Ron’s Short Review: Power, control, worry, change, fear, mistakes, resentment, expectations: these topics and more are covered and shown how mentally strong people deal with these issues.
Ron’s Short Review: Dean is probably the most humorist neuroscientist that you’ll meet or read. He has a great ability to make complex issues understandable and fun. His book really helps us understand why at times we do such crazy things driving by a supposedly rational brain. Good learning.
Image source: Bob Miller, Creative Commons
I’ve never had much interest in Anthony Mahavorik, aka Tony Robbins. I don’t really have anything against the guy, it’s just that he never seemed real or genuine to me, but I do believe that he has been a keen observer of human nature to promote himself and his products so successfully. And one of his observations in particular intrigues me. His frame work of what he calls the six human needs. What’s interesting to me is that they are observed as pairs and when they get out of balance, they cause difficulties in people’s lives.
The six (in my words) are:
- Certainly—uncertainty
- Belonging—standing out
- Learning—teaching
Tony’s headings are slightly different and may have more meaning to you if you were to look them up. But let’s take a look at the balancing act.
Certainty—Uncertainty
I’ve watched people who have a great need for certainty in their lives. They’ve protected that need by always making the safe choice, never venturing out, even trying to control every aspect of their lives. The final results aren’t pretty. But those who tip the scales too far the other way to the uncertainty side seem to make more foolish decisions that threaten theirs and their family’s security. They always seem to be looking for the next big thing and are certain it’s right around the corner and nobody else can see it.
Belong—Stand Out
The need to belong and stand out is an interesting one to me because it’s a key balancing act in team building. One of the books on my shelf is titled, The I In Team. The point of the book is that we need to help each person on the team contribute in their own way. To stand out for a moment and really be appreciated by the other team members and yet, in the long-run it needs to be all about the team. The individual’s outstanding contribution must be seen as helping the team achieve its overall goal and be appreciated as such.
Learning—Teaching
Learning and teaching seems to be a deep and important one to me but maybe there’s a particular set for each of us that carries more weight than the others. But when people stop learning it seems to manifest itself in several ways. One seems to be the case of arrested development.
- No more changing.
- No more growing.
- No willingness to try new things, develop new talents, or tackle new challenges.
The ultimate result of this arrested development is death: physical, spiritual, or mental.
Teaching is sometimes a little more subtle and you do meet those people who declare they are not good teachers and you often have to agree. But they’re usually thinking about the classroom type teaching we experienced in high school or college which is just about the worst form of teaching there is (see A Thomas Jefferson Education). Observe those same people as they sit with a grandchild or someone that’s eager to know about their life experience. They turn into wonderful teachers and the sense of accomplishment and contribution is overwhelming. We all need to teach to experience fulfillment.
Balance, balance, balance. If things seem to be out of whack in your life, try examining it through Anthony Mahavorick’s framework and see if you can restore the balance.
Image source: Patrik Nygren, Creative Commons
In some ways, anger can be the antitheses to patience. At least I notice that when my patience runs out, it is most often replaced by anger.
We’ll explore the patience element a lot in other blogs because patience is one of the cornerstones of great team building, but for now let’s look at anger all by itself.
For the most part, people mistakenly assume that anger is induced by outside circumstances, and more importantly, other people. You’ll hear them say, “That person makes me so angry!”
Interestingly enough, we can’t make people smile, cry, feel remorseful, or even be motivated.
Smile: I can think of several instances of that child that just wants to be upset, push out that lower lip and pout. Regardless of your efforts they’ll refuse to smile. We adults do the same think only in a more “socially acceptable way.”
Cry: My wife will say, “Doesn’t this movie just make you cry?” No, sorry. One of my favorite movies scenes occurs in Sleepless in Seattle where the Tom Hanks character and his buddy are “crying” over scenes from the Dirty Dozen.
Remorseful: Guilt ridden? “No, I don’t want to feel guilt ridden, they deserved it.” When you try to make me feel remorseful it pushes what is probable genuinely remorse even deeper into hidden spaces.
Motivate: Even the definition relates to desire. I have desires for lots of reasons but not because you’re able to make me.
Learn: I truly believe I can’t teach anybody anything if they’re not ready and willing to learn. I can only help them learn.
All of these things are internal. They happen from within. We aren’t made to learn, we choose to learn. We aren’t made to cry, we choose to cry.
So if we take this perspective, what would happen if our anger triggered curiosity? What if instead of reacting (losing patience) we begin to ask ourselves why are we angry?
By learning to understand why we choose to become angry in certain circumstances or situations, we can begin to gain control of ourselves and the situation. This in turn will become a very powerful tool for being more productive and for accomplishing greater results. If open and honest patience (meaning we can talk about the issue) our teams have a much better chance of being productive rather than bogging down in an angry environment.
Now, this doesn’t mean that we should never be angry. That would be unhealthy. It’s even healthy to acknowledge your anger. But… examine the target or cause of your anger. If you’re blaming the other person for your anger—“they make me so mad”—then you have no ability to work through, diminish, or gain some control or productivity in the situation. If you however realize you have chosen to be angry, you can then become curious and begin to gain some control, insight, and value from the situation.
It’s okay to choose to be angry in some circumstances, but it’s a wasted opportunity if we don’t learn, grow, and develop from the opportunity.
Anger is a choice. Choose wisely!
Photo credit: Mindaugas Danys, Creative Commons
In an earlier post about the stages of grief, it was interesting that the question that triggered my reflection was posed by my daughter when she asked me “What are you feeling?” Notice that she didn’t ask me how I was feeling. When we are asked how are we feeling it triggers some of our natural inhibitors (or not) that can get in the way of dealing with the situation.
“How are you feeling?” If you’re feeling angry you may be embarrassed about your feelings or believe that if you express your anger is won’t be constructive for the situation. Or you may not want to express your anger toward an individual so you hold yourself back. Or, if your natural inhibitors don’t kick in, you may burst into a rant or rage expressing your anger that you may also later regret or make it difficult to move on to the next stages of the grief process.
Maybe you’re feeling pride at the moment someone asks “How are you feeling.” Again, if our natural inhibitors kick in we may not want to express our pride at the risk of sounding boastful which in the end can leave us feeling a bit under-appreciated or wishing we could have celebrated a great victory a bit more. Or if the inhibitors don’t kick in, we may go on and on about what a great feat it was, how excited we are for being so smart or good and as we go into that funky victory dance and leave other people taking side glances between each other wondering when this guy is going to get over himself. “How are you feeling?” can make it difficult for us to deal with some very natural emotions.
“What are you feeling?” When my daughter asked me this question it actually forced me to stop and reflect about an emotion that was unexpressed at the moment. When I was able to answer her question it simply came out as one word, “anger” that really didn’t carry any emotion with it. It was an honest statement of a very valid emotion.
As a leader it’s important that you know and that your team is able to express the various stages of emotion that they’re experiencing. When you ask the question “What are you feeling?” it allows people to get the issue on the table, legitimize the emotion, work through to the next stage and as efficiently as possible get to the action steps that will prove the most productive in the long run.
What are you feeling right now? Share some reactions with us.
Ron’s Short Review: Emotional Intelligence correlates completely with success. Also read Emotional Intelligence.
Ron’s Short Review: A good application of Emotional Intelligence to Leadership.
Ron’s Short Review: There has never been any correlation found between IQ and success but complete correlation between EQ (or Emotional Intelligence) and success. Also read Working with Emotional Intelligence.
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