Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Author: Karl Edwards

  • Loving Monday: Focusing on Distractions

    loving_mondayI’m sitting next to a gentleman this morning who is preparing for the LSAT.

    The exam isn’t for another three months, but he is hard at work. He is laser focused on his preparations with an intensity that I envy.

    I, of course, interrupted him in spite of his concentration, and discovered that he is passionate about the law and deeply motivated to do whatever it takes to get into the field. He finds the competition intimidating but not overwhelming.

    Two things stand out. He knows what he wants. He is focusing his energy and efforts on getting what he wants.

    Both of these things relate to him and not to the others against whom he is forced to compete. He is focused on his efforts, not on the quantity or quality of the others.

    I reflect on my own dreams and aspirations as I think about this gentleman’s.

    Am I focused on what I want and what I am doing to get what I want? Or am I looking at the crowded field of competitors in whose company I try to distinguish myself?

    I’m currently reading a pre-release version of a book by Alan Fine (for which I will be writing a separate review), that speaks articulately about the importance of focus.

    It’s interesting how other people, events, circumstances, stories, internalized beliefs, social myths, personal moods, economic factors, etc. etc. demand our attention and in the process shift, distract, and otherwise distort our ability to focus where we would like.

    What has your attention this morning as you begin this new week? Can you articulate one particular thing? Are you inundated by a multitude of issues, problems and changing circumstances?

    In the midst of your complex reality, how might you sift and sort, discern and triage, and ultimately choose one line of action on which to focus?

    The gentleman next to me—for whatever he is not getting done this morning—is hard at work studying for his upcoming exam. And for that alone, I both admire him and have stopped interrupting him so that he can get back to achieving what he intends.

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • Question of the Week #19

    Why is it more valuable to first earn the trust of your subordinates before asking them to earn yours?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> The Soul of a Leader #5: Practicing Gratitude

    thought-leadersThe pressures of work and leadership are many. The tough economy merely compounds and complicates these concerns.

    I believe the leader is responsible for maintaining perspective in the midst of all these pressures. Keeping things in perspective for him or herself, and keeping things in perspective for the team.

    While a variety of means are available to the leader, Benefiel reminds us in this week’s chapter of the importance of gratitude as a perspective provider.

    The beauty and power of this insight lies in its integrity. Gratitude is good for the soul, good for bringing valuable perspective to a situation, and good for building of trust and collaboration into relationships. Gratitude is correcting, restorative, renewing, and generative.

    Of all the gifts a leader can bring to the team, gratitude belongs at the core. No other leadership function can endure without it. Not focus, not direction, not vision, not organization, not team building, not accountability, not confrontation, not planning, not communication… you get the idea.

    Being a workplace culture builder myself, I’m partial to Benefiel’s (more…)

  • Loving Monday: Greeting The Unexpected Intruder

    loving_mondayThe unexpected can sneak up on us like an intruder.

    Even something wonderful can be greeted with a frown simply because it was unexpected. It caught us off guard. We had one thing planned and now the situation has changed.

    How do you react when caught off guard? How do you greet the unexpected?

    When we come to work expecting to work along one set of plans and cannot, we have an adjustment to make. Some of us are better at adjusting than others.

    Today I want to draw our attention to one of our starting assumptions. Is the unexpected an intruder or a friend? Have we been met with a setback or an opportunity?

    Your gut answer to those two questions will help you get deeper insight about why you react to the unexpected the way you do.

    If something bad has happened, then the adjustment process is one of damage control, recovery, and getting back to what you had been doing previously.

    If something good has happened, then the adjustment process is one of triage, learning, and participating in the new creation that is emerging.

    In the one case, the ways of the past and being able to maintain control are the central dynamics.

    In the other case, the possibilities of the future and being able to discern what has value are the central dynamics.

    Reaction, control, preventing damage, and self-protection on the one hand; versus learning, discernment, participation, and new options on the other.

    When the unexpected happens today—and it will—what sort of greeting will you extend? Celebrating a welcome if unpredictable friend or complaining about an unwelcome and troublesome intruder?

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • Quote to Consider: As Good As Sex

    quote-to-consider“The fun of being alive is realizing you have a talent and you can use it every day so it grows stronger…. And if you’re in an atmosphere where this talent is appreciated instead of just tolerated, why, it’s just as good as sex.”

    Lou Centlivre

  • Listen In -> Confrontation for Those Who Don’t Like Confrontation #5: Clearing Up Misunderstandings

    There’s a story of an elderly couple who were sitting outside on their front porch listening to the sounds of the countryside one evening.

    The gentleman was listening to the crickets in the field behind the house. The woman was listening to the choir in the church down the lane.

    At one point the woman exclaimed to her husband, “Isn’t that beautiful?!”

    “Ah yes,” he replied. “And I understand they do it by rubbing their legs together.”

    Misunderstandings happen.

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss the common reality of miscommunicating, misinterpreting, and other ways we get our wires crossed.

    How often do we find ourselves getting all worked up over some perceived slight only to find out later that the other person was merely distracted by something completely unrelated?

    How often do we find ourselves jumping to conclusions about a slipping project schedule only to discover that we didn’t know the parties involved had agreed to rearrange the order of events and everything was right on track?

    Misunderstandings happen. The question is, are we alert enough and responsive enough to confront them (i.e. talk calmly about) early on before they have a chance to spiral out of control?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> The Soul of a Leader #4: Keeping Mission at the Fore

    thought-leadersIncreasing the bottom line isn’t a big enough mission.

    It’s not that the profit motive is categorically bad in some way or less than foundational for the best of capitalism to flourish. It is simply too small.

    Great for accountability. Great for measurement and quantification. No other system in human history has resulted in raising the standards of living for so many so quickly. Not even close.

    Still, the profit motive is too small.

    The human heart needs a bigger, fuller, more dynamic, more wholistic, more generative mission to invest itself into.

    When an organization doesn’t articulate a mission, doesn’t reinforce its mission, or strays from its mission, people lose three vital components of successful engagement with their work. We lose a vital source of inspiration, a vital source of direction, and a vital source of integration.

    Without inspiration, direction or integration work becomes an inhuman—maybe even robotic—race to do as much as possible in the least amount of time as possible. This race has no finish line because more is never enough. Work soon devolves into a meaningless grind. The exchange of one’s life for the profit of someone else. Small wonder so many people end up barely offering the minimal requirement in the maximum amount of time.

    Hence Benefiel’s exhortation to leaders to focus on something more, share that something more widely and repeatedly, and keep returning to that something more. It’s literally the difference between life and death in the workplace.

    What “something more” is your organization working for? How do you provide inspiration, direction and integration for the work efforts of your team? What was your main take-away from this chapter?

    Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of The Soul of a Leader by Margaret Benefiel. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
    If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Loving Monday: Recovering From a Busy Weekend

    loving_mondayNormally we associate the weekend with rest. This time “off” work is our opportunity to refresh, recharge, rejuvenate, and restore our energies and spirits.

    Some weekends, though, are so busy that—even if most of our activities were great things—rest was not one of them.

    Which brings us to the interesting situation of finding ourselves needing a break on Monday morning instead of ready to dive back into work.

    I suppose we could push on through as if it were any other Monday morning. Or we could broadcast the news of our exhausted state to everyone as a way of lowering their expectations.

    I’m guessing that neither ignoring the reality of our weariness nor expecting others to compensate for us will work very effectively for us.

    What if we chose tasks and chores that don’t take a lot of brain power or inter-personal energy as a means for both working with the reality of your tiredness and ramping back up to full engagement?

    Organize your desk, sort through old email, finish your expense report, catch up on paperwork, or take care of a couple of chores. This way you’re not wasting time trying to focus on efforts for which you haven’t yet recovered your ability to focus. (Ever read the same paragraph repeatedly without any comprehension? –Waste of time!)

    It’s a matter of being able to recognize and assess your frame of mind, energy levels, and responsibilities, and then choosing the activities that are most constructive in light of those assessed realities.

    It’s Monday. We can begin by second-guessing our busy weekends, or we can move forward in light of them.

    I’m exhausted. I think I’ll take care of some filing.

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • Quote to Consider: What Money Can’t Buy

    quote-to-consider“It is good to have things that money can buy, but it is also good to check up once in awhile and be sure we have the things money can’t buy.”

    George Horace Lorimer

  • Listen In -> Confrontation for Those Who Don’t Like Confrontation #4: Not Pulling One’s Weight

    It happens all the time. People go on vacation, get sick, have personal emergencies, and experience the occasional “bad day.”

    We are not always able “pull our weight,” so to speak.

    When life happens and someone on the team cannot pull their weight we are usually more than willing to pitch in and fill the gap. And that’s a good thing.

    BUT…

    And it’s a big but!

    When someone consistently and chronically does not do their job, our willingness to fill the gap should drop like a lead balloon.

    We are not helping anymore when we participate with an under-performer in preventing there being any consequences to their inadequate contribution. Our filling the gap that was a good thing for the team on an occasional basis becomes a bad thing when it becomes a pattern.

    They are simply not doing the job they agreed to do. And we are no longer giving our all to the job we agreed to do.

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss how to talk calmly about (i.e. confront) someone not pulling their weight.

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.