Work Remotely, Are You Kidding Me?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

This week I am pleased to share this guest blog by Andrea Simon, Corporate Anthropologist.

These times are presenting us with a new world where most of us are working remotely or, maybe, will be doing so shortly. The pandemic crisis is here, and the best solution is to separate us all. It is an important time to have to learn new skills. And even enjoy morphing into your new daily routine. For most of us, we hate this type of crisis-induced change.

Turning lemons into lemonade requires being willing to change

Change is pain. But especially now, change is absolutely necessary. Here are the challenges and opportunities:

First, your brain hates to change. It is happiest when it is doing what it has always done. When something critical happens, like this pandemic, your brain is creating a lot of cortisol, and its decision-making parts are going into overdrive. You have to learn a new routine from the time you wake up until you head to sleep. All the while, your mind is struggling with big questions like, “What is next on my calendar?” or “When can I find some quiet time for myself?” Or maybe you are grappling with how to get your Microsoft team working remotely and are frustrated that there is no IT specialist running around to help you.

Second, you can get your brain to love the new, and in the process, learn how to adapt to changing times. It will serve you well in the future. Remember how immigrants came to the U.S. with limited resources and managed to change, to adapt? Or how you went off to college and changed? People can change, and you can adjust as well.

Some things to consider

Real, lasting change just requires a bit of focus (your brain needs that) and rehearsal time. It also needs others to affirm that what you are doing is the right thing to do. No need to do it alone. To get this kind of confirmation:

  • You need to focus on the changes. The brain must focus hard on the new and get the old out of there. You can’t go to the office now, so focus on what is coming next.
  • Practice, practice, practice. You wouldn’t go on stage to perform without a lot of rehearsal time, visualization and coaching. The change you’re facing now needs some of the same. You are now an improvisational artist. Enjoy the new job you have. Make it up. It is ok not to be perfect, or even right. Just try new things and see what works for you.
  • Empathy is so important. Try to say, “I feel your pain,” and see what happens. Think about this as a “we” problem that together we can solve. The brain is happier when you talk about how “we will work to solve this” than “I need you to do this.” If you don’t know much about the power of “we,” take a look at “Conversational Intelligence“ by Judith Glaser and see how it can help your new experiences.

Thriving in new times

What to do to help yourself thrive in these new times? Here are some ideas that I hope are of help to you. I know I am not alone in sharing these, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it from a culture change expert, and you are, indeed, changing the values, beliefs and daily habits that make up your culture. Time for a new culture that you will “love” — or at least feel more comfortable living.

  • You need a headspace. I got a call from someone who started by saying, “I am sitting in my car. I needed some space from…” and you can fill in the blank. It is ok. You can say, “I am taking a walk, have to get out of the house.” But be careful. Try not to push your significant other and the kids out of “Your Kitchen.” Make it theirs as well. Difficult, but sharing is an excellent antidote for people in the same house all day long.
  • Yes, you need a workspace, but what does that mean for you, your spouse or partner, or your kids? Step back and give it some good thought. Why is space so important? As humans, we like to be comfortable in a place where we feel safe and secure. Where we feel it is ours. Why? It is how we create comfort and order for our daily living. Remember when you got your own space at work? Were you in a cubicle or the corner office? Why did it matter? What is the value people place on “space”? Space is not without meaning.

Staying connected while keeping apart

How do you unplug and friend-up when you have to stay six feet apart and there is no place to go? You can’t make dinner plans or attend conferences. Here are some clever and easy ideas people have sent me:

  • One woman does her dance class via Zoom and is having a blast.
  • Another woman teaches Pilates and yoga. She took a dozen of her clients outside and separated them to conduct the class. They enriched their bodies and minds and were careful not to invade each other’s space limits.
  • A lot of folks are conducting FaceTime, Skype, Zoom and Team meetings to bring a real face into the conversation. We are monkeys, and we bond best when we see others.
  • Families are hiking at all times of the day and all days of the week.

What’s up next? Boredom, depression?

You might be hearing that all over the place. By now, both you and your family are probably incredibly bored. But you don’t have to be. Create lists of things you can each do. Plan your day the night before so you don’t wake up and wonder where to begin. This plan is essential. Your brain likes a plan. And your day requires one.

Lastly, don’t forget about depression. The research is very compelling. Families that sit at the table and talk to each other three or more times a week tend to have less depression. It is time you put those discussions into the family meals to keep you happily connected.

This new mindset is going to stay around for some time. It is time to learn how to manage your mind.

I always like to share Winston Churchill’s perspective:

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Enough for now. I’ll be back with more as we all move forward during this Pandemic of 2020.

From Observation to Innovation,

AndiSimon_headshot.png

Andi Simon, Ph.D.
Corporate Anthropologist | President
Simon Associates Management Consultants
Info@simonassociates.net@simonandi

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Planting The Seed

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Today’s post is offered by guest blogger and fellow Vistage Chair, Steve Larrick. 

As leaders, we develop our own styles, and ways of getting things done over our careers. What works against us at times is that early success in leading others and in getting things done convinces us that our ways and methods are the one best way. Quoting Bill Gates, “Success is a lousy teacher. It convinces smart people that they can’t make mistakes.” I have observed over time many leaders who pronounce or dictate a course of action with the result that his or her subjects follow that course. Their own experience is that the smart leader has always been right. They bury their own reservations.

The Socratic method of using questions is one way to change the pattern of leadership communication. However, if overused, that method can become annoying to the listener. Another way to approach this is what I call planting the seed. Suggesting in conversation that the leader has a thought about a course of action but not pressing for agreement or compliance. Then the leader lets the seed idea “germinate” until a decision must be made. An astute follower will consider the “planted” seed in a subsequent conversation and either agree to it or have a well-built case for taking another course. It causes the follower to think without being “Socratesed”.

Author’s note: “I have also found planting the seed works with spouses and teenagers. I only discovered this after many painful lessons!”

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Thoughts For The Coming Year

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

As I was pondering what to write as we close 2016, I visited my post from the close of 2015 and discovered, sadly, that the December 2015 blog could have been written today.

With that in mind, I am reposting the same guest blog from my friend and fellow Vistage Chair, Larry Cassidy. For me, Larry’s commentary continues to express the challenge we face as a nation and as leaders.

With that in mind, I am making it visible here once again, offering you some food for thought as you begin the holiday season.

Wishing you peace and opportunity in the New Year.

Larry’s Post from December 2015

My first newsletter was sent on June 27, 2011, some 230 newsletters ago. And for those 4½ years I have stepped carefully around politics. Today I will take edge up to that tricky topic, not so much traditional politics, but rather on who we are, and what price we 322-million folks are willing to pay to be that.

We have undergone many serious gut-shots in the past several years, Paris and San Bernardino being the latest. As I ponder these tragedies, and before releasing this newsletter into the wild, my thoughts go to three big ideas:

  • becoming the best version of ourselves,
  • the hard price we are (or are not) willing to pay to get and stay there,
  • our leadership as a part of all that.

There are many pieces to that, and we each have our own ideas. I will share mine below. You may disagree. But I do so because it is a conversation we cannot avoid, and all voices are required.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

The Statue of Liberty, dedicated 10/28/1886

Terrorism is a stark and frightening example of what others can do to us. Paris. San Bernardino. Too much, too often. And leadership is what we choose to do about it, and how we go about doing it.

Once again, we confront events with which we have not contended (remember: Pearl Harbor, the Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11), and while such moments spawn anger and paranoia, they also summon our better angels. Which is one more good reason we would rather live here than anywhere else in the world, our flaws notwithstanding.

As I now savor almost-eight decades, I wonder if our fears might extinguish the Statue of Liberty’s torch, our shining beacon of freedom. And I question whether my opportunity to be born here, to live here, and to experience this thing called America, could have happened had such fear and paranoia won the early days of our history.

A bit dramatic? Go back a century-or-more, and we Irish were potato-heads, lazy scum. Italians were looked on as not much better. Jews? Forget it. African Americans, which was hardly what they were called? Slaves at best. Nor does that count Japanese-Americans or German-Americans in WWII. Pretty lucky for we shoddy Irish (and me) that we got past much of that.

Yes, we each have a right to feel, to fear, to embrace and to be safe. But before we pounce, look around. Soak it in. The ethnic, religious and nationalistic mess we behold is what has combined to make us great. It is our grand experiment, a palate on which each color and belief and ancestry is a part. It is us. So, what will it be ten, or fifty, or a hundred years from now?

Once again, we are in the process of deciding. In every business, classroom, sanctuary, gathering and discussion. And we are the leaders: the parents, coaches, elders, teachers, business executives. Make no mistake, we are deciding, we are leading and we are teaching.

  • So what will we do, and how will we go about doing it?
  • Which parts of what made this country great will we keep, and which will we discard?
  • Will we mirror or will we reject what those who threaten us espouse?
  • And once we decide, once we move on, will we have found our way to safety while continuing to lift our lamp beside the golden door?

This is a big deal.  And we are all right in the middle of it.

 Larry Cassidy

P.S. This is the last post this year, see you back here in January.

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

What Does All This Mean, What Will We Do, And How Will We Go About Doing It?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

I’ve decided to end the year with a guest blog from my friend and fellow Vistage Chair, Larry Cassidy. We’ve been having a discussion amongst us Vistage Chairs about the recent tragedies, hate crimes and terrorism and the related impact some members have begun to see in their companies. For me, Larry’s commentary expressed the challenge we face as a nation and caused me to pause. With that in mind, I am making it visible here, offering you some food for thought as you begin the holiday season.

First, a couple of stories and then Larry’s post.

One Chair began this conversation by sharing these stories

One member reported an angry customer screaming in the lobby of her financial services company that the customer service rep he dealt with (second generation Pakistani American) should go back to her home country.

Another member reported, after I asked if he had seen any evidence of workplace intolerance, that he had four Muslim employees in his IT department and he overheard one of the non-IT employees refer to them as the ‘sleeper cell’. He didn’t know what to say or do. But now that I asked the question, he realizes he needs to discuss with his HR director how to find ways to insure there is not a hostile workplace environment.

Larry’s Post

My first newsletter was sent on June 27, 2011, some 230 newsletters ago. And for those 4½ years I have stepped carefully around politics. Today I will take edge up to that tricky topic, not so much traditional politics, but rather on who we are, and what price we 322-million folks are willing to pay to be that.

We have undergone many serious gut-shots in the past several years, Paris and San Bernardino being the latest. As I ponder these tragedies, and before releasing this newsletter into the wild, my thoughts go to three big ideas:

  • becoming the best version of ourselves,
  • the hard price we are (or are not) willing to pay to get and stay there,
  • our leadership as a part of all that.

There are many pieces to that, and we each have our own ideas. I will share mine below. You may disagree. But I do so because it is a conversation we cannot avoid, and all voices are required.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

The Statue of Liberty, dedicated 10/28/1886

Terrorism is a stark and frightening example of what others can do to us. Paris. San Bernardino. Too much, too often. And leadership is what we choose to do about it, and how we go about doing it.

Once again, we confront events with which we have not contended (remember: Pearl Harbor, the Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11), and while such moments spawn anger and paranoia, they also summon our better angels. Which is one more good reason we would rather live here than anywhere else in the world, our flaws notwithstanding.

As I now savor almost-eight decades, I wonder if our fears might extinguish the Statue of Liberty’s torch, our shining beacon of freedom. And I question whether my opportunity to be born here, to live here, and to experience this thing called America, could have happened had such fear and paranoia won the early days of our history.

A bit dramatic? Go back a century-or-more, and we Irish were potato-heads, lazy scum. Italians were looked on as not much better. Jews? Forget it. African Americans, which was hardly what they were called? Slaves at best. Nor does that count Japanese-Americans or German-Americans in WWII. Pretty lucky for we shoddy Irish (and me) that we got past much of that.

Yes, we each have a right to feel, to fear, to embrace and to be safe. But before we pounce, look around. Soak it in. The ethnic, religious and nationalistic mess we behold is what has combined to make us great. It is our grand experiment, a palate on which each color and belief and ancestry is a part. It is us. So, what will it be ten, or fifty, or a hundred years from now?

Once again, we are in the process of deciding. In every business, classroom, sanctuary, gathering and discussion. And we are the leaders: the parents, coaches, elders, teachers, business executives. Make no mistake, we are deciding, we are leading and we are teaching.

  • So what will we do, and how will we go about doing it?
  • Which parts of what made this country great will we keep, and which will we discard?
  • Will we mirror or will we reject what those who threaten us espouse?
  • And once we decide, once we move on, will we have found our way to safety while continuing to lift our lamp beside the golden door?

This is a big deal.  And we are all right in the middle of it.

 Larry Cassidy

 

P.S. This is the last post this year, see you back here in January.

What Our Vistage Members Want You to Know

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Leadership Quote: Knowing Our Impact On Others

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

This month’s leadership quote:

“Of the many, many things about which we are unclear, or of which we are unaware,

our impact upon others is at or near the top.”

-Larry Cassidy, Vistage Master Chair

Today’s blogpost is offered by guest blogger Larry Cassidy, fellow Vistage Master Chair and author of this month’s quote. Larry has been a Vistage chair in California for 27 years and his words of wisdom inspire all of us.

Are you aware of your impact upon others, for better or for worse? We all too often live in our own personal bubble, unaware of how what we say and what we do land upon others. So come with me on a short walk, to the wood fence behind our house…..

If each time we did something thoughtless or rude or unkind, we had to pound a nail into our fence post, over time the post would resemble a metal porcupine. And if we could pull a nail out of the fence post each time we did something thoughtful, kind or caring, our battered fence post might someday be devoid of nails.

That last nail pulled should be cause for celebration; however, before we hoot n’ holler, let’s first take a hard look at our fence post. After all the pounding and pulling, what is left? Nail holes! We have slowly exchanged our hard words and abuse for decency and respect, but the wounds from our nails linger on. The holes remain. The fence post never forgets. Nor do the people in whom we have punched holes.

Sorry, but there is no escape. This is our responsibility. We are leaders, and someone is always watching. And as leaders, our job is to grasp our impact upon others, to better shape what we say and what we do, and to ensure those in our lives are better for being in our lives. If we are not willing to “do the work,” our offerings too often kidnap self-esteem, and can even become abuse.

My suggestion: don’t think about this. Rather, feel those who have changed your life. Who are they? How did they make you better? Why do you remember them so many years later? I am clear about those who have their fingerprints on who I am today, and I am deeply indebted to each. I also have another list, those who took advantage, who were unkind, who toyed with key values, and they are no longer part of my life.

You know which is which. You can feel the difference. And so can the people in your life. Your children, the team you coach, your employees, everyone. They can feel you. Yours is the opportunity to show them a better way to be. To be the one they remember for supporting their work to be the best they can be. So remember: they are watching, always watching, and every exchange is one more precious opportunity to not drive a nail, to not leave yet another nail hole. Each is a teaching moment. Seize it.

 

Elisa K. Spain

 

Last Of The Series – Leadership View #13: Balance Your Life

Last Of The Series – Leadership View #13: Balance Your Life

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

2013-07-21 iStock_000016245386XSmall


I began this series as a tribute to my friend, Marsh Carter, whose leadership has been an inspiration to me for at least 25 of the 45+ years covered in his View of Leadership. As I have written these blogs each week, using Marsh’s topic lines, it has been interesting to me how relevant Marsh’s large company experience is to the entrepreneurs  I work with each day.

For the final post in this series, I decided it is fitting that Marsh author the post, drawing this time from his experience rather than mine. 

Leadership View #13:  Balance your life – 3 legged stool analogy (balance between work, family and a strong outside interest for yourself)

Many people we’ve all known, including ourselves at times, have a tendency to regard our careers or jobs as the most important aspects of our life—this is especially true the last few years where hand held devices link us 24/7 to the office, our bosses, our employees and coworkers.  It may be more necessary now than ever before to try to balance our lives—that is, maintain a balance between our work, our families, our religion, and for our own mental health – an outside interest that treats us as an individual.

Think of your life as a three or four legged stool….when one leg is gone it won’t balance and falls over. We can’t take the pressures of work and family and go back and forth between them alone….that’s what the third leg, a completely different activity that is our individual interest alone comes in. Your third leg may be jogging, sailing, running in marathons, coaching a child’s sport, skydiving, piloting airplanes, pottery making, yoga, stamp or coin collecting…..whatever you enjoy that’s separate from work and family.

At the height of World War 2 when the pressures were immense, President Roosevelt would escape to his stamp collection, for an hour or so doing something completely different. General George Marshall would ride horseback many mornings to relieve the pressures of his job building and leading an Army of 8 million men and women.

Think about it—

  • How do you personally, if only for a short period of time, balance the pressures of work and family?
  • What is your third stool leg to balance your life?

Elisa K. Spain

 

It’s A Dream Until You Write It Down

It’s A Dream Until You Write It Down

by Elisa SpainNo Comments


2013-01-20 iStock_000016539976XSmal stair moving uplToday’s blog post is offered by guest blogger Rick Landuyt, Vistage member and CEO of RFIDeas, One of the Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America.

 

It’s a dream until you write it down, then it becomes a goal.

Stretch goals were explicitly designed to push people to think differently about the tasks at hand. Suppose your revenue in 2012 was 20 million. You want to grow it 10% to 22 million, you tweak your marketing ideas, try to get another big account etc… What if you decided to stretch your goal to 30 million – a 50% increase? How would you do it? As you begin to think about this, you will start to realize the benefits of “stretch goals”. It’s not the new revenue number, it’s the thought process.

An interesting side note, my wife and I had the pleasure of spending 10 days at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. There we were able to meet and talk with several ex-Gold medal winners. The one thing they all had in common was they had written goals that they carried with them every day.

Rick Landuydt, RFIDeas

Leadership Quote: Those Who Win….

Leadership Quote: Those Who Win….

by Elisa Spain4 Comments

This month’s leadership quote: Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can. — Dr. Paul Tournier

Today’s blogpost  is offered by guest blogger Mary Lore, Vistage speaker and author of Managing Thought.

Mary’s book and program are all about managing thought and getting the results we want.

In my experience, a lot of leaders think “positive thinking” is about thinking happy rah-rah or touchy-feely thoughts or re-framing a thought to make it sound positive, for example changing the word “sh—“ to “fertilizer.” Or they think of that Stuart Smalley character on Saturday Night Live who made positive affirmations in the mirror. (I don’t want to be that guy!)

That’s why I don’t use the term positive thinking,coined the term powerful thinking, and developed theManaging Thought® process. Because to me, positivity isn’t about getting rid of the negative thoughts we have and replacing them with positive thoughts. It is about being aware of the 60,000 thoughts our brains present to us every day – one a second – and choosing to hold thoughts that are in alignment with who we aspire to be and what we truly wish to create – as leaders and as organizations.

In my experience, most of our thoughts are based in fear, focused on what we don’t want vs. what we do want – and we don’t even know it.

When we think about the time we don’t have enough of, the opportunities we don’t have, the customer we lost, the payments we can’t afford, the sacrifices and cuts we have to make, cash we don’t have, customers who aren’t buying, banks who won’t lend, the decisions we are forced to make, and the competition we’re up against, we are not thinking powerfully.

When we think that we don’t want to be viewed as a commodity, the economy is bad, my organization isn’t innovative, my people aren’t engaged, or that I don’t like this or that about my employees or suppliers, again, we are not thinking powerfully.

When we think thoughts of fear, self-doubt, worry, criticism, judgment, anger, frustration, anxiety, negativity and other disempowering fight, flight or freeze thoughts, we are not thinking powerfully. And when we think about surviving, we are not thinking powerfully, because we want to thrive.

When we think powerfully, we are thinking thoughts of vision and purpose, wonder and possibility, focused on what we want, on what truly matters. Our thoughts are inspired, creative, and impactful.

Most of us have not thought about our thoughts. We have no idea what we are thinking in each moment.  We have taught ourselves to turn our power to think and to create our reality over to our brains.

Yet we have the ability to pay attention to our thoughts. We always have a choice to focus on what matters and think in powerful ways which affects our ideas, our decisions, and our results. This awareness creates stillness in this fast-paced, ever-changing world and affects how we inspire others, how we lead, what we create from any situation, producing a distinct competitive advantage.

It is time for us to take back our power, to stop re-acting, and start choosing thoughts that serve us in our lives, our relationships, our organizations, our communities, and, through the ripple effect, the world.

How are you using your 60,000 thoughts today?