Targeted Behavior Change
Over the past year I have shifted the focus of my executive coaching work to targeted behavior change - helping successful executives be more effective, and even more successful.
It sounds simple. I mean, what can be challenging about helping people who have already established themselves as successes in their fields, companies and careers to be even more successful? The simple answer: What gets a man to a place does not necessarily keep him there. Put another way: The way I did it yesterday may not be what is needed today. I may need to learn, grow and act differently.
The choice for these up-and-coming-senior executives is between behavior that is comfortable and behavior that is effective.
Notice I’m not making any statement about the ends someone is trying to achieve. While…
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Better for Having Been Here
As my work becomes more focused on helping individuals grow into the fullness of their leadership potential, including eliminating problematic behaviors (something I have direct experience with - and will be writing about a lot in this blog in the coming months), the more my attention gravitates to the words and deeds of men and women commonly accepted as successful in their fields.
I am no patsie when it comes to equating success (which usually means financial success) and leadership; many a financially successful man has been found out to be a lousy leader. Most of the men and women my middle management friends work for would fit this category. And, we all know at least one man or woman in our personal, if not professional, lives who would not…
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What Needs to Happen First?
For a couple months I’ve been working with a young man in financial services. He’s married with one child. He’s tired and doesn’t smile as much as he’d like. He also drinks more than he knows is healthy and doesn’t get enough exercise. Know anyone like that? It’s easy to see that he has a big heart, even if it seems a bit weighed down by “practical concerns.” He’s tired of the ups and downs of commission-based work and hired me to help him “make more money.” He recently had two very rich months and wanted to avoid returning to his “average” monthly income.
Usually I don’t work with clients who approach me with making money as their main goal. But, our paths crossed in such a way I decided to…
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Seeing It All
If Spring explodes
Into colors,
And aromas,
And warm sunlight
One day;
If the crocuses,
And daffodils seem to
Pop up suddenly,
And the robin’s breast
Arrests our attention,
It’s because
We’ve trained our eyes
On the threshold
Where drama lives.
But, this Spring didn’t spring.
It inched up to radiance,
Through long silence,
And blackness,
And cold.
Copyright © David C Facer Jr. All rights reserved.
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Hey Man, Where You Been?
I remember when I was a kid and the phone rang, I was excited to answer it. In the days before Caller ID, it was, for the most part, an exciting and, more often than not, welcome interruption in my home routine.
Of course there were stretches of time when I and a friend were in a spat or had permanently fallen out or I had broken up with someone who kept calling and calling and calling. Those calls were not happily anticipated or answered. But, for the most part, I answered the phone eagerly.
I used to get the mail with the same eagerness. Not that much came for me; I saw my friends every day so no postcards arrived from exotic locales around the world. Birthdays were about the…
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What’s It All About?
Tomorrow ends a month-long visit from one of my great friends. He has just sold a business he worked so hard to keep going amidst the most difficult circumstances. In the end, it was time to give up. So, he came for a month to lick his wounds, look back, draw some lessons and begin looking forward with new eyes.
Ours is the kind of friendship that defies time, desperately horrible jokes, long stretches without any contact and the occasional argument - though those are so few now even they are jokes to us.
So, it occurs to me that my life is about cultivating relationships. The kind of relationships that have each of us in service to the other, within reason, of course. We all know the sort of co-worker who…
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On Winners and Losers
Tonight is the final men’s college basketball game of the year. Tonight one team will be crowned national champions. That means one team will win the game; the other will lose. One team will be called the winners; the other team will be called the losers.
Winners and losers - now that seems a silly way to look at it. But, hey ho, we like those terms. If I win, can you win? If you lose, can I lose? In business we like to think in terms of win/win relationships. But, in sports, we don’t think in those terms. Seems we can’t bend our heads around to having two winners. Even when there is a draw, or a tie, we still don’t call each team winners. We say they tied.…
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How to Watch the Academy Awards
I have finally found a reason to watch the Academy Awards. Usually I avoid the program because every year it becomes more about fame, fashion and popularity. At least that is the set of values the TV folks choose. But, this year, it occurs to me there is a much bigger reason to watch, particularly if you’re working on creating something big and bold for yourself and others.
The Academy Awards allow us a rare look into what happens in the creative process. We get a glimpse at how an idea goes from the firing of synapses in brain cells to a complete set of contiguous images and sounds - a movie - viewed with the eyes and listened to with the ears so it evokes intellectual and emotional responses.…
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Bode Miller and Team - Contrary Ideas
Did you follow the Olympics? I followed the games because the American ski team anticipated big-medal results. The pundits foretold their individual star could bring home a record five gold medals. Unfortunately for the US Ski Team, their superstar was Bode (pronounced bo-dee) Miller.
The Limits of Talent
According to the authors of a May 2004 Harvard Business Review article, The Risky Business of Hiring Stars, “most of us have an inherent faith in talent and genius.” I am curious to know, at what point does talent and genius become a drag on organizational success?
By any standard, Bode Miller has gobs of talent. He has won World Cup gold and Olympic silver. No one doubts his talent. “The Zen master of vertical … He doesn’t ski safe, doesn’t ski with…
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Life and Business
My dear sister gave birth to her first child last week - a daughter - my first niece. I don’t know much about little girls, except that they are adorable and we dress them in pink. Blue bad. Pink good.
Being a continent away is distressing. These life events are important and getting a snapshot via Yahoo Photos is a bummer. Mind you, it’s better than nothing and being physically separate does not mean we are emotionally distant. Still, the birth of a human being is amazing and I wish I were there.
I am teasing myself thinking I should say these life events make business events seem silly. Business events are not silly, of course, though it is tempting to say so. They are meaningful, only more mundane. And, I…
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