Learning how to learn: The infinite pattern

2020 is already becoming the most challenging year most people have ever experienced. Rather than fill your newsfeed with strategies to ‘Lead through uncertainty’ or ‘manage your team via zoom’, I wanted to share what I learned in 2005, 15 years ago. Joseph Campbell’s work on the Hero’s journey inspired me to create the infinite pattern which I’ve used to recount my experience.

1)      The Call to learn (January 2005)

I’d worked my arse off to get accepted into the honours year for my bachelors in Psychology. I spent most of my first-year and second-year at university trying to figure out what I wanted to study, but by the time I found psychology, I’d already racked up a few fails on my academic transcript. By third-year, things were getting more serious and I’d decided I wanted to apply myself. I hadn’t considered doing honours but one of my mentors at the time suggested that I should at least try. The odds were stacked against me but with a bit of hard work, I slogged it out and got accepted. I’d also managed to score a place with one of the most sought after supervisors so I had a lot to be happy about. By mid-January, I was already conducting experiments on learning and memory using  Rats in a Morris water maze. Things were going brilliantly for me…I finally felt like everything was falling into place. Toward the end of January, things started to go awry. Firstly, the month worth of experiments and training that I’d been doing turned out to be a dead end. I had to change direction for my honours thesis which added a bit of time pressure to what is already an intense year. To add to that pressure, my wife announced that she was pregnant!

2)      Finding my mentor (March 2005)

To make ends meet, I was working two jobs at the time. I was selling laptops and printers at Officeworks by night and running experiments in a neuroscience lab for the rest of the time. I was walking around in a daze, pretending that my wife wasn’t really pregnant and that somehow there had been a mistake. By the end of March, it was official. She’d hit the 12-week mark so we were going to have this baby. For me….shit got real. I wasn’t ready to have a kid…. I was pretty much a kid myself. I’d only just figured out what I wanted to study. My first reactive thought was to defer doing my honours so I could focus on working to make enough money to support my family in a responsible way. Interestingly, none of the academics that I spoke to at university advised against this option so I made a call to defer my studies and ‘do the right thing’. When I told my boss at Officeworks what was going on and that I needed to work full-time, in the nicest possible way, he rejected my plea for help. He told me that the best thing I could do for myself and my family was push through and finish my studies. In other words, toughen the f**K up! It wasn’t what I wanted to hear but somehow, I knew he was right.

3)      Crossing the threshold (May 2005)

By now, I was deep into my honours thesis and all of the rigamarole that goes with it. I was also reading the ‘bible’ for parents to be, What to expect when you’re expecting, getting more anxious about being a dad by the second. The more I knew, the more anxious I became. That was until someone told me that nobody has the perfect formula for kids and you won’t know what you need to do until you need to do it. They then added that once you think you’ve got it all figured out, it all falls apart and you have to try something different. While frustrating and annoying, this was exactly what I needed to hear. It enabled me to cross the threshold between what I know and enter the realm of the unknown. For a few months, I was focussed, supportive (so I thought), open, and felt a little bit excited about being a dad. Then, shit hit the fan.

4)      Facing challenge (August 2005)

Following a routine visit to the doctor, my wife was put on bed rest due to the risk of our baby being born 2 months premature. On the 20th August, our son was born 6 weeks early and weighed about 1.6kg (that’s about half what a healthy full-term baby weighs). Needless to say, my honours thesis was an afterthought once he was born. My wife and I were visiting the hospital every day because he was too little to bring home. He was being fed through a tube, stuck inside a humid-i-crib with only short times where we were allowed to cuddle. It was one of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had. I wanted to love and protect this little human that I’d brought into the world but was completely dependent on the nurses and doctors to look after him. After two months of visiting the hospital every day, feeding him through a tube and tracking his daily growth on a chart we could finally take him home.

5)      Overcoming Self (October 2005)

There wasn’t a person in the world that judged me for putting all of my focus on my son. Despite all of that, my non-existent honours thesis was gathering metaphorical dust on an imaginary shelf. The due date was looming and I was preparing myself to face the cold hard truth that I’d failed. When I spoke with the honours coordinator about options I was advised it was too late to pull out without failing but it wasn’t too late to submit my thesis. If however, I was planning on submitting my thesis, I needed to honour the faculty rule that no theses get marked until everybody (who indicates they will hand their thesis in) hands in their final thesis. I wanted to give up as I honestly thought failure was inevitable. I had more than a handful of people provide me with the ‘out’ I was looking for which entailed pulling up stumps. My wife, however, refused to accept my defeat. She shared with me exactly what she needed to share and it changed my perspective forever. In many ways, the words she used broke all the rules of diplomacy and it certainly wasn’t a message delivered with eloquence. Regardless, she gave me a proverbial kick up the arse that I needed to screw my head back on and get the job done. After one week, approximately 210 cups of tea, a minor case of deep vein thrombosis, some very generous help from my supervisor, and some mild hallucination due to lack of sleep, I handed in my thesis one week past the due date. In handing in that thesis, I’d conquered myself and all that I knew was possible.

6)      Consolidate (November 2005)

After the intensity of the year that was 2005, I forgot to mention that we were also planning our wedding. With the Christmas holiday period came an opportunity to regather myself and find my groove as a dad (as awkward as I was). My memory is a bit shady, but I’m pretty certain it involved lots of nappies, sleepless nights, and the odd moment of bliss to remind me that it was all worthwhile. I went to visit my supervisor to thank him for his support through what had been a very challenging time. By that stage, I also found out that I’d received a 79 for my honour thesis which I was extremely happy about. When I boastfully commented on my mark, my supervisor agreed that is was a good result. He then said, “You got a good mark but you didn’t learn as much as you could have”. Once again, while I didn’t like what I was hearing, I knew exactly what he meant and I agreed with him. There were too many instances where I took the easy road, the popular choice or the responsible path. Too often I chose to stay stuck in the ‘known’ rather than venture into the unknown.

7)      Teaching Others (January 2006)

It was a small wedding, close friends and family held in my uncle’s backyard. I think our largest expense was a rental car for the week and flights to Melbourne. Somehow, the simplicity of the day, the people and the ceremony highlighted what was most important. All my fears that came with being a new dad, our son being born early, potentially failing my honours year and toying with becoming a full-time employee at Officeworks (no disrespect to the role), were opportunities to learn how to learn.

Fig 1. Infinite Pattern of Learning.

The infinite pattern

Like that crazy year in 2005, I’ve had a few doozies since. So far, 2020 is certainly up there when it comes to rank-ordering the most challenging. Whenever I’m feeling like things are tough, or I don’t know what’s going to happen, I draw strength from that time in my life when the only way to know how to proceed was to let go of what I knew. To embrace the unknown, as paradoxical as it sounds, enabled me to face the necessary challenges to get over myself. Having since worked with thousands of people to overcome challenges I’ve recognised that this pattern isn’t unique to me. Rather, it’s a pattern we all follow when we learn how to learn through life. Some call it the school of hard knocks. Others see it as bad luck. I see it as an infinite pattern of learning we all experience over and over again. If you navigate life with an awareness of this pattern, it won’t necessarily make it easy but will make your experiences more meaningful. Ask yourself right now…Where are you in the infinite pattern? Are you stuck in the known? Have you ‘crossed the threshold’ into the unknown yet? What’s your next ‘call to learn’?

If you’re keen to learn more, contact me at Joe@joehart.com.au or visit my website at joehart.com.au

The Truth Hurts: Moving out of Blissful Ignorance

‘Truth’, is something that philosophers and psychologists have been debating for millennia and will most likely still be debating it for millennia to come. I too have been seduced by the concept of truth for my whole life…particularly the paradox of truth. By this I mean, how being honest or truthful often translates into the end of a relationship, conflict at work, or an identity crisis, or the uncovering of something you wish you could unlearn! If being honest or truthful carries with it the foundation of integrity, why does it lead to so much challenge? The answer, which I believe to be true (see what I did there!), lies in perspective.

For example, self-awareness is characterised as one’s ability to align actions with one’s own internal values or standards. Additionally, someone who is highly self-aware will be able to objectively evaluate themselves and correctly understand how they are perceived by others.  Based on the above definition, I want you to rate yourself using the following scale. See fig 1.

Fig 1. Self Awareness Scale. Please rate yourself on a scale of 0 to 10 using the statements on either end of the scale to guide your responses. To calculate your overall Self Awareness, simply average all ratings out of 10.

Without knowing you, your aspirations, values, personality type, sexual preferences or IQ, I can confidently assume that your self-rating landed between 5 and 8 out of 10. The reason for this is due to a cognitive bias explained by the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is the tendency to overestimate our ability particularly when our ability is low. This can show up in all areas of our lives like our driving, intelligence, athleticism, and attractiveness just to name a few. Our ability to see ourselves in truth i.e. our actual ability, capability, intelligence, athleticism or awareness is masked by our cognitive biases. While having an inflated sense of your ability to sing or play tennis on the weekend comes with very little consequence for our success in life (unless you’ve chosen to be a professional singer or tennis player) there are other areas where the impact on results come at a far greater cost.

In the context of leadership, be it self-leadership, team leadership or leading an entire organisation, self-awareness is a critical ability for any leader to master. Moreover, self-awareness is arguably one of the most important skills for anyone to master regardless of their leadership level. In my work with people as an Organisational Psychologist, there are three questions I’ve spent much of my working life trying to answer. 1) What makes some people more self-aware than others?  2) Is it possible for anyone to enhance their self-awareness or become more self-aware? 3) Does increasing a person’s self-awareness translate to positive results in a business context?

The answer, thus far, to the first two questions comes down to a person’s ability to acquire, accept, and actualise feedback. While there are differences in self-awareness based on IQ and personality factors, the differences are not meaningful. Through experience, we gain or lose confidence which tends to affect our level of self-awareness. If we show up with an inflated sense of confidence, our actual ability won’t correlate (blissfully ignorant). Conversely, if we have a wealth of experience our confidence will likely be high and correlate significantly with our actual ability (Consciously masterful). See fig 2.

Fig 2. The relationship between Confidence and Actual Performance. Joe Hart 2020.

The process of maintaining or developing a supreme level of self-awareness requires the same three components. 1) To acquire feedback from those you deal with. 2) Accept the feedback as a valid perspective to be considered. 3) To put into action or Actualise the feedback you have received. While this three-part formula appears intuitive and simple, don’t be deceived. Each component requires large doses of curiosity, humility, and courage. We all like to think we are better than we are and to be honest, it’s an ego affirming state-of-mind. I’ve often had challenging conversations with leaders followed by them stating “thanks for letting me know…but I think I preferred being blissfully ignorant”. I too have personally faced the dilemma of gaining self-awareness to only create a desire to turn the clock back to revert to blissful ignorance. The reason why blissful ignorance is so appealing is that it takes no effort, it feeds on our laziness and reinforces that we don’t need to do anything. Equally, conscious mastery can only be achieved through a relentlessly iterative process of lessons learned, application of knowledge, experimentation and above all…hard work. Given the choice, most people will opt for the chronic but bearable dull ache that comes with never achieving one’s potential rather than the acutely painful experiences that equate to personal growth. What’s more interesting is if asked what’s more important, most people will acknowledge that personal growth rates higher on the life fulfilment scale than coasting through life without significant challenge. On this last point, we can begin to answer the third question; Does increasing self-awareness translate to positive results in a business context?

My answer is no, not by itself. I have numerous examples of people that I have coached that one could argue have increased their self-awareness remarkably over a relatively short period. Despite their new-found insight, they harboured no strong desire to accept nor actualise the feedback they had received. When this occurs, sadly but not surprisingly, their performance in a business context usually decreases. To understand this, I look at the concept of employee surveys usually run by Human Resources to provide a snapshot of how people are feeling. If the organisation seeks feedback (acquires) but does not accept or actualise the results. The response from employees is usually one of “why did I bother wasting my time doing that survey if they aren’t going to do anything”.

Applying this same insight to a leader seeking feedback to improve, if they do nothing with the feedback, those involved in providing their perspective will begin to wonder why they bothered or if the leader even wanted to change in the first place. Even more simply put, it takes more than just asking for feedback to improve. You need to do something with the perspective you are given.

What then is Truth?

Truth is found through the process of acquiring, accepting and actualising the perspective that others provide you. This true perspective you receive is only half the battle…it’s what you do with that perspective that leads to results. This same truth applies to improvement in every aspect of who we are and what we do. Whether it be a karate grading, writing a book, submitting a tender for a large piece of work, a final exam, an audition for the lead role, a job interview, or even receiving treatment for a life-threatening disease, these tests all carry the same truth. They are all hard work. They all require you to step outside of yourself and truly see yourself as you are. To grow, expand and achieve results, first requires you to see yourself the way the rest of the world sees you. Only from this ‘True Perspective’ are you able to lead with the truth.

Working with me
If you’d like to learn more about how I can help you, your team or somebody within your organisation with self-awareness, complete the form below and I’ll be in touch.

What’s really derailing you?

Right now, you and most of your colleagues are reflecting on 2019 and planning for 2020. Some go through a rigorous process of mapping out the year, setting goals, and create a clear execution plan. Others like to be a little gentler on themselves and make a pact with themselves about what they are going to do differently so they don’t suffer the same sort of fate that 2019 served up. This planning can involve personal, work or a combination of both priorities. While I think whatever process you use is totally fine, and the idea of readying yourself for the year to come is also an excellent mindset too often I see people thrusting themselves into inevitable failure. How do I know? I’ve done it myself…repeatedly.

For example, when I was at university, I had a tendency to spend a whole lot of time setting up structure and systems at the start of the first semester of the year to ensure that I was organised. I’d diligently study and do all my extra reading. By mid-term, my enthusiasm was waning, just when all of the important assignments were being issued. I’d put loads of work into researching and coming up with great ideas but didn’t like putting it all down on paper until it was ‘really good’. I’d rarely hand an assignment in late but would usually submit something that was more like a 2nd draft than a finished product. The result of all of this was usually a comment on my paper that it lacked polish and seemed incomplete. My pattern in this situation was to over-engineer the structure, research and content of my assignment. I feared to hand in a sub-standard paper that didn’t have any real substance or depth of thinking beneath it. When it came to finishing it off, I lacked clarity in my thinking and because I was exhausted my commitment to quality dropped off. The outcome was mediocre results, a credit at best.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know my pattern for at least a decade after I left university. Now, I approach assignments with much less structure or research in the beginning. I start conceptually and build it out from there. This enables me to be far more productive and less attached to one idea.  I can easily pivot from one idea to the next because my focus is not to finesse my idea to perfection before I write anything. It’s more about blurting out everything onto paper and finessing it iteratively. The irony with this is my initial desire to be conscientious and quality focussed created a pattern of behaviour that caused the exact opposite. Often, what we think is the problem e.g procrastination, lack of structure, discipline, is not the issue at all. You need to look deeper than the obvious to identify the real pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving that is derailing you.

If you want to identify the underlying pattern that is hidden under the vale of well-intentioned action plans, lofty personal goals, and vague commitments to changing something read on

Warning! None of this will work if you aren’t really honest with yourself. At this point, I’m going to require you to stop the bullshit, quit pretending, and give yourself some tough love.

1)      Name your Mindset: Don’t overthink this. Just give it a word such as Open, Curious, Excited, fixed, growth-oriented, never-give-up etc. For the example above regarding me at university, my mindset was best summed up at fear of failure. Remember this is not an exercise in determining what you want, it’s about identifying the pattern you carry. You may not like what you write down and that’s usually a good sign you are being honest. Awareness is what we are trying to achieve here so persevere with this task at hand

2)      Know your interpretation: This one is a little trickier as it requires you to step outside yourself for a minute. I’ve previously written about perspective-taking in my article ‘ five perspectives’ if you want some more info on the topic. Ultimately, you need to see how you are interpreting what is happening around you. In relation to my university example, my interpretation was that I would fail if I didn’t have a really structured approach to my study, my assignments, my reading etc. My interpretation; structure and discipline necessary for success, both of which I felt I was incredibly deficient in. I could do it….but it was like pulling teeth, drained all of my energy, and wasn’t sustainable for the entire semester.

3)      Evaluate your environment: When I speak of the environment, I am talking of both the physical and the emotional environments that you create. I would often study at home which offered certain amounts of freedom but was isolating and was easier to get distracted. Doing my work in the library or labs at university was much more focussed and efficient but usually my last choice (my interpretation of structure and discipline involved me isolating myself to avoid distraction). My emotional environment was a harsh landscape, made harsher by the self-inflicted ostracism. I’d punish myself with gruelling study sessions and force myself to relisten to lectures that I didn’t fully grasp. It was a begrudging exercise filled with resentment. This shroud of emotion was like a thick fog preventing me from seeing what was further than 10 metres in front of me. To put it bluntly, I was miserable….and I did it to myself.

Now that you’ve Named your Mindset, know your interpretation and evaluated your environment you need to understand how they are interacting to get to the story that’s driving your pattern. Here’s how you do it.

By downloading the worksheet or drawing your own, fill in the Mindset, Interpretation and Environment components. Now, your task is to name the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are created as a result of the overlapping elements. Below is my worked example based on my time at university.

Fig 1. Worked example- Pattern Recognition

Once you complete filling out each component, you’ll be able to pin it on the wall, step back and see your pattern more clearly. I like to draw a giant diagram on the wall using flip charts stuck together to give me more space. It also enables me to stand back and see the pattern on a large scale. Here’s where it all gets very interesting. If you superimpose the pattern that you identify onto other problems, scenarios and issues that you have in your life, you’ll most likely find that it’s applicable. This is a clue that you’ve correctly identified a recurring pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving. You can use this model to understand why your relationships aren’t working out, jobs keep disappointing you or life isn’t meeting your expectations.

My advice

Before you lock in your annual plan, make sure you understand the patterns that are driving your behaviour. If you don’t, you’re likely to be setting yourself up for a catastrophic and ironical failure. Just remember, how you think affects how you behave, and how you behave affects how you feel. As this cycle continues, it’s always your fault. If you find yourself looking for a silver bullet, someone to blame or an excuse to justify what happened, take a look in the mirror.

Do you know your pattern?

If I was to ask you above all else, what’s the most important thing you want to know about yourself…what would you say? Take a moment right now to reflect on an answer. The truth is, most people don’t know how to answer this question and simply say “I don’t know”.

Having asked this question of hundreds of leaders I’ve observed that with a little bit of thought, it’s not hard to come up with an answer. Some of the most common answers people give are:

• “to know if I’m leadership material”

• “to know if I have what it takes”

• “to know how people ‘really’ perceive me”

• “to know why I react in certain ways to certain people or events”

• “to know that I’m making a difference”

• “to know that I’m not a complete idiot or waste of time”

The common thread linking the above answers is to know that which you yourself cannot see. To know your own automatic, unconscious patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. To know your own pattern is to have what I call True perspective and it’s something you can’t achieve alone. To know your pattern is like having a map to a secret treasure that contains all the riches you’d ever need. Indeed, knowing your pattern is the greatest gift you’ll ever receive, should you be willing to receive it. Sometimes, we may think we are aware of our patterns where in fact, we are just observing the familiar outcomes associated with them.  Below are a couple of frequently occurring examples of people focussing on the undesirable outcome, not the pattern that underpins how they got there.

Example 1:  The leader that believes that their team is not delivering to level that they expect. Their assumption is that they have the wrong people in the team. Their pattern, however, is to not clearly articulate what they expect from their team and each member within it. Without clear expectations, the staff become confused, misaligned, and reactive. Dysfunction follows, fears sets in, team members are let-go and the cycle continues when new people come on board.

Example 2: The team member that is overworked, doesn’t have any time for themselves and is constantly annoyed by the lack of support they receive from their colleagues. Their frustration builds up over time when they see their colleagues swan in and out of work without the same level of pressure they feel. Unable to contain their frustration they experience a ‘meltdown’ resulting in a sick day, serial ‘venting’ to their partner, a trusted colleague or worse, their boss. They assume that the problem is that other people are not taking their load of responsibility resulting in the pressure they feel. In reality, they are extremely poor delegators and fear to let go of projects. Their fear is due to a pattern of feeling undervalued so they combat this fear by taking on more work to demonstrate their capability.

Example 3: The executive that ‘knows’ what’s right for the business but nobody will listen to their solutions. Their assumption is that other people are not as smart as them so they are unable to comprehend their ideas. Believing that forcing their perspective will not be beneficial, they sit back, withdraw, and watch how things unfold. Unbeknownst to them, their pattern is one of acquiescence, the tendency to simply agree with things when in fact, they are in doubt. The enter all conversations with a bias of already ‘knowing’ the answer and if somebody challenges it through ideas, opinion or analysis, they simply withdraw. They exude superiority and hold concrete views about what is right rarely offering honesty in their discussions. As a result, their relationships remain transactional and shallow.

Whether you recognise any of these patterns in yourself or people you work with is beside the point. The point I’m making here is that our first stab at understanding what’s creating the issue, outcome or result that’s getting in our way is usually wrong. In order to get to the core of the issue and change, we need help in seeing the underlying patterns of our thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

Characteristics of a pattern

If you want to create lasting and sustainable change in your behaviour, you first need to understand the characteristics of a pattern.

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a pattern is defined as:

“a reliable sample of traits, acts, tendencies, or other observable characteristics of a person, group, or institution”

The Oxford online Learners Dictionary defines a pattern as:

“The regular way in which something happens or is done”

Both definitions apply to patterns of behaviour, sleeping patterns, consumer spending patterns, prevailing patterns of speech, relationship patterns and the list goes on. Having spent my whole life being part of a pattern, recognising patterns and responding to them, I’d say I’m somewhat of an expert. The good news is, so are you.

Something I’m particularly interested in is what our patterns can tell us about how we learn, especially when it comes to learning about ourselves. Self-awareness, having made an appearance in pretty much every model of leadership or emotional intelligence ever conceptualised, is arguably the most important characteristic we can ever develop. The challenge, as with most important things, we can’t do it in isolation. We need feedback on how we interpret what we are learning, the mindset we adopt before, during and after we learn but also the physical and emotional environment we create to frame our learning experience.

For those that know me or have worked with me before, you’ll know that I’m a juggler and have been doing it for more than 25 years. I’m still learning and constantly challenging myself with new juggling patterns that stretch my capabilities both physically and mentally. Over the last 25 years, I’ve distilled the core characteristics of patterns (fundamental to learning how to juggle) down to the following four keys. These keys can be applied to any behavioural change you are trying to make at work or in your personal life.

1)      Patterns are infinite: In a standard juggling pattern, the balls all follow a continuous flow that resembles an infinity sign. As long as you keep throwing the balls with the correct trajectory and rhythm, you will be able to juggle indefinitely. Applying this to leadership, parenting or life, our patterns (both good and bad) will continue infinitely without intervention.

2)      Patterns are changeable: Following on from the first pattern, while infinitely recurring, all patterns are changeable and malleable. Using Juggling as an example, the way in which you manipulate the balls through the air is only limited by your imagination, capability and physics. Everything we do, think and feel is changeable should we have the courage, desire and tenacity to change it. The brain itself is a map of all behaviours enabling us to speak, plan, move, see and hear. If a certain part of the brain is damaged, such as that which enables us to speak, we will struggle to communicate verbally. However, due to neuroplasticity, the brain is able to change the pattern associated with speaking and use other parts of the brain to complete that task. This is an extremely simplistic example, but indeed, if our brains are able to fundamentally change how neurons are connected and organised to complete complex tasks such as speaking, we can change any behaviour.

3)      Patterns are learnable: If I was to place five balls in your hand and ask you to juggle them unless you’d previously learned how to do it, you wouldn’t know where to start. You may not even be able to imagine what juggling five balls even looks like, or that it’s even possible! If however, I taught you sequentially how to juggle one, two, and three balls you’d easily understand how to juggle five balls based on the patterns you’ve already learned. You’re applying the framework from a simpler task to a more difficult one. Knowing that patterns are both changeable and learnable should provide you with the confidence and knowledge to keep developing yourself.

4)      Patterns are disguised: Our patterns are so natural, so seamless, so automatic that until we are made aware, they are disguised to us. It’s very difficult to lift the vale on our patterns without any external feedback from other people that know us. Even once we are made aware, without actively working on learning new patterns or changing existing ones, we will quickly revert to our well-practised patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. In this way, the disguise contributes to the infinite nature of our patterns. Similarly, we can wrongly attribute lost relationships, a breakdown in communication, poor performance at work, or a dysfunctional team to issues external to us, where in fact it is our own pattern creating all the issues, we just can’t see what is blindingly obvious to those around us.  

For anyone wanting to test their co-ordination, stretch their brain and learn something new, check out my juggling tutorial on Youtube for some basic lessons to get you going.

Why should you understand your pattern?

When it comes to how you think, feel, and behave, your patterns are the single biggest influencing factor shaping everything you do. It, therefore, makes total sense why you should know your pattern so you can better interpret what happens, engage more effectively with your environment, and sustain a mindset that is positive and focussed.

We all know how important it is to focus on forming good habits, and I too follow this line of thinking. Having recently read James Clear’s Atomic Habits and Brendon Burchard’s High-performance Habits, it’s clear that our fascination with building good habits and breaking bad ones is here to stay. Here’s where I think it gets a little tricky. I may go through the process of establishing a really strong habit of going to the gym, which after 66 days has become part of my identity. I continue going to the gym and getting stronger, leaner, and fitter. If however, I have an overarching pattern of self-sabotage that is disguised to me, I’ll create these unconscious challenges that start to erode my ability to maintain my habit of going to the Gym. Some examples of these could be;

• Creating a challenging relationship at work such that my performance is hindered, I will have to work extra hours to make up for it and don’t have time to train at the gym.

• Allow myself to eat ‘whatever I want’ which has a negative impact on my health and physical performance making it difficult to keep training at the gym.

• Keep pushing beyond my limits physically resulting in overtraining or injury, preventing me from training at all.

• Focus all my emotional effort on everybody else’s issues (friends, family, partner etc.) leaving me with no time left to train. Because I was sacrificing myself for others people feel sorry for me and understand why I stopped training at the gym.

While these may or may not be entirely applicable to you, we all have patterns that we follow. These patterns are often invisible to us and therefore dominate how we respond, think about, reflect upon and engage with our environment. Habits are transactions where are patterns represent the bank balance. Some of our patterns are good, some are bad, and some are just plain ugly. Learning how to see them and doing something to change them is what makes all the difference.

How do I see my own pattern?

It’s not easy, and you may not like what you see, but the best way I know is to ask people (about 6-8 should be enough). It can be difficult to have the conversation directly with people so you might want to ask a coach or mentor to ask on your behalf. The questions that I use are:

• What are my strengths?

• What are my weaknesses?

• How could I improve?

• What can you offer me?

• What do you need from me?

• What do you most want me to know?

As a starting point, these questions will give you some great insight into what your patterns might be and how they are holding you back or thrusting you forward. I’ve used this same combination of questions to provide hundreds of leaders with “True Perspective” but sadly, there are many that don’t do anything with their newfound insight. The irony is those patterns that are so well disguised that it takes a monumental shift in perspective to reveal them when we finally do see them our usual response is outright rejection.

My final word

The reason why most of us can’t answer the question “What do you most want to know about yourself?” Is because we fear seeing ourselves the way the rest of the world sees us. The truth is, that which we most fear is usually what we need the most. As we close out 2019 and welcome in 2020, take a stand to have the courage to see your own pattern, take responsibility for it, and most importantly do something to change it.

The Fishbowl: Real life, Real people, Real cases | Adam Camerlengo

As part of my regular posts, I’m introducing a new series call ‘The Fishbowl’ that focusses on real people and how they self-reflect, prioritise, make decisions and show up in the world. It takes courage to put yourself out there and share aspects of who you are and what you believe has shaped you and your life. However, I strongly believe (and my experiences and my clients’) suggest that when you demonstrate courage and show a bit of vulnerability, it enables you to grow and expand. For anybody reading this, take the opportunity to self-reflect and potentially see yourself in their stories and learn from their own insights and courage. You never know, you too might feel compelled to share a bit more of who you are with the world….what’s the worst that could happen?

Introducing Adam

Adam and I first met in the Karate dojo about two years ago. In that period of time, I’ve seen Adam kick some serious goals in life such as compete in a Karate tournament held in Malaysia representing Australia, obtain his black belt, further progress in completing his degree toward becoming a fully qualified Chiropractor and volunteered much of his personal time to establish himself as a loved and valued member of the Artarmon Shinkyokushin Karate Dojo.

For anybody that knows Adam, he is a fast talker and can sometimes, according to Adam, be overlooked as a bit of a ‘class clown’ so people tend not to take him seriously. Over a two hour chat armed with an iced coffee, a beautifully air-conditioned building where we could escape the thick white smoke that is currently choking Sydney, Adam (with a little bit of help from his great friend Vera) shared his story with me and ultimately answered the question “how did you end up here?”.

The conversation began with Adam launching into stream-of-consciousness type flow of verbal expression that reflected Freud’s free association technique without the couch. There was no need for me to lead with a question, Adam was already there, masking his nervousness about agreeing to ‘share his story’ with me by talking without taking a breath for the first 5mins. Once he finally did stop for breath, he asked: “so how does this work…. what are we going to do?”

The stories we tell ourselves

I asked Adam to share his story with all of us because he has recently experienced a series of significant accomplishments. It’s brilliant to see when somebody is in their flow, taking the bull by the horns and leading a fulfilled life. My intrigue with Adam and his story lies not in his accomplishments but more so in what he tells himself when nobody else is listening. Sometimes these stories are so automatic and well-rehearsed that we are no longer aware of them. On the other hand, sometimes they are so dominant that we can’t focus our attention on anything else. What is clear, whether we are aware of what we tell ourselves or not, they play a significant and profound role in how we live our life, shape our future, and interact with the world around us. They influence how we related to others, communicate our message, reflect on challenges or opportunities, experience love, hate or any other emotion. Fundamentally, what we tell ourselves has a huge impact on everything that we do.

Adam’s ‘story’

Before I even finished my sentence explaining the concept underlying the stories we tell ourselves, like any self-confessed fast talker, Adam quickly interjected with a wry smile and slightly flippant tone stating “that’s easy, my story is that I’m not good enough and I’m not working hard enough”. Indeed Adam is very self-aware of his own story and how that has contributed to shaping him to this very day. He may not have gone to the lengths of illuminating how dominant this story has been in shaping his behaviour and the outcomes he has achieved. He is, however, aware of the agitation that it creates, like an old injury that only shows up during the coldest months of the year….it’s always there but we sometimes forget how it is affecting us until it stops us from doing what we want.

Following Adam’s admission to the story that he habitually tells himself, I probed further to understand if he knew where it came from. This was where the conversation got tangential – which for a speed talker like Adam means we covered his story in a pattern that resembled a Mr squiggle drawing (apologies for those too young to understand the reference…..watch the YouTube clip!) i.e. It starts with a few dashes on a page that iteratively morphs into a comprehensive image. In short, he couldn’t articulate exactly where it came from but through verbalising his thoughts, we managed to get to the core.

The ‘drunken man’s’ stagger

Adam, like most of us, has not taken a linear path through life thus far. Very rarely does someone decide what they want to be early in life and seamlessly make it a reality. It does happen….but more often than not, our journey resembles something that looks more like a drunken man’s stagger….swaying from one side to the other, backward and forward, around in a few small circles to finally land at a destination. At that point, the drunken man sobers up and says to himself “how did I get here?”.

With surprise in his voice, Adam affirms that he was actually one of the ‘cool kids’ at school. He wasn’t quite sure how it happened but given one of the kids in his group was a budding AFL superstar (no small thing in Victoria) he was cool by association no through his own sporting prowess. He also had a gift for music that stemmed from his mother. He was encouraged to get involved in all music, art and drama at school. While his understanding of music is savant-like, his real passion emerged in Drama.

Adam has always felt underestimated, which he admits he likes. It gives him an edge over those that put him in the ‘class clown’ box. For those that did make fun of him or disrespect him, he quite simply didn’t take shit from anyone and stood up for himself. Knowing that others underestimated him, he used this as fuel to motivate him to work harder and not be predicted by inferential statistics like everyone else.

He went on to study performing arts at university with the intention of establishing himself as an actor. Following a lot of hard work, knock-backs, and part-time jobs in coffee shops and bars Adam realised he wasn’t happy. While he was battling to make himself a name in showbiz, he took an interest in mixed martial arts and inspired by George St Pierre took a few classes in Kyokushin Karate. Soon after, he started taking his training more seriously than his career. It was through a routine visit to an inspirational chiropractor that Adam had been seeing for a hip injury (most likely agitated from practising martial arts) he was persuaded to explore getting qualified as a Chiro. His first response to the suggestion “I’m not smart enough to do that”.

Right here we see a simple comparison with family members, accomplished friends, academically successful peers or authoritative professionals. The story of “I’m not good enough, smart enough, big enough, strong enough……. ENOUGH!” kicks into gear. It’s a toxic story that only through grit, pure determination, and consistency can we succeed despite the crippling distraction from our own imagined foibles. Fortunately for Adam, Karate was an anchor for him to challenge his deep-seated belief that he wasn’t good enough and wasn’t working hard enough. Shinkyokushin is well known globally to be one of the strongest forms of Karate in the world. The training is tough and unrelenting with an undertone of ‘never give up’. The philosophy of karate reinforces to never be enough and never work hard enough. Indeed there is no end game…no goal to achieve…no state in which you rest. Even when obtaining a black belt, which Adam has recently achieved, you are welcomed into what is known to be the ‘void’. Below is an excerpt from a training manual explaining the transition a Black Belt makes upon successful completion of the grading.

Fig 1 Ku - The ‘Void’

KU- The Void. When we are born we know nothing. Through training, we strive to achieve a different level of “nothing”. At first, the body controls the mind, then the mind controls the body. Ultimately the mind is clear and can ignore problems, anger, worry and become calm. This is the way to live a happy life.

Working hard for things you want?

There is a lot of wisdom in working hard to get results, and a truckload of evidence to support that it works. The challenge with this approach is that you can spend your whole life working really hard to obtain a trophy, car, family,  house, status, job title, or belt colour (in the case of Karate) without really knowing what you want.

In the absence of knowing what you really want, you are susceptible to your own imagination which emerges in the form of bullshit stories that you tell yourself….just like Adam (and all of us for that matter) has done for his whole life. The energy and focus it takes to override such toxic stories is far greater than the effort we put into knowing what we want. Just imagine if you redirected all that energy toward your aspirations.

The trick for Adam…and all of us for that matter is to change our focus. Rather than working hard to achieve what we want, we need to work really hard to KNOW what we want. This is not a one-off tick-the-box exercise but an ongoing commitment to the most important project you’ll ever work on….YOU. The best way to do this is to ask yourself often, ‘What is most important to me right now?’ Answer it honestly, work toward aligning yourself to what is most important and your whole life will make a lot more sense.

True Perspective

Like many of you reading this, Adam is very intelligent. He is going to graduate with his second degree, has a black belt and competed in karate tournaments against top-level opponents. Despite all of that, he still tells himself that he’s not smart enough, not good enough and doesn’t know if he’s working hard enough. How is it that someone who is intelligent and achieves so much in life still believes falsities that he tells himself in stark contrast to what all the evidence suggests? One of the greatest lies we can ever tell ourselves is that how we think others perceive us is true. If you’re feeling sorry for Adam right now, don’t. Take a moment to see yourself in his story and recognise that while you might have a slightly different way of expressing it, you also have a story that rules you, that you believe to be true despite all of the evidence that suggests that it isn’t!

Once you know your story, what do you do next?

The answer lies in neuroscience and the simple truth that [1]‘neurons that wire together fire together’. Every time Adam faces a challenge or sees something like a stretch goal, his default pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving is linked back to ‘not good enough’. We build ‘evidence’ to confirm what we already ‘know’ (this is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy). The best way to break this is to introduce a roadblock, power surge or hijacking of the existing pattern. This is something that fundamentally challenges what we tell ourselves, how we see ourselves and subsequently how we behave. I call this circuit breaker True Perspective which represents the overlap of how we see ourselves with how others see and experience us. It’s more than being self-aware, it is our self-concept in action. True Perspective is seeing yourself the way the rest of the world sees you. In this case, I didn’t ask Adam’s friends, family, colleagues and clients to provide their rating of him so it isn’t a fair representation of Adam because it is only made up of Adam’s self-concept. He did, however, have his good friend Vera present and she chimed in to let me know that Adam is quite hard on himself.

Figure 2 - Adam's Self Evaluation- True Perspective

Evolution of self

For the last 15 years, I’ve been working on a framework to help facilitate personal and professional development. Too often I see people that overinvest in one element more than the other which over time, throws them out of balance. For example, this looks like working all hours to deliver on a massive project and missing out on time with family. Alternatively, it could be taking a 6 month break off work to do a trip around the world to make up for the lost time. Neither of these is wrong, but they certainly aren’t balanced. From my personal experience and the experience of my clients, the imbalance that prompts their corrective action stems from being misaligned i.e. How they want to be experienced and remembered by others is not matching their day to day behaviour. This, in psychology, is what we call cognitive dissonance.

Based on [2]Adam’s self-ratings, I’ve plotted where he sits on the evolution of self framework and as you can see it’s primarily focussed on relationship boundaries. Much of the session that Adam I and had was focussed on the relationships he has with his peers at university, with those he loves, and the relationship he has with himself. Over the coming months and years, Adam has an amazing opportunity to transcend his focus on relationship boundaries and move into the transformational elements of the framework.

Figure 3 Evolution of Self Model

When it comes to ‘self’ it’s ever-expanding, evolving concept that is constantly changing based on your interactions with the world. The more experiences you have, the more refined (and hopefully aligned) you will be.

Application

When it comes to applying this model, it can be utilised with reference to situations, such as how you perform on projects or in a particular role at work or even in a volunteer context. You may also like to apply the model in a more personal setting such as with your social circle, your immediate family, or in relation to your life partner. There is no limit to the application as the principles are the same across all contexts and with all relationships. The key is to leverage the combination of ‘True Perspective’ with the Evolution of Self Model to ensure you are continually defining, refining and progressing toward creating your legacy i.e. living in alignment with how you want to be remembered.

References

[1] Löwel, S. and Singer, W. (1992) Science 255 (published January 10, 1992) "Selection of Intrinsic Horizontal Connections in the Visual Cortex by Correlated Neuronal Activity". United States: American Association for the Advancement of Science. pp. 209–212

[2] Normally, I would interview 6-8 nominated stakeholders to obtain the ‘others’ perspective. Given this was not a full program, I kept it to a self-evaluation only.

Do you lead with Guilt or Shame?

As many of you right now, my calendar is full of end of year gatherings, parties, kids’ performances, presentations etc. It can be hard to juggle priorities and ensure that you give everyone the attention they deserve. In my case, with four kids, this is always a challenging time of year when it comes to getting to everything and being a supportive, loving parent whilst maintaining my sanity.

My daughter, being the youngest of four, has gotten the least amount of attention of all my kids. Not surprisingly and ironically, she is also the child that wants the most love and affection from me. For that reason, she tends to know which of my ‘guilt strings’ to pluck to get me to show up. Two weeks ago, she was ready to perform at the end-of-year dance recital. She had practised to music at home religiously for months getting the moves timed perfectly with the music. Her costume looked fantastic and, I was looking forward to seeing her express herself in a performance that she had worked so hard to perfect.

The big day finally arrived, tickets in hand and the recital was scheduled at the very end of a very busy Saturday which involved Japanese School, Karate, Basketball, and a trip to the Physiotherapist. The recital was due to start at 6:30 pm and went for two and a half hours including an interval. As you can imagine, with such a tight schedule, there was not a lot of margin for error and by now, you are rightly predicting that we faced a lot of error that day.

“The fear of what might happen is often worse than the outcome itself. I’m sure there are exceptions to this rule, and my massive generalisation of guilt vs shame culture is by no means definitive but in my experience and that of my clients, the truth is a far better option when it comes to maintaining your wellbeing both personally and at work.”

We dropped my daughter off at 5:30 pm to get her make-up and hair done prior to the performance and would not see her again until after the show. In the hour before the performance started, everything that could have gone wrong did….and predictably we were going to be late. It was only a few minutes late initially…but that soon turned into 15minutes. Exasperated and hoping that they hadn’t started yet, we rushed into the theatre and were ushered to our seats. Once seated we had an opportunity to review the program and see when my daughter’s routine was due to start. I saw my daughters dance listed second from the top and based on the performance that was currently happening….I realised that we’d already missed it. My heart sank. My wife leaned over and asked when she was due to perform…I said “We’ve missed it”. I didn’t take in much of what was going on around me after that. I was so angry at myself, disappointed, annoyed, looking to blame my son for putting his shoes on too slowly, my wife for changing her dress at the last minute and the very slow driver in the carpark that held us up for a couple of minutes. I also felt annoyed at all of the delays that had happened earlier in the day to contribute to us being late. In addition, I was now sitting through a 2.5-hour recital watching other kids perform that I had no connection with…. it was somewhat of a nightmare. To make things worse, we weren’t allowed to see our daughter until all of the performances were finished! Painfully, this gave me ample time to think about what we were going to say to her.

What would you do?

She’s 9 years old and has been working on this for months. She knows you are watching her but due to the theatre layout, we were up on the balcony so there is no chance she would have noticed our absence in the audience. We see that it is being professionally filmed so we will be able to get the recording at some point. Do we tell her that we missed it? Or do we allow her to have her moment of joy without bringing her down?

Guilt or shame….what drives you?

I didn’t want to face the reality that I’d have to break my daughter’s heart so, like a coward, I turned to my wife in the hope that she would resort to her cultural heritage to decide. My wife is Japanese so as a generalisation Japanese culture along with most Asian cultures adopt what is known as a ‘shame culture’[1]. Basically, this means that if you’ve done something that you aren’t proud of (like miss your daughter’s dance recital) then there would be no point in sharing that with her or anybody else. By sharing, it would bring on a feeling of shame that would tarnish your personal brand. In Japanese culture and many Asian cultures, shame is a feeling to be avoided at all costs. Much to my surprise, my wife has become more Australianised than I thought and quickly stated “it’s up to you…but I think we should tell her”. All I could hear at that moment was the plucking of my ‘guilt strings’ even louder. As an Australian, I belong to what is known as a ‘guilt culture’ that has derived from a society dominated by Christian values. In simple terms, if I’ve done something I’m not proud of then it eats me up inside until I come clean. It was clear what I needed to do….confess!

Confession time

Like most difficult conversations, what I think is going to unfold is much worse than the reality. This conversation was no different. I picked her up from the stage door told her she looked beautiful (which she did in her sparkly costume and make-up) then asked her how she felt. She then asked me “Did you see me Papa?” which I could tell was a rhetorical question. I paused very briefly before I gently said: “I’m sorry Keira….we were a little late so I didn’t get to see your performance”. She took about ten seconds of silence while she looked down at the pathway then looked up at me and said, now you have to buy the DVD (with a surprisingly evil grin), to which I responded: “of course”. She then said “Can I perform my dance to music when we get home?” to which I responded, “of course you can….I’d love that”.

While guilt still plagues me and shame is something I have felt, the alternative to both of those is the truth. If you ever find yourself wanting to ‘protect’ somebody from the truth I’d challenge you to consider if you’re coming from a place of guilt or shame…or potentially both. Rather than avoid either of these, challenge yourself to share the truth. The fear of what might happen is often worse than the outcome itself. I’m sure there are exceptions to this rule, and my massive generalisation of guilt vs shame culture is by no means definitive but in my experience and that of my clients, the truth is a far better option when it comes to maintaining your wellbeing both personally and at work

[1] For a discussion on the topic of giult vs shame culture, please see the following article. Revisiting Shame and Guilt Cultures: A Forty-Year Pilgrimage: Ethos, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), pp. 279-307 (29 pages)

The importance of Self Expression in Leadership and Life

If you’ve been following my blog or have worked with me at some point, you’ll be no stranger to my opinions on the importance of self-expression when it comes to living a fulfilled life. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on why I place so much importance on expression in my work, with my clients, and for myself. The answer…. because it’s what I believe we all most need to be effective.

Expression explained

When I speak of expression I wouldn’t blame you for conjuring up images of you telling your boss to get stuffed, having a massive argument with your in-laws, singing at the top of your voice while driving (out of tune if it’s me!) or delivering a speech at your wedding (with the aid of a little bit of booze). Rather, expression is the most honest form of communication you will ever take part in. When somebody fully expresses themselves, regardless of the activity they are engaged in, you can feel it.

A colleague once shared with me that he was a very high-level pianist and loved everything about playing the piano. He explained that when he was playing, it felt like he wasn’t in control of his body, as if he was watching himself play. He further described that it was an amazing feeling to be so connected to what you are doing that you can fully immerse yourself in the task and pour your heart and soul into the activity. People gave him feedback such as “you could feel the passion in your music” and “you played your heart out in that last piece”. In stark contrast, some of his fellow students with the same teacher were technically brilliant at playing the music, but they lacked any emotional connection. When they played, people were impressed but not moved.

In another example from one of my all-time hero’s Bruce Lee, he said during a television interview “Honestly expressing yourself...it is very difficult to do. I mean it is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky and be flooded with a cocky feeling and then feel like pretty cool...or I can make all kind of phony things, you see what I mean, blinded by it or I can show you some really fancy movement. But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself...now that, my friend, is very hard to do.” Watching any of Bruce Lee’s films or interviews, you can quickly see how he performed with such intensity and that his presence on set created a legacy that still burns bright today.

Countless other examples can be seen in artists, leaders, writers, speakers, actors, performers, and athletes. No doubt, at this point you can reflect on a similar experience. Perhaps you know what it feels like to be deeply immersed in an activity that you were able to transcend the task and deliver it with emotion? Surely you have experienced a wave of emotion after seeing someone deliver a brilliant performance, a heartfelt speech, or achieve a breakthrough sporting achievement?

My journey with expression

Dangerous comparisons

I grew up in a highly creative and expressive household. My dad, a professional clown, puppeteer, and musician was readily able to access emotion to communicate his message. I used to watch in awe as he was able to cast a spell over his audience. As a street performer, it was as if people were drawn to him the same way they might follow the scent of freshly cooked bread – comforting and irresistible all at the same time. Similarly, my eldest sister is a gifted musician, actress and dancer. Her ability to express what she was feeling through her craft was nothing short of miraculous. While I had an immense amount of pride (and still do) in my dad and sister for their creative genius, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit smaller when I was in their presence. My attempts to express myself seemed to be inadequate and didn’t quite generate the hype that they both received. In my teens I experimented with music, had a go a street performing, dancing, sculpture, visual arts and drama but never felt that my performances or creations were very good. At the time, I desperately wanted some feedback as to what I was doing wrong but lacked the courage to ask and in honesty would not have taken any constructive criticism very well. Deep down, I knew that that I wasn’t making people ‘feel’ anything I just didn’t know how to fix it.

‘Fixing’ the problem?

Feeling like a failure, I made a conscious decision to reinvent myself when I went to university…to be studious, conscientious, academic, but most of all…. stop ‘trying’ to be creative like my dad and sister. I failed dismally at the first three commitments but sadly managed to kill my creative self with resounding success and a multitude of unforeseen consequences.

I became a consultant and mastered the art of ‘professionalism’. Hiding my emotions, using data to drive my decisions, and advising clients using logic. It worked - I was good at my job - that is all. My identity became my job…. there was no emotion, no connection, just the safety of logic. I recall a time where a new friend had invited me out for drinks. He was quite a loud and obnoxious character and he said to me “loosen your tie mate…..what’s with the part in your hair?….relax!”. He didn’t know it, but I’d received the same sort of comment about three times that week already. I was so successful at not expressing myself that I’d become this boring consultant that wore dark suits, a tie, and didn’t know how to be natural.

One day when I was packing my stuff to move houses for the 3rd time in as many years, I opened a box that I’d been carting around for most of my life to inspect the contents. As I fanned through the pages of an art diary, I recognised my creative self in the ink drawings, self-portraits, and various abstract collages. All these years, I’d kept my expression locked away but didn’t want to let it go. I’d created a state of cognitive dissonance which was driving this unfulfilled state I was in. To put it bluntly, I’d been lying to myself about what was most important to me. As we all know, being lied to is not a nice feeling but it’s always coupled with an element of doubt – doubt that you might be wrong or misinterpreting the situation. When you lie to yourself, there is no doubt and that’s what makes it so damaging. Like the blind-spot in your side-mirror while driving, if you aren’t able to change your perspective by glancing over your shoulder you’ll end up having an accident and likely blame the other driver because you couldn’t see them.

The hidden consequences

At the end of another crazy long day, still in the office, I noticed a feeling in my throat. It felt tight…sort of like that lump in your throat you get when you’re about to cry. It lasted a couple of days then slowly went away, I didn’t think much of it. Over the course of the next few months it happened more frequently and was usually coupled with a bit of stress at work. Despite shifting jobs and having different roles this tightness in my throat would keep showing up. I’d all but given up until when sitting with a client in a coaching conversation, I heard my own advice. You see, my client had spoken about how they would become stressed in certain situations so I’d instructed them to describe where they ‘felt’ the stress in their body. They put their right hand on their throat and said “I feel this tightness in my throat...it’s like that feeling you get when you’re about to cry…you know what I mean?”. Alarmed at how accurately they had described what I felt I replied “Yes…I know exactly what you mean”. They went on to say… “It’s as though I’ve got  so much I want to say but I lock it all in, stop myself from saying what needs to be said”.  I mentally stumbled backwards…and there it was, I could finally see what was lurking in my blind spot. While I thought by stopping the pursuit of artistic expression, it would enable me to focus my attention on getting ‘smart’ and ‘knowledgeable’, and ‘successful’. Instead, I shut down all expression which turned me into a boring, frustrated, logic machine that didn’t know how to feel or express in any meaningful way. I felt like a dead man walking.

How to fully express yourself

I still consider myself a novice at this…which ironically is the answer to how you fully express yourself. The secret is to stay ‘empty’. The more content you put into your head, the more distracted you become. This distraction basically dilutes your honest, off-the-cuff, unfiltered expression.

One might think of this as an ability to become intensely focussed to the point where there is nothing else in your awareness at that moment. Like, for example, the stillness and calm you see when Roger Federer hits a backhand in slow-motion. Or the moment a child first finds there balance and takes their first couple of steps. After months of failure and persistence, when they least expect it, they effortlessly do what they previously couldn’t.

I could jot down some mindless points that describe the ‘3 steps to expressing yourself honestly’ or ‘7 strategies to become more open’ but this wouldn’t be of service to you. Instead, I challenge you with this.

Forget all that you know, all that you think you know, and everything you know that you don’t know. As if your brain is a cup filled with water to the brim…. pour it all out. Have the courage to start again and not know anything. In my first ever job interview when they closed with “do you have any questions for me?” not really knowing what to ask (being my first job interview and all) I asked, “what advice to you have for someone starting out in their career?”. The answer they gave has stuck with me forever – “Stay curious”.

At the time I thought I knew a lot, I had it all figured out. I’d created a world where everything made sense, so I didn’t have to experience the vulnerability of not knowing. Little did I know (that pun was totally unintentional) that wall of knowledge that I’d built brick by brick was the same barrier preventing me from expressing what was most important to me.

So, at this point, you might be kicking back on the sofa with the TV remote in hand, ready to ‘empty’ your mind and let go of all that you know. Unfortunately, that’s not what I mean. Like the years of practice Roger Federer devoted to his backhand or the thousands of failed attempts a child makes before they finally walk, you need to earn the right to let go of what you know otherwise, you’re just plain ignorant. Mastery of any kind requires deliberate practice (10 000 hours of it according to Malcolm Gladwell) but at some point, you transcend that practice and you’re able to express what you feel through what you do. This is true of anything…not just music or sport. Like pretty much everything in life, to fully express yourself you need to embrace the paradox of knowing so much that you don’t need to know anything at all. The aim here is to enable yourself to express yourself honestly in everything that you do. This is not simply going through the motions by replicating the moves, plucking the strings or delivering the correct sequence. Instead, it is letting go of safety, slapping your fear in the face and embracing the unknown.

Performance Management vs Performance Investment: The devil is in your intentions

The phone buzzed relentlessly to notify that a new message was awaiting. As if there was nothing else that mattered in the world on a Thursday night, Paul leapt to his phone with the eagerness of a highschool student awaiting communication from their first love. Despite his enthusiasm, Paul wasn’t expecting an important message, it was more of a distraction from the mind-numbing work he’d been doing.

The message read:

Sensing the urgency, Paul paused for a moment to consider why his manager would be texting him so urgently for a meeting. He then replied:

Paul had only been in the company for about 5 months and was finding his way around his role. He found the organisation quite challenging with very little development, a massive workload, a fairly disengaged team, and a manager who didn’t really seem to care. He wasn’t really happy with his decision to join the company but he wanted to give it a shot and not give up on the organisation too early. Besides, it took a lot of effort to shift jobs and Paul had left a great manager and team for the prospect of a bigger brand, higher pay, and more responsibility.

The meeting

Paul met with his manager in a small windowless meeting room with fluorescent lights so bright and airconditioning so cold, he felt like he was in a hospital ward. His manager seemed tense. Paul knew this meeting was not going to be good.

Feeling shellshocked, Paul left the meeting room feeling confused. Words that his manager had used like ‘disappointed’, ‘commitment’, ‘performance’, and ‘proactivity’ were all jumbled up in his head. The message was that Paul needed to lift his performance as his manager had been disappointed with the results; he needed to show a bit more proactivity and commitment. It was then followed up with, “we’re here to support you to be successful”. Paul knew his probation was due to finish up in exactly four weeks. Blinded by his emotions, Paul agreed to ‘lift his game’ while suppressing the noise his guts were making as they churned with fear.

The problem for Paul was, the decision was already made. His manager had no intention of keeping him and urgently called the meeting to later justify the course of action to the Human Resources department. Paul had also grown very accustomed to ignoring his guts when they started to churn with fear….a practice that prevented Paul from seeing what was really happening around him.

The real intention

Sadly, like Paul, many people experience very similar situations where they join a new company full of hope and expectation to soon find themselves staring longingly into the rear vision mirror that was their old job. It’s not that their old job was better or even good, it’s that the performance management conversations endured with an ill-equipped manager guided by a dehumanised organisation are humiliating. While it would be easy to lay blame on the manager, or the organisation, that is not the intention of this article. Given so many people I have worked with over the years have experienced a similar situation I wanted to provide an alternative view on how to generate the best outcomes for both employers and employees, without all the noises from guts churning with fear.

Performance Management vs Performance Investment

As a standard practice, most organisations are well acquainted with the annual performance review which often carries no benefit beyond HR meeting their KPIs. If the organisation is ‘progressive’ and has the capacity, they may even conduct a talent review to determine the true performance of their employees in relation to their potential. In recent years, organisations such as Accenture and Deloitte have radically revamped their performance management process in favour of ongoing regular performance conversations, reliable performance measurement, and strong investment in development for employees. Early indicators are demonstrating the increase in employee engagement and productivity as a result not to mention the massive amount of time that is no longer wasted by leaders gaining consensus on employee performance behind closed doors. In a 2015 HBR article, a study conducted on Deloitte employees suggested as many as 2 million hours a year were spent on the employee evaluation process of all 65 000 employees.  None of this is surprising if you consider the data presented in Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, suggesting that 85% of the world’s employees are either actively disengaged or not engaged.

Rather than focus on evaluating employees to understand their performance and whether they have potential, I’d like to suggest that organisations evaluate how much they have invested in their employees to maximise their performance. Assuming that you’ve made a decent hire, how much time have you invested in that employee? What sort of opportunities have you given them to grow, develop, and expand? Is their performance a reflection of their capability or the amount of time you have spent with them?

Below is a decision matrix that you can use to quickly classify how your team fits and more importantly, indicates what you can do improve.

High Growth (Engaged + Productive)- These are high performers that are responding to the investment you are making in their development. They are engaged and productive employees. Sadly, there are only about 15% of employees globally that fit into this category so when you get them there, the trick is to keep them there.

Flight Risk (Not Sustainable)- They are your high performers but the discontent is usually written all over their face. They have the capability and like to demonstrate what they can do. Unfortunately, you can’t provide them with the development they are seeking. Without providing them with an opportunity to stretch themselves, you’ll lose this talent.

Poor Fit (Wrong role/company)- For many reasons, people end up in the wrong role and sometimes in a company that just doesn’t gel with them. You’ve invested in their development but somehow, they just aren’t performing. Go back to your selection process and make sure you have a good process in place to support who you are bringing in. Often, the recruiters that sourced your employees are doing such a great job at selling the role that they might be inadvertently setting unrealistic expectations. Sometimes, despite a great process, things still don’t work. In my experience, the majority of performance issues fall into this category. Try changing the person’s role first but if that still isn’t an option, initiate an honest conversation about organisational fit and support them to move on.

Neglected (Helpless + Stuck)- For these poor souls, they’ve never really been given a fighting chance. The philosophical debate of the chicken coming before the egg springs to mind here….did you not invest because of their poor performance? Or did their poor performance stem from a lack of investment? Regardless, the right thing to do is to provide them with an opportunity to feel valued and supported. It’s amazing what a little bit of encouragement can do for someone’s productivity. Even if their performance doesn’t improve, you’ll be able to help them find their next role knowing you gave them a shot.

Where to from here?

For all four quadrants, while there are differences in how to manage employees that reside within them, the solution for all is the same; invest!

For my entire career, I’ve been listening to justifications about why 360-degree assessments don’t work or how engagement survey data is wrong, or why employees are too entitled. The truth is quite simple. If you take the time to invest in your employees by encouraging them to expand, learn, grow, and develop, they will perform. If you hold them accountable, give them responsibility, and let them fall, they will perform. If you treat them with respect, empower them, trust them, and have good intentions, they will perform.

The next time you are on either side of a conversation like Paul was at the beginning of this article, see if you can decipher the intention that sits beneath the words.

For managers- challenge the investment you have put into the employee. Ask yourself if you really are willing to invest in their success and develop their capability. Can you see yourself cheering for them on the sideline like a doting parent….all while you know they will never be the best player on the team? If the answer is no, then your falling back on a process to help you terminate an employee i.e you have bad intentions. My advice, rise to the challenge of having a tough conversation and be a manager. That’s what you get paid for.

For employees- listen to your gut….if it’s churning with fear it’s probably responding to what’s happening around you, while your judgement is clouded by emotion. Hanging on to a role to prove a point, save your pride, or dodge adversity simply doesn’t work. When faced with bad intentions, simply walk in the other direction.

My final thought for the day….before embarking on a 360 review or performance management process, reflect on your real intentions that lurk beneath the surface. If your intentions are bad the tools you utilise will also turn bad. These tools are designed to elevate and support employees not trip them up.

The Universe is a Dick!

Have you ever had one of those days where everything seems to go perfectly wrong? It’s as if it doesn’t matter what you do, it feels like someone or something is conspiring against you…. like you’re being punished for something that you’ve done. About ten years ago, I got a phone call from one of my clients who was in a tough spot and he really needed to talk. He shared the following. He’d moved interstate to follow his heart, took a job offer which fell through, got evicted from his rental property and got a call from his mother to tell him that his father was on his deathbed. He booked a plane ticket home so he could go visit his father in hospital but before he got on the plane, his girlfriend…the one he followed his heart for letting him know she was no longer in love with him and had been seeing another man. Lost for words at the sheer volume of unfortunate events that had coincided I waited for him to break the silence. He simply said, “the universe is a dick”. On this point, at the time, I couldn’t disagree with him or offer any form of wisdom to counter it…so I readily adopted the phrase.

For a while, it sort of worked to shrug things off. It was a throw-away line that introduced some humour but also helped externalise what was going on. More recently, however, I’ve become increasingly aware of how framing your experience as the ‘will of the universe’ diminishes your own sense of responsibility and accountability. In other words, if I personify the universe as this entity that controls everything that happens to me, I’m very much at the mercy of the universe and any effort spent by me is therefore fruitless. In psychology, Julian Rotter called this having an external locus of control. If a person has an external locus of control, they tend to attribute the outcome to factors beyond their influence, such as the universe or god or somebody else’s fault. In contrast, those that have an internal locus of control tend to take ownership of the outcomes attributing their success or failure to their own actions. There is a body of research that suggests people with an external locus of control are happier in general because they hold a belief that there is something ‘bigger’ at play behind the fortunate and unfortunate events that transpire in their life. It’s a convenient answer to the problem that every single human being faces at some point or another, why do I exist? what does it all mean? and what am I hear to do? While I can’t answer the questions for you, I can indeed offer a perspective that might contribute to where you eventually decide to land.

The brain’s role

Indeed, what differentiates humans from other species in the animal kingdom is our consciousness and intelligence. What underpins our apparent advantage is the constant curiosity about the world and what it all means. From Darwin’s origin of species to Einstein’s theory of relativity, our brains arm us with this incredible curiosity to make it all make sense. My perspective; this insatiable need to explain every aspect of our world is the cause for much of the emptiness that people feel in modern society.

Shit happens whether you are in the driver’s seat or not. It’s what you make it mean that gets in the way. Horrible things happen to awesome people every single day...does it mean that the universe is ‘against’ them? Were they not a good person in a past life? Are they being punished for their bad behaviour? Is it bad Karma for treating others with disrespect?

The same could be said of someone who achieves greatness in the sporting arena, they can often be seen with arms outstretched looking to the skies offering their thanks to a power greater than themselves. They have attributed a portion of their success to the universe, their god or a higher being that they believe is in control of ‘the master plan’.

What’s really going on?

Take a gambler, for example, they may sit for hours on end at a poker machine anticipating the moment that they will become a winner. They create a ‘system’ for recognising patterns that they swear by. When they do have a win, it confirms their belief….we know this as the gambler’s fallacy. In fact, the gambler is suffering from a form of cognitive bias which lures the gambler into believing that their chances of winning are much higher than probability suggests. While many of us aren’t suffering from a gambling problem, the phenomenon Apophenia is another form of cognitive bias that can help explain why we need to make things ‘mean’ something. Apophenia is the human tendency to make connections between things that are otherwise unrelated. We’ve all experienced what’s commonly known as Murphy’s law or Sod’s law. This is the belief that if something is going to go wrong, it will. In fact, there is no scientific basis to explain this phenomenon other than how our brains draw connections between otherwise unrelated events.

Why do we do this?

In every culture, ancient and modern, the need to make sense of our world has been documented in myth. Joseph Campbell’s brilliant work details the patterns associated with how humans choose to document their existence over time. He mapped this common thread to articulate what we now know to be the ‘Hero’s Journey’. This pattern of storytelling is so strongly imprinted in the human psyche that movies such as Star Wars, The Matrix and Lord of the Rings can all attribute their box office success in part to Joseph Campbell’s work. In addition to our comfort with well-crafted stories, the degree to which you feel in control over outcomes or events in your life i.e. locus of control is a significant factor.

What’s the bottom line?

In my experience, when horrible things happen to me or somebody that I love, there is an overwhelming need to declare it as unfair. Feeling ripped off or hard done by is part of being human, but it really isn’t helpful. Having helped many people work through various challenges, the sooner somebody can get to the point of objectively observing what happens without judgement or the need to explain it or justify it, the better. As cold and detached as it sounds, people die, bad things happen but life goes on. If you attach meaning to what happens, you’ll spend the rest of your life in a washing machine of emotional turmoil.

How can I stop giving things meaning?

Once people recognise what’s going on, I feel it’s important to provide a practical way to help manage the challenge that comes with the insight that life is somewhat meaningless. A great technique I use is to recall an event as though it is a movie that you can pause, rewind, fast-forward or put in slow motion as desired. The trick here is to ensure that you watch the movie as though you were a critic, being as objective as possible. In doing this, you note exactly what was said (not what you thought was said), exactly what happened (not what you think happened). While this sounds easy, you’ll likely struggle to disentangle your tendency to hear what you want to hear, see what you want to see and recall events in a way that supports your conclusions. If you can just watch the ‘movie’ play out and press pause when needed, you’ll find you can take things as they are, rather than extrapolate meaning.

My insight

While I still experience the ups and downs that come with life, I no longer personify the universe by labelling it as a dick. I don’t believe that there is an almighty being writing the script that will be my life, nor that the universe is conspiring to help me achieve my purpose. The only dick featured in my past was me….not wanting to take responsibility for my own actions, accountability for my choices and choosing to blame others (or the universe) when bad things transpire. The insight experienced by the storytellers on the TV series ‘I shouldn’t be alive’ is remarkably similar for everyone, despite them having very different stories to tell. They all say they have gratitude for being alive, being able to smile, to laugh, to be with those that they love and have the freedom to make choices. There is rarely a reason or explanation behind why things happen, stop wasting your time trying to figure it all out and simply live.

Emotions trump talent and purpose: Like a kite without a string

My Story

It was windy, very windy, the perfect day to fly a kite. I was about 12 years old and the proud owner of a stunt kite…you know the triangular shaped ones that do loops and spins once you’ve learned how to master them. Well, given the wind was blowing I thought I’d take my kite for a spin but not just as it was, I wanted to see how high it could go so I craftily enhanced it by tying an extra 200metres of 30-pound fishing line onto the existing string. This was going to be good! I appealed to a couple of mates to come to join me but to no avail. I didn’t care…the excitement of flying my stunt kite in near gale forced winds with an extra 200 metres of line propelled me to my destination.

My heart was beating with anticipation, the wind so strong now that I had to lean into it unnaturally to remain upright. I set flight and my kite took off angrily, bucking and pulling like a wild brumby. The wind was so strong I quickly let all the string out and reached the fishing line that I had tied on for extra height. The kite was so high now I could hardly see it and the tension on the line was so extreme the line was making sounds resembling an out of tune banjo being plucked.

I was now struggling to hold onto the plastic reel that housed the fishing line and began to lose my grip. I quickly looked around my feet and picked up a stick that I could put through the reel enabling me to let more line out and give my hands a break. The line screamed as the reel whizzed with frightening acceleration. I looked up to glimpse at my kite which was merely a dot in the sky and that’s when it happened. The whizzing sound was interrupted with a loud crack. I slowly looked down and saw that the plastic reel had shattered, a large shard had stabbed straight through the webbing in my left hand between my thumb and index finger.

In shock I sprinted home clutching my left wrist, trying not to look at the wound as it rhythmically showered my feet with spurts of blood, ever-quickening as the tempo of my heart raced. Once I got home, I raised the alarm to my mum who was trying to remain calm but to me, felt like a severe case of apathy. Like it couldn’t get any worse, I remember the agonisingly slow and sheepish way my mum uttered the words “I can’t remember where I put my keys”.  The rest of the story is predictable…. mum found keys… arrive at hospital… remove plastic from hand… insert stitches…contemplate a few hard lessons to carry me forward.

My Insight

Later that afternoon once I’d been stitched up and got back home, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the kite. My curiosity getting the better of me, I walked back to the offending location hoping that the jagged reel had gotten caught on a tree or bush. No such luck, that kite had set sail…never to be seen again. Whenever I hear someone say “like a kite without a string”…I look down at my left hand and massage the painful scar tissue that remains. What happened that day is the perfect demonstration of how heightened emotions can override the application of talent and purpose to one’s detriment. Let me explain….

When coaching my clients I focus on 3 areas; Strengths focus (understanding one's strengths and knowing how to effectively apply them), Alignment with purpose (articulating ones purpose and remaining aligned to it) and emotional regulation (the ability to remain present and not succumb to the temptation of what one believes vs what is real). Regardless of how well attuned you are to your strengths or how well aligned you are with your purpose, if you can’t manage your emotions, you’re in trouble. That day, my purpose was clear- I wanted to fly a kite as high as it could go. I leveraged my strengths of curiosity, resourcefulness and independence to follow through on my desire. My emotional state, on the other hand, was not at all in check. I knew it was dangerous and could feel it to the core of my gut. I was a little shaky with anticipation due to the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I was rushing, not thinking, over-riding my cautious conscience. Indeed, my emotions were trumping my purpose and strengths, but I couldn’t help it. My emotions were fuelling my action which in turn fanned the flames of my uneasy emotional state. My logical brain had been hijacked in pursuit of instant gratification.

While I was only 12, developmental psychology tells us that it’s at this stage that we start to form our logical reasoning (See Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development). So my excuses for being young and foolish are generally accepted but don’t reflect the truth that I know.

When I’m coaching people about challenges and issues, it’s almost unanimously due to them not being able to get present to and regulate their emotions. Like my 12-year-old self, they get seductively drawn into behaviours that reward them at that moment but generally lead to an outcome that is undesirable. Unfortunately for me, my hand came off second best but many people say and do things they regret when their emotions have hijacked their ability to think and reason. The result for them? regret, guilt, loss of control, anger, anxiety, helplessness etc.

My advice

Next time you get that uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach stop what you’re doing. Take a moment to focus on your breath to re-centre yourself and activate your parasympathetic nervous system. It’s at this point that you can make a conscious choice about what you do next without feeling like you’re navigating rapids on a river without a paddle. The best way to ensure that you don’t end up like a kite without a string lost forever to the gale forced winds of mother nature; regulate your emotions. For many of you…..you’re saying “that’s easier said than done…especially when you’re in the heat of the moment”. I agree, but other than aspiring to achieve personal mastery through a relentless commitment to self-development, we stagnate, re-iterate and keep repeating the same behavioural patterns. The patterns and tendencies we all face will continue to be there, it’s our ability to recognise the internal cues (that feeling in your gut, or the shakiness in your body) to help us arrest the pattern of behaviour before it’s too late. It’s not easy, it takes discipline and it’s always necessary. It may sound exhausting but when someone is feeling like a kite without a string they’ll do anything to have someone grab the end and start winding them back to earth...that is of course if they’re not already lost forever.

The cliché of poor communication

If you ask someone if they are a good driver, most people will indicate that they are above average. This is also true for intelligence, leadership, and even communication. This phenomenon is known as the Dunning-Krueger effect. Basically, most of us have an inflated sense of our capability regarding pretty much everything we do. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule (of course you are thinking you are one of them) but mostly, it’s true. What’s even scarier is that those of us that are most incompetent overestimate our abilities to a greater extent.

In business, communication is an exceptionally important part of our day-to-day. Without effective communication our relationships deteriorate, our productivity is hindered and our undesirable emotions (anger, frustration, anxiety) start to bubble up to the surface. In fact, every qualitative focus group I’ve ever conducted highlights communication as being a key factor influencing employee morale. Scarily, this finding is so pervasive that I can confidently include ‘poor communication’ as a key finding for any organisation having trouble with culture and engagement. Rather than go down an infinite path of micro diagnosis (this is my term for the need to keep running diagnostics to identify ‘core’ issues rather than taking action to face them) I’ve come up with a couple of communication hacks that will instantly turn things around for you, your team and organisation.

“Without effective communication our relationships deteriorate, our productivity is hindered and our undesirable emotions (anger, frustration, anxiety) start to bubble up to the surface.”

Admit that you need to develop

In line with the theme in many of my posts, you need to start with yourself and acknowledge that if there is an issue, you’re probably a big contributor to it. Try resisting the temptation to look at everyone else as the problem and start by committing to make a change in yourself. With regards to communication, this means accepting that you will need to improve to get a better outcome. Self-development takes humility and relentless commitment. Drop your ego about being a brilliant communicator as your belief serves no purpose in effectively communicating.

Enhance your dialogue

Any decent engagement survey measures how clear employees feel about their role, the company direction, the vision, values, team goals etc. In fact, Gallup’s Q12 survey identified that the statement “I know what’s expected of me at work” is one of the single best predictors of an individual’s overall engagement. As such, one of the best practices you can incorporate into your meetings is to finish with “can I just go over where we landed and make sure we are on the same page?” or “Can I have a go or playing back what you want me to do to ensure that I’m clear on what you need” or “can you share back what I’ve asked so I can be sure that how I’ve articulated myself is clear?”. While you need to find your own language and the words that work, simply adding a few questions in your toolbox that help bridge the gap between what we said and what we want is a game changer.

Be consistent

If you follow the first two pieces of advice, you’ll realise very quickly how often you make poor assumptions and leave meetings where people are confused, unsure, disengaged and frustrated. You might even be telling yourself “I already do this at the end of every conversation”. I’d invite you to further challenge yourself because even the very best I’ve worked with struggle to keep up this practice. Just saying “right….is everyone clear?” is not enough. People don’t want to look stupid by seeking clarification. They also don’t want to look like they are challenging your authority, so they’ll sit back and be silent. Furthermore, most people are so busy and, in their head, that they aren’t really listening anyway. Their assumption is “If it’s really important I’ll get an e-mail, or someone will follow-up with me about it”. In general, people hold a view that internal meetings are not useful, so it shapes their behaviour when they show up. They are disinterested, not clear on objectives, and distracted. By simply asking somebody to articulate what they heard and share back the actions they are going to carry forward, you have engaged them.

Be patient with yourself and others

Initially, you might feel as though you are patronising or you might stumble on your words when clarifying expectations. This is totally fine. It takes practice to clearly and consistently set expectations. You’ll need to allow for some growing room as you’ll find that it feels awkward the first few weeks you try this. You might also see some resistance from your team and those around you. They are used to showing up to meetings with you in a certain way. When you shift your behaviour, it will necessarily shift how they show up. This can take time before you see any benefit. You may indeed find things get slightly worse before they get better.

Be open and transparent

Whenever we change our behaviour, people need to figure out ‘why’. It’s an inherent human need to know the cause or meaning associated with any shift in behaviour. As outlined in the book Hardwired Humans, everyone loves to gossip, it’s a basic human instinct associated with social grooming. One thing you can guarantee, if you shift your behaviour and it’s noted, your team will discuss it with each other. Rather than allow this conversation to evolve organically (and potentially in a harmful way), try being upfront about what you are doing and why you are doing it to ensure they aren’t creating a story around your motivation. For example, if you asked someone to ‘playback’ their understanding of the issues raised or the actions you want them to take, they could easily assume that you aren’t happy with their performance or even questioning their capability. It sounds silly but if you sat in on some of my coaching conversations, you would realise how much of what people worry about is completely made up.

As a final thought, most challenges that individuals and teams face are due to poor alignment of expectations resulting in what feels like bad communication. Even if you don’t get it right, simply discussing expectations will dramatically shift the dialogue you have with yourself and your team. If you find yourself sitting silently in a meeting, a little confused, disengaged or distracted, draw on some courage and ask a clarifying question. You’ll either get full alignment in response or some valuable discussion will ensue. For those of you that scoff at the idea that people may not be clear on what’s expected of them, know that you represent a red flag. It is likely you that needs to step back and evaluate whether your assumptions are serving you or shielding you from the truth.

5 Reasons why perspective matters

I distinctly remember the first time I created a sculpture.My art teacher had decided that a boy in our class who suffered from rheumatoidarthritis would need to sit on a chair positioned on top of the tables so wecould all observe him as our “subject”. I remember feeling sorry for the guy ashe was mildly disfigured due to his disease. I wasn’t sure if the teacher hadasked him to be the subject for this reason…. or had he nominated himself tohave a whole class full of students use his body as the subject matter fortheir sculpture. He didn’t seem to be phased by the request so I relaxed intothe task at hand. Having never done sculpture before, I was curious as to how Icould create a great sculpture. We were using clay and I found that I couldmake my figure interesting from one side only to find that the other sidelooked horrible. This push and pull became a little frustrating and seemed tobe an ineffective way to create a masterpiece. Feeling a little miffed with theexercise, I heard my teacher say “your challenge is to make your sculptureinteresting from every single angle. You need to let the piece emerge as youcontinuously refine your interpretation of the subject”. For whatever reason,what she said clicked for me. I’d been trying to create a three-dimensionalsculpture by observing the subject, my mate with rheumatoid arthritis, from asingle perspective. It prompted me to get up and move around the subject andexplore how he looked from every angle. As a result, I was able to create afantastic sculpture that was unique and interesting from every single anglethat you looked at it.

"Unfortunately, the perspective taken in many cases is unidimensional, fixed in their seat and only observing the subject from a single point of view. The result, an uninspired piece of work that is dull with little impact on the observer."

Every time I’m stuck on a problem, helping my kids with achallenge, working through a solution with a client or even observing someoneelse’s artwork in a gallery, I always think back to that experience I had whenI first attempted to create a sculpture.

Indeed, I use sculpting as a metaphor in leadershipdevelopment, self-development, culture. In all of these areas, we are aiming tosculpt something be it a great leader, a better version of ourselves or aculture that everyone would love to work in. Unfortunately, the perspectivetaken in many cases is unidimensional, fixed in their seat and only observingthe subject from a single point of view. The result, an uninspired piece ofwork that is dull with little impact on the observer. In an organisationalcontext, these are the run of the mill ‘leadership development’ courses thatare a ‘feel good’ fiesta for a couple of days but ultimately develop nothing.  Or a self-development course that enables youto feel better about yourself but see everyone else in a negative light. Orworse still, the culture ‘change’ program that promises to change so much thatnothing changes at all….at least not before the environment organically changesfirst.

What’s my perspective on all of this? Get more perspective!It’s way too easy to put the blinkers on and see things from a familiar, triedand tested viewpoint. If you always see a problem, in the same way, you’re veryunlikely to develop novel solutions. In fact, when you take a different perspective,you might not see it as a problem at all!

One tool that I love to use with clients (and myself) iscalled the ‘5 perspectives tool’ (thanks to David Drake for creating the tool).When an individual or team is stuck on a problem, the ‘5 perspectives tool’ isa great way to help them get unstuck and see things from a different angle. It’sa very simple method to generate multiple viewpoints where there are seeminglyno options left. Start by writing down your problem or challenge in the centreof your page then draw 5 spokes representing other perspectives you could taketo describe the same problem or challenge. You’d be surprised how hard it is togenerate more than 3 perspectives and to get the 4^th and 5^thcan be exponentially more difficult.

This tool reminds me of that first experience I had creatinga sculpture. It helps me see things from every angle and ensure that myinterpretation is a well-considered, ‘interesting from all angles’ solution.

 One final perspectiveI’ll leave you with, most problems that we are facing a no bigger than a grainof sand. It’s just that our focus is so intently fixed on the grain of sandthat we can’t see anything beyond it. If we are bold enough to step back andsee the bigger picture, our problems become no more than a grain of sand on abeach that is barely perceptible in this vast universe. If you’re up for the challengeof becoming a better leader, better version of yourself or shaping a betterorganisational culture, have the courage to step back and see the biggerpicture. You might surprise yourself and end up creating a masterpiece.

How master manipulators keep you on their string

As a child, the world is full of wonderment, everyexperience is new and filled with excitement. The world feels like a magicalplace of endless possibility. Until of course, we hit our teenage years and oneday we wake up to the familiar burden of the mundane, the known and the boring.While the contrast is stark, our wonderment slowly ebbs away with each joyfulexperience fading like a favourite shirt that’s seen too much sun. As adults,we are constantly pursuing the magic, the innocence and the curiosity that weall once had for the world. So much so that we can overcompensate by fallingvictim to those that see our insecurities, our weaknesses, and our deepestdesires.

When I was about 15, my dad was working toward developing a puppet show that he could tour locally in schools, markets, and private shows. He’d worked long and hard on it and needed someone to help him out as a second performer. Being fascinated with such things, I was more than happy to help. As I got to understand the show, learn my lines, practice how to perform using glove puppets, I soon began to appreciate the art form. I also became increasingly aware of the ‘magic’ tricks associated with bringing a puppet to life. For example, if you’ve ever watched a puppet show, what makes it brilliant is when the puppets interact with the audience. They come to life as real characters by asking questions, pointing people out and making quick-witted comments in response to any hecklers (usually a pesky 3-year-old) amongst the audience. For a child, the mystery is too great…and the puppets are confirmed as the real deal. There is no possibility that they are fake. For adults, they are impressed at the cleverness of the script and wonder how such a feat is achieved…all the while knowing that a puppeteer is in control of the show.

They keep us on their string by being highly entertaining to all, brilliant storytellers, quick-witted and almost psychic in their responsiveness to their stakeholders. Such abilities are extremely powerful for influencing stakeholders and equally damaging for those that get drawn in.

For those of you that know, this will seem obvious, but the secret lies in the material used as the backdrop. It’s a very thin vale, with highly reflective material so when lights are shone directly at its surface it sparkles brilliantly for the audience. For the puppeteer, however, this becomes the perfect camouflage to observe the audience undetected. For the illusion to work, the puppeteer must be in complete darkness otherwise their silhouette becomes detectable and the illusion of the puppets being alive is destroyed. I distinctly recall one show where my dad and I were about halfway through our version of 3 billy goats gruff. Suddenly an overly bold child (most likely the pesky 3-year-old heckler from before) snuck around the back of our puppet theatre and lifted the canvas door. Light poured in exposing the magic trick, the child’s face was a combination of excitement and disbelief. The answer they were looking for was right in front of them….they just didn’t want to believe that what once was beautiful and magical was now just a man with his hand in a puppet.

Puppeteers are master manipulators, actors and magicians all rolled into one. An ageless art form that continues to capture the imagination of audiences to this day. I’d like you to consider the master manipulators you’ve come across in your work-life over the years. More specifically, I’m referring to the Machiavellian leaders from the Dark Triad (Machiavellian, Narcissism, Psychopathy). Those that appear to be able to manipulate us with their cunning, strategic minds. Lure us in with their charisma and appear to understand our emotional state providing us with a sense of comfort and security. They always know what the right thing is to say. Like the puppeteer, these master manipulators have a highly reflective backdrop that when surrounded by darkness makes their true character completely undetectable. They keep us on their string by being highly entertaining to all, brilliant storytellers, quick-witted and almost psychic in their responsiveness to their stakeholders. Such abilities are extremely powerful for influencing stakeholders and equally damaging for those that get drawn in.

Nobody likes being manipulated, especially when they have no idea it is happening. There are those that prefer not to know how a magic trick works and enjoy the sheer entertainment of it all. They buy their ticket at the door, scoff some popcorn and immerse themselves in the experience. In contrast, there are some that prefer not to get involved at all. They stay at home in safety, never exposing themselves to the thrill of the illusion. Finally, there are those that are familiar with the ‘magic’ of it all and revel in the opportunity to take up a ringside seat at the circus, carefully watching each act to see if they can spot the trick, catch the illusion or unveil the master manipulator.

As a psychologist and executive coach, I’d like to share myperspective on how to deal with a Machiavellian leader as it’s highly likelythat you will have to at some stage….or most likely already have!

1. If you’ve cottoned on to their cunning ways, manipulative tendencies, and magnetic lure. Move on, get out and don’t look back. While you may want to go toe to toe with them, demonstrating your ability to uncloak their true character, you’ll ultimately fail.
2. If you’re currently caught in the web of a Machiavellian leader but aren’t sure, ask yourself how they make you feel. If this swings between “I can do anything” to “I feel smaller than a grain of sand”, I hate to break it to you but you’re being manipulated. Upon this realisation, see point 1) Move on, get out and don’t look back.
3. Like most people, you’ll ignore my advice and think that you are a smart capable human being who is resilient and strong. Therefore, you will go toe to toe, you’ll jump in the ring with them and give it all you’ve got. You may even knock them down a few times but to your dismay, they keep popping back up again like a bobo doll. Here’s the secret, like the highly reflective backdrop of a puppet theatre, you can’t see the puppeteer’s true character, the harder you look you will begin to see a form. That form is merely your own distorted reflection, your shadow self, aka, your dark side. The sooner you recognise that by fighting the Machiavellian leader, you are fighting with yourself, the better equipped you will be to bow out gracefully, move on, get out, and never look back.

One closing remark, spare a thought for the Machiavellian leader, the master manipulator or the genius puppeteer. While you may not feel they deserve any of your empathy, consider their existence. Highly reflective, surrounded by darkness, living by stealth to remain undetected. A keen observer of others, but never observing themselves. Their own reflection is impossible to detect in the absence of light. Despite their relationships, they are never truly known to others. A victim of themselves, ostracised by their inability to see themselves. As one can only imagine, isolated to a small room in complete darkness devoid of any connections would be the ultimate punishment. Understand that when you try to take them on, you are stepping into that darkness with them. My advice, have empathy for their suffering then move on, get out and never look back!

Change = Death = Life

Full expression, in my opinion, is a representation of thehighest form of intelligence and why we are continuously drawn to those that canachieve full expression in their chosen field. From business leaders, athletes,musicians, sculptors, entrepreneurs, inventors, painters, poets, writers, and actors.Their uniqueness is undeniable, their genius fills us with curiosity and awebut the one thing we all share is the inevitability of facing death. Be it ourown death, that of a family member or friend or even somebody we don’tpersonally know but know of. Death and the change that it brings is an inevitablepart of life.

Like everyone, I’ve faced some tough and unusual situationsin my life thus far but one experience that has me stumped is facing death. Iwas largely spared this experience until I was 29 years old. I’d already had 4kids by that stage but somehow managed to evade facing the emotional challengeof death. Obviously, I had indirectly experienced death, but the emotionalimpact was something I was yet to feel. Like the saying ‘seeing is believing’ whenit comes to emotions ‘feeling is understanding’. I recall the moment I learnedof my Grandfather’s death. I was very objective and matter-of-fact about it.Intellectually, I was upset, but I didn’t feel anything initially. At first, Ithought there was something wrong with me as if I was cold and lacking emotion.It was 5 days after he died when I was delivering my eulogy, mid-sentencehalfway through the first paragraph that I started to feel the undeniable vacuumcreated by the void in my heart. I suddenly started to feel like I was implodingas if disappearing into the abyss of a black hole. Paralysed with confusion,unable to speak, I basically lost the plot and experienced the inevitablechange that comes with staring into the mirror of death.

Brett Whiteley, a master of translating life into art, was oneof my favourite artists of all time. I was a keen art student at high schooland spent many hours studying Whiteley’s work and while doing so, I stumbledacross the following statement CHANGE = DEATH.At first glance, it appears to be somewhat morbid and potentially a by-product ofhis well-documented drug abuse. Upon deeper reflection, the simplicity of thisinsight offers an explanation of why change continues to be the greatestinstigator of fear and resistance in our lives. With all change, comes death atone point or another. The challenge for us all is that when someone orsomething dies (i.e. ceases to exist) be it a person, job, relationship or idea,we struggle to see beyond the starkness of it ceasing. We aren’t taught toembrace the unknown, change that necessarily stems from the death of someone orsomething, which in essence, is a fundamental part of life.

"With all change, comes death at one point or another. The challenge for us all is that when someone or something dies (i.e. ceases to exist) be it a person, job, relationship or idea, we struggle to see beyond the starkness of it ceasing."

In organisations, we are constantly facing change. ThroughBrett Whiteley’s artistic lens, this change represents death, death ofsomething and with that comes the need to accept and let go. I’d like to build uponBrett Whiteley’s expression by adding life into the equation. The result is asfollows, CHANGE = DEATH = LIFE. Thework of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross describes the 5stages of grief which has since been adapted by John Fisher and relabelled asthe organisational change curve. While originally inspired by work withterminally ill patients, the applicability of this model to help people acceptand work through changes within an organisational context has proven to be verypowerful.

Why is it that we resist change so fiercely? This simpleanswer, it’s hard and it hurts. For the more scientifically robust answer, I’lldefer to the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky regarding loss aversion.Through their work on behavioural economics, we know that the loss ofsatisfaction associated with losing $100 is greater than the gain insatisfaction associated with winning $100. In simple terms, we find it harderto let things go than it is to receive. Have you ever noticed what happens whenthe CFO decides to restrict access to stationary? Take away the weekly fruitdelivery? Or limit the selection of tea people have to choose from? Thebitching and moaning this causes, not to mention the loss in productivity, isfar greater than the positive affect created when the benefits were first introduced!

Like many of you, right now, I’m facing the prospect of deathin my family, change in my work, and transition in my personal life. While itnever gets easier, embracing death, change, and transition as a part of lifeenables me to stay curious and open. The comfort seeking aspect of me sodesperately wants everything to be stable, constant and without change. This,we all know is a luxury that cannot be granted in a universe that is infinitelyexpanding. Aside from the obvious, we all seek change and progress, we just don’twant to acknowledge the mirror image of that….death.

The sooner we stop seeking for things to be stable, constantand without change, the better. The reconciliation of death, moving on, and lettinggo will be far less confronting, and we might find that managing change will bea less challenging process too.

There's only one version of me...isn't there?

Abe the clown performing. Photo Taken by Bruce Hart

When I was seven, I recall spending my Sundays at the Lismore car-boot market, following closely behind a street performing clown named ABE Bazzan. While there were many other children doing the same thing, there was a difference for me; that clown was my dad. It was quite confusing to see my dad transform from the person that I knew into an eccentric, larger than life character, who was totally and unrecognisably different. While I tried to enjoy the clown show, I couldn’t help but know that it was my dad underneath the mask, the clothes, the raspy voice, and the bizarre character. I got to experience the ‘post-show analysis’ which is another way of describing the painful process of counting coins that had been deposited in his busking tin at the end of the show. Rarely was the energy and passion with which he performed met with commensurate payment. What was more alarming, was the sadness that often sat with my dad after the shows. Somehow, performing as an alter-ego to the delight of others, sapped my dad of his energy leaving him flat and empty.

In many ways, we all put our clown costume on in readiness to perform for the audience. The difference being, our mask is our persona and the audience is often our work or our family and friends.

ABE counting counting coins after completing a show. Photograph taken by Bruce Hart

ABE having a quick drink before continuing his performance. Photograph taken by Bruce Hart

I recall a conversation with my dad when I was a teenager that revolved around some of his insights as a clown. He shared with me that one of the hardest jobs in the world was to be a clown…not due to the demands of performing but more-so due to the emotional burden carried by the role. The irony is, when people watch a clown, they see a symbol of comedy, a licence to laugh and an opportunity to release themselves from the moment. On the flip side, while dad was performing for the crowd what he could see was a deep sadness in people that was unveiled in the presence of his alter-ego. You see, the clown mask and costume that my dad wore enabled him to see people for who they really were because the clown was a joke, a symbol, a character that casts no judgement and makes us laugh. I guess what this did for my dad was get him more aware of how similar we all are when we front-up to the world. In many ways, we all put our clown costume on in readiness to perform for the audience. The difference being, our mask is our persona and the audience is often our work or our family and friends.

Why is this important?

In one of my recent articles ‘What’s your story’, I focussed on the necessity of regularly asking yourself what is most important. In my work as a coach and facilitator, I often ask people, “what is most important to you right now”. The answer is usually prefaced with “do you mean at work…. or at home”. The answer implies a distinction between how one makes decisions at work vs personally. For me, this is indicative of an underlying belief that who we are, depends on the situation we are in. Or put another way, how we choose to respond is dependent on our context. Taking this one step further, given the situation is always evolving, are we to then assume that the number of personas that we master must equal the situations that we are presented with? I don’t know about you but that sounds like a whole lot of hard work…and I’m exhausted just thinking about it. I get that we need to be respectful and accommodating but when it comes to what’s most important, it shouldn’t vary too much from one context to another.

Dad is now retired aged 77 and is suffering from a terminal illness. About 6 months ago, he mentioned that he was feeling more at peace with himself. He explained that throughout his life, he was always an entertainer. He would play music at parties, perform on stage, act in amateur theatre, was a puppeteer, clown, and musician. I often felt that he was even performing for me at home to lift my spirits or help me through a challenge I was facing. What he went on to express gave me some deep insight, not just into my dad, but human psychology. You see, dad always struggled to simply show up as himself. He was a little awkward in social settings, misunderstood in work contexts and didn’t really know how to ‘be’ as a father. When I asked him “Why are you more at peace with yourself now Dad?” he simply replied with, “I just want to be me”. As strange as it sounds, I think what dad expressed is at the core of what most of us want. The simplicity to just ‘be’ who we are without having to perform a certain way. The irony with this is that dad is now more creative and alive than he has ever been simply because he is spending his energy on what he loves doing, not on how he thinks he should be performing in the world.

What’s the lesson in this?

I think we all play the clown or performer to a certain extent. It protects us from being vulnerable and showing the world who we really are. I know I’m certainly guilty of it at times and work hard to keep myself in check. For some reading this, they might think of this as an overly philosophical view of the world. My retort, if we live life through a filter determined by the current context when do we show up as ourselves…if at all? Imagine if all the energy you spent on being a certain way at work, at home or with friends was directed toward your creative potential through ideas, learning and developing?

In closing, I wanted to share that Dad was an amazing clown and performer (one of the best I’ve ever seen). I often wonder how far his genius could have taken him if he had gained the confidence and insight to simply be himself when he was in his prime. His gift to me, and in turn to all of you is to share that there is only one version of who you are, warts and all. Recognise this for yourself, do it quickly and the rest will take care of itself.

What's Love got to do with It?

In all my travels, my many conversations as a colleague, coach, friend, husband, father, sibling or son have brought me to one insight that I believe matters above all else.  The question is: What has love got to do with it? My answer: Everything! And here's why….

I caught the tail-end of a conversation the otherday that ended with "what can you do……it's just a job". Based on thetone of the statement and accompanying gesture (both hands raised to the airwith shrugged shoulders), it seemed to come off the back of a strainedconversation due to frustrations they were experiencing. More specifically,there was a sense of acceptance coupled with resignation. By this I mean, theyweren't happy with the situation but had accepted to not challenge further asit wasn't that important to them. Reserving judgment (while also acknowledgingthe number of times I have used the same phrase or similar), I wondered whetherthis person loves what they do…. or even believes that it's possible to lovewhat they do.

"If you know what's in your heart, don't waste time questioning what it all means or making it fit your life's narrative, make a choice, strap yourself in and lead your life!"

We are all familiar with the saying "if youlove what you do, you'll never have to work a day in your life" but howmany of us believe that it's possible? In thinking this through and havingnumerous discussions with people on the topic, it seems love is usually notsomething that people associate with work. Taking that thread even further….people seem quite uncomfortable discussing love in a work context. At thispoint, I feel it's important to define what I mean by love as there are as manydefinitions out there as there are people on this planet (7.6 billion based onthe most recent count).

Love defined- Through all my searches, there seems to be a common acceptance about the distinction between feelings of ‘love' vs a feeling of being ‘in love'. To be in love is usually reserved for a life partner, soul mate or those that we choose to marry. To love someone or something is far broader in scope such as an activity (hobby), a family member, friend, pet, job or even a holiday destination. While to ‘love' or be ‘in love' have clear differences there is an obvious overlap worth acknowledging:

• They are both expressions of strong feelings of passion, affection and come directly from one's heart

• They both require a great deal of courage to express what you really feel and vulnerability to be hurt in the process of expression

• When we give or receive love, there is no question…. you simply feel what you know to be true

Now that we are clear about love, let's bring itback to the work context and how it applies here. Through all my coaching overthe years, when people describe great leadership, amazing workplace culture,high performing teams, or an exemplary individual performance it always soundsvery similar. Something like the following:

• People describe a sense of passion, commitment andconviction in what they do that feels genuine and true
• They have the courage to express themselvesopenly…even if it means showing their vulnerabilities
• When challenged about why they do what they do, thereis no doubt, question or ambivalence

As you can see the similarities between love in life and love at work are unquestionable. As interesting as this might be, you are likely wondering what to do with this (if anything). My advice to anyone that is curious about this (and this applies as much to me as anybody that I coach) is to allow yourself to feel what is already in your heart. This is something that you already know how to do but you are likely to be distracted with to-do lists, actions, people to meet, bosses to manage up to, KPI's to hit and families to cater to that you aren't able to acknowledge what is truly in your heart i.e. what is most important to you. As a final thought for you to ponder, to ‘love' in whatever capacity is always a choice. This choice takes commitment, conviction, energy, and courage. If you know what's in your heart, don't waste time questioning what it all means or making it fit your life's narrative, make a choice, strap yourself in and lead your life!

'Crazy Busy' is bullshit

It’s Wednesday morning, you’ve dragged yourself out of bed following a restless night due to an ever expanding to-do list that seems to be spiraling out of control. After gulping down your first coffee for the day, you battle the rush-hour traffic before launching yourself into the first of a series of back to back meetings that prevent you from tackling your to-do list, which by now has almost doubled. By 3pm you’re on your 3^rd coffee and bunkering down for a long evening as your boss kindly reminded you that since they are flying out tomorrow for a conference, they need your presentation pack no later than 9:00am so they can review it. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, your good mate texts you to confirm dinner plans that you’ve forgotten about. After replying with an apologetic text letting them know you won’t be able to make it, you focus-in on what needs to be done and power through your work. By the time you get home, it’s after 10, and you’re too tired to eat dinner. In fact, the only thing you can think about is retiring on the couch with a glass of wine and your favourite show on Netflix. If you’ve been quietly nodding to yourself while reading this, it’s likely that you’re not focusing on what’s most important to you. Unfortunately, the above scenario, or similar variant, is an all too common story for many people. What’s worse, it’s actually considered ‘normal’ and in some cases applauded or worn as a badge of honour.

"My advice; if you’re one of those ‘crazy busy’ people that smashes through your day, stop right now as it’s killing you"

When working with people that are wantingto improve their performance, productivity or personal wellbeing I like to askthem a simple but powerful question; “What’s most important to you right now?”.While some people take some time to respond, the answer rarely relates to ato-do list or even work related tasks. Not surprisingly, people refer to theirfamily, friends, making a meaningful contribution, doing what they love andinvesting in their health and wellbeing.  You might then ask, “Why don’t people investtime on what they know is most important?”. You might even be thinking thatit’s all well and good to want to spend time with family and friends in lieu ofyour to-do list but will that lead you to success? Most people grit theirteeth, battle through and gravitate toward the ‘crazy busy’ whirlwind of lifein the fast lane. My advice; if you’re one of those ‘crazy busy’ people thatsmashes through your day, stop right now as it’s killing you. Moreover, byburning the candle at both ends, you are less likely to be successful in yourjob and in life. In a recent article published in the HBR, Stew Friedman introduceshis research which concludes that great performers make their personal lives apriority. Somewhat counterintuitively they enhance their performance at work byfocusing on what is meaningful in their lives, by staying true to themselvesand making sure they are aligned to their purpose.

So what can you do?

One final thought to leave you with. Dropthe belief that you need to be a certain way, meet somebody else’s expectationor ‘push through’ to be successful. Sustainable performance and harmony canonly be achieved when you align who you are (warts and all) with what you do. 

• The first step is to gainawareness or get present to how you are operating. Do this by noticing how yourespond when people ask how you are. Do you respond honestly or do you simplythrow a “I’m crazy busy” cliché back at them.
• Secondly, once you gainawareness, you need to get really clear about what is most important to you. Ifthis is hard or you’re drawing a blank, think about someone you love and startthere.
• Thirdly, and definitely themost difficult, ask yourself frequently “right now, what is most important tome?”. This is likely to highlight gaps for you but it will also keep youhonest.
• Lastly, if you go down the pathof justifying why being ‘crazy busy’ is a good thing, I’d like to appeal toyour more practical side and ask that you stop bullshitting yourself (this ismy technical term for it).

If you could use a little help navigating your way through the 'crazy busy' nature of your world, let's connect.

Honestly, are you being honest with yourself?

Let’s face it, times are tough, businesses are cost cutting to hit their targets, overworking employees and in some cases shutting the doors altogether. With such a competitive market there is a growing trend for managers and leaders to shy away from having tough conversations. Similarly, employees are less likely to be forthcoming about the fears they have and challenges they are experiencing but rather invest their energy in the multiple job interviews they have lined up to ‘escape’ the situation.With so few people being honest, why is it that “honesty” and “integrity” are some of the most commonly espoused values for companies but in terms of outwardly observable behaviour, are the most difficult to find?The answer lies in basic psychology and classical conditioning. As Ivan Pavlov discovered with his famous experiments on dogs, the repeated pairing of a high pitched sound with presentation of food eventually leads to a conditioned response (saliva production) when the sound is heard. This very basic demonstration of conditioning is at the core of why people avoid being honest. More specifically, through experience people learn that by being honest, bad things happen. Take for example when your wife asks you if she looks good in the new dress she purchased…or if your brother asks you to be honest about his latest choice in girlfriend...or a narcissistic and egotistical colleague approaches you for feedback on how they are perceived in the workplace…or worse still your boss asks you to explain why the team engagement scores are plummeting. The easy answer is….tell them what they want to hear…not what they are asking.This socially expected (and reinforced) response is based on what we want confirmed, but like the empty repetition of behaviour associated with retail therapy, drug abuse, and sex addiction, the behaviour meets a need but leads to no growth.  It fails to challenge us at the most basic of levels. Moreover, it casts a shadow over the part of oneself that is actually yearning love, appreciation and recognition. Without honesty, we are not challenged, without challenge we have no purpose.  Without purpose, we have no direction and without direction we never reach our destination.So again, I ask you the question, if honesty is something that most people hold as a personal value and is reflected in the guiding principles of so many influential corporations, why is it that we fill our days navigating around how we avoid telling people the truth? Is it fear of losing friends? Fear of losing a job opportunity? Or simply fear of the unknown? I think it goes deeper than that. I think it’s fear of facing yourself….what you know needs to happen and what you know you need to do.So, if your still trying to figure out if you really are living your values of honesty and integrity try asking yourself the following questions:

• Are you allocating time to be honest with yourself?
• Do you trust the people in your team?
• Are you aware of the needs people have in your team?
• Do you understand your own needs?

If you’re ready to break out of the mould and become the best version of yourself, let me help you.