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8 We’ve been pursuing how to have an adjustment conversation with a VIP - a very important person. To you, this person is so valuable that you are willing to confront them about a way you feel they are straying from the core of what makes your relationship work. You care about them that much: to risk offending them in the hopes of bringing matters right before they go seriously wrong. Our examples: * Jessica and Jerry: a toxic proposed business couple * Leonora: playi...Continue reading

How to make The Talk a success: 7 Chomping at the Bit 7 By now, you’re chomping on the bit. OK, let’s go, let’s get ready. I’ve got my relationship issue identified, I know who I’ve got to talk to. And, after the last missive, I’ve come down to one incident to serve as the focus for the discussion. Now what? ...Continue reading

How to have The Talk - 6th in the series So here we go with the backdrop for the most important conversations you are ever likely to have. I’ve already spoken of the need for preparation: that you wouldn’t go into these talks cold. Not preparing or knowing how fuels avoidance. To get over that we are learning this outline and the backdrop necessary to carry it out. * Jessica, with her proposed professional engagement to support her ardent friend * Leonora, pursuing...Continue reading

5 I’ve proposed three situations in which an intervention to steer three very cherished relationships is called for. The cases of: * Jessica, with her questionable proposed work liaison with Jerry * Leonora, whose reckless neglect has come close to endangering a #1 product * Tom, whose associates, increasingly annoyed, are about to abandon him to have coffee with himself ... are headed for the rocks. By now, as you’ve been following along, perhaps you’ve landed on your own burbling little relationship issue. We’ve all got them, as much as we’d like to ignore them. You can’t stop thinking about them. Knowing they are likely to lead to certain rupture, but hoping against hope it doesn’t go that far. Who are the other players likely to be? * partners, who’ve lost the thread of what makes your venture work? * a spouse, pursuing some creative way of blunting trust? * a mentor, who has overstepped their bounds? Who knows what you’ve stumbled on or what has crept into your awareness? But the identification of a real live situation is most helpful to your developing this skill. You have a ready application for this stellar, bullet proof approach and can finally broach the matter. Otherwise you would have been sure you’d screw it up. And that keeps you from starting, from trying. I gave you the outline for the conversation last time. But I accompanied it with a warning that more was needed to equip you fully to act on it, to help it work to full effect. Here’s the warning: Warning. This is not a silver bullet, a final and ultimate solution meant you to equip you with the final and ultimate weapon to finish them off. If you want one of those, don’t bother with this! Just never call the person in question again or let them know you don’t want anything further to do with them. Fire them. Ignore them. Simple. The reason you want to follow this approach is that you value them, you want to do whatever you can to save them as helpful and strong parts of your life. You want to respect who they are and what they have contributed. Your tie is too deep to just wipe them out. And this conversation must be centered in and propelled by that caring. The regard for the other is what makes a real talk come alive. If you are intrigued and want to attempt this most worthy of tasks, I’d suggest again that you accumulate this series where you can have reference to all the posts. To pull off an intervention conversation, you’ll need all this guidance.

4 We’ve been talking about how to tackle the most sensitive of issues when you are called upon to act. The common thread is that all these major issues are about trust: trust that has been the operating ground of the relationship thus far. Trust that may be irreparably lost. The three examples: * Jessica’s proposed contract with her lover Jerry * Leonora’s imperiling of your company’s fortunes... * Tom’s driving your closest friends against the wall with unwanted politics Maybe, as you read these, you have unearthed your very own example. A case in which you, yourself, are engaged in trust circumstances that are not going well and getting worse. This study then is of more than academic interest. You may be contemplating coming to terms with an errant and potentially catastrophic situation, if you don’t do something. Now let’s talk about where and how you will introduce the subject. People tend to overthink that, possibly indulging in avoidance. Running away is the world’s #1 preferred method of dealing with conflict. Cowardly structuring out the offender is the second - just dealing them out of your world. Neither will sit well with you as a person of good conscience. My finding is, that, if you know how to handle the situation, and have planned accordingly, you will eventually welcome the moment of encounter. Here Is a simple, clean, recipe to follow. I’ll give you this now. I’ll follow it up with the backdrop to help deliver it with maximum corrective potential. In order to do THAT, here is the outline for the conversation to come: 1. my role and relationship to you 2. the facts - and only the facts - leading up and constituting the crystallizing moment of your realization that something had to be done 3. your emotional reactions to those developments 4. your part in creating or continuing the situation 5. the other person’s version of what went on, their emotional reality, their part in it 6. your expectations of what is required to set matters right 7. negotiation of a path forward that will rectify the problem 8. clarity of agreement and an affirmation of this talk as a contribution to common purpose with the other There. That’s the outline. However, if you were to just take this outline and directly tackle the issue, it may go well, and, just as likely, it will not. To do the very best in a most awkward meeting, you not only need the outline but the planning and underpinning that makes it work. Otherwise, it is just another recipe, another helpful hint, another best practice with about as much impact as anything else you might read on the internet. So the backdrop to optimize is what’s coming next...with a caution... See more

So, we know there is a difficult situation in need of resolution. Perhaps you’ve got an example in mind. How can this most necessary action be approached with the least risk of failure? Remember, we have the three cases with impending relationship disaster hanging in the balance: * Jessica on the verge of what you feel is a very wrong turn to hire her friend Jerry. Thanks to friends who pointed out confusion in last post. Jessica has the sales and marketing mandate i...n your company. Jerry is out of work. * Lenora, who, if she keeps going on present course, will risk your company’s delivery of its flagship product * Tom, who just can’t shut up about Trump, in your long-standing coffee klatch You’ve identified the moment you realized that the course can no longer continue. You feel you must take a step. You see it as a part of a longer running path of behavior that has become clear and can’t be ignored. How to raise it? First, you wouldn’t dream of going in to see your star account after your company had created a major problem without preparation would you? If you were in trouble with your bank would you just wing it in a meeting with them? I doubt it. I think you would deem such important interactions as worthy of preparation and research. You’d want to make sure you had your facts lined up, that you were clear about what did happen, what you wish would have occurred and to have explored some avenues of reparation. Of course, you would rather just back away. Your first urge is Why me? Why can’t someone else do it? But nobody is and this is going from bad to worse. You may have your excuses, but you know in your heart they won’t stand up if the present path leads to ultimate disaster. Your ruminations are rooted on the unexpressed fact that you - yes, you - have to face up and deal with these matters, to take the initiative. Or live with what follows. And you are not interested in that. So it is with our cases. When finally at the inevitable point of needing to have a chat with one of these people, you need to be ready, briefed, and at your best. See more

3rd in a series on How to have ‘the talk’ So, we know there is a difficult situation in need of resolution. Perhaps you’ve got an example in mind. How can this most necessary action be approached with the least risk of failure? Remember, we have the three cases with impending relationship disaster hanging in the balance: * Jessica on the verge of what you feel is a very wrong turn to hire her friend Jerry. Thanks to friends who pointed out confusion in last post. J...essica has the sales and marketing mandate in your company. Jerry is out of work. * Lenora, who, if she keeps going on present course, will risk your company’s delivery of its flagship product * Tom, who just can’t shut up about Trump, in your long-standing coffee klatch You’ve identified the moment you realized that the course can no longer continue. You feel you must take a step. You see it as a part of a longer running path of behavior that has become clear and can’t be ignored. How to raise it? First, you wouldn’t dream of going in to see your star account after your company had created a major problem without preparation would you? If you were in trouble with your bank would you just wing it in a meeting with them? I doubt it. I think you would deem such important interactions as worthy of preparation and research. You’d want to make sure you had your facts lined up, that you were clear about what did happen, what you wish would have occurred and to have explored some avenues of reparation. Of course, you would rather just back away. Your first urge is Why me? Why can’t someone else do it? But nobody is and this is going from bad to worse. You may have your excuses, but you know in your heart they won’t stand up if the present path leads to ultimate disaster. Your ruminations are rooted on the unexpressed fact that you - yes, you - have to face up and deal with these matters, to take the initiative. Or live with what follows. And you are not interested in that. So it is with our cases. When finally at the inevitable point of needing to have a chat with one of these people, you need to be ready, briefed, and at your best. See more

Having a Chat #2 2 I am bringing to you a methodology for dealing with very difficult issues between people. Last time I characterized the typical situation that calls for this approach as extremely volatile and threatening. ... How do you know it’s time for one of these special talks? That you’re caught in such a dilemma? The precipitating situation just wouldn’t go away. There was a moment of realization, a moment that crystallized the need to intervene. You think about what was said or done over and over. You ruminate, you wonder what could have, should have happened. You think of rejoinders too late. If only you’d been able to come up one at the critical moment, maybe that would have turned the tide. When you find yourself recycling the moments leading up to the moment of the break, you realize this sums up a course of conduct that has been manifesting for some time. This was just the point at which it all became clear, how off-track the relationship with the other person was. Maybe you’ve got a situation perking, like one of these: * Jessica has been on and on about hiring her friend, Jerry, as a consultant to his branch of the company. You happen to know they’ve been conducting an affair for the past year and half, that Jessica is out of work and has a very sketchy expertise vaguely related to Jessica’s Sales and Marketing mandate. Jessica has just declared that she is going to extend a 6 month contract to Jerry. * Lenora is an excellent young logistics specialist in your operations division. Except she has shorted out a few exceptionally critical ingredients on the company’s star food product. She waves off how close the company has come to stocking out as a result and takes pride in relating how she pulled off a fix at the last moment. This has happened twice and you dread that the next time may be a show stopper. But for this, she is loaded with potential, and is perhaps your most likely successor. * Tom has been a part of your guys’ coffee group for a long time. He’s a great raconteur and is very quick with the retort - a life of the party. Lately, he has become a follower of a certain political leader and has begun to hold forth at the Starbucks to the point of driving the remaining members of the group to silence. Eyes dart away when he launches into one of his diatribes directed at forcing others into a corner to admit that his man is right. This is threatening the ongoing life of the group which you esteem greatly. These examples I will use to center our discussion. You can imagine how, if you were a person involved, these issues would not leave you alone. Sure you could ignore them but you know that drastic consequences would follow. In good conscience, you know you must act. But how to enter that dark den, and beard the lion??? Hang in there, you shall be equipped!

I’d like to offer a series on having a chat. As the English would put it I’d like a word with you. Not a friendly little back porch exchange. I’m talking about a life adjusting, down to the roots, serious talk where the purpose is to deal with a problem that is causing major damage to an important relationship. * Two brothers - co-owners of a company - have stopped speaking to each other. * A pair of C level executives have gone around the CEO to the Board with an ...Continue reading

Biz Model: Altered Context Business wasn't always like this, you know. People used to travel to meet each other and talk in person. You could actually reach out and touch others. It was possible to hang out over beers and have a chat. Offices were warm, interconnected spaces, that allowed for bumping into people. You could often go out into crowded restaurants and feel the buzz. Shows, exhibitions and marketplaces were noisy, throbbing nodes that people loved to stomp...Continue reading

Eerie Took a flight this morning, which, in itself, is not weird. In these circumstances, it is. Most graphic in the former world or air travel is the emptiness. Busy places are rendered blank and mute. I found Calgary International was like visiting a summer resort in the off-season. The domestic terminal - built for jabbering swarms - seemed vast: outsized echoing and sterile....Continue reading

Covid Coping: How to deal with the Great Interruption? Heads of Companies and Divisions are deeply concerned that their businesses: - Survive - Continue, and ... - Emerge The present circumstances are beyond imagining: and thrusting companies into a fight to survive, a fight for their very lives. For many, a life’s work hangs in the balance. Every CEO and senior manager is required to run the biz with one hand tied behind their back, like trying to do laparoscopic surgery. That’s the dilemma of continuation, as they struggle to overcome what has been thrown at them. In spare moments, in isolation, they ponder how they will Emerge what waits on the other side? Not just for the business, but for them personally Survive: the 10 Commandments, critical steps giving the entity the best possible chance of pulling through even the hardest of times Continue: making limited contact points work to keep the biz moving forward Emerge: what lies ahead once this is over: salient features of the new order Douglas Bouey brings hard hitting, no BS guidance directly aimed at these. This welcome talk, developed with Julie Reinganum to address the immediate need for her SFO groups, is available for virtual meetings of Vistage, now, while it’s most useful. Douglas has the wide perspective and rich background to bring real actionable benefit to Members facing these testing times. 32 years a leading Chair in Canada’s TEC, former Gazelles Coach, Don Cope award winner, Douglas is a presenter on topics ranging from the Essential President to Let Go of the Rope, the title of his forthcoming book. Vistage 9005 - May 13 Vistage 642 - May 14

More signs of spring The storm sewer on the other side of the street was frozen. It is every year, creating an ice lake that extends from that portal under my neighbour’s spreading spruce across the ashphalt to the main sewer beside our driveway. There’s been lots of persistent packed grey snow gathered since November to melt and not enough sun to do it. In fact, we’ve just endured the last super annoying resurgence of winter. It has snowed and cleared a bit, then blown ...Continue reading

Biz Continuity = #1! Prompts for Performance ...Continue reading

Protect! Your Mood! This is the time of cholera. Cholera of the mind, of the mood. A highly infectious self-replicating whirl of worry and pre-occupation leading -- nowhere. Here's what doesn't work: ...Continue reading

Dead companies don't do any favors Company Rx for This Instant Recession This summarizes the distilled wisdom of the turnaround wizards [like Jerry Goldress] who save companies that are on their knees before the executioner. I have used these precepts to help courageous Presidents pull companies back from the brink. This is not for the faint of spirit. It takes real swallowing hard and getting on with it, facing up to grim reality. Better that than to meet the receiver at...Continue reading

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David Whyte; Poet of Potential I am the co-founder of a gathering of the world's most accomplished business coaches: The Keepers of the Flame. This gang - all 10 years+ heading TEC/ Vistage Presidential groups - meet in Boulder. The conference has grown over 10 years from 12 to 95 attendees from all round the world. So in recognition of our 10th, we splurged on David Whyte. David had delivered a spell-casting talk to our world conference in 1999 - many here had not for...Continue reading