But research clearly shows that being politically savvy and building a power base pay off. In “Power Is the Great Motivator,” a classic 2003 Harvard Business Review article, leadership consultants David McClelland and David Burnham examined managers’ primary motivations and success in achieving results.

Their studies reveal managers are primarily motivated by one of three drives:

1. Affiliation: a fundamental desire to be liked
2. Achievement: the motivation to attain goals and gain personal recognition
3. Power: the desire to influence others

The most effective managers, measured by results, were motivated by power.

Sources of Power

There are three sources of power in an organisation: positional, relational and personal:

1. Positional power: Your title and job status confer some level of formal power. You are authorised to act within a certain scope, but it’s seldom sufficient to get things done.
2. Relationships: Informal power stems from the relationships and alliances you form with others. If you do a favour for someone, the law of reciprocity impacts your relationship. Coalitions and alliances increase your relational power.
3. Personal: Some people generate power based on their knowledge, expertise, technical competencies and ability to articulate ideas or a vision that others will follow. Your communication skills, charisma and trustworthiness help determine your personal power.

Open to Influence

Executives and managers who are open to peers’ and subordinates’ input garner greater respect than those who resist others’ influence. An openness to influence demonstrates trust and respect, which become reciprocal and contagious.

In their 1989 book, Influence Without Authority, Allan Cohen and David Bradford introduced the term “currencies of exchange,” a metaphor that teaches businesspeople how to acquire and expand their organisational influence.

Essentially, you can offer goods and services to a potential ally in exchange for cooperation. Currencies may take the form of technical assistance, information, lease of space or equipment, a plum assignment and the like. The key to using currencies is to understand what others want or value.

Power without Authority

Effective use of power is becoming increasingly important, as many organisations are flatter, less hierarchical and cross-functional. This structural shift works best when leaders exert broad power and influence, without official authority.

While power skills are more important than ever, many executives shy away from developing them or fail to understand how they can expand and use them to full force.

Avoiding Power

No matter your position or title, you need power to push through any important agenda. Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organisational behaviour at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and author of Power: Why Some People Have It — And Others Don’t, cites three barriers that cause executives to shy away from using power to extend their influence.

1. The belief that the world is a just place: If you do a good job and behave appropriately, do you assume things will take care of themselves? When others make self-aggrandising, envelope-pushing power plays, do you dismiss them instead of watching to see if you can learn something?Believing in a just world makes you less powerful by:
   1. Limiting your willingness to learn from all situations and people — even those you don’t like or respect
   2. Anesthetising you to the need to proactively build a power base — an outcome that blinds you to potentially career-damaging landmines
2. Leadership literature and popular business books: Many successful authors will tout their careers as models of truthfulness, modesty and authenticity – but few also admit to the power plays they’ve used to get to the top.
3. Your delicate self-esteem: Strong self-esteem is driven by feeling good about yourself and your capabilities. By avoiding the experience of actively seeking and gaining power, you also avoid the risk of personally failing at this endeavour, and hence your self-esteem is more likely to remain intact.  

The Power of Power

Power is ultimately defined as the ability to have things your way. When you need others to give their best efforts in the face of differing ideas and opinions, you need leverage — and powerful people use several strategies to advance their agendas.

1.     Leverage Resources.

Whenever you have discretionary control over resources — money, equipment, space and/or information — you can use them to build a power base.

Helping people evokes reciprocity, a universal drive to want to repay a favour — even without making it explicit that there’s a quid pro quo.

Money is not the sole source of leverage. Access to information or key people can be even more valuable.

2.     Shape Behaviours with Rewards and Punishments.

In large companies and governments, leaders reward those who help them and punish those who stand in their way. Notwithstanding research that indicates such punitive measures tend to have a negative impact on long term productivity, the reward and punishment model remains an important tool for building a power base.

3.      Make the Vision Compelling.

It’s easier to exercise power when you’re aligned with a compelling, socially valuable objective. Similarly, power struggles inside companies seldom revolve around blatant self-interest. At the moment of crisis and decision, clever combatants typically invoke shareholders’ interests, company values and mission, and cite causes that are greater than short-term or personal interests.

Fair Play?

You won’t go far — and neither will your strategic plans — if you cannot build and use power.

Some of the people who compete for advancement or stand in the way of your agenda will bend the rules of fair play and, in some cases, ignore them entirely.

Don’t bother complaining about this or wishing things were different. Part of your job is to know how to prevail in the political battles you face. You’ll succeed if you understand the principles of power and are willing to use them.

Persuasion

Persuasion has four elements:

1. Credibility: Credibility is built on trust and expertise, and it must be earned. People will believe you have expertise and are worthy of their trust if you exercise sound judgement and demonstrate a history of success.
2. An understanding of the audience: Identify the decision makers and centres of influence. Determine their likely receptivity and personal agendas.
3. A solid argument: What is perfectly sensible to you may elude others — especially those who are already opposed to your ideas and prepared to resist.You can improve your chances of persuading them when your case:
   1. Is logical and consistent with facts and experience
   2. Strikes an emotional cord
   3. Favourably addresses the interests of the parties you hope to persuade
   4. Neutralises competing alternatives
   5. Recognises and deals with the politics of the situation
   6. Comes with endorsements from objective and authoritative third parties
4. Effective communication: Don’t mistakenly think that logic and rationality will win out and persuade people to your side.  Effective communication appeals to people’s emotions, tapping into universal human values and desires. Appeal to both hearts and minds if you want to build and sustain commitment to your strategic plans.

Office Politics

It’s naive to suggest that office politics are destructive and unethical. If you define politics in such a narrow way, you overlook the value of political awareness and skill. Political savvy, when combined with the right values, can be advantageous to you, your team and your organisation.

To become politically savvy and build your power base:

Map the political terrain. First, identify all stakeholders — anyone who has an interest in, or who would be affected by, your idea — and how they will react. Some resistance is inevitable. You must anticipate others’ reactions, identify allies and resisters, analyse their goals and understand their agendas.

When you face objections, don’t go to individuals’ bosses or peers to undercut their arguments. Instead, ask them questions to determine their goals. Stakeholders may:

• Share your goal, but not your implementation approach
• Disagree with your goal, but share your approach to change
• Share neither
• Share both

You can identify potential allies and resisters with direct questioning.

Get them on your side. Build your coalition — a politically mobilised group committed to implementing your idea because doing so will generate valued benefits.

Creating coalitions is the most critical step in exercising your political competence. How do you win support? You need to be credible. You communicate credibility by letting potential allies and resisters know about your expertise, demonstrating personal integrity, and showing that you have access to important people and information.

Make things happen through leverage. You must win others’ buy-in by making it clear there’s a payoff for supporting your efforts and drawbacks for refusing to join your coalition. Show how implementing your idea will ease stakeholders’ workload, increase their visibility within the organisation or help them cut departmental costs.

Once you’ve persuaded others to join your coalition, you’ve established a base that will legitimise your idea. Coalition members will then use their networks to evangelise for you.

Getting others to make changes and do things your way is risky and fraught with personal peril. Making your organisation a better place is often at odds with personal advancement.

You can’t do it without power. Just be sure to create power in and with others, as opposed to using power over others.

Ethical slips and traps are rampant, from telling white lies that protect a friend, to ignoring a gut feeling and following orders when we know better.

Not a month goes by without some highly publicised ethical scandal. Be it tax evasion, executive pay excesses, sexual dalliances and outright fraud, many individuals are simply unable to resist temptation. 

Does this make the perpetrators corrupt sociopaths?

Sometimes, but usually not. They’re often leaders and pillars of the community, and their actions leave us shaking our heads and wondering what were they thinking.

The sad truth? No one is immune. Cheating isn’t limited to those in positions of power. While power is certainly fraught with opportunities and temptations, each of us faces daily choices that involve doing the right—or wrong—thing. Only when a CEO, politician, celebrity or sports legend gets caught does the problem rise to front-page news. Just ask Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton or more recently, Mark McInnes, former CEO of Australian retail giant, David Jones.

But the same ethical traps lie in your path. Even the little guys transgress. Often, people feel an urge to cheat—a strange pull to try to get away with something. Sometimes it’s small; other times it’s scandalous. Sometimes it matters; other times it goes unnoticed.

What exactly happens inside our heads when we choose to violate our ethical standards? Do we lose sight of what’s right? Do we take the easy way out? Are we driven to win at any price? Are we attracted to our “dark side”?

Ethical Roots

Psychology and other social sciences offer a huge body of experimental studies that demonstrate the allure of cheating. In The Ethical Executive (Stanford University Press, 2008), Robert Hoyk and Paul Hersey describe 45 ethical traps inherent in any organisational environment.

Many of these traps are psychological in nature, creating “webs of deception” that distort our perception of right and wrong. Such rationalisations lead us to believe our unethical behavior is normal and appropriate, and they have contributed to large-scale corporate disasters like the Enron and WorldCom affairs.

The Brain Science of Traps

At any given moment, we have impulses that motivate us to act. They are reactions to internal or external stimuli, which may be powerful enough to trigger automatic behavior. At this point, we may rationally ignore other (and better) options. 

Other times, we’re aware of several distinct choices, but the stimulus’ effect overrides these potential actions. We may desire a specific outcome so strongly that it propels us to move in an unsound direction. Anxiety and stress may also compel us to make choices that alleviate our short-term distress, yet lead to irrevocable long-term consequences.

Our ultimate behavior depends on a complex weave of situational factors, history and personality.

Four Basic Tribal Drives

Some experts believe we’re motivated by four basic human drives that have evolved from our primitive ancestors:

These drives are especially evident in western and other modern cultures. We work hard to provide for our families, far beyond our survival needs for food, clothing and shelter. Many of us are highly motivated to land the best job, home and/or salary possible. It’s human nature to want to acquire things that make our families comfortable and happy. Many of us are driven to be the smartest or most  prestigious person in the room.

Much of our energy goes toward protecting what we have and defending our territories, families, positions, rights and freedoms—a strong drive that explains why nations go to war.

Organisations are like theatres, where actors play out their desires to acquire, bond, learn and defend. There’s no better stage to demonstrate our tribal drives, and nowhere are there more daily opportunities to choose between right and wrong.

The Ethical Stage

As children, we were primed to obey our parents. Our very survival depended on it. Some families demanded strict obedience; others were lenient about opposition and rebellion; still others encouraged creativity and individual spirit.

But all families required obedience to authority. This conditioning continued in school. Consequently, as adults, when our boss orders us to do something, we quickly obey—often, without thinking.

If an authority figure orders us to do something unethical, our sense of obedience may be so powerful that we follow orders without acknowledging that we’re going against our ethical principles. The impulse to obey is so strong that it overrides rational judgement.

Root Causes of Traps

Obedience to authority is a “primary” trap, which means a strong external stimulus impels us to move in a certain direction, without regard for our ethical principles.

In business, people don’t abandon their ethics simply because they want to maximise profits. Rather, their drive to acquire and improve their status lures them into a social-psychological trap.

This often happens in small steps—yet another trap. If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out quickly. But if you place it in the pot and slowly increase the heat, it will remain there and be cooked.

Small steps and choices create minor ethical transgressions that do little harm, but they set the direction that eventually leads to major, irreversible violations.

Primary Traps

Hoyk and Hersey describe three types of social-psychological traps that occur in the workplace: primary, defensive and personality. They include:

1. Obedience to authority
2. Small steps
3. Indirect responsibility
4. Faceless victims
5. Lost in the group
6. Competition
7. Self-interest
8. Tyranny of goals
9. Money
10. Conformity
11. Power
12. Obligation
13. Time pressures

When we carefully review and understand these traps, we can prepare for—and avoid—them. Our choices become sound.

A Study of Business Ethics

Twelve years ago, Joseph Badaracco, an ethics professor at the Harvard Business School, interviewed 30 recent MBA graduates who had faced ethical dilemmas in the business world. All of them had taken an ethics class at Harvard. Half of them worked for companies that had official ethics programs.

As Badaracco notes:

“Corporate ethics programs, codes of conduct, mission statements, hot lines, and the like provided little help…the young managers resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on the basis of personal reflection and individual values, not through reliance on corporate credos, company loyalty, the exhortations of senior executives, philosophical principles or religious reflection.”

Most of the Harvard-educated managers had learned their personal values primarily from their family upbringing, not from ethics courses. Traditional ethics education based on philosophical principles does not always transfer to the workplace.

What does make for better choices in our jobs, however, is an understanding of the root causes of unethical behaviors: the psychological dynamics. If managers have a firm knowledge of how pervasive and compelling ethical traps can be, they can use this understanding to objectify what’s happening to them.

When you can think and talk about these traps with a trusted colleague, mentor or coach, then their allure and the possible distortions they evoke can be revealed. Some distance is created between the person, the choice and the trap. As a result, anxieties are reduced, improved clarity is achieved and more effective choices can be made.

Traditionally, business-ethics and MBA programs present vignettes of ethical dilemmas one may face, such as pollution, sexual harassment, product safety and discrimination. These problems have no clear right or wrong answers. To solve them, students are often provided with an outline of eight to 12 critical questions. A sample is provided here for your use.

Avoid the traps of bad business decisions with a breakthrough system in values and integrity-based decision-making at www.humanresourceschange.com.au/integrity-and-values-profile.html

According to Gallup research, what employees want most — along with competitive pay — is quality management. When they feel unappreciated and disapprove of their managers, they leave or join the growing ranks of the disengaged.

 3 Steps to Positive Leadership

In 2005, Jerry Krueger and Emily Killham shared the results of Gallup research that showed managers play a crucial role in employee well-being and engagement—but the research didn’t study what managers specifically did to elicit positive responses.

That’s why Margaret Greenberg, president of The Greenberg Group, and Dana Arakawa, a program associate at the John Templeton Foundation, put the theory of positive leadership to the test. They wanted to know if managers who apply positive leadership practices have teams with higher project performance and employee engagement.

As it turns out, positive managers practice three leadership behaviours:

1. Use a strengths-based approach.
2. Provide frequent recognition and encouragement.
3. Maintain a positive perspective when difficulties arise.

None is an innate behaviour, but all can be learned.

A Strengths-Based Approach

There’s a reason why managers’ focus on strengths and weaknesses is so important. Most organisations are obsessed with fixing weaknesses. They conduct performance reviews, 360-degree assessments and the like to evaluate how well employees and managers are measuring up to predefined goals and competencies.

Managers are instructed to look at an employee’s assessed gap and coach for greater performance in areas of weakness. But such assessments usually pay only cursory attention to an employee’s strengths. Performance reviews and subsequent remedial programs focus almost exclusively on weaknesses.

Focus on What Works

Too many managers assume that employees need to be good at many things, rather than excellent in the key areas.

Recent studies have firmly established that focusing on what works, followed by a program to scale it to greater levels, is a more practical and efficient approach to developing people and their performance.

Managers who take a strengths-based approach help employees identify strengths and align their talents with their work. These managers don’t ignore employee weaknesses, but fixing them isn’t their primary focus.

Greenberg and Arakawa found that managers who focused on strengths enjoyed superior team performance, as opposed to managers who focused on weaknesses.

The Problem-Seeking Mindset

It’s not enough to wait for performance reviews and project completion to deliver feedback. Praise must be frequent, ongoing and specific to current behaviours—not vague or general.

Sadly, we’re predisposed to look for the negative: in ourselves, in others and for external events. We rarely scan our environment and ask:

• “What’s working right now… and how can we do more of it?”
• Instead, we look around and ask: “What’s broken—and how can we fix it?”

The problem-seeking mindset is one of the brain’s shortcomings, while also serving as a protective device to spare us from danger and making mistakes.

In Switch (2010), Dan and Chip Heath write about “finding the bright spots” in our work and lives. After extensive research, the two business school professors have documented how we’re wired to focus on bad over good.

It’s no wonder performance reviews and feedback are usually aimed at what’s not working. Yet, some successful individuals can override this brain tendency and focus on the positive, at least enough to create successful relationships both at work and home.

John Gottman, a psychologist who studies marital conversations, finds that couples who sustain long-term marriages use language that reflects five times more positive statements than negative ones. In fact, he calls this “the magic ratio” and claims it will accurately predict if a marriage will last. He urges managers to use a ratio of 5:1 positive statements in conversations with employees.

When Things Go Wrong

Managing long-term, multimillion-dollar projects that involve dozens of people and several workgroups is a complex challenge, and things are bound to go wrong. How managers respond to problems has a direct and measurable impact on both the employees and the project.

Researchers Greenberg and Arakawa asked employees:

• “When a problem crops up on my project, is my project manager able to help me come up with solutions?”
• “What steps does your project manager take when such a problem arises?”

Here’s what they found:

• Managers who maintain a positive perspective don’t turn setbacks into catastrophes.
• They don’t fly off the handle; they control their emotions.
• They recognise what’s within their sphere of influence (and what’s not).
• They see and discuss the problem as an opportunity.
• They provide a solution-oriented perspective.

Greenberg and Arakawa also discovered that managers who maintained a positive perspective when things went awry experienced greater project performance. Managers who scored in the top quartile for positive perspective (as reported by their employees, not self-report) had significantly higher project performance than those in the bottom quartile.

Reflect on how you as a manager and leader can implement positive leadership by practicing these behaviours:

1.      Focus on and work with people’s strengths.

2.      Improve the frequency with which you give praise and recognition.

3.      Respond with a positive, solutions-orientation when the going gets rough.

Barbara Hofmeister’s new book “To Be or Not to Be. The Choice is Yours” is available now.

Order through this link to get 47 SUCCCESS gifts. http://MegaSuccessDay.com

“The little girl was standing tiptoe on the old brown sofa that served as her bed at night. She pressed her cheek against the window pane trying to look down the five stories to the busy street below. But as much as she craned her head, their little attic room was too high up and the window too small to
see what was going on below. She signed and slipped down again behind the kitchen table. She really wished her mother would be home to keep her company and help her with her homework. But Mom was still at work and when she finally came home she would be much too tired to be any fun.
Since they had fled East Germany life had changed dramatically. Nobody had time for her anymore and she had left all her friends behind. No more roaming the countryside with her German Sheppard, no more feeding and teasing the chickens with her best friend Christine, no more climbing fences
and trees with her cousins. No more beautiful pink little girls room, no more warm kitchen with Mummy cooking her favorite dinner, no more laughter with Grandma who could tell such lovely stories. There seemed to be nothing anymore…

“Not even Sunday morning tickling sessions with Dad.

Tears started running down her cheeks. She didn’t understand – WHY? Why did they have to leave??? They had everything before – their own house, a car, even a TV and a telephone – the only one in the village. They had it ALL and loads of friends and a loving family. Why change this for nothing?

“Now they only had this small, ugly attic room which served as home to all 3 of them. Not even a bathroom, just a sink and the toilet was 2 floors down. Her Dad said it had to do. Maybe he didn’t mind so much. He was away all week. He worked as a truck driver and only came home Friday night or even Saturday morning and left again on Sunday. Maybe for him it was ok but somehow she didn’t think so because there was no laughter when he was at home and his nerves seemed frayed. And almost every Saturday he took Mummy to the cinema. He said it was to let his little girl sleep. Why couldn’t he understand that she would rather not sleep then be alone – once again.

“Sometime she thought he did not love her anymore.

How else could she explain the harassed look on his face, their continuous arguments about her education and about money. That definitely was a problem. There never seemed to be enough of it. She knew it was the reason why they both worked so much but she didn’t care. She wanted her life back, she wanted her family and friends back.

“Today the little girl is an ‘big’ girl. Her name is Barbara and in this book you will get to know her because the little girl was me. My parents escaped from East Germany when I was 8. My father in the trunk of a car, my mother and I through Berlin. We arrived in the West with just a small case and the equivalent of 400 Dollars.

“In those days there was plenty of work but no housing. All large cities, were the work was, had been bombed out during the war. It took my parents almost 20 years of hard labor before they had again what we left behind in Communist Germany but my father was convinced that it had been worth it.

“Why? Because it had given him what was most precious to him – the freedom to live his dream, the dream of becoming a successful
entrepreneur.

“When you are a little girl, you cannot understand that but when you are a big girl like me today, you know how important the freedom to choose is. Today I am very grateful that my father made this painful decision – also for me – and through it gave me the opportunity to live my own dream, and part of my dream is to empower you to live yours. If you let me, I will help you transform your life into the life of your dreams – taking one step at the time.”

Barbara Hofmeister’s new book “To Be or Not to Be. The Choice is Yours” is available now.

Order through this link to get 47 SUCCCESS gifts. http://MegaSuccessDay.com

The truth is, most of us don’t know how to ask good questions, or when we do ask a really great question, it is by accident. There are several ways to ask questions. Some people seem really good at it, while others use a random, what-ever-pops-into-their-head approach.

Fifty percent of good communications is good listening. Asking the right questions must precede good listening. Good questions pave the way for good communications.

We have all encountered problems with bosses and colleagues, and especially with spouses from asking the wrong question at the wrong time. We scratch our heads and wonder what went wrong. After all, we were just asking, right?

The problem is that we were raised by parents and teachers who asked the wrong questions for most of our lives. Parents ask their children questions designed to teach them something. Teachers also use questions that are rhetorical or Socratic, designed to make us think and come up with the right answer, as predetermined by them. There is usually only one right answer, the one they are looking for.

Here’s a clue: these people—parents and teachers—aren’t really asking questions. They are trying to tell us something. They do not ask questions to learn something, but to teach what they determine is important. We learn from parents and teachers the wrong way to ask questions in the adult world.

What Real Questions Are Supposed to Do

Real questions are designed to learn about the other person’s way of thinking, and to gather information. A truly neutral question is rare. Most of us ask leading questions designed to influence others to our way of thinking, just like our parents and teachers do.

Instead of gathering information about the other person’s perspective, our questions lead someone down a thinking path of our choice. One needs only to view TV courtroom dramas to see prime examples of leading questions.

When you ask leading questions, you must hold your own agenda in sight, and design your questions to end up with a predetermined answer. The person asking the question is focused on getting to this result, and therefore is not really listening to the responder with an open and receptive mind.

While this can be an effective teaching method, it is not a way of developing true and meaningful communications, because the listening is cut off by predetermined goals on the part of one person.

Different Kinds of Questions

Managers overuse this leading style of questioning, and then wonder why they don’t fully understand the actions of employees. They don’t have a grasp on what is really going on, because they aren’t asking open questions designed for learning.

People in relationships, including spouses, often fall into the “leading question” trap, in persistent attempts to influence the perspective of the other person. People communicate better when they start asking neutral questions to learn about the perspective of the other.

Some authors define questions as being empowering or disempowering. Empowering questions are positive ones, such as:

• What works best for you?
• What are you doing right?
• What is your favourite part of this?
• When are you most effective?

Disempowering questions are also called judging questions. They bring up negative feelings and focus on what is wrong:

• Why did you do that?
• What went wrong?
• Who caused this?
• How could this have happened?

Notice that these disempowering questions can appear to be neutral. They resemble information-gathering questions. It depends on the source, the context, and tone of voice. There is a fine-line between information-gathering where one is exploring causes in order to find solutions, and questions that judge and blame. It also depends on who is asking the questions, their position of authority, and their prior history of being judgemental and blaming.

In order to frame questions in a neutral, exploration context, it may be necessary to qualify questions with statements such as:

• Help me to understand this situation…
• I just want to clarify the sources of this problem so we can solve it…
• Without blaming anyone, can we identify where we went wrong here?

Questions are clearly the way to create open discussions, deepen relationships, and create a learning environment necessary in any relationship, be it at work or at home.

We all fall into the trap of trying to influence through our questions, because it is so ingrained in us from early childhood on. It is hard to ask truly neutral, non-leading questions without influencing.

Questions that Encourage Problem-Solving

Here are some guidelines for creating a more problem-solving approach in our communications and questions.

When problem-solving with another person, remember these three kinds of questions designed for three different levels of interactions (Argyris):

Single loop questions: How can you fix this problem? What needs to be done differently? How can this be done better, faster, more efficiently?

Double loop questions: Is this the right problem to fix? What else needs to be considered? Is there another way to get better results?

Triple loop questions: What is your role in this, and how do you need to be in order for this to be solved? What shifts in your thinking and being need to happen?

Clearly there is much that goes into asking the right questions at the right time. There is a body of research designed around Appreciative Inquiry, in which people are taught the effectiveness of keeping discussions and questions positive.

We live in a culture that readily diagnoses what is wrong, gaps in performance, and areas for improvement. We focus a disproportionate amount of time on how to fix things, without adequately investigating what is right. We would do well to remember that the research demonstrates that people learn better when reinforced positively rather than negatively.

Resources:

Adams, M.G. (2004) Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. Berrett-Koehler, Inc.

Block, P. (2002) The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters. Berrett-Koehler, Inc.

Hammond, S. (1996) The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry. Thin Book Publishing Co.

Miller, J. G. (2001) QBQ! The Question Behind the Question. Denver Press.

Mayer, B. (1997) The Magic in Asking the Right Questions. Bill Mayer International.

Torbert, B. & Associates. (2004) Action Inquiry: the Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership. Berrett-Koehler, Inc.

Have you ever experienced one of those exceptional states of blissful, yet effortless focus and concentration called “flow”?

Perhaps, like me, you have been inspired by an idea which compels you to write. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a crowded café or in a quiet room; everything disappears from your consciousness, except for the idea and its expression. Once the “flow” takes hold, your full attention is on the transition of the idea from your mind to the page.  Hours can pass where you are in a state of bliss, unaware of the passage of time, of any physical sensations or egocentric distractions, until the experience is concluded and you are jolted back into reality. I often delight in reflecting on the work I produce when I’m “in the zone”. The quality is exceptional, the ideas new and fresh, the quantity of pages phenomenal, and the structure near word-perfect.

Around one in five people claim to experience “flow” several times a day, while 15% report that they have never had the experience (1997, Psychology Today). Writing may not do it for you, but there are many other pursuits in which you may experience your “authentic” self, such as a sport you love, a religious experience, creating art, producing music, or solving mathematical problems. 

Flow is not happiness. We can experience happiness basking in the warmth of the sun or a comfortable relationship. This kind of happiness is dependent on favourable external factors. Flow is of our own making, occurring when we apply our talent and skills 100% to an activity which we find inherently engaging, and with enough complexity to keep it interesting.

Flow at work

People at all levels report a need for challenges that create flow at work, according to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1997). Mihaly’s research has found that for flow to occur, challenges must stretch our capacity, without being overwhelming.

If we have optimal work experiences, we’re more motivated to do good work, which also benefits the organisation and our coworkers. Our satisfaction is energising and self-perpetuating, and it carries over into our home life because we’re in a positive frame of mind.

To improve the quality of life through work, two complementary strategies are necessary:

1. Jobs should be redesigned so skills levels and challenges are high. This contributes to a more cheerful and active workforce, improved concentration, and greater creativity and satisfaction.
2. Workers must define and develop self-directing, intrinsic goals. When we learn to recognize opportunities for action, hone our skills, set reachable goals, and immerse our concentration and focus in the present, we become more engaged at work and experience a state of “flow.”

Without these strategies, it’s easy to multitask on autopilot and miss opportunities to excel.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi identified nine main elements that define the experience of flow at work:

1. Clear goals every step of the way
2. Immediate feedback on one’s actions
3. Balance between challenges and skills
4. A merging of action and awareness, with concentration focused on what we’re doing
5. Exclusion of other dimensions from consciousness to eliminate distraction
6. No fear of failure, as we’re focused on what has to be done
7. No self-consciousness or over-concern with ego
8. A distorted sense of time
9. Activity that becomes inherently enjoyable

How to Create Flow Experiences

All jobs have routine components that can become boring and unexciting. The key is to remain alert for opportunities to make them interesting.

Flow: Challenge vs Skill - Wikipedia

To develop flow experiences at work, be mindful of these four elements:

1.       Set clear goals: Self-directing people choose goals and directions that fit their purpose.

Although some work goals are allocated to us, we can always choose to adopt them personally. This feeling of ownership means you’re more strongly dedicated to your goals.  

2.       Become immersed in your activities: Once our goals are clearly defined and we’ve decided on a plan of action, the door is then open to become deeply focused on whatever we have chosen to do. Improve your capacity to maintain focus by avoiding goals which are unrealistic or unattainable, nor should they be trivial and without complexity.

Consider developing your ability to concentrate and focus by limiting possible distractions. Avoid the temptation of multitasking, which has proved to be fallible and unreliable. Only by taking the necessary time to focus on one thing at a time, with deliberation, can we achieve the flow experience.

Most of us will not face an athletic field or operating room at work, but we do have spreadsheets, computer screens, flow charts and other data on which to focus. Our own minds may be the greatest source of distraction, with self-consciousness looming as a perpetual trap.

The moment we shift our attention from the task at hand and allow our minds to wander to our egos — how we’re doing, how we’re perceived by others — we lose focus and cease to enjoy natural flow. Work becomes harder and less spontaneous. 

4.       Learn to enjoy immediate experiences: Focus on the present, and be “in the moment.” Avoid worrying about others’ reactions or future outcomes. Only then can you do your best work.

Taking Control of Flow at Work

Being in control of your thoughts, powers of concentration and goals means anything that happens can become a source of joy and flow at work.

Achieving control, however, requires determination and discipline.  To be able to transform random events into flow experiences, we must accept challenges; stretch to develop skill sets and try to experience our authentic self. 

D. Worrall (2010)

Resources:

TED Video of M. Csikszentmihalyi on Flow (19 mins):

http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

References:

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1997)

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (Jul 1, 1997) Finding Flow.  http://www.psychologytoday.com 

In the year 2000 alone, 40 CEOs of the top 200 companies on Fortune’s 500 list were fired or made to resign. When 20 percent of the most powerful business leaders lose their jobs, something is clearly wrong.

Leaders make big promises … and then what their organisations actually deliver falls short. They have accountability problems—people aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do. Execution is a culture with a specific set of behaviours and techniques that companies must master in order to have competitive advantage. More than a tactic, it is a discipline and a system that must be built into a company’s strategy, goals, and culture, and the leader of the organisation must be deeply engaged in it.

“Many people regard execution as detail work that’s beneath the dignity of a business leader. That’s wrong … it’s a leader’s most important job.” ― Larry Bossidy, former chairman and CEO, Honeywell International

According to Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy in their book Execution (2002), a lack of focus on the discipline of execution is the main reason companies fall short on their promises. It explains the gap between what leaders want and what they deliver.

Execution should be a central part of a company’s strategy and goals and the priority of any leader. An execution and accountability culture links the three core processes of any business—the people process, the strategy, and the operating plan—together to accomplish things on time.

The execution phase forces leaders to translate the broad-brush conceptual understanding of the company’s strategy into an action plan for how it will manifest: who will do what in which sequence, how long those tasks will take, how much will they cost, and how they will affect subsequent activities. Fundamentally, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Most companies do not face reality very well; hence, they can’t execute.

 Execution Questions 

• Who will do the job—and how will they be judged and held accountable?
• What human, technical, production, and financial resources are needed to execute the strategy?
• Will the organisation have the resources it needs two years out, when the strategy goes to the next level?
• Does the strategy deliver the earnings required for success?
• Can it be broken down into doable initiatives?

People engaged in the processes argue these questions, search out reality, and reach specific and practical conclusions. All agree on their responsibilities for getting things done and commit to those responsibilities.

3 Core Processes:  People, Strategy & Operations

The heart of execution lies in the three core processes (the people process, the strategy process, and the operations process), which every business uses in one form or another.

In a 10-year study of winning companies, professors William Joyce and Nitin Nohria found four primary management practices that directly correlate with superior corporate performance, as measured by total return to shareholders: execution, strategy, culture, and structure (What Really Works, 2003).

However, more often than not, these core processes stand apart from one another like silos. Typically, the CEO and his senior leadership team allot less than half a day each year to review the plans and, generally, the reviews are not particularly interactive. What is needed is:

• Robust dialogue to surface the realities of the business.
• Accountability for results discussed openly and agreed to by those responsible for getting things done.
• Rewards for the best performers.
• Follow-through to ensure that progress tracks to the plans.

Robust Dialogue

An execution  and accountability culture requires robust dialogue that brings reality to the surface through openness, candour, and informality. When mistakes are made, openness is preserved and blaming avoided. The information is used for course correction. Candour and honesty foster creativity and ultimately lead to competitive advantage and improved shareholder value.

Emotional Fortitude

Emotional fortitude is necessary to be open to whatever information you need, whether it is what you want to hear or not. It takes a special kind of confidence to encourage and accept challenges in group settings. It is necessary to accept and deal with your own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, to be firm with people who aren’t performing, and to handle the ambiguity inherent in fast-moving, complex organisations

The Core Qualities of Emotional Fortitude

Bossidy and Charan point out four core qualities that make up emotional fortitude:

1. Authenticity
2. Self-awareness
3. Self-mastery
4. Humility

Measuring the degree to which such qualities are present in leaders is a challenge. Fine-tuning these leadership qualities is an even greater challenge. The Australian firm IntegrityandValues.com has addressed this challenge, overseeing a body of research into five dimensions of emotional fortitude shown to have the greatest impact on leadership success. The result of this research is a leadership profile which supplies comprehensive and verifiable data on these five dimensions under the over-arching banner of “integrity” including:

1. Accountability
2. Responsibility
3. Truthfulness
4. Loyalty
5. Self Awareness

Clearly these qualities should be well developed in executives in top positions; however, often one or two of them are often underdeveloped. Leadership development at this level requires the services of a professionally trained executive coach to provide focus and guidance in enhancing these qualities.

Execution Is the Main Job

There’s an enormous difference between leading an organisation and presiding over it. The leader who boasts of a hands-off style is not dealing with the issues of the day, not confronting the people responsible for poor performance or searching for problems to solve and making sure they get solved. Putting the right people in the right jobs and ensuring that rewards and recognition reinforce performance are essential.

The Leader’s 7 Essential Behaviours

Accepting full personal responsibility for running the three core processes does not automatically suggest the leader is also micromanaging their business. Micromanaging is a big mistake; it diminishes people’s self-confidence, saps their initiative, and stifles their ability to think for themselves.

How does a leader in charge of execution avoid being a micromanager caught up in the details of running the business? Seven essential behaviours form the building blocks of execution:

1. Know your people and your business.
2. Insist on realism.
3. Set clear goals and priorities.
4. Follow through.
5. Reward the doers.
6. Expand people’s capabilities.
7. Know yourself.

Most executives and managers don’t understand the “discipline” of execution. Execution is not simply a matter of trying harder, paying more attention to details, or doing someone else’s job for them. Execution involves a specific set of core processes built on a foundation of leadership behaviours; it’s a culture unto itself in which accountability and responsibility thrive.

Recommended reading: Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (2002) by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. Crown Business, New York, NY.

Resources for Execution

Bossidy, L. & Charan, R. (2002). Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. Crown Business.

Bruch, H. & Ghoshal, S. (2004). A Bias for Action. Harvard Business School Publishing.

Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t. Harper Business.

Collins, J. & Porras, J. I. (1994). Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. Harper Collins.

Contrada, M. G. (2003). The Discipline of Execution. Harvard Business School Publishing.

Joyce, W., Nohria, N., & Roberson, B. (2003). What Really Works: The 4 + 2 Formula for Sustained Business Success. Harper Business.

Pfeffer, J. & Sutton, R. I. (2000). The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. Harvard Business School Press.

Raffoni, M. (2003, February). Three Keys to Effective Execution. Harvard Management Update, 8 (2), [page numbers].

Worrall, D (2009) A Climate for Change, Life Success Publishing.

Failure to Confront Problem Behaviour

            Leaders such as you want to be liked as much as anybody else does, so you’re likely to delegate the distasteful job of confronting people about their behaviour to other people or to business systems. Good leaders, after all, are supposed to delegate. The trouble is that although business systems can deliver for hard outcomes, they consistently fail to do so in regard to confronting behavioural shortcomings, teamwork problems, and sustained change.

            An expert in leadership coaching and development named Marshall Goldsmith discovered an interesting paradox. Although you may think that people will like you more if you avoid conflict situations with them, they actually respect you more when you face up and deliver the truth with compassion.

            Good leaders frequently engage external consultants and executive coaches to help make serious breakthroughs in such matters, as appropriately trained coaches can gather data and provide you with objective feedback honestly and confidentially. Executive coaches and consultants, furthermore, can also help successful leaders to improve their capacity to hold their direct reports accountable for delivering long-term, sustained behavioural change.

Over-Reliance on Outdated Performance Management Systems

            The traditional performance-management process is inherently problematic as a tool for sustained behavioural change and cultural alignment. The Taylorist school of management originally developed this process within industrial-age organisations in which organisational control was the norm and managers assumed the role of being judge, jury, and sometimes executioner. This disempowering model undermines the goals of those modern organisations for which competition and rapid change demand a culture that encourages employee discretion, responsiveness, and innovation, these being the factors that drive sustained positive change. 

Effective modern organisations have the capacity to respond to change with speed and agility. People who have a deep personal connection with their work and a sense of control drive such organisations. They’ve tapped into their own motivations and problem-solving skills and feel empowered to make a difference.

            External coaches can help you shape your organisation’s behaviour and culture so this can happen by providing objective leadership-performance feedback from multiple sources, helping you to understand and apply the latest techniques for promoting positive organisational cultures, and shifting the balance of your performance conversations from feedback about the past to the more empowering technique of feed-forward for the future.

Leaders Preaching Teamwork but Not Demonstrating It In Practice

            The senior leadership team’s behaviour is the ultimate model of any organisation’s values, culture, and teamwork. Although leaders can be adamant about their walking the talk, many are often unaware that other people see the situation differently.

            We can understand why this discrepancy exists between how leaders perceive themselves and how others see them exists by examining the career paths of many  senior leaders. Three things have probably played a role in most senior leaders achieving their present status. You’ve probably demonstrated significant specialist or generalist expertise, an ability to lead others within your area of expertise, and, more elusively, an ability to manage up, to understand the big picture, and to become noticed by being in the right place at the right time.

            When senior leaders arrive at the top, however a potential problem emerges. Open and honest collaboration with peers, who were also rivals, is unlikely to be a factor in such career-ladder climbs. This, then, becomes the final challenge for those on a senior team leading major organisational-cultural change. The qualities of self-reliance and achievement that had been invaluable for reaching the top can damage your effectiveness by reinforcing rivalries and operational silos between business areas, thereby undermining the ability to demonstrate cohesive teamwork, culture, and leadership.

            As a senior leader you can ill afford to dismiss your need to operate as part of a cohesive senior team and expect other teams within your organisation to operate cohesively within and across business units. Experienced consultants and coaches can introduce simple techniques to help senior teams confront the part that their own behaviour and language has played in undermining the culture and values they espouse – often with profound results.

            In order to achieve such results, exemplary organisations use executive coaching as the most powerful component of their leadership development and organisational-change toolkit. Organisations and senior leaders who seriously want to improve find that the benefits of focussed coaching programs for leadership teams are undeniable. Such programs help you to learn:

•              what conversations you aren’t having in your business and what that is costing you,
•              how your senior team can unlock its capacity to create a positive, high-performing organisational culture in which people want to work,
•              how to know if you’re walking the talk and what to do about it if  you’re not,
•              how to make change last without your having to be there all the time, and
•              how to feel more confident as a senior leader.

            For a confidential discussion about discovering whether an executive-leadership coaching program would make a difference for your organisation, call  02 9599 6791 now, or email me at di@humanresourceschange.com.au.

To Your Success

Di Worrall

Corporate Change Specialist, Executive Coach, Author

Nominee 2010 Telstra Business Women’s Awards

Principal Worrall & Associates

www.humanresourceschange.com.au 

“The insight I gained into myself from Di’s coaching was truly eye opening.  I gained clarity with regard to my strengths, and more importantly, discovered areas of potential improvement that I was previously unaware of.  Once identified, small changes was all it took to produce significant positive results.  I highly recommend Di’s coaching to people who are serious in exploring continuous self improvement.”

Mark Migallo, ANZ Channel Development Manager, Sun Microsystems

Moving forward, a new metric is proposed: the extent to which executives create organisations that are economically, ethically and socially sustainable.

The new metric is trust. Building a culture of transparency is a fundamental first step to achieving trust. Broadly defined, transparency refers to the degree to which information flows freely within an organisation, among managers and employees, and outward to stakeholders.

Trust in our leaders is alarmingly low. While exact figures and study results vary, no data compiled over the last 7 years has shown more than 50% trust for company leaders.

Easier Said Than Done

If transparency is such a vital component of trust, why wouldn’t companies promote openness and a free flow of information?

Several issues can stand in the way:

• People may be unable or unwilling to communicate upward and with honestly
• Teams may not yet have the capability of challenging their own assumptions
• Boards of Directors may be unable to clearly communicate important messages to company leadership

Further, the failure to promote transparency may stem from a leader who won’t listen to followers; as well as followers who won’t speak up.

Poor transparency also occurs when team members are ensconced in “groupthink,” usually without awareness. In this scenario, people on the same team don’t challenge each other. Sometimes, they like each other too much. Other times, they simply don’t know how to disagree with one another.

Knowledge Is Power

In all groups, leaders try to hoard and control information because they use it as a source of power and control. But the ability of a few powerful people to keep information secret is now vanishing, in part due to the Internet, as well as the facility of rapid communications.

Transitioning from a hoarding tendency to a transparency culture starts at the top when leaders:

• Share more information.
• Welcome challenge and counterarguments.
• Admit their own errors.
• Behave as they want others to behave

7 Steps to Transparency

Bennis and O’Toole offer seven steps for developing a culture of transparency:

1.  Tell the Truth

Each of us has the impulse to tell others what they want to hear. Instead, keep it simple, and be honest. Candid leaders tell everyone the same thing, and they have no need to revise their stories.

2. Encourage People to Speak Truth to Power

It’s never easy for us to be honest with our bosses. It takes courage to speak up.

But encouraging people to share their honest opinions is crucial if leaders want to build trust and open communication.  Of course, this sometimes means executives will hear unpleasant information.

3. Reward Contrarians

If you make it acceptable, are willing to listen to opposing points of view and promise to consider the merits of others’ arguments, you pave the way for a culture of transparency.

Find colleagues who tend to be oppositional, listen to them intently, and create conditions for thinking differently.

4. Practice Having Unpleasant Conversations

Few people excel at delivering negative feedback during performance appraisals. Offering negative feedback upward, to one’s boss, is even more challenging.

The best leaders learn how to deliver bad news kindly so people don’t get unnecessarily hurt. It’s certainly not easy, unless practice opportunities are provided.

5. Diversify Information Sources

Communicate regularly with different groups of colleagues, workers, customers and even competitors to gain a nuanced and multifaceted understanding of others’ perceptions.

6. Admit Mistakes

Candour is contagious. When you admit your shortcomings or errors, it paves the way for others to do the same. Simple admissions can disarm critics and encourage others to be transparent, as well.

7. Build Organisational Support for Transparency

Protect whistle-blowers—but don’t stop there. Other norms and sanctions should encourage truth-telling, including open-door policies, ethics training and internal blogs that give a voice to people lower down in the hierarchy.

Board Vigilance

Changing a system that encourages information-hoarding is the board of directors’ responsibility. Truly independent boards should provide a much-needed check on executives’ egos and truth-telling. If they fail to assess transparency at the uppermost levels, they’re not functioning appropriately.

“Boards are the last line of defence against ruinous self-deception and the suppression of vital truths,” write Bennis and O’Toole. “If they’re not vigilant in the pursuit of honesty, the organisations they serve are unlikely to have a free internal or external flow of information.”

Trust

As a species, we are hardwired to trust others, especially those who appear similar to ourselves and who have similar interests. But as recent financial scandals reveal, we sometimes trust too easily and trust the wrong people.

To trust wisely means starting with small acts that foster reciprocity. By communicating your willingness to trust, you give others the go-ahead to do the same. However, Jonar Nadar points out in How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People (2006), that communicating your willingness to trust employees is more than a simple statement or delegation of responsibility.  Deeply trusted leaders go the extra mile by removing obstructions to an employee’s capacity to communicate views and explore possibilities (Worrall, D., A Climate for Change, 2009).

Transparent Communications

Open and honest communications support the decision to trust. Lack of communication and transparency creates suspicion.

To increase the transparency of your communications:

• Increase the frequency and candour of your communications.
• Build a relationship beyond the constraints of your official role.
• Use the word “we” more often than “I.”
• Emphasise common values and goals.
• Be clear whose goals and interests you are promoting.
• Be sure your actions support your words.
• Demonstrate a clear concern for others.
• Under-promise and over-deliver.
• Ask more questions.
• Really listen to the answers.

D.Worrall (2010)

Some of the “bad” things that happen to hardworking, well-meaning, capable people each day include: 

• Missing the big opportunity
• Getting passed over for a promotion
• Getting demoted
• Losing a lot of money
• Getting fired
• Going bankrupt

What happens to us when our worst career nightmares come true?

There may not be scandalous headlines in the local papers, but with the emotional turmoil you’re experiencing, there may as well be.

Career-altering events can happen to anyone — and they do. But when they happen to us, they seem incomprehensible, largely because we’ve worked so hard to be nice, dedicated and well-meaning.

But even when we can partially blame the economy, there comes a time when we must take a hard look at what we could have done differently. Despite faltering companies, imperfect leaders, coworkers who don’t like us and other external variables, we must eventually engage in private, honest  introspection. It’s time to ask: What part did I play in the events leading up to the career crisis?

Defining Mojo

Historically and culturally, the word “mojo” has been associated with witchcraft and voodoo—specifically, the ability to cast spells. Over the years, it has become urban slang for personal power, magnetism and charisma.

In business speak today, mojo refers to the moment we do something purposeful and powerful — an act lauded by others. In sports, business and politics, the term has evolved to describe a sense of positive direction.

For some, mojo represents personal advancement: moving forward, making progress, achieving goals, clearing hurdles, passing the competition — and doing so with increasing ease. What you’re doing matters, and you enjoy it. Star athletes call this being “in the zone.” Others describe it as “flow.”

Mojo plays a vital role in our pursuit of happiness and meaning, as it involves achieving two simple goals: loving what you do and showing it.

Lost Mojo

In Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It, leadership expert Marshall Goldsmith introduces the term “nojo” — the opposite of mojo.

Nojo sufferers approach their work negatively. They’re bored, frustrated, dispirited and confused about the dark tunnel that envelops their career — and they aren’t shy about sharing their dissatisfaction with others.

Nojo happens when we experience a career failure and don’t get over it. Individuals who are incapable of looking inward to identify their role in a negative event get stuck — and stay stuck. As their spirit sours, they find themselves unable to recapture their mojo.

In some cases, people seem to have mojo one day and nojo the next. This volatility is often caused by a series of ongoing, hard-to-spot mistakes that in time lead to a crisis. If we can recognise our errors early, we can prevent events from spiralling out of control.

Common Career Mistakes

Goldsmith lists seven professional mistakes that contribute to career failures in otherwise competent, successful and smart people:

1. Over-committing
2. Waiting for the Facts to Change
3. Looking for Logic in All the Wrong Places
4. Bashing the Boss
5. Refusing to Change Because of “Sunk Costs”
6. Confusing the Mode You’re in
7. Maintaining Pointless Arguments

As you examine these potential pitfalls, try to pinpoint the ones to which you’re predisposed.  

1.   Over-committing

If you’re good at what you do and like your job, it’s easy to take on new challenges. You’re bursting with mojo. People want you in their meetings and on their teams.

The old adage, “If you want something done, just ask a busy person,” may apply to you. And if you’re ambitious, the last thing you want to admit to your boss or coworkers is that you can’t handle everything.

If you believe you have superpowers, you will box yourself into a corner by taking on too many tasks. At that point, the quality of work and good humour will begin to fail, and you’ll lose your mojo (and possibly much more).

Ironically, the habit of over-committing has an unintended consequence: It makes us appear under-committed — a perception rarely appreciated by customers, colleagues or bosses.

2.       Waiting for the Facts to Change

When we experience a setback, it’s not uncommon for us to wait for the facts to change into something more to our liking. Such wishful thinking is the opposite of over-committing, as it leads to under-acting. Instead of doing something, you freeze and do nothing.

When the facts are hard to swallow, ask yourself: “What path would I take if I knew the situation won’t get any better?” Then, get ready to pursue that path.

Doing nothing is akin to moving backward — a behaviour you cannot afford in a constantly changing world.

3.       Looking for Logic in All the Wrong Places

We devote many professional hours to finding logic in situations where none exists.

Human beings are profoundly illogical. Our minds crave order, fairness and justice, and we’re trained to value logic. But much of life, work and decisions that affect us are unreasonable, unfair or unjust, which sets us up for disappointment and can kill mojo.

We sometimes hope logic will prevail against all odds and that it will prove we’re in the right. If we capriciously stick to our guns until the bitter end, everyone will see how right we are. In the meantime, we seriously damage important relationships.

4.       Bashing the Boss

Talent-management firm DDI found that the average American spends 15 hours a month criticising or complaining about his or her boss. Indeed, boss-bashing is a popular diversion.

But while it may relieve tension and get a few laughs, denigrating your boss is not particularly attractive. Other people will wonder what you’ll say about them when they’re not around.

Bashing doesn’t build a better boss. It only serves to tarnish your reputation and lower your mojo. The negativity you spread will almost certainly affect others’ mojo, too.

5.       Refusing to Change Because of “Sunk Cost”

Once incurred, a sunk cost cannot be recovered. Unfortunately, it’s also the basis for many irrational decisions that go against our best interest. When we throw more money at a problem and hope for different results, we compound the error — all because we cannot admit our error.

Each of us has sunk costs in our lives. We didn’t become successful because of luck; rather, we had to invest a big piece of ourselves in our work. At some point, this investment may have stopped paying off, without our awareness.

Are your decisions based on what you might lose or what you have to gain? It it’s the former, your devotion to sunk costs may be costing you more than you know: your mojo.

6.       Confusing the Mode You’re in

We have two modes of behaviour: professional and relaxed. Our professional selves are image-conscious. We pay attention to how we look, dress, speak and behave. We can’t afford to be sloppy.

In relaxed mode, some of us go to opposite extremes. We’re less guarded about everything, including our speech, language and use of humour.

So, what happens when we’re in relaxed mode, but still in the company of work colleagues and friends? Are we sarcastic and cynical in ways inappropriate to the office setting?

The more you close the gap between who you are as a professional and who you are when relaxed, the greater the trust and confidence you’ll generate. You’ll demonstrate genuineness and integrity, and you’ll avoid slipping into sloppiness with humour and language, which can put a dent in your mojo.

7.       Maintaining Pointless Arguments

Arguing happens anytime you put a group of intelligent, successful people into a room and give them a problem to solve. It also happens simply because people have egos, and it’s human nature to compete with other members of the tribe.

Arguing can put our mojo at risk by needlessly creating enemies instead of allies. Many arguments are traps in which we fight to improve our status among the tribe, rather than to solve a problem for the greater good.

Learn to avoid the following argument traps that do nothing more than zap your spirit:

• Let me keep talking: Everyone has opinions and enjoys expressing them. In fact, we feel it’s our right to do so. Sometimes, however, we just can’t stop; we have to have the last word. It can be very hard for smart people to “just let it go.”
• I had it rougher than you: When we revel in how poor we were and how much we had to overcome to achieve our current station in life, all we’re doing is trying to elicit other people’s admiration. What’s the point?
• Why did you do that? We’ll never know people’s true motivations. We can speculate with generosity or paranoia, but we never may get a completely frank answer. Why waste hours trying to get to the bottom of why people do things? It will only exhaust your mojo.
• It’s not fair: You disagree with a decision that has been made. Worse, you believe you haven’t been given a legitimate explanation. Arguing won’t change the outcome and makes you look childish. Deal with it. Save your precious mojo.

These four “losing” arguments have the same end result: no change in outcome. Look for ways to make your point, and then move on, with your mojo intact.

Mojo Recuperation

What can you do when you recognise these behaviours in yourself?

It’s easy to tell yourself that you I’ll stop doing that. But it’s harder to maintain progress whenever you seek lasting behaviour change.

Someone once asked Goldsmith, “Does anyone ever really change?” After surveying 86,000 former clients and, later on, more than 250,000 respondents from his leadership development seminars, his conclusion is unequivocal:

“Very few people achieve positive, lasting change without ongoing follow-up. Unless they know at the end of the day (or week or month) that someone is going to measure if they’re doing what they promised to do, most people fall prey to inertia.”

The key words in Goldsmith’s statement are “measure” and “follow-up.” Because very few people can succeed alone with self-help efforts, many seek assistance from a mentor or executive coach.

Remember that your competition continually responds to a changing business environment by working longer and harder. This means mojo is not an option; it’s a career differentiator. You need it to separate yourself from the masses — and your personal spirit will ultimately thank you.

Di Worrall (2010)