Management by Coaching

What's holding you back?

Challenge your beliefs about yourself and external events

By Kimberly Paterson, CEC

No matter how successful or motivated we are, at some point we all encounter it—the obstacle that we can’t seem to overcome. That crucial project that you never seem to finish. Losing your edge as top sales manager and not being able to get back on track. Market conditions resulting in quoting more new business and writing less. One of your employees, who despite your numerous pep talks, is still not on board with the changes you want to make. The New Year’s resolution to start living “healthier” that fell by the wayside sometime in early February.

Why is it so hard to get some things done—even though they are so important to us? Nine times out of ten, it is due to one or a combination of five “blocks.” Whether you are coaching yourself or someone else, it is critical to be able to identify and understand these blocks.

A “block” is anything that restricts you. It can be external—like money, time or the economy. Or it can be internal—like your beliefs and attitudes about yourself and the world around you. The five key blocks are:

• External conditions

• Limiting beliefs

• False assumptions from the past that you continue to carry

• False interpretations that you make

• The inner critic

Each of these blocks exercises its own hold on you. Once you understand how a block confines you, you hold the key to eliminating it.

Block #1: External Conditions. Most of us can easily recognize our external or outer blocks. They are conditions outside of us and usually are things over which we have no control. A good example of an external block is the soft market. Decreasing premiums may cause your income to dip even though you and your staff are working harder than ever. That hit to the bottom line may affect the agency’s plans for expansion or the purchase of new technology.

When faced with external blocks, some managers feel paralyzed and see these conditions as a reason for being unable to succeed. Other managers understand these obstacles and work through them to create a successful outcome or path for their business.

In reality, the external block isn’t the block at all. The block is how you feel about it. More often than not, how we see the situation determines the outcome. Take American freestyle skier Hannah Kearney, who won a gold medal in the 2010 Olympics. External conditions were against her. Kearney didn’t have a good track record at the Olympics.

Her last run for gold in Turin was a disaster. She had been favored to win, but the race ended with her in tears and in 22nd place. This year, Canadian Jennifer Heil was the undisputed leader. On paper, Heil was the superior mogul skier. Plus, she had the advantage of skiing on her home turf with the world predicting she would win Canada’s first gold medal. Nevertheless, Kearney did not let those external conditions affect her. In her post-event interview, she said, “I knew I was going to win. I never stopped believing it despite what the facts suggested and what the experts said.”

At least 95% of the time it’s the internal factors that hold you back, not external ones. Next time you see your block as something external like lack of time, capital or resources to get the job done, shift your thinking from the block to how you feel about it. That is where the answer lies. Most likely it is one of the following four internal blocks that is holding you back, not the external conditions.

Block #2: Limiting Beliefs. Limiting beliefs are general beliefs about the world, your environment, your specific situation and the people around you who you think stand in your way. More often than not, you accept a limiting belief as true because you learned it from someone else—someone you viewed as an “authority” such as a parent, teacher or even the media. Limiting beliefs hold you back from success. If you don’t believe something is possible, you are not likely to attempt it. Even if you do, you won’t devote much energy to achieving that goal.

Consider this example. Up until 1954, it was a commonly held belief that running a mile in under four minutes was impossible. Physiologists believed it was extremely dangerous to even attempt it. One man didn’t buy into that limiting belief. On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister crossed the finish line in 3:59.4 minutes, thereby disproving the myth forever.

Accomplishing this remarkable feat required Bannister to completely ignore the prevailing limiting belief and construct an entirely different belief system for himself. What others saw as a limitation, he saw as an opportunity. Once he disproved the presumed limits on the body, less than two months later another runner, John Landy, broke Bannister’s record with a mile dash of 3:57.9 minutes. Now it is common for professional runners to beat the four-minute mile.

Consider another example that might strike closer to home. Two years ago, John Jakes inherited a successful agency from his father. Although John was a great sales­man, he struggled with his new leadership role. His employees didn’t seem to respect him, and he’d been totally ineffective in making cultural changes he believed were necessary. John saw his employees as the obstacle. Most of them were considerably older than he and “stuck in their ways.” In reality, the block was John’s limiting belief. In his heart, John believed that “leaders are born, not raised.” He saw himself as a born salesman, not a “born leader.”

Your beliefs focus you in a certain direction, and your actions support your beliefs. Limiting beliefs box you in; they close doors rather than open them. Consider how your limiting beliefs might be holding you back. If you find a belief that is not serving you, simply examine it with questions like: “How true do I believe that to be?” or “Can I prove it?” and “Where did I get that idea?” These questions work remarkably well in breaking down a limiting belief.

Block #3: False Assumptions. An assumption is a belief that because something happened to you in the past, it is going to happen again. Assumptions are more personal than limiting beliefs and more intimately involve you and those around you. They have far more power over people than do limiting beliefs.

Let’s say you asked your CSRs to begin making calls to personal lines clients with the goal of selling additional coverages. One of your best CSRs simply won’t comply. She says she doesn’t have time, given all the inbound customer calls she is handling. The logical thing to focus on would be time management. A longer conversation with her reveals the real obstacle. Before becoming a CSR, she was a telemarketer for an agency across town. She used to make prospecting calls from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. People constantly hung up on her; some were downright rude. Based on her past experience in making sales calls, she assumed it would be the same thing this time.

False assumptions are debilitat­ing to a business. When you believe you already know something won’t work because of a past experience, you might not even consider it to be a possibility in the future. Further, if you do try it, you might either subconsciously sabotage your own efforts or move in a counter­productive direction.

When challenging assumptions, the best question to ask is simply: “Just because it happened in the past, why must it happen again?” It’s important to understand that challenging assumptions is often more difficult than challenging limiting beliefs. This is because limiting beliefs are usually based on what someone else has told you, whereas assumptions are based primarily on personal experience. As a consequence, assumptions are more internalized than limiting beliefs. The result is that, after an initial challenge, resistance is natural. Understanding that this resistance is normal will lessen the emotional attachment.

Block #4: False Interpretations. When you interpret an event, situation or experience, you form an opinion about it. The danger is that most people believe their interpretations are correct, when in actuality their interpretation is only one point of view among the many that are possible. It is usually not in our best interest to believe that our interpretation is reality.

Consider the case of Kitty, a commercial lines manager with a growing regional brokerage firm. Kitty had replaced a much admired and long-standing employee. Three months into the job, she was still trying to rally the troops around her. As a relatively inexperienced manager with a strong need to be liked, she was worried about how she was viewed by the staff.

One day Kitty was walking past the coffee room. Three of her employees were talking, but the minute they saw her, they got quiet. As soon as she passed, they burst out laughing. Kitty assumed they were laughing at her. Convinced they didn’t like or respect her, Kitty became more awkward and formal around the women. They started to see her as distant and hard to talk to.

In reality, Kitty’s interpretation of the coffee room incident was all wrong. One of the employees was in the middle of telling an off-color but very funny joke. Not wanting to make a bad impression on their new boss, everyone got quiet when they saw Kitty. Seconds later when Kitty had passed, they could no longer contain their laughter. Kitty’s false interpretation of a single event set off a chain reaction that ultimately hurt morale in her department.

As with assumptions, interpreta­tions are personal, and you have a personal stake in letting them go. Holding onto them may feel easier and potentially less risky. You might feel like you are saving face by not challenging your interpretations. Yet letting them go really opens up your options and creates new opportunities.

Interpretations can be directly challenged with a single question: “What’s another way to look at that?” It’s also helpful to ask what another person might say happened. This is particularly useful for resolving conflict. Also, asking a person to imagine what the other individual’s perspective might be can lead to a more objective point of view.

Block #5: The Inner Critic. My experiences with coaching leaders—regardless of their level of success—have taught me that the inner critic is the most powerful block. The inner critic derails our attempts to achieve and accomplish by telling us not to try, never to take a risk, to take the safe road. The inner critic’s annoying voice whispers, “It’s not going to happen.” This debilitating message bubbles up in many forms: “I’m not smart enough, experienced enough, attractive enough.” It all comes back to a simple and vicious block: “I’m just not good enough.”

The inner critic is highly personal and rooted deeply inside us and carries the most intense emotional charge of any of the blocks. Your inner critic thrives on fear. When you hear its voice, your motivation withers. You dread failing, feeling pain and being embarrassed. You can even be scared of succeeding because your inner critic convinces you that eventually you’ll fail.

The easiest way to banish the inner critic is to reveal its face. In doing so, you discover that the inner critic is only part of who you are—not your entire identity. Think of the inner critic as someone whose mission is protecting you by keeping you in your place and preventing you from taking any chances in your life. Once you recognize the inner critic for what it is, it loses its power over you.

Next time you or one of your people is stuck, look for the real block. Go beyond the obvious external conditions. Figure out which block or combination of the five blocks is slowing you down or holding you back. When you find the block and examine it objectively, you can finally release the hold it has on you. You’ll discover a new level of energy and power in your life.

The author
Kimberly Paterson, CEC, is a business and certified Energy Leadership Coach. As president of CIM (www.cim-co.com), she works with insurance organizations to build the vision, strategy, customer insight and leadership skills to energize people and achieve outstanding results. She can be reached at kpaterson@cim-co.com.