We have a tendency to swing between extremes.

At one extreme, we beat ourselves up. Call ourselves diminishing names. We are unrelenting and unforgiving toward our own failures.

At the other extreme we let ourselves off the hook. We understand and make allowance for every misstep we make or shortcoming we exhibit along the way.

Either way we let ourselves down. Either way we participate in our own lack of progress or stunted growth. At either extreme we refuse to mature and then, ironically enough, pat ourselves on the back for being so harsh or so lenient.

What we need, though, is the capacity (maybe even courage) to 1.) identify what we’re doing that’s not serving us well, 2.) take responsibility for those actions, and then 3.) experiment with alternatives.

To beat ourselves up is self-diminishing. To let ourselves off the hook is dis-empowering.

To accept responsibility and experiment with alternatives, on the other hand, is both edifying and empowering.

Let’s revisit our three tasks:

1. Identify what we’re doing that’s not serving us well.

   How self-reflective and/or honest would you consider yourself to be in matters related to your own performance? What outcomes might serve as objective points of self-evaluation?

2. Take responsibility for those actions.

   Which extreme do you tend toward? Beat yourself up or let yourself off the hook? Both are deflections from a simple statement of factual ownership.

3. Experiment with alternatives.

   I don’t mean, ask others to do things differently. I mean, you choose to do things differently. You change how you show up and do work. Become a lifelong and active learner.

Don’t participate in your own diminishment another day. Life is challenging enough without stepping into the coffin and closing the lid on ourselves.

On your side,

Karl

In our last newsletter I posed the question, what if the current financial crisis were to present an opportunity?

We first looked at the opportunity that may lie in some creative re-visioning of ourselves and our professional contribution. (Read the previous article here.)

We turn our attention secondly to what opportunity might lie in doing some relational research. We do not need to find our way through this financial morass alone. While not every acquaintance, friend or family member can be the source of your next job, these connections can be more valuable than you think.

When we place too much pressure on relationships at time of need, networking can feel contrived and manipulative. Where have we been all this time?

But if in the course of life we stay in touch with people on a casual, personal, yet (more…)

No doubt the news of 700,000 lost jobs can be nerve-wracking. Of course stress levels increase and worries of job security can fill our horizon.

Maybe you have already lost your job. Maybe your nightmare has become your reality.

But what if the current crisis were to present an opportunity? What if that opportunity outweighs the trouble and trauma experienced on the way to it? What if something far better lies on the other side of the muck and mire in which we currently find ourselves?

Do we risk proceeding through the muck, knowing neither its extent nor its resolution? Or do we scramble back to where we were before, reverting to what we knew as safe and secure, (however much we hated our job at the time.)

What if making our way forward involved three components: some creative re-visioning, some relational research and some intensive effort on our part? Would you choose to go forward? Or back?

This month we look at the opportunity that may lie in some creative re-visioning of ourselves and our professional contribution.

The creative re-visioning might be in any of three areas: your role at work, the professional field within which you exercise your role, or you may have an idea that changes how we view or use a product or service altogether.

Maybe your role needs to change. Expand, focus, involve new skills or new responsibilities. Are you learning continually? Always challenging yourself? Do you try to add value to your role each year?

Look around the office and ask yourself which roles and/or tasks are attractive to you. Do you admire Mark’s ability to work with others? Do you come up with ideas that you wish you could implement? Is Sarah overwhelmed by a project with which you could help?

Maybe your skills would be better suited in another professional field. Which of your skills are task-specific and related to your particular job description, and which skills are transferable and applicable anywhere? Knowing how to use a particular contact management/calendar computer program would be an example of the first. Knowing how to make plans, organize events and stay in touch with people is an example of the second.

Make a list of your transferable skills. Get people who know you to help. Transferable skills are the keys to expanding your opportunities to fields outside your own.

Finally, maybe you don’t see the world the way others do. Maybe the source of your frustration is at a deeper, more fundamental, even structural level. A more radical change may be in store for you.

Who would have imagined listening to music in random play lists? Who would have foreseen using a phone for multiple communication and organizational purposes? Maybe you’re like us at Bold Enterprises and foresee a working world where people design for themselves working environments that are worth getting up for and pouring oneself into.

Maybe this economic crisis is your opportunity to take a step forward.

It’s certainly not fun to watch the stock market fall, taking your long term savings and possibly a dream or two with it.

It’s certainly not comforting to watch entire companies close their doors, creating instant unemployment for not just a few skilled workers.

And no one likes hearing about anyone losing their home, even in the maddening case when the initial mortgage commitment was irresponsible.

My question for you is, “Are you letting their meltdown become your meltdown?”

It’s easy to start worrying about our own job security, financial well-being, and credit issues. But there is a big difference between the sort of reality check some of us need to make us face the facts about our money practices and the sort of shared anxiety based, not on facts, but on the broader climate of uneasiness, fear and panic.

One question you might want to ask yourself is, “Am I making this decision to make myself feel less anxious today, or is this the best possible choice to help me achieve my short and long term financial goals and commitments?”

In times of economic stress, it is easy to slip into making decisions in order to make us feel better. This is where we risk allowing their meltdown to become our meltdown.

What we are looking for is a sense of poise instead of panic. Perspective instead of overwhelm. Strategy instead of fear.

Poise is both an interior and exterior posture that is steady, balanced and paying attention. Poise is not easily knocked over or thrown off course by the unexpected earthquakes and/or hurricanes of life. Poise involves maintaining one’s composure to better assess the situation, distinguish between fact and fear, and think more clearly.

Perspective is a vantage point. Perspective involves being able to step back and look at issues from more than one angle. Perspective rejects isolation and consults with safe and experienced friends, associates and professionals.

Strategy is wisdom committed to action. Strategy discerns urgent issues requiring immediate decisions. Strategy recognizes longer term possibilities and holds or adjusts course accordingly. Strategy does not recoil from difficult decisions, because its validation does not come from needing to feel better right away.

Validation is the peace that is available from a posture of poise, a vantage point with perspective, and a thoughtful strategy of next steps.

What are you doing to prevent their meltdown from becoming your meltdown?

What’s the most stressful part of hearing rumors of lay-offs? Possibly losing one’s job? Possibly losing a valuable team member? No. Neither actually. It’s the uncertainty.

Think about it. Uncertainty.

How will the weak economy affect you? Uncertainty. What will happen at your performance review? Uncertainty. The person who hired you is fired. Uncertainty. An unexpected opportunity presents itself. Uncertainty.

Give me a defined problem any day. I can face a disaster. I can get help with a problem. I can develop a new skill. I can confront a bully. But please don’t leave me hanging.

The key to surviving uncertainty is not to beg, bargain or complain, manipulate or manufacture certainty. Certainty is elusive at best and not possible in many instances.

The key to surviving uncertainty is to identify which choices are in your control and which choices are not. By letting go of the things outside of your control (e.g. the economy, a supervisor’s idiosyncracies, the weaknesses over in the sales department, etc.), you can focus on the things you can control.

Where do you have control? Ask yourself, “Where can my choices make a difference?”

You can find new ways to add value and engage more fully with your current position. You can nurture your network of relationships, near and far, so that you have positive connections in a variety of contexts. You can find opportunities to learn new skills and expand current ones, especially skills that are transferable across a variety of fields.

The negative stress associated with uncertainty will be replaced with a sense of purposefulness and personal power. Though those with more power in the organization may make decisions that complicate your life, you will know that you are doing all you can to be a value-adding team member, a well-connected community member, and an irrepressible transferable skill developer.

Instead of worrying, you will be ready to make your next decision. Now, that feels good!

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Do your goals haunt or lure?

It’s the difference between having your goals behind you or in front of you.

Behind you, the best goals can do is accuse you. They can goad you with fear or haunt like some guilting ghoul. From behind you, your goals will send one message, “You are still not there yet. What is your problem?”

In front of you, goals can serve as an alluring tempter or temptress. They will draw you toward an extremely attractive future. Out in front, your goals will send a message of motivation, “What you want is over here. Achieve and live it. It’s worth the effort.”

And so back to the original question. Do your goals haunt or lure?

I believe the distinction lies within two questions. 1) Have you owned each goal as your own? And, 2) Do you interpret missteps as damning failures or learning opportunities?

For example: What goals were set in your last performance review? Who initiated them, you or your supervisor? If your supervisor, have you made them your own yet? If not, then I’ll bet you’ll feel like the goals are haunting you all year. “Are you there yet?” “Your raise depends on this.” “Don’t mess up now.”

On the other hand, if you’ve owned the goals as your own, then your motivation comes from within instead of outside of yourself. You want; therefore you work. The achievement is associated with a positive desire (hence “lure”) instead of a negative judgment (aka fear.)

Regarding the inevitable missteps along the way, if every one feels like a failure to you, then your road to goal achievement is primarily an experience of obstacles and setbacks. Your spirit gets progressively beaten down instead of nourished and energized as it would if you felt you were learning and improving along the way.

And so we need to deliberately choose to view our errors as gifts. Gifts we open with gratitude and from which we choose to benefit. Benefit by learning: becoming wiser, more skilled and more committed to playing at the top of our professional game.

For today it is enough to simply pause and reflect on the initial question: Do your goals haunt or lure?

On your side,

- Karl

As much as we might want it, lasting change often eludes us. Whether we’re leaders or team members, we hope to become something better. We hope to see differently and learn to work differently. But relating in new ways doesn’t come as easily as we would like.

I’m not going to try to explain it. I’d be a different person myself if I could slip into the changes I’ve wanted through the years. The fact is that I still have many of the habits that I’ve had for most of my professional career.

Getting frustrated doesn’t help. Kicking myself doesn’t help. I need an alternative. How about simply making an adjustment?

Maybe change requires a more patient, less performance-oriented approach than many self-help books would have us believe. Growing up personally and professionally is a developmental process as much as a trained and practiced process.

Maturity comes before proficiency. That means I take practical steps in small increments. I don’t aim for wholesale changes or sweeping transformations. Instead, through small every day decisions, I gradually mature into:

• increased self-awareness
• internal integrity
• outward consistency
• relational connectedness

It’s worth the effort, because the results are real:

• enhanced performance
• increased professional confidence
• consistent creative energy
• sustained drive

Okay, those are a lot of big words and abstract concepts. They come down to this: adjust where you can and go from there. Don’t worry so much that you’re not where you think you should be (or others think you should be). Just keep trying something new every once in a while and see how it goes.

We don’t want to be the proverbial guy who keeps hitting his head on the same low-hanging door lintel. Nor do we avoid hitting our heads by never getting up at all. We simply learn to duck. We learn to adjust.

What strategies have helped you adjust–either professional, personally or both?

No excuses in 2008!

Instead of a long list of well-meant resolutions, let’s launch the new year with a single intention: No excuses in 2008!

Others may let me down, circumstances may conspire against me, but I will make no excuse for my own choices. Not in my work, not at my home, not in my attitude.

Though I may face harsh realities outside of my control, I still control my response to those difficulties. Like the tennis player in a difficult match, I do not choose what comes at me. But I do choose whether or not I will stay in the game. I choose whether I will stay prepared and alert for the unexpected. I choose when my reactions remain primarily defensive and when I turn the tables to take the offense.

No excuses.

I will make bold decisions, and I will accept responsibility that those decisions affect the quality of my life and work. The more I recognize my own responsibility in the story, the more I discover my own power to change the story.

Even through the storms of workplace conflict, career suffocation, stagnant economies, or unexpected job loss, I make no excuses. I will expand my repertoire of responses. I will get help from friends and associates. I will invest in myself and my career. I will try new approaches. I will be honest with myself about what is not working well and try something different. I will learn from my mistakes.

No excuses.

I will stay in the game. Let’s make 2008 the best yet.

On your side,

- Karl

Why won’t my new boss ask for help? He is obviously in over his head.” If you are like most employees, you’ve wondered about your newly promoted boss before.

Of course, she can’t yet know what she’s talking about in certain areas. But you understand those areas. You could help if only she talked to you before making some of her decisions, before it is too late.

Scary, eh? Would you believe most people feel they have to continually prove they deserve leadership? As much as we want and expect to be promoted, very few of us feel we deserve it. Instead, many leaders are plagued with doubt. Will I be able to (more…)

Many people cannot “see the forest for the trees.” Not me. I have trouble seeing the forest because I also see the meadow and the skyline and the distant skyscrapers and all the people rushing to work and the implications of global warming and the hope of world peace… You get the idea.

Learning to focus has been a personal goal of mine for longer than I care to admit. I hope to experience it at least once before moving on to experience the infinite. I’ve even tried tying my ankles to the chair in order to see a project through to completion. But then I just made a mess when I hobbled over, chair in tow, to refill my coffee mug.

Focus is hard because the world is a busy place. How do people know exactly what deserves (more…)