Archive for May, 2009

The Future of Work

I was excited when I saw the cover story of Time magazines May 25, 2009 issue. “The Future of Work: Throw away the briefcase …” As I read the enclosed series of articles, my excitement waned. This was old news!

Some of the topics they did cover that I agree are an integral part of future work include:

• Doing what you want instead of following a standardized path: career customization
• More high-end talent and less commodity-type folks
• Returning professionalism to business schools (ya think?!)
• The inevitability of age diversity in the workplace
• Women’s transformational leadership style – engaged, motivational, more collaborative, less hierarchical
• Creating employee freedom as a compelling business strategy – work flexibility is key to a flexible workforce
• Green jobs – working on things and in ways that sustain the planet
• Collaborative decision making with culturally diverse people
• The end of perks like health care coverage and retirement
• The end of the career ladder
• The end of the cubicle life – telecommuting is a way to save

Yawn. Yawn. Yawn! All of this is true, and where are the new edgy ideas? I wanted to see something much more inspiring …

For example, I say:

The future of work is about asking the right questions, not about having the right answers.

Like:

• How do we thrive in constant change?
• How do we create less hierarchical and more collaborative groups?
• How do we work with people who are culturally different than us and love it?
• How do we create systems and structures that are more fluid, that support a more fluid workplace?
• How do we develop skills that allow us to be flexible, adaptable, and open?
• How do we create people and businesses that are more healthy and sustainable?
• How do we create a sense of safety and security when traditional ways of doing this are crumbling?
• How do we shift from standard career paths to personally customized careers?
• How do we work in more personally satisfying ways, while at the same time discovering ways to better serve others?

I could go on. And I’m wondering:

What questions do you have about the future of your work?

What answers do you have to some of these questions?

What do you find inspiring when you think about the future of your work?

I don’t know about you, but I can bend, fold and twist the truth like a cabin steward on a cruise ship folds and twists towels into those little animals they leave in your cabin each day. You never know if you’ll find a swan or a monkey, but the finished product is sure to be cute and bear little resemblance to the utilitarian, pure form it started as.

The difference between twisting the truth and twisting a towel is that the outcome of the former isn’t nearly as adorable, especially when we accessorize with blame and judgment of ourselves and others.

How do you know when you’re twisting the truth? How do you get back to it?

• Our bodies always let us know when our thoughts, words or actions aren’t aligned with what we really want or with being our best self. You may have an unsettled feeling in your stomach, restlessness, a fluttering in your chest, sweaty palms.

Take a moment to notice how your body feels the next time you’re saying ‘Yes’ when you’d rather say ‘No, thank you!’ The more you pay attention to what your body is telling you, the easier it gets to hear it (and choose what you really want).

• Your sentences include words like can’t, always, never, should or shouldn’t. The use of those words is a sure sign you’re placing blame or judgment on yourself, someone else, or a situation: “I’m always disorganized so I can’t run my own business from home!”

The more factual and self-loving truth is “I tend to lose track of things when I don’t use a system; what tools and processes work with my unique style to stay organized?” Using phrases like ‘I tend to’ and ‘Right now’ allow you to be an objective observer of your patterns and allow space for options.

• You make the problem about someone else. Confession: I turned into a Coach Gone Wild when I shared the uninvited ‘observation’ with my significant other that he doesn’t use the words “thank you” very often (luckily it wasn’t captured on video!). I’d wanted extra appreciation and that felt ‘needy’ so I was afraid to ask for it.

Embrace your wants without judgment! The real truth is I want to be appreciated, complimented, and generally adored (by myself and others).

Use the tips above to reframe the truths that you’ve been twisting.

You may have heard the saying that, “the truth hurts.” I won’t dispute that sometimes the truth can hurt, but I propose that the truth doesn’t hurt so much as it heals.

I want to take a different approach toward telling the truth that starts with telling the truth about you to you. I’m talking about your internal dialogue with respect to what you believe to be true about yourself.

• Have you done or said something you regretted only to blame yourself for being stupid or insensitive?
• Do you hide your greatness and not tell the truth about who you are and what you have to offer?
• Is it easier for you to forgive everyone else, but for yourself there’s an extra dose of blame and judgment?
• Have you found yourself embellishing the truth to receive or deflect attention and then later regretted it?

When you don’t tell the truth about yourself to yourself, you deny your own brilliance and diminish your power in the world.  Some people might think that how they feel about themselves comes from others, but it’s actually coming from inside themselves. They are essentially disengaged from themselves, if you can imagine such a thing.

In order to increase your internal truth-telling, imagine having a different conversation with yourself so that you can release your brilliance into the world and begin to see yourself as others see you – wise, beautiful, intelligent, interesting, witty, loving, kind, giving, and so on. As thoughts come into your mind that you are bad, stupid, lazy, mean, or not good enough, gently silence those thoughts with the truth of who you really are, no matter what the circumstances may be or what other people say.

Perhaps you did make a mistake. Big deal! Give yourself a break and recognize that you’re more relatable to others because you are human.

Perhaps you embellished the truth; you now know that you don’t need to do that. Many people will love you for who you are, not who you want them to think you are.

Discover a healing salve for your heart, mind, body and spirit that releases you from the bondage of lies, deceit, and embellishment. That healing salve is having a truthful conversation with yourself first, revealing the best of who you are (no need for blame or judgment).

There are some wonderful benefits to being outrageously honest with ourselves and others about what we want. Here are some of my favorites:

• Learning increases.
  The gap between reality and what we want is the playground of learning. The farther I allow my wants to venture ‘out there,’ the more I can expect to learn.
• Energy moves.
  As long as I hold my wants in check, I’m reining in my life-force energy. Be honest about my wants and my energy has a place to move.
• Creativity ignites.
  Desire for something I want is fuel for my imagination. Once my imagination is engaged, I can see beyond the obstacles of today.
• Focus emerges.
  Experimenting with my wants allows me to better discern what I like and experience new realities. Then I can focus on what feels good and right to me.
• Trust builds.
  When we’re honest with ourselves and others we can be trusted. When we’re not, we become controlling, manipulative, passive aggressive: untrustworthy.
• Relationships grow.
  Honest truth telling is the glue of a healthy, growing relationship. Our truths and wants evolve and grow as we do, and connect us more deeply to others.

I see people holding back the truth about their wants for many reasons. Here are just a few:

• “I don’t have time to deal with this.”
• “People just can’t always get what they want.”
• “I’ve got too many things on my plate already.”
• “If I got what I really want I’d be spoiled.”
• “What I want is not possible, it’s not happening.”
• “I can’t have what I want because of him/her.”

All of these reasons come from an external focus, from ‘reasons’ outside of us. Shift our focus internally, and a whole other world of possibilities opens up!

Remember the IAM Touchstone I Come First as a way to shift from that external focus to an internal focus. The easiest way to do this is to ask ourselves the question:

What do I really, really want?

We can tell the truth about what we want and thus create the benefits listed above.

We can tell the truth about the ‘reasons we can’t’ and, well, that would be true too.

It’s simply a matter of focus. So how about telling the truth about what you want, like never before?

Here’s a challenge: share 10 things that you want here, and inspire others to do the same. Continue everyday for a month!

A former counseling client emailed me to help her mediate a conflict with her mother. They’d been trying to work through things for months and seemed to hit a wall. The desired result was to get past the conflict so their relationship could improve.

I believe it takes skill, finesse, resilience, a healthy self-esteem, and objectivity to be really effective in conflict resolution. When things become personalized, objectivity can go out the window. When conflicts arise between family members, close personal relationship and friendships, things can become painful, uncomfortable, and scary.

Common situations that lead to conflict:

• The Blame Game
  Finger pointing, accusations, buck passing, using excuses, defending, and explaining are all ways people deny taking 100% responsibility for what they create in their life. In a conflict situation, questions to ask yourself are, “What was my role in this creation?” What were my beliefs? Intentions? Expectations? Behaviors? that contributed to this situation?”
• Judgments and Self-Criticism
  People aren’t who we want them to be. We’re unhappy with ourselves. Things aren’t the way we want them to be. Inner turmoil and struggle creates stress, anger, frustration. We all want to be unconditionally loved and accepted for who we are. Practicing compassion, tolerance and love for each other’s humanness (and ourselves), invites happiness, inner peace, and offers healing and growth opportunities.
• Stuffing things for too long
  Sitting on something that is simmering will eventually start to boil and lead to a blow up. I’m an advocate for clearing things up as soon as possible. Withholding upset creates a gap in a relationship that widens the longer a person remains silent. One of the keys to clearing things up in a healthy way is the ability to hear another without personalizing.

When both parties can be in an objective space, having a conversation using these 4 opening statements can be a useful Model in conflict resolution. Notice the intentional omission of any accusations or blaming language?

In this model, YOU take full responsibility for your experience, interpretation and reaction as well as what you need to bring the experience to peace within yourself. To be the most effective, let go of any attachment to what you want or need the other people to do or be. This is critical to offset high expectations.

1. This is what happened (from your perspective).
2. This is how I felt about it at the time (taking full responsibility for your reactions, interpretations, assumptions, feelings…)
3. This is how it affected me (taking full responsibility to what happened as a result of how you felt, what changes might have occurred…..)
4. This is what I want from you now (which might be nothing, you needed them to hear you, you want an apology…) Understand that what you want might be offered. Be prepared for your request to be denied.

These steps can be very therapeutic regardless of the result because it creates an opportunity to have a conversation where both people can express what happened, show up for themselves and be heard. Being able to show up and hear things that might be upsetting by remaining compassionately detached and present is a skill that takes lots of practice and high self-esteem.

Mutual respect, compassion, accountability, strong self-esteem, good communications skills and the willingness to grow as a person are key ingredients to having more successfull conflict resolutions that build trust and safety in any relationship.

Finally – seek help if you need it. Sometimes we are just too close to the situation and need a third-party to help move things forward.

I have been looking forward to writing on this topic because I have come to crave having people around me who tell me the truth.  I want folks around me, in my life, who are direct and are willing to tell me what they are really thinking.  I’m especially craving this after moving from the East Coast to Minnesota.

Minnesotans have a lot of great qualities but direct-ness is not high on the list.  It’s difficult for them.  They want to please and not hurt feelings so they often end up telling you what they think you want to hear rather than what they really think.

In my retreat community last fall I was trying to explain to them (a group of Minnesotans) my strong desire for those in my life to tell the truth.  I told them that I hold a strong value to be honest, to speak the truth.  One of them spoke up then and said in a quiet, humble way “whose truth do you mean?”  It stopped me cold.  They were right.  It’s not about “THE” truth, it’s about “MY” truth.  And everyone has their truth, their perspective.

If we request this of each other – this truth telling – it means being confronted with the fact that we each have a different perspective.  It presents an opportunity to listen to each other more deeply, try to understand what each other’s truth is.

So, is there such thing as “THE” truth?  Well, yes if it is about a fact.  Like “No, I didn’t take out the garbage last night.”  But I don’t think there is such as thing as “THE” truth when it comes to a perspective or opinion.  Yet, I do still believe (and crave) those around me to share with me their truth.  Bring that on.

P.S. This is shorter than usual because I have been helping with my brand new days old niece!