Tribes: Identity, Influence, & Change

I moved away from my home country and my family 17 years ago, a lifetime away. Having not one but two home countries is a privilege, especially when both places truly feel like home. Despite the passage of time, every time I visit my country of birth I feel instantly at home. It’s the family, the people, the language, the food and the smells. And on my last visit back home, I was lucky to experience a nostalgic visit back to a time and place that formed an important part of my life.

I decided to attend a high school reunion and take a trip down memory lane. I went to a relatively small all-girl high school (100 in the class.) Since I moved out of the country, I haven’t really kept in touch with any of my high school friends. But as soon as I walked in, it was as if I never left. We had a great turnout and had a lot of fun reminiscing about the good times. As the stories came out, I was amazed how easy it was to reconnect and chat like old friends. I realized how lucky I was to have the opportunity to see my friends again and catch up. With some, it actually felt like we’d just spoken a week ago, and all those years we hadn’t seen each other seemed to just fade away.

Many said that high school was the best time of their lives. I can’t say that for myself, but certainly these were good years of learning, growth, and great friendships. For me, it was never a conscious decision to not keep in touch. It’s just that with the best of intentions, I moved on and got busy with school, jobs, raising a family, and building a new life. While there are so many ways to keep in touch with faraway friends, staying in touch across the miles proved harder than building new friendships. But I still have a warm place in my heart for those friends who shared my formative years.

We have an innate need to belong to a family, a village and a tribe. Our identity often comes from belonging, first to our family of origin and then to our families of choice that provide social and emotional support, our tightly knit safety net against a world that can be a cold and lonely place. Self-chosen tribes are formed around shared experiences, interests and values. Tribe members are there for each other in celebrating milestones and successes as well as in offering support in tough times. We thrive as individuals and as a small tribe when we are surrounded by a close-knit group of people we love and trust, whether our DNA family or our like-minded family.

A high school reunion is one of those milestones that make you to take stock of where you are in your life, the people in your life, and what you’ve accomplished in the last couple of decades. Taking stock of my life, I started thinking about Seth Godin’s “Tribes.” How true it is that we operate in tribes, and that there are opportunities to have a positive impact at every turn. I believe the book has been referred to as a “must read” book to any leader. And we are all potential leaders. Godin doesn’t provide a leadership formula. But often it’s not about the information we get but rather about being inspired to think about an idea and then form our own approach. The book would push you to ponder the question of what makes one a leader. “Tribes” isn’t meant to provide any answers but rather to ask the question for us to explore and find our own answers. It inspires people to lead, rather than teach how to lead. It encourages everyone take a fresh look at the concept of leadership and create an individual leadership roadmap. To me, the book was a gentle reminder that leadership is about offering something unique to the world, bringing value to others; to the tribes we belong to and beyond.

Thinking about tribes I’ve remembered the following definition of a leader by John Quincy Adams:

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader”

Leadership is an attitude, not a position. It’s about having clarity about making a difference and affecting that change. Leadership is having an impact on others by being a caring positive influence. The job of a leader is to help others develop their full potential and see them succeed. We all have opportunities to exert positive influence over situations and to change things for the better in ways large and small, one good deed at a time. Leadership is all about behavior, being the “go-to-person” the glue that holds a tribe or an organization together. We are the sum of our experiences, and as leaders we use all that we have and everything that we have learned in our choice of words and actions as we pay it forward.

And I’ll end with the question we were asked at our high school graduation party: “what impact do you want to leave on the world?” Most of us have not yet made the big impact our idealistic 18-year-old self dreamed of making. But we’ve all made a difference in the communities where we live and work. And now that we are older and wiser, with the perspective of time, the lessons learned and the wisdom gained as we traveled our life paths, we are better equipped to make the changes in our life to continue to affect the change we want to see in the world.

Road Warriors and Everyday Heroes

Over the years, I’ve coached many clients struggling to maintain a healthy work-life balance, especially those traveling frequently for business. Most have reported the stress of long check-in lines, airport delays, separation from loved ones, and catch-up work following a business trip. However, it is not very often I get to coach the one left behind to keep the home fires burning, the significant other doing all the hard work associated with the everyday minutiae and no glory; a problem I am intimately familiar with. If you are in a relationship with someone traveling often enough to qualify for the 1K MileagePlus Premier® status, this may sound all too familiar.

It’s not that we begrudge our frequent fliers their “get out of jail free card” enjoying the kids-free time off. And for the most part, we don’t wish we could be traveling along with them (well, unless it’s a trip to Australia.) It’s just that absence really doesn’t make the heart grow fonder when you are left to hold down the fort. I am not aware of any studies on the effects of international travel on the “significant other,” but my personal experience is such that you don’t have to be on the road to be weary. Maintaining the family routines and doing the dirty work in the trenches until the traveling parent flies back to the nest can be physically and mentally exhausting. Add to the mix a weary road warrior and you get two not very happy campers.

Adjusting to the free flights and hotel rooms is easy. However, handling the challenges and stress of extensive travel and keeping the relationship long-lasting and healthy when you are often miles apart may require some work and mindful effort. The good news is that it is possible to have a great relationship even when sleeping miles apart and in different beds for many nights.

Here are some lessons from the road much traveled:

Communication is key for any relationship, but it is critical in a relationship that must stand the test of travel.

1.      Sharing is caring: email each other your itinerary for the time apart; any important places, activities, and dates – anything that’s important to know and remember. Save the dates into your calendars.
2.      Stay connected daily. Traveling partner, take the responsibility to call and check in every opportunity you get when you are in a quiet place (the hotel bar is NOT really a good choice.)
3.      When talking on the phone/FaceTime/Skype: debrief about what’s going on at home and at work but move on to focus on each other. Pretend you are on a romantic date and use the time to rekindle the romance in your relationship.
4.      "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil:” Be positive in your thoughts, words, and actions. Appreciate all that you have and have built together (could always be better but also much worse). Do not complain, but if your partner does, listen with empathy and kindness. Respond with words of love and appreciation. Acknowledge how hard it is for your loved one to be away/be home alone. Give generously and help willingly. No one ever wished for more housework. Always strive to do more. Develop the superpower to see only the best in each other.
5.      Get back into the swing of things: try and get back into the routine of things as soon as possible. Go back to doing all your favorite activities. It will help ease in and out of the home again/gone again transitions.

And never stop having fun. The kids will be leaving home soon (sooner than you think). Make sure you don’t take each other for granted and take advantage of every opportunity to have fun and enjoy each other’s company. If opportunities do not knock, create them if they don’t come.

More on how to keep your love alive and your relationship fresh:

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary D. Chapman

Taking the Front Back Seat

For someone who loves to be in charge of things, making purposeful choices and taking ownership of execution and delivery, it isn’t easy taking the back seat in life and on the river being the bow paddler. With a canoe, you want to be a back seat driver. You have more leverage in the stern than in bow. But because my husband has a few pounds on me, and when traveling forward the canoe usually performs best if the bow (front) is slightly lighter, I found myself canoeing down the Russian River taking the front (back) seat.

There’s a reason the canoe is called “a divorce boat.” Blame is assigned and tempers flare at the simplest of maneuvers. Just as the meeting of the moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and the dry air from Canada creates the perfect conditions for a tornado, having one person attempt to steer the canoe from the bow (front) while the other tries to steer from the stern, sets the stage for the perfect storm. Canoes flip and turn upside down very easily, even in calm lakes, if rowers do not paddle synchronously. It’s sync or sink.

I may have started the trip down the river a bit grouchy about being second mate, but I quickly realized that while you can’t steer a canoe from the bow, you get a better view of any imminent dangers. I was in charge of setting the pace and looking for obstacles. It took a while for me to stop being so strong headed and follow the instructions of “paddle two left” or “three little ones right.” But we got our groove down with me scouting out hidden rocks and logs in the water and calling them out so my husband could steer us around them as I powered us through. The tandem canoe tested our communication skills. While I led from the bow, I had to trust my husband to steer from the stern. We worked well together as a team, two synchronized rowing machines running with equal power, keeping out of trouble and staying dry. Communication and cooperation are vital to keep the canoe going straight. Sharing leadership got us to the finish line rowing in harmony and blissful happiness. We didn’t flip, and we made it home without any fighting (alright maybe a bit of arguing.) 

And this is a valuable lesson in business when trying to adapt to the rapid changes. Paddling in different directions will get you spinning round and round in circles going nowhere. To get team members rowing in the same direction:

1. Lead from the front charting new territory and identifying obstacles ahead of time while making sure you get the power from behind to stay clear of trouble.
2. Engage in behaviors appropriate to the new course. Kayaking strokes won’t get you far on a canoe.
3. Clearly define team members’ roles and responsibilities and the value each person brings to the table.
4. Communicate the new strategy but be sure to stay connected and communicate on the fly with any new information along the way.
5. Don’t blame others when things go wrong. You are a team. If something has not gone right, everyone has failed. Learn from it and keep rowing forward.
6. Row in someone else’s water shoes. Even if you have a preferred position, swap ends and get a feel for life at the other end of the boat and the challenges others have to deal with.
7. Show appreciation. I proved to be good at the powering whereas my husband is brilliant at steering. I am really impressed that he could so smoothly steer us between a fallen tree and submerged log.
8. Be positive. A few times we came to narrow and shallow areas. Rocks seemed to emerge threatening to damage the canoe. You will eventually hit a log or get stuck on a rock. Positive attitude will help you move forward faster and more constructively than if you become stuck on the rock in a negative attitude.
9. Different situations require different leadership styles at different times; sometimes we are in the stern, the bow, or in the middle providing the power to move forward. There are opportunities to lead in every role we take.
10. Look out for others. On the river, people with a wide range of paddling experience come together. Keep an eye out for those less experienced and go to their rescue when needed. Camaraderie keeps everyone moving in harmony.

And whether on the river, in life and at work, humor may not be the key to success, but it does make everything better.

Yelling at Work is Never Appropriate Unless the Office is On Fire

I was asked whether a manager can be sued for yelling at an employee (at the top of his lungs) in front of others. You know the answer, right? Well, it depends. Some of the most successful tech titans are famous for their business acumen as well as their legendary blowups and temper tantrums. Despite a few examples to the contrary, the command and control management style doesn’t work anymore. It is an outdated approach doomed to failure in fast-changing markets requiring collaboration and innovations. The professional bully and the yelling boss are on the road to extinction.

But some are slow to adapt to this new world in which leaders are expected to inspire and empower their people and to win the hearts and minds of those they work with. No one gets up in the morning with the intention to annoy or upset others. We are social beings and have an innate need to belong, to be accepted, to be liked, and to be respected. We strive to build and maintain a good professional reputation. But we are all human. In fast-paced work environments where the pressure is on and the stakes are high some people can handle the heat and remain calm and in control while others lose their cool in stressful moments. However, even though to “lose it” is human, it is not an excuse to constantly fly off the handle. Being rude and yelling at coworkers is a sure way to alienate people and make enemies. Yelling is the most effective way to end a conversation and ruin a relationship. To quote Ian Read, CEO of Pfizer: “you gain respect in drops but can lose it in gallons.” And once lost, it’s very hard to get trust, respect and loyalty back.

A few years ago, I worked with a client, a senior leader, who was referred to me following a 360 review feedback from his boss, direct reports and peers describing him as “too aggressive” and “out of control.” Initially, he tried to dismiss the issue claiming he was a loud talker. He admitted that on occasion he did raise his voice but only when he needed to make a point. In his opinion, people were just being overly sensitive about what he truly believed was a perfectly acceptable and a completely normal behavior. He didn’t accept that a raised voice, aka yelling, equaled aggression. In fact, to him it showed passion and caring. He proudly reported coming from a long line of self-proclaimed yellers. In his family, yelling meant love. He also explained that he came from a country where people fly into a rage at the slightest provocation. To be clear, acceptable behaviors in the country of origin may not be appropriate in a new country. Protections due to national origin apply to people who are treated unfavorably and are subject to a hostile work environment because they are from a particular country, not to those who try to use their country of origin’s code of conduct as a line of defense against a harassment claim.

I believe it’s worthwhile to elaborate on the concept of a “hostile work environment.” While unprofessional; yelling, screaming, ranting, and berating are not unlawful. Crossing the line into unlawful territory occurs when the behavior meets three criteria: 1. the person falls into one of the “protected categories” (the federal categories are race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, genetic information, veteran status, with additional categories varying by state.) 2. The behavior is extreme (reasonable person standard) affecting employment conditions and 3. The behavior is pervasive and persistent.

I am glad to report that despite the initial resistance, the client was able to make the behavioral changes to reduce the emotional outbursts and improve his relationships, which ultimately resulted in an improvement in his team’s overall performance and engagement scores.

So back to yelling….

If you are the aggressor:

Hopefully you haven’t crossed the legal line. Hostility is in the eye of the beholder. If you are perceived as rude and hostile, it is in your best interest to change. Make a conscious decision to stop yelling and a commitment to learn new skills to manage stress and frustration. Controlling your temper in the moment can be done in 4 simple steps: Stop, Breathe, Focus (thoughts to stay clam), Reframe (the conversation to offer a win-win solution.) While easy to follow, every new skill takes practice to master.

For additional information, I recommend “Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts” by Marshall Goldsmith.

The book is mostly about making lasting changes, and it doesn’t really offer new insights. However, change is not about what we know but rather about what we do. It can certainly re-focus attention to achieve positive outcomes.

If the hostility is directed at you:

If you believe you are bullied or harassed, you should report it to HR. Otherwise, evaluate your options. If things just got a little too heated, you may want to handle the situation yourself. If you feel that a co-worker or a boss crossed a line, and you cannot let it slide, request a private meeting with the person. Explain you feel the outburst was unwarranted and made you uncomfortable. Once you talk to the person and hopefully receive an apology, it’s best to let it go and move on.

For additional information, I recommend “How To Deal With Difficult People: Smart Tactics for Overcoming the Problem People in Your Life” by Gill Hasson.

Wishing you a peaceful weekend!

Suddenly You are a Brand

A client started our session today expressing great distress about a development plan conversation in which it was suggested he could “greatly” benefit from “Build Your Personal Leadership Brand” training. He asked how come he woke up in the morning to suddenly become a brand. Well, in all fairness, the concept has been around for quite some time. When we talk about building a personal brand, it’s about establishing a good professional reputation. Just as having a strong corporate brand works to build business and customer recognition, building a strong personal brand opens up professional opportunities in getting better jobs, getting on the “fast track” to advancement, and gaining greater influence.

Businesses create vision and mission statements. Creating a personal brand begins much the same way by creating a personal vision. Even if you haven’t consciously cultivated a personal brand, it exists nonetheless. It might be an interesting exercise to conduct your own 360 review asking friends, colleagues and former bosses how they would describe you and what qualities they associate with you. Creating a brand is mostly about clearly identifying what drives you, your strengths, and the qualities that make you unique. Try and create your own personal tagline, a short and clear message that defines who you are and what you do. This should be your LinkedIn headline. Once you create your brand, you can start taking action to deliver on your brand promise.

Our personal brand is the image we project to the world. The connections we form are based on that image. Forming connections is a two-way street; we need to be strategic about the opportunities we work to attract, and once our reputation precedes us, we start to attract the opportunities we seek.

There are 3 key elements to having a well-defined personal brand:

Defining Yourself

Self-definition starts by answering 3 timeless question “who am I?” This question encourages the next questions “what do I really want?” to be followed by the third in the set “what do I have to offer?” There are no wrong answers. It might be possible to build a brand around a “fake” self, but it is never sustainable in the long run. Our brand should be founded on authenticity. It should be about who we are, what our work-life purpose is, and what we bring to the table. As a starting point to develop your brand, you need to brainstorm a list of all the things you are good at; your areas of expertise or those you are interested in. Circle the items that you are most passionate about. If you’re having difficulty narrowing the list down, pretend you are packing for an important business trip. What must you have in your suitcase? Remember that the list should be re-visited periodically. Things are changing rapidly; we must stay current and relevant in our chosen field. Maintaining a personal brand entails lifelong learning. If you are not learning, you're not growing. If you are stagnating, you’ll be left behind.

Projecting Yourself

Self-projection is about answering the question “what do I want to be known for?” It’s about visibility and credibility. Once you define your best self, it’s time to highlight it for the world to see. We all have variations of ourselves. Creating our brand is choosing how we present ourselves positively in our interactions with others and online. Nowadays social media is the engine that drives our personal brand. Make sure your personal media profiles are consistently aligned with your brand. In the cyberspace, we are what we post. Many hiring managers review candidates’ social profiles before making a hiring decision. Be sure to have a presence and be a participant. If you are nowhere to be found, employers may question whether you have the required skills to keep current with the latest trends. It’s always interesting to see what pictures come up when doing a simple Google search. Be careful not to post anything you don’t want your current employer or potential employers seeing. But most important, you must make an ongoing effort to manage and maintain your brand and online presence. You never know when the next opportunity will present itself or from what source.

Extending Yourself

Self-extension is the key to growing your personal brand. It’s about being generous in keeping the balance of “give and take.” Networking should be an ongoing activity, not only when you are looking for a new job. Extending yourself to others is the process of building personal and professional connections on the basis of mutual benefits and as a strong pipeline with a steady flow of referrals for professional growth opportunities. But truly, the primary reason to connect is to learn. Engage with others in your field and anyone who can enhance your knowledge. Attend networking meetings. Join the conversation. Find a mentor. Networking requires the investment of time and energy to fully enjoy the benefits of a strong professional network.

Building a personal brand is like planting a garden. Your work is not done once you lay the groundwork and plant the seeds. It takes time and dedicated effort to grow and expand a garden and to prevent weed invasion. Creating and building your unique brand is an organic and ongoing process. And we are all a work in progress.

Mental Rest & Brain Breaks

In running any race: racing to the top of a mountain, racing to the top of the corporate ladder or when racing through the day managing a busy schedule, it’s a good strategy to try and find the rest stops along the way to be able to continue to run with perseverance and endurance. The good news is that such opportunities are easy to find and are available all around us. We just need to remind ourselves to pause and take intentional breaks to let ourselves recharge, re-energize and get re-inspired.

I’ve always struggled to embrace the idea of rest, or taking a break. Yes, I am that person who always has to be doing something being constantly busy and working on many different projects simultaneously. I do my best thinking and get my best ideas through movement and physical activity. My relaxation time is when I’m running, hiking, dancing, kayaking, stretching, or doing my hula hoop. But I get my mental rest and inspiration when I interact with other people. Inspiration comes to me in many forms: having a great conversation, reading a great book or an article, listening to a TED Talk, and scrolling through my LinkedIn and Facebook newsfeeds. Everyone has a story; some stories make me think, some will put a smile on my face, some will move me, and some will truly inspire me.  Stories about people overcoming adversity and doing extraordinary things leave me spiritually uplifted and strengthen my belief in human potential for creativity and greatness.

I just took a short break to watch a YouTube video about Jessica Cox, an inspirational woman who is doing extraordinary things achieving what seems to be the impossible. Jessica was born with no arms. She uses her feet to perform not only day-to-day tasks but also anything and everything from gymnastics and tap dancing to martial arts and flying planes. She is the first woman without arms to earn a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is the first licensed pilot with no arms. And she is doing it all with a big smile and a great sense of humor. There’s a great moment in the video when she is about to take a flying lesson wearing a T-shirt that says “Look ma, no hands.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd2JGzuAfl4

Break over! I am in awe and feeling inspired. With a positive attitude, creativity and determination even the sky has no limit. Taking a break from our work, even if to click through photos of singing dogs, is not procrastinating. We need breaks to boost our productivity. Like any other muscle, our brain tires from repeated strenuous mental activity. Breaks following focused concentration allow us to recharge and gain a fresh perspective on complex work problems. And it’s been scientifically proven:

https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/205427

OK, so now we know that even brief breaks improve our focus. Just like it’s necessary to take breaks from physical activity to recuperate and prevent injuries, taking breaks at work to rest and relax is equally important. Embracing the downtime to refresh, we’ll become more energized, engaged, and efficient. And there’s a simple technique to do it – The Pomodoro Technique. All you need is a timer. How to do it? Break your large projects into a series of tasks and your work day down into timed intervals (called “Pomodoros”) with scheduled short breaks in-between. The method calls for a concentrated work period of 25 minutes and then a 5-minute break. At the end of a “pomodoro” you mark your progress. After 4 “pomodoros,” which equal 100 minutes of work time and 15 minutes of break time, you earn a 20 minute break.

To learn more: http://pomodorotechnique.com/get-started/

It’s my experience that in a real-world office environment with calls, meetings, and constant interruptions, it may not be feasible to fully follow the method and time intervals. However, modifying and adapting the process to what works best in any given day, the technique trains our brains to focus and helps improve our concentration over time. To go back to the analogy of running, we need to learn how to work optimally in short sprints to be able to finish a challenging long-distance race.

Less is More

A client has sent me this link to Grant Blakeman’s 3-minute speech and asked for my thoughts about the concept of “negative spaces.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES_u5b1CAr4

Well, it just so happens that I am currently working on creating a logo to represent my growing business. Up until now, I took the DIY approach in creating my website and business cards, embracing the concept of “imperfect but good enough.” But growing is about knowing when it’s time for a change. A client who is a corporate and personal branding expert gave me a good talking to explaining why I need a great logo to represent my company (a website overhaul is next in line...). He went on to explain that a great design work takes into account the used (positive) and unused (negative) space. The negative, or white, space is often more critical than the design itself because it brings the design into focus. With any piece of design you must have a negative space. In his opinion, the more negative space, the better. It brings balance and symmetry to the design and draws people in. Less is more!

And this idea is so true when living in a world of choice overload. Most of us could probably use some negative space to gain clarity about what matters most to us and what we need in order to achieve a greater balance. Our minds run through endless loops of worry, fears, and wants, creating an “empty space” will allow us to take a break and quiet the mind to gain perspective and focus. It’s about creating the “me” time to ponder the meaning of our life whether by running, hiking, reading, gardening, or any  pastime activities we enjoy doing to reflect on who we are, what we want, and where we’d like to go next. It reminds me of the story about the businessman and the fisherman. This story is often told in “finding a purpose” –type workshops. I will go with the version told by the most passionate speaker claiming it originated in Brazil.

A successful businessman on vacation is sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village observing a fisherman unloading his boat. Since it is still early in the day, the businessman asks the fisherman why he doesn’t stay longer at sea to catch more fish. Confused by the question, the fisherman replies that he has enough fish to feed his family. Intrigued, the businessman asks what the fisherman is planning to do for the rest of the day. The fisherman responds saying that his daily routine is to wake up early every morning to go out to sea to catch a few fish, to spend the day with his family and to get together with his friends in the evenings to drink, play music and dance throughout the night. Now it is the businessman who gets confused feeling compelled to offer the fisherman advice on how to become more successful. He instructs the fisherman that he needs to spend more time at sea to catch more fish to then buy more boats until he has a fleet of boats, at which point he’d need to move to Sao Paulo to manage the growing business. Puzzled, the fisherman asks what would happen then. The businessman gets really excited explaining that if the fisherman works really hard for about 10-15 years he’d be able to either sell the company or go public. And then he would be very rich. “And then what?” The fisherman asks tentatively. The businessman answers triumphantly: “then you can go fishing in the morning, spend the day with your family, and party with your friends all night long.”

When we fail to incorporate negative space into our complex lives, we may end up losing sight of what’s really important and why we do the things we do, our purpose. We need to make sure we never get too busy making a living that we forget to make a life. But getting the balance right is tricky. There’s no formula to help us simplify our life and make things easier. Simplicity has a different meaning and a different value for every person, and it changes at different times in our life. At the core, it means spending most of our time doing what is important to us and learning to eliminate the non-essentials.

For me, this is the year of simplifying my life by taking the leap to start my own business. I had to let go of my anxieties and fears about money and learn to create the negative space in my life to bring to focus all that I have to offer. It’s still a work in progress….

But to keep with the theme of “less is more,” here’s the short list of how to simplify your life in just 2 steps:

• Identify what’s most important to you
• Eliminate everything else