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.

Bringing the Love to Business

It is a well-kept secret for some reason that love and business can be synonymous.  Before you judge me as woo-woo or too touchy feely you need to know the facts:  30% of workers in the US are engaged in their jobs for many reasons.  One of those reasons is that they don't feel appreciated by their immediate supervisor.  I have written about appreciation before and to me love is a form of appreciation.  By appreciating people more often, this increases engagement metrics like absenteeism, morale, and productivity to name a few.  

So I was stunned the other day that a middle manager in a local manufacturer told me that he had an epiphany recently:  that he wants to bring more love to his staff.  This grown man actually used these words and I was lock, stock and barrel with him, on the edge of my seat.  Since I don't often hear things like this, but believe it myself, I was ready to unpack what he meant by it.  He realized that he is in the position to help steward his supervisees to feel more connected to each other, to their jobs, and to themselves. He realized that he can take strategic actions to boost the support and care that he exhibits on a daily or weekly basis.  

I applaud this manager for his vulnerability, for his commitment to well-being of the whole, and his risk taking.  He told me too that he appreciates immensely his immediate boss, the CEO.  I told him to go to the CEO and 'give him the love'.  Supervisors need attention too, and it can be lonely at the top.  This manager indeed did go into the CEO's office right after our meeting and gave the love.  It had a ripple effect.  The CEO then emailed me and told me that he loves me and the manager, which then I in turn gave it back!  It was a complete love-fest.  

Don't underestimate this power.  We all have it.  We all need it.  We all can give it.  Release the blockages that you have and let it flow freely.  When a whole department or company can do this, the culture shifts and it feels more affiliative, more harmonious.  And the proof is in the data.  Companies that love up on their employees not only perform better but are the best places to work.  I want to thank this manager for amping up the love and being brave enough to let it shine in one of the most unlikely places.  My mind is effectively blown.

The Performance/Attitude Matrix

In my work I have discovered that there are two general areas for celebration and improvement with each employee.  I call these two key areas performance and attitude and I have created a matrix of four possibilities that may be helpful to managers and leaders when thinking through the current reality of their individual employees.  Here is the matrix:

1. Great performance and great attitude, 2. great performance and bad attitude, 3. bad performance and great attitude and 4. bad performance and bad attitude.

I think we can all agree that we have seen employees in all of these categories of the matrix.  Of course there are grey areas, but for this purpose let's keep it black and white.  Performance refers to meeting the criteria and objectives of their technical role, that is what they do for the organization.  Attitude refers to intangible things like respect for coworkers, stepping up and taking initiative, being a team player, feeling connected and engaged, being appreciative, etc.  So in short another way to state performance and attitude is tangible and intangible outcomes. 

We all love the first group.  They are engaged and get the work done.  They look for ways to help others, take on more than asked, and seek to resolve challenges by collaborating.  As managers we want to recognize in various ways these A players.

The second group is a tough bunch.  They do good quality work but they aren't engaged and worse even toxic.   As managers we need to coach these folks about the expectations of respectful behavior and seek to understand why they are curmudgeon.  When coaching fails sometimes ultimatums will work.  Managers sometimes fear that if they fire a great performer that the business unit/team will fall down.  I have never seen this happen and is an unfounded assumption/fear. 

The third group are well intentioned folks that may lack technical skill, experience, cognitive aptitudes, etc.  Again here coaching is required as well as an assessment how they learn best.  Some people need visuals to learn best.  Some people need to be taken by the hand.  Some people need autonomy, still others consistent check-ins.  Of course clear objectives need to be in place to measure the needed performance improvements.

Lastly, the fourth group.  Get rid of these people, they are time suckers and the return on their incremental development will be dismal.  Don't keep a dying horse.  I have learned that even though I may not like it, not everyone is a good fit for the culture.  By being always optimistic and wanting a win/win this can drag a situation on for too long.  By having to develop performance and attitude, this may require more resources, time and energy than it's worth.

Use this matrix to contemplate the state of your workforce and to come up with strategies to get people to the next level.  Most people don't wake up looking to do a bad job, or cast a negative attitude.  Get in there and coach people to understand what their hindrances to performance and/or attitude are.  What you find just may help you change up a situation for the better.

The Beauty of the Org Chart

The organizational chart is a wonderful visioning and management tool.  Unfortunately too few people use it.  The org chart is a visual chart/graph/spreadsheet of who reports to who in the business or organization.  If people don't know who reports to who it causes confusion and inefficiencies.  People do workarounds, or aren't held accountable.  This is problematic and I think can be cleared up with a first step of getting this chart worked out.  It is a work in progress but it is a useful snapshot of reality, and like I said can be revised over time and used as a visioning tool.

I was sitting with a manufacturing CEO yesterday and his business has been growing, and there has been some turnover and new hires recently.  He has been thinking about the org chart, so we put it up on the white board.  It was fascinating to talk through the players in the business and to see in reality who reports to who.  Of course, as you may know my work I like to have horizontal leadership instead of vertical, but vertical is useful in terms of management functions.  At any rate, by putting this up on the white board it showed two key areas needing attention.  Right now with the turnover he had he is carrying the load of roles he 'shouldn't' be doing.  So by seeing it visually it helped him to get clear about what is needed in the future as well.

I then asked him to take it one step further:  make the visual and post it somewhere where everyone in the company can see it.  You better bet that if he was unclear to some degree, others in the business are too.  There may be assumptions and judgments floating around in the environment about the turnover and shift of players.  If it isn't clear then we leave ourselves open to these potential potholes.  Now making it explicit still may produce judgments and assumptions about what should be, but reality at least is seen and can alleviate some fears or negativity.  I have seen negativity and ambiguity even in a business with four employees.  It is amazing to me that as leaders we think people are clear when in reality they aren't.  

So, take a look at the current reality of your org chart.  It may be crystal clear and in that case good for you!  If it isn't though, it may expose strategic areas to work on.  One company realized that in theory the manager was supposed to be managing 10 guys, but the CEO was doing his job for him and enabling the manager's lack of management.  When you know reality, you can then use that to envision how it should be and use it as a living, breathing document.

The State of the American Workplace

I just read (twice) a 200-page article entitled 'The State of the American Workplace' and it was fascinating.  It talks about the metrics associated with engaging workers and that it is largely the direct supervisor's responsibility to engender engagement in the organization.  A dismal 33% of employees are engaged, meaning they feel connected to the mission, feel that they are working in their strengths zone, that they are appreciated and that they are going somewhere in the organization.  This leaves 67% of workers disengaged, looking for other jobs while working and creating toxicity inside and outside the walls of the business.

Yet obviously people remain the core component of a successful or failing enterprise.  Or do they?  There are many successful companies by financial measures that are toxic in their culture.  It just feels crappy to work there.  People will stay at a job for the paycheck, but check out little by little year after year.  The question to me is, how much more successful could a company be if collaboration and culture were a top priority?  The numbers speak for themselves.  Astonishingly enough engaged employees create much more revenue and growth for a business.  The figures this article throws around is that disengagement costs an organization upwards to $600 billion nationwide.  But this aside, it is just the right thing to do to treat people with respect and care.

The article goes on to identify the 12 components that measure employee engagement, what they call Q12 or the 12 questions.  Questions that assess appreciation, development, connection to the mission, using strengths, etc.  All of these questions aim at understanding where a workforce needs to ratchet up their efforts to engage people.  I recently did two of these Q12 surveys with a manufacturer and a non-profit human services agency.  It was enlightening for the leader to see the state of the union and where some developmental points for the future would be.  Both of these organizations have a good culture already, and identifying challenge areas will make it all the better in the future with consistent and strategic effort.

Lastly, in a related article, since the manager is the linchpin in the organization to create engagement, there are 4 accountabilities associated with them.  1.  understanding worker motivations and needs, 2. giving people develop opportunities, 3. identifying workers' talents/strengths, and 4. giving clear performance objectives with ongoing feedback.  These 4 can serve as a meeting agenda, formal meeting, or informal check in.  The understanding is that to hit on all of these points over time consistently ignites people feeling valued, trusted, which in turn engenders buy-in to the team and the organization.