Aerobic exercise
15 minutes of aerobic exercise is the last daily habit we recommend. No groaning, please! It’s relatively easy to work in exercise into your day, and it doesn’t have to be all at once. There are some simple ways of increasing your heart rate several times during the day:

• Park your car far away from the office and hoof it to the front door
• Use the stairs instead of the elevator (obviously, if you work on the 15th floor, I’m not suggesting you walk up the stairs, but you can use the stairs to walk between floors of your office).
• Use public transportation instead of your car.
• Walk your dog twice a day.
• Take an after-dinner walk with your family every night.
• Hit the gym on the way to or from work or during lunch time.

Plus Three
The last section of our formula is plus Three, and it refers to doing something creative three times a week. Creative is defined as something that engages your right brain such as music, art, dancing, cooking, baking, sewing, gardening, fly fishing, flying, knitting, woodworking, playing with your kids, etc. It needs to be fun and it’s usually a hobby.

If you can’t do these activities three times a week, then enjoy an armchair version of them. For example, listen to music rather than make music, or read about flying a vintage airplane, or peruse a cook book. The idea is to do or think about something completely different from your work and use different thought processes as a diversion. This is a great lesson for a life well lived.

I don’t have time for all this!
So, you think you don’t have time for 15/15/15 plus Three? We suggest you examine your daily routines to find hidden time bandits that snatch away your precious time. Do you watch TV at night? Instead of falling asleep to the TV, do your daily review before going to bed. We tend to dream about what we think of right before sleep, so listing what you are grateful for will give you pleasant dreams. The opposite is true about watching the evening news before turning in – you will sleep poorly and have agitated dreams.

What about social networking or online gaming time or Sudoku or computer games? Can you take 15 minutes out of the time you spend/waste doing these things?
I know some couples who do their daily review together. To do this, you might light a candle, take some quiet time to reflect and write, then share your most grateful and least grateful moments with each other. It is a sweet way to end your day and strengthen your relationship. It helps to have someone else to share your daily review with and keeps you accountable to doing it.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.” He knew that meditation helped him be highly efficient in the time he had available. It is counter-intuitive that sitting still for longer times will actually make you more productive, but Gandhi certainly accomplished great things. Think of how you could apply this concept to your days.

Realize that you spend time on what you value. Do you value your leadership abilities? If so, you will find time for these important practices. After 30 days, new disciplines become habits, so try our formula for a month and see what benefits you gain. After that, you will miss them if you have to skip a day.

The first two articles in series covered reviewing and planning (Part One) and focused awareness (Part Two).

Focused Awareness
It’s remarkable to learn how many highly effective and high-ranking executives have a regular meditation practice, or time for focused awareness. Most of them credit their focused awareness practice with building their ability to focus, to deal with stress, to be present in the moment and to have a broader perspective on issues. Only 15 minutes a day can give you these benefits over time.

Many people find that 15 minutes of focused awareness or meditation are too much to bear at first. The research has good news about this: Just 5 minutes a day of focused awareness can bring you some of the benefits listed above. Of course, 15 minutes is ideal. DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP if you can’t do 15 minutes at first. Do what you can and try to build up your awareness muscle by gradually increasing the duration of the exercise. As Ram Dass says, “The only bad mediation is the one you didn’t do.”

The point of focused awareness is to still your mind a bit, to focus on one object or process (your breath is the most common focal point)and to observe and let go of any thoughts that creep in (and there will be thoughts!). The act of observing and letting go of thoughts, then directing your attention back to the focal point, is the discipline that builds focus and awareness.

To do this, sit up straight in a quiet place and close your eyes. Your back should be straight so your belly area can expand. Scan your body to make sure that you are relaxed in every spot you might hold tension: your shoulders, your face, your stomach, your legs. Take several deep belly breaths, making sure you fill your entire lungs. Now, turn your attention to your breath and observe it. As you pay attention to your breath, count your breaths. An inhale and exhale equals one breath. Count from one to ten and then start over. If you find yourself mindlessly counting past ten, just say to yourself, “Oh well,” return your attention to your breath and start over at number one.

I like to think of focused awareness as the still spot within you that is always available. If you equate your life, with all its drama, concerns and fret, to the surface of the ocean where there are waves, storms and squalls, then focused awareness is a place that is three miles below the surface of the ocean. Here, it is always tranquil. The surface storms do not touch you there.

I teach all of my clients a quick form of focused attention called HeartMath. It is a good way to start your focused awareness session, but is best used as “mini” focused attention sessions during the day. Give us a call at 817-577-7030 if you want to learn more about HeartMath, or visit www.heartmath.com.

Lastly, give focused awareness a chance. This is not a practice that delivers immediate results. Give it at least eight weeks before you judge it. After eight weeks, you will begin to notice that you don’t react as quickly to trigger situations, that you feel more calm even during stressful situations, and that you see broader perspectives when presented with a problem. You will also begin to look forward to your quiet time as a refuge from the storms of life, a safe place you can go within yourself.

In Part Three of this series, I’ll cover Aerobic Exercise and the Plus Three.

We know that the most highly effective leaders practice a high degree of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the ability to be fully present in the moment, observing both your own thoughts/feelings and what is going on around you. Mindfulness is important to leaders because they must be aware of both what’s going on inside them (their thoughts, reactions, emotions and moods) and what’s happening outside them in their teams, in their organizations, with their stakeholders and within the larger society. If leaders are unaware of any of these dynamics, they are not able to manage either themselves or their organizations.

How can a leader increase his mindfulness? The research strongly suggests that a daily practice of reflection, practicing quiet attention and regular exercise is one of the best ways to develop your personal and leadership effectiveness. It also helps you manage stress by scheduling brief “time outs” during a hectic day. At Brio Leadership, we suggest a formula called “15/15/15 plus three”. What that means is a daily practice of 15 minutes of reviewing and planning, 15 minutes of focused attention or quiet time and 15 minutes of aerobic exercise, plus three sessions a week of a creative pursuit. Let’s explore each of these.

Reviewing and planning

Entry from Kristin’s journal

The first 15 minute segment is reviewing and planning: you review the previous day and plan for the coming day. We suggest that you use a journal for the review. Any notebook will do – sometimes I use an inexpensive wire-bound notebook, other times I buy a handsome journal with blank pages. In your review, think about your day’s activities, thoughts, reactions and feelings and note these two things:

• The two or three things for which you are most grateful, most proud of or that gave you the most joy.
• The one thing for which you are least grateful, least proud of or that gave you the least joy.

This should take you about 10 minutes to do. I keep a daily journal in which I notate, with a star or asterisk (*) the things that gave me the greatest joy, and with a minus sign (-) the one thing that I am least proud of or gave me the least joy. Here is what a typical entry in my journal looks like:

The other 5 minutes are spent looking over your coming day with your calendar in order to set intentions for what you will accomplish. Think of the people you are going to see, the meetings you will attend, the customers you will call, and ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the outcome I wish to accomplish with this person? How do I want to feel or think, and how do I want the other to feel or think, after our encounter?
• In order to achieve this outcome, how will I need to be? For example, I need to be calm and not anxious, or I need to be empathetic and kind, or I need to be frank and forthright.
• Is there anything I need to mentally rehearse for the day? If you need to have a pivotal conversation today, mentally rehearse how you are going to present your message and how you might interact with the person.

Many of my clients set aside 15-20 minutes at the beginning of their day to review and plan. Your Outlook calendar might look like this:

Note the yellow time segments at the beginning of the work day. You could also set aside 30 minutes at the end of the day, or during your lunch hour. It’s best to pick a time and stick to it every day, so you develop a routine and train your co-workers to respect your private time.

I was once in a corporate office where I had the opportunity to see several employee’s Outlook calendars. They all had 30-minute recurring appointments with themselves each morning for planning. The company had sponsored their attendance at a time management seminar in which they were taught to set aside planning time. It was an accepted practice at this office to spend the first 30 minutes in planning. I strongly recommend making morning planning an accepted practice at your office.

In Part Two of this series, I’ll cover Focused Awareness.

Susan G. Komen Walk
I am walking in the Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure, which is a 60-mile walk over 3 days, to raise money for breast cancer research and awareness. I am walking in the Dallas walk next November. Would you help me raise money for this worthy cause? You can donate to the Susan G. Komen association at my fundraising website here.

I am walking in memory of my mother, Jeannette J. Robertson. At her death from other causes in 2006, she was a 14-year survivor of breast cancer. Mom held a Ph.D. in microbiology, and viewed cancer like a scientist: She wanted to understand everything about her cancer (it was estrogen-receptive positive) and all available treatments. After her mastectomy, she chose a 5-year course of chemotherapy that did the trick, evidently. Her cancer never returned. True to form, Mom fought cancer and won. I walk in memory of a great woman, a fighter and survivor: my mother.

Your support of me will sustain me as I train for this demanding event. I know that a walk doesn’t sound like much of a strain, but think of it – 60 miles in 3 days means an average of 30 miles a day – yikes! I am told that it is physically grueling and, at the same time, an inspiring experience. My formal training program starts May 1, six months before the walk. Again, here is the link to my fundraising website. And thank you!

Speaking events
After a hiatus of over a year, I am again speaking at conferences and events with a set of totally new topics. Here are the places you can hear me this spring:

• HDI Conference, Orlando, FL, Wed, April 25 at 10:15 am: The Inner Game of Highly Effective Leaders. If you are attending the HDI conference this month, please come and hear me! At this presentation, you’ll learn how to embrace the inner game of leadership and the habits of self-knowledge, self-management and on-going reflection. For more information, visit www.hdiconference.com
• Las Colinas Country Club, Irving, TX, Tuesday, May 1 at 7:30 to 9:00 am: The Inner Game of Highly Effective Leaders. I’m debuting my new presentation to a group of local colleagues and clients. All are welcome! For more information, please email us at info@brioleadership.com.
• Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NB, Thursday May 10 at noon: Intelligent Stress Management. Use all your intelligences to manage your stress and balance your life.
• Women’s Business Council – Southwest, Tuesday, May 22, Austin, TX at noon: The Inner Game of Highly Effective Leaders. At this presentation, you’ll learn how to embrace the inner game of leadership and the habits of self-knowledge, self-management and on-going reflection. For more information, visit http://www.wbcsouthwest.org

If you are interested in booking Kristin to speak for your event or meeting, please contact her at 817-577-7030 or through this form!

In future months, I look forward to sharing with you some of my thoughts about such subjects. For today, however, I’d like to share with you a February gift: my feature article on the importance of love as a leadership quality. I hope you enjoy my musings for the month of love and Valentine’s Day.

All the best,

Kristin

• A CEO calls a customer service representative when her daughter is in the hospital to ask, “Is there anything we can do for you?”
• A manager leaves work at 5:30 and says good night to each employee, by name, as he passes their cubicle. Some of the employees do not report to him and one (me) is a consultant who is surprised that he knows my name because I am working with another department.
• A Vice President draws her organizational chart with frontline workers on the top and her position on the bottom. She says, “This represents who is most important to the corporation.”
• A division President calls all his Vice Presidents and their direct reportees on their birthdays to wish them well and thank them for their service to the organization.
• A President of a small company writes a large bonus check in the middle of the year to thank a new employee for his outstanding efforts.
• The CEO pays for a junior employee’s emergency surgery because the employee’s company-provided health insurance hadn’t yet kicked in. That employee eventually is promoted to be the Vice President of Human Resources at the company.
• A manager regularly asks her employees how she can support them in their job.
• A company has to sell off a division to maintain solvency and chooses a buyer who would retain all existing employees, not the buyer that offers the highest price.

Love and compassion can be ridiculed by some as “soft” or “wimpy”. Yet, recent studies have shown that employees are more productive and more engaged if they perceive that their manager cares about them as a person. In each of the above situations, love and compassion were shown. The recipients of these acts of kindness become loyal employees who go the extra mile for the company – a priceless trait that pays big dividends. There are bottom-line benefits to exhibiting love in a work environment.

How do you show love and compassion in your leadership? Send your stories to me at kristin@brioleadership.com.

During the past year, I have been consumed with developing a new service with and for my corporate clients involving the professional development of their executives and promising employees.

Beta testing is complete. I’m eager to fill you in and want to get your frank assessment of the offering. I’m so excited about this program that I would like to give you a free test drive of one of the components.

“Our company’s most important assets walk out the door every night.”

That is the credo of an executive and client of my corporate consulting company. He believes he will excel if he can help those that work for him excel. And he thinks that to excel they must be aware of their talents and weaknesses and build on their strengths. He asked me, his process optimization consultant, if I had done any work developing professional talent.

I shared with him my new coaching program, designed for executives and promising managers that combines the “hard” process efficiency tools training my consulting company uses with ”soft” professional self-development techniques.

Executive Coaching for Current and Future Executives:

Refining this coaching method has been my passion for the past year. Most rewarding has been seeing the results of the program – results from people who have changed their approaches, thought processes and reactions due to feedback received and increased self-insight. Ultimate outcomes of these internal changes have included promotions to new positions, finding a new job that uses the person’s strengths, and turn-arounds of failing teams.

Successful personal and professional development always starts with greater self-knowledge and self-awareness.

This month, I offer you a short article on the value of self-knowledge and self-awareness.

All the best,

Kristin Robertson

The recent problems at HP tells us that winning corporate strategies require the same foundation of self-knowledge (though we use different terminology in corporate consulting).  As you know, the giant of Silicon Valley recent went into a tailspin and fired its CEO.  Critics said HP lost its way.  It forgot what its strengths were and how to leverage them in a brutal, competitive environment.  Not to take sides in the Apple vs PC fight, but Apple seems to know and be quite comfortable with who it is.

Like corporations, if we want to succeed we need to regularly re-evaluate what we are about and gear our assets to the changing world around us.

The Psychology Behind the Theory

In Mastering Self-Leadership, Charles Manz and Christopher Neck say, “If we ever hope to be effective leaders of others, we need first to be able to lead ourselves effectively.”¹ In order to lead yourself well, you must have a high degree of both self-knowledge and self-awareness. Self-knowledge refers to the accuracy of your understanding of both your strengths and leadership limitations. Self-awareness is your ability to reflect on your thoughts, feelings and behaviors as they happen. The distinction may seem fuzzy, so we will focus on self-knowledge in this article.

A useful structure for understanding what you know and don’t know about yourself is the Johari Window, named after its creators, Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. It’s a great tool for mapping personal awareness:

 
The matrix shows how aspects of yourself – your personality traits, experiences, thoughts, feelings, reactions, mental models², etc – are either known or unknown to both you and others. Notice that each of the quadrants in the window has a descriptive name for that area of the self: Open Self, Blindspots, Hidden Self and Unknown Self. Each of these “windows” represents parts of you.

What You Don’t Know Can Kill You

Highway accident statistics say that there are approximately 840,000 side-to-side blind spot collisions with 300 fatalities every year in the United States.  Likewise being unaware of what you are and how you are perceived can kill your chances to advance and succeed in your career and life.

Executive coaching helps people move the things from the right, harmful side of their matrix (what they do not know about themselves), to the left side, where knowledge can become power – power to build on strengths and overcome weaknesses.

The scariest and perhaps most damaging quadrant on the right side of the matrix is aptly called Blind Spots.  It is what others see in you that you do not see in yourself.  To remove Blind Spots, executive coaching teaches clients proven methods for soliciting  feedback from others.  Using personality and personal strength assessments coaches can help the client create a context for interpreting and acting on the information they gather.  Likewise coaching helps clients examine their career and life experiences to key in on their Blind Spots.

The other problematic quadrant in the matrix is the lower right and called “Unknown Self”.  While it sounds a little spooky, this part of you that you and others do not see can in fact be a land of great opportunity.

A great football coach once said that greatness is not taught, it is revealed.  The goal of coaching in this quadrant is to reveal  and exploit strengths and potential that were previously unknown or unappreciated.  In addition to some of the tools used to attack Blind Spots, coaches often help clients select challenging assignments that take them out of their comfort zone and then interpret and leverage what they learn.

This true story illustrates Blindspots problems and how they can to be addressed:

A talented young woman had risen quickly to a management position in a company.  Her promotions were based on her great subject knowledge and hard work but her advancement suddenly stalled.  She could not understand why.  A coach was called in who prescribed a 360^O assessment.

The woman was shocked by the results; while respected for her smarts, colleagues roundly criticized her leadership skills.  The coach helped her work through the feedback and had her complete several personality indicators to reveal strengths she could be exploit to improve her performance.   Through the sometimes painful process she removed many of her Blind Spots and with her coach’s help modified her thought patterns and behaviors and revamped her approach to leadership.  Her team is back on track and she plans to do a follow-up 360 to test results.

And here’s an example of someone who decreased his Unknown Self:  This young man was afraid of flying.  He had never flown anywhere in his life.  When offered the opportunity early in his career to make a presentation in Seattle, which was 3,000 miles away, he reluctantly accepted.  He learned to manage his fear of flying and is now an enthusiastic world traveler.  No one, especially himself, could have predicted that he would grow to love traveling.  That aspect of himself, the avid world traveler, was transformed from an aspect of his Unknown Self into an area of his Open Self by saying yes to this challenging assignment.

The benefits of increased self-knowledge are many. Leaders who have deep self-knowledge operate at the highest levels of effectiveness. They understand what motivates them, they know what triggers negative emotions or reactions in themselves, and they are aware of their strengths. They act authentically in ways that align with both their values and their personality. They are wise enough to neutralize their weaknesses by admitting them and delegating to others the tasks pertaining to their weaknesses. They seek to develop themselves in ways that build on their strengths and challenge them to become the best they can be. And, because they know themselves so well, they are able to motivate others and create highly productive, happy teams.

Want some yeast in your professional development? Try self-knowledge. Enhancing your self-knowledge and awareness is one of the best ways to raise your effectiveness.

1. Charles Manz and Chris Neck, Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence (5th Edition), Prentice Hall, 2009

2. Mental models are patterns of thought and reaction that are formed in childhood and youth by your life experiences. These thought patterns are strongly wired into the brain and must be examined in order to heighten self-knowledge and design new thought patterns and behaviors.

My observations support my long-held mantra:  As an executive, you deserve the “A” team.

I’m making a sports analogy, which is unusual given that I joke that all my sports knowledge is held in my husband’s brain.  Despite that, I have enough sports savvy to know that the analogy works – you need the best and the brightest managers around your table to produce superior results and to make yourself look good.  You can’t do that with “B” or “C” players. 

Again, as an executive, you deserve the “A” team.  And you must strive to get it.

Don’t be dragged down by hubris, as I once was in my career.  It is hubris is to think, “I can work with whomever is assigned to me and I can mold them into awesome players.”  Yes, you can work with players who have potential, but you can’t mold others into something they can’t do or don’t want to do.   As an executive coach, I hold the opinion that everyone can improve their game and maximize their potential, but everyone has to be in the right game for their unique talents and strengths.  The wise manager will recognize when someone is in the wrong game and find them a position better suited to their strengths.

I’ve recently run across two references that support my maxim that you deserve the “A” team.  One is from the book, The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels by Michael Watkins.  He suggests that in the first 90 days of your new leadership position, you should have a plan for who you will keep and who you will manage out.  By the end of 6 months, you should be actively working that plan; otherwise, they are considered “your” people and their performance will be equated to your performance. 

The other is an interview of Caryl M. Stern, president and chief executive of the U.S. Fund for Unicef, conducted  by Adam Bryant of the New York Times.  Ms. Stern tells the story of how, in the first several months of her new position at Unicef, she interviewed each of her senior staff members, asking them for a list of “your brightest and your best” employees.  She challenged each manager to, within a year, have a staff of only the brightest and best because that is the path to achieving the organization’s lofty goals.  In addition, she wanted the agency to to be an employer of choice that attracts the best new hires.

My challenge to you is: Do you have the “A” team? If yes, you are to be congratulated.  If not, how can you get the team you deserve?

Understanding this is essential to delivering world-class customer service. You can learn a gazillion techniques to deliver excellent service, but if you perform them with an air of negativity, boredom or a lack of caring, the attitude is communicated most strongly and the techniques are ineffective. Your customers will perceive you as phony or fake as you go through the motions of providing great service by rote.

Developing a positive attitude affects other aspects of your life. When you are optimistic, good things tend to happen to you. The creative power of your mind draws similar experiences to you – positive draws positive, negative draws negative. When you focus on the negative, you notice unpleasant things. You interpret events with a pessimistic twist.

Choosing a positive outlook has the opposite effect – you begin to notice the pleasantries of the day and view events with optimism and hope. Your attitude determines whether you will have a happy or a miserable day.

What really is a positive attitude? Like many things, you know it when you see it. It is an optimistic outlook on life. It is an appreciative approach to your co-workers and clients. It is being grateful for the present moment. It is feeling like life is full of promise and there are good people everywhere.

Some people are innately positive and they don’t need to work at it. They just skip through life with a smile on their face, knowing that the glass is always half full. Other people are not naturally so cheerful and need reminders to choose a positive attitude. The best way to develop a positive attitude is to create structures or habits that support optimism.

The morning is a good time for most people to practice a positive attitude habit. You might consider any of the following suggestions to set your intention for a positive attitude that lingers the whole day:

1. Take some quiet time in the morning to read, meditate, pray, write in a journal, ponder life over a cup of coffee or sit outside for a few minutes. Some people find reading poetry, spiritual writings or a self-help book puts them in a positive frame of mind for the rest of the day.
2. Sing along with the music on the car radio on your way to work. Sing only happy tunes.
3. As you walk into the office, remember all the things you appreciate about your customers, your co-workers, your boss and your company.
4. Count your blessings on the way to work. Make it a habit to acknowledge new things everyday – not just the same old refrain of “I’m grateful for my spouse, my kids, my car, my home, etc.” In looking for something new to appreciate, you will be forced to notice the small moments in daily life that are truly gifts of happiness. Examples of small gifts of happiness include the smile you get from the barista at Starbucks, the kind email you receive from a co-worker, the compliment on your presentation you get from your boss, the appreciation your clients give you when you solve a problem for them, the wisdom that comes from a young child.

During the day, you can practice these suggestions to maintain your positive attitude:

1. Remember to smile often, even when you are grumpy. Smiling tricks the body into thinking that it is happy and counter-acts the fight-or-flight reaction that you have when you are stressed. Try it – it’s amazingly effective. If you talk to customers on the phone, get into a habit of smiling before answering the telephone. Your smile is heard in your voice and sets the tone for the entire conversation.
2. Take breaks in your day to practice self care: Take a walk outside, eat your lunch away from your desk, remember to take a deep breathe when stressed. Meditate, pray, or do yoga in a quiet corner (sometimes the restroom is the only private place I can find in a busy day at the office). Dr. Herbert Benson, in the “Relaxation Response” calls these moments “mini-relaxation responses” or just mini’s – short moments when you relax by breathing deeply and meditatively calm your mind.
3. Focus on your heart. Your heart is a stronger oscillating power than your brain, as measured by each organ’s electromagnetic force. When you entrain your brain waves and heart waves to oscillate together, you reduce your stress and enhance your decision-making capacities. Focusing on your heart will draw your over-tired brain into coherence with your heart and enable you to renew your positive attitude. Focus on your heart by putting your hand on your heart, listening to your heartbeat and imagine that you are breathing from that space. Think of something that invokes an appreciative feeling for you, such as your pet, someone who loves you unconditionally (people often think of grandparents) or just sitting in nature.

These practices help you achieve and maintain a positive approach to life. In following these suggestions, you will find your day goes smoother and your relations are more harmonious, both at the office and at home.