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Coaching Column: Inspiration Versus Motivation: A Lesson In Leadership
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Coach's Mailbag

Dear Readers:
If you have some ideas for one of our valued readers, JFK, please email them to rpost@coachscorner.com for our next newsletter.
RP 

Dear Rhona:
Our supervisors often have problems separating the sheep from the goats in interviews.  With so many resources available to them, interviewees come well prepared and most do well in the interview. The problem is that, all too often, the interviewee who does the best in the interview if often found wanting when placed in the job.
I have suggested greater use of structured interviews, establishing bench marks for responses to questions and, very importantly, doing a better job training our interviewing and selecting officials in effective interview techniques and preparing them prior to the interview; do a job analysis beforehand, use a crediting plan to define the ideal candidate, identifying specifically needed skills and knowledge sets, etc.
Some intelligent people don't test well. Some with great interviewing skills don't perform well on the job.  Many times, the applicant who doesn't do as well as others in the interview turns out to be a higher achiever. What do you suggest we do to more accurately identify the potentially high achievers who may not be the best interviewees?
Thanks - JFK

Welcome to the spring edition of Coach’s Corner. 

As readers know I have decided to utilize my voice for commercials and narration. I want to thank Walter Gavin and Rick Fiori, two great colleagues and friends, for contributing their creative instincts, providing invaluable feedback on my performance, and general hard work getting me into top “voice over form”. I have already begun sending out demos. If any Coach’s Corner reader has a contact person in a production house, or a recording studio to whom I can send a demo tape, please contact me at rpost@coachscorner.com.  

In the past fifteen years I have witnessed a recurring pattern in the Career management field. Most of us wait until we are either unemployed or on the brink of unemployment to partake of the many benefits provided by state or federal career counseling centers. Federal employees in particular have had little experience (practice) linking their work projects/services to the agency’s overall mission. When our self- marketing approach on paper or in person does not promote our unique business results, we are not giving prospective employers “the best picture” of what we can do for them. Post and Associate's career management programs provide participants with the tools and practices to successfully link their performance to overall agency results. With greater emphasis being paid to performance versus longevity (pay banding) learning how to market individual and/or departmental strengths is crucial to staying in business.

With my new Somatic Coaching certification, I am combining my communication background with my leadership coaching skills to teach leaders and emerging leaders how to align their verbal and non-verbal communication. Why? Only 7 percent of your message content is heard, because 93 percent of our attention is focused on your body language and voice tone. Talk about a potential disconnect! If you want to improve your odds to gain wider appeal, or have your audiences (employees or customers) take specific action based upon your words, call me to enroll in The How of Leadership Coaching.

I want to acknowledge Federal Railroad Administrator Allan Rutter, whose conversation (with me) about leadership and management styles inspired me to write the following article. 

Case History:

When I was invited to manage an experiential leadership program for a national training company here in Washington, DC.  I learned firsthand the distinctions between motivating and inspiring program participants, volunteers and colleagues.

As I was the new kid on the block, and had transferred from another city to take this job, I felt responsible to get people excited, and mobilized to fulfill the organizational goals. Both my own boss, and the big cheese of the company kept reminding center managers that what we did was not simply a job, but a way of life. 

Our center manager depended on the program managers (me) to help meet the center’s goals. We were part of an intricate system that could only sustain itself when all of us produced our “specific” results. For each goal I declared, it was understood that my word was my bond. I made promises in terms of the outcomes I would achieve, and I was held accountable for my results. Sometimes, other program managers would question my projections, as too low or too high, but their concerns helped me adjust my projections to fit the work reality. No one wanted to see me fail. Each time I set goals for myself, I had no idea how I would close the gaps between nothing and something.

Since this was my first real “management” position, I was determined to do my best, give it my all, and succeed. Some of the senior executives, older, retired military officers, used to encourage us to “take the hill” which I was more than willing to do. I believed my job was to motivate my leadership program participants to fulfill their personal and professional promises.

In less than six months, I was dog tired--ready to quit. I had never worked so hard trying to get others to work hard. Program participants relied on my energy and willpower to keep fighting for what they wanted. Still I was failing to keep my promises to management. What did I learn?

Motivation Versus Inspiration

I realized that I was motivating my teams rather than inspiring them to play.  I was the sole battery upon which my players relied for their energy. When my battery weakened their performance suffered. Participants looked to me to provide the energy needed to keep their promises to themselves. There was a direct correlation between how successful they were and how much energy I was expending. If I wasn’t constantly pushing, prodding, cajoling, persuading, lambasting, or begging, they were not moving.    

Inspiring my teams to win meant I provided ways for players to discover what was important for them. The better adept they became holding a vision of what was worth accomplishing, the greater the likelihood of their success. When we partnered to achieve individual and group success, we all shared the energy required. It was not my responsibility to keep motivating teams to keep their word.

Leadership Lessons  

1. Our job as leaders is to help others discover their own leadership calling. We can support others to achieve their goals, as we help ourselves achieve ours. It is easier for others to support us when we are clear about the direction we are moving. How we accomplish this goal is a combination of teaching, and learning, exploration and prayer, love and oftentimes, sheer moxie.
    

2. We all have different amounts of energy to contribute to a cause. As we age, our energy depletes even as our desire to play remains strong. But as professional athletes declare, veteran players play from the neck up (using their heads). I have learned to use less energy to get the same results. As my father used to say, “Work smart not hard!”
    

3. Leaders continuously remind their players, employees, customers, program participants, even their colleagues about individual and group successes. Instituting a variety of communication vehicles that help us stay on track with our goals provides us a context in which we can remember for the sake of what we have undertaken the goal in the first place.
    

4. Coaching clients often focus on what is missing, or what still doesn’t work, or what they can’t do, rather than remember how far they moved. “Oh yah,” one person says, with a wry smile, “ I forgot about that”. Whether we are changing how we how we think, or act, the beauty of transforming ourselves is that as we become the person we want to be, we are no longer the person we were.   
    

5. Often, during turbulence, the best advice we can give ourselves is to simply buckle up, hold on and breathe. We use too much energy struggling, fighting others and ourselves, rather than simply holding on or letting go. I have learned a great lesson: this too shall pass!
    

6. We win some; we lose some. None of us want to fail, but we can learn as much from our failures as we can from our successes. When we choose to actively lead in our own lives, we’re going to take hits. We are going to take hits when we choose to help others lead in theirs. We are also going to get some kudos.
    

7. You can always call a time out. The better care we take of our bodies, minds and spirits, the better we play, and the better are our chances to win. Some questions to ask ourselves: Do we recognize when we are off kilter and shift? Or do we keep pushing ourselves and others to the point that we forget, lose sight of, or even destroy that which we have declared worth winning?  
    

8. Life is for the living. We may be asleep at the wheel of life, but none of us want to give up totally. Unless we do.

If you have specific leadership lessons you would like to share with Coach’s Corner readers, please email them to me at rpost@coachscorner.com