Walking the Halls

Today was the last day of one of the classes I'm teaching. During the time where the students fill out the teacher evaluation forms, I left the room and walked the halls a little. While meandering around, I overheard this girl talking on her cell phone make the following statement.

"...that's when I changed my major to Sociology. Then my advisor said I was too smart for that and I should switch to Psychology..."

To the normal person, that might sound like typical girl talk, or even a girl explaining to her parents why she has switched majors twice this semester. However, to me I took it as a great opportunity to make myself feel better about myself.

You see, my wife, who is way smarter than I ever could be and had a much higher GPA than I ever dreamed of, majored in Sociology. I, on the other hand, majored in Psychology (business too). So, I now have definitive proof that the reason my GPA wasn't as good as my wife's wasn't because she was smarter than I was, but rather because my major was a much harder major. Ahhh - my self-esteem has risen 2% thanks to some ditsy girl in the hallway.

Dealing With Difficult Personalities

I spoke last week to a group on dealing with difficult personalities. I'm not sure if they chose me for that topic because I'm a difficult personality or because I'm good at doing it. But in either case, I thought I'd share my notes.

Dealing with difficult personalities (DP) is an art form. There is never one consistent way it can be done. In math 2+2 always equals 4, but with personalities, sometimes 2+2=4, and sometimes 1+1+2=4, while other times it's 1+3=4.

The first thing you have to learn about DP's is an understanding of general concepts and applied knowledge. You won't be learning a formula that is always the same. You'll be learning some general concepts and then how to apply knowledge from one situation to another.

The second thing you have to learn is that a person with a DP is not someone that is broken or wrong, they simply don't fit in with the majority of opinions or personalities in your small group acting the way they presently do. This is caused primarily by 3 situations - cultural differences, personal insecurities and/or inner turmoil. Understanding what the source of the problem is will help overcome the problems caused by the DP.

The final thing to learn is a basic understanding of how individuals form small groups where these DP's become a problem. There are 4 steps to the creation of a small groups. First proposed by Bruce Tuckman, the stages are:

1. Forming - people get together, meet and create the group
2. Storming - people voice personal ideas and opinions and push the limits of the group
3. Norming - people set the boundaries and establish norms
4. Performing - the group begins to function effectively
   

Understanding this process will help place an importance on effectively dealing with the DP earlier instead of later. If you wait weeks to deal with a problem, the group stays in limbo between Storing and Norming and never reaches Performing, which makes for a frustrating and ineffective group. By handling the problem earlier, the group can quickly move to the Performing stage, which is the desired result.

Now with a basic understanding and some background, here are the 3 steps to dealing with difficult personalities.

Establish and understand why there is a problem:

1. cultural - they don't understand what is socially acceptable
2. insecurity - they feel insecure and it causes them to react socially unacceptable
3. inner turmoil - they are going through a rough time in their life which has modified their normally socially acceptable behavior.
   Do this by perception and assumption or research by asking them directly.

Formulate a plan:

1. immediate - done to the group when something potentially harmful to the others in the group has been said or done. This brings an immediate correction to the individual. It has the potential to be harmful so it must be handled correctly and with care.
2. private - used for most issues - This method respects their self esteem and personal security.
3. public - if it has a general application that everyone in the group can benefit from if a generic correction is made. This doesn't involve singling the DP out, but addresses the entire group with a corporate issue.

Execute the plan:

1. Always keep their self-esteem a top priority
2. Always keep the performance of the group the very top priority. More important than the individual is the group. Don't let the group take second place to the individual. This empowers the individual to continue to cause problems.
3. Ask yourself, "How will this plan effect the individual / the group?" Think of all of the potential outcomes and prepare for the worst of them. If the worst doesn't happen, then things are better than expected.
4. Make notes to yourself before confronting. In confrontation, the person being confronted will often want to distract you from your original points, which causes you to be ineffective. Making notes makes your actions deliberate and keeps you on track.
5. Preface your comments with anticipated objections so you diffuse responses. Giving disclaimers doesn't weaken your position. Instead it provides assurance to them on the front side of things and helps lay the ground work to overcome any misunderstandings. By saying "I don't want you to think we don't like you, but here is the problem..." You have reduced the potential for the individual to become hostile because they are feeling attacked. You have just reassured them that you like them, which implies you wouldn't attack them.
6. Always reassure them in the end - Restate all of your prefaces again to remind them everything is going to be okay. Something like "I don't know if that came out right, but I want to assure you again that we like you we just don't want this problem anymore."

Remember these things:

• If your stuck - ask for help - find someone who can independently provide insight into the problem.
• Difficult personalities are the leaf, not the root of the problem. Try to get to the root.
• Dealing with people is an art form. Always look for the best way to solve this problem and don't just repeat what worked last time.
• You can eliminate most problems by setting the expectations for the group in the forming stage. Then when a problem arises, you can refer to the ground rules of the group.

Twisted, Demented and Warped

Losing the focus of business in the summer months, I thought I'd share some personal insight. Be careful though, what you see might frighten you.

My personality has been called many things: twisted, demented and warped are a few of the endearments I get from family members. Part of this is deserved because I tend to think half a click off sometimes.

One thing I recently admitted was that I hate being deceived. This is true for most of us, but what makes me twisted is that I get great satisfaction from deceiving others. I don't like maliciously deceiving others, but I love it when I can bluff my hand in pinochle, or lead someone on who is not gullible, and make buy my story long enough for me to drop the punchline and tease them. For example, in my previous life as a pastor, we had a bunch of people over to our house for dinner. The conversation turned to how old we all were when we married. I said we were 19 and 20 years old. I could feel the line go taught as they nibbled the bait as I saw the surprise that we were so young, so I followed that up with the statement by setting the hook and saying, "Well we had to get married so young because she was pregnant."

The look on their faces was priceless as they were all trying to figure out how they could escape this incredibly awkward situation of their pastor admitting this so candidly after they had so openly shown surprise that I was so young when I married. Twisted - maybe, but I still laugh when I think about the look on their face. So now you understand what I mean by deception.

I think I get this joy from the feeling of superior intellect that I get in that one situation. Somehow it makes me feel like I got the upper hand over them and I've established myself as the better trickster. As a result of this, I hate being deceived in the same way. Where certain people can't stand to loose, I can't stand to be deceived. I hate surprise birthday parties and other such things.

This all come to the surface again when I was recently reminded of a time when I was deceived for nine months by a previous employer. I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning analyzing events that occurred years ago and wondering where I missed the signs and how I could have been deceived for so long. To this day it still bugs me.

So there you have it. A look into the mind of a person with a twisted, demented and warped personality.

A Nervous Leader

Tonight is a big night for me. I've been nervous about tonight for several weeks and I can honestly feel the butterflies right now. Normally I'm calm, cool and collected, even in the face of the storm, but I just can't quite get this under control.

At 8:00PM I'm going to make my debut as a coach and pitcher for our softball team and I'm not sure I'm up for it.

Believing that my past has created who I am today, I've been carefully analyzing my history of softball and have come up with 2 distinct possibilities as to why I'm a nervous wreck.

1. The very first time I played, I subbed in on a friend's team in college. Standing in right field, the first ball of the game sailed over my head for a triple because I didn't judge the depth right. The next inning I played catcher and then was benched for good.

2. The first time I played a whole season, I was back in Tulsa and our pitcher walked 3 out of every 4 batters. As a result, our average loss (which was every game in the season) would be something like 4 to 25. It was a horrible and frustrating experience for everyone. Shannon and Adam were on that team and can tell you how bad it was.

So, whatever the reason, I've got to overcome the jitters and WIN WIN WIN tonight... or at least not walk more than one batter an inning. I'm setting a reasonable goal for myself.

Wondering how my leadership ability as a coach might be jeopardized by my nervousness, I read this article by Pamela Thomas-Graham, CEO of CNBC and was reassured that it's okay to sweat a little in front of my team.

She said "You have to break a sweat so they understand at an emotional level what's really at stake."

I'm hoping she's right.

Encouraging Words

I just got an email from a friend, Lynne Rosiak who is a life coach. I've always enjoyed our conversations and her words of encouragement were kind and thought provoking.

Like most common sense things, if you really stop and think about them you knew it anyway, but it was the act of stopping and thinking that you hadn't done until someone brought it to your attention.

Her email had the following quote from Ralph Marston in it. I hope it gets you to stop and think about this common sense realization in your life and causes you to look at your life and see where you can improve.

Everything in your life has an influence and an interaction with everything else. Make an improvement in one area of your life, and many other areas will benefit. Everything in your world is interconnected. Create value in one place, and that value casts its light in additional places as well. Your positive thoughts and actions often have immediate and direct results. They also have indirect results that can continue far beyond the obvious. A small kindness offered to just one person can end up benefiting countless others. The love you give will always, in ways that you may never even realize, come back to you. Success and fulfillment do not occur in isolation. You'll receive no great benefit from being positive about only a few things if you take a negative approach in other areas. Instead, focus all your awareness and intention in a positive, fulfilling direction. Then, all the many connections will organize in such a way as to move you quickly forward.

Overcoming Stress In My Life

Several months ago at Panera Bread, I had a great conversation with a young business owner about the possiblity of putting together some kind of trade show for small businesses. That conversation ended up turning into a two day conference which is going to be held this Friday and Saturday at the local Sheritan hotel, include 18 seminars, 2 lunches, exhibitor booths, key note speakers during lunch both days and a partridge in a pear tree.

On one hand I'm beyond excited because it's the first major event that I've been a part of at this level in the area, but on the other hand it's down right terrifying. Thoughts like, "What if no one shows up?" or "What if one of my instructors doesn't show up?" have plagued my mind for the last two days.

So earlier today, I pulled out my favorite stress reducing tactic to ease the mental pain and asked myself these questions.

1. What is the worst case scenario?
2. If worst case becomes reality, can I live with it?
3. What can I do to prevent worst case from happening?

I don't remember where I developed that tactic from, but I imagine it's some kind of hybrid blend of all the slef-help books I used to read. It doesn't matter too much where I got it, becaue it still works. Since answering my questions I realized it's all good and I've been extremely produtive and had less stress since then.

So, if you find yourself stressed about any thing at all, give my questions a try.

Big Stress - Insignificant Product

3 years ago I fought to avoid getting a cell phone. I didn't need one and thought they were a vain display of how important people thought they were by insisting people needed instant access to them at any given time. Today, I carry two cell phones at all times. One of which has my calendar and email on it. I guess I'm a little hypocritical.

Increasing my vanity, I suddenly felt the urge to get a custom ring tone. Why? Well my brother in law got a new one which inspired my wife to get a new one, which made me feel like I should get one. Again with the vanity, I know.

Deciding on a ring tone has got to be one of the most difficult things to do in the world. The pressure and stress of identifying your life with a song that plays for maybe 10 seconds for the whole world to hear is just too much. It's that same feeling that you get when you are trying to come up with a good user name for an email account.

I finally decided to find a song that I would use only when my wife calls me. It had to be something good, so I settled on Hall & Oates' "Kiss on my list", but it wasn't available for download. So, I thought I'd get real funny and go with George Michael's "I want your sex", but better judgement stopped that pretty quick. Nothing seemed to do justice to what I wanted, so I sat up until 1:00 this morning stressing and searching Google for the right song. AAHHHH!!!

My conclusion is this, buying a stupid $1.99 ring tone should not be this involved and the company behind it all should come up with some way to make the process easier to help the victims like me maintain a certain level of vanity while lowering my stress. So, if anyone comes across a great tool, like an Internet quiz that helps associate the most appropriate ring tone for people, please pass it on. PLEASE!

Peppermints Improve Test Scores

Bad breath is a huge turn off. It gives an instant impression that someone doesn't care for personal hygiene. However according to this article, "those with halitosis are blissfully unaware of their condition" while "people convinced they suffer from bad breath actually have odor-free mouths". Certainly there is some kind of psychological reason for all of this. Perhaps those without bad breath have noticed someone with horrible breath that is unaware that they have bad breath and as a result become paranoid that they might have bad breath and be unaware of it too.

Regardless, there is a new movement not only to increase the rate of fresh breath, but to increase test scores as well. At first glance, and even second and third glance it seems to be a bit of a stretch, but according to this article by the Washington Post, there seems to be something to it.

Now whether or not there is some magical power in the smell and taste of peppermint is yet to be determined. It may be attributable to the Hawthorne Effect, where people knowing that they are being observed perform better. Even if they are being observed under poorer conditions their performance would improve.

Regardless of the reason, the benefit is better performance and better smelling breath. It sounds like a win-win to me. I only wish this informatoin would have been out during my school days. I had a few teachers that had terrible breath and loved to get real close when they talked. BLEEGCHH!

My Brief Bout of Performance Anxiety

As I mentioned earlier, I am writing a column for our local business journal. Two and a half years ago, I started writing this blog with mixed intentions, but the reason leading the way has been to improve my writing skills. So after a couple of years of practice I felt up to the challenge and jumped at the chance when asked.

However, I didn't realize how insecure I was about my writing ability until I went to click "send" on the email with my article attached. I felt like that junior-high kid ringing the doorbell to take his date to the first school dance. Fortunately the editor wasn't as intimidating as Mrs. Klien was and I got good feedback from him.

Trying to self diagnose and treat my nervousness about this, I naively googled "Performance Anxiety" thinking I must have anxiety about this whole situation and temporarily forgetting that performance anxiety is more closely related with another problem... Uh... so, moving on...

So, I found an article written by a musician of all things, that talks about performance anxiety from the standpoint of getting up on stage and performing, and not from that other perspective. Not an exact match to what I was doing, but a lot closer than the alternative results Google gave me. Here are his six steps to overcoming performance anxiety.

1. You have practiced to the best of your ability
2. Don't judge what just happened, or is about to happen
3. Don't second guess any one's reaction
4. Be the performer, not the observer
5. Before performing, focus on only the one most important thing
6. Enjoy it

So if you're on your way to a public speech, performance or whatever causes you stress, keep these in mind. It thought it was pretty good advice.

Phantom Cell Phone Vibrations: It could be mental

I don't know how many times in a day I feel my right hip or left pant pocket to see if that sensation is my phone vibrating. I always knew somewhere in the back of my mind that I couldn't be the only one to have experienced this sensation and though the article is a little dated, it still proves my point. I'm not losing my mind.

The Columbia News Service reported that Phantom Cell phone Vibrations, or PCV's are quite common among cell phone users in their article, Who's calling? Is it your leg or your cell phone?

According to the article, there hasn't been any scientific research done to determine the cause, but the common thread among theories seems to be a psychological cause where we desire so much to be connected, or just want the phone to ring with important information that our mind actually tricks our body into feeling the vibrations we associate with these desires being fulfilled.

Personally, being the conspiracy theorist that I am, I'm quite sure that the frequency in which the phone transmits information is detectable by our bodies. After wearing a cell phone for a period of time our bodies begin to automatically respond to the frequency of an incoming call and we then subconsciously associate any similar frequency our body detects with a soon to be vibrating phone.

In reality, the government, probably the NSA, is conducting tests to determine the body's ability to detect such frequencies and will soon be imbedding microchips in our bodies via the flu vaccine so they can obtain mind control over the American population.

What's really sad is I wrote all that conspiracy theory stuff, then googled for mind control and came up with that site which already has the same theory. I'm not sure whether to be afraid that my theory could be true, or to be scared that I'm actually beginning to think like the crazies out there.

Be ware - If your leg starts vibrating, start looking up for stealth helicopters to come swooping in to capture you for more mind control experiments. Is that my phone or yours vibrating? Trust no one!