Your Pain Points

In a session this morning my client told me that the reason he has become more effective in his leadership is because he had a 'humbling' experience last year.  This manager almost didn't make it in his organization as his behavior over time had become toxic.  He first came to me after this humbling experience and he and I have done some really great, challenging and fun work together.  The humbling experience was getting 360 feedback in the organization which was largely critical, as well as being put on the chopping block if he didn't turn around.  I like his story so much because it illustrates that 1. we can turn around, and 2. we need to know what our blind spots or pain points are in order to grow.  

Just as in the body pain points need to be identified and then released through manipulation, heat, rolling on rollers, etc., our psychological/emotional world need the same.  With coaching this manager was able to roll out the kinks in his emotional reactions and intellectual disturbances by learning skills and looking at what he wanted to create.  Instead of solely focusing on what isn't working, we started to use appreciation, relationship building, skill building and team building to create a better leadership and team experience.  I have seen many pain points that leaders either know or get to know when I am on their watch.  

I have documented many such pain points/blind spots that I believe as leaders (or anyone) gets more intimate with, they can become less and sometimes obliterated.  Here is a non-exhaustive list.  See if any fit for you, deep inside.  See if you can identify one or two or (heavens-no) all of them and say them out loud: 

• Getting through to a defensive manager/managee
• Fear of conflict
• Figuring out capacity
• How to say no
• Letting go of control and let others help
• Too much in the weeds
• Holding others accountable; pleasing others
• Work/life balance
• Vague projects/procrastination
• Speaking up/self-advocacy
• Unaware of impact on others
• Trusting your gut
• Lack of systems
• Delivery too brash
• Lonely at the top
• Dealing with change
• Inspiring a vision
• Managing friends
• Managing other’s employees
• Lack of org chart clarity
• Turnover
• No leadership training
• Assessing when to fire someone
• Co-managing an employee
• Getting people committed
• Getting annual reviews done

Can you see yourself in any of these?  Are there others?  I would love to hear about your pain points.  As you self-identify (or have others identify them for you!) you can look at how you want to address it/them.  I can think of nothing better to do than to become a better manager and thus person. 

Taking Calculated Risks

Recently I was able to do something that I have never done before:  speak to 1200 people over 2 days up on the big stage.  I was asked to speak to the incoming new students about managing anxiety at Keene State College.  The experience and collaboration with the student affairs folks was truly amazing, totally went off without a hitch and was well received.  

Some of my clients are dealing with pushing the edge, riding the wave, creating something new, taking risks.  For me it was a calculated risk because even though I have never done a Ted style talk on the big stage, I have done hundreds of hours with groups of smaller sizes.  So when the college asked me to do this it felt right, and my work heretofore was leading me into this arena of public/motivational speaking.  It just felt right.

I had a session last evening with someone who is looking at morphing her role in her company. She is feeling hemmed in by her current role and wants to approach her boss about a new position that she is creating (in her mind) based on a real need in the organization.  This could be a risk to put out there to her boss because the answer might be no.  Also, if others find out they might think she isn't committed to her current department and role.  And her major fear is that her boss might say no and use this to push her out the door.  So in coaching her, we got into the vision of the new role, which excited her.  Then we talked about all of these potential landmines and explored how to mitigate them should they arise.  And we talked about the choice of staying unhappy in a current role or seeking to go towards the positive energy she is feeling.

After my talks were through I had several students come up to me and ask me questions, some have me high fives and some were sobbing or crying.  People are dealing with anxiety and depression all over the place and I struck a cord.  I shared some of my own past pain up there on the stage and it connected them to me.  After all I am a human being too not immune to the slings and arrows of time.  

After taking this calculated risk I want more.  I had a filmmaker film the whole thing and he is going to make a full length movie out of it and give me whatever video clips for marketing I want.  I will pander this to other colleges and businesses to get more speaking gigs.  I love being on the stage, connecting with a large audience, and being as real as possible.  I never would have known this if I would have played it safe.

The Economy of Emotions

I have been hearing lately in many places this notion of the economy of motion, that is making each movement as efficient as possible.  So if you are weight lifting for instance, or running, you don't want to waste energy in inefficient body movements.  Not only do you not get the benefit of the gains you want, you can get injured as well.  So I was thinking about how this may apply to the emotional world.

In a recent blog I mentioned how an adverse feeling like embarrassment can lead us to take actions like acquiescence, avoidance, going small.  However, when I ask people, these are not usually the actions they really want to take, so to me this is an inefficient way to deal with the strong negative emotions.  One woman in a recent workshop blurted out that is just seems so natural to purvey these ineffective actions.

Why would we do the opposite of what we want?  Very curious indeed.  Answer?  Because we usually don't know any better or don't know a better way.  But there is always a better way in anything.  My Kung Fu instructor just told me that after 40+ years of practicing he just learned something new from his master.  Very cool.  

So the better and more efficient way  is this:  When you feel gripped by a strong emotion, stop.  Take a deep breath or two, take a walk, sleep on it, talk to a friend about it, go work out, eat some protein, take a break.  Sometimes taking what a client called a 'calculated pause' you can get a new perspective on something that is triggering you in the moment.  Let us not react to situations, but calm down and enlist our rational minds on the challenges we face.  Then we can choose what we want to do instead of react with an action that doesn't support what we want.  Of course strong emotions are there for a good reason, but you won't know what the reason is until you inspect it.

Why does embarrassment come up for instance?  Let's say you are doing a presentation and you start fumbling your words.  You then get in your head and worry what others are thinking of you and you think you should be able to do better.  These are thoughts in your head that let embarrassment creep in.  Of course this happens at the speed of light and just seems to happen.  The our body catches up with the feeling and we get red and sweaty in the palms and then look to get out of the situation as fast as possible.  BUT, reality is that you were fumbling the words a little bit, that's it.  We then ascribe all of these worries, fears, and obligations on it to be something different.  By reacting to the embarrassment we don't usually get what we want.  SO...we need to calm down in the face of embarrassment and re-calibrate.  Take some deep breaths and focus on what you want to pull off.  If you can't pull it off maybe you need more practice and next time will go more smoothly.  

The economy of emotion is to calm down under duress and focus on the outcome you want.  If you fall prey to the emotions and purvey a negative action, learn about it so you have less chance to do it next time.  One of my students from the college told me after 3 months in my class that she doesn't get embarrassed anymore, and she had a heavy case of it.  She is in the driver's seat, not the other way around.  This is the most efficient and stable place to be.

Take a calculated pause like this manager does...

I am supporting a manager in a company currently who was on the rocks with his team.  He was even on the track to be fired until I was called in to facilitate a transformation in his leadership.  Now before I make it all about me, I tell you it takes two to make a transformation happen:  my support and his willingness.  Both were clearly there 100% out of the gate.  The shock of the initial feedback about his performance and attitude quickly gave way to an appetite for growth.  Over a couple months things began to turn around.  

When meeting with him last week he said something truly profound, that he takes a 'calculated pause' now.  I was blown away.  This pause is so subtle yet so powerful.  Before I came into the picture he would react to his frustrations and anxieties by being negative.  He was part of the problem, which he didn't see.  As we went through some of the feedback he received from a 360 degree report, as well as the feedback I was able to ascertain working with his team without him, he began to take a critical look at how his strong negative emotions were wreaking havoc in his team.  It goes without saying that this manager has done some pretty intense and amazing work in a short time to effect an almost complete turnaround.  Mastery takes time and I told him last week that I believe he is at the point where he won't regress back to old behaviors because he is onto himself and he values being a supportive and engaged leader.

But back to the calculated pause.  If you don't know you are in emotional hot water, then actions will flow to try to deal with those, most often being reactive, blaming in nature.  This doesn't solve the original problem you were frustrated about and causes another problem: negativity in those around you.  To be an effective leader you need to be able to understand your feeling tones and when they change and then to take pause, to calm down enough to think about the action you want to purvey in your relationships.  Not all negative behaviors are aggressive though, some are passive aggressive like sarcasm and some are passive like avoiding others.  In the case of working with his anxiety he said he tends to over-explain things to others so they 'get it'.  But what tends to happen is the verbosity tunes other people out, is a trigger for them.  So, he gets the very thing he doesn't want:  disengagement.  

If you are a manager you can try this on for yourself, as well as help others take pause under duress.  This is an important management function that goes under the radar oftentimes.  By knowing your trigger points and helping others understand theirs, awareness flows and people can take a calculated pause in order to be as mindful and constructive with their actions.

The Five Signs of Emotional Intelligence

I was reading an article lately entitled "The Five Signs of Emotional Intelligence", and it was really good.  Of course EI is a vast topic and there are many more signs of EI, but this primer was a good read.  The five signs according to this article are: being able to handle feedback well (without excuses, denial, stress, etc.), being open-minded, being a good listener, being able to give feedback well, and apologizing when you make a mistake.  

I love all of these points and teach and coach these topics in my work with leaders and teams so that over time they are showing the signs.  I also seek to live this way myself.  All of these points are very difficult though.  I tell people that emotional growth is very hard to do because we are who we are for many reasons:  our culture, our religious views, our upbringing, our values, etc.  The trick in my work is to have people with diverse perspectives come together and collaborate for the sake of the whole and business (or non-profit).  Very tricky indeed because people tend to be set in their ways.  But over time, we can change, and the more we practice the above points, we become more emotionally intelligent.  

I have workshops around most of the five points.  I do workshops on conflict, emotional triggers, listening, feedback, and meeting facilitation.  I just did a listening workshop in a business last week, and it went amazingly.  People want to be better listeners, but most people never really learned how to do it.  It's not rocket science, but it is a skill.  Especially if you are in a field that deals with customers, great listening has great import.  

I guess if I had to pick the one that is the hardest for most folks that I meet, it is the telling the truth one.  The article said that good leaders don't sugarcoat the truth.  Easier said than done.  Giving feedback is especially challenging because we don't want to upset others, we feel emotionally unstable because we don't know the outcome, or we feel apathy in that maybe we have tried before and it didn't go so well.  Whatever the motivation is, we lose the ability to practice this precious skill, much to the detriment to our relationships and businesses.  Are you holding onto a truth that you haven't spoken?  If so why?  What are you afraid of?  Or have you tried and failed before?  As you inspect your own motivation for NOT doing it, maybe you can find something.  I think though we all can agree that feedback is valuable.  

Take these five signs to heart, reflect on them and see if you can practice them.  They are so subtle sometimes so we need to be highly self-aware of their presence and practice when the opportunity arises.  Practicing an open-mind may sound funny for instance, but you can actually do it.  You can think strategically about it and coach yourself to have an open mind when for instance someone comes to you with an idea that you would normally discard.  I would love to hear your successes and challenges with these.  Please do share.