The first game of the day is just getting started when my occasional nemesis, Rick from Ukraine, starts doing that controlling thing he does. You know – telling people where to position themselves, moving everyone around, and making sure his team is the strongest on the court. This drives me crazy! Where I come from, you always try to set up the teams as evenly as possible in order to maximize the chances of having the closest game possible. Sadly, hyper-competitive Rick (who does NOT like to lose) rarely sees it this way. Compounding things is Rick’s communication style which is, shall we say, blunt. It’s not unusual to hear him blurt out something like “You’re no good”, “You can’t hit” or “I no set for you.” Again, I come from a different school of thought – one that strives to build people up via encouragement and affirmation. I’m also an unrepentant advocate for the underdog. So when Rick starts laying into my friend, Steph, about her supposedly poor passing skills, I kind of snap. Soon I’m yelling at Rick, he’s yelling back at me, and before I know, I find myself storming off the court, declaring “I cannot play with this guy.”

Pretty immature stuff, huh? What was I thinking (or not thinking)?!!

And yet, what was I to do – just stand there and take it? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. In fact, there seems to be 5 distinct methods for managing toxic relationships, both at work and at play. They are:

Remain a victim to it

Change it

Change your perspective of it

Accept it

Leave it

Obviously in this particular scenario on the volleyball court, I chose method #5 – I left the situation, Although, in retrospect, I wish I could have handled things more calmly and reasonably, my choice was a valid solution. I couldn’t change Rick’s behavior and I couldn’t accept it, so I got out of there.
Let’s take a closer look at the five methods.

Remain a victim to the relationship: The most passive approach, playing the victim includes accepting a feeling of loss of control. It means reconciling yourself to powerlessness, uncontrolled anger, grief and sometimes depression. Remaining a victim is the path of least resistance, to be sure, but it also decreases our energy and drains us until we feel like nothing is left.

Change the relationship: A more proactive approach, this method involves trying to find a common point of agreement with the other person that enables the relationship to continue on at an at least neutral level. If you can pull it off (through stellar communication), the relationship can often be shifted for the better. The key is for all parties involved to move from WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) to WIIFU (What’s in it for us?).

Change the relationship by changing one’s perspective of it: Rather than changing the relationship with actions and new behaviors, this approach asks you to modify and shift your own way of looking at things. How can you see the other person from a new vantage point? What qualities of him or her can you appreciate?

Accept the relationship: In this strategy, you suspend your judgment of the relationship, releasing all stress and burden. You accept the relationship as it is – as an experience that does not require anything. You’re simply at peace with where the situation is at the moment.

Leave the relationship: If you don’t like a relationship, and you can’t change it, remain in it, change the way you look at it, or accept it, you’re only remaining option is to leave/terminate it. Sometimes the individual chemistry and make up of two individuals is such that we simply cannot co-exist in a relationship. This is not good or bad, it just is.

After the volleyball game, I went up to Rick and let him know that I like and respect him off the court (which is true) but don’t share his values on the court. I then suggested that we don’t play together for a while. It didn’t feel great – in general, I’m a peace maker. In a perfect world, I would’ve found that common ground with Rick and we would’ve patched things up. But not everyone is ready or willing to change. Sometimes you just have to get out…to surround yourself with your peeps. Life is too short to swim in toxic waters.

Although my visit with the architect wasn’t long enough for me to receive an adequate explanation about the kitchen– remember, I was 25 years old with a girl on my mind – I’ve thought about this odd house many times over the years. Why did he do it? Why did this talented designer create a kitchen intended to torture its inhabitants? My theory, then and now, is that he must have been an advocate of the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection. To understand what I mean, try watching Japanese television sometime on cable, or go to your nearest Japantown and pick up a copy of one of those teenage fan magazines. You’ll find that half the young Japanese models and starlets, if not more, have these perfect faces, this perfect hair, this perfect skin, these perfect teeth, except for one slight flaw: one tooth is always crooked. Now, I’m no expert on Japanese art and pop culture, but it seems to me that the people over there admire this kind of thing — imperfection amidst perfection. Asymmetry within the symmetry. Can you imagine such an aesthetic choice taking hold here in the U.S., where movie stars seemingly start botoxing and photoshopping themselves in their teens! An American architect who incorporated a pint-sized kitchen into a modern suburban house would be run out of the industry on his apron strings.

I bring up the Nagasaki inconvenient kitchen today because it reminds me of something unusual Google has been doing for a while now in its lunch rooms. As you’re probably aware from all the publicity, Google is rated as one of the top organizations to work for. Applicants flock to their HR department in search of well-paying jobs, parental-leave benefits, child care, and more perks than you can shake a cursor at. According to a recent Fortune magazine article, Google is also famous (or infamous) for its non-stop, free buffet – with a twist. The author notes:

“Data-obsessed Google measures the length of its cafeteria lines to make sure people have to wait a while (optimally three to four minutes) and have time to talk. It makes people sit at long tables, where they’re likelier to be next to or across from someone they don’t know, and it puts those tables a little too close together so you might hit someone when you push your chair back and thus meet someone new.”

Employees call it “the Google bump”. Kind of sounds like the inconvenient kitchen all over again, doesn’t it?

The difference between Japan and Google has everything to do with culture, in this case corporate vs. national. Rather than adopting the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, the lunch room architects at Google are all about social engineering. The inconvenience of long lunch lines and cramped tables serves a practical purpose at the company: namely, it forces people to get up and out of their cubicles, interacting and socializing (whether they like it or not). Even if your bonding is based on negativity (ie. complaining about the lunch room), you’re still out there bonding with new people. Misery truly loves company.

Google understands that strong work relationships lead to higher employee engagement…that encouraging a family-like corporate culture, rich in connection and relationships, is a competitive tool that leads to winning in the marketplace.

So what are you doing in your workplace to encourage inconvenient socializing? Are your elevators too large and spacious? Narrow them! Oh, and make sure they take longer to move from floor to floor! Reduce those parking space sizes! Enforce a gym rule of two people to a treadmill! The sky’s the limit when it comes to productive imperfection. J

I will say this, cramped spaces have their benefits. If I had a time machine, the first place I’d send myself back to is that inconvenient house in Nagasaki. The kitchen would have been an awfully cozy place to bond with my girl crush.

Today I asked Tim to share a few of his thoughts on team leadership ­ from a jazz improv perspective. Here are his insightful comments:

“What I’ve learned from leading jazz groups, and from being a sideman for that matter, is that a group functions best when the leader is strong, confident, and has a vision. Within the context of that, he must also give the members of the band the feeling that they are totally free to express themselves within the boundaries of what the leader is setting out to do. I often find myself describing an improvising quartet as an excellent example of living, dynamic democracy. The jazz group was born to express the American spirit, and it has evolved into a form that is capable of expressing the spirits of communities of musicians throughout the world.

“The leader needs to pick members who will be compatible, and create an environment of mutual respect. With this in place, the sidemen can relax into a feeling of safety, from which they can explore and take risks without being judged unfairly for mistakes. If the leader is too selfish or demanding, the band members start to see themselves as just being there to do a job and collect a paycheck, and they lose respect for the leader. But more importantly, they become detached from the music and go on autopilot, ceasing to be actively expressing their own true music. On the flip side, if the leader defers too much to others in the band, the sidemen lose respect for him because they expect to be led somewhere interesting. This situation can result in everyone acting like a leader to pick up the slack in the band, and arguments over decision making and the direction of the music inevitably ensue.

“Then there’s the issue of “swing”. There’s the fundamental level of swing where everyone is feeling the beat together, and the music has natural momentum. Then there’s the next level where four artists all hearing the music in its moment of creation together generate an incredible propulsion. The rush of that stream carries each individual and the group into a place where they are all playing in a way that no one imagined before or could possibly recreate. The music is not only in the moment, it is of the moment. That’s what I live for! Occasionally it happens, and I dream of the day when I can play enough and have enough work for my band to live in that place more.

“So I see the wisdom of team leadership lying in the ability to acknowledge and nurture each individual’s freedom and creativity while simultaneously having the vision to create a group dynamic that takes the individuals bound together to a new and unforeseen place.”

Editor’s Note: I was fortunate enough to catch Tim in concert in San Francisco this past weekend. I was impressed with the way the musicians in his quartet listened intently to each other without trying to upstage one another. The goal was always to keep the music moving forward, and to make others look good. It reminded me of the way my favorite NBA team, the Golden State Warriors, have been playing basketball this year: without egos…completely oriented toward team performance rather than individual statistics.

Business leaders can learn much from the world of jazz improv. Before your next team meeting, consider asking yourself the following questions:

Do I have a strong, confident vision for my team, and if so, what is it and have I communicated it sufficiently?

Am I taking people somewhere “interesting”?

Do I provide my “sidemen” the freedom to express themselves within the boundaries of my vision?

On the other hand, am I providing so much freedom that my team members are left confused about the direction they’re being asked to take?

Do we “swing” as a team? Are we attaining that feeling of flow in which people are functioning at their highest performance level? If not, what aspects of my leadership style might be preventing this?

When it comes to teamwork, let the spirits of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington be your guide.

(Visit Tim Armacost on the web at www.timarmacost.com)

The Zen master — bald, 70 years old, with wisdom lines twinkling around his eyes — famed throughout the country for his sage teachings, responds: “Visit me again in one month. During that time, meditate 90 minutes a day.”

Satisfied, the samurai agrees and departs. Thirty days later, he returns to the temple in Kyoto and explains to the master, with some frustration: “I have done as you requested, meditating over an hour and a half per day. But I feel no closer to satori (enlightenment).”

The master replies: “Visit me again in two months. During that time, meditate three hours a day.”

Determined to make progress towards his salvation, the samurai once again agrees. Two months later, he returns to the master’s temple, even more frustrated than before. “Master, I don’t understand. For 60 days I have done exactly what you requested; for three hours a day I’ve meditated, and yet I feel I am no closer to satori!

Nodding gently in acknowledgment, the venerable Zen master responds. “Let us have some tea and play a game of chess while we ponder this. But if you want my help, you must agree to my terms. The result of our chess game will be a matter of life and death. The winner will survive. The loser will submit himself to the axeman and sacrifice his head on the chopping block.”

A man of war, confident in his strategic abilities, the samurai agrees and the chess game begins.

Both players are equally matched, skillfully countering each other, move for move. After some time, however, the samurai suddenly realizes that the game has swung in his favor. In two moves, he can achieve a checkmate–and save his head. With his hand on the chess piece that will assure his victory, the samurai pauses and weighs his options:

“I’ve have achieved much in life, but I am only a soldier. This master has written scholarly tracts; he has traveled far and wide, lecturing on the Buddha and the dharma and improving peoples’ lives. As old as the master is, he still has many more years of service left to him. And what have I to offer? His life is more valuable than my own.”

And with that, the samurai takes his hand off the chess piece he was touching and makes a different move, one that will help the zen master win. Wide eyed, the master reaches under the chess board and flips it over — pieces flying this way and that across the room. Jumping to his feet, he takes one stride towards the startled samurai, thrusts a figure up at the general’s chest and exclaims:

“NOW you are ready to learn!”
——————————————

As we all step into the new year, I think it’s important for us all to think about our goals and resolutions. What are we hoping to achieve this year, and how is our entire life in alignment with our actions? Are we saying one thing and yet doing another?

The samurai in the story aspires to peace and enlightenment while continuing to lead a life of war and violence. His actions contradict his ambitions. Perhaps you want to lose weight and get healthy this year but find yourself still sneaking Snickers bars in the breakroom. Or maybe you’re dedicated to creating a more engaged team culture but you continue to ignore the feedback from your staff’s surveys.

Like the samurai, we would all do well to consider not only what we’re doing in our personal lives and at work, but also who we are. If we model a competitive, dog-eat-dog mindset, can we then expect our team mates to practice enthusiastic cooperation and collaboration?

Fortunately for us, most of our resolutions do not have life or death consequences, as they do for the samurai in the story. But certainly our actions have costs…psychic costs. What is the current status quo in your life costing you in terms of gray hairs and lost sleep?

In this season of change, let’s all commit to integrating our speech with our actions, our goals with our lifestyle. It could just be the move that saves you.

Over my 20 years of v-ball Sundays, I’ve been repeatedly astonished by how uncannily the game parallels life and, most particularly, the psycho-social dynamics in the workplace. Take for example the topic of motivation. As I see it, there are three types of players on the volleyball court at any one time, namely:

The Recreationist

The Competitor

The Glory Hog

The Recreationist’s motivation is merely to get outside, grab a little exercise and enjoy socializing with other players. Improving her skills or achieving the “thrill of victory” is of relatively low priority for this kind of person: just being out in the park, running around and shooting the breeze with folks is more than enough to satisfy a Recreationist.

The Competitor’s goal is more aggressive, ie. “Just win baby!” A successful day for a Competitor is comprised of a series of winning matches, all of them delivering a delicious release of adrenaline. Losing is simply an unacceptable outcome – just a bad, bad day in the park.

The Glory Hog cares little about socializing, getting in shape, or even winning. His aim is basically to be the star player, the hero. In volleyball, that often translates to hitting lots of un-returnable spikes. Unlike the Competitor, who knows his winning high is dependent on his whole team playing together as one, the Glory Hog is mainly concerned with his own, individual ego boost. As long as he hits his shots and secures his moments of heroism, who cares if the team wins or loses?

Does this any of this sound familiar to you? Who in your office is just happy to be hanging out and socializing? Who is the hyper-competitive team member, the one who sees life as a battle to win? And who is the prima donna, caring only about increasing his own status? My guess is that you could peg all three personality types in your office after only one game of watching your co-workers behave on a volleyball court. (Hmm, what a good interview practice that might be!)

My point is that at work and at play, people show up with agendas. Of the three “volleyball personalities” mentioned above, only the Recreationist has control of her own experience. As long as people are willing to talk with her (not always a given, but usually so), she can enjoy her afternoon. By contrast, the Competitor needs participation and effort from the whole team in order to get that winner’s high. And the Glory Hog has it worse; if people don’t set him well, he can’t hit his spikes and grab the hero’s medal.

Whenever you come into a situation with an agenda that relies on the performance of others, you’re putting yourself into a difficult spot; with other people involved, there’s simply no way to assure that you’re going to get what you came for. But what if you shifted your perspective, from outside to inside? What if you treated each volleyball afternoon, each day at work, each 24 hours on the planet as a series of self-determined opportunities? Here’s how this might work:

Opportunity #1: No matter what happens today, I can always work on something new …whether it’s a new skill, a new technique, or a new way of talking/listening to people

Opportunity #2: No matter what happens today, I can always practice and improve on an existing skill or ability.

Opportunity #3: No matter what happens today, I can always learn something about myself and the world.

The beauty of the “Three Opportunities” is their flexibility.

Let’s say you’re on the volleyball court and your team is continually losing. No problem –you shift your attention to that new spiking motion you saw on YouTube.

Or let’s say you’re not getting set consistently for spikes. Not a big deal; you focus, instead, on improving your current footwork and passing, or perhaps your communication and leadership skills.

Or how about if you’re just having one of those uncoordinated, two-left-feet sort of days, and nothing is going right. Easy. You transfer you attention away from physical performance to emotional mastery, learning more about the nature of your own negative self talk, and how you might counter it.

How might your life be different if you said to yourself every morning:

“Today I refuse to dwell on my mistakes, errors, or frustrated ambitions. No matter what life throws at me, today I will see only opportunities and celebration. The goal for today is to try new things, refine old skills, and learn as much as I can about myself, others and the world. And that will be a great day guaranteed.”

That sounds like a big volleyball spike of a day to me, something you can control no matter what happens. Give it a try! It may just change your life.

According to Chris Guillebeau in his fascinating new book “The Happiness of Pursuit” (2014: Harmony Books), quests are something quite ancient in human history. Perhaps the first quest on record was Homer’s “The Odyssey”, written back in 800 B.C.E. or thereabouts. In it, the Greek hero, Odysseus, embarks on an epic, 10-year, homeward journey after the fall of Troy. Along the way, he faces a variety of trials and travails, from sultry sirens to one-eyed Cyclops. But Odysseus is steadfast, eventually succeeding in making his way home again, only to discover that his wife, Penelope, is fighting off a group of unruly suitors. With a little help from the gods, Odysseus manages to kill the suitors and reclaim his family and his estate. A nice little story, yes, but what makes it a quest?

In his book, Guillebeau describes six factors that elevate an endeavor to the level of a quest, namely:

A clear goal and a specific endpoint or deadline

A clear challenge…something to overcome

A sacrifice…something you must give up

A calling…a sense of mission…a deep sense of internal purpose

Small, incremental, measurable steps towards your goal

A transformation: by the end, you become a better person than when you started

Odysseus’ goal is to return home and reclaim his family. Along the way, he overcomes many challenges. He sacrifices 10 long years of his life to the task, seven of which he spends in jail. His sense of mission and purpose are clear – return home, get his life back. His steps in that direction are small and incremental – literally island by island. And by the end, Odysseus has learned much about himself and his place in the world.

The Odyssey clearly meets all the requirements of a quest story, but how about the Indiana Jones films?

Let’s see. In Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indy takes on the challenge of retrieving the famed lost ark of the covenant, an object of immense power. To find it, he needs to solve some really cool puzzles, fight off a greedy French archaeologist, and avoid the clutches of, what else, evil Nazi soldiers. Although a riveting adventure – one of the best ever to reach the big screen – Raiders, strictly speaking, is not really a quest. You never get the feeling that Indy has a deep sense of internal purpose. He doesn’t really sacrifice very much, and his personal transformation is negligible. In spite of all his scrapes and bruises, and a brush with about a thousand wriggly snakes, Indiana Jones is just having too much fun to be on a true quest.

On to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), easily the most maligned of the original series. Critics just didn’t like this one, and for good reason. The movie is dark and often violent, with evil witch doctors ripping the living hearts out of innocent Indian orphans. Many viewers (including me) found the heroine, Kate Capshaw, a tad on the annoying side. But I digress. The point is, Temple of Doom also fails to reach the exalted “quest” status. Like Raiders, Jones has a goal and a challenge: to retrieve some magical stones that will end a drought and save a village. But does our hero sacrifice much? Does he have a mission, a sense of deep purpose? Does he become a better person? I’d say no. Indiana takes on the challenge and gives it his all, but you never feel like this adventure will change him. In the end, Indy is an adventurer – he fights bad guys mostly because they really irritate him, he retrieves lost objects, and he has a lot of fun along the way.

And that brings us, finally, to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), in many ways the most moving and complete film in the series and, I would argue, the only “quest” in the bunch. Here we find our hero involved in a much more personal quest: quite literally, the search for the Holy Grail. But this is no Monty Pythonesque romp. The dreaded Nazis want the grail as well, as does Indy’s father, Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery). In pursuit of the lost object, father and son must team up to solve a series of clues leading to a clear and final endpoint (the cave of the grail). Along the way, they must give up their long-standing animosity, taking small, incremental steps towards their goal. Unlike his adventurer son, Henry is a man of faith, with a strong sense of calling about the grail; he needs to find it and protect it. And in the end, Indiana must overcome a series of obstacles that test his own concept of the word “faith”. When Indy steps blindly off that ledge in the cave, a “penitent man”, you feel his transformation, and the lengths he’s willing to go to save his father’s life.

In the end, quests involve a very personal journey. They change you. Often the successful quest-er develops a new sense of independence and confidence. He matures. His smaller viewpoint takes on a larger vision. He becomes empowered. After all, if he can succeed at this quest, how much more can he reach for on the next quest!

Like in the three Indiana Jones films, a quest often revolves around the reclaiming of something lost or stolen. And this is where the model of the epic quest applies so well to the world of the modern workplace. As employees, as teammates – we so often lose our way at work. When we first enter an organization, we enter with the highest of hopes: that this job will satisfy our very-human needs for growth, for safety, for variety, for significance, for connection and, most of all, for contribution. We begin with a strong belief in the mission and vision of the organization. “This is a goal worth fighting for!”, we say to ourselves. And then, over time, a kind of malaise sets in. The team loses its way. The group’s sense of energy, vitality, and mission diminishes. And what are we left with? A vague feeling of discontent. No, it’s more than that. It’s a feeling of strong, un-quelled dissatisfaction.

To turn things around in your office, in your team, in your organization, you’ll need to go on a quest together, to reclaim what has been lost!

Says Guillebeau, the formula for starting a quest is:

Dissatisfaction + The Big Idea + Willingness to Take Action.

Are you ready to re-discover the vitality of your team and the scope of your potential? Then take action! Initiate a quest! The steps are clear:

Set a clear goal and a specific endpoint or deadline

Determine a clear challenge…something to overcome

Decide on how much you’re willing to sacrifice in terms of time and resources

Be clear on your group calling…your collective purpose

Brace yourself for the small, incremental, sometimes tedious steps that will propel you towards your goal

And pay attention to the personal journey: how is this project helping you to become a better person than when you started?

Says Indy’s father to his son:

Professor Henry Jones: Elsa never really believed in the grail. She thought she’d found a prize.

Indiana Jones: And what did you find, Dad?

Professor Henry Jones: Me? Illumination.

For you movie buffs, you’ll remember Favreau from his debut in Swingers (1996), a humorous portrait of young wannabe-actors (including a very young, thin Vince Vaughn) immersed in LA’s stylish, neo-lounge scene. In Chef, by contrast, Favreau couldn’t be farther from a swinging, 20-something hipster. Here, we find him in the role of 40-ish Carl Casper, a 5-star chef commanding the kitchen of a high-end, Southern California restaurant. Overweight, divorced and high-strung, the imperious Carl is at the beck and call of his obstinate restaurant owner (Dustin Hoffman), a business man who insists “Chef” serve up a bland, conservative, culinary fare that will satisfy the hungry, well-paying masses – at the expense of Carl’s waning creative promise.

To complicate matters, Carl has a son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), who lives with his mother, Inez (the luminous Sofia Vergara). Percy wants nothing more than to spend quality time with his father, but Chef is too busy for family time – heck, he’s got bills to pay, meals to plan, and battles to fight – most especially with a bellicose restaurant critic (Oliver Platt). A needy, 12-year-old boy just doesn’t fit into the picture of Carl’s frantic, “me-focused” life.

Carl is clearly at a crossroads, with only a fraction of his six human needs being met. As you’ll recall, these six human needs are as follows:

1. Certainty/Safety

2. Uncertainty/Variety & Change

3. Significance

4. Connection/Love

5. Growth and Expansion

6. Contribution Beyond the Self

In many ways, Carl has traded in the other five human requirements for need for #1: certainty and safety. And isn’t this the choice we all make in our work lives at some point or another? A steady paycheck is a good thing, right! For Carl, however, it’s not nearly enough to make him happy. Rather, he’s bored, angry, short-tempered, and regarding life through a self-focused lens– because that’s how things look when you’re living outside your personal authenticity, radiating catabolic (negative/contracting) energy. The world, for Carl, is black and white — everyone is his enemy — and the universe revolves entirely around his own problems, with little or no space for anything or anyone else.

What happens next in Chef is really quite wonderful. Rather than caving in to his own fears for security, Carl winds up moving to Miami where, via a series of serpentine plot twists that I don’t want to spoil for you, he finds himself running a gourmet food truck serving Cuban comfort food. Best of all, his son Percy comes along with him for the ride. One of the joys of watching Chef is observing how Carl comes back to life again, both emotionally and creatively. Step by step, he starts fulfilling those other 5 needs, namely:

• Uncertainty/Variety & Change: Every day is a new adventure for Carl – driving across country, creating new dishes, and experimenting with social media.

• Significance: The food truck patrons love his food and recognize Carl for the artist that he truly is.

• Connection/Love: As his energy becomes more and more anabolic (positive/expanding), Carl rediscovers his relationship with Percy. He now has the ease and clarity to turn his attention beyond his own ego, making space for his son (and perhaps his ex-wife).

• Growth and Expansion: Talk about new challenges! Carl has to fix up a beat-up old food truck, source authentic ingredients, concoct enticing new menus AND train his son to work the griddle.

• Contribution Beyond the Self: For the first time in years, Chef has a sense of purpose – to create great food that delights his customers and perhaps changes their lives for the better.

I give the movie Chef two thumbs up. It’s fiction, to be sure, but I think the film speaks to broader, more universal themes. We don’t have to settle. We don’t have to say, “This is fine; this is good enough; I’m okay just making ends meet in my dead-end job.” With our six human needs as a guiding star, we can step into a life that respects our desire for stability, yes, but is full to bursting with variety, recognition, love, growth and giving. It just takes a bit of that old out-of the-food-truck thinking!

When I say that little is being done, I’m not talking about installing ping pong tables and foosball games in your hallways, or offering free Friday lunches. What I mean is, as leaders, how well are we truly understanding and responding to the needs of our employees — the 6 BASIC HUMAN NEEDS that we all share, both at work and at home? These six basic human needs are as follows:

Certainty/Safety: As a rule, we all thrive in environments in which we feel safe, where the fight/flight center in our brain (specifically the amygdala) is not being triggered all the time. Few people do their best work when they’re under attack. Knowing your job is safe, independent of any mistakes you might make, tends to encourage people to reach broader and higher. Having a work environment that feels emotionally safe is important as well.

Uncertainty/Variety & Change: On the flipside of certainty/safety, we all require sufficient variety and change from our work – new challenges that stimulate our hearts and inspire the formation of new neural pathways in our brains. Boredom – when your work has become rote and repetitive – is a sure path to employee dis-engagement at every level of the organization.

Significance: By and large, human beings need to feel special, to be worthy of attention. Who wants to be an invisible cog in an enormous machine? Who doesn’t enjoy receiving a flower from their sweetheart, or formal recognition from their supervisor? Engaged employees feel that their work is important, and that others recognize it as such.

Connection/Love: This one pretty much speaks for itself. The poet John Donne once wrote “No man is an Island entire of itself; everyman is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…” We all desire connection and love, both personally and professionally.We all crave opportunities to work and socialize with others – people with whom we can celebrate successes, express and receive empathy, shoot the breeze and share our burdens.

Growth and Expansion: At our happiest, we humans are goal-oriented creatures, moving towards ever-expanding aims and objectives. Quite simply, we don’t do well in life when we’re idling in neutral. We crave new challenges, new mountains to climb, new skills to master.

Contribution Beyond the Self: Whether you’re a religious person or not, the chances are that you value being part of something larger than your own life and interests – whether it’s a congregation, a charity, a community or an organization. When one’s company is doing great things in the world, we take pride in that endeavor. Work has more meaning. We transcend the self.

Are organizations required to satisfy their employees’ 6 Basic Needs? Yes and no. Yes, in that when they fulfill these half-dozen emotional requirements, people are likely to be more productive. And no, in that the burden is not entirely on management. People must take responsibility for their own lives, their own energetic engagement with the workplace. The most engaged employees possess a deep understanding of what they need from work in order to be happy and productive; rather than waiting for their bosses to notice their dissatisfaction, such people speak up and make sure they’re getting what they need When it comes to engagement, It’s always a two-way street. No one is an island.

Consider, for example, couple #1, sitting to the left of you, perhaps. As you arch your neck/ear in their direction (you Nosy Nelly!), what do you hear? Well, for one thing, they don’t seem to be listening to each other. Jim interrupts Mary; Mary horns in with her own opinion. It’s as if neither person is really hearing the words coming out of their partner’s mouth. As the conversation ends, both people leave frustrated and unsure how to proceed.

Now meet couple #2, sitting off to your right. What do observe about this duo? Hmm, Steve and Lydia really seem to be listening to each other and trying to understand the others’ point of view. From the expressions on their faces, both members of the couple seem to be displaying deep empathy for the other person. Rather than running their own needs, both Steve and Lydia are seeking to agree on a best, mutual course for going forward. Instead of trying to win the other person over, they are both talking about what’s best for the relationship. As the conversation winds down, Steve and Lydia agree to talk later – to mull things over and to take steps to incorporate both of their thoughts and ideas to create a workable solution where each of them are happy.

What a difference, huh?!!

Couple number one is caught up in “catabolic” energy. That means their relationship is expressing itself in a negative, limited, and contracting manner. Jim and Mary are focusing on problems, on winning and losing, on what’s wrong with things. Couple number two, by contrast, is characterized by “anabolic” energy. That means Steve and Lydia possess a high degree of positive, limitless, and expanding energy. During their conversation, you can hear them focusing on solutions, on working and winning together, on discovering and emphasizing what’s right about things.

Navigating relationships isn’t for the squeamish. It’s high-wire work, often with no net in sight. What allows couples (and everyone in relationship) to survive and, indeed, thrive is the development of Emotional Intelligence, sometimes called EI or EQ. Emotional Intelligence can be defined as the ability to distinguish, understand and have a greater awareness of how our thoughts and feelings connect with our outward displays and behaviors, as well as the ability to manage and express appropriate emotions and help others to do the same.

How do you boost your Emotional Intelligence? By concentrating on three areas:

• Awareness of Emotions
• Expression of Emotions
• Managing/Controlling Your Emotions

Each of which I’ll talk about in my next article.

[With thanks to IPEC Coaching. Web copy used by permission. No reproduction or retransmission is permitted without expressed written consent of Bruce D Schneider and the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC). © 2006 – 2014 Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC)]

[Editor’s note: If you’re interested in learning more about your own levels of catabolic and anabolic energy (both in your normal state and under stress), I highly recommend taking the fascinating Energy Leadership Index (E.L.I.), administered by Dr. Clue and offered with a 1/2 discount for subscribers to this newsletter. The assessment enables people to hold up a mirror to themselves, observing their perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and overall level of consciousness. It takes about 20 minutes to fill out online, followed by a 60-minute phone debrief from yours truly.

For more information about the E.L.I (including pricing), drop me a line at 707-544-1014 or dave@drclue.com ]

“But wait just a second,” you say. “I’m only an admin…or a mid-level manager…or a soccer mom. I’m no leader.”

This is an understandable reaction, to be sure – and yet completely inaccurate. Leadership is much more than the title you hold or the position you maintain in the company pecking order. Leadership, in fact, is how you interact with everyone, including yourself. Everyone — is a leader, either by choice or default. Leading is the way we help move people, including ourselves, into action. It’s the way we influence others. The question is not whether or not we are leaders, but how well we lead.

As for the “organization” piece, organizations are not limited solely to business. All of the groups, teams, and people around you are organizations, too. Organizations are the colleagues you work with and the family you go home to. Your organization includes all those who are grouped within your many circles of influence. Each of us is a part of many organizations.

So the question isn’t “Am I leader in my organization?” but rather “What kind of an organizational leader do I want to be?

“Everything Is Energy and That’s All There Is To It. Match the Frequency of the Reality You Want” — Albert Einstein

Catabolic and Anabolic Energy

More than a hundred years ago, Einstein addressed the scientific community with his revolutionary idea that everything we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is not matter, but energy. In short, everything that “matters” is energy.

On an energetic and cellular level, catabolism usually refers to a breakdown of complex molecules, while anabolism is the opposite. When you hear about a person’s catabolic or anabolic energy, however, it’s a broader statement about the destructive and constructive forces alive within an entire person — not only one’s individual cells but also one’s anabolic and catabolic thoughts and beliefs.

Anabolic and Catabolic energy are predominant in organizations as well as in people. Who hasn’t worked in an organization characterized by catabolic energy, where employees consistently react to their circumstances with worry, fear, doubt, anger, and guilt? In case you haven’t noticed: thoughts are contagious. In a catabolic organization, when even a few people have negative feelings, those emotions can spread like a virus, “group think” sets in, and peoples’ thoughts become group “fact.” Once that occurs, the company can implode energetically in a swirl of gossip, negativity, conflict and contempt. What a mess!

The most successful organizations, by contrast, are those filled with powerful, positive, anabolic leaders, Anabolic leaders have the ability to motivate and inspire themselves and others to do extraordinary things; they have the ability to make energetic shifts in all levels of the organization. No matter how effective or ineffective you currently are in your role (at work and at home), you can transform yourself and others — as well as your organization — into a thriving, inspired, positive, productive, and successful entity.

Three Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Personal Energy?

1) When life throws up a challenge, do I judge it as “bad” (catabolic), or do I welcome it as an opportunity (anabolic)?

2) When I have a fight with a colleague or my significant other, do I take responsibility for my part in the conflict (anabolic), or do I reflexively cast the other person as the villain (catabolic)?

3) When faced with a problem, do I struggle mightily to come up with a solution (catabolic), or do I have easy access to my “higher coach”, where infinite creativity and innovation (anabolic) resides?

None of us are fixed entities. At any time, at any moment, we have the ability release the latent anabolic energy that lives there within us, right under the surface. We can ALL be anabolic leaders in our “organizations”. All it takes is a subtle shift in our perception – the willingness to say “I can!” and “I will!”

(With thanks to www.ipeccoaching.com)

[Editor’s note: If you’re interested in learning more about your own levels of catabolic and anabolic energy (both in your normal state and under stress), I highly recommend taking the The Energy Leadership Index (E.L.I.), administered by Dr. Clue and offered with a 1/2 discount for subscribers to this newsletter. This one-of-a-kind assessment enables “leaders” to hold up mirrors to their perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and overall leadership capabilities. It takes about 20 minutes to fill out, followed by a 60-minute phone debrief.

For more information about the E.L.I (including pricing), drop me a line at 707-544-1014 or dave@drclue.com ]