Let’s face it; the word “love” is a controversial term in business. Yet one definition of “love” is “an intense feeling of deep affection.” Anybody who has been part of a winning team knows that sense of deep personal affection. When you see players on winning teams talk about each other, it always involves deep affection, and the word “love” is often used. All that hugging after a Stanley Cup or Super Bowl win isn’t practiced. It is real, expressed “love” of teammates. Sincere and specific recognition is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of respect. When everyone feels like they are contributing to a mission and purpose, their sense of value and belonging increases. And being part of an effective team is more important than ever these days. No organization or group has ever won anything exclusively because of one person. Self-accountability, as you know well by now, is a key tenant of the Character Triangle. However in the context of successful organizations, it is most meaningful when people team up on that common value. The toughest Special Forces leaders (read the perspectives of Generals Stanley McChrystal and/or David Petraeus) know that that purpose, mission, and values have to be clear or failure and morale decline is inevitable. And making money alone is NOT a sustainable long-term motivator. Mission, purpose and values are.

Have you ever received a genuine letter expressing sincere care and affection from a teammate or colleague? Did you immediately throw it away? Did you even save one or two of those notes? I have been sending DWD cards for 35 years. They stand for “Darn Well Done.” People have saved those cards and shown them to me, often years after I’ve delivered them. They are my version of a “love letter.” Yup… I said it. Love.

Character Move:

1. Commit to giving recognition to others. No person or organization has ever fallen apart because of too much recognition. On the contrary, most of us enjoy well-intended acknowledgement.
2. Make sure your personal and group mission, purpose and values are clear to yourself and others. Believe in them or leave.
3. Deep affection or love at work comes from winning! And winning is achieving milestones towards a mission, living a purpose and/or embracing common values.
4. Telling others you deeply and sincerely appreciate their contributions is a love letter at work. Write them often.

Love letters in The Triangle,

Lorne

- Dr. Seuss, The Lorax. 

Just one wonderful thing about having a 5-year-old grandson is the opportunity to snuggle up with him in a big leather arm chair, and watch a “kids” movie (like Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.) The iPad and iPhone are out of reach. It’s just him, Dr. Seuss and me. The Lorax has many messages worth reflecting on; greed, purpose, exploitation, the environment and much more. But I think the heart of the movie is prefaced by the adverb, “UNLESS.”

The challenge inspired by the word “unless” hits me on the noggin literally every day. While I never want to absolve others… Management, governments, or any other group from their obligations, things only become better for us because of what we do individually. And the root of much of what we decide to do stems from whether we really care or not. It is easy to wish for something but ultimately one has to really care to inspire action for change. 

I recently watched Stanley McChrystal (four-star general, former Green Beret and top commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the U.S.,) present to a packed auditorium of Stanford MBAs. The message was about leadership and at the core was McChrystal’s view that leadership is not about talent or a gift. It’s about choice. It about caring and UNLESS you and I determine what to actually focus our efforts on, nothing really changes.

Character Move:

1. Watch The Lorax. If you can, watch it with a kid. Let yourself wonder what “seed you want to plant and grow.”
2. Give yourself some quiet time to reflect upon what you tell yourself and others when discussing what you really care about. Then check how much you have devoted to your “care.”
3. UNLESS you care… Really care… And choose to act, nothing will be better for you on that matter. Recognize that caring… Really caring… Is hard work. 
4. And deeply caring and acting on something with conviction is true leadership. 

UNLESS in The Triangle, 

Lorne

Key Point:

There is an old adage that states, “When the student is ready, the teacher comes.” I believe that every day provides us with an opportunity to learn from others. The people we run into and seek out daily are not just other folks but literally life coaches.

As an example, yesterday I had a meeting with a colleague who taught me how to synthesize and use a metaphor to describe a problem. Observing and listening to a conversation with teammates at another meeting reinforced the principle that self-accountability is the key to career progress. Another person refused to give up his parking place to me, which reinforced the importance of being generous. These are just a few examples, and the day wasn’t even over yet.

Beyond being conscious and learning from our daily interactions, proactively seeking out what we want to learn from others is also important. I doubt that I will meet Colin Powell in person but I can learn a lot by reading about what he thinks and believes. The following are 13 rules Powell uses to guide his life. Click here if you want his further thoughts on each point.

 ”1. It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

2. Get mad, then get over it.

3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

4. It can be done!

5. Be careful what you choose.

6. Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

7. You can’t make someone else’s choices.

8. Check small things.

9. Share credit.

10. Remain calm. Be kind.

11. Have a vision.

12. Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”

Character Move:

1. On a daily basis, consciously view interactions with people as lessons to help us more thoughtfully shape who we are and how we continue to evolve.
2. Seek out your teachers and coaches. Who do you want to learn from? Why? What about them attracts you? Inspires you? Accept what you can also learn from those you don’t choose but for one reason or another enters your life.
3. While each of us is our own person and continues to uniquely evolve, having a mindset that everyone we interact with is a teacher provides us a roadmap based on the importance of respecting the value of all. Everyone is a teacher. As students, we need to be ready for them.
4. Remember that ALL the people in our lives will collectively and profoundly shape who we are. Based on that premise, who do you want to seek out? What will you learn from each person you interact with?

People shape the Triangle, 

Lorne

I do believe there are key elements that when applied help us navigate changing circumstances. Harvard’s John Kotter is arguably one of the most well regarded change experts and his eight steps include: 

1. Create urgency.

2. Form a powerful coalition.

3. Create a vision for change.

4. Communicate the vision.

5. Remove obstacles.

6. Create short-term wins.

7. Build on the change.

8. Anchor the change in the corporate culture.

Ok… These are all solid considerations and from a top down approach, they make perfect sense. My argument is that in the world we live in, change is a continuous process and NOT an event. Customers, technology, markets, competition, are so tornado-like that the above model may be too pedestrian, top down, and event based. And it misses they key ingredients for change… You, me and how we think. The key to ongoing successful change is the mindset of all people involved in the eco system impacted by changes AND NOT the mythical “center of change management.” Let me work with people who have a propensity for continuous growth and a commitment to creating value and we will work as a system of continuous, proactive change… Not an old, top down, lazy organization, hoping to compel people that change is needed. By the time organizations look to embrace “change” they are likely spiraling towards less relevance and even dissolution. 

Character Move: 

1. Define yourself as a never-ending value creating human, adding worth for everyone (including yourself) on an ongoing basis and you will be constantly evolving. You will more prepared when events around you rock your world… And they surely will! 
2. Do not resist. Determine how to navigate and make changes work for you, regardless of how much it shakes up your routine. Sometimes this means leaving the “system” and starting something else. 
3. Recognize that everything ends some time. Celebrate the best of what you enjoyed about the past and move on. Stop whining, asking, “why is this happening?” Or wishing “they would have done IT better.” If you look closely there is an opportunity waiting. The longer you resist accepting that things have or are changing, the more you will cloud the opportunity. 
4. Enjoy the present but do not stand still. Presence and being static are different. 

Change in the Triangle,

Lorne 

Key Point:

To better understand the benefits of forgiveness, I’m referencing a very credible source: The Mayo Clinic. Forgiveness does NOT mean denying that another person hurt you. But you can forgive the person without forgiving the act.

The Mayo Clinic describes the following as the benefits of forgiveness:

1. Healthier relationships.

2. Greater spiritual and psychological well-being.

3. Less anxiety, stress and hostility.

4. Fewer symptoms of depression.

5. Lower the risk of alcohol and substance abuse.

It is not often easy to forgive. And if you read about the incredibly dehumanizing abuse absorbed by POWs, especially Zamperini in Unbroken, you might think it’s impossible. Yet that’s exactly what happened in Zamperini’s life and he experienced all the benefits described above. Read Unbroken to become humbled by the beauty of the human spirit as it rises way above ugliness and bitter days of darkness.

Character Move (As recommended by the Mayo staff):

1. Determine the value of forgiveness and the importance to YOU.
2. Reflect on the facts of the situation. Examine how you’ve reacted and how the combination has affected your life, health and well being.
3. When you are ready, actively choose to forgive the person who has offended you (and remember forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciliation or reconnecting with the person).
4. Move away from your role as a victim. Release the control and power the offending person and situation have had on your life.

And the most wonderful outcome, as happened in Unbroken, you may no longer define your life by how you’ve been hurt… Even better, you find new levels of compassion and understanding.

Forgiving human “sharks” in The Triangle,

Lorne

What if we focused more on the strengths and abilities we have than the ones we lack? I am not talking about any of us becoming Olympians. I’m just encouraging us to give more attention to the gifts we have versus our shortcomings. Often I find that people get hung up on perfection and refuse to accept their own humanity. So they tend to give up on things that they are actually pretty good at and could even become great doing if they persevered and practiced. When people we care about don’t do well on an exam, or do not win a competition, we rarely (hopefully) diminish them. Yet we beat the heck out of ourselves and see ourselves as failures when we don’t meet our own expectations. Why?

Psychologist Mark Leary points out the value of having self-compassion (an important “cousin” of self esteem). Whenever bad things happen to us, self-compassion helps from adding self-recrimination on top. Leary points out “if people continue to beat themselves up when they fail or make mistakes, they will be unable to cope non-defensively with their difficulties.” How do you think Oscar is responding to his results at the Olympics? Do you think he’s spending a lot of time beating himself up for not doing better? On the other hand, do you think he’s satisfied that he’s reached his limits? I don’t think he’s doing either. I believe he’s accepting what went well, objectively examining what didn’t and building from there. As it is for Oscar, the real competition was much less against other athletes and much more about our self-development. That’s why I think we break new ground when we become our most important and loyal cheerleaders. The person most important to encourage me, is me… Sure, I need coaches, as do all athletes (see my last blog) and I think acknowledgment and encouragement from others is helpful, but the key to forward movement is how I think about myself. This propels what I do.

Character Move:

1. Challenge yourself to focus more on exploiting your abilities. What are they? How will you do it? (Sometimes reading a biography of someone like Pistorius is an inspiration and road map).
2. Give yourself the self-love and compassion you deserve. Like the Dalai Lama points out, you need to have a strong sense of self-compassion to treat others that way. When you observe people treat others poorly, it is often an indication of how they feel about themselves. And like the philosopher Ayn Rand said, “to say I love you, one must first be able to say the “I.’”
3. I strongly encourage you to read Tal Ben-Shahar‘s, The Pursuit of Perfect. It is an enormously useful and practical guide for building a greater sense of balance in dealing with the challenge of perfection.
4. Combine two thoughts that can seem at first glance to be contradictory: Exploit your abilities with a growth mind set, while having a deep sense of self love and compassion. They go together.

Be a Blade Runner in The Triangle,

Lorne

Key Point:

In his book Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious, psychologist Timothy Wilson summarizes decades of research on what he calls our “adaptive unconscious.” He shows us just how much of what we do during every moment of every day happens below our conscious awareness. This includes what we think, how we feel, the goals we pursue and the actions we take. Some of it we can notice if we engage in a little self-reflection, but much of it is not directly accessible to us at all. If you want all the fascinating science please read the book. The way our brain works is a blessing and sometimes a curse regarding deep self-awareness.

When we struggle, the data suggests that we most often blame ourselves based on our ability. Yup… Most of us think we just “don’t have it.” Yet research by scientists over the last 30 years confirms that natural ability is rarely the root cause of failure. And as Peter Senge reinforced in his iconic book The Fifth Discipline, cause and effect are not closely related in space and time. If we are going to really improve performance and develop ourselves, we need to find the true root cause. We need solid evidence about where we went wrong. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of evidence that usually doesn’t make it to our consciousness on its own. We need help getting the right answers.

Character Move:

1. Don’t be so proud that you won’t seek help from both a performance and development coach. People who are experienced and/or trained to be legitimate coaches will help by asking the right questions and will put a mirror up to show behavior. This will help us discover what’s beneath the surface. Find your coaches! 
2. Recognize that relying only on self-diagnosis is dangerous. It is likely that self-diagnosis, for just pure scientific reasons, is unreliable. A repeat of No.1 above: Get solid help to increase self-awareness and to build an action plan based on evidence that really addresses root cause and not just symptoms.
3. Kick start the self-awareness using a more research driven analysis process, based on a Business Press e-book, Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. The author, Heidi Grant Halvorson, recently created the  9 Things Diagnostic. It’s a set of questions you can answer online and get immediate feedback (for free) that tells you which of the “9 Things” you need to work on, and which ones you have already mastered.
4. However while No.3 above is based on good research and will help you evaluate against the “9 Things” model, it is only a stop over on the way to a more complete self-awareness journey. The mirror you get from caring, insightful coaches that help us get conscious self-understanding, completes this road trip.

Knowing ourselves more in The Triangle,

Lorne

The following is a hilarious comment on the importance of grammar when getting a job by Kyle Wiens, as published in an HBR blog.

“If you think an apostrophe was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, you will never work for me. If you think a semicolon is a regular colon with an identity crisis, I will not hire you. If you scatter commas into a sentence with all the discrimination of a shotgun, you might make it to the foyer before we politely escort you from the building.

Some might call my approach to grammar extreme, but I prefer Lynne Truss‘s more cuddly phraseology: I am a grammar “stickler.” And, like Truss — author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves — I have a “zero tolerance approach” to grammar mistakes that make people look stupid.

Now, Truss and I disagree on what it means to have “zero tolerance.” She thinks that people who mix up their itses, “deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave,” while I just think they deserve to be passed over for a job — even if they are otherwise qualified.”

How do you feel about using grammar as a screening filter for recruitment?

Have you heard some of the well-informed commentary by experts during the 2012 London Olympics? Whether swimming, gymnastics, or any event for that matter, people who really understand a sport can describe how executing, based on minute details, is most often the difference between gold and silver. Learning and practicing a skill based on putting together specific best practice details is the key to excellence in almost anything. This means we have to have a willingness to learn and a tenacity to really improve. Hence the argument that if someone hasn’t learned basic grammar and is not able to attend to detail in a resume, why would one assume they would be able to learn and attend to detail in a job? Is this too harsh? I’m not so sure. When you have experienced anything of extraordinary excellence, how much of it came down to an obsessive attention to detail?

Character Moves:

1. How much of a stickler are you for details in your work?
2. If you outlined the key processes of the elements in your role at work, what would be the differentiating details? How can you practice delivering and improving on them?
3. Do you have the will power and tenacity to be excellent? Is being mediocre good enough? Perhaps your customers are just too fussy and demanding.
4. Why not create your own personal Olympics? What are the specifics that would earn you a gold medal? Is it more important for you to be good or to constantly improve?

Details in the Triangle,

Lorne

P.S. If you want to find out if you’re truly a “grammar geek,” take this quick quiz. 

1. Mindset is the discovery of world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck based on decades of research on achievement and success. It’s a simple idea that makes a huge difference. I have written about the importance of having a growth mindset before.

In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success, without effort. Dweck points out they’re wrong. A lot of Olympic athletes would confirm this assertion.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities.

2. The questions you ask yourself are more powerful and influential in driving self-development when they are active versus passive. As an example, “did you do your best to be happy today?” is an active question. “Are you happy today?” is a passive question. When we ask ourselves and answer active questions, we are more likely to learn and self develop. When we ask passive questions we can get seduced into relying on the environment to improve as a condition for us improving. (I referred to this in a past blog about my experience having a drink with super management guru Marshall Goldsmith). He’s continuing to do important research to further assess the validity of this premise.

Character Move:

1. Honestly examine how much you have a growth mindset. Go to MindSet to test it. Work to nourish that growth mindset.
2. Ask yourself the following core questions everyday. Did I do my best to be happy today? Did I do my best to live my life with meaning today? Did I do my best to improve relationships today?
3. Add some additional “did I do my best?” questions that are personally most meaningful to you.
4. Take action based on the answers to your questions and stay true to asking and following up on the answers everyday.

An active growth mindset in The Triangle,

Lorne