Do you trust the people you work with? Do they trust you? In his book, "Overcoming The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," top business guru Patrick Lencioni points out that "The true measure of a team is that it accomplishes the results that it sets out to achieve." In accomplishing achieved-results, Lencioni says that "no quality or characteristic is more important than trust....Unfortunately, there is probably no quality or characteristic that is as rare as trust either."
Why so rare and important? "Team members who trust one another learn to be comfortable being open, even exposed, to one another around their failures, weaknesses, even fears," notes Lencioni. "Vulnerability-based trust is predicated on the simple--and practical--idea that people who aren't afraid to admit the truth about themselves are not going to engage in the kind of political behavior that wastes everyone's time and energy." On the contrary, people who trust one another are willing to say what they really think without fear of backlash or ridicule. That leads to workers "who are not afraid to engage in passionate dialogue around issues and decsions that are key to the organization's success."
Grievances (real or imagined) usually cause anger. Unresolved anger leads to resentment, which, in turn, kills trust, peace and productivity at work. Here is a quick questionnaire I've developed to help you assess the effects of misplaced anger and resentment at work: Click here to take it online, and I will send a copy of the results once they are tabulated.
FORGIVENESS FREEDOM is a blog devoted to exploring effective ways to understand conflict, and restore & reinforce positive connections.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Breakfast of Champions
In the 2006 Pew American Work Life Study, 433 respondents were asked questions on what made their work-life meaningful. They were all asked: "Do you have a reliable personal practice that brings you face to face with the most important choices about your life and work?" People who answered "yes" enjoyed significantly higher job satisfaction than workers who just "wing it." Five times as many people with a "reliable personal practice" say they are "completely satisfied" with their job as opposed to those without a consistent habit of reflecting on their life and work.
Why such a big gap? My mother, a primary school teacher for many years, used to say that the main difference between the kids who did well in school and those who didn't was breakfast. She observed that the children who came to school prepared, well fed and well-rested, had a huge advantage over the children who were tired and ill nourished. "You can't learn," she was fond of saying, "on an empty stomach."
As we grow older, we need more than a full stomach and a good night's sleep to thrive at work. We need to make sound choices; and when we don't, we need to change them. For adults, coming face to face with the reality of our decisions and their consequences is akin to having breakfast. It gives us the ability to come to work prepared to give our best, no matter what the ups and downs of the day.
The workplace is full of opportunities to get irked with coworkers if one is in the mood to do so -- especially if someone has not yet come to terms with the consequences of his or her own personal and professional choices in life. For the people who do ask themselves, and answer, the so-called "hard" questions, life and work become a lot easier.
_____________________________
FORGIVENESS FREEDOM is a blog devoted to exploring effective ways to understand conflict, and restore & reinforce positive connections.
Why such a big gap? My mother, a primary school teacher for many years, used to say that the main difference between the kids who did well in school and those who didn't was breakfast. She observed that the children who came to school prepared, well fed and well-rested, had a huge advantage over the children who were tired and ill nourished. "You can't learn," she was fond of saying, "on an empty stomach."
As we grow older, we need more than a full stomach and a good night's sleep to thrive at work. We need to make sound choices; and when we don't, we need to change them. For adults, coming face to face with the reality of our decisions and their consequences is akin to having breakfast. It gives us the ability to come to work prepared to give our best, no matter what the ups and downs of the day.
The workplace is full of opportunities to get irked with coworkers if one is in the mood to do so -- especially if someone has not yet come to terms with the consequences of his or her own personal and professional choices in life. For the people who do ask themselves, and answer, the so-called "hard" questions, life and work become a lot easier.
_____________________________
FORGIVENESS FREEDOM is a blog devoted to exploring effective ways to understand conflict, and restore & reinforce positive connections.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Freedom from Resentment
I titled this blog "Forgiveness Freedom" because freedom is the consequence I see most often when people (including me) let go of resentments. The word "resentment" comes from the French word "ressentir," which means to "feel the result of," or, in other words, to play the injury over and over in one's mind. Now on the surface, few of us would defend the wisdom or logic of re-infecting a wound so that we could experience the pain of it again and again. The wound gets bigger and more infected the more we pick at it. Besides, each time we relive the incident, it hurts that much more. And yet, somewhere in our brains there is a mysterious relief in the reliving of an injury against ourselves or someone we care about -- much like a mind-altering drug.
Where does this negative feeling of relief come from? Here are two of the places I've found it:
1) "I resent, therefore I am" -- In this situation , a person comes to identify themselves with the outrage they feel over the injury (or injuries) they have experienced. Some years ago, a friend of mine was badly mistreated by her stepmother over a number of years. Seething with anger over the injustices she experienced, my friend attempted to kill herself in her 20s. The experience led her into therapy where she eventually came to terms with her feelings and forgave her stepmother. "The hardest thing of all," she told me, "was giving up my anger because I was afraid that, without it, I wouldn't have any identity at all."
2) "I'm going to get even, even if it kills me" -- Suicide bombers are not the only ones who actively engage in this kind of literal thinking. The unconscious mind believes what we tell it, especially when we tell the same story often enough. This story becomes a mental play that we enact in our mind's eye (like a wide-awake dream). And since this play is internal, all the characters and scenary within it are parts of ourselves. Therefore when we engage in revengeful thoughts, we can't help but harm ourselves, even if we are thinking or acting to hurt someone else. (This attitude is a recipe for scapegoating, which induces people to act out against the scapegoater, which is then a cause for even more resentment.)
Resentments are viruses that like to go underground and hide. Discovering their whereabouts is literally 50 percent of the battle in freeing oneself from their tyrrany. How does someone know if they are harboring resentments? Here are three tell-tale signs:
1) It hurts "so good" -- Some kinds of pain or irritation can almost feel good to the touch (have you ever tried to scratch a big itch?). When the pain you feel hurts so bad that it almost starts feeling good, chances are that you are suffering from one or more forms of resentment.
2) You get mad everytime you think about it -- Each time you reimagine the experience, you feel hurt all over again. Resentments have no statute of limitations.
3) One thought leads to another -- Resentments are "social creatures" that like to be around each other. As you think of one injury, another one comes to mind, and then another....
I like to remind myself that it doesn't need to be this way. If my home were termite-infested, I'd do whatever needed to be done to get rid of the termites. Resentments are like termites. They eat into the home in your heart.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
_____________________________
FORGIVENESS FREEDOM is a blog devoted to exploring effective ways to understand conflict, and restore and reinforce positive connections.
Where does this negative feeling of relief come from? Here are two of the places I've found it:
1) "I resent, therefore I am" -- In this situation , a person comes to identify themselves with the outrage they feel over the injury (or injuries) they have experienced. Some years ago, a friend of mine was badly mistreated by her stepmother over a number of years. Seething with anger over the injustices she experienced, my friend attempted to kill herself in her 20s. The experience led her into therapy where she eventually came to terms with her feelings and forgave her stepmother. "The hardest thing of all," she told me, "was giving up my anger because I was afraid that, without it, I wouldn't have any identity at all."
2) "I'm going to get even, even if it kills me" -- Suicide bombers are not the only ones who actively engage in this kind of literal thinking. The unconscious mind believes what we tell it, especially when we tell the same story often enough. This story becomes a mental play that we enact in our mind's eye (like a wide-awake dream). And since this play is internal, all the characters and scenary within it are parts of ourselves. Therefore when we engage in revengeful thoughts, we can't help but harm ourselves, even if we are thinking or acting to hurt someone else. (This attitude is a recipe for scapegoating, which induces people to act out against the scapegoater, which is then a cause for even more resentment.)
Resentments are viruses that like to go underground and hide. Discovering their whereabouts is literally 50 percent of the battle in freeing oneself from their tyrrany. How does someone know if they are harboring resentments? Here are three tell-tale signs:
1) It hurts "so good" -- Some kinds of pain or irritation can almost feel good to the touch (have you ever tried to scratch a big itch?). When the pain you feel hurts so bad that it almost starts feeling good, chances are that you are suffering from one or more forms of resentment.
2) You get mad everytime you think about it -- Each time you reimagine the experience, you feel hurt all over again. Resentments have no statute of limitations.
3) One thought leads to another -- Resentments are "social creatures" that like to be around each other. As you think of one injury, another one comes to mind, and then another....
I like to remind myself that it doesn't need to be this way. If my home were termite-infested, I'd do whatever needed to be done to get rid of the termites. Resentments are like termites. They eat into the home in your heart.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
_____________________________
FORGIVENESS FREEDOM is a blog devoted to exploring effective ways to understand conflict, and restore and reinforce positive connections.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)