“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?”

– Rumi

Have you every seen a rock tumbler in action?

You throw in a few rough stones and they get tumbled around and around in coarse sand.

Rub, rub, rub the sand chips away at the rough edges.

Then, the coarse sand is replaced with finer sand. And the tumbling begins again. It’s a process of repeated refinement and repetitive tumbling that eventually turns the rough stone into a polished gem.

That’s how Life teaches us.

It starts off bringing us coarse lessons. Because our edges (our learning edges) are rough. We don’t notice the subtle lessons. They go right by. We need something coarse to get our attention.

But, if you pay attention – you’ll be polished. And as you’re polished, your lessons get more refined.

Rumi is reminding you (and all of us) to appreciate the rubs that Life brings.

Don’t push them away or ignore them. Let them in. To take the tumbling to heart. It’s not a punishment.

It’s a process of learning and refinement.

Those irritating people and situations – they’re the sand Life is tumbling you around in.

Why? To smooth the rough edges.

So . . .

Who are the coarse people that are rubbing you the “wrong” way?

What rough edges – in you – are they irritating?

What inner shifts in attitude would convert the irritation into polishing?

Open almost any magazine and you can find a photograph of a person meditating. The image is usually part of an advertisement for a hotel, spa, or beauty product. But, meditation is also being used to hawk insurance, breakfast cereals, and vitamins.

There’s money in sitting still (or at least in the promise of serenity).

In the laboratories other images are being revealed.

Breakthroughs in brain imaging technology have allowed scientists to look directly at the brains of meditating subjects. What they see is compelling. Because, meditation changes the brain – in good ways. People who practice meditation literally re-wire their brains in ways that promote clarity, creativity, empathy, and self-awareness.

Lots of folks - particularly in the context of leadership development - consider meditation touchy-feely. By which they mean it doesn’t make any tangible difference. That it’s ephemeral and purely subjective. The data disagrees.

Meditation gets all the way down to the hard wiring of your brain.

In the words of psycho-neurologist Rick Hanson Ph.D. “you can use your mind to change your brain”. When the hard-wiring changes, behavioral change accelerates.

But, despite the overwhelming research data on it’s benefits, meditation is rarely considered a tool for leadership development.

My sense, after 40 years of practicing and teaching meditation and 25 years of working with leaders is that it’s a missing key to accelerating leadership development.

So, don’t let all those advertising images deceive you.

Meditation isn’t about escaping into a permanent spa vacation (as appealing as that can be some days). It’s a powerful inner technology that expands your capacity to function fully and effectively at work and in life.

I’ve written a manifesto on how meditation accelerates leadership development. You can get a copy by going to this link:

meditation manifesto

Let me know what you think.

Let’s  figure out how to bring the power of this inner technology to more leaders. (If you know other people who would be interested in this conversation - please forward them this post.)

• What do you think about meditation and leadership?
• What about it makes sense?
• What are your concerns, doubts, questions?

My mother, Roslyn, and my Aunt Sena had a falling out in 1968. They stopped speaking to each other. My mother died in 2006. They never reconciled.

It’s now 2010 and Sena’s in a nursing home near my house. Her memory is dissolving away. Yet, when I say my mother’s name, Sena still scowls.

She doesn’t remember what happened all those years ago.

The details of the events have faded from memory. But, the emotional momentum continues. It’s an odd consequence of dementia - she’s still angry but can’t say why. The reaction is there, but for no known reason.

Organizations can have this kind of dementia, too.

It happens when the collective belief system – the culture - gets stuck in the past. When people’s behavior in the present are still shaped by events that have long faded from memory.

Here’s an example: the CEO of a client company was famous for repeating, “You can say anything you want around here . . . on your last day.”

He’d deliver this slogan with a sadistic grin on his face.

Or so I was told by the CFO. She’s one of the few employees who ever met him. The sadistic CEO left the organization 10 years ago.

Even though he was gone physically – his impact continued.

The climate of fear that he had instilled persisted long after his departure.

It was as though the emotional nervous system of the organization had been imprinted with the belief that “this is an unsafe environment – be careful of what you say”.

So, even though the CEO was long-gone, the cultural belief lived on. People were still afraid to be honest and open.

It’s as though the organization has a brain.

Just like a human brain, the organizational brain has three main sections.

There’s the neo-cortex. That’s the logical, rational, data-driven part of the organizational brain. It’s deals with strategy, tactics, metrics, planning and implementation.

Then, there are the mammalian and reptilian areas of the organizational brain - which are more primitive.

The mammalian and reptilian parts of the organizational brain shape the corporate culture.

The mammalian brain generates the emotional climate and emotional-driven beliefs of the organization. The reptilian brain governs the automatic, reactive, survival-based organizational behaviors.

These areas of the organizational brain set the mood, the morale, and the unwritten rules that determine how people interact.

The mammalian and reptilian parts of the organizational brain can lock onto an event and turn it into an enduring belief.

That’s why the impact of a bad leader can linger years after he or she departs.

Even if nobody was there when the actual events that transpired.

Because, when leaders act in ways that undermine trust – the memory of their betrayal lodges in the organization’s primitive brain.

The emotional impact of the events has it’s own momentum. A momentum that locks the culture – the people - into patterns of reactivity whose roots are in the distant past.

How can leaders overcome organizational dementia?

First of all, realize that you’re not dealing with logic, here. You’ve got to aim your communication to the more primitive – and more powerful – parts of the organizational brain.

These parts of the organizational brain:

• Aren’t convinced by numbers.
• Could care less about organizational charts.
• Don’t trust policies or procedures.

Please, don’t start with a PowerPoint slide show. The mammalian and reptilian parts of the organizational brain hate PowerPoint. They ignore it. Particularly if it’s filled with lots of graphs and numbers.

You can influence the primitive parts of the organization’s brain.

Here are ten strategies that can engage the mammalian/reptilian brains:

1) Create safety.

Any hint that you’re in attack mode, and you’re finished. The emotional culture that you want to transform is very sensitive to criticism and judgment. If you’re frustrated or punishing, in any way, the primitive parts of the organizational brain will shut you out.

These entrenched memories can’t be uprooted with a crowbar. They need a safe space in order to open up.

These patterns of behavior may have out-lived their usefulness, but they began as self-protective mechanisms. Tread lightly. And respect their original intention.

2) Be curious.

Ask questions. Learn about the history that shaped the culture. Invite people to tell their stories. Get interested in the unspoken beliefs and assumptions that underlie the reactive behaviors.

Bring these beliefs and assumptions out of the dark – where they operate automatically – and into the light of awareness.

Discuss the impact of the beliefs and assumptions on individuals, teams, and organizational effectiveness.

Ask:

“What are the consequences of this belief?”

“How does it impact performance?”

“How does it impact your experience of fun and fulfillment?”

3) Reveal your dilemma.

If you had a magic formula or a silver bullet to transform the culture – you’d use it. But, you don’t. Nobody does. So, share your dilemma, your dissatisfaction with the patterns of the past, and your longing for a new way of interacting with each other.

Declare your readiness to move on. Be personal.

Explain how you no longer want to let the old belief govern your thoughts and actions. That you’re ready to let go of that past pattern and want to move on.

4) Let people know what you long for – as a person.

Talk about what matters most to you at work. Not just in terms of the business. Name your deepest values.

Don’t play it safe and talk only about “productivity”, “effectiveness”, and other commonly accepted organizational values. Dig deeper. Explore and express the values that make life worth living for you. Maybe it’s love. Or spirituality. Or creativity. Put your values out there. And talk about what it would look like to infuse the organizational culture with these kinds of values.

5) Admit that you won’t always walk your talk.

You’re human. And while you aspire to live your values – you also have blind spots. You can lose your way and react out of emotion not principles.

Invite people to give you feedback about when you are and aren’t living your values. And when they give you feedback say, “Thank you. I appreciate the feedback and your willingness to help me grow as a leader.”

6) Be the change.

Start acting in accord with your values and your longing. Don’t wait for the culture to change. It never goes first.

Ask yourself, “What would it look like for me to express my values fully and authentically in this meeting?” This takes courage. It’s risky and powerful. Because while the culture will not immediately embrace your new stance, taking it will connect you with a source of inner strength.

7) Embrace resistance.

Your behavior will challenge the emotionally encoded beliefs of the past. This activates cultural survival instincts and people fight back. They may attack you. They’ll defend their behavior and attempt to marginalize your challenge as – idealistic, touchy feely, naïve, and impractical.

You’ll likely be made fun of (at least behind your back), ignored, marginalize, or accommodated (if you have enough positional power). It’s all part of the process.

It takes inner courage to persist in modeling the new behavior, without reverting to anger, blame, or power politics.

Engage people in renewing the organizational values.

If your organization has a statement of values, start a conversation on your team about what the values mean and how the reactive patterns don’t express those values.

This is not a training to teach values. It is a conversation that invites people to infuse the old values with new life.

Take any corporate value and have a team conversation. Ask:

• What does this mean to you personally?
• How does it connect with what matters to you?
• How would you express this value in action?

9) Encourage people talk about values from a personal perspective.

Don’t impose corporate definitions. Let shared understanding of values emerge though open dialogue. It’s the open dialogue that begins to recode the culture.

Your team’s definition doesn’t need to be a word-for-word replica of those on the corporate plaque. People need to make the values their own. And that means giving them meaning in words that resonate for them. It means envisioning what it means to live the values in their work.

10) Point out examples of the new values-in-action

Take time during staff meetings to celebrate individuals who have demonstrated the values-in-action. Invite team members to celebrate each other; to coach and support each other in living the shared values. By focusing on core values. By putting those values into action. By supporting each other in living those values – you can overcome the organizational dementia.

Questions for Reflection & Action

1) How is your organization suffering from dementia?

What are the outmoded beliefs, assumptions, grudges, fears that are shaping people’s actions/thoughts in the present?

How does this cultural dementia impact you, your team, those you serve?

2) What will you do to change this?

What is a small action you can take to “be the change”?

Who will you talk with?

What will you talk about?

(How can you purify any blame or judgment from what you say?)

When I was in my twenties and recently married, my father-in-law invited me to join him for a Sunday morning golf game. I’d never played a round of golf. I’d done some putting on a putting green when I was twelve. How could I say no?

I stepped up to the first tee.

I swung. The ball lifted into the sky forming a perfect arc, bounced and rolled within a few feet of the green. I putted onto the green. And with the next putt – was in the hole. Par!!

My father-in-law shook his head, “That meditation stuff must really work.”

“Ha!.” I thought. “That was amazing. He’s right. I’m going to meditate my way through the course.”

It took me sixteen strokes to complete the next hole.

That first hole had been a happy accident. I’d stumbled into the par zone. But, I hadn’t developed the capacity to sustain play at that level.

You’ve had those happy accidents.

Times when your ability to think, act, and interact, took a quantum forward. Times of extraordinary performance. It’s a heady, exhilarating feeling.

It’s called being in a “flow state” by University of Chicago professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (last name pronounced: “cheek-sent-me-high-ee”). But, like all accidents, happy or otherwise, it’s not planned. By definition, accidents aren’t chosen.

They just happen.

You could be in a heated disagreement.

When the other person lashes out, and suddenly . . . it happens. Something in you shifts. You don’t react to their attack. You don’t get emotional. You still feel the initial burst of adrenaline but something else kicks in.

It’s a different state of mind.

It’s as though you’re both in the conversation and not in the conversation.

There’s a part of you, a skillful, non-reactive part – that takes over.

You see their emotionality and suffering clearly, but you don’t take their words or emotional intensity personally. And – here’s a biggie - you don’t judge them.

You’re present and engaged without being caught in the drama.

You listen deeply and respond clearly. You’re at your best without needing to control or manipulate the situation. You’re able to lay your cards on the table and let the chips fall where they may. Because, when you’re in the flow, you trust - you know - that by acting with integrity in this moment the next moment will take care of itself.

Again, these extraordinary states of flow are often happy accidents.

The question, then, is how to become more accident-prone? So, that the flow state becomes more the norm than the exception.

What can you do, intentionally, to unlock the door to extraordinary performance (and the joyful feelings that accompany it)? The key is to develop your attention muscle.

What is your attention muscle?

Well, it’s not really a muscle like a bicep. It’s more of a mind/brain capacity. It’s capacity to focus awareness in a chosen direction and to sustain that focus without effort.

If your attention muscle is weak – you can’t focus your awareness.

It bounces around – distracted by whatever pops up in your environment (or in your thoughts). Such unstable, bounce-around kind of attention is the norm for most of us. It’s a key reason why the flow state is such a rarity. This distracted, scattered state of mind was called, in ancient days, monkey mind. Like a monkey, the underdeveloped attention is in a state of constant hyper activity.

When your attention muscle is strong – you can place your awareness on a particular subject, idea, problem, or person, and it will stay there.

This allows you to be fully present. To infuse your experiences with full awareness.

The more deeply you attend to an experience, the more interesting it becomes. Full awareness allows you to more gracefully and effectively shift what you’re doing to achieve maximum results.

Full awareness promotes the happy accident of extraordinary performance. So, it’s less accidental and more intentional. But, to do this requires a strong attention muscle.

You can strengthen you attention muscle through the practice of meditation.

By taking just a short period of time each day and practicing a simple meditation exercise, you can strengthen your attention muscle.

(The link at the bottom of this article will take you to a short exercise for developing your attention muscle.)

As your attention muscle strengthens – it will be there for you in daily life.

In this way, attention is like a bicep. When you strengthen your biceps in the gym – that strength and capacity to lift weight stays with you in daily life. This is useful if you have move furniture.

When you strengthen your attention muscle, that capacity to focus, be fully present and aware stays with you in daily life, as well.

A strong attention muscle allows you to stay focused – even to the point of precipitating a flow state by choice.

No longer do you have to wait for happy accidents to land you in the state of flow. You can go there volitionally through the use of your trained attention muscle.

Working from the flow state enhances performance and fulfillment.

Your skills leap to a higher level. And you experience more joy in the process. It’s also useful on the golf course (as long as you’re not trying too hard to impress your father-in-law).

Here’s a link to a short (3minute) audio exercise for strengthening your attention muscle:

http://dharmaconsulting.com/attention-practices

The other day I was in the library and I saw someone. Someone I really didn’t want to talk to. So, I slid behind the nearest bookshelf and quickly exited the building. Not the most mature or neighborly behavior. But, I really wanted to avoid this person.

Most people do the same thing when it comes to conflict.

They avoid it. Hide from it. Duck behind a bookshelf, a computer, a cell phone, a deadline – anything to avoid the conflict.

They just don’t want to go through the upheaval, drama, blood and guts. Better to side step the issue. Make nice. Or covertly get what you want anyway by working around, instead of confronting, the other person.

What’s so unpleasant about conflict?

It tends to bring out the worst aspects of our personalities and our most sniveling, conniving, or violent behaviors. We fear the consequences – to our work, our relationships, our reputation, our selves.

Of course, some people leap into the fray with sword swinging.

But, they too are driven by fear. And their aggressive strategy reduces the possibility of creatively arriving at a shared agreement.

Conflicts of opinion, needs, and goals are inevitable when you work in highly interdependent and complex organization (world). The question becomes how can you enter into the conflict in ways that will increase trust, upgrade the final decision, and improve the clarity of communication.

Here are five ways:

(As you read these think about a specific conflict your facing).

1) Expand the Frame.

Your conflict is about some specific issue, project, decision, or action. But, when you’re deep in the conflict it can seem HUGE. It’s huge because you’ve narrowed your perspective; you’ve shrunk the frame until the only thing in the picture is the conflict.

When the frame of your vision is small, the conflict looms large. It’s as if your whole career, future, being is riding on the resolution of this conflict.

But, if expand the frame, pull back, and include it as one element in the larger picture of your life – it takes on more manageable proportions.

As you look back over your life, you’ll see that many of the HUGE issues, conflicts, and emergencies that overwhelmed you in the past simply . . . evaporated. What consumed all of your attention and energy at one time, is now just a memory or even an amusing anecdote.

The conflict you’re in now is the same.

It will, in the not too distant future, be consigned to a dusty back shelf in your memory closet. If you bother to hold onto it at all.

So, take a breath. Take a mental step back and expand your frame.

2) Turn down your amplifier.

In the movie Spinal Tap, the band’s amplifiers could be turned all the way up to “11”. Beyond the traditional “10” to really loud. When, you’re in conflict, your emotional amplifier gets dialed up. Maybe not to 11. But, up there.

Even if you carefully control the volume, tone, and tempo of your voice and the muscles in your face – people feel your emotional intensity. To them, you’re at 11.

Humans are wired to receive emotional messages. And if your emotions are yelling – it doesn’t matter if your voice is whispering.

Turn your emotional amplifier down by focusing directly on your body. Notice where the tensions are and consciously relax those parts of your body. Breathe deeply, slowly, mindfully. Just two or three mindful breaths can immediately reset your parasympathetic nervous system, and dial your amplifier back to easy listening mode.

3) Shift the focus from “it” to “us”.

It’s easy in conflict to focus on the technical details – the issue, the stuff. You want blue carpet. They want brown.

You prefer one vendor. They prefer another.

But, the deeper you dig into the details, the deeper the conflict grows.

Another place to focus is on your relationship. On the way you’re relating to each other. Drop the issue. Deal with what’s happening between you.

Consider whether the quality, tone, and direction of the conversation reflect the kind of relationship you want to build? Reflect on what would make the interaction more positive, useful, and enriching?

Raise these questions. Answer them for yourself. And explore them with the other person.

Talk about how you want to engage with each other when you’re in conflict. Don’t deny that conflicts exist or pretend that they won’t ever come back in the future. Rather, explore how you can use conflicts to strengthen trust, increase creativity, and enhance the quality of the final decision.

4) Find a toehold.

My brother took me rock climbing a few years ago. I only made it a few feet up the face of the rock. Why?

I couldn’t find the toeholds. Yet, my brother was able to ascend the face of the rock using just the tiniest toe and finger holds.

It’s the same when dealing with conflicts. You can move the conversation in a positive direction if you look for a tiny toehold. Just a tiny place of alignment or agreement.

Don’t rush the process. Don’t lunge for conclusion. Just get a toehold.

You’ll need to look for it. And even if it seems too small to matter, remember that resolving conflicts is like rock climbing. You don’t need a big wide ledge of agreement. Just a toehold will do. You can leverage that toehold agreement to move the conversation forward.

5) Raise a flag.

When the flag goes up, everyone salutes. When the anthem is played, everyone stands and sings. Flags and anthems move us and bind us together.

When you’re in conflict, you need to raise a flag. Not a white flag of defeat. But, the flag of higher purpose and mission.

You need to raise – into awareness - the purpose that binds you and the person you’re in conflict with together.

Two people who share a common purpose can still be in conflict. They can still deeply disagree about how to best serve their shared purpose. But, when the flag goes up, they let go of the conflict, to join together in saluting, and honoring something that they both love and serve.

It’s important to raise the flag that binds you together. And to recognize that beneath the conflict there is a shared mission that you both serve.

Questions for Action & Reflection:

Expand the frame.

What shifts when you consider this problem in the larger context of your life?

Turn down your amp.

How can you turn down your emotional amplifier to at least 4?

Shift from “it” to “us”.

What would you do differently if you were as focused on strengthening the relationship as you’re focused on the issue?

Find a toehold.

Where are you and the other person already in alignment and agreement?

Raise a flag.

What’s the mission you both serve? How can that help you through the conflict?

My grandmother loved to serve chopped liver on crackers.

I couldn’t stand the stuff.

“This is horrible.” I’d tell her.

“It’s delicious,” she’d respond, popping another cracker into her mouth.

One day she told me, “Eric, in every argument there are four truths. My truth. Your truth. Our truth. And THE truth.”

“If you insist on your truth and I insist on my truth, we’ll never find our truth,” she smiled, “But, I don’t think we’ll ever know THE truth. Particularly about chopped liver.”

Where are you arguing over chopped liver?

Where are you locked in an argument about who’s right?

Where you think an idea, project, decision tastes great – and someone else can’t stand it? (Or vice versa).

Where people are hurling numbers and data at each other. Building  coalitions. Making (endless) presentations.

But, in the end it’s still my truth versus your truth.

To move forward, what’s needed is a shared truth.

Shared truth isn’t THE truth. It’s  agreement from which to engage in mutual action. It’s our truth.

But, you’ll never get there as long as you take your truth for THE truth. (And as long as they’re doing the same.)

It’s easy to confuse your strong  opinions with the facts.

The way the world appears to you is so . . . real. It’s hard not to see things your way.

Even slightly loosening your grip on your truth can feel threatening. As though you’re admitting that you’re wrong. Even that the other party is right. And you don’t want to go there.

It’s not that having strong opinions is wrong.

It’s just that holding onto your truth too tightly shuts down your ability to influence others.

Because, when you cling to your truth – they cling to theirs. When you dig in your heels – they do too.

It’s a stand off.

And then the only way to get things moving is through force. (Which poisons the well, undermines trust, and increases defensiveness  the next time you meet together).

Your influence grows as you hold your position more lightly.

You don’t have to let go of it completely. But, you can hold it more lightly. You can consider your truth to be simply one perspective; one angle on the situation.

The first step is gently separating yourself from your truth.

This takes self-awareness. The self-awareness to realize that you don’t have to identify with one perspective - with your truth. And, the self-awareness to notice what thoughts, emotions, and tensions arise as you loosen your grip on your truth.

Think of detaching from your truth as taking off a favorite pair of sunglasses. You’re not tossing them away. You’re not getting rid of them. You’re just setting them down or slipping them into your pocket.

Your truth is still close by.

It’s there when you need to pick it back up. But, now, having loosened your cognitive grip,  you’re not totally identified with it. And, so you can temporarily adopt alternative views.

Take a breath. Pause. And try on other perspectives. Listen to others and learn what the world looks and feels like for them. Experience their version of the truth. Put on their sunglasses.

This isn’t a magic bullet for getting them to agree with you.

It’s simply a way to inject movement and flexibility into a frozen conversation. Because when one person in the conversation opens up - there’s more openness in the room. When one person in the conversation stops insisting that there’s only one truth - there possibility for new truths to emerge increases.

When you loosen your grip on your truth - at least one person in the conversation is actually listening, learning, and exploring alternative.

And, then when it’s time for you to present your point of view again it will be enriched by what you’ve learned through listening.

And most importantly, the emotional tone behind your position will be softened.

You may still believe in your truth. You’ll likely prefer it. You just won’t mistake it for THE truth. And this small but significant shift in attitude, will make your presentation of your truth much more palatable.

Even if you’re serving chopped liver.

Our family cottage on Lake Canandaigua was built over 100 years ago and the foundation has settled unevenly over the decades. Hence, the wood floors are not entirely level. There’s one part of the floor where the planks form a slight bump.

It’s barely visible to the eye.

You’d have to get down on to floor level and look really hard to find it. But, when I’m walking along, without noticing, it can still trip me up. One summer, it happened almost everyday.

I have thoughts like that bump in the hardwood.

I can be cruising along in my day. Doing my work. Feeling good. When something happens. It can be comment from a colleague. An email from a client. A certain look or tone of voice from someone I care about.

And I trip.

It doesn’t have to be a big event.

Because it’s not the external event that trips me up. The event, person, voice tone, or comment happens. It’s real. But, that’s not what trips me up.

I trip over my reaction.

It’s the internal, mental and emotional reactions that cause me to stumble and lose my balance. And the biggest triggers, for me, are other people.

Some people are bumpier (for me) than others.

These are my trigger people.

We all have them. They’re the folks that seem to reliably trigger those bumpy thoughts. They can just show up, be themselves, and thoughts of doubt, fear, rage, anxiety, shame, overwhelm . . . get triggered.

So, what can you do about these trigger people?

You can’t avoid them, really. Because, even if you stop seeing a specific trigger person – another one will surely pop up to take their place.

There will always be another trigger person as long as you haven’t turned around and smoothed out those bumpy thoughts.

It’s the inner bumpiness that makes trigger people possible. By smoothing, softening the inner bumpiness – you become less trigger-able. Less reactive.

And here’s the secret – you don’t have to wait for the trigger people to do their thing in order for you to smooth your reactivity.

You can pull the trigger all by yourself.

And you can change your reaction – by yourself.

You can do this in your own mind. Because from the standpoint of your neuro-psychology (your body/mind) there is no appreciable difference between the thought of the trigger person and the external trigger person him or herself.

You can change your inner response – and side step that bump.

Then, when they pull the trigger – you no longer react. Nice.

Through a simple inner practice of meditation (which I will teach you on the link below) – you can learn how to stay balanced, clear, and resourceful when interacting with a trigger person.

Are you ready to stop tripping over those internal bumps?

Here’s the link to a short audio program that covers:

• Where the trigger people in your life really live
• How to shift your inner reaction
• A guided meditation for re-patterning your neuro-psychology.

Trigger Person Meditation

Let me know how this works for you. (And what other ways you’ve found that help smooth those inner bumps.)

When I was thirteen years old, I had to capsize a canoe and swim 100 yards to shore with all my clothes on. I was at a Camp Takajo in Maine and this ordeal was required before I could to take out a canoe on my own.

If you’ve ever had to swim 100 yards fully clothed, you understand a basic idea from physics - “drag”. Drag is the mechanical force that opposes your body’s motion through the water.

Dolphins don’t experience a lot of drag.

Dolphins slice through the water. Evolution has honed the dolphin’s body to minimize drag.

Not so with our human bodies.

Even the world’s fastest swimmers only convert 9% of their effort into forward motion. That means that 91% of their effort is spent moving water out of the way.

Jump into a lake fully clothed, on the other hand, and you’re literally drowning in drag. Swimming becomes a struggle. You can barely inch your way forward.

Great swimmers focus on reducing drag.

And if you want to achieve goals – in work or life – you need to understand and reduce drag, as well.

Drag is a factor of life.

There are many forces – within you and around you – that consume your energy – energy that could be channeled into forward motion.

The more you reduce drag – the more efficiently you translate your energy and activities into meaningful results. So, what creates drag in life?

What are the factors that create drag and eat up your life energy?

Drag is created by both internal and external factors. There are psychological, biological, behavioral, interpersonal, and organizational factors that create drag. And slow down your progress and consume energy.

Some of these can be easily reduced. Others are part of life. Struggling to reduce them just wastes more energy.

The idea is to reduce the factors that are reducible

Remember, drag is inevitable. Water is thick – but life is thicker. So, you’re not going to reach 91% efficiency. Don’t even try.

You can reduce drag by focusing on these 6 factors

1) Discordant goals

Discordant goals don’t fully reflect your core values. They are often expressions of greed or fear. Pursuing discordant goals takes a lot of energy. You have to pump yourself up, hype yourself up, threaten, cajole, bribe, and beg yourself to move into action.

Concordant goals, in contrast, do reflect your core values. They are expressions of what matters most to you. In pursuing concordant goals you are natural motivated. Every step of the journey – from idea to implementation – is a chance to embody and express your core values.

How can you refine/edit your goals to be more reflective of your core values?

2) Lack of priorities

Even when your goals are aligned with your core values, there is still the question of prioritization. In a given day, week, quarter, you’ve only got so much mental, emotional, creative, financial, energy to spend. How will you allocate your life energy? What matters most?

What are the criteria you’ll use to prioritize your concordant goals?

My friend Michael Bungay Stanier likes to ask:

What will have the most impact?

What’s easiest?

What’s the most fun?

Using these three criteria, sort your concordant goals and determine where you’ll focus your time/attention/resources.

3) Habits from the past

When I’m swimming, I have a hard time turning my head to the left. Why? I learned to breathe by turning my head to the right when I was six years old. I developed a habit.

Habits from the past can create drag. Particularly, if they aren’t concordant with your goals.

The good news is that habits are not inevitable. They’re learned. And so, new habits are also learnable.

What habits do you want to develop that will make this year more fulfilling, meaningful, productive?

(To see more on how to develop new habits go to this post)

4) People who reinforce habits from past

The people in your life are used to the way you’ve been. Even if some of your habitual ways of acting aren’t the most effective – other people have adapted to them. They’ve figured out what to expect from you and have developed complementary patterns of their own. You and they make up a complex system.

When you change your habits, the system gets disrupted.

Some people may celebrate (they’ve been waiting for this change). Others may not. Why? Because your change places pressure on them to change as well. In subtle (and not so subtle) ways, these people will encourage you to return to your former habits.

What can you do?

First you can explain to the people who will be affected by your change – what you’re doing and why it matters.

Enroll them in the process so that they support the changes you want to make.

And if they honestly can’t get on your side – look for ways to minimize their impact on your life.

5) Competing goals – in organization

If you’re working in an organization – then the goals you set may not fully align with those of other departments. Your win could be their loss. And vice versa.

Competing goals – whether between departments or within a single department – creates tremendous drag. Energy and attention gets consumed in power struggles.

Peter Block beautifully describes how to work through these political realities. He distinguishes opponents – where despite disagreements and competing goals there is trust; and adversaries – where lack of trust makes constructive dialogue more challenging.

The key in all cases is to:

Stay grounded in your core values

Clearly articulate the organizational value of your goal

Understand the challenge from their perspective

Be flexible without abandoning what matters most (values, mission, relationship)

6) No reflection time

A key to reducing drag is to stop doing and take time to simply reflect. Reflection is as important as action. Through regular reflection you are able to self-correct your attitudes and actions. You re-calibrate your goals to ensure that they are still concordant (expressions of your core values) and organizationally relevant.

Take time for both personal and team reflection.

When reflecting ask not just “what happened” but also “what were the thoughts, emotions, beliefs, assumptions” that shaped your actions and decisions. Look deeper. Become interested in exploring your own and others inner life.

Consider a recent meeting, conversation, or decision that you were involved in (one that went well or one that was dissatisfying).

What happened?

What were the thoughts, emotions, beliefs, assumptions that shaped your actions and decisions?

How fully did you embody your core values?

Looking back – what inner shifts in thought, emotion, belief, assumption would have been more useful?

How would those inner shifts have changes your actions or decisions?

What does this suggest going forward?

All these are ways for you to reduce drag.

And to move forward towards meaningful goals like a dolphin slicing through the warm Hawaiian waters. And with a big dolphin smile on your face, too.

So, how are you going to reduce drag this year?

About a year ago, Deborah and I went to a Taj Mahal concert at a local bar/music venue. We both love Taj – particularly the music on his Giant Step recording from 1969. Yeah, big chunks of our brains are still stuck in the 60’s. And we wanted Taj to shake those old neurons and take us on a bluesy walk down memory lane. See, we’re fans.

And fans are deadly for artists like Taj.

If he caters to the demands of fans like me, he’ll stop growing as an artist. He’ll serve up re-heated oldies instead of mixing new recipes that stoke his creative fires. He might be a bigger star. He’d certainly make fans like me happier. But, he wouldn’t be as great an artist. And I wouldn’t have grown as a listener.

Because, listening to his new music forced me to stretch my musical imagination.

And to let go of my expectations. To actually listen instead of simply reveling in my memories.

But, this isn’t an article about music. It’s about leadership. Because leaders have fans too. You have fans. And your fans can be deadly to your development as a leader.

In fact, your biggest fans and strongest supporters can exert the most limiting hold on you.

Because they’re fans of who you’ve been. Not who you are becoming. Fans want to be able to predict you. They want you to be consistent. They want you to do what you’ve always done in the day you’ve always done it. They want you to conform to their expectations.

When you change, your fans don’t like it.

It’s disturbing. But, that’s what exercising leadership requires. In the felicitous phrase of Marty Linksy (from the Kennedy School at Harvard), leadership is the process of “disappointing people at a rate they can absorb.”

If you’re just playing the same old tunes, nobody will be disappointed.

They’ll be happily dozing in the comfort of the expected.

But, that’s not leadership. Leadership shakes things up. Acts of leadership disturb the apple cart of expectation and challenge people to engage in new ways of thinking and acting.

Disappointing acts of leadership aren’t gratuitous.

It’s not disappointment for its own sake. It’s purposeful disappointment. Disappointment in service of a purpose that is deeper than popularity or approval.

Even so, disappointing fans (particularly powerful fans) takes courage.

Because your fans (at every level of the organization) won’t automatically groove with the new music. They may actually resent it. They may fight against it and try to keep you from playing it.

But, keep playing. Don’t lose the beat. Don’t settle for being a star. Be like Taj. Play the music that needs to be heard.

Questions for Reflection & Action:

• What old ideas and patterns of behavior are you still playing (even though you’re heart’s not in it)?
• How are you holding back your creativity – to meet the expectations of others?
• Who’s approval are you seeking – instead of pursuing what you’re called/drawn to do?
• What’s the new idea/project that you

Quick-fixes are appealing. Who wouldn’t want their problem to go away quickly?

But, the problem with quick-fixes is that they only address the symptoms not the source of the problems.

So, the impact of a quick-fix is very, very, short-lived. And once the effects wear off, the problem returns, bigger and badder than before.

But, quick-fixes still sell.

I saw a TV commercial for an over-the-counter painkiller. It featured a heavy-set guy moving furniture. He was pushing 300 lbs and lifting a piano. His knees hurt. The solution? Take the pain killer.

Not a bad idea for a quick-fix.

But, it completely ignores the strain the extra weight puts on his knees or the possibility of changing jobs.

Neither of these are problems that a pain killer can solve. In fact, using a pain killer misses the mark completely.

Because, the pain isn’t even a problem.

It’s a signal. It’s communication that needs to be heard, understood, and responded to.

Where are your organization’s “knees” are hurting?

Where is performance or customer satisfaction taking a hit? It’s very seductive to look for immediate ways to eliminate symptoms. To take a quick-fix painkiller. But, this always drives the real problems deeper into the system.

The habits of thought and action that really need to be addressed for a sustainable change – are never touched by the quick-fix.

Questions for reflection & action:

• Where are you/others relying on a quick-fix solution?
• What underlying problem is being overlooked?
• How can you begin to shift attention away from the quick-fix in order to address the real issues?
• Who can you talk to about the long-term cost and damage of the quick-fix approach?