Fear of CHANGE

image fear of changeA couple of months ago, I was coaching a client that was struggling to make changes in his work and home life. He was having difficulty focusing on his responsibilities and felt miserably stuck. Everyday was another lesson in futility. From his vantage point, he had no options to change the situation.

 

As an exercise, I suggested that we make a list of all the choices that he had in life. He was to write down every single choice that came to mind, devoid of judgment. I was impressed by his ability to list the different choices that he had, no matter how crazy they seemed. After the list was completed, we went through the choices and took a closer look at each one of them.

 

One by one, we discussed the choices in detail. One by one, he would give me all the reasons why the choice would absolutely never work. I tried to help him see each choice from a fresh perspective, but no matter what I did, he had a whole list of compelling reasons why it would fail.

 

I looked at him for awhile and then I said calmly, “Do you notice that you’ve vehemently explained to me why none of these ideas work when you originally thought these ideas were great? Why do you think that is?”

 

Sometimes we are so scared of trying something new that we will stay in a horrible situation. There are a lot of uncertainties in trying something new. We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. We aren’t sure how things are going to progress. Fear of the unknown causes us to stay exactly where we are. Fear of failure can take ahold of us and rule our life. The truth is that not making a choice and staying stuck is also failing.

 

Change is hard. It’s hard for people and it’s hard for organizations.

 

At some point in your life, you have sat in this very same chair. You have lamented how unhappy you are, yet still aggressively fought the possibility of any change. Fighting the change ensured that you would be safe from failure. Or did it?

 

My suggestion is to make one change. The change doesn’t have to be huge; it just has to be one teeny tiny step that moves you in the direction of your goal. After you have done this, take another tiny step and another. This pushes you out of your paralysis stage and into an action stage.

 

Be honest and recognize that your reasoning for shooting down all your choices is tied up in your fear of what waits on the other side. Accept the emotion and continue to take small incremental steps.

 

Along the way, be sure to remind yourself that the FEAR of FEAR is far worse than the fear itself.

Communication Gap

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][mk_blockquote style=”quote-style” text_size=”20″ align=”left” font_family=”none”]To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. – Tony Robbins[/mk_blockquote][mk_padding_divider size=”20″][mk_dropcaps style=”fancy-style” size=”14″ padding=”10″]R[/mk_dropcaps][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]ecently, I was communicating with a peer over email. We were working on a project that involved massive planning. With each correspondence, I became a little more confused by her responses to my questions. What exactly did she mean by her response? Was she aggravated with something I had said? On my end, I was positive that I was making myself crystal clear. However, after reading and rereading her email it was obvious that her negative tone suggested otherwise. If I was interpreting the message correctly, there was definitely a communication gap between us.

Then my phone rang. It was a fellow colleague that worked with my peer. She wanted to share that my peer was very upset by my rude email. Shocked by this bit of news, I scrolled back through my emails and slowly read each one. I just didn’t get it.

I silently read them and attached the same tone, inflection and meaning that I had originally intended. I still didn’t get it. To me, it looked just fine.

And that was the problem- to me, it looked just fine.[/vc_column_text][mk_padding_divider size=”20″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]I picked up the phone and called my peer directly. At first, she was so upset that she didn’t want to talk. I encouraged her to have a discussion with me. She vented her frustration as I just calmly listened. She went on to explain how she had interpreted my sent message. After patiently listening to her perceptions, I slowly explained my true intent in the email communication. By the end of the conversation, the misunderstanding had been cleared up and we were on the same page.

Did I intend to offend my email recipient? Of course I didn’t. From my perspective, the letter was straightforward and the tone was friendly. However, it certainly wasn’t received that way.

What I failed to take into account was that my email recipient was not me.

Her experiences, worldview and assumptions were far different from my own. Coupled with that was her inability to see my facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures or posture. These definitely would have helped her to better grasp my intended message.

The communication process is complicated. Two people come together with two sets of perceptions, expectations, experiences and world assumptions. To put it simply, two people come from very different places. In addition to this, our current technology for workplace communication makes it even more difficult to correctly evaluate the intended message. This results in ample opportunities for an epic message fail.[/vc_column_text][mk_padding_divider size=”20″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]With all this said, my advice to you is to slow down. Often, in our haste to get tasks accomplished, we fail to pick up on the subtleties that make a huge difference. And when the message is very important, you might want to pick up the phone.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Communication Gap

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][mk_blockquote style=”quote-style” text_size=”20″ align=”left” font_family=”none”]To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. – Tony Robbins[/mk_blockquote][mk_padding_divider size=”20″][mk_dropcaps style=”fancy-style” size=”14″ padding=”10″]R[/mk_dropcaps][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]ecently, I was communicating with a peer over email. We were working on a project that involved massive planning. With each correspondence, I became a little more confused by her responses to my questions. What exactly did she mean by her response? Was she aggravated with something I had said? On my end, I was positive that I was making myself crystal clear. However, after reading and rereading her email it was obvious that her negative tone suggested otherwise. If I was interpreting the message correctly, there was definitely a communication gap between us.

Then my phone rang. It was a fellow colleague that worked with my peer. She wanted to share that my peer was very upset by my rude email. Shocked by this bit of news, I scrolled back through my emails and slowly read each one. I just didn’t get it.

I silently read them and attached the same tone, inflection and meaning that I had originally intended. I still didn’t get it. To me, it looked just fine.

And that was the problem- to me, it looked just fine.[/vc_column_text][mk_padding_divider size=”20″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]I picked up the phone and called my peer directly. At first, she was so upset that she didn’t want to talk. I encouraged her to have a discussion with me. She vented her frustration as I just calmly listened. She went on to explain how she had interpreted my sent message. After patiently listening to her perceptions, I slowly explained my true intent in the email communication. By the end of the conversation, the misunderstanding had been cleared up and we were on the same page.

Did I intend to offend my email recipient? Of course I didn’t. From my perspective, the letter was straightforward and the tone was friendly. However, it certainly wasn’t received that way.

What I failed to take into account was that my email recipient was not me.

Her experiences, worldview and assumptions were far different from my own. Coupled with that was her inability to see my facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures or posture. These definitely would have helped her to better grasp my intended message.

The communication process is complicated. Two people come together with two sets of perceptions, expectations, experiences and world assumptions. To put it simply, two people come from very different places. In addition to this, our current technology for workplace communication makes it even more difficult to correctly evaluate the intended message. This results in ample opportunities for an epic message fail.[/vc_column_text][mk_padding_divider size=”20″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]With all this said, my advice to you is to slow down. Often, in our haste to get tasks accomplished, we fail to pick up on the subtleties that make a huge difference. And when the message is very important, you might want to pick up the phone.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Competing Commitments

image better tug of warHave you ever been frustrated because you can’t seem to accomplish what you want at work or at home? Have you ever struggled to get motivated and fought with yourself about it? If you’ve ever questioned what might be behind this nightmare, maybe I can shed some light. Maybe, just maybe, it’s something called a “competing commitment”.

 

I remember having these feelings at a company I worked at many years ago. I was always a hard worker and took my responsibilities seriously. My passion was creating new projects, designing new programs and seeing them thru to fruition. The boss recognized this and had come up with the perfect program for me to create. It would utilize my talents and would take energy and hard work to make it happen. Yes, this project was tailor made for me. You see, I was a mover and a doer— I loved creating huge programs and seeing them come alive.

 

However, something was wrong. Everyday, I came into my work and accomplished all my responsibilities. And then I would spy that folder on my desk. With all my energy, I would will myself to open the folder and try push myself to work. But I just couldn’t.

 

No matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t get anything accomplished. After a few minutes of staring through the folder, I would quietly close it and put it back in the stack on my desk. I would then stare at the folder on my desk, puzzled by my own behavior. I was stressed and disappointed in my actions. This would happen time and time again.

 

Today, I have a better understanding of my strange behavior. I was applying energy toward a hidden competing commitment. Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey define this as a subconscious hidden goal that conflicts with a person’s stated commitments. In my case, this competing commitment was blocking my path to being productive. If I dug a little deeper to understand my puzzling behavior, I would discover what finishing that project would truly mean to me. The key to better understanding my competing commitment? I needed to look at my values and belief system.

 

There, I would find that I was competing with an important value of mine. I didn’t BELIEVE in the work that I was doing. I didn’t BELIEVE that my work was valued or appreciated by my supervisor. I didn’t BELIEVE that my work made a difference. Therefore, I couldn’t move forward.

 

You see, it was very important to me to be true to my life values. I valued doing work with purpose for people that appreciated my efforts. Finishing this project was competing with this deep need.

 

Sometimes people are not productive at work and have no clue as to what’s standing in their way. All the productivity tips from every expert ever are not going to help this person. The answer to the question does not always lie on the surface. Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to figure things out.

 

Next time you see this type of workplace behavior that seems inexplicable, consider the competing commitment. You just might find your answer.