Timeless Success Recipes From Stephen Covey

by Lisa Nirell July 20, 2012 www.fastcompany.com

 
"Here, have an oatmeal cookie."
That is the disarming way in which my first interview with Stephen Covey began in 2004. In light of Dr. Covey's passing this week, his lessons are more alive than they have ever been. I'm certain that my experiences with Covey were consistent with many others. This is my attempt to summarize those life lessons.
I wish that I could say my first live interview with Covey went smoothly. Although FranklinCovey's press team invited me to their Long Beach, Calif., conference, they asserted that Covey's full schedule would not allow time for me to interview him. My expectations were very low. Suddenly, after the Day 1 main session, the reporter from the Los Angeles Times contacted Deb Lund, the director of PR, and cancelled his interview. She offered me his interview time slot.
I paused three seconds for dignity, then said yes. Here's the rub: I had seven minutes' notice to prepare for the interview.
As a rookie journalist and freelancer for The San Diego Transcript, I was panicking over my lack of preparation. I felt that I just didn't have enough time to make a strong first impression.
My hike to the second story of the conference center felt somewhat like the Bataan death march. I kept a stiff upper lip, looked him straight in the eyes, and spoke the truth. "Stephen, I apologize for not being prepared for this interview." He deftly offered me an oatmeal cookie, sat back in his chair, and proceeded to ask me about my life, my family, and my passions.
Needless to say, the interview is one of my most memorable. Our 15-minute interview spilled into 40. We covered a wide range of topics. Five years later, he graciously agreed to endorse my book and granted me another interview.
Many will remember Covey for his prolific contributions to the burgeoning self-help movement. Others will applaud him for his global impact through his nonprofit endeavors and his prolific speaking and writing abilities. I applaud him for something else.
Covey had an uncanny abililty to push his ego aside and make others feel included and valued. His book, The 8th Habit, outlines his belief that we must find our voice and inspire others to find theirs. Even though we only met three times, he inspired me year after year to weave that philosophy into my daily business activities.
These are the timeless Covey gifts that Stephen gave me:

1. Encourage critical thinking during meetings. I ask for evidence behind every opportunity or problem. I seldom allow hearsay or gossip to drive my own strategic choices or my clients'. When I stray from this philosophy and make irrational, knee-jerk choices, I lose clients and create unnecessary tension. Covey says in The 8th Habit, "between stimulus and response there is a space where we choose our response."
2. I constantly strive for deeper meaning and purpose. While some of my contemporaries become enamored with the latest marketing automation, performance management, or social media platforms, I strive to stay grounded in my life's true purpose. Generating more leads or driving higher EBITDA are not examples of a noble purpose. Automated performance management and stack ranking programs have proven to be a hornet's nest, because they often stray from a company's purpose and assume that some people will always be worthy of termination. Are these ideas holding your company back from reaching its true potential?
3. I strive to eliminate the hourly worker mindset forever. Covey opened my eyes to the foolishness of our Industrial Age thinking. In The 8th Habit, he described the four Industrial Age maladies:
   --"The belief that you must control people;
   --Our view of accounting (People are an expense; machines are assets);
   --The carrot-and-stick motivational philosophy; and
   --Centralized budgeting ... a reactive approach that produces 'kiss-up' cultures bent on 'spending it so we won't lose it next year.'"
4. I schedule time for self-reflection every day. This may mean a five-minute check in with a colleague or my husband, but it gets done. During my CMO peer meetings, I encourage each member to provide a "check in": What's different from our last meeting? What worked in your performance? What didn't work? What are you celebrating? Self-knowledge must take front and center position to text messaging, email, and tweeting. The majority of senior executives I meet confess that reflection is often rejected in favor of addressing the crisis du jour (the urgent versus the important). Picasso once said that "without great solitude no serious work is possible." Perhaps he and Covey conspired at some point to help us strike more balance in our lives.

Covey made this world a better place. I will savor that "oatmeal cookie" moment for the rest of my life.

10 big mistakes successful leaders make

Steve Tobak May 9, 2012 www.cbsnew.com

Executives and business leaders don't just peak and lose their potency over time, like wine. They change. Oftentimes, success is the culprit. Success affects everyone differently and not necessarily in a good way.
I've seen it happen to loads of successful CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners I've worked with over the years. It's not a result of the Peter Principle, since their responsibilities didn't change. It's not necessarily a question of the business outgrowing their capabilities, either.
And they don't just "lose it." Rather, they change. Success changes them.

If you know a little about human psychology, that shouldn't surprise you. You've got to really know yourself, possess unusual self-confidence, and be pretty well grounded in reality to withstand the ego-inflating onslaught of winning big in business.

Since we're all human, we're all susceptible to the unusual pressures and pitfalls that come from achieving what we've always dreamed of. In my experience, these are the ten most common traps successful leaders fall into.

Becoming the status quo. Startups often break into the market by challenging the status quo. The problem is when success makes them the status quo, yet they don't realize it. That was evident when Apple and Google challenged the BlackBerry with the iPhone and Android platform. It's ironic that RIM's co-founders forgot that they were once the challengers. Their failure to be proactive or even to react in time was RIM's downfall.

Tunnel vision. They lose perspective and become rigid, sticking to their myopic vision like glue. Since competitors are unpredictable and markets are always evolving, it can be deadly to a business. If their vision fails to gain traction, they often double down and become even more grandiose. We saw that with former Sony CEO Howard Stringer's concept of product synergy. The only problem is it didn't exist.

Losing their fear. Fear is a key emotion that warns you when to be alert and when you need to act. When you start to think that success is inevitable and believe you can't fail, you act irrationally, become reckless and take risks you shouldn't or without due consideration. Reminds me of lots of megamergers and LBOs, that's for sure.

Fear of losing. The opposite of becoming fearless to the extreme is becoming too risk averse because you're afraid of losing what you've won. Unfortunately, that simply doesn't work in an ever-changing business world. Once that fear of taking chances sets in, you're business is doomed.

All knowing. They stop asking questions and don't really listen when key stakeholders -- customers, executives, directors, investors -- tell them something they need to hear. They think they have all the answers, that they're the smartest guys in the room. They miss critical warning signs.

Isolated. I've seen far too many successful people develop an elitist or ivory tower mentality. They become insular in their thinking and cut themselves off from others with layers of bureaucracy and hierarchy. There are also usually physical manifestations like executive offices, suites, buildings, and assistants to keep the masses out.

Controlling. In the name of maintaining a culture of entrepreneurship, they become obsessed with keeping things the way they are. That often translates to micromanaging and controlling every little thing. They fail to let go by adding processes and infrastructure that growing businesses need to effectively scale. I see this over and over, especially in the high-tech industry.

Surrounded by yes-men. There will always be weak-minded lackeys that tell leaders what they want to hear and sugarcoat negative news to gain favor. But their power only comes from weak leaders with low self-esteem that need their egos to be constantly pumped up.

Lost the magic. Business success is nearly always the result of a number of factors. Sure, there's a product or service that customers are excited about, but there's also pricing, timing, partners, even luck. Whatever the combination, it's tempting for successful entrepreneurs to think it's all about them, not the "magic formula" that got them there.

If I build it, they will come. Entrepreneurship works in America because anyone with an idea can get funding and, if the stars are aligned, develop a hit product or service. To get out of the "one hit wonder" phase and develop a second and third successful product, however, requires a willingness to embrace marketing, sales, operations, customer service and other business functions.

How To Reverse Your Hard Wiring For Distraction

BY Expert Blogger Olivia Fox Cabane | 04-11-2012 www.fastcompany.com

If you want to be charismatic, your mind can't wander while you're one-on-one with a customer or colleague.

Here's a simple one-minute exercise to help you focus.     

Charismatic behavior can be broken down into three core elements: presence, power, and warmth.

These elements depend both on our conscious behaviors and on factors we don’t consciously control. People pick up on messages we often don’t even realize we’re sending through small changes in our body language.

In order to be charismatic, we need to choose mental states that make our body language, words, and behaviors flow together and express the three core elements of charisma. And presence is the foundation for everything else.

Have you ever felt, in the middle of a conversation, as if only half of your mind were present while the other half was busy doing something else? Do you think the other person noticed? If you’re not fully present in an interaction, there’s a good chance that your eyes will glaze over or that your facial reactions will be a split-second delayed. Since the mind can read facial expressions in as little as 17 milliseconds, the person you’re speaking with will likely notice even the tiniest delays in your reactions.

We may think that we can fake presence. We may think that we can fake listening. But we’re wrong. When we’re not fully present in an interaction, people will see it. Our body language sends a clear message that other people read and react to, at least on a subconscious level.

Not only can the lack of presence be visible, it can also be perceived as inauthentic, which has even worse consequences. When you’re perceived as disingenuous, it’s virtually impossible to generate trust, rapport, or loyalty. And it’s impossible to be charismatic.

Luckily, presence is a learnable skill that can be improved with practice and patience. Being present means simply having a moment-to-moment awareness of what’s happening. It means paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your own thoughts.

Now that you know the cost of lacking presence, try this exercise to test yourself and learn three simple techniques to boost your charisma in personal interactions.

First, find a reasonably quiet place where you can close your eyes (whether standing or sitting).
Set a timer for one minute. Close your eyes and focus on one of the following three things: the sounds around you, your breathing, or the sensations in your toes.

1. Scan your environment for sound. As a meditation teacher told me, “Imagine that your ears are satellite dishes, passively and objectively registering sounds.”
2. Focus on your breath and the sensations it creates in your nostrils or stomach. Pay attention to one breath at a time, but try to notice everything about this one breath. Imagine that your breath is someone you want to give your full attention to.
3. Focus your attention on the sensations in your toes. This forces your mind to sweep through your body, helping you to get into the physical sensations of the moment.

Did you find your mind constantly wandering even though you were trying your best to be present? As you’ve noticed, staying fully present isn’t always easy. There are two main reasons for this.

First, our brains are wired to pay attention to novel stimuli, whether they be sights, smells, or sounds. We’re wired to be distracted, to have our attention grabbed by any new stimulus: it could be important! It could eat us! This tendency was key to our ancestors’ survival. Imagine two tribesmen hunting through the plains, searching the horizon for signs of the antelope that could feed their family. Something flickers in the distance. The tribesman whose attention wasn’t immediately caught? He’s not our ancestor.

The second reason is that our society encourages distraction. The constant influx of stimulation we receive worsens our natural tendencies. This can eventually lead us into a state of continuous partial attention, in which we never give our full attention to any single thing. We’re always partially distracted.

So if you often find it hard to be fully present, don’t beat yourself up. Presence is hard for almost all of us. A study coauthored by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert estimated that nearly half of the average person’s time was spent “mind wandering.”

The good news is that even a minor increase in your capacity for presence can have a major effect on those around you. Because so few of us are ever fully present, if you can manage even a few moments of full presence from time to time, you’ll make quite an impact.

The very next time you’re in a conversation, try to regularly check whether your mind is fully engaged or whether it is wandering elsewhere (including preparing your next sentence). Aim to bring yourself back to the present moment as often as you can by focusing on your breath or your toes for just a second, and then get back to focusing on the other person.

One of my clients, after trying this exercise for the first time, reported: “I found myself relaxing, smiling, and others suddenly noticed me and smiled back without my saying a word.”

Don’t be discouraged if you feel that you didn’t fully succeed in the one-minute exercise above. You actually did gain a charisma boost simply by practicing presence. And because you’ve already gained the mindset shift (awareness of the importance of presence and the cost of the lack of it), you’re already ahead of the game.
Excerpted from The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane by arrangement with Portfolio Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc., Copyright © 2012 by Olivia Fox Cabane.

10 Steps to Getting More Done in Your Day

Barry Moltz www.openforum.com March 19, 2012

Every day, your to-do list seems to grow. And in this business climate of information overload and constant interruptions, it has become increasingly difficult for small business owners to get anything accomplished. Not to mention, instead of technology increasing your productivity, it often seems to weigh you down. How are you supposed be proud of what was accomplished today and not just be frustrated?
Here are 10 steps to getting more done in a single day. (After you get your cup of coffee, of course.)
1. Do not start the day by checking e-mail, voice messsages or social media feeds. This will suck you in a direction you do not want to go, and is the surest way to get your day off to a bad start.
2. Start by completing two things on your list that must get done today. Do the hard or unpleasant stuff first. Make sure whatever the tasks are, they will have a significant impact on your business and are part of the critical path to other business goals and objectives.
3. Make decisions and take action. Procrastination never pays off, so make the tough decisions first. Say "no" more often than you say "yes", and don’t even think about saying “maybe.”
4. Deal with every e-mail once. Read an e-mail and take action on it now. Don't save it for later or leave it in your inbox. File it in the appropriate subfolder if it is needed for later reference.
5. Focus on doing one thing at a time. Believe it or not, multitasking can cause brain damage. The brain actually doesn’t do multiple things at one time, but instead just switches very quickly. This does not improve your overall productivity.
6. Control distractions. Turn off the e-mail and social media notifications, beeps, ringtones and visits to your office. If you need to use a software tool that turns off your access to the Internet, install it. Limit or rotate the information you read.
7. Stay off the Internet, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter unless you have a plan. This is the fastest way to kill your productivity since you can drift on these sites forever. Know why you are using these tools and how it will help your business, and always set a time limit for this activity.
8. Do not enter a meeting without a written agenda and a stop time. And in some meetings, have everyone remain standing. Document action items and assignments, and end early if you can.
9. Delegate to others. Improving your productivity means utilizing the other people in your organization to take full responsibility for their own tasks. Unless you set up an assigned hierarchy, you will always be stuck with all the tasks.
10. Recharge. If technology would have its way, most small business owners would work 24/7. Set a time limit on work and ensure there are place in your life which are an oasis so you can recharge daily.

The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time

by: Steve Tobak blogs.hbr.org March14, 2012

Why is it that between 25 and 50 per cent of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work?
It's not just the number of hours we're working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.
What we've lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It's like an itch we can't resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.
Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop to meetings and then pretend you're taking notes while you surf the net? Do you eat lunch at your desk? Do you make calls while you're driving, and even send the occasional text, even though you know you shouldn't?
The biggest cost — assuming you don't crash — is to your productivity. In part, that's a simple consequence of splitting your attention, so that you're partially engaged in multiple activities but rarely fully engaged in any one. In part, it's because when you switch away from a primary task to do something else, you're increasing the time it takes to finish that task by an average of 25 per cent.
But most insidiously, it's because if you're always doing something, you're relentlessly burning down your available reservoir of energy over the course of every day, so you have less available with every passing hour.
I know this from my own experience. I get two to three times as much writing accomplished when I focus without interruption for a designated period of time and then take a real break, away from my desk. The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as shorter periods of real renewal.
If you're a manager, here are three policies worth promoting:
1. Maintain meeting discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, rather than an hour or longer, so participants can stay focused, take time afterward to reflect on what's been discussed, and recover before the next obligation. Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.
2. Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. It forces your people into reactive mode, fractures their attention, and makes it difficult for them to sustain attention on their priorities. Let them turn off their email at certain times. If it's urgent, you can call them — but that won't happen very often.
3. Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you encourage your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a midafternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap.

It's also up to individuals to set their own boundaries. Consider these three behaviors for yourself:
1. Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you'll be. When you're done, take at least a few minutes to renew.
2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically. If you don't, you'll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment in which to do this activity — preferably one that's relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking.
3. Take real and regular vacations. Real means that when you're off, you're truly disconnecting from work. Regular means several times a year if possible, even if some are only two or three days added to a weekend. The research strongly suggests that you'll be far healthier if you take all of your vacation time, and more productive overall.
A single principle lies at the heart of all these suggestions. When you're engaged at work, fully engage, for defined periods of time. When you're renewing, truly renew. Make waves. Stop living your life in the gray zone.

9 reasons why people fail

By Steve Tobak  (MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY www.cbsnews.com

 

Some people are smart, competent, even driven; they just don't get anywhere. Or they get somewhere, reach a certain point, and then just like that, hit a wall. I've seen it a thousand times with people at every management level, from CEO on down. The bigger problem is that, oftentimes, they take others down with them.

Is it all attributable to the Peter Principle -- reaching your level of incompetence and then crashing and burning -- or is that just one of many reasons why people, for whatever reason, become ineffective? Well, I've thought long and hard about this and I think it comes down to nine essential failure modes.
Breathing your own fumes. Probably the most common failure mode, especially for formerly successful people, is they lose their humility and their objectivity and begin to think they have all the answers. They don't just lose perspective -- they honestly don't believe they need it.
Following your own agenda. If you're an entrepreneur and it's your baby, that's one thing. Do whatever the heck you want. But when you work for a company, you're not there to carve your own crazy path. It doesn't matter what level you're at. You're there to do the company's business, not your own. You can't be effective that way.
You run out of steam to compete in a brutally competitive world. It hasn't always been that way, but now more than ever, companies, managers and employees need to continuously refresh and reinvent themselves. In any competitive market, yesterday's value proposition may not hold true today or tomorrow.
The Peter Principle. The vast majority of folks who climbed the corporate ladder and all of a sudden seem clueless have either reached a level where they're no longer competent or have moved laterally into a position they're not suited for. And all too often, they're left there to rot.
Why the Peter Principle works                               7 signs of a high-performance company
You're losing it. I thought of all sorts of PC ways to say this, and there just isn't any. It's huge and yet nobody talks about it. People lose it. Maybe they're dysfunctional or a little unbalanced to begin with and for whatever reason -- stress, personal, whatever -- they start to go off the deep end and self-destruct. I've seen lots of people recover, but first they have to get out and get help.
Cultural disease. I once worked with a publicly traded company that had absolutely the worst reputation you could imagine. The media, customers, everyone thought they were arrogant bullies. Instead of looking at themselves, it became popular to blame it on all sorts of conspiracy theories. Everyone was out to get them. This lunacy became a sort of cultural disease that infected the entire company. No kidding.
You've lost faith in the organization. Sometimes, it isn't you. At any given time, probably half the companies out there are heading in the wrong direction: down. Think RIM (RIMM), Sprint (S), Yahoo (YHOO), AOL (AOL), Kodak (EK), it's a long list. It's hard to get up in the morning and be effective when, deep down, you feel like the organization is going nowhere.
Your strategy didn't age well. It happens all the time and for reasons that, well, have too many variables to categorize. One day your ideas are awesome, they work and everything's hunky dory. The next day you wake up and everything's changed. After all, we live in a dynamic world. Suddenly, your strategy or ideas no longer resonate with customers, your boss, the market, whatever.
You don't understand or want to play by the rules. Want to paint the world with your own colored crayon? March to the beat of your own drum? Do your own thing? Be a rebel with or without a cause? That's great, go for it. But when it comes to work, products, markets, customers, that sort of thing, you really don't get to do whatever, wherever, whenever you want.

7 things great employees do

If you are a boss, you might be tempted to post this on the lunchroom bulletin board... only kiddin!

Steve Tobak March 1, 2012 www.cbsnews.com 

COMMENTARY This definitely isn't the first time somebody's written about what makes employees special. But it may very well be the first time someone's telling you what will genuinely get your management excited about you and ultimately get you promoted. No kidding.
Look, you've got to understand the reality here. People will cite ridiculously esoteric research studies and pull all sorts of popular, feel-good stuff out of their utopian behinds -- whatever it takes to get you to click. That's great for feeding your ego and your addiction to distraction, but it doesn't do squat for your career.

This is different. It's not some kumbaya fluff that will get you a big pat on the back, a "Nice job, buddy" from the boss, or a gift certificate for a cheap dinner. This is what employees really do to distinguish themselves in the eyes of management. It's how up-and-comers become up-and-comers. It's how you get recognized and moving up the corporate ladder. It's what today's top executives did when they were in your shoes.

Take responsibility for hot projects with a fearless attitude. And get this. If it works out, you don't waste a lot of time basking in the glory, at least not at work. Maybe you go out and celebrate with the other team members. That aside, you're all about finding the next big challenge. You're hungry for more. And if it fails, you don't point fingers. You take full responsibility and learn from it. And you know what? That's when management will start to see you as one of them. That's big.

Demonstrate natural leadership. That means when you take charge of something, people naturally follow, even though you don't have the title or the authority. Never mind everything you read; that's what natural leadership is really all about. There are all sorts of different styles that work, but mostly it comes down to a fearless self-confidence and charisma that people find magnetic. That's like gold in the corporate world.

Say, "Sure, no problem, will do," and then do it. It's one thing to have a solid work ethic and get the job done. That certainly key in the real business world. But it's another thing entirely to always accept challenging assignments with open arms and a simple, "No problem, will do" acknowledgement. And the tougher it is, the more confident you sound and the harder you work to make it happen. That's the sign of an employee who needs a promotion or two.
Roll with the punches without taking things personally. Sure, it's hard to keep your balance when the rug's just been pulled out from under you. But let's face it. The nature of contemporary business is one of constant change, reorganizations and layoffs. Programs come and go. Companies too. One day you're rolling in resources, the next day you need three signatures for a chair. That's the way business is. And if you're flexible, you're adaptable, you've got fortitude and you don't take things personally, that's big.

Think of the company's goals as your goals. I know, the jaded among you will say that blind loyalty to a company will enslave you and get you nowhere. Well, there's truth to that. After all, any employee can be fired or quit, and that's as it should be. This is about understanding how companies operate and making the company's or the department's priorities your own. When you start to identify with the goals of management -- live, eat and breathe them -- then you start to become management. Yes, that's a good thing.

Do whatever it takes to get the job done, even when you're not getting paid for it. Look, success in the real world doesn't work like tit for tat. First, you put yourself out there, take risks, do the work, and accomplish things. Then, and only then, do you get to put your hand out and say, "Give me some." Then, if your company doesn't take care of you, you learn a lesson, put your accomplishments on your resume, and move on to a better place that values overachievers like you.

Grow the business or improve the bottom line. Yeah, I know it's not popular, but that doesn't make it any less critical or true. These days, it's all about doing more with less. Being more efficient, effective, scrappy, innovative, motivational, engaging, and not only that, happy about it. Think of it as a problem-solving challenge where the problem is how to grow the business or cut spending while improving productivity. Like it or not, that is what it's all about.

Steve Tobak is a consultant and former high-tech senior executive. He's managing partner of Invisor Consulting, a management consulting and business strategy firm

Do Your People Trust You?

Linda A. Hill & Kent Lineback March 2, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org

When we talk to managers, we often ask, "Do your people trust you?"
Most are taken aback. It's not something they're often asked or a question they've even asked themselves.
After some thought, most eventually say something like, "Well, I think so. I hope so. No one's said he doesn't." In fact, as they ultimately admit, they don't really know for sure.
It's a question worth asking. Do your people trust you?
Chances are, you don't know for sure, either. If so, that's potentially a problem because your ability to elicit people's best efforts depends on their trust in you — their confidence that they can count on you to do the right thing. Your basic job as a boss is to influence others, to make a difference in what they do and in the thoughts and feelings that drive their actions. Yet, even as the person in charge, the one with authority, you can ultimately influence people only to the extent they are willing to be influenced by you. And that willingness will depend on whether they trust you. Without trust, why should people do what you ask, especially if you're asking something difficult? Why should they accept your judgment? Above all, why would they devote the care and extra effort that quality work requires? As the boss, you can demand compliance but you must earn commitment, and the coin of that realm is trust.
As we explore this topic with managers, we find it's a subject both familiar and unfamiliar.
Most people don't know how to think about it constructively. Why?
First, they often don't realize how context-sensitive trust is. Your people certainly wouldn't trust you, say, to do brain surgery on one of their children, and you would find that lack of trust completely understandable. You're not to be trusted in that context. So, when we ask, "Do your people trust you?" we're not asking about people's confidence in you as a person in general — whether, for example, they think you will repay them promptly if you borrow $10. Instead, we're really asking, "Do your people trust you as a boss?" For them to accept you as a boss, they must trust you in that context. When we delve later into the components of trust, you'll see why context is so important.
The second reason most managers feel a little lost when they think about trust is that most of us resist the idea that trust is something you can actively and consciously encourage. To say it can and should be fostered feels manipulative and self-serving. We instinctively distrust the person who exclaims, "Trust me!" We usually don't consider trust an outcome we can or should try to control directly. Sure, if we outright lie, cheat, steal, and fail to keep our word, others will consider us untrustworthy. But most of us don't consistently or purposely behave that way. We try to tell the truth, abide by the rules, honor others' rights and belongings, and if we cannot keep a promise, we explain why. For most of us, that's how we were brought up. It's who we are and so we think of trust as the outcome of simply being who we are. It's only when we occasionally — usually inadvertently — break someone's trust that we worry about it. Otherwise, trust just happens and we think that's how it should be.
But believing as a boss that trust will somehow take care of itself may not work out the way you want. You do need to think about it. And you may need to take conscious steps that make clear to others that you deserve their trust. None of those steps involves dishonesty or manipulation — on the contrary — but they do involve your being explicit about yourself, about what you know, and about the reasons behind your decisions and actions. In other words, it may require that you be more open as a boss than you might personally be inclined to be.
Indeed, the need for such openness may cut against the grain of many managers, especially new managers, who believe that as the boss they're able to take action without having to explain it to everyone involved.
What this means and how you do it will become more clear in the next two blogs, in which we will explore each of the two components of trust — competence and character. For people to trust you as a boss, they must believe you know what to do as a boss. At one time or another, we've all had bosses of whom people said, "He doesn't know the business" or "She doesn't understand what we do." No one would trust you to do brain surgery because you're incompetent in that context.
Character is equally important. It refers to your intentions — what you're trying to do, your goals and values as a boss. If, for example, people think you're only out for yourself, driven by blind ambition, and don't care about them, the group, or the work, they will distrust your character, no matter how much you know. You need competence and character both to earn your people's trust.
In the next blog, we'll explore competence, what it means to "know" as a boss and what you can legitimately do to demonstrate competence. (No, it doesn't mean you're supposed to be the expert.) And in the blog after that, we'll delve into character, a much more elusive concept that obviously can vary greatly with the context. But we'll try to say some constructive things about it, and how you can foster it, that apply broadly.

Don't take trust for granted, or believe it just happens, because virtually all you do as a boss begins with people's trust in you.

Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Kent Lineback spent many years as a manager and an executive in business and government. They are the coauthors of Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader (HBR Press, 2011).

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Why We Don't Always Tell the Truth

Ron Ashkenas Feb. 21, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org

When I was growing up, one of the principles in our house was that we had to tell the truth, no matter how painful it might be. Lying, we were taught, wasn't something you could get away with. Like Pinocchio's nose, it would be apparent to others.
Children of course need clear rules to learn the difference between right and wrong. However as we get older, the truth becomes more nuanced — and there are times when a little white lie or the absence of some key facts might be appropriate. The problem is that all of us have different standards for when, why, and how we shade the truth. These divergent 'shades of gray' then cause miscommunication, breakdowns of trust, and other dysfunctional behaviors. That's why, despite the inclusion of "integrity" in almost every value statement, some form of lying is common in most companies.
From my experience, there are three fundamental concerns that cause people to shade the truth, either consciously or not. Being aware of these "lying triggers" can sometimes help to improve communication and reduce the feelings of mistrust.
Impact of the truth on yourself: It's human nature to want people to think well of us, particularly those who have influence over our lives and careers. At the same time we all make mistakes, so we create justifications and excuses — many of which are at best half-truths. I recall a manager whose key project was behind schedule, largely due to his lack of discipline and follow-up. Yet when asked why the project was lagging, he blamed a snowstorm (from six months previously) for slowing down the work.
Impact of the truth on others: One way to gain others' approval is to avoid pointing out things that may damage their self-image. As a result, many people withhold some or all of their true thoughts about others. For example, a senior executive complained to me recently that one of his managers never gave her people negative criticism during performance reviews. To justify that behavior, she said that it was better to reinforce positive behaviors rather than point out weaknesses — a strategy that also happened to make her popular with her team. The senior executive however was convinced that her drive to be well liked was doing the team a disservice, because they didn't know what they could do to improve.
Impact of the truth on business success: To be successful almost every organization needs to sell — be it a product, a service, a story, or a promise. But much of that selling is done without truthful disclosure of what it will take to fulfill the sale. That's why product salespeople will often take an order without revealing to the customer that there may be supply problems, or why a CEO will tout the benefits of an acquisition without mentioning the challenges of integration. Showing customers or partners what's truly behind the curtain could undermine credibility and threaten the deal. The wiser course in many cases is to limit the truth and figure out how to "deliver" later.
It's easy to be judgmental about all these situations and to insist on absolute truth at all times. But people don't work that way, and neither do organizations. As managers, the best we can do is to be more aware of why we avoid or shade the truth — and make sure that it's an appropriate time to do so.

How truthful is your organization? What's your experience with shades of gray?

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.

There Is No Career Ladder

Priscilla Claman Feb 14, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org

Reaching the apex of the career ladder by gradually getting promoted to the top is a thing of the past.   From my experience as a career coach, career ladders in most organizations have not existed for at least fifteen years.
Career ladders are an artifact of the Mad Men era, when you signed onto an organization at age 21, followed the rules, were incrementally promoted, and retired with a gold watch.
But those days are long gone. Career ladders died out during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when over 85% of Fortune 1000 American companies downsized their white-collar workforce.* Downsizing has only escalated from there, however in the 80s and 90s the lost jobs were not in manufacturing but white-collar jobs, including management jobs. As companies thinned out, those leadership positions disappeared — and most haven't come back since.
In that period at General Electric, for example, engineers hired right out of school went through a career development process which included managerial training. Over time, the company began to bulge with managers. Jack Welch laid off thousands, "de-layering," as some people called it. With those managers gone, most "next steps" in the career ladder moved two or three rungs out of reach.
So despite their near extinction, why do we still believe in career ladders? Truthfully, intentionally or not, we are still promising traditional careers. There may not be an easy next step for every person in want of promotion. I know of a company that went through an extensive talent management process, which notified, feted, and gave "stretch assignments" to top talent. Four months later, a third of them were laid off in a reorganization.
It doesn't help that managers are predisposed to keep the best employees in their current positions, which promotes stability in an organization. That's one reason so many companies don't allow people to transfer easily to other jobs without their managers' permission.
There are better ways to think about career moves. Try these tips for diverting your attention from the next step up.
Look laterally for career moves. Don't think of job descriptions as much as job families, or groups of jobs that have something in common. For example if you are a financial analyst, consider other analyst positions in your company, perhaps in market research or sales. It's easier to move within a company where you are a known factor. Horizontal experience can also broaden your skills, which improves your chances of moving up.
Prove you can handle a promotion. Volunteer to help your manager with components of her job and learn to do them well. For example, offer to help interview job candidates, train and coach new people, and give them performance feedback. Your progress should automatically make you a candidate for the next manager job.
Grow your skills to grow your job. Seek out and take advantage of opportunities when they appear, and actively exceed expectations. For example, I once worked with Heidi, a medical assistant, who was charged with scheduling training for a new technology at a major hospital. The doctors were impossible to schedule, so she learned the new systems cold and trained the doctors one-on-one. It wasn't long before she was promoted and given the opportunity of a career in information technology.
It's a different world. But if a world without career ladders allows you to take charge of your own career, then it is a far better one.

*Wayne F. Casco. "Downsizing: what do we know? What have we learned?", The Academy of Management Executive, Vol.7 No.1 (Feb., 1991), p.95

Priscilla Claman is president of Career Strategies, Inc., a Boston-based firm offering career coaching to individuals and career management services to organizations.

6 Ways to Fail Your Business

Jeff Haden January 17, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

Here are six ways you could be failing your business:

Your eye has started to wander. You're bored with your business because, well, things have gotten a little stale. You don't want to necessarily leave your company, but you've started to look for a little variety: You're thinking about forming other companies, or starting a side venture, and you pay less and less attention to your primary business. In the process results, relationships with customers and suppliers, and employee morale all suffer.

You focus on the wrong line. When revenue is down it's natural to focus on cutting costs, especially if, like me, you don't come from a sales background. Instead of focusing on the top line and growing sales, you cut and cut and cut until nothing is left. Sometimes it is impossible to save your way to profitability, and focusing on top-line growth is the only long-term answer.

You use "we" at the wrong times. You know there is no "I" in "team" so you try to say "we" -- but at the wrong times. "We worked straight through the weekend," sounds good -- unless you stayed home while your employees were at work. "We need to cut down on errors," sounds good -- unless you're the only one who made the mistakes. Use "I" whenever you personally make a mistake, and use "we" whenever you do something positive.

You network rather than sell. Networking is like sowing seeds. Selling is like harvesting crops. To survive, your business needs sales, not business cards and handshakes. Spend all your time networking on the golf course, at restaurants, and at social events instead of getting out and selling and revenue suffers. Network some of the time -- sell all the time.

You're in it for glory. Does your business serve as an extension of your ego? Is your business just a status symbol? Is your business on display for the greater glory of you? You should serve your business. Your business should not serve you -- and especially not your ego.

You can't stop searching for that one big idea. Innovations and breakthroughs do sometimes build great companies. Innovations and breakthroughs are hard to develop and even harder to deploy, though. Most companies succeed through hard work, attention to detail, and consistent execution. Ignore ideas and small improvements while you search for that one incredible breakthrough and your company will fail. A big idea is unlikely to transform your business; executing lots of small ideas can build a great business.

"No" is the New "Yes": Four Practices to Reprioritize Your Life

Tony Schwartz blogs.hbr.org January 17, 2012

I was sitting with the CEO and senior team of a well-respected organization. One at a time, they told me they spend their long days either in back-to-back meetings, responding to email, or putting out fires. They also readily acknowledged this way of working wasn't serving them well — personally or professionally.
It's a conundrum they couldn't seem to solve. It's also a theme on which I hear variations every day. Think of it as a madness loop — a vicious cycle. We react to what's in front of us, whether it truly matters or not. More than ever, we're prisoners of the urgent.
Prioritizing requires reflection, reflection takes time, and many of the executives I meet are so busy racing just to keep up they don't believe they have time to stop and think about much of anything.
Too often — and masochistically — they default to "yes." Saying yes to requests feels safer, avoids conflict and takes less time than pausing to decide whether or not the request is truly important.
Truth be told, there's also an adrenaline rush in saying yes. Many of us have become addicted, unwittingly, to the speed of our lives — the adrenalin high of constant busyness. We mistake activity for productivity, more for better, and we ask ourselves "What's next?" far more often than we do "Why this?" But as Gandhi put it, "A 'no' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."
Saying no, thoughtfully, may be the most undervalued capacity of our times. In a world of relentless demands and infinite options, it behooves us to prioritize the tasks that add the most value. That also means deciding what to do less of, or to stop doing altogether.
Making these choices requires that we regularly step back from the madding crowd. It's only when we pause — when we say no to the next urgent demand or seductive source of instant gratification — that we give ourselves the space to reflect on, metabolize, assess, and make sense of what we've just experienced.
Taking time also allows us to collect ourselves, refuel and renew, and make conscious course corrections that ultimately save us time when we plunge back into the fray.
What follows are four simple practices that serve a better prioritized and more intentional life:
1. Schedule in your calendar anything that feels important but not urgent — to borrow Steven Covey's phrase. If it feels urgent, you're likely going to get it done. If it's something you can put off, you likely will — especially if it's challenging.
The key to success is building rituals — highly specific practices that you commit to doing at precise times, so that over time they become automatic, and no longer require much conscious intention or energy. One example is scheduling regular time in your calendar for brainstorming, or for more strategic and longer term thinking.
The most recent ritual I added to my life is getting entirely offline after dinner each evening, and on the weekends. I'm only two weeks into the practice, but I know it's already created space in my mind to think and imagine.
2. As your final activity before leaving work in the evening, set aside sufficient time — at least 15 to 20 minutes — to take stock of what's happened that day. and to decide the most important tasks you want to accomplish the next day.
Clarifying and defining your priorities — what the researcher Peter Gollwitzer calls "implementation intentions" — will help you to stay focused on your priorities in the face of all the distractions you'll inevitably face the following day.
3. Do the most important thing on your list first when you get to work in the morning, for up to 90 minutes. If possible, keep your door closed, your email turned off and your phone on silent. The more singularly absorbed your focus, the more you'll get accomplished, and the higher the quality of the work is likely to be. When you finish, take a break to renew and refuel.
Most of us have the highest level of energy and the fewest distractions in the morning. If you can't begin the day that way, schedule the most important activity as early as possible. If you're one of the rare people who feels more energy later in the day, designate that time instead to do your most important activity.
4. Take at least one scheduled break in the morning, one in the afternoon, and leave your desk for lunch. These are each important opportunities to renew yourself so that your energy doesn't run down as the day wears on. They're also opportunities to briefly take stock.
Here are two questions you may want to ask yourself during these breaks:
1. Did I get done what I intended to get done since my last break and if not, why not?
2. What do I want to accomplish between now and my next break, and what do I have to say "no" to, in order to make that possible?

Tony Schwartz is the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything. Become a fan of The Energy Project on Facebook and connect with Tony at Twitter.com/TonySchwartz and Twitter.com/Energy_Project.

15 Ways To Do Your Best Work

From Robin Sharm robinsharma.com

15 Ways For You To Do Your Best Work

1. Do your best work by challenging the way you did things yesterday.
2. Do your best work by allowing your passion to see the light of day.
3. Do your best work by becoming part of the solution versus growing the problem.
4. Do your best work by expecting nothing less than you playing at world-class.
5. Do your best work by giving away the credit (especially when you crave it)
6. Do your best work by practicing your skills so you become a virtuoso.
7. Do your best work by releasing excuses and doing important things.
8. Do your best work by getting up when you’ve been knocked down.
9. Do your best work by keeping your promises; to others and to yourself.
10. Do your best work by showing integrity.
11. Do your best work by delivering more value than anyone could ever expect from you.
12. Do your best work by making time to refill your well.
13. Do your best work by having a strong foundation at home.
14. Do your best work by becoming as fit as a pro athlete.
15. Do your best work by doing work that makes a difference and inspires others to do the same.

As Chuck Palahniuk once said: “The goal isn’t to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.”

Keep Leading Without a Title.

17 Tips To Double Your Productivity In 14 Days

by Robin Sharma @ www.robinsharma.com/blog

I wanted to share 17 of the tactics I’ve learned that I know will help you lean into your productive best in this age of dramatic distraction:

1. Turn off all technology for 60 minutes a day and focus on doing your most important work.
2. Work in 90 minute cycles (tons of science is now confirming that this is the optimal work to rest ratio).
3. Start your day with at least 30 minutes of exercise.
4. Don’t check your email first thing in the morning.
5. Turn all your electronic notifications off.
6. Take one day a week as a complete recovery day, to refuel and regenerate (that means no email, no phone calls and zero work). You need full recovery one day a week otherwise you’ll start depleting your capabilities.
7. The data says workers are interrupted every 11 minutes. Distractions destroy productivity. Learn to protect your time and say no to interruptions.
8. Schedule every day of your week every Sunday morning. A plan relieves you of the torment of choice (said novelist Saul Bellow). It restores focus and provides energy.
9. Work in blocks of time. Creative geniuses all had 2 things in common: when they worked they were fully engaged and when they worked, they worked with this deep concentration for long periods of time. Rare in this world of entrepreneurs who can’t sit still.
10. Drink a liter of water early every morning. We wake up dehydrated. The most precious asset of an entrepreneur isn’t time – it’s energy. Water restores it.
11. Don’t answer your phone every time it rings.
12. Invest in your professional development so you bring more value to the hours you work.
13. Avoid gossip and time vampires.
14. Touch paper just once.
15. Keep a “Stop Doing List”.
16. Get up at 5 am.
17. Have meetings standing up.

Five Things You Should Stop Doing in 2012

Dorie Clark blogs.hbr.org  December 15, 2011

I recently got back from a month's vacation — the longest I've ever taken, and a shocking indulgence for an American. (Earlier this summer, I was still fretting about how to pull off two weeks unplugged.) The distance, though, helped me hone in on what's actually important to my professional career — and which make-work activities merely provide the illusion of progress. Inspired by HBR blogger Peter Bregman's idea of creating a "to ignore" list , here are the activities I'm going to stop cold turkey in 2012 — and perhaps you should, too.

1. Responding Like a Trained Monkey. Every productivity expert in the world will tell you to check email at periodic intervals — say, every 90 minutes — rather than clicking "refresh" like a Pavlovian mutt. Of course, almost no one listens, because studies have shown email's "variable interval reinforcement schedule" is basically a slot machine for your brain. But spending a month away — and only checking email weekly — showed me how little really requires immediate response. In fact, nothing. A 90 minute wait won't kill anyone, and will allow you to accomplish something substantive during your workday.
2. Mindless Traditions. I recently invited a friend to a prime networking event. "Can I play it by ear?" she asked. "This is my last weekend to get holiday cards out and I haven't mailed a single one. It is causing stress!" In the moment, not fulfilling an "obligation" (like sending holiday cards) can make you feel guilty. But if you're in search of professional advancement, is a holiday card (buried among the deluge) going to make a difference? If you want to connect, do something unusual — get in touch at a different time of year, or give your contacts a personal call, or even better, meet up face-to-face. You have to ask if your business traditions are generating the results you want.
3. Reading Annoying Things. I have nearly a dozen newspaper and magazine subscriptions, the result of alluring specials ($10 for an entire year!) and the compulsion not to miss out on crucial information. But after detoxing for a month, I was able to reflect on which publications actually refreshed me — and which felt like a duty. The New Yorker , even though it's not a business publication, broadens my perspective and is a genuine pleasure to read. The pretentious tech publication with crazy layouts and too-small print? Not so much. I'm weeding out and paring down to literary essentials. What subscriptions can you get rid of?
4. Work That's Not Worth It. Early in my career, I was thrilled to win a five-year, quarter-million dollar contract. That is, until the reality set in that it was a government contract, filled with ridiculous reporting mechanisms, low reimbursement rates and administrative complexities that sucked the joy and profit out of the work. When budget cuts rolled around and my contract got whacked, it turned out to be a blessing. These days, I'm eschewing any engagement, public or private, that looks like more trouble than it's worth.
5. Making Things More Complicated Than They Should Be. A while back, a colleague approached me with an idea. She wanted me to be a part of a professional development event she was organizing in her city, featuring several speakers and consultants. She recommended biweekly check-in calls for the next eight months, leading up to the event. "Have you organized an event like this before?" I asked. "Can you actually get the participants? Why don't you test the demand first?" When none materialized, I realized I'd saved myself nearly half a week's work — in futile conference calls — by insisting the event had to be "real" before we invested in it. As Eric Ries points out in his new book The Lean Startup , developing the best code or building the best product in the world is meaningless if your customers don't end up wanting it. Instead, test early and often to ensure you're not wasting your time. What ideas should you test before you've gone too far?

Eliminating these five activities is likely to save me hundreds of hours next year — time I can spend expanding my business and doing things that matter. What are you going to stop doing? And how are you going to leverage all that extra time?

Dorie Clark is a strategy consultant who has worked with clients including Google, Yale University, and the National Park Service. She is the author of the forthcoming What's Next?: The Art of Reinventing Your Personal Brand (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). You can follow her on Twitter at @dorieclark.

Top 3 Ways to Get Your Phone Calls Returned

Tom Searcy November 2, 2011 9:40 AM cbsnews.com

Chasing sucks. Prospects, clients, people who owe you information, drawings, money. I hate having to chase. Most of us have to do it--A LOT. Most of the time we go into the bottomless pit of voice mail hell to be tortured by the digital demons therein. Here is how to get your phone call returned more often. There are no perfect strategies that guarantee 100% response; even the IRS auditors don't get 100% return calls. But you can do much better if you follow this approach.

Quick note: This skill focuses on getting a returned call from someone you have already met. Prospecting is a different skill.

Step 1: Tell the person what you want. Calls that say "Call me when you get a chance" are relegated to someone's "B" or "C" priority list. (When was the last time you were working your "B" priority list?). If your voice mail says "Give me a call back, I have a couple of things I want to review with you," then you are never going on that person's radar of must-do priorities.

Tell the person you are calling what you want right at the beginning of the call. Make certain your voice mail is not longer than 40 seconds- they won't listen to it. What do you tell them you want? A document, a phone call, an email, a piece of information- whatever it is that you want, ask for it and ask for it fast. I'll give examples below.

Step 2: Speak in terms of time. Tell them:

• How long the returned call will take. (3 minutes, 11 minutes, "less than a cup of coffee" are all good increments)
• Must-talk-by date and time. Your message needs to say, "This call has to happen by...." And then give the date and time. End of day tomorrow, Friday by noon, this afternoon before 3:45pm. Success goes up if the window is later than 4 hours from now and no later than 24 hours from the point of your voice mail message you are leaving. If, by some miracle, you are actually talking to an administrative support person, the time issue is the same, just ask to book the appointment.

Step 3: Declare consequences.
To create urgency you need to declare consequences. Notice I used the word "consequences" not "threats." Consequences are the natural and understandable outcomes of an action or inaction. You are telling the person you are reaching out too that if he does not call back to you this will happen. Factual and without emotion. Here are some approaches:

• Negative Option - If you do not hear back, you will assume the answer is "no" and you will act accordingly.
• Time expiration - If you do not hear back, time will expire on the offer and what has been offered will be rescinded.
• Delay of Progress - If you do not hear back, then the proposed date for start or end will not be attainable and will be delayed.
• Positive Option - If you do not hear back you will take that as tacit approval and will move forward with the previously agreed upon actions.

Examples:
* "Bill, this is Tom from XYZ. I need the final drawings we discussed by noon tomorrow in my email or I will not be able to honor the delivery date of next Friday. Please give me a 30 second call when you have sent them to confirm. Thanks."

* "Sue, this is Joe from PDQ. I need confirmation of the wire transfer by end of business today or we will not ship. Please give me a call back by 4:00pm to ensure shipment. Thanks."

* "John, this is Deirdre from Pinnacle. I only need 3 minutes to get the details from you I need to give you the proposal you requested. If we connect by noon today, you'll have my proposal before you pack up to go home. Thanks.

* "Frank, this is Alex from Acme. A call no longer than a cup of coffee will sort out the issues you raised about the proposal. We have been out of touch for over a week- that usually means bad things. If I don't hear back from you by end of day tomorrow, I'll take that as a definite "no" and assume you are not interested in the proposal. Thanks."

What you should notice is that
1) This approach takes a forceful and direct tone, rather than a subservient and weak tone.

2) The messages are short. People rarely listen to long, detailed voice mails. They scan, much like we scan our emails. They store the things they intend to listen to later and delete everything else. They rarely get to what they say and eventually it solves itself or they delete it.

3) Action requests, time frames and consequences are clear.

Tom Searcy is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and the foremost expert in large account sales.

The Secret to Dealing With Difficult People: It's About You

Tony Schwartz October 12, 2011 www.blogs.hbr.org

Do you have someone at work who consistently triggers you? Doesn't listen? Takes credit for work you've done? Wastes your time with trivial issues? Acts like a know-it-all? Can only talk about himself? Constantly criticizes?
Our core emotional need is to feel valued and valuable. When we don't, it's deeply unsettling, a challenge to our sense of equilibrium, security, and well-being. At the most primal level, it can feel like a threat to our very survival.
This is especially true when the person you're struggling with is your boss. The problem is that being in charge of other people rarely brings out the best in us.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," Lord Acton said way back in 1887. "There is no worse heresy than the office that sanctifies the holder of it."
The easy default when we feel devalued is to the role of victim, and it's a seductive pull. Blaming others for how we're feeling is a form of self-protection. Whatever is going wrong isn't our fault. By off loading responsibility, we feel better in the short-term.
The problem with being a victim is that you cede the power to influence your circumstances. The painful truth when it comes to the people who trigger you is this: You're not going to change them. The only person you have the possibility of changing is yourself.
Each of us has a default lens through which we see the world. We call it reality, but in fact it's a selective filter. We have the power, to view the world through other lenses. There are three worth trying on when you find yourself defaulting to negative emotions.
The Lens of Realistic Optimism. Using this lens requires asking yourself two simple questions when you feel you're being treated badly or unfairly. The first one is "What are the facts in this situation?" The second is, "What's the story I'm telling myself about those facts?"
Making this distinction allows you to stand outside your experience, rather than simply reacting to it. It also opens the possibility that whatever story you're currently telling yourself isn't necessarily the only way to look at your situation.
Realistic optimism, a term coined by the psychologist Sandra Schneider, means telling yourself the most hopeful and empowering story about a given circumstance without subverting the facts. It's about moving beyond your default reaction to feeling under attack, and exploring whether there is an alternative way of viewing the situation that would ultimately serve you better. Another way of discovering an alternative is to ask yourself "How would I act here at my best?"
The Reverse Lens. This lens requires viewing the world through the lens of the person who triggered you. It doesn't mean sacrificing your own point of view but rather widening your perspective.
It's nearly certain that the person you perceive as difficult views the situation differently than you do. With the reverse lens, you ask yourself, "What is this person feeling, and in what ways does that make sense?" Or put more starkly: "Where's my responsibility in all this?"
Counterintuitively, one of the most powerful ways to reclaim your value, when it feels threatened, is to find a way to appreciate the perspective of the person you feel devalued by. It's called empathy.
Just as you do, others tend to behave better when they feel seen and valued — especially since insecurity is what usually prompts them to act badly in the first place.
The Long Lens. Sometimes your worst fears about another person turn out to be true. He is someone who bullies you unreasonably and seeing it from his perspective doesn't help. She does invariably take credit for your work.
When your current circumstances are incontrovertibly bad, the long lens provides a way of looking beyond the present to imagine a better future. Begin with this question: "Regardless of how I feel about what's happening right now, how can I grow and learn from this experience?"
How many times has something that felt terrible to you in the moment turned out to be trivial several months later, or actually led you to an important opportunity or a positive new direction?
My last boss fired me. It felt awful at the time, but it also pushed me way out of my comfort zone, which is where it turned out I needed to go.
Looking back, the story I tell myself is that for all his deficiencies, I learned a lot from that boss, and it all serves me well today. I can understand, from his point of view, why he found me difficult as an employee, without feeling devalued. Most important, getting fired prompted me to make a decision — founding the company I now run — that has brought me more happiness than any other work I've ever done.

Top 10 Things You Never Want to Hear at Work

by Steve Tobak Sep 19, 2011 BNET.COM

Whoever came up with the expression, "It's better to give than to receive," must have been talking about bad news.
Of course it's awful to deliver bad news, no doubt about it. But having been on both sides of the equation more times than I care to think about, I'd have to say that, given the choice, I'd rather not be on the receiving end.
Unfortunately, there is an awful lot of bad news being delivered these days. And I hate to say this, but so sooner or later, you're probably going to end up on the wrong end of it. When that happens, you're going to wish you had some warning because, well, you know what they say, forewarned is forearmed.
To that end, here are 10 phrases that, when you hear them, you can be pretty sure that what follows isn't going to be good. And while knowing what's coming won't buy you much time, you'd be surprised how many cycles the brain can process when it's racing in panic mode.
After all -- and this is important, so pay attention -- how you respond can make a big difference in whether people think of you as a consummate professional or a child throwing a tempter tantrum.

Top 10 Things You Never Want to Hear at Work

1. We've got a crisis on our hands. Don't be fooled by the implication of shared responsibility. That's just a euphemism. Make no mistake; you're on the receiving end of the message because you're the one they're counting on to handle the crisis or die trying.
2. There's no easy way to say this. Guess what? There's no easy way to hear it, either. This can precede any number of events, from you're about to get fired or your top employee is quitting on you to your biggest customer is bolting for your top competitor. It's all bad.
3. Why don't you take some time off? This particular question can either precede or follow some really unpleasant news, like one of your employees has filed a sexual harassment claim against you or "I'm afraid you're burning out and I don't want to have to fire your butt."
4. All your meetings have been cancelled. This is where you say, "What do you mean all my meetings have been cancelled?" to which your admin replies, "What can I say, nobody wants to meet with you." They could be customers, the media, employees, whatever, you're now officially insignificant. Never a good thing.
5. Did you really just say that? Lots of people, especially public figures, have heard that one right after they think something that wasn't supposed to actually come out of their mouths, usually while the mic is on, the tape is rolling, or the boss is on the receiving end.
6. I accidentally deleted it. It's gone. You may not have pulled the trigger but the fact that you're on the receiving end means that, whatever it was -- probably a pitch or report you worked on for weeks -- you're the one who's going to suffer because of someone else's screw-up.
7. Do you really think your presentation went well? That's when you ask, "Was it really that bad?" and the other person replies, "Um … sorry to tell you this, but you'll be lucky if they don't cancel your whole project."
8. Can I have a word with you in private? Not that good news is always delivered in public, but even when someone wants to chat with you about something innocuous, he won't say it like that. He'll opt for something like, "Where can we talk?" or "You're not gonna believe what I heard."
9. Um … how long did it take you to do that? That's usually followed by something like a recommendation that you do it over and way, way better if you want to keep your job.
10. You've been served. Not much you can do about this one, considering you've already blown it by answering yes to the magic question, Are you [your name]? Whether you're served at work or not, it really doesn't matter. You're going to wish it never happened.
Did I forget to say that I've either said or heard every single one of these lines? In some cases, both. It's true. And you know I've never been a process server.