February 26, 2008
08:41 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Maybe a woman president is an idea
whose time has not come
When
a man comes off overbearing to the point of being an a**hole, you can
still find something to respect about him, even if you don't like him.
When a woman comes off that way, she can only be seen as a b*tch, which you're hard pressed to either respect or like.
Women rising through the corporate ranks have long battled this challenge.
What's a woman to do?
There is a formula that works well with either gender, that I explained in the chapter, "Taking the Bait," in my book, Get Out of Your Own Way at Work (Perigee, 2006) with regard to how to remain cool, calm and centered when you are baited.
Aggression + Principle = Conviction
Aggression - Principle = Hostility
That
means in essence, anger makes you wild; conviction makes you strong.
The key to having conviction is to wrap your aggression around a
principle as opposed to it being wrapped around nothing, thus causing
it to look completely "personal" and like you've lost your cool.
Hillary
did that in New Hampshire and at the end of the debate in Texas, when
perhaps due to sheer exhaustion, she lowered her guard, became a little
more authentic (and touchable) and let some of her humanity show. Each
time she let the principle she was standing up for take the forefront.
In New Hampshire is was the chance for America to change from where it
has been for seven years. In Texas it was focusing the notion of being
tested on the young men and women who are tested every day in Iraq and
Afghanistan and come back showing the toll that war takes on soldiers
and their families.
Unfortunately, when she regained some of her
energy, her humanity took a back seat and she went from talking with us, back
to talking at us - which obliterates the credible points in her
message.
Shame on you Hillary! You really do have much to say
and much that you stand for, and you are dishonoring it with your
scolding, taking-it-personally style.
(c) 2008 Mark Goulston
Mark Goulston's Usable Insight blog
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February 22, 2008
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As I watched the debate between Obama and Clinton in Austin, Texas, I thought of tennis.
I never progressed very far in tennis, because I never mastered the skill of hitting the ball with over spin. Try as a I might, I would hit balls flush and invariably they would overshoot the baseline of my opponent and I would lose.
The combination of my hitting the ball flush and my opponent hitting it with over spin where it would deftly land in my court, pick up speed made it nearly impossible for me to return or win.
As I listened to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in there recent debate, it became clear to me how the mildly evangelical inflection of Obama's voice kept hitting deftly the right chords in the audience and with me with over spin, which triggered well aimed and positioned traction within much of the audience.
On the other hand, Clinton kept hitting the words flush which both missed their mark and certainly missed having the traction that she was hoping for.
Speaking with overspin sounds more authoritative; speaking words flush sounds more authoritarian.
The main traction she appeared to gain was in her closing comments about the greatest tests she has had to face, where she quickly switched the focus from hinting at her well known challenges to those of soldiers returning from war.
However, the traction that this caused was not from overspin. It was caused by the audience wondering how she would handle/dodge such a question, when the challenges she faced as"first lady" were very embarrassing and very public. As all of us "rubber necked" and were poised to watch her crash and burn when trying to dodgy that shameful episode in her life, she deftly changed the focus to American soldiers and their pain and suffering, being the more important tests to be focused on.
By catching us with our base, shame-on-us, "voyeuristic" pants down and switching to the compassion we should all be feeling toward our hurt and wounded warriiors, Clinton deftly won that set.
Whether it was enough to win the match and tournament, remains to be seen.
If this spin appeals to you, check out archived samples of my syndicated column, "Solve Anything with Dr. Mark."
Visit me at: www.markgoulston.com.
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February 20, 2008
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I finally realized why Hillary is losing.
It may not be her. She may be taking the rap for a "baby boomer"
generation that can't accept that the party is over and that it is no
longer their turn. And like many baby boomers, she is having trouble
going "gently into that good night" and so instead is raging against
the next generations to hold onto power and authority and importance,
when it is no longer their turn.
Face it. The baby boomer generation has had longer time in the
spotlight and at the feeding trough than any other generation in
exchange for giving back to the world many things of questionable value.
The "greatest generation" who fought in WWII really did fight for
peace in the world, whereas the "not so great" baby boomer generation
has more often seemed focused on fighting for and holding onto a piece
of the action long beyond what it deserves.
Part of the dilemma is that the baby boomer generation does not have
a back up plan for how to age in a way that is gratifying, satisfying
or fulfilling and because they don't have such a plan, they try to hold
on to the diminishing power they have and fight having it pulled away.
What we have seen in Hillary and in Bill Clinton is how "ungracious"
aging baby boomers can be. To George H. Bush's credit, he didn't seem
nearly as hostile when Bill Clinton was unseating him, as Barack Obama
seems to be doing to Hillary.
Another element that we are seeing in Bill and Hillary is warning us
that we can't afford to leave something as important as our future and
the pressing issues of it to chance and to inexperience. I am certain
that the baby boomers' parents were as worried about leaving the world
in the hands of their free loving, pot smoking, draft evading kids.
Avery Weisman, a famous psychiatrist of the last century, once said
that raising kids and finally letting them go is "giving hostages to
fortune."
Maybe what this campaign is showing it that it is time for the baby
boomers to graciously and gracefully step aside, pass the baton to the
next generation, believe that they will do no worse than they did and
stop raging against the inevitable conclusion that it is their turn now.
Now, since I am a baby boomer, you'll need to excuse me while I go take my nap.
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February 19, 2008
01:07 pm | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Observing the presidential campaigns as an expert in emotional intelligence has been highly instructional about what does and doesn't work in terms of leadership.
One of the main appeals to Barack Obama is that when people interview or speak to him you experience him as hearing, listening, considering and then responding. And for those people who feel they don't have the time to do that with people in their companies and lives, it takes all of about two seconds to do.
On the other hand when people interview or speak to Hillary Clinton you experience her as hearing and then responding. She is very smart and a quick study, but it is easy to not feel listened to or considered when communicating with her.
Ironically, Bill Clinton had an incredible reputation for hearing and listening so deeply that when you were with him, you felt like the only person he was focused on. I've spoken to arch feminists who wanted to dislike him for some of his acting out who say that the experience was utterly disarming and mesmerizing. When Bill Clinton said, "I feel your pain," you actually felt felt, felt less alone, felt relief and felt hopeful. It was a "contact high" to the nth degree.
Obama has similar qualities. And given the stress of the average American with financial, familial, health and war related woes. Feeling heard, considered and felt by him may explain some of his appeal and the surge he is now experiencing.
I believe that in her heart Hillary has the desire to relieve people's stress and offer people hope, but unfortunately it doesn't come through in how she says what she says.
I think the reason for that is that because he knows who he is, Barack is comfortable in his own skin and in building concensus to drive change whereas Hillary doesn't appear to know who she is and is not comfortable in her own skin. Instead of driving to build concensus "the lady doth protest too much" and seems more about demanding she be taken seriously.
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February 16, 2008
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When you lose the capacity to empathize with human beingspeople become objects to like when they make you happy or become violent towards when they make you angry.
Empathy
is the greatest deterrent to violence and even anger, because literally
and figuratively, you can’t walk in someone else’s shoes and step on
their toes at the same time. Glibness aside, the reason for that is
because empathy is a sensory experience where you are feeling what
another person is feeling (what jargon wielding psychoanalysts call
“vicarious introspection”) while anger is a motor function where you
feel and get angry at another person as a reaction to a real or
perceived hurt or injury by them.
There are two forces that
decrease or completely sever the capacity for empathy. This includes on
the one hand being so criticized, ignored, betrayed or in other ways
assaulted by the outside world that your ability to keep perspective
and override your animal reflex to get even is lost. On the other hand,
this can occur when your psyche so loses touch with reality (as we are
discovering with the shooters at Virginia Tech and now Northern
Illinois University) that you perceive the world to be against you when
it may not be.
What are the solutions? Research has consistently
shown that one of the greatest correlations to adult mental health,
well being and even success is having family dinners together two to
three times/week. It’s not exactly clear why that is so, but one could
postulate that when such dinners take place where presumably there are
conversations that demonstrate caring and interest more than criticism,
this may have both an assuaging and ameliorating effect on children
being able to get stuff off their chest, talk their concerns out, be
listened to and feel cared about.
When children grow up bathed
in the empathy and caring of a family that loves them, the capacity for
empathy endures through teens and adulthood that enables them to endure
the slings and arrows of everyday life without blowing a fuse and
exploding back at the world in violence.
On a grander scale,
empathy is becoming in shorter supply as we shift away from
relationships which are about relating in order to connect and become
closer to transactionships which are about negotiating in order to win
and get your way.
Read more About Teenage Violence: It’s the Rage.
(c) 2008 Mark Goulston
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February 16, 2008
12:14 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Say out loud, "Yes we can!" Then say out loud, "Ready on day
one!" What do you notice?
When you say, "Yes we can!" your mouth smiles at the end of
that statement and the smile lasts beyond the words, partially because when
you're smiling your lips want to hold that happy position and because you mind
wants to hold onto the hopeful experience that such a statement triggers. When you say, "Ready on day one!" your lips
slightly purse, you nod in agreement and then quickly stop doing it after you
say the words, partially because it is a strain on your lip muscles and because
the dictatorial tone is something you want to get away from.
The difference in semantics is highly characteristic in the
differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in terms of how they make
us feel, how it makes us feel about them and apparently how people vote. The
reason it plays well to the North and South and East and West is that the ache
for hope and to smile about someone and something (Obama) is so deep that it
overtakes (both emotionally and in delegates) the fleeting power of
authoritative directness in authoritarian's clothing (Clinton).
There is a historic irony about this race that has not been
lost on most political observers. Dwight
D. Eisenhower put a smile on our face compared to Adlai Stevenson as did JFK
compared to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan compared to Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton
compared to George H. Bush, George W. Bush compared to Al Gore, George W. Bush
compared to John Kerry.
So if history is any teacher of who and what wins
presidential contests, it seems clear that it's not a case that the "ayes have
it", but that the "smiles have it."
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February 12, 2008
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There is a saying that you've got to get where people are coming from before they will allow you to take them where you'd like them to go.
Part of communicating that you get where someone is coming from is having them feel that you have heard, listened to and fully considered what they have said before you respond.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, feeling heard and understood is in the satisfaction (vs. frustration) of the beheld.
From my observations, Obama gives the impression of listening and then considering what he hears for just a barely noticeable moment. On the other hand, Clinton gives the impression that she has listened, but that it really hasn't registered before she responds.
I would be interested in the perception of other members of the Fast Company community.
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February 12, 2008
12:31 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
"Second star to the left and straight on �til morning."
- Peter Pan enspiring Wendy to go to Neverland
One
key difference between lousy leaders and good ones is the ability to
motivate or inspire people. But these days, that ability, rare as it
is, simply isn't enough. Given the skeptical and cynical times we live
in--and despite a widespread hunger to feel motivated and
inspired--people often respond with reluctance or opposition.
Why
so? If you look at the concepts of "motivation" and "inspiration"
through the lens of emotional intelligence, you begin to understand why
neither has
lasting power for the people they are meant to energize and activate.
To motivate is to pump people up (or from a cynical point of view, puff
people up). It aims people toward a goal (usually the CEO's) and then
fires them toward it like a rifle shot. Too often, the people listening
do not have the courage (or compensation package) of the leader who is
doing the pumping and aiming. When the pump's away, the people deflate.
After such calls to action I have heard people inside a company -- who
lack job security and have to work harder for fewer benefits -- say to
each other, "That's easy for him to say. He just got a raise, while
we're having our jobs cut. You know, he (the CEO) should save his
�selling' for our customers. He should know better than to think he can
sell us [insiders?]." Too many people are too far down and too weary to
buy into being pumped up momentarily.
More people need to be lifted up than pumped up. This is what inspiration does. Whereas motivation seeks to mobilize you
by
telling you to take action, inspiration accounts for the notion that if
you are too wounded you may need some compassion and healing before you
get back
on your feet. That compassion is not wasted. It feels good
to be understood--to have others know that sometimes you're not being
lazy; sometimes you are too hurt to do anything other than lick
your wounds after a truck has hit you. But as with motivation,
inspiration, although more satisfying to the spirit, can also fall
short of helping people reach a goal. Too often, inspiration lifts you
up but doesn't give you specific steps to take. So you are left feeling
better, but still just as lost about what to do next.
If trying to motivate or even to inspire falls short of helping people reach a goal, what's a leader to do? He can enspire
his people. To enlarge is to make larger; to enable is to make able; to
ennoble is to make noble. To enspire is to both lift up and direct.
Enspiration makes something happen. It gives people the will to find
the way and also the way to sustain the will.
To enspire as a leader takes several steps:
Step 1: Get where people are coming from vs. only focusing on where you want them to go.
Step 2:
Communicate to them that you get "it" so that they feel "got", i.e.,
understood and connected with from their position not yours. Think of
the "I feel your pain" mantra of President Clinton before it became
overdone and seen as a joke.
Step 3: Pause before you throw
the "bum's rush" at them; allow them to exhale and feel the relief of
finally being heard and understood.
Step 4: Having exhaled
and released their distress, they are now open to listening to your
call to action and are now ready to "inhale" their new marching orders.
You have earned their allegiance and commitment by going to their pain
and pausing to comfort it.
Step 5: And this is very important
and where mere inspiration falls short. They need to see your goal for
the company very clearly, understand it fully, and be given the chance
to enroll in it rather than have it forced down their throat. To do
this, they don't get to pick the goal, but they do get to choose with
you the best way to reach the goal. When they participate in the
decision making about how to get there, they will participate in the
implementation.
Enspire Learning out of Austin, Texas is doing just this. Under the leadership of founder, Bjorn Billhardt,
Enspire Learning's mission is to "inspire and motivate, leading
learners to retain, internalize, and apply knowledge more effectively."
Key to all their approaches is a high level of interactivity. They
don't use a cookie-cutter approach, which would just be fodder for the
skeptics and cynics. When they customize their approaches, it
is more from an inside-out than outside-in direction with their
clients. As such they not only get great "buy in" they get great
"trying" (i.e., implementation) of the approaches that are developed.
Enspirational
leadership is an idea whose time has come. The enspirational leader
knows that when you get where people are coming from, they'll let you
take them where you want them to go.
xxx
Mark Goulston, M.D.
helps new managers get out of their own way and enspire their people
and is the author of the recently released: Get Out of Your Own Way at Work -- and Help Others Do the
Same (Putnam, 2005).
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February 5, 2008
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After rereading my previous blog, Obama, Clinton '08, I realized that what I was responding to in my switch to Obama in the number one position and Clinton in the number two position was the dissonance I was experiencing with regard to Hillary.
Dissonance occurs when what you see and hear doesn't match what you feel and when that happens you step back and "buy out" vs. stepping forward and "buying in." Another way of saying it is: Dissonance = What are you going to do for me?/What are you going to do to me?
The dissonance that gets triggered in me with Hillary Clinton is that there are many things she is qualified to do for us, but it is nearly canceled out by the worry of what she will do to us, when she is unhappy with something. I plead no contest to that being a double standard that many strong women face, namely if a man is adamant, he is aggressive; if a woman is adamant she's a b**ch. There is another factor which adds to my dissonance. That's the Bill factor. He is as much a liability as an asset and if Hillary became president, I honestly don't know how much I would want him guiding her vs. her knowing her own mind and merely considering his input along with other advisors.
I know that in the corporate world there are many highly competent, but "people skill challenged" individuals that initially offend people, but once they get the job done and it helps everyone, their personality gets re-written (think Neutron Jack becoming Jack Welch, the best CEO of the last century).
Since "Super Tuesday" is yet to be decided, I will still go with Obama as President for the simple reason that if the world needs to see the US through different eyes, the world needs to believe that we have a president who is capable of looking at it through different eyes.
Something else that is not Hillary's fault is that she represents the not so endearing part of "baby boomers" who are trying to desperately hold onto power rather than accepting that it is no longer their turn. I think the world would do well to have all the "baby boomers" pass the baton to the next generation(s) and give them their shot, graciously but not aggressively offering input whenever it is sought.
I don't know how capable "baby boomers" are of letting go of the command and control that they have had for so long. I know that being a baby boomer, I struggle with that.
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February 2, 2008
05:03 pm | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Obama, Clinton ‘08
with Bill as Secretary of State
Since I am not running for office, I respectfully exercise my right to change my mind or as I prefer to view it, have my opinion evolve. In a prior blog, “Why I switched to Hillary Clinton?” for which she and I took a fair amount of heat, I suggested that a Clinton, Obama ’08 ticket would be the way to go.
I’ve had a change of mind, because I’ve had a change of heart. Being an expert on emotional intelligence (so for those obsessive compulsive personalities who only focus on substance vs. style, please have at me), I’ve come up with something that makes more sense emotionally to me and I think will to others.
Essentially, Hillary Clinton does not “feel” like a CEO or someone that a lot of people would like to listen to for 4-8 years. It’s not her fault that she comes across too much like a primed-to-scold mother with her hands on her hips about to sternly say: “So why did you do that?” In fact I've heard that in a private relaxed setting and one on one she is quite warm and authentic (dare I say Al Gore who had the same reputation). However in public upon which the stage a President spends more of their time and where they are judged, she comes off more opinionated and insistent which too easily triggers a defensiveness or feeling that you’ve done something wrong even when you didn't. It’s like driving past a policeman in a car and feeling like you’ve broken the law when you haven’t.
It’s not just a female thing either. In the minds of most people, Carly Fiorina and Martha Stewart have similar “primed to be strident” public personalities, Meg Whitman does not.
Barack Obama on the other hand comes off as having strong opinions and being passionate which is easier to listen to. Bill Clinton had that quality (which is being eroded into as we sadly see a “darker” side of his personality showing through too frequently).
In my prior blog I thought Clinton as President, Obama as V.P. was the way to go. Currently, I have reversed that. The reason being that Obama feels more expansive and visionary and will be viewed more like an exuberant CEO and someone who will play better on the world stage both to other countries and to youth around the world (think Tony Blair and now Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Bill Clinton '92), Hillary Clinton feels more "baby boomer refusing to go gently into that good night," more focused on the details and pedantic the way you’d expect a COO to be. On the world stage, people would rather listen to a CEO than a COO.
If the best interests of this country could take precedence over ego and politics (which cynics and realists will say is not a “big” if, but an “impossible” if) Obama as President, Clinton as Vice President with Bill as Secretary of State and the “global market” facing presence to the world that continue to find him charming and inspiring would get my vote.
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