Global Mindset Coaching - Hardcover

Dr. Gary Ranker; Marilyn McLeod

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1634431030 ISBN 13: 9781634431033

Publisher: Executive Excellence Publishing, 2017

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Steve Sargent Foreword: My Leadership Coach for Cultivating a Global Mindset

I first met Gary Ranker in 1993, a year after I had joined General Electric in New York City. I had a 22-year career with GE, working in leadership roles in businesses across the U.S., Europe and Asia. My career in GE culminated in serving on the Corporate Executive Committee and as an Officer in the General Electric Company.

In early 2015 I left GE with a personal goal to reduce the air travel and spend more time with my family. I am currently a non-executive di- rector on a few ASX listed company boards in Australia.

At the time I met Gary, he had been working with several senior GE executives who, to use a Jack Welch phrase, had a bit too much edge . They were terrific at driving operational performance and execution, but their people leadership and influencing skills needed improvement. These were often task-oriented operational managers who left you feeling a little bruised after every interaction with them. They were considered to be difficult to work with by their peers and subordinates.

The company valued their strengths and wanted to help these leaders improve into well-rounded leaders who collaborated well in teams and inspired their people. So GE brought in Gary to coach them.

During that time, Gary was coaching a peer of mine a really good guy, incredibly talented, but he was quite difficult to work with. I was one of his stakeholders, so I was having 360-degree conversations with Gary regularly. After three or four conversations with Gary I went to my boss and said, I don t have all the difficult issues these guys have, not that I m aware of anyway, but I really do think I could benefit from working with Gary for a little while to improve my own self-awareness and to be a better leader.

So I started working with Gary. The initial feedback I received was that I was an indefatigable optimist, always upbeat, always moving at a million miles an hour, often moving ahead without the necessary buy-in and support from the rest of the team. People liked the high energy and enthusiasm, but some people thought it was false. When I was presenting deals or presenting business results, my upbeat style was often perceived as over-selling and lacking authenticity . For some folks in our finance teams they simply didn t trust me. Gary made me aware how important it is to understand the way my audience perceives me. The reality is, in every interaction, whether it s a one-on-one interaction, a team meeting, or hundreds of people, people are developing a perception of you. Gary taught me that you might as well ensure that you develop the perception you want them to have and adjust your style accordingly.

I learned that if I was talking to an audience of highly analytical financial analysts, I should change my presentation and delivery to eliminate the adjectives and use more data. I changed my style and approach to ensure I connected and engaged in an authentic and trusted way with the people I was working with.

I vividly recall Gary telling me that I was a bulldozer and that in my desire to get things done quickly I would run over people in the way. He told me how to imagine I was in a sail boat and imagine that all the people I was working with had different objectives, agendas and goals. He told me to imagine these different goals, objectives as gusts of wind and that in my sail boat I would need to work to get their gusts of wind in my sail. In doing this I learned a great phrase to use with peers and team members ... how can I help you help me? That ensured we were aligned to a common goal and I was bringing everyone along accordingly.

Through this learning I became much more situationally aware and I learned to flex my style ...

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