(This post may look a little long because it’s packed with juicy quotes and ideas for you to put into practice.)

Dr. Jekyll

Most of us like to think we’re good people and that, if put in an unethical or dangerous situation, we’d do the right, noble thing. We claim assuredly that if given power, we’d wield it fairly; or that we’d call the police if we saw someone getting abused.

Perhaps.

But study after troubling study shows that the majority of us, when put in certain difficult circumstances, would act in ways we’d later be ashamed of. The truth is, while on the fringes of society we can talk about saints and sociopaths, we are all capable of good and evil.

Mr. Hyde

I had the pleasure of listening to Philip Zimbardo at a recent Neuroleadership Conference. Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about good and evil. While you may not recognize his name, you’re probably familiar with his infamous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment where normal, healthy people cast as guards became sadistic authoritarians, while those cast as prisoners became hopeless and traumatized. The 2-week simulation experiment was cut short after just 6 days.

People aren’t born heroes. Our brains run on a 100,000-year-old operating that errs on the side of self-protection and suspicion. Scientists literally refer to it as negativity bias. Put in a threatening situation, our brain makes saving ourselves top priority.

While it may not be our default nature to act in others’ best interest, we can retrain ourselves. We can build a heroic brain and become the person we’d like to be — the person we claim to be. And when we act heroically, we improve our home environment, work environment, and communities. In essence, we improve the lives of everyone we touch, including our own.

Here are some essential hero-building steps:

Building Heroic Muscles

1. First: acknowledge your fallibility. Ignoring our dark self self doesn’t make it go away. It just hides until one day in a weak moment it inconveniently emerges (like Mel Gibson getting caught in a drunken, racist rant, or a sanctimonious AWOL politician found Tango-ing with his mistress in Argentina). It doesn’t do us any good to label deeds, thoughts, or people as evil. Rather, know that any person is capable of making bad choices that can create horrible irreversible ripples.

2. Second, notice your ripple. Done anything you’re not proud of? Maybe you raised your voice at your child, or rolled your eyes in a meeting. Or maybe you just forgot to thank someone for their efforts. Stop shaming yourself (or making excuses) and get to work by first apologizing, and then doing better.

3. Third: start practicing small acts of kindness. You become what you practice. Put a Tibetan monk in an MRI, and you’ll see a brain that’s trained to tilt heavily toward compassion and kindness. But you don’t have to meditate to re-train your brain. And you don’t have to be anyone special to be a hero. We often think of heroes as extraordinary people doing big things. But, as Zimbardo explains, heroes are ordinary people acting selflessly to protect or improve the lives of others. Heroes take positive action, where others stand by and justify their inaction.

Here are some small actions that can go a long way toward improving others’ lives:

- Listen to someone without judgment.

- Compliment someone you care about (without expecting anything in return).

- Compliment a stranger (without expecting anything in return).

- Ask the cashier how her day is going…then listen.

- Give your change to someone in need.

- Talk to the shy person at the holiday party.

- When talk about someone turns negative, instead of piling on, say something kind.

- Stop and give a confused tourist directions.

- Listen to your partner, your child, your mother –anyone you think you know well — with genuine curiosity and wonder.

- Instead of getting angry or blaming someone at work when something fails, assume good intent, pick up the phone or walk over to them, and seek to understand their point of view.

- If you like to talk, keep your views to yourself in your next meeting and ask others for their opinions. Then listen without interrupting.

- Thank someone.

- Apologize.

- Forgive someone you’ve held a grudge against.

- Forgive yourself.

- Admit your mistakes.

- Acknowledge your weaknesses.

- For every holiday gift you purchase, add a small (or big) donation to a trusted charity like Oxfam who will make the most of your gift so that it improves lives.

Ta-Da, Brilliance!

With practice, you’ll break free of your default inertia and find that acting positively comes naturally. You also run a serious risk of creating an engaging, trusting work environment where people are free to speak and act without fear.

— — — — —

Quotes

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.

But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

— — — — —

“With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

- Joe Paterno

— — — — —

Legend

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied,

“The one you feed.”

Video:

Phil Zimbardo talks about his new mission: The Heroic Imagination Project

Check out our related post: How to Tell if You Work in a Fear Ridden Environment with to-do list for the courageous manager

We’d love to hear from you!

- What small gesture has made a positive difference in your life?

- Which small act will you begin taking today?

- What other small heroic acts do you recommend?

“What are you pretending not to know?”

- Susan Scott, Fierce Conversations

Cracks in the Foundation

My house in Oakland was built in 1924 on a steep downward slope. When someone would ask if my house had a bolted foundation, I’d say something like “Oh, I’m sure it must” and would change the subject. I liked to assume that, since a lot of renovations had taken place before we moved in, someone must have fixed it.  The fact that someone had actually sealed off any access to the foundation made it easier for me to ignore it: can’t assess what you can’t see.

For a while, this avoidance strategy saved me money. Then, a crack in the foundation revealed itself. And over the course of a year, with a few minor earthquakes, and good ol’ gravity, the crack grew. It grew until one day, I decided to pull my head out of the sand and bring in an expert to tell me what I had.

Expert Deniers

We humans are really good at ignoring cracks in all sorts of foundations: the body that we keep pushing until we suffer a debilitating injury or illness; the resentment that we allow to fester until the relationship is beyond repair; the key employee that we ignore until they quit and sign up with the competition; the waistline that grows until we can’t button our skinny pants…then our fat pants.

The laundry…

Just in Time

The General Contractor told me that, while half of my house had a new bolted foundation, the other half was sitting (and sliding) on an original slab.

The work to replace the foundation took just 13 days. Five days after completion, we had an earthquake and aftershock with an epicenter less than 10 miles away. We were jolted but the house didn’t suffer a single crack.

Sure, I would have liked to have spent the money elsewhere, but the feeling of strength, stability, and security I gained was worth it.

Facing the Truth

Pulling your head out of the sand and shining light on the thing that scares you takes courage. And once you do, you can begin to take steps to repair. Until then, you are powerless to improve your situation, and you continue to skid in the wrong direction.

Questions for Reflection

1. What problems am I ignoring in my:

• Health
• Relationships
• Reputation
• Happiness
• Finances
• Career

2. What’s the story I tell myself that helps me ignore the truth?
3. What will happen in 6 months if I change nothing?
4. What’s most vital that I change?
5. What’s the most potent first step I can take toward improving it?
6. Whose help do I want to enlist to support me?*

* Don’t even think of going it alone. Find a friend, coach, mental or physical health practitioner, or a class to support you as you begin to change the goblin before it becomes unruly.

Here’s a ‘during’ and ‘after’ shot of my house. The excellent work was done by All Seasons Construction.

Balancing on a stack of boards.

Solid as a rock.

Related Blog: Guru Michael Hyatt shares his advice on making the most of a near crisis in this great post.

]]> http://brillianceinc.com/facingthethingthatscaresyou/feed/ 2 http://brillianceinc.com/escape-your-thought-induced-trap/ http://brillianceinc.com/escape-your-thought-induced-trap/#comments Tue, 24 May 2011 19:57:49 +0000 Denise Green http://brillianceinc.com/?p=1291

Want to get better results in any area of your life AND feel a greater sense of ease?

Start with your thoughts.

At the foundation of our transformational work with clients is this essential truth:

Our thoughts fuel actions that lead to results.

Below are the steps you can take to make the most of this truth.

Step 1: Notice your thoughts.

Most of the time, we go through our days without noticing how our beliefs shape our actions. We often blame external things–a boss, a job, spouse, politicians–without looking at our own self-limiting role. Yes, sh*t happens. But no matter the circumstances, we can still control our reactions.

Step 2: Notice what ACTION and RESULT your thought is likely to produce.

The more we act from fear, resentment, jealousy, anger, the smaller–less satisfying–our world becomes. The more we act from curiosity, compassion, acceptance, the better we behave and the more possibilities we create.

Here are some examples of common negative thoughts and the actions and results they might produce. See if any feel familiar.

Thought #1

I’m not good enough.

Action

I work harder, sacrificing health and relationships.

Thought #2

Results matter most.

Action

I treat people as means or obstacles.

Result

People think I’m a jackass and avoid or go around me.

Thought #3

I’m right; They are wrong.

Action

I ignore information that may conflict with my truth.

Result

My world gets smaller and I make under-informed decisions. (like invading Iraq with too few troops and too many stacks of cash).

And people think I’m a jackass.

Thought #4

People are not to be trusted until they’ve earned it.

Action

I withhold information from others and give off a vibe that they’re not yet trustworthy.

Result

People feel unworthy, unsafe, and under-appreciated. They wonder what my agenda is, guess at my intentions, go around me…and think I’m a jackass. By the time they have earned my trust, I have lost theirs.

I could go on but I think you get the picture.

Step 3: Upgrade the thought.

Author David Rock calls this important step ‘recalibration.’ We use author Victoria Castle’s term ‘Upgrade’ because many of you know what it feels like to walk through an airplane’s first-class cabin then squeeze into your economy class seat. Recalibration or Upgrading is a skill that takes practice. Once you learn it, you have a key to release anxiety and allow better responses.  Here we offer a collection of thoughts common to the most successful, satisfied people.

In every moment, I am enough.

People are better, more capable, than I know.

I only have a piece of the truth.

The world conspires to help me. (thank you Jack Canfield for this one)

Sh*t happens. Now what can I learn from this and what step can I take to improve my situation?

It’s not about which story is accurate–we can gather data to support any belief–it’s about the results your thoughts create.

How would you act if you held these upgraded beliefs?

If you like how you feel and how you’re life is going, then keep the stories that are working for you.

“We can believe what we choose. We area answerable for what we choose to believe.”

- Cardinal Newman, quoted by author Susan Scott

Step 4: Reap the benefits.

Mark Nepo in his book Awakenings, recounts a story of fish that, when poured from their small bowl into a larger tub, swam in a tight pattern as if still confined. When we bring attention to our thoughts, we begin to see how they limit us–and we start to see the unrealized potential that awaits.

Welcome to Your More Spacious World

As if we parents needed more reason to worry about how we might be ruining our children, Amy Chua comes along and writes Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Why Chinese Mothers are Superior). Her very restrictive parenting methods got her mixed results: one daughter on stage at Carnegie Hall, another so resentful she would have divorced her mother if she could.

Dr. Mac Hicks. offers a great analysis that helped assuage my angst (a bit). According to Hicks, one of the key problems with this approach: “The Tiger Mother philosophy is blind to the concept of individual differences.”

In a recent client conversation, it struck me that management theory shares much in common with the Tiger Mother approach to motivation.

After receiving an onslaught of criticism, Chua admits that she was not attuned to her daughters’ uniqueness. In subsequent interviews, Chua explains that A-grades are not what Chinese parenting is about; rather, they help children be the best they can be. Surely a noble goal.

Tiger Management

Tiger Managers are not bad people. They just aren’t very effective motivators. While they may want to bring out the best in their employees, their methods leave employees discouraged and potentially resentful.

You already know what the worst Tiger Managers look like. They enforce strict policies, treat people uniformly with little regard for individual preferences or strengths, micromanage, and are quick to find fault.

Yet, some Tiger Management behaviors are less obvious.

Here are just a few ways that well-meaning companies and managers crush souls:

• Misused rewards and consequences
• Comparing (via performance rankings)
• Giving advice
• Poorly phrased questions
• Focus on short-term behavior
• Saying the words “Can I give you some feedback?”

True Motivation

So what can you do instead?  We know from scientific studies that people do their best work when they feel respected and safe. Where they can do challenging work that gives them some sense of meaning. For starters, you can:

• Respect differences: one approach does not fit all
• Help people find work that puts them in “Flow”: where they feel as though they are developing mastery
• Learn to create safe environments where people feel they can take risks and speak their mind
• Help people find meaning in their work
• Help people find their own insights
• Offer meaningful thanks after the work is done

Resources to Help You Become a Maul-Free Motivator

Books

Dan Pink gave us the following two great books (just click on the titles for transport to Amazon.com):

• A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future: This book contains information and practices to help you become more effective in what Pink calls the Conceptual Age. Even more relevant is his latest book:
• DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
  

Articles

• Managing With the Brain in Mind: This article from David Rock should be required reading for all managers. He offers a compelling, succinct summary of neuroscience findings that show the five ways managers frequently put people on the defensive and squelch innovative thinking or collaboration. Rock offers the article free on his site. Or, you can grab a PDF right now. Just click on the article title.
• Why the Brain Hates Advice: For a condensed version of Rock’s findings take a look at this article we wrote last year.
• Chill Out Tiger Mother: On the Psychology Today blog by Dr. Hicks, this wonderfully titled article is a partial antidote to Chua’s teachings.
  

A Gift

• Use our one-page Flow Assessment based on the work of positive psychology researcher and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to help you begin a conversation about how to reduce anxiety and increase fulfillment at work.

What’s Your Legacy?

As we’ve noted in prior posts, managers are contagious.

All managers (and parents) leave behind a residue: toxic sludge, gold dust, or something in-between.

What are you leaving in your wake?

People may forget what you said and people may forget what you did but they will never forget how you made them feel.

-Maya Angelou

In our last post, The TAO of Leadership (Annoying Truths: Ignore at Your Peril) we presented 7 truths (and one bonus truth) that, if internalized, will help you become a leader others want to follow.

Accept that you will forget all these truths at times – perhaps several times a day. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you have access to…

Conversation Training Wheels

You don’t have to be perfect to create a safe, inspiring environment that evokes brilliant commitment and performance. You just have to ask good questions.

Ask these questions to anyone you want to inspire or build relationship with: (Note, these are not in a sequential flow: insert as relevant into your conversation).

- “What support do you need from me?”

- “What ideas do you have?”

- “How did you come to that conclusion?”

- “How’s it working?”

- “How can you tell?”

- “What could I do better?”

- “What else?”

Note: 2 rules apply when asking these questions.

Rule #1. Phrasing matters. All these questions begin with the words What or How for a reason. Do not begin with Do, Did, Does, Could or Why unless you want to put someone on the defensive, and thus, lessen their ability to think rationally. You might as well just tell people what to do. It’s more honest.

Rule #2. Tone & expression matter. Ask with a curious, non-threatening tone that signals you will not eat, maim, fire, ridicule, or otherwise injure the person no matter their response. Practice assuming a non-threatening posture and facial expression. Don’t even think about rolling your eyes.

Use the Wheels

As smart and clever as you are, you’ll be tempted to come up with your own way of asking the questions. DON’T DO IT. Not at least until you are very practiced at asking these questions and making these statements as written. Write them on a note, put them in your ipad or phone and just ask. Then be quiet while you let the person think. If it helps, count to five (silently, so they don’t think you’ve lost your mind). Once they get over the shock, they may offer a complete response. Or, more likely, they may test the waters and give you only what they think you want to hear. Don’t fall for this. Just ask another open question until you feel you have an open, complete response. If in doubt, ask “What else?”

Most leaders tell too much and ask too little. So try to ask more 3 times more often than you typically would.

Brilliance-Evoking Statements

When you do make statements, try these.

- “I’m still a little unclear. Please say more about that.”

- “Take a break. Come back to it when you’re fresh.”

- “We’re in this together. Let’s figure it out.”

- “I have an opinion, but I only have a sliver of the truth. I’d like to hear what you think.”

- “I appreciate ____ ” (fill in the blank with a quality about them that they care about and that you believe).

- “I don’t know.”

- “I screwed up. I’m truly sorry.”

- “Thank you.”

Until mastery, practice clumsily and often until one day, you notice yourself surrounded by a voluntary army of inspired followers.

Brilliant.

We’d love to hear how it goes.

Related Articles:

The Tao of Leadership

from Kate Nasser: Killer Questions that Don’t Ask

Ponder Your Leadership Capability

We’re revisiting a post we published last September, updating it with resources to  help you become a leader who inspires brilliance. We’ve combed thousands of pages from Goleman, Drucker, Neuroleadership, Monty Python (and more) and hope you enjoy.

7 Annoying Truths

1. Despite your past successes, vast experience, diplomas, and credentials, you possess a pathetically small sliver of the truth.

2. People fear you (by nature of your status) and withhold information that may challenge your pathetically small sliver of the truth.  This is a bad thing unless you like learning about your product’s failure from the Wall Street Journal.

3. To bring out the best in others, you must go out of your way to create a safe environment.  Fear is the brain’s default reaction to stress, uncertainty, status, and a million other things outside your control.

4. Leadership takes courage. Courage probably doesn’t look like what you think it looks like. The root of the word means “heart.” True courage does not swagger but is humble and authentically confident. A courageous leader:

- recognizes her own strengths and weaknesses

- surrounds herself with people who differ

- when confronted with evidence that challenges her truths, says “Say more about that” in a non-murderous tone

- is confident they will get there without knowing exactly how

- sets a compelling vision and let’s others figure out the best way to do it

- listens intently, openly

- describes reality neutrally, without accusation

- admits to self that leadership is lonely and finds people to provide support and a good sounding board

(to see how courageous–or swaggering–you are, check out this confidence assessment)

5. You are contagious: your mood, your work-life habits, your tone, your management style, your hygiene habits–all of it embeds itself in others and helps create a culture.

6. Leadership takes stamina and resilience. You cannot do your job optimally without a healthy body and mind. To that end, find support to help you:

- stay fit physically

- optimize your brain

- manage your emotions and physical reactions

- strengthen your immune system

- sleep well

7. There is a point in your rise as a leader (e.g. from Manager of individual contributors to Manager of Managers), where everything that has worked for you will now work against you. Recognize when you cross this threshold and get a coach to help you learn new tricks and embed new habits.

Bonus Annoying Truth

- IQ has taken you as far as it can. Your success now hinges on how well you inspire trust, engagement, and commitment.

(Get our complimentary resource about How Stuff Gets Done Well).

More Resources to help you…

• Build resilience:
  • The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working by Tony Schwartz (listen to the audio book while you commute or exercise)
  • The Four Hour Body, by Timothy Ferriss
    

• Break bad habits & build a better brain: 
  
  • What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith
  • Your Brain at Work, by David Rock
  • Managing from the Heart
    

• Communicate authentically: Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott
  

Sufficiently Annoyed?

Watch for our next post where we provide a tool to help you cut through the annoying truths so you truly evoke brilliance. 

What do the world’s most admired, effective, & fulfilled leaders have that others don’t?

LOVE.

No, not the romantic kind.

The kind of love that won’t get you in trouble with Human Resources.

The kind of love where you genuinely care about the success and well-being of others—your family, your employees, your partners, your customers.

Love and the Bottom Line

You can tell when a company has a culture of love. Flown lately? If you flew Southwest, you probably felt it.  If you called a customer service rep at Zappos, you probably felt it.

Can you get rich without love? Sure. There are no shortage of loveless leaders and companies who treat employees and customers as means to profit. And they spend millions of wasted dollars and energy on lawsuits, PR, and high employee turnover.

Without love, you are missing a key variable.

(STRATEGY + EXECUTION) (LOVE) = BRILLIANT LEADERSHIP

When every other airline began charging for luggage, Southwest launched its Bags Fly Free campaign.

“We are convinced that not charging for bags wins us more customers, and therefore more revenue and more profits, as compared to doing what everybody else does, which customers universally hate. Charging for bags goes against everything we stand for.” Gary Kelly, SWA

According to Kelly, Southwest has enjoyed a 1 percent share shift since other airlines began charging bag fees. It brought an additional $1 billion to Southwest when bag fees were the only significant change in the industry, he says.

A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.

Herb Kelleher

“Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.”

Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO

(Point of interest, Hsieh lasted 5 months at his first employer, Oracle before deciding it wasn’t for him)

As Jack Canfield says, “Success leaves trails” so begin by learning what great leaders do, then emulate. Here are some great places to start.

• Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh
• Lead with Luv, A conversation between Herb Kelleher and Ken Blanchard.
• Love is the Killer App, Tim Sanders

Begin Today

Perhaps the greatest gift you can give someone is to listen with curiosity and focused, loving attention. Instead of trying to fix or correct, just listen. Instead of constantly looking at your phone or monitor, give them your full attention. When you feel like interrupting, close your mouth and take a breath. When they pause, ask  “what else?”

If you liked (or loved) this post, please comment. Also, please tell us about your legendary leader. What did they do that made you feel the love?

Our clients often say they like working with confident people.

Yet, some of what gets described as confidence is actually fear-based behavior.

What it’s not:

Confidence is not boastful, loud, conversation-hogging, aggressive swagger. It is not Ron Burgundy.

What it is:

True confidence is much humbler. Think of Jim Collins’ Level 5 leaders. His team’s research found that the most successful CEOs were people you’ve probably never heard of. They were great at inspiring loyalty and motivating people to do difficult things that took companies from good to great. Note, there’s nothing meek about this type of empowering confidence: quiet does not imply cowering.

Why Confidence Matters

Confident people are more likely to hear the ugly truth about their business before it hits the front page. That’s because Confident leaders create a sense of safety.

Acting with confidence is a gift to others. It signals that there is nothing to fear. It conveys: “You can let down your guard, be yourself, and talk to me without fear of me crumbling or attacking.”

Assess Yourself!

When under stress, it’s easy to succumb to less-than-confident behaviors.

You may have an authority figure to whom you cower and someone else—a family member, direct-report, teacher, neighbor, or partner organization—to whom you swagger a bit. Perhaps you take out your frustrations and blame them when things don’t go as you planned or hoped.

Cowering (Milton, the Stapler Guy)

Swaggering (Bill Lundbergh)

Want to find out where you (or your team) fall

on the confidence spectrum?

Take our Confidence Assessment.

You might be surprised to see the behaviors that constitute cower, confidence, and swagger.

Building Authentic Confidence

Once you identify the cowering or swaggering behavior, you can direct your attention toward activities that will help you build authentic confidence. For example, you can catch yourself in the act of blaming or bellowing, and then choose another tactic.

Fake It till You Feel It

I once had a leader tell me that he wanted his new employee to be more confident and, if she couldn’t feel confident, to fake it.

He was on to something.

For, even when you lack courage, you can act confidently, and in turn, have more productive, relationship-building conversations. Over time, such results will help you feel more authentically confident.

We’d like to Hear From You

What behaviors would you add to our assessment?

Who’s your role model for authentic confidence?

And if you don’t recognize the two images above, check out Office Space.

“Of all the qualities in a manager conducive to innovation, a degree of uncertainty may be the most powerful. If a manager is confident but uncertain—confident that the job will get done but without being certain of exactly the best way of doing it—employees are likely to have more room to be creative, alert, and self-starting.”

— Ellen J. Langer, Mindfulness

Check out a Related post: What Size is Your Ego?

Want to help your managers become confident leaders who evoke brilliance in others? Contact us about Group Coaching or our Conversations for Brilliance workshop.

Fragmented Attention

Perhaps you’ve heard: we are the most distracted humans to have walked the earth. And apparently, being distracted— fragmenting yourself so that no one thing or person gets your full attention—has damaging effects on your relationships, results, and stress levels.

I’m not sure what’s more annoying, being distracted or being told that I need to stop being so distracted when at this exact moment, my phone is ringing, my email just binged, my kid needs to be fed, the laundry is in a mountainous pile, my proposal is jammed in the printer, the dentist keeps sending me escalating reminders that I am past due for a teeth cleaning, and the dog is looking at me forlornly.

So what’s a person to do? I know that yoga and/or mediation help increase calm and focus. Which sounds great assuming the yoga teacher does laundry, fixes printers, walks the dog, and cleans teeth.

Focus 101

Until then, here’s a primer for attention challenged ones comme moi:

1. Decide that you want to give this moment (person, task) your full attention for ____ minutes.

2. Turn off and reduce distractions: close your laptop, turn off your phone, put a do-not-disturb note on the door, put the papers on your desk to one side, write a list of things you need to remember/do (writing it down frees up valuable brain space).

3. Breathe deeply.

4. Practice being in one place, doing one thing.

5. When your attention drifts, recall your commitment, breathe deeply, and return your curious attention to the person/task.

6. Reflect. What was gained from this exercise? What’s in it for you to increase your ability to feel settled and focused?

7. Repeat 342 times per day.

The Upside of Focus

Despite our best attempts to multitask, we really can only do one thing well at a time.

By learning to give more of your full attention to the important work and people around you, you’ll find that conversations and tasks are more efficient, with fewer mistakes and misunderstandings, potentially leaving you time for things like yoga, family, or cleaner teeth.

“Be here, prepared to be nowhere else.” (Susan Scott: principle of a Fierce Conversation).

Indulge in the Moment this Holiday

I hope this primer serves you this season, when we have an opportunity to escape from some of the sources that pull on our attention. Even so, it’s not easy to let go the impulse to check email, voice mail, and fragment your attention.  If you are a leader in an organization, know that when you become more focused (or fragmented), those around you do as well. May you reap many awards from indulging fully in the moment.

“I’d had enough so I threw the blackberry out the car window.” An inventive client who shall go nameless.

Can you recall a team off-site meeting where real conversations happened and real work got done? Where everyone felt that the time was well spent? If you are lucky enough to recall such an experience, you probably worked for (or are) a courageous leader.

Without leadership courage, department meetings are one-way talk-a-thons. Any inclusion is for appearances only. Silence or corporate nods stand in for meaningful conversation and buy-in. Disagreements are avoided or presumed non-existent. Agenda is king. Participants extract their souls from the meeting to cope with the tedium.

When you inject leadership courage, you increase the likelihood for meaningful exchanges of divergent opinions. You might even achieve real buy-in, make important decisions, and move forward confidently and aligned.

You CAN Handle The Truth

I recently had the opportunity to facilitate an amazing three-day conference for roughly 200 division leaders. The Senior Vice President was new to the job and to me: I had no real sense of his style or his tolerance for ambiguity and truth.

I wanted to create a venue worthy of the participants and the thousands of on-the-job hours sacrificed. Rather than talking heads preaching from the pulpit, I wanted real conversations that would deliver 199 views of reality to the leader.

I proposed a ludicrous idea: provide Audience Response Keypads to permit each participant to respond instantly and anonymously to provoking questions.

He courageously agreed without hesitation.

Not sure what we kind of feedback we would unleash, we publicly committed to asking the questions and revealing the answers instantly.

Imagine a new leader laying out a vision for change and then asking publicly,

“How clear was my vision?”

“How urgent do you believe this is?”

“To what extent is this rubbish?”

And not just asking for the sake of appearing inclusive, but asking and revealing each anonymous response.

After two days of inclusive conversations, he asked one last courageous question: “Do you believe that we should move the department in this strategic vision? Yes or No.

Keeping in mind that responses were anonymous, what percentage do you think responded “yes”?

87% said “Yes, we believe this is the direction we need to go.”

Imitation Courage

Too many new leaders mark their territory by making sweeping changes and overhauling organization charts rather than invest in the hard work of listening, learning, and leading.

A recent HBR study confirmed that while most new leaders prioritize organization overhaul, only a small fraction of those efforts improve performance, and most reorganizations actually harm performance and crush morale. You know; you’ve lived it.

True Courage

Authentic courage doesn’t swagger, but is humble. A courageous leader asks hard questions, listen to all inputs, learns, and adapts based on new information. The courageous leader doesn’t worry about looking all-knowing. Real courage apologizes when it makes mistakes. Real courage says something like: “I know that many of you want me to tell you exactly what we are going to do differently, but I won’t. I won’t because I don’t yet know. I can tell you that it will take all of us to figure this out together. I am committed to holding a vision, removing obstacles, gaining support, and helping you do what you do best. Someday, we might find it necessary to move some of the organizational boxes around, but that will be much further down the road and only when we are clear how it will facilitate decision-making and serve our vision.”

The root of the word courage is heart (from Latin cor, French coeur): The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.

Before you summon your team to the next retreat, find your courage and create a venue worthy of your talent.

And hire a great facilitator.