Working Resources for Leadership - Bay Area Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching Secrets for Creating Powerful Teams – From Group to Team

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building powerful teams? Do the leaders in your organization create high performance teams?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that promote individual and collective performance?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performing committed teams.

Are you good at developing teams? Do you inspire your team by making work social and enjoyable? Are you adept at creating teams that produce intended results?

Teams are the most common business unit for high performance. Although the word gets used loosely and not always appropriately, there is universal acceptance that teams create opportunities for high performance results. A team’s performance includes both individual results and collective work products, yielding sums greater than its parts.

True teamwork promotes individual and collective performance. Effective teams value listening and communicating, sharing work responsibilities, provide support and can make work more social and enjoyable. Members are supportive of one another and recognize the interests and achievements of each other. When they are working the way they should, they are incredibly effective in achieving high performance results.

The essence of a team is common commitment. Teams evolve over time and have a pattern of development. During the forming stage, groups attempt to define their tasks and decide how to accomplish them. They sort out how the members will relate to each other. During the storming stage, members establish a pecking order within the group. Then, in the norming stage, members accept the ground rules and norms by which the members will cooperate. In the performing stage, the group has settled relationships and validated expectations and can turn to work for which they are mutually responsible. At this stage the team is capable of more work in concert that the sum of the individual efforts would have produced.

Teams differ from working groups because they require both individual and mutual accountability. While they also rely on sharing information, perspectives, and joint decisions, teams produce results through the joint contributions of its members. They are committed to mutual goals, as well as individual goals, and they share a common purpose. Teams develop direction and momentum as they work together to achieve a shared goal. Thus they commit to working together towards the same ends, even though each member may participate in different ways.

Management should not leave teams alone. Teams left on their own can be confused. Most successful teams shape their purpose in response to a demand or opportunity put in their path by higher management. This helps teams get started by broadly framing the organization’s performance expectations in alignment with the organization’s mission and purpose. Management is responsible for clarifying the team’s challenges. It should let the team develop a shared commitment to purpose, set specific goals, and determine its timing and work approach.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets for Great Presentations – Six Steps to a Persuasive Presentation

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at making persuasive presentations? Do the leaders in your organization know how to influence others?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create a presentation that persuades others to act in a desired direction?” Emotionally intelligent leaders influence others by appealing to their emotions.

Are you good at influencing people? Do you focus on appealing to people’s emotions before logic and reason?  Are you adept at giving presentations that inspire  people to achieve big goals?

Six Steps to a Persuasive Presentation

Virtually everything we communicate is a proposal of sorts. All persuasive communication hopes to move someone to do something. The best way to accomplish this is to use the brain’s natural processes.

We make most decisions based on the amygdala’s initial emotional response. If we deal with rationality and logic, it’s to reinforce these emotional decisions with logical information sent after the fact to the prefrontal cortex.

A properly framed presentation will be more easily understood and acted upon by the brain. Here’s a proposed outline for framing a successful presentation that persuades others to act in the direction you desire:

1.  Write down your persuasion goal, what you hope to accomplish, what you expect others to do and the ideal time frame.
2.  List the questions you’ll ask your audience to determine their perceptions on the issue.
3.  List each of the seven internal triggers. Under each one, list every possible item that could apply. Select and prioritize the three or four triggers best suited to the situation.
4.  Frame your presentation with the beginning and ending that have the highest impact. The friendship trigger, coupled with the reciprocity trigger, is a great start. You’ll also want early application of the authority trigger.
5.  The body of the proposal, including the logic and data, will follow the other trigger information. Minimal application of logic and data will reinforce a positive decision.
6.  Finally, frame your closure by defining precisely what you want your audience to do, and determine how you will ask for this action.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a n inspiring leader who persuades people by making great presentations that appeals to emotion. You can become a transformational leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets for Influencing Others – Seven Super Triggers

Are you working in an organization where leaders are adept at influencing others? Do the leaders in your organization know the triggers that inform your decisions while attempting to influencing others?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Can I sense the triggers that will guide me in effectively influencing someone?” Emotionally intelligent leaders influence others by picking up on the right triggers that automatically influence people.

Are you good at influencing people? Do you focus on appealing to people’s emotions before logic and reason? Are you helping people achieve goals by influencing your people in the right direction?

Seven Super Triggers

These triggers help us quickly sense and feel the best decision or action to take. They allow us to navigate paths that would be overwhelming and unmanageable if we had to constantly employ cognitive thought.

Most of us, especially marketing people, understand the trigger of benefits. Appeal to what people want, and talk to them in terms of solving a problem or filling a need. This is part of the hope trigger. But it’s only one limited approach. You can improve your chances of persuasion success by using more than one trigger.

Let’s examine the seven triggers that automatically influence others.

1. The Friendship Trigger

We are more easily influenced by people we like, and liking is a prerequisite for the other triggers. Friendship generates trust, and trust activates a strong internal trigger. This is the basis of the marketing axiom “people buy from people they know, like and trust.” The best way to activate friendship is through similarity. Find connections and common interests, and listen to the people you wish to influence.

2. The Authority Trigger

We respond with unthinking, automatic compliance to those we believe have authority, credibility and power. Managers and leaders may think they have authority by virtue of their position, but without the likeability factor, this trigger is weakened. The authority trigger works because we assume the person in position of authority has done the evaluation work for us.

3. The Consistency Trigger

Our internal guidance system compels us to be consistent in the way we see ourselves and the peers we admire. We are slaves to consistency and conformity; in fact, these drives are hard-wired into our brain, governed by the amygdala. The research is clear: Decisions are emotion based. When it’s time to make a decision, we call up an emotional memory that’s similar to the situation at hand, and we’re guided in the same direction.

4. The Reciprocity Trigger

One of the strongest, most universal internal triggers is the law of giving and receiving, or quid pro quo. Reciprocity is the well-documented psychological desire to give back to someone who has given us a gift. It’s another automatic response hard-wired into our brains. Marketers have been using bonus gifts and free samples for years.

5. The Contrast Trigger

Framing a proposition so it appears more desirable than an alternative is a proven automatic compliance technique. How you frame the proposal is critical: Always present the most onerous approach first, followed by what you really want.

6. The Reason Why Trigger

The brain looks for shortcuts to doing mental work. When you present a valid reason to accept a proposition, you achieve compliance. This concept has been successfully applied in myriad situations, and we know it works because we’ve seen the neural networks in the brain’s decision-making process. The amygdala seems to accept any valid reason and doesn’t bother to send the information to the cerebral cortex. When you provide a reason, you persuade successfully.

7. The Hope Trigger

Hope motivates all human activity. We are easily persuaded by those who understand our hopes, wishes and dreams. This is one of the strongest persuaders, underlying all others. We hope our decisions and actions will somehow improve our lives and status, helping us to become more successful and happy. Once we perceive an opportunity to satisfy our hopes, we seldom rely on rational, cognitive thought or logic before we act.

The constant desire for happiness is the foundation for the omnipotent hope trigger. Among the best examples are get-rich-quick scams, gambling and lotteries. The vitamin and cosmetic industries thrive because of the strong hopes and desires their marketing messages trigger. Not a shred of logic or reason is employed in weighing the odds.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who persuades people by appealing to emotion before logic and reason. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Leadership Secrets to Persuading Others – The Brain’s Trigger Center

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at persuading others? Do the leaders in your organization put more emphasis on emotion than logic when attempting to influence others?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I attempting to influence others by appealing more to logic than emotion?” Emotionally intelligent leaders influence others by appealing to emotion.

Are you effective at influencing people? Do you focus on appealing to people’s emotions?  Are you inspiring people to achieve goals by emotionally engaging your people?

The Brain’s Trigger Center

If we had to evaluate every decision before acting, we’d be exhausted. Instead, we rely on the limbic system and our brain’s center for emotions and memories, the amygdala. This part of the brain acts as our personal navigation system, with an internal data bank of triggers.

The more complicated and sophisticated our lives become, the more we rely on simple ways to make decisions and get through each day — a key concept in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Smart managers, leaders and marketers understand this need.

This doesn’t mean you can skip logical arguments, but it does place less emphasis on reason and more on emotion. When you understand that people want to make rapid, automatic and accelerated decisions, you can make it easier on those you’re trying to influence and increase your success at persuasion.

How do we generate automatic influence? With triggers. Everybody has them. A trigger is any stimulus that will help us make a non-thinking decision or action. A trigger activates a person’s immediate compliance to an attempt to influence.

We are preprogrammed to comply with requests when a trigger is activated. It’s simply a shortcut to avoid the pain and effort of mental activity.

Each of us has infinite triggers, and some are universal. Research has identified seven super triggers. Once you understand them, you’ll see them everywhere — in every request you make, email you write and TV commercial you watch.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who persuades people by appealing to emotion. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Leadership Secrets for Emotional Persuasion – The Brain Science of Persuasive Powers

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at persuading others? Do the leaders in your organization appeal to emotion first rather than logic or reason when attempting to influence others?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I persuading by appealing first more to emotion than logic when persuading others?” Emotionally intelligent leaders influence others by appealing to emotion.

Are you effective at influencing people? Do you focus on appealing to people’s emotions?  Are you inspiring people to achieve goals by emotionally engaging your people?

The Brain Science of Persuasive Powers

If we only pay attention to influencing others by appealing to logic and reason, we won’t unlock the full potential of our persuasive powers.

Research on the brain during decision-making reveals that we respond to persuasive attempts either analytically or automatically.

Those who respond analytically use a reasoned evaluative approach to come to a decision, but this requires enormous energy. The brain uses up reserves of glucose and calories whenever it evaluates. And because it’s human nature to conserve energy, most of us won’t respond with the extra effort required to be analytical.

In fact, most people slip into automatic-response mode whenever possible. We avoid cognitive evaluation because it’s hard work. This doesn’t mean we’re lazy; it’s actually a primitive survival instinct. We automatically take the easy way to conserve energy in case we’re attacked or threatened.

That’s why most people don’t act on logic and reason. We make emotional decisions and then justify them with logic and reason.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who persuades people by appealing to emotion. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Leadership Secrets to Persuade Others – Emotions First, Logic Later

Are you working in an organization which values leaders who are good at persuading others? Do the leaders in your organization focus more on logic and reason than emotion when attempting to influence others?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I relying on data and arguments more than emotion when persuading others?” Inspiring leaders influence others by appealing to emotion.

Are you good at persuading people at work? Do you focus on appealing to people’s emotions? Are you focused on persuading people to achieve goals that emotionally engage your people?

Feelings First, Logic Later

Most of us try to persuade by using our best arguments, best data, logical flow charts and rationality to generate the thinking, decisions and actions we seek. Business leaders still believe everyone relies heavily on logic and reason to make decisions. We’ve traditionally believed that emotion wreaks havoc on rationality, especially in business.

As science evolves, we’re starting to realize that emotions come first. Not only do they guide our decisions and actions, but we’re incapable of making decisions without them.

We use the emotional parts of our brain to make rational decisions. Emotional context helps us make the best choices, often in a split second, long before the rational centers of the brain are even activated.

It’s estimated that managers spend 80 percent of their time communicating with others, trying to persuade them to accomplish what needs to be done. But how well have leaders and managers understood how humans process information and make decisions?

Perhaps we should pay attention to what the new brain science tells us about persuasion.

Ethos, Logos and Pathos

Aristotle identified the three basic elements of every persuasive argument:
•  Ethos — the credibility, knowledge, expertise, stature and authority of the person trying to persuade
•  Logos — the appeal of logic, reason, cognitive thinking, data and facts
•  Pathos — the appeal to the emotions; the non-cognitive, non-thinking motivations that affect decisions and actions

These elements are the powerful cornerstones of every persuasive argument or presentation. They aren’t weighted equally, however, and therein lies the hidden secret of unlocking your persuasive powers.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who persuades others by appealing to the emotions of others. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.