Author: Frank Walsh

There are few things in life of which I am certain. Here is one:

When faced with any challenge, there are more ways to succeed than we believe, and more ways to fail than we can possibly imagine.

This applies to everything from hitting a ball to curing disease.

This is not intended to be an intimidating thought, it is a liberating one. Each failure expands our understanding of the elements that need to come together in order to secure success. This is the key not to accept failure, but rather to accept failure as an interim outcome… and making sure it doesn’t kill you.

Many of us devote a lot of time toward thinking about how things can go wrong. This is important for many reasons, and if done with purpose can help lead to better thinking about solutions. But it can also be a trap of negativity. No problem has a single solution. The paths to success are many and the more of them we are able to imagine and explore, the better we understand the challenges and the more likely we are to succeed.

The following was originally posted on Medium in February 2016

A client recently described her perception of what makes leadership in a family business different from a corporation. She said that working in a family business is a switch that does not go off and you can’t leave problems, issues, feelings, and frustrations at the door. Her logic is that family carries with it expectations, obligations, legacies and such. And of course you have to face these people outside if you don’t perform.

All true, yet it is my experience that many (if not most) people have the same difficulties leaving these things at the door in their average corporate roles. Most people in roles of responsibility and accountability carry their burdens home with them. Most also carry the burdens of ‘life’ back to the office. If this were not true there would not be an entire industry preaching the gospel of work-life balance.

The explanation is simple. Our family, whatever it looked like, is the first ‘organization’ that any of us belonged to, and at the most impressionable time in our lives. That organization had history that far preceded us and a future that extends beyond our ability to see. That organization had a way that ‘things are done’ and even if we hated it, we learned it. We will see that original organization in every other one we are part of for the rest of our lives regardless how hard we might try to separate ourselves from it. People in the workplace will play the part of family members. Martyrs, victims, super-achievers and clowns alike. Those behaviors will spring deep seated triggers in us based on how we learned to react in our original organization, and we will play our part in the theater.

You can’t forget, you can’t ignore, but you can transform. Learn to “see” yourself as others see you. Get at observation level of your own behaviors and understand your triggers, not just what they are, but WHY they are. When you do this you give yourself the ability to choose how to react.

The following was originally published on Medium in February 2018

No, this is not an article about travel tips, or how it is wrong to ask your subordinates to perform manual labor for you. This is an article about the other ‘baggage’ that you, and me, and the rest of us, bring to work every day.

It is no secret that for most workers, and possibly even more so for knowledge workers, the idea of separating “life” from “work” is nonsense. Work is a part of life, some of you might even go so far as to define a large part of yourself by your work.

Similarly, life is a part of work. You can no more separate who you are at home from who you are at work than you can shed your skin. Sure you can cover it with a suit, put a mask on it, or whatever, but that doesn’t change who you fundamentally are. If you truly believe that your personal life has nothing to do with how you ‘show up’ to work, you either aren’t being honest with yourself or you are ignoring evidence to the contrary. All of us are the sum of our life experiences, and research in the field of epigenetics supports the idea that we are also influenced by the life experiences of our ancestors. That’s right, past triumphs and traumas of relatives you never knew who are long dead can have an influence on you, today, here and now.

Self awareness is a trait that gets talked about a lot in leadership development, and it is absolutely critical that you know what set of traits you are bringing to the table. Tools like Myers-Briggs or DISC can be useful, but they simply do not go far enough. To be a true leader requires deep empathy, and that requires an understanding of WHY people behave, not just HOW they behave. And that journey starts with a long look in the mirror. What is in the baggage you carry with you through life? Why are you a lone wolf instead of a pack member? A rebel rather than a conformist? An “E” vs “I” , or whatever else fits? What are the elements of Family, Culture, and Crisis that have formed your behaviors? It takes a deep dive and hard work to get real answers and to develop a true understanding of the roots of your own behavior. Only when you have that understanding are you able to transform, to truly choose how you react in certain situations and not to be simply driven by your ingrained patterns. You are also able to look at others in a new way, with true empathy and appreciation for the baggage that they themselves need to deal with.

It is easy to tell people to ‘leave it at home’ and not bring problems to work, but it is unrealistic and ineffective. People carry their baggage everywhere and that additional weight piles on top of everything else that needs to be carried for a successful meeting, task, or project. As a leader you can’t help others with their baggage before you are able to carry your own. Awareness is not enough, deep understanding is the key. You are not likely to achieve this deep understanding on your own. Our internal biases prevent us from seeing many of these internal drivers. Coaching, mentoring, therapy, behavioral development and other tools can help us on our journey to becoming great leaders.

The following was originally posted on Medium in 2016 and was updated in September 2020

Leave your baggage at home.

Work is not therapy.

Keep your professional and personal lives separate.

Look forward, not back.

All of the above are common themes in many workplaces, and they certainly have merit. However like most absolutes, they are not practical in the real world.

The whole concept of work-life balance is a flawed. Since when is work not PART OF LIFE? In fact, as a result of the pandemic, work and home are inseparably intertwined for many. The more you start to treat work as an integral part of your life rather than trying to segregate it, the shorter your path to fulfillment and meaning.

Classic coaching models treat the individual at work independently from the rest of their life, and generally ignore or otherwise dismiss the past and focus on the future. As a result the changes affected are incomplete and often short lived. If we do not deeply examine our past to understand how we arrived where we are, then what hope do we have of laying out a path to transform our future? If we cannot connect our emotional ups and downs between what happens at work and what happens outside of work, then how can we possibly achieve a balanced life?

We are all a collection of experiences, some ours, some our ancestors, and we will always carry those experiences with us wherever we go. Deep and lasting personal growth happen when we are able to get at observation level of our own behaviors, understand their roots in our (and our family’s) experience, and connect our future to a transformation of our past rather than some mythical “fresh start” or “clean break”.

A great coach will remove the boundaries between past, present and future and bring down the walls between “work” and “life”. A great coach may not want to be called a therapist, but they had better be ready to help scratch the scabs off of some old wounds to help us understand deep truths about ourselves.

As part of the team at Creative Energy Options I learned the Twi language word Sankofa, literally translated to “go back and get it” to represent the central concept of clear the past to free the present. Find a coach who will help you look back before they help you discover a path to move forward.

So like it or not, the crisis continues. In all likelihood your business operations continue to be disrupted by the realities of, and the reactions to the COVID-19 virus. Things that you thought would be temporary are now part of the long term, including, of course, remote working for many office workers.

Many workers have settled into routines of working remotely, and in fact many are quite happy about it. However something is missing for most, something that is important to your businesses performance, and that is a sense of being part of a team, having relationships with your co-workers. We are growing more distant from those we work with in many ways.

Are the people in your business being led or administered? Are they being inspired with a sense of shared purpose? Are they forming powerful connections with others? Are they engaged or are they simply doing their job?

So what can you do? Well there are no easy solutions, but here are some things to think about:

Over-communicate. Communicate with your employees or your co-workers often. You should aim for daily communication with your immediate team (not just individuals, but the whole team) and a minimum of weekly communication with the larger organization.

No one in the history of work has ever left a company because leadership over-communicated.

Make it social. Find “channels” that give your people opportunities to connect about something other than work. Social chat rooms can be a virtual water cooler that let people join in on their own schedule. Anything goes (as long as it is appropriate and not harassing). Encourage everyone to talk about their day, their weekend, their vacation. Share photos, favorite new music, whatever.

Meet MORE frequently, not less. Lots of meetings have died as a result of COVID, and that is probably a good thing in most cases! But stop putting off important meetings, and find reasons to have MORE meetings, albeit very brief and targeted ones, to give your team members a chance to interact in real time. Give space at the start of the meeting for the normal social interaction that might happen in the office, then get down to the subject at hand, keep it efficient, and send people on their way. A daily or weekly catch up can happen in 15 minutes.

That is a start. We’ll continue to talk about ways to respond to the challenges ahead. What challenges are you facing? What actions have you taken to keep people engaged? Let us know in the comments.

We all need peer to peer support to get through life. We all face challenges, and other people can help!

Are you able to identify people in your life who will tell you the truth, and who genuinely want you to succeed? Are these people with whom you can really “go deep” when you need to? These important “lifeline relationships” can exist at home and at work. There are three critical elements to a lifeline relationship:

• Someone with whom you can be completely vulnerable
• Someone who is generous and committed
• Someone with candor who can tell hard truths’

And there is a fourth element. In a lifeline relationship both parties have full accountability for themselves AND expect it from each other.

So is a lifeline relationship a friend or family member? Sometimes they can be, but more often our family and the people we surround ourselves with socially do not check the boxes. Specifically, friends and family tend to let us off easily.

What about a coach? Coaches are often very important relationships in business. Some people can’t imagine dropping their guard at work, and the “professional” relationship of a coach can help develop this ability, allowing you to have more meaningful and productive relationships with others. However coaching is mostly a one way street, while lifeline relationships need to be completely reciprocal to be effective.

A lifeline relationship doesn’t need to be based on any formal framework. The bottom line is that you need to identify the people who’s opinions and judgements you value, who you can trust to be authentic, AND who feel the same way about you. By having a sense of mutual dependency, the bond is strengthened and everyone benefits from the relationship. The dependency is nurtured by giving at least as much as you get from the relationship.

We should all have lifeline relationships. Without them we can feel lost, alone and misunderstood. Sometimes we drift around without them for a while, or we seek out those who only make us feel good about ourselves. So who is your lifeline?

I am re-patriating some of the content that was posted on other social networks in the past. The following was originally posted on Medium in early 2017.

It’s not you, it’s me… Well it’s also you, but with some guidance I have seen how the patterns of my past influenced our relationship.

I started to feel it in my mid 40’s. Things were different. I had evolved, you had changed. You didn’t make me happy anymore and I started to hate you for it. Still, we had been through a lot, so I didn’t want to quit. I felt I could fix things. I believed you had so much to learn from me if you would just accept it.

By 50 it was all over except the tears. I only saw you as irrational, controlling and heartless. But I know you were just doing what comes naturally, and I was playing my roll of the Rebel. I couldn’t fix you, so I would watch you destroy yourself with smug satisfaction, except that it wasn’t satisfying, it was saddening.

So I quit my job and left the company.

What did you think I was talking about? I very much love my wife and have no intention of leaving for as long as she will have me!

In his late 40’s my father grew weary of his relationship with his first wife. By 50 he had left her and moved on. He met a young, attractive farm girl who had moved to the big city. She was wide eyed with wonder at this dashing military man and she worshiped him.

It took some time and reflection to recognize that it was no small coincidence that at virtually the same point in my life as my father ‘quit’ his marriage, I quit my job. After more than 20 years in one company I was disappointed and frustrated and decided to strike out and find a new path. The action was different, but I was repeating a pattern.

More than just reflection, reaching this “aha” required help. I needed someone to look me in the eyes and ask me why I needed to leave. Someone to challenge me to own and understand my piece of it before I could move on. My coach taught me that if we don’t find the way OUT, if we can’t Observe, Understand and Transform our patterns, we will repeat them.

So today I’m dating several opportunities, some seriously, some not. I even met a petite young, attractive company who makes everything exciting and doesn’t try to control me. Still, I constantly question if each new attraction is what I thought it was, or if it will disappoint me and re-launch my rebellion.

Even in this environment that I created for myself, things trigger my inner Rebel, but that is not a surprise. Our patterns will always find us, particularly in times of crisis or stress, the trick is not to let them hijack your choices. By learning to observe our patterns and understand their roots, we unlock the ability to transform them into strengths. If you keep running into difficulty with the same kind of people in life, chances are you have a pattern, not just a problem. The solution starts with you.

When I feel frustrated and disappointed by those around me, I need to step back and ask what I can do differently to change the outcome. The Rebel will only lead to chaos, anger and distrust. By transforming my rebellion into community building, I choose to inspire the people around me to work together and make things better for everyone.

What’s your pattern?

2020 Update – The attractive young company simply had too much in common with my ex. She had the same circle of ‘friends’ and it didn’t take too long to become annoyed by their behavior. But this time I didn’t let the Rebel take over. Instead I stepped away while it was possible for us to “remain friends” . We still talk frequently and I believe that my outside status and perspective makes it easier for me to be authentic. Now I am helping others pursue meaning and purpose, and to find and change their own limiting patterns.

If you choose to walk along the top of the fence, you will occasionally fall to one side or another.

And while people may be impressed by your ability to walk the fence, they will REMEMBER when you fall, and they will NOTICE which side you fall on.

What does this mean to business and leadership? Take a clear stand and stick with it. Pick a side. This does not mean you should ignore balance, but be CLEAR and CONSISTENT about where your priorities lie.

Let me give an example. I work with many people in industrial production environments where there is commonly a tug-of-war between production and risk. Many companies and their leaders attempt to ‘balance’ these two equally, or they may favor one strongly in messaging but less so in action or culture. They may INTEND to walk clearly on one side of the fence, but still find themselves cautiously balanced on top. Then the plant stops, and something needs to be done. The winds of risk and production blow fiercely on the leaders from different directions, and they fall one way or another.

In my experience, when things get urgent they typically ‘fall’ on the production side. Yes, of course risks are considered and mitigated where possible, but this is a special situation and just this once we will take these extra risks because it will save days (hours, weeks) of downtime. We can manage it.

People notice that fall, they notice if it is inconsistent with your message, and they understand the real priority. People will follow what you do 10/10 times versus what you say.

I’m not suggesting you should choose production over risk, or vice versa. I’m saying understand your real priority, align your messaging, and stay clear and consistent. If you want to change the side of the fence you walk on, make a clear jump, don’t balance on top.

The world needs positive leadership now more than ever. Take steps to reveal the best version of the leader you have inside.

What is your leadership response to the COVID-19 crisis? Presumably your business is developing or has already developed a response plan, and has made risk assessments that influence tactical as well as health and safety decisions. Let’s give the benefit of doubt that these plans put the health and safety of the public and your employees above other factors (If they don’t, you have bigger problems). Such a response is the minimum needed in these times, but it is not sufficient to demonstrate true leadership.

The water cooler network can be your enemy here. Whisper down the alley effects combined with emotional interpretations can make even the best of intentions appear tainted with malice (they don’t want to pay me!), favoritism (why does she get to work from home?) or a range of other unintended messages. Understand that anything said ‘behind closed doors’ will get out one way or another, so you can choose to let the network define the message or you can take control of it by communicating directly, frequently, consistently and authentically.

Perhaps the most important thing to recognize in the face of this (or any other) crisis, is that the situation is primarily emotional for people, not tactical. Emotions in the face of COVID-19 run the gamut from crippling fear to misplaced bravado, and everything in between. ALL of these emotional responses are valid to the person in one way or another. A strong leader will not dismiss any emotional response. It is your responsibility to acknowledge their existence and do the work to understand the roots of them. You will also have to accept the fact that ANY tactical response of the business will also cause emotional reactions that may reinforce feelings that are already present. Put measures into place to give people a way to deal with these emotions while continuing to deliver the message that the business is acting objectively and working to make the best decisions with the available information in a fluid environment.

Genuine concern about the health and safety of your employees goes beyond protecting them from the physical effects of COVID-19. If you do not address the emotions of the crisis you are ignoring the lever that has the largest impact.