CHAPTER THREE

PAUSE TO
GROW OTHERS

BALANCING CARE
AND DRIVE

EARLY IN MY EXECUTIVE COACHING CAREER, I had the good fortune to advise some of Vince Lombardi’s Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers. This legendary team is recognized by many as one of the greatest American football teams in history. Although the former players I was coaching had transitioned to business careers, Lombardi’s influence was still very present in their lives and in their leadership.

I had always viewed Lombardi as the iconic, hard-driving, hard-nosed football coach. However, I did not know the person behind the coach, the person who was passionate about growing each team member in a highly intimate and personal way. On separate occasions, each of the former players surprised me with similar sentiment about Lombardi: “I have never been so loved by someone outside my family. We all knew he would do anything for us . . . anything. We would go through walls for this man.” Coach Lombardi earned the right to drive the talent of his players to the limit because his intense drive was balanced by his equally intense caring. He awakened in his players the respect, drive, and caring he held within himself. When people know that a leader cares, know that a leader is in it for them, great things are possible.

One might call this deep, connected, emotionally intelligent leadership “caring directness.” We are most effective as leaders, and as developers of talent, when people first know that we genuinely care, that we are totally invested, completely committed to them. Then, and only then, do we earn the right to set very high expectations, motivate them in a sustained manner, and drive them to unleash their full potential. While it may not be politically correct or comfortable to use the word love in a business context, developing others is a transformative, purposeful pursuit that leverages the power of love into enduring drive and achievement.

Ultimately, the true test of sustainable
leadership and organizational success goes
beyond the amount of revenue and profit
produced; the real measure of leadership is the
character and quality of the people the leader
and the organization produces.

Lombardi understood that the deep emotional connection each team member felt multiplied each player’s own sense of purpose and connection to something larger . . . to a higher, more team-focused purpose. Purpose-fueled connection is the glue of leadership, bonding parts and revealing wholeness. One CEO shared with me, “We all know what it is like when we love what we do, when we love the company we’re connected to, when we love the products or services we represent, and when we love the people with whom we work. This powerful, energetic connection drives us to higher performance and more effective, enlightened leadership. We are usually embarrassed to acknowledge it, but love, leadership, and high performance are intimately connected. In fact, love is what deeply connects and activates them all.”

However, many leaders and organizations do not pause to generate such care for their talent. Ram Charan and Bill Conaty, authors of The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People before Numbers, explain it this way: “If businesses managed their money as carelessly as they manage their people, most would be bankrupt. The great majority of companies that control their finances don’t have any comparable processes for developing leaders or even pinpointing which ones to develop.”

Managers perceive people as a resource, a cost
to be cut or an asset to be optimized; leaders
see people as a source, a potential generator of
energy, innovation, and purpose.

LESS IS MORE

During the writing of this book, I was working with an executive in China who was working on pause practices to accelerate his goal of developing leadership in others. He surprised me with this perceptive insight. “Kevin, leadership is like cooking a fish. One takes time to choose a high-quality fish. One treats the fish in a delicate manner, and once one begins preparing the fish, it is best not to interfere too much. It is very important not to overcontrol it or overwork it. It is best to start cooking, step back, turn it once, and let it finish. It is the Taoist principle of Wu Wei, the principle of least action. See the work. Do the work. Don’t interfere too much. Success comes by doing just enough, not too much.” My client made a personal connection to a deeper life principle that gave profound meaning to his own leadership growth and to mine. In growing others, particularly high-potential talent, often less is more.

A while ago, a CEO came to my office and it immediately became apparent that he was “overcooking his fish”! Pounding my desk to punctuate each passionate sentence, his fists were sending shock waves through my desk and through me. “I wish other people were as OPEN as I am.” Thump! Thump! He was obviously passionate about openness! While he believed in openness, he did not act openly; he did not embody openness in his behavior. His behavior demonstrated he was open to being right. He was open to being the smartest person in the room. He was open to dominating discussions. He was openly critical. However, he was closed to his impact on others. He was closed to listening, closed emotionally, closed to collaboration. The remedy? Pause . . . stepping back to receive more and send less, to be more receptive and interfere less. Over a few months, we helped him to pause to align his verbal passion for openness with his behaviors. He paused into seeing himself and his dominant style through the eyes of others. Because he was so willing, he learned to pause to listen and hear what others were trying to contribute. He learned to pause to give others a chance to work out solutions to problems and to express their own ideas. He mastered the pause practice of asking questions to elicit awareness, collaboration, and innovation. He paused to deal with his fear and limiting beliefs. He learned the art of slowing down the movie to reconnect to himself, others, and the creative process. He paused to begin a rewrite of the script of his leadership behaviors and aspirations by fostering the art of authenticity, being genuine within himself and in his relationships with others. He was now authoring a new way of leading and a new way of living, and he was genuinely more open. Even his spouse noticed the change and called our office to say, “Whatever you are doing, please keep it up!” That’s a notable sign. When leadership development begins to migrate to all areas of life, there’s a lot more going on than an external change inspired by a tip or technique; it is real sign of transformation.

Yet, even after his spouse had called us with her enthusiastic support, he still had not fully absorbed the behavior change that was taking place. “What is going on? My team is challenging me. Suddenly, people are coming up with fresh ideas. They have never been so energized, engaged, and open. I sense something mysterious emerging in our culture. What is it?” Amused, I responded, “The ‘mystery’ is you. You paused into yourself and into others. As you unlocked your potential, you unleashed the organizational potential as well. You wanted openness, and you stepped back to elicit it. You became open, and now it is safe and exciting for others to follow your authentic lead. You became what you wanted to see in others; now others are rushing in to become it, too.”

Pause is the most fundamental process underlying personal and organizational transformation. All leadership assessment, leadership feedback, leadership development, and leadership coaching are catalyzed by pause. In fact, if done properly, they are all pause practices. This process of stepping back for reflection moves us to greater humility, courage, and confidence, which we sustain through openness, trust, and mutual respect. This rich mixture moves us to integration, synergy, and innovation. Pause prepares a fertile field of possibility, where something new can grow inside and out.

THE POWER
OF SYNERGY

Sometimes pause feels a bit magical, like we are in the “zone,” when every member of the team brings forth his or her best talents and effort, and working together we create something greater, more surprising and spectacular than we could ever do on our own. This kind of leadership requires a humility and confidence that is coupled with ambition and a sense of larger purpose that Jim Collins, researcher and author of Good to Great, recognized in “Level V Leaders.” These leaders move ego aside, lead with character, and create a platform that invites others to perform and star. They generously open up space for everyone to shine. Dale Chihuly, the artist and designer of breakthrough glass-blowing techniques, is also known for his talent as a leader of astounding artistic collaborations. He brings together teams of distinguished glass artists to innovate astonishingly new forms, often massive pieces of glass created by working together and pushing previously held boundaries. Their productions, with Chifuly as visionary and director, and featuring many talented artists, are operatic in nature. They are the embodiment of synergy.

Karen Kimsey-House, CEO of Coaches Training Institute, the world’s largest trainer of coaches, described that special connection or synergy this way: “When we are all connected to each other and our purpose, the whole transcends the parts.” Karen shared a great story of how her intuition to pause energized her team and ultimately catalyzed their synergy. She and her team were seated around the table for a strategizing and curriculum-planning session. “I could feel something was off. Everyone was stressed to the max. I could tell that whatever was on their minds and in their hearts was in the way.” Wisely, Karen suggested that everyone take a deep breath and step back for a little while. She asked, “What’s really going on? How are you feeling? Are there some things we need to talk about? Is there something important that I am missing here?” Around the table they went, and one by one each leader talked about whatever was topmost on his or her mind. Some people were feeling overwhelmed, others were grieving recent changes, and others were feeling disconnected and anxious. Karen had the courage and insight to realize that everyone needed to reconnect to themselves, to each other, and to their common purpose. The process took about 30 minutes. Having taken that time to connect, their creativity, energy, and resources were available again. They were able to refocus wholeheartedly on their work because they connected to the value of what they create together and its potential impact on the world. Karen added, “We were able to do all that, return to our strategizing and curriculum planning, and we ended up finishing even earlier than expected. That’s what taking the time to reconnect can do.” As Mahatma Gandhi counseled, “There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.”

The art of management is consistently,
efficiently achieving results; the art of
leadership is growing people to produce
enduring value.

As critical as technology, strategy, systems, and processes are to organizational success, our biggest leadership bets, our most important bets, are on people. Research conducted by the Corporate Executive Board has demonstrated the tangible, dramatic impact of leader-led development. Leaders, who took the time to take an active, primary role in the development of people, were 1.5 times more likely to exceed their financial goals than those who didn’t. Pausing to develop people accelerates business performance. As one very experienced global CEO imparted, “Developing others appreciates our most renewable, enduring, value-creating asset—people.”

CREATE A CULTURE OF CONTINUOUS
INVESTMENT AND GROWTH IN PEOPLE

Leaders foster accelerated growth: growth of revenue, growth of market share, growth of profit, growth of purpose, growth of innovation, growth of contribution. The essential growth questions to pause on are

Where does all this growth originate?

What is the prime mover of growth?

What fuels growth in the first place?

Too often, we view growth as merely an external process, rarely pausing deeply to consider its source within us and within our organizations. We excel at measuring growth but do we slow down, step back and consider where growth comes from?

Human insight, human energy, and human agility are the prime movers of growth in people and organizations.

Managers activate systems and processes for
control; leaders catalyze human potential to
multiply impact.

A senior leader in a multinational consumer products company, known in the industry for her exceptional creativity, put it this way: “Creativity and innovation are mental aspirations until human heart and human engagement are activated. No amount of brilliant strategy and brilliant leadership can outperform the human spirit. Managers and technical experts must engage their mental faculties to make a difference. Effective leaders go to the primal source of achievement, growing people to grow organizations, to grow enduring results.”

Like most high-achieving leaders, she did not always see herself or her role from this perspective.

Early in my career, I saw myself as the prime mover of achievement. When a job needed doing or expertise was required, I provided it. Having built my credibility through consistent achievement, as I moved up the ladder, I continued this same ‘I am the one’ mentality. I hit the wall in my first big role running a $1 billion region. I had hit my capacity for heroic, personally driven achievement. Honestly, I was forced to take a new path. I had no choice but to trust, let go, and become a coach and developer of people. Shifting my focus from me to we was transformative. I now estimate more than 80 percent of my role revolves around people and talent development to directly support the strategy. Helping my people to ‘step back to step up’ is my real job now.

Growing Others Begins with Self-Growth

Most change begins with self-change, and most growth begins with self-growth. Therefore, if you did not reflect thoroughly enough in the previous chapter, “Pause to Grow Personal Leadership,” it’s time to go back . . . take a deeper pause . . . and get clear there first. No amount of growing others will compensate for a leader’s lack of self-growth. As enterprise leaders, our own advancing personal growth directly influences the dynamic capacity for organizational growth. Before we can grow authenticity and purpose in others, we must dedicate ourselves to our own growth of authenticity and purpose. If we do, our development of others will be powerful, and our credibility will be well earned. We must become the leader we wish to see in our organizations, and from this credible, solid platform, we can then accelerate the development of others.

Grounded in your personal awareness of your character, your values, your purpose, your transcendence, and your authenticity, you will have a solid frame of reference for encouraging others to join you on the growth journey. As you grow and value growth, others will follow.

Become the Leader You Wish to See in Others

A CEO of a global company deeply believed in leadership development and invested heavily in a variety of programs. He put his thumbprint on the programs, introducing the key ones as the kickoff speaker. Unfortunately, endorsing leadership development isn’t enough; his daily leadership behavior ran contrary to the principles represented in the programs. Not surprisingly, the leadership programs had disappointing ROI. Additionally, retention of key players was much below expected levels. Frustrated, the CEO began to doubt the value of his investment. In one sense, he was right: the programs were not working optimally, and the investment was not paying off. However, the cause of the low ROI was not the programs; it was his own lack of participation and personal growth, his lack of embodiment of the learning. Once, to his credit, he began to take responsibility for his self-generated growth and change, word got around the organization that “leadership development is serious business for all of us.” As one up-and-coming manager put it, “If the CEO works so hard on his own development, I need to do my part.” ROI increased on leadership development. Become the leader and the learner you wish to see in your leadership programs, and people will join you on the development journey.

Centuries ago, Seneca wrote, “Retire into yourself as much as possible. Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one.” Pause on this thought:

The best time to influence your next generation
of talent is about three years before you hire
them. The leadership development we engage
in now, personally and organizationally, will
influence both current and future generations
of leaders.

Before we move forward into how to develop others, let’s step back . . . take a pause to reflect on what you already know and have experienced in this area of growth.

 

PAUSE POINT:
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AUDIT

Sit back . . . take a break. Think about your experiences coaching, mentoring, and growing people. Think about the highlights for yourself and others. Then, reflect on these questions:

What have been your most effective ways to grow people?

How strong are the leadership development processes and programs in your organization? Do they prepare people for the rigors of leadership and the challenges of your new strategy?

Who are the people you can stretch in your organization into new, first-time assignments and expect success?

Do you really know your talent inside and out? Do you see their performance and potential? Do you know their motivation and values? Do you know what energizes them and drains their energy?

Important: Be courageous and honest with your answers; your personal and organizational success hinge upon an accurate assessment.

 

THE LANGUAGE OF GROWING OTHERS:
THE LANGUAGE OF PAUSE

The two most valuable pause tools for fostering the growth of others are questions and listening. Questions are the expressive, probing language for growing others; listening is the receptive, facilitating language for growing others. These two complementary approaches form a continuous growth conversation loop. The deeper the questions, the deeper the listening; the deeper the listening, the deeper the next question. As we dig together with each tool, we mutually excavate new discoveries. As a result, the learning is never one-sided; it is a co-created process that engenders empathy, trust, and collaboration.

The Power of Authentic Questions

Coauthors Eric Vogt, Juanita Brown, and David Isaacs wrote in The Art of Powerful Questions, “The usefulness of the knowledge we acquire and the effectiveness of the actions we take depend on the quality of the questions we ask. Questions open the door to dialogue and discovery. They are an invitation to creativity and breakthrough thinking.” As we turn our attention to understanding more about the art and science of creativity and innovation, we learn that questions are also the keys to discovery. In The Innovator’s DNA, coauthors Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen discern from their analysis that “innovators are consummate questioners who show a passion for inquiry. Their queries often challenge the status quo. They ask questions to understand: how things are; why they are; how they might be changed or disrupted.” As a result, they discover “new insights, connections, possibilities, and directions.” What’s more, innovators have a high “Q/A ratio.” “Their questions not only outnumber answers in a typical conversation, but are valued at least as highly as good answers.” Authentic questions open up the doorway to authentic growth and development in others.

Leaders Pause to Ask Powerful Questions

Innovators working on solving problems and coming up with creative solutions rely on crafting the right questions. Leaders who are helping others to grow and innovate are always trying to craft the best questions to make a difference. Not only do innovators make asking questions an integral part of their lives, and ask more questions than non-innovators, they also ask more provocative ones . . . questions that provoke deep insight and understanding. Developing other leaders through questioning not only helps them grow, but it forces them to own their unique learning experiences.

A chairman of a global 100 firm shared with me, “At early stages of our career, we build credibility by having the answers. At later career stages, we build credibility by having the most powerful questions.” Questions can “flip the VUCA forces” from volatility to vision, from unpredictability to understanding, from complexity to clarity, and from ambiguity to agility. Questions reveal to us and to others the unseen, the unknown, and the hidden. Questions unlock the door to new possibilities, new learning, and new ways to see ourselves and the world.

Questions activate the catalytic power of pause
to help us grow.

 

PAUSE POINT:
THE POWER OF QUESTIONS

Imagine yourself in your next team meeting. Observe and check your impulses to be the expert, the problem solver, or the holder of the most seasoned experiences and perspectives. See yourself using questions more to:

Challenge yourself to look at solutions from a different point of view.

Stay in the state of curiosity longer to sort out where others are coming from.

Probe deeper into motivations, perspectives, and experiences.

Bring the “unspeakable” question to the surface.

Challenge the status quo to move the conversation to the next level.

Build on what is being said and take it one or two steps further.

Engage with people at a deeper level.

What would be the impact to your team and organization if you leveraged the power of questions more? What would happen if you used your drive, analytical capabilities, and intelligence to help others to grow versus having the answers and solving the problems?

 

The Power of Authentic Listening

Following an extended period of international travel and organizational stress involving the shutting down of operations globally, an extremely self-confident, expressive senior executive lost her voice. She didn’t just have a common cold; she had full-blown laryngitis. Unable to speak for 60+ days, she was forced to step back and listen. Her perception of her team changed radically. She saw her staff much more involved, expressive, and creative. Discussions were more uninhibited, free flowing, and creatively productive. Over time, she found that even her contributions of flip chart scribbles occasionally got in the way. “Listening showed me a way to do less but accomplish more. My team understands my vision, expectations, and values. I realize that what I need to do is discipline myself now to listen more and interfere less.”

Questions without authentic listening
are thinly veiled challenges, judgments,
and assertions; challenging questions with
authentic listening activates latent power,
potential, and collaboration.

How often do we pause to be genuinely present with someone? How often do we really hear what the other person is saying and feeling versus filtering it heavily through our own immediate concerns and time pressures? Authentic listening is not easy. We hear the words, but rarely do we really slow down to listen and to squint with our ears to hear the emotions, fears, and underlying concerns.

Effective leaders speak to influence and motivate; exceptional leaders listen to learn, collaborate, and innovate. Of all the core competencies critical to sustained leadership, listening is at, or near, the top of the list. As the thirtieth U.S. president, Calvin Coolidge, put it, “No man has ever listened himself out of a job.” Despite its value-creating properties, listening is rare for many leaders, and this lack of listening is one of the key reasons leaders derail.

Research confirms that a startling 67 percent of new leaders in organizations fail within eighteen months. Why? Lack of listening. Why do teams usually break down? Poor listening. Why do relationships in general fail? Inadequate listening. According to recent research published by Kelly See, Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison, Naomi Rothman, and Jack Soll in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the picture does not get any prettier. Leaders, in general, were found to be poor listeners. In fact, across four different studies, it’s been shown that the greater the position of power the more elevated the propensity to discount advice, mainly due to inflated self-confidence. Too often, we as leaders are more confident in our own expertise and our past experience than trusting of others and their more current experience and insights. This lack of listening can be further complicated by a tendency of team members to defer to more senior people with perceived expertise. In “Learning When to Stop Momentum” in MIT Sloan Management Review, researchers Michelle Barton and Kathleen Sutcliffe explain that it is just as common for members of firefighting teams to defer to senior members because of perceived expertise. Dynamic changes and better outcomes occur when leaders stop momentum by creating interruptions to reexamine and revaluate the plan in light of current information and genuinely urge team members—through pause, questions, and listening—to speak up and voice their concerns.

We have observed three common pitfalls that inhibit people from stepping back for authentic listening:

 

LISTENING PITFALL 1: HYPER SELF-CONFIDENCE When we see ourselves as the quintessential expert, the most experienced or accurate person in the room, we position ourselves to fall into a listening black hole. Others with valuable insights defer rather than speak up, diminishing rather than strengthening leadership teams. The kiss of death for collaboration, connection, and innovation is moving too quickly to our own perceived “right” answer. Slow down, and challenge yourself to pause and to listen a few minutes longer to move from transaction or hyperaction to transformation.

 

LISTENING PITFALL 2: IMPATIENCE AND BOREDOM When conversations or meetings don’t reflect our point of view or are not intellectually challenging enough, we may get impatient or bored. Our inner voice, drowning out other voices in the room, says, “They are not getting it!” They may not be getting your idea, personal framework, or solution, but they are getting something, possibly something valuable but hidden to you. If we are too caught up in our judgmental self-conversation, we can never really genuinely listen and hear what is going on around us. We lose on multiple levels: we don’t learn; we don’t know what is happening; we don’t connect; and we don’t innovate. Fight your impatience and boredom by looking deeper. Pause to question: What are they seeing and understanding that I don’t see? What are the beliefs underneath what is being said? What are the hopes and fears underneath the surface? If you stepped back and looked at things in this new or different way, what would be the implications? Stretch yourself mentally and emotionally to stay engaged by looking deeper. Remember, you can always disagree or reframe the conversation later, but as St. Francis advised, “Seek first to understand.”

 

LISTENING PITFALL 3: BIAS FOR ACTION Sometimes listening is challenging because we want to do something, not just hear about it. Our hyperactive impulses derive from our certainty that we know the solution and reactively want to implement it. However, as a senior leader, when facing complexity and/or a maturing team, it isn’t always optimal to rush in with the answers, unintentionally creating dependency, stunting the growth of others, and sacrificing transformative breakthroughs. Pause a bit longer to let groups struggle and strain more as they explore ideas, options, and deeper solutions. Listen to how they are collaborating, resolving conflict, and problem solving. Give introverts space to speak up. Step back more and step in only when absolutely necessary.

Managers take action quickly to advance the
organization; leaders listen deeply to activate
latent energy and possibility.

Balancing Self Confidence and Humility

Recently, I was advising a CEO and his senior team in a talent review process. The CEO was extremely supportive of one up-and-coming talent. To challenge him, I asked, “Why are you so ‘in love’ with this candidate?” His response: “He knows precisely when to be self-confident and when to be humble.” An insightful comment. Knowing when to assert our own point of view and knowing when to listen is the mark of both heightened self-awareness and great leadership. Exceptional leaders know when to be receptive—to be humble, listen, and learn—and when to be assertive. Humility keeps leaders open to learning; confidence compels leaders to serve, share, and create value. Leaders need to do both. Most of us, however, overdo self-confidence and underdo humility. As a result, our listening suffers. Without an appropriate level of humility, we will never listen. Why should we? We already have the answers!

Pausing to listen to the needs, concerns, and aspirations of our key people is crucial to growing talent. If you find yourself rushing about from meeting to meeting, project to project, and rarely pausing to check in with your key people, your team and organizational risk is mounting. Having deeper developmental discussions, really engaging people, communicates care and connection. Pausing for developmental dialogue elevates the business conversation from management tactics to leadership excellence.

Authentic listening is not the same as waiting for the other person to finish speaking. Peter Senge offers an interesting metaphor for how we might think of preparing to deeply listen. He refers us to a story of a gate in Jerusalem that is so narrow it is called the “eye of the needle.” The only way for a camel to pass through the gate was for it to stoop and unload its baggage. Imagining ourselves at the “eye of the needle” gate and metaphorically unloading our “baggage” or opening our minds may be helpful when we want to be certain that we are actively and authentically listening.

Try practicing authentic listening. Be with people and have the goal to fully understand the thoughts and feelings they are trying to express. Use your questions and comments to draw them out, to open them up, and to clarify what is said rather than expressing your view, closing them down, and saying only what you want. Not only will this help you to understand the value and contribution the other person brings, it will create a new openness in the relationship that will allow you to express yourself and be heard more authentically as well.

Authentic listening creates the platform for true synergy and team effectiveness. Valuing and attending to different perspectives from diverse sources results in a more complete understanding of issues and more elegant solutions. Authentic listening is the soul of growing others.

Listening in a VUCA World

Thomas Friedman, author and New York Times columnist, has brilliantly elucidated that the world we live in today is being rapidly changed by the “democratization of information” at the transformational intersection of globalization and technology. As a result, regimes that take a heavy-handed, top-down approach, rarely, if ever, listening to their constituencies, are finding it increasingly difficult to survive this lightning-fast marshalling of the masses through technology. The same is true in business organizations. Before CEOs leave meetings, the tweeting, texting, and e-mailing goes global with support or resistance being nearly instantaneous. “The days of leading countries or companies via a one-way conversation are over,” says Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN and author of How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything. “The old system of ‘command and control’—using carrots and sticks—to assert power is fast becoming replaced by ‘connect and collaborate’—to generate power through people.” Emphasizing the transforming dynamic of authentic listening, Seidman writes, “Now you have to have a two-way conversation that connects deeply to your citizens or customers or employees.” As Friedman writes, “The role of the leader now is to get the best coming up from below and then meld it with a vision from above.”

Mixing the receptive art of listening with
the expressive art of visionary leadership is
the alchemic formula for enduring success in
today’s information-rich, flat world.

On the power and potential of listening, Peter Senge says:

To listen fully means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to the “music,” but to the essence of the person speaking. You listen not only for what someone knows, but for what he or she is. Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in. Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so you can slow your mind’s hearing to your ears’ natural speed, and hear beneath the words to their meaning.

MERGING THREE INTERRELATED PAUSES
FOR GROWING OTHERS

For growth to have a lasting, transformative impact, three interrelated pauses that arise from questioning and listening need to merge: building awareness, building commitment, and building practice. If all three are present and informing one another, breakthroughs will occur and growth will be sustained. If we do not help others to sufficiently pause for each of these phases, the results will most likely dissipate over time.

Three Interrelated Growth Pauses

Growing Others Pause 1: Use Questions and Listening to Build Awareness

As we experienced through the previous chapter of this book, “Pause to Grow Personal Leadership,” leadership growth begins with self-awareness—knowing yourself, what is important to you, aligning with your purpose, and understanding how your actions or inactions, strengths or weaknesses affect others. As leaders, we are continually faced with the task of also building outside-in awareness. Awareness of changing market conditions, emerging economic realities, new capital needs, cost concerns, and operational issues dominate our time and attention. But often the greatest task of Pausing for Awareness is in the human, interpersonal domain. People problems are typically quite complex, yet when people in conflict come to us with their concerns, we often slip into a reactive, knee-jerk mode and look for a fast, transactive fix.

To help people grow, stay out of the expert, mentor role, and pause to help people sort out their current situations. Build awareness by using questions and listening to help others sort out a variety of internal or external challenges. Questions you might use to assist people in building awareness include:

Would you tell me more about yourself (this person, the problem, or situation)? What is the background? What are the challenges? What are the key issues?

What is the current state of the situation? If you faced this head-on and objectively, what is the current situation you face?

What are some connections from the past to this current situation, pattern, belief, attitude, or behavior?

What have you learned about yourself and your reactions?

What beliefs, values, or insights came up for you?

How are your strengths and growth area playing out in this situation?

Had you taken another approach, how could you see yourself (this person, the problem, or situation) in a new light?

What clarity have you gained?

What new clarity needs to surface?

Growing Others Pause 2: Use Questions and Listening to Build Commitment

Awareness opens up the possibility for a higher level of performance. However, awareness and insight by themselves are not enough. If they were, we would not have the same New Year’s resolutions each year! Moving toward enduring leadership effectiveness requires motivation born of emotional commitment. Building commitment begins with helping people to consider the consequences of their actions. However, it is not enough to help others to understand intellectually that if they continue on the same course, they’re going to fall short of their goals, limit themselves or others. We have to help people to feel and experience it. When we have a deep emotional connection to the impact of a behavior or decision, our life can change permanently. This is why trauma can be such a great change-producing teacher. Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis put it this way: “Courageous leaders often get their courage from their fear about what will happen if they don’t step up and boldly step out.”

In the 2011 film The Descendents, George Clooney plays Matt King, a husband and father who puts work first. Although he shares a home with his wife and daughters, he has been absent from their lives. In an early scene in the movie, Matt sits in his wife’s hospital room. She has been in a boating accident that has left her in a coma for three weeks. Finally absorbing the reality of the situation and hoping he can transform it by being a better husband and father, Matt blurts out, “I’m ready to change. I’m ready to be a real husband and a real father.” As “the back-up parent,” Matt doesn’t know his daughters or what to do with them. The realities of the unfolding tragedy bring all this into focus because he is finally feeling and seeing what is going on around him. As the plot progresses, he understands the consequences of his entrenched behavior, and commitment dawns. He starts listening to his daughters, to others, and to his inner voice. Clooney’s character comes to a sharp realization of what is most important to him. Once we clearly perceive and emotionally experience both the upside and downside consequences of a behavior, meaningful commitment to transformation—boldly stepping out—can begin. Commitment blooms when the fear of destroying the bud is less than the incredible potentiality of the rose.

By guiding people to grasp the life-enriching and life-damaging consequences of their current behaviors or paths, you help them to feel the creative tension between where they want to end up and where they are headed as a result of their actions. Helping people to pause and envision these alternative futures and to make new life choices is the essence of building commitment. Remember, to develop deeper commitment the person has to see, feel, and experience these consequences for himself or herself, not just adopt your version of the consequences.

Build commitment using questions and listening to facilitate a clearer understanding of the upside and downside consequences. Questions you might ask include:

What are the most compelling, positive reasons for you to do X?

What are the downsides for not doing X?

Can you feel the positive pull of X and the desire to avoid the downside? Do you clearly feel the tension?

Why is it so important to you to do this? What is the disaster scenario if you don’t?

Will you begin doing X? By when? How often?

How invested are you in doing this?

What will you and others lose if you don’t? What will you and others gain if you do?

Growing Others Pause 3: Use Questions and Listening to Build Practice

Without practice, there is no transformation. Pausing to help others identify what to practice breathes life, vitality, and momentum into their new awareness and commitment. The people we are helping to grow can be fully aware and committed to noble goals, but if we fail to consistently give them the opportunity to practice new behaviors, it is like lighting a lamp and closing our eyes.

Admiring great insights and feeling proud of new commitments will not, in themselves, propel others toward their desired destination. Lao-Tzu, who wrote the profound life and leadership text, Tao Te Ching, reflected, “A Sage will practice the Tao. A fool will only admire it.”

Identifying a practice makes the possible
possible; beginning a practice makes the
possible probable; engaging in enduring
practice makes the possible real.

An interesting connection to deep practice can be found in neuroscience’s understanding of myelin, an insulating material that wraps itself around neurons—a circuit of nerve fibers. Although we need synapses, it is myelin that is responsible for why we learn things and get good at them. Myelin increases the signal strength, speed, fluency, and accuracy of the synapses. The more frequently we practice, the more myelin optimizes our ability to access that new behavior or skill. Whether it is listening more deeply and asking more questions, changing your golf swing, or improving presentation skills, “Practice makes myelin makes perfect.” Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code, explains it this way: “Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways—operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes—makes you smarter. . . . Experiences where you are forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them—as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go—end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it.”

When Pablo Casals, whom many consider the greatest cellist ever, was ninety-two years old, he was still pausing to practice his cello five hours a day—more than his students. One day a frustrated student approached Casals and asked, “Pablo, why are you practicing five hours a day? You are putting your students to shame. Why are you practicing so hard?” Evidently, Pablo responded humbly, “I’m practicing so much because I am finally starting to make progress!”

Consider asking the people you are leading the following questions as tools for co-creating practices to support the growth of others:

What could you begin practicing tomorrow? What is a seemingly small behavior that could be most impactful? What could you do that would have the most beneficial impact for you and for others?

What is something you practiced in the past that could be helpful here?

What could you do more of, less of, or differently to impact this the most?

Can you see yourself consistently practicing this? Daily? How often?

When will you begin this? How often will you practice?

 

PAUSE POINT:
ACCELERATING THE GROWTH OF OTHERS

Step back for a moment to get prepared for deeper, more effective coaching and development conversations. Consider doing this as a stand-alone meeting or at the end of a regular business interaction. Think about using questions more, listening more, and speaking less. Try pausing to build awareness, to build commitment, and to build practices to help move the person forward. As you pause on these considerations, also ask yourself:

How would these new behaviors alter and enhance your conversations?

What might you discover about the other person? About yourself?

What degree of care and commitment would you demonstrate or embody?

What might get in your way? Expertise? Problem solving? Impatience? Fear? Or, are you moving the person too quickly into fix-it mode?

Will you coach people more? Will you use questions and listening to build awareness, commitment and practice? When? With whom will you start? How often?

 

DEEP PAUSE TO GROW LEADERS:
A CASE STUDY

Since 2002, we have been fortunate to work with 800+ senior leaders at Novartis, the $58 billion life sciences company, named the number one most admired pharmaceutical company a few times over the past several years. Like many companies, Novartis faced the dilemma of how to grow and develop a stream of talented people who would emerge prepared and qualified for leadership. We distilled this challenge to two questions: (1) How can Novartis leaders step back to get to know their talent on a more intimate basis to accelerate succession decision quality? (2) How could Novartis accelerate the development of key high-potential leaders?

We addressed these questions by customizing a program that simultaneously accelerated the pace and quality of both leadership development and succession decision making. As one very perceptive Novartis sponsor put it, “I need to more intimately know our talent one to three levels below me. In talent reviews previously, I would make succession decisions based on very limited interaction. Now, I know these people very well, and I know what kind of assignments different people are ready for. I can immediately make informed, accurate career and stretch assignments.” The program combined expertise in talent assessment and executive coaching with three areas critical to the development of leaders: building personal awareness and purpose; enhancing trust-based influence and teaming; and impacting real-world business challenges.

When Novartis initiated the program in 2002, the issue of developing talent within their company was critical. In 2000, they had recruited 79 percent of their talent from outside the organization. By 2002, they had improved that percentage to 58 percent, but they needed to do better. Novartis was determined “to reduce its outside hiring costs, leverage its investment in recruitment, and develop future leaders from among its existing talent pool.” By 2005, and continuing to the present, only 30 percent of senior talent has been hired outside the organization. Millions of dollars were saved in recruiting. Millions more were leveraged to produce and sustain results. Novartis’s commitment to its key talent has accomplished even more: it has helped create a base of self-aware, influential leaders whose focus extends beyond individual results to a concern for the team and the broader enterprise. “This is not skills training; it’s about who you are and the impact that has,” said Mechtild Walser-Ertel, who has participated as a talent management and organizational development leader for Novartis Consumer Health.

Leadership development programs that create lasting value connect the individual’s personal beliefs, talents, and purpose with the needs of the organization and marketplace. When leaders pause to make this important connection, they emerge effective and inspired. They possess a crystalized knowledge of what they believe and what they care about, as well as how to leverage their talent specifically to impact the enterprise. The most effective leaders can articulate and embody their purpose and values. They can influence and connect effectively with others, and they can produce enduring business value. This principle of Inside-Out and Outside-In leadership development in action was completely integrated into the process and curriculum to develop Novartis leaders.

“This work is so effective at creating self-awareness,” commented sponsor Juergen Brokatsky-Geiger, Novartis global head, human resources. “We wanted to bring our talent into a reflective process that allows them to think more deeply about their career aspirations and abilities and what opportunities provide the best fit. This benefits the organization as much as the specific individual.” The results of this approach for coaching and development have cascaded deeply into the company:

Participants bring their learning back into their businesses, and concepts, language, and behaviors become embodied throughout the organization.

Depth of talent is identified and succession becomes more intimate and real, enabling better decisions on whom to develop and promote.

Leaders grow in confidence and authenticity as they connect more deeply to who they are and what is important to the enterprise.

Participants engage more successfully with teams and create peer-coaching and networking connections beyond the program.

Leaders learn to collaborate on real-world leadership challenges.

Attention broadens to create a culture that better balances business results and people development.

Program sponsors benefit in their leadership development as much as the participants.

 

PAUSE POINT:
DEVELOPING OTHERS

Sit back and take a break. Think about your interactions over the past two years in developing others. Be open to your strengths, growth areas, and legacy in these areas. Consider these questions as you reflect on your experiences:

What could you do more of, less of, or differently to develop your people?

What could your organization do more of, less of, or differently?

What will your people development legacy be?

 

PAUSE FOR GENERATIVITY:
PAYING IT FORWARD

The great psychologist Erik Erikson studied the entire life cycle of human development and postulated that we move through eight stages in our lifetime, beginning with trust as an infant and advancing during our developing years to autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, then to intimacy, generativity, and integrity in our adult years. His observation was that in the stage he called “generativity” we do our payback. We pursue a desire for our life to count and have meaning, to leave a legacy to help the next generation. It is a stage of life that is no longer about us; it is about how we can serve, benefit, and grow others. Generativity is the stage when we slow down to accelerate others; we step back to pull others forward. It is our most authentic time to lead forward for ourselves and for other people. A generative leader gets energy and meaning by seeing others succeed. In short, we lead on-purpose, in-character and in-service, helping the next generation to go beyond us. We give what we can and experience the joy of transferring knowledge and the joy of others exceeding us.

Marc Belton, executive vice president, Global Strategy, Growth and Marketing, General Mills, thinks of generativity as legacy or “living on.” He shared his holistic view of how he and his creative partner at General Mills, Mark Addicks, senior vice president, chief marketing officer, will “live on” at their company:

You can live on by what you create and affect. You can live on through your DNA, but you also live on in people and in things that bring fundamental change. We’ll live on here [General Mills]. We’ll live on here because we care about doing business right, which means meeting the needs of our consumers and customers. We have a legacy of people who have been infected with things that matter—a sense of inspiration, a sense of motivation, a sense of being creative, a sense of knowing that you can bring about change when you are deeply interested in seeing something change. We will have infected a lot of people because we care, and we want to develop people, because we know that’s the essence. We want to develop people, and we want to bring about change. That’s the culture of generative innovation.

The key development breakthrough of growing oneself is self-awareness and authenticity; the key development breakthrough of growing others is service and generativity. Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” Be a generative leader. . . . Pause to accelerate the growth of others.

 

Step Back to Lead Forward:
Seven Pause Practices to Grow Others

Pause to Grow Others Practice 1: Be On-Purpose

Helping key people to get clear on their most meaningful, compelling aspiration may be our greatest developmental gift as a leader. We can talk about an achievement-driven legacy all day long, but a purpose-driven legacy, one that inspires clarity of contribution, is the real achievement. Take time with people to assist in clarifying core talents and core values. Then, ask, “With these talents and these values, what is the difference you want to make?” Help people to crystalize their purpose to a few, potent words so its profound simplicity can be an ever-present guide. Once they clarify their purpose, help people to apply it as a development tool. Ask, “Were you aligned with your purpose in that meeting? How could you have demonstrated your values or used your talents more effectively?” Helping to get clear on purpose and applying it as a practical development guide is a direct route to authentic leadership development.

Pause to Grow Others Practice 2: Question and Listen

Use questions and listening to build awareness, build commitment, and build practice. Hold back your expertise and stay present with questions and listening to keep the pressure and accountability squarely on the person you are advising. Your job is to question and listen to foster clarity within the person, not to resolve their challenges from your perspective. Pause within yourself to access the most powerful questions, and use pause to deeply listen rather than filling the space with your voice. Pause inside for the best questions, pause outside to listen deeply, and the growth conversation will be the most profound.

Pause to Grow Others Practice 3: Risk Experimentation

Growing others is a co-created process of hypothesizing, experimenting, and exploring options together. Step back with key people to explore possible stretch assignments collaboratively: “Have you considered this possibility? What about that possibility? What would you need to develop and to prepare to take that on? Are you ready now?” With highly learning agile people, take the risk to experiment with big stretches; you may be surprised how well they do. Similarly, step back to co-create, building practices together. “If you want to develop better platform skills, what are some ways you would be motivated to do this? Since broader enterprise leadership is crucial for you, what current enterprise initiatives would you want to take on?” Risk experimentation with key people by co-creating the practices and/or stretch assignments together.

Pause to Grow Others Practice 4: Reflect and Synthesize

Take time to reflect on the experience, expertise, strengths, vulnerabilities, talents, motivations, and values of your people. Reflect on each person deeply so that you can see each individual as a whole person . . . as a whole leader. What do you see? What is her performance? What is her potential? Am I limiting him because of my limited perception or my own performance anxiety? What do others see in him that I am missing? Consider engaging in a deep talent discussion to map people according to a performance-potential grid, getting assessment and feedback to ground your own perceptions. The deeper you pause to reflect and understand your talent, the greater the possibilities for them and for your organization. Invest more time reflecting on the strengths and development needs of your key people.

Pause to Grow Others Practice 5: Consider Inside-Out and Outside-In Dynamics

Take an honest look at how your organization develops talent. Are your leadership development programs too Outside-In, mainly leveraging 360° assessments and business topics? Are your programs fully leveraging Inside-Out self-awareness with strategically relevant Outside-In business content? Take the time to ensure that your time invested in developing people has a good balance of personal insight from the Inside-Out and business-relevant content from the Outside-In.

Grow Others Pause Practice 6: Foster Generativity

Stepping back to coach, develop, and transfer knowledge is the very essence of generativity. Coaching and mentoring are important processes, but generativity, equipping the next generation to flourish, is the critical outcome. Shift more of your time to this fulfilling and energizing pursuit. Imagine yourself at earlier stages of your career, getting the help and advice you needed. Aren’t these the people and leaders you most remember? Those generous leaders paused from their hectic schedules and patiently helped us sort out our challenges.

The true measure of your leadership will not
turn out to be your great achievements, but the
number of great leaders you turn out.

Pause to Grow Others Practice 7: Be Authentic

Growing others requires deep authenticity: authentic questions, authentic listening, authentic presence, authentic knowledge transfer, and authentic generativity. The more you become what you are encouraging others to be, the greater your credibility, voice, and influence. Be clear about what you know and what you don’t know. Be honest with what you can help develop and what you cannot. Be open and authentic with your people, and they will be open and authentic with you. Share your authentic stories—the triumphs, the challenges, and the failures—and your people will step forward with their most genuine, value-creating selves as well. Be a co-learner with your team, and they will join the learning journey with you.

Be the change you wish to see in your
organization.

 

PAUSE POINT:
VISIONING THE GROWTH OF OTHERS

Imagine your organization rising up with incredible performance and realized potential. You have several successors ready to advance the organization to the next level. These people see you as the most valued coach-mentor-advisor in their careers. Many say, “I could not have gotten here without him/her. I am in this position largely because of his/her investment in my growth as a leader.” You can see this next generation take over and lead the organization to new possibilities. They are ready, full of energy and shared purpose. Take a moment and consider these questions:

How does this vision make you feel?

How close are you to this vision as a reality?

What do you need to do to get there?

What actions can you begin taking today?