For some time, you have been aware of a manager who is underperforming or of a situation involving disruptive personality conflicts. You may have several initiatives in place to address what has now become a critical issue. And still you end up thinking, over analyzing, even talking about it – yet with little forward movement. The problem is consuming too much time, energy, and consideration, yet remains unresolved. You need to maximize your people’s talent and leverage their resources and it is time to recognize that help is required to achieve the desired results.
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“For results, resources must go to opportunities, not to problems” – Peter Druker.

I work with individuals who are directly responsible for influencing the well-being of large numbers of people, recently: three CEOs, the next generation of a rather large company, a Management Coach, two senior VPs – an Engineer and the International Manager of a shipping company.

I work with a communication model I call Mindfulness Based Communication in which clients and I develop an understanding of the significance of empathy. This includes a measure of compassion for themselves, their family/personal life, everyone in their business life and for the operations of their business responsibilities.
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I work with individuals who carry a great deal of responsibility for other people. As of late, they are individuals who run or own mid-size companies.

Typically, I become involved after they realize that life is pulling them into a whole new meaning structure. Something is occurring that disrupts their familiar and “comfortable,” existence to such a degree that they are compelled to seek my assistance. Things have become “critical.” Usually, it is not really about life or death, but it feels that way. I often hear, “I can not go on like this.”
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What’s your favorite part of a typical day?
Getting to work. I’m alert and awake, and there’s a whole stretch of time ahead of me.

What skill would you most like to improve?
Evaluating people when I first meet them. I’ve always had a tendency to be much more optimistic about people than I should be. I’d like to be a little shrewder.

What makes for a good salesperson of your product?
Passion about what we’re creating.
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Integrative growth within an organization depends on a process that recognizes that all voices have a place, are of value and need to be heard and that the longevity of the company depends on all of these voices, large and small.

Process

Begin today to develop discussions around how to allow and encourage the individual and the collective voices.

Links

Zades, Stephen H. (2003, September).  Creativity regained: Robert Redford’s theories of innovative growth changed the movie business, and they can change yours, too.  Inc. pp. 61-68.

“It was a slow economy my first year with the company, 2002, I was way under quota, and you know how you get. I would’ve typed up a formal proposal and delivered it personally to a mom-and-pop store for a $500 sale. I was calling on everyone. I looked at my territory, and right in the middle is MegaStore X.

I thought, what the hell. I called five or six times. I couldn’t get through, but I kept calling. Then one day out of the blue I get this call – it’s MegaStore X on the line. The purchasing agent tells me she wants a price. So-o-o I asked, “Help me understand what the – ‘and she cut in, “I just want a price.’ I tried again, ‘Okay, but describe the problem your current supp – ‘and she cut me off again, ‘Are you going to give me a price or not?’ I said, ‘Yes, ma’am. I will be there tomorrow.’
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If we stop for a moment prior to just one communication we make today, we could ask ourselves; “what outcome am I after with this person?” With this simple consideration, we bring consciousness to our intention, and shift the locus of control from the external to the internal. As we proceed with the communication, and pay close attention to how the other person is receiving our words and behaviors, we adjust accordingly and shape the communication toward our intended conclusion. Bandler was perhaps the first to articulate this lesson from Milton Erikson, one of the most accomplished communicators of the last century: ”The meaning of your communication is the response that you get. If you can notice that you are not getting what you want, Change what you’re doing. But in order to notice that, you have to clearly distinguish between what you are getting from the outside, and how you are interpreting that material in a complex manner at the unconscious level, contributing to it by your own internal state.” (Bandler and Grinder, 1979, p.61)

Take a moment to reflect on all of your communications today. Notice your intention, but believe in the results you are getting. If you are not satisfied with the outcome, do anything differently. Be willing to adjust to achieve your goals.

Bandler, Richard and Grinder, John.  (1979). In John O. Stevens(Ed.).  Frogs into Princes:  Neuro-Linguistic Programming.  Moab, UT:  Real People Press.

Contemplative Collaboration is one of the tools I utilize when working with groups. This approach to facilitating the collaborative process involves a significant increase of the participant’s consciousness and includes the full range of human sensory awareness: Feelings, sensations, sounds, ideas, patterns – both positive and negative -emerge in a field of perception and are sustained for long periods of time. Holding open this field of awareness, reveals deep and often hidden potential that is cloaked in the comfort zone of normal group functioning.

How this context of receptivity is achieved, involves the cultivation of ancient methodologies for opening awareness to specific mental faculties of concentration, mindfulness, compassion and empathy. These qualities of individual attention inform the psycho-social context and maintains a climate of incubation allowing impulses and ideas to emerge. Not only does the individual hold and facilitate his or her own ideas and impulses – he or she is guided to remain open to the ideas and impulses of the other participants in an environmental consciousness.

Two reasons innovations fail:

1) “[There is} a failure to let ideas grow . . . Ideas are like plants - the seeds don't look much like the final flower, and need time and nurturing to blossom. If there's no incubator in an organization, there's no way for new seeds to develop, and therefore, not much innovation is going to happen.
2) [There is] an unwillingness to take risks. ”
(Perfetti, Christine. July 26, 2007. Debunking the Myths of Innovation: An Interview with Scott Berkun )

While working with senior management over the past years, one quality of leadership emerges as an absolute necessity for successful communication and organizational well-being: empathy. I define empathy as: a capacity to experience the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of other people while simultaneously differentiating one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This quality or capacity is something that many people naturally possess. However, under the stress of running an organization, over long periods of time, necessity often trumps propriety. What is responsible for successful development of the organization – cooperative effort – is moved to the background and “efficiency” and controls in response to the “bottom line” push mutual regard into the shadows.

As this occurs, there is a decrease in human connection and communication resulting in the diminishment of empathy. Eventually, this allows a split to emerge and the fractured parts silo and begin to function independently of the whole. Individuals, departments and teams tend toward functioning in service of their independent objectives often antithetical to the well-being of other departments and the organization as a whole.

The devolution of an organization can be successfully corrected through cultivating empathy as a conscious antidote to organizational dysfunction.