Self-Awareness | Outsmart Your Brain

4 Ways to Find More Time

May 5, 2012 By marcia 1 Comment

There is never enough time. However, it is possible to find extra time if you are conscious about your judgment of time.

The following four thoughts about time may steal your time. A change in perception can give you a better sense of time.

1. Time is money. According to researchers Sanford Devoe and Julian House, thinking of time in terms of money shapes how we view time well spent . Devoe and House asked participants to take a period of time to enjoy music or putter around the Internet for pleasure.

Before one group started, they were asked to share their hourly wage at work. Devoe and House did not ask this question of the second group. Those that were asked to think about their paycheck first grew impatient with “doing nothing.” Based on their post-test comments, those who were asked about money had thoughts about the time not spent earning cash.

Those who didn’t think about money enjoyed their time. They found value in the exercise.

Do you need to account for every minute of you time or are there “non-productive” moments that are priceless?

Creativity demands we have periods of time where we don’t think about work or problems. The more complex a situation, the more there is a chance to overload your cognitive resources. When you instead sleep on it or distract yourself with something mindless or a physical activity, you give your unconscious a chance to sort through possible solutions which is more effective than consciously trying to sift through pros and cons. This is called the “deliberation-without-attention effect.”

There is a reason why you come up with great ideas in your sleep. Creativity peaks at times of mental fuzziness, when you are sleepy and non-focused. On the other hand, the need to work more, work harder and work faster doesn’t lead to more productivity and actually kills creativity.

2. There is not enough time. If you are conscious about how you are spending your time, you might be able to speed up time. How much evidence do you need before you make a decision? How deeply do you need to analyze each step in your plan? According to researcher Roger Ratcliff, decisions and tasks often take a long time because of a conscious choice to emphasize accuracy over speed.Trusting yourself to work faster can give you the gift of time.

Additionally, making a plan and sticking to it can narrow your focus so you can’t see alternatives and time-savers right in front of you.

Psychologist E.J Masicampo gave subjects a task of finding Bill Murray’s birthdate after completing another task. They were told they could find it on a particular movie site. About two-thirds of the participants overlooked the Wikipedia website on their screen, thinking they had to go to the movie site as planned. Finding the date on Wikipedia would have been easier than trying to discover it on the movie site.

Blindly adhering to a premeditated path can lead to expending more time, energy and resources on a problem than is necessary. How can you remind yourself to sit back, take a breath, and look around you for other possibilities even when you have many things to finish in a day? The Jesuits have a nearly 500-year old spiritual tradition that emphasizes a twice-daily practice of conscience. Do you have time for this?

3. I don’t have time now but I will later. Psychologically healthy adults tend to be optimistic about the future. This isn’t bad, but it could paint the present as worse than it is. When you are having a good time, you don’t worry about time. When you are not, time is either a drudge or stress producer.

Try to see what makes the present moment the best of times. Positive emotions improve the brain’s executive function and encourage creative, quick and strategic thinking. Gain time by actively thinking about things that make you happy, and then look for good reasons for completing the task in front of you. There may never be a better time than now.

4. Time is fleeting. All the “productivity tools” we have actually make us less productive. Constantly checking for emails, texts, the latest news, social media streams, relevant blog posts, and irrelevant but interesting articles keep our brains scattered and overworked.

When you are working to complete a task, ban the distractions. Be aware of what steals your attention. If you get interrupted or need a break, make a conscious choice to return to the task at hand with your full attention. Letting yourself wander for too long may lead you to having to repeat some of your work just to remember where you left off.

Also, when you leave one task to go to another, be sure you leave the last task behind. Before starting something new, go for a walk, climb stairs, or do some deep breathing to clear your head. Even if you think you are a good multi-tasker, the brain has only 100% of attention to dole out. Giving a task even 80% of your attention can lead to mistakes you will have to fix later, taking up precious time.

Now, I go make up the time that you have taken to read this article.

Filed Under: Brain Tips, Self-Awareness, Time Management Tagged With: creativity tips, mindfulness, productivity, Self-awareness, Time management

What Leadership Story Do You Want To Live?

March 19, 2012 By marcia 4 Comments

If I asked you to tell me about the story you are living right now, what would you tell me? Would your story engage me like five-star movie or lose me to a lackluster plot?

Even if the story you tell is leading to a better future, are you conscious of the characters and scenes that you are creating every day?

When I teach leadership classes, I ask participants to consider the Leadership Story they want to live. I tell them the class will be a journey where they will overcome obstacles, take on new challenges and begin to see their role as leader in a new way. By the end of class, they all have a new Leadership Story they wanted to live.

I got this idea after reading Donald Miller’s book,A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Miller wrote a memoir but it wasn’t until he was asked to turn his memoir into a movie that he was forced to focus in on what was most meaningful and memorable about his life. This realization launched him to take his current life, which had become stale, and write risk, uncertainty, loss, meaning, connection and love into the pages he was living.

What is the Leadership Story you want to live? How does it play out this year? This decade?

Take a moment to ask yourself about the story you are living right now. Is this the best story for you? For your work team? For your family?

Next, start your new story by asking yourself, “What am I longing to experience? What doesn’t want to play by the rules? What would I do “if only…?”

When choosing your plot line, consider these questions. In the story you want to live, are you…

Creating something that would affect many people’s lives or are you doing something that makes you feel the incredible depth of your knowledge, skill or art?
Able to glimpse and share something important about the future giving people hope or direction or are you fixing something or improving something that wasn’t working before?
Getting your sense of joy from helping other people or are you achieving great things that make you and your family feel proud?
Giving people hope or laughter or are you working to create a life that has more time to let nature nourish your soul?

You might find your plot line by answering one of the questions or you might find your story in a hybrid of answers to two or three questions. There are no correct answers. It is your story.

The easy story is boring. Consider the ending, the plot that leads to the ending, the chapters you want to include, and the characters you want to be most active with including their motivations for being in your story. Consider the surprises you might have to deal with or you would embrace if they showed up. Twists and turns will happen in your story. The unexpected situations keep your story moving.

This means you will be changing your story on a regular basis if you want to keep it interesting. Tension helps you discover what you stand for. Conflict, if you take it on, moves your life forward. “You can either get bitter or better,” says Miller.

Remember, like most memorable movies, it’s not how you end your stories that counts, but what you become on the way to the end.

Write your story and then muster the courage to share it with others. Miller says, “A good storyteller doesn’t just tell a better story, though. He invites other people into the story with him, giving them a better story too.” How about trying this out at work?

If you consciously choose your leadership story and invite others to help the story unfold, you will all enjoy telling your stories over and over. One good story leads to another.

Filed Under: Happiness and Wellness, Leadership, Self-Awareness

How to Make a Decision

March 3, 2012 By marcia

Your brain is a control freak!

In its effort to protect you, to keep you alive and safe, your brain can keep you from getting what you want if you don’t take the steps to stop it.

I am not just talking about big goals. Generally, people are more deliberate when making major life and business decisions unless they are running from a terrible situation and think there is only one choice to make. Yet it is easier to identify the anger and fear that are driving these decisions. The questions below will help you with these choices as well.

The greater dilemma surrounds your everyday decisions—whether to make the phone call, confront someone you THOUGHT was a friend, or join, maybe speak to a group of people—when it comes to these decisions, your brain often steers you wrong subversively.

Because your brain’s primary job is to protect you, when you face an uncomfortable decision, it will in a flash give you a fabulously credible rationalization for avoiding embarrassment, humiliation, or just plain nervousness. As humans, we are master rationalizers.

Most of my clients come to me with decisions that presume only two possibilities exist. Either they opt for one way or the other. They rarely see the middle ground or the out of the box solution. The greatest danger in seeing only two options is to choose the one you think will be most comfortable in the end without really knowing what will happen in the future.

Giving yourself the benefit of choices means you first lay out all the options you have, including hybrids where you do one thing while trying out the other. Your decision-making becomes a creative process. You should feel more hope as possibilities unfold. Instead of saying, “Should I or shouldn’t I?” you say, “What else is possible for me in this situation?”

Whether you are deciding on a career move, the next step in a project or a relationship issue, or what clothing to pack for your conference, ask yourself these questions:

Am I making a black and white decision or have I explored all of my options around this choice I have to make?
Which option will I regret more if I don’t decide on it?
What is the worst that can happen if the option I take doesn’t work out, really? How likely is the worst to happen? How painful will a failure be? Will I be able to pick myself up and move on, rich from the experience?
What sacrifices must I make or discomfort will I endure to realize my goal? Is it worth it? Is the possible gain greater than the expected pain?
Why am I making this decision now?

The moment your brain says yes or no to something, even with good reason why, you should ask yourself, is my reason really a convenient rationalization? Is this my fear or my logic speaking? Then explore the impact of each option and discover other solutions before you make your choice.

Your gut feeling can be based on fear, not good sense.

Most people can’t predict the future. It is hard to know, really, if the action you take is going to have a horrific outcome or if something great could come out of an awkward situation.

Remember, there will be less to regret if YOU make the decision instead of letting your protective, control freak brain do it for you.

You can outsmart your brain. The possibilities you create will make achieving success much easier.

Filed Under: Brain Tips, Emotional Intelligence, Problem-solving, Self-Awareness Tagged With: creating options, decision-making, emotional awareness

Make Life Easier by Knowing Your Brand

October 1, 2011 By marcia

You should never be told to quiet your voice, limit your creativity or suppress your spirit because, “The Company says you have to do it this way.” The company or corporation does not have a mouth. Yet the company was built on values and a brand. To be successful, there has to be a match between your personal brand and the one that represents the team, alliance or organization you work with.

First, let me clear up what a company or corporation is. Underneath this explanation are clues to why you will either flourish or fade under your frustration at work. This definition can be applied to how you work with any group of people, including teams, communities and families.

In spite of what some politicians would like you to believe, a corporation is not a person. It is a piece of paper. It’s a series of agreements made by people. It does not have a thinking brain and beating heart. Although we can use metaphors to make the corporation appear to be a living being, a corporation survives on money, not food and affection. And when a corporation dies, there is nothing to bury or burn but the original paper that created it.

However, any work you do with someone else, whether it’s a partnership, alliance, small business or multi-national corporation, is regulated by specific beliefs that the partners or founders—the people—infused into the agreement when it was conceived. This gives the company the sense that it is alive in the form of its values, culture and living brand.

In other words, the team, company or corporation does not have a face but it has a soul, mirroring what is important to the people who came together to create something they couldn’t do alone.

To succeed and even to stand out at work, what you stand for has to align with what the company stands for in the form of the values and the brand that it lives every day. In Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras explains that these values guide behavior in daily life across all levels of the organization. Whereas a person’s work values may shift based on their position of leadership, company values and what the organization stands for—the brand—are stable over time.

The core values stay stable even if someone changes the posters and business cards. The values and brand are present in how meetings are run, how people feel when they are at work and what someone tells you when you ask them how they like their job.

Therefore, no matter how good your work is, your success depends on how well you align with the values and brand—the soul—of the company.

I have left companies where it was clear my brand did not align with theirs. If I would have known this before I started the work, I would have moved on in spite of the money offered. Now that I work for myself, I have to be conscious of this alignment when I chose to work with partners and clients. If there is no match, I can’t do my best work.

However, when I was a company employee, my greatest success came when I realized how my best contribution—creating a workplace that is both fun and inspiring for all—aligned with the company’s core values of innovation, experimentation and team spirit. There were other values that didn’t match up to mine very well such as the value for crushing the competition, but when I focused on the match, I was a star.

This process of discovering how you can align what you stand for to what the organization stands for at its core is defined in Suzanne Bates’ new book, Discover Your CEO Brand: Secrets to Embracing and Maximizing Your Unique Value as a Leader (McGraw Hill).

The book is not just for CEOs. It’s for anyone who wants to institute change in a company that benefits both the bottom line and the people who achieve this. It’s about discovering your own values, brand and leadership style, and then determining how this will align with what your organization stands for so you can harness the two to work in concert. Or you can discover when your path needs to start somewhere else where the alignment is clear.

Suzanne says, “The brand begins with the story of you—the experiences that defined you, the lessons you learned, and the ways those lessons shaped your values and beliefs. Once you understand the essence of your brand, you will be able to communicate it to the world. It will become a powerful force, creating positive results. You will be able to leverage that brand of yours to drive tremendous value into your company.”

Personal branding isn’t just about marketing. It’s about your happiness. Know your values and brand and then have the courage to only align with people where you can stand by your brand. If you do this, you will flourish. Otherwise, you will flounder under the conflict with your partners, leaders and your own heart.

Filed Under: Brain Tips, Happiness and Wellness, Leadership, Professional Development, Self-Awareness Tagged With: branding skills, corporate identity, happiness at work, Personal branding, professional development, Suzanne Bates, value alignment

Quit Looking for Your Authentic Self

April 23, 2011 By marcia

I do not believe in the concept of having one authentic self. I believe you are made up of many selves that you draw on in various situations. The more successful you are, the better you are at drawing out the parts of yourself that will help you achieve your goals. Instead, if you only define yourself as “a fighter” or “a leader” in every situation, you win some and you lose some.

If instead, you cultivate your “selves concept,” you accept a bigger reality of yourself. You may have a core seed of self that doesn’t change, but then you modify aspects of who you are in order to handle the situation you are facing. Through dialogue, reflection and persistence you can increase your ability to adapt to circumstances by intentionally bringing forth different aspects of yourself for better results.

The process of expanding your sense of self — which includes the many selves you call forth — requires you to let go of who you think you are to allow the many faces of you to emerge. This can be scary. You rely on a strong sense of self to succeed. Yet that strength can hold you back. The more open you are to considering new ways of thinking and acting, the faster you will succeed. You will also be happier and healthier.

Look at who you are being today and then you imagine a broader sense of self that will better serve your aspirations. You mentally see who you want to be first. Then you create a plan for making this new expanded version of you a reality.

One way of making this process more tangible is to work with archetypes. According to the work of Caroline Myss, archetypes are patterns of energy that you carry as you go about your life. Some patterns are innate, wired into your brain when you are born. Other patterns take shape as you learn how to deal with difficulties and you are rewarded for specific behaviors. You develop these patterns throughout your life. Therefore, you can consciously call on specific aspects of yourself when you need them if you are aware of the various archetypes naturally available to you.

The names given to the archetypes, such as Queen, Martyr, and Inspirer, are designed to help you identify a set of behaviors that might serve you or hurt you in a situation. For example, calling on your Queen archetype can be useful to you if you need to stand your ground when you are negotiating for resources for your team. These same behaviors can be harmful if you play your Queen card when arguing with your spouse.

Sometimes we naturally shift our patterns with maturity. For example, I called on Warrior energy early in my career to help me fight my way up the ladder in two male-dominated corporations. Now I gain better results when I call on Connector and Inspirer energies. All three are still aspects of who I am but the balance has changed.

If you can identify the dominant and secondary archetypes present in your life right now, you will better understand the motivations for your actions and then choose new responses instead of acting habitually in various contexts. When you are running a meeting and it is not going well, you can call forth another archetype that might be more useful to you than the one that usually dominates.

This process of identifying, focusing on some, and decreasing other behavioral patterns is how you expand who you think you are. The speed of personal growth depends on you living in a state of curiosity instead of certainty. Open your mind to possibilities and you will find you will fight less with other people without having to surrender what is most important to you.

The following archetypes are the most common in the high-achieving women I have coached, but represent only some of the patterns you may express. If you are interested in a more comprehensive list with descriptions, I recommend Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss or my book, Wander Woman.

Exercise: When you look at the narrative of your life, what characters do you see yourself playing?

Step 1. Circle your six dominant selves. If you struggle choosing, ask someone who knows you well to help you limit your list to six.

Driver; Pioneer; Queen; Warrior; Revolutionary; Rebel; Thinker; Adventurer; Storyteller; Commander; Collaborator ; Visionary; Inspirer; Heroine; Wanderer; Martyr; Advocate; Superstar; Taskmaster; Coach; Healer; Entertainer; Mentor; Mother; Comedian; Magician; Teacher; Detective; Connector; Gambler; Scholar; Companion; Fixer; Idealist; Artist; Femme Fatale

Step 2. Add two or three archetypes that you feel you own but haven’t yet developed (come up with your own names too). Add these to your dominant six and you have the board of directors making your life decisions. When you are struggling with a relationship or life decision, ask your board, one by one, what to do.

Use your “selves” to find new more successful ways to be with others.

Adapted from Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction by Marcia Reynolds, PsyD, leadership coach.

Filed Under: Effective Communication Skills, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Self-Awareness, Women in Leadership

Fear Regret More Than Failure

April 16, 2011 By marcia

Your ability to do things well could keep you from taking risks.

High-achievers may appear bold but they are not necessarily courageous. While they love success and recognition, they have little experience with failure. What looks like bold moves to others are in truth, calculated steps to avoid making mistakes to achievers. This fear of falling off the ladder creates a psychological barrier where they may talk themselves out of taking risks and use their intelligence to rationalize their limiting choices.

The truth is that the barriers you create for yourself are the obstacles you have the most control over. Rarely is a decision or risk an “all or nothing” venture. More likely, the move you are contemplating is just a step that can be adjusted or fixed. Or it is the step that leads to the next, probably better step in your career or project.

Risk-avoidance behavior affects more than career choices. If you are a leader, you are promoting mediocrity when you don’t support making mistakes in the pursuit of innovation and improvement. You silence ideas. You kill imagination. You restrain passion as you force people into a narrow band of behavior.

Selena Rezvani, author of The Next Generation of Women Leaders, suggests we “Fear regret more than failure.” She interviewed 30 female executives across industries to discover what habits and behaviors took them to the top. A consistent message she heard was, “I regret the things I did not do more than the things I did.”

Fear that you will be sorry for not making the choice your gut said was the right thing to do, for not jumping on the opportunity, or for letting someone else take the position that should have been yours. Fear these regrets before you make them real.

To increase your courage and comfort with risk:

Trust yourself more. Identify your talents and recount your lists of achievements to date. Then when faced with an opportunity that could be risky, review your list. Give yourself the evidence you need to prove to yourself you will succeed even if mistakes are made.

Identify your resources. Determine how you can access the resources you will need to facilitate your success. Can you find a coach or mentor to help you work through new problems and decisions you might face? Can you research best practices or case studies that will provide you with fresh ideas? With the Internet, real time learning is eminently accessible.

Choose to misbehave. Most thought leaders are not well-behaved men and women. If you are courageous enough to speak up and move forward without knowing if you will succeed, you have the chance to experience the extreme joy of success. And yes, you might experience disappointment, embarrassment and frustration if you stumble, but you can bounce back with the wisdom and perspective that will take you further in your career. Commit to bringing your whole self to work which includes experiencing all your emotions in pursuit of ultimate success.

Develop an optimistic viewpoint. Don’t focus on the worst that can happen. Stay focused on what is possible. Rezvani quotes Mei Xu, CEO of Chesapeake Bay Candle, “Optimism isn’t about blind faith. It’s about overcoming obstacles.” Instead of asking, “How can I be successful?” ask, “How can I move mountains so I can see beyond what is known now?” This is how you both increase your tolerance for risk and cultivate a competitive advantage.

The world is changing anyway, why not step out and take risks? Why not encourage, even celebrate, when the people who work for you excitedly share new ideas? Go beyond bold to being courageous. Even if you lose this round, you win in the long run.

Filed Under: Brain Tips, Leadership, Problem-solving, Self-Awareness

How to Make Your Life Story a Blockbuster

May 8, 2010 By marcia

Stories have been a part of our lives since humans drew pictures on cave walls. We use stories to teach, to enlighten, to pass on culture, and to lull our children to sleep. At work, telling stories of what went well in the past to help us determine what we should do with the problems we are facing today is an organizational development tool called Appreciative Inquiry.

What about the story you are living right now? Even if you a planning a story you want to live in the future, are you conscious of the character and scenes that you are creating every day?

I was thinking about my own story as I read Donald Miller’s book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.His writing is not only funny and powerful, but, page by page, the book takes you deeper into the examination of what is motivating your own choices each day of your life. When Miller was asked to help turn his memoir into a movie, he learned what makes a movie meaningful and memorable. This realization launched him to take his current life, which had become stale, and write risk, uncertainty, loss, meaning, connection and love into his real-life pages.

The book left me eager to create new stories of my own. The day after I read most of the book, I began teaching a week-long leadership class. That morning, I asked myself what story I wanted to create that week. Then when I began the class, I asked the participants the same question. I told them the week was going to be a journey where they would overcome obstacles, take on new challenges and begin to see their role as leader in a new way. Throughout the week I took pictures of them as they completed their exercises. I created a short video program of the pictures with music using Animoto.com. We enjoyed the story at the end of the week together, and they have it to remind them of their experience forever. Truly, it was one of the most amazing classes I have led in my nearly thirty years of training. I have a fabulous story to tell.

Noah Blumenthal in his book, Be the Hero, asks this question of all leaders. He believes that everyone, even in the most difficult times, can change their stories to act with a hero’s resolve. He shares how to do this first with a wonderful parable anyone can relate to. Then, although the lessons of the parable are evident, he helps the reader translate the lessons to their own lives with specific tools and exercises. Be the Hero asks you to define your story by living up to the hero in you. The book is also a great gift you can give to your work team and friends.

Take a moment to ask yourself about the story you are living right now. Is this the best story for you? For your work team? For your family? Here are some tips I gleaned from both Miller and Blumenthal’s books:

Brain Tip #1. The point of the story you are living now is what you are experiencing, realizing and learning, not what things you are accumulating or working for to create a better future.

Brain Tip #2. Create a new story by asking yourself, “What is in me that wants to be free? What am I longing to experience? What doesn’t want to play by the rules? What would I do “if only…?” Can you share your life with the voice that is answering these questions? Don’t just choose a story that is comfortable or familiar if you aren’t passionately happy about telling this story to others.

Brain Tip #3. Twists and turns will happen in your story. The unexpected situations make your story interesting. Can you choose to see these occurrences as possibilities of creating a good story instead of as problems to avoid or quickly fix? Remember, it’s not how you end your stories that counts, but what you become on the way to the end. The good news is that one good story leads to another.

Brain Tip #4. The easy story is boring. Tension helps you discover what you stand for. Conflict, if you take it on, moves your life forward. “You can either get bitter or better,” says Miller. If you take ownership of the story you are living, you choose to lose or learn from all of your experiences.

Brain Tip #5. You aren’t living your story in isolation. What part of the grander story both at work and in your life do you want to play?

Brain Tip #6. Miller says, “A good storyteller doesn’t just tell a better story, though. He invites other people into the story with him, giving them a better story too.” How about trying this out at work?

If you consciously choose the story you are living today, you will enjoy repeating your stories over and over. One good story leads to another.

Filed Under: Brain Tips, Leadership, Organizational Culture, Self-Awareness

Faceless Civility: How to Get Along Online

April 4, 2010 By marcia

I read a blog post this week where the writer, an internationally known expert and best-selling author, criticized some followers for disagreeing with what he had to say.

First, I felt his attitude was so arrogant that I unsubscribed from his blog. Second, I’m still surprised when I see people emotionally reacting and saying things online that they would not say face-to-face.

You would think we would have learned to be more civil online by now. I remember in 1993 talking to my boss about creating a class on email etiquette. Five years later after starting my own business, I was hired to teach a class on emotional intelligence for email writers. Yet I’m still hearing horror stories of people being fired by email, ideological wars taking place on company Intranets, and blog comments serving more to vent emotions than share points of view.

With many companies decreasing travel, technology-facilitated communication is on the rise. Social media isn’t just for sharing family pictures. Products are being developed, sales are opened and closed, and crucial problems resolved online using Facebook-type platforms, Wikis and Ning-based communities and internal Twitter-like programs.

Yet virtual teams still consist of people talking to each other. There has to be rules and agreements to get the best results. If not, conflicts often deteriorate into counter attacks. Even non-emotional statements are interpreted poorly, triggering our fingers to blast out defensive tirades and pushing send before cooling down.

Some of the best resources I’ve seen for creating agreements and handling conflicts online come from Stewart Levine. I’ve read two of his books, Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for Successful Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World (Happy About, 2008) and Getting to Resolution: Turning Conflict Into Collaboration(Berrett-Koehler, 2009).

Getting to Resolution outlines the ten principles underlying the approach Stewart calls “resolutionary thinking.” Stewart then provides a detailed seven-step process for using this new mindset to resolve conflicts in a way that fosters dignity and integrity, optimizes resources, and allows all concerns to be voiced, honored, and woven into the resolution. He shows how these steps work online in Collaboration 2.0.

Here are some tips from Stewart’s work.

Brain Tip #1: Start with “an attitude of resolution.” For what purpose are you speaking? Before you type out your ideas or formulate a response, consider what everyone wants to happen—the shared vision—and what everyone wants in their hearts to create. When you only speak from your mind, you tend to focus on excuses, personal reasoning and finding fault with other people’s ideas and actions.

When instead, you speak with your heart and mind—and seek to meet others with both heart and mind—you are more likely to remember you are dealing with humans who are also emotionally tied to the end results and to being heard and respected. If you focus on resolution and long-term relationships instead of short-term wins, you are more likely to create and sustain collaborative relationships.

Brain Tip #2: Recognize and describe what you are feeling and why. Although people feel strong emotions, they rarely articulate what they are feeling and why in their responses. If you put this reality on the table, your emotions and the sources become factors that can be used toward finding a resolution. There was a great bit of advice one doctor gave to another in a recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy, “Don’t try to fix him. Just tell him how you feel.” Although you might feel vulnerable sharing at this level, the act actually eases defensiveness in others.

Also, when you articulate what you are feeling, you can move toward releasing the hold emotions have over your thoughts. You can finally feel some completion with the issue. From here, you can hear other people’s stories and perspectives, honoring the diversity they bring to the table. This takes courage, but the results are definitely worth the discomfort you feel with the process.

Brain Tip #3: Create a “third body.” Once you tell your story, share the source of your reactions, and listen to what others need to share, you can begin to work toward a vision of what will work instead of trying to resolve what isn’t working. When you move into this space of creativity, people come together with a true sense of collaboration. The energy is invigorating and productive. The sum is greater than the parts, as if something is happened that is bigger than any of one person. What’s interesting is that few groups can reach this state until they have moved through the fire of conflict into a new state of relationship. This is the prize. It’s worth working for. I recommend Stewart’s books to help you experience this magical state for yourself and with your teams.

Filed Under: Brain Tips, Effective Communication Skills, Emotional Intelligence, Self-Awareness

The Business of Betrayal

February 4, 2010 By marcia

I watched the movie Where the Wild Things Are on my flight home from Holland. The little boy who ran away to his fantasy world touched something primal in me…the need to belong, to have people care about me, and to trust that those in charge won’t let bad things happen.

There is sense of betrayal in the leadership classes I teach, in the blog comments I read and in the conversations with my friends who are struggling to survive. This feeling is not the same as disappointment. It is a deeper sense that we are vulnerable in a world that doesn’t care.

You can blame our politicians or the terrorists. Their actions have generated fear and doubt. But when it comes to betrayal, I think the real source stems from the business leaders who have broken the bonds of trust.

The effect of the economic crisis damaged the already waning trust we had in authority. The knee-jerk reactions of our leaders have brought out the worst in their behavior. They manage by demanding and make decisions based on history. Then they try to justify their behavior using logic and reason which may make sense on paper but not in reality.

There is a myth that claims the best way to run a business is like warfare: you have to gain a tactical and strategic superiority over your enemies. I’d like to propose a new belief: Inspiring people to help each other create success is a more powerful strategy than driving them by fear.

In his book, Born to Be Good, Dachel Keltner, director of Social Interaction Laboratories at UC Berkeley, claims that true survival of humanity is due to our remarkable tendencies toward playfulness, cooperation, generosity, respect and a deep moral sense. It is our need for belonging, our need to have people care about us and our need to build communities for safety and connection that sustains our existence.

Taking this one step further, when you bring out the good in others and in yourself, you activate the brain regions that improve health and increase creativity and productivity. If executives would focus on building communities (not teams) based on trust and acknowledgment instead of wiping out deficiencies, they would be able to innovate faster and step into the future profitably much sooner than at the pace we are surviving at now.

In the book, Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace, Drs. Dennis and Michelle Reina identify specific behaviors that build and break trust, and then describe steps for rebuilding trust and sustaining it over time, even during periods of change. One of their methods includes The Four Core Characteristics of Transformative Trust: 1) Conviction—declaring our personal truths, 2) Courage—identifying betrayal and mending relationships, 3) Compassion—understanding and forgiving, and 4) Community—building on cooperation, agreements and contribution. I recommend reading the explanations of the Four Characteristics plus all the other engaging stories, best practice examples, and useful tips and exercises. If you want to create work environments where trust grows, where people feel good about what they do, where relationships are energized, and most importantly, where productivity and profits accelerate, read Trust and Betrayal.

What business are you in? Make sure your business is not about suffering or survival. It’s time to shift to hope, collaboration, fun and most importantly, trust.

Filed Under: Brain Tips, Happiness and Wellness, Leadership, Problem-solving, Professional Development, Self-Awareness

What Are You Committed To?

November 28, 2009 By marcia

I was asked to speak to a group of women in March on the Power of Commitment. I was disappointed to be given a topic that seemed like old news. I could tell good stories, but everyone knows that once you commit, magic is possible. And if you don’t commit, you don’t complete.

Then I started thinking about what I am committed to in my life. I realized that every action I take, or avoid, demonstrates my commitment to something.

For example, this morning I demonstrated my commitment to puttering. Since I felt a sense of peace in my puttering, I think the action represents my commitment to my sanity, to allow myself a break between projects. However, I recognize my mindlessness could also be fed by my commitment to comfort since I was delaying a project I knew would be intense and difficult. When I was honest about what I was committing to at that moment, I had clarity about my choices. I could set a deadline on my puttering and then begin the difficult project that could lead to exciting possibilities.

Commitment is a choice. This choice is based on an emotion. You commit on how to use each moment based on what emotion is aroused: passion, fear, exhaustion, anger, sadness, and desire to name a few.

We generally think of commitment as a representation of our passion. When people ask me how I find the time to write books, I tell them that I commit my time because I’m passionate about my message and mission.

Brain Tip #1: If you can’t commit to something, ask yourself if you lack passion for the project. If you do, is there anything about the outcome that you can hitch your passion to? You can deal with drudgery much better if you are passionate about the results. Clearly define what you are passionate about achieving, then post reminders where you will see them to help you stay on track.

Fear can be just as powerful as passion when choosing what to commit to. The brain loves status quo. You commit to avoiding pain then masterfully rationalize your decision.

If you commit to comfort over anxiety, you won’t take risks.
On the other hand, if you fear the consequences for not carrying out a task, you may fearfully commit to doing something you don’t want to, which leads to resentment and half-hearted work. Don’t kid yourself—people sense when you are working out of obligation; your emotions will negatively impact the results.
Fear of committing to others may drive you to create standards that no one can meet. You commit to these standards then you are disappointed by any job, manager or partner in your life. Your disappointment gives you a good excuse for leaving, mentally or physically.

Brain Tip #2: When you are ready and willing to release a fear so you can commit more to your passions, ask yourself the following questions:

In five words or less, define the mission or ultimate goal you want to achieve.
What stories are you telling about the people you are dealing with? Could these stories be excuses to justify your fear-based commitment?
What do you like about yourself right now? What doesn’t feel so good?
Based on your actions, what are you committed to? What emotions are driving this commitment? Is this a commitment you want to uphold?
What emotion would you like to drive your thoughts and actions? What emotion would empower your mission or ultimate goal? What can you do to shift your emotional state so you feel more positively right now? What memory, picture, story or quote can you keep nearby to keep you in this desired state?

Anger can fuel a commitment. Many great things have happened after the words, “I’ll show you.” Yet over time, anger can deplete your energy and drive away your allies.

Brain Tip #3: Shift your anger away from what you don’t like to the passion you have for what you want to create. Your commitment will yield quicker and better results.

When you are sad, your brain slows down your mental and physical functions to allow for healing. It’s good to allow yourself to grieve, whether for a person, a project or a dream. Yet while grieving, your commitments are based on the past, not the future.

Brain Tip #4: Commit to your mental health by fully grieving your loss or unmet expectation, and then let go. You need time to express your sadness before you can recommit your passion more thoroughly. However, if you don’t allow yourself to let go—to say goodbye and to forgive anyone if you need to—you may be committing to the past because of a fear of moving forward or because of a desire for retribution. If you need to, ask for help. Then commit to composing a new life, dream or project.

Brain Challenge: Stop yourself at least three times today and ask yourself what you are committed to. What do your actions represent as a commitment? What emotions are fueling this drive? What would you like to feel instead? How would this change your commitment and subsequent actions?

Love your commitment or change it. It’s your choice.

Filed Under: Brain Tips, Leadership, Professional Development, Self-Awareness, Women in Leadership