Hijacking the Hijackers

In preparation for our soon to be released eBook presenting our Energy Management Modelfor leadership, I’ve been working on a piece about how changing something to surface reactivity and then staying non-reactive to the reactivity is a form of leadership self-definition.  Read on.

I love it when clients amaze me.  Sometimes they just get it.  They enlighten themselves while implementing characteristics of non-anxious leadership.  They preempt the anxiety-hijackers during crises, using calm and rational approaches to mitigate paralyzing fear and brain lock.  In the process they literally change their business.

Jacki was about to talk to her employees at an important company meeting.  She had just finished taking her leadership team through a strategic planning process.  The exercise clarified the severe financial challenges which lay ahead for the company.  Critical and uncomfortable decisions would have to be made to keep the company going.  Jacki planned to lay it all out in a company meeting the next day.  She would give employees a complete view of the company’s financial situation.  She would answer questions. Then she would ask employees to work smarter, sacrifice more, forego raises and endure budget cuts.  Implied, as well, would be the prospect of reducing headcount.   As I helped her think about preparing her message, I encouraged her to become calm and non-anxious, and then let the message develop in her mind. We role played. 

The next day, she began her talk to the company by saying, “What I’m about to share with you will create three reactions in this room”.  She described those reactions.  One group would feel fear, anxiety, uncertainty and doubt.  Another group would react with disinterest and indifference. A third group would feel energized, engaged and inspired.  Members of the third group were mostly likely to join forces to find creative and successful solutions for the challenges ahead.  Then she delivered her most important point, saying, “To the first group, I suggest you find ways to manage your fears so you might become productive participants in the solutions required for the times ahead.  To the second group, I suggest you consider opportunities to leave the company.  To the third group, I expect to begin hearing your ideas to overcome our financial crisis within moments after this meeting ends.” 

I secretly applauded Jacki.  She had pre-intervened to thwart the anxiety she knew would come in response to her difficult news. She had addressed the fear filled reactions her words would create by naming and addressing them. She had pre-empted the emotional sabotage which hijacks critical thinking at precisely the time when critical thinking is most required. She had hijacked the hijackers.

How a leader reacts to reactivity is his or her single most important leadership skill.  We have learned from our studies of emotional triangles that relationships become strained – sometimes to the breaking point – in response to, or a result of, rising tension in those relationships.  The tension is fueled by emotional triggers which hijack rational behaviors and render the relationship both unsatisfying and unproductive.  The thinking behind emotional triangles asserts that there is often too much anxiety between two people in order to form a stable relationship.  In order to stabilize the relationship, most dyadic relationships seek a third person, group or entity to pull into the relationship and divert the building anxiety to the new party. Leaders often find themselves as the designated or chosen “third person”.  The invitation they hear to join the dyadic relationship as a rescuer can be compelling and irresistible.  It must be rejected. 

Let’s go back to Jacki.  She already knew that her company’s employees were members of tension-filled relationships.  (As are all of us!) Those relationships might have been with co-workers, their jobs, spouses, children, friends or a credit card company.  The financial crisis in her company would deepen tensions in their relationships with the company and, by extension, Jacki herself.  Jacki wisely expected multiple responses along the spectrum of maturity.  She choose to preemptively reject efforts by others to draw her into their dyadic tension. She did this by speaking directly to the emotionally mature and invited them to employ their creativity and imagination to solve the financial crisis.  To those who could only respond negatively or passively, Jacki made clear her intention to remain detached.  She had circumvented the paralysis which grips organizations when circumstances raise anxieties to red alert.

 She had hijacked the hijackers.

Peace and Courage,

Howard

Keep Defining Yourself as a Leader…and Keep Moving

“There are two great questions we must each answer in this life; ‘Where am I going?’ and ‘Who will go with me?’ And heaven help us all if we get those in the wrong order.”

It is true that much of our time in the leadership world is spent on each of these questions. There are many resources that assist in the development of mission statements. There are many resources attempting to unravel the mystery of how to motivate others in the attempt to lead. My experience lead me to the reality that once you define the answer to the first questions, the second question will take care of itself.

As with the other dimensions of the Energy Management Model, it is not my intention to reinvent the wheel.  My guess is that if you are reading this resource you have more than one three ringed binder on your shelf on this subject. Yet with all these approaches it seems something is missing. Something is askew. I think I have found just what is needed.

I believe the achilles heel in these famous approaches is the focus on an end product. The mission statement, the end result, is seen as the goal of answering the first question and the key to answering the second.

I want to ramp things up a notch. Rather than focusing on content, I want to focus on process. Instead of leaders focusing on their mission statements or business plan, I invite leaders instead to focus on their own functioning.

Focusing on content is concrete and controllable. In this way it is seductive to leaders who are by definition “control freaks.” Focusing on process over is subtle and takes constant awareness and vigilance.

So what is the difference?

I once saw a cartoon that showed an old man walking his pet alligator in the park. He is smiling. Facing him was an elderly woman with a poodle on her leash. On her face was a look of horror. The poodle’s head was firmly clamped in the alligator’s mouth. The “thought bubble” in the cartoon hovers over the old man’s head stating, “Wow! What a great way to meet chicks!”

Of course the old man had correctly judged the content. He was meeting chicks. He was, however oblivious to the process of horrifying them and alienating them in the process taking pace in the gator’s mouth. (Needless to say, the old man was not likely to get lucky.)

The content of our leadership task is our mission statement or business plan. The process, however is that of defining one’s self and in telegraphing our values, direction and intentions to others so they may make their choices as to whether they want to follow or not.

I love the story of Columbus at the beginning of his journey across the ocean. His small fleet of ships was just past the Canary Islands and approaching the limits of the known world.

It seems that the Pinta all of a sudden developed a problem with its rudder and the expedition came to a halt waiting for its crew to repair that problem. Any delay where they remained dead in the water was another day of food and provisions removed from their store to sustain them in their journey. Columbus waited a couple of days while the crew “feverishly” worked on the problem. No progress was made. He waited a couple of more days to give them time.

After multiple delays and excuses, Columbus realized what was going on. The inability to fix the rudder had nothing to do with materials and ingenuity. Instead, this delay was an attempt by the fearful crew who had lost their nerve and were trying to sabotage the mission.

Once Columbus realized that the problem was not in the Pinta’s rudder but in the hearts and minds of the leadership of her crew. He had a choice. He could have pulled out his motivational manual from his latest leadership workshop. He could have applied the latest psychological theory to find out if he was dealing with generation “U’ers” or V’ers” (would that have been the predecessors to Gen ex’ers?) He could have hired a consultant with a motivational speaker to get the troops more fired up about their mission. The ocean setting would have been perfect for employing a new “Fish Philosophy!”  Imagine the wind and the waves comprising a retreat setting that would rival Hilton Head!

He could have shown empathy for the struggling crew and hired a counselor for them to work through their issues. Perhaps he could have contracted the first Employee Assistance Program to help them to improve their performance and keep them “on board.” (Pun intended)

And speaking of performance, he could have instituted a new performance metrics system. He could have gotten a project manager to chunk up the task of fixing the rudder into a Gant chart and measured daily progress with weekly award certificates and bonus incentives to motivate the crew to get the job done.

He could have taken the authoritarian approach and as Commander of the Fleet threatened the crew with court martial or execution. (I’m sure that would have made for some interesting dynamics later on in challenging his effort at “teambuilding.”

Wisely, he made a different choice.  He promptly informed the crew that he was leaving without them and provided them with the coordinates of where he expected to be should they finally get the rudder fixed. Miraculously, they found a solution immediately!

In other words, he self-defined. Instead of trying to convince others to go with him, he set his own course. He wisely knew that followers need leaders more than leaders need followers and mustered the courage to go it alone.

So what does self-defining look like? Though the following list deserves further development, I will list them for you to think about:

It’s about Courage – Knowing what you live for (and die for)

It’s about Boundaries – Knowing where oneself leaves off and another begins.

It’s about Respect – Granting “otherness”

It’s about Focus and Restraint – Refusal to over-function through rescuing or using others.

Each of these focuses on a process of the leader rather than the content of the leadership setting. A leader who is working on these (and none of us achieves more than about 70% success at any given time) will provide the clarity needed for others to be self-motivated. They will have what they need to decide to follow or not. Those who decide to stay dead in the water will only hinder the mission and threaten it altogether. It is best to set them adrift and move forward with clarity and singleness of mind.

Ahoy, there! Is that land I see?

Peace and, yes, Courage,

Steve

Blame Displacement

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2011/05/16/cartoons_20110509#slide=3

Least Mature

Jim Rutenberg’s piece on Trump’s “decision”; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17trump.html?hp

The evidence grows that the man was never serious about the presidency and leveraged his status to generate a higher return from his entertainment investment.

“The media made him, the media kept him, the media kept promoting him,” said Stuart Spencer, a former political strategist for Ronald Reagan. Speaking of the proliferation of news outlets interested in politics, Mr. Spencer, 84 and admittedly fascinated by the new landscape, lamented, “There’s no referee anymore to evaluate what are serious issues and what are serious candidates.”

And yet, sufficient support grew around his “candidacy” to – for a time – appear to make him a statistically serious option.

We are reminded yet again of how less mature images and options creep into the brain and get hold of our imaginations.

A senior executive in a household-word known international corporation told me the other day he spends a lot of time working with those who aren’t up to performance speed yet.  I asked what he thinks the rate of return is for his efforts. 

 “One in five?”, I asked. 

He thought a moment, then smiled.  “Maybe one in ten”. 

Howard

 

Are We Safer? – Ongoing Strategy for Self-Care

With the death of OBL I have been intrigued by one recurring question that continues to echo in the media – “Are we safer or are we now in more danger?” I have watched officials and politicians alike try to answer this question. Most end up talking out of both sides of their mouth saying we are both safer and in more danger. I like the response given by our MN Senator, Amy Klobuchar, best. In an interview on MPR yesterday, she gave the straight goods. She said that she didn’t know. What’s more she said no one knows and know one could know and she wasn’t going to waste her time trying to answer a question that can’t be known. What’s more she observed that there was a danger before the death of OBL and that danger has not gone away. She pointed to the need to continue to keep our guard up and not assume a posture of complacency. The “post OBL death” terrorist situation is nothing new. We were hated before and we are hated now. (Thank you, Amy for your cool head and your fine leadership.)

Those of you who are familiar with the Energy Management Model are already aware of the dimension we call “Self-Care.” It is a way of taking personal responsibility for oneself without the need to use others for your own well-being or the need to rescue others for the sake of their well-being. It lays out a simple, but powerful strategy for taking care of oneself.

As I address the toxicity in my own life, it is important to me that I “eat my own dog food.” I want to walk my talk. I find it helpful when toxicity seems to be crashing in to review the Self-Care dimension of the Energy Management Model.

Our health and well-being, indeed our survival involves the interplay of two factors, toxicity and resourcefulness (resiliency). If we have a high degree of toxicity in our lives we can still do pretty well if there is the resourcefulness to adapt and mediate that toxicity. Without resourcefulness, even the slightest toxicity and be lethal.

The chart above reveals four quadrants that represents four combinations of these two factors:

Quadrant I – represents low toxicity and low resourcefulness. This combination results in us surviving quite well, thank you. Resourcefulness is not needed. If our lives are in Quadrant I, we are doing ok.

Quadrant II – represents low toxicity and high resourcefulness. If Quadrant I represents the ability to survive, this quadrant represents the ability to thrive. Quadrant II living is even better than ok.

Quadrant III – represents high toxicity and high resourcefulness. Because the toxicity is matched by resilience and resourcefulness, this quadrant also represents a life in which we are doing ok.

Quadrant IV – represents trouble. This is when toxicity far exceeds resourcefulness. Quadrant IV living is not living. It is dying. It is the only quadrant where life is not ok.

Note that, unlike most quadrant models, this one has no sweet spot. It doesn’t matter in terms of Self Care whether you are in Quadrant I, II or III. The main point is to stay out of Quadrant IV.

So the dimension of Self-Care in our model involves taking responsibility for

1. Assessing and monitoring which quadrant of life one is in at any given time.
2. Acting to move to a different quadrant if needed.
3. Increasing responsiveness and resiliency whenever possible
4. Staying out of Quadrant IV.

You may notice that unlike many quadrant models, there is no “sweet spot” that is idea for you. There is only a “sour spot.” Only the fourth quadrant is dangerous and undesirable. The other quadrants are fine and different people with different situations and needs will find their own place of balance within them.

What I like about this model is how it helps me (and indeed challenges me) to focus on myself and what I can control when the toxic challenges of life threaten to overwhelm me. It helps take my mind off of the axis where I have little control  and it points me quickly to what I can control. I can’t control what a terrorist may be planning. I can’t control the possibility of a tornado (though I can make sure I have good insurance). But I can do everything I can to focus on building my own resources and doing what I can to move out of Quadrant IV.

Peace and Courage,

Steve

What Leadership Looks Like

This post is given with the sometimes necessary caveat that it neither endorses nor supports a particular political point of view.  We once wrote about differences we saw in self-definition within the two candidates for the last presidential election.  Not surprisingly, we took some heat for appearing to endorse a particular candidate.  Our intent is to do non-emotional and clinical observation and say what we see.

That being written, and while reading the NYT’s sometimes heart stopping account of the days and decisions leading up to the death of Osama bin Laden, I was struck by these two images: 

A president who, while asking the country to focus its attention on serious issues – one of which none but a handful knew about at the time – then going almost directly back to meetings where he was about to make deadly serious decisions. 

A businessman/entertainer drawing attention to himself by manipulating irrational fears of the emotionally immature,  which prompted the president to pause and respond during what we now know was particularly critical moment of decision-making. 

Which was mature and thougthful work?  Which was toxic diversion?  Which was leadership?

Howard