Tag:

Balance

Coronavirus and Deep Work

by Ron Potter March 26, 2020

I know, I know, enough of the Coronavirus already. We’ve been self-isolated and at this point have no idea what to believe is true and what is hype. What I do know is the interesting journey I’ve been on in relation to Deep Work.

Deep Work

The COVID-19 virus may be offering the opportunity that you’ve been looking for to stand-out in a crowded world. In his book Deep Work by Cal Newton he makes some great points about Deep Work and the lack of it.

One of the things that Cal says is:

To remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”

“A McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.

This state of fragmented attention cannot accommodate deep work, which requires long periods of uninterrupted thinking. At the same time, however, modern knowledge workers are not loafing. In fact, they report that they are as busy as ever. What explains the discrepancy? A lot can be explained by another type of effort, which provides a counterpart to the idea of deep work:
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”

How not to be replaced by a computer

The “easy to replicate” emphasis is my note. Why did I highlight that particular statement? Because when something is easy to replicate it means that a person who makes less wages can easily to the same work. More importantly, a computer can be taught to do easily replicable work. Your job is in danger of becoming computerized if you don’t shift from shallow work to deep work!

How do you counter this danger of being replaced by either cheaper labor or a computer? You learn, practice, and become good at and known for your deep work and deep thinking.

Cultivate Deep Work (Thinking)

You can pick up almost any article, magazine, podcast or post that will tell you how to survive working from home. These sources talk about

Get started early (don’t let your day get away from you before it starts)
Act like you’re going to the office (wrong, take advantage of doing things differently)
Have a dedicated workspace (good idea, but focus on making it a non-interruptable workspace)
Go to coffee shops, libraries, public lounges (may not be a bad idea but discipline must tag along as well. You can’t go to a coffee shop just so you can enjoy your favorite drink) And during the pandemic, many of these public places are not even available to us.
Stay off the public media! (Great suggestion.) Regardless of where you’re working from, stay off public media.

What you really need is the discipline and focus for deep work.

Living a life of Deep Work and Thought

As Cal Newton closes his book he says

Deep work is way more powerful than most people understand. To leave the distracted masses to join the focused few, I’m arguing, is a transformative experience.
The deep life requires hard work and drastic changes to your habits. For many, there’s a comfort in the artificial busyness of rapid e-mail messaging and social media posturing, while the deep life demands that you leave much of that behind.”

Take advantage of the opportunity being offered

We’re all looking for a silver lining to the isolation caused by our current pandemic. Take advantage of the forced isolation to become a deep worker and deep thinker. It will pay rewards that you can’t even think of at the moment.

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Culture – The Other Two of the Four Halves

by Ron Potter January 30, 2020

In the last post, I discussed balancing the right side vs the left side of the Culture Survey, Stability vs Flexibility. This week we’ll look at the top vs the bottom, External Focus vs Internal Focus. You can see from the chart that the top half (External Focus) is driven by the Vision and Adaptability quadrants.

External Focus

Again, for very natural reasons, I often see more focus on the external than I do the internal. For one, it’s easier to speak with external suppliers, press, buyers than it is to face the internal issues of making sure everyone is involved and engaged, living by accepted core values and reaching agreement and alignment across an organization run by many “type A” leaders.

One of my interesting observations through the years has been to see the CEO and COO work together as a team. One of them often functions as “Mr. Inside” while the other one functions in the role of “Miss Outside.” Don’t make the mistake of assuming the CEO functions outside while the COO functions inside. The best transitions I’ve observed during a CEO retirement is when the COO takes over but still functions as the inside force. The new COO is good at the outside connection. This creates the smoothest transfer and keeps the company headed toward the future they’ve been preparing for. Failure seems to happen when the board assumes that because the retiring CEO was a great visionary, they must hire a new CEO that’s also a visionary. However, the new vision is often very different from the existing vision and the company has not prepared itself to move forward at the necessary speed. A rotation that keeps the current vision in place and moving along at the right speed seems to work the best.

Internal Focus

Too often there is not enough effort to keep the people involved and consistency maintained to keep the company moving in the right direction at the necessary speed. Never stop empowering the people, building teams and developing the strength and skills necessary to move into the future. Involvement is critical to future success.

Consistency is tough to build but easy to lose. If you:

Allow Core Values to be violated without consequences,
Don’t require a commitment to decisions that impact the entire company or
Allow departments and divisions to make decisions that help them but ignore the other teams

you’ll quickly lose consistency and the required, strength, resiliency and unity that is needed to create a great company in difficult times.

Balance, Balance, Balance

Great cultures required balance. At any point in time, your company may require special strength and commitment to a particular part of the Culture Chart in order to deal with special market situations. But even in that case, don’t let your chart get too far out of balance. Balance, Balance, Balance. It’s a requirement.

3rd Quartile

Regardless of the situation, you must have good culture scores in every element of the chart. I would suggest that if you score in a range below the 50th percentile in any element, you work there first to correct the situation before moving on to the culture as a whole. There may be particular strengths required for different market conditions (see next week’s blog about particular market conditions) but I believe that every element of the twelve should be in the 3rd quartile first before moving on to work on a particular situation.

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Balance on the High Wire Blog Culture

Balance on the High Wire – Part IV: Human Needs

by Ron Potter March 15, 2018

The world is becoming a very fast paced environment. With each step of increased travel velocity, the world has become more interconnected than ever. With the advent of the internet and pipeline speed that velocity has become almost infinite in nature. It seems like a Niagara amount of information, data and connectivity are swirling around us every moment of every day. With each passing day, it becomes more difficult for us to maintain our balance. Without balance, bad things happen.

Over the last few of blog posts, I’ve introduced that Balance is the key ingredient of great decision-making, health, and happiness (human needs). Today let’s explore Human Needs.

A couple of years ago I wrote a short post on human needs described by Tony Robbins. I’m sure Tony didn’t invent these needs, they have been known and observed through human history as being part of who we are as humans. But, Tony has done a nice job of observing and describing the drives behind each.

The six (in my words) are:

Certainty—Uncertainty
Belonging—Standing out
Learning—Teaching

Certainty-Uncertainty

I’ve watched corporate leaders attempt to boil down the big-data they need so that it fits on their laptop or tablet. They are searching for certainty and assume that if they have all the data at their fingertips they’ll always make the right decision. If that’s true, why do we need the human element at all? Just let the big-data make the decision. Leadership is dealing with the ambiguity of the situation and making the decision despite the fact you don’t have all the data. Decisions are about the future. The future is difficult (impossible) to know. Life is full of ambiguity and people in general and good leaders are better at dealing with ambiguity than computers.
Leadership is about not being certain about the future but also not being afraid. Balance.

Belonging-Standing Out

This one is difficult to balance. I believe it takes a trusting team to accomplish. A great team encourages unique abilities, encourages them and helps develop But the goal is to serve the team, not the individual.
Individuals have a difficult time accomplishing just the right balance without trusting feedback. One of our great American philosophers, George Carlin once said: Everyone driving faster than you are idiots. Everyone driving slower than you are Morons. Which means you are one or the other to all others on the road. Balance.

Learning – Teaching

When both learning and teaching are taking place, both experiences are better. One of my clients explained to me that I provided the greatest value to them when I was teaching them about what I was learning. My energy and enthusiasm came through when I shared with them the insights of what I was learning through my reading and experiences. Balance

I started my career walking steel up to 200 feet in the air. No safety equipment. Just you, the breeze and balance. Up there, balance was life and death. Balance, Balance, Balance!

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Balance on the High Wire Blog Culture

Balance on the High Wire – Part III: Stress and Health

by Ron Potter March 8, 2018

Over the last couple of blog posts (Balancing Act and High Wire), I’ve introduced that Balance is the key ingredient of great decision-making, health, and happiness (human needs). Today let’s explore Stress and Health.

Stress

The biggest issue in dealing with stress is founded in the ancient Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to ACCEPT the things I cannot change,
the COURAGE to change the things I can,
and the WISDOM to know the difference.

It’s the wisdom to know the difference that contains the real power of the Serenity Prayer. In their book “Performing under Pressure – The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most” Hendrie Weisinger, J. P. Pawliw-Fry do a great job of helping us distinguish between pressure and stress. (See the TLC Short Book Reviews)

Stress refers to the situation of too many demands and not enough resources to meet them: Time, money, energy, etc. In a stressful situation, reduction is the goal.

Pressure is when you perceive that something at stake is dependent on the outcome of your performance and there are good and bad consequences. In a pressure moment, success is the goal.

It’s when we don’t balance these two and assume that everything is stressful that we begin to fail in performance and health. Knowing the difference between stress and pressure (wisdom) has a tremendous impact on our health.

Work-Life Balance

I’m going to toss this topic into the Stress category because I see them as interconnected in our work lives. Because of the stress, or by turning even pressure situations into stressful ones, it seems we begin to lose our work-life balance.

Nigel Marsh, author of several books on developing a good work-life balance says “Work-Life Balance is easy when you have no work!” Nigel says it’s too simplistic and destructive to think that it’s simply work vs life. Life is made up of many aspects:

Career
Family/Friends
Significant Other/Romance
Fun & Recreation
Health
Money
Personal Growth
Physical Environment

It’s when we make the small investments in the right places at the right time that our life feels balanced. Allowing our lives to get out of balance and sacrificing one or more of these areas leads to poor health and a shortening of life.

Balance, Balance, Balance.

Health

Microsleep is defined as a period of mere seconds when

Eyelids will partially or fully close
The brain becomes oblivious to all channels of perception including visual
There is no awareness of any event that occurs during a microsleep

The main victim of microsleeps is concentration. It’s impossible to concentrate when your brain is using microsleeps to recover from sleep deprivation. How much deprivation causes these microsleeps?

One night of missed sleep (pulling an all-nighter) causes a 400% increase in microsleeps.
Four hours sleep per night for six nights causes the same 400% increase in microsleeps. Eleven nights of 4-hour sleep is equivalent to two back-to-back all-nighters.
Ten days of six hours sleep per night is also equivalent to an all-nighter.

Eight hours of sleep per night provides nearly perfect levels of concentration with no microsleeps.

Being awake for 19 straight hours (5 am to midnight) produces the same impairment as being legally drunk.

Long hours of “dedicated” work seems to have gained a level of admiration in corporate circles. It shouldn’t. Longer hours of impaired work and concentration is dangerous for the company and dangerous for the individual. Let alone the shortcomings that are created with the work-life balance issues listed above. Stop doing it. Stop encouraging it. It’s healthier too:

Balance, Balance, Balance.

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Balance on the High Wire Blog Culture

Balance on the High Wire – Part II: Decision Making

by Ron Potter February 15, 2018

Over the last couple of blogs (Check out Balancing Act and High Wire), I’ve noted that Balance is the key ingredient of great decision-making, health, and happiness (human needs). Today let’s explore decision-making.

Myers-Briggs teaches us that human decision-making is a two-stage process of taking in information (Perceiving) and then making our decisions based on that perception. It has been my experience through 25+ years of team building and leadership development that we must keep those processes in balance.

My data is rather old (meaning more than a day at this point) but the last I remember seeing is that we create over 50,000 GB of data per second. I’ll let you look up what the size of that number really means.

The human mind can’t come anywhere near absorbing that much data (or even a fraction) every day to use in our decision-making processes. So, the mind needs to use shortcuts, models, and tricks to help us survive and make everyday decisions in our daily lives. Each of us uses a different method of taking in data related to a decision that we’re making. The two key areas that Myers-Briggs describes are:

Sensing
- Facts
- Details
- Data
- What do we know in the present?
- What have we done so far?
- What are the next steps?
Intuition
- Bigger picture
- Future
- Implications
- Where are we trying to go in the future?
- What will the possibilities be?
- What is the ultimate goal?

As you look at the written list you would likely agree that we need all that information in order to make a good, well-informed decision. The problem is that in our every day lives, our brain tends to focus on and give greater priority to either Sensing or Intuition. It takes a team and a good process to maintain a healthy balance. Without balance you’ll tend to be either too short-term or long-term focused. If this function isn’t balanced it can cause the business to fail.

Once the perceiving function is completed (and hopefully balanced) our “deciding” function kicks-in. Myers-Briggs identifies these as our Thinking and Feeling functions. A better way to think of these is logic and values. All too often in the business world, “feelings” are discounted as being too emotional. Decisions should be made on logic. But values are important to every organization. When values are violated, the culture begins to crumble, and the organization loses a sense of being. Logic and value must be balanced.

Just like on the high wire, goals cannot be met, and trust cannot be build when we lose our balance.

Balance, Balance, Balance.

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Blog Culture

Balancing Act

by Ron Potter February 8, 2018

My first job right out of college was working on large engineering projects. When I showed up for my first day of work I was given my assignment… my excitement quickly faded. The project I was working on was in the early stages of construction. The concrete foundation was complete and the majority of the structural steel was in place. My assignment? Make sure the structural frame was straight and plumb and then mark every column at every level so that the coming equipment could be placed properly and would align with all the other equipment to be installed in the plant. Oh, did I mention that the structural steel rose over 200 feet in the air. That’s roughly the height of a 20-story building.

Off I went, riding the construction elevator to the top of the building to begin the several week’s process of working my way down through the building marking columns as I went. Each floor was nothing more than structural steel beams, 6 to 10 inches wide depending on their location and generally 20 feet apart. Nothing else. No floors. No walls. Nothing. Just open air, empty skies, and 200 feet straight down. This was also the days before safety equipment. No nets. Not belts. No safety harnesses.

Focused on a goal

I slowly developed a technique that allowed me to walk across that 20-foot span from one column to the next, step by step on my 6” wide structural beam “sidewalk.” I would stand with my back tightly pressed against a column as I studied the column that was my goal. I would search and search my goal until I could find a visible flaw or mark in the steel where I could lock my eyes. Looking down was death. Once I spotted my goal I would begin to slow my breathing and my heart rate so that I could maintain my focus on that distant spot. When everything seemed to be under control, step one. Followed by step two, three and however many steps it took until I reached that far goal. Never looking down, just staying focused as I moved forward.

After my first couple of days, I thought I had learned a valuable lesson. Picture your goal, stay focused and move forward. But that was just the beginning.

Up in that structural steel with this rookie engineer were veteran and seasoned ironworkers. They would run around up there like they really were on sidewalks. And they were often bored while waiting for the next structural member to be lifted to them by the nearby crane. Bored people look for entertainment. I was entertainment!

Noticing that I had gained a little bit of confidence in my approach to walking steel, they decided to shake up my world a bit. One day as I had completed my routine and was about a third of the way across the beam, an ironworker slid down the column I had targeted and began walking toward me. Now I stood about halfway across the beam, facing a smiling, unshaven, cigar-chomping ironworker with my target column nowhere in sight.

Before going up in the steel I had been taught how to pass someone in these circumstances but certainly never thought I would be using the teaching. The technique required us to get toe-to-toe on the beam, lock each other’s wrists, lean back until our weights were perfectly balanced and then begin a slow swivel keeping our toes on the beam until we were now on opposite sides. In the middle of that process, each of our bodies is suspended over nothingness, 200 feet in the air.

Once we completed our maneuver, the ironworker bid me a good day and walked off laughing in the other direction. I was left with racing breath, heartbeat and a need to find a new focal point so I could make it back to the column. The wrong column because I was now facing in the opposite direction.

Trust your teammates

After I gained some confidence in the maneuver, I thought I had learned the real lesson, trust your teammate. If at any time during that maneuver either one of us had lost trust in the other and tried to take control, the result would have been death for both of us. It amazes me even more now that the ironworker put his life in my hands!

Balance

After all these years I think the real lesson is balance. It doesn’t stand alone: you must be focused on a goal and without trust, you’ll always fall short but my real goal in those situations was to maintain balance. I’m going to start a series on balance and how important it is in many aspects of teams, leadership and culture but I wanted to share my personal journey with you first.

Balance, Balance, Balance.

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Balance on the High Wire Blog Culture

Balance on the High Wire – Part I: Introduction

by Ron Potter January 25, 2018

In 1974 Phillppe Petit walked a tight rope between the World Trade Center buildings (the ones that came down during the terrorist attack). They were nearly 1,800 feet in the air.

In 2012, Nik Welenda walked a tight rope across Niagara Falls. While Nik’s wire was only about 180 feet in the air, that one seemed more difficult to me. Why, because beneath him the Niagara River was rushing over the falls. Everything was moving. This is not to diminish what Petit did. Both would be terrifying. But it just seems more difficult to me to maintain your balance when everything around you is moving.

I’ve walked structural steel. I’ve also walked over the catwalk of a dam with rushing water under me. Both were terrifying, but it was harder to maintain my balance over the moving water.

In my story about walking structural steel I progressed through three lessons from the experience:

Figure out your goal and stay focused
Reaching your goal requires trust
Balance, Balance, Balance. Without balance you will neither reach your goal or build trust.

The world is becoming a very fast paced environment. With each step of increased travel velocity, the world had become more interconnected. With the advent of the internet and pipeline speed that velocity has become almost infinite in nature. It seems like a Niagara amount of information, data and connectivity is swirling around us every moment of every day. With each passing day it becomes more difficult for us to maintain our balance. Without balance bad things happen.

Over the next few blog posts I’m going to talk about balance with a focus on three key areas:

Decision Making
Stress and Health
Human Needs

It seems that we are all living on the “High Wire” of life these days.

How do we maintain our balance?
Why is it necessary to maintain our balance?
What happens when we lose our balance?

Balance, Balance, Balance.

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Blog Leadership

Do Executives have Over Developed Executive Brains?

by Ron Potter November 9, 2017

Probably yes, but that’s likely to be a problem if there isn’t balance.

Some brain scientist will speak of the five brains:

Reptilian – Identifying and responding to threats
Limbic – Emotions, relationships
Neocortex – Makes meaning out of experiences and memories
Heart – Understands how we’re reacting physically and chemically to interaction
Executive – Translates information into decisions and future direction

Our modern world seems to celebrate and elevate Executive brain function. Big Data and computer analysis give modern executives more instant information than any leaders in history. CEO’s are hired and fired based on their decision making and vision reputations.

But, every time I’ve been hired to help grow and develop executive teams, only a small portion of the issue is related to the executive function of the brain. Most of my work is spent with emotions, relationships, experiences (and the memory of those experiences) and interactions. Relationships. Trust!

You must be competent at your job to be trustworthy. Steven Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) talked of Trustworthiness requiring both character and competence. Competence tends to be correlated with the brains Executive function. Character and style, how you relate to people are much more complex and the results of the four other brains working well.

One of the great transitions points in career development is moving from manager to leader. Your worth and value to the company are often measured by your competence and Executive brain function right up to and through being a manager. But, when you first step into that leadership role, the style: relationship, motivation, collaboration suddenly become much more valuable.

Leaders maintain the competency. But at the leadership level, that’s simply the price of admission. If you’re not competent you’ll be exposed soon enough. But the best leaders start early at understanding and developing the first four brains so that when they have that opportunity to become leaders, they perform well. In fact, those people who are often identified as “high potential” are the ones with balanced brain functions.

Yes, executives have highly developed executive brains. But that’s only one fifth of the issue. They also have four other brains working well.

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Blog Leadership

Worn Out Leaders

by Ron Potter July 20, 2017

This was a high-powered team successfully leading a highly valued company. But you’d never know it by their faces. I could see the rings around the blood-shot eyes, hair turning prematurely gray, gray ashen color in their faces. Yet here I was, a smile on my face, full of energy, ready to help them become better leaders. When I looked at those faces I knew this day wasn’t going to turn out well but I didn’t know what else to do. So off I went, talking about leadership models.

Even though they were game to learn, it didn’t take long before one of them said, “Ron, we can’t focus on your leadership model until you can save our lives. We’re spending so many hours working we’re ruining our lives, our families, and our health. Help!

All those wonderful PowerPoint slides I had prepared for this retreat now looked useless and meaningless. This team needed help far beyond what I had prepared for. We needed to talk.

The projector was turned off, the laptop was closed, the phones shut down. What was going on? One person began to talk. He spoke of the excitement, motivation, and dedication he had for the company and its purpose. Others nodded in agreement. But…. he had missed several of his children’s events, hadn’t had an evening meal at home with his family in weeks, didn’t remember the last Saturday he took off or when he had taken his last vacation. He was dying.

I listened to several other stories that were each different but were all the same. They had to get off this treadmill. They were destroying the lives their work and accomplishments were meant to enhance. What could we do?

I remembered Steven Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Habit three was “Put first things first.” Figure out where your time is going and plot it on the 2X2 grid of Urgent and Important. The four quadrants then become:

Important and Urgent
Important and not-Urgent
Not Important but Urgent
Not Important and Not Urgent

His observation was that all successful people did indeed work on Quadrant 1, Important and Urgent, but the highly successful people then worked on Quadrant 2 rather than being lured into Quadrant 3, Not Important but Urgent.

Over the next few weeks I had this team record where all their time was being spent (they were averaging over 70 hours per week). After helping each other identify which Quadrant their time had fallen into, the horrible truth was that only about 20% fell into Quadrant 1 and about 80% fell into Quadrant 3. One leader, nearly in tears, said: “Did I spend nearly 60 hours last week working on unimportant items?” Yes.

How do good people fall into this trap?

I recently saw the Covey Time Management Quadrants identified as the Eisenhower Box. Covey may have also credited Eisenhower but the Eisenhower Box added an important element. What should be done with each Quadrant?

Important and Urgent – DO, Do it Now
Important and not-Urgent – DECIDE, Schedule it
Not Important but Urgent – DELEGATE, Pass it on
Not Important and Not Urgent – DELETE, Eliminate it

I think the reason most people get into this overworked state is they treat Quadrant 3 (Delegate) like it’s Quadrant 1 (Do it). Instead of delegating it, their ego gets in the way. It’s faster to do it themselves than teach someone else to do it (or some similar excuse). They don’t trust others to do it as well (usually called perfectionism). And the excuses go on and on.

Get out of Quadrant 3 (Urgent but Not Important). It’s killing you. It’s killing your family. It’s killing your relationships. It’s killing your company.

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Blog Myers-Briggs Myers-Briggs Under Pressure

Myers-Briggs Under Pressure: How MBTI Works

by Ron Potter June 12, 2017

How did we get to this point where one’s behavior looks like being a jerk to another person when we’re all trying to do our best?

(If you didn’t start with the introduction to the “Myers-Briggs Under Pressure” series, I suggest you make a quick review because it will help you better understand these subsequent blog posts.)

Order of Use

The two middle functions of Myers-Briggs (Sensing, iNtuition, Thinking and Feeling) are considered the decision making functions and each temperament type uses them in a different order.

Dominant Function

For instance, my temperament type of ENTJ (Extraverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging) starts with the Thinking function being dominant. This means that I’m at my most natural using my Thinking function and will turn to it the most often when making a decision. Because it is my dominant function, I must have it satisfied if I’m to make a decision or support a decision.

Auxiliary or Supporting Function

Once my dominant function is satisfied (is it logical?) I will than turn to my auxiliary function to add balance and support to my dominant function. For my ENTJ preference, iNtuition will be my balancing function. So, once the decision seems to be logical or can be defended from a logical stand-point, my next question will be “Does it support or align with my conceptual view of the world of how things should be. This is my iNtuitive side.

Balance

First, notice that I have used my middle two functions of my Myers-Briggs type ENTJ. These are my dominant and auxiliary functions and must be satisfied for me to make and be comfortable with a decision. When I’m in balance and doing my best to solve problems and be in alignment with team decisions, I’m relying on these top two functions to be working in harmony.

Tertiary and Inferior Functions

The order of my last two functions, Sensing and Feeling happen with the Tertiary function (Sensing for the ENTJ) being 3^rd and Feeling being the last function in my decision making process. These two functions (notice they are not visible in my Type Indicator of ENTJ) will be used positively for getting outside the box of my normal thinking but will also show up when I finally “break” under the pressure and do or say something that I will likely regret later.

The role of Pressure and Stress

Under normal or healthy conditions, we all tend to function well in our dominant and auxiliary space. Our dominant function takes the lead but is open to and listens to our auxiliary functions for balance. We will likely pay attention to our 3^rd and 4^th function (Sensing and Feeling for the ENTJ) just to make sure we’re covering all the bases but they’ll tend to confirm decisions already made buy our first two functions. It’s important to note that I’ve always observed that the best of leaders seem to cycle through all four functions with equal emphasis so that the outside observer would have a difficult time determining which of the four functions is actually their dominant function. Balance, balance, balance.

But, under pressure or stress interesting things begin to happen. We immediately lose our ability to deal with our 3^rd and 4^th functions in a healthy, balanced way and in fact, we begin to lose our ability to balance our dominant function with our auxiliary function. We become stuck in our dominant function!

In fact, this is what begins to make us look like a jerk under pressure. Our normal balance begins to recede and we find ourselves working from our single dominant function which can get harsh and unyielding in many ways. In fact, if the pressure finally gets to the breaking point, we actually revert back to our inferior function. And unless we’ve worked at improving our behavior under pressure, we’re just not very good at expressing or dealing with our inferior function. That’s when we look and behave like a jerk!

We’ll begin to explore some of these issues in coming posts as we look at various types and how they might look like a jerk.

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Blog Culture

Can you Ignore the Obvious?

by Ron Potter June 8, 2017

A 19^th-century Russian author challenged his brother “Don’t think about a polar bear right now.” Our modern version might be:

Don’t think about:

That email right now
Your next meeting right now
The project that’s due on Monday right now
Any other obvious thing that occupies your mind right now

The point is, it’s very difficult to clear our mind of the many present and urgent things so that we can get into deep thinking and deep work. Interruptions, mental and otherwise get in the way.

I’ve written a few blog posts about the technology and “always connected” habits that we’ve gotten into that deplete our ability to think deeply about important issues. But, even if we eliminate the technology of the day (our Russian lived over 100 years before an internet browser existed) we still have difficulty avoiding the distractions of the moment.

I’ve been working at understanding my own distractions and how I can avoid them long enough to do some deep thinking. One model that comes to mind is the Kubler-Ross stages of grief.

I’ve used these stages as a model for dealing with difficult feedback. Maybe they can help us with distractions as well.

Stage 1: Denial

I can handle this.
It will only take a minute.
It doesn’t really distract me.
I can get back to my thoughts immediately.

The first stage is to get real about the impact of the distraction. Study after study tells us that if we divert our mind to another topic, it takes a great deal of time to get reoriented and back on track. Don’t kid yourself. Distractions are costly.

Stage 2: Emotion

With the Kubler-Ross model, we’re usually thinking about anger. But it’s not just anger, it’s any emotion. I think the distracting emotion here is elation.

It will be fun to just check Facebook for a minute.
I just want to see what last night’s scores were.
Connecting with my friend cheers me up.

Caving into your emotions is costly.

Stage 3: Bargaining

It’s only a few seconds.
This won’t take long.
I need the fix to keep my energy up.

You can bargain all you want but it’s still a distraction. Even the time it takes to bargain is costly.

Stage 4: Depression

What’s the point, I’ll never get good at this anyway.
What makes me think I could generate a good result simply by avoiding distractions.
I’m just not that good.

Avoiding time for deep thought for any reason is costly. Convincing yourself that you’re not good enough even if you give yourself the time becomes self-fulfilling.

Stage 5: Acceptance

I can get better at this.
I may stumble to start with but I’ll get better over time.
Each time I avoid the distractions helps me get better at doing it again next time.

Believing that you can do this and accomplish it in small steps is rewarding and avoids the cost.

Stage 6: Action

Once you get into the habit of avoiding the distractions you’ll be amazed at the productivity and joy it provides.

Kubler-Ross tells us that we go through all of these stages when it comes to grief. It’s just that each person goes through them at a different pace.

You’ll never avoid them but if you get good at speeding through them you get better. Just to make myself clear, speeding through them doesn’t mean caving into the distractions quicker. It means to get beyond the temptation of each stage quicker.

God speed.

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Blog Culture

Are you an Addict?

by Ron Potter May 18, 2017

From Wikipedia:

“Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.”

The two properties that characterize all addictive stimuli:

reinforcing (repeated exposure) and
intrinsically rewarding (it feels good)

Habits and patterns associated with addiction are typically characterized by:

immediate gratification (short-term reward), coupled with
delayed deleterious effects (long-term costs).

Addictions that come to mind:

alcohol
accountability
cocaine
dedication
nicotine
productivity
food
gambling
sex

Whoa! Back up the truck! Did I include accountability, dedication, and productivity in that list of addictions? Those are the positive terms we use in the business world. But they can become as addictive as the traditional addiction list.

One of the more profound concepts hitting the top of reading lists today is Deep Work. Isolating the time needed to be productive. The reason that it’s receiving attention is that we have so little opportunity to experience it. But, those who do carve out the deep work time are beginning to get labeled as superstars.

What’s preventing us from getting into deep work? Back to the definition of Addiction at the top:

A brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences. Compulsive: irresistible interesting or exciting; compelling.

Can’t get through that meeting without checking your phone?

Can’t stand to be out of touch 24/7?

Getting distracted by many commitments?

Never learning to say No to any request?

Making quick decisions rather than taking the time to learn and understand?

Many of these behaviors get labeled as accountable, dedication, productive. But when they become compulsive, they have long-term adverse consequences.

Burnout
Stress
Destroyed or damaged health and relationships.

And, by its nature, the longer you feed the monster, the harder it is to return to healthy behavior.

Remember the old TV commercial that said “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.” You can imagine the images that went along with the words.

In today’s world, we need to change the paradigm to “This is your brain. This is your brain suffering from addiction.” It doesn’t make any difference what the drug is. It’s addiction that destroys your brain.

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