A Surprising Thing About Coaching

Surprise is an interesting emotion! Unlike disgust, which always carries a negative theme, and happiness, which emotes such a positive feeling. 

Surprise is an emotion that can go either way, positive or negative, and can shift from negative to positive in the blink of an eye.

Here is what I mean:

“Surprise, you are getting a raise!” Unexpected and positive. How fun!

“Surprise, we are downsizing and your services are no longer needed.” Unexpected and not so fun.

I can even recall when my wife Kim told me we were going to have our third child around 27 years ago…”Surprise, I am pregnant!” I think were her words. 

“Holy Crap!” Unexpected and a feeling of fear, replaced in a nanosecond by the feeling of overwhelming joy. “Really, that is amazing!” followed by an unexplainable feeling of love and closeness with my spouse.

Surprise has a way of intensifying our other emotions.  According to Ingred Fatell Lee, author of the book Joyful: The Surprising Power Of Ordinary Things To Create Extraordinary Happiness, surprise acts like a magnifying glass for joy by giving the tiny pleasure heightened significance.

Surprise is one of the six primary emotions identified by psychologist Paul Ekman and is so necessary as a human because it can quickly divert our attention from one thing to another. Surprise is a kind of a warning signal to say “Hey, pay attention to this new thing, that other thing you were concentrating on needs to be deprioritized and this new thing needs some focus.”

Surprise ranges in intensity from amazement to a mild distraction.  

I Was Surprised

I was recently having a conversation with a friend who was trying to get a better idea of what my coaching business was all about.

“Tell me what you do again?” he asked.

“I help people get an idea of what their leadership looks like,” I told him.  “By using some assessments, and interviewing people they interact with, I give them a mosaic of what their leadership looks like. I then come alongside them and help them make any changes they see in their approach.  In a nutshell, that is what I do.”

“And they pay you for that?” He said to me, rather surprised!  “Sounds like you get paid to be people’s friend.”

Interestingly, I had just read an interesting and quite provocative article by Christopher Shelly titled “A Friend Officiated Our Wedding And Now My Husband’s Dead.” (Isn’t that title a bit surprising?)

Here is a link to the article if you are interested A Friend Officiated Our Wedding And Now My Husband’s Dead. It is about a 4-minute read but in case you don’t want to click through, here are the highlights…

To save money this couple….

• Hires a fried to do their wedding. It is a disaster, but they save money.

• Hires a friend to cater the reception. It is a disaster, but they save money.

• Hires a friend to fix the transmission in their car. It is a disaster but they save money.

• Hire a friend to do open heart surgery on her new husband….

I think you can see where this is going.

I heard Dave Ramsey, the author of Total Money Makeover, say one time, “If you own a $200 car then you can afford to try and fix it yourself. If you own a $20,000 car then you probably should have a professional work on it.”

Can you coach people in your own organization? Sure you can! And I would even argue that a culture of coaching in an organization is a very positive thing. 

But, when you need a professional, hire one. 

Reacting vs. Humble Inquiry

Sometimes, I feel like I have just been talked AT.  No dialogue. No asking my perspective. One descriptor said that it feels like their boss has come into their office and said, “Do this, think this way, shut up, and go there!" There is a lot of talking AT people going on these days. No one seems to be listening.

It feels like no one has any time to listen to anyone anymore at all. We have all become experts in our own minds over the past couple of years on mRNA technology, vaccines, statistical curve flattening, etc…even though very few of us have even taken a calculus class to know what flattening a curve really means...or is it statistics?

If you are not sure, then I have made my point!  We read one article from the Washington Post written by a journalist whose editor is politically tied to a party and we count that article as completely factual. So, there is not much thinking going on these days either. Just a whole lot of people running around REACTING..

I Get it. Sort of.

At the end of our block when I was 10 years old,  there was this old house that was probably built in the early 1900s. It had been condemned by the health department with a clear sign posted on the door: DANGER KEEP OUT: BUILDING CONDEMNED.

All the kids in the neighborhood had been told by their parents to not go near that house. My dad was a construction guy and he sat me down and told me about the rusty nails that would be sticking out of the floorboards, and how the front porch was unsettled to the point it could collapse at any moment. He also seemed to be concerned that rats or some other wild animal could have taken up residence inside, as the house was nestled up against a heavily wooded area.  

At one time,  I bet this house was pretty cool. Probably the talk of the town, two stories with a pillar-supported front porch. It was about 1/2 mile from the Illinois River and sat up high enough on the hill that on a clear day you could easily see the river and likely all the way across.

But time had taken its toll on the place. We had lived in the neighborhood for three years and my grandparents had lived there for at least 20. My grandad couldn’t remember the last time someone lived in the home. No one knew for sure who owned it. The entire place was a real mystery.

But for us kids in the neighborhood, the house was one thing… haunted. That meant it was ripe for exploring as soon as one of us in the group mustered up enough courage to suggest we go poke around and see what might be inside. That kid was named Bobby.  He wasn’t a real leader for the group unless it was for things that were sure to get us all in trouble, in which case Bobby was pretty good at that. It might have been Bobby’s idea, but you really can’t blame a group of ten-year-old boys for just wanting an adventure on an otherwise hot, boring summer day, can you? What? You don’t think it is a good idea either?

Well neither did my mom nor my dad. I got two doses of the lecture on that day after my mom got the call from a man named Mr. Thompson. And then again after my dad got home and my mom told him about the phone call with Mr. Thompson. 

Reacting

Boy, could my mom lecture. This one went about half an hour from what I recall, complete with volume, tone, and pitch as she explained to me the dangers of our exploration. She mentioned words like tetanus and trespassing, neither of which would have meant anything at all to me even if they were delivered without volume, tone, or pitch. We didn’t have internet then, so I couldn’t quickly look it up to see what tetanus meant, I just had to take mom’s word for it. She was the expert. What she decided was true…and was what we went with. If this lecture was a court of law, mom was both the prosecutor and the judge. Where was Bobby when I needed him?

And the verdict…Guilty! (Before I even had the chance to take the stand.)

Mr. Thompson was a truck driver who just happened to be home that day between hauls and saw us poking around. He called all our parents. Mr. Thompson was an otherwise nice guy, a bit nosey perhaps, but a nice guy. However, in my case, he was an eyewitness. I was doomed. His credibility was impeccable. 

Of course, I denied it, but I have to give mom credit. As a prosecutor she was good. “Why would Mr. Thompson lie about that…why would he even care if it was not true?”I had no response. I thought about attacking Mr. Thompson’s character. Probably good impulse control at that point. Had I said anything at that point it would have for sure been held against me.

The penalty…Grounded! Crap. Grounding was the worst.

“Mom, couldn’t you just beat me?” (This was a legitimate form of punishment 50 years ago!) My logic was that although a beating would hurt, it would end, and then it was over. Grounding a 10-year-old boy was painful torture meant for thieves and murderers.  Really what that meant was that I was home and in the house when dad got home. Crap. Beating and grounding. That is not fair or just. 

The thing was, from my perspective, no one seemed to care about me. I swear the only thing my parents cared about was what the neighbors might think if they saw me in that old house. Or what if the police came…what then? I could have gotten arrested. Worse yet, the neighbors would see the police in our driveway. I think my mom would have rather me just be arrested.

Not to mention all the potential health risks or physical danger if something happened like the roof collapsing on me. I can still hear Dad saying "You know the pillars that support the weight of that roof could just collapse and then you would be crushed?”

You have to know one thing. I really love my parents. My dad has been gone for over 20 years now and I miss him a lot. What I wouldn’t give to get a lecture on how to best protect myself from the dangers that lurk around every corner. Most of the time my mom and dad were actually pretty good listeners…except when they reacted with angry or scared emotions.

Humble Inquiry

There are a lot of people running around right now angry and scared.

People are angry that they still have to come to work at the office, while others work from home.

People who had to furlough are scared because they have house payments, car payments, insurance payments, and utility payments, and they had no margin in their lives even when they had full incomes. 

When people are scared or angry they can get all kinds of emotionally unsettled. I really love the concept Edgar Schein wrote about a number of years ago called Humble Inquiry. If you are a regular blog reader you will know this book is a favorite of mine. The subtitle is what is really brilliant: “The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling.”

When people get all fired up angry or scared they stop thinking and just start reacting. As a leader, you need good impulse control and not to react back at them at that moment.  What I coach leaders to do in this instance is to practice some “humble inquiry” vs. reacting.

1. Minimize your own preconceptions. You are about to get curious about someone who is scared. Clear your mind and shift from judging to observing. 

2. Keep your questions for them open-ended. You want to explore with the scared person what is it that is really scaring them. 

3. Practice giving up control of the conversation. You are not trying to lead them anywhere specific. You are there to just help them process what they are experiencing.

What might it be like if we all just got a little more curious about where folks are coming from these days? They may not ever tell you the real reason they are scared, but they will remember you as an excellent listener, if you practice some humble inquiry vs. reacting.

4 Strategies to Prevent Burnout

I'm trying a little something new today and I have recorded a short video for you to enjoy in place of my usual written blog. Click below to check it out:

Additional blog posts that are related to burnout are listed here:

• One Easy Way to Avoid Burnout as a Leader

• 3-Step Recipe for a Productivity Reset

• Are You Dealing Effectively With Emotional Exhaustion?

As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

Thank you for reading and listening!

When Negative Self-Talk Creeps In

Years ago, a good friend of mine, Ken (also an avid reader and commenter on this blog), 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 Assessment in training programs I do and almost every coaching client I work with does a self-assessment that shows them what their leadership habits may appear like to others. The next certification program is coming up in June, and you can learn more and register online here.

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, 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?

• You are not a very good public speaker.

• Maybe you should call him up and back out.

Am I the only one this happens with? 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:

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

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

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

P = 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 STOP 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.

S = 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.

T = 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 of this step.

O = 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.

P = 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, Emotional Intelligence 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 scheduled a call to talk about what value EI can bring to the hospice chaplains.

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.

Get certified with us!

Learning About Social Responsibility

This past Saturday morning I had the opportunity to attend a memorial walk for my neighbor, Bill.  He passed away about a month ago after a battle with lung cancer.  Bill was 80 years old and if you would have asked him, which I had the opportunity to do, he would have told you he lived a rich and meaningful life. 

Everybody in the neighborhood knew Bill. He made it a point. Bill is the kind of guy who would look around and move toward you like a heat-seeking missile. 

Bill Was Socially Responsible

I have no idea if he recycled or cared about global warming. He didn’t drive an electric car and he never talked about things like boycotting Nike because of child labor practices.

He did not do any of the typical things, that I know of, that we would relate to as being socially responsible. What he did do though was bring a smile to people's faces. He had what we call in the emotional intelligence world “Social Responsibility”.

A Socially Responsible leader is one who has a social consciousness and is generally a helpful person. At a deeper level, these leaders are willing to contribute to society and show concern for the community that they are a part of. This was Bill! 

He was a leader in our little neighborhood without being on the Homeowners Association board or being chair of any committees. Bill was a leader because he had tremendous Social Responsibility. 

Bill Cared

When I first met him, about six years ago, he was a jogger. He would jog six miles every morning. Never in a hurry. Always at his own pace. More importantly, he stopped along his run and talked to everyone. I mean everyone! He talked to all the neighbors walking their dogs. He talked to all the folks who clean the swimming pools and mowed the lawns. He talked to the heating and air-conditioning repair people, and the workers fixing roofs.

He would tell me often that if I ever needed work done at the house, to just ask him. He had all the best contractors scoped out. He would say after a 30+ year career at General Motors he was pretty adept at deciphering who really knew their stuff and who to stay away from.

My wife used to tell Bill that she was praying for him and his response was classic. He would tell her, “Kim, you keep praying, I need all the points I can get.”  With all the good Bill did, it always seemed he was looking for a way to do even more for others.

As far as I know, none of you who regularly read these posts ever met Bill. That does not mean we cannot learn from him.

Developing Your Social Responsibility

When thinking about developing ourselves as leaders, it is always good to have a benchmark set of competencies to use as guiding principles. Let's think about Social Responsibility for a moment and think about what goes into a leader who is Socially Responsible.

Social responsibility is that moral compass directing your behavior toward promoting the greater good and contributing to society and one’s social groups. 

A moral compass relates to the values a leader holds and informs their ethical decision-making.  It is the beliefs, objectives, and judgments that a leader holds when it comes to something being right or wrong. 

The English word moral is derived from the Latin “mos” or “moris” which refers to “conduct” or “a way of life”. For leaders, morality is a set of culturally transmitted standards of right and wrong. In order for leaders to be able to do the right thing, they must have objective standards to rely upon. Without these standards, the leader can do whatever they wish, for whoever they wish.

The Rabi In Heaven

There is an old story told about a small town in Eastern Europe. In this village the people were very poor, the Rabi was very holy, and the skeptics were very doubting. 

The poor people believed that on the Jewish New Year their Rabi went up to heaven to intercede on their behalf. They needed to eke out a living for the next year and they had hopes for good health and that their children would have good matches when they married.

One New Year’s Day, one of the skeptics decided to hide and watch the Rabi. The skeptic was convinced that the Rabi did not go to heaven and was just deceiving the people. So the skeptic hid under the bed of the Rabi. He watched him dress in the morning, putting on boots, a sturdy belt, and a heavy woolen shirt. Then the Rabi picked up an Axe. 

At this point, the skeptic was sure he was discovered and that the Rabi was going to kill him. But the Rabi slipped the Axe into his belt and walked deep into the forest. When the skeptic caught up to him he found the Rabi chopping down trees and organizing them into big logs, smaller branches, and twigs. He then took off his heavy wool shirt and put the wood on it and drug it even further into the woods where there was a small cabin.

The Rabi knocked on the door and an elderly woman answered. “Who is it?”, the woman asked. “It is Ivan the woodcutter,” The Rabi told her.  He had brought firewood because he heard that she had been sick and the winter was very cold. 

At daybreak, when the Jews went to synagogue they encountered the skeptic. One said to him, “Well, last night our Rabi went to heaven and surely next year will be better for us. But you do not believe us do you?”

Quietly, the skeptic said, “Yes I do. He indeed went to heaven and maybe even higher. In fact, I saw him do it.”*

The Lesson I Learned From Bill

Concern for others promotes healthy relationships. Neighborhoods and societies function more effectively when individuals help each other. The world is a better place when we take the time to just get to know each other.

There is a lot of pain and suffering in our world today. Would the world be a better place if we all just went on a neighborhood walk and got to know each other?

I think Bill would advocate for this.

Bill, Rest In Peace.

*This story was adapted from Ethics in the Workplace by Craig E Johnson.

Freaking Out! What Emotional Intelligence Has to Do With It

To me, “freaking out” is one of those concepts that is hard to define, but I know it when I see it.

Here are some examples I have observed over the last few weeks:

• A man at the grocery store “freaked out” when the lady in front of him just got the last BOGO special on the baby-back ribs.

• Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars!

• Two guys in sports cars pulled over to duke it out for some reason.

• A mom is in her car, picking her kid up in the store parking lot, her body is facing the steering wheel and her head is spinning 180 degrees. Only God knows why she was freaking out.

• A colleague calls me in a state of panic, two hours before a big presentation, and is unsure that what we have been working on will be sufficient to reach the intended goal.

• A couple who called into a podcast show I listen to that just sold all of their stock in their 401K at the bottom of the dip because the market went down a couple of days in a row. They lost $300k in value in less than 24 hours!

Data on Freaking Out

I just saw a study that shows this phenomenon of “freaking out” and the impact it can have. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) examined 650,000 investment accounts representing about 300,000 households in 2015. Here are a couple of the interesting findings:

• They counted 36,3774 panic sales by 25,852 household investors (9% of all households), across a period of 13 years between January 2003 and December 2015.

• Of households with at least one panic-selling event, 21,706 of them did so once within our sample period, while 3,081 did so twice.

• The researchers also looked into whether people who freaked out ever came back into the market: 60% came back in 5 months, 10% more came back in 10 months, and 30% never returned to the market at all.

This blog post is not in any way intended to give financial advice. But it is interesting that people who saw the stock market as a good place to get a return on their investment, panicked, lost a significant amount, and then a third of them never returned. The other side note is that those who did return paid more to get back in than if they had just ridden the downturn out. 

Freaking Out

This is what caused them to make bad decisions. When fear and panic set in, we as humans can lose our logical, rational minds. We can do things that if the fear was not present, we would not normally do. No one puts money in the stock market with the intention to lose it.  Rational people put money in the market so they will have more at the end of a certain period than less. And yet in our financial lives, and many other places as well, we become subject to fear and make these decisions. 

Here is a link to the study I mentioned if you are interested in reading it for yourself: When Do Investors Freak Out.

In the emotional intelligence world, we call this ability to remain calm, “Impulse Control”. This is the idea that as leaders we can stay rational in part by having the ability to delay gratification. 

Here is how I imagine this is happening to those folks who called into the financial podcast show above. While I do not know the actual details for these people, I have seen it enough to be able to fill in the blanks of the story.

These folks woke up one morning with let's say $500,000 in a stock market account of some kind. They turn on CNBC and see that the market is down and the talking heads are adding fuel to the fire with mentions of recessions, inverted yield curves, and cryptocurrency. None of which these folks know anything about -  they just put some money in the market and for a couple of years when they woke up they had more than they did the day before. Their feeling was that they were on their way to “easy street”. 

Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, their investment is down. The natural reaction is, “Oh no we must protect what we have left! What if we lose it all?” In the midst of this crisis, they forget to take the toast out of the toaster and to add fuel to the fire, now their breakfast is ruined. 

Their pride starts to get in the way, after all, it was their idea to put the money in the stock market, to begin with. And of course, they took all the credit for the great decisions being made as the market went up. Now they are looking a bit foolish. Their significant other, who is probably equally feeling foolish for supporting their partner’s arrogance and not working very hard to understand what they were doing, says something like, “Maybe we should call someone?”  The other partner barks, “no, what we need to do is sell to prevent our losses.”

And there it is. The instant gratification. If we do something right now, it will feel better.

And when the frenzy is over and they have sold everything, they now have $300,000. Whew! At least they didn’t lose it all. No, but they did lose two years of investing. And when the market rebounded just a few days later, moving to some all-time highs, these folks sat on the sidelines and did not participate in any of the gains. 

Again, I am NOT a financial advisor. I am not intending to tell you in any way what to do with your money or how to use the stock market. 

I am just very interested in the decisions people make and if their ability to control their impulses can help them make better decisions. Let's take a deeper look at this idea of impulse control and how we can have more control over our decision-making. 

Emotional Intelligence and Impulse Control

In the study of emotional intelligence, we call this freaking out - panic or a lack of impulse control. 

It all starts with a set of circumstances or expectations we see as normal (the stock market always going up) and a triggering event that challenges our expectations (the stock market going down fast). Then fear creeps in and starts to make us very concerned about our own safety at the moment (we are going to have to live on poor street instead of easy street). That feeling we get says to us “protect yourself at all cost”. This is the point where if there has not been an intervention, we start to make decisions we likely will regret later. 

When stresses in our lives build up to such a point,  any additional stress can trigger a reaction. This is known as the tipping point or what Dr. Henry Thompson in his book, The Stress Effect, calls the “crazy threshold”. Each time a stressor is encountered, it adds to the overall stress level. Each time a stressor is encountered, it adds to the overall stress amount. As stress mounts, this “crazy threshold” is approached. If something is not done to intervene, and the “crazy threshold” is exceeded, then our thinking mind starts to shut down and we can become almost a completely different person. 

The question is, do we have a choice in terms of how we react, or do we just follow our emotions and justify it as authenticity?

One of the best analogies for impulse control I have heard is that of a gate. Imagine that your ability to control your impulses is a little gate. On one side of the gate are your emotions. Your ability to control your emotions is this gate and on the other side of the gate is your behavior.  

All of your feelings and emotions get stacked up on one side of the gate. Your Impulse Gate puts them on hold; you are aware of your feelings but you don’t always act on them. The Impulse Gate allows you to keep the big picture in mind, your goals, your dreams, and your desires. In the context of social functioning, we can not just act on every feeling we have. The need to be able to contextualize it and to get feedback on it is critical prior to action.

So can your Impulse Gate be faulty? Sure it can. All of our gates can at times be faulty. Here are three very common things that can cause your Impulse Gate to get stuck in these open positions.

Stress Levels

The more stress we have on us, the more our Impulse Gates can get stuck in the open position and how we are feeling in the moment can come pouring out. This is likely nothing new to you and the reason I write so much on self-care, some blog posts, for example:

• Learning Stress Tolerance

• Don't Forget to Practice Good Self Care

• If You Hate Change You Are Not Doing It Right

The lower your stress levels, the less likely your Impulse Gate is going to get stuck in the open position. As a leader, you can not always be in the “on position”. You have to replenish yourself physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. 

Emotional Flexibility

In addition to stress, the more of a fixed mindset we have in our belief structures about how we should feel in certain situations, the more our Impulse Gates will get stuck in the open position. Being able to push the pause button before acting is key. 

Let me give an example. When I am driving in heavy traffic I have a very defensive mindset. I am on constant alert for other drivers doing things I am not expecting. One day I was running late for a very important client meeting. When I left my hotel I had 10 minutes to get to my appointment and about a 9-minute drive time estimated. I got to the intersection to turn right and merge into traffic. It was a heavy traffic time, and this feeling of panic came over me, so I did something I would not otherwise have done, I pulled out in front of someone to join the flow of traffic. Not smart. Not my best moment. But the point is, when someone else is in traffic and cuts me off, why do I have such a fixed mindset on how horrible a person they are? My Impulse Gate is stuck in the open position. A little more emotional flexibility can help me contextualize the situation and perhaps show some grace to other drivers.

Assertiveness

Our level of how we assert ourselves also needs to be in balance with our Impulse Gate. As I write this post, I am waiting on a call back from a doctor. My wife has had some pain, and I called at 8 am this morning, it is now 10:30 am and I am feeling like I want to call the office and tear someone's head off. If my Impulse Gate is stuck in the open position, then anytime I feel put down or disrespected then it is an excuse for me to assert myself without thinking about the consequences of my actions or about the other person. Will I call the doctor back soon? You bet I will, but it will not be without thought and it will be with a measured level of assertiveness. 

This Impulse Gate can work both ways when it comes to assertiveness. Some leaders out there when the Impulse Gate is stuck open, actually become less assertive. The problem with this is that if our Impulse Control is stronger than our assertiveness, we are at risk of becoming passively aggressive. We pretend something isn’t an issue, but it really is. We say it is not a big deal but it really is. We can even work behind the scenes to sabotage a person or a situation. 

In Conclusion

We all have situations that cause us to be tempted to freak out. Impulse Control or this idea of the Impulse Gate is meant for you to be intentional with your emotions. If something happens to you and you feel like you need to freak out, you have thought about it, you are intentional with it, and you feel like it serves you at the moment, then I guess you can go ahead and freak out. Most of the time though, when this happens, some kind of apology usually comes soon after, or if the apology never happens, then anxiety or guilt can start to take residence.  

Most of the time, I would argue, that if you can step back from the situation and think about the emotion, you might choose a different action. I am not saying to never walk through the Impulse Gate and into action. What I am asking you to consider is walking through a different gate other than Impulse. Perhaps alongside your Impulse Gate, you picture a “rational gate”. Or a “long-term outcome gate”. 

By all means, do NOT just suppress the emotion and keep it in. Make sure it is the right emotion for the right context, you are not stressed, you have some flexibility in how you might feel, and your level of assertiveness matches the situation.

Learning Stress Tolerance

I had an interesting conversation with a coaching colleague the other day. He called me to get some perspective on a difficult client that he was coaching.

Case in Point

His client is a top performer in her field and has aspirations to get promoted in her company. She is a very hard charger and a self-proclaimed perfectionist. Overall, she is respected by the team she leads, but that dynamic is starting to show some cracks. 

In meetings, she is always telling her team to push back on her, and that she is open to feedback. However, the team has recently started shying away from doing this, because when they do, her non-verbal communication says she is not in the mood for it. Her words say “I am open”, but her facial expressions say “Don’t you dare”. 

Her team says she is a workaholic, routinely sending emails around 2 AM. If someone asks her to be in a mentoring relationship, she always says yes. If her bosses ask her to do something, she will call the team together at any time of the day to kick off a project and make assignments. 

My colleague spent a day shadowing her. He went to meetings with her and observed her in her office where her phone rang and text alerts went off constantly. She answered the phone by the second ring and usually picked up the phone to answer her texts within 30 seconds. 

One of her teammates even pulled my colleague aside and said they were really concerned about her, that she rarely takes time to eat and when she does it is only half of a cup of yogurt. They said something to the effect of: “We don’t know when she sleeps. Stuff comes to us at all hours of the night. People on the team have started sleeping with their phone alerts on so that they don't miss anything. This can’t be healthy long term…can it?” 

When I asked my colleague if he had addressed any of this with her yet, he said “yes, to all of it.

Her response to him was that:

1. She loved work, so why wouldn’t she do a lot of it?

2. She has always strived for perfection, and that's what got her where she is today.

3. Her bosses love her production.

4. She feels fine. She eats when she is hungry and she doesn’t require much sleep. 

She Is Not Fine.

The lie that this leader is telling herself is that she is fine. She is not fine.

While things may seem okay to her right now, she is on a path to self-destruction. I have seen this pattern too many times in my leadership coaching. The person who is striving so hard that they never say no, and they have no boundaries.

According to Dr. John Townsend, in his book Hiding From Love, one of the most basic human needs we all have is that of “Integration; Our need for resolving good and bad”. This person just always says yes so that others feel good about them. This is the person who gets a 95% on a test and feels like a failure, so they start believing that the only way to live successfully in the world is to always get 100%. 

Dr. Townsend says that this temporary solution to the tension between real and ideal is always inadequate and involves some sort of splitting between good and bad, keeping the two apart rather than resolving them through forgiveness, both of themselves and others. 

The problem continues for folks like this leader because while it is a psychological concern, it will eventually manifest itself physically as well. 

Dr. Gabor Mate, MD, writes in his book When The Body Says No, that our immune system does not exist in isolation from daily experience. Many people unwittingly spend their lives under the gaze of a powerful and judgmental examiner whom they must please at all costs. 

Gabor goes on to write that stress is a complicated cascade of physical and biochemical responses to powerful emotional stimuli. When emotions are repressed and dissociated from our awareness and relegated to the unconscious, this confuses our physiological defenses and our immune system goes on the attack rather than being in protection mode. 

What I found most interesting in studying Dr.Mate is that almost none of his patients with serious diseases had ever learned to say NO. 

Back to our example: no, she is not fine. She is living in a self-delusion.

George Vaillant said, “It is not stress that kills us. It is effective adaptations to stress that allows us to live.” 

Stress tolerance is the ability to withstand adverse events without developing physical or emotional symptoms by actively and positively coping with stress. One way to positively cope with stress is to learn to resolve the good and the bad. It is what Brene Brown has written extensively on, to begin to look at imperfection as a gift. 

Learning Stress Tolerance

The growth of this emotional intelligence domain takes some very specific work.

The first is developing an understanding of the need leaders have to understand the tension that exists between the ideal and the real, and to resolve the need to understand between good and bad. There is at the beginning of this kind of development the setting of healthy boundaries. There is no need to try to put other coping strategies into place if a leader is going to keep unhealthy boundaries. They just need to know that at some point in the future the data suggests that the body does keep score. There will be a payment due on this kind of life choice.

Once some healthy boundaries are put into place, things like progressive relaxation, purposeful distraction, self-debate, deep breathing, exercise, and spiritual worship can be employed. 

Leaders who are experiencing feedback like my colleagues' clients need to heed the warnings.

The Feedback Is Telling Them Something

You can grow your tolerance to stress in a healthy way. A way that you can become an even better performer and leader. A way that might not have to be as costly to your psyche and your overall health. 

Answer Just One Question to Access Your Emotional Intelligence

I saw an article one day in my online news feed. It had a catchy title, something that really caught my eye regarding the “COVID fog" people are experiencing after they got over the virus. I clicked on it to explore what the author had to say about the topic, and about 4 minutes into the read, the curiosity that caused me to open it still had not been satisfied.  I had to spend 7 minutes to get to the main point, the reason I wanted to read the post in the first place. It was very frustrating. 

I just wanted to know what the title of the article had promised to deliver, which should have taken about 45 seconds, not 7 minutes. I get the whole advertising business model that drives this kind of writing, but frankly, I find it very annoying! Actually, I HATE it!

So, because that tactic annoys me so much, here is the one question I promised you in the title of the article. (I timed it...you’re about 45 seconds into the reading so far…)

Which of the following statements best describes when a leader is being emotional?

1. Their reactions tend to be knee-jerk, or not well thought through.

2. They snap in anger when something isn't right.

3. They say to themselves, "I am so stupid, why did I do that?”

4. They yell when tension is high to get their point across.

5. They are overly confident in their position even when the facts show there is good reason to question.

6. The overly optimistic way they present themselves doesn't fit the reality of the situation.

7. All of the above.

At this point, I hope the answer is obvious. All of these answers show that there is a fine line between expressing emotion and being emotional. I hope you take a deep breath and think about that line before you read on. 

Perhaps even pull out a sheet of paper and a pen, then spend a few moments journaling what you are thinking about this one-question quiz. Go ahead, I'll wait for you to come back.

I am really interested in what you think about the difference between showing emotional intelligence and being emotional.

The Underlying Philosophy 

Since all of the thoughts we as humans have come with an emotion attached, then really what exists is a range of emotion attached to any thought. The person who goes into a meeting with a "poker face" thinking that they will not express emotion on a topic is actually giving those they are interacting with within the room some type of clue as to where they stand. “At ease” is just the opposite end of the “glad” emotional expression range from “ecstatic”, just like “bothered” is the low end of the “mad” emotional expression range from “furious.”

So, if all our thoughts and behaviors have some emotional component to them, then the question to me becomes, how do I pick the right emotion to fit the moment?

To put it another way, How do I display emotion without being emotional?

 The Real Answer To the Question 

The primary idea of being emotionally intelligent is knowing when to display the right emotion, at the right time, for the right context. If you get it right, then that shows intelligence. If you get it wrong, then maybe not so much intelligence.

How does a leader:

1. Not give knee-jerk responses?

   • They balance their lack of impulse control with empathy. Show care and compassion for the other person's needs, not the immediate gratification of your own.

2. Not become angry when something isn't right?

   • They balance their lack of emotional self-awareness with Interpersonal relationships. Prioritize the mutual satisfaction of the relationship over your own selfishness.

3. Not talk down to themselves?

   • They balance the lack of self-regard with optimism. Practice positive self-talk and stop seeing failure as an outcome.

4. Not yell to get a point across?

   • They balance assertiveness with emotional flexibility. Find a different emotion on the “Mad Scale”, substituting irritated for furious.

5. Display overconfidence in a position?

   • They balance their strong “self-actualization“ needs with “reality testing”. This is done by taking a pause and being curious about facts rather than fixating on a position.

I think you get the idea. If a leader is being emotional, then the idea is to strengthen another emotional competency. If the leader is prone to an overly optimistic explanatory style, then strengthening the competency of reality testing will create the needed balance.

I compare this to a weightlifter who wants to get their body into condition. The lifter just loves to do arms, focusing all the development efforts on building biceps and triceps. They go into the gym every day and all they do is lift as much weight as they can with their arms. After a while, the arms look really strong. However, without giving some attention to strengthening the legs, the body isn't really in condition.

The same is true for emotionally intelligent leaders. The key is balance. The real signature to the emotionally intelligent leader is not how much confidence they have, what great relationships they have, or even how compassionate they are. Emotionally Intelligent leaders need balance to effectively lead a group of followers in a healthy and meaningful way.

The 7-Minute Point.

I figured I don't ever have to bury the lead in my blogging because I don't advertise. I don't sell ads and I never will. I don't write for revenue. I write my articles for all of you., to stimulate thinking on the topic I am most passionate about - Organizational Leadership. So if you hate ads too in your own personal blogosphere, then why not pass this post on to a few people you think might enjoy it? Feel free to share with confidence, because we will never sell to them!

Now some of you are saying, there is no way that you can assess someone's emotional intelligence with just one question. Most models for assessing emotional and social functioning are built upon multiple constructs such as Self-Awareness, Emotional Expression, Interpersonal Relationships, Stress-Management, and Problem-Solving.

So how could it be possible, with just one question, to ascertain your emotional intelligence? After all, most assessments for this leadership trait have at least 100 questions that will give you an answer to this question. I completely understand the argument that the details and intricacies of each of these domains are so nuanced and complex that you need questions that come at each of them from multiple perspectives to access a person's skill in any particular domain.

All of the very detailed complexities of assessing a person's emotional intelligence do require distinguishing lenses to give perspective as to how a leader might generally show up. If a "score" is going to be given for a particular trait such as Emotional Flexibility then I totally agree that you need several, if not many, questions to give a numeric level of ability.

However, in the crucible of leadership, when the pressure is really on you do you have the time or the mental resources to stop and think about the skill level of your Emotional Flexibility? I think not. And that is only one of 15 or more competencies in the area of emotional intelligence that you would have to assess to determine your overall emotional intelligence and how the skills are serving you in any particular moment.

The emotional component is too complex to really deal with at any given moment. Most of us have things we are really strong with, such as our self-regard or optimism. These serve you well most of the time. 

The question I started asking myself is this, "Are there times when my emotional intelligence strength is overplayed?" The answer for most of us is a resounding yes. 

If the person who is so empathic doesn't balance it with ensuring that relationships are mutually satisfying, they will at some point burn out. It is inevitable.

If as leaders we can ask ourselves this one question, then perhaps we will gain more enhanced followers. Then we could turn around as leaders and know that the people who are following us really want to be there.

After all, isn't that the point?

What if I Don’t Want to Change?

What is it about change that makes it so difficult for people to process?

Is it the overall complexity that change brings? Or is it the level of comfort that existed prior to the precipitating change event?

One aspect that I have been thinking about is that our aversion may not be to the change itself but to the awareness that the current reality exists at the same time as the new reality.

If the answer is yes to both of the above questions, this makes for a confusing environment.

Consider the following story as an example:

As a member of an organization, “Bob” has a job to do that he has been doing for approximately 24 months. He is competent at the craft and has built some good relationships with people on his team and with his customers. Bob’s supervisor even rated him as exceeding expectations last year which is really quite rare for only being on the job for 2 years.

Then all of a sudden, the organization says it needs to change how it operates. They have to become a more holistic organization. This new structure isn’t really going to be structured at all! It is more of a self-managed, self-organizing network of people who are going to get everyone closer to the customer and to each other. Out with bureaucracy, hierarchy, and consensus.

The consultant who gives the presentation to the company called it a “Teal Organization”. Bob had to research it and learned it was something called “Spiral Dynamics”, which is a new consciousness for business. Teal Organizations are agile, lean, flexible, and responsive to the environment. It all sounded great until Bob started to get a little anxious. Like how flexible? So flexible that he won’t be needed? Feelings of real anxiety started to sweep over him.

Teal organizations, since they distribute decision-making to the lowest levels of the organization, require a level of trust, emotional intelligence, creativity, and intuition that was not previously required. There is a great sense of the work that is being done is for the good of, indeed the survival of the organization and that the individual interests of the contributors are taking a back seat.

As Bob contemplates his old paradigm he feels paralyzed between the drive to the consensus that used to exist and making decisions for the good of the organization (which by the way, Bob remembers is what consensus was supposed to do).

He wants very much to succeed in this new world order, but he is not sure exactly how to do that.

How was he supposed to come to work today and be inclusive with all his business partners and at the same time make decisions on his own?

He feels tremendous uncertainty in what his role is and a lot of ambiguity in how he’s supposed to do his job.

And then, on top of all of this, his wife says that maybe they should not have bought their new house.

This did not help calm his thinking.

Personal Example

I know how our protagonist Bob in the above scenario feels about change. I remember when I first got married, and my wife Kim and I were on our honeymoon. Now, for any person, marriage brings on a very significant change. On the morning of my wedding I woke up single, but by 1 pm that afternoon I was married. This was a new reality that I did not fully understand.

I was excited about the change though. I anticipated with positive anxiety the reality that was ahead. And unlike many who experience a change in an organization, I was a willing participant who was choosing this destiny.

For our honeymoon, my bride and I set off on a Caribbean cruise. Seven fun-filled days just the two of us. On our first night at sea, we were walking to dinner. I was so excited to eat because the number one thing people told me about cruising was that the food is outstanding. Or, maybe it was the fact we had skipped lunch and I was famished. No matter, when I got to the dining room I turned around and Kim was nowhere to be found. Where could she be? So, I started retracing my steps and when I rounded the corner there she was…just standing…and waiting.

“What’s wrong?” I enquired. “Are you OK?”

“I am fine,” she said. Then she went on and delivered the truth that helped me realize my new reality. “You are married now, and I would really like to walk to dinner with you and not behind you.”

Ouch! What a change lesson that was for me.

My old paradigm of singleness was confronted with my new reality of being married. If I was going to be any good at this being married thing, then I had to understand what this new life was all about.

I am so thankful that I married a very patient woman. She has been at my side now for 35 years teaching me all about what it means to start something new.

The real key if you are experiencing a dramatic change in your organization, or if you are doing something like getting married, is to pay close attention to the relationships between people. For this new reality to be successful we have to replace our negative and anxious feelings with those of a more positive outlook.

Being in the middle of change requires us to slow our thinking down and manage the anxieties we are experiencing.

Sure we will stumble at times, but let’s not forget that a step backward is not failure. It is just learning. No one, not even those leading the change in organizations knows everything. We all need space to think and to understand what our new way forward looks like.

Don’t Forget to Practice Good Self-Care

You might recall from last week's post that an old friend had called me and asked for some tips about working with a new boss who was proving to be a tough relationship - 5 Ways To Work With A Difficult Boss.

The next morning, I was doing some personal development work of my own in the area of staying resilient during times of stress. In my personal journey, I have been working on this because it has been an interesting and somewhat challenging start to this year for me.  The year was lined with lots of potential goals, but at this point, not a lot of work has been committed to them.

I have faced some challenges and obstacles in this business that I have not faced before. A little bit of rejection. A little bit of waiting. Quite a few promises. Not too many signed agreements. I was feeling a bit defeated and wanted to capture this and work on how I can be resilient during some of these setbacks. “Taking a bit of my own advice” is how I might position it. 

One of the things I will often tell my clients during times of difficulty is to make sure they are practicing good self-care. Was I practicing good self-care during this difficult time in my business? 

What comes to mind is the analogy of how during an emergency on an airplane, we are instructed to “put our own mask on before helping others.”  I know it is maybe a bit cliche, but let's make sure the point is not lost.

I think it is safe to say that most of us when times get tough, the first thing that goes to the wayside is our own wellbeing. We stop practicing good self-care and we just try to do a decent job of psychologically coping with what is going on in our world. 

This is the one more thing I needed to call my friend back and tell him - that during times of difficulty, like working with a difficult boss, also remember this - don’t forget to practice good self-care. 

My Homework

As I will often do with my coaching clients, I gave myself some homework. I pulled out an exercise I had done in the past to evaluate my own self-care and where I might need some replenishment. 

I looked at 4 areas of my life that are critical for me to be at peak performance:

1. Physical Life: practices that cultivate the health of the physical body

2. Emotional Life: practices that support the relational nutrients that we need

3. Intellectual Life: practices that stimulate our curiosity, thinking, and knowledge

4. Spiritual Life: practices that expand our soul and connect us to things outside ourselves.

I think it is really important that if you are working on something like stress tolerance, stress management, or resiliency, you look more holistically at your life. 

For example, most of the time when I ask clients about their self-care they respond with, “I am not getting as much exercise as I was in the past.”  Sure, exercise is an important element of physical self-care. But inside of caring for yourself in the physical domain, you need more than just exercise.  As leaders, we need to focus on our diet, our sleep patterns, and ANY practice that cultivates the health of our physical bodies. 

So I took an inventory of these 4 aspects of my life to see if anything was missing.

Physical:

• I do OrangeTheory workouts 4x’s a week

• On off days I golf or walk 3 miles

• I get 8 hours of sleep

• I balance my nutritional macros

Emotional:

• I read or listen to one non-fiction book a month

• I attend my TLP (Townsend Leadership Program) group

• I attend my Coaching Cohort Group

• I practice telling my wife what I need emotionally from her 3x’s a week

• I play golf at least once a week

Intellectual:

• I teach twice a year

• I do Dissertation Chair and committee work

• I read one work-related book per week

• I listen to one work-related podcast per week

• I read one biography per month

Spiritual:

• I attend church weekly

• I attend my church small group weekly

• I am generous in giving to others

As I was examining some of the things I currently do, I felt really good about the physical, emotional, and intellectual things. However, on the spiritual side of my life, I am feeling a bit robotic and stale. So I am going to ask around to some trusted advisors and my coach to see if there are any insights they may have. 

How About You?

All of us go through ups and downs in life. Sometimes we connect well with our boss, sometimes not so much. Sometimes we love our jobs, and sometimes not so much.

When was the last time you took an inventory like this? If you did, would you notice any voids in your life?

I had a client, who is a nurse, tell me recently that early in her career she did a lot of bedside patient care. She worked at a famous healthcare institution and had taken care of quite a few wealthy and famous people. She told me that none of them cared an ounce about how much money they had in their bank account at the end of the day. All they wanted was to talk with those they had close relationships with about how they had lived their lives.

That story, while I for sure had heard it before,  just like the old airplane and oxygen mask warning, really hit home for me.

I want to make sure I have the right flow in my leadership life in all aspects, not letting just one dominate my being. I hope you will take some time for yourself and do an inventory as well to see if you have any self-care practices missing in your leadership life.

5 Ways to Work With a Difficult Boss

I got a call last week from an old friend. After we exchanged some pleasantries about our families, the reason for his call came quickly.

“Hey Scott, I have been reading your leadership blog for several years now and I was wondering if I could ask you a question. We just did a reorganization at work and I got a new boss. I connected well with my previous supervisor but this new one is off to a rocky start. Wondering if you have any tips?”

After asking if my friend had experienced rough starts with other supervisors in the past, and getting a “not really” response, I started thinking about how it feels to work with difficult people.  

The first thing that clients I have had in the past want me to focus on is changing the other person, in this case, my old friend’s boss. Since I am not working with the old friend’s new boss, the odds of me invoking any kind of advice to change that person is slim to none. 

What we can work on, however, is how my old friend is responding to his new boss. Here are the things we talked about that day:

5 Ways to Work With a Difficult Boss

1. Maintain Long-term Focus: It is so easy for us to get caught up in the emotion of the moment. All of the frustration and anxiety that can come from a new relationship can seem paralyzing. Keep in mind that the supervisor you had prior to this one took time for the relationship to develop. Even if it started off on a good foot, relationships take time to evolve. So if this relationship gets off to a rocky start make sure to keep a long-term perspective. When I asked how long my friend had worked for the previous manager he said about 2 years, which is about how long he has worked for anyone over the last 20 years at the company. Supervisors tend to be temporary, and very few work relationships last forever. 

2. Find and Convey the Good: When we have irregular people in our lives (those that are hard for us to connect with), it is really easy for us to focus on all the negative things. Focusing on the negative does one thing, it forces us to only look at all the bad. A simple recognition of what is not going so well is ok and something to process with a coach or trusted advisor. But dwelling on what is negative is not helpful in the long run. So make a list of all the positive things the new boss is bringing to the table and do the best you can to focus on those. 

3. Have a Spirit of Acceptance. There are many reasons that a relationship with a boss might get off to a rocky start. Very rarely, the reason is that the boss is innately evil. While I always want to give space in a relationship for moral hazard, most of the time the new boss just wants to win, maybe they have been told to shake things up, or they have strong preferences based on their past experiences. Whatever the reason is for how the new boss is behaving, as long as it is not immoral or illegal, you can try to approach them with a spirit of accepting them for who they are…warts and all. I try to keep in mind that the new boss is checking me out as well and I might have a few warts myself.  Sometimes all a boss needs from us is to connect with them without judgment.

4. Set some clear boundaries for yourself. It is very true that you might not be able to control or change the other person but you can always control your own actions. According to John Townsend in his book The Hiding Dilemma, “People with healthy boundaries can say yes to the good and no to the bad.” The person who is saying yes to someone else’s demands out of fear is setting themselves up for failure. Plan what you can say yes to and what crosses the line in your mind that you must say no.  Resist the temptation to just say yes to try and please them or get on their good side. As you plan your boundaries, keep in mind what you are willing to do in certain situations and what you are not willing to do.

5. Stay Open and Curious. If a relationship is tense from the start, our natural inclination is to protect ourselves and fight. None of us wants to get hurt in a relationship or get sideways with a boss especially if we really enjoy our work. According to Edgar Schein, if you practice “Humble Inquiry” you will stimulate more truth-telling and collaboration.  By staying humble in your own character and curious about what might be going on you can stay out of judgment and see more clearly what the boss is all about.

Your Development

From time to time we are all going to work with people, who are for whatever reason, tough for us to process. Here is a case study for you to write about yourself to help you see how you might strive to improve the relationship. Remember you are the one sensing the tension. You are the one who may have to flex and find a new approach.

• Think about a conversation or situation with a boss that went very well.

• Now think about a situation or conversation with a boss that did not go well.

• Compare your Thinking, Feelings, and Behavior in each circumstance. Use the chart below to guide your thoughts:

As you study the chart above, what are you learning about yourself and your approach to working with people who are more difficult for you to relate to?

Patience and Urgency - Part 3

I hope you are enjoying this series on how you can be both patient and have a sense of urgency at the same time.  Last week I included three coaching strategies related to how you can become more patient in your life as a leader. If you missed the post, you can read it here, and the introduction to the series here. This week I will be focusing on how you can answer this question by getting comfortable with change.

Turn and Face the Change

I had a coaching kick-off meeting this morning with a brand new coaching client. Anytime I have a meeting like this, the first thing I explain to the leader and their supervisor is that they are going to be growing as a leader through the experience of coaching. The next thing I say is, “And growth is uncomfortable. That is okay though, because if we feel different, that is a sign we are growing”.

Then I pause for effect.

Then I ask, “Are you OK with being uncomfortable”? 

Most of the time, my new clients tell me that yes, they are ready to grow! Or they say something like “I am really looking forward to the experience”. 

While both of these might be true, they still do not really answer the question.

I want you to stop for a minute and really think. If I asked you to incorporate a change in how you are leading your team right now, that this change in behavior is going to require you to do something different, and it is going to make you uncomfortable at first, would you be okay with being uncomfortable?

I will speak for myself at this point and say, “NO, I am not okay being uncomfortable!”

Who is? None of us likes to be uncomfortable.

However we all know that with this feeling comes the growth we desire.

Case in Point

For the past 6 years I have been a big fan of working out at OrangeTheory Fitness. Earlier this morning, I completed an hour-long workout that included 20 minutes of inclines on a treadmill and frankly it was uncomfortable. Our trainer Dani kept giving us words of encouragement like, “I know this is hard, but you didn’t come in here to stay the same. You came in here to change.” (At least that is what I heard, because honestly I was so uncomfortable I had a hard time focusing on exactly what her words were!)

As we develop ourselves as leaders we have to connect with this idea that our growth is going to be uncomfortable. When we are comfortable with wherever we are, we can develop natural resistances to change. This resistance to change or familiarity with the status quo has at its base some underlying emotions. 

If you pay attention to these emotions, they are telling you something. When Dani told us about the treadmill portion of our workout she said, “Don’t be afraid of the hills! You will finish this and you will be better on the other side.” 

What Dani was calling to our attention was the fact that we could expect change. And that this change was going to be uncomfortable. Also that our emotions could be telling us to not jump into the change. But instead of paying attention to these emotional resistors, we should engage in emotions that lead to acceptance of the change. 

I have included a chart below of some common emotional resistors and the accompanying emotions that lead to acceptance. 

Changing to be Patient

As you reflect on a change you may want to make in your leadership life, anticipate these emotions. For example, you may want to write a plan so that you can become more patient, but then you start to feel anxious and you begin to argue with yourself. This is when you can say to yourself, “I might feel anxious right now, but I am going to choose to feel satisfied as I write my plan to overcome.” 

My encouragement for you as a leader is to embrace the feeling of being uncomfortable as you grow. Then as you feel the resistance, step into it and turn it around so that the feeling becomes positive and encouraging. As you do this, celebrate the fact that your emotions were telling you to stay where you were, but you were able to overcome them and be the leader you desire to be.

Next week I will finish up the series by integrating our previous discussions on developing patience with the idea of having urgency.

Patience and Urgency - Part 2

Last week's blog post was formed from a question I received from one of our readers. If you missed the post, you can read Part 1 here. The main question was:

How Can We Have Patience and Urgency at the Same Time?

Growing up as an 8-year-old boy in Central Illinois, I loved baseball. But maybe even more than the game itself, I loved the Chicago Cubs. 

Ernie Banks at first base, Glen Beckert at second base, Ron Santo on third base, Don Kessinger at short stop, Jim Hickman in right field, Don Young in center field, Billie Williams in left field, and my favorite, Randy Hundley behind the plate. 

If it was a really great day, Fergeson Jenkins was on the mound as the pitcher. And Old Jack Brickhouse was quoting Ernie Banks, begging the teams to “play two games”.

I just love the Chicago Cubs! In those days the Cubs were on WGN TV and the games started at 1:05 pm. I could watch an entire game on TV and then go out and grab the guys and have enough daylight to play our own game. If we were lucky, we could get two in that day as well. I loved the Chicago Cubs so much, I dreamed of being one. Playing all kinds of organized baseball, the game as an 8-year-old came pretty easy to me and I loved it!

Then, as I got a little older, something began to change. The pitchers could throw the ball at different speeds. As a batter, as long as the ball came to me straight and fast, I could hit it a mile. But then, as the pitchers got older they learned not only how to throw the ball at different speeds, they could make it curve as well. If the speed was slightly different, it threw off my timing and the ball became very hard to hit.

I know I am not alone out there. I can only imagine how many of you had similar dreams. My dreams of playing for the Chicago Cubs ended when I just couldn’t hit the dreaded curveball.

The curveball in Baseball is known as an off-speed pitch. It has two primary features: it is thrown at a slower speed and it moves off a straight line. This means that the hitter has to be patient in order to be able to make contact with the ball. As a batter, if you can be patient and wait for the ball to get to the plate, and you can see it move, then that ball becomes easy to hit. The problem is that it really isn't so easy!

Patience

As I grew older, the pitchers gained more skill and the baseball kept moving at different speeds and on different lines, so I started to strike out more and more.  The more I would strike out, the harder I would swing at the ball and the more impatient I became. I was so frustrated, I would swing the bat at where I thought the ball would be only to whiff and hear the umpire call “strike three!” 

I just didn’t have the skill as a young player to be patient and wait for the slower speed pitch. In my brain, the ball should have been coming at a faster speed and I found it really hard to just wait for it.  If I could have been more patient at the plate, maybe, just maybe I could have worn those blue pinstripes of my beloved Chicago Cubs. 

Patience, according to Merriam Webster “is an ability to wait without becoming annoyed or upset”. For me, it is being able to suspend your personal need for satisfaction and action. For leaders, patience is all about being able to slow down those fast-paced exchanges with others in order to facilitate higher-quality interactions and better decision-making. 

It seems like the faster things go, or the more urgently we feel the pressure, the more we want to execute NOW! Just like trying to hit a curveball, trying hard or succumbing to the feeling of urgency doesn't help us hit it. What leaders need is an ability to slow their world down. 

As the pressure in the organization builds, as the requests from senior management become stronger and more frequent, most people will feel this urgency and just want to do something. If we are doing something, we feel good. It doesn’t matter if it is the right thing, at least we are trying.  It is a bit like me trying to hit the curveball. At least I went down swinging. didn’t hit the ball. But at least I did something. I wasn’t successful, but I tried.

I think the key is to be aware of what the pressure or speed of the change is doing to you and not become annoyed or upset. Once frustration starts to set in, now we are putting additional pressure on ourselves, and our ability to perform is drastically reduced.

3 Coaching Strategies for Being Patient

Patience is not racing ahead in one’s thought processes while missing the nuanced, but important information that others are trying to share. Sure you want organizational change. Yes, you need it now! But putting so much pressure on yourself could cause you to miss critical things that others need to provide input on. Here are 3 things I work on with my coaching clients when patience is a desired virtue:

1. Write a plan. It is amazing to me how many leaders do not want to sit down and write out a simple plan. A plan that includes people, times, dates, and objectives.  Just writing out a simple timeline can help calm our minds down so that we can see the speed at which we need to move. Then, if we need to move faster, we all are working from the same plan.

2. Use STOP.  This is a model I use to help clients slow down and think. It needs to be implemented before you feel the pressure building. However, if you find your mind racing, it can be used then too. The strategies are simple, but the implementation isn’t always so easy. Like learning to hit a curveball though, with practice, this can be a valuable tool.

3. Gates. I use the analogy of being on a walk. Going from one place to another when all of a sudden something changes or you start to feel pressure. When you do,  think of the following 3 questions as “gates” you can walk through just to slow yourself down and give yourself some time:

• Gate 1: Ask yourself “Is It True?” What evidence is there that what you are experiencing is real? So many times, we put so much added pressure on ourselves that is unnecessary. If it is not true, then there is likely no reason to continue this mental exercise. Just stop at the first gate. If it is true, then proceed to Gate 2. 

• Gate 2: Ask yourself “Is It Necessary?” Many times, being a leader myself, something might be true, but I just don’t need it. For example, I might feel like I am being attacked, but is it really necessary for me to defend myself? Just because I feel it, doesn’t mean I need to act on it. If it is not necessary for you to act, then you can stop. You have talked yourself off the ledge and there is no reason to move on. If it is both true and necessary, proceed to Gate 3. 

• Gate 3: Ask yourself “Is it kind?”. Sure it might feel better for me to unload on someone, or make another department my scapegoat, but is it kind? Would I want someone to say the same thing about me? It might be true, it might be necessary, but if what I am about to say is hurtful or lacks compassion, then should I really walk through that gate? 

What all three of these strategies do is help you develop some patience in the face of urgency, tension, and complexity.  They are meant to help you slow down and think.  

Who knows, someday someone in your organization might throw you a curveball and you might just hit it out of the park!

Patience and Urgency - Part 1

I received an interesting email from a leader last week asking me if I take requests for blog topics. I wrote back to her and let her know, YES I love it when folks engage and are looking for tips or tricks to enhance their leadership life. The question was so well-formed that I asked her for permission to quote it. 

I love leaders who care about their organizations! I really get the sense that this leader both wants to personally be brought into what senior leadership is seeing and cares enough to wrestle with such difficult questions.  

As a leader, if someone in your organization wants to go to lunch or grab a virtual coffee and ask a question like this, I think you should find a way to give them a raise. I have worked alongside too many folks who would just throw their hands up in the air and cast blame on the organization for the lack of productivity. What I love about this question is that there is no blame here, just a leader seeking to contribute. 

The Question

Her question was:

“If you're taking requests, how about something on patience with organizational readiness during times of change?

Lately, we have received several calls to action from senior leadership that incremental changes are not enough...we must make big changes (and in a relatively short time frame).

Oh, and all of this is supposed to occur in a matrix organization devoid of hierarchy.   I find that I struggle to find patience when we identify high-impact opportunities (to do things better, faster, more cost-effectively) that, in reality, will still take 6-18 months to persuade all the affected stakeholders to even START.  No tears or anger, just a lack of productivity.”

I am going to dissect the question as a series, a multi-week post. I am particularly intrigued by this question because at its core, the organization seems to be asking for two different things. Not only are there multiple requests, but they also seem like they are polar opposites.

Patience…………………………….and…………………………………….Urgency

How can we have patience and urgency at the same time? 

On the surface, these attributes seem to be time responses to the same trigger. And in some sense they are. 

When faced with dilemmas like this, I like to separate out the attributes and see if they really are on the same linear plane. Are they really polar opposites?  If we separate the attributes and put each on its own line, can we find any new or interesting ways to look at the problem?

My good friend and organizational change expert Dr. Drew Boyd, writer of Inside the Box Thinking would probably call this “division”. You see, Drew maintains that innovation does not come from what we do not know, but from what we do. So if we give our problem a new definition, we might learn from it. So I did the following:

Patience…………….

And 

Urgency……………

As soon as I wrote the problem on two different lines, the thought came to me that we are likely talking about two different things entirely.  I went back and read the email that my leader friend wrote to me and saw the problem anew. Here is what I am now seeing:

Individual Patience

And

Organizational Urgency

If we put each of these on some sort of linear graphic it could look something like this:

Individual Patience……….and…….Individual Impulsiveness

Organizational Urgency…and……Organizational Stagnation

What this graphic representation does for me is it helps me see how I need strategies for both myself and the organization. The problem with leaving the attributes on the same line is that my brain sees them as the same thing and if I have emotion about them, one will spill over into the other.

By separating out the issues, I can gain clarity and formulate a plan. So now that the question is clearer I can search for better answers to both of these problems.

How can I be more patient?

How can I help the organization gain a sense of urgency?

Next week, in part two, I am going to answer both of these questions and give some tips and strategies that leaders can use in their everyday practice. 

Until next week, I have an assignment for you:

Sit for 15 minutes each day with your journal and reflect on how you can be more patient. 

I really want you to try this. Don’t do anything else while you do this exercise (well maybe have a cup of coffee or hot tea). Just sit quietly with no radio or distractions on and write what it feels like for you to be patient.

If you do this exercise for a day or two, I would love it if you would write a comment below and let me know what the experience was like for you.

To Be a Wise Leader You Need...

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been sharing some thoughts on connecting wisdom and leadership. If you missed those blog posts you can read them here and here. 

King Solomon, said to be the wisest person to ever live, has been the main character we’ve used as an example of what it means to be a wise leader.

One of the cautions that we as leaders need to recognize is that we can start to get full of ourselves. If we are not careful, we start to believe the press that is written about us: 

• Hard worker

• Smart

• Excellent with people

• Good salary with nice bonus checks

• Dedicated and loyal

These things may actually be true, but when you get this kind of feedback it can start to go to your head.

Queen of the South

King Solomon had this same experience. Things were going really well for him:

• He gave orders to build the temple on Mount Moriah

• He had been blessed by God with wisdom

• People liked him

• He was very rich

• He was dedicated to the people he served

Then one day, Solomon had a visitor, the Queen of Sheba. She had heard about Solomon’s fame and wanted to test him to see if he was as great of a leader as she had heard.  They scheduled a meeting and talked; Solomon answered all her questions and she got to observe firsthand the wisdom he had obtained. 

The Queen says to Solomon,

“The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw it with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half of the greatness of your wisdom was told to me. You have far exceeded the report I heard.”

-2 Chronicles 9:5

Can we just sit in that feedback for a minute? How cool would it be if someone from another company requested a meeting with you because they had heard of your reputation, and after you met they say that you are even twice as good as they had expected? Wouldn’t you walk out of that room feeling like Muhammad Ali or Tom Brady…some of the “Greatest of All Time” athletes?

Solomon Knew the Danger

So what is the danger of this kind of recognition from others? You are the greatest, you are the smartest, you are the fastest, you are the best, you are all that and a bag of chips (as my daddy used to say)?

I think the real danger is that you may start to believe it! 

Solomon knew this too because he penned a proverb cautioning against believing all of this about yourself:

“It is not good to eat too much honey, Nor is it honorable to search out one's own honor.”

- Proverbs 25:27

I wonder if it is because of his interaction with the Queen of Sheba that he doesn’t pen different words. I could see Solomon after his meeting with the queen, sitting with his journal at the end of a long day writing something like:

“Honey sure tastes good. And I have heard from the doctors around town that it is good for you. However, if you eat too much of it, it is not so good for you. In fact, instead of being delicious, it can make you really sick. Giving yourself too much credit is a lot like this. It is ok to have a little bit, but if you spend all your time thinking about and telling others how great you are, that makes others sick and it isn’t good for you either.”

Solomon says that searching for one's own honor is like eating too much honey. In the long run, it isn’t good for you.  In other words, too much of a good thing just might make you sick. 

Honor is something that naturally follows a job well done. I am in no way saying that as a leader you should not recognize others for a job well done. I personally believe that leaders who do a great job will get all of the honor they need and deserve. 

Just be careful that you are not seeking this honor out for yourself. Focusing on this honor can take a leader into a bad place. One leader I know put it this way,

“I have a person on my team who I am surprised that he does not break his own arm patting himself on the back.” 

Remedy for the Danger of Self-Promotion

While we all want to work with very confident leaders, too much of a good thing, like self-confidence, can start to rub people the wrong way. Humility, according to Dr. Edgar Schein in its most general sense, refers to granting someone else a higher status than one claims for oneself. 

This idea of basic humility is really all about granting status to others. It is about recognizing the innate value that other people bring to the table. This basic humility allows a leader to recognize others for who they are and what they do.

There is another deeper level of humility that is good for leaders to consider. This is the concept of epistemic humility. This is where a leader is able to recognize their own personal limits in knowledge, reflect analytically on social problems, have an understanding of the limitations of human experience, preserve in wrestling with intellectual challenges, and take the perspective of others. 

The idea of epistemic humility goes beyond the recognition of others into the realm of self-examination, self-truth telling, and being able to see others' perspectives. This kind of humility calls on a leader to self-regulate, self-depreciate, and truly value what others are seeing.

I am curious how you might see yourself in relation to the story of Solomon? Most of you that read these posts are very successful. You could easily fall into the trap of asking yourself “What about me?”. Think now, how do you use humility as a counterbalance to keep your own self-confidence from running out of control?

Would You Choose Wisdom?

In last week's post, I mentioned an opportunity that King Solomon was presented with as a leader. If you missed it, you can read that post here. In short, the story from the book of Ecclesiastes describes how God shows up in Solomon's dream and tells him to ask for any one thing and God will give it to him.

Fully acknowledging this is happening to Solomon in a dream, I find the story to be one of gripping drama, and the choice that King Solomon was faced with is fascinating. Here is a quick recap:

God shows up to a sleeping Solomon and says, “Ask for anything and I will give it to you.”

I think Solomon has to be thinking along the lines of: 

“This is cool! I have to get this one right! This is big. Maybe I should create a list of options…”

• I need a new chariot

• My marriage isn't going so great

• I have just seen the doctor and the news wasn't so good

• My kids have lost all respect for me

• My kingdom has a history of revolting against its leadership

• I have enemies on every side of my land

• My army is a lot smaller compared to all my enemies

• My land is prone to drought, and there are a lot of people to feed

Let’s stop there for a moment and put ourselves in Solomon's place. Pretend that God, who by definition is all-knowing, all-powerful, is always everywhere, and can do whatever is desired, is saying to you, "Ask me for anything and I will give it to you."

While you ruminate on that question, I have some additional thoughts for you to ponder.

Why Wisdom?

As you consider King Solomon’s list of options, you can begin to understand the gravity of the question he faced. I am sure as you are thinking about your own request of God, you might be thinking, “This IS big.”

It is very big. Especially if you are a leader. And most of you who read this lead others. 

Some of you lead organizations, others of you lead teams, others lead churches, and some of you have the responsibility of a family. No matter what your leadership level is, this can be a difficult question to answer, "If I could have one thing in my life, what would it be?"

I think somehow Solomon must have realized that how he answered this question would likely impact the rest of his life on earth and maybe even impact him beyond his earthly life. I don't mean to over dramatize the point,...but how can I not?

I can almost feel the tension Solomon may have had in his dream..."Think, think! before God changes his mind, what should I ask for?"

It is possible that Solomon wasn’t quite as confused as I am  while contemplating that question. Perhaps Solomon was a more reflective leader and had read a lot of blog posts on leadership, so he had spent some time thinking about questions like this. Or maybe he even worked with an Executive Coach who asked him similar questions to prepare him for this very moment. Who knows?

What we do know is that no matter the level of drama associated with the decision, Solomon asks for wisdom.

On the surface, this is a curious choice. 

Most of us have  some concept of what wisdom is, but if we are honest, it is not something we think as much about these days. Prior to reading these recent blog posts, when was the last time you even thought about the concept of wisdom?

While there is not one agreed-upon definition for wisdom in any of the scholarly leadership literature I have read, I do think there are some thoughts that are quite insightful as we begin our thinking about this important leadership attribute:

Most perspectives on wisdom view it as an expert knowledge system that concerns the fundamental pragmatics of life. (Baltes)

• Another perspective is that wisdom is a skillful application of the practical truth to ordinary facets of life that extend beyond information and knowledge. (Dr. Ken Boa)

• Yet another view is that wisdom is perceived as exhibiting two categories of attributes: exceptional understanding and attributes of judgment and communication. (Holiday 7 Chandler)

• Wisdom is a capacity to put into action the most appropriate behavior by considering what is known and what does the most good. (Rowley)

• Recently an affective component to wisdom has been added that includes Emotional Management as a key to leaders being able to display wisdom.

Is there anything we can glean from these 5 perspectives that might inform us on how we see wisdom? It entails some level of expertise:

• The skillful application of practical truth

• Often what is needed is beyond our own level of information and knowledge

• Leaders are faced everyday with not only what needs to be decided and communicated, but HOW this needs to be done

• Some level of emotional management and tolerance of stress is indicated for good judgment and decision-making

• As leaders, our judgments impact not only ourselves but many others in our organizations.

So, why wisdom? 

Why then as a leader did Solomon choose wisdom over anything else?

Perhaps there are two reasons, one a bit self-centered and the other focused on more of a greater good:

1. My dissertation chair, Dr. Very Ludden, was famous for saying that leaders require wisdom in decision-making to avoid taking foolish actions. No one wants to look foolish. No leader I know wants to take their team down a path of wasteful folly.

2. A leader's actions are all about the sound judgment that without wisdom, are filled with distractions and temptations.

I think that somehow, Solomon had the ability to look at his list of options and see a connection. Solomon had many problems and issues he faced. Some personal, some organizational, some from external forces. I think Solomon knew that what he needed was an attribute that would help him across all facets of his life.

He knew that it was wisdom that would give him the ability to help reconcile his need to be seen as a leader by others with the external needs of creating followership by those in his kingdom and respect from those outside his kingdom.

How about you? Now that you have had some time to reflect on the question, what would you ask for if you could have just one thing? 

Success? Power? Influence? Riches? Love? Respect?

Wisdom?

I hope you will ponder this question for yourself. And, as long as you are pondering, why not ask? You never know what might happen…

If You Could Have One Thing…

As we begin a new year I have been thinking about something. More specifically, I have been asking myself a question that is not an easy one to answer.

Here is the question:

“If I could have one thing now that I either don’t currently possess or that I do possess but would like to have more of, what would it be?”

I know some of you are saying right now, “Scott, you really need to spend your time thinking about deeper things.”

I agree.

And after you judge me for thinking this, you will likely sit back and think to yourself, “What do I want more of”? 

Here are some things I consider as I ponder the question myself:

1. More clients to grow my business

2. More money to buy and do more things

3. More peace so my stress level would be lower

4. More impulse control so I won’t crave Chex Mix at 9 pm

5. More time to do what I love when I want to do it - like play more golf

A Little Irony

Most of you who know me know that I am a fairly spiritual person. I often start my day around 7 am with some reflection time that includes a few things: 

• A 21-day prayer journal that our church is working through.

• A Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr called “Yes, And…”.

• Reading some scriptures from my Leadership Bible and writing a reflection in my journal on what I am learning.

Interestingly enough, as I have this question rolling around in my head, “what do I want / more of,” I sat down one morning this week to the following:

• The prayer journal lesson was about the places Jesus went in his few short ministry years. There was a collision between the realities of his heavenly kingdom and the brokenness of our fallen world.

• Rohr wrote, “It’s all about seeing…moving from dualistic to non-dualistic thinking at the highest levels.”

• My scripture reading was from 1 Kings - the place where God appeared to King Solomon and said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

• My journaling brought these three big ideas together: a) the brokenness of the world, b) being open and patient with ambiguity, and c) that God asked Solomon the same thing I was asking myself.

Pretty interesting, right? I have this question rolling around in my head, then wake up and my reading for the day is God asking King Solomon the very same question.

Now I am feeling better about my question not being silly or trite. I mean… if God asked it of Solomon it has to be a good question…right?

What Would Solomon Do?

As I continued in my journaling reflection, I began to notice that all three of these topics have something in common. 

To answer any of them, brings in the unknown.

• What to do about the brokenness of our world?

• How to be open and patient with that which is ambiguous in my life?

• If I could ask God for one thing, what should it be?

This realm of the unknown to me is like a big dark cave. It brings feelings of both anxiety and fear. I just really don’t like not knowing. I would much rather be in control and know. Give me certainty all day long over the unknown.

I guess this is what impresses me the most with this part of the story about King Solomon. He could have been selfish and asked for his kingdom to grow, he could have asked for money to buy more stuff for the palace. He could have even asked for impulse control so his tummy doesn’t hurt at night after he eats his favorite snack. Shoot, he doesn’t even ask to live a long life free of problems.

Think about this with me for a minute. 

God shows up to Solomon in a dream and says “Ask me for anything and I will give it to you.” Solomon, now in the driver's seat to be granted anything he wants….

Can you feel the drama building…. ?

He asks for wisdom.

Wisdom to be able to make good decisions and distinguish between right and wrong on behalf of his kingdom. 

What an interesting request!

Wisdom. This pinnacle of human development. 

Next week I will begin to unpack this idea of wisdom and leadership a bit more. I don’t think anyone would argue that in our world today, wisdom is something that is needed by leaders everywhere. 

Perhaps this is a good question for all of us to ponder, after all.

If God showed up to you in a dream and told you to ask Him for anything, what would it be for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

3-Step Recipe for a Productivity Reset

Question: When is the last time you experienced a productivity reset?

I read recently that in a knowledge-working society the work we do is really about creativity.  Now, when I hear the word creativity my mind immediately goes to the painters and sculptors of the world. The work they do is creative. 

Before those of us who are scientists, technologists, and managers or leaders abdicate the world of creativity to the artists, we probably should step back for a moment and make sure we are not leaving the best part of us behind.

The Story

I had a conversation with one of my former graduate students who said she was completely burned out and didn’t know how she was going to get her research project finished on time.  She was definitely in need of a productivity reset.

Here is a part of our conversation:

“..By the time I finish my commute to and from work, I am logging 60 hours or more a week. In addition, I have a family and my church that are both important to me. I just don’t have any energy left for creativity to get this research project finished.”

I could just sense the frustration and disappointment in her voice as she was trying to figure out how to be more productive. Then almost without taking a breath, she said,

“…You know, perhaps I could be more efficient in the morning. If I got up an hour earlier I could get more done because I am at my most creative in the morning.”  

The Point

As knowledge-workers, we are all going to have to realize that more time, more effort, more energy doesn’t equal creativity or effectiveness.  It just equals more time and more effort. That's it.  If you are playing a game of who-works-hardest, then keep going, but if you want to be creative and innovative, then maybe work as hard as you can while you're working and then stop and do something else.

I think there is a reason that athletes work really hard in times of peak performance and then rest their bodies.

There is a reason writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, William Stafford, and Victor Hugo would work for a while in the morning and then go for long walks in the afternoon.  

Both high performing athletes and creative writers alike see the value of both hard work and the regenerative process of the productivity reset.  There is only so much a knowledge-worker can do to be productive before they need to recharge their brain.

According to Margaret Moussa, Maria-Estella Varua, and Matthew Wright’s work on knowledge-workers, what has been left out of the discussion up until now are issues of self-efficacy and well-being.  

The question we need to ask ourselves as leader is:

Can we leaders continue to treat our knowledge-workers the same way we treated productivity-workers of ages gone by?

And…

Can we as knowledge-workers continue to try and cram more stuff into our day and expect quality outputs?

3 Step Rest Process

Here are three things that I try to do when I am in need of a productivity reset.

1. Read. There is nothing like reading to stimulate productivity. If I ever have writer's block, reading is one of the best ways I know to get the juices flowing again. I have found that there is nothing like poetry and fiction to really get my juices flowing again. In fact, I just finished a chapter of Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman.
   

2. Walk. I love to exercise but when I work out I am really focused on pushing my body, so I don’t get many creative thoughts going when my heart rate is above 140. But when I am just out for a walk, and the sun is shining, and I can sense the beauty all around me, my creative energy just seems to flow.
   

3. Phone a Friend. For me, there is nothing like community and conversation to spur creativity. I always feel better when I get off the phone with my coach, my coaching group, or a conversation with Kevin or Joanne. There is just something about talking to others that will spur on my creative process.

As leaders, when we think about ourselves or those who are in our care, perhaps we need to be thinking less about how productive we can be and more about how we are practicing self-care. It is elements like reading, taking a walk, and engaging in a community that are the real ways we gain wisdom. 

Could it be that as knowledge-workers we are really seeking things like wisdom, and as we do we actually become more productive as a by-product?

I had many more things to say about this topic, but I am feeling a bit confused and convoluted right now….

I think I will go for a walk.

2 Minute Read to Improve Your 2022 Vision

When I was a kid my mom would tell me I needed to eat more carrots to improve my vision. If I wanted to be able to see with clarity, her wisdom of the time was for me to crunch on a few orange root sticks. Mom’s advice, while heartfelt and well-meaning, did not ultimately keep me from becoming farsighted and needing sight correction to be able to see clearly.

Many of us will get well-meaning advice as we approach the new year, reading and listening to experts drone on and on about goal setting and how you must have a goal if you want to accomplish anything.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with setting a goal, it can be a bit meaningless if not aligned with the vision of who you want to be as a leader. 

Envision Your Future You As A Leader

As the calendar changes from 2021 many of us will begin tithing about what we want to accomplish in 2022. Most of us will make some kind of resolution to make a change as the new year rolls in.

A resolution is “a firm decision to do or not do something”.

Like you, In the past I have made many types of New Year’s Resolutions:

• Personal: Eat right, exercise more, and lose 10 pounds

• Professional: Increase sales by 20% by becoming more customer-centric

• Family: Become a better listener when talking with my wife

• Spiritual: Read through the Bible in a year

All good stuff. I am sure many of you are making resolutions and talking with your friends and family about them over the next few days.

I thought I might challenge you to add a category this year. In addition to your personal, professional, family, and spiritual resolutions, think about a resolution to improve your leadership. Envision yourself becoming the leader you want to be in the future.

Leadership

Here are 10 ideas to get your thinking started on what you could resolve to do or not do in 2022 when it comes to your leadership.  I pulled this list from some of our more popular blog posts we have done over the years.

1. Reflect on being a great leader and what is keeping you from being great.  Who among us doesn’t want to be seen as a great leader? And yet, so many of us have some barrier that we just don’t want to see or do anything about. 

2. Work on your values before your vision.

3. Spend less time working and more time thinking. This idea runs counter culture to our “doing” mentality. Perhaps you need to work less and think more to enhance your ability to lead. 

4. If you were a brand (like Kleenex or Toyota), what would your value proposition be?

5. Who in your organization do you need to network with. 

6. What piece of FeedForward advice do you need to seek out? In our organizations we are so good at feedback. We just love telling people what we observed them doing.  Why not start a culture of FeedForward? Perhaps we could all get a little better at offering some solutions in addition to what we see in others that we don’t like. 

7. What cycle of negative thinking will you break this year?

8. How are you resting in the middle of your work day? Studies are showing how important rest is for leaders to maintain their effectiveness. How are you cycling your work to maximize your performance?

9. Take your emotional intelligence temperature. Are you able to choose how you react or are you “slave” to your knee jerk reactions?

10. Whatever change you make, put a plan in place to sustain it and get some coaching to keep you accountable.

I am looking forward to being with you on your leadership journey. If there are subjects you would like tackled on these pages just drop me a line. i am happy to do the research and write about what interests you.

My prayer for you is that you have a productive and effective leadership year.

Blessings to you and your families.

PS. If you know someone who might be interested in growing as a leader, why not forward them this blog and have them sign up? It’s free and easy and we guarantee they will gets tons of value.

Do You Share These Observations Regarding Leadership Momentum?

There are not many folks from about mid-December through mid-January who are wanting to engage in new coaching or training opportunities, so each year I use those weeks for reflection and planning. 

In addition to the clients I am currently working with, I am regularly adding new coaching clients into my practice throughout the year. With that in mind, an important area to reflect on as one year ends and a new one begins is the future of my coaching practice. How many new clients will I engage with this year? Who will they be? What will my coaching practice look like in the coming months? It is important to thoughtfully reflect on these questions in order to determine how I can proactively plan for a successful year for both myself and my clients.

Another area of my professional life that I reflect on is the work my clients have asked me to do with them. I begin by looking at my calendar to observe all the work I did in the past 12 months. I look at all the times I spent teaching, training, facilitating, coaching, creating content, etc. Then, I ask myself a really hard question: Is the work I am doing still relevant? Is it meaningful for those who call on me to work with leaders in their organization?

Finally, I spend time in personal reflection and journaling. Perhaps most importantly, reflecting on how I spend my time, then comparing this data with what I really enjoy doing in my work life.

Momentum

One way to look at whether or not I am relevant is by using the idea of momentum. This is a concept that I borrow from the world of personal investing and finance.

One of the personal-finance newsletters I read on a very regular basis is called Sound Mind Investing. (You can learn more about them at www.soundmindinvesting.com.)

In the January 2019 newsletter, Matt Bell wrote about the concept of momentum. According to Matt:

“A fundamental mistake many investors make is to move too quickly in choosing investments. They read about a hot stock or this year’s best-performing mutual fund and jump in. It’s all very ad hoc and reactive.”

Matt goes on to write that:

“Momentum is the idea that the recent past performance tends to persist-that is, it tends to continue, at least into the near term future.”

This means that what has happened in the recent past is likely to continue into the near future. It is what we know to be true from the world of physics; that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, while an object at rest stays at rest.

Momentum in the financial world becomes an objective measure of what is going on in the marketplace so that the investor can build a strategy based on real data and not just turn on the TV and be moved to buy a stock by some talking head at the moment.

Momentum Analysis

As I analyzed my journaling from the past years, here are 4 things I noticed:

1. Emotional Intelligence remains an important leadership construct. This is true for both the training work I do as well as the coaching. Most of the time when leaders hire me there is some growth desired in this area. I think Dan Goleman got it right when he wrote, “What really matters for success, character, happiness, and life long achievements is a definite set of emotional skills - your EQ - not just purely cognitive abilities…” Organizations put so much emphasis on how smart and skillful people are that they often miss this other very important dynamic of the “how” they work with others.

2. Relational empathy. I don’t know if this is a symptom of our political climate or not, but people have become so polar. They have an idea or a framework for how the world should be and they stick to it no matter how silly it makes them look. Maybe this is a natural outcome of divisions of labor, where those trained in finance wear finance glasses and only see the world through finance. Or, how those who are trained and educated in marketing only see the world through a marketing lens.  As leaders we seem to have lost the skill of trying to understand where the other person is coming from, and, even more important, what it is like to be them. We are so concerned with our own selfish ambition and desires that we have lost sight of the perspective of other ways of seeing and doing.

3. Being flexible in ambiguous times. I was on a call with a potential client toward the end of the year whose organization has been turned upside down. Half of the people have either been laid off or reassigned new roles. There is a tremendous amount of ambiguity about what certain jobs actually are and what people are supposed to do everyday. I was asked to talk with the team about the impact of emotions during times of tension and what to watch for as leaders when working with others. I was interrupted with a question in the middle of my presentation when one well meaning soul said, “Dr. Livingston, enough already about helping people process the loss they have experienced, can you just help us get to a place where things are normal and we can all just get back to work?” My response? “This is your new normal. Learning to be emotionally flexible and helping people deal with where they are in the moment is a new calling for leaders.”

4. Connecting with talent. The December stock market slide, not withstanding the economic outlook and, more specifically, the jobs outlook, is really robust. Senior leaders need to make sure they are connecting with talent, because my sense is that talent is itching for new opportunities. I think senior leaders need to get much better at proactively scheduling time to connect and care about the talent in the organization. Take them for coffee. Schedule a lunch. Learn what is on their mind. You do not need to do another ROI calculation on some process. What you really need to do is ensure you have the talent on your team to turn the future you are planning for into a reality.

How about you? Do you agree with these 4 observations? Leave a comment or send an email. I would love to connect with you to talk about these observations, or your unique observations regarding your organization.

Best hopes for the coming year,

Scott