Revive Your Flagging Resolution
Overheard conversation between two regulars in the elevator of 24 hour Fitness gym on January 3:
“Crowded today.”
“Yup. It’s all those New Year’s resolutions.”
“Uh-huh, but don’t worry, it won’t last long.”
It seems that built into the whole idea of New Years resolutions is that they are short-lived. Resolvers start out full of energy and hope – they go on a diet or join a gym. But at some point, say late January or mid-February, most people taper off and find themselves no better off than they started. You can almost hear it in the often sheepish tone in people’s voices when they admit to having made a resolution – as if they are predicting their own failure. What gives?
Change theorists Chip and Dan Heath tell us that making a change is like trying to get an elephant to change course: to be successful, we need to have both the rider (our rational self) and the elephant (our emotional self) on board. The rider provides the reason, plan, and direction, but if the powerful elephant is fearful or resistant, they will go nowhere. (more…)
Making the Most of Your Offsite
Three days of togetherness doesn’t make up of 362 days of overwork. And all the rah-rah “team building” in the world is no substitute for listening to and acknowledging your employees. To be effective, an off-site employee retreat must address the needs of the attendees, as well as the aspirations of management. (more…)
What’s the Use of Myers-Briggs™ (MBTI)?
The Myers Briggs Type Indicator is one of the most widely used assessment tools in business and management settings, as well as in personal and career development. Its long history and use, including ongoing research and development, make it a remarkably reliable and valid instrument. But what good is it? Why should you care if you are an ENFP or an ISTJ? Why would you want this four-letter label?
Learning your type is not just self-knowledge for its own sake; it has a real practical application (that’s why so many Fortune 500 companies use it). Knowing type will likely provide you with insight into your preferred ways of learning, communicating, thinking and interacting with the world. It will also alert you to potential blind spots you may have, and it can help you better understand and communicate with others whose type differs from yours. This in itself is interesting and useful, but when it gets really powerful is when you begin to put this insight to work. (more…)
Mindfulness Lesson on Ice
Today at the ice rink, the present moment collided with the past and the future. And I’m not talking about science fiction here. I received a lesson in mindfulness.
For the first half hour of our family outing I skated slowly, holding hands and guiding each of my children as they found their balance and gained confidence. Then I handed my youngest off to my husband and did a few circuits solo. It was bliss to whizz around the ice, weaving in and out of teens, couples, and families in an arena echoing with laughter and barely recognizable classic rock. And that’s when it happened: I slowed down and tuned into the present moment. I saw the colors and lights, heard the scraping of blades on ice, felt and smelled the cool air. My eyes sought and found my two daughters arm-in-arm with their friend and my husband helping my son get up smiling from a fall. At this moment, I was filled with gratitude and felt poignantly aware and utterly alive. (more…)
Conflict Avoidance is a Warning Signal
The absence of conflict may be a sign that something is wrong with your team. This may sound counter-intuitive at first, but it’s true. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, author Patrick Lencioni sets up a pyramid of indicators of team dysfunction, the second tier of which is lack of conflict (we’ll get to the first in a moment).
While at first it might sound nice to be in a conflict-free environment, it is actually uncomfortable, because what it means is that people are stifling themselves. (more…)
Networking is Not a Dirty Word
Many of my career coaching clients cringe at the word “networking.” But I think networking gets a bad rap. When undertaken in the right spirit, building relationships can be fun as well as helpful. And you don’t have to be Keith Ferrazi to do it. (more…)
Thinking Like an Owner
My husband and I recently hosted a company party for the biotech startup where he works. When the CEO, who was picking up the tab for the event, offered to pay for carpet cleaning, I joked, “Thanks, but I don’t want to increase your burn rate.” He chuckled, “That’s good – you’re thinking like an owner.”
Much has been written about the value of thinking like an owner, but how can leadership create an environment that encourages employees to think like owners? (more…)
No More Mister Nice Guy?
Nice guys earn significantly lower salaries than less agreeable men (though still more than women, regardless of their agreeableness) reports a new study by Timothy A. Judge, Beth A. Livingston, and Charlice Hurst in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Whether you are surprised or unsurprised, dismayed or vindicated, you may be wondering whether this information should lead you to try to change your workplace behavior or persona. Bottom line: if you want to get a raise, should you act like a jerk?
No. Instead, the authors of the study recommend that we adopt a “flexible repertoire of behaviors appropriate to context.” You need not abandon the pro-social behaviors that strengthen relationships and improve job satisfaction. But if you suspect that you may be too “nice” for your own good, you should probably learn to selectively assert yourself, particularly in the areas of salary negotiations, constructive challenge to the status quo, and advocating for yourself. This almost certainly means being less “agreeable” but it does not make you a “meanie.” (more…)
Launched!
This morning, I launched my son — my baby — into the world. Today he begins an academic career that I hope will foster and channel his natural curiosity, helping him chart a path of discovery that takes him ….. where? The possibilities are endless. He also will encounter a new social milieu and an expanding circle of influences — both positive and negative. My heart was full of hope and nervous excitement as I gave him over into his teacher’s capable hands. And at the same time, I was aware that entering kindergarten also signifies a curtailing of his freedom. Today he set foot on what can become a treadmill of rules and conformity. This is big, exciting, and scary. (more…)
Learn from Success
“Learn from your mistakes.” How many times have you heard this? It’s good advice, as far as it goes. The lessons of our failures are valuable — burn your finger once and you learn to steer clear of the hot stove. But how often have you conducted an autopsy of a success? What might you learn if you did?
Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s reader-friendly book “Switch — How to Change Things When Change is Hard” invites us to devote more attention to our successes — both for what we can learn about how to solve a problem and to help avoid overwhelm and motivate change. Unfortunately, we often ignore success in favor of dwelling on failures. We seem to be wired for it. In study after study, psychologists have found that there is a “positive-negative asymmetry” whereby “bad is stronger than good.” We pay more attention to bad news; people’s negative characteristics make a stronger impression on us than their positive qualities. It turns out that we even have nearly twice as many words for negative emotions as for positive emotions. This emphasis on negativity can lead to feeling overwhelmed and make it hard to believe that change is possible. And our tendency to focus on big problems (and look for correspondingly big solutions) may blind us to the small solutions that can bring about major change. (more…)
