Emotional aspects of Employee engagement

 Let us inspect the Emotional Aspects of Employee Engagement.

Let me begin with Simon Sinek quote:
“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.”
What as an Employer we must do where my employees are willing to contribute towards organization goal or vision?
Let us do a little slicing of Emotional attachment.
Over the years, there has been change in how employees define “Happiness” nowadays.
Are we still thinking in traditional ways?
In earlier days, we believe, spending time with family and pursuing their hobbies or able to buy household things or clothes or food items were the sources of happiness for employees.
“Do we still believe the same sources of happiness exist today?”
If the answer is ‘YES’, we need training to change our thinking and beliefs.
In recent times, work-life being a major part of our life style, ‘happiness at work’ is what now our employees are seeking.
That is why employee engagement remains as an important aspect of management concern than just a philosophical jargon.
Building an emotional connect and commitment within the employees, towards their organization is a great challenge for any employer, irrespective how good his HR team may be.

Coach as developmental guide for coachee.

 Every person is different and hence so are their ways to respond and handle certain situations. Everyone’s path to success is different and each step may be quite unique.

As a coach, you have to develop a range of coaching skills and techniques that equip you to help a diverse range of people, discover a new way forwards to fulfil their potential and lead their performance to their highest peak.

We all are predictably different personalities. As a coach our approach should be solution oriented and result-driven.

Once you have interpreted your coachee’s personality style, you need to be agile and adaptable so you can flex your coaching style and manage the coaching conversation effectively. The more coaching hours you put in, the more confident, you will feel coaching different personality types.

In executive coaching, it is about inspiring your team, building their confidence, and teaching them the skills they need in order to work together successfully.

When it comes to life coaching style, holistic coaching would be the right approach. It is based on the belief that everything is connected, and individuals are sum of all their parts.

With changing times, a coach would be considered and accepted as a developmental guide for the clients.

YOU are your own obstacle.

 When you start figuring out what you really want in your life, you will start seeing obstacles. And believe me, the biggest obstacle that you will have to overcome is ‘YOU’.

Yes, it’s true. You are the biggest culprit who is getting in your own way and sabotaging your own success. You are the one who is game-spoiler, who paves the path blockers.
But, that is the case for everyone. We are our own worst enemy.
Use ‘Visualization’ technique to overcome this! If you can ‘see’ yourself where you want to be, it really helps you get there.
The most important thing is to believe that you deserve it, you can go yet another day with full energy, and you will be happy at the end.
Believe me, life will not throw you anything you cannot handle or overcome. Whatever worst thing that has happened with you, and if you are still here, deep-rooted, you should be proud of being here!

It has worked for me, number of times. May work for you too!

We allow people to plug-in to our energy.

 We can see from your own personal experience, we have a tendency to be the electricity for other people. We allow other people to plug into our energy, we become their source of light.

This can occur in many different ways in our day today life - perhaps you’re living a relationship which you know well, it’s not working for you, but you are still pulling on because your partner is very much dependent on you.

Or let us take an example of workplace - on your team, you have become the ‘Go-To’ person for everyone’s problems. This is because, you keep offering your attention and energy to others when they are in need.

You allowed people to plug into your electricity so they feel lighter and brighter leaving you drained and dim.

Even though it’s draining and a pain for you, it can be a great ego booster to become “Go-To” person for others.

You remain like an electricity for others for many years, unwillingly, knowing it’s not working well with you but you can’t help it. This is because you didn’t set clear boundaries in place and have not defined 'Entry restricted' zones.

Through my coaching, I help people to study emotional agility, wellness and working on their own boundaries and self-worth and live a life that is in alignment with who they are and what they desire.

If you are running on empty..

 If you’re running on empty, the fact is that you’re of no use to anyone anyway! You can’t help to others when you’ve nothing to offer.

So, acknowledge and accept how you feel, check what you are left with and give yourself the space and PERMISSION to recharge.
Most of the time, that is what you need exactly, to pull yourself out.
You can do it in number of ways, watch an interesting movie, read a favorite book, listen to music, or just take a nap, paint your nails, get hairstyle done, go to shopping mall, go on long drive, play with your pets, ask someone to give you head massage, dress up as if you are going to party or whatever! Do something which takes the pressure off from YOU.
You’re probably thinking that you ‘should’ be doing something more productive than doing any of these things. It give you a ‘guilty’ feeling and will not allow you doing those things.
Exactly, that is what you need to do, going above what you actually feel. Give yourself permission to have that down time! Make a conscious decision to take some time out and get recharged and feel more energized.
As we sign ‘gate-pass’ at our work place for short leave, similar way sign a gate pass, fill-in a ‘permission slip’ to pull yourself out from usual routine.
Give yourself permission to STOP!

Elderly parent's needs.

 If you have elderly parents or senior loved ones, you might want to provide them with everything- best care, best attention- as much as you can. But you also have your personal matters that must attend to.

How difficult it can be for busy individuals like you to balance your personal needs with your elderly parents’ needs?

We know, it's all related to communication- the amount and the quality of communication we could have with our elderly parents. They need it more than anyone else.

How stressful it can be thinking about whether our mom or dad has taken their medicines or if they are eating well and healthy.

Knowing that they are healthy- mentally, physically, and financially is absolutely priceless for us.

We all know this, but we all are not able to do it.

This is by no means any kind of preaching, just sharing experiences.

Coaching and Uncoaching

 Coaching and ‘Uncoaching’.

I feel and I believe for any coach, the so called successful coaching session is when coach being one with the coachee.
For that matter, in any training session, the success of a trainer is when he could become one with students.
This make my understanding more subtle and clear that coaching success is said to be achieved when I do not remain as a coach but I become a person who try to become part of my coachee’s story.
My mind wrote yet another word “Uncoaching” on the whiteboard of my mind.
‘Uncoaching’…a bit unusual word.
Uncoaching is about not existing being a coach but still be present, being part of the story of your client.
Let me draw a parallel. For me ‘Uncoaching’ is something like be a photographer. As a photographer, you remain present, you exist, you observes and you catch perfect moments – a heart touching moment.
Similarly the coach can be a perfect observer, he can experience each moment of client’s story and catches the perfect moment of a story.
This moment is full of understanding. The coach is the coach and at the same time the coachee. As he leads he led.

Coaching is about change.

 Coaching is about change. Coaches invite people to feel uncomfortable, to discover the unknown territories of their own potentials.

The Coach works as a facilitator for the change the client is willing to embrace. The cornerstone in reaching results is the client’s determination.
What kind of change we are talking about in Coaching.
There are four levels of change we can envisage through Coaching:
1 – Incremental (continuous) change: Which primarily focus on expanding the identical or the same behavior to a new level of flexibility.
2 – Discontinuous change: In this kind of change, people adopt new behaviors and focus on expanding their frames of thinking.
3 – Evolutionary change: In this kind of change, people put more focus on reexamining their identities, values and beliefs system.
4 – Revolutionary change: This is the higher level of change for an individual to undergo; a change in the overall direction and the vision.
Change is required for transformation, and all transformation involves change, but not all change is transformational.
Transformation itself requires a paradigm shift. It requires that there is somewhere else – a different context, a different reality, a different dimension or realm into which we will emerge.

Regret-proof Life

 My clients are of different age range—I would say from early twenties to late sixties. As a result, I have had an opportunities to understand their transition dilemmas and also had the privilege of being able to help them during their transitions.

I wish to share one example which has occurred just about a month ago.
I have 32 year old client who asked me during one of our coaching session if he has done the right thing with his life up until now –earned multiple degrees from well-known universities, remain career conscious the extent of travel done leaving family behind, and recently decided to expand family.
He has both careers and family now, but still wonder if he has got it right.
I have realized, knowing that this is normal and happens with everyone gives him a lot of relief.
But, I still remember one phrase he used “I would like to live ‘regret-proof’ life.” He asked me if I can show them a way to do so.
I made my client to understand that he is at choice, and he need not regret any conscious choice made by him; instead he can make a new choice, if needed. There is no right or wrong choice. Reviewing the choices made in new set of situations is unfair, instead make new choice in new situation.

Coaching conversation.

 Each coaching conversation is like a 3 layers cake, where the coachee brings in a particular challenge is the top layer, as a coach, we end with co-created actions & experiments is the bottom layer, and the real magic happens in the free-form middle layer.

If we consider Coaching from this point of view, it will unfold altogether different experience for the coach and the coachee.

Bridging the gaps

 We always talk about bridging the gaps.

Gaps are undesirable.
What if we think gaps in different perspective.
Let there always be gaps....Places to expand on, improve, explore, learn, educate.
If you think in this fashion ,gaps can be part of the magic.

You have nothing to learn from people like you.

 Have you noticed, you have nothing to learn from someone who thinks exactly the way you do.

Agree?
Yet, we like to get surrounded ourselves with our intellectual replicas.
Yes, it's true.
Further, We befriend people who think like us.
We hire people who followed the same path that we did.
Opening your mind requires opening your door.
You need other people—with different life experiences and viewpoints, to see possibilities that you miss, and make you aware of your short- comings, and alert you time to time.
If you’re Andre Agassi, you need Pete Sampras to keep you on your toes with a powerful serve.

Therapy or coaching?

 Many people during pandemic are focusing on self-reflection, reprioritizing, and choosing to look inside.

I have received quite a few request for coaching and after acknowledging couple of times I have realised the call should have gone to professional therapist which in my opinion would be the right call.

Personally, I wouldn't enjoy converting the therapy client to a life coach approach, even though my client is not quite aware of it.

Some clients become sensitive if we outright suggest therapist.

Although, as a coach you realise in advance, you shouldn't cut off rapidly from client.

Instead, as a coach you need to explain in easy to understand way- 'While both coaching and therapy address personal issues, coaching is more goal-oriented, whereas therapy focuses more on how the past manifests itself today.'

In many cases, people are suffering from anxiety disorder in pandemic and have gone through some trauma.

In my opinion, therapist is the best choice instead of life coach if client's past trauma is not yet processed.

(-Sharing my experience.)