Tuesday, March 22, 2011

How Curious Are You?

The quality of curiosity may be our most valuable hidden asset.

What Curiosity Does For Us

With curiosity, we are open to learning more than “the right answer.”

We get unstuck. We go places that give us new perspectives. We ask questions that open unseen possibilities. We bring our attention to other people and experiences. We test our imagination in concrete reality. We find things in reality that we could never have imagined. And even better, we feel good and have fun when we are being curious.

As Jay Cross (author of the wonderful book Informal Learning) blogs, “A study of some 3,000 creative executives, conducted by researchers at Brigham Young University and the INSEAD business school, found that what linked all of these Steve Jobs-types, perhaps more than anything else, was their curiosity and willingness to question—‘the same kind of inquisitiveness you see in small children,’according to Hal Gregersen, one of the authors of the study.”

Cross also notes that Einstein said if he had an hour to come up with a solution on which his life depended, he would spend the first fifty-five minutes figuring out the right question to ask.

Real curiosity pushes the boundaries, thinks a lot of “what-if” questions, and actively exercises creativity. Creative thinking exercises, from provocateurs such as Edward DeBono (see Lateral Thinking), help find new things about which to be curious.

Last week, after a radio interview; I reflected on how Hollis, the interviewer, had successfully brought out many aspects of how Syntax helps people have good relationships. She asked very simple questions, with curiosity. It was easy for me to follow her lead. It's a well-honed skill demonstrated by the best TV interviewers. Charlie Rose's curiosity mines his guests' knowledge and opinions, resulting in a depth of understanding that shallow questions don't offer.

Being curious is an asset in both work and personal relationships, motivating us to be truly interested in the other person’s perspective. If we could just be curious when there’s a breakdown, instead of mad or confused, we would find many good pathways to resolution.

What Keeps Us From Being Curious?

Since this quality is so valuable and enjoyable, what dampens our curiosity?

In part, our cultural beliefs and practices. Another part is our fear of being embarrassed when we take risks.

Kids naturally ask a lot of questions. Parents and teachers can break down under the barrage and discourage the questions. Adults do this most when they are uncomfortable with the subject of the child's curiosity. This can shut down kids' curiosity across the board.

Plus, we are flooded with stimuli and information in today's plugged-in world, and sometimes it is hard to stay curious. We have a kind of learning fatigue. Hence we may need to renew our curiosity on a regular basis, by engaging in play and rest and unstructured time. Fortunately, curiosity seems to be an endlessly renewable resource.

Leaders or experts may not want to show curiosity, especially at work, since they feel obligated to provide answers. After all, wasn't that why they were hired?

Curiosity may appear naïve or childlike, making people feel vulnerable. It's exactly this kind of authenticity that brings forth a willingness to risk being open. Both organizational and technical leadership are well served by valuing curiosity and demonstrating it at every available occasion.
Share Your Curiosity

Sharing curiosity leverages it in several ways. One is to provoke others to question their assumptions and come up with new approaches.
Creating a culture of questioning increases innovation. Recent research shows a trend in science toward citing team research more often than individual research, an indicator that collaborative innovation may be more productive than working alone.

That poor cat killed by curiosity lives on today, warning us against taking risks and following our noses, so to speak. For whatever reasons, societies and organizations have wanted to pull people back to the cultural center and keep them off the fringes.

Perhaps they do this for the same reasons that I worry when my curious cat, Charcoal, starts climbing a tree. The first time he did that, he didn't know what he was doing and got stuck way up high in a rather dangerous situation. The cool thing is that he seems to have learned. Exploration leads to experience and he has gotten smarter about trees.

We can extend that same expectation to humans – that curiosity leads to learning, which we then - hopefully - apply.

So the bigger risk is in not being curious – in staying walled inside old patterns or routines. Rather than being childish, it is an ability to be child-like.

How do you encourage yourself and others to be curious? Think some playful thoughts and ask unusual questions. You may open unexpected doors to success – and whatever comes of it, you will have a good time!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Lucy Freedman interview March 16

Tune in to my interview on Hollis Polk's internet radio show,
"Your Life, Your Relationships"
on Wed., 3/16 @ 3PM PDT!

Listen live at Progressive Radio Network!

Afterward you will be able to download the podcast at that address.

We will start off with the topic of my latest blog on Integrity -
and who knows where we will go from there!

Also, Hollis takes phone calls from listeners during the show.
Hope you can join us.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Everyday Integrity

How often do we betray ourselves or others?

One of our most highly valued - and highly defended - qualities is integrity. Who doesn't aspire to wholeness, accountability, and honesty in our actions and relationships?

The interesting aspect of this is how we can hold these intentions and then in daily life slide away from them, mostly outside of our own awareness.

We can ask ourselves: what is so important to us about believing in our own integrity?

We know from childhood on that being in integrity - telling the truth, being trusted, taking actions that lead toward what we care about - feels a lot better than lying, cheating, or breaking promises. It is a significant aspect of self-esteem for most people.

Integrity in the sense of making and keeping one's agreements is practical as well. When you don't know that someone will do what they say they will do, it's very hard to organize, plan, and deliver results.

We may not think we are losing integrity when a deadline passes without acknowledgment, or when we make excuses to ourselves for not doing what we promised.We aren't living up to our own expectations. Then we tend to get out of integrity with others as well.

Bit by bit, not keeping agreements without renegotiating them nibbles away at both integrity and self-esteem.

I would add that this happens when we are not honest with ourselves about our own feelings and needs. Short-term thinking, such as, "I can let it go this time," leads us not to tell others when we are hurt or something we care about is being trashed. Or, "I shouldn't be upset. They didn't mean to step on my toe."

We gradually lose the sense of our center and our boundaries. The other person doesn't know they should remove their foot.

This is not to say that we should confront every single disappointment. We need to know where to draw our own line and what is really not worth fussing about.

If we practice reflection, meditation, or other forms of introspection, we can check our internal compass and guide ourselves back into balance.

Sometimes that will involve being courageous enough to clear up an issue with someone else. Doing it with integrity would mean owning that we are speaking about our own responses and feelings, accounting for our part of the situation, and taking responsibility for what we will do in the future to avoid similar breakdowns.

Or we can decide to release our negative feelings without discussing them with the other person - if we really do release them.

The way that I can tell I that I am out of integrity is when my internal conversation is one of justification. I make a case for the rightness of my position and how the other person is wrong. I am more likely to complain than to make a clear request.

Several of the common justifications to watch out for are ways of discounting oneself, the other, or the situation. For example, "She's just not able to handle feedback," so I don't give it. "I am not good at conflict. I'd rather work it out by myself." "It won't do any good anyway. Things around here never change." They definitely won't change if no one speaks up.

Real integrity requires a good deal of skill, not just good intentions. As we mature, we need to examine our own abilities and keep expanding them.

One of the main benefits of practicing the Syntax of Effective Communication is that it keeps us in integrity. That means knowing our goals, both the big picture and the details (PLAN). It means meeting other people where they are (LINK). Getting and giving relevant accurate information keeps us in integrity (INFORM). Taking in feedback and making changes is part of our integrity (LEARN). And, as mentioned before, making requests and keeping agreements is central (BALANCE).

Is there something you are holding onto and justifying today, on which you could instead take a new approach?

Who are the role models whose integrity you admire?

What are the potholes you tend to fall into and what are you doing to build the muscles that keep you out of them?

Integrity is a huge subject and there is much more worth exploring. The only time we have to live it is today. May these thoughts inspire and encourage us as we step through today in wholeness, accountability, and above all, honesty with ourselves.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Are You Coachable?

Good Leaders are Good Learners - Are You?
Oh, sure, I am always open to feedback...
Is it true? Or is it hard to ask for and receive feedback? Even if we know it will have value, learning about ourselves is a risky business.

Coachability is a word that struck me the first time I heard it. It puts the responsibility on the client, not on the coach. I had to ask myself, how coachable am I really?

There's a huge variation in our learning strategies, especially in the arenas of communication and behavior. In school, we were taught many subjects. Only a fortunate few learned the most important thing: how to learn. Many of us learned instead to perform what was asked of us. As adults, we can revisit our learning strategies. We need to reclaim our ability to be self-directed learners who can also accept coaching from others.

What distinguishes a good learning strategy?
It asks questions such as "How can I apply this?" rather than "Where won't this work?"

Good learning strategies assume that there is a positive intention behind most behavior rather than assuming that people who disagree must be irrational.

Outstanding learners go after feedback: they want to know more about how others respond to them and what they may be missing. Their strategies include not taking the feedback personally, a rare skill. If you can take it as being useful for you and as much about the person who is giving it as about you, you can glean much insight without umbrage.

A logical / analytical option is to use a tool known as an assessment instrument that yields data about workstyles, communication styles, perceptual biases, and so forth. (See the upcoming events column for a program on assessments happening this week in Silicon Valley).

Many of our non-coachable responses are invisible to us. For instance, when I first taught a Transactional Analysis 101 course, I was supervised by my mentor and dear friend Dr. Jo Lewis. As she gave me feedback, I felt I needed to respond to each item, either justifying what I had done or commenting in some way. When she pointed it out, it was glaring.

I was not very coachable, even though I professed to want the feedback (which, by the way, was very valuable). I don't know where I learned that pattern, and it was very helpful to become aware and stop doing that. Without someone to coach me into being a better learner, I wonder how long I would have hung onto it.

In our three-day seminars, we observe that some people come in with good learning strategies. Others spend the three days working through resistance and beginning to create new strategies. By the third day, hopefully, they are ready to learn.

What is so threatening about learning, and specifically learning to be better communicators?

First of all, the idea that we need to learn something hints that we are not already totally skillful. If you had a family like mine, you grew up with the expectation that if you were smart, you already knew things. Being a good learner wasn't valued: being a good performer was. There was no graceful way to navigate the learning process and maintain a polished exterior.

I've had the good fortune to be in a career where there are many ways to ask and receive interpersonal feedback. Training as a therapist, trainer, coach, all involve much personal interaction in small and large groups and one-on-one. If you have not engaged in process-oriented learning, it's something to consider. Many leadership programs have a least some component of this kind of process. This is embedded in Syntax leadership courses, and is more fully developed in coaching and culture change engagements.

In collaboration, someone will always have more expertise than you in one or another aspect of the task you are working on together. If you have a knee-jerk defense or know-it-all reaction, how helpful is that? Somehow, being a smart kid didn't necessarily equip us for learning from our teammates. Unless we focus on it, we may not even recognize we are creating a less than optimal space for learning.

Learning about our behavior and the choices we have moment-to-moment is as present as air and often as invisible.

Being a learner means being willing to be open about the trials and errors along the way. Learning as a communicator means seeking out coaching from peers, a professional coach, or a mentor. We do NOT know the impact of our behavior without feedback from others.

When a leader is willing to learn openly, and can receive feedback authentically and graciously, he or she is demonstrating true leadership. Role modeling is the most powerful form of permission for others to be open about their learning as well.

Changes drive much of our learning. All of us are learning like crazy these days -- the new Facebook and Twitter pages, Go-to-Webinar, your new smartphone--and who knows what other emerging platforms will pull us in next.

Whatever the specific technology, learning to use it so that it enhances mutual understanding is one of the great social learning assignments of our time.

The amazing thing is how much we actually do absorb and utilize from the masses of stimuli out there.

We can expand our ability to learn throughout our lives. They say that people who are too old to learn were probably always too old to learn. Instead, seek out ways to be consciously coachable and lead the way.