Leadership lessons of World Cup football finalists

Getting top talent to play (and work) well together is a real challenge. Read on for ideas on how to build team dynamics and positive behaviours that lead to world-champion success

My support of Oranje (as the KNVB Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond or "Royal Netherlands Football Association" is more commonly called, a.k.a. the Flying Dutchmen or Clockwork Orange) has been both longstanding and long-suffering.

At each major tournament I would watch alongside other orange-clad fans as the Dutch national side - a team absolutely loaded with an absurd amount of football talent - would exhibit disjointed team play that, while marked with flashes of brilliance, too often stumbled toward the same grim ending: defeat and elimination.

The Dutch Dilemma - Overcome!

The 2010 FIFA World Cup has changed that. Yesterday was the high point of the Netherlands' successful campaign to return to the World Cup final for the first time in 32 years.

Coach Bert van Marwijk has overcome what I would call the "Dutch dilemma" (best described by former Ajax coach Henk ten Cate as: taking 23 top players with top egos and wishes and ideas and getting them play together as an effective team during several years of intermittent matches). It's a tough and unenviable task, one that's claimed many a coach's job and reputation in the past. Where Bert seems to have got it right is in building a team with depth.

Observes Leo Beenhakker (ex Real Madrid coach, ex Ajax coach, ex Oranje team manager and currently technical director of Feyenoord) "the way Bert works [is]: if back 1 is suspended, you use back 2. It’s logical. Van der Wiel is suspended, you use Boulah. I’d use De Zeeuw instead of De Jong. Don’t make a fuss. Get out there and play the best football you have."

I think this has sent the clear message to a team full of stars who could be forgiven for aspiring to primadonna status: "you are not irreplaceable; right behind you is another player who knows your job and can do it as least as well as you." Pretty swiftly it becomes clear that results are what counts, and in a team sport that means playing together as a effectively as a team.

Building your world-champion team

Here are some lessons from the Flying Dutchmen to put into effect with your team:

1) Everyone knows the game plan and what part they play in it. Any team is made up of interlinked roles and for the team to function, those interactions need to happen smoothly and according to an agreed plan.

2) While the coach ultimately makes the call on who starts, players are invited to give their views and input from their particular perspective and place on the field. It's a foolish coach who presumes that he's got perfect line-of-sight into everything that's happening in the game; smart coaches draw on the knowledge and experience of players to inform their decision-making.

3) Again, results are key and all eyes are firmly on the prize: "We have a mission," says assistant coach Frank de Boer. "That mission is to be champions of the world."

4) How the coach connects with the team must help foster a sense of belonging for each team member. Superstar players aren't playing WC games for the money - in the best teams, they're playing for their country and for each other. Empathy, inclusion and relationships, create a personal connection so that internal competition does not tear the team apart. Build authentic relationships between team members and they'll go the extra mile for you, contribute to each other's achievement and performance, and rightfully share in the jubilation of success.

5) And...there's a game to be won! So now that everyone's internally connected, how do you put on your best game-face and beat the other guys? You need to drill the basics, get clear on the step-by-step actions, make resources available, allocate them efficiently and leverage them to move forward. Watch game tapes before upcoming matches, ensure good information flow, analyze data for patterns to apply and exploit.

6) Finally, having something bigger than oneself helps motivate extraordinary contribution. Putting on that orange jersey, each player becomes part of something bigger: an extension of the Orange Army in the stands, carrying the national colours onto the field of battle, carrying the hopes of so many fans and earning their cheers of delight when the prize is won.


On to World Cup victory!!! 


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Visitor, Complainer, Customer for change - how aware and involved are your people?

Summary: This second post in the People and the Change Journey series tells you how to assess people's level of awareness, involvement and readiness to engage with change. Learn the differences in how Visitors, Complainers and Customers view change and how to "pace" your interactions with each to produce success.

What is "resistance" to change?

One time a senior executive I was coaching recounted how a change initiative had manifestly failed to take root among this team.

Punctuating the end of his story, he threw his hands up and said, "I don't get it! I TOLD them exactly what I wanted from them. What went wrong??"

I'm not trying to be tough on the guy. Faced with a need for action and urgent deadlines, he was just trying to get his point across ASAP. His choice of technique was, however, not very likely to produce success - a bit like the English-speaking tourist in Paris who SPEAKS EVEN LOUDER when the waiter doesn't understand the food order, or an exhausted mother who screams harder so her child will finally do as it's told.

When you're frustrated it's easy to conclude that the other person is being willfully stupid, rebellious and is intent on resisting you. But what if, like the French-speaking waiter in Paris, the other person literally doesn't understand what you're saying because you each have a widely different view of the situation?


Three views of change: VISITORS, COMPLAINERS, CUSTOMERS

Visitor

Someone who does not see any need for change

A Visitor believes things are fine just as they are and does not recognize that any problem exists. On the surface, Visitors can seem rather naive and may be in denial about the need for change: nope, everything's just fine here, thanks! Their agreeable nature is easy to mistake for engagement, when it may be just compliance, paying lip-service with no real understanding of the situation or what's required and expected of them.

Another class of Visitors are sometimes labelled as lacking in motivation, willingness and desire to cooperate. These employees are largely content to "just show up" and do the minimum required; disengaged and disenchanted staff also fall into this camp: well it's not down to me, is it?

Whichever the class of Visitor you encounter, they are united in one thing. In behavioural terms, Visitors are quite wary of the possibility that they might have to change something about themselves, most often because they simply don't see any reason for such change.

Complainer 

Someone with a problem but who does not (yet) feel the desire to take action

Complainers are impossible to miss: they are definitely aware that a problem exists...and seem determined that everyone else should know too. Given half a chance they will describe in excruciating detail just how bad it is, how they are suffering, moan, moan, moan, etc.

When offered suggestions on how to remedy their dire situations, a Complainer will reply: Wellll...I can't do THAT because of X and that other idea won't work either and I tried that already but those stupid people in (insert: accounts, marketing, engineering, senior management) never cooperate...Yes, but I can't...Yeah, but...Yeah, but....Yeaaahhh, BUT!

In behavioural terms, Complainers do not see any need to change their own behaviour. It's always someone or something else's fault and the need for change is located externally to themselves. They are great finger-pointers, masters of the "blame-storm."

What Complainers fundamentally lack is awareness that they themselves need to DO something about the situation they're complaining about. Though they clearly feel frustrated by their difficulties, they aren't (yet) ready to change. They will instead adopt the role of helpless victim. As a result Complainers are often labelled "resistant to change." In fact, they are not so much resistant as powerless: they actually feel they can do nothing, lacking the resources, skills, talents and attributes required to act.

Customer 

Someone who knows there is a problem AND is ready to do something about it

Customers for change are a delight to work with. A Customer for change sees there is a need for change, recognizes that he/she has a part to play in it and wants to do something about it. Customers, in short, are ready to roll up their sleeves and get down to creating solutions. You may safely give them direct tasks to complete and have confidence that they will accept the task and will find it useful.

In behavioural terms, Customers are clearly motivated to change their own behavior. They understand what's required of them, know what they want and accept that they need to work to get it.

Turning Visitors and Complainers into Customers

As a change agent it's useful to assume that people are doing the best they can with the resources and level of awareness that they have available to them at the time. The Change Journey often involves going to where people are in order to bring them along to where they need to be in order to succeed. To achieve this, try "pacing" people - meeting each different view of change according to its speed of moving forward.

VISITORS - Walking pace
Imagine a Visitor meandering along at an ambling pace with little awareness of any need for change and no urgency. If you meet them with a running pace and urge them to move faster, they're likely to ask, "Why?! What's the rush...?" If you grab an arm and try to pull them along to move faster, they're likely to respond by moving even more slowly. So when interacting with Visitors, it pays to remember the old adage: When it comes to people: fast is slow, and slow is fast.

Or put another way, Resistance leads to Persistence: the more you resist accepting the Visitor's reality (moving at a walking pace) the more that person will persist in the behaviour. Rather than being disappointed, impatient or frustrated with Visitors, you'll need to modify  your pace and find ways to engage with them at their own speed.

A useful technique is to highlight the strengths and positive characteristics that you notice the Visitor exhibiting. Remembering that your goal is to create an awareness of the need for change, you'll find positive feedback is far more likely to elicit an interested response than will criticism.

COMPLAINERS - Jogging pace
Complainers move faster than Visitors, however they often don't expend that extra energy in productive ways. The goal at this stage is to transition a Complainer into a Customer who knows there's a problem AND that they need to do something about it.

With Visitors your choice of language is important. See if you can reframe the Visitor's complaints about the negatives, barriers and obstacles they face into positive statements about things that they actually want to have happen - as goals for change and requests that  can be acted upon. To be clear: do not give a Complainer any tasks to complete. A Complainer's self-concept is often that of helpless, passive victim. The suggestion that he or she should act will often elicit a long explanation of why it's impossible to act, with lots of "Yeah, but" statements.

Rather than telling Complainers they need to act, enable them come to the conclusion for themselves. Use very passive, indirect language, "what needs to happen to improve the situation?" and assign them observation tasks: "what is happening that you want to continue to happen? What else?"

CUSTOMERS - Running (even Sprinting!) pace
It's worth mentioning as well that among Visitors and Complainers you may find "hidden Customers." Hidden Customers have goals that they want but may not be well-versed at expressing them or are simply stuck in the rut of avoidance and ineffectual whingeing about their situation. Again, pace yourself to the person's reality and help them to frame a goal that meets their preferences, helping them to become a Customer for change.

People will shift back and forth between the three states of Visitor, Complainer and Customer over time and in different contexts. Working with Customers is the ideal - then your task as change agent is to agree on the race, then point them in the right direction and just get out of their way!

Follow these tips to achieve success with your team and remember that sometimes when it comes to change: slow down in order to speed up!


Adapted from material by Stephen Covey, John Kotter and Fletcher Peacock in his book, Water the Flowers Not the Weeds.

Apprentice episode 8 preview: double trouble

Preview of week 8: double-episode/double-firing

This week's two hour double-episode on Monday 16 November (21h30-23h30) will see two contestants get fired. At this stage I'll dare a few observations/predictions about how things might unfold.

I've already spoken about Gavin and Sabrina in a previous post - they need to come out from behind their masks before it costs them whatever connection they still have with others, notably Mark Bouris.

Of the two I think Sabrina is most at risk; while Gavin is fresh from his latest tongue-lashing in the Boardroom and will seek in week 8 to make amends, Sabrina may have gained false assurance as Team Eventus' victory last week papered over the real conflict between her, Heather and Mary-Anne and did not compel her to examine her own shortcomings as project lead. Either one could end up fired in week 8 - I think most likely Sabrina.

Mary-Anne
In a post early in this series of reviews I mentioned that Carmen and Mary-Anne shared a forceful directness:

Mary-Anne [...] was shut down peremptorily by Carmen during the first team meeting. [...] she will need to rein in her high-energy competitive nature to win people over rather than confronting them. Her intolerance for what she perceives as incompetence may also be a significant trigger resulting in punitive behaviour, even bullying. The early clash with Carmen (who shares a similar disposition) is a sign of things to come. Triggers: injustice, skirting the issues, others not taking responsibility for their behaviour, being blindsided, lack of truthfulness, feeling weak/vulnerable/uncertain/dependent, losing regard of people she respects.

With Carmen now gone we're seeing more of Mary-Anne's stroppy behaviour: seemingly convinced that hers was the one right way to do things, she showed both doubt and impatience towards Sabrina's competence as project lead during the art task. If she fails to rein in this aggressivenes and intolerance, she'll be fired in week 8.

Heather
On several occasions in projects now Heather has been quick to assert herself but looked panicked and almost wild-eyed whenever there she felt a (real or imagined) need to explain and defend herself. The result is she's often overextending herself and, when caught out, tries to skate through. Again, I'd previously written of her:

[...] the challenge will be for her to keep her energy focused and face difficult situations without getting thrown off course. If she does get triggered, watch for her to flip into quite punitive behaviour with a clear expectation of compliance with her rules for conduct. Triggers: dislikes difficult situations or painful feelings, mundane tasks and constraints or limitations, feeling dismissed or not taken seriously, unjust criticism - also, blaming/criticism, violations of team norms, lack of follow-through, lack of commitment (by her standards), deception and lack of integrity.

While these are unhelpful patterns, they've not yet been career-threatening for her. At this point I think she's begun to learn the lesson of not biting off more than she can realistically chew, though she's still got some development to do on things like difficult conversations and being willing to occasionally say, "I don't know."

The danger zones for her in week 8 will be a) getting caught up in a conflict which she fails to manage or b) ending up in the Boardroom and not presenting a convincing case for what value she can add as Mark Bouris' Apprentice. If she avoids these or, as has happened to date, other people mess up worse than she does, I tip her to make it into the final. I have trouble predicting that she'll win because I don't think we've seen enough ability yet; perhaps she'll be the dark horse who makes a last-minute charge for the post.

Morello
In contrast to Gavin and Sabrina, I think Morello's got authentic EQ and a lack of egocentricity that enables him to make a genuine connection with people. People are willing to forgive a lot because they genuinely like the guy - which has saved him thus far. Early on I wrote:

his approach seemed less focused on tangible results and more on being personable - essentially "hire me, I'm a good bloke and I'll do right by you." [...] In weeks to come he must show substance behind the warm personality. He may fall down on more strategic tasks if he fails to channel his abundant energy and good cheer into productive output. Triggers: dislikes difficult situations or painful feelings, mundane tasks and constraints or limitations, feeling dismissed or not taken seriously, unjust criticism.

To date none of these pitfalls has caused him serious dramas and I think both tasks in week 8 will favour his personable nature and huge ability to adapt on the fly. Though his age and inexperience mean he lacks the wisdom required for senior leadership, his people management and relationship-building skills are exceptional.

Were I to recommend him for a role, it would be to lead a team of people implementing a strategic plan - ensuring he has close guidance from a senior leader to act as internal mentor to build his grasp of strategic thinking, and a coach to help him develop his particular management style. (On the difference between coaching and mentoring, see here.) Of the remaining candidates, I think he would benefit most from the opportunity to be The Apprentice and I'm tipping him to not only be in the final but possibly win.

Let's see what happens!


Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.
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Apprentice week 7 analysis, RWA: Authentic Emotional Intelligence

Summary: Today's post reviews episode 7 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) in building Authentic Emotional Intelligence.

Question: Does your organization currently use an Emotional Intelligence framework to help people increase their EQ and people skills? Read below to find out more about Authentic Emotional Intelligence and how to get the most from your investment to develop the EQ of your team - and yourself!


Review of episode 7: The art exhibition

In this episode's task of selling artworks at exhibition, all-girls Team Eventus dealt all-boys Team Pinnacle a resounding defeat with sales totalling $30,130 against just $5,300. Tactically, the wise use of artist's own client list helped Eventus to victory, while Pinnacle's over-analysis and commodification of the art they were selling badly undermined their efforts.

In the Boardroom specific mention was also made that the girls managed to connect emotionally with their chosen artists, while the "just the facts" approach used by the boys failed to develop the needed rapport and relationship. The "soft stuff" had a real bottom-line impact on Pinnacle's choice of artists and ability to sell convincingly to buyers - both of which were decisive drawbacks. Unable to connect and form real relationships, Pinnacle failed to produce the required results.


Failure to connect

Gavin was squarely in the firing line this week, but had Eventus not won the challenge then Sabrina would have been in the crosshairs, not just as project lead but due to her lack of results. These two individuals share many characteristics - which Sabrina had previously expressed during the pie challenge as "Gavin gets me and I get Gavin" - and these are the very reasons they are now both in danger.

In the art sales challenge Gavin was shown several times saying "selling art is essentially the same as selling cars," which revealed a lack of understanding of his product and was the basis for the disastrous "businesslike" approach to the artists that cost Pinnacle the victory. We've seen this lack of good judgement before, when Gavin chose the performers for the dance show at the Mudgee Pub Night that decidedly underwhelmed the audience.

Meanwhile Sabrina's focus in the art challenge appeared to be on being liked, not on making sales. She seemed to be bluffing her way through and was smiling a lot but remarked herself at the exhibition that it was "two hours in I've not sold anything!" Her performance both as project lead and team member was criticized as indecisive by Mary-Anne who remarked, "I'd like to wipe that phoney smile off her face."

We've seen dramas with Sabrina's behaviour and decision-making in the past as well. Doubtless in her role as Miss Australia she's become highly adept at performing before cameras and speaking with assurance. Yet I'd suggest there's evidence to show she's better in the role of figurehead than action hero. This week, hers was a stellar performance (in the theatrical sense) but one with little substance to show for it, that is, performance in the tangible results sense.

Recall as well during the hotel challenge when at checkout time she offered a hotel loyalty membership to a departing guest who was clearly still irate and whose concerns she'd manifestly failed to address with empty words, smiles and platitudes. This demonstrates a clear lack of ability to read and respond to another person's emotional state.

Both Gavin and Sabrina are very physically attractive, polite and well-spoken. They're both successful in their careers and intelligent (Sabrina makes specific mention of her high-IQ Mensa membership). Based on their facility for interacting and making an initial connection with people it would seem they also both possess a lot of Emotional Intelligence.

So what's going on here?


Emotional Intelligence

People who rise to the top of their field most often possess a combination of smarts, experience and emotional savvy, though it's often difficult to put a finger on this last bit.

I think Emotional Intelligence passes a fundamental requirement for being a "useful theory": it lays an interpretive framework over our experiences to neatly capture what we've all seen happen in the real world. What's more, we can employ the structure this framework provides to take action and change both our circumstances and behaviours.

There's a saying among executive recruiters and HR professionals: people are often "hired on experience, fired on personality."

Supporting this adage is a study of 500 managers on 3 continents, which found that despite their exceptional IQ scores and experience, unsuccessful managers lacked emotional intelligence.

In fact research by psychologist Daniel Goleman (author of Emotional Intelligence) discovered that emotional intelligence skills account for an astounding 90 percent of the success of senior leaders.

This suggests that traditional cognitive intelligence measured as IQ is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for success as a senior leader.* Dealing with people also requires a high EQ: the emotional intelligence needed to effectively manage negative feelings such as anger and self-doubt, and instead focus on positive ones such as confidence and congeniality.

Clearly IQ is not the only measure of intelligence (see my previous post on Multiple Intelligences) and the "soft skills" measured by EQ are needed to connect with people. Yet as the troubles experienced by Gavin and Sabrina suggest, there's more to relationship-building than high IQ and EQ.


What's difference between sincerity and authenticity?

There's an important distinction to be made between these two terms, and not just a philosophical or linguistic one. Rather, I believe it's one that will help resolve our dilemma over Gavin and Sabrina's behaviours and give insight into the real utility of EQ.

While sincerity and authenticity are often used interchangeably, a closer look at both words reveals helpful distinctions. (Note: longer definitions of each word are presented at the bottom of this post).

Sincerity rules out unwarranted dissimulation, intentional deception, hypocrisy, duplicity, bad-faith commitments, and double-mindedness. It often retains the positive connotation of purity derived from its Latin word sincerus, which means unadulterated. Talk about sincerity usually presupposes some positive standard for good motives, intentions or attitudes against which insincerity is condemned.

Authenticity, in contrast, is captured by the idea of genuineness rather than purity. So the authentic is the bona fide (insurance policy), real (Chinese tapestry), official (commemorative stamp), or authoritative (executive order), as opposed to the fake, imitative, unofficial or unauthorized. For example, an authentic compliment is one that succeeds in praising someone, in contrast to a sincere compliment, which need only be intended to express feelings of admiration.

In addition to distinguishing genuineness from purity, it's necessary to distinguish the internal consistency, or congruence, that accompanies authenticity from that which accompanies sincerity. While consistency is a part of authenticity, it doesn't cover the full meaning of authenticity. Sincerity, however, can be viewed as an unmitigated consistency that limits a full exploration of self and world. Instead of asking what is really going on it says, "be true to yourself," ignoring that the self may be unreflective, insensitive or even destructive.

Take an example from art history: Rousseau and some others in the Romantic movement viewed sincere artists as those who accurately revealed and expressed what they felt. In practice, this often inspired narcissism and exhibitionist displays of the sordid aspects of life neglected by conventional artists. The ideal of sincerity with oneself as congruence allows that the motives for the congruence may have little to do with striving for significant truths or an honest understanding of one’s present attributes.

In other words, it's possible to sincerely wear a mask that is internally consistent; one that you show to everyone around you and that you may even accept as real yourself. While sincere, that mask is, however, not the authentic you. Its purpose is to protect you from interaction with others. In this case, that which protects also prevents you from self-reflection and from deeply exploring your own identity - actions that are terrifying in their potential to undermine the protection offered by your carefully-fashioned mask.

Following the above line of reasoning, the virtue of authenticity is not identical with sincerity and personal acceptance. Authenticity requires interpersonal recognition and group participation. We cannot be authentic in a vacuum, for the very dynamic of authenticity requires that others recognize our authentic identities.

And so for all the protection that we believe they afford us, masks are in fact one of the greatest obstacles to achiving genuine connection with others. Unable to authentically share who we really are, our efforts produce the unintended consequence of alienating us from the very people with whom we seek to build our relationships.

If you wear a mask, no level of EQ will help you in the long run. People know when they're not dealing with the "genuine article" and this can feel like a betrayal, a lack of good faith that may provoke sadness, fear, even anger.


Will the authentic Gavin and Sabrina please step forward?

This is where I think it falls apart for Gavin and Sabrina. They both have highly-developed skills at "performance," at being "on display" and a natural talent for charming that initially woos people ("woo" in the sense of "Winning Others Over").

As mentioned above, they have a facility for making a connection with people...it's the nature of that connection that seems to cause them dramas.

Both are sincere - in fact Gavin's reaction to high-stress situations is to present a mask of such earnest sincerity as to be painful to behold. The problem is, I don't have the impression that either Gavin or Sabrina are being genuine and authentic.

Despite the charming demeanour, they hide their real selves. Evidence of this: in the Boardroom Mark Bouris has repeatedly said he wants Gavin to "stop playing the game," that he wants to know the "real Gavin" - as clear a request to drop the mask as is possible. And irritation with Sabrina's "phoney smile" seems to be growing for what I think are the same reasons.

One possible motive for so closely guarding their selves from others could be that at some point they each came to the belief that they're only valued for what they've achieved, not for who they are as people. Whatever the cause of this belief, the end result is the same: their knack for sincere charm soon turns into to inauthentic schmarm - the kind of slimey, sickly-sweet sycophantic behaviour whose objective is not so much to connect but to ingratiate...and is experienced instead as disconnective, grating and phoney.

Both Gavin and Sabrina possess the gift of connecting with others; it's their own protective mask that causes them to extend only so far...and no further. More's the pity, because I bet their close friends and confidantes could tell us what warm, kind and lovely people are hiding behind the masks they're wearing.

Both could therefore benefit from the spirit that informs this insightful bit of commentary from an article written by Sabrina herself:

Although we're born with our appearance, we have been gifted with the remarkable and somewhat humbling task of creating our identity. It is time to learn who the people around us really are, regardless of their respective packaging.

The developmental point for each of them is therefore to a) realize how their behaviour is unintentionally alienating people; b) create a safe space for them to cultivate self-awareness and separate the mask (which is nothing more than a limbically-based survival strategy) from the genuine gift of being a "people-person"; and c) help each of them to engage with this self-identity, rewriting the narrative so they can engage from this genuine self rather than the dodgy, and ultimately unconvincing, mask-self.


RWA: Authentic Emotional Intelligence

Does your organization currently use an Emotional Intelligence framework to help people increase their EQ and people skills?

If so - well done! And...it pays to ensure that the people you're training are on the right side of the Battle inside their Brain while they're learning Emotional Intelligence skills.

That is, you help them to operate from their cortical system (cognitive: reasoning, reflective, considerate) rather than their emotionally reactive limbic system (emotional: fast, reactive, habitual). Or to put it briefly: that they're rationally engaged adults learning useful skills rather then reactive little kids viewing important Emotional Intelligence information through the distorting lens of their own survival strategies.

For more information on how tmc can help you to best develop these valuable skills in your team members (and yourself) contact me directly and we'll talk it over - authentically as well as sincerely!



Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.

Word Origins:
SINCERITY - The Oxford English Dictionary and most scholars state that sincerity (from sincere) is derived from the Latin sincerus meaning "clean, pure, sound" (1525–35). Sincerus may have once meant "one growth" (not mixed), from sin- (one) and crescere (to grow).

AUTHENTIC - mid-14th century, "authoritative," from Old French autentique (13th century), from Middle Latin authenticus, from Greek authentikos "original, genuine, principal," from authentes "one acting on one's own authority," from autos "self" + hentes "doer, being." Sense of "entitled to acceptance as factual" is first recorded mid-14th century. Authentic implies that the contents of the thing in question correspond to the facts and are not fictitious; genuine implies that the reputed author is the real one.


Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture
Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance

Apprentice week 5 analysis, RWA: "The Relationship is the Customer"
Apprentice week 6 analysis, RWA: The FIT model

Photo credits: Gavin, Morello, Heather, Mary-Anne, Gavin with moustache, Sabrina. I'm indebted to this article on Authentic Leadership from the Action-Wheel Leadership website for useful insights into defining the differences between sincere and authentic.
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Apprentice week 6 analysis, RWA: The FIT model

Summary: Today's post reviews episode 6 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) in the area of emotional self-management using the FIT model.

In business it's common to discuss rational and behavioural dimensions of day-to-day activity, yet what often gets overlooked is the emotional component. The past 2 weeks have demonstrated what a crucial part emotions can play, making the difference between success and failure.

This post will assess how poor emotional self-management cost Carmen her place in the competition. In the next post I'll discuss the emotional component of Gavin's defeat and how the continuing pattern of his emotional inauthenticity is costing him the confidence and trust of others.


Review of episode 6: Microsoft commercial

In brief, Carmen's team was derailed by chronic interpersonal conflict. Though they managed to make a good quality commercial and approximated some kind of celebration at the end of production, it was clear that a lot of unprocessed conflict remained.

The toxic residue of this tension was so evident during Team Eventus' presentation to the Microsoft executives that the latter simply concluded they could not work with them. The client's reaction to Team Pinnacle, by contrast, was "whilst the ad's not perfect, we can work with them." Emotional conflict buried Team Eventus in the end.

If you've ever been exposed - directly or after the fact - to this kind of conflict you know how draining it can be. The phrases used by Gavin and Carmen that I've summarized below will sound drearily familiar:

• I want to try to smooth things over
• You were grandstanding!
• You're paranoid.
• What's your problem?
• You need to calm down!
• You need to leave your ego at the door!
• That's just throwing some words to shake me up, I've dealt with people like you before, you won't let me finish, interrupt, no respect for me, no regard for my authority...

End result:

• "She's had a hissy fit...she clearly can't control her emotions."
• "I just can't work with him."

Gavin's style when under pressure (whether in conflict with other team members or under scrutiny from Mark Bouris in the Boardroom) is to put on a mask of attentive sincerity. It's a largely non-emotional stance; it's like he transforms into a social chameleon, saying and doing the things he thinks others want him to do and coming across like a performance/achievement robot. (In the review of episode 6 I discuss in more detail how I think this is hindering his performance and what he might usefully do about it.)

Carmen, meanwhile, was unable to manage her emotional reactivity and lost her cool in dealing with both Gavin and Sam and as a result her leadership was rated a failure. Mark Bouris' summary: "There's a huge difference between being passionate...and losing it."


Real-World Application (RWA): The FIT model*

Given the chance to offer Carmen some counsel on how to handle the clash of personalities and working styles in her team, I would have suggested The FIT model as a way for her to gain useful insight on the situation and decide how she wished to proceed.

FIT stands for Feelings, Intentions and Thoughts. The FIT model is a means to develop self-awareness of your own state in order to better self-manage, and is particulary helpful in situations that may provoke strong emotional responses.

I've lamented before that we have become quite sloppy in our use of language, and nowhere is that more evident than our misplaced statements about feelings. People routinely say "I feel you disrespected me" or "I feel very strongly that my option is the way to go."

The problem is, these aren't feelings. The first is a perception and the second an opinion or judgement. By labelling them "feelings" we mix them up with our emotions and, not surprisingly, make it practically impossible for other people to comment on these statements without taking it very personally.

It's vital to distinguish between thoughts and feelings and to get clear on what outcome you're actually seeking from a conversation or situation. So that smart question becomes: how FIT are you to have that conversation or address that situation?

Here are the useful distinctions that the FIT model introduces for you to consider:

Feelings/emotions - essentially: Mad, Sad, Glad or Afraid (as distinct from Thoughts, below)

Intentions - Wishes, hopes, wants, goals, desires, needs, expectations, requests, demands

Thoughts - Inferences, conclusions, judgements, evaluations, beliefs, assumptions, opinions, perceptions

While behaviour can be observed and thoughts explained by what we say, much of what happens emotionally for us cannot be readily observed by others. If you don't have any awareness of your emotional state and likely reactive points then heaven help the person you're interacting with, for whom these things are invisible!

The FIT model is therefore a ready-reckoner to work through the tangled mix of feelings, thoughts and intentions - both for yourself and what you imagine might be happening for the other person.

Used effectively it helps to defuses tensions, as you clarify your intent and realize where opinions and judgements may carry excessive (and unacknowledged) emotional charge.

I've written previously about a highly effective language style that helps depersonalize such tense situations and get better outcomes that everyone feels good about.

When I've worked with teams where deep-seated and longstanding conflict was stinking up the room like a dead cat under the table, I've made good use of tools and models like these to get just the shift in perception that was needed to help people make real progress.

Self-awareness is key to self-management and once people used the FIT model to separate out the feelings from the thougths and intentions, they were able to better manage the strong emotional reactions and bring some really useful, adult behaviour to what had previously been like a bunch of quarrelling kids in the boardroom.

tmc can help your team manage interpersonal tension as your people clarify their intentions, their thoughts, and the language they use to talk about them. The result: a team that achieves the high performance you expect, on a sustainable basis.

To find out more today, contact me directly and let's have a conversation about your situation.

Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.

Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture
Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance

Apprentice week 5 analysis, RWA: "The Relationship is the Customer"

*FIT model adapted from Fontaine/Bauman, John Wallen & Miller, Nunnally, Wackman and Saline.

Photo credits: Carmen's photo from her corporate website.
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Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture

Summary: This post reviews episode 3 of The Apprentice Australia and offers Real-World Applications (RWAs) on integrating new team leaders and building a strong team culture.


Review of Episode 3

This week saw a trade in team leaders, so the "boys team" Pinnacle was led by Amy and the "girls team" Eventus by Gavin. The end result was a victory for Gavin's team, which made nearly triple the profit of Amy's team and resulted in Amy's elimination. This week I'll talk about some interesting personality matchups of "like with like" in both teams, about Amy's departure, and comment on the Boss himself, Mark Bouris.

Like with Like: Personality and character matches this week

This week's task was to create, market and sell a new flavour of savoury pie. There were three interesting matches made of "like with like" personality and character:

Carmen & MaryAnn
During the production process Team Eventus had only two people making the pies which meant progress was slow. With just one pie machine in the factory, Team Pinnacle couldn't get their pies made until Team Eventus finished. Carmen sought to maximize her team's pie production and put Team Eventus at a huge disadvantage by monopolizing the machine until the final production deadline had passed, while her partner MaryAnn wanted to put a cap on their pie production to give Team Pinnacle a fair go and get their pies made. Carmen's response: "No, we're not going to do that! What were you thinking?"

Later in the Boardroom Diane Stone said Carmen and MaryAnn were a "super-cohesive team" and for the most part they were, thanks to their shared behaviour of forceful, charge-ahead action that had ironically set them at odds in episode 1. The contrast between them in this case, though, was that MaryAnn is better at connecting with other people (she has better access to her Heart) while Carmen is exclusively task-focused and loses all perspective of the other people involved (she relies primarily on Head). We see this in particular during the sales at the market, when Carmen, never having tasted one, said Team Eventus' pies were "tough and gristly, made with the cheapest cuts of lamb to save money" and when confronted by Blake said simply, "We're in this to win!" and "You need to go in hard and aggressive - there are no rules!" This attitude would come back to haunt her in the Boardroom, though I think not nearly as much as it should have done (of which more below).

Sabrina & Gavin
In her post-show diary Sabrina said simply, "Gavin gets me and I get Gavin." These two are almost identically matched in both personality and character. You can imagine being on their team would be a lot of fun, so long as things were going well. If things get tough, however, which in this case would mean: reputations on the line and appearances at stake, Sabrina in particular needs to be mindful of the Boardroom warning she received about trying to relativize Carmen's clearly unethical behaviour (see below). Otherwise this week's task let the two of them focus on their strengths: persuasiveness in getting free marketing materials and wooing people with charm as when they were selling pies from the van at Darling Harbour. Getting a late start and having a whole load of unsold pies in the van suggests that a focus on practical outputs remains a development point for them both. Look for more fun and a continued focus on the team dynamics from this duo in weeks to come.

Heather & Amy
Due to illness Heather did not figure highly in this week's episode, but in an aside at the very end she pronounced her deep admiration for both Amy's gutsiness and ethical behaviour. It seems these two are quite well matched in personality and character as well, though at this point we won't see this develop any further.

That someone as focused on ethics and integrity as Heather would speak so highly of Amy gives us an insight into Amy's behaviour in the Boardroom. Amy remarked straight off that it was "nice to be on the side not attacking each other," a reference to all-female group dynamics in Team Eventus to that point. When her team's loss was revealed she did not relativize or waffle: she immediately put her hand up and took reponsibility. Later in her exit interview she said simply, "if we failed as team it's because I've failed them."

I think Amy is actually being too hard on herself. Some development coaching I'd offer her during the task would have been: don't be intimidated by the blokes in Team Pinnacle, continue to swiftly address problematic behaviour (like Sam's moodiness at the outset) to assert authority as project lead, and to nominate a loyal and responsible lieutenant like John, whose quiet leadership came to the fore this week.

Nevertheless, Amy's accountability is to her credit. I'd expect it will serve her well in the real world as she continues to grow her Melbourne-based recruitment company. But that same accountability proved to be the kiss of death in the "one-strike-you're-out" world of the Apprentice Boardroom.

This poses an interesting question for Mark Bouris: two weeks running he's insisted that he wants people to take a stand, that he has no time and no place in his organization for "shrinking violets" who sit on the fence. Then when presented with someone who takes steps up to take responsibility, he says "I applaud you for putting your hand up"...and fires her, claiming that her accountability "left me nowhere to go."

However this was not the most serious error in judgement that I think Mark Bouris made this week. Carmen beamed with pride in the Boardroom as she took credit on behalf of her and MaryAnn for the marketing of the pies in the organic market as "home made". In fact the pies were factory-made and while early on Diane wondered aloud if this presented a possible "Trade Practices problem" Carmen cheerfully said, "in this case, perception is reality." This is not a clever case being made of the added value of perception since every other comment Carmen made clearly indicates her sole focus was winning and maximizing profit. This is someone who just doesn't get it.

And Mark Bouris' response as business leader and future Boss? Though this was "a clear case of being deceptive...[and] you don't play around with things that aren't correct in terms of your marketing" he concludes: your conduct was a "technical breach, which we will overlook on this occasion."

A fish rots from the head down

It's as if the names Enron, Andersen, WorldCom, Bear Stearns, AIG, Adelphia, Parmalat, Tyco, Cendant, Putnam Funds (and the list goes on...) have taught us nothing at all. As if the GFC hasn't produced serious questions about the pursuit of profit/shareholder value above all else and about how business people are trained in elite institutions.

If the top man in an organization fails to model the values that are expected of his reports and team members, there's not much hope that those values will take root. So again, this week Mark Bouris made two errors in judgement:

1. He eliminated the one person who's thus far shown leadership and accountability exactly the kind of behaviour he's said he expects and wants.
   
   In my view it should have been Sam who left; his body language in his video diary was moody and downcast, saying "If I'm still here next week," his behaviour was tetchy and his actions were mostly fence-sitting - all of which Mr Bouris has said he doesn't need. He wasn't just out of his depth in this task, I'm afraid he's in too deep overall and through no fault of his own - he simply lacks the life experience needed to better manage his emotions and tap into his gifts in stressful business settings.
   
   
2. He's overlooked clear breaches of ethics and of good old Australian "fair go" sportsmanship.
   
   In my view, Team Eventus ought to have had their profit decreased by the amount of whatever fine would normally apply for deceptive trade practices and/or had a penalty applied for unethical conduct.

Of course we need to bear in mind this is not reality, this is TV. Below are the number of hits on each person's Episode 3 video diary (including Amy's exit interview) on The Apprentice Australia website. The figures tell the tale - the audience loves a good scrap:

Amy - 3538
Carmen - 768
Blake - 565
Gavin - 331
Sabrina - 272
Heather - 202
Sam - 195
Morello - 176
John - 146
MaryAnn - 145

(figures current as of time of writing this blog post)

Real-World Applications (RWAs): Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture

There was confused leadership this week, from both project leads suddenly leading new teams and from Mark Bouris whose contradictions and errors in judgement send mixed messages.

How does your organization clarify the leader's expectations of their team and create a team culture that sets team members up for success and high performance from the very start?


RWA#1: "Leader-Team Foundation" session puts you on course for success

In the US Navy when a new Captain assumes command of a ship there's a recognition that you can't simply swap one Captain out and a new one in. Each Captain has his own personality and leadership style and each ship has its own culture and way of doing things. Navy vessels are considered to be on war footing every time they leave port, placing servicemen and women in harm's way on a daily basis and leaving no margin for error or misunderstanding between Captain and crew. The Navy manages these leadership transitions with a formal process called a New Reporting Relationship (NRR) session, which provides some useful tips for the business world.

Similarly, a new leader in an organization can engage in a facilitated process to manage his/her leadership transition, in the form of a Leader-Team Foundation session. This helps make explicit the nature of the leader's new leadership style and expectations of the team.

Some typical goals from a Leader-Team Foundation session:

• Clarify a new leader's vision, mission, and goals for the group as well as expectations of his/her direct reports.
• Inform the group of the leader's preferred leadership style and decision-making approach.
• Begin/continue to install explicit productive behavioural norms in the group.
• Alert the leader of concerns, barriers, issues and strengths facing the team.
• Expedite the development of the new team (in the “forming stage”) by learning about each other and promoting clear, open communication.

Desired outcomes of a Leader-Team Foundation session:

• Understand the leader's vision, goals and expectations for the team.
• Provide the new leader with the information needed to make sound and efficient decisions while setting priorities, policies and procedures.
• Clarify the role of each team member in relationship to the new leader and each other.
• Clarify concerns, priorities, and expectations of all members.
• Identify and discuss dilemmas and challenges facing the group.
• Identify mutual needs and identify actions needed to move forward.
• Discuss any constraints facing members or the group to take such actions.

RWA#2: "Team Culture Foundation" session creates high-performing teams

Whether a team is newly-formed or already existing, get your team pointing in the same direction with a facilitated Team Culture Foundation session. The session involves individual reflection, interviews and group dialogue aimed at finding answers to the following questions and, where differences arise, agreeing on ways to resolve them - both now and in future:

• What's the timeline of the team and where are we now?
• Who are the heroes and villains of the past?
• What are the five rules - spoken or unspoken - that you remember from first joining this team?
• What are the team rules?
• Who makes those rules?
• How are they enforced?
• How easy or hard is it to change them?
• How does this team interact with the rest of the organization?
• What are the three most helpful team patterns?
• What are three least helpful patterns?
• What are the behaviours that are banned/encouraged in our team?
• How do we induct new people into the team?
• What's our team's value proposition?
• Is there an agreed code of conduct for our team?
• How can we track how we're doing as time progresses - do we have regular check-ins?

Note that you can add the Heart element as well, for example with a 500-Word Story Exercise (details of which in a future post).

For details on how tmc can help you to run facilitated Leader-Team Foundation and/or Team Culture Foundation sessions, email me.


Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.


Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management

Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart

With materials and insights from Jack Fontaine & Jean Baumann; Peter Burow.
Amy & Sam photo credit: www.news.com.au

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Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart

Summary: This post reviews episode 2 of The Apprentice Australia and offers Real-World Applications (RWAs) on how to give and receive feedback.

Previous related posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management

Analysis of week two

TEAM EVENTUS (winning team)

What was shown of the behaviour the all-female team members demonstrated a team divided... dare I say: catty?

Carmen's comments about team leader Sabrina (whom she had invited into the Boardroom with her last week for potential elimination) were critical and caustic, in keeping with Carmen's central theme of revenge for perceived betrayal. Watch for more fireworks from Carmen's corner as it seems she has not yet learned how to channel her abundant energy into more productive behaviour.

Heather joined in the fray early this week when her desire to use her experience in advertising as team leader was thwarted by Sabrina thrusting herself forward for the role. Heather did not contest Sabrina's suggestion but then seemed inwardly resentful throughout the task as a result - a function of not wanting to deal with a difficult or potentially painful situation. When Heather did apply her experience to the project, we saw another side of her: a perfectionist pursuit of what is right according to her expertise/rules. Working with the graphic designer she repeatedly said, "no that's not it, that's not right" and worked literally up to the last minute on fine-tuning and adjustments - which could have led to disaster. Despite this long time commitment, Heather looked stressed and anxious during the pitch, most probably out of fear that it still wasn't right. In the weeks to come a developmental goal for Heather will be to present her ideas assertively while also making room for other perspectives, adopting a position of curiosity rather than a compulsive quest for what is right according to her own standards.

Sabrina wasted no time in putting herself forward to shine this week - and then manifestly failed to do so. Using her characterisitc forcefulness she effectively nominated and acclaimed herself team leader at the outset (team approval at that point being really just a formality in her mind). In the event, not much was shown of her leadership or contribution to the project aside from her singing voice on the jingle and her delivery of a negative and critical assessment of Heather's design efforts. Worse, she nearly blew what to that point had been a strong team pitch to the Ogilvy execs by getting defensive during the Q&A and arguing with their feedback. Incredibly, she repeated this blunder in the Boardroom by cutting across and attempting to correct Diane Stone's report on Eventus' performance. It's possible that Sabrina talks a good game and fronts herself as being capable of much more than she can actually deliver. In short, she's a fraud and at a certain level she knows it. Her persona is therefore built on tenuous foundations and she will be on perpetual high alert for any threat to its maintenance...which makes her incredibly resistant to feedback and fearful of any assessment of her by others. Her development task remains the same: cultivate modesty and objectivity, greater awareness of others through opening herself to feedback, and learning to deliver feedback to others in a more constructive way.

TEAM PINNACLE (losing team)

Lynton's elimination this week stemmed largely from his over-reliance on data, information and logical, step-by-step process. In his exit interview he seems not to have learned the lesson: he states there is not a lot he would have done differently, says they made the best possible use of the tools and information available, but failed to talk about how he would correct the two major shortfalls: his failure to remember the clients' names(!) and the lack of engagement and energy in his "wooden" presentation to Ogilvy. It's likely that he thought his way was the best way, so despite claiming to have a "dream team" to work with, he insisted on delivering the pitch on his own. In the Boardroom his detached, non-emotional mask began to crack as he continually pursed his lips - a blatant microexpression that may have indicated anger/annoyance, disapproval/disgust, or impatience at not being able to speak, but in any event clearly demonstrated outwardly the emotional distress that he was unwilling to actually put into words.

Jon, meanwhile, was this week's target of Mr Bouris' war on "shrinking violet" behaviour and "fence-sitters" - which seems to be code for everyone who's not making a big noise about their own contribution. I'd agree that Jon seems ambivalent about his role and was too easily brushed aside by Gavin during the interviews - all the more reason for him to insist that some groundwork be set before tasks are undertaken so there's greater role clarity and even debate about how to proceed, before proceeding. So, more Foundation before the Force.

Sam meanwhile got positively manic and made good use of his creative side during the brainstorming session - which is, after all, what a brainstorming session is meant to be about - but then got some stick for being unfocussed. At present there is simultaneously a lot of goodwill towards him and doubts about his youth. That said, he stuck his hand up and took responsibility for an idea in the Boardroom, which earned him kudos from Mr Bouris since everyone else on Team Pinnacle was in prevarication/plausible deniability mode. In the weeks to come Sam needs to keep on being himself and continue to earn the respect of his team members by engaging with them in an energetic, authentic way - in other words, with Heart.


Real-World Application (RWA) #1: Head and Heart

Lynton and Sam offer good examples this week of the contrast between Head and Heart.

HEAD is about data, tasks and learning. It looks like this: get clear on the step-by-step actions, make resources available, allocate them efficiently and leverage them to move forward. Ensure good information flow, analyze data for patterns to apply and exploit. It's logical, procedural, rational and non-emotional.






HEART is about empathy, inclusion and relationships, creating a personal connection so that internal competition does not tear the team apart. Being smart about connecting with the team helps foster a sense of belonging for each team member. People don't work for companies or money - they work for people. As team leader, offering a sense of personal commitment will build authentic relationships between team members, who gladly go the extra mile for you...and for each other.

There's an old saying: "People don't care what you know, until they know that you care." With Sam it seems pretty clear that what you see is what you get - to use the phrase, he wears his Heart on his sleeve for all to see. On the other hand, Lynton's Head-strong efforts to dazzle with his marketing know-how and to put himself forward as the expert presenter during the pitch actually alienated him from team members. It also blinded him to the fact that a joint presentation would have been more compelling because it would draw on the diverse strengths of the team members, including Jon's input from his role as parent, Gavin's charm and easy way with people, Sam's energetic enthusiasm and Andrew's warmth and engagement.

Using only his Head and not his Heart, Lynton failed to engage either his team or the client, and paid the price. His exit interview shows that this lesson hasn't sunk in. Logically, his Head-based behaviour still makes rational sense to him. As yet, he hasn't developed the Heart-insight to understand where things went wrong. Opening himself to emotional and Heart-style engagement with others will therefore be his developmental task in his post-Apprentice career.

Of course both Head and Heart are necessary elements and each is an effective counterbalance to the other. We can get so focused on results that the human dimension, that of emotions and relationships, gets forgotten. Yet it is the central task of leadership to successfuly reincorporate exactly that dimension to to engage people in getting things done.

What does your team or organization do to ensure a good mix of both Head and Heart in decision-making, activities and interactions?

An excellent tool for reincorporating the human dimension, the Heart in an organization, is by enabling people to communicate more effectively by giving and receiving feedback.

Real-World Application (RWA) #2: Giving & Receiving Feedback

Giving feedback: The Affirm
This week Sabrina demonstrated the kind of feedback that many managers give: pointing out what's wrong, challenging decisions with a lot of "why" questions and generally putting the person at the receiving end on the back foot. This highly critical approach focused on the negatives will be interpreted by many people as a threat - and drive them into their limbic, emotionally reactive survival mode.

Rather than offering negative, destructive feedback, there's a tool that helps you to give constructive feedback aimed at a collaborative and mutually-agreeable outcome. Working on the basis that people work better when they are appreciated, a good approach is to Affirm the things you notice that are going well and the resources, skills, talents and attributes that a person has demonstrated.

At first this might seem like a pointless waste of time, just soft-stuff, hand-holding and not getting the point across. Or like those empty compliments that some managers lavish indiscriminately on team member - a load of sickly-sweet, nonspecific and insincere praise. But the Affirm is something else.

Good Affirms are:
Authentic and sincere
Specific and detailed
Relevant to the context

And...they feel really good both to the giver's brain (since it's linked to compassion) and the receiver's brain, since they help position the receiver to win the Battle inside their Brain. Good Affirms calm the knee-jerk, emotionally reactive limbic brain and invite the attention and involvement of the rational cortical brain, where the mental heavy-lifting takes place and whence people produce their most useful behaviour and activity. (Learn more here.)

Receiving feedback: Active Listening

Even if you're not being Affirmed, you will still need to receive feedback from others in order to learn, develop and grow. Scottish poet Robbie Burns wrote, "O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us." And he's right, we gain invaluable insight from the outside perspective that can only come from other people.

Assuming you've won the Battle inside your Brain and quieted the noise of your emotional reactivity, here are some good Active Listening habits to cultivate:

• Reassure/encourage - convey genuine interest, show you're paying attention, keep the person talking by occasionally saying: "I see..." "Yes..." "Say more about that..."
  
• Reflect/paraphrase - convey understanding by restating what the person has said, not necessarily word-for-word but as you've heard and understood it, sometimes taking a guess at the underlying feelings: "You feel that..." "I can imagine you would feel angry that"
  
• Restate/clarify - check that you have understood the speaker's intended message (NB: whether you agree with it or not!): "So if I understand you correctly, your idea is..." "In other words, you're saying..."
  
• Summarize - to highlight important facts, ideas, etc., review progress so far and establish basis for further discussion: "These seem to be your key ideas..." "Let me just check where we've got to so far..."
  

The opposite behaviours can be called listening stoppers:

• Denial - "No, that's not true." Also, body language like lip pursing, rolling eyes, ignoring comments.
  
• Counter-interrogation - responding with questions that attack, criticize or make false assumptions
  
• Offering counter-opinions - Rejecting the other person's point of view out of hand and substituting your own, "accurate" version: "Let me tell you what really happened!"

When team members can learn to give and receive feedback using Heart, it opens the channels to and engages the rational brain to better process the Head-based facts, data and information. A winning combination!

tmc can help you and your team members to give and receive feedback more constructively, interact collaboratively, and more productively deliver the results you need. To find out more - contact me.

Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.
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