The Superhero Manager in All of Us

In a recent blog we posed the question – What makes top performers tick? The quick answer was good skills, talent and hard work. But more important is tapping in to the energy of a positive attitude and the belief that your thoughts and words have the power to create your reality. This is not fluff; for the most successful leaders, this is a hard won practice. Who knew self-development was a debatable subject with some suggesting, “Spend some time in the real world”?

With the gauntlet thrown, we accept the challenge to spend time in the real world – the real world of superheroes that is! Ask someone who their favorite superhero is and you’ll get the answer and an earful on the special talents they admire and, truth be told, they secretly desire.

A friend favors Storm from the X-Men where creating monsoon rains, blizzard squalls, tornadoes, tsunamis and cosmic tempests to disrupt the electromagnetism of the world are just a few of her powers. Call me old school, but I’m still partial to Wonder Woman, though her arsenal of tools like the Lasso of Truth, indestructible bracelets, and tiara that serves as a projectile seems to pale by comparison to Storm’s ability to call on cosmic disruption. What does all this have to do with being a better manager, you ask?

What Storm and Wonder Woman have in common is self-identity with no limiting beliefs, no boundaries. Superpowers are one thing, but their ability to unlock the potential within through sheer strength of will and attitude is what makes them truly powerful. Superheroes own the differences that make them unique, and they wield them in a way that actually creates their self-brand.

I was drawn to the recent book by Gotham and Deepak Chopra, “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes” when thinking about attitude, energy and our limitless possibilities. The authors correctly point out that superheroes have “broken free from their comic book pages and become a dynamic aspect of the culture at large. Superheroes explore the boundaries of energy and awareness and allow us to better understand ourselves and our potential.”

In the pages of great comic-book stories, the superheroes are aware that they have within them real power and energy to choose and create any outcome.

•    Superman stands for achieving the impossible
•    The Green Lantern is the man with no fear
•    Batman makes the right choices to deal with tragedies

Becoming a superhero is achievable in all of us:

• Know that for every challenge, their solution is to go inward
• Scan the whole range of possibilities– big and small
• Are independent of the good and bad opinions of others
• Never give in to self-importance
• Are always aligned with the greater good
• Focus on the process, not the outcome
• Are an exquisite combination of dynamic action and stillness of mind
• Are the best listeners in the world

Superheroes rise to the level of the solution in the face of daily challenges, transforming obstacles in to opportunities; and so can we.

Believe in yourself and your abilities. You have the power to create your own reality.

Attitude, energy, limitless possibilities!

Debra Koenig, President of B2A Consulting | 30 years of experience as a  business executive with leadership and consulting skills in Fortune 500 and private equity portfolio companies.

Hey Managers…Can You Embrace Failure?

With the upcoming election we are bombarded with campaign commercials.  Over the past couple of decades election campaigns have turned negative.  Candidates love to tell everyone about what is wrong with the candidate they are running against. They are very specific about what they believe their opponent has done wrong and where they failed.  They also tell you about all the great things they are going to do, but they are rarely very specific about what that will be.  They never talk about their own failures.

Some people are motivated more by fear than positive results.  Obviously, the very smart people who run these election campaigns have learned that we don’t like failure and have little tolerance for it.  What is interesting is that most of the greatest people in history have experienced significant failures.  Many people who have experienced great financial wealth went bankrupt at one time in their life.  Some of the names you might recognize are Henry Ford, Walt Disney, P.T. Barnum, Mick Fleetwood and Abraham Lincoln.   There is also a very impressive list of people who did not go bankrupt but have been fired from their job.  These people include Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Seinfeld, Madonna, Bill Belichick and Lee Lacocca.  Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, never believed in failure in the negative sense.  Instead, it was an event allowing him to get one step closer to achieving success.  The book Adapt, by Tim Harford, makes a compelling case backed by countless facts for why risk, failure, and experimentation are necessary to find great ideas.

Over the years I have worked with many people and have found that a majority of them truly fear failing.  I have also seen where Managers have little tolerance for people who fail when they were willing to take a risk.  The reality for most people is you have to fail many times before you actually achieve success.  I think the problem is how people define failure. Watch a kid who is just learning how to walk.  They pick themselves up and then they fall down.  They pick themselves up and then they fall down, again and again, undeterred.  Each time they fall down, did they fail?  I don’t think so.  I think they are learning.  They are learning more than to walk, they are learning to strive to be better. Personally, I have to agree with Thomas Edison.  There is no such thing as failure.

With that said there are two important points to consider:

1.    As a manager, you need to give people the opportunity to fail.  When they have a problem, which they will, you need to evaluate how they respond when something goes wrong , not the failure itself.
2.    You cannot be afraid to fail.  Again, what is important is how you react when things go awry. Do you step up and try to figure out how to make it work or do you blame other people, circumstances, etc?

“I never thought of losing, but now that it’s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.” Muhammad Ali

In conclusion, don’t be the politician. Instead, embrace failure. Tolerate failure with your employees and become extremely successfully from everything you learn when things do not work out the first time around.

By, Greg Thiesen, President and CEO, Red Book Solutions and B2A – Over 30 years of experience in various areas – President and CEO of  Red Book Solutions and B2A, Turnaround Specialist with Doering and Eastwood, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Information Officer for a major division of Conagra, Inc. and Senior Manager and a Certified Public Accountant with Ernst and Young.

Beat the Happiness Lottery

“Have a great day, Love Ya!” Sound familiar?  I bet this is the most common ending to many a telephone call with family. I use it so often I sometimes forget I am talking to a colleague instead of a family member and add “Love Ya” to the end of my telephone call. Oops!

But doesn’t everyone start their day expecting it to be great? Apparently not!
According to The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt we know that:

•    We are born with a biological predisposition, or brain set-point, for happiness
•    Life has a lot of happiness potholes
•    Happiness doesn’t just come from within

The obvious question – in the cortical lottery, what if your set-point dictates below average happiness? Good News! You are not doomed to be unhappy. You can take action to make yourself happier.

Diagnose Yourself
‘Authentic Happiness’ is the homepage of Dr. Martin Seligman’s website, Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Go to www.authentichappiness.org to develop insights into yourself and the world around you through scientifically tested questionnaires.  Were you born to be an optimist or are you going to have to work at it?

Improve Your Mental Hygiene
Are you one of those folks who obsess over things? You don’t seem to have a quiet mind? Not us managers! Did you score low on the various happiness and optimism measures?  Cognitive therapy, exercise and meditation will all help to change your thoughts to the positive – or at least stop you from ruminating.

 Improve Your Relatedness
Jonathan Haidt’s research showed that we need others to be happy. “We were made for love, friendships and family, and when we spend a lot of time alone, or free ourselves from the “constraints” of relationships; it is generally bad for us.” This also applies to our relationships with our employees.

He suggests:
•    Ask yourself the “deathbed” question: On your deathbed, will you wish you had spent more time at the office, or with your friends and family?
•    Work on your most valued relationships. Just emailing them doesn’t count!
•    Create a group of friends who does things together.
•    If you don’t have a dog, and you are not getting your recommended daily allowance of relatedness, get one.

Improve Your Work
Most of us don’t have the luxury of choosing “the” perfect job. But we can all take steps to make it more satisfying and ourselves more appreciative and happy while doing it. Is your work just a job, a career, or a calling?

•    If it is just a paycheck, re-frame it in your own mind
•    Take your top 5 strengths and use at least one every day on the job for personal gratification and self-improvement

Improve Your Connection to Something Beyond Yourself
Our lives are made fuller as a contributing member of a larger community
•    Consider joining an organization that allows your participation to have purpose.
•    Volunteer with work that takes you out of yourself and makes you feel vital.

I love the statement “Wherever You Go, There You Are” coined by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He says we have to stop constantly wishing we were somewhere else. Do you ever think that if you were on vacation, in a different job or had different circumstances, that somehow you would be happier?  I do sometimes.

Not true. We have to focus on being in the present – trying new things, meeting new people, being more peaceful with what we have right now to truly be happier.

You know that happiness and meaning come from getting the relationship right between yourself and others, yourself and your work, and yourself and something larger than yourself.  Work at it and the benefits will be smiles and a contented nature all the time. Imagine what that would feel like!

By Debra Koenig, President of B2A Consulting | 30 years of experience as a business executive with leadership and consulting skills in Fortune 500 and private equity portfolio companies.