Tag Archives: Coaching

Oct 8 2012

Stress Makes Us Less Intelligent and More Physically Sick

One key reason why the sciences of Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive Behavioral Psychology are gaining more fame nowadays is because they are succeeding in explaining the physical implications of our beliefs and feelings. Feelings have been marginalized for centuries, as they have been considered to make ‘weaker’.

IQ or mathematical intelligence has been considered the key indicator of intelligence for ages. Yet, many intelligent and professionally successful individuals are still unhappy.

How about beliefs? What are beliefs?

Beliefs are the filters that we go on in life composing and looking at life’s events from behind them. These filters are also managing the way we feel and interact with those events. As a result, people whose beliefs are negative, end up with a poor health, and those with positive beliefs live longer, have healthier bodies and are generally more successful in surviving than those with negative beliefs.
Does this mean our health, success and happiness are all subject to operations that happen inside our brains, rather than anywhere else in our bodies?

Certainly! It has been proven that whatever the brain thinks and feels about a particular topic, it is interpreted and manifested in physical ways. Feelings trigger thousands of chemicals that flood our bodies and blood stream at the same time we are experiencing them. Remembering them also can trigger the same kind of chemicals.

Therefore, feelings should not be marginalized. Rather, they need to be viewed and monitored. The types of chemicals that are triggered when we are sad, mad, angry or stressed for example can have an even more powerful effect than an actual accident physically affecting the body.

Check out this amazing documentary that is definitely worth watching to the end by Dr. Bruce Liptop, who explains the Biology of Belief, and how beliefs can actually lead us to make less intelligent choices in life, get increasingly more sick, and jeopardize our lives:

Be kind to yourself. This is the real secret to a better health, a happier life and a more successful life path.

Cheers!

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Sep 23 2012

Why Command-and-Control Leadership Is Here to Stay

HBR Blog Network
Why Command-and-Control Leadership Is Here to Stay

by Herminia Ibarra | 12:00 PM September 20, 2012

Comments (9)

Travelling through Zurich airport, one billboard always catches my eye. The ad for IWC luxury watches says “Engineered for men who don’t need a copilot.”

My friends who study advertising as both a reflection and shaper of cultural norms would not disagree with my impression: We talk about the death of command and control leadership, and praise the rise of a new, more collaborative, breed of leader. But when push comes to shove, being in control sells. Collaborative is vegan; directive is meat and potatoes.

When I was a PhD student at Yale, I studied with one of the fathers of situational leadership, Victor Vroom. In the 1960′s Vic developed the then-famous Vroom-Yetton model of leadership, a decision tree in which a few simple parameters (does the leader have all the relevant information, are the followers knowledgeable or inexperienced?) allowed the leader to choose from a menu of styles ranging from A1 (the most autocratic decision-making) to G2 (group-based decision-making, the most participative) the one most suited for the situation. An avid boatman, Vic had a large sailboat parked in the Caribbean. Its name: A1. On my boat, I call the shots.

An early proponent of participative management, Vic also knew when and how to be in charge. No one quarrels much with the wisdom of situational leadership anymore. Even if we can no longer pin it on a few simple dimensions — the world today is much more turbulent and complex — we all know that what works depends on the context.

The questions today are how we select “horses for courses,” and perhaps more importantly, how we assess whether talented individuals are capable of broadening their repertory of styles so that they can be effective in a wider array of situations as their careers evolve.

In the business school classes I teach, almost every leader we analyze is “situationally limited:” Her natural tendency tilts either towards the directive or towards the collaborative end of the spectrum or his past experience has rewarded one over the other. Inevitably we ask, is this way of leading sustainable as the company grows? Once the turnaround is over? As the environment grows harsher?

My students’ questions apply equally to the collaborators and the autocrats. But over the years I have noticed a subtlety. We easily infer that a competent autocrat can learn to become more collaborative. We have a harder time believing that a competent collaborator can become more directive.

In the end, we seem to want evidence that a leader can do without a co-pilot before we are willing to groom him or her for more collaborative roles. I wonder if that is not one reason why command and control isn’t dead at all but alive and well, at least at Zurich airport.
More blog posts by Herminia Ibarra
More on: Collaboration, Leadership, Leadership development
Herminia Ibarra

Herminia Ibarra

Herminia Ibarra is a professor of organizational behavior and the Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning at Insead. She is the author of Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career (Harvard Business Review Press, 2003).

Sep 19 2012

Seeking Justice Is Inspirational

No matter how unlucky we may feel we are, or how bad our day has gone, there will always be others whose lives are worse and their luck more bitter.

I guess no matter how hard your circumstances can be, faith in that justice will prevail eventually, bears its fruits in your life.

This is a wonderfully inspirational video and a must-see! What makes it perfect is this young Korean homeless boy’s choice of the song “Nella Fantasia”, which talks about justice. This happens to be one of the best lyrics ever matched to such fine melody by Ennio Morricone. I’ve copied below the lyrics in Italian and their English translation (Source: Wikipedia.org).

Lyrics
Nella Fantasia

Nella fantasia io vedo un mondo giusto,
Lì tutti vivono in pace e in onestà.
Io sogno d’anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,
Pien’ d’umanità in fondo all’anima.

Nella fantasia io vedo un mondo chiaro,
Lì anche la notte è meno oscura.
Io sogno d’anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano.

Nella fantasia esiste un vento caldo,
Che soffia sulle città, come amico.
Io sogno d’anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,
Pien’ d’umanità in fondo all’anima.

English Translation
In My Fantasy

In my fantasy I see a just world
Where everyone lives in peace and honesty
I dream of souls that are always free
Like a cloud that floats
Full of humanity in the depths of the soul

In my fantasy I see a bright world
Where each night there is less darkness
I dream of souls that are always free
Like the cloud that floats

In my fantasy exists a warm wind
That breathes into the city, like a friend
I dream of souls that are always free
Like the cloud that floats
Full of humanity in the depths of the soul

Aug 28 2012

It’s More Important to Be Kind than Clever

I’m sure most of us do acts of kindness on daily basis, yet we may not think much of them and may allow time to erase those valuable memories. I think, in addition to writing what we are grateful for, in a gratitude journal, we need to document any acts of kindness that we offer to others, no matter how small they are. It reminds us of who we ‘really’ are, and how we ‘truly’ express that. Don’t you think? :) Read this by Bill Taylor about the importance of kindness as opposed to cleverness. Worth reading!

Source: HBR.org

It’s More Important to Be Kind than Clever

by Bill Taylor  |   9:00 AM August 23, 2012

One of the more heart-warming stories to zoom around the Internet lately involves a young man, his dying grandmother, and a bowl of clam chowder from Panera Bread. It’s a little story that offers big lessons about service, brands, and the human side of business — a story that underscores why efficiency should never come at the expense of humanity.

The story, as told in AdWeek, goes like this: Brandon Cook, from Wilton, New Hampshire, was visiting his grandmother in the hospital. Terribly ill with cancer, she complained to her grandson that she desperately wanted a bowl of soup, and that the hospital’s soup was inedible (she used saltier language). If only she could get a bowl of her favorite clam chowder from Panera Bread! Trouble was, Panera only sells clam chowder on Friday. So Brandon called the nearby Panera and talked to store manager Suzanne Fortier. Not only did Sue make clam chowder specially for Brandon’s grandmother, she included a box of cookies as a gift from the staff.

It was a small act of kindness that would not normally make headlines. Except that Brandon told the story on his Facebook page, and Brandon’s mother, Gail Cook, retold the story on Panera’s fan page. The rest, as they say, is social-media history. Gail’s post generated 500,000 (and counting) “likes” and more than 22,000 comments on Panera’s Facebook page. Panera, meanwhile, got something that no amount of traditional advertising can buy — a genuine sense of affiliation and appreciation from customers around the world.

Marketing types have latched on to this story as an example of the power of social media and “virtual word-of-mouth” to boost a company’s reputation. But I see the reaction to Sue Fortier’s gesture as an example of something else — the hunger among customers, employees, and all of us to engage with companies on more than just dollars-and-cents terms. In a world that is being reshaped by the relentless advance of technology, what stands out are acts of compassion and connection that remind us what it means to be human.

As I read the story of Brandon and his grandmother, I thought back to a lecture delivered two years ago by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, to the graduating seniors of my alma mater, Princeton University. Bezos is nothing if not a master of technology — he has built his company, and his fortune, on the rise of the Internet and his own intellect. But he spoke that day not about computing power or brainpower, but about his grandmother — and what he learned when he made her cry.

Even as a 10-year-old boy, it turns out, Bezos had a steel-trap mind and a passion for crunching numbers. During a summer road trip with his grandparents, young Jeff got fed up with his grandmother’s smoking in the car — and decided to do something about it. From the backseat, he calculated how many cigarettes per day his grandmother smoked, how many puffs she took per cigarette, the health risk of each puff, and announced to her with great fanfare, “You’ve taken nine years off your life!”

Bezos’s calculations may have been accurate — but the reaction was not what he expected. His grandmother burst into tears. His grandfather pulled the car off to the side of the road and asked young Jeff to step out. And then his grandfather taught a lesson that this now-billionaire decided to share the with the Class of 2010: “My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, ‘Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.’”

That’s a lesson I wish more businesspeople understood — a lesson that is reinforced by the reaction to this simple act of kindness at Panera Bread. Indeed, I experienced something similar not so long ago, and found it striking enough to devote an HBR blog post to the experience. In my post, I told the story of my father, his search for a new car, a health emergency that took place in the middle of that search — and a couple of extraordinary (and truly human) gestures by an auto dealer that put him at ease and won his loyalty.

“What is it about business that makes it so hard to be kind?” I asked at the time. “And what kind of businesspeople have we become when small acts of kindness feel so rare?”

That’s what’s really striking about the Panera Bread story — not that Suzanne Fortier went out of her way to do something nice for a sick grandmother, but that her simple gesture attracted such global attention and acclaim.

So by all means, encourage your people to embrace technology, get great at business analytics, and otherwise ramp up the efficiency of everything they do. But just make sure all their efficiency doesn’t come at the expense of their humanity. Small gestures can send big signals about who we are, what we care about, and why people should want to affiliate with us. It’s harder (and more important) to be kind than clever.

Aug 17 2012

Vanity vs Gratitude

I’ve been watching lately some Hollywood’s box office movies. I soon realized there were many similar messages they were sending to the young audience they are intended for, for example:

- Bullying individuals were pretty people, whether boys or girls.

- People with brains (not particularly keen on partying wild and showing off) were either ugly or ‘needed a makeover’ (needed to be fixed in one way or another).

- Promiscuous individuals are more popular and successful (mostly well off).

- Dressing as minimally as possible (especially if one has a great body) is a sign that the guy or girl is attractive, confident, sexy, cool, popular and successful, like a guy with his shirt off or a girl whose dress is open and short, etc.

These were some of the messages that jumped out at me repetitively as I was watching.

This has also brought me to think that perfecting all those requirements (great body, money, fancy clothes or cars, etc) to look and be successful or popular do not really lead to happiness. Most of the time, those perfect-looking people are looking for something that makes them feel complete inside.  If they couldn’t find it, they constantly look for sedatives (a wild fling, drugs, pills, alcohol, etc.) to help them get through time, forget and move on. They also look ‘cool’ as they do so. So this does highlight the spiritual/emotional gap that results from their lifestyle and the daily choices they are making.

This led me to contemplate the difference between vanity and gratitude. I realized that being vain means contributing every blessing one has to oneself, such as saying to oneself: I am beautiful because I am better, I have a nice body because I am not lazy and I workout, I have a big house and a big car because I am successful and rich, I have a sexy partner because I wouldn’t settle with anything else, I have a career because I want power, I have children because I want others to see the great parent I am and that I am ‘on-top-of-it-all’, I have great health and I am powerful, etc. Meanwhile, as this sounds like self-confidence, it does also imply a great degree of vanity and superiority; like I am the origin of everything I am and have. What contradicts this idea, however, is that there are ‘other’ attractive, hard-working, ambitious, confident, and cool people who may not be as successful, rich, healthy, fertile, etc. as they are.

I believe we are constantly driven to believe that we are the cause of our own blessings, like the recent books titles implying that we are our own god, genie, diva, miracle-maker, etc.  Whereas achieving one’s goals may lead to one’s happiness, it does not imply that the achievement of our goals ‘made possible’ was entirely attributed to us. What popular movies usually imply is that when you are, perfect-looking, sexy and smart, you are bound to succeed in life. On the other hand, I have seen and known real people with real lives who may just be doing a bit more than what those in movies do, and they may not look as 100% perfect as they do.

We are encouraged to believe that ‘things’ make us happy, but it is the opposite; it is us who bestow meanings upon things, and not vice versa. That being said, I don’t negate the psychological factor that does make us feel more confident when we achieve a goal, like having a great body, sexy clothes, wild friends, or being popular in our circle, etc. Yet, these are not happiness-making factors. Therefore, feeling vain because of the blessings you have does not mean you are happy or complete, especially that nothing is permanent in life; health, wealth, beauty, a successful career, etc. may be lost at any time, as we have seen during this recent recession, which has led a lot of people to fall prey to depression, mainly because when one sees oneself at the centre of that self-portrait, one is only focusing on one’s self and the fulfillment of one’s needs, wishes and desires. This emphasizes that one lives by oneself in this world, in isolation from others and ‘their’ needs and wishes that we can help them with. In other words, vanity thinking is seeking happiness through attaining proclaimed happiness requirements without seeing or caring for anyone else in the picture but oneself. It is the opposite of empathy, which growing our sense of self-worth and genuine happiness through seeking a noble life purpose through helping others and being attuned to their needs and wishes.

In coaching, coaches are encouraged to support clients to recognize blessings (minimal to bigger ones) in their daily life. They say it is proven in the science of the human psyche that feeling grateful significantly enhances one’s brain capability to think more productively and positively, and elevates negative emotions, like sadness, sorrow, anger, etc.

Feeling grateful means – even if you don’t believe that there is a God in the world who distributes blessings upon people – that you appreciate and count the privileges you have got, i.e. that you feel privileged because you have so and so of blessings that other people who are just as smart, successful, charming, attractive, healthy, fertile, well-off, etc. may not have. Therefore, when one gets oneself out of the centre of the fancy self-portrait one has drawn for oneself for years, and starts thinking that whatever one has is a privilege that deserves feeling grateful for. Then, one starts feeling that one has been endowed with them, and not ‘entitled’ to them.

This offers a fresh perspective on life and everything you have. If we believe we are entitled to what we have, we may take them for granted and become blind to the minimal and bigger privileges we have got. However, if we see everything we have as a privilege, then we start thinking positively about everything we consider about our lives, bodies, health, partners, etc. Simply because we start appreciating what we have, we grow our sense of satisfaction about it. This is where the feeling of gratitude develops. However, I’ve had someone asking me: But if I don’t believe there is a God in this world, who will I feel grateful for?

It was a pretty tricky question, because I personally do believe that there is a God in this world, and my feeling of satisfaction and gratitude towards everything He has blessed me with is the secret behind my resilience in life, despite all challenges. I pondered upon the guy’s question, then decided to ask him back: If you don’t believe there is a God in this world, who would you feel grateful for? It can’t be you who is the causing factor of everything you have got. For example, you were not the reason behind your good looks when you were born. Nor is it up to you to stop yourself from having cancer or an accident, because we have seen perfectly healthy people dying due to both of these despite their healthy, organic and safe lifestyles. If you didn’t die in an accident or by cancer, old age will do the trick. But how do you know until when you are going to live?

He was silent for a while, and contemplated my questions, then said: I definitely feel I am grateful for having what I have, simply as I see my friends don’t have half of what I have, even though we almost worked in the same companies and graduated from similar reputable universities. Then, we went on to talk about luck. This is definitely taking me away from the core subject of this article, but it was a conversation worth mentioning, as it helped us delve into deep thoughts and questions typically people – on the run – don’t bother themselves to think about.

All in all, vanity is feeling we ‘control’ what we have, and this is a false conception. The recession has taught us that nothing is fixed and permanent. Not only that, but also diseases, airplane crashes, earthquakes, etc. Vanity – or thinking one is the source of his/her own blessings – may lead one to severe depression if things do no go the way s/he intended them to do.

On the other hand, gratitude is appreciating and seeing life for what it is. This inspires us to see even the most mundane blessings as gifts that we did not sweat for. For example, silence at night is a great gift. I have lived in countries where building and constructions workers do not stop working on weekends or even in the evening when people put their kids to sleep. Other countries are war-stricken, and kids have to sleep despite sounds of bombs and gunshots that become a habitual happening in their neighborhoods. Not only silence at night, but on the weekends, in the evening, the ability to clearly hear birds singing early in the morning, the soft breeze that gently touches your cheeks as you stand in front of a water landscape, the beauty of nature, the cuteness of our kids, the genuine care of our loved ones, our ability to hear, see, touch and smell, etc. There is so much to be grateful for, and I do not believe we – people on the run – are the causing factor of them all. We are too busy to see these simple blessings but they are there. Believe it or not, it is us who can make the choice to appreciate them or not, to think that despite any hardships we may be going through there are still some good things to derive from them and to enjoy around us, and finally, I personally find the gift of life as the best gift ever, because every minute is a chance to turn oneself life around the way you want. This is an opportunity that is unavailable in any other domain in our lives (work, parenthood, commitments, loans, etc.)

What do you think?

Aug 10 2012

Effect of Positive & Negative Emotions On Water

This part is taken of the documentary “What The Bleep Do We Know”, which shows an experiment done by a Japanese scientist called Dr. Masaru Emoto on the effects of negative and positive emotions on water molecules.

Our bodies are %90 water, how would our negative and positive emotions affect them?

Jul 24 2012

TEDxNASA – Rita King – Creativity and Design of Identity and Community

Very Interesting!

Jul 14 2012

Finally Found The Time, What’s Next?

Have you ever postponed some thing you really wanted or needed to do until you had a long Wanna-Do List later that never got fulfilled?

Have you ever wished for extra time to sleep a bit more, read longer, or do something different?

After you’ve finally found the time, have you found yourself doing something else, like flicking through TV channels, spending most of the day in bed or on the couch feeling drained of energy?

How come we have energy when we go to work, cater to our kids’ needs, and run errands? How come when we finally get some free time to do something we had long wanted to do, we feel we lack energy? Answers to these questions may vary, but the main difference between having energy to work, and running after our kids or doing some chores, is that we may be acting under the mighty effect of Adrenalin and other stress hormones.

On The Doctors’ show, the doctors once talked about Leisure Sickness, which is basically falling sick or feeling poorly on your vacation. Seems unfortunate but true. As long as one feels stressed about certain tasks, stress hormones continue to mask one’s feelings of exhaustion and illness on days of work or activity. However, on vacation, stress may fade away, which gives way for other important feelings to surface, like feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, blocked, confused, anger, etc. This usually take the form of fatigue, colon disorders,  irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, etc.

Therefore, one should always keep checking in with oneself, especially health-wise, in order to discern any health hazards, which may imply taking more free time to rest, relax, and meditate, in order to regain one’s balance.

Now, let’s move to another aspect of non-productivity during one’s free time, weekend or vacation, which is feeling spaced out, not knowing where to start first. You know you always had a Wanna-Do list (as opposed to the familiar To-Do List, which you may normally rush to fulfill), but when you seem to have extra time on your hands, you may find yourself staring in space for a while, watching too much TV, indulging in food, etc.

Why is it when we finally get some time off, instead of doing things we long wanted to do, we end up doing something else or nothing at all that day? Have you noticed how when a goal is relevant to your own awareness of what you really need and want to do, it may take the backseat, and become labelled as “Can Do Later”?

Tim Gallway in his book The Inner Game of Work, says: “Perhaps we all realize that as human beings we have a tendency to get in our own way.” Our brains may get quite overwhelmed by the long lists of “Must-Do”s and “Should-Do”s. To motivate ourselves further (when we know we’re running out of energy), we may start bullying selves in order to do things that help us achieve goals that are socially praiseworthy, like over-delivering at work showing everyone else that we are successful, popular and in demand. Society (family, friends, school, work, etc.) have made us very aware of what should be done, what is accepted and what is not.

Yet, we may be lucky enough to have a second dream; a dream whereby we really aspire to do something we really want to do that truly aligns with who we are. This may include a career change, the choice to quit work and stay home to take of one’s kids, the need to take some time off or travel to a different country seeking a change in perspective, etc.

Obviously, change is not easy and many of us fear it, since we are creatures of habit (security). We may be wanting to do certain things so bad, but we keep placing conditions on them: “When I have the time, I will sit and reflect. Then, I will take some time off, then I wanna quit my job. I want a better job”, etc.

Gallway talks about the pressure we perceive and confine ourselves to whenever we think of the work we need to do: “Each time I take a committed step toward working free, I can feel the chains begin to tighten. The bonds of unconscious habit pull me back as if I’m attached by a rubber band to a post. The first few steps are not so hard, but tension builds as I take each step away from my routines. When stretched to the limit, I have felt the force snap me all the way back in the opposite direction, leaving me no choice but to start the journey again. Perhaps the quest for true freedom must at some point expose that central post to which the band is tied. This freedom I pursue is an innate freedom, not one granted by a person or society. Its pursuit requires a fundamental redefinition of “work.”

Basically, our brains are the Control Units in our entire bodies. So the brain perceives, interprets and then sends out actions to be done by the body. To the brain, that is its truth! Gorgias said: ‘What is right but what we prove to be right? and what is truth but what we believe to be truth?’

Now, you may ask: How come we feel pressured to do things we always wanted to do on our free time?

Because we may be so busy during the week, when we finally get a bit of free time on our hands, we may feel like we want to jam everything we wish to do in this tiny window of opportunity. Just perceiving this lee way as a limitation, we may feel some kind of pressure to start with things we wish to do first (i.e. prioritize).

On the other hand, some of the things we postpone to do in our spare time may be more personal and serious, like looking for a different job, writing a resignation letter, etc, to which we already feel pressure already. Our sense of pressure toward this personal matter may derive from our strong wish to achieve this goal yet fear we may fail to do so. Therefore, this paradox of feelings may pose a greater pressure on the brain, who is telling our body: “I gotta do this right. If I fail, I’ll suffer from the consequences.”

Sometimes, when the topic is very personal and we want it really badly, some of us may feel they have already failed just from the negative way of thinking about it. This may lead the thinker to feel like a failure, a loser, a slacker, etc. Of course, such people may be suffering from a low self-esteem, as they often beat themselves by themselves just through thinking. Therefore, someone who may have postponed doing something until they have got some free time to do so, may end up spending the day on the couch doing nothing at all.

So how can one get out of the rut and actually do what one wants to do?

This article will be continued.

Follow us as we go explore next what a coach may do to help such clients beat their gremlins and actually succeed in whatever they wish to do.

Jul 11 2012

Disrupt Yourself

An awesome perspective on disruptive creativity! Check it out!

Jul 11 2012

Get Comfortable with Team Conflict

Wow, very interesting and non-stressful perspective on team conflict! :)

Note: The speaker’s accent is a bit unclear but content is worth listening to.