Shifting Perspectives

Shifting perspective is always top of mind in my coaching practice. My business card reads New Perspectives on Old Predicaments and my logo is a Necker Cube (seen in the upper right hand corner of this website). The Necker Cube is an optical phenomenon which appears to flip its orientation when you stare at the cube’s Y-junctions (top right and bottom left).  This shift in perspective reminds me of the coaching process.  Providing encouragement to clients to shift from taking things just personally to considering the role, goal and context of their situation

Our perceptions trick us into believing that what we see is how the world actually is rather than a convincing construct of our mind. It is difficult to challenge these perceptions because we are having an actual experience with an entourage of supporting feelings,  Unfortunately our interpretation of why we are having these feelings is at best a partial truth and may even be completely false. Similar to the unreliability of eye witnesses in court cases, we create our own false truth based on past experiences.

There is an abundance of resources on shifting perception out there from scholarly research to bite sized blogs.  Below is a selection and synopsis of resources popular with my clients that I hope you will also find engaging:

The Year of Conquering Negativity
By Leslie Alderman, New York Times, 2017

All humans have a tendency to ruminate on the negative.  It is an evolutionary survival tactic and as a result we over learn from negative experience and under learn from positive ones.  The following strategies were recommended to help retain more positive learning:

1. Acknowledge negative thoughts and then be a skeptic and challenge them.  What is the worst that can happen and what could you do about it if it did happen?  This self-challenge gets you to unlock from negative thoughts.

2. Keep a list of your “greatest hits” include why people love you and like being with you in addition to your career accomplishments.  A written reminder of why you are pretty wonderful acts as a counter weight to a self-critical loop.

3. Breathe deeply and slowly. Make your exhales last twice as long as your inhales. Breathing calms the body by bringing in fresh oxygen and calms the mind by focusing your attention on inhaling and exhaling.

Happiness Is Synthetic. You Have It If You Create It
By Travis Bradberry, Forbes, 2016

This Forbes online series is called “If I only knew …” Sometimes a cautionary tale can be as useful as a success story.  Permanently adopting new habits is hard, while breaking the habits that make you unhappy can actually be much easier. Some common sense bad habits the author suggests eradicating include: limiting your exposure to negative people, isolating yourself, and blaming others for your setbacks. Truly happy people have honed habits that maintain their sense of well-being day in and day out.

Playful People Are At An Advantage
By Medical Express News, 2017

Dr René Proyer from the Institute of Psychology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) published his research on playfulness in adults in the international journal, Personality and Individual Differences. His study reveals that playfulness in adults is expressed in several very different ways and should be regarded as a positive trait. "When looking for solutions to complex problems, playful adults can easily change perspectives. This allows them to find unusual and novel solutions."

Dr. Proyer has identified four basic types of playful adults: 

1. Other-directed – Playful people who like to fool around with friends and acquaintances. 

2. Lighthearted – Playful people who regard their whole life as a type of game. 

3. Intellectually Playful – These people play with thoughts and ideas – they are able to turn monotonous tasks into something interesting.

4. Whimsically Playful - These people are amused by small day-to-day observations as well as interested in strange and unusual things.

Use Your Strengths to See Your Blind Spots

What is a blind spot? It is data that your mind doesn't take in, something outside of your field of vision, just like the blind spot in your car's rearview mirror. How can you identify blind spots? One quick way is to make a list of your strengths because blind spots and strengths have a yin/yang relationship.

Blind spots come in two general categories - tasks and people. Task related blind spots involve deadlines, scheduling, systems, and capacity. People related blind spots involve communication, motivation, feedback, and empathy. The yin/yang of strengths and blinds spots never goes away, but learning to be curious about this tension can result in a more accurate assessment of any issue or situation.

For example, if being low key and cooperative is a strength you may also notice that you do not assert your interests until after a conflict occurs, which results in your becoming resentful or disappointed.  Understanding your blind spots will help you see around the corners and avoid interpersonal collisions.

Something More to Think About

The ability to shift perspectives requires more than mental flexibility. Imagining another point of view is a creative act. Flexibility, creativity, and curiosity are traits that allow us to adapt and thrive in unfamiliar situations.

What in the following poem on shifting your perspective resonates most with you?

The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
there is little that we can do
to change
until we notice
how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds.
- R.D. Laing, psychiatrist

If you have any comments or questions about this post, you can contact me via email: patwardconsulting@gmail.com or use this contact form to schedule a free 20 minute conversation.

The Necker Cube logo was executed by Tom Jezek, oogliobop@aol.com, graphic artist and dear friend.

The Right Role At The Right Time

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow, behavioral psychologist

How do you manage your roles at work and at home? Most of us have many different roles that we play throughout the day. The important thing to remember is to match the appropriate role with the situation - use the right tool for the job. A three-part approach is to identify your favorite role, then assess the situation, and finally, if your favorite role isn't a good match, choose a more appropriate role to play. Many unproductive conflicts you have with others are actually about misinterpreting the situation rather than an interpersonal problem.

Step One: Identify Your Favorite Roles

While there are many roles you may play, in ambiguous or very stressful situations a typical reaction is to go to a "familiar role" often one you play with family or friends. Your familiar role has a strong pull and will often be your go to role because it typically showcases your strengths. That is why when a situation is unfamiliar you may revert to a familiar role in order to be on solid ground even if it makes the situation more turbulent.

Think about a time when using your familiar role resulted in a negative outcome that was frustrating, disappointing, confusing or caused resentment. Now remember the situation and imagine a do over - a different role you could have chosen. Would going to this role have made a difference? For example, while you may be an excellent problem solver, what would happen if someone came to you with a problem and you asked them if they just needed you to listen? Would you, being in the role of listener, enable them to find their own solution? It may seem ironic that using your strengths could create problems, yet your advice may fill up the space that others could use to find their own answers.

Step Two: Assess the Situation

Below are four situations with sample roles which indicate what action is needed. You may not agree with match of situations to roles and that's fine. The point is to intentionally choose a role rather than just react out of habit.

Sample Situations and Roles:

A. Options need to be explored - Facilitator             

B. Buy-in is essential - Influencer

C. Know-how is needed - Trouble Shooter                                

D  Follow procedures - Monitor

Step Three: Matching Your Role to the Situation

To be successful you will need to have a menu of roles, an awareness of what works and what doesn't, and learn how to choose a role to match the situation. It takes practice to remain curious about what role the situation requires and having a tool kit will help. An effective way to practice matching roles to situations is to think about grouping the situational roles by color:    red = action, green = communication, blue = consideration, and yellow = cooperation.

RED SITUATIONS NEED ACTION ROLES

• Know-how is needed - Trouble Shooter
• A decision needs to be made - Closer
• No time to delegate - Expert 

GREEN SITUATIONS NEED COMMUNICATION ROLES

• Many hands are needed - Team Builder
• Buy-in is essential - Influencer
• Skepticism needed - Contrarian

BLUE SITUATIONS NEED CONSIDERATION ROLES

• Brainstorm new ideas - Innovator
• All points of view aired - Facilitator
• Identify the greater good - Listener

YELLOW SITUATIONS NEED COOPERATION ROLES

• Shared values are essential - Mediator
• Data needs to be processed - Researcher
• Procedures critical to follow - Monitor

Often determining the right role for the situation requires figuring it out on the spot. Revisit your the familiar roles you play and see if there are red, green, blue and yellow roles you can use in the predictable situations encountered at work and home.

If you are missing a color or two, borrow the right "color" role from the chart above. Having a role to go to in the short term allows you to "act-as-if", giving you time to think, be curious, imagine, and identify a role that you can play productively in the long term.

Use Strengths To See Blind Spots

"The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
there is little that we can do
to change
until we notice
how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds."
- R.D. Laing, psychiatrist

What is a blind spot? It is data that your mind doesn't take in, just like a blind spot in your car's rearview mirror - something outside of your field of vision. How do we identify blind spots? One quick way is to make a list of your strengths because blind spots and strengths have a ying/yang relationship.

Strengths can be bundled into four major categories - communication, implementation, administration, and vision. Our identity is forged by our strengths. Children quickly learn to use their strengths to get rewards and to avoid punishments. What we are good at carries our careers forward, but paradoxically it is often the cause of our careers stalling.

An example would be "always telling the truth." This strength might be your defining characteristic that others depend on. It can also result in "all good" and "all bad" thinking with no gray area. However, your diplomacy may be underdeveloped and you may also label people who are more diplomatic as "playing politics" or even "liars", consequently you may not listen to what they say or take them seriously, which means you will not have all the data available to you for making informed decisions.

Blind spots come in two general areas - tasks and people. Task related blind spots involve deadlines, scheduling, systems, and capacity. People related blind spots involve communication, motivation, feedback, and empathy. Noticing your blind spots is very difficult because you will literally not pay attention to what you aren't interested in and reject what you dislike. Because you want to identify and solve problems using your strengths, you will overestimate the importance of what you do "see" and underestimate the importance of what is in your blind spot.

The problem with this selective attention is that you will be blind sided by the same predicaments over and over again - like falling into the same hole because you always look up and never look down. Self-awareness is critical, since you need to identify your blind spots to begin to learn how to better meet your goals. Conflict management is a great place to start locating a blind spot because most of us dislike conflict and are motivated to change a negatively repeating pattern. For example, if your strengths are being low key and cooperative you may notice that you do not assert your own interests until after a conflict occurs, and then you become angry or disappointed.

This kind of repeating pattern usually results in "there they go again taking advantage of me" type thoughts. However if you begin to think of these repeating patterns as data pointing to a potential blind spot in asserting your interests, you may begin to say to yourself, "there I go again, not speaking up." Since your behavior is predictable you can prepare in advance to negotiate in your best interests. A great resource to learn more about asserting your interests is The Power of the Positive No by William Urhy.

Unfortunately, blind spots tend to come in clusters and not speaking up is often accompanied by giving mixed messages such as being accommodating and then becoming judgmental about others lack of consideration. Using techniques such as a feedback loop can help you learn how your behavior impacts a situation's outcome.

There are four stages in the classic feedback loop:

• Data Stage - Noticing patterns of behavior that either move you away from or closer to your goal.
• Relevance Stage - Paying attention to data that impacts goals which emotionally resonate for you.
• Choice stage - Recalibrating your behavior to move you closer towards your goal.
• Response stage - Implementing the new behavior then running a double feedback loop to deepen the learning process.

When you using your strengths you're in your comfort zone. Seeing what you expect to see in order to use these strengths allows you to validate your behavior regardless of what the situation requires. Moving outside your comfort zone and incorporating the data from the feedback loop may feel uncomfortable, difficult and risky. But exploring this data often yields provides surprising insights and strategies.

The ying/yang of strengths and blinds spots never goes away, but learning to be curious about this tension can result in a more accurate assessment of any issue or situation. Learning about your blind spots will help you make intentional choices to be productive and flexible in new ways.

Healthy Narcissism

"If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I?" - Rabbi Hillel, First Century CE.

Narcissism or self-centeredness has been on the mind of great thinkers since antiquity. Unfortunately, in today's popular culture it is the very skewed tabloid, reality show, and clinically pathological kind of narcissism that is most prominent. But in fact, narcissism is a normal part of human development and it is important to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy narcissism.

What is healthy narcissism? Useful descriptions include self-confidence rooted in genuine competence; self-esteem that is linked to meeting reasonable goals; wholehearted altruism; giving others the benefit of the doubt when there is circumstantial evidence to the contrary, and discovering the value in different points of view rather than quickly dismissing them.

What is unhealthy narcissism? Behaviors like excessive selfishness; making hurtfully blunt and clueless comments; being grandiose and vain; hearing others' feedback as personal attacks; or constantly putting yourself down.

We all struggle with unhealthy narcissism particularly when our limitations and imperfections surface. The most common reactions are to become insulted and defensive. Consequently, we can become frustrated, resentful, overwhelmed, or judgmental. The ability to cultivate greater compassion for our own mistakes, shortcomings and setbacks, and those of others, is essential for healthy narcissism to develop.

Healthy narcissism enables us to be curious, learn from experiences, steady ourselves, and pursue our goals. Everyone understands that a toddler will bump her head or fall down while learning to become competent at standing and walking. Unfortunately, we forget this process when it applies to skill building around healthy narcissism and acceptance needed for practice and making mistakes.

An effective strategy for building healthy narcissism is to pay attention to defensive behaviors and use them as cues to recognize when your narcissism is becoming lopsided and unhealthy. Lopsidedness means either paying too much attention to yourself at the expense of others or conversely focusing too much attention on others at the expense of yourself. Reinterpreting common defensive behaviors and using them as signals to do something else will allow you to flip that negative reaction into a productive response and steady yourself. Just like learning to walk - practice makes permanent.

Cue: Frustration

Frustration can happen when others don't agree with your perspective and can result in your becoming cynical and close-minded about their ideas. Ask yourself: do you feel you are right and the other person is wrong? To gain perspective and steady yourself: put yourself on the spot and ask a skeptical question about your own logic, then act as if there is more than one problem to solve. See if this strategy results in others opening up their minds.

Cue: Resentment

Resentment can happen when others show a lack of appreciation towards you and can result in your becoming disappointed and easily offended. Ask yourself: do you feel taken advantage of or taken for granted? To gain perspective and steady yourself: think of something you are proud of at home or work, then act as if you are proud of others' contributions and tell them. See if modeling appreciation of others results in others appreciating you more.

Cue: Overwhelmed

Being overwhelmed can happen when other people's problems continually take precedence over your own. This can result in your feeling guilty if you don't help others, yet overwhelmed if you do. Ask yourself: are you overwhelmed because by meeting someone else's needs your needs are not being met? To gain perspective and steady yourself: give yourself permission to act as if taking care of yourself first will make it easier to help someone else. See if modeling the airplane safety tip of giving yourself oxygen first results in you being able to help others and not get depleted.

Cue: Judgmental

Being judgmental can happen when you perceive a situation to be unfair and results in your labeling people "good guys" or "bad guys". Ask yourself: do you know the whole story? To gain perspective and steady yourself: imagine a scenario where there is more than one solution, then act as if both the "bad guys" and the "good guys" will contribute to solving the problem. Encourage a win/win way of resolving the problem.

Narcissism is a complex developmental stage that impacts professional and personal success. Like other aspects of a healthy lifestyle, healthy narcissism requires that we make mindful choices. Monitoring your behavior, and using the information as cues to modify defensive tactics, will further your progress in dealing with the inherent tension between healthy and unhealthy narcissism. By making a conscious choice to increase your capacity for healthy narcissism, you will build interpersonal strength and flexibility that lasts a lifetime.

Checking Vital Signs

An accurate read of your organization's health is critical in assessing its current and future viability. However, getting an accurate read requires careful listening and observation. Here are some vital signs to look for to help make an objective assessment.

In healthy organizations:

• There is a consistent flow of new information about old problems.
• Pleasant surprises and unexpected sources of innovation are commonplace.
• Data is frequently uncovered that contradicts traditional wisdom.
• Obvious and not so obvious organizational connections and patterns are identified.
• Attention is simultaneously devoted to both short and long-range planning.

In unhealthy organizations:

• More attention is paid to what is missing than to what exists.
• Untangling ambiguous or complex issues is often avoided in favor of making black or white decisions in an effort to appear decisive.
• New packaging of old and tired ideas are created under the banner of new initiatives.
• Stress and feelings of being overwhelmed are what drive employees to complete their work.
• Fault and blame are assigned to unidentified people in power with phrases like "they should do this," or "why don't they do that?"

So, is your organization healthy or unhealthy? Healthy organizations are focused, and energized. Unhealthy organizations are unfocused and tired. Unfortunately, unhealthy organizations often appear focused and energized but nothing could be further from the truth. Their pulse appears to be throbbing only because they are scurrying from one crisis to the next which requires a great deal of activity. But these organizations are unable to differentiate between real vitality and progress, as opposed to frenzied activity and drama.

Additionally, if the organization's existence supports the public's self-interest or altruistic impulses, the public will also ignore any signs that a once vital organization is dead or dying. How can sense be made if the organization is in denial and the public is colluding? When nothing seems to work in your organization, it may be because there is nothing there to work with. Like the saying goes, "when you discover you are riding a dead horse - dismount." The horse is dead.

The resources available to any organization are precious commodities that cannot be squandered. If your organization is putting those resources into trying to fix something that is permanently broken or worse, already dead, you need to cut your losses and regroup. If you are able to identify healthy vital signs in a specific department, workgroup, or project, recalibrate and direct the organizations resources into those areas. The proper diagnosis and prescription will ultimately prove to be the difference between the life and death of your organization.