Category: Leadership

Anger is My Primary Emotion

Posted on by Carl Weber

Anger.  Yup, it is a part of my world.  Let’s face it, one of the problems with learning about different styles is coming to grips with your own.  All styles have great things and not-so-great things at the same time.

According to Marston and the DISC assessment, there are four styles.

Essentially, it can be summed up with four P’s or how you deal with:

Problems, People, Pace, and Policies

How we score impacts the intensity of each category.  Do you jump in to solve problems or are you more reflective?  Are you the life of the party or do you need a break from people? How about your ability to adapt to change or have consistency from day-to-day?  And then there are the rules, do you follow them, or do you consider it nice that other people need them?

“All people exhibit all four behavioral factors in varying degrees of intensity.”

W. M. Marston

All of this helps us understand who we are, how we lead, how we follow, and how we communicate with others.  It is applicable in the workplace, our relationships, our families, and how we interact with everyone around us.

One of my more intense behaviors is the D or Drive.  It is what helps me push to solve issues, find solutions and get results.  But it has a price to pay: Anger.  The great part of having this internal urgency to get things done is unfortunately combined with the not-so-great part of frustration and impatience.  Learning to balance or modify our behaviors can be the difference between success or failure.  (See post Missed Opportunities, Missed Expectations to watch this play out in the workplace.)

When I sit with people, especially leaders and review their style, I hear them consistency say, “I wish I knew this earlier on in my [career, life, marriage, college major, or relationships].”

So think about who you are, and what you bring that is both great, and not-so-great.  Don’t wear your particular style as a badge of honor.  There is no one right style, all have a downside if you are unaware or apply it in the wrong situation.

But if you know yourself, you can change the world.

I try to be pretty up front about who I am, the good and the bad.  If you are interested in assessing your own behaviors, let me know.  It is a pretty fun ride.  When I brought home my own assessment for the first time, I let my wife read it.  She cracked up.

“I think they must have followed you around all day.”

And better yet, our family was at an attraction up north.  Out of the crowd came a person that attended a seminar that I had given a few months prior.  This person walked straight up to my wife (right past me), winked at me and shook her hand and said:

“You must be the most patient person on the planet.”

Yes she is.  Thanks for putting up with me.

Your Sentence

Posted on by Carl Weber

In his book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Dan Pink (one of my favorite authors) challenges us to focus our lives in a simple way.  He tells a story about a woman who challenges President Kennedy that great people are defined by one sentence and she feared his legacy would be more like a muddled paragraph.  Take a look at this short video.

http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/01/2questionsvideo

Dan challenges us to find our sentence.  The one statement that defines who we are, and acts like a filter for our choices each day.  I took this seriously and thought about my own sentence.  What would I want to define who I am, and what would I want to leave behind? Here is my sentence.

Was known for helping others on their journey.

That’s it.  Pretty simple right?  But think about how a simple sentence will resonate through everything we do.  For this sentence to be true, then how I lead, manage, communicate, parent, or relate to others needs to be consistent.  Did my actions help someone on their journey?  Today?

Dan goes one step further and wants us to ask ourselves one more question.  A way of putting action behind your sentence.

“Was I better today than yesterday?”

So over the next few days…take Dan’s advice.  Find your sentence, then put it into practice daily.  I look forward to hearing about the results.

Making a Difference

Posted on by Carl Weber

Are you making a difference?  Not just in the cosmic sense, but how about right now…today.  What is the one thing you can do this morning, this afternoon, or this evening that could positively impact your workplace, your home, or your community?

Does a coworker need encouragement?

Does a client need a call (and not just to sell them something)?

Is someone at work struggling; a peer, or maybe even your boss?

Is there a project you could assist with?

Is there an opportunity to lend a hand?

Is there something that is “not my job” that needs to be done?

Imagine if life was different.  Imagine if each day was given to you one day at a time.  To be given the next day you had to provide an answer to one simple question.

What was the one thing you did that made a difference today?

Would your answer earn a tomorrow?  The clock is ticking and I look forward to hearing your answer to the question.  

Go Make a Difference…Today.  You can do it!

Silencing the Narrator (Part 3)

Posted on by Carl Weber

We are in the home stretch…You can do it, you can make it through!

The Narrator appears in various ways.  Various types of negative “self-talk” are easy to identify if you listen.  I have developed a habit of listening for other people’s narrator, and I hear them all the time.  (Yes, it gives me something to do at parties.)  If you listen carefully, you may hear them as well.  Let’s look at a few examples.

Black or White Thinking:  Either you are perfect or you are a total failure.  “They didn’t like the report’s conclusion, why did we even try?”

Pessimistic Thinking:  It is never going to work out right.  “No matter how hard we try, management will never listen, they never do.”

Catastrophic Thinking:  Taking one event and magnifying it to a fictional conclusion. “My boss mentioned that I need to work harder, times are tough, he and other managers were working late…are they meeting to fire me?”

Comparing:  Measuring yourself against others.  “My sales will never match their numbers, they have it all together.”

Discounting:  Not being able to accept positive feedback.

This is one I hear the most, especially in the workplace.  Just this week, I was talking with someone and attempted to provide some feedback because their performance has been great.  I stopped by to see them and started up a conversation.

“Hi, just wanted to stop by and check in.  Your efforts to get out into the customer base in the past few months has really paid off…”

(Before I could finish) “I know that it has not been enough and I am not great at this you know…I will try harder.”

Do you hear that Narrator trying so hard to take away any positive news?  As a manager or leader are you listening to those around you, and listening for the Narrator?  If not, you may pass right over this without even noticing.  Having your team know their value may require a little more effort because of the Narrator.

Recognition is important, and doing it doesn’t really cost you much. Without being in tune with your people your efforts may not be penetrating through their Narrators.

Mind Reading:  Assuming people are thinking the worst about you.

Actually.  A pretty harmless word right?  But watch how this can play out.  During a recent conversation, I realized how much of a trigger this word can be for me.  It was during this dialogue that I realized how much my Narrator keys in on certain words or phrases and tries to insert the mind reading technique.  Here is how it went down.

“Actually Carl, that was pretty insightful.”

(My Narrator): So Carl, did you hear how surprised they were that for once you were “actually” insightful.

Luckily, I have become more aware of my own Narrator and can address it when it appears (not always, but it is getting better).  I joke with this person now when we talk about their use of “actually” and how my Narrator can no longer use it against them.

If you listen you will hear Narrators in the workplace, in your homes, and in your organizations.  Our role as leaders, managers, peers, or friends can be to provide some positive narration and call out the Narrator when we hear it.  Identifying these Narrators is the first step.

Be a Good Narrator.  First for yourself, then for others and watch what happens. Silence that Bad Narrator for a minute and hear this: You can make a difference.  

After my first post, someone questioned me about why they would silence their Narrator because their Narrator was a little cheerleader in their head.  I laughed and was reminded of one of the techniques they taught those Navy Seal candidates was positive self-talk and their passing rate went from 25 percent to 33 percent.  I smile just thinking about a bunch of tough guys sitting around telling themselves “you are good enough” and “you are going to make it.”  Can you hear their little cheerleaders?  Silence the Bad Narrator, encourage the Good One.

Silencing the Narrator (Part 2)

Posted on by Carl Weber

I began to think about the Narrator, and its influence on our ability to lead, interact with others, or achieve our goals.  During this time of reflection, a few events stuck in my mind.

The first was a program on the History Channel called “the Brain.”  While discussing fear, and our brain’s reaction to fear, the show depicted Navy Seal training.  The show highlighted one of its hardest aspects: Pool Comp.  Pool Comp is a series of underwater exercises when a candidate is pushed to the limit while an instructor is systematically disrupting their air supply.  These candidates need to override what is happening in their brains.

In developing an approach that would lead to greater success the Navy realized that candidates had to tackle “self-talk”…that inner Narrator.  The difference between “Can do” and “Can’t” from the Narrator impacted a candidate’s ability to override the fear associated with the activity (trying to function while not drowning) and succeed.  

The study also concluded that a person’s inner voice or Narrator can speak somewhere between 300 and 1,000 words per minute.  I have been told that I speak quickly, but even I can’t compete with that.

The second event happened closer to home.  When my youngest was five, I heard her say something that I will never forget.

“I am just a bad girl.”

She was five!!!  Where did she hear this?  How did she come to this conclusion?  What was going on?  Who told her this?

I replayed the past few weeks and months in my mind.  I searched for what could cause her to reach this conclusion…and there it was.

To provide a little context, for about the six or eight weeks prior to this statement, she was trying to make her own breakfast each morning.  She was five.  She was trying to be more independent.  Each day started off the same:  get a bowl, a box of cereal, and a gallon of milk and pour them together.  The result was a huge mess.  Every morning the ratio between what ended up on the floor and what landed into the bowl was about 90/10.  I also pictured my dialogue during this time.

“Don’t spill.”

“Why are you doing it that way.”

“Just let me do it.”

“Why don’t you pour it this way.”

Unintentionally, I sided with and encouraged her Narrator.  Apparently, my daughter, potential Navy Seals and all of us have something in common: the Narrator.  How we deal with and silence the bad Narrator, while encouraging the good Narrator may make the difference between success and failure.  We will tackle some of that next.

Sorry for the many parts, but there is a lot of ground to cover.  Hang on it will be totally worth it.

 

Silencing the Narrator (Part 1)

Posted on by Carl Weber

Lately when talking with various leaders and individuals, the concept of story comes up a lot.  I seem to hear or read people using it more often or maybe I am just more inclined to hear it.  One day I was describing the notion of “story” or the “hero’s journey” in our lives. (See Joseph Campbell’s book: The Hero with a Thousand Faces.)

Essentially, the idea is that classic stories follow a pretty consistent pattern.  The protagonist lives a simple life, is called into something larger than themselves, faces hardship, doubts themselves, makes hard choices to push forward (while longing for their old life – one that no longer exists), succeed despite the odds, and become the hero that causes our hearts to stir and cheer for them.

I was describing this in the context of leadership.  How everyday choices we make, how we interact with others, the risks we take, either add to our role as the protagonist, or because of our words and actions, we may switch roles in the story.  We sometimes become the sort of character that would even stop us from cheering for ourselves.

But I had a revelation, but as soon as I said it I had to take it back.

“The trouble in our lives versus a Story is there is one major difference.  Great stories have a Narrator.  Our lives do not.”

I could feel how wrong I was the minute the words left my mouth.  All of a sudden, my past failures, mistakes, and poor choices seemed to flash before me.  And I heard a Narrator, both then and now.  An inner voice.  It wasn’t good.

Think back when you failed.  Think about a mistake, a failure.  What did you hear?  What do you still hear?

“Stupid.”

“Why did you even try?”

“You should just give up.”

“You are not [insert word here] enough.”

For some of us, the words we hear are even worse.  I had to modify my statement about our stories.

“I guess there is a Narrator, but unfortunately, it is a Bad Narrator.”

What does your Narrator say when your story becomes dark?  Are you continually reminded of mistakes and failures?  Reminded how you don’t measure up?  Does this inner dialogue disrupt your interaction with others, your ability to manage well?  If so, you are not alone.

Over the next few weeks, we will tackle some of the ways to Silence the Narrator but for now, just recognizing that it exists is a good first step.  As a good friend of mine reminded me recently, “your narrator sucks!”  

If so, why are we listening to it?