Zugunruhe: Helping great people get [good] things done: Zoog.un.roo.ee

Do you mind holding?

You’ve probably heard this line before when you call some place busy—do you mind waiting a moment? And for short spells, it’s easy to be patient. But when I comes to the long haul, it gets harder and harder to hang on--not just with waiting, but with any long-term project. So how do folks who are good at delaying gratification hold on?

Psychologists think that one part of the answer may be in what they term “cooling the hot stimulus.” In the famous marshmallow test, kids who were able to wait for the bigger prize instead of snatching the smaller one tried to distract themselves from the very present temptation of immediate gratification. This ability to productively distraction one’s self accesses the higher, more thoughtful parts of the brain. These areas of the brain are thought to be “cooler,” as in less liable to give in to impulses. People who are good at cooling the hot stimulus turn out to be better at working toward long-term goals, too.

Not only does being able to cool yourself down and act more rationally help you to stave off short-term temptations but raising the stakes by making a promise to someone about something you’ll do works even better. Research by Yale economics professor Dean Karlan, shows that people who stake their money or their reputation are far more likely to succeed when tackling a difficult goal.

Next time you’re thinking about a long-term goal like quitting smoking, losing weight, or sticking to a budget, give some thought to getting an accountability partner. You might try something like Stickk which allows you to make your commitment, raise the stakes by putting some “skin the game,” and then track your progress with the help of a “referee.” If you need a more hands-on sort of help, hiring a coach might do the trick.

No matter what approach you choose, learning how to stay cool will yield lots of rewards. Give it a try!

Why wait?

Here’s the deal. In front of you is a prize—something you’re really like to have—like an iPod, say. If you want, you can take the iPod and walk away, right now, no strings attached. But if you are willing to wait a while, you’ll get the iPod and a laptop. Can you wait? What would you do?

This sounds like a very simple test of your patience but your reaction to such a test tells much more about you that you might imagine. It’s my hypothetical version of the a test conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel. Mischel conducted his experiment with little kids and marshmallows. The children who were willing to wait and get a bigger prize (in his test, more marshmallows) turned out to be better at all sorts of other waiting games, too. Like social skills, being reliable, academic achievement, even performance on standardized tests. And 40 years later, the now-grown up kids who were good at staying the course for more marshmallows later on are still achieving more than their less patient peers. Now, with the help of high-tech brain scans, neuroscientists are learning what makes these folks tick.

It turns out that your ability to clearly imagine a future payoff may be the key. When your brain processes a situation that involves delaying gratification, it accesses your anterior prefrontal cortex. This section of your brain is responsible for things like keeping track of your goals and aspirations as well as solving problems that require some imagination. If you’re able to clearly imagine using that laptop, say, and how helpful it’ll be in your everyday life, then you might be better at waiting for it and working toward it over the long haul.

Eating my own dog food –or- Why we teach what we most need to learn

There seems to be some sort of natural law that governs the timing of events. As soon as I start thinking and writing about feedback—giving and receiving it—I get the chance to practice what I preach. As a result, I’ve done a bit more thinking about difficult conversations that normal. I spent quite a bit of time journaling about this over the weekend and what follows are basically my own instructions to myself. I thought I’d share these thoughts with you in the hopes that you’ll find something helpful for those times when you, too, might need to eat your own dog food, so to speak.

Focus on what, when, how questions. This means you’ll be forming open-ended questions that can’t be answered with yes or no. It also means you’ll avoid asking why. People often don’t know why; if asked, they’ll come up with some reason or start to feel defensive as they’re backing into a corner. Navigate via curiosity; it works better than interrogating.

Don’t get lost in the story—yours or theirs. Everyone is prone to make meaning and everyone wants to tell a story that backs up their interpretation of what’s going on. If you find yourself listening to long, rambling rationalizations (internally or from someone else), it’s advisable to gently intrude.

Gently intrude and get to a bottom-line. It might sound like this: “Sorry to interrupt, but may I press pause for a moment? In one or two sentences, what’s the most important thing I should know?”

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Don’t add value. Don’t make excuses, offer explanations, or come up with solutions. Just don’t. This is another form of not getting lost in the story. It’s also a form of not listening.

Finally, don’t overwork. By not overworking, I mean don’t try too hard. Seek to respond instead of react. Seek to show, not tell. Listen. Be present.

Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I go set my table—I got some of my own dog food to eat today.

Promise or Commit: the real difference between winners and losers

"Losers make promises they often break. Winners make commitments they always keep."—Denis Waitley

A while back, I was chatting with a prospect. In the course of our conversation I asked him, “How reliable are you at keeping commitments?” He hung his head, which spoke far louder than words. Nothing more needed to be said; I already knew his answer.

Tension is created from dissonance between what’s been promised and expectation. If you are reliable and you tell someone you’ll do something, there’s no tension. If there is doubt, however, then there is a mismatch. Uncertainty enters the picture. In essence, there is some expectation that the promise won’t be kept. Promises don’t have to be explicit for this sort of tension to occur.

Take, for instance, when someone is leading a team. You get a flurry of emails about setting up a meeting; you reply with your availability. Then nothing happens. No meeting is set up. The whole thing is suspended in mid-air and you don’t know why. Feel the tension? It’s not just about keeping or breaking promises. It’s about being reliable.

Reliability is what you make possible when you get your trusted system in place to capture your appointments, projects, and next actions. Reliability is what you set the stage for when you implement a process for capturing next actions. Reliability is what you move toward when you review your system regularly.

Ultimately, however, reliability is created by your mindset. It’s your attitude toward yourself, your colleagues, family, and anyone else with whom you make commitments. If you believe that you’re not reliable, that you don’t follow through, that things you should do often slip through the cracks—guess what—then you’re in tension. You quickly communicate that sense of uncertainty to everyone around you, creating stress and discord.

Reliability starts with a firmness of spirit, an internal steeliness of will that says, ‘I will follow through.’ Recently I heard someone say, “I am a very committed guy.” What I think he meant by that was that he is reliable. That sense of reliability then allows him to trust himself. His internal sense of trust leads to calmness. Instead of tension, he experiences a sense of flow: capturing items to his trusted system, reviewing regularly, and smoothly following through.

In the end, what separates winning and losing isn’t the difference between a promise and a commitment. Losers create uncertainty and tension. Winners personify reliability and composure.

Incentives de-motivate

You may remember a recent post I wrote about the four stages of motivation. The idea is that motivation to do something ranges from forced to, through should, choice, and finally, doing things because of your own intrinsic desire to do them. It turns out there’s an interesting connection between where rewards come from and the degree of motivation people feel.

When people do things for fun, like solving puzzles, the reward is internal. In fact, the doing itself is the reward. But just try paying the person for doing the exact same thing, and lo—the play starts to feel like work and motivation evaporates. Or more to the point, motivation backslides from want-to into have-to or should.

The link seems to be in the externalization bit. As reward becomes more external, the motivation goes with it. When reward is intrinsic, so is motivation and the desire to engage increases.

If you’ve been struggling with motivation, this may come as good news. By finding ways to internalize rewards for things you do (that is, letting the doing itself be rewarding), you may be able to shift your motivation from external to internal and from have-to to want-to.

Infectious Leadership

The summer reading spree continues. At the moment, I’m about half-way through D. Michael Abrashoff’s engaging book on leadership: It’s Your Ship: Management techniques from the best damn ship in the Navy.

Abrashoff’s book is packed with great anecdotes from his naval career and tenure as Captain aboard the USS Benfold. Abrashoff writes well and his book is a quick read. But his messages about leadership are profound and worthy of reflection. In his chapter entitled “Lead by Example,” there is a section called, “Never Forget your Effect on People.” What Abrashoff means by that is that leaders must be mindful of the fact that their moods and behaviors don’t just affect people, a leader’s temperament infects people around them as well.

Actually, you don’t have to be exposed to someone in a leadership position to experience how a person’s view on the world can sour or sweeten your day. I saw an example of this myself while hiking a few days ago. At an intersection in the trail, I met a man who has a lot of anger and fear toward dogs—to prove it, he carries a piece of pipe when he’s out hiking. My two dogs have good trail manners, so I was able to keep them out of his path, but his aggressive, ugly manner was so evident that I got infected by it. As soon as I realized what had happened, I stopped, took a few deep breaths, and recovered my equanimity.

If a chance, 30 second encounter with a stranger can run your blood pressure up, just think about what it’s like to work with a manager or boss who carries a figurative weapon into every conversation. His or her mood can ruin not just one day, but every day. Leaders set the tone wherever they go.

Abrashoff rightly points out that no one can be cheerful and positive every day of the week. Frankly, I don’t want to be a Pollyanna. But if I’m feeling really gloomy or grouchy, I know better than to schedule conversations about sensitive matters. It’s one thing to be authentic and speak with integrity and quite another to be a wet blanket. I think back to a conversation I had with a fellow Duct Tape Marketing coach a while back. I was having a hard time and was feeling really pessimistic. There’s little doubt in my mind that I pulled this person down by exposing my bad attitude. I can’t take the conversation back, but I learned from it. And the lesson I learned is to keep that crap to myself.

In the end, it’s not hard to exercise leadership. We all do—every single day. Every interaction you have, whether with your subordinates, fellow employees, or your family, can be an exercise in leadership. You can be positive or you can choose to be negative. Your comments can be constructive or destructive. When you’re having a bad day (or week or month), you can drag someone down right along with you by pulling them into your dark mood.

What kind of leader will you be? The kind that creates great relationships and fosters success? Or the other kind? You get to decide. Like Captain Abrashoff says, it’s your ship.

Getting self-motivated

…[Take] responsibility for your choice; if you're going to do something at all, then get behind it; don't waffle, don't be ambivalent about it.—Kennon Sheldon

On Wednesday, I wrote about the four stages of motivation: made to, have to choose to, want to. In essence, the four stages move from lack of self-motivation to complete self-motivation.

Many of my clients come to me for coaching because they feel over-committed. Often, I’m working with highly intelligent people who have equally high aspirations. These are folks who thrive on accomplishment. And because they’re so gifted at accomplishing things, they get lots of opportunities to accomplish more. In no time at all, these high achievers have taken on lots and lots of commitments. At some point, reality hits and—poof!—over-commitment is followed by overwhelm, like a ton of bricks.

When you’re overwhelmed and feeling very over-committed, the stuff you’ve taken on can often start to feel like have-to, should, ought-to—and maybe even, made-to or forced-to. In other words, things you took on by choice or from your own desire to do well, be helpful, or excel, starts to slide down to the lower levels of motivation. I’ve found this happens to me—I put items on my next-actions lists and then look at them later and think, “I should do this,” or “I have to get this done” while feeling enormous resistance to the whole idea of taking on the task.

When you meet the Great Wall of Resistance, one thing you can do is remind yourself why you put the task on the list in the first place. Take, for instance, bookkeeping for my business. I really, really, really resist bookkeeping tasks. However, these tasks are vital to the well-being of my business. They are definitely have-to’s but the original motivation was from a want-to: I want to own my own business. Viewing a much disliked next action from the perspective of the bigger motivation picture helps move the next action out of have-to and into choose-to—at least some of the time.

As you hit those patches of resistance, give your larger perspective some thought. What’s really going on? Are you really being forced to take an action? Or have you allowed your motivation to slip from want-to to something less self-generated? I think you’ll find that you have more control over your motivation than you realize and that when you deliberately plant your motivation in choose-to, wanting-to and a sense of fulfillment from your actions is not far behind.

What motivates you?

During the summer when there is lots of sunlight, and my brain gets flooded with serotonin, I often go on learning sprees. I am a confessed book-aholic so my knowledge binges often result in trips to bookstores and the library. I come back with armloads of books which get stacked around my favorite reading nest. The smorgasbord means lots of tasting and before I know it, I’ve got two or three books going at once (not simultaneously, however!). One of the books in my current rotation is A Life Worth Living: Contributions to positive psychology.

A Life Worth Living is chock-full of good stuff but one piece that really got my attention described stages of motivation. The author, Kennon Sheldon, describes what I’ve come to see as a continuum of motivation.

• External: someone is making you

When someone has an external locus of control, they see their life and its events as being done to them rather than by them. External motivation is similar in that actions are undertaken, not from a sense of desire, but rather because someone else says you must. After thinking about this a bit, it would seem that someone could have an external motivation (“my parents are making me go to college”) but still be exercising a choice to cooperate, even if not a fully conscious choice.

• Introjected: you are compelled by a sense of obligation

The word introjected means an internalization of authority. It’s the incorporation of attitudes (from other people) into your unconscious mind. In this context, it’s internalizing the external motivation; that is, the someone that is “making you” do something is now residing in your own head. In short, introjected motivation is the should’s, ought to’s, and have to’s—the things we take on not because we want to, but because we think we have no other choice.

• Identified: you are choosing of your own volition

In this stage of motivation, you are aware of making a choice and thus, experience a more internalized locus of control. Actions are undertaken not because someone else tells you to, or you “should,” but rather because you see your action as one among other alternatives and options. Just because you choose to do something, however, you motivation may not arise from a real desire.

• Intrinsic: you want to

Finally, in what Sheldon considers the most mature form of motivation, you act because the action is one you really, genuinely want to undertake. This is where passion, meaning, and purpose might enter the equation. As I watched the Olympic trials and Wimbleton last week, I wondered if most (if not all) of the athletes were acting from intrinsic motivation. An example of intrinsic motivation might be the high diver who goes to the pool every day even when his or her competitive days are done.

In explaining the stages of motivation, Sheldon says, “...the more you have internalized [the motivation for] your behavior, the more mature you are in doing it.” Think of it this way: as a kid, you had chores. You had to walk the family dog—mom made you. As you got older and left home, you kept walking your dog because you knew you were supposed to. No one forced you to, but it was something you “had” to do. At some point, you may have come to realize that not everyone takes their dogs for walks. At that point, you kept walking your dog because you were choosing to. Finally, you may have reached intrinsic motivation—you love taking your dog out for walks and do so in all sorts of weather because you really, genuinely enjoy walking the dog.

I’ve found thinking about motivation as a continuum to be very intriguing. It’s got me to examine my own reasons for doing what I do. When I feel a sense of resistance over something on my list of next-actions, I’m looking to see if there is a should or a have-to popping up. I’m asking myself how (or if) I can modify my motivations. Can I move myself from introjected to internalized to intrinsic? I’ll keep you posted.

The Awesome Power of Habit

"The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, 'I won't count this time!' Well, he may not count it, and a kind of Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out."—William James

You may have heard somewhere that your computer’s hard drive still contains, in some form, everything it ever contained. That is, nothing is ever truly erased. Technically, that may not be true for your computer’s hard drive, but for your brain, it may well be true that everything that’s ever happened to you and everything you’ve ever done is stored in there somewhere.

James (who is the father of modern psychology) argued that when we are behaving badly, we damange our ability to behave well. We create, in effect, a habit of weakness, a disruption of will. And like any other habit, copping out can get ingrained in us to the point that we don’t follow through on our aspirations.

A while back, I had the privilege of listening to an interview of Dean Acheson with David Allen of GTD fame. One thing Dean said that really stuck with me is that if you let all those little next-actions sit around long enough, and tell yourself over and over that you don’t have time for them, it has a weakening effect on your mind. It’s a form of telling yourself, over and over, this doesn’t count. But your brain is keeping score.

There is a growing mountain of evidence to back up what William James wrote over 100 years ago. Every time you tell yourself that what you’re doing doesn’t matter all that much, your brain takes your message very seriously and have profound effects on what you can and will do next. In the words of William James, "We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar."

Unleash the power of full engagement

During my recent travels, I spent a lot of time on airplanes (let me quickly digress, by a lot, I mean I did two monster round-trips to—literally—opposite sides of the planet). To keep myself sane and entertained, I listened to bunches of podcasts. One of the most thought-provoking was this episode. In short, the idea is that the primary obstacle that most people face is that they hold back.

Holding back means not giving everything you have. What might that look like? Think of the last time you told yourself not to get your hopes up and you probably have a good idea of what it means to hold back. Anytime you find yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop, you’re probably holding back. Got talents you’re not using, even though the opportunity is there? That’s holding back. But so what? Does holding back hurt anything?

When you hold back, what you’re telling yourself is that all those activities aren’t worth your full effort. If you hold back long enough and often enough, it gets to be a habit. It’s like you’re saving yourself for something. But what is it you’re saving yourself for? Something that’s worth your effort? And what might that be?

One thing I know for sure is that everything counts. Every tiny step brings you closer to success. And who knows which step will be the one that really puts you into supercharged momentum? The only way to give yourself a shot is to be fully engaged. If you can’t bring yourself to participate fully, maybe—just maybe—you shouldn’t be doing it at all. I mean, really, if you’re not going to give something your real effort, why waste your time?

On the other hand, if you are serious about moving forward, being productive, realizing your dreams, then live like you mean it. The next time you feel yourself pulling back, reserving your time and talents, ask yourself: what am I saving myself for? If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing fully or not at all.