Conventional wisdom has suggested that it's better not to talk about negative emotions as a way of handling them. So, we turn to alternative strategies such as holding our negative emotions in (as suggested by Anger Management and Emotional Intelligence programs), suppressing them, managing them, or sharing them with others (gossip/triangulation) just to get them out.

However, recent discoveries at neuroscience research centers are revealing how to handle negative emotions in new and healthy ways. This updated wisdom takes us down another path. Rather than suppressing or ignoring emotions, which only damages our internal healthy functioning, we need to learn to express our emotions in constructive ways. Learning how to label emotions in healthy ways has a big impact on emotions - both for the speaker and the receiver.

Careful labeling of an emotion enables us to regulate the emotion. If the emotion is "rage" or "frustration"- labeling it causes the rage and frustration to settle down. Constructive labeling enables the speaker and listener to clarify the emotional distress. It prevents the speaker from bringing a higher emotional tone to the situation and brings a more logical frame of reference to the situation. This practice regulates the brain and provides a calming effect.

Learning how to label emotions and express our discomfort enables us to quell the fear and pain centers of the brain (amygdala) and activates our reasoning and forward-thinking centers in the brain (prefrontal cortex) where our strategic and social skills reside. Our pleasure centers are more closely linked to the prefrontal cortex, so we feel better when we come up with more effective strategies for handling our emotions and creating new strategies for the future.
 
Neuro-tips

We are at a critical inflection point in the world today. In this WE-centric universe we need to acknowledge our vital role and responsibilities to each other on our journey. Our new WE-centric world is built on candor and caring, which expand positive powers in the world. In a WE-centric world, leaders understand that human beings are designed to be social. We either pull people toward us, or we push them away.
 
Rejection = pushing people away and is experienced as pain by those rejected. Compassion and caring = pulling people toward us and is experienced as pleasure by those who are accepted. You can become a game-changer and shift your culture into a "WE-centric" culture by applying these neuro-tips at work.
 
NEURO-TIP #1: Our brains are designed to be social

Our need for belonging is as or more powerful than our need for safety. When we are rejected, we experience pain in the same centers in the brain and body as when we break a leg. Being emotionally orphaned is more painful than death. When others show us love, respect, and honor us, it triggers the same centers in the brain as when we eat chocolate, have sex, or are on drugs. Understanding this dynamic will change how you lead.

QUESTION: Knowing that our brains are designed to be social, what Leadershift could you make in your life starting tomorrow to create greater positive connectivity with others at work?

NEURO-TIP #2: Appreciation reshapes our neural networks to give us a broader perspective of the world

When we feel sad, depressed, alone, fearful and disconnected from others, our mind closes down. Messages from the amygdala say "protect" and our brains are hardwired and designed to protect us from harm. Through co-creating conversations that focus on how we can tackle our challenges and difficult situations together, we activate an appreciative mindset. Our neural chemistry changes; we 'turn off' the fear-based neuro-messages from the amygdala, and 'turn on' the brain connections that feed up into the prefrontal cortex - our 'executive brain.'  We see that our 'perspective has shifted' and it's because that part of our brain - our prefrontal cortex - is now engaged.

QUESTION: Knowing that appreciation is the food that enhances the health of our brains, minds and souls, what Co-creating Conversations could you initiate tomorrow and with whom - that could shift the feel of your workplace from judging to appreciating?
 
NEURO-TIP #3: We avoid what is painful; we engage in what is pleasurable

From birth, we learn to avoid physical pain and move toward physical pleasure. We learn to protect ourselves from ego pain, building habits and patterns of behavior that protect us from feeling belittled, embarrassed, or devalued.

At work this tendency translates into avoiding a colleague who appears to compete with you when you speak up or avoiding a boss who sends you silent signals of disappointment. Pain can also come from what you anticipate-not from what is real. If you imagine that telling colleagues they are annoying you will lead to a fight or argument, just the thought of having that conversation will produce the social pain of being rejected or being in an uncomfortable conversation. We often avoid the conversation and hold the frustration inside. The feared implications of pain become so real for us that we turn to avoidance, since confronting a person with a difficult conversation may lead to yelling, rejection, or embarrassment.

QUESTION: Knowing that avoiding others to avoid perceived pain of a difficult conversation may only create greater pain down the road, what person and what conversation could you have starting tomorrow to build greater trust and candor with a colleague?

Rituals for 2010

It's another year ending and a New Year beginning. My guess is that many of us would like this year to be a 'one of a kind,' and not something we intentionally repeat. Often actions with high emotion become patterns, which become rituals even without intention.

So as 2009 ends and we step into a hopeful and exciting 2010, think about the rituals that you would like to hardwire into your organization, and work on rituals that build community and empathy.

Here are some ideas of how to think about rituals. I put this together with Barbara Biziou, one of the founding members of Creating WE Institute, who is a ritual guru.

Healthy Rituals

Healthy Rituals that build community bring individuals together, awaken the spirit of the team, and they enable individuals to build healthy thriving relationships. In this changing and uncertain time, our relationships are more important than ever before. They become our anchors in the sea of uncertainty, and help us quell the hardwired fear centers that live inside our brain. 

Power of Relationship Rituals

Our research shows that if you are having an unhealthy relationship with someone in your team, the impact on you and others will be unhealthy - and the negative influence may go on for weeks, or months and spread to others on the team. When something is wrong in a relationship, the other person may tend to 'blow you off.' However, if you do have a healthy relationship with people, they will take the time to work through the difficult conversations with you. Relationship Building Rituals are the keystones to building successful business relationships at work. Connection breeds loyalty, trust and compassion.

If we do not feel connected to others, we won't feel connected to the job; we lose motivation and become apathetic. We check out, we give up and give in, and we lose our voice, or we get angry or resistant to change.

Pay Attention to the Meta Messages 

Why and how do rituals impact the brain? Rituals communicate inclusion, acceptance, and send messages to the brain, saying: "you are part of the team." These 'relational messages' are non-verbal and could account for as much as 90% of the impact you have on others.

Notice the impact: our pupils will dilate when we are interested in something. Looking at someone directly can show him or her that we care. We tend to put higher trust in and believe more in these signals than the words spoken. For example, saying, "you did a good job" while scowling and rolling your eyes sends a mixed message causing a breakdown in communication, which leads us to distrust others.

Rituals You Can Experiment With: A Venting Ritual

When we interact with others, conflicts may arise - that's normal. Each of us has our own ideas for what we want to make happen, and when others disagree, we can get mad, emotional, angry, upset and sometimes avoid others when we can't find a way to work through the conflict.

There is an Ancient Ritual, which was called Stenia. The younger women got a chance to complain, and moan about what was bothering her, releasing anger and resentment they would have held onto. The 21st century version of this is called It's Okay to Vent Once a Day. Venting can be positive if it is done correctly. It releases stuck energy from the body and quiets the mind. Venting is the process of giving each other permission for venting time with others, rather than letting it go on forever. We can choose to vent for 7 seconds, 7 minutes, even 7 hours.

Releasing Emotions

We all have interactions with life that create emotional responses that often don't end at the time that the interaction ends. It's like striking a guitar cord. After your hand leaves the strings, the cord you've played continues to reverberate. Sour notes create music we don't like to hear, and we complain.

Here are the steps:

   1. Establish a timeframe for venting.
   2. Pick a partner that you totally trust to keep the information confidential.
   3. Choose the role you want your partner to play in order to help you "work through it."
   4. Decide if the role should be to:

• Listen.
• Listen for something specific. 
• Listen with the intention of helping creating a  new strategy for reentering the relationship or situation with a fresh point of view: to re-contract, or reconnect.
• Listen so you can give the person coaching-a new perspective on the situation.
• Listen to help you interrupt a negative cycle you may be having and transform it into a positive  cycle.

   5. Take turns so each of you have a chance to be a coach and coachee.
   6. Ask your colleague to try different roles to see which one helps you the most.

Healthy Rituals

Healthy Rituals allow individuals, teams and organizations to practice what we call "self-regulation," which doesn't mean suppression - it means 'self-expression' and that is healthy. Suppression is a form of holding in emotions - such as frustration, anger, disappointment. When we suppress, we cause a cascade of stress hormones to 'own us' - hence the term Amygdala Hijacking (Amygdala is our 'flight, fight, freeze and fear' mechanism in our older Reptilian Brain).

Creating Healthy Check Ins

Check in with people to create positive rituals that meet the needs of team members.

   1.  Ask for input from the members of the organization so people feel included in the rituals.
   2.  Be creative.
   3.  Listen non-judgmentally.
   4.  Be consistent, be mindful and be open to change.
   5.  Rituals can open the door to new behavior and pave the way for new business results.

Neuro-tips: Rituals enable us to meet the needs of connectivity, our most profound and powerful need.

Neuro-tip #1: When needs are unmet in a relationship, we become more emotional and frustrated. We become dissatisfied with the person, which over time will increase and can turn into dislike. (Shifting from friend to foe).

Neuro-tip #2: Positive mood states in one person encourage positive mood states in others. Oxytocin, a bonding hormone in men and women, is released during human contact, connecting and bonding, which reduces aggressions and increases cooperation.

Neuro-tip #3: Empathy for others is expanded through community rituals. Empathy is more than a feeling; it leads us to actions. By experiencing positive community rituals, we trigger our 'mirror-neuron' systems, which are located in the parietal lobes and prefrontal cortex. Positive Rituals expand our ability to empathize with others.

"Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs"
Pearl Strachan, author

Our stories either build or break down relationships with others. At work, we interact with colleagues and hopefully create networks and build alliances. Every day in your business, there are a million interactions that will create either a positive or a negative dynamic among people. While these interactions may seem small, they begin to add up to a larger pattern. We are either spiraling up or down. We are either building a stronger sense of I or a stronger sense of WE.
 
Building Stories - Two Scenarios
 
Storytelling, like the words we use, comes naturally to human beings. Stories are how we share what we are seeing, feeling, and sensing inside. Storytelling is, in essence, our view of reality.
 
Storytelling begins as an I-centric capability enabling us to state and often defend our point of view. In organizational life, storytelling shapes the way we view the world individually and collectively, and it can have positive or negative consequences for the health of the enterprise. Learning how and when to shift from an 'I to a WE' perspective in the stories we tell is essential to organizational health and growth.
 
We create stories based on our point of view-based on our function, our title, and our respective level in the hierarchy. "Where we sit" can determine "where we stand." Because we each see the world through our respective lenses of experience and beliefs, it's not hard to understand how colleagues engaged in different functions or operating within different environments-even within the same organization-can come to tell their stories about the enterprise from the vantage points of their own separate silos.
 
IMAGINE
 
Imagine you just joined a new company in a new position, and you have been given the responsibility for achieving success. Your predecessor was unable to pull it off, so you have some extra pressure to deliver results. Imagine you accept this responsibility and start your job tomorrow.

• What story are you telling yourself about this job, about your role, about what you want to accomplish?
• What story are you telling the new employees who will be meeting you for the first time? Your staff? Your customers?

Imagine the following situation, which I'll call Scenario 1. As you do your due diligence and make your assessment of the situation, you uncover concerns that you didn't see before. The talent seems to be light for the task ahead. You sense that the resource base is also light, and you realize that the job is bigger than you thought.
 
The business problems also seem bigger and you can't get your arms around them. You are new and believe you are supposed to be in charge of the situation. You decide not to share your fears and worries out of concern that others will think you are not capable of being a leader or are unable to handle the challenge. How will the story you hold inside, and the story you tell outside impact the future success of the business?
 
Your Story: The story you tell yourself in this scenario is that you need to be tough, and show confidence. Sharing your concerns will weaken your leadership, and asking for help or involvement will weaken your power. 
 
Their Story: The story your direct reports tell each other is that you are not interested in their perspectives and are a command and control leader. They band together and are fearful of what you do, lack trust in your assessments and resist your approach.
 
As an alternative, let's look at Scenario 2. You come aboard, do your due diligence, and find problems are more difficult than you originally anticipated. You immediately bring your direct reports into your assessment and, with open and honest communication; you create an engagement process to build positive energy and focus. You include others in discovering new and exciting ways for building the business. In Scenario 2 you are more open and transparent with colleagues, you express your desire to create sustainable partnerships, and you are willing to coach and be coached to help yourself and others grow.
 
Your Story: The story you tell yourself in this scenario is that while you were hired to be the leader, you weren't hired to have all the answers alone.
 
Their Story: The story your direct reports tell each other is that you are an incredibly inclusive leader who really cares about their perspective, wisdom and insight.
 
Telling Stories
 
We establish our power through our stories and story telling with others. Stories shape our sense of the world, our relationships, and our future. Stories communicate our aspirations, our hopes, our intentions, and our beliefs. Most importantly, stories convey the hopes and dreams we hold in our minds about the reality we believe we are living in or want to live in.
 
We tell our stories all day long. We tell them to customers, to colleagues, and to our friends and family. But the person we tell our stories to most of all is ourself.
 
Human beings have the power and ability to make up dramatic stories with any conceivable ending. Our stories can portray a future full of promise and accomplishment or one that is dark and empty. It's all stuff we first make up and then come to believe. Once we believe our story, we live it out the way we visualize it in our minds.
 
Like it or not, we are storytellers. Our main audience is us; and our life develops from the stories we create. In other words, if we wake up one morning to discover that our finances have been wiped out because we purchased a bad stock, our story could become that we are a loser and stupid, or we could tell a story of our ability to take risks and go after the Big One. Our stories influence how we see ourselves and how we approach the life challenges that come next. Stories can empower or dis-empower our life journey.
 
How are You Using Story Telling at Work?
 
Think about the power of stories to shape your future. How are you using story telling at work? Scan and monitor your stories and reflect on how you are using stories to either lift you up or push others down. Are your stories I-centric or WE-centric?
 
Are you using story telling to:

• Prove you are right?
• Build stronger relationships?
• Inspire people to step into new challenges?
• Break from the past and create the future?
• Blame others and make them bad in the eyes of others?
• Build people up and make them feel great about themselves?

Reflect on your story telling process and keep track of the themes that show up in your stories.
 
In the next issues we'll talk about the neuroscience behind story telling!

As long as we feel we are gaining, not losing, we play as WE. However, our fear is that someone will get more. The fear is always: I'll trust you and then you'll stick me in the back.

Even though most of us value being considered a partner, the ability to work together interdependently is one of our least-developed skills. This skill is so vital that, in its absence, good leaders turn bad, good executives become ineffective, and good colleagues turn into adversaries. The skill of opening up to others - and of creating the emotional space for others to open up to us - requires deep trust. Trust is the most precious of the golden threads. Without it, there can be no WE.

When we open up WE to include partners outside of our conventional thinking, we encompass stakeholders and allies beyond the traditional boundaries of the enterprise - including vendors, customers, and donors. We expand the way we work and how we generate value. After all these years, we are starting to see how shifting boundaries - throwing the net wider - is a way to achieve alliances in a new way. With the golden thread of trust, we can weave our lives together like a beautiful tapestry.

WE-centric relationships are built on trust. I trust you will not harm me, and you trust I will not harm you. When we have that level of trust we do not feel the need to duck into protective behaviors. We automatically assume a mutual support, and we move forward from there.

When we experience doubt about the good intentions of others, for whatever reason, we need to recognize the importance of having the kind of conversations that bring us back to trust. Creating the space for open dialogues enables us to reclaim trust with others.

5 Vital Questions

There are 5 vital questions that, if not addressed on an explicit level, will be working 'behind the scenes' eroding trust at every corner.

• How do I protect myself?
• Who loves me, who hates me?
• Where do I belong; where do I fit in?
• What do I need to learn to be successful?
• How do I create value with others?

As we interact with others, we are asking and answering these 5 Vital Questions with every interaction. Our human communication system with others is designed to send energy out and get an answer back. As we send out these questions in the form of direct questions or indirect messages to others, we calculate our 'coordinates with others' and navigate either with them or against them. When we are seeking to understand where we stand with others, we are listening, I-centrically. Once we get these questions answered we energetically shift into a "WE-centric" relationship and trust will emerges.

Co-creating a Book is Like Giving Birth!
 
The 5 Big Questions are key to the health of a relationship, team and organization. These fundamental questions are what propelled a team of us - 18 coaches, consultants, and practitioners at the Creating WE Institute - to do an experiment in co-creation and trust building. We decided to work on writing a book together! 

42 Rules Team

When we started our co-creating conversations, we didn't know what each other was thinking about - we trusted we would find a way to build a conversational space for our best ideas to emerge - and we did.

We didn't know what we would do if we had conflicting ideas that would conflict, or too many ideas. We trusted we would find a way to work through it, and we did.

We didn't know if our ideas were strong enough of big enough, yet as we listened to each other's ideas, and became inspired by what others had to say - we did.

On September 17th, "42 Rules for Creating WE" was one of the fastest-selling books on Amazon, having achieved sales that brought its rank to #1 in the Leadership, Management, Motivation, and Organizational Behavior categories, and the #2 fastest-selling book in any category on that day.

Why did this book strike such a cord?  Read the press release...

Building Trust Takes Commitment

Too often, we see management and employees as separate. In reality, both are part of a larger system of colleagues working together to create positive business results. The challenge for you as a leader and as a colleague is to understand how to create "mutual trust" through the way you communicate with colleagues every day.

Our ability to communicate openly, with candor and caring, determines the quality of the connectivity between us as individuals, teams, or larger organizational units. While we do not always talk about our fears of speaking up candidly, we feel it. Knowing where we stand is vital to our success, and when we feel we are on the outs, it negatively impacts our performance. We start acting strangely-we protect, we hide, we defend-all because we feel we are being rejected.

Creating the space for open and non-judgmental conversions is a WE-centric skill. As we have conversations and listen, we are able to sort out what affects our personal future and what does not. The Amygdala in our brain senses threats and tries to prevent them from harming us. It senses where we are in the pecking order, who is bigger, who is more powerful, and who is a friend or foe. This kind of subconscious listening is fundamentally I-centric by nature.

Listening I-centrically

Listening I-centrically causes us to be apprehensive in our conversations with others and cautious about their intentions and motivations. One of our least-developed skills is the ability to confront another person and have a difficult conversation. As a consequence of our fear of confrontation, we reactively take on the posture of being defensive when we sense we are facing an enemy.

Even thinking of the word "confrontation" causes our blood to boil, or our fears to rise. The word is fraught with meanings that keep us at a distance from others. The dictionary defines confrontation as "to stand over or against in a role of adversary or enemy." While the word also means "to meet or to face someone; to encounter another person," we often project onto the word all of the bad experiences we have had when we face others. Over time the word itself has become tinged with fear and apprehension.

When we think of a "confrontation" or of having a "difficult conversation" with an associate,  it takes many of us to the edge of our comfort zone, and we will do everything imaginable to avoid it.

Having a difficult conversation scares many of us into thinking we will lose a friendship, and so we avoid confronting the truth. When we feel frustrated or angry with someone who has stood in the way of our success or undermined us and caused us to lose face, at least from our point of view, we get so upset we just can't find the words to express ourselves. We end up angry and express our most reptilian behaviors (Our Amygdala Response which is hardwired as fight, flight or freeze). Worse than that, we hold all our feelings inside until we boil up and over with frustration, and then we blast that person.

How We Connect

Confronting others honestly requires that we all share mutually in building relationships, with all parties feeling the power of the exchange; these are power-with relationships. When we feel others want to own us or take our power away, a power-over relationship, we fear harm and cannot open up with honesty. If we think of our conversations as a power-over experience, it's impossible to be comfortable confronting others honestly.

Additionally, when confronting another person brings up potentially volatile emotions, we move with caution and keep our real feelings close to our chest. In the most extreme cases, when in the midst of situations that stir up highly charged emotional content, most of the tension and drama are actually taking place in our own minds. We make up our "story", and this is how we see the world. It is our own personal drama of the confrontation, and our interpretation of our experience. Much of our frustration is coming from the words we use to tell this story to ourselves and to others.

Behind the Scenes

Behind the scenes is the reality of the confrontation challenge:

• How do we communicate with each other when we feel we are being excluded?
• How do we deal with others in a way that builds relationships rather than erodes them?
• How do we masterfully keep ourselves in a state of openness, with our assumptions and inferences in check?

Co-creating Conversations

• Think about your workplace.
• Think about your team.
• What Co-creating Conversations can you introduce to create a stronger WE-centric workplace?

Judith E. Glaser is the Author of two best selling business books:

Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking & Build a Healthy Thriving Organization - winner of the Bronze Award in the Leadership Category of the 2008 Axiom Business Book Awards, and The DNA of Leadership; and the DVD and Workshop titled The Leadership Secret of Gregory Goose
Contact: 212-307-4386

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We interact energetically with others. We either move towards (and with) others, or we move against them. When we believe others are our adversaries, we move against them. Action - reaction, tit-for-tat, can transform them into adversaries.

Anthropologists and biologists believe we have a tit-for-tat instinct hardwired into our DNA. In fact, this instinct is evolutionary and is found in all mammals. When someone comes at us 'mammals' in anger, this action fires fear signals in our Amygdala - a tiny organ found in the lower part of our Limbic Brain - and we move into our protection mode.

As soon as we see and feel the signals that someone is on the attack, we respond instinctively to protect ourselves. Some people fight back and match anger with anger, and a fight may ensue. Others may flee if they feel the anger and aggression will lead to danger, and they run away so they will not 'be eaten alive'. Others will freeze, and hope we change our minds and move on to more enticing prey.

This dance of engagement drives all of human behavior. Psychiatrist Stuart Brown gave an incredible presentation that puts these interaction dynamics in context for us. Brown describes a meeting between an enormous 1,200-pound male Polar Bear and a female Husky. The scene is the moment of contact between the two -- the Polar Bear and Husky -- on the Hudson Bay, North of Churchill, Manitoba.

In October and November, there is no ice on the bay, and the polar bear is in pursuit of food. On the other side of the polar bear's predatory gaze is the female Husky starring back.

Then something unusual happens. Under normal circumstances, the Polar Bear's generally fixed, rigid and stereotypical behavior ends up with its making a meal of the Husky. However, this time the Husky returns the gaze with a bow and a wagging tail. The polar bear stands in front of the Husky, no claws and no fangs, and they begin an incredible ballet, a ballet of nature, with two animals in an altered state -- a state of play.

This interaction was just as much part of nature as the usual battle to the death. All because of the way the Husky acted.

What trumps what in nature? We assume power-over others gets us our way. What is our way anyway?  The dance in nature we witnessed in the story of the Husky and Polar Bear is a perfect example of how human beings and all other animals communicate. We send energetic signals all the time. We test each other - as the Husky did the Bear, and we see what comes back. Our signals work like radio signals saying: "where are you" and "what do you want?"

Our signaling system - what we send, and what we receive - alerts us to the nature of our relationship with others. We are either 'moving with others, moving against others or move away from others. Each signal generates a reaction that is hardwired in nature as the fight-or-flight syndrome.

In our brains, we are translating these signals into labels about our power relationship to others. We are either in a power-over or a power-with other's mode of interaction. The Husky's signals to play - power-with - trumped the Polar Bear's signals to dominate - power-over - a trump that is one of nature's big surprises.

The antidote to power-over behaviors at work is not to give back power. Rather than demanding others to step into a power-fight, instead we can request that others move into a power-with dance with us.

Reflections & Actions to Experiment With:

• Remember you have the ability to trump an adversarial offer. You can be the game changer.
• Make requests not demands.
• By moving towards and with others, with the intention of creating something wonderful - our adult form of play - we do create something wonderful! Try it!
• Our beliefs drive our intentions, our intentions drive our actions, and our actions drive the results that we achieve with others.

Judith E. Glaser is the Author of two best selling business books:

Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking & Build a Healthy Thriving Organization - winner of the Bronze Award in the Leadership Category of the 2008 Axiom Business Book Awards, and The DNA of Leadership; and the DVD and Workshop titled The Leadership Secret of Gregory Goose
Contact: 212-307-4386

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Emotions WE Share in Common

Even young children know what feelings are - maybe even better than adults do. They watch our faces; scan for acceptance, anger, and excitement and then they respond.

• Happy means: getting things we want, need and like.
• Sadness means: taking away things we want, need and like.

Happy and sad are universal emotional responses, which are instinctual - they are hardwired into our cells. I even believe many animals have these responses. I call these emotional responses "Vital Instincts. "

Both sad and happy are emotions everyone experiences. No one has to teach us these emotions. We may differ on what makes us happy or sad.  However we both experience these emotions.

I Want Happy Back ...

When my grandson, Gideon, was 3 and a half, he ran across the living room to get to a couch he wanted to play on. You could see the look on his face as he scooted across the room. He was in pure ecstasy envisioning how he was going to tumble into the huge fluffy cushions on the sofa and jump around on the fluffy pillows.

On the way, he fell and the look of joy and happiness disappeared and was replaced by tears and sadness. Becky, my daughter saw the fall and went to help him get up and wipe his tears. She was all prepared to hug him and kiss him and make him feel better.

"Are you okay"? She asked as she reached out to comfort him. Now whimpering a bit Gideon was looking like he was pulling himself together. Becky looked him in the eyes again and said, "Are you okay?" Gideon wiped his eyes and said, "I'm okay, I'm okay. I just want 'happy back."

Happy Biochemistry

We all know when 'happy disappears' and we all know when happy is back. Happy makes us feel really good about the world, about ourselves, about the future. Happy is optimistic, while sad is pessimistic. Every culture has a happy and a sad.

Gideon reminded me of the simple yet so important nature of life. When we are happy we experience life as an unfolding, positive story in our life. Our biochemistry is 'happy' - our fear levels are down and our ability to reach out to others in our world an experiment goes up. Our interactions with others are positive and engaging - happy people can shift the chemistry in a room, lifting spirits and energy in seconds.

Heart Meter

At Benchmark, our Creating WE Institute has been researching 'happy and sad' as part of our study of the Neuroscience of WE and we are working with biofeedback tools that can measure 'happy' and 'sad' through the way our hearts beat. 

Last week I visited my daughter and her family. Truth be told, my 'stress' was high, and I was having trouble finding 'happy.'

I got an idea. I thought, "What if I show Gideon how to use the tools - might we both have fun 'finding happy together.'  Lo and behold something miraculous happened.

The first day, Gideon could move from 'red' to 'green' quite quickly - in fact, much faster than I did. 

As we worked together he told me, "If you try too hard, you can't bring happy back!" Well, he was right. My stress and my trying too hard had become a hardwired pattern that I had not seen. The harder I tried, the redder the light became. The more I learned how to shift from my head to my heart, the more a green glow appeared.

Gideon fell in love with the process. The next morning he came into the room where I was working and sat next to me. He connected the clip to my ear and turned it on. He put his little arm around my shoulder and snuggled next to me every so sweetly and said, "Mama Judy, let's bring happy back!"

Wisdom from the Heart  

Gideon taught me happy is something that I can use for the rest of my life...  and luckily he's learning early. He also told me when you 'try too hard' and 'focus too much' you can't find Happy. He also reminded me the importance of snuggling and cuddling - happy is more than a solo event ...

Some of us have worked in organizations where telling others what to do is the norm. Maybe you've grown up in a family where parents lectured you about what is right and wrong, and you've brought that skill into work.
 
Lecturing takes many forms. In some organizations, we go to meetings where people give presentations using PowerPoint. We are expected to 'talk' our stories so others know what is on our minds or what is important. We give business updates to one another to keep one another informed. Lectures, and all the variations can become the norm. Even email and Blackberry - if out of balance with real talk, can become a form of lecturing at others.

Some telling is normal, but too much telling becomes hyper-lecturing making listeners tune out. Moreover, to compound the situation, we think that because we have 'told someone what to do' they get it the way we intended it, so we move on to the next point we want to make rather than checking back for understanding.

Telling has a place in communicating, yet this pattern can turn off and disengage our brains, our relationships and our culture from reality. It doesn't stop with the two people who are interacting. The message communicates "my way or the highway" or "do as I say," or even "status quo" which can ripple throughout a team, and organization and become the cultural norm.

Tone Deaf and Blind

The consequence of this pattern is that people stop really listening to one another. They become so focused on telling what is on their minds, that they become tone deaf to the cues and clues that others are sending back about the discussions on the table. The important connection between the two people becomes broken, and they lose their natural syncing, rapport and more so - their empathy for one another.

One-way conversations have associated neurochemistries that actually reinforce the talking-at pattern. It feels great to be self-expressed, and the more we do it the more we want to do it. Talking at others feels good. There is a feedback loop to pleasure centers in the brain, increasing our appetite, and we want more.

Yet we know from our research that every 12-18 seconds listeners stop listening. Their brains need to take a break and digest. When they are being talked at non-stop, their brains need to integrate and make sense of what is being said. Consequently they tune-out and process the information they have heard.

Lecturing has its side effects. If you are a leader and want to develop your colleague's abilities, capabilities, and performance, you need to know that lecturing rarely develops another's ability to perform better. Lecturing is a monologue, a one-way conversation.

More often than not, the lecturer does not notice that they have left the listener behind. They are so engrossed in speaking that they do not realize the listener is off on their own mental journey. One-way conversations tire the brain. We tune out and turn off. Two-way conversations allow the brain to breathe and process at the same time.

Lecturing Our Way to Success

Awareness of the lecturing pattern can have a dramatic impact on your life. Ask yourself the following questions and when you find the answers, create your own action plan for change. Do your experiments every day.

Questions to Reflect On:

• What are the communication patterns you are establishing with others?
• Which are habits you are not aware of?
• What is the impact of these patterns on your relationships?
• Who has been open with you and told you that you were not communicating?
• How did you respond to these courageous people?
• Are you open to listening? Are you open to feedback?
• Are you inviting people to share feedback with you?

Communication Habit Patterns are the spine of a culture. We often don't see them - yet they are the fabric that holds us together. For more insights into Habit Patterns, read Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to WE-Thinking and Build a Healthy Thriving Organization.

Looking back, we can all see what shaped our lives. Was it our parents, our teachers, or our best friends? Was it the good experiences, or the bad? Was
it our genes or fate? Was it the labels or the stories about us, or both?

Our stories are important. The labels we use to describe ourselves - make a difference. How we combine our labels into our stories - make a difference.

Understanding how labels and stories shape our identity is vital to our growth and development.

Here's a story (my story) ... See how this process works....

Growing up, I loved to make things. I did a lot of crafts in school, and soon discovered I liked to knit and crochet. My teachers didn't like it, because by the time I was in junior high (a/k/a middle school), I would bring my knitting to school and do it in class. One year I made a sweater a week. That was the first time I learned I had such high achievement needs.

At home I started to make clothes. Not just make them. Design them. I'd buy a pattern and fabric, and then work with the basic patterns to transform them into something different and much more wonderful than what appeared on the pattern package. This is where I learned to design and to create wonderful things that didn't exist before. I loved my crafts and I loved my designing, and knew it was a part of who I was and who I would become.

But not everyone saw it my way. My parents didn't understand my joy and my passion for designing. They used to say that when I worked in my room for hours at a time I was 'escaping reality' and was 'living in a fantasy world.' They saw this as bad and wrong, and even when I wore my beautiful designs, I knew they still labeled me as 'escaping reality'.

Over time, I assumed my role in the family. I was the rebel and outcast. I didn't feel appreciated for what I was or who I was becoming. In my reaction to the labels, I challenged authority - especially parental authority - learning more about ways one child could get punished than most would ever want to know. Now I see, looking back, why I have such a need to understand positive psychology, and appreciative inquiry. The good can come from the bad.

Things That Stick

Being labeled an outcast, or a problem child sticks really hard, as all pejorative labels do. When parents - or teachers - or bosses label us judgmentally, negatively, or harshly it sticks. It doesn't roll off our backs so easily. Negative labels actually create the same reaction in the brain as when we break a leg, except social pain stays longer, and takes longer to go away. It stays around and we ruminate on it, we build stories around it, and others build stories around it. The gossip mills are filled with larger than life stories that started with one person labeling another person harshly.

Until I was 16, I was the outcast and rebel. I got into lots of trouble, and got punished regularly. I didn't see my future as quite rosy or bright. While I wanted to be a designer, or an author or artist (had I the talent), my parents saw my future as schoolteacher or mother, summers off, raise the kids, stay home. Being an artist or designer was like being a beatnik or bum.

Then it all changed...

One Friday night, my dad, who was a dentist, brought home a patient to join us for Friday night dinner. This patient was special. It turns out, she was Claude Reins wife, the wife of a famous actor; but she didn't treat us different, and we didn't treat her differently. We just enjoyed her enjoying us.

To tell the truth, that dinner was more than a dinner; not at all because she was famous. It was the conversation we had that night. I still remember where I sat, and what she said.

"Judy, what are you going to do after graduation?" She asked. My eyes opened wide, my heart started to beat. It was the horrible question that everyone asked me, that I didn't yet know how to answer. I knew what I liked, and knew what I loved, but these things were labeled bad.

"I'm not sure yet," I told her. "I'll figure it out." Thinking I could move the conversation over to something else, I said, "Could someone pass the potatoes." "Well, what do you like to do, she asked?" A question I didn't expect. "Well," I said quietly, "I love to design clothes." "And where do you do this designing," she asked.

I looked from side to side to see if my parents were frowning with dismay. Seeing that their glares were a bit more neutral than usual, I told her that I had a room upstairs where I did my work. "Can you show me?" she asked.

Before I realized it, we were climbing the stairs to my special room. I had half finished dresses hanging from the closet doors, always left ajar. This day I had more works in progress laying on the floor and others on the small sitting lounge.

My sewing machine was active with a skirt in progress, things were all around, and she could see it first hand... This was my joy.

"Wow!" She said, "This is amazing. You are truly a designer, young lady. Show me each one at a time. I am quite impressed."

I don't remember much more of our conversation, or how long it lasted. What I do remember is coming down the stairs feeling different, feeling like I was walking on a cloud, feeling so warm and good inside.

"Your daughter is a fashion designer," she said. "You should be so proud of her! I would be."

That was when everything changed. For the first time, the negative label just fell on the floor, like dropping a frock, and I could step into another dress that made me beautiful - mostly in my own eyes.

"You should send her to Toby Coburn School of Fashion Design," she blurted out to my parents. It's the best in the city." I saw my parents blank stares back at her. They either didn't know what she was talking about - or were shocked that she adorned me with such positive praise. The conversation went on; I don't remember much more after that, except everything changed.

Labels - How do they help you see? What do they help you see?

What are the labels we use with each other - with our friends, with our colleagues, or with our family? How do we see each other - define each other - think of each other? Labels give definition to our relationships. They set into place the parameters, of how we will engage - or not engage. They create blind spots - true blind spots - and cause us to look for more proof that our labels are right.

• What labels do you need to examine at work?
• What labels need changing?
• What would happen if you changed a label - reversed a label - or took a label away all together?

Try it at work! Try it at home! Do your experiment, and then let me know what happens!

The more we see each other in positive terms, the more we enable each person to step into their most positive self. The more we see each other through negativity, the more we feel unfairly judged and feel resentful. Resentment breeds resentment and turns into toxic places to work.

Use the labels in your life to create a palette of colors in the world you want to live in. Design your world. Create your world...and make it the best you can!

When we allow our uniqueness to emerge and not be afraid of our own voice, and our own special talents, we emerge as teachers and as wisdom-givers to everyone we know.

Growing up in my family, I felt like a nobody, not a somebody. You may have too!

In our family, we were three children - whose names all began with a "J." My parents thought it was cute, 'the three J's'. As we learned over time, our collective name became a way for our parents not to have to deal with the challenge of individuality, conflict, and differences. They didn't have to deal with who got the most, or the least, who was the best or the worst. When you label your three kids as one, all the surface conflicts disappear, and life is perfect!

Striving for Perfection

So in our family, striving for perfect became our mantra. We were the perfect kids, the perfect home, and the perfect family. On the outside we were the loving family that everyone admired. We dressed well, expressed ourselves well, and did well in school. We were nice and agreeable, and were role models for others. On the outside we were perfect - on the inside we were children trying to become some-bodies and finding it very difficult to figure out how. The rewards for being the same were much bigger than those for being different.

Being Different
So I rebelled. When my parents said white, I said black. When they said don't smoke until you are 18, I started smoking at 14 and quit at 18. Wherever there was a rule, I felt I had to break it. When your parents have the idea that consensus is always good, and means agreement and questioning authority is all bad - the underlying meta-messages they are sending to their children are that being different is not good, having a different perspective is not allowed and if you disagree with someone you lose their love.   

Integrity
Being perfect and same on the outside and different on the inside gets lonely. At the age of 14, I started writing my first book. It was called "No Man is an I-Land" - and I was going to write my way into being the somebody I wanted to be. But at 14 I only had 1½ pages of ideas inside of me to put down on paper - I was just starting my lifelong journey of personal awareness, leadership and discovery - and had a dream and desire but little know-how for expressing it.

Wisdom for the Road
So I've spent my whole life trying to understand what it means to be a somebody, and how to enable each somebody to thrive in a world of amazing and incredible other some-bodies - and to feel good about being different and special. The wisdom behind this relates to every part of who we are as human beings - from our cells all the way up to the systems and communities we live in.

What I have found, and am still finding, this precious learning is the vital wisdom behind life itself - when we allow our somebody to emerge and not be afraid of our own voice, and our own special talents, we emerge as teachers and as wisdom-givers to everyone we know. When we all learn to hold this wisdom in our hearts, and minds and conversations - we become the best some-bodies we can ever be - and we do it together.  

Practices for the Workplace

1. Look for the uniqueness in every employee, friend, colleague or family member.
2. Pay attention to how each person has a unique fingerprint, footprint and mark - their own special DNA.
3. Look for opportunities to create conversations with employees about their aspirations - aspire means to breathe - and when we aspire with others, we breathe life into our dreams.
4. Ask employees "what do you think?"
5. Perceive and acknowledge their unique perspectives as different ways of seeing the world, not as "wrong ways."
6. View conflicts as opportunities for expand the conversation to a bigger frame of reference.
7. Listen non-judgmentally.