by Jane Perdue | Communications
Check email. Debrief the boss. Go to the staff meeting. Return calls. Review sales numbers. Attend budget meeting. Check email. Participate in conference call with headquarters. Glance at online news headlines. Go to vendor meeting. Gobble granola bar. Conduct an employee coaching session. Check email. Review strategy assessment documents. Attend meeting with marketing department.
Is your typical work day something like this string of activities? Bouncing from one thing to another like those randomly dancing lottery balls just before the winning numbers are posted, all frenetic, unconnected energy?
In a crazy busy world where meaningful work relationships require commitment, novelist E.M. Forester’s phrase to “only connect” is a good reminder of what we need to do if we’re to do do good and do well..
In Everyone Communicates, Few Connect, leadership author John C. Maxwell says: “Connecting is the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them.”
The Power of Connections
Are you as connected as you’d like to be?
If not, let the three-legged stool for building quality associations be your guide. Understanding what makes you tick is the starting block for building solid connections, so plan to start there. Follow that up with reconnecting with your colleagues, vendors, and clients. Last, make it a point to reconnect with your boss.
Connecting with you
Snag a few minutes to re-engage with what’s important to you, personally, professionally, or both.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman’s work with emotional intelligence is highly instructive for individuals who are seeking better self-understanding:
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds. ~Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths
Getting in touch with what we fail to notice about ourselves is a crucial first step to establishing powerful connections. To get in touch with what you might be missing about yourself, consider:
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- What’s my personal and professional north, and am I still on track?
- What worthwhile things have I done today that I will continue doing?
- Whose life did I touch today and help make it better?
- What one thing, big or small, did I do today to renew my energy and increase my knowledge and/or skills?
Connect with colleagues
Spend a quality moment or two with a direct report, colleague, client or vendor. Establishing relationships and alliances with those around you at work—at every level within the organization and externally as well—is a make-or break element for career success.
In Results Through Relationships, behavior strategist Joe Takash says: “Many people assume that only new contacts will help them achieve their goals, but in reality, many breakthroughs happen within existing networks.”
To connect with those around you:
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- Reach out and ask “how are you doing today?” Really listen to the answer and ask follow-up questions.
- Say thank you.
- Celebrate an accomplishment.
- Spend a few minutes over a coffee to chat about sports, kids, a TV show, etc. Explore, discover and share interests to build a bond.
Connect with your boss
Engage your boss in a meaningful exchange. Warren Bennis reminds us: “No matter how brilliant you are, you need to remember the people.”
Be proactive and reach out to your boss:
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- Ask “How’s it going? Anything I can do to help?”
- Invite her to a 10-minute coffee chat and seek to understand things from her perspective.
- Ask him about his family or favorite book so you can establish some common ground and shared interests.
If meaningful connections are your goal, make it a habit to halt your bouncing balls for a few minutes each day and take the time to connect with someone. You’ll be glad you did and so will they.
How do you make and take the time to connect?
Image source: morgueFile.com
by Jane Perdue | Character
Cash is king was the CFO’s favorite go-to line when denying expenditures.
Everyone knew their spending requests for raises, projects, hiring, process innovation expenses, etc. were doomed once the CFO uttered “cash is king.”
What made it doubly hard was that the CEO always agreed with him after a “cash is king” ruling. Arguing was futile, justifications meaningless.
With that orientation, naturally over time, the company’s unwritten mission became make as much money as you can as fast as you can. Company culture changed. Ethical corners were cut. Legal lines were crossed. Cutthroat competition between departments became the norm.
Along the way, compassion, empathy, and character became less and less important. Money was the only yardstick by which success was measured. The work environment became a joyless, soulless place.
Leading with both head and heart
Many have written about the soullessness of economic-focused corporations and the cold, economic logic that defines what’s done. Much is said about their greed and ruthlessness; 82% of employees don’t expect their boss to tell the truth. Employees lose their individualism; 70% of the workforce says they’re disengaged. Some employees feel shame about admitting where they work.
If you are a boss, ask yourself: When you look back at how you’ve treated followers, peers, and superiors, in their eyes, will you have earned the right to be proud of yourself? Or will they believe that you ought to be ashamed of yourself and embarrassed by how you have trampled on others’ dignity day after day? ~Robert I. Sutton
With a little more care, a little more courage, and, above all, a little more soul, our lives can be so easily discovered and celebrated in work, and not, as now, squandered and lost in its shadow. ~David Whyte, The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America
Leading with head and heart in a cash is king world
With work and dedication from character-based leaders, workplaces can keep their soul and employees can have dignity. Some food for thought as you lead yourself and others:
1) Don’t let reasonable self-interest turn into greed. Hang onto generosity, reciprocity, and ethical commitments.
2) Be mindful of the rights, feelings, and interests of others. Research by Jonathan Haidt at New York University shows that employees who are moved by the compassion or kindness of a boss are more loyal.
3) Walk the talk of honesty, integrity, fairness, compassion, charity, and social responsibility.
4) Lead by both/and, not only either/or. Delivering both results and relationships is much more rewarding than focusing only on either results or relationships.
5) Challenge the status quo through constructive dissent, respectful irreverence, and purposeful discomfort.
6) Start with the carrot or the hug, not the stick, when difficulties are encountered.
7) Appreciate the power and possibility of differences. Don’t marginalize those who see things differently. As Robert Kegan, a developmental psychologist, observes, “Successfully functioning in a society with diverse values, traditions and lifestyles requires us to have a relationship to our own reactions rather than be captive of them. To resist our tendencies to make right or true, that which is nearly familiar, and wrong or false, that which is only strange.”
8) Balance getting with giving and doing with being.
9) Make a good difference.
The leader never lies to himself, especially about himself, knows his flaws as well as his assets, and deals with them directly. You are your own raw material. When you know what you consist of and what you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself. ~Warren Bennis
10) Define success by both tangibles and intangibles. Don’t favor one over the other.
11) Display competence, commitment, and character, and hold others accountable for doing the same.
12) Know when to be confident and when to have humility; when to speak up and when to be silent.
13) Keep Aristotle’s twelve virtues as close companions: courage, temperance, generosity, magnificence, magnanimity, right ambition, good temper, friendliness, truthfulness, wit, and justice.
Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. ~unknown
Getting right with competence, commitment, and character starts in our own heads and hearts.
That means the presence or absence of soul in our workplaces begins with each one of us.
Feeling up to the challenge?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
Nearly half of those surveyed in a PRRI research project “completely” or “mostly” agreed that “society as a whole has become too soft and feminine.”
When I think of feminine attributes, I think of flexibility, kindness, altruism, receptiveness, nurturing, empathy, and compassion. I hope survey respondents weren’t thinking of those attributes. Maybe what they had in mind were unflattering stereotypes like weakness, docile, overly concerned with appearance, etc.
From where I sit, the world and workplaces need more flexibility, kindness, altruism, receptiveness, nurturing, empathy, and compassion—leaders who lead with their hearts and manage with their heads.
18 ways to make a positive difference
Think what positive results would happen if we all worked at places where there was:
- More acceptance and less judgment.
- More difference and less conformity.
- More fearlessness and less caution.
- More vulnerability and less bombast.
- More confidence and less tentativeness.
- More kindness and less incivility.
- More speaking up and less being a good girl.
- More goodness and less evil.
- More generosity and less mean-spiritedness.
- More collaboration and less competition.
- More understanding and less hyperbole.
- More being and less doing.
- More love and less hate.
- More mindfulness and less reactiveness.
- More genuine and less artificial.
- More openness and less bias.
- More praise and less hurtful criticism.
- More empathy and less apathy.
Making this list come alive at work, at home, etc., means that we be the change we want to see. We have to:
- Stop wishing people and situations were more like we want them to be and accept them as they are.
- Be intellectually curious and make an effort to understand how others think and feel. We don’t have to accept their position, only acknowledge their right to have it.
- Love ourselves so we can love others.
- Be mindful of the stories we tell ourselves because those narratives take on a life of their own.
- Exercise our kindness “muscle” and do something kind at least once a day.
- Be present. Hold ourselves accountable for paying attention and being aware.
- Refrain from judging those who think differently than we do. Look at life like a Baskin-Robbins store that serves up at least 31 different flavors of difference.
It is a pleasant feeling to be the first to walk on sands which the tide has just left. It is like being the first to visit a new land. It produces a freshness of sensation something akin to that of early morning, or of spring. It is like entering upon a new stage of life, having a new world before us from which to receive, and upon which to make impressions. ~Henry James Slack, activist
Ready to make your corner of the world a more caring place?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Leadership
What a great discussion question for the book club group: with what skill would you imbue all leaders for success and why?
My answer? The ability to not destroy curiosity.
While many CEO’s say curiosity is a necessary leadership skill, my experience has been that most organizations work overtime, covertly and inadvertently, to stamp out curiosity.
Common ways that leaders kill curiosity
They want efficiency.
Responding to the person who wants to know “why” and “have we thought about…” takes time. Time is a resource in chronically short supply, and leaders are rewarded for meeting deadlines, not for sponsoring curiosity. Which means the curious person who wants knowledge beyond what they know generally gets a reputation as being a time-waster, “Don’t let Tom be on your team. He wastes time by asking too many questions.”
They want fast decision-making.
Time is money, and money means success. Which means that bosses have preferred methods for making decisions…fast. Given time and performance pressures, they aren’t interested in the curious person who want to review the situation and determine if an ad hoc or process-based approach is best, if action or caution is most prudent, if information should be gathered narrowly or widely, if corporate interests or personal interests should prevail, or if the matter is one of continuity or change.
They don’t want a troublemaker on their team.
Too often, those who are curious are labeled as rebels. Output-oriented and bottom line focused bosses want employees who go by the book, not ones who want to rewrite the book. Google “how should leaders handle a troublemaker.” When I did, 1,150,000 results popped up. Curious people sometimes violate social norms with their questions and non-conforming behavior, so they make co-workers and bosses who like going by the book uncomfortable.
They like conformity.
I call this the vending machine approach to leadership. Someone asks a boss a question (that’s inserting the coins), out pops the correct answer (that’s getting the candy bar or bag of chips), and the employee takes the offering without question or pushback. No fuss, no muss, and so efficient which may be why a Harris Poll found that 60% of respondents said their workplace throws up barriers to integrating curiosity into their work.
They want to minimize uncertainty.
Curious people are intrigued by novelty. Novelty means the unknown. Dealing with the unknown sits outside the comfort zone of most people and organizations. “Stay in your lane” or “color within the lines” are common pieces of performance advice offered to the curious ones wanting to try something new.
They want people to get on board asap and be team players.
“Because of their preference for new information, curious people are less likely to prematurely commit to initial ideas and perspectives.” That’s not likely to endear them to many bosses. Bosses want employees to fit the mold, and curious ones often don’t.
Is your company on an innovation kick and disappointed in the lack of ideas and creativity employees are generating?
If so, look at the behaviors for which employees have been rewarded—fast, shallow, short-term decision-making; going by the book; fitting in; and the like. Therein may lie your answer as to where all the curiosity, wonder, and creativity went.
Image source before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
Going into the holidays, I’d never have guessed that a bowl of collard greens and black-eyed peas would serve up lessons about managing bias. I don’t think my table mate did either.
Over dessert, my table mate remarked that she still had a nasty taste in her mouth from “that awful green dish that had been forced on her.”
“Is this your first experience eating collard greens?”
“Yes, and they’re just as disgusting as everyone says they are.”
“Good for you, though, in trying them. That’s the way to go!”
“I didn’t have much choice. He forced me. He put them on my plate.”
“I heard Arthur ask you if you wanted any, and you said ‘yes.’”
“What was I supposed to say?”
“Did you want to taste them?”
“No way. Why taste something I know is going to be awful?”
“In that case, I think it would have been perfectly fine for you to have said ‘no thanks.’ Arthur wouldn’t have cared.”
“That would have been rude.”
“Not at all provided you were polite. It’s important to be honest and stick up for yourself, especially if you don’t want something.”
“So, you think I was wrong?” My table mate was getting worked up.
“What I’m saying is that I think you missed a chance to do what you wanted to do.”
“What would you have done if you were me?””
“If I don’t want to taste something, I just say so. Nicely. I think it’s unfair to say you were forced to eat the greens. Arthur was being a good host, walking around the table, carrying the heavy bowl and offering to serve. Several people shook their heads no.”
“I wanted to be nice.”
“Declining to take a serving of something you don’t want doesn’t make you not nice.”
“What does it make me?”
“I think it makes you self-confident and assertive.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“How so?”
“Often, if we don’t stick up for ourselves, no else does either. That’s especially true for women. We tend to short-change ourselves and serve the needs of others so they’ll think we’re nice. That just hurts us in the end.”
Table talk shifted loudly to football, so our sidebar chat ended. But my thinking about the exchange didn’t.
Three lessons to be learned—and shared—kept haunting me.
3 lessons inspired by…wait for it—collard greens!
1) How broad and deep the reach of confirmation bias is—even affecting whether or not we’re going to like collard greens!
Someone we care for or someone we trust says something must be a certain way, so we close our minds and accept their position. Guts, grace, determination, and a village are needed to counteract how these tendencies limit our experience and possibilities.
People don’t change their minds—just the opposite. Brains are designed to filter the world so we don’t have to question it. While this helps us survive, it’s a subjective trap; by only seeing the world as we want to, our minds narrow and it becomes difficult to understand opposing opinions. When we only look for what confirms our beliefs (confirmation bias), only side with what is most comfortable (cognitive dissonance, and don’t scrutinize contrary ideas (motivated reasoning) we impede social, economic, and academic progress. ~Sam McNerney, author and neuroscientist
2) How important it is to own what we do, no matter how uncomfortable or unflattering it is.
Convincing ourselves that someone else is responsible, i.e., he made me eat the greens, is an excuse that may sound logical on the surface but that, when probed, shows a lack of character, confidence, and inner strength.
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. ~Eleanor Roosevelt
3) How the belief that simply expressing a personal preference makes us unkind, not nice, or rude.
Not wanting to be seen as unkind, we choose to be silent.
Granted, sharing a preference in an obnoxious, condescending, or disrespectful manner does make us unkind and rude. But speaking our truth—and doing so gracefully, tactfully, compassionately—is a must do if we’re to communicate honestly and authentically.
If we’re already comfortable sharing our opinions in a thoughtful way, it’s important to honor the rights of others to do the same. Learning to disagree without being disagreeable is life’s secret sauce.
What lessons have you learned about disagreeing with grace?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
