The Journey Within: Overcoming Challenges and Enhancing Self-Awareness for Better Outcomes (Self-Awareness Series 2/3)

In our previous article, we defined and explored the components of self-awareness.  Now, let's zoom in on the challenges and benefits. 

Challenges of Self-Awareness

1. Ignorance and discomfort.  Plato’s Allegory of the Cave illustrates how ignorance can limit self-awareness and how knowledge leads to liberation.  In the allegory, prisoners chained in a cave see only shadows projected on a wall, believing them to be reality.  When one prisoner is freed, he struggles to take in this new understanding but eventually learns that the shadows are mere reflections of actual objects. Upon seeing the outside world, he grasps a deeper reality.  When he returns to share this knowledge with the other prisoners, he is met with disbelief and hostility.  This underscores the journey of self-awareness: breaking free from ignorance to understand deeper truths can be an enlightening experience.  It can also be challenging because some truths we discover about ourselves can be so uncomfortable that we prefer ignorance as bliss.

2. Varied backgrounds.  Our self-awareness varies significantly due to numerous factors: different generations, upbringing, income levels, values, job markets, incentives, and experiences.  For instance, a person growing up in poverty thinks differently about risk and reward than a wealthy banker.  John F. Kennedy admitted he could not fully understand the impact of the Depression era because he grew up rich.  We've all experienced only a tiny sliver of the world, shaping our unique perspectives.

3. Dunning Kruger Effect.  This cognitive bias occurs when people with low ability or knowledge in an area overestimate their competence.  Identified by David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999, it happens because unskilled individuals fail to recognize their deficiencies, leading to inflated self-assessments.  For example, an employee new to software may feel proficient after a brief introduction, assuming they're more competent than others who have used it longer.  This overestimation can lead to mistakes and oversights. 

4. Ego.  An inaccurate self-view can hinder leadership growth. For instance, a leader I was working with had a Direct Report submit a self-assessment on his performance review and wrote “n/a” for what to improve.  When pressed, my client suggested to the Direct the topic of delegation to achieve results through others, rather than doing it all himself.  The Direct dismissed the feedback because he is so talented at getting his work done.  His progress is hampered because he cannot scale by doing all the work himself, he has to get results through his team.  To increase his awareness, the leader then provided a competency framework and clear expectations to get to the next level and help align his self-perception with reality.

5. Defensiveness.  When receiving feedback, we might disagree, believing we’re better than assessed.  For example, someone might think they’re a great listener despite feedback suggesting otherwise. In this case, asking for specific data points and providing evidence from peers, directs, and other stakeholders through anonymous 360 feedback is helpful. Seeing the negative impact can motivate change.  Another form of defensiveness is dismissal.  Some might say, "This is just how I am," or "I've been successful with these behaviors so far, why change?" Marshall Goldsmith says, "What got you here won’t get you there," highlighting that success often comes despite derailing tendencies, not because of them.

6.  Lack of feedback.  Many people lack self-awareness because they seldom receive feedback, especially negative.  People avoid giving bad news or lack the skills to deliver it constructively.  This issue is more pronounced for senior leaders, who receive less accurate self-assessments as they climb higher, mainly due to a shortage of honest feedback and being limited to what you might be able to share with others.  One study showed a leader frequently interrupting others was unaware of it, illustrating the loneliness at the top, where they are often surrounded by yes-people.

Benefits of Self-Awareness 

1. Reduces Stress & Regulates Emotions.  Cognitive psychology shows that one of the most effective methods for reducing stress is to engage in self-reflection, viewing stress as a challenge rather than a threat.  Self-disciplined contemplation of core values, goals, and principles can prevent or manage stress.  Understanding one’s feelings and those of others is more important than IQ.

2. Greater performance, focus, and effectiveness.  83% of high performers are self-aware.  Visionary leaders know what they want to achieve and how their actions affect others.  Self-awareness allows us to focus on the right opportunities and keep emotions from holding us back.

3. Stronger leadership.  Tasha Eurich’s book "Insight" found that internal self-awareness is critical for successful leaders.  They know their strengths, weaknesses, needs, goals, and how they come across.  This is in contrast to clueless leaders who tend to be ineffective.  Great leaders continuously ask questions to diagnose their needs and goals and wonder what blind spots they may have.  Maslow said, “What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.”

4. Enhances Authenticity.  Nancy McKinstry, CEO of Wolters Kluwer said, “You can’t be authentic if you are not self-aware.  How can you be transparent and open, talk about your goals, or share how you influence change without self-awareness?”  It enables transparency, openness, and the ability to influence change. 

5. Increases humility.   Self-aware individuals know what they are good at and what they are not.  Even confident individuals can acknowledge their ignorance in certain areas, fostering curiosity and humility.  Steve Jobs, for example, was aware of his limitations and welcomed disagreements.   He held strong convictions but was willing to change his mind when presented with better information.   Ed Catmull shared a story about Jobs, who wanted Apple to make the iPad before the iPhone.  However, his team convinced him otherwise, and he agreed.  He insisted that Apple provide the app despite his team’s disagreement.   When the iPhone launched, Jobs quickly realized his team was right and changed his mind, demonstrating his ability to adapt and embrace humility.   

Developing self-awareness is crucial for overcoming personal and professional challenges. It allows us to break free from ignorance, understand our unique backgrounds, manage cognitive biases, and receive constructive feedback. By fostering self-awareness, we can reduce stress, improve performance, enhance leadership, and cultivate authenticity and humility.  Embrace these practices to unlock your full potential and achieve greater success

Quote of the day: “If we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and down.”  – Rainer Maria Rilke

Question: What do you see as the biggest challenges of self-awareness?  When is ignorance bliss, or is it not?  Comment and share your experiences below; we’d love to hear.

The next blog in this series 3/3 will focus on ways to develop your self-awareness.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to raise their awareness to increase their performance, contact me to explore this topic further

What benefits have you experienced?

Characteristics of an Authentic Leader (Authenticity Series 2/4 )

In the previous blog, we delved into the concept of authenticity and its benefits in leadership.   This article will explore the key characteristics of being an authentic leader.

Here are a few traits of authentic leaders:

1. Vulnerability.  Authentic leaders are unafraid to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences honestly. They willingly expose themselves to emotional challenges but do so without compromising their credibility.   For example, as a leader, you do not want to say to your team, “I want to do this job, but it’s scary, and I don’t know how.”  That candor can backfire, and you can lose trust with people who want and need a confident leader.  Instead, you can say, “I may not have all the answers, but I want to enlist your support as we move forward together.  That approach creates team cohesion and invites the active participation of others.

2. Integrity. This is when your words are consistent with your deeds; otherwise, followers will never accept you as authentic.  Great leaders embody their beliefs and live them unfailingly.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson puts it, “what you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying.” Words are superficial and prove who you want to be, while actions show who you are.

3. Be transparent and truthful.  As Dostoyevsky wisely observed, “Above all do not lie to yourself, the man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie, comes to a point where he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, so loses respect for himself and others.  And having no respect, he seizes to live.” People are more trusting when transparency and congruency of who you are on the inside are the same as how you portray yourself to the world; there is no secrecy or mystery.  When you operate with dishonesty, it can have a detrimental impact.  Nietzsche’s mentor, Ludwig Feuerbach said, “I would rather be a devil in alliance with the truth than an angel in alliance with falsehood.” Speaking truthfully allows for a more stress-free existence.

4. Self-awareness.  Authenticity begins with self-awareness: knowing who you are—your values, emotions, and competencies, as well as how others perceive them, are better equipped for success.  A study at the Center for Creative Leadership found that self-awareness is the primary quality that distinguishes successful leaders.  Moreover, research shows companies that employ professionals who exhibit high levels of self-awareness tend to perform better financially.  By looking inward and engaging in self-assessment, we can gain a deeper understanding of our emotions, beliefs, and strengths and improve our perception of those held by others. Regular reflection practice is important, whether through meditation, prayer, mindfulness, thinking, writing, or taking long walks to clear one’s head.  This allows us to step back from the whirlwind and set aside the preoccupation with task lists so the urgent does not take precedence over the important aspects of our lives.   Also, we can ensure alignment with our values and a deeper understanding of how we live our lives and engage with the world around us.  The more we know ourselves, the more authentic we can be.

5. Discipline.  Being an authentic leader requires more than just building self-awareness—we need to put it into practice, which requires discipline.  Making it a point to get feedback on our behaviors and being intentional about what we want to practice will help us.

6. Confidence and humility.  Having self-confidence and being comfortable in our skin are essential.  Knowing where we come from and who we are, and knowing how to use our backgrounds to build rapport with others. There is humility in connecting with all people.  Albert Einstein once said, “I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbageman or the university president.”  That statement reflects Einstein’s comfort with himself and his ability to be consistent in his various interactions.

7. Mission-driven & inspirational.  Knowing your deeply held crucibles and true north will help you stay on track so you can lead yourself authentically.  Similarly, a deep and abiding commitment to a company mission is integral to authentic leadership and business success.  According to a recent survey by EY and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, 89% of executives said a sense of collective purpose drives employee engagement, and 84% said it leads to tremendous success in transformational efforts.  Some companies discover their mission early and others stumble upon it, but embracing a purpose will help with authenticity because it keeps you focused.  When you help your followers believe the mission is worthy, they will fight for you. 

6. Commitment to self-improvement.  To become more effective at motivating and guiding others, authentic leaders need to first focus on bettering themselves.  “Authentic leaders begin with the will and commitment within to work on themselves,” says Harvard Professor Nancy Koehn.  Abraham Maslow endorses the concept of individuals striving for self-actualization, which is becoming more complete by pursuing personal growth and peak experiences and realizing their potential. 

7. Balancing your internal understanding with your external feedback.  Leaders go on an inner journey of understanding who they are and what they believe and then matching that with their actions.  They also go on an outer trip, realizing that those actions have implications and will invite feedback from others.

We need a combination of listening to others’ opinions and having a strong enough understanding of who we are and what we want to be the final arbiters.  In Robert Keagan’s stages of adult development, self-authoring is about defining who we are, instead of listening to others’ descriptions of us.  We can distinguish the opinions of others from our thoughts and have an internal guide.  The next level of advancement is self-transforming - where your sense of self is not tied to a particular identity or role but is constantly created through exploration.  It is similar to the Buddhist concept of the evolving self.  In the words of E.E. Cummings “to be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the greatest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”  When you do not trust a leader it’s because there’s a gap between what they espouse and what they do.

Authentic Leadership means different things to different people.  While there are some common denominators, it is more about showing up in a way that lives your values and makes a positive difference in the lives of others.

Quotes of the day: “You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act.” - Jordan Peterson

“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you. - Dr. Seuss

Q: What characteristics do you think are most important for developing your authenticity as a leader?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series 3/4 will focus on how to be an authentic leader. 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to explore what authentic leadership means to them and develop their style, contact me to explore this topic further.

A Guide To Burnout Remedies (Burnout Series 2/2)

When somebody is experiencing burnout, we assume that it is an individual issue, and that if they would adjust their habits and figure out how to get a better handle on their work, their problems would be solved.  While there are changes that an individual can make, it is only a tiny part of the problem.  The other part relates to challenges in the system and the environment, and companies are responsible for making alterations to better set people up for success. We miss the mark when we focus on the problem as one for individuals to solve.

While burnout prevention is always ideal (see blog series on having a strong personal management energy system), if you feel like you are experiencing burnout, there are many things you and your company can do to intervene and change course. 

Here are some remedies to consider for both the individual and the company:

1. Reduce Workload.    

1A. Communicate your limits.  How can you communicate your capacity to your managers and aim to handle a reasonable amount of work?  If you have always handled ten things on your plate, your boss may believe that is your comfortable capacity, but if it is really five, you need to communicate that and figure out a plan to keep it within a manageable amount.   

1B. Increase resources and support.  How can you access new resources or additional support to help manage your work?  Maybe peers are searching for a stretch assignment who would be more than willing to help.  A project may be stalled on another team, and some team members are currently underutilized, they can be transferred to another team to pitch in temporarily and gain valuable experience.

1C. Delegate effectively.  How can you enlist the help of your team so you are not doing it all?  Who on your team would jump at the opportunity to grow their leadership and responsibility and expand their scope?  Hoarding work for yourself deprives others of expanding their range and visibility.

1D. Prioritize effectively.  Are you always working on the most important goals and tasks agreed upon by your manager and team?  Some people gravitate towards working on enjoyable, unimportant, and urgent work that steals a lot of their time, but it is the vital work that needs to be prioritized first.  What is your system of saying no to projects so you can keep your focus on the top 3 priorities?

1E. Be comfortable with some incompletions.  Not everything has to get done at the moment. And sometimes, after a scan of all the work you have to do, you can make strategic choices on what you will not do because it is less critical.  I remember my university days when my professors would give me more reading than I could ever do before my next class.  I would devise techniques to read the two most important articles and skim the others to extrapolate 2-3 main points.  Being effective with this approach means that you accept and come to peace that it is not worth getting it all done.   Getting to inbox 0 may not be serving you; instead, leaving unimportant emails and feeling no responsibility to respond is more important, especially regarding cold calls or distant connections to try to take your time but you don’t owe them anything.  Some strategies that may have worked for you previously may not be working now so there is a real need to update our operating systems.

 2.  Create a coverage plan for your team.  If you have an eight-person team and some people are getting routinely sick, which was the case during Covid peaks, what is your plan for how a four-person team handles the work of 8?  It can be exhausting for people who already feel at capacity to assume an additional load.  We sometimes do this for leaves of absence; we create a transition plan and get temporary replacements.  It can be helpful to prepare in advance the plans to handle certain situations for when people are out.  Maybe one person jumps in to help for a week, and then they get rotated out for the next person to assume the tasks for the next week.   There may be some standbys or a temp agency to enlist to deal with the extra work.  Thinking through these thorny challenges will create a sense of ease for your team, and make it so no one ever has to shoulder the burden and feel like they are always covering and doing overtime.

2. Increase control.  Where can you have more agency in your work to increase your quality of work-life? Conducting employee surveys to learn where people want more autonomy over when, how, and with whom they do their work as long as they meet key deliverables can be insightful.  It can be worth it to invest in slight changes that translate to a massive increase in happiness.

3. Rewards.  Regularly recognizing people for a job well done is vital.  You can do a kudos board or something highlighting others’ important work and spread the acknowledgment.  For more ideas, you can read here.    The goal is to inspire and encourage each other.

4. Community.  What are you doing to intentionally build a community where people feel connected to each other?  A good way to do this is to let people know you have heard them.  Too often, companies will send surveys to get people’s ideas on improving culture, engagement, and community, and people take time to complete the questionnaires and never hear anything.  A way to let people know you heard them is to report back on the survey data and share what you learned.  You do not have to share only where there is an agreement, and you can even present conflicting information, but it is most important to convey what you have done with the information and identify the changes you plan to make because it fully honors people’s contributions.  You can read about other ways to build community here.

 5. Ensure fairness.  How fair are your systems and processes?  How do people get rewarded and promoted?  How fairly are colleagues treated?  It can be helpful to survey your employees to get their perceptions and audit your processes so you can get input into improving your processes and workstreams.

To create psychologically safe environments and ensure fairness is to have a process where turn-taking at meetings is common so everybody gets a say.  Each person can speak for 30 seconds in a go-around.  There can also be processes for healthy dissent. 

6. Meaning, purpose, contribution.  Managers talk with their Direct Reports to learn about their values and how they see them connecting or deviating from their work.  It makes a difference if managers can make little tweaks so people are operating more from their strengths or zone of genius.  Research shows if you spend just 20% of your time doing what you love, the other 80% will not burn you out.  When you spend time thinking about work utilizing a creative and problem-solving approach, you get a wave of positive emotions and none of the burnout symptoms that induce stress or disrupt mood.  People desperately want to experience mastery, progression, impact, and contribute, and when they can, their work becomes fulfilling and energizing.  When they cannot, their work becomes tiring and exhausting.  Some job functions are more conducive to burnout because they are not connected to a more profound mission.  If they align their personal mission with the leadership agenda, that can make a big difference in energy levels.

Burnout and Business Impact

Burnout is not an individual problem, it is a collective challenge, and beyond investing in others because it is the right thing to do, there is a clear business case.  When CEOs do not care for their employees, attrition grows, recruitment becomes harder, and customer success can be more difficult to achieve with unhappy employees.  Wellbeing is not a warm and fuzzy option, it is an essential business metric.

Other things companies can do:

1. Reduce meetings, especially virtually.  We spend an excessive amount of time in meetings, especially when most things do not have to be a meeting, they can just be an email. This means we are sitting way more than we have to, likely too close to our computers and experiencing screen fatigue.  It also means we do not have time to do deep work, strategize, innovate, or be intentional about developing ourselves and others.  Carving this type of time can be an energizing experience.  And if meetings must be had, there is no reason to default to 1 hour. Making meetings 50 minutes or 25 minutes and allowing 5-10 minutes for people to pause, take time to consolidate the learnings from the previous meetings and crystalize their action steps, and then think about what they want to do for the next meeting will allow them to be more centered and productive.  These micro-breaks are essential to our wellbeing.

2. Corporate wellness programs.  There are the standard things we see companies do, unlimited time off, meditation and yoga classes, and gym memberships, which can be helpful, but if they are mainly used as coping devices and are not contributing to prevention, then it is insufficient.  Amazon was criticized for installing a Zen booth mediation kiosk in its warehouses without really doing anything else to change the working conditions that were so challenging for people.  If the job design is stress-filled, doing some of these things is not enough to alter the burnout conditions. 

Some more valuable approaches involve giving everybody in the company (or in shifts based on teams) the same week off for vacation so you are not missing out on anything and returning to a mountain of work.  Unfortunately, just having an unlimited time off policy is insufficient and often backfires because most people do not capitalize on it, and worst yet, some managers make others feel guilty for taking that time off.  Flexible schedules allow people to choose where they want to work and when they want to work as long as they get results done.  Some companies have 4 day-work weeks or no meeting Fridays to prioritize space for reflection, creativity, sense-making, and other valuable work.  Incentivizing employees to get a good night’s rest, eat healthy, and utilize time for relaxing can also be helpful.  Companies can monitor absentee rates, check in with others who are not taking any time off or taking too much time off, and have conversations supporting their needs. The Boston Group flags employees who work too many hours. Google’s 20% time allows people to pursue passion projects, flex their creative muscles, and expand their skillsets.   In 2013, Salesforce offered a wellness benefit of 48 hours of paid volunteer work, which can energize and revitalize others’ experiences.

There is no one-size-fits-all, and what would work for one company differs from what works for another. The worst thing a company can do is to put a blanket policy.  The key is to survey the employees to see what they want that will matter to them.  It usually never works out when upper management comes up with a solution, such as putting a volleyball court on the roof of a building, thinking it will solve all issues.

3. Providing coaching.  Many companies provide Executive and leadership coaching to their employees as a way to invest in their growth and development and advance their careers.  Having a coach dedicated to your agenda and a safe space where you can talk about all your career aspirations and worries and devise a plan to move forward can be instrumental to your engagement.

4. Teams and managers can discuss wellness as a priority.  People do not want to work at places where they are not honoring and respecting their wellbeing. 

4A Managers can integrate wellness into their check-ins and teams can include it as a topic of discussion to learn how people organize their lifestyle to enable wellness.  They can provide resources that promote wellbeing, such as nutrition services, gym membership, sleep information, therapists, and other support systems.  You can encourage your people to monitor for signs of burnout regularly by having quick check-ins where they indicate how they are doing with the colors red (drowning), yellow (ok, but if not checked, heading to red), and green (thriving).  The quicker you can identify somebody in yellow, you can intervene and find a way to get you back in the green. The cure for burnout is not just self-care; it’s also about caring for each other.  When a manager takes a coach approach to learn more about people’s potential stressors, they may learn about minor quality-of-life issues that can be changed for the better.  Maybe you find out that a big part of a teacher’s stress is having three different classrooms on three different floors, and they feel like they are driving themselves crazy remembering to carry all their items to teach their classes or the nurse who has vital equipment on one floor but mainly does her job on another floor and simply moving it would help her work dramatically.  It is like having a pebble in your shoes, it’s annoying, and we feel it all the time, so when we can finally remove it, our quality of life improves.  When managers can support the person to think about how to address it together because it is more of a “we” challenge than a “me” challenge, it can make a big difference. Discussing common causes of burnout and mentioning ways to address it can go a long way.

 4B. Creating manuals of me.  Ask people how they like to collaborate to work better.  A significant source of our stress and cynicism is dealing with harmful and unhelpful interpersonal relationships, and if there are things we can discuss and fix, that can be helpful.  Some companies, such as Deloitte, have created “manuals of me,” which build a process to learn how people best operate.  The idea is once you put together how you best work and exchange it with others, it can accelerate communication and collaboration and reduce friction in trying to understand and guess the working style of others.  Some topics to include:

·      Things you need to know about me are

·      Things that prevent me from doing my best are

·      The best way you can check in on me is

·      When I’m dealing with stress, I

·      My best working patterns look like

·      The one thing I need every day to keep me grounded is

·      Taking care of my health and wellbeing looks like

4C. Respecting team boundaries.  Once you know more about the people you work with, respecting their boundaries and supporting their goals are important.  You can also be more mindful of not scheduling meetings during people’s lunch hours and, as a general rule, respecting other people’s calendar blocks designated as busy. If you know your coworker needs to go to the gym by six and they are still at their desk, you can inquire and see if support can be offered. 

4D. Open conversations on personal growth.  Having personal development conversations with each other on things we are doing to maintain our flourishment can be educational for others.  You can also have conversations on resilience and best practices to alleviate stress so you do not feel like you are solving this all by yourself, especially when it is common for others to be going through it.

5. Create a burnout plan.  When you are feeling stressed, you should have a list of micro initiatives you can take to help you regroup before you make your next move.  Box breathing for 30 seconds, going on vacation, and spending time with friends and family can make a difference.

When you are feeling burned out, there are many things you and your company can do to change the environment that reduces the exhaustion and sets you up for thriving.

Quote of the day: “If we cannot disconnect, we cannot lead.” -Arianna Huffington.

Q:   What does your company do to address burnout?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you! 

“Burnout is nature’s way of telling you you’ve been going through the motions your soul has departed.” — Sam Keen.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders and their teams to prevent and manage burnout so they can do their best work, contact me to explore this topic further.

Find your road to recovery

What Burns Us Out? (Burnout Series 1/2)

Covid has delivered rapid changes in the past few years, leaving us figuring out the best way to navigate this different terrain.  One big challenge is dealing with burnout, which is on the rise in many industries.  Dr. Zeina Ghoussoub, Relly Nadler, and Dr. Naim El Aswad posit how common it is in the helping professions, defined as those jobs that nurture the growth of, or address the problems of a person’s physical, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing including medicine, nursing, psychotherapy, psychological, counseling, social work, education, life coaching, and ministry.   

Defining Burnout

The World Health Organization defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has been unsuccessfully managed.  It is characterized by three interrelated components: exhaustion, a negative view of the job, and oneself.  It is mainly related to an occupational context, and some would argue should not be used to describe experiences in people’s lives related to personal issues like parental or caretaker burnout.

Let’s explore the three components of burnout further:

1. Feeling of energy depletion or exhaustion.  Excessive fatigue of the mind, body, and soul is the natural stress response.  It is the feeling of running on a battery in the red because it will shut down at any time whether you want it or not.  This can contribute to insomnia, high blood pressure, vulnerability to illness, and mood disorders.  But burnout is more than working long and hard and feeling spent; there are two other components.

2. Negative, hostile, or cynical feelings related to the job.  You become more distant from the job; you may do the bare minimum; you know you are not doing your best because you have reduced your level of care for the work.  This dislike, disengagement, and disconnection directly lead to increased mistakes, decreased productivity, loss of vitality, and poor performance.  The mental distance from the job has you doing the bare minimum rather than your best.

3. Negative evaluation of your effectiveness.  You can make it personal, think your struggles are about you, and have nothing to do with the job or context.  You may think, what is wrong with me, why can’t I handle my overwhelming situation, and not want to let anyone know that you cannot deal with the intensity.  The implication is that you have to somehow make it work rather than change the circumstances.  These feelings of despair can lead to a loss of motivation, anxiety, and even depression.

How burnout differs from stress, languishing, and depression

Burnout is not the same as stress.  We can be stressed about a situation and not have burnout, especially if we do not have the presence of all three components. 

Burnout is not the same as languishing.  Author Corey Keyes coined this term, prevalent during the peak of Covid, because it triggered a loss of our beloved routines, connection to others, and a sense of emptiness and stagnation.  We feel aimless, joyless, and experience an absence of wellbeing because we are not functioning at full capacity.  When we are languishing, it seems like we are muddling through, similar to the feeling captured in the movie Groundhog Day.  We have dampened focus, motivation, and excitement for the future.  This general feeling of blah is not just related to work, but to our personal lives as well.  Instead of bouncing out of bed early, we lie there aimlessly.  It can be a risk factor for depression because it stays under the radar and can slowly slip without intervention.

Burnout is not the same as sadness or depression.  Sadness is usually temporary and tied to one specific event, your friend has moved, your kids are going to college, you change jobs, and you feel loss. This is normal.  It is also not the same as depression, which is a medical or clinical diagnosis where you feel sad in many areas of your life; you have a gloomy filter through which you view the world, all is gray, and you have lost all interest, nothing seems intriguing, engaging, or hopeful.  You can feel despondent, drained, and worthless.  It can be debilitating to have a functioning life; one of the best interventions is to speak to a professional to get proper help. 

Burnout Causes

Christina Maslach, a Burnout pioneer, points out six causes or mismatches in a person’s life that can lead to burnout. 

1. Excessive Workload.  This is when the job demands are so high that they exceed your human limits.  No matter what you do, there is this pervasive feeling that you cannot keep up, and are always in over your head.  Your resources (time, equipment, information) are insufficient, so it feels like an impossible gap to close. 

2. Lack of Control.  This relates to how much control (actual or perceived) you have over your work, and how you pick your assignments and choose your work.  How much decision-making power do you have to do things you think are right, effective, and necessary?  How you can improvise, innovate, course correct, and find better ways of doing things.  It can be demoralizing when you do not feel empowered to exercise your best judgment; you feel micromanaged or the weight of rigid policies holding you down.  When there are all kinds of changes made to your project, and you find out that nobody has ever asked you, it can feel demoralizing. 

3. Insufficient rewards.  When you feel like your efforts are not fully matched with the right rewards – not being promoted to the correct title commensurate with your work, not getting paid fairly, and not having access to the leadership team and decision-making.  It is also about not getting recognized by leadership for a job well done or receiving positive feedback.  You may not believe there are social or intrinsic rewards for doing something well.

4. Unfairness.  It is a basic human need to be treated fairly, we yearn for it in our roles, policies, and practices, so if we perceive that this is not the case, it is a cause for burnout.  If we believe there is a glass ceiling, discrimination, and unethical behavior of people getting ahead or promoted by lying and cheating or just by connections and charm rather than by merit, it frustrates us to our core; it makes us feel disrespected and cynical.  If we are innovating and others are coasting, yet we are being treated the same or worse, and they are moving forward, that can be painful.  It is the classic case of you and your peer getting promoted, but they get the corner office, and your office does not change.   It is hard for us to feel engaged by an unjust system.

5. Lack of Community.  Your relationships matter more than you might think.  Do you feel you have a good social support, somebody to turn to when you need help?  Do you trust that others will do the right thing and act respectfully toward each other?  When the opposite is true, and you feel like you are working in a toxic environment where everybody is just out for themselves, nobody helps or shares information, people are two-faced and throwing each other under the bus to get ahead, there is bullying, and bad behavior, it is stifling environment.  If you feel like you are working in a silo and do not have that many positive connections to your peers, bosses, clients, and partners, your engagement will be dampened. 

A big part of community is having psychological safety where you feel comfortable taking interpersonal risks and sharing your ideas and concerns without feeling like you will be dismissed or attacked.  If you see something is wrong, you feel at ease to speak up and offer your ideas to improve things and do not have to think you will be retaliated against.  Your leadership team listens to you and, even if they disagree, provides reasons for their decisions.

6. Mismatch in meaning, purpose, and values.  People want to work at a place with others who share similar values.  They want to find meaning in their work and have pride in thinking they are doing a good job and contributing to something.  If the job requires you to have conflicts with your values and principles, it will be a losing proposition.

From the work I’ve done with my clients, there are a few more areas that I notice:

7. Lack of development.  Experiencing a development plateau, being in a job for too long without encountering the revitalizing effects of your growth.  You have the right to expect that working at a company will allow you to be a bigger and better version of yourself, and when that does not happen, it is disappointing.  Not feeling like you are progressing can lead to burnout.  This is not to say that you should not be proactive in managing your career advancement and expect your manager to do all the work, but there is something to be said for leaders partnering with you in your growth path.

8. Unmet expectations.  If you do not have clear expectations for your role from your manager and find yourself constantly guessing and never knowing how you are doing, that can be dramatically draining and can cause you to feel frustrated.  It is helpful when a leader provides clear expectations and transparency on your performance without surprises so you can be efficient with your work because you know what’s on the checklist.

9. Personality tendencies.  Some people can be more prone to burnout than others.  People who do not have good coping mechanisms, people more disposed to anxiety and depression, and some women who are the primary caretakers.  If you generally have a hard time saying no to people, if you possess a compulsion to prove yourself, or if you prefer to work hard consistently and do not know how to switch off, you can find yourself neglecting your basic needs of sleep, healthy eating, and social interaction, which is a recipe for burnout.

Being aware of the causes of burnout is only the first step.  Thinking about taking preventative measures before reaching that point will contribute to a much healthier existence.

Quote of the day: “Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long.” – Michael Gungor, Author.

Q: Where are your biggest job stressors that can most likely lead to burnout for you?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 2/2 will focus on burnout remedies.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to address burnout and create energizing team experiences, contact me to explore this topic further.

How does burnout show up for you?

Top 11 Ways to Think Strategically (Strategy series 2/3)

Have you ever been told that you need to be more strategic without giving any concrete guidance on how to do that?  If this is a top visible skill that helps you climb the organizational chart, it is worth the effort to grow the ability, regardless of your current position. 

Being a strategic thinker can involve the big-picture, where you are not making decisions in a vacuum.  You consider the future direction, how other departments might be affected, and how the outside world could respond to your choices.

Here are some specific approaches you can take to be a more strategic or a big picture thinker:

1. Take a stakeholder-centered approach.  Step outside of your silo and stand in the shoes of all those connected to and impacted by your company.  Consider these perspectives:

·      Go vertical (up and down).  Step back and survey the landscape to see the system.   You can think about the customer, direct reports, manager, skip manager, CEO, shareholders, and community – both locally and globally.  Ask the question – what do these people want and need?  Where are the common denominators?

·      Go horizontal (left and right).  How are you considering other departments in your strategy?  How is it aligned with the company’s domestic and international vision?  Look across to your direct competitors or beyond to other industries to collect some of the best ideas and trends to make sense of the data in terms of what it means for your team and your company.

·      Use an impact lens.  What will be the result of your strategy on your organization and these various stakeholders?  Do the outcomes support the broader goals of the organization?  What could negatively impact the results?  What do business partners need to understand to ensure its success?  Having some answers to these questions can help you be more thoughtful and strategic. 

2. Consider the timeframe.  What are you trying to do in the short-term v. long-term?  What does success look like in 6 months?  1 year?  3 years?  What are the early signs of success/failure?  What skills and talent will it take to succeed in the long term?  If you were to create a basic road map to navigate to success, what would that look like? How will you know when you have arrived? Whom do you need to support your journey?

3. Think about challenges and ask key questions.  Anticipating problems and trends within your organization and industry can be immensely powerful. You may want to ask: What are the three most important challenges today?  How about the most significant future challenges?  How does today’s work fit into future work?  This is how a commander approaches their work, they seek to understand how each battle plays a part in the larger war.   What challenge would be the hardest to tackle that you cannot see right now? What challenge would be the most important or lead domino that would knock over several other dominos?

4. To be a strategic thinker, develop problem-solving skills.  Most people want to offer a solution to the problem before adequately defining it.  Quick fixes may seem convenient, but they often solve only the surface issues and waste resources that could otherwise be used to tackle the real cause.  The 5 WHYs technique is great for getting at the root cause and preventing stubborn or recurrent problems as they are symptoms of deeper causes.  It was developed and fine-tuned within the Toyota Motor Corporation as a critical component of its problem-solving training.  Sakichi Toyoda, the Japanese Thomas Edison and architect of the Toyota Production System in the 1950s, describes the method in his book as “the basis of Toyota’s scientific approach . . . by repeating the word why five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear.”  Today, the method is used far beyond Toyota and is popular in lean development. 

Here is an example from Buffer:

1. Why did the system go down?  [Because the database became locked.]

2. Why did it become locked?   [Because there were too many database writes]

3. Why were we doing too many database writes?  [Because this was not foreseen, and it was not load tested]

4. Why wasn’t this change load tested? [Because we don’t have a development process set up for when we should load test changes]

5. Why don’t we have a development process for when to load test?  [We’ve never done too much load testing and are hitting new levels of scale.]

It is going beyond the presenting issue and symptoms to treat the root cause.

5. You can question basic assumptions.  If you are discussing a long-term company strategy upon which years of effort and expense will be based, you can ask basic questions about your beliefs.  How do you know that business will increase?  What does the research say about your expectations about the future of the market?  Have you taken the time to step into the figurative shoes of your customers as a “secret shopper?”  Another way to question your assumptions is to consider alternatives.  You might ask: what if our clients changed?  What if our suppliers went out of business?  These sorts of questions help you gain new and vital perspectives that help hone your thinking.

6. Use First principles thinking.   It is the best way to reverse-engineer complicated problems and reveal creative possibilities. The idea is to break down complex problems into fundamental elements and then reassemble them from the ground up.  It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results.  This approach was used by the philosopher Aristotle who defined it as the first basis from which a thing is known, and now by Elon Musk and Charlie Munger.  It is about thinking like a scientist and not assuming anything; What is true and what has been proven?

Musk gave an example of how Space X uses first principles to innovate at low prices.  People thought battery packs were expensive because that’s the way they have been in the past.  Musk responded,

“Well, no, that’s pretty dumb… Because if you applied that reasoning to anything new, then you wouldn’t be able to ever get to that new thing…. you can’t say, … oh, nobody wants a car because horses are great, and we’re used to them and they can eat grass and there’s lots of grass all over the place and … there’s no gasoline that people can buy.   Historically, battery packs cost $600 per kilowatt-hour… So the first principles would be, … what are the material constituents of the batteries?  What is the spot market value of the material constituents? … It’s got cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, some polymers for separation, and a steel can.  So break that down on a material basis; if we bought that on a London Metal Exchange, what would each of these things cost?  Oh, jeez, it’s … $80 per kilowatt-hour.  So, clearly, you just need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell, and you can have batteries that are much, much cheaper than anyone realizes.”

First principles thinking allows you to see problems from multiple angles and interpret complex and conflicting information with curiosity and open-mindedness, and that’s what strategic thinking is all about.

7. See the rich interconnectivity.  Agents can sometimes interact in ways where they fundamentally change each other and something entirely different and unpredictable emerges from the contact.  Paul Cilliers used the following analogy: “a jumbo jet is complicated (it is equal to the sum of its parts), and if you had to take it apart or reverse actions, you could, mayonnaise is complex (once mixed, you can’t separate the parts again; the Interaction fundamentally changes them).”  In other words, complex systems are subject to co-evolution, and once it happens, it’s irreversible.  How can you factor this idea into your strategy or big-picture thinking?  Which steps you choose to take will be easily reversible, and which ones are permanent?  How will that impact your experiments? Knowing this information will help you thrive in a VUCA world.

8. Use Polarity Thinking.  In Adam Grant’s Think Again, he talks about polarity thinking.  For example, how can two great thought leaders have two different perspectives?  Daniel Goleman would argue that EQ matters more than IQ as it can determine 90% of a leader’s success.  In contrast, Jordan Peterson would maintain that EQ is a corporate marketing scheme; he downplays its importance.  How can these two PhD holders be right if they have opposite views?  Polarity thinking can allow both of them to be right, especially when thinking about context.  Instead of talking about why it is important, you want to talk about WHEN it is important.  EQ is beneficial with jobs that deal with perceiving and understanding emotions (customer service, counseling) but less relevant and even detrimental where emotions are less essential (mechanics, accountants).  How can you apply polarity thinking or both/and approach to your business as a creative exercise? 

9. Consider the 4 Cs analytical framework.  Adam Brandenburger writes about contrast, combination, constraint, and context to get creative with your strategy:

·      Contrast.  Challenge the assumptions undergirding the status quo.

·      Combination.  Steve Jobs famously said that creativity is “just connecting things”; what products or services seem independent from or even in tension with one another can you link?

·      Constraint.  A good strategist looks at an organization’s limitations and considers how they might become strengths.  A lack of resources can be a fertilizer for innovation.  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was staying near Lake Geneva during an unusually cold and stormy summer and found herself trapped indoors with nothing to do but exercise her imagination.  Artists are pretty familiar with limitations, from setbacks to structural ones like writing a 14-line poem.  How can you take a no and turn it into a yes?  A client I was coaching was trying to get a budget for a new hire and when she was told no, she remained undeterred.  She came up with an internal rotation idea as a way of repurposing talent to help on other teams.  This solution helped with another goal of reducing burnout and attrition because it gave other people an option of doing different work, exercising their passion, and staying engaged.

·      Context.  If you reflect on how a problem which is similar to yours was solved in an entirely different context, surprising insights may emerge.

10. Scenario planning.  How can you lay out 3 likely scenarios, a least likely one, and a crazy one so you are prepared for as much as you can?  What redundancies can you put into place so that there is support in place if one path fails? How can you anticipate what other people want and are likely to do so you can craft your response? Art Kleiner, Editor-in-Chief of PwC Global promotes the habit of mentalizing - which is thinking about what other people are thinking and instead of sharing what they want or what you want, going a step beyond to articulate what they are likely to do next.

11. Toggle.  Move between the big-picture and day-to-day execution to broaden your view.  As you are completing the day-to-day work, can you easily connect the work to the mission and vision?  Do you know the why behind the small decisions?  Similarly, in those conceptual meetings, can you move from the 1,000 feet view to the 100 to understand the next steps and road map that will allow you to ascend?  Can you take a broad idea and create a plan with metrics and benchmarks while keeping the WHY top of mind?

Once you have engaged in strategic thinking, it is important to have time for reflection so you can consolidate the learnings, get clear on your point of view, and communicate your strategy so your boss knows you are a strategic thinker.   Here are two helpful steps for perception management:

1. Get clear on your point of view.  When you have considered and implemented the above approaches, bring a perspective to the table.  Do people know where you stand?  Your leaders want to know what you think, so when you show that you are considering the big-picture and can articulate your views, you can stand out for a promotion.  Beyond just coming up with ideas, it’s even more powerful when you can take the initiative and show you have thought a few steps ahead of how you would implement something and put your ideas into action.  Having good ideas and strategies are only the first step; you also must communicate them and bring people along.

2. Carve out prep time before your meetings.  It can be too easy for us to feel like we will wing the meeting, but it is more powerful when we are deliberate.  Block out 30 minutes on your calendar before essential meetings so you have time to collect your thoughts, and arrange and package your ideas into a coherent vision and direction.  That shows strategic thinking when you are capable of synthesizing information and articulating knowledge concisely and compellingly.  You can take the same approach in emails, when you are talking about completing work, you can offer the WHY behind the work and connect it to the mission and vision. 

Having strategic thinking skills is essential for all people in the organization to develop because you can better deal with uncertainty and complexity.   A common mistake for leaders as they rise through the ranks is that they stay in operational or execution mode and are not doing enough of the strategy work to get to the next phase of their careers.  Using any of these frameworks can not only help you advance but also strengthen your contributions to your team and organization. 

Quote of the day: “Always start at the end before you begin.” Author Robert Kiyosaki

Q: How do you develop your strategic thinking skills?  What are your best practices for being strategic? Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series (3 of 3) will focus on thinking and reflecting practices to strengthen your strategic thinking skills

 As a Leadership Coach, I partner with leaders to engage in strategic thinking for them and their teams, contact me to learn more.

How do you like to think strategically?

When it comes to habit change, Start Small (Habit Series 5/7)

When you are thinking about starting a new habit, it seems like resistance has other ideas.  Partly because some people devise an elaborate plan and create grandiose expectations.  No wonder it is hard to follow habits when the bar is already fixed so impossibly high before you have even begun.  When we start small, pick one, and jump in, substantial things happen.

BJ Fogg, Director of the Persuasive Technology Lab has spent decades thinking about modifying behavior.  One of his key insights is that when we are looking to establish habits, we want to begin with tiny changes. He often uses the example of flossing. You want to start with one tooth. When you set the mental bar so low, you will likely begin and continue until the whole job is done.  In contrast, by designing a higher goal like flossing for 5 minutes 3 times a day, our brains immediately start finding ways to hack our well-intentioned plans.  It is essential to gain some early wins before you expand. 

In thinking about starting small, here are some steps to consider:

1. Define your new habit.  It should be specific, granular, and accomplishable in a minute or less.  The micro-habit is much harder to find an excuse not to do it.  For example, if you want to build a habit to think strategically first thing in the morning, do not just say, “I plan to do some strategic thinking.”  Get more specific, “ I plan to walk into my office and sit with a sheet of paper and pen at my desk for a minute.”  The same technique works for writing, if you are having trouble writing a book, commit to one sentence or 100 words a day.  When you write so little, more will flow out; the initial hurdle of beginning is the hardest.  After, momentum kicks in, taking you for the ride. Also, we have different motivations on different days. If your bar is only to write one sentence a day, you can fulfill that minimum on tough days, but if you are feeling high energy, you can tackle harder goals and write pages, but you do not have to. Einstein offers a good reminder - “everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

2. Pick one habit at a time.  Leo Babauta, the author of ZenHabits, uses this strategy.  He said, “We’ve all had those moments when you want to declare, ‘I will change starting today! I want to go to bed earlier, eat less sugar, eat more vegetables, exercise more, be more generous, call my mother regularly, stop checking Facebook obsessively, hug my children, write a book, and declutter the house.’ And if you try to do all of that at once, you end up failing at everything.  But when you devote your energy to just one change, you have more success.  Once one part is habitual, you can move on to the next shift.  Greg McKeown, the author of Essentialism, would agree.  He states that you can only be doing one thing at a time so what is the most important thing you want to be working on?  It is a simple, yet profound concept.  If we do not eliminate, we become overcommitted and our energy will be dispersed instead of concentrated in one area.

3. Calibrate expectations.  When people get started with a new endeavor, they almost always overdo it.  Their ambition leads them to think big and set stretch goals. But high achievers with good intentions can fall short.  When we tempter our expectations and take tiny steps consistently, we can radically improve our lives instead of mustering up giant leaps.  If you decide to work out two hours a day for five days a week, it may be hard to continue that pace.   If you do not get into something you can reliably maintain, you will not do it at all or give up quickly.  We win when we take the right steps day in and day out, but when we do too much too soon, we see obstacles and falter.  Instead of beginning with a 2-mile jog, start with a 5-minute walk and build up.  Your outcomes are determined by your moment-to-moment choices until they become your habits.

According to one study, there is a reason why 25% of people abandoned their New Year’s resolution within the same month because some change is hard.  We are adamant about change initially and then we lose steam and sometimes try to do too much too quickly.  It is easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate making small improvements daily.

4. Preserve and maintain.  When you are creating new habits, it is crucial to keep a system of preservation in place.  You may decide to work more so you can hit some financial goals, but what systems are you putting in place to preserve your health or protect your family time?  People tend to go hard on their goals and have them consume their life that they leave little time for other things.  It’s another reason why starting small helps, so you can keep the other aspects of your life intact that feed you energy.

5. Start Now.  You may be wondering – when is the best time to start my habit?  Maybe during the winter when you will not be out as much and not be as tempted.  Perhaps Jan. 1st as a New Year’s resolution?  On a Monday?  Any day but the weekend?  The answer – any of those options work, just start!  As the Chinese Proverb goes, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” And, if you’re saying that you already began too late, well, that might be just another tired script in your mind, it’s never too late.  As Albert Camus reminds us, “those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.”

We can approach habit change as this complicated process or we can tackle it microscopically.  It is the tiniest sparks that can ignite the most remarkable and most sustainable changes.  Let’s start somewhere, anywhere, and let momentum do its work.

Quote of the Day: “We exaggerate yesterday, overestimate tomorrow, underestimate today.” -John Maxwell.

Q:  What’s the first habit you would like to create?  When will you start? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 6/7 will focus on the power of consistency in habit change]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

Now is always the best time to start

Enhance your decision-making with strategy (decision series 3/8)

When you are thinking about a big decision, how do you decide?  What information strategy do you use?  Once you have done all the work in clarifying your values, style, and optimal energy state, how do you utilize your external resources to be in a better position to choose? 

Here are tips to strengthen your information strategy:

1. Learn more about the things you do not know by tapping into the collective intelligence of others.

A. Talk to people in your network who made that exact decision.  If you are thinking about leaving a big corporate job to start your practice, find somebody who traveled that path, and learn those lessons.  People do some version of this all the time, think about right before you go to a restaurant, you will check the Yelp reviews and see how satisfied people were with the meals.  Approach it with humility, do not rely on what you think something will be like, ask a range of questions, such as what are my blindspots around this decision so you can get the information you have not considered.

In an interview, Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert shared with Shankar Vedantam of Hidden Brain that some people might dismiss this approach due to the “illusion of diversity,” which is the idea that we think we are utterly unique, that other people's experiences might tell us a little bit about ourselves, but not very much.  Gilbert disagrees with this assertion because we are more similar than we think.  This concept of surrogation, seeing how others like something, and allowing that to guide us can be a constructive way to decide.  Even spending time on internet searches can yield powerful results.  According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, 58% of tricky clinical diagnostic cases could be solved using internet search and surrogation.  If your dilemma is more common, the chances increase. It could be good to aggregate the opinions of people who have made the decision you are pondering as a guide for what is right for you.

B. Tap extended networks.  Chip and Dan Heath offer this method - send an email to 5 people in your circle who are not close friends or colleagues.  Describe your dilemma and ask if they know anyone who might have some insights.  The goal is to enter different systems since most of your friends and close colleagues probably know each other and have linked associations.  Plus, you probably already know what they know through your conversations so you want to explore those weak ties for fresh ideas.

C. Seek contrarian perspectives.  When approaching a decision, we tend to pick something and then find additional information to support it, which is known as confirmation bias.  Based on one study in the book Decisive, when doctors were sure of their diagnosis, they were wrong 40% of the time.  In another study, when university students believed that they had a 1% chance of being wrong, they were wrong 27% of the time.  We have a false sense of certainty because we avoid evidence that challenges our entrenched beliefs. 

A great way to avoid confirmation bias is to seek outside opinions from people who bring different perspectives to weigh your options more objectively and spot your subjective or irrational tendencies.  Who do you know that you trust and is an entirely different thinker than you or somebody who could occupy a devil’s advocate role to tell you why your leading decision is wrong?  In her study of Silicon Valley firms, Kathy Eisenhardt found that the CEOs who made the quickest, most effective strategic decisions had a senior counselor who knew the industry well and could provide trustworthy guidance.  When asking those experts for advice on your choices, do not just ask them, “What do you think?” or “Do you like my idea?” How about asking disconfirming questions: “What’s the biggest obstacle you see to what I’m trying to do?” “If I fail, what would be the cause?”

D. Triangulate responses.  A chief enemy of good decisions is the lack of sufficient perspectives on a problem. 

Maybe you are considering taking your business into the European markets, how about getting three area experts committed to their right answers, and having them make their case.  You can listen to the discussion, triangulate their responses, glean lessons, and make more comprehensive decisions.  The quality of your synthesis can determine the quality of your decision-making. 

When it comes to decision-making, there are things we do not know (known unknowns), and then there are things that we do not know what we do not know (unknown unknowns).  When we can spend some time seeking out other resources, both in and out of our network, it can help us learn more about the challenge and make decisions more easily.

Quote of the day: "Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach." -Tony Robbins 

Q: When was the last time you sought out people in and out of your network to help with a big decision?  How did it go?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog 4/8 will focus on utilizing creative strategies for better decision-making.]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

What’s your strategy for making sound decisions?

To Make Better Decisions, Start With Knowing Yourself (Decision Series 2/8)

How confident are you in your decision-making skills?  Which principles guide you most when choosing?

Part of the struggle that we have in making decisions is that we do not know much about ourselves.  By taking time to explore our values, decision-making style, and optimal state for making choices, we will be much better at deciding with satisfaction. 

Getting clarity about ourselves in these areas can make decisions easier:

1. Know your values.  What is your vision for life?  Have you put in the work to carefully articulate your value system?  How can those decisions get you closer to what you want more of and away from what you want less of?  For example, if you know you value having a career and are planning to start a family, how can you still be able to work part of the time because that will fulfill you and make you an even better parent?  The best decisions reflect our values, and when they are aligned, choices are more comfortable.  When we are caught up in a decision, we may have our emotions pulling us in multiple directions.  Successful people know how to stick to their values and trust their guidance during stressful events fraught with fear and doubt.

If it aligns with your values and creates excitement, go for it!  If it does not, do not do it.  When deciding to do an event or to put something in his calendar, Derek Sivers has a simple rule – it is either hell yes or no, nothing in between.  Is there a rule you can use to make this type of decision easier?

2. Know your style.  When it comes to decision-making, are you a maximizer or satisficer?  Maximizers seek the ultimate benefit or highest utility; they aim to make the most intelligent decisions possible.  Satisficers, on the other hand, are looking to make choices that they are minimally comfortable with, perhaps determined by more modest criteria.  The concept was first proposed by U.S. Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon who combined satisfying and sufficing as a way of describing this form of decision-making.  For example, suppose you are looking to purchase a TV, you might spend significant time reviewing many other TVs, comparing price and quality until you find the absolute best one on the market, determined by a set of criteria.  In contrast, satisficers will review a few options within a given time and then decide because they got something they can enjoy, and that’s enough.

It may seem like maximizers are the way to go because they aim for the absolute best option, but the research points to the opposite.  Satisficers will be more content with their decision, even if it is not the best they could have hoped.  In contrast, maximizers experience pressure from the high expectations they impose; they are more prone to doubt because they fear that a better choice is always out there.  They envision their life if they had chosen a different path.  Using this framework, which style are you, and how is it serving you to bring peace to your decisions?

3. Know your optimal state for decision-making.  Our mood, energy, and willpower significantly impact decision-making and are heavily influenced by these crucial factors: sleep, exercise, and diet.

A. Sleep.  When you experience deep restorative sleep, you can tackle a problem with fresh eyes and have the clarity to make sound decisions; otherwise, if you are sleep-deprived, you could be moody, emotional, and reactive.  When making a decision, Jeff Bezos talked about prioritizing 8 hours of sleep to make better executive decisions otherwise he will be tired and grouchy.

B. Exercise.  The stress of a significant decision naturally produces cortisol, the chemical that triggers the fight-or-flight response.  Cortisol clouds our ability to think clearly and rationally.  When we find ourselves stressing about a decision, we can exercise to recharge and refresh the mind.  As little as 30 minutes is all it takes to get an excellent endorphin-fueled buzz and return to mental clarity.  Exercise also helps you get past that fight-or-flight state by putting the cortisol to practical use.  Research shows that long-term exercise improves the overall functioning of the brain regions responsible for decision-making.

C. Diet.  Similarly, your decisions are likely to be sounder after a meal.  In a study led by psychologists at Columbia Business School, researchers found that judges were significantly more likely to issue favorable rulings when they made their decisions first thing in the morning or right after lunch.  But the longer they waited to decide after they ate, the more likely the judges were to deny prisoners parole.  The reason is because the more decisions we have to make over the day, the worse we get at making decisions.  We are prone to taking shortcuts when we are tired or hungry.  For a judge, it’s easier to deny parole than to do the mental work of having to think about whether bail is justified, so they took the easy route, which was to default to a denial.  

If we want to make sensible decisions, we want to be at our best, but that time of day differs for everybody.  In the book, When by Daniel Pink, he argues that our energy levels and cognitive abilities are not the same throughout the day but change in dramatic and unpredictable ways.  Some people feel their best in the morning and should choose that time slot to tackle complex decisions while others’ energy levels dip in the afternoon, and that slot should be used to make small decisions when fatigue is greatest.  When our willpower is low, we fall back to our default setting; it is why we go for chips over carrots and why the judges denied parole.  You can manage your willpower better by sleeping well, exercising, and eating healthy.

Part of being an excellent decision-maker is knowing yourself, which can include your values, style of decision-making, and optimal state for choosing.

Quotes of the day: “When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” -Roy E. Disney

"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it." General Norman Schwarzkopf

Q: When do you make your best decisions?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 3/8 will focus on enhancing your decision-making with strategy] 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

You can get clear with how you decide

Why are some decisions just so hard? (Decision Series 1/8)

Throughout our lives, we will make our fair share of difficult decisions - what school to attend, career to pursue, who to marry, where to live, how many children to have? And there will be infinitely more smaller daily decisions – what takeout to order, what to wear to an important event, which gym to attend, how much time should be spent on watching tv or reading and so on.

Indeed, our days can sometimes seem like they are filled with a constant stream of decisions.  A Columbia University survey conducted by Sheena Iyengar, a Professor of Business at Columbia found that we are bogged down by 70 conscious decisions a day. 

How do we handle all of those decisions, and more importantly, how satisfied will we be with our choices?  According to Dan and Chip Heath in their book Decisive, it is common for people to make decisions they regret.  When people decide to go to law school, there is a 44% chance that they will not recommend becoming lawyers.  When the Philadelphia school system examined teacher retention rates, they found that teachers were twice as likely as students to drop out.  Knowing that a lot of people regret their decisions speaks even more to the challenge of deciding well.    

Let’s explore 3 key reasons why decision-making is just so hard:

1. We lack a strong understanding of ourselves.  Believe it or not, many of us walk through life not knowing what is most important to us - is it love, money, family, learning, fun, exploration, or something else.  What are our core values?  Where do they come from?  Do we have those values because it is what we feel we SHOULD or MUST be emphasizing or it is because of what we genuinely want?

When we know our values, it becomes so much easier to make a decision that aligns with them. For example, you value family so when you are presented with a new position that involves a two-hour commute each way, you realize that your quality family time will drop significantly.  If your family value is non-negotiable, the decision becomes clear on whether to take the job.  When we make decisions that support our values, we experience less stress and more happiness. 

2. We have a faulty information strategy.  When you feel like you do not have enough information or are still really confused about a problem, what methods do you pursue to gather more data and broaden your horizons?  Believe it or not, people rarely consider more than two options when making a decision.  In a study led by Ohio State University Professor Paul Nutt, he examined 168 decisions of big organizations and found that 69% only had one alternative.  Two-option decisions lead to unfavorable results 52% of the time.  But when they considered more than two options, they had a favorable outcome of more than 66%.  When our information strategy includes only two choices, we feel trapped and fail to see all the possibilities genuinely available to us, and that can create struggle, stress, and lead to decisions in which we are not proud. 

We also do not want to overload ourselves with too many choices because then we would suffer from what Barry Schwartz labels a Paradox of Choice.  The more alternatives we are given, the less satisfied we become with what we choose because we are aware of all the other opportunities we are forfeiting.  For example, the American Scientist Sheena Iyengar looked at behavior in supermarkets and found that if there are too few choices, we do not like to shop there because we wonder if another place has more items.  If we have too many selections, we look but do not buy because we experience choice overload.  When it comes to low-level decisions like which cereal to buy, the right amount of items that the human mind likes to choose between is 3 and 6.  Of course, life is not a supermarket, especially when it comes to the monumental decisions we need to make so when do we know when we know enough? This question will be covered later in the series.

3. We lack decision-making systems to guide us.  Some people make decisions out of gut instinct, and while emotions can give strong direction, it may be an incomplete way of pulling the trigger because we could be blinded by short-term satisfaction over long-term value attainment.  Having processes and systems in place can help us take a more comprehensive approach.  Methods such as gaining psychological distance, conducting experiments, and running a pre-mortem will be explored later in the series to make better decisions.

Decisions are hard, and for a good reason; some of them can significantly alter our lives and happiness.  I must confess, I struggled with deciding how to organize this blog series, but once I took action, got clear in my values, utilized an effective information strategy, and relied on some of my trusty systems, things seemed to fall into place.  Here’s hoping that a little regret does not seep in later on.

Quote of the day: “Most of the problems in life are because of two reasons: we act without thinking, or we keep thinking without acting.” -anonymous

Q: What are some other challenges you notice with decision-making?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 2/8 will focus on knowing yourself to make the best decisions.] 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you make tough decisions?

The fiercest opponent we have is ourselves

Some of our best accomplishments come from our sheer belief in our ability to get the job done.  But what happens when we do not believe in ourselves or blindly follow behavioral patterns which consistently hold us back?  As a Leadership Coach, I work with people to remove common internal blocks, which could come in the form of pesky GAILS – Gremlins, Assumptions, Interpretations, and Limiting Beliefs. 

The first step to breaking through these constraints we place on ourselves is raising awareness around their existence and labeling what is happening so we can shatter their power.  The second step is to employ strategies to surmount them. 

Let’s look at four typical constraints and explores steps to address them:

1. GREMLINS - You may know Gremlins as the popular 1984 comedy horror film about a pet creature who spawns other animals, some cute and some evil monsters, but the term traces back to the ww1 era to describe mischievous folklore creatures who caused malfunctions in aircraft or other machinery. Jumping off that notion, gremlins are the inner self-critics or saboteurs that pop up and tell us old stories, negative messages, and worst-case scenarios.  We all have them,  they may sound like this: “you are not good enough, you are not worthy, you are not smart enough, you do not matter, what you say is not important, why try when you just fail anyway.” When the voice within frequently whispers these thoughts, we wither, we doubt, we perform less than we can.  We do this because our Gremlins want us to stay safe by playing small, so we do not have to worry about exposing ourselves to new situations and possibly feeling embarrassed or ashamed at possibly failing. The inner critic is also related to imposter syndrome; I’ve recently devoted a 3-part series to this topic, you can explore more here.

Here are some strategies to combat the Gremlins or Inner Critics:

A. Become curious.  Where do these Gremlins come from?  Go deeper by pondering what is at the root - your anxieties, ego attachment, insecurities, patterns of self-defense? What is the profound message the Gremlin is trying to convey? Consider naming it so we create awareness around its existence. When you can shine the light on it, there is an increased chance that it will scatter.  It grows strongest when it is hidden in the dark and unaddressed because its power builds and unleashes in unexpected times. 

B. Repurpose the Gremlin.  While the Gremlin is trying to hold you back from taking chances, perhaps it can be used for a better purpose, such as prompting you to act. Every time that voice shows up and says you should not do something, it can also be viewed as a powerful reminder to do the opposite of what it is saying.  From that perspective, we should thank the Gremlin for delivering a timely message to spur us to action. So, the next time you are thinking about approaching somebody to start a conversation and your Gremlins try to yield you, filter the message to read – “keep going, this is what you should be doing!” Discomfort is quite natural, it is about feeling the fear and acting anyway.

C. Regain control and take action.  Remind yourself that it is just a voice and that you can decide what you will do with that message.  You have the power to choose your response, to take action even when fear is holding you back.  Joseph Campbell famously wrote, “the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”  The best surprises are found in action and not in theory.

2. ASSUMPTIONS - are expectations that because something has happened in the past, it will automatically happen again. Every time I have given up junk food, I have gone back to it so what’s the point.  My history keeps repeating itself and here is the evidence to show that since it did not work in the past, it is not going to play well in the future. Assumptions are based on fear and are a problem because the beliefs can stop us from striving if we are convinced we will fail.  If we have internalized the outcome negatively, we can quickly lose hope.  In Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, the third one is “Don’t Make Assumptions.” Ruiz quite clearly tells us, “All the sadness and drama you have lived in your life was rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally.” When we treat these mental constructions as absolute truths, we allow them to rule our actions and shape our words. What would it feel like to break these destructive thought patterns?

Here are some strategies to combat the assumptions:

A. Challenge them.  Do not take anything at face value, answer the questions - How true is that thought?  What’s another way to look at the situation?  Gather evidence for and against so you can expand your awareness. Knowing you have more options available to you will increase your control.

B. Problem Solve. Think about what we can do this time to get a different approach.  As Einstein said, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”   Who we are now is not who we were in the past so it is vital to think about how we can take new information and apply it to this new context. We are constantly evolving so need to utilize the most updated information in our life equations.

C. Know that failure can be the path to success.  It is said that Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times before developing the lightbulb.  When a reporter asked how it felt to fail that many times, he replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times.  The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”  Clearly, the past does not dictate the future and progress is not linear. When you fail, it means that you are bold enough to take risks and in those courageous acts, you will derive your most valuable lessons.

3. INTERPRETATIONS - are opinions or judgments that we create about an event, situation, person, or experience and believe them to be true.  When our friend does not call us back or a coworker cancels lunch at the last minute, we draw conclusions… perhaps this person is upset with me; maybe she is just selfish or inconsiderate or does not care about spending time together.  It is about the stories that people make up because they may not have access to all the information, so our brain yearns to fill in the gaps. It also speaks to our failure to recognize personality differences and styles. For example, when my extroverted friend is not making eye contact with me because they are looking around a lot, it may have more to do with how they relate to the world in getting their energy externally, instead of my perception of thinking they are rude and dismissive.

Another reason we make interpretations is to protect ourselves.  Melinda Gates shared how she used to sit in a room with experts and felt ignored and that people were condescending to her since she was not the intellectual giant that is her husband, but after years, she knew it was something else.  She realized that she did not know enough science to lead world-renowned experts in global health and that Imposter syndrome kept her from asking questions and thoroughly engaging.  Once she faced her insecurity, she could chip away at it, and begin to ask various kinds of questions to make progress.

Strategies for Interpretations:

A. Anticipate the opposite view to counteract the prevailing negative.  Then name at least 5-10 possible interpretations.  This gets us out of binary thinking and onto more possibilities.

B. Do not assign meaning or take things personally.  Events just are, so it is not until we ascribe meaning do we get upset.  As Shakespeare offered, “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.” When we learn to not take things personally, we avoid a lot of headaches and it is just a lighter approach to move through life assuming positive intent.

4. LIMITING BELIEFS  - are commonly held beliefs you accept about life, yourself, the world, or the people in it which diminishes you in some way. You may think you cannot be a great leader because you do not have enough experience. That thought can stop you from moving forward and can minimize your potential.

Strategies for combating limiting beliefs:

Challenge the belief. You can ask questions such as - How is this belief true today?  How is it true for you? What is an idea that would help you feel differently?  Roger Banister taught us an essential lesson about breaking limiting beliefs when he became the first runner at age 25 in 1954 to break the 4-minute mark.  Before then, it was believed impossible, but once he did it, he gave hope to other runners.  Just two months later, two more competitors broke the barrier.  Over the years, thousands of male runners have continued to shatter the record, even getting it down to 3:43.

Internal blocks have the potential to prevent us from moving forward.   Once you understand their power and raise your awareness, you will know how to defeat their attacks. A simple shift in perspective can change our day, week, life, and general disposition.  Start small and be ready for significant results.

Thought of the day: “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Dr. Wayne Dyer.

Q: What is your most common internal block? How do you usually overcome it?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

What’s possible when you manage your beliefs?

Top 11 Ways To Fight Imposter Syndrome (Imposter Syndrome Series 3/3)

We all experience feelings of insecurity, but when we suffer from imposter syndrome, or the belief that we do not deserve our accomplishments, our best energy is zapped.  Yet, we do not have to remain a victim to those feelings; in fact, there are many ways we can healthily deal with this widespread affliction.

Here are some strategies for addressing imposter syndrome:

1. Raise your awareness.  When we notice we are having these feelings, we want to write them down so we can explore further.  How would I describe these feelings?  When do they emerge?  The more we are aware of our anxieties, the smarter we can become about how they operate, and the easier it will be to either shrug them off next time they pop up, or have a planned approach to deal with them.

2. Normalize imposter feelings.  Guess who said these lines – “You think, why would anyone want to see me again in a movie?” “I don’t know how to act anymore, so why am I doing this?”  None other than Meryl Streep.  If somebody as successful and skilled as Meryl can feel these limiting beliefs, we all can.  In fact, some surveys show that more than half the people we know feel like imposters at some point in their careers but they succeed despite their doubts.  Effortless success is a myth, if we have advanced without real striving, it may be a sign that our goals are too small. It is helpful to normalize the initial difficulty and discomfort because achieving hard things becomes easier over time.

3. Flip your script.  You can rewrite your mental programs to serve you.  Instead of being debilitated by imposter thoughts, you can say, “it is common to have these feelings when I am doing something outside my comfort zone, that’s where all the possibility lies.”  Mistakes and self-doubt come with the territory.  If I was not feeling this, then I would be worried because I could possibly be a robot.  When we try something for the first time or are learning a new skill, looking foolish is part of the job.  Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do something every day that scares you.”  Most of us are rarely feel we are as qualified as we should be because if we were, then we are likely not aiming high enough. 

4. Be kind to yourself.  When you do well, celebrate and reward yourself, do not just keep trucking along.  When you make a mistake, be patient and compassionate with yourself as errors come with the territory.  What can you say to make yourself feel better and move on? Also, be sure to take pride in your achievements. You can reconnect with your younger self. Compare your current success with your past expectations. If you knew 5 or 10 years ago that you would go on and accomplish all of this, how proud would that version of you be? Knowing that you have gotten to this point doing what you are doing, could you have imagined that in the past? It helps us recognize just how far we have come.

5. Reframe failure.  Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final; failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.”  What would it be like if you celebrated failure because it meant that you tried, and that is where all the learning occurs?  That’s the approach taken by CEO of Spanx Sarah Blakey.  She shared an experience about when she was growing up at the dinner table, how her dad used to ask her and her brother what they failed at, and then they would celebrate it.  To encourage her team to take risks and fail, Blakey calls failures “oops” and wants her team to learn and laugh about them.

6. Experiment with vulnerability & seeking support.  It is natural to want to keep those feelings of insecurity a secret.  But when you can reveal your doubts to trusted partners, whether it be a friend, mentor, or professional coach, you break its power when you realize you are not alone and get to learn how others tackle the same challenge.  I usually find that there are many more people out there who are eager to help and that can be quite reassuring as there is strength in numbers.

7. Know your strengths.  When I work with clients who experience imposter syndrome, I help them discover their best selves.  Many of us were built to have negative orientations because it is what kept us alive in ancient times because we needed to spot threats.  That’s why now we can easily find our weaknesses while overlooking our most endearing qualities, especially if they come easy to us.  Getting in touch with our strengths can serve as an incredible source of power.

8. Know your life purpose.  Ok, maybe a tall order, but it is nice to spend time pondering.  Mark Twain reminds us, “the two most important days in your life are the day you’re born, and the day you find out why.”  Knowing our purpose and values serves as a stable foundation in those moments when we are simply unsure about ourselves, the situation, and the ever-changing, rapidly-moving world.

9. Challenge it.  When we throw around these assertions, how often do we question them?  Is this true, logical, constructive?  What is the evidence against it?  Do not blindly take those internal scripts as truths. When you parse fact from fiction, you can regain control and question assumptions that are simply false or that are likely not serving you.

10. Recognize the benefits of imposter syndrome and use them as fuel.  An upside of imposter syndrome is that it can motivate us to work harder so we feel we are on par with others. We will rehearse our work for hours to make sure we are prepared and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – because we are working harder, we are getting better, and building more confidence.  It makes us better learners because our humility and lack of confidence drive us to seek others out to learn.  Impostor syndrome can foster a beginner mindset, that is because we want to make sure we are doing great, we are more likely to question assumptions that others have taken for granted and we rethink our strategy to offer fresh perspectives.

A good way to motivate ourselves is to talk to ourselves in the 2nd person.  In a series of experiments, people gave better speeches and made better first impressions when they were randomly assigned to talk to themselves in the second person instead of the first.  Rather than say, “I got this,” you can say, “You got this”. It creates some distance from your insecurities, and it seems as if you are talking to a friend or a coach and leads you to be less nervous and see stressful situations as a challenge instead of a threat. 

11. Recognize the journey. Some people think that when they get to a certain point in their careers, imposter syndrome will disappear, but it doesn’t go away, it just shapeshifts as the bar is always rising.  For example, writing a book was an incredible target for you, but for the next one, you will naturally aim for it to be a New York Times bestseller and will feel those accompanying doubts.  Author Rich Litvin said, “The solution to imposter syndrome is the rather liberating decision to stop trying to get rid of it and instead to get good at it.”  When you are on a lifelong journey, you will always have doubts that will have to be managed.

We all experience imposter syndrome at various times.  While there is no one right approach to begin to combat the feeling, the most important action we can take is to experiment with different methods that can be beneficial for us to perform at our best.

Quote of the day: “What's talent but the ability to get away with something?” —Tennessee Williams

Q: What is the best way you have found to deal with feelings of self-doubt?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development coach, I work with people to deal more powerfully with these experiences, contact me to explore this topic further.

Take control of your doubts

Why Do I Feel Like An Intellectual Fake? (Imposter Syndrome Series 1/3)

You have just been told the fantastic news that you have been promoted to lead a team for the first time and while you thought you would have an immediate rush of euphoria, you pause to pay attention to your actual feeling, and notice that you have an overflow of doubt and negativity.  Your mind spins a series of aggressive questions - what if I cannot do this?  What if they find out that I am not that talented?  What if I mess up so badly that I become the first person in company history to get fired on the first day, perhaps even before lunchtime?

Do these worries torment you?  If you are like 70% of the population, you are not alone in this particular type of feeling known as imposter syndrome.  In their study, researchers James Alexander and Jaruwan Sakulku described it as “a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success.”  We have this sense that other people think that we are more skilled and competent than we are, and at any moment, we are going to be exposed as intellectual frauds.

How does Imposter Syndrome differ from good old fashion performance anxiety?

Sure, we all may experience moments of stage freight – right before stepping into the spotlight to deliver an important speech or conducting a high-stakes meeting, we deal with performance interference thoughts that can push us off our game.  And then there is imposter syndrome, which is self-doubt on steroids.  According to Researchers Joan Harvey and Cynthia Katz, there are three core characteristics of imposter syndrome: 1. The belief that you have fooled other people 2. Fear of being exposed 3. The inability to attribute your achievement to internal qualities such as ability, intelligence, or skill.  Instead, you think you got to your position through luck and do not deserve any of your previous accomplishments, you are just living this big fat lie.  Nervousness and some stage fright before big events are different than the perennial feeling of not earning any of your successes.

When we explore the negative impacts of imposter syndrome, we can work towards managing this feeling more effectively.  Here are some of the most detrimental effects:

1. Decreased satisfaction with work.  While some self-doubt can keep us on our toes, push us to take chances, and check our egos as we are reminded of our fallibility, too much of it can diminish our ability to find satisfaction at work.  If we are always feeling an excess of anxiety with every task we do, it will be hard to derive joy.  Even when we have an accomplishment, new situations arise and continue to be proving grounds.  It can also lead to increased workaholism.  If we are driven by this fear of failure and feelings of not possessing the capabilities, we will work harder, overdo things, and burnout.

2. Diminished happiness.  Imposter syndrome does not only hurt our career, but also our health, well-being, and personal relationships.  When work dominates, we neglect our self-care and our connections with others.  Resentment grows and dissatisfaction becomes the pervasive norm. 

3. Prevents presence.  If achieving presence requires us to be in tune with our truest feelings, beliefs, abilities, values, then how can we be ourselves in the moment, if we feel like a fraud?  Imposter syndrome causes us to overthink and second-guess, and it makes us over-fixate on how others are judging us.  Our thoughts are scattered and we find ourselves mentally reviewing our previous few steps and what our rewrite would look like.  This self-monitoring can prevent us from listening to others because we are distracted by our inner monologue, which makes it more challenging to build trust and connections for the highest quality relationships.

4. Keeps us playing small. A chronic sense of unworthiness can breed misery and crush our motivation, thereby holding us back from pursuing our ambitions. We reject ourselves before even granting a chance to succeed. We start to question our personality and wonder if we are even cut out for this job. That leads us to only take on tasks that we know we can succeed in and we do not put ourselves in positions of feeling stretched so our growth potential is heavily capped.

While imposter syndrome is a normal feeling, there are things we can do so it does not unleash a torrent of adverse effects on us and get in the way of our goals and dreams. The next blogs will jump into how imposter syndrome shows up and ways we can fight against it.

Quote of the day: "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant."  -Cary Grant

Q: In what areas of your life do you experience imposter syndrome?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on the origins and manifestations of imposture syndrome]

As a Leadership Coach, I partner with others to shatter their limiting beliefs and build confidence, contact me to learn more.

The untold damage of Imposter Syndrome

Top 10 Tips for Prioritization (Priority Series 5/5)

One of the biggest struggles in the modern workplace is knowing how to prioritize work.  Workloads are ballooning and everything feels important.  However, the truth is that a lot of the work we do every day does not really need to be done.  At least not right away.

Here are some additional helpful tips for tackling prioritization:

1. Apply the Pareto Principle or 80-20 rule to everything you do.  It says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results.  So from a list of 10, two of those items will be worth the other eight combined.   On any given day, do you know your top two valued activities?  Spending 100% of your time on 20% of the activities will make a big difference.

2. Set Deadlines.  It is important to have deadlines for every task; otherwise, according to Parkinson’s Law, work will expand to fill the time available for its completion.  Coined by British scholar C. Northcote Parkinson, he points out that people usually take all the time allotted (and frequently more) to accomplish any task.  When you set an appropriate deadline, you can generally find ways to finish in that time frame. 

However, there might be times when you are unsure how long a task will take.  Do your best to plan and think on paper so you can give yourself a time range.  You can even build in extra time since you are not sure of the exact end time, and if you do not use it, you will be happy with the bonus time. Having an incentive to complete the task by the deadline and not infringe on your free time can be motivating.

3. Go From big to small.  It is good to start with a macro picture - what you want for the year - then go small by thinking about what you need to do today.  The smaller you get, the more energy you can devote to those items.  Mark Twain said, “the secret to getting ahead is getting started, the secret to getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.”  Each day, you can begin by asking – what is the one thing I can achieve today? 

4. Assess the value and estimated effort.  You can order your tasks by value.  There will always be some tasks that will have a much higher value.  For example, completing a client’s high-revenue project before doing internal work such as designing a presentation template for yourself for the next time you give a speech. Ask yourself how many people would be impacted by your completed work.  The more people involved, the higher the stakes.  

You can also order tasks by estimated effort.  If you have competing items that are equal in value, you can further divide them by the estimated time of completion.  Generally, productivity experts usually suggest the tactic of starting on the lengthier task first.  However, if your style is to complete a series of smaller tasks to free up the mental energy to dedicate all your power to the bigger tasks, you can choose the process that best supports your style.  It can also be motivating to check off a few things from your list before moving on to the weightier items.

5. Be flexible and adaptable.  Uncertainty and change are givens.  Know that your priorities will change, and often when you least expect them.  Since we cannot know the future, new information can force us to tweak our plans.  While that is true that you want to stay focused on the tasks that are important to you, you also want to be aware of the sunk cost fallacy.  In this psychological effect, we feel compelled to continue doing something just because we have already put time and effort into it.  Spending time on the wrong items that will not move the needle will be detrimental in the long run because you will never get that time back.  Life can remind us that there will be times when we have to stop what we are doing and switch tactics to get back on a better and faster track.  Bestselling Author Jim Collins reminds us that a “stop-doing list” is even more important than a to-do list.  We simply cannot do it all, even though we all know many people who try.

What’s your favorite tip for prioritization?

6. Make a decision on priorities.  A big problem that some leaders have is that they do not make any decisions, thereby failing to signal to others what is truly important.  This lack of prioritization is a problem.  Steve Jobs said, “what I don't do, is just as important as what I do.”  Take a couple of minutes in the morning to set your intentions to get what you want from the day instead of somebody else setting your agenda.

A. Actively choose what not to do.  Warren Buffet decided that he would invest only in the business that was absolutely sure of and then bet heavily on them.  He owes 90% of his wealth to just 10 investments.  All the decisions he made not to invest are just as important as deciding on what to invest.  He said, “for every 100 great opportunities that are brought to me, I say no to 99 of them.”  To be one of the best investors of all time, you need to be selective.  So, when in doubt, cut!

B. Choose One.  Having one significant priority will help to add structure in your life.  In the early 2010s, Mark Zuckerberg had a single focus to grow Facebook.  So anytime somebody went to him to pitch an idea, he would respond, “does it help us grow?”  Even if the answers were attractive such as this will make a lot of money or this will help the business, he would ask the same question about growth until he got the answer he wanted.  He had a main goal to focus on growth and made it very clear to all his employees so they were able to filter their requests first before going to him because they knew clearly what he cared about; they knew about his main objective of growth.  He only wanted to discuss one initiative at a time and refused to talk about anything else. 

Similarly, Billionaire Peter Thiel gave everybody one objective to focus on and when his employees wanted to have a meeting with Peter to pitch a new idea, he would ask how the new idea impacted that goal.  They had to connect all their work to that one priority.

C. Choose the “Hell Yes” option or it is a No.  The things that yield a “hell yes” response should get priority.  Derek Sivers uses this approach when making a decision, he only says yes to the things that he is really excited about.  Everything else, including the lukewarm commitments are a no.  So, if you think of activities on a scale from 1-10 (10 being really excited), the activities with a ranking of a 10  would be an easy yes, and any task from 1-9 would be a hard No. Check out my blog on Saying Yes for more.

D. Go for quality over quantity.  You do not have to do 100 things, you just have to do a few things right.  Get clear on your first principles, which are the things you love.  Distinguishing between the trivial many and the vital few is important.  Greg McKewon defines being an essentialist as “the relentless pursuit of less but better.”  Cross something off of your to-do list by not doing it and feel the relief.  

7. Get comfortable saying No.  Once you know your top goals, you want to say no to time killers and non-aligned requests.  Saying no does not mean a rejection of the person, but a way to honor your own commitments to yourself.  You can say, “This is something that I would love to help with and I’m grateful for the opportunity, but I need to focus on other pressing commitments right now.  The good news is I have already lined up a great replacement.” 

The script can be written in many different ways, the important piece of information is that there are a multitude of ways to say no politely, while also protecting your most important time.  Feel free to check out my earlier blog on Saying No which contains more scripts. 

8. Get comfortable with tradeoffs.  In making priorities, you have to make tradeoffs.  When you say no, it means you get to say yes to something else. Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines, always made these strategic tradeoffs.  He treated every “no” as a yes for his company.  Saying no to one thing allowed him to say yes to something else, such as developing an amazing company culture.  These tradeoffs were not made by default, but by design!  Herb said in an interview, “You have to look at every opportunity and say, well, no … I’m sorry.  We’re not going to do a thousand different things that really don’t contribute much to the end result we are trying to achieve.”  He made Southwest the dominant airline because he said no to destinations that were not point to point, no to serving meals, and no to first-class because they would have all been at the expense of offering cheap seats, which was his main priority.

It is important to be clear in your priorities because if two conflict, you want to know exactly what to do.  For example –being called into the office to work on a project and having a family event to go to, you can decide in advance what you are going to do based on what’s most important to you.  This way, when the decision comes up, it is not as difficult since you already did the advanced decision-making.  

9. Stick to your agreements and beware of boundary creep.  Let’s say you and your boss have agreed that your main priority is to build the website so all other aspects would be taken off your plate.  The beginning of the agreement feels great because you finally have the time for a single focus and you are making significant progress.  Then, a few months later, you notice that additional work keeps creeping in so your normal workload is the way it used to be before the discussion.  When that happens, be sure to correct it immediately.  Your priorities will always be tested, but when you are crystal clear with your boundaries, you can prevent any additional work encroachment.

10.  Choose an outbox over an inbox strategy.  How easy is it for us to lose precious hours of our day swallowed up by emails, wondering where the time went and why we did not accomplish anything? Living with an inbox strategy means that we respond to every request and interruption, we are at the mercy of other people‘s needs and agendas. In contrast, living with an outbox strategy means taking control of our day by setting clear and focused goals and then following that roadmap to get the job done.  Successful leaders know how to get clear on the essentials. 

Prioritization is a necessary skill to learn because sometimes it can feel like information is coming at us like a hose that has no off switch.  The approach of keeping up with the amount of data coming our way is a full-proof fail strategy.  Instead, we have to find ways to be selective in how much we are going to accept, when we will receive it, and how we can discard the excess. 

Quotes of the day: “ It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”  -J. K. Rowling

“Theory is good for the intellect, action is good for the soul” - Robert Reiner 

Q: What is your favorite prioritization tip?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear what works for you! 

As an Executive and Leadership Coach, I partner with people who want to get clarity on their priorities, contact me to learn more.

Why you need a daily practice of planning and prioritization (Priority Series 3/5)

The last blog covered the importance of mapping out our high-level plan, including our purpose, vision, and values.  Now we can jump into creating a daily practice of planning and prioritizing.

Author and Organizational Consultant David Allen, a master of prioritization and planning, offers his Getting Things Done (GTD) system for organization.  His 5-step process - capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage with your stuff - helps us get more precise with our work.

1. Capture.  We need different lists for different purposes.  First, make a master list, where you capture everything you need to do in one spot that is out of your mind.  This thought-download exercise will provide a sense of relief.  Allen asserts, “Your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them.”  If we put things in an external drive, we can free up mental space and be fully engaged with our current tasks and be more present with the people in our lives.  You can create categories of things that are important to you for more significant organization.  You can also have a “someday maybe” list of items that could be interesting to explore eventually.  For example, consider taking the marketing course, look into taking the family to this event.  You can then further divide your work into monthly, weekly, and daily lists.  Don’t worry about the number of items, just get as much down on the paper as possible. 

2. Clarify.  Get clear on all the things you have to do.  Break down your big items into parts.  Instead of having the task of “write a blog,” you can split it into its components parts such as: 1. Create an outline 2. Research 3. Write the first draft  4. Proofread 5. Post.  It seems like a small simple action, but it makes a big difference if it means that you are more likely to start when you know all you have to do is jot down an outline instead of doing all those prerequisite steps for publication.

3. Organize.  You can arrange your actionable items by category, priority, and due date.  As productivity consultant Brian Tracy explains, your monthly list pulls from your master list. Your weekly list pulls from your monthly list.  And so on.  This way, you know your daily priorities align with your bigger goals. 

When completing your different lists, remember the Pareto Principle, that 20% of your efforts tend to produce 80% of your results.  Look for those tasks that bring you great gains.

4. Reflect.  Reflect on your to-do list.  Allen recommends doing this weekly and performing general clean up.  It is a time to see how your week went, what needs to be adjusted, and what needs to happen for the week ahead. This airplane view will allow you to see if your priorities are aligning with your purpose, vision, and goals and if they are not, you can choose to delegate, cancel, or reschedule some of your non-essential tasks.

5. Engage.  Take action – choose your next task from your list and get it done.  If you find that you are stalling, break up the task, maybe the next step is to have a couple of conversations with others to get ideas on how to proceed. Once you take the next step, you can receive additional information that you can act upon for the following step, and so on.

While you are planning, it is essential to be flexible.  What you want today can be different from what you want in the future, so you need to occasionally check in with yourself to make sure your values and goals are crystal clear and current.  Reshuffling priorities and making changes are all part of the process.

The very act of thinking and planning unlocks your mental powers and triggers your creativity.  Choose a process that will allow you to take action on the work that matters most to you.

Quote of the day:  “Cleaning and organizing is a practice, not a project” -Meagan Francis

Q: Which method do you use for organizing your information?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 4/5 will focus on systems of prioritization]

As a Leadership Coach, I partner with others to get clarity on their priorities, contact me to learn more.

Establish a daily practice to enhance your prioritization skills

The Importance of Long-Term Planning Before you Prioritize (Priority Series 2/5)

You have just decided that you are going to start regularly prioritizing so you can go big on the things that matter to you. To facilitate your efforts, you first want to devise an effective planning system that will offer greater strategic clarity.

Here are some useful steps to take to create a foundation of planning that will set you up for more effective prioritization: 

Get clear on WHAT you want and WHY you want it! This process includes purpose, values, vision, goals, and objectives.

1. Purpose.  This can be a much more involved exercise, but essentially, why are you on this planet, what are you here to do?  Is your purpose to help others, if so, what actions are you taking to serve that purpose which allows you to feel fully alive?  It will be easier for you to create daily and weekly tasks when you know what you need to do within the bigger picture and when you are going after purpose-driven items, you will love the reasons for choosing what to spend time on.

2. Values.  These are essential pillars that energize you and buttress your purpose.  Maybe your values include learning and service, so having a purpose aimed at helping others seems natural. When you are living your values, you will feel productive in how you spend your moments.

3. Vision.  Three or five years from now, where do you want to be?  If you fulfilled your purpose, what would that look like, what would your lifestyle be?  Paint a detailed picture.; you need to know where you want to go so you can take prioritization steps to support that vision.

4. Set goals and objectives.  Once you have your vision, you want to collect all the things you need to do to accomplish that 3-year plan and capture it on one master list.  Then you can break it down into yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals and objectives.  Prioritization happens on different levels. You have the tasks that need to be done today, goals completed in a week, and accomplishments for the month.  Sometimes the lists do not always align, and sometimes it can be easy to default to what seems urgent today instead of what is vital for the long term.  Always choose to take the steps that are moving you closer to your important life priorities – your purpose and vision.

This high-level planning will make daily decisions much easier.  Brian Tracy’s 10-90 rule for personal effectiveness says that when you spend 10% of the time planning,  you save up to 90% of your time in execution.

You may also want to consider this popular ABZ planning method in designing your long-term objectives.  Created by Authors and Co-founders Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, it is an excellent strategy for designing your career while being flexible and having a backup plan for when things go wrong.  Plan A is about your current focus, which can be modified to adapt to small changes.  In case of a dramatic or unexpected change, Plan B launches, allowing you to pivot to refocus your goals and take the next steps to get there.  Plan Z is the fallback position; if all goes wrong, it is something you can comfortably rely on while you get back on your feet and not have to worry about the basics.

When you are clear about what you want and your priorities, you should be able to act decisively when a conflict comes up.  To help with this decision-making, you can set up potential conflict scenarios.  For example, you say that you want to prioritize career advancement.  So if you have an amazing work opportunity come up, but it is on the same day as your friend’s birthday party, which activity will you choose to attend?  When you put a few of these conflicts against each other and know exactly how you will act based on your vision, values, and purpose, you will be less stressed and act with conviction when the time comes.

To begin to prioritize, you want to get clear on your big-picture items – purpose, values, vision, goals, and objectives.  Then you can jump into the daily actions of working from a list and prioritize your most important work.

Quote of the day: “Tell me, what is it you wish to do with your one wild and precious life?” -Mary Oliver

Q: When was the last time you dedicated time to think and write about your purpose?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear from you 

[The next blog in this series 3/5 will focus on daily practices of prioritization] 

As a Leadership Coach, I partner with others to craft their personal leadership vision, contact me to learn more.

Big-picture planning will make your priorities clearer

The Dangers of Not Prioritizing (Priority Series 1/5)

It can be common to feel like you have a never-ending river of responsibilities. You put in what feels like a productive work session, but cannot quite seem to make a dent in your pile.  Learning to prioritize your most important work will allow you to make meaningful progress in your life.

Choosing not to prioritize comes with some dangers.  Here are a few:

1. When we do not prioritize, everything becomes important.  Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, shares a story of how on the day after his daughter was born, he was urged to attend a work meeting by a colleague.  Feeling pressured and not knowing his priorities, he left his wife in the hospital and showed up to work.  When he got there, clients looked at him perplexed and could not understand why he was not with his family.  When you are not clear on your priorities and say yes to everybody to please them, you end up doing more damage in the process – in his case - harm to his family, his integrity, and client relationships.  Agreeing to requests seems like you are being helpful, but you are not; it is much more important to know your priorities and act in accordance with them to serve yourself and others even better.

2. If we do not prioritize, we can get overwhelmed with too many choices.  An abundance of options can be problematic.  In The Paradox of Choice, Professor Barry Schwartz argues that having more choices can lead to unhappiness because it can be harder to cut through the noise and make a decision.  But when you know your priorities, you can look past the superfluous because that diamond is shining so brightly in front of you that you do not even see any of the other enticing stones.

3. When we do not have a clear sense of our priorities, we can engage in multi-tasking by trying to do it all.  Our brain can only focus on one thing at a time, so when we aim to go after two or more high priority items, we pay the price in time and effectiveness.  What happens is not multi-tasking (you cannot solve a math problem and share original poetry at the same time,) instead, what occurs is task switching, spending time on one task, and then moving to another.  A bounce between activities wastes our time because we have to reorient our brains to the new job.  We lose up to 40% of task effectiveness and sometimes more depending on the assignment’s difficulty.  Prioritizing helps us focus on one thing at a time for a longer duration, and that uninterrupted workflow can lead to higher productivity.

4. With no prioritization, we live in reaction mode.  If we do not know what we want to do, we may say yes to things that others want us to do.  Jim Rohn said, “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan.  And guess what they have planned for you?  Not much.”  Getting clarity on your most essential work will allow you to feel good about the job you are doing that supports your mission and vision.  

5. A lack of prioritizing can lead to burnout.  We all know those people who consistently stay late at the office or work on the weekends to catch up.  Sometimes, it’s unavoidable, but when it is the norm, it may be due to a challenge in prioritizing.  This activity is not something to wear as a badge when it comes at the expense of quality family or wellbeing time.  Conversely, there are those people who consistently leave at 6:00 pm to go to the gym because they have prioritized exercise, and knowing they have set boundaries garners great respect.

We may have 100 visions a day, but we cannot accomplish them all simultaneously.  Less is more.  Prioritization is a cornerstone of productivity and once you build this habit, it will help with time management and work-life balance.   

Quote of the day: “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Q: What is one skill that you can be excellent in that would have the most significant positive impact on your career?  How willing are you to prioritize that skill development?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 2/5 will focus on the importance of long-term planning to facilitate prioritization]

As a Leadership and Executive Coach, I partner with others to help discover and clarify priorities, contact me to learn more.

What’s your cost to not prioritizing?

For Quality Sleep, Make Better Daytime Decisions (sleep series 3/4)

Getting good quality sleep does not just happen when your head hits the pillow, but from the moment you wake up.  Our behavior throughout the day and the choices we make, especially in the last few hours of our day can significantly impact our ability to get great rest.

Here are some practical things to do during the day to improve your sleep:

1. Control Stimulants.  As a general rule, it is best to cut off caffeine by 2 pm. Try to give yourself at least eight caffeine-free hours before bedtime. Nightly alcohol also disrupts your sleep quality.  Some people may believe a couple of glasses of wine can help them fall asleep quickly, which may be true, but the problem is that sleep hinders the REM stage, which is the most restorative.  That’s why even when getting many hours of sleep after a night of drinking, we wake up exhausted because alcohol has gotten in the way. The rule is if we are going to have a drink, make it at least three hours before bed; for two drinks, at least four hours before sleep.

2. Get Sunlight Exposure. The more daylight you soak up, the happier and the more alert you will be, which will allow you to sleep better at night since some of that energy has been expended earlier.  Even if you may not be able to get outside, sitting near a window can also help.  Studies show that on average, employees whose offices have windows get 46 min more sleep every night.

3. Exercise. Even as little as 10 minutes of exercise per day can dramatically improve the quality and consistency of your sleep. For one thing, it is because movement tires the body, which increases the chances that you’ll be sleepy when it is time for rest. Sleep specialist Matthew Walker recommends visiting the gym after work rather than before because it is a great way to reduce stress after a day at the office.  The movement helps burn off any tension, which enables you to wind down more easily and relax when you get to bed. Taking more walks can help boost your energy so the next time you need to make a phone call or have a meeting, why not combine it with walking?

4. Eat Well. The food we consume throughout the day has a surprisingly strong impact on our sleep. In particular, eating saturated fats and sugar is associated with a harder time falling asleep. Fat requires the body to work overtime, which makes it more difficult for us to feel comfortable. Regularly eating a cheeseburger and french fries – especially for dinner – causes your sleep quality to suffer, and frequent sugar intake raises energy arousal. Accordingly to an Australian study, spicy food may also disrupt your sleep.  In addition to the higher fat levels, it can increase your internal body temperature, which needs to lower for you to have restful sleep. If you eat these foods too close to bedtime, your body expends energy in digestion rather than helping your brain fall asleep. Many studies would advise not eating at least 3 hours before bed.

The choices you make during the day can have a major impact on the quality of sleep you have. When you are eating healthy, exercising, getting appropriate sunlight, and avoiding stimulates like caffeine or alcohol late in the day, you are creating the conditions for the best sleep of your life.

Quote of the day: “Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night.” ― Charles Fisher

Q: What are some productive daytime activities that help you sleep better at night?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear!

The next blog in this sleep series 4/4 will focus on optimizing your nighttime routine.

Are you inspired by the way you lead yourself? As a Leadership Coach, I partner with people to grow their leadership ability so they can live their best life and develop others more effectively. Contact me to learn more.

Make healthy eating choices for better sleep

Your Team Needs Universal Agreements (Team Series 5/10)

Effective teams are intricately linked by a common purpose based on shared values and norms.  They believe that they can succeed or fail together.  The healthy teams have rules of engagement – explicit and implicit guidelines of how to work together and the kinds of conflicts they will or will not allow. Some agreements can be broad such as listen like you are wrong, assume positive intent, and be solution-focused. Other agreements can relate to specific activities like team meetings.

Here are some norms that can foster an excellent working relationship among teams in their meetings:

1. Encourage full participation.  Sometimes when you go to a meeting, there is somebody who sits off to the side and never says anything.  However, it is essential for everybody to be heard for buy-in to occur and for the greatest amount of ideas to be put on the table. What systems do you put into place to foster maximum contributions? For some ideas, you can check out my article, “5 ways to spark full team participation.”

2. Adopt the Devil’s Advocate Role.  Some people invoke this term to have license to say something unpopular or distasteful, but a real devil’s advocate provides an excellent service.  It gives people permission to challenge, disagree, and argue productively.  It is an excellent practice to test your idea and make sure it is really solid.  If your teammate is trying to tear it apart, poke holes, and undermine it, and you cannot adequately defend the idea, perhaps it is not ready yet for the mainstream. For this tactic to be effective, you need to have trust and psychological safety. You are more likely to give and receive challenges when there is an understanding that the goal of the tough inquires is to make your ideas even better, thereby benefiting the team.

3. Establish a “disagree and commit” culture.  This idea comes from Tech Co-founder Scott McNealy's larger point - “Agree and commit, disagree and commit, or get out of the way.”  Andy Grove, and most recently Jeff Bezos included this idea in his 2016 letter to shareholders.  Bezos expected and demanded that teammates voice their disagreement.  He also believed that no matter their point of view, once a decision has been made, everyone commits to its success.  He writes, “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit. Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting.”  If you have two people battling to win the approval of their idea and one loses, that person could be so tied to their plan that they may not want to see the other person’s idea succeed.  But real teammates know how to spar to make each other better and then offer their sincere support and robust commitment because there is a bigger picture and a larger vision at play.  If you notice somebody not jumping on board, they may be elevating the individual over the group agenda. 

4. Speak last as a leader.  This advice was given to former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer by legendary Executive Coach Bill Taylor.  He said that when you go first and blurt out your ideas, you rob other people with the ability to share their perspectives.  While you may know the answer, it is vital to contribute last because you give the team the chance to partake in the process, synergize, and get there together, which is just as important as coming up with the right idea.

5. Elect the right people to lead the discussion.  If the conversation is about marketing, it should be led by the marketing department.  Most times, corporate politics can get in the way of the finest ideas prevailing, but the best managers put the person closest to the problem in charge of solving it because they have first-hand experience and unique insights. Innovation is not about only allowing important people with big titles to create, but driving forward excellent ideas regardless of where they originate.

6. Use the Six Thinking Hats Method.  Edward De Bono designed a system for group discussion and individual decision making by the use of six colored hats, which represent a type of thinking. 

• The WHITE hat is logical and fact-based where you analyze data and past trends.

• The YELLOW hat symbolizes optimism where you explore the positives and probe for value and benefit.

• The GREEN hat is creative and provocative where you offer possibilities and out-of-the-box alternatives to standard ideas.

• The BLACK hat is judgment, the devil’s advocate role, or why something may not work.  This hat is cautious and conservative and can be the most powerful but problematic if overused.

• The RED hat signifies feelings, hunches, and intuition. When using this hat, you can express emotions and share fears, likes, loves, and dislikes.

• The BLUE hat is used to manage the thinking process, it could be a meeting chair that directs the conversation and calls on certain hats when there is a lull or when contrast is required.

You can try on certain hats for a specific agenda item to yield a great variety of perspectives to form a more comprehensive picture. 

7. Use the Double Pro/Con Method.  This is great for when you are trying to foster fruitful discussion and see multiple perspectives.  If you have a group of 10, you would divide them into two groups of five.  

·      Each group of five will spend some time depositing ideas into the collective pool and then choosing the best idea they want to present to the whole group of 10.  

·      They will then divide themselves - 2 people representing pro and three people representing con and will discuss for 10 minutes so multiple points are displayed.  

·      Then they will switch roles where the three people are now for the proposal, and the two people are against it. This would be enlightening for the second group of 5 people to watch because they can see the contrasting ideas and tease out the nuggets of wisdom.  

·      You can then invite the second group to go through the method so the first group can have the benefit of witnessing multiple sides to a proposal.

Great teams do not just organically happen. When you are intentional about adding some structure and universal agreements, creativity and excellence can surely abound.

Quote of the day: “In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly.”  -Mark Sanborn

Q: What are some norms that you use which help your team perform at their best? Comment and share with us, we would love to hear from you!

*The next blog in this team series 6/10 will delve into 5 ways to spark full team participation.

As a Leadership Development & Executive Coach, I work with teams to set up universal agreements for peak performance . Contact me to learn more.

Which agreements allow your team to thrive?

It’s All About A Team-First Mentality (Team Series 3/10)

In today’s driven society, it is not uncommon for companies to have teams filled with talented, ambitious, opinionated people with large egos who want to advance in their careers.

The temptation for people to stand out from the crowd for recognition, promotion, bonuses, and office size looms ever large.  Internal competition creeps in and those company perks become ways to keep score.  The word team, unfortunately, exists in name, but not in practice because it becomes a collection of rivals who want to pursue individual achievement over group success.  If unchecked, these intergroup conflicts can have adverse rippling effects. 

So, how do you encourage your members to act as a team?  In short, form a community.  Phil Jackson said, “Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We.”  Do not just think about your team as a compilation of members who are working towards completing a job.  Instead, see them as much more -  a community that supports each other to be better than they think they can be as they march towards a common goal that they also personally care about.  Teams that act as communities do not have to be best friends and spend all their time together, but they have to know how to integrate their interests and put aside differences. 

The benefits of a community cannot be ignored.  Those who feel like they are part of a supportive network at work are more engaged, more productive, and are less likely to experience burnout.  The simple fact is that teams of people who subordinate individual agendas will always outperform teams that do not. 

Here are some ways you can build community:

1. Understand your role as contributing to the greater good.  Numerous examples can be found in sports.  Shane Battier is known as a no-stats All-Star in basketball, he never scored a lot of points or got a lot of rebounds, but he made his teammates more effective and the opposing team less so.  His team was more likely to win with him in the game and was part of two NBA championships. He knew exactly what his role was, which was not to be the best small forward in the league by merely chasing stats but to do whatever he had to do to be the best for his team, even if it was in a set-up role that did not allow him to accumulate impressive stats.   

Similarly, in 2015, co-captain Abby Wambach, considered to be one of the most successful soccer players -  2x gold medalist and all-time top goal scorer of 184 - spent most of the World Cup on the bench.  She was called upon as a substitute only in the late stages of some games.  She shared how she did not let that discourage her, she always found ways to lead from the sidelines and champion her teammates because that is what was called for.  To win a game, it requires a coordinated effort on and off the field and she always found ways to uniquely contribute wherever she was standing.

2. Share credit.  This is a vital part of being on a team.  Author A.J. Jacobs shared a story about Jonas Salk taking sole credit for coming up with a polio vaccine and when given a chance, did not acknowledge any of his collaborators and predecessors who helped along the way.  Psychologists call this failure to recognize and thank collaboratives the responsibility or self-serving bias.  It is a pitfall that we should all avoid since it causes a lot of pain and resentment among other people.  So, how do you fight against the natural tendency of each member to exaggerate his/her contribution relative to the influence of other teammates?  Choose to elevate and reward cooperation, as well as individual achievement. Encouraging teammates to help each other thrive should garner just as much, if not more recognition. When you consistently catch people doing great things like mentoring others or pitching in on teammates’ projects, that should be valued and rewarded. This gesture clearly communicates the emphasis your culture places on teamwork.

Author and Startup Investor Fran Hauser offers some easy strategies to share credit for team success and to provide appreciation.  When you have a team win, you can do the following, depending on what you think the recipient would most enjoy:

·      Send an email to that person’s boss and CC your coworker.

·      Call out a coworker’s “good job” at a meeting - have the person stand up while everybody else claps.

·      Take a colleague out to lunch to celebrate teaming up on a job well done.

·      Treat a colleague to a small gift card at their favorite store for helping you.

·      Send the person a morning text letting them know you got them a Starbucks coffee if you know they get a latte every morning.

·      Write a handwritten note mentioning their specific contributions that made the team successful.

If a supervisor accidentally credits you with a good idea, you can interject to set the record straight by letting your boss know it was your coworker who came up with that idea.  If somebody has told you an idea in private and you are passing it along in front of a crowd, be sure to mention the source and your information. When you spread the credit, you pass along the love, trust, and pride in the team

3. Contribute as a problem-solver.  Being a part of a community involves having a collective mindset.  Going to a meeting and pitching in on solving a problem, even if it does not relate to you directly because you are invested in the group’s outcome.  It is also about taking ownership of the group’s success.  When you complain, think about it as if you are griping against yourself so instead of spreading negativity, what are 1-2 possible solutions you can offer that goes along with your constructive critique?

While you may not get the chance to choose your colleagues, you can always take steps to improve the dynamic. Simple gestures about asking about people’s days, sending an email letting them know you appreciate their work, and genuinely listening to others can make all the difference in feeling like a community.

“Ego is the ultimate killer on a team,” said Management Guru Patrick Lencioni.  One way to subdue the dominance of the ego is to encourage people to feel like they belong to a community where they enjoy numerous collective benefits when operating together more than they can ever experience individually.

Quote of the day: “Great things in business are never done by one person; they are done by a team of people.” — Steve Jobs

Question of the day:  How do you like experiencing a sense of belonging?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this team series 4/10 will explore the importance of healthy conflict.

As a Leadership Development & Executive Coach, I work with teams to build community for peak performance. Contact me to learn more.

What can you build with a team-first mentality?