Leadership
In 1992, neuroscientists in Parma, Italy, were studying cells in a monkey’s brain that fired only when the monkey raised its arm. One day, a research student walked into the lab with an ice cream cone. When he absentmindedly raised the cone to his mouth, the monkey’s brain cells for raising its own arm were triggered, and its arm lifted along with the arm of the student.
Researchers have since found that the brain is filled with neurons that mirror not only the actions, but also the emotions, of those around us. These mirror neurons operate as antennae, allowing us to pick up signals in our social world. When we detect the emotions of another person through their actions, our mirror neurons replicate those emotions.
Your team is not immune to the stress reported by 56% of Americans over today’s political climate. Regardless of the midterm election results, some members of your team (possibly even you) will be very unhappy with the results.
During times of uncertainty, it is the leaders’ role to bring order to chaos, calm nerves, and manifest a non-anxious presence. Here are three things you can do during this election season to keep yourself and your team focused:
1. Do a walkabout. Leadership builds confidence. Leaders routinely make important decisions — often under conditions of uncertainty — that affect many people over a long period of time. Operating under those circumstances helps leaders navigate the peaks and valleys that come with the job. But, your team members may not have built skill around decision-making. The stress of deciding who to vote for, or of deciding not to vote, can leave them with action anxiety.
Make sure that you build time into your day to do a walkabout. Letting your team see you in the halls will serve as an instant stress reliever. You’ll remind them that they are not alone, and you will get through this together.
2. Focus on Your Core Culture. Research shows that diverse teams are more innovative. Having a diverse workforce could, however, cause some tension during an election season. Team members who are encouraged to openly share opinions and challenge one another’s assumptions could quickly find themselves at an impasse when it comes to debating political issues.
This is the time to remind your team about what binds you. The organizational values, your mission, and solving customer problems can re-ground your team members and eliminate the drama coming from outside of the office. Find examples of your culture in action and reward those behaviors.
3. Talk about the Johnson Wax Company. In 1886, Samuel Curtis Johnson was a parquet floor salesman in Racine, Wisconsin. One day, he realized that there were more floors than there were products to keep them clean. He mixed his first batch of Johnson’s Wax in his bathtub, abandoned the flooring business and started selling wax as fast as he could make it. Since then, five generations of Johnsons have led the now $10 billion company, making it one of the oldest family-owned businesses in America. Last year marked SC Johnson’s 100th anniversary. The company has weathered the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights era, 9/11, and 24 presidential administrations.
As you go about your day during this election season, your team will be picking up on your signals. Remember that both your verbal and non-verbal patterns are being imitated. Stay grounded in what unites and provide context that will help them withstand the political peaks and valleys of the time.
Question: How can picturing a monkey, an ice cream cone, and an Italian graduate student help you lead your team through election anxiety?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Leadership
Can you feel it in the air? For the past few weeks, everything around us has been changing. The sun is setting earlier. Leaves are changing in color to vibrant reds and deep yellows. There’s no denying that fall is here and winter is just around the corner. As humans, we are hard wired to accept the inevitability of seasonal changes. Although we can manage extreme weather changes of four seasons a year, why are we so resistant to organizational changes?
If you’re engaged in the effort to set a new direction, orchestrate innovation, or mold a culture, here are six universal truths that can guide you along the way.
1. People don’t resist change. They resist being changed. As management guru Peter Senge suggests, resistance is greatest when change is inflicted on people. If you can give people a chance to offer their input, change is more likely to be met with enthusiasm and commitment.
2. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Big goals can seem overwhelming and cause us to freeze. This simple truth, attributed to Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, is a reminder to get moving. Take the first step, however small it may seem, and the journey is underway.
3. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. Many change efforts fall short because of confusion over the end goal. In the Lewis Carroll classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice asks the Cheshire cat which road she should take. The cat’s response reminds us to focus on the destination first, then choose the best path.
4. Change is a process, not a decision. It happens all too often. Senior executives make pronouncements about change, and then launch programs that lose steam. Lasting change requires an ongoing commitment to the process reinforced by constant communication, tools, and milestone recognitions.
5. Do not declare victory prematurely. In his book, The Heart of Change Field Guide, author Dan Cohen suggests that short-term wins do not necessarily equal long-term success. Cohen writes, “keep urgency up and a feeling of false pride down.”
6. Be the change you wish to see in the world. These famous words attributed to Gandhi reminds us all — executives with associates, political leaders with followers, or parents with children — that one of our most important tasks is to exemplify the best of what the change is all about.
Any form of change requires an adjustment period, and some are easier than others. While seasonal changes are predictable and tend to go over smoothly, organizational changes cause more chaos. Leaders trying to implement changes in the workplace can take heart in these truisms, settle in and enjoy the journey.
Question: Chances are, you’re going through a change effort now. Which of these truths can you apply today to help you succeed?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Leadership
During the 3 minutes it will take you to read this post, you’ll probably get an email, a text, a social media update or a missed call. Let 30 minutes pass, and you could be swimming in unanswered inbounds. A steady diet of requests for your attention – both electronically and in-the-flesh – can leave you overwhelmed and intellectually and emotionally undernourished. You cannot lead effectively when your plate is full, but your cup is empty.
As a leader, you have a responsibility to create a culture of performance. Research shows that your ability to do so will require you to carve out your most precious resource – time – for yourself to reflect. In his March 2013 Harvard Business Review article, JP Morgan Managing Director Chris Lowney suggests that leaders need to take a mental pit stop. As a former Jesuit seminarian, Lowney recalls that St. Ignatias of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, recommended a practice known as “examen.” Simply put, it’s the concept of examining your day and taking stock.
Before you move onto your next thing to do, make a commitment to yourself to refuel by practicing the 3 G’s for daily reflection. Find a notebook and select a time and place each day to “examen,” as follows:
Practice Gratitude. A 2013 survey of 2,000 Americans by the John Templeton Foundation found that people are less likely to feel gratitude about work than anyplace else. In fact, respondents tended to rank their jobs as dead last when asked to list the things they were grateful for. Yet, studies have shown that people who make a habit of recording what they are grateful for have more positive emotions, feel better physically and mentally, and feel more connected to others as a result. What or who at work are you grateful for?
Give Your Reserve. When your tank is low, the last thing you may think about is, “what can I do to help someone else?” But, research confirms that the warm glow you feel after giving someone else a boost can be mapped to neural hedonic activity (aka stimulate pleasure systems in the brain). So, pay for the coffee of the next person in line. Call someone who needs it. Take the neighbor’s garbage cans in. It will give them something to be grateful for, and give yourself a lift as well. What little thing could you give today?
Extend Grace. There’s a saying that not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. Remember when your colleague cut you off in mid-sentence today when you were trying to make that point about the new project? Drop it. Whether she did it to undermine you or because she was caught up in the brainstorm, it’s over. She’s not burning up thinking about it. While you’re at it, give yourself some grace too. If you’re still punishing yourself for a mistake you made with the best of intentions, let it go. Who can you stop keeping score on?
You’re taking in more information today than you ever have before. Make time for yourself to turn that information into knowledge, and that knowledge into insight.
Question: Do you think any giving is 100% altruistic? Read this post then send me your comment.
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Leadership
One evening, author and leadership consultant John Maxwell was having dinner with Olympic athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Until last year, Joyner-Kersee was the most decorated U.S. woman in Olympic track and field history.
As they were chatting, Maxwell decided to have a little fun with the athlete. He sat his fork down on his plate, looked Joyner-Kersee straight in the eye, leaned forward and said, “I bet that I can beat you in a 100-yard dash.” Joyner-Kersee stopped in mid-bite, and searched John’s face for any hint of whether he was joking or serious. Surely he knew that she was the first woman in history to break 7,000 points in the heptathlon — a 2-day, 7-event contest consisting of the 100 meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 meter dash, long jump, javelin throw and the 800 meter run.
Maxwell let a moment or two pass, then said, “Actually, now that I think about it, I bet that I can beat you in a 100-yard dash if you give me a 10-yard head start.” Over the course of the next few minutes, Maxwell continued to stretch his need for a head start until he settled on, “Yes! If you give me a 90-yard head start, I’m 100% confident that I can beat you in a 100-yard dash!”
Maxwell’s 100-yard dash dinner story serves as a reminder to leaders. Whether you’re trying to implement a new process, orchestrate innovation, or mold a culture, you have to meet your team where they are before you can get them to where you want them to go.
If you’re leading a team, chances are, you’re far ahead of the rest of the group from Day 1. You may have more years of experience, and less fear of calculated risk. You probably have more data and background information that led to the decision. You have a better grasp of the ideal outcome. That’s the equivalent of a 90-yard advantage, and a major team de-motivator. Think about the last time you gave your team a new project, and ask yourself these three questions:
1. Did I take the time to lay the proper groundwork, or did I jump straight to the end?
2. Did I give the team time to ask questions, or did I do most of the talking?
3. Did I help the team understand what “there” looks like, or did I talk mostly about what’s not working today?
In a Harvard Business Review series on The Secret of Great Teams, an effective team was defined as “a group of people who do collective work and are mutually committed to a common team purpose and challenging goals related to that purpose.” As a leader, it’s your responsibility to give your team what they need to truly succeed.
Another truism of Maxwell’s is this: leaders who complain that “it’s lonely at the top” aren’t really leading people anywhere – they’re just taking a hike. Make sure you give them context, allow plenty of time for their questions, and give them a roadmap to success.
Question: What tools do you use to make sure you’re not leaving your team in the dust?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Leadership
Once or twice a year, a client and I manage to squeeze in a long-overdue lunch. We’re about the same age. We’re both women. We’ve both risen through the ranks and gained a certain amount of leadership credibility in our respective fields.
A conversation we had over lunch a few years ago haunted me for months, because I wasn’t ready with an articulate response to the career dilemma. “Susan,” as I will call her, is positioned to be tapped for a seat among the highest ranking leaders in her organization. She’s a shoo-in to sit among the President’s inner circle. She has more than enough skills and experience to succeed. She has the credibility and popular support to fast track her move. “The problem is,” Susan told me, “I don’t want the job. I’ve seen the compromises that the people at that level make to hold onto their position. I’m not interested in the politics. I can be much more effective by staying in my current role.”
Outside, I gazed at Susan with empathy. Inside, however, I wanted to shake her, and shout, “No! You have the potential to use your influence to reshape the reputation of the inner circle. You can’t just walk away and abdicate your responsibility to break down the barriers!” I kept my mouth shut. Paid the bill. Left Susan to swim in her career tension without advice.
Later, I shared this story with my colleague, leadership author and scholar, Dr. Tony Baron. Tony suggested that leadership success depends on the ability to embrace – not shun – the inherent tensions we feel as we move into higher levels of influence. “When you ignore the tension in your gut,” Tony said, “you compromise integrity. Successful leaders develop a sense of comfort in the tension. They don’t freeze when tension hits. They act. They don’t allow action anxiety to keep them from doing what they know is right, even at personal risk,” Tony added. Here are four ways he noted that successful leaders embrace tension:
1. Think Hamlet. The next time you feel tension about taking action, ask yourself if you’re overexaggerating the risk. “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles,” is the tension described by Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play of the same name. When we allow ourselves to indulge in negative fantasies, we give ourselves an iron clad excuse for inaction.
2. Reject the false comfort of agreement. We’ve all been in meetings where a decision is made that we feel is inherently wrong. Yet, we don’t speak up. Why? It’s because of another form of action anxiety when we fear acting contrary to the group. This behavior was addressed by management expert Jerry B. Harvey in his 1974 article “The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement“. When we ignore what we know is sensible at the risk of being ostracized for speaking up, we allow our team to suffer from the false comfort of agreement. (Check out this clip of a video adaptation of The Abilene Paradox.)
3. Indecision as a decision. A large part of a leader’s role is to make tough calls. Sometimes those calls will pay off. Sometimes, they will fall short. Yet, if you have 100% of the information you need to make a decision, you’re not making a decision at all. You’re stating a foregone conclusion. When you make a choice, you put yourself at risk of being wrong. When you indefinitely delay decisions, however, you put your organization at risk of extinction.
Leadership comes with uncertainty. It’s a messy position that requires acts of bravery in the face of fear of failure, fear of rejection, and fear of risk. But leaders who push past their personal fears for the good of others are those who think of tension not as a threat, but as a tool.
Question: Is your instinct to freeze in the face of tension, or embrace it?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Leadership
Think about the last mistake that you made. Now think about what happens to your body when you realize you made the mistake.
Here’s an example. You’re happily going about your daily routine, when, “Oops!” you realize that you forgot to bring something that you need for your next meeting. Or, you remember a commitment you made that you forgot to deliver on. It could be something as innocuous as leaving a phone on a colleague’s desk, to something important like forgetting your anniversary. Regardless of the level of the mistake, in the moment it occurs to us that we did not do the right thing at the right time, what happens to our body?
We cringe. And sometimes, not subtly. Sometimes, we instinctively throw one hand over our head and block our chin with the other. Our shoulders curl, we squint our eyes, and we make ourselves smaller — like a prize fighter protecting himself from a blow. But, there is no physical blow. There’s only a mental blow that we manifest physically as shame for failure.
It’s something that we have done so many times over the years of making mistakes, that we don’t event recognize that we do it. It’s automatic.
The problem is, suggests Matt Smith in his TEDx Talk on Sustainable Happiness, that embodying our mistakes over and over can lead our thoughts to change from, “I made a mistake” to “I am a mistake.” The cringe mode is the embodiment of the mistake. We become the mistake.
When we allow ourselves to go into cringe mode every time we make a mistake, we put our bodies in a protective, inward posture that does not invite growth. Over time, the muscle memory of what it feels like to make a mistake keeps us from trying new things, from suggesting new ideas, or even from thinking new thoughts. We freeze.
Research by social psychologists like Amy Cuddy suggests that we may be able to change our own body chemistry — simply by changing body positions. What’s more, neuroscience studies show that our brains are filled with neurons that mirror not only the actions, but the emotions, of those around us. So, going into self-imposed cringe mode can cause those around us to replicate the shame we feel for making mistakes.
So how do you rewire your impulse to protect yourself from cringe mode when you realize you’ve made a mistake?
Take a Failure Bow. If you’ve ever watched an Olympic gymnast recover from a shaky landing after a vault jump or a high beam routine, you’ve seen the Failure Bow. The next time you catch your body going to automatic cringe posture from making a mistake, stop yourself and immediately switch to a Failure Bow. You can do it like an Olympic gymnast. You can do it like a trapeze artist. You can do it like a magician. You can even add a “Ta Da!” for emphasis.
Bring Yourself Back to the Present. The Failure Bow develops the skill of bringing your attention back to the present moment and resets your focus. It’s impossible to cringe in shame and bow like a gymnast who’s just stuck the perfect landing at the same time. Likewise, it’s impossible to feel shame and get locked in the past if your body is facing open and outward.
Acknowledge the Learning Path. The purpose of the Failure Bow is not to celebrate mistake making. Its purpose is to acknowledge the facts of a mistake, then create an alternative interpretation of those facts. “I failed because I’m lousy at this” tells a radically different story than “I’m bravely walking a risk-filled learning edge.” The former compounds the mistake by embodying it — the latter makes it a natural part of learning.
We work in a world where innovation is a requirement for survival. We need to be creative, take chances, and innovate. Mistakes are a natural part of that process. The next time you find yourself going into cringe mode, celebrate the learning path by taking a dramatic Failure Bow. You’ll reset the shame, acknowledge your vulnerability, and move forward with humor.
Question: How do you rewire your impulse to protect yourself from the shame that comes with the innovation process?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
