Information Country

In two recent articles “Some Evidence of How We Are Spiritually Connected” and “Healing Dysfunctional Families” I reported on how individuals who live or work within a system or group are inherently connected at a level that goes beyond words. This realm of connection, which is largely spiritual or unconscious, may or may not be familiar to the more business minded person so I will take some time to explain the nature of this connection and then the wide reaching implications this idea has on the optimal functioning of organizations.

Have you ever walked into a room full of people, say at a party, and had a strange feeling about the “energy” in the room. It perhaps felt a bit draining; perhaps it made you feel sad or gave you a strange feeling of heaviness in your body. Perhaps there was a level of anxiety that you picked up in your body, as if your body was taking a reading on the mood of the room. Well in fact when you feel any or all of these types of feelings you, may be, without knowing it, picking up on the kind of mood or mindset in the room. Clearly such negative feelings are telling you that perhaps this is not a good place for you to be.

Now because most individuals are not tuned into their body’s messages they often find themselves ignoring or downplaying such messages perhaps only to find out later, at a much higher cost, that they went into something they should have avoided. The negative messages that one’s body picks up in such circumstances are key and important messages to be understood and heeded. They signal the net negativity that exists within that setting, group, system or organization. Yes, organization!

Now a large number of people, who may be your customers, will feel such a negative energy in your organization, if yours happens to carry a net negative mind set or negative “emotional baggage”. Such negativity can arise from employees whose lives are emotionally unstable, from high stress levels among employees, from a management that unknowingly promotes a culture that is unhealthy and demotivating, and even from the life history that the organization carries with it throughout its life time and many other factors.

Examples of the latter may be such events as dramatic downsizings, hostile mergers, and severe economic downturns and so on. Such traumatic events get stored in the “memory” of the organization in the same way as traumatic memories are stored in the memory of an individual. They accumulate there and serve to impair the performance of the employees who work in that organization, even new ones.

As the nature of most business operations are driven by the competitive model it goes without saying that the probability of a high stress levels, emotional instability, angst, and other negative emotions emerging within an organization are high. These negative emotions, in turn tend to frighten management because they have no understanding of how to deal with them.

Such negative emotions which then become perceived as a threat to the stability of the organization get buried within the “unconscious” of the organization. They are however clearly felt by everyone else i.e. customers, suppliers, distributors etc. who come into contact with that organization. The net result is a breakdown in trust, relationships, performance and ultimately revenues.

This area of research is such a new field that most top managers have little to no training in emotional awareness. This was the revelation I had when I attended Executive MBA studies at the Richard Ivey School of Management in London, Ontario in the late 1990’s. It was at the time one of the top Canadian schools and ranked as one of the top in the world next to schools such as Harvard Business School. Most other top schools also fell short of having any real awareness of such issues. My colleagues, unfortunately seemed ill equipped to handle the kinds of emotional traps and that lay waiting for them both at the individual and at the organizational level.

In recent years I have developed a new tool which I call the Mind Resonance Process(TM) that is easily applicable at the organizational level to help quickly and easily “iron out” the negative emotional factors that linger in the halls and offices of most organizations. The net result is an energy of optimism, possibility, and one that is refreshing for all who come into contact with that organization. It is serving as new tool in the organization’s repertoire to build a larger customer base and draw higher revenues.

Dr. Nick Arrizza is trained in Chemical Engineering, Business Management & Leadership, Medicine and Psychiatry. He is a Key Note Speaker, Author, Stress Management Coach, Peak Performance Coach & Researcher, Specializes in Life and Executive Performance Coaching, is the Developer of a powerful new tool called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) that helps build phyiscal, emotional, mental and spirtual well being by helping to permanently release negative beliefs, emotions, perceptions and memories. He holds live workshops, international telephone coaching sessions and international teleconference workshops on Physical. Emotional, Mental and Spiritual Well Being.
Personal Url: http://www.telecoaching4u.com

Who among us hasn’t fallen into the trap of believing that in order to be worth our salt as managers, we must be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent on the job? In Truman-esque fashion we declare that the buck stops with us, and confuse taking responsibility for results with being responsible for controlling everything that happens with a project, department, or business unit.

Everyone knows about the bottlenecks that occur when too much information is forced to flow through one pair of hands. Commonly, managers who take responsibility for all of the details spend long hours checking the work of associates (which is often of an administrative nature) while higher level functions, like strategy setting, are neglected.

On the other hand, managers who take responsibility for results are performing a leadership function that involves setting a vision, establishing goals, devising a strategy, and managing resources. Instead of focusing on how each task is done, the process is evaluated. Instead of reviewing everyone’s work, work habits are assessed to make sure that people have the skills and resources they need for high performance.

This distinction is crucial for entrepreneurs, the newly promoted, and the currently overwhelmed. I often find with coaching clients that unreasonable or unrealistic expectations are at the heart of the all-knowing, ever-present, and all-mighty syndrome. Hopefully, you at least smiled when you read the title of this article, because you recognize the impracticality of literally striving to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

There are a number of reasons that people fall into the control trap. They include anxiety about being held accountable, perfectionism, lack of confidence, and repeating bad habits learned from former bosses. Sometimes, people fall back on skills, such as staying on top of details, that were important in previous jobs, but not in larger roles with management responsibility.

If you find yourself mired in details that drain your energy and keep you from activities that add value to the bottom line, you may be working with unrealistic expectations. Common ones include insisting on one particular outcome, being successful on the first try, or that something happen in a certain way. Others are all or nothing thinking, and treating each setback as a disaster.

The owner of a computer consultancy was having trouble growing the business in part because she made herself responsible for the work of all of her subcontractors. She challenged any of their methods that differed from how she would have performed the work, and frequently had to correct errors made by two inexperienced technicians who she used on smaller jobs because they charged relatively low rates. Meantime, she wasn’t spending enough time bringing in new clients, which raised concerns about billable hours in the coming months. She was exhausting herself trying to wear the hats of company president, director of sales, and chief technology officer.

By choosing to see herself as responsible for managing the growth of her business, not for how individuals performed their jobs, she was able to re-prioritize. She began devoting much more of her energy to revenue-generating activities, and evaluated her subcontractors based on meaningful criteria like the end result and customer satisfaction. And, she developed clear requirements for skill levels and stopped hiring inexperienced people who demanded close supervision that she couldn’t afford to give.

Here are some tips if you find yourself in the “omniscience trap”:

● Create a log of all your daily activities over a one or two week period. Arrange items by category and look for areas where you may be devoting lots of time for little pay-back.

● See if you can recognize any unrealistic expectations, like those mentioned above, that you have of yourself or other people. Viewing ourselves objectively can be tough, so you may want to enlist the help of a coach, mentor, colleague, or friend.

● Try to associate your thoughts to the behavior that you want to change. Let’s say that you’re falling short of a sales target because you’re not making enough cold calls. What’s going through your mind as you’re staring at the telephone? One budding entrepreneur realized that she was associating every “no” from a prospect with an indictment of her product (”It’s not good enough”).

● Reframe your thinking and replace the undesired behavior with one that is more realistic. Your new thought pattern must be one that you truly believe is more effective than the old one. The entrepreneur mentioned above decided to look at cold calling as a process for matching the right customers to the right product.

● Visualize yourself confronting the situation in a new way. Do this in as much detail as possible, imagining how you feel, what you’re doing or saying, and the results you want. Then, practice. Your chances of success increase if you have someone who can observe times when you slip into old patterns, or rehearse new scenarios with you.

Finally, be wary of creating unrealistic expectations for change! Modifying ingrained behaviors takes time, practice, and patience, so start small in one area. A simple, yet often very effective reinforcement is to reward yourself with something meaningful once your goal is achieved.

Barbara Bissonnette helps business people function more effectively by leveraging their natural strengths and eliminating self-defeating behavior patterns. She is a certified coach and Principal of Forward Motion Coaching (http://www.ForwardMotion.info). She has more than 20 years of business experience, most recently as Vice President of Marketing and Sales for a privately held firm.

Debbie was the Director of her own computer company, employing four staff.

Debbie had a hectic lifestyle. She worked long hours, had three children and a husband to organise and on top of that was in the middle of a major renovation of her own home. To make matters even worse, she was also studying for a Bachelor of Computer Science!

No wonder she was stressed out!

Here was a situation where she had overburdened herself unnecessarily. She had far too much going on in her life and something was about to snap!

Debbie was unable to sleep properly with all the worry and strain of juggling everything and had neglected her own self in the process.

Debbie looked tired and haggard when I first met her. She was 15 kg overweight and looked at least 10 years older than she really was. She had lost touch with what was really important to her. Debbie was trying to be superwoman!

She had taken on far too much and was forced to review her lifestyle (or lack of it) or she would either have a nervous breakdown or die in the process.

The Solutions
In working with my clients I always get them to write down all the activities and responsibilities they are currently involved in, both at work and home using my weekly planner.

By writing them down you can clearly see what is really important and what isn’t. You can also see where you fill up your day with unnecessary activity.

With Debbie there were many areas where she could free up her time to give her the time for herself as the number one priority and get some sanity back into her life.

Before Adding, Look at Subtracting
I suggested to Debbie that she needed to look at which activities and responsibilities she could defer, delete, delegate or outsource.

This is what she chose to do:

Within four weeks you could see the change in Debbie. She was more confident now that she had taken control of her situation; her life was getting back on track!

The Final Word

Why waste your precious time working on tasks, which are definitely not your forte when you can delegate or invest your money on a product or service which will free up your time? You can then focus on the more important areas in your business and your life.

It’s really easy not to invest money in yourself.

Do you spend money on your car, your computer, your business, your home and other ‘things’ in your life?

Are you not worthy enough to invest in yourself? Is the price you pay for neglecting yourself really worth it?

What can you defer, delete, delegate or outsource so that you can have more time for living your life?

Lorraine Pirihi is Australia’s No. 1 Productivity Coach. She’s also a dynamic presenter and a leading business and life coach. Her business The Office Organiser specialises in showing small business owners and managers, how to get organised at work so they can have a life! Lorraine is also a dynamic speaker and has produced many products including “How to Survive and Thrive at Work!”