Archive for Uncategorized

Headed off to SHRM’s annual conference yesterday. The day started well enough; bright skies suggested an on-time departure from Manchester into Las Vegas and I was not disappointed.  First though, I had to navigate the baggage check-in at the airport. Had I arrived a few minutes earlier I might have avoided the large group of kids heading off to ski camp, but no such luck. Exactly who planned a ski trip into Las Vegas in June remains a mystery–the temperatures in that part of the country are hovering above 100 degrees–but it was too early in the morning even to rouse the necessary level of curiosity required to ask the question.

Southwest remains a decent airline, though a single bag of Cheese-Nips for a 5-hour flight seems slight. Still, I had several interesting conversations with others on the plane; quite a few of us were heading to the conference.

When we deplaned, my first thought was “blast furnace.” Living in NH has made me forget what real heat is like. Combine that with the ringing of slot machines in the airport waiting area (this is Vegas, after all) and a rumbling stomach, and I was already exhausted.

I waited around for a bit until a friend of mine, Rosanne, arrived on her United flight out of Newark, then we shuttled to the Hilton to check in.  We arrived to find a long line snaking around the lobby, dozens and dozens of other conference attendees waiting to check in. A hasty call to my husband back home got me my Hilton Honors number (the one thing I forgot to bring!) and we were able to avoid the crowd and slip into the preferred check-in line.  We dropped our bags upstairs then headed back down for an overdue lunch.

Later that day we headed to the conference. The expected attendance of 14,000 meant that there were crowds everywhere.  We took a brief walk through the exposition hall but quickly realized that we’d need a plan to navigate our way around, so we left, heading over instead to the main hall where Richard Branson was about to give his keynote interview.  While it was a bit difficult to hear all that he was saying, his passion and dedication to the people in his many companies came through loud and clear. The man is truly a pioneer and an amazing leader.

With the three-hour time shift starting to catch up with me, I headed up earlier than planned to grab a good night’s sleep.  Tomorrow the sessions start in earnest and I’m quite excited.

For anyone interested, I (and many others) will be tweeting during the conference.  You can see my tweets by following @charneycoach.  General conferences tweets can be found by timelining #shrm11.

P.S.: Thanks to my husband for taking my rough notes and polishing them up for the blog!

Recently I received a very generous offer from Georgetown University–the place I attended for my Coaching Certification–to return as a mentor coach for an upcoming cohort. It brought to mind my own experiences going through the program, and, in particular, the role playing that we did as part of our education. At the time we thought of it as role playing, but now, as I work with my own clients (and with peers in a continuing education setting), I realize that it wasn’t (and isn’t) so much “role playing” as it is “real playing.”

What do I mean by “real playing?”  In real playing people bring themselves into the exercise rather than choosing to wear the persona of a hypothetical character.  The problems stay real, the outlook is current and the investment is true.  In this way the participants never have to completely step outside of themselves, but can, instead, treat the interaction as a chance for true growth–even though the purpose may be one of education or training.  Real playing to me is a very special kind of interaction, one that is vastly richer than traditional role playing.  It has the quality of true emotion that role playing simply doesn’t have.

But real playing is more than just that.  It requires that each participant step outside his or herself and act also as an observer of the interaction, to objectively (and even a bit dispassionately) assess what is happening as the conversation occurs.  It then involves a review of the conversation–again objectively–to understand what happened: what was learned, what responses were left unsaid, what emotions were felt, etc., all with the hope that those involved will get better at what they do in the coaching environment.

For me, real playing started out as an educational exercise.  However, as I think more about it and explore it’s potential, it is fast becoming a wonderful tool that I use when coaching;  Since real playing requires each individual to be both participant and observer, it has become a fantastic way to teach how to become what Chalmers Brothers describes as “a more competent, more powerful, observer of yourself.”  People learn by watching themselves and each other with an analytical mind, paying close attention so as to give true and valued feedback. It’s a difficult thing to do, this “splitting” of yourself. You must be authentic in two ways, both as participant and as a giver of feedback.  To do so you must observe yourself and others but not let those observations color the truth of your interactions.

I find myself more and more looking to “real playing” both as a way to improve myself and as a coaching technique.  It allows all of us to learn to be both participant and observer, a key element of personal growth.  Yet, unlike role playing we can all remain authentic to the true spirit of the interaction.

I’d be very interested to know what others think.  Is this an idea that resonates with you, either as coach or as client?

The song goes something like, “God didn’t make the little green apples…” Well, it turns out, he did…and not just the green ones, but the red ones, and the pink ones, and even more from where they came from…

I recently learned that if you ate a different type of apple every day, it would take you three decades to taste every variety. That’s a lot of apples!  My supermarket experience offers me only a limited variety of apples – possibly three or four different types over the seasons. Apparently, the greater apple-world has apples that go beyond the sweet and tart of which we’ve become accustomed. There are ones that are spicy, ones that have a chocolate-finish after eating them, ones that taste like pears – the list goes on and on. I’m anxious to find these other types and taste them! I hear there’s a farm somewhere in Vermont that has them.  I’ll be checking it out.

This new variety-of-apples-awareness-thing got me thinking about myself, the variety of people I interact with every day – at work, at home, or otherwise – and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

The results of an MBTI assessment help us understand our preferences in how we gain energy, take in information, make decisions and orient ourselves in the world. I use MBTI when working with individuals and teams and find, for the most part, the information about individuals’ and teams’ dominant preference type is received well and with enthusiasm. The conversations around the self-discoveries of strengths and blind-spots generate spirited exchange and, often, surprise and laughter. I encourage continuing the conversation to keep the information alive and use it to explore new ways of thinking and engaging in relationships.  Most participants leave the workshops wanting to share their MBTI experience with their significant others and have them take the assessment, too!

We, of the MBTI-world, know that there’s more, much more to it, a depth of variety that is often the key to the richness in each of us.

As we dig deeper into MBTI and unpack its potential, the tool provides a roadmap to full and whole human development. We are not solely defined by our dominant or preferred functioning. Each of us has access to ALL the types within the MBTI dichotomies. In fact, we not only have access to them, they inherently live within us below the surface. Our opportunity is to be open to new experiences, stretching ourselves to try new ways of thinking and being that will develop the types that are waiting to emerge and thrive. Imagine the possibility if each of us were to fully access and taste the abundance and variety of agile living, doing, being and relating that is right there for the taking!

The questions are – What potential do you want to explore and develop within yourself, your team, and your relationships? What is untapped? Where are you open to stretch and grow?

You and I have what it takes to continue to grow and develop in abundant and bountiful ways. What it will take is to be fully open to opportunities that will allow us to shift out of our comfortable, well-practiced ways of being, tapping into all the type preferences that are within our reach and “tasting” something new.

Will it take three decades? Hopefully, a lifetime!

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

– Mary Oliver