So many people suffer from organisational politics, so I decided to pursue this topic by recently interviewing about 15 managers. In this episode, I share some of my findings from this study. Here you will find an overview of what is dirty politics, and what is the cost people at work. What is politics? [1:41] Politics is way of meeting goals. The question is: whose goals? When politics is used to get past management inefficiency to reach organizational goals, they are more along the lines of good politics. Take the case of a small company where the Director of Operations was completely mismanaging the executive team. He was leading teams into conflict and complete inefficiency between the sales and execution. The VP of Strategy planned to overthrow the director and takeover the company, leading it to a much better level of execution. Of course, it was sad to see the Director go, but was this move good for the company? Clearly, it was. Political games played with a good intension can be advantageous. “When personal ambition is not detrimental to that of the organization, that kind of politics is very well supported by the people.” There is nothing wrong in including one's self ambition with that of the organization, but that's not always the case. When politics comes with a good intension to bring meaning to people and take the company to the next level, that kind of politics requires courage which comes only from the bravest of hearts. This requires you to put yourself in the line of fire for the sake of a better future both for yourself and the organization.  What is bad politics? When does politics get dirty? [4:43] Often, politics holds a pejorative connotation where people influence using their soft skills to gain more power, recognition, and move ahead in their career; things are done with one’s end goals in mind and not that of the organisation. Decisions are manipulated for self-interest. There are so many tactics involved in these kinds of moves.Imagine the amount of time people spend on hiding mistakes, trying to look good, trying to make colleagues look bad, strategising to secure the biggest budget for the next five years, and so on. What a waste of effort for the organisations!!!! “When actions come from the intension of self-interest, then it becomes manipulation and it just gets dirty.”  Intensions determine if politics is about influencing for a good cause or for manipulation. What is the cost of dirty politics in organizations?  [5:56] From the survey I did where I interviewed managers from various organisations, one thing was clear: the bigger the organisation, the bigger the political games to privilege the self over the organisation. I’d like to share traits from three different kinds of people that I met and how dirty politics impacted them: Hyper-vigilancePolitics adds to the complexity of decision making. Managers recall that you would be naïve to think that you can do it without politics. Everyone plays politics, but what changes is the degree to which they play. Several of them mentioned that they play scenarios in their head, doubting the intensions of people without knowing if the proposal is genuine or intended to make them fail.Running through different scenarios in your head on the intensions of different stakeholders is like having several television channels switched on in your brain and trying to figure out which one is the right channel. When people become hyper-vigilant we lose creativity in the organisation. Political stress[7:54] Operational issues and thriving in international matrix organisations is a challenge and has its own stress. Politics adds another layer to this stress, and how we deal with it depends on our composure. 95% of the people I interviewed mentioned that it affected them in the following ways:Political stress affects sleep: becoming vigilant and paranoid on other peoples intensions and sincerity.Political stress increased feeling of loneliness: as you dont trust your colleagues easily.Political stress increases irritation at home: as people tried to keep a calm demure at work. The smallest of things at home annoyed them. This made them emotionally numb at work as a way to protect themselves with peers. So at a peer level, keeping a certain distance and playing political games have become a norm.As a leader of a team, being empathetic building relationships means ones needs to switch on the emotional channel. This can be a stretch to switch on and off the channel the emotional connection and made people feel less authentic. As on one side you need to shut down your emotional channel, and on the other side you need to connect through data and emotions to motivate and work with teams. The “blame badge.” [10:40] When people fail in an organisations, they don’t fail alone. Other people fail to become successful because in an organization, we’re working in a chain and depending on the work of each other. This can lead to collective finger pointing that makes the person feel terrible; it destroys the foundation of their personality. Think about the consequences: how much anger will this person have towards his colleagues? What is the level of trust between their teams? “When two managers are in conflict, it’s absolutely no surprise that their teams are also in conflict. Managers set the weather of their teams. Blame Badge has lots of consequences.” When a child falls from a bicycle in a park, and you dont see parents around, you help the child dust off the mud and help them get back on the wheels. In an organisation your failure becomes an opportunity for people to walk over you. What if next time when someone fails unintensionally, you could go ask: Does it hurt? How are you? How are you really doing? How can I help you? What are 2 tips we can take away? [13:53] When you see someone fail, take the first step to bring more humanity into the organization by helping them. Ask them how they are so they don’t feel labelled or isolated. Take a ten-minute walk in nature before you go home so you can let go of the stress that you’ve accumulated in your work day by workplace politics.

 Kathy Ball-Toncic, worked in financial services for 18 years, now works full-time to inspire people to truly live their lives. Kathy talks about what engages people, provides several examples of creating connection, and gives reasons why we should encourage emotions in the workplace. What engages people? [1:49] When we speak authentically from passion, and not from ego but rather from our unique selves, our unique view of the world then we’re begin to create engagement. What we’re not doing in those times is trying to win or prove something or be better or smarter or brighter. We are not comparing ourselves to someone else or even to ourselves or to some standard we've set out there.“I can’t engage with others until I feel fully engaged with myself.” Does engagement come from a very clean space? [3:08] It’s actually a very messy space, and our goal is to stay connected and feel the messiness of this space. We can feel nervous, angry, or tense, then we have to commit to return to that clean space. We can’t get there unless we acknowledge our feelings. Can you give an example of how we create separation? [4:49]I believe that none of us are out there to create separation. Maybe on a bad day, but genuinely, we are wired to create connections with each other. We are tribal beings. We survive through connection. An example is if you’re sitting in a meeting talking about what you read and not connected to how you perceived the article, or don't include your point of view then you are not talking about what you have learnt, but talking about what you have read. And when you keep them separate them from yourself, then its tricky to connect with others.When we try to be better, faster, smarter than the other we don't connect.   If I keep my learnings separate from me, then I am separate from me, and therefore it’s difficult to connect with other people. On the surface, these conversations look like they’re going somewhere because there’s so much information exchanged. At the same time, there’s no connection between the people. [7:47] It’s because we’re not connecting with the people, we’re connecting with a thing. We are stuck in our ego and comparing ourselves to others. How do we create a connection? [8:29] It’s one of those things that is common sense but not common practice. In the real workplace, we often are measured by what we do. We have things like KPIs and need to prove our worth not only to keep our jobs but maybe also to get a promotion. “It’s not about overcoming our feelings, it’s about integrating them. I am a whole person. I'm not perfect and the day I can be okay about that with myself that I can make mistakes and that I need help we start to create connection. If we come in with a shield, we’re not only creating separation, we’re sending a message to people that we don’t need them." We need cracks to allow light to come in. We need cracks to allow other people to come in.We accept those cracks in us with compassion for ourselves, compassion for the other person, full acceptance, and even joy that we can’t do this alone.Very often in this world, we believe that if we allow emotions to come in, we won’t make the right choices. We shut off the emotional channel and stop feeling in the workplace.  [11:27] We even get told not to be emotional. Kathy is a very emotional person, and says it took her a long time to sit in a tough meeting and not show emotion. That whole time, she would be completely separate from everything that was going on. There would be whole conversations that she would miss because she was so focused on not feeling her feelings. The assumption is often that if we get into emotional discussions, we’re not going to get anything done. Kathy asserts that it’s the exact opposite. When there’s tension in the room and we don’t talk about it, so many of us resort to blame because that feels like our way out. Even if we blame other people internally, we are still building such separation. Three key points from Kathy[18:47]Recognise the feelings that we have inside of us. Label them for yourself and for others.If you have assumptions about emotions in the workplace, go test it out.Take responsibility for whatever part you’re playing, and check what feelings are there before getting into blame. If we don’t see ourselves as part of the problem, we cannot see ourselves as part of the solution.  Can you give one concrete tip of how we can create connection? [19:57] We should all signal connection, i.e. give a little nod or smile or raise your eyebrows or say tell me more any micro queues through spoken words or body language to indicate connection is important.It’s actually as simple as tapping into our childlike curiosity. It’s not about interrogating, it’s about keeping in mind how you want other to feel.

 Yann Kunkel Senior Manager at Deloitte Consulting and I went to the same leadership course. We decided to co-create this episode to talk about how we can sometimes be too focused on ourselves, causing us to be trapped in a metaphorical box. What is correcting what’s going wrong? [1:12] Let’s take an example from Yann. You have a piece of information and you realize a co-worker doesn’t. Your thoughts are “Well, that person should have this information” for whichever reason, such as it already being common knowledge. Instead of sharing that information, you withhold it because you think “I have it, I had to find it, so this person can do that work too. It’s not always me who has to do the work.” Another example is from when I was asked to do a small project with a group of people and, for some reason, I felt like I was the leader. The group had to go talk to different people to get things done and there was one girl, let’s call her Chloe, who kept nudging me and giving me ideas that didn’t make any sense. I was wondering “How do I correct her? How do I tell her that she is so wrong?” I noticed my inner monologue of “If we follow her ideas, we will fail. This is completely impractical”. Because of this monologue, I ignored Chloe and would sometimes tell her to stay focused and even be quite.“When we’re trapped with our inner monologue to correct stuff around us and make things right, we start building a justified reality that makes our behaviour the right thing. When in fact we’re actually making up a story so that we somehow feel good about what we do.” I created an image of myself being somehow better than Chloe. I felt that I was superior. When we’re in a self-justification mode, we are looking at ourselves and not at the other person.  Let’s talk about the theory of boxes from the Arbinger Institute.[7:02] The Better-Than Box. This is feeling superior and perhaps feeling that others are not up to the mark. You feel that others are incapable or wrong and that you must prove to them that you’re right. It leaves us with a feeling of frustration because we can’t be everywhere and we’re not patient enough.The Worse-Than Box. This is when you feel that you’re worse than everyone else in the world. You feel that everyone has more privileges and just received their accomplishments without working for them.The I Deserve Box. This is feeling that you deserve to be recognized as the hero that you are, and others don’t deserve that attention. You feel that you’ve waited long enough and now it’s your turn, so you won’t think about the others.The Must Be Seen as Box. This is how you want to be seen by the world, such as righteous or a strong leader. What happens in all these boxes is that your view is turned towards yourself, and you’re justifying your world so that your behaviour is acceptable. It’s okay to be focused on yourself, but we’re always in interaction with others. Sometimes we focus so much on ourselves that we fail to see what is going on with other people. This can create us to act in ways that create conflict.  “When you’re in a box, you’re not seeing people as people. You’re seeing others as objects; as things that you can move around and that are here to serve you.” Being in a box won’t solve anything. You’ll just continue to make things worse. Few TIP’s from Yann and Deepa to get out of the box? [14:24] The first thing is to realise you’re in a box. Realize that the others are not the issue. It can be a challenging exercise when you realize that you are seeing others as objects. In Yann’s example about withholding information, sharing that information would be the right thing to do to get out of the box. The logical and human thing to; realize that the person needs the information that you have and give it to them. “It’s listening to the voice of my own humanity and the humanity of this other person and that they need something. This person is as important as I am. He’s got fears, hopes, needs, and they’re just as important as mine.” My tip regarding my own example is that rather than coming from a place of trying to fight something in your organization, come from a place of inviting people. Inviting people and inviting things to go right comes from a place of compassion for self and for others. I should have helped Chloe learn and develop instead of telling her that she was wrong. Whenever you see someone that you think is in a box, start with yourself. Before you start to correct others just start with yourself and make sure that you stay out of the box. It’s contagious.Suggested Reading:The Outward Mindset – https://www.amazon.com/Outward-Mindset-Seeing-Beyond-Ourselves/dp/B01F96PPP4

  Eric Cluzel, manager and friend works in a large corporation, talks about what the courage of failure means to him. He shares a story about when he had to deal with failure at work, and provides tips for using failure as motivation to become even better at work.The show notes do no justice to the wisdom of the podcast, we hope you will listen.What is courage of failure for you? [0:39] If you don’t have the courage to take risks, if you stay in your comfort zone, if you don’t innovate or try to, you will not have the satisfaction of developing yourself. The majority of innovation starts with several attempts. The courage of failure is to try. “Go out there and give it your best. It’s okay if you fail. It’s okay if you don’t succeed.” Can you share a personal story about how you have encountered failure at work? [3:21] A few months ago, Eric had to go in front of some executives. He had to do exercises in an attempt to obtain a promotion within the company. Though he was already performing well in that position in the company, this was a mandatory step in the process with a yes/no decision. He had twenty minutes to convince people of his capabilities. It was important for Eric because it was a recognition of where he is today and his capacity to do the job. He prepared for this assessment as you would prepare for a competition. He read books, discussed with colleagues, did some business analysis, and so on. On the day of the assessment, he was confident because of the preparation he had done but also had some fear. “You can prepare as much as possible, but perhaps on the decision day, your body, or your material, or your feelings will put you in a situation you cannot prepare for.” Two or three exercises went well for Eric, but in the end, the result was that he failed. He was put in a situation that did not align with his expectations.  What were some of the negative dialogues that you were having? [6:31] Eric was thinking about the different results; if he succeeded or failed. He says that he’s a positive person, so he thought he was prepared to have a negative result, but that perhaps he wasn’t. Eric tried to not move the fault onto any other people or processes. He quickly moved from frustration to resilience. What helped you in moving on from frustration to resilience? [7:25] Eric got the result early in the morning. Because of the result, the temptation was to take the day off. However, he decided to go to work as usual to face his colleagues. Of course, they all came to him and asked Eric what the results were. He decided to have the courage to express to his colleague that he failed, and a lot of people were more frustrated than him. Even with Eric’s failure, it was an incredible time for him because he received so much nice and empathetic feedback. Because it was an emotional time, people expressed to Eric their views on him. They would not have done this otherwise. How did this impact your relationship with the process? [11:15] Eric thinks that there is no impact today. He is still continuing on in his professional life with the same confidence he had before. Eric feels that his relationship with his team has improved because of the whole experience. How did this impact your credibility? [12:40] Eric knows his credibility is still there because of the feedback he receives from his management and customers. In his personal life, his family is even more proud of him than before. “We do need to give our best, but we don’t need to push ourselves all the time. We’re good enough as we are.” What tips can you give people for when they fail? [14:27] If you fail at something, it’s because you tried something. You need to be proud. People who don’t try will never fail.Do not let the failure decrease your credibility. Reflect, learn, and continue with even more energy.

  Why listening is sometimes thought to be painful. Reasons why at times listening does not get any deeper and two tips that we can use to become better listeners both at work and at home.The situation that inspired me to talk about this subject.[0:32] I was observing a negotiation between two different departments in an organisation. Let’s call one of the person I was observing, Bob. On the surface, Bob was an extremely inspiring person who was very captivating in his speech. He came into the meeting, gave context, spoke about the big picture, and was really engaging the other person with his talk. He also said a lot of inclusive things like “I really want us to solve this.” However, Bob kept talking and gave no space to the other person. He asked questions in a way that implied it was a no-brainer that everything would happen on time. When we ask questions from a place of only what we want to hear, then we will only hear what we want to hear. Bob wasn’t connected with the reality, and the reality was that the project was going to be delayed by two years. Until the end of the meeting, Bob didn’t even hear that. “We miss information, and suddenly it comes back to us at a time when we’re absolutely taken by surprise. The disconnection happens because we only allow information that we want to seek.” If you have someone who is pretty compliant on the other side, they don’t want to give you bad news. Especially if it is someone who reports to you, you’re not going to hear some things. The two main reasons why the listening did not get any deeper in Bob’s case. [4:42] Bob is someone who is a little bit impatient. He just wanted to go faster in his goals and was very narrowly focused. Therefore, he asked questions like “Is this done?” and “Where are we on this?” These questions are open yet closed to his own goals. Sometimes, things are not just a straight path in an organization, and we need to deviate into something else. However, we think that if we listen to something completely different, then we’re wasting our time.He had the assumption that if he opened his door and stepped out of his room, he would be stepping out of his territory and into the other person’s shoes. He thought that if he experienced what the other person was, he might lose his perspective and goals. “The painful part of listening is that we have to change the way we have been built; we have to change the way we have been listening. If we truly listen to the other person, then we start to create a new reality that becomes a reality for both of us. We start to create a new perspective which includes different perspectives.” Listening can be painful because:Sometimes we can’t go as fast as we wish to.We have to, at times, change our ideas, beliefs, and the way we are doing things. There is a false assumption that listening at a deeper level is painful, but actually, it’s not painful: it’s pure joy. We start to co-create with the other person and discover new things.We won’t lose our assertive position just because we are opening our hearts and listening to the other person.  “If you can trust yourself that you are capable of handling your emotions and, at the same time, making the right choices, then listening empathetically can truly build much more co-creativity and expand our minds.” Two tips to help you listen more deeply [8:31] Remembering that: Slow is fast. Bob had the assumption that if he took time to listen, he wouldn’t get everything done in his day. Actually, knowing that the project was going to be delayed would have helped him organize, plan, and support his partner.Use a lot more silence than you think you do in meetings. We are often uncomfortable with silence, so we try to fill the spaces. Silence allows the other person to break bad news and encourages other people to speak up.

  Suzie Lewis has worked in large organizations for a long time and has run international transformation programs. She talks to us about: Why do we go to work? How does organisational code get in the way of a meaningful purpose? How can you have a sense of purpose at work? Why do we go to work? [0:51] Too often, the answer to this question is to make money or to be able to live. People with this mindset go because they are motivated to get paid. There’s no sense of engagement, purpose, or meaningfulness of why they’re at work. When work becomes a means to an end, motivation and engagement are low. There’s a scale of answers to this question and this is one end of the scale. The other end of the scale has people who love what they do and want to make a difference. Suzie’s mother was a successful surgeon and for 40 years she said everyday:“I wonder what I will find at work today!” When Suzie wakes up she has thoughts like: I wonder what change I will make today. I wonder who I’ll meet today. I’m going to meet loads of different people and situations and I love that.  What gets in the way of having a purpose when we go to work? [4:02] Usually, organizational culture can get in the way. This includes the codes of the culture, how the system recognizes people, and how the system works. You can very easily have a purpose statement and values that are built within an organization, but organizational culture can cause people to work in silos.Organisational culture can make people feel that they cannot fulfil their purpose.  What are some of the codes of the organizational culture that get in the way? [4:58] The top level of Edgar Schein’s model, what he calls Artifacts is essentially the dress code and “How things are done around here.” It’s things like where you go for lunch, what time you go for lunch, with who you go for lunch, who you are seen with, how busy you are, whether you an assistant and everything has to go through the assistant because you are too busy, whether you have a company car, etc. There are lots of different definitions of codes of culture. “Culture is the way you think, act and interact. They become implicit codes in the organization that indicate what level you are and, therefore, what freedom you have and the way you can influence within the organisation This in itself can squash purpose and creativity.” Forbes has a program on top people under 30 in business. That demographics is massively linked to purpose. They want to make a bigger impact, want to give back to the society, and want to do something more meaningful for themselves and for the society. They get demotivated by organisational SILO’s and when good ideas cannot be taken further due to things not related to the purpose, like organisational codes of culture that get in the way. i.e. that level where you are and who you can communicate to. Sometimes, people who are extremely experienced can get quite cynical with people who are under thirty and come in fresh with lots of ideas. What do you think about that? [7:32] We need to be careful not to get stuck in generational stereotypes. However, it is about age because they’ve been in that organization longer, and however much we like to think that we stay out of the mold of an organization, we do get conditioned by our place of work. “The real difference is this generation will not spend a long time in an organization if they don’t feel it fits.” I had three people yesterday tell me that the biggest challenge within their organization to reach the vision is organization politics. [10:58] That links very much back to the two discussions we’re having: one is about purpose and one is about the way the system operates. I think that those two ideas need to work together for organizations to be able to transform sustainably. The younger generations DARE more because for them it’s their way of thinking, so why should they not bring that to work. When you get grassroots momentum like that then you get a mix of ages. Grassroots momentum is great for viral change. That can create sustainable change up to a certain level.  People who have a purpose will push away the normal, standard way of doing things and get them to evolve. What’s one piece of advice you would give to people who want to come from a sense of purpose to work? [12:44] There is fear in organisations and there is more courage than fear. So,Dare. Dare to do what you want to do and dare to suggest things that are outside of what exists today. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it.

A case of applying the Immunity to Change for a teamHave you ever planned to do something the next day and then you wake up feeling exhausted with no energy to follow your planned work?The point it we so often tend to dismiss how we are feeling mentally, how we are feeling physically, and we push ourselves constantly to move forward. While it’s good to get moving, we often tend to push ourselves way too much to stick to our commitments.Last week I had the opportunity to support a team that wanted to be proactive for the sake of health! That was the objective of the team. My colleague Xavier Weibel and I used the Immunity to change process to accompany this team.What is immunity to change?Lisa Lahey says on episode #12 if we don’t see our immunity, we will continue to be stuck. An immunity is when there’s a part of us that wants to move in one direction, towards an important goal and at the exact same time, there is a part of us that is unconsciously driven to actually accomplish a goal that is in tension with the very important goal we want to accomplish.What was happening to this team that was working in a reactive way? This was an IT services teams, that had to respond to critical events and that was their primary objective apart from taking care of the future technology.They were like a hamster on a wheel, continuously chasing backlog of items, rushing because critical incidents were falling on their plate, they were constantly trying to solve problems and their agendas were running full. In short, they were playing a catch-up game. And they were recognized as a capable team because they were extremely committed to high levels of quality all the time. They were committed to not letting emotions get in the way of making clear, rational decisions. The team was extremely committed to being professional and to be responsible. One might say well the team is performing well.Being action focused and solving problems is great, and yet too much of it takes away our mental health. What is Mental Health? In episode #14, James Routledge defines mental health as your state; not just well-being, your state of emotions, feeling, thoughts, identity and that’s kind of all wrapped up in mental health.When we work in a very reactive way, we:1.    Get exhausted2.    Get CynicalAnd that’s a sign of burnout. Monique Valcour on episode #19 says:Exhaustion: feeling that you just don’t have any more to give and drained.ANDCynicism: a loss of meaning that shows up as a negative attitude towards work, the workplace and the people you are working with.So, burnout is not an on off state. There is a lot of grey zone before you actually hit burnout. In the grey zone lies cynicism and exhaustion. We keep moving in and out of that grey zone, which is close to burnout. This team was not clearly in burnout.Their resilience was consuming their zest and the force for life. And that was taking away all their creativity.What was their goal?Their goal was to be proactive and bring Health to the forefront of business!3 Raisons to bring Health to the forefront of business.1.    Physical and mentally healthMany people on the team were affected by stress physically. They wanted to not have ulcers. 2.    Better working relationshipsYou are simply less irritated, less cynical, less negative and one has time to engage in a meaningful dialogue.3.    More creativityYou set the right foundation to focus on continuous improvement rather than make short term fixes and patchesWhat hindered this team from focusing on health?One of the main hindering factors for high achievers is that they like to get things done, which is a good thing and at the same time it’s this very thing of being too action focused, and constantly solving problems that was coming in the way.High achievers don’t see the benefit of rest.They don’t see the benefit of stepping back and looking at what’s going on, looking at the bigger picture of how they’re playing the game.Stillness allows you to move forward in a much healthier way. Stillness in itself is not going to change the problems that you face today. And yet stillness allows you to create a certain inner energy, an inner space that allows you to move forward with much more ease and allows you to bring joy at work. What is the TIP if you work with a team like this?The problem is the people surrounding around these kinds of teams are also impacted because they are solicited in the last minute.You need compassion when interacting with such a team. 1.    Compassion for the team.Compassion allows you to to not judge, not criticize, not point fingers at the team. Because criticism is the last thing this team needs.2.    Compassion for yourselfCompassion allows to not collapse into the reactive energy of the team. It’s so easy to start working like them when you receive things in the last minute.Compassion allows you to take distance and act in a more responsible way. Because you risk reproducing what they’re going through and that will take away your mental health. 

 I’m so privileged to have Betsy Parayil-Pezard on this episode to discuss meditation. She was born in the USA to Indian parents and has been living in France for the past eighteen years. She has practiced different forms of mindfulness since 1998 and shares her vision of mindfulness in prisons, homeless shelters, and with CEOs. You’ve recently written a book on “To meditate is to Rebel.” What inspired you to write this book? [0:53] Meditation has helped Betsy in so many ways, so that was her first motivation. She wanted to write a book about mindfulness for French people because, having been living in France for so long, she began seeing the obstacles that French people have to mindfulness. Betsy says that the French often describe themselves as very rational, causing them to not be attracted to meditation. Betsy wanted to invite people to explore what meditation is from a rational perspective. “I believe that there’s this awareness that we develop when we meditate that allows us to see our connection to other people and to the problems in society.” Mindfulness has led Betsy to observe how we are all connected to each other. It sounds very cliché, but it’s actually very rational when you consider the idea that we are actually interconnected and, in a false way, our society separates us. How does mindfulness make us more interconnected? [3:58] Betsy sees that not knowing how other people are experiencing life keeps us from experiencing a part of ourselves. Betsy has brought people who are at the top of companies to a mindful-conscious dialogue with people who are in distress, and a lot of great awareness arises in both parties. In one party, there’s the feeling that “This person, who has everything that I would like to have in life, is not different from me.” On the side of the leader in a privileged situations, the person will often think “What do I need to be doing in my life that will serve other parts of the society?”Mindfulness has a series of 4 steps:Place your attention on your breadthYou are distracted by something e.g. a though, a feeling or a soundYou become aware of that distractionPlace your attention on your breadthThis is just a training or workout that brings a greater knowledge of how your mind works. Its actually a simple process.What challenges do people face in practicing mindfulness? [5:47] Some of the most prominent reasons are:People often feel that this is not for them because they have a busy mind, they can’t sit still, they have too much stress, etc. That often comes from a misunderstanding of what mindfulness is. You don’t have to be less stressed to meditate.The performance culture of leaders makes sitting down difficult. It feels like sitting to meditate is something that takes us outside of our lives or outside our efforts to get results. Why is mindfulness becoming such a basic leadership skill today? [12:03] Betsy believes that the world is getting safer in some ways, but that there’s an atmosphere of fear and anxiety. There’s a feeling that there is no meaning. In Betsy’s vision, we will be more attracted to leaders who help us experience something other than fear. Leaders today will need to work on their own fear first. Mindfulness is a way of confronting difficult emotions. When practicing mindfulness, Betsy learns to see the composition of her mind and then learns to operate from a place of stillness within herself as a leader. “Mindfulness helps people to connect on a different level, Mindfulness creates meaning that people are looking for, and finally mindfulness creates an experience that people are looking for!” Mindfulness helps you to listen better to yourself and others. It helps you to connect in a more profound way to yourself and others. This helps you connect with your purpose and give meaning to the mission both for yourself and to those you are leading.What happens when we act from a place of fear? [15:50] The other day, Betsy was listening to a discussion with a presidential candidate from one of the last elections. He talked about a moment where he came to a debate, was less prepared than previously, and his popularity started to slide immediately after. Watching his numbers slide was very difficult, and this caused him to operate from a place of fear; he started to panic. He did not use his full capacities to make decisions from that moment on. That’s one example of how fear can get the best of you. What is important about leading from a place of stillness? [18:33] Stillness is so uncommon in our society that when you bring stillness to a group, it’s very disruptive. Coming into the room and taking your time influences everyone. It gives them space to access their own resources, and it gets them to bring their best resources to the team. Stillness connects us to our intuition and connects us to indicators that are intangible. Can you give one TIP that will help people to meditate? [21:30] Start small. As people are starting off, I would recommend doing two or five minutes. What’s important is to do this regularly; not necessarily for long periods of time. Betsy also encourages using an app called Petit BamBou, and she is even the English voice artist on the app. “Stillness is a resource, and you always have it with you.”Her book in French: Méditer c’est se rebeller

  In this episode, I welcome Giovanna Manto to discuss ways of increasing the chance of success for your organisation’s change program. Giovanna is a co-founder of Healthy Change Partners and a leadership coach with Healthy Organizational Change. She brings key insights from a recent study she performed at INSEAD where she analysed resistance to change in an organisation that she was coaching. Why is increasing the chances of success for your change program interest you? [0:40] Giovanna’s research highlights the key challenges experienced by field practitioners in delivering change programs. She wants to make the programs more sustainable and effective in the long run. Giovanna observed congruence coming from the leadership of an organisation that had asked her and her partner to assign and deliver a change program for them. This program aimed at shifting the way people trust each other. The objectives of this project were large, and the amount the company was willing to invest was considerable. What struck her curiosity were inconsistent messages coming from diagnosis interviews. Giovanna felt resistance and strong doubts, which were indicators that the people who had hired her were not supporting the change. The top executives had the attitude of “go out, change this organization, but please leave me alone.” What are some of the main reasons that organizations fail to make change happen? There are four major factors that she saw during her interviews:[2:35]The inconsistency of the top leadership. They saw change as something what involves others but not themselves. Really, the change process starts from the top. They need to be the change that they want to see.[6:35]The lack of synchronicity. In the less effective programs, leaders failed to deliver actions and messages at the same time with he same pace and weight. Paying attention to the specific culture and needs is important for multinational companies. Everyone should be told what is happening at the same time.[8:58]The use of psychodynamics gets misunderstood. Change programs go deep into people’s essence of being, which can be quite intimidating for most people. When psychodynamics is well understood and used properly, people gain more awareness on how they can influence others. They will become better listeners and feel more empathetic towards others.[13:46] The lack of dedicated time for reflection. This means making time to ask ourselves the tricky questions about how effectively we are doing our work. This is a concept that agile organizations have become accustomed to in retrospective meetings they do. Teams working on a project regularly take time to gather and reflect on what went well and the areas that need improvement. Organizations that neglect to do properly do these meetings have an outcome that is difficult to measure. The organizations that thrive are the ones that intentionally make time in their busy schedule to offer their people a space where they can feel free to learn from their success and failures without shame. “Most of these people are high-achievers who are very action-biased, who have worked very hard, and gotten their way. What’s gotten them here by working hard, by getting things done, being self-sufficient, and being strong is not actually getting them to the next level” What are some of the solutions your research suggests? [18:30]The solution that the study suggests is to get thoroughly prepared as much as possible and minimise the ignorance factors. Prepare yourself by hiring a triumvirate of key organizational members who know the space and contain the overall change. This triumvirate rests on three pillars:The strengths of business executives.The strengths of HR professionals.The strengths of external coaches and consultants. This model is in its first stages and needs to be tested further, but what can be argued at this point is that organizational transformations need to be sustained all the way. “My research finds that business executives and promotors and inspirers, whereas the HR professionals are the catalyzers, and the coaches and consultants are the facilitators; they bring in the expertise.” It is important that the three have an overview of the change programs and support the top leadership that sponsors this program in synchronicity. They also must be synchronized when paying attention to the psychodynamics and in truly believing in what the change program can bring. What is one last message you have for the audience? Ultimately, changing an organization is a marathon, not a sprint. We need to prepare ourselves carefully if we want to lead the process effectively. Once we have experienced the change, we’ll know what it takes and, depending on the role we have in an organization, we’ll be ready to join forces. “Only when you know what it takes to make change happen for oneself can you make it happen for your team, for the organization, and in the society at large.”

 Ken Mossman, who has specialised in coaching men for the past two decades, joins us this show. He is here to provide his knowledge on vulnerability and why men do not generally like being open. Ken also gives advice for building stronger connections. Why are men terrified of vulnerability? [0:50] The main reason is because vulnerability has gotten a bad name. It’s been associated with weakness and helplessness, and men don’t want to appear that way. The challenge is when men think it’s not okay to ask for help, as if they are supposed to know all the answers. “There is this pressure to perform and provide. Is it a bad thing? No. Does it mean that there’s some sort of way in which men come into the world automatically equipped to do those things? The answer to that is also no.” What is an example of how this plays out at work? [5:09] One person cannot hold the entire big picture of an immensely complex system, and this example is seen in organizations such as government or large companies. If someone is running a small business with very few employees, maybe that one person does know more than anyone else about the business. When the system becomes larger, there’s no single person who can know everything that’s going on. Why are men being starved for vulnerability? [7:44] We are all social creatures and Ken believes what men are really starved for is deep connection. Vulnerability is a key piece of openness and willingness to engage. Many men have been socialized to stay away from those things. It can be a frightening step.  What challenges do men face to be more vulnerable? [9:27] Everything starts with awareness. The first piece is to notice that there is something you are hungry for….like making deeper connections. Like making connections that matter and having conversations that go beyond sports, beyond business. Nothing wrong with sports or business, but notice there is a huger for beyond. “I may be in a great relationship with my wife or life partner, but that one relationship can’t hold all of my needs and wants in that hunger for connection with other men.”In the desire of true connection with vulnerability, there is nothing to prove and there is no competition. So how does one measure the connection. So it becomes dicey how does one see the connection.What are some examples of these conversations that build connections? [11:47] There are two aspects:Opening the door into yourself. Asking “How well do I actually know myself?”Opening to the unknown. This comes back to vulnerability. “If I sit down with you and have a coffee or a beer with no agenda, I really don’t know where this conversation is going to go.”Its about – How are you REALLY doing?What tips can Ken give for men to be less terrified? [13:24] Ask “How are you doing? and How are you you really doing?”, Be willing to go first and be willing to be a little bit frightened. That’s a big ask because men usually don’t like to do that. On the flip side, be willing to have the same questions asked of yourself and be willing to share what comes up in the moment.https://www.cirruscoaching.com/index.html