Fear of Standing Out in a Crowd: Years ago and the day before my first visit to the Donna Karan Company to meet Donna and her senior leadership team, I spent a lot of time thinking about and planning what I would wear. At the time I did not own one piece of her line of clothing, although I would have loved to.
Read more: From Words to Action: Putting Your Conversational Intelligence™ To Work
Make Candor a Priority: Mergers and acquisitions can seem too daunting when we view the merging entities as separate cultures, with separate norms, separate ways of doing things. Usually the small company is eaten by the larger and loses its persona. People leave the company in droves and, with that loss, goes much of the wisdom and human energy for creating the new entity.
Navigational listening the Racer's Edge: Why we're listening determines the type of information we listen for. Salespeople listen for customer concerns. Lawyers listen for the opposing speaker's faulty logic. Freudian psychiatrists, listen for unconscious motivations. These bits of information are important for the listeners to do their jobs successfully.
It Started with a Yawn: Years ago, when I was in graduate school, I wrote a paper called "It started with a yawn." I noticed when people got together and one person yawned, others yawned within seconds afterwards.
Co-creating Conversations®: To get to the next level of greatness depends on the quality of the culture, which depends on the quality of the relationships, which depends on the quality of the conversations. Everything happens through conversations!
Israel took me by surprise. My husband and I celebrated my 10th year cancer free anniversary this year in Israel, and it was an incredible place to be for this profound time in our lives. Israel is the history of the world found in one small spot on the world map. One small piece of geography filled with so much emotion, so much history, and so much push and pull about who owns what and why.
The more we learn about how brain grows, adapts, changes and—on the other extreme—falls into patterns of ‘stuck’ thinking, the more we see that a leader’s most important job is creating environments for innovation to flourish.
People are often resistant to change because they think change means changing themselves. Many of us have a fear of change - but I think it's actually something deeper than fear of change. Under the surface, for many people change is really a fear of loss. Our mind plays many tricks on us.
Change = fear = risk=loss=loss of status.
Read more: First Day, New Job, Now What?
Many of us learn how to talk to each other without graduating to the next level of conversation that enables us to go after and achieve our greatest aspirations with others.
How easy it is to fall into discussions that reinforce what we don't want in our present situation, or focuses on what we think is broken. Coming from lack or scarcity and focusing on fixing our problems rather than feeding our passions and what we want to achieve has become such a human habit that we don't even know we're doing it. It's as though that is the way it has always been.
Read more: Co-creating Conversations Connectivity
Gaudi was one of the most extraordinary architects and designers who ever lived. He inspired me in so many extraordinary ways. Gaudi was able to invent new forms of architecture that no one else in the world was doing. He did not copy others - he was influenced by his universe and had the courage to step out beyond the crowd to build and design in ways no one had done before.
Our brains are incredibly sensitive to nuances and meta-messages. Our need to belong and to be important in each others' eyes is strong; yet there are many ways we signal each other that show that we are not. Disagreeing with another's point of view is the case in point.
Read more: How Disagreements Rock Your World!Every day you have choices to make, and important choices will either send you into a fatal spiral (an unconscious, self-sabotaging behavioral pattern that you unknowingly create) or they will equip you for being a WE-centric leader.
The more you think about how to become a WE-centric leader the more you are priming yourself to see the crossroad choices you will face as you reach each potentially dangerous or opportunistic intersection. Think about how you interact with people at work now. Do you get caught in the fatal spirals driven by fear that cause you to retreat into your Comfort Zone, or are you focusing on achieving your aspirations and building support for vital spirals to emerge?
Read more: Breaking Old Belief Cycles
This year has been a very special year of global and cultural awakening. While human beings are separated by geographic boundaries, the reality is we have more in common with our far away neighbors than we often realize. What we have in common is fundamental..... we all have a history, or past, that shapes us. We all have our environment shaping us;...
Human Beings has the capacity to regulate mindsets and emotions. Once we understand the five levels of trust, we are able to step into them to master our world and our relationships with elegance and empathy.
Read more: How to Guage Our Mindsets
Elemental Wisdom – Start the New Year by Moving Energy in Positive Ways
While some people think of Feng Shui as esoteric, our work with this discipline suggests it is the fundamental wisdom behind all business and relationship success.
Read more: Elemental Wisdom 2
While some people think of Feng Shui as esoteric, our work with this discipline suggests it is the fundamental wisdom behind all business and relationship success.
Read more: Elemental Wisdom for the New YearI was destined to be a child psychologist. I did my Research Fellowship in Child Development and was heading into a Ph.D. program in Human Behavior and Development – and then I had a change of mind.
Read more: Trust is Contaigious
Many of us act as though we all see the same reality, yet the truth is we don't. Human Beings have cognitive biases or blind spots.
Blind spots are ways that our mind becomes blocked from seeing reality as it is - blinding us from seeing the real truth about ourselves in relation to others. Once we form a conclusion, we become blind to...
Read more: Blind Spots-A Wake-up Call to Reality
Listening is the most powerful vehicle for transformation known to man - and woman. When we listen without judgment we open up a part of our brains and hearts to accept another person in their fullest into our lives. When we listen without judgment, our hearts are able to connect and we experience a new level of awareness of what it feels like to step inside of their shoes and see the world from their perspective. When this deep level of connectivity takes place, we move from I to WE.
When we listen without judgment in a team, something magical happens. We connect mind to mind, heart to heart, and a common consciousness emerges that has a powerful energy to lift us up from fear of the future, to embracing the possibilities of the future. Somehow, it feels as though our ability to live in a ‘what if’ state of mind stretches to embrace more possibilities - and when this happens we are shaping the future together.
NEURO-TIP:Successful communication has the ability to meld minds through the experience of neural coupling, which is experienced when the listener’s brain mirrors the activity of the speaker’ brain.*
As you step up into higher levels of leadership, the challenges undoubtedly multiply. One of the most significant challenges will be managing the...
Read more: Meaningful Communication Prevents Fear
When people work in concert, they learn from each other and are more apt to develop the higher-level skills and wisdom needed to meet the organization’s performance goals.
When we connect, we learn how to turn breakdowns into breakthroughs — we become high performing team.
I was destined to be a child psychologist. I did my Research Fellowship in Child Development and was heading into a Ph.D. program in Human Behavior and Development - and then I had a change of mind.
I lived in Kansas at the time, and my husband Rich was getting his Ph.D. in Medicinal, Bio and Pharmaceutical Chemistry - and I took a job at the Bess
Read more: How is Your World Labeled?Through advances in neuroscience, we are now able to see inside of the brains and minds of people while they are experiencing different emotions. What astounds scientists and practitioners alike is the dramatically different ‘brain landscape’ for people who are in fear states, compared to those who are in states of joy and happiness.
Read more: How Leaders LeadNEURO-TIP: When we say ‘no’ or reject people, our bodies go into self-defense, turning on our proactive-disengagement system, but when we say ‘yes’, our bodies turn on the social engagement system that connects us to others.*
As you reflect on the condition of your organization’s culture, you must understand the dynamic tension between protecting w...
Read more: Set the Context for CommunityNEURO-TIP: Stress early in life can have damaging effects on our ability to manage stress as adults. We are experiencing unprecedented changes in the world. Businesses and our global communities are more challenged than ever before. It feels like there has been a sudden and profound interruption in business continuity. I call this The Edge.
Read more: An Approach Whose Time Has Come
This month I had the incredible opportunity to speak in Dubai to an audience of over 450 people for the 9th HR Conference put on by Etisalat Academy, the largest single-source provider of training and development solutions in the Middle East. The attendees included hundreds of forward thinking HR Executives, who wanted to learn more about how HR...
Conventional wisdom has suggested that it's better not to talk about negative emotions as a way of handling them. So, we turn to alternative strategies such as holding our negative emotions in (as suggested by Anger Management and Emotional Intelligence programs), suppressing them, managing them, or sharing them with others (gossip/triangulation)...
Rituals for 2010: It's another year ending and a New Year beginning. My guess is that many of us would like this year to be a 'one of a kind,' and not something we intentionally repeat. Often actions with high emotion become patterns, which become rituals even without intention. So as 2009 ends and we step into a hopeful and exciting 2010, think...
Judith was recently interviewed by Wayne Turmel on the Cranky Middle Manager Show. They discussed creating WE, a sense of togetherness and team, Judith's new book 42 Rules for Creating WE, Moses, Shakespeare and all kinds of management foolishness.
Listen to the interview.
Judith E. Glaser is the Author of two best selling business books:
"Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs." – Pearl Strachan, author
Our stories either build or break down relationships with others. At work, we interact with colleagues and hopefully create networks and build alliances. Every day in your business, there are a million interactions that will create either a positive or a...
Read more: Story Telling PatternsOn September 17th, "42 Rules for Creating WE" was one of the fastest-selling books on Amazon, having achieved sales that brought its rank to #1 in the Leadership, Management, Motivation, and Organizational Behavior categories, and the #2...
Read more: 42 Rules for Creating WE' Becomes Amazon Bestseller By Offering New Approaches to Difficult...
As long as we feel we are gaining, not losing, we play as WE. However, our fear is that someone will get more. The fear is always: I'll trust you and then you'll stick me in the back.
Even though most of us value being considered a partner, the ability to work together interdependently is one of our least-developed skills. This skill is so vital...
Read more: Can I Trust You?
Building Trust Takes Commitment: Too often, we see management and employees as separate. In reality, both are part of a larger system of colleagues working together to create positive business results. The challenge for you as a leader and as a colleague is to understand how to create "mutual trust" through the way you communicate with colleagues...
We interact energetically with others. We either move towards (and with) others, or we move against them. When we believe others are our adversaries, we move against them. Action - reaction, tit-for-tat, can transform them into adversaries. Anthropologists and biologists believe we have a tit-for-tat instinct hardwired into our DNA. In fact, this...
Emotions WE Share in Common: Even young children know what feelings are - maybe even better than adults do. They watch our faces; scan for acceptance, anger, and excitement and then they respond. Happy means: getting things we want, need and like.Sadness means: taking away things we want, need and like. Happy and sad are universal emotional responses...
Some of us have worked in organizations where telling others what to do is the norm. Maybe you've grown up in a family where parents lectured you about what is right and wrong, and you've brought that skill into work.
Looking back, we can all see what shaped our lives. Was it our parents, our teachers, or our best friends? Was it the good experiences, or the bad? Was it our genes or fate? Was it the labels or the stories about us, or both?
Our stories are important. The labels we use to describe ourselves - make a difference. How we combine our labels into our stories - make a difference.
Growing up in my family, I felt like a nobody, not a somebody. You may have too!
In our family, we were three children - whose names all began with a "J." My parents thought it was cute, 'the three J's'. As we learned over time, our collective name became a way for our parents not to have to deal with the challenge of individuality, conflict, and...
As the New Year approaches it's a time to look back, celebrate successes and look forward to new opportunities and challenges ahead.
For many, this year will be one of our most challenging. I am hearing people say that - for the first time that they can ever remember it's as though 'we're all in this together'. Somehow that feeling of 'sharing...
People working in concert outperform individuals acting alone or operating as solo-contributors. Working in diverse teams offers the opportunity to learn from one another and gain new skills, perspectives and experiences that can catalyze new ways of thinking to achieve breakthrough results.
"To get to the next level of greatness depends on the quality of the culture, which depends on the quality of relationships, which depends on the quality of conversations. Everything happens through conversations."
In addition to being best sellers, Creating WE and The DNA of Leadership are recognized by Forbes & Business Book Review as being among the best business books.
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