Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category
Monday, May 24th, 2010
Will power; it’s a mysterious force that some seem to have and others don’t. Some are able to say no the luscious decadent dessert, others can stay away from the golf course on a beautiful day, and others can practice a dance routine till they are about to drop.
What is the mysterious force that says “Yes, you can do it” or “No you can do without it?” Why do most of us fail miserably and feel like jerks as we watch the chosen few win the awards and trophies and have to listen to how hard they worked and how they never gave up.
There are so many motivational books about focus. That “if only” you would decide to stay “on purpose” you can do anything. Well, I tell you sometimes, it just ain’t so!
Take me for example. I just lost a lot, I mean a lot of weight. I have said no to my favorite Pinot Noir, to amazing crème brulee, to freshly baked bread. And everyone has congratulated me on my will power.
Except, it did not take any of my own will; it took a combination of the right ingredients. There is a small amount of a whey shake, some coconut oil and a shot (literally) of a hormone that burns away the fat.
I learned from this that will power sounds better in a motivational speech than often is the case in real life. I did not crave anything. I’ll say it again, I did not crave anything that would keep weight on my thighs or butt.
I know what to eat; I have known what to eat for decades. I have done every fad diet and every nutritional way of eating and yet, there it was; that annoying extra weight. Sometimes you just have to wait for the right combination to find you and then eating right, finishing a project, finding a new job, or a new lover, or a new home just happens.
What I have learned from going back to my small size clothes after more than a decade of struggle is this; don’t give up the quest, what you really need is there, somewhere. More important than that, stop beating yourself up and looking to others to give you the answers; doing what is good for you is easier if you give yourself a break.
Tags: Advice, motivation, Motivational Books, Moving Forward, Will Power
Posted in Accountability, Advice, Character, Decision Making, Fear, Health, Power, Psychology, Reflections, Stress, Will Power, motivation | No Comments »
Monday, March 1st, 2010
There is an interesting new TV program airing this Friday; “Who Do You Think You Are?” based on finding the long lost ancestors of celebrities.
This is not just for the rich and the famous. I believe we all would benefit from finding out more about where we came from, and what patterns of behavior were handed down from generation to generation.
Most of us are interested in ourselves and don’t care all that much about the stories of those who came before us. We are polite when grandparents talk about “walking miles to school on dirt roads in flimsy shoes with only an apple for lunch.” We say to ourselves that times have changed and that was then, not the way it is now. We want to stay in the present and not look back.
So, what is the value of searching for ancestors and finding out more about where we came from? Lisa Kudrow, of “Friends” fame and producer of the new series put it clearly “We always forget how important history is. It informs everything that happens after.”
In “Don’t Bring It to Work”, there is a way to begin the search for your own history, because Kudrow is right, the past does inform everything that happens after. In the book is an outline of a “Sankofa Map”. The word Sankofa comes from Ghana and means “clear the past to free the present”.
What we know we can change, what remains hidden, can haunt us. No, it is not possible to know all the details; that is not what matters. What matters is finding the themes that have tumbled through our histories. So, often with a little time and willingness to dig down, the pieces of our personal histories are available to us.
It is so important for leaders to take the concept of self awareness into the long-ago past and find out how the patterns handed down from great grandparents to grandparents to parents to children through the ages impact decisions made right now.
The stories we learn about can be fascinating and shed light on why we do what we do. Every family has its share of heroes as well as villains and we can then pull on the positive patterns and stand on the shoulders of the past rather than repeat it.
Tags: Behavioral Patterns, Communication, Conflict, Emotions, family patterns, Family-Based Patterns, Health, History, Leaders, Leadership, Media, Money, Neuroscience, pattern aware, Patterns, Power, Relationships, Sankofa
Posted in Collaboration, Communication, Conflict, Diversity, Education, Employers, Ethics, Executive Teams, Health, History, Integrity, Leaders, Leadership, Management, Media, Money, Neuroscience, PatternAware, Patterns, Psychology, leadership development | No Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Sometimes there is a frustrating moment when you are not sure what you see, hear, and feel is making sense to anyone but you. It is making you crazy. Are you the only one wondering what is going on in this meeting? Are you are the only one sensing the tension and disconnect?
Maybe, just maybe, it is not what is happening in the room at that exact time. Perhaps, it is a memory trace of a past event in your life, and there you are, in a sense, re-living it.
The scientific term for this is called an engram. Here is an example: You are a toddler and the family is going to the beach for the first time. Everyone is excited about flying from land-locked Oklahoma to Florida.
Your parents talk about swimming in the ocean, the warm blue water and the pretty white waves. You are old enough to know this will be special.
Then you get to the beach and it is pouring rain. You stand with your family on the motel patio and sense the upset and annoyance.
Now, fast-forward: you are a grown-up and you are taking your family to the beach. It is a sunny day and everything is working perfectly; except, you are depressed and sad. Do you feel as though you are crazy? Of course you do!
Blame it on your brain. The old trace memory from long ago has kicked in, and while it is certainly possible to shake off the upset, you wonder why it happened in the first place.
Many times we can go back and connect the dots of old memories; often we can’t. So, if your feelings are not connected to the situation of the moment, know it is an earlier pattern from the past at play.
Remember: 1. You do bring your past with you whether you want to or not.
2. Every thought and situation is recorded in your memory system.
3. Present reactions may be knee-jerk responses to the past.
So, when the guy next to you in a meeting says something that presses your buttons non-stop, ask yourself if this is from what is actually happening in the present, or does he remind you of your older, know-it-all brother who used to drive you crazy?
You can learn more about patterns by going to www.sylvialafair.com and take the pattern aware test to see what drives you to distraction.
Tags: Accountability, Behavioral Patterns, Book, Coaching, Communication, family patterns, Family-Based Patterns, Psychology, Relationships, Workplace Relationships
Posted in Accountability, Avoider, Business, Collaboration, Communication, Conflict, Diversity, Employers, Neuroscience, PatternAware, Patterns, Psychology, Reflections, Super Achiever, Transformation, Trust | No Comments »
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
This is a time for women to pat themselves on the back for all the successes that have come in the last 60 years. The role of women has changed dramatically, and it has been mostly a quiet revolution.
But there have been some loud bumps and bleeps along the way, like the angry wife who took action to cut off her husband’s private parts, rather than just wish she could. With the rash of cheaters now making the headlines that may be something to rethink instead of all the shame-faced public apologies. Scratch that, it was just a wandering thought!
Since, within the next several months women will become the majority of the workforce, and we know there is power in numbers, it is an important time to think about what we, both female and male, want to have as change initiative, moving forward.
I would like to underline the importance of a partnership model. Women and men need to talk in a new and more effective way. It is about how we connect and relate around the things that matter most – our relationships and how to be stewards for the future generations.
Not enough air time has been given to these priorities, and as a society I believe we are suffering and self- medicating through substances, sex, and shopping.
There is a new feminism (what about a new ‘malism’) that takes into account the differences in the way men and women are wired. We need to find a middle way that takes into account how male and female brains process information. Not good or bad, just DIFFERENT.
Even more importantly, we need to take into account the legacy we hand to the next generation. So far, we, and that means all of us, have not gotten high marks here. What are we teaching our kids about what it means to be a woman, a man, a business person, a citizen, a human being?
The workplace is the place where change can happen and happen quickly. It is the place that has changed the most in the past century. It is the place that women and men can begin a true dialogue and real partnership can occur.
Tags: Celebrity cheaters, Change initiative, Cheaters, Female vs Male thinking, Feminism, Future generations, Models, Partnership model, Pulbic apologies, Relationships, Self-medicating, Substance abuse, Women vs Men, Women's revolution, Women's success
Posted in Accountability, Avoider, Business, Collaboration, Communication, Conflict, Consulting, Diversity, Education, Ethics, Executive Teams, History, Human Resources, Integrity, Leaders, Leadership, Management, Marital coaching, Media, Money, Neuroscience, PatternAware, Patterns, Power, Psychology, Reflections, The media, Transformation, Trust, Uncategorized, Women in the workplace, Workplace Relationships, leadership development | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
We are living in an era of polarities. Our government is a house divided, not just by being Republicans and Democrats, but by taking extreme views on just about everything and then, as we all see, nothing happens. We are polarized, and we are stuck.
Same thing happens in the workplace when there is too much emphasis on only thinking about the positive. In an organization that leaves no room for dissent, we get a variation of the movie “Pleasantville” (if you haven’t seen it, it is worth the time).
There are ideas that if you focus only on the positive then, like magic, the genie will appear and you will get what you want. That is the premise of the book “The Secret” that has made millions for the authors and has done little for readers.
Recently I heard someone say “If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your definite plans”. There is a mystery to our lives, and part of joining into the essence of that mystery is to be real, and to accept the ebb and flow of life in its entirety.
What do I mean by being real? That means accepting the bitter with the better, and telling ourselves and others the truth about what we see, think and feel.
The new way of doing things is to find a balance between looking at the good in our lives, and being appreciative, as well as letting our angry, sad, or disappointed emotions show.
After the super-bowl, the coach, Jim Caldwell showed what real is in an appropriate way. He acknowledged that he and the team were upset, and yes, they would sulk for awhile. Then they would bounce back and use the disappointment of losing this big game to their advantage for next year.
I guarantee that the best way to handle being upset is to…well, be upset. You really don’t move on until you get the hurt and sadness out. If it sits in you, it leads to long term patterns of avoidance and denial, two of the most common and destructive patterns that can destroy a team or a company.
You can see the results of too much of phony happiness and what to do about it in “Don’t Bring It to Work”. Learn to monitor your own behavior so you don’t get caught in the trap of playing “let’s pretend”.
Tags: Anger in the workplace, Balance, Humor in the workplace, Jim Caldwell, Life's plans, Polarities, Super Bowl Coach
Posted in Accountability, Avoider, Boss, Business, Coaching, Collaboration, Communication, Conflict, Consulting, Diversity, Education, Employers, Executive Teams, Fear, Health, Human Resources, Integrity, Leaders, Leadership, Management, Media, Neuroscience, PatternAware, Psychology, Reflections, Transformation, Trust, leadership development | No Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Leadership and creativity are linked at a core level. Great leaders are also artists in many areas. The following amazing photographs show us how, if we trust each other and find that core creative place, we can make the ordinary extraordinary!
In Japan, rice is essential to life, both for food and as a way of life. Rice planting season has made this very small island culture into one where there is cooperation and collaboration. You can only plant and harvest rice in certain seasons, and it takes the effort of many to make this happen. Once the basics of planting are no longer an issue, look at the creativity that can come with doing the same thing year after year and making it new and unique.
As I looked at these photographs I wondered who came up with the ideas. Then I thought……………who cares? It is a team effort, and the results speak for themselves. Having been to Japan many times, I was always fascinated by the lack of “me, me, me” ego so often seen in the West. Collaboration is at the heart of the hard work that went into these works of art. Enjoy.
Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan, but this is no alien creation. The designs have been cleverly planted.
Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different color rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields.
As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.
A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants. The colors are created by using different varieties. This photo was taken in Inakadate, Japan.
Napoleon on horseback can be seen from the skies. This was created by precision planting and months of planning by villagers and farmers located in Inkadate, Japan.
Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose lives are featured on the television series Tenchijin, appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture of Japan.
This year, various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan, including designs of deer dancers. Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan, such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers
The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed Kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed Tsugaru, a Roman variety, to create the colored patterns in the time between planting and harvesting in September.
The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square meters of paddy fields.
From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.
Closer to the image, the careful placement of the thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.
Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew from meetings of the village committees. The different varieties of rice plants grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces.
In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.
In 2005, agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art.
A year later, organizers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images
Tags: Accountability, Behavioral Patterns, Collaboration, Diversity, Economy, Family-Based Patterns, Japanese art, Leadership, leadership programs, Natural art, Resilience, Rice, Workplace Relationships
Posted in Collaboration, Communication, Consulting, Diversity, Economy, Education, Employers, Ethics, Executive Teams, Honor, Integrity, Leaders, Leadership, PatternAware, Patterns, Power, Psychology, Reflections, Super Achiever, Team Building, Transformation, Trust | No Comments »
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
The saga o
f John Edwards is more tragic than it is disgusting. Here is a man who has lied and lied, not just to the world, but most importantly, to himself. And my big question is why we, as a nation, are so gullible? Why did we take so long to see his charade?
Were there aspects of his tendency to cover the truth when he was running for President of the United States? He always posed with such a pretty face and spoke such pretty words. I remember having an annoying feeling in my gut that all was not right with his world and yet, and yet….it takes determination and a capacity for tenacity to even become a contender for the White House crown. He had credentials and had been vetted by his colleagues, deemed worthy of the job.
The day I knew he was down in the dirt of it was when he visited his “past relationship” late at night and on his way out was caught by a reporter and made a dash to run and hide. That made me cringe, thinking about how he would have handled a major international crisis.
Now, I can only hope he finds a way to make peace with all of his relationships: his ill wife, his children with her, his “mistress”, and the love-child they brought into the world.
This type of situation goes deeply into the psyches of the next generation, and the next. In our Total Leadership Connections program, participants are asked to chart their family history – to learn what patterns of the past have influenced their present thinking and behavior. It is an eye opening process that helps leaders become clear about what “baggage” they carry into their important jobs.
Perhaps all captains of industry, all leaders of organizations, all who are in positions of power for the public good need to take the time to do what we have named the “Sankofa Map”. The term Sankofa is from Ghana, from its mythology and means “clear the past to free the present”.
The wisdom of older cultures is that they took into account the behaviors of ancestors. There was a sense that what was done would impact both present and future generations. These concepts might serve us well in this day of instant gratification and power paradigms.
For John Edwards, Elizabeth, et al., I can only hope that there is a period of honesty and truth telling that can begin the long, arduous process of clearing the past to free the present.
Tags: Accountability, Behavioral Patterns, Book, Business, Communication, Consulting, Emotions, family patterns, Family-Based Patterns, History, John Edwards, Leaders, Leadership, Media, neuropsychology, Neuroscience, pattern aware, Patterns, Sankofa
Posted in Accountability, Avoider, Business, Honor, Leaders, Leadership, Marital coaching, Neuroscience, PatternAware, Patterns, Political distrust, Politics, Power, Psychology, The media, Transformation, Trust | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Recently Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of General Electric Co’s NBC Universal Entertainment, told PBS interviewer Charlie Rose: “It’s the sign of a leader to step up and say you know when something’s not working, and have the guts to reverse it”.
By the end of the interview, it was questionable whether Zucker, like Conan O’Brien, would be fired. That is the way we work. Take risks, win and get the equivalent of an Oscar. Lose, and get the boot!
Is there a better way? Can there be a middle ground where what is learned when risk- taking fails gets dissected, and gives those in the loop a chance to reform their thoughts and actions in a more positive way?
What is so often the case is that the “loser” is so busy defending what has happened and is feeling the heatwaves of being under constant attack, there is no time to learn from what has been going on.
As a culture, we are so addicted to winning, and accept that as the only way. We lose, yes – lose both sight of the value of the down side of risk taking, as well as the human cost of defending, explaining and justifying behavior.
Jeff Zucker may be in a stagnant time in his career. He may be used up in his CEO role. On the other hand, he may well be in a fertile time of learning from the mess and come up with some real and juicy ideas that will get NBC out of the doldrums. If he is fired, he will lose and so will whoever replaces him. There is always backlash where the pendulum often swings to the opposite side. Thus, conservative, risk adverse individuals often follow the risk takers and progress is paralyzed.
So, NBC, a paraphrase from the song “Give peace a chance”, think about it and “Give Jeff a chance”.
Tags: Accountability, Behavioral Patterns, Business, Collaboration, Communication, Conflict, Consulting, Economy, Education, Emotions, Ethics, Executive Teams, Family-Based Patterns, Leadership, Management, Media, Money, pattern aware, Politics, Power, Stress, Transformation, Workplace Relationships
Posted in Accountability, Avoider, Boss, Business, Coaching, Collaboration, Communication, Conflict, Consulting, Diversity, Economy, Education, Employers, Ethics, Executive Teams, Human Resources, Integrity, Leaders, Leadership, Management, Media, Money, PatternAware, Patterns, Power, Psychology, Super Achiever, Team Building, The media, leadership development | No Comments »
Friday, January 8th, 2010
I saw an article in The Citizen-Times.com, Ashville North Carolina that struck a cord with me. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in promoting his book, referred to Native Americans as “injuns”.
How many times have racial slurs slipped into a talk and ignored? When do we all stop and say “No more!”? Why is there still a propensity to put down groups of people, to make them seem less than?
In my work with cultural sensitivity and diversity, I teach that it comes from a deep, dark place in individuals and in groups. It is a safety device attempting to ward off the threat of “others”. “If they are not like me, they must be a danger to me.”
This kind of thinking lives in the older parts of the social brain and has caused wars and constant disaffection among people.
“Injun”, is no different than “kike”, “spic”, “dago”, “nigger”, or “gook” - it is intended to target a person or group of people, and make them seem unimportant, insignificant. It is a method of making those who use these terms to feel powerful and in control, and makes those who once felt like victims become victimizers. This is sadly, a common psychological mechanism that needs much more exploration, not just in personal matters, of physical or sexual abuse, but also in cultural abuse.
In her article, B. Lynne Harlan, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, raises the vital question: “When are we going to hold our leaders to a higher standard”?
This is a key discussion point for all programs: Be they MBA’s, leadership development, executive education, conflict resolution, team building, corporate governance, and the like.
It is time for all of us to look at the crusted, corroded arrogance and dissention that lives in our personal psyches and begin to clean up the inner pollution that causes as much damage as the toxins caused by machines in our external environment.
Tags: Accountability, Behavioral Patterns, Book, Coaching, Communication, Conflict, Diversity, Economy, Education, Emotions, Ethics, Executive Teams, Family-Based Patterns, Health, History, Leaders, Leadership, Media, neuropsychology, Neuroscience, Patterns, Power, Relationships, Workplace Relationships
Posted in Accountability, Coaching, Communication, Conflict, Consulting, Diversity, Education, Ethics, Health, History, Human Resources, Integrity, Leaders, Leadership, Media, Neuroscience, PatternAware, Patterns, Power, Psychology, Reflections, The media, leadership development | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
If you are an executive leader, human resource professional, management consultant, or emerging high potential manager, it is vital for you to understand what goes on inside the heads and hearts of employees to help them become the best they can be. That is your golden globe or Oscar – to help people into excellence.
The more you know how your words and actions impact others, the better you can be at directing a situation to a positive end point. Take for example, the almost universal craving for chocolate. Godiva has made a fortune from knowing how to package this desire into beautifully crafted candy. You can take the newest knowledge from neuroscience and do the same.
Did you ever wonder if we have a “chocolate gene” hidden somewhere in our biology? Actually the answer is in the limbic system of the brain. One study by Matthew Lieberman and Golnaz Tabibnia indicated that people were more positive when a dollar was split fairly giving each individual 50 cents than when they received $8 and another person received $17 out of a $25 bounty. Interesting, more money was not the issue, it was one of fairness. Other studies have indicated that the same feeling of satisfaction that we get from chocolate occurs when we are treated fairly.
How does that affect you at work? If you are the CEO of a company and you treat your senior team fairly, there will be a satisfaction factor beyond bonuses and appreciation awards. If you are a project manager and you are really careful not to “play favorites”, you will find there is more cooperation and also more creative problem solving.
Many of the HR issues that cause feverish sweats in companies are due to the fairness factor. People are often willing to fight ‘to the death’ when they feel they have been treated unfairly. Most class-action suits are fairness based. They cost huge amounts of goodwill, along with the money.
Think about how your actions impact the social brain and the limbic system where threat and hostility are activated. Then stop and decide how you can handle a situation in a more even handed way. It’s like giving chocolate to a baby!
Tags: Behavioral Patterns, Communication, Conflict, Cooperation and teamwork, Diversity, Economy, Education, Emotions, Employee appreciation, Employee recognition, Ethics, Executive Teams, Fair treatment, Leadership, Matthew Lieberman and Golnaz Tabibnia, Psychology, Team Building, Workplace Relationships
Posted in Accountability, Boss, Business, Coaching, Collaboration, Communication, Conflict, Consulting, Diversity, Employee burnout, Employers, Ethics, Executive Teams, Fear, Health, History, Human Resources, Integrity, Leaders, Leadership, Money, Neuroscience, PatternAware, Patterns, Power, Psychology, Reflections, Transformation, Women in the workplace, Workplace Relationships, leadership development | No Comments »
Will power; it’s a mysterious force that some seem to have and others don’t. Some are able to say no the luscious decadent dessert, others can stay away from the golf course on a beautiful day, and others can practice a dance routine till they are about to drop.