Crack The Behavior Code

But there’s no storefront, no website, no vendors or purchase orders required. And the wealth isn’t wired—but it is transferred.

If you want happiness for an hour—take a nap.

If you want happiness for a day—go fishing.

If you want happiness for a month—get married.

If you want happiness for a year—inherit a fortune.

If you want happiness for a lifetime—help others.

-- Chinese proverb

Here’s how to get both rich and happy, guaranteed.

• Find a cause that feeds your soul. You’ll know it when you find it, because you’ll feel excited and uplifted at the thought of being involved. It’s okay if you find multiple causes, even rotate them. I’ve been involved with civil rights, abused kids, homelessness, women’s halfway houses, meal delivery programs and AIDS—each experience has stretched me in ways I could never have imagined. Learn about causes via Google or go to www.volunteermatch.org.
• Commit to “one a week.” This means giving an hour a week to a cause or an hour’s worth of salary. (Or give whatever amount feels right—just give something!). You can batch up your time and/or money and give in chunks, too.
• After you make a commitment to yourself, schedule your service time to ensure it happens. Write it on your calendar, book it in your phone, or write it on your hand—whatever it takes to make this an unbreakable date for giving. If you don’t set the time aside, life will intrude and you’ll lose the opportunity.
• Remember, you have a lot to give. You have time, talent, and treasure. Figure out which one feels right to give. Are you an expert in public relations, and could donate an hour a week helping a nonprofit with PR? That’s donating time and talent. Would you rather write a check? That’s donating treasure. It’s all good.
• Get others involved. In my companies I like to match the donations given by staff members (up to a specific amount). This is fun, gets the company and the team involved in giving, and boosts morale.

April is National Volunteer Month. If you don’t volunteer regularly yet, now is a great time to start.

When you start to give your precious time, energy or even funds to a cool cause you resonate with, you’ll learn one of the greatest lessons in life: giving is actually receiving. They are the same. You give and you get at the same time.

I am a hospice volunteer. For 14 years I’ve helped people with 6 months or less to die with peace, dignity, and as little physical discomfort as possible. Each of the 19 people I’ve had the honor of supporting through the death process has been a remarkable teacher to me. Imagine being brought into someone’s life at such a challenging time. Now imagine what their loved ones are going through.

Timing Is… Nothing

Many people tell me they are seeking their purpose in life; they’re waiting for that divine epiphany where their mission becomes blindingly clear. Then they’ll volunteer, become a philanthropist, really commit to a cause. Until then they’re in the grand “waiting room” of life—and let me tell you, there’s a huge crowd in there. And all are waiting. Are you?

I don’t receive divine messages that are complete and clear. I receive divine sticky notes. You’ve received these too. Maybe you had an insight as you were walking in nature, meditating when your mind was still. Did you follow that message? Did you implement it in your life? I’ve found that when I do, it leads to more messages. Then months later I look back and marvel at what has come of that one tiny insight.

It’s funny, everyone spends so much time talking about work-life balance, and so little time talking about the need for service, for giving back to humanity. I find those are the best ways for me to stay balanced. We’re all busy, sure, but everyone can find one hour per week or a few hours per month to volunteer. Volunteering can bring you experiences that will shape your life in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine.

I hope you’ll try volunteering—whenever you’re ready--because I know it will make you rich inside, and it will make you happy, and it will put a spring in your step.

Yes, happiness can be bought. It comes from being of service to others, and often when it’s hard or uncomfortable. But the discomfort is temporary. And the happiness and inner wealth just grows and grows.

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George wants to double his company’s revenue this year.

He’s been stating this goal for the past 3 years and still hasn’t achieved it. Why?

Because it’s not ecologically safe for him to have this outcome.

There is a subconscious tug o’war we all experience between our desires and our ecology. Our ecology formed our belief system, our frame of reference, our identity, our capabilities—and it also prevents us from getting what we want.

Until we know how to change it.

Change the Present…

Let’s find out why George isn’t getting the doubled revenue he wants. Here’s what we learned when we worked through a basic Outcome Frame with him:

• Question: What would you like? He answered: To double revenue this year.
• Question: What will having that do for you? Answer: I’ll feel secure, be happy, have peace of mind, have less stress and a cash cushion, feel confident that we got to the next level and the business is scalable, work less, know my team can step up. (Note: What he really wants is to feel safe—to let go of control and know it’ll be ok)
• Question: How will you know when you have it (specifically)? Answer: Doubled revenue from last year.
• Question: So there you are in the future and you have what you want. What risk might you take to ensure this change is going to happen? His answer: I might have to let go of some control--delegate more, promote some high performers and let a few low performers go, let my VP Sales run with our plan, stop micro-managing our VP Operations. (Here comes the good stuff!)
• Question: What will likely happen if you don’t solve this the way you want? What will be the impact on your business and life? His answer: We’ll be stuck in the same rut we’ve been in for 3 years, we won’t be able to grow the business and sell it for the $70mil+ that we want to, my family members and I won’t get to cash out and we’ll one day have to wind the business down—without securing our and our children’s financial future.
• Question: What might someone have to believe about the world or company or situation to get this? Answer: That this is possible, that they have the team to achieve this outcome, that more clients want what we have, that we can find these clients.
• Question: What might you have to believe about yourself? His answer: That I can let go and things won’t fall apart, that my team wants to rise up.
• Question: What can you appreciate about the current situation prior to change? (What’s great about holding onto control?) He answered: I know what the outcome will be—even if it isn’t what I want, I trust myself and don’t have to rely on others.

From this process, George realized that his key issue was fear of letting go of control, yet he would have to do this (to a degree) in order to let his team help him double revenue. But knowing this intellectually isn’t enough—in the thick of battle, George will still default to controlling behavior, because it is rooted in his subconscious mind. So we need to change this.

… Change the Past…

After we completed the Outcome Frame, it was time to excavate. Where did George’s controlling behavior begin? Why was relying on others so threatening? We had to find out by asking the following questions:

Can you recall a time when you didn’t feel you had to control things?

Was there a major life trauma when your level of controlling increased?

Is there a trigger event you experience regularly when your controlling kicks into high gear?

The life trauma was the answer. When his parents divorced, George was 7 years old. He then became the man of the house, and his father all but disappeared. Little George decided then that he would never be at the mercy of others, and such a life-altering experience, again. He’d shape his world and keep it in check.

Except that strategy no longer works for him.

So he asked me to help him change it. We did a process we call Movie Theatre, where we guided George through observing this childhood trauma from a distance and then de-fusing the beliefs he formed then. We helped him edit his identity and belief system, which is one of the deepest levels of change we mentioned in an earlier podcast this season. It was key to set structures in place to help him change his capabilities and behavior as a leader of his company.

We continued coaching George and began working with his executive team to shift too. The executive team had supported the command-and-control culture that George had created—they were now part of the System that everyone wanted to change.

… Change the Future

Fast forward 9 months: George is nearing his fiscal year end. Revenue will double this year, wrapping up at a healthy $22mil. What’s next? Now we’re going to double the bottom line and increase the asset base in our continuing plan to strengthen George’s company for acquisition. I’d like to see him get $95mil+ for his company instead of his $70mil goal.

Isn’t it fascinating that our company and its performance is directly tied to who we are and what behaviors limit us? We self-sabotage and don't even know it! The key is to root out the true reason we aren't getting what we want and clear it. My preference is to use neuroscience techniques to do this.

What do you want that you aren't getting? Let's root out the reason together.

Show Notes:

• STI Outcome Frame Infographic
• Power Your Tribe Graphic – The Structure of Human Behavior

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Now that we’re starting to see signs of economic recovery, it’s key to assess where we’ve been, the mistakes we’ve made, and how to course-correct for the next burst of growth.

Here’s the reality: companies make mistakes all the time. In an economic downturn, however, avoiding the big slip ups becomes all the more crucial. When the heat is on, some CEOs will react impulsively, and while this may earn them some points for courage and speed, in a rough economy one needs to take the long view and pace themselves.

To get funded, stay funded, and even out stretch your day-to-day cash flow, you’ll need to avoid some key mistakes. And if you’ve made them already, it’s time for a strong course-correction. Please know that I’ve made every single one of the following… which is why I am so passionate about helping to prevent these energy- and time-suckers.

Here are my top four mistakes to avoid during a downturn.

#1 Hasty Hiring. The result: Bad hires who are costly and time consuming.

It’s better to try out new staff members as independent contractors first. Then, after you’re confident that they work well with your team and share your values, bring them on as permanent hires.

When you’re overwhelmed and overworked, it’s easy to make hiring mistakes. That’s why relying on contractors is a great policy. Check out sites like TaskRabbit, Marketing Sherpa, Upwork, or NoonDalton for administrative, virtual marketing, bookkeeping and other help. Rates can be surprisingly low. And don’t make the mistake of staffing up fully, only to discover that your business operates in waves. Have a lean team, and hire extra hands for the heavier times. Try out your team members before making them permanent.

The Second Mistake to avoid: Pausing Your Profit. The result: Financial pressure due to propping up ailing products, divisions, accounts.

Sometimes you can sell your way out of a recession, yet at all times you need to streamline expenses and adjust your financial strategy. One of our clients recently outsourced an entire division of their company. It hadn’t been profitable, and the other divisions were supporting it financially. Yes, the decision was painful and resulted in a lay off. Yet it had to happen for the health of the company. The outsourced division now generates a healthy profit.

Another client pays increased commission for selling higher margin products. We laid out a super compelling plan and the sales force is now focused on the products that are best for the company’s bottom line, and coincidentally, best for the customer.

Now is the time to course-correct if you’ve under charged clients too. This often happens when we’re desperate to close a sale without keeping an eye on generating enough profit. We’re helping two of our clients to rightsize some of their clients. With a stronger, more resonant value proposition, this is doable. Craft the message, collaborate with the client on key success metrics, report on the metrics monthly, and get the account to the level that is fair and profitable for you. Resenting a client because you under charged them is something you never want to do. Ever.

Mistake #3: Skipping the Six-Month Plan. The result: “Strategy of the Second” – and very little accomplished.

It’s better to map out the next six months, and if a new project comes up, swap it out with one of equal complexity that is already on your plan. Entrepreneurial CEOs can be excessive idea generators. With a six-month plan, you will have mapped out the projects for the immediate, foreseeable future and can skillfully avoid manic distractions with poor results.

Consider the perils of one company, with the painful “strategy of the second” plan. Each time its mercurial CEO returned from a conference, he’d have a new idea. Were they good ones? Often. But his already stretched staff had no spare energy. Since they had not learned to communicate clearly with one another, they would take on the new project, but all sorts of key tasks would (of course) get dropped or delayed, and no one was happy.

Ultimately, you need a gatekeeper for the six-month plan if you want your company to run efficiently. This is someone who will ensure the new projects are either scheduled later or will replace existing project(s) of equal size. Someone who will constantly see the big picture, tackle the small details, and facilitate real results every step of the way is key.

By the way, once the CEO in question put a six-month plan in place, his staff was happier, fewer tasks were dropped, and their revenue ramped up considerably.

Mistake #4: Chasing All Sales Leads. The result: Wasting time on “prospects” who will not become clients.

A CEO of a consulting company complained recently that she had chased a key account for four months. Four months! She finally lost hope that they would ever become a client. When asked if she had a disqualification process, she hesitated. Here’s the net-net: you only want to spend time with real prospects. Create a disqualification process so you can quickly remove contacts from your sales pipeline that will most likely never buy your product or service or have no intention to buy it in the near term. In tough economic times especially, you must focus your energies on productive revenue streams.

We have all made mistakes in business. The point is to course-correct constantly. Spot a mistake and take action to correct it. What are you grappling with right now? What mistakes did I miss mentioning?

Learn more by downloading our whitepaper on the Five Mistakes That Halt High Performance CEOs by clicking here.

Show Notes:

• Links to hiring sites: Upwork, Task Rabbit, Marketing Sherpa,
• Whitepaper on the Five Mistakes That Halt High Performance CEOs click here.
• Marketing Optimization
• Streamlining Your Sales Funnel

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Workplace bullying is frighteningly common and takes an enormous toll on our businesses. Research from Dr. Judy Blando (of the University of Phoenix) has proven that almost 75% of employees surveyed had been affected by workplace bullying, whether as a target or a witness.

75%. That’s huge.

So what exactly is workplace bullying?

The Workplace Bullying Institute defines it thusly: “Workplace Bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators. It is abusive conduct that is: threatening, humiliating, or intimidating, or work-interference, i.e. sabotage, which prevents work from getting done.”

One of the main differences between schoolyard bullying and workplace bullying is that it tends to be less physically harmful and more psychological and verbal in nature. It’s subtler than schoolyard bullying but is quite distinctive from normal workplace stress.

According to Wikipedia, “Bullying is characterized by:

• Repetition (occurs regularly)

• Duration (is enduring)

• Escalation (increasing aggression)

• Power disparity (the target lacks the power to successfully defend his or her self)

• Attributed intent”

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI), bullying is four times more common than either sexual harassment or racial discrimination on the job.

Who The Bullies Are

Here is what you have to understand, the targets of workplace bullying are not the weakest players—they are often the strongest.

Let’s say that again. The common misconception is that, like schoolyard bullying, the targets of workplace bullying are loners, or “weird” or the people who “don’t fit.” In fact, the reverse is true.

People become targets because something about them is threatening to the bully. Often, they are more skilled, more technically proficient, have a higher EQ or people just like them better. They are often workplace veterans who mentor new hires.

A quote from the Workplace Bullying Institute: “WBI research findings and conversations with thousands of targets have confirmed that targets appear to be the veteran and most skilled person in the workgroup.”

Now the bully tends to be someone who is skilled at manipulating and controlling, but while they see everything as a competition, they do not feel skilled/competent enough to compete on their own merits. Hence, they bully as a futile attempt to feel more powerful.

The bully often works hard to create the perception that they are strong by putting down and blaming others. Often the boss of the bully knows the bully is “disliked” but thinks that the organization cannot do without them and makes “allowances.” The bullying is framed as “personality conflict.”

What Bullying Is Costing Your Company

When you, as the leader of an organization, allow bullying to occur, you create at least five problems:

Problem 1. The target of the bullying will experience a loss of confidence and an increase in stress that often shows up in health problems. Their performance will decline. They may need more time off to recover. So you have lower performance by at least one person, the target.

Problem 2. By allowing the bullying to continue, you are accepting a toxic culture, prevalent Critter State, and reduced performance and morale. The people witnessing the bullying will have to choose to side with the bully, leave, risk retribution by speaking out, or remain passive and try to stay under the bully’s radar. To be non-threatening to the bully, they may lower their performance in some way.

The 3rd problem created by tolerating bullying: Eventually the target will have no recourse but to leave. Research has shown that the vast majority of targets eventually leave. You now have lost a good employee and have all the costs of a new hire.

Problem 4. You have the almost certain guarantee that the cycle will repeat itself. I find that organizations which condone bullying, which have prevalent Critter State, also have high employee turnover rates, far less revenue per employee, increased absences, and the list goes on and on.

Finally, the 5th problem. You are opening yourself up to potential litigation. While bullying is not, strictly speaking, illegal, it may be connected to a form of harassment or discrimination which can be subject to litigation. At the least, attention will be taken up in tracking and “proving” a case.

All this from denying bullying—oh, and let’s add the personal guilt of not protecting one’s tribe.

How To Stop Bullying—And Start Boosting Smart State

Workplace bullies can be hard to detect because they work within the rules of the organization. That means that the solutions lie within the organizational structure.

I have been asked to coach several workplace bullies because someone, usually their boss, wanted them to change. The problem with this sort of coaching is that the person themselves doesn’t want to change. The coaching is seen as a punishment rather than as a reward and a path to greater leadership.

The reality is that the leadership team is responsible. Bullying cannot happen without approval (example: “oh that’s just how so-and-so is!”). It’s up to you to create an environment that is safe and healthy for the entire team—the Smart State. The biggest problem with bullies is usually that someone higher up likes them – I’m sure you’ve heard it: “oh, so-and-so is great at a party!” - or some other nonsense.

The first step is to confront the bully. Use my formal feedback steps to outline the specific behaviors that must change. Agree on objective performance measurements. Make sure that the bully transfers their feeling of threat from their target to the organization. Give them specific ways to manipulate and control their own outcomes—turn their skills into assets if possible. If not possible, they have to go. If you are serious about creating the culture of your dreams, you have to be willing to hire and fire based on your values.

I have found that what works best, culturally, is to focus on creating structures that reward “Smart State” behaviors and discourage/punish bullying behaviors. This starts with ensuring the confidentiality of anyone reporting bullying behavior and ensuring that there are no reprisals.

Organizational structures which put the focus on problem solving and which create clear and fair performance markers work to reduce bullying. Some examples include:

• reward ideas and innovations

• reward people for bringing safety or other problems to leaders’ attention

• use structures, like Kanban boards, which isolate bottlenecks as work flow issues only, and therefore reduce finger-pointing and blame

• implement an intranet system where team members can give each other high fives and recognize contribution

• make sure any performance measuring systems you are using are fair and objective, and reward what you are actually interested in achieving (for example, one client was rewarding employees for quantity but not measuring quality, and our assessment found that their “high performers” were actually the ones creating problems).

Remember, stopping bullying begins with you. To what are you really committed?

Show Notes:

• Workplace violence PDF from Dr. Judy Blando: Research
• Workplace Bullying Institute: https://workplacebullying.org
• STI Feedback Frame infographic

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How to Lead and Empower Your Team Through a Crisis

• Our ability to navigate change is directly correlated to the meaning that we make about what happens to us.
• The power that we have is in choice. What meaning would you like to make?

According to Harvard Business Review’s Management Tip Of The Day: A leader sets the emotional tone and the example both in good times and, perhaps more importantly, in bad.

I agree.

As a leader, how do you help your team deal with and move through a time of crisis? Before we go any further, let’s reframe the word crisis to change. That one step will help de-escalate the negative power of the word “crisis”.

Here are five tips to help people navigate change scenarios:

1. Be Present. Let people express their emotions – make it safe for them to say what’s really going on for them. Their voice matters.

2. Be Connected. State that you’re here for them, you’re in this together, you’ll move through it together, everyone belongs together.

3. Explain Meaning Making. Once everyone understands the stories they make about their experiences, they can choose new ones.

4. Choose A Positive Future. Talk about how everyone would like to feel once the grieving is over, the pain is lessened.

5. Forge A Path Together. Then we’ll know how to get where we want to go.

Our ability to navigate change is directly correlated to the meaning that we make about what happens to us. And the way that we make meaning is based on the stories that we tell ourselves about what happens to us. Now the meaning that we make will determine whether our experience is positive or negative, empowering or devastating.

Example: Lots of things are changing, lots of short notice client requests and deadlines.

Meaning making option #1: OMG! This is so stressful! I am emotionally exhausted by this, it’s all too much!

Result of this meaning: missed deadlines, incomplete work, stress for self and those that have to deal with the missed deadlines or incomplete or low quality work, no fun for anyone and certainly no ease-grace-joy.

Alternatively, Meaning making option #2: Yippee! Change means movement and growth and a chance to really shine and pace myself. I will show up fully to serve our awesome tribe. How great that I get to tap my awesome brain to become even more clear, find even more solutions as I focus on the outcomes I want to create.

Result of this meaning: empowerment, choice of how to respond vs compulsively react, ease-grace-joy, support of self and others, shine my light, honor our company values, choose my reality.

Whatever is happening outside or inside of us is still going to happen. The power that we have is in choice. What meaning would you like to make?

Making “Good” Meaning

What helps us to make positive and empowering meaning?

In addition to our internal choice, external tools can come in handy. Check out the Four Factors of Sustainable SmartTribes.

Let’s dive into each of the factors.

Behavior

Our behavior depends primarily on beliefs and our sense of safety, belonging, and mattering plays a big part too. Behavior is also affected by whether we’re in our Critter State or our Smart State and governed by our beliefs, identity, resources and all of the other goodies on our Map of the world. It’s important to note the nature of behavior. More and more, we’re realizing that behavior is quite predictable. We need to constantly distinguish what is driving our behavior out of alignment and how to shift back into alignment.

Leadership Effectiveness

Desire is the first step towards leadership effectiveness. That fantastic intangible drive and passion for excellence, for being all that you can be is what makes a remarkable leader.

There are five factors, that I call SmartTribe Accelerators, which will help you assess your leadership effectiveness when you interact with others. These help you channel your drive and passion toward results: 

1. Focus: The single most important practice in ensuring you are leading effectively is focus.

2. Clarity: Being truly clear means we need to take the time to discover what we need, to articulate it clearly, and to be sure the other party understood our communication.

3. Accountability: Accountability starts at the top, and this is where many companies struggle.

4. Influence: Real influence is about empowering others.

5. Sustainable Results: Sustainability is about creating win-win agreements with ourselves and others. 

Organizational Effectiveness

First of all, if an organization is to be truly effective, it must at heart be a learning organization, a term that was coined by Peter Senge. A learning organization is a company that facilitates the ongoing education and development of its members and continuously transforms itself.

A learning organization has five main features:

1. Systems thinking: An understanding that all parts affect the whole and changes in any one part will likewise affect the whole. The best way to solve problems is to understand each problem in relation to the overall ecosystem and whole of the company.

2. Personal mastery: The commitment by the individuals at the company to the process of ongoing learning and development.

3. Mental models: Willingness to challenge internal theories, norms, behaviors, and values.

4. Shared vision: A shared vision motivates the team to learn, as it creates a common identity that creates focus and energy for learning. The most successful visions build on the individual visions of the team members overall.

5. Team learning: Teams that share their learning processes openly see the problem-solving capacity of the organization improve greatly. Open, communicative cultures will help ongoing dialogue and discussion grow faster.

A SmartTribe can exist only in a flexible culture where learning and communication are consistent.

Mission, Vision and Values

Too often we walk into a company and find wordy mission statements moldering on the wall.

When the mission, vision and values are stale, or not aligned, or not communicated in an enticing way, it not only does not activate the reward network, it activates the pain network. People feel a lack of belonging, they feel low social status in comparison with others who work for organizations that are alive and aligned, they may feel betrayed if there is a conflict between what they signed up for and what is happening or between a stated value and reality.

Flat or misaligned mission, vision and values don’t just fail to inspire. They hurt. This becomes extremely apparent when there is a crisis. If the individuals aren’t compelled and vested in the mission of the company, when a crisis occurs, they won’t feel compelled to push through.

It’s essential that our team lives our company’s mission, vision, and values, which means leadership must model them and reinforce them constantly. If the behaviors of an organization’s leaders are not aligned with its values, you’ll often first see anger and resentment, and then apathy in team members.

We find some people may not be able to become profoundly aligned with other people, but they can and will become profoundly aligned with a potent mission, vision, and values.

Crises aren’t always inevitable. Leaders must empower our teams to push through each crisis and this empowerment is based on trust. If the team trusts you as their leader, have been provided the tools, and they trust themselves to push through, the crisis that may not have been avoidable won’t be crippling.

How are you empowering your team to move through times of crisis?

Show Notes:

1.    Harvard Business Review: Help Your Team Through Times of Crisis: https://hbr.org/tip/2016/09/help-your-team-through-times-of-crisis

2.    Power Your Tribe graphic – How Humans Experience the World and Make Meaning

3.    SmartTribes graphic: Four Factors of Sustainable SmartTribes

4.    SmartTribes graphic: The Five SmartTribe Accelerators

5.    Peter Senge, Learning Organization Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Senge

6.    Take our SmartTribes Leadership Assessment

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Resistance is Necessary for Optimal Organizations

You may be familiar with the Chinese finger trap. It’s a toy that traps the victim’s fingers (often the index fingers) in both ends of a small cylinder woven from bamboo. The initial reaction of the victim is to pull their fingers outward, but this only tightens the trap.

Resisting our experience has the same effect. We resist things, situations and people we perceive as hurtful, painful, or threatening to our safety, belonging, or mattering. Without these three key emotional experiences, we can’t shift to our Smart State and we can’t navigate our constantly changing landscape to reach self-actualization. Also, we are wired to resist what we believe will create a worse feeling for us.

Resistance is the First Step Towards Change

The origin and etymology of resist (Late Middle English) is from the Latin resistere: re- (expressing opposition) + sistere (to stand). Aha! So resistance really means to stand in opposition. What are you taking a stand against?

Let’s also take a look at the word reject, which is what we’re doing when we are resisting our Present State. The origin and etymology of reject (Late Middle English) is from the Latin verb rejacere: re- (meaning back) + jacere (to throw). Reject means to throw back or throw against. This stance isn’t just in opposition, it is opposing by attack. Yikes, this is even worse than resisting.

Resistance isn’t necessarily bad. It’s often simply the first step of navigating change. The goal is to move forward rather than get stuck resisting. Resistance shows that someone is engaged to a degree, which is much better than being disengaged. Don’t be surprised if resistance turns to mockery, as some people express their upset that way. As leaders, it’s essential to move your team through this stage by asking what they are resisting.

To help them identify what’s being resisted, ask them to contemplate what’s:

• Annoying about the particular change or initiative
• Dumb about the particular change or initiative
• Unreasonable about the particular change or initiative

Then we address what we can, with the agreement that they’ll try the new initiative or plan. Ultimately, they’ll find some aspect of it to be useful. Over time this process will become habitual and eventually a new standard is established. Voilà! Enjoy the afterglow, until the next change comes along.

Embrace Change and Gain Energy

The trouble with resistance is that it takes a tremendous amount of energy in the form of pushing back and rejecting. When we direct energy toward what we don’t want, it actually helps draw it toward us. For example, the more you try to pull your fingers out of the Chinese finger trap, the tighter it becomes.

You’ve likely heard the expression “what we resist persists.” Look at what you’ve resisted. Did they stick around in your life longer than you would’ve liked?

Resistance merely stabilizes your Present State. Whatever we focus on, we fuel. When we resist the emotion, we make it stronger.

Let’s consider the resistance vs consent path...

Once we consent to resistance, we are ready to transform resistance.

Show Notes:

1.    Image of Resistance vs Consent path

2.    Infographic: Safety, Belonging, Mattering

3.    SmartTribes graphic – Critter State, Smart State

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Why Your Team Doesn’t Care: The 4 Ways You’re Crushing Your Culture 

Are your team members highly accountable? 

Do they have a “Thank God It’s Monday” attitude? 

Do they take tons of initiative? 

If not, you’ve likely got Crushed Culture. 

It’s a disease. And it’s going to become an epidemic if we don’t do something about it. Evidence: three companies I used to love now have Crushed Culture: Lenscrafters, Hilton hotels, and even at times (gasp) JetBlue. 

It’s spreading. 

According to the recent Gallup poll on employee engagement: 

“Seventy-one percent of American workers are ‘not engaged’ or ‘actively disengaged’ in their work, meaning they are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and are less likely to be productive. This trend remained relatively stable throughout 2011.” 

What? This trend has remained relatively stable. Wow. 

Does this concern you? 

A lot? 

And don’t think Crushed Culture symptoms are in the rank and file alone. 

“Our team is full of order takers.” 

“Why do we have so little accountability around here?” 

“We’re going through a lot of change. Why don’t our people embrace it?” 

These are but a few of the most common complaints and concerns I often hear from the C Suite. And I’ve been listening for a long time—almost 30 years. Employee disengagement, or Crushed Culture, has spread to the C Suite too. 

Four Steps to Cure Crushed Culture: 

Step 1: Emotional Equity is greater than Financial Equity. We all know what financial equity is—money—stock, comp packages, golden handcuffs. All the things we think will make people loyal to a company and keep them engaged. But this no longer works, as Gallup proves, and especially with Millennials. Nope, they, like the rest of us, want to feel like we’re part of something bigger, like we’re on a glorious mission, like our work matters, like we’ll leave the world just a little better than we found it, and we want to achieve that (in part) during our work hours. 

Here’s the formula: 

Put energy into someone by explaining why your company is doing what it is doing, what your mission, vision, and values really mean, mentor them, talk challenges out with them, pay attention to them and you’ll start to build emotional equity. That equity will now give you access to their heart, mind, Rolodex, idle thought cycles. Now they’re thinking about how to help the company innovate better, solve a specific problem, etc. as they shower and commute and whatever. That access to a person’s additional resources will enable you to influence outcomes more effectively. Now you have a shared cause, you’re on the same team, you’re safe and you belong together. It’s emotional. 

Step 2: Stop The Whining. The C suite, management, staff, everyone needs to get off what I call the Tension Triangle. This is where people bounce from victim to rescuer to persecutor. Stephen Karpman, MD, first created this as the Dreaded Drama Triangle or DDT. The DDT is comprised of three roles: Victim (the role where someone is “doing” something to them), Rescuer (who tries to remove the Victim’s suffering, often without being asked), and Persecutor (which the Victim blames for their suffering, yet the Persecutor is often feeling victimized too). David Emerald has extended this triangle, and I have extended it further. The net-net is Victims are complaining because they want something—so we help them shift to be an Outcome Creator. The Rescuer is just trying to end the suffering, so we help them become an Insight Creator by asking the right questions so the Victim can get what they need by themselves. The Persecutor is usually frustrated by trying to make things happen, so we help them become an Action Creator. Once everyone is trained in shifting their most prevalent role to a healthy alternative, the whining ends. Now that’s empowerment. 

Victim becomes Outcome Creator 

Rescuer becomes Insight Creator 

Persecutor becomes Action Creator 

Step 3: Invest ONLY for ROI. Training your team is expensive. So only do what matters. Every person in your company needs to be trained in Problem to Outcome (to stop the Whining), Leadership Effectiveness (so they become leaders in their own right), Influencing Outcomes and Others, Accountability, Communication, and Execution. All these be neuroscience-based to get far more bang for your buck. This training will cost you about $750-1,000 per person. If your people aren’t worth that amount, then embrace Crushed Culture. Because that’s the risk we’re talking about. 

Step 4: Career Path—or Exit Strategy. Dave Peacock, President of Anheuser-Busch recently shared their refreshing approach to team member reviews. Each team member knows exactly where they stand based on the number plus letter they receive through their on-going review process. If you’re a 4A, you are such a corporate asset that your boss is obligated to promote you in a year. 4Bs must be promoted within 2 years. 3As need to be tested in a different role before they’re moved up. 3B means you’re in the right job at the right time. 2s are new in a position—it’s too early to judge. 1As are put on a recovery plan, 1Bs need to exit the company. We recommend to our clients that a team member should know their next 2 potential promotions, and what exactly they need to do to earn them. Are they loyal and engaged? Oh yes. 

So the harsh reality is that we, the leaders, created Crushed Culture. Now we need to fix it. Here is what I’ll do to help: 

Number 1) I’ll lay out the neuroscience processes you need to do to help cure your Crushed Culture in record time. Keep listening to this podcast so you don’t miss any. 

Number 2) I’ll give a 30-minute strategy session (gratis, of course) to 3 of you. We’ll work on curing your Crushed Culture. Go to my website, www.smarttribesinstitute.com to request a session. 

Together we'll cure Crushed Culture... one company at a time. 

Show Notes

• DDT (Dreaded Drama Triangle): http://www.karpmandramatriangle.com/pdf/thenewdramatriangles.pdf  
• Tension to Empowerment chart  
• SmartTribes Institute Strategy Session Request Form: https://smarttribesinstitute.com/strategy-session/  

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I was a young CEO and I needed answers. Steve Jobs had them. There was only one thing to do.

So I sent a FedEx letter.

Then I sent another.

Then I started calling.

Then I sent another FedEx, and called some more. Finally, after 7 FedExs and 12 phone calls, Steve’s assistant said he wanted to talk with me.

“You keep sending FedExs and calling. So let’s end it. What do you want?” Steve said, with his characteristic charm.

“Five minutes of your time. I really admire your accomplishments and as a young CEO I have a few questions no one else can answer.”

“Bring a timer.”

“I will. Oh—and thanks.”

He had already hung up.

My surface agenda was to get 5 minutes of advice, watch how Steve’s mind worked, bask in his brilliance, then have a breakthrough.

My subterranean agenda was to find hope again. It was the early 1990’s and I’d left my engineering post at Microsoft. I was depressed and wanted to know why we weren’t really changing the world as fast and as well as we could. Windows hadn’t deeply changed people, hadn’t deeply helped. Wasn’t technology supposed to do that? All I saw were the limitations of software, hardware, peripherals. I’d left feeling frustrated after years of 12-14 hour days pounding code that refused to become bug free.

Remember those chunky white metal kitchen timers from your childhood? The ones with the dial and the ticka ticka ticka sound and the “bing!” ringer? Two weeks later, timer in hand, I shaked Steve’s hand and set the dial for 5 minutes. We’re at a dark conference table at NeXT. He is slouching at the head of the table, to my right. Ticka ticka ticka.

I won’t bore you with the questions I asked, they were mere prompts to get Steve talking. What I do want you to know is that during this conversation, which was almost 18 years ago, Steve shared his vision of the future.

And it was glorious. He described a world where our computers were so seamlessly integrated into our lives that everything we needed was easily accessible. He described the iPod, iPad, iPhone nearly 2 decades before they hit the market. I watched how his brain moved—without limitation—from what might enhance a customer’s life, to what that would mean to them and how they would benefit, to how this would change the world.

He didn’t question that whatever he envisioned could, and would, be created. He didn’t agonize over whether current limitations would hold him back.

I could feel my brain expanding, it felt so big around Steve, so open and limitless. I was tracking him, following his twists, turns, expansions. I felt so smart around him, and it was glorious and freeing and…

Ticka ticka ticka ding! My five minutes was up. I rose to leave, bowing a little as I backed away.

“I’m not done with you yet. Sit down.”

And zoom! We were back in brain expansion mode immediately, flying into the future, the wind blowing our hair, everything possible, everything important. And we needed to create it. It was our destiny.

Forty five minutes later Steve released me. Sitting in my overheated car in the sunny Redwood City parking lot, my head bursting with the remarkable, complex, complete vision of Steve Jobs in my head, I made a commitment.

I would no longer see barricades. Stumbling blocks would now be seen as stepping stones to something better, or something to crawl over or walk around. Previous limitations would now be a mere triviality, at worst a slight inconvenience. There were insanely great things to create and we were here to create them and that’s all there was to it. All thoughts to the contrary were irrelevant.

That’s how I still live today.

Want to meet your “Steve”?

1) Find out what causes they care about. Write a ½ to 1 page genuine letter about their specific accomplishments you admire. Offer five hours donation of your time to their favorite non-profit for five minutes of their time (request a meeting in person versus via phone).

2) Send your letter via FedEx. Call to ensure it was received and bond with their Executive Assistant. Only call first thing in AM or last thing in PM. They’re more likely to answer then.

3) Repeat step 2 until you get a meeting. If for some reason this doesn’t work, give the letter to them by hand at an event they are speaking at. Then repeat step 2 until you get a meeting.

In 30 years in business the approach above has always worked for me. The key is the letter. Be authentic, heartfelt, compelling. Care. Make it a work of art.

Years later after my father had died from pancreatic cancer and my uncle Ed then had it, my mother asked me to call Steve’s office to compare his treatment to my uncle’s—perhaps we could improve Ed’s odds. The woman who answered in Steve’s office hesitated for a moment, looking up my name, I suppose. Then we talked through Steve’s versus Ed’s situation. Unfortunately the news wasn’t good—Ed’s cancer was more aggressive. He died six months later.

Thanks Steve for bringing back my faith in technology, in innovation, in possibility.

Oh—and sorry I stalked you.

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Why do so many change initiatives fail? 

In my coaching practice, I constantly help clients navigate change. And to navigate change successfully, we need to understand all the levels in which changes occur in humans. Otherwise, your change efforts will either fail, or be superficial—and you’ll miss the awesome transformative experience you were aiming for. 

The 6 Levels Where Change Happens In Humans 

Let’s start by exploring the different levels where change happens and how you can maximize your change success and agility. This will help you understand what’s really at stake in change scenarios, and why you may not be getting change as fast as you’d like. 

The first outside level is Environment; the physical space, the emotional environment. Environment changes can be permanent: you can change offices, move offices or temporary chnages: you can take a walk, change rooms, turn the lights on or off. 

Have you ever experienced a big change: new home, new office, new organization chart…but it didn’t change anything? 

For many years, one of my friends kept moving. He’d wake up in a new city, with a new job and yet everything would still be the same, because he didn’t change himself, how he was being in life. In my leadership and culture coaching work, I often am brought in after re-organizations that didn’t fundamentally change anything… because the organization only changed at one level. 

Environment is the easiest level of change—that’s why it’s so tempting--but it doesn’t complete the story. If you are not conscious of the other levels, environmental change is not going to give you the organization or the team of your dreams. 

The next level is Behavior – maybe as a New Year’s resolution you decide to go to the gym. How long does that last? Maybe you stop eating dessert for a few weeks. That’s a behavior change. Then… a few weeks later, that tiramisu or cheesecake looks really good…. And there you go.  

Let’s say you want meetings to be run differently, or workflow to happen differently, and you make a big push, and send out a bunch of emails…and people temporarily adopt a new approach. Within a short time, though, they start slipping back to the old way of doing things because it’s safer, more familiar, that way. So we need to go deeper into the levels of change. 

The next level is Capability – groups of behaviors. Standing is one behavior, speaking is one behavior, standing and speaking in front of a room full of people is public speaking, which is a capability. We often train our team to acquire new capabilities, but without attention to the next two levels, these changes don’t stick, or they don’t help us to change the culture, the way we are being together. We must go deeper still. 

The next level is Belief – Rules, rights and wrongs, shoulds and shouldn’ts, goods and bads, cans and can’ts about the world or other people. For an organization, this means our standards, the things we hold as normal. Is it normal in your company to gossip, to complain, to engage in any kind of negativity? When we believe that our safety depends on connecting with people in these kinds of negative ways, then no matter how many communication classes we go to, no matter how many different org charts or desk configurations we try out, ultimately we’re still going to spiral into negativity. Which leads us to… 

The next level, which is Identity – For a person these are just like beliefs—except they are about oneself. “I AM _blank_” (a good person, hard-working….).  For an organization, these are the values that really exist…which may or may not be the values posted on the wall. 

And finally, we reach the Core -- This is the nucleus of change. The heart and soul level of what you exist to accomplish, your purpose, it stems from your mission and your values but it’s really about how people engage together on that mission. 

How To Succeed At Organizational Change 

One of our clients had struggled with accountability in their culture. With a little digging, it became clear their past initiatives in this area had been incomplete—they hadn’t touched all six levels. Here’s what we did that worked. 

At the Core level: First we coached the CEO to communicate how accountability was key to help the organization fulfill its massive transformative purpose. 

Beliefs: He talked about how this is who we are here, together we are making a huge positive difference in the world. 

Identity: And each individual was key to fulfill this awesome purpose. We needed everyone to be a part of this, because each person contributed something unique and essential. 

Behavior: So we’ll be using some new structures to clarify, track and report on our work status to boost clarity of communication and to ensure all dependencies and contingencies were clear. 

Capability: We’d also have accountability partners to support, navigate and celebrate our wins with in this cool initiative. Along with the tools and short check-in meetings, we’d make it happen. Everyone was trained in the new approaches. 

Environment: We posted fun thematic tracking charts (racing to the finish line with a number of pit stops for check ins and laps completed for each milestone) around the various office locations so all could have visual, kinesthetic, auditory anchors. 

The result? Accountability is now considered, fun, collaborative and key to fulfilling the organization’s awesome purpose! 

The Net-Net: 

• Change happens on 6 levels—be sure to tap all of them to ensure change initiatives succeed! 
• Beliefs about the world around us, and beliefs about ourselves (our identity) must be boosted or expanded to support change. 
• Any change initiative must have a powerful positive emotional component to engage others in lasting behavioral change.

Show Notes/Resources:

The Logical Levels of Change - download the infographic

Take our free Emotional Resilience Mini-Course

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In this best of 2020 episode, we have compiled the key excerpts from our top 5 most downloaded episodes in 2020:

1 - Become a More Emotionally Intelligent Leader in 3 Simple Steps

2 - What Being Excluded Does to Your Brain

3 - 12 Stress Busters Happy Health People Know

4 - Reframing: A Tool That Will Empower Your Team Every Day

5 - Guarantee Work-Life Balance With These 3 Daily Actions

Resources mentioned:

VAK Anchoring

Energetic Weight

Beyond Your Brain - ROI of Mindfulness

Reframing

Distorted Thinking Decoder

Neuro Storytelling

What Being Excluded Does to Your Brain

Bradberry on Emotional Intelligence

The Emotion Wheel

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