Values and Health

Last week, I participated in an event with the Minneapolis Heart Institute which focused on women’s heart health.  I talked about values and how they play an important role in helping people gain a strong sense of self, which in turn can help people choose healthy behaviors.

I did some homework for the talk and discovered that there is a growing body of research that affirms the “role of self” in preventing and recovering from health events.  To quote one of the articles I found, “How the self is defined determines what goals will be meaningful, which in turn determines what behaviors will be enacted to meet those goals.”  So, it follows (as the article also pointed out) that “the self likely plays a pivotal role in regulating individual thoughts, motivations and decision-making activities relevant to health behaviors.”  In other words, if I value vitality, it’s likely that I would behave in ways that increase my energy – like exercising regularly, eating well, and getting plenty of sleep.

Values are at the core of our selves, and help us gain a clear sense of who we are and how we want to live.  I was delighted to see research about how the role of self and one’s value system influences health.  It just reinforced what Georgine and I have believed and shared with clients for many years now.  That’s why we created a suite of products to help people discover their values – to help people improve their results.

What I appreciated about being able to participate in the event last week was to help women see how values can serve as another tool to help them make healthy choices.  And, perhaps clarifying your values will help you too.  Here are some questions to help you get started:

·    What are your 5 core values – those values that are most important to you right now in the age and stage of your life?
·    How do these values show up for you?
·    What do you gather around you in your life that reinforce or align with your values?
·    What can you let go of that doesn’t support your values?
·    How do your values help you make choices that help you live a healthy life?

Wishing you health and vitality,

Lynae

Generosity

Recently, I’ve heard a lot of “talk” about a new book out by Ken Blanchard (author of The One Minute Manager) and S.Truett Cathy (author of It’s Easier to Succeed Than to Fail) called The Generosity Factor: Discover the Joy of Giving Your Time, Talent, and Treasure.

I don’t know about you, but for me when I hear something once I take notice.  When I hear something twice, I take interest. And, when I hear something three times (or more), I take action.  So, I went out and bought the book.

I found the book to be an inspirational and easy read.  What I received from the book was a reminder about the power of giving.

I couldn’t help but think about a blog that my partner, Lynae, wrote a few weeks back on Getting What you Want after being inspired by hearing Zig Zigler speak at a conference we attended, about the power of giving generously.

Generosity is the mindset of giving freely without expecting anything in return. Generosity involves giving of your time, attention, assets, or talents.  Although the term generosity often goes hand-in-hand with charity, it is not solely based on one’s economic status, but instead, includes the individual’s pure intentions of expressing appreciation, looking out for an individual’s/group’s common good and/or giving from the heart.

For me, the book inspired more than a heart of giving. It inspired my heart of receiving. I haven’t always been so gracious in receiving gifts from others, be it appreciation, feedback, help, or tokens. I do believe that giving and receiving go hand in hand.

We have always heard that the act of giving has a cause and effect relationship with the receiver. They are more inclined to “pass it on” and acknowledge others that make a difference in their lives.

Madd-Steiny’s focus on helping create and sustain values-based work cultures has a lot to do with the art of giving and receiving. When we are generous with each other, we have an eye on the greater good that we can accomplish together and feel more empowered to make a difference in our world.

Here are some tips I would suggest for practicing the art of giving and receiving in your environment.

·    Be generous with “calling out” action and/or contributions from others that you appreciate
·    Be fully present “in the now” with each interaction you have with others.
·    Get good at saying “thank you” when you receive a token of generosity
·    Express your appreciation for the give and take (collaboration) of your relationships

Georgine

Monuments

Last week, I took my twin nieces to Mt. Rushmore.  (That’s us in the photo.)  I was awestruck by the powerful sight of four of our greatest presidents carved into a granite mountainside.  It got me thinking about monuments, their power, and their meaning in our culture.

Monuments are imbued with meaning by their creators.  Mt. Rushmore is a memorial to American history and instills hope and is meant to represent a basic belief in the decency of our country and its government.  But I believe Mt. Rushmore holds greater power than imagined by its artist because of the personal meaning for each individual who visits.  For me, the monument represents America’s values of freedom, liberty and opportunity.  I can only imagine what it might mean to others: hope, strength, truth, justice, happiness, or possibility.

In organizations, we create monuments imbued with meaning that is intended to send a message, represent shared values, or align with the company vision.  Sometimes the monuments are explicit, such as a sculpture of a company founder or a mural depicting major events in a company’s history.  Other times, monuments are subtle reminders of important beliefs, such as a plaque on which are listed the company’s core values.  More subtle still . . . a monument can be found in the form of company lore─a story told time and again.  The important thing to remember for leaders who erect monuments (or perpetuate a company’s oral history) is to make sure they are inspirational.  A monument endures when its meaning is universal and can stand the test of time.

·    So, what monuments exist in your company?
·    Do they inspire and appropriately represent your organization’s vision and values?
·    What do they mean to you and others?
·    How do they help your company progress and grow?

Lynae

Engage Play Laugh

This weekend marked the opening of the new movie, Eat Pray Love, based on the book by Elizabeth Gilbert.  While decidedly a “chick flick”, the movie’s message is universal: finding the meaning of life.  Well, this blog is not about the meaning of life – although it is certainly a worthy topic.  Rather, I wanted to pay homage to the title and devised Engage Play Laugh as an inspiration to leaders for creating positive energy in the workplace.

Engage.  We’ve written before on the topic of employee engagement and there is more evidence than ever that when employees are engaged at work, profits and productivity rise.  So, what can leaders do to engage employees?  Here are some ideas:

• Make sure employees have the tools they need to succeed. This includes procedures, equipment and training.
• Provide clear expectations through goals and performance standards.
• Recognize employees for their performance frequently.  Don’t wait until the annual review to let them know how things are going.
• Encourage innovation and creativity.  When you provide encouragement to “color outside the lines”, employees are more likely to create new solutions the old problems.
• Ask for their opinions and ideas.  Involve them in projects and strategic planning to give them a sense of ownership.
• Identify development and advancement opportunities and make sure they have the support needed to reach new performance heights.

Play.  Playfulness in the workplace can be a very productive activity.  In his recently published book, Delivering Happiness, the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh talks at length about one of their core values:  Create Fun and a Little Weirdness.  Now, for those of you who have never heard of Zappos, it’s one of the most successful online companies in U.S. history (right up there with Amazon, which bought Zappos last year.)  Zappos grew to a billion dollar company in 10 years because they focused on building a vibrant and customer focused culture.  Fun and weirdness are an important part of their culture.  Hsieh makes the case that encouraging fun and weirdness “encourages people to think outside the box and be more innovative.”  So, ask yourself these questions:

• What can you do to be a little more playful and differentiate yourselves from the competition?
• How much fun do you have on the job and what can you do to increase the fun factor?
• What can you do to make your job (and the jobs of others) more fun?

Laugh.  Surely this is an extension of creating playfulness, and perhaps a little weirdness, in the workplace.  Laughter breaks down walls, reduces tension, and lightens up the energy in a room.  But, you don’t have to have weirdness to have laughter.  There’s a little too much seriousness in the world today.  We probably could all use a big belly laugh.  What’s your leadership style like?  Do you tend to take things seriously?  Are you able to laugh at yourself and your mistakes?  If you walk down the hall and hear people laughing, do you join in or does the laughter taper off when you appear?  Think about the energy you create at work and consider “lightening things up” a bit.

Decide to incorporate a little more playfulness and laughter into the workplace and see if you don’t get a lot more engagement from the team.

Lynae

Make Respect a Habit

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.

Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors.

Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits.

Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.

Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”  -Gandhi

I have always loved this quote from Gandhi and ran across it just the other day. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it over the years, it still causes me to pause and affirm to live each day at my best.

The part of this quote that I am most focused on today is the part about habits. In our work with leadership development we know that people are creatures of habit.  Habits serve us well because once we have a habit engrained we become very efficient. We don’t have to exert much intellectual energy to accomplish tasks. Did you know that brain researchers estimate that out of every 11,000 signals we receive from our senses, our brain consciously processes only 40? This shows how often we operate on “auto pilot” as we go about our work and personal lives.

Habits, our automatic responses, can be bad or good. One bad habit I have worked on is interrupting people before they have finished talking. This behavior is not respectful. Even though I have never interrupted someone with the conscious intension to be disrespectful, this behavior doesn’t match my values and so I risk being perceived as not honoring what others have to say. I am committed to practicing good habits in listening because they align with my values and create the perceptions that I want others to have of me.

Og Mandino, author of The Greatest Salesman in the World, gives the advice to “make yourself a slave to good habits”.  Here are three simple tips to develop a good habit.

1.    Start simple.
Choose one behavior that you want to make habitual. Write it down on a piece of paper as an affirmation and post it somewhere that you will see each day. Visualize yourself behaving that way in a number of different situations.

2.    Commit for 21 days.
Three to four weeks is all the time you need to make a habit automatic. If you can make it through the initial conditioning phase, it becomes much easier to sustain. Consistency is also important during this conditioning phase so commit to doing your new behavior every day for 21 days.

3.    Celebrate outcomes.
Notice what the results are when you practice your behavior. If your behavior is a personal health related one, notice how you feel.  Good habits in self care result in higher levels of self respect. If your behavior is interpersonal, notice the results your behavior has on others.  Consider sharing your commitment with a friend or co-worker and ask him/her to give you feedback as he/she observes your behavior.

Warm Regards,
Georgine

No Gossip Zone

We heard from one of our clients the other day who was quite excited about something.  He wanted to implement a “no gossip zone” within his organization.  His enthusiasm resulted from a book that he read by Sam Chapman – The No-Gossip Zone.

Needless to say, he got my attention!

From our experience, nothing can sink a team faster than the disrespectful communication of gossip, zingers, and whining!  We define these practices as:

Gossip is going behind someone’s back and saying something about him/her that you wouldn’t want him/her to know you said.

Zingers are quick-witted jokes made at someone else’s expense. It is a way of criticizing others under the cover of a joke.

Whining is repeated complaining and venting of frustrations without any attention given to potential solutions.

Perhaps we’ve all gossiped, zinged or whined from time to time, and maybe we’ve been a victim of one or more as well.

So, how can we do away with these destructive behaviors and create a work environment of acceptance, fun, and empowerment that is focused on authentic and respectful communication?  Here are three action items to get you started:

1. Start with you. Be the change. Remove gossip, zingers and whining from your communication repertoire. Think of it as a cleansing process. No longer participate in conversations about others who are not present. Articulate your new commitment to your co-workers. It’s likely they will respect you for it.
2. Open a dialogue with team members about the destructive communication of gossip, zingers and whining. Call out each individual’s responsibility to communicate authentically and respectfully. Check out how Madd-Steiny can help you teach skills that give employees alternative behaviors to gossip, zingers and whining.
3. Establish clear performance expectations that define the behaviors of authentic and respectful communication. Address and deal with the destructive communication behaviors of gossip, zingers and whining as a performance issue. Coach employees to higher levels of performance and support their development to grow and improve.

Most sincerely,

Georgine

Reflections on Trust

This week I’ve been thinking about trust; the influence it has on relationships, the impact it has on our work, and the process that creates it.  I have seen evidence in many organizational cultures that trust can easily erode during challenging or changing times.

As I reflect back on the employee groups that we have worked with to build a respectful workplace, the common experience I’ve had with all groups is that everyone recognizes the power of trust and wants to build trusting relationships with more people at work.

Our experience with employees is that it’s pretty easy to identify what a trusting relationship looks like.  All we have to do is think about one that we have in our lives.  The characteristics that are identified are always the same.

• You feel you can depend on them no matter what the situation – they “have your back”
• You can talk about anything and information flows freely – even constructive feedback because you believe they care and have the best intentions
• Listening to each other is a common practice
• Confidentiality is honored
• You are able to work out disagreements – these relationships endure conflict and differences are honored
• Trust gets built over time. It’s a process.

The real challenge for most of us is how to regain trust that has been lost or diminished and act on it.

Here is some great advice that one employee group offered as they worked to answer the question: What can I do to help regain or rebuild trust in a relationship where it’s been lost or diminished?

• Approach the other person and request a time to talk
• State your intentions – i.e. you want a stronger, healthier relationship
• Stay mindful of your own behavior and manage your emotions, staying true to your intent
• Be honest, share your perceptions (using “I” statements) and request what you want/need
• Ask the other person for their perspective and what they would request
• Restate what you heard and commit to what you can and will do to build a more trusting relationship
• Forgive the past, start fresh in the present and create a better future relationship
• Persevere – trust is a process that develops over time

Best wishes,

Georgine

Respect for your Environment

Recently I took a short road trip out of the city to my home town to visit my parents.  The day was incredible with lots of sunshine after a soaking rain.  The landscape was lush and I found myself taking in the beauty of the earth.  Gratitude filled my heart and my mind and left me with a feeling of great contentment.

At one point during my drive I came across a group of Boy Scouts who were walking the ditches and picking up trash that had been thrown out of cars. I felt a great deal of pride in those boys and respect for what they were doing.  Having been a leader in our local Scouts organization when my boys were younger, I know that this activity was a demonstration of a core value in the scouting organization – good citizenship.

Our organizational development work at Madd-Steiny helps companies find ways to bring their core values to life in their work cultures.  And, I think that just about every organization we have met has respect listed as one of their core values.

The value of respect, demonstrated, goes beyond an individual’s behavior during interpersonal interactions.  It also extends into caring for the work environment.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard about conflict in work groups due to food left in the refrigerator, or dishes left in the sink or a mess left in the conference room after a meeting.

Establishing norms or expectations for behavior in your organization is one powerful way to bring your values to life and nurture a respectful work culture.

Here are a few behavioral expectations that we have seen practiced in organizations that demonstrate a respect for the work environment.

1.    Always leave your meeting space looking better than you found it.
2.    When you see litter in and/or around the building pick it up.
3.    Keep your workspace organized and free from clutter.
4.    Be accountable to pick up after yourself in shared space.

With Respect,

Georgine

F.E.A.R. The Acronym

I’m leading a workshop on change for a client in a couple of weeks and fear is always on the agenda whenever we talk about change.  Fear of the unknown associated with change generally has a significant influence on people, and I’m no exception.  If I allow myself to, I can imagine all sorts of lousy things happening.  So can lots of other people.  And, thus . . . the acronym: False Evidence Appearing Real.  One of Mark Twain’s famous quotations goes like this:  “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

When faced with change, there are certainly a lot of unknowns.  We don’t know what’s coming.  Nonetheless, we sometimes make stuff up about change and it’s usually stuff that brings forth fear.  The acronym reminds us that often what we make up is an illusion.  It just appears true because we’re really good at painting portraits of calamity.  We need to stop because what we make up might eventually become our reality.

As leaders, we have an extra responsibility of helping our teams eliminate false evidence from their point of view.  We must ask ourselves how we behave in the face of change.  If we make stuff up and act as though it’s real, that gives our teams a first-class ticket to the do the same.  Choose instead to make stuff up that paints a positive picture of the future.  Help others prepare for change by staying grounded in reality and dealing with what’s important moment by moment.  Here are some other things you can do to help your teams fight F.E.A.R.

• Establish and reinforce a clear vision.  What’s the outcome or the end game?  When everyone has a shared focus on a positive outcome, it’s easier to focus on possibilities rather than calamities.
• Talk about loss.  Any change involves some letting go.  So, allow it to be a natural part of the process.  Sometimes what we make up is that what we have to let go of is far superior to what’s coming, and that’s often not the case.
• Talk about potential.  Help people see the possibilities as they emerge and become clear.  Highlight them and link them to the overall vision of success.
• Nip F.E.A.R. in the bud.  When you hear false evidence being widely reported, call the team together and clear things up.  Make sure any “buzz” about what’s coming is constructive and truthful.
• Reinforce strengths.  Remind your team members that they are capable and competent and that you have faith in their ability to persevere and succeed through change.  Sometimes, people’s fear is nothing more than a worry about failure.  Clear that up right away.

Fearlessly,

Lynae

Lessons from the WIZ

I have been traveling a lot lately and miss being home. As much as I love the work that I do, I find that business travel can be quite exhausting sometimes – probably because I don’t have my own bed to sleep in or my favorite chair to relax into at the end of the day.

I found my mind replaying the same message today. over and over again; “there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home…”

Remember that movie? Watching the Wizard of Oz was a tradition in my household as I was growing up.

That classic movie had such an impact on me.

• I grew up on a farm in a small town and it caused me to dream about adventures in faraway places.
• The desires of the characters to obtain a “heart”, “courage” and a “brain” are exactly the qualities that I most admire in others and when I’m most honoring of myself, they are the qualities that I admire in myself.
• The fear the the Wicked Witch was bigger than it needed to be – she was melted away with water! Sometimes I let my “fears” get the best of me and make them bigger than they need to be.

The most meaning message in the movie for me was the camaraderie and friendship of diverse individuals who came together on their journey to support each other to be the best they could be. And…the journey was not without conflict.

The lessons that I think individuals and teams can take from the story of the Wizard of Oz are:

1. Everyone has their strengths and the team is stronger because of it.
2. Face your fears and you’ll probably find that they are not as big as you are imagining them to be.
3. Pursue your goals and don’t give up and you’ll find what you are looking for – sometimes in ways that you hadn’t imagined.

Respectfully yours,

Georgine