Being an artist of your own life

Yet, there is a part of everyone’s intelligence that can see beyond the horizon. I call it being a “Change Artist”. It is the part of the human psyche that can sense into possibilities before they become manifest. Pablo Picasso once said “Everyone is born an artist, the trick is to recapture that artist as an adult.” When I once asked a group of kindergarten students to raise their hand if they considered themselves an artist, all hands went up. When I asked that same question of a group of adults instead, what do you think happened?
Only about 25% put their hands up. Somehow the older people get the less they seem to frame themselves in terms of artistry. Perhaps it’s how you define artistry. How I like to frame artistry is that it is not about doing something such as drawing, playing music, or writing, it’s about who you are being. For example, you can play music very un-artistically, whereas you could plan your busy day very artistically. To be artistic in conducting your life is to sense into the natural creative flow of life and to get in synch with it, using that energetic flow to manifest just the right outcome in just the right way. It’s an intelligence beyond what we typically call IQ. Let’s call it AQ….your Artistic Quotient.

Symptoms that you may be in The Winter of Change

Using your AQ during The Winter of Change can be very beneficial because it’s usually the time in your life when your outward creative abilities are lying fallow and replenishing themselves. When you feel less outwardly creative, it’s time to tap into a more inward creativity. Few people in our goal oriented culture effectively model this inward creativity and so it’s not as well practiced. The tips below may help you tap into exactly what you need to move forward. Symptoms that you are in a replenishing phase may be:

• Feeling low energy and unmotivated
• Confusion and having little clarity about what’s next
• Grieving the old identity that has fallen away

What’s going on is that the old identity that was tied up with your previous life is breaking down and dying. It’s like what happens in your garden when the cold rain and snow set in. The remains of the last harvest start to disintegrate and the soil begins to compost to get ready for Spring. Humans have an aversion to death and dying, so it’s natural to feel uncomfortable during this phase. But ironically the more you resist it the longer it seems to take. Also, if you try to skip this step, you may find you miss out on the next harvest of your life, or at least miss out on having the best possible harvest. Here are some tips to make it through the Winter with more ease and grace allowing you to get to Spring faster while also replenishing yourself more fully for what’s next:

1. Focus on the breaking down process: If you find yourself wanting to escape the discomfort of the breaking down process, try giving yourself just 10 minutes of being with it. Often people avoid going into those sensations because they are afraid they may end up being consumed by the feelings of loss. However, feelings are like clouds. They come and they go. The focus of your attention on them ironically causes them to evaporate. Just sit quietly in a private place and breathe into the areas of discomfort and see what happens. You may be surprised about how much relief this can bring. If you don’t allow yourself to grieve the old and let go, then you cannot make way for what is next.

2. Time out: People are far more validated in our culture when they are in the Spring and Summer of change than during the Autumn or Winter phases, yet you can’t have one without the other. Giving yourself permission to be less active, less productive, to just rest and muse, will actually make the Winter phase easier and quicker. Different types of “time out” activities work for different people. It may be short, regular activities like walks in nature or meditating, or spending more time doing something you love like a hobbies or a sport. Or it could be a longer activity like a vacation or focusing for a few weeks on your gardening or writing. Be mindful however of doing activities that bring rejuvenation rather than just distraction, for example the difference between watching a soul stirring movie, and watching 10 episodes of The Simpsons.

3. Explore new options: Give your imagination time to explore that is beyond the horizon. Gurdjieff, a Russian thought leader (1866-1949) once suggested that within each person is a committee of voices. Sometimes that committee is in harmony, sometimes not. If you have spent 20 years being a parent some members of your committee may have had to be overruled. For example, if you are recently an “empty nester” chances are those more silent committee members are now voicing their interests. Exploring new options means focusing your attention on areas of your life that may have been ignoring, or welcoming in new inspirations or new committee members who have something valuable to contribute to your next phase of life.

If you would like a process to help you explore new options feel free to check out The Art of Reinvention. It is a 19-page white paper that allows you to explore the next phase of your life from various angles. It only takes about an hour to complete and can be surprisingly rejuvenating, insightful and can help you more quickly usher in the Spring.

I would love to continue this conversation with you. Feel free to post comments, insights, or questions below.

Thank you and best of luck with your reinvention!
In Friendship
Carla

- David Whyte, poet

People are reinventing themselves at a rate never before seen in history

Did you know that, according to the U.S. Department of Labour, many of the most in demand careers today didn’t even exist 6 years ago? Did you also know that the average person changes their role within an organization at least 4 times? People also change their career at least 6 times, their homes at least 12 times and their long term relationships at least 3 times in a lifetime.

In short, people are reinventing themselves at a rate never before seen in history–and it is growing exponentially. As the world changes, the way you belong to the world keeps changing, too. Yet, few of us have had a role model for reinventing ourselves over and over again. Just a generation or two ago people tended to stay in the same job, career, home, and relationship their entire life.

As a result, there exists a huge proportion of people perpetually in transition and entirely challenged about how to deal with it. Transitions are especially uncomfortable when you are between two worlds. You can’t go back to the old, but you haven’t yet found your way with the new. It’s like the winter of change when the old harvest is now gone and the new one needs time before it can manifest.

The winter of change can feel barren and cold

In this stage you can feel lost, lethargic; maybe not even wanting to get out of bed in the morning. Some people even feel like they no longer connect to a meaning for their life, and many things they used to enjoy are now feeling pointless. These are normal experiences during the winter season of your creative life. While it may be summer outside, it can feel like winter inside. Many people think that there is something wrong with them during this phase. Yet it is actually a very important phase of the reinvention process in a person’s life and to ignore it or to anaesthetize it can mean that you miss out on the next harvesting of your life journey.

There are cycles in everyone’s life when it feels barren, like nothing is happening, like the great harvest you experienced before in your life will never happen again. During this state of mind a subterranean part of your psyche is replenishing itself and getting you ready for what’s next. This is the time in your cycle of growth when you need the most support and the time you’re least likely to ask for it.

Carl Jung great thought-leader in the field of psychology, once said: “Depression is often the empty stillness which precedes creative work.” Once you realize this it can create a sense of safety to just be okay with the barrenness of this winter of change in your life. In fact, for some people this reframe alone can make it sometimes a fascinating rather than only an uncomfortable process.

People often enter the winter of change after they have achieved their goal

This state of mind can happen soon after you retire, even if you had been looking forward to your retirement for years. It can happen after your children leave home, even if you were looking forward to finally freeing up your energy from all those years of parenting. Or even more surprisingly after a great success in your life. If you had been working for years to achieve a certain level of career success and then you finally achieve it, there can be an odd sense of purposelessness when it’s over that can usher you into a winter of your creative cycle.

This happened for me about 14 years ago after I’d spent 5 years building my career as an inspirational speaker. I had achieved my dream and I was speaking at huge sales rallies across the continent. I was being flown around and put up in five-star hotels. After the last in a series of presentations had completed I remember going back to my hotel room and instead of feeling elated I felt strangely depressed. I felt as if whatever I was seeking all those years was not worth it or that somehow this dream I was chasing wasn’t giving me what I was actually looking for.

This was the beginning of two years of a barren winter in my life in which I no longer wanted to do this career, and didn’t have the motivation or interest to create anything new. It was a frightening time for me because I knew nothing about this natural time of barrenness that people experience cyclically in their lives. I was afraid that I would stay in this state forever. It took a toll on my health, my relationships and of course my income. The only thing I seemed interested in doing was journaling and walking in nature which in retrospect was exactly what I needed to be doing. I was discovering a new purpose that wanted to be born into my life.

What took so long for me to get through this process was that I didn’t want to let go of the old identity because it was familiar, I knew how to make it work and I was  attached to the social approval I received for this kind of work, not to mention the income and sense of security that provided. Yet, trying to hold on was actually creating more problems in my life.

When I finally let go of my old identity and let myself go into the dark and the unknown I started to discover amazing things, parts of myself that wanted expression. The truth was that I didn’t need to change what I was doing but how I was doing it. Through this 2 years I created a process that I now share with people so they don’t have to go through two years of being lost, confused and resistant to this winter of change. I have been working with people and perfecting the system ever since.

The Art of Reinvention process for getting through to Spring

The Art of Reinvention process helps you move through this period of time more quickly, with ease and grace, and it helps you reframe this process so that you suffer less and enjoy it for what it is. A process like this can also help you avoid the pitfalls that often happen during the winter of change – for example addictive behaviors, creating drama, relationship breakdowns, health issues, financial issues.

This process is useful for anyone who is in transition, having left behind:

• a job or career (e.g. being a supervisor or running a business)
• a relationship  (e.g. losing a friend, or going through a divorce)
• a role (e.g. being a parent, or being a volunteer)
• an identity (e.g. being single, being in your 40s)

And it’s especially helpful if you haven’t gotten clear about what is next, or more importantly how you want do what’s next in your life. Check out The Art of Reinvention process here. It is an easy-to-use, step-by-step process to help you explore the themes of the next chapter of your life.

And just remember, it takes courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful for you. There is actually more security in taking an adventure into the new, because in movement there is life and vitality again.

God, grant me the ability to be as good of a person as my dog thinks I am. – Anon

In a previous blog post we explored The 7 Mistakes Change Leaders Make, and how mistakes are necessary to actually develop success habits. Using the metaphor of the growing cycle we explored Mistake #1 which is Planting Your Idea in Barren Soil. Then we looked at mistake #2 which was Choosing the Wrong Kind of Idea Seed. The 3^rd mistake many change leaders make is to not watering or fertilizing your idea enough.

Linda wanted to help address exhaustion and tension at work. There was a bad “vibe” ever since the latest project went overtime and over budget. While a problem solving meeting had helped, she knew people needed something that buoyed their spirits but that didn’t take much time or money.

She had heard about the simple idea of creating fun contests that would run in the organization’s online newsletter. She went to her boss and shared stories of other companies that did a baby picture contest and a cartoon caption contest and how it improved the mood at work, enhanced relationships between people, and sparked creative thinking. Her boss reluctantly agreed as long as it didn’t pull too much focus from their deadlines.

The pilot project included asking people to send Linda a photo of their pet for a contest in which everyone was then invited to guess who the owner was. Within half an hour Linda was inundated with photos of Portuguese Water Dogs, Persian cats, and love birds. One staff member complained that she wanted to participate in the contest but didn’t own a pet due to allergies. They decided instead that she would send a photo of her favourite Boston fern.

The next week the photos went out to all the staff with a deadline. By Friday, you had to guess the owner. The person with the most correct answers would receive a $75 gift certificate to a nearby restaurant. The restaurant owner had gladly donated the prize. The contest entries came through in droves and one man in accounting got all but four answers correct. He took his two colleagues out for lunch the next week.

Linda’s boss was thrilled with the results of the contest because he saw people laughing again while they tried to trick people into divulging the type of pet they owned. He noticed two people who barely talked to each other were now comparing notes on the idiosyncrasies of Portuguese Water Dogs. Meetings had a more light-hearted atmosphere, ideas about dealing with the project seemed more innovative than before, and less people seemed to be showing up late or calling in sick.

Linda got the green light to do a new contest each month. The only problem was that sometimes people attracted to leading change are not the same type of people who like to maintain the change. Change Artists are those who can do both or at least delegate to and steward those who will maintain it. Linda was enthused about the pilot project, but lost enthusiasm when it came to the on-going “watering and fertilizing” of her change initiative. The next month’s contest was to name the organization’s mascot (a wind up pig that grunted), which was successful, but not as successful as the first one. She skipped the third one because her idea ended up seeming too complicated. The fourth contest didn’t seem to appeal to people, and so by the fifth month she dropped the project.

Linda overhead one day, though, that people were disappointed that there were no longer any contests. She realized that she needed to delegate the on-going maintenance of this idea to someone who liked maintenance. She asked four people with that personality style and one of them agreed to take it on for the next 3 months. Walter in IT made the whole project take off again because he was already handling the “news” section of the organization’s web site, so it was easy for him to do. He elicited suggestions from staff and searched the web for new contests ideas. He made sure others helped him during busy months. And generally, he enjoyed the monthly attention to detail and the joy it seemed to bring people. After five years this organization still does about 10 contests a year. The role of contest maintenance has been passed along gleefully several times to people who enjoy this kind of task, and thus the spirit and purpose of the original idea stays well nourished.

The “Inner Game” of Time Management

Whenever I survey individuals and organizations on their top three challenges at work, I almost always hear that there is too much to do and not enough time. And I’ve heard the same thing for the last 20 years. Even with all the brilliant time management systems out there, even with all the highly innovative and smart people doing the work, and even with all the time-saving technology available to us. It begs the question: “Is time management about doing something different or about being something different–or both?” My answer is that it’s both, but there has been an over focus on the outer game of time management and not enough on the inner game.

The Myth of Time Scarcity

Now I realize this is the antithesis of traditional time management, where it’s all about willing yourself to move faster, prioritizing and sticking to your agenda, etc. But if time management were only about what you do, then why do some people seem calm and centered and others seem flustered when faced with the same deadline?

Have you ever been waiting for an elevator and it seems to take an eternity, especially when you are in a hurry? Conversely, have you ever been on a vacation that was filled with amazing adventures and a month seems like a week? As Kermit the Frog once said, “Times flies when you’re having fun, and time’s also fun when you’re having flies.”

Looking at it from the big picture, clocks reduce time and make it finite. But what is time, but life itself? Time is actually your experience. By measuring time, it turns a succession of unique moments into a number and distances us from our subjective experience.

Lewis Mumford once said, “The clock, not the steam engine heralded the industrial age.” The more finely we measured time, first into hours, then minutes and seconds, the less we seem to have of it and the more the clock usurped sovereignty over our experience of life, until today when we are all — on the clock. Yet industry and business require a precise coordination of human activity. It’s hard to imagine how we could function in our organizations without the clock.

Can We Function in Society and Still Experience the Luxury of Being Unhurried?

This particular conundrum has been fascinating me lately. I grew up in the “hurry” family. I watched my parents race from one activity to the next, living under a sense of constant pressure. Naturally, I followed suit and lived my adult life this way, too. That is, of course, until reading the latest research on hormone imbalances–could it be motivated by the fear of hitting menopause without my hormones in balance? Aging — yet another reason to fear time

Some studies suggest that raised cortisol levels over extended periods of time cause hormone imbalances. Cortisol is a hormone your body produces when you are feeling hurried, inpatient, or overwhelmed, among other things. This requires the body to leech other hormones to regain balance, which eventually leads to long-term imbalances. Hormone imbalances in both men and women cause an enormous array of physical and mental problems that we are only beginning to be aware of.

To that end, over the last few years I decided to experiment with taking up to two months off every year so I could experience the luxury of an unhurried existence. The happiness, creative insights, health and well being I experienced were beyond belief. Yet, as soon as I came back to work I readopted the hurried state of mind. Finally, I asked myself and my clients, “Can we function in society and also experience the luxury of an unhurried existence?” I decided it was a worthy enough experiment, and have been surveying people and researching this topic ever since. Here is my summation of the top 2 ways to do that. For the 3rd best way view my previous blog post on Breathing:

1. Keep Things Handy for Idle Times

Make a list of regular activities that trigger you into feeling impatient. I used to get very impatient in traffic but then I realized I can use this time to be productive or get entertained. I decided to start listening to audio books. If I want a book now I go to a service like Audible to see if they have the book as an MP3. In fact, now I sometimes can hardly wait till I get to drive so I can listen to the next part of my book. Keep small things handy like your mp3 player, a book, or a notepad. Idle time can become brainstorming time. I often create a list of things I want to find a solution to. This could be a new business idea, a relationship problem I want to think through, thoughts about a new blog post or anything else that needs a good thought process. I brainstorm on all possible solutions, and choose my favourite idea and start action planning it.

2. Practice Letting Go Every Day

One of the most important skills you can ever learn is to let go of thoughts that don’t serve you. It will entirely change your life. As David Wagoner says in his wonderful poem, Lost: “What do you do when you’re lost in the forest? Stand still. The trees ahead, the bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here.” The point is that when you’re overwhelmed and lost, stand still. Back up to a place where you feel good, then you will begin to activate the neocortex. Usually when you feel hurried you are operating from the Reptilian Complex, where you are much less innovative, efficient, and able to focus.

Most of us treat time as a precious commodity in short supply. Time is precious, but it’s only scarce if you believe it is. Taking your time ironically lets you operate at a higher level of efficiency. So whenever you find yourself rushing try letting go of the belief in time scarcity and act as if you have all the time the world. Try it for 5 minutes and see what happens. The phenomenon may seem strange but here’s why it works so well. When you are rushing, chances are you are doing one thing while thinking about something else – like where you need to be, where you’d prefer to be. This kind of mental activity prevents us from being present with the job at hand. By actually becoming present, time seems to expand. It’s all in the experience.

If you find it hard to let go of unhelpful beliefs, check out the Sedona Method. It’s one of those easy things you can do anywhere, anytime, everyday. After a while a sense of time expansion can become your default way of being.

What very mysterious things days are. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever, yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. There’s quite a lot we don’t know about them. Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

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

If you’d like to help the people in your organization be better at the “inner game” of time management, give us a call at 1-866-294-2988 (1-604-222-2276). Or check out our web site for more tips and free articles.

Once that is done, now you are ready to plant the seed of your idea, which leads to another common mistake: choosing the wrong kind of seed. There are plenty of examples throughout history of “wrong seeds” being planted in fertile soil — in society, in organizations or within an individual. CBC TV is right now airing a documentary entitled Love, Hate and Propaganda, about leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini and how they manipulated a populace aching for change. Had their intentions been benevolent and focused on the common good, their ideas could have been sustainable. Unfortunately, they were planting the wrong kind of seed.

The Fast Ferry Scandal is another example of the wrong seed being planted in the right kind of soil. A major impetus for the program was in direct response to public complaints. Citizens wanted less waiting traffic and quicker transit times between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. The idea was planted in fertile soil, but the idea itself was flawed. The project had massive cost overruns and long delays. The ferries also created such a huge wake that shoreline eco-systems were being adversely affected. In the end, the ferries were sold for a fraction of their original price.

In contrast was Gandhi’s idea of a non-violent approach to attaining independence for India. Because it was the right kind “idea seed” it was both sustainable and led to other such successful approaches around the globe.  Another example was David Packard decades ago in the early days of Hewlett-Packard. In an era when bosses dwelt in mahogany-paneled sanctums, Packard took an open-door workspace among his engineers. He practiced what would become famous as “management by walking around.” Most radical of all for the time, he shared equity and profits with all employees. This seed of a great management idea ended up effusing the spirit of Silicon Valley even to this day.

Sometimes, however, the wrong seed can be transformed into the right one. An organization I worked with needed a culture change. They wanted to turn around a habit of complaining amongst staff. In response, the director of one department made it mandatory that staff only comment on what was good, what was working, and what they appreciate about any idea or project. What happened was that negative comments went underground and grew toxic. It was the wrong kind of solution. I helped them alter it. We decided to safely allow staff to comment in both negative and positive ways. They were encouraged however, to express negative comments in terms of what’s they’d like to see instead so that it was a solution-focused comment. This made all the difference to the idea “sticking” and an effective bottom-up communication process that improved all aspects of the department.

The metaphor of the growing cycle, is a useful one for change leaders. Creating fertile soil is your first task towards ensuring the seed of your idea can thrive. Have you broken down the old fears, learned from them, and therefore created a rich and “alive” environment that invites excitement?

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.

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

1) Planting your idea in barren soil
2) Planting the wrong kind of seed
3) Not enough watering and fertilization
4) No stays
5) Letting the bugs and weeds take over
6) Lack of pruning
7) Letting it go to seed

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 trying to plant your seed of change in barren soil. Another way to look at it 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?

If decision makers in your organization have an unresolved trauma around change, then you will need to address this before you propose a growth tactic. While some amount of protection is useful to ensure survival, a large number of organizations have allocated most of their resources in that direction since the economic downturn. You can also see this phenomenon play out at the national level when a country overspends on defense and under-spends on areas that could help society grow such as the arts, research, education and social programs.

What is the mind set governing your organization?

The first step to this process is to get into the habit of testing the soil into which you want to plant your seed of change. It must have the right Ph balance of protection versus growth. Individuals must also maintain the right Ph balance in order to stay healthy. Think of the last time you felt stressed. It was probably because you perceived that your “safety” was at stake. The brain will more exclusively operate from the Reptilian Complex, or the fight or flight brain, not just when you feel physically at risk but also when you risk losing anything you care about: job, relationship; reputation, income, comfort, security, pride, etc. While in this state of mind your body will focus the majority of resources on surviving; running away or fighting. You have thus lost resources normally used for maintaining your immune system or for healing or detoxifying the body. If you stay in that fight or flight state for too long then you will likely experience some kind of disease.

Symptoms of organizational dis-ease

Similarly if an organization (or the collective energy of the individuals within it) perceive that its “safety” is at risk for too long then disease can set in. Organizational disease can take the form of customer complaints, office politics, system break downs, or employee attrition. Organizational dis-ease (or lack of ease) can then beget more disease as resources must be used to cover for people who are ill, to find a replacement for someone who quits, to mediate office politics, or to recover from a customer complaint. Boosting your organization’s “immune system” by balancing protection with growth can make all the difference. This allows more resources for areas such as system upgrades, team building, adding new positions, market research or product development. The first step is to uncover the underlying mind set governing your organization or company. Ask yourself right now: what is the balance between protection versus growth?

Two different perceptions of the same situation

It’s easy to see that you could choose a different perception by looking at how two different people react to the same situation. One person may perceive a move from one building to another as a horrible discomfort causing them sleepless nights. This perception came from a decision they probably made sometime in the past and which now colors their possible future. These decisions can always be changed. Another person might see the same move as an opportunity to de-clutter their work area, get to know new people, and be refreshed by a change of environment. What we perceive affects our experience which in turn affects our biology, which in turn affects our performance, and by association those we work with and those our organization serves. In further blog posts I will explore some of the more popular methods of re-mapping your brain around change–or making new decisions that will create less stressful perceptions.

Case Study: W.L. Gore & Associates

Here is a short case study about a company that has a good balance between protection and growth. After rigorous evaluation Fast Company magazine finally voted W.L. Gore & Associates as the most innovative company in America a few years back. You’ve no doubt heard of its most famous product: Gore-Tex fabrics, which have a transparent plastic coating that makes them waterproof and windproof but keeps them breathable. They also make over 1000 different other products such as synthetic blood vessels, Glide dental floss, the first floss that resisted shredding, and the Elixir guitar strings, which last five times longer than normal strings.

Gore is known for being as innovative in its operating principles as it is in its diverse product lines. For example, they create sustainable growth by making people feel safe to take risks. Since they are a privately owned company they don’t have to report their quarterly earnings, thus they happily allocate 10% of their resources to new initiatives and allow anyone in the company who wants to try a new initiative a generous amount of resources to develop it. Of course, some of those initiatives fail, but they expect that. And, when Gore people pull the plug on a failing initiative, they’ll still have a “celebration” with beer or champagne, just as they would if it had been a success. Because they know that lowers stress and validates trying new things and thus helps the whole company continue to grow.

What if I don’t work for a company with that kind of value system?

You may be asking “What if I don’t work for a company with that kind of mind set or value system—what can I do?” You don’t need to be the head of a company to influence these kinds of changes. The Change Artist Principles is designed to help people at any level of an organization see ways to make a difference. Stay tuned for further posts.

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 using the metaphor of the growing cycle.

1) Planting your idea in barren soil
2) Planting the wrong kind of seed
3) Not enough watering and fertilization
4) No stays
5) Letting the bugs and weeds take over
6) Lack of pruning
7) Letting it go to seed

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

For example, I gave a presentation at a conference and after driving for 30 minutes, realized I left my purse in a public washroom at the conference. At first my thoughts were constructive. “I better turn around and go back. I better call the conference organizer”. These were actions I could take at that moment. However, when I discovered the organizer had gone home, and when I found myself locked in rush hour traffic, my thoughts began to darken. I watched my mind create increasingly worse scenarios. “I won’t find my purse, I’ll have to get new ID, I won’t be able to go on my trip tomorrow, someone will buy a Winnabago with my VISA card”. I became very bad tempered and anxious.

At one point, I realized that it made no sense to ruminate about “what if’s” because there was no action I could take yet. I started listening to Stuart MacLean’s Vinyl Café. After laughing through a story or two, the adrenaline eased off. I arrived at the conference center 30 minutes later to find the janitor had picked up my bag and was holding it for me, everything intact.

Worry is a mental parasite

Worry thoughts are like parasites that want you as their host. A worry thought convinces you it is your friend, that without it you would die or be a bag person with no legs, one eye, and a stock portfolio worth 2% of its original value. Worry thoughts fly through the stratosphere at millions of bytes per second. You can download them any time, anywhere, at no cost.

Beware of the Law of Attraction

This Law states that our negative thoughts attract negativity, and our positive thoughts attract positives to us. Therefore, if you spend time worrying about not having enough money, over time you are training your mind to not have enough money. In other words, what you resist persists. It makes more sense to spend your thought time in joyful, positive ways. After all, life is short.

How do you actually change your focus?

If you have ever spent a sleepless night worrying, you know that actually changing your focus can be difficult. You can download joy thoughts just like worry thoughts, but they tend to be more elusive. They are like flower seeds that must push up through all the dark matter in order to thrive. The proportion of worry thoughts to joy thoughts floating around at our present time in history is probably about ten to one. That is why it is so easy to get caught like a freeway commuter at quarter past five. Ridding yourself of the worry parasite requires a commitment to a habit. Here are some tried and true habits for daily Mental Flossing.

1. Refuse to download

Have you ever been assaulted by a pop up window asking you to download something? Worry thoughts are like pop-ups. You can simply click NO.

2. Observe and label

Okay. You got sucked in. You downloaded and the worry parasite has taken hold. Notice that you let it happen. This “observer” state can often help you detach and eventually delete the thought.

3. Do a reversal

What is the opposite of the worry thought? “What if my work isn’t good enough?” becomes “What if my work is excellent?” Or, “I might be late” becomes “I might be on time.” Just like trying on clothes in a store, decide to take off the worry thought, and try on a positive one instead. See how it feels.

4. Laugh about it

Laughter is THE cerebral laxative. It can purge you of unwanted thought matter. I remember racing through Vancouver Airport barely holding onto my wardrobe bag, computer bag and boarding pass. I came whizzing around the corner and saw a bronze statue of a man racing through the airport barely holding onto a wardrobe bag, computer bag and boarding pass. I suddenly saw myself from the outside and had to laugh. I walked the rest of the way to my gate resigned to whatever fate awaited me. Once there I discovered my flight was delayed 20 minutes. Look at yourself from an outside perspective and remember that “Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused.”

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

5 Ways to Mess Up your Office Party

Mistake #1 – Throwing it together at the last minute

Too often, planning the Holiday party ends up in the InBox of the busiest person and it gets thrown together at the last minute. We heard one story in which staff received one day’s notice for the event. They arrived to find an exhausted support staffer racing to put out a Box of Yellow Tail Wine and a bucket of KFC.

Mistake #2 – Un-Inclusiveness

A woman who worked at an insurance company told us that they received a group email like this (no joke): “Christmas Party tomorrow at 3 p.m. All staff attending MUST wear the reindeer ears supplied at the door. For those people who don’t celebrate Christmas you will be required to cover for everyone else. Please don’t invite kids or significant others, as we won’t have enough food or refreshments.”

Mistake #3 – Seating for Silos

Every year a municipal government office has an end-of-the-year party in which food and drink is laid out at round tables of 6 people. The meeting planner complained to us that people just sit with their regular office buddies and make fun of people they don’t like in other departments.

Mistake #4 – Alcohol Free-for-All

One of the most common mistakes we hear about are organizations that have an open bar. People get drunk and then do and say things that end up on Facebook. We heard of one individual that arrived hung over the next morning at work and was entirely surprised to discover he no longer had a job.

Mistake #5 – No Community Building

Too often we hear people say they dread going to the Holiday Office party. It’s boring or uncomfortable and they are just there out of obligation.

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

5 Ways to Amp Up your Office Party

In case you aren’t interested in the possible side effects of the above, here are some tried-and-true approaches to ensuring an enjoyable event.

1. Creating a planning committee

Spread the organizing over several people who enjoy this kind of thing. Ensure there is enough planning time and a big enough budget. However, do survey what employees would most enjoy. In general, people enjoy events where they feel inspired, included and appreciated. Remember — substance is more important than flash. With some creativity you can do a lot on a little.

1. Being inclusive

A Christmas party may alienate some of your staff. If people are from diverse backgrounds, have a more generic Holiday party. If you have an office party during the day, make sure everyone can attend. Do invite significant others and children for at least one office party a year.

1. Helping them mix

Your company party may be the only time people get to meet the president, CEO or VPs in person, or people from other departments or locations. Make sure people don’t spend the entire event with their regular office buddies. Enhancing workplace relationships at all levels can create an invisible web of goodwill that can positively affect the bottom line, communication, enjoyment and overall morale.

1. Eat, drink and be merry — in moderation

If you serve alcohol make sure you serve food at the same time. Include plenty of non-alcoholic drinks and healthy food options along with the usual treats. If people overdo it they may associate your party with negative feelings about what they did or said, or how they felt the next day. Provide other forms of “social lubricant” such as interactive mixers.

1. Hiring a pro

To create the right atmosphere you might like to hire a professional speaker (like Carla J) who can ice break the group and get people laughing and learning some great ways to handle the stress of the holiday season. Just remember, that laughter is the shortest distance between two people.

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

Carla Rieger offers a one hour program on Team Play that is perfect for a Holiday office event. She gets people interacting in a non-threatening, enjoyable ways while learning some important ways to stay centered during the Holiday Season. Call us 1-866-294-2988 or email: carla@artistryofchange.com.