Harmonics

Hearing that the Aintree Grand National takes place this weekend, I was reminded of this piece which I wrote a little over two years ago.  At the time I had just finished a 3000 piece jigsaw and it was the same week AP McCoy retired from racing. It seems appropriate to share this article again as the message is still very relevant today – particularly for Senior Executives on an upwards career path or facing transition…

I had never completed a jigsaw as big as this before. It was the picture that grabbed my attention. It was the 7 wonders of the world. I thought WOW that would be really great to complete some time. Well that time came over Christmas when I thought I could potter away at it in my own time while I am off work.

I used to love jigsaws when I was younger and said it would be fun to do something different. We have an open space upstairs and this became my playroom for my jigsaw. I started it on December 28th and since then and now it’s been part of my life, a place to go to chill and forget about the rest of the world, my part time job! On February 8th I eventually got it knocked out.

Over the past few months, both my parents have been in hospital and it has been a particularly stressful time for my sister and I building hospital runs and home care trips into our daily routines. Doing the jigsaw became my chill zone even if it was stressful at times when progress seemed painfully slow.

It’s interesting what goes through your mind doing a jigsaw. For me it was a test. You see, I’m the best at starting something, great with new ideas and getting stuff off the ground, but my completion rates are not great. I’m not a completer finisher, so finishing this seemed like a new challenge. Finishing gives you such a high on one level and an anti-climax on another level. Almost straight away after finishing I started thinking “what will I do now?”  Do I really want to open another box of 3,000 pieces and have to start again? Or will I go for a bigger test of 5,000 pieces and really test myself to the limit. Or will I step back down to my 500 pieces. Sure wouldn’t that be grand, my wife said to me rather than staying up half the night trying to complete the 3,000 pieces.

As I put my final pieces in the jigsaw, I heard Sky in the background on TV; they were speaking about the announcement of the retirement of the world’s greatest jockey. On February 8^th, AP and I had something in common; we are finishing on a high.  He won the Hennessy Gold Cup in Leopardstown for the first time and I finished my 3000 piece jigsaw for the first time. His achievement has not come without a cost as he has broken over 700 bones in his riding career, my meagre achievement a lot less painful!

We seek more

Both AP and I have come to the end but we are not fully satisfied. We seek more. AP is driven; he is the best in the world at what he does. He knows if he has to start something new again, he will have to start right back with the 3000 pieces in the box and has no idea what he wants the picture on the box to look like. From what we know of AP, he will want the largest jigsaw possible to complete. 3,5,10, maybe there is a 100,000 piece jigsaw for him to have a go at!

Many people reach a high like AP in their careers and find they can’t ever repeat it. They were at their best and happiest doing what they did and then they can’t, for whatever reason, do it anymore. Professional sports people stand out because their retirement often comes at such a young age, usually in their 30’s. They were once driven to achieve, pushed themselves to the limit, but after stepping down they just can’t get that buzz anywhere else. One of my clients said to me recently, “John, your job is to get me off the drug of more, I’m addicted. I can’t stop this insatiable drive to go for more and more!”

It’s great to find what you love to do and it is possible to replace it with something more or less, but it does take time to stand back and not rush it. You may want to look back at all the great days, all the stand out winning days you had, but that’s the past and we need to learn to look back fondly but never wantingly.

When I got to the end of my 3,000 piece jigsaw, I found I had a missing piece. One missing piece! I had 2,999 pieces but one piece got0 away. I searched high and low under couches and carpets but no sign. I could have decided that it was a disaster, after all my hard work that one missing piece could ruin it all! But no, I just have to accept this will always be a missing piece, the one that got away. I’m sure if you asked AP have you any regrets, he will probably speak about all the close races he nearly and should have won – even though he has ridden over 4,000 winners.

Just accept it and move on

The important thing is never to let the missing pieces take over your life. Just accept it and move on. Life isn’t perfect. Careers aren’t perfect. Just enjoy building the picture you want to build and take the learning that life brings along the way. Accept that change will always bring new challenges and opportunities.

For AP, he has started a new career in the media as a racing pundit. He has admitted he would love to go back and ride again to test himself on the racetrack once more. That’s his drug of more – missing the drug of racing and saddling up every day. While he has replaced it with punditry, I get the sense this isn’t enough for him. In my opinion, he will need to replace it in time with something more personally rewarding to fill the void. This takes patience and time, just like building a jigsaw, to create a new career picture that will intrinsically meet your needs. Others will gladly suggest what they think is right for you in your career future but AP and others who change careers need a new burning ambition. This burning ambition video by Peter Fuda on how to approach change is a helpful link in creating change from within.

Fear is not a sustainable energy source

In an interview some time ago, AP said the fear of failure had driven him on for years. Fear is a powerful motivating fuel but a fuel that eventually burns you out.  Fear is not a sustainable energy source over the course of a lifetime. I am currently coaching a Senior Business Leader and they work crazy hours because of a life message from their mother to “work hard”. This served him well in his earlier years, but he is now nearing 50 and still driving on with the foot to the floor. Coming from very little, his life belief is that he has to prove to his parents that he is now a success. He doesn’t have a degree and fears he will be found out at some stage in his career, yet he hasn’t made the time to go back and study part time. What he needs, more than a degree, is to change his leadership style from doing to leading, from busyness to creating boundaries and saying ‘No’.

For AP, and for all of us, the missing piece is not riding more winners, chasing the next promotion, working longer hours, driving for more sales, building bigger businesses or bigger jigsaws, it is finding another piece altogether, peace within ourselves that we are OK. That we don’t have to be, do or have anything more than anyone else to prove this. Taking the time to listen to our inner voice of wisdom rather than taking too much notice of what the commentators and amateur life pundits have to say.

The missing piece is that we are all OK; we just need to take the time to find that inner missing peace within ourselves.

A Thought for Leaders on National Workplace Wellness Day – 31 March 2017

In a previous post I spoke about how the barriers between work and life have been essentially eliminated, with many studies recognising this shift in the ‘new world of work’.  Where highly competent and committed people struggle to cope – visibly over stretched, over committed, overwhelmed, burned out, exhausted, cynical and feeling totally ineffective, wondering how did it all go so terribly wrong?

We can’t assume that leaders are impervious to such challenges just because they are high achievers. In the words of the singer Rag’n’Bone Man, they are ‘only human after all’ …  (by the way its a great song, if you haven’t heard it check it out).

 A number of years ago I attended a workshop delivered by the Resilience Institute, it was part of a conference I was attending and it was the highlight of the conference for me, as I was looking to really understand individual resilience in an organisational context.

What grabbed my interest most of all was the way the Resilience Institute constructed a credible linkage between organisational and individual resilience. At the meeting, they shared the image below which I think delivers a very powerful message in a simple way.  The individual spiral upward towards meaning and flow and its downward trajectory towards distress and depression is reflected and mirrored in the organisational spiral upward towards rigorous application and world class performance and its downward trajectory towards disengagement, high staff turnover and organisational failure.

 

I’d encourage you to consult their site www.resiliencei.com to read their publication Global Resilience Diagnostic Report for 2016; it’s an insightful update on this important subject.

While individual resilience is considered a personality trait, it can be cultivated.  Importantly, groups and organizations can also cultivate a “culture of resilience” which can serve as a form of “psychological immunity” from the effects of challenge and setback.

What is evident in all this is the crucial role leader’s play in role-modeling resilience to influence both individual and organisational resilience.

If the individual experience of overwhelm is to erode your overall sense of wellbeing, distort your thinking, undermine your confidence and drain your energy, then just imagine what a ripple effect overwhelm might have within an organisation where the individual impacted holds a people manager or leadership role. Because when their resilience is low, it can have a far reaching impact not only on work culture but also on overall business performance where:

 

•  Bounce is replaced by inflexibility, anxiety around change and an inability to cope
•  Courage is replaced by fear, doubt and an inability to move forward
•  Creativity is replaced by a struggle with uncertainty and playing it safe
•  Connection is replaced by withdrawal, isolation and loneliness

 

The crucial role of leadership in role modeling resilience is also highlighted in a HBR article Building a Resilient Organizational Culture (2011). The authors state that a culture of organizational resilience is built largely upon what they refer to as “resilient leadership”. They claim that a small number of highly credible individuals who “model” the behaviors associated with resilience have the ability to change an entire culture of an organization as others replicate the resilient characteristics that they have observed.

 It is imperative, therefore, to support people managers and leaders in cultivating “resilient leadership” to ensure people flourish and organisations thrive.

Deloitte University Press has reported extensively on Global Human Capital Trends over the past five years. Their work has ‘provided a depth of understanding of the challenges facing business leaders in a dramatically changing digital, economic, demographic, and social landscape. In an age of disruption, business leaders are being pressed to rewrite the rules for how they organize, recruit, develop, manage, and engage the 21st-century workforce’.

In one of their earlier reports (2014), they described the plight of the  ‘the overwhelmed employee’ where they recognised that an explosion of information is overwhelming workers, while smartphones, tablets, and other devices keep employees tethered to their jobs leaving them constantly ‘on’. They found that while nearly every company sees ‘overwhelm’ as a challenge to individual productivity and overall performance, they struggles to handle it. According to the survey, executives around the world are sounding the alarm, with respondents recognising the urgent need to address the challenge but also recognise that they do not feel equipped to do so.

Fast-forward to their 2016 report where they found that organisational evolution in itself is too slow to address the pace of change and the key findings is that organisations need to change faster ‘by design’.

Pause for a moment to consider how high performing individuals, teams and organisations excel at designing, developing and delivering complex solutions to technical and process issues.

Then just imagine what could be achieved if the best of their innovative capability was channeled into promoting individual and organisational resilience?

More recently in Delotte’s 2017 report, they provided a model which they refer to as ‘a starting point to address a variety of issues including- meaningful work, the purpose of the organization, employee talent development and growth, rewards and wellness, the work environment, fairness and inclusion, and authenticity among management and leadership’.

Significantly, in the model they identified a ‘Humanistic Workplace’ as a core element of the positive work environment.  Organisational language can be heavy on jargon, so it is refreshing to see the term ‘humanistic workplace’ used to describe the essence of the desired employee experience. It is a term that we can all easily understand because of our shared experience of what it is to be human and yet each of us can recognise the individuality of that experience. Similarily, role modeling resilience has at its core a sharing of human endeavor, which at the same time is uniquely personal and individual and that is precisely why it is so powerful.

 

If you are a leader or a people manager, my invitation to you as we mark National Workplace Wellness Day (31 March 2017) is to commit to proactively cultivating your own resilience, self-awareness, self-mastery and self-care. By safeguarding your own wellbeing and vitality, you can positively influence your organisational culture and act as a credible role model for a humanistic workplace where people feel valued, supported, respected, trusted, accepted and included.

 

Deirdre McLoughlin is a coaching associate with Harmonics specialising in Organisational Development, Executive Coaching and Psychotherapy.  

Harmonics specialises in helping organisations plan for change, manage change and support their people through change.  To learn more visit www.harmonics.ie or contact us on 01 8942616, 061 336136 or 021 7319604 or email info@harmonics.ie

 

Follow Harmonics on LINKEDIN and keep up to date with trends in the World of Work

 

References

•  Global Resilience Diagnostic Report – Resilience – Institutehttp://resiliencei.com/2016/12/global-resilience-diagnostic-report/

•  Building a Resilient Organizational Culture – https://hbr.org/2011/06/building-a-resilient-organizat

• 2017 Global Human Capital Trends | Deloitte | Human capital trends – https://www2.deloitte.com/be/en/pages/human-capital/articles/introduction-human-capital-trends.html 

‘Do you need a prod? Do you need a little darkness to get you going?’

These insightful words by poet Mary Oliver are an invitation to us all to consider our own vitality and wellbeing.

The barriers between work and life have been all but eliminated, with many studies recognising this shift in the ‘new world of work’.  Where highly competent and committed people struggle to cope – visibly over stretched, over committed, overwhelmed, burned out, exhausted, cynical and feeling totally ineffective, wondering how did it all go so terribly wrong?

So what’s going on?

In a recent Deloitte University Press article The New Organization – Different by Design, Feb 29, 2016, Josh Bersin et al.  ‘describe a series of 4 key drivers coming together to create disruptive change’ in today’s world of work.

• Demographic upheavals have made the work force both younger and older
• Digital technology is now everywhere, disrupting business models and radically changing the workplace and the way work is done.
• The Rate of Change has accelerated. The rate of technology development has significantly increased the pace of change in business as a whole, requiring organizations to be more agile.
• A new social contract is developing between companies and workers, driving major changes in the employer-employee relationship.

Check it out for yourself  …

Take a good look at how you and your organisation are responding to these drivers.

Can you identify the overstretched, over committed and overwhelmed amongst you?

People don’t readily talk about being overwhelmed, because to do so is perceived as too risky a conversation to have, even with oneself.  Yet the feelings don’t just go away simply because you bury or ignore them. The experience of overwhelm can significantly drain your energy, distort your thinking, undermine your confidence and erode your overall sense of wellbeing.

This is particularly hard to deal with if your identity is tied to high achievement and high performance, delivered consistently over many years.

In the interest of cultivating your own wellbeing, my invitation to you is to reflect on the statements below, and in the words of Mary Oliver consider if recognising your own ‘little darkness’ is just what you need right now to ‘get you going’ again

Take time to consider … …

• are you placing excessive expectations on yourself ?
• are you working hard but feeling you’re not getting anywhere ?
• do you fear you have lost your edge, lacking in confidence ?
• do you see results for the huge effort you are putting in ?
• do you feel ‘all over the place’ when normally you are really focused?
• do you feel others are critical of your performance ?
• do you feel misunderstood and unsupported ?
• is there no end in sight to ever increasing demands ?
• do you feel resentment, perhaps even a simmering sense of rage, inside ?
• do you have angry or aggressive outbursts ?
• do you feel disengaged and increasingly cynical ?
• are you more inclined to withdraw, withhold, isolate yourself ?
• have you lost connection with your friends ?
• have  you lost connection with your sense of fun?
• when did you laugh out loud last?
• do you find yourself descending into cynicism and blame?
• are you feeling overly negative, despairing that things can ever improve?
• do you wonder are you beginning to lose belief in your self ?
• do you wonder if there is more to life?
• are you drinking a bit too much just to relax in the evenings or weekends?
• are you feeling exhausted all the time ?
• do you go to bed exhausted only to wake in the early hours unable to sleep?
• do you feel close to collapse?
• do you experience physical signs of stress – heart racing, headaches, digestive problems, muscle tension / back pain, etc…

Is it now time for you to press the pause button?

The most difficult thing to do when you are under severe pressure is to take one step back and become an observer to your own internal process.

This is the first and most important step in taking back control.

It is this first critical step that matters most.

Remember you are only asked to take one step back. 

It is not about running away, it is not about giving up and it is not about conceding defeat.

It is about reconnecting with your innate capabilities and sense of self-belief and control, reminding yourself that your resilient spirit remains hopeful and strives for health and vitality.

Let us turn our attention to what you can do to redirect yourself towards health, wellbeing and a return to peak performance.

First Aid Plan

Your ABC of Self-Care.

Acknowledge where you are and seek help

Where you go for help will depend on your situation. Consider discussing your situation in a meaningful way with your doctor, EAP professional, your family, boss, HR professional, mentor or coach as appropriate. If you feel there may be underlying medical issues such as depression or chronic fatigue it is important to seek medical advice.

Back to Basics

Babies are born with innate survival instincts. They eat, sleep, breath and cry in order to stay safe and connected to their caregivers. As we go through life we take these innate instincts for granted and it is only when we encounter disturbance in sleeping, eating, breathing and connecting that we fully appreciate the magic of human existence.

When working with people who are highly stressed my approach is always to go back to basics. Working first to address sleep and diet issues and building in a regime of mindfulness, breathing and relaxation techniques and above all supporting a sense of safety and connection with family, friends and life in general.

Connect to your Core Values and Capabilities

Under pressure people often lose connection with their core capabilities of intellect, creativity, sense of purpose and connection with others. These resources have not been lost although they may seem unavailable when most needed.

People who have lost confidence can find it difficult to access their strengths, but with patience, self-reflection, courage and support to take the necessary action, it is absolutely possible to regain strength and flourish. I have witnessed this happen many times. Just as people lose confidence they can also regain it.

What is needed is a commitment to your own health and wellbeing and an absolute refusal to diminish yourself in the process. While it is essential to accept the reality of the situation you find yourself in, it can be all too easy to dwell in negativity.

A key determinant of a fulfilled life is a person’s sense of hope and optimism; we need to be ever vigilant of not feeding negativity, as it only serves to undermine us.

Resilient Organisations Cultivate Resilient Behaviours

There is much that can be done to proactively support wellbeing so that the downward spiral does not go unchallenged. Organisations can proactively support their people to develop skills of resilience and emotional intelligence.  By cultivating self-care, optimism, focus, self-expression, interpersonal relating, problem solving and stress management, employees can equip themselves with the insight to recognise early distress signals and the ability to take decisive action to quickly interrupt the downward spiral.

Burnout serves nobody. While it is seen as a feature of over commitment, it is not a badge of honor that anyone wants.

Beating Burnout by Monique Valcour HBR Review Nov 2016 https://hbr.org/2016/11/beating-burnout outlines key strategies for dealing with burnout and is a great reminder that the sense of being overwhelmed is a signal, not a long-term sentence.

In this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – VUCA – world, more than ever it is imperative that organisational leaders prioritise their own wellbeing so they can thrive and become highly effective role models of resilient, positive, focused and generous leadership.

The prize for all to share is an engaging and supportive organisational culture, capable of attracting and retaining exceptional and committed talent.

Deirdre McLoughlin is a coaching associate with Harmonics specialising in Organisational Development, Executive Coaching and Psychotherapy.