Shifting your Focus

Struggling to change a habit, managing a transformation, switching jobs, acquiring new skills, juggling too many accounts … you fill in the blank, challenges abound. Just to be clear right from the start, I too believe that every situation, every person, and every challenge is unique and has it’s specifics. I do not believe in golden rules so this post is about reminding you of something you already know, but what might have been pushed to your background while digging into your challenge deeper and deeper:

Changing your focus can provide you with new perspectives, shed light on some of your blind spots, create a different mindset, positively influence your attitude, and point towards coping strategies otherwise gone unnoticed.

Below you'll find nine of my questions that can help you shift your focus. Try them!

1.    Are you listening to yourself? Many different aspects of yourself such as the language you use, the places where tension builds up in your body, the stories you create in your own mind etc. can give you clues to your beliefs, your strengths and weaknesses, your thought processes, your attitude, and more.

2.    What are the consequences of staying in the status quo, or: What happens if you don’t change? Have you asked yourself this question lately? What’s keeping you from moving, growing, taking risks, charting new territory?

3.    Are you taking full advantage of what you are already doing right? Of course, figuring out what’s not going right provides you with important information. But solely focusing on the ‘wrongs’ will affect your (and others) attitude negatively and it misses out on the opportunity to make it a two-track process including building on strengths, skills, accomplishments, present knowledge, and gifts.

4.    Are you using multiple perspectives from within and outside ‘your circle’? I’ve mentioned the value of approaching people who think unlike you in previous articles so I’ll leave at this.

5.    Are you using metaphors such as a classroom, a football team, a group of sailors, a tutoring situation, a herd of deer, or a scientist working on a medicine to look at your challenge?

6.    Have you grown complacent or do you lean more towards frantically running from one goal or challenge to the next? What are you putting on your plate and what are you allowing others to put on your plate? What is driving you to act complacently or frantically?

7.    Have you acted as your own advisor and coach lately? I refer to the old technique used in therapy, training, and coaching where you act as your own advisor by pretending that a good friend or colleague approaches you with your challenge and asks you for advice. Or a different version: You are a 20 year older ‘you’, wise from life’s experiences and you write a letter of advice to your younger (current) ‘you’.

8.    Have you lately played with what’s in your foreground and what’s in your background? At times we get so tangled up in a situation and in our set beliefs and ways of thinking that we do not realize we are doing ourselves a disservice by what’s on our screen and what we neglect to pay attention to. We don’t even differentiate between the two.

9.    Have you gone so deep into your personal comfort zone that changing is simply too much of an effort and that staying where you are and being part of the pack is just fine? And if it really is just fine or even great with you, then you’re good to go: stay in your comfort zone and be part of the pack. But if you keep yourself from moving towards your purpose, your values, your passion, and your goals, and if you know and feel that you honestly aren’t happy with the way things are, than get off that seat and mobilize support, tools, confidence, and energy.

Shift your focus, open new doors, and above all, see with different eyes.

Inspiration from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

Recently I reread parts of the book Leadership Ensemble – Lessons in Collaborative Management from the World’s Only Conductorless Orchestra, and I remain to be intrigued.

In the world of traditional orchestras, where the board of trustees, administrative management, and of course the conductor play key roles in determining strategic direction, project selection, and resource allocation, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has arranged things a little different  and it sure performs differently. The musicians of Orpheus participate in all areas of organizational decision making. The structure of Orpheus reflects the power of musicians. The structure of Orpheus also reflects principles like passionate dedication to mission, shared and rotated leadership, and clarity of roles which all have proven very fruitful.

Orpheus was founded in 1972 by cellist Julian Fifer and fellow musicians. They all aspired to perform a diverse orchestral repertoire using chamber music ensemble techniques and self-governing techniques. Orpheus is one of the few self-governing ensembles playing today.

Orpheus performs without the usually all-powerful conductor and rotates musical leadership roles for each work. The Orchestra strives to empower its musicians by integrating them into almost every facet of the organization, literally changing the way the world thinks about musicians, conductors, and orchestras. And, about leadership.

The orchestra’s success is founded on eight principles that I will briefly mention and that are meant to help you contemplate, and if necessary re-think and revise your leadership beliefs and practices:

Principle 1: Put power in the hands of the people doing the work. Key words: power, decision-making authority and realizing people’s full potential.

Principle 2: Encourage individual responsibility. Key is that every individual takes the initiative to resolve issues.

Principle 3: Create clarity of roles and functions. Key is: avoiding employee conflict, wasted effort, poor morale, and poor products and services.

Principle 4: Share and rotate leadership. Key is valuing and using everyone’s contribution and benefiting from unique skills and experience.

Principle 5: Foster horizontal teamwork. Key words: optimizing personal expertise and individual responsibility.

Principle 6:  Learn to listen, learn to talk. Key is listening actively and intently and speaking directly and honestly.

Principle 7: Seek consensus. Key is that no organization or group can move forward unless its members agree to move together in the same direction at the same time.

Principle 8: Dedicate passionately to your mission. Key is: member-owned mission and passion drives focus, energy, determination, decision, and results.

For more information and inspiration I recommend the book by Harvey Seifter and Peter Economy.  

Lesson from Buddhism

Living in the now is one of the premises of Buddhism. The secret for health of body and mind, is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely.

Living the present moment wisely surely includes learning from the past and anticipating the future in order to live and enjoy this day and be resilient and resourceful if this is what tomorrow asks for.

Anything up for revision, improvement, or reinforcement in your beliefs, thinking, attitude, or approach to life? 

Lao Tzu on Leadership

Go to the people
Learn from them
Love them
Start with what they know
Build on what they have
But of the best leaders
When their task is accomplished
Their work is done
The people will remark:
"We have done it ourselves."

Small Can Be Big

Some time ago I came across an article (European Heart Journal, March 2011) in which it is stated that little movements can make a big difference. Recent American-Australian research shows that people putting up their arm while sitting at their desk or standing up while they’re making a phone call score lower on a variety of risk factors for heart diseases as compared to people who sit still. A possible explanation is that every brief exertion of the skeletal muscles counts in enhancing blood circulation. In another study (PNAS, Feb. 2011) American researchers showed that the usual age-related shrinking of the hippocampus (crucial for learning and memory) can be decreased by moving more.

This is no commercial for fitness or any other sports. I’d just like to remind you that not only moving is healthy, but, above all, that a small change can bring about a big result or change which is, of course, not at all limited to putting up your arm while sitting behind your desk. I do believe in small things making a big difference, one person and act at a time.

Four small suggestions for big gains:

·         When starting your work day, decide on the desired outcome of the day. Describe two or three specific results. Keep it short and simple, attainable and attractive. You (big) gain: it will focus you, help you redirect during the day, and evaluate at the end of the day.

·         Arrive a few minutes early for your meeting to brush of the previous activity or meeting and prepare for this one so that you actually see, hear, and sense what’s going on rather than being caught up in thoughts and to-do’s that belong elsewhere. These few minutes won’t help you get rid of the daunting amount of things still to do and it will help you achieve more each meeting.

·         Give someone a compliment, let a colleague or subordinate know what you appreciate in them. Small effort, little time, great pleasure and for sure an energy boost for the receiver.

·         Take a few minutes extra to really listen to your conversation partner, to ask that extra question that otherwise would go unasked and that starts a whole different line of thinking.

But it’s not about my suggestions. It’s about making you aware that small can be big. In addition to dreaming big I invite you to add your own small ideas for big and valuable results. If you hesitate, please remember how long it takes to smile at yourself and the world. Makes a big difference if you ask me.

The value of being nonjudgmental

We do it all the time. We form opinions, we put people and situations in boxes, we decide on right and wrong, we categorize, we judge. Judging is a necessary activity. Without the skill to judge it would be an unpredictable, threatening, unsafe, and difficult world to live in, or more than it already is at times and more than it needs to be. Think of situations like when to cross the street, what sitter to trust with your children, which route to take when you're lost, what job offer (the good old days) to choose, what university to look into, how to best negotiate your benefits package and on and on and on.

The title of this post clearly gave me away. There is a time to judge and there is a time to not judge. And what many of us have great difficulty with is knowing which of the two to do when. Take for example hearing criticism (call it the truth or not). As Jerry Hirshberg, founder and retired president of Nissan Design International in California stated: "Even people who don't mind telling the truth have mixed feelings (at best) about hearing the truth. It's like a chemical reaction: Your face goes red, your temperature rises, you want to strike back. Those are signs of the two D's: defending and debating. Try to fight back with the two L's: listening and learning."

The best way to shut down communication and stifle honest feedback is to punish people who speak up candidly. To snap at them, to quiet them, to publicly ignore input, and to dismiss their ideas by judging them prematurely as impossible, not in line with company policy, too difficult / expensive / out of the ordinary or whatever the judgment is. This quick judging instills fear, demoralization, and apathy at best, and rebellion and couter-productive attitudes and practices at worst.

My suggestion: postpone judgment (excluding crisis situations, of course), listen and learn, inquire by asking questions, see the value of differences and variety, and give people and ideas a chance before you prematurely judge them into the world of the 'weird, the unwanted, and the impossible'.

Always have a Dream

This poem by Amanda Bradley was on the front page of our son’s end-of-year fifth grade brochure, and it seems to me it fits right in with a blog on Personal Development, Leadership, and Change.

Always have a Dream

Forget about the days when it’s been cloudy,

                but don’t forget your hours in the sun…

Forget about the times you’ve been defeated,

                but don’t forget the victories you’ve won…

Forget about mistakes you can’t change now,

                but don’t forget the lessons that you’ve learned…

Forget about the misfortunes you’ve encountered,

                but don’t forget the times your luck has turned…

Forget about the days when you’ve been lonely,

                but don’t forget the friendly smiles you’ve seen…

Forget about the plans that didn’t seem to work out right,

                but don’t forget to always have a dream!

By poet and novelist Amanda Bradley