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Values

Don’t be triggered

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We have all experienced a moment when your anger, annoyance or frustration has taken over and you’ve said something at a meeting that, on reflection, you wish you hadn’t. Has this happened to you? It’s definitely happened to me!

The reason these outbursts can happen to the best of us is simple psychology.

We all have a part of our brain that is responsible for our emotions—the limbic system—and another that is responsible for problem-solving, planning and consequential thinking—the frontal lobe. The amygdala is the part of the limbic system that makes you react instinctively to your emotions which is something humans have developed to avoid harm. Unfortunately, when we get angry, it is very easy for the amygdala to overpower the frontal lobe, leading us to have an outburst.

Clearly this reaction is not the best course of action, but in a moment of anger, annoyance or frustration, there is no reasoning! So how can we get past that initial instinct to react? Read on for a simple, yet effective strategy to banish that embarrassed, regretful feeling forever.

Consequential thinking is the antidote to mindless, reactionary behaviour that prevents people from reaching their leadership potential. It’s described as ‘evaluating the costs and benefits of your choices’ developed by Six Seconds, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to improving the emotional intelligence of people.

How to practice consequential thinking

This model involves pausing for a few seconds, evaluating your situation and choosing to respond in a way that is best for you. In doing this, we are letting the instinct to react subside and allowing ourselves time to think.

Consequential thinking is about connecting your everyday behaviours to who you really want to be as a person and leader and to make choices every day that take you in the right direction.

Let’s break down those three steps.

1. Pause

Allow your emotion to occur without taking any action. For how long? Six seconds! Emotions are molecules and this is how long it takes for them to run their course in your brain and body before they are reabsorbed.

2. Evaluate

Question why you are feeling this way. What is the best possible result of your actions in this situation? How can you tailor your response to get to that result?

3. Choose your response

Respond now that you have thought through the consequences of your behaviour for yourself and others.

How can consequential thinking help you become a better leader?

1. Know your values

Consequential thinking forces you to clarify your values. What matters to you in life? Is it kindness, equality, connection or critical thinking? It can be daunting to acknowledge what you really value in your life and career, especially if it feels out of reach. However, this desire is something that will continuously motivate you and lead you to smarter decision-making.

Often when something annoys us, it is signalling something that is important to us. When we pause, we can think about what that important thing is that our emotion is pointing to. When you realise your values, it becomes much easier to see the consequences of your actions clearly. There is an obvious link between your behaviour and where it will lead you. Think about your actions over the past day, week or month. Do they align with your values?

2. Better relationships

Consequential thinking helps you enhance your relationships. Your behaviour as a professional
is what determines how others perceive you—whether they want to work with you or not.

Imagine someone in your team makes a mistake. As a leader you have two choices: react immediately or pause and calmly deliver constructive feedback. Think about which choice is more likely to prevent that mistake from happening again. Which choice is more likely to build a trusting, positive relationship?

Having positive professional relationships is beneficial for everyone: you won’t gain a reputation for having a bad temper and others will trust you more as a leader or a peer.

3. Dealing with challenging emotions

Consequential thinking helps you in those moments of explosive emotions. We all experience challenging emotions in difficult times from feelings of insecurity, to constant time pressures, to frustration and disappointment. No one gets to where they want to be without hard days and setbacks. What’s important is how you deal with the emotions that come along with these challenges.

Challenging emotions are inevitable. Once you reach the top of your field you are not suddenly immune to them. Luckily, they are a great guide if you know how to listen to them and act accordingly. You can apply consequential thinking–pausing for six seconds, remembering your values–to deal with challenging emotions. Holding your driving force in mind is a great way to better understand why you feel certain things.

When you pause to think about what is driving you, your values, you can better understand the anger and complete the task more efficiently. Having a better awareness of this emotion is going to allow you to deal with it properly, rather than letting it simmer and potentially blowing up at someone else.

In Summary

Consequential thinking is a key tool for your leadership toolbox. It challenges you to clarify what’s important to you, pause and act with consideration rather than being overtaken by challenging emotions and act with intention instead.

Warning – this strategy requires practice! Do you know where I find the better practice ground…with family. No one will know how to push your buttons better than your three-year-old son or your loving little sister! Yes, practicing this technique is not just limited to the workplace but can be used at home too.

RESET – Creating Your New Normal

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What an opportunity 2020 has been to truly reflect on what’s important in our personal lives and collective society. Have you taken the time to reflect on how the global pandemic has impacted your life? To start to make sense of it and to ask what it is teaching you?

The interruptions to how we live and work has given us a chance to experiment with our habits. Habits you may have intentionally developed for your life as well as the habits that emerge without you knowing. You know, habits like checking your social media first thing in the morning, staying up too late, eating too much fast food or checking email or news at all times of the day. These habits are not who you are or who you want to be.

I spoke to one CEO recently who said they were not looking forward to returning back to normal and had really enjoyed the slower pace rather than racing from meeting to meeting. They reflected the pandemic had given them more time and space to think, to move more and connect with family.

If we can take away anything from this experience, it’s the opportunity to reset. Now is the time to think about what this lockdown has given us and what we’ve missed too. This is the time to make changes to your daily life. To raise questions at work about how you work best! This is the time to start carving those new grooves and living in a way that aligns more with your purpose and values.

 

Look at your Life

It starts by asking some of the big questions in life. What is important to me? What values do I hold dear? How do I want to show up in the world? Maybe you’ve done some of this thinking before and maybe you haven’t. Either way – it’s a good time!

Author, Brian Johnson suggests starting with three key domains in your life – energy, work and love to align your purpose and values to the everyday actions in your life.

  • Energy:  Without your health, you can’t show up fully for your work or life so your energy is foundational to living your best life.
  • Work:  Happy people have meaningful work serving a purpose greater than themselves.
  • Love:  Cultivating connection with family, friends and community has been shown time and time again to create enduring wellbeing in life.

So let’s look at those in-depth…

 

Domain 1: Energy – lighting you up!

The pandemic has caused a fair amount of physical and mental stress. It’s important to acknowledge this as it takes a hit on our energy levels. Research has found people with high energy are happier people.

So how do you increase your energy? There are two key ways we can create energy in your life – physiologically and psychologically.

Physiological – Creating energy physiologically means the basics of life – how you move, eat and sleep. How would you rate on the basics? It wasn’t a surprise when the lockdown first hit, many people were extolling the importance of eating well, moving your body and getting enough sleep. That’s because it protects us from physical and mental illness!

But it’s so easy to see these things as getting in the way of what we really want to do in your life. They become a chores that need to be done. Dr Michelle Segar, in her book No Sweat, suggests we reframe these chores to instead seeing them as a gifts.

How?

Dr Segar suggests connecting exercise (or eating healthily or sleeping enough) with the short term benefits it brings to your life. That’s right, forget about vague promises that it’s good for your health and think about how it makes you feel today.

She also suggests focusing on the smallest improvements. For example, instead of trying to fit in our hour of rigorous exercise, she says make it a game to find OTM – Opportunities To Move throughout your day. She says – everything counts!

 

You may think that your day is crammed so full that you can’t fit in one more thing, but believe me: It’s not true. If you’ve got one minute, you’ve got time.”
Dr Michelle Segar, Author, No Sweat

 

Like finding a parking spot furtherest away from the supermarket, train station or workplace rather than the closest (you’ll be spoilt for choice!). Taking the stairs rather than the lift (easy way to avoid the crowds!). Taking a walk during your lunch break or while the kids are taking their music class or when meeting with a colleague. How many opportunities to move do you have in your day?

Psychological – You can also create energy psychologically too. I’m sure you’ve had the up and down of negative thoughts and emotions over the last few months. Recognising the emotions you are feeling, acknowledging them in the moment and realising they will pass are vital skills to manage the stress.

There are a number of scientifically validated mental tools to get you in the right frame of mind too, training your mental resilience through focus training, gratitude, confidence building and hope.

It starts by spending small moments thinking, talking or reflecting about what you are grateful for, what goals you have for the future, reframing mistakes and acting in integrity with your values. Setting habits to review what you are grateful for, your purpose, goals and values can help cultivate your mental strength and resilience to weather the highs and lows in life.

The more you move away from our values, the more you feel stressed and anxious in your life. Instead, aim for coherence between your purpose, values and goals and your everyday actions.

 

Domain 2: Work – serving the planet with your greatest strengths

What conditions help you to do your greatest work? Think about where prefer to work? What time do you have the greatest energy? What cues help you to focus? What gets you in the zone? This is what top companies obsess about – helping their people do their greatest work. What did you learn about this during lockdown?

Did you learn you work best from five to seven in the morning?
Did you learn you were most productive with less distractions around you?
Did you learn what triggers you into your most productive work?

What percentage of your work allows you to use your greatest strengths? Psychologist, Martin Seligman found using your strengths makes you more productive, happier and engaged at work! Are you making the best use of your greatest strengths?

The challenge becomes creating space and time to focus on your strengths deeply within your diary. In Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, he suggests your ability to focus deeply at work is becoming increasing uncommon. Think – notifications, open plan working, back to back meetings or 24/7 email. Yet, this deep work is becoming more and more valuable in our economy.

 

The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”
Cal Newport, Author, Deep Work

 

Your deep work is your life’s work. It’s building a body of work that makes you proud. We tend to overestimate what we can achieve in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in a year. So what is the focus for your next 12 months and how are you breaking that down and working towards it little by little every single day?

You can’t do eight hours of deep work every day though so Brian Johnson suggests you match your the energy levels to the type of work you want to do. You want to create rhythms to do your best (deep) work when you have your greatest energy and the oscillate your deep work time blocks with time with your team (team work) and then the monkey work (email, admin and so on) as well as some time to rest (don’t forget this too)!

 

Domain 3: Love – cultivating moments of connection

The pandemic has given many of us a huge wake up call about how much time we are spending with our loved ones. A recent newspaper article shared how many leaders had been able to reset during the lockdown, realising that events every night of the week was not only burning them out energy wise but slowly disconnecting them from their partner and children.

Clayton Christensen, Harvard professor and author of How will your Measure your Life? suggests we live in a culture that over invests in work and under invests in our close personal relationships.

 

The relationships you have with family and close friends are going to be the most important sources of happiness in your life. But you have to be careful. When it seems like everything at home is going well, you will be lulled into believing that you can put your investments in these relationships on the back burner. That would be an enormous mistake. By the time serious problems arise in those relationships, it often is too late to repair them.”
Clayton Christensen, Author, How Will you Measure your Life?

 

I’m not saying don’t focus on your work I’m saying actively take the time to cultivate the love in your life too! Career or business success can be super important, for sure, but it is not the only ‘capital’ you want to build in your life

Are you building a life which allows you to be the healthiest version of you?
Are you building a life which allows you to connect with your partner and children?
Are you building a life which allows you to be an active member in your community?

 

Time to RESET?

Undoubtedly, this pandemic has had immeasurable effects to our global world. This, on top of insane environmental, social, political and cultural challenges, has left many of feeling off kilter.

This is the gift of 2020. Not the year many of us might of imagined but a gift no less. Any opportunity to reset. An opportunity to re-imagine. An opportunity to reconnect. Are you making the most of this opportunity?

 

 

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New Workplace Keynote and Workshop – RESET

If this article has resonated with you, you might enjoy Alyceum’s new RESET keynote (1 hour) or workshop (4 or 7 hours) in your workplace.

These sessions guide employees through making meaning of these tough times and creating practical strategies to thrive.

Contact Alicia at alicia@alyceum.com.au for more information.

 

 

Get this Free Guide: 6 POWERFUL SECRETS TO FIND YOUR HIGHEST PURPOSE IN LIFE

The world needs more purpose-driven people. But where do you start?

This inspiring guide will give you powerful insights to find and refine your own purpose in life.
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25 questions to improve your emotional intelligence

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There is a lot of talk about the governance experience required by board directors to fulfil their duties on a board(which is a good thing!). What is talked about less so though but is becoming more and more important is the ability for board directors to bring emotional intelligence into the boardroom.

Exceptional board directors lead with humility, respect, have the awareness of the impact they have on those around them and know when to speak and when to listen.

Need a reminder about what EQ is all about?  Emotional intelligence is described by Perter Salovey and John D. Mayer as:

The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate amongst them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.

Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, he classifies emotional intelligence into five domains:

Self Awareness: Knowledge of your states, preferences, resources and intuitions.
Self Regulation: Management of your states, impulses and resources.
Motivation: Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals.
Empathy: Awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns.
Social Skills: Adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others.

Here are some reflective questions to ask yourself to develop your emotional intelligence as a board director or team member.

Self Awareness

1.  Honestly do you know the strengths and weaknesses you bring to the boardroom?
2.  How do you define yourself? Are these self perceptions accurate? How do you test these?
3.  Do you listen and seek opportunity to understand how others perceive your strengths and weaknesses?
4.  What are your personal values and are they aligned with the organisation you serve?
5. Do you rate yourself as a continual learner? Would others have the same view?
6. Do you act with humility rather than arrogance?

Self Regulation

7.  Are you respectful in your language and actions to your fellow board directors, staff and stakeholders?
8.  Are you able to keep calm during conversations?
9.  Do you listen openly to other’s points of view?
10.  Do you notice when you’re frustrated during conversations?

Motivation

11.  Do you truly understand what motivates you to serve on a NFP board or in your work team?
12. Do you serve the long term interests of the organisation rather than your own concerns or short term objectives?
13. Do you act from a place of authenticity?
14. Are you self motivated to serve on a board or at work?
15. Do you set and aim to reach goals personally and as a collective on the board?

Empathy

16. Do you put yourself in the shoes of the people you serve?
17.  Do you understand the values, strengths and goals of your fellow board directors or team mates?
18.  Do you share the workload equally on the board?
19.  Are you willing to see how others perceive situations and decisions to be made?
20. Do you work hard to be trustworthy?

Social Skills

21. Do you commit to working respectfully with your fellow board directors?
22. Do you reach other to develop a strong relationship with your fellow board directors?
23.  Do you make time to have conversations outside of the boardroom to deepen your relationship with your fellow board members?
24. Are we committed to working as equals in the boardroom?
25. Do you act with a positive attitude?

Emotional intelligence is a critical component of an effective board. Are you actively cultivating the skills of emotional intelligence?

Ready to step into your full leadership potential?

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15 WAYS TO FIND AN NFP BOARD POSITION
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Stretch your leadership thinking

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Any great leader worth their salt has a life long desire to be stretched. We do this with our technical expertise all the time – books, training or conferences and if we are committed, we do this with our leadership capacity too.

What informs your understanding of leadership?

When I look at most leadership books and conferences these days, my eyes glaze over. Why? It seems like the same ‘voices’ get promoted time and time again. The same leadership messages arise and build the basis of our leadership understanding.

What if you are not challenging ourselves enough?

Is it time to break free from those ‘voices’ and listen to a new tune?

Do you challenge your leadership thinking or stay where it’s comfortable?

When was the last time you read a leadership book by a female, an author that’s not American or from non-Caucasian background?

Time to break out

I am constantly mindful of what sources I read and recommend to ensure I’m getting a variety of leadership perspectives. I’m interested in broadening my sources so I’m not always reading leadership from the perspective of a white American male which can easily be the case. I have plenty of those books on my bookshelf already and learned a lot, but…

No one gender, generation or geography has the monopoly on great leadership

So I would love to hear your favourite books on leadership from a variety of authors – I want to stretch and challenge my knowledge and understanding of leadership.

Here are some of my recommendations:

  • Who Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity by Margaret Wheatley
  • Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies by Otto Scharmer and Dr. Katrin Kaufer
  • Reinventing Organisations: A Guide to Creating Organisations Inspired by the Next State of Human Consciousness by Frederic Laloux
  • Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation by Linda Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove and Kent Lineback
  • Act Like a Leader, Think like a Leader by Herminia Ibarra
  • Presence: Bring your Boldest Self to your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy
  • Radical Candor: How to be a Great Boss without Losing your Humanity by Kim Scott
  • Open Leadership: How Social Technology can Transform the Way you Lead by Charlene Li
  • Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
  • Business as Unusual by Anita Roddick
  • Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus

Let’s bring a variety of voices to the table. In fact, let’s give them a loud speaker too.