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Extraordinary Leader #11, Success and the art of requesting.***************************************************** +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ JUNE 2001: The Extraordinary Leader Newsletter. Issue #11. Practical action you can take to improve your leadership, communications and awareness. More than 1,200 subscribers now receive this free monthly newsletter. Thanks for passing it on! To SUBSCRIBE send an e-mail to, mail to: info@christinemcdougall.com, with subscribe in the subject line. Copyright, 2001, Christine McDougall. For permission to post or reprint, please see notice at the end. ***************************************************** +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ LEADERSHIP: Defining Success When I was in my twenties, success to me was having things...lots of BIG things. Big houses (or 5), fancy cars, people to take care of my every need. Ambitious? Absolutely! Problem was, each morning I woke up without these things, I was a failure. For years I lived my life with my success measure saying I had failed every day. One day I decided to stop playing that silly game. It was wearing me down, and not making me happy. I decided to re-evaluate what success means to me. It has taken a long time for me to really get to a place where success to me means showing up daily in my life playing full tilt. If that means staying in bed till 8 a.m. (which is late for me), then I really enjoy, love and relish my sleep in. If full tilt Sunday is reading a pile of fashion magazines, then I go for it with complete abandon. It also means that I show up fully in all of my relationships, my work, my sport, my cleaning up, chores, and tasks of living. It may not mean stuff...actually, I am no longer a stuffologist. Stuff can be complicating. Every day that I show up 100% in the game of my life, I am successful. I go to bed and sleep soundly each night. I walk away from tasks and chores knowing that I did a great job. The people who impress me are no longer the ones appearing to be surrounded by lots of stuff. The people who impress me are the ones who go for it, live authentically, take risks, take a stand, tell themselves and others the truth, challenge convention. Paradoxically, these people are often very successful materially as well, and, they remain humble in their wealth. Success is now a great place to live. Most every day I am really successful. How do you define success? Is your definition serving your life and your happiness, or costing you your spirit and soul? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ RELATING: The Art of the request. In the last few years as I have worked with people to develop their coaching skills, I have misjudged the power of requesting, and how a great request can move us more quickly towards our goals. For a long time, I thought requesting was a simple process. Ask, get, do. I have recognised that the art of requesting is one of the most important skills anyone can have. There are several components that make a great request. 1. Understand the distinction between a request, a demand and a wish. A wish is when we hope someone might take note of what we ask for. The language used is likely to be non-specific, the tone of voice is hopeful, or hopeless, and there is very little commitment to the asking. Often the outcome is not forthcoming. A demand has limited choice. You either do what is demanded, or you don't. There is little availability for negotiation. When we make a request, we are creating choice. For example, if I throw you a tennis ball and I request that you throw it back to me, what are your options? *Throw it back. Saying yes to the request. The request empowers the person that you are making the request to. They have choices. 2. Requesting takes a good measure of self-esteem. Wishes occur when someone thinks they are not worthy of making a specific request. They are afraid of having their request rejected, and so enter the conversation expecting the outcome to be unfulfilled. To make a clear specific request requires a high degree of self-esteem and worth. The requester needs to know that saying NO to a request does not have to be saying NO to them, the person. They are not the request. (Although at times, the two can be interlinked. For example, if I request to Paul that he come to my party, it may be linked to whether Paul would like to spend time with me. Or it may be that Paul has other things he has committed to do, or, he may like me and not my friends.) There is a risk in making requests that people will say no, and being rejected is one of the great fears that humans hold. I was working with a 12 year old girl on self-esteem and requests. She came to me to ask for something. She didn't make eye contact, her voice was filled with wistfulness and hopelessness, her head was down, and her shoulders slumped. In coaching her around this, I was aware that she did not know the manner in which she was delivering her request. (From the last newsletter, May 2001, she was in the realm of what you don't know, you don't know. Email me at info@christinemcdougall.com with May2001 in the subject line, for a copy of this newsletter). The first thing I did was model to her how she was acting physically as she made her request. She needed to see how she was presenting herself, so that she would know what she didn't know. Then I had her stand straight, look me in the eye, speak clearly and using an upbeat tone, make the same request again. When we debriefed how she felt making the request this time, she said she felt more confident, and had a greater belief that her request would be granted. 3. Having a clear intention. A great training exercise for intention is to work with a group of people, preferably large in number, 50 to 100, who are seated. Standing in front of them, ask them to stand up. (In setting up this exercise, people will be instructed to stand up when they feel the urge because of the power of the request/demand, and not at any time before that.) I have seen a room of people rise to their feet on mass, to the sound of a whispered request because of the intention of the requestor. Intention lives in the future. You have to see/feel/believe/know what the outcome will be. Parents work with this all the time. A child will ask them for something at the supermarket. The parent will say no. The child will ask and ask again. At some point, the parent may say yes. However, when a parent says NO, and there is no possibility in the mind of the parent that the child will get the outcome, the child is not likely to ask again, and if they do, it will be simply to check that they really did hear that NO meant NO. The parents intention was clearly that the request would not be granted, now, or in the future. 4. Stating your request clearly, concisely and in a way that people will be able to hear it. The first part of this is clarity. Be clear and specific about what you ask for. Give details, timing, colour, your expectations, desired outcomes, how you want it to look and feel, be packaged, cost, its age, texture, model, make..... Trim any unnecessary words from your request. Keep it simple, to the point. Unnecessary words create confusion. Finally, you need to be able to phrase your request in a way that people will hear it. Who is your audience? Why would they say yes to your request? Why would they say no? What motivates them? What de-motivates them? Are they likely to say yes as a knee jerk reaction, and not really want to say yes? (Staff and friends often feel obliged to say yes.) If the request is to a group of people, who are the influencers in the group? If they say no to the request, why would they do that? What would be their reasons? 5. Ask someone who can say yes? It is important that you ask the right person to say yes to your request. Always check first that they are able to say yes. A great book on the power of asking is "The Aladdin Factor" by Mark Victor Hanson and Jack Canfield ************************************************************** ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: Natalie's performance in the musical Kings, was, along with all the other children in the cast, magical. The show ran for three consecutive nights. Opening night nerves where evident, and yet all the children had a really great time. The second night the children lapsed into a level of complacency, and the performance lacked some of the thrill of walking on the edge. By the final night, excellence prevailed. On opening night, Natalie's solo was backed by two other boys. On the final night, her little voice was clearly heard, solo, sweet, and strong. I was surprised and thrilled, simultaneously. Surprised at the purity of her voice, and thrilled to discover that she could sing. My mistake for thinking that just because I couldn't, or her father couldn't, that she couldn't sing as well. Since then, she has started singing lessons, and the teacher has advised that she has a voice worth developing. A big lesson for me in not keeping my daughter, or other people, in a box of expectations and assumptions. To allow for people to surprise you, to change, to show up differently than the view we have/had of them. When I ask Natalie what she would like to do when she grows up, she replied that what ever she does, she doesn't want to be famous. Why, I ask? "Because famous people can't do anything without everyone watching for them to make a mistake", was her reply. A lesson from a 10 year old on the effect of the media. For myself, I have decided to be sensible and run the Gold Coast Half marathon on June 24th. The full marathon would have been a stretch that I do not need to take at this time. My race plan is to enjoy it. Period. (When I was caught up in the game of racing, the game was to do a PB, or get a place, or something similar. I always found it amazing to listen to people say that they really enjoyed racing. I hated it! Now I can say I love racing, although in truth, I no longer race. I run to my own rhythm and get there when I get there!) ***************************************************** ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: This month has seen me spending more time doing the work I really love. Working with teams, usually executive teams, and often in a retreat setting, creating environments where the people on the team find enough safety to tell themselves and each other the truth. While this work can be confrontational, it creates tremendous freedom for people. The masks and pretension comes down. The unsaid conversations, feelings and thoughts that are present between people come out, and a clear clean working space is the result. From this clean space can come great things, vastly improved productivity (how much work time do we spend thinking/worrying/talking about and cleaning up conversations that have not been truthful and clean?), greater focus and clarity, the ability to move faster and make decisions quickly and wisely. We could all do with more of that in our work and life, yes? Have a great month, Christine McDougall
UP COMING EVENTS: Speaking at the open day for The Life Coaching Academy, June 9th, Grande Mercer, and Gold Coast. For information contact 1300 132 078 (Australia). You may reprint this newsletter and forward it to all your customers and colleagues. Please keep the copyright and contact information intact, like this. Copyright 2001 Christine McDougall To SUBSCRIBE, send message to To UNSUBSCRIBE, simply visit www.christinemcdougall.com and unsubscribe. To CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS, simply visit www.christinemcdougall.com and unsubscribe your old address and subscribe your new address. To subscribe a group, send a list of e-mail addresses to info@christinemcdougall.com ******************************************************* Christine McDougall International ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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