Status Matters To Change Success
April 25, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · 1 Comment
Today I read something that brought up a memory so uncomfortable that I had largely repressed it. I was working as a strategy consultant for a growing company trying to get itself bought. We were a tight-knit group and although the bloom was fading from the dot-com rose, it was a mostly optimistic organization. In an effort to make everything look as professional and capable as possible to investors, there were frequent re-organizations, mostly designed by people who had never previously heard the word.
I was the last one called in to be briefed on the last re-org before the company was sold. The owner who I was meeting with looked pained and was nervously chattering. He started going down the org chart…and down….and down… And there I was, not just at the bottom but barely even connected to anything, like an org chart dangling participle. My response was visceral and I thought at the time, totally out of proportion to the event. I was assured that I was highly valued and respected (and I was well compensated and got good projects). It was just that they “didn’t know where to put me”. And I could see why. I was happy to jump from project, to account, to consulting. I cared little about politics or management and always preferred to do creative work, rather than manage others doing creative work. I was, am and always have been a creative, entrepreneurial generalist.
So why could I not get past it? To everyone’s surprise I left very shortly thereafter although it required relocation for a new position. Although I’ve stayed in touch with many of the people on that dreaded org chart, I never again spoke to, talked about or even looked at the person I met with that day. But I killed the messenger many times in my fantasies while at the same time beating myself up over my big fat jealous childish ego.
So today I read about a new NIMH study of the brain, specifically the medial prefontal cortex (involved in sizing up others), the striatum (the reward center) and the amygdala and posterior cingulate (emotional pain processing). The researchers scanned the brains of participants involved with a game that resulted in reward and loss of both money and status/reputation.
“We found that the brain reacts very strongly to the other players and specifically the status of the other players,” Zink says. “We weren’t expecting that profound a response,” she adds, noting that the subjects seemed to be concerned with the hierarchy within the game even when it was of no consequence to how much money they could make.
So now I understand; mine was a normal brain reaction to a perceived loss of status even though I was never a person who cared about titles or climbing the corporate ladder. But this new knowledge is even more important to me as a change facilitator and executive coach because either real or perceived loss of status is a major factor that should be considered and communicated when leading large organizational or small business change. Leaders who can increase their own awareness and emotional IQ about the impact of status change on their people and culture, will more effectively help others through, and consequently increase the success likelihood of, their change programs.
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leadership, organizational culture, self-awareness
Resilience Earned
April 24, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I spent time yesterday with Joe, a long-time friend, colleague and mentor. Joe’s is a terrific professional service firm story; its probably been 20 years since he started a boutique consulting and systems integration business serving the mid-market. That’s decades of PSF and entrepreneurial stories and learning, and I soak it up like a sponge.
So much is written and studied about large organizational leadership; but in my opinion the case studies pale in comparison to a day, or year, or decade in the life of a professional services entrepreneur with staff. You’ll read a lot about the resilient entrepreneur, as if its an innate character quality specific to the species, or as if its something you can arbitrarily decide to add to your persona and resume. But yesterday, catching up with Joe, it struck me that resilience is earned; its all merit.
I also took away:
- Be really clear about and true to the 1 or 2 things you do really good and make it the foundation for everything that follows because everything but those 1 or 2 things changes..often and with little warning.
- Don’t beat a dead market segment; find a new one knowing that it will take at least two years to get traction.
- When you get burned by really lousy people, become a better person yourself for the experience.
- Family drama does not hold a candle to staff drama in terms of the time and effort required to manage it and the impact it will have on your life.
- There are no failures, just learning.
- Don’t fire people, find them new jobs.
- Have a great spouse.
One thing we agreed to continue to discuss and work on together, is an approach to marketing that communicates to potential clients and employees, the value of "merited" resilience and small business leadership like Joe’s, as a point of differentiation and added value. Because, to quote Jerry Garcia, "You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only one who can do what you do."
And that’s always earned.
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leadership, marketing , self-knowledge, solo professional service firm
Turnaround
April 22, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I talk to a lot of people who, because of the economy and business climate, are unable to resist the backward pull of old habits and beliefs in attempt to re-gain a safety and security footing that they feel that they once had, but gave up in a quest for a better direction that they now believe is out of their reach. I understand their concerns and also see the contradiction in their choices. So I try to offer an approach that at the minimum helps make these decisions less painful.
The RedShift approach is:
- to assimilate and synthesize what I believe are the best teachings with my own experience and learning.
- to creatively communicate those in a way that involves “right-brain” learning, including popular culture metaphors, graphics, mindmaps, music etc.
- to make them more real by placing them in the context of practical business and life direction problem solving and decision making.
- to combine them with easy to understand techniques and exercises to help clients quickly begin shifting in the direction they want and away from the direction they don’t want.
A simple and effective technique, or exercise, is the turnaround, thinking about the problem from the opposite side of the coin so to speak. The examples that follow are specific to the kinds of challenges solo professionals and career transitioners are frequently experiencing in a weak economy with its accompanying ubiquitous reporting about lack of business opportunity and cutthroat competition.
But the fundamental principal of the turnaround exercise works the same for any problem in any area of life - health, wealth, love or life direction (the RedShift focus). The turnaround exercise helps clients consciously respond to change, specifically by answering the question: When it seems like things are falling apart, how can we suffer less, avoid habitual traps that convince us to go the wrong way, and stay aligned with our truth and desire for something better?
In the following mindmap examples, I thought about what most solo professionals and independent service practitioners want more of:
- Money
- Clients
- Business Success
One response to worrying about what is not showing up, is to put oneself in the persona called “I’m the one who believes in lack”. The turnaround response is to put oneself in the persona called “I’m the one who lacks belief”.
Each persona has his or her own set of assumptions, feelings and proof(s), but the first is infinitely harder than the turnaround because it requires changing and controlling what is “out there” and responses are often irrationally driven by painful feelings and the need to avoid them. (click graphic for enlargement) 
The turnaround persona requires only a shifting of beliefs, which we are free to choose to do in any moment, and does not attempt to control through will, that which is not and never has been in our control. Clearly the turnaround is an easier response and I recommend trying on each with respect to what you want, and simply noting how you feel. (click graphic for enlargement) 
The one caveat is that you don’t do this exercise with an agenda “to get”. It doesn’t work that way. Strategy is effective when working with the content of our lives and our clients’ businesses. But when working with our consciousness and self-awareness, engaging the will through goals, agendas or strategies becomes another means to go the “wrong way”. To quote Emerson, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” All we need to do is be what we want and get out of the way.
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self-awareness, solo professional service firm