Helene Lerner's Blog, page 187

Career Coach: Fear Management 101

Heather was feeling prepared for her upcoming presentation. She also had butterflies in her stomach at the thought of standing in front of the intimidating management board. During past presentations, Heather had been at the mercy of these feelings, facing a blank mind and uncontrollably shaking knees.

What is fear, really? According to Charles Jones, a well-known emotion theorist and the president of the Institute for Adaptive Mastery, fear arises when the subconscious cannot neutralize a threat. Even if the conscious mind uses logic to quell the fears, the subconscious makes its own assessment and determines the existence of a viable strategy. In other words, the subconscious rules.

In order for fear to arise, both of these conditions must be true. For example, if Heather were to make a presentation to her family, her subconscious would not perceive a threat and fear would not arise. But while an outside threat is a necessary condition for fear, it is not a sufficient cause in itself. If Heather were to feel comfortable with her expertise regarding her subject matter, her subconscious might send those same bold feelings to her conscious mind, even in a room full of executives.

Consider another familiar example: learning to ride a bike. The first time I hopped on a bicycle, my subconscious did not perceive a threat. My fearlessness dissolved, however, the first time I lost control and scraped my knees on the pavement. It wasn't until I had mastered the art of stabilizing the bicycle that fear ceased to arise the moment the bike began to wobble.

These examples illustrate two key points about fear:

Our subconscious perception of what constitutes a threat is largely learned. While even newborn babies respond fearfully to heights and loud noises, virtually all other perceived threats are acquired through personal or vicarious experiences.
After our subconscious learns to perceive a threat, it accordingly learns to neutralize it. This causes the frequency and intensity of fear to diminish.

So how did Heather use this information to help her give a great presentation? As part of her preparation, she met with three key executive board members to gauge their reactions and obtain some helpful input. Once she felt that she was supported by these three people, she was able to reduce the subconscious threat and increase her confidence. In fact, if Heather continues to create strategies that will effectively neutralize perceived threats, her butterflies just might disappear for good!

—Andrea Zintz, Career Coach

Dare to Watch: A Second Helping of Life

We teased you this morning with a few photos...now here's our video coverage of last night's SHARE event, A Second Helping of Life. Take a peek at a few of the celebrity attendees, not to mention enough tasty treats to satisfy any appetite.

We love a good cause, especially when it's edible. Thanks to SHARE for a fun and meaningful evening!

Video Editor: Nina Giordano

Dare to Attend: On Edge with Barbara Corcoran

It's no secret that we love Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran (see here and here!). Barbara will host On Edge, an all-day entrepreneur event, next Thursday, 10/4 in NYC.

If you're in the tri-state area and would like to attend, tweet your dream job with the hashtag "#WWonedge" by 5pm on Wednesday, 9/26. We will select three responses at random. Each will receive a complimentary ticket to the event. Good luck!

A Second Helping of Life

SHARE: Self-help for Women with Breast or Ovarian Cancer is a terrific group. I have worked with them for over a decade. Yesterday was their 10th annual event, A Second Helping of Life. Female chefs and restaurateurs attended in support, bringing along their tasty delights.

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Delicious cupcakes at SHARE's A Second Helping of Life.

Among the sous chefs were Brenda Blackmon (WWOR My9 news anchor), Sade Baderinwa (of New York's WABC 7 news) and a number of other respected authors and media personalities.

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News anchor and event sous chef Sade Baderinwa breaks for a photo with Helene.

Congratulations to SHARE on a wonderful event. Stay tuned for our exclusive video coverage!

Career Coach: Take the L.E.A.P.

I can't stand when a colleague (or one of my daughters!) refuses to even consider trying something new. Over time, I have discovered a failsafe method to move such a person from resistance to cooperation. These four steps come from Dr. Xavier Amador, a psychologist who wrote the book I’m Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help. Using his technique, called L.E.A.P. (Listen, Empathize, Agree and Partner), I've found that colleagues and family members alike are more likely to come around and embrace my ideas as their own.

Listen. It sounds simple enough, but listening can be more difficult then you might think. When you listen, your goal is to gain an understanding of what the other person wants, feels and believes. Your goal is not only to hear the words, but also to gain a full understanding of the other person's experience. To listen without learning is pointless.

When you listen, don’t react! I’m not saying that you should ignore the other person, rather, that you should withhold your opinion. Don’t interrupt or attempt to fill in the blanks when when the other person does not make sense or seems out of touch with reality—simply let chaos be. You can  get the information you need by just letting them talk. Afterwards, echo back what you have heard in your own words. If the other person feels that you understand their point of view, they will more likely be open to your opinions later.

Empathize. Remember, your goal is to make the other person feel as though you understand where they are coming from. This means empathizing even when you disagree or sense an immediate lack of cooperation. Rather than discounting a false perception, use statements like “anything is possible.”  Urgent matters may require an exception to this rule, but if you want someone to seriously consider your point of view, be certain that you have considered theirs. (See this post for more on validating another person's opinion.)

Agree. Common ground exists between even the most extreme oppositions. Remain neutral, and pinpoint observations that will help the other person discover a motivation to change. Ask leading questions (“What happened after you tried your strategy?”) rather than making accusations (“This happened because you proceeded with your strategy”). Your overlap won’t be all-inclusive - in fact, it may not be much at all - but once the door is cracked, put your foot in it. Address potential disadvantages of your position and brainstorm possible solutions. Know also that agreeing to disagree can sometimes help you advance your point—your goal is to collaborate, not pontificate.

Partner. The aim of this final step is to accomplish the goals that you have agreed upon. Once you know what those are, figure out how to fulfill them on the other person's terms. Strive for goals that are reachable—that will energize and motivate you both. Give your actions a purpose and define what the ideal end point will look like. Find out what the other person expects from you, and share your expectations as well. Identify the strengths that each of you brings to the project, and discuss how you can utilize them to their greatest advantage.

By using this four-step technique with someone who resists your ideas, you may uncover common ground where only frustration was before. Rather than treating this like a method, however, remain authentic in your approach, and tailor it to fit your situation. Breakthroughs are possible!

—Andrea Zintz, Career Coach

Dare to Watch: Choices Over a Lifetime

In need of a few inspirational words from some inspirational women? Kick off your weekend with an excerpt from Choices Over a Lifetime, featuring appearances by Renee Fleming and Susan Taylor. Have a great one, and we'll see you on Monday!

Career Coach: Put Conflict to Work

Wanting to avoid conflict is natural, but unrealistic—every group is bound to deal with issues from time to time. Conflict can be either constructive or destructive. If we choose to embrace it, we can actually use it to create positive change.

Constructive conflict occurs when varying opinions on the same issue are shared. While this may hardly strike some as problematic, many managers prefer to discourage this kind of healthy discussion in hopes of avoiding argument. This can cause team members to feel stifled and unvalued, however, and the best ideas often arise from raising different points of view.

Instead of stifling dissenting opinions, suggest that your team set some ground rules to foster healthy discussion. Then use questions to facilitate a hard decision, since staying in limbo or applying multiple solutions to one problem can equally destract fom productivity and engagement. Here is a series of questions one might use to facilitate a discussion:

I hear a possible approach to this situation. Does anyone have another idea we should consider?
What are the merits of each of these ideas?
What are some likely obstacles of implementing these ideas, and how can they be overcome?
Given our goal, which idea has the best chance of success?

Destructive conflict, on the other hand, employs negative practices that can destroy an office environment if not addressed. These can include personal attacks, gossip, scapegoating, or any action that undermines trust—a vital component of working relationships.

You can manage this type of conflict by acknowledging the problem rather than passively allowing the destruction to perpetuate. Start with your observations - not your judgments - and explain their impact on you as vulnerably as you can (“When I heard one of our team members being called ‘stupid,’ I felt offended. I believe all of us have something to contribute, and I wouldn't want an idea of mine to be similarly dismissed. Let’s talk about what's really going on here so that we can move forward productively”). It may also help to remind others of your group's long-term vision and how it can be served by bringing an issue forward for resolution.

Conflict is a constructive element for teams that are willing to meet it head-on. By leading coworkers to accept and explore various points of view, we can shift destructive dissension to a positive place. How else have you found ways to manage conflict at work?

—Andrea Zintz, Career Coach

Hot Issues in Work Life

The work-life "debate" has been a hot topic these past few months. Today, Ellen Galinsky and the Families and Work Institute will host an immersion learning experience to discuss the issue. Ellen is a true pioneer who I have known for close to a decade, and the research that her group conducts is cutting-edge.

Admiral Michael Mullen (former Chairman, Join Chiefs of Staff), Leslie Perlow (Harvard Business School professor), and Anne-Marie Slaughter (Princeton University professor and author, who you may recognize from this summer's controversial article in The Atlantic) will serve as catalysts for the discussion. I will be tweeting highlights, so follow @womenworking this afternoon to follow along.

Let's keep contemporary women's issues such as this one out on the table!

Career Coach: Manage Your Mind

When I'm feeling stressed, I usually find that competing priorities are at the root of it all. Better time management seems like the solution, but a slew of books and programs haven't yet healed my relationship with time. In today’s high-speed business world, we’re exposed to 'round-the-clock information and demands to deliver more with less. People are constantly being told that they don’t manage their time well—it’s no wonder more and more of us are feeling unfocused, unhealthy, and burnt out.

A few years ago, a friend of mine suggested replacing “I’m too busy" with “It’s not a priority." Instead of doing more things faster, we need to learn how to prioritize and do the most important things really well. Whether we’re striving to be more effective in a current job or to hunt more efficiently for a new one, attention management - not time management - is the key.  When we learn how to focus our attention on what is most important, the minutes themselves seem to expand.

Stagen developed the Attention Zones Model, which identifies four different states of mind:

Reactive zone. You are responding to demands or crises that have arisen. In this zone, tasks are both important and urgent.
Proactive zone. You are intentionally strategizing, preparing, or planning. Tasks are important, but not urgent. Although this spending time in this zone is critical to your success, it can be easy to postpone it, claiming that you don’t have time.
Distracted zone. You are engaging in unnecessary interruptions such as phone calls and emails. Tasks appear urgent because they are right in front of you, but are usually not important and distract you from things that are.
Wasteful zone. You are doing trivial activities (like surfing the web) to kill time. Unless you are consciously seeking relaxation and renewal, spending time in this zone is a waste of your attention.

Establish a practice of noting which zone you are in at any given moment. You can even schedule a calendar alert reminding you to check! When it pops up, take a breath and answer the question, then shift your attention to what is most important at the time. Repeat as necessary. The purpose of this dance is not to judge yourself, but to become aware of your tendencies and gently refocus your attention. Doing can help you become more effective and less stressed—both on the job and off.

—Andrea Zintz, Career Coach

Dare to Know: Elizabeth Streb's Dancing Feat

Imagine watching a dancer fly through the air. Now imagine seeing her land atop a small fire, positioned precisely so that her torso extinguishes the flames. Extreme? Sure. Impossible? Not for Elizabeth Streb. Elizabeth was trained as a dancer (she holds a B.S. in Modern Dance from SUNY Brockport), but has been obsessed with extreme sports like downhill skiing and motorcycling for as long as she can remember. "Two issues I'm most passionate about, apart from movement itself, are velocity and impact," she says. "What I realized early on was that I'm not really interested in dance. I'm interested in extreme action."

Elizabeth calls her style of choreography "PopAction"—a mix of dance, athletics, boxing, rodeo, circus, and stunt work. Her company, STREB Extreme Action, is constantly pushing "to make magic happen—to do the impossible." Dancers fly through the air, crash through glass, and balance atop machinery that Elizabeth designs and constructs herself. When the Whitney Museum of American Art asked Elizabeth to design a groundbreaking event for their new museum in New York City, her performance involved a ton of dirt falling on her as dancers dove through glass—or, as Elizabeth puts it, "a beautiful and symbolic breaking of ground." While Elizabeth doesn't perform regularly with the company anymore, opting instead to choreograph and design the performances, she will occasionally join in when asked.

Elizabeth wants audiences to be shocked and riveted by STREB performances. “What’s happening skips the brain and goes to the gut,” she explains. “My favorite shows are the ones where an audience spends the whole time making noise and gasping.” This past summer, Elizabeth traveled with her dancers to London, where they helped kick off the 2012 Olympics with a performance of "One Extraordinary Day." The performance incorporated extreme action juxtaposed against iconic structures of London--performers danced on every other spoke of the London Eye, bungeed off the Millennium Bridge, and walked down the side of City Hall.

STREB's headquarters, however, are in Brooklyn, New York—home of S.L.A.M. (STREB Lab for Action Mechanics). The company rehearses on the premises, but S.L.A.M. also plays hosts to classes for adults, teenagers and children ages five and up. "When you watch [the kids], you feel that the choreography was their idea. They just immediately take to it," Elizabeth recounts delightedly. As for herself, Elizabeth will continue to push limits, and hopes people will realize that what she creates is not gender specific. "The physicality I have been investigating for 30 years is everyone's physicality,” she says. “We all have an appetite to wonder how far we can go. My dream is that female physicality will not be defined by feminine terms."