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THE FIRST TWO INDIVIDUAL SKILLS: BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF AND TRUE TO OTHERS

Being True to Yourself means understanding your values, goals, and emotions. But that’s just the starting point. Beyond being aware of your values, it means living in accord with them. Beyond having goals, it means figuring out how to achieve them. Beyond merely being aware of your emotions, it means managing them.

The following tips are for clarifying your values and goals, and managing your emotions.

GETTING IN TOUCH WITH YOUR VALUES

Step 1: Who are the people you most admire? They might be alive or dead, or people you know personally or through your reading. What do you admire about them? What values do they live by? Which of their values do you most relate to? Take a moment to list those values.

Next, ask yourself: What’s important to me in life? What words describe the values by which I live, or would like to? Add those words to your list.

Examples of values that might be important to you include: authenticity, achievement, autonomy, balance, career, caring, collaboration, connection, creativity, equality, family, fitness, generosity, hard work, health, helping others, honesty, integrity, learning, leadership, punctuality, prosperity, reliability, religion, spirituality, strength, success, tradition, wisdom.

Step 2: You should now have a profile of the values that matter to you. If there are more than 10, narrow them down. Why is each one important? Use those reasons to shorten the list.

Step 3: Now prioritize your list of values. Which one is most important to you? Which comes next? This prioritization process is important because there are times when some values may conflict with each other. When that happens, you need to know which is most important.

For example, two of your values might be family and career success. Both of these values could involve significant investments of time. Because time is limited for most of us, there may be times when you need to choose one over the other. How will you do that? If you thought this conflict of values through ahead of time, you might be more likely to select the value that leaves you feeling most contented.

Step 4: Once you have your prioritized list, keep it handy. Use it as a reminder to think about your values and whether you are living in harmony with them. You might even task yourself with thinking about your values every day (for instance, while you are commuting to or from work).¹

SETTING YOUR GOALS

There are many reasons to set goals. One of the best, in my opinion, is that having goals is empowering. My work with both leaders and employees verifies what Brian Tracy and other experts have found: Achieving goals is one of the best ways to build your self-esteem.

Goals also help you prioritize the things that are most important to you over momentary pleasures. This is particularly important at work. Reminding yourself of your bigger goals can help you avoid doing things that are harmful. For instance, if you remember that your bigger goal is becoming a leader, it may help you find a more appropriate way of expressing your feelings than yelling at someone when you’re upset.

SMART is a well-known acronym designed to help people create effective goals. By considering all of these five areas, you can craft goals that are more useful to you.

   “S” stands for specific. Articulate your goal in enough detail. Ask yourself why and where is this goal relevant? Include that in the wording of your goal.

   “M” represents measurable. Include an element in your goal that enables you to determine your progress toward it and know when you have reached it.

   “A” denotes attainable. Set goals that are a stretch but not beyond your ability. If you create impossible goals, you may be tempted to give up. If too many of your goals are easily achievable then you may find the goal-setting process of little value.

   “R” signifies realistic. A goal is realistic if you are both willing and able to pursue it. You either have the skills to achieve the goal now or know that you can build the knowledge you need.

   “T” means etimely. When do you want to accomplish this goal? Insert a date that will give you incentive to achieve that goal within a time period that’s relevant to you.

The following tips can help you finalize and achieve your goals once you’ve created them.

   Do you have hidden goals related to any of your stated goals? If you have a hidden goal that you also want to achieve in addition to the voiced one, then create an additional goal. If your hidden goal is the real one, then replace your original one. If your hidden goal is not in your best interest, let go of it. For instance, imagine that you set a goal to earn your MBA by June 2020, but your real goal is to attain the position of vice president in your company. Because all of the current VPs have MBAs you made the assumption that getting one is a prerequisite for being considered for a VP position. Have you talked with company leadership to verify that? If not, you may have set the wrong goal when it comes to achieving your real goal of becoming a VP.

   State your goal in positive terms. Focus on what you want to achieve rather than what you want to move away from. Positive goals that move us toward something we want are more inspiring than negative goals.

   Visualize yourself achieving this goal. Remind yourself of how it will feel when you are successful.

   Determine what you need to do to achieve the goal. Create an action plan. What steps will you take and when? Who else might you need to involve? Include those actions on your daily calendar. Consider these commitments every bit as important as others that you make.

USING EMOTIONS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

In the wise words of Ambrose Bierce, “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”²

Being able to use our e-motional energy appropriately starts with being aware of our emotions as they happen. Recognizing that we have emotions coursing through us is a crucial first step. Once we realize we are having an emotional reaction, the next step is to figure out what we are feeling and why.

IDENTIFYING YOUR EMOTIONS

Research shows that only a third of us can identify our emotions as they are happening. The rest of us can’t.³ If we are unaware of what we are experiencing then we can’t manage it. The good news is that we can learn. We can build our emotional intelligence and use our emotions to benefit us. What follows is a practical approach for identifying and understanding your emotions as they occur. (This process emphasizes negative emotions because most of us don’t need assistance in recognizing or dealing with positive emotions.)

1. Recognize that you are feeling negatively about something. Notice that you are having a reaction, that you have e-motional energy coursing through you. This means that you need to become aware of what is happening.
2. Identify your feelings. Ask yourself what you are experiencing. Are you having a physical reaction? Are your shoulder muscles tight? Do you have a knot in your stomach? Now figure out what you are feeling. Are you confused, angry, disappointed, or hurt? It might take some time before you are proficient at naming your feelings quickly and accurately. Stick with it. It gets easier with practice.
3. Take a moment to explore what you’re feeling. It’s best if you can find a quiet spot to focus inward for a few moments. That is often hard to do while you are interacting with others. It is much easier if you can take a brief time-out to figure out what is going on, and decide what you want to do about it.

4.  Calm down. When trying to understand what we’re feeling, the tendency is to throw ourselves further into those feelings. However, when we are still deeply engrossed in them, it’s difficult to gain perspective and examine our feelings neutrally. They tend to control us rather than us managing them. Once your emotions are no longer in control of you, you can manage them. So take a brief break from your reaction. Think about something positive until you feel yourself calming down. For some it’s thinking about a loved one, for others it may be a beloved pet.

Now that you are aware of your emotions, the next step is gaining control over them.

MANAGING YOUR EMOTIONS

The inability to manage our emotions can hurt us, especially when we’re dealing with other people. The way we behave when we’re not in control can lead others to stop trusting us and can blind us to seeing their ideas. I was impressed to hear what one of the Silicon Valley leaders had to say on this topic: “There’s always an external excuse for why things happen to me. We are removing those excuses and looking at ourselves as empowered people who can and do impact what happens around us.”

Self-management means we are aware of our reactions and can handle our emotional responses. It means being thoughtful about whether or not to express our feelings to others, and how to do it appropriately if we decide to share them. It also means figuring out how to release those emotions in a useful way if it is not appropriate to express them directly.

A lot of us are more comfortable exploring what we think than what we feel. If you are one of those people, this is a great time to realize that exploring your feelings as carefully as you do your thoughts can provide you great benefits.

The following four steps offer a process for how to manage your emotions.

1.  Determine the spark that triggered your reaction. What caused it? What was said or done? How was it said? What about it bothered you? Was it the content? Or the tone of voice?

2.  Expand your interpretation. Think about that incident that sparked your reaction. If it was the person’s tone of voice, what did you infer from it? If it was the content of what was said, what assumptions did you make that caused your reaction?

3.  Take actions. What actions can you take to diffuse your e-motional energy effectively?

4.  Pause to congratulate yourself. You’ve done a great job of self-coaching. You’ve used your reactions to help you be more effective, rather than leaving them to bubble up inappropriately.

By engaging in this process consistently, you not only resolve the current issue, you also raise your EQ. It forms new “grooves” in your brain that lead you to behave in these new ways moving forward.

THE TAKE AWAY

Being aware of your values and your goals, and acting in accord with them as much as you can, will bring you contentment both in work and in your personal life. The same is true for increasing awareness of your emotions and your ability to manage them. Being True to Yourself in these ways will help you work better with others.

The tools involved in this first skill of Being True to Yourself are for you to apply personally (compared to some of the other skills in which team or company practices play an important role). That said, it’s easier to have a commitment to develop ourselves if the company culture fosters it. You can assist your company in fostering a culture that helps employees Be True to Themselves. Talk to your manager and tell him or her what a difference it makes when management encourages such growth.

One Silicon Valley leader told me this about her workplace: “I’ve worked for this company for many years. Every step of the way, from one group to another, there has always been space for me to learn to be better. Not because people thought I was deficient, but to grow personally and professionally. This company encourages and allows us to stretch and learn and grow.”

TIPS FOR BEING TRUE TO OTHERS

In some workplaces, reaching out to help others seems foreign. People cannot conceive of how or why they would do this. In contrast, in the workplace cultures I studied while formulating the Silicon Valley Approach to Collaboration, people can’t conceive of not supporting others.

When we understand the value of connecting with others we act differently. One of the Silicon Valley leaders I spoke with stressed that “we need a safe environment where people feel free to express their opinions. We need to be able to ask any question. And we need to feel we are all accountable. That we own the results together.”

In this kind of culture, blamestorming is replaced with brainstorming.

Another Silicon Valley leader put it this way: “If you are competitive, hoarding, and not helping others, your coworkers see you as selfish. Most of these people eventually select out and choose to leave our company.” That’s one of the aspects of Silicon Valley firms’ cultures. They encourage trust, respect, and sharing so strongly that people who don’t share these values usually feel that there is a mismatch and leave.

HOW TO CONNECT WITH OTHERS

Some simple behaviors can help you be more conscious of others and create connections with them. They include:

   Consciously build bonds. The weaker the connection we have with others, the harder it is to work effectively with them. When we build respectful relationships, it strengthens our ability to work together. It isn’t hard to do.

   Prepare ourselves to listen as consciously as we prepare to speak. Most of us see the value in organizing our thoughts before we speak. It helps us be more logical. Very few of us take the time to prepare ourselves to listen. It is just as important and results in a positive difference when we do.

   Listen for possibilities. Some of us believe we add the most value by criticizing what others have just said. We listening reactively with the intent of finding the flaws. Instead, what if you decided to listen proactively for the possibilities? Many conversations would be quite different.

   Speak in ways that encourage others to listen. Phrase things in ways that intrigue others and engage their curiosity rather than putting them on the defense. Saying, “Your idea won’t work because of X,” is likely to shut down the conversation or encourage the other person to argue. Instead, you might say, “You have a point with your idea to move in Y direction. If ‘X’ were to happen, how would we deal with that?”

   Remember that emotions play a part in every discussion. If we become more aware of our own and other people’s feelings, we start seeing what is going on beneath the surface. If we ignore those feelings, they may seep out in unproductive ways.

   Seek value from every relationship, especially the challenging ones.

Commenting on the commitment employees make to connect with others, one Silicon Valley leader mused: “Employees working together is like going to church every day even though you are not a saint. Democracy isn’t about [only] voting every two or four years. Individuals here have that kind of commitment to the team and the company. We’re willing to work with others on an ongoing basis, even when it’s hard.”

INQUIRY BEFORE ADVOCACY

The connections that we work hard to create with coworkers can be strengthened or weakened depending on how we act when we are working together. If we value the views of others, then we need to show it.

Two tools that most of us use in group interactions are inquiry and advocacy. We use inquiry for exploring topics and gathering information. We advocate for certain ideas over others when we are ready to narrow our thinking and make decisions. Both of these tools can enhance connections between coworkers or hurt those connections. How we use these skills determines whether we strengthen or weaken the connections that we worked hard to create.

Say you are a member of a new project team. The agenda for today’s meeting is to talk about what’s needed going forward. Based on your previous experience, you believe the team needs senior management support, more resources, and clearer expectations. The facilitator introduces the topic of the meeting and asks people to share their thoughts.

You have a choice to make: You could jump in and advocate for these three items, doing your best to convince others that there’s no need to brainstorm further, or you could give others a chance to speak first and see what emerges.

We often prematurely jump to advocating our views, but doing that can defeat the goal of having an open dialogue to fill gaps in knowledge. Others may have worthy ideas regarding project needs in addition to your three. If you jump to advocacy, those other ideas may not emerge. Generally, inquiry is most effective when it precedes advocacy. This gives good ideas a chance to come to light before participants narrow their perspective and advocate for certain solutions. With the understanding that inquiry should come first, let’s focus on the best ways to use this tool.

EFFECTIVE INQUIRY

   Introduce the topic with enough detail. Ensure that attendees are clear about the goals and the scope of the discussion. What will success look like? What are the criteria that will tell you when you have succeeded? One of the goals of inquiry is to expand the group’s knowledge about the topic.

   Encourage participants who have something to contribute to share their views. Take time to understand and explore the perspectives that seem to hold the most promise.

   Establish a norm of sharing reasons and assumptions behind points of view, and assessing whether they hold true for this situation.

   Ask questions that encourage participants to think more deeply and share new ideas. A variety of activities can help you do this. For instance, you can construct an analogy to turn the conversation in a certain direction or brainstorm similarities between seemingly disparate objects to help attendees see connections between several work topics.

   Clarify what has been said to avoid misunderstandings or differing interpretations.

   Before you close the conversation, ensure that participants have what they need and are ready to move to next steps.

Once you are certain that you have accomplished your goals for the inquiry, you can now move to the next step, which is often narrowing your options to the best ones.

SUCCESSFUL ADVOCACY

   Set the parameters of this portion of the meeting, outlining the goals and how the group will know when they have been reached. One of the goals of advocacy is usually to narrow options down to an appropriate number.

   Next, attendees should compare the options, telling the group which idea they believe is best and why. They should back their opinions with evidence, and disclose any assumptions they have made. (A process that you can use to compare options will be offered in Chapter 7.) It’s particularly helpful if the speaker can reveal new thinking or insights that were not entirely obvious to the group.

   The group should actively seek disconfirming evidence for the options that are rising as the most feasible. Look for conflicting information that may reveal weaknesses of which you were previously unaware. If you can’t find any it may mean that you have done a thorough job in your considerations, or it may mean you haven’t dug deep enough. Wouldn’t you rather find and consider those factors now than let them cause your project to fail?

   Remember that the goal is not only to reach the best idea for this project but also for the company.

   It’s crucial to remember that the advocacy process doesn’t give you license to simply push your view and expect others to agree. You need to convince others with facts. Present the logic and assumptions you are making and let the discussion take its course. If your position is strong enough it should prevail.