“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we’re really seeking is an experience of being more alive.” – Joseph Campbell, American mythologist

Why people paid so much for tickets for the Winter Olympics

Some people paid as much at $750 to $1500 per ticket to see an event at the Olympic Winter Games here in Vancouver this week. When I surveyed these ticket buyers as to why they would spend so much on a two-hour experience I received the same general answer: “It’s so alive and exciting, and those kind of experiences are rare in life.”

An innovative way to bring awareness to your cause

Here’s another example. An innovative organization called Imagine 1 Day was seeking to gain attention for their cause: providing primary education for all children in Ethiopia. They organized a flash mob dance during the Winter Olympics games in downtown Vancouver. The idea was to teach a choreographed routine to a group of people who would then spontaneously break into that dance in a public area — an idea no doubt inspired by the Improv Everywhere events.

They invited people in their network and staged several rehearsals to teach a dance routine to the hit song, Dancing in the Street. They expected about 200-300 people to show up. In the end, over 3000 people learned the dance. The crowd took up an entire city block in Vancouver. Ten times more people than they ever expected to attend were there, and all of those people got to hear about their cause. Not only that but another thousand watched from the sidelines. Add to that all the videographers who posted it on YouTube. Even CNN reported on it. Why would that many people spent so much of their precious time and energy to learn a rather complicated routine and then drag themselves out on a cold and rainy day to dance it? I was one of the participants along with many of my friends. The answer seemed unanimous. Because it was exciting to be part of a huge group of people harmonizing our energies together doing something fun — all for a great cause. In short, it made us all feel more alive.

Here’s a short clip of the event:

Regardless of your opinion about an organization’s goals, Olympics Games or educating children in Ethiopia, creating an atmosphere of aliveness invariably attracts people and opens minds.

Trying to plant your seed of change in unbalanced soil

In the last blog post we talked about one of the main mistakes change leaders make–which is trying to plant the seed of change in unbalanced soil. When there is an over focus on protection at the expense of growth ideas can’t get traction. People have a deep need to feel alive, to grow and thrive. They also have a core need to feel safe and protected. The problem comes when those two needs get out of balance. The tendency in many organizations especially after an economic downturn, is for there to be an over focus on protection which tends to kill off growth and aliveness. Many organizations are not open to change because there is a long standing habit of operating mainly from a fear-based need to simply survive. This survival mindset may have some basis in reality but more often it is simply a bad habit of catastrophic thinking. As a change leader you may need to address this issue before people will be open to your idea for positive change. Organizations and individuals get stuck in protection mode due to perceptions. No change can occur unless you help stakeholders perceive the situation in a more growth-oriented way. This usually cannot be done with logic alone as fear is an instinctual emotion and therefore you will need a more “alive” approach.

Case study – focusing on growth and aliveness to change perception

For example, a privately-owned software company had a culture clash between the sales force and the product development and tech support teams. The owner felt that the majority of resources and decision-making power should lie in the hands of the sales force because they drove revenue. As a result, the sales team decided on timelines and deliverables without consulting the other teams.

Naturally, the stress levels and subsequent resentment within the development team grew. When the development team presented their concerns to the owner he simply asked them to “think more positively” — and you can imagine the response to that. The owner had tunnel vision about the structure and system needed for his company to survive. The previous two years had been a tough. Cash flow suffered due to an economic downturn and they had barely avoided bankruptcy. As a result all he could focus on was cash flow, and the sales force meant cash flow. Now that sales were flowing they were taking every contract without communicating with each other before signing the deal.

Meanwhile the product developers and tech support team suffered. Several of their best people quit. Back room gossip escalated. Interpersonal conflict grew. When the owner heard that clients were leaving because of the bad “vibe” there, he hired an HR person to sort things out. She tried everything from disciplining the gossipers to sending them off for motivational training to help them “get over their resistance to change”. Not surprisingly, the resentment just seemed to grow.

After assessing the situation we helped the HR person come up with a new tactic. She led a team building day with everyone in the company that started with a fun activity. Once they were relaxed and enjoying being together, she illustrated the growth potential of a more collaborative decision-making process. She addressed all concerns such as the fear that consulting with other team leaders would mean losing contracts. She provided facts to prove that an over-focus on sales was ironically costing everyone in terms of morale, productivity, customer service, employee health, and ultimately revenue. Even though it looked like the focus on sales was all about growth, it was coming from a fear-based mindset. She offered success stories of similar firms that were consulting with each other before signing deals and still thriving very well.To make a long story short, they found a way to restructured resources in a way that seemed more equitable to all concerned and decided that all team leaders would be consulted before signing any client contracts. In the end this allowed for much better external (and internal) customer service.

In the last blog post on The Top 7 Mistakes Change Leaders Make I mentioned the importance of looking at common mistakes as an entry point into exploring the success habits of great change leaders.

To recap, the top 7 mistakes I’ve noticed after 20 years of surveying and working with change leaders are:

1) An over focus on protection and safety at the expense of growth
2) Having vague outcomes
3) No map
4) A poor container for getting from here to there
5) Little or no buy in from stakeholders
6) Keeping too narrow a perspective
7) Lack of appropriate implementation and persistence through the bugs

In my upcoming book, The Change Artist Principles, I will explore each of these mistakes via case studies and how the mistakes made became the grounding agents that led to the successful adoption of new habits.

The first is an over focus on protection and safety at the expense of growth. According to cellular biologist and PhD, Bruce Lipton, most organisms operate in either protection mode or growth mode but cannot be operating in both modes at the same time. An organism (or an organization) that continually focuses on safety and protection cannot grow. Many change leaders won’t or cannot launch a change because the individuals (and thus the organization as a whole) get stuck in fight or flight mode far too often. This leaves no resources left over for growth. Here is a short 2 minute video in which Bruce Lipton explains the concept of protection vs growth:

How big is your organizational defense budget?

Good judgment comes from experience which comes from bad judgment. – Anon

Looking at the common mistakes of change leaders is a great entry into this topic because people often only achieve success through its opposite: failure. My upcoming book, The Change Artist Principles, focuses on the problems of leading people through change and how those problems are perpetuated sometimes and resolved at other times. Before we dive into the problems or the mistakes, it helps to have some context for using this approach.

You cannot have success without failure or persistence without resistance

Consider the concepts of success and failure. They are opposites yet related—you cannot know one without the other. Similarly, persistence and resistance are opposites and also cannot be understood without the other. Both sets of opposites appear over and over again throughout the change process. Our perception of any situation is relative, and we can only understand its nature by studying it through contrast. For example, in a universe in which everything is blue, you cannot discuss the concept of blueness because you lack contrasting colors

Failure and resistance got you where you are today

Let’s take another, more personal, example. Right now think of an area of life in which you have plenty of experience. Something you could honestly say you are “good” at. It could be in golf, or parenting, or graphic design, or interpersonal communication. You probably achieved that level of expertise through having some success, making some mistakes, resisting moving forward, then persisting through the challenging parts and then learning from them, then back around again through all those phases. You became good because you embraced these opposites. For whatever reason you kept practicing, working through your resistance, being persistent despite making mistakes and feeling a sense of failure sometimes, getting feedback, learning from the feedback and trying something new the next time. Chances are, for every step into your feelings of resistance you found renewed strength to persist. For every moment you sensed failure, you found a silver lining which renewed your belief in success.

New leaders too often get chastised for making mistakes

This may seem like obvious information, but in my role as a consultant I am continually amazed at how often people enter leadership roles with no training and then get chastised for making mistakes and then rebuffed for feeling resistant to trying new things. Good leadership thrives in an environment where you are allowed to make mistakes and then are encouraged to deconstruct them and create a new plan of action continually.

Mistakes are like grounding agents in an electrical current

The concept behind the word “Mistake” is simply an entry point into what I like to call “The Grounding Agents”. These are the pitfalls along the way that ground you into the actual realities of leading people through change, much like an electrical grounding cord. The positive charge is your vision of success and the grounding agent is that which keeps it grounded in the here and now. Both are necessary to make the machine of change work.  A Transformational Leader is one who creates a positive vision of change, expects to be met with grounding agents so that the interplay of the two (positive vision + negative grounding agent) can create a third entity. The third entity is the change that truly transforms those concerned. Using these skills, a 21^st Century Leader emerges.

The Top 7 Mistakes

This list of mistakes is based on 20 years of surveying and working with change leaders and those affected by their decisions. Through my research and experience it became clear that the same human mistakes were happening over and over again and that those who made them enough times persisted through the failure and resistance were the ones who achieved success, or what I like to call the Habits of Successful Change Leaders. In a nutshell here are the top 7 mistakes:

1)    An over focus on protection and safety  at the expense of growth

2)   Having vague outcomes

3)   No map to get from here to there

4)    A poor container for getting from here to there

5)   Little or no buy in from stakeholders

6)   Keeping too narrow a perspective

7)   Lack of appropriate implementation and persistence through the bugs

We will explore each of these mistakes and failures in the next post using a couple of helpful metaphors.

What people are really saying
The top reasons we hear are: low pay, too much stress, or the boss from hell. These reasons came from a random survey of employees at a few of those organizations that won the coveted title of Best Company to Work For. Almost everyone we surveyed said they didn’t consider their company to be such a great place to work. Why the incongruence?

Why the Gallup Q12 may now be an exercise in futility
For the key to employee engagement, all you need to do these days is to look to the Gallup Organization, right? They conducted hundreds of focus groups and thousands of interviews with employees in a variety of industries, and came up with the Q12. This is a 12-question survey that identifies strong feelings of employee engagement.

You can see a list of the 12 questions here.

But what if you can’t live up to standards of the Q12? Certainly managers who care about you, encourage you, mark your progress, value your opinions and allow you to learn and grow—all contribute to employee engagement. But, for many that is a radical new approach to management. What if you can’t find or train those kinds of people overnight? Plus, many people don’t know what is expected of them at work because the economy keeps changing, or the industry keeps changing. Employees may not have the materials and equipment they need for the same reasons. Maybe you can’t do “what you do best” at work every day, because “what you do best” has now become obsolete. Or, you can’t do quality work, because the market turn around time has significantly decreased. In short, trying to keep up with the Q 12 may now be an exercise in futility.

So you can’t feel engaged until the rate of change slows down?
If so, you might as well drop out of the rat race now and live in a cave. The only way out of this dilemma is to adopt new habits to deal with change. Due to profound economic, sociological, and demographic changes, we must evolve at a core level. In Seth Godin’s bestseller, “Survival Is Not Enough”, he states that “Most of us view change as a threat, and survival as the goal. The first step to help yourself and your organization thrive in the coming economy is to eliminate the anti-change reflex that’s genetically coded into all of us. Once a company learns to zoom (embrace change without pain), it’s much more likely to evolve.”

Creativity as the key to employee engagement
What Seth Godin is referring to when he says “zooming” is a form of creative thinking that is available to everyone. It is bundled with our bio-computer hard drive. We just need to learn how to use it more often. The problem with the Q12 is that the burden of employee engagement mostly lies on the shoulders of management. The truth is, many managers are even less engaged than their employees. How are they possibly going to inspire their workforce? The antidote to almost all Q12 is to teach people how to zoom, at all levels of an organization. The lowest level of creativity inspires far more vitality in a person than the highest level of consuming. In other words, if you can create a workplace full of creative thinkers who share enough of the same core values, the engagement happens all on its own.

Dissolving negativity at work
Countless times, we have seen office politics dissolve; complainers become supportive; toxic emotions unexpectedly evaporate, and unethical people suddenly have integrity when an organization gets back in the creative flow. In other words, it learns how to zoom. Yet, we’d like to take it one step further. It needs to be creativity tied in to core organizational values; otherwise you can end up like Enron (innovation run amok because it lacks integrity). What we’re talking about here is zooming with integrity, or what I call being a Change Artist. To build a Change Artist organization is to create clear values and then teach enough people key habits that naturally unlock the creative thinking necessary to live those values. Once there is a high enough “vibe” of creativity, the permission for it, and the responsible demonstration of it, the Change Artist virus spreads. Others can pick it up by osmosis.

Do you have a comment?
Feel free to add your opinion to this post. For more tips, or to learn about Carla Rieger’s organizational programs, consulting and other resources go to www.artistryofchange.com.

Do you ever notice that when you are in a good mood life just kind of flows? You see solutions more easily. You feel more tolerant and patient. You can take yourself lightly and see the big picture.

Then, do you notice that when you are in a low mood that life can feel stuck and more full of conflict? You see mostly obstacles. You can act petty. You take yourself and life very seriously and feel as if the world is out to get you.

Most humans have a shadow side, a split persona to one degree or another. Being able to have more choice about who will run the show can be one of the most important life lessons you will ever learn.
==========================================

Here is Carla talking about some tips for dealing with conflict at work or at home:

==========================================

What neuro-science is now telling us

Neil Slade has a great way of explaining neuro-science in practical, layman terms. When you are in a low mood the energy of your brain resides more in what neuro-scientists call “The Reptilian Complex”.

The brain has three layers:

1. The Reptilian Complex is the inner core: This is where we get our instinct to survive, fight, flee, gain territory and reproduce.

2. The Limbic System is the next layer: This is where we get our urge to nurture, to love, to join with others and follow laws and rules.

3. The Neo-cortex is the outer brain: This is where we get the skills to make peace between the R-Complex and the Limbic System, the ability to forgive and to temper justice with mercy, to reason and see the big picture. The frontal lobes of the neo-cortex in particular help you do your best problem solving and decision making.

While we need to have all parts of our brain functioning in order to thrive and survive, most people when under stress revert to the Reptilian Complex. They are disconnected from the more outer parts of the brain. Being able to trigger the frontal neo-cortex can put you in a good mood and help you be your better self more often.

How do you know when the Reptilian Complex is running the show?

The Reptilian Complex is more likely to be active during change, challenge and conflict, but can appear at any time. Learn to notice when that is happening. Usually you feel more tense, worried, fearful, distrustful, and hyper-vigilant. In short you feel like fighting or fleeing. Few situations in modern society require the Reptilian Complex to be running the show completely. Yet that’s where a lot of people are operating from a lot of the time.

==========================================

What can trigger the “petty self”?

Many factors can contribute to you getting more easily triggered such as:

1. Multitasking or having your awareness scattered.

2. Hormonal imbalances (in both men and women).

3. Excess toxins in your body from health issues or from stimulants such as coffee, alcohol, sugar and other drugs (both pharmaceutical and recreational).

4. Little or no reflection time.

5. Unresolved issues (at any age).

6. Psychological habits picked up from your family or society.

7. Lack of exercise.

8. Sleep deprivation.

9. Dehydration.

10. Feeling hungry or undernourished. Blood sugar imbalances.

11. A habit of shallow breathing or mouth breathing.

12. Not examining the validity of your thoughts.

13. Unexpressed creativity.

14. Lack of meaning in one’s life.

==========================================

Tips for activating your more “graceful self”

Here are a few tips for activating the brain to move from the Reptilian-complex to the frontal neo-cortex. Make sure you do something to put yourself in a better frame of mind before dealing with a conflict. For particularly high stakes conversations email us at carla@artistryofchange.com for a free copy of the Preparing to Have a Courageous Conversation worksheet.

1. Laughing and having fun. Laughter opens up the whole brain. Find the lighter side of the situation. Search YouTube for comedians you love. Call or talk to someone is good at making you laugh.

2. Paying attention to the present moment without interpreting it (E.g. like when you are focussed on a task you love or appreciating a sunset)

3. Focussing on one thing at a time Don’t try to deal with conflict when your focus is scattered, for example while trying to drive your car or while checking email.

4. Giving yourself the amount of sleep that your body wants (usually 7-8 hours for most adults). Wait til your rested before having an important conversation.

5. Asking “What’s good?” Ask yourself “What’s good about this situation?” What might you be learning from this conflict? What might be a great outcome from sorting out this issue?

6. Releasing negative thinking loops EMDR or Emotional Freedom Technique can help you release stuck negativity and trauma. Also, many conflicts result from escalating a small issue into a large one through an over-active imagination. The work of Byron Katie or The Sedona Method are useful for helping people examine the validity of their thoughts.

7. Doing regular exercise .Do something active before an important conversation to help release toxins from the body and increase the oxygen levels in your body.

8. Nourishing your body on a regular basis with good, nutritious food. Make sure your blood sugar levels are normalized before starting an important conversation. Drinking 8 glasses of purified water a day and stay hydrated during conflict. This will help your brain work more efficiently.

9. Creating meaning and purpose in your life. Explore your purpose and live your life from that value system as much as possible. As Les Brown once said, “If you know the why for living you can endure almost any how.”

10. Having a creative or recreational outlet. Singing, dancing, writing, art, gardening, golf, tennis, skiing, etc. These activities will keep you in your “graceful” self more often.

11. Getting inspired daily. Leave inspirational literature by your bedside. Watch inspirational movies or listen to inspirational audio programs. Watch inspiring speakers on TED or just type in “inspirational speech” or “motivational speech” into YouTube.

12. Practicing conscious breathing Try typing in “conscious breathing techniques” into YouTube and follow the instructions.

13. Getting regular physical contact. Loving touch activates the whole brain (E.g. Hugs, kisses and massage)

14. Getting organized and defining your work more clearly (try David Allen’s Getting Things Done)

15. Surrounding yourself with people who are generally optimistic and good-natured. The moods and thoughts of others can impact your well being. Establish healthy boundaries with people who like to create drama and conflict.

16. Thinking in possibilities. If you feel stuck about how to solve a problem ask yourself “If I were exceptional at solving this problem I would…”

==========================================

Do you have a tip to share?

If you have an example of how you activate your best self please let us know. It just might inspire others. Please email it to carla@artistryofchange.com