The Winner – is always part of the answer;

The Loser – is always part of the problem;

The Winner – always has a program;

The Loser – always has an excuse;

The Winner – says, “Let me do it for you;”

The Loser – says, “That’s not my job;”

The Winner – sees an answer for every problem;

The Loser – sees a problem for every answer;

The Winner – sees a green near every sand trap;

The Loser – sees two or three sand traps near every green;

The Winner – says, “It may be difficult but it’s possible;”

The Loser – says, “It may be possible but it’s too difficult.”

What can you do today to be a winner?

“Feel the feelings and do it anyway”

~ Susan Jeffers

My colleague betrayed himself.

Jim needs spinal surgery and two hip replacements, but he can’t have surgery until he loses over a hundred pounds. Currently he is physically limited, using a walker.

He wanted to be his old self, but he didn’t want to put in the time and effort. Even spinal stenosis didn’t motivate him. He chose to live according to how he “felt” about his weight, his life and his spinal/physical condition.

When a second surgeon delivered the bad news and added two hip surgeries to the picture, the only feelings he reported having were related to dying, living a painful, drug-involved life in a wheelchair, or living well.

Jim wants to walk again. Not “feeling like” making a radical change brought him to face a cavalcade of events: a dramatic and rapid effort to lose weight in order to have three surgeries to alleviate pain and disability.

All of a sudden, “I don’t feel like it” didn’t matter to Jim. He saw the surgeon on Monday, his wife purged their kitchen on Tuesday, they shopped together for proper foods on Wednesday, and a healthy diabetic eating program began on Thursday. “So much for feelings.”

Because Jim didn’t feel like getting on with a better way of life months and years ago, his left hip will endure the aches and pains of bone crunching on bone until an MRI and surgery are viable options.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how we “feel.” We have to do the next right thing, and the next right thing, and the next……

Click here to read the post from the Wall Street Journal:

While I think that there is truth to this article, I hate to see us labeling an entire generation. Yes, they grew up in the time of plenty but we are the one’s who raised them and the social culture we created, propelled them.  We called the Xer’s slackers, and they grew up to be just fine.

The workplace will change over time to meet the needs of these young people. We always have. There are over 70 million of them so I suspect that very soon employers will find a way to inspire them, keep them engaged, and help them find their full potential.

They’ll be just like the rest of us soon – raising children and having the pressures of day-to-reality. Life will give them a crucible experience just like it did us, and in a few years they’ll be just fine too.

There is a lot of conversation about the difference in leadership and management. And when leadership is mentioned, the work inspire usually comes up. That gives us a picture of a charming and powerful leader.

Having worked in the field of Industrial Psych, I administer needs and strengths evaluations as a part of every coaching assignment. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Some managers and even some leaders are just are not able to inspire in the dictionary definition of the word. It’s not that they won’t, they can’t. And that doesn’t mean they won’t develop into good leaders. With self-awareness, and the interest in learning how to build social capital, they can inspire in their own way while being true to who they are.

I work mostly with petroleum engineers, geologists, and financial executives. 

These men and women are straightforward, friendly, and in some cases calm and methodical, and in some cases dynamic. Many don’t have an interest in the persuasive arts. They are direct and just want the job done the best and fastest way possible, yet many have succeeded in executive management where “pulling and guiding” instead of “pushing and controlling” is important. The key is willingness to develop better soft skills.

Non-persuasive leaders and managers can learn to “pull” instead of “push” if they are willing to have an authentic relationship and a true interest in the people they manage. This requires intimacy. To have intimacy with a direct report, they must know their dreams and goals, communicate clearly, often, and demonstrate a desire to help them advance. With that knowledge and a sincere interest in their employee, they can have a huge impact on the bottom line.

John Quincy Adams may have said it best. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more or become more, you are a leader.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

–Dalai Lama

Picture the last time you helped a baby take her first steps.  She stood up, wobbled a bit, and fell.  Her efforts warmed your heart.  You were happy with each of her awkward movements and encouraged her with every emotion in you.  Not once did you say, “Why can’t you walk yet?”  Nor did you say, “Hurry up!” or “You can’t do anything right!”

Yet, how many times in our impatience with ourselves do we berate ourselves with an internal monologue of hostile and negative static?  Do we know how much better we feel when we are encouraging and polite to ourselves?

Treating ourselves with compassion helps us to challenge our own self-criticisms and take compassion into our everyday experiences.

By Jean Maslanka Kelley

If you’re a woman, you may sometimes wonder how your male colleagues can get into a heated discussion during a business meeting, end the meeting with issue unresolved, yet walk out of the room as the best of friends.

And if you’re a man, you may get frustrated when talking with your female co-workers about one topic, and they bring fourteen more topics into the conversation – all of which seem totally unrelated.

We all know that men and women think and act differently, both at work and at home, but knowing there are differences between people is only half the battle. To have successful working relationships with members of the opposite sex, you also have to know why those differences matter and what to do about them. The good news is that with a little insight into men and women, you can overcome the apparent communication and behavioral challenges that plague any workplace and gain greater understanding of each other.

Once Upon a Time… Before we can look forward to a harmonious future, we need to begin by looking back into human evolution. Once upon a time about a million years ago, communities consisted of hunters (men) and gatherers (women). The hunters left every morning and tried to hunt food for the community. The gatherers stayed home and gathered the nuts and berries and made preparations for the food the men would bring back. So as far back as scientists can tell, women and men had different roles, and as a result, their brains developed in different ways.

For example, a man’s brain goes in and out of a rest state all day. Millions of years ago when men sat in trees waiting for their prey, they had to be quiet and disengaged. They didn’t want to scare away their potential dinner. So their brain evolved to learn to engage, disengage, engage, disengage throughout the day.

Women, on the other hand, couldn’t do that. They had to be on high alert all day, protecting themselves and their children as they gathered necessities and tended to the community’s needs. Their brains evolved to be always active.

In fact, if you look at an fMRI (functional MRI) of a man’s brain at rest and a woman’s brain at rest, you’ll see that the woman’s brain is busy and firing everywhere, whereas the man’s brain is quiet. This is not to say that one gender is better than the other; it’s simply an illustration of one of the many differences between men and women and how it evolved.

So what else is different from a brain wiring perspective? Here are a few highlights:

• Brain chemicals. Men produce more testosterone, and women produce more oxytocin. Testosterone is an aggressive chemical, and oxytocin is a “tend and befriend” kind of chemical. These chemicals are significant drivers in a person’s brain.
• Cycles. While women have a 28-day cycle, men have a cycle every day. Their testosterone spikes in the morning when they wake up (so they can go out and hunt), wanes in the afternoon, and spikes again in the evening around 8 p.m. It then goes back down, only to repeat the cycle the next day.
• Brain matter. Men have more gray matter, while women have more white matter. The gray matter is used for local processing of thoughts and tasks. The white matter is what connects everything. This is why when a woman is processing an emotional event, she will do so immediately. All the interconnections make processing faster in her mind. A man is processing locally and will do so for a longer time. He doesn’t have the same type of factors to draw from.
• Hierarchy. While both men and women understand hierarchy, men really understand it. Whoever brought back the biggest animal from hunt received the most status in the community. So that desire to be “top dog” and get their point across is innate in men. Likewise, women wanted the security of being with the men who could provide the most food for the family, which is why even today women (no matter what their income level or social status) want to be associated with successful men. It’s hardwired.

Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule. Within the spectrum of both male and female brains, there are gradations. There is also something called the “bridge brain,” which is someone who has characteristics of both the male and female brains.

Why This Matters

Because we’re working and communicating with each other every day, knowing the differences in gender communications is vital. Much has already been written about personality, values, and behavioral differences in communication; now it’s time to overlap gender differences into the equation.

For example, while women have distinct viewpoints on topics, when they communicate they often try to “keep the peace.” Men, however, are typically more aggressive in their communications, more argumentative about their ideas, and more vocal about their stand on a certain thing.

Women focus on building consensus. And because they’re contextual and they process information in the white matter, they’re often trying to reduce the heated arguments. This doesn’t mean a woman doesn’t like a good argument; however, if it gets hostile and the woman gets stressed, she’ll start producing oxytocin, which will prompt her to take steps to calm the situation down.

And because women have so much white matter, they may take a longer time to answer a question because they’re filtering it through the article they read this morning or what their boss said two days ago. Think of it like sorting in a computer. They’re doing a huge sort through the entire database to arrive at an answer.

Tips for Better Communication

To ease the daily workplace communication challenges, keep the following points in mind:

For men…

• Keep women’s white matter in mind. They are not jumping from topic to topic just to annoy you. In their brain, everything is connected.
• Remember that women “tend and befriend.” As a result, they have a tendency to use up-talk – where it sounds like they end every sentence with a question mark. Or they say such things as “What do you think?” This does not mean they don’t know what to think. They simply want to gain consensus.
• Women all over the world tend to use more emotionally loaded words when they communicate. So they use high drama phrases and words such as “always” and “never” much more often than men do.

For women…

• If you want to talk to a man about something that’s critical, and you think he’s going to be defensive, don’t do it at the 9 a.m. meeting or after hours at the company dinner. Remember that daily cycle.
• Don’t jump from subject to subject, and always condense your thoughts into short sentences. Men have a word limit (this has been scientifically tested), and once they reach their word limit, it’s almost like a little blind goes down. They simply can’t process any more information.
• Remember that a man’s brain shifts into that rest state throughout the day. So when you’re talking to him and he’s fidgeting, tapping his fingers on the table, or even doodling during the meeting, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s bored or not interested. In fact, it probably means just the opposite. He’s unconsciously forcing himself to stay alert, keeping his brain active by that movement.

Closing the Great Divide

The key now is to accept this information, embrace it, and impose it as a new structure of thought in your own mind. Become conscious and aware of the differences between the sexes and use it in your daily interactions with others. By doing so, you can ease some of the frustrations you feel when communicating at work and build professional relationships built on understanding, collaboration, and trust.

“Try not to become a success but rather try to become a man of value.”  ——Albert Einstein

Einstein points us to the process and not to the product:  We become a success through lifetime accomplishments. Success is raising emotionally stable, happy, productive children; contributing to our civic or faith communities; respecting our career and improving our craft.

Years ago I volunteered for Big Brothers and Sisters. My little sis was a young teen, and I was in my early 20’s. Both of Linda’s parents were deaf, and she was one of three (hearing) children with a challenging and complicated home life. She dropped out of public school to attend Alternative School.

She had a child while still in her teens. She encouraged her daughter to make good grades and supported her in Girl Scouts. Her daughter is motivated, well educated  and has three young children of her own.

A hard worker, Linda has been in phone sales at the same company for 20 years. To top it all off,  several years ago I attended her graduation from a career-enhancing educational program. Against the odds, Linda is a success.

We don’t become a success because our name is on the front page of the newspaper.  Few of us will become valuable on a public stage, yet most of us will succeed in more private sectors.  Outside of the glitter and bright lights many people build lives of substance and worth, and Linda is one of those people.

The substance we accomplish with our own hands and with our own minds will serve us and others well. Let’s place our focus on becoming a person of value so that the world will be a better place because we are in it.

“When I wear my magic magnifying glasses and focus on the problem, the problem magnifies. When I focus on the answer the answer magnifies.” –Bill Wilson

Even on a good day work is challenging. Whether it’s a cranky co-worker or an demanding boss, negotiating the emotional minefield at work is sometimes a stretch and most of the time complicated. And to make it all worse, the more we focus on our problems the bigger they get. Soon we feel overwhelmed, restless and discontent. Instead of focusing on the problem, focus on the answer. Put on your magic magnifying glasses. Where you look is what you’ll get.

www.jeankelley.com

What wisdom can you find that is greater
than kindness? –Jean Jacques Rousseau

Of all the special moments, of all the skills taught and insights shared, what people will remember about you is how you make them feel. Often I ask people to tell me about their favorite relative, someone they feel especially close to — everyone seems to have a relative like that. Then I ask them to explain what it is about that particular relative that pleases them. What I almost always hear is some variation of “He is so nice.” Not once have I heard, “She is so wise.”

My experience in life and in business leads me to one conclusion. The old axiom is true: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

How to Manage Your Boss
By Jean Maslanka Kelley

No matter where you work, you report to someone – maybe even to two or three bosses. And whether you think your boss is brilliant or a bore, the fact is that you have to manage the relationship with your boss if you want to advance your career.
Realize that you are more dependent on your boss than your boss is on you, because your boss holds the key to your short-term future. Not only can your boss release you at any time, especially in today’s economy, but your boss can also unconsciously ostracize you by not keeping you in the communication loop and by giving all the desirable projects to others. When your boss senses that communication between the two of you is not going well and situations have not been resolved, he or she will simply go work with your co-workers rather than you.
If you don’t manage the relationship with your boss, you won’t last long in your particular position – either you’ll get fired or you’ll quit. Granted, if you work for a large company, you might be able to transfer to a different boss. But even then if you don’t know how to manage your boss you could end up repeating the same mistake as you did with your former boss.
So before you let a little mismanagement on your part disrupt your career, take some time to learn the keys of “boss management.” The following suggestions will get you started on the right path and contribute to a more harmonious work life.

• Find out from your boss what “good” looks like and all who are involved in measuring “good.”
Whether you report to one person or four different bosses, you need to make sure you’re meeting everyone’s expectations. After all, what seems good to you may only be mediocre to your boss. Therefore, find out what “good” looks like to each boss you report to. You could simply ask, “What does ‘good’ look like on this project?” Or, “If this went exactly like you wanted it to go and it turned out perfect, what would have to happen between now and that time?” As an added benefit, you might even get an idea of the scope of how big that project really is. Sometimes bosses don’t tell you much and you have to pull it out of them. If you do this simple step upfront and find out what the expectations are on the project and the timelines, you save a lot of time in the end.

• Ask your boss what kind of follow up he/she wants and what your boss has to have for his/her comfort level.
Many times bosses expect people to be mind readers, simply because they’re busy and can’t always go over all the details of a project. As such, your boss might forget to tell you such things as a firm deadline or a required step. And since everyone operates from their own set of realities, the possibility of miscommunication is high. That’s why you need to take the initiative to set expectations for every project your boss assigns you. You need to find out: “What is the deadline? What are my resources? What checkpoints or milestones do we want to establish, if any? What step or contact person is absolutely critical to this project?” Just as you set expectations when dealing with clients and co-workers, you need to manage the relationship and set expectations with your boss every time.

• Examine your boss’s style and adjust to that style.
Peter Drucker says there are two key leadership styles: readers and listeners. Which is your boss? The readers want data before you talk with them. The listeners want to talk before they read. For example, a CEO has a controller who is good with the numbers. He gives his boss elaborate and spectacular reports…but that’s not what she wants. Every time he gives her a report, she pushes the report aside and starts talking with him. She’s not a reader; she’s a listener. All she wants to know is the bottom line – “Are we in trouble or not?” So this controller is spending precious time producing materials his boss doesn’t want. Conversely, if your boss is a reader, you’re not going to get a good decision from that person in a quick hallway conversation. Readers can’t make fast decisions on complex issues without data. So unless it’s an easy question, they need to think things over and analyze them. And while there are many personality types in the workplace, if you can make this one distinction between the readers and the listeners, you’ll go far with managing your boss.

• Muster up the courage to tell your boss when you feel you haven’t been fully heard.
Communication has to go both ways for success. If your boss upsets you or misunderstands you, you have to speak up – not from the head, but from the heart. One way to do that is with an “I” message. For example, “I was really upset and hurt by what you said. I interpreted it as __________. Did you mean it that way?” Most people want to be heard, yet most don’t get heard by their boss. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to say when you’re not feeling heard. If you’re leery of speaking up to your boss, first try this approach on your family members. Practice it in a safe environment before trying it on your boss.

• Become aware of other managers styles, especially when have a stake in the outcome of your project.
Keeping up with the expectations and styles of multiple bosses can be a fine balancing act. The only way to wade through it all is if you can keep in mind the one thing that matters most to each of the stakeholders you have to please. It’s too overwhelming to have five stakeholders and think through five requirements for each. So either ask each person what is most important to him/her, or figure out what you have observed in each person’s behavior that you can attend to.

Manage Up
The good news is that no matter how well or poorly you have managed your boss’s relationship in the past, you can re-craft your relationship on every new project. Ideally, you want to create a relationship where talking from the heart is the norm, as then confrontation on serious issues won’t be difficult. In the end, it’s really about understanding your boss. When you teach your boss how to work with you and hone great communication skills with him or her, your work life will be happier and much more productive. And as an added bonus you will look forward to Monday’s.