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Emotions

Yesterday’s email and my anti-White-Fragility Ti-shirt

by amiel · Jul 16, 2020

Hi Friends,

My email to you yesterday—”Want resilience? (Black) American culture has you covered”—prompted numerous comments and one request. Most were about culture rather than how it makes you resilient, but it’s still early! Allow me to close the loop.

1. There was no link to the online version. Please share.

Oops, true. Here it is: https://amielhandelsman.com/newsletter-071520/

2. Strikes me as brave for you to challenge the white fragility label

Thank you. It’s certainly unfashionable. The Ti-shirt would say “Neither white nor fragile but anti-racist since 2000.” This is when meditation taught me to notice the flurry of ideas of dubious goodness, truth and beauty passing through my mind. Among these then and now are racist ideas that swim in the culture. I would just as soon apologize for breathing oxygen or wearing slacks with a belt.

If Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, said to me, “Admit it. You have racist ideas,” I’d reply, “You betcha. Who doesn’t? My question for you is how to have such ideas rather than letting them have you.” Here, to invert the Heath Brothers (Made to Stick), the goal is to reduce the mind’s adhesive qualities. This leads to practices like meditation, compassionate self-reflection, somatic bodywork and naming-the-Steve Wonder-inside-of-you, all of which sadly aren’t part of today’s White Fragility curriculum. Plus, ironically, DiAngelo treats black folks as delicate members of an undifferentiated mass rather than complex individuals with varying personalities, skills and interests who carry proud heroic traditions, like jazz and overcoming adversity, that have always been deeply influenced by and interwoven into other dimensions of American culture. See: Henry Louis Gates, Colored People; Albert Murray, Omni-Americans; Charles Johnson, Middle Passage; or anything by Toni Morrison. 

3. This is a much-needed approach, Amiel. All the hangdog/pain/victim stuff gets old, stale, mind-numbing and counterproductive mighty quickly. It all degenerates into empty rituals and phrase-mongering.

This comment came from a successful professional writer who in a much earlier life worked for the Nation of Islam and has tracked this topic for decades. It highlights how aligning with an ideology can cause well-meaning people to produce unintended consequences they might regret. This traps opens widely when everyone you know is reading the same books and citing the same experts. Ironically, today’s most popular thinker on anti-racism, Ibram Kendi, has a far more complex and nuanced take than many people who cite him. In Stamped from the Beginning, he says that there are no racist people, only racist ideas; that many civil rights leaders we admire used racist ideas to justify their positions (lesson for you and me: there’s no shame in having racist ideas, only in holding them); and that altruism is a self-defeating motivation for action.

4. I have been really struggling with the more absolutist/monolithic aspects of BLM/antiracism and the like, yet I have been terrified to say much of anything publicly.

I’m hearing this a lot, especially from light-skinned folks who for years have been taking actions that today we’d call anti-racist. (In college I attended several Black Student Association meetings mostly out of curiosity but also to listen for new perspectives). Such silencing of would-be partners is another unintended consequence of an unreflective version of the anti-racism/white fragility ideology.  Although it feels noble and contains important truths, it evokes shame and sends cortisol and other stress hormones hurtling through the nervous system.

Thanks, everyone, for the comments!

Cheerfully real,
Amiel Handelsman

P.S. Did someone forward this issue to you? I’d love to have you join us by signing up here.

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Filed Under: Emotions, Mindfulness, Race and culture

Want resilience? (Black) American culture has you covered (July 15, 2020 issue)

by amiel · Jul 16, 2020

Hi Friends,

I hope you enjoy this week’s actionable insights. Hit Reply and let me know what you think.

Black lives matter. Black heroes matter, too.

This, in a nutshell, is the theme of this week’s email. I bring together in an unexpected and hopefully refreshing way two big conversations:

  1. How do you build resilience in yourself, your team, and your family amidst Covid, organizational changes, and economic uncertainty?
  2. How are you responding to the killing of George Floyd and all it represents?

I think it’s time to breathe complexity into the second conversation in a way that offers us practical wisdom for dealing with the first.

Simply put, if you want to build resilience in the people around you and do something noble for the larger world—particularly if you don’t identify your cultural roots as primarily black American—these resources may be valuable. In fact, as I said about Stevie Wonder last week during my 50th birthday party when two partygoers sang to me his version of Happy Birthday, they’re likely already part of you, whether you know it or not.

Want resilience? Use these two resources from (black) American culture

I include the word “black” because women and men of darker complexion contributed disproportionately to these resources for overcoming adversity. Credit where credit is due. I put “black” in parentheses because these are fundamentally American cultural resources that are valuable right now to all Americans (and readers from other countries).

1. Jazz. Many call it America’s original art form. This music invites many things, but stagnation and resignation are not among them. When I’m looking to move through difficult emotions, I listen to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington (and Earth, Wind & Fire—more on that another time!) There’s a reason these rhythms are the perfect antidote to aching hearts and weary souls. They were born in adversity and grew through courageous improvisation, led by Americans of dark complexion. I recently came across these words from Ralph Ellison, which seem well suited to our moment:

During the Depression whenever [Duke Ellington’s] theme song ‘East St. Louis Toodle-oo’ came on the air, our morale was lifted by something inescapably hopeful in the sound. Its style was so triumphant and the moody melody so successful in capturing the times, yet so expressive of the faith which would see us through them.

2. Heroic tales of overcoming. Last time I wrote that Harriet Tubman is the quintessential American hero. This is what I remember learning in elementary school, and it made sense. In the mind of an 11-year-old, I don’t really understand slavery, and this is a lot to take in, but what she accomplished was really really hard! Yet somehow in today’s public conversation this part of history gets left out. Apparently, my job as a light-skinned man is to learn how black Americans have been screwed. OK. That sure is better than ignorance, and it’s a beat I’ve been on since college. But why stop there? Isn’t there more to the story than a people’s suffering? And if talking about this topic made me “fragile” (which it doesn’t, and even the “white” half of “white fragility” is a dubious proposition), wouldn’t I want to approach it in a way that made me strong or at least able to manage my own difficult emotions? Here’s an idea: what if every time you or I heard a story of suffering or oppression, we took it upon ourselves to search for the concurrent story of heroism and overcoming? Here are three reasons for doing this: 

First, it happened. The history is there. In the words of American writer, Albert Murray:

As for the tactics of the fugitive slaves, the Underground Railroad was not only an innovation, it was also an extension of the American quest for democracy brought to its highest level of epic heroism. Nobody tried to sabotage the Mayflower.

Second, human beings of every hue are so damn complex that a single narrative about anyone, however noble in intent, doesn’t cut it.

Finally, and here’s the kicker. You, I, and everyone we know needs these stories. Times are hard and uncertain, and we draw strength from our common history. And by “our” I mean all of us. If you don’t think that black American history isn’t part of who you are, think again. The culture we inherit is hybrid. Our cultural ancestors include everyone from Harriet Tubman and Daniel Boone to so-called WASPs and my Jewish great grandparents from Ukraine and Hungary.

Black Heroes Matter.

Cheerfully real,

Amiel Handelsman

P.S. Did someone forward this issue to you? I’d love to have you join us by signing up here.

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Filed Under: Complexity, Emotions, Race and culture

Three conversations to create pockets of certainty amidst Covid-19

by amiel · Apr 22, 2020

Hi Friends,

I call this a burst of timely wisdom. But you tell me. Is it timely? See any wisdom? Hit Reply and let me know.

Why does uncertainty feel so painful?

The uncertainty we all feel due to Covid-19 is gigantic in scale and enormous in emotional impact. As my seven-year-old might say, it’s “ginormous.” Even the most resilient among us are getting knocked on our behinds. Why is this?

Brain science provides an answer. Here’s David Rock, founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute: “Uncertainty registers (in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex) as an error, gap, or tension: something that must be corrected before one can feel comfortable again. That is why people crave certainty. Not knowing what will happen next can be profoundly debilitating because it requires extra neural energy.”

It isn’t you. It isn’t me. It’s our brains!

Why “hunkering down” won’t make anything or anyone better

One way many leaders respond to uncertainty is by “hunkering down'” or “keeping their heads down.” The rationale goes something like this “I don’t know what’s going to happen next, and it’s not in my hands, so what can I do?”

The implied answer: do nothing. Why don’t we ask the same question, not with resignation, but with curiosity. What can I do?

Three conversations that can calm people’s brains by creating pockets of certainty

If uncertainty accelerates the brain’s threat response system, what slows it down? In leadership, conversations are the center of the universe, so let’s start there. Here are three conversations you can initiate to calm others’ nervous systems:

1. “How we will decide”

Say you’re the President of a university. Everyone wants to know what will happen in the fall. Will the school be open? If so, how will that work? If not, what does this mean for students, faculty and staff? It will be a few months before you can answer these questions, so you may be tempted to stay quiet until then. Here’s an alternative: have a conversation with people about how you will decide what to do in the fall. Walk them through the criteria you will use, the impacts you will consider, and the facts that will come into play. This will create a pocket of certainty in people’s brains.

If you haven’t thought any of this through yet, start today. If you need to involve others—like a faculty council or planning task force—to create the criteria, initiate those conversations now.

2. “What happens next”

This conversation is about time. What are the key dates in the coming weeks and months that you want everyone in the university to know about? What will happen on each date? What won’t happen on each date? The clarity that people experience in learning this will register in their brains as a form of certainty.

Make sure everyone is clear. Create visuals. Invite questions. Take the time to explain things. Remember: understanding and the certainty it brings lives in the eyes of the beholder.

3. “What we can offer”

This conversation is most valuable if you’re a level or more below the top of the organization. Let’s say you’re a VP in a large company, and you’re waiting for more senior leaders to tell you what’s next. What can you and your team do until then?

Reframe the moment. What you’ve called “waiting” is actually a hint from the universe to take the initiative. Gather your team together and come up with a project that builds on its strengths and adds real value. Build this into an offer that you can make to senior leaders. If they accept, you’ve just positioned your team well. If not, you’ve exercised the thinking, collaborating and doing muscles that otherwise would atrophy.

Cheerfully real,
Amiel Handelsman

P.S. Did someone forward this issue to you? I’d love to have you join us by signing up here.

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Filed Under: Bosses, Complexity, Emotions, Engagement

How to build emotional intelligence while you listen (Jan. 8, 2020 issue)

by amiel · Jan 8, 2020

Hi friends,

Happy New Year. This week I offer you two tasty and healthy conversational dishes. 

Build emotional intelligence while you listen

“I want to be more emotionally intelligent so I can listen better.”

—Every person who has ever taken a class on the topic

This is backwards. Don’t confuse emotional intelligence for a car you build in the factory and then ship to customers. It isn’t something you carry, fully designed and with a sparkling paint job, into conversation.  Emotional intelligence grows through conversation. You become emotionally intelligent by practicing listening in a real interaction with another human being. There are a lot of ways to do this. 

But before you can practice, you have to get over the fallacy of fakery. The same people who tell you to listen better also have a radar for inauthenticity. This helps prevent bona fide Fakers from manipulating others. But you’re not a Faker. You’re a beginner. What beginners do is practice. It’s awkward. It’s difficult. But you do it to get better.

Start improving your listening by using what I call the on-the-job practice cycle. First you prepare yourself for the conversation (what kind of conversation will this be? What will I be listening for? What could distract me?). Then, while having the conversation, you “go to the balcony” and watch yourself down on stage (How’s my listening now? Is my mind replaying old tapes?) Afterward, you reflect on the conversation (When did I listen well? When did I get distracted?) and perhaps get feedback from others.

Why aren’t we better at listening? The answer is that we forget to practice it. Luckily, every conversation offers you this opportunity. 

Reading history and talking about the future

In a democracy, as in organizations, the future matters yet gets squeezed out by trivial matters. Firefighting substitutes for imagining tomorrow. 

This is why I read history. It reminds me that our lives exist in time, nothing is inevitable, and civilizations and organizations are fragile. In short: choices matter. 

For example, the supremacy of the iPhone wasn’t divinely ordained. Its rise partly stemmed from the fall of the Blackberry, a story not only of technology but also of leadership and interpersonal dynamics. 

Consider, too, the political (and cultural, and climate, and leadership, and foreign policy, and…) crises we face in my country, the United States. We can’t get out of them by merely resisting, nor by burying our heads in the sand or throwing up our hands in confusion. We need conversations about the future, particularly focused on what’s possible. Otherwise, we end up caught in what Yale historian Timothy Snyder calls the “politics of eternity,” where demagogues rule, private life shrinks, and you lose your freedom strut. (The freedom strut is a term I just invented for how you walk when you aren’t worried someone is going to report you to the authorities. It’s a privilege much of the world doesn’t have.)

At recent holiday parties, I asked people two questions: What will you do if Mr. Trump wins? What will you do if he loses? Nobody had much to say about either scenario. But this is the type of imagining that in our politics and organizations we need more, not less, of.

Such is the irony of history. It’s about the past, but it reminds us to have conversations about the future. This is why I just finished my third reading of Thinking the Twentieth Century by Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder and am now immersed in Marci Shore’s The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. 

Did I mention that possibility conversations are useful in every area of your life, that you can develop this skill through deliberate practice? I’ll read the history if you do the practice. Deal?

Cheerfully real,
Amiel Handelsman
P.S. Did someone forward this issue to you? I’d love to have you join us by signing up here.

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Filed Under: Business narratives, Citizen action, Deliberate practice, Emotions, Power and politics

Integral Politics With Jeff Salzman (Episode 109)

Integral Politics With Jeff Salzman (Episode 109)

by amiel · Jul 10, 2019

Integral politics involves appreciating what’s good, true, and beautiful and what’s missing in every worldview in our culture. This is neither the mushy middle nor mere theory, but instead a practical way forward in a puzzling world. The idea of integral politics is straightforward: listen closely to every perspective, take the best, and jettison the rest. Breathe in the truth. Breathe out the partial nature of it. Just as a good health program involves supplementing different practices, integral politics asks: why not also supplement different worldviews?

A Leading Voice Of Integral Politics

For many years, Jeff Salzman has been a leading voice of integral politics. Through his podcast, The Daily Evolver, Jeff has brought this integral vantage point to everything from Presidential politics to #metoo to movies to economics.

This week, Jeff joins me to describe the tribal, warrior, traditional, modern, and postmodern worldviews and the many ways they battle in today’s politics. We discuss political correctness on college campuses, Cold War anticommunism, why God is both everywhere and nowhere, how life is a heartbreaking catastrophe yet we go on, the post-war liberal consensus and how it shattered, what Jeff does when encountering politicians who trigger him, why psychopaths are people too, and how as a young adult Jeff got tired of sitting through yet another heterosexual love scene at the movies. Integral politics has something to say about all of this!

Integral Politics Stretches The Mind

This discussion of integral politics will stretch your mind, and it’s longer than our average episode, so you’ll get extended mind-stretching! (Note: the audio quality on my end in this interview is less than usual. I don’t know why.)

The Amiel Show is taking a six-week summer break, so you will have time to savor this conversation before I return with a new episode in September.

In other news, I turned 49 on Tuesday. I am dedicating my 50th year on the planet to sharing my interviews and ideas with more people. Way more people. I call it the Big Tribe project. You are a huge part of it, so here’s step one: if you are intrigued or inspired by what you hear, please share this interview with friends and encourage them to subscribe to the podcast.

I’m also offering a free copy of my E-Book, Leading When You’re Ticked Off And Other Tips For Mastering Complexity, in this blog post on my web site.

Highlights

  • 9:00 The discipline and faith of the traditional worldview. Jeff as church camper of the year.
  • 14:00 As humanity moves forward, there are more stages of development present
  • 21:00 There is a hierarchy of growth that is natural and beautiful
  • 26:30 Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrants
  • 31:00 We get sick to death of the stage we’re at
  • 38:00 Posmodernism and “Where the fuck am I” in this movie?
  • 46:00 In a good-versus-evil society, you’d be irresponsible to not annihilate your enemy
  • 1:04:00 When you have a stack of worldviews at war with each other
  • 1:10:00 It’s good we’re battling in comments sections, not with clubs and knives
  • 1:24:00 The power of Mr. Trump’s shameless grandiose ego

Listen to the Podcast

http://traffic.libsyn.com/amielhandelsman/TAS_109_Jeff_Salzman.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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Explore Additional Resources

  • The Daily Evolver podcast

 

Filed Under: Adult development, Emotions, Government, Podcast, Power and politics, Race and culture, Spiral Dynamics

Interview about my first book, Practice Greatness

Interview about my first book, Practice Greatness

by amiel · Jun 26, 2019

 

Five years ago, I published my first book, Practice Greatness: Escape Small Thinking, Listen Like A Master, And Lead With Your Best. Marissa Brassfield of Ridiculously Efficient (RE) interviewed me about it in writing. Our exchange provides a good summary of the book’s key ideas, which shape my work with clients. Many of you weren’t following me then, so I’m sharing the interview below. Enjoy!

Practicing Greatness = Realize Full Potential

RE: What steps can leaders take to realize their full potential?

The first and most important thing to realize is that you are not a generic leader, but instead a person with unique gifts and limitations in a situation with distinctive challenges and opportunities.  So don’t listen to generic leadership advice. This may sound obvious, but it’s a common trap many leaders fall into. And for good reason: in my estimation, 98 percent of the leadership advice out there is generic. For example, “act with boldness” is sound advice for some leaders but terrible advice for others. Ditto for “be generous with your time,” “collaborate more,” or “think before you act.” I’ve coached leaders who’ve been drawn to such advice only to find that it amplified a weakness or distracted them from more pivotal areas of improvement.

Second, expose yourself to a variety of challenging experiences and extract as much learning from these experiences as you can. It’s not about moving up the ladder or getting greater visibility as much as challenging yourself in new ways. For example, if you’ve done a turnaround, try a startup—or manage a team that has a track record of success. Each of these experiences teaches different lessons. If you’ve spent years managing people who report to you, try a role where you have to influence without authority. And then learn as much as you can as fast as you can. Ironically, we learn faster when we slow down to reflect and get feedback.

Third, get support from colleagues, mentors, or a coach. The greater the challenge you take on, the greater the support you need.

Fourth, realize that you have an Achilles Heel, find out what it is, and then heal it. I think of the Achilles Heel as the one big flaw or blind spot that, if ignored, can screw up your career or at least keep you from realizing your potential. It’s a set of habits wired into your brain and body that limits your repertoire of leadership behaviors. Fortunately, the latest neuroscience tells us that you can rewire these habits well into adulthood. My favorite approach to helping leaders understand their Achilles Heel (as well as much more, like the quality of their greatness) is called the Enneagram. It provides nine answers to the question, “What makes me tick?”

Fifth, identify one or two skills that are pivotal to realizing your potential. These could be strengths that you want to use in new ways or skills that you haven’t fully developed. In my book, I offer fifteen inner and outer practices of great leadership. I call them “practices” because the idea is to practice them over and over again just like you would practice swinging a bat or playing piano. Repetition matters.

Finally, find a reason for leading that ignites you. In my experience, one factor differentiates leaders who carry on the hard work of practicing leadership to completion from others who barely get out of the starting blocks: a sense of purpose beyond their own narrow self-interest. Getting a raise or promotion and making more money are great, but neither provides enough fuel to sustain the practice of great leadership. Now, discovering this purpose isn’t easy, and it often takes years if not decades. Here are some questions to ask: What do you want to be known for? What do you feel passionate about taking a stand on? What would you risk embarrassment or fear to bring into being? These are big questions, and for good reason. We’re not talking about getting slightly better. We’re talking about realizing your full potential!

The Four Steps In Deliberate Practice

RE: You mentioned that deliberate practice at work requires four steps — preparing, acting, reflecting, and getting feedback. What do each of these steps entail and how can leaders benefit from this type of practice?

Before I answer that question, let me state the obvious: practicing on the job is not a familiar concept for most of us. Unless we are professional athletes or musicians, practice is what we do when we’re not working. We practice playing tennis. We practice guitar. But practice our jobs? Hardly. When we’re working, we’re working, right? It’s just like that Tom Hanks line from the movie A League of Their Own: “There’s no crying in baseball!” That’s the basic assumption in organizations: there’s no practice in business!

Except that’s not quite true. In my field, leadership development, research tells us two things: first, excellent leaders learn best not through training or reading, but from on-the-job experience; and, second, the way that they learn is by having a chance to reflect on their experience and by getting continuous feedback from people who see them in action. In other words, they’re not just moving from one meeting or action to the next. Instead, they’re stopping, even for a moment, to look back. What’s another word for these things? Practice.

Let’s start with reflecting. This means quietly and non-judgmentally reviewing what just happened. “What went well? What could I do differently? What did I learn from this experience about myself, others, the market, and so on?” Reflecting is the deliberate act of capturing the lessons that your experience provides. All it requires is intention, somewhere to write or type, and a relatively quiet space. I encourage the leaders I coach to designate ten minutes every day to quietly reflect. It can be the most valuable ten minutes of their day.

Getting feedback also involves learning from what happened, but instead of asking yourself, you ask others. “Hey, Sally, I want to get some feedback from you about that meeting this morning with our sales team. How clearly did I communicate the rationale behind our strategy? What could I do next time to be clearer?” Boom—suddenly, you learn something you wouldn’t have if you hadn’t asked. This accelerates your learning and, over time, elevates your performance.

Now, notice that the feedback you requested was very specific. It wasn’t, “How did I do?” It focused on a specific behavior—clearly communicating the “why”—that you are trying to improve. Notice, also, that you didn’t wait a week to get feedback. You asked the same day, when the event was fresh in memory. Finally, consider the impact on Sally of asking for her feedback. She has gone from bystander to active participant in your leadership development. And odds are good that she appreciates being asked and now feels a greater stake in your success. So, in addition to helping you improve, getting feedback strengthens your relationships.

Acting is whatever you are doing—writing an email, attending a meeting, giving a talk, negotiating with a customer, mentoring a direct report. It’s what we typically think of as “work.” Acting is obviously essential to practicing on the job. However, unlike the other three steps, acting is what we do when we’re not practicing. In fact, most managers spend 99 percent of their time acting—and that’s it. They’re not practicing with the intent to improve. Their just doing. But what we’re talking about here is different: it’s acting that occurs in the midst of deliberate practice.

Finally, there is preparing. Chronologically, preparing is the first step in the on-the-job practice cycle. I mention it last because it seems to be the most rare in the organizations where I work and the least discussed in the leadership literature. It’s a bit of a dark horse—not well known, but very generous in its rewards. Now let’s talk about what preparing is. Whereas reflecting and getting feedback involve looking back, preparing involves looking forward. The day before an important conversation with your boss and peers, you ask yourself a few questions. “What do I want to get out of this meeting? What value can I contribute? How might I do that? What could get in the way? Who else will be there, and how can I communicate effectively with them?”

Such preparation provides multiple benefits. First, it gets you focused on what you want to accomplish. Rather than just going with the flow, you show up with outcomes in mind. Second, it allows you to strategize about how to accomplish these outcomes. You develop a game plan. Third, it invites you to consider what obstacles may get in the way—and how you will handle them. Finally, it wakes you up. Rather than just drifting through the day, you become an active participant in what happens. The more times you stop for a moment to prepare, the more awake you become.

Great Leadership = Arguing Well

RE: You also mention that great leadership requires the ability to argue. What would a successful argument look like from a leader’s point of view?

A successful argument involves four things. First, instead of debating who’s correct, you realize that everyone has a different assessment or take on the situation. This is because most things we argue about are not facts but different interpretations of what the facts mean. It’s just like temperature. Saying that it’s 75 degrees outside is a factual assertion. It’s either true or false. But saying that it’s warm is an assessment. There is no way to prove it. A lot of the arguments we have in organizations is about whether it’s warm outside. Except we think that this is a matter of facts, when really it’s a matter of different assessments.

Second, when you give your take on a situation, you describe it as “my take” or “my assessment.” This signals to others that you are not placing a claim on the truth, but merely giving your perspective. This leaves space for them to have their own take.

Third, you ground your assessment. “Here are the reasons why I assess this acquisition to be in our best interest.” Or “Let me tell you why I don’t think he would be a good hire for this position.” Grounding assessments is a powerful way of communicating. It also allows others to learn what’s behind your thinking. It’s a way of letting them into how you see the world. Conversely, ungrounded assessments are often worse than saying nothing at all. Other than the letters, “ASAP,” they are the most pernicious source of mediocrity and suffering.

Finally, a successful argument involves gently inviting others to ground their assessments so that you can see what’s behind their thinking. Sometimes, it has the added benefit of causing them to do more thinking! The key word here is “gentle.” This is not about interrogating others. It’s about saying, “Hey, I hear that your take is X. I imagine you’ve thought a lot about this. Can you help me understand what’s behind that assessment?”

Put these four pieces together and you have a successful argument.

Great Leadership = Practice And Self-Reflection

RE: How do other employees benefit when leaders spend more time practicing and less time on self-reflection?

I’m for more of both. Practicing and self-reflection are both enormously for beneficial to leaders and the employees they serve. Reflecting is one of the four steps of the on-the-job practice cycle. So if you’re practicing on the job, you are automatically reflecting.

More Tips On Practicing Greatness

RE: What other tips can you provide to leaders to foster a productive and engaging work environment?

First, make sure you are showing up to work every day with physical energy and the ability to focus. Get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Take breaks at least once every ninety minutes. Move your body. Eat in a way that you have sustained energy throughout the day instead of energy spikes and crashes. Hint: proteins, healthy fats, and vegetables will sustain your energy far better than soft drinks, sugary foods, and fast carbs (muffins, breads, and other foods that create blood sugar spikes and crashes).

Second, learn what triggers you emotionally and take on practices that allow you to respond calmly. A couple years ago, at a conference the CTO of Cisco was asked what benefits she got from meditating. She said that it helped her stay calm in very tense situations. Mindfulness isn’t the only practice for managing triggers, but it’s a darn effective one.

Third, look at Gallup’s research about employee engagement—it’s amazingly useful.

Finally, if you’re not great at developing people, hire or partner with someone who is. Ultimately, we are as good as the people we surrounded ourselves with.

 

Filed Under: Deliberate practice, Emotions, Engagement, Leadership development, Learning from experience, Nutrition, Physical energy, Relationships, Sleep

My Journey With Sustainable Business (Episode 107)

My Journey With Sustainable Business (Episode 107)

by amiel · Jun 5, 2019

This week, we turn the tables.

Chris Chittenden, senior ontological coach and past podcast guest, interviews me about my journey with sustainable business.

I found the experience liberating.

We discuss why I started a series on climate change, clean technology and sustainable business, the people and ideas who have influenced me, how I work with regret, and how I express these commitments in the life I was given.

I hope that this taste of my journey gives you insight and courage on your own journey.

If you get value from this, please share with friends.

Listen to the Podcast

http://traffic.libsyn.com/amielhandelsman/TAS_107_My_Journey_With_Sustainable_Business.mp3

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Filed Under: Adult development, Climate change, Complexity, Emotions, Enneagram, Podcast, Spiral Dynamics, Sustainability and clean tech

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