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March 30 - May 8, 2018
Rules (or any highly structured environment) are discouraging because they limit us; they exist to erase specific behaviors from our repertoire.
If you’ve ever been dressed down in public by a high-ranking manager, you know it’s something you don’t want to repeat—which makes it a powerful motivator to stay true to your long-term goals.
no matter how extreme the circumstances, when it comes to our behavior, we always have a choice.
When we go into our first meeting with the company’s CEO, we are mindful that every word, every gesture, every question is a trigger. When we’re asked for our opinion, we don’t say the first thing that comes to mind. We know we’ve entered a field of land mines where any misstep may have unappealing consequences. We measure our words like a diplomat facing an adversary. Perhaps we’ve even prepared our answers ahead of time. Either way, we don’t yield to impulse. We reflect, choose, then respond.
It’s not just environmental intrusions and unpredicted events that upset our plans. It’s also our willful discounting of past experience. We make plans that are wholly contradicted by our previous actions.
The doer in them, swaddled in a convivial atmosphere that tends to loosen tongues, could not keep a promise that the planner in each had made a few minutes earlier.
The boxer-philosopher Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” As we wander through life, what punches us in the face repeatedly is our environment.
Forecasting is what we must do after acknowledging the environment’s power over us. It comprises three interconnected stages: anticipation, avoidance, and adjustment.
Successful people are not completely oblivious to their environment. In the major moments of our lives, when the outcome really matters and failure is not an option, we are masters of anticipation.
It’s the same with trial attorneys who never ask a question to which they don’t know the answer. Their entire line of questioning a witness is based on anticipation.
It’s the same with a public official chairing a town meeting on a divisive issue. The official anticipates that some comments will be said in anger, that the exchanges could become inflammatory and personally insulting. In a heated environment, she reminds herself to stay cool and be fair.
When we’re not anticipating the environment, anything can happen.
“Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”
It’s no different with our environment. Quite often our smartest response to an environment is avoiding it.
Temptation is the mocking sidekick who shows up in any enjoyable environment, urging us to relax, try a little of this or that, stay a little longer. Temptation can corrupt our values, health, relationships, and careers. Because of our delusional belief that we control our environment, we choose to flirt with temptation rather than walk away.
This impulse to always engage rather than selectively avoid is one reason I’m called in to coach executives on their behavior.*2 It’s one of the most common behavioral issues among leaders: succumbing to the temptation to exercise power when they would be better off showing restraint.
To avoid undesirable behavior, avoid the environments where it is most likely to occur. If you don’t want to be lured into a tantrum by a colleague who gets on your nerves, avoid him. If you don’t want to indulge in late-night snacking, don’t wander into the kitchen looking for leftovers in the fridge.
“dramatic narrative fallacy”—the notion that we have to spice up our day by accepting more, if not all, challenges, as if our life resembled a TV drama where the script says we overcome seemingly insurmountable odds rather than avoid them.
If we’re satisfied with our life—not necessarily happy or delighted that we’ve exceeded our wildest expectations, just satisfied—we yield to inertia. We continue doing what we’ve always done. If we’re dissatisfied, we may go to the other extreme, falling for any and every idea, never pursuing one idea long enough so that it takes root and actually shapes a recognizably new us.
Preserving sounds passive and mundane, but it’s a real choice. It requires soul-searching to figure out what serves us well, and discipline to refrain from abandoning it for something new and shiny and not necessarily better.
A politician once told me, “The most thankless decision I make is the one that prevents something bad from happening, because I can never prove that I prevented something even worse.” Preserving is the same. We rarely get credit for not messing up a good thing. It’s a tactic that looks brilliant only in hindsight—and only to the individual doing the preserving.
preserving a valuable behavior means one less behavior we have to change.
Eliminating is our most liberating, therapeutic action—but we make it reluctantly. Like cleaning out an attic or garage, we never know if we’ll regret jettisoning a part of us.
The real test is sacrificing something we enjoy doing—say, micromanaging—that’s not ostensibly harming our career, that we believe may even be working for us (if not others). In these cases, we may ask ourselves, “What should I eliminate?” And come up with nothing.
Creating is innovating, taking risks on new ventures, creating new profit centers within the company. Preserving is not losing sight of your core business. Eliminating is shutting down or selling off the businesses that no longer fit.
We take in what we want to hear, but tune out the displeasing notes that we need to hear.
Some people even have trouble accepting a compliment. Have you ever said something nice about a friend’s attire, and your friend brushes it off with “Oh this? I haven’t worn it in years.” The correct response is “Thank you,” not attacking your judgment and kindness.
Accepting is most valuable when we are powerless to make a difference. Yet our ineffectuality is precisely the condition we are most loath to accept.
our exquisite logic fails to persuade a colleague or spouse to take our position, we resort to shouting at them, or threatening them, or belittling them, as if that’s a more winning approach than accepting that reasonable people can disagree. • If our spouse calls us out on a minor domestic infraction (for example, leaving the refrigerator door open, being late to pick up the kids, forgetting to buy milk) and we are 100 percent guilty, we’ll dredge up an incident from the past when our spouse was at fault. We extend a pointless argument ad nauseam rather than say, “You’re right. I’m sorry.” •
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If we reflect on it, I’d wager our episodes of nonacceptance trigger more bad behavior than the fallout from our creating, preserving, and eliminating combined.
Asking people, “What do we need to eliminate?” fosters agreement more swiftly than asking, “What’s wrong?” or “What don’t you like about your colleagues?” One form requires people to imagine a positive course of action (even when it involves elimination). The other triggers whining and complaining.
Good things happen when we ask ourselves what we need to create, preserve, eliminate, and accept—a test I suspect few of us ever self-administer. Discovering what really matters is a gift, not a burden. Accept it and see.
Executing the change we hold as a concrete image in our mind is a process. It requires vigilance and diligent self-monitoring. It demands a devotion to rote repetition that we might initially dismiss as simplistic and undignified, even beneath us.
asking active questions. Like apologizing or asking for help, it’s easy to do. But it’s a different kind of triggering mechanism. Its objective is to alter our behavior, not the behavior of others. But that doesn’t make it less magical.
The standard practice in almost all organizational surveys on the subject is to rely on what Kelly calls passive questions—questions that describe a static condition. “Do you have clear goals?” is an example of a passive question. It’s passive because it can cause people to think of what is being done to them rather than what they are doing for themselves.
when asked, “Do you have clear goals?” the reasons are attributed to external factors such as “My manager can’t make up his mind” or “The company changes strategy every month.” The employee seldom looks within to take responsibility and say, “It’s my fault.” Blame is assigned elsewhere.
when companies take the natural next step and ask for positive suggestions about making changes, the employees’ answers once again focus exclusively on the environment, not the individual. “Managers need to be trained in goal setting” or “Our executives need to be more effective in communicating our vision” are typical responses.
When asked exclusively, passive questions can be the natural enemy of taking personal responsibility and demonstrating accountability. They can give people the unearned permission to pass the buck to anyone and anything but themselves.
There’s a difference between “Do you have clear goals?” and “Did you do your best to set clear goals for yourself?” The former is trying to determine the employee’s state of mind; the latter challenges the employee to describe or defend a course of action.
After that meeting, I significantly increased my exhortations to companies on the importance of follow-up after they train their employees. It’s one of my signature themes: People don’t get better without follow-up. So let’s get better at following up with our people.
The fact that I was wondering who hired these people and who put them in the front lines of customer service was a good indicator that I was still holding the employer, not the employee, solely responsible for creating engaged workers. By stressing better follow-up, I was merely increasing the company’s burden, asking them to be more thorough in documenting their employees’ failures.
How happy were you today? 2. How meaningful was your day? 3. How positive were your relationships with people? 4. How engaged were you?
Did you do your best to be happy? 2. Did you do your best to find meaning? 3. Did you do your best to build positive relationships with people? 4. Did you do your best to be fully engaged?
While any follow-up was shown to be superior to no follow-up, a simple tweak in the language of follow-up—focusing on what the individual can control—makes a significant difference.
Did I do my best to set clear goals today?
Did I do my best to make progress toward my goals today?
Progress makes any of our accomplishments more meaningful.
Did I do my best to find meaning today?
It’s up to us, not an outside agency like our company, to provide meaning. This question challenges us to be creative in finding meaning in whatever we are doing.
Did I do my best to be happy today?