to naturally show up in my coaching conversations with clients, for instance. But think about it in terms of furthering important business initiatives, as well:

• "We believe that you have more creativity in your organization than you realize, and we believe that you can find it, develop it, and use it more effectively. " (page 20)

They're probably right, you know.

Here are a few other interesting creative advertising ideas that applies to people at work - and in life:

• "Our goal as an organization is to understand culture so well that we can use its idioms and nuances to transcend blatant selling messages." (page 65)
• "You can change people's minds, but only if they first give you permission, and that won't happen if they think you're a joke." (page 78)
• "The door to most business people's right brain is through their left brain. First the smart, then the exciting. (The consumer, ironically, wants it just the other way around.)" (page 97)
• "Just as a sports team needs a handful of players who have been to the playoffs, a marketing team needs members who understand the hard work and commitment it takes to make the most of an idea." (page 123)

Success in advertising, as in business - and in life - really does required more than just talking the walk.

• "...if we truly valued our culture, then it wasn't enough to hire brains and talent. we had to cherish the people who bets embodied our ideals. We call them culture players." (page 194)

And that's why I like this book - it not only had cool advertising stories and interesting creative strategies, but it offered some important conclusions for what it takes to be a success across a wide variety of venues.

3qtr2007 - Ask the Coach: More Better Creativity

Question: Barry, I'm stuck. I want to be more creative in what I do, but I just can't figure out how to do it. Everything I come up with is, well, b-o-r-i-n-g. What am I doing wrong?

Answer: As counter-intuitive as it may seem, in situations like this, success often comes more from trying less, than from trying harder. And the best way that I've found to do that is to F-R-E-E Your Mind:

• F as in Forget - Sure you've got all sorts of pressures and deadlines you're worried about, but Step One is to let all that go and forget about it for a little while. Think of this step as clearing the canvas. Tabula rasa.
• R as in Remember - Now that you've cleared your mind, entertain a memory of a favorite noun (person, place, or thing) from your past. The farther back in time you go, the better - something from your innocent youth (your Wonder Years) would be ideal.
• E as in Enjoy - Spend a few moments enjoying your recollection, with all your senses. Remember what it looked like, sounded like, who was there. Remember the colors, textures, flavors, what it felt like. Remember it in as much detail as you possibly can and reconnect with some of that same child-like zeal you had way back when. Breathe in a few times. Good deep breaths. And big, full, exhales. Ahhhhhhhhhh!
• E as in Expand - Now from that relaxed and happy place, expand your thinking to the problem or issue you've been trying to get creative about. Ask your inner-child for some advice: What would he do? What does she suggest? Who else from your past would have some good, crazy, funny, absurd, ideas to share?! Your best friend? The kid next door? The neighbor's dog that loved barking at the mailman?! See what 'pops'; you may be pleasantly surprised.

When we connect back to our past, we F-R-E-E our minds from all the noise and static of today that keeps us from being our natural, creative, selves.

Hmmm. Makes me wonder. Whatever happened to my old buddy, Jimmy Sharkey? Jimmy, you out there?!

3qtr2007 - Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)

• "Remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." - Henry Ford
• "Life is "trying things to see if they work." - Ray Bradbury
• "Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties." - Erich Fromm
• "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein
• "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." - Carl Sagan
• "Our genius ain't appreciated around here... let's scram!" - Moe (to Larry and Curley)

3qtr2007 - GottaGettaBlog! Highlights

I've been using GottaGettaBlog! as a vehicle to capture news, notes, and musings about coaching, mentoring, and getting more from YOUR Untapped Potential - along with whatever other stuff I happen to find amusing and/or thought-provoking - since June of 2003.Highlighted postings from last quarter are listed below - just follow the links:

from April 2007

• Choosing to Choose
• You May be Happier Than You Think
• How to Succeed Like a Workaholic

from May 2007

• Always Complete Your "T-O-P- 3"
• Procrastination DNA
• Leadership Move #6: Encourage Intelligent Debate

from June 2007

• Hey, Your Shirt Just Texted Me!
• When the Cat's Away
• Keys to Personal and Professional Growth

Your on-line comments at GottaGettaBlog! are both welcomed and encouraged. To receive weekly digests of new GottaGettaBlog! postings, update your subscription here.

3qtr2007 - What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?

• Princess Cruises, one of the premiere cruise lines in the world, asked Barry Zweibel to be one of their "guest authors" publishing a reworked version of Network Your Way to New Clients, having geared it specifically for their travel agency readership.
• Barry Zweibel was interviewed for an article on Lessons in Leadership to appear in an upcoming issue of INSIGHT, the magazine of the Illinois CPA Society.
• Farmers Insurance Group expanded its executive coaching initiative with GottaGettaCoach!
• Barry Zweibel was quoted in a feature article at http://jobs.aol.com/ called, "How to Succeed Like a Workaholic".
• Pivot Points -- a New Tool for Job Searchers, an article written by Barry Zweibel and published in 2005 by TheLadders.com, was scheduled to be reprinted in an upcoming issue of Hispanic Network magazine.
• Auxis, Inc. extended its executive coaching initiative with GottaGettaCoach!
• Barry Zweibel was interviewed for an article scheduled to be published by CareerBuilder.com.
  

2qtr2007 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

Table of Contents - 2qtr2007 - Not Just Talk! Newsletter

• Feature Article: 119 Steps
• Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say First
• Feature Article: Ask the Coach
• What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?
• GottaGettaBlog! Weblog Highlights

2qtr2007 - 119 Small Steps

It's amazing how much good information is out there on the Internet just a-waiting for us to find. Here's some more of it, courtesy of the Steps to a Healthier U.S. initiative from the
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, called Small Steps:

1. Walk to work.
2. Use fat free milk over whole milk.
3. Do sit-ups in front of the TV.
4. Walk during lunch hour.
5. Drink water before a meal.
6. Eat leaner red meat & poultry.
7. Eat half your dessert.
8. Walk instead of driving whenever you can.
9. Take family walk after dinner.
10. Skate to work instead of driving.
11. Avoid food portions larger than your fist.
12. Mow lawn with push mower.
13. Increase the fiber in your diet.
14. Walk to your place of worship instead of driving.
15. Walk kids to school.
16. Get a dog and walk it.
17. Join an exercise group.
18. Drink diet soda.
19. Replace Sunday drive with Sunday walk.
20. Do yard work.
21. Eat off smaller plates.
22. Get off a stop early & walk.
23. Don't eat late at night.
24. Skip seconds.
25. Work around the house.
26. Skip buffets.
27. Grill, steam or bake instead of frying.
28. Bicycle to the store instead of driving.
29. Take dog to the park.
30. Ask your doctor about taking a multi-vitamin.
31. Go for a half-hour walk instead of watching TV.
32. Use vegetable oils over solid fats.
33. More carrots, less cake.
34. Fetch the newspaper yourself.
35. Sit up straight at work.
36. Wash the car by hand.
37. Don't skip meals.
38. Eat more celery sticks.
39. Run when running errands.
40. Pace the sidelines at kids' athletic games.
41. Take wheels off luggage.
42. Choose an activity that fits into your daily life.
43. Try your burger with just lettuce, tomato, and onion.
44. Ask a friend to exercise with you.
45. Make time in your day for physical activity.
46. Exercise with a video if the weather is bad.
47. Bike to the barbershop or beauty salon instead of driving.
48. Keep to a regular eating schedule.
49. If you find it difficult to be active after work, try it before work.
50. Take a walk or do desk exercises instead of a cigarette or coffee break.
51. Perform gardening or home repair activities.
52. Avoid laborsaving devices.
53. Take small trips on foot to get your body moving.
54. Play with your kids 30 minutes a day.
55. Dance to music.
56. Keep a pair of comfortable walking or running shoes in your car and office.
57. Make a Saturday morning walk a group habit.
58. Walk briskly in the mall.
59. Choose activities you enjoy & you'll be more likely to stick with them.
60. Stretch before bed to give you more energy when you wake.
61. Take the long way to the water cooler.
62. Explore new physical activities.
63. Vary your activities, for interest and to broaden the range of benefits.
64. Reward and acknowledge your efforts.
65. Choose fruit for dessert.
66. Consume alcoholic beverages in moderation, if at all.
67. Take stairs instead of the escalator.
68. Conduct an inventory of your meal/snack and physical activity patterns.
69. Share an entree with a friend.
70. Grill fruits or vegetables.
71. Eat before grocery shopping.
72. Choose a checkout line without a candy display.
73. Make a grocery list before you shop.
74. Buy 100% fruit juices over soda and sugary drinks.
75. Stay active in winter. Play with your kids.
76. Flavor foods with herbs, spices, and other low fat seasonings.
77. Remove skin from poultry before cooking to lower fat content.
78. Eat before you get too hungry.
79. Don't skip breakfast.
80. Stop eating when you are full.
81. Snack on fruits and vegetables.
82. Top your favorite cereal with apples or bananas.
83. Try brown rice or whole-wheat pasta.
84. Include several servings of whole grain food daily.
85. When eating out, choose a small or medium portion.
86. If main dishes are too big, choose an appetizer or a side dish instead.
87. Ask for salad dressing "on the side".
88. Don't take seconds.
89. Park farther from destination and walk.
90. Try a green salad instead of fries.
91. Bake or broil fish.
92. Walk instead of sitting around.
93. Eat sweet foods in small amounts.
94. Take your dog on longer walks.
95. Drink lots of water.
96. Cut back on added fats or oils in cooking or spreads.
97. Walk the beach instead of sunbathing.
98. Walk to a co-worker's desk instead of emailing or calling them.
99. Carry your groceries instead of pushing a cart.
100. Use a snow shovel instead of a snow blower.
101. Cut high-calorie foods like cheese and chocolate into smaller pieces and only eat a few pieces.
102. Use nonfat or low-fat sour cream, mayo, sauces, dressings, and other condiments.
103. Replace sugar sweetened beverages with water and add a twist of lemon or lime.
104. Replace high-saturated fat/high calorie seasonings with herbs grown in a small herb garden in your kitchen window.
105. Refrigerate prepared soups before you eat them. As the soup cools, the fat will rise to the top. Skim it off the surface for reduced fat content.
106. When eating out, ask your server to put half your entrée in a to-go bag.
107. Substitute vegetables for other ingredients in your sandwich.
108. Every time you eat a meal, sit down, chew slowly, and pay attention to flavors and textures.
109. Try a new fruit or vegetable (ever had jicama, plantain, bok choy, starfruit or papaya?)
110. Make up a batch of brownies with applesauce instead of oil or shortening.
111. Instead of eating out, bring a healthy, low calorie lunch to work.
112. Ask your sweetie to bring you fruit or flowers instead of chocolate.
113. Speak up for the salad bar when your coworkers are picking a restaurant for lunch, and remember calories count, so pay attention to how much and what you eat.
114. When walking, go up the hills instead of around them.
115. Walk briskly through the mall and shop 'til you drop ... pounds.
116. Clean your closet and donate clothes that are too big.
117. Take your body measurements to gauge progress.
118. Buy a set of hand weights and play a round of Simon Says with your kids - you do it with the weights, they do without.
119. Swim with your kids.

2qtr2007 - Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say First!

• George Konrad: Courage is an accumulation of small steps.
• Susan Taylor: Use missteps as stepping stones to deeper understanding and greater achievement.
• Jimmy Buffett: Indecision may or may not be my problem.
• Francois Gautier: More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.
• G. W. F. Hegel: Thus to be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.
• William James: The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

2qtr2007 - Ask the Coach: Better Decision Making

Question: Hey Beezee. Whenever I ask my friends, family, and colleagues for their suggestions as to how I should handle a given situation, I end up with so much conflicting advice that I'm even more confused than when I started. I think it's important to gather as much information before making important decisions. but this isn't working. What's a better way?

Answer: Good for you for recognizing that the approach you're taking isn't giving you the results you're looking for. As Albert Einstein said,

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Consider changing the type of information you're requesting - or the way that you're requesting it. It's likely that you're asking a "What do you think I should do?" type question, or some variation thereof. The problem with this approach, as you noted, is that it rarely leads to consensus or clarity - you just get a bunch of differing and often conflicting opinions to filter through.

Rather than finding out what others would do if they were you, use these interactions to get clearer on what you need for you to make the decision. In other words, focus on asking for the objective data do you need to help you decide.

Example: You want to buy a car. Rather than asking others, "What car do you think I should buy?", first ask yourself, "What would affect my decision one way or another?"

• price?
• safety?
• reliability?
• resale value?
• fuel efficiency?
• ??

List your criteria, whatever it may be. Then ask people specifically about those things: How much should I expect to pay for a good used car? How important are crash test results? Which cars does Consumer Reports rate highly from a reliability standpoint? At what point does it make sense to trade in one car for another one? What else is important in deciding on a car to buy? Answers to these types of questions are likely to inform rather than confuse you.

In review:

1. Decide what are the important elements for you to use as a basis for your decision.
2. Gather information with respect to those elements.
3. Create a short list of possible choices.
4. Evaluate each choice with respect to the decision elements you've chosen.
5. Decide.

By the way, a very helpful tool to assist you with this is a Decision Matrix.

And don't worry if it takes a while to gather the information you need to decide. As Einstein also said,

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

Hope this helps.

2qtr2007 - What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?

News and Highlights from last quarter:

• The Dangerous Allure of Trust, an article written by Barry Zweibel and published last year in Effective Executive magazine about why managers should NOT want their direct reports to trust them, has been selected by ICFAI Publications/Books for inclusion in an upcoming professional reference book on Employee Trust: Strategies and Cases.
• The New Coach Connection, an on-line community of "new and experienced coaches who are seeking ways to collaborate, connect and create awesome experiences in the coaching profession," interviewed Barry Zweibel as part of an ongoing blog series about experienced and recognized life coaches.
• Barry Zweibel, president and founder of GottaGettaCoach!, Inc., has been awarded the Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential by the International Coach Federation (ICF). The MCC is the highest, and most prestigious, designation available through the ICF, a globally-recognized, independent, certification body for professional coaches. The ICF has more than 11,000 members in 80 countries, and less than 5% of its membership -- and less than 2% of all coaches worldwide -- have achieved this MCC distinction.
• Burdened by Bad Habits - Barry Zweibel is interviewed about breaking bad habits in Columbia College's Echo Magazine, including his Ten Top Tips for getting over bad habits.
• Bridges to Fulfillment - How Life Coaches Help Close Gaps Between Dreams and Reality. An article published in Elite Magazine that interviews Barry Zweibel and one of his clients about how coaching works.

2qtr2007 - GottaGettaBlog! Highlights

I've been using GottaGettaBlog! as a vehicle to capture news, notes, and musings about coaching, mentoring, and getting more from YOUR Untapped Potential - along with whatever other stuff I happen to find amusing and/or thought-provoking - since June of 2003.

Highlighted postings from last quarter are listed below - just follow the links:

from January 2007

• [W + (D-d)] x TQM x NA, or not
• Life Coaching: Bridges to Fulfillment
• Leadership Move #19: Teach Others to Enjoy a Good Challenge
• Preventing Problems: Non-Event Successes

from Feburary 2007

• An Argument for Less Simplicity
• Leadership Coach Interview
• International Coach Federation Honors Local Life Coach with Master Certified Coach Credential
• Ten Top Tips for Getting Over Bad Habits

from March 2007

• Bye-Bye, 1q7
• Bad News and the Two-Question Set
• Definitive 200 - Rock n Roll's Best
• Quality versus Timeliness and their Downstream Implications

Your on-line comments at GottaGettaBlog! are both welcomed and encouraged. To receive weekly digests of new GottaGettaBlog! postings, update your subscription here.