By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst”  

At dinner this week with a corporate client, she talked about the fine line between overwhelm and upset… When she’s upset about something, she’s churning and distracted and unable to focus or concentrate on things she needs to get done. When she sorts out what has her upset, overwhelm simply melts away. An instant boost in productivity!

You know when you’re upset and you sure can see it in others. Your mind is yammering away at you endlessly, steam’s coming out of your ears, and your neck is so tense your shoulders are up around your ears. Everything around you becomes annoying.

Sometimes the event that triggered the upset is right there, in your line of sight. And that sure makes it easy to stay focused on it and deal with it – then and there. But we so seldom know what has us upset in the moment it occurs.

Most often, the source of our upset is vague and the drain on our productivity drags on and on and on.

I teach my Inner Circle Program clients how to identify what motivates them to hang on to the upset. For some, it’s a great procrastination technique. They conveniently distract themselves from tackling uninteresting or unpleasant tasks. For others it’s stubborn habit and their ego demanding they hold their attitude to prove themselves right.
At some point they decide they’ve had enough of being “stalled” and they use the following 3 -step technique I teach them to dissect and eliminate The Upset and get back on track.

It’s another of the 7 Essential Techniques I use with my clients to recover their ‘brain power’ and inrease their productivity. You need to learn this technique! It’ll help you focus so you can identify the real issues buried behind the upset, and get your attention back on what it takes to Achieve Your Vision.

TECHNIQUE 2 – CLEAR OUT ‘THE UPSET’
Are you finding no one has any attention for actually solving things! Do you feel like a lot of finger pointing and blaming is going on, instead of work? Do you find people on your team have their reason why the other is creating complications and problems? And what about you?  Let’s start using the technique with you.

1 - Identify the Trigger of the Upset

All that churn and emotion overlays some breakdown that occurred. The most frequent breakdowns are due to assumptions, expectations and communication. You made some assumption that actual events didn’t live up to. Or you were holding expectations that others didn’t fulfill. And the award winning biggest trigger is that communication broke down. Either you thought it and didn’t say it. Or you thought it and said it poorly. Or you said it but it wasn’t understood. Or someone else thought it and didn’t say it…. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Once you identify which of the breakdowns occurred you’re ready for Step 2.

2 - Clear Up Your Part

The root of an Upset may be one or more of the breakdowns. To really flush that upset out and be done with it for good, you need to identify your own role in it.

Was there some assumption you were carrying that actually had nothing to do with this particular situation? If so, how will you acknowledge that to yourself, and to the other people involved to get it out of the mix? How about a phone call, a note, or a face to face meeting to get the right assumptions agreed to so you can create a fresh start.

Were you holding expectations that others didn’t even know they were ‘supposed to’ meet? Identify them and get them off the table so you can get your attention back on the true goals surrounding the event.

What communication did you not share effectively? Now is the time to reword it, ask for a fresh opportunity to say it differently and more productively, and get everyone back on track.

3 - Clean Up the Relationship

Upsets almost always take place in situations between people. With the language for those potential triggers, it can be very easy to ask another person, or an entire team, to dissect what may be derailing an interaction or work effort. In the same way that you can ask yourself which of those 3 triggers has taken you off track, you can ask others if there might have been an unstated expectation or assumption, or missed communication.

Posing the question in that fashion allows for a very neutral and objective conversation. It creates a collaboration between you and the others involved that becomes analytical rather than emotional. In fact it makes it very easy for everyone to say “Oh! Sorry about that! How can we sort that out and restart this?”

Clear out the upsets and watch how everyone recovers their intellectual attention for taking care of business!

I’m in a tizzy and a tug of war – so much to do, so little time – The 2007 Success TeleConference is coming together fabulously! The speakers are on-board and excited to be bringing you their know how to all of you and your colleagues and clients. Yahoo!And then there’s technology. May I pause for a scream? Arrrrgggghhhh!!! Every time I think I know everything that has to be set up to make it all work, I find out there’s another layer that needs my decision making, drafting, action. And I run on, like I know you do at times, and smack right into “There’s not enough time!”

My attention is constantly being pulling in several different directions.

I watched myself churn for a day or so and then had to laugh. It’s right in line with this week’s article. Still on track with the Principles so that you get a clear picture of the steps to take to Achieve Your Vision…

Change Your Attention And You Can Change It All!

A funny phenomenon occurs every time I use the ‘ Vent the ‘Story’ technique. I won’t tell you what it is here – that would spoil your pleasure in experiencing it. More importantly, once you’ve used the technique a couple of times, you’ll find you start to use it automatically when fresh situations arise.

“Lather - Rinse - Repeat”

Use the technique yourself and with your team. Just like in the shampoo instructions, repeat it again. When you get to the end of each repetition, ask yourself if you’re clear yet. If there’s the slightest hint of story lingering in your thoughts, repeat it again until your mind is squeaky clean.

Use the technique yourself and with your team. Just like in the shampoo instructions, repeat it again. When you get to the end of each repetition, ask yourself if you’re clear yet. If there’s the slightest hint of story lingering in your thoughts, repeat it again until your mind is squeaky clean.

The Secret Mania

“I got so many comments last week about my remarks on The Secret Mania, and a recommendation from Luis Maimoni of Fresh Graphics to post those remarks here, on the blog, so people could comment on it. Thank Luis - here it is!”

Enough with The Secret!

I’m bombarded daily with emails about the new found miraculous “secret” way to… Or the long-lost secret way to… They yank my emotional chain and I dig in to get that ‘perfect’ cure-all solution like taking the red pill in the movie The Matrix. And I’m sick of it! I suspect you are too!

I believe fervently that great results can be accomplished with simple steps. I know from my own experience and my clients results that creating clear inspiring Visions, shaking up your limiting convictions, setting focused intentions, making effective decisions, increasing your “know how” and taking leveraged actions accelerate results with ease.

And they don’t have to be secretive. So here’s my vow – I won’t reveal any nonsensical “secrets” if you’ll stop looking for the effortless way to solve every challenge you face with a non-existent perfect solution!

… unless and until I find a truly remarkable secret, at which point I’ll let you know how too ……….

Meanwhile, what I will do is consistently give you a road map and resources for getting your vision accomplished faster and easier.

In the next several week’s article you’ll find the Key Principles to Achieving Your Vision. They’re not secrets, so pass ‘em along to your friends, colleagues, customers!

And keep your eyes open for the announcement of how to register for The 2007 Success TeleConference that will start in April!

Success Principle 2 - Get More Effective Results By Sharpening Your Mind

By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst”

How many times a day do you feel like your time is being wasted?

Is this you? You’re sitting in a meeting and while someone else is talking about a problem that they feel needs to be solved, you’re wondering why they don’t get on with it, or whether anyone else thinks this is the forum for such a small issue, or why they think everyone needs to know about it.

Then when the next person leaps in with a great idea they’ve thought of, your mind chatters away with “Oh, that idea, again!” or “Jeez, everyone knows that’ll never work!” or “That’s got nothing to do with what needs doing here!”

One of the most overlooked reasons for breakdowns in personal and business productivity is “right behind your eyes!”

Your mind’s in a fog because of all the assumptions and convictions that are chattering away, having their own conversation. They’re blocking your ability to listen with an open mind, think analytically about the information you have or need to get, and develop targeted solutions.

And you’re not the only one operating that way! Situations in business and life have become so complex that a simple answer isn’t always apparent. And all of our personalities are so diverse that we’re all frankly lousy at mindreading.

All that brain power and experience is being regularly flushed down the time drain instead of being used to actually identify what needs solving and solve it!

So where does that leave us? You need to learn techniques that help you focus and identify the real issues buried behind the chaos, and get your attention back on what it takes to Achieve Your Vision.

Here is a taste of the first of the 7 Essential Techniques I use with my clients to recover their ‘brain power’ and inrease their productivity: They’re not taught in schools or get rich manuals, but they create productivity increases of 60% to 300% in as little as 10 minutes.

Technique 1 – “Lather. Rinse. Repeat” - Vent the ‘Story’
Are you finding no one has any attention for actually solving things! Do you feel like a lot of finger pointing and blaming is going on, instead of work? Do you find people on your team have their reason why the other is creating complications and problems? And what about you?  Let’s start using the technique with you.

Take a lesson from shampoo manufacturers. You can’t make headway when everyone is fixated on the events leading up to the meeting to solve them. Get the entire story told, in the utmost detail, until you’ve said it all. Not in discussion, not in dialogue. Here are the steps to use

1 - Identify some issue you’re not making any headway on

2 - find a partner to do this exercise with

3 - Print out this page or forward it to them so they can read it

4 – Ask your partner to listen, just listen and ask yourself “Is there anything else?” every time you pause
5 – When you get to the end of the story, if your answer to that question is even to pause to check, go right back to the top and start the story from the beginning and repeat the steps.

Notice that there’s no problem-solving. Just stir up the lather in the situation thoroughly, then rinse and repeat.

Repeat the process until you cannot add a single thing, and then tell it again – at some point you’ll get fed up with the story on your own and be ready to move on to actually solving the real issue.

Change Your Vision And You Can Change It All!

A Vision Statement is designed to align everyone’s efforts and energy in creating a specific result in the world.

When you step back and take a fresh look at the effort being put into your business is it productive? How much time is being wasted because there is no underlying compelling Vision pulling it all together?

The starting point for getting everyone aligned is to find out why they all think they are there.

Ask yourself and your team

“What is the underlying Vision for this organization?”

If you don’t hear that people have a clear understanding of the purpose for the business, you cannot clearly define the what success will look like for their roles and responsibilities. Your first order of business is communicating that Vision clearly.

Success Principle 1 - Get Your Business Vision Focused By Getting The Chaff Out!

Principle 1 – Get your Business Vision focused by Getting the Chaff Out!

I sat through a meeting that went nowhere this week. Everyone on the management team claimed they were there to identify changes that would improve business profitability and individual productivity. No one could agree on the steps that needed to be taken.

I was asked to come observe because the team was making no headway and had been stalled for months, going around in the same circles. Because of a simple fundamental breakdown they spent much of the meeting arguing– there was no agreement on the business model… and there was no agreement because the business’s Vision was a tangled mess.

How did this happen? This is a business, so how could it possibly be operating without a clear inspiring Vision? Poorly!

In businesses, whether solo, small firm or large corporation, the lack of a Vision results in continuously wasted resources. I bet you’ve experience these at some point: great ideas mixed in with bad ones, lots of busy work and duplication and people marking time commingled with focused efforts.

People dream of doing great work!

They’re hungry for someone to give them a clear direction with a Vision they can sink their teeth into. You can’t make a loaf of bread anyone wants to eat if there’s chaff in it… What do I mean by “chaff?” At some point in the past 10 years I expect you saw a television show or cable program from a developing country that showed a woman ankle deep in grain. With a light breeze blowing from behind her she was systematically scooping up the grain and tossing it into the air.

Toss the grain in the air and the breeze blows the outer inedible shell, the chaff, to the side while the weight of the edible core drops it to the ground. Presto! The makings of a great pita, or loaf of bread, or strip of pasta. In developed countries, large machinery does the same thing. Millions of tons of grain taken from a confused mass of unfiltered wheat to immediately usable product in a simple, systematic way.

You’d think that if people had been doing this for centuries, actually for millennia, that we’d all know how to apply the principle to other areas of life.

In fact, we don’t. Just as that woman sifting the wheat had to learn how to do that, the same holds true in creating productive, profitable business efforts. And the starting point is the same for mega corporations, family owned businesses, professional service firms, or technology start-ups.

You can’t get people to step up and produce effective results if your Vision is a mess!

I’ve seen Vision statements that were 150 words long on plaques on the wall, listened to business leaders drone on from the podium as listeners eyes glassed over, and had CEO’s tell me their company was in business, because it was in business.

Don’t get me wrong. The business doors are open, products and services are being delivered and money is changing hands. But the employees aren’t motivated to do their best work, management is arguing about whether sales or accounting set the business direction, and customers can pick and choose who they want to buy from this month.

Nothing compelling is at the helm – no idea that stirs the staff’s juices, no product or service that keeps customers loyal, and no touchstone that reminds people wearing different business hats of the reason they’re in a meeting to solve conflicts and make decisions.

Companies come into existence because at one point in time there was a customer for a specific solution, and someone decided to do ‘whatever it took’ to provide that solution.

And that motivation was a clear compelling Vision.

FedEx established a Vision that packages would be delivered “absolutely, positively, overnight” and that animated every activity in the company. Your success demands that you have a Vision everyone stands for in your organization.

So I’ll be working with that client to get a compelling straightforward Vision that ties their efforts together. And it’s now your turn! Get the chaff out and create a Vision that aligns and inspires the efforts of your business!

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