Driven to Distraction

The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World by Adam Gazzaley

and Larry Rosen (MIT Press, 2016,) reviewed by Steve Gladis, Dec. 2016.

1.     Overview. A basic premise of this book: We have an evolutionary and survivalist need to access information. We literally forage for important information, much like food foraging. In fact, novelty and information trigger our brain’s reward-dopamine system. However, modern access to huge volumes of information creates an overload and the frustration associated with it. This book outlines why and how we’re distracted, especially in an e-world full of competing images and sounds. The big problem: Our ability to set goals is far more evolved than our goal-enactment abilities. And given the amount of e-interference today, goal interference looms over us constantly. The authors describe the conflict between goal setting and cognitive control; attention setting and managing goals resulting from distractions; and, interruptions and multitasking. The 3 HUGE disrupters in our current world are the internet, cell phones, and email. Finally, the authors offer strategies to combat such distraction and make us more resilient by employing education, cognitive training, certain video games, physical exercise, pharmaceuticals, and nature exposure. In addition, here’s a TED talk that will orient you to their work.

2.     Cognition and Control. In Section I, the authors discuss how our limited cognitive control wrestles with interference, distraction (both internal and external) and poor performance.  Interference appears as ‘noise,” like task switching (erroneously labeled “multitasking”), which distracts us from our goals. For example, you go to the pantry but forget why you went there!  Our brains have evolved over time to develop complex goals and focus on them using cognitive control by using attention, working memory and goal management—all of which have limitations and are affected by age and daily circumstances. Unfortunately, multitasking is associated with novelty, pushes the brain’s rewards button (dopamine system), and is more fun than focusing! Example: I just exported a quote from this book to OneNote, then tried to sync it, couldn’t find the sync button, and spent 4 minutes trying to locate it. Now I’m trying to get back to my goal—writing this review!

3.     Modern Behavior. Today’s technologies offer us a “foraging” feast and an unlimited ability to trigger the pleasure of a dopamine (rewards) hit. This external technology is ubiquitous, addictive, and harmful—all at the same time. Thus, the constant presence of technology affects our safety (texting and driving); education (website visits and texts during class); sleep (screen time and sleep interference); and health (spending too much time sitting and not moving).  Further, this technical interference especially impacts people with ADHD, anxiety, depression, and autism. The danger: “attentional blindness” is paying too much attention to our top-down brain functions and not enough time to our bottom-up sensory functions—we lose track of what’s happening in the moment. People get hit by cars and bump into walls because they’re too distracted by their phones. In fact, 23% of all car crashes involve distraction by using a cell phone! At work, interruptions are constant, especially in open offices, and it can take up to 30 minutes to get back on task. To make up for interruptions, people work faster, demand more of their brains, and experience more stress and higher frustration. Socially we are often “alone together,” paying way more attention to our cellphones and less to people around us. In fact, the mere presence of a cell phone (iPhone effect) had negative consequences in social interaction, such as a lack of empathy. The overuse of technology has been associated with psychological problems. Sleep is critically affected by screen time, especially an hour before bedtime—it inhibits melatonin release. Technology—especially the internet, smartphones and social media—has had a serious effect on the key domains of Attention (selectivity, distribution, sustainability, processing speed); Working Memory (capacity); and, Goal Management (multitasking and task switching).

4.     What to Do. With important tasks, turn off any distracting devices. However, unimportant, boring tasks might benefit from paced disruptions. Augmenting  our knowledge of technology’s effects on the brain, decreasing our access to it, diminishing boredom and reducing anxiety are the keys to getting this technology danger under control. Here are just a few cautions and tips to diminish distractions. Driving: texting while driving increases the risk of a crash 23 times! And, just using a cell phone while driving is like being legally drunk. Boredom: Conversation in a car is OK unless it requires deep cognitive thought. Audio books seem to be safe and don’t measurably conflict with attention in a major way. Anxiety: To avoid compulsive message checking, inform your friends when you’re unavailable and set up auto-responses. Critical Assignments: Avoid multitasking to increase productivity and reduce stress. Take regular breaks. Limit yourself to one screen at a time. Reduce open programs on the computer. Limit daily contact with email and set time limits. Listen to your favorite music (I prefer instrumentals)—symphony or smooth jazz.  Rest your eyes; try the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes take a 20 second break and focus on things 20 feet away. Take short 10-minute naps. Take nature walks. Keep phones out of sight. Have weekly 15-min. family meetings. Have family meals—for best child psychological and family relationships. Remove technology from the bedroom. While drugs like Ritalin and Adderall may help people with ADHD (a burgeoning class in a distracted world), the side effects, including addiction, for healthy people taking them can be negative. 

Great Leaders Put Others First

Overview: What makes Marines so great? Marine officers take care of their
troops always. For example, they “eat last”—after the troops. Soldiers act better than most of us because they are willing to sacrifice themselves in service of the safety of others. However, often in business, leaders eat first—get paid more and stand first in line for benefits. Real leaders put others first—protect others first. An excellent organization has a culture of empathy that protects and serves its people first, who in turn look out for the organization. When people feel unsafe and unprotected by leaders, they feel stress and anxiety. They seek safety and protection in silos and engage in internal politics that hurt the company. When we compete between those silos, we give off selfish chemicals; but when we collaborate, we give off selfless ones—allowing us to be our best selves.

--Employees First: CEO Bob Chapman (of Barry-Wehmiller) bought a number of manufacturing companies and was willing to listen to his employees. Factory workers noted how differently they were treated than office workers. Chapman decided to inject more empathy into the company—allowing everyone the same freedoms and discretion. Through a culture of caring, Chapman grew loyalty and nearly doubled revenues. Advice for leaders: “To earn trust, he [she] must extend trust.”  Our minds register threat or no threat, especially from leaders, and Chapman works to be no threat.

--From Me to We: Sinek offers this simple but powerful concept: The “circle of safety.” In short, strong cultures provide internal protection from external threats. Weak cultures do the opposite and create toxic work environments. Intimidation, isolation, and politics inside organizations with weak cultures can be a serious threat to success. Real leaders protect the tribe from both internal and external threats. Sinek references Steve Pressfield who wrote about how the Spartans (Greek warriors) protected each other: “A warrior carries helmet and breastplate for his own protection, but his shield for the safety of the whole line [comrades].” Without protection, factions (corporate gangs) and silos form for self-protection and ultimately hurt the entire organization. Gallup studies show that 40% of employees will quit if ignored by bosses, and 22% leave if actively criticized. Having little sense of control at work creates stress. And, about a third of workers want to leave their job.

--The Group:  When people feel safe at work, they band together to fight the outside competition. When they don’t feel safe, they expend much energy on self-protection. Size also matters: The optimal size of a company or a working location (office/plant) should be about 150 people. We’re all inclined to cooperate, especially if we know people we work with. In excess of 150, we lose that capacity to know people.

--Selfish Chemicals:  Self-focused chemicals like dopamine, adrenalin, and cortisol drive us to “hunt,” achieve, and compete to win. Dopamine gets released when we reach a goal, cross it off our to-do list—achieve something. Feeling a sense of progress and reward is created by dopamine. Unfortunately, emailing, texting, overwork, and gambling, alcohol and drugs can also cause the release of  dopamine—and thus become addictive, destructive habits. In an overly performance-driven environment, dopamine can become destructive to the circle of safety, creating stress, breaking down loyalty, and hurting the organization.  Cortisol prepares our bodies and muscles for fight or flight. This hormone protects the body under stress. It’s only intended to surge to protect in the moment. Lingering levels of cortisol—caused by difficult bosses, layoffs, and internal politics—break down the immune system, increase aggression, impair cognitive ability, and lower our capacity for empathy.

--Selfless Chemicals:  Such chemicals as serotonin and oxytocin are the social glue that holds the culture together—they are “the backbone of the circle of safety.”  Family, friends, and coworkers all get us through the good and bad times by causing us to produce serotonin, a mood enhancer given off from this support that makes us feel grateful towards those people. Generosity and physical contact (shaking hands, hugs) stimulate oxytocin. Oxytocin also boosts our immune system and makes us less addictive. In safe environments, oxytocin is given off and creates the feeling of love, friendship, belonging and trust. A good tribe should stimulate serotonin and oxytocin (making us feel safe), not dopamine, adrenalin and cortisol (making us feel threatened and competitive). Leaders who sacrifice for the group are revered as alphas and are allowed to lead by their followers.  Safety yields trust, and trust is the lubricant of good, responsive business.

--Examples of What Real Leaders Do: 1. Rather than laying off people, they have everyone, including all execs, take furlough days. 2. They protect (keep people safe), connect (socially bond the group), and direct (project a vision of the future). 3. They break the rules only to do the right thing, not for personal gain. 4. They provide cover from above. 5. They avoid “destructive abstraction” by putting a human face on statistics, not mindlessly employing draconian policies for the sake of numbers—selfless vs. selfish pursuits.  6. They sacrifice for the greater good of others.

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t (Penguin, 2014) by Simon Sinek, reviewed by Steve Gladis, July 2016.

Mindsight--Mind, Brain, and Relationships

Overview: I believe that the heart of this book is embodied in a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. from the Letter from Birmingham Jail: "We are caught in the inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects us all indirectly."  Professor and psychiatrist Dan Siegel illustrates King’s words in action.  He explains how Mindsight helps us integrate and regulate the flow of energy and information both within ourselves and among others, while at the same time honoring differences and reshaping our own brains. The brain is a social organ and mindsight is about regulating and integrating emotional and social intelligence.  Indeed, knowing ourselves and sensing the inner world of others is uniquely human. Through mindful breathing and reflection, we can learn to “name and tame” our emotions rather than being consumed by and “becoming” those emotions. He proposes a triangle: Well-being = Mind + Brain + Relationships.

2.     About Mindsight: Mindsight focuses on both internal reflection and external relationships, which result in an integrated, social, and resilient mind—one capable of weathering the ups and downs of life. For example, when we reflect and can name an emotion, we get a chance to tame that emotion.  Thus, saying “I’m mad” (identifying with the emotion) is far different than saying “I feel mad” (a transient condition). Well-being results from Siegel’s mindsight triangle of the mind, brain, and relationships. Well-being emerges when we integrate information and energy within self and between others while honoring differences. Such connections with self and others keep us from becoming too rigid (stuck and depressed) or chaotic (angry and explosive). Navigating the mindsight process between self and others ultimately sculpts and changes the shape of the brain.

3.     About the Brain: Neuroplasticity describes how our brain changes and grows throughout our lives, creating new neuronal connections based on our experiences with self and others. Siegel uses complex systems’ interdependence and dynamics to explain how various biological, psychological and physical functions interact and influence the mind. He describes a metaphor for a healthy mind as the flow of a river, naturally integrating energy and information in a complex system between two banks—one of chaos reflected by anxiety and anger and one of rigidity—being depressed or stuck in place. The healthy flow of this “river” can be marked by an integrated system that is Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized, and Stable (FACES). Thus, the river flows smoothly, neither crashing up against chaos nor against rigidity.

4.     The Mind and Body: We have both a physical and mental state. Often doctors separate the two, treating only the physical, ignoring the mental. Our thoughts shape our brain and that shapes how we feel, relate and act. We can turn off mindsight and view people different than ourselves—without empathy—as truly “other.” For example, the Nazis did that to the Jews; in fact, every act of genocide emerges from this inhumane premise. However, as humans, we are part of an interconnected whole. Moreover, the brain is the social organ of the body, but too much focus on the body itself can warp our insight. Relationship is the lifeblood that makes us human and resilient. When we share information with each other, energy flows and relationships grow. Our neurons transmit our information and energy to others, and our mind regulates the process. We develop our ability to self-regulate through practices like mindful breathing and meditation. This reflection and regulation takes place in the prefrontal cortex (PFC).  

5.     Your PFC: The very front of your brain is called the prefrontal cortex. It connects and integrates everything—especially the upper (rational) and lower (emotional) brain. The nerves in the middle of the PFC can be strengthened and accelerated by reflection, such as mindful meditation. And the more we reflect, the stronger the nerves become that communicate with and control the limbic system. So, reflection leads to self- and other-relationship regulation.  The PFC is where reflection takes place and what helps us develop mindsight that promotes the following 9 domains of mental integration: 1. Bodily regulation (regulates heart, digestion, etc.); 2. Attuned communication with self and others; 3. Emotional internal balance and meaning—not chaos or rigidity; 4. The extinction of fear (self-calming); 5. Flexibility and pause before responding/reacting; 6. Capacity for insight into self; 7. Empathy for others; 8. Morality—awareness of the greater good; 9. Intuition—integrating bodily “felt sense” (the wisdom of the body) with the more logical mind.

6.     Reflection, Relationships, and Resilience: When you reflect and understand your own feelings, you can better navigate relationships with others and become more resilient to the ups and downs of life. The “tripod of reflection” consists of: 1. Openness—being receptive and aware, not judgmental or stuck; 2. Observation—seeing the context while experiencing an event; and, 3. Objectivity—having a thought or feeling but not being swept away by it. Reflection through meditative breathing is the best place to start. Focusing on our breath calms the mind and integrates the body and the mind.  Developing a regular, reflective mindfulness practice strengthens the PFC’s connection to the body and limbic system and puts us in a more integrated state capable of relationships and resilience in our lives. All the research on well-being says that for resilience, social relationships are the #1 determiner of our success. And reflection helps us develop and maintain strong, positive, reinforced relationships.  

Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel Siegel, M.D. (Bantam Books, Copyright 2010), reviewed by Steve Gladis, June 2016. 

Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

 Overview: To be more productive, Duhigg suggests paying attention to motivation, goal setting, focus, and decision making. 1. Motivation:  Make a simple choice early on that allows you to take the first step, and connect your choice to things you care about. 2. Goal Setting: Set BIG aspirational, stretch goals that kick your ambition into high gear. Then apply specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (S.M.A.R.T.) goals to break down your BIG stretch goals into more chewable, digestible ones. 3. Focus: Draw a mental map of your day. What will it ideally look like? How will it go? Strategize how you could deal with obstacles that might get in the way. 4. Decision Making: Envision more than one potential future. Consider seeking out different experiences of others; reach out and objectively consider the data. Sit with it for some time and then decide.

2.     Motivation: When we feel like we’re in control, we’re happier. Psychologists have long known that happy people see the locus of control within them—they get to call the shots—and depressed people see the locus of control outside themselves, thus often feeling like victims. Duhigg discovers this first tenet of his book by talking to, of all people, the Commandant of the Marine Corps. The Corps discovered this motivational insight and used it to reshape boot camp by allowing more choice, asking “why,” and praising freedom of action rather than robot-like rule adherence.  Insights:

a.     Make a simple choice early on that allows you to take the first step: I’m going to check my email only three times a day.

b.      Connect your choice to things you care about: If I limit my email checking, I’ll have more time with my kids.

3.     Goal Setting: We all want to accomplish big things. We might want to get a graduate degree or get in shape, even run a marathon. Duhigg calls these stretch goals because they force us to reach beyond what might feel comfortable. And to get to such stretch goals you need S.M.A.R.T. goals (or objectives) that lead you there. Not new, S.M.A.R.T. goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

a.     Stretch Goals: Set BIG aspirational goals that kick your ambition into high gear. I’m going to get in shape and run a 5K.

b.     SMART Goals: Take the BIG stretch goals and break them down into more chewable, digestible ones that don’t scare you, and put real specifics around them.

4.     Focus: As we live our lives and pursue our goals, obstacles get in the way. As they say, life happens when you’re planning something else! We’re bombarded with distractions—the internet, social media, YouTube, email—and if we keep wandering down those rabbit holes, we’re less likely to reach our stretch goals or any goals for that matter. Focus happens when we form mental models of where we want to go—much like having a story or a map in our heads to guide us amidst all the life distractors.

a.     Draw a mental map of your day. What will it ideally look like? How will it go?  Today, I’ll have an awesome meeting with the CEO.

b.     Strategize how you will deal with obstacles that might get in the way.

5.     Decision Making:  You can have all your ducks in a row, like being motivated, having goals big and small, and being focused, but still not be able to make timely or good decisions. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  So how to translate good intentions into good decisions?

a.     Envision more than one potential future. You might want to get a new car. You think about either turning in your car (reducing the hassle of selling it yourself), or you consider all the money you might make by being your own sales person.

b.     Consider seeking out different experiences, reach out and consider the data. Then sit with it for some time before deciding. So, maybe you call up a few friends who have sold their own cars and find out what that takes and mull over that data before making your final decision.

6.     More Stuff: The book also addresses things like managing others and encouraging innovation.

a.     Manage How Teams Operate—People have an equal voice to express ideas, decisions get pushed to the person closest to the problem, people have a sense of control, and the environment is safe.

b.     Encourage Innovation—Combine two old ideas into a new one, watch your own biases, note that stress can create the energy to accomplish things, and be aware that creating something new can make us unwilling to take the next creative step. 

Smarter Better Faster: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg (Penguin Random House, 2016). Reviewed by Steve Gladis, May 2016.

Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges

Overview: Whether it’s Wonder Woman or Superman—transforming from everyday folks into

superheroes—those superheroes can serve as basic examples to help us all become our best, or what I call our “super-selves.” Harvard social scientist and professor Amy Cuddy burst onto the scene with her now famed 2012 TED Talk, “Your Body Shapes Who You Are.” She’s expanded her TED Talk into this deep, research-based bestselling book that further proves her central claim: Your body and your thinking can change your personal chemistry, which can move you from feeling powerless to powerful—changing your mindset, behavior, and even your life. Cuddy teaches us about how to be authentic and present to better connect to others. Then she provides a plethora of studies and stories to hammer home her points as she teaches us how to prime ourselves before critical events to boost the power hormone, testosterone, in men and women alike. Thus, by priming ourselves with simple but powerful exercises and showing up as who we are—our authentic selves—we craft a winning strategy to us help nail our next presentation, meeting or job interview.

1.     Presence: What is presence?  It’s “…the state of being attuned to and able to comfortably express our true thoughts, feelings, values and potential.” Being committed to your own values, emotions, and beliefs helps. You must sell the real you to yourself before trying to sell yourself to others. By being true to yourself (authentic), you project power, passion, confidence and enthusiasm, and others catch those feelings from you.  When you’re fully present, your speech, posture, and non-verbals align and get in sync, and people notice. And when you’re not “present” people spot incongruities at an unconscious, but strongly felt, level.

2.     The Authentic Self: Being authentic makes us feel powerful, positive, engaged and filled with purpose. To identify your best self, try this self-affirmation exercise. Write down: 1. Three words that best describe you; 2. What’s unique about you that leads to your best performance; 3. When at work or home do you feel natural; 4. What are your big strengths and when and how can you use them. Speakers and students who do this exercise show less anxiety and perform better in speeches and tests than others. The power of engagement comes from self-affirmation—telling yourself your authentic story, believing it, and projecting it. Presence breeds confidence and the ability to take in contrary information without being defensive.

3.     The Imposter Syndrome: When we feel like we don’t belong or don’t deserve to be where we are despite our accomplishments. In short, we often feel like a fraud with self-doubts, especially prevalent among high-performing men and women. With the imposter syndrome, we feel like life controls us (external control) rather than us controlling life (internal control). Concerned about not living up to our billing or perfection, we spend much of our time on our image and not our authentic selves. Such self-monitoring keeps us from being who we are authentically. We get isolated, and the feeling of isolation actually activates the same part of the brain that pain does!

4.     Powerlessness and Power:  With change comes self-perceived loss of power, then insecurity and anxiety—this is why we hate change.  Power activates our behavioral “approach” system and makes us open to opportunity and optimism—acting as our best, most authentic selves. But powerlessness activates the inhibition or “avoidance” system making us feel anxious and pessimistic—less likely to act as our best, most genuine selves. And when we feel powerless (and anxious), even if we want to show our best selves, we can’t. We’re inhibited from taking in the kind of data we need to make better decisions. Powerlessness makes you not able to focus, more self-absorbed (alienates you from others).  When you feel like the control in your life is external and not internal, you start to feel powerless. That leads to an array of negative things —poor focus, reasoning, memory and being self-absorbed. Anxiety causes self-absorption which alienates us from others and makes us less attractive—negative and depressed—to be around. On the other hand, feeling powerful works the opposite way. For example, people primed to feel powerful before a test or a presentation do far better than others who are not so primed. Moreover, believing that the locus of control is internal, note external (beyond our control) makes us feel powerful, in control, and more open to suggestions to improve.

5.     The Body Shapes the Mind:  When we strike a power pose—become spread out and larger, not smaller and more contained—it affects our brain and the way we show up. Holding an expansive pose for two minutes, especially before a critical event (test, speech, interview), raises your testosterone, lowers cortisol, puts you in a dominant frame of mind, and improves your performance. By contrast, when you are hunched over an iPhone or wrapped up in a cross-armed, self-protected stance and strike a low-power pose, you experience the opposite of power. In sum, power poses make people feel better, more powerful, and more optimistic.

6.     Nudging: Gentle self-nudging can move us toward greater presence.  Nudging yourself to at least slow down and not make snap decisions under pressure can save you from the consequences of poor judgment. Power posing nudges up your set point of power and the more we do it, the more it reinforces our mindset.  Nudge yourself to not set big goals—start small and keep it up. And, rather than telling yourself not to be anxious, tell yourself to use the “excitement” to do your best—experiments support this tactic. Just reframing our emotions pushes us from feelings of powerlessness to being powerful. 

Smile. Breathe. Listen.

As a busy executive, you might think you don’t even have the hour it takes toSmile. Breathe. Listen: The 3 Mindful Acts for Leaders. Here are some highlights that might just encourage you to read the entire book or at least recommend it to your team.

read

Smile.

• We are hard-wired to smile. We’re even smiling in the womb. Kids smile like crazy, and mirror neurons allow us to “catch” smiling from others.
• Smiling is good for your long-term health and for a longer and more engaged life.
• Smiling reduces stress, helps us work better, and makes people want to be around us.
• The “Duchenne” smile—a smile that engages the muscles of the eyes as well as those of the mouth―is viewed as genuine and authentic.
• Smiling makes us appear more likable, courteous, and competent.
• Leaders who smile put people at ease, spread positive emotions like a virus, and create an environment in which people can do their best work.

Breathe.

• Breathing is automatic. However, leaders who understand how to control their breathing will be much more effective.
• Mindful Breathing is the “Big Switch” that helps us move from mental rumination or anxious thinking to more a more thoughtful, relaxed state.

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a research-based, highly successful program based on mindful breathing and consistent, regular practice.
• Regularly sitting or lying quietly starts the “practice” of mindfulness.
• The impact of mindful breathing can be seen in our personal, team, and corporate health.
• Leaders who learn mindful breathing not only help themselves become better people but also help those around them to do the same.

Listen.

• Listening is a skill possessed by the very best leaders.
• Listening represents an important gift that every leader can give―a leader’s time and attention are highly valued by those around the leader.
• Good listening consists of presence, technique, and practice.
• Presence is demonstrated when leaders are fully engaged, focused, and not distracted when talking to people.
• The Speaker-Listener Technique focuses on the listener fully understanding the speaker’s concerns.
• The Ladder of Inference demonstrates how anyone, including leaders, can jump to conclusions based on their own often erroneous assumptions and beliefs.
• Despite a prodigious amount of data and statistics about how important listening is, a number of leaders—in business, medicine, and any other profession—have poor listening skills.
• Unfortunately, the prognosis for whether people will become more focused, better listeners is not good, because of technology intrusions (emails, texts, phone calls vying for our immediate attention.

Commitments All Teams Should Make to Themselves

If I were a CEO, I’d ask all my executives to read this book and then discuss one commitment at every staff mFeeting. Then, I would ask them to hold each other accountable for all of them. Consequently, I believe my “company” would likely prosper! A book about the impact of commitments to leadership, this book has a lot of face validity. It makes sense even in areas where there’s less than an abundance of supporting research. Given the authors’ self-reported experience, they appear to have consulting chops in the real world. I’ll admit that the 15 commitments got a bit tedious; however, they all made sense based on my own experience. Moreover, I could not figure out why there were 15, not 10 or for that matter 25, but I’m not sure which ones I’d eliminate. Again, I’d recommend that serious leaders who want to impact a culture read this one.

1. Above or Below the Line: This is a critical concept in this book about conscious leadership—being self-aware. Above-the-line leaders commit to learning, curiosity and openness. Below-the-line leaders are committed to being right, are judgmental and often remain closed. In fact, we’re all above and below the line every day. The trick is to know where you are when making decisions that matter. In fact, being below the line is a normal state based on the brain’s amygdala, which constantly looks for threats as a way of protecting us. Unfortunately, we can’t always tell the difference real and imagined threats. Fortunately we can learn to shift from below to above the line.
2. Content, Context and 4 Ways of Leading. Content is what we’re talking about and context is how we’re talking about it. Most of us focus on content, but context is about being above or below the line when thinking about it. So, I may not be open to an honest discussion about a project if I’m below the line. Unconscious leaders operate from below the line and use stories or ego to color their thinking—this is the place that blame and fault permeate the atmosphere. Four states of leaders: 1) To Me (victim state—stuff happens to me, and I’m a victim who blames others for my fate); 2) By Me (more above the line, we can learn, control and affect what happens to us. Taking responsibility for where we are; 3) Through Me leaders see themselves at the center of things in their lives and seek higher purpose—these leaders channel change through themselves. Letting go of control is the gateway to this level; 4. As me leadership is more about being one with the world. A more philosophical state. Most of us do well shifting from “to me” to the “by me” state.
3. Commitments #1-#5: #1. Taking Radical Responsibility—taking full responsibility for our circumstances (above the line), NOT focusing on blame, shame and fear that tend to drive the victim, villain-hero triangle (below the line); #2. Learning through curiosity—open, curious, learning (above the line) v. defensive, closed, focused on being right (below the line); #3. Feeling all feelings—whether the emotions of fear, anger, or joy. Conscious leaders need to name and release their feelings; #4. Speaking Candidly—candor is at the center of strong relationships and teams. Conscious listening is at the center of a candid relationship; #5. Eliminating Gossip—Usually a negative comment in an attempt to control and influence others with information, gossip is the sign of an unhealthy organization.
4. Commitments #6-#10: #6. Practicing Integrity—is about being whole, consistent, and aligned with your words and actions. Four pillars: responsibility, candor, commitment, and keeping agreements; #7. Generating Appreciation. Great leaders express sincere, specific and succinct appreciation and avoid feelings of entitlement; #8. Excelling in Your Zone of Excellence. Conscious leaders help others recognize their individual genius and help them use it daily; #9. Living a Life of Play and Rest. To counterbalance the grind of work, good leaders promote playfulness in organizations, resulting in high-functioning teams; #10. Exploring the Opposite. Good leaders remain open to the idea that the opposite of their story may well be true.
5. Commitments #11-15: #11. Sourcing Approval, Control and Security. People want security and approval, and if they don’t get it often resort to control. Conscious leaders see control within, not outside themselves; #12. Having Enough of Everything. Good leaders work from a sense of abundance (have what they need in this moment), not scarcity (there’s never enough stuff to go around); #13. Experiencing the World as an Ally. Conscious leaders see people as assets, not problems; #14. Creating Win-Win for all Solutions. Conscious leaders play a win-win game, not a win-lose game; #15. Being the Resolution. Conscious leaders see problems as opportunities for the team to solve. Such leaders don’t feel they have to ride in on a white horse to act like a hero. They start from YES.

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A new paradigm for sustainable success (2014, Booknook.biz) by Diana Chapman, Jim Dethmer,
& Kaley Warner Kemp, reviewed by Steve Gladis, March 2016.

Leadership: New on the Job? Go Slow to Go Fast.

As a leader on-boarding into a new company, the first pep talk by the CEO or your boss is most often Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, global expert on hiring at executive search firm Egon Zehnder, has said that a job interview is a conversation between two liars! The interviewer lies about how great the company is and the interviewee lies about how capable s/he is.

That said, often CEOs and hiring managers tell you to hit the ground running, to break some china, to make things happen, or to stir the pot. Often their complaint is that the organization has gotten stale, complacent. Putting pressure on you to set it all right in your first 90 days is pure and utter nonsense. They know it and you know it.

However, you still take the bait—bad advice. Then in about 6-12 months, the culture rejects you like a bad virus. And what’s worse is that the same guy who told you to shake things up is now admonishing you for doing just that. No kidding. This happens with such regularity in companies I have coached that it’s a cliché.

So, what should you do? First, in the employment interview or on your first-day-on-the-job discussion with your boss, smile and wave at whatever s/he says. BUT, DO NOT DO IT.  Instead, make it your job to go slow to go fast. It’s a lot like running a marathon. If you start out slow and steady, you’ll find your pace and eventually do a lot better than if you take off like a jack rabbit. Here are some simple but effective steps:

Step 1. Smile, Breathe, and Listen. Smiling says, “I’m not a threat.” The LAST thing you want to be is a threat—creates big problems. Breathe in and out slowly and methodically to reboot your emotions. There’s a lot of science here. Finally, use the 80/20 conversation rule. Spend 80% of your time listening and only 20% responding. Good listening is not simply waiting for your chance to make a point!

Step 2. Ask HR and/or an executive coach to conduct an assimilation meeting. This involves meeting with your entire team to answer any questions they might have about you. What’s your leadership style, your pet peeves, your vision (lay low on this one), your family, your hobbies? This meeting gives everyone a level set about you and saves a year’s worth of hit-or-miss encounters.  If you’re with a small company, have all your direct reports make a list of questions they want you to answer. Ask one person to compile them to keep the process anonymous and then give you the list before the meeting to think about your answers. Don’t skip any hard ones if they come up frequently; otherwise, people will think you sidestep tough stuff—not a good first impression.

Step 3. Meet every one of your direct reports individually. Spend an hour or more with everyone who works with you. Ask them about themselves, the work they most like to do, what’s working in the group, what needs attention, anything that would make their job/life better. No promises—this is about gathering information. And, no disparaging the leader who preceded you on the job. Doesn’t ever play well even though it might seem at the time easy and beneficial to you.

Step 4. Meet every one of your peers individually. Again, as mentioned above, ask a lot of questions, seek their advice, find out what’s good about your new team, what needs work, and ask if they will help you understand the culture. Listen more than you talk.

While there’s more to discuss here, suffice it to say that going slow in the very beginning of your tenure in a new job is critical to your success and the corporation’s success. It will feel counter to your very anxious inner voice telling you to “just do it.” But DON’T do it until you know what, how and when to do it! Cultures have to accept you before they accept your opinion.

I explain it this way to my clients: A young man brings home his girlfriend—who is a top interior designer in New York City—to meet his parents. While his parents are out of the room getting dinner and wine ready for the meal, the girlfriend/designer begins to rearrange the living room to make it even more beautiful. Despite how good it now looks or the extent of her expertise, ponder for a moment how those parents might react!

Go slow to go fast later, once you’re accepted into the tribe.

Your Web Browser Might Just Reveal How Creative You Are!

Overview: My personal bias—I love the work that Adam Grant does. So, read no further if that Originals, Grant teaches us how to develop new ideas and how to vet them; how to pitch those ideas to others; when to trust our gut and when not to; the difference between power and status and so much more! He also busts some interesting myths like how successful entrepreneurs are not hyper-risk takers—rather, they hedge their bets; how the creative problem solvers are often not experts in their fields; and, how procrastination can be your friend—every writer in the world should now rejoice!  Grant uses academic studies, stats and stories from unexpected places to punctuate a well-orchestrated text. For example, he tells about how the show “Seinfeld” barely made it to TV and how it took a very special NBC executive with broad, varied experience to have the courage to put his reputation on the line. And as a huge Seinfeld fan, I personally salute him! Finally, I would encourage you to read Sheryl Sandberg’s foreword, because not only does she do a very good overview of the book while praising the author for his talent, but she also praises Grant for his empathetic heart. When Sandberg’s husband suddenly died, Grant dropped what he was doing and flew across the country to be with her in her darkest hours. Grant, like his book, is an Original!

bothers you about my objectivity as a reviewer. Grant, a young, uber-smart and engaging professor at Wharton, might just be the latter-day Peter Drucker, only much cooler!  In

1.     Generating Original Ideas: Grant warns us to question the default—the status quo. He urges us to remember that people write rules and we can rewrite them when necessary. To get more good ideas, we need to increase the odds by taking more “swings,” like a baseball player who takes more at-bats hoping to increase his batting average. Also, by broadening your base of knowledge and widening your perspective, you can be far more creative. He notes that Nobel Prize winners were more likely to paint, dance, and play music than their peers. Grant also suggests using peers to get accurate feedback. Bosses give too many false negatives, and we give ourselves too many false positives.

2.     Championing Original Ideas: Grant offers some unusual but useful insights about creativity. For example, when you take risk in one area but have another area of more stability in your life, you‘re more likely to be successful in the new endeavor. Successful entrepreneurs take this bet-hedging approach. Next, as counterintuitive as it might seem, when pitching ideas, it’s best to point out first several reasons why people might NOT support your idea. This has a leveling effect and puts you more on the audience’s side, making you seems much less like a con artist. To get people used to your idea, repeat it often (10 to 20 times) but in short bursts. Also, connect it to other ideas that are already known and accepted. Often, analogies and comparisons help.  If your ideas are radical or you’re known as a radical, try to temper your approach. Start lower and slower on the emotional scale to not upset or antagonize. Connect to group values and customs.

3.     Manage Emotions: When motivated or committed, focus on the future goal. However, when uncertain, focus on your progress. Trying to use your will to calm yourself down is difficult, if not impossible; so divert anxiety into positive enthusiasm. Also, when you see an unjust/unfair situation of another person, focus on helping the victim, not punishing the perpetrator—more good than bad will happen. Finally, whether in a difficult job or relationship situation, the four responses to dissatisfaction are exit, voice, persistence and neglect. Based on their level of commitment and feeling of control, people tend to respond in one of these four ways.

4.     Creating Original Ideas: Grant offers some help in this arena. Run innovation tournaments—employees come up with ideas, develop proposals and evaluate them. Winners get a budget and help implementing their ideas. Play “kill the company” by getting in groups and planning how to attack your own products or services—then take the threats and address them. It’s like opposition research—taking the other side of a debate to figure out your opponent’s attack. Use all employees (including accountants, lawyers, and other less traditional operations types) to propose new products and services—builds a culture of creativity and innovation. Do the opposite! Take a widely held assumption or truth and ask, what if or when is the opposite true? A perspective change helps us all look at an idea in a new way.

5.     Building a Culture of Originality: Don’t just hire for cultural fit, but cultural contribution. Oftentimes fit means conformity—the opposite of originality. Find complementary and necessary strengths, not similarity. Have entry interviews (not just exit interviews) to find out what new employees like to do, why they chose the company, and their unique perspective. Seeking problems, not solutions, creates inquiry, not advocacy. Invite and extol the contrary voice in meetings; it adds to the originality. And it encourage dissent.

6.     Miscellaneous Gold: There’s a ton of content in this book. To be effective, a leader has to have both positional power and earned status or credibility of those around her/him. Stand for something, not just against the status quo. When pitching a product or idea, start off with flaws—it actually builds credibility! Women and men are treated differently when they speak up due to stereotyping. But when women speak up for others (being communal) they’re more likely to get respect. Grant challenges assumptions and shows when it’s good to procrastinate, why and when older innovators outperform younger ones.  The kind of web browser you select may predict how creative/original you are! 

   Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant (Viking Press, 2016), reviewed by Steve Gladis, February 2016.

The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere

Overview: Ever thought about chucking it all and rebooting your life? That’s sort of what Pico Iye

r did; he headed for Japan.  Along the way he met musician Leonard Cohen, who had become a contemplative monk, steeped in the wisdom of being alone. Cohen told Iyer that stepping away from your daily work was so that you might see it anew and “love it more deeply.” The ironic subtitle of this book, by a travel writer no less, says it all: ‘Adventures in going nowhere.’  It also could have been called ‘the journey inside’ or ‘finding happiness without ever looking for it.’ So this is a book about experiencing the world within a “framework of stillness.” It’s also about being present. As the author says, “Heaven is the place where you think of nowhere else.” And in a hyper-speed world chock full of distractions, finding respite within ourselves might just be the best thing we can do every day.

1.     Charting Stillness: The author tells of his covering the Dalai Lama’s trip to Switzerland, where he met Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard, an MIT molecular biologist who left that scientific world for a more contemplative, inner journey. Ricard, who is renowned, especially for his TED Talk and appearances at Davos says: “Simplifying one’s life to extract its quintessence is the most rewarding of all pursuits I have undertaken.” Called the happiest man in the world, Ricard earned that reputation after having had his brain studied by neuroscientists. Employing special MRI equipment with amazing results, these scientists were able to objectively show Ricard’s ability to control his emotions and experience a level of compassion and happiness few will ever know.

2.     Needing Stillness: The author takes a trip to the monastery in Kentucky where philosopher Thomas Merton (also called Father Louis) went to be on his journey to nowhere. The science of interruption tells us that it takes up to 25 minutes to bounce back from a sudden, unexpected visit or phone call, which happens all day long for many of us! So we’re all fragmented and not fully present. In Google’s Search Inside Yourself Initiative, all Googlers are offered a course dedicated to helping them at work and in life. Research that supports their ‘going nowhere’ program leads to not only clearer thinking and better health but also to emotional intelligence. Indeed, mindfulness and meditation have become mainstream in corporations like Aetna, General Mills, LinkedIn, Twitter, and many others. And with good results. For example, at General Mills 80% of execs who attended a mindfulness program for 8 weeks reported a positive change in making decisions and 89% said they were now better listeners. Worth noting: According to the World Health Organization: “Stress will be the health epidemic of the twenty-first century.” And the simple act of mindfulness can help us work toward a cure.

3.     Getting Away: Ironically, the more difficult the day, the more time we need away from it—or the more breaks we need within it. The great Mahatma Gandhi once noted that the harder his day would be, the more time he needed to meditate alone. While this seems counterintuitive, it makes sense if you think of meditation like charging the battery of your mind. People need breaks. As the author warns: “…the clock is exerting more and more tyranny over us.” We need time to do nothing and just allow our minds to solve problems in a kind of stealth mode. Thomas Merton says that in the contemplative life, we need to sit down and let life solve problems for us. Letting the mind relax allows it the perspective and freshness to solve difficult problems.

4.     Final Words by the Author: The author comments in the last chapter about the value of going nowhere:“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”

The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere by Pico Iyer (TED Books, 2014), reviewed by Steve Gladis, February 2016.

How Awake and Present are You - Even after Your Morning Coffee?

Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness by Susan Smalley, PhD, and Diana Winston (DeCapo Press), reviewed by Steve Gladis.

Overview: This is a book about the science and art of mindfulness written by a scientist and an artist, of sorts. The authors are colleagues at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) www.marc.ucla.ed.  Early on, the authors give a definition, “Mindfulness may be thought of as a state of consciousness, one characterized by attention to the present experience with a stance of open curiosity.”  Mindful Awareness Practices (MAP) describe meditation and relaxation techniques in this book. “Mindfulness changes your relationship with life.” How? In this book, the authors describe what mindfulness does and why it works (the science) and how to do it (the art). For example, science has demonstrated that mindfulness reduces stress and chronic pain; it fortifies our ability to cope with painful events, fear, greed and anger; it improves attention and positive emotions (like happiness and compassion); and it improves interpersonal skills, creativity, and performance at work, school, and play.

1. What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is like the seat belt of mental health protecting us from anxiety, depression and pain. Research demonstrates that mindfulness changes our brain—our immune system (toward healing), our brain activity (toward calming), our emotions (toward lessening depression and anxiety and toward happiness). Neuroplasticity means that the brain changes, and mindfulness practice affects neuroplasticity. Mindfulness helps quell “reactivity” or knee-jerk responses to stimuli that produce stress. Instead, mindfulness helps you respond with a “kind attitude” and compassion toward yourself, others and the present experience.

2. Getting Started: Change is difficult, but mindful meditation helps. Habits are ingrained and automatic. Four steps to change habits (like starting to meditate): 1. Take simple steps—make it easy; 2. Create a supportive environment—hang out with supporters, not naysayers; 3. Motivate people with evidence and practice positive self-talk; 4. Repeat, repeat, repeat! Mindfulness increases attention in just 5 days with 20 minutes a day. Postures for mindful meditation include lying down, sitting in a chair, sitting on the floor or on a cushion. Free meditations: www.marc.ucla.edu. Meditative breathing helps asthma and heart patients, lowers blood pressure, and reduces anxiety. Indeed, breath is the foundation for calming the mind.  Focusing on an anchor spot—like the nostrils, abdomen, or chest—helps you concentrate on your breathing. As you breathe, the mind wanders. Bringing your mind back to the breath is the fundamental practice of meditation.

3. Mindful Movement: Becoming more attuned to your body can help heal it and prevent disease by strengthening the immune system. Mindfulness and weight loss studies show reductions in binge eating. Furthermore, trying to suppress thoughts about eating or attempting to avoid certain foods only increases our engagement with them.  However, with mindfulness, you note its presence and then let it go. Faster rates of healing and resistance to disease were found to correlate with meditation. Moving meditations like t’ai chi, walking, and yoga increase self-awareness. “The body is the doorway to mindfulness.”

4. Working with Physical Pain: In biology, pain indicates danger and makes us retreat from it for self-preservation. We don’t feel pain when we’re unconscious—as with anesthesia. We feel pain through 3 systems: sensory, response, and evaluation systems. We sense pain somewhere in the body which gets referred to the spinal column, then to the brain—which then triggers a defense mechanism to inhibit pain. Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests that we become solely an ‘observer’ of the pain, which separates the pain from any story we might attach to it. This “delinking” separates the sensation from the story. “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” Some techniques: Breathe into the pain, practice mindful distraction, use kindness and compassion toward caring for the pain.

5. Feeling Bad: Emotions (fear, anxiety, sadness, happiness, joy) are biological reactions to danger and competition.  Our emotional brain circuits are much older than our rational brain and so override our thinking many times. Mindfulness develops the pause between emotion and action. The fear response is evolutionary and protects us from threats. Anxiety is fear when no reasonable threat exists—the amygdala is on overdrive. Mindful breathing helps to put the brakes on the amygdala—which can act as the gas pedal for our brain. For the anxious person both cognitive reappraisal and suppression work. Reappraisal works best. Assume the best and move on is a good philosophy. “Mindfulness can be a key to learning how to relate to emotions in healthy and useful ways.”  Use RAIN to control the emotions: Recognition (cognitive labeling)—Acceptance—Investigation (explore the emotion)—Non-Identification (my emotions are not me).

6. Feeling Good and Finding Happiness: We catch happiness from others, and it arises from the fulfillment of living a meaningful life—one with purpose, values, efficacy, and self-worth. Mindfulness increases our feelings of well-being and happiness and opens up our capacity for intuition and problem solving. The brain does this through “coherence” or pulling parts of the brain together (synchronicity) like a symphony conductor. Self-compassion leads to happiness and has 3 components: kindness, mindfulness, and awareness of our connection to humanity.

7. Paying Attention and Stressful Thinking:  Our time and attention are the best things we can give another person. There are three kinds of attention: alerting (preparing to react); orientating (directing attention to someone or something); and conflict attention (paying attention when distractions interfere). Conflict attention is critical to self-regulation. Concentration and mindfulness go hand in hand, whether focusing on your breath or on an object. Often, we worry about many things that never happen. Symbolic language developed 77,000 years ago and with it the prefrontal cortex (PFC) grew to accommodate abstract thinking. The PFC is the master architect—shifting attention, adjusting, and suppressing. The PFC functions to move us toward our goals—to plan, organize, and execute. Mindfulness allows us to see things in their conceptual bareness—as they are, not with our stories attached that can narrow them with a kind of prejudice. Meditation keeps us from getting on the train of cascading thoughts (often negative ones) by focusing and staying in the moment. Don’t Believe Everything You Think! Focus on the body, not the story the mind is telling you.
8.   Mindfulness in Action: Mindful communication leads to better decision making.  Mindful dyads seek information, have a positive perspective, see multiple perspectives, can describe their thoughts and feelings, acknowledge partner’s communication, use participative language, and demonstrate turn-taking (Jackie Krieger, Western Michigan University). “Better than/less than” thinking is the source for evil in society. Note the Stanford Prison Study where “guards” treated “prisoners” cruelly due to this kind of thinking. Mindfulness helps us overcome this bias. Mindfulness in Schools:  Studies in schools in India, Britain, and the US (New York, Arizona, California) demonstrate that more mindful students perform, test and behave better in class, and exhibit less anxiety and stress. Teaching mindful practices to students from kindergarten through college enhances well-being.