I am excited to announce the launch of “The Lunch and Learn Show,” a new internet TV show about being a better leader and creating business relationships that enrich our lives.  We’ll  be on Thursdays at noon central time, and of course you can always download the replay.  Here’s where we will be:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lunch-learn-with-carolann-jacobs-and-jennifer-luney

Jennifer and I want you to be a part of our community.  Please listen in, chat with us, let us know what’s on your mind and how we can help you see more success!

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

I attended a workshop last weekend with Human Change Technology Expert, S. Lane Pierce, and he cited Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi the author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience who theorizes that we are bombarded with two million bits of input each second, and we process about 126 of them.  We do that through a process of deleting, distorting and generalizing.

As an excellent communicator, I accept that I am 100% responsible for the communication, and therefore, I  understand that the value of any communication is in the response it generates.   So, if I am not getting the response I want, it’s up to me to be flexible.

One of the challenges we have as leaders is managing the story that our staffs create for themselves.  The secret to doing that is managing the 126 bits.

Take my former client, John*.  When John came to me, he had just been released from a performance plan at work – not the good kind.  He was never sure why he was rated a “Needs Improvement” to begin with, and the reason why he was no longer on the plan was because after his direct supervisor left, no one else could figure out why he was on it, either.

So, John says to me that everyone thinks he’s incompetent, especially his new manager.  Now, this is quite a story, isn’t it?  First of all… everyone?  Really?  Everyone?  How do you know?

What about the new manager?  I asked John what gave him that idea.  Here was his response:

Amanda* used to spend a lot of time with me, mainly talking about my projects and what good performance looked like to her.  I felt very supported.  One of the things she said about her management style was that she believed in the philosophy of spending more time with the talented staff, because that’s how she could best develop them for success.   I think she may have even said that she doesn’t waste her time trying to develop people who won’t or don’t want to be successful in their roles.

These days, Amanda hardly has time of day for me.  Last week, I wanted her input on a big decision on my project, and she gave me the “bum rush”!  She said that she didn’t have time right then to discuss it and told me to make whatever decision I thought was best.  I know she thinks I’m a waste of time.

That’s quite the mind read, isn’t it?

John’s fieldwork assignment from me that week was to talk this out with Amanda.  Turns out, Amanda was positively stunned at the way John had interpreted that exchange.   She thought John was doing a great job and wanted him to be more independent at making decisions.  She thought she was giving him the space to regain his confidence and to shine.  And, regarding the “bum rush” – Amanda was annoyed about an email she’d just read as John came into her office and needed to respond right away.  Her demeanor had nothing to do with him at all.

How might Amanda have used those 126 bits differently so that John interpreted her communication the same way Amanda intended to give it?

We know from Ray Birdwhitsell’s 1970 study that we interpret communication first by body language (55%), tone (38%) and words (7%).   The answer lies there.

By the way, John was promoted that year, less than 10 months after he’d been released from his performance plan.   His vivid epiphany was that he wasn’t a very good mind reader

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

* This story was used with the client’s permission and the names were changed to protect client confidentiality.

One day, Knight drank out of the communal water bowl, and Ponca beat the living hoo-ha out of him.  Alpha Dog disciplined her so forcefully that all of Team Dog scattered.  What Ponca learned from this emotional trauma was to never drink out of the dog bowl again.  Toilet, yes. Bowl, no.

The reason I tell you this story is that it illustrates human behavior perfectly.  When someone has a significant emotional event (hereafter, I will call it a SEE), they will often create something we coaches call a Limiting Decision.  This decision is usually along the lines of, “I will never do that again,” and it parks itself in the unconscious.  That means, when that person runs into a similar situation or context, the “I’m not going to to that,” behavior triggers automatically.

The reason why this happens is that a SEE gets processed just like pain.   The brain sees emotions like humiliation as social threats, and this triggers the fight or flight.  The unconscious’  job is to avoid pain.

You see from this example why helping your employees to create Limiting Decisions can backfire.  Clearly, Alpha Dog’s intent was for Ponca to quit beating up the other team member, not to stop using the water bowl.

Is Humiliation a Leadership Tool?

In 99% of situations, no.  There may be an exception for the military… maybe… but it Corporate America and your Small Business, as a leader it makes you look like a bully who doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to lead the situation differently.  And you risk earning the contempt of your staff.

What do you think?

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

I was watching a news story the other night about Texas DPS.  Seems that 21% of their trainees are leaving DPS, and one of the reasons cited was that the pay isn’t competitive.

I’m not buying it.

First, I don’t know about your local municipality or county, but mine’s in a deficit.  Every one within 200 miles is in a deficit, I think, and under a hiring freeze.   It defies credibility that they are leaving Texas DPS to work for other, better paying police departments.

Second, people don’t become peace officers for the money.   They like the power or want to be of service.  That 21% knew what the pay was going in.  Our state troopers are well-respected, and I’d bet that most of their new hires joined because they wanted to be a member of that well-respected department.  Police departments tend to be one of those organizations that foster loyalty.   When 1/5 of the new hires leave in the first year, that’s an indicator that something’s missing.  I doubt that it’s money, don’t you?

I bet if I asked my standard secret question, “Do you think you’re being paid what you’re worth?” the answer I’d get most often would be some form of H-double-hockey-sticks no.  Guys, when the vast majority of people are disgruntled about pay, it’s rarely about the money.  It’s about job satisfaction.

So, for you executives and managewhich’s out there who have unhappy people complaining about money,  don’t be fooled.  Chances are, you can’t pay them enough to put up with what they are putting up with.  And, what they are putting up with is what you have to find out.

According to the Society of Resource Management, it costs $80K to replace the average IT worker and $3250 to replace the average $8/hr employee.   Hiring someone like me to help you retain your employees not only saves you time, it saves you money.

I sent an email to Col Steve McCraw, the Director of Texas DPS, because this is something that I can assess and fix.   If you have any connections with the Texas Department of Public Safety, I’d appreciate your putting in the good word for me.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

Here’s why – it provides the means and mechanism for dumping (some might call it vomiting) lists of facts (bullet points) all over the audience.  This is not an effective way of disseminating information or learning.   First and foremost, it’s boring.  Boredom shuts down the brain.   And, real learning requires involvement in the experience.  Which means that it requires an experience.

I’ve also noted the Powerpoint culture, in which the information and content is key.  ”We have to make sure we cover all the points” as opposed to “We need to make sure we’re all fully engaged, committed and understand the message.”   In some organizations, if you don’t have a Powerpoint, the unconscious belief is that it isn’t a “real” meeting.  These are usually the same organizations who complain having too many meetings and ineffective meeting, and will, in the same breath, defend their beloved Powerpoint slides to the bitter end.

There are some brain studies that many corporate-types are so habituated to Powerpoint that their brains automatically shut off as soon as it is turned on.  If you want to read a great article on this, check out Edward Tufte’s “Powerpoint is Evil.”

We know that interactive engagement, whether it’s games, Q&A, or the act of conversation improves cognitive abilities.  Unless your bullet pointed list promotes that, you’re wasting valuable brain cycles.

How would you use Powerpoint to make your Organization Smart?  Here are some tips:

1. People who are relaxed learn and participate better.  Start with a breathing moment.
2. People who have some happy hormones circulating about learn better.  Start with a laugh.
3. Change your data-driven presentations in to interactive presentations.  Add mind maps, quizzes, and games.   Perhaps you turn the tables and have your participants, in effect, complete the presentation for you.  (If you need help doing that, email me.
4. If you MUST have a data-driven presentation, keep it snappy.  Most people can force themselves to pay attention for 10-20 minutes.  After that, their attention ebbs and flows.  And, presenters, that’s on you.
5. Accept the accountability for the outcome.  Allowing either of these two phrases into a conversation, “But, we covered all the points…”  and “But we went to the training,” must be punishable by a 92 slide presentation on the finer merits of a centralized banking system.

And, bonus tip #6.  Get people up and moving.  The brain requires oxygen, glucose and adrenaline among other things to perform well.   The seated position works counter to that.

Or, you could just get rid of the Powerpoint and rely on an agenda and interactive conversation to save the day!

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

• Ignore it, and hope it goes away.
• Do their best to separate them, so that there is minimal disruption to the team and the work product, and then we have to all ignore the hostility elephant in the room.
• Tell them both to work it out amongst themselves and then leave them to duke it out (I think that was some misguided empowerment thing that showed up in the 90′s).

Managewhich, ignoring it never works, because at best what you end up with is a dysfunctional team in which people tiptoe around, act as go betweens, and expend energy (perhaps unconscious energy) trying to deal with the personalities in the room.   The more likely scenario is that the relationship becomes unsalvageable, and you run the risk of a valuable asset leaving the group or company or even sabotage to the project.   Nothing like watching one’s despised colleague fall on their face, right?

Separating them creates islands.  Us against them.  Us against Jack Burro.  And, it makes work for you and your team.  You, in the keeping the fighters in their opposite corner, and your team, in that now they have to navigate between the two.

Managewhich, do not make the mistake of letting them sort it out themselves once they’ve given it a try, because if they had the behavioral skills and emotional intelligence to do it themselves, they already would have.  No one, except a real Jack Burro, wants to continually work in this kind of environment, and if you have a Jack Burro on your staff, you’ve violated the no Jack Burro rule which is a topic for a different day.

So, make the request once for them to discuss their working relationship.  Then, debrief with each of them individually to find out whether they did what you asked and whether it worked, from their points of view.  And observe, because people will lie to you if they don’t want to deal with this.

After that, if the climate doesn’t get warmer, it’s time to put on your coaching hat and facilitate them through this.

And, this is where many a managewhich says, “Uh-oh,” because if they had the tools to do this, they too would have already done it.  And so, they go back into ignore with the rationalization that “It won’t work anyway.”  If this sounds like you, maybe it’s time to call in a professional.  What I find is that when addressed correctly and in time most of these relationships are not only salvageable, they can become whole.   Trust me, fixing this will lift a burden from your shoulders.  The dividend is worth the investment.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

What tends to happen in frightening circumstances is that we pull in, physically and mentally.  We play not to lose.

Making decisions out of fear is the hallmark.   Many times, we know these decisions aren’t good ones, but we make and commit to them anyway, because we’re afraid of losing.

What this looked like for me personally was staying in a job that I despised, that was ruining my health, that clinically depressed me, because I was afraid that I couldn’t earn what I needed to earn by leaving.

For small business owners, what fear-based decision-making may look like is not investing in things that will grow the business, such as advertising, marketing, or training.  What if it doesn’t work?

For larger organizations, fear-based decision-making manifests in large groups of employees hunkering down, laying low, hoping that they won’t get laid off.   There’s a pervasive belief that sounds like, “If they don’t remember that I’m here, they won’t lay me off.”   That leads to mediocre work in a climate when people need to be at their most effective.  It also leads to people withholding their good ideas, because speaking up looks like standing up.  That might get noticed.   There’s little improvement at the level of leadership where resources are invested.   Playing not to lose means not investing, even with proven return… because that requires investment which denotes risk.

Another hallmark of playing-not-to-lose is focusing on what we don’t want instead of what we do want.

Here’s what’s dangerous about that.  We get more of what we focus on.  That’s because our unconscious strives to create that on which we focus.

Imagine that power in the collective mind.  Do you really think this recession would continue if all of us collectively believed that we could sustain hires, that the market would be better?  How would you spend your money differently if you were reasonably assured that more money would be coming in?

The other issue with playing-not-to-lose is that once we get far enough away from losing, the sense of urgency goes away.  I know this just from my relationship with diet and exercise over the years.  I don’t want to be fat, ugly and decrepit.  So, I do what needs to be done.  Two years ago, I lost 40 pounds.  I wanted to lose 50, and somewhere around the 40 pound mark, there was much less danger of being fat and decrepit, so it was OK to have some wine and chocolate.  And when 5 pounds came back on, I could lose it next week.  Well, here we are again, and the sense of urgency didn’t come back until that last pound came back on.  Folks, this is what happens in our businesses.

And, as you know, as we practice behavior, the neural pathways get created in the brain and it becomes habit!  Imagine that in the collective conscious of your organization.

This is not the time to hunker down and hide.  This is the time to play like you mean it and play to win.  You can’t afford not to because those who are playing full on, playing to win, they are going to win big.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

Principle #3 in Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles is “Decide What You Want.”  This, folks, is your vision.  What do you want to be, do and have?  My corollary on that is “Who do you want to be?” or maybe it’s “Who do you have to be to do and have what you want?”

We live our lives with a lot of can’ts and don’ts.  I have made a point to take the word “can’t” out of my vocabulary and replace it with “won’t.”  So, if you see me use the word “can’t,”  I invite you to call me on it, because there’s a good chance it was unconscious.

Can’ts and don’ts limit us, usually unnecessarily.  Most of us were conditioned as children to deny ourselves in a well-intentioned effort to keep us from becoming self-centered, self-absorbed, egotistical narcissists, to protect us from the pain of failure, and because parenting is a tiring business.  Sometimes, it’s just easier to say no.  For most of us, though, something went too far, and we find that our own little voices tell us no.

We’ve learned to ignore our wants, our desires.  We’ve been told that we should be satisfied with our lives.  Don’t get me wrong… I love my life.  And, it isn’t wrong, selfish, immoral, etc etc to want to be more.  I want to help more people.  I want to live larger.  No shame.  No apology.

The first step in this process is to figure our what we really want without shame or apology.  I think I’m there.

The next step is have a preference and act on it.  I am getting better at that.  The other night, Russ and I went out for Tex-Mex.  I really wanted the queso.  Normally, we’d do this routine about, “Do you want queso… no… what do you want…”  Folks, I’d had some sort of virus for days and had been eating toast.  I wanted queso, would have queso, and it didn’t matter whether Russ wanted to share the queso or not.  He seemed a little surprised when I ordered it without prior discussion.  Some would call that selfish.  I say not.  He was welcome to share or order something else.

I am still working on settling for less than I want.  Turns out, it’s a habit like any other.

Next steps are creating a wants list and vision.  Have those.

Will let you know how the settling thing goes, because I’m not moving on the Principle 4 until we have replaced that habit with stating my preference.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

One of the books on my shelf is The Power of TED (again, thank you Ken Abrams for turning me onto that), which is where I first learned of “The Dreaded Drama Triangle.”  As a human effectiveness expert, the description of the drama triangle quoted from their book’s website made perfect sense to me:

“Victim (the primary reactive role that is at the heart of the triangle); Persecutor (who or what the Victim blames for their suffering); and Rescuer (who or what intervenes to try and take away the Victim’s suffering).”

Do we not hear these stories all the time?  Listen for it.

Here’s what tends to bite in the butt.  We tell ourselves these DDT stories.  Recall that our memories are our perceptions, the stories we create for ourselves as we are distilling, distorting and generalizing incoming data.

Most people understand what doesn’t work about being in the victim role.  Victim = powerless to take positive action.

I get more questions about the persecutor, because after all, there are have and have nots.  The animal kingdom is set up on the basis of hierarchy.  There is a distinction between hierarchy and persecution.  One contruct describes a balance of power or authority.  The other requires subjugation and necessitates a powerless party.  Seems un-ecological to me.  It also implies that power comes from an external source.  Where is the persecutor without his victim?

So, what’s wrong with being a rescuer?  Again, it requires a victim.  It also requires resources.  What happens to the rescuer when there aren’t enough resources to rescue?  Being the rescuer seems romantic, but it requires a destructive, reactive cycle, especially for the victim who never learns the resources to manage their life.

TED, then, is a different triangle.  It stands for “The Empowerment Dynamic.”  The roles in that dynamic are:

“Creator (the central role in The Empowerment Dyanmic that is the antidote to “Victim”); Challenger (who or what provides the necessary impetus for the Creator take action and make positive changes);  and Coach (who supports the Creator as they define their current reality and take Baby Steps toward the achievement of goals)”

This is a great description of the model I’ve used with my clients for years.  Creators are focused on outcomes and results…. what they want.  Remember how the thinking that got you problem gets your more problem?  Remember how we get more of what we focus on?  I want you to be a creator!

Challengers are creators in their own right, and they also see out other Creators to provoke and evoke growth and development.  The intent of the Challenger is to spark learning, growth and change. (That’s who I want to be in the world, in case you haven’t yet noticed!)

Coaches see others as capable and resourceful (we learn that very early at CoachU) and to support them in the creating process by asking questions and facilitating their own clarification of envisioned outcomes, the current realities they face, and possible Baby Steps (small sequential actions that bring you ever closer to your goal) for moving forward.  The Coach sees the other as able to find their own solutions and act on them.  (That’s what I do, for all of you who still had questions!)

Come join me in this model.  Create this model in your own organizations.  Dump the drama triangle!  Contact me to set up your complimentary consultation, so that we can discuss how you create a TED in your life.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs

p.s. – I used a lot of the same verbiage from www.powerofted.com.  It’s well-written and worth a visit.

I haven’t written about my journey on the success principles in three months (oh my goodness!!!), and this is a good illustration about how time passes without forward movement.  In other words, a vision without any action is a dream.   To be fair and honest, I am doing between one and five things every day towards my big hairy goal, and my goal is aligned with my vision.   In other words, I’m not just chasing the shiny thing.

Principle #2 is “Be clear why you’re here.”    The most important statement in the chapter is “Without a purpose in life, it’s easy to get sidetracked on your life’s journey.”   Life happens.

Where I got hung up is that I did all of the exercised about personal life purpose statements.  I did the life purpose exercise.  Here’s what came out at the bottom:

“My purpose is to use my logic and creativity to lead by example and to inspire others to create successful lives with prosperity and abundance.”

That’s just a total #FAIL.

Folks, I’ve been working on this statement off and on now, through multiple coaches, for four years.  Really, it’s more like five years if you count the times I tried to do it pre-coaching.  I think I’ve decided that i just can’t get hung up on the verbiage.  It’s quite possibly an excuse not to move forward.  A self-created road block.

So, here’s what I am going with today:

“My purpose is to use my leadership skills, my strengths, my energy to provide environments and opportunities for others to be their best selves every day and to bring prosperity and abundance into my life and all the lives I touch.”

That at least lands a little better.  Sounds less like a corporate mission statement.  And, I reserve the right to revisit it

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann Jacobs