Transitions

January 11, 2018 Leave a comment

Do transitions maker you anxious? Do you have trouble moving from one activity or environment to another? Do you prefer to stay home after a busy day and long commute rather than going out on the town? Even when I am in control of the circumstances, I still need to self-motivate and self-regulate in times when I need to transition from a comfortable situation to an unknown opportunity.

Imagine how anxious you might be if you weren’t in control and didn’t have a voice in where you were expected to go next. Predictability is a strategy that many employers use but that level of familiarity breeds contempt and boredom. A better approach would be to design respectful, productive, shifts from one approach, assignment, or expectation to something different.

Today I witnessed anxiety, pain and discomfort from an employee who is living with uncertainty and anxiety about where and what they need to be undertaking in the next phase of their employment. I also saw a small child fall to the ground and flail and scream when it was time to go home.

Whether working with a team or shepherding a family these 6 tactics should be part of the plan.

1. Don’t undermine, deride or deny the feelings that are being experienced, even if you don’t feel the same way or understand how someone else might be feeling. observe the body signals and listen to their words with openness and curiosity. Acknowledge the feelings and encourage everyone to safely express their concerns. It may feel that being a command and control leader or parent would be more effective and productive and it may be in the shorter term but the anxiety, emotional upheaval and health challenges this can cause will be more costly in the long run. Be the type of leader who leads with consistency, compassion and care will give you real authority and license to hold high expectations and be respected for helping them through the awkwardness rather than pushing them into a chasm.

2. Offer a clear, brief explanation as to why the change is needed. ” I understand that you are busy calling all our accounts receivable but I need a weekly sales report to give to the president” ” I can see that you would like to stay at the park but we need to leave in five minutes so that we can get home to start supper before mommy gets off work. She is working very hard and will be very hungry. Can you help me make supper?

3. Even in moments of anxiousness and distress don’t behaviour that is unacceptable or for expectations to be lessened. It may seem counterintuitive and callous but in stressful situations and transitions, consistency is more than ever.

4. Be generous with gratitude and judicious with praise. They need to know that their efforts are appreciated but lavishing too many accolades creates neediness.

5. Be patient. Be patient with the people and the process. Let reality sink in and leave time for reflection and understanding. Through our patience and trust, we give employees and others that we support a safe place to air their concerns, acknowledge that they are heard and still lead them through the rocky change.

6. The hardest thing to practice when faced with resistance, is determination. Don’t backtrack, don’t concede, don’t surrender or your leadership/parenting will become suspect.

This isn’t a silver bullet that will work in every situation (nothing is) but if you follow these steps and master the listening and negotiation skills that go along with them, you will have fewer tantrums, rebellions or productivity drops.

There’s a little bit of pain in every transition, but we can’t let that stop us from making it. If we did, we’d never make any progress at all. ~ Phil Schiller

Make Today Remarkable by leading rather than pushing,

Bob

Original Thought · Self Improvement · Sharing Economy · Teamwork · Uncertainty

Fear versus Hope

August 2, 2017 Bob McInnisLeave a comment

I am afraid that the fear mongers are winning and yes I see the irony. After writing for weeks about hope and her great liberating, creative, and generous power I find myself slipping over to the dark side more often than I like. Even though I understand that choosing hope has a positive and infectious impact on my life and those around me, I feel like I have been inundated by media, social media, and conversations with a message of distrust, hatred, and terror. So much of what I hear and read has a bias towards suspicion, division, and polarization. Is our world tumbling out of control? Will the schism we are creating bring dire and fatal consequences for our species?

I am taking off the grey coloured glasses of despair and seeing the world in the brighter glow of hope. What I take in through my eyes and ears will be curated towards the best of our city, province, country. I am not going to naively ignore news but I will intentionally seek generative, positive stories. Afterall, the best and the worst are nothing more than fictions that we tell ourselves and if collectively more of us lean into narratives about responsible government and personal responsibility, climate care, equity, joyful relationships, then more coverage of those will be offered and more will be generated.
My position isn’t Pollyanna pie in the sky. It is a deliberate and intentional choice. I can be positive and passionate and opinionated and respectful with being inane, insane, or weak. Hope can raise the water for my little boat and can carry a flotilla of like minded travellers. Therein lies the rub. I am looking for people who are willing and courageous enough to say no to fear and yes to hope.

We can build a new movement; one that is democratic without being political. One that is passionate without being partisan. One that is confident without the vitriol of certainty. Are you interested in joining others to create something hopeful, even if it just adds joy and inspiration to those on the boats? What if the Armada’s positivity infects a few dozen, a few hundred, a few thousand new sailors? Are you seeking hope? Do you know others around you who are ready to stake their position and take a stand? If we created an online presence like a Facebook page (or other suggestions)
would you join and contribute? Hope won’t win if we just lurk around her edges. We need to wrap our arms around her and then tell others our stories of hope.

Today I had three conversations with younger people from early 20’s to early 30’s who seem immune to the rubbish that is being spewed through conventional and new mediums. Their outlook on today, tomorrow and the future were refreshingly expectant. They weren’t so much concerned with the trappings of the world but more interested in what they are and will experience and the value that they can add to their friends, family and community.

They believe they are and can make a difference in the world and they are. It is that simple and that complicated but it began with a choice to view the world in a light shining brightly.

Make Today Hopeful,

B once-you-choose-hope-anything-is-possible

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Don’t Be Afraid

October 16, 2016October 16, 2016 Bob McInnisLeave a comment

Are you afraid? Is fear lurking at the edge of your bed ready to latch on when your feet hit the floor? Does it ride on your back all day until you finally fall exhausted into a fitful sleep? It doesn’t need to be the burden we allow it to be. In its best incarnation fear is a gift.

For regular readers you are already anticipating that my first step suggestion for overcoming fear and anxiety is breathing. Before you roll out of bed, after the startle response of the alarm clams, stop and appreciate the stillness of your body. These few moments are a gift in the present and a seed for the future. After you are settled breathe in deeply through your nose and blow out deeply through your mouth. If you are like most people, you have probably just spent 6-10 hours in a shallow breathing state and this first breath begins a cleansing.

Take another slow inhalation and at the top of the breath hold it for just 2 seconds and then release it fully through your mouth. Gauge your mood and mindset and if you are ready slowly roll out of bed and to your feet. Allow yourself the pleasure of finding stability for today by grounding yourself through your feet. Slowly stretch upwards and on another inhale lengthen your spine by lifting your head as if on a string. Breathe in deeply for the count of 7, hold for 4, exhale for 7. Don’t rush, enjoy the inspiration and the slight tension of holding the top of the breath. Repeat 7 times and then slowly step into your day. Remember to breathe deeply throughout the day and when you feel fear crawling up your back, give him a shake and inhale again.

Fear will try to creep in. Or at least what we now call fear. Real fear is the gift that has kept our species alive for millennia. The intuition that something is wrong or something is about to happen that most often we suppress because we are socialized to ignore it. That fear, the immediate recognition that the person on the elevator when the doors open poses a potential threat. Let that gift guide you and let the doors close without excuse and catch the next car. If we learn to trust that gift of fear it will help suppress the other unhealthy kind.

If I am facing a situation that is causing some dread, I take some time (and yes breathe) and visualize the event happening in a positive way with a positive outcome. It doesn’t always happen the way I imagined (but it has) but I don’t go into the moment a bundle of anxiousness. It after all is your imagination that is creating a less pleasant outcome and causing the uneasiness to grow. Turn your thoughts to a better future and you can help create it for yourself.

The practice of shunning unhealthy fear is relentless and incremental. We need to do it every day and as we become more accomplished we can accomplish even more.

Self Improvement

The Choice

August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 Bob McInnisLeave a comment

Fear is a choice – I can be afraid and paralyzed or I can be afraid and act. The test isn’t being fearless it is being courageous. I heard Jamie Clarke @JC_Climbs and Suzanne West @IamSuzanneWest speak today about failure and the mountain climbing adventurer confessed that he wavers from cowardice to courage in situations that have too many variables. Some days he courts failure as a lover so he can learn from her and other days he hides from her because she can be cruel and unrelenting in seeking accountability. When he faces her she teaches him important lessons.

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Suzanne, who is one of the most self aware people I know, is courageous in her actions, big and brash in her approach and relentless in learning from her failures. They are both inspired by people who are courageous against all odds – Nelson Mandella, Martin Luther King, Laurie Kresslet… Fear is a choice – easy to say, harder to do. Making a choice to move when the mistress is coaxing you to hide, urging you to retreat, inviting you to make excuses is really hard. But when you opt to act, her power wains and yours increases. Even if you fail after facing a fear, you are better off than failing to act and living with the fear and the unknown.

I choose to let fear compromise me sometimes. On the days that I only give 75% (really anything less than 100%), I am preparing a justification for not reaching the goal. “Well I didn’t really work that hard.” as if to justify the limited progress. Fear and failure are about limits. Fear sets a limit, usually way inside our maximum performance or ability and then convinces us not to near that line in the sand. Failure is an accumulation of errors until you reach a limit. If you have an exam in front of you and you haven’t done the preparation. Fear might say ” If you get 60%, that is okay” Failure occurs when you answer too many questions incorrectly and the accumulation drops the percentage below a prescribed pass/fail level.

What if we approached tests, prepared and ready, but also prepared and ready to accept nothing less than our best effort and prepared and ready to learn how you can approach the next exam? Would we move closer to our best? Are you demanding the best from yourself? Is anyone seeing your best work? If the answer is “no” then you might have something to really fear. And another choice to make.

I know I write a lot about risk, courage and taking action. Know that these posts are as much for me as for you.

Make Today Remarkable, by acknowledging fear and acting anyway,
B

Self Improvement

The Gift of Fear

August 23, 2016 Bob McInnisLeave a comment

“I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.”
– Nadia Comaneci

fear is a liar

If someone who overcame every day, tried harder and became one of the best gymnasts of all time can trample big fears surely we can stomp out ours by charging ahead and taking them on. I am not suggesting that we take dangerous and crazy risks just to prove we are brave but I think we all can learn to face down our fears by facing them, acknowledging them and still moving forward.

I have written about intentional versus organic often, some may say ad nauseum and believe that nothing happens without deliberate action. But intention without action is as empty as waiting for the world to change or improve on its own. So if you are facing fears, anxiety or uncertainty you can’t just intend to face them – because you won’t. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), wrote more than 1000 years ago “Hell is full of good intentions or desires.” The quote is often mistakenly attributed to Samuel Johnson because James Boswell in “The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D.” ,1791, records that “No saint, however, in the course of his religious warfare, was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves, than Johnson. He said one day, talking to an acquaintance on this subject, “Sir Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Nancy Bouwens in “3 Ways Facing Fear Will Make You Brave” offers these steps;

1. Take the first step while still afraid. Hesitation is the enemy, it holds you in the current state and makes excuses for not acting.

2. Brave means standing your ground. Once you have taken the first step retreat isn’t an option. Internal forces and external ‘threats’ will try to make you back down. If you do, know that you are defeated.

3. Brave means not giving in. Overcoming fear isn’t a one step process. You may be afraid in certain situations for a long time. But quitting isn’t a small step backward, it is a return to the trap and paralysis.

Courage is the opposite of conformity and when we are courageous we are at our best.

Make Today Remarkable, by being afraid and acting anyway,

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Most Everything Must Change

April 14, 2015 Bob McInnis1 Comment

I know it sounds like a hyperbole but unless I/we begin with the premise that all our ideas, all our opinions, all our actions (collective and individual), and all our truths need to be open to examination, we are doomed to the curse of complacency.

I can go through my day, my week, my year cocksure that what I see as truth is what everyone should see. Ten years ago my sister gave me a birthday gift; a stone coaster that was engraved with “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.” It was humorous, ironic, and accurate. I am opinionated and vocal but I can also be single minded. I can go through months without examining a position or premise that just gets stronger as I plow ahead. Gradually, gradually, gradually, suddenly I am convinced that my way is the only way.

In the best circumstances, I am awakened in the night, often at 3:37 am, with the question ” why am I so sure that I am right?” When I don’t ignore the voice, I get the opportunity to re examine my thesis or action in a different light. Everything has an odd perspective in the middle of the night. Insight sometimes comes from the reflection. Confirmation of the direction but not the tactics arises. Tweaks to the communication show up. I am shocked by a horrible realization that I am misguided and need to begin again from a different place. There is a momentary disruption in my pursuit of meaning but if I don’t surrender to my ego and push ahead regardless there is always a new powerful conviction for me to be energized by.

Take the time to examine your most strongly held views and habits. Listen to the middle of the night voice. Seek out a different perspective through research, debate, reflection and writing. Be willing to see/hear alternatives and act on them.