Read time 3 minutes.
Implementation time: everyday, ongoing.
ROI: Job Security
Tip#1 Do not make your employees or boss angry with your new found insights.
Be very aware of the robustness your power and influence “Invisible Balance Sheet.” Zealotry is resented and punished in organizations. Tip #2: Be wary of leadership & management training that is “soft.”
Ken Blanchard tells a story about why managers trained in the “soft skills” often get fired. Basically, it was because they acted in an imprudent way. Just out of the “warm & fuzzy” training program they foisted their nice-feeling skills on employees. People resented and dismissed them as being irrelevant. The newly trained managers did not understand the cultural power and influence dynamics.
Employees and boss reacted:
“What the heck are you doing, what happened to you?” The result: suspicion. “Hey this is not part of our culture. Have you changed the rules? I don’t like this “warm, fuzzy” stuff!” Result: Gossip and a loss of power and influence by the manager. Most often the manager cannot hold the “soft” behaviours in “tough” situations so they quickly resort back to their old “cold & prickly” behaviours. Result: Resentment that people have been used as guinea pigs in a bad experiment. The “soft” trained managers feel betrayed by the training and develop a resentful cynicism about the “warm & fuzzy.” Result: Cynicism about training in general. Despair at their lack of ability to work more effectively with people. Fear at their all-too-obvious loss of power & influence. Tip #3. Engage Your Boss — Don’t Alienate Her/Him
Since most companies are run on fear-based management, if a manager attempts to use her/his “”soft” approach, the people who are generating fear-based behaviours will drive the manager out of the organisation.
Why? First because in a fear-based culture, “soft” is seen as weak and the weak will not inherit the power.
So what do you do?
Tip #4. Do not attend seminars that are mostly or solely “soft-based.”
Make sure you check to make sure that any seminar is at least 50% hard on issues while teaching people how to be “soft” on people. The kind of “soft” that teaches people how to increase power & influence – the Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines way.
Tip #5. Make sure the leadership/management seminar deals with and respects the role of position, power and influence in a company.
Tip #6. Never attend a seminar as the only person from your division or unit. Make sure you have a colleague to work with post-seminar. Better yet go with 3 or more. The company is wasting your time and its money sending solo’s.
Finally – and this is the most important.
Tip #7. Have a discussion with your boss before the seminar about her/his objectives for you.
How does this fit in with your professional development plan. Get specific. Make an agreement that you will tweet your learning’s to your boss regularly during the seminar. Be strategic in what you tweet. That you will agree, with your boss’ sanctioning, to share your learning’s within 7 days upon returning to work (this is why its useful to go in pairs, so you can partner on the presentation); and That you and your boss develop an agreement to meet once a week to explore what you learned and how you are using it in the workplace. All of the above 7 tips are designed to increase your power and influence in your workplace. These actions will have a tendency to reduce, somewhat, the fear-based culture, at least in your business unit.
If your boss will not agree to talk about and/or participate in the above 7 tips, you will be putting yourself in jeopardy.
By: Dr. Jim Sellner Ph.D.
Posts Tagged ‘Despair’
7 Tips on How Not to Be Fired After a Management Training Program
December 16th, 2009Polishing The Rough Moments
October 19th, 2009
Every single instant of now expands to the size and shape of your calling. What are you asking of this moment? This very moment may not be grabbing your attention. It may not seem noticeable or noteworthy. Maybe nothing much is happening right now. No great events. No deep emotions. And yet, every moment, even this one, throbs with infinite potential. There is
not one single instant of now that is not a valuable gem. A crystal of infinite facets. A brilliant opening with the ability to reveal divine light.
Rough Moments
Some moments present a more challenging configuration than others. If your ship is
being tossed by a turbulent situation, you can navigate through the difficulty more
smoothly. You can influence its resolution. You have more power in your own
experience than you may realize.
You can begin by recognizing that the negative emotion you are feeling is an indication
of a strong desire. Once you shift the crosshairs of your mental focus away from the
problem and toward the desire that is calling to you, you begin to reframe the whole
situation. The despair, depression, rage or fear were only there to get your attention.
They were blaring the alarms of disconnection, telling you that you had temporarily
veered off course and were out of tune with your heart’s desire. What a great system.
So, when you are feeling really, really bad, develop a new reflex. Instead of
interpreting that bad feeling as, “This is a problem,” see it as a signal. When you notice
that sick feeling in your stomach, let it trigger the understanding, “There is something I
want and I am not yet resonant with that desire.”
Once you can truly replace the awareness of the problem with the understanding that
you have a desire and it is just a matter of time before you come into harmony with it,
you are back on course and you can begin enjoying the ride again. Once your
viewfinder is no longer centered on the outer circumstance, you have new possibilities
within your reach. Once you zoom in on what it is you want and you start moving
yourself into alignment with that desire, you are actively shifting the outcome and
you’re on your way to bright moments.
Bright Moments
The polishing process does not add anything to the stone or the metal. It reveals their
essence. When we polish the rough moment we do not have to fix it or paint it or
decorate it. We are not trying to make it more rosy than it is. When we polish the
moment we are releasing the conflicting thought forms that obscure its natural beauty.
We don’t have to add the light. The now shines its own brilliance when we let it. Then
the moment transforms from rough to glimmering.
Equality
Everyone’s got as much now as everyone else. You can’t collect nows or deplete your
store of nows. You can’t stockpile them or give them as gifts. This one that is
happening right now is yours to create with. It cannot be stolen or lost. It cannot be
saved for later. Use it now because it will be gone and another one will slide right in to
replace it.
Since no one can take it away from you and since it is perpetually replenished, your
now is your true wealth. I invite you to polish it. Let its essence shine forth. Let this be
the most fulfilling and satisfying moment you have had in a while.
Meditation
Light a candle. Watch the movement of the flame. Notice its fluid continuity. Feel how it
straddles the space between physical and nonphysical. Let it represent the moment for
you. Experience the elastic power of your now. Soften your grip on the moment and let
the dance of the flame teach you the secret of moving through every moment of now
with bright light, soft power and fluid navigation.
Rough moments often shine up to offer the most beautiful lights and like the stars in
the night sky, they offer the clearest sign of which way to go.
By: Rebbie Straubing
