Graffiti Practice!!

Ever want to be a graffiti artist, but don't have the balls to actually deface public property?

If that description fits you, today is your lucky day!

Fakeproject Corporation (what a great name...) has a free downloadable coloring book for aspiring graffiti artists.

Practice tagging without getting tagged!

*This is one of my favorite graffiti images of all time. It's a painting of Musashi Miyamoto (as portrayed by actor Mifune Toshiro). This was on the retaining wall for the train tracks at Sakuragicho Station in Yokohama, Japan - a particularly fertile location for graffiti.

The Three Best Ways to Learn Coaching

Today I attended the Coaching for Brilliance workshop conducted by my friends at Brilliance, Inc. The event was hosted at a Cisco facility (thanks Cisco, and... hey, nice lunchrooms!!).

Heather and Denise facilitate a great session that covers all the bases in one day.
It goes without saying that the best part of the class are the 'live' coaching sessions - but I'll say it anyway.

The problem is, one day of coaching isn't enough. This isn't an issue with the course or design - hell, one month of coaching wouldn't necessarily be enough.

It brought to mind a question I've had many times. If there's a ToastMasters, where people can practice giving speeches in a 'safe' environment, why isn't there a CoachMasters that does the same?

The three best ways to learn coaching are:

1. Coach... a lot - using any method of your choice (but have a method or framework) - and get informed feedback on your performance.
2. Get coached - feel what effective and ineffective coaching feels and looks like.
3. Observe coaching - watch coaches coach, and break down what worked and didn't work.

You can attend a hundred classes. You can read a thousand books. But if you don't do these three things, you won't reach coaching competence (let alone greatness).

It turns out it's easy to do these three things. Just get three coaches together and coach in triads - one coach, one coachee, one observer. Coach one round, give feedback, and rotate. You can do three twenty minute cycles in an hour.

NFL players practice game scenarios over and over, so that they're ready when it's showtime. We do the same thing for important presentations (ummm... you do practice before a presentation, right?), so you should also do it for coaching.

There's my advice... start a CoachMasters at your workplace...

How Much Strategy?

I'm working with a group of directors who are responsible for an area that is tactically focused.
We've been gathering to determine a long-term vision for the team, and they are feeling some frustration during the process.
Now, most vision exercises are frustrating - if not, then you're probably not challenging yourself enough - but this one seems more painful than usual.

Every time we start to break through to a strategic discussion, it seems we can't stay there for more than 15 minutes before one of the members is compelled to dive back into a specific tactical point.
Last week, we discussed the fact that thinking strategically is like a muscle, if you don't use it, it atrophies. One member then suggested working on this for the next 6-9 weeks and you could see rolled eyes and hear some groans.

This prompted a question from me - how many hours a week should a director spend on strategic thinking? 2 hours a week would mark less than 5% of their time (I don't know any Director level employee who puts in less than 40 hours/week - certainly not these guys).

So, is 5% too much? Not enough?

How much time should a director spend?
A manager?
A VP?
A GM?
Who owns strategic thinking? And why is it so hard for most people?

Tell me what you think...