Want It Done Right Journal 1Q 2008

Feature Article • Delegation Dr Daily Dose • Corner Crack-up • WIDR Products & Services • My Virtual Manager^TM

Each Journal I have invited readers to share a story, ask questions, write an article or provide an idea for an article. Thank you to Kristen Scott who seized the opportunity to write an article for this edition!

Forking Off™!

Taking the High Road to Better

Relationships and a Better Life

The other morning when I woke up my husband was still sleeping. A thought crept into my head, “Hm, maybe I should make him coffee so it’s ready when he gets up.” I brushed the thought off as other, seemingly more important thoughts, replaced it. I never made the coffee (sorry, honey). Later in the day I thought about this little decision I made and realized that all day, every day, we’re faced with forks in the road just like this one. We have a sense of what the good or right thing to do is, yet, we ignore this sense. We brush off these thoughts because it takes too much effort; we don’t feel we have the time or energy to do whatever it is the thought prompts us to do. When we approach these forks in the road, our sense nudges us, whispers to us, what the right thing to do is but we ignore it, choosing instead to stay on our default road; the road that’s more comfortable—Easy Street.

What if, instead of giving us a quiet nudge about which road to take, our sense screamed, “Fork off!”? Would a scream rather than a nudge get our attention? If we heard “Fork off!” every time we reached one of these forks in the road, would we be more likely to take the high road? Forking off™ is an expressive, easy-to-remember phrase that can highlight the road to higher ethical choices. This commanding phrase might force us to stop in our tracks and think before blindly taking Easy Street, the more traveled road. Choosing the high road is powerful, as should be our calling to take it.

In their book, Leadership and Self-Deception, the Arbinger Institute describes how we use self-justifying thoughts to make ourselves feel better about our behavior when we ignore our sense of what we should do. The book outlines how these self-justifying thoughts can turn into feelings that we’re a better person than we are and that the person we didn’t help is a worse person than he is. The Arbinger Institute calls this self-justification the tendency to inflate our virtue while deflating another person’s virtue. In essence we’re saying we’re too busy and important and the other person doesn’t deserve our gesture.

The Arbinger Institute explains how trudging down this road of self-justification causes us to create self-justifying images of ourselves and distorted images of others that can taint our behavior in the future. For example, when I didn’t make coffee for my husband, I may have created a self-justifying image that I’m “too tired to make coffee every morning while he sleeps in” and a distorted image of my husband as not deserving of having coffee made for him. This “too tired” image and “not deserving” image can generalize to other people and situations causing me to ignore requests for help, to load more work onto others, and so on. If I travel further down this self-justification road, I may begin to perpetually see others though a less favorable lens and see myself through a lens of entitlement and inflated virtue. However, if I were to Fork off! and take the high road of making the coffee I would be more inclined to feel good about my behavior and justify my husband as worthy of my time and effort. Rather than spinning into a vicious cycle of a self-justifying inflated virtue and negative views of my husband as undeserving, I would feel content and loving.

Imagine the cumulative impact of little acts of Forking off™ over time! Instead of choosing Easy Street—the road of self-justification, inflating our own virtue while deflating others’ leading to blaming, entitlement, and damaged relationships, we choose the high road—a path of self-responsibility, joyous giving and frequent deposits into our relationship accounts. The best part about Forking off™ is its cumulative benefit to us and those with whom we forge relationships. It’s a method for being a better leader, coach, trainer, teacher, parent and person. Forking off™ can be a catalyst for becoming just what the ground-breaking literature on what makes the most effective leaders and people advises us to become.

Forking off™ is not advice; it’s a megaphone for the advice we already give ourselves. So the next time you face a fork in the road (whether or not to visit your uncle in the hospital, pick up the trash on the side of the road, turn in the wallet you found, or let someone ahead of you in line) allow your sense a louder voice and Fork off!

ATTENTION READERS: Kristen would like your feedback on her article! Specifically she would like to hear your responses to the following questions:

How often would you use the term Forking off™ in your life?

Do you believe Forking off™ would catch on?

Did this article help you think in a new way?

What questions, if any, do you feel are left unanswered after reading this article?
What examples of Forking off™ would you be willing to share from your life?

Please respond to Kristen at forkingoff@gmail.com

About Kristen: Kristen has 10 years experience in leadership development including a research position at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), management consulting with Personnel Decisions International (PDI) and independent consulting. She has helped individuals and organizations build capacity in leadership, influence, performance management and mentoring and has served organizations such as Capital One, Harvard, Maytag and the state of New Hampshire. She has published and presented on "The Necessity of Optimism". Kristen holds an MBA from Central Michigan University and currently works and lives in the Boston area with her husband and two boys.

Corner Crack-up

New Year’s Resolutions

2002: I will read at least 20 good books a year.

2003: I will read at least 10 books a year.
2004: I will read 5 books a year.
2005: I will finish The Pelican Brief
2006: I will read some articles in the newspaper this year.
2007: I will read at least one article this year.
2008: I will finish the comics section this year.

Delegation Doctor’s Daily Dose

In the last Journal I outlined five ways we get in our own way. In this Journal I’ll cover five more of the diverse and creative ways we get in our own way and what to do about it. As a reminder, the last edition outlined the following five:

1. If I want it done right, I have to do it myself.

2. Flying solo.

3. Taking too much responsibility.

4. Negative self-talk.

5. Taking ourselves too seriously.

If you didn’t found any here that applied to you, hooray for you! Let’s see if you can continue cheering. Check the list below:

Overdependence on strengths. We often don’t recognize that our greatest strengths can also be our greatest Achilles’ heel. Not recognizing the point at which our strengths become a weakness leads to overdependence on our strengths and underdevelopment of our weaknesses. The saying, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten” captures this over-reliance on our strengths, even when they no longer work for us. We need to be aware of when we’re doing “too much of a good thing.” To create a better balance we must first identify our weaknesses. If we don’t have a good handle on what they are, asking for candid feedback from people we trust to be honest with us can be very helpful. Once we’ve identified our weak areas we can find ways to either develop or backfill these weaknesses with assistance from others who have strengths in these areas. Efforts to maintain a healthy balance will greatly increase our behavioral flexibility.

Allowing our fears to control our lives. All of us have things we fear. Sometimes these fears are debilitating and cause us to engage in behaviors that bring about the very thing we fear. For example, if a person fears his manager is not happy with his work, he may withdraw or give up trying. Unfortunately withdrawing or giving up would surely make his manager unhappy with his work! And all that fear and worry may be for naught. Maybe the manager simply has other concerns in mind. When we’re in the throes of fear we lose our objectivity. At such times it’s critical to increase our objectivity by either discussing the situation with someone who is objective or with the person who is the object of our fear. Getting more, preferably objective, information can be a big help in disarming the demons of fear.

Not checking out our assumptions. Assumptions happen every minute of every day. They help us assimilate the otherwise overwhelming amount of data constantly bombarding us. Assumptions help us make quick assessments and snap decisions, increasing our expedience. Or so it seems. Split-second assumptions happen so quickly were often unaware we’ve made them until it’s too late. By the time we realize it, we’ve fulfilled that old adage, “You know what happens when you assume!” When we make erroneous assumptions expedience goes out the window, often right along with our pride. If we slowed down just a bit – just enough to increase our awareness of our assumptions so we could check them out before acting – we could avoid many mistakes, hurt feelings and humiliation. Perhaps it’s ironic that slowing down enough to validate our assumptions would actually heighten our expedience and ultimately, our effectiveness.

Taking things too personally. Taking comments and actions personally is unfortunately a far too common problem. In some regards, it is similar to making assumptions. We assume some comment or action was meant for us, or meant as a slight, even when it was not. The problem is compounded when the individual who is taking something personally refuses to validate or invalidate their interpretation. The tendency to personalize is the source of far too many business and personal disruptions. It has a negative impact on relationships and on productivity. It leaves the individual who is personalizing miserable, often for no reason. Two sure cures for personalizing are to check out your interpretation of comments or actions and to develop a thicker skin. If asking people their intentions sounds too intimidating, learn to let things roll off your back. It will make you a happier and healthier person.

Not going for our dreams. Life is short. Time flies. We have only one life, make the best of it. We’ve heard it all before. But what are we doing about it? How many regrets are you willing to live with? It may be difficult to go for our dreams. It will probably involve some level of sacrifice. We tend to look more closely at what the immediate cost will be for us in terms of facing our fears, adjusting our lifestyles, explaining to others, etc. What we may be failing to consider is the long term cost of not going for our dreams. How will we feel in 10 or 20 years when we look back and realize we missed the opportunity? How will you feel about your life if you haven’t fulfilled your dreams? While we may gloss over questions like these while reading them, we probably feel a slight tug or gut reaction to them. This gut reaction gives us a peek into our inner selves where all our answers lie; where we would need to go to answer these questions honestly. As we finish this year and start a new year, let’s take some time to seek these answers within before so many New Years have passed that fulfilling our dreams does become an impossibility.

These are just a few of the many ways in which we get in our own way. Again, if you haven’t found any here that apply to you, I applaud your personal and professional development efforts. If you have any you’d like to share that haven’t been covered, send an email to Donna@WantItDoneRight.com

WIDR

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