New Web Site Launched!
When we talk about spring-cleaning, we normally think about cleaning closets and organizing our drawers. In business, spring-cleaning is more about cleaning and updating our hard-drives and web sites. Although this year’s lackluster spring wasn’t very inspiring, I took on the task of giving my web site a new facelift with the support and help of Bozena Zbrankova and Andy Formanek.
Since the proof is in the pudding, I suggest that you check out www.coaching.cz to see the new site for yourself.
For those of you who may not have received all my newsletters or read my various articles, you can now find a complete list of them on the web site.
New Newsletter Format
Those of you who receive my regular monthly newsletter may have noticed that in addition to a new look for my web site, I have also given my newsletter template a much needed face-lift. Not only will you find it to be more user-friendly, but it should put an end to the strange formatting glitches of the past!
Become the Speaker and Leader You Want to Be!
Sharpen your communication and leadership skills by accepting this invitation to attend Prague’s newest Toastmasters club!
Bohemian Toastmasters is an extension of the successful Prague Speakers Club. It is aimed at providing current Prague Speakers and new members with even more opportunities to hone their public speaking skills. Moreover, a new flexible schedule should make it more convenient for people always on the run.
The two Prague Toastmasters clubs enable organizers to better address the varying needs of our diverse members while doubling our opportunity to promote the Toastmasters in the Czech Republic.
For more information, check out http://www.praguespeakers.org/meetings.php
Calendar of Events and Activities
| September 4 | WIB Women in Business Dinner |
|---|---|
| September 18 | Launch of the new Bohemia Toastmasters Club (www.toasmasters.cz) |
| September 19 | Leadership Challenges Power Lunch: Creativity and Innovation |
| September 20 | Prague Speakers Humorous Speech and Table Topics Club contest (www.toasmasters.cz) |
| October 24 | Leadership Challenges Power Lunch: The Right Brain Experience |
| November 22 | Leadership Challenges Power Lunch: Ethics and Integrity |
Communication Tip of the Month: Aligning Mind, Body and Spirit on the Path to Success
“Just as great athletes make huge gains with the help of their coaches, people at all levels of organizations are seeing phenomenal results through support from business coaches.”
— Ken Blanchard, The One Minute Manager.
When business coaching emerged some twenty years ago, only a handful of mostly senior executives enlisted the help of coaches to guide them to greater success both in their professional and personal lives.
Since then, the reputation of professional coaching has become so established and has spread so far that one can find coaches helping people at every level of the corporate world. Professional coaches have since helped hundreds of thousands of people maximize their potential, productivity and success in countries around the globe.
While most people generally associate the term coaching with the world of sports, the guidance a business coach provides his or her corporate clients isn’t quite the same as that of a coach who helps a football team win the next World Cup.
In the world of sport, coaching is very much a hands-on activity that involves giving feedback, suggestions and direction on how to best leverage one’s talent through regular and on-going physical training.
In business, coaching has more to do with listening and asking questions, providing a relevant sounding board and a safe environment in which to reflect, plan and commit to goals. The value a coach brings to this relationship is in providing a supportive environment for the client so that he or she can develop an action plan and prepare for future success.
Having noted this difference, it is also important to highlight some of the areas where sport and business overlap, and where business leaders, who use a professional coach to overcome the psychological hurdles of the workplace, could learn from the experience of top athletes in gaining a greater understanding and control of their physical bodies.
Athletes have long known the importance of positive mental attitude in achieving great physical accomplishments. However, business people, in my experience, are far less aware of the importance of their physical being in both their own success and in the way they are perceived by their peers and colleagues.
To illustrate this point I will use a former client as an example of someone who was able to benefit from a combination of intensive coaching and physical activity, namely yoga.
Not long ago I coached a successful young professional named Jana, whose impressive list of accomplishments had recently helped her land a promotion to a manager-level position, in charge of a team of ten people. She owed her promotion as much to her intelligence and analytical skills as her own personal ambition and hard work.
Moreover, having been identified as one of the company’s rising stars, Jana’s drive and determination were bolstered by the full support of her director. None-the-less, her boss was very aware of challenges that Jana would face on her path to success.
Based on what the manager told me about Jana, I was expecting to see a confident and poised young woman when we met for the first time. But the person who sat across me didn’t convey any of the qualities her boss and HR manager had described to me. Her shoulders were slouched, her breathing shallow and her eyes continually seemed to be avoiding mine.
While Jana’s technical and analytical skills were acknowledged and praised throughout the company, her weak interpersonal skills and an uninspiring physical presence were undermining her role as a future leader.
It is well know that our body is our main vehicle for communication and that 55 percent of our communication comes from our body language. Yet it is amazing how few people pay attention to what their bodies are telling others.
Jana, for example, would find it very difficult to inspire confidence in her team when her body language showed a clear reluctance to communicate and an even clearer lack of self-confidence.
As our dialogue continued, I asked Jana some questions to discover what was underlying the difference between what she was telling me verbally and what she was communicating to me physically. Her body seemed to be physically burdened when she described her current professional situation. When she talked about her past achievements, her body eased slightly and her breathing became more relaxed, but an underlying impression of anxiety was clearly visible.
When I eventually shared my impressions with her, she looked me in the eyes and with a surprised tone of voice and said, “What do you mean my body tells you about my stress and emotional turmoil?”
While Jana did not need much help in clarifying her goals and establishing an action plan to achieve them, she needed a lot of coaching to realize the great importance that one’s physical presence has in producing an impression of confidence and competence. Learning to control oneself physically to create such an impression under times of stress and uncertainty is almost as important as mental control in such situations.
As with other clients, I recommended that Jana try to find balance both physically and mentally through sport and physical activity. Not only does sport provide an excellent physical outlet for stress, but it can often help people improve their mental focus, find more energy and become increasingly open and receptive.
As part of her coaching program, I strongly suggested that Jana attend a weekly yoga class. After a few short weeks, both Jana and her coworkers noticed a remarkable difference in both the way she carried herself and in her more relaxed mental attitude. Jana’s posture quickly improved and she learned breathing techniques that kept her aligned both physically and mentally.
A common thread shared by coaching and yoga is the emphasis on the process of fostering inner awareness. As a result, yoga is often an excellent complement to professional coaching. Both activities place great value on the path of self-discovery and share the belief that the inner journey begins by shifting our external focus to our inner focus. Like coaching, yoga encourages its devotees to pay more attention to external events and circumstance in life while at the same time focusing on internal factors.
Concretely, here are some of the benefits that yoga can offer:
- An excellent way to fight stress and reduce fatigue
- Increase flexibility and strength
- Promotes relaxation and helps participants to adopt a more tolerant and understanding attitude
- Breathing techniques that allow one to find balance, both physically and mentally
By being able to align both the body and mind, a person can becomes centered in the present moment. Whether it is by consciously taking one breath at a time while reaching a maximum physical extension or by identifying action steps for the day, the emphasis is on being open to a process of manifestation. Like coaching, regular yoga practice directs a person to look both inside and outside of himself to find happiness and fulfillment.
As a result, I strongly believe that yoga and coaching can offer a valuable contribution to one’s professional success and physical and mental well-being.
This article was written for the Prague Club Magazine and published in their July 2006 issue.