The following is a guest post by Marlene Chism.

Drama in the form of negativity happens for many reasons and not just because of personalities, or because of women bickering and gossiping at the water cooler. Often negativity exists because the structures currently in place do not support the massive changes taking place in the business. In other words the business is growing and changing and there is a need for increased structure to support and manage the change.

Yet another reason for negativity is due to our natural and biological response to change. The brain craves certainty, and when you feel uncertain, the almond shaped structure in the brain called the amygdala releases chemicals into the blood stream that you experience as fear, anxiety and doubt.

What leaders often forget is that employees feel the most uncertainty because they are the last to hear about the changes, and they had very little, if any, input regarding how to implement and navigate through the upcoming changes.

Leaders constantly tell employees to “embrace change” when the very changes they ask them to embrace are changes that threaten their sense of security or well being, at least from their perspective.

Providing consistency while navigating change can improve workplace relationships, increase trust and reduce negativity. Here are four ways to reduce drama by increasing consistency. Click here to continue reading »”4 Ways To Reduce Workplace Negativity By Increasing Consistency”

One of the common themes I’ve written about on my blog is the key role focus plays in our ability to be successful. But how many of us are actually focusing on what we want to accomplish, as opposed to focusing more on the things we’re trying to avoid? That’s the premise behind the book “Seeing Red Cars – Driving Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization to a Positive Future” by Laura Goodrich.

Goodrich starts her book examining why 70% of the thoughts we have on any given day revolve around issues we’re trying to avoid or things we don’t want. Referring to findings from the fields of psychology and neuroscience, she points out that this tendency toward an avoidance focus is the result of two factors. The first being the social conditioning we received growing up, where well-intentioned parents and teachers taught us not to do certain things out of fear of a negative outcome (“Be careful! You might fall and hurt yourself!”, “If you don’t study this well, you won’t pass this test”), not to mention the common tendency to feel we’re undeserving or incapable of achieving certain goals.

The second factor behind our tendency to focus on avoiding things or situations is our real-life experiences where we encounter something negative or traumatic, leading us to focus on ensuring we don’t do anything that might lead us to a similar situation again.

This doesn’t mean that we have to remain a hostage to our past and not elevate ourselves to a point where we can be more proactive instead of apprehensive in our efforts. After all, recent studies Click here to continue reading »”Coffee House Book Review – “Seeing Red Cars” By Laura Goodrich”

The following is a guest post by author and speaker Steven Smith. Voted as one of the top 100 business thought-leaders in the United States, Steve’s work has been adopted by several universities to help students gain a better understanding of how the business world really operates. His ideas and writings have lead him to work with a number of organizations including American Express, Microsoft, Disney, State Farm, and Hard Rock Cafe.

He’s the co-author of the book “egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability)” and he’s currently at work on his third book called “Us: Why we matters more than me and how to bridge the gaps between us”. Next Monday, he will be presenting a workshop at G5 Leadership called “Listen Up, Speak Up – How to tackle tough topics”, where he’ll discuss, among other things, the challenges in giving and receiving feedback, which is the subject of his guest piece here on my blog. Steve will also be giving an interpersonal communication workshop on the G5 Leadership website in August called “Pure Confidence”.

Thanks to the team at G5 Leadership, I will be giving away a number of FREE one-year memberships to G5 Leadership so you can attend these upcoming workshops by Steve as well as those given by other leadership speakers. To learn more about this contest I’m holding, check out my special message at the end of Steve’s post.

We’ve all been in the meeting where almost everything is said, except what needs to be spoken most, and everyone is painfully aware of the impact the unspoken words will have.

When the chance to speak up is there, it slips by, untaken, because of emotions like fear, anxiety, frustration, anger and distrust. We stare in the distance, wait for someone else, look away or hope what needs to be said disappears, and our anxiety with it.

Intellectually we’re committed to saying what’s on our mind, but emotionally we get intimidated or distracted long enough that the moment passes, and with it the truth that could help the most.

After the meeting we walk to the water cooler, where we take on the elephant that was in the room, directly. Why is it that the water cooler (real or hypothetical) seems to be the place where people are most honest? Click here to continue reading »”Bringing Water-Cooler Honesty to the Act of Giving and Receiving Feedback”

A few days ago, I decided to change a photograph that’s been on display for the last several years in one of the picture frames which currently grace my desk. The photograph was a picture I had taken of my girls several years ago on one of those days from summer which we tend to look back on fondly through a soft-focus lens. Of course, in the time since that photograph was taken, my girls have grown up and it seemed overdue for this photograph be replaced by a more recent memory of our time together.

Although the act of replacing this photograph was fairly mundane, I still found myself being much more aware of this picture frame’s presence on my desk. Naturally, my first assumption was that this was simply a result of the new image staring out at me from that frame. However, what I realized was that this greater sense of awareness regarding this picture frame on my desk had less to do with the image itself and more to do with the fact that it had changed from something familiar and consistent, to something new and different.

What’s also interesting is how Click here to continue reading »”Taking Another Look at Leadership and Change”