Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge

by Henry Cloud

“We will also intentionally try things that don’t fit the current formulae”?

doldrums.

anticipating outcomes, either positive or negative, causes different chemical reactions in the brain.

anticipation of a good outcome produces the chemical dopamine.

in infancy. When you are hungry or in distress, you cry, and something good happens: someone comes with comfort, dryness, and food.

when you have negative expectations, a different chemical cocktail gets brewed in your brain.

Which chemical? I think he is avoiding to identify it. I know no such chemicals.

Seligman put this thinking style into three categories, the “three P’s,” which are: Personal Pervasive Permanent The three P’s are ways that people explain things that happen, and this thinking style shuts them down.

1. First P: He “personalizes it.” Instead of explaining the reason for the “no” as something due to external events having nothing to do with him, he explains it in relation to himself, in a negative direction

2. Second P: He sees it as “pervasive.” Instead of seeing this as a specific, isolated event, just one client, he generalizes it to “everything.” It goes from a single event to a pervasive reality.

3. Third P: He sees it as “permanent.” Instead of seeing this event as a single event in a single point in time, he sees it as permanent. He thinks it will continue happening this way.

doesn’t personalize the situation. Instead he has an aha moment: if any of his clients were upset with him, and potentially looking for a new broker, that means there are thousands and thousands of clients out there upset with their brokers and looking for a new one!

“So how do you think all of the millions of clients out there feel about their own brokers right now? Why don’t you call all of them”) All of a sudden, the world looks like a very, very positive place to be. The potential for growing business has never looked better. Lots of people are eager to make a change. Everyone becomes a prospect. As a result, he gets very busy calling and meeting people, asking them if they would be interested in hearing his strategies for surviving the downturn. His business begins to thrive like never before.

the leader set a boundary on negative, powerless thinking.

AUDIT YOUR OWN THINKING

you certainly don’t want to replace learned helplessness with denial of reality.

you and your team must look at whatever external realities exist and begin to figure out a “non-helpless” response to those realities.

No matter what obstacle your people face, they can beat it if it does not begin to make them feel helpless. Whether that happens depends on you and the degree to which you are able to set boundaries against pessimism and helplessness.

“We are so far behind the competition in R and D that we need a strategy to catch up. Let’s turn up the steam on an acquisition and find some development partners.”

“They are so much bigger than us, so let’s think about what advantages our size gives us and begin to capitalize on those and show our customers how our size is an asset.”

FIND-A-WAY THINKING

“I will find a way.”

there are two kinds of people in the world. People whose circumstances overcome them, and people who overcome their circumstances.

belief that one will be successful is one of the strongest predictors of goal achievement. Great leaders build this belief into their people, teams, and culture. They believe that they can do it, and when things get tough, they find a way. They exert what I call “optimistic control,” even in environments where there are many negative realities that they cannot control.

If learned helplessness is about losing the initiative and the grit to persevere, optimistic control is its opposite. It is about regaining proactivity, resourcefulness, and perseverance.

What factors do we control that will contribute to success?

Earlier we said that for the brain to be at its best, the executive functions of attention, inhibition, and working memory must be present. Then we said that a positive emotional climate, connectedness, and positive thinking add to the brain’s ability to perform as well. Now we are adding another extremely important element to the recipe: control. A sense of being in control changes people’s brains and affects their performance big time.

great leaders do the opposite of exercising control over others. Instead of taking all the control, they give it away. They help people take control of themselves and their performance.

“This has become the new normal. And that is exactly your problem.” “What do you mean?” he asked. “Your aggressive drives, the energy that you summon to go out and win, have systematically shut down. Your brain has kind of quit. It feels that since you can’t control the economy, you can’t control anything. And now that you have been feeling that way for a while, your brain has tricked you into thinking that that is the way it really is, that there is nothing you can do about it, and that you are truly screwed. And it has become, as you say, ‘normal’ to think that way,”

the “new normal” was a state inside his head.

and we really don’t do much about trying to change what is normal,”

The trick was to reverse learned helplessness and get their brains moving again.

when a sphere of control is reestablished—when boundaries are set to limit negative thinking patterns,

This program is designed to help organizations get moving again—to reverse negativity and powerlessness—if they have fallen into that state, or to help good ones get even better. It is comprised of five components. Create Connections Regain Control Take Note of the Three P’s Add Structure and Accountability Take the Right Kind of Action

It’s helpful for them to know two things: that you are overcoming obstacles and winning, but at the same time, that you are not immune or impervious to it all and have some real challenges.

Observing Logging Refuting The way to turn around the three P’s habit is to become aware of your own thinking patterns,

Helplessness was reversed through awareness, counterarguments, and action.

Each step is about getting better. I can do this.

The brain cannot work on a generalized, subjective state of badness. But it can work on a specific action and treat it as a specific challenge with a positive attitude. Then, if it goes well, it can build momentum from there.

“That is one deal and it wasn’t right for them. No one closes every deal or call, and a rejection does not mean that I am a loser. I will take what I learned there, use it on the next one, and get to a win. They had their own reasons for saying no. I am getting better each time.”

there is more to my life than this one deal.

In so many cases, the reason for inaction and failure is truly all in the mind.

when people assign a specific time and place for completion of specific tasks and goals, their chances of success increase by up to 300 percent. There is a big difference in saying “I am going to lose two pounds this week” versus “On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at noon, I am going to the gym,” and put it in the calendar.

Structure, stability, security, routine, and predictability—all are necessary for our brains to function at their highest levels.

Nothing moves people like moving.

The action you want is action that specifically drives results. And the accountability you want is the kind that drives success,

critical measures that must be monitored for accountability.

they don’t necessarily drive success—they only measure them. What I’m talking about is accountability that creates high performance and results.

focus on the right metrics of accountability: the ones that drive the result, not just the result itself,

peer accountability, out in the open, is very powerful. Within a group of people it gets tougher and tougher to give excuses and explanations based in learned helplessness.

Change requires energy, and producing it is one of a leader’s greatest jobs.