All Posts by Ann Tardy

After college, Sue Barlett taught 12th grade English at Central Hower High School in Akron, Ohio for nine years in the 1960s.

When she arrived, Sue was horrified to discover that her students (seniors!) did not know how to read.

And then she learned the reality of their illiteracy: because her students could not read, they could not pass a driver’s license test. And without a driver’s license, they were unable to find decent jobs.

Her students were about to graduate; they were illiterate; and they were destined for poverty.

Sue immediately pitched an idea to the school’s principal. He agreed – he knew the system had failed these students. How could he not support someone who was willing to try something new?

Here’s what she did… Sue went to the local DMV and obtained a copy of the driver’s license exam. She then used the exam as their textbook for the year. She taught her students how to read using the driver’s license exam. At the end of the year, they could read, drive, and forge their future.

When others falter or retreat in the face of hopeless situations thinking, “What could I possibly do?” “Not my problem,” or “This is just how things are,” Sue asked “What difference can I make?” And that conviction made all the difference for her students.

David Brooks, columnist and author of the recently released book, The Second Mountain, wrote, “At some point in life people realize that while our educational system generally prepares us for climbing this or that mountain, your life is actually defined by how you make use of your moment of greatest adversity.”

In our own moments of great adversity, we must remember that the invitation is not to change the world – it’s simply to change someone else’s world.

I remember my college graduation, but I don’t remember who spoke or the advice they offered – my head was spinning with nervous energy that day.

Perhaps the wisdom shared by the rich and famous at podiums across the country each graduation season is actually meant to rouse and rejuvenate the rest of us who have been adult-ing for a while.

Some highlights from this season of bedazzled commencement speeches:

1. Life is Good CEO Bert Jacobs at Villanova: “Follow 3 rules to be happy on the road of life:

• Turn on the lights (give off positive energy)
• Trust your navigation system (know who you are and act like it)
• Enjoy the ride“

2. Billionaire Robert F. Smith at Morehouse (right before he pledged to pay off all college debt of graduating seniors to the tune of $40 million): “You are bound only by the limits of your own conviction and creativity.”

3. Actress Jennifer Garner at Denison University: “There is no finish line to cross. There is no moment when you’re supposed to be happy. Fight for what makes you optimistic about the world. Find it, insist on it, dig into it, go after it. Happiness is your own responsibility.”

4. Apple CEO Tim Cook at Tulane University: “There are some who would like to believe that the only way you can be strong is by bulldozing those who disagree with you… Push back! It shouldn’t be this way.”

5. Actress Kristen Bell at University of Southern California: “Listen as fiercely as you want to be heard.”

6. Philadelphia Eagles head coach Jeffrey Lurie at Clark University: “Remember the importance of unconditional love, resilience, empathy, gratitude, and a radical kind of open-mindedness.”

We are never too old or too tenured to be rekindled and inspired by the advice, perspectives and ideas of others!

I really thought cycling across the country would make me happy.

But when I touched my front wheel into the Atlantic Ocean after 67 days of pedaling, I wasn’t happy. I was sad. I had spent 20 years talking about it and a whole year planning and training for it. Suddenly, the adventure was over.

I thought I was going to find happiness at the finish line. I didn’t expect to experience sheer joy from cycling every day.

So my post-ride slump was inevitable. To bounce out of it, I planned the next adventure – a bike ride from Key West to Maine the following year.

In a recent interview, actress Viola Davis was asked about her Oscar, her Tonys, and her Emmys. She shared her approach: “The three most important words to me are: and now what? What’s the next thing? What’s the next chapter? What’s the next page?” Viola intentionally looks at what she’s creating next, because the thrill of the award is not what fuels her.

A 2007 study revealed that we are happier in pursuit of goals than we are after we accomplish them. For example, we are happier getting a new job, starting a new class, and buying a new house than we are when we have the job, pass the exam, or inhabit the house, respectively.

Essentially, we are most happy when we are in the process of improving ourselves and our situations in some way.

Bottom line: positive dynamic events are better than static situations.

So get in action!

• Learn something new
• Change, improve something
• Launch a new program at work
• Experiment with a new tool for your team
• Start volunteering
• Plan an adventure
• Tackle an intrepid goal

Happiness is not a finish line to cross; it’s an ever-evolving journey that we get to create.

At the root of every upset is a missed expectation.

That gap in our expectations often results from assumptions about a situation, a miscommunication, or a misunderstanding.

Essentially we can trace every disappointment, frustration, or altercation to an Expectation Gap.

• We expect the price to be $100, but there’s a hidden $10 fee.
• We expect the room to be quiet, but someone starts talking loudly on their cellphone.
• We expect people to wait in line, but someone cuts to the front.
• We expect the meeting to end at 3:00, but it drags on until 4:00.
• We expect a peer to help, but they don’t.

We can bridge these Expectation Gaps using a myriad of strategies:

1. plan for delays
2. document verbal agreements
3. clarify expectations
4. ask questions for context
5. confirm deadlines, time zones, acronyms
6. lower expectations

And then I stumbled upon a powerful way to bridge the Expectation Gap when I met Alfredo recently…

Alfredo’s teenaged son is autistic and an avid skateboarder. When he goes to the skate park, he watches in awe as other skaters perform tricks. Eager to learn, he immediately approaches the skaters to ask for advice, often getting too close and in their face.

This creates an Expectation Gap – the skateboarders are not expecting the overzealous new kid to invade their personal space. Armed only with assumptions, their automatic reaction is to recoil.

But before they do, Alfredo’s son immediately explains, “I have autism so if I’m acting inappropriately, please let me know and I’ll back off.”

A powerful strategy: to deal with a potential or inevitable missed expectation, acknowledge it!

By pointing out the gap, we not only reset other people’s expectations, we bring vulnerability and transparency to the situation.

ps. Since Alfredo and his wife empowered their son with this strategy, the skaters have taken him under their wing, teaching him many new skating tricks and protecting him at the park.

Shaquille O’Neal and I were each raised by a father who unapologetically employed Error Training.

As Shaq described it in a recent interview, “Every time an athlete got into trouble, I would be punished. When Len Bias passed away from a cocaine overdose, my father said, ‘If you ever do coke, I’ll kill you.’ We learned from everyone’s mistakes.”

Similarly, whenever anyone in my high school got into trouble with drugs, drinking, or teenage pregnancy, I got a lecture about it over dinner. Their errors were our lessons.

What is Error Training?

It’s the scrutiny and exploration of errors in order to prevent their recurrence.

Sharing “war stories” about what went wrong or could have gone wrong promotes a culture of reflection and learning. It forces us to think critically about situations and projects in order to identify insights and learnings.

Many professionals (ex: doctors, pilots, fire fighters, military) use Error Training to examine errors like a case study and to question their routine application of skills. This allows them to conceptualize the best approach for managing similar situations in the future – a fast-track to adaptable experience.

While we tend to train people using best practices and success stories, researchers believe that learning from failure is far more effective than learning from success, because errors are more arresting and memorable.

How can we employ Error Training?

• Reframe errors in a positive way – as opportunities to learn
• Inquire about the mistakes people made before they hit success
• Find failure stories and study them
• Encourage team discussions of errors made or near misses to avoid in the future
• Engage mentors – leverage their mistakes

“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” – Otto von Bismarck (former Chancellor of Germany)

Recently clients have asked me the following questions:

• How can we prevent harmful Mentors from destroying our program?
• How do we ensure the honest motive of our Mentors?
• What should we do if dreadful Mentors get into the program?

My response: There are no evil Mentors.

I’ve worked with Mentors for almost 20 years, and I’ve never met one determined to ruin a Mentee.

Disgruntled people don’t sign up to be Mentors. It’s discordant to be disengaged and engaged simultaneously. Even when these people are volun-told to be Mentors, they typically find an excuse to escape.

No one joins a mentoring program intent on destroying the program or a Mentee. People participate because they want to contribute, not contaminate.

Could they fumble, fluster, and flail and even express their frustration about the program and/or their experience? Sure! Because being a Mentor is as much a development experience for Mentors as it is for Mentees.

Here’s the secret: people learn how to mentor others when they actually start mentoring others.

Sadly, most people cower from the challenge because they feel inexperienced, untrained, and unprepared to mentor others. Understandably, they don’t want to fail. But Mentees can be very forgiving when Mentors demonstrate authenticity and perseverance.

A senior leader once admitted, “I would love to mentor, but I don’t know how.” While his vulnerability was refreshing (…most people just say, “I’m too busy!”) it was a missed opportunity for him and the organization!

How can we rouse people to courageously mentor others?

• Model it
• Offer mentor training
• Encourage practice
• Frame it as development – it’s an essential leadership skill!
• Launch mentoring programs
• Nominate people to be mentors
• Share mentoring resources and articles
• Applaud people who mentor others

There are no evil mentors. Just inexperienced people who want to make a difference.

When I biked from Key West to Maine in 2012, I hired a young woman to drive my RV and support me as I pedaled up the East Coast. In New Hampshire, she flooded the RV and destroyed my computer which had been on the floor.

It ruined an otherwise fabulous experience for me. I couldn’t get past it. I was obsessed with “why” it happened. Why did she forget to empty the tank? Why did I leave my computer on the floor? Why didn’t she feel contrite?

I was stuck – I needed an explanation, a story, a lesson to be learned. As a result, I wasn’t making the shift from “why?” to “what’s next?”

Why are we fascinated with why something happened? Because we all love a good story! The world does not make sense to us without identifying a cause-and-effect. The Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb says, “Explanations bind facts together. They help them make more sense.”

Behaviorists call it “Narrative Fallacy” – our tendency to look at a sequence of facts and weave in an explanation to give a situation meaning. This mental game seduces us into thinking that identifying the cause-and-effect actually makes a difference.

But the problem is that we get stuck in the backward-looking story instead of using the facts for forward-looking action.

Many bosses are obsessed with explaining the story behind their results instead of just looking at the results (the facts!) and moving forward.

“Why something happened” is merely a distraction from taking action.

By shifting our language from “Why?” to “What’s next?” we can shift our focus from the story to the facts, thereby freeing us to determine the only thing that actually matters: what are we going to do next?

Movie star Mae West (1893-1980) was famous for her fearlessness. She’d walk into saloons and say, “Who here needs to know me?”

The rest of us walk into rooms of strangers and look for anyone we tangentially know to save us from the dreaded awkwardness of appearing alone.

But navigating new people is not about looking like we already belong.

Research by the University of Waterloo reveals that the best way to make a great impression and get new people to like us instantly is to believe that the people we are about to meet will like us.

In other words, the secret is self-confidence.

When we expect to be accepted, we behave warmly and people want to connect. But if we expect to be rejected, we behave coldly and people don’t want to connect. Face it, who wants to talk to the frosty, standoffish new person in the room?

But confidence isn’t a networking skill like strong handshakes, eye contact, and listening. Confidence is an emotion. And like all of our emotions, we just need to manage it. How? Through self-talk, emotional intelligence, and practice.

My favorite strategy? Don’t tackle the entire room. Start with the first person you meet, like the receptionist, the waiter, the meeting planner, the executive assistant. Smile, connect, share a laugh, and get ready for the next person.

Boost your confidence one connection at a time, like stepping stones.

Some easy ideas:

• Practice with strangers everywhere
• Ask, “What’s the biggest difference I can make with this one person right here?”
• Find something to compliment right away
• Remember they’re struggling with confidence too
• ps. Wear what makes you feel great!

If you want to progress your ideas, your career, and your opportunities, walk into a meeting or a room of strangers from a standpoint of contribution, not fear.