100 Lives in 2023

Legacy -- what I leave behind. Executive Function -- I just looked that up and have a lot more to learn about it. The concept struck me as core to this next chapter of my life that brings together all I've learned so far. Building ability to learn, resilience in the face of terror and disaster, being bendable and shaping while maintaining a spine, having a North Star -- a clear direction, a system of support, and an operating system. Getting regular feedback to dim the echo chamber effect. Regular cadence of reflection time. This is what's required in 2023 and beyond. Cal Newport is correct -- companies have put the full responsibility on each worker to determine how to orchestrate their lives. At the same time, we can work 24 hours--technology allows us to use the same device to wake up and learn what's happening halfway around the globe. Athletes have coaches who share best practices on what to do holistically step by step to optimize their performance on the court or field. Recently, some tennis tournaments are allowing players to get coaching while playing the game. Company employees, though, who sometimes manage greater enterprises than sports players, get little sideline support to perform their gymnastics in the company environment. Many people spend the majority of their time on the planet at work. That time influences how they show up at home with their partners, children and their home communities. It seems to me, that since we value how employees perform to impact the profit and loss of enterprise, and we know the power of coaching to enable folks to do their best, we'd invest in setting up people to succeed. A lot of people quit their jobs because they felt their onboarding betrayed a huge difference between the job they were sold, and the experience they had. Good onboarding can address that. Folks get promoted to manager levels, earned from being great independent contributors. Consider parenting. Being a great and wonderful person and fantastically healthy, financially sound, has no correlation to being a great parent. Smart folks get bespoke help to do their best in raising a child -- and even then we all end up in therapy anyway. Company employees need help in being great managers of projects and people + help navigating the politics of being in an organization. There's a lot to learn and quickly and company leaders usually are tight for time. That's where executive coaching -- building the executive function of employees -- helps. In working with clients, I notice how much folks are learning. I coach very smart, super competent stars in companies, who are suffering in frustration on two levels. They know they are hella smart, they've ranked high in all areas of their lives for decades. The organizational psychology of work, and the emotional intelligence to influence and impact, build deep empathy, corral a clear and articulate point of view, navigate conflict effectively, is a green muscle. In sessions, we deblur, we articulate and we practice bespoke buttressing of skills that help employees to build skill, strategy, technique, resilience and emotional maturity about work matters. It impacts their executive function in managing their time -- how much of it and when they can apply that to the enterprise. How they need to organize their gym, learning, sleep, eating, and family time to ensure they are at their peak when they get on the court of the enterprise so they can play their best game. I love when employees get to a place in coaching, usually within 10 sessions, where they have gamified the world of work. Where it becomes a source of joy. We take their KPIs and create a dashboard so they can see the score. They build intrinsic motivation and no longer need micromanagement from above. They want to win from the inside. They create a true Venn Diagram and understand the intersection of their career growth and development + the goals/vision of the company they serve. That's the alliance we want for companies and employees that keeps both sustainable. I'm also enjoying the idea of joining a company for a spell to map out the full employee experience design to materially buttress the humans we welcome into companies. We know better; so we should do better at every company in America. It's one way to help get our country back in productive tension. I'm excited for 2023. It feels as if I'm hitting a nice stride. I'm learning and evolving. I affirm this year, I touch 100 lives for good -- and they start to embrace work as a holistic integrated part of a life well lived -- being of service to others and our Earth, putting their oxygen masks on their own faces first, then attending to their companies and families with joy and delight. We make enough, do enough to live well. I know this is possible. And I'm being the change.