Get Out of Your Control Zone

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Ray

As long as everything else in the world is changing, I’d like to propose an additional change of my own. I say we get rid of the term “comfort zone” and replace it with control zone. After all, that’s what the comfort zone is – actions, thoughts, and attitudes that we have total control over.

Psychologists, neuroscientists and behavioral economists tell us that our brains are prediction machines. Our brains get agitated when we experience unanticipated events (“I wasn’t expecting that!) or misexpected ones (“I was expecting something else!). Basically, we humans don’t like to be surprised.[1]

To avoid surprise, we control. At first this control is quite intentional. We try to order the world around us so that we will know what to expect. Over time, that order feels natural and becomes second-nature as our expectation of control is consistently satisfied. The agitated feeling of surprise gets replaced with calm and relaxed feelings of comfort. A comfortable habit is formed.

Mentally, we also build barriers to keep surprise out of our place of ease. Resistance to learning new things or seeing things in new ways is one barrier. Another barrier to prevent surprise is seeking out information that confirms our points of view and discredits other points of view, i.e. confirmation and disconfirmation biases. Resistance to learning or different perspectives help us stay in the control zone by giving us what we expected, i.e. we see what we expected to see. The more we control the input, the more predictable is the output. That’s why I also like to call the comfort zone the “no curiosity zone.”

It’s interesting that the word “comfort” – com+fort – literally means “near the fort”. And “disease” – dis+ease – literally means a lack of ease. No wonder we love our comfort zones. Emotionally they’re our place of protection. Our place of sanctuary. Our place of wellness. Who knows what kinds of ills lay beyond the walls of the fortress? It’s so much safer to stay inside my world of predictability.

That’s why as a coach, I no longer tell clients to step out of their comfort zone. Now I tell them they need to get outside of their control zone. I ask them to consider one thing that they’re willing to let go of control over as an experiment. The goal of the experiment isn’t to change behavior. The goal is to experience what letting go of an element of control looks and feels like. It’s like a scouting expedition to one area just outside the walls of the fortress to learn what’s there.

Eventually, a series of experiments like these makes it easier for your prediction-machine brain to know what to expect across a much bigger control zone. The walls of the comfortable fortress extend further out and have brought a wider range of behaviors, feelings and perspectives inside.

I love this quote from performance coach Tommy Angelo. You can substitute anything you want to experiment with for the word “meditate”:

“Learning to ________ (meditate) is like learning to dance. If you practice dancing every day, five years from now it won’t matter which dance step you did first, or how awkwardly you did it. Plus, you’ll know how to dance.”

So, are you with me in replacing the phrase “comfort zone” with control zone? These days I’m experimenting with some new approaches to an old hobby to see what I can learn. What will you do to get out of your control zone? Share your experiments in the comments!

[1] Luna, T. & Reminger, L. Surprise. New York: Penguin Group

Social distancing is an oxymoron

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Ray

Social distancing is an oxymoron.

At the start of a virtual workshop I facilitated recently, I asked each of the nine participants what’s one thing you are missing out on because of social distancing. Each person’s answers related in some way to being apart from others inside or outside the workplace.

We humans were created to be social creatures. We all have natural instincts that drive us to cooperate, share and work together – in good times and especially in difficult times.

We humans also have an innate need to belong. We have an emotional dependency on each other that can be seen in how we naturally find ways to connect: lunch rooms of people eating together; work meetings and after-work meet-ups; music and sports events.

Feelings of belonging make us more productive, motivated and engaged. According to one survey, when people feel like they belong at work, they are more productive, motivated, engaged and 3.5 times more likely to contribute to their fullest potential.[1]

Social connection matters to our mental health as social isolation contributes to feelings of chronic insecurity, anti-social behavior and depression. It’s also critical to our physical health. Loneliness has a wide range of negative effects such as cardiovascular disease and stroke, increased stress level and decreased memory and learning[2].

For the common good from a medical health perspective, physical distancing is necessary. However, we must find ways to do that without “social distancing” which is so harmful to our individual and collective psyches. And for leaders of organizations who have large portions of their team working at home, it is even more imperative that they be intentional about alleviating social distancing’s harmful effects on human nature.

Here are four things leaders can do to feed our human need to be social.

Stay Connected. Find ways to periodically check in with all followers whether they are on location or especially those working remotely. These check-ins might happen when touching base about work but the point of the check-in is to show that you value, understand, and care about them. And questions as simple (and sincere) as “How are you doing? How can I help?” can go a long way in fighting off feelings of isolation.

Be Compassionate. Isolation triggers emotional responses. As awkward and uncomfortable as it can be sometimes, you must let people feel whatever they’re feeling. Caring for others often means recognizing that people may need to vent before they can move on to problem solving and that they feel most cared for when somebody extends them sympathy rather than a solution. Knowing that someone cares is what helps maintain feelings of belonging so crucial to human nature.

Be Pragmatic. Max DePree says the first job of a leader is to tell the truth[3]. Whether for the morale of their followers or their own perceived status, leaders must resist the temptation to only giving good news or unsubstantiated hope. To do either is ruinous empathy or manipulative insincerity[4]. During times of crisis and uncertainty, people need to be told what the facts are on the ground. A masterful and timely example of this are New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings which are garnering so much praise.

Be Playful. Research overwhelmingly shows that negative emotions make people less productive while positive emotions lead to people feeling more engaged, productive and creative. This Forbes article has some easy suggestions. I’m also hearing about virtual Happy Hours and people sharing funny videos from home or pictures of great meals somebody prepared. Things that inspire a sense of camaraderie can bring a powerful positive energy to fight the negativity that comes with social isolation.

Again, social distancing is an oxymoron. In our physical distancing, more than ever the humans working in our organizations need to feel a sense of connection and belonging. And more than ever, leaders need to lead through empathy and being intentional about how to support their followers human need to be social.

P.S. By the way, these are good ideas in the good times, too.

[1] https://hbr.org/2019/02/the-surprising-power-of-simply-asking-coworkers-how-theyre-doing

[2] https://www.verywellmind.com/loneliness-causes-effects-and-treatments-2795749

[3] Leadership Is An Art https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Art-Max-Depree/dp/0385512465/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

[4] Kim Scott, Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss

Three Ways to Be More Agile

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Ray

In their definitive book on the subject, Bill Joiner & Stephen Josephs define leadership agility as, “The ability to take wise and effective action amid complex, rapidly changing conditions.”[1]“Complex, rapidly changing conditions” certainly characterizes the current era that we are all experiencing, an era that has been given the name The Fourth Industrial Revolution – “a technological revolution blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres (Klaus Schwab).”

The role that technology is having on our lives goes way beyond tools that increase our productivity and convenience. It is also profoundly changing the way we live, work and relate to each other. Think about this: it took 75 years for the telephone to get 100 million users; it was only two years for Instagram to reach 100 million users; and the Pokémon Go app only needed two months to reach 100 million! Consider the pace, pervasiveness and meaning of the societal changes represented in this one example.

When I work with leaders they often express grudging acceptance of complex, rapidly changing conditions as being the new normal. But they are still stressed and frustrated by their teams’ or their own personal inability to be agile enough to feel like they are doing more than responding to constant chaos.

How can you be more agile? First and foremost, agility requires a curious mindset that is always looking to learn. In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, subject matter expertise will be less valuable than a growth mindset that actively desires to see things differently. In the book Agility Shift[2] author Pamela Myer offers three good suggestions to put this kind of mindset into practice:

Hold Mental Models Lightly. Question your assumptions and proactively try on different perspectives to open your mind to new ideas and possibilities for action. Don’t give into an immediate impulse to disagree. Rather, ask yourself what might be good or worthwhile about something.

Adopt an Attitude of Inquiry. ASK QUESTIONS!! Studies of effective teams show that they spend equal amounts of time asking each other questions as they do advocating for particular positions or solutions. Also, be intentional about asking questions whose answers may challenge your own assumptions and biases. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella urges “working to shift from fiefdoms of know-it-alls to a more open, collaborative culture of learn-it-alls”

Cultivate confidence. Be curious and willing to learn by seeking out experiences that will stretch you or take you out of your comfort zone. The result may be that you broaden the scope of skills you have to confidently apply to a wider range of situations and problems.

One of the jobs of a leader is to enable wise and effective action. When the conditions are ambiguous (what your choices are is unclear), complex (hard to analyze) and constantly changing, agility will be an essential quality to succeed in this current age.

[1] Joiner, B., & Josephs, S. (2007). Leadership agility: Five levels of mastery for anticipating and initiating change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

[2] Meyer, P. (2015). The Agility shift: Creating agile and effective leaders, teams, and organizations. Brookline, MA: Bibliomotion.

The Day I Met George Bush

Posted on December 3, 2018 by Ray

“You’d think if the President was coming, you would have dressed up,” my co-worker says to me.

I froze, eyes wide, hands outstretched. “What? Really? Today? When?”

“Yes, soon”, my co-worker said. “You won’t have time to change.”

“Soon” became evident when the Secret Service agents came into the offices, walked around and decided they needed to have somebody stationed right outside my corner office with adjacent floor-to-ceiling windows across from a parking garage. Later on, I found out I wasn’t going to be able to leave, anyway. Our building was on lockdown, the high-end shopping plaza our offices were in was cordoned off and traffic around that area was being diverted.

At the time, I was working for George’s youngest son Marvin at a start-up hedge fund. Through this job I had already met a variety of famous people: an ESPN star, an NBA agent, an NFL quarterback. I always figured it was a possibility that Dad (now less than two years removed from the Presidency) would show up to the office one day. And I sort of tried to figure out how I would handle that moment. Now, I was really having to figure it out. I decided to take a passive approach thinking he was here to see his son and there was no reason for me to pursue an interaction. If one happened, I decided to keep it simple and basic with some kind of, “It’s an honor to meet you sir.”

And then it happened. HE WALKS INTO MY OFFICE!!! I get out of my chair and walk towards him warily keeping an eye on that Secret Service agent outside my door. He smiled, stuck out his hand and said, “Hi. I’m George Bush.”

Seriously?

The just recently most powerful person in the world casually introduced himself as if we were meeting at a networking event?

At this point all my preparation went out the window. Making matters worse was the fact that I’d seen him on TV so much that he looked familiar. And he was less physically imposing than my fantasy of what a leader of the free world was supposed to look like. And he sticks out his hand and says, “Hi. I’m George Bush.”

My response? I shook his hand and said, “Howya doin’?”

OMG, Ray. You just said what to George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States?

“Howya doin’?” Seriously????

And much to my delight, it went uphill from there. A congressman recently said about him, “He was kind. He gave everyone a smile, a handshake and respect.” That was exactly what I experienced. He didn’t treat me like he was President of the United States. And because of his totally disarming manner, I didn’t feel like I had to treat him like he was, either. We ended up having a delightful conversation in my office, two strangers getting to know one another – albeit with the Secret Service guy standing outside the door.

Moreover, he honored my request to sign something personal to me. What that thing is doesn’t matter and as a memento of that day, it’s taken on a new meaning for me, anyway.

R.I.P. Mr. President.

Going Outside Your Frame of Reference

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Ray

I like to begin leadership agility classes with the following exercise. I ask small groups to work together to identify the different items that have experienced the changes in the table below. About half of the time, the groups make an interesting but flawed assumption – they believe that the data refers only to their industry.

What Is It?	2000	2010	2017
	100 million	2 billion	4.5 billion
	$10	6 cents	3 cents
	2.7	18	42
	17 million	188 million	1.24 billion
	12 million/month	247 million/month	781 million/month

A frame of reference is “the overall context in which a problem or situation is placed, viewed, or interpreted. A too-narrow frame may leave out critical factors, whereas a too-broad frame may include many irrelevant distractions.”[1] In the cases I described, the groups had a too-narrow frame of reference.

The ability to choose an appropriate frame of reference is a key leadership agility skill, especially as it relates to two specific competencies: context-setting agility and creative agility. Context setting agility involves determining the optimal scope of an initiative as well as seeing connections “outside the box” of one’s specific function, company or industry. Creative agility requires thinking outside of habitual assumptions.

The challenge that we all face when it comes to frame of reference is our immediate tendency to take what Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) calls an “inside view” where we solve problems and make decisions by searching for evidence within our specific circumstances and our own experiences. This kind of thinking will be extremely problematic in the Fourth Industrial Revolution where new ways of doing things are being merged from different industries and technologies at unprecedented speeds and dramatically changing the ways in which all work is being done. The ability to agilely shift contexts and think with creativity will significantly enhance leadership responsiveness in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Unfortunately, as much as organizations strive to overcome “business as usual”, operate outside of “silos” and to encourage “out of the box” thinking, the inside view is a problematic bias as the pervasiveness of these phrases (and my exercise) will attest. It’s quite natural to solve problems and make decisions based on what we know. However, in doing so we are failing to account for what Donald Rumsfeld called the “unknown unknowns”.

So how does one take an outside view? In terms of researching a problem, one way to take an outside view is to look for data that contains information outside of your own thinking and: 1) don’t discount it; 2) consider how it might be relevant.

In terms of collaborating with others, outside view thinking means to move from “What?” to “What else?”. In other words, you must challenge your initial conclusions about “what” you think something is and then consider “what else” it could be. A good initial “what else” question is what would a person with a different frame of reference see? To move from an inside view or frame of reference to an outside view/frame of reference, one must be intentional about questioning initial assumptions and encourage the expression of multiple viewpoints. This ability to shift contexts agilely among multiple frames of reference without being attached to any single frame allows for a perspective outside of conventional “wisdom” and makes it easier to be more creatively agile.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will require new approaches to new and complex problems. In order to combat the tendency of inside view thinking, we must hold our frames of reference loosely, while going outside our frames to question the sufficiency of our own knowledge and experiences.

Oh. The answers to the table? Here they are.

What Is It?	2000	2010	2017
Daily Google Searches	100 million	2 billion	4.5 billion
Hard Drive Storage $/GB	$10	6 cents	3 cents
Weekly Hours Online	2.7	18	42
Websites	17 million	188 million	1.24 billion
Text Messages, U.S.	12 million/month	247 million/month	781 million/month

__________________________________________

[1] http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/frame-of-reference.html

Keys to Success in The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Posted on August 28, 2018 by Ray

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will reinvent work and the workplace. Even as “machines” and devices do more and more, those tasks that are non-automated will require people to be more connected and work more collaboratively than ever.

The successful team will be made up of people who:

Learn, share and connect ideas.
Build good relationships with colleagues and stakeholders, inside and outside their organizations.
Are able to work productively and agilely across multiple boundaries whether they be functional, industry, governmental and/or national.
Fundamentally understand that the impact of technology on society is not just about consumers and producers but that it is also about driving progress and not just profits.

Given this, leadership in The Fourth Industrial Revolution will have to be evolve. Leaders will be required to:

Be co-creators rather than innovators.
Be empathetic collaborators rather than forceful commanders.
Be humane and emotionally intelligent.

The following article articulates some of the trials and successes that NASA has had in being challenged “to be more agile, think differently, buy smarter and develop more efficiently”: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-change-agents-bringing-tradition-bound-nasa-into-the-future/2018/08/24/626e6f02-a646-11e8-a656-943eefab5daf_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7ebecabf3e56

Get Ready for The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Posted on August 1, 2018 by Ray

The first post of an occasional series.

Imagine you’re heading home from work in your driverless car while scrolling through emails on the touchscreen dashboard. As you digest thoughts from your global team that has never met in person, you feel a pang of hunger and so you say, “Order takeout.” You audibly choose from a list of recent orders that appears on your dashboard from your favorite restaurant. Your voice is transmitted and recognized by the restaurant’s automated order system which includes GPS that determines how long it will be until you arrive at home. That system will set the timing for robots to prepare the food and for drones to deliver it within minutes of your arrival to your house. The garage door will open after doing a retinal scan as your car approaches it. That scan will also open the door to the house, send instructions to turn the TV on to your regular channel and direct the refrigerator to pour a draft of your favorite ale.

This imaginative story – where you didn’t interact with a single other person – is far-fetched only to the degree that it is probably not far-out enough. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is on the horizon and it will change our relationships to the world, life, work and each other in fundamental and far-reaching ways.

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam to power automated machinery. The Second Industrial Revolution used electricity to power communication and mass production assembly lines. The Third Industrial Revolution used the internet and digital information technology to connect people and production in unprecedented ways. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution [4IR] is emerging out of the Third with a boundaryless convergence of physical, biological, digital and social realms. The speed (exponential acceleration), scope (global magnitude) and systemic impact (production, management and governance) of the developments and innovations we will be subjected to during this revolution will be unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before.

My interests in the 4IR are in how it will impact people in the workplace – whatever “workplace” will come to mean – in terms of how they will lead, follow and collaborate to produce results within their organizations. The increased dependency on machines will mean less direct interaction with other people. Paradoxically, I believe that the quality of our relationships, communication and collaboration will need to increase. Whatever changes occur in terms of how we work together, our contacts with each other will need to be more productive, constructive and efficient so that the output from our less frequent interactions will be maximized. This will heighten the requirement for people skills in the workplace.

The 4IR will also bring a need to be proactive and purposeful about balancing economic concerns with social, human and cultural concerns. Through interdependent empathy and stewardship, organizations must seek to do well for all by doing good for all. The challenge we face in this regard is that technological capabilities are moving faster than our moral and ethical systems to govern them. The current debate over the ability to make guns with 3-D printers is a cogent case in point for our inability to coalesce around common values to govern this application of technology. We are about to be confronted by many more such clashes between innovation and collective stewardship.

The 4IR is bringing technology into every aspect of what it means to be human. There is virtually no way to predict what this will look like. But what it means for us as co-creators of this future is that we will need to be progressively more mindful, creative and intentional about the ways in which we lead, follow and collaborate with each other.

A Picture Says 222 Words

Posted on June 22, 2018 by Ray

While it is true that great teams often have great talent, it’s also true that great talent doesn’t always produce great teams. How that talent works together is key.

This picture from the recent NBA Championship instantly became a viral internet meme. In it are three certain future Hall of Fame players on the Golden State Warriors who would eventually win the championship. Draymond Green and Steph Curry are cheering Kevin Durant after he made a big shot near the end of a game. The picture immediately spoke to me about teamwork in the following ways:

Reservation and exhilaration can and should co-exist.
Seriousness and playfulness and should can co-exist.
Celebrate the successes of those you work with.
As a superstar contributor, can your talents be appreciated (or do others find you intimidating)?
As a superstar contributor, can you celebrate when others are in the limelight?
It’s OK to have some teammates who are quietly self-confident and others who are enthusiastic supporters.

Not in the picture is another team member who also is a certain future Hall of Famer. About this teammate, the coach says: “He’s not low-maintenance. He’s no-maintenance.”

Every team needs some contributors who are no-maintenance.

Rather than be preoccupied with who should be on their teams, leaders should be more concerned with how their teams can work effectively together.

Book Review: The Leaders We Need: And What Makes Us Follow

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Ray

The one irrefutable definition of a leader is someone that people follow. And right from the words WE and US in its title, there is the hint that this book on leadership is different. It completely flips the script on typical leadership how-tos by focusing on the people following rather than the one doing the leading.

This expansive and insightful book asks two critical questions: why do people choose to follow someone; and how do they follow them? The answers to both questions are surprising in that techniques are less important than context. In other words, a leader’s style may be out of step with their followers’ needs given the times; and a leader’s style may cause others to follow in ways that are inconsistent with the disruptive and unstable nature of today’s organizational environments.

Dr. Maccoby is a brilliant mind and innovative thinker who draws on decades of psychological and anthropological experience from around the world to provide leaders with an understanding of their followers’ attitudes to work and leadership, i.e. how people become socialized and motivated to succeed in a particular environment. Together with his co-author Tim Scudder, they offer a unique perspective that focuses on how people relate to each other in the workplace. A critical part of that perspective is the need for the development of Personality Intelligence, the ability to understand and collaborate with people, an increasingly necessary skill in today’s globally connected world.

This is an important and necessary book that is a goldmine of useful ideas and concepts. It is applicable to every leader in any organization. With so many organizations wrestling with the question of what makes effective leaders, The Leaders We Need and What Makes Us Follow answers that by asking a different question – what motivates someone to be an effective follower?

You can purchase the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-We-Need-Makes-Follow/dp/193262712X/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Seven Resolutions to Be Like Santa

Posted on December 28, 2017 by Ray

Are you resolving to be a better leader in 2018? If so, where do you begin in deciding what to do in the coming year? A Google search of “leadership books” produces an overwhelming 45 million results. And yet, pretty much all we need to know on that subject is embodied in one, very familiar person who has produced results year after year for, well, centuries – Santa Claus. Relying on three brief but classic pieces of literature on Santa – Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and A Visit from St. Nicholas (“The Night Before Christmas”), here are seven ways to be as consistently successful as Santa in the new year.

Santa is disciplined: “He’s making a list, He’s checking it twice” . . .

. . . and holds others accountable: “He knows when you’ve been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake!”

Santa confidently gives clear direction: “To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

Santa shows support by giving name-specific encouragement which lets you know he’s counting on you: “And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: “Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen!”

Santa is inclusive and empowering: When the team “never let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games”, Santa recognized his unique qualities and asked him, “Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”

Santa – Ho! Ho! Ho! – laughs: “He laughed . . . a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him.” Emotions are contagious and research shows that positive affect increases intuition, creativity, resilience to adversity and happiness. No wonder Santa’s team of elves are so productive! Santa inspires a can-do attitude in others by spreading positivity.

Santa has a legendary track record of success. So why don’t you resolve to be more like Santa in 2018?

Ray Linder

Helping People Who Work Together, Work Together Better