Getting Back to Your Best

by Kevin Cuthbert

We all have times when we are depleted; when it seems like all we want to do is take a nap or go out and play. In these moments, it is pretty likely that we are not in touch with the best parts of ourselves, with our dominant strengths, our best talents. Getting back to our best is a critical skill that we sometimes forget to practice.

In order to get back to your strengths, here are some simple truths that can help you reconnect with your personal best:

First, break the pattern of whatever you are doing in the moment. If you are in this ‘dis-connected’ place it is likely that you are afflicted with what some Buddhists call the’ wild elephant’ of mind activity. This can amount to a vicious circle of negative beliefs and messages. So perhaps napping or going out to play are exactly what you need. For many it is as simple as a quick and quiet mediation, a slowing of the breath.

Keep in mind the Roman proverb “Festina Lente,” which means to make haste slowly. We have a neat habit of tricking ourselves with timelines and to-do lists. When we are not connected to our strengths, deadlines and tasks seem disproportionately large.  Your world will not crumble if every e-mail is not answered today! If you can slow yourself down, you will see your strengths more clearly. And, you will get more done – this is guaranteed.

Next, take out pen and paper and write down 25 strengths or positive attributes about yourself. Try to create your list in only 2 minutes, so that you don’t have time to over-analyze. What would your friends and colleagues say are your strengths? What about your colleagues? Maybe most important, what would your loved ones say? If you need help, call one of the above and ask them!

Finally, take one Strength and act on it immediately. If one of your strengths is compassion, call a friend or colleague who needs your support. If you are analytical, go analyze something. If you have a drive for results, complete a simple task or two. Whatever it is, just do it!

Putting Hope to Work

by Karlin Sloan

“Hope inspires a feeling of well being and is a spur to action.” – Jerome Frank, MD

Harry Hutson and Barbara Perry, authors of Putting Hope to Work know something about what happens when there’s hope, and when there isn’t.  According to Hutson and Perry, the key to great business is the presence of the human spirit in the workplace, and the presence of hope. They define hope as “an act that generates movement toward a shared, desirable future.” I recently had the opportunity to ask the authors about their work, and my hope is that you will test out some of these ideas in your own business. Enjoy!

What’s Important about Hope at Work?

Harry: I’ve just come from seeing “An Inconvenient Truth”. Al Gore said in the film that too many people go from denial straight to despair. I really believe that’s what we’re looking at in Putting Hope to Work. How do you keep people from looking at a tough situation and going right to despair?

In business, people become aware of something, then they throw up their hands and give up. Hope is that moment in which we can acknowledge reality, and get organized to do something about it. People get engaged when they are hopeful.

A client of ours was doing some re-organizing. People knew something was happening, and they felt like something was wrong. He was at a town hall meeting and he acknowledged that they had to do some layoffs, and that they were going to try to be fair about it. His message was that the company was not competitive, and needed to change. Here’s an executive who is very hard-nosed, action oriented, very truthful, and hope was not a word you would immediately associate with him. It was striking though, to see bad news delivered truthfully and with care, and to see the hope that ensued as a result.

What happens when there is an absence of hope in an organization?

Barbara: I’m thinking about it on two levels – I’m thinking about it individually and organizationally. What I have noticed in terms of the leaders I’ve worked with – they’re optimists by nature. It takes a long time for them to arrive at the moment where they feel that there is no hope. If there is no hope that is the moment that things end. People leave. They get sick. They get fired.

Harry: Just yesterday I was with a financial services company that has a very strong party line – “everything is great, we’re the best to work for”,  but the people I’m coaching are at their wits end, and they are at risk of leaving. The company has created a myth that they are desirable to work for, and that they will retain their best and brightest.  Their values are all about execution and accountability. There’s nothing of the human spirit in that stuff. Why isn’t humanity front and center? There isn’t a lot of hope there. The essence of the place is not very human, it’s very political, and it’s a shame. For leaders to keep hope alive, they have to have a human dimension to their work, to what they communicate to their employees.

What are the main principles behind your work?

Putting Hope to Work relies on five principles. Through each of these being addressed, your organization can stay more engaged, more alive, and more hopeful about the future.

1. Possibility – possibility is about getting stretched, but keeping things in the realm of reality. Knowing what to ask for by when. That’s a very important skill that leaders can use. Stretch the bar far enough, but not so far that your people will break. Possibilities include those for me as a leader.

1. Agency – employee engagement. Being a part of the solution, having a stake and a voice in the outcome. Agency means true ownership and that there is something each person can do with the available resources. People don’t feel hope without moving from passive to active.

1. Worth – what we hope for needs to be something that advances civilization. That is worth hoping for. It has to have meaning to us personally and collectively. A concrete, hopeful thing we can do is establish a direct line of sight to the customer. You are in service of someone or something – your contribution is worthwhile.

1. Openness – this is the principle of learning. We are always learning, living in uncertainty and challenging our assumptions. Hope thrives in a sprit of openness. Hope sometimes requires more openness than leaders are comfortable with – sometimes the unexpected can be good. That strategic plan is not the only opportunity for success. At a very personal level this is about people being able to take risks, ask for help, say they don’t know.  An example would be what we know about playing in a disruptive place, we know it’s important to experiment and to challenge the status quo.

1. Connection – we like to think that hope is born of possibility, energized by agency, inspired by worth, informed by openness, and it’s completed in connection. The notion of being connected, being in relationship is what really makes it possible to manifest hopeful action.

What is a quick exercise our readers can use to instill hope in their team?

When you check in with your team, instead of starting your staff meetings asking for a status report, use this exercise: “Give me a short term hope, give me a long term hope.”  Have each person check-in from the perspective of hope, and see what happens. The dialog will change dramatically, and your team will have a different experience of a standard staff meeting.

For more information on Harry Hutson and his work on hope, contact Karlin Sloan & Company at 312-242-1801.