Move With Not Against

We interact energetically with others. We either move towards (and with) others, or we move against them. When we believe others are our adversaries, we move against them. Action - reaction, tit-for-tat, can transform them into adversaries.

Anthropologists and biologists believe we have a tit-for-tat instinct hardwired into our DNA. In fact, this instinct is evolutionary and is found in all mammals. When someone comes at us 'mammals' in anger, this action fires fear signals in our Amygdala - a tiny organ found in the lower part of our Limbic Brain - and we move into our protection mode.

As soon as we see and feel the signals that someone is on the attack, we respond instinctively to protect ourselves. Some people fight back and match anger with anger, and a fight may ensue. Others may flee if they feel the anger and aggression will lead to danger, and they run away so they will not 'be eaten alive'. Others will freeze, and hope we change our minds and move on to more enticing prey.

This dance of engagement drives all of human behavior. Psychiatrist Stuart Brown gave an incredible presentation that puts these interaction dynamics in context for us. Brown describes a meeting between an enormous 1,200-pound male Polar Bear and a female Husky. The scene is the moment of contact between the two -- the Polar Bear and Husky -- on the Hudson Bay, North of Churchill, Manitoba.

In October and November, there is no ice on the bay, and the polar bear is in pursuit of food. On the other side of the polar bear's predatory gaze is the female Husky starring back.

Then something unusual happens. Under normal circumstances, the Polar Bear's generally fixed, rigid and stereotypical behavior ends up with its making a meal of the Husky. However, this time the Husky returns the gaze with a bow and a wagging tail. The polar bear stands in front of the Husky, no claws and no fangs, and they begin an incredible ballet, a ballet of nature, with two animals in an altered state -- a state of play.

This interaction was just as much part of nature as the usual battle to the death. All because of the way the Husky acted.

What trumps what in nature? We assume power-over others gets us our way. What is our way anyway? The dance in nature we witnessed in the story of the Husky and Polar Bear is a perfect example of how human beings and all other animals communicate. We send energetic signals all the time. We test each other - as the Husky did the Bear, and we see what comes back. Our signals work like radio signals saying: "where are you" and "what do you want?"

Our signaling system - what we send, and what we receive - alerts us to the nature of our relationship with others. We are either 'moving with others, moving against others or move away from others. Each signal generates a reaction that is hardwired in nature as the fight-or-flight syndrome.

In our brains, we are translating these signals into labels about our power relationship to others. We are either in a power-over or a power-with other's mode of interaction. The Husky's signals to play - power-with - trumped the Polar Bear's signals to dominate - power-over - a trump that is one of nature's big surprises.

The antidote to power-over behaviors at work is not to give back power. Rather than demanding others to step into a power-fight, instead we can request that others move into a power-with dance with us.

Reflections & Actions to Experiment With:

• Remember you have the ability to trump an adversarial offer. You can be the game changer.
• Make requests not demands.
• By moving towards and with others, with the intention of creating something wonderful - our adult form of play - we do create something wonderful! Try it!
• Our beliefs drive our intentions, our intentions drive our actions, and our actions drive the results that we achieve with others.

Judith E. Glaser is the Author of two best selling business books:

Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking & Build a Healthy Thriving Organization - winner of the Bronze Award in the Leadership Category of the 2008 Axiom Business Book Awards, and The DNA of Leadership; and the DVD and Workshop titled The Leadership Secret of Gregory Goose

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I Want Happy Back

Emotions WE Share in Common

Even young children know what feelings are - maybe even better than adults do. They watch our faces; scan for acceptance, anger, and excitement and then they respond.

• Happy means: getting things we want, need and like.
• Sadness means: taking away things we want, need and like.
  

Happy and sad are universal emotional responses, which are instinctual - they are hardwired into our cells. I even believe many animals have these responses. I call these emotional responses Vital Instincts.

Both sad and happy are emotions everyone experiences. No one has to teach us these emotions. We may differ on what makes us happy or sad. However we both experience these emotions.

I Want Happy Back ...

When my grandson, Gideon, was 3 and a half, he ran across the living room to get to a couch he wanted to play on. You could see the look on his face as he scooted across the room. He was in pure ecstasy envisioning how he was going to tumble into the huge fluffy cushions on the sofa and jump around on the fluffy pillows.

On the way he fell, and the look of joy and happiness disappeared and was replaced by tears and sadness. Becky, my daughter saw the fall and went to help him get up and wipe his tears. She was all prepared to hug him and kiss him and make him feel better.

"Are you okay"? She asked as she reached out to comfort him. Now whimpering a bit Gideon was looking like he was pulling himself together. Becky looked him in the eyes again and said, "Are you okay?" Gideon wiped his eyes and said, "I'm okay, I'm okay. I just want 'happy back."


Happy Biochemistry

We all know when 'happy disappears' and we all know when happy is back. Happy makes us feel really good about the world, about ourselves, about the future. Happy is optimistic, while sad is pessimistic. Every culture has a happy and a sad.

Gideon reminded me of the simple yet so important nature of life. When we are happy we experience life as an unfolding, positive story in our life. Our biochemistry is 'happy' - our fear levels are down and our ability to reach out to others in our world an experiment goes up. Our interactions with others are positive and engaging - happy people can shift the chemistry in a room, lifting spirits and energy in seconds.

Heart Meter

At Benchmark, our Creating WE Institute has been researching 'happy and sad' as part of our study of the Neuroscience of WE and we are working with biofeedback tools that can measure 'happy' and 'sad' through the way our hearts beat.

Last week I visited my daughter and her family. Truth be told, my 'stress' was high, and I was having trouble finding 'happy.'

I got an idea. I thought, "What if I show Gideon how to use the tools - might we both have fun 'finding happy together.' Lo and behold something miraculous happened.

The first day, Gideon could move from 'red' to 'green' quite quickly - in fact, much faster than I did.

As we worked together he told me, "If you try too hard, you can't bring happy back!" Well, he was right. My stress and my trying too hard had become a hardwired pattern that I had not seen. The harder I tried, the redder the light became. The more I learned how to shift from my head to my heart, the more a green glow appeared.

Gideon fell in love with the process. The next morning he came into the room where I was working and sat next to me. He connected the clip to my ear and turned it on. He put his little arm around my shoulder and snuggled next to me every so sweetly and said, "Mama Judy, let's bring happy back!"

Wisdom from the Heart

Gideon taught me happy is something that I can use for the rest of my life... and luckily he's learning early. He also told me when you 'try too hard' and 'focus too much' you can't find Happy. He also reminded me the importance of snuggling and cuddling - happy is more than a solo event ...

Judith E. Glaser is the Author of two best selling business books:

Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking & Build a Healthy Thriving Organization - winner of the Bronze Award in the Leadership Category of the 2008 Axiom Business Book Awards, and The DNA of Leadership; and the DVD and Workshop titled The Leadership Secret of Gregory Goose
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We are all Pattern Makers...

Some of us have worked in organizations where telling others what to do is the norm. Maybe you've grown up in a family where parents lectured you about what is right and wrong, and you've brought that skill into work.

Lecturing takes many forms. In some organizations, we go to meetings where people give presentations using PowerPoint. We are expected to 'talk' our stories so others know what is on our minds or what is important. We give business updates to one another to keep one another informed. Lectures, and all the variations can become the norm. Even email and Blackberry - if out of balance with real talk, can become a form of lecturing at others.

Some telling is normal, but too much telling becomes hyper-lecturing making listeners tune out. Moreover, to compound the situation, we think that because we have 'told someone what to do' they get it the way we intended it, so we move on to the next point we want to make rather than checking back for understanding.

Telling has a place in communicating, yet this pattern can turn off and disengage our brains, our relationships and our culture from reality. It doesn't stop with the two people who are interacting. The message communicates "my way or the highway" or "do as I say," or even "status quo" which can ripple throughout a team, and organization and become the cultural norm.

Tone Deaf and Blind

The consequence of this pattern is that people stop really listening to one another. They become so focused on telling what is on their minds, that they become tone deaf to the cues and clues that others are sending back about the discussions on the table. The important connection between the two people becomes broken, and they lose their natural syncing, rapport and more so - their empathy for one another.

One-way conversations have associated neurochemistries that actually reinforce the talking-at pattern. It feels great to be self-expressed, and the more we do it the more we want to do it. Talking at others feels good. There is a feedback loop to pleasure centers in the brain, increasing our appetite, and we want more.

Yet we know from our research that every 12-18 seconds listeners stop listening. Their brains need to take a break and digest. When they are being talked at non-stop, their brains need to integrate and make sense of what is being said. Consequently they tune-out and process the information they have heard.

Lecturing has its side effects. If you are a leader and want to develop your colleague's abilities, capabilities, and performance, you need to know that lecturing rarely develops another's ability to perform better. Lecturing is a monologue, a one-way conversation.

More often than not, the lecturer does not notice that they have left the listener behind. They are so engrossed in speaking that they do not realize the listener is off on their own mental journey. One-way conversations tire the brain. We tune out and turn off. Two-way conversations allow the brain to breathe and process at the same time.

Lecturing Our Way to Success

Awareness of the lecturing pattern can have a dramatic impact on your life. Ask yourself the following questions and when you find the answers, create your own action plan for change. Do your experiments every day.

Questions to Reflect On:

• What are the communication patterns you are establishing with others?
• Which are habits you are not aware of?
• What is the impact of these patterns on your relationships?
• Who has been open with you and told you that you were not communicating?
• How did you respond to these courageous people?
• Are you open to listening? Are you open to feedback?
• Are you inviting people to share feedback with you?

Communication Habit Patterns are the spine of a culture. We often don't see them - yet they are the fabric that holds us together. For more insights into Habit Patterns, read Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to WE-Thinking and Build a Healthy Thriving Organization



Judith E. Glaser is the Author of two best selling business books:

Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking & Build a Healthy Thriving Organization - winner of the Bronze Award in the Leadership Category of the 2008 Axiom Business Book Awards, and The DNA of Leadership; and the DVD and Workshop titled The Leadership Secret of Gregory Goose
Contact: 212-307-4386

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Something Happened, and It All Changed...

Looking back, we can all see what shaped our lives. Was it our parents, our teachers, or our best friends? Was it the good experiences, or the bad? Was it our genes or fate? Was it the labels or the stories about us, or both?

Our stories are important. The labels we use to describe ourselves - make a difference. How we combine our labels into our stories - make a difference.

Understanding how labels and stories shape our identity is vital to our growth and development.

Here's a story (my story) ... See how this process works....

Growing up, I loved to make things. I did a lot of crafts in school, and soon discovered I liked to knit and crochet. My teachers didn't like it, because by the time I was in junior high (a/k/a middle school), I would bring my knitting to school and do it in class. One year I made a sweater a week. That was the first time I learned I had such high achievement needs.

At home I started to make clothes. Not just make them. Design them. I'd buy a pattern and fabric, and then work with the basic patterns to transform them into something different and much more wonderful than what appeared on the pattern package. This is where I learned to design and to create wonderful things that didn't exist before. I loved my crafts and I loved my designing, and knew it was a part of who I was and who I would become.

But not everyone saw it my way. My parents didn't understand my joy and my passion for designing. They used to say that when I worked in my room for hours at a time I was 'escaping reality' and was 'living in a fantasy world.' They saw this as bad and wrong, and even when I wore my beautiful designs, I knew they still labeled me as 'escaping reality'.

Over time, I assumed my role in the family. I was the rebel and outcast. I didn't feel appreciated for what I was or who I was becoming. In my reaction to the labels, I challenged authority - especially parental authority - learning more about ways one child could get punished than most would ever want to know. Now I see, looking back, why I have such a need to understand positive psychology, and appreciative inquiry. The good can come from the bad.

Things That Stick

Being labeled an outcast, or a problem child sticks really hard, as all pejorative labels do. When parents - or teachers - or bosses label us judgmentally, negatively, or harshly it sticks. It doesn't roll off our backs so easily. Negative labels actually create the same reaction in the brain as when we break a leg, except social pain stays longer, and takes longer to go away. It stays around and we ruminate on it, we build stories around it, and others build stories around it. The gossip mills are filled with larger than life stories that started with one person labeling another person harshly.

Until I was 16, I was the outcast and rebel. I got into lots of trouble, and got punished regularly. I didn't see my future as quite rosy or bright. While I wanted to be a designer, or an author or artist (had I the talent), my parents saw my future as schoolteacher or mother, summers off, raise the kids, stay home. Being an artist or designer was like being a beatnik or bum.

Then it all changed...

One Friday night, my dad, who was a dentist, brought home a patient to join us for Friday night dinner. This patient was special. It turns out, she was Claude Reins wife, the wife of a famous actor; but she didn't treat us different, and we didn't treat her differently. We just enjoyed her enjoying us.

To tell the truth, that dinner was more than a dinner; not at all because she was famous. It was the conversation we had that night. I still remember where I sat, and what she said.

"Judy, what are you going to do after graduation?" She asked. My eyes opened wide, my heart started to beat. It was the horrible question that everyone asked me, that I didn't yet know how to answer. I knew what I liked, and knew what I loved, but these things were labeled bad.

"I'm not sure yet," I told her. "I'll figure it out." Thinking I could move the conversation over to something else, I said, "Could someone pass the potatoes." "Well, what do you like to do, she asked?" A question I didn't expect. "Well," I said quietly, "I love to design clothes." "And where do you do this designing," she asked.

I looked from side to side to see if my parents were frowning with dismay. Seeing that their glares were a bit more neutral than usual, I told her that I had a room upstairs where I did my work. "Can you show me?" she asked.

Before I realized it, we were climbing the stairs to my special room. I had half finished dresses hanging from the closet doors, always left ajar. This day I had more works in progress laying on the floor and others on the small sitting lounge.

My sewing machine was active with a skirt in progress, things were all around, and she could set it first hand... This was my joy.

"Wow!" She said, "This is amazing. You are truly a designer, young lady. Show me each one at a time. I am quite impressed."

I don't remember much more of our conversation, or how long it lasted. What I do remember is coming down the stairs feeling different, feeling like I was walking on a cloud, feeling so warm and good inside.

"Your daughter is a fashion designer," she said. "You should be so proud of her! I would be."

That was when everything changed. For the first time, the negative label just fell on the floor, like dropping a frock, and I could step into another dress that made me beautiful - mostly in my own eyes.

"You should send her to Toby Coburn School of Fashion Design," she blurted out to my parents. It's the best in the city." I saw my parents blank stares back at her. They either didn't know what she was talking about - or were shocked that she adorned me with such positive praise. The conversation went on; I don't remember much more after that, except everything changed.

Labels - How do they help you see? What do they help you see?

What are the labels we use with each other - with our friends, with our colleagues, or with our family? How do we see each other - define each other - think of each other? Labels give definition to our relationships. They set into place the parameters, of how we will engage - or not engage. They create blind spots - true blind spots - and cause us to look for more proof that our labels are right.

• What labels do you need to examine at work?
• What labels need changing?
• What would happen if you changed a label - reversed a label - or took a label away all together?

Try it at work! Try it at home! Do your experiment, and then let me know what happens!

The more we see each other in positive terms, the more we enable each person to step into their most positive self. The more we see each other through negativity, the more we feel unfairly judged and feel resentful. Resentment breeds resentment and turns into toxic places to work.

Use the labels in your life to create a palette of colors in the world you want to live in. Design your world. Create your world...and make it the best you can!


Judith E. Glaser is the Author of two best selling business books:

Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking & Build a Healthy Thriving Organization - winner of the Bronze Award in the Leadership Category of the 2008 Axiom Business Book Awards, and The DNA of Leadership; and the DVD and Workshop titled The Leadership Secret of Gregory Goose

Contact: 212-307-4386

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