Uncharted… This moment in Change

The word of the day has changed. It was unprecedented for weeks, yet now… uncharted.

In witnessing the horrific murder of George Floyd, on the immediate heels of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and too many others… humanity’s threshold for Black inequality and systemic injustice crossed its tipping point.

Philonise Floyd (George’s brother) said, in addressing congress, “If his death ends up changing the world for the better, and I think it will, I think it has… then he died as he lived.”

This many people spanning every state in the U.S. and countries around the world, speaking up and acting in unison, taking on their communities to demand and create racial equality... has never happened before in our history.

This many businesses and organizations of every kind/size, taking a stand to support BlackLivesMatter, publicly committing to being a force for change in structure, policy and influence… is a first.

This is a painful time, our social structures and contracts are being perturbated, and there’s nothing comfortable about it. Yet it’s also awe-inspiring; by every measure we are closer than we've ever been to being able to truly rebuild to equality … yet it's uncharted.

There isn’t a map for us here. Whether you’ve thought of it this way or not, this is a critical moment for you. Whether you intend to or not, you’re playing a role in it. Speaking up is a role. Not speaking up is a role. Listening to understand and find new empathy is a role. Getting defensive is a role. Sharing your raw process is a role. Hiding it is a role. We are outside our comfort zones in a new way, yet again. Now, in these last few weeks, the comfort zones of our worldview and role in humanity have been busted, and it’s pushing us to self-examine in a way we didn’t choose.

There are so many emotions and layers to the shift that's begun, the work there is to do, and the natural confront-or-avoid response it's stirring in us all, publicly and personally. And we don’t get to compartmentalize it.

The natural and physical boundaries we normally heed (and our brains actually count on) between work life and home life, personal self vs. professional self, issues of the world vs. work were already quashed a few weeks into the pandemic (which, among other things-Corona, pushed us to the edges of our coping strategies). And now, being confronted with our humanity, unconscious biases and identity... is appropriately everywhere. Where we once could expertly compartmentalize, we can’t now, and expectations of us even doing so have changed, too; wherever you are in your own process with what’s happening in the world and the shift to dismantle racism and systemic inequality, it matters to people around you, because it informs their process and existence, too. Whether you were ready or not for a forced reflection to really own your self-awareness and possible role in it all, here you are, anyhow, uncharted.

That’s Comfort Zone, busted in yet another way. It's also how we will grow through this. And you will…

We want to do something, so we can feel better as fast as possible. Yet, while individual shift and the process can begin faster than we think, healing and true systemic change will take a while. Especially here in the US, there's so much dismantling, listening in layers and owning-it for White Americans to do... so healing can even begin for Black Americans, and rebuilding a society from equality can happen from a place of integrity for everyone. 

For Black Lives Matter to be a commitment vs. a phase, it requires process, vulnerability, trust, empathy and stamina from every single one of us. You, your teammates, your neighbors and your family, might each be in a different place. It’s more to process (atop pandemic stress and lengthening of life/work from home) than any of us are used to, or have tools to navigate, uncharted. So while there isn’t a map, this is where we each lean in to listen, to learn, to challenge ourselves, to find the words, and to understand in layers.

So… as a leader, where are you in it? What will it mean for you in growth? 

For me as an individual, I’m looking at my own role and process. Out of college I chose to become a public high school teacher on the south side of Chicago, because I wanted to make a difference where it was needed most. Inspired and forever changed by the book Savage Inequalities, (and its author, Jonathan Kozol, who quickly became my idol), I was committed to change the system for the better, and bring a different way of teaching to kids (and communities) who had been written off by economic, educational and racial inequality, separation and segregation. While we didn’t use the phrase Black Lives Matter at the time, its essence is what took me to Chicago, and fueled me and my work every day there for a decade. I worked to understand, to change things for kids (then ultimately teachers, and the education system) there, and open possibility in mindset and opportunity. In that pocket of the world, it changed things in many ways. To date, it’s the work I’m most proud of, and has most shaped who I am and what I believe about what’s possible.  

Yet here I am now, years later, looking at myself. That work on the south side elevated and made the experience and process of education better inside that redlined area, but it didn’t change the “red lines” from existing. Hmm. In my present life, what am I actively doing to intentionally take on or change systemic inequality right here, right now? Have I worked to dismantle institutional bias and inequality around me here, where I know it exists? While I'm vocal when I see racial injustice or intolerance, have I gone after its systemic roots? Have I asked my Black family and friends what it feels like for them every day in this White-biased society, or listened to really understand, let alone listen in the layers and layers it’ll actually take for me to even begin to understand? Have I really considered that, despite my conscious intention, I have biases I can’t even see, and contribute to racism? And the biggest question that weighs on me right now… why did it take this horrific perfect storm we’ve seen in these last weeks for me to be asking those questions of myself and see this gap? There’s no good answer. So…

The 2nd circle of reality I’m creating is this: I am taking this all as a wake-up call for myself. I have an important role as a human to help fix racial injustice and inequality, and as a leader, coach + educator, that role is even more important, right now and right here. I’m in. So right now, I’m reading, I’m watching with new eyes, I’m asking and listening in a way I haven’t before (to understand first, not to fix yet, which is hard), and beginning to start those layers of understanding as an ally. I’m seeing and owning a new facet every day of the bias woven into the structure of my own privileged life, of the lives that others are living right beside me which are not the same, of what I’ve missed. 

This is step one. It’s sobering. And what will lead to being able to be part of the actual change in areas that will best be able to use my help.

How about you? Call it, own it, and let’s do the work.

Meanwhile, the specific tools I share with you in TapIntoGreatness (every chapter is a tool), my TTG Programs and coaching... all apply to your world every day , and absolutely apply right now, too, as you and the people you touch navigate this growth zone and choose how you want to make impact.

Through it all, you have important options and power in the way you can manage and choose your energy, perspective and connection with others, which will shape everything else that happens. The way you can call out what’s actually happening, the way you choose who you’re BE-ing in the process will set both the tone and the bar for everyone around you. The way you can tap into honest, human greatness for your team will influence their experience and their reality… in your work, your team, and your community… yet absolutely in the history we’re making right now.  Although it’s uncharted, change for/to equality is possible. You have more influence than you think, more possibility than you know in it.

I’m with you, I’m committed to your success, and I’m here to help you work through your process as a leader and as a human. Just say the word. 

In my religion, when someone dies we say, “May their memory be for a blessing.” May it be so for George Floyd, and for each of the sacred Black lives needlessly taken. And also… may their memory be for a change.

That thing you keep calling reality…

What if you could get yourself unstuck when you’re spinning negatively in your head? What if you could reframe any moment of upset almost instantly? Actually, you can do both.

Right now, there’s a complex, lightning-fast little process happening in your mind all the time, responsible for all of your decisions, your happiness or misery, and your confidence, too. Most of the time, we’re unaware of it. But right now, we're going to get it…

First, a reality check. That thing you refer to mentally or verbally as “the reality" of a situation, often isn’t (the reality). What??? Not to worry– this may turn out to be the best news you’ve gotten in a long time. 

You already know that you're not the only one with a little voice in your head, right? That voice can propel you forward or shut you down, and so much in between. Yet, most of the time, it’s doing something much less dramatic– silently piloting you through the hundreds of micro-decisions you make in a day… from conversation to thought to action to reaction. That voice interprets the world to you, to which you respond with action. That works pretty well, except when that interpretation is off, because you're actually a bit skewed, and you don't even realize it. While I am a big fan of trusting one's gut and the true art of honing your intuition, there are also times when your “gut” confuses things, and actually mightbe flat-out wrong. 

Quick, real-life example:  

In most instances (especially interacting with other people), we’d usually just think of those 2 circles above as links in a chain of incident-and-meaning timeline to explain the reality of how things are. Yet occasionally, new information comes in, and happily busts the reality we’re operating under. In this case, I heard from that colleague more than a month later, in which they gave me an AWESOME cover quote for my book, and apologized for being so delayed, as they were out of the country that whole time on holiday. "Reality" busted! (in a really good way) 

Sometimes we need to pause our reactive minds before assigning meaning to things, especially when we're going negative or self-critical (the times we're most prone to skew the meaning we assign).

Welcome to what I call Circles of Reality. It's a constant dynamic in our heads, officially called the perception process, and has been studied by social scientists for decades, who refer to these two things as first order reality vs. second order reality. In our time on it here, this is a tool which is going to save you hours of energy, otherwise wasted...

In any moment, here’s what’s actually happening: 

Makes sense that these circles collapse into what we consider "reality"... yet it's got issues.

Simply put, Circle #1 is objectively, physically observable facts... what happened. Circle #2 is constructed in our minds, the meaning we create/assign to what happened. Usually this works out great:

Circle #1: I'm in a meeting with colleagues and superiors, and a colleague asks if I can, spontaneously, present a full pitch of a new idea I quickly mentioned to him earlier that day. 

Circle #2: I take this as a huge vote of confidence from my colleague, creating an opportunity for me to show my work. (so I do, and crush it)

You can see how that would've gone very differently if my circle #2 was different, like: I take this as a intentional setup from my colleague to fluster me; to make me look both bad and unprepared in front of the team. 

Sometimes it’s benign, and we don't even notice... 

Circle #1:  someone cuts you off while you're driving on the highway

Circle #2: you instantly conclude “That person’s a complete idiot!” (and are retriggered in annoyance/anger every time you get near them in the rest of your 20 minute commute). 

Hmm.. is that person actually an idiot? Similarly, was that admired author really avoiding me because of my writing?  Nope. In both cases, that’s just our mind, creating stories of meaning, and allowing them to collapse into what we then hold as “reality.” Not good. So…

Take Control of Your Reality

99% of the upsets I coach clients through have to do with these circles collapsing into sometime unproductive. The first step is to separate the circles apart. 

To best get the power of this, think right now, of something in your immediate world/interactions, that’s occurred or is bugging you (any moment ranging from irritated/judging to full-on shutting down/acting out). Let’s deconstruct it.

Grab something to write on/with for this. That’s actually critical, because it will get your thoughts into concrete visual form, where they’re much easier to work with and pin down than just swirling about in your mind, where they're slippery. Next…

Draw two circles.  Then: 

1. Label the 1st circle with what actually occurred (no interpretation- just behavioral, fly-on-the-wall reporting of occurrence).

2. Label the 2nd circle with what you’ve made it mean, getting all of the story you’ve created in your head out onto that circle.

Now that those circles are separated, consider: 

Which circle causes the most drama, upset, and concern? 

Answer: Circle #2. 

Which circle do we have the most control over? 

Answer: Circle #2. 

Hmm. So the one that’s causing the most upset is also the one we actually can control? Yep. Hence the conflicting complexity yet beauty of being human. This is what separates us from other species on the planet- our ability to interpret, discern, make meaning, and choose our perception in this way. Why?

Because Circle #2 is your story. You made it up based on our internal operating system (our filter) and the narration of that little voice in our head. Yet, no matter how much justification for that meaning/story of Circle #2, you don’t actually know it to be fact (otherwise it would be in Circle #1). Stories are powerful, and as soon as we create them, we tend to believe them, trust them (“trusting one’s gut”), and expand them, swelling that 2nd circle to be much bigger and more powerful than the 1st circle. Then, as those circles collapse together in our working memory of the event, we seal our operating “reality.” 

Yet actually...  it’s really mostly story. Alternate stories could be equally plausible, causing you to see things completely differently, yet we usually don’t go there. We stick with the most compelling, most emotional story, because it's usually strongest (emotions usually win the influence game in our heads).

The power of gaining perspective really comes down to being able to step outside yourself, gain a bit of distance or vantage point, and see the picture differently. When you’re in that 2nd circle of negativity, you don’t even see it, because you have no perspective on yourself or the skewed reality you’re allowing to derail or upset you. 

So now, you can manually get perspective, and interrupt that pattern… 

3. Now draw a 3rd circle. Ask yourself, “What’s another story I could make up about what this means?” Write that interpretation in the 3rd circle.

4. Draw a 4th circle. Ask yourself “What’s a completely opposite story/meaning than the ones I have so far?” Even if it seems ridiculously farfetched, write that story in the 4th circle. If needed, draw a 5th, 6th, etc. circle to get all of the meanings you're making in your mind OUT, and get to one that's healthy.

The key here is perspective- it's not about spinning it into something positive or giving in to those worst-case-scenario fears in your head... get ALL of those out into alternate circles, plus a few less dramatic versions in between, so you can see them all in perspective, and choose one. 

Keep reminding yourself that you don’t know (like with objective, concrete, observable proof) that any of these stories are the truth, so they’re all plausible. Even the ridiculous ones. 

Create concrete alternate circles/stories until you feel a positive shift; that’s your perception of the  situation actually changing. The magic of perspective: With each alternate story you create, the original upset and attachment you had to that 2nd circle (which was controlling you a few minutes ago) starts to lessen a bit. 

Sometimes you'll only need to get to the 3rd circle for that shift, sometimes it could take 10 circles (my personal record), which is fine. 

5. Finally, look at all of the circles of story you’ve come up with, and ask yourself, “Since I don’t know any of these to be truth, what’s the healthiest version of this for me to hold as my operating reality?” And pick a healthy circle to make your new operating reality. If that seems overly simplistic, remind yourself that the story you're holding onto as "true" is also made up. 

Get better at reality. 

This is one of the most powerful tools I coach, because it’s such a straightforward reframe, works so fast, and you could practice it in real time 20 times per day if you wanted to. The more you separate your circles apart, the less reactive you become. 

Consider your upsets and expectations in play too, which feed and color our Circles of Reality; when expectations aren’t met, it kicks off a new Circle #1 incident, and then Circle #2 is all about the judgment/disappointment between what we expected and what actually happened, right? Here’s a piece to think about (and even share with your team) about that. Check yourself there. 

Advanced version: 

• Notice the filters you tend to have on your second circle… Optimistic? Pessimistic? Different when person X is involved? Own that, and watch out for it in your 2nd circles.

• Catch yourself and call it out to your team when your 2nd circle goes negative or counter-productive. Debunk a negative 2nd circle story and come up with a new story, right there in front of them, which is more productive and positive. Modeling!

• Dig deeper: If you’re using circles of reality, then there’s an upset you’re trying to reframe or dislodge. While you made that 2nd circle meaning in nanoseconds, it also got triggered in the first place by something possibly underneath it, which you need to reveal for maximum clarity and quick moving on.

Other people’s reality: 

In using Circles of Reality on someone else (they’re upset, you want to help them to see it another way)… please watch out. Most of us, with great intentions to lead or help, do something like say “Oh no- that’s not what this really means! Look at it this way instead…” and we tell them a 3rd circle. That usually doesn’t work. We’ve all had someone do that to us when we were upset, and thought, “Yeah- you don’t get it. Easy for you to say…” So, no matter how clear it looks to you (of course it does- you're not stuck in that circle like they are!), or how much better your interpretation is, you giving them an alternate 2nd circle just won’t work, because you’re trying to force a perspective shift from the outside-in, which isn’t how our brains are wired. For shift to work, it has to be them stepping outside of their own story to create a new one (that's how a-ha moments happen... in our own heads). Your role? Facilitator, question-asker, possibility-holder. Don’t be daunted by them pushing back on the idea of another interpretation- that’s their emotion about that story (which they’re attached to) in the mix. Remind them that it's all fiction anyhow, so they have more options than they think here... Stay with it. Get all of the “what I could make it mean” answers up on and out, so they’re visible and concrete. Then ask the golden question (#5 above)… “what’s the healthiest, most productive meaning to hold as y/our operating reality?” THEN have them CHOOSE IT.

---

For this, as with most tools I bring to you, it’s about getting perspective or distance from the emotional/mental traffic jam you’re in at the moment, stepping back from it, seeing whatever insight/pattern/layering is there in your own behavior (the essence of self-awareness), and then making a new call of where you want to go from a place of choice vs. reaction. You’ve got this! 

©SarahSinger&Co. 2018

How To Just HAVE the Conversation Already

See that lively green, healthy plant thriving right there which looks different than the others? If you look closely, it’s got tiny spikes coming out of its leaves. 

You have one of those, right now in the back of your mind, and quite possibly in your team, your culture or the project you’re working on.

That plant is actually an invasive weed, unwanted, yet growing healthily and strong in the midst of my other plants. I’ve been walking past it for weeks now, thinking “I should pull that,” since it doesn’t belong and is sucking important energy and nutrients from all of the other plants I want to grow around it. Yet it hasn’t really stood out much to others, I knew I’d get thorns in my hand pulling it out, and suspected that once I went to pull it, I’d be into a whole project, seeing others I need to spend more time pulling. 

So… I just kept walking by. 

Where are you doing the same thing… just walking by that thing you know you should actually address?

You have “weeds” like this, too. Maybe in your yard, but absolutely in your world. They are the unwanted issues, dysfunctional dynamics, and negative attitudes which are at best unhelpful for what you’re trying to achieve, and at worst toxic… which will just keep going and growing until you address them. Yep- they’re prickly, going there is uncomfortable, and you suspect in the back of your mind that if you do, you might then see way more like it you’ll have to deal with. I get it. 

Think of one person in your world with whom you know you need to address an unmet expectation, a pattern of unproductive behaviors or a dysfunctional communication. 

Yep- that one.

Leaders tell me every day reasons why they don’t address these issues (especially when I’m coaching them to do just that). Every reason has to do with avoidance of confrontation, discomfort, drama, a potentially tough conversation, or fear of causing an additional dynamic of tension with someone by doing so. Can you relate? You're not alone. 

Now identify the reasons you’ve given yourself for why you haven’t had that “tough” conversation yet. 

So, we all can predict what happened when I finally decided to pull that weed this morning. Shocker- it had become thornier, stronger and harder to pull than it would’ve been 2 wks ago when I first spotted it. It also had multiplied- I indeed found more weeds once I got in there, that had camoflagued themselves, steadily sucking energy and nutrients to grow stronger from all of my healthy plants around them, now a bit less vibrant than they should be. 

We know that in human dynamics, negative energy is infortunately more powerful and faster-spreading than positive. This is clutch for you, the culture of your team, and your own energy; the longer you leave it alone, the bigger, stronger it gets.. 

How have the invasive, “weedy” behaviors, interactions and attitudes been sucking energy away from you and all the healthy dynamics, people and things around them? How much energy and time have your spent/lost thinking about doing it or not, or upset about the existing dynamic?

While this metaphoric weed-pulling challenge might be one of the most common challenges I see as a coach from leaders across the board, it’s also the one thing that might keep your team, your organization, your energy, your leadership and your impact from being truly great unless we get it to shift. 

Imagine being able to have what you’ve thought of before as thorny conversations directly, quickly and easily, causing positive shift in people’s behavior, patterns, thinking and interactions. 

We don’t have many great models in our culture for this; we think that our choices are either a big confrontation (messy for all the reasons we fear) or just avoiding/dealing with it (which only lets it get worse). Yet there’s another way.

Here’s how: 

This simple frame, guaranteed to cut the drama, will keep the other person listening, and help you say everything you need to say directly, yet easily, in a way that moves things forward. Credit to my friends at Quantum Learning Network, who have been teaching this simple tool for decades in its programs world over. 

The steps to make it easy:

Say the following out loud (it’s an acronymn, so saying it out loud will help you remember the actual steps of the model when you need it): “Open The Front Door.” 

1. O = Observation- Tell the facts of what occurred, from a fly-on-the-wall perspective (what was said, what behaviorally happened, in what order). No assessments or characterizations. 

    This gets you and the other person in the same realm of reality- from the same reference         point of what actually occurred (which you should be able to agree on). 

    “I noticed that today was the third time in the last two weeks that we got to a deadline in the project where I expected  your team's part to be complete as we agreed, and it wasn’t.” 

2. T = Thought- what the actions triggered you to think, your opinion or assessment; the story you've made up in your head about what happened. 

    This is where you get to share the impact in your world of what occurred, the interpretation you made of it, and what you now think as a result. 

“I’m thinking that this is becoming a bottleneck as the project gets delayed further, and the team it waiting. I'm wondering how else I can support your team, yet also realizing that I'm becoming a little less and less inclined to trust that what we agree to is going to happen when we say it will, which I don't want to do.” 

3. F = Feeling- Name the emotion you have now. This tells them the upset that they’ve triggered.

“I’m frustrated.”  

4. D = Desire- Say what you’d like to have happen, and ask for a next step toward it. This gives you the place to say what you'd like to be different, and gives the other person an opening to be able to move forward actionably and constructively. This is a game-changer, as it's what truly opens the door for the other person to respond in a way that moves you both forward into a new pattern. You're giving them a directed, productive path to respond back to you without having to get defensive. Without this step, you're still just confronting them with the issue, rather than moving things forward. [By the way, if you're a person who's higher on the confronting spectrum, this will be a key new piece for you, which can make what you bring much easier for others to respond to.]

“I'd like the project to move forward, for us to get our teams to a place where they can trust one another to hit these deadlines, and have a system in place to hit them smoothly. Can we have a conversation to explore how that can happen and reset?”

Warning: It might feel weird to organize your thoughts into this order. Yet the key to this tool is the order of its parts, as it layers all the pieces you need to communicate into a sequence another person can listen through without getting defensive (try mixing up the order, and it gets confrontational quickly).

An important note on the Feeling part: 

Own it. We’ve all heard “keep the emotions out of it” and “don’t make it personal,” right? Bad advice, actually. We tout ideas like that because emotions can be strong, we don’t have great practice or comfort in understanding them or expressing them productively (when they’re negative), so we think it best just to keep them out. So one of two things happens- 

1. We go into ice mode, with no expression, no emotion, and ultimately no connection with the other person, which ironically elicits more [negative] emotion from them in feeling iced.
2. We hold it in, but then get to the point where our emotions boil over, and the communication is a confrontation, led and driven by our inflamed emotion, getting all over the other person. “I’m mad…”

Neither one of those is very smooth or effective. Yet we all have emotions, and they’re already in there. They are what make us passionate and also able to relate to others and have these relationships in the first place, right? AND, they’re also rarely a secret. People read your emotion when you want them to, yet also when we think we’re hiding it… but not always so accurately, especially in a moment of conflict. It’s all over our tone, face, and body language, and often intense in these types of moments, so unless you tell them what your emotion is, they can misread it through their own bias, and then “how the big conversation went” sharing afterward is left to their interpretation of your emotion. Don’t leave that completely to them! Call it, own it, name it, and move on. They’ll get the gravity of the conversation by hearing your emotion, plus you’ll control what they take away by making the most potentially dramatic part of it not needing to be interpreted, because you named it directly and calmly. 

This morning I actually pulled those weeds out. Done. 

My attention will never be distracted by them again as I walk by, and those other plants are already getting healthier, because it’s solved. 

And… it only took a few minutes.

The conversations you need to have to pull those invasively weedy issues won’t take nearly as much time or energy than you think they will, and I’m betting that the energy they’re sucking from the healthy dynamics and people around them is far greater than the exertion it’ll take for you to just have the conversation already. 

Decide when you’ll have your first direct conversation trying the model. The sooner the better. Tick tock. 

You can have direct, clear, non-dramatic conversations in which you address it, get the unhealthy stuff out of the mix, and move forward. Quickly. Easily. And without injury. 

Call it. 

Own it. 

(and, the best part of all…)

Move on. 

©SarahSinger&Co. 2016

That Expectation Under Your Upset (every time)

You love upsets, don’t you?  Of course you don’t, because you haven’t seen how they can actually lead you to great insight and more success.  While I love to be creative and strategic as a coach/consultant,  a lot of my work with teams is surprisingly in the world of UPSET.  Not me being upset or even others having so much big dramatic upset, but in helping teams and leaders pull understanding, clarity and consistent success forward out of their daily upsets.

We all have them, and they fall on a spectrum of upsets from tiny annoyances barely worth mentioning to huge fights or confrontations.  How many have you had in the last week somewhere on that spectrum?  How many were you able to deconstruct, then rebuild for success forward.  Check this out…

Basically, we can break down ANY upset to find an expectation underneath that didn’t get met. In the moment, it doesn’t matter why your expectation wasn’t met- just that it wasn’t.  Hence the upset.

So much of my coaching work with leaders and teams comes down to this topic of upsets and expectations.  It almost always presents itself as an complaint (usually an irritation to start), and I first identify it as an upset, then coach to peel the layers of it back to reveal an expectation that was there all the time, and hasn’t been met by someone else.  Often, this is where the real work begins.  The trickiest part is that the most problematic expectations are ones we either assume or don’t even realize we had until they weren’t met by someone else.

This ends up in judgments and decisions about whether a person “has what it takes” for a role/job or not, whether an organization or school is the “right fit” for me or not, whether performance, a service or a establishment is “competent” or “good”, etc.

Here’s the big insight…. I find that most of time, the person walking away, being let go or carrying a judgment about the competency/quality of another is sadly from an upset based on unarticulated expectations. What was expected in the first place for “success” or “good” or “competent” wasn’t ever clearly articulated, so those expectations weren’t ever met.  Granted- maybe they couldn’t have been met anyhow due to capability, skill, etc., but often we never actually know if it was even possible or not without getting those expectations clear, up and out on the table.

Sometimes we’ll be incredibly self-aware in hindsight and get to the following:

“Hmm… why am I so irritated with you?  Maybe because I actually have been expecting X from you all along, and you haven’t been delivering it, so you just continue to irritate [upset] me over and over!”

Rarely is any of this said out loud, yet might be internally by the voice in our heads if we’re really aware and honest.

Ideally we’d realize all of that and say it out loud, followed by the following:

“Hmm… did you even know that I was holding that expectation?  Now that you do, can you meet it?  Is it realistic, or do we need to talk about it to reset agreed-upon expectations?”  

Usually that last part is what I coach about.

Now let me be clear… sometimes expectations are clear, articulated, and agreed to, but still unmet (that’s a different issue, different blog topic I’ll post another time, called accountability).  First things first…

Let’s work on getting expectations clear, up, out, and into agreement.  This will be huge!

I guarantee you that if you look around in your immediate professional and personal life right now, you can find an upset somewhere (remember an irritation is a baby upset that will grow).  If you start peeling layers off the surface of that upset, underneath you’ll find an expectation you’ve been holding which hasn’t been met.  Let’s start cleaning that up, then we can get to the next part of holding one another accountable.

Here’s what to do:

1. Identify an upset (can range from irritation to confrontation/fight/end of an arrangement). If you can’t find one, contact me, and I’ll coach you to be more honest with yourself and see them all around you.

2. Ask yourself: What expectation did I have of this person (although it could be with a process, team or organization) which has not been met?

3. Ask yourself: Was this expectation clearly articulated to the other person involved (who didn’t deliver)? Did they actually know and understand the expectations, and confirm that they could/would meet them?

Then, do this...

If NO was your answer: 

• Go back to the person in question, articulate your upset and the expectations you’ve been holding all along. Start over by re-setting expectations clearly and with agreement (as in “yes, I can do that”). Make sure with the other person that these new expectations are realistic. If they’re not, adjust them or tap other resources to meet them.

• Getting agreement on expectations (maybe even a third set- not your or their original list, but a new set you create out of those together), then you can follow up differently afterward. Agreements are meatier than expectations, and much more follow-up-able.

• Hold this person in your mind as able to meet your expectations (see In-10-tion, chapter #11 in TIG).

• Hold this person accountable in the way you check in and follow up. They’ll deliver!

If YES was your answer…

• Go back to the person in question, restate the expectations again, how they specifically weren’t met, and communicate your upset. Here’s the model I use every single day for that, to make sure I get all of my thoughts out, in a way someone else can hear them without getting defensive.

• Ask for some ownership on their part in this, acknowlegment of what it cost you, andan apology.

• Make a request to either understand why the expectations weren’t met. While this may not cause you to want to re-engage, you’ll at least make your decision forward from an informed place AND you might be surprised. More than a few times, I’ve learned of some crazy circumstance that prevented delivery, causing me to rethink it all and re-start with this person.

• Either re-start and give them another chance with adjusted expectations and re-commitment…or not. You may find that it’s too late to re-start, but at least you’ll have been direct, clear and left the other party with a clean understanding of an opportunity they’ll have next time to get it right.

Going forward, start asking yourself “What am I expecting?”  Do this all over the place-   going into meetings, coming out of meetings, spending time with your family, starting a project, agreeing to go out with someone… then get as articulate as you appropriately can about your expectations with those you’re expecting to deliver, and get agreement.  If by “Yes, I’d love to go out with you” you’re really expecting a quiet dinner for two while your date’s planning to bring you out with six of his/her closest friends you’ve never met, you might be setting yourself up for an upset (actually what happened on my first date with my husband, but that’s for another day).

The more flexible your expectations, the more chances for success, but be honest- our true expectations are usually more solid and inflexible than we’re willing to admit, let alone articulate. 

So, go- expect big things, be clear and specific about it, get agreement, and get success every time!  If you don’t, I want to hear about it.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2015

Power & Off-Ramps

The simple on/off ramps connecting the highway to the rest of the world are things we take for granted, yet clutch.

My office is attached to my home, which is good and bad.  The very thing that makes it  really great and really hard is the distance between work and the rest of my life (family, home, etc). It's about 3 inches- the thickness of the door to my office.

Within the worlds we work and lead every day, we have a certain amount of momentum, speed and influence.

Relatively speaking, people listen to us, respond to us quickly (again- all relative), and look to us for direction and leadership when we enter a room or conversation.  All of that gives us a sense of, well... POWER.  The more effective we are in our work, the more we get it.  The more we get it, the more it gives us energy and motivation. Which conditions and fuels us to keep that momentum, even accelerating.

This is an important thing to acknowledge, because it feeds us more than we know all day, every day in that world.  While we have pressure and responsibility with leadership, it’s tempered by that rush we get from the impact, intensity, pace and immediate feedback of influence from our decisions and actions.

In many ways, as we go along in this work-world, it’s as if we’re going 70 mph on a highway, with momentum.  Our peers are going at that same pace with similar direction, acceleration and power, and it’s all flowing consistently. Like that highway, sometimes we don't even realize how fast we're moving, until...

At the end of the day or the week, we enter a different world- NOT work.

Relative to that world of work, this is like driving on sidestreets, where it's a completely different way to navigate with many others who are on very different paths, going different ways, at different speeds. Pedestrians, cyclists, cars turning right in front of us. Definitely not the place to go 70 mph, focusing full steam ahead.

There’s a REASON for offramps.  

What would happen if the offramp from the highway to the side street you just traveled was only 3 inches long?  Ridiculous, right? We'd wrecklessly careen into that other world, and potentially cause all sorts of damage coming into it at highway speed, yes?  Well, perhaps that's exactly what's happening.

In my case, when I'm not traveling or at a team's site for work, my transition from one world to another is only 3 inches long, from one side of the door to the other. While I have another door which goes to the outside, I instead use the one which exits straight back into the busiest part of my family's world. Bam- right from the highway, going 70 mph into the 4-way intersection of cars- some stopped, others going different directions at different times and speeds, with pedestrians mixed in. No offramp. Unsurprisingly, that transition is often jarring for at least someone in the mix (sometimes me, sometimes others, innocently doing their pedestrian thing as they should).

My office setup makes the challenge very visible. Yours may be less obvious, but it's there. Have you used your entire commute home on business calls, then walked into your house (even past a family member) still on a call?  Have you brought your laptop and work right into the the middle of everything non-work? Do you tell your friends and family, "just give me one more minute" while you disappear into email or texting to get one more thing handled, missing what's happening right in front of you?

Many of us come off of our workday or flow into the world of our families and personal relationships without creating, using or acknowledging an offramp.  It’s as if we speed off the highway without that important strip to slow us down, still going 70 mph, then get irritated with everyone else going half that pace because they’re not moving with the flow we're used to and still expecting.

That power, pace and flow of decision that exists for us in the world of work and leadership doesn’t exist in the same way in the rest of our lives. In fact, many of us have experienced people in our personal lives reacting much the same way any innocent drivers on a side street, going along at 25mph would react to someone plowing through at 70mph- “knock it off!”

We’ve all had someone in our personal lives remind us that we’re not their coach or leader or boss, yes?

We've gotten more impatient with our loved ones or kids when they don't listen and respond to us with the way we think they should, yes?

We’ve all gotten irritated and impatient with someone’s (slow) response time outside of work, yes?

Many people I coach tell of their personal relationships suffering at the cost of this.  They were still going at 70mph and missed the things happening at 25mph (like people in their lives finding their own paths, disconnecting, etc.).  Spouses, family, friends. . .

I'm finding that the more I pay attention to my transitions on and off that freeway of my workworld, the more present I'm able to be in ALL the moments-  with my family, with my clients and work, with my projects and in the precious moments of just being by myself.

At the end of the day, sometimes this means creating my own off ramp, since there isn't one built in for me. This might mean driving the long way home to finish the call and give myself a few minutes with the windows down and music up to clear my head before I pull into the driveway. Taking the back door out of my office to take a transition walk all the way around the house to come in the way everyone else does. Turning the computer off and leaving it off.  Leaving my phone on my desk instead of having it attached to me all the time. Getting outside with my kids to play what they're playing.  Turning off all the devices and just talking and connecting with my husband without distraction at the end of the day.

So, where’s your offramp?  

Do you have one?  Do you use it?  Does it cause you to slow down, enter into a different speed and traffic pattern as those around you and pay attention? What happens when you don't?

Create new and deliberate ones. Here's a start:

• Consciously think about the role you just came out of (like "boss") and choose which you're transitioning into (like "partner"). Get yourself in that mindset...how does a partner show up differently than a boss?
• Finish the call, the email, the other-focus, and give yourself a distinct buffer of time and state change before you walk into that other world.
• Give yourself a ritual to mentally, emotionally and physically clear your head of one world and transition into the other (like taking the last 5 minutes of your drive home to be off the phone, listening to your favorite song, loud).
• Create clean lines. Declare "done for the day" to yourself and everyone else who's impacted by it, and do what's necessary to stick to that (computer off, phone in bag, etc.).

As lines blur between the speedzones in our lives, check yourself and your ramps. Then notice your navigation improve.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2013

The Pyramid of Perspective

How many times have you gotten sucked into the stress of someone else’s timeline or pushed out a time-sensitive directive to your team focusing all on the WHENs and details of HOW you wanted/needed it done. This occurs on teams and in leadership daily, and our perspective gets lost. One of the most effective ways to channel the brilliance of your team while grounding it to something solid is to continually give them perspective on their process.  Think of it like a Pyramid of Perspective…

So, where’s your vantage point?  Each of the levels on this pyramid represent different viewpoints of perspective.  In the way that you lead and communicate, you can come from any of the levels of the pyramid, each one coloring your message and influence differently.  The deeper you go on the pyramid, the more foundation of grounded perspective you bring to the team.  As a leader, you’ve got some choices…

Even more on this in Chapter #13 of TapIntoGreatness!

WHEN- Coming from this place, you’re concerned with time (usually never enough), the schedule and the deliverable deadlines.  For a competitive team, When is an important and effective driver for them to get to their results and come together before another team beats them to it.  High achievers often do their best work under pressure, so time and an impending constraint of When can bring out their best. As a leader, it’s important that you leverage that as a motivator without becoming the watch-checker. If you cross that line to become overly concerned with time, your team can dismiss you as valuing time over content or process quality.

• Build and show timelines to give your team a sense of how their process will play out in concrete terms, and give them a sense of “we are here” on the map.

• Adjust the timeline as you go, making space for their emergent process as they collaborate.

• Strategically, use time and deliverables to create urgency when needed. Deadlines spur action.

HOW- Here, the focus is on the process, the steps and the way we get there. If you’ve got a team of individuals coming from successful yet diverse disciplines and experiences, the How will be important to them. They can get stuck on How your team is approaching the work, attached to a particular process to achieve results from their previous world. I’ve seen potentially brilliant teams crumble because they couldn’t get aligned on process.  How your team goes about its impressive disruption is ultimately your call as the leader. It’s critical, because How your team does its magic may be the very thing that sets you apart from your competitors and defines your brand. Yet if you’re overly skewed on form and checking off every box just so, they’ll feel micromanaged and stifled, without enough creativity.

• Direct the approach, honoring and incorporating their expertise, then getting their buy-in on why X is the best way for the team. As the leader, be the keeper of the process.

• Get alignment on it early, check in and adjust course often, looking to make sure the How is tapping their talent consistently and providing a way for it to manifest in great work.

WHAT- This is the outcome or result you’re going for. Achievers and concrete thinkers on your team will always need this to be as clear as possible. If it’s not, they’ll each come to the team’s work with their own interpretation of What you’re trying to accomplish, which can be problematic when they clash with one another. While they each may hold their own important piece in the puzzle, they all need to be working toward the same picture on the box lid to guide them together. Clear focus on the What elevates the team’s dynamic and conversation to a common goal and a reason to rally in collaboration. The more vividly they’re able to envision the outcome they’re going for, the more they’ll be pulled to it, causing the How and When to fall into place to make it happen.

• Get What your team is going for- the change you’re trying to impact- clear and concrete.

• Have the team articulate the goal, get it visually up on the wall of your workspaces, and keep reiterating it for them.

• If the result you’re going for is ambiguous, then set shorter term What milestones along the course for them to focus on and hit.

WHY- All the layers of the pyramid are key in keeping your team and the work focused on the right things at the right times. And Why is is the one that makes the difference between managing and really leading people. The Why both trumps and grounds everything above it on that pyramid, because it gets to the heart of motivation.  This could be what brought them all onboard with you in the first place- a mission to ________ (fill in accordingly). It’s their cause, their call, their drive to do the work and push through to the other side. It brings it all back to purpose which is energizing, clarifying and even calming.  For you as the leader, getting the Team Why clear and articulated is the most important thing of all, after which everything else (What, How and When) is about execution.  This is the conviction that makes the game matter, and the impact of their efforts bigger in the world. It’s what engages these individual brilliant people on your team, bringing their separate Whys and visions of what’s possible in the world to this work together.

• As a leader of disruption, you see the layers of Why to the work. Sort and prioritize them, then keep bringing it back to focus for your team.

• Lead your team with the Why. Tell the Why. Ask the Why. Every time, every conversation, every day.

• Open with the Why, then layer the What, How and When on top.

THE BIG WHY- The deepest level of individual personal drive we all have is our Big Why… why we’re doing this in the great scheme of life. This is our biggest game, truest purpose, greatest good and what gets us out of bed in the morning.

Steve Jobs: “To make a dent in the universe.”

As a leader, get clear about yours. Once you do, it will come through as the passion that fuels everything else you do, and will serve as inspiration for every person you lead.

You also need to get  … their individual Big Whys. Once you know their WHY, it can be very powerful, giving you a way to frame communication with them- an entrance into their world at any moment.  When they’re in need of motivation, acknowledgment or perspective, you can frame it in the most meaningful way for what matters most to them.  Their why is their buy-in, and your why can be their inspiration.

Once you’re grounded in this deepest, most stable part of the pyramid, the others- WHAT, HOW, and WHEN are easy to reference and command as needed, because they’re truly held in perspective of the biggest Why.

• If you don’t already know them, find the Big Whys for each on your core team… by asking them!  While this is getting to what’s most essential to people’s core, many don’t talk much about it or even think of it consciously to the level of easy articulation. Getting them to unearth it will help them get more passionate about what their doing, and help you to lead them more accurately.

• As you ask, know that these questions are the kind that may require people to search a little internally for if they haven’t already clarified it for themselves. Give them space to think about it and then ask in layers…

You may ask them, “So why do you do this?”

They may say, “because I’m intrigued by X kinds of challenges,” or some other such practical but not meaningful answer.

You then follow up simply with, “Why are these kinds of challenges intriguing to you?”

They might answer, “Because I really care about X…”

You probe, “Why do you care so much about X?”

…until you’ve asked five levels into their Why. Think of it as helping them peel the layers back on the onion of their Big Why, getting down to their most fundamental Big Why beneath.

As you lead and manage every day, the art of it is to keep perspective for yourself and your team. When, How, What, Why are each important in different ways,  can demand its own hyper focus, and can become consuming if you’re not careful.   Picture yourself as standing at any level on the pyramid, grounded at that level,  easily able to reach every level above it. If you’re standing all the way up in When, you can’t even see, let alone reach the others below you. The deeper you go on the pyramid, the better your perspective is, allowing each of the other levels to fall into place. Standing and starting with Why, you can layer, reference, tap and pull from What, How and When easily, without getting sucked in to them and losing your vantage point.

Your perspective colors how you choose, lead and relate… so keep yourself grounded.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2013

Talent vs. Strength

Strengths and Talent are two different things.  Strengths are what you do easily and regularly, without thinking about it.  These usually come from talent.  Yet we all have talent that isn’t necessarily manifesting as strength.  It may come out in moments or episodes of brilliance, but isn’t reliably consistent yet. While a lot of my work is in the former, what I’m most interested in is the latter.

Strengths.

In some ways, strengths are the low-hanging fruit of my coaching work.  Most people don’t truly realize what their strengths are, or why they’re so amazing.  We’re all too close to have any perspective on it.  Someone with a strength like being able to establish instant rapport and agreement with others doesn’t really acknowledge it as a strength, because it’s as instinctive as breathing for him or her, yet enviable, difficult and a mystery to another person watching. The groundbreaking work of Clifton and Buckingham in this realm has been a gamechanger for millions- so much so that I require groups and teams to take StrengthFinder as a prerequisite for any work I do with them.  We have to at least surface, understand and leverage what we all do well without effort before we start working on how we can grow in new ways.  Simply getting people to be more conscious of what they already do well as their unique and important contribution, and to confidently leverage it as such is groundbreaking for most people.  That’s also telling about our society-  that this initial work (which seems like it would be quick and easy) is huge all by itself for people.  For adults, some of this is from becoming desensitized to our own strengths. Our instinct, common sense and lens through which we see the world becomes as invisible to us as the air we breathe, and we accept it as “normal” (and therefore not anything worthy of leveraging). Meanwhile, our personal set of strengths is unique from everyone around us (and could be genius to them).  It also has a lot to do with our pre-occupation with what we’re not, and what we should be (“Yeah, but if only I were more X…”), rather than an ownership and confidence in what we are, and how we’re uniquely brilliant- and the value of either. The a-ha that people and teams have when they suddenly see their own talent-strength that’s been there all along under those layers is awesome and empowering.

I do love coaching strengths, yet secretly love and crave more, as all coaches do.

Talent.

Great movies love to depict the classic inspirational story of the semi-retired coach or trainer who comes back into the game to develop a wild, raw undeveloped talent into something solid, something strong.  Million Dollar Baby, The Karate Kid, Rocky, Any Given Sunday, Tin Cup, A League of Their Own, The Replacements, even Star Wars…

There’s something different there- much more intriguing, exciting and possible.  This is why my favorite work is with youth vs. adults- it’s much more about working with the talent itself and honing while exploding it vs. working to clear away the layers of stuff on top of it.

Raw talent all by itself is a different thing- it’s trickier.  It’s less predictable and a little rougher around the edges than a bona-fide strength.  Talents can absolutely develop into strengths through deliberate or naturally occurring practice and investment- think Tiger Woods spending more practice time than those with half his talent, because he gets the deliberate path.  How that talent gets developed is one of my favorite topics to think about, coach and experiment with.  Different personalities need to approach it different ways. An awesome article today powerfully shows how even at the top- among the best of the best of the best in a particular field of talent, this happens differently.

But it starts with one thing, which is the most important part… realizing that you have the talent, then deciding that you want more and are ready to explode it into a strength. Maybe it’s just manifesting as an unsettledness now- pay attention to that feeling, and dig into it a little further. Then find the coach, the environment, the team, the training to shape it.  You can do this, and you should, only because you know deep-down that you can, and if you don’t you’ll be forever haunted by “what if I had…”

There’s one more piece in the getting-your-own-talent puzzle, even though it deserves its own day and post.  Personally, I always come back to the most basic piece in developing talent and reaching mastery in any arena- surround yourself with those who ask more of you than you do of yourself.  That means people who challenge you to not just be happy with what you’ve always done, but pushing you to get better, go farther, dig deeper- all from a true commitment to what’s possible in you because they get your talent.  Of course having a good coach or mentor is important, but it’s just as important to look at who else you’re surrounding yourself with.

Pay attention to your unsettledness, consider your own level of talent and mastery, check out who you’re surrounding yourself with, and start building your strength. It’s time.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012

BEing change vs. LEADing change

“Be the change you want to see in the world…”

While an inspiring (if misquoted) quote and the mantra of change agents universally, there are some serious challenges in the fine print of this theme for some of us leaders.

In BEing that change I want to see in the world, I’m responding, reacting and choosing from that place. I’m getting it done, making waves and causing change. There’s big impact  all the time- directly and in ripples, and nearly always in a good way. From it comes fulfillment for me (and some adrenaline, too) and growth for others.

This is great as a consultant, as I’m often brought in for this very purpose- to offer/uncover/strategize ways forward to shift it all. On it. Got it. Love it.

As a leader of or in an organization though… it’s definitely a bit different.

Modeling the mindset and behaviors you want others to follow is key. And yet, when they are coming from a place of non-change (don’t see the need, don’t want to, don’t have the impulse…) a funky dynamic starts to happen which we can miss altogether if we’re not paying attention.  In BEing the change as a leader, you’re stirring pots, setting the bold new direction, creating the game-changing strategy, challenging the box in every interaction and going out to get the new opportunities for the organization to rise to.

Except they might not.

Here’s the rub- the reason you’re so valued and appreciated (if not also regarded with a dose of discomfort) is because “you are making it happen”- that’s your role- which means that they don’t have to learn how to initiate change on their own.  They can just let you do that scary part, and then step into the opening you’ve created.  But what happens when you’re not there to initiate it?

See if you recognize this pattern… You come in to make change or get things going, you do so full-out, push the boundaries, set new standards and rock their world until “my work here is done” or “I’ve outgrown them” or you’re just plain crispy, and then you move on to another project, place, etc. where they need you more and you can make that big difference.

In your wake, the question remains in each of those places- did you CAUSE change or actually LEAD it?

In causing it, your change-agent way pushes people out of their comfort zone, which can result in a few different  scenarios…
A) It can stick- they love life outside the comfort zone, rise to it, and the whole organization’s pattern and standard for growth changes (our fantasy).

B) It can make them dependent on you manually pulling them out of that comfort zone over and over (tired, anyone?).

C) It can cause them to step out so uncomfortably that they retreat back in when you’re not there, ultimately impacting no lasting change at all (that head against the wall sensation).

To lead change means to influence people to step up and out of their comfort zones, but then to choose to do that repeatedly until they “get” the wonder and possibility of life/opportunity outside that box they were in before.  The test of your impact as a leader should be what they choose to do in the moments when you’re not there to initiate it.

Easier said than done, and MUCH easier to just be and make the change yourself, right?

So the question of the day is… How to LEAD change? Check out Tap Into Greatness and the immersive experiential version too, if you haven’t yet. Meanwhile, start with some awareness. Own the fact that you’re the change agent, and ask yourself what you can say/do/ask to make life outside the box more compelling than in for folks you’re leading. Pose the “why step out,” question in a compelling way, and start getting them to answer it. We all know you’ve already answered the question five different ways in your head 10 minutes ago, which is why they’ll be painfully slow in answering for awhile. Yet until they do, it’s still just your idea and you being the change for them.

So shhh, ask again- a few different ways and really give them some (maybe uncomfortable but necessary) pause to answer it, instead of answering every time for them. Have them imagine and inquire into the possibility on the other side change. They can do this, and want to deep down, or you wouldn’t still be there. Let’s just start with that, and then we’ll build…

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012

Prisoner To Another's Process

We’ve all been there in different moments, waiting for someone to finally make a choice one way or another, “get it” or “get over it” or “get on the bus,” right?  Torture.

Sometimes this is more drawn out than other times. In a coaching conversation yesterday, my client was struggling, having to wait for a partner’s (“you’ll just have to wait as I work this out and decide”) internal, painfully slow process of working out their own issues in order to ultimately choose whether or not to continue in their partnership together.

Actually- this happens all the time, every day- by us, around us and seemingly to us, and it can absolutely feel like being prisoner of another person's process, bound there by what they're doing and how they're doing it. Yet you don't have to be so controlled by it... and there might even be something important in there to call out or see, which you haven’t yet been able to see.. 

1) I’m not a morning person.  Normal mornings most of my life= alarm, snooze, alarm, finally up after threat of lateness or another person, first awake hour grouchy, often not speaking, sour disposition.  After the first 5 years of our marriage, my husband called me out on that; my grouchiness in the morning was getting all over him and the rest of our family, and starting their morning off negatively every day.  That impact never really occurred to me before he called it!  So, for the last many years since that day, I’ve woken up every day with the same grouchy impulses I had before, but making a choice to be pleasant.  It wasn’t really so hard to change that behavior, but the impact on everyone in my family was huge.

Who might you talk with about their process to request a change for the sake of others?

2) I like to take action on things and get them out there, often early in a process.  A new business partner of mine is much more inclined to think and noodle over ideas for a long time.  Usually these impulses balance one another out for great results, but sometimes it’s irritating and puts the brakes on our progress when I’m acting too fast or he’s thinking too long.

What about your process messes with the progress of others?

3) One of my kids is a brilliant and focused imaginer, yet slow and reluctant to transition.  When the whole family is getting into the car, she’s still nibbling breakfast or finishing one last pencilstroke of a drawing, still without shoes even on.  Our “let’s go” rhythm and her “just one or two more minutes” rhythm often clash with her feeling jarred out of her flow and us exasperated by having to ask her to take the next step for the 5th time.

How might you try a different take on someone else’s process to make it smoother?

4) A community member dealing with an upcoming big change in an organization I led, chose to air his concerns in public mass-email forums where he argued, rallied people in opposition and planned confrontations. His concerns were seen, but it also caused fear, division and more upset for many people. After I had an actual conversation with him about it, he calmed a bit, yet his justification for his rants was “this is just how I handle things -I know I may make enemies in the process or offend people, but so be it.”

What natural inclination might you have which negatively contaminates others in the process?

That said….

1) I get to brilliant insights and awesome work created when I stay up late at night. (focus there) AND I if the negative impact I was having hadn't been called out, I never would've realized, or  altered my default morning process (not that hard to do, now everyone's happier).

2) My business partner gets to inspiring layers of ideas during that long, deep reflection which will make real change in the world (focus there), AND I learned how to choosily call out the need to move on an idea faster than he might otherwise, in a way he could flex with. 

3) My daughter produces stunning artwork from her default state of creative muse and imagination (focus there), AND we've begun to give her time warnings earlier with multiple checks along the way for all the things she'd normally scramble to do at the last second. 

4) My fellow community-member surfaced important issues, details and questions which may have never been discussed, AND we needed to call out the ramifications of his tactics in how it impacted the whole community, which truly gave him pause about the effect he aimed to have. 

Our unconscious, natural processes are what make us genius and unique from everyone else.  These are the very things that make us stand out in the world.  The challenge may be in preserving the genius and talent of our process while also checking the unintended costs to others.   Possible?

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012