Vedere Consulting
There's a sweet spot where fulfillment and productivity intersect. My blog is dedicated to helping leaders find it for themselves and their employees. --Plum Cluverius,Executive CoachMonday, February 9, 2009
Change Happens When You Face the Truth
As noted in my last post, change is driven by a purpose so powerful it overcomes our inertia. Yet purpose alone isn’t enough. You also have to recognize the truth of the present. You have to take a hard look at your current behavior and how it falls short of your values. You have to recognize it’s you who are creating the gap. You have to acknowledge the consequences of your actions. When you do that, the gap between reality and the ideal creates the impetus to act.
This happened to me recently. Although my family, my friends and my colleagues are very important to me, I am chronically late—to everything. Family gatherings. Meetings. Movies. I have driven my husband crazy with my lateness for the 33 years we’ve been married. One day, I asked a friend who is always on time how she did it. She said it was hard, but she believed keeping people waiting is disrespectful so she made a conscious effort to be on time. She also said, in a very gentle way, that she had learned to expect that I’d be late when we were getting together.
Well, that got my attention. I had to acknowledge how my behavior communicated a lack of respect to the people who matter most to me. I felt ashamed. The gap between my values and my behavior couldn’t have been clearer. And I decided right then that I would be on time from now on. And so far—at least six weeks into it, I’ve been fairly successful although not perfect. To achieve this, I had to take a hard look at my behavior. I learned that I tried to squeeze in one more task when it was time to go. I learned that I hated to wait so I would leave at the last possible minute and get caught in traffic. I learned that I would let what was in front of me take priority over my commitment to a friend. This scrutiny helped me clarify what I had to do differently to change my behavior.
Loehr and Schwartz identified typical executive dysfunctional behaviors and their consequences (as well as the short term benefits that reinforce the behavior). I’ve listed three of them here. To see the whole list, look on pps. 154-155 of The Power of Full Engagement.
| Expedient Adaptation | Benefit Now | Cost | Long Term Consequences |
| Poor Work/Life Balance | Accomplish more at work, less emotional risk, avoid responsibilities outside work | Lack of time for intimate connection, resentment of family and friends | Unfulfilling relationships; tendency to impatience and anger; burnout; regret; guilt; and loss of passion |
| Multi-tasking | Get more tasks accomplished; feel productive; high excitement | Divided attention; less fully engaged with people; lower quality of work | Shallowness of connection to others; less capacity for absorbed attention; lower quality of work |
| No Exercise | More time for work and other obligations | Less energy, strength, general well-being; lost source of recovdery from mental activities; more susceptibility to sickness | Undermines health; lowers concentration and access to high positive energy; increases chance of early death |
Are any of these behaviors familiar to you? Finding your gaps pays off. Ask people for feedback. Pay attention to yourself. Where do you fall short of your ideal? What are the consequences? What actions are contributing?
For more ideas on small changes you can make to increase your performance:
contact
or
read The Power of Full Engagement, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+power+of+full+engagement+
For a free or an inexpensive Full Engagement Profile, see: http://www.lgeperformance.com/assessment_diagnostic.html
For more information about the authors of The Power of Full Engagement and their work, see:
Jim Loehr is the Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of the Human Performance Institute, http://www.lgeperformance.com/index.html .
Tony Schwartz is Founder and President of The Energy Project, http://www.theenergyproject.com/home.html .
Labels: Emotional Intelligence Self Mastery, Work and Life Balance
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