Lorne Rubis Building Character at Work and in Life

Please Don’t Live From Weekend to Weekend

20133 May
Comments
Posted inBe Accountable

Key Point: What if Monday and Saturday both felt great? What if we did not live our lives looking forward to the day we “retired?” Instead, what if we lived like we aspired to live right NOW? Is this naïve thinking? Come on… Work is work… Leisure is leisure… Right? Wrong.

My mom lives in a seniors’ complex. I came through the front door the other day and this lovely elderly woman was sitting in the lobby. As I was waiting for the elevator to arrive, she explained that she was waiting to see when the lights in the atrium would automatically switch on based on the sun going down. “The other night I went to bed before they came on,” she explained. “Holy…” I thought. “Is this what I have to look forward to?”

Later that evening my wife and I watched a movie based on a true story, The Impossible, which depicted a family devastated by the tsunami that hit South Asia nearly a decade ago. I thought, “I am so grateful I haven’t had to experience that kind of event.” Thank goodness most of us are well in between the continuum of these two extremes: The total boredom of nothingness and the terror of just trying to stay alive.

So what? I think we need to be reminded to live our life with total joy each day. In just a blink of time, if we are lucky, we will be very fragile and sitting quietly in some senior’s lobby. Hopefully we will have avoided fighting for our lives through a tsunami or equivalent along the way.

Character Moves:

Do not wait for retirement or some future day to be happy and joy filled in your daily work/ life. That day may never come. The time to be fulfilled and joyful is NOW. Think about how you achieve that in your current work role. If you can’t, find something else to do.
Worrying about having enough money for “whatever” is practical and reasonable. But living in misery to get or stay there is not. Nothing is worth going about daily work life in a joyless way. We need to live from the “end” NOW! If we wait, who knows what will happen.
Some jobs are inherently tough. But relationships… Being loved by and loving others, do not need to be. Like Stephen Stills’ old country/folk song goes, “Love the One You’re With.”
Ask yourself what you want to do when you’re retired? Financially sound? Now pull it all forward and do it now… I’m serious. Do not wait to be fulfilled or happy. It’s not worth it!

Now in the Triangle,

Lorne

When You Make Someone Mad

201330 Apr
Comments
Posted inBe Accountable

Key Point: Ever make someone mad? Do you know the difference and benefit between explaining the intention of your behavior versus acknowledging the consequences? I wish I would have understood this principle earlier in my life. It would have helped me immensely with my relationships.

When I do something to upset someone else, it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to explain and justify my intention. Of course from my perspective, my behavior is usually totally understandable. Any reasonable person could see that, right? Wrong! The following is the BEST and most PRACTICAL advice from Peter Bregman’s HBR blog, What to Do When You’ve Made Someone Angry. Read it in its entirety if you want to. Here’s an excerpt:

“When you’ve done something that upsets someone — no matter who’s right — always start the conversation by acknowledging how your actions impacted the other person. Save the discussion about your intentions for later. Much later. Maybe never. Because, in the end, your intentions don’t matter much.

What if you don’t think the other person is right — or justified — in feeling the way they do? It doesn’t matter. Because you’re not striving for agreement. You’re going for understanding…

Your job is to acknowledge their reality — which is critical to maintaining the relationship… If someone’s reality, as they see it, is negated, what motivation do they have to stay in the relationship?

The hardest part is our emotional resistance. We’re so focused on our own challenges that it’s often hard to acknowledge the challenges of others. Especially if we are their challenge and they are ours. Especially when they lash out at us in anger. Especially when we feel misunderstood. In that moment, when we empathize with them and their criticism of our behavior, it almost feels like we’re betraying ourselves. But we’re not. We’re just empathizing.

Here’s a trick to make it easier. While they’re getting angry at you, imagine, instead, that they’re angry at someone else. Then react as you would in that situation. Probably you’d listen and let them know you see how angry they are. And if you never get to explain your intentions? What I have found in practice — and this surprised me — is that once I’ve expressed my understanding of the consequences, my need to justify my intentions dissipates.

That’s because the reason I’m explaining my intentions in the first place is to repair the relationship. But I’ve already accomplished that by empathizing with their experience. At that point, we’re both usually ready to move on. And if you do still feel the need? You’ll still have the opportunity, once the other person feels seen, heard, and understood.

If we succeed in doing all this well, we’ll often find that, along with our relationships, something else gets better: Our behavior.”

Character Moves:

Remember that when you make someone angry, constructively moving forward means striving for understanding, not agreement.
The most important thing is to sincerely understand the consequences of your behavior and empathize with the other regarding the impact on them. Then shut up and just listen.
The next time you make someone mad, practice Bregman’s recommendations. They really work.

Acknowledging consequences in The Triangle,

- Lorne

Trigger Words That Can Screw Things Up!

201326 Apr
Comments4
Posted inBe Respectful

Key Point: We make decisions about others very quickly. We have to be cautious about doing that because the meaning of respect, one of the tenants of The Character Triangle, is to “look again.” It is a powerful definition that encourages us to really observe and listen without judging hastily. However when I meet with others, I must admit that I do listen very carefully to the words and phrases used. Their language gives me a glimpse into what I think they really believe. Let me share a few of what I call “trigger words.”

“I.” People who define their success exclusively in the context of “I” make me wary. Most highly evolved and effective leaders describe their accomplishments in sincerely humble ways. They know that success is most often a result of many hands. Sharing that view does not diminish their contribution. It does however highlight the self-awareness required to understand that many people and fortunate conditions are necessary for great results. (The one time using “I” is appropriate is when leaders take the heat for something gone wrong).

“They.” Frankly, I detest the use of this pronoun in the context of blame. When I’m interviewing someone and they tell me the reason they want to work for me/us is because they are running away from “they,” I almost always conclude the discussion with a “no thank you.” This usually tells me that self-accountability is not fully resident in that person. I do not want to invest in teaching people to become self-accountable. I want them arriving demonstratively with self-accountability.

“Yeah, but…” When people use this phrase they might as well stop the conversation with me. My experience is that most often the word “yeah” is a big second fiddle to the word “but.” Resistance to exploring options with “ yes but-ers” is normally very high. People who lead with “yeah, but…” often have a closed versus growth mind-set. They spend their time thinking about why something won’t work versus finding ways to make things work.

“Should” and “Never”… Really? Why would I associate myself with “should” and “never?”

Character Moves:

Learn how to use precise words. Sometimes I think we have lost the importance of having an extensive vocabulary that provides us with the repertoire of using the most effective word to describe the feeling we want to accurately convey. I believe one has to READ great literature to expand our language catalogue. It’s not about huffiness it’s about the significance of clarity. Cable TV and abbreviated social media terms just don’t help very much.
Watch words that tell you what people really believe in. Look for trigger words that determine whether the “feet and mouth” are really in sync. What are your trigger words?
Be aware of the words you use that define and reinforce your beliefs. Language is powerful. You may want to believe you think a certain way but you give yourself “away” by what you say (and do, of course).

Say it and mean it in The Triangle,

- Lorne

Can You Answer a ‘Beautiful, Haunting’ Question?

201323 Apr
Comments
Posted inBe Accountable

Key Point: The poet Mary Oliver asks this beautifully haunting question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I have written much about the importance of being purposeful, proactive and strategic about one’s (work) life. Too often the immediacy of our daily job consumes us. Before long one “looks up,” years zoom by and in a reflective moment we ask: What happened? How much have I created? How have I brought value to the world? Many people have asked for guidance about how to practically go about being more definitive in determining a strategic approach to work. The following process provided by Greg McKeown is one of best approaches I have found. Try it and/or pass it on to someone who might appreciate the insight.

Step 1: Sketch Your Career. Use this simple tool to get a broader perspective. You start on the left at the beginning of your career and end on the right hand side (today). You draw a single line up if you were enjoying the experience and down if it was unfulfilling for you. Write down where you were working, what you were working on, and any other factors that shaped your experience.

 It ends up looking something like this:

Step 2: Connect the Dots. Use the sketch from Step One as a launch pad into being an anthropologist of your own life. Go somewhere quiet. You might think of it like a strategic offsite for your own life and career.

Ask: When was I truly happy and why? What activity or theme do I keep coming back to? What is my gravitational pull? When was work effortless for me? What isn’t working for me? When do I seem most like myself? When was it meaningless and why? When was work meaningful and why? Don’t rush the process. Pause long enough to listen. Write the answers down as they come so you can reflect on them later.

Step 3: Ask, “What Will I Create that Will Make the World Awesome?” That may sound like a bit of a wild question but an essential element of strategy is, to state the obvious, thinking about what we want to create in the future. (If “awesome” is too out there for you… Substitute “better”).

Ask: What would I do if I could do anything? What would I do if all jobs paid the same? If I could only achieve one thing in my career, what would it be? What do I really want? Again, these are big questions. But my experience is that people spend far more time worried about their job than in creating a vision for their career and how they can uniquely contribute to the world.

Character Moves:

Go on a personal off-site meeting “retreat” with yourself. Regardless where you are in your career, this is worth doing. The literature is filled with stories about people who made their most significant contributions at every age, time and place. It is never too early or too late. Do not be fearful and choose inertia over addressing these questions. Set the date and time for your personal offsite today
Treat yourself to something great after you do the hard work outlining the above. YOU ARE WORTH IT! Celebrate the fact that you learned something more about yourself.
Commit to taking small steps in the direction you’ve established or reset. Sometime a retreat like this can result in a BIG change but often the most successful outcome is taking many incremental steps that collectively lead us to a more desirable and purposeful outcome. Before you know it those same years pass by but you are much closer to the vision you have set for yourself.

Note: PURPOSE is usually a combination between what you’re good at, like to do, and others find value in. VISION is usually a desired future state, often defined by some visible, measurable evidence of achieving a set of intentional outcomes. VALUES are a given set of principles that guide the way you act and think. The Character Triangle represents the values I try to live by. My purpose and vision are related but different.

One wild and precious life in The Triangle!

Lorne

Character Triangle

Our character is exclusively ours. We define it by how we think and what we do. I believe that acting with Character is driven by what I call the Character Triangle.

What, exactly, is the Character Triangle (CT)?

The CT describes and emphasizes three distinct but interdependent values:

Be Accountable: first person action to make things better, avoiding blame.
Be Respectful: being present, listening, looking again, focusing on the process.
Be Abundant: generous in spirit, moving forward, minimizing the lack of.