What specifically are you looking forward to this week? What gets your juices flowing? What do you brag to your friends about? What makes the time fly by?
One way I like to start the week is to remind myself why I am doing what I do.
Work is a messy place for most of us. A mix of the rewarding and the maddening. Sometimes it feels like the maddening aspects are taking over.
If we can catch ourselves feeling discouraged, overwhelmed, unhappy, or stressed before too much time goes by, we have a better chance to take evasive action.
We can begin the week by reminding ourselves of what we love about our work. Why we took the job. What we’re trying to get out of it.
Even if our rationale wasn’t anything particularly noble, personally motivating or sexy, remembering that we took the job in order to pay the bills (if that was your rationale), can help us maintain a positive perspective in the face of even the most difficult days on the job.
As you jump into this week, take a moment to note at least one thing that you either love about what you do or that you know makes this job worth keeping and bringing your best game to.
What do marriage counseling and dog training have in common? Everyone has a psychology.
No. It’s not that human and canine psychology have anything in common. No. It’s not that there are ways to train a spouse just as there are ways to train a dog.
It’s that if you want to be understood by either a dog or a person, you have to understand what makes the other party tick.
In this week’s chapter of What the Dog Saw, Gladwell explores the world of The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan. While the stories of Millan’s various encounters with dogs and their owners were entertaining, it was the story of Millan and his wife’s marriage counseling where the insights began emerging for me.
How easy it is to function solely out of our own frame of reference. We strive to communicate our desires, requests and demands of those with whom we live and work as clearly, plainly and directly as we can.
What about the frame of reference out of which we’re being heard, though? What about the needs, desires and stories of those listening? An assignment that on an ordinary day at work might be received with a respectful nod of assent, on a stressful day—where the employee in question is already juggling more projects than they can handle and just got off the phone with a belligerent and unreasonable client—might be met with the furious and self-protective rebuff/attack of a wounded animal backed into a corner.
If we want to make things happen that involve other people, we do not have absolute control over the process. To the extent that we understand from where the others involved are coming and what their needs and desires are, we can adjust our communication strategy accordingly and exert far more influence over the outcome than otherwise expected.
How do you learn and gauge how you are being understood by others? What was your main take-away from this chapter?
Hey, check it out… It’s the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. It just looks like an executive.
Ah, the ostrich. As if by hiding its head, the rest of its body would no longer be exposed to danger. As if the danger that existed when looking, would somehow cease to exist when hiding. Such is the response of many leaders to our current economic crisis.
Instead of calmly taking a step back, getting some perspective and investing in some expert assistance, these leaders function out of their fear and panic. They are afraid to spend any money, ask for help, or experiment with new ways of doing things.
In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss the upside-down and backwards thinking that takes place when leaders function out of fear and panic.
I somewhat violate the spirit of this column to be so excited about having a day off. After all, we’re trying to find work we love where we can apply ourselves with enthusiasm and love going to work each Monday morning.
Having said that, though, “All work and no play…” You know how the saying goes. (And even if you don’t, you probably have no problem filling in the rest of that phrase.)
Hence the importance of enjoying our holidays and other days off.
For those of us who feel guilty, we need to cut ourselves some slack! It’s not human to value work higher than all other aspects of life. The best part of a day off is the culture-wide permission to do something for yourself. Far from being selfish, enjoying a day off is the very best form of self-care.
For those of us who are work-aholics, we need to expand our repertoires of validation, value and self-care. Leaving work at work is a helpful tool to force us to practice doing something else. Built right into the system, we have these holidays where so many around us are thrilled to be anywhere but the one place that we cannot imagine not being. The new forms of activity, relationship, and interest will serve our souls well.
So what do you have planned for your day off today? Something personally rewarding, I hope.
Who would benefit from you verbalizing your appreciation today?
The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.
When a leader lashses out, “Who’s responsible for this mess?”, they are not thinking that one of the most likely answers should be, “You are!”
Instead of owning their participation and co-responsibility in any problem at hand, these leaders blame down the organizational chart (never up) and conveniently let themselves off the hook when business doesn’t go as intended.
Claudia and I set our sites on this type of leadership bullshit on the show this week.
A combination of blindness, insecurity and lack of self-awareness conspire to handicap many leaders when problems arise.
Blaming seldom accomplishes anything constructive when addressing plans gone awry. Then why do so many of us resort to it?
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Work is a messy place for most of us. A mix of the rewarding and the maddening. Sometimes it feels like the maddening aspects are taking over.
What do marriage counseling and dog training have in common? Everyone has a psychology.
Instead of calmly taking a step back, getting some perspective and investing in some expert assistance, these leaders function out of their fear and panic. They are afraid to spend any money, ask for help, or experiment with new ways of doing things.
For those of us who feel guilty, we need to cut ourselves some slack! It’s not human to value work higher than all other aspects of life. The best part of a day off is the culture-wide permission to do something for yourself. Far from being selfish, enjoying a day off is the very best form of self-care.
“Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without it we can’t practice any other virtue with consistency.”
