When Negative Self-Talk Creeps In

A good friend of mine (and an avid reader and commenter on this blog,) Ken, submitted my name as a speaker for an organization he is affiliated with. He emailed me asking if I would consider giving a talk and facilitating a dialogue on the value of emotional intelligence (EI). I am always humbled when anyone thinks that I might have something valuable to say when it comes to EI. It is one of my favorite subjects to talk about, and I often use the EQi 2.0 in training programs I do and with almost every coaching client I work with does a self-assessment that shows them what their leadership habits may appear like to others.

Now, here is what you need to know about Ken. His job is to serve as a hospice chaplain in Polk County Florida. His request was for me to come and speak to a group of his peers and his boss on the subject of how EI can be of value to a hospital chaplain.

Gulp! I have to admit, the email produced mixed feelings in me. Like I said above, I was humbled for sure, but scared out of my pants as well. Hospice chaplains...really?! While I might know something about EI, my immediate “knee-jerk” reaction was, I don’t know anything about hospice chaplains!

Then the negative self-talk started to creep in:

• You’re no expert in hospice care.

• What do you know about how to fit EI into their world?

• You have never even studied EI in this context, what if there is no data?

• Your not a very good public speaker.

• Maybe you should call him up and back out.

Now, am I the only one this happens too? When you are hit with a complex, tension-filled situation what do you do? Do you immediately become filled with fear, anxiety, and self-doubt? How do you stop the negative self-talk from creeping in and taking over your thinking?

Here is a quick and easy method that I use when this happens to me: I use an acronym I call "STOP." It is a four step method that helps me turn my negative thinking into a more positive and constructive use of my time and energy.

STOP

Stop: Do something to interrupt the cycle of negative thinking.

Take a deep breath: Breathing relaxes your tension, releases dopamine, and calms you down to think more clearly.

Other focused: Exercise empathy and become curious about what it is like to be in the other person's shoes.

Purpose a question: Asking questions can have a calming effect and bring you more into a zone of safety than one of fear.

Here is how the model helped me get rid of the negative thinking and increase my confidence in this situation:

When I first noticed the negative thinking creeping into my mind with the thought, you’re no expert in hospice, I should have taken the time to put this model into effect. Unfortunately, even though I teach this stuff, I got all the way down to, maybe you should call him and back out before I put this into practice.

Stop: Psychologists call this pattern interrupt. I noticed the negative thinking and I did something physical to draw attention away from the negative thought. In this case, I was sitting down when I read the email. When I finally noticed the negativity, I stood up. I concentrated on doing something different. Distract yourself away from the source of negativity.

Take a deep breath: When I stood up, I took several yoga style breaths. Focused on bringing my belly button to my spine. I actually could feel myself starting to calm down. This is often when I will also say a prayer, asking God for wisdom as I navigate these treacherous negative waters. I distracted myself from the negativity for a moment. That is the goal with this step.

Other Focused: I tried to take the thoughts off of myself and my shortcomings. I put my thoughts onto Ken and his team instead. I began to think, what might they need from a model like emotional intelligence? What value could it bring them? Notice the questions starting to form when I start to turn my thinking from self-referential to other-focused.

Purpose a question: I crafted an email back to Ken asking him, what are some common situations that hospital chaplains find themselves in where they need more EI? What had other speakers done that the chaplains found valuable? How had he used EI in his work as a hospice chaplain?

I noticed, then, that my fear and anxiety were dissipating into curiosity. I was moving from a lack of self-consciousness into a state of confidence by focusing on the value I could bring to this group of dedicated servants.

Self-Actualization and Optimism

According to authors Steven J. Stein and Howard E. Book, EI always exists in balance. This is pretty easy to see when we think about a leader who is very self-confident but lacks any empathy or interpersonal ability. We often put a label on a leader who has this balance of qualities as being someone who is arrogant at best, and a real narcissist on the more clinical side of the psychology

In my case, I am usually a fairly self-perceptive person. This means that in part, I get a lot of meaning and purpose out of my life and the work I do. This is a real strength for me.

Most of the time I am optimistic, which means I have a positive outlook on the future and am fairly resilient in the face of setbacks. However, this ability can come into question, especially when fear or anxiety enter the stage. My optimism can turn into a negative downward spiral of self-critical thinking.

What I need when I am faced with these fears and anxieties is to balance my self-actualization and my waning level of optimism.

The STOP model helps me to put the brakes on the negative thinking, so I can use all the meaning and purpose I get in my life to teach and coach emotional intelligence, regaining my level of optimism.

I am happy to report that Ken and I have a call scheduled to talk through what value EI can bring to the hospice chaplains and the talk is scheduled for mid-April.

Homework: Where do fear and anxiety creep into your leadership? Can you anticipate when these events occur? When you feel your thoughts going negative, try using the STOP model to see if it can bring you back into emotional balance.

Are You Listening to This Voice In Your Leadership?

Every leader needs a voice who will speak truth to and help them see things that are not obvious. Henry Kissinger is famous for saying that one of the most difficult things for a young leader to do is to “speak truth to power;' to go up the power gradient with information that is contrary to what the hierarchical, authoritative, and referent, position believes to be true. We have all been there at points and felt the emotion of that moment. There is inherent organizational danger in communicating things to a leader that they are not seeing in the moment:

• You could be rejected which leads to embarrassment

• You could be dismissed which leads to self-doubt

• You could be humiliated which leads to isolation

• You could be discounted which leads to demoralization

The young leader has information that someone in a decision-making position needs to hear, and is frozen in the moment by these potentially negative outcomes.

The other side of the proposition is, all things being equal, there is huge upside in communicating to a leader what they are not seeing in the moment:

• You could be celebrated for the input

• You could be included in the decision-making process

• You could be honored for your courage

• You could be valued for your contribution

Whether a part of reality or a figment of our imagination as a young leader “speaking truth to power” can seem overwhelming. This is the risk tension that the young leader faces. Some of the mediators that go into the “speak truth to power" equation are:

• Culture of the organization-What is the level of freedom that truly exists for information sharing?

• Young leaders' personal-risk tolerance-Where do they fall on a spectrum between “wary” and “adventurous”?

• Receptivity of the leader to feedback-What is the historical behavior elicited when contrary opinions have been shared?

Receptivity of the Leader

I think we can all pretty easily agree that the young leader when faced with a decision to speak truth to power, has a burden that can feel like wearing a shirt made of lead.

However, as more senior leaders in organizations, how much of the burden falls on us to create an atmosphere where much of the risk is mediated for a young leader? How much of the responsibility is ours to create the environment in which others feel a freedom to be able to share?

I argue that much of the speaking-truth-to-power-dichotomy rests not in the hands of the deliverer but the receiver. And yet the senior leader is the one who often times has the most to lose by missing key information that was never brought to them. In the fast-paced, get it done now, microwave culture that organizations exist in today many of us cave into our survival reptilian brain that tells us to do whatever we can to survive.

Many times these environmental and personal factors are not acting in our favor. As leaders, we have to put effort into creating a persona and a culture so that the voice we need to be able to hear in our organization comes through.

5 Actions you can work on today

Here are my top 5 tips for leaders who want to improve their chances of hearing all the information they need to hear to be able to make an informed decision:

• Slow down your cadence-Most of the leadership mistakes I have made were because my world was moving fast and I did not slow down to see more possibilities. The faster I went, the more convinced I became that I was right, and the further away I got from the truth. Take a deep breath, count to 10, silently sing a familiar tune very slowly (I like; “Row, row, row, your boat), pray, do whatever you need to do to slow your reality down.

• Become curious-The practice is to suspend your need to be right or heard and to work really hard to understand the other person's position. Before you jump to conclusion or shoot them down because of what you know that they don’t, spend some time to really discern the message they are bringing to you.

• Always say thank you-So before it feels like I am your mom or kindergarten teacher, just hear me out. You would be surprised at how often I observe leaders in interactions where they turn and walk away without expressing gratitude. I don’t think it is an intent to be mean or degrading, the pressure of the moment takes the brain to the next thing rather than finishing the relationship with the current interaction. Researchers at USC found that simple acts of gratitude provide benefits ranging from feelings of reward and satisfaction to just helping people to hold on to their humanity.

• Spend time reflecting- At the end of your day take the time to review the day. Play back the interactions you had with others. Resist the temptation to become defensive and ask yourself questions like: I wonder what they were really trying to ask me? Why did I feel such a strong need to defend myself? Why did I feel such a strong need to exert power in the moment? What unintended consequences could the action I took cause?

• Do the inner work of developing your soul- The psychology data says you are as intelligent right now as you will ever be. Your personality is fully formed, so you know if you are extroverted or introverted. You have most of the skill you will ever need. So what is your next step in development? Do you need to work on developing the soul of your leadership?

If any of you would be interested in joining a group on what it means to develop the soul of the leader send an email to Info@DrScottLivingston.com. My assistant will coordinate a time for us to talk about your interest and what a group like this will look like.

Homework:

Pick one of the 5 Actions above and work on it every day for a week. For example, in every personal interaction and every email you send, say “thank you." Work on making your attitude heartfelt and not rote. If you try any of these let me know how they go for you, I would love to hear.

How to Undo Your Stinking Thinking

I have to thank my younger brother Eric for sharing the term “Stinking Thinking” with me. To me,  Stinking Thinking is that place we all get to from time to time that cannot quite be called foolishness, but you can sure see it from there. You can actually feel that your logic is off, but you have been too loud or too insistent, and now you are stuck in your line of thinking. Those times when folks might say to you, “have you been drinking?” and you haven’t had a libation in weeks. Stinking Thinking is when others are trying to get through to us that our line of reasoning just isn’t resonating. Have you ever been there?  I know I sure have.  I can remember years ago when I really wanted a sports car. I talked it up at work and convinced my wife we could afford it. I looked and looked for just the right car that made just the right statement.  I finally found a jet black, low miles, 5 speed Mazda RX7 that I could not live without.One Saturday my wife took our minivan and left me at home with our 3 adorable children, which mean that when I had to leave the house I needed to get myself and all three kids in the 2-seat sports car….I think you get the picture.

WHAT WAS I THINKING? A relatively intelligent, socially functional, hard working person just made a decision to buy a car that didn’t fit into his lifestyle at the time…this is Stinking Thinking.

Since our thinking has such a profound effect on our judgment, I researched how many decisions the average person makes in a day. The popular number on the internet is 35,000. This number is quoted by sources like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Stanford University.  I couldn’t validate that number from any recent study that was peer reviewed. Since I can not support the number 35,000 from the literature, can we agree, for argument's sake, leaders make lots of decisions every day?

The actual number of decisions we make in a day is not nearly as important as the quality of the important ones.

Regardless of the decision-making model you use (there are hundreds of them), they all begin with some input. Decision-making processes are active and continually evolving.  Since leadership brings with it both responsibility and accountability, there is no one better than you, the leader, to assess and clarify the kind of data you want to bring into your process.

“It is possible to obtain a high score on an intelligence test and then turn to astrology or palm reading when making decision” -Diane Halpern

The time to really assess if a decision is good or not is at the beginning of the process. Decision making should not turn into PowerBall Lottery where you just pull in some random data points and check your numbers in the morning. And yet in my work with leaders, I see this all too often. Really smart, highly educated, likable folks do really silly things. Often times the quote I hear behind closed doors is, “I can’t believe I really did that." While the assessment is of the decision result, as we dig deep into the situation we find that at the core of the misjudgment are often faulty input assumptions.

Since we all succumb to this irrationality from time to time, I wonder what your Stinking Thinking usually looks like.

Take this Decision Making Quiz

Which of these Stinking Thinking traps do you fall into most often?

1. I am good at predicting the future

2. My opinion matters more

3. I have an excellent memory

4. I am reacting to a single data point

5. I am being completely rational

Here are some of the more common pitfalls I observe from the quiz above.

I Can Predict the Future

In the book The Undoing Project author Michael Lewis does a masterful job of describing the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.  In the first chapter of the book, he tells the story of Daryl Morley whose job it was in 2006 to predict how a 19 year old  basketball player would perform in the NBA. Morley equated this to predicting where the price of oil will be in 10 years. Even though Morley had a statistical mind and the tools of an expert, his boss would want certainty from him for the decisions he was making on the team's draft choices. “I have to tell him certainty ain’t coming."

So many leaders, who have had so much success can fall into the trap that based upon past experiences when they got it right.

My Opinion Matters More

The person with the most ____________ (money, experience, knowledge, positional power, authority, credibility) knows the best.  You start to think that since you are the most influential your opinion carries more weight. Bringing biases to the input part of the decision-making process is where it gets off track. While on the surface few leaders would ever make any of these self-proclamations, the evidence to support this kind of thinking is all around.

The same result can occur in groups. The psychological term is “enclave deliberation.” What happens during enclave deliberation is that as a group of like-minded people discuss opinions with each other, the conversation becomes more extreme. I recently entered into a climate change discussion with a small group of folks where a vocal supporter of the issue started the discussion with “anyone who disagrees with the evidence that science brings is just a fool.” How is that for starting an open dialogue with a team?

Experts suffer from this pitfall as well. Noted psychologist Amos Tversky (of Prospect Theory fame) said, “whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the same problem that experts fall for.”

My Memory is Perfect

This one probably speaks for itself.

Ten years after the brutal attacks on the twin towers on September 11, 2001 researchers asked people what they remembered about the events of that day. While the details of the memories were better than on an “ordinary” day, they were not completely accurate. Turns out humans fill in missing information with what fits their own belief system.

The Issue Has Become My Identity

Research has shown that people are more confident about being right when the events are highly emotional. People believe that their memory for highly emotional events is better than it is. As the issue at hand becomes more personal, the emotion increases, people start to identify with their issue. I think we are seeing this as a dividing factor in our own country right now. Rather than stepping back and thinking they are becoming emotionally attached to a single issue that is defining them, the thought now is that if you attack the issue, you are attacking me personally. This causes polarity.

I Am Being Completely Rational

"It's not how smart you are that matters, what really counts is how you are smart." -Howard Gardner When our thinking has evolved to the point that we have become so prideful that there is no space to be wrong, we rationalize to support a preferred conclusion.  As leaders, when we get to thinking that there is no possible way we wrong, all sorts of warning lights should flash in our heads.

It turns out that rationalization is not always deliberate. People don’t intend to do it, but it is insidious and can creep up on you. Thinking we have omniscience is a dangerous human fallacy that can quickly lead to foolishness.

Undoing your Stinking Thinking

Here are 5 methods that you can use to undo your Stinking Thinking

1. Let go of the past - Just because you were successful in doing something 15 years ago doesn’t mean that the world stopped turning. Use your experience to inform your decision about what is different in the situation and circumstance from your past achievement.

2. Identify the real problem - My friend Dr. Patricia Scott wrote a great book called, “Getting a Squirrel to Focus." It is way too easy for us to become distracted on ancillary issues that we forget what the real thing is we are deciding.

3. Stop and ask - Barbara Kingsolver says, “Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin." Practice the art of humble inquiry. Stop and ask others if the way you are remembering events is the way they remember it. It probably won’t be exact, but it might be one step closer.

4. Separate yourself - Psychologists call this dissociation. Try this. Take the point of view opposite of yours. Create arguments for it. Research it. Study it. Separate the emotion from the information. Now come back to the issue. Do you still feel as strongly as you did before?

5. Practice humble listening - When you feel that you are at the end of your rope with someone, murder is not an option, and you can’t avoid the relationship, humbly set your ego and pridefulness aside and try to gain the other person's perspective.

How about you? Do you have any successful methods to share that you use to undo your Stinking Thinking?

Is This Leadership Question on Your Mind?

It happens every year. Around the second week in January, just when I am recovering from my holiday vacation, my lovely wife of 32 years will ask me a very pointed question. It is a question that comes from her desire to know me and connect more deeply with me. Her question is:

“Scott, what is your word for the year?”

The answer gives her peace about where I am in life. I do not see it as a nagging question. Her intention is not meanness, nor is it meant to put me on the spot, although, it is direct. Her intention is to to get me to focus. To be honest, I like the question, it is deeply reflective of where I am at the moment, and what I am thinking about our future.

If you read this column with any regularity, you know I like to talk and write on a number of leadership-oriented topics. I am interested in many things. I love sports, reading,  running and walking, and sitting around. I like sushi and steak (hamburgers are my favorite!) I listen to smooth jazz and “that Old Time Rock and Roll.” I love God, and people who screw up all the time. I guess you could say I am a classic Jack of all Trades, Master of None. I tend to bounce around a lot.

That said, it is totally fair that my wife wants to focus my attention. She deserves to know a single avenue I am going to go down in any given year. What am I going to concentrate on? What can she ask me about from time to time to see how I am doing?

In years past I have had words like:

Family Vacation Perform Read Persevere Wisdom

Last year my word was commit. I had a lot of business opportunities, and I really needed to focus on the next step to take in growing my business. The biggest need I had to meet as a leader was to commit to something and stick with the plan. I am the kind of guy who has an idea for a new book about twice a day, but who gets bored easily so that the book I thought about writing in the morning doesn’t seem nearly as interesting as the book I thought about writing in the afternoon.

2016 was a year I needed to commit to something and see it through to the end.

Powerful Leadership Question:

Why is having a Word For The Year such a powerful concept?

Perhaps the idea is best summed up by something I read recently about presidential inauguration speeches. After analyzing all the inauguration speeches given by the 44 U.S. presidents, researchers found an inverse correlation between the length of the speech given and the historical success of the president. In simple terms, the shorter the inaugural speech, the better the president. For example, Washington’s second speech came in at just 135 words. Jefferson, Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson all are credited with short speeches. After a quick Google search, I found that the longest speech belongs to William Henry Harrison who spoke for 1 hour and 45 minutes using over 9,000 words. He also delivered the address in a snowstorm, came down with pneumonia, and died a week later.

Brevity Has its Benefits

A Word of the Year can be a pin-pointed theme for your year. These attributes are what I look for when I am choosing my Word of the Year.

• Focused. This word keeps me grounded and centered. Since I have such an ability to stray off topic and chase rabbits down trails, The Word For the Year gives me a central point to return to often.

• Measurable. I can easily set goals around my word of the year. This allows me to be intentional and look for examples of how I am displaying my commitment in my life.

• Simple. Since it is only one word, I do not get distracted by complicated plot twists. It is easy for me to remember what I am trying to focus on in that given year.

• Memorable. While I am not completely losing my mind (some on my staff might disagree with this,) I find that it is easier and more efficient to search my mind for one word I want to remember than for some phrase or quip.

• Communicable. My word of the year is easy for me to communicate to others. The message is much less likely to get lost in translation if I keep my thoughts to one word.

My Word for 2017

This year the focus of my leadership life is contentment.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear this word? Lazy? Complacent? Comfortable? Peaceful?

For some, this word probably sends shivers up your spine. You may be saying something like, “interesting word for a guy who runs his own business!”

However, when I was researching this word I started with its definition. Contentment is defined as a state of happiness and satisfaction. This does not mean that I stop trying, it does not mean I won't try my very best. In our company, we have adopted a verse from the Bible that says, “Whatever you do, work at it as for the Lord and not for men.” It reminds us that we need to have an attitude that reflects the work we do, which has an element of spirituality to it.

So, in no way does the word contentment mean complacent, or indifferent, or even comfortable!

What it does mean to me is that at the end of the day, when I finish the work I set out to do, or even if I don't get everything done that I hope to….I will be content. When I really want to meet with someone for an hour, but who only has 15 minutes instead, I will be content with the time I get. If I put a bid in on a project I really want to do and I don’t get the work, I will be content.

My real goal here is to put my very best effort in, knowing that I can be happy knowing I did my best. I don’t think contentment excludes self-examining where I could do better, nor does it mean accepting mediocrity. That is not my best. I will NOT be content if I do something without giving it my all.

The reason I chose contentment as my word of the year is to remind me that if I have done a good job, finished the race, and done the best I could with the talent and effort I have, then I should be content.

Homework:

What is your word of the year? Have you ever thought through something like this? What kind of focus would this bring to your leadership life if you committed yourself to defining your year by one thing? Comment with your word and definition below so that we can connect throughout the year about how our words of the year are shaping us in 2017!

Do You Make These Mistakes in Leadership?

I was having a conversation with a really close friend the other day. This person is a high-level leader who has a lot of autonomy in his role. He can make many decisions that can affect many lives. His board of directors gives him a lot of latitude to direct the vision and mission of his organization. His team loves working with him.

He knows leadership. He not only articulates this in the way he speaks, but I can see the actions of his life. He is:

• Self-aware and others-aware.He knows his strengths and weaknesses, and is not afraid to admit when he doesn't know something. He is keenly aware of how others are presenting themselves.

• Communicates vision. He repeats the vision for his organization over and over and over. I mean, if you are part of his group and cannot articulate what the organization is about, then you must be trying not to understand. You might not like it, You might not agree with it, But there is one thing for sure…You HAVE HEARD IT!

• Displays cognitive and emotional intelligence. He is smart enough to be in his role and knows when his emotions are in play and how to manage them.

• Balances task and relationship. He realizes that leadership is about both Leaders have followers and they need to work together to create the organization's vision.

• Understands positives and negatives of culture. He knows that culture has both cool stuff about it and warts, and that is all just part of the cultural paradox.

• Change Matters. He moves his team forward because he knows if he stands still, they become irrelevant. He is keenly aware of dynamics of change like conflict, stress, and speed.

• Strategic and systematic thinker. He has a strong ability to know what the root issue is that needs to be addressed. He listens compassionately to all concerns and can keep his team focused on what the whole organization needs.

• Spiritually connected. He interacts with people showing both grace and mercy at appropriate times and has a strong moral compass.

He both knows leadership and acts as a leader. As you can tell, I am a fan. I am not in any way saying he is perfect, just that when it comes to leadership he really gets the core essence.

The Conversation

Our dialogue was actually quite short. Neither of us had much time that day, but the conversation was about something very important to both of us. We both are members of an organization that is struggling. Its current leadership has been in place for a few years.

Leading this organization is in no way easy. What is easy is to sit back (like I am doing) and be critical.

My intention is not to be negative or critical but to turn some of our observations of this organization into a learning moment for all of us.

Here are 5 leadership mistakes we quickly identified. Perhaps you could use this list as a reflection of where you are in your own leadership.

The Mistakes

• Personal Agenda. The leader has become emotionally attached to his initial vision and doesn’t seem to be allowing himself the capacity to learn.

• Incremental Change. The leadership team has gotten into the weeds of the change that is needed. They are too focused on the tactics of making the change happen rather than staying strategic and delegating. This is causing the change to be micromanaged and blame is starting to occur.

• Spirit of Defensiveness. When strategy gets questions and an answer is given confidently. When people want more depth, the same answers are given only louder and with more extraversion. This behavior is turf-protection rather than a spirit of openness and curiosity.

• Vision possibility. While the vision for the organization is inspirational, it is one that is hard to relate to the practical. While inspiration carries with it emotion and cultural comfort, a vision has to do more than give a feeling of eating “Momma’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes." George Bernard Shaw gets attributed with one of my favorite vision quotes that makes the distinction between inspiration and possibility: “you see things; and you say, ‘why'. But I dream things that never were; and say 'why not!’.”

• Lack of personal awareness. Perhaps the biggest issue is that many people tell this leader he is great all the time. I think he has started to believe it. While I am sure he feels some pressure in the role, my concern for him is that he is falling prey to the invulnerability fallacy.

• The invulnerability fallacy. Because he has risen to the top, and many in the organization were excited he took the role, nothing can go wrong for him.

Self-Check

It is good for all of us to get really honest with ourselves from time to time. If you are sitting there telling yourself, “Well none of this happens to me so I am doing well," then perhaps you are suffering from the fallacy of thinking that you are all-knowing. I think as leaders we need to constantly be challenging ourselves across a number of leadership domains.

I think as leaders we need to constantly be challenging ourselves across a number of leadership domains. This is one of the reasons that coaching is so important. Every leader needs to have a voice who will speak truth to them. Who can help them see things that are not obvious. It is very difficult for someone who is internal to the organization and wants to stay, to deliver meaningful, long-term feedback. Once in awhile, someone will speak one word of truth, but very few will have the intestinal fortitude to continue on. This is one of the real values that coaching can bring. Hopefully, you are working with a coach, and this coach is providing you the challenge you need in your leadership life.

Every leader needs someone in their life who will keep them honest and humble, who doesn’t have much to lose in delivering bad news, a trusted voice who can lead the leader out of the wilderness, someone you can put your faith in because you know they have your best interest in mind.

Homework:

I have given you 8 positive leadership dimensions and 5 things that can go wrong in leadership. Do a reflective assessment of your own leadership. Not that these two lists are in any way definitive, but use them to think, reflect, and assess what your leadership looks like. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. 

5 Research-Based Tips for Meeting Your 2017 Goals

By now most of you will have set some goals that you want to achieve in 2017. The problem for most of us is not setting goals, but maintaining the inertia we need to keep moving toward reaching them. The idea for this blog actually comes from a goal I set in December that I did NOT achieve. Reflecting on that disappointment, I wondered what research shows about failing versus reaching the goals we set.

Here is my story and the top 5 tips I came up with. I would love to hear from you if you have any experience using any of these or have any more to share.

My Story

Many of you who know me, or have followed these musings for any amount of time, know that I believe the leader's spiritual and physical health is vital to overall leadership success. As a part of my own physical health plan I try to exercise every day during the week, and if I am in training for a race (usually a half-marathon) I will do a longer run on the weekend. One of my exercise outlets is a gym called Orange Theory. I really like this gym because it is a one-hour intense workout that combines cardiovascular and strength workout in a cross-training and muscle-confusion format. The other thing I really like about this company is that they provide me with my personal data for every workout.

I am a research and data junky. I always want to see things from a scientific and rational perspective. In the attached photo, you can see the kind of email report I get from every workout I do at Orange Theory. This particular workout was my last of the year and was a little unusual in that it was 90 minutes instead of my normal 60-minute sweat fest.

After getting an email like this one towards the end of November, I noticed that I had burned 12,000 calories that month. Pretty cool! I decided I would love to burn 15,000 calories in the month of December. I thought, "I don’t have a lot of travel in December, so I can get to the gym more often, so let's see if I can do it." As you can see in this graphic, I fell 320 calories short of my goal.

Needless to say I was disappointed. I really like winning, and I like hitting goals. I was actually kind of disappointed. I know several of you would say things like, “look on the bright side you worked out X number of times in December and burned 22% more calories than November. Scott, reframe this as a win!" I know that if I were coaching YOU, this is what I would do.

However, that wasn't helping me. I didn’t hit the goal! So, I decided to do some reflecting and look into the literature for some guidance. Here is what I came up with.

5 Tips

1.Beware of Over-Certainty. Make Your Goal Doable. When I set my goal of 15,000 calories I was sure I could do it. My workout on November 30th was about 895 calories and I thought I could workout about 17 days in December based on my schedule, giving me a total burn of 15,215 calories. That seemed like no problem because I thought I might even be able to get 18 or 19 workouts in.

I am finishing a fantastic book right now called UnDoing Project by Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, Liars Poker.) In it, Lewis recounts the relationship between Daniel Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow) and Amos Tversky who wrote some remarkable studies on the human decision-making process. Lewis reminded me that one of my mind's best tricks is to make me feel too certain about things that are actually uncertain. The key to making a good goal is understanding all the variables that go into the goal and what your past history has been. Because according to Kahneman and Tversky data will tend to regress toward the mean. In this instance, the average number of workouts I usually do a month, 12, and the average number of calories I burn, around 825. My certainty was off about both how often I could workout, and how many calories I could burn. A more realistic goal for me would have been around 11,000 calories, which would have been roughly a 10% increase in calorie burn.

The lesson I learned from this is that when setting a goal, I must make sure I am using data that is a true representation of what I usually do and then project a reasonable increase from this. If I start with extreme that I may only have reached one time, then I will be setting unrealistic and unattainable goals...no matter how badly I want to reach them.

2. Coaching Matters. In his book Social, Matthew Lieberman makes a convincing argument that the human brain is much bigger than it needs to be to sustain the body it drives. Most animals have brains that are equipped just enough to drive the body to which they are attached. Lieberman calls this study of brain size encephalization. The claim is that the human brain is for much more than just sustaining its body. The research is showing that this extra capacity is for things like intellect and socialization. You were built for relationship, so doing things like pooling resources (cooperation,) and spurring one another along (encouragement) are all functions of our advanced neuro-anatomy.

Now my gym, Orange Theory, does this well by having a coach at every workout class. They are motivating, instructional, and inspirational. The problem I see in the way I set my calorie-burning goal is that I did not sit down and articulate my goal out loud to a coach who could have worked with me, tracked my performance, given me encouragement along the way. I tried to go it alone.

Have you ever tried to keep a goal a secret while trying to reach it? I find this very difficult. Next time I will say my goals out loud and have my coach hold me accountable.

3. Perseverance. Most goals are exciting to go after at the beginning, and when you get toward the end and can see the finish line we can find our way to the end even if we are exhausted. But it is in the middle where most goals are won or lost.

In her book Grit, psychologist Angela Duckworth makes an absolutely brilliant observation about this.

Effort counts twice. It seems like we are all gifted with some talents and when we apply some effort to this we obtain skills. It makes sense but that is only half of the equation. It is the skill we obtain applied with more effort that equals achievement.We all know people with a lot of talent who just don’t work hard enough, for whatever reason, at hitting their goals. It is this perseverance that seems to matter twice as much as the talent we are born with. Duckworth uses the same quote from Fredrich Nietzsche that I use with my doctoral students.

Do not talk about giftedness or inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became ‘geniuses’…they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.

I needed to a better job in the middle of December. When I go back and look at my workouts, I see that there are a few of them where I didn’t give enough effort. I fell about 50 to 75 calories short. As I reflect on the lackadaisical performances I recall what I said to myself, “No worries, I will make it up next time.” Well, if I string together 3 or 4 of those it becomes an entire workout that I'm short, and then I am seriously behind

Stay strong in the middle. Persevere (This is a great place for a coach to help hold you accountable.)

4. Create a Fresh Start Effect-The fancy name for this in the psychology world is "temporal landmark." The basic idea is that the human brain has a hard time keeping a lot of detail straight over a long period of time. Temporal landmarks take complex relationships and associate what must happen and when in order to achieve the outcome.

In the world of goal setting, temporal landmarks become mini-goals or check-in points. You set your big goal, and then break it down into smaller steps you will take along the way. You document what to do and when for each small step. Then you use each of these way-points as a fresh start toward your new goal. Perhaps you have a small celebration for what you have accomplished. You assess where you are, and strive as hard as you can to the next waypoint.

When I set my very aggressive calorie goal I needed to set weekly calorie burn check-ins. Rather than just get my data report and then not think much more about it, I needed to use this data, celebrate my success and then set my eyes on my waypoint for the next week. Each week then becomes a Fresh Start as I work toward completing a long goal that can get overwhelming, especially in the middle.

5. Hope As a Strategy. I know many of you will disagree with this point. You see hope as some whimsical illusion. A fantasy that is devoid of structure and process. If this is your definition of hope then I understand why you disagree.

Let me offer another definition, though. The leadership literature defines hope as “a cognitive set that is based on a reciprocally derived sense of successful goal-directed determination and pathways [planning]" (Adams et al, Applied Theory In Workplace Spirituality, p. 367). So in this definition hope, hope is the way that we think about goals and how to reach them.

The research by Schulmann and others has found that a person's ability and motivation are not always enough to achieve desired performance. Positive expectations, especially in situations where persistence is required to overcome adversity, are a requisite.

It seems that a positive mental stat is a vital component of hope, one in which motivation provides the energy for persistence toward goal achievement.

So, while hope may not be a good strategy by itself, it seems it is vital to have in order to engage in the strategy set before them. I think it is fair to say that even if you have the best strategy in the world, but no hope, lack of performance is predictable.

One of my favorite quotes from the bible is found in Proverbs the 29th chapter in verse 18; “Without a vision, people perish." Any vision crafted by a leader or organization must include a sense of purpose and hope. Without hope being a part of your strategy the people will fade away. Oh, they may collect their paycheck, but the likelihood they will hit their goals is greatly diminished.

As I reflect on missing my goal of 15,000 calories in the month of December, I wish I had included more positive thinking about my goal. I know I had a lot of determination, but I was not as focused on the positive benefit of the goal, only grinding it out for the sake of reaching it. I think I could have used a dose of hope to support my journey.

Homework

Why not examine a goal or two you have set this year. Can you learn anything from the mistakes that I made in the past and give yourself a better chance for a positive outcome?

How to Predict Success in 2017

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season! I know I sure did.  My time was spent with family and catching up with some old friends I hadn’t seen in a while. One of the conversations I had over the holidays was with a friend from graduate school who is sensing some transition in his life. He asked a question during our coffee that I actually get asked by a lot by folks who are desiring a change in their life:

“Scott, when you first got started, what are 3 things you think allowed you to be successful?”

First, I want you to know that I am humbled to be put in a category where others see me as successful. It is truly an honor that the clients I work with (or have worked with in the past) would continue to hire me to develop the leadership in themselves or others within their organizations. I don’t take this responsibility lightly or for granted…ever!

Second, I think attempting to replicate another person's experience is dangerous. Models are built upon data and a number of assumptions. The assumptions I used and the situation I was in when I first started this business 15 years or so ago could not possibly be duplicated by others today. Although I can provide some information that is directionally helpful, trying to replicate my experience would be quite frustrating.

Clayton Christensen echo’s this point in his book Competing Against Luck. He tells the story of how Google attempted to use analytics to predict influenza outbreaks. By creating search engine algorithms, engineers tried to predict when people were searching for items related to influenza. It turns out that the link between specific search terms and the algorithm was too complex and the tool became unreliable as a predictive.

Reframe the Question

While it is always an honor and fun to share my story, I don’t think my story is really what people want to know! I get asked a lot about my experience, but what people are really asking has nothing to do with me!

So, what is the question the person is really asking?

Any “coach” (whether formal or informal, external or internal, paid or volunteer, executive or life or organizational) must have the skill of listening then reframing questions. Reframing a question provides a different perspective on the issue at hand.

Here is what I have come up with when I reframe the question my friend asked me initially:

Scott, based on your experience what are the 3 things I need to do to be successful?

Don’t you think this is what most people really want to know when they ask about translating your success into their story?

Examples

Consider these questions you might get asked within your role, and what is the question the people might really be asking:

Question: As an HR Vice President, what does leadership development look like? Real Question: What do I need to do to get promoted to my next role in the company?

Question: As a Sales Leader, how did you balance work and family? Real Question: If I sacrifice time with my family will it be worth it financially?

Question: As a Church Plant Pastor, what are you doing to grow your congregation? Real Question: What should I be doing to grow my church? I am doing everything the books say I should do, but it isn't working!

Please don’t misunderstand my point. I do think that people want to know how you approach things, how you set goals, how you solve problems, how you prioritize resources, how you assess risk.

But… mostly what they want to know is what about them!

Enter the world of what psychologist call self-efficacy.

Research On Self-Efficacy

Self-Efficacy is a fancy term for belief in yourself; confidence in the capabilities and talents you have been given and developed. Studies have shown that the confidence you have in your capabilities affects your performance and is linked to happiness, satisfaction, and well-being. All of these attributes in one way or another link to success.

In some fascinating new research published in the December 2016 issue of the Consulting Psychology Journal it turns out that you can help those you “coach” to be more successful by following 3 simple ideas:

• Invest the Time The confidence of the person increased as the coaching relationship evolved over time. As you coach others over the course of your conversation, notice how their confidence increases toward the coaching objective. When it does, make them aware that you are seeing this increase in confidence.
• Say it Out Loud Turns out that the more the client verbally articulates their confidence, the higher the achievement to the goal actually becomes. “I am going to do this” type statements show confidence in the client's ability. The more they make commitments out loud, the increased likelihood of belief in themselves.
• Ask the Right Question at the Right Time In this study questions coaches asked fell into three categories: Open-ended - “What do you want to do?" Proposing Solutions - “You could search for other companies that offer better possibilities.” Provide Support - “That sounds like a great idea."

Turns out that proposing solutions was only effective in triggering self-efficacy statements in the very first coaching session. While the other two methods enhanced the confidence of the other person throughout the coaching engagement.

2017 and Beyond

As you work with and coach others on your team, especially if you have more of a long-term relationship, focus on asking open-ended questions and providing support for the ideas they bring. Too many of us fall into the trap of proposing solutions because it makes us feel better about ourselves, like we added real value. I would argue that the value you bring is the investment of time and belief in the person you are coaching. The research says that the value of you proposing solutions beyond early in a coaching relationship does little to improve the confidence or belief in the mind of the person you are working with.

I predict if you focus on building the confidence of others in your organization, you will have a very successful 2017. Let me know throughout your year how this prediction is coming true for you!

Homework

When you are coaching others, resist the temptation to make the coaching about you by offering advice and providing them solutions. Really focus this year on practicing open-ended questions and providing your client the support they need.

How to Energize Your Leadership Life

The coolest thing happened to me last night! My wife had a meeting and rather than sit at home in my office, she dropped me off at the local Starbucks. So I am sitting outside (a benefit of living in Florida) having a hot chai tea latte (my personal favorite), grading some papers for an Executive Coaching class I am teaching. I had graded about 12 papers and my eyes were starting to cross when an older gentleman sat down at the table next to mine.

I know better than to make eye contact. When you make eye contact, that is when they start talking. Even thought I had completed what I needed to get done, I had a chance to get ahead in the class. I had work to do. Just stay focused, Scott, you can do it. Just don’t look up.

But the words of my pastor’s sermon jumped into my mind at that very moment “the gift of Christmas is found in the margins." The point of his sermon last Sunday morning was that even when it looks like all is lost and you have no power of your own to provide, God is in the margins. Christmas is a time for hope because 2000 years ago the Romans had such powerful rule over all the people they had lost hope.  Then, in the middle of the night, in a Bethlehem stable, HOPE showed up in the margins. God acted because he cared. I was thinking to myself, “Scott, how much do you care?"

…And as I was having this thought, you guessed it...

I looked up!

“You live around here?" the old-timer asked.

That was it. I was done for the night. Turns out he was a real talker. We spent the next 45 minutes together of which I asked 3 questions and he talked the entire time. And what a glorious night it turned out to be! Turns out he was a football coach from central Ohio down in Florida for Christmas with his daughter. He started in the high school ranks and worked his way up the coaching ladder. He has spent time with and coached for some of the all-time greats: Bo Schembechler, Tommy Tuberville, and even spent some time in the Canadian professional league.

I honestly could have listened to him all night. He had such a neat perspective on both football, coaching, and life.

Leadership Lessons

Here are my three big take-a-ways from my conversation with the old coach.

1. There is only one letter difference between "hire" and "fire." No matter which you are experiencing, there is probably some “ire” in each. Do the very best job you can with the job you have today. Hold everything loosely, because you never know when you could lose your job, even when you have a winning record. If you get a new job, there are others who wanted it and some of them might still be on the team.

2. Professionals don’t need your advice. At the end of the day, the professional (football player or insert whatever noun you wish) gets paid for how they perform. Period. They are ultimately responsible for the decisions they make that affect their overall performance. There is too much victim mentality today. Too many people think they are entitled to something they haven’t put an ounce of effort into. Professionals might want you to help them think through something, or get some perspective, but don’t ever be fooled into thinking they want your advice.

3. The end will come. One of my questions for him was, “In hindsight, would you do it again?” Without flinching or even much thinking, he said, “Without question!" He said, “I have this tablet thing at home (and I am dying laughing on the inside), and I get messages from other coaches, from past players, even from kids in my English class. They say, "Hey coach, good to see you are still alive. Did you see that game last night between Clemson and Virginia Tech?”

Then came one of the only pauses in roughly 45 minutes of conversation …

“Do it again…I would not have done anything else.”

In rather dramatic fashion, my wife pulls up in the old Kia Sorento to pick me up.

As I thanked him for the lively conversation and started to walk back to the car it hit me right between the eyes: God had shown up in the margin, but not as I had originally intended it.

My original idea was to show up and be some margin in this guys life. After all, he was older and all alone.

Turns out, I could not have been more wrong. Turns out I was the one who needed the blessing of someone else's company.

I don’t even know the old coach's name. For all I know maybe he wasn’t even a football coach. But I am really thankful he took the time to show up and provide some light into the margins of my life.

Homework

Maybe you know someone in your organization who is feeling marginalized. Maybe there is someone who needs a 45 minute Starbucks conversation. Even though you don’t have time, maybe what you need to do is stop and recognize that they are human too. Who knows, maybe you will be the one who ends up with the blessing. Merry Christmas!

What Advice Would You Give to This First-Time Leader?

As a part of my personal morning routine, I try really hard to spend at least 30 minutes in reflection, meditation, and prayer. I have been using a book recently to assist me in this quiet time called “40-Day Journey with Parker Palmer." The thing I like most about Palmer’s writing is the powerful way he provides insight into paradox. For example:

• The inner life and the outer life

• The darkness in the world and the light in the world

• Action and reflection

• Strength and weakness

• Living while dying and dying while living

My mind has been in a couple of places this past week and my morning quiet time has proven quite valuable for me. My quandary has been a paradox of sorts between leadership and management. Reflection, meditation, and prayer, if done in the early morning, can have a profound impact on how you see your day, your week, and your world. If you do not currently use this leadership tool, I really recommend giving it a go and see how it might change your world.

The Story

My youngest son Greg and his beautiful wife, Sylvia, spent the week after Thanksgiving with my wife and me at our home in Florida. Their trip to the sunshine state had several purposes:

• Vacation - Greg has been working for Enterprise Car Rental for a year and had earned some much needed “PTO" (paid time off).

• Thanksgiving - As much as possible, we wanted our immediate family to celebrate the holiday together (we were missing our daughter and her husband this year who are spending a year in Madrid, Spain teaching and traveling).

• Promotion - Greg recently accomplished a major feat! After only a year at Enterprise he passed their rigorous management training program and will go back to central Ohio as an assistant branch manager. He has really worked hard for this promotion and, at age 23, Kim and I could not be more proud of Greg’s effort and accomplishment.

One of the things that Sylvia and Greg wanted to do on vacation was to spend a day at the beach. One afternoon we all got in the old Kia Sorento and headed over to Melbourne Beach. While we were sitting and enjoying the sun, sand, and ocean, Greg made the statement, “It is interesting, up until now at Enterprise it has been all about me and what I do to perform. When I go back to work next Tuesday I will have 3 other people who will have a say in my performance.”

The Paradox

Many of you who have been in leadership for a while may remember that moment when you had this same realization. Some of you are new to leadership and may be experiencing this same thought and feeling. Some of you have been in leadership for a while and may just be waking up to this seemingly unsolvable puzzle.

How can something be totally about me and notabout me at the same time?

This is one of the intriguing things about leadership. Perhaps it is the tension that exists between management and leadership. Perhaps it is the tension that exists between task and relationship. Perhaps it is the tension that exists inside of both task and relationship, for each of them have a “what about me?” and “what about my followers?” component.

The Advice

As we sat on the beach, Greg turned and said, “You know, Dad, you should blog about that. I think a lot of people new to leadership would like to know what to be thinking about as they get started in a transition like this.”

So, never being one to hold back when asked to give an opinion, here are the questions that were on Greg’s mind that day and what I came up with as a response:

• How do I motivate the people on my team when I am not around? Some of my team is remote so I don’t see them every day.So I think this answer is two-fold. First is to find highly motivated people like yourself. There is only so much external motivation a leader can provide. If they don’t have a high internal motivation, then something is wrong and they need to find some other method of self-actualization. No amount of external motivation, even big bonuses, will give them the satisfaction in work they desire. Having said that, if you have someone who is self-motivated, the best thing I know to do to motivate someone is to care for them. Show compassion. Really listen and give them ways they can solve problems. The ultimate goal you are striving for is that when you are not around, they would say “I wonder what Greg would do in this situation?” That is leadership!

• How do I know when to manage and when to lead?Leadership is about the team! Find out who they are. Find out what they like. Really work to get to know them. Let them know you will have high expectations for performance, but ultimately caring for the customer and the employee is what you are there for. They will do amazing things for you if they know you care about them and that you have their back as best you can as a first line leader.Management is about the process. It is organizing and planning. Be as transparent as you possibly can about “why” things are the way they are. Most managers focus on the “how." Really dig in and explain the "why" so there is understanding about the processes. Don’t just tell them what to do, show them how and then explain why.

• How Do I Organize the Work?Work with your supervisor (leader) on this one. Get advice on best practices they have seen. Seek out a mentor who has been really successful in your role. Each organization will have its own secrets to success. There is nothing like a good mentor when trying to figure out organization. When they share advice, implement it! Give it a fair try! It is frustrating as a mentor to give advice then have someone not take it and show up for the next meeting with the same question, or worse, having failed because they thought they knew better than to take the advice of wisdom.

• What is the best way to give feedback & build trust?The best way to build trust is to keep your word. If you say you are going to do something, do it. If you declare you are going to “win” and have really high standards then you need to hold everyone on the team accountable for performance. You cannot have different standards for performance. You may have to make individual decisions based on circumstances but never have different standards. As far as feedback goes, my experience is people want it straight. They don’t want it sugar-coated. They don’t want 3 positives and then the “negative bomb." There are three steps I follow for feedback: 1. Give the situation the event occurred in. 2. Give the observed behavior they exhibited. 3. Give the result you observed. This is feedback. If you want them to change, coach them on what they could to in that situation, what the desired behavior looks like, and what result you expect. Ask them how they could do it differently next time to obtain a better result.

• How do I achieve balance in my life? One of the conversations I have with many of my clients is, “all work and no play makes Jack/Jill very dull." I don’t really ascribe to the "how to balance life" equation. I see life much more as flow and energy. What gives you energy and what sucks the life out of you. For all of us what we really control is our time, and to a lesser but equally important domain, our health (both physical and spiritual). Ensure as a leader that you find ways to revitalize yourself before, during, and after your work time. Make sure you have good positive thoughts going into your brain first thing in the morning and eat something for breakfast. Stay active during the day. Pay attention to the relationships you care most about. Never, ever, ever take them for granted. You will be tired and tempted to be isolated when you get home at the end of a long day. If so, how can you reenergize yourself so that those relationships you care most about at home feel as valued as your customers and your employees? Find your energy flow. No segment of your life gets all your focus.

Some of these answers could have been much bigger and broader and probably deserve some context. If you have thoughts on how you would answer these I would love to hear them. Why not leave a thought as a comment on my site?  If you send me an email that is cool, too, and with your permission I will post your comment on the site for you. I really do think a lot of young leaders have questions like this. Let's create a “Leadership Wisdom” forum that can serve as a repository for their leadership questions.

Homework

You have two assignments this week. The first is to provide your comment and leadership advice to the above questions. There is nothing like experience weighing in on questions like this. The second is some intentional personal reflection.  If you are not spending time in personal reflection in the morning, I highly encourage this discipline. Take 30 minutes with a spiritual book (I like using the Psalms or Proverbs from the Bible) or a book by a spiritual leader (I love using work by Parker Palmer and Ken Boa), and find a short passage that takes less than 5 minutes to read. Then spend the rest of your time reflecting on what the reading means to you. If you decide to implement a practice like this, I would love to hear how it is going for you.

5 Ways to Positively Impact Your Organization’s Culture

There is a lot of conversation in the “blogosphere” these days about the types of cultures leaders can create in organizations. Here are a few examples:

• Learning Culture

• Performance Culture

• Service Culture

• Command & Control Culture

• Customer Centric Culture

• Employee’s First Culture

• Shareholder’s First Culture

Frankly, there are probably thousands of cultures and subcultures that organizations can identify with. Leaders can be left in a state of ambiguity about what is really acceptable in a culture unless organization-wide consensus can be found.

Confusion can lead to inconsistency in strategy implementation or even complete chaos, which can result in paralysis. This fragmentation in organizational culture can leave the strongest subcultures defined by those with the loudest voices, which may not actually be representative of the culture at all.

Perhaps a story can clarify:

Years ago I worked at an organization that had a cultural norm of “respect for people." This norm was carried out in a lot of very positive ways throughout the organization, such as caring and compassion with a death in an employee's family, paternity and maternity leaves, even pay based on performance was weaved into this respectful culture.

In one department, there swooped in a leader who had an agenda. A change in performance standards would take place but only a select few favorites would be told of these new rules in the culture. Low performance ratings were given to people who had traditionally been top performers. The organization became chaotic and fragmented as no one knew what the cultural norms were in order to perform at high levels. All anyone knew was to "please the leader or you are out."

Fast forward 6 months and the entire department had been decimated. The leader had to be replaced. What was once a high performing organization had been completely and utterly destroyed by the actions of one person. One really loud voice was able to take down an entire team, exiting many top performers from the company in the process.

The culture you define as an organizational leader impacts the development of your team members. If they don't feel safe, they definitely won't feel valued as a team member. And if they don't feel valued, then they won't be motivated. When you have unmotivated team members you run the risk of losing them or leaving untapped potential on the table.

So, how do you create a culture that allows your newest team members to feel safe as well as your current colleagues to be motivated? Perhaps it's not something that you DO, but instead what you can BE.

Focus on developing your emotional intelligence. This effort on your part will impact the culture you want to create. As you create this positive culture, the desired behaviors will become part of who you are and not just something that you do occasionally. Think deeply about the kind of culture you are shaping as you lead your team.

Here are 5 things you can become that will positively impact the culture of your organization to give you great results:

Be Self Aware Know and be confident in yourself and your abilities. Understand how you handle your emotions, and how they impress your company. Everyone is watching you to see how you will react. In fact, they may be able to predict your behaviors. Become just as aware of yourself and how you can choose your emotional responses.

Be Assertive Communicate your what, how, and why in a simple, clear, and even repetitive way so that your team understands.

Be Empathetic When I teach seminars on Emotional Intelligence, I often ask the group for a common definition for empathy. The response I get back more than any other is “walking a mile in the other person’s shoes.” I love this definition, but to take it one step further (pun intended), “walking a mile in the other person’s shoes, even when the shoe doesn’t fit." Being empathetic is about being compassionate, caring, listening, and being flexible as needed. I believe strongly that we should not neglect the impact empathy has on shaping the culture of your company. Showing regular empathy will instantly invoke safety and value for your teammates.

Be in Control Not wavering, or changing things based on emotional reactions. When something comes up that invokes an emotional response, remind yourself of the companies mission, and your principles, to be sure that the decisions being made align with your mission. This way your team can feel confident that you won't make changes at the drop of a hat. As they trust you, they can focus on the work they need to do.

Be Optimistic People who are positive are magnetic. We want to be around them and we can be inspired by them. In order to be optimistic, you have to change the way you talk to yourself. What I mean by that is being able to see the best in yourself, see setbacks as learning opportunities, and see obstacles as unique, temporary events that you'll get through. Learn more about this by downloading my eBook, Optimistic Thinking.

Homework

Think about the 5 "Be's" above. Choose one you would want to work on.

To help organize your thoughts, grab a piece of paper, then write and complete the following sentence:

I want to be more ______________, so that my team can feel ______________ and we'll create a culture that is ___________________.

Here are three ways I will be more ____________ this week: 1. 2. 3.

Share what you wrote with a mentor or coach and have them help you with this development. If you can't think of who to share this with, write it in our comments below or contact me directly. I'd love to hear what you have to say and find out how we can help you!

5 Tricks That Are Real Treats for Leader Development

Last week I had the opportunity to give a webinar to a group of highly talented coaches who are members of the Georgia International Coach Federation. The topic of our discussion was The Secret of Developing Emotional Intelligence. As webinars go, it was a fascinating hour of exploration on what leaders can do TODAY to become more emotionally intelligent. As we went through the topic there was one slide that really caught the attention of the coaches. There were more questions and comments about this one idea than any other we discussed.

Developing the Whole Leader

If you have followed these ramblings for any length of time, you know I am a big believer in the development of the entire person: body, mind, soul, and strength. The entire leader needs to show up every day. If we miss developing any part of our humanity then we become out of balance. If you ever have driven a car with a flat tire you know what it feels like when 3 of the tires are full of air and running fine, but one of them is lifeless and flat. You can’t go as far and you can’t go as fast. The same is true with leader development. If we don’t balance our development, we will struggle in the long-run with effectiveness in our leadership lives.

Developing your body entails paying attention to what you put in it, how you use it, and how you rest it.  Developing your mind involves intellectual stimulation, creativity, and includes things like serious play.

Developing your mind involves intellectual stimulation, creativity, and includes things like serious play.

Developing your strength to me means your attitude. How are you showing up? Do you provide energy and enthusiasm to those you lead or do you “suck the life” out of the room? Strength entails attitude, passion, commitment, perseverance.

Developing your soul. This is what I want to engage you in today. The soul is the essence of who you are. This is often a scary place for some folks because it feels religious and spiritual on one hand, or conceptual and theoretical on the other. I want to acknowledge this fear and say that yes, there is an element of spirituality and theory in this idea of the soul. But it is not one we should run from or ignore, as it is one that for sure can affect our balance as a leader.

The soul is often thought of in terms of the human psyche. The etymology of the word psyche refers to the animating spirit of the individual. Those who are experts in the spiritual disciplines tell us this is the part of our humanity that is eternal and lives forever. If you believe this premise, then paying attention to what makes it up and developing it has real value to all of us, especially those called into leadership.

5 Realms of the Human Psyche

The graphic used in this post represents how I am looking at the human psyche these days. While this graphic is not a complete picture of the soul, I do think it begins to capture major components when it comes to leader development. (i.e. an example of what is not pictured would be a memory. I believe one aspect of the human soul is the capacity to recall history, even though our recollection at times can be dim.) The graphic is best read from the inside out, so that if some type of stimulus happens in our outside world, the first filter that stimulus goes through is your values and beliefs and then the reaction moves out toward a behavior you elicit.

Values/Beliefs

At the very core of the leader are our values and beliefs. Some scholars will take these constructs and call this the leader's worldview. While every leader has a worldview, most of these structures that support the core of who we are, we don’t think much about. Your worldview is how you rationalize and explain everything that exists and that matters to you. A simple tool to understand your values is a values card sort.

Leadership Question: Do your values/beliefs/worldview align with your leadership principles and actions?

Affective Emotion

These emotions are your basic feelings and perceptions that shape your world. The feelings that are elicited by events, the recognition of those feelings, and the experience you have with the emotion are all part of the affective realm. Things like fear, disgust, happiness, surprise are all responses leaders elicit, recognize, and experience. I think the MSCEIT is an excellent development tool for understanding this level of emotion.

Leadership Question: Are you aware of the impact of your affective responses that you are not proud of?

Personality

The next realm is that of our preferences or personality. When you get a stimulus from outside, do you prefer to react via the outer realm of people and things or the inner world of ideas and impressions? There is no right or wrong in this domain, only what the individual finds most comfortable for them. Some of the more popular models for describing personality are DISC, MBTI, and a newer tool, the Pearman Personality Integrator.

Leadership Question: Do you know your personality type along with its strengths and inherent weaknesses?

Trait Emotional Intelligence

This level describes a leader's awareness of their emotional ability. While there are several models for describing trait emotional intelligence, my personal favorite is the Bar-On EQi 2.0. The model considers the emotional ability around 5 distinct domains such as self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal relationships, decision making, and stress management.

Leadership Question: Do you know how balanced emotionally you are as a leader?

Skills & Talents & Behaviors

Finally, we reach the outermost layer. It is actually the layer that is seen by the most casual of observers. Unless others know us well, rarely do they know our worldview or our emotional triggers. What they see are the skills and talents we display. Tools such as Strengthfinders, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Inventory, or 360-degree feedback are valuable at helping leaders understand their behaviors and the impacts they can have on others.

As a leader, when you are thinking about developing this innermost part of who you are, I want to encourage you to develop the whole you. For example, you may be an excellent politician with great negotiating skills, but without a value structure to support your skill, we all know too well what we get when this happens. Before we are too hard on the politicians, you may be a minister who is very good at public speaking, but if you do not value people you may end up hurting those you say you care most about.

Leader, don’t leave any one of these domains to chance in your development. I encourage you to consider all of them as you think through what development needs you are planning for the next year. What I see too much of in my executive coaching practice is leaders wanting to focus on skill, rather than doing the deeper but more valuable work.

Best hopes as you traverse your own personal development.

What Building Paper Airplanes Taught Me About Leadership

For me the fourth quarter of the year means planning. Many of my customers are putting together training plans and deciding which leaders in the organization they are going to provide coaching services for in 2017. Planning is a pure management function that is vital to any organization's success. Planning is a very serious thing for me as I am sure it is for you. The lifeblood of my business depends upon it. When I plan, I get very detailed and focused on my work and what my work is going to look like in the coming year.

What I find during these times of intense planning is that my creativity can suffer. I can become task-oriented and my leadership life can really suffer. My focus on tasks translates into me becoming way more of a transactional leader than I like or my staff deserves.

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When I get transactional with my team, I am in more of a "tell mode" than I like. I get very directive with them when the style of leadership needed is coaching or supportive. Getting transactional as a leader happens way too often to me when I have spent a lot of time having my manager hat on.

Cure for Transactional Leadership

One way I have found that really helps me put my leadership hat back on is the idea of serious play.

Serious play is a special kind of intense learning experience where I give time, energy, passion, and commitment to something I enjoy and get a great deal of satisfaction from the experience. So I am working, learning, and having fun all at the same time.

As adults, we approach work and life from such a serious perspective. I understand that our work matters to us, and for many of us our livelihood depends upon our performance in our employment. We all have mortgages to pay and the electric company expects to be paid every month, not to mention that the kids like to eat from time to time.

Our work has very serious utility to meet some of our most basic needs. Got it! Check!

However, so many times we take this work so seriously that the mere level of our focus and concentration can inhibit our creativity. We get so caught up in the details of our work that we can miss the big picture of what is going on.

My Serious Play Experience

Recently I was asked to attend a certification workshop for a leadership simulation called Paper Planes.

In the Paper Planes simulation, participants play the roles of employees in an aircraft manufacturing company — assembler, inspector, tester, and so forth. Teams have an opportunity to sell as many planes as they can make that meet specific visual and performance quality standards defined by the customer.

During the simulation, teams go through three production runs. After each one, the group meets to evaluate their efforts measured by production cost, quality, customer satisfaction, delivery time, and worker satisfaction. After evaluating the production run workers can redesign the process. Along the way, customer interventions complicate the work redesign and the production process.

While participating in the simulation I got to really work on some leadership items that are part of my development plan from a recent 360 feedback I received. It was really great to take my development and have a playground of sorts to implement and experiment with some changes I wanted to make. The environment was safe for learning and growing. Most of all it was fun and I felt really refreshed!

My Learning from the Experience

As I talked with some of the folks I went through the simulation with there really was a lot of learning that was captured. I think the three highlights of the day for me were:

• Seeing how important collaboration is for organizational success and how really bad most of us are at it.

• Gaining first-hand knowledge of working across functional boundaries and how I can get caught up in my own silo and my own importance over that of the organization.

• How to break down barriers to organizational success and team-based change while reinforcing the power of teamwork and communication.

• Creates a learning horizon that is difficult to duplicate in the actual work environment. Too often in work, we can’t see the learning because we are immersed in it.

• Gives an opportunity for role reversal. The CEO can become a line worker and a high potential leader gets an opportunity to lead a team in a safe environment.

A simulation like this was a great way for me to experience learning and help me get unstuck from some of the mundane planning I had been doing. The idea of serious play is not a new concept for me but really was a great reminder of what a valuable tool this can be for organizations going through change or building teams.

Serious Play For Your Team

Why might your team want to do a simulated learning experience like the Paper Airplanes Simulation that I did? Here are some things that your team could work on from an Organizational Effectiveness or a Leadership perspective:

• Organizational Effectiveness

• Teamwork

• Collaboration/Engagement

• Goal Setting/Planning/Execution

• Innovation

• Customer Focus

• Leadership

• Communication

• Self-Awareness

• Decision Making

• Risk Taking

• Tolerance for Change

My bottom line for this type of learning is that I was able to see one thing that my organization needs to do differently to be more effective and one place where I can improve as a leader. Not a bad take away for spending a day working on my business and not in my business.

Homework

When is the last time you or your team were involved in serious play? Would it be good for you to take a day and engage in an activity where play had some purpose? If you want to learn more about using simulations for serious play, or even using Paper Planes, send me an email! I would love to chat with you about it.

What Hurricane Matthew Teaches About Leadership

As I am writing this blog, my wife and I just went through our first major hurricane as Floridians. As of this writing, we made it through without any damage to property, although physically we are exhausted as we didn’t get much sleep last night. This was a unique experience for us. Having grown up in the midwest, we are used to tornados happening every spring. With a tornado, a thunderstorm would blow up over the course of an hour or so, the storm would happen, and then pass by quickly. The damage from the tornado can be horrific for those in its direct path and there just isn’t much warning.

Unlike the tornados in the midwest, with hurricane Matthew, we watched the devastating storm for days before it hit. We saw the destruction in Haiti and then watched the storm turn north with winds over 130mph. The storm was reported to be the size of the state of Texas, covering at times most of the Florida peninsula. The advanced hurricane warnings gave us several days to prepare both mentally and physically for what could lie ahead. I can personally attest to preparation being the key to making it through one of these beasts.

Huge hurricane between Florida and Cuba. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

As Matthew passed the Orlando area we experienced winds of 55mph with driving rains and localized flooding. While we were spared any damage at our home, there were some anxious times watching the trees bend and the eerie whistling sound from gusting wind. If you want to hear the sound of hurricane wind you can click this link to get a sense of the spookiness.

We are eternally grateful for being spared. A shift of 30 miles to the west could have meant a completely different outlook Ifor us. Kim and I hope you will join us in keeping those in North Florida, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, and other Caribbean islands in your thoughts and prayers. If you feel led, I hope you will join us in giving a donation to the RedCross or a charitable organization of your choice who respond in times like this. The humanitarian work that organizations like the RedCross does in times of crisis is vital to bringing life back to some degree of normal for millions of those affected.

Matthew and Leadership

Preparation for the storm. Now there is a metaphor worthy of leadership!

It is not if you are going to go through storms as a leader but WHEN!

Some of the storms you will experience you will get ample warning about, like we did with hurricane Matthew. Other storms will pop up seemingly out of nowhere and will rip a narrow path of destruction across your leadership.

After having gone through this most recent storm, I can assure you that the time to prepare for those crucible moments as a leader is not during the storm. During the storm:

• Things are crazy! Information comes from all directions. It is hard to know what to believe.

• Anxiety makes it hard to think straight. The only thought seemingly available is to survive.

• Thinking turns inward. Thoughts of others become more difficult.

As hurricane Matthew raged around us all night long, we just prayed for the storm to pass and that we would be spared the damage and devastation that was possible. We saw the pictures from Haiti. We knew the threat was very real. It is funny that during these tense moments in life, how God somehow seems a little more real and personal.

Preparation is the Key to Performance

I am convinced that for leaders to perform during the storms that come around them, preparation is key. We likely would have been much worse off had we not taken the time to get ready in advance for this storm. What is true for weather, is wisdom for leaders.

Yet I am continually amazed at leaders who refuse development, or to work on their leadership during the calm seasons. “We will get around to it sometime." “We just don’t have the budget right now.” “We are so busy, there is just no time.” “Sure, development is important, we just have too many priorities to fit it in now.” These are fairly common things I hear from organizations when it comes to developing leaders.

They wait until things get rough and the storm rages and then call in for help. One thing I learned during this storm we experienced that I did not know prior is that if the winds blew at over 45mph, rescue workers would not come and save you. If you did not heed the warnings given, and the storm got so bad, the first responders could not risk their own lives to save you. In leadership development often what we find ourselves doing is damage control when we are called in last minute. Why not be proactive and prepare?

Leaders, heed the warnings you get. Pay attention to the forecast. Prepare for your storms before they hit.

Here are some things we did prior to hurricane Matthew to get ready for the storm and some ideas for leadership application:

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How ready are you as a leader for your next storm? How ready is your team? The time to build strength and reinforce structures is when the weather is good. Florida Governor Rick Scott continually told Floridians: "Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst." Sage Advice.

Hope is a comforting vision..and a bad strategy.

As leaders let's not hope we will survive our next storm, let's put a plan in place to get ready now.

Homework

Reflect on storms you have experienced as a leader in the past. Where were you strong? Are there structures in your leadership that need to be reinforced? Are there things that need to be rebuilt altogether? What ONE action do you need to take today to plan for the next leadership storm? After you have thought about yourself, think about your team. Have them analyze where they are and what weaknesses they need to shore up to survive the next onslaught.

Guaranteed This Will Make You a Better Leader...or Your Money Back

Many of you know I am passionate about the health of the leader. The premise I use is pretty basic… You have to be present to lead. Leaders have to show up. If they don’t, followers will drift from your vision. As a leader, your health matters. If you don’t take care of yourself, who will? And what message does this send to those who follow you?

As a person who is a cancer survivor, (cancer free for the past 3 years), I can attest to the fact that two of the greatest gifts in life are health and time. Maybe that is why I am willing to pay more for my healthcare.

You read that last sentence right. I choose to pay more for my health care than I have to.

My Story

When my wife and I moved to the Orlando area around 4 years ago, I made the choice to join a concierge medical practice.

For those of you not familiar with the concept, concierge medicine is a fancy term for medical membership. The patient pays a monthly fee to join a physician practice, similar to a subscription like Netflix!

My wife and I pay $3000 per year to be a member of my doctor's practice. This is over and above the $1,200 per month we pay for traditional, high deductible health insurance for the two of us. A lot of money, you might say. But, in my opinion, it is totally worth it! Sure, it is much more than my monthly Netflix membership, but I get so much more than a movie from it!

I can hear you asking, "Scott, why would you choose to pay so much money to be a part of a physician practice?"

Fair question.

My Answer

I want quality care, and I don’t think you get that in a 5-minute office visit that you often have to sit and wait over an hour to occur. As a leader, our time is precious. I understand the typical physician has no idea what is behind the door when they walk in, and some people are really sick. But come on, every time I go to the office? This type of experience is not the exception, it is the rule.

According to Dr. Caleb Gardner, a physician and resident at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts, and Dr. John Levinson, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, primary care appointments are now as short as five minutes, and the physician must spend much of that time typing rather than attending to the patient and performing a physical examination.

In order for a physician to make a living, they must see a certain number of patients each day, in a certain amount of time. My understanding is that it is a numbers game. The more patience you can see in the fewest amount of time, the more money you make. Not really a tough business model to understand. It seems similar to McDonalds to me: the more hamburgers sold, the more profit.

More volume equals more profit, except seeing my doctor should not be like visiting a fast food restaurant. As a leader of people, neither should yours. Your health is too important. The algorithms your doctor needs to go through to accurately make a diagnosis are too difficult to do in 1/12th of an hour.

My reasoning is fairly simple…I want both quality and quantity of care for my health.

I never bought the quality versus quantity time argument when I was raising my kids. There is no substitute for quantity of time. Time and health are not replaceable in this life. I can make more money, but once my health goes downhill making more money is really hard. So I pay $4.15 ($8.30 for both myself and my wife) a day so that I can get both quality and quantity care from my physician. Interestingly, Kim and I spent over $8 at Starbucks the other day. Go figure.

How It Works

In exchange for the yearly membership fee, my doctor promises to keep his practice to a small number of patients, almost one-third the size of a standard family practice physician. This membership allows my doctor to spend more time doing what he loves to do, practice medicine.

My appointment time is one hour in length. I have never spent less than 40 minutes going over my history, labs, sonograms, or whatever other data that has been collected. For me, these discussions are highly motivational. I leave my appointment energized about what I am doing to stay healthy, not depressed about my problems. I see my concierge medicine physician as my “health coach." His job is to give me advice on how I can stay in this game of life with both quality and quantity. His perspective is that I can live a long, full, active, and healthy life, not that I am a disease waiting to happen. I love the optimistic outlook!

I also have my doctors email address and cell phone number. How about you?

This is a great comfort to me, as like many of you, I travel a lot. It is really nice to know that if I get sick on the road all I have to do is email or call. To date I have not had to use his cell phone (for this I am thankful), but when I email I get a response usually within an hour or two.

These thoughts are perhaps best summed up in the article I referenced above by Dr. Gardner and Dr. Levinson, who say that medicine is losing its humanity in favor of market efficiency. When it comes to my personal health, I am not willing to make that trade-off. How about you?

Call to Action

Leaders, this leaning toward market efficiency doesn’t have to define you. Hey, if you like your doctor and you like how you are treated, then in the wise words of one of my professors in grad school, Dr. Sharon Drury, “Keep On Keepin’ On." No change required. As long as you are meeting your personal health goals (you do have them, don’t you?), then all is well.

However, if you're sick of the weight of the “efficient” health system, then for the price of a Starbucks coffee per day, you have an out.

Is concierge medicine right for everyone? Maybe not. The answer to that question is above my pay grade. If you don’t prioritize your health, why spend your hard earned money in this way?

I had a mentor tell me one time, “Show me your checkbook record and I will show you what you prioritize in life." For me, it really isn’t that hard of a decision, and it is a check worth writing.

You lead, you choose, but you can’t lead if you can’t show up.

Would those you lead say this about you?

My good friend Kris Bowers is the president of the Indiana chapter of the Kiwanis Club. A few weeks ago she asked me to be the keynote speaker at their annual convention. I was honored to be asked by Kris, who is a classmate of mine from graduate school and a person who exudes servant leadership. Kris and I had the opportunity to talk over the phone about her organization and the goals for my talk prior to the event. As I was taking notes on what Kris was saying about Kiwanis and the direction the service organization was headed, one theme rang through loud and clear. According to Kris, this organization will thrive based upon the leadership that is exhibited.

Perhaps this is not a shocking revelation to you. I know so many of you who follow these musings truly believe that organizations rise and fall based upon their leadership.

And yet, how many of us fall into the leadership fallacies of:

• Leader has the best view.

• Leader is the smartest person in the room.

• Leader means power position.

• I got this far, I won’t fail.

• My experience is valid, so I am better grounded than anyone else.

I have to admit that I have to check myself often to guard against these traps. Just the other day I was talking with my staff about a product we are excited about rolling out in 2017. In the middle of the discussion, I had a moment of self-awareness. It was not an out of body experience or anything like that, however, I found myself both talking with the staff and observing their behavior at the same time. I realized I had been droning on for about 5 minutes with all my knowledge, wisdom, and experience about what we should do and how we should do it.

It was kind of surreal.

In the moment, my mind took me back to the keynote I had done for Kris and the Kiwanis Leaders of Indiana. You see, I had asked these leaders to think of a leader they admired the most, then to write down the leadership quality that was most admirable about that leader.

In a very brave technology moment for me, I had the 300 or so participants text the leadership quality that they admired most about the leader they were thinking of to my PollEverywhere account. The results of their work were shown instantly on the screen.

Here is the actual result of that poll:

screenshot-2016-08-08-11-44-53

Nowhere on this list of most admirable qualities is: Smartest in the room, Most Experienced, Can’t fail, All-powerfull.

As I studied the graphic, I found almost the exact opposite:

• Listener

• Compassionate

• Selfless

• Humble

• Positive

If we asked those who follow you to name the one attribute they admire most about your leadership, what word would they pick? What would your word cloud look like that would describe your leadership?

Homework

Spend some time in reflection on the last time you were with your team. Ask yourself, did you listen to them more than you tried to position your agenda? Did you really care what they had to say or did you just hold the time until you could exert your power? Were you able to remain positive even in the face of adversity? What does it mean for you to be humble and how does this attribute affect your leadership?

To Any Leader Who Has Ever Had a Struggle

I recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine, Drew Wilkerson, on some interesting leadership ideas. I was excited because since Drew was my last call of the day and it was Tuesday, which meant Taco Tuesday at the Livingston home. My wife, Kim, and I were getting out all the ingredients so we could assemble our own tacos: tortillas, ground beef, cheese, lettuce, sour cream, etc. I noticed my wife, Kim, struggling to take the lid off of the salsa jar, so I gently gestured for her to give me the jar and proudly assumed the position to heroically twist the lid off the jar. It wouldn't budge. I put forth a little more effort, twisting harder this time. Nothing. I resorted to running it under hot water for a while, then took a towel to dry it before I tried again. Sure enough, the lid finally gave way and the jar was open for salsa to be enjoyed that evening.

Then it hit me. Drew and I had been talking about leadership LIDS as a part of our time together. During our conversation, the idea of the lid intrigued me. Yes, the lid is there as a cover or protection for what's inside, but could it also be a cover or barrier keeping you from what needs to be shared or utilized? Many times it's our own emotions and mentality that is holding us back.

In this blog, we are going to focus on four of these potential barriers: Loneliness, Indecisiveness, Defensiveness, and Selfishness.

Let's define the LIDS and consider how we remove them. As you read, think about your own leadership and which LIDS you need to take off of yourself. Which of these LIDS is holding you back from sharing what you have to offer?

Loneliness This could be something you are experiencing in the work place or in your personal life. It can creep up when you've physically spent too much time on your own or you feel as if no one can relate to what you are going through or processing. Feeling alone is difficult, and doing alone is even more challenging. As humans, we are meant for relationships. Although alone time can be rejuvenating, we aren't meant to remain there in order to progress or thrive.

Remove this lid: Invite people into your world. Whether it's including them on a project you are working on or asking someone to get coffee. If the loneliness doesn't subside and you are having trouble processing or expressing your thoughts, consider talking to a mentor, counselor, or coach that can help you.

Indecisiveness You may say that being indecisive comes from the inability to make a decision either because there's seems to be no wrong or right way to go. While that's true, I also see a lot of fear behind decision making. What if the decision I make is the wrong one? Yet making a decision is going to keep you moving while indecisiveness keeps you stagnant. How can you lead people if you aren't really going anywhere yourself?

Remove this Lid: Make a decision. As the familiar Nike brand claims, "Just Do It." Don't let the fear of failure keep you from moving forward. Making a mistake or taking a wrong turn doesn't mean you failed, instead, it's an opportunity to learn and grow.

Defensiveness In the great American sport of football, the defensive line has a responsibility to keep the other team's offense and quarterback from advancing the field with the ball. They push. They fight. This creates struggle and tension, not to mention it is exhausting as they keep it up until the other team scores or it is their turn to play offense. I bring up this example because we tend to think of defense as protecting, yet the defensive line isn't protecting anything. They are pushing back and preventing advancement. We can be defensive in our own lives thinking we are protecting something. This could be our job, our reputation, or more often than not, our pride. In this case, protection is a fallacy and our defensiveness creates a barrier and tension that prevents the advancement of our goals or our team.

Remove this lid: It takes some intentional awareness of your emotions to see when you may be acting defensively. Your heart might start beating faster, your body temperature rises, and you may feel your lips tighten or unconsciously cross your arms. Try to identify what happens when you start to feel defensive, why you are feeling it, and what you might think you're "protecting." How is your defensiveness hold your own team back?

Selfishness Putting your needs and desires before others is the easiest way to explain selfishness. It's even easier, unfortunately, to get caught up in selfishness if we don't stop to think about what we are doing or behaving. Consider what your priorities are right now. Are you focusing on your own advancements and needs? What about those of your team and followers? Don't get me wrong, self-care is important, as long as it's not at the expense of another person.

Remove this lid: Think about your goals, priorities, and needs. What would it look like if you included your team in those goals, changing "I" statements to "we." Even call on your team and followers to find our what their goals and priorities are, then think about how you can help them achieve their goals. Practice humility by stepping back, letting them take lead on a project, and praising them for a job well done publicly. Trust me, their success will be your success.

There may be other things you struggle with as a leader besides these four. I would love to hear from you and to have you describe your struggle. I promise two things: not to name you in any posting without permission, and to provide some perspective on overcoming your struggle in a subsequent post. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but as a community, I know we can all be better when we lean on each other.

Homework: Think about our LIDS analogy above and identify one of them that you need to remove. What action steps or conversations do you need to have in order to remove them? What benefits will come to you and your followers when you remove the lid?

Don't Miss This Shift in Leading Your Team

A new trend in performance management is changing the landscape in the relationship between leaders and followers. In a recent article (At Kimberly-Clark, ‘Dead Wood’ Workers Have Nowhere to Hide) the Wall Street Journal reported on how organizations like Coca-Cola, GE, and Accenture are moving away from traditional yearly performance reviews to more real-time coaching and feedback. Top performers in all the generations, from millennials to baby boomers, are applauding this shift. Those who desire feedback to grow and improve are ready to get more frequent, relevant, and actionable input on their performance.

Portrait of young business man and woman sitting in cafe and discussing contract. Diverse businesspeople meeting in hotel lobby reading documents.

The Story: A Tale Of Two Perspectives

Remmy had worked with Shelia as a market analyst for 18 months. While Shelia considered Remmy a solid performer, her perspective is that he is not anywhere near ready for the promotion he asked for at his year-end review 6 months ago.

Shelia's Perspective Remmy has a solid development plan that was put in place 6 months ago. We reviewed the plan at our monthly one-on-one meeting, and for every two steps forward Remmy takes another one backward. He has done a much better job of partnering with his marketing and training colleagues. Remmy just doesn't seem to hear the coaching and feedback I am giving him on being more assertive in sharing the data he collects.

Remmy's Perspective I have learned everything I need to take the next step in my career. I have done all of the items on my development plan but I don't know how Shelia would know. When we meet it is always her agenda and some new fire that needs put out. "Be more assertive," she says. But really what she wants is for me to just be more like her. We never seem to have time to review how projects have gone or even use 10 minutes of our monthly one-on one time for me to get any feedback besides be more assertive. Shelia is so busy and I feel like if I am proactive with her about my development she will just give me some line about millennials all being alike. "Impatient" is the label she uses most. I heard a podcast recently that said if you want to get ahead you had to switch companies. I like it here, but maybe the reality is I need to move on.

What Shelia is Missing

Emotional Intelligence is being aware of your emotions and those around you. Self Awareness is where this discipline begins. Part of this self-awareness is recognizing your perspectives and biases as a leader. Another important part is being able to express them.

I want to acknowledge that there is a lot going on in the case study above. There are many twists and turns it could take.

The aspect I want to focus on is Shelia's perspective. This is what needs to change. I would argue that Shelia has all the skill she needs. She is most likely transfixed on a perspective that has served her well in the past. The question is, does this perspective still serve her today?

Shelia observed at some point that Remmy could be more assertive. Point taken. Is she self-aware enough to know her investment in Remmy has been less than adequate? Is she aware that Remmy has developed, but that what is stuck is her perspective?

There are three dimensions she needs to consider improving in executing her role as the leader of her team and individuals like Remmy. Using a leadership model like emotional intelligence can give Shelia the real-time implementable change she needs to coach Remmy to higher levels of performance.

Interaction Frequency

The days of leaders being able to interact infrequently and provide feedback on irregular intervals are in the past. Shelia could consider her:

• Emotional Self-Awareness - Is she aware of the impact her emotion is having on the situation? Are her emotions clouding her thinking?

• Interpersonal Relationships - Has she taken the time for the relationship to be mutually satisfying? Does she realize she is reaping the reward of her investment ?

Interaction Relevance

Relevant coaching and feedback means that you have the other person's best interest in mind and that what is being coached can actually be observed and has context for the improvement.

• Self-Regard - Having enough confidence in herself and her expectations. Not only stating what can change but why this change gets the person being coached where they want to be.

• Reality Testing - Ensuring she has all of the assumptions she needs to make accurate decisions. What data could she be missing? Is she seeing everything as it really is?

Actionable Feedback

• Emotional Expression - Is she being honest with Remmy about how she is feeling or is she defaulting to biases and generalizations?

• Assertiveness - Can she be assertive and compassionate at the same time?

Emotional Intelligence is a powerful lens for leaders to reflect, examine, and develop their leadership abilities. As expectations for leaders continue to change, what preferences and perspectives are you using that need to be reexamined? Could emotional intelligence be a valuable lens for your self-examination?

Homework

What one change do you need to make in your approach to development discussions? Perhaps you see individual development as a long-term process and you are thinking about repositioning this into short-term events. Thinking about development as taking bites of a meal rather than dinner itself. How could focusing on developing your emotional intelligence help you make this change that is rooted in preference?

Who Else Wants to Develop as a Leader?

As I sit and write this article, the day is August 11, 2016. My beautiful wife Kim and I celebrate 32 years of marriage today. I cannot tell you all the joy that this relationship has brought me over the years. Which is why, when we were having coffee this morning, gazing into each other's eyes (well, maybe it was more like a stare waiting for the coffee to kick in…no, no I am sure it was gazing) Kim asked me a most curious question:

“When we got married, do you think we were best friends?”

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Those of you with any skill in the art of marital conversation will quickly realize the trap I was in. To say yes would potentially mean we were better friends then than now. To answer no would potentially mean we had not quite reached that “best friend” level but married anyway.

So, like any skilled married person, I said, “Tell me more about what you are thinking." She said, “Well..." and I breathed a sigh of relief that we were going to unpack this discussion together. Kim continued, “I mean, we are such good friends now. I know we were friends, and probably best friends, but there is no way we were as good of friends then as we are now.” Then she provided the wisdom,

“We have grown so much!"

Ah, yes. We have grown so much.

The Growth

The growth that Kim and I have experienced in our marriage is two-fold from my perspective.

First, we have grown as individuals. Each of us have different interests and callings. These differences in skills and abilities need to be honed, nurtured, and grown. Second, our relationship as a married couple has grown. Over the years we have made emotional and social deposits in our relationship accounts, building up equity and assets we can rely on that help to strengthen the trust we have in each other. This networking back and forth in the relationship relies heavily on the use of interpersonal skills and competencies such as mutual respect and empathy.

In a healthy and vibrant marriage you have to grow as an individual and the relationship has to grow as well. Both are important.  You certainly cannot focus on individual growth only. If you are only growing as individuals, the relationship will suffer. You will focus on yourself and your needs and the relationship will suffer. By the same token, you can not solely focus on the relationship, stifling individual growth and personal achievement.

Bridge to Leadership

Ok, so I know most of you read this for some perspective on leadership and not marriage relationships. Here is the point, in development, leadership is a lot like marriage. You have to focus on yourself as a leader as well as on your leadership.

Leader Development Is Distinguishable from Leadership Development

Leader development focuses on the skills, talents, knowledge, and abilities of the individual person. This can be in the form of formal courses where the leader does analysis and self-reflection. Courses on personality, such as the Pearman Personality Integrator, Myers-Briggs, or DiSC are examples. Training in emotional intelligence using an assessment like the EQi-2.0 is another example of leader development. There is knowledge of self that is then put to use inside the organization. Learning in the area of core values, or important skills like marketing or sales, are also part of the leader development domain.

Leadership development has more of an emphasis on building social capital, networking, and the interpersonal skills such as reciprocity and trustworthiness. Leadership from a social capital sense builds upon the work of Robert Putnam who gave three reasons why social capital is important:

• Social capital allows citizens to resolve collective problems. People are better off when they cooperate.

• When people trust each other they are more likely to interact more often and better with each other. As a result, everyday business and social transactions become less costly.

• Understanding in the end that our fates are linked.

Leader development is key. It is clear. It is usually what most of us think about when we think of leadership development.

My premise is that we need to work on both, and what gets left out of the mix is our work in actual leadership development.

Think about your organization. Maybe you are in an HR, Training, or Functional leadership position. Whatever your organizational role, ask yourself three questions:

1. What kind of environment am I fostering that allows leaders to solve collective problems? How are we rewarding and recognizing cooperation over individual achievement?

2. How are we setting up our work environments and meetings so that they happen more frequently and better? It isn’t the frequency of your meetings that is the problem, it is the quality. Social Capital Theory would say that the more people are together and the better they are together this is what drives costs down.

3. Do your leaders understand that their fates are linked? Are their reward and recognition systems linked? Do sales and marketing share goals? Have you done disaster scenarios around the possibility that your vision is not realized?

Too many times in the leadership development space, we focus solely on the leader and not really on leadership.

Success in marriage requires both focusing on developing the individual and the relationship. I would argue that success in the organization requires developing the leader and leadership.

Hey Kim, sign me up for another 32 years. Happy Anniversary!

Homework:

Do the 3 question assessment of your organization above. Have the discussion with leaders on your team. What do you need to do in your organization to both improve your leader and your leadership abilities?

Here is to wishing you many happy anniversaries leading your organization!

Are You Missing This in Your Leadership Life?

Spoiler Alert !There is a free download link for a leader development tool at the end of this post!

I had a chance last week to sit down with a young leader and process with him about why the vision he has for his organization is not being implemented. As we sat together he told his story to me in quite graphic detail. Let me spare you all the gory detail and give you the highlights:

• He is a passionate leader who is an excellent communicator.

• The energy he exudes for the mission of the organization is extraordinary.

• His level of intellect and knowledge of his core business is solid.

• He is morally solid.

• He cares deeply for what his organization is trying to accomplish, and he cares deeply for the people in the organization and those they are trying to serve.

• In the Emotional Intelligence assessment work we did together, he was above average and in most competencies.

So what is the problem? Why is this guy working with an executive coach? (Not that you have to have a problem to have a coach!)

To be honest, that is what I thought when our conversation first started. Then we started to dig into the data…

The Issue

The organization he has been a part of for a number of years was stuck. They just couldn’t grow the business past a certain metric that is common to measure in their industry.

The stagnation issue became evident as we looked over some feedback provided by his peers. One of the interview questions I ask the peers of my clients as a routine part of my data gathering is "What is the vision this leader has for the organization?"

Person after person I interviewed on behalf of this leader gave basically the same feedback in response to the above question regarding vision: “The vision is very clear and we have no idea what steps we need to take to get started. It is like he has been dreaming of this his entire life and we are catching it for the first time."

I found this feedback around vision fascinating. When he and I debriefed this feedback, guess what…

IT WAS TRUE!

Since his college days, he had dreamed of working with an established organization and taking it to another level in growth. He not only had the vision, but he had the entire plan worked out in his head, even down to the last detail of how this vision was to become a reality.

I actually find this quite often when I work with experts. They have worked the vision in such detail, but others have not even opened their eyes to the possibility yet.

The issue was not that a vision was not being communicated, it was that people in the organization had not been given the time to absorb, process, and own the vision themselves.

As this young leader and I processed this data together, his knee-jerk reaction was “We don’t have time to wait for them to process this. The time is now! They need to get on board or get out of the way. We are going to miss our opportunity. The timing is just right!"

“Well now," I said to myself, “that doesn’t sound like the person I started this leader development process with." So I said to him, “That response seems out of character for you, would you like to expand on what you mean?"

He sat in silence. I think he had stunned himself with his own articulation. The seconds literally turned into minutes. We both just sat there, separated by this canyon of silence. I wanted to say something to break the tension, but all the training I have had said just wait, the ball is in his court. He owns the silence and the next move.

“People could be sick or dying, and we have no sense of urgency. I don’t get it," is what he spewed out to break the silence.

So I asked,“Is it their lack of urgency, or could it be something else?”

Balance

Let me take you to the end of this experience with this leader. Turns out, there was not a lack of urgency on the part of the organization, there was a lack of emotional connection between the leader and his followers.

"But wait a minute," you might be saying to yourself, “it sounded like this guy had it all together in the beginning.” It did to me, too! At least on the surface. However, there was a struggle to implement a vision that was difficult to figure out. He didn't have poor interpersonal skills or struggle with communication. The emotional connection issue was in response to this one thing: his vision.

The urgency that the leader was feeling for vision implementation and change was not being offset by his emotional connection competency of patience.

Patience is devoting the appropriate time and attention to others in ways that enhance meaningful interaction. Patience is suspending your personal need for satisfaction and action. Patience seeks to slow down those fast-paced exchanges with others in order to facilitate better decision-making. Patience is not racing ahead in one’s thought processes while missing the nuanced information that others are endeavoring to share. Patience is not missing the opportunities to encourage, inspire, and motivate others.

In leader development, it is always important to keep perspective on a leader who is not connecting emotionally with followers. Without this emotional connection, it is virtually impossible to have the social intelligence needed to achieve organizational effectiveness.

There are a number of reasons a follower may choose to align with a leader. Freely choosing to commit fully to the vision of the leader is a quintessential desire that followers have. What the follower receives in return for committing to the vision of the leader is an emotional connection with that leader.

In our case study above, if the leader doesn’t balance his sense of urgency for his vision with being patient and taking the time to encourage, inspire, and motivate, the entire vision will be lost. Not because it wasn’t a good, valuable, or noble vision, but lost because the leader didn’t take the time for all the followers to truly connect emotionally and buy into where the vision was taking them.

Tool

To assist leaders in developing emotional intelligence and emotional connection with individuals in their organizations, we have identified eight emotional connection skills that have the potential to enhance the engagement of followers. These emotional connection competencies include presence, trust, calm, patience, speaking truth, valuing others, empathy, and openness.

If you are interested in a free pdf of this tool, you may download it by clicking here.

Homework

Download the free emotional connection tool from the above link. Think of something that is not going well in your leadership life with a follower or followers. Identify which of these 8 competencies are at risk. Remember that this is for you to say what you need to work on, not what others need to do. I would love to hear back from you if you recognize any growth in yourself as a result of this tool.

All Leaders Should Do This One Thing

It's been well over a year since I launched my blog. Along the way, I've been inspired to write by something I read or someone I talked to. Other times, I had writers block or felt too busy to write. But making writing a priority has helped me in my own journey more than I could imagine. I thought I would share with you all today a few things writing has taught me and how it can help you, too.

1. Perfection is Not the Goal When you begin writing, just write. Don’t edit. My coach Jeremy Robinson gave me this advice. I love to use Evernote, because when I open Word Document I am conditioned to think 1-inchh margins, New Times Roman font, no misspelled words, etc." With Evernote, I just write. I explore my thoughts and ideas as I read, then I will come back to them for reflection. Other times I will hear or read something and save it in Evernote. Sometimes I will just outline my thoughts. The main thing is to just write. Projects and presentations demand perfection, while writing is about exploration. Don’t confuse the two.

2. Let Go of Expectations This leads me to an idea I mentioned in last week's post. 90% of what you are doing is going to become mundane. This is true in any work, project, or presentation you do. It's also true with writing. Even in my own work, I've waited for a mountaintop experience like Moses, where revelation would be revealed to me and only me, then somehow, someway, I would have knowledge and leadership ability that no one else in the nation would have. And then, with grey beard and flowing hair, I would publish this blog and all of a sudden an entire nation would stop what they were doing and listen to what I have to say. Well, you know that never happened and I am doubtful it will. Think about the expectations you have about your leadership or a project and what you think it will do. Decide that it will be okay if those expectations aren't met and actively look for the positive outcomes that will happen. For me, writing has helped me organize my thoughts and dig deeper into some topics that interested me, many of which I never took time to investigate before beginning this endeavor, which has been truly rewarding.

3. Write Like It's Your Job I approach writing like I am going to work. I give my dad a lot of credit for instilling in me a work ethic and a focus. My dad was a sheet metal worker who started in the union as a laborer and became a VP of a large industrial construction company. He would do everything himself; paint his house, build his room addition, change the oil in his cars. Now, I don’t do those things, but I did. Even when I didn’t want to and wanted to play ball. Dad would say "You can play when you finish working, but when you are working, work. Now get back to work!" So, when I write, I very much take that attitude. I don’t write on vacation, and I don’t write when I am traveling on a plane to clients. Writing for me is an experience of work that is like surgery. During an operation, you expect to have a doctor's full, surgical attention; not watching a ball game with one eye on the game and the other on my renal artery.

Writing is a Journey

We often want to think that the obstacles that get in our way or fall onto the road are somehow distractions to our journey. Instead, reframe the roadblock as part of your journey. Understand that how you overcome the roadblock will be a part of your story. The obstacles and the road are an important part of the journey. Enjoy the entirety of your journey, and write about it!

Homework

You guessed it: Write! Try to write three separate times this week. Here are some writing prompts if you need some inspiration:

• What is one thing you've always wanted to try, but never have? What's holding you back from doing it? What would it be like to try that new thing?

• Who is a leader that you admire? Someone you know personally or even a historical figure. What qualities do you admire about them and why?

• “We succeed at our very best only when we help others succeed.” - Jim Collins Do you agree with this quote? Where have you seen it played out in your own life?