The Strengths Companion: E is for having both the First and Second Empathy

May 19th, 2012 | Print This Post Print This Post | Posted in Companion, The Strengths Blog | No Comments »

Everybody who has been on a coaching programme is familiar with the concept of empathy. This is being able to see, feel and experience the world from another person’s point of view.

But there are two kinds of empathy. The first is with people’s actual situation; the second is with people’s aspirations. Let’s consider these two dimensions.

The First Empathy

Carl Rogers’ work in the 1940s emphasised the importance of empathy when working with clients in psychotherapy. Outlining what he saw as the core conditions for building a good therapeutic relationship, he believed it was important for the helper:

* To be ‘congruent’: to be genuine and honest with the client.

*  To show ‘empathy’: to understand and experience the world from the client’s point of view.

* To have ‘unconditional positive regard’: to show respect and accept the person as they are, rather than be judgemental.

This may sound basic: but it was radical for an era in which the doctor, psychiatrist or other expert was expected to stay aloof.

Great coaches, for example, often have an ability to quickly connect with people. One aspect of this is being able to show they understand the world from other people’s points of view.

The first empathy shows you understand people’s actual situation. If you are leading, coaching or counselling people, however, it is important to move things forward. This leads to the next stage.

The Second Empathy

Great leaders, coaches and counsellors, for example, use the second empathy. They encourage people to focus on their aspirations and lift their sights to what they can become.

But there is one key point. People must believe they can achieve the potential goals. They must feel this in their guts. They must be able to make a connection between where they are now and where they can be in the future.

Good leaders, for example, paint compelling pictures that people believe they can achieve. They remind people of when they have performed brilliantly. They make the connection between this and achieving a specific future goal. Such leaders reach into people’s hearts by saying things like:

“We shall overcome … We have a dream … We have been tested before and shown we can succeed … We are being tested now and we will succeed.”

Great leaders are also immensely practical. Moving from the concept to the concrete. They show people how they can put the philosophy into practice. This makes the message more believable.

Good coaches use a similar approach. They encourage people to find and follow their successful patterns. People can express these in setting specific goals. They can translate these into daily actions, keep working hard and achieve their picture of success.

Empathy plays a key part in connecting with people. Certainly it is vital to accept the authenticity of their feelings. But it is also important to focus on their aspirations. This calls for demonstrating both the first and second empathy.

Links

* Carl Rogers.

Carl emphasised empathy in counselling and education. You can find out more about him via George Boeree’s overview at the following link.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/rogers.html

* 3 tips for employing the second empathy.

http://www.thestrengthsfoundation.org/3-tips-for-employing-the-second-empathy

 

3 tips for creating positive momentum by changing the physical things

May 18th, 2012 | Print This Post Print This Post | Posted in Super teams, The Strengths Blog | No Comments »

Imagine you are a leader who wants to transform a culture. How can you show that working life is going be different?

One approach is to learn from individuals who change their lives. People can think about change for years, but the first steps often begin on a physical level. They take care of their body, start running, move house or whatever.

Physical change leads to psychological change and they feel better. This reinforces the philosophical change. Let’s explore how you can follow similar steps to transform a culture: ‘the way we do things around here’.

1) You can change the physical things.

Physical changes set the tone. But they must be followed by deeper changes if you are serious about transforming a culture. Re-branding by changing the airline’s colours, for example, means nothing unless there are deeper changes.

Start by making physical changes for the employees, beginning with the hygiene factors. Pay the market rate, improve the building and give them the tools to do the job.

“Three years ago I took over a company that was in the dark ages,” said one leader.

“So we modernised the entrance, gave the receptionists smart uniforms, displayed our products in the reception area, put in proper coffee bars, installed wireless and gutted the office.

“Previously it had been open plan, full of 90’s style chicken run desks, with little privacy. Stress and sickness were at an all time high. Redesigning the office, we got the balance between public and private spaces so people can talk or do creative work.

“Several Atrium areas are constantly occupied by people working or having informal meetings. They are also encouraged to work from home on Fridays.

“Customers now use our offices for their meetings, productivity has improved and the changes paid for themselves within one year.”

Imagine you are aiming to shift a culture. People believe what they see, not what they hear. Actions speak louder than words.

Try tackling the exercise on this theme. Describe the specific things you can do to change the physical things. Try completing the following sentence.

2) You can change the psychological things.

Do what you can to create a winning feeling. Give people the chance to deliver some early wins. But make sure they also have to work to achieve success.

When taking over a failing football team, for example, I organised a pre-season tournament with some top name clubs – teams they had only previously dreamt of playing. At the same time, however, we organised the group stages so that club had a good chance of reaching the semi-finals.

The team achieved this goal, got a medal and boosted their self-confidence. The Board were impressed and granted extra funds for buying more new players.

Here are some ideas for shifting the psychological state in a culture.

Communicate the company’s road map for achieving its picture of success. People enjoy having a sense of direction – they like a ‘plan’.

Put the road map in a place where people can see it everyday, such as on their screen saver.

Give people ownership for implementing their part of the strategy. Give them an opportunity to opt-into delivering their part of the goals.

Encourage them to get some early successes. Publicise these successes in, for example, a newsletter called ‘Weekly Wins’.

Reward the behaviour you want repeated. Promote people who live the values you want in the future culture.

Spend time with the positive people. Don’t pay people who choose not to opt-into the new culture.

Recruit new people who show the drive required to reach the team’s destination.

Try tackling the exercise on this theme. Describe the specific things you can do to change the psychological things. Try completing the following sentence.

3) You can change the philosophical things.

Great leaders harness people’s energy towards achieving a compelling goal. They tap into peoples’ aspirations: be it to gain freedom, deliver great customer service or create a pioneering product.

Such leaders also show the new philosophical way is working. They keep moving from the concept to the concrete to describe tangible successes.

You will make this happen in your own way, but here are some suggestions.

Keep communicating the road map towards achieving the picture of success.

Describe the successes that people have delivered in the past month towards achieving the goals.

Describe the plans for the delivering successes in the next month.

Describe the challenges the organisation faces, the strategies for tackling these and the support people will get to do great work.

Produce and publicise success stories that highlight the strategies people are following to achieve the picture of success.

Keep reminding people why they are succeeding: they are doing something physically different. They have changed the physical things to change the psychological things to change the philosophical things.

Try tackling the exercise on this theme. Describe the specific things you can do to change the philosophical things. Try completing the following sentence.

The Strengths Companion: F is for following the Fulfilling Road and getting Funding

May 18th, 2012 | Print This Post Print This Post | Posted in Companion, The Strengths Blog | No Comments »

There are three routes people can take in their professional lives. These are: The Fulfilling Road; The Faustian Road; and The Fulfilling Road and getting Funding. There are, of course, pluses and minuses to following each road. Let’s consider these possible routes.

* The Fulfilling Road.

Some people simply focus on doing work they find fulfilling. They pursue their passion – be it music, dancing, painting, teaching, inventing, designing, architecture, computing, selling, psychology, cooking, nurturing or whatever.

They do what they enjoy and are not too concerned about money, providing they have enough to live on. They pursue this route, rather than listen to advisers who urge them to: “Study something that will give you a guaranteed career.”

Many peak performers took the fulfilling route early in their working lives and, if appropriate, later learned how to get paid for following their passion.

* The Faustian Road.

Some people sell their soul for money and hope that one day they will be free to do what they really want. They accept messages such as:

“Climb the ladder and get a good position that will provide security … Take a job that has prospects – it may be boring, but you can do what you enjoy on the weekends … The work may be mind-numbing, but the job has a good pension.”

If a person sells their soul, however, they may find it hard to reclaim their life and enjoy the anticipated rainbows.

* The Fulfilling Road and Getting Funding.

Some people learn how to do fulfilling work and get funding. Being both soul-wise and street-wise, they find potential sponsors – people who will pay them for doing what they do best. They then use their talents to help those sponsors to succeed.

Such people learn to balance their soul-work and salary work, their mission and mortgage. Some do it by going freelance. Others create their perfect role in an organisation. They use their nous to craft a role that is a ‘win-win’ for both themselves and the employer.

Great service givers, for example, learn how to build on their strengths, find sponsors who will pay them and deliver success. This has been the road followed by creative entrepreneurs throughout history. They do this by following certain rules.

* They clarify their strengths.

They clarify the deeply satisfying activities in which they deliver As, rather than Bs or Cs.

* They clarify their potential sponsors.

They clarify their ‘perfect customers’ – the kinds of people with whom you work best. Looking at these potential sponsors, they clarify the challenges these people face and their picture of success.

They reach out to sponsors in a way that fits their own values system. They recognise that most work will come from their network – the people they know or who may recommend their work. So they keep giving to people in their network. Different people do this in different ways. For example, some keep having informal meetings with the potential sponsors.

Great service givers recognise that people buy success, rather than the theory of success. So they share practical tools that the sponsor can use to tackle challenges and achieve their goals.

Providing the service giver plants enough seeds, at some point somebody says: “How can we take this further?” They then move on to making clear working contracts about what must be delivered and by when.

* They use their strengths to help the sponsors to achieve success.

They get some early successes, perform superb work and help the sponsor to reach their goals. This frequently leads to further work – either with that sponsor or with others in their network. Great service givers build a good reputation and enable their customers to achieve ongoing success.

Many more people are learning how to follow this road in their own ways. They are doing fulfilling work and also learning how to get funding. 

Links

* Center for Dependable Strengths.

Based on the work of Bernard Haldane, the Center continues to help people to find or create satisfying work.

http://www.dependablestrengths.org/

* Richard Bolles – author of What Colour is Your Parachute?

Richard has spent much of his life helping people to find fulfilling work that also provides funding. Here is the link to his site.

http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/

* Nick Williams.

Nick helps people to find the work they were born to do and to create a successful business around it. You can find more details at his site.

http://www.inspired-entrepreneur.com/

* Portfolio Careers.

Barrie Hopson and Katie Ledger show how people are creating portfolio careers that enable them to achieve the right blend in their lives and work.

http://portfoliocareers.net/

3 tips for understanding the primary and secondary levels

May 17th, 2012 | Print This Post Print This Post | Posted in Sharing knowledge, The Strengths Blog | No Comments »

Imagine you are a leader, manager or coach who has been charged with: “Helping people to transform their behaviour.” It will be important:

* To establish their ‘will’ before imparting any skill, because people must want to develop.

* To understand the primary and secondary levels of development.

* To encourage people to follow their successful patterns to achieve ongoing success.

Let’s explore how people can develop on both the primary and secondary levels.

1) The primary level.

People learn on two levels: the primary level and the secondary level. When we are children, we start by learning on the primary level. We learn by doing, playing and feeling. Johan Huizinga, the Dutch Historian, wrote Homo Ludens (Man the Player) which outlined the importance of play in shaping a culture. He explained:

Let my playing be my learning, and my learning be my playing.

Sometimes there is nothing more serious than play. But this is a deep play. Something that Maria Montessori called 'a child's work'. Creative people retain this sense of play. They frequently do so by going through the process of absorption, adventure and achievement.

The primary level is that of doing, playing and feeling. We gain a sense of achievement and the learning enters our muscle memory. Such primary patterns can affect the way we approach and react to events. They form the foundation for our perceptions about the world. We revert back to them time and again.

Some of our successful and self-defeating
patterns are set on the primary level.

During my early career I often used exercises that invited people to adventure without fear of judgement. At the same time, however, it was important to clarify their successful patterns.

2) The secondary level.

We learn with the hands and heart: but it is also vital to make sense of experience. So we learn with the head. This is the secondary level of learning.

Looking for patterns, we begin to build models. Testing these in reality, we see what works and what can be improved. Developing models enables us to feel more in control of our lives.

Secondary level learning is vital. We achieve this by translating the doing into thinking; the playing into intellectual understanding; and the feeling into talking.

3) The primary and secondary levels.

So far, so good. But sometimes people hit a problem. They spend too much of their lives on the secondary level.

Instead of doing, they think about doing. Instead of ‘playing’ – taking initiatives – they replace it with intellectualising. Instead of feeling, they talk about feelings. Between the two levels they then put a series of blocks. This creates differences between ‘what they say and what they do’.

Companies also fall into this trap. They may issue a finely worded ‘values statements’, for example, but this is purely secondary level. They don’t live the values.

Great leaders recognise the power of positive modelling. They often do something different on the primary level. They change the physical things to change the psychological things to change the philosophical things. People believe what they see, not what they hear.

The 'action approach' also works in therapy. Counsellors can help a client to analyse ‘why’ they have problems, but the ‘talking cure’ has limits. People who retake control of their lives often do so by acting on the primary level.

They do something physical. They start running; stay sober rather than drink; or spend time with Encouragers rather than Stoppers.

People can grow on both the
primary and secondary levels

People often grow by following their successful patterns. These are frequently rooted on the primary level. Human beings like to 'develop', rather than 'change'.

They can do this by learning from when they have performed brilliantly. What did they do right then? How can they follow these principles in the future?

Then comes the paradoxical part. People develop by following their successful patterns, plus learning tools for dealing with difficulties.

Strangely, as a by-product, this produces 'change'. This is something I have found with individuals, teams and organisations.

People's successful patterns can often be found on a primary level. This is their muscle memory. But repeating these principles calls for clarifying them on the secondary level. This is their mind memory.

————

So how can you help people to develop? As mentioned earlier, it is vital to establish their ‘will’ before imparting any skill. It is then to encourage them to do what works on a primary level.

Building on their successful patterns, they can clarify their learning on a secondary level. People can then keep following these principles to achieve ongoing success.

3 tips for retaking charge of your feelings, finances and future

May 17th, 2012 | Print This Post Print This Post | Posted in Strengths, The Strengths Blog | No Comments »

“My career seems to be successful, but something strange is happening,” said one person. “The higher I climb the corporate ladder, the less control I seem to have.

“Previously I spent my time with customers, shaped teams and got great satisfaction from hitting targets. The closer I get to the ‘centre’, however, the less control I seem to have over my diary.

“My days consist of answering emails, sitting in meetings and fulfilling other people’s agendas.”

This is a challenge facing many people in organisations. They work hard to be successful, but suddenly find they no longer feel in control.

Imagine you are in such a situation. Let’s explore three things you can do to shape your future.

1) You can take charge of your feelings.

This involves doing three things. First, accept that your feelings are authentic. Second, decide on the feelings you want in the future. Third, do your best to generate those feelings. Let’s consider each of these stages.

First, accept that your feelings are authentic.

What does this mean? When running communities for troubled teenagers, for example, we gave them the message:

“Whatever you feel is real, even though to others it may appear illogical. Accept the feeling. But then move-on to how you can change it in the future.”

Why adopt this approach? Consider somebody who has been abused and now feels guilty. The abuser often imprisons the victim by inferring that nobody will believe their story.

Helping an abused person to recognise that their feelings are real can be the first step to recovery. One abused young person said:

“Previously I felt crazy because nobody would believe me. Talking with others who had suffered abuse showed I was not alone. Suddenly I felt liberated.”

Whatever your situation, accept your feelings – then move onto the next stage.

Second, decide what feelings you want in the future.

Is that possible? The approach we used with the young people was:

“You know that doing certain things will produce certain feelings. Everybody knows exactly how to make themselves feel bad. They can refuse to take responsibility, drink too much or spend time with negative people.

“They also know what is more likely to make them feel good. They can take responsibility, be kind, get healthy or spend time with positive people.

“People choose their behaviour – the things they do – and in this way choose their feelings.”

Looking at your own situation, decide what feelings you want in the future. Then move onto the next step.

Third, make an action plan for increasing the likelihood of generating those feelings.

People are creatures of habit, so develop your daily disciplines. Do something early in the day to get a quick success. Spend time with encouragers, rather than stoppers. Follow your disciplines and generate the feelings you want.

Imagine you have had challenges on an emotional level. How can you take charge of your feelings? Try completing the following sentence.

2) You can take charge of your finances.

People who suffer divorce or redundancy quickly aim to take control of their finances. Others take a similar step without suffering a crisis. One person said.

“My income kept increasing, but so did my outgoings. The garage was full of unwanted items and we had lost track of our expenditure.

“So we did a financial reality check. The result was shocking. Bank statements showed a monthly direct debit for unnecessary personal insurance and there were many other opportunities for saving.

“Starting again from scratch, we stuck to buying what we needed – rather than what we wanted. This revolutionised our finances within a year. Feeling in charge of our money enabled us to feel more in charge of our lives.”

Imagine you have had challenges on a financial level. How can you take charge of your finances? Try completing the following sentence.

3) You can take charge of your future.

People like to feel in control of their short, medium and long-term futures. Sometimes it can be important to start with simple steps.

“I decided to retake control of my diary,” said one manager. “Even though I scheduled free time between meetings, my PA filled these with one-to-ones.

“So I retook charge of my time. We now have a planning session where I give clear messages about how I want to spend the next month.”

People like to feel in control. They can’t always predict what will happen, but they can choose their attitude towards events.

Laurens van der Post, the South African author, explained how this feeling can be liberating, even in the most difficult circumstances. During the Second World War he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Asia.

One night he was told he would be executed the next morning. Deciding he had nothing to lose, he asked to be shot, rather than beheaded. The camp commander agreed to his request.

Laurens says that, quite irrationally, he felt a sudden rush of freedom. The sentence was never carried out, but he remembers the feeling of being in charge.

Different people have different ways of shaping their futures. The person who has been knocked-off course, for example, may focus on their life-goals. They then do something each day towards achieving these aims. This provides a link between their daily actions and their picture of success.

If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. Describe the specific things you can do to shape your future. Try completing the following sentence.

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