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A Breath Away from Catastrophe - Creating mindful work environments

1/21/2016

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“He was a boy who loved to hear tales where the hero’s life was always one breath away from catastrophe.”
 
I was perusing possible gifts for my grand-kids this past Christmas when I read this line on the cover jacket of the book Spirits Princess and thought about how exciting and entertaining this book might be. What really captured my attention was the phrase “one breath away from catastrophe.”
 
How many times in our lives have these words been meaningful? I can recall a few near-catastrophes in which I was literally one breath away from a serious accident. I remember sitting in my car after losing control on the first icy road of my driving career; I was one breath away from going down an embankment. I recall one summer backing up a dump truck loaded with gravel to fill in around the foundation of a home. There was a small rise of dirt, and every time I tried to slowly back up the rear tires would spin. After I pulled forward and gave it a little more gas, I found myself and the truck within a breath of tipping over into the foundation. I couldn’t dump the load or the truck would have flipped. Holding my breath, I slowly got out of the cab and embarrassingly enlisted a guy with a bulldozer who was working in the next lot to help rescue my truck and safe my summer job.
 
I also vividly and sadly remember sitting with both my Mom and Dad when they took their last breaths. Unfortunately, the full meaning of this word escapes our attention until we are present in these moments and realize that it is the essence of life and death.
 
I wonder how many times our accidents and injuries and catastrophes were literally one breath away form a different result? I suspect many more than we realize. Isn’t a near-miss really just a “one breath away” moment?
 
The Chaotic and Hectic World of Work
 
Todays’ work environments are filled with increased and competing demands and technological advancements and distractions. Multi-tasking has become a way of managing this new reality. Some say this new pace of work leaves them breathless.
 
In a recent meeting with a group of managers and supervisors, we explored the question, “Are there current conditions in our culture that might be creating the potential for safety issues?” Some concerns surfaced immediately: “We are in a state of chaos!” “Everybody has an agenda and thinks it’s the priority.” “We are driving our operators to distraction and increasing everyone’s stress levels.” “If this continues, it’s not if we will have an accident, it’s when and how serious.”
 
What if “one breath away” was not an expression of a close call, but a method or practice that could reduce chaos and prevent a near-miss from becoming an unfortunate reality?
 
The human factors that most frequently contribute to or are the primary reasons for accidents and injuries are complacency, stress, fatigue, distraction, and haste. Each of these has many root causes that would need to be be fully addressed. However, there is a scientifically proven intervention that can provide temporary improvement or relief from the effects of these factors and can prevent that critical moment form turning bad.
 
Complacency, stress, fatigue, distraction, and haste create the conditions for accidents because they steal one’s attention and focus away from the task at hand. To prevent this, we employ a simple, inexpensive, and effective tool that can bring one’s connection, respect, attention, and focus back to work.
 
The Power of Mindfulness
 
Mindfulness is an ancient practice the uses the breath to bring one’s full attention and awareness to the present moment.
 
The purpose of mindfulness is to create moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment. Over the last 10 years, mindfulness has entered American mainstream and business culture. Numerous companies offer mindfulness training to their employees as a benefit and as a tool for improving performance. One notable company, Google, offers its employees a course on mindfulness that is 50 hours long. It is the highest rated course in the history of Google.
 
The essence of mindfulness is breath, called mindful breathing. Research has shown that even one six-second mindful breath is effective at calming the body and mind and improving focus. This breathing tends to be slow and deep, which stimulates the vagus nerve, activating the parasympathetic nervous system. This system regulates our heart rate and blood pressure, which when lowered helps to produce calmness, increases awareness, and lowers stress. This moment of mindfulness can also help to temporarily offset the symptoms of fatigue.
 
The skill of mindful breathing is used by the worlds best athletes in all sports. Watch any world class golfer, tennis player, skier, track athlete, or baseball player, especially when hitting—they all employ mindful breathing to calm themselves and to better focus at the task at hand. If it works for professional athletes, shouldn’t it also help our workforce athletes improve their performance?
 
Choose Mindfulness over Mindlessness
 
Technology is revolutionizing workplace safety. From robotics that keep humans out of harm’s way, to man-down systems that send out alerts for employees in need of assistance, our workplaces are safer than ever. But there is still one area that is persistently and intimately connected to accidents and injuries that technology has not fully solved: the human factor. 
The contribution of human carelessness or mindlessness to all accidents and injuries ranges from 50% to 90%. The ability to reduce the involvement of human factors can have a significant affect on an organization’s Return on Safety.
 
Although technology is rapidly creating solutions to safety issues, our hectic pace continues to thrive, increasing the chances that human errors will continue to significantly contribute to accidents, injuries, and near-misses. Organizations can fight this by creating the conditions for a mindful workplace.
 
To create a mindful work environment in which employees feel motivated, comfortable, and encouraged to practice mindfulness requires management’s active involvement in setting expectations and creating new norms that might be contrary to the existing organizational culture. Management must be active role models – they must be believers.
 
Getting Started:
How to create a mindful work environment
 
Implement it mindfully. This is not a program. Mindfulness is a respectful approach to work and life.
 
Take the time to educate leaders and managers on the history, science, and research behind mindfulness, how it works, and why it contributes to improved human performance. Invite an expert on organizational mindfulness to conduct a training session to assist with the process and to demonstrate mindful breathing.
 
Institute a moment (six seconds) of mindful breathing before and at the conclusion of all management meetings for one month. Take notice if the climate of the meetings changes. Ask managers if they notice a difference
 
Once managers become comfortable and notice the affect it has on the tone and results of the meetings, ask managers to introduce the same practice in their meetings. First, have them explain the Why, have them share their experiences and invite their employees to participate for one month. Ask for feedback after that time.
 
Remember, this is just a six-second breath before and after meetings and when starting and stopping a task. This not mediation—it is one mindful breath that signifies one’s respect for their work and themselves, which will create a safer and healthier organization.
 
Before long, mindful breathing will become a standard operating procedure (SOP), not because it is mandated, but rather because all employee will notice the benefits and improvements it brings to their work and life. A mindful breath won’t change the hectic and demanding world we live and work in, but it will reduce our mindless approach to the task at hand and it just may be the breath that prevents an accident or injury.  
 
 
 
 

 
 


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The Power of Noticing

7/28/2015

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Have you been in a near-miss human collision recently? This seems to be happening to me more frequently these days.

When it happens, I’m typically in an airport, at a mall, or on a sidewalk, and notice I’m on a collision course with another person absorbed in their smart phone. Not wanting to create a scene or cause harm to myself or the other person, I change course.  As I do, the other person notices my movement and momentarily looks away from their phone, only to reengage, heading toward the next collision.

These incidents got me thinking about our extraordinary capacity to notice. We humans have been blessed with five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, which help us to fully experience and understand our presence in and connection to the space we occupy.  History, anthropology, and other sciences validate that human survival was based to great extent on our ability to notice when we were in danger and when we were safe. Noticing and then avoiding danger allowed us to flourish.

Noticing is still a significant factor in our safety, engagement with work and life, and survival. It matters if you notice that you are about to collide with a fellow citizen as you’re walking. It matters if you notice that your child is sad. It matters if you notice a bicyclist is sharing your road. It matters if you notice a co-worker is using a ladder that is not tied off or has not locked out an energy source before working to fix the problem. And it matters, as a leader, if your employees are happy and engaged or frustrated and on autopilot.

There is no doubt in my mind that using our senses to notice creates advantages, improves our safety and engagement, and generates a fuller understanding of our world. This exceptional capacity that can provide so many benefits, however, is being threatened by our technology, self-absorption, and isolation from the experiences of those around us.

Each time we turn off our capacity to notice, we become vulnerable. When we become so self-absorbed we don’t notice the homeless person in the shadows, or isolate and embed ourselves so deeply in our homogenous groups we don’t notice social injustice and inequality, we become vulnerable.

We are vulnerable because we’ve loss the opportunity to connect and understand. Our five senses are pathways into our hearts and minds, where our shared human experiences are stored. If we miss the opportunity to notice, we miss the opportunity to understand, connect, and make a difference in the lives of others and ourselves.

To be and feel noticed meets a deep human need. Have you ever longed to be noticed by someone, maybe a teacher, a coach, a parent, or a boss? When that moment of being noticed happens, you are infused with good feelings. If you feel unnoticed, unpleasant feelings and actions arise. Children misbehave when they go unnoticed, and workers languish and under-perform. Recently, our country has experienced riots and demonstrations by people struggling to have their plight noticed. 

Noticing is a powerful capacity we all possess, and it offers wonderful things. It can change a friendship or a working relationship—it can change the world. It is a gift to notice someone, and especially to oneself, because you are now more present and in tune with your world.  What we notice and don’t notice defines who we are in that moment as well as provides us the opportunity for change.

Noticing can be uncomfortable and exhilarating. The act of noticing will open you up to your sixth sense (s) - your emotions. You may notice that you are feeling sadness or anger or joy and awe depending on what you are experiencing.  Emotions increase the power of noticing by adding clarity and texture.

Martin Luther King said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” I like to paraphrase his quote to say that our lives begin to end when we lose our ability to notice the things that matter. 


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Safety Culture Tip - STRESS

9/28/2014

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Stress is a gateway to workplace accidents, injuries, absenteeism and poor performance.  In a recently published study, The Burden of Stress in America, both men and women rated finances and work problems as the second and third highest contributors to their personal stress.

In one of the largest studies (n-186,440) titled, Safety at Work: An Investigation of the Link Between Job Demands, Job Resources, Burnout, Engagement, and Safety Outcomes, which documented links to job demands and stress as having a larger than expected negative impact on workplace safety. The study also identified three critical factors that when consistently integrated into a safety culture will significantly reduce accidents and injuries and improve the health and performance of your employees. 

The first factor is to consistently perform formal and informal supportive risk and hazard assessments to reduce, mitigate or eliminate risks and hazards in tasks, the workplace environment and with the interface between employees and equipment.

The second is for organizations to create a supportive work environment for their employees.  The primary way to accomplish this is to provide training for managers and supervisors to be better leaders and to emphasize the importance of listening, teamwork and social supports.

The third is to be observant of factors that physically and psychologically increase work demands and stress. Remember that the unknown and feeling that you don’t have any control over your situation create the most distress for people.

Interestingly, across all industries, real and perceived risks and hazards was the most consistent job demand (stressor) and a supportive environment was the most consistent job resource in terms of explaining variance in burnout, engagement, and safety outcomes.

Safety Culture Tip: If your organization is experiencing disruptions due to reductions in business or other changes (remember most people view change as stressful) it will tap into what most people report as the biggest contributors to their personal stress – financial problems and work problems.

Tips:

Request your managers and supervisors to assess the physical, psychological and emotional climate of their employees.

Implement and emphasize the three factors, from the study, which are proven to reduce employee stress, accidents and injuries:

Request that supervisors and managers schedule a number of supportive risk and hazard assessments with their employees on all shifts. This is a great opportunity to not only assess risk, but as importantly for managers and supervisors to listen and converse with their employees. This will communicate caring and support. Most often night shifts receive little face-to-face contact with managers. This is a time to schedule that visit; it says a lot and means a lot! Actions always speak volumes!

Get to know your each of your employees and how they deal with stress. Some become more withdrawn while others may show increased annoyance and irritation. Take the time to check in with these employees and privately let them know you noticed a change in their behavior and would like to talk if they would like too. You can also suggest that the employee can connect with the EAP and your Employee Health Specialist for support.

Information is power. The biggest fear of humans is of the unknown. Share as much information as you can with your employees. Even if the news is “bad” people do better knowing then left to catastrophizing alone or with each other. Communicating indicates that you respect and care. Look for the positive aspect of the situation and or change and convey that as well.

Creating a supportive environment will go along way in preventing the next lost time day and the trust of your employees.


 

 




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What's In Your (Resiliency) Bank Account

4/2/2014

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One thing you can count on is life being a mix of good times, bad times, joy, and sorrow. None of us can predict what tomorrow will bring.

Consider the tragedies our nation, communities, and families have experienced in the past years: 9/11; Katrina; Sandy Hook. The people affected by these unexpected events didn’t plan for the pain and sorrow they would experience, and yet they had to find a way to make it through the day and each day thereafter.

What is it that gets us through tragedies and everyday adversities? It’s not the size of our bank accounts, or our jobs, or our possessions; it’s an entirely different resource more valuable than money, available to all of us, all of the time.

It is resiliency.  

Resiliency springs from our innate desire for life. It helps us persist through the bad times until we regain our footing and are once again productive, positive, and hopeful. Although we all possess resiliency, the strength of our resilience only grows as much as we nurture it—by making daily deposits.

Think of a savings account. Every day life presents us with small and large challenges, all of which withdraw resiliency from our account. If we don’t, in return, make deposits, we might find ourselves lacking the resiliency needed to keep our spark for life bright.

Here are a few ways, or daily deposits, you can make to your resiliency account. When you encounter an unexpected adversity, you’ll be grateful to know your account is full.

Just say no to the negative voices:

There is a part of your brain that acts as a safety alert system designed to warn you of suspected danger. It also reminds you of past negative experiences, hoping to make sure you avoid similar experiences moving forward.

Sometimes, though, this makes us feel incapable of learning from the situation and trying again with confidence. Though your brain thinks it’s doing you a service—trying to keep you from feeling pain again—know when to say “no” to negative talk.

Simply say, “Thanks for your concern, but I’m not going to listen to you for a while. I’ve got important work to do.” Give yourself the room and permission you need for your positive voice, because it wants to help you heal. “This is a rough period I’m going through,” you might say, “but I know I’ll make it. I’ll be stronger.”

Build your circle of fans:

And I don’t mean through social media. You need to build a close circle of friends that are honest, vulnerable, and helpful, and that participates in an equal give and take (of time, opinions, ideas, and so on). Nothing takes the place of face-to-face contact, either.

Make sure you add at least one of the following to your circle:

·      Someone with whom you feel comfortable sharing your most honest thoughts and feelings.
·      Someone who will give you a good kick in the behind if they see you’re not taking the action needed to get to
       where you want to go.
·      Someone who will listen and offer his or her honest perspective.

Push and be compassionate:


Moving through difficult times is never easy, and it is natural to want to retreat and avoid anything you think will be difficult, burdensome, or over stimulating. But resiliency doesn’t mean retreat.

Whatever might be weighing you down, whatever roadblocks you see before you--push. Keep moving. Get thoughtful, creative, and simplistic in your approach. Take small steps, start over, or try another route. Whether or not you meet your end goal, you will have added a dose of resiliency to your account.

Most importantly, use this time to practice patience and compassion with yourself. You are as deserving of your own understanding and acceptance as anyone else.

Practice your smile:

In times of adversity or sorrow, it’s easy to be overcome with pain and doubt, and to let these thoughts tinge our view of the world.

When you can, find things worth smiling about: a cute kitten, a joyful child, a funny comedy clip on television. Make it a point to point out what’s nice in life, even if it’s one small thing every day.

These small positive moments ultimately lead to positive changes in our thoughts and feelings. When smiling feels the hardest, that’s when you need it the most.

That’s when your deposits will be the largest, though they may seem small.


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I Can't Say I'm Sorry Enough

2/4/2014

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                                          Emotions and Culture – Drivers of Human Behavior

" I can't say I'm sorry enough. I'm sure I'll be criticized, but it's true. I felt awful. It wasn't my intention. […] It's not what I wanted to see or anyone to see."

These are the words of Shawn Thornton, a professional hockey player for the Boston Bruins, after attacking and injuring an opponent during a recent game. Suspended by the National Hockey League as punishment for his behavior, the consequences of Thornton’s actions affect him and his team.

Why did Thornton attack his opponent in the first place?

Based on his response—“It wasn’t my intention”—I suspect he allowed his emotions to take over. In other words, he was “emotionally hijacked.”

We’ve all had experiences of being emotionally hijacked, when strong emotions suddenly wield control of our behavior. Our response after the episode is usually the same as his, too: “I don’t know why I acted that way.”

Intense emotions can dominate our thinking and drive our actions—they are powerful sources of energy. In emergency or crisis situations, they work to keep us out of harm’s way: Fight, freeze, or flee. But in other, less noble situations, they cause us to react in ways we later regret (“I felt awful”).

Having the emotional awareness and insight to prevent or short circuit the hijacking process brought on by intense emotions is called emotional intelligence, a necessity in a world filled with situations that can easily give rise to intense emotions. Carefully handling strong emotions, rather than quickly giving into them, is critical in making reasoned decisions that work for us rather than against us.

I also believe an even more powerful force than emotions was involved in Thornton’s reaction that night, a force that oftentimes makes it difficult for individuals to navigate situations that ignite intense emotions: culture.

Suppose you are in a business meeting when a colleague pokes fun at your presentation. His comments are humorous but rude and uncaring. You might notice your muscles tensing and your mind racing. Will you walk over and throw your morning coffee in his face (fight)? Excuse yourself and leave the room (flee)? Or stand motionless, unable to respond (freeze)?

Since most office business cultures do not encourage, support, or condone physical attacks, you opt not to throw your coffee. What you decide to do instead is respond in an emotionally intelligent way: “Your comments leave me feeling put down and I’m not sure how they have contributed to helping us find a solution. In the future, it would be helpful for me if you could be more specific and constructive with you comments and feedback.”

Thornton’s attack took place in a business environment, or culture—professional hockey—that encourages, condones, and supports fighting as a means of solving disputes. For many years, hockey teams employed players for their fighting skills rather than their athletic abilities, according to Seth Wickersham in his article “Fighting the Goon Fight.” It was the role of these enforcers to protect their team’s star players from opponent harassment while also goading the opponent’s star players into a fight. 

Ben Livingston, a sports journalist, supports this theory in his article “The Bizarre Culture of Hockey.”

“The only constant in fighting is that you are assessed a penalty for doing it,” he writes. “There exists a bizarre practice of allowing fighting to occur, while at the same time penalizing the participants for doing it. This has lead to it being called a ‘semi-legal’ practice.”

Another potent factor in becoming emotionally hijacked - The emotions of others. In Thornton’s case, this meant the taunting and yelling stirred up by his fans. When a fight breaks out in hockey, fans cheer furiously for someone to be physically punished. Many, in fact, are drawn to the sport for its violence.  

Though Thornton was penalized for his part in the incident, his co-conspirators—the fans and the culture of professional hockey—escaped without penalty. As in any emotionally intense situation, Thornton’s behavior was the tip of the iceberg.

It is the stronger influences and motivators—those that support and permit transgressions like his—that remain below the surface, where the culture of hockey exists.

Rules and regulations are never a primary factor in human behavior unless they are in full alignment with a culture’s mission, values and strategic objectives. Rules merely provide cover for an organization so they can identify and blame transgressors and escape accountability and culpability. 

We’ve seen this with the likes of Enron, British Petroleum (BP), Massey Mines and most recently, the world’s major banks. All professed to be motivated by high ethical standards and comprehensive safety rules and regulations, but the cultures that have dominated these businesses runs contrary to their hollow words.

It is emotions and culture that have the greatest effect on human behavior and any organization that attempts to influence and enforce positive behavior with regulations alone will remain vulnerable to disruption, loss, and plenty of emotional hijacking.

Thornton said, ”I can’t say I’m sorry enough,” but the burden and responsibility of his actions do not sit entirely on his shoulders. It’s difficult for any employee to make the “right” choices when organizational rules give direction but the culture of the organization is ambiguous about enforcement and in some cases turns a blind eye to negative or unsafe behavior because it supports the organization’s explicit desire for profit, production, entertainment, and risk taking.

The NHL, in which fisticuffs remain an integral part of the sport’s culture, penalizes individuals for fighting, but the behavior of its players remains unchanged, because below the surface enforcers are rewarded and celebrated for their transgressions by fans, teammates, and the media.

Banks will not change their culture of risk taking for profits when CEO’s get bonuses and salary increments after being penalized billions of dollars for violating regulations. And safety will always be secondary when employees are pushed to keep production up at all costs. 

The unfortunate aspect of these “Trojan Horse Cultures” is that they present and say one thing, but inside, where true culture resides, are the drivers of behavior, which often put their employees at the lower rungs of the organization in harms way as they attempt to navigate between the rules and what the culture is condoning and endorsing.

I’ve worked for the past ten years assisting organizations in identifying where there is culture misalignment and working with them to restore and or build cultures that authentically and consistently align with their mission, values and strategic objectives.  The work is hard, but the rewards are significant and produce results that are sustainable and profitable. Most importantly, they become organizations in which leaders and employees feel pride, take ownership and work jointly to insure success, and where leaders and employees feel accountable and safe in stating. “I can’t say I’m sorry enough.”

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There Is One Sentence That Could Unlock Your Potential

5/20/2013

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                                                   “Our essential nature is one of pure potentiality.”

                                                                                                                ~ Deepak Chopra

I was invited to spend the day with a group of manufacturing managers. "We want something in the area of professional development," my host, who extended the invitation, told me. "If it can also be uplifting-you know, pick up their spirits-that would be especially helpful, because this group is overworked and feels overwhelmed and unappreciated most of the time."

This vague request was both satisfying and frustrating; satisfying because the client, who I have worked with previously, trusted my judgment, but frustrating because his description provided little direction. One thing seemed to be clear, though: this group was not in a good place physically or emotionally ("overworked and unappreciated"), and they expected me to "pick up their spirits."  

After a few days of thought and still no sense of what to do, I found myself reading over an email before hitting the send bottom, and my sentence jumped out at me: Awakening, Inspiring and Empowering Human Potential.

Yes. That was it. I would develop a program using my sentence.

I wake up most mornings to this thought: What opportunity will present itself to me today in which I can awaken, inspire and empower human potential? The answers don't always pop into my head, and there are days when I find it difficult to awaken, inspire and empower my own potential, yet it is amazing how just keeping that thought present allows opportunities to present themselves. In these instances I find a way for my sentence to move from my head to my heart to concrete action. 

Working with these manufacturing managers, I found myself facing a new opportunity to put my sentence to work. Now all I had to do was deliver.

I started by telling the group about how I came up with the idea for the presentation. I shared my sentence and explained how it has impacted me since I crafted it five years ago. Then I asked the participants to partner up and provided each with an agenda. On it, a quote by Jane Wagner: "A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?"   

I asked everyone to respond, and it was unanimous-no one believed they were living up to their full potential. They all felt lost or thwarted in their ability to do so. Unsurprisingly, they identified the primary potential-blocking culprits as stress and a lack of direction or purpose.

Fortunately I was prepared. Not because I have great predictive powers, but because I seen and heard the same response over and over, and I understand the extent to which stress and the absence of purpose entomb potential. These two "potential killers" block individuals and organizations from experiencing the rewards and benefits of their return on potential (ROP).

The four batteries of potential energy

We need energy to find and unlock our potential. And our four batteries-our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being need to be at or near full capacity for us to live up to our potential. If even one dips below capacity, it drains energy away from the other three, and that stress is a disease that ultimately drains all four.

I talked with the managers in depth about how to maintain your physical energy through exercise, nutrition, sleep, and setting aside time every day for mindful and reflective activity. We practiced a progressive muscle relaxation exercise for five minutes, which helped everyone let go of the tension they were holding in their body and regain a sense of balance and relaxation. I also introduced the Seven Rituals of Renewal, which if practiced daily will help keep all four batteries charged.

Next we explored our emotional battery. I asked them to identify what feelings or emotions they experienced going to work, during the day, and driving home at the end of the day. The list ranged from "anger" to "zoned out," all of which were unproductive in creating and maintaining the energy one needs to access one's potential. The emotions they were experiencing made them feel so drained of energy they were questioning if they could even find their potential.

One key learning was that most of the group had fallen into an emotional rut, meaning they had accepted their unhappiness and forgotten that we choose our feelings the same way we choose which shoes to put on in the morning. This realization alone was an awakening that stirred their interest and opened the door to emotional empowerment.

What about that sentence?

How can a sentence keep our batteries charged and lead us to our potential? Daniel Pink has a wonderful short video I shared with the group called "What Is My Sentence?" The video highlights the ways in which one sentence can focus our energy and provide the motivation we need to live up to our potential.

The video and discussion afterward awakened their interest and curiosity, and now they needed some inspiration. I decided to show them the DeWitt Jones film Celebrate What's Right With the World.

In it, Dewitt uses the sentence "Celebrate what's right with the world" to show us that no matter how bleak things may appear, if we are willing to open ourselves up to the possibilities, we can always find something to celebrate. Through his photography he demonstrates how our mindsets can make all the difference between an average photo and a great photo. The key is remaining open to the possibilities.

I could see everyone engaging with his words and photography. I could feel they were becoming inspired-inspired to discover and live up to their full potential, and to put effort into accepting that there was much more to celebrate that what they were experiencing at work. After the film I shared a story that ran in my local newspaper. To me it demonstrated the power one sentence has in helping a person live up to his or her potential.

Our local AHA hockey team, the Providence Bruins, is in the playoffs against the Hersey Bears. One of the players had a dream during a pre-game nap. The dream was about hockey, but then a sentence appeared: Be the better bear.

The player wrote it on the locker room bulletin board and the team immediately took it to heart. The Bruins were in a must win situation needing to win the next two games or be eliminated. Every member of the team used "Be a better bear" to be the better hockey player. They won both games and moved on to the next round of the playoffs. 

When asked about his dream and the sentence, the player responded, "It means when you line up against your opponent, you have to take it upon yourself to be a better hockey player."

The Bruins may not win the championship, but they are living up to potential they didn't realize they had and celebrating victories they didn't think they would experience.

As the day came to an end, I asked, "How many of you were awakened, inspired and empowered to live up to your potential today?" The answer was a hearty applause. I have since received emails from individuals in the group sharing their sentence-and I have my own sentence to thank for that.

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The Wisdom in Tolerating Emotions 

5/31/2012

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We’ve all been there: in a discussion, meeting or presentation when someone interjects, causing a disruption in the flow of your thoughts or agenda. How do you respond? Most likely, you’ll be energized by whatever emotion(s) the moment elicits in you. But what will be the consequences if you allow the energy from that emotion to hijack you? Will your reaction be aligned with your organizational vision, your personal purpose and values? Will it convey to others the type of friend, parent, spouse, or leader you want to be? What will it mean for your future?

In his blog, Do You Know What You Are Feeling?, Peter Bregman shares a couple of similar experiences in which his emotional energy nearly hijacked his responses. These oftentimes overwhelming, stimuli-induced situations occur multiple times every day, particularly in our fast-paced and stressful lives. And while we may be inclined to believe these small situational events have little consequence, we can see from his article that how we respond to them makes all the difference: harnessing our energy and emotions can be a moment that deepens our insight and growth and strengthens our relationships, but letting it get the best of us can have negative consequences that are equally far-reaching.

Peter relates how he decided to sit on a feeling rather than react to it: "But I didn't do anything right away. And, as I sat with the feeling, I realized that while I felt a jumble of emotions, mostly I felt hurt and untrusted." In the midst of a personal issue, his decision to sit was critical for him and his protagonist. By tolerating his emotions and allowing himself to explore what they were urging him to do, he was able to regain emotional balance and perspective and make a wise choice.

Learning to tolerate emotions may seem like the old Western method of tolerating pain by biting on a bullet, but once we understand and trust that by tolerating and exploring our emotions we gain insight and wisdom, this allows us the chance to make decisions that create positive outcomes.

A simple and very effective tool to assist in tolerating emotions is called VET: Validate, Explore and Transform. First, identify what you are feeling and accept that you are experiencing this emotion. Once you validate, you can be begin to explore the emotion and discover its purpose. In this process, you may learn that your initial feeling was not your true feeling. In Peter’s example, he found that his anger was really stemming from feeling hurt.

Once you validate and explore you are now poised to transform your feelings and the outcome of the situation. Instead of sulking or lashing out, Peter wrote an email to the person who stimulated his feelings of hurt and was surprised when "she sent me a wonderful email back, acknowledging her mistake and thanking me for my willingness to let her know when she missed the mark." If he had let anger dictate his behavior, the outcome would have been much different for both .

Emotions are chemical messengers sent to inform us and to move us. Tolerating that first barrage of chemicals is key to finding insight into the situation that activated our emotional system, which will then help us make better decisions. There is a quote by Albert Camus that goes, “Life is the sum of all your choices.” Making the most of these everyday decisions is the difference in living a life filled with regrets or a life fulfilled. And tolerating our emotions is critical in these decision points.

Thank you Peter Bregman for sharing your personal experiences.



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“If you can’t say something nice then don’t saying anything at all!”

1/17/2012

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_ This Mom-ism was almost as regular as her apple pies. I loved my Mom’s apple pies; all that cinnamon and crust made with lard! And I have another memory of her: when she would admonish my sister and me the moment we would start talking unkindly about a neighbor or schoolmate. “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all!” That would always shut us up fast. It’s too bad she couldn’t have been on my last business trip – maybe she could have put stop to all the trashing and bashing that was taking place.

I began to notice it while working out in the hotel gym. A woman next to me was high-stepping on an elliptical machine and at the same time trashing and bashing her colleagues to someone on her cell phone. At first I was annoyed at the incessant talking – then I began to notice the tone and content. “She’s nothing but trouble. I’m so tired of her expressing her opinions.” After 30 minutes of this continuous trashing I wanted to start singing “Jingle Bells” as loudly as I could in hopes that she would get the point and quit her conversation. After 40 minutes, I simply gave up and left. Had my Mom been there, she would have put her hand up, motioned to the women to stop, and reminded her, “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.”

The next morning while waiting for my 6 am flight I was sitting a few seats away from two copy machine salesmen who were trashing and bashing a customer for wanting too much information and not being able to make up his mind. I could not wait to get on the plane and escape this early morning negative stuff. I’m addicted to caffeine in the morning, but these guys seemed to need a good dose of negativity to get them going.

At that point I thought I had escaped the negative white noise. After being upgraded to first class I had visions of reading for a few moments and then retreating into my introverted space until I arrived at my next stop. That bubble burst when two gentlemen behind me felt the need to discuss their perfections and the imperfections and inferiority of their boss and company. I couldn’t help but wonder where my Mom was then.

I won’t continue this saga, but I will let you know that it followed me all the way home, which caused me to reflect. Am I this negative and just don’t notice it? Do I live by Mom’s words? Why do we dwell and focus on negativity, weaknesses and mistakes? Are we even conscious of this focus or has it simply become human nature? And there was one more question that really bothered me: have we lost all boundaries of what should be public and private discourse as well as a sense of place and time for these discussions? Has reality TV, YouTube and social networking so blurred the lines of what is personal and professional and private and public that we now accept and treat public space as a stage on which to share how much better we are than all those other people with whom we live and work?

It occurred to me that American businesses must be suffering through a crisis of incompetence. If all the people being bashed are as inept as their antagonists claimed, our economy is surely in for another shock.

I sensed that the people who were trashing and bashing got a boost of self-esteem from it yet were oblivious to the implications their behavior made about their own character and trustworthiness. Maybe the need to belong is so overwhelming these days that most of us would rather make disparaging remarks about others than take a stand and be heroic and positive. Frankly, we see this in bullying. In most bullying situations you have a “bully,” a victim, and the bully’s cohorts who stand by allowing the trashing and bashing but not actively participating, giving the perception of passive support.  The fear of being ostracized has seemingly replaced our primal fear of Saber Tooth Tigers out looking to make a snack of us. 

A common theme that ran through all of the conversations was self-interest and self-promotion. Had the salesmen taken the time to understand why their client was reluctant to buy their product, they might have had a more fruitful and hopeful meeting. If the woman on the elliptical trainer could step out of her fear of not belonging and frame the other woman’s behavior as being concerned, curious and wanting clarity, she might have an appreciation for her rather than an annoyance with her. And if the two perfect beings unable to find one positive trait in their boss and organization could reflect on the fact that both were selected and still employed by these inferior beings, they might, just might, find a way to be thankful and contribute to finding solutions to their complaints. 

One reason for these actions, based on human behavior and biology, jumps out at me: stress. There’s little doubt that the past decade has been stressful and the current economic and political climate continues to foment increasing high levels of stress and create we vs. they worldviews. By allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed with this stress, our natural focus is on survival. We may even picture ourselves on a metaphorical Survivor Island, so we plot, connive, lie, and trash and bash our way to being the survivor. What we lose in the process is exactly what we want and need: respect, belongingness, self-worth, and a network of friends and colleagues willing to stand by us and offer assistance. 

The answer to putting a stop to and reversing this destructive behavior could be as simple as my Mom says: “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.” I don’t mean to make light of this, because it does concern me and it should concern you for no other reason than the realization that the probability that someone is at this moment trashing and bashing you and your organization is greater than you think.

Trashing and bashing behavior is a cancer for teams and organizational performance and although our reptile brain says, “Attach or be eaten,” our chances for survival are actually increased by our ability and willingness to care for one other.

There are tools and concepts to help individuals and organizations learn how to stop and reverse this negative approach that is taking over and begin to reap the benefits of caring, focusing on strengths and transforming perceived weaknesses and problems into solutions:
  • Positive Psychology
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Resiliency
  • Appreciative inquiry
  • Authentic and Generative Leadership
  • Generative Foundations of Actions in Organizations and the
  • Strengths based work of Marcus Buckingham and others
The films, Seeing Red Cars by Laura Goodrich and Celebrate What’s Right with the World by Dewitt Jones, show us the power of a worldview that is optimistic, positive, appreciative, and strengths-based can have on individuals and organizations.

To break the habit of trashing and bashing is hard work. The easy path is to find fault and focus on weaknesses instead of courageously finding the strengths in people and the opportunity and potential in difficult situations. It’s easy to jump on the negative bandwagon. But be careful – from what I see, it is already full. Take a different path and resist veering off into the negative – take a few moments and ask yourself, “Is this what I want and how I want to be seen and remembered?” Could you rest in peace with an epitaph that read, “Always ready with a disparaging word and never missed an opportunity to trash and bash even his best friends”?

None of us want to be seen or remembered for this destructive and bullying behavior. And it’s time for us to make a commitment to not participate in it actively of passively in either our personal or professional lives. There are many options that we can employ and they all begin with a decision to take a stand. In the end, you will appreciate yourself more for it and find that you have less stress and that people will enjoy and benefit from having a relationship with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Seven Rituals That Will Change Your Life

11/30/2010

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The Seven Rituals of Renewal ™  are behavior choices that will change your life, and by incorporating these Rituals into your day you will notice a decrease in your stress level, which will give you more energy, focus, and a positive outlook.  You might be saying to yourself, “I’m already to busy; I can’t fit one more thing into my day!” Well, what’s the alternative?  Is it to continue your day of “hurry and worry” and eventually wear yourself down to the point where you don’t have the physical, mental and emotional energy to enjoy life!  Recent studies indicate that most people waste about 2.9 hours a day.  
The healthy and resilient alternative to “hurry and worry” is to build a practice of these Seven Rituals. There is one practice for each letter of the word renewal, and the beauty of this practice is that all seven will take about 60 minutes, which you can schedule throughout the day, and still have 1.9 hours to waste!  

The Alchemy of the Seven Rituals of Renewal is that each one has the capacity to have a positive affect on your body chemistry, which in turn has a beneficial impact on your mental, emotional and physical being.   When you practice the A of Appreciation you will stimulate the production of a hormone called oxytocin, which has a mitigating effect on the stress hormones, particularly cortisol. Oxytocin can reduce hyper-vigilance, which cortisol is responsible for, and give you a sense of calmness.

Seven Rituals of Renewal™

R: Take 10-15 minutes each day to Reflect. No special topic or requirements other than to turn off all electronic gear, sit quite without any interruptions. Take yourself off the grid; be quite and reflect. 

E: Get some Exercise everyday. This doesn’t have to be at a fitness center; just do something that gets your body moving e.g. park your car a distance form your office, take a short walk during lunch, or take the stairs instead of the elevator. 10 minutes is great. This is not a weight reduction and muscle building routine; its about getting oxygen into you body and brain.

N: Select and eat one thing that is Nutritious everyday; select a piece of fruit or unsalted almonds instead of chips or candy. You’ll feel good about your decision and they’re good for you! Many people report that they don’t eat breakfast or take lunch; use this ritual as a healthy snack in the morning or mid-afternoon.

E: Engage with someone you love every day. It’s best face to face, but phone or one of those video phone services will suffice occasionally; make sure the engagement is about the love not about a TV program. Call a child or grandchild; your goal is to feel the love! Once again take yourself off the grid. 

W: Take time to experience some Wackiness in you day. Find something that will give you a good round of laughter, the more the better. It’s not as hard as you might think. Just think about laughing and you might crack a smile and begin to laugh. You actually may find yourself laughing about nothing and enjoying it!  However, the absolute best is whenever you are in the company of young kids and they start laughing about something goofy, just let yourself enjoy and join in! 

A: Spend a moment in Appreciation. Think about all that you have to appreciate. Each day find something in your life that deserves your appreciation. I know, when we’re stressed we only notice what’s stressing us, and that’s exactly why you need to stop and appreciate that you have oxygen to breathe!  

L: is for Letting Go. It’s amazing how much negative stuff we acquire from the time we get up in the morning to the time we retire. Anger, regrets, disappointments are just a few. Forgive, forget and move-on. There are so many more important things to use our limited energy on. There is a saying, “It’s not worth sticky palettes!” You know, the things in our blood that get thick and stick together when were stressed. 

The amazing thing about each of these rituals is that each one has the power to change your entire being and when you incorporate al seven on daily basis they can change your life. The decision is yours, continue the hurry – worry game and reduce your health, effectiveness and joy in work and life or start right now to practice the Seven Rituals of Renewal™ and experience the best of you. 

The Renewal Group can assist you in changing your life with our four one-hour Seven Rituals of Renewal coaching program. Our commitment and belief is that this program will improve your well-being, and continued daily practice will have a significant benefit to your health and satisfaction with life and work.

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Stress Alert Elevated To RED!

11/30/2010

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Stress is a form of terrorism that infiltrates and attacks our hearts and minds and the effectiveness of our organizations.  It’s an assassin waiting to strike at our Resiliency. Unfortunately the full significance and seriousness of stress is misunderstood and under valued. We use the word indiscriminately, and can’t seem to connect the dots. We stress equally over the inconvenience of a hangnail, and the fear of a global financial meltdown. And like the terror attacks we can’t seem to connect the dots until we suffer a major setback, such as a heart attack. As our lives have become increasing complicated, our ability to assign an appropriate level of threat to a stressor has decreased, leaving us increasingly vulnerable. 


Since it’s inception the Advisory Threat System has been at yellow and above, and our lives and organizations have been in lock step with the system.
We cannot solve the issues of Homeland Security, although it might be healthy for our country to be continuously at yellow or above, it is not sustainable to live our lives’ at an elevated level of stress. If we consciously and or unconsciously continue to live at yellow or above we have become our worst fears – we are the terrorists.

Stress is a Disease:
We cannot rid our lives and organizations of stress; in fact, we need certain levels of stress to be productive.  We need to educate ourselves about the different types of stress, acute and chronic, and learn ways of managing both types to prevent our lives and organizations from becoming drained of vitality, creativity, and the resiliency required to be effective and successful in these stressful times. 
Stress is a bio-psycho-social-spiritual disease that is a major contributing factor to increased healthcare utilization and costs, illness and disease and lost productivity: personally, professionally, organizationally and nationally.
The following points highlight the enormity of the problem and its costs:
* Princeton Survey Research study, three-quarters of employees believe that there is more on-the-job stress than a generation ago.

* A Northwestern National Life study found that one in four employees viewed their jobs as the No. 1 source of stress in their lives.

* Gallup reports 80 percent of employees suffer from job stress with nearly 40 percent reporting that they need help in managing their stress.

* Job stress costs American businesses hundreds of billions of dollars a year in employee burnout, turnover, higher absenteeism, lower production and increased health care costs.

* The American Psychological Association estimates that 60 percent of all absences are due to stress-related issues, costing U.S. companies more than $57 billion a year.

* Heart disease is the second largest killer next to cancer. It is estimated that some 80 million Americans exhibit some of the symptoms that will lead to heart disease. The six contributing factors to heart disease are Diet, Exercise, Stress/Sleep, Lifestyle and The Environment. A recent study found that women with stressful jobs have a 40% higher risk of major coronary problems than women with less job strain.


Our current worrisome and stressful social and economic climate is compounding the risks to our health and performance; just worrying about losing a job can increase your coronary risks. These findings should be a call to raise the national Stress Threat Level to RED; alerting leaders to the dangers stress poses to their ability to reduce costs, increase productivity, and remain competitive.   A stressful organizational climate is a petri dish for breeding illness, accidents, disengaged employees, inferior customer service, and unproductive team and organizational behavior. And like many infectious diseases it is pervasive and has no boundaries. It is a factor in poor school performance, abusive and violent behavior, and relationship discord.
Stress and the Brain: The Amydala is our 911 Call Center


Stress is personal. How one interprets a situation, will determine how they feel and how they react; yet, our brains stress response mechanism is basically identical. The paradox of stress is that the parts of our brain responsible for igniting the stress response, by releasing the stress hormones adrenalin and cortisol, and driving emotions such as fear, the amydalae, think they are doing us a service! And when we need to take immediate action to avoid a threat it does; however, there is a down side.


 Our brain’s stress response mechanism is designed to handle acute stress. These stressors are usually perceived as immediate threats to our physical, psychological, and emotional well-being, and they are time limited.  An example of an acute stressor is what you might experience when an 18-wheeler wants your lane, and doesn’t ask for permission to take it – Stress Level RED! If you’ve been in this situation or can imagine it, you may have noticed an increase in your heart rate, and a few other physical and emotional changes; the critical factor is that it provides you with the focus, energy, and ability to immediately blow your horn, and move into the breakdown lane. This almost instantaneous response, sometimes referred to as Hijacking, allowed you to survive this threat! Within a few minutes your body begins to return to “normal”, but your eyes and ears stay finely attuned to all the other 18-wheeler threats still on the road.  When you encounter the next 18-wheeler you may notice a bit of tension until you are safely back into your lane.   Your amydalae will remain hyper-vigilant (Level Yellow) scanning for all additional potential threats, as well as retain this stressful incident for future reference. And this is the problem – we remain on hyper-vigilant mode. We are constantly at threat levels yellow, orange, or red, which cause us to exaggerate every other stressor we encounter.


In stressful work climates, employees are on constant alert, which reduces their creativity, increases tension, frustration and fatigue - adding a negative overlay to all situations, which increases the chances of numerous Amygdala Hijackings.


In today’s uncertain and turbulent times we are experiencing numerous acute stressors, “My computer won’t boot as fast as I want it to.” compounded and complicated with chronic stress. The difference is that chronic stress is stress we experience over a prolonged period, and our perception is that we have minimal or no control over it, e.g. an unsatisfactory job or a stressful work climate.  Chronic Stress creates a constant level of strain, which has an eroding and corroding effect on our well-being and performance. This is double trouble; the combination of chronic and acute stress reduces and constricts our personal, professional and organizational health and effectiveness. 
Stop Acute Stressors from becoming Chronic:

In most cases an acute stressor will come to an end. Remaining optimistic and keeping things in perspective helps acute stressors dissipate and end in a timely manner.  Be cautious not to convert an acute stressor into a chronic stressor.   Here’s an example. During a meeting you perceive a colleague’s comments about a proposal you have made to be inappropriately sarcastic. You react rudely, you’re short and dismissive – maybe you even yell at the person. This exchange sets off the stress response in both of you.  Hopefully, sooner than later, you recognize that you were Hijacked and your behavior was not productive for the relationship and the team.  By offering an authentic apology for your reaction, you can begin to lower the threat level from yellow to blue or green, and bring the stressful situation to a conclusion. If you keep the threat level at yellow or above, you and your colleague may carry this stressful baggage into every other situation increasing the chances that another reaction will occur.  What should have been an acute stressor can linger and turn into a chronic negative relationship, which doesn’t serve either of you well.This is not unusual, most people have stories similar to this situation, and it frequently happens when people carry stress home with them and respond to a loved one with their pent up stress from the workday.


Commit to Address your Chronic Stress:
Chronic stressors require more thought and effort to deal with. If you’re in a job or relationship that is not meeting your expectations, it’s very hard to just quit and move on. You may need the job for income and health insurance.  And although the relationship has features that are not meeting your needs, there may be many aspects that are. In both cases take time to reflect on want you want and then take action that provides you with a sense of moving towards a resolution. Take small steps and focus on aspects that you have control over. By taking small steps towards a resolution you will reduce your stress, feel more hopeful and will benefit from an increase in energy to address the problem more fully.


In the job scenario you can start looking for another job or explore how you may move within your organization to another position that better meets your interests and strengths. In both situations outside assistance or counseling from a friend, mentor or professional can help you find perspective and suggest a process that will help to move the job and the relationship situations in a positive direction.

Three Steps that are helpful in Addressing Chronic Stress:

* Take time to reflect on the situation. What is it that you want? Be as clear as possible.
* Ask yourself, “What am I contributing to the situation?” and commit to changing your behavior first.
* Most Chronic stressors require a process of taking small steps. Identify pro-active, positive steps that you can take. Be patient, but be active in the process of moving in the direction of a resolution. 


 If you chose not to address your personal and organizational chronic and acute stress you are risking your health, performance and satisfaction with work and life. Most of all, you are eroding your resiliency at a time when everyone needs his or her resiliency to be at its peak. However, the dangers of untreated stress are far more significant than one might realize.


Stress s a symptom and a transmission factor to a communicable disease that is preventing individuals and organizations from achieving their highest potential; we call it Chronic Human Wasting Disease™. CHMW is an infectious disease that strikes at the heart of individual, team and organizational performance. It subverts and steals the essence of human and organizational effectiveness and success – intrinsic motivation and potential. If CHWD is not treated, it will eventually destroy what you need and value most, your human resources and their potential.
The Renewal Group is your source for preventing and treating the causes and consequences of stress, which is one important step in preventing Chronic Human Wasting Disease™. If you believe that people are your most important asset, and if you are committed to achieving a healthy and effective organization where people thrive and their potential and performance flourishes contact us for a consultation.

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