What are “Needs” and why do they have everything to do with how things go at work?
Do you remember the last time someone pushed your buttons?
In that instant, did it seem like they crossed the line, almost intentionally?
What emotions got triggered, and how did you control your reaction?
That emotional reaction comes from having a need that isn’t being met, and this is important because almost every single ridiculous thing that happens between people at work, happens because someone has a need that isn’t being met. Most of us aren’t aware of our needs. We just experience spurts of annoyance and frustration with each other, but in a work environment, it’s an ongoing battle of unresolved animosity that undermines trust, communication, and productivity to the nth degree.
We may be able to hold ourselves back from reacting in the moment, but then we vent like crazy to our friends, we “forget” to provide information that the “button pusher” needs, we go out of our way to avoid him or her, and our judgments of each other get harsher. Eventually we decide we simply can’t work together at all.
All it takes is one struggle like this on a team to undermine productivity, but most teams have several “button pushing incidents” going on in tandem, and repeating themselves regularly.
If you make it your business to understand how needs work, you have the power to break through the barriers and maintain a productive work environment, both for yourself and your team.
Here are a few tips to get started:
1. Keep a log of all of your “emotional reactions” at work. Write down the situation and ask yourself “what did I need in this moment?” Listen to the first word or phrase that comes up, and write it down – even if it seems silly.
2. Once your log gets long enough, see if you can find a pattern. If the same words or phrases repeat themselves, you may have nailed an important need. You will also notice that the same people or situations will serve as a trigger for the need, over and over again.
3. At first, it will seem like the only solution is to make the person who is “pushing your buttons” change their behavior and treat you differently. Often the person is someone you have to work with a lot, like your boss, team-mate or subordinate. Unfortunately, you have to start this process by accepting that the person in question will probably not change. BUT the good news is that as you do the needs work, focused on YOURSELF, your reactions to the person move to neutral, and as a result you are able to provide more effective feedback, and the person does change. You just have to be willing to take the indirect route, work on yourself first, and trust that things will end up changing as a result.
4. The person who really has control of getting your needs met is YOU, even though it seems like other people are the source of what you need. What you’ll realize once you do some thinking, is that you have more power than you think, and you’ll also begin to see what you can do to influence the world around you and get more of what you need.
5. An interesting paradox about needs is that we often close ourselves off to receiving what we most need from others. It’s like having trouble accepting compliments. One of the biggest things you have to learn is to graciously receive what you need when it comes to you, even if you don’t really care that much for the source.
6. You also have to learn to give YOURSELF a lot of what you need – listen to that inner voice, and notice what you say to yourself over and over again. If you need to be accepted, are you accepting yourself? If you need to be heard, are you ignoring yourself? It seems like an odd thing to check for, but you may be surprised when you start paying attention.
7. Once you get a feel for how needs play out in your own life, start observing other people and their interactions at work. Pay attention in meetings and notice when someone has an edge to their voice, a hint of sarcasm or resentment. You’ll begin to pick up on the dynamics of others on your team, and may even find subtle ways to intervene and facilitate better interactions across the whole team.
At work, whenever things start getting weird, one of the most powerful things you can ask is this: “are you getting everything you need in this situation?” If you are genuine, this question can dissipate emotion from people who aren’t even aware they are reacting, and give them an opportunity to articulate what they do need. Sometimes it’s as simple as clarity on priorities, extra time to finish a project, or appreciation for work they did that is no longer going to be used.
As independent and self-sufficient professionals, we don’t want to “have needs”. But whether we want to admit it or not, we all have this stuff going on underneath, and if it’s not dealt with directly, it shows up anyway – resulting in poor communication, inefficient team-work, and wasted time, which no organization can afford these days.
No matter what type of organization you work in, you can take yourself to the next level by learning about your own needs. Start with the seven tips above, or you can join the Aspyrre Community, an ongoing professional development program, that provides insight to help you see what’s really behind challenging situations at work, and tools to manage the situations effectively and get better results. For more information on the Aspyrre Community, click here.
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
How to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss
Bosses are tough to deal with in general. They represent authority, and they often bring back memories of what we hated most in our relationships with our parents and teachers growing up. The micro-managing boss is especially hard to handle if you are creative, innovative, and want to make a contribution of your own in an organization. But since quite a few people in management positions fit this profile, chances are you will end up with one at some point in your career. Here are some tips to help you get the space you need to thrive:
1. Understand that micromanaging behavior is driven by the positive characteristics of conscientiousness, diligence, and responsibility; it’s just that they have been taken to an extreme. People often confuse themselves with the quality of the work they produce. As long as they can control the quality of their work, they are ok, but as soon as they have to depend on others for results, they are faced with the fear of representing sloppy or substandard output. Since putting out less than excellent work is SO personally humiliating, they need constant reassurance that the team is performing. Keep in mind that behavior such as constant checking on your progress or reviewing your work has NOTHING to do with how well you perform. It is about your boss, who has gotten so caught up in his or her fears and needs for reassurance that he or she is not aware of how this behavior may be impacting you.
2. You can give yourself space by playing to their standards for excellence and needs for reassurance. Initiate a conversation about expectations and standards of work output, and make sure your boss is clear about where your standards are. If you have a difference of opinion, get it talked out and come to an agreement about what standards you are both comfortable with. Then COMMUNICATE. It’s natural to react to micro-management by doing everything possible to avoid communication. But that just plays into the vicious circle of mutual mistrust and escalates the problem. If you develop a habit of sending a short e-mail on a daily or weekly basis that gives your status on a project and how you are handling situations, the boss gets a stream of continuous reassurance, and wont feel a strong need to check in.
3. Once you have developed a certain degree of trust with your boss, you may want to take it to the next step, and that is providing feedback on the impact of the micromanaging behavior. For example, “I notice that you have redone my last three powerpoint presentations. I understand your desire to have us represented in a positive light, but you may not realize that you are sending a subtle message, that I can’t do powerpoint presentations, and that makes me feel less excited about doing them well in the first place. Is there something specific you are noticing about the way I do my presentations that does not meet the standards we agreed on related to our work?”
Unfortunately, the micro-managing boss ends up fulfilling his own fears. As he takes more responsibility for the work of the team, the team feels completely disempowered and loses the motivation to produce their best work. Soon they are complaining and doing very little, and he is fretting about how they don’t care and he has the weight of more than one job on his shoulders. It may take several attempts to help him turn around, because he needs to let go and allow himself to look bad in order to re-empower the team, build trust, and get to the point where he gets results that are better than he ever dreamed.
If you are a micro-manager, or you work for one, anything you can do to facilitate the change will be a positive learning experience. Giving your boss feedback that enables him to become a better leader is a gift he will be forever grateful for. And if you are that boss, imagine getting rid of the experience of being overworked and not being able to trust anyone, and moving to a place where you get to work with people who consistently go well beyond the call of duty, and you are so honored to be their leader that you would never consider taking ownership for the phenomenal work they put forth.
Bosses are tough to deal with in general. They represent authority, and they often bring back memories of what we hated most in our relationships with our parents and teachers growing up. The micro-managing boss is especially hard to handle if you are creative, innovative, and want to make a contribution of your own in an organization. But since quite a few people in management positions fit this profile, chances are you will end up with one at some point in your career. Here are some tips to help you get the space you need to thrive:
1. Understand that micromanaging behavior is driven by the positive characteristics of conscientiousness, diligence, and responsibility; it’s just that they have been taken to an extreme. People often confuse themselves with the quality of the work they produce. As long as they can control the quality of their work, they are ok, but as soon as they have to depend on others for results, they are faced with the fear of representing sloppy or substandard output. Since putting out less than excellent work is SO personally humiliating, they need constant reassurance that the team is performing. Keep in mind that behavior such as constant checking on your progress or reviewing your work has NOTHING to do with how well you perform. It is about your boss, who has gotten so caught up in his or her fears and needs for reassurance that he or she is not aware of how this behavior may be impacting you.
2. You can give yourself space by playing to their standards for excellence and needs for reassurance. Initiate a conversation about expectations and standards of work output, and make sure your boss is clear about where your standards are. If you have a difference of opinion, get it talked out and come to an agreement about what standards you are both comfortable with. Then COMMUNICATE. It’s natural to react to micro-management by doing everything possible to avoid communication. But that just plays into the vicious circle of mutual mistrust and escalates the problem. If you develop a habit of sending a short e-mail on a daily or weekly basis that gives your status on a project and how you are handling situations, the boss gets a stream of continuous reassurance, and wont feel a strong need to check in.
3. Once you have developed a certain degree of trust with your boss, you may want to take it to the next step, and that is providing feedback on the impact of the micromanaging behavior. For example, “I notice that you have redone my last three powerpoint presentations. I understand your desire to have us represented in a positive light, but you may not realize that you are sending a subtle message, that I can’t do powerpoint presentations, and that makes me feel less excited about doing them well in the first place. Is there something specific you are noticing about the way I do my presentations that does not meet the standards we agreed on related to our work?”
Unfortunately, the micro-managing boss ends up fulfilling his own fears. As he takes more responsibility for the work of the team, the team feels completely disempowered and loses the motivation to produce their best work. Soon they are complaining and doing very little, and he is fretting about how they don’t care and he has the weight of more than one job on his shoulders. It may take several attempts to help him turn around, because he needs to let go and allow himself to look bad in order to re-empower the team, build trust, and get to the point where he gets results that are better than he ever dreamed.
If you are a micro-manager, or you work for one, anything you can do to facilitate the change will be a positive learning experience. Giving your boss feedback that enables him to become a better leader is a gift he will be forever grateful for. And if you are that boss, imagine getting rid of the experience of being overworked and not being able to trust anyone, and moving to a place where you get to work with people who consistently go well beyond the call of duty, and you are so honored to be their leader that you would never consider taking ownership for the phenomenal work they put forth.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Conflict at Work – Productive or Destructive?
Several months ago, I was reading the book “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, and learned about the concept of “artificial harmony”. This is when everyone is super nice to each other on the surface, but underneath they have different feelings, opinions, and perspectives that they aren’t sharing. It’s a great concept, because it helps us begin to see what’s going wrong in organizations where people seem to be getting along just fine, but the team is not achieving stellar results. What you learn from reading that book is the importance of what I call “productive conflict”.
Productive conflict is when people openly talk about their disagreements, and they may even get frustrated with each other at times, but they all stay with the conversation and work through it, and as a result you create a solution that is better than any one person could have created on their own.
Destructive conflict is when people go beyond disagreements to personal attacks, and this creates a stressful environment that drains most people and begets marginal performance at best.
If you aren’t clear on how to prevent productive conflict from deteriorating into destructive conflict, the “safer” road is to create an environment of artificial harmony. In this environment there isn’t as much stress, but you wont be getting as much out of your team as you could be, which could be a HUGE opportunity cost.
So how do you create an environment that supports productive conflict, but insures that it does NOT deteriorate into destructive conflict?
The key to this is creating a safe environment, where people have a solid level of trust and respect for each other, which means that when something starts going wrong, they’ll have a tendency to extend the benefit of the doubt to their co-workers, instead of quickly reacting and making character judgments. If they hold on to their character judgments of each other, then whether they express them (destructive conflict) or repress them (artificial harmony), the team cannot work effectively together.
Creating this environment takes time, because people are people and we all have personal baggage. The baggage usually shows up in our automatic reactions to things – especially the reactions that seem to be stronger than a given situation would warrant. Since we all react sometimes it helps to acknowledge this, and then set clear ground rules on how to handle our reactions:
Ground Rule # 1 – NOTICE THAT YOU ARE REACTING
If you notice that you are reacting, you can separate yourself from the reaction and that gives it less power over you. Remind yourself that most reactions come in the form of anger or hurt over how someone treated us in the past. So, although the extreme emotion you are experiencing has been triggered by a current event, it is really about something entirely different. You can’t handle a situation effectively while you are in a reaction, so knowing you are reacting enables you to hold off on firing off that angry e-mail or marching into someone’s office with a dramatic ultimatum.
Ground Rule # 2 – NO CHARACTER JUDGMENTS ALLOWED
Most reactions include a negative character judgment towards the person deemed responsible for the negative situation. But character judgments aren’t the truth. They simply allow you to feel self-righteous and superior when you are feeling threatened. When you feel completely safe, it’s easy to have compassion for people, even when they are behaving in a negative manner. So no matter how rude, inconsiderate, dishonest, power-hungry, manipulative, lazy, or unethical your mind is telling you a person is, you need to understand that your mind is making that up from the perspective of your reaction, and no matter how true it FEELS, it’s not the truth.
Ground Rule # 3 – WORK THROUGH YOUR EMOTIONS AWAY FROM WORK
Find a way to separate from your reaction, and take the time you need, away from the work environment. This where it’s great to have a coach, because you can call your coach, vent, get some perspective, and calm down without jeopardizing your reputation at work by venting there.
Ground Rule # 4 – COMMUNICATE AND FIND OUT THE WHOLE STORY
Once you are calm enough to refrain from saying something you’ll regret later, it’s time to ask questions, find out what perspectives others have related to the same situation, and especially to have a conversation with the very person you were reacting to. Find out what lead to their behavior. In most cases, you’ll find out their intention was completely different from what you originally thought it was.
Most professionals can manage steps one through three, but then go back to work and decide not to “dredge it up” again. That’s artificial harmony. When you don’t have the conversations that uncover real intentions, character judgments and mistrust persist.
It’s only when people have the courage to follow ground rule # 4 that you can create an environment of trust, productive conflict, and as a result, innovation.
For leaders, the key is to keep pushing the ground rules, and moving your team into conversations about issues even when they insist that they are ok. Once they’ve gone through the process a few times, and find out that their initial reactions weren’t based in reality, they begin to trust the process more than their reactions. Little by little, trust builds in the environment, and conversations happen more freely.
And then, hold on for a great ride – because your team will begin to feel a magical synergy amongst them, and they’ll take you places you’ve never imagined!
Several months ago, I was reading the book “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, and learned about the concept of “artificial harmony”. This is when everyone is super nice to each other on the surface, but underneath they have different feelings, opinions, and perspectives that they aren’t sharing. It’s a great concept, because it helps us begin to see what’s going wrong in organizations where people seem to be getting along just fine, but the team is not achieving stellar results. What you learn from reading that book is the importance of what I call “productive conflict”.
Productive conflict is when people openly talk about their disagreements, and they may even get frustrated with each other at times, but they all stay with the conversation and work through it, and as a result you create a solution that is better than any one person could have created on their own.
Destructive conflict is when people go beyond disagreements to personal attacks, and this creates a stressful environment that drains most people and begets marginal performance at best.
If you aren’t clear on how to prevent productive conflict from deteriorating into destructive conflict, the “safer” road is to create an environment of artificial harmony. In this environment there isn’t as much stress, but you wont be getting as much out of your team as you could be, which could be a HUGE opportunity cost.
So how do you create an environment that supports productive conflict, but insures that it does NOT deteriorate into destructive conflict?
The key to this is creating a safe environment, where people have a solid level of trust and respect for each other, which means that when something starts going wrong, they’ll have a tendency to extend the benefit of the doubt to their co-workers, instead of quickly reacting and making character judgments. If they hold on to their character judgments of each other, then whether they express them (destructive conflict) or repress them (artificial harmony), the team cannot work effectively together.
Creating this environment takes time, because people are people and we all have personal baggage. The baggage usually shows up in our automatic reactions to things – especially the reactions that seem to be stronger than a given situation would warrant. Since we all react sometimes it helps to acknowledge this, and then set clear ground rules on how to handle our reactions:
Ground Rule # 1 – NOTICE THAT YOU ARE REACTING
If you notice that you are reacting, you can separate yourself from the reaction and that gives it less power over you. Remind yourself that most reactions come in the form of anger or hurt over how someone treated us in the past. So, although the extreme emotion you are experiencing has been triggered by a current event, it is really about something entirely different. You can’t handle a situation effectively while you are in a reaction, so knowing you are reacting enables you to hold off on firing off that angry e-mail or marching into someone’s office with a dramatic ultimatum.
Ground Rule # 2 – NO CHARACTER JUDGMENTS ALLOWED
Most reactions include a negative character judgment towards the person deemed responsible for the negative situation. But character judgments aren’t the truth. They simply allow you to feel self-righteous and superior when you are feeling threatened. When you feel completely safe, it’s easy to have compassion for people, even when they are behaving in a negative manner. So no matter how rude, inconsiderate, dishonest, power-hungry, manipulative, lazy, or unethical your mind is telling you a person is, you need to understand that your mind is making that up from the perspective of your reaction, and no matter how true it FEELS, it’s not the truth.
Ground Rule # 3 – WORK THROUGH YOUR EMOTIONS AWAY FROM WORK
Find a way to separate from your reaction, and take the time you need, away from the work environment. This where it’s great to have a coach, because you can call your coach, vent, get some perspective, and calm down without jeopardizing your reputation at work by venting there.
Ground Rule # 4 – COMMUNICATE AND FIND OUT THE WHOLE STORY
Once you are calm enough to refrain from saying something you’ll regret later, it’s time to ask questions, find out what perspectives others have related to the same situation, and especially to have a conversation with the very person you were reacting to. Find out what lead to their behavior. In most cases, you’ll find out their intention was completely different from what you originally thought it was.
Most professionals can manage steps one through three, but then go back to work and decide not to “dredge it up” again. That’s artificial harmony. When you don’t have the conversations that uncover real intentions, character judgments and mistrust persist.
It’s only when people have the courage to follow ground rule # 4 that you can create an environment of trust, productive conflict, and as a result, innovation.
For leaders, the key is to keep pushing the ground rules, and moving your team into conversations about issues even when they insist that they are ok. Once they’ve gone through the process a few times, and find out that their initial reactions weren’t based in reality, they begin to trust the process more than their reactions. Little by little, trust builds in the environment, and conversations happen more freely.
And then, hold on for a great ride – because your team will begin to feel a magical synergy amongst them, and they’ll take you places you’ve never imagined!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Can you Love a Loser?
This may seem like a silly question, but in it lies one of the most critical secrets to success, both personally and professionally. So play with me for a minute.
Who jumps into your mind when you think of a loser?
If you feel a twinge of guilt and find yourself trying to shove those unkind thoughts from your mind, bring them back! Your thoughts wont hurt anyone, but not being aware of your own judgments will definitely hurt you! Plus, having some examples in your head as you read the rest of this article will help you apply it.
It’s important to be aware of what behaviors or characteristics point you to the label “loser”. Take out a piece of paper and jot down the top three to five characteristics your losers have in common – the ones that put them in that category for you.
Just for fun and personal insight, write the opposite of all of these traits and consider whether or not they are a reflection of your top values. For example, if you put “doesn’t take care of self”, does “caring for self” rank high on your list of desirable attributes?
Now, I want you to think about loving your losers. Not in a romantic sense, but actively seeking to understand how they see the world. What do they wake up hoping for and wondering? What do they think about and struggle with throughout the day? What causes them pain, and how do they try to get their needs met? What do they stand for?
When I ask you if you can love your losers, I don’t mean tolerate. And I don’t mean pity or have compassion for. What I’m asking is would you stand up for them, could you believe in them, could you accept the life they have created for themselves and actually see something intriguing, interesting, or enjoyable in it?
Be honest, and pay attention to your answer!
It provides the key to reaching YOUR highest potential. Why? Because what you are extending outwards is usually about as much as what you are extending inwards. Everyone you interact with is a mirror – what you see in them exists in you as well.
The losers of the world are your greatest gifts, because they show you the parts of yourself you haven’t yet accepted and embraced.
You have probably have heard that believing in yourself is one of the most important keys to success. You may have also heard that confidence and self-esteem come from unconditional self-acceptance. Most people agree with the concept in theory, but living it is another story.
I think the biggest fear people have is the idea that if they accept a negative characteristic inside themselves it means they are condoning it. I don’t think self-love is about that at all. I think it’s about seeing the value in the “negative” parts of yourself, and using ALL of yourself to create what you want instead of relying ONLY on the positive traits.
My husband is into golf, so I find myself watching Tiger Woods and Phil Michelson play a lot. They are the greatest players today, and you know what I notice? How many times they fail. I so admire that they can get up there and fail in front of the world over and over again, yet stay focused and keep going after wins. THAT’s what makes them the best. Look at any sport and you’ll see the same pattern.
In life, these patterns show up as well:
· Are the most responsible people really responsible all the time? Or are they the ones who don’t let their irresponsible moments get the better of them?
· Are the kindest people incapable of being hurtful? Or do they consistently work to be aware of how they impact others, and take responsibility for the times they are hurtful?
· Do the most successful business people always win, or are they the ones who have failed enough so they know how to turn things around?
· In sales, who has survived more rejection, the star sales people or the average ones?
· Are the smartest kids really smart all the time, or are they simply more intrigued and curious about the stuff they don’t yet understand?
Part of what holds us back from success is fear of failure, and even deeper than that, fear of BEING a loser.
If your fear of being a loser disappeared, what would be different for you? And how would that impact your life?
Think about it – can you love a loser?
Copyright ©2008, Nahid Casazza, Aspyrre
This may seem like a silly question, but in it lies one of the most critical secrets to success, both personally and professionally. So play with me for a minute.
Who jumps into your mind when you think of a loser?
If you feel a twinge of guilt and find yourself trying to shove those unkind thoughts from your mind, bring them back! Your thoughts wont hurt anyone, but not being aware of your own judgments will definitely hurt you! Plus, having some examples in your head as you read the rest of this article will help you apply it.
It’s important to be aware of what behaviors or characteristics point you to the label “loser”. Take out a piece of paper and jot down the top three to five characteristics your losers have in common – the ones that put them in that category for you.
Just for fun and personal insight, write the opposite of all of these traits and consider whether or not they are a reflection of your top values. For example, if you put “doesn’t take care of self”, does “caring for self” rank high on your list of desirable attributes?
Now, I want you to think about loving your losers. Not in a romantic sense, but actively seeking to understand how they see the world. What do they wake up hoping for and wondering? What do they think about and struggle with throughout the day? What causes them pain, and how do they try to get their needs met? What do they stand for?
When I ask you if you can love your losers, I don’t mean tolerate. And I don’t mean pity or have compassion for. What I’m asking is would you stand up for them, could you believe in them, could you accept the life they have created for themselves and actually see something intriguing, interesting, or enjoyable in it?
Be honest, and pay attention to your answer!
It provides the key to reaching YOUR highest potential. Why? Because what you are extending outwards is usually about as much as what you are extending inwards. Everyone you interact with is a mirror – what you see in them exists in you as well.
The losers of the world are your greatest gifts, because they show you the parts of yourself you haven’t yet accepted and embraced.
You have probably have heard that believing in yourself is one of the most important keys to success. You may have also heard that confidence and self-esteem come from unconditional self-acceptance. Most people agree with the concept in theory, but living it is another story.
I think the biggest fear people have is the idea that if they accept a negative characteristic inside themselves it means they are condoning it. I don’t think self-love is about that at all. I think it’s about seeing the value in the “negative” parts of yourself, and using ALL of yourself to create what you want instead of relying ONLY on the positive traits.
My husband is into golf, so I find myself watching Tiger Woods and Phil Michelson play a lot. They are the greatest players today, and you know what I notice? How many times they fail. I so admire that they can get up there and fail in front of the world over and over again, yet stay focused and keep going after wins. THAT’s what makes them the best. Look at any sport and you’ll see the same pattern.
In life, these patterns show up as well:
· Are the most responsible people really responsible all the time? Or are they the ones who don’t let their irresponsible moments get the better of them?
· Are the kindest people incapable of being hurtful? Or do they consistently work to be aware of how they impact others, and take responsibility for the times they are hurtful?
· Do the most successful business people always win, or are they the ones who have failed enough so they know how to turn things around?
· In sales, who has survived more rejection, the star sales people or the average ones?
· Are the smartest kids really smart all the time, or are they simply more intrigued and curious about the stuff they don’t yet understand?
Part of what holds us back from success is fear of failure, and even deeper than that, fear of BEING a loser.
If your fear of being a loser disappeared, what would be different for you? And how would that impact your life?
Think about it – can you love a loser?
Copyright ©2008, Nahid Casazza, Aspyrre
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Trust is a Verb
Who can you really trust? It's an interesting question, because it really depends on how you define trust. If your criteria for trust is that a person will never hurt you, let you down, or do something that impacts you negatively, then I think the answer is you can't trust anyone.
In human relationships, the closer we get, the more we open up to each other, and the more comfortable we get exposing our dark side. And part of that dark side includes allowing out some of those immature, reactive behaviors that need to be expressed in a safe place. So, when you think about it, the people who hurt you the most tend to be the people you are closest to.
You could say that your criteria for trusting a person is knowing that you can share the ugliest parts of your dark side and still be loved. But we know that's not necessarily a fail safe policy either. Relationships end and even families separate when the dark side gets too dark.
Trust is a verb. It's a choice to take a chance on someone, and allow them to slip up once in awhile, even if you know you might get hurt. I'm talking about close relationships right now, but this applies everywhere, including at work.
Those controlling micro-managers we all struggle with? Usually that control comes from fear that if they let go, the work will not meet their standards, and it will make them look bad. If they see trust as a privilege, conditional on not making any significant mistakes, they'd continuously prove themselves right. It's simply not possible for the team to produce work that is exactly as the boss has envisionned it. As soon as the boss tries to delegate, and someone makes a mistake, or puts something out that doesn't quite go right, the boss "realizes" that he was right and couldn't trust the team, reacting by jumping in to micro-manage some more.
But if trust is a proactive choice, then a micro-managing boss could change by setting clear standards and choosing to trust the team. That choice is a decision to allow the team to make mistakes, and a willingness to face the consequences if the work produced falls short. That willingness to "take the fall with the team", plants a seed of empowerment, allowing trust to build as the team realizes that now the "buck" stops with all of them. Everyone gets hurt when they don't work together. Eventually it's no longer about the boss, it's about the team, and there is no longer a need to micro-manage.
Trust is not about whether or not you will get hurt, it's about whether or not you have the courage to risk getting hurt, and the humility to forgive in advance the hurts that will ultimately be a part of any strong relationship. It's about accepting that we are all human and we all do our best most of the time. Except when we have no energy left to do our best, and we crash.
Who are you willing to trust?
What do you think will change in your life as a result?
Who can you really trust? It's an interesting question, because it really depends on how you define trust. If your criteria for trust is that a person will never hurt you, let you down, or do something that impacts you negatively, then I think the answer is you can't trust anyone.
In human relationships, the closer we get, the more we open up to each other, and the more comfortable we get exposing our dark side. And part of that dark side includes allowing out some of those immature, reactive behaviors that need to be expressed in a safe place. So, when you think about it, the people who hurt you the most tend to be the people you are closest to.
You could say that your criteria for trusting a person is knowing that you can share the ugliest parts of your dark side and still be loved. But we know that's not necessarily a fail safe policy either. Relationships end and even families separate when the dark side gets too dark.
Trust is a verb. It's a choice to take a chance on someone, and allow them to slip up once in awhile, even if you know you might get hurt. I'm talking about close relationships right now, but this applies everywhere, including at work.
Those controlling micro-managers we all struggle with? Usually that control comes from fear that if they let go, the work will not meet their standards, and it will make them look bad. If they see trust as a privilege, conditional on not making any significant mistakes, they'd continuously prove themselves right. It's simply not possible for the team to produce work that is exactly as the boss has envisionned it. As soon as the boss tries to delegate, and someone makes a mistake, or puts something out that doesn't quite go right, the boss "realizes" that he was right and couldn't trust the team, reacting by jumping in to micro-manage some more.
But if trust is a proactive choice, then a micro-managing boss could change by setting clear standards and choosing to trust the team. That choice is a decision to allow the team to make mistakes, and a willingness to face the consequences if the work produced falls short. That willingness to "take the fall with the team", plants a seed of empowerment, allowing trust to build as the team realizes that now the "buck" stops with all of them. Everyone gets hurt when they don't work together. Eventually it's no longer about the boss, it's about the team, and there is no longer a need to micro-manage.
Trust is not about whether or not you will get hurt, it's about whether or not you have the courage to risk getting hurt, and the humility to forgive in advance the hurts that will ultimately be a part of any strong relationship. It's about accepting that we are all human and we all do our best most of the time. Except when we have no energy left to do our best, and we crash.
Who are you willing to trust?
What do you think will change in your life as a result?
Sunday, February 18, 2007
When ONE relationship drives you nuts! How to get over it.
Every once in awhile, you will run into someone who gets under your skin. Maybe you are too intrigued for comfort, or consistently angry about how they treat you. If you find yourself focusing on a particular person and emotionally reacting to him or her more than you would like, it’s time to look inside yourself, and see what unmet need the person is triggering.
We all have needs, and we are driven to get them met. Unfortunately, we tend to “push down” many of our needs, because they make us feel vulnerable. Sometimes we are embarrassed of having them, and often we don’t feel like we have control over getting them met. But conscious or not, we will continue to work to get our needs met, and when the subconscious parts of our brain take over, the result is usually less-effective behavior, the kind you exhibit when you are panicking or reacting to something.
In many cases, especially with relationship needs, we begin to focus on one person and decide that they are the only person who can meet our needs. Unfortunately, this practice creates scarcity, and almost guarantees that the need will remain unmet. Even if the "focused on" person tries, they can never give enough. This sets into motion a dynamic where the person with the need is often angry and resentful, and the other person feels drained by the relationship and pulls away. This happens a lot in love relationships, but also in friendships, and in the workplace. At work it’s especially common in boss / employee relationships where the employee is focusing on the boss.
It is important to understand that all needs reside within you, and it is your responsibility to get them met – even relationship needs. This is why we have the saying “you must love yourself before you can truly love another”. If you don’t love yourself, then your relationship with someone else is only about getting love from them, which comes across as manipulating them so that you feel loved by them, instead of truly loving them by allowing them to be themselves.
Relationship needs are satisfied in the energy that is created through connection with others. But you aren’t limited to or dependent on how others treat you. You have a relationship with yourself, and you may have a spiritual relationship with a higher being. If there were no other people on the planet, you would instinctively be driven to create special relationships with animals and plants. Potential for relationship is everywhere, and it’s bi-directional. You don’t just get it – you co-create it. That’s why giving so often feels like receiving, and people are often driven to give what they most need from others. It’s a strategy that sometimes works, and works even better if you are aware of your true motive for giving.
To “let go” of the person you are focusing on, you need to do two things:
1. Identify the need you are trying to get met from that particular person.
2. Get that need met outside the relationship, in as many other ways as possible.
Initially, it will seem like there’s no other place to get the need met, or that the other places don’t matter, but this what I call “panic mode”, where your brain stops the creative thinking process and has fallen into the adrenaline driven action process. To create abundance from scarcity, you get your brain working on how to get the need met outside of the relationship you are focusing on, and the way to do that is ask yourself questions. Here are some you can start with:
1. What is the specific feeling I get when this need is met?
2. What are all the situations where I get a similar feeling?
3. How can I co-create something similar (although perhaps not as good) in my other relationships?
4. What can I do in my relationship with myself to get this need met?
Even though some people aren’t as interesting as other people, there are usually enough of the base components available in everyone you meet, so that you can co-create a little bit of what you need in various different people, which is usually the healthiest and most empowering way to get your core relationship needs met.
At a deeper level, you may have to listen hard to the negative voices in your head. Usually, the biggest culprit in unmet relationship needs is that “voice” that hangs out in your head and talks to you all day. If it’s critical and unloving, it tends to suck more out of you than anyone outside of you. Sometimes the best way to get a relationship need met is to be a better friend to yourself.
The basic needs model is simple – but the process is always easier said than done. If you find that the concept I’m writing about makes sense, but you can’t seem to move yourself out of the emotional trap, it might be useful to get some coaching.
I now have an on-line needs assessment available that takes about 20 – 40 minutes to fill out. If you’d like to take a needs assessment, send an e-mail to nahid@aspyrre.com requesting one, and I’d be happy to get you set up.
Copyright © 2007, Nahid Casazza and Aspyrre.
Every once in awhile, you will run into someone who gets under your skin. Maybe you are too intrigued for comfort, or consistently angry about how they treat you. If you find yourself focusing on a particular person and emotionally reacting to him or her more than you would like, it’s time to look inside yourself, and see what unmet need the person is triggering.
We all have needs, and we are driven to get them met. Unfortunately, we tend to “push down” many of our needs, because they make us feel vulnerable. Sometimes we are embarrassed of having them, and often we don’t feel like we have control over getting them met. But conscious or not, we will continue to work to get our needs met, and when the subconscious parts of our brain take over, the result is usually less-effective behavior, the kind you exhibit when you are panicking or reacting to something.
In many cases, especially with relationship needs, we begin to focus on one person and decide that they are the only person who can meet our needs. Unfortunately, this practice creates scarcity, and almost guarantees that the need will remain unmet. Even if the "focused on" person tries, they can never give enough. This sets into motion a dynamic where the person with the need is often angry and resentful, and the other person feels drained by the relationship and pulls away. This happens a lot in love relationships, but also in friendships, and in the workplace. At work it’s especially common in boss / employee relationships where the employee is focusing on the boss.
It is important to understand that all needs reside within you, and it is your responsibility to get them met – even relationship needs. This is why we have the saying “you must love yourself before you can truly love another”. If you don’t love yourself, then your relationship with someone else is only about getting love from them, which comes across as manipulating them so that you feel loved by them, instead of truly loving them by allowing them to be themselves.
Relationship needs are satisfied in the energy that is created through connection with others. But you aren’t limited to or dependent on how others treat you. You have a relationship with yourself, and you may have a spiritual relationship with a higher being. If there were no other people on the planet, you would instinctively be driven to create special relationships with animals and plants. Potential for relationship is everywhere, and it’s bi-directional. You don’t just get it – you co-create it. That’s why giving so often feels like receiving, and people are often driven to give what they most need from others. It’s a strategy that sometimes works, and works even better if you are aware of your true motive for giving.
To “let go” of the person you are focusing on, you need to do two things:
1. Identify the need you are trying to get met from that particular person.
2. Get that need met outside the relationship, in as many other ways as possible.
Initially, it will seem like there’s no other place to get the need met, or that the other places don’t matter, but this what I call “panic mode”, where your brain stops the creative thinking process and has fallen into the adrenaline driven action process. To create abundance from scarcity, you get your brain working on how to get the need met outside of the relationship you are focusing on, and the way to do that is ask yourself questions. Here are some you can start with:
1. What is the specific feeling I get when this need is met?
2. What are all the situations where I get a similar feeling?
3. How can I co-create something similar (although perhaps not as good) in my other relationships?
4. What can I do in my relationship with myself to get this need met?
Even though some people aren’t as interesting as other people, there are usually enough of the base components available in everyone you meet, so that you can co-create a little bit of what you need in various different people, which is usually the healthiest and most empowering way to get your core relationship needs met.
At a deeper level, you may have to listen hard to the negative voices in your head. Usually, the biggest culprit in unmet relationship needs is that “voice” that hangs out in your head and talks to you all day. If it’s critical and unloving, it tends to suck more out of you than anyone outside of you. Sometimes the best way to get a relationship need met is to be a better friend to yourself.
The basic needs model is simple – but the process is always easier said than done. If you find that the concept I’m writing about makes sense, but you can’t seem to move yourself out of the emotional trap, it might be useful to get some coaching.
I now have an on-line needs assessment available that takes about 20 – 40 minutes to fill out. If you’d like to take a needs assessment, send an e-mail to nahid@aspyrre.com requesting one, and I’d be happy to get you set up.
Copyright © 2007, Nahid Casazza and Aspyrre.
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