by Gordon Tredgold According to a 2014 Gallup poll, companies, 82 percent of the time, appoint the wrong person to a management or leadership position. That's a staggering number. And yet it's not inconsistent with either my own experience or other statistics that we see -- such as one, this time from a 2015 Gallup poll, showing that as many as 70 percent of workers are either disengaged or actively disengaged. More evidence? It comes from what seems to be the No. 1 reason why people leave companies: 50 percent of the time, they cite their relationship with their direct manager. We can only conclude that those managers shouldn't have been there in the first place, and that poor management appointments are to blame. We might also suspect that those appointments not only damaged the mood and morale of these organizations but affected their bottom line. For example, the weak employee-engagement figures cost American businesses around $450 billion every year. The challenge is that these situations are not going to be completely resolved until they address the real root cause: hiring and promoting the wrong people in the first place. Here are seven characteristics that companies should look for in future managers. If those people don't have them, then don't promote them. ..Click 'Read More'
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by Dr. Travis Bradberry Author of #1 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and president of TalentSmart, world’s leading provider of emotional intelligence. Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people’s buttons. As important as it is to learn how to deal with different kinds of people, truly toxic people will never be worth your time and energy—and they take a lot of each. Toxic people create unnecessary complexity, strife, and, worst of all, stress. “People inspire you, or they drain you—pick them wisely.” - Hans F. Hansen The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control. One of their greatest gifts is the ability to use emotional intelligence to identify toxic people and keep them at bay. It’s often said that you’re the product of the five people you spend the most time with. If you allow even one of those five people to be toxic, you’ll soon find out how capable he or she is of holding you back. You can’t hope to distance yourself from toxic people until you first know who they are. The trick is to separate those who are annoying or simply difficult from those who are truly toxic. What follows are ten types of toxic drainers that you should stay away from at all costs so that you don’t become one yourself. 1. The Gossip “Great minds discuss ideas, average ones discuss events, and small minds discuss people.” - Eleanor Roosevelt Gossipers derive pleasure from other people’s misfortunes. It might be fun to peer into somebody else’s personal or professional faux pas at first, but over time, it gets tiring, makes you feel gross, and hurts other people. There are too many positives out there and too much to learn from interesting people to waste your time talking about the misfortune of others. 2. The Temperamental Some people have absolutely no control over their emotions. They will lash out at you and project their feelings onto you, all the while thinking that you’re the one causing their malaise. Temperamental people are tough to dump from your life because their lack of control over their emotions makes you feel bad for them. When push comes to shove though, temperamental people will use you as their emotional toilet and should be avoided at all costs. 3. The Victim Victims are tough to identify because you initially empathize with their problems. But as time passes, you begin to realize that their “time of need” is all the time. Victims actively push away any personal responsibility by making every speed bump they encounter into an uncrossable mountain. They don’t see tough times as opportunities to learn and grow from; instead, they see them as an out. There’s an old saying: “Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.” It perfectly captures the toxicity of the victim, who chooses to suffer every time. 4. The Self-Absorbed Self-absorbed people bring you down through the impassionate distance they maintain from other people. You can usually tell when you’re hanging around self-absorbed people because you start to feel completely alone. This happens because as far as they’re concerned, there’s no point in having a real connection between them and anyone else. You’re merely a tool used to build their self-esteem. 5. The Envious To envious people, the grass is always greener somewhere else. Even when something great happens to envious people, they don’t derive any satisfaction from it. This is because they measure their fortune against the world’s when they should be deriving their satisfaction from within. And let’s face it, there’s always someone out there who’s doing better if you look hard enough. Spending too much time around envious people is dangerous because they teach you to trivialize your own accomplishments. 6. The Manipulator Manipulators suck time and energy out of your life under the façade of friendship. They can be tricky to deal with because they treat you like a friend. They know what you like, what makes you happy, and what you think is funny, but the difference is that they use this information as part of a hidden agenda. Manipulators always want something from you, and if you look back on your relationships with them, it’s all take, take, take, with little or no giving. They’ll do anything to win you over just so they can work you over. 7. The Dementor In J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series, Dementors are evil creatures that suck people’s souls out of their bodies, leaving them merely as shells of humans. Whenever a Dementor enters the room, it goes dark, people get cold, and they begin to recall their worst memories. Rowling said that she developed the concept for Dementors based on highly negative people—the kind of people who have the ability to walk into a room and instantly suck the life out of it. Dementors suck the life out of the room by imposing their negativity and pessimism upon everyone they encounter. Their viewpoints are always glass half empty, and they can inject fear and concern into even the most benign situations. A Notre Dame University study found that students assigned to roommates who thought negatively were far more likely to develop negative thinking and even depression themselves. 8. The Twisted There are certain toxic people who have bad intentions, deriving deep satisfaction from the pain and misery of others. They are either out to hurt you, to make you feel bad, or to get something from you; otherwise, they have no interest in you. The only good thing about this type is that you can spot their intentions quickly, which makes it that much faster to get them out of your life. 9. The Judgmental Judgmental people are quick to tell you exactly what is and isn’t cool. They have a way of taking the thing you’re most passionate about and making you feel terrible about it. Instead of appreciating and learning from people who are different from them, judgmental people look down on others. Judgmental people stifle your desire to be a passionate, expressive person, so you’re best off cutting them out and being yourself. 10. The Arrogant Arrogant people are a waste of your time because they see everything you do as a personal challenge. Arrogance is false confidence, and it always masks major insecurities. A University of Akron study found that arrogance is correlated with a slew of problems in the workplace. Arrogant people tend to be lower performers, more disagreeable, and have more cognitive problems than the average person. How to Protect Yourself Once You Spot ‘Em Toxic people drive you crazy because their behavior is so irrational. Make no mistake about it—their behavior truly goes against reason, so why do you allow yourself to respond to them emotionally and get sucked into the mix? The more irrational and off-base someone is, the easier it should be for you to remove yourself from their traps. Quit trying to beat them at their own game. Distance yourself from them emotionally, and approach your interactions with them like they’re a science project (or you’re their shrink if you prefer that analogy). You don’t need to respond to the emotional chaos—only the facts. Maintaining an emotional distance requires awareness. You can’t stop someone from pushing your buttons if you don’t recognize when it’s happening. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in situations where you’ll need to regroup and choose the best way forward. This is fine, and you shouldn’t be afraid to buy yourself some time to do so. Most people feel as though because they work or live with someone, they have no way to control the chaos. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Once you’ve identified a toxic person, you’ll begin to find their behavior more predictable and easier to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you have to put up with them and when and where you don’t. You can establish boundaries, but you’ll have to do so consciously and proactively. If you let things happen naturally, you’re bound to find yourself constantly embroiled in difficult conversations. If you set boundaries and decide when and where you’ll engage a difficult person, you can control much of the chaos. The only trick is to stick to your guns and keep boundaries in place when the person tries to cross them, which they will. For some support on exactly how to deal with toxic people - Get in touch with The Coaching Group of SwitzerlandA brilliant talk by Simon Sinek explaining how to lead Millenials in a world where it is said that they cannot be lead! Empathy is the most important leadership skill! Wise words and very true. Learning how to have empathy and be there for your team members with empathy is key to success, not only success in business but equally success in life. Watch this wonderful talk when you have the 30 minutes to do so. Comment by Suzie Doscher: Life Hack: SCIENCE BY REBECCA BERIS In 2011, the Finish Tourist Board ran a campaign that used silence as a marketing ‘product’. They sort to entice people to visit Finland and experience the beauty of this silent land. They released a series of photographs of single figures in the nature and used the slogan “Silence, Please”. A tag line was added by Simon Anholt, an international country branding consultant, “No talking, but action.” Eva Kiviranta the manager of the social media for VisitFinland.com said: “We decided, instead of saying that it’s really empty and really quiet and nobody is talking about anything here, let’s embrace it and make it a good thing”. Finland may be on to something very big. You could be seeing the very beginnings of using silence as a selling point as silence may be becoming more and more attractive. As the world around becomes increasingly loud and cluttered you may find yourself seeking out the reprieve that silent places and silence have to offer. This may be a wise move as studies are showing that silence is much more important to your brains than you might think. Regenerated brain cells may be just a matter of silence. A 2013 study on mice published in the journal Brain, Structure and Functionused differed types of noise and silence and monitored the effect the sound and silence had on the brains of the mice. The silence was intended to be the control in the study but what they found was surprising. The scientists discovered that when the mice were exposed to two hours of silence per day they developed new cells in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a region of the brain associated with memory, emotion and learning. The growth of new cells in the brain does not necessarily translate to tangible health benefits. However, in this instance, researcher Imke Kirste says that the cells appeared to become functioning neurons. “We saw that silence is really helping the new generated cells to differentiate into neurons, and integrate into the system.” In this sense silence can quite literally grow your brain. The brain is actively internalizing and evaluating information during silenceA 2001 study defined a “default mode” of brain function that showed that even when the brain was “resting” it was perpetually active internalizing and evaluating information. Follow-up research found that the default mode is also used during the process of self-reflection. In 2013, in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Joseph Moran et al. wrote, the brain’s default mode network “is observed most closely during the psychological task of reflecting on one’s personalities and characteristics (self-reflection), rather than during self-recognition, thinking of the self-concept, or thinking about self-esteem, for example.” When the brain rests it is able to integrate internal and external information into “a conscious workspace,” said Moran and colleagues. When you are not distracted by noise or goal-orientated tasks, there appears to be a quiet time that allows your conscious workspace to process things. During these periods of silence, your brain has the freedom it needs to discover its place in your internal and external world. The default mode helps you think about profound things in an imaginative way. As Herman Melville once wrote, “All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence.” Silence relieves stress and tension. It has been found that noise can have a pronounced physical effect on our brains resulting in elevated levels of stress hormones. The sound waves reach the brain as electrical signals via the ear. The body reacts to these signals even if it is sleeping. It is thought that the amygdalae (located in the temporal lobes of the brain) which is associated with memory formation and emotion is activated and this causes a release of stress hormones. If you live in a consistently noisy environment that you are likely to experience chronically elevated levels of stress hormones. A study that was published in 2002 in Psychological Science (Vol. 13, No. 9) examined the effects that the relocation of Munich’s airport had on children’s health and cognition. Gary W. Evans, a professor of human ecology at Cornell University notes that children who are exposed to noise develop a stress response that causes them to ignore the noise. What is of interest is that these children not only ignored harmful stimuli they also ignored stimuli that they should be paying attention to such as speech. “This study is among the strongest, probably the most definitive proof that noise – even at levels that do not produce any hearing damage – causes stress and is harmful to humans,” Evans says. Silence seems to have the opposite effect of the brain to noise. While noise may cause stress and tension silence releases tension in the brain and body. A study published in the journal Heart discovered that two minutes of silence can prove to be even more relaxing than listening to “relaxing” music. They based these findings of changes they noticed in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain. Silence replenishes our cognitive resources. The effect that noise pollution can have on cognitive task performance has been extensively studied. It has been found that noise harms task performance at work and school. It can also be the cause of decreased motivation and an increase in error making. The cognitive functions most strongly affected by noise are reading attention, memory and problem solving. Studies have also concluded that children exposed to households or classrooms near airplane flight paths, railways or highways have lower reading scores and are slower in their development of cognitive and language skills. But it is not all bad news. It is possible for the brain to restore its finite cognitive resources. According to the attention restoration theory when you are in an environment with lower levels of sensory input the brain can ‘recover’ some of its cognitive abilities. In silence the brain is able to let down its sensory guard and restore some of what has been ‘lost’ through excess noise. Summation: Traveling to Finland may just well be on your list of things to do. There you may find the silence you need to help your brain. Or, if Finland is a bit out of reach for now, you could simply take a quiet walk in a peaceful place in your neighborhood. This might prove to do you and your brain a world of good. Featured photo credit: Mind Body via beautifulnow.is by Rebecca Winter as posted on Linkedin
I recently had the pleasure of supporting an event that was attended by an amazing and diverse group of Leaders. During an interactive session, I heard the often repeated phrase among corporate leaders from one of the participants: “When I make decisions, I try to be logical. I like to leave emotion out of it”. Dear Leader, Did you know that it’s not possible to ‘leave emotion out’ of anything? That’s right! Neuroscience has exploded the notion that the best decisions are purely rational processes. We now know that decision-making is largely governed by emotion, and as such – the wisest leaders will update their world view. Not only is emotion always involved – science has also shown, that intuition is just as important and can even be superior to logic under the right conditions. Logic, on its own, may lead to incredibly flawed decisions. So, instead of trying to excise emotion - you would do well to strive to understand how best to master this new terrain and use the current body of scientific knowledge to your advantage. This will ensure you become the best Leader that you can be. So where do you start, you ask me? Let’s start with some basic info. Did you know that the brain in your head is not your only brain? Did you know that science has acknowledged the existence of at least three ‘brains’? Each person has a completely functioning complex, adaptive neural network in their Head (Cephalic Brain), in their Heart (Cardiac Brain), and in their Gut (Enteric Brain). These three ‘brains’ do important things that impact your thinking and your behavior. They are co-enervated by the Vagus nerve and information passes between and is shared by these ‘brains’. Each individual is taking in vast bits of information via their unconscious mind every second of every day – these varying neural networks will each have accessed different bits, processed them according to the prime functions and competencies of that neural network, and as such – each brain has a contribution to any given decision making challenge. It’s when these ‘brains’ are all functioning optimally and in coherence - and - when you actually attend to the ‘knowing’ that they provide, that you get the most transformational, generative, and simply accurate decision making. Sound Crazy? It gets even more interesting. Neurologically speaking, evidence shows that the most powerful sequence to integrate the information processing of these three brains (if you want the best results as a leader) is: Cardiac Brain (Heart) out in front, followed by the Cephalic Brain (Head), and then supported by the Enteric Brain (Gut). So, let’s focus on your Heart first. It’s really, really critical that this brain is engaged. I’m not saying you have to “be emotional”. But one of the prime functions of this brain is processing what’s important to you and your priorities (and its relationship to the emotional strength of your aspirations, dreams, desires, etc.) We do our best work when we want to do it, when we believe it is truly important, and when it aligns to our values. Why would you not appeal to someone’s sense of purpose to get the most out of their capabilities? You need the right amount of emotionally driven energy to ensure that people prioritize and act appropriately amidst competing demands. Anything less is just plain uninspiring and we all want to be inspired. Let’s focus on your Head next: This one is easy for you and for most leaders, as the Cephalic brain is the site of thinking, cognitive perception, and meaning making. And what gets this brain functionally optimally? When you have a fantastic and motivating reason to show up fully and commit 100% - e.g. when your heart is in the game first. At that point, your head brain is on fire and able to dream up options and possibilities that support this vision that is shaped by the heart brain. This process of creativity becomes fully boot-strapped by your Purpose and then innovation and ideation become easy when you don’t “take emotion out of it”. Finally, let’s close on a conversation with your Gut Brain: This brain absolutely has to be engaged to get the nitty gritty work done. Evidence demonstrates that it is the seat of core-identity, self-preservation, and - very important for you and the team you lead - Motivation. When are you most deeply motivated? As we said – when you truly are inspired by your task, your creativity and idea making are engaged in service of that mission, which then boot straps your courage and motivation appropriately in service of making your desired impact. So dear Leader, let’s not leave emotion out of it! Let’s seek to understand the complete wisdom of the body and all ways of ‘knowing’. Let’s integrate that information effectively and allow your brains to work together powerfully – for an even better, even more coherent and wiser YOU. Sincerely, Rebecca Posted on Linkedin by Bernard Marr "Effective leaders ask questions instead of giving orders." Dale Carnegie wrote that in his classic, How to Win Friends and Influence Peoplenearly 80 years ago, but the advice is as good today as it was then. The higher people rise to power, the less likely it is that others around them challenge them or tell them bad news. Bad news often get filtered and edited as messages cascade upwards and sometimes is it hard for top leaders to get a real feel for what is actually happening. One of the most powerful tools leaders can have is to ask questions and then listen to the answers. This goes especially for questions that can’t be answered with a simple one-word-answer. Questions help us to look at things in a new light, challenge the status quo, search for innovative ideas and figure out how to do things differently. The art of asking the right questions with the willingness to listen to the answers is one of the most important tool in the toolbox of top executives. How to ask better questions Often questions can feel like accusations to the person on the receiving end, making them instantly defensive. But empowering questions allows the person a safe way to share without feeling at fault. So instead of asking, “Why is this project behind schedule?” you could ask, “How do you feel about the way the project is proceeding?” and you’ll get a much different sort of answer. Some ways to make sure you’re asking empowering questions:
But perhaps the most important lesson a leader can take from this idea of questioning is to cultivate a culture that embraces questions. Perhaps you had a parent or teacher tell you at some point, “There are no stupid questions.” This is the sort of environment you want to encourage in the workplace as well. Many workplaces operate in an atmosphere of fear that those who ask questions, who probe into issues, or question authority will see negative consequences. Instead, as the leader, demonstrate that questions are welcome by asking many yourself. Encourage employees to come to you or their direct superior with any questions they may have, and train managers to approach questions with an open mind rather than defensiveness or condescension. This atmosphere encourages a culture of creativity and innovation that every business I know would like to foster at every level. As always, let me know your thoughts on the topic in the comments below. by Suzie Doscher Employees stay where they are when they are paid well, mentored, challenged, promoted, involved, appreciated, valued, on a mission, empowered, trusted. As an employee, what is your responsibility in all this?
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