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April 22 - April 22, 2023
No matter what is going on around us, we are able to remain steady and constant as we look out at that dot on the horizon and remember where we are headed. Without that dot on the horizon to aim for, we are so much more likely to shift into protection.
The story that he was telling himself changed from, “Who do they think they are trying to tell me what to do?” to, “I am grateful that they are teaching me what I need to know so I can live my dream.” With this shift in mindset, Daniel’s brain received the signal that he was safe and that there was a good reason for the stress he was experiencing. All of this helped him shift out of protection and into learning.
By consciously adopting an agent mindset rather than a victim mindset, Daniel kept himself in a state of learning where he could efficiently keep moving toward his dream.
And because these kinds of leaders tend to be very controlling, they often miss things because they’re not getting the benefit of diverse ideas, thoughts, observations, and perspectives from an empowered team. When things get tough, they tighten their control and perfectionism even more.
taking short pauses during the exercise allowed highly motivated performers to outlearn both their low motivation and “no break” counterparts. The short breaks were chances to replenish their cognitive resources so they could more quickly learn the challenging task.1
Some of us are good about getting adequate recovery until life gets hectic. Then, when we need them the most, the very activities that bring us peace and balance are the first ones we give up in order to gain more time for whatever crisis we’re facing.
To put it simply, we have to be intentional about recharging our batteries before they become depleted. Just like athletes who consistently invest in their own physical, mental, and emotional health, we all must be fully charged in order to face challenges. Athletes don’t just recover from injury and physical strain. They manage their nutrition, sleep, energy, and physical recovery from training and workouts.
an ideal “learning” session should last about ninety minutes, as that is how long the brain can maintain a high degree of focus.8
Each morning, rate the following questions from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and then add up your total score. 1. I slept very well last night. 2. I have clear, purposeful intentions for the day. 3. I am looking forward to the day’s activities. 4. I am optimistic about my future. 5. I feel vigorous and energetic. 6. My diet is healthy and well balanced. 7. I am experiencing very little fatigue or burnout. 8. I can focus on the things that matter most. 9. I feel connected to the important people in my life. If your score is below 30, it means that you are not fully
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Why do they keep letting her down and bringing problems to her at the last possible moment?
He knows that he should have told her about the missing feature sooner. Instead, he has kept focusing on the many other improvements that his team was able to make, including accelerating several features that test users found extremely compelling. In his view, there are a number of areas where they over-delivered, and this outweighs the one area where they under-delivered. But he never had this conversation with Simone because, in truth, he had been dreading her reaction.
Simone genuinely wants to help her team when they encounter setbacks and challenges, but she fails to recognize how her behavior is making it less likely for them to ask her for help.
Cues from the body that we are shifting into protection can include tension building up in our shoulders, necks, or stomachs, trembling, sweaty palms, clenching our jaws, breathing from our chest as opposed to our belly, an increased heart rate, and shallow breathing. Cues from the mind that we are shifting into protection often include negative thoughts, particularly about other people, and defending our own truth. And cues from our own behavior that we are shifting into protection might include a change in our tone of voice, yelling, shutting down, and avoidance. As we practice observing
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she observes herself in meetings, and instead of reacting when she catches herself getting emotional, she takes a “time-out.”
We teach a technique called Awareness, Pause, Reframe, and a big part of the awareness piece is developing not only awareness of the self but also awareness and acceptance of the context and the situation. This is how we develop Dual Awareness.
new practice of looking ahead at her day in the morning and trying to pinpoint the moments when she is likely to be challenged.
Simone finds out that Jonathan’s team has missed a deadline and didn’t even tell her about it, she needs to take a few moments to breathe deeply and remind herself of how she wants to show up as a leader. They don’t always tell me about problems because I have a history of reacting badly, so I’d better not do that, she reminds herself.
it is exactly in these situations when we are trying to solve a complex adaptive challenge and the stakes are high and our old way of doing things isn’t working that we so often panic and revert to those same ineffective solutions.
“Maybe the problem is harder than I’ve been willing to admit, and each person just doing their individual job isn’t enough,” she finally says. “It won’t work for each individual to do their thing separately. I thought that if each team member just did what I told them to do, I could integrate everything and figure it out. But I think we all need to go beyond our formal roles and tackle this thing more holistically as a team. We all need to adapt our success models, and we need to adapt them in as-yet-unknown ways. This is new territory, for sure.”
Since something is at stake for both of us, we often feel threatened by the other person’s protection behaviors, which only serves to strengthen those very behaviors in each of us. When this happens, we must not only gain awareness around our own icebergs but also try to help the very person with whom we are in conflict to gain awareness around theirs.
To help someone else get out of protection, we must first shift into learning ourselves. We can demonstrate calm visibly by slowing down, using a calm voice, and so on, and then ask questions to promote learning and/or focus on a common goal. It is a matter of synchronizing both people toward a state of calm instead of throwing oil on a fire by reacting to someone else’s emotions from our own state of protection.
At the very bottom of the ladder lie all possible data and facts—objective
the first rung of the ladder is our factual raw observations, that is, all of that data in the world that we observe or have access to,
The second rung of the ladder is selective data.
The third rung of the ladder is the meaning we make out of the data we have selected.
The fourth rung on the ladder is the assumptions that we layer onto the meaning we’ve made of the data we’ve selected from our raw observations.
The fifth rung of the ladder is the resulting conclusions that we draw based on everything that lies farther down on the ladder.
The sixth rung of the ladder is the positions and beliefs we adopt as a result of our interpretations and conclusions.
Through a series of probing, open-ended questions, effective inquiry helps work down someone else’s ladder of inference so we can truly understand where they are coming from and why.
“But how will we know the problems have been fixed in a way that we’re all happy with? And what would success really look like for this team, for our organization, and for our customers and business partners if we were fully successful, including but not limited to an absence of problems?”
A thermostat set to sixty-eight degrees that turns the heat on anytime the room drops below sixty-eight degrees is engaging in single loop learning. A thermostat engaging in double loop learning would explore the best and most economical way to heat the room, asking, “Why am I set to sixty-eight degrees?”6
avoid saying thing like “yes, but . . .” or “There is a lot of context that you don’t know”).
have a standing “devil’s advocate meeting” to pressure-test plans and ideas).
Fill silences with questions instead of comments.
Provide feedback and coaching to individual team members on their contributions to psychological safety.
Personal Operating Model Framework
Four pillars template
One suggestion is to focus on just one specific behavior in the next month—for example, making sure that you spend at least an hour each day working on a project of some sort that is squarely “on purpose.”
In fact, close your email so you are not tempted to read and answer incoming messages.
Set aleet for urgent issues or critical senders such as boss or vp
block out times on your calendar for the things you need to stay well.
Take some time to map out what an ideal week would look like for you.
What are some small shifts you can make in the near term in order to close the gap between your ideal week and your typical week? •What are some bigger changes you can commit to making in the longer term to close the gap?
The word “practice” is key. You will not do this perfectly today, at the end of four weeks, or probably ever, nor do you need to. We certainly don’t! But accepting and embracing your humanity is a key part of the process.
It can be helpful to take a few minutes at the start of the day to go through your agenda, identify high-stakes topics, and set an intention for what you want to accomplish and how you want the experience to unfold for yourself and others. This enables you to predict “emotional hot spots” or situations that ask for a learning mindset and provides a bulwark against reactivity.
