What Is Vulnerability?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

I find that the topic of vulnerability comes up frequently in discussions amongst leaders with varying descriptions of what it means to “show vulnerability.”

Here are some questions to expand the dialogue:

  • Does vulnerability have to mean showing emotion?
  • It’s OK for a woman to have tears and talk about feelings, but still not OK for men?
  • What’s the difference between showing vulnerability and showing weakness?
  • How do we, as leaders, coach the leaders we work with on how to show up both confident and vulnerable?

And here are some stories from leaders I’ve worked with:

“I was a relatively new leader of a high growth business. We missed our numbers one year, and up in the front of the room, I teared up when I shared the news with my team. I felt shame that I didn’t control my emotions. Yet, the team rallied, each leader coming up to me to commit to what they would do to make sure it didn’t happen again.”

“First at age 18, and then at age 22, I entered the two most emotionless organizations there are, West Point at age 18 and Marines at age 22. In some way, these experiences hardened me to outward emotional signs. Then as a small unit infantry combat commander in Vietnam, we had to suppress and not show any emotions despite what we may have felt inside. To show emotions to the 18 & 19-year-old Marines that we led wasn’t viewed as something commanders did, and we worried that emotions might enter into the brutal things we had to do in the infantry. In our generation, it wasn’t considered ‘Marine like’ to show emotion—which of course led many of us to suppress PTSD feelings.”

“I have been working on culture in my company. Frustrated with the lack of progress, I stood up in front of the entire leadership team, all levels, and told my personal story, my values, my expectations of myself as a leader. Wow, what an impact it had; people began to ‘get it.’ And yet, I discovered that my two senior leaders, both women, struggled with this. They said they work hard to be “professional,” and to them showing or talking about feelings was weak and unprofessional.”

For all leaders, it is important to have followers trust our message. As such, there is a fine line between appearing vulnerable yet confident and appearing weak. These stories speak to different ways to address this challenge.

For me, it’s something like this,

  • Vulnerable is I am human. I make mistakes, admit them, learn from them, and move on.
  • Weak is I am uncertain. I don’t trust myself, I don’t know what to do.

 

There is as much fun in getting there…

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Occasionally there are small moments in life that leave a lasting impact. Years ago, I was sitting on a bench at the old Union Station. An old man sat down next to me, and we engaged in conversation. I asked him where he was headed, and he replied with glee, “San Francisco!”

“Wow,” I said, “that is a long way to go on the train.” His reply: “There is as much fun in getting there as there is in being there.”

This man’s answer has stayed with me, and I often think of him in these situations:

  • When I am too focused on getting to the outcome
  • When it’s time to pause
  • When it’s time to remember to be in the moment

In The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, by Desmond Tutu and Dalai Lama, these two extraordinary seers inspire us with their tales of being in the moment and experiencing joy, even in the face of adversity.

I wonder if my traveling acquaintance realized that he had seized on the secret to joy.

Glory Days, Don’t Let Them Pass You By…

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Thank you, Bruce Springsteen, for this quote. It seems today that the chorus of “glory days” conversation has increased. Perhaps it is because of Covid-19, or larger than that, a longing for the perceived pace of the past?

My response to this is, the glory days were only golden in retrospect. Every period has had its opportunities and challenges – it is only with hindsight that we see the value of a particular period in history.

Next time you find yourself longing for glory days, ask yourself the following questions:

  • What is it specifically that appeals to me about the past period?
  • What feels missing in the present?
  • What can I create today to give me the same feeling?

The Secret of Life…

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time

There ain’t nothing to it

Any fool can do it

Nobody knows how we got to

The top of the hill

But since we’re on our way down

We might as well enjoy the ride

James Taylor

As I reflect on James’ words, I am reminded of an equally important corollary, the power of the pause. 

Pause and notice what is around us

Pause and consider before responding

Pause and reframe what we hear

Pause and consider an alternate point of view

Pause for perspective, Nobody Died.

How Do You Know When It Is Time To Go?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Whether you are a business owner, a professional manager, an advisor, or anyone engaged in an enterprise for an extended time – how do you know when it is time to go?

“Nothing is forever,” the saying goes, and yet sometimes, perhaps even frequently, we stay too long. We watch professional athletes stay past their prime, and we participate in the debate about term limits for our congress. Yet, when it comes to our own engagements, how often do we look inward and debate our own need for term limits?

When I was negotiating my exit from the corporate world years ago, I remember a conversation I had with a friend. My friend asked, “What are you going to do if you don’t get the deal you want?” My answer was, “I guess I will stay one more year.” Her response, “How many more years are you going to say, one more year?” At that moment, I realized it was time for me to go, regardless of the negotiation outcome. And… because I had made my decision to exit, I, of course, handled the negotiation more effectively.

While this topic comes up for most leaders now and then, it typically surfaces in a time of frustration. I wonder if it might serve us to ask ourselves this question as part of our annual strategic planning instead. What if, as part of strategic planning, every business owner or executive answered the following five questions:

  1. What did I give to the business, other than my time, this past year?
  2. What did I get, other than $$, from my engagement in the business?
  3. How do my answers to #1 and #2 compare to previous years?
  4. If my give/get has declined, what do I need to do to change this, and do I have the passion and skillset to do it?
  5. If I didn’t lead or own this business, what would I be doing instead?

If you have asked these questions in the past and have stopped asking them, you may already know that it is time to go.  

Who Knows What Is Good and What is Bad

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

A few months ago, I began a Mental Fitness Coach training program with Shirzad Chamine, founder of Positive Intelligence. I have found this program to have profound results, and I have integrated it into my YOU PIVOT™ coaching practice. A key tenet of the program is the concept of The Sage Perspective.  

The Sage Perspective encourages us to look for the gift in everything that happens and is grounded in an old Chinese Proverb that goes something like this.

A farmer has a stallion as his most prized possession. One day he enters his stallion in competition, and his stallion wins first prize. 

His neighbors bring their congratulations—the farmer replies, who knows what is good and what is bad. 

The neighbors go away, puzzled by this strange reply. A week or so passes, and the thieves in the area, having discovered the stallion has won first prize, come and steal the stallion. 

The neighbors bring their condolences—the farmer once again replies, who knows what is good and what is bad. 

Another week or so goes by, and the stallion finds his way back to the farmer bringing with him two precious wild mares.

The neighbors again bring congratulations—and once again, the farmer replies, who knows what is good and what is bad. 

Another week or so passes. The farmer’s son is riding one of these wild mares to try to tame her, he’s thrown to the ground, and he breaks his leg. 

The neighbors bring their condolences. —and once again, the farmer replies, who knows what is good and what is bad. 

The neighbors are certain this guy is losing his mind. 

In this eventful village, where every week, lots of stuff happens, a week later, a war breaks out. Every able-bodied young man is conscripted; the farmer’s son cannot go because he has a broken leg. 

By this time in this story, the neighbors don’t even bother to bring their congratulations because they know what the farmer is going to say.

There is profound wisdom in this ancient Chinese story of life. From the Sage Perspective, the message isn’t to passively wait and see; instead, the message is to find or create the gift actively. The gift could be a learning opportunity, or it could be the classic blessing in disguise, or something else, perhaps an inspiration. 

Who knows what is good and what is bad.

As you travel your day tomorrow, when S*it happens, remember the farmer and ask yourself, where might be the gift in this.

Are You An Unreliable Narrator?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Last week I wrote about the importance of telling your today story before answering the question, What is Your Tomorrow Story?

One of the challenges I observe in my work as an executive life coach is we are often an unreliable narrator of our own story. Successful people tend to focus on what is next. They become accustomed to asking themselves, “what could I do better?” “What could my company do better?”  

While this approach is perceived to drive results, it also leads to negative feelings and perceptions, judging ourselves, others, and our circumstances. This judgment then shows up when we tell our story.

I recently began work with a CEO who had spent the last seven years transforming a founder-led, founder-dependent company into a steady, stable, independent profitable growth company—the result: a company that couldn’t find a buyer, sold for multiples of EBITDA.

Yet, when I asked him to tell me his story as he prepares for his next gig, I heard a story that went something like this. “I am good at team building and creating order out of chaos, but I am not a charismatic leader. I expanded a local company and turned it into a national company, but it wasn’t growing at 10x multiples of earnings. The company had up and down years before I took over, and under my leadership, results were consistent, but not double-digit.” 

With all these “buts,” he was an unreliable narrator of his own story.

The unreliable narrator is a storyteller who withholds information, lies to, or misleads the reader, casting doubt on the narrative. Authors use this device to engage readers on a deeper level, forcing them to come to their own conclusions when the narrator’s point of view can’t be trusted. 

While this is a useful device to keep our attention in a novel, when we tell the story of our lives and our career, it can send us down a rabbit hole of self-doubt and lies we tell ourselves.

What to do? Here are two approaches that I have found helpful:

  • Try telling your today story and your tomorrow story in the third person; write it as though you are talking about someone else.
  • Find a friend, a family member, a coach, someone that either knows you well, or is good at asking questions to draw out the real story. In short, find an editor to become the reliable narrator of your real story. 

Nobody Died

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

I have a new CEO client who used to be a trauma surgeon. We’ve had many conversations about the differences between leading an ER surgery team and leading a business. The other day, he said something that has stayed with me since, so I decided to write about it.

Here’s what he said, ” while I certainly see the leadership differences between the two roles, the most profound difference is with very few exceptions, in business, nobody died.”

In business, no matter how serious the challenge, it is a rare situation where we can’t gain perspective from his words. Sure it matters, and sure we need to give every business challenge our full attention and full effort. And, if we can simply remind ourselves that nobody died, I wonder how that might enhance our ability to resolve issues and address our challenges.

My client told me that one of his last patients was a little girl he could not save. He shared that it turned out one of the nurses in the ER knew her family and shared a photo of her in happy times. He plans to keep that photo on his desk, he said, to remind him that no matter what the stress, no matter what the challenge, nobody died. 

Perhaps we all need to keep her photo in our mind’s eye. 

Happy New Year, L’Shana Tova

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

This past Friday night began the Days of Awe in the Jewish religion. Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the New Year in the Hebrew calendar, marks this period’s start; Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, marks the end. It’s a time for reflection, which I enjoy, even though I do not consider myself a religious person.

The prayer we read at the opening of the service goes something like this, ” On Rosh Hashanah, it is written, and on Yom Kippur, it will be sealed – how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea that everything is pre-ordained, and yet, the Stoics remind us of the same thing, Amori Fatal, Momento Mori. The message of the ancient rabbis and the ancient Stoics is the same, make today matter, it may be all you have.

For me, it is this reminder, especially in these times, that causes me to pause, reflect, ask and affirm that what I am doing today, and each day, in the words of Steve Jobs, is what I would be doing if I knew today was my last. L’Shana Tova, Happy New Year.

Labor Day In A Pandemic

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Labor Day has taken on new meaning in these times. In the early months of the pandemic, we celebrated the labor of our essential workers:

  • food production and food service workers who make it possible for the rest of us to eat
  • health-care workers who care for the sick
  • sanitation workers who keep our communities clean
  • public safety workers who keep us safe 
  • manufacturers that produce the good we need
  • energy workers, and others I am likely leaving off this list

Labor Day historically marks the beginning of the school year. And once again, it is different this time. Different because the definition of school is both unclear and variable. Different because the clear division between parental responsibility and teacher responsibility has become blurred. 

The impact of the lack of clarity is reaching into businesses in unexpected ways. Employees with children struggle to meet their work responsibilities while caring for their children and tackling e-learning.   

The economic impact from this, both short and long term, remains to be seen but certainly, there will be an impact. A text I received from a young executive friend of mine back in July keeps rolling around in my brain “All the northwest suburbs have announced e-learning, the communities near me are doing hybrid. It looks like a lot of parents aren’t going back to work. How is this sustainable? If we had a woman workforce issue before, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.” 

And, the world I live in is full of innovators. Education was already a system under disruption; I am looking forward to seeing what entrepreneurs come up with to address this latest labor challenge.

Perhaps this Labor Day will mark a beginning. 

Let’s work together. If you are looking to grow or get unstuck and cut the time to action to six months or less, there is no better time than now to contact me.