Katherine’s time management dilemma and the Power of TED

This morning on my way to walk I saw my neighbor Katherine in her signature pink sweat shirt. Both of us were glad to have a company for the walk. The weather was exceptionally nice for a Seattle morning; temperature was on the upper 40’s and the sky was clear with the golden rays of sun sparkling on the 84^th avenue, my usual walking route. After a small talk I asked Katherine how she was doing in making time for the new part time job she started recently.  “I am not there yet, I need to start making some boundaries for all my responsibilities, my work, my children, my parents…” she started. My question just hit the center of her biggest challenge!

“It seems everyone needs me all the time, all of them got so dependent on me” -Katherine sighed. “What feelings come in your mind when they ask for your help?” I asked. “I get an anxiety that they can’t move ahead without me unblocking them and it will stay like this until I do something”. I gave a “really?” look at her face, she read a challenge there, “I don’t know though what is underneath that feeling”- she added. I figured Katherine could use some of the concepts from the Power of TED (incidentally I had been working on that the night before).  I asked, “You might be reacting to that anxious feeling, and as you react, the problem diminishes. As a consequence the anxiety lowers. Does this sound familiar?” Yeah, that sounds like right, Katherine agreed. “What is your fear if you don’t react right away?” Katherine takes a moment to ponder upon my question. “How about, a fear of not being needed” I added – Katherine was quick and honest, “that might be it”, she nodded as her voice sounded deeper as if she was validating it with her internal feelings. With her permission, next few minutes I gave her a short overview of how our usual way of being makes us a “rescuer” for others around us, when we are in the “rescuer” position we see others as helpless, and incapable. In this model the downside is we have to keep “rescuing” as the “poor” helpless ones become more and more dependent on us.  At times we the rescuers feel like a “victim” of all these “responsibilities”. Katherine smiled in agreement but still looked tired.

I asked her, “What would be a different way of helping and supporting those you care?” “I guess I could coach them, ask them what help they need from me, give them mental support assuring that they are capable to solve it on their own”, she utterd introspectively. Wow, Katherine seemed to be my ideal coaching client!  “You know, it makes sense logically but how do I implement this?” she said with a great dilemma in her mind. Being someone in her position only a few years back I had a great empathy for Katherine.  I said, “The answer is ‘Baby step’.  It took you 30-40 years to be this way; it will take a while. Take one small and sustainable step at a time”. At this point I invited Katherine to notice what feeling she was having inside her body. “More relaxed, I am breathing better”, she reported with a genuine wide smile in her face.

We realized it was already time for us to part as we neared Katherine’s house. Katherine thanked me generously for the little walk ‘n talk. I was glad that the TED concepts gave her a starting point and not to mention, felt quite good to have delivered a practice lecture for my upcoming class.

Being an Introvert is not so bad after all!

Have you ever heard an extrovert having a development plan to become quieter or making an effort to have lone time for them? Probably not too often. But if you are an introvert there are tons of feedback for you to come out of your desk, mingle with people, overcome the fears of public speaking, you name it!

Now here is a good news for you (and me). I am reading this article in TIME magazine, The Upside of being an Introvert (and why the extroverts are being overrated); it says it takes both introvert and extrovert to make history.  Introverts have less number of friends but those relationships tend to be deep and rewarding. Introverts tend to think more thoroughly and that is a pre-requisite for smarter decisions, innovation or developing transcendent skill. Believe it or not introverts make great business leaders as they are better listeners, they empower others to act on their own.

A quick way to define Introvert and extrovert is Introverts are exhausted by large parties and social gatherings while extroverts draw energy by being with people. It is important to note that Introversion or extroversion and not binary, it is more of a personality spectrum and many people fall in between.

Our society has a bias towards extroverts, they usually are more successful in their lives. That’s why most introverts learn to fake those extrovert skills in order to fulfill their life demands. Some may find it sad that scientists have found that human’s traits (introversion or extroversion) are fairly inborn and inherited. Hence psychologists advise parents not to push their introvert kids too much as it would do more harm then good.  However, there is a better way of doing it. As Brian Little, a research psychologist and superstar academic lecturer (happens to be an introvert) at Harvard says, if something matters to you a lot, an introvert like you would have enough intrinsic motivation to push that discomfort of being in public.

The most exciting part of this article for me is to know about some introvert people who have made their names in the world history. If people like Moses (yes, the Prophet), Mahatma Gandhi to Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are introverts then I see no reason for me to be shy about my introvert traits!

Reference: TIME article (subscription required)- The Upside Of Being An Introvert (And Why Extroverts Are Overrated)
Susan Cain’s TED Talk: The Power of Introverts

Questions for YOU -What are you taking away from this post? How will you apply this in your life? [please feel free to write that in the comments section.]

Drive – The Surprising truth about what Motivates us

Carrot and stick – reward and punishment- is an age old technique for getting things done by others. The corporate world has adopted this mantra almost as the panacea for employee motivation. But Daniel Pink tells us a different story.  He says, carrot and stick works well only when the task is algorithmic (well defined steps), it loses its effectiveness for tasks that requires even little bit of thinking and creativity.

In today’s world most high-tech jobs have lots of ambiguity and demand lots of creativity in order to perform them well. According to Pink, the employers need to start thinking different ways for motivating these knowledge workers. When an employee gets sufficiently enough money to take care of their lives, additional money (reward) doesn’t help increase the performance. Then what does? Autonomy, Mastery and Contributing to a bigger purpose are the three factors motivate human beings to do their best. Autonomy is the sense that I have control over my work. Mastery means I am learning new things; I am gaining expertise. Contributing to bigger purpose gives people the fulfillment that I am being part of something much more significant, something that makes a difference in the bigger community.

Daniel Pink also sheds some light on why the bi-annual review system doesn’t work as expected – It’s not frequent enough, it talks about the past and it’s not driven by the employee. What is the solution? Give the ownership to the employee. Let them find out how they want to grow (gain mastery); give them autonomy on their performance measurement. If the companies and the employees become too myopic and tie the sense of growth only with promotion and bigger salaries then they will be missing a whole lot of smarter solutions for intrinsic motivation and higher performance!

Here is a link to Daniel Pink’s
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j2aTwNor5k (51 min) and
Book: http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594488843

Questions for YOU -What are you taking away from this post? How will you apply this in your life? [please feel free to write that in the comments section.]

 

 

 

The Silly Brain that makes hasty decisions

Monday morning @8:35AM: My daughter Farheen is supposed to be at her breakfast table 5 minutes ago. She comes downstairs with a long face, “Mommy, my bracelet is missing”. My tension rises, if she doesn’t head out in 10 minutes she will be late for school. My voice is about to go up…, just in time another thought stops me - if I do this now she may be in school on time but I will feel miserable the entire day.  I take a deep breath and assure her that I will see about it if she eats first. As she starts the reluctant bites I tell her a little story that goes like this:

There is a part of our brain called “Amygdala”.  Amygdala is pretty quick in making decisions; it’s all about emergency situations. With very little information it can call an emergency and shuts down everything else so that the person can handle the situation immediately. Its very vital for us when there is a real emergency. Only down side is, many times it’s a false alarm; since the other brain parts like “Hippocampus” is not allowed to think, the person won’t be able to realize that it is not such a big deal. A perfect example is this bracelet situation; just not seeing it in its usual place has made the amygdala jump into the conclusion that the bracelet is lost forever! And hence anything else including getting ready for school has to be postponed before this is resolved.

I take a pause to check on her. Having some food in the stomach, a  sweet, shy smile appears on that little face! Phew, the morning emergency is handled gracefully.

Later in the night Farheen finds a brain sketch in the book by my nightstand and spots the word amygdala. “Hah ha Mommy, it’s that silly brain”, becomes her takeaway of the day (and mine too)!

PS: In the evening when in a much relaxed mood, Farheen actually found the bracelet in another drawer.

Reference: Emotional Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ