Leadership Archives

Leadership in a Time of Incivility

Sylvia Lafair
July 29, 2020

Watching the service for John Lewis got me thinking. About civil rights, about politics, about funerals, and mostly about civility.

That’s something we have lost in our country.

Not only civility, even more, but we have also lost the dream of the United States. Why are we so fragmented today? Why are so many people angry and taking sides without asking questions? How have we gotten so far from the dream of the shining land on the top of a hill?

While there are many issues to deal with the main one is leadership.

I have dedicated many years to study, research, and work with leaders from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups. What I see that has changed in recent years is the compartmentalization that is, in a sense, killing us.

We have stopped thinking about the system, the way we are all connected.

Everyone seems so overwhelmed, on the downward route to burn out. It’s not just the virus or Black lives Matter. Yes, they are vital factors in the equation leading to our national despair. It’s more. And this is where leadership is lacking.

It’s the way we are talking AT rather than TO each other; fanning the flames of hatred, the game of gotcha.

Listening to the family, friends, and colleagues of John Lewis made me yearn for what is missing.

We are so uncivil.

Someone recently questioned on my Facebook group for women leaders about the uninvited militia in Portland and wanted to know why this is necessary. The response was “If you don’t like us protecting our federal buildings then, GTFO”.

How have we become so crass? So crude? So, yes, to me, so uncivilized.

At the service for John Lewis in the Rotunda of the Capitol building Nancy Pelosi spoke quietly and then let Congressman Lewis’ words speak.

It was at that moment my sadness went deep.

The recording of one of his speeches was eloquent and elegant. He chided people to think better thoughts, to dream bigger dreams. Many at the service had on masks that said, “Good trouble.” It was a reminder that as a young black man in the South his parents told him to “stay out of trouble.” He saw the wrongs and was willing to put his life on the line. He survived to keep fighting, what he called “Good Trouble.”

We need more leaders to come forward and model what John Lewis taught.

He would never say to someone who disagreed, “then GTFO.”

This post is dedicated to a man I never knew, just knew about.

Business, Leadership, Leadership Strategies, Success

How to See Your Emotional Blind Spots

Sylvia Lafair
July 22, 2020

Want to be able to see what you can’t see?

Yes, that sentence makes sense….sort of.

It’s like a magic trick. You know, you see it then you don’t.

There is a part of your eyes that had no image detection. For the most part, human eyes report to the brain with an accurate picture. What you see is what’s out there.

EXCEPT…

Each human eye has a blind spot and the brain works at filling in what is there by looking at the surrounding areas.

Emotional Blind Spots

When it comes to emotions, we have blind spots too.

They often developed when we were children. After all, we learned about life, what is safe, and what is not safe back then. We tend to deny what is not in our best interests and, like a magic trick, we see it and then we don’t.

We want magic to take over.

You know, a miracle will make everything better. So, we stop looking at the problem and wait for our fairy godmother to sprinkle some magic over us and voila la, no more problems.

Until nothing changes and we begin to point fingers and blame him, her, or them.

When you ignore feelings and block experiences because they were unpleasant or confusing, they become a blind spot.

You become a “not see” (say that fast and shudder).

What can you do about these invisible places where you get stuck in the mud?

Weaknesses and Strengths Are Connected

I say, leverage your strengths AND challenge your weaknesses.

Much of the literature about leadership development requests that you play to your strengths. However, only playing to strengths can be the cause of much unnecessary trouble in life.

If your past success becomes your only approach to solving problems and if you insist on replicating your success over and over (often using the exact same words and mannerisms) in new situations you will eventually lose.

It’s guaranteed.

Think about it this way. Just being big, being very, very big was not enough to keep the dinosaurs alive.

Working with your weaknesses as well as your strengths is called adaptability. And this is one of the ways to get past your blind spots.

Blind spots be gone!

Leverage your strengths AND your weaknesses.

The Game of Tennis and The Game of Life

Think about Serena Williams for a moment.

Is her toss, serve, forehand, or backhand the strongest? Whether you play tennis or not, learn from a master of the court.

If she only perfected what she was best at, what she was most comfortable with, would she have become such a formidable tennis star? Perhaps she would have been good, really, really, good, but maybe not great.

Those I know who are excellent at tennis (not me) often say the backhand is the most challenging. However, many games, in tennis and in life, are lost because while strengths are leveraged, weaknesses stay just that, weaknesses.

And on the emotional side, it is more than just taking a stand for what you believe, more than just hitting the problems with a harder force, that comes into play.

Think about Serina again, she learned to master all the ways to hit that ball and she also became a master at both attitude and intimidation.

She saw ALL sides of the game, physical, mental, and emotional.

Learn from those who play the game of life the best. Master the tough areas that need to be strengthened and ask for help to see those blind spots that get in the way.

My Pattern Breakthrough Coaches and I can help you see what is invisible, the blind spots, that cause overwhelm or self-doubt.

No need for burnout or anxiety because you cannot see clearly what your next steps could be. Contact me at sylvia@ceoptions.com or call 570-233-1042 for a strategy session.

Keep going and keep growing.

Business, Leadership, Leadership Strategies, Leadership Styles, Managing Stress, Patterns, Stress

What to do when you feel like you have no more bandwidth

Sylvia Lafair
July 15, 2020

What do you keep telling yourself when you have no more bandwidth to do one more thing?

If you are a high achieving business person, I bet you just said to yourself, “I can always do just one more thing today.”

That’s exactly what my senior VP client told me two weeks ago.

And yesterday I got a call from his office that he wanted to talk, that he was feeling somewhat better from the raging headache, high fever, and chills that Covid19 had blessed him with.

He called me later in the day and said “Sylvia, I really am a jerk. I thought I was invincible. Yes, I feel better now but I know the fever will get me again and I just wanted to tell you that you are right. And thanks.”

Before I could ask him what I am so right about he said he had to go (he meant that literally) and rushed to the bathroom.

Today he called again and had more time to put his thoughts together.

He asked me to write my weekly blog about what he las learned in the very long and unpleasant past few weeks.

“I want everyone to know that they better prioritize what really matters before crazy COVID does it for them. I was such a high achieving guy that I would listen to people who talked about work-life balance as if they were all wimps. Male and female, they were the ones who would never be the top leaders.

I, on the other hand, was always there saying things like ‘As soon as….’

Our bottom line is better.

There are a few more experts on my team.

Our technology issues are handled.

I can delegate to the newbies.

I come up with some new products.

Here is what I learned. So sad, I had to learn it the hard way. I know you have been encouraging me to look for a better balance. And, I must admit, I figured you were just giving me your ‘be kind, be nice’ woman talk.

I saw myself as fierce, kinda the ‘large and in charge’ type of guy. It’s all bullshit!

This pandemic takes out whoever gets in its path.

Unless you, that means everyone who reads this, learn to prioritize, stop barreling though because you can, ignoring the pain, both physical and emotional, from having to be a super-achiever, not stopping to say “What the hell am I doing and even better, why am I running on empty?” you may never get a second chance.

I’m lucky. Like Chris Cuomo on CNN. I’m getting better and am able to get great care from my wife. I only hope that she and my three kids stay well.

I am now willing to do whatever it takes to have a life that is more about sharing and caring than about being the first up the hill.

I want some pointers on what I can do to be a more effective human being, not just a more effective leader.

Tell everyone that life includes work yet it is not just about that slippery word, success unless you have it in all areas of your life.”

And there you have it.

We are all being given the opportunity to look inside ourselves and make some vital decisions.

When you feel like you have no more bandwidth, I suggest that you take a break so you won’t break down or burn out.

Hopefully, the virus will pass you by. Or at least, you will have the stamina to fight it off.

Live a life that is satisfying and fulfilling. Now, that is a great definition of success.

Communication, Leadership

In the Room Where IT Happened

Sylvia Lafair
July 10, 2020
Communication, Leadership, leadership culture

Leaders need to know about where they started to know where to go now #leadership #culture #communication

Hi, everybody. Sylvia Lafair here, with a tip for Tuesday and I have a question. Do you know where you were in the room where it happened? You know, Hamilton’s success has brought that song to everybody’s mind. I want to be in a room where it happened while we were in the room where it happened. There are two rooms I’m talking about right now. One is where you were conceived. And it’s a powerful concept to understand what happened at that moment when the sperm and the egg met and it became a you as the nine months went on.

We’ll talk about that in a minute. But the second place, the other room where it happened was the delivery room or the back of a taxi cab or a home birth, wherever you were. Those two areas are so critical to all of us, not just to women, to all of us, because when we understand what was going on in the room where it happened, we have a better sense of where to go now and what to do.

And we are not taking people down deep enough to look at some of these things that have created blocks, that have created overwhelm, that have created self-doubt, that have created the imposter syndrome that lives in us. But much of it happened in that room back then. And I’d like to throw out an idea just kind of imagined idea. John Lennon imagined idea. What if every child conceived was conceived in love? Every child conceived was provided for and wanted in this world.

Just what if. And what if we had no more abuse, and what if at the time, those nine months between conception and birth or whatever period of time there is? What if there were some skills that were taught to people? I know I was 24 when my first child was born and I had no skills. You know, I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I was trained and taught the youngest in my family, so I didn’t have any younger siblings to look at.

But what if there were some kind of healthy education, generic, universal in this country as part of the whole process from being in that room where it happened to getting ready for the room, where it happens because the birth process is a powerful, important place. So, I love to hear your stories about what it was like, as you obviously didn’t know too much, but what it was like as you go back and ask what happened in those two rooms.

Those are the two key rooms that we need to look at. So let’s keep going. Let’s keep growing. And I’d love to hear your comments about where you were and what you learned even now as you go back and talk to somebody and find out. It’s really important. Thank you. Have a beautiful day and a beautiful rest of the week.

Change, diversity, Growth, Gutsy, Leadership

Can You Remember?

Sylvia Lafair
July 8, 2020

Can you remember the first time words were thrown your way that would bite and sting?

Was it the color of your skin, the shape of your eyes? Perhaps you had a “funny accent” that someone imitated and you stopped talking.

Did you live on the “other” side of town, or wear out-of-style, hand-me-down clothes?

Did you go to the “wrong” church?

Were you too fat, thin, tall, or short?

Can you remember…..

Here is a story from one of my clients when we did the “Can You Remember” exercise in our diversity program “Connections: Results Through Relationships” for her company.

Anita, a well-respected corporate lawyer squirmed in her chair as we began to look back at the slings and arrows that so many of us had to endure as children, and sadly, still do to this day.

She was just turning four, playing with her next-door neighbor in the yard. She ran into the house to tell her mother she needed a bath. It was the middle of the afternoon and her mother said “Honey, you were just playing outside for ten minutes; you are clean and fine.”

“No,” Anita insisted. “Mary told me to go home and wash my body cause I’m dirty. I need a bath right now!”

Her mother took a deep breath and began the first part of “the talk.” She told her daughter she was not dirty and that her skin was naturally that beautiful cocoa color.

The little girl marched out to announce to her little friend that this was her skin color, only to come back crying.

“Mary said she would not play with me until my skin was clean and white.”

Anita looked around the room. Some of her colleagues expressed anger at the unfairness. Others were simply sad at the state of the world. And there were those who looked down, deep in their own thoughts.

Anita took a long breath bringing herself back into the present time. “You know that rhyme ‘Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can never hurt you?’ Of course, it’s not true. One word, one snide smile can bring back all those dreaded childhood memories.

She looked around at her colleagues, these co-workers with whom she shared so much of her days.

“What do you do,” she asked “when someone at work says something unfair or unkind to you, or even worse, behind your back just loud enough for you to hear? Do you shut down and walk away; retort and play the gotcha game; complain to human resources?

“I am so tired of all the legal work I have to do around this still unsettled area of diversity. I am yearning for change and yet..” her voice trailed off.

The workplace should be a major force for the long term, positive change. It begins by creating a place where there is enough psychological safety for teams to gather and hear each other’s stories about “Can you remember?” (excerpt from UNIQUE: How Story Sparks Diversity, Inclusion, and Engagement”)

We need programs that will go upriver to find the multiple sources of the toxins that cause so much division in our human family.

It can be done and this time in our world development is demanding change.

The mandate of today’s workplace is about more than just the bottom line. It’s a place where real change can be fostered and where people flourish. The paradox is, that when people thrive and care about each other, the bottom line will also show the benefits.

I would love to hear your story about “Can YOU Remember?” If you like, It could be included in my next book “UNIQUE and CONNECTED.”

Leadership, Stress

Stress, Leadership, and Parents

Sylvia Lafair
July 2, 2020
Leadership, parents, Stress

Hi everybody! Sylvia Lafair here, and today I’m going to talk about stress and parents. No not us as parents, us as adult children with our parents who are aging and I’m going to focus very specifically today on mothers and daughters. There’s a different dynamic that goes with fathers and daughters or mothers and sons or fathers and sons.

Right now, I’m going to talk about mothers and daughters for a minute, and I’ve been getting a lot of calls lately with tons of frustration, and I know that we’re all up to here with stress and anxiety, and knowing how to behave, and we don’t have all the diversions that we usually have.

So, we can chill out. Anyway, I’ve been getting a lot of calls from women, saying my mother is driving me nuts, and what it comes down to, is really looking at some of the core things that happened, that when we were kids. Looking at them not judging it, just looking at it, and I want to talk about three patterns that have been handed from mothers to daughters, and if you’re a mother and you have a daughter, think about if you’re handing it to them, and how it impacts you in your relationships. Both your personal relationships and your professional relationships

So, the three main patterns people are talking about is, saying you know, my mother is used to me saying, ‘Yes to whatever she wants and needs, and it’s getting old, and I don’t want to do it anymore,’ or somebody else is saying, ‘You know, I was trained to always put myself last. I don’t want to do that anymore,’ and others are saying, ‘I feel like I’ve always been making up for my mother not being able to fulfill what she wanted in her life. So, I’m overwhelmed and climbing that ladder of success, and it’s driving me nuts.’

So here, the three patterns that we’re looking at right now are the pleaser, who does not know how to say no. The martyr, who’s into suffering and putting herself last, and the super achiever, who feels like she has the obligation to make up for everything that hasn’t worked in her mother’s life, and here’s what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting, and I think it’s important that you take a generational view of this before you go, and have the conversation with your mother, and I brought my book over here. Gutsy, which is how women leaders make change. I brought this adjust to as a show-and-tell, because a lot of the information I’m talking about is in there.

Here’s where it is, before you decide to have a conversation with your mother that will lead to yet another it didn’t work. I’m not good enough. She’s annoying. She’s not doing what I want. All this stuff that goes on, it is the most powerful relationship. Here’s what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to take a generational view, and begin to look at your life, and the patterns of behavior and the cultural socio-economic aspects of your life. Then, go back, you have to talk to her, and look at what your mother went through, and then go back one more generation into looking at your grandmother.

Now, once you have some of that, you can sit down with your mother, and have a conversation, and keep it to, ‘In what way were you trained or taught to be a pleaser, to say yes all the time?’ and ‘In what way did you put yourself last?’ and ‘In what way did you feel you had to make up for the things that never got done in past generations?

Those are the questions to ask, and I’d love to get the answers to that from you. So, that can begin a dialogue. So, those of you who are looking at this, what is it that you are doing that you feel is left over from the past, that needs to be re-balanced and changed? And my last question is, how did you learn to ask for what you need? I’m not even saying why. How did you learn to ask for what you need? So, remember the patterns we’re looking at are the pleaser, the martyr and the super achiever, and once you begin to look from that direction, the dialogue with your mom will change and will grow, and it will change in the way you talk to any of the women you work with.

We all have stories that work on us about those areas of our lives. So, talk with your mother after you’ve done the research, and if your grandmother’s still around, she’s still alive, that’s great. The three of you can have a wonderful conversation.

So, let’s do that because during this time, when we don’t have as many diversions, maybe it is time to go deeper and find out more about ourselves, and then look at what we, whether we have biological daughters or children or not, what we’re passing to the next generation. So, this is to your success.

Have a beautiful rest of the week and find some freedom inside you, so we can celebrate freedom on July 4th. Thanks so much. Good time.

Business, Growth, Leadership, Leadership Strategies, Leadership Styles, Stress

Telling the Truth: Not for Wimps

Sylvia Lafair
July 1, 2020

Why does telling the truth have to be so darn hard?

So much information, so much confusion.

Who do you believe?

Which media outlets are pushing out fake news and which are telling the honest, open truth?

Anyone?

No one?

Telling the Truth: Not for Wimps

If you missed out on being part of past revolutions, like the revolution of 1776, or the 1960s, now is your chance to be part of a revolution that is underway right now.

It’s about something that can be terrifying.

It causes excessive amounts of stress.

It’s about telling the truth, and especially, telling truth to power.

Leaders today are under so much scrutiny and that’s a good thing. There has always been the “backroom truth” and the “public truth.”

Truth is coming into the public domain thanks to social media.

Telling the Truth is Good for Business

The organizations I have worked with that have truth as a core value has been successful. Because what is found is that telling the truth is good for business.

It increases trust and trust increases collaboration and enhances creativity.

Now, every revolution needs a bumper sticker. Remember “No taxation without representation” or “Make love, not war”?

How bout now “The truth shall set you free.”

We all want honest people in Congress, in our corporations, family businesses, start-up companies.

At the core of who we are, I believe we would all prefer having someone telling the truth instead of being set up and scammed.

Let’s see truth-telling become the way we work.

Let’s see leaders step it up and model truth-telling and requiring the truth from those who report to them.

No more denying or ignoring, no more playing CYA to avoid being held accountable. Being honest is at the tipping point of gaining respect once again.

Diversity and Truth-Telling

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Team of Rivals” Doris Kearns Goodwin underlines how talking truth to power created the tension between despair and conviction that helped accentuate truth and encourage trust.

During times of revolution as well as times of accelerated evolution the extremes of the good the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful are highlighted.

That time is now.

Here’s some good news. YOU can develop skills to deliver difficult feedback, manage resistance to change, orchestrate conflict resolution, and keep stress levels from going through the roof.

More good news. You do not have to be a charismatic orator for the truth to be heard and accepted.

More good news. When you tell the truth, you have less to remember.

Pioneers on the Road to Truth

Are you ready to be a pioneer to demand truth at work and in the community? Are you ready to stand for calling out brutality, be it from police or those who want to polarize the world?

If you get concerned about what happens when you tell the truth, think like the child in the tale The Emperor’s New Clothes.

During the time of the Emperor’s reign, vanity and greed made it possible for clever con men to make a financial bundle.

They convinced the Emperor, who was a shallow and self-absorbed Narcissist that only the “pure of heart” would be able to see his new royal garb. Brilliant ‘spin doctors’, the clothes were spun of ‘fools cloth, as in great marketing with no substantial product. And then the ‘piece de resistance’, a viral PR campaign that hypnotized the whole town into an agreement. After all, wouldn’t you want to be in the ‘pure of heart’ camp? So, when the Emperor rode into town ‘al fresco’ it took an innocent little kid to shout “BUT THE EMPEROR IS NAKED”!

That innocence, that willingness to speak out and say the truth is often drummed out of us early in life. It’s time for that to change.

Telling the Truth is Riveting

So, like the Emperor’s town folk, is it safer to pretend, to not see? Say the words ‘not see’ over a few times, say them quickly, and notice you are saying Nazi”!

When we play it safe it causes us to lose our magic, our zest for courageously questioning the status quo or situations that lack a clear focus.

Telling the truth is NOT for wimps.

We are starting to see a global groundswell for change, for truth, for the trust for really understanding that we are all part of the human race and no one wins unless we all do.

Join the movement by telling the truth and the reconciliation so needed in our world right now.

Leadership

Leadership and What We Can Learn From Gen Z

Sylvia Lafair
June 24, 2020
gen z, Leadership

Hi everybody! Sylvia Lafair here, with the Sylvia speaks, where Sylvia says for Tuesday.

What I’d like to do is just talk a little bit about the polarization that’s in the world, and what to do about it, and I learned a lot the other day from my 15 year old granddaughter, Arielle, who was saying to me, ‘Grandma, what do you do when people are fighting about points of view when nobody’s listening?’ And i said, ‘Honey, that’s one of the biggest issues we’re dealing with, and I remember in school, learning about how to debate, and debate means winners and losers.

So, we talked about the idea of dialogue, and she said to me, ‘Do you know about the youtube channel, Jubilee and Middle ground?’ And I didn’t. So, those of you watching this, if you don’t know it, please go and find it. It was fascinating. What they do is, they bring people from polarized points of view or separate points of view.

Let me put it that way to begin to talk with each other, and it’s so interesting to see how that happens. They have democrats and republicans. Young people coming together. They have pro-choice and pro-life people coming together. They have atheists and Christians coming together. They have pro-gun and anti-gun coming together to talk to each other.

Now, I’m curious to see what kind of real changes come about, but listening to Arielle, she said, ‘You know grandma, my generation is much more open to differences than the older generations have been,’ and she said, ‘As the older generations kind of go away, we’ll take over and we’ll make the world a better place,’ and I thought, you go girl but it then reminded me of something we’ve used in our leadership program, in our total leadership connections program, and it’s little segments from the play that became a film called, ‘ 12 Angry Men,’ and if you haven’t seen it, please, please watch it. It’s not a rang bang shoot ’em up thing. It’s about 12 men sitting in a room, a fairly dingy room in New York that are jurors that have to do a case to see if an 18 year old young Hispanic boy has murdered his father and they’ve been in the courtroom. They’re the jury and it’s interesting 12 angry men and that’s because women did not get the right to sit in juries until 1970s, which isn’t that long ago.

So, it’s interesting to see how changes occur but in this with 12 angry men, and the one I really liked is the one that was done. I think in 1998 with Jack Lemmon in it, and some other people that you certainly will recognize but they’re sitting there. These jurors and they come in and they have their points of view, and they’re ready to convict this young young guy of murder, and then he will be in jail for the rest of his life or then possibly get a verdict for death. There’s one man in there. He happens to be an architect. It’s the role played by Jack Lemmon, and he’s very quiet, and while they start the voting, it’s eleven to one. Eleven to one, when they take their first vote, and I don’t want to destroy the film for you because it’s so powerful, but there is a moment where Jack Lemmon as this architect says they’re very upset with him. They just want to get out of there. It’s hot. The air conditioning isn’t working. There’s a baseball game in town. They want to get out of there, and finally somebody says to him, what do you want? And he says, ‘Can’t we just talk?’ And that brought back this whole idea of jubilee and middle ground, and the question is, can’t we just talk and really get to know each other? And it is fascinating because in 12 Angry Men, they begin to just talk, and what happens is what I know from the work.

I’ve done all these years, and that is that each of us comes into a situation with pre-formed ideas that happened from the way we grew up or it’s a generational thing that can go back a lot of years.

So, can’t we just talk. I’d love you to watch 12 Angry Men, and I’d love to get feedback. Send me feedback. Send it to sylvia@ceoptions.com, and we can just talk, but it’s time for a change. It’s time from the polarization to begin to melt away, and we can begin to see that there are ways through what we’re living with in a more effective appropriate, helpful way.

Join me in that. It’s an important thing and if you’re interested in learning more about total leadership connections or any of the other programs, call me, email me and let’s make the world a better place, and I want to thank Arielle for steering me to a jubilee and middle ground. I suggest you all watch that too, and let your teens watch it. It’s very powerful.

Thank you. Have a beautiful day. This is to your success. Thank you.

Leadership

Leadership and Stress

Sylvia Lafair
June 17, 2020
Leadership, Stress

Hi everyone and welcome to another session of Sylvia says.

I’m Sylvia Lafair and what I’d like to talk about today is leadership and stress.

We all feel it. We all have it in some way. Each of us is a leader. So, this is probably for everybody, but I’m really focusing right now on what happens during these times that seem to just keep the roller coaster going, and every time it looks like some situation is handled, and you begin to take a deep breath. It starts again.

Well, we don’t know. We can’t predict where things are headed. We know we’re in a time of change and most of us kind of pull back from change but what I want to talk about is very basic stuff. When stress hits the hot button bingo. We all tend to react with certain types of patterns that we learned early in our lives, and we need to go back and really look at that right now.

So, whether you scream it out or stuff it down, stress hitting the hot button is really critical and where does it start? Well, I in all the work I’ve done over the years, I’ve come up with three places that are foundational, that we have to look at family culture and crises. So, family and family as a little kid, we learned how to look at things around, gossip and backbiting and the gotcha game. All of us, either in our family of origin or in our larger family or in the neighborhood or if we were raised in foster care that was still the concept of a family, but as a little kid, we looked around and we learned all about the basic ways that we behave, and then we grow up and we go into a work situation. We have a grown up family that we live with. We do very, very important things around. How do we handle conflict? What do we do when the stress is the hot button?

So, I’d like you to go back, and look what did you learn in your family. How did you learn How to handle stress? Where you sent to your room? Where you listen to? Where their family meetings? How was stress handled? Did your father handle it by being macho and strong? Did your mother handle it by going in the other room and maybe crying? I don’t want a stereotype, but these things have been around for a long time. So, go back and really look that one too.

Culture, we create definite norms in our culture. In how we behave. I mean, some is good. Some of it is good. You’re driving a car. Red light means stop. A green light means go, and it makes things flow easier if you can follow some rules. Some of the rules we’ve had are old and need to go away. About how women were trained and taught to behave and how men were trained and taught to behave. We’re in a time of such exciting evolutionary change. If you can see past the hurt and pain and fear of the day. So, culture, what have you learned in your culture about how to handle stress? What do you do when things don’t go your way? I’d like you to think about it and start journaling this on.

The third has to do with crises and a crisis is something that happens. It comes at you fast you don’t expect it and you inhale and forget to exhale. I call it hardening of the emotions. When we breathe in and we freeze, we don’t know how to react. So, there are many techniques and tools that are available to help with that but what I’d like you to do as a leader in times of stress is, begin to track back my Stress Buster’s program. It will be out in a week, and I really think it would be something that you can really grab onto to see about how to change. If you don’t like the way you handle stress. If you either scream it out or shut it down. Either way, doesn’t work. We want you in that. It’ll save stress.

So, have an excellent rest of the day. Pay attention. Get it observation of your behavior when stress hits the hot button, and as leaders we need to learn how to navigate and handle it.

So, we become models for others and they can handle it better

Thank you so much and I’ll talk to you soon.

Business, Change, Growth, Leadership, Leadership Strategies

The Courage to Change: Diversity, Inclusion, and Engagement

Sylvia Lafair
June 10, 2020

“What’s the big deal! Diversity issues are not new.”

That’s what I hear from so many leaders recently.

They call to vent and complain. They want an easy answer to this “diversity thing.”

They ask if I can create a customized program that will stop the noise and demands from employees and the community.

And, how fast can I deliver?

They want to check the diversity box as done.

Of course, they don’t say that so blatantly, yet, it is in their worried voices.

Before they click off from phones or Zoom the sighs are audible and the generalized response is, “It’s not going to really change. You know it and I know it. It’s just going to be more BS window dressing. Please, just get it done.”

I sense in the discouragement and frustration they wish “IT” would just go away.

When I ask what is the “IT” they want to go away, most say, “All the demands and conflicts so we can just get back to business.”

Occasionally, someone says,

“I’m yearning for change. I want it for my company, for this country, for the world. I can feel the deep desire for us to all be better, do better.”

However, even these comments still end with,

“And yet…” as they trail off, still hoping for simple answers and not expecting long term solutions.

ANGER, DETERMINATION, DESPAIR, HOPE

We have seen it all too often.

Something happens that sparks an outpouring of emotion and a demand for change as thoughts and feelings get tangled together.

Here’s what I find.

Anger is coupled with the determination to do more, so long as it is done quickly.

Despair joins forces with hope, so long as hope wins quickly.

Ambivalence and willingness to move forward combine, so long as we move quickly.

Hopelessness that humans can’t really change links with the belief that change can happen, so long as the change happens quickly.

Notice the pattern here.

This push-pull is inherent in human nature.

It’s also part of human nature to accept the challenge and find the courage to change.

Growth comes from this tug of war between the comfort of sameness and the uncertainty of new ways. Think homeostasis and entropy.

“What do we do? Give up or keep going?” I am asked by seasoned executives and millennial start-up captains.

Here is my response.

SHORT- TERM OR LONG -TERM ACTIONS: WHAT REALLY MATTERS

Eventually, rage and anger go quiet. At least overtly.

Then there appears to be more willingness to meet and talk.

The problem is that the talk is often old and stale, filled with platitudes, promises, placating, positioning.

And while progress in these discussions does offer baby steps, they never end up with a full sprint to something new and sustainable. Something truly transformational.

Why?

Two reasons.

First, because we want fast solutions to keep our stress and anxiety under control. That’s our instant, twitter world.

Next, because people, and I mean most of us, have not been adequately taught the important skills needed to tell the truth and listen to others, not at home nor at school.

Telling the truth can be embarrassing. It makes you vulnerable.

Thus, what shows up instead is ‘too-muchness’: Too much polarization. Too much ‘my way or the highway’ responding too much posturing.

Right now, while there is a demand, in most organizations, for new, relevant diversity programs we have an opportunity to do it differently.

Here is one perspective for a program that may well have long term benefits.

WHAT’S YOUR STORY?

Diversity, emotional intelligence, pattern awareness, communication skills, personal and professional growth need to be combined into one program.

Not another extra “check the box” diversity program. It’s about whole-person leadership education.

And it takes time.

Leadership education has a good sound. It has been available for small elite business groups until now.

Call it leadership and diversity training if you want. Or just call it people education.

What I’m talking about is leadership education for all of us. It’s about how to lead your own life, communicate effectively, resolve conflict, find work/life balance. How to be a leader for others, without blaming, judging, or attacking.

And it starts with a story.

I suggest the power of story, your story, my story, her story, his story is where the action lies for longer-term, sustainable change.

No, not just a stage presentation to impress. And not just snippets. I mean the whole story.

The trick is to make it safe enough for your story to be told.

I mean a deep dive into what has made you, formed your decisions, shaped your unconscious bias, given you hopes and dreams.

Did you ever meet someone you thought was a bonafide asshole only to find yourself seeing and hearing that individual differently once you know their story?

Maybe even tilt toward beginning to like him or her?

Who knows? Could happen.

As Harvard professor, Howard Gardner states:

“Stories are the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal”

STORY AT WORK AND IN THE COMMUNITY: SANKOFA MAPPING

We developed Sankofa Mapping 25 years ago using the ideas behind this powerful word as a specific method of storytelling that helps you connect the dots of your life.

Sankofa, an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana, the literal meaning is “go back and get it.”

The symbol is of a mythical bird with its head turned backwards while flying forward. There is an egg that the bird picks up from its back to bring into the present time. It symbolizes the still fertile and living parts of the past that should not be discarded.

It’s a symbol to clear the past and free the present for the future.

Sankofa Mapping is part of our whole person leadership program, regardless of where you fit on the leadership continuum.

After all, you are the leader of your own life. Right?

This can be done both in an individual or a group process. I love the group way. It helps you connect with others to hear their stories and lets them hear you.

It opens minds and hearts at the same time.

It’s a mental and emotional chart so you can observe, understand, and then transform areas of your life as you see fit.

You learn to go back and retrieve it. Go back and retrieve what? Curious? Look up the word epigenetics.

It helps leaders and those they support get underneath what causes rifts and separations that then cause gossip, backbiting, power games, bullying, lawsuits, and the burden of high stress.

I have found that the story approach we developed using SANKOFA MAPPING gives a bold, new way to listen to and talk with each other for positive, lasting change to happen.

It is time for whole-person leadership education that includes diversity. Or, if you will, a diversity program that includes the whole person.

Learning what to listen for and how to respond can be life-changing.

If not now, when?

Best,

Sylvia

P.S. More information about the SANKOFA MAPPING Method is available in both my books, Don’t Bring It To Work, and in UNIQUE: How Story Sparks Diversity, Inclusions, and Engagement. Or you can contact me at sylvia@ceoptions.com

P.P.S. Here is an excerpt from UNIQUE.

This is part of the story from a lawyer at a Fortune 100 company:

I was just turning four and was playing with my next-door neighbor in the back yard. I ran into the house and told my mother I needed a bath. It was the middle of the afternoon and my mother said “Honey, you were just playing outside for ten minutes; you are clean, and you are fine.

“No,” I insisted. “Mary told me to go home and wash the dirt from my body, and I NEED a bath right now.”

My mother took a deep breath and explained to me I was NOT dirty; it was just that my skin was naturally that beautiful cocoa color.

I marched back out to announce that I was fine and that was my real skin color. “Mary said she would not play with me until my skin was clean and white.”

This is part of Anita’s story. One of the results of sharing this in her leadership program was that she was no longer willing to stay silent at work, no longer willing to “blend into the background.”

She started some evening programs in the community near the corporate headquarters for high-risk youth and their parents. She worked to get some of the empty rooms at corporate to be used for the meetings. It has made a difference.

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