Choose to Chance the Rapids

Stuck in a job
Difficult boss
Invested in the company
Scared to leave
Frustrated by the bureaucracy
Just doing the job

In The River, Garth Brooks sings, “too many times we stand aside and let the waters slip away.” When we’re caught in a job, feeling stuck, hating to go to work, but afraid to leave, we’re letting the waters slip away, letting time go by.

Recapturing the dream may seem too far away, so take small steps into the water. Start by drawing up some lists.

1. Make a list of 10 things or more that you love about your job.
   If you can’t come up with 10 things about your current job, then go a bit further back to when you had energy for your work.
   
   
2. List 5 times when you were very proud of your work.
   Write down the elements of the work, e.g., challenging, great team, easy, recognition.
   
   
3. List 3 actions that you would love to take in your job right now.
   Make a note of the benefit each would bring to you.
   
   
4. Make a list of all of the things you would like to do.

Find a spot where you can lay these lists out in front of you and let your eyes wander quietly over the pages. As you slow let your eyes wander over the pages, begin to identify what elements or concepts seem to be repeating?

Write those down.

Go back over the lists. Do your eyes wander back to a certain phrase or thought? Add it to your new list.

As you think about the lists, do you feel a stronger sense of energy or excitement for any particular concept. Make sure it’s on your list and possibly highlighted.

What would it be like if you had more of these items in your life?

Give yourself some time to imagine and feel what that might be like.

What is one step that you could take today that will give you more of something on your list?

Can you put your toe in the water? Can you move toward your dream?

Too many times we stand aside
And let the waters slip away
‘Til what we put off ‘til tomorrow
Has now become today
So don’t you sit upon the shoreline
And say you’re satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids
And dare to dance the tide...*

If you would like help to chance the rapids, visit us at http://www.readsolutionsgroup.com/ to learn more about how coaching can help you get unstuck.


*Shaw, Victoria and Garth Brooks, The River, Gary Morris Music/Major Bob Music Co, Inc, 1991.

For Promotion

“For promotion, city now requires proof of ‘model son or daughter’” read the headline of an article in the Monday 20 November 2006 Shanghai Daily. For a promotion, officials in a number of cities and/or counties in China must prove that they care sufficiently for their family members. The government will interview family, friends and neighbors to assess the level of family responsibility.

We could look at this as a structural means for enforcing Confucianism and respect for the elderly. In fact, the filial piety was a criterion for selection as early as the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 200 AD). However, the quote from the local Party secretary is intriguing, “If a candidate is found to be cold-hearted and neglectful of his parents, we could not consider him a responsible official.”

Is the implication that a person, who is cold-hearted and neglectful of those most close to him, will be cold-hearted and neglectful of everyone? Or is the assumption that being irresponsible in one area of life means a high likelihood of irresponsibility in others?

In coaching, there is a widely held assumption that what shows up in your life, shows up in your work. While caring for parents is not evaluated for promotion in western firms, as a candidate for promotion, a manager or an interviewer consider the elements of life that may be reflected in work.

• Do you follow through on all of your commitments?
  
• Do you consistently seek new challenges and opportunities?
  
• Do you show respect for others, always?
  
• Have you spent time to understand the point of view of others you interact with?
  
• Have you found ways to give to others?

Please add your thoughts and comments below.

Performance Anxiety or Energy?

Remember the last time you had to perform? It could have been a presentation, a concert, a confrontation with a boss, or even a date. Picture yourself just before the event. Can you feel the tension in your muscles, the butterflies in your stomach, just thinking about the event?

Now think about a time you performed at your best. Notice how you feel just thinking about it. Do you feel still feel the tension? Is there energy rather than anxiety along with the tension?

In his book, “Overachievement: The New Science of Working Less to Accomplish More”, John Eliot, Ph.D. argues that top performers understand that they perform best under pressure. They have learned how to accept and harness the tension to enable peak performance. Rather than seeking to relax, they use the natural physical reaction before a performance to increase their focus and move into the process of performance.

Try this before your next performance.

1. Practice, practice, practice. During your training time, learn, improve, and embed your performance in your mind and muscles. Repeating the same performance over and over, whether a golf swing or a speech, will build the connections in your brain and muscles that you can rely upon.

2. Look back to a performance where you were at your best. What was happening around you? What were you doing? People often notice that immediately before the performance, they were doing something unrelated. Perhaps it was dealing with another issue, listening to music, eating, or loosening up. Those actions or distractions kept them from focusing on what might happen and entering into a state of anxiety. Decide then the elements of your past success and build them consistently and reliably into a new routine.

3. Develop a thought pattern that moves you into the present. Look at each swing, each breath, each sentence as a step toward your goal. Remove thoughts about the past or assumptions about the future.

4. As you move into performance mode, use the natural physical tension to enhance your focus. While your mouth is getting dry and your stomach is churning, recognize that your brain is operating at top speed and blood is being pumped to your muscles. These are not symptoms of anxiety; they are a signal that you are primed to perform.

5. Let your body and mind do what it is has been trained to do, enjoying each moment, achieving the best possible result with each breath, each swing, each sentence. Remain confident and committed to the performance and routine with each moment.

6. Later, and only later, evaluate what worked, what can be improved and adjust your training accordingly.

Before your next performance, think about how you can transform the natural stress to energy and deliver your best performance ever.

Office Politics: Playing the Game

Politics, whether we are discussing George Bush and Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, or the Shanghai mayor, usually carries a negative connotation. When encountered in discussions about what happens in companies, politics is described not just as negative, but as counterproductive and even, destructive.

A definition of politics is “the process by which a community's decisions are made, rules for group behavior are established, competition for positions of leadership is regulated, and the disruptive effects of disputes are minimized.”* Notice that this is a neutral definition; politics is one of the structures of behavior – common to all human relations.

Understanding politics – the process by which decisions are made – enables a manager to get things done in an organization. Politics become counterproductive only when self-interest of the individual is the main driver, or when the methods employed lack integrity.

Entering into office politics becomes a game of figuring out why people do what they do. It would be ideal if everyone worked from the same assumptions and beliefs, and based every decision on logic derived from those beliefs. Instead, underlying most decisions are varying beliefs, wants, needs and relationships, which influence the outcome. Your trick is to become an organizational observer uncovering the rules, power structure, and nature of the competition.

Begin by looking at the informal structure of relationships.

• Who went to school together? Who golfs, goes to church, plays cards or lunches together?
• Who gets along with whom?
• Who is respected?
• Who has influence?
• Who is feared?

Be curious about people and events.

• Why did they do that?
• Why did they think that?
• What will happen now?
• Why is this no longer in favor?
• Who will look bad, or good, if this happens?

Build your areas of influence.

• Who can give you insight into what is happening?
• Who needs your help?
• How can you give help and then seek help in the future?
• Can you anticipate what will be of value to someone and provide it?

Use your network to develop greater understanding of the organization.

• What do they think happened at the meeting?
• Identify possible objections in advance.
• Allow others to test ideas.
• Gather and share more information.
  

It is rare when someone shares with you the rules of the game. More often, you need to develop the skills of watching, listening, questioning, gathering and sharing information, collecting and calling on favors, building and leveraging your network. If you can combine these activities with a strong sense of your values, then you too can participate in the game of politics with integrity and focus on getting things done.

* www.anthro.wayne.edu/ant2100/GlossaryCultAnt.htm

Why do you work?

Have you heard it said that you should discover your passion and then do all you can to create a dream job around it? Others argue that it’s not a career, it’s all about the maximizing the money. Some people say that they work to live; others say that work is a manifestation of their purpose in life. Have you ever thought consciously about why you work?

Putting some thought into why you work, what you look for in your work and what you seek outside of work can be a simple step in achieving greater satisfaction in your life. Clarifying what you want and can get from work compared to what you want and can get from other parts of your life allows you to better judge and control your level of happiness.

When people are asked why they work, the simple answer is, of course, money. Ask yourself: do you look for more than that in your job?

• Some people want power; assuming that gives them greater freedom to get or do something. Why do you want power and how do you want to use the power?
• Most of us want respect from others. If this is your answer, next ask whose respect are you seeking, and for what?
• For some, travel and interacting with other cultures is a key motivator. Does travel or living overseas motivate you?
• Some people are working in service to others. When you think about service, it’s useful to be more specific about the nature of the service – what kind of service and to whom?
• Do you look to your work to provide an outlet for creative expression? In what forms can you express yourself that cater to an audience, rather than to yourself?
• Work and offices provide forums for meeting people. What kind of relationships are you seeking?
• Others seek fulfillment or some form of accomplishment. Does that mean setting goals and achieving them? Does it mean motivating others to an outcome?

So again, why do you work? Reflect on your own position, look at the list above and find the one or two points that feel right. Next take out a notebook, journal or personal planner, and complete the sentence, “I work because ....”.

In the book, “Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow”, Marsha Sinetar argues “Work is a natural vehicle for self-expression because we spend most of our time in its thrall. It simply makes no sense to turn off our personality, squelch our real abilities, forget our need for stimulation and personal growth forty hours out of every week.” There is much that is compelling about finding your true values, working from your strengths, and accepting what follows.

Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine in the book “Fire Your Boss” present the contrarian view that you should “work to earn money and spend the rest of your life pursuing your other goals”. In their model, you must look for a job that provides a large and secure income, focus on ensuring your boss’s success, control your work hours and be continually fishing for other job opportunities. By working to live, you enable yourself to fill your non-monetary needs outside of the office with greater control.

Ask yourself again the question "why do I work?" Now ask yourself which model you believe is the right one for you. Consciously recognize what you seek from your work and outside your work. Then ask yourself whether you are making choices and taking steps consistent with those needs and the model that is right for you. Enhanced life and work satisfaction can come from the simple step of evaluating your needs and the steps you are taking to fill them.

References:

Pollan, Stephen M. and Mark Levine. Fire Your Boss. New York: HarperResouce, 2004.
Sinetar, Marsha. Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow. New York: Dell Publishing, 1987.