Leadership involves changing and knowing how to manage change with your team in order to instate a culture of accountability and innovation. However, no one is naturally inclined to change, as change means accepting loss of control, trusting the unknown, being vulnerable, facing one's fears. Real change can hardly take place without a modicum of courage. A wise friend said to me recently, as I was expressing my anxieties over a change I was making: 

"If it didn't make you uncomfortable, then the change wouldn't be big enough.''

We often hear about "managerial courage". Researchers Mike Lombardo and Bob Eichinger have defined courage as follows: "Saying what needs to be said, at the right time, to the right person, in the right way. "[i] This may sound simplistic, but let's take a closer look. Do we always say what needs to be said, at the right time, to the right person, in the right way? I surely don’t! 

Managing change involves leading with...

To say we are living in uncertain times is a massive understatement. Every day, we feed ourselves with the news and we worry more and more and we let the fear get the best of us. We are scared of the economy, we are scared of not being in control, and now we are even scared of each other. 

Don’t get me wrong, fear is a natural human instinct. It’s our 2-million-year-old brain that is designed to protect ourselves in the moment, for the sake of survival.It’s always looking for what’s wrong, so you can fight, run away from threat, or freeze.But if you always operate from fear, you’re going to be constantly fighting, running away, or stopping and putting your life on hold. And that is no way to live. 

The word FEAR itself is a reminder that it is a perception, not the truth: 

• FALSE 
• EVIDENCE 
• APPEAR 

• REAL 

An invitation to Face Everything And Rise

I’m...

At o2 Coaching, the whole team works remotely, in normal circumstances. A situation like Covid-19 therefore has a slightly less impact on our work organisation. Then, in order to share what we have learned about how to be productive and committed in this type of environment, we decided to collect all our tips to help teams be effective while remote-working.

1- Use online tools that will make your job easier

At o2, we use the microsoft Teams tool to ensure smooth communication between all team members. This tool also allows us to avoid sending emails to our colleagues for a quick question. We therefore no longer keep e-mails for longer topics or for approvals.

For our team meetings, we use Zoom, which allows us to meet with several people, as if we were all together, thanks to videoconferencing.

For document sharing, we use SharePoint, which allows us to all work on the same document at the same time, so we don’t have to “time” ourselves as to who is in the...

When you become a manager, it is inevitable to make a change of state of mind, to go from being an expert to a manager who coaches and gives a vision to his team. This change is easier said than done. Generally speaking, all managers with whom we collaborate understand the benefits of this change. However, the application is not so simple, because it requires changing behaviors that we have had for many years! And you, as a manager, do you succeed in adopting the position of manager-coach and abandoning the position of expert?

 As a reminder, the manager-coach helps people find their own answers in order to increase autonomy, commitment and performance. They ask a lot of questions, are good listeners, have the ability to suspend judgment, explore different options and offer development opportunities to others. This is different from the expert manager who more often than not provides the answer. To better assess whether you are able to move away from the expert posture, I...

Empathy is THE skill to develop for a manager. It's not just me saying it! This is the observation of the American consulting firm Development Dimensions International (DDI), which has surveyed more than 15,000 leaders in 300 companies across 18 countries for more than a decade. A report it published in 2016 indicated that the leadership skill that stood out above the rest in determining a leader's success was empathy. That's music to my ears! According to this research, managers who listen and respond with empathy perform more than 40% higher than others in terms of overall performance, coaching, engagement rates and planning,

organization and decision-making. Is that so surprising? How does empathy translate in a management context? And how can it be developed?

How does empathy translate in a management context?

Empathy in management is not synonymous with being hypersensitive or emotional. Rather, it is the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of our employees,...

Often our focus in an organization is on results, so we are under pressure to be productive at all times. This often prevents us from taking the time to think about the added value we want to bring. In this context, as a management team, we may have the reflex to focus more on what needs to be accomplished and less on who we need to be as leaders. The danger of this pressure is that we stop noticing, listening and being at our best. Do you have the impression on your executive committee that you are more focused on “DOING”, i.e. on the tasks to be accomplished on a daily basis rather than on “BEING”, i.e. on your added value in the organization? I ask you this question because this time to stop and think is essential and definitely has an impact on the quality of our conversations, our interventions, our decisions, our relationships and our performance. This is what makes the difference between “having a full head” and “being fully...

Most of the HR professionals that I work with are very busy, they have busy days with long lists of tasks to accomplish, to which are added daily renewed emergencies. Does that sound familiar? In this context, we address the first file that lands on our desk without question and we dive into operations. But is it in this operational whirlwind that we fully bring our added value? Reflecting on our real contribution as a strategic HR professional will allow us to prioritize our activities, our files and give meaning to our actions.

What is a Unique Strategic Contribution (USC)?

USC is the contribution that only you can make and that is at your highest strategic level. It is a contribution that you make in order to stand out, thanks to your talent. It's what makes a project turn to you rather than another member of your team. 

How do you identify your USC as a strategic HR professional?

Even though we are high performers in operational files, our contribution...

What is your role in the organization as a steering committee? What is your vision? Have you taken the time to think about it? During my experiences as a coach, I realized that executive committees are often either very strategic or very operational, depending on their context. Which side are you on? Do you think you work at the right level to achieve your vision and strategic objectives? To answer these questions, it is necessary to think about the impact you want to have in the organization. What do you want your executive committee to be recognized for? All these questions will lead you to define what is your executive committee’s USC.  

What is your USC?  

The concept of Unique Strategic Contribution (USC) helps to identify where you should “play”, by first determining what is the one thing that only you, as a steering committee, should be doing in your organization. This concept can also be used to determine...

Are you currently transitioning from a professional to a management position? Or have you recently experienced this type of transition? Have you reviewed your Unique Strategic Contribution (USC)? Unsurprisingly, taking on a new management role requires several adjustments in terms of your priorities to focus your attention on and your state of mind to meet your new challenges. Once in your new position, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions: What do I need to focus my attention on as a new manager? What is really important to me and what impact do I want to have on my team? To help you determine what you should focus your attention on, I suggest you define your Unique Strategic Contribution (USC).  

What is the USC?  

The acronym USC stands for Unique Strategic Contribution. At o2, we define it as a concept that allows us to determine our highest strategic level, i.e. what only we ourselves need to accomplish...

Through my many coachings and management experiences, I have come to develop what I call the Unique Strategic Contribution to help leaders focus on the impact they want to create. In fact, through my experiences, I have come to realize that many leaders experience the same struggle, that is to say that they find it difficult to step out of their expert role to focus on their leadership role and “play at the right level”, as I like to say, and therefore focus on their Unique Strategic Contribution (USC).   

And you, do you ever focus on certain tasks and tell yourself that you probably shouldn’t be doing at your level? Generally, if you’re not doing what you should, you’ll feel it. And that’s why I’ve developed this concept, to define a term that allows us to focus our intention and attention in the right place.   

In fact, I had initially developed this concept...