What is the Cost of Lost Integrity?

Posted by

Editor on March 8, 2018

What is the Cost of Lost Integrity?

March 5, 2018/0 Comments/in Authentic Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Resilience /by Maureen Metcalf

This blog is a is a guest post and companion to the interview with Ken Wylie, Founder of Mountains for Growth on VoiceAmerica “Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations” on January 2, 2018 Buried in an Avalanche, Finding Deeper Meaning in Failure.

Last week I was instructing one of my rock climbing courses to a group of students on Quadra Island just east of Campbell River BC. The rain kept us undercover for the better part of a couple of days. When the students were done with learning technical systems we changed gears and challenged them with the classic “Spiders web” problem. The task is to pass your entire group through the web without anyone touching and alerting the “spider” of your presence. The web in this case was a matrix of cords tied together to simulate a human sized web. With all of the safety rules in place, like. . .”no diving through the web,” my co instructor, Graeme White presented a final challenge to the students when he said, “Your job is to self police yourselves and monitor your own performance around touching the web.” The students enthusiastically accepted the task.

It was a difficult web and the students began to feel like the task was impossible to get everyone to the other side. At one point, with two thirds of the crew through the web, one of them touched and had to be sent back to the starting side to be passed through again. The challenge was that only one person saw the web being touched. Every other member of the group of 8 thought it was a clean pass. I could see the individual, who had called the team out, begin to squirm but he held fast to his truth. Then one of the participants said, “He is lying” in a desperate effort to have the group succeed. “But why would he lie about something like that? I queried.

I remember being a young climber and lying about a greater success on a climb than I had actually achieved. Wanting so badly to be a person who was perceived as being a success I fabricated a story. I carried that lie for years at great personal cost. What is it about getting through by any means possible that is so alluring? Why is our integrity so easily scrapped for false achievement?

Recently I was at the Volkswagon repair shop and I said to the mechanic something about the recent challenges the company was going through as “cheating”. He said, “I don’t see it that way.” I asked, “How do you see it?” He replied, “We send students to university where the culture is to do what is necessary to get the best grade possible. Then we put them to work where they need to solve problems and they do what is necessary to solve the challenge at hand. We have taught the members of our society to win and it is not seen as cheating.” I nodded thinking that it is a cultural construct rather than ill will. But it is still dishonest if it is not something we can be transparent about.

The problem is that when we cash in our integrity for false achievement we exchange something profound. Self love. It is impossible to love ourselves if we are not honest because we are not in line with our best self. We all look in the mirror every morning and if we have been impeccably honest, we like who we see reflected back at us.

The dictionary’s first definition of integrity is about being honest and having strong moral principles. The second definition is the state of being whole and undivided. I think one leads to the other. If we are honest, we become whole. Being whole is the best success in such a fragmented world.

To become a more innovative leader, please consider our online leader development program. For additional tools, we recommend taking leadership assessments, using the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook and Innovative Leaders Guide to Transforming Organizations, and adding coaching to our online innovative leadership program. We also offer several workshops to help you build these skills.

About the Author:

Ken Wylie has been on faculty at the University of Calgary, Mount Royal University and Thompson Rivers University in Canada in adventure-based academic programs. Ken founded Mountains for Growth in 2013 to help individuals and groups gain personal insight and wisdom through their mountain adventures. Ken has developed the concept of “Adventure Literacy”® based on the idea that adventure is always presenting information to us, our job is to listen and harvest lessons.

Ken holds a bachelor of physical education (Outdoor Pursuits), is a member of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations, and the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides and is the author of “Buried” 2014, which is about his path navigating through tragedy.

BS in Business: Why Biological Blindspots Matter in Business

Posted by

Editor on November 29, 2017

Business

This blog is a companion to an interview with Rebecca Heiss on Voice America airing on November 28, 2017, What You Don’t See Can Hurt You focusing on implicit bias! This blog was written by Rebecca Heiss.

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is, “what do biological blind spots and bias have to do with business?” In other words, “why should I care if I’m subconsciously a bit biased like everyone else?”

The short answer is that without awareness of your blind spots, you could be undermining your performance as well as the performance of your colleagues. When people first think about implicit bias, most default to a discussion around skin color, but your biological blind spots go far beyond black and white (and all of the other skin variations we leave out of the discussion).

Your brain has a pre-programmed bias for race, gender, age, class, thinking style… you name it! Whatever the bias, your brain has categorized it and made associations that “fit,” based upon an archaic formula that still primes you to crave fats and sugars despite the insane abundance in the modern environment.

Our stone-aged brain and the biases it subconsciously creates which drive our behaviors is, to put it mildly, out of touch.

The result is that your team suffers from these micro-level inter-company level competitions ultimately hurting your ability to compete where you want to – on the bigger market. The worst part is, your team (and you personally) won’t even recognize that you are doing it.

Aside from team efficacy, productivity and collaborative efforts, one of the biggest risks to business is homogeneity. While the ability to create a homogeneous product may be beneficial, a lack of diversity on the team doing the creating can be hugely detrimental to the health and sustainability of a business.

I like to make an analogy to the stability of an environment based on biodiversity. If you as a company are established like Ireland in 1845 and only have a single crop, you’ve made yourself extraordinarily vulnerable to any blind spot, or disease, wiping you off the face of the map. To avoid mass starvation in your company, plant some other crops. New perspectives.

Obviously, diversity can produce an influx of new ideas and approaches to problems, but more interesting to me is that the mere presence of a diverse work team creates an air of discomfort. Our brains were programmed to be happy with our ingroups – people who looked, acted, behaved and were essentially carbon copies of us. When you put people together who don’t fit that mold, our brains get….well….nervous.

Uncomfortable.

Low level discomfort like this actually promotes better problem solving as tensions are discussed openly. A recent study demonstrates that homogeneous groups, are more confident in their decisions, even though they are more often wrong in their conclusions, while a diverse group’s members will feel less confident despite being more accurate in their conclusions.

Confirmation bias and squelching of new ideas in homogeneous groups produces a false “feel-good we are all in this together” perspective that can render disastrous outcomes.

FEELING GOOD IN BUSINESS IS OVERRATED.

Just like working out the muscles in our body, having those uncomfortable discussions that hurt our brains a bit is the only way we grow and the only we can can start to uncover our own BS.

About the Author

Dr. Rebecca Heiss is an expert in human behavior and physiology and the founder/ CEO of a measurable stress reduction company, Instinctive Cognition. Working in the speaking and consulting industry Rebecca has developed a passion for helping others overcome blind spots to become their best biological selves. After earning a PhD with research designated as “transformative” by the National Science Foundation, Rebecca went on to hold multiple appointments in academia, applying her research to solve practical problems in overcoming what she refers to as “biological ghosts”—subconscious behaviors that haunt modern life. Described as a creative thought leader, she was honored to deliver a TEDx on a portion of her work and has built her career on helping others break through their evolutionary ethical “blind spots.” Having conquered the business of biology, Dr. Heiss has turned her focus to revolutionizing the biology of business.

Strengthening Thinking as a Mechanism to Building Resilience By Maureen Metcalf

Posted by

Editor on August 24, 2017

Business

Strengthening Thinking as a Mechanism to Building Resilience By Maureen Metcalf

This blog post is the companion to a VoiceAmerica interview with Mark Palmer and Belinda Gore, Building Resilience, A Key Foundation For Change aired August 22, 2017.

As the person who curates this blog, I try to balance sharing the work of our radio show guests and other thought leaders with my own opinions. This is one of the weeks where I am sharing my own opinion as it relates to current affairs and the need for resilience.

During the past week, the United States has seen the escalation of threats with North Korea about the use of nuclear weapons and civil unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia, associated with race and hate. Many of us are trying to find a balanced path to respond to what is happening on the global stage, national stage, local stage, and in our own personal lives. Who we are at our core can really shine through during times of challenge when we take care of ourselves first.

I realize this message is a bit counter to cultural beliefs. Most of us were cautioned against selfishness. We were taught to believe that it connotes self-centeredness, and that anything “selfish” is wrong. Yet, having a sense of self and knowing when and how to care for yourself is the antithesis of being selfish. If we don’t care for our-selves, there is no way that we can care for others. I think of the inflight announcements on planes: In the event of an emergency, please put your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” As leaders, we need to attend to our own resilience foundation so we can respond to our environment on a consistent basis in a manner that is consistent with our values.

Let’s do a small exercise, think about a time you pushed yourself to meet a deadline. It may have meant you didn’t get sufficient sleep. You may have been caffeine powered, or maybe augmented by your favorite sugar source (chocolate for me). Can you recall a time you did this and responded to someone more harshly than usual? Did you need to do damage control later? I have an example of one of these incidents early in my career. I wrote an apology note to my boss for harsh words delivered at 3 a.m. while trying to get a project completed and out the door. I left that company and was hired back two years later.

My new boss handed me my personnel file and my former boss had saved the note. That event lived on in my “file.” While I think it was more a source of banter, it was not my best professional moment.

We all have these moments of stress-related responses. The challenge for all of us, especially in an environment where civility seems to be in short supply in some circles, is to find our own path to sustain our own sense of balance so that we can be the source of civility when it is lacking in our environment. It is during these times that leadership is most critical.

1. Take care of your physical well-being. We know insufficient sleep and a poor diet take a toll on us. Do your best to draw boundaries that will allow you to recharge. I do walking meetings when possible so that I can get some physical activity and sunlight during the work day.

2. Manage your thinking. This one is critical. Research tells us five minutes of negative thinking causes six hours of negative physiological impact on our bodies. I am a strong proponent of mindfulness, just staying aware of what I am thinking and reframing so I can see the positive in challenging situations. I also do scenario planning in which I look at the worst case and plan accordingly; then I feel free to move back to the positive opportunities

I want to create in the world. I use the recordings of Gary Weber and Maryanna Klatt as a strong foundation for how I manage my thinking. I have a daily reflection practice that helps me regroup when life feels challenging.

3. Develop emotional intelligence and a sense of purpose. Emotional intelligence is grounded in our ability to manage our own emotions and respond appropriately to others. For me one of the biggest keys to managing my emotions is to build a routine that allows me to be aware of my emotions and the impact they are having on me. This was one of my weaknesses. I was happy to avoid feeling things and, yet, those feelings still impacted my behavior. When I was unaware of them, the impact could be a negative one (see the earlier reference of the need to apologize to my boss). If we can maintain awareness and metabolize emotions appropriately, we can return our focus to the activities of leading. I don’t mean find better ways to ignore them, I mean working through emotions in a healthy way. For people who will dismiss this as “touchy feely” – don’t discount the impact this skill can have on your ability to stay focused in a positive manner. The other part of this step is to have a sense of purpose that is bigger than yourself and take daily steps toward that purpose—most of them will be small but significant steps.

4. Build a strong support system. Having a network of caring relationships is invaluable. For some people, the network may be one or two. For others, relationships really do look like a web. There is no formula—what is important is that we have at least one honest and authentic relationship and an outlet to support us. Just knowing and feeling the support of others on the days when everything seems wrong is invaluable. Pets are also a great connection and really are a source of unconditional love.

I would like to close this post with a quote that I got by e-mail today from www.gratefulness.org. Part of my resilience practice is to have a regular “diet” of positive information in my life.

“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” —Barack Obama

So, my invitation to everyone reading this is to do something today that supports your resilience. Doing good for others helps build our own sense of well-being and counterbalances the negativity that we all occasionally and circumstantially face.

To become a more innovative leader, please consider our online leader development program. For additional tools, we recommend taking leadership assessments, using the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook and Innovative Leaders Guide to Transforming Organizations, and adding coaching to our online innovative leadership program. We also offer several workshops to help you build these skills.

About the author Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Metcalf & Associates, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful strategies for profitability, growth, and sustainability.

Responding to a Smear Campaign By Maureen Metcalf

Posted by

Editor on March 29, 2017

Business

Responding to a Smear Campaign By Maureen Metcalf

In an era where people can make assertions about an organization or individual on social media, the topic of brand and reputation has become critical for organizational leaders. While these assertions may be untrue, damage to reputation is real. As the political rhetoric escalates, many companies are concerned. An example of this escalation is when the president of the United States tweeted about Nordstrom’s choice of clothing lines and specifically objected to the choice to terminate the Ivanka Trump line because of sales performance. Companies are now bracing for this type of attack with the same rigor with which they prepare for other business risks.
This blog is part of a series of blogs as companions to the interview with Barbara Marx Hubbard and Dr. Marc Gafni on VoiceAmerica “Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations” on March 21, 2017 focusing on navigating a smear campaign they experienced, respectively, as the board co-chair and the founder of the Center of Integral Wisdom. What emerged was a much more hopeful conversation. They are modeling the behaviors they teach as they confront this challenge, and are working to leverage what would for others be a crippling crisis and share the culture of collaboration and unique contribution to a conscious world. They are talking about an evolution of our culture!
It isn’t always possible to anticipate the range of risks that face an organization, yet prudent business leaders evaluate likely scenarios and create policies and procedures aligned with the probability of the scenario and the risk it poses to the organization. When looking at the risk of a smear campaign, the following are three basic elements that organizations must attend to and an example of how the Center for Integral Wisdom (CIW) responded:

1. Plan your legal response. It is important to have legal counsel who have expertise in this area. They to advise you on your rights, as well as actions you must avoid.

CIW retained legal counsel and discussed the range of responses from how they approached those who started the campaign to considering the liability of directors and officers. It was critical to evaluate if employees or board members were engaged in any actual wrong-doing so that financial and legal liability could be assessed.

2. Public relations response. Companies specialize in helping organizations respond to crisiswhen information has been hacked and whose products have been tainted. Now, many of these companies have expanded to advise on possible and actual smear campaigns.
CIW worked very actively to craft a deliberate message that started with 50 messages of support for the CEO (Marc) and for the organization. Over time, the board co-chair (Barbara Marx Hubbard) posted a thorough accounting of the situation as seen from her role on the board. CIW also acted by removing the names of board members from the website to protect them from attacks because there were coordinated public attacks on a broad range of stakeholders from board members to the publisher of Marc’s books.

During this time, Marc and other board members began writing publicly about the smear campaign to help raise awareness of this risk across the community. They wanted to use their experience to educate others. As a think tank, they looked for opportunities to turn this attack into an educational opportunity for the broader community. Marc wrote about being wrongly accused. Numerous articles, such as those written by Lisa Engles, ”How Fake News is Used to Undermine a Leader” and Clint Fuhs, “Anatomy of A Smear: Internet Trial of Marc Gafni”, are great examples.

3. Employee support and internal communications. Employees are often shocked and in some cases angry or betrayed when their organizations are attacked. It is important that they are given support in managing their personal emotional response (crisis intervention) and are given talking points to respond to family and friends in conversation. Your employees are your first line of defense and they need to feel cared for and come together to support one another and protect the organization so it can continue to meet its mission during difficult times.

CIW, at its core, is a spiritual organization as well as a think tank. Marc is a rabbi. While this barrage of public attacks was personal and ugly, Marc was surrounded by a group of people who believed in him as a person and as a leader. While some distanced themselves, others stepped forward. He took time for personal introspection and renewal. He talked to his board and his staff about his mistakes and about how he was leveraging this opportunity to make a stand for treating everyone with respect and decency. To be clear, Marc like all humans has faults, yet these accusations were false. They were also personal and should have been handled privately between Marc and those who felt wronged.

I had several personal take-aways from this experience. As I make these recommendations, it would be hypocritical of me to do so without saying I have fallen short in each area and have put myself at risk.

1. We all make mistakes (some certainly more public than others). The quality of the person is demonstrated by his or her response when mistakes are made public.

2. It is important to strive to live a life that is above reproach. The adage, “Would you be okay if this action showed up on the cover of the newspaper for your family to read?” is always something to consider.

3. Restore the balance. We all have misunderstandings and it is important to find a path forward to restore a semblance of civility as quickly as possible. Again, I realize this is completely aspirational and I have gone for extended periods of time with little to no communication with people who are very important to me while I worked on my own issues related to the relationship.

4. Extend grace and compassion to others that we would like to receive if we were in their shoes. I can say from my experiences, I have made mistakes I am embarrassed by and I grew from all of them. I moved forward largely because people who cared about me forgave me and supported me despite my fallibility. I can also say that people close to me have held me accountable for cleaning up my messes. Extending compassion and grace doesn’t imply there are no consequences—rather, it means working together to fix what was damaged.

As leaders, we find ourselves navigating an increasingly complex world. We do our best to balance competing commitments and satisfy as many people as possible; however, most of us fall short on occasion. It is what we learn from the process that enables us to grow and help others grow.

About the Author

Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Metcalf & Associates, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful strategies for profitability, growth, and sustainability.

Maureen has published several papers and articles and speaks regularly on innovative leadership, resilience, and organizational transformation. She is the author of the award-winning Innovative Leadership Workbook series and the co-author of the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook, winner of an International Book Award for Best Business Reference Book. She is also a regular contributor to Forbes.com.

Please note: I will only approve comments on this post that are constructive in nature. I will not perpetuate negativity and smearing behavior. While we promote different perspectives, they must be framed in a manner that promotes solutions to challenges and not framed as personal attacks damaging people involved in the process.

More Here!

How Do We Cope With Hate Crimes? Three Considerations by Dr. Suzanne B. Phillips

Posted by

Editor on June 17, 2016

Variety

How Do We Cope With Hate Crimes? Three Considerations by Dr. Suzanne B. Phillips

A road sign against Hate

Hate crimes like the massacre that killed and injured so many in Orlando, Florida are further fueled by terrorism and are meant to instill fear and helplessness. They impact everyone, particularly those who have suffered, those who identify with them and those who love and respect them. At the worst, hate crimes isolate, denigrate, fuel more hate and steal hope. This blog proposes that Compassion, Connection and Hope serve to reduce the loss, isolation, terror, and despair.

Learn More

The Gift of Resilience by Cynthia Brian

Posted by

Editor on May 3, 2016

Resilience

Posted by

Editor on June 3, 2015

Empowerment

This week on ‘Today’s Inspiring Women‘ we have two women who will share how to be resilient. To be resilient you need to be strong and flexible with the ability to recover. Our first guest is Marti MacGibbon whose life story is like a Hollywood thriller, Â and comedy all rolled into one. She has bounced back from being trafficked to Tokyo and held by Japanese crime figures. She escaped but it left her traumatized, homeless and on drugs. Today Marti shares her sure fire tips on how to overcome adversity and change your life. Â Our second guest is Dr Princess Fumi Hancock who is an African Princess. Princess Fumi was being groomed to carry on the royal tradition however she had other dreams of being a book author and movie screenwriter. She has won an Oscar and written over 11 books, 4 have become best sellers. Princess Fumi will share how to find and ignite your inner genius. She will also be sharing how to fight the inner demons of doubt and negative thought. Two great women- a powerful show not to miss.

Kombucha, Maya Angelou, Mediation, Bouncing Back By Cynthia Brian

Posted by

Editor on May 29, 2014

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FEELING GOOD IN BUSINESS IS OVERRATED.

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