Are you a coach, consultant, or another kind of helper? Have you ever examined the status relationship between consultant and client?

This article may be a little off-purpose for some readers, but I thought it was worth putting out there anyway. If you do any coaching or consulting, you may get some juice from this look at the status relationship between client and consultant.

How is status a factor in the helping relationship? What are the factors that contribute to a disequilibrium of status? What are the advantages of creating an equilibrium in the status relationship?

From “Equilibrating the Status Relationship Between Client and Consultant”
by Erek Ostrowski:

The stereotypical and widely held image of the consultant as the quintessential “expert with all the answers” undermines the true power and possibilities of the consulting relationship. The real potential of consultation to produce significant, lasting results lies in the ability of the consultant to create and maintain a status equilibrium in his/her relationship with the client. This is the only way to access the heart of the situation, to make a valuable contribution, and ultimately, to be of service to the client.

In order to understand why status plays such an important role in the consulting relationship, it may help to consider that the dynamics of the consulting relationship are essentially very similar to any helping relationship. We can gain insight into the consultant’s world by examining the role of the helper, and the helper’s relationship with the person seeking help.

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equilibrating-the-status-relationship

Here is the original:
Equilibrating the Status Relationship Between Coach and Client

Some of you have probably heard me talk about this before. Email is a scourge on all of us, most days. I see all kinds of email behavior, all the time - at clients, everywhere I go. And the one thing that surprises me the most, and this goes back to some comments I made in the last couple of years about continuous partial attention, is people being notified every time they get an email. Literally, they are drawn to the email regardless of how good or bad or important it is, because they don’t know - they just go and look at the email as soon it comes in.

We recommend checking email three times a day, but example of constantly being distracted by email [and if you are an manager or an executive, you already have enough distractions, because email is not urgent] is the idea of something called “toast”. Toast is Microsoft’s word for the little reminder that comes up, that comes up in Outlook that slides up, at least in some versions, it slides from the bottom right hand corner of your screen and then slides back down.

And the joke was for a while that it looked like toast popping up. But the real story is they call it toast because if you pay attention to it all the time, you will BE toast. If you are doing that, if you have notifications, if your computer buzzes, or rings, or beeps, or you get a message over all your other work saying “you have new email” you are being distracted…and distractions are the bane of executives. If you pay attention to the toast, you’re toast. (Thanks to Kate Horstman for correcting my use of your vs. you’re in that last line - H)

So stop it. You will be more effective.

Go here to see the original:
Audio Blog: Toast

Lately, we’ve gotten lots of questions from our 28,000+ members about our interviewing series. Because of the uncertainties many are facing today, we thought it might be helpful to return to our guidance on interviewing.

Horstman’s 3rd Law of Interviewing: We’ll Take 90% Less Ability for 10% More Attitude Every Day of the Week.

When the market is tighter than normal (it’s mostly supply‐driven and not demand‐ based right now), organizations are even more particular about hiring the very best they can find. Sure, hiring companies want great backgrounds, with great accomplishments. But if you’re interviewing in the next six months, what ability do you have to change your accomplishments?

What you can change is your preparation, and your attitude of energy and enthusiasm in the interview.

As we like to say, here’s how.

View post:
5 Ways to Master Horstman?s 3rd Law of Interviewing (Part 1)

Lately, we’ve gotten lots of questions from our 28,000+ members about our interviewing series. Because of the uncertainties many are facing today, we thought it might be helpful to return to our guidance on interviewing.

Horstman’s 3rd Law of Interviewing: We’ll Take 90% Less Ability for 10% More Attitude Every Day of the Week.

When the market is tighter than normal (it’s mostly supply‐driven and not demand‐ based right now), organizations are even more particular about hiring the very best they can find. Sure, hiring companies want great backgrounds, with great accomplishments. But if you’re interviewing in the next six months, what ability do you have to change your accomplishments?

What you can change is your preparation, and your attitude of energy and enthusiasm in the interview.

As we like to say, here’s how.

Original post:
5 Ways to Master Horstman?s 3rd Law of Interviewing (Part 1)

This cast includes Part 4 of our discussion on how to implement the Manager Tools’ Management Trinity (One on Ones, Feedback, Coaching).

Read more here:
Rolling Out the Manager Tools? Trinity - Part 4