“Mind the Gap” – Exploring the space between Stimulus and Response

“Mind the gap”, the warning phrase coined in 1969 and made famous by the London Underground has become almost universal in one form or another as a way to alert travelers to watch out for the space between the station platform and the train door. The space has been overlooked by billions of people since it’s inception, yet is still dangerous enough that it bears constant reminding to unconscious commuters who may miss it and end up hurting themselves if they are not careful.

We believe the” Mind the Gap” concept can also serve as a powerful reminder and metaphor for the daily perils we all face as relational beings. We are inundated with data and input that is stimulus for our powerful brains to sort through. We can only process a fraction of what we absorb and our responses are lightening quick given just how much we are absorbing. This powerful filtering system we have is an absolute live saver as there is no way we could possibly consider all the input and still be functional if we did.

The flip side of this wonderful filtering skill we humans process, is that it can also get us into trouble with the people who are most important to us; our bosses, employees, colleagues, partners and children to name a few. Marching through life in isolation with our own thought processes may sound pretty appealing at times but the reality is as relational beings we invariably tend to intersect with others frequently. Our belief is that the skill in which we navigate these intersections contributes in a very meaningful way to how effective we are in our personal and professional lives.

The work we do with clients around assessing and building Emotional Intelligence (EQ) takes a focused look at these human relational intersection points with a particular emphasis on the more stressful ones. The goal of our EQ work is to help our clients drive further awareness of their own experience in those stressful moments so that they can make more conscious and effective choices in real-time.

It is from our EQ work with clients that the concept of this diagram was born. Our goal with it is to provide a tool that is easy to use and encourages our clients to be more conscious of their choices and responses. EQ is something that can be developed with disciplined practice and our experience with this tool is that it helps our clients apply their learning so they can be more relationally effective.

The diagram references a powerful systems theory concept of open loops that we think of in this case as interactive and inter-relational versus closed loops that are disconnected and autonomous. The big difference in these two alternative paths between stimulus and response is the open loop encourages individuals to “Mind the Gap” in order to consider what they are experiencing in the moment. The process of identifying that for oneself has been referred to as walking The Awareness Wheel (Miller, Sherod & Phyllis).

We have enjoyed collaborating with the Get LIT team to bring this tool to life. Our shared hope is by making it visually appealing and therefore easier to grasp, just like the London Underground, we will have more people successfully navigating the space between stimulus and response so they can be more effective in their professional and personal lives. Try it out and let us know what you think.

Shift the Frame to get clear on what you are solving for

I have been working with a client who is stuck in the challenge of trying to solve for too many things at once. He finds himself paralyzed in the decision process and not sure how to prioritize and proceed in order to gain traction again to move forward. An easy place to find oneself in today’s world of ever increasing complexity, interconnectedness and information at our finger tips.

He came to me today after a long night of pouring over alternatives and digging ever deeper into the research and data available to him. The deeper he dug, the more options he provided himself, the greater the complexity of the problem became and the farther away he got from knowing what he was actually trying to solve for. This  is something I have written about before in my post on Too Much Information.

The danger in doing excessive data mining, beyond getting stuck in it, is the risk that you just becoming a picker as a result of providing too many alternatives to consider. Much like the experience of trying to pick the right toothpaste at the pharmacy, how can you possible decide given all the choices? In a situation like that you generally just pick something that speaks to you based on some random criteria, which is probably not really all that important to you but at the time made sense and got you out of the overwhelming feeling of too many choices.

So rather than spend too much time listening to all the alternatives my client he had created for himself we focused on talking about what it was he was actually trying to solve for. The Decision Quality process I work with calls this the frame for the question. The process and my experience with it tells us that without a solid foundation to work from it is really hard to make a well thought out and informed decision. How do you know you have a solid frame? Well you move it around and you talk it through with other people, team members, partners, allies or coaches.

The best way to move a frame around is to shift how you are solving the problem intentionally. A few easy examples are as follows:

1)     Altitude – look at the problem up close or from far away (Is it a brick, a wall or a cathedral?)

2)     Political – look at the problem from the left or the right (What is the Conservative or Liberal approach?)

3)     Another – look at the problem from another person’s perspective (How would your partner, customer or competitor solve for this?)

For you visual folks out there, like me, that would like a picture to help get this concept, take a look at these two pictures to see how different the focus of the frame is when I slightly shifted where and how I took the picture.

The goal in exploring the frame is to get clear on what you are trying to solve for. This exercise only grows in significance as you add others to the decisioning process. The more people there are involved the more important getting a clear frame that everyone agrees on and understands becomes. Take the time to explore your frame early on. Work to generate lots of alternative frames and pay attention to the words you use because they matter a lot. Make sure you and anyone working with you are clear on the language and the meaning and then land on the frame that you and anyone else involved agrees is the problem you are trying to solve.

Having done this exercise with my client today, he was able to leave the meeting with a much clearer purpose and sense of direction for what he is solving for. His clarity was the result of being able to answer the following four critical questions that I believe all frames should address.

1)     What are you solving for? A clear concise statement where words matter

2)     Why does it matter? A statement about why this frame is the right one

3)     What does success look like? If you solve the problem this is what will happen, the more measurable the better.

4)     What is 800 Pound Gorilla? Call out the biggest obstacle to your success.

So I ask you, what decision is getting the best of you right now? If you are stuck, do yourself a favor and shift your frame. In my experience you will be surprised how much clearer the picture becomes.

Look out Twitter fans, I’m out there and curious what your Gimbals are

I’m finally taking the leap to stick my toe in the water of the Tweeting ocean that is all around me now. Everywhere I turn there is a tweet there and tweet here in terms of someone saying it, referencing it, asking me about it or just plain seeing it on every website I visit. The twittering branding noise has become deafening to me, like Hitchcock’s famous picture The Birds.

The question for me has been whether to join the craze or just stand by in awe of it and continue to wonder what I’m missing. The turning point came this week over lunch with a friend of mine who is a fellow entrepreneur working to grow her business like me and attributes the lion share of her success to her Twitter usage. I asked her all the naïve type questions I had and shared with her my idea of what I was thinking about doing with Twitter and she said, “you just have to go for it.”

At the conclusion of the meeting I walked back out to my car, which I had parked under a tree because we were having another rare sunshine day here in the Northwest, only to find it was ceremoniously covered in bird____. I started to laugh at the final and perfectly timed sign to me that the birds had it out for me and this was the universes way of saying you have to do this now or literally pay the consequences.

So being the experiential learner I am and someone who is constantly curious, just like the monkey I share the name with, I decided there and then it is time to join the fun in order to try to figure Twitter out by just doing it. I’m clearly a late adapter to the craze, but here is what I’m hoping to learn about by using it.

To me Gimbal Systems, my company name and logo, is a real world metaphor for business and life. Perhaps a little background to help you understand why I think this will help. A single gimbal is just a circle, a gimbal system consists of many circles mounted at ninety degrees of one another. The result of having four or more gimbals nestled into a system is that you achieve “unlimited degrees of freedom” for whatever is held in the center of the system. In other words, regardless of forces at work against the gimbals and their direction, the item in the center of a gimbaled system stays grounded and directional regardless of the forces against them.

If you have ever been on a boat then you can appreciate the common application of a gimbal system. When you look at a compass, cook water on a stove or use an old lantern for light while jostling about in the seas all of those items stay in balance due to Gimbals. You can take a look at my website for more on this if you are interested and want to learn more.

Since starting my business, I have been curious about finding out what people and businesses think their Gimbals are. Life and business have their storms that come along and I’m fascinated by how companies and individuals weather them. For me there have been many storms along the way like the unexpected news that my wife and I were having twins, Washington Mutual’s collapse, both of my parent’s cancer diagnosis, to name a few. The question for me then is how do I, you, the company you work for or with, navigate and move through the challenging storms that life throws all of us.

It is that question that I’m starting to ask and tweet about at GotGimbals. My hunch is that many companies may refer to their strategic plan, (Vision, Mission and Values), if they have one. However, in my experience the company may have them, but the better question is does the individual I’m speaking with who works at the company own those professional gimbals for their self and live them on a regular basis. It has proven to be a very difficult task for large companies. Just look at what happened to WaMu as highlighted by Mark Crowley’s  recent Seattle Times editorial piece.

As for the personal answers regarding someone’s own gimbals, I look forward to finding out what I learn. I believe we are all truly unique individuals. Therefore, asking individuals about what they rely on to stay grounded and directional in their own life when they are under duress and trying to make decisions and maintain relationships should provide a wide array of answers.

So I invite you to follow GotGimbals and learn with me as I seek to explore individual and organizational metaphorical gimbals. Better yet, chime in about your own metaphorical gimbals so that you can have unlimited degrees of freedom to absorb the next storm that invariably comes along in life trying to knock you off course.

Was it worth it? – Ask this question wisely

I was recently in the North Cascades with my wife and we decided to take a day hike to get outdoors and reconnect with the natural beauty that surrounds us here in the Northwest. We had done our research online and asked a couple of friends who frequent that area for suggestions and the feedback was pretty consistent – the Heather and Maple Pass Loop trail was the one to do.

Our basic criteria going into the search for a hike were the following:

• lots of scenic value in terms of broad vistas of mountains and lakes from a high elevation,
• moderate intensity in terms of distance and elevation gain with a lunch break,
• ideally a loop as I’m not a huge fan of out and back trips and
• convenience in terms of proximity to where we were staying and accessibility by car.

So off we went on our adventure on a beautiful late summer day, hitting the trail head at 10:30 under brilliant blue skies with warming temperatures and feeling pretty good about our decision. Yes it is true, we do have sunny days here in the Northwest.

Well, it didn’t take long for us to realize that we had missed the initial turn off to start climbing and ended up at Rainy Lake after following the flat paved path to it for half a mile. The lake was a beautiful sight, but not what we had in mind based upon our previously outlined values. We had to back track to get to the trail we wanted. On our way back we met an elderly couple who were trudging along and very friendly. It wasn’t long before they asked us the question… “Was it worth it?”

This question always stumps me because who am I to know if it will be worth it to them. When I hear the question I’m immediately set off on my own mind trip of trying to determine, based on really no solid information other than my own judgments of these people I have just encountered, what they value in order to then try to calculate the relative worth of them continuing on toward the lake or turning around and walking back with us to the parking lot.

This is an impossible task really, unless we sit down and find out the values of these strangers to determine if it would be worth it to them. We were not going to take the time to do that and they probably hadn’t set off in the woods to have that conversation with perfect strangers either.

The task is even harder to do objectively when you consider that our visit to the lake definitely failed our second and third criteria and fell short on the scenic quality because we were at the lakeshore looking up at the mountains. The walk this far had really only satisfied our final criteria. So for me it was not worth it, other than to add to our overall mileage for the day and serve as a good way to warm up my legs for the climb ahead.

Do you think we said “no, it’s not worth it, might as well head back to you car while you are ahead?” We didn’t, but we did share our experience of the lake and they chose to continue on presumably because our description matched their values. I chose to ponder the question further as we enjoyed the rest of our hike and was amazed to be asked it three more times that day.

I’m raising the point because I believe that determining values is a crucial component to making high quality decisions in life and business. My esteemed colleague and mentor Kevin Hoffberg likes to say, “If you want to change something, you have to change your values.” Getting really clear on what your values are takes time and needs to be done in advance of making decisions. The answer to the question of was it worth it, really depends on whether or not you got more of what you value than the other alternatives you considered. It is something that only we as individuals and organizations can determine for ourselves. We are the ones that judge our success by the outcomes in relation to our values.

In the end, I’m not opposed to asking the question, but I am troubled by when it is used unwisely and…

• asked after a decision has been made and is
• posed to complete stranger who may or may not share your same values.

I hope this helps. I’m always curious to hear what you think and willing to help with complex decisions because both are worth it.

In the face of impending darkness – what do you choose to focus on?

Fall solstice is upon us and with it comes the end of summer when plants grow, the sun shines for hours on end, kids and adults play on vacation. For businesses it brings the hard push to make it happen in the 4th quarter while doing the added work of budget planning and year end reviews. Anyway you look at it, fall can definitely have a forbidding feel to it.

However, for some they choose to see it differently. These people might speak with excitement about the cool crisp days, the bright foliage colors, Halloween, and the beginning of something new at school or work. The point is that you have a choice as to how you see things in life and in work.

The work I do with individuals and companies has led me to develop a very strong bias toward developing the optimistic outlook. The impact of doing so has been documented in so many directions, Dr. John Gottman’s work on relationships and child development, David Cooperrider’s Appreciative Inquiry, Jim Thompson’s Positive Coaching Alliance, and Jon Gordon’s books to name a few, all speak to the importance of focusing on the positive more than the negative to improve results, increase commitment and ultimately generate energy.

So if all the data is there to support focusing on the possibilities rather than the risks, why do I and so many others struggle with making the positive choice. Why do so many people and organizations see only problems rather than opportunities, lack joy and love in their lives and cultures only to focus on fear, anxiety and anger?

For me I think the answer is that I was letting someone else carry the positive torch for me. In my last post I wrote about my father and what an unbelievable force he was in my life and many others because of the unconditional positive regard he had for life. He was a positive energizer bunny, banging away relentlessly on his drum, fearlessly focusing on what was possible as opposed to what was broken. Jon Gordon would call him a Chief Energy Officer.

Now that he is gone I’m realizing just how much I relied on him for that. Upon reflection I think I had to counter him with some sense of reality, especially toward the very end of his battle with cancer. If he was the metaphorical Spring and Summer, I was Fall and Winter. In a way we balanced each other out. Now that he is gone, I’m out of balance, one of my gimbals is locked and a degree of freedom in my life is temporarily lost. This is a scary place to be, but also an opportunity not to be missed.

The risk I see is that I may look to someone else to enroll as a replacement for my father rather than developing a more positive mindset for myself. The fuel that drives me is the memory of my father and a sense of urgency that is strong because his death is a reminder that life is short, so I better well make the most of it and appreciate everything along the way. The data also suggests that I will be a lot better off, personally and professionally, if I reset my locked gimbal quickly and make it my own rather than outsourcing it to someone else again.

Not an easy task, but my strategy so far is to start exercising again, getting outside more to appreciate the natural wonders that are beyond me, and consciously choosing to look for what is good, in order to acknowledge it and do more of it. It’s early but I’m happy to report that there appears to be a momentum to my life again. Despite the days being shorter and the impending proverbial curtain coming down in the Northwest, my days are slowly getting brighter.

So my invitation to you on the day the seasons change, is to take a moment to ask yourself who or what is your source of positivity? If you are counting on someone or something else to carry that torch for you, be forewarned that it could unexpectedly disappear if you don’t do the work to create it for yourself. If upon reflection it is someone or something other than you, then take another moment to acknowledge what they provide to you and appreciate how lucky you are to have that in your life. Just remember that it is ultimately your own choice as to how you see the cup. Starting today I’m choosing to see it half full on my own, which is new for me and is because something had to die. What do you choose?

A Tribute to my Father

My father passed away on July 14th, 2011. I have included a link to his death notice and an obituary that ran in the Boston Globe so you can learn more about him if you are interested. What follows below is the eulogy I shared at his memorial service on July 26th in Boston. My radio silence on this blog has been in large part due to the emotional journey I have been on since my last post. My hope in sharing all of this is that it will not only serve as a tribute to him, but will also inspire others the way he did and continues to inspire me.

So here I am, George WW Brewster IV, son of George WW Brewster III with the goal of trying to adequately eulogize him after 42 years of watching, learning and loving him. No small feat given what we all know and remember of him. To top it off Pastor Joel, the “Rolling Rev” as my father called him, says I should keep it to 3 minutes. Given the family trait of the gift for gab, storytelling, laughter and pushing the boundaries a bit, this is a tall task. But just like my father, I’m up for a good challenge today.

First off, I thought I would provide a little background on how I went about this:

1. I’m in the business of acronyms, which upon reflection for this moment is easy for me to understand given my early introduction to some of my father’s favorites like A.M.F, N.F.W and B.F.I that came out regularly on our family trips to
   Maine.
2. I’m here to talk about the man who had alphabet and numerical soup for initials, which I also share, so I thought why not throw a few more in there for fun.
3. I’m going to keep it really simple with the goal of trying to keep it together.
4. So with that as background, here is the acronym I came up with to try to capture the best of this incredible man we are celebrating today, who I had the privilege of having as my father, my best man and my best friend.
5. Are you ready? — ABC 123. Yes, a nod does goes to the Jackson Five, but this version is better because it’s about the man they called World War Three.

Letter A:

1. Not just one A but two actually, a twofer as Dad would say
2. Attitude = Not Tude in the negative or egotistical sense, but a consistently reliable positive force. A glass half full, if not over flowing optimist. “That’s Great!!, Beautiful or Wow” were always his response regardless the situation.
3. Acceptance = 15 years of fighting cancer and never a rant, just a resolve to accept the ups and downs along the way and
   focus on what was next rather than why this was happening  to him.
4. Put these two A’s together the way he did and you have the first ingredient of what made him so special. It’s also no accident that AA is in the mix after his 27 years of working the program one day at a time.

Letter B:

1. Get ready for a rapid onslaught of 20 because he was the king of the B’s. Yes that’s right I did say 20, but don’t worry Joel I’ll be quick.
2. Born in Boston, A child in Brookline, Fathering in the Burbs and Bacheloring in the Back Bay
3. After BU it was onto Muni Bonds with the Bank of Boston and Bear Stearns
4. For me there were the memorable moments watching the Beanpot, the Bruins and the BoSox together.
5. Bottom line: George Brewster, was and is the best of Boston as far as I’m concerned.

Letter C:

1. This one is a trifecta, because I’m on a roll and channeling the man for whom one was never enough.
2. Competitive = The oldest of three with two brothers right on his heels, he was fiercely driven to win and get there first.
   A combination that always made the drives, the walks, the games together intense with the requisite F-bombs along the way for good measure. His competitive drive also served him very well for 43 years as bond trader where it was always about the bid and the ask, beating the odds and securing the deal. Whether on the field, working the phone or at the wheel, he was always the fiery Red Head going fast and doing it in style.
3. Courageous = During his prolonged medical journey that started with working to regain his memory after the infamous
   roller blade accident twenty years ago, which was followed by 15 plus surgeries and countless treatments to fight melanoma he always ran toward the metaphorical roar rather than from it. He was also willing to trust me enough to show up for two pretty risky requests I made of him, a family of origin workshop and a men’s retreat, in order for us to learn and grow together, for which I am eternally grateful.
4. Caring = My father was incredibly loving, generous and loyal. He had a huge and powerful heart. As a result he touched so
   many people in so many ways, which is evident here today. His care of and for others is what leads me to the 1, 2, 3’s of the acronym.

My dad was a coach, a mentor and an oracle of wisdom to me and many of us here. The 1, 2, 3’s come from the critical points he used with me many times when I was bouncing around personally or professionally over the years. The sources of these three points come from friends of my father that I can’t remember now, but you know who you are and thanks go to you for passing them on to him. However, it is his voice that I hear and his way of stringing them together that was able to turn even the grey skies of Seattle blue in an instant. My bet is that some of you here today have heard them before at just the right moment and seen the world differently as a result. If you haven’t, then let this be your GB3 indoctrination.

1. “The first thing to do is to get out of your chair.” The physical manifestation and cure for the emotional metaphor of being stuck. Something my father lived by and did throughout his life right up to the very end.  Move the body to shift the mind. When in doubt, get up and get going. Special thanks to Jake Kennedy for always being there to help dad keep moving all those years regardless of the ailment, we are all grateful because of how important moving, literally and figuratively, was to him.
2. “Are they good?” Ask yourself this simple question about the person you are with or the company you work for. If the answer is yes, which is such a great set up because the answer is almost always yes otherwise why the F___ would you be with them if they weren’t, then trust what they see in you that you can’t see in yourself.  If they are asking you to do something it is because they think you can even if you don’t. If they are good, which you just said they were, then they’re probably right and you are wrong.
3. “Look at the track record.” This is where he would string together 5 or 6 things that he had noticed in me that I may have missed, forgotten or seen negatively rather than through his rose-colored glasses. He did not miss very much, especially when it allowed him to compliment someone else.

My father put these three thoughts together better than a Marvelous Marvin Hagler, in his prime, left, right, left combo. In the space of under 5 minutes, 3,000 thousand miles away and over the phone I was back in the game and ready to take on the world wondering what the hell had just happened. Simple yet absolutely brilliant because the 1,2,3’s came from him and served him so well in his lifetime.

So there you have it fellow fans of GWWBIII, or just G to his grandchildren. The ABC’s and 1, 2, 3’s that I judge are the acronymial
ingredients that made the man a legend to me and all of us.  My hope is that you will remember to use or share them when the time is right and that they serve you as well as they have and do me.

Dadzo, here is to you. May you run like a flying cheetah, hit them long and straight, and take pride in the legacy you have left that
continues on so strong here today. Love You Man, You will be missed – G4

How much to reveal – The struggle to explain what is going on for me and my business

As an entrepreneur the lines between personal and business tend to get extremely blurry very quickly. One’s business pursuits become enmeshed into all facets of life as there is always more to be done in the early stages of starting a business.

Add to that the reality of being a solo practitioner where my work space is literally in the household which makes the ups and downs of a new business become that much palpable for everyone on the home front.

Being in the revenue generation business I know the reality all too well that critical activities if done well and consistently lead to results. Stop the activities and the results will disappear. A constant dilemma for a single shingle that has to find, deliver and maintain the work simultaneously. The result can be feast and famine as the individual porpoises through the cyclical nature of going it alone in consulting.

The game changer in this individual entrepreneurial dynamic that I knew I was signing up for when I launched my business was the unexpected life curve ball that is different for everyone. For me it is the failing health of my father who has been battling melanoma cancer valiantly for twelve years. Given that time frame you would think I would have seen it coming. I did and wrote about in a blog post about a year ago now.

Yet despite knowing his disease and the long odds he faced it was impossible not to get caught up in my father’s optimism that he would beat it and go on forever. Despite his best efforts and science’s most sophisticated and targeted assaults to stop the disease, time is now running out for him. The game changer is happening in real time and my priorities shifted in an instant.

I have really struggled to put this into words and have been hesitant to reveal it en masse. It is a very private and personal journey that is little like opening up Pandora’s Box. People have either experienced losing a parent or they have not. The result is a club you are either in or not, kind of like parenting but with much more somber shared experiences. For those in it, they relate in an instant to what I’m experiencing and invariably reconnect to their own painful journey. The result is an emotionally laden conversation that is not easy to have, let alone to start by telling people honestly what is going on for me right now.

However, to not do it seems to fly in the face of everything I have been blogging about recently about being authentic, leading with heart and bringing one’s whole self to the professional space. So I’m trying to practice what I’ve been preaching so that I can step into that uncomfortable place of being real regardless of the consequences and the setting.

The result of this life event unfolding and being real about it has led me to put the business on pause except for very brief intervals where I can be present to and focus on my work, which are limited at best now. Thus the business development activities have slowed and the results that invariably follow. With it comes a greater appreciation for the flexibility entrepreneurship provides that allows me to make the shift quickly while simultaneously deepening my understanding for the consequences the shift has on my business as a solo practitioner.

More importantly, this difficult space I’m navigating has me more connected with the Gimbal Systems metaphor and how it applies to me right now. You can read at length about what a Gimbal System is on my website, but for the here and now folks, think of it as a balancing device made up of rings attached at 90 degree angles that pivot to hold something steady in the center despite forces against it. Common applications are on boats or planes, like I’m on as I write this, that move in multiple dimensions at the same time.

I think in terms of gimbals, what are they and how fluid are they to absorb the forces at work against each of as individuals or organizations? Without out enough of them or if they get locked we can lose degrees of freedom and that is what I think I’m experiencing right now. My father, my best friend and best man, is a metaphorical gimbal for me in my life and he is going away in a physical sense. My other gimbals are flexing but my system is unstable as this change occurs. My system will ultimately recalibrate, but it will take time to adjust and access that gimbal differently as I go forward and my father passes.

No fun is this preverbal rite of passage that is bumpy, prolonged and downright painful, much like the flight from Seattle to Boston I find myself on regularly now. So there is my truth about what is going on for me, thanks for letting me share it with you and for your grace in receiving it. Speak your truth, it will set you free.

The fine line between Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Therapy – Does it Really Matter?

I spent three days last week helping to facilitate a workshop with professionals that were seeking to develop their ability to collaborate more effectively in times of continuous change and stress. It was an honor to be a part of their journey of self-discovery and risk taking in service of their own professional development. The group of sixteen participants came from various organizations; large and small, public and private, non-profit and for profit. All are leaders in their respective organizations and are looking to be even more effective managers in turbulent times.

The workshop placed a high premium on developing one’s emotional intelligence (EQ) during times of high anxiety which was manufactured throughout the three days by having the participants focus on what was happening for them in the “here and now.” The emphasis on immediacy proved to be a challenging exercise. This was especially true for a group of people who were unfamiliar with each other, had no common objective or culture to draw upon, and had no sense of order or rank as they would in any of the organizations they work for. The result was a fantastic and challenging environment to learn and apply the core EQ skills of self-awareness, self-regulation and empathy under duress while in relationship with others.

The power of the “here and now” experience is that it is dramatically different from the ordinary “there and then” conversations we have most of the time. Talking about what is real for me by using “I” statements and reporting my senses, thoughts, feelings and wants in real-time increases the relational intensity. Several participants commented during the three days that the experience felt like therapy, which always seems to be the proverbial gorilla in the room when it comes to EQ work in professional settings.

So what is the difference and where is the line between therapy and EQ you ask. The way I see it is that therapy is an incredibly powerful tool and resource to help individuals explore and get clear on where patterns, beliefs and actions they act out consciously and unconsciously come from based upon their culture and upbringings.  Therapy seeks to understand the “why’s” behind our thoughts that take time to explore and generally require looking at our past in service of understanding our present. Therapy is valuable work for sure with many different modalities but it is not always accepted or appreciated in corporate cultures that are forced to focus on the behaviors and results of today.

EQ development, from my perspective, seeks to keep participants focused on what is occurring in the moment during stressful times and to raise their curiosity about how they impact others under duress.  EQ work also helps to develop strategies to improve how I manage my own emotional anxiety so that I can remain connected and effective in relationship with others. Put simply, EQ focuses on the present tense with an eye toward shaping the future.

The only way to do this EQ work, in my judgment, is to pay more attention to how others react and respond to me while simultaneously monitoring how I respond to others in the moment. Going a step further, EQ work also involves taking the risk to communicate directly about those experiences (yours and mine) in real-time. For some that type of work may seem like therapy because there has to be greater intrapersonal awareness to drive effective interpersonal interactions. But I would argue that type of EQ work is very different from trying to judge or figure out why I or the other person acts or responds the way we do.

This level of interpersonal consciousness takes time and energy to develop and flexes new muscles that many people are not accustomed to using and many organizations disregard all together. The result can be a bumpy road that is not unlike any other new skill development journey that takes the adult learner through the following four phases according to Noel Burch:

1)      unconscious incompetence

2)      conscious incompetence

3)      conscious competence

4)      unconscious competence  

In the end I’m not sure it ultimately matters what we label the work. If someone has a negative judgment toward therapy or emotions in the workplace, then EQ work may be too risky or “touchy-feely” for them or their organization. My belief is those reactions and resistance are unfortunate because at the end of the day we are social animals that survive and thrive in connection with others and are driven by our emotions. Organizations are built on the collection and interactions of the individuals in them. To avoid being curious about how to maximize our EQ effectiveness in interpersonal interactions for fear of what we may discover about ourselves seems very shortsighted to me.

Finally, to those that participated in the workshop and took the risk to lean into the EQ learning regardless of their reactions, I honor your courage and hope you inspire others with your learning’s; no matter how you decide to label them.

How to Lead and Succeed – Emotional Intelligence’s role in the corner office

The Sunday Times Business Section had an interesting article that was adapted from Adam Bryant’s new book, The Corner Office. The sub-title of the book is “Indispensible and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed.” We were curious to see what role Emotional Intelligence (EQ) would have in his book as a way to pick up on our last blog post that spoke to that topic.

Clearly if you read our last post you know that we have a bias for the subject of EQ and its importance to effective leadership. Admittedly that bias clouds my interpretation of the article’s brief overview of Bryant’s five key qualities he established from more than 70 interviews with leaders. Despite all of that, we still think it’s not much of a stretch to say that EQ is in the midst of all of them.

Bryant says that these traits are not genetic. Rather they are factors that are in your control and can be developed through attitude, habit and discipline, which is just like what it takes to develop ones EQ. What is so exciting to us about EQ is that unlike your Intellectual Quotient (IQ), which you are wired with, you can do things to develop your EQ in the same way Bryant speaks to developing these critical leadership qualities.

The 5 leadership qualities Bryant defines and how we perceive each one relates to EQ are as follows:

1) Passionate Curiosity is described as being a student of human nature that is always seeking more knowledge and has a fascination with understanding everyone they are around. The better the questions the more effective the leader. It is through this constant questioning that strong leaders inspire others, identify new directions for their companies and come to understand how to engage with others.

GS) A major component of EQ is empathy, both being aware and accurate in order to relate and connect with the other person effectively when times are tough. The ability to do this well is strongly tied to how curious someone is and how willing they are to find out if their hunch is right by being curious and inquiring into the other person.

2) Battle-Hardened Confidence comes from embracing adversity and overcoming it. The people with this take ownership of the challenges and do not look for excuses. If they fall down, they are able to dust themselves off and keep fighting the next day. They have a positive attitude that is mixed with a sense of purpose and determination.

GS) EQ is built upon knowing and managing oneself when under stress. It comes with hard work and commitment to own one’s “locus of control” rather than blaming failures on factors they can’t control, like other people. One of the components of our EQ work with people looks at their level of positive versus negative orientation. This measure ties directly to a person’s willingness to see challenges as opportunities they can influence rather than as insurmountable obstacles that they deflect to others to fix.

3) Team Smarts is more than just being a team player that toils in obscurity. It is the ability to understand how teams works and how to get the most out of a group. It requires a sense for how people react to one another not just how they act in order to recognize the players the team needs and how to bring them together around a common goal. This skill is even more important in today’s matrix organizations where leaders often have to mobilize people who are not their direct reports.

GS) A person with strong EQ skills is going to thrive in team environments because of their ability to be in relationship with all types of people in all kinds of environments, even the most challenging. This comes from their ability to name and access a wide range of emotions, balance their thoughts, wants, actions and identify how they relate to their self and others. We focus on all of these measures in our EQ work with individuals so that they can know themselves in order to more effective in or leading groups.

4) Simple Mind-Set is the confidence and knowledge to be concise. Less is more and simplicity is critical in a landscape of ever growing complexity. The premium is now on the ability to synthesize and connect the dots that make sense quickly.

GS) This dimension is probably the biggest stretch to relate to EQ, but I would argue that having the ability to read ones audience is always critical. Whether you are in sales or not, knowing what the customer wants and being able to give it to them is important. The concept of differentiation comes from knowing where you end and the other begins and is a byproduct of strong EQ. If this is lacking then people will miss the signals from the other person, go with the default pattern of more is better and end up over complicating things and ultimately frustrating the recipient.

5) Fearlessness is the ability to navigate constant change and actually seek it out rather than run from it. It is about calculated and informed risk-taking in order to do things. It is also about never being comfortable with the status quo and getting complacent.

GS) Another critical component to our EQ work is to explore how people self-regulate themselves when they are stressed. We do this by looking at what we call relationship strategies that explore an individual’s trust of themselves and others. Those that have high trust of both, tend to be great at working with others and bring a strong sense of security and stability in times of stress. These are the fearless leaders that trust things will be okay and have an appetite for change.

We’re curious to hear other people’s critical leadership qualities. Our belief is they are probably connected to EQ as well.

Check your emotions at the door – Are you old or new school?

There was a great article in the April 4th edition of Time Magazine titled “Go Ahead – Cry at Work.” The article was adapted from the book, It’s Always Personal, by Anne Kraemer. The sub-title of the article reads, “Corporate Culture has long ignored the fact that we can’t check our feelings at the office door. Why it’s high time to get rational about emotions in the workplace.”

The article caught my attention for two reasons:

1. Our upcoming entrepreneur workshop for couples explores this dynamic because the boundaries between work and home can be especially blurry for entrepreneurs that work from home. It is kind of hard to check your emotions at the office door or leave them at home when both are potentially in the same place.
2. The work I have been doing with individuals on developing their Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and how that drives their effectiveness as leaders.

What I particularly like about this article is that there is real data and scientific evidence to back up the main point of the article that is emotions matter and need to be understood and appreciated rather than feared or shamed in the workplace. The article speaks to the fact that the old school belief that life can be compartmentalized between emotions at home and rational thought at work is a farce. Emotional Intelligence is no longer an oxymoron, either / or, black and white construct.

Daniel Goleman and others put the term on the map in the 1990s and it became a management buzzword. There are now many business case studies that speak to how developing EQ in leaders and organizations can drive better results and competitive advantage. Yet many people have tried to boil EQ down to a 21st century cliché of “What I hear you saying is …..”. The fact is that EQ is much more than simply listening and having empathy for people. This is exactly what I’m working with individuals and teams to help them understand, appreciate and most importantly apply at work for better results.

Despite plenty of evidence and scientific data that would suggest we should focus on building EQ, people at work don’t really want to dig into the learning and the emoting. The article chalks this up to “we’re still largely clueless about how to display and react to more commonplace emotions such as anger, fear and anxiety, so we handicap ourselves by trying to check our human side at the office door.”

In our experience, where there is a lack of knowledge there tends to be resistance to it learning it. That has certainly been the case with our EQ work. The reactions to our offering have been very telling, “we don’t want to go there”, “they can work on that stuff on their own time with a therapist”, “we don’t want a bunch of softies in our organization.” I could go on with the sound bites of resistance we have heard, but the good news is that the evidence against this kind of thinking is mounting as this article helps to reinforce.

The article also references a study that explored gender differences and how they impact the consideration of emotions in the workplace. I found the following data points to be really interesting.

• 48% of Men and 41% of Women said it is ok to cry at work
• 43% of Women and 32% of Men considered people who cry at work unstable
• 41% of Women and 9% of Men cried at work
• 42% of young Men (age 18-44) and 23% of young Women felt anger is an effective management tool
• 69% of all respondents felt that the person seems more human when they get emotional at work
• 88% of all respondents (93% Women and 83% Men) felt that being sensitive to others’ emotions at work is an asset

The article and the data presented in it provide a real shot in the arm for me as I have always felt the “heart of the matter” at work is critical to address. Strip away all the politics, positioning and analytical analysis that is wrapped up in corporate acronyms, fast paced deadlines, the continual pressure to deliver and more technology that changes how we connect, you have human beings that are relational and driven by their emotions. To not acknowledge that now scientifically proven fact is blasphemous, to resist learning about it because it is subtle and complex is cowardly. So I ask you – do you want to be corporate old or new school? Hopefully your answer is the later, if it is, then my next question is – what are you going to do about?