Authenticity: Bringing Your Whole Self to Work (guest post)

Authenticity: Bringing Your Whole Self to Work

By Sunnie Giles

The behavior of an individual operating at the edge of chaos is congruent and integrated across bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, and actions. You are authentic when there is no discrepancy among these aspects of you: you feel what you see, express what you feel, think what you feel, and say what you think and feel. Integration also means you are congruent across all roles you play, whether as a spouse, parent, sibling, churchgoer, leader, employee, or citizen.

Stewart Butterfield, the CEO and cofounder of Slack, a collaboration messaging software, describes this action as bringing your whole self to work, not just parts of you. Authenticity builds safety, trust, and connection, and it speeds up team communication. The jerk boss (like one of my former bosses who told me she had more knowledge under her big toenail than I did in my brain) we see every day at work who saps the last drop of life out of us is actually, most likely, acting out of fear. When we present a facade that might be more appealing and acceptable to others, we (and those trying to connect with us) only feel empty because we cannot connect with a facade. When we are authentic, showing our authentic and even scared and insecure selves, we can bring our whole selves to work, and tap into the maximum potential of our wholes (not just a professional self) on a foundation of secure attachment and acceptance by our work families.

In corporate America, where professionalism counts more than authenticity, we have developed an overreliance and preference for the left brain. In the process, we have justified the thoughts such as work-life balance, as if it’s a zero-sum game where if we spend one more unit of energy at work then we become one less unit available for our families and “professionalism is not emotional.” We need to introduce more authentic emotions at work, not less. But bringing your whole self, including the messy emotions, makes you authentic, facilitates trust, and speeds up communication and decision-making processes (recall the Navy SEALs rescuing Captain Phillips from the Somali pirates and Sully and his first officer’s quick decision-making in the Miracle on the Hudson). Individually, when you are integrated as a whole person, it allows more efficient and accurate information processing across the brain’s corpus callosum, which integrates the left and right hemispheres. Being authentic requires courage and vulnerability, which requires the foundation of safety and trust. In other words, safety and authenticity are mutually reinforcing, and it takes time to build authentic relationships.

Companies that recognize the benefit of “bringing your whole self to work” must, in return, provide more flexibility and help to increase the quality of life with their employees’ families. For example, GE rolled out in 2015 a permissive approach to paid time off for exempt employees, where they can coordinate with their managers to take the time off and receive enhanced parental leave benefits. GE employees can now take up to ten weeks of parental leave (six paid and four unpaid) after the birth or adoption of a baby. Through the “Moms on the Move” program, GE moms in the US who are nursing and traveling for business can ship their milk back home for their babies.

As you can see, becoming an integrated boss that provides safety and connection for others does not only make good business sense (because it provides a foundation for radical innovation); it also improves our quality of life and overall happiness.

About Dr. Sunnie Giles:

Dr. Sunnie Giles is a new generation expert who catalyzes organizations to produce radical innovation by harnessing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA).

Her research reveals that applying concepts from neuroscience, complex systems approach, and quantum mechanics can produce radical innovation consistently. Her expertise is based on years as an executive with Accenture, IBM and Samsung. Her profound, science-backed insight is encapsulated in her leadership development program, Quantum Leadership.

An advisor to the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, she also is a sought-after speaker and expert source, having been quoted in Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Forbes, and Inc.

Dr. Giles’ latest book, The New Science of Radical Innovation, provides a clear process for radical innovation that produces 10x improvements and has been endorsed prominent industry leaders such as Jonathan Rosenberg, Daniel Pink, Marshall Goldsmith and Sean Covey.

Receptiveness to Community (Guest Post)

Receptiveness to Community

By Shelly L. Francis

Leadership can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. It requires not only a capacity to create community but also a willingness to receive community as a gift. Becoming receptive to the idea of needing a community is an act of social courage because it means allowing yourself to be real. Many leaders do not want to admit that they need help or have feelings or need other people. Such humility can be seen as weakness. Becoming receptive involves inner work. It must be present in you as “a capacity for connectedness”—a capacity to resist the forces of disconnection, such as narcissism, egotism, jealousy, and competition.

In the complicated landscape of your life, you may have community in one arena but not in another. At certain times in your life, you may be happily surrounded by colleagues, family, and friends; as circumstances change, you may find yourself alone once again. Community is rarely a given, obtained once and kept forever. As Patrick pointed out, community requires careful, regular tending, just as a garden does if it is to thrive for more than one season.

“I was keenly aware we didn’t have as much fun together as I thought we probably should. I decided to recruit what we call the Fun Committee. There’s three of us, and we have very fun planning meetings after hours in a local bar. Then we plan events, about one a quarter, for the senior executive team to do or to host for other executive groups. That sense of creating community has been really important, and helped us with some challenging work that we had to do in the first half of this year.”

Cultivating community can also be a form of self-care. Patrick applies an adaptive leadership concept: giving yourself a sense of sanctuary on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis.

“It’s easy to feel you can’t add anything new to your day, but this idea didn’t require me to do something new, but just do what I’m doing with more intentionality.” When stepping into the shower each morning or being more attentive at church, he says to himself, “This is my sanctuary.” 

“I play racquetball once a week with the same guy, and I now say to myself, ‘This is my sanctuary.’ I’m still a jerk to him on the court, but that’s racquetball. At my poker group, I stop and look around the table at the five to fifteen guys and think to myself, ‘This is my sanctuary; these are the guys in the lifeboat with me.’”

He often tells the people he leads, “You can create your own community if you don’t have one. Find your own practice; here are some examples. Don’t shy away from thinking you can’t. There are lots of options.”

We were created in and for a complex ecology of relatedness, and without it we wither and die. This simple fact has critical implications: community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received.

—Parker J. Palmer

About Shelly L. Francis

Shelly L. Francis has been the marketing and communications director at the Center for Courage & Renewal since mid-2012. Before coming to the Center, Shelly directed trade marketing and publicity for multi-media publisher Sounds True, Inc. Her career has spanned international program management, web design, corporate communications, trade journals, and software manuals.

The common thread throughout her career has been bringing to light best-kept secrets — technology, services, resources, ideas — while bringing people together to facilitate collective impact and good work. Her latest book The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity identifies key ingredients needed to cultivate courage in personal and professional aspects of life.

The Chain of Camaraderie (Guest Post)

The following is an excerpt from Find the Fire by Scott Mautz- enjoy!

THE CHAIN OF CAMARADERIE

By Scott Mautz

If we were disconnected from our nuclear family, it would weigh on us tremendously, making it almost impossible to feel inspired each day. This isn’t hard to understand given how sacred we hold the family unit (even after they’ve told us for the ninth time how to live our life).

Interestingly enough, research indicates that we’re actually spending more time with coworkers than family though; true of almost 80 percent of people who work thirty to fifty hours a week. So, it’s probably not surprising that research also indicates we’re increasingly viewing our co-workers as direct extensions of our family.

By default then, being disconnected from our co-workers is growing increasingly problematic for us.

And when we do truly connect with our work compatriots, research clearly indicates that it can indeed make us more passionate about and inspired by our work. These stronger one-to-one connections add up to a greater whole as well. Studies show that top rated places to work (with an inherently inspired work force) share a sense of camaraderie as a key ingredient in their success formula.

Furthermore, neuroscience research indicates that our brains are actually hard-wired to connect with others, so being disconnected from co-workers is not only an inspiration-killer, it’s fighting mother nature itself.

That might explain the astounding “add-on” effects of camaraderie in the workplace; 40 percent of survey respondents named their co-workers as the top reason they love working for their company, 66 percent said those positive relationships increased their productivity, and 55 percent said they helped mitigate their on-the-job stress levels. 45 percent said that camaraderie with co-workers led to more Xerox-facilitated pictures of butts.

Another study showed that the factor most closely linked to physical and mental health at work is the support of co-workers – and not things you’d expect like the number of hours worked.

The key, then, is the strength of the connection that you forge with your co-workers. Even if you wouldn’t call yourself disconnected, there is always room to strengthen the bond – like in all those buddy-cop movies. To induce inspiration and beyond requires going beyond – from mere collaboration to camaraderie.

About Scott Mautz

Scott is the CEO of Profound Performance – a keynote, workshop, coaching, and online training company that helps you “Work, Lead, & Live Fulfilled”. He is also a Procter & Gamble veteran who ran several of the company’s largest multi-billion dollar businesses, including their single largest, a $3 Billion Dollar division.  At P&G, Scott consistently transformed business results and organizational/cultural health scores along with it.

Author of upcoming book, Find the Fire: Ignite Your Inspiration and Make Work Exciting Again, and award-winning keynote speaker and author of Make it Matter: How Managers Can Motivate by Creating Meaning, a book that’s been named “The 2016 Leadership Book of the Year – First Runner Up” by Leadership & Management Books and a “Best 30 Book of the Year” by Soundview Business Books.

8 Tips for Riding the Mood Elevator (guest post)

8 Tips for Riding the Mood Elevator

By Larry Senn

The Mood Elevator is an illustration of the human condition; it is our moment-to-moment experience of life. We all ride the Mood Elevator every day, take a moment and identify what floor you are on right now.

The Mood Elevator map is based on my own experience, as well as input from hundreds of groups and tens of thousands of people who have attended seminars that Senn Delaney, the culture shaping firm has put on over the past few decades.

Look at the top of the Mood Elevator and think of the times you’re more likely to be at those levels. It could be when you hug your children at the end of the day, it could be spending quality time with your significant other, or it could be when you accomplish something at work. We all, of course, would love to live on the higher levels but that’s just not realistic. As part of the human condition we will experience loss, stress, financial insecurity and other events that will cause us to drop down to depression, anger, and stress.

In my new book The Mood Elevator, I provide a variety of tips and tools that will help you better understand your human dashboard as well as help you navigate the daily up and down ride of the Mood Elevator.

Here are 8 tips to help you better ride The Mood Elevator:

1.      Know that to be human means you will ride the Mood Elevator and visit each and every floor. Don’t expect to live at the top of the Mood Elevator all of the time, cut yourself some slack when you drop down.

2.      Learn to recognize the feelings that accompany any unhealthy normal thinking or thought patterns, and make them a loud bell. When you start experiencing feelings like: impatience, anger, anxiety, excessive intensity, neediness, disconnection, and self-righteousness it’s a good indication that you’re sliding down the Mood Elevator. When you recognize this, you can take some corrective action to avoid an unhealthy normal.

3.      Use pattern interrupts to change your thinking and your feelings. Pattern interrupts are anything healthy tactics that can help you escape your spiraling negative thoughts. They can include exercise, calling a good friend, watching a funny YouTube video, or getting a good night sleep.

4.      Feed the thoughts you favor, not those that drop you to the lower floors on the Mood Elevator. If you find yourself reminiscing on a negative event in the past, or fixating on a mistake you made at work or might make at work in the future- recognize that your thoughts are going negative. You can identify your thoughts based on your feelings, if you’re feeling worried- it’s probably because you’re having worried thoughts. Use a pattern interrupt or think about something you are grateful for to break that train of thought.

5.      Take better care of yourself and remember to stretch and recover with exercise, sleep, and time off. We are more likely to catch colds if we are run down physically, and we are also more likely to catch bad moods when we are run down physically. Exercise has many mood boosting benefits and eating the right foods can help keep our energy levels up which improves our moods. Have you ever noticed how life can look so much better after a good night sleep? Getting at least 7 hours of sleep per night can drastically help us stay up the Mood Elevator.

6.      Maintain a gratitude perspective, count your blessings daily and be grateful for life itself. Even when life doesn’t look as good as we would like it to, there are always things to be grateful for. Those who choose to look at life with gratitude are happier than those who don’t. Try starting a gratitude practice by making a daily list of what you are grateful for.

7.      Remember that your thinking is unreliable in the lower mood states; delay important conversations and decisions; don’t act on your unreliable thinking, and don’t take your lower mood state out on other people.

8.      Have faith that when you are down the Mood Elevator; this too shall pass-just like the weather. The sun is always up there; the clouds can obscure it, but they will pass as will your low mood.

About Dr. Larry Senn

Dr. Larry Senn pioneered the field of corporate culture and founded in 1978, Senn Delaney, the culture shaping unit of Heidrick & Struggles. A sought-after speaker, Senn has authored or co-authored several books, including two best-sellers. His newest is The Mood Elevator (August 2017), the follow up to his 2012 book, Up the Mood Elevator. You can learn more about Larry and his work at his website, www.themoodelevator.com.

The Key To Peaceful Relationships: Honoring Separate Realities (guest post)

The Key To Peaceful Relationships: Honoring Separate Realities

By Dr. Larry Senn

Think about the last argument you had with a loved one. Chances are, it was because you saw, experienced, or truly believed something that was different from the other person. Most confrontations, arguments, break ups, and irritations stem from seeing things differently from others.

Many of this day to day irritation, anger, blame, and self-righteousness (as well as anything on the bottom half of the Mood Elevator) can be avoided by a simple concept called Honoring Our Separate Realities. A lot of needless conflicts can be avoided if we just remember certain truths about life:

·         Things are not always the way they appear to us

·         Others inevitably see things differently

·         Our views and judgments are shaped by our backgrounds and experiences, as are the views and judgments of others

·         It’s generally impossible to say who is “right” or “wrong” when matters of opinion and perspective are involved

Everyone lives in a separate reality- and the only reasonable thing we can do as mature individuals is to respect those realities. If we don’t respect other’s realities, we risk living on the judgmental/blaming floor on the Mood Elevator- in this stage you will be much more argumentative, irritable, and angry. In addition, if you truly believe you are right and others are wrong all the time you will experience much less growth and learning because you believe you have all the answers and won’t be open to new ideas.

How do we honor other’s realities?

• As with most things, the first thing is to be aware that every person sees the world through their own set of glasses and their viewpoint has been determined by their beliefs and life experiences. What they see is what they see. It’s not right or wrong; it is what it is. This doesn’t mean that you can’t eventually have a conversation with them to understand how they see things but the conversation will go much smoother if you first understand that what they see may be very different from what you see and that’s OK, and to be conscious that practicing this principle can lead to increased happiness and more time up the Mood Elevator. We’ve heard the phrase, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” That doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be both, but the focus should be on being happy. So how do we do that?

The next step is to pause when we hear someone saying something we disagree with. Then ask yourself the following questions internally.

·         What is their thinking? Why do they see it differently?

·         How has their background, their experiences, or their education shaped their worldview so that they perceive something I don’t perceive?

These questions shouldn’t focus on who is right or who is wrong. These questions serve to open your mind to understanding how that person sees the world as well as opening your mind to new information, perspectives, and even relationships if you allow yourself to try to see something from a different perspective.

Another way to honor others’ realities is by being conscientious of how you communicate with others. By making it clear that what you are saying reflects your personal point of view rather than implying to others you know the absolute truth- you’ll come off as less dogmatic and certain. Use phrases like:

·         It appears to me…

·         The way I see it…

·         From my point of view…

·         I think…(versus I know)

·         If I’m not mistaken…

·         I may be wrong, but…

By taking the time to listen and communicate in a way that will help guide you to honor other’s realities you will experience more time up The Mood Elevator. As with many pointers out of my book, use your feelings as your guide. When we are overly certain about our opinions and ideas, we tend to experience such feelings as defensiveness, judgment, self-righteousness, and impatience with others. Become acquainted with these emotions and learn to recognize them when they pop up. They are signs that you have stopped listening and learning and instead are shutting out people and possibilities. When this happens, stop talking, sit back, take a deep breath, and try to shift to a mood of curiosity and interest.

About Dr. Larry Senn

Dr. Larry Senn pioneered the field of corporate culture and founded in 1978, Senn Delaney, the culture shaping unit of Heidrick & Struggles. A sought-after speaker, Senn has authored or co-authored several books, including two best-sellers. His newest is The Mood Elevator (August 2017), the follow up to his 2012 book, Up the Mood Elevator. You can learn more about Larry and his work at his website, www.themoodelevator.com.

FUTURE NOW—The Inaugural Issue (Guest Post)

FUTURE NOW—The Inaugural Issue

by Ben Hamamoto

For a decade, we’ve been talking about a future where we’ll have computers on our wrists, in our eyeglasses, even implanted under our skin. Today, that future is here.

From gold-plated Apple Watches to the much-mocked Google Glass to vibrating fitness tracking wristbands available for $30 a piece in a 3-pack at Costco, wearables have gone mainstream. We now have the technology to put computer power and Internet-connectivity pretty much anywhere in, on or around our bodies. And it’s clear that, in a decade, this technology will become exponentially more powerful and accessible. But what’s less clear, is why we would want these body area networks, how we’d arrange and configure them and what we’d use them for.

As part of our 2015 Technology Horizons research into Human+Machine Symbiosis, (the evolving relationship between humans and machines), we set out to answer this question. And the answer we found is the “New Body Language,” an exploration of how technology in, on and around our bodies will help us express ourselves, connect our communities, alter our anatomies, and help us fulfill our longstanding and deeply human intentions and aspirations. We’re pleased to make this body of research public in the inaugural issue of Future Now, IFTF's new print magazine.

Most pieces in this issue focus on the human side of Human+Machine Symbiosis—how body area networks will augment the intentions and expressions that play out in our everyday lives. Some pieces illuminate the subtle, even invisible technologies that broker our outrageous level of connection—the machines that feed off our passively generated data and varying motivations. Together, they create a portrait of how and why we’ll express ourselves with this new body language in the next decade.

About Ben Hamamoto

As a research manager at IFTF, Ben uses insights from his background in journalism covering issues of race and inequality to explore how well-being is shaped by social and environmental contexts. He has researched the future of food technology, environments that enhance well-being, and the design of healthy places, and he has an ongoing interest in narrative and health, the meaning of place, and equity and social justice. In addition to his work at IFTF, Ben contributes to the Nichi Bei Weekly and edits the National Japanese American Historical Society’s official magazine, Nikkei Heritage.

About Bob Johansen:

Bob Johansen is a distinguished fellow with the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley. For more than 30 years, Bob has helped organizations around the world prepare for and shape the future, including corporations such as P&G, Walmart, McKinsey, United Rentals, and Syngenta, as well as major universities and nonprofits.

The author or co-author of ten books, Bob is a frequent keynote speaker. His best-selling book Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present was selected as one of the top business books of 2007. His latest book is The New Leadership Literacies: Thriving in a Future of Extreme Disruption and Distributed Everything discusses five new leadership literacies—combinations of disciplines, practices, and worldviews—that will be needed to thrive in a VUCA world of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. 

3 Ways to Ensure Your Business Grows at the Right Pace (guest post)

Excerpted from Pacing for Growth: Why Intelligent Restraint Drives Long-term Success, by Alison Eyring (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2017)

3 Ways to Ensure Your Business Grows at the Right Pace

It’s difficult to know what the “right” amount of restraint is for a business. Sometimes, leaders lead with too little restraint, sometimes with too much. What’s clear is that it’s really, really hard to get it just right.

One reason it’s so hard is because we are leading organizations, and an organization is a complex combination of many interconnected systems. An organization is like the human body, which is an amazing structure of 11 different, interconnected systems. Take the respiratory and circulatory systems, for example. The respiratory system brings air into the body and removes carbon dioxide. The circulatory system picks up oxygen in the lungs and works like a transportation system moving blood filled with oxygen throughout the body and then taking waste in the form of carbon dioxide back to the lungs to be exhaled. These two systems have to collaborate and have clear touchstones. One interfaces with the external environment and the other is an internal system. If the air quality is very poor, both suffer. If the body is sick, they are both impacted. If the body is very healthy and strong, they work better, together.

Endurance training systematically increases the capacity of our complex body to withstand the stress of training without breaking down. Just as bodies are impacted by the external environment and the health of the body itself, organizations also are impacted by external forces like government regulations, new technologies, competitor activity, and consumer preferences as well as the overall culture and health of the organization.

A company that anticipates external changes and effectively adapts is more likely to survive over the long term. This is why endurance training is an excellent parallel for how to increase a company’s growth capacity. Leaders who act like endurance athletes can systematically increase the capacity of their organization to execute their day-to-day business as they build capacity for the future— without damaging people and the business itself. Part 1 of this book builds off the endurance training metaphor to explore how leaders can push their capacity to the limit, but no further.

Principle One: Capacity Determines How Far and Fast You Can Go

Maximum capacity is the highest level of performance at which a system can perform without breaking down. It’s more than the sum of individual skills or attitudes, or the physical capability of a building or piece of equipment. When we understand the gaps between performance and capacity, and how maximum capacity in the future will be different from today, we can create a program to build capabilities that increase capacity. In turn, this process allows us to avoid “boom-splat” cycles of growth. When we break that painful pattern, we conserve human and organizational energy and resources to spend on building a base for sustained growth in the future.

Principle Two: The Right Capabilities Increase Capacity Capabilities are the power and practical ability to perform or execute a given task. To build capacity for growth, we need to master a few critical capabilities at the individual, team, and organizational level. Each business will have a small number of unique capabilities required by its strategy. In addition, our own and others’ research shows that there also are certain capabilities that predict growth. In this book, I focus on two capabilities that help to increase adaptability and speed: outside-in thinking and customer-aligned innovation. Building the right capabilities for growth allows leaders to increase capacity to execute the day-to-day business as it also builds capacity for the future.

Principle Three: The Right Pace Wins the Race

Pace is the speed at which we can perform for a given distance or period of time. As business leaders, we can push our organizations and people to go really fast for a short period of time, but if we go too fast for too long, we burn out our people and burn through our cash and other resources. In a race, we need to conserve some energy to maintain a fast pace and we need perseverance to sustain this pace even when it becomes uncomfortable. On the other hand, in training, we vary pace significantly because this triggers different development outcomes like strength or cardiovascular fitness. When you can train at “race pace” and can recognize “maximum effort,” you can pace yourself, your team, and the business to execute your strategies—and at the same time build new capabilities for the future.

Intelligent Restraint helps us manage the complexity that growth brings.

Where can you release more capacity for growth?

Alison Eyring is a global thought leader on building organizational capacity for growth. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Organisation Solutions, Alison has 25 years of experience in large-scale organization design and change and executive development. She works closely with global leaders and their organizations, including Royal/Dutch Shell, BHP Billiton, Chubb Group of Companies, NEC, and Thomson Reuters. She also serves as an adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore. Her book, Pacing for Growth, will be released in early 2017.