The Games People Play at Work

Shift Happens

Yvette Bethel — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:28:18 GMT

There are many employees who get lulled into thinking they are in a permanent safety zone so they allow behaviors like entitlement and an unwillingness to lend a hand or to go the extra mile get in the way.

During good times, employees can get away with undesirable behaviors because employers are making a profit despite individual employee attitudes. However, when economic trends embark on a downward course, the signs are usually there but employees who are behaviorally challenged often end up wrapped in their protective bubbles that blind them to obvious indicators.

For instance, when the performance of a company declines due to external or internal factors, the decision makers will sometimes have to consider laying-off staff. While there are never any guarantees, employees may choose to work with the people who worked with them over the years. They want people who can and are willing to pull the extra weight without complaints after departments are reduced in size.

All businesses experience cycles, times of record setting profit growth and times of record setting lows. Cycles and change are inevitable and as an employee you need strategies for branding yourself in a way that you provide noticeable value to the company.  Visibility plays an important part in branding yourself because if no-one knows the value you are contributing because you choose to keep a low profile, you could also be putting yourself at risk when difficult times arrive.

Shifts in the socio-economic, political, technological and competitive landscapes are inevitable, some shifts are subtle like China is slowly becoming the number one English speaking country in the world and others are obvious like the fallout from the American sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Companies need to be versatile when external changes impact the way they can do business.   Therefore, companies will put their trust in versatile employees who build their capacity for taking on additional work, demonstrate a willingness to go the extra mile, knowing that the company may not always be able to reward you for your hard work.

For employees who have to face the unpleasant experience of being laid off, the first thing on most of your minds is how am I going to pay my mortgage, my utilities and my car payments?   Initiate conversations with your Banker. They may be able to help you relieve some of your financial stress temporarily. Don't wait until they come after you - you may be in a different bargaining position then.

If you were laid-off, you need to start working on a plan of action, you can take some time to do some reflection, but it is imperative that you stay in the realm of action. If you decide that you made some mistakes you would like to correct on your next job, determine how you can create and sustain a new image? In reality, sometimes employees are among the first to be laid off because of their perceived attitudes and sometimes they are laid off for other non-performance related reasons. As an employee, you can control how you perform but you can't control the criteria used to lay employees off, so do what you can.

As and employee, you should always keep in mind that shift happens so, here are some ideas you can use to protect yourself right now, if you are still working and in the future if you are looking for a new job:

Don't wait until your employer trains you, have a vision for your life and career, set goals and do what you can to achieve them.
Don't wait for your employer to finally figure out how valuable you are. See your own value.
Demonstrate a consistent positive attitude, a willingness to learn, go the extra mile and help others.
Constantly upgrade your knowledge.
Watch for indicators of change, they are sometimes obvious.
Break old habits that make you less competitive than you ought to be.
Define and maintain your own standard of accountability.
Always know what your options are. Don't wait until you have bad news to start this process.
And finally, do what you love.

Always keep in mind that shift or change is inevitable. The positive thinkers who focus on opportunities and the versatile employees will survive no matter what happens. Remember, what you feel or choose to see is what you get!

Leadership and The Elastic Mind

Yvette Bethel — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:22:32 GMT

We all get caught in the trap of the way things have always been done at some time or the other. It is a comfortable, safe, predictable place that maintains the status quo.   Leaders with inelastic minds, aren't open to creative solutions and they often times brand their employees with descriptions that limit the employees' potential because they won't look at the employees' potential, only at the unfortunate mistake the employee made 10 years ago.

There are other leaders with inelastic minds who don't venture past the nine dots. They stick with the logic that has always served them because this is what is rewarded by their company.

Effective leaders and employees possess the skill of mental elasticity. This means that they are able to stretch their thinking beyond the boundaries of the status quo and seek new ways to solve old problems.

Here are a few tools leaders and employees can use to stretch their thinking:

1. Many times we are taught that we have a choice, either choose this or that. Leaders who possess the skill of
    mental elasticity seek creative ways to satisfy both or more than two options simultaneously.
2. Then there are leaders who always have answers. They feel that as a leader they should always have the
    answers but this is humanly impossible. The most effective leaders have all the good questions that stretch
    their own thinking and the thinking of employees.
3. Curiosity is another skill that is difficult to master. As leaders we have an idea of what an employee is about to
    say because of what we think of them and their abilities. This discourages your employees' willingness to
    share and take reasonable risks that can have lucrative yields. Curiosity is simply remaining open and
    interested about what a person has to say without prematurely summing them up. It is about seeing your
    employees as a source of creativity and brilliance and eliciting the natural curiosity in your team members.
4. Create elastic mental skills among members of your team. Creativity, innovation, high performance are all bye
    products of this and coaching is an effective tool to develop your team and also to keep them abreast of
    changing priorities.
5. Optimism is about seeing beyond your current circumstances - realistically. Mastering optimism will help
    employees and leaders to perceive and explore new ways of doing business, communicating with your
    employees or making tough decisions.

As a leader, seek mental elasticity by pushing traditions and challenging your perceptions in ways that you have never done. Sometimes, as leaders we have belief systems we created in our childhood and we bring our systems of thinking and behavior to the workplace. While the survival skills you naturally developed may have served you in other circumstances many years ago, the negative belief systems you adopted may not serve you as a leader in difficult times.

Barry Bergdall, the Architecture and Design Curator at the Museum of Modern Art wrote," it is the elastic mind, with the flexibility and strength to embrace progress and to harness it , that is best suited to confront this world of seemingly limitless challenges and possibilities."

Elastic thinking is especially useful during tough economic times. Instead of succumbing to the fear of lower customer spending, leaders who possess the skill of mental elasticity will seek new ways of doing business that will meet the changing needs of both customers and employees.

Decision Paralysis

Yvette Bethel — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:46:38 GMT

You have already seen Decision Paralysis in inaction. It isn't very selective, it can show up in any office at any time. It happens when a decision needs to be made and the decision maker or Manager seems oblivious of the need to make a decision and get things moving.

Sometimes Managers, Supervisors and Employees are afraid to make a decision because at some time or another, they took what they thought was a calculated risk and made an incorrect decision only to have it backfire in a humiliating display of power, disappointment or outrage by a senior manager. Senior Managers don't often grasp the notion that if you berate an employee or a supervisor for a mistake that should be coached, you create a culture of fear, risk aversion and homogeneity.

There are many more reasons why decision makers can become paralyzed or inoperative. Some leaders are just not comfortable with making a decision about a trouble maker or non-performer who is negatively impacting the team because they don't want to be responsible for creating hardship for the trouble maker and their family.   I often hear the term, "I don't want to take bread out their mouths" so the cancer festers and spreads among the team while the team leader sticks their head in the sand. The key issue here is that as a leader, you are being paid to make the easy and the tough decisions so you need to rise to the expectations of your role.

From the opposite perspective, there are managers who neglect making a decision to promote strong performers because of petty jealousies or because they can't afford to lose their top performers. The problem here is that the leader has not developed a competent team and is relying on one person to pull the weight.   If your team isn't competent it means you need to make a decision or a combination of decisions to train, transfer, terminate or restructure.

Another sign of an decision paralysis is the manager who is petrified by the prospect of conflict. There are managers who fear being confronted.  The perceived disrespect rattles them to their core so they take great pains to avoid taking a stand because they see the potential conflict as unpleasant or scary. They lack the confidence, training, skills and will to harness or even acknowledge any type of conflict and transform it into a positive process and outcome.

Then there is a group of immobilized managers who over-analyze a problem to the point where they start to lose sight of the relevant facts and get caught up with the inconsequential and petty. These managers see themselves as cerebral or intelligent but they take their ability to think to an unproductive level. The key skill they need to learn here is execution. If your analytics are attributable to perfectionism, learn to stop expecting everything to be perfect before a single step can be taken.

There are some managers who can't separate facts from emotion so their emotions stop them from making a decision or cause them to take an inappropriate position. Everyone else perceives the inaction or emotionalism for what it is except the emotive manager.

While sometimes stalling tactics are appropriate, employees and support persons can tell (over time) if you are stalling or if you are stuck. Sometimes stalling or waiting will make the decision easier because circumstances may sort themselves out but keep in mind that timing is everything, so if you are stuck and you miss an important opportunity you will seem ineffective or impotent.

Here are the effects of indecision on members of your support team:

1. A loss of confidence in and respect of your leadership
2. Low morale
3. Missed opportunities
4. Issues piling up on each other, compounding a situation or making a process more complex than it needs to be.
5. You stand to lose your top performers who become frustrated by the perceived lack of direction and movement.

There are numerous decision making tools available to assist managers with strengthening their decisiveness. One of them is called the "Six Thinking Hats". Each hat represents a perspective of the challenge or problem that you can consider so that you can come to a conclusion and get into the world of action.

The White Hat: Look at past trends and identify gaps in your knowledge
The Red Hat: Look at the optional solutions at a gut level. You can also make an effort to understand how employees or members will probably react. Keep in mind that a negative reaction isn't always a reason to decide against a solution.
The Black Hat: This form of thinking makes your decision more resilient. Weigh the cons of the options. This is important because it exposes the weaknesses in the solutions.
The Yellow Hat: This is the optimistic viewpoint. Use this approach to identify the value and opportunities in your options.
The Green Hat: This is hat is about introducing creativity to the process. One tool of creativity is brainstorming (ie. true brainstorming that suspends judgment of ideas during the process)
The Blue Hat: This hat is about process control. Did the meeting leader prepare an agenda and facilitate the discussion effectively or did you walk away from the meeting thinking it was a waste of time?

Once you review the problem using the six thinking hats or any tool or combination of decision making tools of your choice, you can venture into the world of risk taking. If your decision is not a confidential matter, you can test your ideas on your coworkers or boss before taking a risk. The execution process will test the applicability and adaptability of your plans. It will test your leadership because will allow you to make changes if recalibration is necessary.

Reinvent Your Career

Yvette Bethel — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:52:47 GMT

Do you wake up day after day and wish you could call in sick? Are you demotivated and unexcited about your work because you feel there is absolutely nothing to look forward to except more of the same everything?

You know it is time to reinvent your career if you are feeling unchallenged, or if you don't perceive career advancement opportunities like a promotion. You may feel your career has plateaued or, you may have started out enjoying your career and then over time you lost interest.

For example, you may be new in your career and took the first job you were offered at a company you felt was solid because you wanted a stable job and you needed to pay your college bills but you are not doing something that interests you. Or you achieved your career goals early on in your career and you are looking for something new and challenging to do.

Another example is that, you may have over 20 years of experience in your career. You used to love going to work because you had a plan and twenty or thirty years later you are doing exactly what you always dreamed of doing but you are no longer excited about it. In fact, you are only waiting around for retirement so going to work every day is now a tedious exercise because you are seeing the same work and situations over and over again.

Sometimes career reinvention may be useful if you are in the right job but the work environment isn't a good fit for you. For example, you are doing the work you love but you do not thrive in a very competitive, "cut-throat" environment nor do you enjoy managing people but you are working in a very competitive environment and you have a team of employees reporting to you.

If you decide you are ready to make a change in your career you can decide if you want to remain on the same career track or in the same industry or if you want to change your career altogether.   Your career usually goes through four stages in a cycle.   The cycle starts at the exploration stage and moves into the establishment stage where you are working toward moving up the ranks. Once you establish yourself in your career you maintain your performance or continue to grow and when your career starts to approach decline, you may disengage. Some employees disengage but stick around because early retirement is right around the corner.

Here is a list of reasons employees give me that cause them to resist making a change that will probably lead to a much happier, fulfilled career:

n-  I don’t know what you want to do but I am clear about what I don't want to do.
-  I don’t have a degree so I can't compete in the market
-  I don’t have the money to go back to school
- I am making a lot of money and I don’t want a pay cut if I have to start over
-  I have to support my family. I have to keep food on the table and gas in the car.
-  I know what I have… (Fear of the unknown)

These are reasons that sound legitimate but keep us stuck so here are the steps you can take to get "unstuck" and reinvent your career.

- Step one is to find your purpose if you haven't already. If you are going to reinvent your career why
   don't you do something you love to do? Keep in mind, finding something to do that will invoke enthusiasm
   sometimes takes time so be patient with yourself. If you are unclear and you need help with this
   process, a career coach can assist you.
- Step two is to understand your personal career preferences. What are your personal values? Are they
   aligned with your employer's values? What kind of work environment do you work best in? Where can
   you find this type of environment?
- If you decide to make a change in your career, research your options. Conduct your research into the
   corporate environment before you interview with a potential employer because you can decide that a
   work environment is not suitable to you no matter how much money they offer. Decide if you want to
   remain in the same company or the same industry? Use your network of friends and acquaintances to
   understand more about the roles that interest you. Always aim to have more than one role of interest.
- Create a career development plan that will help you to get from where you are to where you want to
   be.  You may decide to take classes or identify a mentor or career coach. Your plan should identify
   companies of interest to you and it can identify if you would like to continue to work for an employer or
   open your own business or a combination of both. If you plan to continue to work for an employer and
   open your own business, keep in mind some companies have rules that prohibit a conflict of interest that
   will impede your ability to perform your daily duties so investigate the corporate policy before you seek
   an alternative income stream.

   Your career plan can include hypothetical career paths you can take to achieve your goals coupled with
   alternative developmental plans designed to provide you with the skills you will need for each
   path.  Remember, if you are looking to attain a managerial or executive position, learn more about
   leadership and technical skills that will help you to be more competitive.

Some employees wait until their employers can see how much they bring to the table and train and promote us. While some employers are willing to invest in your development, your training is either primarily your responsibility or a joint responsibility between you and your employer because if you decide to resign, you take the benefits of your training with you to your new employer. So develop your own personal training plan by considering your budget and appropriate seminars, degree programs, conferences and associations.

There are many people who are not sure about what they want to do so if you are one of these people you can try different jobs over time. If you decide to try different jobs, keep in mind that some employers shy away from considering resumes that list numerous jobs in a short period of time because they may perceive this as an indicator of instability and some recruiters are wary of employee turnover. However, frequent position changes while working for a single employer seems to be a more acceptable pattern.

In my experience, no two career plans are exactly the same. Everyone has different interests and skill sets. For example, you may be interested in law, someone else may want to combine their knowledge of the law with their knowledge of IT. Or you may combine your knowledge of IT with Graphic Art. Consider the needs of the market you are a part of (or one you wish to be a part of) and think of skill sets or combinations of skills that will set you apart from your peers.

Reinvention can occur whether or not you remain in the same career or whether or not you decide to start working for yourself. When reinventing yourself you don't have to be focused on a promotion or making more money. You can focus on improving your performance or knowledge of your existing role and this can involve developing a plan to attain a higher performance rating or it can mean taking a lateral role with the same pay so you can attain breadth and depth of knowledge and experience. So when developing your plan, ensure it is flexible and meets your specific needs.

I WANT To Be Accepted

Yvette Bethel — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:46:49 GMT

There are people in the workplace who try to get along with everyone. They are pleasant and accommodating and their aim is to be accepted and to be a part of the team.   They bring you a slice of the cake they baked on Sunday, they get your coffee everyday, they pick up or even buy your lunch regularly, they help you out whenever you need something they can do for you. They sometimes offer.

This type of coworker can be liked but more often than not they are disliked. Why disliked? Sometimes they are disliked because they are perceived as kissing up because of their perceived performance deficiencies.   While this may be true in some circumstances, a high need to be accepted could also exist in top performers.  Top performers sometimes feel they need to be accepted so they are congenial or they sometimes even dumb down to fit in. The problem with this approach is that your coworkers can through the facade. They know you are a strong performer or making them look bad so they don't trust you.

You sense the lack of trust or feelings of dislike directed toward you so you try even harder to fit in because you believe in the team. You believe in working together and you want to be a part of the solution. This is how you were trained.

We are always taught to "never give up" or to persevere. While perseverance is sometimes a very useful tool, it can sometimes be destructive in cases where we use the same unsuccessful tactics over and over again.   Remember the definition of insanity...

There is now a fairly new skill in leadership being taught called knowing when to quit. Knowing when to quit is not about giving up, it is about knowing when you have passed the point of diminishing return and changing your approach or discontinuing your ineffective tactics. It may even mean losing the battle to win the war.

Now let's put this in context. When we are not liked because of our strong results, we sometimes inadvertently feed the dislike by trying harder to be accepted by doing what we feel are the right things instead of identifying the point of diminishing return. We continue to try to be of service to others, to forgive and be generous. While these are commendable traits, when doused healthy dose of a lack of self confidence, the combination is not functional and it causes us not to know when to quit. Here is how this system of behavior can become toxic.

You are performing well and you are helpful and always willing to do whatever it takes (sometimes going overboard) to be a productive member of the team. Your team members can tell that you are a high performer, you get the interesting assignments from the boss, you win awards and you are recognized but you can feel their growing resentment - you beginning to feel ostracized.   You want your team to accept you as the "down to earth", helpful and willing team player that you are by doing the things you value, like helping them out with their work. Unfortunately, helping them only pushes them away further because to them, it seems like you are trying too hard and by helping them you may be reinforcing their perception that you think you are better, smarter or more favored. You are not making any headway but you were taught to persevere but all the perseverance is doing is fueling the (no longer latent) fires of jealousy and anger toward you causing that anger to manifest itself in various ways like confrontation or rejection.

Here are a few behaviors I have witnessed in the person being ostracized when trying to fit in:

1. They continue to do the same things like forgiving their coworkers for their transgressions. They continue
    to hope their coworkers will see them as a good person . Their coworkers may actually to like them.
2. You adopt a negative attitude toward the people who don't trust or like you and end up avoiding them or
    become aggressive toward them, deepening the system of dislike, bitterness and mistrust.
3. You take a step back and get real about the situation. Accept the part you are playing in building the system of
    dislike and mistrust and break your patterns.

Here are some tips on how to you can break your patterns:

1. Face the truth. You will not get anyone to like you by continuing to do the things they don't like about you.
    Determine which behavior are a based on your need to fit in and weed these behaviors out as they don't serve
    you or the team because they don't represent who you truly are.
2. While being yourself, treat your coworkers with dignity and respect, - you will be liked or disliked no matter
    what you do because your coworkers have diverse tastes, talents, abilities and perceptions.
3. Learn to love yourself more. Expand your self esteem to the point where your validation is not sought
    extrinsically.  In other words, develop your self esteem and believe in yourself. Seek a trained counselor or
    therapist if you can't do this on your own.
4. One part of building your self esteem is learning and using Emotional Intelligence skills. In Emotional
    Intelligence you first have to be able to identify your emotions and your subsequent patterns of behavior
    before you can engage the people around you more effectively. If you are not yet proficient with EI , learn to
    identify your emotions and patterns of behavior. Once you can see your patterns more clearly, make a
    conscious decision to move away from the unfulfilling world of seeking infinite validation from others. It will only
    be a distraction.
5. Understand the consequences of your actions. Once you have the courage to see consequences for what
    they are and accept your part in them, take the steps to help transform the situation. It may not feel safe
    anymore because you can only change yourself but your aim is authenticity.
6. Know when to stop trying and start being who you really are! Recognize when you have you passed the point
    of diminishing return.

Many of us focus our energies on building a list of academic accomplishments so that we can equip ourselves with the skills we need to be successful. This is a noble goal but we sometimes overlook investing in developing our interpersonal and leadership skills because we don't realize that in the long run, the person with the well developed leadership and communication skills and average technical skills can sometimes get further ahead than the person with a stronger knowledge of the job and weak leadership skills.

Depending on your work environment, wanting to be accepted can be an "Achilles heel" for you so be aware of your patterns and if it makes sense to you, use these tips to help you to reinvent yourself so that you don't sabotage your career in the long run.

The Dysfunctional System of "Sucking Up"

Yvette Bethel — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:55:35 GMT

"Sucking Up", "Brown Nosing", "Kissing up", and favoritism. No matter the vernacular, it all boils down to the same system or behaviors. There are times when sucking up occurs as a result of a lack of competence where the dysfunctional behavior becomes a stand-in for competence because despite the lack or endowment of technical competencies, the employee becomes quite adept at adapting to their boss' needs by being overly agreeable.

Why does "Sucking Up" Occur?

It is sometimes mind-boggling to watch the evolution of the system of favoritism. Mind-boggling because sometimes it is so obvious that the manager is being "played" or undermined, yet they remain blissfully oblivious to the system or its consequences.

To start with, I have to state that as part of the succession planning process, we sometimes tend to push or stretch our top performers and load them up with work. This is acceptable is everyone is allowed to developed their respective strengths, whatever they are. Persons identified by the succession process want to remain in our favor and attain that eventual promotion so they deliver, how, what, when and wherever you stipulate.    Their agenda is to prove to you that they can do it they way you want it to be done and sometimes they do this by diminishing the contribution of other players, acting like the primary contributions all came from them, and by creating the impression that no-one else is competent enough... As a leader you need to determine if this is true or part of a clever "spin" initiative designed to reserve their coveted spot.

And then there are the favorites who are not necessarily competent but are compromisingly agreeable and open to doing whatever you say or request. They offer to pay for or collect your lunch or coffee, make poor judgment calls with pleasing you in mind, they agree with whatever you say, minimize problematic situations for which they are responsible and exaggerate examples of their contribution to the team, hoping to make themselves sound irreplaceable. The problem with this system of behavior is that these team members rarely provide constructive input so if you are in a leadership position surrounded by "yes men and women", it is only a matter of time before you become mediocre, static or less than optimal with meeting your performance goals.  Always remember, if you are not receiving constructive input, you are only as good as your own ideas and limitations - there is no healthy infusion of synergy.

There are persons who play the "Brown nosing" game to set you up for a fall. They know that your idea, approach or plan will not work and they agree with you so that they can help to make you seem incompetent and put themselves in an enviable position in the longer run. Leaders be aware but not paranoid...

"Sucking up" can also be the result of low self esteem. An employee may feel the need to be accepted or liked so they agree with the boss, no matter if they have personal opinions or views or not. What they do not take into account is that the boss sometimes needs observations that add to the breadth and depth of the discussion so that new and better ideas can evolve into being.

I recently heard a quote by the fictional character, Icabod Crane from the Movie "Sleepy Hollow" that is related to this game people play at work. He said, "Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue." I would venture to add one more mask here - the mask of agreeability.

Why does this System Self Perpetuate?

We talked about the low self esteem of the individual doing the "Brown Nosing" already but sometimes the leader also lacks confidence so platitudes being plastered on the boss serve the boss' ego needs.  Bosses sometimes fall into the trap of this system, knowingly or otherwise because of a high need for validation or re-assurance.

This system also works and entrenches itself because the leader is not aware of or is just plain self deceptive about their biases. For example, there are leaders who state clearly that they don't promote favoritism, yet their biases surface and they are the only ones blind to obviousness of their biases. Everyone else sees the biases and the onlookers either adapt, ignore or despise the boss.   Very few employees or peers have the courage to tackle this system head on. Even senior managers or executives tend to avoid these types of discussions unless there is a crisis.

There is a very easy exercise called the "Halo and the Horn Effect" that I sometimes share with leaders. It is very simple. All you have to do is list your top three performers and your bottom three and identify why they are on the top or bottom lists by outlining their positive and negative attributes. Once this is done, you have a ready made list of your positive and negative biases that impact ALL your interactions with members of your team.

Here are some additional questions you can ask yourself to help you to "flush out" your biases:

* How much do my top performers think like me? If they do, does this really help me or the team? If they
   don't, am I open to diverse views? Why or why not?
* What is their real contribution to the organization or the company?
* Who do I give the most positive recognition to? How and why?
* Who do I give the most negative reinforcement to? How and why?

Then there are leaders who appear to sincerely ask others for ideas and input and proceed to become quite defensive or unnecessarily toxic if creative ideas are put on the table that did not originate with them. They use statements like, "We tried that before" or "That won't work" or even worse, they completely ignore your contribution.   So sometimes, just to keep the peace and avoid being marginalized unnecessarily, employees will say what they think you want to hear. They feel they are forced to be disingenuous in order to survive and peacefully co-exist in the work environment.

Whatever the reason, "Sucking Up" creates a dysfunctional system of behaviors and as a leader, you need to take a deeper look at the systems of favoritism that you co-create and attempt to reinvent your approach by identifying your contribution to the system. Ideally, your intention should be to create strong leadership behaviors within yourself that will eventually lead to the creation and maintenance of a functional, high performing team.

Influence

Yvette Bethel — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:52:01 GMT

The book, "Influencer" by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler provides
some very useful tips for creating positive influence.

- Influence geniuses focus on behaviours – they carefully identify behaviors or beliefs they want to change
and then create an influence strategy
- They look for positive deviance – They study targeted settings where the problem should exist but doesn't’t.
- They identify recovery behaviors – in case you make a mistake in the process you have a back up plan

Tools of Influence

- Verbal persuasion – works usually but rarely with resistant problems. When you use verbal persuasion with
resistant problems you create more resistance.
- Personal experience – Help people to experience the world as you experience it. – Let them see or witness real
life reality for themselves.
- Create a surrogate for actual experiences – Whatever they are afraid of, let them witness someone else and
then let them try it – a staged approach.

Six Sources of Influence (for building your influence strategy)

- Personal Motivation - How to make the undesirable desirable
- Personal Ability - Help people surpass their limits
- Social Motivation - Harness Peer Pressure
- Social Ability - Use your network to help you succeed
- Structural Motivation - Design rewards for going down the new path
- Structural Ability - Change the environment

Excerpted from the book, "Influencer"

The Art of Not Being Offended

Yvette Bethel — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:23:31 GMT

There is an ancient and well-kept secret to happiness which the Great Ones have known for centuries. They rarely talk about it, but they use it all the time, and it is fundamental to good mental health. This secret is called The Fine Art of Not Being Offended. In order to truly be a master of this art, one must be able to see that every statement, action and reaction of another human being is the sum result of their total life experience to date.

In other words, the majority of people in our world say and do what they do from their own set of fears, conclusions, defenses and attempts to survive. Most of it, even when aimed directly at us, has nothing to do with us. Usually, it has more to do with all the other times, and in particular the first few times, that this person experienced a similar situation, usually when they were young.

Yes, this is psychodynamic. But let’s face it, we live in a world where psychodynamics are what make the world go around. An individual who wishes to live successfully in the world as a spiritual person really needs to understand that psychology is as spiritual as prayer. In fact, the word psychology literally means the study of the soul.

All of that said, almost nothing is personal. Even with our closest loved ones, our beloved partners, our children and our friends. We are all swimming in the projections and filters of each other’s life experiences and often we are just the stand-ins, the chess pieces of life to which our loved ones have their own built-in reactions. This is not to dehumanize life or take away the intimacy from our relationships, but mainly for us to know that almost every time we get offended, we are actually just in a misunderstanding.

A true embodiment of this idea actually allows for more intimacy and less suffering throughout all of our relationships. When we know that we are just the one who happens to be standing in the right place at the right psychodynamic time for someone to say or do what they are doing—we don’t have to take life personally. If it weren’t us, it would likely be someone else.

This frees us to be a little more detached from the reactions of people around us. How often do we react to a statement of another by being offended rather than seeing that the other might actually be hurting? In fact, every time we get offended, it is actually an opportunity to extend kindness to one who may be suffering—even if they themselves do not appear that way on the surface. All anger, all acting out, all harshness, all criticism, is in truth a form of suffering. When we provide no Velcro for it to stick, something changes in the world. We do not even have to say a thing. In fact, it is usually better not to say a thing.

People who are suffering on the inside, but not showing it on the outside, are usually not keen on someone pointing out to them that they are suffering. We do not have to be our loved one’s therapist. We need only understand the situation and move on. In the least, we ourselves experience less suffering and at best, we have a chance to make the world a better place.

This is also not to be confused with allowing ourselves to be hurt, neglected or taken advantage of. True compassion does not allow harm to ourselves either. But when we know that nothing is personal, a magical thing happens. Many of the seeming abusers of the world start to leave our lives. Once we are conscious, so-called abuse can only happen if we believe what the other is saying. When we know nothing is personal, we also do not end up feeling abused. We can say, “Thank you for sharing,” and move on. We are not hooked by what another does or says, since we know it is not about us.

When we know that our inherent worth is not determined by what another says, does or believes, we can take the world a little less seriously. And if necessary, we can just walk away without creating more misery for ourselves or having to convince the other person that we are good and worthy people.

The great challenge of our world is to live a life of contentment, regardless of what other people do, say, think or believe. The fine art of not being offended is one of the many skills for being a practical mystic. Though it may take a lifetime of practice, it is truly one of the best kept secrets for living a happy life.

By Dr. Jodi Prinzivalli

Encrypted Communication

Yvette Bethel — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:33:08 GMT

There is a special encrypted language that you encounter when a person wants to tell you something but they have to be careful about what they are saying with the intention of protecting the innocent.

While their intention can be to protect others or themselves or to intentionally confuse you, the end result is that it is very difficult for you to decode the language, regardless your cognitive ability, and misunderstandings can occur.

Here are examples of how communication can be so unclear that it seems encrypted:

* Sometimes the speaker substitutes names with vague, qualifying terms like "the person you just met the other
    day" in an attempt to avoid calling names. What if you met a number of people of late? And when was the
    other day again?
* Then there are others who use metaphors that mean something to them but they don't mean anything or the
    same thing to you.
* Others speak so softly that you can't hear what they are saying
* Some use vague responses to throw you off their scent to confuse or mislead you. They leave out important
    information that is key to a solution or decision.
* Then there are people who use "big" words to confound you and sometimes themselves, in order to sound
    knowledgeable or increase their status.

Here are a few tips to help you to break the code:

Learn to read verbal and non-verbal language with equal competence. Read the communicator's body language. Ask yourself if it is aligned with what they are saying. Is the body language defensive while the words are apparently calm and soothing? Learning to read body language, facial expressions and other aspects of non-verbal language can help you to learn to decode unclear language effectively. Remember, non-verbal language accounts for more than 90% of communication.

Another helpful hint is to consistently use active listening skills. We all have different backgrounds and so we filter information differently. Diversity is very real in the Bahamian corporate or business environments, therefore, we can't assume that we understand what is being said. The best listeners ask questions to test their understanding or paraphrase what the speaker just said to ensure they grasped the INTENDED meaning.

Too many people walk away from conversations with their bosses or others without asking questions or paraphrasing because they don't want to seem incompetent. What generally happens is the person that walks away without testing their understanding can end up wasting valuable time. One of the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" (Steven Covey) is to seek first to understand and then to be understood. Active listening skills can help you to understand what is really being communicated and break the encryption.

Thought for The Day: Learning is Active

Yvette Bethel — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:44:49 GMT

Don't get stuck in a holding pattern. Apply what you learn on a daily basis and remember:

Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.

Dale Carnegie