Turn Anxiety into Positive Action
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In the always-on bottle rocket economy, in which creative contributors spend their extended waking hours in simultaneous and schizophrenic bouts of digital grazing, conference calls, work tasks, social media…it’s no surprise anxieties and hypertension have overtaken the workforce.
I had an interview the other day with Chip Conley, Founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre (and killer TED speaker) and learned a cool emotional equation trick he is debuting in his new book. It’s common to feel overwhelmed with looming deadlines, and dueling projects. Here are a few tricks you can try to take control.
Understand You Have More Control Than You Think
We tend to fixate on what we can’t control or have little influence over. Try this from Chip Conley. It’s about turning negative stress in to positive challenge. Think of a project, task, or effort you are involved in and write down all of the things you have control and power over.
Now write down the things you think you have little or no control or power over. In Chip’s experience trying this out on hundreds and hundreds of leaders, they come to realize the number of elements they do have control and power over is surprisingly higher than they realized. And by clearly identifying and sharing pieces they think they have no control over, they realize quickly the people resources and available insights are more immediate and readily accessible than previously thought.
Understand Where You Spend Your Time
One tip from Martin Seligman. Weigh what your goals are against how you spend your time. Write down three to five things you really want to accomplish. Then keep track of how you actually spend your time. You can try reflecting on the past week or looking through your calendar from the last month, but in his experience, a better measure is to actually measure. Post a white board in your office or kitchen – or places you frequent – and jot down the time you spend on activities. It might surprise you the difference between time invested and stated goals.
Take Action
Now do something. That’s right, just get in motion. I heard a cool adage recently, “the amount of time it takes you to accomplish anything is equal to the amount of time you have to do it.” In other words, if you have two weeks to do the presentation, it will take two weeks. If you have two hours, it takes two hours. So my final advice in taking control is to self-impose deadlines and act. In my experience, the big project I’ve been putting off takes very little actual time. Or as my new friend Alexander Kjerulf likes to say, we are always choosing, since inaction is also a choice. So choose to act.
Using Humor for Discovery
I’m in Virginia this weekend visiting my mom, Bev Hunter, with my eldest son Charlie, and was reminded of the relationship between the Ha-ha of humor and the Ah-ha of discovery. Bev has been using humor as a therapeutic device for combating an illness (you can read in her blog), and I’ve been reminded of the power of using humor in finding new insights and ideas. As a gift she gave me a deck of creative thinking cards developed by Roger von Oech – each with their own little bit of creative provocation. I keep this deck in my bag everywhere I go and pull it out and try the next card in spare moments when reaching for new ideas.
Roger von Oech is a firm believer in using fun ideas to stimulate creativity. His company Creative Think was started in 1977. He is the author of A Whack on the Side of the Head, and this Creative Whack Pack I keep handy. Oech believes in the power of ‘creative stimulants’ and ‘mental fresheners’. They stimulate the thinking process, and open the mind to creative ideas.
I’m in Roger’s camp, who says that humor can drive creativity and the process by which new and different ideas are produced. And, there is a practical angle to it. It has to work in the given situation, or adapted in a manner that can work in the particular situation. Oech recommends that organizations have an ‘innovation requirement’ in the performance plan of employees. This way, employees would also focus on looking for innovative solutions. Asking questions that stimulate their thinking, or putting them in situations which require them to think laterally, or giving them open-ended problems to solve would get their creative juices flowing. It is important for people to approach a problem from many and different points of view.
Having a sense of humor helps. It has been found that there is a close relationship between the ‘Ha-ha of humor and the A-Ha! of discovery,’ to quote Oech.
Employees with wide-ranging interests in fields other than their field of work, or area of specialization, or have absorbing hobbies are always more creative than those who only specialize in their field of work. How does one use peripheral vision? Here again, Oech has a suggestion: ‘Look for the second right answer.’ Most problems have many solutions. The deal is that you have to look for them – have to free the mind enough to see them. It is only then that all possibilities can be found.
Read MoreDo it Like Zorro – Control Your Circle
Wall Street today was a street of vanished hopes, of curiously silent apprehension and of a sort of paralyzed hypnosis yesterday. Little groups gathered here and there to discuss the fall in prices in hushed and awed tones.
- New York Times, Oct 30, 1929
You might expect that at that moment in 1929, and again in 2008, sleep-deprived, anxious bankers worked tirelessly to arrest the stock market free-fall. And yet, more often, sleep-deprived anxious bankers sat in paralyzed hypnosis as the crisis unfolded before them. Not because they were unable to do anything about it, but instead were drawn into a state of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is that point at which we feel we are utterly unable to make a difference no matter what we do. We have to start by controlling/influencing what we know we can – which often means the lowest denominator.
Here is a lesson from Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage. Consider the story of Zorro in which early on we find our hapless hero, Alejandro Murrieta who is drinking and raging quietly against Captain Harrison Love who has killed his brother, and feeling totally helpless to take his vengeance. Zorro introduces him to the Master’s Wheel and advises, “This is called a training circle, a master’s wheel. This circle will be your world, your whole life. Until I tell you otherwise, there is nothing outside of it.” He teaches Alejandro to first control only what comes within his circle and by the end of the story the new Zorro is swinging from chandeliers and handling twenty men in battle.
In 2011, remember to focus first on what you can control. Your circle will widen.
Read MoreThe Pie of Life
There’s an old saying that goes, “How you spend your day is how you spend your life.” And researchers have shown (try Dan Gilbert) that we, predictably, are poor predictors of what will make us happy. The world is full of miserable lottery winners and yet we still think if only we have the house, the car, the spouse, the job, the vacation – whatever – we’ll be soo happy. And yet consistently many of these dreams fail to deliver joy upon arrival – or at least sustainable joy.
Turns out we aren’t very good at remembering how happy we were either. We fairly consistently recollect memories as joyful, when in fact the majority of the actual time spent was of a more mundane variety. We have the experiencing self in real time that has opinions and emotions, and we have a remembering self that recollects events and provides us with advice about the quality of that experience and how to make future choices.
So to figure out how happy we really are on a moment to moment basis, researchers Alan Krueger and Daniel Kahnman conducted a study in which they asked 4,000 participants to categorize their days into 15 minute increments and value them based on how they felt at those moments. The slide here represents those findings. Ouch – we really only spend less than 30% of our day engaged in activities we characterize as either enjoyable or meaningful? And yikes – almost a third of our day is spent wandering through the “conveyer belt” of life, which to the average of those 4,000 interviewed meant work or school.
Todd Kashdan, author of Curious?, suggests it doesn’t have to be this way. The world over, people say they want happiness, health, and wealth – in that order. Todd is making a strong argument for the power of curiosity to be the sustaining key to happiness, joy and lifelong fulfillment. He reminds us that not only can we learn new things, open our minds, build more positive mood states, and generally find novelty in the world, but that it takes work. We have to apply ourselves to the game of learning curiousity, and the results can be profound – not only greater happiness, but closer and more fulfilling relationships, and even healthier bodies.
Try this for just five minutes. When engaging in an activity you regularly do (walking to the mailbox, washing dishes, whatever) look for something new in the experience. Slow down and be present for something you have never noticed before. For example, Todd has a great story of a guy he interviewed whose job was to spot irregular potato chips on a moving conveyor belt and remove them to ensure product consistency. I mean, that’s GOT to be up there with tollbooth operator on the boredom factor. The guy said he loves his job. Loves it. He plays a game in which he tries to spot famous faces in the potato chips (Hey, there’s Ernest Borgnine!). OK, maybe not your idea of fun but it was for him. Find something new in each experience. Sometimes it’s only a slight turn of the head.
The Both/And Equation
The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they surpass him or her in knowledge and ability – Fred A. Manske, Jr.
We have an upcoming interview with Tom Griffin, Chief Teaching Officer of U.S. Cellular, and in preparation I was reading some of his articles and work. One of the key tenets of leadership philosophy at U.S. Cellular is the belief that developing people is as important as business results. It’s the both/and relationship between both accomplishing the target objectives and developing the skills and capabilities of those who work in the company. They recognize that only by increasing their own people capabilities can they continue to develop innovation and advantage. Because of course, as the market continues to shift and change so rapidly, new solutions will always be needed. If the company becomes satisfied with accomplishing business objectives alone, without developing new ideas and skills simultaneously, you’ll quickly find yourself at a loss to compete.
That, plus remember what studies have shown people want most from their companies and leaders:
- Senior management’s sincere interest in employee well-being
- Opportunity an employee has to improve skills and capabilities
- Organization’s reputation for social responsibility
Creating opportunity for people to develop skills isn’t just providing increased competitive advantage for the company. It’s also valuing and respecting everyone’s innate interest in personal and professional growth. It’s a positive loop – develop people and they will naturally apply those skills and ideas to develop your business too.
Read MoreEchoLeaders: How Our Intention is Echoed Back to Us
I had a conversation the other day with David Penglase, a fantastic speaker, writer and entrepreneur based in Sydney. He introduced the phrase Intentionomics to describe how our intent drives all results in life interactions. Our customers, colleagues, (certainly our children) and pretty much everyone we interact with have keen detectors of our intent. If, as a salesperson, your primary intent in prospect interaction is to maximize a contract value instead of honestly solving a client puzzle, they’ll recognize it. Even if that recognition isn’t immediate, your later actions by either conscientiously adding superlative value, or not, will come back in spades. This is the karma effect, the what-goes-around effect.
The travel policy at NetApp is Do the Right Thing. Officially it’s “We are a frugal company. But don’t show up dog-tired to save a few bucks. Use your common sense.” And by providing the latitude for employees to exercise their own discretion, they also self-select for continued employment there. Because, of course, they are working within a social contract, not a policy one. I had an interview with John Grant, CEO of Data#3 who believes strongly in offering people the autonomy and freedom to take strategic risks for the sake of furthering innovative design and results, all within their signature process they call PDO2. Or consider Disney, at which cast members have the authority and discretion to solve any customer dilemma on the spot as they choose – they can comp a penthouse suite if they choose. Later their peers and colleagues provide the social feedback mechanisms to allow cast members to understand the extent of reasonable customer remedies, but there are no punitive measures.
These are the characteristics of the EchoLeader, who value initiative over compliance, while expecting people behave with an aligned moral compass. EchoLeaders emphasize what they can give to the world and bring forth a point of view, a perspective and intent of construction – a will to build stronger communities of collaboration around a resolved vision. An EchoLeader has the ability to galvanize teams and create results because their purpose is beyond personal success. The purpose becomes pursuit of significance for the vision we serve.
Have another read of The Giving Tree – you’ll be reminded of gratitude and the power of giving.
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