Vaccine for Coaches!! have you received?

As a coach few of these skills we require to substantially polish to work out our work adequately 

These skills have aided me to navigate many complex circumstances.

The particular challenges are it is not natural to polish all these skills in a few years.

It calls for a deliberate endeavor to exercise, to transform these skills for the betterment of our consignment.

Some of the observation which I have picked up for myself, I am sharing with all.

You might be natural to these skills and already polished these skills with your upbringing.

Whatever be the fact to develop into a stronger coach all these skills require to be refined

What do we work out?

Simply write down all these and constant visits how thoroughly you are polishing all these skills.

Self-confidence Skill:

Wherever I am today with respect to this skill, How can I enhance this? 

• Let us avoid comparing ourselves with Others. 
• Let us take care of our Health. 
• Let us engage in Self-Compassion 
• Let us deal with Self-Doubt. 
• Let us accomplish what we believe to be right. 
• Let us accept risks and continue the extra mile to gain better things. 
• Let us recognize our mistakes and learn from them. 
• Let us employ Positive affirmation. 
• Let us plan and measure our progress. 
• Let us Stand-up for our self 
• Let us Pursue Through the plan. 
• Let us Work More Of That Makes us Happy. 
• Let us surround ourselves with a supportive force. 
• Let us stay away from negativism and draw on the positivity. 
• Let us list our accomplishments and celebrate. 
• Let us Accomplish something creative frequently. 
• Let us confront our limiting beliefs. 
• Let us deal with our fear. 

Positivity Skill:

How do I promote this skill? 

• Let us concentrate on the great features, however insignificant. 
• Let us start the day with a positive affirmation. 
• Let us identify humor in rough conditions. 
• Let us shift failures into lessons. 
• Let us reconstruct negative self-talk into constructive self-talk. 
• Let us concentrate on the present. 
• Let us identify positive partners, mentors, and co-workers. 
• Let us handle rejection. 
• Let us Compliment at least one individual every day. 
• Let us Be passionate. 
• Let us Use Books, Audio and Videos to Overload our Brain with Positivity. 
• Let us Work out gratitude. 

Assertiveness Skill:

How do I promote this skill? 

• Let us value ourselves and our Rights. 
• Let us concentrate on ourself, instead of on our colleague. 
• Let us declare our demands and needs. 
• Let us confess that we can’t manage other people’s behavior. 
• Let us Be Open to Criticism and Compliments. 
• Let us learn to Say “No” 
• Let us understand and welcome the differences. 
• Let us stay calm. 
• Let us Value The Other Person. 
• Let us Have Courage. 
• Let Us Focus on the behavior rather than the individual. 
• Let us Pay attention to nonverbal communication. 
• Let us Be present. 

Examples: 

I thoroughly understand what you’re expressing but I have to disagree. 

This is not a priority for me. I will help out on the next occasion if I have time. 

Adaptability Skill: 

• Let us leave behind our comfort zone. 
• Let us stretch ourself in modest ways. 
• Let us put ourself into Different Environments. 
• Let us Build up a curiosity and ask better questions. 
• Let us take a step back and re-evaluate priorities. 
• Let us Be amenable to make mistakes. Gain from them. 
• Let us Examine and detail out all the changes in our ecosystem. 
• Let us consider mentoring someone else. Let us learn by teaching others. 
• Let us become self-aware. 
• Let us Accept more challenges. 

Goal-Oriented skill: 

• Let us accept Accountability. 
• Let us make decisions and choose actions. 
• Let us Ask the Right Questions. 
• Let us Focus for the stars, reach the moon. 
• Let us Schedule our Actions. 
• Let us Plan the day, months and years. 
• Let us Set specific and measurable responses to accomplish the goal. 
• Let us Anticipate possible challenges ahead. 
• Let us Update all associations involved. 
• Let us use effective communication techniques. 
• Let us analyze our Improvement. 
• Let us compose everything in a notebook. 
• Let us be 100% Committed. 

Collaboration Skill: 

• Let us be Open-minded. 
• Let us be Long-term thinker. 
• Let us Communicate clearly. 
• Let us acknowledge all perspectives. 
• Let us communicate Precise roles, responsibilities, and goals. 
• Let us give Recognition for all contributors. 
• Let us share our vision and intentions to draw everybody on the same page. 
• Let us Address negativity with empathy. 
• Let us establish a sense of curiosity and passion for perspective. 
• Let us Embrace an experimental attitude. 
• Let us raise Skill of compromise. 
• Let us be Reliable. 
• Let us form a Team player attitude. 
• Let us construct Diversity. 
• Let us be candid for dialogue. 
• Let us be Trustworthy. 

Influencing skill: 

• Let us Establish connections. 
• Let us listen before we seek to persuade. 
• Let us Build up expertise. 
• Let us give individuals what they demand. 
• Let us establish & keep a foundation of Trust. 
• Let us Be genuinely interested in other people. 
• Let us smile and show friendliness. 
• Let us remember people’s names. 
• Let us Be an exceptional listener and promote others to talk about themselves. 
• Let us talk in terms of the other person’s interests. 
• Let us make the other person feel important. 
• Let us “Mirror” The Person. 
• Let us do a lot of Research. 

Interpersonal Skill: 

• Let us Pursue a positive outlook. 
• Let us Control our emotions. 
• Let us Acknowledge others’ expertise. 
• Let us Discover one good trait in every co-worker 
• Let us Practice active listening. 
• Let us Practice empathy. 
• Let us Commence accepting responsibilities. 
• Let us stop Complaining. 
• Let us Turn into a bit better appreciative. 
• Let us Turn into being observant of our body language. 
• Let us respect others’ thoughts and opinions. 
• Let us Manage conflict. 

I am positive that as a coach, all of us are already benefiting from these skills largely else success would be greatly tough in our profession.

A Day of an Agile coach

I am an agile coach, How my day looks like? 

My primary task is to entail implementing the Agile process, principles, and practices across all levels and departments in an organization. 

As an Agile Coach, I must apply techniques that enhance collaboration, predictability, transparency and improve a culture of experimentation and innovation. 

In order to accomplish this, the Agile Coach must also incorporate the Agile principles and lead by example.

Wait, I have been an agile coach for the last 7 years, and there are a plenty of developments in my days during my years and type of engagement. Most of the days are more or less the same with variation, with engagement. 

The tasks are distributed and deliberately plan to accomplish the overall objective.

Always there is a time crunch!!

When I was a Team level Agile coach:

• When I was a team level coach, I had 3-4 teams to coach for Agile Transformation. My day used to spread with numerous activities like below.
• What I used to coach, I used to ensure, Agile mindset and agile ways of being embraced by the team members.
• What was the typical engagement cycle time? it was for 7-9 members scrum teams; it was 6-9 months engagement.

What did I use to do?

Since morning, I would be in discussion with all the 4-5 teams.

• I used to prepare a plan on which team to approach, on which day in a week and how long(1-2 hrs max).
• I used to coach on all aspects of Scrum, Lean, and Kanban practices.
• I used to engage in all their events ( In rotation to deal with all the team members)
• I used to take based on the need for numerous training for the team.
• I used to speak one to one with SM or PO or Leaders.
• I used to work with SM on Tools they were using to mentor them on tool usages and how to interpret the data for advancement.
• I used to facilitate initially many scrum events and ensure, I let them drive those after a particular month.
• I used to connect team members among these 4-5 teams where I was engaged for lesson learned sharing
• Most of my days I used to figure out about these teams( Coaching journal preparation for reflection), each individual, their behavior exchange, etc.
• I used to present team progress in numerous executive meetings and report about the hurdles and requests for aid.
• I used to connect with the business for the Business team members coaching. 
• I used to Assess the Scrum Maturity of the team and organization and coaching to higher levels of maturity.

More or less every day, this is the routine for several months for an Team coach. 

Challenges:

• Devoting time to all the teams.
• The numerous types of individuals and various levels of maturity to handle at the same time.
• Leaders expect the miracle to appear at the fastest timeline

When I was an enterprise coach my days looks a bit different. 

When I was a more on enterprise coach, I managed to have only 1-2 teams to coach.

How was the routine day looks like?

• Team coaching was like a usual mentioned above, around 20-30% of the time in a day based on the other engagement.
• The nature of the teams was unique, we used to pick up most of the teams where teams are dealing with high ambiguity and complication.
• 40-60% of the time, I used to look beyond team coaching in a day for diverse organizational agile transformation activities.

What are those?

• I used to engage for report preparation for Agile transformation for the business line/department, which I was answerable for. We used to prepare and present the Agile transformation progress report to senior executives. Define, publish and educate the organization on key metrics that show the progress of the transformation effort.
• I used to attend weekly stand-ups with business leaders for the business line where I was answerable for the business line agile transformation and communicate to the other team level coaches about the development and challenges.
• I used to work for Scaling agile if there are any needs. This calls for an abundance of time for conversation, collaboration for multiple teams. If such an obligation appears, most of the time of the days work there.
• I used to participate in several Training curriculum preparations. We used to prepare the game for the workshop. We used to strengthen the training agenda for 1 day or 2 days’ duration. With other coaches, we used to dry run that curriculum and execute those training.
• I used to engage for Community contribution example scrum master community and PO community. We used to design and examined with the community members what should be the theme and conversation topics.
• I used to arrange for a coaching clinic and coaching dojo for mid-managers. We used to reviewed and chalk out a plan for how the drive will be and what will be the outcome.
• I was a coaching community member, debate about the organizational impediments and what can be worked out to eliminate those. Each business line coaches used to serve each other by contributing to each other’s area.
• If there is a foreign visit, we used to prepare the agenda and present the topics and learn from each other. Every quarter there is a coach exchange from each alternative location to understand cultural exchange and learning.
• We used to spend some time for ourselves as a coach in the book club, coaching kata session.
• Organizational assets creation e.g checklist,template,models etc
• We used to prepare for Agile day in the organization; it takes several months of preparation to drive for the agile day.

We were invariably busy all the time!

More or less every day, these are the routine tasks for every year for an Enterprise Agile coach. Once I look at my Monday to Friday calendar, one of the other tasks from the above will reflect.

Challenges:

• Making time for all these organization initiatives.
• Managing ad-hoc request for help from strangers!
• Department level hurdles removal which appeals for structural modifications, silos ways of functioning, dealing with org resistance.
• Collaboration with numerous stakeholders and escalations.
• Our own motivation!

Learning from Grit Leaders!

Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and a MacArthur “Genius” professor, devoted years studying what it takes to be successful. In her recent book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” she explains that talent alone isn’t enough; you also have to have grit — a mental toughness that helps you persevere even in the face of obstacles.

“grit”? It’s a conversational expression, but it’s also a concept that psychologists have found to be linked to the way that some people continue their effort over time, even when obstacles slow them down.

The qualities Duckworth studies are partly about staying on your path despite setbacks, and resisting distractions: adaptability is good, but if you change your interests so often that nothing gets finished, you’re not really advancing. As she observes, you may need to be flexible, but “you also have to be good at something.” That something needs to be a “long-term passion” to be rewarding; if you find it, your focus will keep you motivated.

She explains that finding with this formula:

TALENT x EFFORT = SKILL

SKILL x EFFORT = ACHIEVEMENT

You won’t succeed in life if you don’t remain on a path you’ve chosen, regardless of how difficult and challenging the road becomes. Most individuals identify it crucial to keep up the hard work and require quick rewards. Long-term goals require time, patience, sacrifices and effort and you need to have the endurance to stay on the path. 

We had a team storytelling session with the leadership team, the theme is to share their life as a movie. They are the hero of the narrative and they need to explain since from their childhood to date. Ups and downs of the journey.

The purpose is to connect with the leadership team members. Understand and establish a deeper relationship among themselves.

Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit. — Jonah Lehrer

In a process, we discovered few of the team members have extraordinarily grit characteristics and they are nurturing those characteristics and continue to promote themselves in the corporate leadership position.

What can we pick up from their adventure?

Some of the team members who have exhibited significant grit in their story. 

Many of the team members shared that they have come from a faraway village, studied extremely hard in a severe situation. They did not have an adequate support system, but still, they have obtained whatever they could gain with limitation, they came to the downtown, tried many approaches to get the finest job. and they continue to demonstrate the same thing as today. They have dreams and persistence for a better life.

If you want to be a leader in an organization, occasionally that means taking calculated risks. You want members on your team who have ideas, won’t back down from a challenge, seek out fresh growth opportunities and produce plans to make it a reality.

They have shared many stories where they have failed many attempts to get selected in the job or various assignments but they bounce back again with fresh vitality. They were not perfect at first attempts, they are not smart at the first attempt, they are not right at first attempt but they keep on trying.

They are the individuals who have tried a distinct avenue to surmount challenges, they have proposed ideas and take action to alter the circumstances. we need staff members who are problem solvers and who are continually seeking for ways that processes can be enhanced. But more than that, we want to find individuals who will act on those ideas. And continue until their success.

They are the team members who are stick to the tasks regardless of the challenges. Staying on task can be demanding and is one of the biggest challenges that some individuals encounter. We need employees who can concentrate on projects for long periods of time and remain engaged throughout the entire process until it’s completed.

Most of these team have experienced from many pains, fear, and grief when I asked a few of them, most of these team members have a tale to tell, how they have experienced tough gift from destiny. Their experiences are rich in events. But today they are standing proudly to share those memories which they are proud of. 

They are committed and optimistic. They realize something beneficial will happen and they will surmount the present condition. They invariably use positive words in their conversation. They look for a ray of hope in crises.

They continue to demonstrate all these characteristics and I am honored to be working with them and learning from them.

Leaders, are you pursuing people properly for the Transformation?

“About twenty percent of the people are against any change.” – Robert F. Kennedy

I encounter many leaders who are extremely efficient at pursuing others for the transformations.

They have the magic and will produce the magic that individuals will buy into it.

I requested a couple of my leader's colleagues to share with me what works with them.

How they pursue others for new change initiatives.

Change is a normal part of our lives, but it’s uncomfortable for the vast majority of people because it makes them feel like they’ve lost control. Do you remember a time when you felt like things were being done to you that you had no control over? That’s how they may feel now. In every way you can, let them know that you can relate to that. – Mary Jo Asmus

There are a few points we need to concentrate on to gain acceptance from the employees, with these approach leaders can certainly pursue the team members for new changes.

• Changes scare people. So Leaders need to assure the individuals that nothing will affect them significantly due to the changes. 
• Individuals tend to find security, so as a leader we have to assure security to the individuals. 
• Employees do not realize why a unique change is happening, as a leader when we ignore to explain the why part, individuals will not be with us. 
• Individuals do not like uncertainty, so as a leader we have to co-create the outlook with the employees where together we will reduce the uncertainty.
• People do not understand the new changes, so as a leader we have to develop the story which is obvious to understand, we have to paint the picture to the people’s minds. So storytelling plays a key role in communicating about the change. 
• People do not like an upside-down change, so the leaders require to safeguard that changes are incremental, then compliance will be significant. Nobody likes abrupt changes.
• Leaders need to allocate additional effort to connect with each and every member of the group about the recent changes. Each human being is unique. They understand differently. Once all the team members are persuaded, they can take care of the whole team by distributing their understanding with each other. 
• As change is taxing on emotion, people do not be in the appropriate mental setup, as a leader we have to acknowledge this mental turbulence and facilitate the team members to overcome. This is the time when the trial of trust will be immense.
• In the change management process, few individuals will lose control and power, the leaders need to acknowledge these factors and focus on each individual’s pride and other respect factors. Fear will be remarkably high at this moment. As fear hijacks our emotions and rational mind, leaders need to accompany the team members at this moment.
• Leaders need to devote time to build trust in the absence of the trust people will not part of our journey.
• New ways of functioning may contribute to problems and challenges which individuals are not comfortable with, as a leader, we desire to understand these factors and support the team members to deal with the challenges.
• Individuals are stressed up owing to too many recent changes, Individuals will resist when they are under stress. The leader needs to observe these stress and focus on relieving this stress. 
• When individuals are not competent with the new upcoming change to deal with, they will resist, as a leader, we need to understand the skill and competency of the existing team members and bridge those where there is a gap
• Acknowledgment, whenever employees are investigating something new, leaders need to acknowledge the improvement and rewards for the modest achievement, it will provide a positive boost to the team members to do more such small initiatives
• With new structural changes, the individual has to move out of their comfort zone, which is a significant challenge as it breaks the normal routine, leaders need to mentor them to surmount these changes. New colleagues, new managers, the new role of the game, etc Leaders can figure out the initial chaos and help the employees.
• Previous bitter change experience triggers the resistance to employees and they spread the negativity into the system, leaders have to be vigilant about such events. Need to serve by communicating regularly and communicating better.
• Leaders have to exhibit empathy with the employees during the transformation journey 
• Employees like when leaders involve them, involve the for consultation, involve them for co-creation, employees accept more about the new change when they are involved.
• Bad change management execution will spoil the whole change management initiatives

Acceptance will be high when Leaders addresses all the above mention situation. They are able to pursue their employees easily in such a situation.

Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instill change is to do it with them. Create it with them. – Lisa Bodell

Leaders, are you leading in autopilot mode?

Let us first glance into the muscle memory which leaders might have formed in their leadership role. 

Muscle memory is a construct of procedural memory that involves reinforcing a definite motor task into memory through repetition, which has been used equally with motor learning.

Muscle memory is strengthened through repetition over time. I might be a department head for the last 5 years so I know what to be done for my business.

Repetition creates new neural pathways in the brain, which actually becomes hard-wired to perform the performed activity. The brain no longer has to perform hard to make it happen, so the activity feels natural for you. We just do it automatically, without having to think about it.

We are in autopilot mode. Yahooo!!

A current study by Daniel Gilbert (who wrote a great book called Stumbling on Happiness) and Matthew Killingsworth, confirms something we’ve all wondered: most of us are ‘mentally checked out’ a good portion of the time. 

If we are practicing a song on the piano over and over again, the idea is that we will continue to advance. 

“Practice makes perfect” can be an authentic phrase because the more we do something, we build up that procedural memory and our brain can quickly instruct our muscles to carry it out. 

The side effect of the muscle memory is that it doesn’t judge whether we are doing good or bad, however, and so if we practice a song poorly for hours on end we are going to be absolutely efficient at making the same mistakes over and over again. All these instructions are written in our unconscious mind for later retrieval. 

This is not merely poor because we have wasted our time learning to be bad or mediocre at a task and may see all this work as a failure. Unknowingly we are making this a habit. When you repeat mistakes again and again, we build muscle memory with those mistakes which makes them even harder to overcome later.

That makes those mistakes even tougher to overcome later. This is one reason why the saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is generally genuine.

One strong stake is that when we are immature ” when we yet have a most to learn” we have to create a conscious effort to think about what we’re doing. But afterward, after we’ve become more accomplished, considerable of what initially took effort becomes automatic. The great advice is that functioning on autopilot allows us to consume less brain energy on the routine forms of the work.

Ninety-six percent of people in the UK agree to make most decisions on autopilot, according to this research—it has become an epidemic. Our minds are wandering around most of the time.

Our subconscious utilizes muscle memory to automate many types of frequent operations such as: walking, driving, riding a bike, typing on a keyboard, speaking, sport or physical activity. One complication emerges when we start to do things on “autopilot” and we surrender some consciousness about what’s going on around us.

When leaders develop this muscle memory over a stretch of time, they get into the autopilot mode. 

Because Leaders might have seen such instances earlier in their careers, so they know what they have to perform.

But in today’s dynamic world leaders can not work mindlessly in autopilot mode, they have to perform with mindfulness and provide attention to every occurrence.

Leaders reacting to situations with common, predetermined, pre-approved behavior patterns will not perform most of the occasion.

We are residing in an extremely complex world where events are emergent. It is no more the Playing piano or playing golf thousands of times and building muscle memory and get into autopilot mode like daily driving! As a leader, we are handling with diverse complex matters e.g. people.

Much of our behavior is dominated by automatic processes! so while communicating to our subordinate we may get into auto pilot mode and may not be careful. 

What leaders can perform:

• Being Mindful.
• Being connected with the world with data and facts.
• Build a stronger relationship and collaborate.
• Unlearn and learn new ways of working.
• Innovate news ways of building solution and focus on Kaizen( It breaks the autopilot mode)
• Stop and reflect on your day.
• Going beyond the comfort zone.

Look at your autopilot moments and reflect if anything needs to alter.

Guide to build your life Purpose?

All of us are aware of the importance of Purpose driven life.

All the team members I have come across, I share my purpose and enable them to build their own.

If you read the well-known people they live for a purpose.

Let all the team members build their own purpose.

We as a leader build our own purpose.

Every organization, the department has its own purpose.

Now to build our Purpose or refine our purpose, we may use a few questions to be answered and the same can be used when you coach your team members

“Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs”

~Stephen Covey, ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’

• What were you passionate about as a youngster?
• What did you find emotionally fulfilling when you were younger?
• If you didn’t have to work, and you weren’t allowed to stay in the house, how would you choose to spend that time?
• What drives you to forget about the nature around you?
• What themes do you admire to study about? 
• What kind of remarks do you have with your dearest associates?
• Are there any topics that you frequently bring up to communicate about? 
• What do you choose to accomplish before you die? 
• If you had a dream, could you create it to take place?
• What Are You willing to Battle for?
• How Are You Going to Save the World?
• What are part of your adventures you feel appreciative of and you choose to replay it repeatedly?
• What are the numerous ways you have been impacting other people’s existence?
• After one or two decades you choose to record your accomplishment, what you will be recording?
• What you will perform free of cost?
• What do you choose to know for?
• What are your dreams and they are shaping you now and will shape tomorrow?
• What activities when you do, and you put always 150%?
• What you choose to die for?
• What encourages you to travel out of your comfort zone?
• When you get resistance, for what reason you present your 100% to bounce back or push back hard?
• Who is your idol, and why do you cherish this individual?
• What are my core values and beliefs?
• If you recognized you were going to die one year from today, what would you do and how would you choose to be remembered?
• What makes you out of bed in the morning and what keeps you up at night? what energizes you?
• If you have all the capital that is required, how you will allocate your time?

At the end of this exercise you will find tremendous energy and you will get an intrinsic drive to do better and bigger. Give it a try and do it more often.

Variety can destroy Variety

Variety is commonly a descriptor of the volume of potential states within a system.

The variety grows exponentially with the magnitude of organizations and major systems, creating massive extents of complexity with regard to its interactions.

Variety is a measure of complexity.

Ashby’s Law:

W. Ross Ashby was a British cyberneticist and psychologist who, during the 1960s, proposed law with regard to levels of variety and regulation within biological systems. In his words:

When the variety or complexity of the environment exceeds the capacity of a system (natural or artificial) the environment will dominate and ultimately destroy that system.

In order to handle accordingly with the diversity of problems the world throws at you, you require to have a repertoire of responses that are (at least) as nuanced as the problems you face.

Requisite Variety: Requisite means basic or recommended. So requisite variety suggests that you require a specific amount of information for some purpose.

Law of requisite variety: If a system is to be stable, the number of states of its control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled.

For organizations and teams, Ashby’s law effectively means that they must invariably remain more flexible with their approaches to strategy and operation than the levels of structure and complexity within their systems and operating environment. Sometimes this variety is modest, but occasionally it can be enormous, and thus it is up to the organizations, teams, and the leaders within them to gauge the suitability of their present systems for the environment they operate in.

If the systems which regulate don’t have enough (or requisite) variety to contest the complexity of the regulated, then regulation will fail. The system will be out of control.

All these reasons help us to deal with a complex system.

As a leader, we require to figure out the prevailing complexity of the system and assure a variety of mechanism to handle with the complexity.

Organizations have two choices suitable in shaping for requisite variety - Amplification and Attenuation.

Source: Global Risk Insights

Amplification: Amplification is where the team sets up collaboration with diverse agents in its external environment to strengthen its expertise to respond to stimuli. To amplify variety, we need to empower subordinates, hire more experienced employee, Train existing employees, and Collaborate with external agents etc

Attenuation: Reduction of the variety of possible disturbances given to the essential variables.To attenuate variety, we can Standardize communication and Standardize processes etc.

I am sure most of us are engaged in some of the other ways of dealing with such complexity. As a Leader of a complex system, we must know this and apply this for our own development. Sometimes team members will ask why scaling agile has so many events in the system? this will explain to address complex system, we need to have many meaningful events and leaders should facilitate such events for better results.

Leaders, do you know your Self?

The Ancient Greek aphorism “know thyself” (Greek: γνῶθι σεαυτόν, translated: gnōthi seauton; also ... σαυτόν … sauton with the ε contracted), is one of the Delphic maxims and was carved in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek author Pausanias.

Leadership scholar Warren Bennis, in his study of how successful people learned to become leaders, mentioned that self-knowledge is an essential part of defining a leader’s integrity. ‘‘To become a leader, then, you must become yourself; become the maker of your own life.’’

He discovered that knowing yourself is ‘‘the most difficult task any of us faces. But until you truly know yourself, strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most superficial sense of the word.’’

The dictionary defines self-awareness as the conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.

Before knowing anything else, we require to know our-self first. We need to know our weaknesses, strengths, beliefs, and desires in life. Keeping in touch with our emotions means we have to be self-aware.

Every leader first they experience themselves before they support others. All of us are leaders, either we coach someone else to become leaders, but first, we have to identify ourselves. 

“As my awareness increases, my control over my own being increases.”

– William Schutz

Few questions to seek to identify our inner self and record them down:

• Who I am? 
• Why Do I signify?
• Why do I get out of bed each day?
• What do I think about myself?
• What do I appreciate about myself?
• Am I a respectable person?
• Who loves me?
• What do I choose to be printed on my gravestone?
• How would I describe the purpose of life?
• Do I feel inspired by someone or something?
• What qualities do I value in life?
• What is life asking of me?
• Who are the most prominent individuals in my life?
• How do I measure my self-worth? 
• Do I know what my talents are?
• What’s my most noteworthy accomplishment?
• What am I good at? 
• Do I realize what I enjoy performing?
• What do I regret doing?
• What am I bad at?
• What makes me glad?
• What makes me angry?
• What makes me unhappy?
• What makes me afraid?
• What stresses me out?
• What relaxes me?
• How do I want others to perceive me?
• What do I desire to alter about myself?
• How would I express my childhood?
• What worries me most about the future?
• What type of individual do I choose to be?
• What type of partner do I want to be?
• How would my best friend describe you?
• Do I have a goal?
• What’s my interpretation of success?
• What is my biggest strength?
• What is your biggest weakness?
• Does it truly matter what others think about me?
• Have I made someone smile today?
• Whose support do I rely on?
• How do I invest the majority of my time?
• Who has had the greatest impact on my life?
• Am I leading my life for myself?
• Do you feel attached to my community?

“Self-awareness is one of the rarest of human commodities. I don’t mean self-consciousness where you’re limiting and evaluating yourself. I mean being aware of your own patterns.”

– Tony Robbins

Thus, strengthening self-awareness takes time, a lot of effort and practice. It demands a person to pay attention to his/her own personality and behavior.

Finest time to discover your Self!! Stay at home and explore your self!

“How hurtful it can be to deny one’s true self and live a life of lies just to appease others.” – June Ahern 

This is the finest chance to identify who you are. 

This time effectively utilized with help all of us in the subsequent days to remain compatible and deal with the world in a stronger manner.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ―Aristotle

Once you know yourself, you will become more confident, you will understand your purpose, and you will start producing a bigger impact on the world.

When we know who we are, we learn what we desire to perform.

The finest and most important adventure of our lives is identifying who we really are.

In order to discover who we are and why we act the way we do, we have to identify our own story. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

“The greatest discoveries are those that shed light unto ourselves.”

Albert Einstein once said this: 

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

You have to figure out yourself and identify your strengths.

Are we fish struggling to climb the tree or fish in the ocean and exploring the ocean and continuing our life what it meant to be!

Author Neale Donald Walsch:

“Your soul is who you are. Your body and your mind are what you use to experience who you are in the Realm of the Relative.”

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu

At the foundation of our desires is living a life of purpose and meaning.

Sit alone for some time as we have the opportunity now to explore our inner self. We are restricted to be at home and it is wonderful moment to discover ourselves.

Be quiet and observe your true self. You cannot and will not be able to identify yourself until you take the time to be still. Once the mind is calm and not much distracted your true self will surface out.

Take inventory.

Buy a diary or notebook and reflect on your life so far. What have you attained? Do you have any major fears? Are you struggling against real obstacles? Have you set reasonable objectives? List down everything and identify which section has better to focus now. 

Discover your Passions:

Note down all the work you preferred to achieve. And plan to start all those passions which trigger your inner self. Write it down.

Think about your hobby:

Look inside and analyze what hobby you choose to start, painting, playing music, writing, cooking, etc, retrospect and note down to commence with one now. 

Read self-discovery books.

Start by becoming familiarized with the concept of self-discovery. Learn the meaning of a personal inventory and how to handle what you find. Reading books about the discovery of self will open new doors of insight and understanding. Read those books and write your thoughts. 

Evaluate your relationships.

A substantial aspect of identifying our personality can be identified in our relationships. When we understand we will never truly know anyone else until we recognize our self, the usefulness of recognizing our self becomes even more visible.

You can ask a few dominant questions to identify yourself better

1. What I am known for?
2. What about myself do I admire most?
3. Classify what I cherish most doing?
4. Identify what brings me joy
5. What prospects of my life do I choose to see a transformation in?
6. What did I choose to accomplish?
7. What are my fears?
8. What am I thankful for?
9. Am I content working out what I’m presently working?
10. What are the most remarkable things I’ve gained in life?
11. Who inspires me the most and what is it that inspires me about them?
12. What do I believe in?
13. What have I accomplished in my life that I am most proud of?
14. What is my biggest core value?
15. How do I feel about your parents?
16. Let me write my own obituary. What I will be writing?

Self-discovery contributes to self-mastery.

Write your own biography:

We can work out this as a mental exercise or in a paper, but the idea is to choose a devoted look backward on our own past as objectively as desirable. Take the time to investigate the choices we have made and question why we made them. Study about the comment we have obtained from colleagues and co-workers. Most specially, even though, be tough on ourselves and sink into our disappointments. When we are walking through that biography, study about how we have been greedy, unpleasant, or cruel. Study about why we were that way. The outcome is to have a better sense of ourselves, so root out as much as we can from our own past. Once we have that biography in hand, we might be astonished at just how much we didn’t know about ourselves before we started.

Leaders, Do not tell us, Show us what to Change.

Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand - Chinese Proverb.

Why some of the transformation initiatives are not successful?

What I have been seen, the transformation roadmap steps have been developed somewhere in a close room in the headquarters with some great minds.

Now the same assumptions and directions have come to us with an instruction to enforce the same, What to do and how to go on?

We (The Agile coaches) have been asked to follow the order, and we have received the order to numerous departments and telling them to follow the order of transformation!

Workers with the (Business units) department are perplexed as some of the activities are not aligning with their ways of working or vision. We are also discovering the challenges! the close room designed plan is not matching in a specific context. Due to the cultural and Ego clash, individuals are not eager to acknowledge the mistake!

Leaders are pressuring why things are not progressing? by this time miracle should have taken place! Who to blame?

So they started searching for the scapegoats, someday, we got the scapegoat, some time execution process to be blamed for the transformation failure.

Few of the root cause we noticed, but headquarters are not granting us to deviate the path as they might have lost the power.

People tend to resists changes if those changes are thrust upon them.

Telling is like thrusting changes on them.

When we tell, the signals pass, this is the better way of doing, your current ways of working is incorrect. This provokes resistance in the mind as it hurts the self-esteem of the people who are working at the grass-root level.

The magnitude of resistance is expected to be inversely proportioned to our level of self-esteem.

It depends on how the team members at grass root level feel about themselves with the unique changes.

They essentially act in reaction, reactive thinking is most of the time due to low self-esteem.

The creative thinker does not resist changes.

So the telling approach will have tremendous resistance which leads to a lot of waste of time and energy.

So what do we do? A different approach. 

what is that?

How can we alter the telling to show? How can we change telling to involving?

Let us use lean thinking, where people who are with the system, they realize what changes we require. People in the team possess vast knowledge, wisdom, creativity, and energy. Best leaders access the wealth of experience and empower their people through the effective use of the questions.

Based on our experience what is functioning in the approach which are:

When we tell people what to and how to do it, there is an inclination to resist.

When ideas come from the people they will support it

When we tell, it is giving the message that they are doing something which is wrong and they become more defensive.

When we ask the team to provide input they get encouraged and they become more creative and they get in buy-in

For any such transformation change initiative, we first call for the workshop with all the team members. we do 1-2 days workshop to discover the problem and later we do a solution workshop.

Where we all together come out to figure out what best works for us.

We start the experiment and determine what is best applicable to our environment.

As an expert, we become mentors and facilitate the session.

Where ever require we do training, coaching and mentor the team member?

It works best as a team co-create the solutions.

I am sure you might have also experienced similar types of approach and with the design thinking approach, this has become much easier to implement and get the buy-in from the people easily.

You have these Ego Trap....I am sure you are not aware!

When communicating with the leaders as a part of leadership coaching, most of the time, we come across this Ego Trap where leaders are the victim. Not only leaders even team members are also the victim of these. 

How do we point these to the leaders or team members?

First, we require to recognize if the leaders or team members are the victims of Ego Trap.

All of us will succumb to our egos at some point. It’s inescapable.

The vital thing is that we work out our best to realize these traps when we fall into them and then study how to avoid them moving forward.

Professor Bacharach went on to explain that there’s a balancing act involved, noting that “pragmatic leaders are careful not to let their egos get in the way of achieving their goals and executing their agendas.”

An ego trap is any belief and habit you have that makes you feel like you’re superior to other people (physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, spiritually) and the root of it is the dominating worry of insignificance and unworthiness

In the negative, the ego fools us into becoming overly identified with our bodies, thoughts, and emotions.

As Lao Tzu says, “He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know.”

The ego is never satiated. It doesn’t matter how much you have, your ego will continue on asking for more. It is never sufficient, you will be trapped.

The ego loves to keep us trapped there—rehashing old troubles, perceived mistakes, ancient regrets.

“The ego constantly competes with the spirit for control over your inner voice.” – Darren L. Johnson

You are trapped when you have below symptom

• You are ignoring negative comment.
• Submerged into positive feedback! People can use this superficial flattery to appeal to your ego and, finally, influence your decision-making in order to benefit themselves or their business
• You love control; you feel wonderful when you exercise this power
• You know everything and no need to change anything. You are not welcoming any fresh suggestion.
• You do not walk the talk, 
• You always walk with Yes sir people. You choose to walk with them as they listen to you and accept you
• You do not like to receive criticism if someone wants to share with you
• You think you have all the answers in the room, and nobody knows as much as you know
• You demand people follow you
• You lost in touch with the latest happenings and you live in your own best world
• You love to receive 1000 likes on Facebook, if it less, you feel sad!
• You are worried about how others will read you! you work for others to get acknowledge
• You benchmark yourselves with others always
• You are living in the past, carrying past and worry for the future
• You judge the individuals based on their action
• You communicate with others to impress them
• You take yourself seriously 
• You need individuals to be around yourself to acknowledge your contribution
• You want to win at any cost and always right 

“We must go beyond the constant clamor of ego, beyond the tools of logic and reason, to the still, calm place within us: the realm of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra

We need to reverse act against all these points to maintain a healthy life and become healthy individuals. It takes a lot of practice to control self-ego!

Why we do not compliment more amply?

How can we become a better leader or a better individual? One of the outstanding virtues of a stronger leader and better individual is who acknowledge other’s contribution. Encourage others to do more such excellent work.

Why leaders are stingy in complimenting others? they feel insecure? when they have to compliment. 

Have you come across such a leader? Why we have many such leaders? When they will change? 

Why individuals do not Compliment easily? Why they record merely the dreadful instances?

Mark Twain once said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

Criticisms often have a stronger impact than compliments, and bad news frequently gets further recognition than good. The reason for this is that negative events have a greater impact on our brains than positive ones. Psychologists refer to this as negative bias.

The negative bias is our tendency not only to register negative stimuli more easily, but also to dwell on these events.

“The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?” says Julia Roberts’ character, Vivian, in Pretty Woman (1990). As it turns out, Roberts’ character, Vivian, was touching on an unfortunate psychological truth; the “bad stuff” is indeed easier to believe and the reasons why may surprise you.

Dr. Bono explains, “Danny Kahneman (an economist who won the 2002 Nobel prize for his work) has designed studies in which participants are asked to imagine either losing $50 or gaining $50. Even though the amount is the same, the magnitude of the emotional response is significantly larger for those imagining what it would be like to lose the money. In other words, the negativity of losing something is far greater than the goodness of gaining something…even when the “something” that has been lost or gained is objectively equivalent.”

We are good at registering negative than positive!!!

Why We Should Compliment More?

• Every. Single. One. Obviously, individuals are hungry for compliments.
• Greater appreciation contributes to enhanced communication, better relationships, and better contentment.
• Create so much positive energy that they make things happen almost like miracle!
• Paying someone a compliment can also be an efficient conversation starter
• Compliments make the world a better place
• They identify an individual that they are worthwhile of notice
• A genuine compliment is a form of spreading graciousness along with gratitude.
• Kindness has a ripple effect. Your compliment will, in theory, inspire that recipient to readily allow another a compliment; then that person will be inspired to do the same; and so on.

What are the parts of a stable compliment? we require to take care below aspects

• It should be specific
• It should be from your heart
• Observe all the good thing and distribute more 
• It must have supporting evidence
• It must be unconditional
• It must be valuable 
• It must be acceptable

Faux compliments are prone to have the opposite effect as legitimate ones.

When we encounter that leaders are not doing such action, we encourage leaders to commence this practice more and better.

Research shows receiving a compliment can strengthen performance, social interaction, positivity in relationships and raise general happiness.

“Compliments can lift moods, improve engagement with tasks, enhance learning and increase persistence,” Professor Nick Haslam, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne

How to establish a culture of Fear!

As a leader, perhaps you choose to establish fear in the team members’ minds!!

How can you create fear in the ecosystem?

You are a leader and you have seen such a leader in your career so you want to be like them!

The below rule will work …..

• Ensure people should not speak of their minds. If someone is expressing their mind, call them in a room and caution them not to express whatever they think, check with you, before they express anything in public.
• If anyone makes any mistake or disobey the team law, punish them in public.
• Check what time people are coming to office, how many time they go out for the break, check their activities, ask them to send you the daily report about the work, ensure they log 9 hrs at the office and ask for clarification for any deviation
• Ensure people do not perform as a team, create silos about work and assure people do not help each other. Everyone needs to contribute.
• Watch employee like a hawk.
• Examine the daily report and punish team members if they miss the daily goal
• If anything goes wrong, look for the individual answerable for the mistake and ensure it does not repeat, they are employed to perform the duty 
• Have a one to one with all the team members and ensure they adhere to your authority. Identify only the things for improvement items, do not allow them to sit on top of your head, bring them down by identifying fault from their activity.
• Give them spiritual and best practice lectures but ensure it does not adhere to at work
• Ensure people do not waste time in celebration and other nonproductive activities
• If there is a conflict among team members, you allow them to fix the conflict on their own. 
• Look for the key person from the team who can work for you as an informer, he/she should be your Yes sir person. Provide him/her opportunities 
• Minimize face-to-face communication and use mails, challenge individuals to send you mail if any issue.
• You accomplish works because “that’s the way it’s consistently been done.”
• When an employee comes to protest about something, notify them that you will look into it later, ask them to go and concentrate on work
• Ensure you pretend that you are absolutely busy and not freely accessible to individuals
• Ensure there is a competition among team members
• Tightly control the budget, do not spend on people unnecessarily, they are all cost to the company
• Focus more on the process, then people 
• Usages discouraging, demotivating statement
• Reveal your anger when circumstance demand.

Have you come across such Leaders? I know perhaps such leaders are rare!! You know, he/she has already a solid linkage with the top executives.

What do you do as a coach with such Toxic leaders?