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Recall from our ‘From Good To Great Communication Part 1 Article the distinction made by Ron Heifetz from Harvard between adding new skills or techniques to the same “skills bucket” (Informative learning) vs. re-shaping/expanding the ‘container’ (Transformative learning).

The way we describe this to our clients is to picture going to the latest communications skills workshop where you acquire important knowledge on “active listening”, for instance.  This is great but then when you return to the office, you are still the same person.  You haven’t acquired the capacity to implement the “new way” of communicating.  People grasp this challenge very easily because they have experienced the distinction first-hand.

So let’s expand on the personal capacities needed to communicate in a “new way” that we first outlined in a previous article … which you are not likely to receive from a communication skills workshop.

1.  Patience — the ability not to interrupt, especially when you disagree with what is being said

Many might view patience as a virtue that can’t be cultivated.  However, in our communication example here the focus is on that particular capacity not to interrupt  “especially when you disagree” with what you are hearing and/or in the way it is being communicated…

As I’m sure you have experienced yourself, one of the hardest tests of patience is feeling that “blood boiling” point when you just have to jump in to correct the other person, set them straight, or at the very least show them that they are wrong!  This temptation gets only stronger when the person(s) is obviously acting out of complete ignorance or is politically motivated to push their agenda/opinion.

Typical response:  You jump in and match or exceed their tone/delivery to make YOUR point of disagreement penetrate as quickly and sharply as possible.  Drawing from your experience with such encounters, notice what typically happens at this point.  Your aggressive response will in turn produce a further aggressive posture in the other person.  The battle ground is now, in an instant, fully formed and alive with sparks flying back and forth.

Is this exemplary leadership?  No.        Does it happen frequently?  Yes.

2.  Open and receptive mind — not thinking about what you will say next as you are pretending to listen ; in Zen circles, this is called listening with “an empty cup”

This capacity is about genuinely listening to understand the other person’s point of view.   This requires you to be attentive without judging what you are hearing in the moment.  It means listening with a ‘quiet’ mind with adequate ‘space’ for the information to sink into.  Contrast this with an active mind saying: “I can’t believe what I’m hearing … this is ridiculous … there s/he goes again…”   This inner voice dialogue then immediately tries to come up with what you will counter before that person is finished.  In fact, you have stopped listening at this point and are now actively focusing on your response: who cares what else s/he is saying?

A major self-check to see if you are listening with an open and receptive mind:

1. • At the end of your listening, do you understand both what is being said as well as where the person is coming from?  That is, how are they viewing this situation/point such that they are taking this view and are delivering it this way?
   • To what extent can you accurately repeat back everything they have just said?
   • To what extent do you know how much you have missed or didn’t quite understand and can pin-point what you wish to clarify?

3.  Presence – genuine interest in the other person right here right now without losing focus

Similar to Point 2 above, are you maintaining clear focus and a genuine interest in the other person in this very moment … fresh … without judgment … as though you were talking to this person for the first time?  This requires curiosity and openness on your part.   Versus the voice in your head that says: “I’ve heard this before … I see what s/he is trying to do … this is a waste of time … I’m gonna put a stop to this right now”.

The key to staying present is being mindful of any triggers that pop up as the other person is speaking (not to mention the trigger(s) leading up to the exchange).   From a place of awareness, let  the triggers arise (there is no point in denying them) without allowing them to draw you out of ‘receive’ mode… without letting the trigger be the master and you the slave.

4.  “Open/Receptive” body posture – what is your body language saying such that communication is impacted positively

I recall many first meetings with clients who wanted/needed to improve their communication capacities.  They would sit in what I refer to as a “closed” posture.  They often sat at an angle with one shoulder pointing toward me as well as looking down with their chest collapsed inward.  I just knew that, if it wasn’t so obvious, they would have preferred to have their arms crossed too.  Instead, their legs were crossed!

An open posture is when your shoulders are not drawn forward and you are not “hunched over”, you are ‘square’ to the other person, your chest is open and slightly forward, you are not ‘fidgety’ and you are looking at the person with attention and curiosity.

One of the biggest benefits for these clients was getting them to realize a) the difference between “open” vs. “closed” posture, b) their existing body posture, c) the impact of posture on their ability to more effectively engage/communicate.

5.  Emotional capacity — How is your energy level being maintained throughout?  What cues are you sending out?  What cues are you receiving from others?  How can this awareness cultivate the quality of the exchange?

Have you noticed how some people seem to maintain an even keel even when pressed aggressively by the other person(s)?   You might want to jump up and scream whereas these people are not phased at all in the face of the same situation/exchange.

As you know, emotional awareness has been described over the past decade as Emotional Intelligence (EQ) by Dan Goleman.  More recently, Social Intelligence (SQ) has been added as important.  Further to this, I refer to the capacity to feel into your energy flow moment by moment as well as the energy flow of others (e.g, people in a meeting room).  People with high Emotional Capacity can ‘feel’ how everyone is doing as they enter the meeting room.   They are keenly aware of what cues their energy is sending out and they are able to receive and process the energy of others.  Can you imagine what kind of positive impact this could have on a leader’s ability to establish deep connections with others?   How about their ability to inspire others because they are able to decipher where they are at?  What piques their interest?  What others are passionate about?  Etc.

How about you?  What cues are you sending out in your communication exchanges?  What are you able to pick up from others?  What are some of the things you can easily work on to radically improve your Emotional Capacity?

Cultivating These Capacities

As I’m sure you have noticed in the above summary, these personal capacities are all integrated and important to one another.  For example, it is difficult to cultivate patience without also working at becoming more mindfully present through practice work that enables a more open and receptive mind, body and heart.  Cultivating a more open/receptive body posture can be a great starting point for developing emotional maturity for some people.  For others, a different starting point may be more appropriate.

Something You Can Try On Your Own:

In each of your personal exchanges over the next week,

1.  Pay attention to the extent to which your posture is generally ‘closed’ vs. ‘open’.  Make a conscious effort to maintain an open posture when you engage with others as well as when you sit at your desk and when you walk to-and-from meetings.
2. Also, when you are about to engage in a conversation with someone, consciously inhale once slowly into the abdomen and exhale.  View this as you being “ready” to engage openly and without pre-judgement.

See if you notice a difference in the quality of your listening/exchanges after you have been following this practice for a few days to a week.

Good simple sources:

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzler (2002)

Practicing The Sacred Art of Listening: A Guide To Enrich Your Relationships and Kindle Your Spiritual Life, Kay Lindhal (2009)

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal talks on Zen meditation and practice, Shunryu Zuzuki, (1970)

Joseph Zepedeo, M.Sc. , Certified Integral Master Coach™

Founder and President of The Integral Business Leadership Group, Joseph  has over 30 years of experience as a consultant and executive coach bringing about transformational change and development at the individual, team and organizational levels.

He is adept at working with complex challenges, leading teams, consensus building and developing creative yet pragmatic solutions for lasting results. As a highly skilled Executive Coach, Joseph is passionate about helping people make the shift to a new way of leading for peak performance.

He has been described as “an extremely intuitive, insightful and skilled coach. His ability to be fully present, to listen deeply, and to guide the process with compassion and respect, creates a safe environment where real transformation can take place”.  Connect with Joseph on LinkedIn, Via email or Twitter.

“To inspire performance rather than manage performance, we must give people something they can believe in”

The Management Innovation Exchange (MIX): Getting Performance Without Performance Management, November 2012 (www.managementexchange.com)

 Typical Client Consultation Exchange – I recall a number of consultations with clients over the years to do with performance management (improvement).  One in particular that comes to mind is with an executive who was puzzled about why their organization was under-achieving despite paying above-market salaries and providing excellent working conditions.  After a brief exchange, the client pointed to their performance management process impressing upon me that they had invested a good deal of time and money following best practices.  Indeed, they had made some significant changes such as conducting performance reviews quarterly instead of yearly and had sharpened how goals were defined with accountability indicators, etc.  Yet, much to the amazement of this executive, performance was stagnant.

The above scenario/result is not uncommon and can be described as “Performance Management 1.0” characteristic of setting goals, monitoring, evaluating and rewarding performance.  This involves dreaded performance reviews conducted by managers who hate conflict that are based on an assessment of whether performance targets are reached.  Typically the process/programs are designed top-down in an effort to “manage” (control) behaviour/performance.

To be clear, my focus in this article is not to highlight bad performance management processes (although as we know there are plenty of those to go around).  Rather, I wish to draw attention, based on my experience and also informed by the November 2012 Management Exchange piece I reference above, that even the best-in-class performance management processes (of which there are also many), have become an old and tired management technology in need of redesign if not re-invention.  Organizations need to include business priorities typical of the Management 1.0 world of Performance Management yet transcend these to include a people focus to align with 21^st Century workplace values.  It is a “both/and” proposition.

The MIX article received contributions from business leaders, managers and professionals from around the world on the future of performance management and in particular on the question of “How can we get great performance without performance management?”  One of the key observations/conclusions was:

“Competent and intelligent employees want to be led, not managed.  The job of managers should be to create the conditions that allow great performance to take place.  This usually means they should lead more and manage less.” (p.4)

A New Definition of Performance Management

Re-inventing Performance Management in accordance with a Management 2.0 world starts with the label itself. It turns out that in today’s workplace, performance “management” is read as “If we want good performance, we must manage you”.  So MIX contributors submitted a number of new labels to replace “Performance Management”.  Of those, Performance Coaching, Performance Engagement and Performance Enabling resonate most with me.  I feel that these put the focus squarely on the need to create enabling conditions for a culture of high performance based on individual and organizational purpose, values & priorities.

Inspiring A High Performance Culture

The MIX review found that any strategy to replace performance management should take into account several key themes that will align with a Management 2.0 workplace environment.  These are:

• A Deep Commitment to Purpose.  Employees need a compelling reason to dedicate themselves fully to their role, team & organization.  In essence, each employee needs to be able to answer “why am I here?”; “what is my fit?”; “how am I being allowed to contribute in ways that matter to me?”; “what do we stand for?”; “where are we going?”.  The organization will need to provide compelling answers to these fundamental questions.  To do so means inspiring people towards higher performance and the performance of the entire organization will soar.
  

•  Greater Employee Autonomy.  In 21^st Century organizations, greater performance often is associated with delegating responsibilities for accomplishing outcomes rather than prescriptive procedures and policies underlying a command-and-control approach.  People need to feel a sense of freedom to initiate change and try new things without fear of punishment for making mistakes. This of course does not mean relinquishing accountability for results; rather it is more of an opening to workforce intelligence and a healthy yielding to the desire to contribute in a more self-directed manner. 
  

• An Open, Collaborative Culture.  Most organizations control information in a way that the most (strategic) information is available in the executive suite and this dwindles down to very specific operational procedures and tasks by the time it reaches the front-line ranks.  At that time, essentially “you do what you are told and what the job calls for”.  Sounds rather regressive, you say!  Take an honest look in your own organization.  To what extent does your organization have an open and collaborative workplace culture—even for matters affecting strategic goals and direction?  Openness inspires how people work together to drive performance; organizations that develop goals collaboratively inspire collective action towards a common purpose.
  

• Ongoing Dialogue & Feedack.   We have come a long way from once-a-year performance reviews.  Yet what is still lacking is a top-of-mind ongoing dialogue and feedback as a continuous performance-enhancing conversation between employees and manager(s).  This enables real-time adjustments when things get off course.  Further, these conversations are not just meant to be about the employee’s performance indicators but also more holistically about how things have been accomplished, the impact made to the organization’s purpose, etc.  This shift will bring about a spirit of oneness and collective reason to why “my performance matters”.
  

• Self-Authoring & Self-Regulating.   The traditional command-and-control approach has typically made performance management a top-down process where performance goals are discussed with employees but not generally co-created in a way that includes wider organizational considerations.  At best, the co-creation dialogue is focused on the specific behaviours/targets that have already been identified by someone else as the “right” ones.  So future performance “enabling” processes should be bottom-up as much as top-down (i.e., collaborative).  More self-authoring and self-regulating allowance should be given to honour, encourage and leverage the creative intelligence that goes largely untapped especially in the workforce of the 21^st Century.
  

• A Desire To Build Capabilities.   “The conventional model of performance management puts too much emphasis on the performance indicators and not enough on the performer …. to inspire great performance, we must nurture it, not just evaluate it”.  (p. 12)  Traditional Performance Management practice has often focused on measuring an individual’s performance by comparing to a set of pre-established goals and performance indicators.  But what would be the impact to the organization if as much effort was spent actually investing in the individual by building his/her performance capacities?  What would this supportive commitment do for morale, engagement, initiative, turn-over and productivity?   How might this approach and investment expand the organization’s overall flexibility, adaptability and competitiveness longer-term?
  

This is where the new label of Performance Coaching resonates.  A coaching-based approach to building high-performance in individuals and teams and as a high-achieving corporate culture is being increasingly adopted.  It is proving to be both good business from an ROI point of view as well as a good fit in meeting the values/priorities of today’s workplace.  (Note: We have described and referenced the amazing ROI results in other articles/blogs and so we won’t repeat that information here. Please see www.businessintegral.com/why-conscious-leadership-is-the-new-management-imperative/ for clickable links to some of these studies.)

All told, it is possible and indeed advisable to shift from a focus on Performance “Management” to Performance “Enabling” Processes that are “Coaching”-Based in order to establish a more autonomous high performance culture that is more reliant on solid leadership than strict management.  What is required is a “shift” in leadership mind-set and approach that is more inclusive and collaborative versus a command-and-control style of leadership.  This “shift” is increasingly being adopted in a number of the leading organizations around the world with astounding results.

Are you ready to make the Shift?   

 

Joseph Zepedeo, M.Sc. is founder and President of The Integral Business Leadership Group.  He is an experienced leadership coach and consultant bringing about transformational change and development at the individual, team and organizational levels. As a highly skilled Leadership Coach, Joseph is passionate about helping people make the shift to a new way of leading for peak performance.   He has been described as “an extremely intuitive, insightful and skilled coach”.  Connect with Joseph on LinkedIn, Via emailor Twitter.

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance.  Greatness…is a matter of choice.” – Jim Collins author of From Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap…& Others Don’t

What do current top business leaders of long-standing highly successful companies have  in common?

They all made the shift to a New Way of Leading that takes into account the importance of financial results as well as the way in which those results are produced. They have realized that sustainable success in today’s market is defined by more than short-term profit goals and maximizing shareholder wealth.  This is a necessary but not sufficient condition to sustainable success in a world that is increasingly becoming sensitive to the negative impacts of producing those profits in the first place.  Indeed, it is now a matter of good business for leaders to consider “people, profit and planet” as their management imperative.

This shift is more important today than it has ever been and yet up to now few leaders have been able to answer the call.  And the ripple effects are huge.  How many companies struggle and collapse because of important leadership blind spots that gradually erode opportunities over time?  How many companies have failed because their leaders continued to manage in the same ways that once made them successful?

“Most companies are still dominated by numbers, information and analysis. That makes it much harder to tap into intuition, feelings, and nonlinear thinking – the skills that leaders will need to succeed in the future.” –  Mort Meyerson, Former Chairman, Perot Systems

In today’s modern “creative economy” the industrial management model, where humans tend to be viewed like material resources to command, control and expend, is rapidly giving way to a more evolved business approach where great leadership and a culture of learning and excellence is being created through the pursuit of higher levels of personal mastery and genuine self-actualization at work.

“Let people be their whole selves” — John Mackey, Co-Founder & Former CEO of Wholefoods Markets

It is becoming increasingly clear that, long term, a more virtuous pursuit of excellence achieves more in both our personal and professional lives than an unbridled and short-term pursuit of conventional success.  As it turns out, maximizing shareholder wealth and profit maximization are not the dominant driving forces in most long-lasting financially successful companies.

For instance, Collins and Porras found in Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies that throughout the history of most visionary companies they saw “a core ideology that transcended purely economic considerations”.  In fact, this group of companies performed over 15 times better financially than the general US market from 1926 up to modern times.

Raj Sisodia and co-authors found in Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose that more conscious and purpose-driven companies financially outperformed the market by a 10.5-to-1 ratio (1996-2011).

“The core of leadership is vision. Vision is seeing the potential purpose hidden in the chaos of the moment, but which could bring to birth new possibilities for a person, a company or a nation.” – William van Dusen Wishard

Yet vision alone is not enough.

An increasing body of research shows that the best leaders not only demonstrate commitment to a worthwhile vision, they also have a genuine passion for work, ability to create trusting relationships, can sustainably perform at a high level and maintain a focus on creating results that are aligned with the larger organizational mission. Further, these leaders have realized that conventional KPIs are necessary but not sufficient to inform them about how things are. They also know how to see and interpret the intangible and immeasurable. These are skills that take genuine experience, practice and demand higher degrees of awareness and maturity.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs

 “We need to develop the art of being sensitive, intuitive and attuned enough to understand what is happening in the organization.” — John Mackey, Whole Foods Markets Co-founder and Former CEO

Another recent 20-year research project on organizational effectiveness surveying over a million individuals from a broad range of companies and countries undertaken by the Gallup Organization empirically demonstrated that what the most talented employees want and what keeps them retained is found in a leadership culture where they are being seen, valued, are able to grow and develop, experience genuine relationships at work and are encouraged to do what they do best every day.

“Part of my job as a leader is to empower the people that are working with me to unleash their creativity, their ideas, their passions in order for us to jointly serve the purpose of Whole Foods Market.” – John Mackey, Whole Foods

We observe that today’s top leaders are beginning to make this shift.  A shift that is gaining momentum.  We hear more top leaders say that management’s number one business priority is to populate the company with as many great leaders as possible. Based on the latest research on leadership development and our own experience the personal capacities this kind of leader must develop points to something which can best be described as a more Conscious Leader.

Fred Kofman, doctorate in economics from the University of Berkeley, teacher of the year at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and author of Conscious Business: How To Build Value Through Values states that conscious leaders are shifting from unconscious attitudes, behaviors  and reactions to conscious attitudes, behaviors and reactions. For this to happen the leader must grow in the capacity to both be aware of what habitual patterns are limiting their performance AND their power of choice to take new constructive action (breaking old patterns, building new ones and taking unconditional responsibility).

According to Kofman, the conscious leader shows genuine responsibility, integrity, humility, honest communication, win-win negotiation skills, outstanding ability to collaborate with others, greater self-awareness and high levels of emotional mastery.

Jim Collins in Good-To-Great pointed to similar qualities in what he described as “Level 5” leadership; further, he believes that people can evolve to become “Level 5” leaders.  Joiner & Josephs, in Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery, refer to these leaders as “Synergistc” and state that: “we believe that these capacities … represent the cutting edge of leadership development for the 21^st Century”.

Having made the shift, there are a growing number of leaders who are  making mindful leadership and corporate cultural evolution a key priority in their organizations. For example, to sharpen their performance, Google and General Mills created an in-house program in meditation and mindfulness, John Mackey is consciously pursued a corporate culture geared towards individual self-realization and transformational change and companies like Zappos  cultivated values such as personal growth, happiness and learning as essential to achieving lasting business success.  Others have since followed in these footsteps.

If we look at the common threads of these approaches and philosophies, we see that they are pointing towards a shift in leadership that is increasingly engaging the ‘mind, heart and soul’ of people to produce amazing results.

“I believe the highest leverage can be gained by focusing on culture. I also believe that the strongest determinant of an effective, healthy culture is conscious leadership. Developing consciousness in its top managers is the most efficient way for an organization to improve.” – Fred Kofman

We agree that Conscious Leadership is the new master competency to handle today’s complex business challenges in a world that is increasingly demanding “doing well by doing good”.

“The Zen Master would say that profits are what happen when you do everything else right.”  — Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia Founder

“I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community.  I want something not just to invest in.  I want something to believe in.” – Anita Roddick, the Body Shop Founder

Is this kind of leadership coaching only for CEO’s or top executive leaders?  No.  We believe anyone who manages people has leadership responsibility whether they are aware of it or not. Leadership is simply put the way in which a manager manages. An increasing wealth of research shows that the best managers are also great leaders.  Therein lies the developmental opportunity to “populate the organization with great leaders”–as some top leaders have already urged.

So what is the measurable value in developing the leadership capacities described here?

While the following data are based on more conventional coaching approaches, they none-the-less serve to exemplify the power of leadership coaching in general.

For instance, a global study conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Associated Resources Center concluded that the mean ROI for companies investing in coaching was 7 times the initial investment, with over a quarter reporting an ROI of 10 to 49 times  [ICF Global Coaching Study 2009]

The value of leadership coaching is echoed by Eric Schmidt, former chairman and CEO of Google, who says his “best advice to new CEOs is to have a coach”.  [Financial Post, 2012]

Another study quoted in FastCompany focusing on Leadership Coaching found that 43% of CEOs and 71% of the senior executive team had worked with a coach and that 63% of organizations say they plan to increase their use of coaching.  Most telling, 92% of leaders being coached say they plan to use a coach again. Both indicate strong endorsements of coaching; the first by the organizations paying the bills, and the second by the leaders who are actually receiving coaching.  [FastCompany, 2006]

General Mills reported that among experienced leaders participating in their four-day Cultivating Leadership Presence course:

• 80 percent reported a positive change in their ability to make better decisions with more clarity.
• 89 percent reported enhanced listening capabilities – to themselves and to others.

Seeing the benefits of this program, more than 30 different organizations sent leaders from around the world to the program that began with General Mills leaders. They have also become very popular not only for the benefits they have created at work, but also for improving participants’ personal lives.

In another study on executive coaching ROI, a large employer in the hospitality industry saved between $30 million and $60 million by coaching its top 200 executives. (Chemistry Business magazine, “The Case for Executive Coaching,” November 2002 International Coach Federation and “Analysis of the 1999 Survey on Coaching in Corporate America”, November 22, 1999)

Are you ready to make the Shift?   We are here to help.

Joseph Zepedeo, M.Sc. , Certified Integral Master  Coach™

Founder and President of The Integral Business Leadership Group, Joseph has over 30 years of experience as a consultant and executive coach bringing about transformational change and development at the individual, team and organizational levels.

He is adept at working with complex challenges, leading teams, consensus building and developing creative yet pragmatic solutions for lasting results. As a highly skilled Executive Coach, Joseph is passionate about helping people make the shift to a new way of leading for peak performance.

He has been described as “an extremely intuitive, insightful and skilled coach. His ability to be fully present, to listen deeply, and to guide the process with compassion and respect, creates a safe environment where real transformation can take place”. Connect with Joseph on LinkedIn, Via email or Twitter.

[Please note that this is the first of a two-part article — click here for link to Part 2…]

Have you ever experienced an amazing communicator?  Perhaps a leader of a game-changing company, a gifted professor or how about an inspiring world leader?  What did it feel like?  Beyond being informed, how were you moved such that you are able to remember it to this day?

I have wanted to write about this for some time.  Because I am reminded regularly about what the best communicators offer that training programs on the subject simply can’t offer.  To be clear, I am not talking down good communication programs.  Indeed, they may offer a valuable set of skills to those that need them.  So they have real value.  I am focusing on something more than new skills or techniques which are added to the tool kit.  This is what Robert Kegan and Ron Heifetz, Harvard Professors, refer to as “adding to the skills bucket”.   Heifetz makes the distinction between Informative learning where new skills are added to the same ‘container’ versus Transformative learning that is developmental and serves to re-shape and expand the size of the container.

The way we describe this to our clients is to picture going to the latest communications workshop where you acquire sharp new skills such as active listening and letting the person finish before you start talking.  This is great but then when you return to the office, you are still the same person.  You haven’t acquired the capacity to implement the “new way” of communicating.  People grasp this challenge very easily because they have experienced the distinction first-hand.

So let’s take this example of learning how to listen to the other person without interrupting.  Let the other person speak; then, when they are finished, you take your turn and the transaction is completed.   This is not only common courtesy; it is obviously an effective way to exchange views without chaos, especially when multiple people are involved.   You know this too well if you have ever been with people who are always interrupting before you finish your thought.  As trivial as this way of communicating seems, what are some of the personal capacities it actually requires … which you are not likely to receive from a skills workshop?

How about:

• Patience — the ability not to interrupt, especially when you disagree with what is being said
• Open and receptive mind — not thinking about what you will say next as you are pretending to listen ; in Zen circles, this is called listening with “an empty cup”
• Presence – genuine interest in the other person right here right now without losing focus
• “Open/Receptive” body posture – what is your body language saying such that communication is impacted positively
• Emotional capacity — How is your energy level being maintained throughout?  What cues are you sending out?  What cues are you receiving from others?  How can this awareness cultivate the quality of the exchange?

So it turns out that the above simple example in what I call “Transactional” communication is actually quite involved in so far as the capacities that you, the person, needs to develop so as to be able to communicate effectively in this way.

… next time, we will compare Transactional communication with “We Space” communication which I believe raises the bar and gets closer to understanding how the great communicators do it.

Good simple sources:

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzler (2002)

Practicing The Sacred Art of Listening: A Guide To Enrich Your Relationships and Kindle Your Spiritual Life, Kay Lindhal (2009)

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” – Anais Nin

“The more you know, the more you realize you know nothing.” – Socrates

I watched a TED talk with Kathryn Schulz about how most of us will do virtually anything to avoid being wrong. Schulz, the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, lays a case for not just admitting but embracing our fallibility.

Fear around being wrong tends to resonate with all of us and what’s fascinating is that wherever fear is present, a defense of the mind – self-deception – is also present. In our personal lives, self-deception can lead to divorce and job loss. In politics, it can lead to war. In the business world, it can tank companies or even the entire economy.

I’d like to focus on self-deception and explore why systematically overcoming it in organizations and in leaders may be the biggest business opportunity today. Evidently, I am not alone in holding this belief; Google’s “Search Inside Yourself” program seems to follow a similar logic, focusing on building capacity in mindfulness training and self-awareness.

From a business perspective, the big opportunity lies in being able to deal with the fact that self-deception is so widespread and costly. Consider the companies that have suffered financially or even collapsed because of a “big assumption” or “false belief” about how things work or should be. Think about all the leaders you have encountered who have refused to see clearly, no matter what information was presented that countered their beliefs. Few business leaders have the support or capacity – or are willing to take the perceived risk – of shining the light on their own blind spots, and businesses pay a huge price for this across all organizational elements.

The main challenge for leaders is the same as it is for everyone: overcoming the mother of all blind spots…thinking you don’t have any! I think this mind trap may be especially common for many business leaders due to the perception that they are, based on conventional terms of validation, already “successful.” Come to think of it, I haven’t met a single business leader – or person, for that matter – who doesn’t suffer from this fallacy to some degree (myself included!).

Again, the ramifications of this mind trap are immense. The more self-deceived an individual is, the more blurred their vision becomes, leading to increased levels of cynicism, blame-laying and self-victimization, burnout and ultimately to a dearth of innovation and creativity, without which you cannot survive in today’s “creative economy.” More than ever, we need business leaders who challenge beliefs about how things are and what is possible, and who can skillfully discern between limiting and growth-affirming beliefs. It is my prediction that the organizations with the most self-aware and behaviourally-effective leaders will be the big winners of tomorrow.

Seizing the opportunity – What can you do about it right now?

To transform to this new level of performance and learn to “see things as they really are,” you must build capacity in accurate self-assessment, including collecting and receiving objective feedback about yourself as a leader.

Here are a few things you can do to kick start your journey:

1. First, realize that no matter how sharp or successful you are, you simply don’t know everything and suffer from blind spots just like everyone else. Vigilantly pursue what you don’t know rather than look for evidence that confirms what you think you know, as this is how self-deception sustains itself.
2.  Look out for situations where you feel like an innocent victim. When you find one, look closely at the ways you may be adding to the problem and thus co-creating it.
3.  Seek outside perspectives through 360 feedback surveys and professional leadership coaching. Don’t accept being left with just a nice 360 report without coaching support to help you interpret the results and define a clear path forward. Without this, you are vulnerable to self-deceptive interpretation of the data. Blind spots by their very nature seek to remain blind!
4.  Practice mindfulness and meditation; the art and science of intentionally paying close attention to “yourself and the way things are” in the present moment in a detached (yet alert) and nonjudgmental way. Mindfulness and meditation practice builds self-awareness, a cornerstone in developing “emotional intelligence,” a crucial component of effective leadership.
5.  Write regularly in a journal. This will help you explore your beliefs in a more objective way.
6.  Observe and listen to others to help you understand them better. Chances are you will learn a lot about yourself and it will develop your ability to more skillfully handle the self-deceptive qualities of others.
7.  Read up about the human mind, common leadership fallacies and human misperceptions. Some great books include:

• Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan
• Conscious Business by Fred Kofman
• Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute
• Immunity To Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey