In this month’s video newsletter, David goes in depth explaining the true power of vision.  He shows how one’s genius can be unleashed through the power of vision and makes a compelling case for vision being the antidote to many of today’s business challenges.  If you like the video then sign up for this month’s webinar entitled “What Does it Take to Be a Visionary Leader?” by following this link.

Mike Flanagan: 1951 - 2011

As a young boy I worshiped the Baltimore Orioles.   I was fortunate enough to watch them at a time they were at the top of the baseball world.  From the early 60′s through the mid 80′s – the Orioles consistently competed for the division title and won three World Championships.   Many stars emerged during this time and one of my favorites was the 1977 Cy Young Award winner Mike Flanagan or “Flanny” as he was affectionately called.   Tim Kurkjian of ESPN called Flanagan “the favorite and funniest player I ever covered.” And Flangan did not stop contributing to baseball once he retired.  He served many great years in the orioles front office – including 2005-2007 as GM.

It was reported by a local Baltimore TV station WBAL that Flanagan dropped into depression more and more since he left the Orioles front office in 2008 due to what he assessed as his failure in rebuilding the Orioles.  Apparently, he became more and more despondent over what he perceived as HIS apparent failure.   Many will shake their heads and say how could a guy with his spirit and who had accomplished so much allow himself to get to the place of committing suicide.  Yet, for those who feel this way, please know that while this is a sad outcome and a major loss that could have been avoided – there is a good reason Mike made this decision.   No matter how much a decision does not make sense to us – there is always a good reason it is made.  My guess is Mike dealt with a life long issue that many many people face.  Mike struggled with a debilitating inner shame – the feeling he was never good enough.  That he was not deserving of the good that happened around him yet was fully responsible for all “the bad” that happened.

And in his death I see an opportunity to shine a light on shame – one of the key issues that mute success, suffocate an individual’s power and ultimately costs organizations millions. Unfortunately, shame is not something we like to talk about.  It is something we want to sweep under the carpet.  In fact, shame’s very nature is to hide – to be covered over by such surface comments like “everything is fine.” 

Shame is a major issue in our culture and we need to wake up and talk about it. Shame has many faces including rising in one’s career through the sad art of perfectionism, judging others and self too harshly, (thus spreading shame), playing the blame game,  hiding in one’s intellect and seeing their interpretation as “The Truth”,  feeling lonely (especially after entering the executive suite) and experiencing high degrees of defensiveness when it comes to receiving feedback.

The costs of these masks of shame are many – addiction, disconnection from others (a blocking of intimacy), depression and the biggest – the muting of one’s expression of power.   At an organizational level, this may just be the reason we are facing a crisis in leadership!   After all when leaders are playing full out:

• Their focus is on the vision and such leaders long for any feedback that makes them and their organization better
• They deeply care for those they serve and for those who support the vision.  They enjoy their connection to others.
• They are visionaries seeing what needs to change in the markets and world and go for it because they see the solution.

People who are challenged by shame resist these aspects of leadership – many times not seeing the value in them at all!   One of the challenges of shame is the blindness that comes with it.  Shamed individuals are usually quite intelligent and use this intelligence to try to work around the issue.  They know what leadership is and even may deploy some of its practices.  They do their best to be open to feedback yet they do not really take it in because until they are able to release the shame they literally can not take advantage of what excellence, feedback and acceptance can bring.

One of the reasons this country has found the rise of these things boils down to how an entire generation has fostered shame as a motivating force. Yes, I said that – rather then embracing the greatness that already lies within – parents have used shame as a motivating force.  “You do not want to let us down – do your best.”   How unnecessary this type of motivation is.  How different it would be to say to a child “you can do anything you set your heart and mind on – just do your best – you are great!”

After all, the bottom line is that everyone has a seed of greatness in them.  To release shame one must accept fully this truth at a fundamental level.  Then they must accept, release and transmute shame into a belief in Self.  While such a process can be painful – the release into one’s power is worth the journey.   If Mike Flanagan had discovered this – we would not only still have him around – he would be a bright light for baseball and the world.

In closing, I want to say a final farewell to “Flanny” – I am grateful for all the joy and dedication you brought into this world.  May the lesson of your death also be something we take in so that we can begin to heal our shame and all the costs this shame causes for ourselves, our families and yes our organizations.

Growing Leadership

• A desire to ramp up one’s impact as a leader
• Becoming open to increasing one’s self-awareness around their desired impact and current state as a leader.
• Engaging in some process that measurably increases their power in at least one or more of the keystone areas.
• The willingness to learn and change.

It is clear that developing stronger leadership is absolutely necessary if one is to have both personal fulfillment and greater success. When one realizes they are the instrument for not only their success but the success of their staff and the organization around them – a desire grows to become a better instrument.  As this desire to become a better instrument for the vision grows a leader will begin to become more aware of what they do well and what is holding them back from being an even better leader. As one stays focused on having greater impact and sees the strengths as well as the gaps – there is a growing willingness to stretch, learn and change.  This is a natural unfolding that most experience as they embrace the development journey.

Yet, for many there is a resistance to stepping into the development process.  Why?  Because when you do you must face yourself.  If there is not the recognition around the value of change the very part of ourselves we must change in order to grow resists the process of transformation.  In my view this is why leadership development is not embraced more widely.  It has nothing to do with budget or the questions as to its value.  Even as more and more research has shown the return on investment from the development of leadership – executives and organization’s resist.  Yet, as change continues to escalate and the complexities of a global world impact our competitive edge more and more – executives will come to realize that one of the only ways they can gain some edge is through their own development.  Human beings are funny creatures – it tends to take pain or failure to generate the desire to grow and change.  That being said, every leader I have known who has ever fully embraced the development journey finds it enriching once they get under way with it.  There are always a few rough spots in the development process but for the most part the leaders to step into it find most of the experience quite enjoyable.

1. Gravitas comes from the power of ones self image, purpose and integrity.  It is expressed through a leader’s authentic physical, emotional and spiritual presence.
2. Achievement comes from the power of vision and focus.  It is expressed through the ability of a leader to move forward key personal and organizational priorities.
3. Influence comes from the power to create mutual value, inspire, and motivate.  It is expressed through our ability to engage others in meaningful, respectful and trustworthy ways.

There are many competencies a leader must develop under these keystones yet these are the primary areas to measure a leader’s impact.  Ultimately an extraordinary leader must have a foundation of personal purpose and power, must be able to influence others and ultimately must generate high value results.  In my next entry I will talk, at a high level, about what it takes to develop these keystones.

Taming the Tornado of Overwhelm

In part I and part II of this series we shared how we are facing a growing experience of overwhelm at work and in our lives.  There is just not a sense we are able to keep up any more. Further we highlighted that overwhelm is not so much a symptom of our times as it is a symptom of trying to use outdated means to be successful during the times we find ourselves in.  In short, these times are calling for a transformation in our approach to working and living.    As mentioned the earlier entries the biggest thing we are all being called to do is evolve how we relate to our own thinking, feelings and resulting behaviors.   The fields of biology, neurobiology and quantum physics are highlighting that our power as human beings comes from taking full responsibility for our thoughts, to take full advantage of our freedom we experience by making conscious choices (versus just being on automatic pilot) and ultimately to direct our success and happiness from the inside out.  In short, we are creative beings and today’s times are demanding we raise our game!

While the foundation for all of this must be taking charge of our thinking – there are additional core principles and practices that can be deployed to assist you in vastly decreasing overwhelm at work and in life.  They are the “GUTS^TM” of gaining greater control and here they are:

Gaining Clarity

We are still surprised that in the our work with our clients, one of questions that stops many of my clients in their tracks when we ask it is “What do you want….?”

• What do you want personally from your experience as a business leader?
• What do you want from your overall work experience?
• What do you want from your life overall?
• What do you want from those who work for you or you work with?

In most cases, when we ask people these questions they look at us almost like “what are you asking me that question for?”  Yet, having tracked many successful people over the past 20 years, we find that most have gained success due to some good luck as well as some very positive habits these people unconsciously deployed over and over again.  As their success grew they may have had clear goals but they never asked on a deeper level what they wanted and yet their success continued to grow.  Yet, as success grew – so did the distractions.   For example, we have worked with a number of CEOs and business leaders who grew their businesses from start up to thriving organizations with hundreds of employees.   Their vision and business savvy got them to this point but then they found themselves overwhelmed by the complexities of the organization they have built.  They faced questions like:

• How do I build a strong team around me?
• How do I maintain a high performing culture and retain the best people?
• How do I expand into markets that I am unaware of?
• How do I get others to rise to the standards I set to serve our customers?

The bottom line, unless the business leader answer the question “Given what I have built – now what do I want?” – they usually begin spending a lot more  money on consultants than they need to because they have no inner navigational system to deal with the questions bulleted above.   In a sense, they have no vision to direct their own decision making.  There is an underlying assumption that this is just a puzzle and if I just get the right pieces together then it will all work the way it used to.  Unfortunately it is that very assumption that ruins hundreds of businesses a year.  You hear things like:

• I ran out of runway and could not find the financing necessary.
• I could not hold on to the best people.
• I could never find sales people.
• I just got tired of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The problem was not a missing puzzle piece – the problem in most failed businesses is that vision is missing and the key leaders do not ask “what do I want?”  Answering this question from the deepest place and forming a vision is the foundation of success that clears distractions, removes overwhelm and vastly increases the probability of success.

Ultimate Self-Care

Have you ever been a weight lifter?  Well if you were you know that you can’t work the same muscle group day in and day out.  Why?  Because if you continue to work these muscle groups day after day without rest – the lactic acid that is generated during your work out will continue to build up and ultmately break down your muscles.  In other words, recovery is part of the strengthening process!   So how does this understanding relate to overwhelm?    The unconscious belief that breaks and taking lunch at work is a luxury is akin to concluding to strengthen my biceps I must work them every day.   Unfortunately, without recovery, even positive stress, will not only have a negative impact on our health it will decrease our performance at work!   Research has shown by simply taking a break for 15 minutes in the morning, taking our full lunch hour and taking a 15 minute break in the afternoon vastly improves our productivity as well as our health ¹.   In short, At some point you have to shut down and let your brain and nervous system recover from even enjoyable stress or you are going to create major problems for your health and performance. As overwhelm has increased, we have increasingly become a society addicted to adrenaline and the thought of slowing down, taking a deep breath and catching up has become akin to boredom . In short, we must come to appreciate the fulfillment that comes from quiet and reflection as well as realize the tremendous benefits of such time that leads to greater creativity, success and personal fulfillment.

Taking Charge

In a sense, we really dealt with this part of the GUTS when we highlighted the importance to taking charge of your thinking, emotions and behaviors.   Yet, taking charge also involves being conscious of the realization that the only time we have is NOW and that taking charge of our focus requires we strip away anything that distracts us from what is most important.  As David mentioned in his entry entitled “Time Management – The Illusion” – time is an illusion.  Yes, it is an important concept that allows us to consciously place boundaries around our focus yet ultimately we can only get something done now.   Therefore “Taking Charge” ultimately means we take charge of our focus moment to moment by learning how to remain conscious of the choices we are making and why we are making them.

Savvy Influence

Finally, a part of overwhelm is generated based on how we influence and how we allow others to influence us.  Here you need to ask yourself:

• Am I surrounding myself with people who align with me – who inspire and uplift me?
• Am I saying yes to the right things and are the commitments I am making supporting my ultimate vision?
• Am I making powerful requests for what I need in order to succeed and live a fulfilled life?
• Do i feel safe having direct open conversations about what matters with those I work with?

The key is to spend time with people who we can be mutually supportive of and whose company provides inspiration to our visions.  Being able to proactively build relationships is central to our long term success.   When you think about it, the most influential people in organizations are the rainmakers.  Why is this?  Certainly this is because they tend to generate sales but even more importantly such rainmakers tend to have a vast and deep network of relationships that they can call upon for support.  They usually provide tremendous value to their networks and generate a big bank account of favors that can be returned.  When rainmakers walk into a networking event everyone wants time with them.  Having that quality of relationships and wielding that level of influence equals power.  With so many willing to help them – they also don’t have to work as hard.

We hope that you enjoyed this series of articles.  Please know that both of us would value an opportunity to talk to you individually or organizationally about how you can apply these principles to not only reduce overwhelm but increase your success!  As always we welcome your comments.

In video one, Dr. Joe Dispenza illustrates how “neurons that fire together wire together” yet also highlights we can rewire these neurons by changing our habits of thinking, feeling and behaving.  In video two, Dr Bruce Lipton discusses his discovery that it is our thinking, our beliefs and not our genes that direct our long term health.  Very powerful presentations that turn a number of scientific assumptions on their ears.  These new scientific understandings have huge implications for anyone who runs or leads a business.  The implications?  Vision and focus are far more important in the success of our businesses than any sales, marketing or operations strategy we can deploy.  In fact, if we are not paying attention to underlying beliefs about our business and the market place – it does not matter how brilliant our strategies are.. they may just not work!  Enjoy the videos!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BkI8LD24y0

Dr. Joe Dispenza – “Neurons that Fire Together Wire Together“

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB81L9zGLjE

Dr Bruce Lipton – “The Biology of Belief“

The Tornado of Overwhelm

Ever feel like you and your team just can’t keep up with your responsibilities as business leaders? Are you feeling exhausted and overworked? Is fear of the unknown economic tides at work compounded with stresses in your home & family life leaving you mentally and emotionally depleted?  If so, hold on! Because most of us do feel overwhelmed, and why shouldn’t we?  The worldwide economic downturn and ensuing recovery will mark our lifetimes forever. There is no way to ignore the rising cost of food and fuel, of the growing numbers of homeless people roaming our streets. It is frightening to realize, maybe for the first time, the thin line between those that are working and leading stable lives versus those that are not. The whimsy with which fate has deemed who has a job and who doesn’t is disturbing in its reckless, random judgment. Because the reasons that some are employed or not employed has nothing to do with a job ‘well done’ or not ‘well done,’ the criteria for working is not based on any kind of measurement of success.

For the first time in many of our lives, we can relate to the frugality of our grandparents WWII generation, of we naively viewed as their parsimonious ways of asking us to “clean our plate” and not be wasteful of food. Yet, now any of are working twice as hard for less money. We are trapped in homes that have lost their worth, and the money we are making is going towards skyrocketing healthcare costs, and the fact is your money may be needed to support more people, family members who are out of work, parents who are retired but out of money.  At times, it does feel overwhelming to keep up with the tornado of activities in our lives, and there is nothing shameful in admitting this….  what is shameful is to not take the opportunity to avail ourselves of the newest techniques for coping with all of these complex stressors we each face every day. It seems we each have a tale to tell of what this recession has cost us, and if truth be told, weren’t feeling overwhelmed before the economic downturn? Overwhelm is a malady of our times that we must overcome if we are to regain control over the goals of our businesses and our lives.  Yet, creating new habits to foster long term goals of stability require a sense of ultimate self-care mentally, emotionally and psychologically and financially is something that IS in our power to create!

Yet, as David mentioned in his recent entry “The Illusion of Time Management” – this is not about having better systems for managing our time.  If we keep going down the path to try to move our calendars around and build better to do lists to manager overhwhelm we will just get more frustration.   So if it is not about time management – what is the first step out of overwhelm?

You may not like this but the first step is for us to take complete responsibility for what is being created around us and for our focus.  And no this is not about getting better at controlling other people and our surrounding circumstances because trying to do that is also impossible!   Taking personal responsibility starts by realizing it is our habits of thinking, feelings and behavior that are major contributors in our experience of overwhelm.  Yes, there are other contributing factors.  We work with others and in organizations where collective habits support the overwhelm experience yet before we can start changing those collective habits we must begin by looking at our own habits if we want to make more global changes around us.   The question is how easy is it to make such changes in our thinking.  Neurobiology provides a very powerful answer.

In his ground breaking book, “Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind”  by Joe Dispenza, D.C. discusses a well known principle from neurobiology called “neuroplasticity” which states that no habit of thinking, feeling or behavior is ever permanent.  Yet, it is important to first understand how the pattern of thinking literally creates our reality.  The moment we have a thought – say “I don’t have enough time” – the brain releases chemicals that generate an emotional reaction.  As this emotional reaction is generated it reinforces the thinking that started it.   This is where we get into trouble because the cycle is continuously reinforced until we break out of it with another pattern of thinking.  Most people believe because I think this it must be true.  Yet, it is really the opposite – it is true because we think it.  We fail to recognize we are in charge not our thinking.   This is a powerful understanding that if you grasp will totally change your life and approach to work.  Because once you learn to start controlling your thinking you begin to change not only your experience you change the outcomes you experience.

While it is certainly true that “neurons that fire together – wire together” – it is important to realize that the state of this wiring is “plastic” or pliable.  In other words, no matter how long we have formed a habit of thinking if a new set neurons fire together in a different pattern – this pattern will wire together creating a new habit.  Additionally, research is indicating we can change this wiring at any age.   For example, stroke patients in their seventies have been able to learn to bring back the usage of limbs lost to the stroke by wiring a different part of the brain not damaged by the stroke to engage the limb.   Well what does this have to do with about our ability to deal with overwhelm?

Simply put, on one level, overwhelm is a habit of thinking – nothing more!   Therefore a major step in taking charge of overwhelm is to take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and approaches.   For example, if you feel you never have enough time to get everything done – the first step is to challenge this very assumption because is that very focus that creates your experience of not having enough time.   So as you take charge of your thoughts and change them, the old pattern that creates the experience of not having enough time (e.g. creating a sense of contraction and frustration) can become rewired to create a new one can be created that allows for more time (e.g. feeling more expanded and and in charge).

In our work with clients we have seen first hand the mitigation of overwhelm from this one shift in thinking.  What many our clients have come to realize is that in any moment there is plenty of “time.”   The problem of overwhelm begins to creep in when one begins to think they have too much to do or as they look out towards a deadline they think “I am never going to make that deadline and get everything else I need to get done in that time.”   Paradoxically when we remain present to what is in front of us – NOW – time slows down and with focus we accomplish so much more than if we begin to look at our to do list and begin worrying.   This is what I mean by taking responsibility for your thinking.  It is a simple principle – “what ever you focus on you will create.”

This solution may seem to over simplistic to embrace yet I invite you to for one day focus on the following thoughts and questions and see what happens to your experience of time and overwhelm:

• I have plenty of time
• All I have is now – this moment.  If that is the case what is most important for me to focus on NOW?
• Worrying about things does no good, there is no problem in this moment, I choose to focus on what is most important and move that forward.

Again, do an experiment for one day and notice what happens.  At the end of your day ask yourself:

1. How did these thoughts change my experience of time and my ability to get things done?
2. If I did not remain focused on these thoughts – what distracted me from them (hint – it is not the external stimuli but rather how you dealt with the external stimuli).

Regardless of your experience you will notice something that will aid you greatly in reducing overwhelm.   Again, looking at how we actually think about time and overwhelm is the first step.  There are certainly many other things we can engage to improve our experience of personal control over our work and lives.  In part II of this series we provide some scientific grounding for our the premises outlined here.  In Part III, we will flush several other areas that we must take responsibility for if we are to gain greater control over our day and time.

In any event, enjoy the exercise and please let us know what you experience doing the above experiment!