Does It Really Matter?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

I had a conversation with a friend the other day that left us both laughing.  The two of us have an affiliation with the same organization, and about a year ago, during another conversation, we were sharing our outrage about something.  When we talked the other day, we both remembered our outrage, but neither of us could remember why we were angry. Our inability to remember the issue is what left us both laughing.

I tend to be one of those people with a strong sense of justice.  I care. And I am willing to speak up.  And yet, this conversation was a great reminder that beyond our care for people we love and the things that we can do something about, there are few things in life that matter. Really.

Elisa K Spain

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click here

 

 

Can You Forgive Yourself for Not Being Beethoven?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

In interviews with Rolling Stone and CBS last year, Billy Joel shares why he stopped writing songs. “I just wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. It was driving me crazy. And it was wrecking my personal life too, just not being able to be satisfied.” That frustration led to a bout of drinking, he added.

He went on to share that he once read a quote from Neil Diamond in which Diamond said he had “forgiven himself for not being Beethoven.” In that moment, Joel realized, “my issue is,  I haven’t forgiven myself for not being Beethoven.”

Am I enough? No matter how accomplished, this question often plagues those of us who are driven. Is it the asking of this question that is behind this word: drive? Without it, perhaps we would accomplish less.

And yet, the question of how much is enough – money, legacy, career advancement, businesses, and stuff – is a personal one that each of us must answer for ourselves.

The message for me in Billy Joel’s interview is to recognize what is behind our drive for these things. And then ask ourselves what is it we truly want and are we moving toward that?

If we set high goals for ourselves, as most ambitious people do, what will we say to ourselves when the inevitable failures happen?

Will we forgive ourselves for not being Beethoven as Neil Diamond as done?  Or beat ourselves up as Billy Joel did for so long? The choice is ours.

Elisa K Spain

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click here

 

I Me Mine

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

This blog, by guest blogger, Greg Bustin, business advisor, author, and fellow Vistage chair, tells the poignant story of the Beatles breakup. 

This story is a wonderful reminder of the importance of aligning our values and goals with our purpose, and most importantly our relationships.  And, it also reminds us that while values seldom change, goals and purpose evolve and therefore so must our relationships.

Elisa K Spain

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click here

****************************************************************** 

As 1968 became 1969, George Harrison felt as if the Beatles “were reaching the end of the line.”

While it may have been twenty years ago that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, in the 16 months since that landmark album’s release, the Beatles had morphed from collaborative colleagues into bickering bandmates barely able to stomach studio sessions together.

“Sgt. Pepper was our grandest endeavor,” Ringo remembered. “It gave everybody—including me—a lot of leeway to come up with ideas and to try different material.…The great thing about the band was that whoever had the best idea—it didn’t matter who—that was the one we’d use.…Anything could happen.”

And anything did.

While recording their ninth studio album—The Beatles (known also as the White Album)—the creative forces that propelled Sgt. Pepper to the top of UK and U.S. album charts for 27 weeks and earned the group four Grammy awards boiled over into acrimony.

 Songs written collaboratively earlier that year were recorded without all four of the Beatles present. The presence of John’s new partner Yoko Ono created a divisive distraction that violated previous agreements among the Beatles that wives and girlfriends would not attend recording sessions.

 As the tension mounted, producer George Martin took a sudden leave of absence and engineer Geoff Emerick quit abruptly. Ringo left the band briefly around this time, and three of the album’s songs were recorded without him.

 The finished album reflects this developing discord, and some tracks are little more than fillers between higher quality songs. And yet The Beatles reached number one in the UK and US and contains some of the group’s best material.

How can we rise above pettiness, selfishness and genuine differences of opinion to come together to produce a worthwhile or significant result?

Of the album’s 30 tracks, only 16 include all four of the Beatles performing together.

 On three tracks, Paul played bass, drums, piano, and guitar, overdubbing tracks to create the final song. John worked alone on one song. As did Ringo. Of the 14 songs on which only some of the Beatles played, nearly half were performed by only two of the four group members.

The Beatles were a group in name only. And a bad sign of things to come.

High-performing teams share five characteristics, and the Beatles were challenged by all five

  1. Clear common goals
  2. Clear roles
  3. Clear deadlines
  4. Trust + Respect
  5. Fun or Fulfillment in accomplishing something significant together

Which of these five critical success factors must we enhance in our organization?

The group gathered in January 1969 to make another album.

Paul hoped playing together live in the studio might lead to resuming touring. George hated the idea—he was worn out from that experience.  

It didn’t take long for old tensions to surface. George and Ringo resented Paul’s constant critiquing of their playing. John had disengaged from the group, having grown weary of battling Paul and fed up with over-engineered and over-produced recordings.

On January 6, George walked out of the studio, went to his home in Surrey and wrote “Wah-Wah,” reflecting his frustration with the group.

George was coaxed back the next week but the damage was done—and caught on film. The group’s dysfunction is plainly visible in the film Let It Be. Rather than documenting the making of an album, the film became famous for showcasing “the break-up of a band.”

 George’s “I Me Mine” became the final song recorded by the band before its split.

 In his autobiography, George recalled his own self-centered focus, seeing everything “relative to my ego, like ‘that’s my piece of paper’ and ‘that’s my flannel’ or ‘give it to me’ or ‘I am.’ It drove me crackers, I hated everything about my ego. It was a flash of everything false and impermanent, which I disliked. But later, I learned from it, to realize that there is somebody else in here apart from old blabbermouth. Who am ‘I’ became the order of the day. Anyway, that’s what came out of it, ‘I Me Mine.’”

 Perhaps subconsciously, the song also reflects the clash of egos in the studio as the Beatles moved toward their split.

“‘I Me Mine’ is the ego problem,” George explained. “There are two ‘I’s: the little ‘i’ when people say ‘I am this’, and the big ‘I’ – is duality and ego. There is nothing that isn’t part of the complete whole. When the little ‘i’ merges into the big ‘I’ then you are really smiling!”

George’s epiphany offers insight for us as a New Year dawns.

 “The truth within us has to be realized,” George said. “When you realize that, everything else that you see and do and touch and smell isn’t real, then you may know what reality is, and can answer the question ‘Who am I?’”

 What kind of person do you want to be?  What obstacles are in your way? 

Two of the hardest questions any of us must answer for ourselves are “Who am I?” and “What do I want?”  Here’s to your clarity. 

Ah the Wonder of a Child…

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Ah, the wonder of a child. We hear all the time that all children are creative, all children are artists; and then something happens as adults and we self-select into those who are creative and artistic, and those who are not.

I wonder how much of this is because as adults we are bound by what we know. The more we bring our knowledge and experience to a given circumstance, the more likely we are to miss an opportunity to look with the fresh eyes of a child. On the other hand, knowledge often equals wisdom, the ability to learn from experience and therefore make better choices.

So, how do we know when we are bringing wisdom and when we are bringing limiting beliefs to a given situation? Perhaps these questions can help:

  1. Is what I am about to do something I have done before and if so, is my previous experience relevant?
  2. If it is something new, is my previous experience truly relevant, or is it holding me back?
  3. Am I uncomfortable with taking on something new and therefore looking for knowledge that will justify my discomfort?
  4. What if I suspended judgement and argued for a reason to say yes?
  5. What if I suspended judgement and argued for a reason to say no?

Elisa K Spain

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

 

The Gift of a New Year

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

A new year, a new beginning.  An opportunity to choose..

  • What is important to me?
  • What important thing have I been neglecting? Health perhaps?
  • What am I willing to change, perhaps stop doing, so that what is important actually gets my attention?
  • What actions am I willing to take to turn my resolutions into actions and my actions into habits that extend beyond Valentine’s Day?

Elisa K Spain

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

The Challenge of Perception Habits

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Recently, I wrote two blogs about habits. The first, here, was about decision fatigue and how activity habits simplify our lives by reducing the number of decisions we have to make. The second, here, was about the dark side of habits, how our response habits can cause us to treat situations that feel similar as the same, even when they aren’t. These response habits can result in unintended damage to our relationships.

In response to the second blog, one of my readers reminded me of another habit that can impact our relationships, both with ourselves and with important people in our lives. I am calling this one, perception habits.

There are two sides to these perceptions, our own and others.

First on the self-perception. Here’s what my reader shared: A while ago, I was at a party and people were talking about whether they liked vanilla or chocolate. I volunteered that I really preferred vanilla. A friend looked at me and asked, what are you talking about? You order chocolate dessert every time we go out. She was right. I had turned into a chocolate person, but I hadn’t ‘noticed’. I defined myself out of habit even though my behavior had changed.

Of course, these self perceptions can be funny like the chocolate/vanilla story or they can stand in the way of our moving forward toward what we want in life.

Similarly, perceptions others have of us can stand in the way when we are trying to change our behavior, and in fact, are changing our behavior. What happens often, especially in long term business and personal relationships is… the recipient anticipates that we will behave as we have historically. This is the other side of response habits. I want to change, you perceive me as unchanged, you respond based on my prior behavior, which may cause me to slip into prior behaviors and on and on it goes.

How do we stop this?

  • When was the last time you really listened to a family member when they are ‘behaving as they always do’?
  • What if instead of responding, you asked questions? Hard to do, I know.
  • What do you do when you aren’t feeling heard? Or feeling judged?
  • What if instead of responding as you usually do, you simply share how you are feeling in the moment?

Could these small changes in response, lead to small changes in perceptions, that then lead to more changes in perception habits, and behavior, and thereby, a more positive circle?

Elisa K Spain

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

Another Form of Diversification, Expectation Diversity

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Last week I wrote about ego diversification. And it reminded me of another sort of diversification, that of diversity of expectations. Whether in a personal situation, or a business situation, expecting one person to fulfill all our needs is usually a recipe for disappointment.

Most of us long ago realized that if we spend 100% of our time with our life partner, the probability that they, or we, would get to have, do or be everything we want, is pretty close to zero.

And yet in business, we often get caught up in looking for that ideal person. The one who has the style we want, the people skills we want and can perform all the functions we want. This is especially true of entrepreneur leaders because they themselves have such a diverse set of talents and strengths.

Most entrepreneurs have a wide range of skills and abilities, and can do a wide range of things themselves. This diversity is what enabled them to start a business. And because of this, they believe that most others have this too. And like with any other genius, what comes easy to us, we tend to believe is easy for others. And yet in my experience, this genius is rare and unique to entrepreneurs. Most of us tend to have strengths in a few areas, and if allowed to focus primarily in these areas, we will excel.

Recently I was talking with one of my entrepreneur clients about this very subject. When she first started her business, she had a partner. They worked quite well together, each contributing their expertise to the business and most importantly they collaborated well. The partner left the business several years ago and since then, my client has been seeking someone to replace her.

During the time we have been working together, she has been focused on growing her team so that she can focus on the business, rather than just working in the business. During this conversation she told me “I am still looking for that person who I can trust the way I did my partner”. As we dug into this desire, we began to realize that there were 3 or 4 key functions her partner had fulfilled and it worked. The thing was, the skill set required for each was quite different and rare to find in one person.

With that in mind, she decided to identify the functions that are truly essential and see how they could be split up. She began by identifying the responsibilities that can be handled by current staff, what can be outsourced and what she needs to hire. Importantly, she is no longer looking for one person to do it all.

Once the roles and responsibilities were clearly defined, she realized, for example, that her collaboration need can be filled by her external advisors. Next, she identified a person on her team that can take on additional responsibilities, and she has begun to narrow and more clearly define the expectations of a key outside hire.

  • Who do you have on your team with whom you are frustrated because they can’t do it all?
  • Are they strong at some things that matter to your business?
  • What would be the impact on your business if you allowed them to focus on those things and moved the rest to someone else?

Elisa K Spain

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

 

 

Ego Diversification

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

What does it mean to diversify your ego? Does that even make sense?

In the investment world, diversification is de rigueur. Anyone who works with an investment advisor has heard them talk about the benefits of holding a diversified portfolio. The reasons are pretty straightforward, asset classes typically move differently and when one class is underperforming, another is likely to outperform. The goal, therefore, of holding a diversified portfolio, is to achieve an overall positive return. And, even when a positive return isn’t feasible, e.g. in a significant downturn like we experienced in 2008, a diversified portfolio will still outperform a single asset class that experienced a significant loss, the S&P 500, in this example.

The concept of ego diversification is similar. If we are getting all of our identify, our ego satisfaction, from a single pursuit, what happens when something is not going well with that pursuit?

I recall a time early in my career, when I learned this lesson the hard way. I was in my first significant leadership position, and 2 of the divisions I was leading were having major issues. I was frustrated, feeling inadequate and convinced I was a failing. So, what did I do? I worked more. Convinced that if I cut everything else out and focused just on work, things would get better. Not so much. The issues were long term issues, they were there when I took over and it took a long time to sort them out. Meanwhile, my feelings about myself continued to focus on the negative. I was fortunate at the time to work for a manager, Jim was his name, that understood this concept of ego diversification. In fact, he was the one who first shared this idea with me. As I was telling him how badly I was feeling about the problems continuing to go unsolved, instead of trying to help me solve them, or trying to “make me feel better”, he simply said “what you need is ego diversification”. Find something else to spend time on that will make you feel successful.

While it seemed counterintuitive at the time, since I was already working so many hours, this led to my first charitable board position. This work was fun, I was able to have an impact and it gave me separation from my regular work. Eventually the work issues were resolved and since that time, every time I have felt myself sucked into 110% focus on just one thing, Jim’s words came back to me.

Here is what I learned from this. When we focus all of our attention on fixing a problem, when our initial instinct is to double down and laser focus on solving the problem:

  • What is the impact to our self-esteem when our gut tells us solving the problem is going to take a while?
  • What if instead of grinding away, heads down, for weeks or even months, we intentionally spread our attention toward positive situations, time with a happy customer, or time being in service to someone or something that matters to us?
  • How might the “performance” of our lives improve, if we endeavor to diversify our ego gratification all the time thereby creating a “portfolio” of pursuits that together provide satisfaction and joy?

On November 14, my Vistage CEO group is hosting one of our semi-annual guest days. If you or someone you know would like to learn more about Vistage, this is a low-key way to meet our members and hear a great speaker, Andrea Simon, who asks “Who will be your customers in three years?” Please contact me directly for an invite: Elisa K Spain.

For more about the members of the group click here

For more about the speaker on November 14, click here

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

The Dark Side of Habit

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Last month, I wrote about the power of habit.  I recently had two experiences with people I know well that reminded me there is also a dark side to habit.

The closer the relationship, the more we think we “know” a person, the more we form habits or patterns in those relationships. If they do X, we respond with Y. If they say Z, we respond with A and so on.

Sometimes it isn’t even the person in front of us that triggers habitual behavior, but someone else, a former boss perhaps with whom we had a great relationship; and we pattern our behavior with our new boss based on that experience and wonder why it isn’t going as well.

Habits are shortcuts. As I shared last month, activity habits can serve us by making us both more efficient and more effective in our daily lives. Response habits on the other hand, can inadvertently damage our relationships.

A couple of weeks ago, I had two experiences that reminded me of some of my response habits and how often I use them.

The first was with a client who was in the midst of a big decision. He is the sort of person who likes to “think out loud”.  I know this about him, and what I forgot was when he says “I want to run this by you”, what that means, I want to think out loud.

Instead, in my zeal to be helpful, I forgot what I knew. And, started asking questions and offering my perspective. After all, what he said was “I want to run this by you”. When he reminded me for the third time that “he had already considered that”, I finally got it and went back to listening. And, responded based on who is in front of me. What a wonderful reminder, yet again, to pause.

The second experience was with my husband. We both love to cook and over the course of nearly 27 years, we have slipped into a pattern. He is the chef, I am the sous chef. This works. And, every now and then, I am the chef and he is the sous chef. This doesn’t work so well. The reason is our response patterns are based on the first scenario, i.e. he leads, I follow. Here’s what usually happens. I start prepping, he comes over to look at what I am doing, I feel “supervised”, I don’t like being “supervised”, so I get huffy and what started as a fun couples activity, ends up, not so fun.

After the situation with my friend, and the blow up about cooking the next day, I tried something different the next time we cooked. When my husband asked me to do something I thought was obvious, and I was already planning to, instead of saying “do you really think I wasn’t going to do that?”, I simply said “okay”. The result, we had fun cooking together. I tried it again the next time we cooked, this time working together on the same dish which historically has been a danger zone. It worked again, we were laughing and having fun. Not easy to break those response habits, and the positive reinforcement certainly is reminding me to keep trying.

Perhaps next time a friend or a family member, or an employee, starts to behave in an expected manner, what if instead of responding with habit, we looked with fresh eyes, and asked questions, just as we would do with someone we don’t know at all and for whom we have no expectations?

On November 14, my Vistage CEO group is hosting one of our semi-annual guest days. If you or someone you know would like to learn more about Vistage, this is a low-key way to meet our members and hear a great speaker, Andrea Simon, who asks “Who will be your customers in three years?” Please contact me directly for an invite: Elisa K Spain.

For more about the members of the group click here

For more about the speaker on November 14, click here

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

The Second Arrow

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Last week my Vistage CEO group had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Srikumar Rao who presented his Creativity and Personal Mastery Workshop. Dr. Rao has been one of the top-rated and popular professors at many top Business Schools – including Columbia, Kellogg, Berkeley, London Business School and Imperial College.

The message in Dr. Rao’s presentation: we create our own happiness. Some call it mindset, he calls it creating and living an alternate reality.

One of the most powerful stories he told was one from Buddhist teachings.

It is said the Buddha once asked a student:

  • If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?
  • If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it even more painful?
  • The Buddha then asks, Then why did you shoot the second arrow?

Most of us react to this statement with “huh?”

Dr. Rao illustrated the second arrow with this story. A woman goes on a date with a man she met online. They were both looking forward to the date after their positive correspondence. The date ends abruptly with the man leaving and saying he is not interested. Brokenhearted, she calls a friend who tells her, “why did you think it would work out, you are uninteresting and have fat thighs”. What friend would say that, we ask? No one. The friend was herself.

In short, the second arrow is our negative self-talk.

So next time you don’t win the business you want, or a key employee leaves or, or, or… Perhaps we can learn from Dr. Rao and the Buddha, and instead of piling on with negative self-talk, create an alternative reality that looks for the opportunity in what appears to be a loss.

On November 14, my Vistage CEO group is hosting one of our semi-annual guest days. If you or someone you know would like to learn more about Vistage, this is a low-key way to meet our members and hear a great speaker, Andrea Simon, who asks “Who will be your customers in three years?” Please contact me directly for an invite: Elisa K Spain.

For more about the members of the group click here

For more about the speaker on November 14, click here

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.