Over the past
year, I have been faced with many difficult situations as the
CEO of an early stage online marketing company. The good news
is that last year after reading John Kuypers' inspiring book
“What’s Important Now”, I began weekly executive coaching
sessions with John. As a leader, I often must often deliver
difficult messages to my employees or suppliers. Through my
interactions with John, I have come to learn that we have three
basic choices when faced with conflict. One option is to try to
ignore the situation hoping it with just go away. While this
may appear to be the easiest route, it usually leads to an even
more difficult situation somewhere down the road as things don’t
tend to fix themselves very often. The more proactive responses
are to either to deeply accept the situation (i.e. let go of the
rope!) or choose to deal with the situation head on and be open
to the consequences.
While this may appear to
be straightforward, it is really anything but. Often when I’m involved in a
difficult situation, the various choices and potential outcomes may not be
so clear. The power of John’s coaching approach has been to first help me
to clearly understand my own motivations (what do I want to happen) and then
help me to define the best course of action. We also explore the potential
reactions that I may encounter from others, while at the same time being
prepared to be confronted with unpredictable responses. John also stresses
that achieving the desired outcome is often a case of being empathetic
towards the receiver of the message. More often than not, I have learned
that the level of true empathy that I bring to a difficult situation will
have a major bearing on the outcome.
I believe that working
with John has helped me to become a more effective leader. And perhaps the
best news is that the knowledge and experience that I have gained in working
with John in the workplace have helped me to become more effective in
responding to conflict within family and other personal relationships as
well. I can’t recommend John highly enough!
Joe Freedman
CEO, StudentAwards