[Jim Jenkins]

Exercise 14: Using the Human Emotional System Model to improve your life.

Situation 1: Improving strategic sustainability leadership
Environment: At work, with a never ending workload of tactical tasks and procedural problem solving, at home feeling tired and unable to concentrate
Perceptions/Beliefs: If I dedicate time each day at work to think and show up as a strategic leader and at home learn and practice, I’ll create new momentum and opportunities to make a bigger impact across my life.
Emotion: happiness and fulfillment(satisfaction)
Behaviour: Dedicate time each day to learn, practice and get feedback on my strategic leadership skills, even if it is a small amount of time on some days (10 minutes).

Situation 2: Improve my ability to inspire others
Environment: Deflated work environment, uncertainty, just trying to get through, static work contacts
Perceptions/Beliefs: Things are not going to change for the better, caught in the same old vortex, nothing will make a difference
Emotion: Frustration, resignation, painful
Behaviour: uninspired, do the minimum, reduced interaction

REFLECTIONS:
1. How did the model compare with my models for emotions and leadership?
• For getting unstuck THE MODEL seems more effective.
• I’ve tended to deal with emotions and leadership distinct from each other and in some cases probably tried to take the emotion out of the equation.

2. What other models do you use for people, emotions, and motivations?
• This session has me asking me what models do I have for people, emotions and motivations.
• Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, incentive models. As a formal leader I do try to match individual motivations and interests with work that will help them achieve something they desire.
• Cognitive coaching model

3. How would you change the model for your use?
• I don’t think I will until I practice and understand it more fully.

4. What happens when you break down situations in your life into environments, beliefs, emotions, and behaviour?
• Much clearer to see how one leads to the other, where and why I’m stuck, how my mindset is often my biggest barrier to progressing, easier to see opportunities for how you can change the outcome to be more desirable. Like holding yourself up to a mirror.

5. What is the difference between pleasure, happiness, and emotional reward?
• The part of the brain and the brain chemistry that triggers them are somewhat different.
• The length of time each of them last
• The type of motivation that results

6. Where and how might you apply The Model or your version of it in the remainder of your life?
• I see significant utility in the model across my life.
• Coaching myself and others in being more self aware.
• Understanding the leadership dynamics in an organization or person and how to influence or respond them more effectively.
• Helping me go further and faster in achieving my life goals.

[Jim Jenkins]

Beth, I can relate to your comment. Many more questions coming up as a result of this essay than things I’ve settled in my mind.

[Jim Jenkins]

Evelyn, Do we really always do what we want or is it more often a matter of doing what we’ve always done? Maybe that means the person has low self-awareness and they don’t know what they want?

I would suggest self awareness is the internal ability to identify with our thoughts and emotions? Low self awareness = low understanding why you are feeling blue?

[Jim Jenkins]

I’ve recently experienced a perspective that people who are stuck use the excuse that they need to get motivated to achieve the goal of interest. Do you really need motivation or is that an excuse?

[Jim Jenkins]

Evelyn, for what it is worth, I think leadership is a lot more than Josh’s definition.

[Jim Jenkins]

Exercise 13 What is Leadership, what are emotions

Essay 1: What is leadership?

1. How have my views of leadership changed over the course of the exercises so far?

I have a new depth of understanding about fundamental principles that I haven’t fully appreciated previously, am working to put into practice and am excited about how it will elevate my ability to influence and make a positive difference.

I now do think of leadership more as performance art than just scientific principles and looking back, recognize just how much my limiting beliefs have held me back. I now think of it in terms of life long practice and a form of my Ikigai (The Japanese reason for living)

I am much more appreciative of the emotional element of leadership, both how my emotional state affects others positively and negatively and how emotions are at the core of highly effective leadership.

2. What leadership experiences have I had so far?

Over the course of my life I’ve had many formal and influencer leadership experiences with youth groups, community Associations, industry and social clubs, trade associations and company people leadership.

I’ve created learning organizations and high performing teams, I’ve brought people through reorganizations and take overs, hired and fired people, created visions and inspired a few.

I’ve come to realize I’ve tended to discount much of my hard earned leadership experience and I need to leverage that much more.

3. Who are my leadership role models? In no particular order.

• Winston Churchill: Grit and determination
• Barak Obama: inspiring and uplifting communicator
• Jane Fonda: Fight to be heard for what is right
• Colin Powell: A smooth as glass leader such that you don’t know you are being led.
• My father: Drive, intuition and networker
• Christiana Figueres: Co-Founder, Global Optimism and Paris Agreement achievement
• Robert Swan: Explorer with a global mindset
• Martin Luther King Jr.: so many elements of the above
• Cassius Clay: Making something of himself against all odds
• George Washington: Father of so much innovation, vision and a country
• JFK: vision, inspiring speaker, artful politician
• Napolean Bonaparte: brilliant general who could see things differently than others and an example of blind spots that can do you in.
• Florian Graichen: GM Forests to Bio-based Products at Scion
• Tali Sharot: director of the Affective Brain Lab, changing beliefs neuroscience

4. What do I consider to be success or failure in leadership? Good or bad

• Ability to look at the bigger picture and see things that others don’t
• Willingness to accept failure and learn from it
• Intuition and courage to take a leap of faith
• Communicator and relationship builder
• Emotional restraint
• Single mindedness, Blind spots
• Thinking is I about you and not people
• Failure to read the room and pickup on the vi

Essay 2: What are emotions?

1. What is motivation?

Motivation is an internal state where we want a change from what is in ourself or our environment to something different. It creates the drive and direction needed to take action to sustain ourself physically, mentally, psychologically. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for example.
Intrinsic motivation pertains to things you want to change based on your beliefs, emotions, values. Extrinsic motivation pertains to influences from your environment. There are other types of motivation.

2. What are emotions?

Emotions are reactions that we experience in response to events or situations. The type of emotion a person experiences depends on the circumstance that triggers the emotion. For instance, a person experiences joy when they receive good news and fear when they are threatened.
Emotions have a strong influence on our daily lives. We make decisions based on whether we are happy, angry, sad, bored, or frustrated. We also choose activities and hobbies based on the emotions they incite. Understanding emotions can help us navigate life with greater ease and stability.

3. What is self-awareness?

Your ability to notice your feelings, your physical sensations, your reactions, your habits, your behaviors, what you like, what you don’t like and why, and your thoughts, paying attention in your life, why you respond to certain things in certain ways, being honest with yourself about the difference between what you say and think you are doing and what you are really doing/behaving, being authentic (your true self).

4. How do they manifest in my life?

Emotions, motivation and self-awareness are my life, influencing how I think, feel and act. How well I notice and understand them determines the kind of live I have, how well I achieve my dreams and overcome my setbacks and limitations. They affect each other. For example if I have strong negative emotions about a fact of my life, that could generate a high level of motivation for me to make a change for the better. How self-aware I am about that emotion will determine how successful I am in resolving my issue.

[Jim Jenkins]

#12 Feed Forward (Marshall Goldsmith)

My Topic: Improving as a public speaker and speaking as a leader to a group.

I had 3 runs of the recommended 10, since people I want to speak with were out of the office until next week. I intend to set up the remaining sessions in the following week to get the practice. As well, I want to test this tool in higher stakes circumstances. That means engaging my boss and others who are in authority positions.
The 3 sessions went well. (2 from the Leadership group, 1 employee who reports to me). I realize this simple tool has great utility.
• The responders were willing/wanted to help.
• I learned things about how I come across to others that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.
• All of the advice was useful. Some of it I knew already but those were good reminders and usually I received an additional perspective on how to proceed in applying the principle.
• The advice givers learned something about me that helped build our relationship.
• People were willing to share their references and I felt they wanted me to succeed.

I believe this tool solves part of a systemic official company feedback problem. The vast majority of companies have some sort of formal yearly employee performance evaluation process but often the power dynamic embedded in the organizational structure creates problems or the feedback from your boss and others is often not very relevant or useful or it can be a fearful process full of anguish, or things are not said that should be but they go on your record without you knowing so you are marked or you made a mistake at some point but don’t realize it but others in power do and don’t tell you because it is not their place (or it is their place but they just don’t want to) or you are trying to improve your capability but your efforts are miss-interpreted or are a bit off the mark as seen in the eyes of others and no one is willing to tell you.

The current approach in many companies starts with the statement that employees are responsible for their own development. It can be a very unsatisfying process for the leader and the employee who wants to progress but I believe the feeling is often that they (employee) are more or less left on their own to try to figure it out by stumbling forward as best they can.

The feed forward process may not solve all these problems but it at least represents a positive channel that is withing the power of the employee to access and utilize.

REFLECTION

1. Did you notice differences from feedback you might have gotten?
• Each person gave their perspective on the topic so the responses were different from each other.
• The feedback had a much more helpful tone than in other circumstances
• I want to test it further in higher stakes circumstances to me but I suspect it will be a more positive experience in general

2. Who is the leader in Feed Forward?
• The advise giver in terms of the comments provided
• I think there is also an element of shared leadership. The requester is taking the initiative on something important to them and the responsibility for listening. The advice giver is taking responsibility for providing useful advice and not judgement.

3. How did others seem to feel during Feed Forward?
• You can tell the advice givers are focused on giving meaningful advice and that builds trust between the two.
• Asking someone for advice makes then feel happy and recognized/important that someone wants to hear what they have to say.

4. How did you feel during Feed Forward?
• Motivated because I picked the topic I wanted and or was ready to hear feedback about.
• Grateful for the information and somewhat surprised at some of the responses that challenged my beliefs
• Safe and encouraged

5. Did you get any useless advice? Was that a problem?
• Some information was more useful than others but none of it was useless. The process is not just about giving and receiving advice but also about building a trusting relationship and learning more about each other.

6. Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
• I can see broad application of this tool in my leadership work, personal life and teaching it to others to help them.

[Jim Jenkins]

#11 Avoid imposing values
(and an update on avoiding NO-BUT-HOWEVER)

NO-BUT-HOWEVER, Dec 28th update note:

After noticing the no-but-however situation for a couple of weeks, I am noticing more situations where I’ve used it and it is more top of mind. I am catching myself and changing my words some of the time but it is not automatic or fully integrated yet. I’ve detected additional circumstances where I’ve not used the specific words but have spoken an implied no-but-however and am now counting those. An example is, ‘We can’t do that’ or ‘we can’t go ahead with that’. It amounts to the same effect on the person to deflate their contribution.

I’ve not been in my usual work circumstances for the past 2 weeks and haven’t had as many conversations or the type of conversations that result in many no-but-however responses. So, I don’t feel I’ve waded into the deep end of this pool yet. I’ve extended the offer to my group to pay them $5 each time they catch me up to the end of January so I expect it will be much more intense in the coming weeks. I’ve developed a que card to tally the times in the moment when I’ve let the words slip out. I am also going to attempt to tally the times when I catch myself before using the words as a means of creating a positive reward for this behaviour change.

AVOIDING IMPOSING VALUE-JUDGEMENTS: HOW DID IT GO?

I’ve come to realize how pervasive value-judgement words like good, better, best, needs improvement, unsatisfactory, poor, insufficient, bad are used in companies and specifically in the context of yearly performance appraisals which I’ve been completing through November-December, the act of soliciting feedback from stakeholders, reporting on project outcomes, senior leader town halls where they are recognizing safety and operational results and 1 on 1 meetings with employees, to name a few circumstances.

I feel like the whole organization runs as a big judgement machine. It is going to take some time to change my behaviour. I have particular trouble with good, better, perfect, great rolling off my tongue as encouragement for employees and groups I interact with. This is an open question I have about how to stick handle performance rating and feedback because it is essentially a value-judgement exercise. You could talk about outcomes of a project having met all of the requirements but that is not very inspiring. People crave positive personal feedback and get too little of it so I’m not sure yet what the solution is. Going to have to look into this further.

What I’m doing to effect this change
1. I’ve started listing additional value judgement words to watch out for and am up to 26 so far.
2. I am keeping score on when I use the words in a judgement circumstance as a positive measure of how much I can improve my communication style.
3. I am noticing when others use these words to practice how I would say it differently.
4. I am flipping some of my judgement statements into questions. For example, ‘instead of saying, you did a great job on that project’, asking, ‘How did you do on this project and tell me about some of your biggest learnings and achievements’
5. Thinking ahead to differentiate judging statements from my mental state statements.

REFLECTION:

1. What fraction of my value-imposing words do you think you caught?
Not sure this is a useful question to try to quantify the value imposing cases at this stage so I will answer it this way, I am catching more value-imposing words this week than I was in the weeks before. My interaction with people over the last 2 weeks was not the usual so much fewer conversations had relevance to this exercise. I know I use a handful of certain value judgement words a lot so the real test will be in the coming weeks when back in my usual environment. I’m telling some people what I’m up to so they can catch me to help make the change go faster.

2. Did you notice changes to other’ reactions?
Minor differences noticed if any at this stage. Some positive responses to my, ‘I like what you did there’ statements.

3. How do you imagine the different responses feel?
I don’t know, warm and gooey inside? Many people are habituated to hearing certain judgement responses so it is going to take a while. I’m hoping as I practice this skill people will feel appreciated more and judged less.

4. How did you express yourself without using these words?
Turned my value-judgement statement into a question to them about how they feel about the topic in question. I’m using I like and I appreciate a lot more. I need to come up with more mental state responses.

5. Do you think others noticed a difference?
Not really sure as I have not been interacting with my usual interaction group over the past 2 weeks. I am going to let it run for a while and ask for feedback.

6. Where and how might you apply your experience in the remainder of your life?
Communication happens in all aspects of work, personal, casual, professional life and this is about practicing effective communication so it is probably one of the few universal transferrable skills. Looking forward to making it a superpower for me.

[Jim Jenkins]

Dec 28th update note to NO-BUT-HOWEVER:

After noticing the no-but-however situation for a couple of weeks, I am catching more situations where I’ve used it and it is more top of mind. I am catching myself and changing my words some of the time but it is not automatic or fully integrated yet. I’ve detected additional circumstances where I’ve not used the words but have spoken an implied no-but-however and am now counting those. An example is, ‘We can’t do that’ or ‘we can’t go ahead with that’. It amounts to the same effect on the person to deflate their contribution.

I’ve not been in my usual work circumstances for the past 2 weeks and haven’t had as many conversations or the type of conversations that result in many no-but-however responses. So, I don’t feel I’ve waded into the deep end of this pool yet. I’ve extended the offer to my group to pay them $5 each time they catch me up to the end of January so I expect it will be much more intense in the coming weeks.

[Jim Jenkins]

ADDENDUM: If we are going to talk about the impact of no, but, however used in the form where they shut people down then we need to think about other words like starting with ‘you’ and implied shuts downs. For example, ‘You didn’t do that how it is supposed to be’

[Jim Jenkins]

#10 Using No, But, However as the initial response to something someone has said to you.

1. What faction do you think you caught?
Don’t really know. I’ve been practicing for quite a while through outside awareness and other advice from communication experts.
Challenged my group to catch me for a $5 reward each time. They asked that the time period be extended from Dec 31 to Jan 31. I said yes and encouraged them to monitor and try to trick me.

2. Did you notice changes on other peoples’ reaction?
I didn’t have many opportunities where I was challenged this week. I know the feeling though. You feel dismissed, scolded, shamed. I’ve witnessed several examples where other people essentially shut down someone trying to contribute.
3. How do you think the difference responses felt?
You feel dismissed, scolded, shamed.

4. How else could you begin your responses?
With a question, Tell me more, That’s an interesting point of view, how did you come up with that, could you explain more,

5. Do you think others noticed a difference?
Wasn’t in many situations this week where it was noticed. Need to run this experiment for longer.
People do notice though when it happens. Above circumstances I indicated, the group in attendance knew when it happened.

6. Where and how might you apply your experience in the remainder of your life?
Communication, relationship building, leadership,

[Jim Jenkins]

9 – Adopt a new belief (major)
Background: major company reorganization and employee layoff.
current emotion-current belief-new emotion-new belief

1. Find a belief that leads to emotions you don’t like.
Belief that the reorganization will result in a negative work environment that tears the group apart.
Emotions: loss of control, insecurity, fear about the future, the kind that makes you sick to your stomach.

2. Think of emotions you would prefer in that context.
Empowered, excited, happy

3. Think of a belief that would generate the emotion you prefer.
The reorganization is an opportunity to redefine the function into an inspiring and positive work environment

4. Consciously and deliberately thinking and acting the new belief
Have engaged 2 people to work with me on adopting new beliefs
Making an overt point of acknowledging people’s work to others (more valued)
Started discussing core competency picture

REFLECTION
1. Did you feel more able than before?
Yes and no.
More able to pivot my thinking to opportunities and focus on what they could be
Spoke to couple of people about their participation and engaged them on changing beliefs
Some bigger obstacles to overcome

2. Did the skills start taking root?
Coming up with a number of other limiting beliefs to look at so believe I am noticing more in myself and in others.
Thinking and speaking about how to encourage a new belief with others
Applied it to a community board conversation to help with a difficult matter

3. What did it feel like?
Promising and energizing that I am developing this skill
Thirst to understand more deeply to turn into a superpower

4. Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
Elevating my leadership effectiveness, fitting in with senior leaders, influencing culture change, having a better life, broadening my influence, helping my family more.

[Jim Jenkins]

Hi Beth, thanks for all the positive energy comments you made to everyone this week. They are the signature of positive and thoughtful leadership

[Jim Jenkins]

8 – Adopt a new belief (minor)

Background. Senior leadership announced a return to the office 5 days a week for all employees effective January 1st. This is occuring in the midst of a major reorganization and employee layoff.

1. Find a belief that leads to emotions you don’t like.
I and others feel helpless and betrayed that senior leadership is enforcing 5 days in the office as a means of getting rid of people for the cost cutting initiative.

2. Think of emotions you would prefer in that context.
I would prefer to feel happy and empowered

3. Think of a belief that would generate the emotion you prefer.
I believe this is an opportunity to create work hour options for people that will meet the mandate AND give employees an adjusted schedule that works for them and that convinces them to stay with the company, all other factors considered.

4. Consciously and deliberately think the new belief
I’ve actively worked on this belief throughout the past week to make it come true in reality.
I explained to employees it is a positive to know this now, while there is time and some flexibility to adjust hours to make it workable AND for those who won’t be happy in a fully work from office environment to make a decision that is in their control.
I evaluated each person’s situation and discussed preferred options.
Approved these with my supervisor. Likely result: 2 people not affected at all, 3 people with acceptable compressed work week, one person likely to leave with a package.

REFLECTION
1. Did your initial belief feel fake?
No, it was real and instant once I first read the announcement. Jumped to a negative conclusion on what management was thinking.

2. Did that feeling change?
Yes, it started a whole cause and effect analysis in my head. Was thinking how this would affect me, that I worked for many years 5 days in the office and why was I feeling this way about the announcement (negative). How it would affect my group when 2 for sure had said earlier they would quit and were in tears about it.
Overall my feeling changed from betrayal to hopeful to empowerment as I thought of a new belief that revealed an opportunity.

3. Did you feel like you could change not just a belief but beliefs in general?
Yes, I’ve changed a handful of my beliefs recently and using this experience as a template, I can be more effective at analyzing and changing my beliefs for the better, and helping others to change theirs. In fact met a new contact this week and had a conversation about people with different beliefs having conversations about how to get past their differences to solve common problems.

4. Did you sense how your mind adopts beliefs and changes them?
Adopting a belief can be instant when you hear or interpret something that aligns with what you think your identity is or should be, or you are influenced by someone. I think our mind adopts and builds beliefs to make sense of the world. They become our reality whether true or not. Adopting a belief tends to lock you in to a certain perspective that makes it harder to see things differently. We use beliefs to keep us safe and preserve them and guard them carefully. Our minds will constantly look for proof to validate and strengthen them.

Changing or questioning your belief can feel like losing part of your identity. That’s why they are hard to give them up. Over time they create blind spots that you don’t realize you have and you don’t even see other possibilities in a situation.

Limiting or negative beliefs prevent us from fulfilling our true potential, hold us back, and give rise to negative thoughts and emotions. Empowering or positive beliefs allow us to act resiliently, believe in ourselves, and generate more positive thoughts and emotions.

5. Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
Pretty much everywhere in my life to challenge and change my beliefs from limiting to empowering, to realize opportunities that are right before me but I don’t see. Specifically, in the areas of inspiring myself to reach a greater potential and no longer accepting the limitations of the current structure I’m in as it is or as the only option. This topic is also applicable to leadership and maximizing my ability to inspire others to reach further for what they desire.

[Jim Jenkins]

7-authentic voice exercise-Jim

How I interpreted this exercise: I typically have 15-20 topics rattling around in my head that pop up when I read or find a piece of information that seems to fit the topic or it creates new thinking to help me understand a problem I’m trying to solve. So, here is a list of the monologues I spoke out within this exercise. I’ve been thinking about some of these for a while so they may have sounded prepped.

1. Why am I in the Initiative group and what can I gain from it
2. Irrepressible optimism + action.
3. Being in the forest, my centering place
4. My community project and where I want to take it
5. My beliefs about leadership
6. Does circularity always = sustainability?
7. How do I bring my group through the company cost cutting and reorganization initiative
8. Kindness to animals, my connection to them

REFLECTION

1. Did my voice change?
Became more animated, more variability in pitch and timbre, more confident in the later half of the topic.

2. Did it feel more authentic? How?
I was using phrases that are particular to me and analogies to illustrate my points. This is my less formal but more illustrative way of speaking that in some forums I hide: may as well hide under the bed, …I was making references to other people or works.
I found I questioned some of my statements out loud, sort of talk them through or make reference that I should go back and check that item.

3. Did you fear saying anything you would regret? Did you say anything you regret?
No fear, this exercise is quite low risk with the people I spoke to. Didn’t say anything I regret but I’m trying to not dwell on regrets so my tolerance is high. Next time around I would try to say something more clearly and effectively using better words.

4. How do you feel about speaking more openly?
Am generally fine with it but it has gotten me in trouble. I have a strong belief that I should tell the truth and feel compelled to do so when I see a problem. Tested a few topics out on people and tested myself to see how long I could sustain a monologue. I do know that speaking openly in many corporate circumstances does not go well. Some senior leaders don’t like to hear certain items brought up so I have to be mindful of who I’m speaking to but that is also a part of knowing your audience.

5. How did others respond?
Generally positive. I found though that the topics that the listener seemed to relate to produced much more emotional or expressive reaction. A couple of conversations extended past each of our monologues which was great. I think a couple of my topics were not so relevant or interesting to the listener and it was a , ‘ok we got that done ‘ type of response.

6. Do you want to do it more? Differently?
Yes definitely I want to do it more. Of the many exercises I think this skill gets so much more refined with practice. I interpreted the exercise to mean I could start a monologue on any of the items rattling around in my head. I have a list of about 20 of them right now. So I would pick one and just start. I am constantly thinking about these items as I pick up a new piece of information through the day that I think fits so some of these may have sounded scripted or prepped to the listener.

7. Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life
Speaking more authentic more of the time is my goal. But I believe what comes with that is you have to know something of what you are talking about, otherwise the bullshit alarm will go off. I believe you still have to assess your audience and tune the speech to them for best effect without compromising your authentic voice.
The new learning for me is to speak my monologues out loud more often to myself and others to test myself on what I hear me saying and ask whether I believe me!

[Jim Jenkins]

6- Beliefs that contribute to unwanted emotions

Preamble: I kept losing the thread of what I was supposed to do. Write beliefs that contribute to emotions you don’t like. It also implies in the subtitle of the chapter section that these beliefs will be unwanted but does that always hold true? Some of my beliefs I’m fine with but the unwanted emotion comes from me knowing that there isn’t alignment between what I say my belief is and my actions. Maybe it depends on how I write the belief? Quite a quandary.

1. I feel resentful and discouraged at work when there is insufficient airtime in meetings for me to present innovative ideas to problems that are being discussed.

Counter measure. Senior leaders don’t have much time to listen to ideas and blurting out a number of them to anyone dilutes the total impact. It is too much to focus on and maybe in these situations I’m taking up too much air that limits contributions from others. Instilled a practice of recording my ideas as I have them, hold them, a Watch for this and acknowledge the effort of those spoken of and speak to the teams effort as well. Make surnd limit myself to contributing only one idea that I think is the best towards the end of the conversation or meeting. That will make that one idea stand out more strongly. The other ideas can be held for later discussion.
This solution includes listening more deeply to the conversation and me talking less, to identify the real problem, not just the symptoms. My underlying belief is a good leader is one who values contribution, gives space for people to contribute their ideas and speaks last. So I shouldn’t get fussed if others speak first. Wait for my moment later on and be brilliant with the one thought or idea that is most insightful.

2. I feel resentful and depleted that myself and the team aren’t recognized for the effort we’ve made to resolve tough issues or troublesome situations in the past , especially when the credit goes elsewhere.

Counter Measure: I follow up with the team to tell them that I understand and appreciate their effort and take action to recognize them to others. If it is a team situation, make sure I’m putting more focus on them rather than me. If it is myself and I’m feeling unappreciated, think about what I’ve accomplished and why I may be feeling that way. Was I holding true to my values?

3. I believed little to no action would be taken to address the negative work environment and leadership problem within a merged department we were in. This generated considerable frustration, anguish, cynicism, demotivation for me.

Counter Measure: I was stuck and feeling helpless and at my limits and the best way out to overcome my emotions was to start changing myself and began what has become a multi year reinvention of me through learning, discovery, coaching and practice. This journey has been quite uncomfortable at times but the drive to create a new identity has been stronger.

4. I believed in the past that giving leaders the same level of details about a problem and it’s solution as I would want was needed to get a decision and at time have been discouraged by the mediocre response to my work. Leaders have even less time than me and more issues coming at them. It was disrespectful of their time to think they should hear me out and did not acknowledge they were probably 10 steps ahead in their thinking.

Counter Measure: I was providing information at a tactical level and needed to shift to a strategic level about the bigger picture.

5. Sometimes I keep myself busy just to avoid facing what is really important to me and that creates internal conflict on what to cut out and the reality that life is short and I can’t do it all.

6. Often I feel like I’m tilting at windmills when I take action to create positive change and it doesn’t appear valued by the organization.

7. I’ve believed hard work alone is enough to get ahead and have been frustrated when I don’t and others do. This is an emerging realization that self-promotion is also needed, not something I’m accomplished at.

8. I’ve believed in perfection for most of my life but have realized it comes at the cost of progression. Grappling with that discord.

9. I believe I don’t spend enough time with family to justify my belief that it is important which is probably part of my feeling unsettled and unhappy at times.

10. Taking the time to plan a project for success is important and I get angry at myself when I don’t have one and impatient with others when they don’t.

11. The company reorganization and cost cutting initiative we are in will go bad for a lot of people in the short term but good in the long term for those who are open to new opportunities.

12. I believe I’m an effective leader of people who listens, responds and has the backs of employees at heart. But how good am I really? Every time I learn something new about leadership, I think there is less I know. It is very frustrating.

REFLECTION
1. How did this exercise compare with listing my beliefs?
Much tougher to think through. I keep getting tripped up on defining my belief that is causing the trouble.

2. Was I able to separate my beliefs from the emotions created?
Yes I believe so in some cases but I’ve probably not gotten to the bottom of all of them. More work needed.

3. Was I able to separate my beliefs from my identity?
Some beliefs I would say I want to be a part of my identity but I don’t think I am living up to them so I have two identities, the real one and the desired one.

4. How did I feel while considering beliefs and emotions?
I’ve been challenging my mental models as part of my reinvention. It is empowering to connect what I’m feeling with why I’m feeling it. I can see how my mental models restrict my sight, hold me back from the bigger picture.

5. How did the feeling change over through the exercise?
A lot of confusion

6. Did awareness make the emotions stronger, weaker, different?
DIFFERENT: Facing the unwanted emotions and understanding where they come from feels good. Now I can do something about it.

7. Where and how will I apply what I’ve learned in my life?
Challenging my own mental models makes me a better person in a multitude of ways, less judgement, more possibilities and opportunities fewer blind spots, increases my potential to make a difference.

[Jim Jenkins]

5-NOTICING THE BELIEFS OF OTHERS

Society Beliefs:

1. Apparent belief that there is no need to wear a mask for their own or even others’ health when travelling in tight quarters.

2. Belief that climate change represents a threat to business and the human species

3. Belief you can decouple carbon emissions from economic growth sufficiently to live up to the Paris Agreement

4. Belief some new technology will magically appear and solve the above

5. Belief climate change is the only sustainability problem

6. Belief there will continue to be stable prices on energy and materials (when energy expenditures are increasing)

7. Belief that increases in energy efficiencies lead to absolute energy and material reductions in a growth-based system

8. Believing recycling will solve the ecological crisis on it’s own

9. Believing that services have an insignificant, ecological footprint

10. Believing you can be a part of the solution to the ecological crises without addressing inequality

11. Believing minimum wages are enough

12. Believing you have to be the hero (justice is the answer, not charity)

13. Believing net zero – “do no harm” – is enough

14. Believing you can offset carbon emissions and continue business as usual

15. Believing you can only scale impact by growing your company’s size

16. Believing bigger is always better

17. Believing you can wait for legislators to level the playing field before you act sufficiently

Other’s Beliefs and some more of mine that I encountered:

1. Belief that stewardship (my department) should not take on some ownership for product sustainability just because we don’t have enough resources and not our role.

2. Belief that organizations should not aggregate product sustainability metrics to benchmark where we are for fear that they will be reported publicly if the numbers get out.

3. Group’s belief that product stewardship function is not going to change for the better.

4. Belief (business) that it’s ok to not acknowledge some product hazards

5. Belief that society will just have to accept a company’s products even though they have significant environmental footprints

6. Believing you can’t make much of a difference so why try

7. Believing your religion is the only one that got it right

8. Belief that you are meant for greater things and you were put on the earth for a reason

9. Belief that showing an interest in employees and their passions is a motivator for greater achievements

10. Belief that the chemical industry can eliminate hazardous materials and create sustainable product solutions

11. Belief by others that my sustainability projects are turning into something (wants to be a part of them)

12. The leader that thinks it’s ok to cut employees off when they are speaking

REFLECTION

Did you notice any trends?
A number of leadership and sustainability themes. Many of the beliefs were negative or limiting. Brings out the importance of mindset that if you frame in the negative, it becomes self defeating.

How did identifying beliefs feel?
Empowering, exciting like being able to see in the dark where others can’t.

Did you feel like you developed a skill?
Maybe experiencing a new practice. Don’t feel it is a skill yet.

How accurate do you think you were?
All were topics I observed from others through the week. Some were obvious because the person essentially repeated what their belief is. BUT thinking you know what the underlying belief is for a person if they don’t actually say it could be dangerous. It seems easy to make false assumptions.

Did you feel differently about people when you thought of their beliefs?
I suppose so. Need more experience. Helps me understand them better, where they are likely coming from and opens up an opportunity to ask questions to confirm their beliefs. This in turn presents the opportunity to tailer my speech to them for more effective communication and collaboration.

Does reading people’s beliefs make you feel differently about leadership?
It shines a stronger light on how to improve my leadership effectiveness by paying more attention to underlying beliefs that are driving behaviours, opportunity points to relate/connect with people and makes me feel less judgmental at face value about something they might say.

Where and how might you apply your experience in the remainder of your life?
By paying attention to my beliefs and those of others in conversations, whether they are same or different, I can be a much stronger connecter and inspiring leader. Adding the paraphrasing peoples beliefs back to them (something I’m very good at) or asking questions to confirm their beliefs will be much more of a door opener.

[Jim Jenkins]

Write out your beliefs

1. Honesty is the best policy
2. The vast majority of people want to do good
3. Having a job or task you are interested in gives you more motivation
4. People need to work on something that makes a difference, is important
5. It takes hard work and self-promotion to get recognized (this is a belief that changed for me in the last year. Hard work alone is not enough, Marshall Goldsmith)
6. School is only the beginning of your learning journey
7. The biggest limiting factor to what I want to accomplish is often my mindset and fear that I can’t do it
8. The earth is round, more or less
9. A manager is focused on doing things right, a leader is focused on doing the right things
10. We all have some innate level of leadership in us
11. Societies level of consumption is destroying the climate that supports life
12. There are a lot of poor bosses out there
13. People often tell themselves stories to make themselves feel good
14. You can’t really say you hold a value dear until you test it
15. I am fortunate to live in Canada
16. Giving people a chance
17. We are ruled mostly by fate but still have choice if we notice opportunities that come by and act on them
18. We are destined to repeat life’s lessons until we learn from them
19. Taking ownership of your own Personal development
20. I don’t have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Working on this one
21. Focus on what you can control or influence, don’t spend much time on what you can’t
22. This too will pass
23. Every girl likes a well dressed man
24. We are integral to the environment we live in
25. I believe I am always exactly where I’m supposed to be even though I may not understand why at the time.
26. I am an ethical person who believes in ‘it’s the right thing to do’
27. I am an innovator with a good eye for improvement opportunities
28. I like to push myself to see how far I can go, beyond my official roles and experience
29. I am a great synthesizer of disparate ideas into a whole, another superpower
30. I believe in showing up with presence
31. I believe motivating and inspiring people is one of my strongest superpowers
32. I have a strong sense of responsibility that drives me to solve problems outside my roles
33. I believe taking action on an imperfect solution is better than perfecting it before starting

REFLECTION

Did you notice any trends?

A number of leadership themes, most of the beliefs I listed are positive. That is a transition from the past for me. The few that are negative, I am aware of and working on. I can tell the timeline and situations for when I adopted certain beliefs in the past.

Did you notice unexpected beliefs?

I noticed a few beliefs that are relatively new for me, an artifact of changes I/m trying to make in myself.
Calling out the few negative belief’s is the firt time I’ve put them in writing as a more formal acknowledgement.

Did you notice the difference between beliefs and strategies?

I understand the difference but don’t think I included any strategies.

How do beliefs work?‘

When you adopt a belief, you accept it as true. They fuel your motivations and drive your attitudes and behavior. Your conscious decisions are driven more by your beliefs than most think. You’d like to think it’s all a conscious decision and the result of in-depth rationalization on your part.

How do beliefs affect your life?

We use beliefs to help us understand the world around us. A person’s beliefs will guide them in their decision making and response to situations. If make a decision that is incongruent with a belief, I believe you will be in turmoil until it is resolved. I’ve felt this at times, treating people poorly, making a work decision that wasn’t right with my beliefs.

Where and how might you apply your experience in the remainder of your life?

By taking stock of my beliefs I can refine my true path forward and my behaviours. I feel I’ve already been doing some of that but this exercise has encouraged me to pay more attention.

[Jim Jenkins]

REFLECTION 21 monologue moments in 5 days.

DID I NOTICE TRENDS
My monologue has more to do with how I’m changing myself than trying to change others like what it would have been 5 years previously.
Focused on improving leadership presence based on work I’ve been doing in the past 2 years.
The direction I trying to go in is coming into better focus.
I pick up more in conversations because am listening more, talking less and am more fully engaged on average.
Been working on managing my energy and I think this is also helping. Doing certain types of thinking and tasks at certain times of the day that fit my energy level, my positivity level, my doer/thinking state.
I am becoming more comfortable being uncomfortable, Catching my breath and willing myself through new change situations and coming out the other side better.

DID I NOTICE COMMON THOUGHTS
Many thoughts related to striving to move forward rather than frustration with being stuck in a spot
More thoughts about emotions invoked under different circumstances and some thoughts emerging on the reasons why.
Stronger positivity overall, using irrepressible optimism catch phrase to find new options, able to see more possibilities in a situation.

HOW DO MY THOUGHTS COMPARE TO THE OTHER
No idea, depends on where each of us are in our leadership journey.
Each are going to be unique. The lessons I need to learn to progress are right in front of me and are likely different than others.
Writing out thoughts in the moment is really working for me. A boost to practices I’ve been putting into place like my life plan review. It is keeping my brain moving on my leadership progression by bringing it up through the day rather than trying to think about it when I have more time at the end of the day and I’m too tired to think straight. The several moments a day is keeping the topic in my consciousness longer.
I am committing to continue 3 monologues per day for 30 days to see where I end up.

[Jim Jenkins]

Jim’s sidcha

Topic: Jim’s Life plan review to maintain focus on what is important

I’ve had such good progress with my Life Plan Review on a biweekly review basis in the past 4 months that I am going to record my gains each day to keep what’s important in front of me and move faster. This forum doesn’t accept pictures or spread sheets very well but I can bring up a copy on the call to show you if it is of value.

[Author]

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