“Mohini was a regal white tiger who lived for many years at the Washington, D.C. Zoo. for most of those years her home was in the old lion house – a typical twelve-by-twelve-foot cage with iron bars and a cement floor. Mohini spent her days pacing restlessly back and forth in her cramped quarters.

Eventually, biologists and staff worked together to create a natural habitat for her. Covering several acres, it had hills, trees, a pond and a variety of vegetation. With excitement and anticipation they released Mohini into her new and expansive environment. But it was too late.

The tiger immediately sought refuge in a corner of the compound, where she lived for the remainder of her life. Mohini paced and paced in that corner until an area twelve by twelve feet was worn bare of grass.”

Are you pacing in your twelve-by-twelve work area, trapped by the same old patterns? Most of us have some places like this where we behave automatically, according to old patterns that no longer serve us well. Something has changed to the better, but we are unable to take advantage of it. Often we are trapped by our old beliefs and fears.

The first step in freeing ourselves from unproductive, old patterns is to notice them. We also need to notice new alternatives. This is easier said than done. It entails growing our self-awareness so we see how we hold ourselves back from new opportunities. It involves taking risks to move into new behaviors.

Take a moment right now to reflect. Can you identify any area where you feel trapped? Maybe circumstances beyond your control keep you there? Or maybe you keep yourself there? Or a little of both?

We can help you free yourself from old patterns with our Executive Coaching. Through our individual and group Executive Coaching, many people have freed themselves and created new alternatives.

Please explore our services by clicking on the above navigation bar link, “Executive Coaching Services.”

In 1926 a 25 year old illustrator and one of his older brothers started a cartoon animation studio. Their studio received a big, one year, renewable contract from a New York film distributor, Charles Mintz, to produce a cartoon series named “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.”

Mintz, who owned the rights to the character, sent his brother-in-law, George Winkler, to California to watch production activities. Winkler spent many weeks at the studio getting to know the animators and learning production procedures.

As the highly successful first year drew to a close, the illustrator took his wife with him on a train to New York where he expected to renegotiate a longer, more profitable contract with Mintz. In New York, the meeting with Mintz did not go as expected. Mintz surprised him. Mintz said that he and his brother would have to work for a lower fee if they wanted to renew the contract. He was shocked. He knew he could not produce the cartoons with less money.

As they argued, he discovered what Mintz was up to. Winkler had persuaded Mintz to take over production of the Oswald cartoons. During his visits to the California studios, Winkler had secretly arranged to hire away several of their best animators. Mintz and Winkler believed they could cut costs and increase their profits by producing the series themselves. Their strategy in the negotiations was to get him to give up his right to renew the Oswald contract.

They succeeded.

He felt shocked, angry, and hurt as he and his wife, Lillian, left New York for the long train ride home. He had trusted Mintz and Winkler and his employees. Now, without warning, the highly successful cartoon series was taken away from him. He would no longer be the producer of the series he worked long and hard to develop. His studio had lost its only big account.

Resilience in Action

During the train ride back to Hollywood, he reflected on his situation. How could he bounce back? What if he created his own cartoon character instead of waiting to be hired to work on other people’s ideas?
What about a Mouse named Mickey as a cartoon character? He began making sketches for a new cartoon series.

Back at the studio he and his brother decided to take advantage of a new technology that added sound to motion pictures. He charged into his new project with enthusiasm.

The rest, of course, is history. In 1928, in New York City, the Disney studios held the premier showing of an animated cartoon starring Mickey Mouse. The new cartoon was an immediate success. Oswald the Rabbit soon disappeared from theaters and Mickey Mouse went on to become one of the greatest cartoon personalities of all time.

Walt Disney converted Mintz and Winkler’s unethical conduct and treachery into one of the best things that ever happened to him. What do you think made Walt Disney so resilient? We don’t know for sure. I would guess that he really knew what he wanted so that nothing could stop him for long.

I discuss this attribute of resilience in my book chapter, “Emotional Intelligence for Resilience,” in the Amazon best-seller, Upping the Down Side, and in my Tele-Workshop, Emotional Intelligence for Resilient Leaders and Professionals.

You may read about the Tele-workshop at http://www.EmotionallyIntelligentLeadership.com/index.htm#bottom/ (scroll down) and listen to live audio recordings of it at http://www.eagleAlliance.com/ho/sa .

Consider the case of overweight people. Researchers at the University of North Carolina created a test study of perceptions of overweight people. They selected a volunteer audience at random. They hired actors to offer a speech with identical words, gestures, voice inflection, etc. As the actors gave their speeches, the audience rated them on their speaking ability 1-10 with a private, individual electronic device. The audience did not know that the speakers were hired actors.

The audience consistently rated certain speakers much lower than others. Guess who? The overweight speakers. In spite of the fact that the presentations were identical, the audience rated the overweight speakers as less competent.

One of the researchers explained to us what had happened. He said there is a common bias against overwieight people.” The audience unconsciously applied this bias and used it as a filter for their experience of the speakers. The audience concluded that the overweight people were less competent.

A bias against overweight people is just one example of many biases. In the last blog post, I described a racial bias. Many people have biases against bosses, the elderly, country or city dwellers, foreigners, Democrats or Republicans, Christians or Muslims, etc. The same experiment with overweight people would work with other biases.

Of course these biases and filtering raise havoc in our personal and organization lives. Communication gets distorted constantly. To limit this distortion, you have to start with increasing your awareness of when it is operating in you or your organization.

Increased self-awareness is one of the key outcomes of my Tele-Workshop, Emotional Intelligence for Resilient Leaders and Professionals. We also train participants to discover when the filtering has occurred so distortions can be corrected.

Please check out our Tele-workshop by listening to recordings of live sessions at http://www.EagleAlliance.com/ho/sa or reading about it at http://www.EmotionallyIntelligentLeadership.com/index.htm#bottom/ – scroll down.

Here is a case about how bias distorted reality as reported by an Executive Coaching client of mine. As the Executive Director of a large agency, he received a letter from his Board of Directors saying he needed to improve some behaviors. One was that they claimed he was too aggressive and hostile.

I asked him if he knew what this was about. “No.” I suggested he go interview some of his Board of Directors to find out what they meant. He courageously did interview them for feedback. One of them told him, “At the X meeting, you and another man got into a big argument. You got much too mad in front of us. Afterward, some board members complained that you were too hostile.”

Now my client at least knew about one event that generated the label, “too aggressive and hostile.” He complained to me that this was a bias he had not foreseen. He said it was a bias against black men like him. He said, “Whites are afraid of angry black men. I triggered that fear. They overlooked the fact that the man I argued with was also black and we both were able to patch it up at the end in front of everyone. This was a vigorous conversation in which we both displayed passion. Black people are comfortable with being angry and showing it.”

He continued, “Another fact that they are probably unaware of is that my predecessor got furious at times. I saw him get much angrier than I was. And nobody on the Board ever said anything to him, in my opinion, because he was white. They cut more slack for whites.”

This is bias in action, cutting more slack for some than for others. Here is a good image for how prejudice works. It is like having an archery range with two targets. One target has a bull’s-eye that is 6 inches in diameter; the other bull’s-eye is 12 inches in diameter. One group of people gets the bigger bull’s-eye and the minority group gets the smaller one. As a minority person, you have to be a better shot to succeed. That is the bias. And that bias distorts perceptions and communication.

To limit this bias, you have to increase your awareness of when it is operating in you or your organization. This is hard to do. One way is to ask for minority people to give you feedback and be willing to change your perceptions.

What if the white Board members had discussed this matter with my client ahead of their sending him their letter? They would have heard his retort just as I did. Maybe that would have caused them to re-examine their conclusion about too much aggression. Maybe they would remember the angry moments of my client’s predecessor and realize they were using a smaller bull’s-eye for my black client.

How can you seek feedback and create dialogue in your organization? Do you have any ideas for us all to read? Please reply in the Leave a Ccomment section below or with the above link, Comments.

Know what you really want. Having clarity of intention results in more energy, resourcefulness, and resilience. Here is how to get clarity of intention and resilience in the face of problems, turbulence and setbacks.

Ask yourself in each new situation: What do I really want? Or, what matters? What is important?

Knowing your answers at a deep level gives you great energy to be resilient—to deal with life’s setbacks. Usually your first answer is not the final word. You need to dig deeper.

A VP client of mine, let’s call him John, was angry that his colleague, Bob, kept bringing in a monthly report late. I asked him what he wanted.

“The report on time!”

“OK, then why not complain to the CEO?”

“Because I have to keep a good relationship with Bob to work on other matters too. I don’t want him to get down on me.”

“So another thing you want is to keep a good relationship. What else to you want? Keep digging deeper.”

“I want for Bob to take responsibility himself so I don’t have to continually complain and push him.”

“OK, now that you have peeled your onion down to a deeper level. You have 3 things you really want: the report on time, a good working relationship, and for Bob to take the initiative. With that clarity of intention at a deeper level, are you ready to craft a good strategy to get what you really want?”

“Yes, now I feel more energetic to take some action. I shall sit with Bob to iron this out.”

This talk resulted in a new understanding of Bob’s problem and both men got help from IT to create a new software program to produce Bob’s report on time.

Moral: Dig deeper into what you really want so you can craft more resourceful strategies and stay resilient.

This is a good way to deepen your learning. What questions arise for you when you read one of my blog posts? Please let me know. What different viewpoint do you have? What would you like me to write about regarding emotional intelligence or resilience or leadership? I may write that in a future blog post.

You may read a book on emotional intelligence and wish you could dialogue with the author. But they are usually not available. But I am. So why not take advantage of my invitation to dialogue?

By the way, I have also written a book chapter called, “Emotional Intelligence for Resilience” in the book, Upping the Down Side, an Amazon best-seller. If you read that, you will be able to dialogue with the author, me.

Dialogue is also a 4-hour Module of my Tele-Workshop, Emotional Intelligence for Resilient Leaders and Professionals. This program can help you improve your dialogue skills and other skills crucial for emotional intelligence. Check it out at http://www.EmotionallyIntelligentLeadership.com/index.htm#bottom/ (scroll down).

You can comment on this post by clicking the above link “Comments” or in the box below for comments if it is showing.

I was hiking along a river and noticed several large trees that had no earth underneath them. The river had washed it away. But some wily trees had outsmarted the river. They sent large roots sideways deep into the bank so they could hold on. The trees looked like the letter “L”, with air beneath them and swirling water below that. And they were big and tall, strong trees. They had withstood the changes of nature, the forcefulness of a river. They were resilient, and that is part of emotional intelligence.

Other trees were not so resilient. They had fallen into the river because their roots were not going in the right sideways direction or strong enough to hang on as the water washed out the ground underneath them.

Which kind of tree are you? Resilient or ready to fall into the river of constant change and turbulence? Of overwhelming workloads and poor relationships? And whatever else undermines you?

Now let’s learn from the resilient trees. When they sensed that the river was eroding the ground from beneath them, they sent new roots sideways into the river bank. They noticed a problem and sought firm ground to solve it. Then they grew these new roots bigger and deeper into the bank, sometimes wrapping around boulders for extra stability.

You can do the same. Notice the problems that threaten to overwhelm you. Or what already overwhelms you, such as your workload or a transition. Or the non-supportive people you have to work with. Now search for firm ground or boulders to hang on to.

One type of firm ground is your core values. These are what you can hang on to when the river is washing away the ground from under your feet. Where is your firm bank where your roots go deep?
Do you know your core values clearly so that you can hang on to them in time of trouble? Do they hold you steady like deep roots? Are you firmly held in good times and in bad?

If not, it is time to identify and clarify your core values. What really matters to you?

Helping you to clarify your core values is a key component of our individual and group Executive Coaching. To explore getting more stability and resilience this way, please call Bill Murray at 919-419-9460 or visit our web sites, http://www.EmotionallyIntelligentLeadership.com/index.htm#bottom/ and scroll down, and our second site,
http://www.eaglealliance.com .

How do you get promoted and be successful once you get there?

An article by Hilary Fennell in the Irish Independent News, April 10, 2008, www.independent.ie/business, asserts that the skills you need to get promoted into senior management have changed. The old style relied on using power and authority to command and control. The new style requires “…emotional intelligence — knowing and managing your own emotions, motivating yourself and recognising and understanding other people’s emotions.”

The article emphasizes that “It’s all about building effective and responsive interpersonal relationships.”

Cognitive ability and business acumen is taken for granted at the senior management level. It is emotional intelligence that makes you stand out. Or lack thereof, that makes you fall out, as Daniel Goleman said at the beginning.

In describing the problem with promotions into management, the article states, “But this new role will require a different set of skills from those the person possessed before securing the promotion. And that is the snag. The new management role calls for the ability to manage a team, communicate effectively and be able to make decisions, sometimes multiple ones, under pressure. This draws on the person’s emotional intelligence rather than on the cognitive ability they’ve used up until this point.”

How can you improve your emotional intelligence? You need guidance, practice, and feedback. You may get all these in our Group Coaching Tele-Workshops on Emotional Intelligence for Resilient Leaders and Professionals, described (scroll down) at http://www.EmotionallyIntelligentLeadership.com/index.htm#bottom/

You can listen to recorded live sessions at http://www.eagleAlliance.com/ho/sa/

Please contact us for more information at 919-419-9460 or via the link above “Contact Us.”

My chapter focuses on having clarity of intention that results in more energy and resilience. Clarity of intention means you know what you really want. This self-awareness is crucial for emotional intelligence. If you can look inward and identify what really matters for you in a given situation, you will have the energy to stay the course in spite of turbulence.

Or, if turbulence does knock you off course, you can ask yourself, “What really matters now?” When you get clear on what matters, you will energize yourself to find ways to get back on course.

This is resilience: The ability to be resourceful in handling turbulence and to bounce back when necessary. The more you know with what you really want at a deep level, the more resilient you will become. The more you can stay in touch with what really matters, the clearer it will become for you, how to bounce back.

Secondly, if you can discover what others really want and help them get it, you can build a strong, resilient company.

Now, how do you go to a deep level of knowing what you and others really want, what matters? Allow me to assist you with my individual or group Executive Coaching for resilience. Explore possibilities with no obligation. Call me, Bill Murray at 919-419-9460.
Or email me by using the above navigation bar link “Contact Us.”

Google has been named by FORTUNE as a best place to work. Google says this is because of their commitment to employees. Google promises to encourage an energetic team atmosphere and creativity.

Is this working? Just look at how Google dominates their industry and look at their financials.

Just look at how they can attract and keep the best and the brightest. I personally know of a top notch technical person who moved from my area, North Carolina, to Google’s headquarters in California and took a standard of living cut because of the increased cost of housing. I asked him why? He replied, “Because Google will be a great place to work at!”

What can you do to make your company or organization more likely to be called a great place to work at? Take some tips from Stew Leonard’s which has landed on FORTUNE’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For” for six consecutive years. Wendy Febbraio, Assistant Dean of Stew Leonard’s University said there are five key themes that employee attitude surveys show high ratings for:

1. Managers care and team members feel appreciated.
2. Communication is open and employees feel informed.
3. There is opportunity to grow.
4. Team members are rewarded with good pay and benefits.
5. The environment is fun and team members are proud of their work.

Make it a goal to improve in these key areas and make your employees your competitive advantage. Attracting and retaining the best people may be your key differentiator from competition, positively impacting your bottom line.

Want to discuss these matters? Please give me, Bill Murray, a call at 919-419-9460 or email via http://www.eaglealliance.com/contact. Or write a comment in the space below or use the Comments link above. I shall reply.