Why I’m A Hypocrite And My Challenge With Mental Energy

 

I’m a hypocrite. There, I said it.

Leadership, both personal and professional, is an energy game. But it takes more than physical energy for peak performance. Leaders need abundant physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy to manage their stress and perform their best. And just like professional athletes, leaders need to train properly, regularly and on purpose to achieve the results they’re after. I help leaders do just that in Lunch & Learns, half-day workshops and even 8-week online courses.

 

 So here I was—teaching leaders how to balance their energy—yet grinding my teeth at night. Waking up in the middle of the night with my heart racing, thinking about work and then getting up at 3am to answer emails. Snapping at my team for no reason, putting undue pressure on them.

I’m Good at Talking the Talk, But I Haven’t Been Walking the Walk

I was not walking the walk and practicing my own teachings. It was time to step back and assess what was going on. I was totally out of whack! So I did an energy assessment of myself, just like I would for a client.

My Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual Energy Level Assessment

• Physical: I eat well and exercise regularly. My recent check-up showed that I had the physical energy of someone a decade younger.

• Emotional: My EQ is fairly high. When I’m not stressed, I can manage difficult situations and people with empathy and patience.

• Spiritual: I know my values and refer to them regularly.

• Mental: I have the attention span of a flea; I can’t focus on anything for more than a few minutes, and my brain is on constant overdrive. No surprise that this is my weakest area. In fact, my husband calls me a shark, because I literally can’t sit down for more than an hour without jumping up to do something.

I Have the Attention Span of a Flea

Hmmm.. this is going to be a challenge. Ask me to run a marathon and I’ll train daily for it. Tell me to go gluten-free and I’m on a baking frenzy. Offer me the chance to work with emotional teams and I can’t wait. Tell me something ‘can’t be done’ and I will find a solution or at least a work-around. Yet, invite me to sit and read a book? I read the first chapter and then the last chapter (no joke) to save time. Buy me a cuppa? I’ll start getting antsy after 30 minutes. So working on my mental energy to improve my focus is going to be hard.

Very hard.

My Shark-Like Behavior Was Impacting My Family and Team

 

Yet I had to do it. Not only was my shark-like behavior impacting my sleep, it was also impacting my team and family. In addition, I felt like a total hypocrite. It’s like Ellen Page saying she had to come out while filming Freeheld; I can’t teach energy management and not practice it myself.

So where to begin on this journey?

I Started With My Limiting Beliefs

First, I had to look at my limiting beliefs, or the things I thought were true that held me back from changing my behaviors. In general, our society is addicted to activity, and rewards constant busyness. We applaud the person who pulled the all-nighter; we recognize the person who stayed late to get the job done. Yet there is no such fanfare for the person who leaves at 5pm; in fact, those people are ridiculed in certain organizational cultures as weak or not team players. In addition, it’s frowned upon to take all your vacation time or take any downtime at all.

This perception is problematic for many reasons but one of those reasons is factual. The University of California put out some interesting research on the upsides of downtime. The research says:

“You can’t think without space. If you’re always doing something, there’s no way to get anything new into your mind; there’s no way to reach new conclusions.”

Why? Because unstructured time stimulates the ‘default mode network’ part of the brain, where creativity and problem solving happen. When we perform any task at all, no matter how small, our brain switches to the ‘executive network control’, which is related to deductive reasoning. So it’s when we sit back and let our minds wander, that the creative ‘default mode’ kicks in.

Even Though I Fully Knew the Benefits of Downtime, I Was at Super-Shark Speed

My limiting belief was that ‘downtime is for wimps’. The research proved me wrong. My mind was buying into the idea but my body was resisting. Even though I fully knew the benefits of downtime, I was at super-shark speed, racing around the house to get things done.

What would I tell a client in my position? I’d tell them they needed to practice downtime.

I’m a kinesthetic learner, which means I need to touch something to learn it well. So I had to find a role model to physically, literally show me what down time looks like. I had no idea how to ‘do’ downtime.

 

 

Thankfully, I didn’t have to look too far: my husband. He cherishes his downtime; I don’t mean just an hour here or there. He is fully committed to detox Sundays, where he just kicks back and reads the newspaper…the old fashioned thing made from trees. He totally unplugs and sometimes won’t even get in a car.

I Started My Practice Small, Slowly Building Mental Muscle

So I started small. I sat down for 15 minutes to read a magazine. Then I got up to plan my work for the week. Then I sat down for 20 minutes to close my eyes on the couch. Then I jumped up, feeling guilty that I hadn’t wrapped the holiday gifts. Then I allowed myself to watch a TV show, once all the ‘work had been done’. Little by little, week after week, I taught myself to chill. Stare out a window. Pet our cats. Listen to music. Snuggle in bed with our daughter. Sit on a plane without compulsively checking email. It was torture. I wanted to jump out of my skin. I wanted to do something, anything, please give me a task! Yet, I knew that I was slowly building a muscle, just like going to the gym.

I Taught Myself to Chill

And the impact was clear, both at home and work. At home, I was more patient and easier to be around. I stopped grinding my teeth and actually slept through the whole night. At work, I started enjoying writing again. It was no longer a chore. The ideas flowed out of me and actually became my most popular leadership posts, such as this one on surfing and this one on EQ. And my best product ideas and client ideas came from daydreaming out the window.

The best part? I no longer feel like a hypocrite. I’m a leader who inspires other leaders to manage their energy, all of it, for peak performance.

Do you think you need more practice managing your physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual energy? I’d love to hear what challenges you have and how you face those challenges.

Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

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

Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

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.

Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

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.

 

Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Longevity’s Impact on Workforce Education

 

Is an organization responsible for educating its workforce? CHCI recently conducted a roundtable conversation to answer this question, discussing the “Three Stages of Work” model and current job requirements. 

First, let’s review the “Three Stages of Work” model: 

1. 
   

• Education 
• Work 
• Retirement 

3. 
   

This model states that in general, humans get an education until their 20’s, work for approximately 40 years, and then retire at age 65. This made sense when Bismarck introduced the concept of the old age pension, because half of the European population died by the age of 45. Yet, due to advances in healthcare, our lifespan is much longer than 45 years now; if you want to extrapolate numbers, state pension ages in high-income countries should now be 103. 

With increasing costs and pensions becoming unsustainable, many people need to continue working to support their lifestyle. A third of seniors will work well past the retirement age of 65 or won’t retire at all. Therefore, people will likely work into their 70’s. If that’s the case, then will an education received at 20 years old serve for 50 years? Likely not, especially with the rapid pace of technology advances. 

“If we are going to work until later in our lives, there’s a very real need for employers and employees to urgently discover new ways of distributing time that breaks away from the linear. What’s to stop us from dipping into retirement time earlier and repurpose that time for, say, education and training? Because living to 100 and working to 75 in the era of digital disruption and technological innovation, will mean prioritizing learning. There is no doubt that as the impact of machines on work gathers pace, there will be a constant need to reskill, upskill and acquire new knowledge.” 

- Lynda Gratton, Author, The 100 Year Life 

Therefore, we will move from the three-stage model to a five-stage model of work: 

• Education 
• Work
• Education 
• Work 
• Retire 

To support this five-stage model of life, federal and state governments are incentivizing education for seniors. States such as Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, South Caroline, and Wyoming are offering free college tuition for those over 60 years old. If US states are preparing for this shift in workforce education, what is the responsibility of organizations? 

In addition to the five-stage work model, there is another issue that organizations have to consider. Less than two-thirds of U.S. college students graduate within six years. Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, job postings for entry-level positions that require a bachelor’s degree have fallen by 45% — pointing to employers who want candidates with more skills and experience. So current job descriptions need to be reconsidered. Does every job candidate need a two or four year college degree? Or is it time to redesign job descriptions in a way that reflects the five-stage work model? 

How organizations are changing the mold 

 

Many technical roles required by organizations demand specialized technical and soft skills, not four-year degrees. They fall into the category of “new collar” jobs. 

To keep up with these changes, organizations are looking at new ways to attract top talent by offering technology apprenticeships as a way for entry level talent to jumpstart their careers post high school. For example, HCL Technologies is offering a unique program that mirrors best practices in technology apprenticeships, including the benefit of debt-free education. It provides full pay and benefits, with careers in software development and testing, digital and cloud services, infrastructure delivery, and engineering. 

An increasing number of young people simply don’t have the financial means to go to college, with the divide growing even more during COVID. If they do have a college degree, they often don’t have the means to re-educate themselves in the middle of their career. An apprenticeship program offers equitable access and deepens corporate relationships within a community. Apprenticeships are opening doors to people who have been previously underrepresented in hiring; they represent an area of untapped growth for businesses that bring them onboard. 

What role is your organization playing to support the five-stage model of work? What apprenticeship challenges and opportunities exist in your organization? 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter. 

Subscribe To Our Newsletter