Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
Holiday Family Survival Guide

The reason I’m writing about this is because of the holidays.  I’m the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants and we celebrate Lithuanian as well as American holidays. So we always get a double dose of celebrations throughout the year.

From my earliest memory, there was never a holiday dinner where someone did not get up from the table, possibly in tears or wounded silence, storm out of the room and slam the door loudly. Never.  It was not always the same person, we would rotate.

We got offended easily, and the way we handled it only made it worse.

Even so, I challenge you to find a family that loves each other more than we do.  If ever anyone said anything bad about any one of us, they were in trouble.

That’s how it used to be.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The one thing that can transform every ...

Gregor had made an overnight change, both at work and at home. The results were so powerful, it turned his world inside out.

It was during the Causative Communication workshop that Gregor came to realize he only “half listened to anyone”. His mind was always moving on to “what’s next”. He was mentally halfway out of this meeting and heading to the next one no matter where he was.

At the end of the 3rd day of the workshop, Gregor made a life-changing decision. He said, “I’m going to stay fully present in every conversation. I’m going to give 100% of my focus, really listen and really understand. No shortcuts.”

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How to change people without saying a word

Thanksgiving has inspired this article because Thanksgiving always reminds me how wonderful, even magical, affinity is.

Affinity is a feeling. It’s what you’re feeling about the other person, your emotional response to them. And very specifically, it’s how much you like them in that moment.

Affinity can fluctuate, even within one conversation. You can start out with low affinity and end up with high affinity. Or start high and go low.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How to completely change the way people listen ...

“I’m now walking into meetings and making what I want happen. The first thing I noticed was that everyone started listening to me differently. Even my boss. Now people go quiet when I speak and genuinely listen, even my superiors. I hadn’t realized there are different kinds of listening. This is REALLY different. After that, it’s not hard.”

This broke all the rules considering where Agoston was on the corporate ladder. He was young, early in career and had no authority. But he spoke up at meetings, in hallways and conversations. His influence was growing daily. It wasn’t long before he was promoted and began rapidly moving up the organization.

Before he did the Causative Communication workshop, no one listened to him.

What made the difference for Agoston was mastering the skill of…

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
Instead of persuading, try this...

The question, “What do I need to say to get the outcome I want?”  is a good question. Knowing the answer to it is essential to being causative.

The reason people experience difficulties when they’re looking at a situation through this lens is because they don’t realize that they’re skipping steps.

Coaching

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The attorney who “out sold” the sales team

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Daniel wasn’t supposed to say anything. He was the Corporate Attorney in the meeting between Sales and the customer they hoped to get. It was a big customer: the government of a major European country. If they signed a deal, it was going to be hundreds of millions of dollars.

He was only there because the prospective customer had initiated a strong dispute about his organization’s licensing terms.

His only charter in this meeting was to protect their intellectual property. He was there to tell this prospective customer, “No, we can’t do that”.

Daniel was fresh from a Causative Communication workshop and was watching it all go down. What he saw was painful. He could see every mistake being made, but it was his job to stay silent until the discussion about the license dispute made its way to the top of the agenda.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He thought to himself, “Well, I don’t think I can make it any worse than it already is.”

And so he jumped into the conversation. The sales team was shocked. What did the corporate licensing attorney think he was doing????????

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The singular power of self-awareness

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“They don’t want to change.”

“They’ve been doing everything the same way a long time. They’re stuck in their ways and they just don’t want to hear about any new way of doing it.”

Adira spent 15 minutes detailing events and deeds that proved how stubborn “they” were and, with a flourish, she finished with, “Perhaps I should leave and go to a different organization where they value creative thought.”

So I asked, “What would be the most ideal outcome you can imagine? What would be really wonderful if it happened?”

She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “Wonderful?????” She spent another 5 minutes patiently explaining to me how “these people” were far from ideal, how they did not measure up to her standards, did not live up to her expectations, and how disappointing it all was.

Adira had no awareness of what she was doing. None.

She had no idea she was being critical. She thought she was being objective.

My job was to raise her awareness.

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When you're not a "natural" public speaker

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Thomas was one of three experts on a cyber-security panel, a media interview with a live audience televised across the world.

Thomas was looking directly into the camera, eye contact strong, executive presence strong, confidence strong, competence undeniable.

I started coaching Thomas about two years ago. The presentations he was giving back then had much less visibility. As his competence increased, he was asked to present more frequently.

When you see him now, you would say he’s a natural.

That doesn’t mean he started out that way.

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How to get a thank you note when you say "NO"

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“No, I can’t do that for you.” “No, I can’t attend that meeting.” “No, I can’t give that presentation.” “No, I can’t be there.”

No one likes to say, “No”. It’s the same when you have to give bad news.

People are basically good. They don’t like saying, “No, you can’t have that.”

Imagine you’re in a job where you have to say, “No” 37 times a day.

Such was the life of Debbie Gross, Chief Executive Assistant for Cisco’s John Chambers, one of the top, most dynamic and cover-of-every-magazine CEOs in the world, leading a mega-organization of 70,000 employees, revenues of $48 billion.

Debbie had to say, “No” to heads of state, global CEOs and a multitude of impressively pushy individuals both inside and outside Cisco.

I remember well what happened the day Debbie changed her approach after one of our coaching sessions.

Results were instant.

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The art of knowing without seeing

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Alisa had an important presentation before our second Mastering Virtual Presentation Skills coaching session. She decided to try what she learned instead of her normal routine which is to look at her notes or her slides.

Afterward, Alisa made a brilliant observation, “The results exceeded expectations. Looking into the camera made me tune into their voices, how their voices sounded.”

I asked her, “What did the voices tell you?”

Alisa said, “I could tell they were warm, receptive, interested and engaged. I didn’t need to see their faces.”

Alisa is right. Human voices, when you really tune in, tell you everything.

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Managing 12 people in a heated debate

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Teams from three companies, different time zones, were coming together to discuss supplier issues. All three anticipating an unpleasant, contentious, argumentative, blaming, confrontational series of disagreements, punctuated by complete resistance on three sides.

Valerie, the vice president I’m coaching, was one of 12 people attending.

Valerie arrived to the meeting early. And did something no one had ever done before in their previous meetings: She turned on her camera.

As each person joined one by one, Valerie greeted them warmly and used the new skills we practiced in her coaching.

One by one, they all turn their cameras on and the next thing you know they were all talking warmly with each other. Like friends, actually.

And the meeting transformed into a collaboration.

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This never happens …

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Linda was given work that was beneath her capability. When she spoke up, she was dismissed. They gave a project that belonged to her to someone less qualified. No one would talk with her and her boss kept canceling their one-on-one meetings.

Everything about her was dark. She came across like doom and gloom combined with fear, resentment and blame.

Linda decided to find out what she was doing wrong that was causing her to fail, and to discover what she could do about it.

She transformed during the coaching. Every video showed dramatic progress. New strategies. New abilities. Real personal growth. She learned how to handle not just that situation, but any conversation, any communication challenge.

After using what she learned in our one-on-one coaching program, she became radiant and compelling. The people she works with changed from cold and hostile to warm and greatly appreciative.

They pushed her into a leadership position because they wanted her there. This never happens, ever.

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Being the seventh person

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Solomon Asch was a pioneer in Social Psychology. He designed and conducted a series of many experiments trying to understand individual judgment, including moral and ethical judgment, and the powers that, for better or worse, influence it.

The number of participants in the experiments varied, but often there were eight. One of them was always told they would be part of an experiment on visual judgment. This person believed the other seven people were told the same thing and were participating in the experiment on the same terms. What they didn’t know was that the other seven were all actors following a script.

It is stunning to realize that there was no instruction to conform given, suggested, or even implied. Not from the experimenter. Not from the other participants. The pressure and demand to conform came entirely and completely from the pressure the person put on themselves. They were their own executioner.

There are many, many situations in life in which each of us is the seventh person.

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Painting 2022 with your palette of dreams

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This week right now is for dreaming your 2022 into being.

2021 was all about What do I need to do to survive?

2022 does not have to be more of 2021. 2022 can go way beyond a survival endurance contest.

2022 can be about dreams that come true. Don’t look to the world for permission. There is no “Dream-Come-True Licensing Entity” that’s ever been any good.

You are your own licensing entity. You are the one who gives yourself a license to dream and to paint those dreams into reality, to make them come true. Or not.

Don’t limit your dreams by what other people dream.

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The tortured life of Senior Leadership

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Senior executives spend their days listening to endless proposals and briefings. They sit through so MANY presentations, it TORTURES them to listen to presenters who don’t get right to the point.

I’m sure you watch YouTube videos. Have you ever watched one that took a long time to get to the point? You know that feeling you got? Did you ever fast-forward hoping they would get to something good? Did you ever skip out before the end?

Senior executives LIVE with that feeling.

It’s torture. There’s no other word for it.

I’m sure they would wish for a remote control that could fast-forward. And they would use it liberally.

This is how to stand out from this crowd in your executive presentations:

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A night of goodness

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I love tomorrow’s holiday, a great tradition born on a chilly November night, exactly 400 years ago.

Dreamed into being in 1621 by a tough people after endless struggle through long periods of great hardship, tremendous hardship, more than we could ever imagine.

They sat down together as community, and enjoyed a moment of peace, for the simplest of purposes: to be grateful. Together.

Their hardships were not over. Far from over. This moment was no more than “a time out.”

It was a, “Let’s stop what we’re doing and create a night of goodness.”

It was also a perspective shift: “Let’s step back and admire what we’ve created amidst the swirling winds of adversity.”

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Executive presence doesn't work with training wheels

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Many executives who come to me for executive coaching come prepared with their word-for-word script.

What’s the problem with speaking from a script when you’re giving a presentation?

Well…what does a script say about your mindset? About your thoughts and feelings about yourself? Your feelings about the audience? About your true power?

Having a script sends out a lot of messaging about you that you might not want to be sending.

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