 Visit my recent published article on strategic agility.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/05/18/strategic-agility-is-what-every-company-needs-right-now-heres-how-to-practice-it/#699e8cec28b8
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 At Desormeaux Leadership Consulting, we believe that leadership during challenging times can make a difference. Leaders are presently thinking through how to manage and how to lead with resilience and mental toughness amid a current changing world.
Desormeaux Leadership Consulting associates have created and designed 10 - 45 minutes interactive virtual zoom meetings for your senior leaders and your managers. https://www.desormeauxconsulting.com/consultants.html Here is a list of our 50 minutes interactive zoom sessions (limit 12 participants) we are offering to clients:
For More Information If you feel that these virtual sessions could be helpful during this challenging time, please reach out to us. We are ready to help and support your leaders and managers. Contact Lyne Desormeaux at lyne@desormeauxconsulting.com or call 646-634-5829. .  As every person on the planet must know now, the world is in a pandemic caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19), an infectious respiratory illness. There are shelter-in-place guidelines for people everywhere. How are you adapting to being confined to your home most, if not all, of the time? If you are like me, you’ve had to adjust every few days--or even every few hours! New information that shifts your perspective and awareness requires being able to navigate your cognitive, emotional, and physical reactions. Information can trigger fear, panic, and frustration at needing to adapt over and over again. Being grounded throughout this time, staying centered as well as being able to navigate change, becomes so important. As I’m navigating this situation, I am also trying to understand how to adapt and listen to the specific needs of each client. Personally, I’ve found that meditation, nutrition, exercise, music, and good sleep have been central to staying centered and grounded. What are the key elements of my practice?
What does a week of training look like? This week I had my first Zoom video session with my physical therapist. Then I get on my bike and cycle to music from Fit Radio https://www.fitradio.com, or while watching a rerun of a NBA or college basketball game on ESPN, or watching reruns of Surfing competition on Fox Sports. I feel amazing after these sessions. These are followed by weight training from Pauline Nordin’s challenge program https://fighterdiet.com/challenges/, which I’ve been doing for years now, and then more stretches for my knee and back. The other three days are dedicated to Yoga by Adrienne on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7xsYgTeM2Q, followed by surfing jumps and then my knee and back stretches and exercise. While I do the exercises, I watch WSL news or, to lift my spirt, past surfing competitions https://www.worldsurfleague.com, because that’s what surfing does for me. How will you build resilience to navigate these times? In virtual zoom, webex, and call conversations with my clients over the last few weeks, I’ve been listening to what each leader is having to navigate during these changing times. Many are working from home with infants or young children who need help navigating technology (and more) to learn virtually. Some in financial services have had to create new offerings for business loans to help their clients, while others have had to lay off employees until the crisis is over. Most organizations and companies are looking at the financial implications for their business. Every one of them is coping differently with the adjustments. Some are losing sight of their self-care and exercise, and find their anxiety increasing. Others are doing better at coping, having built resilience through previous challenges (including a client who grew up in a war zone). Still others are continuing to build awareness of their leadership communication and how they are being perceived under stress: strong, resilient, and grounded? anxious, harried, and unraveling? centered and present? I personally am learning to let go, be more collaborative, and leverage the talent that I have in my consulting firm. I’m also attuning to my clients and seeing how we can help. Wishing you health and resilience during this time, and let me know if I or my consultants can help. Stay safe.  At Desormeaux Leadership Consulting we believe that leadership during challenging times can really make a difference. A client of ours asked if we could create interactive sessions for her employees who were dealing with the challenges of managing stress, dealing with uncertainty, adapting to working remotely as well as building resiliency.
Desormeaux Leadership Consulting associates have created and designed 11 - 45 minutes interactive zoom meetings for your leaders and your employees during COVID-19. https://www.desormeauxconsulting.com/consultants.html Here is a list of our 45 minutes interactive zoom sessions we are offering to clients (limits of 12 participants: :
For More Information If you feel that these sessions could be helpful during this challenging time, please reach out to us. We are ready to help and support your leaders and employees. Contact Lyne Desormeaux at lyne@desormeauxconsulting.com or call 646-634-5829.  Sports training continues to teach me lesson after lesson. We all are here on the planet for who knows how long, and recently we all have been reminded of this in some dramatic ways. Last month there was the unexpected death of Amerrican professional basketball player Kobe Bryant in a fatal helicopter crash. And in a very short period of time there have been losses around the world from the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Kobe had a love for sports and for life, and he had pure talent. Everyone who has transitioned and passed also had lives that was lived with fervor, lightness or even challenges. My heart goes to all who have had losses lately and to those who may have some in the near future.
What is extraordinary about these times is that this could be you or me--anyone of us could get the virus and transition and pass. It’s a reminder to be grateful for the time we have. Recovery I had been doing physical therapy for my knees just before the coronavirus stepped into the US. My new knee doctor was able to uncover that my knees were basically fine but needed help through physical therapy. My physical therapists, SportsCare https://sportscare1.com/locations/nj/physical-therapy-hoboken/, explained that if the right muscles are not activated and working, then my knee function can be affected. I am now doing daily exercises to strengthen targeted muscles three times a week. My knees are feeling better. This situation makes me think of all of my clients who need to repair relationships, rework a project, re-assess their strategy, re-evaluate their budget, or just heal mentally, emotionally, or physically. Sometimes, as American Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chodron says in her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, confronting problems can open us so that healing or repair can happen. Now things are falling apart. We must remember her advice during this difficult time. Adaptation As circumstance change, so must we. All my in-person, coaching client meetings have been transitioned to video conferencing (https://zoom.us, https://www.webex.com) or phone calls from my apartment in Weehawken, New Jersey overlooking New York. It is an honor to support my clients as they step into their leadership in ways that they’ve never had to do before. I’m impressed by their desire to support their direct reports, support their management in transitioning part or all of their workforce to work from home, and assess daily the next decisions they have to make as well as anticipate and plan for future needs. Gratitude Swimming has always been my “go to” activity for healing and recovery, and it’s also great overall exercise. This year I was back training for the Swim Miami 5k swim in April, and I had made the lottery again for the Chesapeake 4.4 Bay Swim in June. It was exhilarating to be training again. I just plain love it. When you love something and have passion for it, focus and discipline follow easily. But the Coronavirus is here, and all of that has changed my sports training. First, I am grateful that I had been swimming and that my knees are feeling better. I was able to go for walks daily, but now that the virus is in Weehawken it looks like that I will be indoors for a while. I am lucky to have an indoor bike on a trainer. My sports coach, Rob Colburn from http://colburnbodyconcepts.com, was excited about my progress. But he is now changing not only my training program but also the online training program on Training Peaks https://www.trainingpeaks.com for himself and all of his clients. Before the novel coronavirus struck, my clients--like me--were getting energized working on projects they’ve been dreaming would come their way. Some were promoted lately and were adjusting to their new roles, while others had just held all-employee meetings discussing their strategy and goals for the year. Now they’ve all had to adjust and adapt, and their goals are focused on the challenges at hand for their business and employees. I am grateful to be alive, training and serving my clients. What are you grateful for? How have you had to adapt? How are you stepping into your leadership and adjusting to the current challenges? If you are in the process of reevaluating, readjusting, or would like to have a coach next to you to help you think through and adapt to current challenges, reach out to me lyne@desormeauxconsulting.com. I or one of my associates could help you navigate these challenging times.  None of my end-of year challenges were planned. But they all happened, and in the moment I did not quite understand what it was all about.
Disruption I intended to run the NY marathon in November and the Honolulu marathon in December last year, 2019. These were big events to mark the end of the year and the end of the decade. But I also had overbooked myself with travel, trainings, and a lot of work. My training became sporadic and less effective than in the last few years. I also had so much work in October--days, nights, and weekends, plus travel--that by the time the third week of October arrived I was exhausted, and my knees were bothering me. What a disappointment that I had to cancel my participation in the marathons! Tuning In I’ve been called “the queen of self-care,” but somehow I had bitten off more than I could handle. It was clear I had to regroup and revise my self-care and training regimens. First, I took three days off (including a spa day) so I could rebuild enough vitality to continue delivering to my clients in November with good energy. Second, I sought a sports acupuncturist for my knees, stopped running, started a short yoga routine every morning, and began swimming more often. Third, I had an upcoming trip to Honolulu and the North Shore and decided, during my holiday, to take surfing lessons, practice yoga, and do a bit of hiking and swimming. The surfing was so exciting. My preparation --the weight training, the practice of getting up as if on a surf board, and the Portugal surfing trip last June--had helped. I was standing up almost every wave and was exhilarated. This whole experience was a reminder about how important it is to be in tune with our body. Our mind can want us to take on more than we think. I believe in stretching, but I also believe in knowing your body and understanding when to stretch and when to renew and refuel. Compassion and Self-Acceptance This self-awareness we gain from our bodies also deepens our confidence, helping us to develop more compassion and self-acceptance, to set more realistic expectations, and to lead ourselves better. My last webinar on the “Body and Coaching: Power, Focus, Control, and Rehabilitation” for the Institute of Coaching https://instituteofcoaching.org/resources/webinar-body-coaching-power-focus-control-and-rehabilitation discusses how to support leaders and how to use the body to support leadership growth. The body can play a key part in coaching leaders who are working on addressing leadership challenges such as presence, empowerment, and self-management as well for clients recovering from health challenges or injuries. I’ve ran 8 marathons in total, 7 of them in the last 4 years. I’m proud of that. But I want to keep my knees working in good order as long as I can, so I’ve decided to keep running small runs for now. My new and continued focus for 2020 will be on ocean and bay swims (5K Miami, etc.), yoga, and continuing to learn surfing around the world. What will your focus be in 2020? If you would like some information about coaching, training, or facilitation services, feel free to reach out to me at lyne@desormeauxconsulting.com.  My sports training is keeping me busy and excited as well. Between work and travels, I’ve dropped triathlons this summer and focused instead on marathon training, preparing for the NY marathon for the third time and the Honolulu marathon for the fifth time. I’ve also had to streamline my marathon training: two short runs during the week and one long run on weekends.
But wait, as I was conceiving this blog--coming back from a run--I spoke to a new colleague who suggested that I add a bike session and a swim session to my training. These workouts already were in the schedule suggested by my coach, Rob Colburn from CBC Endurance Training http://colburnbodyconcepts.com/activities/training-options. Yet I had dropped them because my schedule was too full of work. My new colleague explained how the bike training would help me build more stamina and strength. I had forgotten the importance of these extra trainings and why they were included. I also thought they were recommended for when I do triathlons and ocean and bay swims rather than marathons. Then I remembered that in the last few years, when I have crossed trained, I could feel my strength and stamina build fast. People Get Smarter By Rising To a Challenge Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, says “people get smarter by being challenged” . . . and persisting in the face of those challenges. Yes, I’m busier and busier, and dropping the wrong training could cost me the extra energy and stamina I may need to finish two marathons this year. I’m now taking a second look at my training schedule and over the next few months will be re-inserting my bike rides and some swims. A lot of the clients I work with also are getting busier and busier. Quite a few right now had let go of building their networks, within their organizations as well as externally. They knew that they needed that network and yet had put it aside. The lesson of “grit” is to stick to it. As they are picking it back up, some are getting support from their supervisors, starting to connect with different parts of the organization, and using that network to leverage these relationships to move their business and career goals forward. One of these clients said, "I realize that I let myself get derailed from pursuing my own networking goals while I helped direct reports and peers with their goals. But now that I see that, I'm getting back on track and will refocus on building my network."Persistence is paying-off, she is already seeing results. Tenacity Over the Long Haul Is Everything As part of her research on qualities that lead to success, Duckworth discusses the importance of deliberate practice: “This is how experts’ practice. First, they set a stretch goal, zeroing in on just one narrow aspect of their overall performance. Rather than focus on what they already do well, experts strive to improve specific weaknesses.” This sport adventure I started back in 2013 after a disappointing personal work setback has evolved over the last 7 years. I never imagined that the short run I had been doing in Central Park or along the Hudson River on the Jersey pathway and the 1.4 mile swim I did every September on Cape Cod for the last 12 years would turn into accumulating 7 marathons, multiple bay and ocean swim (5k Miami swims, 2.4 mile Nav-E-Sink Rumson, NJ swims), and even attempting the 4.4 Chesapeake Bay Swim twice (not yet completed). The Chesapeake Bay Swim… it’s been just out of my reach. Projects I’ve taken on in the last year have felt like that as well--just a little ahead of my learning curve, so I can stretch myself. I love seeing my clients stretch themselves as well. The coaching clients and leadership program clients who are excited about learning, growing, and challenging themselves really enjoy the journey. Stretching usually brings fear and excitement all at the same time. Some of these clients are learning how to be more strategic, how to create, design, write, and present their new strategy, goals, and/or innovations. Others are pushing themselves to be better team leaders or learning to have crucial or difficult conversations. And still others are focused on building a stronger network, conducting more cross-functional collaboration, and partnering across their organization. What has kept me on my toes in the last year has been partnering with new international consulting firms and challenging myself to learn more. It’s been both exciting and a stretch. I also have been lucky enough to design and create a few leadership and career growth programs. These have challenged me as well as taught me so much more about leadership, learning, and transformational growth. If you would like some information about coaching, training, or facilitation services, feel free to reach out to me at lyne@desormeauxconsulting.com.  Keeping Up
Do you feel like the world keeps moving faster and faster? Scientists actually have confirmed Einstein’s calculations showing that time is speeding up. But here we’re not focusing on the science; rather, we’re talking about the “feeling” that the pace of life is increasing. Fast Track Change I know that feeling. Lately, things have picked up in my life professionally, educationally, and personally, and this has impacted my sports training. In the last few years I’ve been able to balance the key areas of my life to include a pretty robust training schedule, one that allowed me to complete marathons, ocean and bay swims, as well as a few triathlons. But now I’m struggling to keep everything going. How do you keep up: at work? at home? What strategies do you use to adapt to a changing environment? How do individuals who do sports training adapt? Developing Agility One competency that effective leaders develop is leadership agility. Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs in their book Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery explain that leadership agility is not a single competency but rather made of the following competencies: context-setting agility, stakeholder agility, creative agility, and self-leadership agility. They go on to state that highly agile leaders realize that we live in an era of permanent change, rapidly adjust their behaviors, and are resilient. In short, agility is the capacity to creatively navigate and adapt effortlessly to new circumstances. I am looking for an agile mindset, agile exploration, and an agile body to carry me forward this year and sustain all of the professional, educational, and physical goals I have set for myself. I will be starting this by first following one of my basic principles: “when depleted, go resource and renew yourself.” I will be doing this next month through traveling, surfing, and spending time with friends. My clients also need to master leadership agility in their professional as well as their personal life to attain the goals they set for themselves. A few have had to adjust physically their daily regimen because of sports injuries, others have had to work on their self-leadership upon receiving 360 feedback. Many are dealing with complex changes in their organizations and their companies as well as on their teams, requiring them to flex their leadership agility skills. This year I wanted to try an Olympic triathlon. I’m not sure it will be possible, but I haven’t given up yet. Still, my hour or 2-hour runs have turned into 30-minute runs, and I’ve even started moving towards doing running streaks (a series of 1-mile or more runs daily over time) instead of my long runs. Where has my time gone? A new, more demanding schedule of full-week delivery for clients, which then requires night and weekend preparation. Plus an Emotional Intelligence year-long training as well as a few other trainings—this is what has captured a lot of my life and my time. I know that exercising tends to give me more energy, so I am really looking at how can I keep training with a very demanding schedule and hope that I will find some agile ways to do so for the rest of this year. I’ve been able to complete a half marathon and a 2.5 swim but have had to skip a few runs, a 2.4 swim, and am wondering if I’ll be able to do one or two triathlon this summer as well as my two end-of-the year marathons. I have clients continually dealing with this, the juggling of their professional life, personal life, and robust self-care regimen. I like to suggest to them to read the Tony Schwartz book The Way We Are Working Is Not Working as well as to start one sport of choice to help them find strength and energy. They also explore ways they can make sure to find renewal strategies throughout the year that it is taking a weekend away from their cell phone or taking a few vacations. I am now having to do the same for myself. If you would like some information about coaching, training, or facilitation services, feel free to reach out to me at lyne@desormeauxconsulting.com.  Helping people improve. That’s my job. But how do you get better? Let’s take a look at three basic strategies that work in sports and on the job.
Assess Where You Are I’m always interested by the circumstances of my sports training. I pay attention to fluctuations of energy, conditions, and timing. Is it recuperation time after two marathons? What is my body calling for? I have to look at the whole year and know when I’m going to train and push hard and when I need to slow down and recuperate. If you have ever failed to achieve a goal, you know you may have needed to do something different but you may not know what that something is. So the first step in getting better is to stop and assess where you are. If you lead an organization, you might ask: What is the zeitgeist of the time? What is the organization facing externally and internally? What does it mean for me and for others? Where do I need to focus in the coming year? Select Meaningful Training With these new insights and understanding, you will be able to choose the right goals for yourself and how you will get there. I did not get in the lottery of the Chesapeake Bay swim this year. Instead, will I tackle an Olympic triathlon this year? How do I get ready for it? Is this a year dedicated to form? To endurance? Atheletes often drill, repeating certain movements again and again to improve. In business, too, you must train. If you want to be an effective leader, what skills must you practice again and again? In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talked about needing 10,000 hours of practice to develop mastery. Mastery isn’t only a matter of practice, but it’s an important piece. Then measure your progress. The more you practice, the better you get. Challenge Yourself By Moving the Bar Climbing higher, always climbing. If you want to maximize your potential, you must continually reset the bar. After all, once you achieve a goal, it’s done. You can plateau or set a new goal. The clients I coach usually focus on 3 goals at a time. They also revise their goals once met and look forward to seeing what might be their next level goals. Leaders help their direct reports do the same. Every year is different because every year the context changes. My clients change, their circumstances change, sometimes their supervisor or peers change, and many times the company changes. All of this affects the goals for the year. Our world is changing at such a rapid pace that we must continually cycle through this process of assessing where we are and what matters. What goal is next for you? What skills must you develop to get there? Once you’ve achieved mastery and attained the goal, how do you challenge yourself? If you are ready in 2019 to keep learning, growing, and deepening your leadership, please email me at lyne@desormeauxconsulting.comor visit my website at www.desormeauxconsulting.com.  I love ending the year with a trip to Hawaii. Nothing beats running the Honolulu marathon and taking surfing lessons on the North Shore while watching the Billabong Pipeline Competition!
Try Something New Before this trip, I ran the NY marathon for the second time and started reading the book Let My People Go Surfing. Yvon Chouinard in his introduction says, “My company, Patagonia, Inc., is an experiment.” I love this quote. I think life is an experiment —as are business and leadership--and it’s a great philosophy to live by. When we try something new, we learn what works and what doesn’t. How alive I feel when I practice a sport and make a discovery, like during my surfing lessons! The water feels great, the view is pretty amazing, and it’s an experiment to see how each takeoff goes: will I be able to stand up? will I finally get it this time? Starting a leadership program may feel the same way. Fortunately, a program that gives participants a chance to experiment can be a portal to better results. Sometimes leaders are surprised at how they finally are able to tackle a behavior they’ve been wanting to address or build a new skill. Yes, it feels awkward at the beginning. So I advise participants to be patient and practice, take a risk and try out the new behavior without judging themselves. It’s new. It might take a few tries--or maybe a lot of them!--before getting it right. Just like trying to surf. Stop and Assess “I took a dozen of my managers to Argentina, to the windswept mountains of the real Patagonia, for a walkabout. In the course of roaming around those wildlands, we asked ourselves why we were in business and what kind of business we wanted Patagonia to be . . . ” p. 61 Yvon Chouinard The beauty of changing setting to assess where you are is invaluable. New settings, meeting different people, and experiencing different cultures open us up to other ways of knowing and thinking. This is one reason I like working with leaders offsite. It gives them a chance to step away, pause, and assess with other leaders what is working with their leadership and what could be improved. Leaders all have strengths, and in group coaching they can share these strengths with their colleagues while also learning from them. This is similar to sports. In lessons with fellow surfers this past year, we developed a camaraderie that deepened our learning; we were able to share feedback, successes, and failures, learning from each other’s experiments. I also experienced this kind of camaraderie earlier this year during a Telos Institute four-day Grand Canyon hiking and camping trip. These leadership trips can really deepen bonds among participants, giving participants opportunities to challenge themselves physically as well as to reflect upon their careers, leadership, and life. Decide What’s Next The New Year 2019 is upon us, and I’m ready for more experimentation with the leaders I will be working with as well as with the sports I continue to learn (ocean swims, running, triathlons, and surfing). What about you? What will you experiment with this year? If you are ready in 2019 to keep learning, grow, and deepen your leadership, please email me at lyne@desormeauxconsulting.comor visit my website at www.desormeauxconsulting.com. |
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