01
Why Emotional Fitness brings success
The encounter
Adam rose early. He hadnât slept well and by the time the kids burst into the bedroom at just before six he was already downstairs with a cup of coffee in one hand and a copy of the sales report in the other. When Adam whispered that he was going to take a walk to clear his mind before taking the train, Pauline had sleepily said she would handle the two boisterous beings this morning. In the past couple of weeks they had talked at length about this very day. He still didnât feel ready. No matter what he read about management and leadership, no matter the number of times he attended courses, he still had a sense of doom. Only Pauline knew about this. The smiling ebullience he portrayed at work had effectively, far too effectively it now seemed, brought him to the next stepping stone to the success he desired.
A cool early spring morning greeted him as he left the house and, turning left at the corner, made his way to the park. This route added another 15 minutes to his walk, but was one that he enjoyed and tried to take once in a while. It gave him some thinking time. He could even take in some of the sights, sounds and scents that the park offered up. This morning he had given himself sufficient time to absorb something of nature. His train didnât leave for nearly an hour.
He entered the park by the south gate and instead of taking the path leading diagonally across towards the east gate, which was his shortest route to the High Street and thence to the station, he followed the path northwards to the middle of the park. Here stood the centrepiece, the pride and joy of the town: a fountain and statue reminiscent of those to be found all over Italy but so rare in this, or indeed any, part of England. Benches circled the fountain. Adam headed for one of them, when he noticed a figure approaching the same bench from the west side. It was a tall man, with a slight stoop and an unmistakable gait. Adamâs first instinct was to leave the path, walk across the grass and head to the other side of the fountain. Too late. The man had seen him. The man waved at him. âThis,â Adam thought, âcannot be happening today.â
Adam knew that his old boss, Keith Parkinson, lived somewhere in the vicinity, but he had never seen him in the park until now.
Forty minutes later, Adam hurried out of the park to catch his train. His head was spinning and his spirit soared. This day, this new job, was something he now looked forward to. He opened his laptop on the train and wrote down everything that he had just learned. He wished heâd had an audio recorder to capture the conversation. How had it started?
âIâm well, thank you, Adam,â was Keithâs rejoinder to the only question Adam could think of asking to start a conversation. And then Keith said, âTell me how you are doing.â
That was the first thing Adam noted down. Keith had begun with a request for information that was not a question. It was more than a question; it was an invitation. Before he knew it, Adam was spilling out the news of his promotion, his new boss, the challenges he faced and, to his own surprise, the trepidation he felt at taking on a management role. The irony was palpable. Here he was, sitting on a park bench talking to the man who had been his boss in that very role two years ago and whom Adam had despised for his inability to lead effectively. Even more ironically, he was talking to a man who had never listened to him before and was now apparently able to take in every word Adam was saying.
Anxious that he might forget some of the gems from their conversation, Adam resorted to making a list, adding brief notes and questions. He planned to see Keith again and wanted to be prepared this time. He reviewed what he had written.
1 Employee well-being and organizational performance are inextricably linked. (How?)
2 Emotional health is the core of well-being. (What does that mean?)
3 Leadership skills in the 21st century must focus on the emotional health of employees.
4 The ability to listen proactively is the most valuable of those skills. (How did Keith learn that? Why didnât he know it when he was my boss?)
5 There is more real and perceived value when providing opportunities to learn from what goes on in the organization than from training. (How do we do that?)
6 Meetings can be transformational, both for the team members and the company. (Canât wait to see that.)
7 When individuals and organizations have a good energy balance, they function well. When they are not balanced, they are dysfunctional. (?)
8 Storytelling can inspire employees to bring out their best. (In our company?)
9 Good managers use coaching with their employees. Great managers use Emotional Fitness coaching. (What happened to Keith? Where was he when I needed him?)
Adam snapped shut the laptop just as the train arrived at its destination. Now he would see if anything stuck to him today.
The entry
âGood morning, Adam. Or should I call you Sir now? Howâs our new regional sales manager?â
Adam smiled wanly at the receptionist. âThanks, Claudia, Adam it still is. And Iâm doing great. Is Evelyn in?â
Evelyn greeted him warmly as he stepped into her office, closing the door behind him. She had been in the new position of sales director for six months, since when things had changed quite a bit. Adam was part of the change. As he sat across the desk from his new boss, Adam was conscious of the dampness in his hands and under his armpits. His toes curled in his shoes. Evelyn was speaking. Suddenly he remembered Keith. Something switched in his brain. He leaned forward slightly, paying her full attention.
The meeting lasted no more than 15 minutes, after which he walked down the corridor to his new office only two doors from Evelynâs, which he would be sharing with two other regional sales managers. The difference was that, since the companyâs HQ was also in his region, Adam would have the space to himself much of the time. Matthew, the maintenance man, arrived just as Adam did, holding in his hand the nameplate, which he proceeded to screw onto the door over the blank space that had previously held the name of his predecessor, Patrick Strong. Adam had felt the discomfort of being promoted to replace a man who effectively had been fired for, he mused, not being strong enough.
It was still early; not time enough for the calls to come in and the expected demands of his new job to begin kicking in. No doubt there was a backlog, but another hour wouldnât make much of a difference. Adam reflected on his morning so far.
He had listened to Evelyn; and he realized he had listened to himself as well; at least paid enough attention to what was going on for him to relax and concentrate on Evelyn instead of his own fears. The result was that he had seen Evelyn not just as the director brought in to shake up the sales force; not just the MBA with a highly successful sales and marketing career behind her; not only the niece of the companyâs boss and co-founder Marcus Baines; and not simply as an ambitious, hard-nosed executive. He had seen her as human. Underneath the clipped, concise tone and the businesslike way in which she outlined the major points within the overall sales targets and what she expected from his region, he detected the human face that he had missed before. He had observed concern in her eyes and in the way she hesitated and dropped her voice, only for a brief moment, before she wished him good luck. He didnât know what to make of the concern. Was it concern for him, for the sales targets, for her choice in picking him for this job? He couldnât know, nor was he going to ask. All that had happened was that he felt a little different. The pressure was still there, but he no longer felt that it was only his. In a strange way, he believed he had discovered a partner. Rather than Evelyn being the one who put the pressure on him, it now seemed that they shared that same sense of pressure. He had no idea what to do with this.
The phone started to ring.
First things first
The Corner Café was the ideal place for this. Adam settled himself and his cup of coffee behind the small circular table, close to the window. He was five minutes early. Few people were around at this time of the morning. He had hardly brought the cup to his lips when he saw the unmistakable loping stride of Keith crossing the road towards the café. Adam had his questions, and more that had emerged over the past week, but he really wanted to know what he and Keith would be doing. After their chance conversation in t...