Goodness based coaching

Goodness includes the intentions and abilities that help us progress and succeed in work and life. Intentions include our hopes, wishes and dreams. Abilities include skills, strengths and expertise. We bring attention to goodness by focusing on any instances of success and progress.

We focus on goodness because engaging our goodness is the root cause of how we contribute, grow and enjoy the fruits of our efforts. The more we focus on our goodness the more these become possible. Focus on goodness helps people feel a sense of confidence and creativity. More options become more obvious.

We teach people how to respond to problems and disappointments with focus (instead) on success, progress and goodness. We spend no time discussing or debating what's wrong. We focus on intentions and abilities that can bring about more progress and success. People do better only when they become more conscious of their abilities and how they can engage their abilities in their best intentions. 

This includes the spectrum of unwanted feelings that people blame for not engaging their best intentions and abilities. We help them discover how feelings are natural events and conditions like the weather, always coming and going. When they no longer hold themselves responsible for their feelings, they become more free to act on their best intentions whatever their feelings are, just as they go about life whatever the weather. 

These strategies and awarenesses make it possible to practice and entirely goodness based approach to leadership.

How much of growing nimble teams is about changing people?

It makes logical sense to many of us. If we want people to do better, we have to help them change. One small problem. People do not trust people they think have an agenda of changing them. People who are untrusted have no power to help people change. 

We see people grow all the time. In each case, it's when they have engaged their goodness in new ways. If someone has eight abilities and qualities that add to their goodness, there are over 40,000 different ways they can combine these for growth.

Growth is not a matter of "changing" people. It's a matter of giving them the freedom and support to keep creating new combinations for new levels of performance and possibility. 

The tyrany of team personalities

Before teams grow in alignment and velocity, they are dominated by the tyrany of personalities. If the chemistry of personalities is good, the team can do well, as long as this chemistry continues. If the chemistry is bad, the team will suffer and struggle in slowness. 

One of the classic indicators of slow team cultures is that people blame the personalities of team members and/or leaders for their slowness and all the karmic characteristics of slowness like fragmentation, disengagement and team learning disability.

The more nimble teams become, the less relevant personality differences become as points of blame. The more everyone engages each person's differences in goodness.