Leadership in the Zone – How to Fully Engage Emotionally

Leadership in the Zone – How to Fully Engage Emotionally

The fully engaged leader can harness and expand his or her physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy. Last week, we talked about the importance of physical energy for the fully engaged leader.

This week, expert Tom Ward, founder, and principal of Next Level will discuss emotional energy—what it is, why it is important and how to expand it.

How to Fully Engage Emotionally

Guest post by Tom Ward

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in life is that lasting happiness has humble origins. For me, it starts with gratitude. Yes, gratitude. For the people in my life – my family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances – and the abundance I’ve been afforded.

Before I attended the Corporate Athlete® course at the Human Performance Institute, I had the good fortune to meet Shawn Achor and read his book, The Happiness Advantage. In the book, which is rooted in the emergent discipline of positive psychology, Shawn discusses how the set a goal–work hard–achieve the goal–be happy formula for happiness simply doesn’t work.

Paraphrasing Shawn, “after achieving a goal, the goal posts simply get pushed farther away making continued happiness harder to achieve and maintain.” The key to happiness, he says, is to re-write the happiness formula as follows, be happy–set a goal–work hard–achieve the goal. Research shows that Shawn’s approach not only yields greater and lasting happiness but also yields greater achievements and, more importantly, stronger relationships.

So how do we re-write our happiness formulas? For me, as I’ve said, it starts with gratitude. For you, it may start elsewhere. Before recommending some strategies, you might use to help you re-write your formula, it’s instructive to review some emotional energy fundamentals.

Emotions Matrix

Every emotion we experience has a purpose. Some emotions, to be sure, are not the most pleasant or productive. Nonetheless, all of them serve some function. For me, understanding the nature of emotional energy provides useful guidance for how to better manage it.

The following matrix is from the Corporate Athlete® Course and it portrays emotional energy. On the Y-axis is the quantity of energy – low to high. And, on the X-axis, is the quality of energy – negative to positive.

When we’re in the low-negative quadrant, we need to be mindful of disengagement and burn out. Being in this quadrant is sometimes necessary, yet staying here can be harmful.

High-negative energy often results in emotional hijacking and fight or flight behaviors. Staying in this quadrant too long can be toxic.

I like to think of low-positive energy as beach time, while high-positive energy is the energy of the extraordinary. When we think of applying the principal of oscillation (discussed in the last post), it’s ideal to think of oscillating between high-positive and low-positive emotional energy.

© Human Performance Institute Division of Wellness & Prevention, Inc.

Three Strategies to Foster a More Positive Mindset

Armed with knowledge of the fundamentals of emotional energy, what are some strategies we can employ to foster a more positive, happiness-inclined mindset?

1. Journaling

My favorite strategy is gratitude journaling, as it serves to ground my thinking in the here and now, the positive, and the abundance of my life. Here’s what I do. I grab my journal and find a quiet room, often my home office. Then I write two or three sentences about three people or experiences for which I am truly grateful. I do this three times each week, trying not to repeat any entry. I share my entries with my significant other on a routine basis, and she shares hers with me. The sharing part is key for me because the two of us get to know each other more fully and our relationship deepens through our sharing.

2. Mindfulness

If journaling isn’t your thing, I have friends who find mindfulness meditation helpful. Others use deep breathing as a means for calming the body and reorienting the mind. I find exercise of any kind keeps me in a positive frame of mind.

3. Acts of Kindness

Another exceptionally effective strategy is performing conscious acts of kindness. While random acts of kindness (e.g., opening the door for a stranger) are useful too, consciously, and purposefully performing acts of kindness is a particularly effective strategy for promoting positivity and wellbeing. Some examples might include calling your fifth-grade teacher and thanking her for the patience she modelled during your formative years; writing a former colleague and thanking him for teaching you how to be a better team member; or helping a neighbor paint the trim on her house. There are countless opportunities.

Lasting happiness and positive emotional energy begin with the awareness of what it takes to get there. The right formula is essential. So is having an effective strategy and executing it repeatedly.

Stay tuned for next week when we will dive into the next level of the pursuit of fully engaged leadership: the expansion of mental energy.

In the meantime, is emotional energy something you actively cultivate? Have you experimented with the strategies outlined above? We’d love to hear about your experience.

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Engaging Employees Through Sustainability

 

So you want to start an employee engagement program? BBMG recently released a white paper that addresses sustainability as an organizational core value, which not only helps the planet but also increases employee engagement. Their rationale is that having this type of transcendent vision gives employees purpose and empowerment, if executed correctly.

BBMG’s data links sustainability to the rising Millennial generation (born between 1980-2000), including:

·         86% of Millennials would consider leaving an employer whose social responsibility values no longer reflected their own.

·         79% of Millennials would likely accept a job at an eco-friendly company over a conventional one.

·         About 55% of men and women under 30 believe it’s very or extremely important to work for a company that is socially and environmentally responsible.

BBMG provides some guidance on how to create a sustainability strategy that engages employees at all levels and generations. After partnering with Wal-Mart to create a global platform for an employee sustainability program, they were able to share the content with other organizations and individuals around the world. There are too many tips to list here, so I highly suggest reading their white paper to learn more.

Some of the interesting and most important phases of setting up a sustainability program were:

1. Make the strategy actionable and flexible

·         When working with Wal-Mart, BBMG created 12 broad categories of actions that employees could choose from. Though some employees may be extremely proactive, others may be unsure where to start, so give concrete actions that employees can engage in.

·         Flexibility comes by creating different phases that are slowly rolled out during the program. If your organization is geographically dispersed, let each branch define how they interpret those phases.

2. Make it rewarding

·         BBMG suggests creating friendly competitions and quirky rewards.

3. Internal communications are key

·         Create brown-bag lunch series, employee webinars, or breakfast panels.

·         Place communication material in areas where employees gather; the lunchroom, restrooms and elevators are popular spots.

4. Celebrate success

·         This could be the most important part of the program. How are you measuring success? Do you have a baseline? Success stories, small and large, are what spur engagement and motivation. How can you share these stories most effectively and also encourage employees to share their own? Facebook, intranets, email newsletters, company blogs and social media outlets are some ideas.

·        What do you think? Is sustainability a good way to engage employees of all generations, including Millennials?

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Leadership in the Zone – How to Fully Engage Mentally

 

Being a fully engaged leader takes focus on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of our lives. As you saw in my last posts, I do well with the physical aspects. However, I’d give myself a B on the mental aspect; I can be easily distracted at times, especially when procrastinating on a project. When this happens, I have to consciously slow myself down to focus on the task at hand.

Mental energy is the energy of laser focus. It’s hallmark quality in humans is the capacity to be fully present. Not just physically present, but cognitively present as well. The Corporate Athlete® course by the Human Performance Institute teaches that full engagement requires complete presence, investing our full and best energy, right here, right now. The good news is that this ability can be acquired.

I’ve invited expert Tom Ward, founder, and principal of NextLevel, to help me explain the importance of mental energy and how to improve it.

Does Multitasking Work?

Have you ever tried carrying on a meaningful conversation with your significant other, child, or best friend while watching TV? Were either of you distracted by the TV? Did either of you become annoyed by the other’s distraction by the TV? In this situation, what are you saying to the other person when you become distracted by the TV? That the TV program is more important than the conversation and/or the person you are conversing with?

One cardinal rule regarding multitasking is: don’t multitask when people, safety, or important matters are at hand. Relationships and outcomes both improve when we focus our attention on one thing at a time. Yet, as we all know, multitasking isn’t always detrimental. For example, folding laundry while watching TV seems just fine. The key is to train ourselves to know when it’s not okay.

How to Become More Focused

What are some effective techniques for cultivating greater presence and focus?

High on the list are meditation, journaling, visualization, and yoga. If you’ve never tried meditating, you might be surprised by its coincident ease and difficulty.

Using Meditation to Become More Focused

Let’s start with meditation. Here is what Tom Ward has to say about using meditation to become more focused:

Try the following. In a quiet room, sit comfortably in a straight-backed chair. Close by, set a kitchen or smartphone timer for three minutes. With your feet on the floor and hands in your lap, start the timer and gently close your eyes. Bring your attention to your breath. Observe your breath as you inhale and exhale. Don’t attempt to manage your breathing; simply observe it. When your attention wanders from concentrating on your breathing (and it will), simply acknowledge that it has wandered and gently return your attention to it once again. When the timer goes off, open your eyes, and answer these questions:

·        What did it feel like to meditate?

·        Was it easy or difficult?

·        How many times did your attention wander from your breath?

·        Was it easy to return your attention to your breath?

I’ve been meditating off and on for many years, and sometimes I find that my concentration just wanders more than normal. And, it’s not always easy for me to return my attention to the ebb and flow of my normal breathing. Darned monkey mind!

As challenging as meditation can be at times, I find it particularly helpful in calming my mind and body. I’m more focused, sleep better and feel more alert when I wake. Another bonus I’ve discovered is that my workouts tend to be better when I’ve meditated earlier in the day.

Using Journaling to Become More Focused

Journaling can also help you stay focused because it helps you release the chatter from your brain. While journaling can mean writing for 20 minutes at a time on a regular basis, that may be too much for busy leaders who are learning this skill. Here are some ideas to clear your mind if journaling is new for you:

·        When you feel your mind getting full, grab paper and pen or pencil and just write down everything on your mind (research indicates writing with a pen/pencil tends to make the thoughts written more “real” by engaging multiple areas of the brain simultaneously). This brain dump then helps clear your mind so you can focus on the task at hand. Once the task is complete, then go back and sort the brain dump into your priority lists for the next week.

·        If words are not your preferred choice of expression, doodle or draw pictures on paper or a tablet instead. This is known as a visual brain dump. If you find yourself enjoying this, then get some markers, sharpies, and other colorful tools to help you clear your brain regularly.

·        If you’re a hands-on person, Tubers and Zots and Legos are fun ways to clear your head while physically engaging your hands. It is also a great way to engage others in the office kitchen or community room. People love to pick these things up and mindlessly play with them as a way to give their brain a break!

·        Are you a musical person? Then use musical apps or tools to clear your mind.

Go ahead and try any and all of these tools at your own pace. The goal is not to become overwhelmed with focus exercises; that will only lead to more distraction, and an even longer to-do list. Instead, find the best tool for clearing your mind, and practice it regularly to build your skills at staying present and focused.

Remember, the key to being fully engaged mentally is learning to manage your mental energy. Doing one thing at a time is a great start. Cultivating a skill to calm the mind on a regular basis will help you engage your full leadership.

Next week, we will discuss managing spiritual energy, which is fed by our physical, emotional, and mental energy sources. Your spiritual energy will give you the force you need to live and lead the life you want.

In the meantime, have you had success with meditation, journaling, or yoga? Is there an activity you can point to that has made a drastic improvement in your ability to remain focused?

Image from Tony Bustos, The Arizona Republic

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How to Harness Organizational Creativity

 

Leadership lessons can come from the most unexpected places.

Burning Man is a great example of this. Fast Company recently wrote an article about this eight day “festival” of sorts. Except the way that Burning Man is framed, it’s not a festival – it’s more of a town. As the author explains, “Once a year, tens of thousands of participants gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever.”

If you’ve never been to Burning Man, you might wonder how the organizers entice nearly 50,000 people to pay $300 to drive or fly out to the desert with only a vague notion of what to expect.  Furthermore, how does this event encourage participants to contribute their own exhibits and experiences free of charge for other attendees, and leave them satisfied and yearning to return year after year?

The Burning Man attendees are endlessly creative, respectful to each other and their environment – and they receive little direction to do so from the organizers. It’s clear from this example that micromanagement has no place in fostering that spirit.

An organizer explains, “The organization simply sets a few guidelines, mainly for safety purposes, and then gives attendees permission to let their imaginations run wild. This is a secret that organizations that successfully harness the imaginations of their creative people have long known: You can’t order creativity.”

In fact, one commenter states, “…many of the greatest minds in Science and the Arts are regular attendees of Burning Man, including the founders of Google, Paypal and Tesla Motors, as well as Sting for example.”

So how does a leader foster creativity while watching the bottom line in today’s economy? Here are a few ideas:

1. Find your version of the Google 20% time. According to Google’s materials, Google offers its engineers “20-percent time” so that they’re free to work on what they’re really passionate about. Google Suggest, AdSense for Content, and Orkut are among the many products of this perk. How can your organization create your version of the Google 20% time?

2. Create a creative friendly environment with music, artwork on walls, design magazines. Allow teams to decorate their department and offer other creative competitions.

3. Find the right mix. An organization needs the right mix of dreamers and do-ers to find creative success. Too many dreamers without action will create a myriad of ideas that are not executed, creating frustration. Too many do-ers without the vision will just duplicate previous ideas. So find the right balance of both types of people on your team.

Why is creativity so important? It births innovative products, new business models and collaborative teams. Start little by little, with simple ideas. And remember…you can’t force creativity; you can only create the space and climate for it to grow within individuals.

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Learn This Efficient Model for Building High Performing Teams

 

No matter what industry you work in, productive and efficient teams are a must for success. Yet it’s not always easy to create and maintain a well-oiled team. That’s why I love the Drexler-Sibbet Team Performance Model—it provides a simple, step-by-step framework for understanding team development.

If you didn’t read my first post on the Drexler-Sibbet (DS) model, start here. There are seven steps in the framework; this post covers steps four through seven. You can also learn how the DS model can be used as a diagnostic tool, and as a way to build teams from scratch. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.

Basic Structure of the DS Model

For a quick review, here are the seven sequential steps of the DS model:

Orientation

Trust Building

Goal Clarification

Commitment

Implementation

High Performance

Renewal

Each step has:

A question in the circle, which is the question someone on the team is likely to ask.

Resolved and Unresolved Traits on either side of the circle. If the resolved traits are demonstrated by the team, then the team can move to the next step. If the unresolved traits are demonstrated, it’s not yet time to move to the next step.

Arrows that point to other steps. If a team is facing challenges on a certain step, the arrows will tell the team which step to move to. For example, if a team is challenged on step 4, they would go back to step 3. However, if a team is challenged on step 5, they would go back to step 3, because the arrow from step 5 points to step 3.

Today, we will be looking specifically at steps four (commitment) to seven (renewal). This will round out your understanding of the DS model and enable you to successfully put it into effect for your new or existing teams.

The following graphic can be used for reference, to see the basic model and structure of the DS model. (Zoom in for details or read below.)

STEP 4

Commitment – How will we do it?

When goals are clear, your team is probably eager to act. Attention moves to step 4 and the question, “How will we do it?”. In other words, how committed are we to reaching the specific goal? There are two things that build someone’s commitment: their role and the decision-making process. So let’s look at those two aspects:

Role

When someone is crystal clear on their role, they know what to do and their level of authority to take action. Yet how many times do we hear team members say, “I thought you were doing that.” or “I thought my job is just to do this”. This uncertainty creates confusion, frustration and wasted time. So get specific about who is doing what for each task; if the task is complex, break it into smaller roles.

You may have considered roles during stage three planning, but now need to commit to what the function, authority, and responsibilities will be in practice. Role definitions have to be complete enough to cover all the tasks that must be done to accomplish your team goals while also minimizing overlaps and role conflicts. A big part of a team lead’s job is to help match goals to competencies, and help people step into roles that will develop their abilities and improve results for the team.

Decision-Making

Who makes what decision is vital to creating individual and team commitment. For example, let’s say you ask me to do some research for the team. I’m excited and spend time researching, writing my recommendations, and prepping my briefing. Yet during the meeting, you cut me off and say you’ll review my information and make the final decision, which irritates me and causes me to grumble, “I’m not doing that again.” Why? Because I thought I was going to have a say in the decision-making process.

So be clear on the decision-making process for each key decision. Will it be a democracy, with equal votes? A consensus? A dictatorship? While the team member may not agree with the decision-making process, she at least understands the process ahead of time.

Tool: RACI- Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed

One tool to do this is called RACI, which stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed in the below chart.

To use RACI, match RACI with the tasks before the team starts executing on the tasks, as in the below diagram. This will help everyone clearly know their roles up front.

Step 4 represents the turn of the Drexler-Sibbet model. Remember that the initial stages of team performance involve a good bit of trial-and-error. Embracing these questions might require backtracking to goals, investing more in trust development, and revisiting initial purpose before you can fully resolve commitment issues.

How do you know when Commitment challenges are resolved? You will see:

Assigned roles

Clear integrated goals

Shared vision

How do you know when the team is blocked at Commitment? You will see:

Dependence

Resistance

STEP 5

Implementation – Who does what, when, where?

Conflicts and confusion arise when there is commitment but no clear way forward. A good tip to remember at this stage is the “5 W’s”: Who, what, where, when, why (and how):

Who will do it?

What will they specifically do?

Where will it be done?

When will it be done?

Why is the work being done in this sequence?

How will we evaluate the quality of the work?

Implementation involves scheduling and sequencing work over time. A visible schedule (e.g. a chart), strategy, and / or process liberates the team to move into action confidently. So spend time specifically answering the above question before the team moves to action.

How do you know when Implementation challenges are resolved? You will see:

Clear processes

Alignment

Disciplined execution

How do you know when the team is blocked at Implementation? You will see:

Conflict

Non-alignment

Missed deadlines

STEP 6

High Performance – WOW!

High performance is a WOW state, as a team masters its processes and begins to experience the ability to change goals, as well as achieve them. You can feel when it happens and observe its effects as teams achieve a flow state when trust is high, and people have mastered their roles. In a state of high performance, boundaries and individual limits soften, everything moves together, and everyone responds as if they are part of the whole. The indicators of that having happened are spontaneous interaction, synergy, and a team that is surpassing their expectation on results. WOW symbolizes how high-performance teams transcend rational processes by working with all the human faculties – spirit, soul, mind, and body.

How do you know when High Performance challenges are resolved? You will see:

Spontaneous interaction

Synergy

Surpassing results

How do you know when the team is blocked at High Performance? You will see:

Overload

Disharmony

STEP 7

Renewal – Why continue?

Over time the conditions that initially set your team in motion will change. High performance is demanding. Don’t be surprised if people ask, “Why continue?” This key question reminds us that team performance is an ongoing process, and must be renewed by returning to Stage 1 and reassessing if the work is still needed, worthwhile, and has some personal value and meaning.

Tool: AAR- The After-Action Review

One tool to use in this step is the After-Action Review, or AAR, which addresses four key questions:

What were our intended results?

What were our actual results?

What caused our results?

And what will we sustain or improve?

Of course, other questions can be asked during an AAR. Here are sample ground rules for an AAR meeting:

Active participation: it is important for everyone to participate since everyone’s views have equal value

No blame

There are no right or wrong answers

Be open to new ideas

Be creative in proposing solutions to barriers

Use “Yes….and” rather than “either/or” thinking

Consensus where possible, clarification where not

Commitment to identifying opportunities for improvement and recommending possible improvement approaches

No record of the discussion will be distributed without the agreement of all participants

Quotes will not be attributed to individuals without permission

To close the AAR session, summarize key points identified during the discussion. The session should end on a positive note, linking observations to recommendations for future improvements. Let the team know what the plans are for reporting and sharing the lessons learned during the AAR.

Whether or not you do the AAR as listed above, spending time on renewal puts your team back in touch with purpose and refreshes everyone’s commitment to keep going. It also includes learning from what you have accomplished, and building a repertoire of best practices for the next journey on this or other teams. If your team’s work is complete, Renewal is the time to wrap things up, freeing members to move on to new challenges.

How do you know when Renewal challenges are resolved? You will see:

Recognition

Change mastery

Staying power

How do you know when the team is blocked at Renewal? You will see:

Boredom

Burnout

If you reach stage seven and your team is blocked, it’s time to head back to stage one!

There you have it—the Drexler-Sibbet Team Performance Model. Don’t forget to learn about steps one through three on my previous post, before giving it a spin.

 

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