How to be more Resilient

Sometimes your personal or work like can get tough and feel overwhelming.

There are days you just don't feel like you are being effective or maybe your self-esteem takes a hit.  

There are times you just feel very stressed.

In this chat, I want to talk a model called the "Flow" model.  This model may help you find out what you can do to become more resilient.

Think of a diagram and on the vertical axis that represents the various "challenges" you face every day.  At the bottom of that axis, the challenges are "low" and on the top of that axis, the challenges are very "high".  It is worth noting that the difficulty of those challenges are unique to you and your abilities.

Now on the horizontal axis, let's call that "abilities", and on the left side of that axis, we label that low and on the right side we label that high.  Ability is comprised on many factors, but the two that are worth discussing are time and skills.

When you look at the whole diagram together you can create 4 quadrants.

In the bottom left quadrant, the challenge is low and your ability is also low.  When most people experience this category, they experience apathy.  If you want to move out of this quadrant to feel more energized, increase the challenge.

In the bottom right where the challenge is low but your skill is high, you may experience boredom.  If you want to move out of this category you should also increase the challenge.

Now the top left is where many people sit.  This is where the challenge is high, but their ability to deal with the challenge is low.  You need to find out for yourself why your ability is low, but I'll offer two main areas to start.  1.  You simply may not have enough time.  Whether it is your personal life or your professional life, I would suggest determining what your priorities are and focus your time on your priorities.  2.  The second area is skill.  There can be a host of reasons why your skills are not up to par with the challenge.  If the challenge is right and you are under-skilled, then determine which skill you need to improve and put together a robust development plan.  If your skills are appropriate for your role but the challenge assigned is too high, speak with your manager on giving you an assignment that is a more appropriate fit for the role. 

The top right quadrant is where you want to be.  This is where the challenge is high (meaningful work that you are passionate about), and your ability to meet the challenge is also high.  

If you can reach this flow quadrant, you will be more effective, have higher self-esteem, and psychologically, just be more resilient to any setbacks that come your way.

#changchats #resilient #resilience #resiliency #apathy #boredom #anxiety #stress #flow #eustress

Focus on Outcomes and not activities

Activities are how you achieve your outcomes.  Outcomes are what you need to achieve to be successful.

We live in a meritocracy which the dictionary defines as a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit (outcomes).

Merit is conduct deserving reward, honor, or esteem.

All our reward systems at work are based on delivering outcomes through merit.  Merit increases, bonus, promotions.

Take a well balanced approach to developing your skills to be able improve your abilities.

Job Knowledge; Complexity / scope; Autonomy

Most people focus on developing Job Knowledge in the Operating Skills area.  Certifications, etc.  So is everyone else, so competition to distinguish in this area is steep.  Hence, taking a more well balanced approach to skills development to improve your overall abilities.

Use thinking frameworks to deliver outcomes that matter.

Purpose - Serves a human being or group of human beings; offers unique value; is aligned with overall company strategy and goals; is measurable.

Objective - The "what" of Big idea.  It is what will enable you to create unique value and sustainably deliver that value to the customers in a distinct way.

Capabilities - The set and configuration of capabilities (supporting activities) required to meet your purpose as defined by your objective.

Management Systems - The systems; structures; skills that will help you to understand the efficacy of the choices and the progress towards the capabilities are measured.

By focusing on outcomes and not activities you will be able to:

• Facilitate focus and alignment on the big picture
• Empower people
• Unlock innovation
• Enable accountability
• Develop you and you team's way of thinking
• 
  

# leader #leaders #leadershipdevelopment #outcomes

Improving Your "Ting" 聽

The dictionary defines “listen” as “giving one’s attention to a sound.” While this definition captures an essential part of the definition.  The goal of listening is understanding, thus, listening is a process.  As a process, listening then involves giving! Giving a lot more than mere attention with your ears.

Listening involves giving our heart, eyes, effort, empathy and so much more. The process of listening is so complex that no single definition can fully capture what really happens when one listens. As a result, from a single Traditional Chinese character, I will show that “genuine listening” involves more than auditory perception.

In traditional Chinese, the verb listen pronounced Ting literally means "to listen".  Ting is a character made up of several other distinct characters, each having a meaning that represents what we actually "give" when involved in the listening process.

Genuine listening involves giving the maximum of yourself to the process.  That is represented by the symbol "shi" (十 ) which means ten or maximum. When others know we respect them enough to give 100% of ourselves to listening and understanding them, they will be much more apt to open up and share.

Genuine listening means maintaining eye-contact (目) as represented by the character "mu" or "eyes".

When engaged in a conversation, words represent a fraction of the meaning that is conveyed. A lot more information is transmitted nonverbally. Researchers have found that the total impact of a message is about 7 percent verbal, 38 percent vocal and 55 percent nonverbal. Respectful eye-contact helps to bridge the boundary between the verbal and nonverbal. It brings a pure quality of receptivity as it opens the window to content and context of the message. So, when listening to someone, get rid of all visual distractions.

The next character "yi" means "one" or "single".  When taken in context with the character the next character "Xin" which means heart. "yi" means single undivided attention.  Coming back to the character "xin"... All humans have a need to be validated.  Listening to them with empathy allows them to feel as though they are being heard and understood.  This then feels good because it is connected to our deepest sense of self-worth. Oftentimes we listen with our attention focused on how we are going to respond or refute what the other person is saying. Genuine listening is different, it involves listening with curiosity, compassion, and with the true purpose of understanding.  Listening to someone with empathy demonstrates caring and acknowledging.  Listening with empathy gives the other person a chance to open up and to fully express themselves which is also represented by the character Xin meaning heart, as in them being able to express themselves from the heart.

As we move to the left, the next character means "ear" or hearing.  But remember ear is only part of Ting.  Listening involves more than the auditory act of hearing. We use our ears to listen by paying attention not just to the words spoken but also to the tone, pace and emphasis, to help understand The person’s relationship to the words.  Just using our hearing effectively as we listen already tells us a lot.

The last character "wang" represents king.  Formally it can also mean best.  We use our mind as we’re listening to understand.  We consider the words and ideas shared.  Many interpret "wang" in this context to mean best thinking or thinking like a king.

So if we take a look at the whole character, we could summarize the single Traditional Chinese word for listening which is Ting to translate loosely to, "Giving the maximum of yourself using your eyes, ears and heart, paying undivided attention and using our best thinking like a benevolent king."

# leader #leaders #leadershipdevelopment #ting #listening #understanding

How to Think Strategically (Critically)

Great leaders build success by learning to think differently from the average person.  

Successful people have sought to master a single skill: The ability to THINK CRITICALLY.

Critical thinking is the process of careful and deep thinking about a subject or idea. It includes being able to analyze and weigh facts, to carefully reason, and to make insightful connections.

Here are five tips:

1. Learn To Accept Negative Feedback When someone criticizes your work, it doesn't feel good. You'll be tempted to defend yourself, or to close your mind.  Don't. Steps to accepting negative feedback Recognize its value Ask for it regularly Reward it. Thank people for it Never punish negative feedback Listen actively Don’t respond right away Don’t refute the criticism or justify yourself Don’t take offense. Don’t interpret it as a personal attack

2. Block Time To Think The whirlwind and urgency of the day is a very strong pull on your time.  But don't confuse motion with progress.  Don't confuse urgent with important.  Critical thinking is hard work. So, when it comes time to analyze facts, block out time in your calendar to engage in deep thought, because it is important. Use some of the following questions to help you analyze: What is the problem preventing you from being successful? If you could solve the problem, what does success look like, how do you measure it? What are the facts and assumptions? What are some alternative solutions to achieve the goal? What are the pros and cons of each alternative? What is the best solution given the goal and your practical constraints?

3. Create The Conditions For Insight Quiet moments: Quiet moments help reduce external perceptual competition (e.g., sights, sounds) for our conscious attention or awareness, allowing the brain to detect weaker signals more readily. Looking inward: Looking inward, or thinking about your thinking (also known as metacognition), shifts the focus of awareness away from older, more established solutions, and away from external input. It also can shift your focus to your thought process itself, as opposed to just the content of your thinking. Positive emotion: Research suggests people are more likely to solve more problems with insight when in a positive mood than in a negative mood. Distance from the problem: When you walk away from the problem and allow your attention to drift, this frees up the conscious mind from focusing on very strong and well-rehearsed signals.

4. Zoom In and Zoom Out One pitfall that prevents critical thinking is focusing only on the detail and the short-term. Zooming Out is essential to big picture decision making. It helps you to put things in context and stress principles that are important, but perhaps you may miss some subtleties and nuances. Zooming In brings the details into sharp focus. Opportunities may look large and compelling, but may lack context.  One trap of Zooming In is that the constraints of the details become "the problem to solve" rather than trying to achieve the original outcome. The best leaders work the zoom button in both directions.  When faced with a crisis, they can address the immediate situation while seeking structural solutions. They can zoom in to see problems while zooming out to look for similar situations, root causes, and principles or policies that will help prevent the crisis from recurring.

5. Take a Break From The Problem You'll benefit by taking a break and letting all the facts settle in your mind. This allows you space to learn and adapt from your experience and room to process what you have been thinking about and release negative emotions. Learning to think critically can take you and your work to the next level.

# leader #leaders #leadershipdevelopment #strategy #strategic #strategicthinking #criticalthinking

Delegating Effectively

In this chat I talk about how to become more effective at delegating.

First I talk about barriers to delegating.

• Not enough time to teach or train on how to perform the task
• Feeling of loss of control
• Feeling that you may lose credit
• Enjoying the task being delegated
• Feeling you can do this better
• Feeling you may be delegating yourself out of a job
• Lack of confidence in the team
• Team may say they don’t have the time
• Team member may have a fear of failure
• What else?

Next I talk about the benefits to delegating

• To the organization
• To you
• To your team
• To the individuals

I talk about part of your job as a leader being to

• Create capacity and capability
• Making sure work gets done at the right level

I make a case for building capability and capacity on your team

I explore what it looks like when work is getting done at the right level and when it is not

I close with several tips to delegating

Spend the time up front to clarify and align on

• The problem that needs to be solved
• The objective and the scope of what needs to be achieved
• The vision of success (the outcome)
• How success will be measured

Delegate the right level task/objective for each team member’s skill set

• Work with team member’s strength

Allow time for learning and growth

• Delegate important things, but consider carefully when needing to delegate urgent things

Create lists of questions or a template

• Share how you think about the task or the project

Set up a good cadence of accountability

• Set more frequent outcomes that together lead to the goal
• Check-in in a timely manner such that if the task/project is off track, there is time to have the team member get it back on track.

Be patient and supportive

• Mistakes will happen.  Adopt a growth mindset and help your team to learn from the mistakes.  Encourage them to keep learning and growing.

Resist the urge to “tell” or jump in and take over.

• Use the “Problem Ask” or “Solution Ask” technique when coaching

Do not abdicate accountability

• Ultimately, you are accountable.  Own that accountability.  You are responsible for the team’s success.

Recognize and celebrate success

Don’t give up.  Developing your team and learning to delegate takes time.

# leader #leaders #leadershipdevelopment #delegation