Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: adjust

  • Loving Monday: Forgiving Yourself Creates a Way Forward

    loving_mondayWe are often our own biggest barrier to getting off to a good start each week.

    I am not referring to our foibles, mistakes, flaws, errors, shortcomings, or crimes.

    I am referring to our unwillingness to forgive ourselves for those foibles, mistakes, flaws, errors, shortcomings, and crimes.

    Sure, mistakes are costly. No doubt about it.

    But mistakes can be corrected and serve as a learning opportunity. In other words, there is a future worth pursuing on the other side of most problems we cause.

    If we beat up on ourselves for being less than perfect, feel we need to punish ourselves, or—worst of all—attribute negative or derogatory judgments about our characters, then we make it almost impossible to move forward, get going again, or jump back into the game with energy, determination and poise.

    The key is to notice whether we focus on the error and its solution, or we focus on ourselves and our deficiencies.

    In one case we participate powerfully in the creation of a constructive learning opportunity out of which we can adjust, experiment, and grow. In the other case we spin helplessly in a self-imposed quagmire of self-condemnation, perpetual second-guessing, and plummeting self-esteem.

    If you have messed up recently, even if in a big way, the way forward will not be found in beating up on yourself.

    The way forward lies in forgiving yourself. Only then will you be free enough inside to shift your focus constructively to the learning, adjusting and changes that will result in a new way forward.

    On your side.

    – Karl Edwards

    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.

  • Listen In -> Bold Resolutions for the New Year #5: Rethink Failure

    Failure needs a serious rethink.

    Of all that is truly upside-down and turned inside-out in this world, that we discourage and punish failure is a travesty of egregious proportions.

    As long as failure is a bad thing involving shame, punishment, and other negative responses, we will become increasingly cautious, politically correct, and refuse to make bold decisions.

    Failure needs to be reframed as learning. If we learned something from every mistake, we would be making needed adjustments sooner and more often. 

    If failure were not where a particular line of action ended, but merely where it changed course, we would be achieving far more of what we planned and doing so far sooner.

    Not only that, but the learning and adjustments involved would be taking us down roads toward discoveries and accomplishments that we previously had never dreamed of.

    The journey that welcomes failure and transforms it into learning may be an uncomfortable one, but it is one we avoid only to our own detriment.

    Listen in.

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

  • Loving Monday: Shake It Off

    loving_mondayI’m out of my routine.

    Not that I’m much of a person of routine, but even I feel adrift.

    This week was already structured. It was structured around an out-of-town visitor who is not coming to town after all. It was structured around certain tasks from last week being completed… which they are not.

    I find myself having to practice what I preach… I have to adjust.

    I could let it be discombubalating (yes, that is a word). Or I could quickly settle on a new structure.

    It’s easy to allow oneself to be thrown for a loop by unexpected changes. The mind is still trying to figure out what happened, trying to recover what should have a happened, and speculating on what might have happened next.

    The sooner we can settle on what we choose to happen, the sooner we can be on our way and back to effectiveness.

    I don’t need to start my planning all over again. I simply need to make an adjustment. I simply need to make another choice. I simply need to make my next choice.

    The longer I dwell on the changes and their effect on me, the greater their effect will be and the longer it will take to return to effectiveness.

    I‘m going to shake this off and begin a different project now.

    Let me know how your Monday morning adjustment went.

    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 #23

    What is involved in helping your team adjust to the loss or addition of a key member?

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

  • 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.

  • Loving Tuesday: Where Did Monday Go?!

    loving_mondayWhere did Monday go?

    It was here a minute ago.

    Or so I thought. Next thing I know my calendar is telling me it’s Tuesday. What happened?

    Do you ever have weeks like that? You have the best of intentions. The plans are in place. You are going to hit the ground running. You are going in focused, intent, and prepared.

    And then reality hits.

    A scheduled delivery is missing. An important deadline gets moved up. An important client wants an impromptu meeting asap. Two team members call in sick.

    By the time you look up, the day is over and your beautiful plans are in shatters.

    It would not be uncommon to be thrown for a loop. Our focus turned to confusion. Our intent undermined by discouragement. Our preparations tossed into the air like a deck of playing cards.

    Or we can adjust.

    Key, though, is not letting the unexpected sabotage us completely.

    I recommend beginning by giving yourself permission to go outside and scream your heart out or pound your fist into the landscaping. Pretending you’re not frustrated when you clearly are is patently unproductive.

    Express your frustration (safely, please). Get it out. But then… shake it off.

    While probably not possible to merely start over as if it were Monday when it is now Tuesday, we can adjust.

    Determine to adjust.

    Take a fresh look at your focus, your intent and your plans. How can they benefit from what happened yesterday?

    It’s Tuesday now. Gotta love it. Time to go for it.

    What’s your alternative?

  • Loving Monday: Adjust or Die

    loving_mondayMelodramatic? Maybe.

    What do you do when you aren’t getting the results you want?

    The results of your leadership style. The results from your sales strategy. The results from your planning efforts. The results of your tireless efforts.

    Some goals are so important that you can’t, won’t and shouldn’t give up on them. But to continue proceeding toward those goals in a way that is not working is as counter-productive as giving up altogether.

    The space in between giving up altogether and doggedly pushing ahead is where there is room for adjusting.

    We have to try new things. Do things differently. Redescribe the outcomes. Reframe the issues. Rethink our approach.

    We have to be willing to adjust.

    Adjusting is a project-saving, if not a life-saving, form of flexibility. The ability to adjust injects learning right into the bloodstream of our organizations. Learning on the job, on the fly, in the moment, when it counts, when learning can make a difference.

    The alternative is analogous to Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill only to have it roll back down every time. Frustrating, exhausting, futile.

    If you’re not seeing any alternative to either giving up or pushing the next boulder up the hill, give a call. Let’s take a look at what you’re doing and unearth the possibilities that you’re not seeing from your current vantage point.

    It’s probably time to make an adjustment.

    On your side,

    – Karl

  • Loving Monday: Comic Book Superhero?

    loving_mondayIt’s the last week of school for the kids. Nothing is normal.

    My high school senior needs to be at school at a different time for a different purpose every day this week. My middle school senior—yes two graduations this year—still needs to be dropped off at the crack of dawn.

    Am I supposed to be effective at work with all this stopping and starting, coming and going, switching between contexts and roles like a comic book super hero?

    We all wear a variety of hats and assume a range of identities for the many roles we play at work, home, in our faith communities, and in our various social networks. But the willingness, agility and poise to make these sudden shifts are not always as simple as they seem to be for the comic book superheroes.

    But is the real life superhero, the one for whom their instant, often sacrificial choices saved the day in the end? Or is the real life hero the person simply willing to make an instant, often sacrificial choice?

    What validates the decisions we make in the midst of our complicated schedules, competing priorities, and unexpected demands, is not that the complicated becomes straightforward or the competing become ordered or the unexpected becomes regular. What validates our decisions is that we step to the plate and make them.

    We don’t get to know ahead of time the outcome of all we choose. But such uncertainty doesn’t release us from still having to make the choice. Choose and choose again. And as soon as we see a choice not working out as we intended, adjust and choose again.

    And so my schedule is undergoing its biannual massive shift around the school schedule. Life might be easier and my work might be more effective if such were not my situation. But my reality involves change, so I must face the change and adjust accordingly. Maybe not with the agility of a comic book superhero, but to the extent that I face the facts and deal with them… a hero nonetheless.

  • Question of the Week

    What is involved in helping your team adjust to the loss or addition of key members?

  • Would You Prefer to Change or Adjust?

    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?