Unveiling Self-Awareness: Bridging the Gap Between Perception and Reality

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

So when we hear about all the topics with coaching and training and we're hearing the term artificial intelligence, now more than ever I often go back to the fundamentals of coaching, and that is to first cultivate self-awareness. Getting someone to look in the mirror. Number one how do we get someone to cultivate self-awareness and, more importantly, what is it? It's about looking in the mirror and really being honest. Now I've cited this research a thousand times, I'll do it again. Tasha Urich, in her book Insight, new York Times bestseller, did a research project, surveyed people and 95% of the people said yes, I'm highly self-aware. When she tested them, only 10% were. That means 85% of us have blind spots. We all do. And here's the funny thing when you go up to someone and say you have a negative attitude or you give them feedback, what happens? Do people open their arms and say thanks or do they start the discounting process? Not me, it's got to be someone else you need to talk to, and that's usually the case and research bears that out. So how do we cultivate self-awareness? Number one focus on the good things people do. Gallup reports and I love this that when we lead with people's strengths, people engage eight times more. Think about that eight times more. So when we engage eight times more, we listen more, we have greater trust to the people coaching, leading, mentoring us. Number two you have to ask questions, going up to someone and saying you know you have a really crappy attitude, even though you might be right. Has anyone ever responded with wow, I knew I had issues. Thanks a lot. I was wondering what the problem was. No, they'll discount what you say. People don't like to be told what to do, whether right or wrong. If our objective is to cultivate self-awareness, use questions such as what are you going to do to successfully engage with your teammates positively and what's the value to you? Now, that might be another question that you could utilize to address someone's negative attitude. See, when you ask questions, the brain is stimulated to think differently. So if I go up to someone and say, got any big plans this weekend, most people say nope, just staying around the house. Now if I say what are two specific things you're going to do? That's going to be a lot of fun this weekend, that stimulates the brain to think differently.

Speaker 1: 3:26

So the key is to ask questions starting with the word what, insert the word successfully, then address the area that you're coaching. So let's say we have somebody who's not pulling their weight, instead of saying you're not pulling your weight. We tend to always do this with leadership. We tend to tell people what they're not doing. What you want to do is use a technique called framing. We call it a self-actualized question. So I might say what are you going to do next week to successfully insert yourself by going above and beyond the call of duty that your teammates will just love, and what do you think the value to you is? Now that question is framed out in a way that really can't be negative and once people answer positively, they move towards this thing called commitment, actual action. So again, the first thing is start with people's strengths, then ask questions that are framed, starting with the word what. I insert the word successfully and then I address the area of need. That's how you cultivate self-awareness.