Tag Archives: emotional intelligence

Covey’s second habit: start with the end in mind

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Photo by Bill
From http://signsoflife.goose24.org/?sign=124

When I learned last month of the death of Stephen Covey, author of the seminal book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I committed to re-read his book and to write a posting about each of his seven habits.  Returning to his book I am reminded of chocolate mousse – it’s so rich you don’t want to eat too much at a time.  So, a month after I wrote about his first habit, I am taking a few moments to write about his second.

Covey’s first habit, “be proactive”, is about taking responsibility for our own lives.  His second habit, “start with the end in mind” is about writing the script we want to follow.  As Covey puts it in this chapter:

“Begin with the end in mind” is based on the principle that all things are created twice.  There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things”

and later:

And if I do this, day after day my behaviour will change.  Instead of living out of scripts given to me by my own parents or by society or by genetics or my environment, I will be living out of the script I have written from my own self-selected value system.

Writing as a coach, it’s easy to say that much of Covey’s material in this chapter has been written about elsewhere.  NLP offers a model for outcome-oriented rather than problem-oriented thinking, for example.  The film and book The Secret have been immensely popular amongst seekers of wisdom and new insights.  Laura Whitworth and colleagues in their splendid introduction to coaching, Coactive Coaching, offer exercises which are the embodiment of Covey’s second habit and which have become familiar to coaches and their clients around the world.  Indeed, Covey himself readily acknowledges his own sources throughout the book.  To recognise the fact that ideas in this chapter can also be found elsewhere takes nothing away from Covey, who has organised core ideas in a way which illuminates them.

He begins by inviting readers to write the eulogy they would like to have read at their funeral – this really is beginning with the end in mind.  When we engage deeply with this exercise, it provides a powerful context for our decisions and our actions.  This is not just about manifesting the physical possessions we desire:  it’s about understanding the overall context of our lives and the role individual desires have in this context.  It seems unlikely, for example, that a new Mercedes will feature in our self-written eulogy.  The love of friends and family, the contribution we made through our work – these are amongst the things that we may look back on.

Covey also invites people to create a personal mission statement, a statement of our vision and values and how we intend to enact these in practice in the different roles we hold in our life.  He contrasts a life lived in line with this level of personal clarity with one which is guided by centres outside ourselves – the young person for whom friendship is so important that s/he will do nothing that might offend, the executive whose commitment to work is such that s/he constantly prioritises work over family, even the person whose focus is on some kind of enemy.  As I write, I do so with compassion, recognising how much the shift from such external centres to operating from a set of clearly defined personal values is a journey in itself.  (I shared my values on this blog in 2009, and though I revisit them periodically, they have not changed much in the interim).

Given Covey’s recognition that “all things are created twice”, it’s not surprising that he dedicates space in this chapter to visualisation and to affirmations as the means by which we can increase the quality of our first creation.  He also recognises the importance, in the context of both family and organisations, of participation in creating a mission, vision and values which have the full commitment of everyone involved in delivering them.

Covey’s ideas in this chapter are highly practical – writing your own eulogy, writing a personal statement of mission, vision and values, involving members of your family or organisation in writing a shared mission statement.  I could say more about each exercise in turn but this seems to be gilding the lily:  for now I invite you, simply, to try at least one of these exercises and to let me know – how did you get on?  

When it’s time to harvest your dreams

Emotional Intelligence,

I’m away on holiday this week – on the day this is published I shall be tucked away in Kent on a five-day meditation retreat.  It will be good to turn off the mobile for a few days and to leave all sorts of modern technology behind for a few days.

Preparing for my holiday I wanted to give you something to read whilst I’m away, and decided to borrow the photo above from my dear friend James More.  James and I were briefly at school together and had something in common – farming.  My parents farmed and James also came from a farming family and has gone on to make his career as a consultant to farmers under the name More Rural Consultancy Ltd.  Recently, James was involved in a successful attempt to create a new World Record – with fifty Case Quadtracs (that’s big tractors to you and me) spending five minutes ploughing just one field.

As a farmers’ daughter, this event touches something in me – a part of me which is deeply connected to the land.  But there’s more than this – this successful attempt at a World Record was the fruit of a vision.  I don’t know much about the vision, but I do know that someone had the vision and, having had it, set about making it happen.  This meant finding a suitable site and farmers willing to travel from across the country to join in.  It meant inspiring them to join in.  And it meant handling all the bureaucracy that is involved arranging an official (and yes, in this case, successful) World Record attempt.

If you’re on holiday, too, and even if you’re not, it’s harvest time.  This is a time when you can look at the fruits of your labour and say, it happened because I followed my dream.  It can also be a time when you look forward and ask yourself, what are my dreams for the future?

May your dreams be worthy of you.

Covey’s first habit: be proactive

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Following the recent death of Stephen Covey, I have been revisiting his most famous of books, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  On my way to meet a client I take time on the train to read about Covey’s first habit:  be proactive.

In this first habit, Covey targets the opportunity for self-determinism that sits between stimulus and response.  This is about the difference between an unconscious reaction and a carefully chosen response.  Covey uses the story of Viktor Frankl who, in the Nazi death camps in World War II, realised that (in Covey’s words) “he could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him”.  Covey is careful to differentiate between being proactive and taking the initiative.  He says:

[Proactive] means more than merely taking the initiative.  It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives.  Our behaviour is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.  We can subordinate feelings to values.  We have the initiative and responsibility to make things happen.
This assertion tests me – because I hold the view that emotions have a wisdom to which we need to listen.  But quickly I settle into an understanding of what Covey is saying.  Given my own values for example, I would choose to view the emotion of anger as a sign that some need is not being met and to recognise that I am telling myself some story about how someone else is responsible.  If I act on the stimulus – react – without thinking, I am likely to lose my temper.  If I respond in line with my values, I am bound to take time out to process my emotions before choosing my response.  So far, so good.

Covey offers a further idea which is the consequence of taking this kind of responsibility and which challenges me greatly:

[…] until a person can say deeply and honestly “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday”, that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise”.

Later he refines this idea by adding:
It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.  Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow.  But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all.
And further:
Any time we think the problem is “out there”, the thought is the problem”. 
When we think the challenges in our businesses are down to the market, when we think we have a “problem” member of staff, when we complain that our wife/husband/boss/sister doesn’t understand us… when we wish that things outside us were different, we are not being proactive in Covey’s use of this term.  When we focus our attention on  those things we can do something about, we are being proactive.
Covey offers a number of ways to apply this first habit, of which I highlight just one:
1.  For a full day, listen to your language and to the language of the people around you.  How often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as “If only,” “I can’t,” or “I have to”?
Please let me know how you get on.

Managing up and across

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Increasingly, business takes place within a “matrix”.  Managers manage the work of people who are not their direct reports.  People manage projects whose success depends on the inputs of people across the organisation.  Priorities shift and change.  Priorities compete.  Work styles clash.  And that’s before you factor in the boss – have you noticed yet that the boss also needs to be managed?  Not surprisingly, this new reality is rarely reflected in the literature.  A wide range of good research was conducted in a bygone era – before the matrixed organisation gained ground.


So, I was intrigued to notice recently that the Harvard Business Review is due to publish the HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across.  This is what they say about it:



Does your boss make you want to scream? Do you have more than one boss? Do you spend your day corralling people who don’t report to you? Do you work across departmental silos? Collaborate with outside contractors?


Then you know that managing up and across your company is critical to doing your job well. It’s all about understanding your boss’s and colleagues’ priorities, pressures, and work styles. You need to manage up and across not just because you may have a problem boss, an incompetent colleague, or fabulously hairy projects that touch all parts of your organization. You need to manage up and across, for example, to get your marketing and sales folks to see that your project will help them meet their goals, too; to establish authority with higher ups so they’ll bless your new product ideas; to secure people’s time for a new team when they’re already feeling overextended.


The Guide to Managing Up and Across will help you get the information and resources you need to solve your challenges, increase your effectiveness, and make your day-to-day worklife more enjoyable.

The Guide to Managing Up and Across will help you get better at:


• Getting what you need from people who don’t report to you

• Coping with micromanaging, conflict-aversive, or generally incompetent bosses

• Discovering what drives your colleagues

• Partnering with your boss

• Selling your ideas up and across your company

• Making the most of your boss’s influence

• Establishing a shared vision and commitment

• Juggling multiple bosses’ priorities

• The art of persuasion—tailoring your pitch based on your audience

I haven’t read it (yet) and still, I do know that it’s addressing challenges that we increasingly face in the workplace.

Wanting to influence your staff? Listen up!

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Research at the Columbia Business School has recently highlighted the role of listening in being influential.  Researchers asked co-workers both to assess their colleagues’ skills and habits and to assess how influential they are.  They conducted this research with students on MBA programmes as well as with executives in organisations.

The research findings do not entirely dispel the myth of the charismatic leader.  Rather, researchers found that the most influential people had strong skills both in listening and in expressing their point of view.  Why is listening so important?  On the one hand, listening helps leaders gather information about those they lead which they can use to tailor an influencing approach.  On the other hand, listening – really listening – builds trust amongst staff.

In truth, I am reminded of Gary Chapman’s little book The Five Love Languages:  The Secret to Love that Lasts.  Although its intended audience is a long way from the world of business, Chapman’s thesis – that we all like to give and receive love in five different ways – offers insights which – surely – can equally be applied in the workplace.

And if you want to learn more about the research from Columbia Business School, including five key ways in which you can listen effectively, just follow this link to read a summary.

Lost your temper with your staff? You need to express your regret

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So, you did it.  Like Maestro Papadopoulos (see Lost your temper with your staff?  You may have lost more besides), you spoke sharply with a member or members of your staff.  Time has elapsed.  You realise you made a mistake in speaking in the way you did.  You’ve taken time to process your anger.  You’ve learnt from the experience.  What next?

You may be hoping that it’s enough to show up differently next time.  If you do, you’ll be joining the legions of bosses who, having lost their temper, are “extra nice” next time round – but it’s not enough.  Why?  After all, surely your staff can tell that you’re sorry from your behaviour?  Well, yes, and still, knowing this alone is not enough.

What more do your staff want?  They want understanding for the experience they had on the receiving end of your anger.  They want to know that you understand the impact it had on them – some call this empathy.  They want to know that you’re ready to take responsibility for your actions and eager to learn to handle things differently in future.  This helps them to feel safe.  They also want judgement – discernment, acceptance:  even if (especially if) you have to deal with performance that is below par, they need to know that you can separate them – the person, the people – from their behaviour.  These needs may be hidden from your staff behind their own “righteous anger” towards you – unless they have high levels of emotional maturity they won’t forgive you until you’ve expressed your regret.

Now, I do want to differentiate between expressing your regret and saying sorry.  This isn’t about beating yourself up or putting yourself in the wrong.  Nor is it about the kind of insincere apology that London commuters make even as they push you to one side to get to where they want to go.  This is about connecting with, and expressing, your sincere regret.  For Maestro Papadopoulos, such an expression might have gone something like this:

“I said a couple of things I regretted at our rehearsal on Tuesday.  I said it wasn’t acceptable to me that members of the choir were missing from our rehearsal and I said it in a way which put those of you who’d made the effort to get here on time in the wrong.  And I also compared the children’s choir with the ‘famous London Symphony Chorus’ in a way that put your choir in a bad light.  Afterwards I felt bad about this because I realised it was my nerves talking – I wanted to offer our audience a great performance and I felt anxious about the concert.  I also realise that, as amateur singers many of you came to sing at the end of a hard days work in preparation for a concert and the last thing you needed was to be on the receiving end of my anger.  I wish I had handled the situation with more grace”.


There is at least one paradox at play here, as there often is in life.  The first is this:  that beating ourselves up (“I made a right mess of that rehearsal… I shouldn’t have said what I did…” etc.) somehow doesn’t lead us to take responsibility for our actions.  Rather, it takes courage and self compassion to really step up to the plate.  A second paradox is this:  as leaders, it is our very ability to express our sincere regret about actions which fell below our aspirations that make our staff think highly of us.  We need to accept ourselves as human, just like everybody else, before we can make the kind of expression of regret that staff can receive.


So, I have said about as much as I want to say right now on the subject of losing your temper with your staff.  I wonder, what has been your experience?  And what have you found in these postings that has enabled you to do things differently?  I’d love to hear about your experiences via the comments section of this blog.

Lost your temper with your staff? A second way to turn anger into gold

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On Monday I shared one of my favourite ways to transform anger as part of a series of postings in recent weeks.  Today I offer a second way.  The first (see Lost your temper with your staff?  Turning anger into gold) was from Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication and relies heavily on conscious intention.  This second is from the school of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and relies on the brain’s ability to process information in a variety of different ways.  The process is called the “meta-mirror” and I’ve written about it a couple of times before (see As a meta of fact and Thinking of all the mirrors in my bedroom).

The meta-mirror is a process I find invaluable when I am angry with someone or telling myself that I am “right” and they are “wrong”.  It’s also a process that I often teach leaders on programmes to develop their coaching skills, because it hones our ability to see things from multiple points of view – an important skill in coaching as well as when dealing with our own emotions.  Today is is the first time I’ve attempted to describe the process of the meta-mirror in detail and I do so with some hesitation:  whilst it’s easy to use with the right training, you may want to seek out a skilled NLP Practitioner to support you in translating the description below into practice.

As a first step, think of someone or something you feel angry about.  Find a place where you have room to move around and stand on the first corner of an imaginary rectangle, facing the second corner.  You are now in “first position”.  Imagine the person you feel angry about is in front of you and say what you think – no holds barred!  In first position you are not practising what you might say in future – you are saying whatever comes to mind now.  Keep going until you feel complete.  (As long as you want to say “And another thing…”, just say it).

When you have finished, step out of first position and shake off (yes, really!  take a moment to shake your arms and body) everything that you have just experienced.  This is an important precursor to stepping into the second corner of your imaginary rectangle, facing the spot you were standing in when you were in first position.  You are now in “second position”.  Imagine yourself in the shoes of the person you were talking to in first position, receiving everything you have just said.  Notice what comes up for you – you may be surprised!  This is not about any conscious processing.  Rather, it’s about noticing what thoughts and feelings emerge.

When you have done this, repeat the process of stepping out of this position and shaking off everything you have just experienced.  Then step round the triangle to the third corner.  You are now in “third position”.  From this position, look back at first position and ask yourself “how does this me here see that me there?”  You will experience one of two things.  You may notice that the same anger you felt before is still with you – in this case step back into first position and express everything that is alive in you.  Equally, from this third position, you may be able to see yourself in a new way or have new insights about the situation that stimulated your anger in the first place.  At this point, you’re ready to move on.

Once again, shake off everything you’ve experienced in third position and move to the fourth and final corner of the rectangle.  From here you can see yourself in first position and in third position.  Ask yourself “Which me would I like to be in this situation?”  It’s likely that you will choose the you that emerged in third position – take a moment to “swap” yous – it helps to point to them both and to use your hands to swap them over.  Once again, shake off everything that you have experienced before moving on.

Step back into first position and begin the process again.  Having swapped your first you with your third, it’s likely that you will have different feelings about the person or situation and different things to say.  Say them – keep talking until you are done.  Shake everything off before moving on.  As you did at the beginning of the exercise, step into second position and receive everything you said in first position.  Notice what comes up.  The experience should be quite different this time round – a different response to different thoughts and feelings.  When you’re done, shake your experience off and step back into first position to receive the response of the other person.


If your work is done, you will be feeling peaceful and resourceful.  However, at any moment in this process, you may notice that you’re not done yet – that’s OK.  When you spot this, it’s a signal that you need to go back to first position and express yourself fully before continuing the process outlined above.  Especially when you first start to use this process, it helps to have the support of a skilled and certified NLP Practitioner to guide you.

You may be wondering if this process is an invitation to ignore the failings of others and the answer is no – in your role as a leader, however, you do need to bring your most resourceful self to the party when holding others to account.

And is that it?  Well, in terms of the meta-mirror, yes, it is.  If you’ve lost your temper with your staff, though, there is probably one more step to take.  This will be the subject of my next posting.

Lost your temper with your staff? Turning anger into gold

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Recently, I wrote about how I experienced the behaviour of conductor Mario Papadopoulos in rehearsal in a posting entitled Lost your temper with your staff?  You may have lost more besides.  When we lose our temper we risk losing our authority and the respect of those we lead.  But all is not lost when we lose our temper.  The question is what to do next – and how – to turn our anger into gold.


In what way does anger become gold?  In my experience, we turn anger into gold when we take time to connect with the unmet needs that underpin our anger.  Creating this awareness opens up the opportunity to find ways to meet our needs.  We get to feel better.  And we achieve this without alienating others on whom we depend.


How can we transform anger into gold?  Here is just one of my favourite ways, from Marshall Rosenberg.  In the approach he has called Nonviolent Communication (see his book of the same name to learn more), Rosenberg encourages the use of self empathy to get beneath the surface of our anger.


How does it work?  As a first step, you might notice what has stimulated your anger and seek to make a clear observation, cutting out any “stories” you might be telling yourself or at least owning your story.  For example, your first reaction might be to think “John’s really let me down!  He’s so unreliable!  He should have let me know if there were problems meeting the deadline!” A more accurate observation might be to say: “When I asked John if he’d finished the report yet he said no.  I felt a powerful surge of anger and I notice that I was thinking ‘I told you three weeks ago that the report was due by the end of this week.  If there were problems, why the **** didn’t you tell me?'”


In this case, the observation leads us to our second step, which is to connect with our emotion (in this case, anger) and this is something that Rosenberg also encourages.  When we feel angry, there is usually another emotion – fear – lurking underneath, so it may help to make a further observation as we examine what it is we are afraid of.  Using the same example, you might notice another layer of thinking and emotion such as:  “I realised I had really messed up but I didn’t want to admit it.  I’d been so busy myself that I hadn’t checked John’s progress and with the deadline approaching there was barely time to finish the report.  I’ve been worried about how my boss has been thinking about me and I didn’t want to give him an opportunity to think less of me”.


As we begin to turn our “story” into a clear observation and connect to our feelings, we can move to the third step, which is to notice what needs were stimulated in us and – in this case – unmet.  This is about going beyond specific actions by specific people to understand the underlying needs.  In this example, it’s possible that your most fundamental need – for security – was stimulated, especially if your thoughts included thoughts about the risk of losing your job and what that would mean for your home and for your ability to pay for food and other essentials.


Once you have uncovered your underlying needs, you have the option to make a request of yourself or of someone else.  This is the final step in Rosenberg’s four-step process.  Perhaps you might start by requesting of yourself that you take time out to relax before talking to John about next steps in order to calm down.  Or you might make a request of John that he tell you just how far he’s got so that you can assess how much more need to be done to meet the deadline.


Going through this process has the potential to transform feelings of fear and anger into a deep sense of connection with our needs.  In doing so, it moves us away from our primitive “fight or flight” response towards a more resourceful state in which we can clearly assess the situation and find ways to meet our needs.


There is another way I like to use to transform anger into gold.  If you’d like a second option – keep reading.

Lost your temper with your staff? Time to “own up”

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

This week I have been writing about anger in a series of postings, recognising that the “amygdala hijack” – the sudden and extreme loss of temper – is one that we all have from time to time.  It’s an experience which can lead us to alienate those we lead or which, equally, can lead us to new insights.  New insights do not, however, happen by accident.  They happen because we are ready and willing to have them.  Sometimes they come years down the line.  Sometimes, days or weeks or months.

When we are angry, the immediate barrier to new insight is our own way of thinking about the stimulus to our anger.  It’s for this reason that I’ve given this posting the title “Time to own up”.  For it is our thoughts rather than any external stimulus that lead us to feel angry.  These thoughts usually include some confusion between the external stimulus to our anger (“I’m angry because you…”) and our thoughts about the external stimulus (“I’m angry because I’m thinking that you…”).  What’s more, our anger is also often accompanied by the firm belief that we are “right” to feel angry.

A first step towards owning our anger is to notice the way we are thinking and feeling and to talk about it.  Compare the following sentences:


“I told John weeks ago that he needed to contact the US and he still hasn’t done it and now they think we’re completely incompetent.  I could kill him!  He should have followed my instruction – if he had, we wouldn’t have been in this mess!”


This time, I’ve added mention of the emotions involved and used the phrases “I’m telling myself that…” and “I’m thinking that…”:

“I’m so angry!  I told John weeks ago that he needed to contact the US and he still hasn’t done it and now I’m telling myself they think we’re completely incompetent.  I could kill him!  I’m thinking that he should have followed my instruction – and that, if he had, we wouldn’t have been in this mess!”

Before we can claim our anger in this way, it helps to have compassion for ourselves and others – because when something goes wrong there is often shame involved.  Heaping our judgements on others can be a way to protect ourselves from self-judgements and from the feelings of shame that come with them.  At the same time, when we can accept the way things are (that people make mistakes, that we get angry…) we open up the opportunity to process and transform our anger.  If you’d like to know how, keep reading.  I’ll be writing about some techniques for transforming anger next week.

Lost your temper with your staff? The surprising purpose of anger

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

On Monday, I published a posting under the heading Lost your temper with your staff?  You may have lost more besides.  But I don’t want to dismiss anger as a negative force.  Today, I want to say a few words about the role that anger plays in our lives – and particularly to highlight the role anger plays for those of us who find ourselves in positions of leadership.

Recently, I watched as the youngest of my nephew and nieces lost his temper in the midst of a game of frisbee.  “Nobody throws the frisbee to me!” was his desperate cry.  He was so full of emotion that it was hard for him to hear anything that anyone might say – even to show they were listening and trying to understand.  This is what Goleman describes as the “amygdala hijack” in his books on emotional intelligence (such as Working with Emotional Intelligence).  This is the body’s full-blown crisis response – a primitive flight or flight response – which is accompanied by all sorts of biochemical processes, beginning with the release of a hormone known as CRF and ending with a flood of stress hormones which then stay in the body for hours.

Adults also experience the amygdala hijack and the leader is no more immune than any other member of the population.  Goleman says of the stresses that lead to the amygdala hijack:

When stresses pile one on top of the other, they are more than additive – they seem to multiply the sense of stress, so that as we near breaking point, each additional burden seems all the more unbearable, the last straw.  This is so even for small hassles that ordinarily wouldn’t faze us but suddenly can seem overwhelming.

So, when Maestro Papadopoulos lost his temper with members of the London Symphony Chorus, it seems likely that he was feeling the burden of any number of stresses.  Whilst many conductors understand and accept the absence of a few chorus members who can’t get away from work for a 5pm rehearsal, Papadopoulos “saw red”.  For another leader it might be yet another error by a team member who is taking up disproportionate time, or the failure of another team member to meet a deadline on which a key contract depends.  No doubt you can think of your own examples.

Goleman’s description of the amygdala hijack, whilst it helps us to understand the processes involved in losing our temper, carries a risk:  by identifying the historic origins of our own or others’ responses, we may dismiss them as “merely” a primitive response – a response developed millennia ago which has now outlived its usefulness.  But there are other ways of viewing this.  One of my favourite thinkers and authors, Marshall Rosenberg (author of The Surprising Purpose of Anger, subtitled Beyond Anger Management:  Finding the Gift) sees anger as an alarm signal, signalling that we have unmet needs.  It also signals that we are disconnected from those needs – thinking about them by suppressing our feelings or blasting someone with our judgements.

When we apply Rosenberg’s thinking to our anger, we have an opportunity to really get under the skin of our  anger to understand what unmet needs we have.  I’ll be talking about ways to do this in a future posting.  First though, it helps to own our anger – and hold it with compassion.