Social distancing is an oxymoron

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Ray

Social distancing is an oxymoron.

At the start of a virtual workshop I facilitated recently, I asked each of the nine participants what’s one thing you are missing out on because of social distancing. Each person’s answers related in some way to being apart from others inside or outside the workplace.

We humans were created to be social creatures. We all have natural instincts that drive us to cooperate, share and work together – in good times and especially in difficult times.

We humans also have an innate need to belong. We have an emotional dependency on each other that can be seen in how we naturally find ways to connect: lunch rooms of people eating together; work meetings and after-work meet-ups; music and sports events.

Feelings of belonging make us more productive, motivated and engaged. According to one survey, when people feel like they belong at work, they are more productive, motivated, engaged and 3.5 times more likely to contribute to their fullest potential.[1]

Social connection matters to our mental health as social isolation contributes to feelings of chronic insecurity, anti-social behavior and depression. It’s also critical to our physical health. Loneliness has a wide range of negative effects such as cardiovascular disease and stroke, increased stress level and decreased memory and learning[2].

For the common good from a medical health perspective, physical distancing is necessary. However, we must find ways to do that without “social distancing” which is so harmful to our individual and collective psyches. And for leaders of organizations who have large portions of their team working at home, it is even more imperative that they be intentional about alleviating social distancing’s harmful effects on human nature.

Here are four things leaders can do to feed our human need to be social.

Stay Connected. Find ways to periodically check in with all followers whether they are on location or especially those working remotely. These check-ins might happen when touching base about work but the point of the check-in is to show that you value, understand, and care about them. And questions as simple (and sincere) as “How are you doing? How can I help?” can go a long way in fighting off feelings of isolation.

Be Compassionate. Isolation triggers emotional responses. As awkward and uncomfortable as it can be sometimes, you must let people feel whatever they’re feeling. Caring for others often means recognizing that people may need to vent before they can move on to problem solving and that they feel most cared for when somebody extends them sympathy rather than a solution. Knowing that someone cares is what helps maintain feelings of belonging so crucial to human nature.

Be Pragmatic. Max DePree says the first job of a leader is to tell the truth[3]. Whether for the morale of their followers or their own perceived status, leaders must resist the temptation to only giving good news or unsubstantiated hope. To do either is ruinous empathy or manipulative insincerity[4]. During times of crisis and uncertainty, people need to be told what the facts are on the ground. A masterful and timely example of this are New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings which are garnering so much praise.

Be Playful. Research overwhelmingly shows that negative emotions make people less productive while positive emotions lead to people feeling more engaged, productive and creative. This Forbes article has some easy suggestions. I’m also hearing about virtual Happy Hours and people sharing funny videos from home or pictures of great meals somebody prepared. Things that inspire a sense of camaraderie can bring a powerful positive energy to fight the negativity that comes with social isolation.

Again, social distancing is an oxymoron. In our physical distancing, more than ever the humans working in our organizations need to feel a sense of connection and belonging. And more than ever, leaders need to lead through empathy and being intentional about how to support their followers human need to be social.

P.S. By the way, these are good ideas in the good times, too.

[1] https://hbr.org/2019/02/the-surprising-power-of-simply-asking-coworkers-how-theyre-doing

[2] https://www.verywellmind.com/loneliness-causes-effects-and-treatments-2795749

[3] Leadership Is An Art https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Art-Max-Depree/dp/0385512465/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

[4] Kim Scott, Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss

Get Ready for The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Posted on August 1, 2018 by Ray

The first post of an occasional series.

Imagine you’re heading home from work in your driverless car while scrolling through emails on the touchscreen dashboard. As you digest thoughts from your global team that has never met in person, you feel a pang of hunger and so you say, “Order takeout.” You audibly choose from a list of recent orders that appears on your dashboard from your favorite restaurant. Your voice is transmitted and recognized by the restaurant’s automated order system which includes GPS that determines how long it will be until you arrive at home. That system will set the timing for robots to prepare the food and for drones to deliver it within minutes of your arrival to your house. The garage door will open after doing a retinal scan as your car approaches it. That scan will also open the door to the house, send instructions to turn the TV on to your regular channel and direct the refrigerator to pour a draft of your favorite ale.

This imaginative story – where you didn’t interact with a single other person – is far-fetched only to the degree that it is probably not far-out enough. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is on the horizon and it will change our relationships to the world, life, work and each other in fundamental and far-reaching ways.

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam to power automated machinery. The Second Industrial Revolution used electricity to power communication and mass production assembly lines. The Third Industrial Revolution used the internet and digital information technology to connect people and production in unprecedented ways. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution [4IR] is emerging out of the Third with a boundaryless convergence of physical, biological, digital and social realms. The speed (exponential acceleration), scope (global magnitude) and systemic impact (production, management and governance) of the developments and innovations we will be subjected to during this revolution will be unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before.

My interests in the 4IR are in how it will impact people in the workplace – whatever “workplace” will come to mean – in terms of how they will lead, follow and collaborate to produce results within their organizations. The increased dependency on machines will mean less direct interaction with other people. Paradoxically, I believe that the quality of our relationships, communication and collaboration will need to increase. Whatever changes occur in terms of how we work together, our contacts with each other will need to be more productive, constructive and efficient so that the output from our less frequent interactions will be maximized. This will heighten the requirement for people skills in the workplace.

The 4IR will also bring a need to be proactive and purposeful about balancing economic concerns with social, human and cultural concerns. Through interdependent empathy and stewardship, organizations must seek to do well for all by doing good for all. The challenge we face in this regard is that technological capabilities are moving faster than our moral and ethical systems to govern them. The current debate over the ability to make guns with 3-D printers is a cogent case in point for our inability to coalesce around common values to govern this application of technology. We are about to be confronted by many more such clashes between innovation and collective stewardship.

The 4IR is bringing technology into every aspect of what it means to be human. There is virtually no way to predict what this will look like. But what it means for us as co-creators of this future is that we will need to be progressively more mindful, creative and intentional about the ways in which we lead, follow and collaborate with each other.

Forgiveness to Change, Part 2

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Ray

In my prior blog post I wrote about the role that the absence of forgiveness can play in motivating people to embrace change. Basically, I made the point that some people may be uninterested in moving forward because they choose to remain stuck in lingering resentments from a past perceived offense.

In such cases, it’s crucial to understand that forgiveness is a choice. It is something that one party gives to another. Forgiveness can’t be demanded nor can it be coerced. You are also dealing with personal experience and emotions that won’t be overcome by persuasive arguments. Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem when it exists. However, there are some general principles that can be applied at both a one-to-one conversational level as well as at a broader team/organizational level.

Listen with empathy. What people often want to do with their anger is share it with somebody that they feel cares. While listening you are also perspective taking – seeing their situation from their vantage point rather than your evaluation of them from your vantage point. This will help you to gain an understanding of why they are feeling and acting in a certain way, and it may also breed some compassion for them. The key idea is to meet their anger and resentment with compassion.

Invite their help in ways where they feel valued. When you listen with empathy you may get insight into what matters most to them and clues to their intrinsic motives. Who doesn’t respond with great energy and enthusiasm to, “I really need your help with [something I know you’re really good at/interested in].” The key idea is to meet their anger and resentment with appreciation.

Be authentically vulnerable regarding past challenges. Vulnerability isn’t weakness. Vulnerability is openness that makes you more approachable, more trusted and more influential. Therefore, inspirational appeals for change should not just be, “Rah-rah we can do it!” Acknowledging the reality of the past – “I recognize that was harder than we thought and we could have done some things better to help you” – may actually be the point where people choose to change their mindset. The key idea is to meet anger and resentment not with disregard or defensiveness but with transparency.

While it’s crucial for leaders to inspire passion for looking ahead, they also must realistically bear in mind that some followers are looking back at issues that they haven’t forgiven the leaders for. Sometimes the key to moving followers forward isn’t selling them on the benefits of the future but helping them release their resentments from the past.

Forgiveness to Change, Part 1

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Ray

A metaphor I like to use for describing what leaders need to do to create change is that of a golfer. To successfully execute a golf shot, a golfer needs to look two ways. They need to look down to understand how the ball’s current position impacts the available options as to where it can go, as well as the risk vs. reward tradeoffs inherent in those options. A golfer also needs to look up to determine where they want the next shot to land. The “look up” deals with vision. The “look down” deals with current reality.

There is one look that the best golfers don’t allow to influence their next shot and that is the look back. In other words, while they learn from their past mistakes, they are also quickly forgiving of them.

Forgive: stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake[1].

I was inspired to think about the role of forgiveness in leading change by religious teacher Richard Rohr. Recently he wrote, “. . . to receive reality is always to bear with it for not meeting all of our needs. To accept reality is to forgive reality for being what it is . . . Without forgiveness nothing new happens, and we remain frozen in a small past [emphasis mine].” It occurred to me that one of the challenges leaders face is that while they are looking up with optimism at a transformed future, many followers are looking back with resentment at past offenses.

These offenses can be personal such as a raise/promotion/transfer/bonus/position they felt was warranted but not given. But they often also include past organizational mistakes they believe have been made:

“We used to care about the relationships with our customers but now it’s just about the numbers.”
“We’re not doing enough to retain our best people.”
“We’ve never been the same since [fill in the blank].”
“Why do “they” (some part of the organization) always think they know better than us?”

Whether it’s for personal or systemic reasons, many followers are living having not forgiven a reality that they believe didn’t meet their needs. As a result, rather than embrace change and a new future, they continue to look back in anger and resentment, and “remain frozen in a small past”, as Rohr says. Such people become pockets of resistance and negativity that can make change difficult more for emotional than tactical or strategic reasons.

So what is a leader or change catalyst to do? I’ll give some answers to that in Part 2.

__________________________________________________-

[1] Apple Dictionary

Why Balance Is Bad

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Ray

balance (noun) a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.

One of the most frequently raised concerns in my team building workshops is balance. The concern typically comes either in the form of an observation or question:

It appears that we’re pretty well (or not very) balanced.
Should we try to be more balanced?

Generally what prompts the observation or question is seeing data about the personality attributes or work styles within the team. And what is being inferred is that a relatively equal amount, i.e. balance of these attributes or styles within the team is better than not being balanced.

This is fundamentally the wrong way to look at balance.

At its core, balance is about power. It’s about making sure that one “side” or another doesn’t gain an advantage such that one set of traits, styles, perspectives, ideologies, etc. will always win out. When there is an imbalance of power, there is always the potential to use domination, threats or coercion to resolve differences. Or the more powerful side can seek input from the minority but still follow the majority path of least resistance, leaving the other side feeling frustrated, minimized and wondering what role they have to play. Again, the presumed goal of balance is to prevent such problems in the team.

On the other hand, rather than set a goal of balance so that nobody can use power over others on the team, a much more desired goal should be to share power with others on the team.

share (verb) have a portion of (something) with another or others; use, occupy, or enjoy (something) jointly with another or others.

Notice the difference between the two concepts especially as it relates to teamwork. Balance is concerned with equality and proportionality – who has more and who has less power. The image that comes to mind is a scale. The only way to get equality is to add or subtract from one side at the expense of the other. And as it relates to teams, we know that when it comes to power and influence, people rarely accept having less.

As opposed to balance, sharing is concerned with having access to what all the other sides have. It’s about integrating power so that every team member can make a contribution. This image of a set of gears is a perfect metaphor for the sharing of power. Notice first of all that the gears are not equal in terms of size or in their proximity to each other. But it’s also clear that each gear contributes to the movement of all the gears, irrespective of balance/proportionality. The gears smallest in size and those with the fewest connections still share power with the other larger/more connected gears.

Numerous surveys show that two of the biggest challenges organizations face is lack of sharing information across silos and lack of alignment. Balancing power within and among teams does not solve those problems.

Like the metaphor of each gear sharing power with the other gears, successful teams tend to have a mindset of sharing what they have in terms of their styles, personality traits, perspectives and so on.

As a team or as a leader, is your concern about gaining or maintaining balance, in other words power over others? Or are you more correctly focused on how to share power with others?

Two Steps to Increased Emotional Intelligence

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Ray

A simple definition of emotional intelligence (EQ) is the capacity to reason about emotions and emotional information. I work with several rich models of EQ that make this concept very practical but I have found that there are two quick and easy practices that will enable anyone to increase their level of emotional intelligence.

Whenever something goes well for you, rather than take credit, find someone other than yourself to give some meaningful and specific credit to.
Whenever something doesn’t go well, rather than assign blame to someone, find some meaningful and specific ways that you can fault yourself.

Obviously, EQ is much more complex than this. But these two ideas span the cornerstones of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

If you consistently do these two things, I have no doubt that they will increase your EQ as well as your influence with others.

Rules One, Two and Three

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Ray

Recently I posted three “rules” on my social media sites that a LinkedIn member asked me to comment more on:

Rule #1: allow yourself to learn from smart people.
Rule #2: don’t allow yourself to be offended by stupid people.
Rule #3: sometimes the smart people are the ones who think very differently than you. They’re usually worth listening to.

These rules have several points of inspiration. One is an ancient proverb that says, “The one who loves a quarrel loves transgression; whoever builds his gate high invites destruction.”

This piece of ancient wisdom suggests a mindset that is useful in all situations when you are presented with points of view that are in opposition to your own. This is especially true amidst the recent onslaught of opinions being put forth on social media. It is actually the continual shouting of people taking sides against each other that was the stimulus for me to create these rules to better manage my own reactions.

The word transgression means an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offense. One way to think about this ancient axiom is that the person who loves to argue vehemently also loves to offend while demonstrating no concern for how they should conduct themselves. And what the second part of the proverb – whoever builds his gate high invites destruction – says to me is that the people who seek to defend what they believe they already know aren’t protecting themselves at all. In fact, they are inviting their own ruin!

Why? Most obviously, trying to influence someone’s point of view by offending them is hardly a winning strategy. Secondly, if I allow myself to believe my opinions are under attack, my natural inclination is to defend myself. Moreover, to the extent that these attacks are from people whose opinions won’t change – and yes, at those emotionally charged moments I’m thinking they’re being “stupid” – I’m defending myself in a battle of opinion that I cannot win. In this case, it’s better to follow Sun Tzu’s (The Art of War) advice, “If a battle cannot be won, do not fight it.” Finally, metaphorically defending myself with the proverb’s “high gate” prevents me from learning anything new. In today’s rapidly changing Information Age, those who refuse to learn get left behind.

A better approach, hence why it’s Rule #1, is to engage with people from whom you can sharpen your thinking by increasing your perspective. The old proverb relates to a more recent one – Steven Covey’s Habit 5 of successful people, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

That can often come from intentionally seeking out the views of those that think differently than you. This is rule #3, which was inspired by an interview with billionaire entrepreneur Sean Parker, the co-creator of the pioneering music-sharing service Napster and ex-president of Facebook (and if these accomplishments aren’t enough, he was played by Justin Timberlake in the movie The Social Network). When asked, “Who do you bounce ideas off of?” Parker responded, “People I’ve argued with. I think most of the things I’ve done so far were largely considered really unpopular or really fringe when I started doing them.” In other words, one of the most renowned innovators of our time isn’t successful by building “high gates” to protect his point of view. Rather, he influences others by lowering his gate to allow in others that can influence him.

Having others agree with my views on flags, people’s rights, names of sports teams, a new product strategy, or who to hire for a key position is not something I get to choose. But I cannot allow that lack of choice I have in what someone believes to become a distraction to me. What I can choose is to learn and grow in my own understanding by productively seeking intelligent points of view that enhance my perspective.

As Carl Rogers said, “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.” And according to Einstein, to do that, “The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Ray

How many times have you participated in an a-ha generating personal development educational session, swore it would change your behavior and fell back into your old ways within days? It happens all the time, but it doesn’t have to. Many organizations are successful at making it stick. How do they do it? At the recent 20^th Biennial Association for Psychological Type International Conference in Miami, Karla Edwards – Director of Service Excellence for an 1,800 employee medical center – and I presented how we did it in her organization.

There are three key components to successfully introducing and sustaining a personality tool, specifically the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator^© in an organization. In order of importance:

Identify a champion who is passionate about the cause.
Require effective and continuous training for a team of trainers.
Have support from executive leaders.

Identify a champion. The champion is responsible for overseeing all Myers-Briggs^© related activities and is preferably at a visible management level. More critically, this champion is also the person who will go to bat for the cause – over and over again. Yes, over and over because most likely there will be skeptics and pockets of resistance, or people who just don’t understand its value. A knowledgeable and passionate champion must be in place to constantly “sell” the organization on the MBTI’s^© benefits.

Effectively and continuously train a team of facilitators. Here, the goal is two-fold:

Create great trainers who will deliver great training. When people go to great training, they talk about it, and when they talk about it, it makes others want to get in on the action.
Develop type experts who have the expertise to apply the MBTI to a wide range of individual and team issues. When the MBTI is used to address real, day-to-day organizational issues such as communication, change, problem solving and decision-making, and project management, it becomes seen as a valuable and necessary tool.

Have support from the executive leadership team. They set the tone for what is important in the organization. If they are using the language, attending learning opportunities and visibly support the use of Myers Briggs, others in the organization will get the message that this is a useful, helpful and important tool. And nothing demonstrates leadership support more than the staff seeing that leaders are changing their behavior as a result of what they are learning about type.

Other important components to put into place:

Choose a facilitation team through an application process that clearly identifies an applicant’s commitment; is approved by their supervisor; and includes a presentation audition that demonstrates their passion and knowledge of type, as well as presentation skills.
Design classes to be presented in a consistent manner by each facilitator on the team.
Make Myers Briggs visible, e.g. lapel pins and stickers for ID badges, table tents announcing the person’s 4-letter preference, MBTI stationary, and any other creative ways that suggests “MBTI spoken here.”
Build a comprehensive library and encourage employees to check out books.
Create an organizational database that identifies all employees’ preferences (with their permission) and is available to all employees in an easily sorted program.

Using MBTI in your organization doesn’t have to be a fun and then forgotten event. With the right planning, commitment and support, it can be an integral part of your organizational culture that drives business results.

My Aha Moments from APTi 2013

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Ray

I’m just returning from Miami and the 20^th Biennial Association for Psychological Type International Conference. I used to serve on the Association’s Board of Directors with Jane Kise, the conference’s Co-Chair and a very good friend. Jane challenged attendees to blog on their aha moments from the conference. Here are mine.

The Power of One Big Idea – Most conferences are full of experts talking to other experts on a wide variety of exotic topics. In the meantime, the person reaching massive numbers of lay people interested in personality is Susan Cain, the best-selling author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Rather than impart a wide range of brilliant ideas, Susan has attracted a worldwide following while talking about one basic thing.
Although the nature of my work necessitates the sharing of many ideas, the power of one big idea that connects with someone’s experience of themselves has a more memorable impact and greater immediate applicability. Therefore, I will be constantly evaluating my work to find opportunities to summarize it into a single powerful, memorable and applicable idea.
The inverse of the power of one big idea is The Curse of Knowledge. The curse occurs when an expert finds it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people. The result is that expert teachers can overwhelm a new learner with too much complex information such that the new learner gains no new knowledge. It was great hearing this idea from several presenters, as I am particularly susceptible to the curse. The antidote lies in The Power of the One Big Idea described above, and my third aha moment, below.
Stickiness – My biggest aha moment of the conference was seeing a theme of people who are being very creative in tackling a significant issue with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator^©even for the best professionals: the amount and complexity of just the basic information in its ubiquitous 4-letter code makes it hard to remember; and so much misinformation gets generated from what is remembered. In other words, the MBTI^© intrinsically suffers from The Curse of Knowledge.
There appears to be a sea change in the type community to cure this curse. Influenced by the book Made to Stick (Chip and Dan Heath), some very creative practitioners are attempting to make type concepts sticky by replacing wordy jargon and abstract concepts with more everyday language, visuals that tell immediately apparent stories and symbols that are close to everyday experience. These will enable learners to discover on their own what is most useful for them.
Since the learners are the most informed about their own situations, this makes the teacher the lesser-informed person and avoids The Curse of Knowledge altogether. Rather than the teacher creating a long and laborious process to ensure that a lot of complex information is being transmitted accurately, finding ways to make the information sticky will make the MBTI relevant. In today’s information-age culture, immediate relevancy is valued more than accuracy and I’m very happy to see that there are those within the type community who recognize and are responding to this trend.

Jane had a big idea in her blog: to avoid forgetting and never using the exciting ideas you learn at a conference, instead take your conference aha moments and turn them into an acronym. OK, mine is PICKS: Power of one Idea; Curse of Knowledge; Stickiness.

Thanks, Jane, and thank you to everybody involved in a fun and fascinating APTi 2013 Conference!

Four Easy Steps to Blowing Up Your Career

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Ray

In the May 23 issue of Rolling Stone, comedian Marc Maron was asked how he sabotaged a once promising career with his own self-inflicted failures. These four points excerpted from that article contain some excellent advice on how to lose a great career. They are easy ways to blow up any other relationships, too.

Be Really, Really Unpleasant. Bitterness is a surefire way to ruin your career. Bitterness is really just amplified self-pity. And no one wants to be around that.

Burn Every Bridge. Just assume that whomever you’re working with doesn’t talk to anybody else who might hire you.

Double Down On Trouble. If a relationship is going bad, let it destroy every other part of your life, too. If your job’s going bad, let it destroy your relationships. If you’re going to do it, do it across the board.

Hit Rock Bottom. To salvage your career, you have to blow it completely. Out of that humility will come your truest self. Instead of being cocky and angry, you’ll come back with a little beat up, raw and “just trying to do my best here” attitude.

With a hugely popular podcast, new cable TV show, and best-selling book, Attempting Normal, it seems Marc is rising after hitting rock bottom. Not that many people do. Too often, people are unaware of their own “success” in destroying their careers/relationships and are left wondering how they could have been mistreated so badly.

Maron’s wisdom is that forcing others to share our pain pushes them away and doesn’t make the pain go away, either. Instead, we need to seek out people or situations that shift our attention and emotions to something positive even if it can only be for brief periods. We need to take responsibility for our emotions and likewise take responsibility for the emotions we bring to others.

Ray Linder

Helping People Who Work Together, Work Together Better

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