Me Tarzan, You Jane

Posted on April 2, 2009 Written by Leave a Comment

One of my favorite cartoons about anxiety is the Gary Larsen cartoon showing Tarzan preparing to meet Jane. It’s a 6-panel cartoon and the first 4 panels show Tarzan practicing in front of a mirror. He strikes various poses and rehearses his opening line:

“Hello Jane, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, my name is Tarzan.” “Hi Jane, I’m Tarzan, your date for the evening.” “Tarzan here, you must be Jane.”

In the fifth panel, we see Tarzan swinging through the jungle. In the last panel, he is face-to-face with Jane and blurts: “Me Tarzan. You Jane.”

Anxiety trumps skill

Tarzan has the skills – we’ve just seen him practicing them. Yet, in the moment, he can’t access them. What’s up? Anxiety. It’s not possible to lose a skill you have. It is possible to lose access to it through inattention, or through grinching up. These are two sides of the same coin:

Anxiety. Just a little bit of it can leave us as tongue-tied as Tarzan. A moment of inattention, a frisson of tension, and Tarzan loses the benefit of all his careful preparation.

It happens to all of us. I was talking to a guitar-playing friend the other day, someone who – when relaxed – can play song after song from his considerable repertoire with an infectious ease. It’s as though they are baked into his bones. He was telling me about buying a guitar from another guitarist whose playing he admired so much he felt a little intimidated. “He handed me the guitar and said ‘Here you go – play as long as you like.’ and my brain froze. I couldn’t think of a thing to play.” Anxiety trumps skill and years of experience.

On the other side of the coin, there’s me and bowling. I’ve been bowling maybe 20 times in my life, most of that with a group of developmentally disabled women who bowled by pushing a ball down a ramp. We went bowling every other week for the 4 months I worked with them. They loved going with me because I always lost, usually by about 20 points. They’d dance around and give each other high fives after I took a turn. The other day, I went bowling with some friends and had to force myself to focus enough so I wasn’t putting the kids in the next lane at risk. I had no idea a bowling ball could bounce like that, right out of the gutter.

Finding our balance

I think there’s a sweet spot: a place between not caring enough and over-caring, between accepting responsibility for my part and taking responsibility for what can’t be controlled. Over time, I’ve noticed that I sometimes avoid the over-caring by deciding to not care at all. Or pretending not to care. Or, I back away from being over-responsible by closing down: missing deadlines, not showing up. Either is a dangerous trend, and both are due to anxiety. When we are anxious, we over-prepare. Problem is, the tension we feel causes to practice the tension and anxiety we feel rather than the skill we need. That’s when it’s time to step away from the powerpoint and take a walk. Finding the balance between what’s up to us and what is beyond us is a work in progress. Nowhere is this more evident than in managing a group of people any one of which can be caught in a cycle of under-functioning or over-functioning due to anxiety. Either pole can be come a lifestyle if the underlying anxiety isn’t addressed.

Our anxious response

Training is often our response when someone doesn’t show a skill we want them to. We send people to training, they learn the skill, then they come back to work. Nothing changes. Why? Anxiety is often to blame: Theirs for not using a skill they have, and ours for thinking training will solve the problem. Let’s face it: Sometimes training is what we do when we want the problem to go away. It’s a kind of interpersonal Hail Mary play. Here’s the acid test: If you put a gun to their head, could they do it? If yes, they have the skill. That’s not what’s getting in their way. It may be anxiety that’s stopping them. Maybe they care too little, Maybe they care too much. Either way, it’s worth exploring.

I wonder – what would it be like if we could see the world this way? What if we could see the person who snaps at us, or treats us badly as anxious rather than mean or incompetent. What if we could see them as caring deeply about something and because of that trapped passion, being unable to perform in this moment? What if we could see it as situational – a bad moment, even a lifetime of bad moments – rather than personality or character-based? How would we respond if we could see through the acts we all adopt to the people within, wanting to do their baes and sometimes succeeding and other times failing. What if people say us that way? True or not, wouldn’t it be a more helpful pov?

Filed Under: power

Follow your ignorance

Posted on March 27, 2009 Written by 3 Comments

Lately, I’ve been watching people in their lives, noticing the difference between those who are successful and happy, and those who are less so. It looks to me like the more successful ones have learned to surf their anxiety better. Not that they are more talented, or smarter – they are simply more able to show up every day and learn from their mistakes, which they court rather than try to avoid. They manage to keep inching forward, a little more each day. Perhaps this is what Woody Allen meant when he said “90% of success is just showing up.” Or Edison when he said “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

Just yesterday, I was talking to local luthier, Kenny Hill. We were in his shop where he was working on a copy of a 1856 Torres classical guitar. He was telling me about his process, and how the historical copies he made taught him the principles he used in his modern, experimental line of guitars. To make a long story short, he viewed the whole thing as one continuous mistake: he tried things and then, if he liked them, he tried to sell them. If they sold, he turned the design over the his assistants and they made them in bigger quantities. Sometimes he’d put a guitar away for months or years, thinking it was a lost cause only to take it off the shelf and be surprised by what was there. The whole process seemed to bemuse him, which fascinated me, because his guitars are highly prized by classical guitarists all over the world.

It got me to thinking about the things we show up for at work everyday: The tasks, the mission, the people. And about how all of them can lose their luster over time due to boredom or frustration. It’s painful to invest ourselves in something or someone and not get what we worked so hard for. So, like Kenny with a guitar that isn’t working, we put it away for awhile and focus our attention elsewhere. Kenny comes back to his “failed” guitars with curiosity and the soul of an inventor: what can I learn? Edgar Schein calls this “accessing your ignorance” and considers it a cornerstone of effective consulting.

That got me thinking about how we stop showing up. How we decide the guitar, the person, the situation is a failure, and not worth further attention, and leave it on the shelf. The key seems to being willing to change our preconceptions and learn to approach our guitars – the situation or the people in our lives – differently.  To approach from the perspective of what I don’t know, rather than all I’m certain of through previous painful experience.  To let go of my wounded – and wounding – certainty.

I used to joke about combining these two quotes, “Follow your bliss” and “Ignorance is bliss,” saying if both are true, then following your ignorance must be surest path to bliss.

Well, yeah.

________________________

Add your voice to the conversation.

Filed Under: consulting skills, power

Either/Or vs. Both/And

Posted on February 19, 2009 Written by Leave a Comment

Bowen family systems theory has colonized my thoughts for the last couple of months. Psychiatrist Murray Bowen spent his career creating a more scientific framework for psychology. His framework is radically different from what I’ve been used to, and is causing a fair amount of soul-searching on my part. I’m finding this journey riveting.

Bowen theory (the short version)

In a nutshell, Bowen believes that all groups – families, teams, organizations – form systems based on the anxiety that arises when choosing between our ‘self’ and belonging to the group. We pass this anxiety around like a cold: Someone is always infected. In Bowen’s view, our role in this system determines our behavior more than our personal characteristics. Unless and until I’m willing to stop reacting to that underlying anxiety and choose a response that takes everybody’s needs into account – mine included. In this view, autocratic behavior is just another word for anxiety. Always being the one to stay late and do something for a client or the team is too.

What to do about it (in general)

In his approach, you stay connected with everyone in the system and maintain your own integrity. It’s not either-or, it’s both-and. You don’t join others at your expense and you don’t take your marbles and go home. This is not the comfortable choice. It’s more like a crucible out of which comes maturity and growth, not just for you, but for the whole system. But it’s not you righteously modeling a behavior you want others to adopt – it’s you choosing your path and sticking with it while staying connected and available to others, despite the flack they are giving you. You listen, and you connect, and you decide what to do about what others are telling you. This requires thoughtfulness and commitment without shutting others out. Bowen calls this differentiation.

An Example

The best example I can think of is having someone edit your writing. It’s your writing – you are the author. It’s your voice, your point of view, your self-expression. You are the final decision-maker. The editor gives you her opinion, often quite forcefully. As you take it in, you are beset with many thoughts: This editor is an idiot, she doesn’t get me at all. Or: This editor is an expert, I’d better do exactly what she says or my piece won’t be any good. With experience, you know that a good night’s sleep will allow a third voice to enter the conversation in your head: Some of these suggestions are great, even though they’ll require re-working entire sections. Some of them seem picayune, so I’ll ignore them, and other seem over-zealous, and appear to miss my point. I’ve got to talk those over with her.

Bowen’s theory explains so much of what I see in myself and in my clients. And it explains it in a way that doesn’t fence anyone in, which is why I love it. Trouble is, I don’t yet know how to apply it. That’s the tricky thing about theory: No user manual. So, into the lab we go. Let the experiments begin.

What to do about it (the specifics)

Decisions are anxiety-laden. Even simple decisions get complicated by the underlying emotional process that glues us together. It goes like this: I think the decision is mine alone to make and you think I should have consulted you. The leaders I coach often find themselves in this dilemma. They want to build a team, and they want to control the decisions for which they are held responsible. It looks unsolvable, and to some extent it is. By that I mean it’s a dilemma that never goes away. There is no one-size-fits-all approach which means you have to think your way through each decision. Analyze it to see which parts involve others and which are your alone. When we are reactive and wanting primarily to reduce our anxiety, we get this wrong.

Each decision has two aspects: What’s mine alone to decide, and what involves someone else. If I slow my automatic reaction down and go step-by-step, this distinction pops out. When I react automatically, I miss it. They key is to refuse to choose between them and me.

I’ll give you a universal example: A client wants the impossible, and right now. I want to go home on time and have dinner with my friends and play music. On the surface my evening looks doomed. I seem to have been presented with an either or decision: either I do what the client wants, or I have my evening. It’s that self vs. other dilemma. If the client is senior to me, I know what I have to do, at least that’s what our anxious mind says. Or, I may be so angry at these requests and the sacrifices I’ve made to honor them, that I simply say no.

The third way

Virginia Satir, another pioneer in the systems approach to groups, advised her students to never leave their clients with only two choices. She advocated te power of the third way, believing the third option is what took a client out of reactivity and into authentic choice.

The third option in the above situation stands a much better chance of satisfying each of you. Here’s one way it might sound: “I’ve got a dilemma: You want me to stay late tonight to work on this and I have plans I cherish and want to keep. How can we both get what we want?” Your job in the ensuing conversation is to refuse to choose between your needs and their needs. Do not settle for less than meeting both of your needs. This requires you to immunize yourself against their anxiety and increase your tolerance for discomfort – theirs and yours. The pay-off is a stronger relationship with your client, a better solution to the current dilemma, and the delicious surge of energy that comes from standing up to anxiety.

I’m very curious to know what you think about this. What’s your experience with the third way? And, because I’m writing on a topic I’m still digesting, I wonder if I’m making sense. I welcome your feedback.

For those of you who receive this by email, here’s a link to the blog post so you can leave a comment. Scroll down a little to the comment box.

Filed Under: consulting skills, power

Getting Unstuck

Posted on October 20, 2008 Written by Leave a Comment

First came the desire. After the desire came the giddy excitement. After the excitement came the clear goals. After the goals, the false starts. After the false starts, the shame. After the shame came the mean voices. After the mean voices, terror descends like a visit from the dysfunctional family you moved across the country to avoid. Their voices reverberate through the house, explaining in detail why every idea you’ve ever had cannot work. Your excitement evaporates, the desire begins to seem like a weakness or a character flaw. The garage that’s been a mess for 17 years becomes the most important task on earth: You must clean it, now. The exciting project can wait. The oscillation has set in: excitement, fear, distraction, shame, self-criticism; Repeat. It’s exhausting to stay in one place. We are built for movement, no matter what your Uncle Harry whispers to your Aunt Agnes as they roll their eyes and smirk.

This is the cycle I see in my clients. The project they start, humbly, in the small corner of the organization that is theirs somehow becomes the center of the universe, and a threat to its orderly existence. So, they stop cold, disappointing those who had been relying on their leadership.

This is the cycle I experience myself, never more than this year when I declared that I would publish.

It does seem that the bolder and more clear the goal, the more fierce is the resistance to it. Thing is, resistance is merely a sign of anxiety, and anxiety is like sweat: A by-product. It’s not feedback. It’s not a warning of dire consequences to come. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong or you should stop. It means you’re doing it. That’s all. Anxiety is the by-product of change like sweat is the by-product of exercise. And, just like sweat, you brush anxiety out of your eyes and keep going.

If you pause for too long, you’ll start to believe the voices you hear. If you linger longer, what the voices whisper will become the truth of your experience. Uncle Harry and Aunt Agnes will nod in that knowing, irritating way they have.

Instead, find a way to keep moving toward your desire, like one of these:

1. Pick a smaller goal, a tiny, insignificant first step. I want to write, right? I know that when I set that intention, the ideas start popping up at the most inconvenient times. So my first tiny step was to make sure I had post-it notes and a pen everywhere I might need them: in the car, in the bathroom, next to the bed, in my gym bag. A tiny step, so easy to do, it engenders no resistance.

2. Resolve to do it badly. Really badly. Epically, catastrophically badly. Like the grammar of those last 2 sentences. Annie Lamott encourages her students to write a “shitty first draft.” Years ago I read about a group of friends who got together weekly for “bad art night.” Their goal was to have fun creating. Their one rule was that anyone who got into turning their art piece into a thing of quality had to immediately “wreck” it.

3. Get help. When your mind is like a rat wheel, going over and over the same info but getting nowhere, it’s time to get help. Talk to someone. Think out loud. Find a forum online and post an inquiry. Hire someone to help you. I was struggling with a vexing pellet stove problem that had gone on for 2 years. No one I talked to could help me. I read, posted to forums, brooded and froze all last winter without heat. The other day, I was talking to a neighbor and he suggested the approach I’ll be trying next week.  Now, instead of avoiding the topic because it seemed so insurmountable, I’m excited and energized.

4. Pick much larger goal, one that shocks all mean voices to silence. No, bigger than that. Really, it should crack you up with it’s audacity. If it’s crazy enough, it will make you smile inside. It’s important that you have no idea how to accomplish it.

5. Take a walk. If I don’t sweat profusely at least 4 times a week, I’m overrun with stress. In order to move forward toward my goals, I’ve got to be spending myself physically. It gives me energy and it shows me how inexhaustible my source is. It orders my thoughts too.

6. Do something you’ve always wanted to do, but were afraid to. Maybe it seems frivolous, or you could never be a person who does that, or you can’t possibly learn it. Then do it. Sometimes, the nasty voices become so involved with saving you from that crazy endeavor, it’s easier to evade them on other topics.

I still remember buying my first tambourine. I’d fallen in love with the middle eastern style of playing and gone to a workshop to try it out. I became so besotted I bought a professional quality, beginner’s tambourine for $75.00. All through the long drive home, I heard my mother’s voice saying “75 dollars for a TAMBOURINE?” For some reason, this cracked me up and I talked and joked with that voice all the way home. Years later when I bought a tambourine costing 10 times that much, mom’s voice in my head had nothing more to add.

Filed Under: getting it done, power

Leadership Haikus – Fear

Posted on October 12, 2008 Written by Leave a Comment

When the going gets tough, I write haiku. Personal haiku, political haiku, random haiku – I find it soothing to take something overwhelming and pack up all its punch in only 17 syllables. This week, I’ve been seeing the effects of fear everywhere I look, including the mirror. These 6 haiku are as much for me as for my clients and friends. Hope you enjoy them.

#1

Go forward or go back?

Stay?  Start, stop, start, stop. Afraid.

That’s no way to lead.

#2

Start strong, keep going.

Shadows follow, never lead.

They cannot catch you.

#3

Gossip, distance, blame.

Do too much, don’t do enough.

Anxiety sucks.

#4

Tired? Stuck? It’s fear.

Quick:  Get up!  Energy comes

from movement, not thought.

#5

Deadline: Hurry up!

Key points I miss, rushing past,

Bite me later. Ouch.

#6

Push, shout, threaten,

Justified in times like these!

Counterproductive.

Filed Under: power

Need a quick break? Imagine space.

Posted on October 28, 2007 Written by Leave a Comment

Some friends and I were watching the wildcam at Pete’s Pond in the Mashatu Game Reserve the other evening, not really expecting to see any wildlife as it was high noon in Botswana, which is not a time the animals come to the pond to drink. So, we were especially delighted when camera zoomed in on a lone jackal. This jackal was standing at the water’s edge trembling from head to tail and looking everywhere at once. Occasionally he’d thrust his muzzle into the water then jerk it back and begin looking around again, still trembling like a junkie in detox. Or like Wiley E. Coyote after being electrocuted by Bugs Bunny, if you prefer.

It looked painful.

We started looking for the predator that had the jackal so terrified, but could see nothing. Appearing to read our minds, the camera operator zoomed out, then panned left and right. Nothing.

Our thirsty, trembling jackal was all alone. We sat, staring, for the next 5 minutes, waiting for a denouement. It never came.

I‘ve been that jackal, lost in some repetitive, negative thought, all the while standing in a reality that argues against it. Those thoughts are like having a sore tooth – even though it hurts to keep running my tongue over it, I can’t leave it alone. I’ve gotten much better about it over the years, but I’m always looking to improve my relationship with my brain.

This is why I was so excited to receive and devour The Open-Focus Brain, by Les Fehmi, PhD and Jim Robbins. Without spoiling your reading pleasure, this book summarizes Dr. Fehmi’s decades of research about shifting brain waves from narrow-objective, high-alert beta to relaxed yet alert synchronous alpha. High beta gives us narrow focus and the ability to get things done but comes with a cost: stress, anger, anxiety and muscle tension. Alpha brain waves, especially synchronous alpha (where two or more areas of the brain are vibrating at the same frequency) creates a relaxed, wakeful state that gives rise to effortless, fluid movement, calm spontaneity and an open, light presence. It’s the hallmark of veteran meditators, according to the authors, and leaves the mind functioning better on every level – reasoning, memory, ability to focus.

I tried the first open focus exercise. It directs you to focus your attention both on the object in front of you and on the space between your eyes and around the object. The results were instantaneous. Physically, I felt a sense of ease and softening in my muscles, and I could feel my mind loosening its grip. I hadn’t realized I’d been gripping until I began to let go. It was pure pleasure.

According the authors, our over-reliance on narrow focus attention to perform tasks – the rut we live in – is wearing on the body and brain, but:

“When the mind is asked to imagine or attend to space, there is nothing – no-thing – to grip on to, to objectify and make sense of, no memories of past events or anticipation of future scenarios. The brain is allowed to take a vacation...The imagination and realization of space seems to reset stress-encumbered neural networks and return them to their original effortlessly flexible processing.”

I’ll be practicing this more and getting back to you about the results. I’d love to hear about your experience with it in the comments below.

I wish someone could let that terrified little jackal in Africa know.

Filed Under: power
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