Blog Archives - Page 42 of 55

Do You Deal in Hope (like Napoleon)?

Napoleon Bonaparte said, “A leader is a dealer in hope.”

That describes every start-up CEO I represented as a corporate attorney in Silicon Valley. Each one was hard-working and demanding. Yet each one intentionally painted a picture of the future to inspire people to join the company and contribute to its success.

Research conducted by Gallup asked 10,000 individuals what they want from their boss, and they discovered four overarching desires:

Compassion: care personally and individually
Stability: job constancy
Trust: behavioral predictability
Hope: inspiration for a better future

Hope is the conviction that our work today actually matters and that tomorrow will be even better as a result.

So how can we practically “deal in hope” on a regular basis?

Shout a battle cry (a vision, a purpose)
Choose positive, encouraging language (“That was a great insight.”)
Connect activity with impact (“Your work makes a difference because…”)
Employ inspirational posters, emails, and tag lines (“Success is on the other side of fear”)
Be a role model (people mold their own behavior by watching what we do)
Recognize effort (“I appreciate your attempt at helping the client.”)
Celebrate small victories (“We’re getting closer! woo-hooo!”)
Express belief in others (“You can do this!”)

The opposite of dealing in hope is trafficking in fear. And fear shuts down motivation, enthusiasm, collaboration, and innovation. Just ask anyone who hates their boss. They don’t feel hope. They feel fear… fear of being judged, criticized, blamed, and even fired.

Jeff, a manager in one of my Managing and Leading programs, shared how he regularly deals in hope. He doesn’t just delegate an assignment or project; he makes an invitation with a simple yet powerful phrase delivered enthusiastically, yet sincerely:

“This is your chance for greatness.”

0 UPS Driver’s Advice Can Inspire Our Own Job Love

Since 1962 Tom Camp has been driving a UPS truck. He’s 77. In Sunday’s New York Times “Vocations” section, Tom was highlighted for having the safest driving record in UPS history:

55 years
1+ million miles
0 crashes

He attributes his safety record to UPS’s great training and accountability. I’m giving credit to Tom and his job love. Tom offered the following tips for success behind the wheel. We can easily apply his common sense for our own success in life.

Scan the big picture. Keep your eyes moving. We often fixate on details and miss context. Being aware of the changing landscape allows us to make better decisions.
When the light turns green, count 1-2-3 before moving. If we pause to count in any situation, we can take action deliberately, not emotionally.
Check the mirrors. We all have blind spots, and moving forward without looking for them only limits our potential.
Let erratic drivers pass. We can’t change people, but we can protect ourselves.
Keep your mind focused. It’s dangerous to drive on the road or go through life while staring at a screen. Being present gives us the power to choose our next steps purposefully.
If there’s rain, snow, or sleet, slow down. We can’t control change; we can only adapt, adjust, and persevere accordingly.
Assume the other guy is daydreaming. Other people do not perceive the world as we do, and assuming they do fuels miscommunications, conflict, and altercations.
Use your turn signal. When we communicate our intentions and expectations, we engender trust and strengthen relationships.

Tom doesn’t just have a safe driving record. He has job love: pride, purpose, and meaning from doing his job in a way that makes a difference.

Safe driving and job love… two things we could all use more of.

0 Six Seconds Could Change Your Life

I hit someone in third grade. Not a punch. Just a slap on the back, angry about a game I wanted and my classmate wouldn’t share. Infuriated by her bratty “No!”, I reacted.

I was young, immature, and emotionally unintelligent. Fortunately, our teacher wasn’t. Today, my hands don’t strike, but my words can. Out of frustration, anger, or defensiveness, I can easily react instead of respond.

Emotional intelligence lies in the moments after an altercation – a skill that can fundamentally improve our leadership and our lives. So I’m learning to pause in those moments.

The 6-Second Rule Science has determined that emotions are actually electrochemical signals coursing through the brain and body delivering messages that focus our energy and attention, and motivate us to act.

But when we are upset, a burst of these chemicals floods our brain and body, hindering our ability to think clearly or intelligently, and indulging our emotionally unintelligent reactions.

Research shows that it takes…

6 seconds for those chemicals to get absorbed back into the body
6 seconds for us to become objective about the feelings we’re feeling
6 seconds for us to generate compassion instead

And according to researchers, if we feel an emotion longer than 6 seconds we are – in some ways – choosing to recreate and refuel those feelings.

So how do we create a 6-second habit?

Talk about it
Use a timer
Post visual reminders (ex: post-it notes!)
Notice others using it (or not)
Pay attention to what triggers those emotions
Keep a journal
Create an intentional diversion (like singing the alphabet or whistling)
Start counting

6 seconds to halt regrettable anger.
6 seconds to shift to empathy.
6 seconds to be a better boss, partner, friend, and human being.

Model Participatory Budgeting to Create Involvement and Ownership

Vote Week in New York City for Participatory Budgeting just concluded. NYC believes the people who live in the community know what the community needs; so it allows community members to directly decide how to spend part of the public budget.

Here’s how it works:

The NYC Council identifies a portion of the budget that will be decided upon by the citizens (this year it’s $1,000,000).
Citizens discuss local needs in their districts.
Volunteers in each district develop spending proposals.
Citizens vote for their 5 favorite project proposals.
The Council funds the projects that receive the most votes until the identified funding is exhausted.

Some funded projects have included: school improvements, parks, libraries, and public housing. “Participatory Budgeting” is grounded on the notion that people support that which they help create. Because community members are involved in the process of deciding how to spend part of the budget, they are more likely to support the Council’s ultimate spending decisions. So how can we leverage participatory bias in our teams and organizations?

Participatory Agenda: invite people to submit agenda items for a meeting
Participatory Goals: invite people to submit their ideas for team goals
Participatory Performance Reviews: invite people to write a portion of their own reviews
Participatory Process Improvement: invite people to submit ideas for improving processes

Involving people…

bolsters their shift from victim to victor
strengthens their trust in the process and in their leaders
powers their ownership in solutions
fuels their engagement
underscores their importance in success

Granted, we frequently need to choose dictatorship over democracy, but let’s not miss those opportunities to share a part of the decision process with the people who are impacted by the decisions we make.

If NYC can do it, so can we!

0 How Jigsaw Puzzles Improve Our Collaboration

One of my readers emailed me recently with a suggestion for creating community: jigsaw puzzles! Interesting… why don’t I do jigsaw puzzles?

Arguably, I’m too busy.
Practically, I want to focus on projects that progress my goals.
Realistically, what’s the point? I already know the end result (the picture on the box!)

As an experiment, however, I bought a 1,000-piece puzzle and dumped it on my unused dining room table… fighting the urge to do something more productive.
Here’s what I discovered:

Patience. The puzzle was too complicated to solve at one time. So I played with it in spurts over a month.
Pause. Turning to it gave me a much-needed pause from the chaos.
Perspective. I often walked to the other side of the table just to study pieces, progress, and the big picture from a different angle.
Partnership. Instead of watching TV, my family started helping me, even cheering when we found a missing piece or completed a section.
Practice. It forced me to practice thinking critically. By definition, critical thinking involves recognizing patterns and understanding how information is connected together.

A Mentor in one of our programs reflected that being a Mentor has taught him to think critically about how he leads so that he can share valuable and practical advice with his Mentee.
Like jigsaw puzzles, mentoring and other ways we collaborate require patience, pause, perspective, partnership, and practice. Ultimately, completing the jigsaw puzzle did not allow me to cross anything off my to-do list. And the final picture was not a surprise. But the experience definitely offered me a new way to strengthen essential collaboration skills.

So now I’ll be bringing a jigsaw puzzle whenever I need to encourage people to connect, collaborate, and cheer!

Why Is This My Response? (ask Dr. Carla Naumburg)

In an episode of “Veep,” the narcissistic character played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus halts a hallway meeting with colleagues to rudely ask her daughter, “Why is that your hair?”

Dr. Carla Naumburg would not approve.

In a recent New York Times article on resilient children, clinical social worker Dr. Naumburg implicates parents’ proclivity to challenge unwanted behavior with “why” questions, ex: “Why can’t you pick up your toys?”

Dr. Naumburg then offered a more useful, even profound, question to consider instead: “Why am I responding this way?“

This shift in focus gave me enormous pause… as a step-parent, a boss, a colleague, and a human being. Reflecting on the numerous interactions we have daily with people at home, at work, and in the world, our buttons often get pushed.

And when they do, our knee-jerk responses are typically laced with impatience, irritation, defensiveness, and judgment: Why are we doing this? Why did you do that? Why isn’t this done? Why did you say it like that? Why are you wearing that?

But Dr. Naumburg suggests that we take responsibility for allowing our buttons to be pushed.

Essentially, own our own responses. We can set expectations, hold boundaries, and support ground rules while still owning our own response… with a dose of empathy, patience, and generosity.

Just a simple pause for a focus-shifting breath to consider…

why am I responding this way?
why do I care?
should I care?
will it make a difference?

And when we run a team or an organization, this focus-shifting concept bears a higher level of importance. People are constantly observing our responses to mold their own. So then intentionally pausing to consider “Why am I responding this way?” becomes vital to our success and theirs.

Was I Kind Enough? (Reflections Following a Colleague’s Death)

One of my employees died last week from a sudden heart attack. And I am struck by how much my heart hurts.

I’ve lost family members, but never a colleague. Scott was professional, patient, eager, funny, even-tempered (a gift that offset my intensity), flexible, dedicated, hungry to learn and grow (even at 58!), appreciative, trusted, and gracious.

Since I received the news, I’ve been wrestling with one question: was I kind enough to him?

Did I appreciate him enough?
Was I patient enough?
Did I apologize enough for the times I wasn’t?
Did I thank him enough?
Did I praise his contributions enough?
Did I stop enough to get to know him?
Did I ask about his family enough?
Did I show him enough compassion?

Because I can’t anymore. My team lost more than a colleague; we are sad because we lost a friend.

And that is how I reconciled my uncertainty. While I wasn’t always kind or patient, working with Scott helped me be a better boss and a better person. That’s why we parted as friends.

When we spend so much time focusing on our employees, it’s easy to lose sight of our human beings.

Undoubtedly, this experience has given me pause to consider: how can I be a better person to the other human beings on my team? Scott would be happy…

Can the Village Movement Save Us?

We are hard-wired to connect.

Ironically however, the more connected we are online, the more disconnected we become.

Blame the digital culture – it robs us of an essential, real-world social skill: connecting meaningfully with others. Not surprisingly, being focused on screens atrophies our ability to listen – this zaps the empathy required for meaningful connection (regardless of how many emojis we add!).

Is it time to embrace the Village Movement?

Launched in Boston in 2001, the Village Movement was created to help older adults age in their home instead of moving into senior housing or assisted living.

The way the Village works: members (a group of residents) share access to services; ex: transportation, meal delivery, dog walking, technology training, wellness programs, and social activities.

In addition, the Village’s person-centered focus and community-minded living fuel collaboration and meaningful connections. Members contribute their skills, ideas, and expertise that benefit the Village; ex: a retired lawyer might offer pro-bono advice; a retired nurse might volunteer to help older members with medication; and someone passionate about fitness might teach a yoga class.

Can the Village Movement work at work?

Imagine a culture ripe with person-centered, community-minded, meaningfully connected, collaborative teams that show up ready to listen, engage, contribute, and thrive together!

Some easy-to-implement ideas:

No screens in meetings (keep people present!)
Face-to-face contact (produces endorphins that enhance our well-being)
“Tell me more” (3 powerful words that signal an interest in meaningful connection)
Video conferencing (use FaceTime or Skype to maintain bonds built in person)
Communal eating (sharing food resolves conflict and creates group identity)
Creative activities (painting, singing, and dancing allow for shared experiences)

We might not be contemplating senior living options yet, but we always need to foster the connections that enable our people to solve problems, retain talent, learn and develop, accelerate ideas, and fuel their happiness.