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, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How to draw-in an audience of 40,000

Alistair came to me for coaching because his evaluations were filled with words like “Dry”, “Dull”, and “Not inspiring”. They thought Alistair was a smart technical geek with no leadership ability. The “Loyalty” scores in his division hit the bottom.

It was very quickly clear to me that Alistair had tremendous leadership ability and was an exceptional strategist. He was tripping up on his ability to communicate, and so the outside world never saw it.

When you trip up on communication, you will trip up on leadership. They go hand in hand.

I coached Alistair on many skills. The continuing monthly evaluations from his All-Hands told us whether he was winning.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
Two skills you need to create human connection

Watching Arjun’s initial presentation, I could see he was rational, professional, very corporate. But it was not compelling. You might walk away liking Arjun, but not much moved or influenced by him.

Virtual presentations had always thrown Arjun off, especially with people that he didn’t work closely with and didn’t see that often.

We worked on many skills. I’m going to talk about two that really made a big difference. They both have to do with your state of mind.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The VP Secret for preparing for critical ...

A well-loved and successful Vice President recently came to an in-person Causative Communications class we were delivering for their company to talk to the students about how she utilizes the skills she gained from our classes to create real success in her daily life and her career.

The students loved her talk. She was supposed to talk for about 20 minutes, but they were so enthralled it went on for about an hour and a half, with question after question, each followed by her giving them practical advice that inspired them. Their faces were glowing listening to her.

One question she was asked was, “How do you prepare for a challenging meeting or big presentation?” This was a particularly good question for her because she goes into many very difficult negotiations and conversations, as well as gives many important presentations. Her answer will surprise you … (read more)

Communication

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How to defuse arguments before they even begin

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It was a pleasant afternoon and I had a pleasant book….

I was sitting with an exquisite cup of white tea in a beautiful local tea shop. They serve delicious teas made from leaves growing on ancient trees, picked by hand in the Spring and then lovingly hand-processed on very small family farms in very remote regions of China. 

My environment was perfect.

At the table next to me sat a couple.

The man was in quite a pleasant mood. He was telling the woman about something that had happened that morning. He was enjoying talking with her and enjoying the telling. He finished and smiled at her.

The woman spoke: “Why didn’t you ask her? I would have thought that would have been the first thing you would have asked her.”

The woman’s question seemed polite, but her tone of voice had a slight edge, an unspoken quality of “I’m trying hard to be very polite, but I really don’t get how you could have done something so wrong.”

 I’m sure she was completely unaware of her tone. Most people are.

I picked up my book and pretended to read because I knew where this conversation was going. I didn’t even know what they were talking about, but I knew they were headed for a fight.

Can you see how the question itself makes him wrong?  I knew he was going to defend what he did.  In other words, he was going to get “defensive”.

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“They” want me to…

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Jennifer: “They’re only giving me two minutes in front of senior leadership to present this big idea! TWO minutes! I need your help! How do you present this in two minutes?”

Me: “Let’s take a step back. What do you really need?”

Jennifer: “I need 20 minutes!”

Me: “Good.  Why don’t we work on how to successfully communicate so that you get the 20 minutes?”

Jennifer: “Oh my gosh, could I do that?  That’s what I really want!”

Brad: “I’ve been waiting for this promotion for so long and I went to talk to my boss about it and he wants to give me a stretch assignment that has nothing to do with where my career is headed. I feel like I’m going backwards and being seriously delayed. And I’m going to be heading up a team that’s dysfunctional!  How do I convince them to get this project done, and do it fast so I can get this stretch assignment over and get back on track?”

Me: “How about if we develop the skills you need to get your boss to see that there’s a better idea than the stretch assignment and that is to promote you to vice president?”

Brad: “Oh, wow! Could we do that? That’s what I really want!”

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times, in my coaching sessions, I help a person achieve, NOT the goal they initially state, but the real goal they actually have.

Moral of the story: To be truly causative you need to make sure you are working on the goal you want to achieve, not a goal someone has given you. 

This is how people sacrifice their integrity and their basic purpose, bit by bit, until they are running under someone else’s control.  It never goes well.

These are tricky situations that take a lot of skill. Getting others to agree with you.  Getting others to change direction.  Getting others enthusiastic about cooperating with you.

People think that when they rise to positions of authority, they’ll have more control. The opposite is true:  When you have more control, you will rise to a position of authority.

You don’t need authority.  You need skills. 

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How to speak with your eyes…

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Do you have a favorite photo of you? 

If you’re like most people, you have many photos of you that you’re not crazy about, and only a small handful you like. 

That photo of you that you really like captures for forever something wonderful about you.  It’s the one photo of you that makes even you smile.  You know the one I mean.

A really good photographer knows how to bring that out in you.  That’s what I do while coaching people.  I help bring something amazing out of each of them.  My genius is in knowing how.  In this article, I want to help you see WHY you like that photo of you and why you hate the others.  And how to bring that amazing quality out of yourself and loving how you look, especially when you’re giving presentations.

I’m going to use Alessandro as an example.  Alessandro is a senior executive I coached this week, helping him prepare for a presentation he’ll be making for an audience of thousands. 

As a high level executive and technical leader, Alessandro has a unique 40,000-foot view of the industry and the future of the industry.  He’s super smart and he’s innovative.  None of this come across. 

Alessandro comes across “corporate” and dry.  Disappointingly uninspiring.  After 3 minutes, you’ll wish it was over.

How do you bring out the charisma of someone like this?

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The alternative to being confrontational

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Anita and Kevin made everyone in the meeting uncomfortable. Their disputes were legendary.  As the heads of different departments, they stubbornly fought for what they believed were conflicting priorities. They argued even the smallest points. Neither one would give in an inch.

Attending a meeting with them was torture.

Anita’s boss finally told her it was affecting her career. Although she was a top performer, her confrontational approach was forever going to stop her from getting promoted to Senior Director and then VP, her passionate objective.

It didn’t matter how “right” Anita was, or the fact that she “won” every argument and was ultimately proven right, people flinched when she was in the room.

Anita couldn’t believe they wouldn’t promote her!  “How can they justify holding me back when my performance is outstanding?!!!!  I’m only doing what they told me to get done!!!!”

That’s how Anita found herself in front of me.  A strong, smart woman in a super dilemma. What should she do when she was right, the other person was wrong and they wouldn’t back down?

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Living the magical life of an expert communicator

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Jesse is used to doing the impossible. He just applied for a position that everyone told him he couldn’t get.  He’s been told many times that “usually” people need to “prove” themselves for several years before they’re considered for these higher levels. 

 Jesse long ago decided that “usually” was not for him.

 He applied for the position … and got it.  Right away too, I might add.

 Jesse has gotten every position he’s applied for in the last 5 years, and there have been a good number.  Many more than “usual”.  His career is on the fast track.

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The solution to thinking under pressure

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I have a client in my life who makes unreasonable requests. I know, you’re thinking, “You’re lucky it’s just one unreasonable person in your life!”  Well, there are more, but this is about a particularly prickly one. 

The requests are always over the top, and sometimes they're impossible.  At a minimum, they're "make-your-team-bend-over-backwards-to-make-this-happen".

I was always caught off guard by his demanding and harsh attitude. I used to try to reason with him, but was always a little off balance.  I never came out of the meeting feeling good. Afterward I was always thinking, "Oh, I should have said ....."

I think it was uncomfortable for him too.

I decided one day, "No more of that!" (I hate feeling like an idiot.) I realized I wasn't giving myself time to think through what he was asking. My immediate reaction was always, "You have got to be kidding!" and I never had time for a second thought before he was demanding an immediate answer.

So, I changed my operating basis.

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The look in your eyes

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The look in your eyes tells me everything I need to know.  Way in advance of it happening, I can tell by the look in your eyes if you are going to win, barely maintain, or lose.

What is it I see?  I see the strength of your intention.  It tells me everything about how it’s going to turn out for you.

Intention is something I teach, so I know a lot about it.  It’s the secret ingredient of all success.

But, intention is not generally well understood.

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The secret to being compelling

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Leo, a newly promoted Vice President in a major corporation, came to me for coaching.  He said, “I want to be compelling.”

I said, “I can help you with that. What’s the message you’re trying to get across?”

Leo said, “Oh! Do you think I need one?”

Leo wanted to be compelling because, well, he wanted to be compelling.  That was it.  He had no real message.

We see too much of this.  All show and no substance.  People who want to be powerful only to get attention. Or status. Or admiration. Or to be told they’re compelling.

Painting your dreams into reality

2022 was an amazing year.  I’ll bet you discovered abilities you didn’t even know you had. These last several years have required your strength, grit, determination, resourcefulness, intelligence, and all the internal resources you could muster.

Well done!

Now we look ahead to 2023.

Starting the first week of January, you’ll pick up your brush and paint the first stroke of color on your blank canvas that will, day by day, turn into the next year of your life.

How do you manifest a beautiful year?

The moments that give life meaning

I’m a first generation immigrant. My parents came from Lithuania, right across the sea from Sweden.

We have a beautiful Christmas Eve tradition I think you’ll enjoy hearing about.  It creates a very special moment.

Each person at the dinner table receives a large wafer of unleavened bread and we have communion.

You might have heard of “Holy Communion”, which is different.  That’s when a Priest blesses the wafer and gives it special religious significance.

This Christmas Eve tradition of communion is not religious. If you look the word communion up in the dictionary, without the word “Holy” in front of it, it means:

The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

 You can see it’s something special.

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The communication secret of high-powered corporate attorneys...

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I was inspired to write this article after attending the very moving Graduation for a group of 26 corporate attorneys who participated in our intensive 10-month professional development program.  The purpose of this program is the achievement of superior communication skills.  It includes developing Coaches who provide carefully crafted personal mentoring throughout the 10 months.  Students apply what they’re learning to challenging situations and demonstrate their ability to create extraordinary results through outstanding communication.

These attorneys are great communicators to begin with. 

However, to say they stepped out of their “comfort zone” to participate in this program is the understatement of understatements. 

The exhilaration both Coaches and participants experienced by the end can hardly be captured in words. 

One graduation requirement is for each participant to make a 2-minute video describing their journey, to talk about what they learned.

They gained a long, long list of new skills.  In their videos, they each talk about the particular ways in which they use them.  Each participant is very unique, has their own individual brand and accomplishments.  And so, it was with some surprise to hear every single one of them highlight the same particular skill that they said they especially valued, one that had a particularly memorable impact on their relationships and their successes…

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Communicating up...even when there's resistance

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The company was in trouble. Wall Street was unhappy. The normally optimistic CEO was tense and tight-lipped during media interviews.

Daniel was watching his CEO on the news with a tight feeling in his stomach. Daniel’s been with the organization for almost 20 years and most of them had been energizing and fulfilling. However and unfortunately, the previous CEO had made significant errors in predicting the direction of technology, and they were paying for it now.

The organization wasn’t a ship you could turn around overnight.

Daniel could easily get a clear concept of the CEO’s vision. It was a good one, a strategy Daniel could believe in, get behind and, with the clever work of his team, help make happen faster and better.

It required radical change, but Daniel saw a clear path for making the CEO’s vision a reality.

The problem was, Daniel had no access to the CEO.

Between Daniel and the CEO are three levels of management. The level right above him had the strategy of a dinosaur, which was, “Don’t change anything”.

This brick wall of “We know best”, and stubborn resistance to new ideas, blocked Daniel from the man with the vision, a vision that was not penetrating down into the organization.

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How to astonish your boss, the world and you

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Elena, one of the Vice Presidents I’m coaching, came in laughing. I’ll let her tell you why in her own words:

“Our corporate office has been making us do the wrong thing with customers. We know it’s wrong and we’ve been complaining, but nothing’s changed, we don’t do anything about it.

My boss, Andrew, and I took a trip to corporate headquarters for a meeting with the senior execs. Andrew went on a rant about how it was wrong (he was right about everything). The senior execs listened but looked stone-faced.

Normally, I would go in combative. Normally, we come in on the defensive, ready to defend our position from corporate. It was clear that “Normally” wasn’t working.

I came in ready to create a real dialogue. I came in with the mindset, “This is an opportunity where we could do something different …”

I let the conversation play out. I came in ready to listen … and I did listen to everything.

Then I took my time and really acknowledged what they said. I made sure they felt I really heard them.

Suddenly, they were ready to receive – I saw a willingness there. And I said, “We know the problem. This is a time we can change direction.”

I saw this difference in them. They were open to it.

It happened so quickly – took less than 10 minutes.

Today we got an official email telling us to go ahead.

Andrew emailed me with, “What just happened?”

I am not such a man

Today’s story about communication is from long ago, 1682 as a matter of fact. Much has been written about the first Thanksgiving and the debt and gratitude owed to the Native Americans who helped the struggling European settlers who were new to this land.

A little known story is of the Quaker William Penn who came from England in the 1600’s to escape severe religious persecution (he’d been thrown in prison twice already for his beliefs). His dream was to form a unique community of religious tolerance and inclusion in the new world, the first of its kind in the world.

The Lenape Native American tribe was already living on the land where Penn wanted to settle.

Before starting out on his journey across the sea, Penn wrote eloquently and respectfully to the Lenape, insisting that his words be meticulously translated into their language:

“I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice that hath been too much exercised toward you by the people of these parts of the world, which I hear hath been a matter of trouble to you and caused great grudgings and animosities, sometimes to the shedding of blood … But I am not such a man …”

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Communicating "up" without feeling intimidated

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“I want to promote him, but I can’t.”

I heard three different executives say this last week. They were talking about three very different people that report to each of them, that they want me to coach, people who – by total coincidence – have the exact same problem holding them back.

It’s not an inability to do good work or a lack of their boss’s support.

Vikram, Martin and Sharni are all doing great work. Their bosses absolutely want to promote them and are going to bat for them as best they can. They want to make Vikram a Vice President, and Martin and Sharni each a Director.

However, the bosses are getting stopped by pushback from their peers and their own bosses – all for the exact same reason:

Vikram, Martin and Sharni are not seen as “good communicators”.

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Breaking free from what's holding you back... made easy

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Causative [kaw’-zuh-tiv], adjective: Making what you want HAPPEN. Being able to cause your intended effect or outcome at will.

When did we first stop being causative? Well, if it didn't happen sooner, it probably happened for most of us when we started school and were told to sit down and be quiet … for hours and hours at a time.

They told us exactly where to sit. We weren’t allowed to leave that seat.

They made us ask permission for everything, including leaving the room.

If we did something without permission, we were bad. It didn’t matter if it was right. It was automatically bad if it was done before asking for and receiving permission first. Even if it was just standing up to stretch.

If we wanted to talk, we had to raise our hand and wait to be called on. Raising your hand was dangerous because the teacher was asking a question that had one “right” and many “wrong” answers and when we were wrong, it was very public. Where I went to school, not many hands went up (usually the same ones over and over). We became skilled at avoiding eye contact with the person in the front of the room (something I still see today in my corporate workshops).

We weren’t allowed to talk to each other, only the one person in front of the room.

Everything we did was graded and compared to what everyone else did. Smarter than him but not as pretty as her.

We were graded based on one person's opinion of us, a person who often didn’t understand or like us. A person we thought was paid to be critical of us. To find every flaw.

Most of us did not get straight A’s. We were always falling short on something. Grades could easily make us feel that we were mediocre. Few were happy the day they got their “report card” and some hid them from their parents.

We were severely restrained from being causative. For years.

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How the "techie guy" learned to win over every audience

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“I’m a techie guy. I’m not one of those dynamic, charismatic types. I don’t even like them.”

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Steve. He had just been promoted to Senior VP. His boss, the Executive VP, reached out to me within weeks of Steve’s starting in his new role:

“You’ve got to help him. He’s in a very visible position now. His presentations are dreadful. He’s dry, monotone, off-putting. The employees are not warming up to him. Frankly, I don’t think they like him.”

The problem was that, while Steve dislikes the dynamic, charismatic type, that’s exactly the words used to describe the previous Senior VP, the one Steve was replacing, the one everyone loved, the one who had just left the company, the one everyone missed, the one everyone wished would come back.

You see the problem.

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This is better than being polished

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“I was struggling to find words.”

Vince, one of our Executive Coaching clients wrote that in an email that he sent along with the video of an extremely difficult conversation he had with a group of very unhappy individuals who felt they had experienced a great injustice.

He wanted to show us how, in an hour, this extremely distrustful group transformed into a smiling, grateful, warm, and unbelievably appreciative group of individuals who beamed at him with great friendliness.

It was remarkable to see.

Vince’s journey has been a fascinating one. He is a deep man, a good man.

Like many who come to us for Executive Coaching, his goal was to have executive presence and polish.

Isn’t it funny that now, after his coaching, he is writing about struggling for words? It sounds like he’s not “polished”. You would think he didn’t achieve his goals.

Yet Vince achieved something that goes way beyond.

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The secret to more progress, faster

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Don (VP of a major corporation here for coaching): “I want to extend my executive presence throughout the organization, beyond my immediate area.”

Me: “What does that mean?”

Don: “I want them to know I can add value to their activities.”

Me: “Is there a problem with that?”

Don: “Yes, they’re not seeing it. They think that I can only add value in my own area. Not outside of it, not for them cross-functionally in the organization. It’s frustrating.”

Me: “Have you ever told them that you can add value?”

Don: “No.”

Me: “Why not?”

Don: “They need to see it for themselves.”

I call this “Executive Charades”.

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The price tag on your soul

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“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

I was coaching Victor, a young man in his early 30’s who had already made millions. He came to me questioning everything. Early success in the venture-capital world led Victor on a hot pursuit of things he found did not matter to him once he had them.

The things that matter most are the ones you can’t see, like deep human connections. Like kindness, respect, real understanding, and emotional well-being.

Victor was missing all of the above and burst into tears when he found a safe haven with me to be able to say it out loud.

“My life feels like it’s been stripped of meaning.”

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