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Why EQ Matters And How To Be Better At It
Do you often wonder why people behave negatively (rude, mean, unpredictable)? Do you often stress a lot? Do you want to improve professional and personal relationships? Do you want to increase your impact and influence? If you answered “yes” to any of these, you may want to invest in your EQ. Thanks to the thought leaders, Daniel Goleman, Travis Bradberry, Richard Boyatzis and many others, EQ, EI or “Emotional Intelligence” is a ubiquitous term in the leadership world. Goleman has this explainer video for the beginners. Despite all the resources, when it comes to applying it in a day to day life, we often feel lost. “I know I…
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Decisions, Decisions | How I planned and survived my family vacation
“How can we make good decisions when there is insufficient data”? During a seminar a few weeks back, I got this question from the audience. As someone giving the talk, I was supposed to be an “expert” on this! Alas, I could not act as the know-all expert; inspired by Brene Brown, I chose to be a human instead – showed them how sub-optimal my decision-making process is! I told them this story. My parents were visiting me; this was their first time in the US, so I wanted to show them some landmarks. On the same token, I thought that if my uncle and aunt from Michigan could join…
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The Pen is Luxurious Than the Keyboard
This year I have made a commitment – I will be more accountable to myself. I found a paper notebook is helping me in this regard. Every day/week I am jotting down what I want to focus on, what my intention is and how I am doing. A paper and pen is definitely not the state of the art personal productivity tool but surprisingly enough it is helping me to be more mindful about my time. I now have more clarity about where I am with respect to my bigger goals (also written/drawn on a paper). I wonder, what is the point on going back to a non-tech solution when I…
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The Power Of Yes – Leadership Lessons from My Car Dealership
I was in the waiting area of the dealership while my car was getting an oil change. Tony, one of the service reps saw me and asked if I had been helped. As I nodded positively, he seemed to recognize me and said, “You have the grey Forester, right? What brought you in today?”. I was pleasantly surprised that he remembered me from my last visit three months ago. In today’s data/AI driven world, Tony’s apparent simple human conversation felt like a rare treat! I have already been a happy customer for the past several years of this local dealership. As a coach helping leaders and teams harness their fuller potential,…
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How Coaching Can Increase Employee Engagement
I have worked within the high tech industry for over a decade and I have always wondered why a large number of the great hires end up disengaged, identified as below average performers so soon after hire! First as a manager and now as a coach, my observation is the raw potential the employees bring often gets underutilized because of the chaos in the workplace. Despite the relative maturity in the high tech industry we still depend on Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest” theory. I believe a coach can be a catalyst to increase the odds for each employee to be of the “fittest” species in the corporate jungle. Below are the stories of two…
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Agile Way to Plan Your Career – Story Of A Tech Leader (Video)
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How are you setting your goals, Inside-out or Outside-in?
Last week I was describing the concept of “Living from inside-out” to my class participants in a high tech company. The example I gave – If you target to become a VP of a company that is an “outside-in” way of seeing your goal. The “inside-out” approach could be – I want to innovate, drive a product (what kind?) that I care (fill in here with why you care…) and I am willing to take risks, sacrifice my comfort to make it a success (define it using your values). Basically you are defining your intention qualitatively; you are not attached to a certain form of it. There is a good…
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What is Coaching
Most of my time as a coach is being spent educating people on the concept of Coaching. Every time I have a hard time explaining the difference between therapy and coaching. Recently I realized, it’s better to say “forget therapy for now”! This is how I want to say it: You are a smart, well-functioning adult, mostly successful, and pretty much independent in your thoughts and actions. There are certain times you feel stuck, a little confused, or just need someone to talk to. Someone you could go to and bounce off your thoughts and ideas by, someone you could have as your wise sounding board. Someone you feel safe…
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Professional Coaching – an Introduction
Ever since I started talking to people around me about my new career as a “professional coach,” I have got many questions. “Is this a sports coach”, “Is this like mentoring”, “Is this counseling”, “Why would someone go to a coach” are some of those. I thought it would be a good idea to compile some introductory information on coaching to help me answer those. Coaching has been widely used in the business world for leadership development. In recent decades, with the fast-changing world, people in every walk of life are facing life challenge and demands that has created the need for life coaches even outside the business regime. Coaching, as a profession,…
