Most of us don’t like to feel vulnerable. Do you? The thesaurus offers adjectives like susceptible, weak, defenseless, helpless, in danger and exposed as alternative meanings. None of those words have very positive feelings attached to them and most of us do not want to be in situations where those words describe us. We feel like we want to avoid those situations rather than embrace them. But there is another meaning that needs to be examined and that is “open to”. Being vulnerable also means being open to new things, being transparent, discussing things, etc. Now that is a definition that can connote positive power.

Lets look at some of the options we have when we are “open to” and what that can mean for us and for our success in life and in the workplace. If being vulnerable means we are open to new learning it allow us to admit that we don’t know something and then empowers us to go learn. Instead of having to know everything – which is humanly impossible – we are then freed to learn new things and generate new ideas from them. I am sure you have seen this happen at work or at home: someone maintains that they know something when they really don’t but their fear of being vulnerable keeps them from admitting it. Then their pride keeps them from getting the knowledge they lack. Usually that comes back to bite them in the long run. A person is much more powerful when they are vulnerable to not knowing and then feel free to go find out.

Another option in being vulnerable is being transparent. If we are transparent in our dealings with others we have nothing to hide. We are required to live in integrity and that in itself is a powerful state of being. When we are living in integrity we are leading mindful lives, we are role modeling for others and they are more likely to be transparent with us. When that happens communication, relationships and all sorts of other good things fall into place.

A third opportunity in being vulnerable is having the freedom to be wrong. Instead of feeling like we need to cover it up or be ashamed we can admit we were wrong and have the option of changing our mind and/or learning something new. A power in that is gaining respect for being an honest and open person.

Those are only a few ways being vulnerable can open us up in powerful ways. What are some others that you can think of? Sometimes it is scary to let yourself be vulnerable but to step into your own power you need to be. Give it a try – what do you have to lose?

Do you have a routine for your life? Most of us do. We go from day to day not really thinking about it but just sort of robot-like following our routine. Have you gotten to the point where you feel you are in a rut or stuck in doing the same thing over and over and over without making any headway? If so, you are not unusual but you are probably feeling some frustration and are not living the best life you could be living. Maybe what you need to do is to take a good look at your routine and reformat it so that you are experiencing life in a different, more exciting way.

Reformatting your life, if taken all the way, can be a form of reinvention. That can be exhilarating and frightening all at the same time. If you are up for a change in your life and a chance to get unstuck from your routine read on.

First make a list of your top five to ten values. Prioritize them thinking of your life as a whole not from just a work perspective or a home perspective, etc.

Next look at your many life roles. Make a list of all of the things you do like worker, wife/husband, parent, handy person, “taxi” driver, coach, etc. etc. After you have made your list prioritize your roles, again from a whole life perspective.

Now put your two prioritized lists up against each other. Are they in alignment? If they are you are on the right track. If they are not aligned you have some work to do to get them in alignment.

One of the things you can do is to figure out where your time goes. Create a pie chart and put all of your roles on it with the amount of time you spend on each. Does your highest priority get the most time? If something is truly important to us we make time for it. What can you do to reallocate your time so that it reflects your values? This is really important to your happiness because when our values are out of alignment we feel frustration and stress.

You have now taken a look at your values, your roles and where your time is going. What changes can you make that will reformat your life’s activities to reflect who you really are? How will it feel when you do that? What will you gain? What will you lose? How will your overall life be better?

Are you about to or have you been conducting a job search? It is not easy these days. It has always been a process of getting past the “no’s” to the “yes” but that list of “no’s” has been much longer and deeper for the past few years. It is no longer a matter of having a good resume and sending it out to all of your network and everyplace you can find online. There is way too much competition for that to work anymore. It can be very discouraging. After a while with no or few prospects you can begin to feel very stuck indeed.

What can you do to break out of that stuckness? There certainly is no magic bullet and you will still have to do all of the networking, etc. but you can do some things to make yourself stand out in the crowd and get noticed. One way is to learn how to present yourself. There is a new book out by Paula Asinof and Mina Brown called Be Sharp. Paula and Mina devised a way to introduce yourself that is both memorable and unique. They suggest that you put together three factors that are designed to leave an impression and put you ahead of your competitors. The three factors are your Essence Factor, your Guru Factor and your Star Factor. Using their format you can create an introduction or “elevator” speech that truly sets you apart.

While you are thinking about how to present yourself you should also be getting very clear on what you really want to do and how it will be a good fit for you and your skills, capabilities and experience. An excellent career coach can be a pivotal factor for you in this department. Don’t just look at test results that identify your strengths. You need to examine what it is like for you when you are really in your “zone” – what are you doing, how are you doing it, what is your environment, how are you working with others, what is your bottom-line motivation? Put those together and you will have a powerful and impressive picture of your ideal job.

Another thing you can do is to get some help building a resume that is impactful. You only get a couple of seconds to make your resume stand out in the pile on a recruiter’s desk. This is another good place to get some professional help. Find a resume coach who has a unique understanding of the process and output so you can crack the entrance criteria with your resume.

Are you a manager of a virtual team? Do you have one or several people who work from home either part-time or full-time? Are some of your workers off-site? If so, you know how difficult it can be and what the issues are of managing remotely. Although it is difficult it is a necessity in our current business environment. In this article we will discuss some tips for making managing remotely a little easier. After you have read this I would love to hear some of your own insights and ideas. 

1. If you are managing remotely and cross culturally it is essential that you make sure everyone on the team has had training in cross-cultural management and that the specific cultures represented are discussed and understood. It is also important to make sure that language is not a barrier and that people know what to do when it does become a barrier to understanding.
2. Before starting to work be sure to do some work in another specific area. That is training on group process and what the team can expect as the group moves through the forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning stages. Help them understand how they can make the process go smoother and what to do when there is a breakdown. This will take time but it is well worth it in the long run becausse it allows the team to move faster and more effectively over time.
3. Help the team set ground rules for how it is going to work together. These rules should cover things like respect, sharing ideas, taking turns on the phone, getting work completed, pitching in to help, what to do when work gets bottlenecked, conflict, having fun – you name it. Include everything that the team needs to do to be effective.
4. Another special area to work on is conflict that takes place remotely. You will need to spend some time upfront on how to handle this. Not only do personalities play into conflict but so does culture. As a team leader you will need to stay on top of this. What steps will you take and what steps will you expect your team members to take when there is conflict. How can you turn it from destructive to constructive conflict?
5. The bottom line is trust building. You will have to work hard from the very first day to build and maintain trust because it is the foundation of working well together. You will have to expect it, role model it, monitor it and teach it. When you do you will find that your team flourishes.

Do you feel like you are wandering around in the forest of life just going in circles? Is your path either unclear or a deeply worn rut going around and around? Do you have a goal beyond just getting out of there or will you be happy just to be out of the confusing forest? Sometimes when we are lost in the forest we can’t see anything but trees and there seems to be no way to even get our bearings much less know where we actually are. If this is happening to you there are some things you can do to get yourself out of the forest and on with your life.

Let me tell you the story of the little bear. Little Bear had a very strict mother who told him never to climb up in trees for fear that he would fall and hurt himself. So, Little Bear stayed on the ground and “followed his nose”. His nose told him plenty of things. It told him when there were berries nearby, it told him where his friends were and it told him when there was danger. It also told him wonderful things about his warm cozy home. He was very comfortable.

One day Little Bear went out to hunt berries. He followed the scent the to edge of the woods. He found a small patch but his nose was telling him there were more berries just a little further in the woods. As he searched for more and more berries he went deeper and deeper into the woods until all of a sudden he realized he was lost. Little Bear did not panic. He knew he had a good nose so he began to follow his own scent but pretty soon he began to notice that it was taking him around and around in circles. He was lost! It didn’t matter how many times he tried, he kept ending up in the same place and that was definitely not out of the woods. Oh dear! What was he to do?

Just then a bird came by and told Little Bear that he had been watching and noticed that Little Bear seemed to be lost. Little Bear agreed and asked the bird for help. The bird told him to climb a tree and that he would be able to see out and then Little Bear would know how to get out of the forest. Oh no! thought Little Bear. He believed he could not climb a tree because his mother had never let him do it. The bird encouraged him and told him that he could see for ever from up high – he might even be able to see Little Bear’s house if he know what it looked like.

Little Bear hemmed and hawed, he tried getting out a few more times and then he finally faced his fear and tried climbing the tree. It took a few tries but soon he got the hang of it and was up far enough to see out of the forest. Wow! He could see a lot – he even saw his house! Now he knew how to get home.

The moral of the story is that when you face your fear and find a way to change your perspective you can often find your way to your goal.

I am sure all of you have been on plenty of teams. Some good, some not so good. You have all probably also been through plenty of team building – also some good, some not so good. What is team building anyway? There are lots of definitions of team building but the concept I like is that team building consists of a wide range of activities for improving a work group’s performance and attitudes through clarifying its goals and its members’ expectations of each other. Team building is not a one- time thing. It is an on-going process and we accomplish much of it by monitoring and leveraging group process and group dynamics.

Before we can do that though, we need to talk about the whole concept of awareness in teams. Most of the teams that fail or perform poorly are simply not aware of each team member and of what is actually going on. There are many things teams need to be aware of starting with group process. In another article I help you understand the steps in group process but here I want to help you understand why it is so important. Group process is a series of steps or states that all groups go through. Within those steps a set of dynamics takes place which help the people in the group figure out who they are, how they are going to work together and what it will take to engage in high performance. As a team or group works through group process they will become aware of team identity, team values, team communication, organizational needs, resources acquisition and allocation, and goal attainment. How well they do all of this helps determine how well they will perform.

Most of the leaders I have coached do not even realize that they need to know group process and to teach it to their team members in order to have the team move more smoothly through their tasks and their project. The leader is the lynch pin in the team’s functioning. It pays of handsomely to learn how a group forms and develops so they can be guided through and experience less of the pitfalls most groups encounter.

Laying the foundation is an important, albeit a time consuming step. I can promise you though, that if you take the time to do it you will be spending less time fixing things that go wrong with your team. If you do it your team will perform better and their productivity and efficiency will be amaze you.

Have you ever had the experience of thinking you really wanted something only to find that when you got it that was not at all what you wanted? You probably had spent all sorts of time, effort and maybe even money to get it. What a disappointment. What frustration. What were your options? Could you get rid of it our did you feel stuck with it? I know lots of people who have had this happen to them. For some it was not a big thing, they just were able to go on with their life. For others it was a really big deal and they felt they were stuck with no way out. How about you?

When we are feeling stuck our options have pretty much closed down on us and we cannot seem to generate possibilities for getting ourselves out of our stuck spot. Is that were you want to be or would you rather keep from getting to that place altogether? That is pretty much of a no-brainer. So how to you keep from going down the wrong path? In my coaching practice I have seen people get married for the wrong reason, go into the wrong profession, make a huge purchase that was wrong for them, you name it. For almost every situation like that that I have encountered the problem was in the upfront goal setting.The person had not done enough work on figuring out what their real goal was and why they wanted it.

An example is a young client I had who said that he really wanted to have a very expensive red sports car. It was going to be a huge purchase for him and it would put him in considerable debt. He was sure he wanted it but unsure how he was going to arrange the rest of his life around this big purchase. We began examining his goal. I asked him what his life would be like when he got this shiny red sports car. He explained how great it would make him feel, what a reflection it would have on him as a businessman and how much fun it would be to take his friends for rides. We continued to clarify his goal and dig deeper to see what it would mean to him to get it. To make a long story short, we finally got down to the goal not being that red sports car at all – what he really wanted was companionship and at first blush he thought he could attract that by having a fancy car. What an expensive mistake that would have been!

When you are setting goals take the time to drill down and figure out the real reason for your goal. You will be glad you did.

If you are a project manager you know how important communication is to the success of your project. The latest statistics I have seen indicate that only one out of eight projects are successful and one third are cancelled before completion. Those are tough numbers to overcome. And no wonder, you not only have to manage the project you have to manage all of the relationships that are associated with the project. That calls for a PhD in communication and relationship management! The new emphasis on brain science, or neuroscience, can help with all of those issues – except getting the PhD, of course.

With knowledge of brain science you can learn deeper skills in:

Establishing and Building Rapport

• work with your external customers, your co-workers and suppliers to deepen trust
• align yourself in relationships because you understand other’s motivations and values
• create a good impression so your customers will not only come back but will recommend you

Asking Powerful Questions

• easily figure out criteria and values
• help suppliers develop proposals that meet your requirements
• clarify outcomes and their feasibility
• determine needs prior to ordering and finalizing

Understanding Thinking and Working Styles

• Identify how and why customers buy
• Leverage strengths and capabilities in others
• Use as a basis to communicate more effectively
• Identify appropriate milestones to achieve outcomes

These are some of the basic skills learned through brain science. You can also learn a lot about modeling and use those capabilities to develop beliefs, behaviors and skills needed to accomplish your team’s goals. Additionally, brain science is based on a number of presuppositions and techniques to help you understand human behavior and help other people be the best they can be. These skills are powerful to leverage as a leader and manager.

Can you imagine how your own improvement with these skills would impact your projects? What difference would it make to have better relationships with customers, colleagues and vendors? How would you like having new ways to lead your teams? If you had deeper communication skills what difference would that make in your project management efforts?

One of the best ways to learn these skills is to work with a coach trained in brain science and neurolinguistic programing.There are also a couple of books you might want to read. One is Your Brain at Work by David Rock and another is Your Brain and Business by Srinivasan S. Pillay. While books do not build skills like coaching can, they will give you some good insights.

Are you feeling blue? Out of sorts? Just kind of down? What is it like for you when you have the blues? For me there is a lack of energy and just a general feeling of not wanting to do anything. It is much easier just to have a lazy day where I can feel sort of sorry for myself. I don’t like it there! I want to be my usual vibrant, energized self. Do you feel the same way? We all feel blue sometimes and we all have different reasons for feeling that way. What are the typical reasons that you get into a blue state?

That is a good place to start getting a hold of being blue. If you can identify why, sometimes working through that helps. At times we have very legitimate reasons for feeling down and those we need to acknowledge and experience. If you are sad and blue over a big loss that is to be expected. You need to process that event in your life. While it may not be a pleasant experience it is a necessary one and you will come out of it a stronger person.

If, however, you are not really sure why you are blue or don’t have a major reason for feeling blue then a well trained coach can help you find your way out. My client, Sally, came to me with a case of the blues. She did not really know why but she had been feeling down. Not depressed, just down. We explored her down state and bit and as she described it she said,”I hate feeling like this. I don’t want to feel this way anymore!” She was very clear she no longer wanted to be where she was right at that point.

We then began to talk about what she did want to feel like. She perked up even as she began describing that happy state she wanted to be in. Once that state was again tangible and available for her we began to talk about times when she had been blue and was able to get out of that blue state. We applied some of her techniques to her present situation and came up with a list of things she had done successfully in the past that she could try in the future to get out of her blue state.

Then we practiced. I had Sally reclaim her blue state and get out of it with one of her techniques. She tried that several times until she felt she could do it very quickly. Sally left our session feeling great and with a list of things she could do for herself in the future to quickly get out of the blues.

Do you ever feel like you are just misaligned? Like something is not quite right and you are a bit off balance? As we go through life we can be just like cars and get out of alignment. When that happens it is time to go in and get something done about it. If we don’t we get wobbly, off center and feel rotten – our mileage (efficiency) is pretty bad too. A well-trained coach can help you get back on track and stay there. Here is what you can expect in the realignment process with your coach.

First you will work with your coach to set up your engagement and will discuss the coaching process, the importance of confidentiality and exactly how you are going to work together as a team to solve your misalignment situation. You will also set up your schedule for the next few months.

Next your coach will help you explore your current situation. Where are you feeling misaligned? Do you have values that are not being met? Are some of your beliefs being challenged? Are you feeling pressured by others to do something you really don’t want to do? Are you having trouble speaking up for yourself? Any or all of these things and more could be taking place and this is a great time to get them on the table.

Once you have done that your coach will work with you to determine what you do want. You will create your future state in very clear and compelling terms. You will make it so clear and compelling that you will really want to go there. You will be anxious to get there and to feel free of the misalignment you are currently feeling.

Then you will actually work on the misalignment itself. What is causing it? You will look at various aspects of your environment, your thinking, your skills and capabilities, your values and beliefs and your identity and purpose. In that process you will be able to understand where you have become misaligned. Generally it has to do with values and beliefs so you may spend a fair amount of time in that area figuring out what is going on and what you want to do about it.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. One of my coaching clients, George, came to me with a similar misalignment situation. George was feeling very off center and felt he was really missing something but did not know what it was. He just did not feel things were going well. As we worked through the process George learned that he felt that his work required him to do something that he did not value or feel was the right thing to do. He admitted that he was afraid to talk to his boss about it for fear that he might be fired. As we explored this situation George was able to face his fear and he worked out a plan for talking to his boss. We role played it so he would have an idea of what he was going to do no matter what his boss’s reaction was. Then he went to work and tried it. Happily for George, his boss was not aware of the situation and agreed that George should not have to do the thing that was against his values. That relieved him of that issue but he also was able to realign himself on the issue of being able to stand up for what he believed. Once he was in alignment again, George felt he was back on track.

Sounds like a useful process doesn’t it? Well, what are you waiting for? Now is the time to get yourself a coach and get that realignment process going.