NOTE: The May blog posts will not be updated this month, but check back soon for new updates.

  • Habits That Sustain Determination

    In our work with a nonprofit for reforestation of the USA, we were engaged to help the staff know the difference between motivation and determination. The directors for the program stated that the staff and volunteers were motivated but seemed to lack the ‘staying power’ to achieve the ultimate outcome. Indeed, the long-term vision to have domestic farmers see the value in reforestation takes educational sessions along with the actual planting of 18 billion trees. It appeared that some of the organization had tremendous ‘starter behavior’ but dropped out after a few months. Why is it that motivation was not enough to sustain the progress to ensure a viable world for generations to come? It is the difference between enthusiasm and vigor, known to many as determination.

    • Don’t allow baggage from yesterday to creep into today’s efforts. Everyone has some history of relationships, failures, or even estranged family. When you are focusing on the goals of tomorrow, do not attach those stories to the discernment of how you will progress through the events of the present moment. What happened in the past has its place in the past, not today.
    • Whatever the goal, keep your focus on the bigger vision. What will change or be the benefits to a larger community could even be a legacy for you. Ask yourself what concept you want to prove or make clear about your concerns such as, demonstrating cultural inclusion or cooperating with other religious groups on holidays.
    • Change your relationship with time. Big visions and dreams require determination and perseverance as well as talent. When highway construction forced the closure of Colonel Sanders’ tiny restaurant inside a gas station, he drove around the southern states to other restaurants to cook chicken for them. Ultimately, news of the quality of the chicken spread to other restaurants enabling the Colonel to begin franchising, well after he was 40 years of age! Time becomes not as big an issue when the end result is a service to the community such as, the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute achieved a land lease that enabled the market vendors to set down roots; and, secure a commercial selling locale for the first time in 35 years!
    • Associate with positive people, not the nay-sayers that say it can’t be done. Negative people will suck the life out of your ambitions and hopes. Start by engaging and building a substantial support community of like minded friends and colleagues. As the late Christopher Reeve said, “So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable; and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”
    • Practice gratitude for those that have helped you get to where you are today. Use reflection to appreciate the resources they provide, not what you may have lost along the journey. As someone with the early onset of Parkinson’s, Michael J. Fox has stated, “One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.”

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  • Is Your Future Attainable?

    Here we are in the fourth month of past New Year’s planning. Many of us make personal and professional resolutions for the future, that ultimately function as internal promises. In fact, promises are the vehicles that can truly create the future. Sadly, many of these resolutions go unfulfilled. Subsequently, we beat ourselves up for these unfulfilled resolutions such as, quitting smoking, losing weight, staying with a new exercise regimen, continuing professional education, and/or spending more time with the family.

    Promises are not only the commitments we make to ourselves for future achievement; but, how we coordinate actions with others. If this is so, then why do many of these promises never become reality? There are components of promises that make them realizable, such as:
    • Clarity in the initial generation and expected steps for achievement
    • True description of the final outcome
    • A specified time period for fulfillment
    • Competency in skills of those to be involved for complete fulfillment
    • Trust and sincerity on the part of all involved
    • Flexibility along the road to achievement

    If you have made promises to yourself or others for the New Year, examine them for practicable achievement with these questions:

    • How will this resolution (promise) bring meaningful change to my life?
    • Are there external resources you will need to help achieve this objective?
    • If others are involved, what competency or skills do they need to have to help you?
    • Is the time frame you’ve established truly reasonable for your lifestyle?
    • What are your fallback plans in the event your pursuit does proceed exactly as planned?
    • If this resolution is a larger community movement, are you certain you have the staying power for efforts this significant?

    “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
    Anon

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  • Shrewd Leaders Practice Empathy

    In June we attended a retirement ceremony for an Army Colonel, who was also our neighbor. As there were friends, enlisted staff, and other senior officers there all celebrating him, we heard plentiful stories about his leadership accomplishments. One of most memorable was an earnest narrative from a junior officer who recognized the Colonel’s leadership. He stated, “Gary was the most shrewd and sincere leader I ever served with. He knew when to be empathetic with each of us. He knew when to call us on a lack of performance and when to appreciate what the other person was feeling. He understood how feelings were affecting our execution of our tasks, our team relationships, even our belief structures, without passing judgment.”

    Many of you may know the works of Simon Sinek, the British-American author, motivational speaker and organizational consultant. Sinek says researching his latest book has even changed the way he conducts his own life and business. “The lesson I’m learning is that I’m useless by myself. My success hinges entirely on the people I work with—the people who enlist themselves to join me in my vision. And it’s my responsibility to see that they’re working at their best capacity.”
    Simon believes in the practice of empathy, the ability to recognize and share other people’s feelings. He believes that it is the most important instrument in a leader’s toolbox; and, can be expressed in the simple question, “Is everything OK?”

    • Shrewd leaders listen to understand, not to just respond. They are willing to consider a wide range of outcomes and options rather than rigidly insisting on specific techniques. They use empathy by paying more attention to both the verbal and non-verbal cues that are a part of daily communication. They achieve success by being open-minded and are willing to consider many possibilities and combinations of options.
    • Shrewd leaders practice empathy and create sincere rapport with their staff. They are approachable and exhibit a richness of emotional intelligence, knowing that individuals are not Xeroxed copies of each other. Understanding and thoughtfulness make it less likely that resentment or jealousy can skulk in, derailing all the work the group has been accomplished so far. The element of trust between all members is re-enforced.
    • Shrewd leaders are aware of how reality is at that moment. They recognize the energies that are negative invested into resentment, anger, or resignation over the current circumstances. They often try to redirect that same level of energy into acceptance of actualities right now. They do not forget to include how much they ‘care’ about the next chapters of the future they are collectively forging with others.
    • And, they validate others with their significance. Their conversations often begin with, “With the successes we have celebrated together, or since you have helped me achieve that product launch, this has changed how I would like our future collaboration to be.” Whatever they lead with, it will be something to bear out the importance, talent, or skill in the accomplishments in from that person or for the whole organization.

    Today, one of the leading exponents of experiential empathy is the U.S. product designer Patricia Moore. Her specialty is using empathy to cross the generational chasm. Her best-known experiment was in the late 1970s when, aged 26, she dressed up as an 85-year-old woman to discover what life was like as an elder. She put on makeup that made her look aged, wore fogged-up glasses so she couldn’t see properly, wrapped her limbs and hands with splints and bandages to simulate arthritis; and, wore uneven shoes causing her to hobble. For three years she visited North American cities in this disguise, trying to walk up and down subway stairs, open department store doors, and use can openers with her bound hands.

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  • Releasing Toxic People & Behaviors

    Haven’t we all experienced those times when we were very uncomfortable in someone’s presence or conversation? And, with repeated exposure to their behavior we begin to feel a threat to our emotional well-being or even our physical health? In recent years, there has been much research on ‘toxic’ people and their resulting behavior. What do you do when you realize you are in a relationship with a toxic person, maintain it or release it? As we progress on both our personal and professional journeys, we can be more scrutinizing of how we conduct ourselves; and our resulting exchanges with communities and professional organizations, including the release of toxic behaviors.

    “The phrase ‘toxic friend’ is pop psychology,” says Jenn Berman, PhD, a psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, Calif. “I would say it’s someone who, after spending time with them, makes you feel bad about yourself instead of good; someone who tends to be critical of you — sometimes in a subtle way and sometimes not so subtle; a friend who drains you emotionally, financially, or mentally, and they’re not very good for you.” Isaacs explains that a toxic friendship is unsupportive, draining, unrewarding, stifling, unsatisfying, and often unequal.

    We all want our relationships to be positivity motivated and nurturing. But how do you identify when a relationship is returning nothing but negativity and becomes toxic to you? Use your powers of observation for these displays of toxic behavior:

    • Over critical to your achievements, performance, or insists on bragging on their successes
    • Overly competitive, demonstrates one-upmanship, always has a better story
    • Betrayal, reveals your private conversations to others
    • Promise breaking of commitments on a regular basis
    • Gossip-monger, spreads hearsay and rumors about you

    To truly live to your fullest potential and enjoy close relationships is a responsibility to yourself and your personal health. Remember that you are not in control of the cosmic clock and every moment you spend in negativity cannot be brought back for you to relive. Use any of these suggestions in your review of whether to maintain or release the toxicity:

    • Determine whether the relationship is only for public use or status in a professional role
    • Identify how you feel after you have been with this person, agitated, double-crossed, joyful, loved
    • Determine whether you are simply a ‘dumping ground’ for the other person’s troubles. They leave your time together feeling unburdened and you feel depressed.
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  • Decisive Leaders Don’t Ruminate

    What is rumination? Rumination is a compulsive focused attention on the symptoms of one individual’s distress, and on probable causes, as opposed to solutions. Rumination is related to worry except rumination focuses repeatedly on reliving negative feelings and experiences from the past. If ‘this’ happened before it will happen again. Eventually, excessive worry usually overcomes the potential for productive thought and innovative solutions.
    How can you avoid rumination in situations like this? Use any or all of the following recommendations:

    • Before you begin the problem-solving process, concentrate your vitality and time on what you can control. Do not let yourself relive old disappointments of a similar nature, especially avoid personal experiences. Assessments like this will trap you into how unjust the world can be. Instead, begin listing everything that is outside your direct control such as, the stock market numbers or office politics. Along with those elements you do not control, list all resources that are available in solution brainstorming. And, don’t discount others you may not have used before such as, the mail room staff or the accountants in the finance department.
    • Let moods of disappointment or resignation fully dissipate before you examine the facts surrounding an unanticipated challenge. Decisions are influenced by moods. No matter where we are and no matter what we are doing, we humans are persistently in a mood. Before you evaluate the data, the time spent, or how the competition won over you, concentrate on putting yourself in a self-confident or positive mood. This can be done alone or with the team members that went through the process with you. One exercise is to create a ‘failure wall’. Hang a blank banner on a wall, provide markers or acrylic paints and ask the team to write observations, known mistakes, or inspirational quotes that will help empty out the emotionalism that all may be holding. There should be no fear of reprisals, just a release mechanism to release pent up feelings.
    • Decisive leaders never leave the elements of success as a mystery for others to speculate about. These leaders clearly explain their expectations for each task, the owner of that task and the timeline allowed. Then everyone understands why the project is in progress, what is expected of them, what the intended outcome should be, and when to deliver their part of it.

    When you catch yourself ruminating over a problem, ask yourself:

    • What do the stakeholders and top leadership expect from you, and your team? If you have worked with these people before, what patterns have you observed in their work behavior? And, are they useful or could their techniques use some higher standards?
    • Have you communicated effectively with all others in determining new solutions to the conundrum you face now? Have you listened carefully to others and given constructive feedback to them so that they may deliver their best?
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