Today’s topic

Key practices to help us speak our truth, powerfully and assertively, when it matters most.

Based on Resilience in the Moment of Choice: Speaking our Truth, the session I conducted at George Mason University’s conference Living and Leading with Resilience.

Speak powerfully—the challenges of our times require it

Recently, George Mason University held an intriguing conference on the intersection of positive psychology and leadership. And as many of you know, I presented at a breakout session: Resilience in the Moment of Choice: Speaking our Truth.

These uncertain times call for our best thinking and our best game, from each of us. We all face those moments in which we can choose to speak up, to share our insight or point of view. Sometimes it’s at work in a project review meeting. Sometimes it’s with a neighbor who is spreading a rumor we know isn’t true. Sometimes it’s with a boss who does not have all the facts, but has the power to make a decision—and something in your gut says his way might go south.

And in those crucial moments, do we speak skillfully so we are heard? Stay silent? Become a bull in the china shop?

It’s not all on our shoulders, but…some of it is

There are more than a few limits on our power as individuals. We can speak very powerfully and skillfully, and not influence or change the situation we face. The people and teams we are speaking to need to listen with a willingness to be influenced—and we need to return the favor. Organizations need to foster people’s ability to speak up, rather than ignore or even punish dissenters.  Those are important concerns, but are topics for future blogs.

In the meantime, though, despite all that’s outside of our control, we need to realize that we do ‘own’ a piece: the responsibility to raise our concerns and offer our insight. If individuals do not speak up, nothing changes. Unless we speak up, no one has the option to listen and benefit. And we increase our shot to influence others when we speak up powerfully and skillfully.

Speaking powerfully: practices to prepare your body and mindset, not just content

Even if your words communicate your message precisely, people listen more to the non-verbal cues. Next week I will be blogging more about the research behind this, but for now, consider the possibility that how we speak—our tone, our presence—can communicate even more than what—our words, our argument—we say.

We do not have to leave those non-verbal cues to chance if we do three things:

1. Prepare your body: Practice centering

How we hold our bodies—literally, our stance—actually affects our tone, our ability to take risks, and our ability to speak up. In turn, this impacts those listening or talking with us. So, feeling tight and constricted (the fight reaction) shows up and can derail your conversation. Feeling disconnected and numb, like you just don’t want to be in the room (flight reaction) can also derail your conversation.

So what can you do? Center your body. Relax the physical contractions and let your skeleton do the work. Centering lowers the cortisol (stress hormone) in your system and gets more oxygen to your brain. You can think more clearly and communicate more effectively as your ‘best self’ rather than be run by your flight/fight/freeze reaction.  (A great resource about this is Richard Strozzi Heckler’s The Leadership Dojo: Build Your Foundation as an Exemplary Leader; fantastic book I review in Resources under Leadership).

There are many ways to center, from martial arts traditions, yoga, religions, etc. This is one way I’ve found useful.

1. Breathe deeply. Fill your lungs. As you let it out, envision tension leaving your body.
2. Balance yourself—left right, front back. Again, deep breath, release.
3. Align yourself—let your skeleton do the work. Head above shoulders, shoulders above hips, hips above knees, knees over ankles. Drop your breath down lower in your body. Release.
4. Relax—scan your body from head to toe, one region at a time, noticing contraction and releasing as best you can. Let your shoulders drop. Relax your eyes and jaw, neck and shoulders, stomach, etc. Soften your knees. Again, deep breath, release.
5. Root yourself—imagine your feet have roots streaming down into the ground, as far as you can go. Take a deep breathe again.

2. Prepare your mindset: Reframe your assumptions

A common pitfall is to hear questions, counter-arguments, or any pushback as a sign that person is not listening, is an obstacle or worse yet, an enemy attacking. These assumptions set up a fight/flight/freeze response. Instead, reframe the situation. This is an opportunity for alliance; they are practice partners who can bring out your best thinking. They are there to do their job and test your thinking too, for the greater good. Preventing groupthink does not mean everyone listens to/follows you, but that everyone’s voices are in the room, constructively.

3. Practice, Practice, Practice re-centering

 “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle

So, practice centering when you are not in the midst of taking a stand. Practice re-centering when you hear something you really do not want to hear. (This is useful at home and at work). If you have the option to, prepare for the time you will take a stand—and practice centering while you do. If you can, practice with a trusted friend or colleague. Tell them what you most fear hearing when you take a stand; have them say it, and practice re-centering.

Speaking with power is, in fact, a habit we can develop with practice and attention. And doing so builds our resilience and capacity to speak our truth, when it matters most.

Stay tuned for more—and let me know if you have a topic to explore

I plan on blogging on a series of related topics, including:

• “This mind-body stuff sounds interesting, but what’s the proof?”
  The scientific research findings that support these practices
• “Nurturing the canaries in the coal mines”
  How organizations can encourage people to speak up, so they can hear the early warning signals before the crisis hits
• “What the *&@(*&#??  Re-centering when you hear what you really don’t want to hear.”
• “Where can I train in this powerful stuff?”
  How do I get more training in somatics? In working with groups and organizations?

There is a great conference at George Mason on April 13^th that may interest you:

2012 Living and Leading with Resilience Conference

…a conference on the intersection of resilience, well-being, leadership, and character strengths

What does it mean to live a good life – a life full of meaning and purpose? How do we prosper in times of great uncertainty? What role does resilience have in human flourishing, leadership, and organizational prosperity? As whole nations and individuals strive to achieve greater levels of well-being, living and leading with resilience allows us to embrace all that makes life worth living, even in the face of adverse times. The Living and Leading with Resilience Conference, co-sponsored by the Center for Consciousness and Transformation and MasonLeads at George Mason University, includes notable scholars, industry leaders, and practitioners addressing innovations in practices and research on resilience, leadership, and well-being. Living and leading with resilience starts with the individual and then engages others in the exploration of meaning, purpose, positive relationships, strengths-building practices, and increasing the capacity to thrive during challenging times.

I am excited to be presenting at this conference! My topic is Resilience in the moment of choice—Speaking our truth. We all face those moments when we can choose to speak up, to say what our gut is telling us, to speak truth to power. In that crucial moment of choice, do we speak skillfully so we are heard? Stay silent? Become the bull in the china shop? In this session, we will focus on building the resilience to speak our truth skillfully in those moments, despite the consequences, real or imagined.

If you’re interested, the early bird registration has been extended through March 19^th.  Warning: I think that last year’s conference sold out before early registration ended! http://resilience.onmason.com/

Hope to see you there!

Hello all! I wanted to let you know of a free workshop that is one of those few examples of getting far more than what you paid for.

On November 1^st from 7-9 PM, the Strozzi Institute of CA is offering a free workshop here in DC metro area (Arlington, to be specific). The workshop is called “Navigating Change – A Somatic Approach.”

For those of you I have worked over the last few years, Strozzi Institute is where I have learned the practices we’ve used to develop leadership presence/effectiveness, to be more grounded and centered in chaos, and to better manage ourselves/our emotions to achieve our goals.  Whether you are a sole practitioner, managing a large team/business, or in transition—these are crucial skills.

Strozzi Institute, based in Petaluma CA, is probably the best leadership training I have taken. I have taken many of their courses, I am certified in their techniques, and continue to study with them. These are not stereotypical anemic touchy-feely courses. They place a lot of emphasis on integrity—and on listening to what our body is telling us—as the most effective guides for making choices. Grounded in martial arts and meditation traditions, SI focuses on how to develop true leadership presence “from the inside out,” and emphasizes the whole self, not just cognitive abilities.

Mark Mooney will be leading this free workshop; he excels at introducing new people to this work! Mark consults across industries and teaches the entry level public courses, including at least one in DC annually. (He led the first two classes I attended at SI, starting me on this path.) And attending the ‘freebie’ is a great way to learn and get exposure to Strozzi without flying to CA or signing up for a 4-5 day course.

Registration is required, to manage the room size etc. I fully expect this to be a full course, so if you’re interested, register now at: http://www.strozziinstitute.com/workshops.

Insightful, pointed, funny quotes from Steve Jobs are flying over the web (many through Apple inventions). The ones I keep coming back to: Do what you love. Do what’s truly interesting to you.

I can only imagine what some said when he quit college and took a calligraphy class. Ten years later, he has Apple create fonts.

But even if he didn’t, would it matter? Does everything we do have to have something to show for it, a concrete result, a high return on our investment? What’s so bad about “wasting time?” I doubt, had he never sparked fonts, that Steve Jobs regretted taking that class. I doubt that every interest he followed led to a spectacular innovation. And the world is better for his diversions…certainly his life was.

I am far from perfect at this. Hearing him speak was a wake-up call for me. I just came back from a marvelous trip overseas, and promptly put myself to the grindstone to make up the “lost time.” I realized that I was making my own world more…narrow. So this week is about connecting with friends, gardening in our summer-like weather, and yes, getting work done—but with a focus on the work I love, making the best contribution I can make, not the grindstone.

Are you doing what fascinates you? Causes you to smile? Quickens your heart?

What are you waiting for?

Hello all! Just a friendly reminder that if you are in the DC metro area on January 31, there will be a free two hour workshop in Reston offered by the Strozzi Institute. When they offered a similar seminar two years ago, it fully booked with a waiting list. There are still a few spots left, so if you’re interested, register now at: http://www.strozziinstitute.com/workshops

For more information on why I recommend this workshop, see my blog post from December.

Happy New Year! It’s that time again. People are making resolutions with great intentions—and let them go pretty early on. I am not immune but I have gotten better over the years. I thought I’d share my top ten tips for making New Year’s resolutions work:

1. Set goals not resolutions. A great social worker I know, Jeanne Mitchler-Fiks, gave me this advice years ago and it has made a huge difference for me personally and for my clients. Making a goal recognizes the reality that you’re on a path to achieving something but not there yet. Resolutions can connote something more absolute—are you exercising three times a week or not? And when you make it to the gym once, you are not fulfilling your resolution, so why keep going?
2. Set goals that are meaningful to you. Are you saving money because you know you are supposed to? Or because you want to travel to Argentina, give to causes you care about, or save for a child’s education? Rooting your goals in a deeper underlying meaning, something that speaks to your heart, energizes you to stay on track.
3. Aim for 1-2 goals, not 10. Malcolm Gladwell cites in Outliers that it takes 10,000 repetitions to master a skill. Because it takes time to learn something or make a behavior part of your routine, focus on a few things that are most important to you.
4. Start where you are. Remember when you learned to brush your teeth. How long did it take before you automatically did it, wouldn’t think of skipping? That’s where practice comes into play. Those 10,000 repetitions engrain behaviors until they are automatic. So, if you are just starting to go to the gym, set a goal that’s realistic based on where you are today, not as if you have gone five days a week for years!
5. Recognize if you are a beginner. The difference between never exercising or meditating to doing it at all is actually pretty significant. I have clients who beat themselves up because they “only” went once last week, “only” meditated once in a month, when that’s real progress. So, recognize the stretch you’re making.
6. Plan for incremental progress. Set a goal for the year, and then plan for a reasonable step you can achieve short term. I had at one point a daily meditation practice but fell off the wagon in 2010. I am committed to meditating 20 minutes a day, five days a week by December. But to restart, I will commit to 15 minutes twice a week and work my way up.
7. Find a buddy. Another coach and I developed our goals together, and will check in regularly to help each other stay on track throughout 2011.
8. Reflect mid-year. I revisit my goals to reflect on what I have learned, to see if they are still relevant to me, ajdust course as it makes sense, and see the progress I have made.
9. Celebrate progress. Congratulations! You have some repetitions under your belt. How are you going to pat yourself on the back for how far you’ve come?
10. Have fun! How can you have fun as you fulfill your goals? Reward yourself after you meet a milestone? Meet your buddy someplace fun? Making goals less of a chore and more fun helps us fulfill and enjoy life.

I wanted to let you know of a free workshop that is one of those few examples of getting far more than what you paid for.

On January 31st from 7-9 PM, the Strozzi Institute of CA is offering a free two hour workshop here in DC metro area (Reston, to be specific). The workshop is called “Strozzi Somatics in Leadership & Coaching.”

For those of you I have worked with more recently, Strozzi Institute is where I have learned the practices we’ve used to develop leadership presence/effectiveness, to be more grounded and centered in chaos, and to better manage ourselves/our emotions to achieve our goals.  Whether you are a sole practitioner, managing a large team/business, or in transition-these are crucial skills.

Strozzi Institute, based in Petaluma CA, is probably the best leadership training I have ever taken. I have taken many of their courses, got certified in their techniques and continue to study with them. These are not touchy feely BS courses. If we’ve talked about the book The Leadership Dojo, the author Richard Strozzi-Heckler is the founder of the Strozzi Institute. He’s a former marine, a black belt several times over in Aikido, and a PhD in Psychology. Richard has worked with senior military, corporate, non-profit/social justice leaders all over the world-again, no BS here.

Richard will be leading this free workshop-a very rare event, and a great way to learn and get exposure to Strozzi without flying to CA.

Registration is required, to manage the room size etc. I fully expect this to be a full course, so if you’re interested, register now at: http://www.strozziinstitute.com/workshops

Business partnerships can be a source of tremendous strength, strategic advantage, and fun—if attended to and cared for properly. Here are my top ten tips for making business partnerships work:

1. Know the purpose. What is the higher goal that both of you are invested in, that brings you together in the first place? Having a clear purpose strengthens and energizes partnerships, and guides you when times are tough.
2. Know your strengths and weaknesses. What tasks are you each best at? Worst? How do you complement each other? Where might you both need help and how will you get it?
3. Know the market. What is the going rate for the contributions each of you is making? Do you both perceive your arrangement to be fair and equitable?
4. Set clear expectations. What does each of you bring to the table? Who is responsible for what? How will you work together?
5. Establish how you will make decisions. For each type of decision, define who is responsible; who has veto/approval power; who simply needs to be informed and who needs to provide what support.
6. Follow the ‘no festering’ rule. It’s not conflict that kills a partnership. Conflict is inevitable. Letting unresolved disagreements fester can kill your relationship. Agree to bring up issues as soon as you notice them, and to set aside time to talk no matter what.
7. Be honest with yourself and your partner. If you have an issue, raise it. If you see a challenge, name it. See ‘no festering’ rule above.
8. Go for the ‘win-win.’ Keep working the inevitable challenges until you find solutions that both of you feel positive about. To have one party win and another lose in any argument/situation can breed resentment.
9. Check in on the state-of-the-union. Set a schedule, perhaps quarterly, to review how you’re working together, how well you’re meeting the purpose of the partnership, and what’s next for you together.
10. Have fun! Remember why you agreed to work together, and enjoy!

This week’s topic

Intriguing research on what truly motivates people, based on an animated executive summary on YouTube of Dan Pink discussing his book Drive.

Summary:

Pink is debunking the commonly accepted theory that organizations can motivate knowledge workers by carrots and sticks, by incentive compensation. He presents compelling evidence that higher incentives actually led to worse performance for complex, creative tasks.  Purpose, challenge, automony/self-direction, mastery, making a contribution…these are the things that truly motivate people.

The insight for your own career:

I hear a lot from coaching clients who are really unhappy with their pay. They pin their strategies around getting a better salary, benefits, a bonus. I’m the last person who will argue that pay is irrelevant (and Pink doesn’t argue that either). But will a higher salary really make you happier at work? Is that all it will take? Or do you need more autonomy, greater challenges, to feel like you are making a contribution?

More often than not, my coaching clients and I discover they’re motivated by a lot more than money, and that addressing their compensation alone is only a partial solution at best.

The insight for managers:

Money can be a red herring in the workplace. It is easier and more socially acceptable in modern culture to complain, “I’m not paid enough.” It can be harder to talk about wanting to have work with meaning, to seek out challenges, to make contributions. All of that can come across as more ambiguous, touchy-feely, idealistic, and perhaps even selfish.

If you’re managing people who are asking you for raises you cannot give, then perhaps you can look deeper to what motivates each team member—and make it easier for them to describe their motivations beyond compensation.

A warning though: Let’s not kid ourselves here. Compensation is still important. If the pay is too low, then people won’t focus on the work. The point is, think broadly about motivation because increasing compensation alone may not lead to more engaged staff.

The exercise:

Ask yourself/your team:

What do you really enjoy about your work? When do you thrive? Consider both the end product and the process to get there.

Aside from pay, what else do you really dislike about your work? Consider: the degree it’s challenging; the amount of autonomy; how much you learn; how you work (the processes).

To learn more:

• Contact Us at Diamond Insight to set up a free consultation about how to engage yourself and your team
• View an animated summary on YouTube of Dan Pink discussing his book Drive
• Read Dan Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us