Moving from fixer to coach  Early in my career I once managed a high performing leader who would often express feeling overworked and unsure of their role. In an effort to solve the problem, my gut reaction would be to try to control and fix. I’d come up with a list of parameters on expectations and try to clarify roles. I’d give guidance on where to spend more time vs. less. I’d wrap the issue up like a present, tie it with a pretty bow and then put it on a shelf. Problem solved. Or so I thought. The same theme with the same person would resurface. And I noticed I’d become increasingly exhausted trying to solve it. To continue reading more about my insights on becoming a better manager, check out the full post on my website www.farhanahuq.com. Farhana Huq is an Executive and Leadership Coach, Surfer, Global Explorer, and Founder of Surf Life Executive Coaching and Brown Girl Surf
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Beyond Setbacks: Bringing a Decade-Old Idea Back to Life I founded and ran a non-profit organization for 11 years with an amazing mission – helping low-income immigrant and refugee women to become entrepreneurs and learn English. After 10 years of running it, I took a needed sabbatical to reflect and rejuvenate. An interim leader led the organization in my absence. When I returned a few months later, it was operating a $50,000 deficit, the first ever deficit in the history of the organization. As a Founder, this was devastating. It was like coming back at halftime to a 0-4 World Cup game and you’re on the losing team...... To continue reading more about my experience as a social entrepreneur resurrecting a vision a decade later, check out the full post on my website www.farhanahuq.com. Farhana Huq is an Executive and Leadership Coach, Surfer, Global Explorer, and Founder of Surf Life Executive Coaching and Brown Girl Surf
From Manager to Leader: How Brain Science Shapes Success
There has been much talk over the years about the differences between the right hemisphere (RH) and left hemisphere (LH) of the brain. While we now know that it isn’t as simple as saying that creativity is more RH, or that logic is more LH and that both are needed for BOTH processes, we do know this: there are still profound differences in the way each side of the brain takes in the world around it. And this divide has profound implications in understanding executive leadership.
First, a Little Neuroscience Some basics: The LH is the hemisphere that allows us to see the detail, understand sequences and focus on the parts. Things like understanding metaphor, implicit meaning, and even the ability to read others’ emotions are correlated with the RH. The LH also can only see itself and what it already knows whereas the RH can see the whole of things and make connections. The RH also takes in all new information. This divide is perhaps most interestingly summed up in Iain McGilchrist’s TED talk on the divided brain. Where Managers’ Brains Get Stuck Good managers focus on pieces, parts, sequences. It is not their job to hold the whole picture—only the picture of their program or their part of the system. When they move into executive leadership, they often find themselves challenged to broaden the scope of their leadership. This often includes things like big picture thinking to feeling empathy for others around them. As a coach, I see this struggle reveal itself in language when leaders come to their coaching sessions and only speak from a place of “I,” often parsing out THEIR contributions, what THEY need and what would be best for THEM, instead of speaking from a place of “we” and acknowledging the bigger picture that is made up of everyone’s contributions. For the emerging executive leader, it’s no longer about just their personal performance or making a good program run well; their challenge becomes to look at all parts and functions in relation to the broader, implicit meaning of the whole business, organization or system. For example, I coach a leader who is running a consumer products business. Most sessions start with her feeling challenged about an operational issue and struggling with how to make people feel as if they have a stake. She sees each person as utility, rather than as someone to get to know, connect with, get curious about, empathize with, develop and grow. While this leader has a high ability to sequence, plan, execute, and solve immediate problems, she gets stuck in her LH, the land of "operationalizing" and “literalizing.” In this land, employees are seen as utility, and not whole beings to nurture, grow and develop. The impact is that the broader meaning of their employees' work is relegated to function—it becomes just about the product, or the utility of a program or a function of the business or organization. And this “literalization” in leadership has profound implications for setting back brands, movements or anything larger than the task or function of the entity. Her growth, therefore, as a leader, is being able to connect the broader meaning of the values, work and philosophy of the company to the functions of the team, as well as to develop empathy for her people. As well, the LH only sees itself; it only knows what it already knows, so gets "stuck" in its own perspective. I once witnessed a manager argue with an advisor about how she was right and he was wrong. She even went so far as to say those exact words rather than just recognize he simply had a different perspective. When you are unable to take in others’ perspectives, you know you are stuck in your LH. It keeps you in your own world of “this is right because this is what the textbook says,” or “this is right because of this theory,” or “this is right simply because these were the values by which I was raised.” Stronger executive functions allow the brain to operate from a place of seeing many different perspectives in order to make the right decision. The Successful Executive Brain Effective executive-level leaders have an ability to go back and forth between hemispheres with ease, like one of my clients, Helen Russell, the CEO of California-based Equator Coffees & Teas. Helen operates from this intersection, and it has allowed her to build a strong brand, winning the company the California Small Business of the Year Award in 2016. On the surface, Helen is a “doer”; you might find her in one of her stores moving things around, or taking out the broom and sweeping up. She’s in constant task mode. If you get the opportunity to sit with her, you experience different hemispheres of her brain at work. You will hear her talk about the philosophy and meaning behind Equator, share a new insight, or witness her brain fire in the realm of intuition and magical coincidence. She listens to ideas and then instinctively knows how to take them and weave them into the broader fabric of what the company stands for. What Helen does so well is connect part to whole, task to meaning, sequence to system. In other words, she leads the company from a brain space of integration, creativity, logic and intuition, firing in both hemispheres. This comes through most prominently in the company's branding via her sharing of her personal trips to her farm in Panama, where her team grows and harvests award-winning coffee. It also comes through her social media posts about cycling with her fellow bike riders and coffee drinkers. It’s even in the meditation classes she chose to offer at her San Francisco café, bringing together community around mindfulness (not just coffee!). It’s in the stories of the roasters she brings into her shops from communities where Equator’s coffee beans are grown. It’s not just pushing a bunch of pictures of coffee onto Equator’s social media feeds because that is what the company “does.” It’s effectively knowing how her brand influences a movement, how all the parts stand for something more implicit in meaning, more metaphorically connected to an inclusive and universal human experience. And yes, experiences even non-coffee drinkers can get behind. Intuition and synchronicity are common themes in her stories, both topics I’ll tackle in another post! Tips for New and Emerging Executives So, what to do if you’re a new or inexperienced executive leader running a business or organization and you're stuck in the parts and can't see the forest through the trees? How do you build that executive function muscle so you don’t get stuck in your LH? Surround yourself with people with different perspectives. As I wrote in a previous blog article, “5 Secrets to Innovation,” meeting with people and getting their perspectives will help inform your own thinking. Even if you think you are right, chances are, there’s another valuable perspective and way of seeing something you hadn’t considered before. Just because you feel you are right doesn’t mean you are right. If you have trouble taking in differing perspectives, find yourself getting uncomfortable or coming up with lofty, logical arguments to refute the other side (again, LH), you know you need more work regulating this left-hemisphere thinking. When that happens, take time to reflect and ask yourself these questions: What is the bigger picture here? What is valuable about this perspective? How might this other individual be feeling? What is it like to be in their shoes? Get a coach. Seriously. I mean it. There are a lot of coaches out there for every kind of person. A coaching conversation with a skilled coach will largely consist of the coach posing the types of questions new executives need to be challenged with to get their thinking about parts, process, program and pieces connected to the greater whole of what they are doing. And though the leader may have the ability to make those connections, they are likely making them in a disjointed way. You see leaders operating either in spaces of complete chaos (can’t get it together, anxiety overload, can’t regulate their time or schedules) or total rigidity (can’t take in anothers' perspective if it differs from theirs, seen as a tyrant by constituents because things need to be a certain way, bogged down in tasks and details and complaining of never being able to see the bigger picture). Right and left hemisphere integration can build the competencies needed for effective executive leadership. Meditate. One of the things meditation does is help to regulate brain hemispheres by increasing connections between the hemispheres and in the case of long term meditators, thickening the corpus callosum. These connections can help regulate the brain to better manage between rigidity and chaos. A lot of executive leaders, though they function within that sweet spot, still vacillate between the two extremes—from bouts of creativity and late nights in one moment, to being stuck and overwhelmed with process or details in another. Meditation can help you build better wiring between the hemispheres to develop the soft competency integration brings that is so needed in executive leadership. Practice active listening. Active listening is another way to practice being present, which is a form of meditation. Being present, taking in perspectives and just listening without conjuring up a response to something will also help you build your executive leadership competency. Try to really hear, and consider, and go back and put yourself in others’ perspectives and see what has the logical possibility of being true from those perspectives. Lastly, it is not logically necessary that just because one is a manager it means they are always getting stuck in their LH. There are many talented leaders who haven’t made it to the ranks of executive level leadership who have the ability to look and see beyond their function to how things connect and relate in a bigger picture sense. As well, there are executive leaders that get stuck in their LH all the time and lack empathy and an ability to see the whole picture. The key is having developed enough neural connections so the hemispheres are well regulated and so there is an ease moving from one hemisphere to the other when you are stuck, whether the stuckness occurs in the RH or the LH. And, in full disclosure, the more my colleagues and I learn about the hemispheres and the brain in general, the more endlessly complex we are realizing this system is. For now, I hope this insight on the RH and LH can serve to empower you in some way, and offer you a new ways to develop and understand true executive leadership abilities. Where do you find yourself getting stuck in your leadership? What do you do to move yourself beyond it? Note: Thank you to my Neuroscience Intensive coaching colleagues for their time and work compiling and sharing research on the right and left brain hemispheres which inspired the writing of this post. Thank you to Ann Betz, Research Director at BeAbove Leadership, for your help translating and understanding the research.
Farhana Huq is an Executive and Leadership Coach, Surfer, Global Explorer, and Founder of Surf Life Executive Coaching and Brown Girl Surf
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Actionable advice for reducing stress, boosting morale, and supporting your team through uncertain times
Not too long ago, my coaching world was full of robust leaders on their A-game, moving their teams towards new projects, programs and innovations. In but a few weeks, these once burgeoning leaders have found themselves facing the bi-polaresque rollercoaster of quarantine, trying to keep themselves and their teams together, if even they still have a team, or a job, for that matter. Below I share some themes that have emerged in my coaching conversations with managers in the midst of COVID-19. Some ideas may seem counterintuitive. Most are based on an understanding of neuroscience with the goal of focusing on the whole person and helping to keep the brain and body in balance. 1. Lower your expectations around productivity. Yes, as anti-capitalist as this sounds, it’s essential at this time to restructure expectations around productivity. For one, the work environment has changed so drastically for everyone. If people came into an office before and now they no longer have a steady work environment, there are so many more factors that could interrupt their productivity. They may have kids at home. They may be managing stressful relationship dynamics. They may even be a victim of domestic abuse. Expecting the same level of productivity as you had before is unreasonable. For this philosophy to really be effective, it has to be communicated from the top. From there, the message will trickle down to managers and their teams. If you are feeling pressured by your manager, that stress and pressure will bleed out to a team already feeling stress and so on and so forth. 2. Manage people according to how over or under stimulated they are. Amy Arnsten, a rad neuroscientist out of Yale University, has done very interesting research on the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), the part of our brain responsible for higher executive functions such as planning, good decision-making and strategic thinking. The brain, being an energy efficient organ, always seeks to be in balance. Arnsten’s research centers on how the PFC is balanced by two main neurotransmitters - norepinephrine (a fancy way of saying adrenaline) and dopamine. To illustrate this, Arnsten created an upside down bell curve. The right of the peak of the bell represents increasing stimulation in the brain. The left of the beak of the bell represents decreasing stimulation. The center of the bell curve represents optimal balance of the cortex with men falling slightly to the left as their default balanced state and women right in the center. BeAbove Leadership furthered this research and translated it into a coaching tool to help individuals understand where they might be on that curve at any given time. Using this coaching tool in my own practice, I have been seeing managers struggle with team members being on opposite ends of the curve. In other words, their team members are either falling too far to the right and are completely over stimulated and out of balance, or too far to the left and completely under stimulated. No matter which side they fluctuate to, THE COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENTS ARE THE SAME: poor decision-making, foggy thinking, and lack of empathy to name a few. Take mental note of where each of your team members are on the imaginary bell curve. Team members with kids often are falling to the far right on the curve. For them, it is important to figure out a way to reduce their load and have less expectations for their work. For team members with less stimulation, the challenge is to induce more goal directed behavior to increase the dopamine and adrenaline to help bring them up to balance. Goal directed management can mean setting weekly targets or goals for them adjusted to their work situation in the event their longer term goals are on hold due to lockdown. You can check in with them on those targets or set up accountability structures for them with their other colleagues. This way they can work together and check in on whether they have been able to accomplish a goal or project. Helping your employees to regulate their PFC now may be the best preventative step to ensuring they don’t come back to the “new normal” drained, exhausted and out of balance. 3. Create certainty where you can. Offer rewards. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is released IN ANTICIPATION of a reward. In other words, if someone has something to look forward to, like a trip, it’s a dopamine inducer. Once the reward is received, dopamine levels go down. Need convincing? Check out Robert Sapolsky, Standford Professor of Biology and Primatology’s lecture on dopamine here. Wonder why people are struggling so much to even get work done? Projects once moving forward are now on hold indefinitely. Dates can no longer be set in stone. There is an unknown as to when the lockdown will effectively end. A stake cannot be put into the ground. There is nothing to look forward to. No dopamine. Again, this leads to imbalance in the PFC. Understand that without firm dates, or concrete things to work towards or ANTICIPATE, there is less dopamine. Think of what you can focus on that is concrete or set in stone. Perhaps smaller projects can be created. Perhaps you can game-ify a project and offer a small reward to your team if they successfully complete it. It’s important to note that some team members may need a high risk, almost impossible challenge, to elevate their dopamine levels, especially if they are highly capable and super under stimulated. For others, it could be more of a structured call to action where as a task is accomplished, there is some type of reward, or acknowledgement. What could your team be in anticipation of that actually can occur on some concrete date at some concrete time in the near future? Is there a reward you can offer them that they may get if the project or task is done? 4. Practice empathy. Be inquisitive. Putting yourself in the shoes of your team members will go a long way in the future towards a workforce who is already struggling with brain dysregulation. The ability to empathize is really an ability to try to feel what your team member is feeling. What’s it like to homeschool 3 kids if you only have to worry about one (or none!). Have no idea? A simple inquiry asking them what it is like for them to be where they are at, can bring you tremendous insight. And understand there may be unspoken dynamics they may not be at liberty to share with you, including domestic abuse, existing mental health issues that may be exacerbated by lockdown, and even addiction issues. Asking into your team’s situation is important. Here are a few check-in questions you can use that may prompt some deeper conversation. I send these to my own clients before our coaching sessions as a check-in. Recently one of the managers I coach said she used these as check-in questions with her team, which resulted in very productive conversations: · What have you accomplished since our last meeting? · What did you want to get done but didn’t? · What feels most challenging this week? · What are you connecting with most this week? · How are you feeling? · What are you noticing about yourself? 5. Create small ways to appreciate your team. There is a host of neuroscience literature written on the benefits of feeling and expressing gratitude and its correlation to happiness. Appreciation can take the form of words of affirmation, actions, or gifts. It might even be worth it to ask your team members how they like to be appreciated in this time. Appreciation can even be stated in honoring everyone that shows up to an online team meeting when they usually are done in person. Early on in the lockdown, one of the managers I coach planned to parcel small gifts to her team members, just to let them know she appreciates them. Even better if you can send something from a local small business to your team, to support the local economy and let your team know you really value them during this time. The strategies I’ve shared above came out of actual coaching sessions with managers I worked with during COVID-19, all of whom were adhering to shelter in place in the United States. I encourage managers as well as executive leadership to utilize these coaching themes in the next phases of the Coronavirus pandemic to mitigate the mental and physical impacts of the quarantine.
Farhana Huq is an Executive and Leadership Coach, Surfer, Global Explorer, and Founder of Surf Life Executive Coaching and Brown Girl Surf
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